Summary
We read this as a serious work written with the end in view, aiming to help believers live now in the light of their final meeting with the Lord.
Richard Baxter presses the conscience, not to terrify, but to awaken, and to direct us toward a settled hope in Christ.
Why Should We Read This Resource?
We are helped because Baxter makes us honest about what matters. He exposes how easily we waste time, cherish small comforts, and avoid hard obedience, and he calls us to a life shaped by eternity.
We also gain a form of pastoral application that does not flinch. Baxter urges us to prepare well, to repent deeply, to believe simply, and to keep our hope fixed on Christ rather than on our own record.
For pastors, this can strengthen preaching that calls people to seriousness without turning the gospel into mere warning. We are reminded that true comfort grows where the conscience is clean and the Saviour is trusted.
Closing Recommendation
We recommend this as a bracing, sanctifying read for those who want a clearer, steadier view of life and death under Christ.
Richard Baxter
Richard Baxter was an English Puritan pastor and writer of the seventeenth century, broadly Reformed in theology with a strong pastoral and practical emphasis.
His lasting contribution is the way he weds doctrinal seriousness to shepherding care. Baxter wrote for ministers, households, and congregations, urging holiness of life, sober self examination, and faithful oversight of souls. He speaks with urgency about eternity, yet with a physician’s concern for the wounded conscience, aiming to strengthen the church through disciplined, word shaped ministry.
We continue to read Baxter because he is plain, searching, and relentlessly aimed at spiritual profit, especially for pastors who need a steadying voice. Recommended titles include The Reformed Pastor, A Call to the Unconverted, and The Saints’ Everlasting Rest.
Theological Perspective: Reformed