Chapter 6
PERSONAL SALVATION AND A COMMUNITY OF SAINTS
Religious education usually involves the spiritual, intellectual, and moral faculties all together. It comes from God’s revelation through human agents. In fact, the patient proselytizing and teaching by mentors usually initiates the long process by which a Christian gradually acquires faith.
Religious education, then, is a form of transmitting knowledge which is expressed in practice. As St. Paul’s admonition to Titus put it:
For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present age, looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior, Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto Himself a people of His own, zealous of good works. These things speak, and exhort, and rebuke with all authority. Let no man despise thee. 1
This passage shows that though religious education originates with God, it is the human responsibility to teach it to others. “The grace of God” changes human nature. It opens our minds, allows us to know right from wrong -- enabling us at the right time to say “no” to the wrong things, and thus deny all that is displeasing to God.
At the same time, Paul asks Titus to “speak thou the things which become sound doctrine,” 2 and “these things speak, and exhort, and rebuke with all authority.” 3 Furthermore, this duty to educate, to teach others, is to be exercised not only by the pastors of congregations but also by other mature persons in the Church who are committed to their faith. 4 This religious education can be done directly by the spoken word and face to face, or it can take place through the written word. Thus Paul, the great communicator through epistles, enjoins the faithful:
So then, brothers, stand firm and hold to the teachings we passed on to you, whether by word of mouth or by letter. 5
In the Bible, even before the promised land was possessed by Israel, the importance of conveying religious doctrines was stressed: “Only take heed to thyself, and keep thy soul diligently… teach them to thy sons.” 6
Again, God spoke through His servant Moses:
And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart, and thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes. And thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house, and on thy gates. 7
Thus the Bible depicts a God who promotes a comprehensive and consistent religious education. Later, of course, in the New Testament the Bible shows how Christ Jesus came to the world not only as the Son of God, the Incarnate Word, the Savior of mankind, but also as a religious teacher -- the greatest of all time. He was so considered by His contemporaries and disciples. 8 After His resurrection, Jesus Christ commissioned His disciples to evangelize and convert people, and also to “teach all nations” -- “teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you.” 9 The Holy Spirit effectuates the teaching. The New Testament church, from its very beginning, was devoted to “the apostle’s teaching and fellowship.” 10
From Sinner to Saint: Augustine’s Spiritual Progress
From time to time, people in the Church employ the Bible to reject the need for a disciplined religious education. They may quote that “the anointing [Holy Spirit, or Divine Grace] which ye have received of Him abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach you.” 11 Exactly for such people, who misuse the Scripture in this way, St. Augustine wrote these words:
I would such persons could calm themselves so far as to remember that, however justly they may rejoice in God’s great gift, yet it was from human teachers they themselves learnt to read…. They must surely grant that everyone of us learnt his own language by hearing it constantly from childhood, and that any other language we have learnt -- Greek, or Hebrew, or any of the rest -- we have learnt either in the same way, by hearing it spoken, or from a human teacher. Now, then, suppose we advise all our brethren not to teach their children any of these things, because on the outpouring of the Holy Spirit the apostles immediately began to speak the language of every race; and warn everyone who has not had a like experience that he need not consider himself a Christian, or may at least doubt whether he yet received the Holy Spirit? No, no; rather let us put away false pride and learn whatever we can from man; and let him who teaches another communicate what he has himself received without arrogance and without jealousy. 12
This kind of argument may now seem far removed from the minds of most of us; yet it was from this kind of ground that religious education, even Western education in general, has emerged.
As John Donne says: “No man is an Iland, intire of it selfe; every man is a peece of Continent, a part of the Maine.” 13 The close association or communion of like-minded people ensures human survival as well as the duration of the soul’s life beyond death. Since human thinking and feeling are ever active and generative, this socialization is not a reality that is static and unchanging, but a dynamic process that evolves through time. Human associativity is never neutral, but educational in nature. We are ever forming and transforming our thinking, which then affects our present and future actions, often with reference to the people around us.
St. Augustine’s writings provide an exemplary demonstration of how religious education influenced his early life. Later on, after his conversion, he took religious education as his lifelong ministry, and so influenced many others.
St. Augustine (Aurelius Augustinus, A.D. 354-430) was born to middle-class parents at Tagaste in North Africa (now part of Algeria). His father, Patricius, was a pagan and remained so until late in his life, when he was converted to Christianity. However, Augustine’s mother, Monica, was known as a godly Christian woman with simple faith.
While still a child, Augustine was enrolled by his mother as a catechumen in the Catholic Church. Although not baptized in his infancy, because of Monica’s early teachings, he revered the Name of Christ all his life. Her religious instruction to her son might not have been as intense as that of Timothy’s grandmother Lois and mother Eunice. 14 Yet there is no doubt that a moral and spiritual education begun in a mother’s lap always has a permanent impact.
