ferred himself to the See of Hereford. As to other
events in his life at this time, there are many letters

* Vide the closing paragraph of A Breviatc of the Life of
Margaret . . . Wife of Richard Baxter.



294 ANCIENT MEETING HOUSES.

among the State papers containing allusions to him
which deserve attention. According to the effusion
of an informer, one Edmund Potter, the Dissenters
"boasted of their perfect acquaintance with Court
proceedings ; and derisively spoke of the Eoyal
forces, which 50,000 patriots in London alone
could annihilate. A Colonel Hunt is mentioned
as a leader of the revolutionary party. Every Tues-
day Hunt kept open house, and gave a " parson's
ordinary" to the Nonconformists. Another man-
sion, seventeen miles down the Western-road, was a
notorious Dissenting rendezvous, and the company
often included Baxter, Manton, and their companions.
The councils were strictly private, the women of the
household being rigidly excluded. Such materials
as these should be used by the historian with much
discrimination, and the wheat carefully sifted from
the chaff. For example, it is satisfactory to learn,
even from such sources, that the Nonconformist
leaders were occasionally entrusted with large sums
of money, wherewith to succour their poorer brethren.
"We are informed, moreover, of the more prominent
Dissenting stations. At the home of Hampden, in
Buckinghamshire, Baxter often preached. Another
refuge was the Countess of Exeter's mansion, in
Little-Britain, where the most eminent Puritans
were wont to officiate.

Then followed a time of anguish and of desola-
lation, in which the irreligious populace were con-
strained to share. They were truly days of terrible



LITTLE CARTER LANE. 295

national trial. But equal to the crisis there
emerged from a hitherto enforced seclusion such
spirits as Janeway, Chester, Vincent, and others. "
Like true spiritual heroes, these boldly entered the
stricken city to attend the sick, to console the
dying, and to preach the Gospel to flocks now for-
saken by their affrighted pastors. Many sad
reminiscences might be collected of that fearful
ordeal through which England passed. On returning
to his Acton lodgings, Baxter found his friends of
the household still alive, but the churchyard
resembled a " Plow'd field with graves." Eespecting
the Plague and the Tire, a few facts are obtainable
from our author's life. The citizens, we learn,
watched the flames with speechless misery, their
useless engines standing by the while. Then, in a
sudden and mysterious manner, the fire ceased its
ravages. The vaults of Old St. Paul's suggested
themselves to the stationers as a safe asylum for
those literary treasures with which the vicinity
abounded. But, alas ! the books shared destruction
with the sanctuary. The King, attended by a staff
of nobles, rode about in great consternation, and as
impotent to check the relentless fire as was the
least important among the spectators. A more sig-
nificant fact was the appearance on the scene of the
Nonconformist leaders as already referred to. Taking-
advantage of the confusion, they showed a magnani-
mous disregard of law, opened their meeting-houses,
and entered on pastoral work. Indeed, about this



296 ANCIENT MEETING HOUSES.

time or soon after, the Dissenters' hopes were in the-
ascendant by reason of the fall of Clarendon and the
rise of Buckingham. The latter was influenced by
more liberal principles, and for the time religion
seems to have benefited by his accession to power.
Some were even sufficiently sanguine to talk of a
scheme of Comprehension.

During Baxter's residence at Acton he instituted
in his own home a meeting for Christian instruction.
The statutes against Dissent were so stringently
enforced that only a scanty assembly was attracted,
although his neighbours held their distinguished
townsman in high veneration, and correspondingly
valued his counsels. "When the laws for a season
were somewhat relaxed, however, Baxter was quite
overwhelmed with enquirers anxious to profit by his
able teachings. The Vicar of Acton Avas a zealous
bigot, employing for a curate " a weak, dull young
man, that spent most of his time in alehouses."
Baxter attended church for example's sake, but was
no less on that account an eyesore to the worthless
clergy. These "loyal" divines could little brook
the presence of their illustrious parishioner, and so
proceeded to concoct some heavy charges against
him, which were presented to the King. Charles
never cared to have his pleasure interrupted by
clerical petitions ; and at once rid himself of the
present intruders by referring them to the Bishop of
London the sequel being that, as a Nonconformist
recusant, Baxter was committed to Clerkenwell Gaol.



