His Engagements after Leaving Kidderminster
Baxter had acquired great celebrity, both as a preacher and writer. He was known, moreover, to be an ardent friend to civil and ecclesiastical peace. Hence he was frequently consulted on these subjects, not only by ministers, but by the higher powers. On various occasions he went to London, and it would seem chiefly on business relating both to the church and the nation. Early in April, 1060, he left Kidderminster, and reached London on the 13th of that month. The reason of his leaving is not stated, but it appears evidently to have been in connexion with the state of public affairs.
It was a saying of Baxter’s, that we are “no more choosers of our employments than of our successes.” The truth of this observation he was now especially railed to verify by his own experience. On reaching London he was consulted on the subject of the (king’s) “Restoration.” This event he, in common with multitudes of his brethren, was desirous of seeing accom-” plished.
The new parliament appointed a day of fasting and prayer, and required Baxter to preach before them on the occasion. This occurred the day before the bill was passed for the return of the exiled monarch. Shortly after he was called to preach a thanksgiving sermon, on Monk’s success, at St. Paul’s, before the lord mayor and aldermen. Neither of the sermons appear to have given entire satisfaction. His moderate views displeased partizans of all sides: some charged him with sedition; others with vacillation and temporizing in politics. He was, however, a friend to the king, and rejoiced in the prospect of his restoration. He used all his efforts to promote its accomplishment.
When king Charles was restored, amid the general acclamations of the nation, several of the Presbyterian ministers were made chaplains in ordinary to him,
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Among whom was Baxter. His certificate of appointment to the office is dated June 26, 1660. Various conferences were held by- Baxter and his friends, to promote a union between episcopacy and presbyterianisni. A meeting was held on the subject, in the presence of Charles, at which Baxter was the chief speaker. His address on the occasion is distinguished alike by its piety and fidelity. He was desirous of promoting and securing the religious liberties of the people, and of preventing those measures which he perceived were contemplated to remove many of the most holy and zealous preachers from their flocks. The following passage from his address to the king shows the efforts that had been made to preserve the Gospel ministry during the commonwealth, and his desire that, under the dominion of their rightful monarch, the same invaluable privilege might be preserved.
I presumed to tell him (his majesty) that the people we spake for were such as were contented with an interest in heaven, and the liberty and advantages of the Gospel to promote it; and if this were taken from them, and they were deprived of their faithful pastors, and liberty of worshipping God, they would consider themselves undone in this world, whatever plenty else they should enjoy; and the hearts of his most faithful subjects, who hoped for his help, would even be broken; and that we doubted not but his majesty desired to govern a people made happy by him, and not a broken-hearted people, that considered themselves undone by the loss of that which is dearer to them than all the riches of the world. And I presumed to tell him that the late usurpers that were over us, so well understood their own interest, that, to promote it, they had found this way of doing good to be the most effectual means, and had placed and encouraged many thousand faithful ministers in the church, even such as detested their usurpation. And so far had they attained their ends hereby, that it was the principal means of their interest in the people, and the good opinion that any had conceived of them; and those of them that had taken the contrary course, had thereby broken themselves to pieces. Wherefore I humbly craved his majesty’s patience that we might have the freedom to request of him that, as he was our lawful king, in whom all his people, save a few inconsiderable persons, were prepared to centre, as weary of their divisions, and glad of the satisfactory means of union in him, so he would be pleased to undertake this blessed work of promoting their holiness and concord; for it was not faction or disobedience which we desired him to indulge. And that he would never suffer himself to be tempted to undo the good which Cromwell or any other had done, because they were usurpers that did it; or discountenance a faithful ministry because his enemies had set them up. But that he would rather outgo them in doing good, and opposing and rejecting the ignorant and ungodly, of what opinion or party soever. For the people whose cause we recommended to him, had their eyes on him as the officer of God, 10 defend them in the possession of the helps of their salvation; which, if he were pleased to vouchsafe ihem, their estates and lives would be cheerfully offered to his service.”
