Baxter's Directory

Baxter on Evangelism

2009-07-22T06:11:00.001-07:00

O sirs, surely if you had all conversed with neighbor Death as oft as I have done, and as often received the sentence in yourselves, you would have an unquiet conscience, if not a reformed life, as to your ministerial diligence and fidelity: and you would have something within you that would frequently ask you such questions as these: Is this all thy compassion for lost sinners? Wilt thou do no more to seek and to save them?… Shall they die and be in hell before thou wilt speak to them one serious word to prevent it? Shall they there curse thee for ever that thou didst no more in time to save them? Such cries of conscience are daily ringing in my ears, though, the Lord knows, I have too little obeyed them… How can you choose, when you are laying a corpse in the grave, but think with yourselves, ‘Here lieth the body; but where is the soul? And what have I done for it, before it departed? It was part of my charge; what account can I give of it?’ O sirs, is it a small matter to you to answer such questions as these? It may seem so now, but the hour is coming when it will not seem so… (TRP – p. 17)

Let [ministers] that have taken most pains in public, examine their people, and try whether many of them are not nearly as ignorant and careless as if they had never heard the gospel. For my part, I study to speak as plainly and movingly as I can…and yet I frequently meet with those that have been my hearers eight or ten years, who know not whether Christ be God or man, and wonder when I tell them the history of his birth and life and death as if they had never heard it before…But most of them have an ungrounded trust in Christ, hoping that he will pardon, justify and save them, while the world that their hearts, and they live to the flesh. And this trust they take for justifying faith. I have found by experience, that some ignorant persons, who have been so long unprofitable hearers, have got more knowledge and remorse in half an hour’s close discourse, than they did from ten years’ public preaching. I know that preaching the gospel publicly is the most excellent means, because we speak to many at once. But it is usually far more effectual to preach it privately to a particular sinner… (TRP – p. 18)

Ministers of Love

2009-07-15T06:37:00.001-07:00

Taken from On Doctrine...

The dominion of love in the hearts of Christians, appearing in all the course of their lives, doth much glorify God and their religion.—I mean a common hearty love to all men, and a special love to holy men, according to their various degrees of loveliness. Love is a thing so agreeable to right reason, and to sociable nature, and to the common interest of all mankind, that all men commend it; and they that have it not for others, would have it from others. Who is it that loveth not to be loved? And who is it that loveth not the man that he is convinced loveth him, better than him that hateth him, or regardeth him not? And do you think that the same course, which maketh men hate yourselves, is like to make them love your religion?

Click here to read the whole piece.

Baxter on Mere Christianity

2009-07-14T13:06:00.000-07:00

The thing which I daily opened to [my congregation], and with greatest importunity labored to imprint upon their minds, was the great fundamental principles of Christianity contained in their baptismal covenant, even a right knowledge, and belief of, and subjection and love to, God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, and love to all men, and concord with the church and one another…The opening of the true and profitable method of the Creed (or doctrine of faith), the Lord’s Prayer (or matter of our desires), and the Ten Commandments (or law of practice), which afford matter to add to the knowledge of most professors of religions, [takes] a long time. And when that is done they must be led on… but not so as to leave the weak behind; and so as shall still be truly subservient to the great points of the faith, hope and love, holiness and unity, which must be still [i.e., always, constantly] inculcated, as the beginning and end of all. (TRP – pp. 12-13)

Looking at the Past and Present of Counseling

2009-07-08T12:53:00.000-07:00

by David Powlison (intereviewed at 9Marks)

9Marks: Are there significant points of commonality between biblical counseling in the past, such as the Puritan approach, and proper biblical counseling today?

David Powlison: The church forgets things. The church rediscovers things. But when it rediscovers something, it's different because it's always in a different socio-cultural-historical moment, and different forces are at work. Caring for the soul, which we try to do in biblical counseling, is not new. Two of the great pioneers in church history would be Augustine and Gregory the Great. Even secular people will credit Augustine's Confessions as pioneering the idea that there is an inner life. Augustine did an unsurpassed job of tearing apart the various ways in which people's desires become disordered.

Gregory wrote the earliest textbook on pastoral care. He pioneered diverse ways of dealing with a fearful person, a brash and impulsive person, an angry person, an overly passive person. He broke out these different struggles and sought to apply explicitly biblical, Christ-centered medicine—full of Christ, full of grace, full of gospel, and full of the hard call of God's Word to the challenges of life.

The Puritans represent a second era of great riches in the area of pastoral care, and the question is often asked about CCEF's relationship to the Puritans. People are more familiar with them because we still read them. You think about people like Richard Baxter, whose Christian Directory offers a treatise on everything from melancholy to domestic violence to addictions. Now, the Puritans use a different language set. There are certain ways that their studies are not as nuanced and sophisticated as ours, but there is a tremendous correlation of current wisdom for pastoral care in the cure of souls.

Click here to read the whole article.

The Ten Marks of a Flesh Pleaser

2009-07-08T12:32:00.001-07:00

The signs of a flesh-pleaser or sensualist are these:

1. When a man in his desire to please his appetite, does not do it with a view to a higher end, that is to say to the preparing himself for the service of God; but does it only for the delight itself. (Of course no one does every action conciously with a view to the service of God. Nevertheless, the general manner or habit of a life spent in the service of God is absent for the flesh-pleaser.)

2. When he looks more eagerly and industriously after the prosperity of his body than of his soul.

3. When he will not refrain from his pleasures, when God forbids them, or when they hurt his soul, or when the necessities of his soul call him away from them. But he must have his delight whatever it costs him, and is so set upon it, that he cannot deny it to himself.

