86 LIFE ÓP RICHARD BAXTER. forty were to be my part, and the rest I was to have nothing to do with. This covenant was drawn up between us in articles, and subscribed ; in which I disclaimed the vicarage and pastoral charge of the parish, and only undertook the lecture. "Thus the sequestration continued in the hands of the towns- men, as aforesaid, who gathered the tithes and paid me, (not a hundred, as t11ey promised,) but eighty pounds per annum, or nine- ty at most, and house-rent for a few rooms in the top of another man's house, which is all I had at Kidderminster. The rest they gave to Mr. Sergeant, and about forty pounds per annum to the old vicar ; six pounds. per annum to the king and lord for rents, and a fewother charges." "Besides this ignorant vicar, there was a chapel in the parish, where was an old curate as ignorant as he, that hadlong livedeupon ten pounds a year and unlawful marriages, and was a drunkard and a railer, and the scorn=of the country. I knew not how to keep him from reading, for I judged it a sin to tolerate him in any sacred office. I got an augmentation for the place, andan honest preach- er to instruct them, and let this scandalous fellowkeep his former stipend of ten pounds for nothing ; and yet could never keephim from forcing himself upon the people to read, nor from unlawful marriages, till a little before death did call him to his account. I have examined him about the familiar points of religion, andhe could not say half so much to me as I have heard,a child say."* During the revolutionary times which followed, Baxter's feel- ings were enlisted chiefly with the Presbyterian party. His views of Cromwell and of the sectarians have already been suf- ficiently exhibited. He had many conscientious scruples about the allegiance due to the person of the king ; and therefore he ab- horred not only the execution of Charles, but all the distinctive principles and measures 'of the party which finally predominated. And as he felt, so he always acted. '" When 'the 'soldiers were going against the king and the Scots, I wrote letters to some of them," he says, "to tell them of their sin, and desired them at last to begin to know themselves, it being those same men that have so much boasted of love to all the godly, and pleaded for tender dealing with them, who are now ready to imbrue their swords in the blood of such as they acknowledge to be godly." "At the sane time, the Rump, who so much abhorred per- seeution, and were for liberty of consciences made an order that all ministers should keep their days of humiliation,. to fast and pray for their success in Scotland, and that we should keep their days of thanksgiving for their victories, and this upon pain of * Narrative, Part I. pp. 79, 80.
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