A Christian Directory, Part 1: Christian Ethics

by Richard Baxter

For a well-grounded faith.

Grand Direct. I. Labour to understand well the nature, grounds, reason, and order of faith and godliness; and to believe upon such grounds, so well understood, as will not suffer you to stagger, or entertain a contrary belief.

Ignorance and ungrounded or ill-grounded persuasions in matters of religion, are the cause that abundance of people delude themselves, with the empty name and dead profession of a faith and religion which they never were indeed possessors of. I know there are low degrees of knowledge, comparatively, in many that are true believers; and that there may be much love and holiness, where knowledge is very small or narrow, as to the objective extent of it; and that there is a knowledge that puffeth up, while charity edifieth; and that in many that have the narrower knowledge, there may be the fastest faith and adherence to the truth, which will conquer in the time of trial. But yet I must tell you, that the religion which you profess, is not, indeed, your own religion, if you know not what it is, and know not in some measure the true grounds and reasons why you should be of that religion. If you have only learned to say your creed, or repeat the words of christian doctrine, while you do not truly understand the sense; or if you have no better reasons why you profess the christian faith, than the custom of the country, or the command of princes or governors, or the opinion of your teachers, or the example of your parents, friends, or neighbours; you are not christians indeed. You have a human belief or opinion, which objectively is true; but subjectively in yourselves, you have no true, divine belief. I confess, there may be some insufficient, yea, and erroneous reasons, which a true believer may mistakingly make use of, for the proof of certain fundamental truths; but then that same man hath some other reason for his reception of that truth, which is more sound: and his faith is sound, because of those sound, infallible principles, though there be a mixture of some other reasons that are unsound. The true believer buildeth on the rock, and giveth deep rooting to the holy seed, Matt. vii. 24; xiii. 5-8. Though some deluded men may tell you, that faith and reason are such enemies, that they exclude each other as to the same object; and that the less reason you have to prove the truth of the things believed, the stronger and more laudable is your faith; yet, when it cometh to the trial, you will find, that faith is no unreasonable thing; and that God requireth you to believe no more, than you have sufficient reason for, to warrant you, and bear you out; and that your faith can be no more, than is your perception of the reasons why you should believe; and that God doth suppose reason, when he infuseth faith, and useth reason in the use of faith. They that believe, and know not why, or know no sufficient reason to warrant their belief, do take a fancy, an opinion, or a dream, for faith. I know that many honest-hearted christians are unable to dispute for their religion, or to give to others a satisfactory account of the reasons of their faith or hope; but yet they have the true apprehension of some solid reasons in themselves; and they are not christians they know not why: and though their knowledge be small as to the number of propositions known, yet it doth always extend to all that is essential to Christianity and godliness, and they do not believe they know not what; and their knowledge is greater intensively, and in its value and operation, than the knowledge of the learnedst ungodly man in the world.

Though I may not here digress, or stay so long, as largely to open to you the nature, grounds, reason, and method of faith and godliness which I am persuading you to understand, yet I shall first lay before you a few propositions, which will be useful to you when you are inquiring into these things, and then a little open them unto you.

Prop. 1. A life of godliness is our living unto God as God, as being absolutely addicted to him.

2. A life of faith is a living upon the unseen, everlasting happiness as purchased for us by Christ, with all the necessaries thereto, and freely given us by God.

3. The contrary life of sense and unbelief, is a living, in the prevalency of sense or flesh, to this present world, for want of such believing apprehensions of a better, as should elevate the soul thereto, and conquer the fleshly inclination to things present.

4. Though man in innocency, needing no Redeemer, might live to God without faith in a Redeemer; yet lapsed man is not only unable to redeem himself, but also unable to live to God without the grace of the Redeemer. It was not only necessary that he satisfy God's justice for us, that he may pardon and save us without any wrong to his holiness, wisdom, or government; but also that he be our teacher by his doctrine and his life, and that he reveal from heaven the Father's will, and that objectively in him we may see the wonderful condescending love and goodness of a reconciled God and Father, and that effectually he illuminate, sanctify, and quicken us by the operations of his word and Spirit, and that he protect and govern, justify and glorify us; and be the Head of restored man, as Adam was the root of lapsed man, and as the lapsed spirits had their head: and therefore we must wholly live upon him as the Mediator between God and man, and the only Saviour by merit and by efficacy.

5. Faith is a knowledge by certain credible testimony or revelation from God by means supernatural or extraordinary.

6. The knowledge of things naturally revealed (as the cause by the effect, &c.) is in order before the knowledge or belief of things revealed supernaturally.