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quently one who, in common account, would prove the better match, had kindness for her.' After a lapse of years Dr. Hammond again entertained an intention to condescend towards matrimony; but, on the first signs of the near troubles of the State, he laid aside the imperfectly conceived purpose. Upon which prospect,' says the dean, the good doctor casting a serious eye, and with prophetic sorrows and misgivings, fearing a parallel in this our nation, the second time deposited his conjugal intendments, and thenceforth courted and espoused (what he preserved inviolate) unto his death the more eminent perfection of spotless virgin chastity.'

THE

CHAPTER IV.

CLERICAL WIVES, TEMP. CHARLES II, AND JAMES II.

THE story of the learned and pious Richard Baxter's loveaffairs is of considerable value to the social historian, from the light which it throws on the social status of clergymen in the middle of the seventeenth century, and also from the evidence which it affords that evangelical ministers, averse to the distinctive principles and sentiments of high-churchmen, participated in the feeling that marriage, though blameless and permissible in all men, was more likely to diminish than increase a clergyman's usefulness.

An episcopally ordained clergyman, Baxter commenced his professional life in 1638; but though he preserved his loyalty to the king and his devotion to the house of Stuart, he discharged with equal zeal and efficiency the duties of the clerical office at Kidderminster, in times when episcopacy was in abeyance and the prayer-book of the established church was a proscribed work. On Charles the Second's restoration, the royalist statesmen and divines, who were bent on re-establishing Elizabeth's church, even whilst they feigned a willingness to act in harmony with the Presbyterians and Independents in bringing about a broad-bottomed church settlement, had the prudence to seek the support of the most learned and eloquent and exemplary member of the clergy, whom the king had found in his dominions on his return from exile. Richard Baxter was offered a bishopric, but he declined to accept so honourable a position in a church to whose doctrines and ritual he could not conscientiously conform. Ejected from his preferment, the preacher of Kidderminster became a Dissenter; and the learned divine and loyal citizen, who might have been an Anglican prelate at the price of certain concessions which it is

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too much the humour of the present day to call unimportant, was stigmatized by the pungent language of his adversaries a schismatical malcontent. In due course he was hunted from town to village by his persecutors, was denounced by society' as a pestilent fire-brand and sower of sedition, was prosecuted as a malefactor, and was deemed by persons of fashion to have escaped with less than his deserts when the truly pious and orthodox Judge Jeffreys refrained from causing the sweetesttempered controversialist of his time to be whipped through the streets of London by the hangman.

Baxter was still in his forty-fifth year when, on September 10, 1660, he married at the church of Bennet Fink, in London, Margaret Charlton, who was for many years the loving sharer of his troubles, and to whose virtues he rendered an appropriate tribute of affection in his 'Breviate of the Life of Margaret, the Daughter of Francis Charlton, of Apply in Shropshire, Esq. And Wife of Richard Baxter, for the use of all. But especially of their Kindred.' That Margaret was her husband's superior by birth we have the assurance of Baxter himself, who says, 'we were born in the same county within three miles and an half of each other; but she of one of the chief families in the county, and I but of a mean Freeholder (called a gentleman for his ancestors' sake, but of a small estate, though sufficient); Her father, Francis Charlton, Esq., was one of the best justices of the peace in the county, a grave, worthy, sober man; but did not marry till he was aged and gray, and dyed while his children were very young.' To rate Mr. Charlton's position at its full worth, the reader must remember, that a justice of the peace was a much more important personage in Charles the First's than he is in Victoria's England; and that the owner of a fine county estate in the seventeenth enjoyed a higher degree of social homage than a squire of corresponding wealth in the nineteenth century. Thus born, Margaret Charlton had a fortune of 20001, a sum which constituted a far more considerable estate two hundred years since than it does now, when money is cheap in proportion to its abundance. In Charles the Second's time a gentleman of landed estate was expected to settle on his wife an interest in his real property amounting to one hundred pounds per annum, for every thousand pounds which she brought him.

