Reliquiae Baxterianae

Richard Baxter is remembered for The Reformed Pastor and the line “I preached as a dying man to dying men” — but he also left his own life story. Reliquiae Baxterianae is his firsthand account of a Puritan pastor's life through the English Civil War, the Restoration, and the Great Ejection of 1662.

It's the primary source behind the later biographies — here in a clean modern edition, with the original linked free.

Reliquiae Baxterianae (published posthumously in 1696, edited by Matthew Sylvester) is Richard Baxter's own vast autobiography — an account of “the memorable passages of his life and times.” It interweaves his personal spiritual narrative with firsthand witness to the English Civil Wars, the Interregnum, and the Restoration.

Baxter recounts his largely self-taught path into ministry, his celebrated pastorate at Kidderminster (long held up as a model of parish reform), his service as a parliamentary army chaplain, and his ejection from the Church of England in 1662 with some two thousand other Puritan ministers.

Sprawling but invaluable, it is a foundational source for English Puritanism and a window into the conscience of a moderate, peace-seeking Nonconformist who suffered for his convictions.

Richard Baxter (1615–1691) was one of the most influential English Puritan pastors and writers, best known for The Reformed Pastor and The Saints' Everlasting Rest. Largely self-educated, he became pastor of Kidderminster, where his ministry is said to have transformed the town.

His life spanned the upheavals of the Civil War, Cromwell's Interregnum, and the Restoration. Ejected in the Great Ejection of 1662, he spent his later years as a persecuted but prolific Nonconformist, remembered for his irenic spirit and the resolve to preach “as a dying man to dying men.”