A Christian Directory, Part 1: Christian Ethics

by Richard Baxter

He did what he could to keep his people at Kidderminster free from a concern in the public changes. He kept them from taking the Covenant, as fearing it might be a snare to their consciences: nay, he prevented its being much taken in all that county. When the Engagement came out, he spake and preached against it, and dissuaded men from taking it. He had a whole day's disputation with Mr. Tombs, in his church at Bewdley, upon infant baptism; and thereby kept his people free from the spreading notions of those times. When the army was going against King Charles II. and the Scots, he wrote letters to several of the soldiers to tell them of their sin, and desired them at last to begin to know themselves. And instead of praying for their success in public, he freely inveighed against the forcing men to run to God upon such errands of blood and ruin; especially where brethren were concerned. He often and various ways declared against Cromwell's usurpation, when he had got the ascendant: he preached once before him after he was Protector, by means of the Lord Broghill and the Earl of Warwick: his text was 1 Cor. i. 10. The design of his sermon was to show how mischievous it was for politicians to maintain divisions in the church for their own ends. A little while after the Protector sent for him, and made a speech to him of an hour's length, about the providence of God in changing the government, and favouring that change by such great things done at home and abroad. Mr. Baxter freely told him, that the honest people of the land took their ancient monarchy to be a blessing; and desired to know how they had forfeited that blessing, and to whom the forfeiture was made. He with some passion replied, that there was no forfeiture, but God had changed it as it pleased him.

In the controversy about church government, which was then so hotly agitated, Mr. Baxter was all along against extremes. He neither fell in with the Erastian, nor episcopal, nor presbyterian, nor independent party entirely; but thought all of them had so much truth in common among them, as would have made these kingdoms happy, had it been unanimously and soberly reduced to practice, by prudent and charitable men. At the desire of the neighbouring ministers he drew up an agreement for church order and concord, containing only so much church order and discipline, as he apprehended the episcopal, presbyterian, and independent were agreed in, as belonging to the pastors of each particular church; which he afterwards published in a book called "Christian Concord:" and the ministers of those parts associated upon that bottom; not disputing with each other in order to an agreement in their opinions, but agreeing in the practice of what was owned by all.

Upon Oliver's becoming Protector, the extent of the toleration was the subject of many debates. The committee of parliament proposed that it should be extended to all that held the fundamentals of religion: hereupon it was queried which were the fundamentals of religion? and it was agreed that the members of the committee, who were fourteen in number, should each of them nominate a divine; and that they meeting together, should draw up a list of the fundamentals, to be as a test to the toleration. Mr. Baxter was upon this occasion nominated for one, (in the room of Archbishop Usher, who refused,) by the Lord Broghill, and took a journey accordingly to London. There he met Mr. Marshal, Mr. Reyner, Dr. Cheynel, Dr. Goodwin, Dr. Owen, Mr. Nye, Mr. Sydr. Sympson, Mr. Vines, Mr. Manton, and Mr. Jacomb, who were also nominated. Mr. Baxter was for offering to the parliament the creed, the Lord's prayer, and ten commandments, as the fundamentals of christianity: but the rest were not for so large a bottom, but were for having a greater number of fundamentals. If he did no other service among them, he at least prevented the running many things so high as might otherwise have been expected.

Truth and peace were the things he earnestly pursued all his days. He by writing treated with Dr. Brownrigg, bishop of Exeter, about concord with the diocesan party in this nation: and made also some proposals to Dr. Hammond to this purpose, a little before the Restoration of King Charles. By means of Mr. Lamb and Mr. Allen, two anabaptist ministers, whom he prevailed with to quit the way of separation, he dealt with the rest of the anabaptists, about communion with other churches. He treated with Mr. Nye about an agreement with the independents, in a moderate scheme; and he was often engaged in disputes with the papists also. And indeed it is amazing how one of so much weakness, who was constantly followed with divers bodily infirmities, should be capable of so much service.

He came to London just before the deposition of Richard Cromwell. He preached before the parliament the day before they voted for King Charles's return. He preached also before the lord mayor and aldermen of the city at St. Paul's, on the day of thanksgiving for Monk's success. And when the king was actually restored, he became one of his chaplains in ordinary, in conjunction with some others of his brethren of the same sentiments with him. He preached once before him in that capacity; and often waited on him with the rest of the ministers, in order to obtain by his means some terms of peace and union with the bishops and their adherents, who were many of them inclined to run things to extremity. He assisted at the Savoy conference as one of the commissioners, and then drew up a "Reformed Liturgy;" which some persons not very likely to be prejudiced in his favour, have thought to be the best of the kind they ever saw. He has under this head fallen under the censure of our late English historian, who, vol. iii. p. 235, makes this reflection: "He drew up an absolute form of his own, and styled it the 'Reformed Liturgy;' as if he had the modesty to think that the old Liturgy, compiled by a number of very learned confessors and martyrs, must now give place to a new form composed by a single man, and he by education much inferior to many of his brethren." But had this gentleman been so just as to have read the reasons which Mr. Baxter gave,[2] for his doing that which he represents as so assuming, he would have seen little occasion for his reflection. For the design of this Liturgy was not to jostle out the old one, where persons were satisfied with it, but to relieve those that durst not use the old one as it was, by helping them to forms taken out of the word of God. Or suppose we, that the old Liturgy had in the esteem of many fallen short of this new one; others are at a loss to discover why this should appear so preposterous, unless it be unaccountable for persons to prefer a Liturgy entirely Scriptural, to one that is made up of human phrases, and some of them justly enough exceptionable. It must be owned that the old Liturgy was framed by sundry confessors and martyrs, and upon that account it deserves respect: and it was a great step in their day, for them to cast so many corruptions out of the public service as they did, at that time, when this Liturgy was drawn out of the several forms that were in use in this kingdom before. But it was but a pursuit of their design, to render the public service yet more Scriptural: and had they risen from the dead, there is good reason to believe they would generally have approved of it; and been so far from looking upon it as detracting from them, that they would have applauded it as a good superstructure upon their foundations. Suppose then he that drew up this "Reformed Liturgy," was by education much inferior to many of his brethren; it neither follows from thence that he must really be so much inferior to them in useful knowledge and valuable abilities, as this author would seem to intimate; nor can it justly be thence argued that his performance was contemptible; nor that there was any want of modesty neither, when his brethren put him upon the undertaking. And besides, they approving it when they perused it, and joining in the presenting it, made it their own; as sufficiently appears from the preface prefixed; and some of them had academical education, and great applause in the world too, and yet thought not Mr. Baxter at all their inferior.

