The Reformed Pastor as Nonconformist

This chapter examines the complexities and tensions of Richard Baxter’s pastoral and ecclesiastical thought and practice after 1662 when, an unwilling Nonconformist, he continued to work for a less prescriptive and more inclusive national episcopal church that might accommodate the greater part of Nonconformist opinion. While he could not be a member of a church re-established by the Act of Uniformity on exclusive lines, no more would he separate from it or promote a permanent schism in the religious life of the nation by ministering to a separatist gathered church. This non-partisan Baxterian middle way, or ‘mere Christianity’, and particularly his practice of occasional communion with parish churches, was attacked by both Nonconformists and conformists, but Baxter’s commitment to church unity never wavered. For the last thirty years of his life, only through writing could the author of the classic The Reformed Pastor (1656) exercise his pastoral vocation.