Occasionally, as I lie down to sleep, a restlessness bends over my bed. A vague uneasiness. A nagging sense of some tension unresolved. Some door in the soul swinging on its hinges. The stirring of an unquiet conscience.

As I relive the day, I see why. Prayers hurried or skipped. An evangelistic opportunity avoided. Grievances nourished. Self-promoting words snuck into conversations. The “prayer request” that was probably gossip. Precious time squandered. Encouragements unthought and unspoken. As the old prayer book says, “I have left undone those things which I ought to have done; and I have done those things which I ought not to have done.”

Was this a fitting response to your God? I ask myself. Was this “walking in a manner worthy” of him? Sometimes I drift off with such questions unresolved, fitful and self-reproaching yet tired enough to succumb to sleep.

But not always. Some years ago, I found unexpected help in the poem of a long-dead pastor, who asked the same questions, felt the same guilt, yet found in Jesus a rest far sweeter than sleep.

‘Even-Song’

George Herbert’s (1593–1633) “Even-Song” closes a series of three poems in his collection The Temple, beginning with “Mattens” and continuing with “Sinne (II).” The titles “Mattens” and “Even-Song” refer to morning and evening prayers in the Anglican church. And “Sinne” — well, that captures what often happens between those morning and evening prayers.

“Even-Song” is not a prayer for every evening. Herbert does not assume we only ever end the day self-reproachful, with sin having wrecked the day’s resolves. But he does assume we sometimes do — and that, often, even the most faithful Christians kneel beside their beds deeply wishing they had walked in a manner more worthy of their God.

What do we say at the end of such days, when we feel the gulf between God’s kindness and our unworthy response? More than once, “Even-Song” has met me at my bedside, speaking clarity and comfort to my troubled conscience. It has become a faithful nighttime friend.

As Night Draws Near

    Blest be the God of love,Who gave us eyes, and light, and power this day,  Both to be busie, and to play.  But much more blest be God above,

    Who gave me sight alone,  Which to himself he did denie:  For when he sees my waies, I dy:But I have got his sonne, and he hath none.

As night draws near, Herbert looks back, remembering God’s morning gifts of “eyes, and light, and power this day, / Both to be busie and to play.” Our Father, “God of love” that he is, opens the storehouses of his heart from the day’s first moment. As Herbert celebrates in “Mattens,” “I cannot ope mine eyes, / But thou art ready to catch / My morning-soul and sacrifice.” “Yours is the day” (Psalm 74:16), the psalmist says. And Herbert, surrounded by God’s gifts, feels it.

For sinners like us, though, one gift rises above the rest. The God who gives us “eyes, and light” for daytime labors also gives us another kind of sight, “Which to himself he did denie: / For when he sees my waies, I dy.” Alluding to Psalm 130:3, Herbert remembers that God, in Christ, does not “mark” our iniquities, even when we do; in a sense, he does not see the sins we see.

And why? Because “I have got his sonne, and he hath none.” God gave up his Son at the cross — and at the same time, he gave up the sun that would otherwise shine upon our guilt. Jesus buried our sins in darkness on Good Friday, and on Easter Sunday, they did not rise with him. And so, in the glory of the gospel, God no longer “remembers” the sins of his people (Hebrews 8:12); he no longer sees them. They are buried, hidden, unseen, kept forever in darkness.

But they do not always feel buried, hidden, unseen. And so, Herbert takes us back to his “troubled minde.”

Troubled Mind

    What have I brought thee homeFor this thy love? have I discharg’d the debt,  Which this dayes favour did beget?  I ranne; but all I brought, was fome.

    Thy diet, care, and cost  Do end in bubbles, balls of winde;  Of winde to thee whom I have crost,But balls of wilde-fire to my troubled minde.

Like a good father, God meets us with favor morning by morning; his “diet, care, and cost” send us into the day strengthened and renewed. But all too often, as we approach home in the evening, we dig in our pockets, wondering how we could have taken so much and brought back so little. “What have I brought thee home?” Herbert asks. “I ranne; but all I brought, was fome” — or, a few lines later, “bubbles, balls of winde.” Insubstantial nothings.

Approaching God with fists full of wind may not trouble the spiritually nominal, who care little whether they please God or not. But for those who have tasted the kindness of God, and have seen the cross as its cost, such wind can become “balls of wilde-fire to my troubled minde.” The sun has set on the day’s regrets, with no time now to remedy them, leaving us with a thorn-pricked soul. A pillow of self-reproach. A smoldering conscience.

On nights like these, some simply try to sleep their guilt away. Others search for some rationalization. Still others pray, but not in a way that douses the fire in their minds. What does Herbert do?

