Baxter's Life

BORN IN SHROPSHIRE IN 1615 — ORDAINED BY BISHOP OF WOR-CESTER IN 1637 — MINISTERS AT DUDLEY, BRIDGNORTH, AND KIDDERMINSTER — RETIRES TO LONDON IN 1660 — EJECTED IN 1662 — pizEs 1N 1691 — HIS HOLINESS, PREACHING POWER, PAS-TORAL GIFTS, DILIGENCE IN THEOLOGICAL WRITING, PATIENCE IN SUFFERING — -ENGLAND’S DEBT TO THE PURITANS — DESCRIP-TION OF BAXTER’S LAST DAYS.

I now turn from Baxter’s times to Baxter himself. Without some knowledge of the times, we can hardly understand the character and conduct of the man. A few plain facts about the man will be more likely than anything I can write to fasten in our minds the times.

Richard Baxter was the son of a small landed proprietor of Eaton Constantine, in Shropshire, and was born, in 1615, at Rowton, in the same county, where Mr. Adeney, his mother’s father, resided.

He seems to have been under religious impressions from a very early period of his life, and for this, under God, he was indebted to the training of a pious father. Shropshire was a very dark, ungodly county in those days. The ministers were generally ignorant, graceless, and unable to preach; and the people, as might

N be expected, were profligate, and despisers of them that were good. In Eaton Constantine, the parishioners spent the greater part of the Lord’s day in dancing round a Maypole near old Mr. Baxter’s door, to his great distress and annoyance. Yet even here grace triumphed over the world in the case of his son, and he was added to the noble host of those who “serve the Lord from their youth.”

It is always interesting to observe the names of religious books, which God is pleased to use in bringing souls to the knowledge of Himself. The books which had the most effect on Baxter were, Bunny’s “Resolution;” Perkins “On Repentance, on Living and Dying well, and on the Government of the Tongue;” Culverwell “On Faith;” and Sibbs’s “Bruised Reed.” Disease and the prospect of death did much to carry on the spiritual work within him. He says in his Autobiography, ‘“‘ Weakness and pain helped me to study how to die. That set me on studying how to live, and that on studying the doctrines from which I must fetch my motives and my comforts.”

At the age of twenty-two he was ordained a clergyman, by Thornborough, bishop of Worcester. He had never had the advantage of an University education. A free-school at Wroxeter, and a private tutor at Ludlow, had done something for him; and his own insatiable love of study had done a good. deal more.

He, probably, entered the ministry far better furnished with theological learning than most young men of his day. He certainly entered it with qualifications far better than a knowledge of Greek and Hebrew. He entered it truly moved by the Holy Ghost, and a converted man. He says himself, “I knew that the want of academical honours and degrees were like to make me contemptible with the most.. But yet, expecting to be so quickly in another world, the great concernment of miserable souls did prevail with me against. all impediments. And being conscious of a thirsty desire of men’s conscience and salvation, I resolved, that if one or two souls only might be won to God, it would easily recompense all the dishonour which, for want of titles, I might undergo from men.”

From the time of his ordination to his death, Baxter’s life was a constant series of strange vicissitudes, and intense physical and mental exertions. Sometimes in prosperity and sometimes in adversity, — sometimes praised and sometimes persecuted, — at one period catechising in the lanes of Kidderminster, at another disputing with bishops in the Savoy Conference, — one year writing the “Saint’s Rest,’ at the point of death, in a quiet country house, another year a marching chaplain to a regiment in Cromwell’s army, — one day offered a bishopric by Charles IL, another cast out of the Church by the Act of Uniformity, — one year arguing for monarchy with Cromwell, and telling him it was a blessing, another tried before Jeffreys on a charge of seditious writing, — one time living quietly at Acton in the society of Judge Hale, at another languishing in prison under some atrocious ecclesiastical persecution, — one day having public discussions about infant-baptism, with Mr. Tombes, in Bewdley Church, another holding the reading-desk of Amersham Church from morning to night against the theological arguments of Antinomian dragoons in the gallery, — sometimes preaching the plainest doctrines, sometimes handling the most abstruse metaphysical points, — sometimes writing folia for the learned, sometimes writing broad-sheets for the poor, — never, perhaps, did any Christian minister fill so many. various positions; and never, certainly, did any one come out of them all with such an unblemished reputation. Always suffering under incurable disease, and seldom long out of pain, — always working his mind to the uttermost, and never idle for a day, — seemingly overwhelmed with business, and yet never refusing new work, — living in the midst of the most exciting scenes, and yet holding daily converse with God, — not sufficiently a partisan to satisfy any side, and yet feared and courted by all, — too much of a Royalist to please the Parliamentary party, and yet too much connected with the Parliament and too holy to be popular with the Cavaliers, — too much of an Episcopalian to satisfy the violent portion of the Puritan body, and too much of a Puritan to be trusted by the bishops: never, probably, did Christian man enjoy so little rest, though serving God with a pure conscience, as did Richard Baxter.

