the oath to be a direct declaration in favour of the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of prelates as then established, which, though it might be submitted to with little, he apprehended could not be sworn to with much consideration. This occasioned him to study the best books he could meet with on this subject; the consequence of which was, that he utterly disliked the oath, a thing which was the case with many others besides him, who, but for this accident, had never disturbed themselves about so knotty a question. In 1640 he was invited to Kidderminster in Worcestershire, by the bailiff and feoffees, to preach there for an allowance of sixty pounds a year, which he accepted; and applied himself with such diligence to his sacred calling, as had a very great effect, in a short time, upon a very dissolute people. He continued there about two years before the civil war broke out, and fourteen afterwards with some interruption. He sided with the parliament, and recommended the protestation they directed to be taken, to the people. This exposed him to some inconveniences, which obliged him to retire to Gloucester, but he was soon invited back to Kidderminster, whither he returned. His stay there was not long, but beginning to consider with himself where he might remain in safety, he fixed upon Coventry, and accordingly went thither. There he lived peaceably and comfortably, preached once every Lord's day to the garrison, and once to the town's people, for which he took nothing but his diet. After Naseby fight, when all things seemed to favour the parliament; he, by advice of the ministers at Coventry, became chaplain to Colonel Whalley's regiment, and in this quality he was present at several seiges, but never in any engagement, so that there was not the least ground for that scandalous story, invented by his enemies, viz. that he killed a man in cold blood, and robbed him of a medal. He took all imaginable pains to hinder the progress of the sectaries, and to keep men firm in just notions of religion and government, never deviating from what he judged in his conscience to be right, for the sake of making court to any, or from baser motives of fear. But he was separated from the army in the beginning of 1657, at a very. critical juncture, just when they fell off from the parliament, Mr. Baxter being at that time seized with a bleeding at the nose, in so violent a manner, that he lost the quantity of a gallon at once, which obliged him to retire to Sir Thomas Rouse's, where he continued for a long time in a very lan-, guishing state of health, which hindered him from doing VOL. 1.-No. 6.

T

that

that service to his country, that otherwise, from a man of his principles and moderation, might have been expected. He afterwards returned to Kidderminster, and resumed the work of his ministry. He hindered, as far as it was in his power, the taking of the covenant; he preached and spoke publicly against the engagement, and therefore it is very unjust to brand him, as some have done, as a trumpeter of rebellion. When the army was marching to oppose Charles II. at the head of the Scots, Mr. Baxter took pains, both by speaking and writing, to remind the soldiers of their duty, and to dissuade them from fighting against their brethren and fellow-subjects. After this, when Cromwell assumed the supreme power, he was not afraid to express his disaffection to his tyranny, though he did not think himself obliged to preach politics from the pulpit. Once indeed he preached before Cromwell, but neither did he in that sermon flatter, nor in a conference he had with him afterwards, did he express either affection to his person, or submission to his power, but quite the contrary. He came to London a little before the deposition of Richard Cromwell. At that time Mr. Baxter was looked upon as a friend to monarchy, and with reason; for, being chosen to preach before the parliament on the 30th of April, 1660, which was the day preceding that on which they voted the king's return, he maintained, that loyalty to their prince, was a thing essential to all true Protestants of whatever persuasion. About the same time likewise he was chosen to preach a thanksgiving sermon at St. Paul's, for general Monk's success ; and yet some have been so bold as to maintain, that he at tempted to dissuade his excellency from concurring in, or rather from bringing about, that happy change. After the restoration he became one of the king's chaplains in ordinary, preached before him once, and had frequent access to his royal person, and was always treated by him with peculiar respect. At the Savoy conferences, Mr. Baxter assisted as one of the commissioners, and then drew up the reformed liturgy. He was offered the bishopric of Hereford, by the lord chancellor Clarendon, which he refused to accept, for reasons which he rendered in a respectful letter to his lordship. Yet even then he would willingly have returned to his beloved town of Kidderminster, and have preached in the low state of a curate. But this was then refused him, though the lord chancellor took pains to have settled him there as he desired. When he found himself thus disappointed, he preached occasionally about the city of London,

sometimes

sometimes for Dr. Bates at St. Dunstan's in the West, and sometimes in other places, having a licence from bishop Sheldon, upon his subscribing a promise, not to preach against the doctrine or ceremonies of the church. The last time he preached in public was, on the 15th day of May, 1662, a farewel sermon at Black Friers. He afterwards retired to Acton in Middlesex, where he went every Lord's day to the public church, and spent the rest of the day with his family, and a few poor neighbours that came in to him. In 1665, when the plague raged, he went to Richard Hampden's, Esq. in Buckinghamshire, and returned to Acton when it was over. He staid there as long as the act against conventicles continued in force, and when that was expired, he had so many auditors that he wanted room. Hereupon, by a warrant signed by two justices, he was committed for six months to New-Prison jail, but got an habeas corpus, and was released and removed to Totteridge near Barnet t. At this place he lived quietly and without disturbance. The king was resolved to make some concessions to the dissenters in Scotland, and the duke of Lauderdale, by his order, acquainted Mr. Baxter, that if he would take this opportunity of going into that kingdom, he should have what preferment he would there; which he

• An account of whose life see above, p. 132.

