A Christian Directory, Part 1: Christian Ethics

by Richard Baxter

4. You are like to have but ill success in your studies, when the devil is your master, who hateth both you, and the holy things which you are studying. He will blind you, and pervert you, and possess your minds with false conceits, and put diverting, sensual thoughts into you, and will keep your own souls from being ever the better for it all.

5. You will want the true end of all right studies, and set up wrong ends; and therefore whatever be the matter of your studies, you are still out of your way, and know nothing rightly, because you know it not as a means to the true end. (But of this anon.)

Direct. II. When you have first laid this foundation, and have the true principle and end of all right studies, be sure that you intend this end in all, even the everlasting sight and love of God, and the promoting his glory, and pleasing his holy will; and that you never meddle with any studies separated from this end, but as means thereto, and as animated thereby.

If every step in your journey is but loss of time and labour, which is not directed to your journey's end; and if all that you have to mind or do in the world, be only about your end or the means; and all creatures and actions can have no other moral goodness, than to be the means of God your ultimate end; then you may easily see, that whenever you leave out God as the end of any of your studies, you are but sinning, or doting; for in those studies there can be no moral good, though they may tend to your knowledge of natural good and evil. And when you think you grow wise and learned men, and can dispute and talk of many things, which make to your renown, while your "wills consent not to the wholesome words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the doctrine which is according to godliness; you are proud, knowing nothing, but doting about questions and strifes of words, whereof cometh envy, strife, railing, evil surmisings, perverse disputings of men of corrupt minds, supposing that gain is godliness: from such turn away," 1 Tim. vi. 3-6. As there is no knowledge but from God, so it is not knowledge but dotage if it lead not unto God.

Direct. III. See therefore that you choose all your studies according to their tendency to God your end, and use them still under the notion of means, and that you estimate your knowledge by this end, and judge yourselves to know no more indeed, than you know of God and for God: and so let practical divinity be the soul of all your studies.

Therefore, when life is too short for the studies of all things which we desire to know, make sure of the chief things, and prefer those studies which make most to your end; spend not your time on things unprofitable to this end; spend not your first and chiefest time on things unnecessary to it; for the near connexion to God the end, is it that ennobleth the matter of your studies. All true knowledge leads to God; but not all alike: the nearest to him is the best.[317]

Direct. IV. Remember that the chief part of your growth in knowledge, is not in knowing many smaller things, of no necessity; but in a growing downwards in a clearer insight into the foundation of the christian faith, and in taking better rooting than you had at your first believing; and in growing upward into a greater knowledge of God, and into a greater love of him, and heavenly-mindedness, and then in growing up to greater skill, and ability, and readiness to do him service in the world.

Know as much as you can know of the works of God, and of the languages and customs of the world; but still remember, that to know God in Christ better, is the growth which you must daily study: and when you know them most, you have still much more need to know better these great things which you know already, than to know more things which you never knew. The roots of faith may still increase, and the branches and fruits of love may be still greater and sweeter! As long as you live, you may still know better the reasons of your religion, (though not better reasons,) and you may know better how to use your knowledge. And whatever you know, let it be that you may be led up to know God more, or love him more, or serve him better.

Direct. V. With fear and detestation watch and resolve against all carnal, worldly ends; and see that your hearts be not captivated by your fleshly interest; nor grow to a high esteem of the pleasures, or profits, or honours of this world, nor to relish any fleshly accommodations, as very pleasant and desirable: but that you take up with God and the hopes of glory as your satisfying portion, and follow Christ as cross-bearers, denying yourselves, and dead to the world, and resolved and prepared to forsake all for his sake.

These are words that you can easily say yourselves; but these are things that are so hardly learned, that many of the most learned and reverend perish for want of being better acquainted with them (and I shall never take that man to be wisely learned, that hath not learned to escape damnation). Christ's cross is to be learned before your alphabet. To impose the cross is quickly learned, but to learn to bear it is the difficulty. To lay the cross on others is to be the followers of Pilate; but to bear it when it is laid on us, is to be the followers of Christ. If you grow corrupted with a love of honour, and riches, and preferment, and come to the study of divinity with a fleshly, worldly mind and end, you will but serve Satan while you seem to be seeking after God, and damn your souls among the doctrines and means of salvation, and go to God for materials to chain you faster to the devil, and steal a nail from divinity to fasten your ears unto his door. And you little know how Judas's gain will gripe and torment the awakened conscience! and how the rust will witness against you, and how it will eat your flesh as fire, James v. 3.