Chapter III: Front Matter (3)

2. And I thought it not unuseful to the more judicious masters of families, who may choose and read such parcels to their families, as at any time the case requireth. And indeed I began it rudely, with an intention of that plainness and brevity which families require; but finding that it swelled to a bigger bulk than I intended, I was fain to write my "Life of Faith," as a breviate and substitute, for the families and persons that cannot have and use so large a volume: presupposing, my "Directions for sound Conversion," for "Weak Christians," and for "Peace of Conscience," printed long ago.

3. And to private christians I thought it not in vain, to have at hand so universal a directory and resolution of doubts; not expecting that they remember all, but may, on every occasion, turn to such particulars as they most need.

But I must expect to be assaulted with these objections: and it is not only profane deriders and malignant enemies, that are used by Satan to vilify and oppose our service of God.

_Object._ I. You have written too many books already. Who do you think hath so little to do as to read them all? Is it not pride and self-conceitedness to think that your scribblings are worthy to be read? and that the world hath need of so much of your instructions, as if there were no wise men but you? You have given offence already by your writings; you should _write less_, and _preach more_.

_Answ._ 1. I have seldom, if ever, in all my ministry, omitted one sermon for all my writings. I was not able to live in London, nor ride abroad; but through God's mercy I seldom omitted any opportunities at home.

2. And if I preach the same doctrine that I write, why should not men be as angry with me for preaching it, as for writing it? But if it be good and true, why is it not as good preach by the press, to many thousands, and for many years after I am dead, as to preach to a parlour full for a few hours? Or why is not both as good as one?

3. I will not take the reverend objector to be ignorant, that writing, and publishing the word of God by it, is preaching it, and the most public preaching; and hath the example of the apostles and evangelists, as well as speaking. And one is no more appropriate to them than the other: though the extraordinaries of both be proper to them. And do you not perceive what self-condemning contradiction it is, at the same time to cry out against those that dissuade you from preaching, or hinder you, and tell you it is needless, and you are proud to think that the world needeth your preaching, and yet you yourselves to say the very same against your brethren's preaching by the press? I know an ignorant, illiterate sectary might say, Writing is no preaching; and you are called to preach, and not to write. But I must reverence you more than to suppose you so absurd. Other men forbid you but _less public_ preaching, and you reproach me for _more public_ preaching: that is the difference. How hard is it to know what spirit we are of! Did you think that you had been patrons of idleness, and silencers of ministers, while you declaim so much against it? Your pretence that you would have me preach more, is feigned. Are you sure that you preach ofter than I do? When I persuaded ministers heretofore to catechise and instruct all their parishes personally, family by family, you said it was more toil than was our duty. And now you are against much writing too; and yet would be thought laborious ministers.

And as to the number and length of my writings, it is my own labour that maketh them so, and my own great trouble, that the world cannot be sufficiently instructed and edified in fewer words. But, 1. Would not all your sermons set together be as long? And why is not much and long preaching blamable, if long writings be? 2. Are not the works of Augustine, and Chrysostom, much longer? Who yet hath reproached Aquinas or Suarez, Calvin or Zanchy, &c. for the number and greatness of the volumes they have written? Why do you contradict yourselves by affecting great libraries? 3. When did I ever persuade any one of you to buy or read any book of mine? What harm will they do those that let them alone? Or what harm can it do you for other men to read them? Let them be to you as if they had never been written; and it will be nothing to you how many they are. And if all others take not you for their tutors, to choose for them the books that they must read, that is not my doing, but their own. If they err in taking themselves to be fitter judges than you what tendeth most to their own edification, why do you not teach them better? 4. Either it is God's truth, or error, which I write. If error, why doth no one of you show so much charity, as by word or writing to instruct me better, nor evince it to my face, but do all to others by backbiting? If truth, what harm will it do? If men had not leisure to read our writings, the booksellers would silence us, and save you the labour; for none would print them. 5. But who can please all men? Whilst a few of you cry out of too much, what if twenty or a hundred for one be yet for more? How shall I know whether you or they be the wiser and the better men?