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Notwithstanding the eminence of his talents and the brightness of his virtues, Margaret Charlton was regarded by her kindred as having lost caste by becoming the wife of an undignified clergyman who had decided to take a course with respect to espiscopal government, which, it was already foreseen, would shut him out from all chances of professional advancement under the restored king's advisers. After the marriage was over,' says one of his biographers, several of his wife's relations did look upon Mr. Baxter as inferior to the lady whom he had married; therefore the Lord Chancellor Clarendon (who had before proffered him a bishoprick, so he would conform), with all flourishes of oratory, did again perswade him to acquiesce to his requests, and accept of a rich benefice, as the Church government was then established.' Doubtless the Lord Chancellor imagined that his arguments against the clergyman's scruples would be supported by the lady's influence with her husband; but he would scarcely have entertained such a hope had he been acquainted with Margaret's character, and known the terms on which she had induced Mr. Baxter to accept her proffered hand.

For Margaret had herself made the offer which resulted in her marriage; and when she had demonstrated her innocence of womanly pride by suing for the companionship of her beloved minister, she barely escaped the pain and ignominy of a decided repulse. 'For,' says the historian of this singular courtship, which nothing short of the privilege enjoyed by ladies in leapyears could have invested with decorum,' she, being a pious and devout young lady, fell in love with him, upon account of his holy life and fervency of preaching; and therefore sent a friend to acquaint him with her respects, in his chamber. His answer was, that since he had passed his youth in celibacy, it would be reputed madness in him to marry a woman, whilst he could not discharge the part of a husband in all respects. She at the door, overhearing, entered the chamber and told him, "Dear Mr. Baxter, I protest, with a sincere and real heart, I do not make a tender of myself to you, upon any worldly or carnal

The Life and Death of that Pions, Reverend, Learned, and Laborious Minister of the Gospel, Mr. Richard Baxter, who departed this Life, December 1691, and of his Age 77.' (1692.)

VOL. I.

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account; but to have a more perfect converse with so holy and prudent a yoke-fellow, to assist me in the way to Heaven, and to keep me stedfast in my perseverance; which I design for God's glory, and my own soul's good." At this Mr. Baxter was at a stand, and convinced that, with a good conscience, he could not despise so zealous a proffer, springing from so pure a fountain.' The suitor triumphed. After due consideration, the reluctant minister yielded to his fair admirer's solicitations; but before finally surrendering the freedom of solitariness, he stipulated that he should never be called upon to put the claims of marital above the claims of pastoral duty. But,' says the biographer previously quoted, 'before the marriage, these were concluded upon: First, That Mr. Baxter should have nothing which before marriage was hers, that so he (who wanted no outward supplies) might not so much as seem to marry her for covetousness. Secondly, That she should so order her affairs, that he might not be entangled in any law-suits about the same. Thirdly, That she should expect none of his time, which his ministerial employment should call him for.'

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Of the many clerical weddings solemnized during the abeyance of episcopacy, one of the most characteristic was the marriage of the Reverend George Bull, subsequently Bishop of St. David's, with Bridget Gregory, daughter of the Reverend Alexander Gregory, incumbent of Cirencester. An Oxford undergraduate, in residence at the beginning of 1649, when the Parliamentarian Visitors required every member of the university to swear,That he would be true and faithful to the Commonwealth of England, as it was then established,' George Bull was one of the many Oxonians who refused to take the prescribed oath; and retiring from the university with his loyalist tutor, Mr. Ackland, to North Cadbury, in Somersetshire, he there pursued his studies, together with a company of royalist fellowcollegians, who formed what is nowadays termed 'a reading party,' under Mr. Ackland's control and tuition. Eager to begin a course of ministerial labour, young Bull complied with existing regulations so far as to take Presbyterian orders, or, in the language of his biographer, Robert Nelson, to furnish himself with those sacerdotal powers which are the characteristic of a presbyter;' but dissatisfied with the presbyterian

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