Proceeding Safely: Aiming For Godliness

Counsels for those who desire godliness

I’m plodding slowly, back and forth through Baxter’s monumental “Christian Directory” trying to glean and condense some of his practical advice for myself, my family, and those who may be interested.  For the next several posts, I’d like to focus in on Chapter 2 of Volume 1, where Baxter gives advice to new believers who are seeking to make their way forward, counsels “proper to those that are but newly entered into religion.” Yet, as I have read his counsels these many years down the road with Christ, I have found myself both encouraged and challenged, and I think no matter where a true believer is in the pilgrimage to glory, Baxter’s admonitions will be a help.

Counsels for those who live amid religious uncertainty and tumult

Baxter’s advice is particularly apropos for pursuing godliness in our day. Much of what he says in this chapter involves the Christian’s interaction with schisms, conflict, and disagreements.  Want to know what your obligations are to the church down the street? How are we to live amid great doctrinal and ecclesial controversies? What are the dangers of zeal? Of moderation?  

In short, how can we aim for godliness in uncertain times?

Direction 1: Beware of Novelty & Reputation

“Take heed lest it be the novelty or reputation of truth and godliness, that takes with you, more than the solid evidence of their excellency and necessity; lest when the novelty and reputation are gone, your religion wither and consume away.”

When Love Declines Into Partiality: Richard Baxter

There are many schemes Satan, the world, and the flesh use to war against our progress in the life we have in Christ. One thing we need to guard ourselves against is declines in grace, or corruptions in what was once godly in our lives. Baxter warns against love for other Christians corrupting, declining, into partiality.

This can happen when our love for God’s people begins to narrow to be love for God’s people who are esteemed outwardly but not for spiritual reasons:

Many have honoured them that fear the Lord, who insensibly have declined to honour only those of them that were eminent in wealth and worldly honour, or that were esteemed for their parts or place by others, and little honoured the humble, poor, obscure christians, who were at least as good as they: forgetting that the "things that are highly esteemed among men, are abomination in the sight of God," Luke xvi. 15; and that God valueth not men by their places and dignities in the world, but by their graces and holiness of life.

This might look like thinking we love the church, when really we are loving people who are like us: the young couple with children, other singles, upwardly mobile people, socially astute and enjoyable people, etc. Baxter calls us to take note of who we love: do we value what God values? Is it graces and holiness that we are drawn to? Is it spiritual life we are seeking to know and foster in our brothers and sisters in our church, or are we drawn to outward, worldly things?

Yet, there is another way our love may corrupt or decline:

Abundance that at first did seem to love all christians, as such, as far as any thing of Christ appeared in them, have first fallen into some sect, and over-admiring their party, and have set light by others as good as them, and censured them as unsound, and then withdrawn their special love, and confined it to their party, or to some few; and yet thought that they loved the godly as much as ever, when it was degenerate into a factious love.

The Christian is called to receive other Christians in the Lord (Romans 15:7). Our union with Christ creates a union with each other (Romans 12:5). But there are those who “desire to be first” and draw people into their support or party. It may be around certain doctrinal distinctive or emphases, certain practices and methods, or ways of talking and acting (a style or brand). When those teachers have a particularly sectarian bent, they foster not only an undue admiration and loyalty to themselves as leaders and to their followers as the true and faithful servants, but they also foster an undeserved disdain for those who do not follow their sect, or even worse in their view, oppose it. Baxter’s insight is searching: could it be that my love for Christians is really love for my sect, my preferred type of Christian, a factious love? Is it the appearance of Christ in the brother or sister that I love, or is it the reflection of me in them that I love?

A third way that love may decline: when zeal for godliness in others morphs into a desire for their hurt or even damnation:

Are you zealous for God, and truth, and holiness, and against the errors and sins of others? Take heed lest you lose it, while you think it doth increase in you. Nothing is more apt to degenerate than zeal: in how many thousands hath it turned from an innocent, charitable, peaceable, tractable, healing, profitable, heavenly zeal, into a partial zeal for some party, or opinions of their own; and into a fierce, censorious, uncharitable, scandalous, turbulent, disobedient, unruly, hurting, and destroying zeal, ready to wish for fire from heaven, and kindling contention, confusion, and every evil work. Read well James iii.

