The first volume of Baxter's manual of Christian ethics: step-by-step Directions for bringing an unconverted person to grace, and for the private duties of anyone who already has it.
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A Christian Directory is Richard Baxter's 1673 manual of practical theology, a book of numbered Directions answering the question of what a Christian should actually do. Volume 1 carries its first part, Christian Ethics: Directions for the unconverted seeking grace, twenty more for establishing a young Christian, and seventeen Grand Directions for walking with God.
How Volume 1 is built
01
Directions to unconverted sinners. Twenty numbered Directions running from self-examination to the point of decision: "give yourself entirely and without reserve to God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, as your happiness, your Savior, and your Sanctifier".
02
The devil's hindrances to conversion. Thirty temptations in the tempter's own voice, each with a numbered remedy under it: you were baptized, your religion is true, no one can be certain, there is time yet.
03
Twenty Directions for the newly converted. Counsel for the fragile first years: do not mistake novelty for conviction, unite judgment with zeal, learn the substance before the controversies, choose your books with care.
04
Grand Directions 1 to 8. The foundations in order: the grounds of faith, access through Christ, the indwelling Spirit, the attributes of God, then God as Owner, Sovereign King, Teacher, and Physician of the soul.
05
Grand Directions 9 to 17. The active life. The war against "the trinity of enemies" runs longest, then a life laid out in "doing all the good you can, in works of piety, justice, and charity," then love, trust, delight, thankfulness, and praise.
06
Directions against the great sins. The volume closes by turning those Grand Directions inside out, with remedies against unbelief, hardness of heart, hypocrisy, and the craving for approval Baxter calls idolizing man.
Key themes
Sincerity put to the test. Baxter's recurring worry is the person who holds Christian opinions without a changed heart, so much of Volume 1 is diagnostic, written on the premise that almost no reader believes the warning applies to them: "Wickedness remains wickedness however fair a name it clothes itself in".
The casuist's method. Baxter divides a subject, numbers the parts, states the objection in its strongest form, and answers it, so the structure carries the reasoning as much as the prose does.
General before particular. The Grand Directions come first deliberately. Without them, Baxter warns, the detailed rules of the later volumes are useless, "like branches cut off from the trunk of a tree, stripped of their support and life."
A life at war. Grand Direction 9 treats the flesh as the target of every temptation, the world as its material, and the devil as its mover, then catalogues the tempter's baits and the counter to each.
The Introduction
The eternal God made humanity as an intellectual and free agent, capable of understanding and choosing good, refusing evil, knowing, loving, and serving the Creator, and by adhering to him through this life of trial, attaining the blessed sight and enjoyment of his glory in the life to come. God has not failed to furnish us with whatever is necessary for these ends to be successfully pursued. When we lost our moral capacity to please him, and so to enjoy him, he restored it through the wonderful work of redemption. In Christ he has reconciled the world to himself, and has granted a general act of pardon contained in the covenant of grace, of which nothing but a person's own obstinate and final unwillingness can deprive them.
To secure our consent to this gracious covenant, God has "committed" to his ministers the "word of reconciliation," commanding us "to beseech men, as in the stead of Christ, and as though God himself did beseech them by us, to be reconciled unto God" (2 Cor 5:18–20). We are to show people first their sin and misery, then proclaim and offer the true remedy, and make known that all things are now ready, and by pleading their duty, their necessity, and their benefit, to compel them to come in Matthew 22:4 Luke 14:17, 23.
Yet so great is the blindness and stubbornness of humanity that most refuse consent. Deceived by the pleasures, profits, and honors of the present world, they make their alleged necessities and business the substance of their excuses, and the unreasonable grounds of their refusal, negligence, and delay, until death surprises them and the door is shut. Then they knock and cry for mercy and admittance when it is too late (Matt 25:10–12).
Against this willful negligence and presumption, which is the principal cause of the damnation of the ungodly world, I have already written many books. But because there are many who sincerely profess themselves willing, not only to be saved, but to be Christ's disciples, to learn from him, to imitate him, to be conformed to him, and to do the will of God if they could but know it, I have determined, by God's assistance, to write this book for their use. My aim is to give them from God's Word those plain Directions suited to the several duties of their lives, to guide them safely in their walk with God to life eternal.