Readers, you see on what terms we must do the work of God. Our slothful flesh is backward, and weary of so much labour: malignant enemies of piety are against it all. Some slothful brethren think it necessary to cloak their fleshly ease by vilifying the diligence of others. Many sects whom we oppose, think it the interest of their cause, (which they call God's cause,) to make all that is said against them seem vain, contemptible, and odious; which because they cannot do by confutation, they will do by backbiting and confident chat. And one or two reverend brethren have, by the wisdom described exactly, James iii. 15, 16, arrived at the liberty of backbiting and magisterial sentencing the works of others, (which they confess they never read,) that their reputation of being most learned, orthodox, worthy divines, may keep the chair at easier rates, than the wasting of their flesh in unwearied labours to know the truth, and communicate it to the world. And some are angry, who are forward to write, that the booksellers and readers silence not others as well as them.

_Object._ II. Your writings differing from the common judgment, have already caused offence to the godly.

_Answ._ 1. To the godly that were of a contrary opinion only. Sores that will not be healed, use to be exasperated by the medicine. 2. It was none but healing, pacificatory writings, that have caused that offence. 3. Have not those dissenters' writings more offended the godly that were against them? They have but one trick, to honour their denial, which more dishonoureth it, even by unsanctifying those that are not of their minds. 4. If God bless me with opportunity and help, I will offend such men much more, by endeavouring, further than ever I have done, the quenching of that fire which they are still blowing up; and detecting the folly and mischief of those logomachies by which they militate against love and concord, and inflame and tear the church of God. And let them know that I am about it. But some pastors, as well as people, have the weakness to think that all our preachings and writings must be brought under their dominion, and to their bar, by the bare saying that we offend the godly, that is, those of their opinion, which they falsely call by the name of scandal. 5. But I think they will find little controversy to offend them in this book.

_Object._ III. You shall take more leisure, and take other men's judgment of your writings before you thrust them out so hastily.

_Answ._ 1. I have but a little while to live, and therefore must work while it is day. Time will not stay. 2. I do show them to those that I take to be most judicious, and never refused any man's censure; but it is not many that have leisure to do me so great a kindness. But that I commit them not to the perusal of every objector, is a fault uncurable, by one that never had an amanuensis, and hath but one copy, usually. 3. And if I could do it, how should I be sure that they would not differ as much among themselves, as they do from me? And my writings would be like the picture which the great painter exposed to the censure of every passenger, and made it ridiculous to all, when he altered all that every one advised him to alter. And, to tell you the truth, I was never yet blamed by one side as not sufficiently pleasing them; but I was blamed also by the contrary side, for coming so near them: and I had not wit enough to know which party of the accusers was the wiser. And therefore am resolved to study to please God and conscience, and to take man-pleasing, when inconsistent, for an impossible and unprofitable work; and to cease from man whose breath is in his nostrils, whose thoughts all perish as he passeth off the judicature of his stage to the judicature of God.

_Object._ IV. Your Ecclesiastical Cases are dangerously reconciling, tending to abate men's zeal against error.

_Answ._ The world hath long enough escaped the danger of peace and reconciliation. It had been well if they had as long escaped the danger of your conceited, orthodox strife, which hath brought in confusion and all evil works. I take it to be a zeal effectively against love, and against unity, and against Christ, which, with the preachers of extremes, goeth under the name of a zeal against error, and for truth.

_Object._ V. Are all these numerous directions to be found in Scripture? Show us them in Scripture, or you trouble the church with your own inventions.

