Condemning Coldness And Sleepy Dullness: The Concept Of Urgency In The Preaching Models Of Richard Baxter And William Perkins

By Maarten Kuivenhoven

Preaching became a distinguishing factor between the various religious factions in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century England. Two styles of preaching emerged: the ornate style of preaching among the Anglicans in the established Church of England, and the plain style of the Puritans, a legitimate and powerful force on the English religious scene. Scholarship in recent decades has done much to delineate the contours and emphases of the two streams of preaching that developed. [1] However, within the plain Puritan style of preaching, relatively little scholarship has emerged to discuss the concept of urgency in Puritan preaching. [2]

The term urgency presents some difficulties in researching this aspect of preaching in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Urgency is a term used by modern scholars to describe the compulsion or the driving force that controlled Puritan preaching. [3] Horton Davies, in Worship of the English Puritans, writes of Puritan preaching that it was “biblical, simple, prolonged, and its urgency was emphasized by the vehemence of gestures.” [4] It appears, however, that urgency was more than just a mechanical act comprehending gestures. Irvonwy Morgan discusses the themes of heaven and hell and the weight given these themes in Puritan preaching. As a result, these themes of the eternal state of souls “gave an urgency to their preaching, a passion for conversions and a terrible need for growing in grace in a life of holiness so that a man might be acceptable to God…. This urgency often communicated itself emotionally to the preachers, giving their sermons a sense of reality.” [5] It is also evangelistic in nature since “all this passion, this urgency, this challenge was aimed at the conversion of souls.” [6]

This begs the question as to the validity of the use of the term urgency and its place in the study of Puritan preaching. Careful study, however, reveals that it serves as an umbrella term by modern scholars to describe various elements of Puritan preaching which contribute to the overall compulsion or force behind Puritan preaching as a whole. Capill suggests that “seriousness and fervency were at the heart of Puritan preaching.” [7] It can also be argued that it is synonymous with terms such as zeal, earnestness, and seriousness. [8] Pipa also argues that Puritan preaching demonstrated zeal and connects that to the role of the Holy Spirit in preaching. [9] A comprehensive definition of urgency is as follows: the compulsion in Puritan preaching driven by the majesty of God, empowered by the Holy Spirit, concerned with the conversion of souls, demonstrated in the preacher’s life of holiness, worked out in the technical aspects of preaching, and realized in the changed hearts of the audience.

This article seeks to offer a better understanding of the concept of urgency as it appears in Puritan preaching by looking at the development of urgency within the broader development of preaching in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century England. The various parts of urgency will be defined and given prominence from the preaching manuals and instruction of William Perkins in The Arte of Prophecying and Richard Baxter in Gildas Salvianus, better known as The Reformed Pastor in modern reprints. [10] Both William Perkins and Richard Baxter were prominent preachers of their day, writing manuals or giving instruction for preachers and pastors in which they teach a distinct Puritan style of preaching. Perry Miller comments that William Perkins was “the teacher from whom, above all others, Puritans learned the lesson of sermon form.” [11] Similarly, Kendall writes that Perkins “shaped if not changed the style of preaching in England possibly more than any other.” [12] Perkins also influenced Baxter since Baxter was an avid reader of Perkins’s Works. [13] According to Horton Davies, Richard Baxter “provided the classical description of the urgency of preaching as ‘a dying man to dying men.’” [14] Thus both men are important figures and examples to study the concept of urgency within the context and development of Puritan preaching.

Urgency And Its Historical Development

Urgency in preaching did not develop in a vacuum, but arguably it developed within the historical context of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century preaching styles. This can be seen in the development of the Puritan plain preaching style in contrast to ornate preaching style. The ornate style, used mainly by Anglicans, was concerned with “the abundant use of rhetorical devices such as repetition, heaping of examples, gradation or word-chains and schemata…innumerable quotations from the Church Fathers and various secular sources…given in the original, followed by a translation.” [15] The ornate style could further be sub-divided into the florid and witty styles. Pipa remarks that the florid is concerned with reproducing “Ciceronian sentence structure into English.” [16] The witty, or metaphysical, style of preaching, on the other hand, was “marked by artificiality and used tropes, extravagant analogies, rhymes and puns. This style was greatly affected by euphism…an Elizabethan literary style…distinguished by excessive use of antithesis, alliteration, balance and similes drawn from nature and fables.” [17] In summary, the ornate style of preaching was influenced by the court and literary styles of the day; it was seen as a means of grace equal to the sacraments; it demonstrated a lack of exegesis and loose adherence to the text of Scripture; it lacked pointed application which brought the truth home to the listeners; it over-used divisions and sub-divisions; and it is a style better read than heard as a means of communication. [18]

Pipa also notes that there were two forms of preaching that influenced preaching theory in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century England: the homily, largely inherited from the patristic fathers, and the “modern” style, a product of Aristotelian logic. [19] The Reformers blended both of these methods to some extent, giving rise to the Puritan plain style of preaching. The Puritan plain style, broadly categorized, was concerned with simplicity for the sake of communication. [20] It was viewed as the most important work of the pastor; the primary means of grace; exegetical and biblical; following the structure of doctrines, proofs, and uses; holding truth as its primary goal and rhetoric only secondarily; didactic in nature; and holistic in that it aimed to transform the whole man. [21]

