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

All the Disturbance I had in my own Parish was by Sir Ralph Clare's refusing to Communicate with us, unless I would give it him kneeling on a distinct Day, and not with those that received it fitting. To which Demand I gave him this following Answer. SIR, Upon Consultation with others and my own Conscience, I return this Answer to your last motion; beseeching you to believe that it had been more pleasing, if it would have stood with the pleasing of God and any own Conscience. 1. In general it is my resolution to be so far from being the Author of any Divisions in any part of the Church of Christ, as that I shall do all that lawfully I can to avoid them. 2. I am so far from the Judgment and Practices of the late Prelates of England, in point of compelling all to obey or imitate them in gestures and other indifferent things, on pain of being deprived of God's greatest Ordinances (which are not indifferents), beside the ruin of their Estates, &c. that I would become all things (lawful) to all Men for their good, and as I know that the Kingdom of God standeth not in such things, so neither would I shut any out of his visible Kingdom for such things; as judging that our Office is to see God's Law obeyed as far as we can procure it, and not to be Law-gives to the Church our selves, and in Circumstantials to make no more Determinations (than are necessary; left they prove but Engines to ensnare Mens Consciences, and to divide the Church. And as I would impose no such things on other Churches if I had power, so neither will I do it on this Church of which I have some oversight. 3. More particularly, I am certain that sitting in the receiving of the Lord's Supper is lawful: or else Christ and his Apostles, and all his Churches for many hundred years after him did sin, which cannot be. And I take it to be intolerable arrogancy ⟨p. 158⟩and unmannerliness (to speak easily) to call that unreverence and sauciness, (as many do) which Christ and the Apostles and all the Church so long used with one consent. He better knew what pleaseth himself than we do: The vain pretended difference between the Apostles Gesture and ours, is nothing to the matter: He that sitteth on the Ground, sitteth as well as he that sitteth on a Stool: And if any difference were, it was their Gesture that seems the more homely:

All the Disturbance I had in my own Parish was by Sir Ralph Clare's refusing to Communicate with us, unless I would give it him kneeling on a distinct Day, and not with those that received it fitting. To which Demand I gave him this following Answer. SIR, UPon Consultation with others and my own Conscience, I return this Answer to your last motion; beseeching you to believe that it had been more pleasing, if it would have stood with the pleasing of God and any own Conscience. 1. In general it is my resolution to be so far from being the Author of any Divisions in any part of the Church of Christ, as that I shall do all that lawfully I can to avoid them. 2. I am so far from the Judgment and Practices of the late Prelates of England, in point of compelling all to obey or imitate them in gestures and other indifferent things, on pain of being deprived of God's greatest Ordinances (which are not indifferents), beside the ruine of their Estates, &c. that I would become all things (lawful) to all Men for their good, and as I know that the Kingdom of God standeth not in such things, so neither would I shut any out of his visible Kingdom for such things; as judging that our Office is to see God's Law obeyed as far as we can procure it, and not to be Law-gives to the Church our selves, and in Circumstantials to make no more Determinations (than are necessary; left they prove but Engines to ensnare Mens Consciences, and to divide the Church. And as I would impose no such things on other Churches if I had power, so neither will I do it on this Church of which I have some oversight. 3. More particularly, I am certain that sitting in the receiving of the Lord's Supper is lawful: or else Christ and his Apostles, and all his Churches for many hundred years after him did sin, which cannot be. And I take it to be intolerable arrogancy