Cross Bearer

Although contemporary Christian leaders may not actually encounter lions and bears in caring for God's people as David the Psalmist did, we have been warned that we will certainly face ravenous wolves from within and persecution from without. It is common for pastors to be ridiculed, misunderstood, and slandered. These leaders and their families often live a frugal, hand to mouth existence, foregoing the simplest pleasures and possessions, which many take for granted. In some countries, it is not uncommon for pastors to be singled out for harassment, imprisonment or even death. Perhaps you have not experienced serious hardship in your ministry and have a difficult time believing that you ever will. Baxter gives you a stern warning, in this appeal to his fellow ministers to serve Christ to the fullest:

It is indeed a troublesome and painful work, and such as calls for some self-denial, because it will bring upon us the displeasure of the wicked. But dare we prefer our carnal ease and quietness, or the love and peace of wicked men, before our service to Christ our Master?

We have seen the physical pain which Baxter endured his entire life, but he suffered the most hurt from those calling themselves Christian; those he considered brothers. His troubles began early in his ministry, when he brought the message of the gospel to Kidderminster and flashed the light of Scripture on sin.

Baxter's mere presence in the town, formerly known for its revelry, was enough to provoke "the Rabble of the more vicious sort" to mock and defame him. Baxter arrived in Kidderminster when the stage was being set for a civil war, with those favoring the Parliament and the Puritan cause on one side and those loyal to Charles I and ceremonialism on the other. Baxter and the town of Kidderminster were caught in the middle. He favored the monarchy. But, he saw that the court was corrupt, while the Parliament was upheld by "the more religious sort." He was immediately caricatured a "Roundhead," the label given to the Puritans who supported Parliament, ridiculing them for their short hair and plain dress.

In 1642, an order came down from the Parliament to destroy all of the statues and images of the persons of the Trinity, Mary, and the saints, which remained from the days of Roman Catholicism. The caretaker of the church immediately began the work of removing images. One day he set up a ladder to take down the image of Jesus from a cross in the churchyard, but couldn't reach it. While he went looking for a longer ladder, someone "took the Allarm" and a mob with sticks and clubs assembled to defend the crucifix. When the caretaker failed to return, the rabble went "raving about the Streets," looking for Baxter. Fortunately, he was a mile out of town on his daily walk.

Two of Baxter's friends heard of the riot and ran into town to protect him. The mob beat them both instead and went home satisfied. When Baxter returned from his walk, he heard "the People Cursing at [him] in their Doors" as he walked through town and learned how nearly he had escaped the attack. The next Lord's Day he boldly reproved them from the pulpit and volunteered to leave town, because he feared they would beat him and so, bring on God's condemnation! They were surprised at Baxter's concern for them and quickly repented.

Open violence soon erupted in the county so that "if a Stranger past in many places that had short Hair and a Civil Habit, the Rabble presently cried, 'Down with the Round-heads'; and some they knockt down in the open streets." Tensions increased until one day, as Baxter was walking through town, "a violent Country gentleman... stopt and said, There goeth a Traitor...," pointing to Baxter. He quickly found his horse and rode out of town, barely escaping with his life.

The war eventually came to a close, Cromwell rose to power and Bxter entered into the most successful and comfortable period of his life, gently leading, teaching, and caring for the people of Kidderminster. When Cromwell died and his successor failed to hold England together, Baxter was of the party who sought to bring Charles II back from exile. He anticipated an increase of peace and unity within the national church and expected to enjoy some consideration for his loyalty to the king. His hopes, however, were dashed to pieces with the return of Charles and the Act of Uniformity.

Baxter was offered the prestigious position of Bishop of Hereford, which he declined. He felt that to accept the position would signal his approval of the church's hierarchical power structure and empty ceremonial traditions. It was one thing to tolerate differences in others, but quite another to participate in practices which violated his conscience. Baxter was completely silenced in August of 1662 and barred from any pastoral opportunities.

In the midst of this disaster, the Lord comforted Baxter in his marriage to Margaret Charlton. They withdrew from public life for a time, but continued to attend public worship at the parish church and prayer in the homes of friends. Baxter's enemies remained suspicious and watched his every move.

The next blow to fall was the Conventicle Act, which limited religious meetings to four people above the immediate family in a home and the Five Mile Act, requiring "nonconformists" to live at least five miles from any incorporated town. Mr. and Mrs. Baxter moved to the country, where he entered his most productive period as a writer. Baxter would preach privately to a few friends and neighbors, but even the slightest glimmer of the gospel incited the ungodly to anger:

March 26. being the Lord's Day 1665. as I was preaching in a Private House, where we received the Lord's Supper, a Bullet came in at the Window among us, past by me and narrowly mist the Head of a Sister-in-law of mine that was there, and hurt none of us...

This period at Acton was not, however, without comfort for Baxter. It was here that he met Sir Matthew Hale, who would soon become the Lord Chief Justice of England. They struck up an immediate friendship and spent hours discussing a variety of subjects. It was in Matthew Hale that Baxter discovered the value of patient listening, from "a Man of no quick utterance..." The two became the symbol of loving friendship at Acton so that the sculptured heads of Hale and Baxter adorn the doorway of the parish church to this day.

On June 12, 1669, he was jailed for violating the Five Mile Act and imprisoned at Clerkenwell. Baxter found the heat stifling, the noise of the other prisoners distracting, and the loss of sleep a hindrance to his studies. But, Margaret made his stay tolerable, as he remembers:

When I was carried thence to the common gaol [jail]... I never perceived her trouble at it: she cheerfully went with me into prison; she brought her best bed thither, and did much to remove the removable inconveniences of the prison. I think she scarce had a pleasanter time in her life than while she was with me there.