LITTLE CAKTEK LANE. 297

All this occurred in 1670 ; but his imprisonment, it
is pleasing to find, occasioned our author only slight
inconvenience. He was respectfully and even con- .
siderately treated, and in addition to the use of a
garden, enjoyed a comfortable apartment, while ?
friends without plentifully supplied him with the
necessaries of life. Infamous as were the times,
the arrest of such a man drew down on the heads
of those in power an inconvenient amount of odium.
The efforts of friends at Court to obtain a release
were seconded by Buckingham, who represented to
Charles how such proceedings damaged his Majesty's
reputation. Brought up by a writ of habeas corpus,
the prisoner was acquitted by the Court of Common
Pleas.

A short time after the above episode, Baxter lost
a thousand pounds by the closing of the Exchequer ;
but a mere loss of wealth only slightly concerned
him. In 1672 he took advantage of the Indulgence,
and took out a preacher's licence. In that same
year was founded the Merchants' Lecture ; and who
more fitting than Baxter to assist in inaugurating
that famous institution, notwithstanding that the
first sermon he preached in the course was denounced
as Arminian by a certain faction of the citizens ?
He also served on another lecture in Fetter-lane ;
but in a sketch like the present it will be impossible
completely to follow the thread of so diversified a
career. When his heart and home were desolated
by the removal of Margaret, his inward bit-



298 ANCIENT MEETING HOUSES.

terness was supplemented by the persecution
which about that time broke out with renewed
virulence. Under the provisions of the Five Mile
Act, he was once more suddenly arrested, and, as he
had lately preached four times, the fines amounted to
two hundred pounds. His strength was now reduced
by age and disease ; yet he was only saved from the
hardships peculiar to felons by the interposition of a
friend, who publicly certified that the proceedings
were endangering the pastor's life ; and such really
being the case, Baxter was allowed to return to his
bed. The King interfered in Baxter's favour, and
the suit was abandoned ; but notwithstanding the
royal influence, the latter lost the chief portion of
/ his books and furniture a loss which compelled
him to relinquish housekeeping and to retire into
lodgings.

We are assisted in forming an estimate of the
state of public affairs at this date (1683) by many
stray facts drawn from various sources. It was the
year of the judicial murder of Russell and Sydney.
Government informers were animated by a relentless
industry ; for they even pounced on such mere
youths and maidens as were found at Nonconformist
meetings. In numerous instances very young per-
sons were convicted of rioting on evidence no more
satisfactory than that of having attended conventicles.
Of these some were fined, some were imprisoned,
and others were doomed to beat hemp at Bridewell.
Other facts rise to the surface proving the un-



LITTLE CARTER LANE. 299

principled Government to have been as devoid of
honour as of charity. A certain clergyman, for i
example, bequeathed six hundred pounds for distri-
bution among sixty Bartholomew confessors, but the
Lord Chancellor ruled the bequest to be illegal, and
the money \vas not recovered until after the Revolu-
tion. A list was made of a thousand persons
suspected of dangerous practices ; and in the estima-
tion of the authors, such a galaxy necessarily in-
cluded Baxter. On the appearance of a company r
of officers to arrest him, our divine retired to his
study ; and as locks could not be broken with im-
punity, his enemies determined to allow him neither
sleep nor refreshment ; and to effect their design,
six men were stationed throughout the night at the
chamber door. After being arraigned three times
before the sessions, the old man was bound over in
heavy amounts to keep the peace. Pitiable to the
last degree must have been the condition of England,
and degraded indeed her Government, when the dan-
gerous .classes were made to include the devoted
and laborious Baxter.

Thus days and years flew on, and time brought
its wonted round of adventure. As regarded Eichard
Baxter, the succeeding and iniquitous reign of James
he Second was destined to witness the perpetration of
a crowning piece of judicial folly. Jeffreys being now
in the ascendant, he proved himself a worthy agent
of a perfidious master. Immediately after the death . ,
of Charles, Baxter was indicted for calumniating



300 ANCIENT MEETING HOUSES.

the bishops in his paraphrase on the New Testament.
As all concerned knew perfectly well, the allusions
complained of referred to certain ancient pastors ;
but the Government were glad of a lame excuse for
denouncing the book as " scandalous and seditious,"
since such a procedure promised to punish the
writer. The case came on in May, 1685, when
Baxter was in so weakly a condition that his counsel
endeavoured to get the trial postponed : " I will not
give another minute to save his life," roared Jeffreys.
" We have had to do with other sorts of persons ;
but now we have a saint to deal with, and I know
how to deal with saints as well as sinners." Just
at that moment a neighbouring pillory was fittingly
occupied by Dr. Gates ; and the wit of the judge
prompted a parallel between the plotter and the
divine : " He," cried his lordship, referring to the
lying informer, and pointing to the court-yard, " He
suffers for the truth ; but if Baxter did but stand on
the other side of the pillory with him, I would say
two of the greatest rogues in the kingdom stood
there."

