A26919:542
The divine life in three treatises
The divine life in three treatises ... by Richard Baxter.
London: printed for Francis Tyton, 1664
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.
3. All men must not bestow so much time in Meditation as some must do: It is the Calling of Ministers to study so as to furnish their minds with all those truths concerning God, which are needful to the Edification of the Church; and so to meditate on these things as to give themselves wholly to them, 1 Tim. 4. 15, 16. It is both the work of their common and their special Calling: The study necessary to Christians as such, belongeth as well to others as to them: But other men have another special or particular Calling, which also they must think of, so far as the nature and ends of their daily labours do require. It is a hurtful error to imagine that men must either lay by their Callings to meditate on God, or that they must do them negligently, or to be taken up in the midst of their employments with such studies of God as Ministers are that are separated to that work.
3. All men must not bestow so much time in Meditation as some must do: It is the Calling of Ministers to study so as to furnish thrir minds with all those truths concerning God, which are needful to the Edification of the Church; and so to meditate on these things as to give themselves wholly to them, 1 Tim. 4. 15, 16. It is both the work of their common and their special Calling: The study necessary to Christians as such, belongeth as well to others as to them: But other men have another special or particular Calling, which also they must think of, so far as the nature and ends of their daily labours do require. It is a hurtful errour to imagine that men must either lay by their Callings to meditate on God, or that they must do them negligently, or to be taken up in the midst of their employments with such studies of God as Ministers are that are separated to that work.
4. No man is bound to be continually taken up with actual, distinct cogitations about God: For in duty we have many many other things to think on, which must have their time: And as we have Callings to follow, and must eat our bread in the sweat of our brows, so we must manage them with prudence: A good man will guide his affairs with discretion,