As I prepare to make a transition this April from Student Ministry in a parachurch setting to Pastoral Ministry in a local church setting, I picked up a copy of Richard Baxter's classic work on Pastoral Theology entitled The Reformed Pastor which I've had good intentions to read since I first got hooked on the English Puritans in Seminary.
Richard Baxter was one of the foremost Puritan pastors of the seventeenth-century who was a friend and associate of Thomas Manton - the subject of my MA research at McGill. Both Manton and Baxter belonged to the non-separatist Presbyterian party within the Church of England and were forcibly ejected from their pastorates as a result of the 1662 Act of Uniformity for their refusal to conform to the Book of Common Prayer shortly after the Stuart monarchy was restored under Charles II. As a pastor, Baxter was second to none and wrote The Reformed Pastor to train and equip young men preparing for the ministry. By 'Reformed', Baxter is not referring to the Calvinistic Doctrines of Grace, but to the need for pastors to be renewed or 'reformed' in their pastoral practice. As I work through this book in the coming weeks, I will share some of Baxter's pastoral wisdom. Citations are from the Banner of Truth paperback edition.The Pastor's Duty to Oversee His Own Spiritual Health
Before a pastor can properly tend God's flock, he must take care of his own spiritual wellbeing: "We have the same sins to mortify, and the same graces to be quickedned and strengthened, as our people have: we have greater works to do that they have, and greater difficulties to overcome, and therefore we have need to be warned and awakened, if not to be instructed, as well as they." (51)
The first duty of the reformed pastor, therefore, is to "see that the work of saving grace be thoroughly wrought in your own souls." (53) Baxter warns that God does not save clergy because of their vocation or gifts and urges pastors not to be complacent in making their own calling and election sure before they climb into the pulpit to urge others to renounce sin and to embrace Jesus Christ as Lord: "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.... It is a fearful thing to be an unsanctified professor, but much more to be an unsanctified preacher. Doth it not make you tremble when you open the Bible, lest you shouls there read the sentence of your own condemnation? When you pen your sermons, little do you think that you are drawing up indictments against your own souls! When you are arguing against sin, that you are aggravating your own! When you proclaim to your hearers the unsearchable riches of Christ and his grace, that you are publishing your own iniquity in rejecting them, and your unhappiness in being destitute of them! What can you do in persuading men to Christ, in drawing them from the world, in urging them to a life of faith and holiness, but conscience, if it were awake, would tell you, that you speak all this to your own confusion? If you speak of hell, you speak of your own inhereitance: if you describe the joys of heaven, you describe your own misery, seeing you have no right to 'the inheritance of the saints in light.' What can you say, for the most part, but that it will be against your own souls? O miserable life! that a man should study and preach against himself, and spend his days in a course of self-condemning! A graceless, inexperienced preacher is one of the most unhappy creatures upon earth: and yet he is ordinarily very insensible of his unhappiness; for he hath so many counters that seem like the gold of saving grace, and so many splendid sotnes that resemble Christian jewels, that he is seldom troubled with the thoughs of his poverty." (54)
Not only must a pastor ensure that a saving work has been wrought in his own heart before proclaiming the gospel to others, he must also make sure that his faith remains fresh and vibrant, and that his heart remains warm with the gospel of grace: "Content not yourselves with being in a state of grace, but be also careful that your graces are kept in vigorous and lively exercise, and that you preach to yourselves teh sermons which you study, before you preach them to others...I confess I must speak it by lamentable experience, that I publishe to my flock the distempers of my own soul. When I let my heart grow cold, my preaching is cold; and when it is confused, my preaching is confused; and so I can oft observe also in the best of my hearers, that when I have grown cold in preaching, they have grown cold too." (61) The only way to keep the fire stoked, says Baxter, is for the pastor to make his prayer life the first priority in his ministry: "Above all, be much in secret prayer and mediation. Thence you must fetch the heavenly fire that must kindle your sacrifices: remember, you cannot decline and neglect your duty, to your own hurt alone; many will be losers by it as well as you. For your people's sakes, therefore, look to your hearts." (62)
The reformed pastor must always lead the flock by example: "Order your families well, if you would have them do so by theirs. Be not proud and lordly, if you would have them to be lowly. There are no virtues wherein your example will do more, at least to abate men's prejudice, than humility and meekness and self-denial." (65)
The godly pastor must excel in works of charity and benevolence and demonstrate frugality and generosity in the way he lives and stewards his financial resources: "Go to the poor, and see what they want, and show your compassion at once to their soul and body. Buy them a catechism, and other small books that are likely to do them good, and make them promise to read tehm with care and attention. Stretch your purse to teh utmost, and do all the good you can. Think not of being rich; seek not great things for yourselves or your posterity." (66)
Pastors must strive daily to root out or to 'mortify' (a good Puritan word!) sin and avoid ministering in a state of hypocrisy: "If sin be evil, why do you live in it? if it be not, why do you dissuade men from it? If it be dangerous, how dare you venture on it? if it be not, why do you tell men so? If God's threatenings be true, why do you not fear them? if they be false, why do you needlessly trouble men with them, and put them into such frights without a cause?" (68)
Finally, pastors must take steps to prepare themselves with the necessary skills for the work of the ministry which normally includes the pursuit of formal theological education as God provides the time, resources and opportunity. If formal theological education is not a viable option, the pastor should, like Charles Spurgeon, pursue his own course of independent study by immersing himself in theology and the study of the biblical languages. The Puritans placed an extemely high value on the education of their clergy as evidenced by the fact that most of the Ivy League schools in New England were founded by Congregationalist and Presbyterian Puritans for the training of the next generation of ministers (ie. Harvard, Yale, Princeton etc.). This Puritan concern for theological education persists in the Reformed tradition today as all Presbyterian pastors are required to complete an MDiv before they can complete the process of ordination. Here is what Baxter has to say about the importance of education: "O brethren! do you not shrink and tremble under the sense of all this work? Will a common measure of holy skill and ability, of prudence and other qualifications, serve for such such a task as this? I know necessity may cause the Church to tolerate the weak; but woe to us if we tolerate and indulge our own weakness! Do not reason and conscience tell you, that if you dare venture on so high a work as this, you should spare no pains to be qualified for the performance of it? It is not now and then an idle snatch or taste of studies that will serve to make an able and sound divine [puritan word for pastor/theologian] I know that laziness hath learned to allege the vanity of all our studies, and how entirely the Spirit must qualify us for, and assist us in our work; as if God commanded us the use of means, and then warranted us to neglet them...O, therefore, brethren, lose no time! Study, and pray and confer, and practise; for in these four ways your abilities must be increased." (71)
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