Faith & Spirit Quote by Richard Baxter

Baxter draws a hard line between intimacy and mastery, and it lands with the bracing confidence of a pastor trying to keep both pride and despair in check. “You may know God” is a concession to lived faith: prayer, repentance, scripture, the felt sense of providence. But “not comprehend Him” slams the door on the era’s swelling appetite for system-building certainty. In one neat turn, Baxter validates experience while denying the ego its favorite prize: total explanation.

The intent is pastoral and polemical at once. As a leading Puritan voice navigating the aftershocks of England’s civil wars and religious fragmentation, Baxter faced two temptations that could wreck a community: rationalist overreach (treating God like a theorem) and mystical overconfidence (treating private revelation like a trump card). This line disciplines both. It warns the doctrinaire that their charts of divine attributes are not the territory; it warns the enthusiast that “knowing” isn’t a license to speak as if you’ve climbed inside the mind of heaven.

The subtext is a theology of humility that doubles as social technology. If God cannot be comprehended, then no faction can plausibly claim to have captured Him whole. That matters in a 17th-century world where doctrinal certainty justified real violence and political coercion. Baxter’s rhetoric keeps the believer close enough to be accountable (“you may know”) and far enough to be careful (“not comprehend”). It’s an argument for reverent limits, and a quiet rebuke to any faith that confuses confidence with control.