Richard Baxter

Gildas Salvianus: The Reformed Pastor Richard Baxter

As a leader of religious thought in England, Richard Baxter (1615-1691) was deeply concerned about the state of the church, and, in particular, about the condition of the ministry. During his years at Kidderminster, he attempted to draw contending parties together by an experiment in Christian unity--afterwards famous as the Worcestershire Association--from which similar movements arose in other English counties. This volume preserves the documents in connection with this movement. It is therefore a historical study. Yet it has a wider purpose. Baxter's Reformed Pastor is a classical writing on the Christian ministry. IT belongs not only to the seventeenth century, but to every generation. In our present time, when in the ministry of all the churches there is a deep searching of heart amidst these difficult days, this book presents both a challenge and an appeal from the pen of this Puritan divine, who styled himself ""catholic Christian."" ""Mr. Wilkinson's introductory essay of nearly 50 pages is worth the price of the volume. He has collected tributes to Baxter's book from religious leaders of the last century, some of whom possessed it only in Brown's abridgment of 1829. They shared the opinion of Wesley and his circle as to its inestimable value as a practical guide to the preacher."" --The British Weekly ""In Mr. John T. Wilkinson's new edition of The Reformed Pastor many examples are given of the deep influence exerted by that work not only upon Baxter's contemporaries, but throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries."" --The Manchester Guardian ""The Bishop of Durham, at the unveiling in 1925 of a tablet to Baxter's memory, said: The Reformed Pastor is the best manual of the clergyman's duty in the language, because it leaves on the reader's mind an ineffaceable impression of the sublimity and awfulness of spiritual ministry."" --The Expository Times