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besides a very strong propensity to undertake the ministerial function, he returned to his father's, and resumed his studies with fresh vigour, till Mr. Richard Foley of Stourbridge fixed him as master of the free-school at Dudley, with an usher under him. In the time he taught school there, he read several practical treatises, whereby he was brought to a due and deep sense of religion, his progress therein being not a little quickened by his great bodily weakness and ill state of health, which inclined him to think he should scarce survive above a year. We are told by Dr. Calamy, that, from the age of twenty-one to twenty-three, he lived constantly as it were in the shadow of death; and, finding his own soul under serious apprehensions of the matters of another world, he was very desirous to communicate those apprehensions to such ignorant, careless, presumptuous sinners, as the world abounds with. Although therefore he had his discouragements, through his sense of the greatness and awfulness of the work of the ministry, and his fear of exposing himself to the censure of many, on the account of his wanting academical education, honours, and dignities; yet, expecting to be so quickly in another world, the great concernments of miserable souls prevailed with him to engage in it; and finding in himself a thirsty desire of men's conversion and salvation, and a competent persuading faculty of expression, which fervent affections might help to actuate, he concluded, that if but one or two souls might by his means be won to GOD, it would easily recompense any treatment he might meet with in the world. However, having still an earnest desire to the ministry, he in 1638 addressed himself to Dr. Thornborough, Bishop of Winchester, for holy orders, which after examination he received, having at that time no scruples of conscience which hindered him from conforming to the church of England.

We have a very distinct detail of the means by which he first came to alter his opinions in these matters; and it will be very proper to take notice of them here, because they will serve to let the reader into the character of the man. Being settled at Dudley, he fell into the acquaintance of se veral nonconformists, whom, though he judged severe and splenetic, yet he found to be both godly and honest men. They supplied him with several writings on their own side, and amongst the rest, with Ames's Fresh Suit against Ceremonies," which he read over very distinctly, comparing it with Dr. Burgess's Rejoynder.' And, upon the whole, he at that time came to these conclusions. Kneeling he VOL. IV. thought

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thought lawful, and all mere circumstances determined by the magistrate, which GoD in nature or Scripture hath determined on, only in the general. The surplice he more doubted of, but was inclined to think it lawful: And though he intended to forbear it till under necessity, yet he could not see how he could have justified the forsaking his ministry merely on that account, though he never actually wore it. About the ring in marriage he had no scruple. The cross in baptism he thought Dr. Ames had proved unlawful; and though he was not without some doubting in the point, yet because he most inclined to judge it unlawful, he never once used it. A form of prayer and liturgy he judged to be lawful, and in some cases lawfully imposed. The old English liturgy in particular, he judged to have much disorder and defectiveness in it, but nothing which should make the use of it in the ordinary public worship to be unlawful to them who could not do better. He sought for discipline in the church, and saw the sad effects of its neglect; but he was not then so persuaded as afterwards, that the very frame of diocesan prelacy excluded it, but thought it had been chargeable only on the personal neglects of the Bishops. Subscription he began to think unlawful, and repented his rashness in yielding to it so hastily. For though he could use the common prayer, and was not yet against diocesans, yet to subscribe ex animo, that there was nothing in the three books contrary to the word of God, was that which he durst not do, had it been to be done again. So that subscription, and the cross in baptism, and the promiscuous giving the Lord's Supper to all comers, though ever so unqualified, if they were not excommunicated by a Bishop or Chancellor who knows nothing of them, were the only things in which he as yet, in his judgment, inclined to nonconformity: And yet, even as to these things, he kept his thoughts to himself. He continued to argue with the nonconformists about the points they differed in, and particularly kneeling at the sacrament; about which he managed a dispute with some of them in writing, till they did not think fit to pursue it any farther: He freely reproved them for the bitterness of their language against the Bishops and their adherents, and exhorted them to endeavour for patience and charity, but found their spirits so exasperated by the hard measure they had met with, that they were deaf to his admonitions. Being settled at Dudley, he preached frequently in that town, and in the neighbouring villages, with the approbation of all his

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hearers. In three quarters of a year he was removed to Bridgenorth, where he officiated as assistant to Mr. William Madstard, then minister of that place, who treated him with great kindness and respect, and did not put him upon many things which he then began to scruple doing. When the et cætera oath came to be imposed, Mr Baxter applied himself to study the case of episcopacy, and it fared with him as with some others, the thing which was intended to fix them to the hierarchy, drove them into a dislike of it. In order to have a just idea of this matter, it is necessary to transcribe this famous oath at large; whence it will appear why some very honest men scrupled it, and why some as honest men took it without scruple.

