Ecclesiasticism

“ Necessary as may have been the subjection of the race to priestly authority in the course of human evolution, it was the form of tutelage which, of all others, was most calculated to benumb and deaden the faculties affected by it, and the collapse of ecclesiasticism presently prepared the way for an enthusiasm of interest in the great problems of human nature and destiny which would have been scarcely conceivable by the worthy ecclesiastics of your day who with such painful efforts and small results sought to awake their flocks to spiritual concerns. ”

“ The great curse of Theology and Ecclesiasticism has always been their tendency to sacrifice large interests to small—Charity to Creed, Unity to Uniformity, Fact to Tradition, Ethics to Dogma. ”

“ I do not say that Aristocracy, based upon habits and traditions [Pg 6] of oppression, is the foe which takes deepest hold;—Despotism and Ecclesiasticism are dragons which get their claws far deeper into the body politic;—for Despotism clutches more temporal, and Ecclesiasticism more eternal interests.
Nor do I say that Aristocracy is the enemy most difficult to find and come at. Demoralization in Democracy is harder to find and come at; for demoralization in Democracy is a disease, and lurks,—Aristocracy is a foe, and stands forth—bold ”

“ If any of them' were 'grieved one with another,' they were to 'complain to the King's Highness or the Archbishop or Bishop of the diocese.' They were 'purely, sincerely, and justly' to 'preach the Scripture and words of Christ, and not mix them with men's institutions, or make men believe that the force of God's law and man's law was the like.' On subjects such as purgatory, worship of saints and relics, marriage of the clergy, justification by faith, pilgrimages and miracles, they were to keep silence for one whole year, and not to preach at all. ”

“ All that I have shown to be the religion of the state, which is indeed nothing more than a portion of the universal common law of Christendom, is involved in the religion of Catholics and taught by it with an authority which they acknowledge as unerring and supreme. Here is, therefore, a principle of stability to the state, and to the rights of all classes of citizens, which is involved in the education and popular instruction which is given by the Catholic clergy. ”

“ Hence, a Christian Church always embodied some of the mysteries of the Christian religion, as the mystery of the Trinity;—always shadowed forth some part of the ecclesiastical polity, as the division of the church into clergy and laity;—always conveyed some instruction on religion and morals, as for instance, in the texts of Holy Scripture, or certain moral lessons written on the walls;—and always pre-supposed a Catholic worship, that is, a worship separate from error, and from the perversions of all sectaries. ”

“ The foundations of religious orders were as many attempts to realize the Christian ideal, and to this day the Roman Catholic Church, whose clergy and religious orders unquestionably afford a splendid living example of devotion to a common cause, self-abnegation, obedience and humility, clings to the ideal of a state in which temporal power is wielded by a hierarchy raised to rulership from all ranks, merely by virtue of personal, moral and intellectual qualities. Throughout the Christian church the ideal of religious democracy prevails. ”

“ Sometimes, as in the period of the Roman Empire, when this comparison was first made, the influence of one on the other is more by contagion, by atmosphere, even by contrast, than by direct intercourse. Sometimes the main interest of religious history hangs on an institution, like Episcopacy; on a war, like the Crusades; on a person, like Luther. In some periods, as in the middle ages, the combination of the secular and religious elements will be effected by the political or the intellectual influence of the clergy. ”

“ As to our being 'miscellaneous,' we churchmen have no communion with the sects, though you delight to identify us with them, and though some disloyal teachers among us may 'apply the call of dissent to their own lost sheep, and tinkle back their old women by sounding the brass of the Methodists,' 1 our Church, unswerving, still maintains the old, catholic faith, and earnestly entreats deliverance from all false doctrine, heresy, and schism. ”

