A Christian Directory, Part 1: Christian Ethics

by Richard Baxter

Tit. 1. Directions against Evil and Idle Thoughts.

Direct. I. Know which are evil thoughts, and retain such an odious character of them continually on your minds, as may provoke you still to meet them with abhorrence. Evil thoughts are such as these: All thoughts against the being, or attributes, or relations, or honour, or works of God: atheistical and blasphemous, idolatrous and unbelieving thoughts: all thoughts that tend to disobedience or opposition to the will or word of God; and all that savour of unthankfulness, or want of love to God; or of discontent and distrust, or want of the fear of God, or that tend to any of these: also sinful, selfish, covetous, proud studies; to make a mere trade of the ministry for gain; to be able to overtalk others; searching into unrevealed, forbidden things; inordinate curiosity, and hasty conceitedness of your own opinions about God's decrees, or obscure prophecies, prodigies, providence, mentioned before about pride of our understandings.

All thoughts against any particular word, or truth, or precept of God, or against any particular duty; against any part of the worship and ordinances of God; that tend to unreverent neglect of the name, or holy day of God: all impious thoughts against public duty, or family duty, or secret duty; and all that would hinder or mar any one duty: all thoughts of dishonour, contempt, neglect, or disobedience to the authority of higher powers set over us by God, either magistrates, pastors, parents, masters, or any other superiors. All thoughts of pride, self-exalting ambition, self-seeking covetousness: voluptuous, sensual thoughts, proceeding from or tending to the corrupt, inordinate pleasures of the flesh: thoughts which are unjust, and tend to the hurt and wrong of others: envious, malicious, reproachful, injurious, contemptuous, wrathful, revengeful thoughts: lustful, wanton, filthy thoughts: drunken, gluttonous, fleshly thoughts: inordinate, careful, fearful, anxious, vexatious, discomposing thoughts: presumptuous, and secure, despairing, and dejecting thoughts: slothful, delaying, negligent, and discouraging thoughts: uncharitable, cruel, false, censorious, unmerciful thoughts; and idle, unprofitable thoughts. Hate all these as the devil's spawn.

Direct. II. Be not insensible what a great deal of duty or sin are in the thoughts, and of how dangerous a signification and consequence a course of evil thoughts is to your souls. They show what a man is, as much as his words or actions do: "For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he," Prov. xxiii. 7. A good man or evil is denominated by the good or evil treasure of the heart, though known to men but by the fruits. Oh the vile and numerous sins that are committed in men's thoughts, and proceed from men's thoughts! O the precious time that is lost, in idle, and other sinful thoughts! Oh the good that is hindered hereby both in heart and life! But of this having spoken in the treatise afore-mentioned, I proceed.

Direct. III. Above all be sure that you cleanse the fountain, and destroy those sinful inclinations of the heart, from which your evil thoughts proceed. In vain else will you strive to stop the streams: or if you should stop them, that very heart itself will be loathsome in the eyes of God. Are your thoughts all upon the world, either coveting, or caring, or grieving for what you want, or pleasing yourselves with what you have or hope for? Get down your deceived estimation of the world; cast it under your feet, and out of your heart; and count all, with Paul, but as loss and dung, for the excellent knowledge of God in Christ: for till the world be dead in you, your worldly thoughts will not be dead; but all will stand still when once this poise is taken off: crucify it, and this breath and pulse will cease. So if your thoughts do run upon matter of preferment, or honour, disgrace, or contempt, or if you are pleased with your own pre-eminence or applause; mortify your pride, and beg of God a humble, self-denying, contrite heart. For till pride be dead, you will never be quiet for it; but it will stir up swarms of self-exalting and yet self-vexing thoughts, which make you hateful in the eyes of God. So if your thoughts be running out upon your back and belly, what you shall eat or drink, or how to please your appetite or sense; mortify the flesh, and subdue its desires, and master your appetite, and bring them into full obedience unto reason, and get a habit of temperance; or else your thoughts will be still upon your guts and throats: for they will obey the ruling power; and a violent passion and desire doth so powerfully move them, that it is hard for the reason and will to rule them. So if your thoughts are wanton and filthy, you must cleanse that unclean and lustful heart, and get Christ to cast out the unclean spirit, and become chaste within, before you will keep out your unchaste cogitations. So if you have confusion and vanity in your thoughts, you must get a well furnished and well composed mind and heart, before you will well cure the malady of your thoughts.

