Baxter was possessed by an unconquerable belief in the power of persuasive argument. He thought every one was amenable to reason--bishops and levellers included. And yet he was as far as possible from being a quarrelsome man. He was at once a man of fixed belief and large appreciation, so that his dogmatism and his liberality sometimes came into collision. His popularity as a preacher was deservedly pre-eminent; but no more diligent student ever shut himself up with his books. He was singularly fitted for intellectual debate, but his devotional tendency was equally strong with his logical aptitude. Some of his writings, from their metaphysical subtilty, will always puzzle the learned; but he could write to the level of the common heart without loss of dignity or pointedness. His _Reasons for the Christian Religion_ is still, for its evidential purpose, better than most works of its kind. His _Poor Man's Family Book_ is a manual that continues to be worthy of its title. His _Saints' Everlasting Rest_ will always command the grateful admiration of pious readers. It is also charged with a robust and manly eloquence and a rare and unsought felicity of language that make it a masterpiece of style. Perhaps no thinker has exerted so great an influence upon nonconformity as Baxter has done, and that not in one direction only, but in every form of development, doctrinal, ecclesiastical and practical. He is the type of a distinct class of the Christian ministry--that class which aspires after scholarly training, prefers a broad to a sectarian theology, and adheres to rational methods of religious investigation and appeal. The rational element in him was very strong. He had a settled hatred of fanaticism. Even Quakerism he could scarcely endure. Religion was with him all and in all--that by which all besides was measured, and to whose interests all else was subordinated. Isaac Barrow said that "his practical writings were never minded, and his controversial ones seldom confuted," and John Wilkins, bishop of Chester, asserted that "if he had lived in the primitive time he had been one of the fathers of the church."
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--Our most valuable source is Baxter's autobiography, called _Reliquiae Baxterianae or Mr Richard Baxter's Narrative of the most memorable Passages of his Life and Times_ (published by Matthew Sylvester in 1696). Edmund Calamy abridged this work (1702). The abridgment forms the first volume of the account of the ejected ministers, but whoever refers to it should also acquaint himself with the reply to the accusations which had been brought against Baxter, and which will be found in the second volume of Calamy's Continuation. William Orme's _Life and Times of Richard Baxter_ appeared in 2 vols. in 1830; it also forms the first volume of "Practical Works" (1830, reprinted 1868). Sir James Stephen's interesting paper on Baxter, contributed originally to the _Edinburgh Review_, is reprinted in the second volume of his _Essays_. More recent estimates of Baxter are those given by John Tulloch in his _English Puritanism and its Leaders_, and by Dean Stanley in his address at the inauguration of the statue to Baxter at Kidderminster (see _Macmillan's Magazine_, xxxii. 385).