ower in Cromwell's Church-Establishment,
was the Central or London _Committee of the Thirty-eight Triers_
(Vol. IV. p. 571). It was their duty to examine "all candidates for
the public ministry," i.e. all persons presented to livings by the
patrons of the same, and pass only those that were fit. Baxter's
report of the work of these Triers, as done either by themselves in
conclave, or by Sub-commissioners for them in the counties, is the
more remarkable because he disowned the authority under which the
Triers acted and was in controversy with most of them. "Though their
authority was null," he says, "and though some few over-busy and
over-rigid Independents among them, were too severe against all that
were Arminians, and too particular in inquiring after evidences of
sanctification in those whom they examined, and somewhat too lax in
their admission of unlearned and erroneous men that favoured
Antinomianism or Anabaptism, yet, to give them their due, they did
abundance of good to the Church. They saved many a congregation from
ignorant, ungodly, drunken teachers. That sort of men that intended
no more in the ministry than to say a sermon as readers say their
common prayers, and so patch up a few good words together to talk the
people asleep with on Sunday, and all the rest of the week go with
them to the ale-house and harden them in sin; and that sort of
ministers that either preached against a holy life, or preached as
men that never were acquainted with it; all those that used the
ministry but as a common trade to live by, and were never likely to
convert a soul:--all these they usually rejected, and in their stead
admitted of any that were able serious preachers, and lived a godly
life, of what tolerable opinion soever they were. So that, though
they were many of them somewhat partial for the Independents,
Separatists, Fifth Monarchy men, and Anabaptists, and against the
Prelatists and Arminians, yet so great was the benefit above the hurt
which they brought to the Church that many thousands of souls blessed
God for the faithful ministers whom they let in." Royalist writers
after the Restoration give, of course, a different picture.
"Ignorant, bold, canting fellows," they say, "laics, mechanics, and
pedlars," were brought into the Church by Cromwell's Triers. One may,
in the main, trust Baxter.[1]

[Footnote 1: Baxter, 72; Noal, IV. 102-109.]

Cromwell's Established Church of England and Wales may now be imaged
wit