Direct. IV. Keep at a sufficient distance from those tempting objects, which are the fuel and incentives of your evil thoughts. Can you expect that the drunkard should rule his thoughts, whilst he is in the alehouse or tavern, and seeth the drink? or that the glutton should rule his thoughts, while the pleasing dish is in his sight? or that the lustful person should keep chaste his thoughts, in the presence of his enamouring toy? or that the wrathful person rule his thoughts, among contentious, passionate words? or that the proud person rule his thoughts, in the midst of honour and applause? Away with this fuel, fly from this infectious air, if you would be safe.

Direct. V. At least make a covenant with your senses, and keep them in obedience, if you will have obedient thoughts. For all know by experience how potently the senses move the thoughts. Job saith, "I made a covenant with my eyes, why then should I think upon a maid." Mark how the covenant with his eyes is made the means to rule his thoughts. Pray with David, "Turn away my eyes from beholding vanity," Psal. cxix. 37. Keep a guard upon your eyes, and ears, and taste, and touch, if you will keep a guard upon your thoughts. Let not that come into these outer parts, which you desire should go no further. Open not the door to them, if you would not let them in.

Direct. VI. Remember how near kin the thought is to the deed; and what a tendency it hath to it. Let Christ himself tell you, Matt. v. 22, 28, "But I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment. I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her, hath committed adultery with her already in his heart." A malicious thought and a malicious deed are from the same spring, and have the same nature: only the deed is the riper serpent, and can sting another; when the thought is as the younger serpent, that hath only the venomous nature in itself. A lustful thought is from the same defiled puddle, as actual filthiness: and the thought is but the passage to the action: it is but the same sin in its minority, tending to maturity.

Direct. VII. Keep out, or quickly cast out, all inordinate passions: for passions do violently press the thoughts, and forcibly carry them away. If anger, or grief, or fear, or any carnal love, or joy, or pleasure be admitted, they will command your thoughts to run out upon their several objects. And when you rebuke your thoughts, and call them in, they will not hear you, till you get them out of the crowd and noise of passion. As in the heat of civil wars no government is well exercised in a kingdom; and as violent storms disable the mariners to govern the ship, and save it and themselves; so passions are too stormy a region for the thoughts to be well governed in. Till your souls be reduced to a calm condition, your thoughts will be tumultuating, and hurried that way that the tempests drive them. Till these wars be ended, your thoughts will be licentious, and partakers in the rebellion.

Direct. VIII. Keep your souls in a constant and careful obedience unto God. Observe his law; be continually sensible that you are under his government, and awed by his authority. Man judgeth not your thoughts: if you are subject to man only, your thoughts must be ungoverned: but the heart is the first object of God's government, and that which he principally regardeth. His laws extend to all your thoughts; and therefore if you know what obedience to God is, you must know what the obedience of your thoughts to him is; for he that obeyeth God as God, will obey him in one thing as well as another, and will obey him as the governor and judge of thoughts. The powerful, searching word of Christ is a "discerner of the thoughts and intentions of the heart, and as a two-edged sword is sharp and quick," and will "pierce" and "cut" as deep as the very "soul and spirit," Heb. iv. 12, 13. "It casteth down every imagination, and bringeth into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ," 2 Cor. x. 5. Therefore David saith to God, "Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me, and know my thoughts; and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting," Psal. cxxxix. 23, 24. And you find God's laws and reproofs extending to the thoughts: Isa. lix. 7, "Their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity." The fool's heart-atheism is rebuked, Psal. xiv. 1. He reproveth a rebellious people, for "walking in a way that is not good, after their own thoughts," Isa. lxv. 2. See how Christ openeth the heart, Matt. xv. 9. He chargeth them, Deut. xv. 9, "to beware that there be not a thought in their wicked hearts," against the mercy which they must show to the poor. Psal. xlix. 11, he detecteth the "inward thought" of the worldling, that "their houses shall continue for ever." Prov. xxiv. 9, he saith, "The thought of foolishness is sin." The old world was condemned because the "imaginations of their hearts were only evil continually," Gen. vi. 5. And when God calleth a sinner to conversion, he saith, "Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him," Isa. lv. 6, 7. You see then if you are subject to God, your thoughts must be obedient.