A Christian Directory, Part 1: Christian EthicsBaxter, Richard
Religion
A Christian Directory, Part 1: Christian Ethics
Baxter, Richard
Casuistry; Christian sociology
3. And how he condescended to labour at a trade, and mean employment
in the world; to teach us that our bodies, as well as our minds, must
express their obedience, and have their ordinary employment; and to
teach men to labour and live in a calling; and to comfort poor
labourers, with assurance that God accepteth them in the meanest work,
and that Christ himself lived so before them, and chose their kind of
life, and not the life of princes and nobles, that live in pomp, and
ease, and pleasure.
4. Remember how he refused not to submit to all the ordinances of God,
and to fulfil all righteousness, and to be initiated into the solemn
administration of his office by the baptism of John, Matt. iii. 15-17,
which God approved, by sending down upon him the Holy Ghost: to teach
us all to expect his Spirit in the use of his ordinances.
5. Remember how he voluntarily began his work, with an encounter with
the tempter in the wilderness, upon his fasting; and suffered the
tempter to proceed, till he moved him to the most odious sin, even to
worship the devil himself: to teach us that God loveth tried servants,
and expecteth that we be not turned from him by temptations; especially
those that enter upon a public ministry, must be tried men, that have
overcome the tempter: and to comfort tempted christians, who may
remember, that their Saviour himself was most blasphemously tempted to
as odious sins as ever they were; and that to be greatly tempted,
without consenting or yielding to the sin, is so far from being a sin in
itself, that it is the greatest honour of our obedience; and that the
devil, who molesteth and haunteth us with his temptations, is a
conquered enemy, whom our Lord in person hath overcome.
6. Remember how earnestly and constantly he preached; not stories, or
jingles, or subtle controversies, but repentance, and faith, and
self-denial, and obedience. So great was his love to souls, that, when
he had auditors, he preached, not only in the temple and synagogues, but
on mountains, and in a ship, and any other convenient place; and no fury
of the rulers or Pharisees could silence him, till his hour was come,
having his Father's commission. And even to particular persons, he
vouchsafed, by conference, to open the mysteries of salvation, John iii.
and iv.; to teach us to love and attend to the plain and powerful
preaching of the gospel, and not to forbear any necessary means for the
honour of God, and the saving of souls, because of the enmity or
opposition of malicious men, but to "work while it is day, seeing the
night is coming when none can work," John ix. 4.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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