which God hath promised to them that love him. As Mr. George Herbert saith in his church Militant,

"Gold and the gospel never did agree;

Religion always sides with poverty."

"One knight, Sir Ralph Clare, who lived among us, did more to hinder my greater successes than a multitude of others could have done. Though he was an old man of great courtship and civility, and very temperate as to diet, apparel, and sports, and seldom would swear louder than "by his troth," etc. and showed me much personal reverence and respect, beyond my desert, and we conversed together with love and familiarity; yet, (having no relish for this preciseness, and extemporary praying, and making so much ado for heaven; nor liking that which went beyond the pace of saying the common prayer; and also the interest of himself and of his civil and ecclesiastical parties leading him to be ruled by Dr. Hammond,) his coming but once a day to church on the Lord's days, and his abstaining from the sacrament, as if we kept not sufficiently to the old way, and because we used not the cominon prayer book when it would have caused us to be sequestered, did cause a great part of the parish to follow him, and do as he did, when else our success and concord would have been much more happy than it was. And yet his civility and yielding much beyond others of his party, sending his family to be catechized and personally instructed, did sway with almost the worst among us, to the like. Indeed we had two other persons of quality, Col. John Bridges, and at last Mrs Hanmer, that came from other places to live there, and were truly and judiciously religious, who did much good; for when the rich are indeed religious and overcome their temptations, as they may be supposed better than others, because their conquest is greater, so they may do more good than others, because their talents are more. But such are always comparatively few.

"28. Another thing that helped me, was my not meddling with tithes or wordly business, whereby I had my whole time, except what sickness deprived me of, for my duty, and my mind more free from entanglements than else it would have been; and, also, I escaped the offending of the people, and contending by any law-suits

with them. Three or four of my neighbors managed all those kinds of business, of whom I never took account; and if any one refused to pay his tithes, if he was poor, I ordered them to forgive him. (After that, I was constrained to let the tithes be gathered as by my title, to save the gatherers from law-suits.) But if the parties were able, I ordered them to seek it by the magistrate, with the damage, and give both my part and the damages to the poor; for I resolved to have none of it myself that was recovered by law, and yet I could not tolerate the sacrilege and fraud of covetous men. When they knew that this was the rule I went by, none of them that were able would do the poor so great a kindness as to deny the payment of their tithes. In my family, I had the help of my father and mother-in-law, and the benefit of a godly, understanding, faithful servant, an ancient woman, near sixty years old, who eased me of all care, and laid out all my money for housekeeping; so that I never had one hour's trouble about it, nor ever took one day's account of her for fourteen years together, as being certain of her fidelity, providence, aad skill.

"29. And it much furthered my success, that I staid still in this one place, near two years before the wars, and above fourteen years after; for he that removeth oft from place to place, may sow good seed in many places, but is not likely to see much fruit in any, unless some other skilful hand shall follow him to water it. It was a great advantage to me to have almost all the religious people of of the place, of my own instructing and informing; and that they were not formed into erroneous and factious principles before; and that I staid to see them grow up to some confirmedness and maturity.

"30. Lastly, our successes were enlarged beyond our own congregations, by the lectures kept up round about. To divers of them I went so oft as I was able; and the neighboring ministers, oftener than I; especially Mr. Oasland, of Bewdley, who having a strong body, a zealous spirit, and an earnest utterance, went up and down preaching from place to place, with great acceptance and success. But this business, also, we contrived to be universally and orderly managed. For, beside the lectures set up on week days fixedly, in several places, we studied how to have them extend to every

place in the county that had need. For when the parliament purged the ministry, they cast out the grosser sort of insufficient and scandalous ones, such as gross drunkards and such like; and also some few civil men that had assisted in the wars against the parliament, or set up bowing to altars, or such innovations; but they had left in nearly one half the ministers, that were not good enough to do much service, or bad enough to be cast out as utterly intolerable. These were a company, of poor, weak preachers who had no great skill in divinity, or zeal for godliness; but preached weakly that which is true, and lived in no gross, notorious sin. These men were not cast out, but yet their people greatly needed help; for their dark, sleepy preaching did but little good. We, therefore, resolved that some of the abler ministers should often voluntarily help them; but all the care was how to do it without offending them.