After finishing his basic education at about age sixteen, Augustine went to Carthage to study a course in rhetoric. At that time, rhetoric, in Aristotle’s words, was the art of persuasion; this education in communication prepared young men for legislative and judicial positions in government.
In Carthage, Augustine lived there for some time with a mistress, ignoring his mother’s advice to maintain chastity. For more than fifteen years afterward, this sin of concupiscence haunted him. As Augustine himself described this early phase of his life:
… with what companions I walked the street of Babylon, and wallowed in the mire thereof as in a bed of spices and precious ointments. And that I might cleave the faster to its very centre, the invisible enemy trod me down, and seduced me, for that I was easy to be seduced. 15
During the years he studied in Carthage, Augustine read the treatise Hertensius by Cicero (now lost), and his interest in philosophy was kindled. He also read the Bible, but to his proud heart its simple language and mysteries seemed unworthy of attention. In the same period, he fell under the influence of the Manicheans, a dualistic religious sect of Gnosticism. When he met the reputed Manichean orator Faustus, Augustine found his eloquence, “pleasing and seductive”; yet he judged him “utterly ignorant of liberal sciences” and unable to solve whatever queries he posed. 16 Because the Manicheans proved incapable of answering Augustine’s penetrating questions, his quest for gnosis or enlightenment did not last long. Disillusioned, he gradually left the Manicheans and turned to agnosticism.
At the age of twenty-nine, Augustine went to Rome to teach rhetoric, but things did not work out well for him there. When some officials from Milan were sent to Rome to recruit a rhetoric reader or public orator for the city, Augustine applied for the position and was accepted. That was how he came to know St. Ambrose, Bishop of Milan. 17 Their relationship is described in Augustine’s own words:
That man of God received me as a father, and shewed me an episcopal kindness on my coming. Thenceforth I began to love him, at first not as a teacher of the truth (which I utterly despaired of in Thy Church), but as a person kind to myself. And I listened diligently to him preaching to the people, not with that intent I ought, but, as it were, trying his eloquence, whether it answered the fame thereof, or flowed fuller or lower than was reported; and I hung on his words attentively; but of the matter I was as a careless and scornful looker-on. 18
At that time, Augustine was yet fully educated about Christianity, but he showed himself to be educable. He described the process of change which took place:
For though I took no pain to learn what he spake, but only to hear how he spake (for that empty care alone was left me, despairing of a way open for man to Thee [God]); yet, together with the words which I would choose, came also into my mind the thing which I would refuse; for I could not separate them. And while I opened my heart to admit “how eloquently he spake,” there also entered “how truly he spake”; but this by degrees. 19
Some time later, when Monica arrived at Milan to join her son, Augustine then “discovered to her that I was now no longer a Manichee, though not yet a Catholic Christian.” 20 What remained for him was the task of subjecting his carnal life to the teachings of the Bible. That is to say, he had to promote goodness in life and purify his sin and guilt. This proved no small task. Though he sincerely desired to do so, he simply could not lift himself from the deep moral mire he had long been in.
In his Confessions, Augustine recalled his struggle with his lustful nature. Wishing to lead a morally upright life but not yet capable of attaining it, in despair, he cried to God:
Narrow is the mansion of my soul; enlarge Thou it, that Thou mayest enter in. It is ruinous! repair Thou it! It has within which must offend Thine eyes; I confess and know it. But who shall cleanse it? Or to whom should I cry, save Thee? Lord, cleanse me from my secret faults, and spare Thy servant from the power of the enemy. 21
In some respects, Augustine’s conversion resembles that of St. Paul. (Paul always knew how to differentiate between right and wrong.) Augustine discussed his problems with his companions. Yet this knowledge of the soul’s pathology could not offer any remedy for his disease.
Wherefore, the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good…. For we know that the law is spiritual; but I am carnal, sold under sin. For that which I do I understand not; for what I would, that I do not; for what I hate, that do I.… For I know that in me (that is in my flesh) dwelleth no good thing; for to will is present with me, but how to perform that which is good I find not…. Oh, wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death? 22
This passage vividly describes the human condition: one has the innate idea of sin, which results not only in a guilty conscience, but also problems with “law and commandment.” That is to say, one has prescriptive knowledge, which imposes moral obligation. Yet it prescribes without remedy; it gives direction without paving a way to reach that objective. This is the very nature of law. Obviously, this prescriptive knowledge only does half the job.
Now, whence comes this knowledge? It comes from early childhood training, moral education, and reading. These origins can be seen in both St. Paul’s and Augustine’s experiences.
Augustine became evermore desperate and determined to correct his moral condition and to purify himself. In all the turbulence of heart, Augustine came to a point one day when he uttered these sorrowful words: “How long? How long? Tomorrow, and tomorrow? Why not now? Why not is there this hour an end to my uncleanness?” 23
His torment was ended not long afterward.
