Rich. Baxter's review of the state of Christian's infants whether they should be entered…

XI. And alas what a distraction and scandal should I have caused to the ignorant and weak, when they see so many ways, and hear men calling them this way and that way, and terrifying them with Gods Judgment, and the charge of Sin, if they be not of this mind or of that, till poor people (that have a plain Rule left them by Christ) are driven out of all Religion, or out of their Wits, as not knowing of what side and way to be.

XI. And alass what a distraction and scandal should I have caused to the ignorant and weak, when they see so many wayes, and hear men calling them this way and that way, and terrifying them with Gods Judgment, and the charge of Sin, if they be not of this mind or of that, till poor people (that have a plain Rule left them by Christ) are driven out of all Religion, or out of their Wits, as not knowing of what side and way to be.

XII. And I should have been like enough to have been drawn into the guilt of Persecution my self, while I cried out against Persecution. I might have Persecuted my Brethren with my Tongue, and thought it necessary to the promoting of the cause of God, to blast their just Reputation, and to make them by falsehoods ⟨p. 44⟩to become despised, lest their names should hinder my design. Yea, who knows but I might my self have joined with those whom you judged the persecuting Silencers of the Ministers of Christ, and Ruiners of the Churches Peace, by endeavouring the continuance of those same Impositions, and keeping Ministers out of the public Ministry, and depriving them of all the established Maintenance, which in the judgment of the Sectaries themselves is heinous sin, and all this lest Repentance and Altering such Impositions (unless they will do it as far as the said persons desire) should weaken their Party, and leave them under greater disadvantages; and to have thus desired mens impenitent Continuance of that which is accounted heinous Persecution and Devastation of the Churches, and starving many thousand Souls, and undoing Ministers▪ and their Families, might have made all this to be my own by such consent, yea and endeavour; and the pitiful shift of [opposing a Comprehension, to keep off our own Sufferings, or our weakening, and the dividing of the Non-conformists.] might have been an Opiate to my Conscience for so heinous an Iniquity.