A27006:488
Reliquiæ Baxterianæ, or, Mr. Richard Baxters narrative of the most memorable passages of his…
Reliquiæ Baxterianæ, or, Mr. Richard Baxters narrative of the most memorable passages of his life and times faithfully published from his own original manuscript by Matthew Sylvester.Reliquiæ Baxterianæ, or, Mr. Richard Baxters narrative of the most memorable passages of his life and times faithfully publish'd from his own original manuscript by Matthew Sylvester.
London: printed for T. Parkhurst, 1696
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
1. The Sots, and with them all Presbyterians but especially the Ministers; whom they call Priests and Priestbyters, and Drivines, and the Dissemby-men, and such like.
2. The Committees of the several Countries, and all the Soldiers that were under them that were not of their Mind and Way.
Some orthodox Captains of the Army did partly acquaint me with all this, and I heard much of it from the Mouths of the leading Sectaries themselves. This struck me to the very Heart, and made me Fear that England was lost by those that it had taken for its Chiefest Friends.
§ 74. Upon this I began to blame both other Ministers and my self. I saw that it was the Ministers that had lost all, by forsaking the Army, and betaking themselves to an easier and quieter way of Life. When the Earl of Essex went out first, each Regiment had an able Preacher, but at Edge-hill Fight almost all of them went home, and as the Sectaries increased, they were the more averse to go into the Army: Its true, that I believe now they had little Invitation, and its true that they must look for little Welcome and great Contempt and Opposition, besides all other Difficulties and Dangers: But it is as true, that their Worth and Labour in a patient self-denying way, had been like to have preserved most of the Army, and to have defeated the Contrivances of the Sectaries, and to have saved the King, the Parliament and the Land. And if it had brought Reproach upon them from the Malicious, (who called them Military Levites) the Good which they had done would have wiped off that blot, much better than the contrary course would do.