Explore the most impactful and insightful quotes and sayings by Richard Baxter, and enrich your perspective with the wisdom. Share these inspiring Richard Baxter quotes pictures with your friends on social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, or your personal blogs, completely free. Here are the top 167 Richard Baxter quotes for you to read and share.
Lord, I surrender. I am completely overcome by your love. -- 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
If anything keep thy soul out of heaven, which God forbid, there is nothing in the world liker to do it, than thy false hopes of being saved, while thou art yet out of the way to salvation(234). (III.III) -- Richard Baxter
What a silly, frail, and forward pieces are the best of men (647)! -- Richard Baxter
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
You are likely to see no general reformation till you procure family reformation. Some little obscure religion there may be in here and there one; but while it sticks in single persons, and is not promoted by these societies, it doth not prosper, nor promise much for future increase. -- Richard Baxter
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
He that believeth that he believe, believeth himself and not God (333)[.] -- Richard Baxter
You are not likely to see any general reformation, till you procure family reformation. -- Richard Baxter
Speak to your people as to men that must be awakened, either here or in hell ... -- Richard Baxter
[T]his is the strongest encouragement to them in sinning; and we have need to lay all our batteries against this bulwark of presumption (361). -- Richard Baxter
I must confess, as the experience of my own soul, that the expectation of loving my friends in heaven principally kindles my love to them while on earth. -- Richard Baxter
If thy meditation tends to fill thy note-book with notions, and good sayings, concerning God, and not thy heart with longing after him, and delight in him, for aught I know thy book is as much a Christian as thou (553). -- Richard Baxter
Preaching a man a sermon with a broken head and telling him to be right with God is equal to telling a man with a broken leg to get up and run a race. -- Richard Baxter
Keep up a humble sense of your own faults, and that will make you compassionate to others -- Richard Baxter
Till men are deeply humbled, they can part with Christ and Salvation for a lust, for a little wordly gain, for that which is less than nothing. But when God hath enlightened their consciences, and broken their hearts, then they would give a world for Christ. -- Richard Baxter
Let no man think to kill sin with few, easy, or gentle strokes. He who hath once smitten a serpent, if he follow not on his blow until it be slain, may repent that ever he began the quarrel. And so he who undertakes to deal with sin, and pursues it not constantly to the death. -- Richard Baxter
An ounce of mirth is worth a pound of sorrow. -- Richard Baxter
If life be long I will be glad, that I may long obey; if short, yet why should I be sad to welcome to endless day? -- Richard Baxter
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
[I]f thou loiter when thou shouldst labour, thou wilt lose the crown. O fall to work then speedily and seriously, and bless God that thou hast yet time to do it; and though that which is past cannot be recalled, yet redeem the time now by doubling thy diligence (260). -- Richard Baxter
Most (Christians) have an ungrounded trust in Christ, hoping that He will pardon, justify and save them, while the world has their hearts, and they live to the flesh. And this trust they take as justifying faith. -- Richard Baxter
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
[W]hen the pleasure is at the sweetest, death is the nearest (461)[.] -- Richard Baxter
It is past all question, and agreed on by all sides, that no religion will save a man who is not serious, sincere, and diligent in it. If thou be of the truest religion in the world, and are not true thyself to that religion, the religion is good, but it is none of thine. -- Richard Baxter
You may know God, but not comprehend Him. -- Richard Baxter
The more they love each other, the more they participate in each other's griefs, and one or the other will be frequently under some sort of suffering. -- Richard Baxter
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! -- Richard Baxter
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
Heaven is won or lost on earth; the possession is there, but the preparation is here. -- Richard Baxter
Are you not in a race; and is not the prize the crown of glory; and should you then sit still or take your ease? (281) -- Richard Baxter
[M]editation is the life of of most other duties; and the view of heaven is the life of meditation (559). -- Richard Baxter
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. -- Richard Baxter
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
Till you can rest in God's will you will never have rest. -- Richard Baxter
The ministerial work must be managed purely for God and the salvation of the people, and not for any private ends of our own. -- Richard Baxter
If our rest was here, most of God's providences must be useless. Should God lose the glory of his church's miraculous deliverances, and of the fall of his enemies, that men may have their happiness here? -- Richard Baxter
Of all preaching in the world, (that speaks not stark lies,) I hate that preaching which tendeth to make the hearers laugh, or to move their mind with tickling levity, and affect them as stage-players use to do, instead of affecting them with a holy reverence of the name of God. -- Richard Baxter
If and worms'-meat must have such respect, think, then, what reverence thou shouldst approach thy Maker (569). -- Richard Baxter
Preach to yourselves the sermons which you study, before you preach them to others. -- Richard Baxter
An aching tooth is better out than in.
