What he was doing was to deprive the priesthood of claims to supernatural authority that he might vindicate for civil government the right to preserve itself not less against persons in ecclesiastical office than against civil assailants.

To do so he is forced to deny that the miraculous powers of Christ and the Apostles descended to their successors.

For if that assumption is made we grant to fallible men privileges which confessedly belong to persons outside the category of fallibility.

And, exactly in the fashion of Leslie in the _Regale_ he goes on to show that if a Church is a supernatural institution, it cannot surrender one jot or tittle of its prerogative.
It is, in fact, an _imperium in imperio_ and its conflict with the state is inevitable.

But if the Church is not a supernatural institution, what is its nature?
Hoadly here attacks the doctrine which lies at the basis of all ecclesiastical debate.