40-41.] Distinct from the County Committees of Ejectors, and forming the other great constitutional power in Cromwell's Church-Establishment, was the Central or London _Committee of the Thirty-eight Triers_ (Vol.IV.p.

571).

It was their duty to examine "all candidates for the public ministry," i.e.all persons presented to livings by the patrons of the same, and pass only those that were fit.

Baxter's report of the work of these Triers, as done either by themselves in conclave, or by Sub-commissioners for them in the counties, is the more remarkable because he disowned the authority under which the Triers acted and was in controversy with most of them.

"Though their authority was null," he says, "and though some few over-busy and over-rigid Independents among them, were too severe against all that were Arminians, and too particular in inquiring after evidences of sanctification in those whom they examined, and somewhat too lax in their admission of unlearned and erroneous men that favoured Antinomianism or Anabaptism, yet, to give them their due, they did abundance of good to the Church.