“The king gave us not only a free audience, but as gracious an answer as we could expect; professing his gladness to hear our inclinations to agreement, and his resolution to do his part to bring us together; and that it must not be by bringing one party over to the other,
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but by abating somewhat on both sides, and meeting in the midway; and that, if it were not accomplished, it should be of ourselves, and not of him: nay, that he was resolved to see it brought to pass, and that he would draw us together himself: with some more to this purpose. Insomuch that old Mr. Ash burst out into tears with joy, and could not forbear expressing what gladness this promise of his majesty had put into his heart.”
Proposals of agreement were submitted to the king and his advisers, but without effect. Subsequently to this, Baxter was offered a bishopric by the lord chancellor; but this, for various reasons, he declined. He did not consider it “as a thing unlawful in itself,” but he thought he “could better serve the church without it.” In the letter in which he declines episcopal honors, he begs of the lord chancellor that he might be allowed to preach to his old charge at Kidderminster. He says:
“When I had refused a bishopric, I did it on such reasons as offended not the lord chancellor; and therefore, instead of it, I presumed to crave his favor to restore me to preach to my people at Kidderminster again, from whence I had been cast out, when many hundreds of others were ejected upon the restoration of all them that had been sequestered. It was but a vicarage; and the vicar was a poor, unlearned, ignorant, silly reader, that little understood what Christianity and the articles of his creed did signify: but once a quarter he said something which he called a sermon, which made him the pity or laughter of the people. This man, being unable to preach himself, kept always a curate under him to preach. Before the wars, I had preached there only as a lecturer? and he was bound in a bond of £500 to pay me X60 per annum, and afterwards he was sequestered, as is before sufficiently declared. My people were so dear to me, and I to them, that I would have been with them upon the lowest lawful terms. Some laughed at me for refusing a bishopric, and petitioning to be a reading vicar’s curate. But I had little hopes of so good a condition, at least for any considerable time.”
His application, however, proved unsuccessful; for arrangements could not be made between the patron and the chancellor respecting the removal of the old vicar, who retained the charge of four thousand souls, though utterly incompetent for his important duties, and Baxter was left without a charge.
Though not permitted to return to his charge, he nevertheless exerted himself in various ways to promote the glory of God and the good of souls. His attention was, at this period, drawn to the subject of missions among the North American Indians. Eliot, the “Apostle of the Indians,” and his assistants, had effected much good among the roving tribes of America. Cromwell had entered warmly into the cause, and ordered collections to be made in every parish for the propagation of the Gospel in those regions. Funds were raised, a society was formed and incorporated, and much good was effected. At the “Restoration,” some parties, inimical to the truth, endeavored to destroy the institution, and to appropriate the funds to other objects. Baxter, assisted by others, exerted himself to prevent this spoliation; and by his influence at court, succeeded in securing the property, and in restoring the society to its original design.
For his exertions he received a letter of thanks from the Governor of New England, and another from the L. B. 6*
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venerable Eliot. The latter informs Baxter of his intention to translate the “Call to the Unconverted” into the Indian language, but waited for his permission, his counsel, and his prayers. To this letter Baxter repHed. A few extracts from his reply will show the interest that both he and many others felt in the cause of missions in those troublous times.
“Reverend and much honored brother, — Though our sins have separated us from the people of our love and care, and deprived us of all public liberty of preaching the Gospel of our Lord, I greatly rejoice in the liberty, help, and success which Christ has so long vouchsafed you in his work. There is no man on earth whose work I think more honorable than yours. To propagate the Gospel and kingdom of Christ in those dark parts of the world, is a better work than our hating and devouring one another. There are many here that would be ambitious of being your fellow-laborers, but that they are informed you have access to no greater a number of the Indians than you yourself and your present assistants are able to instruct. An honorable gentleman, Mr. Robert Boyle, the governor of the corporation for your work, a man of great learning and worth, and of a very public universal mind, did motion to me a public collection, in all our churches, for the maintaining of such ministers as are willing to go hence to you, while they are learning the Indian languages and laboring in the work, as also to transport them. But I find those backward that I have spoken to about it, partly suspecting it a design of those that would be rid of them; (but if it would promote the work of God, this objection were too carnal to be regarded by good men;) partly fearing that, when the money is gathered, the work may be frustrated by the alienation of it, but this I think they need not fear so far as to hinder any; partly because they think there will be nothing considerable gathered, because the people that are unwillingly divorced from their teachers will give nothing to send them farther from them, but specially because they thhik, on the aforesaid grounds, that there is no work for them to do if they were with you. There are many here, I conjecture, that would be glad logo any where, to Persians, Tartars, Indians, or any unbelieving nation, to propagate the Gospel, if they thought they could be serviceable; but the defect of their languages is their great discouragement. The industry of the Jesuits and friars, and their successes in Congo, Japan, China, &c. shame us all, save you. I should be glad to learn from you how far your Indian tongue extends; how large or populous the country is that uses it, if it be known; and whether it reach only to a few scattered neighbors, who cannot themselves convey their knowledge far because of other languages. We very much rejoice in your happy work, the translation of the Bible, and bless God that hath strengthened you to finish it. If any thing of mine may be honored to contribute in the least measure to your blessed work, I shall have great cause to be thankful to God, and wholly submit the alteration and use of it to your wisdom.”
