The Fountain and the Fence

Ask an ordinary believer where grace comes from, and you will most often be handed a choice: from the Church, he will say, or from the Holy Spirit — as though these were two shops on the same street, and one had to be preferred. It has assumed that the Church and the Spirit are rivals for the same office. Confuse the steward with the source and you will build an empire. Distinguish them, and the empire dissolves into what it always was: a household of servants entrusted with a treasure they did not mint.