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BAX the necessity of removing again, for the rabble were excited and the king's soldiers furious. No public man who took the side of the parliament was safe there. After changing his residence several times, he settled in Coventry, where he preached both to the soldiers of the garrison and the citizens. Subsequently to the battle of Naseby he became chaplain to the regiment of Colonel Whalley, and was present at several sieges. The apparently accidental circumstance of a profuse bleeding at the nose, which reduced him to a state of great weakness, was the occasion of his leaving the army in 1647. It must be confessed, however, that he was disappointed in his endeavours to reform the soldiers and obstruct the design of the leaders. During the early part of his second residence at Kidderminster he opposed the solemn league and covenant, though he had formerly taken it at Coventry; he opposed the engagement, and dissuaded men from taking it. Though attached to the parliamentary cause, he was adverse to the measures pursued in opposition to Charles II. He condemned the usurpation by Cromwell boldly and openly, and told the protector himself that the ancient monarchy was a blessing and not an evil to the land. In a sermon preached before the new parliament on 30th April, 1660, the day before that on which they voted the king's return, he maintained that loyalty to their prince was essential to all true protestants. After the Restoration, Charles appointed Baxter one of his chaplains-in-ordinary, and always treated him with respect. Nor did the latter hesitate to speak freely and plainly to his majesty respecting the settlement of religious differences among his subjects; and the importance of tolerating those godly men who entertained doubts about the ceremonies and discipline of the church. He assisted in the conference at the Savoy as one of the commissioners, and drew up a reformed liturgy. After declining the bishopric of Hereford, he endeavoured to gain possession of his old pulpit in Kidderminster, but could not, though he offered to the vicar to be his curate for nothing. Returning to London, he preached occasionally in or about the city, till the act of uniformity passed in 1662, when he left the ministry of the church of England. In this year he married Miss Margaret Charlton, daughter of Francis Charlton, Esq., of the county of Salop; she appears to have been a woman of great piety, and eminently fitted to promote his comfort. From London he retired to Acton, and then to Totteridge. During the plague in 1665 he retired into Buckinghamshire, but afterwards returned to Acton, where he continued preaching to a very few till the act against conventicles expired, when his audience became so large that he wanted room. After this he was imprisoned, but was released on procuring a habeas corpus. Between 1670 and 1672 he had various escapes from danger, and was almost continually in some affliction. But after the indulgence of 1672 he returned to London, and exercised his ministry amid frequent molestation. In 1682 he was seized for coming within five miles of a corporation. All his goods were taken and sold, so that he was obliged to leave his house and take secret lodgings. In 1684 he was again apprehended, and treated with great harshness, when he was so ill as to be scarcely able to stand. The constables who had been set to watch him took him away to the sessions-house, where he was bound in the penalty of £400 to keep the peace; and twice afterwards he was brought up, though he kept his bed for the most part. In 1685, in the reign of James II., he was committed to prison, by a warrant from Judge Jeffries, for his "Paraphrase on the New Testament," which was described as a 'scandalous' and 'seditious' book against the government. Mr. Macaulay has given a graphic sketch of the trial in the first volume of his History of England. Nothing could be more insolent, brutal, and unfair than the language and conduct of the chief-justice. Baxter was found guilty, fined five hundred marks, condemned to be in prison till he paid it, and bound to his good behaviour for seven years. He continued in prison nearly two years, but was at last discharged in 1686 by order of the king, who remitted his fine. He was also allowed to remain in London, notwithstanding the provision of the Oxford act. After this he took no part in public affairs, but preached gratuitously for his friend, Mr. Sylvester, on the Lord's-day mornings and every alternate Thursday morning, as long as he was able. When unable to go out, he opened his house, morning and evening, to all that would join with him in worship, till he was confined to his chamber and his bed. He expired on 8th December, 1691, with that calm resignation, tranquillity, and hope, which the uniform tenor of his life would have led every one that knew him to expect. He expressed great willingness to die; and during his sickness, when the question was asked, "How he did?" his reply was, "Almost well." His body was interred in Christ Church, where the remains of his wife had been laid ten years before.

His person was tall and slender, and in the latter part of his life he stooped much. His eye was piercing and his speech articulate. "Richard Baxter," says Grainger in his biographical history, "was a man famous for weakness of body and strength of mind; for having the strongest sense of religion himself, and exciting a sense of it into the thoughtless and the profligate; for preaching more sermons, engaging in more controversies, and writing more books, than any other nonconformist of his age. He spoke, disputed, and wrote with ease; and discovered the same intrepidity when he reproved Cromwell and expostulated with Charles II., as when he preached to a congregation of mechanics. His zeal for religion was extraordinary, but it seems never to have prompted him to faction, or carried him to enthusiasm. This champion of the presbyterians was the common butt of men of every other religion, and of those who were of no religion at all. But this had very little effect upon him: his presence and his firmness of mind on no occasion forsook him. He was just the same man before he went into a prison, while he was in it, and when he came out of it; and he maintained a uniformity of character to the last gasp of his life. His enemies have placed him in hell; but every man who has not ten times the bigotry that Mr. Baxter himself had, must conclude that he is in a better place. This is a very faint and imperfect sketch of Mr. Baxter's character. Men of his size are not to be drawn in miniature. His portrait, in full proportion, is in his 'Narrative of his own Life and Times,' which, though a rhapsody, composed in the manner of a diary, contains a great variety of memorable things, and is in itself, as far as it goes, a history of nonconformity." The Narrative of his Life and Times referred to was published after his death by his friend Sylvester, in a folio volume, 1696, and furnishes materials to biographers.

There has been but one opinion respecting the talents and piety of Baxter among all competent to judge. Churchmen and nonconformists have united in his praise. Some of his most eminent contemporaries highly esteemed him; and posterity have done justice to the integrity of his character and excellence of his writings. He was praised by Barrow, Boyle, Bishop Wilkins, Archbishop Usher, and has been highly admired by the most distinguished men since their day. Barrow said that "his practical writings were never mended, and his controversial ones seldom confuted."

The subjects on which he wrote cover the entire field of theology. Doctrinal, practical, polemical, and casuistical topics engaged his pen. His early studies in divinity consisted, for the most part, of the schoolmen and metaphysicians of a former age, who gave him a bias to subtle distinctions. But his mind seems to have been of a metaphysical cast naturally, so that he was at home in acute refinements. Yet it was not only acute, but vigorous and powerful. His style is unequal and often inaccurate, abounding in parentheses and digressions. But in his practical writings it is generally pure, pointed, copious, perspicuous, pregnant with all the characteristics of the best writing, and remarkably adapted to the object in view. Passages of great majesty and beauty may be easily selected from his works.

His life was exposed to obloquy and slander because he was no party-man. With a noble and conscientious independence he rose above all theological factions, agreeing exactly with none of them. Hence he shared the common fate of such men; he was more or less disliked by them all. His spirit yearned for comprehension; and many were the sacrifices he made to bring religious parties into concord. It was no fault of his that he was unsuccessful in harmonizing the discordant elements, in reconciling churchmen and dissenters: the spirit of the man is shown in his saying, after the Savoy conference, "I should as willingly be a martyr for charity as for faith." In doctrine, he is commonly said to have taken a middle path between Arminianism and Calvinism; and his theological system, which is peculiar, has been called Baxterianism. Those who embrace his sentiments have been styled Baxterians.

Considering the very feeble state of his health, and the distracting circumstances by which he was continually surrounded, one is amazed at the number of books he found time to write. The extent of them is indeed wonderful. Their number has been