The Reformed Pastor

Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers. ACTS 20:28

In 1656 Baxter published a book intended for the ministers of Worcestershire, written to accompany their agreement to take up systematic personal instruction in their parishes. It was an occasional piece for a local purpose. It has never been out of print since, and it is still set for theological students three and a half centuries later. The Reformed Pastor takes its structure from Paul’s charge at Miletus and follows the order of the text exactly. Take heed to yourselves comes first; to all the flock comes second. Baxter would not let anyone reverse them.

The unconverted minister

He opened with a possibility most books on ministry decline to raise: that a man may hold office, preach competently, be respected by his people, and be unconverted. Baxter thought this neither rare nor hypothetical. A man may enter the ministry as a career, learn its vocabulary fluently, and never once have dealt with God on his own account. He may spend his life urging others to a place he has not been.

Thou therefore which teachest another, teachest thou not thyself? ROMANS 2:21

But I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection: lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway. 1 CORINTHIANS 9:27

That verse is Paul’s, about Paul. If the apostle considered the danger worth naming, no minister since has grounds for complacency.

Preaching against sins you live in

His second warning is subtler. It is entirely possible to preach against a sin with real force while practising it. The pulpit provides a curious immunity: a man denouncing covetousness is not, at that moment, thinking of himself, and the act of condemning the fault can produce a comfortable sense of being on the right side of it. He named the ministerial versions. Pride first — in gifts, learning, reputation, the size of a congregation, even in being thought humble. Laziness, disguised as study. Worldliness, disguised as prudence about money. And contentiousness, disguised as zeal for truth. That last he applied to himself without hesitation, and anyone who has read his controversial writings will agree the diagnosis was accurate.

And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? MATTHEW 7:3

The example

A minister teaches chiefly by what he is. The congregation learns more from how a man treats his family, handles money, responds to criticism and speaks of his opponents than from anything he says in a sermon. A discrepancy between the two is noticed immediately, and it does more damage than any amount of poor preaching.

Be thou an example of the believers, in word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity. 1 TIMOTHY 4:12

Baxter singled out two places where failure is visible to everyone except the man himself. The first is his household, and Paul makes the connection explicit.

One that ruleth well his own house, having his children in subjection with all gravity; (for if a man know not how to rule his own house, how shall he take care of the church of God?) 1 TIMOTHY 3:4–5

A man may give his best hours to the parish and arrive home with nothing left, so that the people who most need him receive the worst of him. Baxter regarded this as a plain failure of duty rather than a regrettable side effect of zeal, and he warned that a congregation is not deceived by it for long. The second is money — not, usually, dramatic dishonesty, but the slow accommodation by which a man’s standard of living, ambitions and choice of associates come to be shaped by financial interest without his ever having made a decision about it. His own practice was severe: he lived plainly, gave away a large part of a modest income, and refused preferment when it was offered. He did not require others to match him, but he did require that the question be faced. His test was to ask whether any decision in a man’s ministry over the last year had been influenced by what it would cost him.

Take heed unto thyself, and unto the doctrine; continue in them: for in doing this thou shalt both save thyself, and them that hear thee. 1 TIMOTHY 4:16

He drew the conclusion that a minister’s private devotion is not a personal matter. A man who neglects his own soul deprives his people, because he can only give what he has. And all of this applies, at a smaller scale, to anyone who teaches anyone — a parent, a Sunday school teacher, an elder, an older believer with a younger one in their care. What you are will reach them more surely than what you say.

Every single one

The second half of Paul’s charge governs the second half of the book, and Baxter fastened on one word in it: all. Not the responsive ones, not the regular attenders, not the ones whose conversation is agreeable or whose support is useful. All of them. A minister is responsible for every individual in his charge by name, and he cannot discharge that from a pulpit alone. Preaching addresses a congregation; oversight requires knowing people. He was blunt about the arithmetic. If a parish is too large for its minister to know its members, either he must obtain help or the parish must be divided — but he may not simply preach at a crowd and call it oversight.

Feed the flock of God which is among you, taking the oversight thereof, not by constraint, but willingly. 1 PETER 5:2

The weight of it

Baxter’s motive was an accountability he could not get out of his mind.

