But were the prospect of a better parish, in case of greater diligence, set before him by his Bishop, on the music of such a promise, like one bit by a ‘tarantula’, we should probably soon see him in motion, and serving God, (O shameful!) for the sake of Mammon, as if his torpid body had been animated anew by a returning soul.

Without any high-flying in Christian morality, I cannot keep shrinking from the wish here expressed; at all events, I cannot sympathize with, or participate in, the expectation of “an infinite advancement” from men so motived.

Ib. p. 394.

  Yet excommunication, the inherent discipline of the Church, which it
  exercised under persecution, which it is still permitted to exercise
  under the present establishment.

Rarely I suspect, without exposing the Clergyman to the risk of an action for damages, or some abuse.  There are few subjects that more need investigation, yet require more vigour and soundness of judgment to be rightly handled, than this of Christian discipline in a Church established by law.  It is indeed a most difficult and delicate problem, and supplied Baxter with a most plausible and to me the only perplexing of his numerous objections to our Ecclesiastical Constitution.  On the other hand, I saw clearly that he was requiring an impossibility; and that his argument carried on to its proper consequences concluded against all Church Establishment, not more against the National Church of which he complained, than the one of his own clipping and shaping which he would have substituted; consequently, every proof (and I saw many and satisfactory proofs) of the moral and political necessity of an Established Church, was at the same time a pledge that a deeper insight would detect some flaw in the reasoning of the Disciplinarians.  For if A. be right and requisite, B., which is incompatible with A., cannot be rightly required.  And this it was, that first led me to the distinction between the ‘Ecclesia’ and an ‘Enclesia’, concerning which see my Essay on Establishment and Dissent, in which I have met the objection to my position, that Christian discipline is incompatible with a Church established by law, from the fact of the discipline of the Church of Scotland. [4] Who denies that it is in the power of a legislature to punish certain offences by ignominy, and to make the clergy magistrates in reference to these?  The question is, whether it is wise or expedient, which it may be, or rather may have been, in Scotland, and the contrary in England?  Wise or unwise, this is not discipline, not Christian discipline, enforced only by spiritual motives, enacted by spiritual authority, and submitted to for conscience’ sake.

Ib. p. 446.