PUBLIC-DOMAIN CHRISTIAN BOOK
A Christian Directory, Part 2: Christian Economics
Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691 · 204,181 words · 273 reading sections
Part 241
_Direct._ IV. Look by faith to your dying, buried, risen, ascended, glorified Lord. Nothing will more powerfully overcome both the poison and the fears of death, than the believing thoughts of him that hath triumphed over it. Is it terrible as it separateth the soul from the body? So it did by our Lord, who yet overcam…
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_Direct._ V. Choose out some promises most suitable to your condition, and roll them over and over in your mind, and feed and live on them by faith. A sick man is not (usually) fit to think of very many things; and therefore two or three comfortable promises, to be still before his eyes, may be the most profitable matt…
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_Direct._ VI. Look up to God, who is the glory of heaven, and the light, and life, and joy of souls, and believe that you are going to see his face, and to live in the perfect, everlasting fruition of his fullest love among the glorified. If it be delectable here to know his works, what will it be to see the cause of a…
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_Direct._ VII. Look up to the blessed society of angels and saints with Christ, and remember their blessedness and joy, and that you also belong to the same society, and are going to be numbered with them. It will greatly overcome the fears of death, to see by faith the joys of them that have gone before us; and withal…
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_Direct._ VIII. That sickness and death may be comfortable to you, as your passage to eternity, take notice of the seal and earnest of God, even the Spirit of grace which he hath put into your hearts. That which imboldened Paul and such others to groan after immortality, and to "be most willing to be absent from the bo…
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_Direct._ IX. Look also to the testimony of a holy life, since grace hath employed you in seeking after the heavenly inheritance. It is unlawful and perilous to look after any works or righteousness of your own, so as to set it in whole or in part instead of Christ, or to ascribe to it any honour that is proper to him;…
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_Direct._ X. When you see any of this evidence of your interest in Christ, appeal to him to acquit you from all the sin that can be charged on you; for all that believe in him are justified from all things, from which they could not be justified by the law of Moses. "There is no condemnation to them that are in Christ …
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_Direct._ XV. Remember what a world it is that you are to leave, and compare it with that which you are going to; and compare the life which is near an end, with that which you are next to enter upon. Was it not Enoch's reward when he had walked with God, to be taken to him from a polluted world? 1. While you are here,…
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_Tempt._ I. The most ordinary temptation against the comfort of believers, (for I have already spoken of those that are against their safety,) is to doubt of their own sincerity, and consequently of their part in Christ. Saith the tempter, All that thou hast done, hath been but in hypocrisy; thou wast never a true beli…
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_Tempt._ II. And yet sometimes he cometh with the quite contrary temptation, and must be resisted by the contrary way. When he findeth a christian so perplexed, and distempered with sickness, that his understanding is disabled from any composed thoughts, then he asketh him, Now where is thy faith and repentance? If tho…
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_Tempt._ VIII. But, saith the tempter, How strange art thou to God, and the life to come! Thou never sawest it: is it not dreadful to enter upon an unchangeable life, in a world which thou art so great a stranger to? _Answ._ But Christ is not a stranger to it; he seeth it for me, and I will implicitly trust him. Where …
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_Direct._ II. Let those that are about you see, that you take the life to come for a reality, and that you verily expect to live with Christ in joys for ever. Let them see this in your holy joy and confidence, and your thankfulness to God for the grace and hopes which he hath given through Christ. I know that a pained,…
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_Direct._ VI. Labour also to convince men of the preciousness of time, and the folly of putting off repentance, and a holy life, till the last. Say to them, O friends, it is hard for you in the time of health and prosperity, to judge of time according to its worth: but when time is gone, or near an end, how precious do…
728 wordsSECTION 254DIRECTIONS TO THE FRIENDS OF THE SICK, THAT ARE ABOUT THEM.
