LIFE OF RICHARD BAXTER, 93 out contention, and most of the bad people of the parish lived on the other side. " Some of the poor men did competently understand the body of divinity, and were able to judge in difficult controversies. Some of them were so able in prayer, that very fewministers did match them in order, and fullness, and apt expressions, and holy oratory, with fervency.. Abundance of them were able to pray very laudably with their families, or with others. The temper of their minds and the innocency of their lives, were much more laudable than their parts. The professors of serious godliness were generally of very humble minds and carriage.; of meek and quiet behavior unto others; and of blamelessness and innocency in their conversation. " God was pleased also to give me abundant encouragement, in the lectures which I preached abroad in other places; as at Wor- cester, Cleobury, &c., but especially at Dudley and Sheffnal. At the former of which, being the first place that ever I preached in, the poor nailers, and other laborers, would not only crowd the church as full as ever I saw any in London, but also hang upon the windows and the leads without. "In my poor endeavors with my brethren in the ministry, my labors were not lost ; our disputations proved not unprofitable. Ourmeetings were never contentious, but always comfortable; we took great delight in the society of each other; so that I know that the remembrance of those days is pleasant both to them and me. When discouragements had long kept me from motioning a way of church order and discipline, which all might agree in, that we might neither have churches ungoverned, nor fall into divis- ions among ourselves; at the first mentioning of it, I found a readier consent than I could expect, and all went on without any great obstructing difficulties. When I attempted also to bring them all conjointly to the work of catechising and instructing every family by itself, I found a ready consent in most, and per- formance in many. "So that I must here, to the praise of my dear Redeemer, set up this pillar of remembrance, even to his praise who hath employed me so many years in so comfortable a work, with such encouraging success. O what am I, a worthless worm, not only wanting academical honors, but much of that furniture which is needful to so high a work, that God should thus abundantly en- courage me, when the reverend instructors of my youth did labor fifty years together in one place, and could scarcely say they had convertedone or two in their parishes ! And the greater was this mercy, because I was naturally of a discouraged spirit ; 'so that if I had preached one year, and seenno fruits of it, I should hardly
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTcyMjk=