Ib. p. 248.
To you it is indifferent before your imposition: and therefore you may
without any regret of your own consciences forbear the imposition, or
persuade the law makers to forbear it. But to many of those that
dissent from you, they are sinful, &c.
But what is all this, good worthy Baxter, but saying and unsaying? If
they are not indifferent, why did you previously concede them to be
such? In short nothing can be more pitiably weak than the conduct of the
Presbyterian party from the first capture of Charles I. Common sense
required, either a bold denial that the Church had power in ceremonies
more than in doctrines, or that the Parliament was the Church, since it
is the Parliament that enacts all these things;--or if they admitted the
authority lawful and the ceremonies only, in their mind, inexpedient,
good God! can self-will more plainly put on the cracked mask of tender
conscience than by refusal of obedience? What intolerable presumption,
to disqualify as ungodly and reduce to null the majority of the country,
who preferred the Liturgy, in order to force the long winded vanities of
bustling God-orators on those who would fain hear prayers, not spouting!
Ib. p. 249.
The great controversies between the hypocrite and the true Christian,
whether we should be serious in the practice of the religion which we
commonly profess, hath troubled England more than any other;--none
being more hated and divided as Puritans than those that will make
religion their business, &c.
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