When Augustine wrote of his conversion experience some twelve years later, he undoubtedly still remembered it vividly: “When a deep consideration had from the secret bottom of my soul drawn together and heaped up all my misery in the sight of my heart, there arose a mighty storm, bringing a mighty shower of tears.” 24 Then he went to a corner of the garden and sat under a fig tree, to be in solitude. There he let the flood-gate of tears open, and all the while he prayed.
So was I speaking, and weeping in the most bitter contrition of my heart, when, lo! I heard from a neighbouring house a voice, as of boy or girl, I know not, chanting, and oft repeating, “Take up and read; take up and read.” … I began to think most intently, whether children wont in any kind of play to sing such words; nor could I remember ever to have heard the like. So… I arose; interpreting it no other than a command from God, to open the book, and read…. Eagerly then I returned to the place where… I laid the volume of the Apostle, when I arose thence. I seized, opened, and in silence read that section, on which my eyes first fell: “Not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying; but put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh” in concupiscence. No further would I read; nor needed I: for instantly at the end of this sentence, by a light as it were of serenity infused into my heart, all the darkness of doubt vanished away. 25
From this reading of the Bible, Augustine both literally and symbolically “turned over a new leaf in life.” His experience is a classic case of purification. Not only does this event have biographical interest, but it is also historically significant, for it influenced the future course of Christianity.
Furthermore, Augustine’s conversion experience, which took place in his thirty-second year, relates to religious education. He acquired this concept of purification from the early education received from his mother, then through pastoral teachings, group discussions, and reading.
In the later part of his life, after serving for thirty-five years as Bishop of Hippo in Roman North Africa, Augustine retired. He proceeded to write a book entitled On Christian Doctrine. In it he discusses how to read and understand the Bible, and emphasized how to do teach others to do the same.
Augustine’s personal history enables us to see the value and effects of religious education.
Religious education: A Beginning to Salvation
It is commonly held that the most crucial part of the socialization process begins at home. Instruction in living in human society should begin in early childhood, within the family setting. The seventeenth-century French philosopher Montaigne agreed with this idea heartily. He stated that such guidance should be “communicated to children betimes.” Do not wait until a later time, he said, only for them to regret that “They begin to teach us to live when we have almost done living.” Instead, he called for an early education that would mold children rightly at a stage of plasticity. He quoted the Stoic poet Persius: “The clay is moist and soft: now make haste and form the pitcher on the rapid wheel.” 26 Although Montaigne was talking about philosophy and education in general, his words also apply to moral and religious education.
Augustine’s religious education started at infancy, nurtured by his pious mother, Monica. The impression doubtless had a deep and permanent influence. Whenever Augustine was away from home, however far he strayed from the path of righteousness, deep in his heart he always heard his mother calling and appealing to his conscience.
Ignorance is never a virtue. A liberal education had considerably influenced Augustine in terms of teaching him how to think in a rational manner. Though during the period of his advanced studies in Carthage he embraced the Manichean heresy, education itself was not to blame. Liberal education in fact had equipped Augustine with reasoning power and logic, which he later used to refute the same heresy and to purge it. Education had also opened up his mind to metaphysical learning, initiating the course that led to both his spiritual development and his life as the great philosopher of Christianity.
The most important means of episcopal teaching comes from the pulpit. In Moby-Dick, or The Whale, Herman Melville says that the pulpit to the world is as the prow to the ship: “For the pulpit is ever this earth’s foremost part… the pulpit leads the world.” Melville describes Father Mapple’s pulpit as built “in the likeness of a ship’s bluff bows, and the Holy Bible rested on a projecting piece of scroll work, fashioned after a ship’s fiddle-headed beak. What could be more full of meaning?” 27
St. Ambrose’s sermons proved greatly significant in Augustine’s conversion. From them Augustine not only became aware of the treasures of Christian truth, but he also received the key that opened the treasure house -- by learning how to read and interpret the Sacred Scripture.
Because sermons are preached from the pulpit, however, they are aimed for the public’s edification and may not be tailored to meet individuals’ needs. Therefore, personal, one-on-one counseling should be sought. Since Ambrose, a busy bishop, was unable to spend much time with him, Augustine turned elsewhere for mentoring in receiving God’s grace. Simplicianus had served as Ambrose’s spiritual father, and with him Augustine could share the mazes of his soul’s past and present wanderings. Together they also discussed philosophical learning, and Simplicianus approved of Augustine’s study of Platonistic philosophy. He also told Augustine about Victorinus’ experience of the path to salvation.
That aged man [Victorinus], most learned and skilled in the liberal sciences, and who had read and weighed so many works of the philosophers; the instructor of so many noble Senators; who also, as a monument of his excellent discharge of his office, had (which men of this world esteem a high honour) both deserved and obtained a statue in the Roman Forum. 28
From Simplicianus, Augustine not only learned discreetness: how to differentiate between valuable and invalid philosophical ideas, and also how to purify mind and deed. As a result he “was on fire to imitate” Victorinus, and decided to become a Christian. (Decision is an act of will, whereas conversion is a change of heart and usually comes with spiritual experience.)
