Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from The Government of the Church in Relation to the State and the Laity
It is obvious that these two kinds of government by the State and by the laity are very different, that they must rest on different principles, and, he exercised in different ways. There have been theories and theorists who have represented the government or control of the Church bytthe State as being in substance the government of the Church by the laity, and who have justified this government upon this ground. But, though in a nation composed entirely of members of the Church, it may possibly be that the laity may preponderate over the clergy in the State, or civil society, while the clergy preponderate in the Church, yet even then the control of the Church by the State will only accidentally express the govern ment of the laity, the laity regulating a matter of State will do so not as lay-churchmen but as citizens, and in fact to give the control of the Church to the State in such a case is to create two rival bodies, each with despotic power in its own sphere, and with no bond of union between them, rather than to blend with proper admixture of powers and parts the two bodies into one harmonious constitution.
This is so even when the State is composed entirely of members of the Church. Of course, directly persons who are not members of the Church come to have civil rights and in?uence in the State, all idea of the State representing the laity is gone.
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