Quotes by Richard Baxter
Richard Baxter (1615–1691) — Pastor · Puritaner · England
Richard Baxter war ein englischer puritanischer Pastor und Theologe des 17. Jahrhunderts, der vor allem durch seinen Dienst im englischen Kidderminster bekannt wurde. Er prägte eine praxisnahe Seelsorge sowie ein überkonfessionelles Glaubensverständnis, geriet jedoch wegen seiner Nonkonformität zur Staatskirche und seiner vermittelnden Rechtfertigungslehre in politische und theologische Konflikte. Bibellesern gilt er heute als historisches Beispiel für eine konsequente Verbindung von biblischer Lehre, persönlicher Frömmigkeit und engagierter Gemeindepraxis.
Era: Reformation & Baroque
Recurring topics: Church & Congregation, Discipleship, Humility & Pride, Growth & Character, Witness & Mission, Prayer & Silence, Time & Transience, Eternity & Hope Beyond Death
Quotes by Richard Baxter
I preached as never sure to preach again and as a dying man to dying men.
Richard Baxter
This life was not intended to be the place of our perfection, but the preparation for it.
Richard Baxter
I was but a pen in God’s hands, and what praise is due to a pen?
Richard Baxter
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.
Richard Baxter
God is the same God in heaven as on earth, but I shall not be the same man.
Richard Baxter
If you seek first to please God and are satisfied therein, you have but one to please instead of multitudes; and a multitude of masters are harder to please than one.
Richard Baxter
Men would sooner believe that the gospel is from heaven, if they saw more such effects of it upon the hearts and lives of those who profess it. The world is better able to read the nature of religion in a man’s life than in the Bible.
Richard Baxter
Remember still that you are both diseased persons, full of infirmities; and therefore expect the fruit of those infirmities in each other; and make not a strange matter of it, as if you had never known of it before. If you had married one that is lame, would you be angry at her for [limping]? Or if you had married one that had a putrid ulcer, would you fall out with her because it stinketh? Did you not know beforehand, that you married a person of such weakness, as would yield you some manner of daily trial and offense? If you could not bear this, you should not have married her; if you resolved that you could bear it then, you are obliged to bear it now. Resolve therefore to bear with one another; as remembering that you took one another as sinful, frail, imperfect, persons, not as angels, or as blameless and perfect .
Richard Baxter
Heaven will pay for any loss we may suffer to gain it; but nothing can pay for the loss of heaven.
Richard Baxter
A sermon full of mere words, how neatly so ever it is composed, while it wants the light of evidence, and the life of zeal, is but an image or a well-dressed carcass.
Richard Baxter
All the longer your 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?
Richard Baxter
Men think God’s laws too many and too strict, and yet make more of their own, and are precise for keeping them.
Richard Baxter
Prayer must carry on our work as much as preaching; he preacheth not heartily to his people that will not pray for them.
Richard Baxter
This is a life of desire and prayer; but that [heaven] is a life of satisfaction and enjoyment.
Richard Baxter
Be careful how you spend your time: Spend your time in nothing which you know must be repented of.
Richard Baxter
You may know God, but not comprehend Him.
Richard Baxter
Before and after you read the Scripture, pray earnestly that the Spirit who wrote it may interpret it for you, keep you from unbelief and error, and lead you into the truth.
Richard Baxter
Church greatness consists in being greatly serviceable.
Richard Baxter
Content not yourselves with being in a state of grace, but be also careful that your graces are kept in vigorous and lively exercise, and that you preach to yourselves the sermons which you study, before you preach them to others.
Richard Baxter
Join together in frequent and fervent prayer. Prayer forces the mind into sobriety, and moves the heart with the presence and majesty of God. Pray also for each other when you are in secret, that God may do that work which you most desire, upon each other’s hearts.
Richard Baxter
Take heed to yourselves, lest your example contradict your doctrine…lest you unsay with your lives what you say with your tongues, and be the greatest hinderers of the success of your own labors.
Richard Baxter
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. It is a contradiction in terms, to be a Christian, and not humble.
Richard Baxter
I am contented to consume my body, to sacrifice to God’s service, and to spend all that I have, and to be spent myself, for the souls of men.