Closing Our Weary Eyes

    Yet still thou goest on,And now with darknesse closest wearie eyes,  Saying to man, It doth suffice:  Henceforth repose; your work is done.

    Thus in thy ebony box  Thou dost inclose us, till the day  Put our amendment in our way,And give new wheels to our disorder’d clocks.

Herbert, with wild fire burning his troubled mind, turns to God and says, “Yet still thou goest on.” The “God of love” has yet more love stored up, more favor to offer. He began the day by giving us “eyes,” and now, as night overtakes our burdened souls, he “with darknesse closest wearie eyes.” And not just with sleep: God, in mercy, closes our eyes to our sins, just as he, in Christ, has already “closed” his.

“In response to our weary, day-end regrets, God gives not more work, but rest.”

As God closes the soul’s eyelids, bidding them be blind to the day’s confessed sins, Herbert imagines him “saying to man, It doth suffice: / Henceforth repose; your work is done.” In response to our weary, day-end regrets, God gives not more work, but rest. Our work, however pitiful, can be done at day’s end because God’s perfect work of redemption is done (John 19:30; Hebrews 10:12–14). And we, by faith, “have got his sonne.”

Thus God “incloses” us in “thy ebony box” — surely a reference to a coffin. The biblical writers saw sleep as an image of Christian death (John 11:11; 1 Thessalonians 4:14), and Herbert, tapping into the theme, treats nighttime as a daily rehearsal for the moment when our ebony box will be made of wood and not of night. On that last twilight, some of God’s true children, like Christian in Pilgrim’s Progress, will look back and ask, pained, “What have I brought thee home / For this thy love?” Our troubled nights teach us how to answer that question, readying us to lie peacefully upon our final bed as we wait for God to close our eyes, put us to sleep, and keep us for the resurrection day, which will “put our amendment in our way” — which will raise us sinless and whole, children of the everlasting morning.

Until then, we live like old timepieces, “disorder’d clocks” whose hour and minute hands begin the day aligned with God yet often slowly get off track. And every morning, God rewinds us, no matter how disordered from yesterday, and once again strengthens us to run.

Rest Deeper Than Sleep

    I muse, which shows more love,The day or night: that is the gale, this th’ harbour;  That is the walk, and this the arbour;  Or that the garden, this the grove.

    My God, thou art all love.  Not one poore minute scapes thy breast,  But brings a favour from above;And in this love, more then in bed, I rest.

As God carries us from morning to evening, we move from favor to favor, mercy to mercy, kindness to kindness. By poem’s end, Herbert muses which of the two, day or night, “shows more love”: The gale that sends us through day’s waters, or the harbor that holds us at night’s shore? The walk that takes us through day’s labors, or the arbor that receives us into night’s rest? The garden of daytime strength, or the grove of nighttime forgiveness?

“In Jesus, we find a rest beneath our rest, a pillow under our pillow.”

The question cannot be answered. In Christ, God gives us power to work for him, and he gives us pardon to rest in him. Both have their peculiar favor; God’s children prize them both. And so, “not one poore minute scapes thy breast, / But brings a favor from above.” Not one minute of the day is unadorned by the love of God — whether daytime love or nighttime love, strengthening love or forgiving love.

Herbert closes, “And in this love, more then in bed, I rest.” In Jesus, we find a rest beneath our rest, a pillow under our pillow, comfort of soul surrounding the comfort of sleep. Such rest and comfort depend, ultimately, not on what we give to God (though we long to give him much and more), but on what he has given to us: “his sonne.” And so, even the frustration and futility we feel toward day’s end can become a mercy, delivering us into a deeper rest than sleep can give.

After nearly two decades, the memory is still vivid: standing in the living room with the phone to my ear, listening as my friend and pastor, Rick, described to me through sobs how one of the young, vibrant couples in our church had just been in a terrible car accident. The husband had survived. But the wife had not. And neither had their unborn son — their first child, whose birth they had been anticipating with so much joy.

I stood stunned, trying to process this new reality. I could see her laughing with a group of people after church the previous Sunday. Now, she was suddenly gone — taken, along with her child, in a violent event that unfolded in a few seconds. Rick asked me, the leader of the worship ministry, to begin thinking and praying over possible music for the funeral that would likely be held the next week.

If my memory is accurate, the first song that came to mind, almost immediately, was one of my favorite hymns: “Be Still, My Soul.”

Song for Deepest Sorrow

I have loved this hymn since my late teens. When sung to a beautiful arrangement of the tune “Finlandia,” it has, to my ear, perfect prosody — that’s the term musicians use to describe how “all elements [of a song] work together to support the central message of the song.” And the central message of “Be Still, My Soul” is the resurrection hope Jesus gives us in the face of the devastating death of a loved one.

