St John's College, Cambridge, MS K.38: a brief description

The manuscript is a small quarto student notebook apparently dating from the mid-seventeenth century. Leaves are paginated consecutively from p. 25 to p. 228. The manuscript contains at least thirteen distinct items, enumerated in Appendix 1 below. Notations are in the same hand throughout. ‘H. Vaughan’ is subscribed in a different and later hand on the inside front cover, presumably on the basis of the subscription of a number of Latin orations (although not a plurality) in the second section, comprising fos 45–113.

The manuscript has been partially published at least twice, most recently in 1961 by Alma de Jordy and Harris Fletcher as ‘A library for younger schollers’ compiled by an English scholar priest about 1655; the edition reproduces fos 166–228 of the manuscript. This edition is at once useful as a reference guide and defective as a diplomatic facsimile, as de Jordy and Fletcher silently ‘correct’ a number of scribal anomalies on the basis of a comparison with two other manuscripts: BL, ms Harleian 6009 and Bodleian Library, Oxford, ms Rawlinson C.945. De Jordy and Fletcher also note an earlier partial publication, up to fo. 179, by G. C. Moore in The Eagle xl (1919); a note on a loose sheet of paper kept with the manuscript in the library of St John's College also references this publication. William T. Costello also draws upon the manuscript in his The scholastic curriculum at early seventeenth century Cambridge (1958); Costello's misattribution of a source, based upon a correct reading of a scribal error that de Jordy and Fletcher silently correct, first drew my attention to the manuscript.Footnote ²

Both Costello and de Jordy and Fletcher can be shown to have misconstrued the organisation of the manuscript. Costello, apparently unaware of ms Harleian 6009, analyses ms K.38, fos 180–209 (ending with the explicit ‘R.B.’) as a single ‘Advice to a young divine’, offering no opinion on provenance beside observing that the manuscript is a ‘student notebook’, which he dates to about 1652. De Jordy and Fletcher, much less understandably, analyse fos 168–209 (likewise ending with the subscription ‘R.B.’) as a single work copied from another manuscript, despite themselves noting the independent existence of the material in fos 180–96 in ms Harleian 6009 (in which it bears the title ‘Ἁναλέκτα sacra’, and which is superscribed ‘Thomas Barlow’ in another hand) and in ms Rawlinson C.945. Admittedly, the incipit at fo. 180 (‘Hee that would be a knoweing, & well-grounded Divine’) is perhaps not strongly marked; however, the immediately preceding ‘καὶ τᾶυτα μέν δὴ τᾶυτα’ provides a fairly clear explicit, which, moreover, corresponds verbatim to the explicit at fo. 9v in ms Harleian 6009. Furthermore, neither Costello nor de Jordy and Fletcher notice the much more strongly signalled incipit at fo. 197 (‘Q. What Authors should a young Student in Theology vse, who can buy, & read but few, & in what order, & with what Cautions, supposeing him to have read onely the Bible, & to be well skilled in humane Learneing.’). Finally, neither Costello nor de Jordy and Fletcher remark the difference in the marginal ruling of fos 180–96 and 197–209: whereas the left margins of fos 180–96 exhibit a double vertical rule, executed in brown ink and separated by about 7 mm, fos 197–208 show but a single vertical rule, also in brown ink. Given, then, the combined evidence of the difference in marginal ruling, the explicit and incipit at fos 196, 197, the explicit ‘R. B.’ at fo. 208 medio, the absence of precisely the material of fos 197–208 from ms Rawlinson C.945, and the ascription of the material of fos 180–96 to Thomas Barlow in ms Harleian 6009, the combined oversight is surprising.Footnote ³

Certain aspects of the respective content of ms K.38, fos 180–96 and 197–208, also arguably signal different authorship. Both the maieutic tone and the length of the material preceding the list of recommended books (fos 197–201), as well as the strongly irenic and consensual language of the closing (fo. 208), ill accord with Barlow's extant writings. Moreover, the closing protest that the author has ‘not had the opportunitie to search many vast Libraries’ sits slightly oddly with Barlow's position as librarian of the Bodleian in the period to which the mansucript has hitherto been dated. In other words, even in the absence of ms Harleian 6621, the internal evidence of ms K.38 ought conceivably to have suggested to earlier scholars of the manuscript the identity of Baxter with the ‘R.B.’ of fos 197–208. In sum, even in the absence of the new evidence provided below, it is fairly clear that fos 163–228 of ms K.38 record the scribe's copying of a series of archetypes tending to the similar end of preparing for advanced theological study, namely a list of books from an unknown source, but possibly Thomas Barlow, comprising fos 168–79; a manuscript ‘Ἁναλέκτα sacra’ of Thomas Barlow, representing a set of directions for study with suitable reading, comprising fos 180–96; a similar set of directions by ‘R.B.’, sc. Richard Baxter, comprising fos 197–208 medio; ‘A Catalogue of Bookes for a young Divine to make vse of given by Dr Conant to a Friend, vpon his Request’ comprising the remainder of fo. 208; a set of directions for reading in civil law, comprising fos 209–18; a set of forty-five disputation directions upon Socinian topics, comprising fos 219–28; and a list of Socinian works, comprising the remainder of fo. 228.

