Baxter (1615 - 1691) was a celebrated Nonconformist divine. Perhaps his greatest work is, The Saints' Everlasting Rest. He was arrested and persecuted at various times for preaching the gospel, and also endured other persecutions as well. Like most all Puritans and Nonconformists of that age, Baxter was Calvinistic in his doctrine, yet he was less openly dogmatic on certain of the finer points, most of them technical in nature, such as whether or not Christ's sufferings were a fulfilling of the law's threatening, or principally just a satisfaction. This less combative stance was due primarily to the fact that Baxter wrote not so much as to defend doctrine against apostates, but rather, he wrote to the common man, so as to win souls. Some make it appear as if Baxter's main disagreement with his brethren was on the doctrine of limited atonement, but this can be maintained only if one reads outside of his overall context, for he never makes a sound argument against the orthodox view.

For example, in his treatise, A Call To The Unconverted, Baxter states, "For it was thy sin, and the sin of all the world, that lay upon our Redeemer, and his sacrifice and satisfaction is sufficient for all, and the fruits of it are offered to one as well as another, but it is true that it was never the intent of his mind to pardon and save any that would not by faith and repentance be converted."

And of course, we have further confirmation in yet again Baxter's very own words - "I know no man, since the Apostle's days, whom I value and honour more than Calvin, and whose judgment in all things, one with another, I more esteem and come nearer to."

 His current works are published in four large volumes by Soli Deo Gloria Publications.

"When Christ comes with regenerating grace, he finds no man sitting still, but all posting to eternal ruin, and making haste toward hell; till, by conviction, he first brings them to a stand, and then, by conversion, turn first their hearts, and then their lives, sincerely to himself." The Saints' Everlasting Rest

"To be the people of God without regeneration, is as impossible as to be the children of men without generation." The Saints' Everlasting Rest

"In the soul of every unregenerate man the creature is both God and Christ. As turning from the creature to God, and not by Christ, is no true turning; so believing in Christ, while the creature hath our hearts, is no true believing." The Saints' Everlasting Rest

"Ιf thou end thy days in thy unregenerate state, as sure as the heavens are over thy head, and the earth under thy feet, thou shalt be shut out of the rest of the saints, and receive thy portion in everlasting fire." The Saints' Everlasting Rest

"As true faith is the leading grace in the regenerate, so is false faith the leading vice in the unregenerate." The Saints' Everlasting Rest

"If you could ask thousands in hell, what madness brought them thither, they would most of them answer, We thought we were sure of being saved till we found ourselves damned. We would have been MORE EARNEST SEEKERS OF REGENERATION and the power of godliness, but we verily thought we were Christians already. We have flattered ourselves into these torments, and now there is no remedy. Reader, I must in faithfulness tell thee that the confident belief of their good state, which the careless, unholy, unhumbled multitude so commonly boast of; will prove in the end but a soul-damning delusion." The Saints' Everlasting Rest

"Some are so ignorant that they know not what self-examination is, nor what a minister means when he persuadeth them to try themselves, or they know not that there is any necessity of it, but think every man is bound to believe that God is his Father, and that his sins are pardoned, whether it be true or false, and that it were a great fault to make any question of it... They have as gross conceits of that regeneration, which they must search for, as Nicodemus had. And when they should try whether the Spirit be in them, they are like those that knew not whether there were a Holy Ghost to be received or no. Acts xix.2... But the most common and dangerous impediment is that false faith and hope, commonly called presumption, which bears up the hearts of the most of the world, and so keeps them from suspecting their danger." The Saints' Everlasting Rest

"How often, when I have thought of my regeneration, have I cried out, O blessed day! and blessed be the Lord that ever I saw it!" The Saints' Everlasting Rest

"So that you see how great a mercy it is to have the Spirit of Jesus Christ within us; and this is the case of all that are converted, and none but them. 'For if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, the same is none of his.' Rom viii 9 If you did but know what it is to be possessed by the Holy Ghost, when ungodly men have the spirit of uncleaness, you would not rest without this blessedness." A Treatise Of Conversion

"Another reason which makes me the more earnestly desire that you would try, whether you are truly converted or not, is, because all men by nature are children of wrath, and need conversion, and the greatest part of the world do live and die in their natural state, and never come to be truly converted. Seeing, therefore, that it is a thing that every one must have that will be saved, and yet most men go without it, and therefore are damned, should it not waken you to examine, whether you are of the number of those that are converted, yea or nay?" A Treatise Of Conversion

