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 with tolerable accuracy.