A26892:8184
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.
Part 4 › Chapter 4: Directions to Lawyers about their Duty to God.
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.
Gentlemen, you need not meet these Directions with the usual censures or suspicions, that Divines are busying themselves with the matters of your Calling, which belong not to them, and which they do not understand: You shall see that I will as much forbear such matters as you can well desire. If your Calling be not to be sanctified by serving God in it, and regulating it by his Law, it is then neither honourable nor desirable. But if it be, permit me very1 briefly so far to Direct you.
GEntlemen, you need not meet these Directions with the usual censures or suspicions, that Divines are busying themselves with the matters of your Calling, which belong not to them, and which they do not understand: You shall see that I will as much forbear such matters as you can well desire. If your Calling be not to be sanctified by serving God in it, and regulating it by his Law, it is then neither honourable nor desirable. But if it be, permit me very1 briefly so far to Direct you.
- 1Legum mihi placet autoritas: sed earum usus hominum nequitia depravatur: Itaque piguit perdiscere, quo inhoneste uti nollem, & honest vix possem, etsi vellem. Petrarch. i• vita sua.Legum mihi placet autoritas: sed earum usus hominum nequitia depravatur: Itaque piguit perdiscere, quo inhoneste uti nollem, & honeste vix possem, etsi vellem. Petrarch. i• vita sua.
§. 1. Direct. 1. Take the whole frame of Polity together, and study each part in its proper place, and 1know it in its due relation to the rest: that is, Understand first the Doctrine of Polity and Laws in genere, and next the Universal Polity and Laws of God in specie; and then study Humane Polity and Laws as they stand in their due subordination to the Polity and Laws of God, as the by-Laws of Corporations do to the General Laws of the Land.