"Will any man that hath not lost his senses, now stand cavilling, and quarrelling, that so few should be saved, instead of making sure of his own salvation? The reason that there are so few is, because they will not be saved upon God's terms." A Treatise Of Conversion

"That which is past cannot be recalled: it is well if it can be repented of and amended." The Saints' Everlasting Rest

"Men have learned in books, that God is the chief good, and only the enjoyment of him in heaven will make us happy; but their hearts do not unfeignedly take him to be so... it is as possible the devils should be saved as the man that finally takes up his chief rest and happiness in any thing below God." The Saints' Everlasting Rest

"Jest not with God: do not only talk of heaven, but mind it, and seek it with all thy might; what greater business hast thou to do?" The Saints' Everlasting Rest

"If you will not part with your merriments and vanities for that which is infinitely better, be it known to you, you shall shortly part with them for nothing; yea, for hell fire; and you shall leave them with groans and horror ere long, if you will not leave them for God and glory now." The Saints' Everlasting Rest

"To purpose all perservering believers to salvation, and not to purpose faith and perseverance absolutely to any particular persons, is to purpose salvation absolutely to none at all." The Saints' Everlasting Rest

"They are ordained to eternal life first, and therefore believe, and not first believe, and therefore elected." The Saints' Everlasting Rest

"This is the sad case of many thousands, and the reason why so few obtain the rest; they will not be convinced, or made sensible, that they are, in point of title, distant from it; and in point of practice, contrary to it. They have lost their God, their souls, their rest, and do not know it, nor will believe him that tells them so." The Saints' Everlasting Rest

"Sitting still will lose you heaven, as well as if you run from it." The Saints' Everlasting Rest

"They that have been most holy, watchful, painful, to get faith and assurance, do find, when they come to die, all little enough. We see, daily, the best Christians, when dying, repent their negligence: I never knew any, then, repent his holiness and diligence." The Saints' Everlasting Rest

"If the way to heaven be not far harder than the world imagines, then Christ and his apostles knew not the way, or else have deceived us; for they have told us that the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence; that the gate is strait, and the way narrow; and we must strive, if we will enter; for many shall seek to enter, and not be able... Observe it, and believe it, whoever thou art; there was never a soul that made Christ and glory the principal end, nor that obtained rest with God, whose desire was not set upon him, and that above all things else in the world whatsoever. Christ brings the heart to heaven first, and then the person." The Saints' Everlasting Rest

"The falseness of your own hearts, if you look not to them, may undo you." The Saints' Everlasting Rest

"There is far more procured by Christ, than was lost by Adam." The Saints' Everlasting Rest

"It hath been the astonishing wonder of many a man, as well as me, to read in the holy Scripture, how few will be saved, and that the greatest part of even of those that are called, will be everlastingly shut out of the kingdom of heaven, and tormented with the devils in eternal fire." A Call To The Unconverted

"There is but one of these two ways for every wicked man - either conversion or damnation." A Call To The Unconverted

"No wonder if the guilty quarrel with the law. Few men are apt to believe that which they would not have to be true; and fewer would have that to be true, which they apprehend to be against them." A Call To The Unconverted

"The law was not made for you to judge, but that you might be ruled and judged by it." A Call To The Unconverted

"If thou be a man that dost believe the word of God, here is already enough to satisfy thee, that the wicked must be converted or condemned. You are already brought so far, that you must either confess that this is true, or say plainly, you will not believe the word of God. And if once you be come to that pass, there is but small hopes of you: look to yourselves as well as you can, for it is like you will not be long out of hell." A Call To The Unconverted

"God hath a voice that will make you hear! Though he entreat you to hear the voice of his gospel, he will make you hear the voice of his condemning sentence, without entreaty. We cannot make you believe against your wills; but God will make you feel against your wills." A Call To The Unconverted

"It is most suitable to an immortal soul, to be ruled by laws that promise an immortal reward, and threaten and endless punishment. Otherwise the law should not be suited to the nature of the subject." A Call To The Unconverted

"If sin be such an evil that it requireth the death of Christ for its expiation, no wonder if it deserve our everlasting misery." A Call To The Unconverted

"Hell would not be so full, if people were but willing to know their case, and to hear and think of it. The reason why so few escape it is, because they strive not to enter in at the strait gate of conversion, and to go the narrow way of holiness while they have time; and they strive not, because they be not awakened to a lively feeling of the danger they are in; and they be not awakened, because they are loth to hear or think of it; and that is partly through foolish tenderness, and carnal self-love, and partly because they do not well believe the word that threateneth it... But take this with you, to your sorrow, though you may put this out of your minds, you cannot put it out of the Bible; but there it will stand as a sealed truth, which you shall experimentally know for ever, and that there is no other way, but turn or die." A Call To The Unconverted

