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 their portion is not with God’s people; that Christ is not their Saviour, nor the Holy Spirit their Comforter and Guide:  but what blasphemy is it to call themselves friends of the church! as if Christ’s church could have any friends except God and his holy angels:  the church has its living and redeemed members; it may have those who are craving to be admitted within its shelter, being convinced that God is in it of a truth; but beyond these he who is not with it is against it; he who is not Christ’s servant, serves his enemy.

Farther, it is this same deadly error which is the root and substance of popery.  There is no one abuse of the Romish system which may not be traced to the original and very early error of drawing a wide distinction between the clergy and the laity; of investing the former in such a peculiar degree with the attributes of the church that at last they retained them almost exclusively.  In other words, the great evil of popery is, that it has destroyed the Christian church, and has substituted a priesthood in its room.