Books Worth Reading Again and Again

The Reformed Pastor, by Richard Baxter


My wife makes fun of me that she always knows what my favorites are, because I keep going back to them again and again. Yes, I wear my favorite gym shorts almost daily (but they’re washed regularly, so its kosher), yes when I eat out its usually at one of just a hand full of resturants, and yes I watch my favorite movies so much that I can usually quote them line for line.
Just yesterday I ordered a few books that will put the number of volumes in my personal library to just shy of 1,000. Yet despite everything that is on my to read list, I still find myself going back and rereading several books that have impacted me in some important way. One of those books is The Reformed Pastor, by Richard Baxter. Frankly it is my opinion that outside of the Bible, this should be a pastor’s most read book. Today, I would like to share with you from this book concerning a pastor’s oversight of themselves.

"Let us consider, What it is to take heed to ourselves.

I. See that the work of saving grace be thoroughly wrought in your own souls. Take heed to yourselves, lest you be void of that saving grace of God which you offer to others, and be strangers to the effectual working of that gospel which you preach; and lest, while you proclaim to the world the necessity of a Saviour, your own hearts should neglect him, and you should miss of an interest in him and his saving benefits…

But, besides this general course of watchfulness, methinks a minister should take some special pains with his heart, before he is to go to the congregation: if it be then cold, how is he likely to warm the hearts of his hearers? Therefore, go then specially to God for life: read some rousing, awakening book, or meditate on the weight of the subject of which you are to speak, and on the great necessity of your people's souls, that you may go in the zeal of the Lord into his house. Maintain, in this manner, the life of grace in yourselves, that it may appear in all your sermons from the pulpit, - that every one who comes cold to the assembly, may have some warmth imparted to him before he depart…

4. Take heed to yourselves, lest you live in those sins which you preach against in others, and lest you be guilty of that which daily you condemn…

0 brethren! it is easier to chide at sin, than to overcome it…

1. Take heed to yourselves, for you have a heaven to win or lose, and souls that must be happy or miserable for ever· and therefore it concerneth you to begin at home, and to' take heed to yourselves as well as to others…

2. Take heed to yourselves, for you have a depraved nature, and sinful inclinations, as well as others…

3. Take heed to yourselves, because the tempter will more ply you with his temptations than other men. If you will be the leaders against the prince of darkness, he will spare you no further than God restraineth him…

Take heed, therefore, brethren, for the enemy hath a special eye upon you. You shall have his most subtle insinuations, and incessant solicitations, and violent assaults. As wise and learned as you are, take heed to yourselves, lest he outwit you. The devil is a greater scholar than you, and a nimbler disputant: he can transform himself into an angel of light to deceive: he will get within you, and trip up your heels before you are aware: he will play the juggler with you undiscerned, and cheat you of your faIth or innocency, and you shall not know that you have lost it; nay, he will make you believe it is multiplied or increased, when It is lost…

4. Take heed to yourselves, because there are many eyes upon you, and there will be many to observe your falls…

Why, if one of you that is a leader of the flock, should be ensnared but once into some scandalous crime, there is scarcely a man or woman that seeketh diligently after their salvation, within the hearing of it, but, besides the grief of their hearts for your sin, are likely to have it cast in their teeth by the ungodly about them, however much they may detest it, and lament it. The ungodly husband will tell his wife, and the ungodly parents will tell -their children, and ungodly neighbours and fellow-servants will be telling one another of it, saying, 'These are your godly preachers! See what comes of all your stir. What better are you than others? You are even all alike.'…

5· Take heed to yourselves, for your sins have more heinous aggravations than other men's. It was a saying of king Alphonsus, that 'a great man cannot commit a small sin;'

(A) You are more likely than others to sin against knowledge, because you have more than they; at least, you sin against more light, or means of knowledge.
(B) Your sins have more hypocrisy in them than other men's, by how much the more you have spoken against them…

6. Take heed to yourselves, because such great works as ours require greater grace than other men's."