A Christian Directory, Part 1: Christian Ethics

by Richard Baxter

Tempt. I. The devil fitteth his temptations to the sinner's age. The same bait is not suitable to all. Children he tempteth to excess of playfulness, lying, disobedience, unwillingness to learn the things that belong to their salvation, and a senselessness of the great concernment of their souls. He tempteth youth to wantonness, rudeness, gulosity, unruliness, and foolish inconsiderateness. In the beginning of manhood he tempteth to lust, voluptuousness, and luxury; or if these take not, to designs of worldliness and ambition. The aged he tempteth to covetousness, and unmovableness in their error, and unteachableness and obstinacy in their ignorance and sin. Thus every age hath its peculiar snare.

Direct. I. The remedy against this is, 1. To be distinctly acquainted with the temptations of your own age; and watch against them with a special heedfulness and fear. 2. To know the special duties and advantages of your own age, and turn your thoughts wholly unto those. Scripture hath various precepts for the various ages; study your own part. The young have more time to learn their duty, and less care and business to divert them; let them therefore be taken up in obedient learning. The middle age hath most vigour of body and mind; and therefore should do their Master's work with the greatest vigour, activity, and zeal. The aged should have most judgment, and experience, and acquaintedness with death and heaven; and therefore should teach the younger, both by word and holy life.

Tempt. II. The tempter also fitteth his temptations to men's several bodily tempers, (as I showed, p. 93.) The hot and strong he tempteth to lust. The sad and fearful he tempteth to discouragement and continual self-vexations; and to the fear of men and devils. Those that have strong appetites, to gluttony and drunkenness. Children, and women, and weak-headed people, to pride of apparel and trifling compliment. And masculine, wicked unbelievers, to pride of honour, parts, and grandeur, and to an ambitious seeking of rule and greatness. The meek and gentle he tempteth to a yieldingness unto the persuasions and will of erroneous and tempting persons. And those that are more stiff, to a stubborn resistance of all that should do them good. He found it most suitable to tempt a Saul to malice; David by a surprise to lust; Absalom to ambition; Peter to fearfulness, and after to compliance and dissimulation, to avoid the offence and displeasure of the weak; Luther to rashness; Melancthon to fearfulness; Carolostadius to unsettledness; Illiricus to inordinate zeal; Osiander to self-esteem; (if historians have given them their due.) One shoe fitteth not every foot.

Direct. II. Let your strictest watch be upon the sins of your temperature. Far greater diligence and resolution is here necessary, than against other sins. And withdraw the fuel, and strive against the bodily distempers themselves. Fasting and labour will do much against lust, which idleness and fulness continually feed. And so the rest have their several cures. Know also what good your temper doth give you special advantage for; and let it be turned unto that, and still employed in it.

Tempt. III. The tempter suiteth his temptations to your estates, of poverty or riches. The poor he tempteth to murmur and be impatient under their wants, and distress themselves more with griefs and cares; and to think that their sufferings may save them without holiness, and that necessary labour for their bodies may excuse them from much minding the concernments of their souls; and either to censure and hate the rich through envy, or to flatter them for gain. The rich he tempteth to an idle, time-wasting, voluptuous, fleshly, brutish life; to excess in sleep, and meat, and drink, and sport, and apparel, and costly ways of pride, and idle discourse, and visits, and compliments; to love the wealth and honours of the world, and live in continual pleasing of the flesh, to fare deliciously every day, and to waste their time in unprofitableness, without a constant calling; and to be unmerciful to the poor, and to tyrannize over their inferiors; Prov. xxx. 8, 9; Luke xvi.

1 Tim. vi. 9.

Direct. III. Here also observe regardfully where your danger lieth, and there keep a continual watch. Let the poor remember, that if they be not rich in grace, it is long of themselves; and if they be, they have the chiefest riches, and have learnt in all estates to be content: and have great cause to be thankful to God that thus helpeth them against the love and pleasures of the world. Let the rich remember, that they have not less to do than the poor, because they have more committed to their trust; nor may they ever the more satisfy the inordinate desires of the flesh. But they have more to do, and more dangers to fear and watch against, as they have more of their Master's talents to employ, and give account for at the last.

Tempt. IV. The devil suiteth his temptations to men's daily work and business. If it be low, to be ashamed of it through pride; if it be high, to be proud of it; if it be hard, to be weary and unfaithful in it, or to make it take up all their minds and time; if it be about worldly things, he tempteth them to be tainted by it with a worldly mind; if they labour for themselves, he tempteth them to overdo; if for others, he tempteth them to deceitful, unfaithful negligence and sloth. If they are ministers, he tempteth them to be idle, and unfaithful, and senseless of the weight of truth, the worth of souls, the brevity of time, that so their sin may be the ruin or the loss of many. If rulers, the devil useth his utmost skill to cause them to espouse an interest contrary to the interest of truth and holiness; and to cast some quarrel against Christ into their minds, and to persuade them that his interest is against theirs, and that his servants are their enemies.

Direct. IV. See that your work be lawful, and that God have called you to it, and then take it as the service which he himself assigneth to you, and do it as in his sight, and as passing to his judgment, in obedience to his will: and mind not so much whether it be hard or easy, low or high, as whether you are faithful in it. And if it be sanctified to you, by your intending all to the pleasing of God, remember that he loveth and rewardeth that servant that stoopeth to the lowest work at his command, as much as him that is employed in the highest. Do all for God, and walk in holiness with him, and keep out selfishness, (the poison of your callings,) and observe the proper danger of your places, and keep a constant watch against them.

Tempt. V. The devil suiteth his temptations to our several relations. Parents he tempteth to be cold and regardless of the great work of a wise and holy education of their children. Children he tempteth to be disobedient, unthankful, void of natural affection, unreverent dishonourers of their parents. Husbands he tempteth to be unloving, unkind, impatient with the weaknesses of their wives; and wives to be peevish, self-willed, proud, clamorous, passionate, and disobedient. Masters he tempteth to use their servants only as their beasts, for their own commodity, without any care of their salvation and God's service; and servants he tempteth to be carnal, untrusty, false, slothful, eye-servants, that take more care to hide a fault, than not to commit it. Ministers and magistrates he tempteth to seek themselves, and neglect their charge, and set up their own ends instead of the common good; or to mistake the common good, or the means that tendeth to it. Subjects and people he tempteth to dishonour and murmur against their governors, and to censure them unjustly, and to disobey them, and rebel; or else to honour, and fear, and serve them more than God, and against God.