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SACERDOTALISM,
AN ADDRESS DELIVERED TO THE MEMBERS AND FRIENDS
OF THE NATIONAL SUNDAY LEAGUE,
BY
GEORGE J. WILD, LL.D.-,
AT ST. GEORGE’S HALL, SUNDAY, DECEMBER 8, 1872.
PUBLISHED BY THOMAS SCOTT,
NO. 11, THE TERRACE, FARQUHAR ROAD,
UPPER NORWOOD, LONDON, S.E.
Price Threepence.
�f
�SACERDOTALISM.
HE experience of life teaches us that most things
with which
varied
Tcharacter, and we have to do are of so features a in
display such different
different circumstances that it is rash to pass too
sweeping a judgment upon them. In history we find
many instances where times and seasons have made all
the difference between the good and evil of a system,—
an advancement or retardation of growth have rendered
that detrimental which before had been beneficial to a
people.
The subject of the present lecture forms no exception
to these remarks. It has its fair as well as its repulsive
side. Those who regard only the former will always
be its zealous defenders, those who look only on the
evil it has produced will be apt to be no less indis
criminate in their condemnation and abuse. Let us
endeavour to see where the truth lies between them.
To this end it will be expedient in the first place to
decide what is meant by this term sacerdotalism. It
is derived from a word which signifies set apart,
consecrated, or dedicated to a deity,—so that the
Sacerdos is the person in special relations with the
deity,—the sacrifice is any thing offered to the deity,—
the sacra, or sacred things include all the rites and
ceremonies connected with the religious worship of the
Gods. There are many other words derived from the
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Sacerdotalism.
same source, but they all imply the idea of some
special relation with deity. Now, sacerdotalism in its
largest sense is the principle and spirit on which all
these are founded, and by which they are perVaded :
it is however generally more exclusively used in con
nection with sacred persons, that is to say, it implies
the spirit of priesthood and the theory on which it is
based.
The question, therefore, that I wish to suggest for
our examination this evening, is whether this theory
has been and is for the advantage or the detriment of
society. In the compass of a brief paper only a very
cursory view can be taken of so extensive a subject,
but it may serve to call attention to some essential
features of the enquiry. And let it not be thought
that such an enquiry is of merely abstract and
historical interest, since there is none I believe which
more demands our attention under the circumstances
of the present day.
In considering this question we must take care not
to lose sight of the fact I have already stated, viz.,
that the root-principle of sacerdotalism, the assumption
on which priesthoods and all their creeds are founded,
is that of some special private relation with the deity,
the possession of some particular privilege and power
different from that of other men. Wherever in the
world you find anything in the nature of a priesthood,
you will find this, as a matter of fact, to be the case.
In the hoary past we read of the Brahmins conveying
this notion by the assertion that they were derived
from the head of Brahma; the Buddhist priest acts as
a sort of necessary mediator to convey the prayers of
the faithful votaries to the courts above. In the
Mosaical religion the priests are represented as re
ceiving a special revelation and commission at the
mouth of God himself, who condescendingly comes
down on the top of a mountain and enunciates his
directions amidst thunder and lightning, and the sound
�Sacerdotalism.
7
of a trumpet. The Greeks had their divine oracles of
which priests were the ministers and promulgators,
and the Romans their augurs who explained the signi
fication of the auspices, and who were alone competent
to decide whether they had been taken correctly ; and
it has been the same in other nations. Moreover, all
these races have had their sacred books supposed to
contain revelations of the divine will of which persons
connected with the Sacerdotal class were alone con
sidered competent expositors. The Brahmins have
their Vedas and Code of Manu; the Buddhists their
Tripitaka; the Jews their books of the Law and
Prophets; the Ancient Persians their Zend-Avesta;
the Greeks and Romans their Books of the Sibylls.
If we turn our view to Christendom we find similar
phenomena. There, too, are divinely inspired writings,
of which the Church,—the Church as used in this
connection, meaning assemblies of the priestly body,—
of which the Church is authoritatively declared to be
the sole witness and keeper. There, too, according to
the theory, is an order of men set apart by divine
appointment and apostolic succession to be the means
of conveying the highest blessings of religion to the
world ; in the Romanist section of the Church, indeed,
the only channels by which the divine presence can be
secured in their mysteries, or pardoning grace be
assured to the penitent; among the majority of
Protestants the same notion being held in a modified
form, the authoritative exposition of doctrine, the
declaratory power of absolution, and the communication
of the benefits of the real presence in the sacrament
being retained in the hands of priests. The Anglican
conception of the power of the priesthood well appears
in the statements addressed to them in the ordination
service, one of which from the mouth of the Bishop
is in these words, “Receive the Holy Ghost for the office
and work of a priest in the Church of God, now
committed unto thee by the imposition of our hands.
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Sacerdotalism.
