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

hath troubled England more than any other: None being more hated and derided as Puritans, than those that will make Religion their Business, and make it predominant in their Hearts and Lives, while others that hate them, take it up in custom, for Fashion, or in jest, and use it only in Subserviency to the Will of Man and their Worldly Ends, and honour it with Complements, and paint the Skin while they stab the Heart. Reconcile this Difference, and most others will be reconciled. § 3. Whether this signify any Repentance for the voluminous Reproaches which many of you have written against those you call Puritans, your Amendment will interpret. That you will give us Liberty in our Family-Duties alone is a Courtesy that you cannot well deny a Papist or a Mahometan, because you have there no Witnesses of what they do; and yet we shall take our selves beholden for it, so low are our Expectations. But is there no Duty that private Christians owe to one another, for the furthering their Salvation, but only for their several Families? why may not those that on the Lord's Day repeat a Sermon in their Families, admit a Neighbour-Family to be present, which is not able so to help themselves? A great part of the Families among the Poor are composed of such as can neither write nor read, and therefore know not how to spend the Lord's Day when they are out of the Congregation: And a Sermon forgotten will hardly be so well practised as if it were remembered; and the Ignorant will hardly remember it if they never hear it but once. At least methinks it should be an Encouragement to you, when you have studied what to say to the People (rather than matter of Offence) to see them so far value it, as to desire to fasten it in their Memories. And if several Families join also in the singing of Psalms of Praise to God, and calling on him for a Blessing on the Minister and themselves, is this a Crime? when perhaps most of those Families either cannot pray at all, or not with such cheerful Advantage, by themselves: If you are against such mutual Helps as these, you are against the Benefit of the Peoples Souls: The Lord pity the Flocks that have such Pastors. If you are not against them, why are you against our Desires of encouragement in them? Have the Laws of the Land secured any of these to us against your Canons?

hath troubled England more than any other: None being more hated and derided as Puritans, than those that will make Religion their Business, and make it predominant in their Hearts and Lives, while others that hate them, take it up in custom, for Fashion, or in jest, and use it only in Subserviency to the Will of Man and their Worldly Ends, and honour it with Complements, and paint the Skin while they stab the Heart. Reconcile this Difference, and most others will be reconciled. § 3. Whether this signifie any Repentance for the voluminous Reproaches which many of you have written against those you call Puritans, your Amendment will interpret. That you will give us Liberty in our Family-Duties alone is a Courtesy that you cannot well deny a Papist or a Mahometan, because you have there no Witnesses of what they do; and yet we shall take our selves beholden for it, so low are our Expectations. But is there no Duty that private Christians owe to one another, for the furthering their Salvation, but only for their several Families? why may not those that on the Lord's Day repeat a Sermon in their Families, admit a Neighbour-Family to be present, which is not able so to help themselves? A great part of the Families among the Poor are composed of such as can neither write nor read, and therefore know not how to spend the Lord's Day when they are out of the Congregation: And a Sermon forgotten will hardly be so well practised as if it were remembred; and the Ignorant will hardly remember it if they never hear it but once. At least methinks it should be an Encouragement to you, when you have studied what to say to the People (rather than matter of Offence) to see them so far value it, as to desire to fasten it in their Memories. And if several Families join also in the singing of Psalms of Praise to God, and calling on him for a Blessing on the Minister and themselves, is this a Crime? when perhaps most of those Families either cannot pray at all, or not with such cheerful Advantage, by themselves: If you are against such mutual Helps as these, you are against the Benefit of the Peoples Souls: The Lord pity the Flocks that have such Pastors. If you are not against them, why are you against our Desires of encouragement in them? Have the Laws of the Land secured any of these to us against your Canons?