Augustine’s writings also reveal how sacred music may play a part in purification. Augustine loved music: so did his son Adeodatus, born out of wedlock from a woman with whom Augustine had associated while in Carthage. Augustine reported how one time in Milan he “was sated in those days” absentmindedly in an audience, and not “with the wondrous sweetness of considering the depth of Thy [God’s] counsels concerning the salvation of mankind.” Yet he had no mental barrier as defense against the spiritual advance of music:
How did I weep, in The Hymns and Canticles, touched to the quick by the voices of Thy sweet-attuned Church! The voices flowed into mine ears, and the Truth distilled into my heart, whence the affection of my devotion overflowed, and tears ran down, and happy was I therein. 29
The experience he related shows the transforming power of music, which can attune the human mind toward salvation. Though he did not go as far as Socrates, who said that rhapsody is divinely inspired, as the prophets are, 30 he acknowledged music’s profound effect on him.
Another factor in religious education that Augustine stressed as having been important to him was group discourse. When people discuss great things, they themselves grow to greatness. Among Augustine’s group of friends during the earlier years of his adult life were Alypius, Nebridius, the boy Euodis, and his own son Adeodatus. They formed a group of about eight people who discussed together the Bible and other questions concerning their beliefs and behaviors. Moral problems were often the topic.
This practice of focused conversation, though not resolving all life’s problems, did help them dismiss some “empty vanities, and betake ourselves to the one search for truth.” 31 It also resulted in Augustine’s rejection of astrology, kept him from marrying, and gradually purged away the “old leaven,” as he called Manicheanism 32 -- using this phrase to characterize the belief held over from the past.
But, above all, the cardinal effect on Augustine came from the reading of the Holy Writ. 33
Augustine in The Confessions has provided us with one of the fullest accounts from any writer of his intellectual and spiritual development and of the course which led to his becoming a thinker and a writer. The steps and stages along that course are carefully singled out, identified, and described; and most of them, it turns out, were related to, if not in fact instigated by, his reading. 34
Through studying the Bible Augustine progressed in wisdom and made his decisive turn toward the Christian faith. It was fitting that as a man of the Word, Augustine valued reading highly. He had done so even as a young man. He recalled an incident told to him by his mother. When he had become a Manichean and his mother was very much concerned about his soul, she went to see a certain bishop, who was well versed in the Bible. She beseeched him to talk Augustine into conversion. Of this incident Augustine wrote:
“But let him alone,” saith he; “only pray God for him, he will of himself by reading find what that error is, and how great its impiety:”… which when he had said, and she would not be satisfied, but urged him more, with entreaties and many tears, that he would see me and discourse with me, he, a little displeased at her importunity, saith, “Go thy ways, and God bless thee, for it is not possible that the son of these tears should perish.” 35
This prelude to Augustine’s conversion shows not only the great faith of both the bishop and his mother had, but also how they placed their faith greatly in reading. And of course Augustine in time did not disappoint their trust in its ultimate efficacy.
The Bible Teaching and Purification
Augustine regarded each human being as eternal, the “house of God,” and “partaker” of God’s eternity.” 36 Unfortunately, however, this house is sin-stained and thus unfit for that very reason. But though man had failed, God’s plan would not be foiled. Yet who can purge man from such a miserable condition? The Incarnate Word became the Savior and sacrifice for mankind, and His blood was shed on the cross purifying us from our sins. 37 God’s written Word, “the perfect Book,” can purify human pride and make man’s eyes clear. Augustine stated:
For we know no other books which so destroy pride, which so destroy the enemy and the defender, who resisteth Thy reconciliation by defending his own sins. I know not, Lord, I know not any other such “pure” words, which so persuade to confess, and make my neck pliant to Thy yoke, and invite me to serve Thee for nought. 38
Augustine therefore paid more attention to the reading of the Bible than to any other book, and more than to any other activity as well. This study became the main theme in his book, On Christian Doctrine. In it Augustine declared:
The soul must be purified that it may have power to perceive that light, and to rest in it when it is perceived. And let us look upon this purification as a kind of journey or voyage to our native land. For it is not by change of place that we can come nearer to Him who is in every place, but by the cultivation of pure desires and virtuous habits. 39
But since mankind’s overall moral condition is so totally corrupted and hopelessly sunk in sin, how could this purification be possible in individuals? Augustine’s response was that “we should have been wholly incapable” by ourselves to do that; but “Wisdom condescended to adapt Himself to our weakness, and to show us a pattern of holy life in the form of our own humanity.” 40 That is to say, the Incarnate Word, Christ, made Himself “our home, He made Himself also the Way by which we should reach our home.” 41
Furthermore, to achieve this goal, Augustine set up a seven-step “pilgrim’s progress”: first, the fear of God; second, a heart subdued by piety; third, the knowledge of the Holy Scriptures; fourth, strength and resolution; fifth, the counsel of compassion; sixth, purification of heart; seventh, wisdom. 42
Since the primary theme of his book On Christian Doctrine was religious education, Augustine mainly considered the third step – the reading of the Holy Scriptures. He regarded the words of Scripture as road signs. In order to know God’s way, one must understand God’s word. 43 By the same token, to purify oneself, one must know what to purge. This need leads us to acquiring knowledge of what the Scriptures teach.
