rom God a coercive power
over the bodies or purses of men, and so setting up 'imperium in
imperio'; whereas all temperate Christians (at least except Papists)
confess that the Church hath no power of force, but only to manage
God's word unto men's consciences.

But are not the receivers as bad as the thief? Is it not a poor evasion
to say:--"It is true I send you to a dungeon there to rot, because you
do not think as I do concerning some point of faith;--but this only as a
civil officer. As a divine I only tenderly entreat and persuade you!"
Can there be fouler hypocrisy in the Spanish Inquisition than this?

Ib. p. 142.

That hereby they (the Diocesan party) altered the ancient species of
Presbyters, to whose office the spiritual government of their proper
folks as truly belonged, as the power of preaching and worshiping God
did.

I could never rightly understand this objection of Richard Baxter's.
What power not possessed by the Rector of a parish, would he have wished
a parochial Bishop to have exerted? What could have been given by the
Legislature to the latter which might not be given to the former? In
short Baxter's plan seems to do away Archbishops--[Greek: koinoi
episkopoi]--but for the rest to name our present Rectors and Vicars
Bishops. I cannot see what is gained by his plan. The true difficulty is
that Church discipline is attached to an Establishment by this world's
law, not to the form itself established: and his objections from
paragraph 5 to paragraph 10 relate to particular abuses, not to
Episcopacy itself.

Ib. p. 143.

But above all I disliked that most of them (the Independents) made the
people by majority of votes to be Church governors in
excommunications, absolutions, &c., which Christ hath made an act of
office; and so they governed their governors and themselves.

Is not this the case with the Houses of Legislature? The members taken
individually are subjects; collectively governors.

Ib. p. 177.

The extraordinary gifts of the Apostles, and the privilege of being
eye and ear witnesses to Christ, were abilities which they had for the
infallible discharge of their function, but they were not the ground
of their power and authority to govern the Church. * * * 'Potestas
clavium' was committed to them only, not to the Seventy.

I wish for a proof, that all the Apostles had any extraordinary gifts
which none of the LXX. had. Nay as an Episcopalian