But to many of those that dissent from you, they are sinful, &c.
But what is all this, good worthy Baxter, but saying and unsaying?
If they are not indifferent, why did you previously concede them to be such?
In short nothing can be more pitiably weak than the conduct of the Presbyterian party from the first capture of Charles I.Common sense required, either a bold denial that the Church had power in ceremonies more than in doctrines, or that the Parliament was the Church, since it is the Parliament that enacts all these things;--or if they admitted the authority lawful and the ceremonies only, in their mind, inexpedient, good God! can self-will more plainly put on the cracked mask of tender conscience than by refusal of obedience?
What intolerable presumption, to disqualify as ungodly and reduce to null the majority of the country, who preferred the Liturgy, in order to force the long winded vanities of bustling God-orators on those who would fain hear prayers, not spouting! Ib.p.

249.
The great controversies between the hypocrite and the true Christian, whether we should be serious in the practice of the religion which we commonly profess, hath troubled England more than any other;--none being more hated and divided as Puritans than those that will make religion their business, &c.
Had not the Governors had bitter proofs that there are other and more cruel vices than swearing and careless living;--and that these were predominant chiefly among such as made their religion their business?
Ib.
And whereas you speak of opening a gap to Sectaries for private conventicles, and the evil consequents to the state, we only desire you to avoid also the cherishing of ignorance and profaneness, and _suppress all Sectaries_, and spare not, in a way that will not suppress the means of knowledge and godliness.
The present company, that is, our own dear selves, always excepted.
Ib.p.

250.
Otherwise the poor undone Churches of Christ will no more believe you in such professions than we believed that those men intended the King's just power and greatness, who took away his life.
Or who, like Baxter, joined the armies that were showering cannon balls and bullets around his inviolable person! Whenever by reading the Prelatical writings and histories, I have had an over dose of anti-Prelatism in my feelings, I then correct it by dipping into the works of the Presbyterians, and their fellows, and so bring myself to more charitable thoughts respecting the Prelatists, and fully subscribe to Milton's assertion, that "Presbyter was but Old Priest writ large." Ib.p.

254.
The apocryphal matter of your lessons in Tobit, Judith, Bel and the Dragon, &c., is scarce agreeable to the word of God.
Does not Jude refer to an apocryphal book?
Ib.
Our experience unresistibly convinceth us that a continued prayer doth more to help most of the people, and carry on their desires, than turning almost every petition into a distinct prayer; and making prefaces and conclusions to be near half the prayers.
This now is the very point I most admire in our excellent Liturgy.

To any particular petition offered to the Omniscient, there may be a sinking of faith, a sense of its superfluity; but to the lifting up of the soul to the Invisible and there fixing it on his attributes, there can be no scruple.
Ib.p.