A26932:650
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.
How long have we talked of Reformation, how much have we said and done for it in general, and ⟨p. 342⟩how deeply and devoutly have we vowed it for our own parts (of which more anon.) And after all this, how shamefully have we neglected it, and neglect it to this day! We carry our selves as if we had not known or considered what that Reformation was that we vowed. As carnal men will take on them to be Christians, and profess with confidence that they believe in Christ, and accept of his salvation and may contend for Christ, and fight for him, and vet for all this, would have none of him, but perish for refusing him, who little dreamt that ever they had been refusers of him; and all because they understood not what his salva ion is, and how it is carried on, but dream of a salvation without flesh-displeasing, and without self-denying, and renouncing the world, and parting with their sins, and without any holiness or any great pains and labour of their own in subserviency to Christ and the spirit: Even so did too many Ministers and private men talk and write, and pray, and fight, and long for Reformation, and would little have believed that man, that should have presumed to tell them, that for all this, their very hearts were against Reformation, and that they that were praying for it and fasting for it, and wading through blood for it, would never accept it, but would themselves be the rejecters and destroyers of it? And yet so it is, and so it hath too plainly proved: and whence is all this strange deceit of heart? That good men should no better know themselves? Why, the case is plain: They thought of a Reformation to be given by God, but not of a Reformation to be wrought on and by themselves. They considered the blessing, but never thought of the means ⟨p. 343⟩of accomplishing it. But as if they had expected that all things besides themselves should be mended without them; or that the Holy Ghost should again descend miraculously, or every Sermon should convert its thousands, or that some Angel from heaven, or some Elias should be sent to restore all things; or that the Law of a Parliament, and the sword of a Magistrate would have converted or constrained all, and have done the deed;
How long have we talkt of Reformation, how much have we said and done for it in general, and ⟨p. 342⟩