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4 Richard Baxter Richard Baxter (1615-1691): A Model of Pastoral Leadership for Evangelism and Church Growth Timothy K. Beougher Timothy K. Beougher is Billy Introduction And one biographer warns of trying to Graham Professor of Evangelism and In his autobiography, nineteenth century compress Baxter’s life into a few pages, Church Growth at The Southern Baptist preacher Charles Haddon Spurgeon saying, “Men of his size should not be Theological Seminary, where he has records a conversation he had with his wife drawn in miniature.”4 taught since 1996. Dr. Beougher co- one Sunday evening: “I fear I have not edited Accounts of Campus Revival and been as faithful in my preaching today as I Early Life Evangelism for a Changing World, and should have been; I have not been as much Richard Baxter was born November 12, is the author of several scholarly articles. in earnest after poor souls as God would 1615, at Rowton, a village in Shropshire, He is currently at work on a biography have me be. Go, dear, to the study, and England.5 It was his destiny to live and of Richard Baxter. fetch down Baxter’s Reformed Pastor, and minister throughout most of the seven- read some of it to me; perhaps that will teenth century, a watershed in English quicken my sluggish heart.”1 history. Before his death in 1691, he would Spurgeon was not the only one helped witness the English Civil War, the behead- by the seventeenth century British Puri- ing of Charles I, the Commonwealth tan’s writings. Baxter has been called the under Oliver Cromwell, the Restoration of greatest of all English preachers, the vir- the monarchy under Charles II, the perse- tual creator of popular Christian literature, cution of Nonconformity, the Great Ejec- and “the most successful preacher and tion of some two thousand Puritan pastors winner of souls and nurturer of won souls from their churches, and the struggle for that England has ever had.”2 Who was this toleration, which culminated in the Act of man? What does he have to say to us Toleration of 1689. Baxter was no passive today? observer of these events, no idle bystander. Dr. William Bates, who preached As a prominent religious leader, he actively Baxter’s funeral message, recognized the participated in the numerous political and difficulty of summarizing the life of this ecclesiastical struggles of his day. man: When viewed in light of his later influ- ence, Baxter’s early years were far from I am sensible that in speaking of him auspicious. No one could have guessed I shall be under a double disadvan- tage: for those who perfectly knew that this boy, born to Richard and Beatrice him will be apt to think my account Baxter, would amount to much of any- of him to be short and defective, an thing. He was forced to live until the age imperfect shadow of his resplendent virtues; others, who were unac- of ten with his maternal grandfather quainted with his extraordinary because of his father’s gambling debts.6 worth, will, from ignorance or envy, His early schooling proved a great disap- be inclined to think his just praises to be undue and excessive.3 pointment. In six years he had four differ- 4 ent schoolmasters, all of them “ignorant” He passionately desired university or “drunkards.”7 training but had to settle for private tutor- After his father’s conversion, young ing at Ludlow Castle under Richard Richard returned to his parental home at Wickstead. Wickstead, however, all but Eaton Constantine.8 Unfortunately, how- neglected Baxter, forcing him to begin what ever, his return brought no improvement proved to be a lifetime of learning through in his educational environment. The vicar independent study. Baxter’s greatest regret there, who was over eighty and “never was the neglect of languages in his educa- preached in his life,” brought forth a mot- tion: “Besides the Latin Tongue, and but a ley assortment of substitutes to fill in for mediocrity in Greek (with an inconsider- him: among them a day-labourer, a stage- able trial at the Hebrew long after) I had player, a common drunkard.9 The condi- no great skill in Languages.”13 Stephen tion of the area clergy and churches was so argues that Baxter was guilty of understate- low that little or nothing could be expected ment, claiming that Baxter was “ignorant from them in the way of spiritual nurture.10 of Hebrew—a mere smatterer in Greek— The crude and meaningless manner of and possessed of as much Latin as enabled his confirmation at age fourteen only made him . to use it with reckless facility.”14 matters worse. The bishop did not exam- Though not formally tutored, Baxter ine any of the boys who were present as to made good use of