Baxter would not allow himself to become shaken or embittered by the experience; "Truth did not change, because I was in a Gaol," he wrote. He was released within two weeks, due in part to the fact that Matthew Hale went before the Judges, weeping and attesting to Baxter's good character.

Upon release, the Baxters returned home long enough to rent out their house and gather up a few belongings before moving to Totteridge. It was there "in a troublesome, poor, smoaky, suffocating Room in the midst of daily pains of the Sciatia, and many worse" that Baxter finished a number of writing projects, without the aid of his library. Mrs. Baxter fared no better, suffering "a great straightness of the lungs" from the heavy coal smoke, which filled the room.

Until this time, Baxter had not sought a license because one of the requirements was adherence to a particular denomination or party within the Church of England, a profession his conscience would not allow. Christ is not divided and he would not take on the label of one party in order to preach. Now, however, it was possible to register simply as a "non - Conformist." Baxter stated his "Case" in a simple letter:

My religion is merely Christian... The rule of my faith and doctrine is ye law of God in Nature and Scripture. The Church which I am a member of is the Universality of Christians, in conjunction with all particular Churches of Christians in England or elsewhere in the world, whose Communion according to my capacity I desire... I humbley crave his Majestie's License to preach the Gospel...

Baxter's case, which inspired the title for C.S. Lewis' apologetic work Mere Christianity, won an indulgence issued to "Richard Baxter, a non-Conforming Minister to teach in any licensed or allowed place."

Baxter soon found that being licensed did not mean that he was free to preach the gospel. His enemies continued to hound him and prevented him from preaching or publishing. They levied fines on him for each "seditious" sermon and confiscated his property. Fearing that his beloved library, his "silent wise companions," would eventually be taken and destroyed, Margaret secretly distributed the books to London ministers and sent the rest to Cambridge University in America. Margaret persisted in procuring chapels, Baxter would preach, and his foes would beat on drums outside the windows or meet him at the door with constables and carefully worded warrants.

Baxter's sorrows increased with the death of his beloved friend, Matthew Hale. Then, his stepmother died at the age of ninety-six and, in June of 1681, Margaret finally died and Baxter began to wither. Still, he was not allowed to rest.

Within four months, all of his remaining property was seized and he was taken to jail for preaching five sermons. In November of 1684 new accusations of sedition were made and officers sent to arrest Baxter. He locked himself in his room:

But they set six Officers at my Study-door, who watcht all night, and kept me from my bed and food, so that the next day I yielded to them; who carried me (scarce able to stand) to their Sessions...

Baxter was not allowed to testify in court and others who spoke on his behalf were shouted down. During the course of the matter, Judge Jeffreys and the court vilified Baxter as a knave who sought to "ruin the King and the Nation" through his rebellious writings. But, Archbishop John Tillotson, an eyewitness at Westminster Hall, regarded the scene as Baxter's hour of glory, triumphing over the enticements of worldly honor and an example worthy of our imitation:

Nothing more honourable than when the Rev Baxter stood at bay, berogued, abused, despised; and never more great than then...This is the noblest part of his life, and not that he might have been bishop. The Apostle (2 Corinthians xi.), when he would glory, mentions his labours and strifes and bonds and imprisonments; his troubles, weariness, dangers, reproaches; not his riches and coaches and honours and advantages. God lead us into this spirit and free us from the worldly one which we are apt to run into.

Baxter was found guilty and he wrote "I went quietly to a costly Prison, where I continued in pain and languor near two years." He was released on November 24, 1686 and allowed to live in London, renting a house in Charterhouse yard. His editor and close friend, Matthew Sylvester, paints the picture of a worn, though unbeaten Baxter in this, the twilight of his life:

He was pleasingly conversible, save in his Studying-hours, wherein he could not bear with trivial disturbances. He was sparingly facetious; but never light or frothy. His heart was warm, plain fixed; his Life was Blameless, Exemplary, Uniform... His Personal Abstinence, Severities and Labours, were exceeding great; He kept his Body at an under; and always fear'd pampering his flesh too much. He diligently, and with great pleasure minded his Master's Work within doors and without, whilst he was able. His Charity was very great; greatly proportionable to his Abilities; his purse was ever open to the Poor...

His physical condition grew slowly worse. Two days before his death on December 8, 1691, he told two friends, William Bates and Increase Mather, "I have pain, there is no arguing against sense, but I have peace, I have peace." After a night of excruciating pain, at four in the morning, Baxter turned his eyes to Matthew Sylvester and said, "O I thank Him, I thank Him. The Lord teach you to die." Then Baxter, the weary sojourner, was ushered into the saint's everlasting rest.

Baxter thanked God for his life of brokenness, trouble, and persecution because it made him recognize the effects of sin and death upon mankind. The wretched condition of the human race was ever in his sight and senses, and was present to an unusual degree in his own physical infirmities. Instead of bitterness and self-pity, it produced in Baxter an earnestness in reproving sin and evil, a fervor in leading others to life and peace in Jesus Christ.

But, did his estimation of the pastoral ministry suffer from his years of difficult service and rough treatment? Let Baxter answer as he did one of his critics:

I bless the Lord daily, that ever he called me to this blessed work! It is but my flesh that repineth at it. God hath paid me for all these sufferings a thousand fold... O how the Lord doth sweetly revive my own Faith and Love and Desire and Joy and Resolution and all Graces, whilst He sets me on those thoughts in my studies, and those Persuasions in my Preaching which tend to revive the Graces of my Hearers!... Truly God's work is most precious wages! Yea, even my sufferings are the inlets of my Joy!