It is amusing to read Baxter's account of his brother Commissioners. Some, he says, rarely attended, and when they did, said very little. Morley was often there, a chief speaker, with fluent words, and much earnestness, vehemently going on, and bearing down replies by his interruptions. Cosin was constant in attendance, talking much, with little logic, though with abundant learning in canons, councils, and patristic lore. Henchman was the most grave and comely of the Bishops, and expressed himself calmly and slowly, with some reticence. Gauden was almost always present, and though he had a bitter pen, he was moderate in speech, "and if all had been of his mind," says our reporter, "we had been reconciled." Reynolds spoke much the first day, to bring his Episcopal brethren to moderation; a "solid, honest man, but through mildness and excess of timorous reverence to great men, altogether unfit to contend with them." Dr. Pearson was a true logician, disputing "accurately, soberly, and calmly"—"breeding in us a great respect for him, and a persuasion that if he had been independent he would have been for peace." Dr. Gunning mixed passionate invectives with some of his argumentations, though understanding well what belonged to a disputant, but "so vehement for his high imposing principles, and so over zealous for Arminianism and formality and Church pomp."[246] Sterne, Bishop of Carlisle, "looked so honestly and gravely and soberly," that it seemed, such a face could not have deceived. Baxter's judgment of physiognomy here, however, proved to be at fault, for when the prelate once broke silence, it was to exclaim,—as Baxter used the word, "nation:"—"he will not say kingdom lest he should own a king."[247] While Baxter thus spoke of his opponents, they thus spoke of him: "At this Conference in the Savoy, that reverend and great man, Bishop Morley, tells us, the generality of the nonconforming Divines showed themselves unwilling to enter upon dispute, and seemed to like much better another way tending to an amicable and fair compliance, which was frustrated by a certain person's furious eagerness to engage in a disputation, meaning Mr. Baxter."[248] "There was a great submission paid to him by the whole party. So he persuaded them, that from the words of the Commission they were bound to offer every thing that they thought might conduce to the good or peace of the Church, without considering what was like to be obtained, or what effect their demanding so much might have, in irritating the minds of those who were then the superior body in strength and number."[249]
1661.
After the debates were over, the Presbyterians waited on the Lord Chancellor, to advise with him as to the account to be given of their doings to the King. At first His Lordship received Baxter "merrily," and comparing his spare figure and his thin face with the rotunder form and plumper cheeks of one of his companions, said, "If you were as fat as Dr. Manton, we should all do well." To which Baxter—fixing his dark eyes on Clarendon, replied—"If His Lordship could teach me the art of growing fat, he should find me not unwilling to learn by any good means."[250] Becoming serious, the Chancellor charged the Divine with being severe, strict, and melancholy, making things to be sin which were not so. The latter simply rejoined, that he had spoken nothing but what he thought, and nothing but what he had given reasons for thinking.
SAVOY CONFERENCE.
He afterwards drew up a paper in the form of a petition, supplying an account of the Conference; and it was arranged that Reynolds, Bates, and Manton should present the document. Baxter accompanied them at their own request. Manton delivered the paper into the Royal hands; Reynolds added a few words; and, of course, Baxter could not be silent. He made, as he represents, "a short speech," in which he informed His Majesty how far they had agreed with the Bishops, "and wherein the difference did not lie, as in the points of loyalty, obedience, and Church order." The King put the commonplace question suggested in all such disputes, "But who shall be judge?" Baxter seized the opportunity to say that "Judgment is either public or private—private judgment called discretionis, which is but the use of my reason to conduct my actions, belongeth to every private rational man; public judgment is ecclesiastical or civil, and belongeth accordingly to the ecclesiastical governors (or pastors), and the civil, and not to any private man." If Charles II. had been like his grandfather, James, a scholastic discussion had been inevitable; but the gay grandson, perhaps without heeding what the words meant, passed over Baxter's remark in silence. The Puritan historian winds up all with the curt remark, "And this was the end of these affairs."[251]
1661.
