PART III.

TESTIMONIES

IN BEHALF OF CANDOUR, PEACE, and UNANIMITY,

BY

DIVINES AMONG THE PROTESTANT DISSENTERS.

57.

RICHARD BAXTER.

DIED 1691.

KEEP right apprehensions of the excellency of charity and unity among believers, and receive nothing hastily that is against them; especially take heed, lest under pretence of their authority, their number, their soundness, or their holiness, you too much addict yourselves to any sect or party, to the withdrawing of your special love and just communion from other Christians, and turning your zeal to the interest of your party, with the neglect of the common interest of the church; but love a Christian as a Christian, and promote the unity and welfare of them all. It is a most dangerous thing to a young convert to be ensnared in a sect; it will, before you are aware, possess you with a feverish sinful zeal for the opinions and interests of that sect; it will make you bold in bitter inyectives and censures against those that differ from them; it will corrupt your church communion, and fill your very prayers with partiality and human passions; it will secretly bring malice, under the name of zeal, into your minds and words; in a word, it is a secret but deadly enemy to Christian love and peace! Let them that are wiser, and more orthodox and godly than others, show it as the Holy Ghost directeth them, James, chap, iii. ver. 13, 14, &c. Who is a wise man, and

endued with knowledge among you? Let him show out of a good conversation his works, with meekness of wisdom. But if ye have bitter envying (or zeal) and strife in your hearts, glory not, and lie not against the truth. This wisdom descendeth not from above, but is earthly, sensual, and devilish: for where envying and strife is, there is confusion, and every evil work. But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, easy to be intreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality (or wrangling) and without hypocrisy. And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them that make peace, Christian Directory.

RICHARD BAXTER was born, 1615, at Rowton, Shropshire, and deemed one of the greatest men of the age in which he lived. Having an indifferent education, he was at length ordained by the Bishop of Worcester, and, in 1633, became Master of the Free-School at Dudley. In 1640, he settled at Kidderminster, where he was very useful. During the Civil Wars he was chaplain to the Parliamentary forces, and afterwards returned to Kidderminster. Leaving that place on account of his health, he visited Tunbridge Wells, and then settled in London. On the Restoration he refused the See of Worcester, and remained amongst the Dissenters, sorely persecuted, especially by Judge Jefferies of brutal memory. He retired to Charter-house Yard, where he had a large congregation, and where he died, 1691, and was interred in Christ Church. Though

very sickly, and for thirty years not free from pain, he was a man of incessant zeal and activity. No person in his time was more despised, none more esteemed! He is said to have written one hundred and forty-five treatises; and his practical works, now re-publishing (under the care of my worthy friend, the Rev. Thomas Cloutt, A.M. of Walworth), make 4 volumes, folio. His two most popular works in the present day are his Call to the Unconverted, and his Saints' Everlasting Rest, in which breathes a spirit of the most ardent piety. The original is a thick quarto, tedious, and tinctured with the pedantry of the age; it is, however, well abridged by Fawcett in a duodecimo size, which is not only generally circulated, but in deserved estimation : with a few exceptions, it is a work of inestimable utility. His Creed lay betwixt Arminianism and Calvinism, whilst the Baxterians are considered a denomination of the Christian world!

58.

ROBERT BARCLAY,

APOLOGIST FOR THE QUAKERS.-DIED 1691.

It was contrary to the nature of Christ's gospel and ministry to use any force and violence in the gathering of souls to him. This he abundantly expressed in his reproof to the two sons of Zebedee, who would have been calling for fire from heaven to