"Whose sins thou dost forgive they are forgiven, and
whose sins thou dost retain they are retained. And he
thou a faithful dispenser of the word of God and of
his holy sacraments.”
In view of these facts, then, I think I am fully
justified in the assertion, that wherever there is a
priesthood there also is the assumption of some special
relation to the deity, and a special authority thence
derived.
I return then to the question, has this theory been
beneficial to society or not ? I must confess that I am
not altogether prepared to say that there have not
been certain advantages connected with it. In the
early stages of savage life, when men were first
beginning to emerge from a condition little above
the brutes, there was an advantage in hedging
round the most intelligent class with supposed divine
sanctions. It is possible that this was the only
way they had of commanding any respect or enforcing
any kind of order among their savage associates,
and that therefore this supposition was then a real
necessity and an indispensable aid to human pro
gress. It is, too, I think quite possible, that many
of these early teachers and priests really believed them
selves under the especial patronage and inspiration of
some god. Contemplative and philanthropic minds
meditating in the gloom of primeval forest or the
solitude of boundless plains, while they sighed for the
sorrows of their brethren and aspired after a day of
deliverance and a happier land, may well have come
to imagine that such a land was promised, and con
ceived that the thoughts kindling within them, and
the voices ever sounding in their hearts, came from
some power above. They unconsciously peopled the
silence and the solitude with phantoms, and then mis
took them for realities. Thus the tradition of divine
inspiration and of God’s speaking with men first
arose, and thus it has descended to our times: it arose
�Sacerdotalism.
9
at first in. an. honest belief, and though afterwards often,
mixed with fraud, yet it has seldom been wholly made
up of conscious deceit,—for a thing utterly fraudulent
would not have lasted so long. In. early Egypt we
read that the priests first taught the people the arts of
life, and instructed them by a system of irrigation to
convert those rising Nile waters, which they had before
half dreaded as a peril, into a source of fertility and
blessing. They too introduced the observation of the
hea vens by which the periods of rising might be foretold.
What wonder was it that the men, who first dis
covered that the stars were thus subservient to human
uses, as they gazed into those deep skies and read their
celestial lessons, should dream that their radiant rulers
were speaking to their hearts, should long to link their
destiny to some “bright particular star,” or even dare
to “ claim a kindred with them?” And what wonder
was it when the lowly toilers on the land heard from
these star-gazers lessons of guidance and found them
come true, that they should think their teachers con
versed with deities on the solitary mountain top, or
lofty tower, and exaggerate to their fellows the sanctity
and the mystery of that knowledge which struck their
simple minds with awe.
And still again at a later period we may be pre
pared to allow that the priestly class has done good
service to mankind. When, for instance, at the period
of the decline of the Roman Empire, it seemed as if
all the fruits of civilisation, all the results of the long
travail of 1500 years were to be overwhelmed in a tide
of barbarism, and the arts, laws and accumulated
learning of the past for ever lost, the Christian church
in many places presented a barrier to the storm, and
afforded shelter to treasures whose destruction would
have been irreparable. These facts are allowed even
by a witness so unexceptionable as the historian
*
Gibbon.
Some indeed have thought that we are in* Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, c, 37.
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Sacerdotalism.
debted to the clerical body for at least as much destruc
tion as preservation of the monuments of ancient litera
ture. Hallam in one place seems inclined to attribute the
decay of learning “ to the neglect of heathen literature
by the Christian church,” * and elsewhere alluding to
the stupidity and carelessness of ecclesiastics, in respect
of the remains of ancient learning, he says “ so gross
and supine was the ignorance of the monks within
whose walls these treasures were concealed that it was im
possible to ascertain, except by indefatigable researches,
the extent of what had been saved out of the great
shipwreck of antiquity.” f In another place, however,
he acknowledges that if we be asked, “ by what cause
it happened that a few sparks of ancient learning sur
vived throughout this long winter ” of the middle ages,
“ we can only ascribe their preservation to the esta
blishment of Christianity. Religion alone made a
bridge, as it were, across the chaos and has linked the
two periods of ancient and modern civilization. J
At any rate, then, we may at least concede that in
whatever degree the clergy in the dark ages were able
to make a stand against barbarism and rescue the monu
ments of the past from destruction, they were indebted
to the principle of which we are treating, which
recognizes an order of men in special connection with
the deity. For the barbarians in their native forests
had long been accustomed to a superstitious regard for
their own priests, and would thus be naturally inclined
to shew a degree of forbearance to those who were
protected by the insignia of religion, however ruthless
they might be towards their unconsecrated opponents.
They would apply the torch without scruple to a palace
or a fortress, while they hesitated in front of a convent
or a church. Such remnants of antiquity therefore as
chanced to be sheltered in the latter had so far a better
* Hallam’s Middle Ages, vol. ii. c. ix., pt. i. p. 337.
