Richard Baxter quotes:

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.

Lay siege to your sins, and starve them out by keeping away the food and fuel which is their maintenance and life.

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.

If I were but sure that I should live to see the coming of the Lord, it would be the joyfulest tidings in the world. O that I might see His kingdom come! It is the characteristic of His saints to love His appearing, and to look for that blessed hope. "The Spirit and the bride say, Come." "Even so, come, Lord Jesus.

Paganism attributes the creation of the world to blind chance.

Keep up you conjugal love in constant heat and vigor.

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.

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.

Such is the depth of the Christian Scriptures, that even if I were attempting to study them and nothing else from early boyhood to decrepit old age, with the utmost leisure, the most unwearied zeal, and talents greater than I have, I would be still daily making progress in discovering their treasures.

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!

Sinners, hear and consider, if you wilfully condemn your souls to bestiality, God will condemn them to perpetual misery.

Christ leads me through no darker rooms than He went through before.

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

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

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!

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.

Be careful how you spend your time: Spend your time in nothing which you know must be repented of.

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

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

Dangers bring fears and fears more dangers bring.

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.

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.

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.

An aching tooth is better out than in. To lose a rotting member is a gain.

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.

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

An ounce of mirth is worth a pound of sorrow.

And though it be their sin and vanity that is the cause [of lust], it is nevertheless your sin to be the unnecessary occasion"¦You must not lay a stumbling-block in their way, nor blow up the fire of their lust"¦You must walk among sinful persons as you would do with a candle among straw or gunpowder; or else you may see the flame which you did not foresee, when it is too late to quench it.

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

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

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.

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?

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

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

For it was thy sin, and the sin of all the world, that lay upon our Redeemer, and his sacrifice and satisfaction is sufficient for all, and the fruits of it are offered to one as well as another, but it is true that it was never the intent of his mind to pardon and save any that would not by faith and repentance be converted.

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.

Hell is paved with infants skulls.

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.

I did nothing that I might not have done better.

I have pain; but I have peace, I have peace.

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.

I remember myself, that when I was young, I had sometime the company of one ancient godly minister, who was of weaker parts than many others, but yet did profit me more than most; because he would never in prayer or conference speak of God, or the life to come, but with such marvelous seriousness and reverence, as if he had seen the majesty and glory which he talked of.

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.

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....?

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.

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, that I may long obey; if short, yet why should I be sad to welcome to endless day?

If they can see you love them, you can say anything to them.

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.

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

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

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.

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

It is a contradiction to be a true Christian and not humble.

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.

It is not a terrible thing to a wretched soul, when it shall lie roaring perpetually in the flames of hell, and the God of mercy himself shall laugh at them; when...God shall mock them instead of relieving them; when none in heaven or earth can help them but God, and he shall rejoice over them in their calamity

It is not the reading of many books which is necessary to make a man wise or good, but the well-reading of a few, could he be sure to have the best. And it is not possible to read over many on the same subject without a great deal of loss of precious time.

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

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.

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?

Keep company with the more cheerful sort of the Godly; there is no mirth like the mirth of believers.

Keep up a humble sense of your own faults, and that will make you compassionate to others

Keep your children as much as may be from ill company, especially of ungodly playfellows. It is one of the greatest dangers for the undoing of children in the world; especially when they are sent to common schools: for there is scarce any of those schools so good, but hath many rude and ungodly ill-taught children in it.

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

Lord, I surrender. I am completely overcome by your love.

Make careful choice of the books which you read: let the holy Scriptures ever have the preeminence.

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.

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?

Naturally, men are prone to spin themselves a web of opinions out of their own brain, and to have a religion that may be called their own. They are far readier to make themselves a faith, than to receive that which God hath formed to their hands; are far readier to receive a doctrine that tends to their carnal commodity, or honor, or delight, than one that tends to self-denial.

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.

Nothing below heaven is worth setting our hearts upon.

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.

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!

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

Prayer is the breath of the new creature.

Prayer must carry on our work as much as preaching; he preacheth not heartily to his people that will not pray for them.

Preach to yourselves the sermons which you study, before you preach them to others.

Screw the truth into men's minds.

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.

Sinful zeal doth make men doubly sinful.

Sit not down without assurance. Get alone, and bring thy heart to the bar of trial: force it to answer the interrogatories put to it to set the qualifications of the saints on one side, and the qualifications of thyself on the other side, and then judge what resemblance there is between them.... Yet be sure thou judge by a true touchstone, and mistake not the Scripture description of a saint, that thou neither acquit nor condemn thyself by mistake.

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

Special mercy arouses more gratitude than universal mercy.

Spend your time in nothing which you know must be repented of; in nothing on which you might not pray for the blessing of God; in nothing which you could not review with a quiet conscience on your dying bed; in nothing which you might not safely and properly be found doing if death should surprise you in the act.

Study hard, for the well is deep, and our brains are shallow.

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

Surely love is both work and wages.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

Tomorrow is always the sluggard's working day; today is his holiday

Unity in things Necessary, Liberty in things Unnecessary, and Charity in all.

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.

We are ignorant of things necessary, because we learn things superfluous and unnecessary

We must feel toward our people as a father toward his children; yea, the most tender love of a mother must not surpass ours. We must even travail in birth, till Christ be formed in them. They should see that we care for no outward thing, neither liberty, nor honor, nor life, in comparison to their salvation... When the people see that you truly love them, they will hear anything from you...Oh therefore, see that you feel a tender love for your people in your hearts, and let them perceive it in your speech and conduct. Let them see that you spend and are spent for their sakes.

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

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

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.

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.

While doubt cannot be expelled, it can be subdued.

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.

You are not likely to see any general reformation, till you procure family reformation.

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.

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; he hath now access to your fancy to stir up lustful thoughts and desires, so that when you should think of your calling, of your God, or of your soul, your thoughts will be worse than swinish, upon the filth that is not fit to be named. If the devil here get in a foot, he will not easily be got out.

You may know God, but not comprehend Him.

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.

You will cast away your cards and dice when you find the sweetness of youthful learning.