The Scriptures have two types of language: literal and figurative; i.e., direct signs and indirect signs. How does one tell the difference between them? Augustine provided a useful rule:
Whatever there is in the Word of God that cannot, when taken literally, be referred either to purity of life, or soundness of doctrine, you may set down as figurative. Purity of life has reference to the love of God and one’s neighbour; soundness of doctrine to the knowledge of God and one’s neighbour. 44
Knowing how to discern the meaning of the Scriptures enables us to know, and be absolutely sure about, the distinction between right and wrong. 45
Very much like St. Paul, Augustine categorized human actions as either the fruit of lust or the fruit of charity.
Again, what lust, when unsubdued, does towards corrupting one’s own soul and body, is called vice; but what it does to injure another, is called crime. And these are the two classes into which all sins may be divided…. In the same way, what charity does with a view to one’s own advantage is prudence; but what it does with a view to a neighbour’s advantage is called benevolence. 46
Thus from reading the Bible, one knows definitely and distinctly what charitable actions should to be pursued and what lustful thoughts or wicked deeds must be purified.
Only after knowing the truth can one make it known to others. Only after being purified and edified can one properly proceed to purify and edify the Church.
Therefore, thus saith the LORD, “If thou return, then will I bring thee again, and thou shalt stand before me; and if thou take forth the precious from the vile, thou shalt be as my mouth; let them return unto thee, but return not thou unto them.” 47
The Bible depicts three steps in the calling of Jeremiah, a major Hebrew prophet, in serving God: namely, conversion, conviction, and commission. In other words, this process was to know, to act according to what was known to him, and then to make the truth known to others. What was true for Jeremiah is also true to others, including Augustine.
Religious education, when successfully instilled, has an inevitable effect: it awakens the sense of sin an guilt inherited from Adam’s original trespass and down through human history in individuals’ lives. Thus the sense of needing purification arises, and it performs this role without discrediting the divine revelation.
As we have seen, Augustine believed in the value of Christian teaching, asserting it is similar to that how one learns any language through the assistance of a human teacher. Thus he discouraged the belief that one could abandon one’s duty, and takes obtain the knowledge of the Bible by Divine Grace alone. 48
From Augustine’s own experience, then, we can appreciate the need for a religious education, which provides the moral knowledge of right and wrong, pure and impure, and the concept of purification. This is why, at an advanced age, he determined to write his book On Christian Doctrine. For the very same reason, religious education is much needed in today’s world, in which increasingly people lack the most basic sense of morality.
After experiencing individual salvation and being purified morally, Augustine served as a revered bishop and presiding judge. But he is best known as a great doctor of the Church, and in it his teachings were highly influential for many centuries.
Another person living in a very different time and place is best known for a ministry in which he carried out the Cultural Mandate. At any time in history, the caliber of his work would demonstrate exemplary pastoral care.
The Exemplary Pastor: Richard Baxter Reformed a Community
Among the pastors in seventeenth-century Protestant England there was one exceptional figure. Richard Baxter transformed the seemingly hopeless habitants of an area into citizens of a model parish. This community of saints, which then shined forth much as the Bible’s termed “city on a hill,” became a social model of moral purification. Thus he actualized the powerful Puritan metaphor of an ideal society.
Richard Baxter (1615-1691) was ordained into the Church of England in 1638 after studying divinity. These were the conditions that he encountered:
The state of religion and morals at that period in the country and neighbourhood was extremely low; nor was he more favourably situated with respect to his school-masters. They were neither distinguished for learning nor morals. The genius and industry of the youth, however, surmounted these untoward circumstances. 49
In 1641 the Reverend Mr. Baxter was assigned to a ministry at Kidderminster, Worcestershire. In his words, this parish at the time “included part of the town of Bewdley… near twenty miles about, consisting of about three or four thousand souls, or eight hundred Families.” 50 An area largely inhabited by handloom workers and their families, it was notorious for drunkenness and moral decay. In spite of all the apparent faults of his parishioners, Baxter considered them as honest as any townspeople. Knowing their weaknesses and sinfulness well, he determined to do something to change that condition.
Not only did Baxter work hard, he did so in earnest. He warded off the temptation of desiring results; instead, he attended to laying spiritual foundations and the application of doctrine to daily moral living. Within his parish of over 1,800 potential communicants, he accepted only about 600 into communion.
