51 quotes
Richard Baxter Quotes
The sharpest, most searching lines from Richard Baxter, drawn straight from the Puritan Paperbacks. Filter by theme, or browse the whole collection.
“Words and actions are transient things, and being once past, are nothing; but the effect of them on an immortal soul may be endless.”
“Church greatness consists in being greatly serviceable.”
“This life was not intended to be the place of our perfection, but the preparation for it.”
“You shall find this to be God's usual course; not to give His children the taste of His delights till they begin to perspire in seeking after them.”
“Every time we look upon our congregations, let us believingly remember that they are the purchase of Christ's blood, and therefore should be regarded by us with the deepest interest and the most tender affection.”
“Be sure that you live not idly, but in some constant business of a lawful calling, so far as you have bodily strength. Idleness is a constant sin, and labour is a duty.”
“Convince them what a contradiction it is to be a Christian, and yet to refuse to learn; for what is a Christian but a disciple of Christ?”
“The very design of the gospel is to abase us; and the work of grace is begun and carried on in humiliation. Humility is not a mere ornament of a Christian, but an essential part of the new creature.”
“Take heed to yourselves, because the tempter will more ply you with his temptations than other men.”
“He that has not so much sense of his faults as unfeignedly to lament them, will hardly have so much more as to move him to reform them.”
“A heavenly mind is a joyful mind; this is the nearest and truest way to live a life of comfort, and without this you must need be uncomfortable.”
“Let all writers have their due esteem, but compare none of them with the Word of God.”
“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.”
“A man that preaches an immortal crown, should not seek much after transitory vanity.”
“He that is not a son of Peace is not a son of God. All other sins destroy the Church consequentially; but Division and Separation demolish it directly.”
“Keep up a humble sense of your own faults, and that will make you compassionate to others.”
“The longer you delay, the more your sin gets strength and rooting. If you cannot bend a twig, how will you be able to bend it when it is a tree?”
“Study hard, for the well is deep, and our brains are shallow.”
“Christ leads me through no darker rooms than He went through before.”
“Suffering so unbolts the door of the heart, that the Word hath easier entrance.”
“I preached as never sure to preach again, and as a dying man to dying men.”
“Lay siege to your sins, and starve them out by keeping away the food and fuel which is their maintenance and life.”
“Preach to yourselves the sermons which you study, before you preach them to others.”
“Tomorrow is always the sluggard's working day; today is his holiday.”
“Keep company with the more cheerful sort of the Godly; there is no mirth like the mirth of believers.”
“Is it but right that our hearts should be on God, when the heart of God is so much on us.”
“Prayer is the breath of the new creature.”
“Nothing can be rightly known, if God be not known; nor is any study well managed, nor to any great purpose, if God is not studied. We know little of the creature, till we know it as it stands related to the Creator.”
“Once more consider, there is nothing, but heaven, worth setting our hearts upon.”
“It is a contradiction to be a sanctified man, or a true christian, and not humble.”