My brothers and sisters, in the words of James “these things ought not be.” Let us be zealous for God: his name, his works, his word, his servants, his church. Be zealous that everyone who names the name of Christ would depart from iniquity. Be zealous that everyone who claims to know the Lord would know and love him in truth and be built up in the most holy faith. But may we turn from any enjoyment of other’s failures, pleasures in their mistakes, delight in uncovering dirt, zeal in stirring up controversy, nit-picky judgmentalism, and as Baxter says, every evil work.

A Prayer:

Holy Father,
To you who gives rain to the ungrateful and who is slow to anger,
who has chosen us in Christ not according to our merits but his mercies,
who has given us the Spirit of adoption that we would reflect your character:
we praise you and acknowledge you to be our great and faithful God.
Forgive us of not loving others as we ought,
and chiefly of not loving you and your kingdom as we ought.
Grant us, that being mindful of how we may fall from love into partiality, factiousness, and hatefulness,
we may instead be well pleasing to you, as your servants, loving your name and its service in the lives of others.
May we esteem others as more important than ourselves and so follow our Savior.
Bless us, and your whole church with us, that we may grow up into this holiness,
By the Spirit you have given,
To the praise and glory of Christ on the day of his coming in glory.
Amen.

From  “A Christian Directory (complete - Volume 1, 2, 3 & 4 of 4): A SUM OF PRACTICAL THEOLOGY AND CASES OF CONSCIENCE by Richard Baxter” http://a.co/dr6a1rQ

Against Being Too Scrupulous: Richard Baxter

Can a person seek to be obedient in all things in a way that actually ends up undermining obedience in all things?

Baxter says yes, and that being overly scrupulous about small practical details (what many call legalistic) is a particular way of tripping ourselves up as Christians.

I’m working back and forth through Baxter’s monumental “Christian Directory”, and found this advice quite helpful:

Another temptation to confound you in your religion, is, by filling your heads with practical scrupulosity; so that you cannot go on for doubting every step whether you go right; and when you should cheerfully serve your Master, you will do nothing but disquiet your minds with scruples, whether this or that be right or wrong.

Baxter seems to be referring to the sort of person who stumbles over every small detail in their obedience, not able to see that such a negative and worrisome focus on these small details is a hindrance to what God calls them to do. They are sidetracked from the more important “cheerful obedience” to which they are called by thinking of God’s Law as tedious and condemning, by fixating on this small gnat, that small splinter.

He then provides a remedy, obedience that pursues pleasing God while always resting in our free justification in Christ:

Your remedy here, is not by casting away all care of pleasing God, or fear of sinning, or by debauching conscience; but by a cheerful and quiet obedience to God, so far as you know his will, and an upright willingness and endeavour to understand it better; and a thankful receiving the gospel pardon for your failings and infirmities.

Be faithful in your obedience; but live still upon Christ, and think not of reaching to any such obedience, as shall set you above the need of his merits, and a daily pardon of your sins. Do the best you can to know the will of God and do it: but when you know the essentials of religion, and obey sincerely, let no remaining wants deprive you of the comfort of that so great a mercy, as proves your right to life eternal. In your seeking further for more knowledge and obedience, let your care be such as tendeth to your profiting, and furthering you to your end, and as doth not hinder your joy and thanks for what you have received: but that which destroyeth your joy and thankfulness, and doth but perplex you, and not further you in your way, is but hurtful scrupulosity, and to be laid by.

When you are right in the main, thank God for that, and be further solicitous so far as to help you on, but not to hinder you. If you send your servant on your message, you had rather he went on his way as well as he can, than stand scrupling every step whether he should set the right or left foot forward; and whether he should step so far, or so far at a time, &c.

