Secondly, I desire to know in what manner you will be able out of this definition to prove yourself a minister? Did Christ himself immediately enjoin you to preach, or give you orders? No. Who then, some bishop, or minister, or ministers? Yes; by what authority? Are you sure they had authority immediately from Christ? No. How then are you sure but that they might have none? At least, some of them through whom your authority is derived might have none. And therefore if you run back for your authority towards the Apostles’ times but a matter of sixscore years, you will find your authority derived from the Pope, which words have a sound very unlike to the voice of the laws of England. And yet the Pope will not own you. There is no man doubts but that you hold that your office comes to you by successive imposition of hands from the time of the Apostles; which opinion in those gentle terms passeth well enough; but to say you derive your authority from thence, not through the authority of the sovereign power civil, is too rude to be endured in a state that would live in peace. In a word, you can never prove you are a minister, but by the supreme authority of the commonwealth. Why then do you not put some such clause into your definition? As thus, _ministers of the Gospel are those to whom the preaching of the Gospel is enjoined by the sovereign power in the name of Christ_. What harm is there in this definition, saving only it crosses the ambition of many men that hold your principles? Then you define the power of a minister thus: “_The power of a minister is that which belongeth to a minister of the Gospel in virtue of the office he holds, inasmuch as he holds a public station, and is distinguished from private Christians. Such as is the power of preaching the Gospel, administering the sacrament, the use of ecclesiastical censures, and ordaining of ministers_,” _&c._