In 1638 he began his ministry, by preaching in the Upper Church at Dudley. There he continued a year. - From Dudley he removed to Bridgnorth. There he continued a year and three-quarters. From Bridgnorth he removed to Kidderminster. From thence, after two years, he retired to Coventry, at the beginning of the Commonwealth troubles, and awaited the progress of the civil war. From Coventry, after the battle of Naseby, he joined the Parliamentary army in the capacity of Regimental Chaplain. He took this office in the vain hope that he might do some good among the soldiers, and counteract the ambitious designs of Cromwell and his friends. He was obliged by illness to give up his chaplaincy in 1646, and lingered for some months between life and death at the hospitable houses of Sir John Coke of Melbourne, in Derbyshire, and Sir Thomas Rous of Rouslench, in Worcestershire. At the end of 1646 he returned to Kidderminster, and there continued labouring indefatigably as parish Minister for fourteen years. In 1660 he left Kidderminster for London, and took an active part in promoting the restoration of Charles IL, and was made one of the King’s Chaplains. In London, he preached successively at St. Dunstan’s, Black

Friars’, and St. Bride’s. Shortly after this he was offered the Bishopric of Hereford, but thought fit to refuse it. In 1662, he was one of the 2000 ministers who were turned out of the Church by the Act of Uniformity. Immediately after his ejection he martied a wife who seems to have been every way worthy of him, and who was spared to be his loving and faithful companion for nineteen years. Her name was Margaret Charlton, of Apley Castle, in Shropshire. After this he lived in various places in and about London, — at Acton, Totteridge, Bloomsbury, and at last in Charterhouse Square. The disgraceful treatment of his enemies made it almost impossible for him to have any certain dwelling-place. Once, at this period of his life, he was offered a Scotch Bishopric, or the Mastership of a Scotch University, but declined both offices. With few exceptions, the last twenty-nine years of his life were embittered by repeated prosecutions, fines, imprisonment, and harassing controversies. When he could he preached, and when he could not preach he wrote books; but something he was always doing. The revolution and accession of William III. brought him some little respite from persecution, and death at last removed the good old man to that place “where the wicked cease from troubling and the weary are at rest,” in the year 1691, and the seventy-sixth year of his age.

Such is a brief outline of the life of one of the most distinguished Puritans who lived under the Stewarts, and one of the most devoted ministers of the Gospel this country has ever seen. It is an outline which, we may readily believe, might be filled up to an indefinite length. I cannot, of course, pretend to do more than direct attention to a few leading particulars. If I do not tell more, it is not from want of matter. But if any one wishes to know why Baxter’s name stands so high as it does in the list of English worthies, I ask him to give me his attention for a few minutes, and I will soon show him cause.

