law to the subject, as to the decision of that cause, though the king send his broad seal against it, then that which the parliament saith is law, is law to the subjects, about the dangers of the commonwealth, whatever it be in itself.

"I make no doubt that both parties were to blame, as it commonly falleth out in most wars and contentions; and I will not be he that will justify either of them. I doubt not but the headiness and rashness of the younger, unexperienced sort of religious people, made many parliament men and ministers overgo themselves to keep pace with those Hotspurs. No doubt but much indiscretion appeared, and worse than indiscretion, in the tumultuous petitioners; and much sin was committed in the dishonoring of the king, and in the uncivil language against the bishops and liturgy of the church. But these things came chiefly from the sectarian, separating spirit, which blew the coals among foolish apprentices. And as the sectaries increased, so did this insolence increase.' Bishop Hall speaks against the justifying of the bishops, so do I against just dying the parliament, ministers, or city. I believe many unjustifiable things were done; but I think that a few men among them all were the doers or instigators."

"As

"But I then thought, whoever was faulty, the people's liberties and safety should not be forfeited. I thought that all the subjects were not guilty of all the faults of king or parliament when they defended them; yea, that if both their causes had been bad, as against each other, yet that the subjects should adhere to that party which most secured the welfare of the nation, and might defend the land under their conduct without owning all their cause.

"And herein I was then so zealous, that I thought it was a great sin for men that were able to defend their country to be neuters. And I have been tempted since to think that I was a more competent judge upon the place, when all things were before our eyes, than I am in the review of those days and actions, so many years after, when distance disadvantageth the apprehension.

No American who justifies the revolution of 1776,-no Englishman who justifies the revolution of 1680,-can doubt that Baxter and those with whom he acted, were, at the beginning, in the right. Their cause, though it was afterwards shipwrecked by their ignorance and their dissensions, was the cause which will one day triumph throughout all the world.

*Narrative, Part I. P. 39.

PART SECOND.

FROM THE BEGINNING OF THE WAR то THE TIME OF HIS LEAVING THE ARMY.

THE point at which the king ventured to make a stand against the claims of the parliament, was when they demanded of him that the militia of the kingdom should be put under the command of men in whom they could confide, and whom they might nominate. This was, in their view, essential to their personal safety, and equally essential to secure the execution of the laws and the liberties of the people. After some delay, and some proposals for a compromise, the king, having in the mean time removed from London, sent them a flat refusal. The two houses proceeded to form and publish an ordinance, in which they named lieutenants for the counties, conferring on them the command of the militia, and of all the guards, garrisons and forts of the kingdom. These lieutenants were to obey the orders of the king, signified by the two houses of parliament. On the other hand, the king, taking advantage of an old statute, issued his commissions of array, appointing men of his own choice in the several counties to array, muster and train the people. The date of the ordinance of parliament was March 5th, (1642,) but no attempt was made to execute either that or the king's commissions, till three months afterwards, or about two months before the formal declaration of war. The setting up of these clashing authorities was attended with some skirmishes in places where there was something like a balance of strength between the two parties. But, generally, where the people had, with a decided majority, espoused the cause of parliament, the militia acknowledged the authority of their ordinance; and where the majority were for the king, the commissions of array were put in execution.

That part of the country in which Baxter resided, including the three adjacent counties of Shropshire, Worcester, and Herefordshire, was so generally devoted to the king that there was no public movement in behalf of the parliament. And as these preparations for war went forward, it became necessary for him to retreat from a scene of so much danger to those of his known char

acter and principles. Some apprehension of the fury of the times may be gathered more easily from a few particular incidents described in his own language, than from any more general state

ments.

"About that time, the parliament sent down an order for the demolishing of all statues and images of any of the three persons in the blessed Trinity, or of the virgin Mary, which should be found in churches, or on the crosses in church-yards. My judgment was for the obeying of this order, thinking it came from just authority; but I meddled not in it, but left the church-warden to do what he thought good. The church-warden, an honest, sober, quiet man, seeing a crucifix upon the cross in the church-yard, set up a ladder to have reached it, but it proved too short. While he was gone to seek another, a crew of the drunken, riotous party of the town, took the alarm, and run together with weapons to defend the crucifix and the church images, of which there were divers left since the time of Popery. The report was among them that I was the actor, and it was me they sought; but I was walking almost a mile out of town, or else I suppose I had there ended my days. When they missed me and the church-warden both, they went raving about the streets to seek us. Two neighbors that dwelt in other parishes, hearing that they sought my life, ran in among them to see whether I were there; and they knocked them both down in the streets, and both of them are since dead, and I think never perfectly recovered that hurt. When they had foamed about half an hour, and met with none of us, and were newly housed, I came in from my walk, and hearing the people cursing me at their doors, I wondered what the matter was, but quickly found how I had escaped. The next Lord's day, I dealt plainly with them, and laid open to them the quality of that action, and told them, seeing they so requited me as to seek my blood, I was willing to leave them, and save them from that guilt. But the poor sots were so amazed and ashamed, that they took on sorrily, and were loth to part with me.