On the day of trial Baxter entered the court at
Guildhall, with a mien betokening serene com-
posure, such as a sense of innocence, and of the
injustice awarded him only could have engendered.
He was attended by Sir Henry Ashurst and Dr.
Bates ; for now that dear ministering angel, whose
gentle heroism had so often encouraged him, was
aiding the joy of other spheres. On all sides



LITTLE CARTER LANE. 301

eminent persons thronged the court. Many con-
flicting sympathies were represented; but perhaps
none sanctioned that native insolence of the monster
who presided, and who disgraced in common both
his species and the bench of justice. The first case
of the day being concluded, the clerk proceeded to
call another, when he suddenly heard himself re- ,
proved in savage but familiar tones : " You BLOCK-
HEAD ; the next case is between Ei chard Baxter
and the King." Accordingly the differences be- '
tween the divine and the Crown were entered into ;
and the obnoxious passages the alleged reflections
on the English prelates were read. The solicitude
of Sir Henry Ashurst had provided for the defence
the ablest counsel the town afforded, in the persons
of Wallop and Pollexfen ; * and one of these gentle-
men now essayed to address the court : " My Lord,
I humbly conceive the bishops Mr. Baxter speaks of
were the plagues of the church and of the world."

* Pollexfen opened the defence. "When the trial came
on at Guildhall, a crowd of those who loved and honoured
Baxter filled the court. At his side stood Dr. William Bates,
one of the most eminent of the Nonconformist divines. Two
Whig barristers of great note Pollexfen and Wallop appeared
for the defendant. Pollexfen had scarcely begun his address
to the jury, when the Chief Justice broke forth, 'Pollexfen,
I know you well, I will set a mark on you. You are the
patron of the faction. This is an old rogue, a schismatical
knave, a hypocritical villain. He hates the Liturgy. He
would have nothing but long-winded cant without book : '
and then his Lordship turned up his eyes, clasped his hands,






302 ANCIENT MEETING HOUSES.

" Mr. Wallop," screamed Jeffreys, " I observe you
are in all these dirty causes, and were it not for you
gentlemen of the long robe that hold up these
factious knaves by the chin we should not be at the
pass we are." " My Lord," returned Wallop, " I
humbly conceive that the passages accused are
natural deductions from the text." " You humbly
conceive," Jeffreys again bellowed, " and I humbly
conceive. Swear him. Swear him." Wallop how-
ever, was too accustomed to such legal routine to be
readily cowed. " My Lord," he said, " I am counsel
for the defendant, and if I understand either Latin
or English the information now brought against Mr.
Baxter upon such slight ground is a greater reflec-
tion upon the Church of England than anything
contained in the book." But the lawyer was no
match for his ferocious opponent. " Sometimes you
humbly conceive," now cried the latter, " and some-
times you are very positive. You talk of your skill

and began to sing through his nose, in imitation of what he
supposed to be Baxter's style of praying, ' Lord, we are thy
people, thy dear people, thy peculiar people." Pollexfen
gently reminded the Court that his late majesty had thought
Baxter deserving of a bishopric. ' And what ailed the old
blockhead then,' cried Jeffreys, ' that he did not take it ? ' His
fury now almost rose to madness. He called Baxter a dog, and
swore that it would be no more than justice to whip such a
villain through the whole City.'" Macaulay's Hist. Eng.,
chap. iv. To Pollexfen the credit belongs of having given a
smart repartee to the judge's indecent mimicry: " My Lord,
some will think it hard measure to stop these men's mouths, and
not let them speak through their noses."



