and ye have snuffed at it saith the Lord of Hosts and ye brought that which was torn and the lame and the sick thus ye brought an offering should I accept this of your hand saith the Lord But cursed be the deceiver which hath in his Flock a Male and voweth and Sacrificeth to the Lord a corrupt thing for I am a great King saith the Lord of Hosts and my Name is dreadful among the Heathen If you better knew the Majesty of God you would knew that the best is too little for him and trifling is not tollerable in his service When Nadab and Abibu ventured with false fire to his Altar and he smote them dead he silenced Aaron with this reason of his Judgment I will be sanctified in them that come nigh me and before all the people will I be glorified Lov. 10.1 2 3. That is I will have nothing common offered to me but be served with my own holy peculiar service When the Bethshemites were smitten dead 50070 men of them they found that God would not be dallyed with and cryed out Who is able to stand before this holy Lord God 1 Sam. 6.20 2. Consider also It was an exceeding great price that was payed for your Redemption For you were not redeemed with corruptible things as Silver and Gold from your vain conversation received by tradition from your Fathers but by the precious blood of Jesus Christ 1 Pet. 1.18 19. It was an exceeding great Love that was manifested by God the Father and by Christ in this work of Redemption such as even paseth Angels and men to study it and comprehend it 1 Pet. 1.12 Eph. 3.18 19. And should all this be answered but with trissâ—ng from you Should such a matchless Miracle of Love be answered with no greater 〈◊〉 especially when you were purposely 〈◊〉 from all iniquity that you might be sanctified 〈◊〉 a peculiar people zealous of good works 〈◊〉 14. It being therefore so great a price that you are bought with remember that you are none of your own but must glorify him that bought you in body and spirit 1. Cor. 6.20 3. Consider also that it is not a small but an exceeding glory that is promised you in the Gospel and which you live in hope to possess for ever And therefore it should be an exceeding Love that you should have to it and an exceeding care that you should have of it Make light of Heaven and make light of all Truly it is an unsuitable unreasonable thing to have one low thought or one careless word or one cold Prayer or other performance about such a matter as eternal glory Shall such a thing as Heaven be coldly or carelesly minded and sought after Shall the endless fruition of God in glory be look't at with sleepy heartless wishes I tell you Sirs if you will have such high hopes you must have high and strong endeavours A slow pace becomes not him that travelleth to such a home as this If you are resolved for Heaven behave your selves accordingly A gracious reverent godly frame of spirit producing an acceptable service of God is fit for them that look to receive the Kingdom that cannot be moved Heb. 12.18 The believing thoughts of the end of all our labours must needs convince us that we should be stedfast and unmoveable alwaies abounding in the work of the Lord 1 Cor. 15.58 O heatken thou sleepy slothful Christian Doth not God call and Conscience call Awake and up be doing man for it is for Heaven Hearken thou negligent lazy Christian Do not God and Conscience call out to thee O man make hast and mend thy pace it is for Heaven Hearken thou cowardly saint hearted Christian Do not God and Conscience call out to thee Arm man and see thou stand thy ground do not give back nor look behind thee but fall on and fight in the strength of Christ for it is for the Crown of endless glory O what a heart hath that man that will not be heartned with such calls as these Methinks the very name of God and Heaven should awaken you and make you stir if there be any stirring power within you Remissness in wordly matters hath an excuse for they are but trifles but flackness in the matters of Salvation is made unexcusable by the greatness of those matters O let the noble greatness of your Hopes appear in the Resolvedness exactness and diligence of your lives 4. Consider also that it is not only low and smaller Mercies that you receive from God but mercies innumerable and inestimable and exceeding great And therefore it is not cold affections and dull endeavours that you should return to God for all these mercies Mercy brought you into the World and Mercy hath nourished you and bred you up and Mercy hath defended and maintained you and plentifully provided for you Your bodies live upon it Your Souls were recovered by it It gave you your being It rescued you from misery It saveth you from sin and Satan and your Selves All that you have at the present you hold by it All that you can hope for for the future must be from it It is most sweet in quality what sweeter to miserable souls than Mercy It is exceeding great in quantity The Mercy of the Lord is in the Heavens and his faithfulness reacheth to the Clouds His Righteousness is like the great Mountains His Iudgments are a great deep Psal. 36.5 6. O how great is his goodness which he hath laid up for them that fear him which he hath for them that trust in him before the sons of men Psal. 31.19 His Mercy is great unto the Heavens and his truth unto the