This book is an illustrated version of the original A Christian Directory by Richard Baxter. “I do especially desire you to observe, that the resolving of practical cases of conscience, and the reducing of theoretical knowledge into serious christian practice, and promoting a skilful facility in the faithful exercise of universal obedience, and holiness of heart and life, is the great work of this treatise; and that where I thought it needful, the cases are reduced to express questions and answers. But had I done so by all, many such volumes would have been too little; and therefore I thought the directing way most brief and fit for christian practice; for if you mark them, you will find few directions in the book, which may not pass for the answer of an implied question or case of conscience; and when I have given you the answer in a direction, an ingenious reader can tell what question it is that is answered. And so, many hundred cases are here resolved, especially in the two first parts, which are not interrogatively named.”
He wrote 168 or so separate works -- such treatises as the Christian Directory, the Methodus Theologiae Christianae, and the Catholic Theology, might each have represented the life's work of an ordinary man. His Breviate of the Life of Mrs Margaret Baxter records the virtues of his wife, and reveals Baxter's tenderness of nature. Without doubt, however, his most famous and enduring contribution to Christian literature was a devotional work published in 1658 under the title Call to the Unconverted to Turn and Live. This slim volume was credited with the conversion of thousands and formed one of the core extra-biblical texts of evangelicalism until at least the middle of the nineteenth century.
Richard Baxter was ordained into the Church of England, 1638, but in two years allied with Puritans opposed to the episcopacy of his church. At Kidderminster (1641-60) he made the church a model parish. The church was enlarged to hold the crowds. Pastoral counseling was as important as preaching, and his program for his parish was a pattern for many other ministers. Baxter played an ameliorative role during the English Civil Wars.
He was a chaplain in the parliamentary army but then helped to restore the king (1660). After the establishment of the monarchy, he fought for toleration of moderate dissent in the Church of England. Persecuted for more than 20 years and was imprisoned (1685) for 18 months, the Revolution of 1688, replacing James II with William and Mary, brought about an Act of Toleration that freed Baxter to express his opinions.
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