For one thing, Baxter was a man of most eminent personal holiness. Few men have ever lived before the eyes of the world for fifty or sixty years, as he did, and left so fair and unblemished a reputation. JBitterly and cruelly as many hated him, they could find no fault in the man, except as concerning the law of his God. He seems to have been holy in all the relations of life, and in all the circumstances in which man can be placed: holy as a son, a husband, a minister, and a friend, — holy in prosperity and in adversity, in sickness and in health, in youth and in old age. It is a fine saying of Orme, in his admirable life of him, that he was, in the highest sense, a most “unearthly” man. He lived with God, and Christ, and heaven, and death, and judgment, and eternity, continually before his eyes. He cared nothing for the good things of this world: a bishopric, with all its emoluments and honours, had no charms for him. He cared nothing for the enmity of the world: no fear of man’s displeasure ever turned him an inch out of his way. He was singularly independent of man’s praise or blame. He could be bold as a lion in the presence of Cromwell, or Charles IL, and his bishops; and yet he could be gentle as a lamb with poor people seeking how to be saved. He could be zealous as a Crusader for the rights of conscience, and yet he was of so catholic a spirit that he loved all who loved Jesus Christ in sincerity. “Beit by Conformists or by Nonconformists,” he would say, “I rejoice that Christ is preached.” He was a truly humble man. To one who wrote to him expressing admiration for his character, he replied, “You admire one you do not know: knowledge would cure your error.” So fair an epistle of Christ, considering the amazing trials of patience he had to go through, this country has seldom seen as Richard Baxter. Let us remember this point in Baxter’s character. No argument has such lasting power with the world as a holy and consistent life. Let us remember that this holiness was attained by a man of like passions with ourselves. Let Baxter be an encouragement and an example. Let us remember the Lord God of Baxter is not changed.

For another thing, Baxter was one of the most powerful preachers that ever addressed an English congregation. He seems to have possessed all the gifts which are generally considered to make a perfect — “master of assemblies.” He had an amazing fluency, — an enormous store of matter, — a most clear and lucid style — — an unlimited command of forcible language, — a pithy, pointed, emphatic way of presenting truth, — a singularly moving and pathetic voice, — and an earnestness of manner which swept everything before it like a torrent. He used to say, “It must be serious preaching which will make men serious in hearing and obeying it.”. Two well-known lines of his show you the man:

“I’ll preach as though I ne’er should preach again, And as a dying man to dying men.”

Dr. Bates, a cotemporary, says of him, “He had a marvellous felicity and copiousness in speaking. There was a noble negligence in his style. His great mind could not stoop to the affected eloquence of words. He despised flashy oratory. But his expressions were so clear and powerful, so convincing to the understanding, so entering into the soul, so engaging the affections, that those were as deaf as an adder who were not charmed by so wise a charmer.”

The effects that his preaching produced were those which such preaching always has produced and always will. As it was under the pulpit of Latimer and Whitfield, so it was under the pulpit of Baxter. At Dudley, the poor nailers would not only crowd the church, but even hang upon the windows and the leads without. At Kidderminster, it became necessary to build five new galleries, in order to accommodate the congregation. In London, the crowds who attended his ministry were so large, that it was sometimes dangerous, and often impossible, to be one of his hearers.

Once, when he was about to preach at St. Lawrence, Jewry, he sent word to Mr. Vines the minister, that the Earl of Suffolk and Lord Broghill were coming in a coach with him, and would be glad to have seats. But when he and his noble companions reached the door, the crowd had so little respect for persons, that the two peers had to go home again because they could not get within hearing. Mr. Vines himself was obliged to get up into the pulpit, and sit behind the preacher, from want of room; and Baxter actually preached standing between Mr. Vines’s feet.

On another occasion, when he was preaching to an enormous crowd in St. Dunstan’s, Fleet Street, he made a striking use of an incident which took place during the sermon. A piece of brick fell down in the steeple, and an alarm was raised that the church, an old and rotten building, was falling. Scarcely was the alarm allayed, when a bench, on which some people were standing, broke with their weight, and the confusion was worse than ever. Many crowded to the doors to get out, and all were in a state of panic. One old woman was heard loudly asking God forgiveness for having come to the church at all, and promising, if she only got out safe, never to come there again. In the midst of all the confusion Baxter alone was calm and unmoved. .As soon as order was restored, he rose and said, “We are in the service of God to prepare ourselves that we may be fearless at the great noise of the dissolving world, when the heavens shall pass away, and the elements melt with fervent heat.” This was Baxter all over. This was the kind of thing he had not only grace, but gifts and nerve, to do. He always spoke like one who saw God, and felt death at his back. Such a man will seldom fail to preach well. Such a man will seldom be in want of hearers. Such a man deserves to be embalmed in the memory of all who want to know what God can do for a child of Adam by His Spirit. Such a man deserves to be praised.