Much sorrow and trouble sprung out of the Conference.[252] The Episcopalian Royalists treated their opponents as a vanquished party, and retorted on their old persecutors by calling them seditious and disaffected. Young clergymen hoped they were on the road to preferment if they reviled and calumniated Presbyterians; and Baxter especially became a butt for malignant marksmen. Even his prayers were heard with suspicion, and so, as he said, it was a mercy when he was silenced. Yet his own account of the Conference produced a favourable impression in quarters where he and his friends had been misapprehended. The Independents, in the first instance, had been annoyed that the Presbyterians had not consulted them; some of the latter Divines, too, had been zealous of their more influential brethren, and both parties had joined in saying that the Puritan Commissioners were too forward in meeting the Bishops, and too ready to make concessions; and that Baxter, although unimpeachable as to his motives, had been too eager for concord, and too ready for compromise. But now the printed papers turned the tide; the Independents admitted that the Presbyterian Commissioners had been faithful to their principles.[253]
SAVOY CONFERENCE.
The Independents took no part in the Conference at Worcester House or in that at the Savoy. They were not consulted by Presbyterians—an instance of neglect which some of the Independents resented—but it is plain, from a consideration of the principles of the latter party during the Civil Wars and Commonwealth, that they could not, consistently with those principles, harmoniously unite in any scheme for comprehension. Their methods of Church discipline, felt to be most important for securing the purity of their Churches, rendered it impossible that their ecclesiastical institutions should work in harmony with an Establishment. Why the Independents were overlooked by the Government at that period, is obvious. At the Restoration they were thrown into the background. Their previous political influence had sprung from their connection with the Army, from the favour of Republican officers, and from the religious sympathies of Oliver Cromwell. That influence terminated on the eve of the King's return; and it is easy, without suspecting their loyalty, to understand how they would, at such a crisis, lose social position as well as political influence.[254] Their prosperity under the Protectorate necessarily entailed their adversity at the Restoration. Moreover, although to the Presbyterians there remained friends at Court in the Earl of Manchester and other noblemen, the Independents enjoyed no aristocratic patrons. The Fleetwoods, Desboroughs, and Berrys, so far from being able to assist their fellow-religionists, had enough to do to take care of themselves. The Presbyterians, as we have seen, had still, in London, clergymen of high standing and great activity, but the Independents could not make any boast of that kind. Dr. Owen, who of them all, perhaps, possessed the greatest influence, lived in retirement at Stadham. John Howe, never a party man, and thoroughly averse to the occupations of public life, quietly pursued his pastoral duties at Torrington. Dr. Goodwin, it is true, had removed to the metropolis on his ejectment from Oxford, but he now spent his time in seclusion; and Caryl, another distinguished member of the Congregational body, and a City pastor, preferred commenting on the Book of Job, to any entanglement in political affairs. Philip Nye was, probably, the most active of the denomination, but he had no power to serve the cause, forasmuch, as at the time of the Restoration he had narrowly escaped the fate of Hugh Peters.[255] The Independents, as a party, were not in a position just then to render it a matter of importance that the Government should conciliate them; nor did they manifest any desire to secure for their system the temporal benefits of State endowment. Their retirement from the stage of public affairs brought them no disadvantage. Providence had appointed for them a moral discipline, of which the fruit was to appear in after years. They had embraced principles eminently conducive to the freedom and spirituality of Christ's Church, and they were destined to take an important part in the development of English Christianity through the diffusion of those principles. Their disconnection with the Establishment harmonized with that destiny. The Baptists, like the Independents, and for similar reasons, were unrepresented in the Commission; so indeed, also, if we except Reynolds, were the moderate Episcopalians, who although not prepared to go so far as their High Church brethren in the matter of conformity, were ready to advance in that direction much beyond the limits marked out by the Presbyterians; but looking at the temper on the other side, there is no reason to suppose that the presence and counsels of such men would have altered the results of the discussions.