e the contending factions failed. Baxter cast in his lot with
his proscribed friends, refused the mitre of Hereford, quitted the
parsonage of Kidderminster, and gave himself up almost wholly to study.
His theological writings, though too moderate to be pleasing to the
bigots of any party, had an immense reputation. Zealous Churchmen called
him a Roundhead; and many Nonconformists accused him of Erastianism and
Arminianism. But the integrity of his heart, the purity of his life,
the vigour of his faculties, and the extent of his attainments were
acknowledged by the best and wisest men of every persuasion. His
political opinions, in spite of the oppression which he and his brethren
had suffered, were moderate. He was friendly to that small party which
was hated by both Whigs and Tories. He could not, he said, join in
cursing the Trimmers, when he remembered who it was that had blessed the
peacemakers. [279]

In a Commentary on the New Testament he had complained, with some
bitterness, of the persecution which the Dissenters suffered. That men
who, for not using the Prayer Book, had been driven from their homes,
stripped of their property, and locked up in dungeons, should dare to
utter a murmur, was then thought a high crime against the State and the
Church. Roger Lestrange, the champion of the government and the oracle
of the clergy, sounded the note of war in the Observator. An information
was filed. Baxter begged that he might be allowed some time to prepare
for his defence. It was on the day on which Oates was pilloried in
Palace Yard that the illustrious chief of the Puritans, oppressed by age
and infirmities, came to Westminster Hall to make this request. Jeffreys
burst into a storm of rage. "Not a minute," he cried, "to save his life.
I can deal with saints as well as with sinners. There stands Oates on
one side of the pillory; and, if Baxter stood on the other, the two
greatest rogues in the kingdom would stand together."

When the trial came on at Guildhall, a crowd of those who loved and
honoured Baxter filled the court. At his side stood Doctor William
Bates, one of the most eminent of the Nonconformist divines. Two
Whig barristers of great note, Pollexfen and Wallop, appeared for the
defendant. Pollexfen had scarcely begun his address to the jury, when
the Chief Justice broke forth: "Pollexfen, I know you well. I will set a
mark on you. You are the patron of the faction. This is an old rogue,
a schismatical k