A peacemaker by nature, Baxter had to fight against great odds all his life. In ill-health ever since childhood, in spite of being physically weak and constantly in pain, Baxter worked diligently. A poem of his reveals his dedication to his calling:
I preached as never sure to preach again,
And as a dying man to dying man!
O how should preachers men’s repenting crave,
Who sees how near the Church is to the grave?
And see that while we preach and hear, we die,
Rapt by swift time to vast eternity. 51
When he completed his work in Kidderminster in 1660, what Caesar Augustus was said to have done to Rome may also apply spiritually and metaphorically, to Baxter: “He found it in mud, and left it marble.”
Later in life, Baxter wrote The Reformed Pastor, in which he looked back on and analyzed the success of his work. Though he attributed it to God’s grace, there were definite human elements to be considered.
“Our unity and concord was a great advantage to us,” Baxter reflected. 52 This referred to the Pastor’s Association of Worcestershire, an organization that included all clergymen in the region. That it did not discriminate against any particular sect shows the tolerant temperament of its founder -- Richard Baxter. This association fostered a spirit of love among the various churches. For many, good testimony and harmony was maintained, while preventing heresies.
“Another help to my success was that my people were not rich,” 53 he wrote. Though one may argue against the Puritans’ notion that material wealth always hinders the soul’s journey heavenward, records indisputably show that the pious saints always have few worldly possessions. This proved true in Baxter’s parish. Converts to the path of righteousness generally remained faithful, paying attention mainly to spiritual matters.
Another source of Baxter’s success was his continuing to labor in the same region. He said, “I stayed still in this one place near two years before the war and above fourteen years after.” 54 Thus he knew almost everyone, and in return everyone in town knew him.
He also believed that his “single life” was benefitted his ministry. Baxter could love the parishioners as his children, while they regarded him as a father to them all. He remained single until he left Kidderminster, after Restoration. (In 1662, at age forty-seven, he married a pious twenty-three-year-old lady, Miss Chalton.) 55
A man of letters, Baxter wrote prolifically. He was the author of over 200 works; among them are devotional manuals, pastoral handbooks, and doctrinal writings. 56 Undoubtedly, he used some of them while he did his pastoral visitations. He paid great attention to composing his sermons. He said, “Another advantage which I found to my success was by ordering my doctrine to them in a suitableness to the main end, and yet so as might suit their dispositions and diseases.” 57 He mentioned that he always put something they did not know in his sermons. He did this to “keep them humble” and to maintain their spiritual hunger, which he regarded as essential to learning.
There are additional factors for Baxter’s success at Kidderminster. One was his impeccable moral life. In his autobiography Baxter stressed that the success of ministers’ labors “materially depends on your taking heed to yourselves.” 58 In the presence of a watching community, Baxter’s life was beyond reproach. Even those who falsely accused him of legal, political, and moral transgressions later confessed that Baxter was actually a saintly person.
Baxter also stuck with his convictions. Once he knew what was right to do, he worked to achieve it with all his strength, no matter what the cost. Therefore, though an Anglican clergy, during his early ministry he often sympathized with the Puritans’ point of view, and called for toleration of their beliefs and practices. Later, he promoted the Puritan’s cause and then found himself on the winning side. But he always upheld the right to hold separate positions on issues. He believed in a universal Christian love, unity without uniformity. Thus he worked for the liberty of all: Anglicans, Presbyterians, Baptists, and all other sects. For this reason, Baxter has sometimes been dubbed the first Ecumenist.
As to his methods of ministry, he excelled in pastoral theology. He cared greatly for his flock and their welfare. Both his pulpit power and public ministry were of a high order. He was also diligent in visitations -- much like St. Paul in Ephesus, who “taught publicly, and from house to house,” and “kept back nothing that was profitable” to them. 59 He prepared a schedule of the parish families, and divided them into groups in order to visit every family at least once a year. Thus he was visiting 14 or 15 families a week. As a dutiful shepherd, he insisted that he “must know every sheep, and what is their disease, and mark their strayings, and help to cure them, and fetch them home.” 60
In fact, he went so far as to say, after he had tried this program for a long time, that he knew by experience that some had received more benefit from a half hour’s conference that from ten years’ public preaching. 61
Because of his concern for people’s souls, he could talk earnestly with them. His house-calls really combined family worship, Bible study, and counseling. This routine was truly remarkable, but he did even more. When visiting, he personally brought catechisms and other books for every family in his congregation, whether rich or poor. He suggested that, to handle the costs involved, “if the minister be able, it will be well for him to bear it; if not, the best affected among the rich class of his people should bear it among them.” Or a special collection could be started for the purpose of purchasing the religious books. 62 He reasoned that if people were expected to purchase the materials, perhaps half of the families would not get them. Once copies were put into their hands, however, they had no more excuses for not reading them. Like a responsible teacher, he would then teach them and examine their comprehension.
