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A26936
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The grand question resolved, what we must do to be saved instructions for a holy life / by the late Reverend Divine, Mr. Richard Baxter ; recommended to the bookseller a few days before his death to be immediately printed for the good of souls.
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Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691.
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1692
(1692)
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Wing B1279; ESTC R14371
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33,250
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49
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resolute in performing them Know all the Sins of the Tongue that you may avoid them for your Innocency and Peace do much depend on the prudent Government of your Tongues X. Govern your Thoughts with constant skilful Diligence In this right Habits and Affections will do most by inclining them unto Good It 's easy to think on that which we love Be not unfurnished of matter for your Thoughts to work upon And often retire your selves for serious Meditation Be not so solitary and deep in Musings as to over-stretch your Thoughts and confound your Minds or take you off from necessary converse with others But be sure that you be Considerate and dwell much at Home and converse most with your Consciences and your God! with whom you have the greatest Business Leave not your thoughts unimployed or ungoverned Scatter them not abroad upon impertinent Vanities O that you knew what daily business you have for them Most men are wicked deceived and undone because they are inconsiderate and dare not or will not retiredly and soberly use their Reason or use it but as a slave in Chains in the service of their Passion Lust and Interest He was never Wise or Good or Happy who was not soberly and impartially Considerate How to be Good to do Good and finally enjoy Good must be the sum of all your Thoughts Keep them first holy then charitable clean and chaste And quickly check them when they look towards sin XI Let Time be exceeding Precious in your Eyes and carefully and diligently redeem it What haste doth it make and how quickly will it be gone and then how highly will it be valued when a Minute of it can never be recalled O what important Business have we for every Moment of our Time if we should live a thousand Years Take not that Man to be well in his Wits or to know his God his End his Work or his Danger who hath Time to spare Redeem it not only from needless Sports and Plays and Idleness and Curiosity and Complement and excess of Sleep and Chat and Worldliness but also from the Entanglements of lesser Good which would hinder you from greater Spend time as Men that are ready to pass into another World where every Minute must be accounted for and it must go with us for ever as we lived here let not Health deceive you into the expectation of living long and so into a sensless Negligence See your Glass running and keep a reckoning of the expence of Time and spend it just as you would review it when it is gone XII Let the Love of all in their several Capacities become as it were your very Nature and doing them all the Good you can be very much of the Business of your Lives God must be loved in all his Creatures his natural Image on all Men and his spiritual Image on his Saints Our Neighbour must be loved as our natural selves That is our natural Neighbour as our natural Self with a Love of benevolence and our spiritual Neighbour as our spiritual Self with a Love of Complacence In opposition to Complacence we may hate our sinful Neighbour as we must our selves much more But in opposition to Benevolence we must neither hate our Selves our Neighbour or our Enemy O that Men knew how much of Christianity doth consist in Love and doing Good With what Eyes do they read the Gospel who see not this in every Page Abhor all that Selfishness Pride and Passion which are the Enemies of Love and those Opinions and Factions and Censurings and Back-biting which would destroy it Take him that speaketh Evil of another to you without a just cause and call to be Satan's Messenger intreating you to hate your Brother or to abate your Love For to perswade you that a Man is bad is directly to perswade you so far to hate him Not that the good and bad must be confounded but Love will call none bad without constraining evidence Rebuke Back biters Hurt no Man and speak evil of no Man unless it be not only just but necessarily to some greater Good Love is lovely They that Love shall be Beloved Hating and hurting makes Men hateful Love thy Neighbour as thy self and Do as thou wouldst be done by are the Golden Rules of our Duty to Men which must be deeply written on your Hearts For want of this there is nothing so false so bad so cruel which you may not be drawn to think or say or do against your Brethren Selfishness and want of Love do as naturally tend to Ambition and Covetousness and thence to Cruelty against all that 〈◊〉 in the Way of their Desires as the nature of a 〈◊〉 to kill the Lambs All Factions and Contentions and Persecutions in the World proceed from Selfishness and want of Charity Devouring Malice is the Devilish Nature Be as zealous in doing gòod to all as Satan's Servants are in hurting Take it as the use of all your Talents and use them as you would hear of it at last Let it be your Business and not a matter on the by Especially for publick Good and Mens Salvation And what you cannot do your selves perswade other to Give them good Books and draw them to the means which are most like to profit them XIII Understand the right Terms of Church-Communion especially the Unity of the Universal Church and the Universal Communion which you must hold with all the parts and the difference between the Church as Visible and Invisible For want of these how woful are our divisions Read oft 1 Cor. 12. Eph. 4. 1. to 17. Job 17. 21 22 23. Act. 4. 32. 2. 42. 1 Cor. 1. 10 11 13. 3. 3. Rom. 16. 17. Phil. 2. 1 2 3 4. 1 Thes 5. 12 13. Act. 20. 30. 1 Cor. 11. 19. Titus 3. 10. James 3. Col. 1. 4. Heb. 10. 25. Acts 8. 12 13 37. 1 Cor. 1. 2 13. 3. 3 4. 11. 18 21. Study these well You must have Union and Communion in Faith and Love with all the Christians in the World And refuse not local Communion when you have a just call so far as they put you not on sinning Let your usual meeting be with the purest Church if you lawfully may and still respect the publick Good But sometimes occasionally communicate even with defective faulty Churches so be it they are true Christians and put you not on Sin that so you may shew that you own them as Christians though you disown their Corruptions Think not your presence maketh all the Faults of Ministry Worship or People to be yours for then I would join with no Church in the World Know that as the mystical Church consisteth of Heart-Covenanters so doth the Church as Visible consist of Verbal-Covenanters which make a credible profession of Consent And that Nature and Scripture teacheth us to take every Man's word as Credible till Perfidiousness forfeit his Credit which forfeiture must be proved before any
