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

And in my poor Endeavours with my Brethren in the Ministry, my Labours were not lost; Our Disputations proved not unprofitable; Our Meetings were never contentious, but always comfortable; We took great delight in the Company of each other; so that I knew that the remembrance of those days is pleasant both of them and me: when Discouragements had long kept me from motioning a way of Church-order and Discipline, which all might agree in, that we might neither have Churches ungoverned, nor fall into Divisions among our selves, at the first motioning of it, I found a readier Consent than I could expect, and all went on without any great obstructing difficulties: And when I attempted to bring them all conjunctly to the work of Catechizing and Instructing every Family by it self, I found a ready consent in most, and performance in many. So that I must here to the praise of my dear Redeemer, set up this Pillar of Remembrance, even to his Praise who hath employed me so many years in so comfortable a Work, with such encouraging Success! O what am I, a worthless Worm, not only wanting Academical Honours, but much of that Furniture which is needful to so high a Work, that God should thus abundantly encourage me, when the Reverend Instructors of my Youth, did labour Fifty years together in one place, and could scarcely say they had Converted one or two of their Parishes! And the greater was this Mercy, because I was naturally of a discouraged Spirit; so that if I had preached one Year, and seen no Fruits of it, I should hardly have for born running away like Jonah, but should have thought that God called me not to that Place. Yea, the Mercy was yet greater in that it was of farther public Benefit: For some Independents and Anabaptist that had before conceited, that Parish Churches were the great Obstruction of all true Church Order and Discipline, and that it ⟨p. 86⟩was impossible to bring them to any good Consistency, did quite change their Minds when they saw what was done at Kidderminster, and began to think now, that it was much through the faultiness of the Parish Ministers, that Parishes are not in a better Case; and that it is a better Work thus to reform the Parishes, than to gather Churches out of them, without great Necessity.

And in my poor Endeavours with my Brethren in the Ministry, my Labours were not lost; Our Disputations proved not unprofitable; Our Meetings were never contentious, but always comfortable; We took great delight in the Company of each other; so that I knew that the remembrance of those days is pleasant both of them and me: when Discouragements had long kept me from motioning a way of Church-order and Discipline, which all might agree in, that we might neither have Churches ungoverned, nor fall into Divisions among our selves, at the first motioning of it, I found a readier Consent than I could expect, and all went on without any great obstructing difficulties: And when I attempted to bring them all conjunctly to the work of Catechizing and Instructing every Family by it self, I found a ready consent in most, and performance in many. So that I must here to the praise of my dear Redeemer, set up this Pillar of Remembrance, even to his Praise who hath employed me so many years in so comfortable a Work, with such encouraging Success! O what am I, a worthless Worm, not only wanting Academical Honours, but much of that Furniture which is needful to so high a Work, that God should thus abundantly encourage me, when the Reverend Instructors of my Youth, did labour Fifty years together in one place, and could scarcely say they had Converted one or two of their Parishes! And the greater was this Mercy, because I was naturally of a discouraged Spirit; so that if I had preached one Year, and seen no Fruits of it, I should hardly have for born running away like Ionah, but should have thought that God called me not to that Place. Yea, the Mercy was yet greater in that it was of farther publick Benefit: For some Independents and Anabaptist that had before conceited, that Parish Churches were the great Obstruction of all true Church Order and Discipline, and that it