The state of the heathen appears to have occupied the thoughts of Baxter through the whole course of his ministry. Numerous allusions and references to the subject are found in his writings. In the preface to his work entitled the “Reasons of the Christian Religion,” he states that his desire to promote” the conversion of idolaters and infidels to God and the
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Christian faith,” was one of the reasons which prompted him to write that work. “The doleful thought that five parts of the world were still heathens and Mohammedans, and that Christian princes and preachers did no more for their recovery,” awakened the most painful anxiety and distress in his mind. In his work, “How to do Good to Many,” &c. he asks, “Is it not possible, at least, to help the poor ignorant Armenians, Greeks, Muscovites, and other Christians, who have no printing imong them, nor much preaching and knowledge; ana for want of printing, have very few Bibles, even for their churches or ministers? Could nothing be done to get some Bibles, catechisms, and practical books printed in their own tongues, and given among them? I know there is difficulty in the way; but money, and willingness, and diligence, might do someth;ng. Might not something be done in other plantations, as well as in New-England, towards the conversion of the natives there? IMight not some skillful, zealous preachers be sent thither, who would promote serious piety among those of the English that have too little of it, teach the natives the Gospel, and our planters how to behave themselves so as to win souls to Christ?”
How powerfully affecting, and yet how truly applicable, even at the present hour, is the following passage, contained in his life! — “It would make a believer’s heart bleed, if any thing in the world will do it, to think that five parts in six of the world are still heathens, Mohammedans, and infidels, and that the wicked lives of Christians, with fopperies, ignorance, and divisions, form the great impediment to their conversion! to read and hear travelers and merchants tell that the Banians, and other heathens in Hindostan, Cambaia, and many other lands, and the Mohammedans adjoining to the Greeks, and the Abyssinians, tK;c. do commonly fly from Christianity, and say, ‘God will not save us if we be Christians, for Christians are drunkards, and proud, and deceivers,’ &c. and that the Mohammedans and many heathens have more, both of devotion and honesty, than nominal Christians that live among them! O wretched men, calling themtselves after the name of Christ! that are not content to damn themselves, but thus lay stumbling-blocks before the world! It were better for these men that they had never been born!
At the close of his life, and on the near approach of eternity, his mind was deeply interested on this important subject. The unbounded benevolence of his heart is poured forth in the following extract from his solemn review of his own character, made in his last days:
“My soul is much more afflicted with the thoughts of the miserable world, and more drawn out in desire of their conversion, than heretofore. I was wont to look but little farther than England in my prayers, as not considering the state of the rest of the world: or, if I prayed for the conversion of the Jews, that was almost all. But now. as I better understand the case of the world, and the method of the Lord’s prayer, so there is nothing that lies so heavy upon my heart as the thought of the miserable nations of the earth. It is the most astonishing part of all God’s providence to me, that he so far forsakes almost all the world, and confines his special favor to so few; that so small a part of the world has the profession of Christianity, m comparison of heathens, Mohammedans, and inficels! and that, among professed Christians, there are
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SO few that are saved from gross delusions, and have any competent knowledge; and that among those there are so few that are seriously religious, and truly set their hearts on heaven. I cannot be affected so much with the calamities of my own relations, or of the land of my nativity, as v/iih the case of the heathen, Mohammedan, and ignorant nations of the earth. No part of ray prayers is so deeply serious as that for the conversion of the infidel and ungodly world, that God’s name may be sanctified, and his kingdom come, and his will be done on earth, as it is in heaven. Nor was I ever before so sensible what a plague the division of languages was, which hinders our speaking to them for their conversion; nor what a great sin tyranny is, which keeps out the Gospel from most of the nations of the world. Could we but go among Tartars, Turks, and heathens, and speak their language, I should be but little troubled for the silencing of eighteen hundred ministers at once in England, nor for all the rest that v. ere cast out here, and in Scotland and Ireland. There being no employment in the world so desirable in my eyes, as to labor for the winning of such miserable souls, which makes me greathhonor Mr. John Eliot, the apostle of the Indians in New-England, and whoever else have labored in such work.”
