In October 1834, when just 21, after finishing Baxter's Call, Robert Murray M‘Cheyne wrote
Though Baxter's lips have long in silence hung,
And death long hush'd that sinner-wakening tongue
Yet still, though dead, he speaks aloud to all,
And from the grave still issues forth his "Call,"
Like some loud angel-voice from Zion Hill,
The mighty echo rolls and rumbles still,
O grant that we, when sleeping in the dust,
May thus speak forth the wisdom of the just.
Though Baxter's lips have long in silence hung,
And death long hush'd that sinner-wakening tongue
Yet still, though dead, he speaks aloud to all,
And from the grave still issues forth his "Call,"
Like some loud angel-voice from Zion Hill,
The mighty echo rolls and rumbles still,
O grant that we, when sleeping in the dust,
May thus speak forth the wisdom of the just.
In June of that year C H Spurgeon was born. His familiarity with Baxter's little book is well known.
When I was seeking the Lord I read a great deal in Doddridge’s Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul and Baxter's Call to the Unconverted. I would wake up as soon as the sun was up in the morning that I might read these books.
“Oh, those books, those books!” he would exclaim “I read and devoured them”. He thanked God for Baxter's Call and remembered his mother using it. “There was a little piece of Alleine's Alarm, or of Baxter's Call to the Unconverted,” he says
and this was read with pointed observations made to each of us as we sat round the table; and the question was asked, how long it would be before we would think about our state, how long before we would seek the Lord. Then came a mother's prayer, and some of the words of that prayer we shall never forget, even when our hair is grey.
Spurgeon's contemporary, Thomas De Witt Talmage (1832-1902) was also brought up on Baxter in America. As he got older, he says, he read Doddridge's Rise and Progress and Baxter's Call as well as other books. He once spoke about the power of the printed page noting how Baxter himself had been affected by the printed page as a young man and then how
Richard Baxter wrote a book entitled A Call to the Unconverted, which brought thousands into the kingdom, among others Philip Doddridge. He wrote a book entitled The Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul. Its harvest is uncounted multitudes for the kingdom of heaven, among others the great Wilberforce. Wilberforce in turn wrote a book on The Practical View of Christianity. It has done good beyond all earthly computation, and brought many into the kingdom, among others Leigh Richmond. Leigh Richmond wrote a book called The Dairyman's Daughter. It has brought tens of thousands to the Lord Jesus Christ as Saviour.
One final thing worth mentioning here is that in 1991 the evangelist John Blanchard produced an updated version of the book entitled Invitation to live, which has also no doubt been used to bring some to the Lord.
When I was seeking the Lord I read a great deal in Doddridge’s Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul and Baxter's Call to the Unconverted. I would wake up as soon as the sun was up in the morning that I might read these books.
“Oh, those books, those books!” he would exclaim “I read and devoured them”. He thanked God for Baxter's Call and remembered his mother using it. “There was a little piece of Alleine's Alarm, or of Baxter's Call to the Unconverted,” he says
and this was read with pointed observations made to each of us as we sat round the table; and the question was asked, how long it would be before we would think about our state, how long before we would seek the Lord. Then came a mother's prayer, and some of the words of that prayer we shall never forget, even when our hair is grey.
Spurgeon's contemporary, Thomas De Witt Talmage (1832-1902) was also brought up on Baxter in America. As he got older, he says, he read Doddridge's Rise and Progress and Baxter's Call as well as other books. He once spoke about the power of the printed page noting how Baxter himself had been affected by the printed page as a young man and then how
Richard Baxter wrote a book entitled A Call to the Unconverted, which brought thousands into the kingdom, among others Philip Doddridge. He wrote a book entitled The Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul. Its harvest is uncounted multitudes for the kingdom of heaven, among others the great Wilberforce. Wilberforce in turn wrote a book on The Practical View of Christianity. It has done good beyond all earthly computation, and brought many into the kingdom, among others Leigh Richmond. Leigh Richmond wrote a book called The Dairyman's Daughter. It has brought tens of thousands to the Lord Jesus Christ as Saviour.
One final thing worth mentioning here is that in 1991 the evangelist John Blanchard produced an updated version of the book entitled Invitation to live, which has also no doubt been used to bring some to the Lord.
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