I68 LIFE OF RICHARD BAXTER. be judged of by posterity. Notwithstanding all his extraordinary favor, since the day the king came in, I never received, as his chaplain, or as h preacher, or on any account, the value of one farthing of any public maintenance. So that I, and many a hundred more, had not had a piece of bread but for the voluntary contribution, whilst we preached, of another sort of people : yea, while I had all this excess of favor, I would have taken it indeed for an excess, as being far beyond my expectations, if they would but have given me liberty to preach the gospel, without any main- tenance, and leave me to beg my bread." " A little after. this, Sir Ralph Clare, and others, caused the houses of the people of the town of Kidderminsterto be searched I'M arms, and if any had a sword, it was taken from them. And meeting him after with the bishop, I desired him to tell us why his neighbors were so used, as if he would have made the world believe theywere seditious, or rebels; or dangerous persons, that should be used as enemies to the king. He answered me, that it was because they would not bring out their arms when they were commanded, but said they had none ; whereas theyhad arms on every occasion to appear with on the behalf of Cromwell. This great disingenuity of so ancient a gentleman towards his . neighbors, whom he pretended kindness to,'made me break forth Into some more than ordinary freedom of reproof; so that I answer- ed him, we had thought our condition hard, that by strangers who knew us not, we should be ordinarily traduced and misrepresented ; but this was most sad and marvelous, that a gentleman so civil should, before the bishop, speak such words against a corporation, which he knew I was abbe to confute, and were so contrary to truth. I asked him whether he did not know that I publicly and privately spake against the usurpers, and declared them to be rebels ; and whether he took not the people tobe of my mind ; and whether I and they had not hazarded our liberty by refusing the engagement against the king and house of lords, when he and others of his . mind had taken it. He confessed that I had been against Cromwell ; but they had always, on every oc- casion, appeared in arms for him. I told him that he struck me with admiration, that it should be possible for him .to live in the town, and yet believe what he said to be true, or yet to speak it in our hearing if heknew it to be untrue. And I professed that, having lived there sixteenyears since the wars, I never knew that they once appeared in arms for Cromwell, or any usurpers ; .and challenged him, upon his word, to 'tame onetime. I could not get him to name any tithe, till I had urged him to the utmost; and then he instanced in the time when the Scots army fled from
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