The plain style thus lent itself to the development of urgency in Puritan preaching. Horton Davies captures the plain style’s propensity towards urgency when he writes about the difference between homilies and sermons in sixteenth-century England. He describes the drearily read homilies by the Anglo-Catholics as utterly inadequate for the Puritans to awaken sinners and reach the hearts of their congregations with the truths of Scripture. [22] The alternative was the sermon which could “penetrate to the hearts of the congregation in a manner impossible for prescribed homilies.” [23] This was the concern of Perkins in his preaching manual, The Arte of Prophecying, and also Baxter in his impassioned appeal to fellow pastors in Gildas Salvianus. In fact, the three motivating factors for the writing of The Arte of Prophecying were the lack of able preachers in England, the failure of the university to train ministers for preaching, and a reaction against Anglican preaching of his day. Baxter’s motivation for preaching to his fellow pastors was the religious turmoil and derogation of the Puritans. The term Puritan became a catch-all for “those that would but speak seriously of heaven, and tell men of Death and Judgement, and spend the Lords day in preparation thereto.” [24] Baxter notes the opposition that the Puritans received, “the Preachers of the times were well ware that the rising way was to preach against the precise Puritans, and not to live precisely themselves: And thus both Ministery and people grew to that sad pass, that it was no wonder if God would bear no longer with the Land.” [25]

Keeble also notes that Baxter followed the largely Puritan plain style of preaching which was concerned with “Doctrine, Reason and Use.” In analyzing Baxter’s sermons, Keeble notes that Baxter’s structural arrangement, focusing mostly on application, “frees them from a dogged formula and gives them a dynamic movement. It is in the application that the contrast between the requirements of the doctrine and the practice of the congregation is made plain, and the challenge delivered.” [26] Baxter’s sermons were noted for their “vigour, earnestness and urgency of interrogation, exhortation and denunciation.” [27] His sermons, however, were not bare emotional appeals devoid of any reason, but his appeals using emotive language were aimed at the reason of his hearers. [28]

Urgency And The Majesty Of God

It was within the womb of the Puritan plain style of preaching that urgency in preaching was given birth and prominence. Preaching was viewed as the primary means of grace for both Perkins and Baxter, contrary to the Anglicans who elevated other means of grace to the same level as preaching. Perkins saw it as the God-given means for spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ, with the other means of grace attendant upon the preaching. Perkins in his definition of preaching states, “Prophecie (or Prophecying) is a publique and solemne speech of the Prophet, pertaining to the worship of God, and to the salvation of our neighbour.” [29] Furthermore “preaching of the word is Prophecying in the name and roome of Christ, whereby men are called to state of Grace, and conserved in it.” [30] Preaching is the means of grace befitting God’s majesty, and Perkins saw himself as more than an intermediary between God and man, but he was the official herald of God Himself. [31]

Baxter followed Perkins in his assessment of preaching as the primary means of grace. “Publicke preaching of the word” [32] was the primary means by which Baxter reached so many. While it was the primary means because it reached so many people, it was not the only means that Baxter engaged in within his parish, buttressing the public preaching of the Word with a robust system of catechetical instruction from family to family. [33] Davies comments that for the Puritans in general, “the proclamation of the gospel through preaching brought men to the existential cross-roads, where the way led either to life everlasting or to destruction, and the aim of his preaching was to convert his hearers from worldliness to godliness…to transform, not merely inform.” [34]

As such, preaching was not something to be engaged in lightly. Urgency in preaching was developed out of a sense of the majesty and holiness of God. For Perkins, the preacher must also speak “soberly and moderately” out of a “reverent regard of Gods Maiestie.” [35] Baxter writes:

All our work must be managed Reverently; as beseemeth them that believe the presence of God, and use not holy things as if they were common. The more of God appeareth in our duties, the more authority will they have with men: And Reverence is that affection of the soul, which proceedeth from deep apprehensions of God, and signifyeth a mind that is much conversant with him. To manifest unreverence in the things of God, is so far to manifest hypocrisie; and that the heart agreeth not with the tongue. I know not what it doth by others; but the most Reverent Preacher, that speaks as if he saw the face of God, doth more affect my heart, though with common words, then an unreverent man with the most exquisite preparations. Yea, if he bawl it out with never so much seeming earnestness, if Reverence be not answerable to fervency, it worketh but little. [36]

If urgency was driven by the apprehension of the presence of God in the act of preaching, it necessarily excluded humor. Baxter argues, “Of all Preaching in the world (that speaks not stark lyes) I hate that Preaching which tendeth to make the hearers laugh, or to move their minds with tickling levity, and affect them as Stage-playes use to do, instead of affecting them with a holy Reverence of the name of God.” [37] He urges his fellow preachers to “suppose we saw the Throne of God, and the millions of Glorious Angels attending him, that we might be awed with his Majesty, when we draw neer him in his holy things, lest we profane them, and take his name in vain.” [38] It was a majestic God who called the preacher into the ministry and as such he did not represent his own interests or those of his audience but chiefly God’s interests. The underlying question each preacher had to ask himself was, “Who sent me hither and for whom am I come?” [39] This gave urgency to the preaching because the preacher was answerable to the God who had commissioned him; preaching was an act of worship in the presence of God. [40]

