We conceived there needs no more to be said for justifying the imposition of the ceremonies by law established than what is contained in the beginning—­of this Section....  Inasmuch as lawful authority hath already determined the ceremonies in question to be decent and orderly, and to serve to edification:  and consequently to be agreeable to the general rules of the Word.

To a self-convinced and disinterested lover of the Church of England, it gives an indescribable horror to observe the frequency, with which the Prelatic party after the Restoration appeal to the laws as of equal authority with the express words of Scripture;—­as if the laws, by them appealed to, were other than the vindictive determinations of their own furious partizans;—­as if the same appeals might not have been made by Bonner and Gardiner under Philip and Mary!  Why should I speak of the inhuman sophism that, because it is silly in my neighbour to break his egg at the broad end when the Squire and the Vicar have declared their predilection for the narrow end, therefore it is right for the Squire and the Vicar to hang and quarter him for his silliness:—­for it comes to that.

Ib. p. 248.

To you it is indifferent before your imposition:  and therefore you may without any regret of your own consciences forbear the imposition, or persuade the law makers to forbear it.  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?