A26892:7921
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.
1. He that will walk uprightly must be absolutely devoted and subjected unto God: He must have a God, and the true God, and but one God; not notionally only, but in sincerity and reality: He must have a God whose word shall be an absolute Law to him: A God that shall command himself, his time, his estate, and all that he hath, or that he can do: A God whose will must be his will, and may do with him what he please; and who is more to him than all the world; whose Love will satisfy him as better than life, and whose approbation is his sufficient encouragement and reward.1
1. He that will walk uprightly must be absolutely devoted and subjected unto God: He must have a God, and the true God, and but one God; not notionally only, but in sincerity and reality: He must have a God whose word shall be an absolute Law to him: A God that shall command himself, his time, his estate, and all that he hath, or that he can do: A God whose will must be his will, and may do with him what he please; and who is more to him than all the world; whose Love will satisfie him as better than life, and whose approbation is his sufficient encouragement and reward.1
2. His Hope must be set upon Heaven as the only felicity of his soul: He must look for his Reward and the End of all his labours and patience in another world; and not with the Hypocrite, dream of a felicity that is made up first of worldly things, and then of Heaven when he can keep the world no longer. He that cannot, that doth not in heart, quit all the world, for a heavenly treasure, and venture his all upon the Promise of better things hereafter, and forsaking all, take Christ and everlasting happiness for his portion, cannot be upright in heart or life.