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My Blogging from the reading of Richard Baxter’s, “A Christian Directory”, continues. In this blog entry Baxter outlines the duties of human speech that consist of:

1. To glorify God by the magnifying of his name; to speak of the praises of his attributes and works.

2. To sing psalms of praise to him, and delight our souls in the sweet commemoration of his excellencies.

3. To give him thanks for the mercies already received, and declare to others what he hath done for our souls and bodies, for his church and for the world.

4. To pray to him for what we want, and for our brethren, for the church, and for the conversion of his and our enemies.

5. To appeal to him and swear by his name when we are called to it lawfully.

6. To make our necessary covenants and vows to him, and to make open profession of our belief, subjection, and obedience to him, before men.

7. To preach his word, or declare it in discourse, and to teach those that are committed to our care, and edify the ignorant and erroneous as we have opportunity.

8. To defend the truth of God by conference or disputation; and confute the false doctrine of deceivers.

9. To exhort men to their particular duties, and to reprove their particular sins; and to endeavor to do to them good as we are able.

10. To confess our own sins to God and man as we have occasion.

11. To crave the advise and help of others for our souls; and inquire after the will of God, and the way to salvation.

12. To praise that which is good in others, and speak good of all men, superiors, equals, and inferiors, so far as there is just ground and cause.

13. To bear witness to the truth, when we are called to it.

14. To defend the cause of the just and innocent, and vindicate them against false accusers.

15. To communicate and convey to others the same good impressions and affections of mind, which God hath wrought on us, and not only the bare truths themselves which we have received.

16. Lastly, to be instruments of common converse; of expressing our mutual affections and respects, and transacting all our worldly business: for learning, arts, manufactures, &c.

Richard Baxter gives some sound advise to follow of thieves that should be avoided:

Thief I: One of the greatest time-wasting sins consists of idleness or sloth. One only needs to read the book of Proverbs to see this point expounded. Remember that you run for the immortal crown; and therefore see that you lose no time, and look not at the things that are behind;

Thief II: The next thief or time-waster is excess of sleep.

Thief III: The next thief or time-waster is an inordinate adorning of the body. This would include clothing, jewelry, and the like.

Thief IV: Another time-wasting thief is unnecessary pomp and curiosity in retinue, attendance, house furniture, provision and entertainments, together with excess of compliment and ceremony, and servitude to the humors and expectations of time-wasters.

Thief V: Another time-wasting sin is needless and tedious feastings, gluttony, and tippling. O remember, while you are eating and drinking, what a corruptible piece of flesh you are feeding and serving; and how quickly those mouths will be filled with dust! and a soul that is posting so fast to eternity, should find no time to spare for vanity; and that you have important work enough to do, which is performed, will afford you a sweeter and a longer feast.

Thief VI:Another time-waster is idle talk.

Thief VII: Another thief which by the aforesaid means would steal your time, is vain and sinful company. Remember, assimilation begets association.

Thief VIII: Another notorious time-wasting thief, is needless, inordinate sports and games, which are stigmatized by the offenders themselves, with the infamous name of pastimes, and masked with deceitful title of recreations; And to think that they sold that precious time for a little fleshly sport, in which they should have been working out their salvation , and making their calling and election sure.

Thief IX:Another time-wasting thief is excess of worldly cares and business. Not much needs to be said of this as there a plethora of examples within our society.

Thief X: Another time-waster is vain ungoverned and sinful thoughts.

Thief XI: Another dangerous time-waster sin is the reading of vain books , play-books, romances, and feigned histories; and also unprofitable studies, undertaken but for vain-glory, or the pleasing of a carnal or curious mind.

Thief XII: But the master-thief that robs men of their time is an unsancitified , ungodly heart; for this loseth time whatever men are doing;because they never intend the glory of God;

I’m currently in the process of reading Richard Baxter’s, A Christian Directory and I came across 10 things that he outlines in the book that I thought I would share:

(1) That the Holy Ghost, as given since the ascension of Christ, is his agent on earth, or his advocate with men;

(2) This Holy Spirit, so sent, infallibly inspired the holy apostles and evangelists, first to preach, and then to write the doctrine of Christ, contained in the Holy Scriptures.

(3) This same Spirit in them, sealed this holy doctrine, and the testimony of these holy men, by many miracles and wonderful gifts, by the which they did actually convince the unbelieving world, and plant the churches.

