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 of the Church of England, I hold it an unsafe and imprudent concession, tending to weaken the governing right of the Bishops.  But I fear that as the law and right of patronage in England now are, the question had better not be stirred; lest it should be found that the true power of the keys is not, as with the Papists, in hands to which it is doubtful whether Christ committed them exclusively; but in hands to which it is certain that Christ did not commit them at all.

Ib. p. 179.

  It followeth not a mere Bishop may have a multitude of Churches,
  because an Archbishop may, who hath many Bishops under him.

What then does Baxter quarrel about?  That our Bishops take a humbler title than they have a right to claim;—­that being in fact Archbishops, they are for the most part content to be styled as one of the brethren!

Ib. p. 185.

  I say again, No Church, no Christ; for no body, no head; and if no
  Christ then, there is no Christ now.

Baxter here forgets his own mystical regenerated Church.  If he mean this, it is nothing to the argument in question; if not, then he must assert the monstrous absurdity of, No unregenerate Church, no Christ.