+ lb. c. ix., p. 519.
J lb., p. 355.
�Sacerdotalism.
11
prospect of preservation than those contained in
secular walls.
So far, then, we willingly grant that some degree of
benefit has accrued to mankind from the sacerdotal
principle in early stages of human development. A or
would we deny that other advantages of a less direct
nature are traceable at the same period, which space
*
will not now allow us to particularize. We have yet to
inquire whether the same advantages are perceptible as
we descend to more civilised times.
That the notion of an order of men set apart, and
endowed with a divine authority over their fellows is
one very capable of being abused, I suppose no
unprejudiced person would deny. Considering it ac
cording to our general experience of human nature, what
should we conceive to be the probable effect and
tendency of such a notion ? I think all candid persons
will agree that without very searching and continuous
checks, one very natural effect of such a notion must be
to produce in those under its influence a high degree of
spiritual pride. As time goes on, spiritual pride, like
all other, has a natural tendency to display itself; this
can only be done by the extension and consolidation of
spiritual influence and power. In the first place then
a priestly body under the influence of this feeling would
look about for the means of gratifying it; ecclesiastics
will ordinarily be deficient in direct physical force, they
will often therefore be driven to attain their ends by a
close alliance with the monarch, the warrior caste, or
the aristocracy of a country ; mutual concessions being
made so that they may join hands for the continued
repression of the vulgar.
But further,, of all kinds of power, spiritual power is
that which is most jealous of its rights and privileges.
* V. Sharon Turner’s History of the Anglo-Saxons, Vol. II.,
167, also Soame’s Anglo-Saxon Church, c. IV. p. 215 and else
where, and Milman’s History of Latin Christianity, Vol.
VI., p. 433 et seq., and also I. 440, and II. 96, 97.
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Sacerdotalism.
Its representatives, ingrained with the idea that their
dicta are derived from a divine source, and their rights
conferred by a special appointment of God, are com
pelled to be uncompromising by the very theory of their
origin. To allow that their words are questionable they
think is to be unfaithful to the oracles of God, to be
lax in maintaining their rights is to betray the divine
honour. In fact they get so accustomed at last to
identify the glory of God and their own that they
become utterly unable to distinguish them. So that to
decry the statements of priests is to be called blasphemy,
or to touch their property in not common robbery but
sacrilege.
This necessity of their position in the same way
requires them to withstand all suggestions of improve
ment, or advancements of knowledge which do not pro
ceed from themselves. They are the divinely commis
sioned teachers, they possess the heavenly oracles, out
of which they have instructed the people on the world’s
origin and their own, on their destiny, the laws which
should regulate their lives, on what is good and what
evil. If they allow their dogmas to be at best doubt
ful, or grant for a moment that from some other source,
sounder knowledge may be derived, their pride of place,
their occupation is gone : there ceases to be any reason
for their existence. “ For why,” might men say, “do
we want messengers from the gods to teach us, when
we increase in knowledge without them, when we
can even perceive that much of their pretended
knowledge is erroneous ?” The logic of their position,
therefore, irresistibly compels priestly bodies to crush
inquiry, and if possible stifle its results. In some
cases of course these results are absolutely undeniable.
Then there will arise a strong temptation to keep up
the credit of their oracles by forced interpretations or
crafty interpolations which may bring them into con
formity with science. But every fresh discovery has a
more unsettling effect, every escape of new light reason
�Sacerdotalism.
*3
ably makes them tremble for their security. But power
which thus feels itself unstable is naturally dissatisfied;
it could not be expected to remain passive under the
slow and painful process of dissolution, and smilingly
look on till the last vestige of its influence was
stolen away. It instinctively perceives that to retain
the dominion it still has undiminished it must fight
hard to extend it, that it must throw out its roots and
strive to interweave its fibres with the very ground
work of human existence. It will endeavour, there
fore, to make every relation of society so intimately
dependent on itself, that to interfere with it in the
slightest degree shall seem to conservative minds like
risking every security of social order ; it must have a
voice, and a function, and a hand everywhere, so that
no war can be undertaken without its henison, no law
passed without its sanction, no property change hands
by transference or succession without its confirmation,
no family relationship be incurred without its authority
and permission, above all, no education proceed without
its direction. And where, perchance from want of
watchfulness, customs have crept in which tend to
nullify its privileges and bring its ministers down to
the level of common men, no pains must be spared by
the wily introduction of new laws, or by the invention
of fresh legal subtleties to countervail their effect.
