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

So Mr. Tombs and I agreed to meet at his Church on Jan. 1. And in great Weakness thither I came, and from Nine of the Clock in the Morning till Five at Night, in a crowded Congregation, we continued our Dispute; which was all spent in managing one Argument, from Infants right to Church-Membership to their Right to Baptism: of which he after complained, as if I assaulted him in a new way, which he had not considered of before: But this was not the first time that I had dealt with Anabaptists, who had so much to do with them in the Army as I had: In a Word, this Dispute satisfied all my own People and the Country that came in, and Mr. Tombs's own Townsmen, except about Twenty whom he had perverted, who gathered into his Church, which never increased to above Twenty two, that I could learn. So much of that Dispute, of the Writing more anon.

So Mr. Tombes and I agreed to meet at his Church on Ian. 1. And in great Weakness thither I came, and from Nine of the Clock in the Morning till Five at Night, in a crowded Congregation, we continued our Dispute; which was all spent in manageing one Argument, from Infants right to Church-Membership to their Right to Baptism: of which he after complained, as if I assaulted him in a new way, which he had not considered of before: But this was not the first time that I had dealt with Anabaptists, who had so much to do with them in the Army as I had: In a Word, this Dispute satisfied all my own People and the Country that came in, and Mr. Tombes's own Townsmen, except about Twenty whom he had perverted, who gathered into his Church, which never increased to above Twenty two, that I could learn. So much of that Dispute, of the Writing more anon.

§ 139. If any shall demand whether the increase of Godliness was answerable in all Places to what I have mentioned (and none deny that it was with us) I answer, that however Men that measure Godliness by their Gain and Interest and Domination, do go about to persuade the World that Godliness then went down, and was almost extinguished, I must bear this faithful Witness to those times, that as far as I was acquainted, where before there was one godly profitable Preacher, there was then six or ten; and taking one Place with another, I conjecture there is a ⟨p. 97⟩