[1376] The fullest account of the conference held in the Savoy Hospital, London, is given by Baxter, who was a member, in his Autobiography. Comp. Neal, Cardwell, Stoughton (Restor. Vol. I. p. 157), Hallam (Ch. XI. Charles II.), and Procter (History of the Book of Common Prayer, p. 113). Hallam casts the chief blame on the Churchmen, who had it in their power to heal the division and to retain or to expel a vast number of worthy clergymen. But both parties lacked the right temper, and smarted under the fresh recollection of past grievances. Baxter embodied the changes desired by the Puritans in his Liturgy, the hasty work of a fortnight, which was never used, but republished by Prof. Shields of Princeton, Philadelphia, 1867.
[1377] Procter (p. 141): 'Some changes were made, in order to avoid the appearance of favoring the Presbyterian form of Church government; thus, church, or people, was substituted for congregation, and ministers in for of the congregation; priests and deacons were especially named instead of pastors and ministers.' The Apocryphal lessons were retained, and the legend of Bel and the Dragon (omitted in 1604) was again introduced in the Calendar of Daily Lessons, to show contempt for the Puritan scruples. In the Litany the words 'rebellion' and 'schism' were added to the petition against 'sedition.'
[1378] Dr. Stoughton, a well-informed and impartial historian, gives it as the result of his careful inquiry that the persecution and sufferings of the Episcopalians under the Long Parliament and the Commonwealth are not to be compared with the persecution of the Nonconformists under Charles I. and Charles II. (Ch. of the Commonwealth, p. 346). Hallam is of the same opinion. Richard Baxter, one of the ejected ministers, gives a sad account of their sufferings: 'Many hundreds of these, with their wives and children, had neither house nor bread. . . . Their congregations had enough to do, besides a small maintenance, to help them out of prisons, or to maintain them there. Though they were as frugal as possible, they could hardly live; some lived on little more than brown bread and water; many had but eight or ten pounds a year to maintain a family, so that a piece of flesh has not come to one of their tables in six weeks' time; their allowance could scarce afford them bread and cheese. One went to plow six days and preached on the Lord's day. Another was forced to cut tobacco for a livelihood. . . . Many of the ministers, being afraid to lay down their ministry after they had been ordained to it, preached to such as would hear them in fields and private houses, till they were apprehended and cast into gaols, where many of them perished' (quoted by Green, p. 612). Baxter himself was repeatedly imprisoned, although he was a royalist and openly opposed Cromwell's rule. For many details of suffering, see Orme's Life of Baxter (Lond. 1830), pp. 229 sqq.
[1379] Stanley's Hist. Memorials of Westminster Abbey, pp. 191 sq., 247, 320 (3d ed. Lond. 1869).
[1380] Butler's Hudibras fairly reflects the prevailing sentiment of the Restoration period about the Puritans. He caricatures them in his mock-heroic style (Part I. Canto I. vers. 192 sqq.) as
'That stubborn crew
Of errant saints, whom all men grant
To be the true Church militant:
Such as do build their faith upon
The holy text of pike and gun;
Decide all controversy by
Infallible artillery;
And prove their doctrine orthodox
by apostolic blows and knocks;
Call fire, and sword, and desolation
A godly thorough Reformation,
Which always must be carried on,
And still be doing, never done,
As if religion were intended
For nothing else but to be mended.'
[1381] 'Puritanism,' says an Oxford historian, 'ceased from the long attempt to build up a kingdom of God by force and violence, and fell back on its truer work of building up a kingdom of righteousness in the hearts and consciences of men. It was from the moment of its seeming fall that its real victory began. As soon as the wild orgy of the Restoration was over, men began to see that nothing that was really worthy in the work of Puritanism had been undone. The revels of Whitehall, the skepticism and debauchery of courtiers, the corruption of statesmen, left the mass of Englishmen what Puritanism had made them--serious, earnest, sober in life and conduct, firm in their love of Protestantism and of freedom. In the Revolution of 1688 Puritanism did the work of civil liberty, which it had failed to do in that of 1642. It wrought out through Wesley and the revival of the eighteenth century the work of religious reform which its earlier efforts had only thrown back for a hundred years. Slowly, but steadily, it introduced its own seriousness and purity into English society, English literature, English politics. The whole history of English progress, since the Restoration, on its moral and spiritual sides, has been the history of Puritanism.'--J. R. Green's Short History of the English People, p. 586.
[1382] Taine's History of English Literature, vol. i. p. 461 (Am. ed.).
[1383] Vain Religion of the Formal Hypocrite. Baxter's Works, Vol. XVII. p. 80. Quoted by Stoughton, p. 195. The sermon was preached Apr. 30, 1660, just before the recall of Charles II. See Orme. Life of Baxter, p. 160.
[1384] Gal. vi. 15.