CLERGY. All who are attached to the ecclesiastical ministry are called the 
clergy; a clergyman is therefore an ecclesiastical minister. 
     2. Clergymen were exempted by the emperor Constantine from all civil 
burdens. Baronius ad ann. 319, Sec. 30. Lord Coke says, 2 Inst. 3, 
ecclesiastical persons have more and greater liberties than other of the 
king's subjects, wherein to set down all, would take up a whole volume of 
itself. 
     3. In the United States the clergy is not established by law, but each 
congregation or church may choose its own clergyman.