Richard Baxter

Neil Keeble (University of Stirling)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.2.1.04: English Writing and Culture of the Seventeenth Century, 1625-1688.
Vol. editors: Jennifer Brady (Rhodes College), Daniel Cook (University of Dundee), Neil Forsyth (Université de Lausanne), Claire Preston (Queen Mary, University of London), J A Roe (University of York), Virginia Mason Vaughan (Clark University)

Dates

Born 12 Nov 1615
Died 8 Dec 1691
Activity 1649-1691

Places

Born in England
Active in England

Activities

Primary

Clergyman
Divine
Essayist
Hymnist/ Psalmist
Religious writer

Other

Autobiographer
Biographer
Letter-writer/ Diarist

Resources

Baxter's Works

Save to Bookshelf

Richard Baxter was born in the village of Rowton, Shropshire, on 12 November 1615. His schooling was poor and he did not proceed to university, but through omnivorous reading he became one of the most learned of seventeenth-century divines. It was also through reading that he realised his vocation. “Without any means but Books” God was “pleased to resolve me for himself” (

Reliquiae Baxterianae

(1696), I.3-4, §3). He mentions as particularly influential Edmund Bunny's Protestant revision of the Jesuit Robert Parsons'

A Booke of Christian Exercise Appertayning to Resolution

(1584), Richard Sibbes'

The Bruised Reede and Smoaking Flax

(1630), William Perkins' works and Ezekiel Culverwell's

Treatise of Faith

(1623). These “and many other excellent Books, were made my Teachers and…

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2305 words

Citation: Keeble, Neil. "Richard Baxter". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 03 October 2003 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=304, accessed 24 November 2024.]