In 1689 a sermon by Richard Baxter made him dissatisfied with episcopacy, and a visit to London, during which he attended nonconformist services and inquired into church customs, increased this distaste; but he retained his living till 1691.
[1] In 1692 Claridge was appointed preacher at the Bagnio, a Baptist meeting-house in Newgate Street, London, and shortly afterwards opened a school in Clerkenwell.
The prosecution was dropped, only to start up a few years later (1708), when a verdict was given against him for £600, he appealed to the court of king's bench, and the fine reduced to £4.
In 1714, when a bill was before parliament to prevent the growth of schism, particularly intended to suppress dissenting academies, Claridge opposed it and wrote tracts to show that it would be oppressive.
[1] Claridge's major works were:[1] Claridge answered Richard Allen's A Brief Vindication from Dr. Russel's Animadversions (1696) for William Russel,[3] and wrote an epistle for The Enormous Sin of Covetousness Detected (1708) by William Crouch [4] His posthumous works were collected and published with a memoir prefixed in 1726 under the title of The Life and Posthumous Works of Richard Claridge, being memoirs and manuscripts relating to his experiences and progress in religion: his changes of opinion and reasons for them.