Listen to Christian Testimony

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.

Understand the Two States of Man

Spiritual Direction # 2. Do your best to understand the two states of man, under sin and saving grace.

It is very true that all are sinners: but it is as true, that some are in a state of sin, and some in a state of grace: some are converted sinners, and some unconverted sinners.

He that is in a state of sin has habitually and predominantly a greater love to some pleasures, or profits, or honors of this world, than he has to God and to the glory which he has promised; he prefers, seeks, and holds (if he can) his material prosperity in this world, before the favor of God and the happiness of the world to come. His heart is turned from God unto the creature, and is principally set on things on earth.

On the other side, a state of holiness, is nothing else but the habitual and predominant devotion and dedication of soul, and body, and life, and all that we have to God: an esteeming, loving, serving, and seeking him before all the pleasures and prosperity of the flesh: making his favor, and everlasting happiness in heaven our end, and Jesus Christ our way, and referring all things in the world unto that end, and making this the scope, design, and business of our lives. It is a turning from a deceitful world to God; and preferring the Creator before the creature, and heaven before earth, and eternity before time, and our souls before our bodies, and the authority and laws of God, the universal Governor of the world, before the word or will of any man, how great soever.

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.

Understand the Word of God in Matters of Salvation

Spiritual Direction # 1. If you truly want to become a child of God and be sanctified, do not remain in a state of ignorance, but do your best to come into the light by understanding the Word of God in matters of salvation. 

Knowledge is to be valued according to its usefulness. If it be a matter of great concern to know how to do your worldly business, and to trade and gather worldly wealth, and to understand the laws, and to maintain your honor, than to know how to be reconciled unto God, to be pardoned and justified, to please your Creator, to prepare in time for death and judgment, and an endless life, then let worldly wisdom have the pre-eminence. But if all earthly things be dreams and shadows, and valuable only as they serve us in the way to heaven, then surely the heavenly wisdom is the best. 

It is a fact that a man can be well-acquainted with the details of the law, excellent in the knowledge of all the languages, sciences, and arts, and yet does not know how to live for God, to mortify the flesh, to conquer sin, to deny himself, nor to prepare for judgment. Such learned man is far from being wise, as he is from being happy.

Generally, there are two kinds of people who do not know the life under grace:

First, people who are not book-learned; and because their parents neglected to teach them when they were young, therefore they may neglect themselves ever after, and need not learn the things they were made for.

Second, sensual gentlemen and scholars that have so much breeding as to understand the words, and speak better than the ordinary men, but they never knew the nature, truth, and goodness of the things they speak of. They are many of them as ignorant of the nature of faith, and sanctification, and the working of the Holy Ghost in planting the image of God upon the soul, and of the saint's communion with God, and the nature of a holy life. Nicodemus is a lively instance in this case: a ruler in Israel, and a Pharisee, and yet he knew not what it was to be born again.

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.

Introducing Spiritual Directions

This lesson on Spiritual Directions is taken from Chapter 1 Part 1 of Richard Baxter's The Practical Works Volume 2, which is about self-government or Christian ethics. This lesson contains spiritual directions for natural man in order to obtain saving grace (pages 1-61). The assumptions concerning the condition of the recipient of spiritual directions were mentioned in the early part of the chapter. 

As for the present writer, the biblical education of my children is my personal reason in rewriting these directions. However, I am confronted with a difficulty in accomplishing this task. How can I make the lesson comprehensible to average readers without sacrificing the original intention? My goal is to simplify the material and at the same remaining faithful to the text the best I can. To achieve this, I intentionally dropped words and phrases and replaced difficult words with simple ones. I even dropped sentences and paragraphs that I consider no longer appropriate.

This project is just a beginning. As the Lord allows, I intend to add more lessons to meet the spiritual needs of my children, and I am grateful to Richard Baxter the way he arranged his material, which I consider logically arranged in relation to two states of man: under sin and under saving grace. 

In dealing with the two states of man, the whole book is divided into four chapters. Chapter 1 has two parts, 20 spiritual directions and the temptations common to those under the state of sin. Chapter 2 contains another 20 spiritual directions for the strengthening and growth of those who are weak in faith. Chapter 3 talks about 17 spiritual directions related to the essentials of Christian life. And finally Chapter 4 is separated into four parts, each part deals with one of the four great sins most hostile to Christian life. These are unbelief, hardness of heart, hypocrisy, and man-pleasing. 

Before proceeding to the spiritual directions proper, let us first read two important quotations that speak about natural man's excuses and the kind of attitude required for those who want to benefit from these directions: 

"But so great is the blindness and obstinacy of men, that the greatest part refuse consent: being deceived by the pleasures, and profits, and honors of this present world; and make their pretended necessities or business the matter of their excuses, and the unreasonable reasons of their refusal, negligence and delays, till death surprise them, and the door is shut ; and they knock, and cry for mercy and admittance, when it is too late" (p. 2).

