Page:(1848) Observations on Church and State- JF Ferrier.pdf/35

Rh state—it is obviously impossible for a part of any Christian community to hold from God any authority which the rest of the Christian community does not equally possess. The Protestant theory is, that all believers are equally intrusted by God with powers of spiritual jurisdiction. How, then, can any portion of these believers lay claim to an exclusive or superior spiritual authority as theirs by divine right? Their own principles prevent them from advancing any such claim, except under cover of that masked battery which they call the “church.” It is the ambiguity of this single word which misleads people. Let us attend to it in its Romanist and in its Protestant acceptation. In the Roman Catholic acceptation, the word “church " means the clergy as distinguished from the laity—not that it excludes the laity; but it implies that the supreme rule in ecclesiastical affairs has been committed by God, not to them, but to the priests. And here the doctrine of the apostolical succession bears out the pretension. But in the Protestant acceptation, the word “church" means very nearly the reverse of this; it means the laity as distinguished from the clergy—not that it excludes the clergy—but it implies that the supreme rule in ecclesiastical affairs has been committed by God, not to them, but to the laity. As qualifying these explanations, however, it must be borne in mind that, whereas the Roman Catholic “church’” excludes the laity from any share in spiritual dominion—the Protestant “church’” admits the clergy to their own share of ecclesiastical power. This it does on the ground that the clergy are believing Christians, fully as much as their lay-brethren. They may be a great deal more so; but the constitution cannot recognise that pre-eminence. It will operate, however, in another way. It will give a tenfold weight to their personal influence on ecclesiastical proceedings; and thus it will attain its end in the only way in which it ought to attain it—in the only way in which it can attain it without being guilty of usurpation. It is worse than vain and contradictory—it is a flagrant act of usurpation—when a Reformed ministry pretend that they in particular hold a spiritual jurisdiction by Divine right, when the main principle of the great Reformation, to which they owe their position, is, that the whole believing community, to which they belong, holds a spiritual jurisdiction by Divine right.