Richard Baxter Quotes

Speak to your people as to men that must be awakened, either here or in hell.

What we most value, we shall think no pains too great to gain.

The devils never had a Savior offered to them, but you have; and do you yet make light of Him?

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

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.

Doth any man live more to himself, or less to God, than the proud?

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.

An ounce of mirth is worth a pound of sorrow.

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.

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

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?

I did nothing that I might not have done better.

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!

Sinful zeal doth make men doubly sinful.

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.

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?

Death is half disarmed when the pleasures and interests of the flesh are first denied.

Life is short, and we are dull, and eternal things are necessary, and the souls that depend on our teaching are precious.

A little love has made me willingly study, preach, write, and even suffer.

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.

As holy zeal is the fervency of our grace, so sinful zeal is the intention and fervency of sin.

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.

In a divine commonwealth holiness must have the principal honor and encouragement, and a great difference be made between the precious and the vile.

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.

'Tis hard preaching a stone into tears, or making a rock to tremble.

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.

The strongest Christian is unsafe among occasions to sin (519).

Seriousness is the very thing wherein consisteth our sincerity. If thou art not serious, thou art not a Christian (279).

what a silly, frail, and forward pieces are the best of men (647)!

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).

The falseness of your own hearts, if you look not to them, may undo you(15).

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).

He that believeth that he believe, believeth himself and not God (333)[.]

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.

[O]ur applications are quicker about our sufferings, than our sins(77)[.]

If every work of the day had thus its appointed time, we should be better skilled, both in redeeming time and performing duty (556).

O blessed be the grace that makes advantages of my corruptions, even to contradict and kill themselves (648).

So then, let "Deserved" be written on the door of hell, but on the door of Heaven and life, "The free gift" (68).

Oh! what a potent instrument for Satan is a misguided conscience(93)!

Of two duties we must choose the greater, though of two sins we must choose neither (556).

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.

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).

The most dangerous mistake that our souls are capable of, is, to take the creature for God, and earth for heaven (374).

As all our senses are the inlets of sin, so they are become the inlets of sorrow (99).

[T]here is no greater strengthener of sin, and destroyer of the soul, than Scripture misapplied (317).

The door of the visible church is incomparably wider than the door of heaven (522)[.]

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)?

Even innocent Adam is liker to forget God in a paradise, than Joseph in a prison, or Job upon a dunghill(376)[.]

[W]hen the pleasure is at the sweetest, death is the nearest (461)[.]

The sweetest poison doth often bring the surest death (645).