A Pen In The Hand Of God

A Pen In The Hand Of God

Being the author of best-selling books didn’t prevent him from experiencing persecution.

RICHARD BAXTER was born at Rowton, Shropshire, England, in 1615. His father was converted to Christ about the time of his son’s birth, and young Richard followed the faith of his father. A brilliant student, Baxter mastered books of theology while still in his teens. He was ordained into the Anglican ministry in 1638.

Baxter, a gifted intellectual, also had a pastor’s heart for souls, which led to an almost complete conversion of his six-hundred-member congregation and a veritable social transformation of the town itself. On Sundays he reported, “You might hear a hundred families singing psalms and repeating sermons as you passed through.”

His impassioned and eloquent preaching was so popular that galleries had to be added to his church to accommodate all those who came to worship. The congregation, in turn, reached out to the community at large. “Day and night they thirsted after the salvation of their neighbors,” according to Baxter.

It was following his years in the army that Baxter began to write. He authored over 160 books including a paraphrase of the New Testament, a metrical version of the Psalms, and two volumes of poetry. His book The Saints’ Everlasting Rest was among the most widely read English books of the seventeenth century.

He had a heart like Christ’s for Christian unity, and his efforts to unite Protestant Christians on essential gospel truths met with success. Baxter founded the ecumenical “Worcester Association” for Protestant ministers, and Christians from varied denominations worshiped together regularly at his Kidderminster church.

He proposed a theological truce between the Calvinists and the Arminians, the two main doctrinal combatants of the day. It was Baxter who popularized the saying “In essentials unity; in nonessentials liberty; and in both charity.”

But a man who seeks to draw people in is often misunderstood and even hated by those who seek to shut them out. As a Puritan within the Church of England, Baxter ran into trouble with the Anglican hierarchy when Charles II came to the throne and made him one of his chaplains. The Act of Uniformity of 1662 required all ministers to give unfeigned consent to the Anglican prayer book. This led to the Great Ejection of two thousand Puritan pastors from their churches—including Richard Baxter. In 1685 under King James II he was falsely accused of libel against the church, fined a large sum, and imprisoned for six months. When released, though seventy years old and ill, he plunged back into the harvest.

Baxter had always preached “as never sure to preach again, and as a dying man to dying men,” and he delivered his final sermon with as much compassionate fire as his very first. Upon completion of his sermon, the aged pastor made his way wearily home to bed. There, in the company of beloved friends, he spent his final hours. “I bless God I have a well-grounded assurance of my eternal happiness,” he whispered to his bedside companions, “and great peace and comfort within.”

When his friends reminded him of the encouragement and comfort his books had been to others, he replied with humility, “I was but a pen in the hand of God. What praise is due a pen?”

He once wrote, “Our lives are . . . like a candle in a broken lantern, which a blast of wind may soon blow out.” Richard Baxter’s candle burned brightly until December 8, 1691, when the gentle breath of God blew out his temporal light and he entered into his everlasting rest.

Reflection

How do you evaluate the maxim “In essentials unity; in nonessentials liberty; and in both charity”? Have you had experiences in which this was not applied? How does one decide what are essentials and what are nonessentials?

He is the one who gave these gifts to the church: the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, and the pastors and teachers. Their responsibility is to equip God’s people to do his work and build up the church, the body of Christ, until we come to such unity in our faith and knowledge of God’s Son that we will be mature and full grown in the Lord, measuring up to the full stature of Christ.

Ephesians 4:11-13