"About this time, the king's declarations were read in our market-place, and the reader, a violent country gentleman, seeing me pass the streets, stopped and said, 'There goeth a traitor.'

"And the commission of array was set afoot; for the parliament meddled not with the militia of that county, the Lord Howard, their lieutenant, not appearing. Then the rage of the rioters grew greater than before. And in preparation to the war, they had got the word among them, 'Down with the round-heads;' insomuch that if a stranger passed in many places, that had short hair and a civil habit, the rabble presently cried, 'Down with the round-heads;' and some they knocked down in the open streets.

VOL. I.

"In this fury of the rabble, I was advised to withdraw awhile from home; whereupon I went to Gloucester. As I passed but through a corner of the suburbs of Worcester, they that knew me not, cried, 'Down with the round-heads;' and I was glad to spur on to be gone. But when I came to Gloucester, among strangers also that had never known me, I found a civil, courteous, and religious people, as different from Worcester as if they had lived under another government."*

The county of Gloucestershire was as unanimous for the cause of the parliament as Worcester was for the cause of the king. But Baxter saw in the religious aspect of Gloucester, during his short residence there, the beginnings of a spirit of division and sectarianism, which afterwards produced in that city the most unhappy effects. First, there were a few Baptists, who, laboring to draw disciples after them, occasioned an undesirable controversy. Then came a good man, zealous for Independency, who formed another separating party. Afterwards, Antinomianism was introduced. And by such means the solid piety of the place was dwindled and withered away.

After he had been at Gloucester about a month, some of his friends came to him from Kidderminster, inviting him to return. Their argument was, that the people would be sure to put the most unfavorable construction on his continued absence. So, in the hope of retaining his influence and prolonging his usefulness, even in those stormy times, he went again to his work.

"When I came home," he says, "I found the beggarly drunken rout in a very tumultuating disposition; and the superiors that were for the king did animate them; and the people of the place who were accounted religious, were called round-heads, and openly reviled, and threatened as the king's enemies, though they had never meddled in any cause against the king. Every drunken sot that met any of them in the streets, would tell them, 'We shall take an order with the Puritans ere long.' And just as at their shows, and wakes, and stage-plays, when the drink and the spirit of riot did work together in their heads, and the crowd encouraged one another, so it was with them now: they were like tied mastiffs newly loosed, and flew in the face of all that was religious, yea, or civil, which came in their way." "Yet, after the Lord's day, when they heard the sermon, they would awhile be calmed, till they came to the alehouse again, or heard any of their leaders hiss them on, or heard a rabble cry, 'Down with the round-heads.' When the wars began, almost all these drunkards went into the king's army, and were quickly killed, so that scarce a man of them came home again and survived the war."+

* Narrative, Part I. pp. 40, 41.

+ Narrative, Part I. p. 42.

The war, which had been opened a few weeks, was now actively carried on in Baxter's immediate vicinity. The army of the king, commanded by his nephew, Prince Rupert, and that of the parliament, commanded by the earl of Essex, met in the county of Worcester; and the first considerable battle in that long contest, the battle of Edghill, was fought on a Lord's day, (October 23d,) within Baxter's hearing, while he was preaching in the pulpit of a friend at Alcester, a few miles distant from the scene of conflict. In such circumstances, he felt that the peaceful prosecution of his work at Kidderminster was not to be thought of. "For my

self," he says, "I knew not what course to take. To live at home, I was uneasy; but especially now, when soldiers on one side or other would be frequently among us, and we must still be at the mercy of every furious beast that would make a prey of us. I had neither money nor friends: I knew not who would receive me in any place of safety; nor had I any thing to satisfy them for my diet and entertainment. Hereupon I was persuaded, by one that was with me, to go to Coventry, where one of my old acquaintance, Mr. Simon King, was minister; so thither I went, with a purpose to stay there till one side or other had got the victory, and the war was ended, and then to return home again; for so wise in matters of war was I, and all the country beside, that we commonly sup posed that a very few days or weeks, by one other battle, would end the wars; and I believe that no small number of the parlia ment men had no more wit than to think so too. There I stayed at Mr. King's a month; but the war was then as far from being likely to end as before.

"While I was thinking what course to take in this necessity, the committee and governor of the city desired me to stay with them, and lodge in the governor's house, and preach to the soldiers. The offer suited well with my necessities; but I resolved that I would not be chaplain to a regiment, nor take a commission; yet, if the mere preaching of a sermon once or twice a week to the garrison would satisfy them, I would accept of the offer, till I could go home again. Here I lived in the governor's house, and followed my studies as quietly as in a time of peace, for about a year; preaching once a week to the soldiers, and once, on the Lord's day, to the people; not taking of any of them a penny for either, save my diet only."

Meanwhile the war, instead of being brought to a conclusion, was spreading its horrors over the whole land. A few counties were so decidedly for the parliament, and a few others so decidedly for the king, that they enjoyed comparative rest; elsewhere every