For another thing, Baxter was one of the most successful pastors of a parish and congregation that ever lived. When he came to Kidderminster, he found it a dark, ignorant, immoral, irreligious place, containing, perhaps, 3000 inhabitants. When he left it at the end of fourteen years, he had completely turned the parish upside down. “The place before his coming,” says Dr. Bates, “was like a piece of dry and barren earth: but, by the blessing of Heaven upon his labour, the face of Paradise appeared there. The bad were changed to good, and the good to better.” The number of his regular communicants averaged 600. “Of these,” Baxter tells us, “there were not twelve of whom I had not good hope as to their sincerity.” The Lord’s Day was thoroughly reverenced and observed. It was said, “You might have heard an hundred families singing psalms and repeating sermons as you passed through the streets.” When he came there, there was about one family in a street which worshipped God at home. When he went away, there were some streets in which there was not more than one family on a side that did not do it; and this was the case even with inns and public-houses. Even of the irreligious families, there were very few which had not some converted relations. “Some of the poor people became so well versed in - theology, that they understood the whole body of divinity, and were able to judge difficult controversies. Some were so able in prayer, that few ministers could match them in order, fulness, apt expressions, holy oratory and fervour. Best of all, the temper of their minds and the innocency of their lives were much more laudable even than their gifts.”

The grand instrument to which Baxter used to attribute this astounding success was his system of household visitation and regular private conference with his parishioners. No doubt this did immense good, and the more so because it was a new thing in those days. Nevertheless, there is no denying the fact that the most elaborate parochial machinery of modern times has never produced such effects as those you have just heard of at Kidderminster. And the true account of this I believe to be, that no parish has ever had such a wonderful mainspring in the middle of it as Baxter was. While some divines were wrangling about the divine right of Episcopacy or Presbytery, or splitting hairs about reprobation and free-will, Baxter was always visiting from house to house, and beseeching men, for Christ’s sake, to be reconciled to God and flee from the wrath to come. While others were entangling themselves in politics, and burying their dead amidst the potsherds of the earth, Baxter was living a crucified life and daily preaching the Gospel. I suspect he was the best and wisest pastor that an English parish has ever had, and a model that many of us would do well to follow. Once more I say, have I not a right to say such a polished instrument as this ought not to be allowed to rust in oblivion? Such a man as this deserves to be praised.

For another thing, Baxter was one of the most diligent theological writers the world has ever seen. Few have the slightest idea of the immense number of works in divinity which he wrote in the fifty years of his active life. It is reckoned that they would fill sixty octavo volumes, comprising not less than 35,000 closely-printed pages. These works, no doubt, are not all of equal merit, and many of them probably will never repay perusal. Like the ships from Tarshish, they contain not only gold, and silver, and ivory, but also a large quantity of apes and peacocks. Still, after every deduction, the writings of Baxter generally contain a great mass of solid truths, and truths often handled in a most striking and masterly way. Dr. Barrow, no mean judge, says, “That his practical writings were never mended, and his controversial ones seldom confuted.” Bishop Wilkins declares, “That he had cultivated every subject he had handled, that if he had lived in the primitive times he would have been one of the Fathers of the Church,.and that it was enough for one age to produce such a man as Mr. Baxter.” That great and good man, William Wilberforce, says, “His practical writings are a treasury of Christian wisdom;” and he adds, “I must beg to class among the brightest ornaments of the Church of England this great man, who was so shamefully ejected from the Church in 1662.”

No one man has certainly ever written three such books as Baxter’s three master-pieces, “The Saint’s Rest,” “The Reformed Pastor,” and “The Call to the Unconverted.” I believe they have been made blessings to thousands of souls, and are alone sufficient to place the author in the foremost rank of theological writers. Of “The Call to the Unconverted,” 20,000 were printed in one year. Six brothers were converted at one time by reading it. hot, the missionary, thought so highly of it, that he translated it into the Indian language, the first book after the Bible. And really, when we consider that all Baxter’s writings were composed in the midst of intense labour and fierce persecution, and often under the pressure of heavy bodily disease, the wonder is not only that he wrote so much, but that so much of what he wrote should be so good. Such wonderful diligence and redemption of time the world has never seen. Once more I say, have I not a right to say such a man deserves to be praised?

