Secular Clergy. Parish priests and all who were charged with the cure of souls were named clerici secii- Idres, so called as living according to the manners of the time (secuhnn). Thej- were so called in contradis- tinction to regnlur clergy (q. v.), who belonged to the monastic orders or religious congregations.
Secular Court, Delivering up to the, a pun- ishment pecidiar to delinipient clergymen. The ancient law comprises it under the name of ciiri(p, trudi, and gave to it a different meaning from that which modern use and practice has put upon it. Among the modern canonists it signifies delivering a clergyman up to the secular j iidge after degradation, to be punishedfor some great crime with death, or such capital punishment as the Church had no power to inflict. In the old law the curia has a larger sense, not only to denote the judge's court, but the corporation of any city. In this there were some servile offices; and when a clergyman was degraded for any offence and reduced to the quality of layman, he was obliged to serve the curhi, or secular corporation of the city, and that, many times, only in some mean office and servile condition. This was looked upon as being a slave to an earthly power, and precluded him from ever regaining his clerical dignity again, for no curiale was allowed to enter the ecclesiastical state. Besides this, there was another way of delivering over delinquent clergymen to the secular courts, which was when they had conmiitted crimes such as were [)roperly of civil cognizance; for clergymen were considered in a double ca])acity — as ministers of the Church and as members of the commonwealth. See Bingham, Antiq. ■of the C/irh-/. Church, p. 1083,
Secular Power. See Secular Court.
Secular Sermons, in Roman Catliolic terminol- ogy, are discourses preached at the centennial jubilee of any religious or benevolent institution, association, etc. Their purpose is to review the history and work of the agency in question, or to rehearse the displays of divine grace manifested in and througli its life. The scope of such sermons will conse<iuently be determined in each case by the character of the solemnities of which they form a part. An appropriate treatment of the theme selected will include the presentation of noteworthy features belonging to the subject, or the discussion of some religious topic which may be deduced from or il-
lustrated by the occasion in which the celebration takes its rise, followed by direct application of the theme, and concluding with a jjrayer or doxology or a suitable ex- hortation. The style and mode of delivery should be solemn. When the celebration is on account of a non- religious subject, the nature of religious discourse re- quires that it be discussed in its religious or moral bearings. — Wetzer u. Welte, Kiichen-Lex. ix, 5(57.
Secularism, an atheistical movement which pre- vailed in England during the sixth decade of the "pres- ent century to an extent that gained it many followers and excited much attention. Its leading apostle was George J. Holyoake, a friend to Robert Owiii and his socialistic views. Holyoake and several like-minded as- sociates founded a journal named The Heasaner. in 1846, which speedily became the recognised organ of the modern school of English freethinkers. Its governing principle was atheism, though Holyoake and his friends preferred to designate the tendency they represented as non-theism, inasmuch as they simply refrained from in- quiring whether a Deity exist or not. The term ISecu- lurism was subsequently applied to the entire move- ment, whose professed aim was proclaimed to be "to live and die for the world, and to work for the welfare of men' in this world." The ethics of the party was comprehended in the phrase "present human improve- ment by present human means," its law had regard simply to the natural, utilitarian, and artistic aspects of life; its object was merely scientific culture and a suita- ble provision for the things of this life. Tlie leading, and, indeed, the only principle of the morality of this movement is utility, and the movement itself may be characterized as a thoroughly consistent utilitarianism, and also as an "atheistical ethics built upon the ruins of religion," since no supernatural element is permitted to exercise any influence whatever over the actions of these worldly moralists.
The dogmatics of Secularism, if tlie term may be ap- plied to a systematic negation of all positive doctrines, is analogous to its ethics in character. It denies that any competent knowledge concerning the existence of God is possessed by the world : matter, though self-ex- istent and eternal, is not God, since it lacks the constitu- ent factors of personalitj' — self-consciousness and free- will. Experience teaches that there is no Providence, no Father in heaven. The teleological argument for God's existence is valueless, yielding only a "confused reflection of man's own image :" on the one hand, it leads only to uncertain analogies; on the other, it proves too much, as it becomes necessary, after postulating a most wise Creator of the most wisely arranged creation, to assume a still wiser originator, and so on without end. In this line of argument Holyoake connects himself with the atheistical poet Shelley and the naturalist Geoffroy Saint-llilaire, and directs his criticism chiefly against Paley's A'aturul Theolocjij. The secularists as- sert that nothing is known respecting the world beyond the grave, and that we are therefore not to concern our- selves about its conditions; our moral efforts should be wholly exi>ended ujjon the present world. "If other worlds exist to which we are removed after this life is over, precisely they who have made it their one business to promote the common welfare of mankind in tliis world will be best able to enjoy them ; if there be no liercafter, men evidently stand in their own light if they omit to enjov this world." (Comp. Holyoake, The Logic of Death [Loud. 1849]).