A Christian Directory, Part 1: Christian Ethics

by Richard Baxter

Answ. It is your sin, that you take a falsehood to be a truth. God hath appointed means for the cure of blindness and error, as well as other sins; or else the world were in a miserable case. Come into the light, with due self-suspicion, and impartiality, and diligently use all God's means, and avoid the causes of deceit and error, and the light of truth will at once show you the truth, and show you that before you erred. In the mean time sin will be sin, though you take it to be duty, or no sin.

Quest. VII. But seeing he that knoweth his master's will and doth it not, shall be beaten with many stripes; and he that knoweth it not, with few; is it not my duty chiefly to avoid the many stripes, by avoiding sinning against my conscience or knowledge?

Answ. 1. Your duty is to avoid both; and if both were not sinful, they would not both be punished with stripes. 2. Your conscience is not your knowledge when you err, but your ignorance. Conscience, as it signifieth the faculty of knowing, may be said to be conscience when it erreth; as reason is reason, in the faculty, when we err. And conscience, as to an erring act, may be called conscience, so far as there is any true knowledge in the act: as a man is said to see, when he misjudgeth of colours, or to reason, when he argueth amiss. But, so far as it erreth, it is no conscience in act at all; for conscience is science, and not nescience. You sin against your knowledge when you sin against a well-informed conscience, but you sin in ignorance when you sin against an erring conscience. 3. And if the question be not, what is your duty, but, which is the smaller sin, then it is true, that, cæteris paribus, it is a greater sin to go against your judgment, than to follow it. But yet, other imparities in matter and circumstances may be an exception against this rule.

Quest. VIII. But it is not possible for every man presently to know all his duty, and to avoid all error about his duty. Knowledge must be got in time. All men are ignorant in many things: should I not then in the mean time follow my conscience?

Answ. 1. Your ignorance is culpable, or not culpable. If it be not culpable, the thing which you are ignorant of is not your duty. If culpable, (which is the case supposed,) as you brought yourself to that difficulty of knowing, so it will remain your sin till it be cured; and one sin will not warrant another. And all that time you are under a double command; the one is, to know, and use the means of knowledge; and the other is, to do the thing commanded. So that how long soever you remain in error you remain in sin, and are not under an obligation to follow your error, but first to know, and then to do the contrary duty. 2. And as long as you keep yourselves in a necessity, or way of sinning, you must call it sin as it is, and not call it duty. It is not your duty to choose a lesser sin before a greater; but to refuse and avoid both the lesser and the greater. And if you say you cannot, yet, remember, that it is only your sin that is your impotency, or your impotency is sinful. But it is true, that you are most obliged to avoid the greatest sin: therefore, all that remaineth in the resolving of all such cases, is but to know, of two sins, which is the greatest.

Quest. IX. What if there be a great duty, which I cannot perform without committing a little sin? or, a very great good, which I cannot do but by an unlawful means; as, to save the lives of many by a lie?

Answ. 1. It is no duty to you, when you cannot do it without wilful sin, be it never so little. Deliberately to choose a sin, that I may perform some service to God, or do some good to others, is to run before we are called, and to make work for ourselves which God never made for us; and to offer sin for a sacrifice to God; and to do evil that good may come of it; and abuse God, and reject his government, under pretence of serving him. "The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the Lord: how much more, when he bringeth it with a wicked mind?" Prov. xxi. 27; xv. 8. "He that turneth away his ear from hearing the law, even his prayer shall be abomination," Prov. xxviii. 9. "Be more ready to hear, than to offer the sacrifice of fools: for they consider not that they do evil," Eccles. v. 1. 2. If you will do good by sinning, you must do good in opposition to God: and how easily can he disappoint you, and turn it into evil! It is not good indeed, which must be accomplished by sin. The final good is never promoted by it; and all other good is to be estimated by its tendency to the end. You think that good which is not so, because you judge by the present feeling of your flesh, and do not foresee how it stands related to the everlasting good.

Quest. X. Seeing then that I am sure beforehand that I cannot preach, or hear, or pray, or do any good action without sin, must I not, by this rule, forbear them all?

Answ. No; because your infirmities in the performance of your duty, which you would avoid and cannot, are not made the condition of your action, but are the diseases of it. They are not chosen and approved of. The duty is your duty notwithstanding your infirmities, and may be accepted of; for you cannot serve God in perfection till you are perfect; and to cast away his service is a far greater sin, than to do it imperfectly. But you may serve him without such wilful, chosen sin, if not in one way, yet in another. The imperfection of your service is repented of while it is committed; but so is not your approved, chosen sin. For a man to make a bargain against God, that he will commit a sin against him, though the action be the same which he hath often done before in pardonable weakness; this is to turn it to a presumptuous, heinous sin. If he do it for worldly gain or safety, he selleth his obedience to God for trifles. If he do it to serve God by, he blasphemeth God; declaring him to be evil, and a lover of sin, or so impotent as not to be able to do good, or attain his ends by lawful means. It is most dangerous to give it under our hands to the devil, that we will sin, on what pretence soever.

Quest. XI. What if I am certain that the duty is great, and uncertain whether the thing annexed to it be a sin or not? Must I forbear a certain duty for an uncertain sin? or forbear doing a great and certain good, for fear of a small, uncertain evil?