For another thing, Baxter was one of the most patient martyrs for conscience sake that England has ever seen. Of course I do not mean that he was called upon to seal his faith with his: blood, as our Protestant Reformers were. But there is such a thing as “wearing out the saints of the Most High,” by persecutions and prisons, as well as shedding the blood of the saints. There is a “dying daily,” which, to some natures, is worse even than dying at the stake. If anything tries faith and patience, I believe it to be the constant dropping of such wearing persecution as Baxter had to endure for nearly the last twenty-nine years of his life. He had robbed no one. He had murdered no one. He had injured no one. He held no heresy. He believed all the Articles of the Christian faith.

And yet no thief or felon in the present day was ever so shamefully treated as this good man. To tell you how often he was summoned, fined, silenced, imprisoned, driven from one place to another, would be an endless task. To describe all the hideous perversions of justice to which he was subjected would be both painful and unprofitable. I will only allow myself to give one instance, and that shall be his trial before Chief-Justice Jeffreys.

Baxter was tried before Jeffreys in 1685, at Westminster Hall, on a charge of having published seditious matter, reflecting on the Bishops, in a paraphrase on the New Testament, which he had recently brought out. A more unfounded charge could not have been made. The book is still extant, and any one will see at a glance that the alleged seditious passages do not prove the case. Fox, in his history of James IL’s reign, tells us plainly, “that the real motive for bringing him to trial was the desire of punishing an eminent dissenting teacher, whose reputation was high among his sect, and who was supposed to favour the political opinions of the Whigs.”

A long and graphic account of the trial was drawn up by a bystander, and it gives so vivid a picture of the administration of justice in Baxter’s days that it may be useful to give a few short extracts from it.

From the very opening of the trial it was clear which way the verdict was intended to go. The Lord

Chief Justice of England behaved as if he were counsel for the prosecution and not judge. He condescended to use abusive language towards the defendant, such as was more suited to Billingsgate than a court of law. One after another the counsel

for the defence were browbeaten, silenced, and put — down, or else interrupted by violent invectives against Baxtre.

At one time the Lord Chief Justice exclaimed: “This is an old rogue, who hath poisoned the world with his Kidderminster doctrine.” He encouraged all the woman and maids to bring their bodkins and thimbles to carry on war against the King of ever blessed memory. An old schismatical knave! A hypocritical villain!”

By-and-by he called Baxter “an old blockhead, an unthankful villain, a conceited, stubborn, fanatical dog. Hang him!” he said, “this one old fellow hath cast more reproaches on the constitution and discipline of our Church than will be wiped off for this hundred years. But I’ll handle him for it, for he deserves to be whipped through the city.”

Shortly afterwards, when Baxter began to say a few words on his own behalf, Jeffreys stopped him, crying out, “Richard, Richard, dost thou think we’ll hear thee poison the Court? Richard, thou art an old fellow, an old knave; thou hast written books enough to load a cart, every one as full of sedition, I might say treason, as an egg is full of meat. Hadst thou been whipped out of thy writing trade forty years ago, it had been happy. Thou pretendest to be a preacher of the Gospel of peace, and thou hast one foot in the grave: it is time for thee to think what kind of an account thou intendest to give. But leave thee to thyself and I see thou wilt go on as thou hast begun; but, by the grace of God, I will look after thee. I know thou hast a mighty party, and I see a great many of the brotherhood in corners, waiting to see what will become of this mighty dove; but, by the grace of God Almighty, I’ll crush you all! Come, what do you say for yourself, you old knave? Come, speak up!”

All this, and much more of the same kind, and even worse, went on at Baxter’s trial. The extracts I have given form but a small portion of the whole account.

