257.
The not abating of the impositions is the carting off of many hundreds of your brethren out of the ministry, and of many thousand Christians out of your communion; but the abating of the impositions will so offend you as to silence or excommunicate none of you at all.

For example, we think it a sin to subscribe, or swear canonical obedience, or use the transient image of the Cross in Baptism, and therefore these must cast us out, &c.
As long as independent single Churches, or voluntarily synodical were forbidden and punishable by penal law, this argument remained irrefragable.

The imposition of such trifles under such fearful threats was the very bitterness of spiritual pride and vindictiveness;--after the law passed by which things became as they now are, it was a mere question of expediency for the National Church to determine in relation to its own comparative interests.

If the Church chose unluckily, the injury has been to itself alone.
It seems strange that such men as Baxter should not see that the use of the ring, the surplice and the like, are indifferent according to his own confession, yea, mere trifles, in comparison with the peace of the Church; but that it is no trifle, that men should refuse obedience to lawful authority in matters indifferent, and prefer the sin of schism to offending their taste and fancy.

The Church did not, upon the whole, contend for a trifle, nor for an indifferent matter, but for a principle on which all order in society must depend.