It may use its own ceremonies, but it cannot impose them on the unwilling; and since persecution is alien from the spirit of Christ, exclusion from membership must be the limit of ecclesiastical disciplinary power.
Laski argues that while the Church can have ceremonies, it cannot impose them on non-members.
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More from Harold J. Laski
It has been the historic character of persecution always to degrade the persecutor and to strengthen the persecuted by drawing attention to their claims.
We grant toleration in one part of the field only to deny it in another.
Ultimately, that denial is always made upon the same ground: it is insisted that the doctrines or practices attacked are subversive of the civil order.
The intolerance may be Catholic, when it insists that a unity of outlook is essential for the preservation of society; or it may be Protestant when, as with Calvin and the Socinians, it holds that the blasphemous nature of the belief…
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