It is needless to say, that in such a court as this Baxter was at once found guilty. He was fined five hundred marks, which it was known he could not pay; condemned to lie in prison till he paid it, and bound over to good behaviour for seven years. And the issue of the matter was, that this: poor, old, diseased, childless widower, of threescore years and ten, lay for two years in Southwark gaol!

It is needless, I hope, to remark in the nineteenth century that such a trial as this was a disgrace to the judicial bench of England, and a still greater disgrace to those persons with whom the information originated, understood commonly to have been Sherlock and L’Estrange. Thank God! I trust England, at any rate, has bid a long farewell to such trials as these, whatever may be done in other lands! Wretched, indeed, is that country where low, sneaking informers are encouraged ; — where the terrors of the law are directed more against holiness, and Scriptural religion, and freedom of thought, than against vice and immorality ; — and where the seat of justice is used for the advancement of political purposes, or the gratification of petty ecclesiastical spite!

But it is right that we should know that under all this foul injustice and persecution, Baxter’s grace and patience never failed him. “These things,” he said, in Westminster Hall, “will surely be understood one day, what fools one sort of Protestants are made to prosecute the other.” When he was reviled, he reviled not again. He returned blessing for cursing, and prayer for ill-usage. Few martyrs have ever glorified God so much in their one day’s fire as Richard Baxter did for twenty years under the ill-usage of so-called Protestants! Once more, I say, have I not a right to tell you such a man as this deserves to be remembered?

Such a man surely deserves to be praised.

And now I hope I have proved my case. I trust it will be allowed that there are men who lived in times long gone by whose character it is useful to review, and that Baxter is undeniably one of them: a real man — a true spiritual hero..

I do not ask men to regard him as a perfect and faultless being, any more than Cranmer or Calvin or Knox or Wesley. I do not at all defend some of Baxter’s doctrinal statements. He tried to systematise things which cannot be systematised, and he failed. You will not find such a clear, full gospel in his writings as in those of Owen, and Bridge, and Traill. I do ‘not think he was always right in his judgment. I regard his refusal of a bishopric as a huge mistake. By that refusal he rejected a glorious opportunity of doing good. Had Baxter been on the episcopal bench, and in the House of Lords, I do not believe the Act of Uniformity would ever have passed.

But in a world like this we must take true Christians as they are, and be thankful for what they are. It is not given to mortal man to be faultless. Take Baxter for all together, and there are few English ministers of the Gospel whose names deserve to stand higher than his. Some have excelled him in some gifts, and some in others. But it is seldom that so many gifts are to be found united in one man as they are in Baxter. Eminent personal holiness, — amazing power as a preacher, — unrivalled pastoral skill, — indefatigable diligence as a writer, — meekness and patience under undeserved persecution, — all meet together in the character of this one man. Let us place him high in our list of great and good men. Let us give him the honour he deserves. It is no small thing to be the fellow-countryman of Richard Baxter.

And here let me remark that few bodies of men are under greater obligation to Baxter and his friends than the members of voluntary religious societies in the present day.

We are allowed to associate together upon Evangelical principles and for religious ends, and no one hinders us. We are allowed to meet in large numbers, and take sweet counsel with one another, and strengthen one another’s hands in the service of Christ, and no one interferes to prevent us. We are allowed to assemble for devotional purposes, to read the Word of God, and stir one another up to perseverance in the faith, and no one dares to prohibit us. How great are all these privileges! How incalculable the benefit of union, conference, sympathy, and encouragement to Christians who are voyaging over the stormy waters of this evil world, and trying to do good. Blessed is the labour of those by whose care and attention these societies are kept together! They are sowing precious seed. They may sow with much toil and discouragement, but they may be sure they are sowing seed which shall yet bear fruit after many days.

But never let us forget to whom we are indebted for all this liberty of conference and association which we enjoy. Never let us forget that there was a time when informers would have tracked all our steps — when constables and soldiers would have rudely broken up our gatherings at Exeter Hall, and when our proceedings would have entailed upon us pains, penalties, fines, and imprisonments. Never let us forget that the happy and profitable freedom which we enjoy was only won by long-continued and intense struggles, by the blood and sufferings of noble-minded men, of whom the world was not worthy; and never forget that the men who won this freedom for us were those much-abused men — the Puritans.

