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

§ 53. But the Brethren resolved that they would hold on the way which they had begun: And though they were honest and competently judicious Men, yet those that managed the Business, did want the Judgment and Accurateness which such a Work required, (though they would think any Man supercilious that should tell them so): And the tincture of Faction stuck so upon their Minds, that it hindered their Judgment. The great doer of all that worded the Articles was Dr. Owen: ⟨p. 199⟩Mr. Nigh, and Dr. Goodwin and Mr. Sid. Simpson were his Assistants; and Dr. Cheynell his Scribe: Mr. Marshall (a sober worthy Man) did something: the rest (sober Orthodox Men) said little, but suffered the Heat of the rest to carry all.

§ 53. But the Brethren resolved that they would hold on the way which they had begun: And though they were honest and competently judicious Men, yet those that managed the Business, did want the Judgment and Accurateness which such a Work required, (though they would think any Man supercilious that should tell them so): And the tincture of Faction stuck so upon their Minds, that it hindered their Judgment. The great doer of all that worded the Articles was Dr. Owen: ⟨p. 199⟩Mr. Nye, and Dr. Goodwin and Mr. Syd. Sympson were his Assistants; and Dr. Cheynell his Scribe: Mr. Marshall (a sober worthy Man) did something: the rest (sober Orthodox Men) said little, but suffered the Heat of the rest to carry all.

§ 54. When I saw they would not change their Method, I saw also that there was nothing for me and others of my Mind to do, but only to hinder them from doing harm, and trusting in their own Opinions or crude Conceits, among our Fundamentals. And presently Dr. Owen in extolling the Holy Scriptures, put in that [That no Man could know God to Salvation by any other means]: I told him, that this was neither a Fundamental nor a Truth: and that if among the Papists or any others a poor Christian should believe by the teaching of another, without ever knowing that there is a Scripture, he should be saved, because it is promised, that whoever believed should be saved. He said awhile, That there could be no other way of Saving Revelation of Jesus Christ: I told him that he was savingly revealed by Preaching many years before the New Testament was written. He told us that the Primitive Church was bound to believe no more from the Apostles but what was written before in the Old Testament, and proved thence: I told him that by that Assertion he subverted the Christian Church and Faith: 1. By overthrowing the Material, 2. and the Formal Object of our Faith, or the medium necessary thereto. 1. For the Matter, it is not in the Old Testament, [That this Jesus is the Christ; that he is already incarnate, conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary, fulfilled the Law, suffered, was crucified, buried and rose again, ascended into Heaven, and is there at the right hand of God in our Nature, and therein intercedeth for the Church; that he hath instituted the Sacraments, sent his Apostles, given the Holy Ghost to them to direct them into all Truth, &c.] with more of the like. 2. That if Christ and his Apostles were not to be believed for the Image of God appearing on their Doctrine, and the Divine Attestation of Miracles confirming it, then Moses and the Prophets were not for those Reasons to be believed: And consequently not to be believed at all; for there was no reason to believe them, which Christ also gave us not for the belief of him and his Apostles. After a deal of wrangling about these Things, because the Doctor was the hotter, and better befriended in that Assembly, and I was then under great Weakness and Soporous or Scotomatical Illness of my Head, I asked their leave to give them the Reasons of my Opinion in Writing: