A Christian Directory, Part 2: Christian EconomicsBaxter, Richard
Religion
A Christian Directory, Part 2: Christian Economics
Baxter, Richard
Casuistry; Christian sociology
_Direct._ II. See that it be your first and principal care, to live
in such a place where you have the greatest helps and smallest
hinderances to the pleasing of God, and the saving of your souls; and
in such a place where you shall have no liberty to sin, nor have your
fleshly will fulfilled, but shall be best instructed to know and do
the will of God, and under him the will of your superiors. It is the
mark of those whom God forsaketh, to be given up to their own wills,
or "to their own hearts' lusts, to walk in their own counsels," Psal.
lxxxi. 12. "To live after the flesh," is the certain way to endless
misery, Rom. viii. 8, 13. To be most subject to the will of God, with
the greatest mortification and denial of our own wills, is the mark of
the most obedient, holy soul. Seeing then that holiness and
self-denial, the loving of God, and the mortifying of the flesh, are
the life of grace, and the health and rectitude of the soul, and the
only way (under Christ) to our salvation; you have great reason to
think that place the best for you, in which you have most helps for
holiness and self-denial: and not only to bear patiently the
strictness of your superiors, and the labour which they put you upon
for your souls, but also to desire and seek after such helps, as the
greatest mercies upon earth. "First seek the kingdom of God and his
righteousness: labour not (first) for the food that perisheth, but for
that which endureth to everlasting life," Matt. vi. 33; John vi. 27.
Take care first that your souls be provided for, and take that for the
best service which helpeth you most in the service of God, to your
salvation.
_Direct._ III. If it be possible, live where there is a faithful,
powerful, convincing minister, whose public teaching and private
counsel you may make use of for your souls. Live not, if you can avoid
it, under an ignorant, dead, unprofitable teacher, that will never
afford you any considerable help to lift up your hearts to a heavenly
conversation. But seeing you must spend the six days in your labour,
live where you have the best helps to spend the Lord's day, for the
quickening and comfort of your souls; that in the strength of that
holy food, you may cheerfully perform your sanctified labours on the
week days following. Be not like those brutish persons, that live as
if there were no life but this; and therefore take care to get a
place, where their bodies may be well fed and clothed, and may have
ease, and pleasure, and preferment for the world; but care not much
what teacher there is, to be their guide to heaven; nor whether ever
they be seriously foretold of the world to come, or not.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account