"save once long before when Cromwell was an inferior man among
other auditors." He had also the honour of two long interviews with
Cromwell, the first with one or two others present, the second in
full Council. They seem to have been reciprocally disagreeable. On
both occasions, according to Baxter, Cromwell talked enormously
for the most part "slowly" and "tediously" to Baxter's taste, but
with passionate outbreaks against the Parliament. On the second
occasion the topic was Liberty of Conscience, and what was being
done in the Subcommittee and by the Divines on the subject. Baxter
ventured to hint that he had put his views on paper and that it
might save time if his Highness would read them. "He received the
paper after, but I scarce believe that he ever read it; for I saw
that what he learned must be from himself--being more disposed to
speak many hours than to hear one, and little heeding what another
said when he had spoken himself." Cromwell had made up his mind
about Baxter long ago (Vol. III. p. 386), but had apparently now
given him another trial, on the faith of his reputed liberality on
the Toleration question. But Baxter did not gain upon him.]

As if to show how much in earnest they were on this whole subject,
the House had at that moment the notorious Anti-Trinitarian John
Biddle in their custody. Since 1644, when he was a schoolmaster in
Gloucester, this mild man had been in prison again and again for his
opinions, and the wonder was that the Presbyterians had not succeeded
in bringing him to the scaffold in 1648 under their tremendous
Ordinance of that year. His Socinian books were then known over
England and even on the Continent, and he would certainly have been
the first capital victim under the Ordinance if the Presbyterians had
continued in power. At large since 1651, he had been living rather
quietly in London, earning his subsistence as a Greek reader for the