Richard Baxter famous quotes

If they can see you love them, you can say anything to them.
-- Richard Baxter

#Say Anything

This life was not intended to be the place of our perfection, but the preparation for it.
-- Richard Baxter

#Perfection #Preparation #This Life

Suffering so unbolts the door of the heart, that the Word hath easier entrance.
-- Richard Baxter

#Heart #Doors #Suffering

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?
-- Richard Baxter

#Tree #Able #Delay

I preached as never sure to preach again, And as a dying man to dying men.
-- Richard Baxter

#Prayer #Men #Dying

Keep up a humble sense of your own faults, and that will make you compassionate to others
-- Richard Baxter

#Humble #Faults #Compassionate

Do not mathematics and all sciences seem full of contradictions and impossibilities to the ignorant, which are all resolved and cleared to those that understand them?
-- Richard Baxter

#Ignorant #Contradiction #Mathematics

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

#Pain #Blessed #Sea

To live among such excellent helps as our libraries afford, to have so many silent wise companions whenever we please.
-- Richard Baxter

#Wise #Library #Helping

Get masters of families to do their duty, and they will not only spare you a great deal of labor, but will much further the success of your labors. You are not like 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

#Promise #May #Littles

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; and esteeming, and loving, and serving, and seeking Him, before all the pleasures and prosperity of the flesh.
-- Richard Baxter

#Dedication #Soul #Body

Dangers bring fears and fears more dangers bring.
-- Richard Baxter

#Fear #Danger

In our first paradise in Eden there was a way to go out but no way to go in again. But as for the heavenly paradise, there is a way to go in, but not way to go out.
-- Richard Baxter

#Christian #Blessing #Eden

You are not likely to see any general reformation, till you procure family reformation.
-- Richard Baxter

I take the love of God and self-denial to be the sum of all saving grace and religion.
-- Richard Baxter

#Self #Grace #Denial

Sinners, hear and consider, if you wilfully condemn your souls to bestiality, God will condemn them to perpetual misery.
-- Richard Baxter

#Soul #Misery #Gods Will

I tell you again, God hath not ordinarily decreed the end without the means; and if you will neglect the means of salvation, it is a certain mark that God hath not decreed you to salvation. But you shall find that He hath left you no excuse, because He hath not thus predestined you.
-- Richard Baxter

#Mean #Election #No Excuses

In hell, sinners shall forever lay all the blame on their own wills. Hell is a rational torment by conscience.
-- Richard Baxter

#Forever #Blame #Hell

Do not waste your time on light, weak, milk­toast ministries and books
-- Richard Baxter

#Book #Light #Waste

Christ leads me through no darker rooms than He went through before.
-- Richard Baxter

#Rooms #Christ #Leading Me

Our very business is to teach the great lesson of self-denial and humility to our people, and how unfit is it then that we should be proud ourselves!
-- Richard Baxter

#Humility #Self #People

We are ignorant of things necessary, because we learn things superfluous and unnecessary
-- Richard Baxter

#Ignorant #Unnecessary #Christianity

Lord, I surrender. I am completely overcome by your love.
-- Richard Baxter

#Overcoming #Surrender #Lord

Sit not down without assurance. Get alone, and bring thy heart to the bar of trial: force it to answer the interrogatories put to it to set the qualifications of the saints on one side, and the qualifications of thyself on the other side, and then judge what resemblance there is between them.... Yet be sure thou judge by a true touchstone, and mistake not the Scripture description of a saint, that thou neither acquit nor condemn thyself by mistake.
-- Richard Baxter

#Mistake #Heart #Judging

A holy and heavenly life is a continual pain to the consciences of sinners around you and continually solicits them to change their course.
-- Richard Baxter

#Pain #Life Is #Holy

The churchyard is the market place where all things are rated at their true value, and those who are approaching it talk of the world and its vanities with a wisdom unknown before.
-- Richard Baxter