Clouds Psal. 57.10 And O what an insensible heart hath he that doth not understand the voice of all this wondrous mercy Doubtless it speaketh the plainest language in the World commanding great returns from us of Love and praise and obedience to the bountiful bestower of them With David we must say Blessed be the Lord for he hath shewed me marvellous kindness in a strong City O Love the Lord all ye his Saints for the Lord preserveth all the faithfull Psal. 31.21 23. Teach me thy way O Lord I will walk in thy truth Vnite my heart to fear thy Name I will praise thee O Lord my God with all my heart and I will glorify thy name for evermore for great is thy mercy towards me and thou hast delivered my Soul from the lowest Hell Psal. 86.11 12 13. Vnspeakable Mercies must needs be felt in deep impressions and be so savoury with the Gracious soul that methinks it should work us to the highest resolutions Unthankfulness is a crime that Heathens did detest And it is exceeding great unthankfulness if we have not exceeding great love and obedience under such exceeding great and many mercies as we possess 5. Consider that they are exceeding great helps and means that you possess to further your holiness and obedience to God and
or remembrance or a look Phil. 3.13 14. If you feel this poison seise upon your hearts and your condition in the world or at least your Hopes begin to grow too sweet and pleasing to you presently make hast to Christ your Physician and take his antidote and cast up the poyson as you love your Souls You must know no other pleasure in your outward mercies but as God appeareth in and by them and as they tend to profit you and further you in Gods Service or to promote your own or others good but not as they are provision for the flesh Rom. 13.13 14. See my Book of Crucifying the World DIRECT X. Cast not your selves wilfully upon temptations but avoid them as far as lawfully you can And if you are cast upon them unwillingly resist them resolutely as knowing that they come to entice you into Sin and Hell from God and your everlasting happiness And therefore be well acquainted with the particular Temptations of every company calling relation business time place and condition of life and go alwayes furnished with particular Antidotes against them all STrong Grace will do no more against strong Temptations than weak Grace against weak ones Temptation is the way to sin and sin is the way to Hell If you saw the dangerousness of your station when you cast your self upon temptations you would tremble and fly as for your lives I take that man as almost gone already who chooseth temptations or avoideth them not when he may Especially be acquainted with the diseases and greatest dangers of your Soul and there keep up a constant watch Are you lyable to a gluttonous pleasing of your appetite Avoid the temptation set not that before you which may be your snare Let a little and that of the least tempting kind of food be your ordinary provision Sit not at the Gluttons Table who fareth deliciously every day if you would escape the gluttons sin and misery Or if the provision be of other mens disposal at least rise quickly and be gone Are you inclined to please your appetite in drinking Avoid such strong drink as may tempt your appetite and avoid the place and company that draweth you to it Are you inclined to fleshly lust Avoid the presence of such of the other Sex as are a temptation to you Look not on them nor talk not of them but above all take heed of nearness and familiarity and privacy with them and of all opportunity of sin When the Devil hath brought the bait to your hand and telleth you now you may sin without any molestation or discovery you are then in a very dangerous case Some that think they would not be guilty of the sin will yet tempt themselves and delight to have it in their power and to have the opportunity of sining and to come as near it as they dare And these are gone before they well perceive their danger So if you are inclined to Pride and Ambition avoid the society of those that tempt you to it Come not among Superiors and Gallants or such as kindle your ambition A retired life in company of mean and humble persons is fitest for one that hath your disease Mind not high things but condescend to men of low estate Rom. 1â— 16 But if you cannot avoid the Temptation be sure yet to avoid the sin Take it as if you saw and heard the Devil himself perswading you to sin and damn your Souls Abhor the motion and give not the Devil a patient hearing when you know what he cometh about Resolution scapeth many a danger which those are ruined by who stand disputing and dallying with the Tempter Especially look about you when the Tempter employeth Great men or Learned men or Godly men or nearest friends to be his instruments And if their subtilty puzzle you go to the stronger and more experienced Christians for advice and help VVatch and pray that you enter not into temptation Matth. 