Baxter’s Directory- Inquiry

[jacobcandler1689]

I picked up Baxter’s Christian Directory at the Southern Seminary bookstore today- for $50! Has anyone else read it? Can anyone speak to its soundness? Any advice for reading it?

 

[JP Wallace]

I have not read it through - it is enormous. But I have dipped into it every so often. I've always found it useful. I've no advice for reading it - but I think use it as a directory and not as a read through volume is probably wise.

 

[Don Kistler]

It's full of very practical Biblical counsel. Like, "How much sorrow is overmuch sorrow?" Answer, "When it keeps us from holy duties." Baxter is better at applied theology than he is at doctrinal precision. But the Puritans considered him to be one of them, for the most part. I'd stay away from his views on justification, though.

 

[arapahoepark]

It's full of very practical Biblical counsel. Like, "How much sorrow is overmuch sorrow?" Answer, "When it keeps us from holy duties." Baxter is better at applied theology than he is at doctrinal precision. But the Puritans considered him to be one of them, for the most part. I'd stay away from his views on justification, though.

In the little I have read I would very much agree. So much practicality on nearly everything and counselors routinely draw from his counsel.

 

[John The Baptist]

Not related to Baxter at all…
I was trying to figure out what book your gal was reading, to no avail.

We ought to be very thankful when the women in our lives are willing to pick up a book and read it

 

[arapahoepark]

Not related to Baxter at all…
I was trying to figure out what book your gal was reading, to no avail.

We ought to be very thankful when the women in our lives are willing to pick up a book and read it

Something about God by JI Packer I bet

 

[John The Baptist]

Something about God by JI Packer I bet

If it’s Packer that’s usually a good guess

 

[hammondjones]

I think it's Knowing God, though the angle is pretty steep.

 

[RobertPGH1981]

I recently asked somebody this question and they said the following:

Baxter is solid. You gotta watch out for his understanding of justification and sanctification (as he would be more along the lines of modern day New Perspectives on Paul in his understanding of forensic justification), but barring that, Baxter’s practical counseling materials are great. He’s the Puritan “counselor” if you will. So his practical treatises on the soul are helpful, thoughtful, practical, and experiential. You should be safe with those and they should be quite helpful, ultimately speaking.

 

[jacobcandler1689]

I think it's Knowing God, though the angle is pretty steep.

View attachment 10270

Yep, it is Knowing God. We are reading through this right now in our church’s book club!

 

[trichotomizer]

I have read certain parts of A Christian Directory, and after doing so Baxter became one of my favorite Puritans, if not my favorite. In particular, I have profited immensely from his advice for reading books peppered throughout parts 1-3. Using page numbers from https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/41633 and the like, you can his book recommendations at

part 1 page 57 Direct. XVI.
part 2 page 479 (my favorite)
part 2 page 480 chapter XXII. directions for the right teaching of children and servants, so as may be most likely to have success
part 3 page 728 Quest. CLXXIII. What particular directions for order of studies, and books, should be observed by young students?
part 3 page 731 Quest. CLXXIV. What books, especially of theology, should one choose, who for want of money or time can read but few?

I understand there are controversies about parts of his theology. I like him because he is both funny and edifying.

Saith Aristippus, (in Laert.) As they are not the health-fullest that eat most, so are they not the learnedest that read most, but they that read that which is most necessary and profitable.

My advice therefore is, that you begin with a conjunction of English catechisms, and the confessions of all the churches, and the practical holy writings of our English divines; and that you never separate these asunder These practical books do commonly themselves contain the principles, and do press them in so warm a working manner as is likest to bring them to the heart; and till they are there, they are not received according to their use, but kept as in the porch. Get then six or seven of the most judicious catechisms, and compare them well together, and compare all the confessions of the churches (where you may be sure that they put those which they account the weightiest and surest truths). And with them read daily the most spiritual heart-moving treatises, of regeneration, and our covenant with God in Christ, of repentance, faith, love, obedience, hope, and of a heavenly mind and life; as also of prayer and other particular duties, and of temptations and particular sins.

for I have before told you, that as we have three natural faculties, an understanding, will, and executive power, so these are qualified in the godly, with faith, love, and obedience; and have three particular rules: the creed, to show us what we must believe, and in what order: the Lord's prayer, to show us what, and in what order, we must desire and love: and the decalogue, to tell us what, and in what order, we must do (though yet these are so near kin to one another, that the same actions in several respects belong to each of the rules). As the commandments must be believed and loved, as well as obeyed; and the matter of the Lord's prayer must be believed to be good and necessary, as well as loved and desired; and belief, and love, and desire, are commanded, and are part of our obedience; yet for all this, they are not formally the same, but divers.

I. I will name you the poorest or smallest library that is tolerable.

II. The poorer (though not the poorest); where a competent addition is made.

III. The poor man's library, which yet addeth somewhat to the former, but cometh short of a rich and sumptuous library.

 

[Solparvus]

The Reformed church has had mixed feelings about Richard Baxter, and some of it deserved. While the Reformed church has routinely expressed great thankfulness for him, some have rightly honed in on his errors in justification. Baxter did modify his views later on to something more orthodox, though I don't know in detail what his doctrine looked like on paper. On his deathbed, Baxter clearly and plainly articulated that his going to glory would have nothing at all to do with his works.

Baxter's Directory contains fantastic directions, but perhaps it should be read with guidance. I don't know how to advise on where his neonomianism is tainting his instructions.

One thing Baxter is, is earnest. You don't need to hear Baxter preach to get that--you feel it when you read him. One author said that while everyone else was playing with matches, Baxter was setting the world on fire. This quote struck me today in a way that it hadn't before:

“I preached as never sure to preach again, and as a dying man to dying men.”

There are ways in which I want to be like Baxter, and ways that I don't. What's in this quote though, is rightfully a preacher's ambition.

 

[sgemmen9]

View attachment 10264
I picked up Baxter’s Christian Directory at the Southern Seminary bookstore today- for $50! Has anyone else read it? Can anyone speak to its soundness? Any advice for reading it?

I'm not sure I can say I've "read it" as much as I can say I've heavily referenced it. Read down the road your curiosity takes you, otherwise you'll get bored. The directory is great because it answers questions based on questions Baxtor receives in ministry or at least posits as hypothetical or potential questions. I personally enjoy reading the parts on marriage and interpersonal conflict, as that's something I deal with a lot in ministry.