A Christian Directory, Part 1: Christian EthicsBaxter, Richard
Religion
A Christian Directory, Part 1: Christian Ethics
Baxter, Richard
Casuistry; Christian sociology
7. The last means is, to choose some prudent, faithful guide and
counsellor for your soul,[35] to open those cases to which are not fit
for all to know, and to resolve and advise you in cases that are too
hard for you: not to lead you blindfold after the interest of any
seduced or ambitious men, nor to engage you to his singular conceits,
against the Scripture or the church of God; but to be to your soul, as
a physician to your body, or a lawyer to your estates, to help you
where they are wiser than you, and where you need their helps.
Resolve now, that instead of your idle company and pastime, your
excessive cares and sinful pleasures, you will wait on God in the
seasonable use of these his own appointed means; and you will find,
that he hath appointed them not in vain, and that you shall not lose
your labour.
_Direct._ XVII. That in all this you may be sincere, and not deceived
by a hypocritical change, be sure that God be all your confidence, and
all your hopes be placed in heaven; and that there be no secret
reserve in your hearts, for the world and flesh; and that you divide
not your hearts between God and the things below, nor take up with the
religion of a hypocrite, which giveth God what the flesh can spare.
When the devil cannot keep you from a change and reformation, he will
seek to deceive you with a superficial change and half reformation,
which goeth not to the root, nor doth recover the heart to God, nor
deliver it entirely to him. If he can by a partial, deceitful change,
persuade you that you are truly renewed and sanctified, and fix you
there that you go no further, you are as surely his, as if you had
continued in your grosser sins. And, of all other, this is the most
common and dangerous cheat of souls, when they think to halve it
between God and the world, and to secure their fleshly interest of
pleasure and prosperity, and their salvation too; and so they will
needs serve God and mammon.
[Sidenote: The full description of a false conversion, and of a
hypocrite.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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