Hindering scruples please not God.

Godliness Evidenced When Against The Stream: Richard Baxter

I know law, and custom, and education, and friends, when they side with godliness, are a great advantage to it, by affording helps, and removing those impediments that might stick much with carnal minds. But truth is not your own, till it be received in its proper evidence; nor your faith divine, till you believe what you believe, because God is true who doth reveal it; nor are you the children of God, till you love him for himself; nor are you truly religious, till the truth and goodness of religion itself be the principal thing that maketh you religious. It helpeth much to discover a man's sincerity, when he is not only religious among the religious, but among the profane, and the enemies, and scorners, and persecutors of religion: and when a man doth not pray only in a praying family, but among the prayerless, and the deriders of fervent constant prayer: and when a man is heavenly among them that are earthly, and temperate among the intemperate and riotous, and holdeth the truth among those that reproach it and that hold the contrary: when a man is not carried only by a stream of company, or outward advantages, to his religion, nor avoideth sin for want of a temptation, but is religious though against the stream, and innocent when cast (unwillingly) upon temptations; and is godly where godliness is accounted singularity, hypocrisy, faction, humour, disobedience, or heresy; and will rather let go the reputation of his honesty, than his honesty itself. 

From Richard Baxter’s “Christian Directory”  http://a.co/0rbSMSd

It’s Easier To Get New Religion Than To Get A New Heart: A Warning From Baxter

 “Either a religion made up of loose opinions, like the familists, ranters, libertines, and antinomians, and the Jesuits too much; or else made up of trifling formalities, and a great deal of bodily exercise, and stage actions, and compliments, as much of the popish devotion is: and a little will draw a carnal heart to believe a carnal doctrine. It is easier to get such a new religion, than a new heart. And then the devil tells them that now they are in the right way, and therefore they shall be saved. A great part of the world think their case is good, because they are of such or such a sect or party...”

If you’ve engaged in social media for long, you surely have seen at least some religious conversions and de-conversions. The modern context puts everything on display, making observations of human tendencies as easy as a click away. Even for the well-grounded Christian, it can be disconcerting to see someone falling into various doctrinal and practical sins. Or, it can be disappointing to see people stay in unbiblical churches, opinions, and practices when you hoped better for them. Particularly troubling is when someone seemed to know and love Christ and his Word, but later falls to a sect with a false gospel, false worship, false piety.

Sometimes the problem is less severe, at least outwardly. In our context, there are so many religious options that a person can simply find whatever degree of soundness they can tolerate and settle there, until they again are strongly challenged (by the Word or Providence) in the particulars of their own life before God. Then they simply move on again to somewhere that feels easier to the flesh.

In this quotation from Baxter’s Christian Directory he warns of two kinds of sects that appeal to this sort: on one side are those that are of “loose opinions” (what I call “free range”) and on the other side are those that excel in man-made religious activities (exotic liturgies, false worship, special works or missions, and extras of all sorts.) So then, as you see if you are observant and wise, times have not changed! These great Scylla and Charybdis still wreck many souls. As Baxter says, “It is easier to get such a new religion, than a new heart.”

Always In Christ Alone: Baxter On Sanctification

I am continuing slowly through Richard Baxter’s monumental Directory and am sharing various ideas and quotations I have found particularly encouraging. Immediately preceding this quotation, he has been challenging the person who wants to please God to rid himself of any thought of self-merit or deserved acceptance before God in anything but Jesus Christ. Conversion and the beginnings of new life are only in and by Christ, but so it the way of sanctification and ultimate victory:  

 Alas! without Christ,

we know not how to live an hour;

nor can have hope or peace in any thing we have or do;

nor look with comfort either upward or downward, to God, or the creature;

nor think without terrors of our sins, of God, or of the life to come.

Resolve, therefore, that as true converts,

you are wholly to live upon Jesus Christ,

and to do all that you do by his Spirit and strength;

and to expect all your acceptance with God upon his account.