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"were the most unfit to heal matters, and the fittest to undo them, that could have been found out. . . . They spent some days in much logical arguing, to the diversion of the town, who thought here were a couple of fencers engaged in disputes that could never be brought to an end, or have any good effect."

The unfortunate issue of the Savoy conference prepared the way for all the harsh and miserable legislation that followed. When men had begun to laugh at the subject of dispute, the time of renewed intolerance and persecution was not far distant. The character of the Presbyterians, besides, had somewhat suffered from the ill-fated meeting. Their moderation, at first so commendable that it placed their opponents in a predicament from which they could hardly escape, save by yielding their claims, was rendered suspicious by the idea of a new liturgy, and the general tenor of the discussion. The effects were immediately apparent. Baxter, who had lately refused a bishopric, now found it impossible to obtain his modest settlement at Kidderminster as vicar, or even as curate. He details at length his dealings in this matter with Clarendon, and Morley, Bishop of Worcester, and Sir Ralph Clare, "an old courtier," who seems to have been the man of property and influence at Kidderminster, "the ruler of the vicar, and all the business." The affair throughout is painful and discreditable to all engaged in it saving Baxter himself. It is perfectly obvious. that they had no wish to promote his request. Even Clarendon, with all his professions, cannot be credited with any honest wish to befriend him; and he at length had penetration enough to see this, however his simplicity may have been at first beguiled. "For a Lord Chancellor," he says, "that hath the business

of the kingdom in his hand, and lords attending him, to take up his time so much and often about so low a vicarage, or a curateship, when it is not in the power of the King or the Lord Chancellor to procure it, though they so vehemently desire it! But, oh! thought I, how much better do poor men live who speak as they think, and do as they profess, and are never put upon such shifts as these for their present conveniences."

Unable to procure his desired settlement at Kidderminster, he settled in London, and became colleague for some time to Dr Bates, at St Dunstan's-in-the-West, where he preached once a-week. Here began the system of molestation, from which he was scarcely ever afterwards free. Spies waited upon his sermons, and reported their subjects in high quarters,* with insinuations of their seditious tendency. He is said to have frightened and driven them away by his telling exposures in a series subsequently published under the title of "The Formal Hypocrite Detected." The crowds that thronged to his preaching were very great. On one occasion, when preaching at St Lawrence, Jewry, his famous sermon on "Making light of Christ," Lord Broghill and the Earl of Suffolk, "with whom he was to go in the coach," were "fain to go home again," so great was the crowd; while the pastor of the church was glad to get up into the pulpit with him, as the only place where he could find room. On another occasion, at St Dunstan's, an alarm was raised that the edifice was in danger. His calm courage and lofty appeal to the "great noise of the dissolving world" made a deep impression on the

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"I scarce think that ever I preached a sermon without a spy to give them his report of it."

excited and rushing congregation, and succeeded in quieting it.

Baxter continued his preaching till the passing of the Act of Uniformity. While the church of St Dunstan's was preparing, he preached at St Bride's, "at the other end of Fleet Street," and also at Blackfriars, and he held, besides, a week-day lecture in Milk Street, at the request of Mr Ashurst, "with about twenty citizens." He was willing, in however humble a capacity, to serve the Church. His scrupulous disinterestedness would not allow him to receive any remuneration, except for his lectures in Milk Street, for which, he says, "they allowed me forty pounds per annum till we were all silenced."

It

This issue was fast approaching. The Parliament of 1661 was keen to hurry matters to a crisis. began its career by requiring every member to take the sacrament after the old manner, and by ordering the Covenant to be burned. The power of the sword was declared to belong inalienably to the sovereign, and all members of corporations were bound to testify that resistance was unlawful. While busy in this work of reactionary legislation, the insurrection of the Fifth-monarchy men, under Venner, took place. Everything seemed designed to carry the tide of reaction to the highest. This insane attempt served as a justification for the proposal of the most extreme measures against all parties disaffected in any degree towards the Church. The Act of Uniformity was passed in May. By this Act every minister was bound, before the feast of St Bartholomew, in the ensuing August, to declare his assent to everything contained in the Prayer-book, under penalty of forfeiting his benefice. Baxter did not even wait for the expiry of the

probationary period, but immediately gave up preaching. "The last sermon I preached," he says, "was on May 25." His reasons were that he considered himself to be included under a doubtful clause of the Act, which was supposed to terminate the liberty of lecturers at that time, and that he wished that his nonconformity might act as an example to others who might have hesitated.

St Bartholomew's day, the 24th of August 1662, marks a great epoch in the religious history of England. Puritanism henceforth merges into Nonconformity. The ejection of two thousand of the most pious and excellent ministers of the Church carried the struggle which had been so long waged within it into a different sphere, and imparted to it a new character. During two years Baxter had been one of the most prominent men in the country. In the last efforts of Puritanism to maintain its ground within the ecclesiastical order of the country, he had been its conspicuous representative. With the Act of Uniformity he withdrew into private life, and for ten years is scarcely heard of, save as one of many victims of the miserable persecutions of the period, which pursued him to his most retired privacy.

Strangely enough, he commenced this period of his life by an act which he had hitherto looked upon as scarcely permissible in the case of a clergyman-he got married. His wife's name was Margaret Charlton. She was young and well-born: he was not old,* but his health had never been good, and his circumstances were sufficiently gloomy. There is not much wonder,

Her age is stated to have been twenty-two or twenty-three, while Baxter was in his forty-seventh year. She belonged, according to his own statement, to "one of the chief families in the county" (Worcestershire).

therefore, that the marriage excited great astonishment, according to his own confession. "The king's marriage was scarcely more talked of." It proved, however, in every respect a happy union. Mrs Baxter was not merely a pious and excellent help-mate to her husband, but a noble-hearted and heroic woman, who shared and lightened his imprisonment. She died before him, and he embalmed her memory in what he called a "Breviate of her life."

After his marriage he retired to Acton, where he followed his studies "privately in quietness." He attended the parish church in the forenoon, and in the afternoon preached in his own house to a few friends and "poor neighbours," who assembled with his family. Now and then he spent a day in London. The works on which he was engaged were his chief interest. He completed here his Christian Directory, or Sum of Practical Divinity, and also some of his well-known shorter works, his Life of Faith, his Saint or Brute, Now or Never, and The Divine Life. One day as he was preaching "in a private house," a bullet was fired in at the window, passed by him, and narrowly missed the head of his sister-in-law.

During these years that Baxter passed at Acton, the course of public events was marked by a series of startling vicissitudes. In 1663 there was renewed talk of a comprehension, in which he bore his part, but which ended as before in nothing. The King had passed in December of the preceding year an indulgence, including Papists; but Parliament had remonstrated, and followed up their remonstrance by the Conventicle Act (1663), which prohibited attendance on any worship but that of the Church of England, under the severest penalties-three months' imprisonment for

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