4. When the pleasures of his flesh exceed his delights in God, and his holy word and ways, and the expectations of endless pleasure. And this not only in the passion, but in the estimation, choice, and action. When he had rather be at a play, or feast, or other entertainment, or getting good bargains or profits in the world, than to live in the life of faith and love, which would be a holy and heavenly way of living.

5. When men set their minds to scheme and study to make provision for the pleasures of the flesh; and this is first and sweetest in their thoughts.

6. When they had rather talk, or hear, or read of fleshly pleasures, than of spiritual and heavenly delights.

7. When they love the company of merry sensualists, better than the communion of saints, in which they may be exercised in the praises of their Maker.

8. When they consider that the best place to live and work is where they have the pleasure of the flesh. They would rather be where they have things easy, and lack nothing for the body, rather than where they have far better help and provision for the soul, though the flesh be pinched for it.

9. When he will be more eager to spend money to please his flesh than to please God.

10. When he will believe or like no doctrine but "easy-believism," and hate mortification as too strict "legalism."

By these, and similar signs, sensuality may easily be known; indeed, by the main bent of the life.

Thanks to Fire and Ice: Puritan and Reformed Writings

Why We Need the Puritans

2009-07-08T12:25:00.000-07:00

Here are J.I. Packer's reasons on why you ought to read the Puritans.

1.) There are lessons for us in the integration of their daily lives. As their Christianity was all-embracing, so their living was all of a piece. There was for them no disjunction between sacred and secular; all creation, so far as they were concerned, was sacred, and all activities, of whatever kind, must be sanctified, that is, done to the glory of God.

2.) There are lessons for us in the quality of their spiritual experience. In the Puritans' communion with God, as Jesus Christ was central, so Holy Scripture was supreme.

3.) There are lessons for us in their passion for effective action. They had no time for idleness of the lazy or passive person who leaves it to others to change the world.

4.) There are lessons for us in their program for family stability. It is hardly too much to say that the Puritans created the Christian family in the English-speaking world.

5.) There are lessons to be learned from their sense of human worth. Through believing in a great God, they gained a vivid awareness of the greatness of moral issues, of eternity, and of the human soul.

6.) There are lessons to be learned from the Puritans' ideal of church renewal. The essence of this kind of renewal (what they called "reformation") was enrichment of understanding of God's truth, arousal of affections Godward, increase of ardour in one's devotions, and more love, joy, and firmness of Christian purpose in one's calling and personal life.

From pages 23-27 of Packer's "A Quest for Godliness."

Baxter on Knowledge

2009-07-08T12:20:00.000-07:00

1.) Every man that has a reasonable soul should know God that made him; and know the end for which he should live; and know the way to his eternal happiness, as well as the learned: have you not souls to save or lose as well as learned have?

2.) God hath made plain his will to you in his Word; He hath given you teachers and many other helps; so that you have no excuse if you are ignorant; you must know how to be Christians if you are no scholars. You may hit the way to heaven in English, though you have no skill in Hebrew or Greek; but in the darkness of ignorance you can never hit it.

3.) If you think, therefore, that you may be excused from knowledge, you may as well think that you may be excused from love and from all obedience; for there can be none of this without knowledge. Were you but as willing to get the knowledge of God and heavenly things as you are to know how to work in your trade, you would have set yourself to it before this day, and you would have spared no cost or pains till you had got it. But you account seven years little enough to learn your trade, and will not bestow one day in seven in diligent learning the matters of your salvation.

If heaven be too high for you to think on, and to provide for, it will be too high for you to ever possess.

From page 70 of J.I. Packer's A Quest for Godliness.

Baxter on Church Discipline

2009-07-08T12:18:00.001-07:00

from The Reformed Pastor

My second request to the ministers in these kingdoms, is, that they would at least, without any more delay, unanimously set themselves to the practice of those parts of Church discipline which are unquestionably necessary, and part of their work. It is a sad case, that good men should settle themselves so long in the constant neglect of so great a duty. The common cry is, ‘Our people are not ready for it; they will not bear it.’ But is not the fact rather, that you will not bear the trouble and hatred which it will occasion? (TRP – 46-47)

I now only beseech you, if you would give a comfortable account to the chief Shepherd, and would not be found unfaithful in the house of God, that you do not willfully or negligently delay it, as if it were a needless thing; nor shrink from it, because of the trouble to the flesh that doth attend it; for as that is a sad sign of hypocrisy, so the costliest duties are usually the most comfortable; and you may be sure that Christ will bear the cost. (TRP – 47)

Baxter on Catechizing, Christian Education, and Pastoral Care

2009-07-08T12:12:00.000-07:00

from The Reformed Pastor

[Is it not] the unquestionable duty of the generality of ministers of these three nations, to set themselves presently to the work of catechizing, and instructing individually, all that are committed to their care, who will be persuaded to submit thereunto? I need not here stand to prove it, having sufficiently done this in the following discourse. Can you think that holy wisdom will gainsay it? Will zeal for God; will delight in his service, or love to the souls of men gainsay it?

That people must be taught the principles of religion, and matters of greatest necessity to salvation, is past doubt among us.

That they must be taught it in the most edifying, advantageous way, I hope we are agreed.

That personal conference, and examination, and instruction, hath many excellent advantages for their good, is no less beyond dispute.

That personal instruction is recommended to us by Scripture, and by the practice of the servants of Christ, and approved by the godly of all ages, is, so far as I can find, without contradiction.

It is past doubt, that we should perform this great duty to all the people, or as many as we can; for our love and care of their souls must extend to all. If there are five hundred or a thousand ignorant people in your parish or congregation, it is a poor discharge of your duty, now and then to speak to some few of them, and to let the rest alone in their ignorance, if you are able to afford them help.