Richard Baxter
In my library I have profitably dwelt among the shining lights, with which the learned, wise, and holy men of all ages have illuminated the world.
Richard Baxter
Self is the most treacherous enemy, and the most insinuating deceiver in the world. Of all other vices, it is both the hardest to find out, and the hardest to cure.
Richard Baxter
Nowhere is God so near to man as in Jesus Christ; and nowhere is Christ so familiarly represented to us, as in this holy sacrament.
Richard Baxter
A man that preaches an immortal crown, should not seek much after transitory vanity. And he that preaches the contempt of riches should himself contemn them and show it by his life. And he that preaches self-denial and mortification should practice these virtues in the eyes of them to whom he preaches, if he would have his doctrine believed. All Christians are sanctified; and, therefore, themselves, and all that they have, are consecrated “to the Master’s use.” But ministers are doubly sanctified: they are devoted to God, both as Christians and as ministers; and, therefore, they are doubly obligated to honor Him with all they have.
Richard Baxter
Love Christ, and you will hate that which caused His death. Love Him, and you will love to be made like Him – and hate that which is so contrary to Him.
Richard Baxter
It is a sure sign of spiritual decay when we lose our taste for the Word of God.
Richard Baxter
Prudence must be exercised in the proceeding, lest we do more hurt than good…we should deal humbly even when we deal sharply.
Richard Baxter
Burned and wasted we must be; and is it not fitter it should be in lighting men to heaven, and in working for God, than in living to the flesh? How little difference is there between the pleasure of a long and of a short life, when they are both at an end! What comfort will it be to you at death, that you lengthened your life by shortening your work? He that worketh much, liveth much. Our life is to be esteemed according to the ends and works of it, and not according to the mere duration… Will it not comfort us more at death, to review a short time faithfully spent, than a long life spent unfaithfully?
Richard Baxter
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.
Richard Baxter
How can you speak of life and death with such a heart? How can you preach of heaven and hell in such a careless, sleepy manner? Do you believe what you say? Are you in earnest or in jest? How can you tell people that sin is such a thing, and that so much misery is upon them and before them, and be no more affected with it? Should you not weep over such a people, and should not your tears interrupt your words? Should not you cry aloud, and show them their transgressions, and entreat and beseech them as for life and death?
Richard Baxter
One proud, surly, lordly word, one needless contention, one covetous action may cut the throat of many a sermon, and blast the fruit of all that you have been doing.
Richard Baxter
So great a God, whose message we deliver, should be honored by our delivery of it. It is a lamentable case, that in a message from the God of heaven, of everlasting moment to the souls of men, we should behave ourselves so weakly, so unhandsomely, so imprudently, or so slightly, that the whole business should miscarry in our hands, and God should be dishonored, and His work disgraced, and sinners rather hardened than converted; and all this through our weakness or neglect!
Richard Baxter
Take heed to yourselves, because the tempter will more ply you with his temptations than other men. If you will be the leaders against the prince of darkness, he will spare you no further than God restraints him. He bears the greatest malice to those that are engaged to do him the greatest mischief. As he hates Christ more than any of us, because He is the General of the field, the Captain of our salvation, and does more than all the world besides against his kingdom; so does he hate the leaders under Him, more than the common soldiers: he knows what a rout he may make among them, if the leaders fall before their eyes.
Richard Baxter
You are not likely to see any general reformation, till you procure family reformation. Some little religion there may be, here and there; but while it is confined to single persons, and is not promoted in families, it will not prosper, nor promise much future increase.
Richard Baxter
The cross must be borne; we have no liberty to pass over it or avoid it.
Richard Baxter
Too many of us [preachers] are earthly that seem to be heavenly, and mind the things below, while they preach the things above, and idolize the world while they call men to condemn it.
Richard Baxter
Reverence is that affection of the soul which proceeds from deep apprehensions of God and indicates a mind that is much conversant with Him. To manifest irreverence in the things of God is to manifest hypocrisy, and that the heart agrees not with the tongue.
Richard Baxter
92 quotes in total — browse the collection.
Sources: wikisource.org, ukwells.org
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