CLE, 197
which signifies a portion, and it denotes the body of men set apart by due ordination for the service of GOD, and to be the portion of the LORD. With us of the English Church there are only the three superior orders of the Clergy, Bishops, Priests, and Deacons. In some churches the Bishops ordain to inferior offices, such as Sub-Beacon, Reader, &c., and to these also the title of clergy is in those Churches applied. But this was not done, in any church, before the third century. There were clergy of the inferior orders in our own church before the Reformation; but at and since the Reformation, our Bishops ceased to ordain to those offices, such as Verger, Sexton, &c. which can be discharged by laymen. St. Jerome observes that the name clergy is derived from a Greek word which signifies a lot; and thence he says GOD'S ministers were called clergy either because they are the lot and portion of the LORD, or "because the LORD is their lot, that is, their inheritance. It is acutely observed by a modern writer, " If there be a clergy in the Church of CHRIST, and if the office of the clergy is not only to minister for men, but to minister from GOD, then it is clear that something more than the choice of the people or the assumption of the individual is required to give a man a place in the clergy: and it is equally clear, that the intervening of a few or many successions to an usurped office, does not better the position of the last intruder. If A, having no power to ordain, that is, to transmit the office of a minister from GOD, pretends to ordain B, and B to ordain C, and so on to M or N, since none of the intervening persons can transmit more than he has received and B in fact received absolutely nothing from A, who had absolutely nothing to give, then are M and N mere laymen, with this only addition, whether it is of honour or of shame, that they are assuming a sacred office which does not belong to them. How many sects are now without a clergy 1 do not pretend to say."—Poolers Life and Times of St. Cyprian, p 44.
CLERK. This word is in fact, only an abbreviation of the word clergyman. But it is now used to designate certain laymen, who are appointed to conduct or lead the responses of the congregation, and otherwise to assist in the services of the chui'ch. In cathedrals and collegiate