The powerful lyrics come from the pen of a German woman named Katharina Amalia Dorothea von Schlegel and began appearing in German hymnals in 1752. Little is known about Katharina. Some believe she may have been a “Stiftsfraulein,” a member of a female Lutheran “stift” (convent) in the town of Köthen (one hundred miles southwest of Berlin), and that she had been significantly influenced by a pietistic Christian renewal movement.

No record survives of the specific event(s) that inspired her to compose this deeply moving hymn. But such specifics aren’t necessary since we all experience the kind of devastating losses she writes about. And when they come, we often find ourselves enduring an internal hurricane of disorienting grief, in desperate need of the peaceful shelter of hope. And the gift Katharina has bequeathed to us — in the four verses most English hymnals contain (she wrote six) — is this profound poetic reminder of the one shelter for our sorrowful, storm-tossed souls: the faithfulness of God.

‘The Lord Is on Thy Side’

She begins in verse one by reminding us of the unshakable foundation on which we stand by faith:

Be still, my soul: the Lord is on thy side.Bear patiently the cross of grief or pain.Leave to thy God to order and provide;In ev’ry change, He faithful will remain.Be still, my soul: thy best, thy heav’nly friendThrough thorny ways leads to a joyful end.

The first line is a near quote of Psalm 118:6: “The Lord is on my side; I will not fear.” But the rationale for why we have any right to make this otherwise audacious claim is gloriously stated in Romans 8:31–32:

What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?

In the swirl of grief, we may wonder, “All things? Then why did God not spare my loved one from death and me from such anguish of separation?” To which the Holy Spirit, through the great apostle, graciously, hopefully, and gently replies,

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:37–39)

Soul, be at peace: your faithful Lord is on your side. And he will lead you through this vale of deep darkness to the eternally Son-lit, joyful land of everlasting love (Psalm 23:4, Revelation 21:23).

‘All Now Mysterious Shall Be Bright at Last’

In verse two, Katharina reminds us of the great promise purchased for us when the Father did not spare his own Son for us: freedom from the curse of living with the knowledge of good and evil — the knowledge we insisted on having, while lacking the capacities to comprehend or mange it.

Be still, my soul: thy God doth undertakeTo guide the future, as He has the past.Thy hope, thy confidence let nothing shake;All now mysterious shall be bright at last.Be still, my soul: the waves and winds still knowHis voice who ruled them while He dwelt below.

Now, God’s purposes in allowing evil to wreak such grievous havoc are largely shrouded in mystery, and so can appear senseless. But it will not always be so. For Jesus came to undo all of the effects of curse. First, he came into the world to undo the curse of death (Genesis 3:19). And then, when we finally experience life free from remaining sin and beyond the threat of death, we shall be given knowledge more wonderful than what we sought from the Edenic fruit: we shall know fully, even as we have been fully known (1 Corinthians 13:12).

Soul, be at peace: your faithful Lord will soon make all you now find so mysterious bright at last.

‘Jesus Can Repay All He Takes Away’

In verse three, when the sword of grief has pierced our hearts at the deaths of our dearest ones, Katharina applies the balm of gospel promise to our throbbing wound.

Be still, my soul: when dearest friends depart,And all is darkened in the vale of tears,Then shalt thou better know His love, His heart,Who comes to soothe thy sorrow and thy fears.Be still, my soul: thy Jesus can repayFrom His own fullness all He takes away.

That last line echoes the great faith-filled, worshipful declaration Job made upon the news of the deaths of his dear children: “The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord” (Job 1:21). But Katharina’s words declare the biblical promise of a greater restoration than Job experienced on earth. For God has promised that even the severest losses will someday seem like “light momentary affliction” compared to the “eternal weight of glory” they produce (2 Corinthians 4:17).

“Your faithful Lord will never depart and will repay from his own fullness far more than all he takes away.”

But this verse also describes a Christian’s paradoxical experience in the very anguish of bereavement. For those who, while grieving, place their trust in their best and heav’nly friend receive a foretaste of the riches of Jesus’s fullness as they come to “better know His love, His heart.” They often experience new dimensions of the reality of what Jesus meant when he said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you” (Hebrews 13:5), and “I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20).

Soul, be at peace: your faithful Lord will never depart and will repay from his own fullness far more than all he takes away.

‘We Shall Be Forever with the Lord’

One week after that tragic car accident, we gathered in the sanctuary to remember the lives and grieve the deaths of that young wife, daughter, sister, friend, and expectant mother, and the baby boy she and her devastated husband had looked forward to bringing into the world. But we did not grieve as those “who have no hope” (1 Thessalonians 4:13).

