# Baxter's deviant theology



## AV1611 (Feb 14, 2008)

Have there been any seminal works on where Richard Baxter went wrong especially on soteriology?


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## danmpem (Feb 14, 2008)

While I have not studied Baxter closely at all, I thought that he just had highly unorthodox views on things like the Lord's Supper but was loyal to soteriology (didn't he write The _Reformed _Pastor?)


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## Amazing Grace (Feb 14, 2008)

I found this:

Baxter's theology was set forth most elaborately in his Latin Methodus theologiæ Chriatianæ (London, 1681); the Christian Directory (1673) contains the practical part of his system; and Catholic Theology (1675) is an English exposition. His theology made Baxter very unpopular among his contemporaries and caused a split among the Dissenters of the eighteenth century. As summarized by Thomas W. Jenkyn, it differed from the Calvinism of Baxter's day on four points:

1. The atonement of Christ did not consist in his suffering the identical but the equivalent punishment (i.e., one which would have the same effect in moral government) as that deserved by mankind because of offended law. Christ died for sins, not persons. While the benefits of substitutionary atonement are accessible and available to all men for their salvation; they have in the divine appointment a special reference to the subjects of personal election.
2. The elect were a certain fixed number determined by the decree without any reference to their faith as the ground of their election; which decree contemplates no reprobation but rather the redemption of all who will accept Christ as their Savior.
3. What is imputed to the sinner in the work of justification is not the righteousness of Christ but the faith of the sinner himself in the righteousness of Christ.
4. Every sinner has a distinct agency of his own to exert in the process of his conversion. The Baxterian theory, with modifications, was adopted by many later Presbyterians and Congregationalists in England, Scotland, and America (Isaac Watts, Philip Doddridge, and many others).

Baxter is best understood as an eclectic scholastic covenantal theologian for whom the distinction between God's conditional covenant (the voluntas de debito) and his absolute will (the voluntas de rerum eventu) is key to the entire theological enterprise. Despite the difficulty in classifying Baxter, his emphasis on the conditionality of the covenant of grace and therefore on the necessity of faith and works for our standing before God is undeniable.


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## NaphtaliPress (Feb 14, 2008)

See Bruce R. Backensto, "John Brown of Wamphray, Richard Baxter and the Justification Controversy,"_ The Confessional Presbyterian _3 (2007) 118-146.


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## crhoades (Feb 14, 2008)

J.I. Packer did his dissertation back in the day on the topic and has a book based on it now.

Also ran across this work:
Amazon.com: A Hot Pepper Corn: Richard Baxter's Doctrine of Justification in Its Seventeenth-Century Context of Controversy: Books: Hans Boersma
Can't comment on this one though.


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## Jimmy the Greek (Feb 14, 2008)

According to Packer, 


> "[Baxter] devised an eclectic middle route between Reformed, Arminian, and Roman doctrines of grace: interpreting the kingdom of God in terms of contemporary political ideas, he explained Christ's death as an act of universal redemption (penal and vicarious, but not substitutionary), in virtue of which God has made a new law offering pardon and amnesty to the penitent. Repentance and faith, being obedience to this law, are the believer's personal saving righteousness. . . The fruit of the seeds which Baxter sowed was neonomian Moderatism in Scotland and moralistic Unitarianism in England."



This is from Packer's Introduction in _Richard Baxter, The Reformed Pastor _(1656; The Banner of Truth Trust, 1979). Baxter held to a form of Amyraldism.


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## toddpedlar (Feb 14, 2008)

danmpem said:


> While I have not studied Baxter closely at all, I thought that he just had highly unorthodox views on things like the Lord's Supper but was loyal to soteriology (didn't he write The _Reformed _Pastor?)



The adjective "Reformed" has nothing much to do with the one in front of "theology" in "Reformed theology". Rather, it's speaking of the nature of the man who God would have be a pastor - one whose life has been reformed, and who walks and practices his calling accordingly.

Baxter's soteriology is problematic, as one has already noted - he's got issues both with the atonement and with the distinction between justification and sanctification.


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## KMK (Feb 14, 2008)

toddpedlar said:


> danmpem said:
> 
> 
> > While I have not studied Baxter closely at all, I thought that he just had highly unorthodox views on things like the Lord's Supper but was loyal to soteriology (didn't he write The _Reformed _Pastor?)
> ...



Exactly... In fact I think there is a note to this effect in the introduction of my copy of "The Reformed Pastor"



toddpedlar said:


> Baxter's soteriology is problematic, as one has already noted - he's got issues both with the atonement and with the distinction between justification and sanctification.



That's not all that's problematic about Baxter. He commits the greatest error a theologian can make: He is too wordy! I think he taught James Joyce about 'stream of consciousness'...


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## Reformed Covenanter (Feb 14, 2008)

> That's not all that's problematic about Baxter. He commits the greatest error a theologian can make: He is too wordy! I think he taught James Joyce about 'stream of consciousness'...



I recall hearing that his wife told him that!


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## toddpedlar (Feb 14, 2008)

KMK said:


> toddpedlar said:
> 
> 
> > danmpem said:
> ...



Yup... it's a phenomenal read. In our former church we used it in conjunction with elder training - a book like that firmly puts the responsibilities a prospective elder is aiming to accept into focus, and should give pause to any man's designs on becoming an elder but who's not ready to face such duties.



> toddpedlar said:
> 
> 
> > Baxter's soteriology is problematic, as one has already noted - he's got issues both with the atonement and with the distinction between justification and sanctification.
> ...



I won't ask your opinion of Owen or Manton then


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## Semper Fidelis (Feb 14, 2008)

NaphtaliPress said:


> See Bruce R. Backensto, "John Brown of Wamphray, Richard Baxter and the Justification Controversy,"_ The Confessional Presbyterian _3 (2007) 118-146.



When I saw this thread, I _immediately_ thought of that article. In fact, if people have not read this article then the subscription for CPJ3 is worth this article alone!

Seriously, the parallels between the Federal Vision view of faith and Baxter's view of faith are striking. John Brown of Wamphray represents the Confessional repudiation of Baxter's view and clearly articulates, from several angles, the nature of justifying faith as laying hold of the righteousness of Christ as opposed to Baxter's view where our faith itself is said to be our righteousness and is only a basis when it is fully maturated and proven.


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## Archlute (Feb 15, 2008)

You may also want to check out _The Rise of Moralism: the proclamation of the Gospel from Hooker to Baxter_, by retired episcopal bishop C. Fitzsimons Allison. While not a book focused upon Baxter as a whole, Allison traces the downgrade within the church of England regarding the understanding of justification through faith alone and the imputed righteousness of Christ to the believer, in Hooker's time, to the confusion of justification and sanctification by the time of Baxter, and some of his proposed reasons for that downgrade.


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## VirginiaHuguenot (Feb 15, 2008)

crhoades said:


> J.I. Packer did his dissertation back in the day on the topic and has a book based on it now.
> 
> Also ran across this work:
> Amazon.com: A Hot Pepper Corn: Richard Baxter's Doctrine of Justification in Its Seventeenth-Century Context of Controversy: Books: Hans Boersma
> Can't comment on this one though.



_A Hot Pepper Corn_ was the first work on this subject that came to my mind. For some interaction with the book, see here:

Did Baxter Affirm Imputation? « Thomas Goodwin


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