many attending on this service, who were not in the habit of doing so.

Mr. Ashurst and about twenty others invited him to preach on a week day, in Milk street, for which service he received £40; and he did so until he was silenced the next year. That he might, as far as possible, act consistently with the laws, he went to the Archbishop of Canterbury and requested a license to preach, which the archbishop very readily granted. But as Baxter was uniformly attended by crowded audiences, the envy of the regular clergy was excited, and the spies of the bishops often reported him as a dangerous and seditious man; so that frequently he thought it necessary to publish the sermons which they misrepresented. Even his private letters to his family were intercepted, and though found to contain nothing factious or treasonable, were sent round among the bishops, which shows what a jealousy they entertained of his influence, Frequently he was threatened with an arrest; and on a certain occasion, a knight offered the Bishop of Worcester his troop of horse to apprehend him. At length Bishop Morley prohibited him from preaching in his diocese,

although Baxter offered to promise that he would confine his preaching to the creed, commandments, and Lord's prayer.

Baxter was now completely shut out from his old flock, to whom he had, till this time, occasionally ministered. They parted, as may be supposed, with great reluctance, and much grief and many tears.

Their situation was more distressing, from the fact that Mr. Baldwin, who had succeeded Mr. Baxter in the lecture, and of whom, as a scholar and good preacher, we have already spoken, was also forbidden to preach, by the bishop; yet he remained at Kidderminster as a private person, and visited the people in their houses. The minister brought in was a man altogether insufficient, not being capable of teaching even the fundamental points of religion ; and would often preach in direct opposition to the articles of the church, and in his applications did what he could to bring an odium on a holy life, to keep men from it, and to promote the interests of Satan.

CHAPTER VIII.

The act excluding the non-conformists-its consequences-other stringent measures against them— the plague-measures of alleviation defeated-the great fire in London-advantage of it in opening a door for the non-conformists to preach-toleration proposed and not assented to.

BUT now the fatal day of St. Bartholomew arrived, when the act of conformity was to go into operation. This memorable day,

which witnessed above two thousand of the most learned and pious ministers of England ejected from their charges, and cast, without resources, upon the wide world, was August 24th, 1662, being the very day of the year in which the Huguenots, a century before, were so cruelly murdered by the Papists, in France. Baxter, as soon as the act passed, ceased from preaching, for the present, as he wished to let it be seen that he did not conform; and as he did not wish that the enemies of the non-conformists should have any

occasion against them, for disobedience to the la ws. *

Many of the silenced ministers were equal in learning and abilities to any of the Episcopalians. Baxter, Calamy, Owen, Bates, and Howe, were as capable of forming enlarged and comprehensive views of truth and duty, as Pearson, Gunning, Morley, or any others of the high church party; while, as it regards the evidences of Christian character and devotedness, there were few of the class from which they seceded, who could compare with them.

Baxter informs us that good old Simeon Ashe died on the eve of St. Bartholomew's day; and was thus taken away from the evil to come.

As they were forbidden to preach, so they were privately watched, that they might not exhort one another, or pray together; and every meeting for prayer was considered a

seditious meeting, and was called by the odious name of a “ Conventicle.” In regard to the vigilance and jealousy exercised over the ejected ministers, Mr. Baxter relates the following fact: “One Mr. Beale, in Hatton Garden, having a son, his only child, sick of a fever, and brought so low that the physicians thought he would die, desired a few friends to meet at his house to pray for him. As it pleased God to hear our prayers, and to restore the child, and his mother shortly after fell sick of a fever, we were again requested to meet at the house and pray for her recovery, the last day when she was near to death.

It happened that Dr. Bates and myself were not able to attend ; but it being understood that we were to be there, two justices were procured from the other end of the town, to come with the sergeant-at-arms of the Parliament, to apprehend us. When they came, most of the company were dispersed, except a few of their kindred, and three ministers who remained to pray. These officers came into the very room where the sick woman was dying, and took down the names of such as were present; but were evidently disappointed. What an occasion