To lose a rotting member is a gain. -- Richard Baxter
Do you think none shall be saved but puritans(89)? -- Richard Baxter
Till thou hast learned to suffer from a saint a well as from the wicked, and to be abused by the godly as well as the ungodly, never look to live a contented or comfortable life, nor ever think thou has truly learned the art of suffering (383). -- Richard Baxter
When the world is worth nothing, then heaven is worth something. I leave every Christian to judge by his own experience, whether we do not overlove the world more in prosperity than in adversity (374) [.] -- Richard Baxter
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
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. If -- Richard Baxter
It is as hard a thing to maintain a sound understanding, a tender conscience, a lively, gracious, heavenly spirit, and an upright life in the midst of contention, as to keep your candle lighted in the greatest storms. -- Richard Baxter
O blessed be the grace that makes advantages of my corruptions, even to contradict and kill themselves (648). -- Richard Baxter
The true knowing, living Christian complains more frequently and more bitterly of the wants and woes within him, than without him(55). -- Richard Baxter
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
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
Death is half disarmed when the pleasures and interests of the flesh are first denied. -- Richard Baxter
He that dare not die, dare scarce fight valiantly (475). -- Richard Baxter
Be careful how you spend your time: Spend your time in nothing which you know must be repented of. -- Richard Baxter
If only preaching be necessary, let us have none but preachers. What needs there, then, such a stir about government? But if discipline (in its place) be necessary too, what is it but enmity to men's salvation to exclude it? -- Richard Baxter
I take the love of God and self-denial to be the sum of all saving grace and religion. -- Richard Baxter
O let us not be as the purblind world, that cannot see afar off ; let us never look at the grave, but let us see the resurrection beyond it(42). -- Richard Baxter
When I compare my slow and unprofitable life with the frequent and wonderful mercies received, it shames me, it silences me, and leaves me inexcusable. -- Richard Baxter
You will cast away your cards and dice when you find the sweetness of youthful learning. -- Richard Baxter
I would desire every divine to beware that he tell not the unsanctified, that whoever hath the least degree of love to God for himself, and not as a means to carnal ends, shall certainly be saved ; for he would certainly deceive many thousand miserable souls that should persuade them of this (670). -- Richard Baxter
The strongest Christian is unsafe among occasions to sin (519). -- Richard Baxter
Consideration doth, as it were, open the door between the head and the heart: the understanding having received truths, lays them up in the memory now, consideration is the conveyer of theme from thence to the affections (571). -- Richard Baxter
Study hard, for the well is deep, and our brains are shallow. -- Richard Baxter
But a tedious way to a grievous end(745); -- Richard Baxter
If every work of the day had thus its appointed time, we should be better skilled, both in redeeming time and performing duty (556). -- Richard Baxter
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. -- Richard Baxter
Dangers bring fears, and fears more dangers bring. -- Richard Baxter
In a divine commonwealth holiness must have the principal honor and encouragement, and a great difference be made between the precious and the vile. -- Richard Baxter
I know necessity may cause the Church to tolerate the weak; but woe to us if we tolerate and indulge our own weakness. -- Richard Baxter
And the best, if not heedfully used, will prove the word. The better and keener the knife is, the sooner and deeper will it cut thy fingers, if thou take not heed (647). -- Richard Baxter
Lothness to displease men, makes us undo them (394). -- Richard Baxter
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. -- Richard Baxter
The most dangerous mistake that our souls are capable of, is, to take the creature for God, and earth for heaven (374). -- Richard Baxter
As holy zeal is the fervency of our grace, so sinful zeal is the intention and fervency of sin. -- Richard Baxter
The way of painful duty is the way of fullest comfort. Christ carrieth all our comforts in his hand : if we are out of that way where Christ is to be met, we are out of the way where comfort is to be had (312). -- Richard Baxter