Urgency And The Preacher’s Holiness

While urgent preaching took account of the majesty of God, it also took account of the preacher’s internal life of holiness. This was paramount for both Perkins and Baxter. In The Arte of Prophecying, this becomes a central plank of Perkins’s preaching model. While internal holiness alone did not constitute the minister, nevertheless it was a key component of urgent preaching for several reasons. First, the minister exemplified the doctrine being taught in his walk of life so that the audience could understand both from his words and his example. [41] Second, doctrine and life are intertwined in such a way that the ungodly can see doctrine displayed, even though they do not understand it in their hearts. [42] Third, Perkins argued that it was unacceptable in the sight of God to have godly speech undermined by an ungodly life: “It is a strange sight to see him, that is the guide of the way to others, to wander out of the way himselfe.” [43] Fourth, words are less important than works, because works make more of an impression than do words alone. [44] Fifth, an unholy minister “is not worthie to stand before the face of the most holy, and the almightie God.” [45] Perkins draws the connection between the preacher’s internal holiness and the urgency of preaching when he says, “The parts of sanctitie are especially…[a] good conscience [and] an inward feeling of the doctrine to be delivered.” [46] Without these parts of holiness or sanctity, the preacher remains like a piece of dry wood—“[w]ood that is capable of fire, doth not burne, unles fire be put to it: and he must first be godly affected himselfe, who would stirre up godly affections in other men.” [47]

Baxter more vehemently argues that the preacher’s holiness is part and parcel of urgency. Without judging the hearts of his fellow pastors, an unconverted minister remained a reality and thus it is of the utmost importance that a preacher find his life in God. Baxter warns his fellow pastors, “Many a man hath warned others that they come not to that place of Torment, which yet they hasted to themselves: Many a Preacher is now in hell, that hath an hundred times called upon his hearers to use the utmost care and diligence to escape it.” [48] Preaching was not itself salvific in any way; it was therefore paramount for the preacher to know and live the truths that he proclaimed. [49] A preacher could well be living a double life and lose much of his urgency and power in preaching. “All that a Preacher doth is a kind of preaching; And when you live a covetous or a careless life, you preach these sins to your people by your practice.” [50]

Precise living and precise preaching are parts of the same piece, according to Baxter. Without precise living on the part of the preacher, his preaching can lose all its power and sense of urgency and hence also credibility. Baxter states this truth in a question:

And can you think that any unsanctified man can be hearty and serious in the ministerial work?… How can you call out with serious fervour upon poor sinners to repent and come in to God, that never Repented or came in your selves? How can you heartily follow poor sinners with importunate sollicitations, to take heed of sin, and to set themselves to a holy life, that never felt your selves the evil of sin, or the worth of holiness? I tell you, these things are never well known till they are felt, nor well felt till they are possessed. And he that feeleth them not himself, is not so like to speak feelingly to others, nor to help others to the feeling of them. How can you follow sinners with compassion in your hearts, and tears in your eyes, and beseech them in the name of the Lord to stop their course and return and live, that never had so much compassion on your own souls as to do this much for your selves? [51]

It is of vital importance for urgency that a preacher lives a holy life so that he can be “serious” in preaching.

There is also a real danger that urgency in preaching in respect to the preacher’s internal holiness can be contrived and fake. The difference between a contrived urgency and a genuine urgency is seen in the internal life of the minister as it intersects with preaching. Those who demonstrate a contrived urgency may “seem excellent Preachers, and cry down sin as loud as others, yet is it all but an affected fervency, and too commonly but a meer uneffectual bawling.” [52] How did Baxter know this? He states:

For he that cherisheth it in his own heart, doth never fall upon it in good sadness in others. I know that a wicked man may be more willing of anothers reformation then his own, and may thence have a kind of real earnestness in disswading them from it; because he can preach against sin at easier rates then he can forsake it…they lose not their own profits or pleasures by anothers reformation, nor doth it call them to that self-denyal as their own doth. But yet for all this, there is none of that zeal, resolution and diligence, as is in all that are true to Christ. They set not against sin as the enemy of Christ, and as that which endangereth their peoples souls. [53]

It is clear that holiness of life results in “zeal, resolution and diligence” in the act of preaching. In considering the monumental task of pastoral ministry and preaching and its qualifications, Baxter remarks, “What manner of persons ought we to be in all Holy Endeavours and Resolutions for our work!” [54]

Urgency And Eternal Destiny

The reality of eternal destiny played an important role in the urgency of Puritan preaching. This is captured in Davies’ definition of urgency using Baxter’s words of a dying man preaching to dying men. Death was always lurking around the corner. This is clear in Baxter’s impassioned plea to his fellow pastors to preach with urgency since there are souls destined for eternity:

When time is almost gone, and they must now or never [be] reconciled to God and possessed of his grace; O how doth it concern them to redeem those hours, and lay hold upon eternal life! And when we see that we are like to have but few daies or hours time more to speak to them in order to their endless state, What man that is not Infidel or a black, would not be with them, and do all that he can for their salvation in that short space! [55]

The very existence and prospect of heaven and hell ought to cause men to preach with urgency. Baxter remarks to his fellow pastors, “Sirs, do you think they will be hearty and diligent to save men from hell, that be not heartily perswaded that there is a hell? Or to bring men to heaven, that do not soundly believe that there is such a thing?” [56]

Behind every listener was a soul that was languishing and destined for either heaven or hell. This alone must evoke compassion from the preacher. Baxter pleads with his fellow pastors, “Will it not waken us to compassion to look upon a languishing man, and to think that within a few daies his soul will be in heaven or hell? Surely it will much try the faith and seriousness of Ministers or others, to be about dying men.” [57]

Every pastor had the duty to be taken up with the matters of eternity. Eternity and the measure of it in the thought of the pastor became a critical yardstick of a man’s fitness for the ministry. Baxter criticizes many of his contemporaries when he says, “No man is fit to be a Pastor of a Church that does not set his heart on the life to come, and regard the matters of everlasting life, above all that matters of this present life…. For he will never set his heart on the work of mens salvation that doth not heartily believe and value that salvation.” [58] Urgency is evident in that when a pastor sets his heart on eternity, he will be cognizant of the necessity of salvation for himself and his hearers, thus raising the level of urgency in addressing the souls in front of him.

