Disciple

Baxter, the theologian, writer, and churchman, has been the study of historians for three hundred years, yet is Baxter the disciple of Jesus who has fascinated Christians of every nation and every station in life. Baxter spent much time contemplating his spiritual state throughout his life, always examining himself to see whether he was "in the faith" (2 Corinthians 13:5). In his autobiography he recounts his conversion, beginning with his first pangs of guilt and the realization that he was a sinner. He records the initial stirrings of the Spirit, his calling upon Jesus as his mediator and he details how God gave him assurance of salvation, resolving his distressing doubts and questions.

His story begins in 1615 at Rowton in Shropshire, England during the reign of James I (b. 1566 - d. 1625). The gambling habits of his father had saddled the family with debt. But, by the time Richard was born, his condition had improved to a "Competent Estate of a Freeholder, free from the Temptations of Poverty and Riches." This turn of events was brought about by the conversion of Baxter's father:

it pleased God to instruct and change my Father, by the bare reading of the Scriptures in private, without either Preaching, or Godly Company, or any other Books but the Bible: And God made him the Instrument of my first Convictions, and Approbation of a Holy Life...

The Baxter family lived in a county where there was "but little Preaching at all" and most of the clergy, by Baxter's account, were ignorant, immoral, drunkards. Those ministers in the surrounding area who took the Bible seriously, teaching their flocks from the Word of God and urging them to a life of holiness, were denounced as "Puritans."

Richard's father introduced him to the Bible at a young age and he developed a great love of Scripture, "though all that time [he] neither understood nor relished much the Doctrinal Part, and Mystery of Redemption." Although young Richard's love of the Scriptures did not spring from a complete understanding, he recognized later the source of his affection for the Bible:

there is in a spiritual heart a co-naturality to the Word of God, because this is the seed which did regenerate him. The Word is that seal which made all the holy impressions that are in the hearts of true believers, and stamped the image of God upon them...

As a boy, he greatly feared sinning and its consequences, but had not experienced God's grace and the power of His Spirit. In his own account, he confesses to being "addicted" to a detailed catalog of sins, including irreverence towards his parents, pride in his intellect, the reading of romances, lying, and plundering his neighbor's pear and apple orchards. For years, it seems he was troubled by his powerlessness over sin. Then, at the age of fifteen:

it pleased God of his wonderful Mercy to open my eyes with a clearer insight into the Concerns and Case of my own soul, and to touch my heart with a livelier feeling of things Spiritual...and shew me the folly of Sinning, and the misery of the Wicked, and the unexpressible weight of things Eternal, and the necessity of resolving on a Holy Life...

For some time, however, Baxter experienced doubts concerning his salvation. He was troubled by his hard heartiness and the fact that, although he was a Christian, he would occasionally commit sins "deliberately and knowingly."

Most disturbing was the fact that he could not "distinctly trace the Workings of the Spirit" or the time of his conversion, as a number of contemporary writers had described. But, the study of God's Word and years in the company of "some Reverend and peaceable Divines [ministers]" caused him to understand "that the Soul is in too dark and passionate a plight at first, to be able to keep an exact account of the order of its Own operations." Although some may know the day and hour of their salvation, "God breaketh not all Men's hearts alike."

Baxter's proven faith, practically applied to every situation in his difficult life, yielded the earnestness for which he was famous. He can rightly be considered the embodiment of the Puritan ideal of submitting everything to God's will.

For English Puritans, eternity was always close at hand. Whether pestilence and disease, or the shifting winds of ecclesiastical and political change, the Puritan had to be ready to face God in a moment's notice. J.I Packer paints this picture of a life of uncertainty and frightening realism:

The Puritans experienced systematic persecution for their faith; what we today think of the comforts of home were unknown to them; their medicine and surgery were rudimentary; they had no aspirins, tranquillisers, sleeping tablets, or anti-depressant pills, just as they had no social security or insurance; in a world in which more than half the adult population died young and more than half the children born died in infancy, disease, distress, discomfort, pain and death were their constant companions.

This produced in the Puritan a spirit of urgency and diligence which, in turn, gave them a deep appreciation for even the most mundane aspects of everyday life. This Puritan worldview, in which the wasting of time was a serious sin, is notably absent in much church leadership today.

God was pleased to make Baxter aware of his own mortality and future estate while he was yet in his teens:

For being in expectation of Death, by a violent Cough, with Spitting of Blood, &c. of two years continuance, supposed to be of a Consumption [tuberculosis], I was yet more awakened to be serious, and solicitous about my Soul's everlasting State...and since then I have found that this method of God's very wise, and no other was so like to have tended to my good.

Baxter was plagued by sickness to the degree that he was "seldom an hour free from pain" from the age of twenty-one to his death at seventy-six. Headaches and toothaches were a daily occurrence. Nosebleeds of up to a pint a day were also common to Baxter. But, rather than hindering him, this condition filled him with an urgent desire to accomplish as much good as possible in the time remaining. In fact, Baxter praised God that, while he was seldom free from pain, he "...was never one hour Melancholy..."

It seemed that Baxter never expected to live through the next winter. But, rather than being consumed by fear or self-pity, he could only think of "...such ignorant, presumptuous, careless Sinners as the World aboundeth with."

Baxter's earnestness is clearly seen in this exhortation to his fellow pastors:

Let us, therefore, rouse ourselves to the work of the Lord, and speak to our people as for their lives, and save them as by violence, 'pulling them out of the fire.' Satan will not be charmed out of his possession: we must lay siege to the souls of sinners, which are his garrison, and find out where his chief strength lieth, and lay the battery of God's ordnance against it, and ply it close, till a breach is made..."

J.I. Packer is one who has found much in the biographies and writings of the Puritans worthy of imitation. He sums up the effect that Baxter, in particular, has had upon him in these words:

Few of us, I think, live daily on the edge of eternity in the conscious way that the Puritans did, and we lose out as a result....Reckoning with death brought appreciation of each day's continued life, and the knowledge that God would eventually decide, without consulting them, when their work on earth was done brought energy for the work itself while they were still being given time to get on with it. As I move through my own seventh decade, in better health than can possibly last, I am more glad than I can say for what Puritans like Bunyan and Baxter have taught me about dying; I needed it, and the preachers I hear these days never get to it, and modern Christian writers seem quite clueless about it - save for C.S. Lewis and Charles Williams...

It is true that many of us may, by the grace of God, live to a ripe old age, free from persecution or serious illness. But, rather than sink into complacency or squander the precious time God has given us, let us follow Paul's command to the Romans, to lead with diligence. It is, after all, our "spiritual service of worship." Catch the urgency of Richard Baxter:

O brethren, what a blow we may give to the kingdom of darkness, by the faithful and skilful managing of this work! If, then, the saving of souls, of your neighbours' souls, of many souls, from everlasting misery, be worth your labour, up and be doing!