Thus Baxter wisely practiced the Bible’s two-track teaching -- verbal and literal, “by word” and “epistle.” This way, using “two wings of evangelism” 63 is both important and effective. As he put it, “To say, therefore, that they will not be taught by His ministers, is to say they will not be His disciples, or are not Christians.” 64
Baxter believed deeply that ordinary people can be admitted into the enlightened and purified “society of the saints,” or the Elect. Enjoying the blessed indwelling of the Holy Spirit, they must now live out a holy life worthy of their calling. To purify his flock from evil doings and to edify and equip them for spiritual maturity, he tirelessly dispensed instructions and moral teachings. As a result, his work brought moral purification to the whole community in a manner without parallel elsewhere in Great Britain. “The happy effects of his labors lingered there for more than a century.” 65
Never satisfied with statistical figures alone, Baxter regarded his parishioners as real and individual living souls. Therefore, he wanted to see their behavior transformed as evidence of their salvation.
As Atheism is the sum of wickedness, so all true religiousness is called by the name of godliness or holiness, which is nothing else but our devotedness to God, living for him, and our relation to him as thus devoted in heart and life. Practical atheism is a living as without God in the world. Godliness is contrary to practical atheism, and is a living as with and to God in the world and in the church, and is here called a walking with God. 66
To Baxter, then, merely professing faith is not enough; a false Christian is a true practical atheist. In other words, a Christian in praxis is a one “walking with God,” and through him God does His work.
The atheist in life, or outward practice, is he that lives as without God in the world; that seeks Him not as his chief good, and obeys Him not as his highest absolute Lord; so that indeed atheism is the sum of all iniquity, as godliness is the sum of all religion and moral good…. 67
To be a true Christian in Baxter’s view, one must also have Christ-like conduct that springs from a pure heart. Baxter stated that “It is not the tongue, but the heart, that is the man.” 68
Again and again, Baxter stressed the importance of Christians leading a moral life. As he put it, to be moral is to be normal. Sin is sickness, so to be immoral is abnormal or diseased, which requires healing and purifying. Dis-ease also comes when one seeks only ease. These concepts were essentially Puritan ones.
When comparing sin with sickness, Baxter spoke rather like St. Augustine:
You must have all the corruptions of your natures healed, and your sins subdued, and your hearts made new by sanctifying grace, and the image of God implanted in you, and your lives made holy and sincerely conformable to the will of God. 69
Of course, this moral transformation cannot be done by human effort alone. Because human nature is corrupted and sin-stained, only by the grace of God can one be “born-above” and purified. God’s grace places one in the state of good spiritual health. Then, and only then, can one do God’s will -- which is normal and reasonable.
Nothing can be more reasonable than that the reasonable nature should intend its end, and seek after its true and chief felicity: that it should love good as good, and therefore prefer the chief good before that which is transitory and insufficient. 70
Baxter obviously implied here that “good” means fully and eternally good. Insufficient good lacks perfection, while transitory good lacks the quality of enduring. Thus the privation of good is evil.
Baxter also emphasized that to be normal and reasonable is to be in right order or in balance. Hence he said:
Nothing can be more rational and agreeable to man’s nature, than that the superior faculties should govern the inferior, that the brutish part be subject to the rational; and that the ends and objects of this higher faculty be preferred before the objects of the lower: that the objects of sense be made subservient to the objects of reason. 71
It is not mere coincidence that this statement sounds much like Augustine. Baxter knew well the principles and praxes of spiritual and moral purification, and perpetually strived for them. Throughout his lifetime, he labored devotedly and diligently, and achieved much, in spite of great personal hardships during his ministry and afterward.
This process of purification always involves making the body subject to spirit or heart. It is a Christian belief distilled from the Bible’s Old and New Testaments. It is also, as we have seen, fundamental to the ethical teachings of the Chinese Confucianists and Neo-Confucianists. In both East and West, proponents of these two very different belief systems shared a common trust: that of the importance of early training and education in morality. In Christianity, it had a strong religious base; in Confucianism, an ethical and social one.
The Christian idea of moral purification was perpetuated through literature as well as from the pulpit’s sermons. Both St. Augustine and Richard Baxter wrote directly about providing or acquiring a religious education as the necessary structure for the developing conscience. The Chinese philosophers in the Confucian tradition strove to inculcate ethical values through lectures and literatures; their ideas were then passed along and popularized by writers of fiction. So, too, Christian writers -- whether or not they were philosophers -- continuously composed prose, poetry, and dramas that elucidated the cause and the process of moral purification.
Notes for Chapter 6
1. Titus 2:11-15.
2. Titus, 2:1.
3. Titus, 2:15.
4. Titus, 2:4, 7, 8; II Timothy 2:2.
5. II Thessalonians 2:2.
6. Deuteronomy 4:9.
7. Deuteronomy, 6:6-9.
8. John 3:2; 13:13.
9. Matthew 28:19-20.
10. Acts 2:42.
11. I John 2:27.
12. St. Augustine, “Preface” On Christian Doctrine, trans. J. F. Shaw. Chicago: Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1984, pp. 621-622.