St John's College, Cambridge, ms K.38 and BL, ms Harleian 6621, fos 88v–106v

The evidence of BL, ms Harleian 6621, fos 88v–106v (hereinafter cited as ‘H’) indubitably establishes Richard Baxter as the ultimate source of the material at ms K.38, fos 197–208 medio (hereinafter cited as ‘K’). Even in the absence of a complete collation (which I shall not attempt), it can be readily shown that both H and K represent the ‘same’ text, i.e. that they derive ultimately from a common archetype. Significantly, however, based upon differences attributable to the vagaries of copying, I believe it to be impossible precisely to specify their proximate relation; a fortiori, the suggestion of Keeble and Nuttall that H represents a proximate copy of a lost Baxter autograph directly addressed to the scribe of H, one ‘R.E.’, cannot stand.

The placement of K in ms K.38 suggests that the scribe copied K as part of a programme of acquiring similar material. On the face of the matter, this might suggest that the closing reference to ‘yr. Importunate (letter) desires’ reflects a direct communication with Baxter. Yet the arrangement of K suggests the contrary, the more strongly when K is compared with H. Again, without undertaking a complete collation, I shall endeavour to show that K and H differ systematically in a number of ways, some of which argue for at least one intermediary between each of them and an ultimate Baxter autograph:

The explicit: whereas K closes simply with ‘R.B.’ (fo. 208), H includes the fuller ‘Rich: Baxter’. Obviously this has the advantage of identifying K explicitly as Baxter's directions. But given the arguably fairly meticulous habits of the scribe of K, it is slightly surprising that the full name should not have appeared had the scribe known it, as would have unavoidably been the case had Baxter written directly to the scribe of K. Of course, if the scribe of K had indeed copied a Baxter autograph, particularly one directed to him, the scribe could conceivably have abbreviated Baxter's name precisely because he had no doubt of Baxter's identity as the source of K. But given the scribe's determined attempts at reproducing unfamiliar names, this is doubtful.

Orthography and phrasing: unsurprisingly, K and H reflect different spelling and orthographic habits presumably typical of their respective scribes. Again, perhaps unsurprisingly for seventeenth-century student scribal practice, this variation extends to actual word choice. Hence, of the list of things to be shunned under the first ‘Direction’ ([2.1]: K: fo. 197; H: fo. 89r), where K has ‘Voluptiousnesse’, H has ‘The Voluptuous’, arguably reflecting something more than an automatic choice of spelling. Such variations are almost too numerous to count. Moreover, certain variations are substantive enough to argue against the faithful copying of material from a close correspondent. An obvious example it the closing, where K has, indented:

H has, similarly indented:

The variation between ‘Α’ and ‘Ω’ in brown ink in H, and ‘beginning’ and ‘end’ in K argues for something more than scribal habit, suggesting either, or both, of two possibilities, both of which argue against the Keeble and Nuttall hypothesis of direct transmission. If (trivially) multiple copies stand between a hypothetical Baxter autograph and witnesses K and H, then no conclusion can be drawn from the variation between them on the grounds of transmission alone. But the variation between ‘Α’ and ‘Ω’ in H, and ‘beginning’ and ‘end’ in K, reflect exactly the habit of mind of the student commonplacer and keeper of sermon notes, disputation outlines and oratorical prompts: the privileging of substance or ratio over sign in an argument that is characteristic of minds ruthlessly schooled by the university curriculum of the late sixteenth and earlier seventeenth century in the rapid interconversion of entia mentalia into different states.Footnote ⁴

Sources: K and H are undeniably ‘substantially’ the same (particularly in the context of early modern student notebooks), i.e. they present under the same headings overwhelmingly the ‘same’ lists of sources. Yet this overwhelming similarity contains a significant number of salient differences. First, H seems rather better-grounded than K in the ‘humane learning’ that Baxter prescribes to the student (K: fo. 197; H: fo. 88v). Notably, H in effect ‘corrects’ a number of anomalous or incompetent readings of items in K. For example, H (fo. 95v) follows ‘Trelcatius his Distinctions’ with ‘Melancthon’ rather than the dubious ‘Mr. Lawshon’ of K (fo. 202). Similarly, the list of ‘the most Criticall Commentators’ in H opens with ‘Ludovicus de Dieu’ (fo. 95r) rather than the enigmatic ‘Dr Diest’ of K (fo. 202), and ‘Patavinus defensor Pacis’ (H fo. 105v) for the incomprehensible ‘Delavinus defensor Parisiensis’ of K fo. 207 (in which ‘Parisiensis’ is clearly transposed, on the basis of homoioarchy, from ‘Gulielmus Parisiensis’ two lines above). Alternatively, or additionally, the penmanship of K.38 suggests that the matter of at least fos 180–208 may have been copied more or less continually, perhaps representing the scribe's heroic attempt to record a body of valuable material at a certain unwilling or even unnoticed expense of precision.