It is no less certain, that so great a work as this is should take up a considerable part of our time.

Lastly, it is equally certain that all duties should be done in order, as far as may be, and therefore should have their appointed times. (page 42)

Richard Baxter and His Gospel

2009-07-08T12:05:00.000-07:00

Maurice Roberts writes...

It is surely right that we should give attention to the theme of this lecture. After all, Richard Baxter, though a man of genius and a brilliant leader in his day, was first of all a preacher and perhaps we could say that he was a model preacher. For the Puritan, nothing mattered like the gospel and so Baxter would certainly have approved of our emphasis here tonight, Richard Baxter and his Gospel. That is what I have come to emphasise and to try to demonstrate a little from his own writings.

But before we come to do that it is only fitting that we should recall Richard Baxter as a very great man and that, too, in an age of great men. He was a many-sided man, strongly independent and at times too much so, as John Wesley was in the next century. They were both very much Englishmen and very eminent ones. You will probably be aware that there is an inscription at the base of Baxter's statue which reads as follows:

'Between the years 1640 and 1660 this town was the scene of the labours of Richard Baxter, renowned equally for his Christian learning and his pastoral fidelity. In a stormy and divided age he advocated unity and comprehension, pointing the way to "the eternal". Churchmen and Nonconformists united to raise this memorial AD 1865.'

Click here to read the whole article.

Thanks to Fire and Ice

Lord, It Belongs Not To My Care

2009-04-12T07:09:00.000-07:00

Lord, it belongs not to my care
Whether I die or live;
To love and serve Thee is my share,
And this Thy grace must give.

If life be long, I will be glad,
That I may long obey;
If short, yet why should I be sad
To welcome endless day?

Christ leads me through no darker rooms
Than He went through before;
He that unto God’s kingdom comes
Must enter by this door.

Come, Lord, when grace hath made me meet
Thy blessèd face to see;
For if Thy work on earth be sweet
What will Thy glory be!

Then I shall end my sad complaints
And weary sinful days,
And join with the triumphant saints
That sing my Savior’s praise.

My knowledge of that life is small,
The eye of faith is dim;
But ’tis enough that Christ knows all,
And I shall be with Him.

Click here to learn more about the hymn as well as to hear its tune.
Thanks to Cyber Hymnal

Advice on Reading

2009-03-16T12:32:00.001-07:00

from Fire and Ice

"Make careful choice of the books which you read: let the holy scriptures ever have the pre-eminence, and, next to them, those solid, lively, heavenly treatises which best expound and apply the scriptures, and next, credible histories, especially of the Church . . . but take heed of false teachers who would corrupt your understandings."

Click here to read all of Baxter's advice on reading.

The Work and Thought of Richard Baxter

2009-03-02T08:48:00.000-08:00

This is Part 2 of a two-part series by Lynell Friesen on Richard Baxter.

from Third Millennium Ministries

To understand the impact that Richard Baxter had both in his time and in ours, one needs to understand the man. Baxter was a many-faceted man. “He was both an evangelist and a scholar; a speaker and an author; a poet and the possessor of a keen analytical mind.”1 Baxter’s intent was never to be an author but a pastor, yet his literary output was so massive that his works, though never published in one edition, would be at least twice the size of the twenty-four volumes of John Owen. “Baxter is usually credited with 168 books. The Rev. A.G. Matthew’s Bibliography says he published 141 volumes and contributed to forty others, while there is still much in unpublished MSS. in Dr. William’s Library.”2

Click here to read the rest of this article.

The Life and Ministry of Richard Baxter

2009-02-20T05:33:00.000-08:00

by Lynell Friesen

at Third Millennium Ministries

It was on the 12th of November, 1615, that Richard was born to Beatrice Adeney and Richard Baxter in his mother’s home at Rowton in the County of Shropshire. “The year after he was born William Shakespeare died, and twelve years before his birth Thomas Cartwright, the great puritan leader of Elizabeth’s reign had died.”2 The cause of Puritanism in England now seemed lost. “The great Elizabethan Puritan courtiers had long since passed away, and the prevailing tendency at Court was to support the Episcopal party”3 of Andrews and Laud.

The first ten years of Baxter’s life were spent in the village of Rowton at the home of his maternal grandfather. His father “had the competent estate of a freeholder, free from the temptations of poverty and riches,” but Richard confessed that his father “having been addicted to gaming in his youth, and his father before him, it [the estate] was so entangled by debts, that it occasioned some excess of worldly cares before it was freed.”4 Shortly before his son’s birth, the senior Baxter had come under conviction regarding the importance of divine truth. In his autobiography Baxter states that his father’s conversion “was effected chiefly through the instrumentality of reading the Scriptures,”5 but had few opportunities to attend the ordinary means of grace. This scriptural basis established by his father set the wheels in motion for Baxter’s own conversion. From his early days he remembered his father acquainting him with the historical facts of the Bible and drawing him to love the Book.

Click here to read the whole article.

Direction XX - God As All

2009-02-20T05:23:00.001-08:00

taken from Scripture Studies.com

by Richard Baxter

See that your religion be purely divine, and animated all by God, as the beginning, the way and the end; and that first upon thy soul, and then upon all that thou hast or dost, there be written "HOLINESS UNTO THE LORD;" and that thou corrupt not all with an inordinate hypocritical respect to man.

