Richard Baxter
Richard Baxter
Richard Baxterwas an English Puritan church leader, poet, hymn-writer, theologian, and controversialist. Dean Stanley called him "the chief of English Protestant Schoolmen". After some false starts, he made his reputation by his ministry at Kidderminster, and at around the same time began a long and prolific career as theological writer. After the Restoration he refused preferment, while retaining a non-separatist Presbyterian approach, and became one of the most influential leaders of the Nonconformists, spending time in prison. His views on...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionClergyman
Date of Birth12 November 1615
Take heed to yourselves, lest you perish while you call upon others to take heed of perishing, and lest you famish yourselves while you prepare their food.
Do not waste your time on light, weak, milktoast ministries and books
A holy and heavenly life is a continual pain to the consciences of sinners around you and continually solicits them to change their course.
The churchyard is the market place where all things are rated at their true value, and those who are approaching it talk of the world and its vanities with a wisdom unknown before.
Despair of ever being saved, "except thou be born again," or of seeing God "without holiness," or of having part in Christ except thou "love him above father, mother, or thy own life." This kind of despair is one of the first steps to heaven.
Get masters of families to do their duty, and they will not only spare you a great deal of labor, but will much further the success of your labors. You are not like to see any general reformation, till you procure family reformation. Some little religion there may be, here and there; but while it is confined to single persons, and is not promoted in families, it will not prosper, nor promise much future increase.
Surely love is both work and wages.
Prayer must carry on our work as much as preaching; he preacheth not heartily to his people that will not pray for them.
I take the love of God and self-denial to be the sum of all saving grace and religion.
Do not mathematics and all sciences seem full of contradictions and impossibilities to the ignorant, which are all resolved and cleared to those that understand them?
Sinners, hear and consider, if you wilfully condemn your souls to bestiality, God will condemn them to perpetual misery.
The devils never had a Savior offered to them, but you have; and do you yet make light of Him?
My Lord, I have nothing to do in this World, but to seek and serve thee; I have nothing to do with a Heart and its affections, but to breathe after thee. I have nothing to do with my Tongue and Pen, but to speak to thee, and for thee, and to publish thy Glory and thy Will. What have I to do with all my Reputation, and Interest in my Friends, but to increase thy Church, and propagate thy holy Truth and Service? What have I to do with my remaining Time, even these last and languishing hours, but to look up unto thee, and wait for thy Grace, and thy Salvation?
Our very business is to teach the great lesson of self-denial and humility to our people, and how unfit is it then that we should be proud ourselves!