"When God hath of his mercy provided us a remedy, even the Lord Jesus Christ, to be the Saviour of our souls, and bring us back to God again, we naturally love our present state, and are loth to be brought out of it, and therefore are set against the means of our recovery; and though custom hath taught us to thank Christ for his good will, yet carnal self persuadeth us to refuse his remedies, and to desire to be excused when we are commanded to take the medicines which he offereth, and are called to forsake all, and follow him to God and glory." A Call To The Unconverted

"Every man that is in this state of corrupted nature is a wicked man, and in a state of death." A Call To The Unconverted

"In a word, whoever loveth earth above heaven, and fleshly prosperity more than God, is a wicked, unconverted man... all that are converted do esteem and love God better than all the world, and the heavenly felicity is dearer to them than their fleshly prosperity." A Call To The Unconverted

"A wicked man is one that maketh it the principal business of his life to prosper in this world, and attain his fleshly ends. And though he may read and hear, and do much in the outward duties of religion, and forbear disgraceful sins, yet this is all but upon the bye, and he never makes it the trade and principal business of his life to please God and attain everlasting glory, but puts off God with the leavings of the world, and gives him no more service than the flesh can spare; for he will not part with all for heaven." A Call To The Unconverted

"Ignorant people think, that if a man be no swearer, nor curser, nor railer, nor drunkard, nor fornicator, nor extortioner, nor wrong any body in their dealings, and if they come to church, and say their prayers, these cannot be wicked men... And some think, if they have but been affrighted by the fears of hell, and had convictions, and gripes of conscience, and thereupon have purposed and promised amendment, and taken up a life of civil behaviour, and outward religion, that this must needs be true conversion... And when they hear that the wicked must turn or die, they think that this is not spoken of them, for they consider themselves not wicked... O sirs, conversion is another kind of work than most are aware of." A Call To The Unconverted

"In nature excellent things are few. The world hath not many suns or moons; it is but a little of the earth that is gold or silver; princes and nobles are but a small part of the sons of men. And it is no great number that are learned, judicious, or wise, here in this world. And therefore if the gate being strait, and the way narrow, there be but few that find salvation, yet God will have his glory and pleasure in those few." A Call To The Unconverted

"It is possible for one from the dead to deceive you; but Jesus Christ can never deceive you; the word of God delivered in Scripture, and sealed up by the miracles and holy workings of the Spirit, can never deceive you. Believe this, or believe nothing." A Call To The Unconverted

"It undoes many thousands, that they think they are in the way to salvation, when they are not; and think that they are converted, when it is no such thing." A Call To The Unconverted

"The greatest hope that the devil hath, of bringing you to damnation without a rescue, is by keeping you blindfold and ignorant of your state, and making you believe that you may do well enough in the way that you are in." A Call To The Unconverted

"God hath his promise of life, and the devil hath his promise of life. God 's promise is - Return and live; the devil's promise is - Thou shalt live whether thou turn or not... The devil's word is, you may be saved without being born again and converted; you may go to heaven well enough without being holy; God doth but frighten you; he is more merciful than to do as he saith; he will be better to you than his word... the devil saith, you shall not die if you do but cry up mercy at last... O heinous wickedness, to believe the devil before God!" A Call To The Unconverted

"For it was thy sin, and the sin of all the world, that lay upon our Redeemer, and his sacrifice and satisfaction is sufficient for all, and the fruits of it are offered to one as well as another, but it is true that it was never the intent of his mind to pardon and save any that would not by faith and repentance be converted." A Call To The Unconverted

"Is not God worthy to be a ruler of your flesh? If he shall not rule it, he will not save it; you cannot in reason expect that he should. Your flesh is pleased with your sin... It loves the bait, but doth it love the hook?" A Call To The Unconverted

"He that commandeth heaven and earth, commandeth thee to turn, and presently without delay, to turn... God is not a man that thou shouldst dally and play with him... Who is it that will have the worst of this? Dost thou know whom thou disobeyest and contendest with, and what thou art doing?.. Whosoever else be mocked, God will not; you had better play with the fire in your thatch than with the fire of his burning wrath." A Call To The Unconverted

"It is a certain truth, that no man can be willing of any evil, as evil, but only as it hath some appearance of good; much less can any man be willing to be eternally tormented. Misery, as such, is desired by none... So that consequentially these men are willing to be damned, though not directly: they are willing of the way to hell, and love the certain cause of their torment, though they be not willing of hell itself, and do not love the pain which they must endure." A Call To The Unconverted

