Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Introduction
- Richard Baxter: a chronology
- Further reading
- Biographical notes
- A Holy Commonwealth
- Preface
- An Addition to the Preface
- Adam Contzen the Jesuites Directions
- 1 There is a God that is mans Creator
- 2 God is the Soveraign Ruler of Mankind
- 3 Of the Constitution of Gods Kingdome
- 4 Of the Administration of the Universal Kingdom
- 5 Of a subordinate Commonwealth in General
- 6 Of the several sorts of Commonwealths
- 7 Of the Foundation efficient and conveying causes of Power
- 8 Of the best form of Government, and Happyest Common-wealth
- 9 How a Commonwealth may be reduced to this Theocratical temper, if it have advantages, and the Rulers and People are willing
- 10 Of the Soveraigns Power over the Pastors of the Church, and of the difference of their Offices
- 11 Of the Soveraigns Prerogatives, and Power of Governing by Laws and Judgement
- 12 Of due Obedience to Rulers, and of Resistance
- 13 Of the late Warres Meditations
- Appendix: Preface to The Life of Faith (1670)
- Index
- Title in the Series
Introduction
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Introduction
- Richard Baxter: a chronology
- Further reading
- Biographical notes
- A Holy Commonwealth
- Preface
- An Addition to the Preface
- Adam Contzen the Jesuites Directions
- 1 There is a God that is mans Creator
- 2 God is the Soveraign Ruler of Mankind
- 3 Of the Constitution of Gods Kingdome
- 4 Of the Administration of the Universal Kingdom
- 5 Of a subordinate Commonwealth in General
- 6 Of the several sorts of Commonwealths
- 7 Of the Foundation efficient and conveying causes of Power
- 8 Of the best form of Government, and Happyest Common-wealth
- 9 How a Commonwealth may be reduced to this Theocratical temper, if it have advantages, and the Rulers and People are willing
- 10 Of the Soveraigns Power over the Pastors of the Church, and of the difference of their Offices
- 11 Of the Soveraigns Prerogatives, and Power of Governing by Laws and Judgement
- 12 Of due Obedience to Rulers, and of Resistance
- 13 Of the late Warres Meditations
- Appendix: Preface to The Life of Faith (1670)
- Index
- Title in the Series
Summary
A Holy Commonwealth is Richard Baxter's invisible masterpiece. It is high time that it was made more visible. It was written in 1659, but its author disowned it publicly in 1670. This did not save the work from being part of a great book-burning by repressive authorities in 1683. Baxter's A Holy Commonwealth was in good company there, alongside Hobbes's Leviathan and Milton's writings.
This is to flatter Baxter. He is not in the same league as Hobbes or Milton. His book is a curiously constructed work, which begins with a number of high-minded generalities, and only relatively late in the text gets down to discussing the practical alternative ways of governing the country. There is a very important chapter on resistance theory, in which he draws upon the writings of William Barclay, Thomas Bilson and Hugo Grotius to show the exceptional circumstances in which a ruler should be disobeyed. The last chapter is in the form of a confessional: the application of these theories to his own personal reasons for disobeying Charles I in 1642. A careful reading of the text, we shall see, will show that there is a logic to the whole, and if he ends with a personal apologia, rather than some grand summing-up statement of political theory, we have to remember that it is an unfinished treatise. Before Baxter could finish his work, it was overtaken by events.
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- Information
- Baxter: A Holy Commonwealth , pp. ix - xxiPublisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1994