_Answ._ 1. Are all your sermons in the Scripture? and all the good books of your library in the Scripture? 2. Will you have none but readers in the church, and put down preachers? Sure it is the reader that delivereth all and only the Scripture. 3. Are we not men before we are christians? And is not the light and law of nature divine? And was the Scripture written to be instead of reason, or of logic, or other subservient sciences? Or must they not all be sanctified and used for divinity? 4. But I think that as all good commentaries, and sermons, and systems of theology, are in Scripture, so is the Directory here given, and is proved by the evidence of the very thing discoursed of, or by the plainest texts.

_Object._ VI. You confound your reader by curiosity of distinctions.

_Answ._ 1. If they are vain or false, shame them by detecting it, or you shame yourselves by blaming them, when you cannot show the error. Expose not yourselves to laughter by avoiding just distinction to escape confusion: that is, avoiding knowledge to escape ignorance, or light to escape darkness. 2. It is ambiguity and confusion that breedeth and feedeth almost all our pernicious controversies; and even those that bring in error by vain distinction, must be confuted by better distinguishers, and not by ignorant confounders. I will believe the Holy Ghost, 2 Tim. ii. 14-16, that logomachy is the plague by which the hearers are subverted, and ungodliness increased; and that orthotomy, or right dividing the word of truth, is the cure. And, Heb. v. 15, discerning both good and evil, is the work of long and well exercised senses.

_Object._ VII. Is this your reducing our faith to the primitive simplicity, and to the creed? What a toilsome task do you make religion by overdoing? Is any man able to remember all these numberless directions?

_Answ._ 1. I pray mistake not all these for articles of faith. I am more zealous than ever I was for the reduction of the christian faith to the primitive simplicity; and more confident that the church will never have peace and concord, till it be so done, as to the rest of men's faith and communion. But he that will have no books but his creed and Bible, may follow that sectary, who, when he had burnt all his other books as human inventions, at last burnt the Bible, when he grew learned enough to understand, that the translation of that was human too.

2. If men think not all the tools in their shops, and all the furniture of their houses, or the number of their sheep, or cattle, or lands, nor the number of truths received by a learning intellect, &c. to be a trouble and toil, why should they think so of the number of helps to facilitate the practice of their duty? If all the books in your libraries make your studies or religion toilsome, why do you keep them? and do not come to the vulgar religion, that would hear no more but, Think well, speak well, and do well, or, Love God and your neighbour, and do as you would be done by. He that doth this truly, shall be saved. But there goeth more to the building of a house, than to say, Lay the foundation, and raise the superstructure: universals exist not but in individuals; and the whole consisteth of all the parts.

3. It is not expected that any man remember all these directions. Therefore I wrote them, because men cannot remember them, that they may, upon every necessary occasion, go to that which they have present use for, and cannot otherwise remember.

In sum, to my quarrelsome brethren I have two requests: 1. That instead of their unconscionable, and yet unreformed custom of backbiting, they would tell me to my face of my offences by convincing evidence, and not tempt the hearers to think them envious. And, 2. That what I do amiss they would do better: and not be such as will neither laboriously serve the church themselves, nor suffer others; and that they will not be guilty of idleness themselves, nor tempt me to be a slothful servant, who have so little time to spend; for I dare not stand before God under that guilt. And that they will not join with the enemies and resisters of the publication of the word of God.

And to the readers my request is, 1. That whatever for quantity or quality in this book is an impediment to their regular, universal obedience, and to a truly holy life, they would neglect and cast away. 2. But that which is truly instructing and helpful, they would diligently digest and practise; and I encourage them by my testimony, that by long experience I am assured, that this PRACTICAL RELIGION will afford both to church, state, and conscience, more certain and more solid peace, than contending disputers, with all their pretences of orthodoxness and zeal against errors for the truth, will ever bring, or did ever attain to.

I crave your pardon for this long apology: it is an age where the objections are not feigned, and where our greatest and most costly services of God are charged on us as our greatest sins; and where at once I am accused of conscience for doing no more, and of men for doing so much. Being really

A most unworthy servant of so good a Master,

RICHARD BAXTER.

A

CHRISTIAN DIRECTORY.