certificates of membership so as to guard against the admission of
strangers coming from other churches, and possibly of unworthy
character. In the definition of eldership, the "True Confession"
passes out of the haze in which Barrowe's "True Description" left the
conflicting powers of the eldership, and of the church. It plainly
asserts that the elders have the power of guidance and also of
control, should members attempt to censure them or to interfere in
matters beyond their knowledge. This platform also insists that
magistrates should uphold the church which it defines, because it is
the one true church, and that they should oppose all others as
anti-Christian. [15] In the "Points of Difference," stress is again
laid upon the covenant-nature of the church, upon its voluntary
support, upon the right of election of officers, and upon the
abolishment of "Popish Canons, Courts, Classes, Customs or any human
inventions," including the Popish liturgy, the Book of Common Prayer,
and "all Monuments of Idolatry in garments or in other things, and all
Temples, Chapels, etc." Many of the Puritans desired these same
changes. Many favored a polity giving the local churches some degree
of choice in the election of their officers. If the "Points of
Difference" aimed to lay bare the errors of Episcopacy and of
Presbyterianism as well as to demonstrate the superior merits of the
new aspirant for the status of a national church, the "Seven Articles"
[16] aimed to minimize differences in church usage by omitting mention
of them when possible and by emphasizing agreement. The evident
advance along the line of a more authoritative eldership had developed
out of the experience of the first two English churches in
Amsterdam. John Robinson and his followers had held more closely to
Robert Browne's standard of Congregationalism, for Robinson maintained
that the government of the church should be vested in its membership
rather than in its eldership alone. In order to maintain this