To be holy is to be devoted to God, and appropriated to Him, and His will and use; and that our hearts and lives be not common and unclean. To be godly is to live to God, as those that from their hearts believe that He is God indeed, and that "He is the rewarder of them that diligently seek Him," (Heb. 11:6, KJV); that He is "our God all-sufficient, our shield and exceeding great reward," (Heb. 11:6; Gen. 15:1 ; 17:1, KJV); and that "of Him, and through Him, and to Him are all things," that all may give the glory forever unto Him (Rom. 11:36, KJV). As God is infinitely above all creatures, so living upon God, and unto God, must needs advance us above the highest sensual life, and therefore religion is transcendently above all sciences or arts. So much of God as is in you and upon you, so much you are more excellent than that highest worldly perfection can advance you to. God should be the First, and Last, and All in the mind, and mouth, and life of a believer. God must be the principal matter of your religion. The understanding and will must be exercised upon Him. When you awake you should be still with Him (see Ps. 139:8). Your meditations of Him should be sweet, and you should be glad in the Lord (see Ps. 104:34).

Click here to read the rest of this wonderfully God-centered direction.

Such thoughts and statements from Baxter and others is no doubt where I got my "every sphere of life" emphasis in my own life and ministry.

Direction XIX - On the Awareness of Life's Frailty

2009-02-12T12:35:00.001-08:00

taken from Scripture Studies.com

by Richard Baxter

Promise not yourselves long life, or prosperity and great matters in the world, lest it entangle your hearts with transitory things, and engage you in ambitious or covetous designs, and steal away your hearts from God, and destroy all your serious apprehensions of eternity.

...When men think that they shall have many years' leisure to repent, they are apt the more boldly to transgress; when they think that they have yet many years to live, it tempteth them to pass away time in idleness, and to loiter in their race, and trifle in all their work, and to overvalue all the pleasures, and honours, and shadows of felicity that are here below. He that hath his life in his house or land, or hath it for inheritance, will set more by it, and bestow more upon it, than if he thought he must go out of it the next year. To a man that thinks of living many years, the favour of great ones, the raising of his estate, and name, and family, and the accommodations and pleasing of his flesh, will seem great matters to him, and will do much with him, and will make self-denial a very hard work.

Click here to read the rest of this direction.

Direction XVIII - On Backsliding

2009-02-09T07:47:00.000-08:00

taken from Scripture Studies.com

by Richard Baxter

Watch diligently both against the more discernible decays of grace, and against the degenerating of it into some carnal affections, or something counterfeit, and of another kind. And so also of religious duties.

We are no sooner warmed with the celestial flames, then natural corruption is inclining us to grow cold, like hot water, which loseth its heat by degrees unless the fire be continually kept under it. Who feeleth not that as soon as in a sermon, or prayer, or holy meditation, his heart hath got a little heat, as soon as it in gone, it is prone to its former earthly temper, and by a little remissness in our duty, or thoughts, or business about the world, we presently grow cold and dull again. Be watchful, therefore, lest it decline too far. Be frequent in the means that must preserve you from declining: when faintness telleth you that your stomach is emptied of the former meat, supply it with another, lest strength abate. You are rowing against the stream of fleshly interest and inclinations; and therefore intermit not too long, lest you go faster down by your ease, than you get up by labour.

Click here to read the rest of this direction.

Direction XVII - On Obeying God's Law

2009-02-04T04:23:00.000-08:00

taken from Scripture Studies.com

by Richard Baxter

Take heed that you receive not a doctrine of libertiinism as [if it were] from the gospel; nor conceive of Christ as an encourager of sin; nor pretend free grace for your carnal security or sloth; for this is but to set up another gospel, and another Christ, or rather the doctrine and works of the devil, against Christ and the gospel, and to turn the grace of God into wantonness.

Because the devil knoweth that you will not receive his doctrine in his own name, his usual method is to propound and preach it in the name of Christ, which he knoweth you reverence and regard. For if Satan concealed not his own name and hand in every temptation, it would spoil his game; and the more excellent and splendid is his pretence, the more powerful the temptation is. They that gave heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils, no doubt thought better of the spirits and the doctrines, especially seeming strict (for the devil hath his strictnesses), "as forbidding to marry, and abstinence from meats which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving" (I Tim. 4:1,3). But the strictnesses of the devil are always intended to make men loose. They shall be strict as the pharisees, in traditions and vain ceremonies, and building the tombs of the prophet, and garnishing the sepulchres of the righteous, that they may hate and murder the living saints that worship God in spirit and in truth. Licentiousness is the proper doctrine of the devil, which all his strictness tendeth to promote. To receive such principles is pernicious; but to father them upon Christ and the gospel is blasphemous.

Click here to read the whole direction

Direction XVI - On What You Let into Your Mind

2009-02-02T13:40:00.001-08:00

taken from Scripture Studies.com

by Richard Baxter

Make careful choice of the books which you read. [Editor's note: This study may easily be applied nowadays, not only to books which are read, but also television shows that are watched, and movies that are seen.] Let the holy Scriptures ever have pre-eminence; and next them, the solid, lively, heavenly treatises, which best expound and apply the Scriptures; and next those, the credible histories, especially of the church, and tractates upon inferior sciences and arts: but take heed of the poison of the writings of false teachers, which would corrupt your understandings; and of vain romances, play-books, and false stories, which may bewitch your fantasies, and corrupt your hearts.

Click here to read the rest of this spiritual direction.

Direction XV - Concerning the Company You Keep

2009-01-21T06:49:00.001-08:00

taken from Scripture Studies.com

by Richard Baxter

Be exceeding wary, not only what teachers you commit the guidance of your souls unto, but also with what company you familiarly converse, that they be neither such as would corrupt your minds with error, or your hearts with viciousness, profaneness, lukewarmness, or with a feverish, factious zeal; but choose, if possible, judicious, holy, heavenly, humble, unblamable, self-denying persons, to be your ordinary companions and familiars; especially for your near relations.