THE Grand Question RESOLVED What we must do to be SAVED INSTRUCTIONS FOR A Holy Life BY The Late Reverend Divine Mr. RICHARD BAXTER Recommended to the Bookseller a few days before his Death to be immediately Printed for the good of Souls Acts 16. 30. Sirs What must I do to be Saved LONDON Printed for Tho. Parkhurst at the Bible and Three Crowns in Cheap-side 1692. The Great Case Resolved How to be certainly SAVED Instructions for a Holy Life I. The Necessity Reason and Means of Holiness II. The Parts and Practice of a Holy Life For Personal Direction and for Family Instruction With two short Catechisms and Prayers Reader IGnorant Persons cannot remember long and many words nor understand a brief stile and few words This maketh it impossible to write a Catechism that shall not be unsuitable either to the Understanding or the Memory of such I must therefore desire the Teacher to make up this unavoidable Defect by opening the 〈◊〉 especially of the Catechisms to the Children and Servants when they have learned and say the words Read the Instructions often to them and press all as you go on their Affections For the bare words without a present Guide may â—â—e be all lost I. The Necessity Reason and Means of Holiness 1. To keep up the Resolutions of the Converted And 2. To instruct those in Families that need them THough the saving of Souls be a matter of unexpressible Importance yet the Lord have mercy upon them What abundance are there that think it not worthy of their serious Enquiry nor the reading of a good Book one hour in a Week For the sake of these careless slothful Sinners I have here spoken much in a little room that they may not refuse to read and consider so short a Lesson unless they think their Souls worth nothing Sinner as thou wilt shortly answer it before God deny not to God to thy self and me the sober pondering and faithful practising these few Directions I. Begin at home and know thy self Consider what it is to be a MAN Thou art made a nobler Creature than the Brutes They serve thee and are governed by thee and Death ends all their Pains and Pleasures But thou hast Reason to rule thy self and them to know thy God and â—oresee thy End and know thy way and do thy Duty Thy Reason and Free-will and Executive Power are part of the Image of God upon thy Nature so is thy Dominion over the Brutes as under him thou art their Owner their Ruler and their End But thy Holy Wisdom and Goodness and Ability is the chief part of his Image on which thy Happiness depends Thou hast a Soul that cannot be satisfied in Knowing till thy Knowledge reach to God himself Nor can it be disposed by any other Nor can it or the Societies of the World be well governed according to its Nature without regard to his Soveraign Authority and without the hopes and fears of Joy and Misery hereafter Nor can it be happy in any thing but seeing and loving and delighting in this God as he is revealed in the other World And is this Nature given thee in vain If the Nature of all things be fitted to its Vse and End then it must be so with thine II. By knowing thy self then thou must needs know that there is a GOD and that he is thy Maker and infinite in all Perfections and that he is thy Owner thy Ruler and thy Felicity or End He is mad that seeth not that such Creatures have a Cause or Maker and that all the Power and Wisdom and Goodness of the World is caused by a Power and Wisdom and Goodness which is greater than that of all the World And who can be our Owner but He that made us And who can be our highest Governour but our Owner whose infinite Power Wisdom and Goodness maketh him only fit thereto And if he be our Governour he must needs have Laws with Rewards for the Good and Punishments for the Bad and must Judge and Execute accordingly And if he be our Chiefest Benefactor and all that we have is from him and all our Hope and Happiness is in him nothing can be more clear than that the very Nature of Man doth prove that in Hope of future Happiness he should absolutely resign himself to the Will and Disposal of this God and that he should absolutely obey him and that he should love and serve him with all his Power It being impossible to Love Obey and Please that God too much who is thus our Cause our End our All. III. By knowing thus thy self and God it is easie to know what Primitive Holiness and Godliness is Even this hearty entire and absolute resignation of the Soul to God as the infinite Power Wisdom and Goodness as our Creator our Owner Governour and Felicity or End fully submiting to his Disposals obeying his Laws in hope of his promised Rewards and fear of his threatned Punishments and loving and delighting in himself and all his Appearances in the World and desiring and seeking the endless sight and enjoyment of him in heavenly Glory and expressing these Affections in daily Prayer Thanksgiving and Praise This is the Vse of all thy Faculties the End and Business of thy Life the Health and Happiness of thy Soul This is that Holiness or Godliness which God doth so much call for IV. And by this it is easie to know what a state of Sin and Ungodliness is Even the want of all this Holiness and the setting of carnal Self instead of GOD. When Men are proudly Great and Wise and Good in their own Eyes and would dispose of themselves and all their Concernments and would rule themselves and please themselves according to the fleshly appetite and Fancy and therefore love most the Pleasures and Profits and Honours of the World as the Provision to satisfie the desires of the Flesh and God shall be no â—urther Loved Obeyed or Pleased than the Love of Fleshly Pleasure will give leave nor shall have any thing but what the Flesh can spare This is a Wicked a Carnal an ungodly State though it break forth in various ways of Sinning V. By this Experience it self may tell you that most Men yea all till Grace renew them are in this ungodly miserable State Though only the Scripture tells us how this came to pass Though all are not Fornicators nor Drunkards noâ— Extortioners nor Persecuâ—ors nor live not in the same way of Sinning yet Selfishness and Pride and Sensuality and the love of Worldly Things Ignorance and Ungodliness are plainly become the common Corruption of the Nature of Man so that their Hearts are turned to the World from God and filled with impiety filthiness and injustice and their Reason is but a Servant to their Senses and their Mind and Love and Life is Carnal and this carnal Mind is Enmity to the Holiness of God and