Baxter's Politics in His Own Words

Citations from Richard Baxter, A Christian Directory (Soli Deo Gloria Publications, 2008), Part IV, "Christian Politics" (pp. 737-904).

Chapter III

Prop. IV. Yet God hath left that which is commonly called, the specification of government; and some lower parts of the matter, and manner of exercise, undetermined; as also the individual persons or families that shall rule. In these three therefore it is that communities interpose. 1. Whether the sovereignty shall be in one, or two, or ten, or how many, and how divided for their exercise, God hath not determined. 2. Nor hath he determined of every particular, whether the power shall extend to this, or that, or the other thing, or not? Nor whether it shall be exercised thus or thus, by standing courts, or temporary judges, &c. 3. Nor hath he named the person or family that shall rule.

Prop. IX. If you take the word law properly, for the expression of a ruler's will obliging the governed, or making their duty...then it is clear in the definition itself, that neither subjects, nor the community, as such, have any legislative power.

Prop. X. Though God have not made a universal determination for any sort of government, against the rest, (whether monarchy, aristocracy, or democracy,) because that is best for one people, which may be worse for others, yet ordinarily monarchy is accounted better than aristocracy, and aristocracy better than democracy [with a lengthy refutation of Richard Hooker's argument that lawful legislative power belongs to the whole society for which the laws are made and that it is natural that "free and independent societies should themselves make their own laws"].

Direct. V. Do not either divulge or aggravate the vices of your governors to their dishonour; for their honour is necessary to the public good.If they have not care of their own honour, yet their subjects must have a care of it. If once they be dishonoured, they will the more easily be contemned, hated, and disobeyed. Therefore the dishonouring of the rulers tendeth to the dissolution of the government, and ruin of the commonwealth.

Direct. XV. Meddle not uncalled with the matters of superiors, and take not upon you to censure their actions, whom you have neither ability, fitness, or authority to censure. How commonly will every tradesman and labourer at his work, be censuring the counsels and government of the king; and speaking of things, which they never had means sufficiently to understand! Unless you had been upon the place, and heard all the debates and consultations, and understood all the circumstances and reasons of the business, how can you imagine that at so great a distance you are competent judges?

Direct. XX. Think not that any change of the form of government, would cure that which is caused by the people's sin, or the common pravity of human nature.

direct. XXX. Murmur not at the payment of those necessary tributes, by which the common safety must be preserved, and the due honour of your governors kept up. Sordid covetousness hath been the ruin of many a commonwealth. When every one is shifting for himself, and saving his own, and murmuring at the charge by which their safety must be defended...this selfishness is the most pernicious enemy of government, and to the common good.

Politics and Theology in the Thought of Baxter

Notes from an essay by Walter T. B. Douglas entitled "Politics and Theology in the Thought of Richard Baxter," published in two parts in Andrew University Seminary Studies in 1977 and 1978.

Richard Baxter (1615-1691) was "perhaps the most articulate champion of conservative Puritanism at the time when the movement flourished and then began to disintegrate as a cohesive force."

Baxter lived in an age prior to the modern compartmentalization of religion and politics...Hobbes could not avoid discussing both at great length. Essentially, Baxter believed in the concept of the Christian state, but he opposed the scholastic view of the hierarchical, organic, and teleological structure. He defended the position that political government was necessarily rooted in the divine constitution of the world.

Baxter's respect for law and authority was rooted in his theological understanding and exposition of the absolute sovereignty of God, of the nature of man, and of the hierarchical structure of society.

In Baxter's thought the question of sovereignty is a key doctrine, one that is carefully worked out in his effort to combine theology and political theory.

Baxter takes as his point of departure the concept of the Corpus Christianum rather than the concept of the duality of Church and State. His Protestantism and in a narrower sense his Puritanism, had taught him that God can be experienced first as "will," and not as "reason" or perfection of being.

Whenever Baxter discussed politics systematically, he provided clear evidence that his a priori point of departure is the absolute sovereignty of God.His system consisted of at least three basic points: (1) God is Creator, and therefore has absolute dominion or ownership; (2) God alone has a moral right to govern man because he alone is qualified by his fullness of wisdom, goodness, and power to fulfill such a task; and (3) God has the highest right to govern man because he is man's greatest benefactor. In particular, God holds this right over man through the redemption of Christ.

Baxter concludes that God has not only the jus irnperii but also the jus dominii; that is, the world under God is not only a monarchy, but an absolute monarchy.

God could rule the world directly...but...in fact...elected to rule mediately-that is, to use some parts of the creation to rule other parts. To say this, Baxter argues, is to agree that God had created a natural inequality in the cosmos, a hierarchy of administration, in which some parts mediate his government over other parts.

In summary, since man is rational, moral, and ultimately responsible to God, government by law is the only government consistent with man's nature.

[Part 2]

What are the practical implications of Baxter's political philosophy? ... Baxter rejected a purely utilitarian social contract theory of the origin of the State.

Baxter maintains that in its basic structure, society is hierarchical and theocratic. In ultimate terms there could be no authority independent of God. Within society, it resides in three main spheres: the Church, the State, and the family. In each of these, the one who exercises authority receives his right to do so from God. Once this is acknowledged, this individual's command to rule must then be respected and obeyed.

He insisted that a theory which locates the origin of political government in the surrender to a human sovereign of an absolute right that each man naturally has over himself is not only artificial but challenges the Christian premise of the sovereignty of God.

Baxter pointed to an ascending scale of ends to which political government must tend. The most immediate, he asserts, is the good order of the body procured by the administration, or "the orderly state and behaviour of the society which is the exercise of Government and subjection, and the obedience to God, and just behaviour unto men that is manifested therein." Thus, the immediate end of political government is order and justice. But this is only a means to the intermediate and final end. The intermediate end is the common good. The final end is the everlasting happiness of men and the eternal glory of God.