Spiritual Direction # 3. If you truly want to know what Christian life is, study the Word of God, believe what it says, and believe also the testimony of those who have tried it. Do not listen to the slanders of the evil one and the words of natural man who do not know the thing they reproach.
Nothing more familiar with wicked men, than to slander and reproach the holy ways and servants of the Lord. No wisdom, no measure of holiness or righteousness will exempt the godly from their malice; otherwise, Christ himself at least would have been exempted, if not his apostles and other saints, whom they have slandered and put to death. Christ has foretold us what to expect from them. "If the world hate you, you know that it hated me before it hated you. If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. Remember the word that I said unto you. The servant is not greater than the Lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept my sayings, they will keep yours also.
I conclude, then, that if you wilt never turn to God and a holy life until wicked men give up lying, and reproaching them, you may as well say that you will never be reconciled to God, until the devil be first reconciled to him; and never love Christ, until the devil love him; or never be a saint, until the devil be a saint; and that you will not be saved, until the devil be willing that you be saved.
Source: Baxter, R. (1830). The Practical Works of the Rev. Richard Baxter Volume 2: Christian Directory Part 1 - Christian Ethics. London: Printed by Mills, Jowett, and Mills.
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