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Richard Baxter's Correspondence: a preliminary survey

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2011

Geoffrey F. Nuttall
Affiliation:
Lecturer in Church History, New College, London

Extract

Towards the end of a list, in his autobiography, of ‘Manuscripts that are yet unprinted, which lye by me’, Richard Baxter did not scruple to include ‘And a Multitude of Theological Letters’. It is an indication of the seriousness with which he regarded his correspondence. That Matthew Sylvester, Baxter's literary executor and the editor of his autobiography, the Reliquiae Baxterianae (1696), also regarded it seriously appears from his inclusion of some thirty-five letters in the body of that work, with one in the preface and several others in appendices.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1950

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References

page 85 note 1 Reliquiae Baxterianae, i. 211 (the references to this work are by part and section).

page 85 note 2 ibid., pref. ‘Mr. W.’ is probably William White, Rector of Pusey, Berks (see D.N.B.); eleven letters exchanged between Baxter and White are among the MSS. at Dr. Williams' Library. These MSS. now include no correspondence between Baxter and Sir Matthew Hale, though among them is the original of Hale's Judgment.… of the Nature of True Religion, which was published posthumously by Baxter in 1684. A letter of 2 May 1676 from Baxter to Hale was printed in the Bulletin of the John Rylands Library, xxiv. 173, from a MS. in private hands.

page 85 note 3 A. Gordon, Heads of English Unitarian History, p. 58; id., D.N.B., s.v. M. Sylvester.

page 85 note 4 R.B., pref.

page 86 note 1 For access to the MSS. and permission to describe them in this paper I have to thank the Librarian of Dr. Williams' Library.

page 86 note 2 The statement to this effect in A Short Account of the Charity (1917), p. 67, appears to rest on an impossible interpretation of an entry in the MS. Benefactors' Book, f. 54, that ‘Several Manuscripts of Mr Baxter’ were given ‘by Mr Sylvester about ye year 1733r. This may refer to Sylvester's son Joshua (his sons Samuel and Matthew he disinherited with 12d. each: see Calamy Revised), but the entry is out of place, under the year 1746, and may mean no more than that the MSS. had formerly been in the possession of Matthew Sylvester.

page 86 note 3 Abridgement (2nd edn., 1713), i. 409.

page 86 note 4 MS. 1.113; Powicke notices this letter in Life, ii. 171.

page 86 note 5 The letter is also printed by Orme, Life, ii. 273, but from Birch, not from the MS. (2. 78).

page 86 note 6 D.N.B., s.v. W. Orme.

page 87 note 1 Orme, W., Life and Times of Richard Baxter (1830)Google Scholar, ii. 441 f.; cf. i. 211, note (e), where to some of the names mentioned above Orme adds ‘Tombes, Poole, Dury and Wadsworth’ as among Baxter's correspondents.

page 87 note 2 This second volume is often missing from libraries which possess the first, its being a second volume having perhaps escaped librarians' notice through the change of title.

page 87 note 3 Powicke, Life, i. 8.

page 87 note 4 References to MS. correspondence with Baxter are given (with occasional omissions) for seventy ejected ministers in A. G. Matthews' Calamy Revised; but his Walker Revised has no references for the twelve sequestered clergy who were among Baxter's correspondents.

page 88 note 1 Wood MSS., F. 40. 24; Egerton MSS., 2570.126.

page 88 note 2 cf. the Catalogue, is. 1. 54; 2s. 1. 167.

page 88 note 3 Printed in Transactions of Congregational Historical Society, xiv. 226.

page 88 note 4 From a statement accompanying a transcript of the MS. given away, certified by a Trustee and dated 6 Feb. 1827; it does not appear that the Trustees ever parted with, others of the MSS. in their care.

page 88 note 5 These letters were printed from the Williams MSS. (4.135) by Orme, who had. evidently transcribed diem before they left that collection, in his Life, i. 159, note (g); they reappear in J. T. Wilkinson's edition of Baxter's Reformed Pastor (1939), app. iii,. where they are printed from the Kidderminster MSS., without reference to Orme or to their own history.

