jurisdiction: yea, they that are expressly prohibited _speaking in the churches_, as the _women_, 1 Cor. xiv., 1 Tim. ii., shall yet have the _keys of the kingdom of heaven_ hung at their girdles. 2. Then the Church shall be the steward of Christ, and dispenser of the mysteries of God authoritatively and properly. But if the whole Church be the dispenser of the mysteries of God, what shall be the object of this dispensation? Not the Church, for according to this opinion she is the first subject dispensing; therefore it must be something distinct from the Church, unto which the Church dispenseth; what shall this be? shall it be another collateral church? then particular churches collateral may take pastoral care one of another reciprocally, and the same churches be both over and under one another; or shall it be those that are without all churches? then the ordinances of the gospel, and the dispensation of them, were not principally bestowed upon the Church and body of Christ for the good thereof, (which is directly repugnant to the Scriptures, Eph. iv. 8, 11-13;) but rather for them that are without. How shall the men, who maintain the principle's of the Independents, clearly help themselves out of these perplexing absurdities? 3. Hereby the body of the people (as Mr. Bayly well observes in his Dissuasive, chap. ix. page 187) will be extremely unfitted for, and unwarrantably taken off from the several duties that lie upon them in point of conscience to discharge in their general and particular callings, in spiritual and secular matters, on the Lord's days and on their own days. For, if the ecclesiastical power be in all the people, then all the people are judges, and at least have a negative voice in all church matters. They cannot judge in any cause prudently and conscientiously, till they have complete knowledge and information of both the substantials and circumstantials of all those cases that are brought before them; they must not judge blindly, or by an implicit faith, &c., but by their own light. For all the people to have such full information and knowledge of every cause, cannot but take up abundance of time, (many of the people being slow of understanding and extremely disposed to puzzle, distract, and confound one another in any business to be transacted in common by them all.) If these matters of discipline be managed by them on the sabbath day after the dispatch of other public ordinances, ministry of the word, prayer, sacraments, &c., what time can remain for family duties privately, as repeating sermons, and meditating upon the word, searching the Scriptures, whether things preached be so indeed, reading the Scriptures, catechizing their children and servants, &c.? and how will the life of religion in families, yea, and in churches also, languish, if these family exercises be not conscientiously upheld? If they be managed on the week days, how can all the people spare so