Reformed Pastor - Baxter - IV - Chapter 2 commenced

Required reading
Reformed Pastor by Richard Baxter (we'll be reading from the 1862 edition available from Amazon or free on the internet, here for example) - Commence Chapter 2 by reading Section 1 (The nature of this oversight).

My summary
Now Baxter turns from looking at the minister's oversight of himself to the minister's oversight of the flock.

Baxter discusses the importance of the different classes of the flock and gives particular advice for how to deal with each class:
(i) the unconverted;
(ii) inquirers;
(iii) truly converted;
(iv) families;
(v) the sick;
(vi) the impenitent.

What grabbed me
Particularly wise counsel was given at the end of the section for the practice of church discipline. 

Amongst the advice, Baxter gave four excellent reasons for practising church discipline:
'[a] It ill becomes a creature to implead the ordinances of God as useless, or to reproach God's service instead of doing it, and to set his wits in opposition to his Maker. God can render useful his own ordinances, or else he would never have appointed them.

[b] The usefulness of discipline is apparent, in the shaming of sin and humbling the sinner, and in manifesting the holiness of Christ, and of his doctrine and Church, before all the world.

[c] What will you do with such sinners? Will you give them up as hopeless? That would be more cruel than administering reproof to them. Will you use other means? Why, it is supposed that all other means have been used without success; for this is the last remedy.

[d] The principal use of this public discipline is not for the offender himself but for the Church. It tendeth exceedingly to deter others from the like crimes, and so to keep the congregation and their worship pure. Seneca could say, 'He who excuses present evils transmits them to posterity.' And elsewhere, 'He who spares the guilty harms the good.''

The church that does not practice church discipline does so to their own detriment.

Next week's reading
Conclude Chapter 2 by reading Sections 2 (The manner of this oversight) and 3 (Motives to the oversight of the flock).

Now it's your turn
Please post your own notes and thoughts in the comments section below.