6.13 and 26.41 It is a dreadful thing to think what persons temptations have overthrown Luke 18.13 Heb. 6.6 7. How Wise and Learned and excellent men have been over-witted by Satan and sinned like fools when they have let go their watch If we be as resolved as Peter temptations may quickly change our resolutions if God leave us to our selves and we grow presumptuous or secure And then our very Reason will lose its power and false representations will make things appear to us quite contrary to what indeed they are and those reasonings will seem probable to us which at another time we could easily see through as meer deceit Temptation as it prevaileth doth damp and cast asleep our Graces and charm and bewitch all the faculties of the Soul 1 Tim. 6.9 DIRECT XI If it be possible make choice of such a Pastor for the help and guidance of your Souls as is judicious experienced humble holy heavenly faithful diligent lively and peaceable that liveth not in separation from the generality of the sober Godly Ministers and Christians where he liveth 1. THink not of being sufficient for your selves without the help of those whom Christ hath appointed to be watchmen for your Souls Heb. 13.7.17.24 As you cannot live without the teaching and the Grace of Christ so Christ doth vouchsafe you his teaching and his grace by the Ministry of his own Officers whom he hath appointed to that end and use It is marvellous to observe how Christ chose rather to convert men by the Preaching and Miracles of his Apostles than by his own And how he would not fully Convert Paul without the Ministry of Ananias though he spoke to him from Heaven himself and reasoned the case with him against his Persecution And how he would not fully Convert Cornelius and his Houshold without the Ministry of Peter though he sent an Angel to direct him to a Teacher Nor would he convert the Ethiopian Eunuch without the Ministry of Philip nor the Jaylor without the Ministry of Paul and Silas though he wrought a Miracle to prepare for his Conversion Acts 16. and 10. And Paul must plant and Apollo must water before God will give the increase 1 Cor. 3.6 And though all true Christians are taught of God and must call no man on earth the Master of their Faith but Christ 1 Thess. 4.9 John 6.45 Mat. 23.8 9. Yet have they their Teachers Fathers and instructers under Christ who are helpers of their joy though they have not dominion over their Faith and are Overseers though not Lords and Owners of the Flock and are Ministers of Christ by whom he teacheth and stewards of the Mysteries of God and Ambassadors by whom he beseecheth sinners to be reconciled to God having committed to them the word of reconciliation Eph. 4.11 12 13 14. 1 Cor. 4.1 15. Acts 20.28 2 Cor. 1.24 1 Pet. 5.1 2 3 4. 2 Cor. 5.18 19 20. These are Labourers together with God upon his husbandry and building some being Master-builders and others Superstructors
about you and the living and dying comforts of your selves O do not sluggishly rest in an Infant state of Grace Did you but know how a weak and strong Faith differ and how a weak and a found Confirmed Christian differ as to the honour of God and the good of others and especially to themselves both in life and death it would quickly awaken you to a cheerful diligence for so high and excellent an end Did you but well understand the wrong that Christ and the Gospel have sustained in the World yea in England by weak diseased distempered Christians your hearts would bleed and with shame and grief it would be your secret and open lamentation Stir up then the Grace that is given you and use Christs means and do your best and you will find that Christ is not an insufficient Physician nor an uneffectual Saviour or an empty Fountain but that he is filled with all the fulness of God and hath Spirit and life to communicate to his Members Zech. 12.8 and that there is no want which he cannot supply and no corruption or temptation which his Grace is not sufficient to overcome John 4.14 2 Cor. 12.9 Rom. 6.4 6. Col. 3.1 3 4. FINIS THE CHARACTER Of a Sound Confumed CHRISTIAN As also 2. Of a Weak Christian And 3. Of a Seeming Christian. Written to imprint upon mens minds the true Idea or conception OF Godliness and Christianity By Richard Baxter The Second Part of the Directions for Weak Christians LONDON Printed by R. White for Nevill Simmons at the Three Crowns near Holborn Conduit 1669. THE PREFACE TO THE SECOND PART Directed to my worthy Friend Henry Ashurst Esquire Citizen of London Dear and faithful Friend WHen this Book was Printed and passing into the World without the ordinary ornament of a prefixed honoured Name my thoughts reduced me into the common way though not upon the common reasons assuring me that your name would be more than an accident or ceremony to such a discourse as this even a part more substantial than a Map is in a Treatise of Geography or the well-cut Figures in Tractates of Anatomy Discourses of Navigation Architecture Musick c. may almost as hopefully instruct the Learners without any visible operations or effects as the Characters of well-tempered Christians can duly inform the minds of ignorant ungodly men of so Divine a thing as Christianity and Godliness without acquaintance with some such Persons in whom these Characters are manifestly exemplified Wise and holy precepts are to make wise and holy persons It is such Persons as well as such Precepts which bear the image of God which indeed is most perfect in exactness and integrity in the precepts for in them is no imperfection or errour as they are of God But it is of greater final Excellency