#Vanity #World #True Value

For it was thy sin, and the sin of all the world, that lay upon our Redeemer, and his sacrifice and satisfaction is sufficient for all, and the fruits of it are offered to one as well as another, but it is true that it was never the intent of his mind to pardon and save any that would not by faith and repentance be converted.
-- Richard Baxter

#Sacrifice #Mind #World

Tomorrow is always the sluggard's working day; today is his holiday
-- Richard Baxter

#Holiday #Today #Tomorrow

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

#Prayer #People #Praying

Hell is paved with infants skulls.
-- Richard Baxter

#Religious #Skulls #Hell

Surely love is both work and wages.
-- Richard Baxter

#Love Is #Wages

Unity in things Necessary, Liberty in things Unnecessary, and Charity in all.
-- Richard Baxter

#Unity #Liberty #Charity

A man pleaser cannot be true to God, because he is a servant to the enemies of his service; the wind of a man's mouth will drive him about as the chaff, from any duty, and to any sin.
-- Richard Baxter

#Inspirational #Men #Wind

It is not a terrible thing to a wretched soul, when it shall lie roaring perpetually in the flames of hell, and the God of mercy himself shall laugh at them; when...God shall mock them instead of relieving them; when none in heaven or earth can help them but God, and he shall rejoice over them in their calamity
-- Richard Baxter

#Lying #Flames #Laughing

While doubt cannot be expelled, it can be subdued.
-- Richard Baxter

#Doubt

Keep company with the more cheerful sort of the Godly; there is no mirth like the mirth of believers.
-- Richard Baxter

#Godly #Cheerful #Mirth

If I were but sure that I should live to see the coming of the Lord, it would be the joyfulest tidings in the world. O that I might see His kingdom come! It is the characteristic of His saints to love His appearing, and to look for that blessed hope. "The Spirit and the bride say, Come." "Even so, come, Lord Jesus.
-- Richard Baxter

#Jesus #Blessed #Saint

The more perfect the sight is the more delightful the beautiful object. The more perfect the appetite, the sweeter the food. The more musical the ear, the more pleasant the melody. The more perfect the soul, the more joyous the joys of heaven, and the more glorious that glory.
-- Richard Baxter

#Beautiful #Sight #Perfect

It is a contradiction to be a true Christian and not humble.
-- Richard Baxter

#Christian #Humble #Contradiction

Keep your children as much as may be from ill company, especially of ungodly playfellows. It is one of the greatest dangers for the undoing of children in the world; especially when they are sent to common schools: for there is scarce any of those schools so good, but hath many rude and ungodly ill-taught children in it.
-- Richard Baxter

#Children #School #Rude

The very design of the gospel doth tend to self-abasing; 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 to be a sanctified man, or a true Christian, and not humble.
-- Richard Baxter

#Christian #Humble #Humility

When the Son of God comes to rescue us and bring us back to God, He does not find in us the ability to believe.
-- Richard Baxter

#Believe #Son #Doe

My Lord, I have nothing to do in this World, but to seek and serve thee; I have nothing to do with a Heart and its affections, but to breathe after thee. I have nothing to do with my Tongue and Pen, but to speak to thee, and for thee, and to publish thy Glory and thy Will. What have I to do with all my Reputation, and Interest in my Friends, but to increase thy Church, and propagate thy holy Truth and Service? What have I to do with my remaining Time, even these last and languishing hours, but to look up unto thee, and wait for thy Grace, and thy Salvation?
-- Richard Baxter

#Heart #Waiting #Grace

Use sin as it will use you; spare it not, for it will not spare you; it is your murderer, and the murderer of the world: use it, therefore, as a murderer should be used. Kill it before it kills you.
-- Richard Baxter

#Use #World #Sin

God takes men's hearty desires and will, instead of the deed, where they have not power to fulfill it; but he never took the bare deed instead of the will.
-- Richard Baxter

#Men #Desire #Deeds

I have pain; but I have peace, I have peace.
-- Richard Baxter

#Pain

Be careful how you spend your time: Spend your time in nothing which you know must be repented of.
-- Richard Baxter