But as the world grows in enlightenment, perhaps all
these measures fail and the situation is daily becoming
more critical. It becomes then at last more and more
apparent to the priestly order that they must demur at
no means, however questionable or desperate, to hold
together their waning dominion. Restive princes must
be won by flattery, the vulgar dazzled by pomps or
cowed by more awful terrors; both flattery and fear
must be applied to unlock the chest of wealth, that
most unfailing source of power,—if all else fail, the
zeal of fanatics must be invoked and divisions kindled
among brethren, that the light of new-dawning and
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Sacerdotalism.
dangerous truths may be smothered in the fumes of
bigoted passions and civic slaughters. Divide et impera,
divide and command, is a maxim which sacerdotalism
has more than once known how to use in her exigencies;
it may become dangerous for her that her subjects
should be too united, and a little heresy has often
been serviceable to warm up the cooling zeal of the
elect.
Such, or something like this, a philosopher in a by
gone age might a priori have conjectured would be
the course to which the sacerdotal principle would be
driven by the necessity of its position as society pro
gressed. And we shall find that such a conjecture
would have been strictly verified by fact. Though,
indeed, facts reveal to us an extent of unscrupulousness
and a superfluity of craft and violence which no imagi
nation could have foreseen. Amongst a large number
I can now only refer you to a few salient examples
which will serve to verify the principles I have pointed
out. First, then, as to the tendency of priesthood to
coalesce with the kingly or aristocratic class in order to
keep under the mass of the people. Of this we have
a variety of instances. Among the Brahmins there
was a certain antagonism at an early period between the
priestly and warrior castes, but they at length found it
expedient to reconcile their differences and join hands
in support of a creed which was so well adapted to keep
the lower castes in their proper places. At a later period,
*
however, by combining with the lower, the Brahmins
seem to have crushed the leading caste and got all
power into their own hands. It is supposed by some
that in like manner the next move of sacerdotalists in
Europe will be to court and seek to ally themselves with
the democracies. I can only advise all sagacious liberals
to beware of them. Among the early Egyptians there
seems to have arisen at times a similar antagonism, but
* V. M. Muller’s History of Sanskrit Literature pp. 77-81,
also p. 207, p. 485 seq.
�Sacerdotalism.
T5
eventually with the same result, of a consolidation of
the sacerdotal power. Even among a people with so
many democratic instincts as the Romans, and who
were nominally republicans, we find that for many
generations there was a close league between the
aristocratic and sacerdotal classes. No one could be a
Pontiff or an Augur unless he were also a Patrician,
and thus the whole power of war and peace, the
sanction of laws, and the partition of land, was retained
in the ruling hands. This artful exclusion of the
Plebeians was indeed eventually abolished by the
Ogulnian law, though even then the Pontifex Maximus
must still be a Patrician: however, no sooner was the
Empire established than we find the Priestly class in
close alliance with it, the Emperor either himself
monopolising or exclusively appointing to its influential
offices. In the Christian Church the same spectacle
presents itself. Hardly has the Christian priesthood
established its influence and obtained a numerous body
of votaries in the great cities of the Empire, than we
find it in close alliance with an imperial pretender; and
henceforth its prelates “rear their mitred fronts in
courts and palaces,” and the controversies of the faith
take their place amongst the intrigues of eunuchs and
clamour of courtiers. For their after successes against
the yet widely prevalent paganism, the Christian priest
hood are still largely dependent on the same principle
of currying favour with Kings or King’s wives.
Charlemagne is induced to convert the Saxons with
fire and sword,—Clovis and his Franks rescue the
sacred fold from the incursion of the heretics,—from
another royal hand is obtained the patrimony of
St. Peter,—and others consecrate the fruits of the
earth to the service of heaven in the institution of
tithes. Truly the Church had good reason for her
adoption of the maxim, “the powers that be are
ordained of God ! ”
By what arts the clergy endeavoured to consoli
�16
Sacerdotalism.
date their power and extend its influence in every
sphere of society, the history of every country in
Europe and our own land furnishes innumerable ex
amples. We find them not seldom instigating revolts
of young princes against their fathers who had
attempted to moderate clerical pretensions, teaching
wives to plot against their husbands, laying counties
and kingdoms under interdict, excommunicating ma
gistrates on all sorts of frivolous pretences, concocting
and dissolving marriages to further priestly encroach
ments, manoeuvring the laity out of their voice in
church affairs, and often, by artful concordats, monarchs
out of their rights of investiture; they brought it
about that clerics and their dependents should be ex
empt from the jurisdiction of the lay courts, they
obtained for their own courts exclusive jurisdiction in
all causes matrimonial, and the right of interference
in all matters connected with the nuptial contract,
marriage portions, and dower; wills and testaments
were brought under their sway : in many places to the
exclusion of the lay courts they obtained jurisdiction
over a large number of crimes, under pretence of their
being spiritual causes: they even had their own prisons
for lay offenders. Moreover, by artful contracts, and
■working on the superstitious fears of the dying, they
acquired in all countries enormous accumulations of
land, which no statutes of mortmain could check. The
English Statute Book in earlier reigns is crowded with
acts intended to control clerical rapacity, but all in
vain.