Yes: we all owe a debt to the Puritans, which I trust we shall never refuse to acknowledge. We live in days when many are disposed to run them down. As we travel through life, we often hear them derided and abused as seditious, rebellious levellers in the things of Cesar, and ignorant, fanatical, hypocritical enthusiasts in the things of God. We often hear some semi-popish stripling fresh from Oxford, puffed up with new-fledged views of what he calls “apostolical succession,” and proud of a little official authority, depreciating and sneering at the Puritans, as men alike destitute of learning and true religion, while, in reality, he is scarcely worthy to sit at their feet and carry their books. To all such calumnies and false statements, I trust we shall never give heed.

Let us settle it down in our minds that for sound doctrine, spirituality, and learning combined, the Puritans stand at the head of English divines. With all their faults, weaknesses, and defects, they alone kept the lamp of pure, evangelical religion burning in.this country in the times of the Stewarts, — they alone prevented Laud’s popish inclinations carrying England back into the arms of Rome. It was they who fought the battle of religious freedom, of which we are reaping such fruits. It was they who crushed the wretched spirit of inquisitorial persecution which misguided high-Churchmen tried to introduce into this land. Let us give them the honour they deserve. Let us suffer no man to speak lightly of them in our presence. Let us remember our obligations to them, reverence their memory, stand up boldly for their reputation, and never be afraid to plead their cause. It is the cause of pure, evangelical religion. It is the cause of an open Bible and liberty to meet and read and pray together. It is the cause of liberty of conscience. All these are bound up with Baxter and the Puritans. Let us remember this, and give them their due.

Baxter’s last days were almost as remarkable as any in his life. He went down to his grave as calmly and peacefully as the setting sun in summer. His death-bed was a glorious deathbed indeed.

I like to know how great men die. I am not satisfied with knowing that men are great Christians in the plenitude of riches and honour. I want to know whether they were great in view of the tomb. Ido not want merely to know how men meet kings and bishops and parliaments; I want to know how they meet the king of terrors, and how they feel in the prospect of standing before the King of kings. I suspect that greatness which forsakes a man at last. I like to know how great men die, and I must be allowed to dwell for a few moments upon Baxter’s death.

Few deathbeds, perhaps, were ever more truly: instructive than that of this good old Puritan. His friend, Dr. Bates, has given a full description of it, and I think a few facts drawn from it may prove a suitable conclusion to this biography.

Baxter’s last illness found him quietly living in Charterhouse Square, close to the meeting-house of his friend, Dr.-Sylvester. Here for the four years preceding his death, he was allowed to enjoy great quietness. The liberty of preaching the things concerning the Lord Jesus Christ, no man forbidding him, was at length fully conceded. “Here,” says Dr. Calamy, ‘he used to preach with great freedom about another world, like one that had been there, and was come as a sort of express to make a report of it.’ The storm of persecution was at length over. The winds and waves that had so long burst over him were at last lulled. The saintly old Puritan was mercifully allowed to go down to the banks of Jordan in a great calm.

He continued to preach so long, notwithstanding his wasted body, that the last time he almost died in the pulpit. When disease compelled him to give over his beloved work, and take to his dying bed, it found him the same man that he had been for fifty years. His last hours were spent in preparing others and himself to meet God. He said to the friends who visited him, “You come hither to learn to die. I am not the only person that must go this way. Have a care of this vain, deceitful world, and the lust of the flesh. Be sure you choose God for your portion, heaven for your home, God’s glory for your end, God’s word for your rule, and then you need never fear but we shall meet again with comfort.”

Never was penitent sinner more humble, and never was sincere believer more calm and comfortable. He said, “God may justly condemn me for the best duty I ever did; and all my hopes are from the free mercy of God in Christ.” He had often said before, “I can more readily believe that God will forgive me, than I can forgive myself.”

After a slumber, he waked, saying, “I shall rest from my labours.” A minister present said, “And your works will follow you.” He replied, “No works; I will leave out works, if God will grant me the other.” When a friend comforted him with the remembrance of the good many had received from his writings, he replied, “I was but a pen in God’s hand, and what praise is due to a pen?”

