Dr. Owen, who of them all, perhaps, possessed the greatest influence, lived in retirement at Stadham. John Howe, never a party man, and thoroughly averse to the occupations of public life, quietly pursued his pastoral duties at Torrington. Dr. Goodwin, it is true, had removed to the metropolis on his ejectment from Oxford, but he now spent his time in seclusion; and Caryl, another distinguished member of the Congregational body, and a City pastor, preferred commenting on the Book of Job, to any entanglement in political affairs. Philip Nye was, probably, the most active of the denomination, but he had no power to serve the cause, forasmuch, as at the time of the Restoration he had narrowly escaped the fate of Hugh Peters.[255] The Independents, as a party, were not in a position just then to render it a matter of importance that the Government should conciliate them; nor did they manifest any desire to secure for their system the temporal benefits of State endowment. Their retirement from the stage of public affairs brought them no disadvantage. Providence had appointed for them a moral discipline, of which the fruit was to appear in after years. They had embraced principles eminently conducive to the freedom and spirituality of Christ's Church, and they were destined to take an important part in the development of English Christianity through the diffusion of those principles. Their disconnection with the Establishment harmonized with that destiny. The Baptists, like the Independents, and for similar reasons, were unrepresented in the Commission; so indeed, also, if we except Reynolds, were the moderate Episcopalians, who although not prepared to go so far as their High Church brethren in the matter of conformity, were ready to advance in that direction much beyond the limits marked out by the Presbyterians; but looking at the temper on the other side, there is no reason to suppose that the presence and counsels of such men would have altered the results of the discussions. [Sidenote: 1661.] [Sidenote: SAVOY CONFERENCE.] Having described the Savoy Conference, and the contemporary meetings of Convocation, there remain to be noticed the proceedings of that higher assembly, with which both the others were coeval. CHAPTER VIII. The Solemn League and Covenant had been displaced a year, and the New Parliament now resolved to brand it with fresh indignities.[256] Accordingly it was, by the common hangman, burnt at Westminster, in Cheapside, and before the Exchange. The executioner "did his work perfectly well; for having kindled his fire, he tore the document into very many pieces, and first burned the preface; and then cast each parcel solemnly into the fire, lifting up his hands and eyes, not leaving the least shred, but burnt it root and branch."[257]