Common recoveries and uses and trusts still find a
place in our law books as monuments of priestly
ingenuity. It would detain us too long to go into
further particulars under this head; but any unac
quainted with the subject I earnestly recommend to
read the seventh chapter of Hallam’s History of the
Middle Ages, and any good edition of Blackstone’s
Commentaries, under the title Mortmain.
�Sacerdotalism.
J7
We have yet to give examples of the tendency of a
priestly class to oppose itself to discovery and intel
lectual advancement. Once upon a time the now
sleepy Buddhists were reformers ; but the high priestly
party in India, then represented by the Brahmins,
eventually extirpated these innovators by force of
arms. The religious authorities of Athens will never
escape the shame of having persecuted to the death
“ Socrates,” a good man, who they thought “ subverted
the people.” Of the Jewish priesthood it would be
superfluous to speak, for “ which of the prophets had
not their fathers persecuted1?” as one of their last
victims asked them. Since their days of misfortune,
indeed, the Jews have been mostly called to endure the
persecutions of others, and they have often set a bright
example to the rest of the world. But in ancient
times the Romans seem to have been the only people
who saw the necessity of keeping the priesthood in order,
and had some notion of the principle of toleration.
We must turn again to the Christian Churches if we
would find the most striking examples of the tendency
of sacerdotal bodies to oppose themselves to all outside
light. Their greatest father, St. Augustine, who may
*
be considered almost the creator of Western theology,
denounced the belief in the Antipodes on the ground
that no such people are mentioned in scripture among
the descendants of Adam, and he was a true proto
type of most of his followers. Boniface, Archbishop
of Mentz applied to the Pope for a public censure of
the same dangerous doctrine. The stock instance often
referred to is that of Galileo, who was imprisoned for
affirming the motion of the earth. Though so often
alluded to I quite agree with a recent able lecturer in
this hall that it is a story which should never be
allowed to slip from men’s memories, for it shows in a
* De Civ. Dei., xvi. 9. V. also Lactantius (Inst. III. 24),
and. Pascal’s Satirical Allusion {Provinciates, Let. 18.)
�18
Sacerdotalism.
most striking manner the ingrained tendency of all
*
priesthoods.
Science and scientific men cannot indeed now be
dealt with in the summary method of past days, but
who that remembers the bitterness with which the
truths of geology were formerly assailed on account of
their divergence from our sacred books, who that is
acquainted with the animosity aroused by the science
of historical criticism, and recollects the persecution of
Bishop Colenso and the “ Essayists and Reviewers,”
can doubt that the old spirit is still existent ? Indeed
as long as priesthoods of any sort remain it always must
exist, since the principle of science and the principle
of sacerdotalism are mutually exclusive of each other.
I recommend whoever doubts this to read the Ency
clical Letter and the Syllabus issued by the present
Rope not very long ago. If- finally evidence be
demanded of those cruel and extreme measures to
which, as I before stated, sacerdotalism, which is de
termined to maintain its pride of place must at length
be driven, instances crowd so thickly upon the memory
that the only difficulty is in selection. Read the
accounts of the horrible massacres of De Montfort,
where Christian priests bore the cross in advance to
inspire the ruthless soldiers to their bloody work.
What memories are evoked by the day of St. Bar
tholomew ! the dungeons of the Inquisition! the gate
of Constance ! the revocation of the Edict of Nantes!
the fires of Smithfield 1 And if you say these are
Papal enormities, and nothing like them is found
outside of the Church of Rome,—turn to the history
of the Church of Geneva, and read of Michael
Servetus, an accomplished physician, and the anticipa
tor of Harvey in the theory of the circulation of the
* For details of this story see the notes to Mr. Elley
Finch’s valuable lecture, “The Inductive Philosophy,” or
Whewell’s History of the Inductive Sciences, book v., c. 3,
sec. 4.
�Sacerdotalism.
J9
blood,—witness such a man slaughtered at the hand of
the pious and Protestant Calvin! Read of the burn
ings of Puritans, of the sufferings of the ejected
nonconformists, of Bunyan’s cell at Bedford, of Cart
wright and others harried from city to city,—read the
trials and imprisonment of free-thinking merr whose
only crime was in printing books opposed to the
orthodox opinions, and you will see that Protestant
priesthoods though debarred from the trenchant blade
of their predecessors, have not been wanting in the
will though lacking the power to apply that ultima
ratio, that last unanswerable argument of sacerdotalism.
Surely the priestly principle ought to have produced
some untold unimaginable benefit to the world, in some
degree to compensate, or to make it possible for men
to condone such a long and weary catalogue of suffering
and tyranny ! I submit therefore to your judgment,
that whatever advantages this principle may have
possessed in the infancy of our race, whether as society
progresses it does not become greatly evil. Until the
citizen is developed the priest has a function, but when
men have risen to the dignity of citizens he is no
more a help but a hindrance.