He was also one of the three that managed the dispute at the end of the conference at the Savoy, and freely charged some things in the Liturgy as sinful, and contrary to the word of God. As, that ministers are obliged in baptism to use the transient image of the cross; that none be admitted to communion in the Lord's supper that dare not receive it kneeling, &c. The forementioned author speaking of this in his history, says, "That it seems very strange that he and his brethren should undertake to mention eight unlawful things in the Liturgy, when they could not affirm any one of those things to be in itself unlawful; but argued altogether upon the unlawful imposition of them, which they might as well have done by the same argument in eight hundred of other indifferent and most innocent matters." But if this gentleman had considered, that the unwarrantableness of keeping up such impositions in the church was the thing which Mr. Baxter and his brethren undertook to prove, in opposition to those who were zealous for retaining them, and how little in that case depends upon the simple unlawfulness of the things imposed, (abstracting from all circumstances in a metaphysical sense,) the strangeness of their proceeding would have disappeared. For though the same argument would have done in eight hundred indifferent things, (had there been so many so imposed,) yet it does not follow but that it would be good and valid in those eight things mentioned, in which they thought they should be bound up by the ecclesiastical constitution, (if they really must have been so confined,) while they could not discover their compliance to be lawful.

The same author also falls in with Bishop Morley, in representing Mr. Baxter as very perverse and disingenuous, by persisting in his denial of a certain proposition, after it had been turned and altered several ways. But had he thought fit to have considered what is suggested upon that head in the abridgement of his Life, which he had so often consulted, and quoted upon other occasions, he would have seen the aspersion wiped off, which he so freely repeats: and whether in so doing he has meted with the measure he would have used towards himself, upon occasion, is left to his second thoughts.

When the king's Declaration came out, Mr. Baxter was offered the bishopric of Hereford, and some of his brethren some other preferments in the church; but he refused acceptance, because of the uncertainty of the continuance of the terms of that Declaration, and so did several others: and Mr. Calamy and he were, by a majority of three voices, chosen by the city clergy to be their clerks in the convocation; but were by the bishop of London excused from sitting there. A continuance at Kidderminster was what he had most desired of any thing; and he did all that he was able in order to it; but Providence forced him another way.

While he was away from the town of Kidderminster, in great weakness, more likely to die than live, after his great loss of blood, the people renewed their articles against Mr. Danse, the old vicar, and his curate; and the committee sequestered the place, and left the profits in the hands of divers inhabitants to pay a preacher till it was disposed of. Mr. Baxter, though pressed, would not accept the vicarage, but continued to officiate among them as their minister. He would have taken no more out of the profits of the living than the £60 per annum which the vicar had before bound himself to pay him, but they made it £90. At length the people fearing some one should get a grant of the sequestration from the committee, went privately and got an order to settle Mr. Baxter in it; but never showed it him, till King Charles came out of Scotland towards Worcester, when they desired him to take and keep it, and save them harmless by it, if they were called to repay what they had received and disbursed. After this, the tithes were gathered in his name by some of his neighbours: but he gave them orders, that if any refused to pay that were poor, it should be forgiven them; but if they were able, what was due should be sought for with the help of the magistrates with damage; and that both his part and his damages should be given to the poor. When this was known, none that were able would do the poor so great a kindness as to refuse payment.

Upon King Charles's restoration the old vicar was restored. He had before lived unmolested in the vicarage house, and had £40 per annum duly paid him. Mr. Baxter would now very willingly have been his curate. Being often with my Lord Chancellor, he begged his favour about a settlement there, which he signified to him he preferred to a bishopric. Sir Ralph Clare was the great obstacle. He once told Mr. Baxter, in Bishop Morley's chamber, that of eighteen hundred communicants in the town, he had not above six hundred for him. To clear which he sent to Kidderminster, and in a day's time his friends there got the hands of sixteen hundred of those eighteen hundred for him; which subscription being shown, made both the Bishop and Sir Ralph the more against his return thither. My Lord Chancellor wrote to Sir Ralph, but without effect. Mr. Baxter going down thither to make terms with the vicar, he would not suffer him to preach above twice or thrice. He could not be accepted, though he would have preached for nothing. It would not be allowed him so much as to administer the sacrament to the people, and preach a farewell sermon to them. Bishop Morley denied him the liberty of preaching in his diocess. He told him that he would take care the people should be no losers. And for awhile he sent the most acceptable preachers among them; and once took the pains to preach to them himself, but it was in a way of invective against Mr. Baxter and the presbyterians. Dr. Warmestry did the same once and again, but with little success. When Bishop Morley forbad him preaching in his diocess, he asked him leave but to preach in some small village among the ignorant, where there was no maintenance for a minister: and he told him, that they were better to have none than him. Mr. Baldwin the minister was present.