Yet some of the variation in the names of authorities may well simply reflect the linguistic predilections either of the scribes of K and H or of their proximate sources. For example, K's ‘Gothofredus’ (fo. 204) and ‘Juell’ (fo. 205), as opposed to H's ‘Godfredus’ (fo. 100v) and ‘Jewell’ (fo. 102r) may reflect preferences for Latinity or against modern languages (where K has ‘& si vacat’, fo. 204, H has ‘then you may add’, fo. 100v). The issue is complicated by another scribal peculiarity: while H records items in indented lists, the single-ruled left margin of K suppresses the possibility of indentation. Furthermore, since all the heading numbers in K are listed in a single column immediately to the left of the ruled left margin line, the logical organisation of K is at places deeply confusing, particularly in its organisation of ‘Controversies’ at fos 204–5 (see the third section of this article for discussion, and Appendix 2 for an analysis of the organisation of K).Footnote ⁵ Yet despite its more confusing organisation, K presents a slightly fuller list of authorities than does H: assuming the identity of verbally similar items, H seems to contain only one item absent from K (‘Fotherby's Atheo-Mastix’ present at H fo. 94v is lacking at K fo. 202), whereas K contains at least ten items lacking in H. Less surprisingly, K and H in effect transpose items at a number of loci. In sum, while a definitive assessment of the relation of the manuscripts must await a proper collation, I would suggest that K and H derive from a common Baxter archetype, but by different lines of transmission; that there is a strong possibility that either K or the immediate source of K was hurriedly compiled (given the suppression of indentation and the confusion of the numbered headings); that either H or its source was possibly somewhat more cavalier in the business of actual enumeration, given the omission of sources present in K; but also that these differences might also reflect close but slightly different states of a Baxter archetype or archetypes. Consequently, the differences in the manuscripts suggest a rather larger diffusion of Richard Baxter's ‘Advice’ than has hitherto been suspected.

St John's College, Cambridge, MS K.38 and the tripartite ‘Poor students library’ in Baxter's Christian directory

Keeble and Nuttall suggest (Calendar, no. 839n. at vol. ii. 113) that the Baxterian portions of ms Harleian 6621 (and hence K) are related to ‘The poor students library’ and the preceding ‘Directions for young students’ in A Christian directory (1673).Footnote ⁶ When H represented the sole known state of Baxter's manuscript ‘Advice’, this suggestion, while important to Baxter scholars, was at the same time enigmatic and limited in its implications, linking, as it did, the ‘Poor student's library’ to an apparently singular and personal correspondence that comprised an eccentric and imperfect epitome of the published ‘Libraries’. The existence of K, and the consequent necessary inference that a Baxterian manuscript ‘Advice’ must have circulated, perhaps widely, suggests, in contrast, that such circulation may have acted, inter alia, as at least a part of an ongoing preparation for the publication of A Christian directory (a conjecture hardly surprising given Baxter's predilection for hurling himself, sometimes heedlessly, into good works). Even a preliminary comparison of K and H to A Christian directory suggests that this preparatory circulation was initiated at least a decade, and probably more nearly two decades, before the ultimate publication of A Christian directory in 1673, i.e. at least a decade before its substantial completion in 1665. Because the relation of the manuscript evidence to A Christian directory bears heavily on the dating of the former and on the development of Baxter's thought, and because A Christian directory is a readily available text, a fairly minute comparison is appropriate.

In the following discussion ‘*ms’ refers compositely to K, H and their lost Baxter archetype (as well as to any intermediate manuscripts); references are keyed to the numbering system of K analysed in Appendix 2. Broadly, it can be estimated that *ms represents a state of logical preparation of the Directory, ‘quest. 174’, the section of the Directory that contains the ‘Poorest’, ‘Poorer’ and ‘Poor students’ libraries; that this state of preparation is both fairly advanced and not nearly in its final form; but that a comparison of the lists of books in *ms and in the tripartite ‘Poor students library’ implies not only considerable further reading on Baxter's part, including reading of matter published after the framing of *ms, such as Poole's Synopsis, but a considerable passage of time, during which Baxter's estimation of the problems that confront the aspiring ‘young divine’ changes substantially in response to changing historical conditions. Hence analysis of this reading matter is crucial for a conjectural dating of *ms. In particular, *ms and the ‘Poor students library’ of the Directory exhibit significant parallels in the classification of lists of reading and even in the order of items in the lists; but the organisation of the ‘Poor students library’ also reflects a fundamental reordering of *ms. Moreover, the prolegomena of *ms, while structurally similar to the ‘Directions for order of studies’ of the Directory, quest. 173, imply a significantly different readership; this too has implications for considering the relation of manuscript circulation and print publication in Baxter's case and beyond.