"If you have found out a way to be saved without conversion, you have done that which was never done before." A Call To The Unconverted

"You should not only ask whether you love the adder, but whether you love the sting." A Call To The Unconverted

"So exceeding great are the matters of eternity, that nothing in this world deserveth once to be named in comparison with them, nor can any earthly thing, though it were life, or crowns and kingdoms, be a reasonable excuse for matters of so high and everlasting consequence. A man can have no reason to cross his ultimate end. Heaven is such a thing, that if you lose it, nothing can supply the want, or make up the loss. And hell is such a thing, that if you suffer it, nothing can remove your misery, or give you ease and comfort. And therefore nothing can be a valuable consideration to excuse you for neglecting your own salvation." A Call To The Unconverted

"Heaven will pay for the loss of any thing that we can lose to get it, or for any labour which we bestow for it. But nothing can pay for the loss of heaven." A Call To The Unconverted

"It is a wise world when men will disobey God, and run to hell for fear of being out of their wits." A Call To The Unconverted

"If heaven be too high for you to think on, and to provide for, it will be too high for you ever to possess." A Call To The Unconverted

"If you hope to be saved without conversion and a holy life, this is not to hope in God, but in Satan, or yourselves; for God hath given you no such promise, but told you the contrary; but it is Satan and self-love that made you such promises, and raised you to such hopes." A Call To The Unconverted

"First or last you must come to this; either to be converted, or to wish you had been when it is too late." A Call To The Unconverted

"All the pleasure of fleshly things is but like the scratching of a man that hath the itch; it is his disease that makes him desire it: and a wise man had rather be without his pleasure, than be troubled with his itch." A Call To The Unconverted

"God here acquits himself of your blood: it shall not lie on him if you be lost. A negligent minister may draw it upon himself; and those that encourage you, or hinder you not, in sin, may draw it upon them; but be sure of it, it shall not lie upon God." A Call To The Unconverted

"God hath two degrees of mercy to show: the mercy of conversion first, and the mercy of salvation last. The latter he will give to none but those that will and run, and hath promised it to them only." A Call To The Unconverted

"We cannot convert you against your wills. There is no carrying madmen to heaven in fetters. You may be condemned against your wills, because you sinned with your wills, but you cannot be saved against your wills... O sirs, believe it, death and judgment, and heaven and hell, are other matters when you come near them, than they seem do carnal eyes afar off." A Call To The Unconverted

"If you mean indeed to turn and live, do it speedily without delay. If you be not willing to turn today, you will not be willing to do it at all... Multitudes miscarry that willfully delay when they are convinced that it must be done... You have much to do, and therefore put not all off to the last, lest God forsake you, and give you up to yourselves, and then you are undone for ever." A Call To The Unconverted

"Think not to capitulate with Christ, and divide your heart between him and the world, and to part with some sins and keep the rest, and to let go that which your flesh can spare. This is but self-deluding: you must in heart and resolution forsake all that you have, or else you cannot be his disciples. If you will not take God and heaven for your portion, and lay all below at the feet of Christ, but you must needs also have your good things here, and have an earthly portion, and God and glory is not enough for you, it is in vain to dream of salvation on these terms, for it will not be." A Call To The Unconverted

"Didst thou never look so long upon the Son of God, till thine eyes were dazzled with his astonishing glory?" The Saints' Everlasting Rest

"Christ is the powerful attractive, the effectual loadstone, who draws to it all like itself." The Saints' Everlasting Rest

"For know this, believer, to thy everlasting comfort, that if these arms [of Jesus] have once embraced thee, neither sin nor hell can get thee thence for ever; the sanctuary is inviolable, and the rock impregnable, whither thou art fled, and thou art safe locked up to all eternity." The Saints' Everlasting Rest

"Though God be not the author of sin, he knows why he permitteth it in the world. He will be no loser, and Satan shall be no gainer, by it in the end." The Vain Religion Of The Formal Hypocrite

"We usually lose more by the flatteries of Satan and the world, than by their violence." The Vain Religion Of The Formal Hypocrite

"Few rich men are truly religious; it is as hard for them to be saved, as for a camel to go through a needle's eye... A low, despised, suffering state, is that believers must ordinarily expect, and prepare for, and study to be serviceable in." The Vain Religion Of The Formal Hypocrite