page 88 note 6 Halley, R., Lancashire: its Puritanism and Nonconformity (2nd. edn., 1872), p. 381Google Scholar.

page 88 note 7 I. Ambrose, op. cit., pp. 167–70, in Works (1674); MS. 6.16.

page 88 note 9 R.B., i. 137.10; for Tombes, see D.N.B.; Calamy Revised.

page 89 note 1 Monthly Repository, xviii. 137.

page 89 note 2 This analysis owes something to W. H. Black's MS. Catalogue, followed hesitatingly by Powicke, F. J., ‘Richard Baxter and William Penn,’ in Friends' Quarterly Examiner for 1925, pp. 151 ff.Google Scholar, where on p. 153, n. *, the reference to Penn's Works should read i. (not ii.) 170–6.

page 90 note 1 For Delaune and Writer, see D.N.B. A copy of Writer's Jus Divinum Presbyterii, which the D.N.B. states to be not extant, is bound up with his Apologetical Narration at Dr. Williams' Library. Baxter's correspondents with the initials R. B. include Robert Boyle (in MS.) and Robert Boreman (in print); but the R. B. in this case was probably Robert Brown, the ‘intruded’ Vicar of White Ladies Aston, Worcs., and a member of Baxter's Worcestershire Association, though a Baptist: see Calamy Revised.

page 90 note 2 R.B., i. 80.

page 90 note 3 T, Edwards, Gangraena, i. 1 (2nd pag.); for the other letter, cf. i. 18 f. (2nd pag.); Orme's and Powicke's attempts to identify the two letters have gone astray. For the army's dated itinerary, cf. Sprigge, J., Anglia Rediviua (1647), p. 334Google Scholar; Withycombe Raleigh is close to Topsham.

page 90 note 4 R.B., i. 210.

page 91 note 1 R.B., i., 210.

page 91 note 2 MS. 2.136.

page 91 note 3 For both Eedes and Hopkins see DJV.B. (noticing Baxter's commendation of Christ Exalted but not of Great Salvation, which is also antedated); Calarny Revised.

page 91 note 4 R.B., i. 156.

page 92 note 1 The name of Baxter's ‘very Learned, Reverend, and dearly Beloved Brother” is nowhere mentioned in Of Justification, for ‘The Letters that past between us were never intended for the view of the world’ (Preface); but his identity is apparent from the titles of his works to which Baxter refers; and in the preface to his Catholick Theologie, published in 1675 eleven years after Burgess' death, Baxter refers to his answer to Burgess, as well as to Tombes, as published. For Vines, see D.N.B.; and for Burgess, D.N.B., and C.R. (giving date of his death).

page 92 note 2 MS. 1. 198.

page 92 note 3 MSS. 2. 102, 6. 165; for Ashwell, see D.N.B. Walker Revised.

page 93 note 1 Poole's Model was reprinted by J. E. B. Mayor in Cambridge in the Seventeenth Century, ii. (Autobiography of Matthew Robinson: 1856), app., with Baxter's epistle on pp. 163–9. J. B. Mullinger, University of Cambridge, iii. 536, remarks that Baxter's ‘valuable support’ was given ‘in his usual admirable English and with less than his usual hesitancy’.

page 93 note 2 MS. 5. 130; for Poole, see D.N.B.; C.R. The reference is to 1 Tim. 310.

page 93 note 3 MS. 4. 144; for Elys (he signs the letter Elis), see D.N.B.

page 93 note 4 MSS. 2. 297, 3.200; Howe's letter is printed in full by H. Rogers, Life & Character of John Howe (2nd. edn., 1863), pp. 53–7, and in part by R. F. Horton, John Howe (2nd. edn. 1905), pp. 43 f. For Howe, see also DM.B.; C.R.

page 93 note 5 MSS. 1. 198, 4.222;for Humfrey, see. D.N.B.;C.R.

page 94 note 1 MS. 5.121; for Gouldstone, see C.R., as Goulston.

page 94 note 2 MS. 5.219; for Pinchbecke, see C.R.

page 94 note 3 For Sheppard, see D.N.B.