[132] This paper is printed in Baxter's Life and Times, ii. 242–247, and in Documents relating to the Settlement of the Church of England by the Act of Uniformity of 1662, p. 27, but not in Cardwell's Conferences.
[133] Life and Times, ii. 258, 259.
[134] Ibid., 265, et seq.
[135] This no doubt had to do with the importance they attached to the ring and the sign of the cross. If any one would see the modern expression of this feeling in an intensified form, let him read Keble's Tract for the Times, No. 89, and Preface to Hooker, lxxxix.
[136] Romans xiv.
[137] In the foregoing statement I have endeavoured to put myself in the place of each party successively. My own views of the question in dispute are very decided; but they do not exactly accord with those of either party.
[138] Durham and Exeter were vacant sees at the Restoration. Cosin and Gauden had been nominated to them respectively.
[139] Baxter ii. 277. Clarendon (p. 1034) states that in the draft of the Declaration a passage occurred professing the King's use of the Prayer Book, and that "he would take it well from those who used it in their Churches that the common people might be again acquainted with the piety, gravity, and devotion of it, and which he thought would facilitate their living in good neighbourhood together." This clause Clarendon says was left out at the ministers' request, on the ground that they were resolved to do what the King wished, and to reconcile the people to the use of that form by degrees, which would have a better effect if such a passage were omitted. Then he charges Calamy with writing a letter which was intercepted and found to contain the expression of a resolve to persist in the use of the Directory, and not to admit the Common Prayer Book into their Churches. Upon turning to Baxter (ii. 263–275), and upon reading the Declaration, one finds, that all which the ministers promised to do, and all that the Declaration required of them, was not totally to lay aside the book, but to read those parts against which there could be no exception. It is incredible, looking at the ground taken throughout by the Puritan ministers, that they ever could have talked in the way Clarendon represents. As to the contents of an intercepted letter, no one who knows anything of the tricks then played will attach importance to what is said by the same historian on that subject.
[140] Baxter, ii. 259–264; also printed in Wilkins' Concilia, Cardwell's Conferences, and Documents relating to the Act of Uniformity.
[141] It is curious to find Baxter when he refused a Bishopric, proposing to Clarendon a number of names from which to choose some one, instead of himself. Baxter at this time had the reputation of being "intimate with the Lord Chancellor Hyde," and accordingly his influence was solicited on behalf of ministers in trouble. Adam Martindale tells us that when his own name was sent up to the Privy Council, Baxter, at the solicitation of a friend, spoke on his behalf to Clarendon, who "did so rattle one of the Deputy Lieutenants and so expostulate with the Earl of Derby, that Martindale was released." The account is very amusing, and shows Martindale's exultation at his enemies being outwitted in their application to the Privy Council. The story indicates, what may be gathered from several circumstances, i.e., that Clarendon at that time wished to show favour to the Presbyterians.—The Life of Adam Martindale, printed for the Cheetham Society, p. 153.