Sirs, so much as your hearts as is empty of Christ and heaven, let it be filled with shame and sorrow, and not with ease (483). -- Richard Baxter
Lay siege to your sins, and starve them out by keeping away the food and fuel which is their maintenance and life. -- Richard Baxter
If your hope dieth, your duties die, your endeavors die, your joys die, and your souls die. And if your hope be not acted, but lie asleep, it is next to dead, both in likenss and preparation( 585). -- Richard Baxter
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
Life is short, and we are dull, and eternal things are necessary, and the souls that depend on our teaching are precious. -- Richard Baxter
He is not drowning His sheep when He washeth them, nor killing them when He is shearing them. But by this He showeth that they are His own: and the new-shorn sheep do most visibly bear His name or mark; when it is almost worn out and scarce discernible on them that have the longest fleece. -- Richard Baxter
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. -- Richard Baxter
The devils never had a Savior offered to them, but you have; and do you yet make light of Him? -- Richard Baxter
While doubt cannot be expelled, it can be subdued. -- Richard Baxter
Despair of ever being saved, "except thou be born again," or of seeing God "without holiness," or of having part in Christ except thou "love him above father, mother, or thy own life." This kind of despair is one of the first steps to heaven. -- Richard Baxter
Sinners, hear and consider, if you wilfully condemn your souls to bestiality, God will condemn them to perpetual misery. -- Richard Baxter
Tomorrow is always the sluggard's working day; today is his holiday -- Richard Baxter
Thou art standing all this while at the door of eternity, and death is waiting to open the door, and put thee in(247). -- Richard Baxter
Publicans and harlots do sooner come to heaven than Pharisees, because they are sooner convinced of their sin and misery. -- Richard Baxter
There is a great deal of duty that husband and wife owe to one another, such as to instruct, admonish, pray, watch over one another, and be continual helpers to each other in order to their everlasting happiness; they must also patiently bear with the infirmities of each other. -- Richard Baxter
Thou I cannot so freely say, My heart is with thee, my soul longeth after thee ; yet can I say, I long for such a longing heart (648). -- Richard Baxter
If a man that is desperately sick today, did believe he should arise sound the next morning; or a man today, in despicable poverty, had assurance that he should tomorrow arise a prince: would they be afraid to go to bed ... ? -- Richard Baxter
Believe it, brethren, God looks for more from England, than from most nations in the world; and for more from you that enjoy these helps, than from the dark, untaught congregations of the land (271). -- Richard Baxter
We will live eternally with Peter, Paul, Austin, Chrysostom, Jerome, Wickliffe, Luther, Zuinglius, Calvin, Beza, Bullinger ... Latimer(69) [.] -- Richard Baxter
[T]here is no greater strengthener of sin, and destroyer of the soul, than Scripture misapplied (317). -- Richard Baxter
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. -- Richard Baxter
So then, let "Deserved" be written on the door of hell, but on the door of Heaven and life, "The free gift" (68). -- Richard Baxter
The door of the visible church is incomparably wider than the door of heaven (522)[.] -- Richard Baxter
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
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. -- Richard Baxter
Is it but right that our hearts should be on God, when the heart of God is so much on us. -- Richard Baxter
To be the people of God without regeneration, is as impossible as to be the children of men without generation. -- Richard Baxter
Of two duties we must choose the greater, though of two sins we must choose neither (556). -- Richard Baxter
I like not charity unreasonably large for the exempting of ourselves from the labour of duty: I would not choose such a charitable physician that would make his patients believe that they are in no danger, to save himself the labour of attending them for the cure. -- Richard Baxter
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
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
I have pain; but I have peace, I have peace. -- Richard Baxter
[O]ur applications are quicker about our sufferings, than our sins(77)[.] -- Richard Baxter
If God be not enough for you, you will never have enough. Turn to him more, and know him better, if you would have a satisfied mind.