"A student is not offended that he hath many books in his library; nor a tradesman that he hath store of tools; nor the rich at the number of his farms or flocks. Believe it, reader, if thou bring not a malignant quarrelsome mind, thou wilt find that God hath not burdened, but blessed thee with his holy precepts, and that he hath not appointed thee one unnecessary or unprofitable duty; but only such as tend to thy content, and joy, and happiness" (p. 4).

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.

Self-Government

"Like a city whose walls are broken down is a man who lacks self-control" (Proverbs 25:28).

Most people know only one type of government: civil government. They ignore the three more important types of governments: self, home, and church. Self-government is basic. Without this, the family, the basic unit of society collapses. Both with unruly individuals and dysfunctional families, the church, civil government, and the larger society are in crisis. In order to arrest this chaotic situation, civil government has an excuse to exercise tyranny.

Tyranny is one of God's ways in punishing human rebellion. In times of economic crisis and social unrest, if people refuse to return to God in humility and repentance and persist instead in rebellion, people will suffer punishment under the power of the sword.

Self-government is our priority. To achieve this, one must first understand the two states of man: under sin and under saving grace. 

Assumptions before Giving Spiritual Directions to Natural Man

I tell you therefore, reader, what it is that I presuppose in you, and expect from you, and I think you will not judge me unreasonable in my suppositions and expectations.

1. I suppose you to be a man, and therefore that you have reason and natural free-will (that is, the natural faculty of choosing and refusing), which should keep your sensitive appetite in obedience; and that you are capable of loving and serving your Creator, and enjoying him in everlasting life.

2. I suppose that you know yourself to be a man; and therefore that your sensitive part, or flesh, should no more rule you, or be ungoverned by you, than the horse should nile the rider, or be unruled by him: and that you understandest that you are made on purpose to love and serve your Maker, and to be happy in his love and glory for ever. If you know not this much, you know not that you are a man, or else knows not what a man is.

3. I suppose you have a natural self-love, and a desire of your own preservation and happiness; and that you have no desire to be miserable, or to be hated of God, or to be cast out of his favor and presence into hell, and there to be tormented with devils everlastingly: yea, I will suppose that you are not indifferent whether you dwell in heaven or hell, in joy or torment; but would fain be saved and be happy; whether you be godly or ungodly, wise or foolish, I will be bold to take all this for granted: and I hope in all this I do not wrong you.

4. I suppose you to be one that knows that you did not make yourself; nor give yourself that power or wisdom which you have; and that he that made you and all the world, . . . .; and that he is eternal, having no beginning (for if ever there had been a time when there was nothing, there never would have been any thing; because nothing can make nothing); and I suppose you do confess that all the power, and wisdom, and goodness of the whole creation set together, is less than the power, and wisdom, and goodness of the Creator; because nothing can give more than it has to give. I suppose, therefore, that you do confess that there is a God; for to be the eternal, infinite Being, and the most powerful, wise, and good, and the first cause of all created being, and power, and wisdom, and goodness, this (with the subsequent relations to the creature) is to be GOD. If you will deny that there is a God, you must deny that you are a man, and that there is any man, or any beings.

5. I suppose you know that God, who gave a being unto all things, is by this title of creation, the absolute Owner or Lord of all: and that he that made the reasonable creatures, with natures to be governed, in order to a further end, is by that title, their supreme Governor; and therefore has his laws commanding duty, and promising reward, and threatening punishment; and therefore will judge men according to these laws, and will be just in judgment, and in his rewards and punishments. And that he that freely gave the creature its being, and all the good it has, and must give it all that ever it shall have, is the Father or most bountiful Benefactor to his creatures. Surely I screw thee not too high in supposing you to know all this; for all this is no more than that there is a God. For he is not God, if he be not the creator, and therefore our owner, our ruler, and benefactor, our absolute Lord, our most righteous governor, and our most loving father, or benefactor.

6. I suppose therefore that you are convinced, that God must be absolutely submitted to, and obeyed before all others in the world, and loved above all friends, or pleasures, or creatures whatsoever. For to say, 'He is my Owner,' is to say, 'I must yield myself to him as his own:' to say, 'I take him for my supreme Governor,' is to say, that 'I will absolutely be ruled by him:' and to say, 'I take him as my dearest Father or chief Benefactor/ is to say, that 'I am obliged to give him my dearest love, and highest thanks:' otherwise you do but jest, or say you know not what, or contradict yourselves, while you say, 'He is your God.'

7. I suppose that you are easily convinced, that in all the world there is no creature that can show so full a title to you as God; or that has so great authority to govern you, or that can be so good to you, or do so much for you, as God can do, or has done, and will do, if you do your part; and therefore that there is nothing to be preferred before him, or compared with him in our obedience or love.