I have endeavoured to show you what was naturally
to be expected from sacerdotalism, when childhood was
left behind and men began to think and question for
themselves, and adduced incontrovertible tacts which
prove that it considerably more than fulfilled such
expectations. And the experience is the same in all
parts of the world, under all forms of government, and
in all religions. It must have been so. A principle
which attributes divine authority and a control over the
conscience and over knowledge to a particular order of
men, could never have existed in a world intended to
move on, without producing collision, distress, and
convulsion. And as long as only a hundred men
remain in a nation who cherish that principle in their
breast, they will be in their measure a source of
�20
Sacerdotalism.
weakness to the body politic, a hindrance to progress,
an impediment to the free and natural growth of
citizen life. But this principle is very far at present
from being reduced to such narrow limits in this or
any country. On the contrary it plumes itself and
stalks abroad; powerful and even threatening parties
are still under its sway in this country and elsewhere.
In modern times however, its processes are so much
conducted under elaborate schemes of legislation and
forms of law, and so skilfully woven up with many of
the most essential interests of society, such as educa
tion, the care of the poor, the sick, and the criminal,
that men do not often observe its working. But that
it is no bugbear of the fancy the late course of legis
lation in almost every country on the continent must
convince the most incredulous. Within the last few
years the governments of Spain, Italy, and Switzerland
have been engaged in measures to restrain the preten
sions or guard against the renewed artifices of the
clerical order. Germany has been legislating on the
subject within the last month : in Belgium at this
present minute, clerical machinations have brought
affairs to a crisis. Read M. Lavelye’s article in the
November number of the “Fortnightly” if you wish
to see how dangerous the arts of a clergy may be to
civil liberty. Our own ministry have got a few
sacerdotal nuts to crack in Ireland, which I fear will
damage their teeth, with respect to education and the
conflict of Papal and English law,—and you may
depend upon it we have not heard the last of it in
relation to Education in England.
But I must leave further consideration of these
greater matters as to which sacerdotalism hinders
harmonious progress and obstructs the working of the
laws of the land, and proceed in conclusion to mention
one or two of the minor evils which also result
from it.
One salient form in which the sacerdotal principle
�Sacerdotalism.
21
is opposed to the welfare of modern society, is that it
breeds a class of men pledged to a foregone conclusion.
It cannot but be an evil, that as our ever-increasing
experience introduces us to fresh facts, there should be
an influentially placed class whose first question will
always be, not, what one would think must be the right
and natural one,—are these things true ? but, how do
they square with what we teach ? Will they in any way
discredit our time-honoured assertions 1 And if they are
thought to do so, will this class try and raise a prejudice,
and prevent the real merits of the case from being seen
where things cannot be absolutely denied 1 Is not this
to weight knowledge very heavily in its already suffici
ently difficult progress ? But the theory of an infallible
record in the hands of a divinely appointed order of
men necessarily drives them to such proceedings. They
suppose that their office lays them under an obligation
to maintain that what they have handed down is right;
to admit that they might have been wrong is calculated,
therefore they think, not only to breed suspicion with
out, but hesitation and defection within their own
camp. It seems to them, therefore, absolutely necessary
to present a bold front to the outside world,—as they
say, “ to magnify their office.” So we read of a clerical
dignitary in a debate on one of the petitions against
the Athanasian Creed; speaking against any concession
he said, “ the office of the Church is not to please but
to teach the people.” Who does not see lurking in these
words the old theory, that the priestly body has some
divine infallible source of information distinct and super
ior to that of study and scientific examination, which are
the only means open to ordinary men and mere worldly
students and philosophers 1 To maintain this attitude
they must do their utmost to exclude differences and
secure uniformity of teaching in their own body, and
under these circumstances the most professionally hide
bound and uncompromising naturally take the lead.
They see the necessity for increased care in the training
�22
Sacerdotalism.