It is a matter of very great importance what teachers you choose, in order to your salvation. In this, the free grace of God much differenceth some from others: for, as poor heathens and infidels have none that know more than what the book of nature teacheth (if so much); so in the several nations of Christians, it is hard for the people to have any but such as the sword of the magistrate forceth on them or the stream of their country's custom recommendeth to them. And it is a wonder if pure truth and holiness be countenanced by either of these. But, when and where His mercy pleaseth, God sendeth wise and holy teachers, with compassion and diligence to seek the saving of men's souls; so that none but the malignant and obstinate are deprived of their help.

Click here to read the rest of this direction.

Direction XIV - On Sinful Desires

2009-01-20T07:31:00.001-08:00

taken from Scripture Studies.com

by Richard Baxter

Be very diligent in mortifying the desires and pleasures of the flesh; and keep a continual watch upon your senses, appetite, and lusts; and cast not yourselves upon temptations, occasions or opportunities of sinning, remembering that your salvation lieth on your success.

Click here to read the whole direction.

Direction XIII - The Blessings of Godliness

2009-01-11T05:24:00.001-08:00

taken from Scripture Studies.com

by Richard Baxter

Know that true godliness is the best life upon earth, and the only way to perfect happiness. Still apprehend it therefore, and use it as the best; and with great diligence resist those temptations which would make it seem to you a confounding, grievous, or unpleasant thing.

...The work of godliness is a living unto God, and preparing for everlasting life, by foreseeing, foretasting, seeking, and rejoicing in that endless happiness which we shall have with God; and by walking after the Spirit, and avoiding the filthiness, delusions, and vexations of the world and the flesh. The nature of man is not capable of a more noble, profitable, and delectable life, than this which God hath called us to by His Son. And if we did but rightly know it, we should follow it with continual alacrity and delight. Be sure, therefore, to conceive of godliness as it is, and not as it is misrepresented by the devil and the ungodly.

Click here to read the whole direction.

Direction XII - On Divisions Within the Church

2009-01-09T06:05:00.001-08:00

taken from Scripture Studies.com

by Richard Baxter

If controversies occasion any divisions where you live, be sure to look first to the interest of common truth and good, and to the exercise of charity. And become not passionate contenders for any party in the division, or censurers of the peaceable, or of your teachers that will not overrun their own understandings to obtain with you the esteem of being orthodox or zealous men; but suspect your own unripe understandings, and silence your opinions till you are clear and certain; and join rather with the moderate and the peacemakers, than with the contenders and dividers.

Click here to read the whole direction on divisions within the Church.

Pastors...watch your walk

2009-01-08T06:28:00.001-08:00

The good folks over at Christian Book Summaries.com have now summarized a modern version of Richard Baxter's wonderful (and very helpful) book, The Reformed Pastor. Here's their description of it...

Richard Baxter, a respected pastor who lived in the Puritan age, wrote this classic to communicate his conviction that revival was desperately needed in the churches of England. He believed it could start if the pastors would repent for neglecting their congregations and would become the caring shepherds God intended them to be. Baxter believed that English pulpits were too often being used for flowery speech to tickle the listeners' ears or even to boost the self-esteem of the pastors. Convinced that solid biblical teaching was lacking, he launched a movement to engage church members, family by family, in detailed instruction about foundational scriptural truths.

As many of you know, I can't say enough good things about Baxter. Perhaps this summary will introduce his very important book to a new and wider audience. If you would like to download the complete summary on PDF, you can click here.

Direction XI - Encouraging Modesty in First Opinions

2009-01-07T04:53:00.001-08:00

taken from Scripture Studies.com

by Richard Baxter

Let not your first opinions about controverted difficulties in religion, where Scripture is not very plain, be too peremptory, confident, or fixed; but hold them modestly with a due suspicion of your unripe understandings, and with room for further information, supposing it possible (or probable) that upon better instruction, evidence, and maturity, you may, in such things, change your minds.

I know the factions that take up their religion on the credit of their party are against this direction, thinking that you must first hit on the right church, and then hold all that the church doth hold, and therefore change your mind in nothing which you this way receive. I know, also, that some libertines and half-believers would corrupt this direction, by extending it to the most plain and necessary truths, persuading you to hold Christianity itself but as an uncertain, probable opinion.

Click here to read the rest of Baxter's Direction

Direction X - On Avoiding Extremes

2009-01-06T10:15:00.000-08:00

taken from Scripture Studies.com

by Richard Baxter

The remedy against this disease is to proceed deliberately, and receive nothing and do nothing rashly and unadvisedly in religion. For, when you have found out your first error, you will be affrighted from that into the contrary error. See that you look round about you, as well, to the error that you may run into on the other side, as into that which you have run into already. Consult also with wise, experienced men; and mark their unhappiness that have fallen on both sides; and stay not to know evil by sad experience. True [balance] is the only way that is safe: though negligence and lukewarmness be odious, even when cloaked with that name.

Click here to read the whole direction (you will need to scroll down to this one)

Direction IX - Warnings Concerning Ill Effects of Affliction

2009-01-05T07:27:00.000-08:00

from Scripture Studies.com

by Richard Baxter

Take heed lest any persecution or wrong from others, provoke you to any unwarrantable passions and practices, and deprive you of the charity, meekness, and innocency of a Christian; or make you go beyond your bounds, in censuring, reviling or resisting your rulers, who are the officers of God.

Persecution and wrongs are called temptations in Scripture because they try you, whether you will hold your integrity. As many fall in such trials, through the fear of men, and love of the world, and their prosperity; so when you seem most confirmed against any sinful compliance, there is a snare laid for you on the other side, to draw you into passions and practices that are unwarrantable.

Click here to read the rest.

