Esta é a terceira edição de uma das melhores obras práticas já escritas sobre quebrantamento espiritual e a obra de humilhação que o Espírito Santo deseja realizar no entendimento, vontade e sentimentos de um pecador, a fim de habilitar seu coração ao receber a Cristo.
O Rev. Richard Baxter foi um conhecido pastor reformado que viveu na Inglaterra, de 1615 à 1691. Seus escritos, pregações e vida produziram um inegável reavivamento espiritual na cidade de Kidderminster, onde realizou o seu ministério. Quando chegou à cidade, eram poucos os crentes e duvidosas as suas conversões. Algum tempo depois, entretanto, o templo de sua igreja teve que ser aumentado -e ainda assim não comportava mais as pessoas, que subiam nas janelas para ouvir suas pregações; muitas ruas da cidade tiveram todos os seus moradores convertidos; podia-se ouvir centenas de pessoas cantando hinos de louvor em plena rua e as conversões davam provas suficientes de serem sinceras e profundas.
He wrote 168 or so separate works -- such treatises as the Christian Directory, the Methodus Theologiae Christianae, and the Catholic Theology, might each have represented the life's work of an ordinary man. His Breviate of the Life of Mrs Margaret Baxter records the virtues of his wife, and reveals Baxter's tenderness of nature. Without doubt, however, his most famous and enduring contribution to Christian literature was a devotional work published in 1658 under the title Call to the Unconverted to Turn and Live. This slim volume was credited with the conversion of thousands and formed one of the core extra-biblical texts of evangelicalism until at least the middle of the nineteenth century.
Richard Baxter was ordained into the Church of England, 1638, but in two years allied with Puritans opposed to the episcopacy of his church. At Kidderminster (1641-60) he made the church a model parish. The church was enlarged to hold the crowds. Pastoral counseling was as important as preaching, and his program for his parish was a pattern for many other ministers. Baxter played an ameliorative role during the English Civil Wars.
He was a chaplain in the parliamentary army but then helped to restore the king (1660). After the establishment of the monarchy, he fought for toleration of moderate dissent in the Church of England. Persecuted for more than 20 years and was imprisoned (1685) for 18 months, the Revolution of 1688, replacing James II with William and Mary, brought about an Act of Toleration that freed Baxter to express his opinions.
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