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its full extent. Occupying:, as ho did, tliis middle ground 

 between the Episcopalians and the Presbyterians, it was not 

 very obvious with which of the two panics he was to be 

 chissed. Had all impositions and restraints been removed 

 there is every reason to suppose that he would have pre 

 ferrod a moderate episcopacy to any other form of church 

 government ; but the measures of the prelatical party were 

 so grievous to the conscience, that he had no choice be 

 t>i ten sacrificing his opinions or quitting their communion. 

 The views maintained by Baxter, blended as they were 

 with the principles of monarchy, made them extremely po- 

 pular towards the close of Cromwell's career, when men 

 were beginning to find that they had only exchanged one 

 species of tyranny for another, and, as tome thought, for a 

 worse. In the sermon which Baxter preached before the 

 parliament on the day preceding that on which they voted 

 the return of the king, he spoke his sentiments on this sub- 

 ject with manly resolution, and in allusion to the political 

 state of the country, he maintained that loyalty to their king 

 was a thing essential to all true Protestants of every per- 

 suasion. 



It was expected that on the restoration of the king mode- 

 ration would have prevailed in the councils of the nation, 

 and a conciliatory policy have been adopted with regard to 

 religious opinions. Some indication of such a spirit ap- 

 peared in the appointment of Presbyterian divines among 

 the king's chaplains, and Baxter along with the rest. 

 Many who had access to the king strenuously recommended 

 conciliation, and for a time their advice prevailed against 

 the intrigues of court influence. Among other measures 

 a conference was appointed at the Savoy, consisting of a 

 certain number of Episcopalian and Presbyterian divines, to 

 devise a form of ecclesiastical government which might re- 

 concile the difforences and satisfy the scruples of the con- 

 tending parties. Baxter and the Presbyterians were ex- 

 tremely desirous of bringing this commission to a successful 

 issue ; and Baxter himself drew up a reformed liturgy, 

 which, with some alterations, he presented at this conference. 

 The Presbyterians would have accepted Bishop Usher's 

 scheme as a model, with any alterations which might be mu- 

 tually agreed upon ; hut the bishops were secretly opposed to 

 the arrangement, and finally frustrated it by carrying a de- 

 claration to this effect, that although all were agreed upon the 

 ends contemplated in this commission, they disagreed about 

 t!iu means. Having thus defeated the object of the confer- 

 ence, the next step was to sequestrate the livings of those 

 divines who had been inducted during the Protectorate. 

 Oaths and subscriptions, which had been suspended while 

 there was any prospect of a union of parties, were again 

 called for by the bishops and their adherents. In accord- 

 ance with this demand a law was passed in 1662, called 

 the Act of Uniformity, so strict in its requisitions upon the 

 debatable points of ceremonial worship, that it had the 

 effect of banishing at once two thousand divines from the 

 p-.ile of Ihe English church. Of this number was Baxter. 

 Previous to the passing of this measure he had refused the 

 bUhoprick of Hereford and other preferments offered him 

 by Clarendon, the Chancellor, asking one favour only in 

 lieu of them to be allowed to return to his beloved flock 

 at Kidderminster. The vicar, who was ejected in 1640, had 

 been restored ; and was bound by the old agreement to pay 

 Baxter GO/, a year as a lecturer. ' But Baxter was willing to 

 perform the pastoral duties without remuneration : all he 

 wanted was to watch ever those whom he had brought into 

 the fold of Christ; but this request was refused. 



On the 'J5th of May, 1662, three months before the day 

 on which the Bartholomew Act, as the Act of Uniformity 

 was called, from its coming into operation on St. Bartholo- 

 mew's day, Baxter had preached in London his last sermon, 

 under a regular engagement in the church ; and, finding 

 his public duties at an end, he retired in July 1663 to Acton, 

 in Middlesex, where he employed most of his leisure in 

 writing for the press. Some of his largest works were 

 tho fruits of this seclusion. His two most popular trea- 

 tises, The Saints' Everlasting Rest, and A Call to the 

 UiK-nnuerted, were published before he left Kidderminster, 

 and rai-sed his fame as a writer to a higher pitch than 

 what he hud enjoyed even as a preacher. Several attempts 

 were made by the ejected ministers and their friends in 

 parliament t/> j;et the rigorous restrictions against them re- 

 moved, but without success. The persecutions continued 

 with unabated violence. Even those who, like Baxter, dis- 

 liked separation, and attended the worship of the church, 



suffered penalties for having morning and evening prayers 

 at their own houses. In the midst of those awful calami- 

 ties, the plague and the fire, which raged with such fright- 

 ful devastation in two successive years, the services of the 

 Puritan divines to the inhabitants of the metropolis were 

 so conspicuous, that the current of opinion turned in their 

 favour, and led to new efforts in their behalf, which ended 

 for the time in the Indulgence granted in 1672. This drew 

 Baxter from his retirement at Totteridge, to which place he 

 had removed on the suppression of his ministry at Acton. 

