Richard Baxter and International Protestantism

Abstract Richard Baxter and his writings are usually considered in an insular context, limited very much to England, especially by scholarship in the English-speaking world. Baxter encouraged this view by stating his incompetence in European vernaculars, especially French, and his disapproval of several kinds of continental thought, especially the radical reformers, aspects of Grotian theology and Cartesian and Spinozian rationalism and materialism. However, this essay shows that Baxter was greatly admired in many parts of Protestant Europe and that several of his writings were widely available in editions, principally in German and Dutch translations, with consequences for the nature of continental prose writing. He was popular with some early Pietists, and his writings were regarded as highly effective means of arousing and sustaining faith, even when some disagreed with his soteriology.