clination
of my mind is at this moment, to the principle that an oath may deepen
the guilt of an act sinful in itself, but cannot be detached from the
act; it being understood that a perfectly voluntary and self-imposed
oath is itself a sin. The man who compels me to take an oath by putting
a pistol to my ear has in my mind clearly forfeited all his right to be
treated as a moral agent. Nay, it seems to be a sin to act so as to
induce him to suppose himself such. Contingent consequences must be
excluded; but would, I am persuaded, weigh in favour of annulling on
principle an oath sinfully extorted. But I hate casuistry so utterly,
that I could not without great violence to my feelings put the case in
all its bearings. For example:--it is sinful to enlarge the power of
wicked agents; but to allow them to have the power of binding the
conscience of those, whom they have injured, is to enlarge the power,
&c. Again: no oath can bind to the perpetration of a sin; but to
transfer a sum of money from its rightful owner to a villain is a sin,
&c. and twenty other such. But the robber may kill the next man!
Possibly: but still more probably, many, who would be robbers if they
could obtain their ends without murder, would resist the temptation if
no extenuations of guilt were contemplated;--and one murder is more
effective in rousing the public mind to preventive measures, and by the
horror it strikes, is made more directly preventive of the tendency,
than fifty civil robberies by contract.

Ib. p. 435.

That the minister be not bound to read the Liturgy himself, if
another, by whomsoever, be procured to do it; so be it he preach not
against it.

Wonderful, that so good and wise a man as Baxter should not have seen
that in this the Church would have given up the best, perhaps the only
efficient, preservative of her Faith. But for our blessed and truly
Apostolic and Scriptural Liturgy, our churches' pews would long ago have
been filled by Arians and Socinians, as too many of their desks and
pulpits already are.

Part III. p. 59.

As also to make us take such a poor suffering as this for a sign of
true grace, instead of faith, hope, love, mortification, and a
heavenly mind; and that the loss of one grain of love was worse than a
long imprisonment.

Here Baxter confounds his own particular case, which very many would
have coveted, with the sufferings of other prisoners on the same
score;--sufferings nomina