My clearest memory of the funeral was being so deeply moved and comforted by the way I heard my brothers and sisters sing “Be Still, My Soul,” especially the last verse:

Be still, my soul: the hour is hast’ning onWhen we shall be forever with the Lord.When disappointment, grief, and fear are gone,Sorrow forgot, love’s purest joys restored.Be still, my soul: when change and tears are pastAll safe and blessèd we shall meet at last.

“There is coming a day when ‘we will always be with the Lord.’”

Here is every Christian’s “blessed hope” (Titus 2:13), the reason Jesus is for us “the resurrection and the life” (John 11:25). Katharina’s words helped us encourage one another in the hope that there is coming a day when “we will always be with the Lord” (1 Thessalonians 4:17–18). They helped us together preach to our souls,

Soul, be at peace: your faithful Lord will soon gather us all together again, safe and blessed, in his presence — where his full joy will be our full joy, and where all that gives him pleasure will be all that gives us pleasure forever (Psalm 16:11).

Then, having done our best to still our souls through faith in God’s faithfulness, we escorted the earthly remains of our sister and baby brother to the cemetery, where we sowed their perishable, weak, and natural bodies into the ground in the hope that Jesus will raise them with imperishable, powerful, spiritual bodies (1 Corinthians 15:42–44). And upon the grave’s marker, the loving husband and father, whose loss had been incalculable, yet who in faith believed Christ had greater gain for the three of them, had this text inscribed:

As for me, I shall behold your face in righteousness;
     when I awake, I shall be satisfied with your likeness. (Psalm 17:15)

I’m tempted to say that every Christian pastor needs to read Richard Baxter’s Reformed Pastor. We need to read it more than other pastoral manuals. And we need to read it more than once. After all, for what other book can it be said that merely reading the table of contents could change your life?

Already in his detailed summary of the book, Baxter begins his powerful and practical case for pastoring the flock of God in person. Puritans had finally won their long fight for freedom to preach. In the glow of this victory, Baxter realized that the task of visiting and instructing individuals and families had become so widely neglected that the neglect was no longer considered a problem.

Readers will quickly see how this is relevant for us today: visiting with God’s people, teaching them one on one, being in their homes — or as Baxter sometimes did, asking them to come and meet with him — this kind of personal pastoral work is in many places a lost art. And yet it is often the best way, sometimes the only way, of helping those who do not even know how much they need help.

Visiting Pastor

It means something that Baxter, famous for plugging visitation, was also famous for preaching. He lived as one who had heaven to win or lose just as much as those around him, and that made him relatable. And he preached, he said, as a dying man to dying men, and that made him earnest. His local church was sometimes full beyond its capacity, and he was constantly sought as a preacher at venues around England. He was big deal, a minor celebrity before there were major celebrities, a conference speaker if they had done that sort of thing in those days.

And yet, although he had to preach constantly, he spent two full days per week — or at minimum two half-days — visiting with individuals and families in his town. When he was worried that he might not have enough time to visit his large flock, he cut his own wages so that he could hire an assistant pastor — not so that the other man could to do the visiting on behalf of the “senior pastor,” but so that Baxter himself could better reach the many souls under his charge.

We learn these details from his own massive autobiography and from The Reformed Pastor itself. As the story goes, Baxter had become convinced that he needed to visit with people in his church and neighborhood, and that he needed to try to teach adults and children ignorant of the Christian faith. Once he decided that this was his own duty as a pastor, he figured that it would be just as well if all the ministers in his region did the same, so he gathered them together and persuaded them to join him! (I like this kind of ambition.)

Baxter’s fellow ministers in return had two sensible concerns — the kinds of questions that someone reading Baxter’s book might have too. First, how might people respond to this personal pastoral care? Second, how should it be done?

Baxter addressed the first problem by writing a letter to members of churches that other ministers could themselves use — a piece persuading them of the need for and blessing of shepherds coming among the sheep, “for we were afraid lest they would not have submitted to it.”1 The Reformed Pastor offers counsel to pastors on how to help church members see the blessing of pastoral care. Baxter then planned to preach a practical sermon to area pastors, encouraging them in the work and showing them how it could be done. When he fell ill and could not preach, he simply expanded the planned sermon into a large book — the sort of thing he seemed to do all the time.

Baxter’s Approach

The Reformed Pastor has a series of chapters or parts. It begins with the pastor’s oversight of himself, for Baxter wants the pastor to practice what he preaches. The next part of the book turns to the oversight of the church, and why we must chase after the unconverted, help those who are questioning the faith, build up the saints, and visit families, the sick, and the wandering. The spirit in which this is to be done is considered at length, and powerful motives for investing in the flock are carefully catalogued in yet another section of the book.