Do not expect here extensive and earnest exhortations, that work I have already done. I now address those who say they have been made willing and desire help against their ignorance, so that skill and will may together advance their salvation. I will labor to speak as plainly as possible, since I write especially for the ignorant; yet I must also be adequately precise in the Directions, lest such readers lose the benefit through misunderstanding. I must address many cases, because I write for families, where not all are in the same condition, and the same persons are not always the same. If I were not brief in the particulars, I would be too long in the whole, and tediousness might deprive some readers of the benefit.
In families, some are (too commonly) ungodly, in a carnal, unrenewed state, and some are godly, in a state of grace. These may be considered as Christians simply, with respect to God, or in their relations to others. These relations are either ecclesiastical, civil, or domestic.
Cicero preserved Socrates' account of the same twofold state: there are two ways, he held, and a twofold course for souls departing from the body. For those who have defiled themselves with human vices and given themselves wholly to their lusts there is a devious road, shut off from the council of the gods; but for those who have kept themselves whole and chaste, who have had the least contact with the body and have always called themselves away from it, and who in human bodies have imitated the life of the gods, there lies open an easy return to those from whom they set out (Tusculan Disputations, book 1). It can go well with no wicked man, he wrote elsewhere (Paradoxa 1).
If mind, faith, virtue, and concord are found in the human race, he asked, from where could these flow down to earth except from above? Since counsel, reason, and prudence are in us, the gods must have these same things in greater measure, and must not only have them but use them in the greatest and best of matters (On the Nature of the Gods, book 2). And if it is punishment and the fear of penalty, rather than baseness itself, that deters a man from an injurious and criminal life, then no one is unjust and the wicked are merely to be counted incautious; if we are moved to be good men not by what is honorable in itself but by some advantage and profit, we are cunning, not good. For what will that man do in the dark who fears nothing but a witness and a judge? (On the Laws, book 1).
As it makes no difference whether no one is healthy or no one can be healthy, so Cicero could not see what difference it makes whether no one is wise or no one can be (On the Laws, book 3). Yet he was afraid to speak openly what he knew of the unity of the eternal God, the maker of all: to find him who is, as it were, the parent of this universe is difficult, he wrote, and when you have found him, to declare him to the crowd is forbidden (On the Universe).
Accordingly, my intended method is: 1. To direct ungodly, carnal minds how to attain a state of grace. 2. To direct those who already have saving grace how to use it, both in the contemplative and active parts of their lives; in their duties of religion, both private and public; in their duties toward others, both in their ecclesiastical, civil, and family relations. And along the way, to direct those who have grace how to discern it and take comfort in it, and to direct them how to grow in grace and persevere to the end.
If any reader should be discouraged by the number of duties and directions set before them, I ask them to consider two things.
[1.] It is God, and not I, who imposes all these duties on you. Who will question his wisdom, goodness, or authority to make laws for us and for all the world?
[2.] Every duty and direction is a mercy to you, and therefore should be a cause not of grief but of gratitude. They are like the commands of parents to their children when they say, "Eat your food, wear your clothes, go to bed, do not eat poison, do not wallow in the mud, do not cut your fingers, take care near fire and water." To remove any such law or duty would be to deprive you of an excellent mercy.
You would not cut off or cast away any member of your body, any vein, sinew, or artery, on the grounds that their number makes them troublesome, since reducing that number would kill or cripple you. A student is not offended that he has many books in his library; nor a tradesman that he has an abundance of tools; nor the wealthy man at the number of his farms or flocks.
Believe it, reader: if you do not bring a quarrelsome and hostile spirit, you will find that God has not burdened but blessed you with his holy precepts, and that he has not appointed you a single unnecessary or unprofitable duty, only such as tend to your contentment, joy, and happiness. As Acosta observes, God is willing in a manner to suffer a kind of violence, and it is the height of his beneficence that he wills to be knocked at and importuned in order to do good.
O let it be the daily, earnest prayer of both writer and reader, that our hearts prove not false and unwilling to follow the Directions given us, lest we condemn ourselves in the very things we approve. Your practice will now show whether it has been from lack of will or lack of skill, if from this point on you unfaithfully neglect your duty. If you are willing, obey now what is plainly taught you, and demonstrate by your diligence that you are willing.