_Direct._ I. When you see the sickness or death of friends, take it as God's warning to you, to prepare for the same yourselves. Remember that thus it must be with you: thus are you like to lie in pain; and thus will all the world forsake you, and nothing of all your honour or wealth will afford you any comfort. This w…
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_Direct._ IV. Keep away vain company from them, as far as you can conveniently (except it be such as must needs be admitted, or such as are like to receive any good by the holy counsel of the sick). It is a great annoyance to one that is near death, to hear people talk to little purpose, about the world, or some impert…
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_Answ._ If you let him alone a little longer, he will be in remediless despair. There is no despair remediless, but that in hell. But now you may help to save him, both from present and endless desperation. He must needs despair of ever being saved without a Christ, or without the regeneration of the Holy Spirit, or wi…
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_Direct._ IX. Be neither unnaturally senseless at the death of friends, nor excessively dejected or afflicted. To make light of the death of relations and friends, be they good or bad, is a sign of a very vicious nature; that is so much selfish, as not much to regard the lives of others: and he that regardeth not the l…
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_Answ._ Their misery must be your grief; but not such a grief as shall deprive you of your greater joys, or disable you for your greater duties. 1. God is fitter than you to judge of the measures of his mercy and his judgments, and you must neither pretend to be more merciful than he, nor to reprehend his justice. 2. A…
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1. God knoweth the change is great, which you are near. You are leaving this world, where you have spent the days of your preparation for eternity, and leaving this flesh to corrupt and turn to common earth, and must here converse with man no more: you are going now to see that world, which the gospel told you of, and …
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But on the other side, all those that God will save, do heartily believe in Jesus Christ, who is sent of God to be the Saviour of souls; and he maketh them know (by his word and Spirit) their grievous sin and misery in their state of corrupted nature; and he humbleth them for it, and bringeth them to true repentance, a…
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III. Now this being the infallible truth of the gospel, and this being the true difference between the righteous and the wicked, the justified and condemned souls, oh how nearly doth it now concern you, to try which of these is your own condition! Certainly it may be known: for God will judge the world in righteousness…
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IV. And first, will you here lay to heart your folly, and unfeignedly lament your sinful life before the Lord? not only this or that particular sin, but principally your fleshly heart and life; that in the main, you have lived to this corruptible flesh, and loved, and sought, and served the world, before your God, and …
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_Quest._ I. Do you truly believe that you are a rational creature, differing from brutes, being made to love and serve your Maker, and have an immortal soul, which must live in heaven or hell for ever? and that there is indeed a heaven of joys, and a hell of punishments, when this life is ended? _Quest._ II. Do you be…
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_Quest._ IX. Are you willing, to these ends, to give up yourselves absolutely now to God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, as your reconciled Father, your Saviour, and your Sanctifier, to be sanctified and justified, and saved from your sins, and from the wrath of God, and live to God in love and holiness? And are you w…
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But, 1. If your repentance and covenant come not only from a present fear but from a renewed heart, which now loveth God, and Christ, and heaven, and holiness, better than all the honours, and riches, and pleasures of the flesh and world, and had rather have them, even on God's terms; 2. And if this change be such, as …
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Dear friend: Though nature teacheth us to have compassion on your flesh, which lieth in pain; yet faith teacheth us to see the nearness of your happiness, and to rejoice with you in hope of your endless joys, which seem to be at hand. We must rejoice with you as your friends that love you, and therefore are partakers o…
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There you shall be delivered from the darkness of this world. How dimly did we see through the lantern of the flesh! how little did we know! and how much were we ignorant of! and what pains did our little knowledge cost us.! But there, one sight of the face of God will put an end to this longsome night; and will show y…
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You shall above all this behold the person of your glorified Redeemer! You shall see that body, in its glorious change, which once was humbled to the virgin's womb, and to a life of poverty, and to the scorns of sinners; to be spit upon, and buffeted, and crowned with thorns, and first made a laughingstock, and then ha…
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You seem to be almost at your journey's end. But how many a foul step have those yet to go, whom you leave behind you in this dirty world. You have fought a good fight, and kept the faith; and shall never be troubled with an enemy or temptation when this one concluding brunt is over. You shall never be so much as tempt…
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And is there any such thing to be hoped for on earth? Will health or wealth, will the highest places or the greatest pleasures, make men happy? You know it will not. Or if it would, the happiness would be so short, as maketh it little worthy of our regard. Have you not seen an end of all perfection? Have you not observ…
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If the tempter now assault your faith, and sinking flesh do give him any advantage, abhor his blasphemies, and cry for help to him that conquered him. Do you think yonder high and spacious mansions are uninhabited; when every part of sea and land hath its inhabitants? Why have those blessed angels been so long employed…
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Say then to the malicious tempter, "The Lord rebuke thee, O Satan! even the Lord that hath chosen Jerusalem, rebuke thee," Zech. iii. 2. "O full of all subtlety and mischief! thou enemy of God and righteousness! wilt thou not cease to be a lying spirit, and to pervert the truth and right ways of the Lord?" Acts xiii. 1…
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[134] Isa. lvii. 1, 2; Phil. i. 21, 23. [135] Matt. xiii.; 2 Thess. i. 6-11. [136] Matt. xviii. 3; Heb. xii. 14; John iii. 3, 5, 6. [137] John iii. 16, 18. [138] Matt. xxviii. 19, 20; 2 Cor. vi. 16-18. [139] Matt. xiii. 19-23; Rom. viii. 7-9; Heb. xii. 14; John iii. 3, 5, 6; Matt. xviii. 3; 2 Cor. v. 17; Eph. vi. …
619 wordsSource & rights
Public domain in the USA; original historical text digitized by Project Gutenberg.
Project Gutenberg source record →
Historical Christian writing; not Scripture.