Ill LIFE OF RICHARD BAXTER. much that Wood, the high-church Oxford historian, calls him "the pride of the Presbyterian party." His mind was too enlarged and Independent, too sensible of the paramount importance of peace and fellowship among Christians, to be enlisted for better and for worse with any of the violent parties of a violent age. Moved by the excitement and debate which he could not but ,see and hear, he set himself to the most serious study of the disputed points ; "the result of which was," to use his own words, "this confident and settled judgment, that of the four contending parties, each one had some truths in peculiar which the others overlooked, or took little notice of, and each one had their proper mistakes which gave advantage to their adversaries ; though all ofthem had so much truth in common among them, as would have made these kingdoms happy, if it had been unanimously and soberly reduced to practice, by prudent and charitable men. "The Erastians, I thought, were thus far in the right, in assert- ing more fully than others the magistrates' power in matters of religion ; that all coercive power by mulcts or force is only in their hands; and that no such polder belongeth to the pastors or people of the church; and that thus there should not be any coercive power challenged by pope, prelate, presbytery, or any, but by the magistrate alone ; that the pastoral power is only persuasive, or exercised on volunteers." " But though the. Diocesans, and the Presbyterians of Scotland, who had laws to enable them, opposed this doctrine, or the party at least, yet I perceived that it was but on the ground of their civil advantages, as the magistrate had impowered them by his laws." " The generality of each party indeed owned this doctrine ; and 'I could speak with no sober, judicious Prelatist,Presbyterian, or Independent, but confessed that no secular or forcing power belonged to any pastors of the church, as such ; and unless the magistrate authorized them as his officers, they could not touch men's bodies or estates, but the conscience alone, which can be ofnone but assenters. "The Episcopal party seemed to have reasonon their side in this, that, in the primitive church, there were some apostles, evan- gelists, and others, who were general unfixedofficers of thechurch, not tied to any particular charge, and had some superiority, some of them, over fixed bishops or pastors. And though the extraor- dinary parts of the apostles' office ceased withthem, I saw no proof of the cessation of any ordinarypart of their office, such as church government is confessed tobe. All the doubt that I saw in this, was, whether the apostles themselves were constituted goverpors of other pastors, or only overruled them by the eminency of their gifts and privilege of infallibility. For it-seemed to me unmeet to affirm, without proof, that Christ settled a form of government in
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