In necessary things unity in doubtful things liberty in all things charity.

— Richard Baxter

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

— Richard Baxter

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

Meditation puts reason in its authority and preeminence. It helped to deliver it from its captivity to the sense, and setter it again upon the throne of the soul. When reason is silent, it is usually subject; for when it is asleep the senses domineer. . . . Reason is at the strongest when it is most in action. Now, meditation produced reason into act (573).

— Richard Baxter

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: single letters, and syllables composed, are no better than nonsense. He who overlooked him who is the 'Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending,' and teeth not him in all who is the All of all, doth see nothing at all. All creatures, as such, are broken syllables; they signify nothing as separated from God. Were they separated actually, they would cease to be, and the separation would be annihilation; and when we separate them in our fancies, we make nothing of them to ourselves. It is one thing to know the creatures as Aristotle, and another thing to know them as a Christian. None but a Christian can read one line of his Physics to understand it rightly. It is a high and excellent study, and of greater use than many apprehend; but it is the smallest part of it that Aristotle can teach us.

— Richard Baxter

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

— Richard Baxter

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

— Richard Baxter

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

— Richard Baxter

O sirs, how many souls, then, have every one of us been guilty of damning! What a number of our neighbors and acquaintance are dead, in whom we discerned no signs of sanctification, and never did once plainly tell them of it, or how to be recovered! If you had been the cause but of burning a man's house through your negligence, or of undoing him in the world, or of destroying his body, how would it trouble you as long as you lived! If you had but killed a man unadvisedly, it would much disquiet you. We have known those that have been guilty of murder, that could never sleep quietly after, nor have one comfortable day, their own consciences did so vex and torment them. O, then, what a heart mayst thou have, that hast been built of murdering such a multitude of precious souls! Remember this when thou loosest thy friend or carnal neighbor in the face, and think with thyself, Can I find in my heart, through my silence and negligence, to be guilty of his everlasting burning in hell? Methinks such a thought should even untie the tongue of the dumb. . . . [H]e that is guilty of a man's continuing unregenerate, is also guilty of the sins of his unregenerate. . . . Eli did not commit the sin himself, and yet he speaker so coldly against it that he also must bear the punishment. Guns and cannons spake against sin in England, because the inhabitants would not speak. God pleaded with us with fire and sword, because we would not plead with sinners with our tongues (410-11).

— 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