Direction VIII - On Unity Among Believers

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from Scripture Studies.com

by Richard Baxter

Keep right apprehensions of the excellency of charity and unity among believers, and receive nothing hastily that is against them; especially take heed lest under pretence of their authority, their number, their soundness, or their holiness, you too much addict yourselves to any sect or party, to the withdrawing of your special love and just communion from other Christians, and turning your zeal to the interest of your party, with a neglect of the common interest of the church; but love a Christian as a Christian, and promote the unity and welfare of them all.

Click here to read Baxter's whole direction on unity among believers.

Direction VII - On Living Under a Good Pastor

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from Scripture Studies.com

by Richard Baxter

If it be in your power, live under a judicious, faithful, serious, searching, powerful minister; and diligently attend his public teaching, and use his private counsel for more particular directions and applications, for the settling and managing the affairs of your souls; even as you take the advice of physicians for your health, and of lawyers for your estates, and tutors for your studies.

I give this direction only to those that may enjoy so great a mercy if they will. Some live where no such minister is. Some are children, or servants, or wives, that are bound and cannot remove their habitations or enjoy such liberty, by reason of the unwillingness and restraint of others. Some are so poor, that they cannot remove their dwelling for such advantages. And some are so serviceable in their places, that they may be bound to stay under a very weak minister, that they may do good to others, where they have best opportunity. But let him that can be free, and possess so great a mercy, accept it thankfully, though to his cost. As Christ said in another case, "Every man cannot receive the saying; but he that can receive it, let him" (Matt. 19:11).

Click here to read all of this spiritual direction.

Direction VI - On Difficulties and Opposition

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from Scripture Studies.com

by Richard Baxter

Be not discouraged at the difficulties and oppositions which will rise up before you, when you begin resolvedly to walk with God.

As discouragements keep off multitudes from religion, so they are great temptations to many young beginners to turn back, and as the Israelites in the wilderness, ready to wish themselves again in Egypt. Three sorts of discouragements arise before them: 1. Some from the nature of the work; 2. Some from God's trials; 3. And some from the malice of the devil and his instruments; Or all these.

Click here to read about all three of these difficulties for those who chose to walk with God.

Direction V - On Spiritual Infancy and Christian Growth

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from Scripture Studies.com

Be very thankful for the great mercy of your conversion: but yet overvalue not your first degrees of knowledge or holiness, but remember that you are yet but in your infancy, and must expect your growth and ripeness as the consequent of time and diligence.

You have great reason to be more glad and thankful for the least measure of true grace, than if you had been made the rulers of the earth; it being of a far more excellent nature, and entitling you to more than all the kingdoms of the world. . . "Rejoice not that the spirits are subject to you; but rather rejoice because your names are written in heaven" (Luke 10:20). Christ will warrant you to rejoice, though enemies envy you, and repine both at your victory and triumph. If there be "joy in heaven in the presence of the angels" (Luke 15:10) at your conversion, there is great reason you should be glad yourselves. If the prodigal's father will needs have the best robe and ring brought forth, and the fat calf killed, and the music to attend the feast, that they may eat and be merry (see Luke 15:23), there is great reason that the prodigal son himself should not have the smallest share of joy; though his brother repine.

But yet, take heed lest you think the measure of your first endowments to be greater than it is. Grace imitateth nature, in beginning, usually, with small degrees, and growing up to maturity by leisurely proceeding. We are not new-born in a state of manhood, as Adam was created. Though those texts that liken the kingdom of God to a grain of mustard seed, and to a little leaven (see Matt. 13:31,33) be principally meant of the small beginnings and great increase of the church of kingdom of Christ in the world; yet it is true also of His grace or kingdom in the soul. Our first stature is but to be "newborn babes desiring the sincere milk of the word, that we may grow by it" (I Pet. 2:2). Note here, that the new birth bringeth forth but babes, but growth is by degrees, by feeding on the word. The word is received by the heart, as seed into the ground (see Matt. 13). And seed useth not to bring forth the blade and fruit to ripeness in a day.

Click here to read the rest of Baxter's direction on spiritual infancy and Christian growth.

The life of Richard Baxter in sixty seconds

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He Wants Not Friends That Hath Thy Love

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He wants not friends that hath Thy love,
And may converse and walk with Thee;
And with Thy saints here and above,
With whom forever I must be.

In the communion of the saints
Is wisdom, safety and delight;
And, when my heart declines and faints,
It’s raised by their heat and light.

As for my friends, they are not lost;
The several vessels of Thy fleet,
Though parted now, by tempests tossed,
Shall safely in the haven meet.

Still we are centered all in Thee,
Members, though distant, of one head;
In the same family we be,
By the same faith and Spirit led.

Before Thy throne we daily meet
As joint petitioners to Thee;
In spirit we each other greet,
And shall again each other see.

The heav’nly hosts, world without end,
Shall be my company above;
And Thou, my best and surest Friend,
Who shall divide me from Thy love?

Click here to learn about the hymn. Thanks to Cyber Hymnal

Direction IV - On Dealing with Controversy

2008-12-19T13:25:00.001-08:00

Taken from Scripture Studies.com

Begin not too early with controversies in religion; and when you come to them, let them have but their due proportion of your time and zeal; but live daily upon [the] certain great substantials, which all Christians are agreed in.

1. Plunge not yourselves too soon into controversies: For (1.) It will be exceedingly to your loss, by diverting your souls from greater and more necessary things: you may get more increase of holiness, and spend your time more pleasingly to God, by drinking in deeper the substantials of religion, and improving them on your hearts and lives.

(2.) It will corrupt your minds, and instead of humility, charity, holiness, and heavenly-mindedness, it will feed your pride, and kindle faction and a dividing zeal, and quench your charity, and possess you with a wrangling, contentious spirit, and you will make a religion of these sins and lamentable distempers.

