Self-Examination

Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves. 2 CORINTHIANS 13:5

Baxter was a physician of souls in an almost literal sense — he studied medicine, catalogued his own ailments with clinical precision, and applied the same method to the inner life. Diagnosis before treatment. He held that most Christians never examine themselves at all, that a minority examine themselves destructively, and that a small number do it well. The distinction between the last two is the burden of this chapter.

Why it is commanded

Scripture requires it, and Baxter began there.

Let us search and try our ways, and turn again to the Lord. LAMENTATIONS 3:40

But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread, and drink of that cup. 1 CORINTHIANS 11:28

The reason it is necessary is the one Scripture also gives: we cannot be trusted to know ourselves without effort.

The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? JEREMIAH 17:9

Baxter took the second clause seriously. The heart is not merely corrupt; it is corrupt in a way that conceals itself from its owner. Which means that a comfortable general impression of oneself is worth very little, and that the matter requires deliberate work.

The method

He recommended a set practice, and it is unglamorous. A fixed time, preferably daily, at the end of the day, before sleep. He thought weekly review too infrequent, since by then most of the material has been forgotten. Specific questions, rather than a general trawl. Baxter supplied lists; the value is in their concreteness. How did I use this day? Where did I sin, and in what did it begin? What did I neglect that I ought to have done? What was I angry about, and what does that reveal? How did I treat the people in my house? Where was I proud? Did I speak of anyone in a way I would not repeat to their face?

Commune with your own heart upon your bed, and be still. PSALM 4:4

Confession as you go, rather than accumulating a list. The point of the exercise is not to compile evidence but to deal with what is found. And a resolution, small and specific, for tomorrow.

The invitation that makes it safe

Here is the element that distinguishes healthy self-examination from morbid introspection, and Baxter knew it well.

Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. PSALM 139:23–24

Notice that David does not examine himself alone. He asks God to do it. This changes everything about the exercise. A person searching his own heart by himself is using a faculty that is part of the problem, and he will either find too little or too much depending on his temperament. A person inviting God to search him is in company, and the searching is conducted by Someone who already knows the worst and has not withdrawn. Note also where the psalm ends: lead me in the way everlasting. The purpose is forward movement, not an inventory.

When it goes wrong

Baxter was unusually alert to the failure mode, and this is one of the places where his pastoral wisdom is at its best. Self-examination is medicine for the presumptuous and poison for the fearful. The people who most need it are those who never do it; the people who do it most are frequently those who should do it less. A ten-der conscience, turned relentlessly inward, produces not holiness but paralysis — and it can slide into the condition Baxter called melancholy, which is the subject of chapter fifteen. His safeguards are worth stating. Examine yourself at set times, and then stop. Do not carry the inquest through the day. Examine your conduct rather than your feelings. Feelings vary with health, weather and sleep, and prove very little. End by looking outward. The exercise should finish at Christ, not at yourself, because that is where the remedy is.

Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith. HEBREWS 12:2

And if you cannot do it without despair, do not do it alone. Take it to a wise believer who knows you.

The most practical thing here is the smallest. Tonight, before sleep, ask four questions about today, deal with what surfaces, and stop. Ten minutes, honestly spent, will show you more than a year of vague unease.

Watching the heart

One further emphasis, because Baxter thought it the point at which most self-examination is aimed too late.

Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life. PROVERBS 4:23

The proverb locates the work upstream. By the time a sin has reached speech or action it has already been forming for some while, and examining only the outcome is like inspecting a river at its mouth and wondering where the silt came from. Baxter’s counsel was to attend to beginnings. Not the angry word, but the resentment that had been maturing for a fortnight. Not the dishonest act, but the small compromise months earlier that made it thinkable. Not the affair, but the first conversation that was enjoyed more than it should have been. He observed that we generally know. Something registers at the time — a slight unease, a reluctance to mention it to anyone — and is overruled. That overruling, repeated, is how a conscience is trained into silence.

Take us the foxes, the little foxes, that spoil the vines. SONG OF SOLOMON 2:15

The practical form is to ask, in the nightly review, not only what was done but where it began. What was I thinking about while I waited? What did I turn over with pleasure? What did I decide not to mention? Baxter added an encouragement that keeps this from becoming oppressive. Watching the heart is not the same as distrusting every impulse. A believer whose heart has been renewed will find many of its motions good, and God is at work there. The discipline is one of attention rather than suspicion — noticing what is rising, in order to feed what is of God and starve what is not.

Coming to the Table

The New Testament attaches self-examination to one occasion in particular, and Baxter gave it corresponding weight.

But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread, and drink of that cup. 1 CORINTHIANS 11:28

The context is a congregation whose behaviour at the Lord’s Supper had become a scandal — divisions, the rich eating while the poor went without — and Paul’s instruction is that each person should look at himself before he comes. Baxter’s parishes observed a period of preparation before communion, which is where much of his personal instruction took place. The practice has largely lapsed, and something has been lost with it. But the examination Paul commands must be read carefully, because it is frequently turned into the opposite of its purpose. He does not tell the Corinthians to stay away until they are worthy; nobody would ever come. He tells them to examine themselves and so to eat. The examination is the road to the Table, not a barrier before it.

This is a faithful saying …that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief. 1 TIMOTHY 1:15

The questions to ask are therefore specific and limited. Am I trusting Christ? Is there any sin I am holding on to and intending to keep? Is there anyone here I am unreconciled with? That third question is the one Paul’s context presses hardest and the one we most often skip. A congregation that examined itself about its relationships before communion, rather than only about its private sins, would look rather different within a year.

FOR REFLECTION AND ACTION

1. Set a nightly time — ten minutes — and use specific questions rather than a general survey. 2. Ask God to do the searching rather than doing it alone. It is both safer and more accurate. 3. Confess as you go and finish with one small resolution for tomorrow. 4. Examine conduct rather than feelings. Feelings track your sleep more closely than your soul. 5. End by looking at Christ. If the exercise leaves you looking at yourself, you have stopped one step early.

A PRAYER

Lord, I know myself less well than I suppose, and my heart hides its worst from me.

I will not attempt this alone. Search me, O God, and know my heart. Show me what I did today, what I neglected, what I said, and what it came from.

Give me the honesty to see it and the faith to bring it straight to You rather than turning it over in the dark.

And lead me in the way everlasting — forward, not merely inward. Amen.