“The most dangerous mistake that our souls are capable of, is, to take the creature for God, and earth for heaven (374).”
Richard Baxter“In necessary things unity in doubtful things liberty in all things charity.”
Richard Baxter“[W]hen the pleasure is at the sweetest, death is the nearest (461)[.]”
Richard Baxter“So then, let "Deserved" be written on the door of hell, but on the door of Heaven and life, "The free gift" (68).”
Richard Baxter“Preaching a man a sermon with a broken head and telling him to be right with God is equal to telling a man with a broken leg to get up and run a race.”
Richard Baxter“O what a blessed day that will be when I shall . . . stand on the shore and look back on the raging seas I have safely passed; when I shall review my pains and sorrows, my fears and tears, and possess the glory which was the end of all!”
Richard Baxter“I preached as never sure to preach again, and as a dying man to dying men.”
Richard Baxter“Make careful choice of the books which you read: let the holy Scriptures ever have the preeminence. Let Scripture be first and most in your hearts and hands and other books be used as subservient to it. While reading ask yourself: 1. Could I spend this time no better? 2. Are there better books that would edify me more? 3. Are the lovers of such a book as this the greatest lovers of the Book of God and of a holy life? 4. Does this book increase my love to the Word of God, kill my sin, and prepare me for the life to come? "The words of the wise are like goads, their collected sayings like firmly embedded nails—given by one Shepherd. Be warned, my son, of anything in addition to them. Of making many books there is no end, and much study wearies the body." Ecclesiastes 12:11-12”
Richard Baxter“Anger is the rising up of the heart in passionate displacency against an apprehended evil, which would cross or hinder us of some desired good.”
Richard Baxter, A Christian Directory“If the good so loved and desired do appear possible and feasible in the attaining, then it exciteth the passion of hope, which is a compound of desire and expectation : when we look upon it as requiring our endeavour to attain it, and as it is to be had in a prescribed way, then it provokes the passion of courage or boldness, and concludes in resolution. Lastly, If this good be apprehended as preset, then ti provoketh to delight or joy. If the thing itself be present, the jy is greatest. If but the idea of it, either through the remainder or memory of the good that is past, or through the fore-apprehension of that which we expect, yet even this also exciteth our joy. And this joy is the perfection of all the rest of the affections, when it is raised on the full fruition of the good itself(575).”
Richard Baxter, The Godly Home