-Directions Against Sinful Desires and Discontent. -- Richard Baxter
The falseness of your own hearts, if you look not to them, may undo you(15). -- Richard Baxter
As all our senses are the inlets of sin, so they are become the inlets of sorrow (99). -- Richard Baxter
[O]ne duty may be said to be too long, when its shuts out another, and then it ceaseth, indeed, to be a duty(274). -- Richard Baxter
Remember with whom thou hast to do: what canst thou expect from dust but levity; or from corruption, but defilement(33)? -- Richard Baxter
Even innocent Adam is liker to forget God in a paradise, than Joseph in a prison, or Job upon a dunghill(376)[.] -- Richard Baxter
Oh! what a potent instrument for Satan is a misguided conscience(93)! -- Richard Baxter
Seriousness is the very thing wherein consisteth our sincerity. If thou art not serious, thou art not a Christian (279). -- Richard Baxter
It is true, that men may have Christ whenever they are willing to comply with His terms. But if you are not willing now, how can you think you shall be willing hereafter? -- Richard Baxter
Suffering so unbolts the door of the heart, that the Word hath easier entrance. -- Richard Baxter
Keep up you conjugal love in constant heat and vigor. -- Richard Baxter
Screw the truth into men's minds. -- Richard Baxter
Paganism attributes the creation of the world to blind chance. -- Richard Baxter
I did nothing that I might not have done better. -- Richard Baxter
As we should not own our duties further than somewhat of Christ is in them, so should we no further our own hearts ; and as we should delight in the creatures no further than they have reference to Christ and eternity, so should we no further approve of our own hearts (483). -- Richard Baxter
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
Nothing below heaven is worth setting our hearts upon. -- Richard Baxter
Overvalue not therefore the manner of your own worship, and overvilify not other men's of a different mode. -- Richard Baxter
Do I not well deserve to be turned into hell, if the scorns and threats of blinded men, if the fear of silly, rotten earth, can drive me thither (588)? -- Richard Baxter
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
Hell is paved with infants skulls. -- Richard Baxter
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
If any have more of the government of thee than Christ, or if thou hadst rather live after any other laws than his, if it were at thy choice, thou art not his disciple (331). -- Richard Baxter
What we most value, we shall think no pains too great to gain. -- Richard Baxter
Never does sin so reign in the Church or State, as when it has gained reputation,or, at least, is no disgrace to the sinner,nor is a matter od offence to we who behold it. -- Richard Baxter
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. -- Richard Baxter
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. -- Richard Baxter
It is a contradiction to be a true Christian and not humble. -- Richard Baxter
To live among such excellent helps as our libraries afford, to have so many silent wise companions whenever we please. -- Richard Baxter
If they can see you love them, you can say anything to them. -- Richard Baxter
Surely love is both work and wages. -- Richard Baxter
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
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. -- Richard Baxter
Words and actions are transient things, and being once past, are nothing; but the effect of them on an immortal soul may be endless. -- Richard Baxter
Sinful zeal doth make men doubly sinful. -- Richard Baxter
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
Anger is the rising up of the heart in passionate displacency against an apprehended evil, which would cross or hinder us of some desired good. -- Richard Baxter
O brethren! It is easier to chide at sin, than to overcome it. -- Richard Baxter
'Tis hard preaching a stone into tears, or making a rock to tremble. -- Richard Baxter
Prayer is the breath of the new creature. -- Richard Baxter
Doth any man live more to himself, or less to God, than the proud? -- Richard Baxter
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
Unity in things Necessary, Liberty in things Unnecessary, and Charity in all. -- Richard Baxter
That physician is no better than a murderer, that negligently delayeth till his patient be dead or past cure (389). -- Richard Baxter
We must study as hard how to live well as how to preach well. -- Richard Baxter
A little love has made me willingly study, preach, write, and even suffer ... -- Richard Baxter
Keep company with the more cheerful sort of the Godly; there is no mirth like the mirth of believers. -- Richard Baxter
I preached as never sure to preach again, and as a dying man to dying men. -- Richard Baxter
[O]ur English divines are sounder in it than any in the world, generally: I think because they are more practical, and have had more wounded, tender consciences under cure, and less empty speculation and dispute (336-7). -- Richard Baxter
The devil hath his gunpowder plots, and mines, which may blow you up before you are aware. Not -- Richard Baxter
This life was not intended to be the place of our perfection, but the preparation for it. -- Richard Baxter
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. -- Richard Baxter
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
Special mercy arouses more gratitude than universal mercy. -- Richard Baxter
We are ignorant of things necessary, because we learn things superfluous and unnecessary -- Richard Baxter
He may be a Christian by common profession; but, in a saving sense, no man is a Christian, in whose soul any thing hath a greater and higher interest than God the Father, and the Mediator (352). -- Richard Baxter
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. -- Richard Baxter
The vigor and power and comfort of our spiritual life depends on our mortification of deeds of the flesh. -- Richard Baxter
The sweetest poison doth often bring the surest death (645). -- Richard Baxter