A26892:8263
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.
§. 16. II. And some further help it will be to understand the Greatness of this sin: Consider therefore, 1. It is an unlawful destroying, not only a Creature of God, but one of his noblest Creatures upon earth! Even one that beareth (at least the natural) Image of God. Gen. 9. 5, 6. And surely your blood of your lives will I require: at the hand of every beast will I require it; and at the hand of man: at the hand of every mans brother will I require the life of man: whoso sheddeth mans blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man. Yea God will not only have the beast slain that killeth a man, but also forbiddeth there the eating of blood, v. 4. that man might not be accustomed to cruelty.
2. It is the opening a door to confusion and all calamity in the World: For if one man may kill another without the sentence of the Magistrate, another may kill him; and the world will be like Mastiffs or mad Dogs turned all loose on one another, kill that kill can.
3. If it be a wicked man that is killed, it is the sending of a soul to Hell, and cutting off his time of Repentance and his hopes. If it be a Godly man, it is a depriving of the World of the blessing of a profitable member, and all that are about him of the benefits of his goodness, and God of the service which he was here to have performed. These are enough to infer the dreadful consequents to the Murderer, which are such as these.