The ‘Poorest or smallest library’ (Directory, 922; hereinafter cited as Poorest) is referred to by Baxter as ‘The Smallest Library that is tolerable’. Directory divides Poorest into six sections, the last of which promiscuously juxtaposes all but fourteen of the 115 items identifiable either by author alone or by author and text. Of these, thirty-six are identifiable in *ms, some (for example, ‘Leighs critica sacra’) multiple times. Notably, the grouping in Poorest of ‘English books’ on ‘Grace, Justification, and Free-will and Duty’ at §5 (items 13–16) and of ‘As many Affectionate Practical English Writers as you can get’ at §6 (items 17–83) reflects in organisation the *ms [Books] 2 (‘Bee much reading other Practicall lively English Authors’). None the less, Poorest draws items from several headings of *ms, reflecting some evolution in Baxter's ideal programme of reading.

The ‘Poorer (though not the Poorest): where a competent addition is made’ (Directory, 923–6; hereinafter cited as Poorer), in four folio pages and thirty-one headings, is both the most substantial of the ‘libraries’, and that which most closely resembles *ms in organisation and content. Sections i–xiv of Poorer (Directory, 923) recommend sources of general knowledge without parallel in *ms (see the fourth section of this article for an evaluation of this divergence of arrangement). Sections xv, xvii–xxiii and xxvi–xxx, in contrast, share not only a large proportion of references but in some cases not only organise these references under similarly-named headings, but do so in almost identical order and using almost identical forms of truncation, while sections xxiv–xxvi in effect subdivide sections extant in *ms.

Poorer xv: ‘Of Church History’: compare *ms [books] 7 (fos 203–4): both texts present the sequence Eusebius, one other name, Tripartite, Socrates, Sozomen at or near the head (Poorer follows Eusebius immediately with Ruffinus, *ms with Nicephorus, who follows later in Poorer). The lists share six other names but largely diverge.

Poorer xviii: ‘Of politicks, and Civil Law, and Ethicks’ (13 items): shares with *ms [books] 10 (sixteen items) Besoldus and Willius in initial positions (reversed); also Dr. Zouch, Grotius De Jure Belli [*ms ‘& pacis’], Wesenbecius.

Poorer xviii: ‘For Methods of Divinity’ (twelve items): shares with *ms [books] 3 (seventeen items) Ursinus, Trelcatius, Amesii Medulla, Musculus, Calvin's Institutes, Wollebius, and possibly Lawson.Footnote ⁷

Poorer xix: ‘Theological Disputations and Treatises which I take to be extraordinary [sic] clear and sound’ (thirty-six items): shares twenty-four items from several loci in *ms [books], in particular, interestingly enough, *ms [books] 3 (for example, Theses Almurienses, Ludovici Crocij Syntagma).

Poorer xx: ‘Commentators (beside the forenamed Annotations)’ (twenty-three items): this section shares eleven items from several loci in *ms [books].

Poorer xxi: ‘Such as open some hard Texts only’ (twenty-seven items): shares ten items from several loci in *ms [books].

Poorer xxii: ‘Helps to understand the Scriptures’ (fourteen items): the subheading ‘The foresaid treatises of customes’ (twelve of the fourteen) shares with *ms [books] 4.5 (‘Read alsoe some Tracts of the Jewish Customes’) (seven items) ‘Breerewood’, ‘Cunæus’, ‘Sigoneus’, ‘Stephanus’.

Poorer xxiii: ‘For defence of the Christian faith against Atheists and Infidels’ (seventeen items): shares with *ms [books] 6 (‘Bee thoroughly versed in all those writeings that mainteine the verities of the Christian Religion’) (twenty-one items) six items, including Grotius de veritate Rel. Christ., Du Plessis de Mornay, ‘Camero de verba dei’, Ficino De vera religione, and Dr Jackson's Truth of Scripture. N. B. the reference in Poorer ‘besides abundance of the Fathers’ can comprise fourteen items in ms [books] 6.

Poorer xxiv: ‘Cases of Conscience’: possibly a section reflecting changed political and religious circumstances between the time of the compilation of *ms and of Directory: see discussion in the fourth section of this article.

Poorer xxv: ‘Councils’ (seven items): shares with *ms [books] 9 (nine items) ‘Lydius’, ‘Spelman’, ‘Crab’ and ‘Synod Dordr.’.

Poorer xxvi: ‘Canonists and Helps to understand Councils’ (fourteen items): without analytical parallel in *ms, this short section seems to represent an expansion of Baxter's interest: see discussion at the end of this section and in the fourth section of this article.

