Ib. p. 84.
For all the pains that my infirmities ever brought upon me were never half so grievous an affliction to me, as the unavoidable loss of my time, which they occasioned. I could not bear, through the weakness of my stomach, to rise before seven o'clock in the morning, &c.
Alas! in how many respects does my lot resemble Baxter's; but how much less have my bodily evils been; and yet how very much greater an impediment have I suffered them to be! But verily Baxter's labours seem miracles of supporting grace. Ought I not therefore to retract the note p. 80? I waver.
Ib. p. 87.
For my part, I bless God, who gave me even under a Usurper, whom I opposed, such liberty and advantage to preach his Gospel with success, which I cannot have under a King to whom I have sworn and performed true subjection and obedience; yea, which no age since the Gospel came into this land did before possess, as far as I can learn from history. Sure I am that when it became a matter of reputation and honour to be godly, it abundantly furthered the successes of the ministry. Yea, and I shall add this much more for the sake of posterity, that as much as I have said and written against licentiousness in religion, and for the magistrate's power in it, and though I think that land most happy, whose rulers use their authority for Christ as well as for the civil peace; yet in comparison of the rest of the world, I shall think that land happy that hath but bare liberty to be as good as they are willing to be; and if countenance and maintenance be but added to liberty, and tolerated errors and sects be but forced to keep the peace, and not to oppose the substantials of Christianity, I shall not hereafter much fear such toleration, nor despair that truth will bear down adversaries.
What a valuable and citable paragraph! Likewise it is a happy instance of the force of a cherished prejudice in an honest mind—practically yielding to the truth, but yet with a speculative, "Though I still think, &c."
Ib. p. 128.