Note 139 — Chapter V

Baxter ii. 277. Clarendon (p. 1034) states that in the draft of the Declaration a passage occurred professing the King's use of the Prayer Book, and that "he would take it well from those who used it in their Churches that the common people might be again acquainted with the piety, gravity, and devotion of it, and which he thought would facilitate their living in good neighbourhood together." This clause Clarendon says was left out at the ministers' request, on the ground that they were resolved to do what the King wished, and to reconcile the people to the use of that form by degrees, which would have a better effect if such a passage were omitted. Then he charges Calamy with writing a letter which was intercepted and found to contain the expression of a resolve to persist in the use of the Directory, and not to admit the Common Prayer Book into their Churches. Upon turning to Baxter (ii. 263–275), and upon reading the Declaration, one finds, that all which the ministers promised to do, and all that the Declaration required of them, was not totally to lay aside the book, but to read those parts against which there could be no exception. It is incredible, looking at the ground taken throughout by the Puritan ministers, that they ever could have talked in the way Clarendon represents. As to the contents of an intercepted letter, no one who knows anything of the tricks then played will attach importance to what is said by the same historian on that subject.