108 LIFE OF RICHARD BAXTER. Baxter had previously had some encounters in the way of theolo- gical discussion through the press, there is reason to believe that this was the first time these two great and good men ever came together face tó face. Baxter did not arrive till the other ten were already at their work; but it soon appeared that he had brought with him views of his own, and was well prepared to make them no little trouble. " I would have had the brethren," he says, ' to have offered the parliament the creed; Lord's prayer, and decalogue alone, as our essentials, or fundamentals, which at least contain all that is necessary to salvation, and have been by all the ancient churches taken for the sum of their religion. And whereas they still said, A Socinian or Papist will subscribe all this,' I answered them, ' So much the better, and so much the fitter is it to be the matter of our concord. But if you are afraid of communion with Papists and Socinians, it must not be avoided by making a new rule or test of faith, which they will not subscribe to, or by forcing others to subscribe to more than they can do, but by calling them to account whenever, in preaching or writing, they contrhdict or abuse the truth to which they have subscribed. This is the work of govern- ment; and we must not think to make laws serve instead of judgment and execution; nor must we make new laws as oft as heretics will misinterpret and subscribe the old ; for when you have put in all the words you can devise, some heretics will put their own sense upon them, and subscribe them. And we must not blame God for not making a law that no man can misinterpret or break ; and think to make such an one ourselves, because God could not or would not. These presumptions and errors have dividefl and distracted the Christian churches ; and one would think experience should save us from them.".'* This style of arguing, however, was insufficient to change the views with which the committee had begun their work. They reported about twenty propositions, as embracing, in their judg- ment, the fundamentals of the Christian religion. " But the parliament was dissolved, and all came to nothing, and that labor was lost." The truth was, Cromwell was determined to adhere, as far as possible, to the great principle of religious liberty. Baxter was called to London on this business by the influence of Lord Broghill, afterwards earl of Orrery, and lord president of Munster, who was then high in the favor of the protector; and at the house of this friend he was entertained while he continued in the city. "At this time," he says, "the Lord Broghill and the earl of Warwick brought me to preach before Cromwell the * Narrative¡Pait II. p. 198.
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