Page:An analysis of religious belief (1877).djvu/156

 priests; and a far greater air of zeal and of sanctity attaches to an order thus maintained, than to one of which many of the members possess no qualification but that of family, tribe, or caste.

Nothing can be more irrational than the denunciation of priests and priestcraft which is often indulged in by Liberal writers and politicians. If it be true that priests have shown considerable cunning, it is also true that the people have fostered that cunning by credulity. And if the clergy have put forth very large pretensions to inspiration, divine authority, and hidden knowledge, it is equally the fact that the laity have demanded such qualifications at their hands. An order can scarcely be blamed if it seeks to satisfy the claims which the popular religion makes upon it. Enlightenment from heaven has in all ages and countries been positively demanded. Sacrifices have always had to be made; and when it was found more convenient to delegate the function of offering them to a class apart, that class naturally established ritualistic rules of their own, and as naturally asserted (and no doubt believed) that all sacrifices not offered according to these rules were displeasing to God. And they could not profess the inspiration which they were expected to manifest without also requiring obedience to divine commands. Priests are, in fact, the mere outcome of religious belief as it commonly exists; and partly minister to that belief by deliberate trickery, partly share it themselves, and honestly accept the accredited view of their own lofty commission.

Divine inspiration leads by a very logical process to infallibility. A Church founded on revelation needs living teachers to preserve the correct interpretation of that revelation. Without such living teachers, revealed truth itself becomes (as it always has done among Protestants) an occasion of discord and of schism. But the interpreters of revelation in their turn must be able to appeal to some sole and supreme authority, as the arbiter between varying opinions, and the guide to be followed through all the intricacies of dogma. Nowhere can such an arbiter and such a guide be found more naturally than in the head of the Church himself. If God speaks to mankind through his Church, it is only a logical conclusion that within that Church