the excellent library at their spiritual condition. Instead he quickly Ludlow Castle.15 He was a vociferous lined them up and passed down the line, reader, with one biographer arguing that laying his hands on them and uttering a Baxter probably read more books than any few words of a prayer that neither Baxter human being before him.16 While that nor the other boys could decipher. And claim would be impossible to verify, one is as Baxter later would lament, “He was overwhelmed by Baxter’s incessant cita- esteemed as one of the best bishops in tion of other sources in his own writings, England!”11 Baxter’s comments demon- often from memory. strate that the Puritans had legitimate com- Baxter’s lack of formal training refined plaints about the spiritual state of the his logical mindset, independent thinking, Church of England. and his eclecticism. He was beholden to no particular school of thought; he felt free to Conversion and Education borrow from them all, and to critique them Despite the lack of piety in the estab- all. When criticized for taking a position lished church, young Richard was not left against the common consensus on a par- without spiritual guidance. Through his ticular issue, Baxter replied that he valued father’s example and by the reading of theologians by “weight, not by number.”17 some Christian books, Baxter recounts that at about age fifteen “it pleased God to Ordination awaken my soul.”12 The role that books A growing desire to be used in the played in his conversion was not lost on conversion of others led him to seek ordi- Baxter, and he would write numerous nation within the Church of England. treatises on conversion to help others find Immediately after his ordination Baxter the way of salvation through Christian served for nine months as a schoolmaster literature. in Dudley while preaching in vacant pul- 5 pits on Sundays. In the autumn of 1639 Royalists of the town against him. The Baxter left Dudley for the position of entire county had declared openly its curate (assistant pastor) in Bridgnorth, support for the king, and Kidderminster where he remained for nearly two years. was entirely under the influence of Royal- While Baxter was at Bridgnorth, the ist families living there. So despite his parishioners of Kidderminster18 threatened efforts to remain aloof from the struggle, to petition Parliament against their vicar after one of the townspeople had publicly and his assistant on charges of incompe- denounced him as a traitor, Baxter found tence and drunkenness. (Baxter records he could only remain there at the risk of that the vicar’s preaching was so terrible losing his life.23 that his own wife would leave the services When he left, Baxter fully expected to in shame.19 ) To avoid the scandalous con- return within a few weeks, thinking the sequences of exposure from such a petition, war would come to a speedy end. Actu- the Vicar of Kidderminster agreed to dis- ally, he was away for nearly five years. He miss his assistant and offered to give up first went to Coventry, where he preached his pulpit to any lecturer whom the parish- once a week to the soldiers. Three years ioners might select.20 The parishioners later he accepted a chaplaincy in Crom- formed a “selection” committee of fourteen well’s army, a post he held for two years. members, and in March, 1641, they invited He was forced to resign his chaplaincy Baxter to be their lecturer.21 because of poor health, and for five months Baxter languished near death at the home Pastoral Ministry of friends, Sir Thomas and Lady Jane Rous. Baxter accepted the position of lecturer During these months in 1647 he took up at Kidderminster in 1641. Here in a town- his pen and wrote most of The Saints’ Ever- ship of three or four thousand, Baxter lasting Rest. exercised his pastoral ministry first for Baxter notes in the dedication that he fifteen months, and then, after a five year wrote the book with “one foot in the interruption because of the English Civil grave.” His account of the origin and War, for fourteen years. It is ironic that progress of the work is interesting: the very thing for which Baxter is now renowned, his pastoral work, was not fore- The second book which I wrote . was that called The Saints’ Everlast- most on his heart when he accepted the ing Rest. Whilst I was in health I had charge. In fact, one of the great attractions not the least thought of writing of this position to him was that at Kidder- books, or of serving God in any more public way than preaching. But minster he would have no official pastoral when I was weakened with great obligations outside of merely preaching bleeding .
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