As for ministers of religion, these, being called perpetually into a practical application of the received doctrine of their church, are of all men least able to inquire into any fundamental errors in that doctrine.

Eminent persons among them will nevertheless aim after and attain a purer truth than that which they find established: but such a case must always be rare and exceptive.

Only by disusing ministerial service can any one give fair play to doubts concerning the wisdom and truth of that which he is solemnly ministering: hence that friend of Arnold's was wise in this world, who advised him to take a curacy in order to settle his doubts concerning the Trinity .-- Nowhere from any body of priests, clergy, or ministers, as an Order, is religious progress to be anticipated, until intellectual creeds are destroyed.

A greater responsibility therefore is laid upon laymen, to be faithful and bold in avowing their convictions.
Yet it is not from the practical ministers of religion, that the great opposition to religious reform proceeds.

The "secular clergy" (as the Romanists oddly call them) were seldom so bigoted as the "regulars." So with us, those who minister to men in their moral trials have for the most part a deeper moral spirit, and are less apt to place religion in systems of propositions.