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

Now upon the Difference between the Diocesans and the Disciplinarians, the Diocesans found that their very Places, and Power, and Lands, and Lordships were assaulted by the contrary Opinion; and therefore they thought it necessary to suppress the Promoters of it. And so putting Episcopacy, Liturgy, Ceremonies, and all into the Subscriptions which they imposed on all that would be Ministers or Schoolmasters, they kept and cast out very many worthy Men: For some that were for Liturgy and Ceremonies, were not for Diocesans, but for Parish Discipline; and some that were for Bishops were not for the Ceremonies; and some that were for the rest yet scrupled some one, and he that could not Subscribe to all, was forbidden to preach the Gospel: whereas in the mean time many Bishops preached very seldom, and abundance of Places had ignorant Readers that could nor preach, and silly Preachers, whose Performances were so mean, that they had better kept to the Reading of the Homilies; and many of these were of Scandalous Lives.

Hereupon the Disciplinarians cried out of the ignorant scandalous Ministers; and almost all the scandalous Ministers (and all that studied Preferment) cried out of the Nonconformists: The name Puritan was put upon them, and by that they were commonly known; when they had been called by that name awhile, the vicious Multitude of the Ungodly called all Puritans that were strict and serious in a Holy Life, were they ever so conformable! So that the same name in a Bishops mouth signified a Nonconformist, and in an ignorant Drunkards or Swearers mouth, a godly obedient Christian. But the People being the greater number, became among themselves the Masters of the Sense. And in Spalatensi's time, when he was decrying Calvinism, he devised the name of Doctrinal Puritans, which comprehended all that were against Arminianism. Now the ignorant Rabble hearing that the Bishops were against the Puritans, (not having wit enough to know whom they meant) were emboldened the more against all those whom they called ⟨p. 33⟩Puritans themselves, and their Rage against the Godly was increased: and they cried up the Bishops, partly because they were against the Puritans, and partly because they were earnest for that way of Worship which they found most consistent with their Ignorance, Carelessness, and Sins. And thus the Interest of the Diocesans and of the Profane and Ignorant sort of People were unhappily twisted together in England.