A26932:531
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.
1. And first and above all, See that the work of saving grace be throughly wrought on your own souls. It is a fearful case to be an unsanctified Professor; but much more to be an unsanctified Preacher. Doth it not make you tremble when you open the Bible, lest you should read there the Sentence of your own Condemnation? when you pen your Sermons, little do you think that you are drawing up indictments against ⟨p. 262⟩your own souls! When you are arguing against sin, you are aggravating your own: When you proclaim to your hearers the riches of Christ and grace, you publish your own iniquity in rejecting them, and your unhappiness in being without them. What can you do in persuading men to Christ in drawing them from the world in urging them to a life of faith and holiness; but conscience if it were but awake might tell you, that you speak all this to your own confusion? If you mention Hell, you mention your own Inheritance: If you describe the Joys of heaven, you describe your misery that have no right to it. What can you devise to say for the most part, but it will be against your own souls? O miserable life! that a man should study and preach against himself, and spend all his days in a course of self-condemning! A graceless unexperienced Preacher, is one of the most unhappy creatures upon earth. And yet is he ordinarily most insensible of his unhappiness. For he hath so many counters that seem like the gold of saving grace, and so many splendid stones that seem like the Christians Jewel, that he is seldom troubled with the thoughts of his poverty, but thinks he is Rich and wanteth nothing when he is poor, and miserable, and blind, and naked: He is acquainted with the holy Scripture, he is exercised in holy duties, he liveth not in open disgraceful sin, he serveth at Gods Altar, he reproveth other mens faults, and preacheth up holiness both of heart and life; and how can this man chose but be Holy? O what an aggravated misery is this, to perish in the midst of plenty! and to famish with the bread of life in our hands, while we offer it to others, and urge it on ⟨p. 263⟩them! That those Ordinances of God should be the Occasions of our delusion, which are instituted to be the means of our conviction and salvation?
1. And first and above all, See that the work of saving grace be throughly wrought on your own souls. It is a fearful case to be an unsanctified Professor; but much more to be an unsanctified Preacher. Doth it not make you tremble when you open the Bible, lest you should read there the Sentence of your own Condemnation? when you pen your Sermons, little do you think that you are drawing up inditements against