thus, by a strange anomaly, the church in
such parishes is actually left without any power of celebrating its
highest act, that of commemorating the death, of Christ in the Lord's
supper; and if it were not for another great evil, the unfrequent
celebration of the Communion, the system could not go on: because the
deacon would be so often obliged to apply to other ministers to perform
that duty for him, that the inconvenience, as well as the unfitness, of
the actual practice, would be manifest to every one.

Again, what has become of church discipline? That it has perished, we
all well know: but its loss is the consequence of that fatal error which
makes the clergy alone constitute the church. It is quite certain that
men will not allow the members of a single profession to exercise the
authority of society; to create and define offences; to determine their
punishment, and to be the judges of each particular offender. As long as
the clergy are supposed to constitute the whole church, church
discipline would be nothing but priestly tyranny. And yet the absence of
discipline is a most grievous evil; and there is no doubt that, although
it must be vain when opposed to public opinion, yet, when it is the
expression of that opinion, there is nothing which it cannot achieve.
But public opinion cannot enforce church discipline now, because that
discipline would not be now the expression of the voice of the church,
but simply of a small part of the church, of the clergy only.

So deeply has this fatal error of regarding the clergy as the church
extended itself, that at this moment a man's having been baptized is no
security for his being so much as a believer in the truth of
Christianity: no matter that he was made in his baptism a member of
Christ, a child of God, and an inheritor of the kingdom of heaven; no
matter that at a more advanced period of his life he was confirmed, and
entered into the church by his own act and deed; still the church
belongs to the clergy; they may hold such and such, language, and teach
such and such doctrine; it would be very improper in them to do
otherwise; and he has a great respect for the church, and would
strenuously resist all its enemies, but truly, as for his own belief and
his own conduct, these he will guide according to other principles, as
imperative upon him as the rules of the church upon churchmen. Well
indeed, do such men bear witness that they are not of the church,
indeed; that