Baxter almost despaired of the conversion of the world. The obstacles to missionary enterprise were at that time insurmountable. He that surveys the present state of the earth.” writes Baxter to his friend Eliot, “and considers that scarcely a sixth part is Christian, and how small a part of them have murh of the power of godliness, will be ready to think that Christ has called almost all his chosen, and is ready to forsake the earth, rather than that he intends us such blessed days as we desire.” But “what hath God wrought How great the change in the state of reUgion, both at home and abroad, since the days of Baxter! Persecution has fled; religion has revived; the missionary spirit has been enkindled; prayer has been offered; money has been contributed; commerce lias presented facilities for introducing the Gospel into all parts of the earth; wide and effectual doors have been opened; missionaries have gone forth to the help of the Lord against the mighty, and great success has attended their labors: so that we are evidently approaching nearer to the period when the proclamation shall be made, “The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ; and he shall reign for ever and ever.”
About this period the celebrated “Savoy Conference” was held. The object was to effect a reconciliation between the different religious parties, that they might be united in one common profession of Christianity. At this conference Baxter took a prominent part. He was sincerely desirous for the peace of the church, and that an accommodation should ensue. For this purpose he submitted various propositions, but without effect: and, after some weeks’ deliberation, the conference was broken up, without the least hope or possibility, under existing circumstances, of reconciliation. Baxter was charged by his antagonists with “speaking too boldly, and too long;” but this he accounted not a crime, but a virtue. “I thought it,” says he, “a cause I could cheerfully suffer for; and should as willingly be a martyr for charity as for faith.”
This was the last public and authorized attempt to promote peace and unity by argument and persuasion.
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Thenceforward other measures were tried to effect so desirable an object, and, most unhappily, the divergence of the parlies became greater than ever.
From the termination of the ‘’Savoy ConferencCj” the case of the dissidents became more trying and perplexing. They were calumniated and charged with preaching sedition, or with forming plots against the government. Baxter, whose loyalty was unimpeachable, and whose ruling passion was a desire for peace, whose very soul was love, appears to have been particularly marked as an object for the shafts of calumny. He says: “So vehement was the endeavor in court, city, and country, to make me contemptible and odious, as if the authors had thought that the safety either of church or state did lie upon it, and all woiuM have been safe if I were but vilified and hated. So that any stranger that had but heard and seen all this, would have asked, AVhat monster of villany is this man? and what is the wickedness that he is guilty of? Yet was I never questioned to this day before a magistrate. Nor do my adversaries charge me with any personal wrong to them; nor did they ever accuse me of any heresy, nor much contemn my judgment, nor ever accuse my life, but for preaching where another had been sequestered that was an insufficient reader, and for preaching to the soldiers of the parliament; though none of them knew my business there, nor the service that I did them. These are all the crimes, besides my writings, that I ever knew they charged my life with.”
“Though no one accused me of any thing, nor spake a word to me of it, being (they knew I had long been) near a hundred miles off, yet did they defame me all over the land, as guilty of a plot; and when men were taken up and sent to prison, in other countries, it wa» said to be for Baxter’s plot: so easy was it, and so necessary a thing it seemed then, to cast reproach upon my name.”
During the two years of his residence in London, previous to his final ejectment, Baxter preached in various places, as opportunities presented themselves.