#Be Careful #Careful

Prayer is the breath of the new creature.
-- Richard Baxter

#Prayer #Creatures

You may know God, but not comprehend Him.
-- Richard Baxter

#May #Knowing God

Such is the depth of the Christian Scriptures, that even if I were attempting to study them and nothing else from early boyhood to decrepit old age, with the utmost leisure, the most unwearied zeal, and talents greater than I have, I would be still daily making progress in discovering their treasures.
-- Richard Baxter

#Christian #Bored #Progress

Preach to yourselves the sermons which you study, before you preach them to others.
-- Richard Baxter

#Study

We must feel toward our people as a father toward his children; yea, the most tender love of a mother must not surpass ours. We must even travail in birth, till Christ be formed in them. They should see that we care for no outward thing, neither liberty, nor honor, nor life, in comparison to their salvation... When the people see that you truly love them, they will hear anything from you...Oh therefore, see that you feel a tender love for your people in your hearts, and let them perceive it in your speech and conduct. Let them see that you spend and are spent for their sakes.
-- Richard Baxter

#Mother #Children #Father

Of all the preaching in the world, I hate that preaching which tends to make the hearers laugh, or to move their minds with tickling levity and affect them as stage plays used to, instead of affecting them with a holy reverence for the name of God.
-- Richard Baxter

#Hate #Moving #Play

Lay siege to your sins, and starve them out by keeping away the food and fuel which is their maintenance and life.
-- Richard Baxter

#Siege #Maintenance #Fuel

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.
-- Richard Baxter

#Littles #Purpose #Study

An aching tooth is better out than in. To lose a rotting member is a gain.
-- Richard Baxter

#Gains #Teeth #Rotting

It is not the reading of many books which is necessary to make a man wise or good; but well reading of a few.
-- Richard Baxter

#Wise #Reading #Book

I like to hear a man dwell much on the same essentials of Christianity. For we have but one God, and one Christ, and one faith to preach; and I will not preach another Gospel to please men with variety, as if our Saviour and our Gospel had grown stale.
-- Richard Baxter

#Men #Essentials #Christianity

Make careful choice of the books which you read: let the holy scriptures ever have the pre-eminence, and, next to them, those solid, lively, heavenly treatises which best expound and apply the scriptures, and next, credible histories, especially of the Church ... but take heed of false teachers who would corrupt your understandings.
-- Richard Baxter

#Teacher #Book #Choices

Study hard, for the well is deep, and our brains are shallow.
-- Richard Baxter

#Motivational #Brain #Study

If family religion were duly attended to and properly discharged, I think the preaching of the Word would not be the common instrument of conversion.
-- Richard Baxter

#Thinking #Common #Instruments

When Christ comes with regenerating grace, he finds no man sitting still, but all posting to eternal ruin, and making haste toward hell; till, by conviction, he first brings them to a stand, and then, by conversion, turn first their hearts, and then their lives, sincerely to himself.
-- Richard Baxter

#Heart #Men #Grace

And though it be their sin and vanity that is the cause [of lust], it is nevertheless your sin to be the unnecessary occasion…You must not lay a stumbling-block in their way, nor blow up the fire of their lust…You must walk among sinful persons as you would do with a candle among straw or gunpowder; or else you may see the flame which you did not foresee, when it is too late to quench it.
-- Richard Baxter

#Block #Blow #Vanity

Above all be much in secret prayer and meditation. By this you will fetch the heavenly fire that must kindle your sacrifice: remember you cannot decline and neglect your duty to your own hurt alone, many will be losers by it as well as you.
-- Richard Baxter

#Hurt #Prayer #Sacrifice

Naturally, men are prone to spin themselves a web of opinions out of their own brain, and to have a religion that may be called their own. They are far readier to make themselves a faith, than to receive that which God hath formed to their hands; are far readier to receive a doctrine that tends to their carnal commodity, or honor, or delight, than one that tends to self-denial.
-- Richard Baxter

#Men #Self #Hands