 He settled again in London, and preached as a lecturer in 

 different parts of the city, but more constantly at Pinner's 

 Hall and Fetter Lane. His preaching, though highly ac- 

 ceptable to his more immediate friends, was never so popular 

 as it had been at Kidderminster. While he advocated tole- 

 rance from an intolerant communion he shone like a light 

 in a dark place ; but now that he was the apologist of con- 

 formity, while he was a sufferer for non-conformity, his 

 conduct involved a kind of consistency too refined for pub- 

 lic admiration. An ineffectual attempt which he made at 

 this time to combine the Protestant interests against Papal 

 ascendancy exposed him to various misrepresentations, to 

 remove which he published a vindication of himself in a 

 trac-t entitled An Appeal to the Light, but without eradi- 

 cating the unfavourable impressions. 



His time was now divided between writing and preaching. 

 For a while he had a regular audience in a room over St. 

 James's market-house, and at other places in London. But 

 Fiis public duties were frequently suspended by those 

 rigorous enactments to which the Nonconformists were 

 subjected during the last two reigns of the Stuarts. 



In 1682 the officers of the law burst into his house, at a 

 time; when he laboured under severe indisposition, with a 

 warrant to seize his person for ccming within five miles of a 

 corporation, and would have hurriedbim before a justice of 

 the peace in this condition, had they not been met by his 

 >hysician, whose interference probably saved his lite as well 

 as obtained his pardon. Two years later, while his health 

 vas still in a precarious state from a chronic disease, he was 

 igain harassed by distraints and penal proceedings. Still 

 ater it was his misfortune to be one of the unhappy victims 

 of Jefferies. He was apprehended on a lord chief justice's 

 varrant, on a charge of sedition and being hostile to epis- 

 sopacy. The charge was founded on some passages in his 

 "araphrase of the New Testament. On the trial, Jefferies, 

 not content with using language the most opprobrious to 

 he prisoner and his counsel, acted the part of prosecutor 

 as well as judge, and scrupled not to gain his ends by 

 ilencing the accused, by insulting his counsel, by refusing 

 o hear his witnesses, and by triumphing over his sentence, 

 le said upon the bench, ' he was sorry that the Act of In- 

 lemnity disabled him from hanging him.' His punishment 

 vas a fine of 500 marks, to lie in prison till it was paid, and 

 o be bound to his good behaviour for seven years. For the 

 ion-payment of this heavy penalty he was committed to the 

 Cing's Bench prison, where he lay until the 26th of No- 

 'ember in the following year (1686), having been confined 

 or nearly eighteen months. His pardon was obtained by 

 he mediation of Lord Powis, and the fine was remitted, 

 solitude of his prison was enlivened on this, as on for- 

 ner occasions, by the affectionate attentions of his wife. 

 3axter himself lived to see that favourable change in re- 

 "ercnce to religious toleration which commenced at the Re- 

 olution of 1688. He died on the 8th of December, 1691, 

 nd was buried in Christ Church. 



The literary career of Baxter is not the least extraordinary 

 lart of his history. He published a body of practical and 

 lolemical divinity with a rapidity almost unequalled ; the 

 xcellence of some of his practical writings secured them an 

 unexampled popularity, and thus laid the foundation of a 

 lew theological system which still retains liis name. The 

 atalogue of his works is not easily described. It contains 

 learly 1 68 distinct publications: (see list in Orme's Life, 

 irefixed to the edition of his works, London, 1830.) Many 

 f these are only known to his admirers, but others are 

 nore^vead than any other productions of a religious cha 

 acter. His fame chiefly rests on his two most popular 

 works, and on his Methodiis Thealngia; and Catholic Theo 

 'igy, in which his peculiar views are embodied. Several 

 f his learned contemporaries have recorded their testimony 

 o the character of his writings. Sir Matthew Hale was a 

 onstant reader of them, and honoured Baxter with his 

 riendship. Bishop Wilkins praised him in the phrase that 