The spiritual condition of the people to which Baxter and his contemporaries ministered required different levels of urgency in addressing them. However, there was one common condition that required urgency no matter what the occasion. Baxter mourns the misery of the unconverted and the urgency needed to reach them: “Alas, the misery of the unconverted is so great, that it calleth lowdest to us for our compassion.” [59]

It is within this rubric of eternal destiny that the concept of urgency is highlighted. Baxter uses terms such as “sincerely Affectionate, serious and zealous” to describe the nature of exhortation in preaching in light of eternity. He argues, “The weight of our matter condemneth coldness, and sleepy dulness…. If our words be not sharpened, and pierce not as nails, they will hardly be felt by stony hearts. To speak coldly and sleightly of heavenly things, is neer as bad as to say nothing of them.” [60]

Erroll Hulse comments on the intersection of eternal destiny and urgency in that “Sinners, then, according to the Puritan approach, are to be urged to repent. They must repent or be lost forever…. But realizing his responsibility and the awful nature of judgment and eternal punishment, the sinner is impressed with the urgency of his case.” [61] In this respect, Morgan also writes that Puritan sermons were “evangelical sermons, aimed not just at analyzing conversion but at persuading men to accept Christ as their Savior. They are personal, persistent pleadings to men to see their corrupt state and accept the saving grace of Christ and save themselves from the wrath to come.” [62]

This was definitely a concern in Baxter’s preaching ministry, which was marked by an evangelistic fervor that sought to bring souls to the existential crossroads of heaven and hell. By his own admission, Baxter so stressed evangelistic preaching that he did so at the expense of preaching to God’s people, thus demonstrating the urgency as the motivation for doing so:

It is so sad a case to see men in a state of damnation, wherein if they should dye they are remedilesly lost, that me thinks we should not be able to let them alone, either in publike or private, whatever other work we have to do. I confess, I am forced frequently to neglect that which should tend to the further encrease of knowledge in the godly, and may be called stronger meat, because of the lamentable necessity of the unconverted. Who is able to talk of Controversies or nice unnecessary points, yea or truths of a lower degree of necessity, how excellent soever, while he seeth a company of ignorant, carnal miserable sinners before his face, that must be chang’d or damn’d? Me thinks I even hear them crying out for help, and speedyest help. Their misery speaks the lowder, because they have not heart to seek or ask for help themselves. [63]

Because the souls of men are at stake, preaching must be done with alacrity, with zeal, and at the expense of other pastoral duties. Baxter counsels, “Whatever you pass over, forget not the poor souls that are under the condemnation and curse of the Law, and may look every hour for the infernal execution, if a speedy change do not prevent it. O call after the impenitent, and ply this great work of converting souls, whatever else you leave undone.” [64] While urgency was emotive in addressing lost sinners and urging them to repentance, it did not attempt to take over the work of the Spirit in conversion. It was incumbent, however, upon the preacher to preach with all his gifts and faculties in bringing the Word of God home to the hearts of his hearers as can be seen in the following section.

Urgency And The Manner Of Preaching

The more technical aspects and manner of preaching are closely related to the concept of urgency. The manner that Perkins and Baxter advocated for preaching approximates the concept of urgency as set forth by modern scholars. In regards to comportment during the act of preaching, several factors come into play for Perkins. For instance, the modulation of the voice must correspond to the content of the sermon: “The voice ought to be so high, that all may heare…. In the doctrine hee ought to bee more moderate, in the exhortation more fervent and vehement.” [65] Baxter also advocates this type of voice modulation when he says, “If Ministers were set upon the work of the Lord, it would be done more vigorously then by the most of us it is. How few Ministers do Preach with all their might…. Alas, we speak so drowsily or gently, that sleepy sinners cannot hear: The blow falls so light, that hard-hearted persons cannot feel it.” [66] Baxter also demonstrates that manner and content are closely related in the act of preaching contributing to urgency:

Most Ministers will not so much as put out their voice, and stir up themselves to an earnest utterance: But if they do speak loud and earnestly, how few do answer it with earnestness of matter! And the voice doth little good; the people will take it but as meer bauling, when the matter doth not correspond. It would grieve one to hear what excellent Doctrines some Ministers have in hand, and let it die in their hands for want of close and lively application. [67]

The part of the sermon where the voice is to be raised so as to convey more urgency is the part of application, though content must correspond with manner.

Hand gestures and carriage of the body were also important in conveying urgency or earnestness. Perkins captures this in the following statement:

Let there be that gravitie in the gesture of the body, which may grace the Messenger of God. It is fit therefore, that the trunke or stalke of the bodie being erect and quiet, all the other parts, as the arme, the hand, the face and eyes have such motions, as may expresse and (as it were) utter the godly affections of the heart. The lifting up of the eye and the hand signifieth confidence…. The casting downe of the eyes signifieth sorrow and heaviness…. Concerning the gesture other precepts cannot be delivered; only, let the ensample of the gravest Ministers in this kind be instead of a Rule. [68]

It is clear that these were not precepts but only the instruction that would serve to achieve the objective of saving souls of men.

