The Bishop of Carlisle, while insisting on the great work
done by the Church in the past, maintained that it was the privilege and duty of every Churchman to take his share in the grand and blessed enterprise of cleansing the Church from stains and re- establishing it in truth. This work of purification and progress must advance on three lines. First, the laity must claim their baptismal rights for the guidance and governance of the Church. Second, they needed for the progress of the Church in truth and in light a firm and definite distinction between things spiritual and things ecclesiastical. In many cases so- called Church law was ecclesiastical law, in the making of which the laity had little or no share, and this law was administered not in spiritual but in clerical courts. This confusion between things spiritual and things ecclesiastical and this non-recognition of the spiritual character and spiritual prerogatives of the laity lay at the root of nearly all the Church's troubles at the present day. Finally, they needed greater simplicity both in the doctrines and customs of the Church.
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