of young ecclesiastics, so as to render them more imper
vious to outside impressions and zealous to carry on the
warfare against free-thought. Hence, they must be
caught young, and carefully indoctrinated, not in the open
air and under the mixed influences of great universities,
but in the close atmosphere of theological colleges, where
they can be thoroughly ingrained with the foregone conelusions they will have to maintain. Hence, the carefully
edited class-books, where everything disagreeing with
their own view is stigmatised as a heresy, and each point
is carefully classified, and supplied with a pat answer,
with the exactitude of a theological Bradshaw. Hence,
the dusty shelves groaning under ponderous tomes of
sham and exploded learning, to encourage the neophytes
to believe that if they cannot find an answer to all objec
tions within the limits of their own knowledge, that
somewhere, at least, in those endless folios, there is the
wherewithal to confound all adversaries. Under these
influences a tribe of young sacerdotalists is created well
drilled to answer the ecclesiastical rally, and to supply
the deficiencies of an older, more dispassionate, and as
they consider secular-minded class of clergy. Here will
always be found a serviceable body apt in all the arts
of ecclesiastical warfare, well skilled to amuse “ women
with saintly trifles,” and work on the superstitious fears
of the weak-minded, —active to go from house to house
and muster their allies in drawing-room and cottage, to
persuade them that in fulfilling their behests they are
doing God service, wary to teach them the ready watch
words, and breathe beforehand suspicions against new
truths; here too, may be found the men who have a keen
scent for the first savour of liberalism in a too candid
comrade, who can convey clerical delation with a shrug
and indicate heterodoxy with an ogle, who crowd clerical
meetings in close and steady order, and howl down in
concert every protest and remonstrance of their more
sensible and moderate brethren.
A further evil of which this sacerdotal principle is
�Sacerdotalism.
23
fruitful in society, is that it creates in many minds a
tendency to fanciful distinctions which have little
relation to truth and reality. Thus there is the Church
and the world, the one sanctified and sacred, the other
common and unclean ; literature, which connects itself
in any way with scripture, though perhaps utterly
foolish and" frivolous if not harmful, is religious and
sacred, other writings, however noble in spirit, if not
so connected, are profane ; this amusement is allowable,
that is wicked,—you may go to a concert, but not to a
theatre, to a tea-party, but not to a ball; the same
music is at one time secular, at another sacred; some
days are holy, others are common; this ground is
hallowed, that is only ordinary earth, as God made it.
Thus men become hampered and bound up with a
crowd of empty distinctions and sham sanctities bring
ing forth a crop of imaginary and artificial sins which
enervate weak consciences, and give scope for the sour
and censorious.
You yourselves are competent witnesses to this last
fact; for who could have instigated the recent attempt
to shut you out from this hall, but some one under the
influence of the melancholy delusion, that what was
innocent and improving recreation on common days was
sinful on Sunday evenings 1
The same thing produces in some circles of society
an exaggeration of trifles, a misperception of the true
proportion of things, and not seldom an absolute anility
of mind. Thus, with some, every little matter connected
with the Church, whether colour, shape, place, or
dress, is considered an essential of devotion, and an
object of clerical emulation and energy. With others,
every trumpery incident is magnified into a critical
moment for religion, the world with them is everlast
ingly coming to an end, the gas-strike and Hyde Park
spouters are “signs of the latter days,” and parsons donn
ing red petticoats are a fulfilment of prophecy. If some
stone is dug up in Palestine or Mesopotamia with a
�24
Sacerdotalism.
Bible name on it, immediately it must be dragged into
the ranks as a witness for scripture; forthwith there is
a muster of the initiated, and a premonitory rustle
round serious tea-tables, and soon arises over it such a
clatter of tongues that one would think the very
ark of the faith bad been rescued from the Philistines.
But a more serious matter than these lively divertisements is that social bitterness and exclusiveness of
which the sacerdotal principle is so often the root.
There are circles in what is called the religious world,
where almost every offence against society is excusable
except one. A man may be a bad father, or a profligate
and worthless son, he may be a heartless seducer, an
unprincipled rascal, a getter up of bubble companies, a
scientific swindler,—all these things may be forgiven
him, but if he be an infidel the door of hope is shut;—this is the one unpardonable crime that no good
qualities can compensate; though he is the soul of
benevolence and the model of every virtue, unselfish,
brave, learned, courteous and manly,—put him at the
very best he is but a wolf in sheep’s clothing, a limb
of Satan in the garb of an angel of light. There are
some even who carry their dread of contamination and
their desire to demonstrate their own clearness from all
lax principles to almost ludicrous extremes. In that
house so spotless in its stucco and whose whole aspect
is radiant with respectable orthodoxy, nothing that
defileth shall ever enter in : no pudding-headed foot
boy or buxom house-maid shall ever be there engaged,
unless put through their doctrinal paces and catechised
on the articles of their belief,—their shoes shall not be
mended by a free-thinking cobbler, and they suspect the
produce of a heterodox butterman,—the scullion must
be a strict communicant and value the privileges of a
serious family, where the very horses have learnt to
look down their noses, and no dog upon the premises
dare wag his solemn tail upon a Sunday.
' Before I close may I be allowed to impress upon you
�Sacerdotalism.
25
one caution. From what I have said of the evils great
and small arising from sacerdotalism, it must not be
supposed that I intend anything like an attack upon
the clerical classes whether of the Established Church
or any other body. This caution is necessary, because
some persons seem to find it difficult to distinguish
between a principle and those who may happen to be
connected with it.
To me it appears perfectly
legitimate to remark upon the evil of a system, and to
illustrate it by allusion to certain prominent types past
or present, without being considered to assail classes or
individuals.
