A FRIENDLY LETTER TO A BROTHER ON THE SUBJECT OF CENSORIOUS PREACHING

"I preached as never sure to preach again, And as a dying man to dying men."

- Richard Baxter

"For there are many unruly and vain talkers and deceivers, specially they of the circumcision:Whose mouths must be stopped, who subvert whole houses, teaching things which they ought not, for filthy lucre's sake.One of themselves,evena prophet of their own, said, The Cretiansarealway liars, evil beasts, slow bellies.This witness is true. Wherefore rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith;Not giving heed to Jewish fables, and commandments of men, that turn from the truth."

Titus 1: 10 - 14

Dear Brother,

You are certainly correct and perfectly Biblical in seeking to discern the times and seasons for outspoken and pointed rebuke. My response to that would be to ask the question, "At what time has such rebuke been so needful?" As Whitefield so aptly phrased it, The Christian world is in a deep sleep; nothing but a loud shout can awaken them out of it!

This is my genuine concern for the new generation of Calvinists that has emerged. It seems to me that many of them want the systematic theology of the Reformers and Puritans but not the pointed preaching of the Reformers and Puritans. They want the doctrines of grace, but not the polemic dialogue which it gave rise to. It seems to go little further than an intellectual fixation that gives the appearance of doctrinal sophistication without stirring the heart to the loud and vehement outcries against sin and apostasy that characterized both the Reformation and the Puritan Era.

After all, where would we be today had Luther, Knox, Ussher, Edwards and Whitefield adopted the same line of calm, cool and collected teaching that we encounter today? Where would we be without Luther's relentless attacks upon the clergy of his day, hisNinety-five ThesesorhisAgainst the Execrable Bull of Antichrist? Where would we be without Godly old John Knox and theFirst Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women? Where would we be without saintly Bunyan'sOfAntichrist and His Ruin? Where would we be without holy Baxter's vehement outcry of"Turn or burn"? What of Edwards and hisSinners in the Hands of an Angry God? What of Whitefield's fierce invective against sin and apostasy? Would to God that a few of our church members today might hear the likes of old Archbishop Ussher making them sweat before the very flames of Eternal Perdition. They would tremble a bit then, my Brother, I warrant you.

Nor does our debt end there. Go back to Wycliffe and the Lollards. Listen to them denouncing the apostasy of their day and the corruption of the clergy. Study the ancient Waldensian manuscripts at Trinity College in Dublin, preserved there through the efforts of Archbishop Ussher. Read theirLa Nobla Leycon, theirTreatise on Antichrist, theirDream of Purgatory, theirOf the Invocation of Saints, theirOn Baptism and the Rest of the Sacraments of the Church of Rome, theirThe Causes of Our Separation from the Church of Rome. Go read the PaulicianKey of Truth. Note the passion and vehemence with which they opposed and exposed the errors, the wickedness and the vice of the clergy. Where would we be without it?No, my brother. These men were no passive intellectuals, content with a deluded sense of superiority derived from their grasp of technical theological terminology. These were men, bold men, mighty men, men of God, holy men of old, driven not merely by the light of intellect, but by the passion of hearts inflamed with love for God and the souls of men, and absolutely outraged by the sin, corruption and apostasy of the blind guides that led them astray. And their passion, their burning, relentless passion could not be subdued beneath the moldering volumes of theological learning, the colossal sepulcher of dead Academia. It would out! Out from the prisons of Bedford and Aberdeen, out from Wartburg Castle, out from the Valley of Groans in the Cottian Alps. It would blaze abroad across Europe and change the entire course of western history! It was just that sort of preaching and those kind of preachers that the Lord of Hosts used to turn the tide of Roman Catholic oppression and bondage and to awaken the slumbering churches of England and the American Colonies and bring about the salvation of many multiplied thousands who would otherwise have slept right on into Outer Darkness.

And is it not, my Brother, for want of just such men and just such preaching that the church today goes slumbering on? Is it not for want of just such preaching that the billions of lost souls around us go headlong into destruction, taking no notice of the dignified and sophisticated teachers and theologians who never uttered a single syllable with the faintest note of urgency throughout the whole course of their impotent, futile ministries? Is it not because we lack men to preach with old Baxter,

"as never sure to preach again, And as a dying man to dying men"?

My brother, the spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets. We have no power to dictate to others what style of preaching ought to adopted in their respective ministries. We may only seek to align our own with the example of Scripture and of church history. Yet for my part, by God's grace, I would take my stand with Whitefield and Edwards, Baxter and Bunyan, Knox and Luther, Peter of Bruis and Henry of Lausanne, with Wycliffe and Lollardus, the Waldensians, the Henricians, the Petrobrusians and the Paulicians. It may be thatthrough such efforts, some conscience may yet be awakened, made to tremble for sin and thus reconciled to God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Your Friend in Christ,

Pastor Baugh