A26892:644
A Christian Directory
A Christian directory, or, A sum of practical theology and cases of conscience directing Christians how to use their knowledge and faith, how to improve all helps and means, and to perform all duties, how to overcome temptations, and to escape or mortify every sin : in four parts ... / by Richard Baxter.A Christian directory, or, A summ of practical theologie and cases of conscience directing Christians how to use their knowledge and faith, how to improve all helps and means, and to perform all duties, how to overcome temptations, and to escape or mortifie every sin : in four parts ... / by Richard Baxter.
London: printed by Robert White for Nevill Simmons, 1673
Title page typeset from the transcription.
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
§. 2. Christ himself teacheth us to distinguish between Faith in God (as God) and faith in himself 1(as Mediator:) John 14. 1. [Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God: (or, Believe ye in God • believe also in me.] These set together are the sufficient cure of a troubled heart. It is not Faith in God as God, but Faith in Christ as Mediator that I am now to speak of: And that not as it is inherent in the understanding, but as it is operative on the heart and in the life: And this is not the smallest part of the life of faith, by which the just are said to live: Every true Christian must in his measure be able to say with Paul, Gal. 2. 20. I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live: yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me. The Pure Godhead is the Beginning and the End of all, But Christ is the Image of the invisible God, the first born of every creature; and by him all things were created that are in Heaven and that are in Earth, visible and invisible, whether they be Thrones or Dominions, or Principalities or Powers, all things were created by him and for him: and he is before all things, and by him all things do consist. And he is the Head of the Body, the Church; who is the beginning, the first born from the dead; that in all things he might have the preeminence. Col. 1. 16, 17, 18, 19. In him it is that we who were sometime far off, are made nigh, even by his blood: For he is our Peace, who hath reconciled both Jew and Gentile unto God in one body by the Cross, having slain the •n•ity thereby: and came and preached peace to them that were far off, and to them that were •ig•: For through him we both have an access by one Spirit unto the Father: so that now we are no more i• […]s and foreigners, but fellow Citizens with the Saints, and of the household of God,