After surveying the content of Christian Directory, I am convinced that the message of Richard Baxter needs to be heard by Christian pastors today especially those who are preparing for Christian ministry. It is better to know how to do the ministry early than realizing its need after several years of serving in the field. I am saying this after spending seminary training for ministry for more than five years and more or less 20 years in field ministry.
The Christian Directory is divided into four parts: Christian ethics, Christian economics, Christian ecclesiastics, and Christian politics. Christian ethics is also described as private duties, Christian economics as family duties, Christian ecclesiastics as church duties, and Christian politics as duties to our civil leaders and to our society.
Part 1 has 616 pages, part 2 has 512 pages, part 3 has 636 pages, and part 4 has 571 pages. As you can see, the total number of pages is 2, 335. Rewriting these four volumes to suit my goal is not easy. By necessity, my strategy is to simply write small pieces of articles after reading few pages. I cannot wait to finish all the four volumes before I will start to write. I compare this strategy to a man manually harvesting in a ricefield that after holding too much grain, I have to set them aside in one basket or container, and start picking up the grain again.
In this article, I want to start with Christian ethics.
Christian ethics has four chapters. After a brief inroduction (pp. 1-5), chapter 1 contains assumptions about the natural man whom the directions are aimed at (pp. 6-12), followed by 20 directions (pp. 13-61), and two separate sections about temptations (pp. 62-80 and pp. 81-88). Chapter 2 talks about 20 directions for weak Christians to find strength and grow (pp. 89-169). Chapter 3 explains the 17 general directions how to walk with God. The focus of this chapter is to present the essentials of godliness and Christianity (pp. 170-494). Chapter 4 deals with directions against unbelief (pp. 495-512), against hardness of heart (pp. 513-526), hypocrisy (pp. 527-547), and man-pleasing (pp. 548-616).
Though the book was published in 1830, it was actually "written in 1664 and 1665" (p. v). Not like the typical book we read today, it starts with an advertisement that presents the purpose of Christian Directory, the types of readers in mind, the defects of the book, anticipated objections, and requests to both critics and readers.
The author's purpose in writing the Christian Directory is to promote practical obedience and holiness of life. We learn this as Baxter describes the scope of his treatise:
"I do especially desire you to observe, that the resolving of practical cases of conscience, and the reducing of theoretical knowledge into serious Christian practice, and promoting a skillful facility in the faithful exercise of universal obedience, and holiness of heart and life, is the great work of this treatise . . . " (p. vi).
This purpose is made clear through the identification of three types of readers Richard Baxter had in mind: young pastors, heads of families, and to Christians in general. He aims to provide a ready reference ("promptuary") for young pastors "for practical resolutions and directions"(p. viii) related to ministry, a biblical guide for fathers to read to their families, and a useful directory for private Christians in times of doubts.
As to the defects of the book, the writer identifies three. The first two are related to his particular situation and the other one pertains to the 3rd and 4th parts of Christian Directory. Baxter wrote the book during the time that he "was forbidden by the law to preach" (p. vii) and had no access to his library. As a result, he just depended on his memory, which ended to a wrong placement of some church cases. The other defect is the lack of footnote citations.
Concerning the 3rd and 4th parts of The Directory, Baxter acknowledges the limitation of content "about the power and government of God's officers in church and state" (p. viii). He also adds that if anything in his writings show "disloyalty, or disrespect to Authority, Government, Unity, Concord, Peace or Order; or from any opposition to Faith, Piety, Love, or Justice. . ."(ibid.), he renounces it and wants it removed.
Among the seven anticipated objections, I selected four:
Objection # 4: "Your ecclesiastical cases are dangerously reconciling, tending to abate men's zeal against error" (p. xiii).
Objection # 5: "Are all these numerous Directions to be found in Scripture? Shew us them in Scripture, or you trouble the church with your own inventions" (ibid.).
Objection # 6: "You confound your reader by curiosity of distinctions" (p. xiv).
Objection # 7: "Is this your reducing our faith to the primitive simplicity, and to the creed ? What a toilsome task do you make religion by overdoing ? Is any man able to remember all these numberless Directions ?" (ibid.).
Objection # 4 is related to "the danger of peace and reconciliation", objection # 5 is about the biblicality of the Directions, objection # 6 is about the danger of unnecessary distinction of terms, and objection # 7 is about complicating the Christian faith. Baxter briefly answered the first three objections. Concerning the last objection, he gave a longer response.
Richard Baxter was against false orthodoxy. He was for church unification. In his mind, the danger during his time was not in peace and reconciliation, but excesive orthodoxy. I think our time is different. It is the exact opposite. The danger today is the wrong kind of ecumenism at the expense of truth.
Our author upholds that believers are first humans before we become Christians. He also believes in the divinity of natural law. He thinks that the Bible is not contrary to reason and other sciences. Instead, they must "all be sanctified and used for divinity" (p. xiii). Plainly, he replied to the fifth objection that the Directions are biblical in the sense "that as all good commentaries, and sermons, and systems of theology, are in Scripture. . ." (ibid.).
In responding to the sixth objection, Baxter distinguished between unnecessary and necessary distinctions. He acknowledges the existence of necessary distinction for without it, "ambiguity and confusion" breed and feed "pernicious controversies" (p. xiv). But this is different from unnecessary distinction, which he describes as "vain distinction", which actually leads to meaningless fights over words (logomachy) (ibid.). The solution to this vain distinction is not the absence of distinction, but appropriate distinction (orthotomy) or correct handling of the word of truth (2 Timothy 2:15).
As to the charge of complexity, Baxter claims that he was in fact zealous to reduce the Christian faith into its primitive simplicity for without it, there will never be peace and harmony. However, it is a different matter to say that we don't need books but the creed and the Bible for books are nothing but human inventions. Baxter perceives that books are simply tools or aids to facilitate the practice of Christian duty. And besides, Baxter wrote the Directions not that people would memorize all of them, but to serve as a handy reference as needs arise.
Richard Baxter ends the Advertisement with requests both to his critics and his readers. To his critics, his request was that if they found errors in the book, they should tell the author directly with convincing proofs and if in any case Baxter's work was missing something, he encouraged them to do better. To his readers, his advise is to simply ignore any part of the book that is not helpful to Christian obedience and holy living, and focus instead in applying practical truths. The author is convinced that the "PRACTICAL RELIGION" promoted in the book "will afford both to church, state, and conscience, more certain and more solid peace" than false orthodoxy (p. xv).
Let me conclude this article with two important quotes:
"Nothing is well done by him that beginneth not at home: as the man is, so is his strength, and work" (p. vi).
". . . it is an age . . . where our greatest and most costly services of God, are charged on us as our greatest sins . . . " (p. xvi).
I consider the first quote very important particularly for men who neglect their personal and domestic duties due to their zeal for church ministry and social change. No amount of success in ministry and public service will compensate for personal and family failures.
As to the last quote, I consider it strange and should serve as a serious rebuke to our age. If in the time of Richard Baxter, which most 21st century pastors would consider a "golden age" in England, and yet the author could describe his generation in such a lowly state, what will be the appropriate description for our generation, which falls far below than Baxter's time?
Source:
Baxter, R. (1830). The Practical Works of the Rev. Richard Baxter: with A Life of the Author, A Critical Examination of His Writings by the Rev. William Orme. Volume 2: A Christian Directory or, a Sum of Practical Theology Part 1 Christian Ethics (or Private Duties). London: Paternoster Row. 616 pages.
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