Os puritanos produziram dois clássicos notáveis sobre a conversão: Um Chamado à conversão, de Richard Baxter e Um Alerta aos Não Convertidos, de Joseph Alleine. Richard Baxter foi uma luz brilhante na era de ouro da teologia, o século dezessete. Não apenas foi o mais prolixo dos autores de seu tempo (72 volumes), como também produziu obras de notável vigor e profundidade espiritual, tais como os célebres O Pastor Reformado e Descanso Eterno dos Santos. Porém, de todas as obras de Baxter, nenhuma teve mais influência que este pequeno tratado sobre a conversão. Em sua época, mas de 20 mil exemplares foram impressos, e a obra foi traduzida para diversas línguas européias.
Baxter recebia cartas semanais de pessoas que haviam sido convertidas ao ler seu livro. Ao mesmo tempo, pastores e estudantes de teologia podem se beneficiar deste tratado no que diz respeito à avaliação da soteriologia de Baxter, que recebeu influências de
teólogos de seu tempo, especialmente de Moses Amyrald.
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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