in activity and usefulness as it is in men And therefore as God delighteth in his servants and is Glorified in and by them in the world so Satan usually chooseth such Persons to reproach and make odious to the ignorant rather than the holy Precepts immediately by which they are directed both because their Holiness is most exasperating by activity and also most lyable to calumny and contempt through imperfection and mixture of that which indeed is worthy of dislike Till Godliness and Christianity be visible in full perfection and elevated above the contradiction of folly and the contempt of pride the blind distracted minds of hardened forsaken sinners will not acknowledge its divine celestial nature and worth But then it will be too late to become partakers of it They must both know and possess it in its infancy and minority who will ever enjoy it in its heavenly dignity and glory If seasonable illumination and conversion confute not the deceits and standers which pride and ignorance have entertained the too-late confutation of them by death and their following experience will make them wish that they had been wise at cheaper rates when it will be in vain to cry Give us of your Oyle for our Lamps are out Mat. 25.8 But while I offer your name to the malicious world as an instance of the temper which I here describe I intend it not as a singular though an eminent instance For through the great mercy of God there are thousands of examples of confirmed Christians among us in this Land even before those eyes which will not see them But it is not Catalogues but single names which Writers have used in this way And why may I not take the advantage of Custome to leave to the World the testimony of my estimation and great respects to so deserving a person of the primitive Christian Catholick temper And to let them know what sort of men were my most dear and faithful friends And also thus to express my love by telling you closely what you must be as well as by telling the World for their example what you are Upon these accounts without your knowledge or consent I presume thus to prefix your name to this Treatise written long ago but now published by Your faithful Friend Rich. Baxter From my Lodging in New-Prison June 14. 1669. ERRATA Reader When I had gathered the Errata I was separated by a Prison from those Collections and having but two of the Sheets now at hand I shall give you the Errata of them only IN the Contents n. 15. for Lovers of God read Love of God Pag. 163. l. 5. for to six 1. and six pag 163. l. 18. blot out that p. 164. l. 5. for that 1. than p. 169. l. 10. for of 1. for p. 170. l. 1. for câ—re 1. cure All the rest I have forgotten save that some where I remember filthy for slâ—shly TO THE READER Readers IT is a matter of greater moment than I can express what Idea or Image of the nature of GODLINESS and CHRISTIANITY is imprinted upon mens minds The description which is expressed in the sacred Scriptures is true and full The thing described is rational pure perfect unblameable and amiable That which is expressed in the Lives of the most is nothing so but is purblind defiled maimed imperfect culpable and mixt with so much of the contrary quality that to them that cannot distinguish the Chaff from the Wheat the Sickness from the Life it seemeth an unreasonable fancifull loathsome and vexatious thing and so far from being worthy to be preferred before all the Riches Honours and Pleasures of the world that it seemeth worthy to be kept under as a troubler of Kingdoms Societies and Souls And doubtless this monstrous Expression of it in mens Lives is because the perfect expression of it in Gods Word hath not made 〈…〉 impression upon the Mind and consequently upon the Heart For as it is sound doctrine which must make sound Christians so Doctrine worketh on the will and affections not as it is in it self and as delivered but as it is understood believed remembered considered even as it is imprinted on the
and the evil one Mark him in his prayers and you shall find that he is above other men taken up in earnest petitions for the Conversion of the Heathen and Infidel world and the undeceiving of Mahometans Jews and Hereticks and the clearing of the Church from those Papal tyrannies and sopperies and corruptions which make Christianity hateful or contemptible in the eyes of the Heathen and Mahometan world and hinder their Conversion No man so much lamenteth the Pride and Covetousness and Laziness and Unfaithfulness of the Pastors of the Church because of the doleful consequents to the Gospel and the souls of men and yet with all possible honor to the sacred office which they thus prophane No man so heartily lamenteth the contentions and divisions among Christians and the doleful destruction of charity thereby It grieveth him to see how much selfishness pride and malice prevaileth with them that should shine as lights in a benighted world and how obstinate and uncurable they seem to be against the plainest means and humblest motions for the Churches edification and peace Psal. 120.6 7. 