When extremity of pain made him long for death, he would check himself and say, “It is not fit for me to prescribe: when Thou wilt — what Thou wilt — how Thou wilt!” Being in great anguish, he said, “How unsearchable are His ways!” and then he said to his friends, “Do not think the worse of religion for what you see me suffer.”

Being often asked by his friend how it was with his inward man, he replied, “I have a well-grounded assurance of my eternal happiness, and great peace and comfort within; but it is my trouble that I cannot triumphantly express it, by reason of extreme pain.” He added “Flesh must perish, and we must feel the perishing; and though my judgment submit, sense will make me groan.”

Being asked by a nobleman whether he had great joy from his believing apprehension of the invisible state, he replied, “What else, think you, Christianity serves for?” And then he added, “that the consideration of the Deity, in His glory and greatness, was too high for our thoughts; bit the consideration of the Son of God in our nature, and of the saints in heaven whom we knew and loved, did much sweeten and familiarise heaven to him.” The description of heaven in the 12th chapter of Hebrews, beginning with the “innumerable company of angels,’ and ending with “Jesus the Mediator, and the blood of sprinkling,” was very comfortable to him. “That scripture,” he said, “deserves a thousand thousand thoughts!” And then he added, ‘‘Oh, how comfortable is that promise,

»‘Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive, the things God hath laid up for them that love Him!’”

At another time he said, that “he found great - comfort and sweetness in repeating the words of the Lord’s Prayer, and was sorry that some good men were prejudiced against the use of it; for there were all necessary petitions for soul and body contained in it.”

He gave excellent counsel to young ministers who visited him on his deathbed. He used to pray earnestly “that God would bless their labours, and make them very successful in converting many souls to Christ.” He expressed great joy in the hope that God would do a great deal of good by them, and that they would be of moderate, peaceful spirits.

He did not forget the world he was leaving. He frequently prayed “that God would be merciful to this miserable, distracted world; and that He would perserve His Church and interest in it.”

He advised his friends “to beware of self-conceitedness, as a sin likely to ruin this nation.” Being asked at the same time whether he had altered his mind in controversial points, he replied, “Those that please may know my mind in my writings. What I have

done was not for my own reputation, but the glory of God.”

The day before he died, Dr. Bates visited him; and on his saying some words of comfort, he replied, “I have pain: there is no arguing against sense; but I have peace: I have peace!” Bates told him he was going to his long-desired home. He answered, “I believe: I believe!” He expressed great willingness to die. During his sickness, when the question was asked how he did, his reply was, “Almost well!” or else, “Better than I deserve to be, but not so well as I hope to be.” His last words were addressed to Dr. Sylvester, “The Lord teach you how to die!”

On Tuesday, the 8th of December, 1691, Baxter’s warfare was accomplished; and at length he entered what he had so beautifully described, — the saint’s everlasting rest.”

He was buried at Christchurch, amidst the tears of many who knew his worth, if the world and the Established Church of that day did not. The funeral was that kind of funeral which is above all in real honour: “devout men carried him to his grave, and made great lamentation over him.”

He left no family, but he left behind him hundreds of spiritual sons and daughters. He left works which are still owned by God in every part of the world to the awakening and edification of immortal souls. Thousands, I doubt not, will stand up in the morning of the resurrection, and thank God for the grace and gifts bestowed on the old Puritan of Shropshire. He fLichard Baxter — His Life. 205

left a name which must always be dear to every lover of holiness, and every friend of religious liberty. No Englishman, perhaps, ever exemplified the one, or promoted the other, more truly and really than did Richard Baxter. °

Let me conclude by quoting the last paragraph of Dr. Bates’ funeral sermon on the occasion of Baxter’s death: “Blessed be the gracious God, that He was pleased to prolong the life of His servant, so useful and beneficial to the world, to a full age, and that He brought him slowly and safely to heaven. I shall conclude this account with my own deliberate wish: May I live the short remainder of my life as entirely to the glory of God as he lived; and when I shall come to the period of my life, may I die in the same blessed peace wherein he died; may I be with him in the kingdom of light and love for ever.”