BAXTER, Richard, English divine: b. near Shrewsbury 1615; d. 8 Dec. 1691. After receiving a somewhat desultory and defective education he was sent to London under the patronage of Sir Henry Herbert, master of the revels; but he soon returned to the country to study divinity, and in 1638 received ordination in the Church of England. In 1640 he refused to take the oath of universal approbation of the doctrine and discipline of the Church of Eng land, usually known as the et ccrtera oath, and in the following year he became minister at Kidderminster, with the best results to the morality of the town. When the civil war broke out he sided with the Parliament, and after the battle of Naseby accepted the appoint ment of chaplain to Colonel Whalley's regi ment. He is said to have been, the whole of this time, a friend to the establishment, accord ing to his own notions. In 1647 he retired, in consequence of ill health, from his military chaplainship, and when he recovered preached against the Covenant. He even endeavored to persuade the soldiery not to encounter the Scot tish troops who came into the kingdom with Charles II, and did not hesitate to express an open dislike to the usurpation of CromwelL The fact is that Baxter held civil liberty to be of secondary consequence to what he esteemed true religion, and appears, from a sermon preached before Cromwell, to have deemed the toleration of separatists and sectaries the grand evil of his government. After the Restoration he was made one of the King's chaplains and a commissioner of the Savoy Conference to draw up the reformed liturgy. The active persecu tion of the Non-Conformisti soon followed; and upon the passing of the act against conventicles he retired, and preached more or less openly as the act was more or less rigidly enforced.
After the accession of James II, in 1685, he was arrested for some passages in his 'Commentary on the New Testament> supposed to be hostile to Episcopacy, and was tried for sedition. The violence of Jeffreys, who would hear neither the accused nor his counsel, produced a verdict of guilty on the most frivolous grounds. He was sentenced to two years' imprisonment and a heavy penalty, which, after a short confinement, the King remitted. kenceforward Baxter lived in a retired manner till his death. His wife cheerfully shared all his sufferings on the score of conscience, both in and out of prison. The character of Baxter was formed by his age; his failing was subtle and controversial theol ogy; his excellence, practical piety. In divinity he sought to establish a resting place between strict Calvinism and high-church Arminianism, by the admission of election and the rejection of reprobation. Christ, he considered, died for some especially and for all generally; that is to say, all possess the means of salvation. A body called Baxterians long acknowledged these distinctions; and the Non-Conformist clergy, after the Revolution, were divided between this body, the pure Calvinists, and the high-church, passive-obedient Arminians. Baxter was a voluminous writer; his 'Saints' Everlasting Rest,> and the 'Call to the Unconverted,' have been extraordinarily popular. In 1830 an edi tion of his 'Practical Works> appeared in 23 octavo volumes. The chief authority for the facts of his life is the 'Reliquim Baxterian& of Sylvester, consisting of autobiographical matter. Consult Orme, W., 'Life and Times of Richard Baxter> (London 1830) ; Tulloch, J. 'English Puritanism and its Leaders' (Lon don 3d ed. 1883).