BAXTER, Richard, an eminent nonconformist divine, was born at Rowton in Shropshire, the 12th November 1615, and distinguished himself by his exemplary life, his pacific and moderate principles, and his numerous writings. He was remarkable for his piety even when he was very young. Upon the opening of the Long Parliament he was chosen vicar of Kidderminster. In the heat of the civil wars lie withdrew from, that town to Coventry, and preached to the garrison and inhabitants. When Oliver Cromwell was made protector, he declined complying with his measures, though he once preached before him. He came to London just before the deposition of Richard Cromwell, and preached before the parliament the day previous to that on which they voted the return of Charles II. The king, on his restoration, appointed Baxter one of his chaplains in ordinary. The latter assisted at the conference in the Savoy, as one of the commissioners for stating the fundamentals in religion, and afterwards drew up a reformed liturgy. He was offered the bishopric of Hereford, which he refused, affecting no higher preferment than the liberty of continuing minister of Kidderminster; but this was denied him, for he was not permitted to preach there above twice or thrice after the Restoration; whereupon he returned to London and preached occasionally in or about the city till the act of uniformity passed. In 1662 Mr Baxter married Margaret Charleton, daughter to Francis Charleton, Esq. of the county of Salop. This lady was a woman of great piety, and entered thoroughly into her husband’s views concerning religion. During the plague in 1665 he retired into Buckinghamshire; but afterwards returned to Acton, where he staid till the act against conventicles expired, and then his audience became so large that he wanted room. Upon this he was committed to prison; but having procured a habeas corpus, he was discharged. After the indulgence in 1672, he returned to London; but in 1682 he was seized for coming Within five miles of a corporation. In 1684 he was again seized; and in the reign of King James II. he was com-nutted prisoner to the King’s Bench, and tried before the ļord chief justice Jefferies for his Paraphrase on the New testament, which was called a “scandalous” and “sedi- tl0us book against the government. He continued in prison two years; but was at last discharged, and had his fine remitted by the king. He died on the 8th of December 1691, and was buried in Christ Church.

Mr Sylvester says that Mr Baxter’s “person was tall and slender, and stooped much; his countenance composed and grave, somewhat inclining to a smile. He had a piercing eye, a very articulate speech, and deportment rather plain than complimental.” The same writer adds, “He had a great command over his thoughts. He had that happy faculty, so as to answer the character that was given of him by a learned man dissenting from him after discourse with him, which was that he could say what he would, and he could prove what he said. He was most intent upon the necessary things. Rational learning he most valued, and was a very extraordinary master of. And as to his expressive faculty, he spake properly, plainly, pertinently, and pathetically. He could speak suitably, both to men’s capacities and to the things insisted on. He was a person wonderful at extemporary preaching.” But his common practice appears to have been to preach from notes, though he said that “he thought it very needful for a minister to have a body of divinity in his head.” He was honoured with the friendship of some of the greatest and the best men in the kingdom, as the earl of Lauderdale, the earl of Balcarras, Lord Chief Justice Hales, Dr Tillotson, &c.; and he carried on a correspondence with some of the most eminent foreign divines. He wrote above a hundred and twenty books, and more than sixty were written against him. The former, however, it should seem, were greatly preferable to the latter, since Dr Barrow, an excellent judge, says that “his practical writings were never mended, his controversial seldom confuted.”

Mr Granger’s character of him is too striking to be omitted. “Richard Baxter was a man famous for weakness of body and strength of mind; for having the strongest sense of religion himself, and exciting a sense of it in the thoughtless and profligate; for preaching more sermons, engaging in more controversies, and writing more books, than any other nonconformist of his age. He spoke, disputed, and wrote with ease; and discovered the same intrepidity when he reproved Cromwell and expostulated with Charles II. as when he preached to a congregation of mechanics. His zeal for religion was extraordinary, but it seems never to have prompted him to faction, or carried him to enthusiasm. This champion of the Presbyterians was the common butt of men of every other religion, and of those who were of no religion at all. But this had very little effect upon him; his presence and his firmness of mind on no occasion forsook him. He was just the same man before he went into a prison, while he was in it, and when he came out of it; and he maintained an [7:4:464]uniformity of character to the last gasp of his life. His enemies have placed him in hell; but every man who has not ten times the bigotry that Mr Baxter himself had, must conclude that he is in a better place. This is a very faint and imperfect sketch of Mr Baxter’s character: men of his size are not to be drawn in miniature. His portrait, in full proportion, is in his Narrative of his own Life and Times; which, though a rhapsody, composed in the manner of a diary, contains a great variety of memorable things, and is itself, as far as it goes, a history of nonconformity.” Among his most celebrated works are, 1. The Saints’ Everlasting Rest; 2. Call to the Unconverted, of which 20,000 were sold in one year, and it was translated not only into all the European languages, but into the Indian tongue; 3. Poor Man’s Family Book; 4. Dying Thoughts; and, 5. A Paraphrase on the New Testament. His practical works have been printed in four volumes folio.