122.6 Phil. 2.1 2 3 4. Psal. 119.136 Zeph. 3.18 Ezek. 9.4 Psal. 69.9 Joh. 2.17 He envieth not Kings and Great men their dominions wealth or pleasure nor is he at all ambitious to participate in their tremendous exaltation But the thing that his heart is set upon is that the Kingdoms of the World may all become the Kingdoms of the Lord Rev. 11.15 and that the Gospel may every where have free course and be glorified and the Preachers of it be encouraged or at least delivered from unreasonable wicked men 2 Thes. 3.1 2. Little careth he who is uppermost or conquereth in the world or who goeth away with the preferments or riches of the earth supposing that he fail not of his duty to his Rulers so that it may go well with the affairs of the Gospel and souls be but helped in the way to Heaven Let God be honoured and souls converted and edified and he is satisfied This is it that maketh the Times good in his account He thinketh not as the proud and carnal Church of Rome that the Times are best when the Clergy is richest and greatest in the world and overtop Princes and claim the secular power and live in worldly pomp and pleasures But when holiness most aboundeth and the members of Christ are likest to their Head and when multitudes of sincere believers are daily added to the Church and when the Mercy and Holiness of God shine forth in the Numbers and Purity of his Saints It is no Riches or Honour that can be heaped upon himself or any others that make the Times seem good to him if Knowledge and Godliness are discountenanced and hindered and the way to Heaven is made more difficult if Atheism infidelity ungodliness pride and malignity do prevail and truth and sincerity are driven into the dark and when he that departeth from evil maketh himself a prey Isa. 59.15 When the godly man ceaseth and the faithful fail from among the children of men when every man speaketh vanity to his neighbour and the poor are oppressed and the needy sigh and the wicked walk on every side when the vilest men are exalted Psal. 12.1 2 5 8. The Times are Good when the Men are good and Evil when the Men are evil be they never so great or prosperous As Nehemiah when he was Cup bearer to the King himself yet wept and mourned for the desolations of Jerusalem Neh. 1.3 4. 2.2 3. Whoever prospereth the Times are ill when there is a famine of the Word of the Lord and when the chief of the Priests and people do transgress and mock Gods messengers and despise his words and misuse his Prophets 2 Chron. 36.14 16. Amos 8.11 12. When the Apostles are charged to speak no more in the name of Christ Act. 4.18 5.40 It is a text enough to make one tremble to think into what a desperate condition the Jews were carryed by a partial selfish zeal 1 Thes. 2.15 16. who both killed the Lord Jesus and their own Prophets and have persecuted us and they please not God and are contrary to all men forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles that they might be saved to fill up their sin alway for the wrath is come upon them to the uttermost When the interest of themselves and their own Nation and Priesthood did so far blind and pervert them that they durst persecute the Preachers of the Gospel and forbid them to speak to the people that they may be saved it was a sign that wrath was come upon them to the uttermost A Christian indeed had rather be without Jereboams Kingdom than make Israel to sin make the basest of the people Priests and stretch out his hand against the Prophet of the Lord 1 King 12.30 31. 13.4 He had rather labour with his hands as Paul and live in poverty and rags so that the Gospel may be powerfully and plentifully preached and holiness abound than to live in all the prosperity of the world with the hinderance of mens salvation He had rather be a door-keeper in the house of God than be a Lord in the Kingdom of Satan He cannot rise by the ruines of the Church nor feed upon those morsels that are the price of the blood of souls 2. And the weakest Christian is in all this of the same mind saving that private and selfish interest is not so fully overcome nor so easily and resolutely denyed Luk. 14.26 33. 3. But here the Hypocrite sheweth the falseness of his heart His own interest is it that chooseth his Religion and that he may not torment himself by being wicked in the open light he maketh himself believe that whatsoever is most for his own interest is most pleasing unto God and most for the good of souls and the interest of the Gospel so that the carnal Romish Clergie can perswade their Consciences that all the darkness and superstitions of their Kingdom and all their Opposition of the light of the Gospel of Christ do make for the honour of God and the good of souls because they uphold their tyrannie wealth and pomp and pleasure Or if they cannot perswade their Consciences to believe so gross a lye let Church and Souls speed how they will they will favour nothing that favoureth not their interest and ends And the interest of the flesh and spirit of the world and Christ are so repugnant that commonly such worldlings take the serious practice of Godliness for the most hateful thing and the serious practicers of it for the most unsufferable persons Act. 7.57 21.36 22.22 24.5 6. Joh. 19.15 The enmity of interests with the enmity of nature between the Womans and the Serpent seed will maintain that warfare to the end of the world in which the Prince of the powers of darkness shall seem to prevail as he did against our Crucified Lord but he