Poorer xxvii: ‘Fathers’ (thirty-three items) and Poorer xxviii: ‘Helps to know and understand the Fathers’ (twenty-six items ‘and many others Notes’) expand *ms [books] 7. (‘Read first of all the Fathers’: thirty-six items): the manuscript gives a slightly longer list of Fathers, but both share an initial order: Clemens Romanus, Ignatius, Justin Martyr, Irenæus. Thereafter Poorer transposes *ms. Tertullian, Clemens Alexandrinus; thereafter Poorer gives Cyprian, Origen, Athenagoras, Tatianus, Arnobius and Minutius Fælix [sic], Lactantius, and Athanasius while *ms [books] gives Origen, Athenagoras, Theophilus, Tantichenus, Tatianus, Cyprianus, Lactantius, Arnobius, Minutius Fælix [sic], Athanasius: virtually the same list in slightly different order. In contrast, while Poorer xxviii and *ms [books] 7. both include Sculteti Medulla Patrium and Rivets Critica Sacra, ‘Dr James’, and ‘Blundell’, Poorer xxviii gives a much longer and quite different list of ‘helps’ than does the latter part of *ms [books] (ten items only). Poorer xxviii in other words shows a development and alteration in Baxter's archive that arguably reflects considerable passage of time between the composition of *ms and of the Directory.

Poorer xxix (‘Later Writers and Schoolmen’) and xxx (‘Controversies [besides the forementioned against Heathens and Infidels]’): these sections show Baxter's rethinking of the organisation of *ms [books] fos 205–7, which rather awkwardly groups five subheadings under ‘12. For Controversie’ about [12.2] ‘Doctrine’ [12.2.2] ‘Amongst Christians’, and including a further eleven sub-subheadings under [12.2.2.5] ‘About Church officers, & Government’. Since one of each pair of dichotomous categories under ‘12.’ is either largely empty ([12.1] ‘Controversie about the 1. text, & wordes’) or already addressed ([12.2.1] ‘Doctrinall Controversyes are 1. Between vs, & the Heathen, of which enough before’), the organisation of Poorer xxx in effect gains in clarity by eliminating what seems in the ms to be an unthinking habit of dichotomisation clearly inherited from Baxter's scholastic (self-)training.Footnote ⁸ For example, ms [books 12.2.2.5.11] ‘When yu. are of ripe vnderstanding, to reade them with some iudgement, some Schoolmen will be vsefull’ hardly belongs logically under ‘Controversies’; hence Poorer simply devises an independent heading for ‘Schoolmen’ (xxix). Moreover, the *ms initial sequence ‘read first Lombard, then Aquinas, then Estius, Ferrarienseis, or Caietan, or Bannes … then Scotus’ arguably stands closer to the typical order of study in the scholastic cursus than the initial ‘Damasus, Anselmus Cantuar. Guilielmus Parisienses Guil. de Sancto Amore’ of Poorer xxix; indeed, the latter's placement of items from Damasus to Thomas à Kempis before ‘Lombard, Aquinas, Durandus, Scotus, Ockam, Greg. Ariminenis’ again arguably reflects Baxter's developing assurance in treating method as the handmaiden of conscience rather than as its director. For its part, Poorer xxx reintroduces dichotomy in what is arguably its proper role: the section incorporates all the controversial categories enumerated in ‘Controversies’ in *ms [books] 12.2.2, but both adds significantly to the list and dichotomously arranges the items under each position in each ‘Controversy’. For example, Poorer xxx. 2. ‘About Predestination, Grace, and Free-Will, the Jesuits, Lutherans, and Arminians against the Dominicans, Jansenists, and Calvinists’ divides many of the scholastic authorities promiscuously listed among the *ms ‘Schoolemen’. In sum, Poorer xxx at the very least represents a thorough rationalisation of the corresponding matter of *ms [books], and arguably represents a significant enough gain in intellectual assurance and clarity to argue against *ms [books] as an immediate predecessor of Poorer.

Finally, it seems apt to take literally Baxter's characterisation of a ‘Poor mans library’ (Directory, 927–9; hereinafter cited as Poor) as ‘add[ing] but a few more for the third’: Poor adds authorities to categories that Poorer already defines and enumerates. One particular observation seems in order: Poor xix (‘Schoolmen more’) largely incorporates items present in *ms [books 12.2.2.5.11]. The fourth section of this article addresses the implications for dating *ms of Baxter's additions in the Directory to this material.