Direction 1: Let Solid Conviction, Not Novelty or Reputation, Draw You
Before I come to the common directions for the exercise of grace and walking with God, which cover the common duties of Christianity, I will lay down some preliminary instructions suited to those who have only recently entered into religion. I presuppose what I have said in my book of directions for those still under the work of conversion, written to prevent their going astray through a false or superficial change. I have since written a book on this subject, to which I refer the reader for fuller direction.
[Direction 1.] Take heed lest it be the novelty or reputation of truth and godliness that draws you, rather than a solid grasp of their excellence and necessity, lest, when the novelty and reputation are gone, your religion wither and die away.
Christ said of John and the Jews, "He was a burning and a shining light, and ye were willing for a season to rejoice in his light" (John 5:35). Everyone is most moved by things that seem new and strange. It is not only a childish weakness to be pleased with new clothes and new toys; even serious, thoughtful people find new things the most compelling, and familiarity dulls delight. Our homes, possessions, and honors please us most at the start, and every condition of life affects us most at its beginning. If human nature were not so drawn to novelty, publishing news-books would not have remained so profitable a trade for so long, unless the content had been truer and more worthwhile. This is why change is so welcome to the world, though it ordinarily costs people dearly.
No wonder, then, that religion is more appealing when it arrives with this advantage. When people first hear the doctrine of godliness and the news of another world opened and applied by a powerful preacher, it is no surprise that things of such great moment should affect them for a time. Those who received the seed of God's Word into stony ground "forthwith sprung up, and they anon with joy received it" (Matt 13:5, 20), but it quickly withered for lack of root. This kind of hearer can no more delight indefinitely in one preacher, one profession, or one way, than a glutton can in one dish or an adulterer in one partner; for the pleasure they take even in the highest truths is merely sensual or natural, and all such pleasure must be fed with novelty and a changing variety of objects.
The Athenians were curious about Paul's teaching as a novelty, though they afterward rejected it as seeming incredible to them: "May we know what this new doctrine whereof thou speakest, is? for thou bringest certain strange things to our ears: we would know therefore, what these things mean. (For all the Athenians and strangers which were there, spent their time in nothing else, but either to tell, or to hear some new thing)" (Acts 17:19–21).
To this kind of professor, the greatest truths go out of fashion, and they grow weary of them as dull and ordinary things. They must have some new light or new form of religion that has lately come into vogue. Their souls grow tired of the manna that once seemed like angels' food. Old things seem low to them, and new things seem high; to take up some novelty in religion is, in their view, to advance toward maturity. Too many of these people eventually so far outgrow their old clothing that the old Christ and the old Gospel are left behind altogether.
The light of the Gospel is communicated more quickly than its heat. Since this first element is more agreeable to such people, it is readily received, and religion seems best to them at the start. At first they have only the light of knowledge; then they enjoy the warmth of a new and prospering profession. Some time must pass before the heat begins to burn them, and when it does, they have had enough, and cast religion away as hastily as they picked it up.
If preachers would only lighten and shoot no thunderbolts, even a Herod would hear them gladly and do many things they said. But when his Herodias is touched, he cannot bear it. If preachers would address only people's imaginations or understanding, and not press too sharply on their hearts, their lives, and their worldly interests, the world would hear them as it hears stage-players, or at least as lectures in philosophy or medicine. A sermon that contains nothing but vague, toothless notions in handsome language seldom causes offense or persecution. It is rare that such preaching is disliked by worldly hearers, or that the preacher's person is hated for it. "It is a pleasant thing for the eyes to behold the sun" (Eccl 11:7), but not to be scorched by its heat.
Christ himself, when promised and still at a distance, was greatly desired by the Jews; but when he came, they could not bear him, his doctrine and life so thoroughly contradicted their expectations. "The Lord whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple, even the Messenger of the Covenant whom ye delight in: behold, he shall come, saith the Lord of Hosts. But who may abide the day of his coming? and who shall stand when he appeareth? for he is like a refiner's fire, and like fuller's soap" (Mal 3:1–3). Many who come to Christ for the first time, by profession, little expect that he will cast them into the fire, refine them, purge away their dross, and cast them anew into the mold of the Gospel (Rom 6:17).