He says:” Being removed from my ancient flock in Worcestershire, and yet being uncertain whether I might return to them or not, I refused to take any other charge, but preached up and down London, for nothing, according as I was invited. When I had done thus above a year, I thought a fixed place was better, and so I joined with Dr. Bates, at St. Dunstan’s in the West, in Fleet-street, and preached once a week, for which the people allowed me some maintenance. Before this time I scarcely ever preached a sermon in the city.
“The congregations being crowded, was that which provoked envy to accuse me; and one day the crowd drove me frpm my place. In the midst of a sermon at Dunstan’s church, a little lime and dust, and perhaps a piece of a brick or two, fell down in the steeple or belfry, which alarmed the congregation with the idea that the steeple and church were falling; and indeed, in their confusion and haste to get away, the noise of the feet in the galleries sounded like the falling of the stones. I sat still in the pulpit, seeing and pitying their terror; and, as soon as I could be heard, I entreated their silence, and went on. The people were no sooner quieted, and got in again, and the auditory composed, but a wainscot bench, near the communion-table, broke with the weight of those who stood upon it; the nas” renewed the fear, and they were worse disordered ihar. before; so that one old woman was heard, at the churcu
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door, asking forgiveness of God for not taking the frsi warning, and promising, if God would deliver her tins once, she would take heed of coming thither again. When they were again quieted I went on. But ine church having before an ill name, as very old, ana olten, and dangerous, it was agreed to puii down all the roof and repair the building, which is now much more commodious.
While these repairs were made I preached out my quarter at Bride’s church, in the other end of Fleet-street; where the common prayer being used by the curate before sermon, I occasioned abundance to be at common prayer, who before avoided it. And yet accusations against me still continued.
“On the week days, Mr. Ashurst, with about twenty more citizens, desired me to preach a lecture in Milk-street, for which they allowed me forty pounds per annum, which I continued near a year, till we were all silenced. And at the same time I preached once every Lord’s day at Blackfriars, where Mr. Gibbons, a judicious man, was minister. In ]Milk-street I took money, because it came not from the parishioners, but strangers, and so was no Toiig to the minister, 3Ir. Vincent, a very holy, blameless man. But at Blackfriars I never look a penny, because it was the parishioners who called me, who would else be less able and ready to help their worthy pastor, who went to God by a consumption, a little after he was silenced. At these two churches I ended the course of my public ministry, unless God cause an undeserved resurrection.”
“Shortly after our disputation at the Savoy, I went to Rickmansworth, in Hertfordshire, and preached there but once, upon Malt. 22: 12, ‘And he was speechless;’ where I spake not a word that was any nearer kin to sedition, or that had any greater tendency to provoke them, than by showing ’ that wicked men, and the refusers of grace, however they may now have many things to say to excuse their sins, will at last be speechless before God.” Yet did the bishop of Worcester tell me, when he silenced me, that the bishop of London had showed him letters from one of the hearers, assuring him that I preached seditiously: so little security was any man’s innocency to his reputation, if he had but one auditor that desired to get favor by accusing him.
“Shortly after my return to London I went mto Worcestershire, to try whether it were possible to have any honest terms from the reading vicar there, that I might preach to my former flock; but when I had preached twice or thrice, he denied me liberty to preach any more. I offered him to take my lecture, which he was bound to allow me, under a bond of five hundred pounds, but he refused it. I next offered him to be his curate, and he refused it. I next offered him to preach for nothing, and he refused it. And lastly, I desired leave but once to administer the Lord’s supper to the people, and preach my farewell sermon to ihem, but he would not consent. At last I understood that he was directed by his superiors to do what he did. But Mr. Baldwin, an able preacher whom I left there, was yet permitted.
“At that time, my aged father lying in great pain of the stone and strangury, I went to visit him, twenty miles further. And while I was there Mr. Baldwin came to me, and told me that he also was forbidden to preach. We both returned to Kidderminster.”