"It fell out seasonably that the Londoners of that county, at their yearly feast, collected about thirty pounds, and sent it to me by that worthy man, Mr. Thomas Stanley, of Bread-street, to set up a lecture for that year. Whereupon we covered all our designs under the name of the Londoner's Lecture, which took off the offence. We choose four worthy men, Mr. Andrew Tristram, Mr. Henry Oasland, Mr. Thomas Baldwin, and Mr. Joseph Treble, who undertook to go, each man his day, once a month, which was every Lord's day between the four, and to preach at those places which had most need twice on a Lord's day. To avoid all ill consequences and offence, they were sometimes to go to abler men's congregations; and wherever they came, to say somewhat always to draw the people to the honor and special regard of their own pastors, that, how weak soever they were, they might see that we came not to draw away the people's hearts from them, but to strengthen their hands, and help them in their work.

"This lecture did a great deal of good; and though the Londoners gave their money but that one year, when it was once set on foot, we continued it voluntarily, till the ministers were turned out and all these works went down together.

"So much of the way and helps of those successes, which I mention, because many have inquired after them, as willing, with

their own flocks, to take that course which other men have by experience found to be effectual."*

In

Such was Baxter as a pastor; and such were his successes. answer to the inquiry how far the progress of religion in other places might be supposed to correspond with what he testifies concerning Kidderminster, he says "I must bear this faithful witness to those times, that as far as I was acquainted, where before there was one godly preacher, there were then six or ten; and taking one place with another, I conjecture there is a proportionable increase of truly godly people, not counting heretics, or perfidious rebels, or church disturbers, as such. But this increase of godliness was not in all places alike. For in some places where the ministers were formal, or ignorant, or weak or imprudent, contentious or negligent, the parishes were as bad as heretofore. And in some places, where the ministers had excellent parts and holy lives, and thirsted after the good of souls, and wholly devoted themselves, their time and strength and estates, thereunto, and thought no pains or cost too much, there abundance were converted to serious godliness. And with those of a middle state, usually they had a middle measure of success. And I must add this to the true information of posterity; that God did so wonderfully bless the labors of his unanimous faithful ministers, that had it not for the faction of the prelatists on one side that drew men off, and the factions of the giddy and turbulent sectaries on the other side," "together with some laziness and selfishness in many of the ministry, I say had it not been for these impediments, England had been like in a quarter of an age to have become a land of saints, and a pattern of holiness to all the world, and the unmatchable paradise of the earth. Never were such fair opportunities to sanctify a nation lost and trodden under foot, as have been in this land of late. Woe be to them that were the causes of it!"

At this time there was no jurisdiction exercised either in or over the national church of England, other than that which was exercised by the civil goverment for the time being. The abolition of episcopacy had not been succeeded by the establishment of the presby

Narrative, Part I. pp. 83-96.

terian platform, or any other national system. The model framed by the Westminster assembly, had indeed been adopted in London; but it wanted the sanction of law, and was not received with great favor by either ministers or people. In these circumstances, the pastors in Worcestershire formed an association for mutual advice and assistance in all matters relating to their official work, resembling very closely the associations of the congregational ministers in this country. Their example was followed in other parts of England. In effecting this organization Baxter seems to have had an important agency both in his own county and elsewhere. Respecting the men who united in the Worcestershire association, he says, “Though we made our terms large enough for all, episcopal, presbyterians and independents, there was not one Presbyterian* joined with us that I knew of, (for I knew of but one in all the county;) nor one independent, though two or three honest ones. said nothing against us; nor one of the new prelatical way, but three or four moderate conformists that were for the old episcopacy: and all the rest were mere catholics, men of no faction, nor siding with any party; but owning that which was good in all as far as they could discern it; and upon a concord in so much, laying themselves out for the great end of their ministry, the people's edification."

In this connection he adds a few remarks on another subject, which well illustrate the true liberality of his own temper. "The increase of sectaries among us, was much through the weakness or the faultiness of ministers. And it made me remember that sects have most abounded when the gospel hath most prospered, and God hath been doing the greatest works in the world as first in the apostle's and the primitive times; and then, when christian emperors were assisting the church; and then, when reformation prospered in Germany; and lately in New-England where godliness most flourished; and last of all, here when so pleasant a spring had raised all our hopes. And our impatience of weak people's errors

*He uses this word here in the party sense comon in those times. He means of the Scottish party, zealous for the covenant and the exclusive divine right of presbytery.