LIF OF RICHARD BAXTER. 115 ceive, by consequence, though not intentionally ; pot only as they omitted it, and corrupted it, but as theirprinciples and church state had made it impracticable and impossible." "2. That hereby they .altered the species,of churches, and either would deface all particular churches, and have none but as- sociated diocesan churches, who hold communion by delegates, and not personally, or else they would turn all the particular paro- chial churches into Christian oratories and schools, while they gave their pastors but a teaching and worshiping power, and not a governing. " O. That hereby they altered the ancient species of presby- ters, to whose office the spiritual government of their proper flocks as truly belonged, as the power of preaching and worship- ing God. "4. That they extinguished the ancient species of bishops, which was in the times ofIgnatius, when every church had one altar and one bishop." He adds many other particulars, such as their setting up secular courts, their vexing honest Christians that could not worship by their ceremonies, their permitting ignorant drunken readers to oc- cupy the placeofpastors in abundance of churches, their excessive zeal for formalities and ceremonies, and the general tendency of their spirit and measures to the suppression of godliness, and the in- crease of ignorance and profaneness. "In the Presbyterian way I disliked, " 1. Their order of lay elders, whohad no ordination, nor power to preach, nor to administer sacraments. For though I grant that lay elders, or the chief of thepeople, wereoft employed toexpress the people's consent and preserve their liberties, yet these were no church officers at all, nor hadany charge of private oversight of the flocks. And though I grant that one church had oft more el- ders than did use to preach, and that many were most employed in private oversight, yet that was but a prudent dividing of their work according to the gifts and parts of each, and not that any elders wanted power of office to preach or administer sacraments when there was cause. "2. And I disliked, also, the course of some of the more rigid of them, who drew too near the way of prelacy, by grasping at a kind ofsecular power ; not using it themselves, but binding the ma- gistrates to confiscate or imprison men, merely because' they were excommunicated; and so corrupting the true discipline of the church, and turning the communion of saints into the communion ofthe multitude, who must keep in the church against their wills for fear of being undone in the world. Whereas, a manwhose con- science cannot feel a just excommunication unless it be backedwith
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