Turning to the prefatory material in *ms [directions] and in q. 173 and 174 (Directory 917–22), it is clear that these prolegomena address distinctly different readers. At [books] 14, *ms explicitly declines to ‘interpose my Directions for your more Common humane Studies, because I have Excluded them in your Question’ (cf. *ms Incipit: ‘Q. What Authors should a young Student in Theologie vse, who can buy, & read but few, and in what order, & with what Cautions, supposeing him to have read onely the Bible, & to bee well skilled in humane Learneing’: K fo. 197). In contrast, just as the initial sections of Poorer and Poor cover exactly this material, Directory, q. 173 and the part of q. 174 preceding Poorest clearly include in their address students younger, and readers more general, than the budding preacher and pastor of *ms. *ms [directions] 2.3–6 (fos 197 infra–198 medio) and 7.1–12 (fos 199 medio–201 supra), comprising about half of the text allotted to Baxter's ‘Directions’, directly address preaching. In contrast, Directory qq. 173 and 174 omit preaching entirely from consideration.

A closer analogue to *ms [directions] is contained in Directory I.vi. Tit. 6, ‘Twenty Questions for young Students for the most profitable ordering of their studying Thoughts’ (Directory 319–26). *ms [directions] 2, urging introspection, the keeping of ‘experienced Christians [sic] company’, and the avoidance of ‘1. Voluptiousness. 2. Formall maligners asof seriousnesse in religion’ anticipates elements of Directory I.vi.Tit. 6. Direct. 15. §32 and Direct. 16. §33. Likewise, *ms [directions] 3, ‘Bee sure to get this substance of the great, & most necessary truths in Theologie … before yu. must trouble yourself with Controversies’, corresponds in substance to Directory, I.vi.Tit. 6. Direct. 24. §30, similarly directed at avoiding controversialism; while *ms [directions] 4, distinguishing between ‘points revealed & unrevealed, searchable, & vnsearchable’ anticipates matter in Directory, I.vi.Tit. 6. Direct. 12. §25 and Directory I.vi.Tit. 6. Direct. 13. §27. Yet, as with the ‘Questions’ that precede the ‘Poor student's library’, Directory represents not merely an expansion, but a fundamental rethinking and reordering of matter and its incorporation into a more fundamental and wide-ranging instrument of education. In sum, the evidence of *ms ‘Directions’ and the closest corresponding sections of Directory belong to differently conceived projects; and the absence of close parallels between them, I should suggest, implies considerable time and thought intervening between them.

Richard Baxter and MS K.38 fos 197–209: ascription and dating: conclusions and speculations

No study has addressed ms K.38 in its entirety: in particular, the first six entries or groups of entries, comprising fos 25–161, remain completely neglected (see Appendix 1). Yet the first and fourth entries, ‘The Businesse of ye Earle of Strafforde 13° Aprilis 1641’ (fos 25–42) and ‘Bp. Corbett's speech to his Clergie of Norwich Diocese in ye behalf of Paules. Delivered at Norwich to ye Clergie, at a Synode, Apr. 29°, 1634’ (fos 146–8) in context suggest a strong interest in the relation of church governance to broader questions of state governanace. A consideration of the character of the manuscript items as a collection might shed further light on the identity of the ‘H. Vaughan’ subscribed at the front of the notebook (their number is, if not legion, at least inconveniently numerous). With the proviso that there is reason to doubt that ‘H. Vaughan’ is the scribe of ms K.38, I offer a wild speculation: if the Baxter connection to ms K.38 happens to be closer than the norms of early modern manuscript circulation in fact necessitate, the ‘H. Vaughan’ of the manuscript might just possibly be the Henry Vaughan recorded in Calamy revised as ‘Vicar of Grantham (North), Lincs.’ between 6 November 1657 and his ejection before 17 November 1662. This Henry Vaughan matriculated at Oxford on 12 March 1637/8 at the age of sixteen and left without degree ‘age c. 30’ ‘on account of the War’. Both Vaughan's apparent hostility to the Interregnum governments and his unwillingness to conform at the Restoration suggest affinities with both Baxter and Barlow; in his latter years his ministry in Bermuda was evidently complicated with conflict with ‘separators’, as Baxter records in Defence of the principles of love (1671: 50). The matter of the notebook, opening with the account of Strafford's trial, recording a range of university scholarly exercises in its earlier parts, its centre dominated by ancillæ to autodidactic zeal, and its latter parts perhaps indicating a slightly obsessive determination to encounter anti-Trinitarianism in scholastic mode, fit rather well with this Henry Vaughan's career. Yet a note of caution is in order: a plurality of the disputation topics in ms K.38, fos 45–139 bear the subscription ‘G. S^~.’ rather than ‘H. Vaughan’, suggesting that the latter is perhaps more likely a close communicant of the manuscript scribe than the scribe himself. The matter awaits further study.Footnote ⁹