Many will play awhile in the light who will not endure to be melted by the fire. When the preacher reaches this point, he is deemed harsh and intolerable, and loses all the praise he had previously earned; the pleasing novelty of religion is over for them. The Gospel is sent to accomplish such work in the soul and in life as these tender persons will not endure. It must bring every thought captive to Christ, put to death every lust and pleasure that opposes his will, and implant a new and heavenly life in the soul. It must fill people with deep and living apprehensions of the great things of eternity. Wavering, dull opinions will never raise and carry the soul forward in the vigorous, constant, victorious action that salvation requires.
When the Gospel comes to the heart to do this great, prevailing work, these people grow impatient of the searching and the pain, and quickly have done with it. They are like children who love a book for the gilding and fineness of its cover, and pick it up as readily as anyone, but only to play with, not to learn; they grow weary of it when it comes to that.
At first many come to Christ with wonder and insist on being his servants, drawn by something in it that seems attractive, until they learn that the Son of Man does not enjoy even the shelter the birds and foxes have, and that his doctrine and way stand in direct opposition to their worldly and fleshly interests; and then they are gone. They welcomed Christ as a courtesy, supposing he would please them or at least not greatly contradict them. When they find they have received a guest who will rule them rather than be ruled by them, who will not let them take their pleasures or enjoy their riches, but hold them to a life they cannot endure, even undoing them in the world, he is no longer a welcome guest. Had Christ been received as Christ, and truth and godliness deliberately embraced for their clearly discerned excellence and necessity, the deep rooting this produces would have prevented such apostasy and cured such hypocrisy.
But, alas, poor ministers find by sad experience that not all who flock to hear them, fill the crowd, "for a season rejoice in their light," and magnify and defend them, prove to be true saints. The blossom has its beauty and sweetness, but not everything that blossoms or appears in bud comes to perfect fruit. Some will be blasted, some blown down; some nipped by frost, some eaten by worms; some fall quickly, and some hang on until the strongest gales cast them down.
Some are deceived and corrupted by false teachers; some are made unfruitful and turned aside by worldly cares and the deceitfulness of riches. In some, the lusts had deeper root than the Word; in others, friends had greater hold on them than Christ, and so they forsake him to satisfy those friends' demands. Some are corrupted by the hope of advancement or the favor of others. Some are frightened away from Christ by threats and frowns, and choose to risk damnation rather than face persecution. Some are so worldly-wise that they can find reason to cool their zeal, can save both soul and body, as they see it, and can prove to themselves that what other men call sin is actually their duty, if only the outcome answers their expectations. And some simply grow weary of truth and duty as dull and common things, having no supply of variety to keep alive the pleasures of novelty.
Do not misread what I have said, as if every affection that novelty heightens and familiarity dulls were a sign of hypocrisy. I know that something in human nature, present even in the best, inclines us to be far more powerfully moved by things when they first appear to us than when they have long been known and used. Scarcely one person in a thousand is not more delighted by the light of a truth when it first dawns on them than when it has become familiar; and scarcely one is not more affected by a powerful preacher at first than after sitting under him for years.
The same sermon that transported them at first hearing would move them far less if heard a hundred times. The same books that deeply affected us at the first or second reading affect us less after twenty readings. The same words of prayer that move us greatly when seldom used do less to stir our affections when spoken every day of the year. At our first conversion we feel more passionate sorrow for sin and more intense love toward the godly than we can maintain afterward. All of this is true of the learned and the unlearned, the sound and the unsound alike, though not equally. Even heaven itself is spoken of by Christ as though it shares something of this, when he says that "joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons, that need no repentance" (Luke 15:7, 10).
I know also that it is the duty of ministers to take notice of this disposition in their hearers, and not to dull them by always offering the same things, but to profit them through pleasant and profitable variety, not by preaching another Christ or a new gospel. It is the same God, the same Christ, the same Spirit, the same Scripture, the same heaven, the same church, the same faith and hope and repentance and obedience that we must preach as long as we live. Though hearers say they have heard it a hundred times, let them hear it still, bring them no new creed.
