LIFE OF RICHARD BAXTER. 15'7 great. Bút'I told them the reasons of my opinion: 1. That we should quickly agree on our exceptions, or offen none but what we were agreed on. 2. That we were engaged to offer them new forms, which was the expedient that,from the beginning, I had aimed at and brought iny as the only wayof accommodation, consid- ering that they should be in scripture words, and that ministers should choose which forms theywould. 3. That verbal disputes would be managed with much more contention. 4. But above all, that our cause would never else be well understood by our people, or foreigners, or posterity; but our conference and cause would be misreported, and published, as the conference at Hamp- ton-Court was, to our prejudice, and none durst contradict it: And that whatwe said for our cause would in this way come fully and, truly to the knowledge of England, and of other nations ; and that if we refused this opportunity òf leavirtg,upon record our testimony against corruptions, for a just and moderate reformation, we were never like to have the like again. And upon these reasons, I told the bishops that we accepted of the task which they imposed on us ; yet so as to bring all our exceptions at one time, and all our addi-, tións at another time, which they granted. "* This plan having been determined on, the Presbyterian breth- ren immediatelyproceeded to their work. The task of drawing up 'additional, hid amended forms of prayer they imposed upon Baxter ; but the preparation of exceptions against the liturgy then in use, they undertook in common, and for that work they agreed to meet :day by day till it should ,be finished. In making this ar- rangement for the division of their labor, they were probably influ- enced by the expectation that Baxter would do. his part better without any coadjutor, and that theywould proceed more peaceably and more rapidly without the assistance of' his peculiarlykeen and disputatious mind. "Hereupon," he says, " I,departed from them, and came no more. till I had finished my task, which was a fort- night's time. My leisure was too short for the doing of it with that accurateness which a business of that nature doth require, or for the consulting with men orauthors. I couldnot have time to make use of any book save the Bible and, my Concordance, comparing all with the Assembly's; Directory, and the book of common prayer, and Hammond.L'Estr`ange. At the fortnight's end I brought it to the othercommissioners." The workwhich was prepared in that fortnight was afterwards published. It is an entire liturgy,, drawn up, not with the design that it might be published by law in the place of the old book of grayer, but only with the desire that the ministers of the church * Narrative, Part II. pp. 305, 306..
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