These pages, originally prepared for a meeting of a Worcestershire association of ministers in 1656, discuss the means by which changes like those experienced by the residents of Kidderminster, "an ignorant, rude, and carousing town" that became "a pious and worshipping community," can be effected.
In his fervent plea for pastors to fulfill their spiritual duties, Baxter, in the words of his contemporary Thomas Manton, "came closer to apostolic writings than any other man of his time." A century later, Philip Doddridge wrote: "The Reformed Pastor is an extraordinary document...many good men are mere shadows of what - with God's blessing - they could be, if the maxims and measures set forth in this incomparable treatise were rigorously pursued."
Richard Baxter (1615-1691) was the pastor of Kidderminster from 1647 to 1661. In the Introduction to this edition, Dr. J.I. Packer describes him as "the most outstanding pastor, evangelist, and writer on practical and devotional matters produced by Puritanism."