It runs thus: I A. B. do swear, that I do approve the doctrine and discipline, or government established in the church of England, as containing all things necessary to salvation; And that I will not endeavour by my-self or any other, directly or indirectly, to bring in any popish doctrine, contrary to that which is so established; nor will I ever give my consent to alter the government of the church, by Archbishops, Bishops, Deans, and Archdeacons, &c. as it stands now established, and as by right it ought to stand, nor yet ever to subject it to the usurpation and superstitions of the see of Rome. And all these things I do plainly and sincerely acknowledge and swear, according to the plain and common sense and understanding of the same words, without any equivocation or mental evasion, or secret reservation whatsoever. And this I do heartily, willingly and truly, upon the faith of a Christian. So help me GoD, in 'Jesus Christ.'

Men of tender consciences thought it hard to swear to the continuance of a church government, which many of them disliked; and yet these men for the church's quiet would willingly have concealed their thoughts, had not this oath, imposed under the penalty of expulsion, compelled them to speak. Others complained of the et calera, which, they said, contained they knew not what, and might be extended to they knew not whom, but in all probability to the officers of ecclesiastical courts; and to swear to them they thought not only a little extraordinary, but very far from being lawful. Mr. Baxter seems to have understood the aath 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

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to without much, consideration. This put him upon stu dying the best books he could meet with on this subject; the consequence of which was, that he utterly disliked the oath, a thing which fell out to many others besides him, who, but for this accident, had never disturbed themselves about so knotty a question. In the year 1640 he was invited to Kidderminster 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 sieges, but never in any engagement, so that there was not the least grounds for that scandalous story, invented and trumpeted about 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 the year 1657, in 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 languishing state of health, which hindered him from doing that service to his country, that otherwise, from a man of his principles and moderation, might have been expected.

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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 King 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

To enter into all the gross things that have been said of Mr. Baxter by his enemies, would take up more room than we have employed in writing his life. It is sufficient to note their names, and the pieces they have wrote, viz. Mr. Crandon in his book against Mr. Baxter's Aphorisms; Mr. Young's Vindicia Anti-Baxterianæ, 1696, 12mo; Mr. Long's Review of Mr. Baxter's Life, 1697, 8vo. adding, as a speci men, the following speech put into the mouth of President Bradshaw in hell, who, in deciding on the merits of Mr. Hobbs, Mr. Nevill, and Mr. Baxter, is made to speak of the last thus: If he, whose faith is faction, whose religion is rebellion, whose prayers are spells, whose piety is magic, whose purity is the gall of bitterness, who ⚫ can cant and recant, and cant again; who can transform himself into as many shapes as Lucifer, (who is never more a devil than when an angel of light) and, like him, (who, proud of his perfections, first rebelled in heaven) proud of his imaginary graces, pretends to rule ⚫ and govern, and consequently rebel on earth, be the greatest politician; then make room for Mr. Baxter: Let him come in, and be ⚫ crowned with wreaths of serpents and chaplets of adders: Let his • triumphant chariot be a pulpit drawn on the wheels of cannon, by a brace of wolves in sheeps' clothing: Let the ancient fathers of the church, whom out of ignorance he has vilified; the reverend and learned prelates, whom out of pride and malice he has abused, belied, and ⚫ persecuted; the most righteous king, whose murder, (1 speak my own ⚫ and his sense) contrary to the light of all religion, laws, reason, and conscience, he has justified, then denied, then again and again justified: let them all be bound in chains, to attend his infernal triumph to his Saints' Everlasting Rest. Then make room, scribes and pharisees, hypocrites, atheists, and politicians, for the greatest rebel on earth, and next to him that fell from heaven.' But, it is certain that no man made more warm pretensions to loyalty than Mr. Baxter did, who had the courage to tell the Protector, Cromwell, to his face, that the old English monarchy was a blessing. He was at the desire of King Charles II. appointed one of his chaplains, and had some share of royal favour as long as the king lived. But what seems to put this matter out of all question is this, that, after the severe treatment he met with in the reign of King James, which might easily have soured his spirit, and after the Revolution, when he was under no necessity of keeping terms, he disclaimed all such sentiments, declaring positively, that throughout the whole civil war he was always for the king and parlia ent, and never against the king's person, power, or prerogative.

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