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

Yet before we had been Two years acquainted, he fell once and a second time by the power of Temptation into a degree of Drunkenness, which so terrified him upon the review (especially after the second time) that he was near to Despair; and went to good Ministers with sad Confessions: And when I had left the House and his Company, he fell into it again and again so oft, that at last his Conscience could have no Relief or Ease but in changing his Judgment, and disowning the Teachers and Doctrines which had restrained him. And he did it on this manner: One of his Superiors, on whom he had dependence, was a man of great Sobriety and Temperance, and of much Devotion in his way; but very zealous against the Nonconformists, ordinarily talking most bitterly against them, and reading almost only such Books as encouraged him in this way: By converse with this Man, my Friend was first drawn to abate his Charity to Nonconformists; and then to think and speak reproachfully of them; and next that to dislike all those that came near them, and to say that such as Bolton were too severe, and enough to make men mad: And the last, I heard of him was, that he was grown a Fuddler, and Railer at strict men. But whether God recovered him, or what became of him I cannot tell.

Yet before we had been Two years acquainted, he fell once and a second time by the power of Temptation into a degree of Drunkenness, which so terrified him upon the review (especially after the second time) that he was near to Despair; and went to good Ministers with sad Confessions: And when I had left the House and his Company, he fell into it again and again so oft, that at last his Conscience could have no Relief or Ease but in changing his Judgment, and disowning the Teachers and Doctrines which had restrained him. And he did it on this manner: One of his Superiours, on whom he had dependance, was a man of great Sobriety and Temperance, and of much Devotion in his way; but very zealous against the Nonconformists, ordinarily talking most bitterly against them, and reading almost only such Books as encouraged him in this way: By converse with this Man, my Friend was first drawn to abate his Charity to Nonconformists; and then to think and speak reproachfully of them; and next that to dislike all those that came near them, and to say that such as Bolton were too severe, and enough to make men mad: And the last, I heard of him was, that he was grown a Fudler, and Railer at strict men. But whether God recovered him, or what became of him I cannot tell.