Baxter’s Assize sermon at Shrewsbury

Scope and Content

A discourse on the power of magistrates in religion, against those that would not have them to meddle in such matters; being an Assize-Sermon, preached at Shrewsbury, when Coll. Thomas Hunt was Sheriff. By Baxter. The title is taken from the first part of his Autobiography, where Baxter enumerates, in 1664, ‘Manuscripts that are yet unprinted which lye by me.’ (Rel. i.124). At f 28v he describes the drunkenness then prevalent in the town where he dwelt: compare Rel. i.90.

Note

Black records of the sermon 'It is altogether a very curious performance, and remarkable as remaining unpublished, when two other of his Assize-Sermons were printed soon after they were preached.'

Other Finding Aids

Argent / Black xx.352; Thomas p.26

Bibliography

  • See Rel. i.124, the unpublished MS. 11.
  • For Thomas Hunt (d 1669), MP for Shrewsbury in the Long Parliament, see Corr 325, 331, 332, 337, 339, 378 and 811.