If they hear so often of God and Christ and heaven that by faith and love and final possession they attain those things as their end, they have heard well. Yet there is a welcome variety in subordinate particulars, in words, methods, and well-timed applications, that is necessary to faithful ministry and to the growth of the flock. A physician uses the same dispensary and the same medicines, yet he must employ great variety in his compounds, his timing, and his manner of administration.
For all that, though even the best are most powerfully moved by what seems new, and are dulled by the long and frequent use of the same expressions, they are never weary of the substance of their religion to the point of desiring a change. And though they are not so passionately affected by the same sermons and books, or by the thought and mention of the same great matters of religion, as they were at first, yet their judgments embrace and esteem those matters more firmly and solidly, their wills adhere to them more resolutely, and their lives practice them better than before. Those who take up religion merely for the sake of novelty, by contrast, will lay it down when it ceases to be new, and must either exchange it for something newer or have no religion at all. (As Seneca observed, the outcomes of mad hatred and mad love are nearly the same, De Beneficiis, book 6, ch. 25.)
Those people are equally unsound who are religious only because their upbringing, their friends, the law, the judgment of their rulers, or the custom of their country has made it necessary for their reputation. Such people are hypocrites from the very outset, and continuance in so carnal a religiousness cannot save them. I know that law, custom, education, and friends, when they side with godliness, are a great advantage to it, by providing helps and removing obstacles that would weigh heavily on carnal minds. But truth is not truly your own until you receive it on its own proper evidence; your faith is not divine faith until you believe what you believe because God who reveals it is true; you are not children of God until you love him for himself; and you are not truly religious until the truth and goodness of religion itself is the chief thing that makes you religious.
Much is revealed about a person's sincerity when they are not only religious among the religious but also among the profane, the enemies, the scorners, and the persecutors of religion; when someone does not pray only in a praying household but among the prayerless and those who mock fervent, constant prayer; when someone is heavenly among the earthly, temperate among the intemperate and riotous, and holds the truth among those who reproach it and hold the contrary. A sincere person is not carried along merely by the current of company or outward advantage in their religion, nor does he avoid sin simply for want of temptation, but is religious even against the stream, and remains innocent when cast, against his will, into temptation; is godly where godliness is counted singularity, hypocrisy, faction, eccentricity, disobedience, or heresy; and will sooner let go his reputation for honesty than honesty itself.
Direction 2: On Uniting Sound Judgment, Zeal, and Holy Practice
"Take heed of being religious only in opinion, without zeal and holy practice; or only in zealous affection, without a sound, well-grounded judgment. See that judgment, zeal, and practice are united."
On the first part of this advice, against a merely opinion-based religion, I have already spoken in my "Directions for a Sound Conversion." Changing your opinions is an easier matter than changing the heart and life. Holding to the truth will save no one without a love and practice of the truth. This is the point St. James makes when he speaks at such length about the worthlessness of a dead, ineffectual belief, one that does not work through love and does not move the soul to practice and obedience.
To believe that there is a God while you neglect and disobey him is unlikely to please him. To believe that there is a heaven while you neglect it and prefer the world before it will never bring you there. To believe your duty and not perform it, to believe that sin is evil and yet to live in it, is to sin with aggravation, without excuse, and not the way to be accepted or justified before God. To hold the same beliefs as holy men, without the same hearts and conduct, will never bring you to the same happiness. "He that knoweth his master's will, and doth it not, shall be" so far from being accepted for it that he shall be "beaten with many stripes." To believe that holiness and obedience is the best way will never save the disobedient and unholy.
And yet if sound judgment is not your guide, even the most zealous affections will only drive you forward recklessly, making you run fast though completely off the road, like horses that have thrown the coachman and riders. To travel at full speed when you are entirely off course is only to lose your time through great effort and to prepare yourself for yet more labor.
As P. Scaliger says, knowledge that is severed from justice deserves to be called cunning rather than wisdom.
The Jews who persecuted Christ and his apostles had, by Paul's own testimony, "a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge" (Rom 10:2). Paul says of the deceivers and troublers of the Galatians, whom he even wished cut off, that they "zealously affect" them, "but not well" (Gal 4:17). And of himself, while he was persecuting Christians to prison and death, he says: "I was zealous towards God as ye are all this day" (Acts 22:3–4).