(3.) And it is the way to deceive and corrupt your judgments, and make you erroneous or heretical, to your own perdition and the disturbance of the church; for it is two to one, but either you presently err, or else get such an itch after notions and opinions that will lead you to error at the last. Because you are not yet ripe and able to judge of those things, till your minds are prepared by those truths that are first in order to be received. When you undertake a work that you cannot do, no wonder if it be ill done, and must be all undone again, or worse.

Click here to read the rest of Baxter's counsel on dealing with controversy.

Direction III - Labouring for Understanding

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Taken from Scripture Studies.com

Labour to understand the true method of divinity, and see truths in their several degrees and order; that you take not the last for the first, nor the lesser for the greater. Therefore see that you be well grounded in the catechism[10]; and refuse not to learn some catechism that is sound and full, and keep it in memory while you live.

Method, or right order, exceedingly helpeth understanding, memory, and practice. Truths have a dependence on each other; the lesser branches spring out of the greater, and those out of the stock and root. Some duties are but means to other duties, or subservient to them, and to be measured accordingly; and if it be not understood which is the chief, the other cannot be referred to it. When two things materially good come together, and both cannot be done, the greater must take place, and the lesser is no duty at that time, but a sin, as preferred before the greater. Therefore it is one of the commonest difficulties among cases of conscience, to know which duty is the greater, and to be preferred. Upon this ground, Christ healed on the sabbath day, and pleaded for His disciples rubbing the ears of corn, and for David's eating the shew-bread, and telleth them, that "the sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath" (Mark 2:27) and that God "will have mercy, and not sacrifice" (Matt. 12:7).

Click here to read the whole message.

Direction II - Concerning Balance in Christianity

2008-12-17T04:49:00.001-08:00

Taken from Scripture Studies.com

To change your opinions is an easier matter than to change the heart and life. A holding of the truth will save no man, without a love and practice of the truth. This is the meaning of James 2, where he speaketh so much of the unprofitableness of a dead, unaffected belief, that worketh not by love, and commandeth not the soul to practice and obedience. To believe that there is a God, while you neglect Him and disobey Him, is unlikely to please Him. To believe that there is a heaven, while you neglect it, and prefer the world before it, will never bring you thither. To believe your duty, and not to perform it, and to believe that sin is evil, and yet to live in it, is to sin with aggravation, and have no excuse, and not the way to be accepted or justified with God. To be of the same belief with holy men, without the same hearts and conversations, will never bring you to the same felicity. "He that knoweth His master's will and doth it not" shall be so far from being accepted for it that he "shall be beaten with many stripes" (see Luke 12:47). To believe that holiness and obedience is the best way, will never save the disobedient and unholy.

Click here to read the whole message.

Direction I - Concerning the Novelty of Godliness

2008-12-16T06:20:00.000-08:00

A number of years ago, Scripture Studies.com., put out a series of excerpts from Baxter's Christian Directory that was a real treat to see online. Specifically, the excerpts consisted of Baxter's Directions to Young Christians.

I thought I would provide an even smaller excerpt and include the link for you to check out more of good Mr. Baxter's most excellent spiritual counsel. A physician of souls indeed! And in our day of spiritual fads and consumerism, his direction is needed more than ever.

Here's Direction 1...

Take heed lest it be the novelty or reputation of truth and godliness, that takes with you, more than the solid evidence of their excellency and necessity; lest when the novelty and reputation are gone, your religion wither and consume away.

...To this kind of professor, the greatest truths grow out of fashion, and they grow weary of them, as of dull and ordinary things; they must have some new light, or new way of religion that lately came in fashion; their souls are weary of that manna that at first was acceptable to them, as angels' food. Old things seem low, and new things high to them; and to entertain some novelty in religion, is to grow up to more maturity: and too many such at last so far overthrive their old apparel, that the old Christ and old gospel are left behind them.

Click here to read the whole message.

Richard Baxter: A Model of Godly Leadership

2008-12-15T06:51:00.000-08:00

by Dale Tedder

Question: Who has been a leadership role model for you (outside of Biblical characters) and what have you learned from him/her?

Answer: The leadership role-model who has done the most to shape my ministry is Richard Baxter. Richard Baxter was a pastor in the 1600’s who served a local church in Kidderminster, England. He was much admired as a pastor by the Wesleys.

“John Wesley’s father Samuel, once a nonconformist wrote: ‘I wish I had [The Reformed Pastor] again: Directions to the clergy for the management of their people which I lost when my house was last burnt… [Baxter] had a strange pathos and fire.’”

“John [Wesley] himself told the Methodist Conference: ‘Every travelling preacher must instruct them from house to house… Can we find a better method of doing this than Mr. Baxter’s? If not, let us adopt it without delay. His whole tract entitled The Reformed Pastor, is well worth a capable perusal.’ On another occasion he challenged his preachers: ‘Who visits the people on Mr. Baxter’s method?’”

“Charles Wesley and William Grimshaw of Haworth conversing together agreed that preachers should ‘visit from house to house, after Mr. Baxter’s manner.’”[1]

Baxter was a living example of all that he wrote in his book, The Reformed Pastor. By “reformed,” Baxter meant “revived.” His book was originally written to clergy in his area and appealed to them to rediscover their calling as shepherd of souls – to really care for their flocks as Christ loved the church. The book is moving and was used of God to pour conviction on my soul as a pastor. However, mere words can often fall flat. There must be a life behind those words that matches them. His was such a life.

Baxter was known throughout England as a godly man. He sought to live a life that was above reproach and one that could never be attacked as hypocritical. Like Wesley, he lived a very modest life because it was more important for him to give his money to the poor as well as to purchase books and Bibles for them.