LITTLE CARTER LANE. 303

in church history, and of your understanding Latin
and English. I think I understand something of
them as well as you ; but in short, must tell you
that if you don't understand your duty better I
shall teach it you." Soon after Jeffreys was heard
denouncing Baxter " as an enemy to the name of
thing, the office and person of bishops." It was next
argued that in certain passages of the Paraphrase,
bishops were respectfully alluded to. Then Baxter
himself attempted to get a hearing. "My Lord, I
have been so moderate with respect to the church, that
I have incurred the censure of many of the Dissenters
on that account." " Baxter for bishops," retorted
the judge, " that's a merry conceit indeed ; turn to
it ; turn to it." An advocate immediately took the
volume and read : " Great respect is due to those
truly called to be bishops " " Ay," interrupted
Jeffreys, with one of his savagest expressions, " Ay,
that's himself, and such rascals called to be bishops
of Kidderminster and other such places. Bishops
set apart by such factious, snivelling Presbyterians
as himself. A Kidderminster bishop he means,
according to the saying of a late learned author,
'every parish shall maintain a tithe-pig metropolitan.'"
Another endeavour on Baxter's part to make himself
heard provoked the well-known outburst, " Eichard,
Kichard, dost thou think we'll hear thee poison the
court ? Eichard, thou art an old fellow, an old
knave. Thou hast written books enough to load a
cart, everyone as full of sedition (I might say



304 ANCIENT MEETING HOUSES.

treason) as an egg is full of meat. ... I know
thou hast a mighty party, and I see a great many
of the brotherhood in corners waiting to see what
will become of their mighty donne ; but ... I
will crush you all." On what was supposed to be
the conclusion of the evidence Baxter ventured to
ask, " Does your Lordship think any jury will
pretend to pass a verdict upon me after such a
trial?" "I'll warrant you, Mr. Baxter," was the
rejoinder ; " don't you trouble yourself about that."
While walking from the court, accompanied by Sir
Henry Ashurst, the defendant turned on the wicked
judge and told him, that a predecessor of his would
have acted differently. "There is not an honest
man in England," was the reply, " but takes you for
a great rogue." When judgment was given, on a
future day, the author was ordered to forfeit five
hundred marks.

As Baxter had but recently lost a thousand
pounds by the closing of the Exchequer, the fine
was not discharged, and he was, therefore, im-
prisoned in the King's Bench as a defaulter.* Soon
dfter he was set at liberty and allowed to live in

. * The sympathy Baxter's trials drew forth, must have
greatly cheered him. At this date young Matthew Henry was
a student at Gray's Inn. The future commentator visited
the Puritan leader in his confinement, and gracefully offered
him a gift of money from Philip Henry ; but, as the latter
was an ejected minister, Richard could not be prevailed upon
to accept the present by all the powers of persuasion the
youthful Matthew could command.



LITTLE CARTER LANE. 30 J

London, notwithstanding the provisions to the con-
trary of the Oxford Act. He now removed to
Charterhouse-square, his last earthly home, and
about the same time undertook to assist Matthew
Sylvester at Eutland House. The depression of
weakness and infirmity, however, told him that he
had reached the last stage of his mortal pilgrimage,
and he died on the 8th of November, 1691. His
character has been so often delineated, that any at-
tempt of the kind in this place would be superfluous.
"The Industrious Invalid," "the Shakespeare and
Demosthenes of English Theology," and "the
Augustine of Nonconformity," are familiar terms to
every Baxterian bibliographer.

Although linked with Kidderminster, Baxter's
life and labours also pre-eminently belong to
London, and are associated with many of the
buildings yet remaining in the old city. At St.
Margaret's, Westminster, we find traces of him as
we fancy ourselves listening to his sermon before
the Parliament, just prior to the Eestoration. We
can enter St. Dunstan's, Fleet-street, and there
imagine ourselves witnessing a panic in the congre-
gation, occasioned by an alarm that the building was
falling down ; and we may profit by the wise reproof
and ready improvement which the preacher utters.
At Oxenden-street we see him expelled from a
chapel reared by the munificence of Mistress
Margaret, but in which the devoted husband was
only permitted to officiate once. At Swallow-street,

20



306 ANCIENT MEETING HOUSES.

near at hand, and at Maid -lane, Soutlrwark, we
imagine ourselves to be a part of that great crowd
of citizens who learned wisdom at the feet of this
Puritan Demosthenes. At the Savoy, at Sion Col-
lege, at St. Bride's, at St. Paul's, and at Whitehall,
this same fragile form of Eichard Baxter, even as a
spectral child of fancy, rebukes us for so slightly
improving life's fleeting hours, and for making so
faint an impression for good on our generation.
Noble Baxter! When compared with you, and with
other like stars of the seventeenth century galaxy,
what diminutive tapers do the majority of us appear!
And how contemptibly poor and abject are they who
live merely for earthly wealth and for earthly honour.
ALMOST WELL, he replied, when at his death one
asked him, " How are you ? " We take our leave
of him at Charterhouse-square, unless, indeed, we
follow his lifeless clay to its sepulchre in Christ-
church, where it rests beside the body of his beloved
i Margaret. Noble Baxter ! How plainly manifest is
it to you now that, notwithstanding all its painful
privations, your lot on earth was a blessed lot. We
admiringly contemplate your work, but cannot de-
scribe your reward. To do so we should need your
own, or even an angel's powers. Our incapacity to
catch the light and music of sinless spheres is only
equalled by the readiness with which your sanctified
genius reflected the one and appropriated the other,
to transfer them to the luminous pages of your
immortal Saints' Rest ; and the blessedness of your



