the clergy have no right to engross the name of church
man, x they have also no right to extend the application
of the word spiritual to all they do, as when they use it
to cover their property and incomes in order to exempt
them from legal burthens or conditions. The clergy
have indeed a spiritual office in the church, but their
dealings outside these definite functions, their tenure of
land, their financial and other temporal engagements, are
just as much secular as those of their lay brethren, and
are just as much subject to the law of the state. Who
would say that a clergyman s crimes, should he commit
theft or murder, were to be regarded as spiritual acts ?
y These are evidently to be punished like other men’s
only with greater strictness, because the culprits have
not the same excuse of ignorance. The clergy are in
these cases, and equally in all , other civil relations,
simply members of society, and as members of society
they must be treated; they can claim no sort of exemption in virtue of their religious character. More than
since the business of government is to maintain peace,
it is the duty of the ruler to limit the number of clergy
men in any part of the kingdom, should their growth
appear likely to disturb the order and tranquillity of the
state.
The power of the clergy is thus not only restricted to spiritual affairs; a it can only be given effect to by spiritual means. Temporal pains and penalties do not belong to the law of the Gospel, which indeed is not, properly speaking, a law at all but rather an instruction, doctrina ; for it is not laid down that any man should be compelled to its observance, and coercive force is part of the definition of law. The priest then may warn and threaten, but beyond this he has no competence. If a heretic become obnoxious to the civil law if, in other words, his doctrine is dangerous to society by that law he is to be tried : but of heresy, as such, there is but one judge, Jesus Christ, and his sentence is in the world to come ; errors of opinion lie beyond the cognisance of