Other parts follow, and I suppose that this is as good a place as any to acknowledge that, in addition to sporting a long title (Gildas Silvianus; The Reformed Pastor. Shewing the nature of the pastoral work; especially in private instruction and catechizing), this is also a long book. I recommend reading it in installments. Readers should not race to get knowledge about pastoral care, but slowly reflect on Baxter’s counsel, seeking wisdom as to how to apply it in our own situation (Should we add phone calls to in-person visits? Should we have Zoom calls for those living far from the church?). The book is also best read in installments because the chapters read more like essays on overlapping themes. Baxter is much more concerned about being thorough than being concise — for he returns more than once to motives for pastoral care, objections to pastoral care, and practical how-to tips for visitation.

The tips that Baxter offers are gold nuggets with which to stuff your pockets on your next visit. How can you make your questions maximally friendly? Unintimidating? Clear? Baxter will tell you how, supplying sample dialogues and detailed suggestions.

“For our own good, we sometimes must do the work that only God can see.”

Of course, it is not merely our words that will prove useful. Baxter understood that when we use our time like this, when we invest in people’s lives, we are at some level purchasing their affection with what is very dear to us — our time and convenience. Baxter’s first biographer (other than himself!) wrote that “his unwearied industry to do good to his flock, was answer’d by correspondent love and thankfulness.”2 Nor is the good intended in visiting the flock the only good reaped, for this kind of ministry can also protect our hearts: Baxter comments, perceptively, that the “pulpit is the hypocritical minister’s stage,” as is the press.3 For our own good, we sometimes must do the work that only God can see.

For Current and Future Pastors

I first read Baxter’s book for pastors 25 years ago, and have regularly reread sections ever since. I first started having pastoral interns in 2006, and every intern was required to read part or even much of the book. In later years, I’ve been serving as a seminary professor, and every class on pastoral theology has to read Chrysostom and Gregory the Great. They have to study the works of the Protestant Reformers on pastoral ministry and the best of nineteenth-century manuals on pastoral care. But above all, they must read Baxter.

Baxter always had an eye out for young men being called into pastoral work. He wrote letters matching up godly teachers with godly students, and he kept an eye on the progress of those students over time.4 I find him ideal reading for pastors in the making. But Baxter wrote his book for working pastors especially — pastors who are wondering how to reach neighbors who don’t know Christ, pastors who find that people are going out the back door as fast as they are coming in the front, pastors who discover that the people who do stay don’t seem to be learning.

Non-pastors can benefit from the work too: the woman who would later become my wife read this book as a new Christian, and I can see from her marginal notes that she learned from this book how better to pray for pastors. Indeed, a slip of paper left inside these pages, one that escaped my notice until now, reveals that it was while reading of Baxter’s care for his congregation that Emily understood that she needed to become more involved in a local church.

This is wonderful providence, because the book is not really intended for new Christians. Indeed, the original title signifies that this was intended to be a tough read. Gildas Silvianus is a reference to two church fathers whom Baxter admired for their outspoken style. He respected one for his courage in exposing the faults of the British, and the other for his rebukes of the Romans.5 Baxter considered their work and his work as examples of plain speaking. Truth be told, sections also serve as examples of his well-known legalistic streak. Certainly, along with his invaluable counsel, he could have offered some more encouragement to ministers seeing their pastoral failings and needing grace and forgiveness.

What Edition?

What is the best version of the work to read? The 1656 edition, expanded in 1657, was abridged in 1829 and later reprinted by the Banner of Truth. The abridgement is sensible, although something is lost in the flattening of Baxter’s style (I think we lose something in changing Baxter’s description of pastoral care from “so happy a work” to “so great a work”!).6

“Read the book carefully, consider Baxter’s counsel prayerfully, and begin the work joyfully.”

A more recent abridgement, at once more sympathetic and more severe, is found in the recent edition produced by Crossway under the expert editorship of Tim Cooper. As I wrote in the foreword to that book, “In assigning sections of Baxter’s Reformed Pastor I always felt like I was coming to the text with a cleaver, butchering the book by assigning chunks here and there.” By contrast, “Dr. Cooper has approached his task with a surgeon’s knife, giving the book the slimmer look that most bodies don’t need but which some books do. In this case, when sewn back together, the effect is impressive.”7

Whatever the edition, the main thing is to read the book carefully, consider Baxter’s counsel prayerfully, and begin the work joyfully, for the pastor who does this humble work is the man the King delights to honor.