The manner of preaching was further augmented by prayer, and prayer became a crucial component of urgency. In The Arte of Prophecying, Perkins links the act of preaching with prayer. Prayer was a vital element in preparation to receive a “fiery tongue, from the Holy Spirit to reprove sins.” [69] A fiery tongue is “the principal grace of a good minister, as well, of course, as having a mild and moderate tongue. The minister is to be both a persuader and a reprover.” [70] Park demonstrates that a fiery tongue issues forth in zeal in the act of preaching using imagery from Isaiah’s vision of the angel taking the coal from the altar and touching his lips: “the minister needs to have a fiery tongue, given by the Holy Spirit and baptized with a heavenly zeal and with fire. It should not be a tongue from hell, lying, slanderous, malicious, or a contentious tongue.” [71]

This raises the interesting question of the source of urgency in preaching. Is it only because of a sense of the majesty of God, the preacher’s internal holiness, eternal destiny, or the manner of preaching? These things are all part of urgency, but there is clearly a pneumatological aspect to urgency. Perkins clearly is a proponent of the pneumatological aspect of preaching, calling it the “Demonstration of the spirit.” [72] He continues to define it in connection with the act of preaching: “When as the Minister of the word doth in the time of preaching so behave himselfe, that all, even ignorant persons and unbeleevers may iudge, that it is not so much hee that speaketh, as the Spirit of God in him and by him…. This makes the ministerie to bee lively and powerfull.” [73] Lively and powerful preaching—that is, urgent preaching—is not something inherent to the preacher, but comes by the Holy Spirit who then works through and with the preacher. This demonstration of the Spirit is also connected to speech or gesture. Perkins says, “The Demonstration…is either in speech or in gesture. The speech must be spirituall and gracious. That speech is spirituall with the Holy Spirit doth teach…, And it is a speech both simple and perspicuous fit both for the peoples understanding and to expresse the maiestie of the spirit.” [74]

Although urgency finds its source in the power of the Holy Spirit, it also requires much effort and skill on the part of the preacher. Baxter comments that preaching a sermon is not necessarily the most difficult part, but “yet what skill is necessary to make plain the truth, to convince the hearers; to let in unresistible light into their consciences, and to keep it there, and drive all home!” [75] The preacher must use all his tools to “srcue the truth into their minds, and work Christ into their affections; to meet with every objection that gainsaies: and clearly to resolve it.” [76] Furthermore, the preacher must persuade and reason “to drive sinners to a stand, and make them see that there is no hope, but they must unavoidably be converted or condemned: and to do all this so for language and manner as beseems our work, and yet as is most suitable to the capacities of the hearers; this and a great deal more that should be done in every Sermon, should sure be done with a great deal of holy skill.” [77]

If the manner of preaching does not correspond to the matter, a great deal of urgency will be lost by the preacher. Baxter urges his fellow pastors to consider the eternal destiny of their hearers: “O sirs, how plain, how close and earnestly should we deliver a message of such a nature as ours is? When the everlasting life or death of men is concerned in it: Me thinks we are nowhere so wanting as in this seriousness?” [78] Considering the weightiness of the care of souls destined for eternity, “[t]here is nothing more unsuitable to such a business, then to be slight and dull. What! Speak coldly for God! And for men’s salvation! Can we believe that our people must be converted, or condemned, and yet can we speak in a drowsie tone!” [79] To Baxter, urgency connotes a particular manner of preaching, and if it is not present, it could very well undo the words that the preacher has spoken. Content and matter must go together in order to effect urgency:

Remember that they must be wakened or damned; and a sleepy Preacher will hardly wake them. If you give the holy things of God the highest praises in words and yet do it coldly, you will seem in the manner to unsay what you said in the matter. It is a kind of contempt of great things, especially so great, to speak of them without great affection and fervency: The manner as well as the words must set them forth. If we are commanded what ever our hand findeth to do, to do it with all our might; then certainly such a work as preaching for mens salvation should be done with all our might: But alas how few, how thin are such men! Here one and there one, even among good Ministers, that have an earnest perswading working way, or that the people can feel him preach when they hear him. [80]

Preaching should have an earnest persuasive character to it, which seeks to face men with the truths of Scripture and the plight of their souls.

Baxter speaks of an organic heart-to-heart communication in preaching that without urgency or earnestness in preaching would be lost. He sets up his case by arguing that a sermon which is full of words but lacks earnestness and the “life of Zeal, is but an image or a welldrest carkass.” [81] In preaching, the content and life of the preacher’s heart are communicated to the hearts of the listeners. Earnest preaching is aimed at the understanding, will, and affections and “so must the bent of our endeavours be to communicate the fullest Light of Evidence from our understandings unto theirs, and to warm their hearts by kindling them in holy affections, as by a communication from ours.” [82] Preaching is not mere rhetoric divorced from reason, for the preacher comes with content that has “reason enough on their side, and lie plain before them in the word of God; we should therefore be so furnished with all store of Evidence.” [83] This evidence must be presented in such a manner “as to come with a torrent upon their understandings, and bear down all before us, and with our dilemma’s and expostulations to bring them to a nonplus, and pour out shame upon all their vain objections, that they may be forced to yield to the power of truth.” [84]