Baxter, William, nephew and heir to the former, was an eminent schoolmaster and critic. He was born at Lanlu-gan, in Shropshire, in the year 1650; and it is remarkable, that at the age of eighteen, when he first went to school, he knew not one letter, nor understood one word of any language but Welsh; but he improved his time so well that he became a person of great and extensive knowledge. His genius led him chiefly to the study of antiquities and philology, in which he composed several books. The first he published was a grammar, in 1679, entitled De Analogia seu Arte Latinoe Linguae Commentariolus. He also published a new and correct edition of Anacreon, with notes; an edition of Horace; a Dictionary of British Antiquities, in Latin; and several other works. He was a great master of the ancient British and Irish tongues, and particularly skilled in the Latin, Greek, northern, and oriental languages. He died on the 31st May 1723, after being above twenty years master of Mercer’s school in London.

Baxter, Andrew, a very ingenious metaphysical writer, was born in 1686 or 1687, in Old Aberdeen, where his father was a merchant, and educated in King’s College there. His principal employment was that of private tutor to young gentlemen; and among his pupils were Lord Gray, Lord Blantyre, and Mr Hay of Drummelzier. About 1724 he married the daughter of a clergyman in Berwickshire. A few years afterwards, but without date, he published, in An Inquiry into the Nature of the Human Soul, wherein its immateriality is evinced from the principles of reason and philosophy. In 1741 he went abroad with Mr Hay, and resided several years at U trecht, having Lord Blantyre also under his care. From this place he made excursions into Flanders, France, and Germany, his wife and family residing, in the mean time, chiefly at Berwick-upon-Tweed. He returned to Scotland in 1747, and resided till his death at Whittingham, in the county of East Lothian. He drew up, for the use of his pupils and his son, a piece, entitled Matho, sive Cosmotheoria puerilis, Dialogus, in quo prima elementa de mundi ordine et ornatu proponuntur, &c. This was afterwards greatly enlarged, and published in English, in two volumes 8vo. In 1750 was published an appendix to his Inquiry into the Nature of the Human Soul, in which he endeavours to remove some difficulties which had been started against his notions of the vis inertiae of matter, by Maclaurin, in his Account of Sir Isaac Neινtons Philosophical Discoveries. To this piece Mr Baxter prefixed a dedication to Mr John Wilkes, with whom he had commenced an acquaintance abroad. He died on the 23d April 1750, after suffering for some months under a complication of severe disorders, of which the gout was the chief. He left a wife, three daughters, and one son, Mr Alexander Baxter, from whom the authors of Biographia Eritannicμ received sundry particulars of his life.

Mr Baxter’s learning and abilities are sufficiently display, ed in his writings. He was extremely studious, and sometimes sat up whole nights reading and writing. At the same time his temper was very cheerful, and he was a friend to innocent merriment. It is said of Mr Baxter that he entered with much good humour into the conversation and pleasures of young people, when they were of an innocent nature; and that during the whole of his residence at Utrecht he presided at the ordinary, which was frequent· ed by all the young English gentlemen there, with much gaiety and politeness, and in such a manner as to give universal satisfaction. He also attended the most polite assemblies in that city, and his company and conversation were particularly acceptable to the ladies; so that Mr Baxter appeared to have studied the graces, without neglecting more valuable acquisitions and accomplishments. He was at once the scholar and the gentleman. In conversation he was modest, and not apt to make much show of the extensive knowledge he was possessed of; while in the discharge of the several social and relative duties of life his conduct was exemplary. He had the most reverential sentiments of the deity, of whose presence and immediate support he had always a strong impression upon his mind; and the general tenor of his life appears to have been conformable to the rules of virtue. Mr Baxter paid a strict attention to economy, though he dressed elegantly, and was not parsimonious in his other expenses. It is known also that there were several occasions on which he acted with remarkable disinterestedness; and so far was he from courting preferment, that he repeatedly declined considerable offers of that kind which were made him on condition of his taking orders in the church of England. The French, German, and Dutch languages he spoke with much ease, and the Italian tolerably; and he wrote and read all of them, together with the Spanish. His friends and correspondents were both numerous and respectable; amongst these was Dr Warburton, bishop of Gloucester. He was also a man of great benevolence and candour; insomuch, that although Mr Wilkes had made himself very obnoxious to the Scottish nation in general, Mr Baxter maintained an affectionate correspondence with himlo the last, even after he was unable to write with his own hand. He left many manuscripts behind him, and would gladly have finished his work upon the human soul. “I own.” says he, in a letter to Mr Wilkes, “if it had been the will of Heaven, I would gladly have lived till I had put in order the second part of the Inquiry, showing the immortality of the human soul; but infinite wisdom cannot be mistaken in calling me sooner. Our blindness makes us form wishes.” This, indeed, he considered his capital work. A second edition of it was published in two volumes 8vo in 1737, and a third in 1745.