“ It is the possession of faith which gives liberty to a Christian man; God is with him, who can be against him?
“Here you will ask, ‘If all who are in the Church are priests, by what character are those whom we now call [pg 241] priests to be distinguished from the laity?’ I reply, By the use of those words priests, clergy, spiritual person, ecclesiastic, an injustice has been done, since they have been transferred from the remaining body of Christians to those few who are now, by a hurtful custom, called ecclesiastics. ”

“ For the point at issue in this tremendous ecclesiastical contest was not this or that religious dogma, this or that addition or alteration in Church discipline; it was not even a question merely of episcopal jurisdiction and the sense in which this was understood and allowed by Protestant theologians; what was fundamentally at stake was no less than the acceptance or rejection of the doctrine of the infallibility of the Church, and the recognition or non-recognition of the Church as a Divine and human institution of grace, resting upon the perpetual sacrifice and priesthood. ”

“ When we remember the immense influence exercised by the uniform teaching of the clergy over the unity of Faith, we may fairly say that they participate in the infallibility of the Episcopate both extrinsically and intrinsically: extrinsically, because the universal consent of all the heralds is an external sign that they reproduce the exact message of the Holy Ghost; and intrinsically, inasmuch as by their ordination they obtain a share in the assistance of the Spirit of Truth promised to the Church. ”

“ Thus they never cease to attack by every method the Clergy, both secular and regular, from whom, as testify to us in so conspicuous a manner the most certain records of history, such considerable benefits have been bestowed in abundance upon Christian and Civil Society and upon the republic of Letters; asserting of the Clergy in general, that they are the enemies of the useful sciences, of progress, and of civilization, and that they ought to be deprived of all participation in the work of teaching and training the young. ”

“ Although many things are introduced here in the topic of Ecclesiastical Power, with greater bitterness than is just, yet it must be declared that to most reverend bishops and priests, and to the entire clergy, all ecclesiastical power is freely conceded that belongs to them by law or custom. ”

“ Whether any clergyman, however dignified or distinguished, if he think his own profession most agreeable to Holy Scripture, and the primitive church, can really wish in his heart, that all sectaries should be upon an equal foot with the churchmen, in the point of civil power and employments?
Whether episcopacy, which is held by the church to be a divine and apostolical institution, be not a fundamental point of religion, particularly in that essential one of conferring holy orders? ”

“ Ingleby.—"Yes, Sir; our clergy who advocate high church principles talk like Papal priests, and breathe the same spirit; and, unless they can be checked, they will assimilate the Church of England to the Church of Rome. Regeneration and absolution, which the sacred writers ascribe to the grace of God, they [448] pretend to effect by their own delegated authority and power; and, as a necessary consequence, they require the people to look to them as holding the keys of the kingdom of heaven. ”

“ By these two principal tenets of Protestantism, are combated the doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church, of righteousness through outward works, and of the church as an outward ordination and authority between God and man, with the divine right of binding and releasing, and at the same time, powerful to lead souls to God. ”

“ It was in the realisation of the belief by individuals that the difference lay. Where the bible was not in the hands of the people, it could be regulated by priests and ceremonial. Elsewhere it was controllable by state-churches, or by ecclesiastical authority, claiming to be jure divino like the presbyterian, and which appealed to popular reason, but to this reason as regulated by fitting education and discipline. Everywhere, in ordinary times, law and custom would put a veil on the face which the believer turned towards God. ”

“ The claim to dictate and enforce Creeds by the Clergy of our Establishment, is founded on another claim which, by a party of divines, is recently asserted with a zeal not inferior to that of the Romish Priesthood; I allude to the doctrine of Apostolic succession. It is pretended that the national Clergy by deriving a mission from the immediate disciples of Christ, have authority, by a mystical communication of divine energy transmitted to them from age to age, an authority to decide what is, and what is not, the true faith. ”

“ The Church makes church-order a matter of ecclesiastical constitution, is founded on moral practice, and though she develops speculative dogma, does not allow that this or that dogma is the essence of Christianity. ”