Urgency And Its Obstacles

The fact that Perkins and Baxter sought to teach urgency in preaching and make it a mark of preaching over against the ornate style did not mean that urgency was always present in their preaching. The opposite is true. There were numerous obstacles to preaching in general and urgent preaching in particular. Baxter specifically identifies pride as the besetting sin of the preacher and the greatest hindrance to urgency in preaching. Pride conceals the truth in preaching because “it perswadeth us to paint the window that it may dim the light; and to speak to our people that which they cannot understand, to acquaint them that we are able to speak uprofitably.” [85] Pride dulls the level of urgency necessary to reach the unconverted. “It taketh off the edge, and dulls the life of all our teachings, under pretence of filing off the roughness, unevenness and superfluity; If we have a plain and cutting passage, it throws it away as too rustical or ungrateful.” [86] Furthermore, pride blunts the imperative of God in preaching because “when God chargeth us to deal with men as for their lives, and beseech them with all earnestness that we are able; this cursed sin controlleth all, and condemneth the most holy commands of God, and calleth most necessary duty a madness…thus doth Pride make many a mans Sermons.” [87]

Pride not only affects the content of the sermon, but also affects the tone and delivery of the sermon because “when Pride hath made the Sermon, it goes with them into the Pulpit, it formeth their tone, it animateth them in the delivery, it takes them off from that which may be displeasing, how necessary soever, and setteth them in a pursuite of vain applause.” [88] Rather than urgent preaching seeking the conversion of souls, pride goes home with the preacher demonstrating that urgency has been obstructed because the preacher will be “more eager to know whether they were applauded, then whether they did prevail for the saving of souls.” [89]

Urgency And Its Effects

How did people “feel” Baxter’s and Perkins’s preaching? It appears that their preaching did what they intended through the gracious operation of the Holy Spirit, demonstrating urgency in preaching. Cotton Mather records the profound effects of Perkins’s preaching upon John Cotton:

The Holy Spirit of God had been at work upon his young heart, by the ministry of that reverend and renowned preacher of righteousness, Mr. Perkins; but he resisted and smothered those convictions, through a vain perswasion that, if he became a godly man, ’twould spoil him for being a learned one. Yea, such was the secret enmity and prejudice of an unregenerate soul against real holiness, and such the torment which our Lord’s witness give to the conscience of the earthly-minded, that when he heard the bell toll for the funeral of Mr. Perkins, his mind secretly rejoiced in his deliverance from that powerful ministry, by which his conscience had been so oft beleagured: the remembrance of which things afterwards did break his heart exceedingly! [90]

The effect was not only spiritual, but change also took place in John Cotton’s preaching style as a result of Perkins’s urgent preaching style. Before the change of heart, he considered it beneath a man of his academic stature to stoop to the level of plain preaching, but after his conversion, he was driven to preach in the same manner as William Perkins and Richard Sibbes, who greatly influenced him. [91]

Baxter relates the success of his own preaching at Kidderminster. Based on his view of urgent preaching, it is no wonder that he is able to state, “My publick Preaching met with an attentive Auditory!” [92] Prior to entering the ministry, Baxter held private conferences in which he witnessed conversions which he “was wont to number…as Jewels.” [93] Upon ensuing public preaching however, he “could not keep any number of them.” [94] Baxter’s church was filled to overflowing as people came to hear him preach, so much so that the “[c]ongregation was usually full, so that [we] were fain to build five Galleries after my coming thither.” [95] Kidderminster was so changed by his preaching that, upon his arrival, there were only a few families who were godly in the streets, but as his ministry progressed there were many families that could be heard singing Psalms and repeating sermons. [96] Baxter’s preaching success was not limited only to Kidderminster, but spread wherever he went; so much was his success that at Dudley “the poor Nailers and other Labourers 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.” [97]

Baxter notes that his success in preaching was due to several factors. The first such factor is that the people in Kidderminster “never had any awakening Ministry before.” [98] The second factor contributing to success was the fact that Baxter was in “Vigour of [his] Spirits and had naturally a familiar moving Voice (which is a great matter with the common Hearers).” [99] Though he was in the “Vigour of his Spirits,” Baxter did all this in great physical weakness. Here more than anywhere else is a glimpse into the urgency of Baxter’s preaching ministry. He did “all in bodily Weakness, as a dying Man, my Soul was the more easily brought to Seriousness, and to preach as a dying Man to dying Men; for drowsy Formality and Customariness doth but stupify the Hearers, and rock the asleep: It must be serious Preaching, which must make Men serious in hearing and obeying it.” [100]

In conclusion, urgency is clarified as the compulsion in Puritan preaching driven by the majesty of God, empowered by the Holy Spirit, concerned with the conversion of souls, demonstrated in the preacher’s life of holiness, worked out in the technical aspects of preaching, and realized in the changed hearts of the audience. William Perkins and Richard Baxter exercised considerable influence in the development of the concept of urgency in preaching in their models of preaching, and are excellent examples of urgent preaching, thus providing greater clarity to this phenomenon in Puritan preaching. Urgency in Puritan preaching clearly developed in opposition to the ornate style and in line with the broader Reformation ideals of preaching models.

Admittedly, although urgency is an abstract concept, it describes something very real that took place in preaching. Modern scholars describe this phenomenon or compulsion as urgency. Both Perkins and Baxter use synonymous terms such as earnestness, seriousness, and zeal to describe preaching that was concerned with the majesty of God, the eternal destiny of souls, pneumatological considerations, manner of preaching, and the effects of preaching. When all these factors are combined, urgency is clearly the driving force behind much of Puritan preaching, particularly evangelistic preaching. Both Perkins and Baxter demonstrate in their formulation of a distinctly plain Puritan preaching model that urgency was sought after, often obstructed, and nevertheless yielded Spirit-worked fruit to God’s glory, the salvation of the lost, and the spiritual growth of believers.

