X. And of the selfsame mind are the enemies of government by bishops, even at this present day. They hold as Aërius did, that if Christ and his Apostles were obeyed, a bishop should not be permitted to ordain; that between a presbyter and a bishop the word of God alloweth not any inequality or difference to be made; that their order, their authority, their power, ought to be one; that it is but by usurpation and corruption that the one sort are suffered to have rule of the other, or to be any way superior unto them. Which opinion having now so many defenders, shall never be able while the world doth stand to find in some [so many?], believing antiquity, as much as one which hath given it countenance, or borne any friendly affection towards it.
Touching these men therefore, whose desire is to have all equal, three ways there are whereby they usually oppugn the received order of the Church of Christ. First, by disgracing the inequality of pastors, as a new and mere human invention, a thing which was never drawn out of Scripture, where all pastors are found (they say) to have one and the same power both of order and jurisdiction: Secondly, by gathering together the differences between that power which we give to bishops, and that which was given them of old in the Church; so that albeit even the ancient took more than was warrantable, yet so far they swerved not as ours have done: Thirdly, by endeavouring to prove, that the Scripture directly forbiddeth, and that the judgment of the wisest, the holiest, the best in all ages, condemneth utterly the inequality which we allow.
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