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- Title
Brethren or Sectaries? Richard Baxter on the Congregationalists.
- Authors
Coffey, John
- Abstract
Older scholars enthused by the ecumenical movement celebrated Richard Baxter as an irenicist; recent historians preoccupied with 'the politics of religion' depict him as a polemicist. In particular, current scholarship emphasises the acrimony of Baxter's relations with the Congregationalists. But writing in 1680, Baxter denied that 'the Presbyterians and Independants were as bitter against one another, as the Prelates were against them both'. This article re-examines Baxter's complicated relationship with 'the Congregational brethren', more pejoratively known as 'Independents'. It concludes that his conflicted attitudes point us towards the ambivalent identity of the Congregationalists themselves. Were they (as they themselves liked to think) respectable, learned and judicious divines, the mainstream proponents of orthodox, magisterial, even parochial Reformation? Or were they (as their fiercest critics thought) the leaders of England's Radical Reformation, separatist and revolutionary? There was evidence for both. Depending on the context, the person and the issue, Congregationalists could appear to be conservative defenders of 'church-type' Protestantism, or they could seem to be radical proponents of the 'sect-type'. Richard Baxter understood this very well. His numerous -- apparently contradictory -- statements about the people he called 'Independents' and 'Congregational' capture them in all their complexity, perhaps better than they are captured in modern historiography.
- Subjects
CONGREGATIONALISTS; CONGREGATIONAL churches; CONGREGATIONALISM; CHRISTIAN sects; BAXTER, Richard, 1615-1691
- Publication
International Congregational Journal, 2014, Vol 13, Issue 2, p99
- ISSN
1472-2089
- Publication type
Article