“ Do you ask, what new heresy has arisen? From the bosom of the church, none; the clergy have never been more closely united in the faith from one end of the world to the other. Without the pale of the church the same attacks, a hundred times repelled and a hundred times renewed, are levelled against all the points of Christian doctrine, but under new forms and a fresh vigor. ”

“ If we regard the Constitutions as a production of the third century, (containing remnants of earlier compositions,) the work possesses a certain kind of value. It contributes to give us an insight into the state of Christian faith, the condition of the clergy and inferior ecclesiastical officers, the worship and discipline of the Church, and other particulars, at the period to which the composition is referred. The growth of episcopal power and influence, and the derivation of the episcopal authority from the apostles, is here clearly shown. ”

“ So that he regards his Church as a FACT borne witness to on all hands; a sure and stable REALITY. Over and above all which, there is an Internal evidence also of Catholic Truth, which the humble and obedient surely possess at length. (John vii. 17.) For the Catholic Church teaches that the Baptismal grace of Regeneration, if watered by prayer and holy teaching, will at length expand into a certainty of persuasion of Her sacred institutes, (Prov. iv. 18; 2 Tim. i. 12.) which heresy will labour vainly to destroy. ”

“ We, therefore, for the preservation, safe–keeping, and increase of the Catholic flock, with the approval of the Sacred Council, do judge it to be necessary to propose to the belief and acceptance of all the faithful, in accordance with the ancient and constant faith of the universal Church, the doctrine touching the institution, perpetuity, and nature of the sacred Apostolic Primacy, in which is found the strength and sureness of the entire Church, and at the same time to inhibit and condemn the contrary errors, so hurtful to the flock of Christ. ”

“ These priests thought that obedience to the national authority which respected and protected religion, was a catholic dogma. What resistance could be made to legitimate power, which neither attacked the dogma, nor morality, nor the interior and essential discipline of the church? ”

“ Why call it catholic, when it is not only just one among many churches, but is even hostile to all the rest of the churches? Father, why not let the Catholic Church become really the universal Church? ”

“ But many of its leaders have been among the glories of the Church of England, and I could never speak of them with disrespect.
Catholicism, whether Roman or Anglican, stands to lose heavily by the decay of institutionalism as an article of faith. It is becoming impossible for those who mix at all with their fellow-men to believe that the grace of God is distributed denominationally. The Christian virtues, so far as we can see, flower impartially in the souls of Catholic and Protestant, of Churchman and Schismatic, of Orthodox and Heretic. ”

“ What, does our author make the religious societies a church? This is going further than the Methodists, whom he is pleased to stile only a sect. But if the religious societies, my Lords, be a church, may it not be proper to enquire how their doctrines or practices came to be set up as a rule and standard for others to go by, so that persons doing service or disservice to religion must be judged of according as they deviate from or adhere to the religious societies either in doctrine or practice? ”

“ As the real founder of the ecclesiastical state, he must be held mainly responsible for the evils which resulted from the policy of the church in exalting the ecclesiastical over the secular authority. ”

“ Recognizing that the bonds by which subjects are attached to their [492] rulers are indissoluble, we condemn as pernicious and worthy of execration at all times every doctrine contrary to the safety of the king, not only in the works of some theologians of our Society who have adopted such doctrines but also those of every other theologian whosoever he may be. (2) We shall teach in our public and private lessons of theology the doctrine established by the Clergy of France in the Four Articles of the Assembly of 1682, and shall teach nothing contrary to it. ”

“ At a time when the whole system of ecclesiastical government was under discussion, and when the temporal power was beginning to predominate over the Church in France, the greatest theologian of the age made an attempt to apply the principles of secular polity to the Church. ”

“ I believe in the holy Catholic Church, in the Apostles' Creed, is thus interpreted: "I believe that every Catholic individual and nation forms a part of the Catholic society, and that only by virtue of its being a part does it partake of the benefit of the whole, through being subordinated to the laws of the whole." ”