Reformed and Lutheran Responses to Richard Baxter: Theological Heterodoxy and the Synod of Dort

Abstract

ABSTRACT The English Reformed theologian Richard Baxter stated that he held a ‘middle way’ in the debate on soteriology within the Reformed persuasion, for which he drew on, among others, ‘all the Divines of Britain and Brem, in the Synod of Dort.’ This article will address the question of the extent to which the authority of the Canons of Dort played a role in the reception of his writings in the Netherlands and in Germany, among both Reformed and Lutheran readers. Whereas in the Netherlands some of Baxter’s works were criticized by theologians, in Germany far less criticism was evident, even by those who defended a particularist interpretation of the extent of the atonement. How can this difference be explained, and what role did the authority of Dort play in these responses?