h tolerable accuracy. It contained two patches of completed
Presbyterian organization, one in London and the other in Lancashire.
The system of Presbyteries or Classes, with half-yearly Provincial
Assemblies, which had been set up by the Long Parliament in these two
districts, remained undisturbed. Both in London and in Lancashire,
however, the system was in a languid state; and for the rest of the
country, and indeed for non-Presbyterians in London and Lancashire
too, the Church or Public Ministry was practically on the principle
of the Independency of Congregations. Each parish had, or was to
have, its regular minister, recognised by the State, and the
association of ministers among themselves for consultation or mutual
criticism was very much left to chance and discretion. Ministers and
deacons, however, did draw up Agreements and form voluntary
Associations in various counties, holding monthly or other periodical
meetings; and, as it was the rule in such associations not to meddle
with matters of Civil Government, they were countenanced by the
Protectorate. Baxter tells us much of the Association in
Worcestershire which he had helped to form in 1653, and adds that
similar associations sprang up afterwards in Cumberland and
Westmorland, Wilts, Dorset, Somersetshire, Hampshire, and Essex.
These Associations are to be conceived as imperfect substitutes for
the regular Presbyterian organization, and most of the ministers
belonging to them were eclectics or quasi-Presbyterians, like Baxter
himself, making the most of untoward circumstances, while the
stricter Presbyterians, who sighed for the perfect model, held aloof.
Perhaps the majority of the State-clergy all over the country
consisted of these two classes of Presbyterians baulked of their full
Presbyterianism,--the _Rigid Presbyterians_, who would accept
nothing short of the system as exemplified in London and Lancashire,
and the _Eclectics_ or _Quasi-Presbyterians_ grouped in
voluntary Associations. But among the State-clergy collectively there
were several other varieties. There were many of the old
_Church-of-England Rectors and Vicars_, still Prelatic in
sentiment, and, though obliged to disuse the Book of Common Prayer,
maintaining some sweet remnant of Anglicanism. Some of these, not of
the High Church school, did not scruple to join the
quasi-Presbyterian Associations that were liberal enough to admit
them; but most found more liberty in keeping by themselves