"When we read in the gospel, that salvation is to be offered unto all, and no man is excepted or shut out, but such as shut out and except themselves; and yet read that there are but FEW that find the strait gate, and the narrow way, and that the flock is little that shall have the kingdom, and that many shall seek to enter that shall not be able, we must needs conclude that some powerful enemy standeth in the way, that can cause the ruin of so many millions of souls." The Vain Religion Of The Formal Hypocrite

"It is not mere violence, but deceit, that can undo us; not force, but fraud, that we have to resist." The Vain Religion Of The Formal Hypocrite

"He that is deceived by pleasures and profits, and the vain glory of the world, must be undeceived and recovered by religion, or he must perish. But that religion itself should become his deceit, and the remedy prove his greatest misery, is the most stupendous effect of Satan's subtlety, and a sinner's fraudulency, and the saddest aggravation of his deplorable calamity. And yet, alas, this is so common a case, that where the gospel is preached, it seems to be Satan's principal game, and the highway to hell... Men that may be saved by an effectual faith, are cheated and destroyed by false faith and presumption." The Vain Religion Of The Formal Hypocrite

"The free promises of the gospel do support true believers, but are abused to the deceiving of the presumptuous world." The Vain Religion Of The Formal Hypocrite

"The true doctrines of faith may be believed by a faith that is not true." The Vain Religion Of The Formal Hypocrite

"He that hath but a vain religion, may, in his judgment, approve of saving grace... and he may have some counterfeit of every grace, and think that it is true." The Vain Religion Of The Formal Hypocrite

"The self-deceiving hypocrite... though he make a slight and customary confession of his sins, unworthiness, and misery, yet is he not kindly humbled at the heart, nor made truly vile in his own eyes, nor contrite and broken-hearted, nor emptied of himself, as seeing himself undone by his own iniquities, crying out, Unclean! and loathing himself for all his abominations, weary of his sin, and heavy-laden, as all must be that are fit for Christ... The sense of the odiousness of sin, and of the damnation threatened by the righteous God, hath not yet taught him to value Christ, as he must be valued by such as will be saved by him." The Vain Religion Of The Formal Hypocrite

"The hypocrite taketh heaven but for a reserve, and as a lesser evil than hell, and seeks it but in the second place, while his fleshly pleasures and interest have the preeminence, and God hath no more but the leavings of the world; and he serveth him but with so much as his flesh can spare." The Vain Religion Of The Formal Hypocrite

"We are next to show you how these hypocrites do deceive themselves, and wherein their self-deceit consisteth... When he committeth any sin, he confidently imagineth that his confession and his wishing it were undone again, when he hath had all the pleasure that sin can give him, is true repentance; and that, as a penitent, he shall be forgiven; and thus, while he thinketh himself something, when he is nothing, he deceiveth himself. He hath a counterfeit of every grace of God; a counterfeit faith, and hope, and love, and repentance, and zeal, and humility, and patience, and perseverance; and these he will needs take to be the very life and image of Christ, and the graces themselves that accompany salvation." The Vain Religion Of The Formal Hypocrite

"Alas! fellow-christians, what should we do, if our Lord should not return?... He that would come to suffer, will surely come to triumph; and he that would come to purchase, will surely come to possess." The Saints' Everlasting Rest

"The grave that could not keep our Lord, cannot keep us: he arose for us, and by the same power will cause us to arise." The Saints' Everlasting Rest

"Sooner may you hope to find a new way into the world or a state of nature, besides the way of human birth, than to find another way into the state of grace, and the kingdom of heaven, besides the new birth, by the Spirit." To The Reader, The Door Of Salvation Opened By The Key Of Regeneration

"The corrupted soul is so conformed to the world's corrupted state, that it is no wonder if he perceive no need of a restorer, and so be in the heart an infidel upon that account; as a man born blind may think the world hath no great need of the sun, because his eyes are so conform to a state of darkness, that the night seemeth to him as good as the day." To The Reader, The Door Of Salvation Opened By The Key Of Regeneration

"The reparation of vitiated nature [regeneration] is a mysterious but glorious work of God, which angels desire to pry into, and all the regenerate rejoice in and admire, as having themselves been made partakers of so sweet and excellent a share." To The Reader, The Door Of Salvation Opened By The Key Of Regeneration

"No part of nature is so deplorably vitiated as the soul of man, except the devil's." To The Reader, The Door Of Salvation Opened By The Key Of Regeneration

"Set your faces now towards heaven, as those that see the grave at hand, and the vanities of this world all vanishing into smoke, and as those that are resolved to have heaven or nothing." To The Reader, The Door Of Salvation Opened By The Key Of Regeneration

"Venture all, man, upon God's word and promise. There is a day of rest coming will fully pay for all." The Saints' Everlasting Rest