Was not the Papist St. Dominic, who stirred up persecution against Christians in France and Savoy to the murdering of many thousands of them, a very zealous man? Are not the butchers of the Inquisition zealous men? Were not the authors of the third Canon of the General Council at the Lateran, under Pope Innocent III, very zealous men, those who decreed that the Pope should depose temporal lords, give away their dominions, and absolve their subjects if those lords would not exterminate the godly who were called heretics? Were not the Papists' Gunpowder Plot conspirators zealous men? Has not misdirected zeal in more recent times caused many to rise up against their lawful governors, and many to persecute the church of God, stripping the people of their faithful pastors without any compassion for their souls?
Christ says of such zealots: "The time cometh, when whosoever killeth you will think he doth God service" (John 16:2), that is, offers a service acceptable to God. Paul therefore says, "It is good to be zealously affected always in a good thing" (Gal 4:18), showing that zeal is indeed good, provided that sound judgment guides it.
Your first question must always be: Am I on the right road? Your second: Am I moving forward at a fitting pace? It is grievous to observe what odious actions have been committed in every age of the world through the impulse of misdirected zeal. What a disgrace an imprudent zealot is to his own profession: making himself ridiculous in the eyes of adversaries, he brings his profession itself into contempt and leads the ungodly to conclude that religious people are nothing but a company of carried-away, brain-sick zealots, and by this means they are hardened to their own destruction.
Consider also that the imprudence of well-meaning men has sometimes done as much harm to the church as outright persecution by enemies. For example: when Constantine, son of Constans, was emperor, some officious men attempted to prove from the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity that his two brothers, Tiberius and Heraclius, ought to reign alongside him, arguing that if we believe in the Trinity, we should crown three, which cost the chief of them his life by hanging. (Abbas Urspergensis, edited by Melanchthon, page 162.)
How many things does unguarded passion provoke well-meaning people to do that will afterward become their shame and sorrow.
Labor therefore for knowledge and soundness of understanding, so that you may distinguish truth from falsehood and good from evil, that you may walk with confidence while walking safely, and not bring shame upon your profession by furiously pursuing what you must afterward confess was an error, or by drawing others into what you would afterward wish you had never known yourselves. And yet see that all your knowledge bears its full effect upon your heart and life: receive every truth as an instrument God uses to reveal himself to you, to draw your heart toward him, and to conform you to his holy will.
Questions
What is Richard Baxter's A Christian Directory?+
A Christian Directory is Richard Baxter's manual of practical theology, published in 1673 after twenty years of being consulted as minister at Kidderminster. It is a book of cases of conscience rather than doctrine, written to tell whole families what to do in ordinary life.
What does Volume 1 of A Christian Directory cover?+
Volume 1 covers the opening of Baxter's first part, Christian Ethics, which treats private duties. It holds the Directions to unconverted sinners, the temptations that hinder conversion, twenty Directions for the young Christian, the seventeen Grand Directions, and remedies against the sins opposed to them.
How are the five volumes of A Christian Directory divided?+
The five volumes follow the four parts of Baxter's original. Volumes 1 and 2 carry Part 1, Christian Ethics, on private duties; Volume 3 carries Part 2, Christian Economics, on the household; Volumes 4 and 5 carry church and civil duties.
Where should a new reader of A Christian Directory start?+
Start with Volume 1, since Baxter built the work in a deliberate order and says the later particulars depend on the general Directions given here. A reader already settled in faith can begin at the Grand Directions.
What is the difference between the Directions and the Grand Directions?+
The Grand Directions are the seventeen general duties Baxter treats as the substance of the Christian life: faith, submission to God, warfare with temptation, love, thanksgiving, and the rest. The numbered Directions are the counsels arranged under them, each addressed to a particular case.
Is A Christian Directory a book of doctrine?+
No, A Christian Directory is a book of practice. Baxter says he had already written at length to persuade the unwilling, and that this work is for readers who say they are willing and want to know how.
Richard Baxter (1615 to 1691) was minister at Kidderminster and the most prolific English Puritan author. He wrote The Reformed Pastor and The Saints' Everlasting Rest, and was ejected from the Church of England under the Act of Uniformity in 1662.
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