Evangelist

"Baxter was dominated by an ideal purpose and subordinated everything else to it," wrote Frederick Powicke. Baxter's life radiated the gospel, to the point of being contagious. What was so attractive about Baxter's gospel? How was he able to communicate it to so many thousands of people who were converted as a result of his preaching, teaching, and writing over hundreds of years?

Baxter's gospel of grace and forgiveness included stern warnings and vivid pictures of hell and damnation. He followed the example of the greatest evangelist of all; Jesus of Nazareth:

Therefore just as the tares are gathered up and burned with fire, so shall it be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send forth His angels, and they will gather out of His kingdom all stumbling blocks, and those who commit lawlessness, and will cast them into the furnace of fire: in that place there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears, let him hear. (Matthew 13:40-43)

Baxter never shrank from declaring the awful fate of the wicked and he delighted in the grace and mercy of God in pardoning sinners. The simple gospel is powerful and effective, believed Baxter, and he would not compromise it or entertain his hearers by dressing it up in trendy expressions:

I like to hear a man dwell much on the same essentials of Christianity. For we have but one God, and one Christ, and one faith to preach; and I will not preach another Gospel to please men with variety, as if our Saviour and our Gospel were grown stale.

He avoided emotionalism in his preaching, but his love and feeling for the gospel came through so powerfully that he could "...sway any audience as the wind can sway a field of corn. Vivid descriptions of the horrors of hell, as well as the beautiful scenes of heaven, were potent in spreading the gospel to his generation and those that followed.

Baxter's resolve to share the gospel with any who would listen met with great success. His years at Kidderminster saw whole families converted until almost the entire town was saved. He knew his flock well and "took special notice of every one that was humbled, reformed or converted..." He continued this practice for a time, until finally "...it pleased God that the Converts were so many, that [he] could not afford time for such particular Observations about every one of them..."

Then came the years of silence when Baxter was barred from preaching altogether. The Lord, in His wisdom, turned Baxter to writing. Rather than preaching to hundreds at a time, Baxter's God-given gift of evangelism spread the healing message to thousands through books.

His writings, says J.I. Packer, are "brilliant, passionate, eloquent, honest, open-hearted, sharpsighted, and wholly devoted to the glory of God and the good of others..." They display a "flair for unselfconscious, self -revealing intimacy on paper." William Bates noted in Baxter's writing, "...a vigorous pulse...that keeps the reader awake and attentive."

Baxter’s books had a far-reaching effect as they were translated into other languages and published around the world. Baxter's correspondence with John Eliot (b. 1604 - d. 1690), the apostle to the American Indians, resulted in the translation of A Call to the Unconverted into the Algonquin language. It was the second book to be published in that language, following Mr. Eliot's work on the Bible. Baxter recorded:

I published this little book; which God hath blessed with unexpected Success beyond all the rest that I have written (except The Saints rest)... I have had Information of almost whole Households converted by this small Book, which I set so light by... God (since I was silenced) hath sent it... to many beyond the Seas...

Reports of conviction, conversion, and comfort from Baxter's works are abundant. "...my second birth, if yet born again, I owe to you, you are my father, your Saints Rest, I mean, which I read three times over in the year 51," wrote Thomas Gouldstone, Rector of Finchley. The request of one young boy before his death at the age of twelve is recorded: "I pray, let me have Mr. Baxter's book, that I may read a little more of eternity before I go into it." The later years of the renowned pastor and Bible commentator, Matthew Henry, were spent in reading and prayer; "the Bible and Mr. Baxter's Saint's Everlasting Rest used to lie daily before him on the table in his parlor..."

As his health declined and his energy flagged, Baxter's evangelistic zeal turned to prayer for the lost and an expansion of his vision:

My Soul is much more afflicted with the thoughts of the miserable World, and more drawn out in desire of their Conversion than heretofore: I was wont to look but little further than England in my Prayers, as not considering the state of the rest of the World... But now as I better understand the Case of the World, and the method of the Lord's Prayer, so there is nothing in the World that lyeth so heavy upon my heart, as the thought of the miserable Nations of the Earth... I cannot be affected so much with the Calamities of my own Relations, or the Land of my Nativity, as with the Case of the Heathen, Mahometan and other Infidels! No part of my Prayers are so deeply serious, as that for the Conversion of the Infidel and Ungodly World, that God's Name may be sanctified, and his Kingdom come, and his Will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven... There be no employment so desirable in my eyes, as to labour for the winning of such miserable Souls: which maketh me greatly honour Mr John Eliot, the Apostle of the Indians in New England, and whoever else have laboured in such work.

When King Charles II was restored to power in 1662, he moved to dissolve the New England Company and their interests in America. The corporation, founded under Cromwell's rule, was conceived, at least in part, to "...maintain the Preachers that went among them and pay Schoolmasters to teach their children, and...for the furthering of the Works among the Indians." Baxter was a strong supporter and he played the primary role in convincing the king that the company and the evangelistic work in America must continue. In appreciation, Mr. Eliot presented Charles with a copy of the Agonquin New Testament, followed by the entire Bible when it was completed.

Baxter's life was guided by a determination to deliver the good news, the gospel of Jesus Christ. What is the "ideal purpose" which animates us? What are our motives and what do we hope to accomplish? When we look at our efforts to tell others the good news, do we see any purpose or direction at all? If not, Baxter has a word or two for us:

I have observed that God seldom blesseth any man's work so much as his, whose heart is set upon the success of it... let all who preach for Christ and men's salvation, be unsatisfied till they have the thing they preach for.