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

§ 10. I perceived then that every Party beforementioned, having some Truth or Good, in which it was more eminent than the rest, it was no impossible thing to separate all that from the Error and the Evil, and that among all the Truths which they held either in Common or in Controversy, there was no Contradiction: And therefore, that he that would procure the Welfare of the Church must do his best to promote all the Truth and Good which was held by every part, and to leave out all their Errors and their Evil; and not take up all that any Party had espoused as their own.

§ 11. The things which I disliked as erroneous or evil in each Party were these:

1. In the Erastians I disliked, 1. That they made too light of the Power of the Ministry and Church, and of Excommunication; and did not distinguish sufficiently of a persuasive Power which is but private, and is founded only in the Reason of the Speaker, and a persuasive Power which is public in an Officer of Christ (which Camero well calleth Doctoral), and is founded conjunctly in his Authority (by God's Commission) and his Arguments. 2. That they made the Articles of [the Holy Catholic Church, and the Communion of Saints] too insignificant, by making Church Communion more common to the impenitent than Christ would have it; and so dishonoured Christ by dishonouring his Church, and making it too like to the Heathen World, and breaking down the Hedge of Spiritual Discipline, and laying it almost in common with the Wilderness. 3. That they misunderstood and injured their Brethren, supposing and affirming them to claim as from God a coercive Power over the Bodies or Purses of Men, and so setting up Imperium in Imperio; whereas all temperate Christians (at least except Papists) confess that the Church hath no Power of Force, but only to manage God's Word unto Mens Conscience••