Notes

1. J. W. Blench, Preaching in the Late 15th and 16th Centuries (New York: Barnes & Noble, 1964), 168-208. Blench identifies three types of preaching in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century England: the ornate, colloquial, and plain styles. Joseph Pipa effectively demonstrates that the colloquial style can be subsumed under the plain style. Cf. Joseph Pipa, “William Perkins and the Development of Puritan Preaching” (PhD diss., Westminster Theological Seminary, 1985), 32-57. On the topic of the styles of preaching, see also Perry Miller, The New England Mind (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1939); Horton Davies, The Worship of the English Puritans (Morgan, Pa.: Soli Deo Gloria Publications, 1997); Davies, “Elizabethan Puritan Preaching I,” Worship 44.2 (February 1970): 93-108; Davies, “Elizabethan Puritan Preaching II,” Worship 44.3 (March 1970): 154-70; Mary Morrissey, “Scripture, Style and Persuasion in Seventeenth-Century English Theories of Preaching,” Journal of Ecclesiastical History 53.4 (October 2002): 686-706; Ander Robert Lunt, “The Reinvention of Preaching: A Study of Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century English Preaching Theories” (PhD diss., University of Maryland at College Park, 1998); Joel R. Beeke, “William Perkins on Predestination, Preaching, and Conversion,” in The Practical Calvinist: An Introduction to the Presbyterian and Reformed Heritage, ed. Peter Lillback (Fearn: Christian Focus Publications, 2002), 183-214; Joseph Pipa, “Puritan Preaching,” in The Practical Calvinist: An Introduction to the Presbyterian and Reformed Heritage, ed. Peter Lillback (Fearn: Christian Focus Publications, 2002), 163-82.
2. The term “plain style” is a broad over-arching term to describe the overall style of Puritan preaching in contrast with the ornate style. Although not synonymous with experiential preaching, most plain preaching was experiential. Experiential or experimental preaching is thus a subset of the plain style and “addresses the vital matter of how a Christian experiences the truth of biblical, Christian doctrine in his life.” Cf. Joel R. Beeke, “The Lasting Power of Reformed Experiential Preaching,” in Puritan Reformed Spirituality (Grand Rapids: Reformation Heritage Books, 2004), 425-43. Urgent preaching is a subset of the plain style and addresses the objective and subjective elements in preaching that presents the claims of Christ, urging sinners to repentance, and is addressed in greater detail in this article.
3. Davies, The Worship of the English Puritans, 184, 203; Irvonwy Morgan, Puritan Spirituality (London: Epworth Press, 1973), 10-11. Cf. Murray A. Capill, Preaching with Spiritual Vigour: Including Lessons from the Life and Practice of Richard Baxter (Fearn: Christian Focus, 2003), 175-79.
4. Davies, The Worship of the English Puritans, 203.
5. Morgan, Puritan Spirituality, 11.
6. Morgan, Puritan Spirituality, 11.
7. Capill, Preaching with Spiritual Vigour, 175-79.
8. Baxter uses terms such as earnestness, zeal, reverence, and seriousness. Perkins uses the terms solemn, lively, powerful, fervent, and vehement. This article will continue to use the term urgency since that is the term with which modern readers will be most familiar.
9. Pipa, “Puritan Preaching,” 176-79.
10. William Perkins, The Arte of Prophecying: or a Treatise Concerning the facred and onely true manner and methode of Preaching (London: Felix Kyngston, 1607); Richard Baxter, Gildas Salvianus; The Reformed Pastor; Shewing the nature of the Pastoral work, Efpecially in Private Inftruction and Catechizing. With an open Confession of our too open Sins: Prepared for a Day of Humiliation Kept at Worcester, Decemb. 4, 1655 by the Ministers of that Country, Who Subscribed the Agreement for Catechizing and Personal Instruction at their Entrance upon that Work (London: Printed by Robert While, for Nevil Simmons to be sold by William Roybould, 1656).
11. Miller, The New England Mind, 335. Cf. Lunt, “The Reinvention of Preaching,” 41-48; Pipa, “William Perkins and the Development of Puritan Preaching,” 127-215. Pipa devotes two chapters to Perkins’s influence upon later Puritans in terms of homiletical theory.
12. R. T. Kendall, “Preaching in Early Puritanism with a Special Reference to William Perkins’s The Arte of Prophecying,” in Preaching and Revival: Being Papers Read at the 1984 Conference (London: The Westminster Conference, 1985), 18.
13. Joel R. Beeke and Randall J. Pederson, Meet the Puritans: with a Guide to Modern Reprints (Grand Rapids: Reformation Heritage Books, 2006), 61.