However, there is rather more to be said about the possible dating of ms K.38 and its analogues, and available evidence tends to confirm Costello's dating of the manuscript to the early 1650s. The argument rests on two grounds: evidence in ms K.38 of Baxter's assessment of the state of the Church, and the relation of ms K.38. [books] 12.2.2.5.11 to Christian directory §15 direction 10. As to the former, at least two loci in ms K.38 ‘directions’ contribute to a picture of church division that is familiar to students of Baxter's labours for harmony amongst different confessions within English Protestantism. Directions 7.10, addressing extremism that may ‘disinable’ preachers for ‘Gods work’, singles out the ‘Pelagian … pray[ing] for Grace’, ‘rigid Arminians, & Remonstrants’ attempting to ‘convince men of sin, & of the effect of Condemnation’, and ‘the Antinomians’ as falling into doctrinal contradiction in preaching (fo. 200). Directions 7.11 advises the reader that if he ‘see any difficultye in … Reconciling togeather any Consectaries of these times, Let not that trouble you as to put you out of the way’ (fo. 200). Taken together, these loci suggest that a comparison with more securely dated parallel passages in the Baxter œuvre might help to date the manuscript. The difficulty of such a comparison, of course, is that, while the reference to ‘Antinomians’ as a significant force for church division may be read as marginally favouring an Interregnum dating of *ms, Baxter found himself more or less constantly frustrated in his attempts to achieve the broadest possible comprehension of diverse discipline within the English Church, with the exception of two brief periods: in the early 1650s, roughly during the ascendancy of the ‘English Republic’, when Parliament (in its various forms) seemed poised to take up the question of further reformation of the English Church; and in the early 1660s, roughly from the advent of the Restoration to the enactment of the Conventicle Act (16 Car 2 c. 4: 1664), when some version of a broad comprehension seemed achievable. A brief consultation of Baxterian printed prefaces from the period 1652–71, which would seem to be the respective termini post quem et ante quem for *ms, confirms the pattern of cautious optimism at opportunities for comprehension in the context of reformation up to about 1655; expressions of despair at church disunity marked in particular by intolerance and fanaticism, up to the Restoration; a period of rhetorical forbearance in the period 1660–4; and renewed expressions of despair at church disunity marked in particular by intolerance and hypocrisy in the period from 1664 onward. Moreover, the public and deliberative character of printed prefaces makes them unreliable analogues to sentiments expressed in manuscript. Finally, at least one piece of print evidence casts retrospective doubt even on Baxter's apparent optimism in the early 1660s. In ‘The general part of the introduction to the defence of my cure of Church-divisions’, printed in the 1671 Defence of the principles of love, Baxter offers a brief account of his efforts at achieving a broad comprehension of different positions within the Church of England, and their frustration. Baxter assigns his own foresight of ‘divisions, lamentable divisions’ in the Church precisely to 1660, describing how these divisions eventually prompted him to begin The cure for Church divisions in 1667. Hence, on the evidence of the expressions of dismay at church disharmony, one might wish tentatively to date the Baxterian portions of ms K.38 to about 1655–60, noting that slightly earlier as well as later dates remain possible on the strength of this class of evidence.Footnote ¹⁰

Two further sets of considerations, however, argue rather more strongly for an early dating of *ms. Directions 4, cautioning against laying ‘too great a stress vpon meere weake, probable, & humane concepts, & unrevealed things’, which refers to ‘firce, vnchristian, & wicked contentions among divines by which saveing truth is buryed, practicall true religion neglected, brotherly love destroyed, & the Church divided’ (fo. 198), a sentiment concordant with the picture of church division in Directions 7.11, and echoing, at least rhetorically, such characterisations of the Interregnum Church as marked by a ‘prevailing giddyness, unruliness, and levity of these times’ and by the ‘ignorance, loosness, or ungodly violence of too many Ecclesiasticks’ (The unreasonableness of infidelity [fos b7v–b8r]). More significantly, however, *ms Directions 4 continues:

