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

Lib. 4. p. 76. S• tu non vis esse Frater, ego esse incipio Impius, si de nomine isto ••cuero.

Vid. Lib. 1. Fol. 1.

§ 46. Before this I had occasion to make a more particular trial for Union with the Independent Brethren. I knew Mr. Phil. Nigh had very great power with them, and he being in the Country, I desired him to give me in Writing all those things which of necessity must be granted them by the Presbyterians, in order to Concord and Conjunction in the same Associations and Communion: He referred me to the Debates in the Assembly at Westminster which are in print: I urged him to give them me under his Hand, which at that time he did not, but the next Year I prevailed with him, and he wrote down these two as sufficient Concessions to our desired End: [The first was, that they might have Liberty to take Church-Members out of other Parishes. And the second, that they might have all Church Power within themselves, in their several Congregations.] I asked him, if I accommodated them in both these, whether really they would unite with us as aforesaid. And he told me that they would: Whereupon I drew up this Form of Agreement following, which I thought granted them both these: But so as that they should be Members of constant Associations, and meet with us in our Synods; and that they should do this not as subject to the Government of those Synods, but as using them for Concord between the Churches, and so take their Resolutions not as Laws, but as Agreements: And that before they took any Member out of any other Parish, it should be debated in such Assemblies or Synods, and there it should be tried whether the Person had sufficient Cause to withdraw his Communion from the Parish of which he was a Member: And if the Cause were just he might be allowed; but if the Cause were heretical or truly Schismatical they should hear what the Synod could say against it: and if they judged the Error tolerable they would tolerate it, if their Reasons could not satisfy; if they judged it intolerable, the worse could be but our disowning the Fact, and again receding from their Communion. He told me that it would cast a Slur on them to be as it were excommunicated by us, that were the greater Number. I told him, 1. That it was not likely that Men who so much desired their Communion, would excommunicate them for the very same things, which we knew they held before we desired it. 2.