8. I suppose that as you know God is just, in his laws and judgments, so that he is so faithful that he will not, and so all-sufficient, that he need not deceive mankind, and govern them by mere deceit: this better beseems the devil, than God: and therefore that as he governs man on earth by the hopes and fears of another life, he does not delude them into such hopes or fears: and as he does not procure obedience by any rewards or punishments in this life, as the principal means (the wicked prospering, and the best being persecuted and afflicted here), therefore his rewards or punishments, must needs be principally hereafter in the life to come. For if he has no rewards and punishments, he has no judgment; and if he has no judgment, he has no laws (or else no justice); and if he has no laws (or no justice), he is no governor of man (or not a righteous, governor) ; and if he be not our governor (and just), he is not our God; and if he were not our God, we had never been his creatures, nor had a being, or been men.

9. I suppose you know that if God had not discovered what he would do with us, in the life to come, yet man is highliest bound to obey and love his Maker, because he is our absolute Lord, our highest ruler, and our chief benefactor; and all that we are or have is from him. And that if man be bound to spend his life in the service of his God, it is certain that he shall be no loser by him, no not by the costliest obedience that we can perform; for God cannot appoint us any thing that is vain; nor can he be worse to us than an honest man, that will see that we lose not by his service. Therefore that God for whom we must spend and forsake this life, and all those pleasures which sensualists enjoy, hath certainly some greater thing to give us, in another life.

10. I may take it for granted at the worst, that neither yourself, nor any infidel in the world, can say that you are sure that there is not another life for man, in which his present obedience shall be rewarded, and disobedience punished. The worst that ever infidel could say was, that he thinks that there is no other life. None of you dare deny the possibility of it, nor can with any reason deny the probability. Well, then, let this be remembered while we proceed a little further with you.

11. I suppose or expect that you have so much use of sense and reason, as to know the brevity and vanity of all the glory and pleasures of the flesh; and that they are all so quickly gone, that were they greater than they are, they can be of no considerable value. Alas, what is time! How quickly gone, and then it is nothing! and all things then are nothing which are passed with it. So that the joys or sorrows of so short a life, are no great matter of gain or loss.

12. Well, then; we have got thus far in the clearest light. You see that a religious, holy life, is every man's duty, not only as they owe it to God as their creator, their owner, governor, and benefactor; but also, because as lovers of ourselves, our reason commands us to have ten thousandfold more regard of a probable or possible joy and torment which are endless, than of any that is small and of short continuance. And if this be so, that a holy life is every man's duty, with respect to the life that is to come, then it is most evident, that there is such a life to come in.

13. And seeing I suppose you to be convinced of the life to come, and that man's happiness and misery is there, I must suppose that you do confess, that all things in this life, whether prosperity or adversity, honour or dishonour, are to be esteemed and used as they refer to the life to come. For nothing is more plain, than that the means are to have all their esteem and use in order to their end. That only is good in this life, which tends to the happiness of our endless life; and that is evil indeed in this life, that tends to our endless hurt, and to deprive us of the everlasting good.

14. I may suppose, if you have reason, that you will confess that God cannot be too much loved, nor obeyed too exactly, nor served too diligently (especially by such backward sinners, that have scarce any mind to love or worship him at all); and that no man can make too sure of heaven, or pay too dear for it, or do too much for his salvation, if it be but that which God hath appointed him to do. And that you have nothing else that is so much worth your time, and love, and care, and labour. And therefore though you have need to be stopped in your love, and care, and labor for the world, because for it you may easily pay too dear, and do too much; yet there is no need of stopping men in their love, and care, and labor for God and their salvation; which is worth more than ever we can do, and where the best are apt to do too little.

15. I also suppose you to be one that know, that this present life is given us on trial, to prepare for the life that shall come after; and that as men live here, they shall speed for ever; and that time cannot be recalled, when it is gone; and therefore that we should make the best of it while we have it.

16. I suppose you also to be easily convinced, that seeing man has his reason and life for matters of everlasting consequence, his thoughts of them should be frequent and very serious, and his reason should be used about these things, by retired, sober deliberation.

17. And I suppose you to be a man, and therefore so far acquainted with yourself, as that you may know, if you will, whether your heart and life do answer thy convictions, and whether they are more for heaven or earth; and therefore that you are capable of self-judging in this case. Perhaps you will say, that while I am directing you to be holy, I suppose you to be holy first; for all this seems to go far towards it. But I must profess that I see not any thing in all these suppositions, but what I may suppose to be in a heathen; and that I think all this is but supposing thee to have the use of your reason, in the points in hand.

18. Yea, one thing more I think I may suppose in all or most that will read this book; that you take on you also to believe in Jesus Christ, and in the Holy Ghost the Sanctifier, and that the Scriptures are the Word of God. And if you do so indeed, I may then hope that my work is in a manner done, before I begin it: but if you do it but opinionatively and uneffectually, yet God and man may plead with you the truths which you profess.

Having told you what I presuppose in you, I proceed now to the Directions.

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.