While John Twigg's analysis of Cambridge during the Interregnum argues for the sucessful survival and even strengthening of the universities after the initial onslaught of the middle to late 1640s, one might doubt whether a tendency to exalt Aristotle would have been Baxter's chief concern regarding Interregnum divinity. Yet comparison of *ms and A Christian directory reveals a significant difference in the archive of broadly philosophical material that Baxter takes under consideration. A Christian directory, §7 Direct. 3 of the ‘Directions for young Students how to order their Studies’ apparently echoes *ms in enjoining the student to ‘joyn together the study of Physicks and Theologie; and take not your Physicks as separated from or independent on Theologie; But as the study of God in his works, and of his works as leading to himself’ (Directory, 918). But §15. Direct. 10 reveals ‘Philosophy’ to have acquired for Baxter by 1673 (or indeed by 1664–5) if not an entirely new definition, then at least a new scope and set of implications. In his exemplary list of ‘Philosophers’ whose ‘numerous errours’ are ‘So certain’ and ‘so uncertain a multitude of their assertions’, Baxter begins with ‘The Platonists’, ‘Aristotle’ and ‘The Epicureans and Democratists’, but adjoins immediately ‘our late Somatists that follow them, yea and Gassendus, and many that call themselves Cartesians, yea Cartesius himself, much more Berigardus, Regius and Hobbes’; among the dubious authorities that follow are ‘that pious Commenius [who] hath made in his small Manual … much that is of worth; but far short of accurateness’ (Directory, 919). Similarly, although *ms deliberately circumscribes its project so as to omit ‘humane learning’, the list in Poorest of authorities ‘III. For Physics’ include ‘2. Commenius’ and ‘4. Bacon and Mr. Boile’ along with the Aristotelian ‘Magyrus’ (Directory, 923), to which Poor adds, inter alia, ‘Le Grand, Cartesius, Regius, Hereboord, Sckeggins, Gassendus, Patricius, K, Digby, White’ (Directory, 927). The comparison suggests reading *ms as reflecting an early stage of composition of A Christian directory. The evidence that David Sytsma offers in his admirable dissertation ‘Richard Baxter's philosophical polemics: a Puritan's response to mechanical philosophy’ both reinforces this conjecture and suggests a firmer terminus ante quem for *ms. Making extensive use of both print and manuscript resources, Systma carefully and exhaustively sets out the development of Baxter's complicated engagement with a range of ‘mechanist’ philosophers from the period of Baxter's residence at Acton (1663–9) through the 1670s and 1680s, dating Baxter's first public attack on ‘Democratists’ to 1664 and outlining Baxter's growing concern at the potential threats of various versions of ‘mechanism’ to fundamental Christian soteriology from 1667 onward. Given the inclusion of A Christian directory among ‘Manuscripts that are yet unprinted, which lye by me’ at Reliquiæ baxterianæ, pt i §211.1, which confirms the dating of the Advertisement of Christian directory to 1664–5, I should suggest a date of composition of *ms a great deal closer to 1655 (if not even earlier) than to 1670. This conjecture in turn argues a longer period between the composition of Baxter's autograph and the fairly securely dated ms Harleian 6621; this period, in turn, seems to me to argue for a wider circulation of (versions of) *ms than hitherto envisioned: again, potentially an exciting prospect for Baxter scholars.Footnote ¹¹

One further set of considerations argues for a dating to the 1650s. The first item of K.38, ‘The Businesse of ye Earle of Strafforde 13° Aprilis 1641’, in addition to offering an indubitable terminus post quem for the manuscript, suggests a mid rather than late seventeenth-century context; the relative consistency of the hand tends to support such a dating, as does the preoccupation of the last manuscript items (fos 219–28) with Socinianism, more an Interregnum than a Restoration bugbear. Moreover, the suggestions of de Jordy and Fletcher concerning the fortuna of those portions of ms K.38 (fos 163–96) and their analogue in ms Harleian 6009 (fos 1–9) that can still be ascribed to Thomas Barlow arguably suggest a broader context for the Baxterian material of ms K.38 and ms Harleian 6621. Briefly, de Jordy and Fletcher read the sections of ms K.38 and ms Harleian 6009 as anticipating ‘’Αὺτοσχεδιάσματα, or Directions to a Young Divine’, the first section (1–121) of The genuine remains of that learned prelate, Dr. Thomas Barlow, late bishop of Lincoln (London 1693), and ’Αὺτοσχεδιάσματα, De studio theologiæ: or, Directions for the choice of books in the study of divinity (Oxford 1699). If de Jordy and Fletcher are correct (and their suggestion seems on balance a strong one), then ms K.38 preserves (at least) two mid seventeenth-century manuscript ancillæ to divinity study that were to see publication in considerably expanded form later in the century, both attributable to moderate clergymen with some allegiance both to scholastic method and to Reformed theology broadly considered, but whose careers and more particular allegiances are usually seen to diverge. Moreover, an analogue of each of these manuscript ancillæ is independently preserved in at least one other manuscript. Given the ephemeral nature of student notebooks, the evidence of ms K.38 suggests the possibility of an unexpectedly wide circulation of more or less authoritative manuscript study guides, while confirming a pattern of contact and exchange among clergy and university personnel whom modern scholarship has until recently tended to assign to different and more closed circles of association.

The foregoing is a preliminary assessment: St John's College, Cambridge, ms K.38 calls out for further study, perhaps above all in order to elucidate the possible relations of its educational ancillæ to the disputation material that it contains. None the less it seems clear that the manuscript preserves, at least in nuce, traces of the sorts of associative intellectual sociability that sustained (or perhaps beguiled) Richard Baxter in his lifelong project of Christian reconciliation. If ms K.38 can play some rôle in reconstructing this project, and thereby in helping to effect such a project's quotidian and workaday analogue in elucidating historical intellectual and social relations, then perhaps the labours of its scribe and his preceptors continue in some small way to be made real.