Reliquiæ Baxterianæ, or, Mr. Richard Baxters narrative of the most memorable passages of his…

§ 24. Things being in this Case, I stood still some years, as a looker on, and contented my self to wish and pray for Peace, and only drop now and then a word for it in my practical Writings; which hath since been none of my smallest troubles. The Reasons were, 1. Because I was taken up in Practicals, and in such Controversies as tended to Doctrinal Agreement. 2. Because I looked when some abler and more eminent Divines attempted it. 3. But the chief Reason was, Despair: I was so cons•lous of my meanness and in considerableness in the Church, that I verily thought, but very few will regard what I said. But when I once attempted it, God convinced me of this Error, and showed me how little Instruments signify, when he will work: and that his Ministers and People were more humble to hear the meanest of their Brethren, than I before believed. At last the workings of my earnest Desire, and the apprehension of my Duty, to do my best, and leave the Success to God, engaged me as followeth.

§ 24. Things being in this Case, I stood still some years, as a looker on, and contented my self to wish and pray for Peace, and only drop now and then a word for it in my practical Writings; which hath since been none of my smallest troubles. The Reasons were, 1. Because I was taken up in Practicals, and in such Controversies as tended to Doctrinal Agreement. 2. Because I looked when some abler and more eminent Divines attempted it. 3. But the chief Reason was, Despair: I was so cons•lous of my meanness and in considerableness in the Church, that I verily thought, but very few will regard what I said. But when I once attempted it, God convinced me of this Errour, and shewed me how little Instruments signifie, when he will work: and that his Ministers and People were more humble to hear the meanest of their Brethren, than I before believed. At last the workings of my earnest Desire, and the apprehension of my Duty, to do my best, and leave the Success to God, engaged me as followeth.

§ 25. I first began in Conference and Writing to Reverend Mr. Anthony Burgess, and some others, to put the main Question, Whether all Church Government be not, as Camero holdeth, only Persuasive, not by private, but public or authorized Doctoral Persuasion, and so can work on none but the Conscientious or Assenters? And whether the usurpation of a strictly Legislative and Judicial Power (save only to judge what we are to execute), or a power of binding Dissenters, even Clave errant, especially binding Magistrates to execute by Corporal Penalties and Mulcts, and other Punishments, Eo nomine, because by Excommunication the Church hath punished them, I say, whether this be not a robbing the Magistrate of his Power, and making the Exercise of the Keys, to be too like a Coercive Secular Judgment, and so the Ground of all the Quarrels in the Church? For I saw plainly that the Papists, and those Prelates and Presbyterians who are for such an unexamined Judicial Power, do but strive for that which belongeth to none of them all. Upon the raising of these doubts I was suspected to be an Erastian, and had no other Answer, or Satisfaction: But the study of the Point somewhat cleared my own Judgment.