The sweep (of the Establishment Clause) is broad enough that Madison himself characterized congressional provisions for legislative and military chaplains as unconstitutional establishments. Souter, concurring opinion in Lee Vs.
Clergy Quotes
I abuse the priests, indeed, who have so much abused the pure and holy doctrines of their master, and who have laid me under no obligation of reticence as to the tricks of their trade… the artificial structures they have erected, to make them the instruments of wealth, power, and preeminence to themselves.
The minister of the Gospel is really the yardstick by which the nation measures its morals.
The clergy converted the simple teachings of Jesus into an engine for enslaving mankind and adulterated by artificial constructions into a contrivance to filch wealth and power to themselves… these clergy, in fact, constitute the real Anti-Christ.
I was brought up in a clergyman’s household so I am a first-class liar.
Again and yet again I admonish you; do not look to your military experience for a standard of clerical obligation. Under Christ’s banner seek for no worldly gain, lest having more than when you first became a clergyman, you hear men say, to your shame, “Their portion shall not profit them.” Welcome poor men and […]
A clergyman is one who feels himself called upon to live without working at the expense of the rascals who work to live.
Parsons are very like men, and neither the better nor the worse for wearing a black gown.
Nowadays we have scarcely a little parson that does not think it the duty of every man within his reach to sit under his petty ministration, and that whoever omits this offends God. To such I wish more humility.
The clergy successfully preached the doctrines of patience and pusillanimity; the active virtues of society were discouraged; and the last remains of a military spirit were buried in the cloister: a large portion of public and private wealth was consecrated to the specious demands of charity and devotion; and the soldiers’ pay was lavished on […]
