a
divine as Baxter. How mighty must be the force of an old prejudice when
so generally acute a logician was blinded by it to such palpable
inconsistencies! On what ground of right could a magistrate inflict a
penalty, whereby to compel a man to hear what he might believe dangerous
to his soul, on which the right of burning the refractory individual
might not be defended as well?

Ib. p. 198.

To which ends * * I think that this is all that should be required of
any Church or member ordinarily to be professed: In general I do
believe all that is contained in the sacred canonical Scriptures, and
particularly I believe all explicitly contained in the ancient Creed,
&c.

To a man of sense, but unstudied in the context of human nature, and
from having confined his reading to the writers of the present and the
last generation unused to live in former ages, it must seem strange that
Baxter should not have seen that this test is either all or nothing. And
the Creed! Is it certain that the so called Apostles' Creed was more
than the mere catechism of the Catechumens? Was it the Baptismal Creed
of the Eastern or Western Church, especially the former? The only test
really necessary, in my opinion, is an established Liturgy.

Ib. p. 201.

As reverend Bishop Ussher hath manifested that the Western Creed, now
called the Apostles' (wanting two or three clauses that now are in it)
was not only before the Nicene Creed, but of much further antiquity,
that no beginning of it below the Apostles' days can be found.

Remove these two or three clauses, and doubtless the substance of the
remainder must have been little short of the Apostolic age. But so is
one at least of the writings of Clement. The great question is: Was this
the Baptismal Symbol, the 'Regula Fidei', which it was forbidden to put
in writing;--or was it not the Christian A. B. C. of the 'Catechumeni'
previously to their Baptismal initiation into the higher mysteries, to
the 'strong meat' which was not for babes'? [2]

Ib. p. 203.

Not so much for my own sake as others; lest it should offend the
Parliament, and open the mouths of our adversaries, that we cannot
ourselves agree in fundamentals; and lest it prove an occasion for
others to sue for a universal toleration.

That this apprehension so constantly haunted, so powerfully actuated,
even the mild and really tolerant Baxter, is a strong proof of my old
opinion,--that the dogma of