(4) The same Spirit(having first by the apostles, given a law or canon to the universal church, constituting its offices and the duty of the officers and the manner of their entrance) doth qualify and dispose men for the stated, ordinary ministerial work, (which is to explain and apply the foresaid Scriptures,) and directeth those that are to ordain and choose them (they being not wanting on their part); and so he apppointeth pastors to the church. (Ephesians 3: 2-4) (Ephesians 3:8,13).

(5) The same Spirit assisteth the ministers to teach and apply the holy Scriptures according to the necessities of the people, the weight of the matter, and the majesty of the word of God.

(6) The same Spirit doth by this word(heard or read) renew and sanctify the souls of the elect; illuminating their minds, opening and quickening their hearts, prevailing with, changing, and resolving their wills, thus writing God’s word, and imprinting his image by his word upon their hearts, making it powerful to conquer and cast out their stronge st, sweetest, dearest sins, and bringing them to the saving knowledge, love, and obedience of God in Jesus Christ. See Acts xxvi.

(7) The same Holy Spirit assisteth the sanctified in the exercise of this grace, to the increase of it, by blessing and concurring with the means appointed appointed by him to that end: and helpeth them to use those means , perform those duties , conquer temptations, oppositionss and difficulties, and so confirmeth and preserveth them to the end.

(8) The same Spirit helpeth believers, in the exercise of grace, to feel it, and discern the sincerity of it in themselves, in that measure as they are meet for, and in those seasons when it is fittest for them.

(9) The same Spirit helpeth them hereupon to conclude that they are justified and reconciled to God, and have right to all the benefits of his covenant.

(10) Also, he assisteth them actually to rejoice in the discerning of this conclusion. For though reason of itself may do something of itself in these acts, yet so averse is man to all that is holy, and so many are the difficulties and hinderences in the way that to the effectual performance, the help of the Spirit of God is necessary.

I’m kind of into the Puritans. I have been studying a lot on them recently and has indeed been a blessing. One thing I have noticed with them that I think can be applied to the 21st century Christian is a technical term I’m going to use that references a method for preventing bad things from happening with software. In computer programming there’s concept known as a “Buffer Overflow”. What this basically means is that if a computer program was expecting to get 1 quart of water and someone supplied 2 or more quarts the computer memory essentially gets overwritten and bad stuff can happen. Trust me.

So how does this relate to Christianity? Well think of Christianity as a computer program. Don’t call me a heretic, but it is a system that we are convicted of as being true. Nevertheless, you as a Christian(if you are one) are fed with various inputs such as: Material wealth, power, lust, greed, gluttony, and wrath. Isn’t it funny how all of these are promoted if you turn on your T.V.? I’m going to narrow my scope to these items to keep this post short. Well what happens when you receive those inputs? Bad stuff. The Puritans spoke about something called the “Ordered Life”. They basically planned ahead of time what they were going to do throughout a given day or week. Part of this included excluding elements that were contrary to the fruit of the Spirit described in Galatians 5:22-23: “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.”

So bottom line, check your inputs Christians and if they’re not compliant with the Word of God, remove that object as a future input. Better to go to heaven lame, then for your whole body to be delivered to hell.

“The healthy Christian knows his frailty and suspects and distrusts himself, lest sin and Satan should be ensnaring him unawares; therefore he regularly grills himself before God, scrutinizing his deeds and motives and ruthlessly condemning himself when he finds within himself moral deficiency and dishonesty… The healthy Christian is not necessarily the extrovert, ebullient Christian, but the Christian who has a sense of God’s presence stamped deep on his soul, who trembles at God’s Word, who lets it dwell richly in him by constant meditation upon it, and who tests and reforms his life daily in response to it…

Does not this emphasis on constant self-suspicion and self-examination actually weaken faith, by diverting our gaze from Christ in his fullness to ourselves in our emptiness, so leading us to spiritual despondency and depression? No doubt it would if it were made an end in itself; but, of course, it never was. The Puritans ripped up consciences in the pulpit [particularly applying the law and exposing the pride of the human heart] and urged self-trial in the closet only in order to drive sinners to Christ and to teach them to live by faith in him.”

J. I. Packer, A Quest for Godliness – the Puritan View of the Christian Life, pp. 116 & 117