Obey them that have the rule over you, and submit yourselves: for they watch for your souls, as they that must give account. HEBREWS 13:17

When I say unto the wicked, Thou shalt surely die; and thou givest him not warning …his blood will I require at thine hand. EZEKIEL 3:18

The watchman passage in Ezekiel shaped his whole ministry, and he did not soften it. He drew from it a rule: it is not enough to have preached the truth in general to a congregation. A minister must be able to say that he has told each person, personally, what their situation is.

What oversight involves

The list is heavy. Knowing the people — their families, trades, temptations, and the state of their souls so far as it can be known. Instructing them individually, which is the subject of the next chapter. Attending to the young, to new converts, and to those under conviction. Visiting the sick and the dying, which he regarded as the point at which a minister earns whatever standing he has. And distinguishing those who need comfort from those who need warning, which he thought the hardest skill in pastoral work and the one most often got backwards.

Now we exhort you, brethren, warn them that are unruly, comfort the feebleminded, support the weak, be patient toward all men. 1 THESSALONIANS 5:14

Four categories, four different treatments, in a single verse. A minister who has only one manner will damage three-quarters of his congregation. Baxter also pressed the restoration of church discipline, not to punish but because admitting to the Lord’s Table people who gave no evidence of faith confirmed them in a false assurance. His era used discipline in ways later generations have rightly questioned, and the New Testament’s aim throughout is restoration, in the spirit of meekness; considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted (Galatians 6:1).

Going after the one

One duty he thought almost universally neglected: the pursuit of those who have drifted away.

The diseased have ye not strengthened, neither have ye healed that which was sick, neither have ye bound up that which was broken, neither have ye brought again that which was driven away, neither have ye sought that which was lost. EZEKIEL 34:4

Every clause describes an omission rather than an act of cruelty. The shepherds did not drive the sheep away; they simply did not go after them. Congregations lose people quietly. Attendance thins, then stops, and six months later it is awkward to make contact, so nobody does. Baxter’s counsel was to move early and without accusation. Ask how they are rather than why they have not been. Assume difficulty rather than rebellion, because it usually is — illness, shame, a quarrel, a bereavement, a doubt they did not know how to mention. The one who has drifted rarely needs to be told so. They generally need to discover that somebody noticed.

He assumed an obligation running the other way too. If the minister is bound to know his people, the people are bound to be knowable — to make themselves available, to answer honestly, and to support the work.

And we beseech you, brethren, to know them which labour among you …and to esteem them very highly in love for their work’s sake. 1 THESSALONIANS 5:12–13

A necessary caution

Now a warning about the book itself. The Reformed Pastor is one of the most searching books in the English language and one of the most crushing. Baxter’s standard is extraordinarily high and his tone relentless. Ministers who are already conscientious — exactly the ones who read it — have been driven by it into despair and, in some cases, out of the ministry altogether. That was not his intention. He was writing to rouse men who had grown complacent, not to finish off men already at the end of themselves. The safeguard is to read it with the gospel in the other hand. Every failure it exposes is a failure Christ has already borne.

There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus. ROMANS 8:1

Two questions from the book can be asked tonight by anyone who teaches or leads. Is there anything you regularly urge on others that you are not practising yourself? And could you write down the names of the people in your care, and say something true about the spiritual condition of each?

FOR REFLECTION AND ACTION

1. Name one thing you regularly urge on others and are not doing. Begin doing it this week.

2. Examine yourself for the four ministerial sins — pride, laziness, worldliness, contentiousness — and identify which is yours.

3. If you lead, write out the names of those in your charge and note beside each what you actually know of their spiritual state. The gaps are the work.

4. Learn the four categories of 1 Thessalonians 5:14 and check whether you treat everyone the same way.

5. Contact one person who has quietly drifted away. Ask how they are, not why they stopped coming.

6. If this chapter crushes you rather than convicting you, stop and read Romans 8:1. Change one thing; do not despair.

A PRAYER

Lord, I have urged on others what I do not practise, and I have preached at people instead of knowing them.

Search me. Show me the pride I have dressed up as conviction, the laziness I have called study, the quarrelsomeness I have called zeal. Keep my own soul, so that I have something to give.

Show me the ones I have quietly written off, and give me discernment to warn the unruly and comfort the fainthearted, and not to confuse the two.

Keep the weight of it on me — that I watch for souls as one who must give account — and when I see how far short I fall, do not let me despair. My standing was never built on my performance. Amen.