† In this affair, as Mr. Baxter met with some hardship in the commitment, so he experienced the sincerity of many of his best friends, who on this occasion stuck by him very steadily. As he was carried to prison, he called upon Serjeant Fountain to ask his advice, who, when he had perused the mittimus, gave it as his opinion, that he might be discharged from his imprisonment by law. The earl of Orrery, the earl of Manchester, the earl of Arlington, and the duke of Buckingham, mentioned the affair to the king, who was pleased to send Sir John Baber to him, to let him know, that though his majesty was not willing to relax the law, yet he would not be offended, if by any application to the courts in Westminster-Hall he could procure his liberty; upon this a habeas corpus was demanded at the bar of the common-pleas, and granted. The judges were clear in their opinion, that the mittimus was insufficient, and thereupon discharged him. This exasperated the justices who committed him, and therefore they made a new mittimus, in order to have him sent to the County jail of Newgate, which be avoided b. keeping out of the way. The whole of this persecution is said to have been owing to the particular pique of Dr. Bruno Rives, dean of Windsor and of Wolverhampton, rector of Haselly and of Acton, and one of the king's chaplains in ordiaary. The reason that he pushed this matter so far was, because Mr. Baxter had preached in his parish of Acton, which he fancied some way reflected upon him, because Mr. Baxter had always a large audience, though in truth this was in a good measure owing to the imprudence of the dean, whose curate was a weak man, and too great a frequenter of alehouses.

declined on account of his own weakness and the circumstances of his family. His opinion however was taken on the scheme for settling church disputes in that country. In 1671, Mr. Baxter lost the greatest part of his fortune by the shutting up of the king's exchequer, in which he had a thousand pounds. After the Indulgence in 1672, he returned into the city, and was one of the Tuesday lecturers at Pinner's Hall, and had a Friday lecture at Fetter Lane; but, on the Lord's day, he for some time preached only occasionally, and afterwards more statedly in St. James's market house, where in 1674 he had a wonderful deliverance, by almost a miracle, from a crack in the floor. He was apprehended as he was preaching his lecture at Mr. Turner's, but soon released, because the warrant was not, as it ought to have been, signed by a city justice. The times seeming to grow more favourable he built a meeting-house in Oxendon Street, where he preached but once before a resolution was taken to surprise and send him to the county jail on the Oxford act, which misfortune he luckily escaped; but the person who preached for him was committed to the Gatehouse, and continued there three months. Having been kept out of his new meeting-house a whole year, he took another in Swallow Street; but was likewise prevented from using that, a guard being fixed there for many Sundays together, to hinder him from coming into it. On Mr. Wadsworth's dying, Mr. Baxter preached to his congregation in Southwark for many months. When Dr. Lloyd succeeded Dr. Lamplugh in St. Martin's parish, Mr. Baxter made him an offer of the chapel he had built in Oxendon Street, for public worship, which was very kindly accepted. In 1682, he suffered more severely than he had ever done on account of his nonconformity. One day he was suddenly surprized in his house by many constables and officers, who apprebended him upon a warrant to seize his person, for coming within five miles of a corporation, producing at the same time five more warrants to distrain for one hundred and ninety-five pounds for five sermons. Though he was much out of order, being but just risen from his bed, where he had been in extremity of pain, he was contentedly going with them to a justice, to be sent to jail, and left his house to their will. But Dr. Thomas Cox, meeting him as he was going, forced him again into his bed, and went to five justices and took his oath, that he could not go to prison without danger of death. Upon this the justices delayed till they had consulted the king, who consented that his

imprison

imprisonment should be for that time forborn, that he might die at home. But they executed their warrants on the books and goods in the house, though he made it appear they were none of his; and they sold even the bed which he lay sick upon. Some friends paid them as much money as they were appraised at, and he repaid them. And all this was without Mr. Baxter's having the least notice of any accusation, or receiving any summons to appear and answer for himself, or ever seeing the justices or accusers; and afterwards he was in constant danger of new seizures, and thereupon he was forced to leave his house, and retire into private lodgings.

Things continued much in the same way during the year 1683, and Mr. Baxter remained in great obscurity, however, not without receiving a remarkable testimony of the sincere esteem, and great confidence, which a person of remarkable piety, though of another persuasion, had towards him: the rev. Mr. Thomas Mayot, a beneficed clergyman in the church of England, who had devoted his estate to charitable uses, gave by his last will six hundred pounds, to be distributed by Mr. Baxter to sixty poor ejected ministers; adding, that he did it not because they were nonconformists, but because many such were poor and pious. But the king's attorney, Sir Robert Sawyer, sued for it in the chancery, and the lord keeper North gave it all to the king. It was paid into chancery by order, and, as Providence directed it, there kept safe, till William III. ascended the throne, when the commissioners of the great seal restored it to the use for which it was intended by the deceased; and Mr. Baxter disposed of it accordingly. In 1684, Mr. Baxter fell into a very bad state of health, so as to be scarcely able to stand. He was in this condition, when the justices of peace for the county of Middlesex granted a warrant against him, in order to his being bound to his good behaviour. They got into his house, but could not immediately get at him, Mr. Baxter being in his study, and their warrant not impowering them to break open doors. Six constables, however, were set to hinder him from getting to his bed chamber, and so, by keeping him from food and sleep, they carried their point, and took him away to the sessions house, where he was bound in the penalty of four hundred pounds to keep the peace, and was brought up twice afterwards, though he kept his bed the greatest part of the time. In the beginning of 1685, Mr. Baxter was committed to the King's Bench prison, by a warrant from the lord chief justice Jef

feries,