Christian Classics
‹ The Reformed Pastor
Contents
PREFACEDEDICATIONINTRODUCTORY NOTESECTION 1 — THE NATURE OF THIS OVERSIGHTSECTION 2 — THE MOTIVES TO THIS OVERSIGHTSECTION 1 — THE NATURE OF THIS OVERSIGHTSECTION 2 – THE MANNER OF THIS OVERSIGHTSECTION 3 — MOTIVES TO THE OVERSIGHT OF THE FLOCKSECTION 1 – THE USE OF HUMILIATION · Part 1SECTION 1 – THE USE OF HUMILIATION · Part 2SECTION 1 – THE USE OF HUMILIATION · Part 3SECTION 1 – THE USE OF HUMILIATION · Part 4SECTION 2 – THE DUTY OF PERSONAL CATECHIZING AND INSTRUCTING THE FLOCK PARTICULARLY RECOMMENDEDCHAPTER 3 · PART ICHAPTER 3 · PART I · ARTICLE ICHAPTER 3 · PART I · ARTICLE 2CHAPTER 3 · PART I · ARTICLE 3CHAPTER 3 · PART I · ARTICLE 4CHAPTER 3 · PART IICHAPTER 3 · PART IIICHAPTER 3 · PART III · ARTICLE 1CHAPTER 3 · PART III · ARTICLE 2

Richard Baxter · 12 of 22

SECTION 1 – THE USE OF HUMILIATION · Part 4

[c] But yet let me tell you, that there are not such difficulties in the way, nor is discipline such a useless thing as you imagine. I bless God upon the small and too late trial which I have made of it myself. I can speak by experience, that it is not in vain; nor are the hazards of it such as may excuse our neglect.

I confess, if I had my will, that man should be ejected as a negligent pastor, that will not rule his people by discipline, as well as he is ejected as a negligent preacher that will not preach; for ruling I am sure is as essential a part of the pastor’s office as preaching.

I shall proceed no further in these confessions. And now, brethren, what remaineth, but that we all cry guilty of these forementioned sins, and humble our souls for our miscarriages before the Lord? Is this ‘taking heed to ourselves and to all the flock?’ Is this like the pattern that is given us in the text? If we should now prove stout-hearted and unhumbled, how sad a symptom would it be to ourselves, and to the Church! The ministry hath oft been threatened and maligned by many sorts of adversaries; and though this may show their impious malice, yet may it also intimate to us God’s just indignation. Believe it, brethren, the ministry of England are not the least nor the last in the sins of the land. It is time, therefore, for us to take our part of that humiliation to which we have been so long calling our people. If we have our wits about us, we may perceive that God hath been offended with us, and that the voice that called this nation to , did speak to us as well others. ‘He that hath ears to hear, let him hear’ the precepts of proclaimed in so many admirable deliverances and preservations; he that hath eyes to see, let him see them written in so many lines of blood. By fire and sword hath God been calling us to humiliation; and as ‘judgment hath begun at the house of God,’ so, if humiliation begin not there too, it will be a sad prognostication to us and to the land.

What! shall we deny or extenuate our sins while we call our people to free and full confession? Is it not better to give glory to God by humble confession, than, in tenderness to ourselves, to seek for fig-leaves to cover our nakedness; and to put God to it to build his glory, which we denied him, upon the ruins of our own, which we preferred before him; and to distrain for that by yet sorer judgments which we refused voluntarily to surrender to him? Alas! if you put God to get his honor as he can, he may get it, to your everlasting sorrow and dishonor. Sins openly committed, are more dishonorable to us when we hide them, than when we confess them. It is the sin, and not the confession, that is our dishonor. We have committed them before the sun, so that they cannot be hid; and attempts to cloak them do but increase our guilt and shame. There is no way to repair the breaches in our honor, which our sin hath made, but by free confession and humiliation. I durst not but make confession of my own sins: and if any be offended that I have confessed theirs, let them know, that I do but what I have done by myself. And if they dare disown the confession of their sin, let them do it at their peril. But as for all the truly humble ministers of Christ, I doubt not but they will rather be provoked to lament their sins more solemnly in the face of their several congregations, and to promise reformation.