He truly loved his flock at Kidderminster. He developed the practice of visiting every family in his church at least once a year at their home (over 2,000 people). There he would pray with them, make sure they knew the life-transforming truths of the faith, and see about any areas of their lives in which they needed help. He did not then leave them, go home, and forget about them. They were continually on his heart.

His preaching and teaching concentrated on the essentials of Christian doctrine and holy living. He did not have time for those who focused only on divisive and nonessential matters. His view was that life was too short for such things.

These are some aspects of his life and teaching that have impacted mine. Though my ministry falls short of his, humanly speaking, it is my goal. I have tried to develop a ministry that goes to the people and meets them where they are. My purpose is to create a warm and friendly environment where they can share the hopes, joys, fears and struggles of their souls with me. In my teaching I attempt to concentrate on those things that matter most, those things of eternal significance, such as knowing God and his Word, living holy lives, bearing witness to Christ in the world and displaying mercy and justice. Baxter has helped me expand my view of ministry.

How does this relate to leadership? Well, Baxter modeled what he taught. God has been unfolding before me the idea that our lives must be lived with profound consistency. If I say something from the pulpit, in a committee meeting or, in a one-on-one counseling experience, and live in a way that is radically inconsistent with what I’ve said, I have demonstrated poor leadership indeed. Why? Because my words will soon begin to fall on deaf ears and rightly so. Leadership must be daily lived and modeled before those one is leading, and that is one of the most important things that I learned from Richard Baxter.

[1] From J.I. Packer’s Introduction to The Reformed Pastor by Richard Baxter. Page 15.

Who Is Richard Baxter?

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I have described Richard Baxter as a 17th century Renaissance man. More on that in just a minute. Specifically, Baxter was an English puritan pastor and writer. But that description doesn't do him justice. According to Baxter scholars, J.I. Packer and Timothy Beougher,

"Baxter has been called the greatest of all English preachers, the virtual creator of popular Christian literature, and the most succesful preacher and winner of souls and nurturer of won souls that England has ever had."

They go on to point out that,

"As Puritanism's leading writer on practical, devotional, moral, and apologetic themes, Baxter produced over 140 books marking out various aspects of the path of truth and holiness."

I call Baxter a Renaissance man because of the wide interests about which he wrote. "Baxter penned treatises on grace and salvation, apologetics, ...antinomianism, the sacraments, millenarianism, ethics, nonconformity, devotion, conversion, politics, and history, not to mention systematic theology." In fact, Ian Murray goes on to say that,

"Baxter was a many-faceted man. He was both an evangelist and scholar; a speaker and an author, a poet and a possesor of a keen analytical mind."

How important was Baxter in own his day? John Wilkins, Bishop of Chester concluded, "If [Baxter] had lived in the primitive time he would have been one of the fathers of the church." A biographer of Baxter says about him that "he came nearer the apostolical writings than any man in the age."

But how important is he for today? Packer and Beougher tell us:

"As two students of Baxter who cannot be sufficiently thankful for the impact [Baxter] has made in our lives, we would say to every believer, get to know Baxter, and stay with Baxter. He will always do you good."

Why would I choose Richard Baxter as my "patron saint?" First of all, because he has done me much good. The second reason is because Baxter captured as well as anyone the "every sphere of life kingdom-mindedness" of genuine Christian discipleship. He understood that all of life (every sphere) must be faithfully integrated because Christ is the Lord of all of life. Packer writes,

"The sheer brilliance of Baxter's achievement in crystallizing a proper form for the life of faith on a canvass as broad as life at a very high level of intelligent, Bible-based, theologically-integrated wisdom, and with unfailing compressed clarity, is dazzling to the mind. Baxter had a high view of "the unity of human life before the Lord."

Packer says that there is no world-denial with Baxter. Instead, what Baxter calls for

"is the sanctification of all life through bringing all its manifold activities into the unity of a single overmastering purpose - loving God, and laying hold of eternal life in its fulness. That can be put the other way round, by saying that what Baxter calls for is a branching out of the converted Christian's heart's desire, to know and love and please God, into biblically informed and situationally appropriate action in every department of life."

I hope that you too will enjoy getting to know Richard Baxter. He indeed will do you good.

Warmest Blessings in Christ,
Dale Tedder

Welcome to Baxter's Directory

2008-12-12T07:18:00.000-08:00

Welcome to Baxter's Directory, a blog dedicated to the Puritan Divine, Richard Baxter. There will be posts on the Puritans in general, as well as other Puritans in particular, but Baxter will be the primary emphasis of this blog.

I became a Richard Baxter fan almost twelve years ago. He has taught, encouraged, inspired, corrected, and equipped me as a "private" Christian as well as a pastor.

My first website dedicated to Richard Baxter was called The Richard Baxter Homepage. It was on AOL for over ten years. In fact, Phil Johnson was gracious enough to put it on his Hall of Church History site that he maintained for quite some time. AOL kept my websites up and running long after I stopped using AOL. However, I just recently discovered that back in October of this year, they closed down all of their old websites.

Therefore, I thought it might be a good idea to introduce Baxter to the blogosphere via this blog. There are many good websites, articles, sermons, etc., that relate to Baxter that I would like to make known on this blog. I would also like to share Baxter's wise counsel on living the Christian life with an audience that may not be familiar with him (as well as other Puritans).

I hope you will be blessed by this blog. Truly Richard Baxter was a faithful shepherd of souls. It's my prayer that his life and spiritual direction will encourage you to want to know God better, love God more, follow God more closely, and become more like God in every sphere of your life.

Soli Deo Gloria,
Dale Tedder