A Christian Directory, Part 4: Christian Politics

Transcriber's Note:
The text of Part IV of A Christian Directory has been transcribed from pages 737 to 948 of Volume I of Richard Baxter's Practical Works, as lithographed from the 1846 edition.
The greater part comprises 34 chapters that mostly address duties to rulers and to neighbours. These are followed by a Moral Prognostication on the future of the churches, and by a Reformed Liturgy that Baxter proposed. A table of contents has been inserted to assist the reader.
In the Liturgy all sub-headings, commentary and instructions to the Minister have been italicised and indented. The Liturgy includes a large number of sidenotes citing relevant biblical passages. In the interests of legibility these have been consolidated into footnotes at the end of each paragraph.
Inconsistencies in hyphenation, and apparent typographical errors, have been corrected. The anchors for footnotes 5 and 8, in chapter I, have been inserted after consulting another edition of the text.

Think not by the title of this part, that I am doing the same work which I lately revoked in my Political Aphorisms; though I concluded that book to be quasi non scriptum , I told you I recanted not the doctrine of it, which is for the empire of God, and the interest of government, order, and honesty in the world. This is no place to give you the reasons of my revocation, besides that it offended my superiors, and exercised the tongues of some in places, where other matters would be more profitable: pass by all that concerneth our particular states and times, and you may know by that what principles of policy I judge divine. And experience teacheth me, that it is best for men of my profession, to meddle with no more, but to leave it to the Contzeu's, the Arnisæus's, and other Jesuits, to promote their cause by voluminous politics. The pope's false-named church is a kingdom, and his ministers may write of politics more congruously, and (it seems) with less offence, than we. Saith the Geographia Nubiensis aptly, There is a certain king dwelling at Rome called the pope, &c. when he goeth to describe him. Nothing well suits with our function, but the pure doctrine of salvation; let statesmen and lawyers mind the rest.