Richard Baxter Quotes

Hell is paved with infants skulls.

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

The heart is naturally hard, and grows harder by custom in sin, especially by long abuse of mercy, neglect of the means of grace, and resisteing the spirit of grace.

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

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.

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.

If it will be an intolerable thing to suffer the heat of fire for a year or a day, or an hour, what will it be to suffer ten thousand times more for ever? What if thou wert to suffer Lawrence 's death, to be roasted upon a gridiron; or to be scraped or pricked to death as other martyrs were; or if thou wert to feed upon toads for a year together? If thou couldst not endure such things as these, how wilt thou endure the eternal flames ?

If life be long, I will be glad, Tthat I may long obey; If short, yet why should I be sad, To soar to endless day?

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!

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.

You shall find this to be God's usual course: not to give his children the taste of his delights till they begin to sweat in seeking after them.

It is a contradiction to be a sanctified man, or a true christian, and not humble.

When we speak to drunkards, worldlings, or any ignorant, unconverted men, we disgrace them as in that condition to the utmost, and lay it on as plainly as we can speak, and tell them of their sin, and shame, and misery: and we expect, not only that they should bear all patiently, but take all thankfully, and we have good reasons for all this; and most that I deal with do take it patiently... But if we speak to a godly minister against his errors or any sin... if it be not more an applause than a reprehension, they take it as an injury almost insufferable.

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.

Is it not enough that all the world is against us, but we must also be against one another? O happy days of persecution, which drove us together in love, whom the sunshine of liberty and prosperity crumbles into dust by our contentions!

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.

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

We must study as hard how to live well as how to preach well.

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

If you do not see yourselves and all things as living, moving, and having their being in God, you see nothing, whatever you may think you see.

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

Overvalue not therefore the manner of your own worship, and overvilify not other men's of a different mode.

See that your chief study be about heart, that there God's image may be planted, and his interest advanced, and the interest of the world and flesh subdued, and the love of every sin cast out, and the love of holiness succeed; and that you content not yourselves with seeming to do good in outward acts, when you are bad yourselves, and strangers to the great internal duties. The first and great work of a Christian is about his heart.

Screw the truth into men's minds.

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

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!

I have pain; there is no arguing against sense, but I have peace, I have peace.

We shall then have joy without sorrow, and rest without weariness...Be of good cheer, Christian, the time is near, when God and thou shalt be near, and as near as thou canst well desire. Thou shalt dwell in his family.

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

This is the sanctification of your studies: when they are devoted to God, and when He is the end, the object, and the life of them all.

That which once was, will be no more. Yesterday will never come again. To-day is passing, and will not return. You may work while it is day; but when you have lost that day, it will not return for you to work in. While your candle burns, you may make use of its light, but when it is done, it is too late to use it.

I did nothing that I might not have done better.

In my library I have profitably and pleasantly dwelt among the shining lights, with which the learned, wise, and holy men of all ages have illuminated the world.

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.

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

Surely love is both work and wages.

Though selfishness hath defiled the whole man, yet sensual pleasure is the chief part of its interest, and, therefore, by the senses it commonly works; and these are the doors and windows by which iniquity entereth into the soul.

While doubt cannot be expelled, it can be subdued.

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.

A foolish physician he is, and a most unfaithful friend, that will let a sick man die for fear of troubling him; and cruel wretches are we to our friends, that will rather suffer them to go quietly to hell, then we will anger them, or hazard our reputation with them.

To be the people of God without regeneration, is as impossible as to be the children of men without generation.

You little know what you have done, when you have first broke the bounds of modesty; you have set open the door of your fancy to the devil, so that he can, almost at his pleasure ever after, represent the same sinful pleasure to you anew.

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?

Is it but right that our hearts should be on God, when the heart of God is so much on us.

Take heed to yourselves, lest you perish while you call upon others to take heed of perishing, and lest you famish yourselves while you prepare their food.

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?

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

Will any man that hath not lost his senses, now stand caviling, and quarrelling, that so few should be saved, instead of making sure of his own salvation? The reason that there are so few is, because they will not be saved upon God's terms.