Richard Baxter, Puritan Divine
14 June -- Commemoration
If celebrated as a Lesser Festival,
Common of Teachers, page 473
Richard Baxter was born at Rowton in Shropshire in 1615. In
1633 he was at the court of King James I but was so
disgusted with the low moral standards there that he
returned home in order to study divinity. He was ordained
but after the promulgation of an infamous Oath in 1640,
which required obedience to a string of persons ending in
the trite phrase 'et cetera', he rejected belief in
episcopacy in its current English form and went as a curate
to a poor area of the west Midlands. He opposed the Civil
War and played a prominent part in the recall of Charles II,
but his continuing dissatisfaction with the way episcopacy
was practised led him to decline the See of Hereford. This
refusal led him to be debarred from further office in the
Church, though he continued to contribute to its life as a
prolific hymn writer. He died in the year 1691.