Download Free An Apology For The Nonconformists Ministry Containing I Book in PDF and EPUB Free Download. You can read online An Apology For The Nonconformists Ministry Containing I and write the review.

Richard Baxter (1615–1691) was arguably the greatest English Puritan of the seventeenth century. He is well known for his ministerial manual "The Reformed Pastor", in which he expressed the unusual conviction that parish ministers were better off unmarried. And yet, Baxter seemed to contradict himself by marrying one of his parishioners, Margaret Charlton. Though Baxter claimed to be happily married, he continued to champion celibacy for the rest of his life. This book explores Baxter's argument for clerical celibacy by placing it in the context of his life and the turbulent events of seventeenth-century England. His viewpoint was shaped by several factors, including the Puritan literature he read, the context of his parish ministry, his burdensome model of soul care, and the formative life experiences shaping his theology and perspective. These factors not only explain why Baxter became the only Puritan to champion clerical celibacy but also why he continued to do so even after marrying.
Early New England and the early modern era -- Jonathan Edwards and the Protestant scholastics -- Sources of Christian homiletics -- Sources of biblical exegesis: an ecumenical enterprise -- Sources of the formulation of doctrine: continuity and discontinuity? -- Sources of history as theology -- Conclusion and prospect
This work examines Richard Baxter's understanding and practice of pastoral ministry from the perspective of his own stated concern for reformation and in the broader context of Edwardian, Elizabethan, and early Stuart pastoral ideals and practice. It investigates Baxter's major treatise on pastoral ministry, 'Gildas Salvianus, the Reformed Pastor' (1656), and explores the background of each aspect of his pastoral strategy. Far from being novel, Baxter's practice of pastoral ministry certainly reflects aspects of his puritan predecessors' practice, if not their rhetoric. Black argues, however, that the primary contours of Baxter's ministry look back, not to the puritan pastoral ideals and strategies dominant after the Elizabethan Settlement, but to the Edwardian reformation emphases of the exiled Strasbourg reformer Martin Bucer. The book concludes by considering the impact of Baxter's pastoral legacy, both on the lives of individual pastors and on the subsequent discussion of puritan ministry.