14. Davies, The Worship of the English Puritans, 184. Davies does not cite Baxter, but this quote can be found in Richard Baxter, Reliquiae Baxterianae or Mr. Richard Baxter’s Narrative of the Most Memorable Passage of his Life and Time Faithfully Publish’d from his own Original Manuscript by Matthew Sylvester (London: Printed for T. Parkhurst, J. Robinson, and F. Dunton, 1696), I. 86, §137.
15. Pipa, “William Perkins and the Development of Puritan Preaching,” 38.
16. Pipa, “William Perkins and the Development of Puritan Preaching,” 38.
17. Pipa, “William Perkins and the Development of Puritan Preaching,” 38.
18. Pipa, “William Perkins and the Development of Puritan Preaching,” 39-57.
19. Pipa, “William Perkins and the Development of Puritan Preaching,” 32.
20. Pipa, “William Perkins and the Development of Puritan Preaching,” 35.
21. Pipa, “William Perkins and the Development of Puritan Preaching,” 58-66.
22. Davies, “Elizabethan Puritan Preaching I,” 96.
23. Davies, “Elizabethan Puritan Preaching I,” 96.
24. Baxter, Gildas Salvianus, 154. In transcribing quotes from the original, the ‘f’ has been changed to the modern ‘s’, the ‘u’ has been changed to the modern ‘v’, the ‘v’ has been changed to the modern ‘u’ for readability for the modern audience. However, the original spelling is maintained.
25. Baxter, Gildas Salvianus, 158.
26. Keeble, “Baxter’s Preaching Ministry,” 553-54.
27. Keeble, “Baxter’s Preaching Ministry,” 554.
28. Keeble, “Baxter’s Preaching Ministry,” 554-55.
29. Perkins, The Arte of Prophecying, 1.
30. Perkins, The Arte of Prophecying, 3.
31. Black, Reformation Pastors, 37.
32. Baxter, Gildas Salvianus, 78.
33. J. William Black, Reformation Pastors: Richard Baxter and the Ideal of the Reformed Pastor (Waynesboro, Ga.: Paternoster Press, 2004), 167-91. Black contends that Baxter did more than just preaching to minister to his parish and to effect the conversion of lost souls, but included a robust catechetical ministry from family to family. Black perhaps overstates his case when he says that many Puritan pastors lamented the ineffectiveness of decades of preaching, thus turning to catechetical instruction. Cf. Baxter, Gildas Salvianus, 115.
34. Davies, “Elizabethan Puritan Preaching I,” 94.
35. Perkins, The Arte of Prophecying, 141.
36. Baxter, Gildas Salvianus, 128.
37. Baxter, Gildas Salvianus, 128.
38. Baxter, Gildas Salvianus, 128.
39. Brown, Puritan Preaching in England, 75-76.
40. Perkins, The Arte of Prophecying, 1.
41. Perkins, The Arte of Prophecying, 136.
42. Perkins, The Arte of Prophecying, 137.
43. Perkins, The Arte of Prophecying, 137-38.
44. Perkins, The Arte of Prophecying, 138.
45. Perkins, The Arte of Prophecying, 139.
46. Perkins, The Arte of Prophecying, 140.
47. Perkins, The Arte of Prophecying, 140.
48. Baxter, Gildas Salvianus, 14-15.
49. Baxter, Gildas Salvianus, 15.
50. Baxter, Gildas Salvianus, 45.
51. Baxter, Gildas Salvianus, 40.
52. Baxter, Gildas Salvianus, 43.
53. Baxter, Gildas Salvianus, 43.
54. Baxter, Gildas Salvianus, 19.
55. Baxter, Gildas Salvianus, 89.
56. Baxter, Gildas Salvianus, 40-41.
57. Baxter, Gildas Salvianus, 89.
58. Baxter, Gildas Salvianus, 56.
59. Baxter, Gildas Salvianus, 69.
60. Baxter, Gildas Salvianus, 127.
61. Erroll Hulse, “Adding to the Church,” 11.
62. Morgan, Puritan Spirituality, 12.
63. Baxter, Gildas Salvianus, 70.
64. Baxter, Gildas Salvianus, 71.
65. Perkins, The Arte of Prophecying, 143.
66. Baxter, Gildas Salvianus, 78.
67. Baxter, Gildas Salvianus, 211.
68. Perkins, The Arte of Prophecying, 144.
69. Park, “The Sacred Rhetoric of the Holy Spirit,” 142.
70. Park, “The Sacred Rhetoric of the Holy Spirit,” 142-43.
71. Park, “The Sacred Rhetoric of the Holy Spirit,” 142-43.
72. Perkins, The Arte of Prophecying, 133.
73. Perkins, The Arte of Prophecying, 133-34.
74. Perkins, The Arte of Prophecying, 135.
75. Baxter, Gildas Salvianus, 19.
76. Baxter, Gildas Salvianus, 19.
77. Baxter, Gildas Salvianus, 19.
78. Baxter, Gildas Salvianus, 211.
79. Baxter, Gildas Salvianus, 211.
80. Baxter, Gildas Salvianus, 211-12.
81. Baxter, Gildas Salvianus, 278.
82. Baxter, Gildas Salvianus, 278.
83. Baxter, Gildas Salvianus, 278.
84. Baxter, Gildas Salvianus, 278.
85. Baxter, Gildas Salvianus, 169.
86. Baxter, Gildas Salvianus, 169.
87. Baxter, Gildas Salvianus, 169.
88. Baxter, Gildas Salvianus, 170.
89. Baxter, Gildas Salvianus, 170.
90. Cotton Mather, Magnalia Christi Americana: or, The Ecclesiastical History of New-England (New York: Russell & Russell, 1967): 1:255.
91. Mather, Magnalia Christi Americana, 1:255-56.
92. Baxter, Reliquiae Baxterianae, I. 84, §136.
93. Baxter, Reliquiae Baxterianae, I. 84, §136.
94. Baxter, Reliquiae Baxterianae, I. 84, §136.
95. Baxter, Reliquiae Baxterianae, I. 84, §136.
96. Baxter, Reliquiae Baxterianae, I. 84-85, §136.
97. Baxter, Reliquiae Baxterianae, I. 85, §136.
98. Baxter, Reliquiae Baxterianae, I. 86, §137.
99. Baxter, Reliquiae Baxterianae, I. 86, §137
100. Baxter, Reliquiae Baxterianae, I. 86, §137.