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THE REFORMED PASTOR
By RICHARD BAXTER
The Reformed Pastor
By Richard Baxter
Print ISBN 13: 978-1-4209-7112-5
eBook ISBN 13: 978-1-4209-7113-2
This edition copyright © 2020. Digireads.com Publishing.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.
Cover Image: a detail of “Judge Jeffries Hurling Abuse at Richard Baxter at his Trial”, by Edward Matthew Ward, c. 19th century, (oil on canvas) / Photo © Museums Sheffield / Bridgeman Images.
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CONTENTS
CHAPTER 1. THE OVERSIGHT OF OURSELVES.
SECTION 1—THE NATURE OF THIS OVERSIGHT.
SECTION 2—THE MOTIVES TO THIS OVERSIGHT.
CHAPTER 2. THE OVERSIGHT OF THE FLOCK.
SECTION 1—THE NATURE OF THIS OVERSIGHT.
SECTION 2—THE MANNER OF THIS OVERSIGHT.
SECTION 3—MOTIVES TO THE OVERSIGHT OF THE FLOCK.
SECTION 1—THE USE OF HUMILIATION.
SECTION 2—THE DUTY OF PERSONAL CATECHIZING AND INSTRUCTING THE FLOCK PARTICULARLY RECOMMENDED.
ARTICLE 1. MOTIVES FROM THE BENEFITS OF THE WORK.
ARTICLE 2. MOTIVES FROM THE DIFFICULTIES OF THE WORK.
ARTICLE 3. MOTIVES FROM THE NECESSITY OF THE WORK.
ARTICLE 4. APPLICATION OF THESE MOTIVES.
PART II. OBJECTIONS TO THIS DUTY.
PART III. DIRECTIONS FOR THIS DUTY.
“THE REFORMED PASTOR is a most extraordinary performance, and should be read by every young minister, before he takes a people under his stated care; and, I think, the practical part of it reviewed every three or four years; for nothing would have a greater tendency to awaken the spirit of a minister to that zeal in his work, for want of which many good men are but shadows of what (by the blessing of God) they might be, if the maxims and measures laid down in that incomparable Treatise were strenuously pursued.
Doddridge.
Preface by the Editor.
Of this work as published by the Author, the following was the title: ‘Gildas Salvianus: The Reformed Pastor, showing the nature of the Pastoral work; especially in Private Instruction and Catechizing; with an open CONFESSION of our too open SINS: Prepared for a Day of Humiliation kept at Worcester, December 4, 1655, by the Ministers of that County, who subscribed the Agreement for Catechizing and Personal Instruction at their entrance upon that work, By their unworthy fellow Servant, Richard Baxter, Teacher of the Church at Kederminster.’
Of the excellence of this work, it is scarcely possible to speak in too high terms. It is not a directory relative to the various parts of the ministerial office, and in this respect it may, by some, be considered as defective; but, for powerful, pathetic, pungent, heart-piercing address, we know of no work on the pastoral office to be compared with it. Could we suppose it to be read by an angel, or by some other being possessed of an unfallen nature, the reasonings and expostulations of our author would be felt to be altogether irresistible; and hard must be the heart of that minister, who can read it without being moved, melted, and overwhelmed, under a sense of his own shortcomings; hard must be his heart, if he be not mused to greater faithfulness, diligence, and activity in winning souls to Christ. It is a work worthy of being printed in letters of gold: it deserves, at least, to be engraven on the heart of every minister.
But, with all its excellencies, the ‘REFORMED PASTOR,’ as originally published by our author, labors under considerable defects, especially as regards its usefulness in the present day. With respect to his works in general, he makes the following candid, yet just acknowledgment:—“Concerning almost all my writings, I must confess that my own judgment is, that fewer, well studied and polished, had been better; but the reader, who can safely censure the books, is not fit to censure the author, unless he had been upon the place, and acquainted with all the occasions and circumstances. Indeed, for the Saints’ Rest, I had four months’ vacancy to write it (but in the midst of continual languishing and medicine); but, for the rest, I wrote them in the crowd of all my other employments, which would allow me no great leisure for polishing and exactness, or any ornament;
