204 LIFE Or RICHARD BAXTER. of the act ofuniformity, and the great enemy of the Puritans from the hour of the restoration. He was impeached in parliament, and, barely escaping with his life, was condemned to perpetual banishment. He was honestly a Protestant; and, with a true dignity, he always frowned on the unspeakable profligacy of the king andhis minions. At the same time, his talents, his experi- ence, and his influence with parliament, made his services for many years indispensable. But when popular indignation began to turn against the chancellor, Charles was glad to be rid of him', nor is it probable that the monarch's joy was at all checkedby any feeling of gratitude toward the man to whose almost superstitious loyalty he owed so much. " It was a notable providence of God," says Baxter, " that this man, who had been the great instrument of state, and had dealt socruelly with the nonconformists, should thus, by his own friends, be cast out and banished, while those .that he had persecuted were the most moderate in his cause, and many of them for him. it was a great ease that befell good people through- out the land 12y his dejection. For his way had been to decoy men into conspiracies, or to pretend plots, upon the rumorof which the innocent people of many counties were laid in prison ; so that no man knew when he was safe. Since then, the laws have been made more and more severe, yet aman knoweth a little better what to expect, when it is by a law that he is to be tried."* Clarendonwas succeeded as prime minister by theduke ofBuck- ingham, a man as unprincipled and profligate as the king himself. Yet, he having formerly, out of opposition to Clarendon; been a favorer of the nonconformists, that persecutedparty found under his administration some temporary relief. The act for the suppres- sion of conventicles, by which the hearers were made liable to fine and imprisonment, was suffered to expire ; and the ejected ministers began, in many parts of the country, to imitate the boldness which their brethren in the city had practiced since the fire, and for a while were connived at by the government beyond their own ex- pectations. Baxter, from the beginning of his residence at Acton, had uniformly preached to his own family, on the Sabbath, at such hours as did not interfere with the established worship ; and now he had his house full of the people of the place. At this period, some of the leading Presbyterians were consulted by some of the more moderate among the bishops, and some of the most eminent members of the administration, about a new scheme ofcomprehensionand toleration for the Protestant dissent- ers. Baxter has given a detailed account of this negotiation. It was defeated by the management of Archbishop Sheldon and his * Narrative, Part III. p. 20.
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