LITTLE CAKTEK LANE. 307

present condition you have yourself described in
that greatest of all your writings : 0, what a
mighty change is this ! Farewell, sin and

suffering. . . . Welcome, most holy heavenly
nature*

Connected with this important Society at Little
Carter-lane at the time of his outset in life appears
Edmund Calamy, the celebrated author of the Ac-
count of Ejected Ministers. His ministry under
Matthew Sylvester lasted only four years ; but a
sketch of his life may with propriety be given in
connection with the Society, since Calamy after-
wards became a prominent leader of the Noncon-
formists. His family claimed a good descent, their
ancestors having migrated from Guernsey, whither
tradition says, they were driven in the days of per-
secution under Charles IX. of France. Amid the
political and religious troubles of the Civil Wars

* The principal sources of information for the above
have been the Calendars of State Papers, Domestic Series,
Charles II.; the Life of Baxter, by himself, Sylvester's
edition; and also Calamy's Abridgment; Bates' Sermon on
the death of Eichard Baxter ; Baxter's Memoir of his "Wife ;
several of his minor pieces, e. g., The Quaker's Catechism,
and his Letter to the People of Kidderminster ; Wilson's
Dissenting Churches, &c., &c. Baxter wrote between one
and two hundred separate works, of which there are about
one hundred in Dr. Williams' s Library. An imperfect list by
Calamy occupies twelve octavo pages. A selection from his
political writings were publicly burned at Oxford on the day
of Eussell's death, in the summer of 1683.

20*



308 ANCIENT MEETING HOUSES.

the Doctor's grandfather enjoyed the powerful pro-
tection of the Earl of Essex while settled at Koch-
ford, and on removing to London he succeeded Dr.
Stoughtoii at Aldermanbury, .where -he metamor-
phosed the rectory into a Puritan city rendezvous.
Calamy exercised a vast influence over the Presby-
terians a power he exerted in favour of the Eestora-
tion ; so that for a season after the King's return
the divine was something thought of at Court. How
well the Government could remember such services
Calamy's subsequent arrest and imprisonment served
to testify. On account of this injustice the con-
science of Charles accused him, and he arranged to
hold an interview with the Puritan confessor, which
was made the occasion of proffering him the See of
Lichfield, on condition of his conforming. The royal
offer was refused, and Calamy died soon after the
iFire of London. His sons, James and Benjamin,
both conformed at the Eestoration. Edmund, the
eldest, was the silenced minister of Moreton, in
Essex, and the founder of the Nonconformist Society
in the Old Jewry. Benjamin, as a protege of Jeffreys,
became an uncompromising partisan of Episcopacy.
He published a treatise in defence of the last-named
regimen, and openly challenged a gainsaying of his
arguments. Those arguments were refuted by
Delaune, whose moral courage and literary skill
cost him an imprisonment in Newgate for the
remainder of his life. A notable inhabitant of
Calamy's father's parish was that victim of kingcraft,



LITTLE CARTER LANE. 309

Alderman CornisL. Young Calamy happened to be
walking up Milk-street on the day of the alderman's
execution, and he there encountered his uncle Ben-
jamin, looking as though he would sink through the
pavement.

Edmund was judiciously trained during early life ;
those liberal and tolerant principles being also care-
fully instilled into his mind, which in an age of
controversial violence characterised his sire. His
father was a staunch Nonconformist, who never
depreciated the Established Church. His wife was
a companion worthy of his amiable and gentle
nature. During his childhood she was to her son
an efficient tutor. She it was who taught him to
read, and when that art was fairly mastered, she
honoured a good old Presbyterian custom by sending
Edmund each Saturday afternoon to Dyers' Hall, so
that he might take his place among the catechumens
of pastor Lye.

A very pleasant and peaceful home was that of
the Calamys in Alderman bury, and very profitable
was the social intercourse between divines of all de-