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 Baxter antinomians and other sectaries. Still more notably, his great book, the 'Saint's Everlasting Rest' (1650), was in part written under like conditions and in part while under the hospitable roof of the Lady Rouse. Its title-page still bears these pathetic memorial words: 'Written by the author for his own use in the time of his languishing, when God took him off from his public employment.' The former involved him in multiplied controversies, public and private; but the latter leaped at a bound into its still enduring fame.

Grasping his fecundity of publication with the engrossing ministry which occupied his chief energies, it must be manifest that Richard Baxter was an extraordinary man. In his physique naturally weak, and tainted from the outset with consumptive tendencies, and later worn and valetudinarian, he so conquered the body, that he did the work of a score of ordinary men as an author alone. Baxter had beyond all dispute a penetrative, almost morbidly acute brain. He was the creator of our popular Christian literature. Regarded intrinsically and as literature, his books need fear no comparison with contemporaries. Archbishop Trench of Dublin has judicially described the literary merit of Baxter in speaking of the 'Saint's Everlasting Rest:' 'Let me mention here, before entering into deeper matters, one formal merit which the Saint's "Everlasting Rest" eminently possesses. I refer to that without which, I suppose, no book ever won a permanent place in the literature of a nation, and which I have no scruple in ascribing to it–I mean its style. A great admirer of Baxter has recently suggested a doubt whether he ever recast a sentence or bestowed a thought on its rhythm and the balance of its several parts; statements of his own make it tolerably certain that he did not. As a consequence he has none of those bravura passages which must have cost Jeremy Taylor, in his "Holy Living and Dying" and elsewhere, so much of thought and pains, for such do not come of themselves and unbidden to the most accomplished masters of language. But for all this there reigns in Baxter's writings, and not least in "The Saint's Rest," a robust and masculine eloquence; nor do these want from time to time rare and unsought felicity of language, which once heard can scarcely be forgotten. In regard, indeed, of the choice of words, the book might have been written yesterday. There is hardly one which has become obsolete, hardly one which has drifted away from the meaning which it has in his writings. This may not be a great matter, but it argues a rare insight, conscious or unconscious, into all which was truest, into all which was furthest removed from affectation and untruthfulness in the language, that after more than two hundred years so it should be; and one may recognise here an element, not to be overlooked, of the abiding popularity of the book' ('Baxter and the Saint's Rest' in Companions for the Devout Life, 1877, p. 89).

Whilst in Kidderminster Richard Baxter was a prominent political leader as well as a minister of the gospel. He still stood for the nation and the people's rights, yet looked back to the ancient monarchy of England. He opposed the Solemn League and Covenant none the less intrepidly that he had himself rashly signed it at Coventry; and thus incurred the dislike of his co-presbyterians. He opposed the Engagement, and similarly offended the independents. He opposed root-and-branch extirpation of episcopacy, and thus exasperated the Scots. He opposed the setting aside of Charles II, and he spoke against the regicides at the risk of his life. It was nothing to him who were his friends or foes. He was obedient only to his own conscience. Must it be conceded that that conscience was a subtle and complex one?

Baxter left Kidderminster for London in 1660. His published 'Farewell Sermon' explains the circumstances under which he was not allowed to preach. But beyond these there can be extremely little doubt that he was early in the confidence of those who were planning the restoration of Charles II. The presbyterians united with the cavaliers for this restoration. Thus in agreement, Richard Baxter could not but feel that henceforward his place must be the metropolis. He narrates copiously the powerful part he played. He was in most intimate alliance with the leaders. He preached before the House of Commons at St. Margaret's, Westminster (30 April 1660). The very next day parliament voted the Restoration. He preached before the lord mayor and aldermen and all London in St. Paul's on the day of thanksgiving for Monk's success (10 May 1660). He did not go to Holland with Calamy, Manton, Bowles, and divers others; but he joined in welcome to his majesty. He was soon appointed one of the king's chaplains, and Charles bore himself towards him with invariable courtesy, and more. Clarendon offered to appoint him to the bishopric of Hereford, which he felt bound to refuse. He took a prominent part in the discussions at the Savoy conference. Even Dr. Johnson was roused to admiration of the 'Reformed Liturgy' which he prepared 