Matthew > Matthew's Quotes

“Make careful choice of the books which you read:
let the holy Scriptures ever have the preeminence.
Let Scripture be first and most in your hearts and
hands and other books be used as subservient to it.

While reading ask yourself:

1. Could I spend this time no better?

2. Are there better books that would edify me more?

3. Are the lovers of such a book as this the greatest
lovers of the Book of God and of a holy life?

4. Does this book increase my love to the Word of God,
kill my sin, and prepare me for the life to come?

"The words of the wise are like goads, their collected
sayings like firmly embedded nails—given by one Shepherd.
Be warned, my son, of anything in addition to them. Of
making many books there is no end, and much study
wearies the body." Ecclesiastes 12:11-12”
― Richard Baxter

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

“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

“The vigor and power and comfort of our spiritual life depends on our mortification of deeds of the flesh.”
― 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

“God never saved any man for being a preacher, nor because he was an able preacher; but because he was a justified, sanctified man, and consequently faithful in his Master’s work. Take heed, therefore, to yourselves first, that you be that which you persuade your hearers to be, and believe that which you persuade them to believe, and heartily entertain that Savior whom you offer to them.”
― Richard Baxter, The Essential Works of 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

“While doubt cannot be expelled, it can be subdued.”
― Richard Baxter

“Alas! can we think that the reformation is wrought, when we cast out a few ceremonies, and changed some vestures, and gestures, and forms! Oh no, sirs’! it is the converting and saving of souls that is our business. That is the chiefest part of reformation, that doth most good, and tendeth most to the salvation of the people.”
― Richard Baxter, The Reformed Pastor

“Many who have undertaken the work of the ministry, do so obstinately proceed in self-seeking, negligence, pride, and other sins, that it is become our necessary duty to admonish them. If we saw that such would reform without reproof, we would gladly forbear the publishing of their faults. But when reproofs themselves prove so ineffectual, that they are more offended at the reproof than at the sin, and had rather that we should cease reproving, than that themselves should cease sinning, I think it is time to sharpen the remedy. For what else should we do? To give up our brethren as incurable were cruelty, as long as there are further means to be used.”
― Richard Baxter, The Reformed Pastor

“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

“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, The Godly Home

“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, The Godly Home