A Christian Directory, Part 2: Christian Economics

by Richard Baxter

Tempt. IV. Another perilous temptation is, By causing the thoughts of death and the grave, and your doubts and fears about the world to come, to overcome the love of God, and (not only the comforts, but also) the desires and willingness of your hearts, to be with Christ. It will abate your love to God and heaven, to think on them with too much estrangedness and terror. The directions under tit. 3. will help you against this temptation.

Tempt. V. Another dangerous temptation is fetched from the remnants of your worldly-mindedness; when your dignity, or honour, your house, or lands, your relations and friends, or your pleasures and contentments, are so sweet to you, that you are loth to leave them; and the thoughts of death are grievous to you, because it taketh you from that which you over-love; and God and heaven are the less desired, because you are loth to leave the world. Watch carefully against this great temptation; observe how it seeketh the very destruction of your grace and souls; and how it fighteth against your love to God and heaven, and would undo all that Christ and his Spirit have been doing so long. Observe what a root of matter it findeth in yourselves; and therefore be the more humbled under it. Learn now what the world is, and how little the accommodations of the flesh are worth, when you perceive what the end of all must be. Would you never die? would you enjoy your worldly things for ever? Had you rather have them, than to live with Christ in the heavenly glory of the New Jerusalem? If you had, it is your grievous sin and folly; and yet you know that it is a desire that you can never hope to attain. Die you must, whether you will or not! What is it, then, that you would stay for? Is it till the world be grown less pleasant to you, and your love and minds be weaned from it? When should that rather be than now? And what should more effectually do it, than this dying condition that you are in? It is time for you to spit out these unwholesome pleasures; and now to look up to the true, the holy, the unmeasurable, everlasting pleasures.

Tit. 2. Directions how to Profit by our Sickness.

Whether it shall please God to recover you or not, it is no small benefit which you may get by his visitation, if you do your part, and faithfully improve it, according to these directions following.

Direct. I. If you hear God's call to a closer trial of your hearts, concerning the sincerity of your conversion, and thereby are brought to a more exact examination, and come to a truer acquaintance with your state, (be it good or bad,) the benefit may be exceeding great. For if it be good, you may be much comforted, and confirmed, and fitted to give thanks and praise to God; and if it be bad, you may be awakened speedily to look about you, and seek for a recovery.

Direct. II. If in the review of your lives, you find out those sins which before you overlooked, or perceive the greatness of those sins which you before accounted small, the benefit may be very great; for it helps to a more deep and sound repentance, and to a stronger resolution against all sins, if you recover. And affliction is a very great help to us in this: many a man hath been ashamed and deeply humbled for that same sin, when sickness did awake him, which he could make his play-fellow before, as if there had been neither hurt nor danger in it.

Direct. III. There is many a deep corruption in the heart, which affliction openeth and discovereth, which deceitfulness hid in the time of prosperity; and the detecting of these is no small benefit to the soul. When you come to part with wealth and honour, you shall better know how much you loved them, than you could before. Mark therefore what corruptions appear in your affliction, and how the heart discloseth its deceits, that you may know what to repent of, and reform.

Direct. IV. When affliction calleth you to the use and exercise of your graces, you have a great help to be better acquainted with the strength or weakness of them. When you are called so loudly to the use of faith, and love, and patience, and heavenly-mindedness, you may better know what measure of every one of these you have, than you could when you had no such help. Mark therefore what your hearts prove in the trial, and what each grace doth show itself to be in the exercise.

Direct. V. You have a very great help now to be thoroughly acquainted with the vanity of the world, and so to mortify all affections unto the things below. Now judge of the value of wealth, and honour, of plenty, and high places. Are they a comfort to a dying man that is parting with them? Or is it any grief to a poor man when he is dying, that he did not enjoy them? Is it not easy now to rectify your errors, if ever you thought highly of these transitory things? O settle it now in your firm resolution, that if God should restore you, you would value this world at a lower rate, and set by it, and seek it, but as it deserveth.

Direct. VI. Also you have now a special help to raise your estimation of the happiness of the saints in heaven, and of the necessity and excellency of a holy life, and of the wisdom of the saints on earth; and to know who maketh the wisest choice.[127] Now you may see that it is nothing but heaven that is worth our seeking, and that is finally to be trusted to, and will not fail us in the hour of our distress; now you may discern between the righteous and the wicked; between those that serve God and those that serve him not, Mal. iii. 17, 18. Now judge whether a loose and worldly life, or a holy, heavenly life be better? And resolve accordingly.