A26932:402
Gildas Salvianus: The Reformed Pastor
Gildas Salvianus, the reformed pastor showing the nature of the pastoral work, especially in private instruction and catechizing : with an open confession of our too open sins : prepared for a day of humiliation kept at Worcester, Decemb. 4, 1655 by the ministers of that county, who subscribed the agreement for catechizing and personal instruction at their entrance upon that work / by their unworthy fellow-servant, Richard Baxter ...Gildas Salvianus, the reformed pastor shewing the nature of the pastoral work, especially in private instruction and catechizing : with an open confession of our too open sins : prepared for a day of humiliation kept at Worcester, Decemb. 4, 1655 by the ministers of that county, who subscribed the agreement for catechizing and personal instruction at their entrance upon that work / by their unworthy fellow-servant, Richard Baxter ...
London: printed by Robert White for Nevil Simmons, 1656
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
SECT. II.
Among the many things that are yet sadly out of order in the best, I shall touch upon these few particulars following.
AMong the many things that are yet sadly out of order in the best, I shall touch upon these few particulars following.
1. One of our most heinous & palpable sins is Pride: A sin that hath too much interest in the best; but is more hateful & unexcusable in us then in any men. Yet is it so prevalent in some of us, that it inditeth our discourses for us, it chooseth us our company, it formeth our countenances, it putteth the accents and emphasis upon our words; when we reason, it is the determiner and exciter of our Cogitations? It fills some mens minds with aspiring desires and designs: It possesseth them with envious and bitter thoughts against those that stand in their light, or by any means do eclipse their glory, or hinder the progress of their idolized Reputation. O what a constant companion, what a tyrannous commander, what a fly and subtle insinuating enemy is this sin of Pride! It goes with men to the Draper, the Mercer, the Taylor; it chooseth them their cloth, their trimming and their fashion. It dresseth them in the morning, at least the out side. Fewer Ministers would rustle it out in the fashion in hair and habit, if it were not for the command of this tyrannous vice. And I would that were all, or the worst: But alas how frequently doth it go with us to our studies, and there set with us and do our work? How oft doth it chose our subject? and more often chose our words and ornaments. God biddeth us be as plain as we can, ⟨p. 169⟩for the informing of the ignorant, and as convincing and serious as we are able, for the melting and changing of unchanged hearts; And Pride stands by and contradicteth all; and sometime it puts in toys and trifles, and polluteth rather then polisheth, and under pretence of laudable ornaments, it dishonoureth our Sermons with childish gauds: as if a Prince were to be decked in the habit of a Stage-player or a painted fool. It persuadeth us to paint the window that it may dim the light; and to speak to our people that which they cannot understand, to acquaint them that we are able to speak unprofitably: It taketh off the edge, and dulls the life of all our teachings, under pretence of filing off the roughness, unevenness and superfluity; If we have a plain and cutting passage, it throws it away as too rustical or ungrateful. When God chargeth us to deal with men as for their lives, and beseech them with all the earnestness that we are able;