LIFT' OF RICHARD BAXTER. 175 of cònspiracies were got up, to throw the nation into a panic, and to prepare the public mind for themost violent proceedings against those whom the lord chancellor, in the house of commons, de- nounced and vilified as " seditious preachers." Of some of this management, we find in Baxter's Narrative the following naked statement. " In November, (1661,) many worthy ministers andothers were imprisoned in many counties; and among others, divers of my old neighbors in Worcestershire, And that you may see what crimes were the occasion; I will tell you the story of it. One Mr. Am- brose Sparry, a sober, learned minister, that had never owned the parliament's cause or wars, and was in his judgment for moderate Episcopacy, had a wicked neighbor, whom he reproved for adul- tery, who, bearing him a grudge, thought he had found a time to show it. He, or his confederates for him, framed a letter as from, I know not whom, directed to Mr. Sparry, 'That he and Captain Yarrington should be ready with money and arms at the time ap- pointed, and that they should acquaint Mr. Oasland and Mr. Bax- ter with it.' This letter he pretended that a man left behind him under a hedge, who sat down and pulled out many letters, and put themall up again save this, and went his ways he knew not what he was, or whither he went. This letter he bringeth to Sir John Packingtton, the man that hotly followed such work, who sent Mr. Sparry, Mr. Oasland and Captain Yarrington to prison." " Who that Mr. Baxter was that the letter named, they could not resolve, there being another of, the name nearer,' and 'I :being in London. But the men, especially Mr. Sparry, lay long in,prison ; and when the forgery and injury was detected, he had much ado to get out. Mr. Henry Jackson, also, our physician at :Kidderminster, and many of my neighbors, were imprisoned, and were never told for what to this day." " Though no one accused me of any thing, net spake a word to nie of it, (seeing they knew I had long been near a hundred miles off,) yet did they defame me all over the land, as guilty of a plot; and when men were taken up and sent to prison in other counties, it was said to be for ' Baxter's plot ;'= so easy was it, and so necessary a thing it seemed then, to cast such filth upon my name." Narrative, Part II. p. 383. The following statement, differing in some particulars from that given above, is from a note in Calamy's Abridgment, Chap. viii. pp. 177, 180. " Captain Yarrington (a man of an established reputa- tion) did in 1681 publish a full discovery ofthe first Presbyterian sham plot. In which discovery he declares he related nothing but what he could prove by letters, and many living witnesses; and his account was never publicly con- tradicted. He says, that many, both of the clergy and laity,'disliking the king's declaration concerning ecclesiastical affairs, resolved to run things to the utmost height; and that some ofthe leading churchmen were heard to say, they would
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