THE CONSTRUCTION OF SHEEPFOLDS 535

crimes, and excommunication, for instance, could neither be effected except before, or by means of, officers of some appointed authority.

13. (5) This then brings us to our fifth question. What is the Authority of the Clergy over the Church?

The first clause of the question must evidently be,-Who are the Clergy? And it is not easy to answer this without begging the rest of the question.

For instance, I think I can hear certain people answering, that the Clergy are folk of three kinds;-Bishops, who overlook the Church;¹ Priests, who sacrifice for the Church; Deacons, who minister to the Church: thus assuming in their answer, that the Church is to be sacrificed for, and that people cannot overlook and minister to her at the same time;-which is going much too fast. I think, however, if we define the Clergy to be the “Spiritual Officers of the Church,”-meaning, by Officers, merely People in office,-we shall have a title safe enough and general enough to begin with, and corresponding too, pretty well, with St. Paul’s general expression proistmenoi, in Rom. xii. 8, and 1 Thess. v. 13.

Now, respecting these Spiritual Officers, or office-bearers, we have to inquire, first, What their Office or Authority is, or should be? secondly, Who gave, or should give, them that Authority? That is to say, first, What is, or should be, the nature of their office? and secondly, What the extent, or force, of their authority in it? for this last depends mainly on its derivation.

14. First, then, What should be the offices, and of what kind should be the authority, of the Clergy?

I have hitherto referred to the Bible for an answer to every question. I do so again; and, behold, the Bible gives me no answer. I defy you to answer me from the Bible. You can only guess, and dimly conjecture, what the offices of the Clergy were in the first century. You cannot show

¹ [For Bishops as overseers, see below, § 25, p. 547.]

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