Richard Baxter
- Neil Keeble (University of Stirling)
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 (16
First published 03 October 2003
Citation: Keeble, Neil. "Richard Baxter". The Literary Encyclopedia. 03 October 2003
[http://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=304, accessed 30 July 2010.]
304 Richard Baxter 1 Short Notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.