Lastly, that to forbid a man to obey a direct command of God because he will not join with it an admitted mere tradition of men, is contrary to common sense, no less than to God’s word, expressly and by breach of charity, which is the great end and purpose of God’s word.  Besides; might not the Pope and his shavelings have made the same proposition to the Reformers in the reign of Edward VI., in respect to the greater part of the idle superfluities which were rejected by the Reformers, only as idle and superfluous, and for that reason contrary to the spirit of the Gospel, though few, if any, were in the direct teeth of a positive prohibition?  Above all, an honest policy dictates that the end in view being fully determined, as here for instance, the preclusion of disturbance and indecorum in Christian assemblies, every addition to means, already adequate to the securing of that end, tends to frustrate the end, and is therefore evidently excluded from the prerogatives of the Church, (however that word may be interpreted) inasmuch as its power is confined to such ceremonies and regulations as conduce to order and general edification.  In short it grieves me to think that the Heads of the most Apostolical Church in Christendom should have insisted on three or four trifles, the abolition of which could have given offence to none but such as from the baleful superstition that alone could attach importance to them effectually, it was charity to offend;-when all the rest of Baxter’s objections might have been answered so triumphantly.

Ib. p. 343.

  Answer to the foresaid paper.

  8.  That none may be a preacher, that dare not subscribe that there is
  nothing in the Common Prayer Book, the Book of Ordination, and the 39
  Articles, that is contrary to the word of God.

I think this might have been left out as well as the other two articles mentioned by Baxter.  For as by the words “contrary to the word of God” in Cosins’s paper, it was not meant to declare the Common Prayer Book free from all error, the sense must have been, that there is not anything in it in such a way or degree contrary to God’s word, as to oblige us to assign sin to those who have overlooked it, or who think the same compatible with God’s word, or who, though individually disapproving the particular thing, yet regard that acquiescence as an allowed sacrifice of individual opinion to modesty, charity, and zeal for the peace of the Church.  For observe that this eighth instance is additional to, and therefore not inclusive of, the preceding seven:  otherwise it must have been placed as the first, or rather as the whole, the seven following being motives and instances in support and explanation of the point.

Ib. p. 368.