13. John Donne, “XVII. Meditation,” in Poetry and Prose. New York: Random House, 1967, p. 339.
14. II Timothy 1:5.
15. St. Augustine, The Confessions, trans. Edward Bouverie Pusey. Chicago: Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1984, II, iii, 8, pp. 9-10.
16. Augustine, Confessions, V, vi, vii, pp. 28-30.
17. Augustine, Confessions, V, xiii, pp. 33-34.
18. Augustine, Confessions, V, viii, pp. 33-34.
19. Augustine, Confessions, V, viii, pp. 33-34.
20. Augustine, Confessions, VI, i, p. 35.
21. Augustine, Confessions, I, v, 6, p. 2.
22. Romans 7:12-24.
23. Augustine, Confessions, VIII, xii, 28, p. 60.
24. Augustine, Confessions, VIII, xii, p. 60.
25. Augustine, Confessions, VIII, xii, 29, pp. 60-61.
26. Michel De Montaigne, “Of the Education of Children,” in The Essays. Chicago: Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1984, p. 72.
27. Herman Melville, Moby-Dick, or The Whale. New York: Library of America, 1983, p. 836.
28. Augustine, Confessions, VIII, i-v, pp. 53-55.
29. Augustine, Confessions, IX, vi, 14, p. 65.
30. Plato, “Ion,” The Dialogues, trans. Benjamin Jowett. Chicago: Encyclopaedia Britannica, vol. 7, pp. 142-148.
31. Augustine, Confessions, VI, ix – VII, xxi, pp. 40-51.
32. Augustine, Confessions, VIII, i, 1. p. 52.
33. Augustine, Confessions, VII, xx-xxi, pp. 51-52.
34. Otto Bird, “Saint Augustine on Reading,” in The Great Ideas Today 1988, ed. Mortimer Adler. Chicago: Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1988, p. 135.
35. Augustine, Confessions, III, xii, 21, p. 19.
36. Augustine, Confessions, XII, xv, 18-19, p. 103.
37. Augustine, Confessions, XIII, xix, pp. 116-117.
38. Augustine, Confessions, XIII, xix, pp. 116-117.
39. Augustine, Christian Doctrine, I, x, p. 627.
40. Augustine, Christian Doctrine, I, xi, p. 627.
41. Augustine, Christian Doctrine, I, xi, p. 627.
42. Augustine, Christian Doctrine, II, vii, pp. 638-639.
43. Augustine, Christian Doctrine, II, iii-iv, p. 637.
44. Augustine, Christian Doctrine, III, x, 14, p. 661.
45. Augustine, Christian Doctrine, III, xiv, p. 663.
46. Augustine, Christian Doctrine, III, x, 16, p. 662.
47. Jeremiah 15-19.
48. Augustine, Christian Doctrine, “Preface”, pp. 621-622.
49. “A Memoir of Richard Baxter,” 1863 ed. in Richard Baxter, The Practical Works. rpt. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1981, p. xxii.
50. Geoffrey F. Nutall, Richard Baxter. London: Thomas Nelson, 1965, p. 46.
51. Richard Baxter, Poetical Fragments, 1681. rpt. London: Gregg International Publisher, 1971.
52. Richard Baxter, The Autobiography. Totowas, NJ: Rowan & Littlefield, 1974, p. 80.
53.Baxter, Autobiography, p. 82.
54. Baxter, Autobiography, p. 83.
55. Baxter, Autobiography, p. 80.
56. Baxter was a prolific writer. His style, though rather wordy, was influential in his time, becoming a pattern for many ministers. Some works are still of interest; e.g., The Saints’ Everlasting Rest, The Reformed Paster. q.v. Encyclopaedia Britannica.
57. Baxter, Autobiography, p. 82.
58. Baxter, Autobiography, pp. 125-133.
59. Acts 20:20.
60. C. F. Kemp, A Pastoral Triumph: The Story of Richard Baxter and His Ministry at Kidderminster. New York: Macmillan Publishing Co., 1948, p.31.
61. Kemp, p. 31.
62. Richard Baxter, The Reformed Pastor, 1656. rpt. New York: American Tract Society, 1829, pp. 328-329.
63. James C. M. Yu, The Bible and Literature: A Flying Scroll. Berkeley: Evangel Literature, Inc., pp. 439-445; II Thessalonians 2:15.
64. Yu, Bible and Literature, p. 328.
65. “A Memoir of Richard Baxter,” in The Practical Works, p. xxvii.
66. Baxter, Practical Works, p. 190.
67. Baxter, Practical Works, p. 201.
68. Baxter, Practical Works, p. 201.
69. Baxter, Practical Works, p. 207.
70. Baxter, Practical Works, p. 223.
71. Baxter, Practical Works, p. 223.