A26892:8520
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.
§. 32. Direct. 10. Keep up a special tenderness of the weak: So doth God himself, and so must1 we. He gathereth the Lambs with his arms, &c. Isa. 40. 11. If his Infants cry, he doth not therefore knock out their brains, or turn them out of doors! Nor doth he say, they are not his Children, for every ignorance or peevish passion which they are guilty of: Christ doth not turn men out of his School, because they want knowledge! For why then will he have little Children come? and what do they come for but to learn? He doth not hate his new born babes; but feedeth and nurseth them with a special tenderness: And he hath commanded and communicated the like tenderness to his Ministers; who must not be weak with the weak, and froward with the froward; but in meekness and patience must bear with the weak, and endure their bitterest censures and requitals: For the servant of the Lord must not strive, but be gentle to all men, apt to teach; patient; in meekness instructing those that oppose themselves, &c. 2 Tim. 2. 24, 25. And if they are long learning before they come to the Knowledge of the truth, they are not therefore to be cast off: He that can read, Rom. 14. & 15. & 1 Cor. 12. 12. & 8. & Gal. 6. and yet can be so merciless and cruel, as to cast men out of the Ministry or Church, or to ruin them, for tolerable weakness, which God hath so earnestly charged us to bear with in our Brethren, either he doth not understand what he readeth, or not believe it, or hath somewhat else which he more regardeth at his heart, than the Authority or Love of God.
§. 32. Direct. 10. Keep up a special tenderness of the weak: So doth God himself, and so must1 we. He gathereth the Lambs with his arms, &c. Isa. 40. 11. If his Infants cry, he doth not therefore knock out their brains, or turn them out of doors! Nor doth he say, they are not his Children, for every ignorance or pievish passion which they are guilty of: Christ doth not turn men out of his School, because they want knowledge! For why then will he have little Children come? and what do they come for but to learn? He doth not hate his new born babes; but feedeth and nurseth them with a special tenderness: And he hath commanded and communicated the like tenderness to his Ministers; who must not be weak with the weak, and froward with the froward; but in meekness and patience must bear with the weak, and endure their bitterest censures and requitals: For the servant of the Lord must not strive, but be gentle to all men, apt to teach; patient; in meekness instructing those that oppose themselves, &c.