“Having parted with my dear flock, I need not say with mutual tears, I left Mr. Baldwin to live privately
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among them, and oversee them in my stead, and them from house to house; advising them, notwithstanding all the injuries they had received, and all the failings of the ministers that preached to them, and the defects of the present way of worship, that yet they should keep to the public assemblies, and make use of such helps as might be had in public, togethei with their private helps.-’
The great crisis, which was foreseen by many, had now arrived. The parliamentary attempt to promote ecclesiastical peace, by the “Act of Uniformity,” demanding an oath of absolute subjection to every requisition of the church, ended hi the ejectment of two thousand of the best and holiest ministers in the land from their livings and labors. Baxter determined on not taking the oath, and hence relinquished public preaching as soon as the act was passed, and before it came into operation. His reason for so doing, he states to be, that as his example was looked to by many throughout the country, it might be known that he could not conform.
In the earlier period of his ministry Baxter had resolved not to enter into the married state, that he might pursue his pastoral and ministerial labors with less anxiety and interruption. After his ejectment, however, having no public charge, and seeing little prospect of ever being able to resume his ministerial engagements, he deemed himself at liberty, and that it would conduce to his comfort, to be united in the bonds of matrimony. He married Miss Charlton, a lady whc, though much younger than himself, proved to be in every respect a suitable partner for this eminent saint.
His marriage excited much curiosity and remark throughout the kingdom; and “I think,” he observes, “the king’s marriage was scarce more talked of than mine.” He and his wife lived a very unsettled life; being obliged, on account of persecutions, frequently to remove from one place of residence to another.
He says: “Having lived three years and more in London since I left Kidderminster, but only three quarters of a year since my marriage, and finding it neither agree with my health or studies, the one being brought very low, and the other interrupted, and all public service being at an end, I betook myself to live in the country, at Acton, that I might set myself to writing, and do what service I could for posterity, and live, as much as possibly I could, out of the world. Thither I came, 1663, July 14, where I followed my studies privately in quietness, and went every Lord’s -day to the public assembly, when there was any preaching or catechising, and spent the rest of the day with my family, and a few poor neighbors that came in; spending now and then a day in London. And the next year, 1664, I had the company of divers godly faithful friends that tabled with me in summer, with whom I solaced myself with much content.”
“On March 26, being the Lord’s day, 1665, as I was preaching in a private house, where we received the Lord’s supper, a buHet came in at the window among us, an’! passed by me, and narrowly missed the head of a sister-in-law of mine that was there, and hurt none of us; and we could never discover whence it came.
“In June following, an ancient gentlewoman, with her sons and daughter, came four miles in her coach, to hear me preach in my family, as out of special respect to me. It happened that, contrary to our cuslom, we let her knock long at the door, and did not
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open it; and so a second time, when she had gone dway and came again; and the third time she came, we had ended. She M’as so earnest to know when she might come again to hear me, that I appointed her a time. But before she came, I had secret intelligence, from one that was nigh her, that she came with a heart exceeding full of malice, resolving, if possible, to do me what mischief she could by accusation; and 50 that danger was avoided.”
The -’plague of London-’ now burst forth with tremendous fury, on which Baxter thus remarks:
“And now, after all the breaches on the churches, the ejection of the ministers, and impenitency under all, wars, and plague, and danger of famine began all at once on us. War with the Hollanders, which yet continues; and the driest winter, spring, and summer that ever man alive knew, or our forefathers mention of late ages; so that the grounds were burnt, like the highways, where the caiile should have fed! The meadow grounds, where I lived, bare but four loads of hay, which before bare forty. The plague has seized on the most famous and most excellent city in Christendom, and at this time eight thousand die of all diseases in a week. It has scattered and consumed the inhabitants, multitudes being dead and fled. The calamities and cries of the diseased and impoverished are not to be conceived by those that are absent from them I Every man is a terror to his neighbor and himself; for God, for our sins, is a terror to us all. 0! how is London, the place which God has honored with his Gospel above all the places of the earth, laid in low horrors, and wasted almost to desolation by the wrath of God, whom England hath contemned; and a God-hating generation are consumed in their sins, and the righteous are also taken away, as from greater evu yet to come.”
“The number that died in London alone was about a hundred thousand. The richer sort removing out of the city, the greatest blow fell on the poor. At first, so few of the most religious were taken away, that, according to the mode of too many such, they began to be puffed up, and boast of the great difference which God made; but quickly after, they all fell alike. Yet not many pious ministers were taken away: I remember but three, who were all of my own acquaintance.
