A26892:648
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.
Here then make Use of Jesus Christ, the great revealer of God and his will to the blinded world, and the great confirmer of the Divine authority of his Word. Life and immortality are brought more fully to light by the Gospel, than ever they were by any other means. Moses and the Prophets did bring with their Doctrine sufficient evidence of its credibility. But Christ hath brought both a fuller Revelation, and a fuller evidence to help belief. An inspired Prophet which proveth his inspiration to us, is a credible messenger: but when God himself shall come down into flesh, and converse with man, and teach him the knowledge of God, and the way to life, and tell him the mysteries of the world to come, and seal his testimony with unquestionable proofs, who will not learn of such a Teacher? and who will deny belief to such a messenger, except absurd unreasonable men? Remember then, when Ignorance or Unbelief would hinder your access to God, that you have the ablest Teacher and the surest Witness to acquaint you with God in all the world. If God had sent an Angel from Heaven, to tell you what he is, and what he requireth of you, and what he will do for you, would it not be very acceptable to you: But he hath done much more; he hath sent his Son:1 The Deity it self hath appeared in flesh: He that hath seen God, and he that is God, hath come among men to acquaint them with God: His testimony is more sure and credible than any Angels: Heb. 1. 1, 2, 3. God who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in times past to the Fathers by the Prophets, hath in these last days spoken to us by his Son. John 1. 18. No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him. We have neither heard the Voice of God, nor seen his shape. John 5. 37. No man hath seen the Father, save he which is of God; he hath seen the Father. John 6. 46. No man knoweth the Father save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him. Matth. 11. 27. What more can we desire, that is short of the sight of the Glory of God, than to have him revealed to us by a messenger from Heaven, and such a Messenger as himself hath seen him, and is God himself? Plato and Plotinus may describe God to us according to their dark conjectures: something we may discern of him by observing his works: