Clergy Authority Quotes

Intrude not yourself into ecclesiastical matters.

You must all follow the lead of the bishop, as Jesus Christ followed that of the Father; follow the presbytery as you would the Apostles; reverence the deacons as you would God's commandment.

I'm anticlerical, not antireligion. If somebody believes there is God, I'm not interested in trying to persuade that person there is no intelligent design to the universe. Where I become interested and wake up is about the temporal power of religion, things like prayer in schools, or Catholic-secular hospital mergers.

The Lord did nothing either of himself or through his apostles without his Father, with whom he is united; so too, you should undertake nothing without the bishop and the presbyters priests.

In every parish three or four discreet men … shall be appointed by the ordinaries [regular ministers] diligently to see that all the parishioners duly resort to their church upon all Sundays and holy days

At Flushing [Long Island] as soon as the meeting was done, there stood up a priest's son and laid down three things that he would dispute, the first was the ordination of ministers, the second women's speaking, and the third that we held a new way of worship….I said it was like Christ's way of worship which he set up above 1,600 years ago, and was a new way of worship to him and his priests…as for women's speaking, such as the apostles did own I owned

Rediscovering the controversies that occupied early Christianity sharpens our awareness of the major issue in the whole debate, then and now: What is the source of religious authority? For the Christian the question takes more specific form: What is the relation between the authority of ones own experience and that claimed for the scriptures, the ritual and the clergy?

So too, in forming a constitution, or in enacting rules of procedure, or making canons, the people do not merely passively assent, but actively cooperate. They have, in all these matters, the same authority as the clergy.