Solomon saith, Prov. x. 9, "He that walketh uprightly walketh surely." And perfection and uprightness are the characters of Job, Job i. 1, 8; ii. 3. And in the Scripture to be upright or righteous, and to walk uprightly, and to do righteously, are the titles of those that are acceptable to God. And by uprightness is meant not only sincerity as opposed to hypocrisy; but also rectitude of heart and life, as opposed to crookedness or sin; and this as it is found in various degrees: of which we use to call the lowest degree that is saving by the name of sincerity, and the highest by the name of perfection.
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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