“It is scarcely possible for people that live in a time of health and security, to apprehend the dreadfulness of that pestilence! How fearful people were, thirty or forty, if not a hundred miles from London, of any thing that they bought from any mercer’s or draper’s shop! or of any goods that were brought to them! or of any person that came to their houses! How they would shut their doors against their friends! and if a man passed over the fields, how one would avoid another, as we did in the time of wars; and how every man was a terror to another! O how sinfully unthankful are we for our quiet societies, habitations, and health!”
Many of the ejected ministers seized the opportunity of preaching in the neglected or deserted pulpits, and in the public places of resort, to the terror-stricken inhabitants of London, and blessed results followed.” Those heard them one day often, that were sick the next, and quickly died. The face of death so awakened both preachers and hearers, that preachers exceeded themselves in fervent preaching, and the people crowded constantly to hear them; and all was done with such great seriousness that, through the blessing of
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God, many were converted from their carelessness, impenitency, and j’outhful lusts and vanities; and religion took such a hold on the people’s hearts as could never afterwards be loosed.”
AVhen the plague reached Acton, in July, Mr. Baxter retired to Hampden, in Bucks, where he continued with his friend Mr. Hampden till the following March. The plague, he says, ‘* having ceased on March 1st following, I returned home, and found the churchyard like a ploughed field with graves, and many of my neighbors dead; but my house, near the churchyard, uninfected, and that part of my family which I left there, all safe, through the great mercy of God.**
Scarcely had the plague ceased its ravages before the great fire commenced its destructive career in London. Churches in great numbers were destroyed in the general conflagration. The zealous, though silenced watchmen, ventured, amid the ashes of a ruined city, to urge the inhabitants to flee from the wrath to come,” and to seek, in their impoverished condition,
the unsearchable riches of Christ.*’
The distress occasioned by these calamities was great. “Many thousands were cast into utter want and beggary, and many thousands of the formerly rich were disabled from relieving them.” To the friends of Christ in London, the silenced ministers in the country had been accustomed to look for assistance in their distresses. By these providences their resources were in a measure dried up. But, though enduring dreadful privations, few, if any, were suffered to perish through want. Baxter says:
Whilst I was living at Acton, as long as the act against conventicles was in force, though I preached to my family, few of the town came to hear me. panly because they thought it would endanger me, and partly for fear of suffering themselves, but especially because they were an ignorant poor people, and had no appetite for such things. But when the act was expired, there came so many that I wanted room; and when once they had come and heard, they afterwards came constantly; insomuch that in a little time there was a great number of them that seemed very seriously affected with the things they heard; and almost all the town, besides multitudes from Brentford and the neighboring places, came.”
He attended the services of the church, and between the interval of service preached in his own house to as many as chose to come. This gave umbrage to the minister. “It pleased the parson,” says Baxter, “that I came to church, and brought others with me; but he was not able to bear the sight of people’s crowding into my house, thouyh they heard him also; so that, though he spoke kindly to me, and we lived in seeming love and peace while he was there, yet he could not long endure it. And when I had brought the people to church to hear him, he would fall upon them with groundless reproaches, as if he had done it purposely to drive them away; and yet thought that my preaching to them, because it was in a private house, did all the mischief, though he never accused me of any thing that I spake. For I preached nothing but Christianity and submission to our superiors, faith, repentance, hope, love, humility, self-denial, meekness, patience, and obedience.”
During his residence at Acton, Baxter became acquainted with Lord Chief Justice Hale, who occupied the house adjoining his own. With his simplicity, integrity, piety, and learning, he was delighted and
LIFE OF BAXTER.
charmed. He denominates him “the pillar of justice, the refuge of the subject who feared oppression, and one of the greatest honors of his majesty’s government.” His lordship, too, appears to have been equally interested in the character of his neighbor. His avowed esteem and respect for the despised nonconformist was a means of encouraging and strengthening the hands of Baxter. “When the people crowded in and out of my house to hear, he openly showed me such great respect before them at the door, and never spake a word against it, as was no small encouragement to the common people to go on; though the other sort muttered that a judge should seem so far to countenance that which they took to be against the law.”