For some of the worst features of
sacerdotalism, such as its exclusiveness, its spiritual
assumption, its dishonesty in dealing with evidence and
others, may distinguish laity as well as clergy. But
whatever the evil may be, no body of men living at the
present time is responsible for it: in its first origin it
was a natural growth and however much in the course
of history it has been aggravated by violence and fraud,
it has descended to us as part of our national heritage
and education, and we have been born under its influ
ence. In old countries things which have thus grown
with their growth can only be got rid of by patience
and mutual forbearance : by degrees we may hope that
light will permeate the darkest quarters, but the pro
gress of illumination will only be retarded by personal
bitterness. And in this country we have all the greater
reason for patience in these matters, inasmuch as our
clergy as a body have certainly been less under the
influence of sacerdotalism than any other,—many of
them indeed have offered a steady resistance to its
advance, and have been its most resolute and efficient
opponents. And at the darkest period in nearly every
Church, there have been men who were better than the
spirit of their own age, and who would have been
ornaments to any. At the same period that ecclesias
tical fanatics were urging on the cruel revocation of
Nantes, the saintly Fenelon had been advocating
�26
Sacerdotalism.
toleration, for which indeed not long after he became
himself a sufferer. The immortal Pascal and the two
devoted Arnaulds, Henri and Angelique, had adorned
the same Church not long before.
So, too, at the present, amongst ourselves, there are
among the clergy of all denominations men of large and
liberal minds, and notwithstanding occasional outbursts
of professional zeal or exalted notions in this or that
direction, a large body throughout the country whose
virtuous and benevolent lives every man of right feeling
must respect. We do not therefore revile men but
principles and systems; and even those most under
subjection to the system we are glad to acknowledge
have many claims on our regard, and are inclined to
consider it not so much their fault as their misfortune.
But when we behold amiable and in many cases acute
minds under the sway of principles which we con
scientiously consider, and which history proves to be,
utterly deleterious, may we not be allowed to regard
a system with all the more indignation and dislike,
which thus warps God’s fairest gifts, which turns those
who might have been the benefactors and teachers of
mankind into narrow religious recluses, and poisons
hearts of natural gentleness and benevolence with
theological hatred and the gall of the persecutor.
Bor myself, at any rate, I cannot but confess that I
consider this sacerdotal principle,—which is at the root
of much that is called religion and which may infect
laymen as well as clerics, which in its essence is the
assumption of special divine favour and prerogatives, a
usurpation over men’s consciences, and a blasphemy
against those powers of reason and that light of science
with which God has blessed our race,-—I consider this
sacerdotal principle the very direst evil and the bitterest
curse of civilised society. Through the false distinc
tions it creates, and the assumptions to which it gives rise
it often embitters all social life, it destroys the peace of
families, it makes foes in a man’s own household, set-
�Sacerdotalism.
ting the father against the son, the child against the
parents, the wife against the husband,—it is the very
bane and spoiler of all good fellowship, all openheartedness and kindly feeling.
And if as the old story tells us, there is an evil one,
an inveterate foe to man who roams about seeking
whom he may devour, entering human souls and dwell
ing there, and when he enters “ keeping his house ”
with such tenacity, that none can dislodge him, surely
it is that foul fiend, that accursed spirit of sacerdotal
pride and priestly assumption which sits in the living
temple of God, if not quite daring to proclaim that he
is God, yet inspiring his infatuated victims to declare,
“ the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord are ”
we !
If there is anything that would justify the denuncia
tion of the French satirist, it is assuredly this atrocious
principle, not this particular religion nor that religion,
but that evil spirit which has too much prevailed in all,
that monstrous assumption which has raised its head
wherever priesthoods have been found. When I per
ceive in every place the difficulty, disorganization and
hindrance it is still creating, and when I remember the
long tragedy of the past, the terrible sum of misery,—
the tortured bodies, the broken hearts, the ruined
intellects,—for which it is responsible, the exclamation
almost rises involuntarily to the lips, crush the infamous,
“ ecrasez l’infame ! ”
�
Dublin Core
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Title
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Victorian Blogging
Description
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Pamphlet
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Sacerdotalism: an address delivered to the members and friends of the National Sunday League at St. George's Hall, Sunday, December 8, 1872
Creator
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Wild, George J. (George John)
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 27 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Includes bibliographical references. Sacerdotalism is the belief that priests are essential mediators between God and man.
Publisher
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Thomas Scott
Date
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[1873?]
Identifier
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G5466
Subject
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Clergy
Rights
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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (Sacerdotalism: an address delivered to the members and friends of the National Sunday League at St. George's Hall, Sunday, December 8, 1872), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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application/pdf
Type
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Text
Language
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English
Conway Tracts
Priesthood
Sacerdotalism