contest with established usage was concerned only with the externals of religion; and that a far worse foe to purity of faith and morals would remain behind, after every mark of churchwardenism had been erased from the fabric, and every trace of latitudinarian laxity had ceased from the mode of ministering, unless the same spirit which was jealous for the house of God, should be jealous likewise for the holiness which becometh that house for ever. We could not but suspect the soundness of that Conscience, which would risk the Church's peace to promote, or to oppose, the use of the prayer for the Church militant, whilst it groaned under no burthen from the legal degradation of Christianity, felt no self-accusing goads from acquiescence in the abeyance of Discipline, and sought no relief at the hands of others, nor attempted to free itself1, from a system of forced profanation, to which history affords few parallels.

There were, however, some noble exceptions to this general rule. Amidst the wide-spread clamour directed against that portion of Discipline which regulates the externals of time, place, manner, and dress, solemn testimony and energetic appeals were heard at intervals, demanding consideration for the Corrective part of the subject; and pleading urgently, in God's name, for a revival of scriptural sanctions, to promote internal conformity of life and doctrine. Witness the following admirable passages in the Charge of the Lord Bishop of Exeter, in the year 1842:

"Glad as we should all be to see civil consequences of Church discipline over the laity removed, yet the right and duty of spiritual discipline we may not, we dare not, surrender. To do so willingly, would be to betray the Church; to force us to do so, would be an act of direct persecution."

"That it (spiritual discipline) is absolutely necessary to the wellbeing of a Church, I need not say. Our Church declares the right use of ecclesiastical discipline' to be one of the three notes or marks (pure doctrine and the sacraments administered according to Christ's holy institution, are the other two) 'whereby the true Church is known.'"

And once more:

"If excommunication, rescued from all degrading application of it, but excluding absolutely from the benefit of all the offices of the Church,—if excommunication, the greatest judgment upon earth (these are the words of Lord Bacon), be restored to the true dignity and use

1 The exceptions, of clergy preferring the risk of suspension before the certainty of profanation, are not more than enough to establish the rule: their number, however, in cases of suicide and notorious unrepented profligacy or infidelity, is gradually increasing; and must eventually call attention to the cause of so irregular and painful a proceeding.

thereof, the Church will be indeed restored to as much of its ancient vigour as may be necessary. We might then be more than content to see the disuse of open penance, and other details of discipline of the primitive times. But nothing can be truly said to justify our acquiescence in the continued abandonment of all discipline whatsoever."pp. 75-77.

The Bishop of Exeter certainly stands clear of the blame which is due to those who assign to an orderly ministration a higher value, than to a pure communion.

Similar in purpose was the Church Courts and Church Discipline of Archdeacon R. J. Wilberforce, published the year following, as an exposure, not only of the defects of the abortive Ecclesiastical Courts' Bill, then under discussion in Parliament, but also of the evil influence of a long line of statutes tampering with spiritual prerogatives-at one time, arming episcopal censures with earthly terrors, in order to make them a state engine for the suppression of disloyalty; at another, as unscrupulously limiting their action, and virtually forbidding their use. Well and truly did he point out the bounden obligation laid upon every branch of Christ's Church by the Holy Ghost, to put away the unclean liver, and to reject the heretic; and painfully he exposed our departure from the scriptural rule. And we lament to think what an accumulation of guilt attaches to us, for turning a deaf ear to his evidence, and so coldly receiving his singular labours for the Church's benefit, over and above the Erastianism, and virtual betrayal of trust, the rise, progress, and nature of which were little understood by the clergy generally, until he threw light upon them in a plain and accessible volume.

In 1846, the Lord Bishop of Lincoln followed upon the same track; and thus summed up an inquiry into the reformation of the Church, effected at the commencement of the reign of Elizabeth, under the three heads of doctrine, worship, and discipline :—

Comparing its state, as then settled, with its present state, we find that the standard of doctrine remains the same; that the offices of Divine worship remain nearly the same, the alterations which have since been made being few and unimportant; and that the discipline, with respect to which the Reformers were not permitted to carry out their own views, is now, as to the lay-members of the Church, wholly inoperative."-p. 32.

2 Alluding to the non-acceptance of the Reformatio Legum Ecclesiasticarum by the Queen and Parliament, though it had been prepared by a royal commission, directed At p. 28, his to a mixed body of divines and lawyers, in the time of Edward VI. lordship had said, "The national Church is now practically deprived of a power, of which the possession is involved in the notion, and almost essential to the existence, of a society-the power of cutting off from the privileges of membership, offenders against its authority and laws."

His lordship forcibly illustrated the injury done to the cause of spiritual censures, by their prostitution to worldly purposes under papal jurisdiction; and showed their loss of power over the consciences of men to be no less traceable to that system which "converted the State into a mere executioner of the decrees of the Church," before the Reformation, than to the precisely contrary more modern abuse which made Church courts mere instruments of civil polity: upon which latter point his judgment perfectly coincided with the opinions of those who had preceded him.

"The very aid which has been invoked to give effect to ecclesiastical censures the aid of the State-has caused them to fall into disuse. The civil penalties consequent upon a sentence of excommunication, have prevented the ecclesiastical authorities from proceeding against offenders. They shrink from the attempt; not more from an apprehension of the clamour which the infliction of those penalties would create, than from a sense of their unsuitableness to accomplish the true end of spiritual censures the awakening of the conscience of the transgressor. My conclusion therefore is, that in order to restore to those censures their due authority, we must disconnect them with all civil penalties. The offences against which they are directed are transgressions of the Divine law; and the motive which the Church ought to propose, to deter men from offending, is fear not of the temporal penalties inflicted by human laws, but of the eternal punishment denounced in God's law against sin. To pronounce an offender excommunicate, and then to call in the civil power, is to confess at once that the Church is not invested by its Divine Founder with any external coercive power, and that it is desirous to obtain that which He never intended to confer upon it."-pp. 29, 30.

"The appeal to the offender's conscience would be more effectual if the judgment to come, and all the momentous transactions of the day of account, were brought exclusively before his view, separate from all considerations of human tribunals and temporal punishments."-p. 31.

The pamphlet whose startling title occupies the fourth place at the head of this article strikes the same chord, and echoes the

3 The true nature and proper limits of ecclesiastical discipline are thus described by Bingham: "The discipline of the Church consisted in a power to deprive men of all the benefits and privileges of baptism, by turning them out of the society and communion of the Church, in which these privileges were only to be enjoyed; such as joining in public prayer, and receiving the Eucharist, and other, acts of Divine worship; and sometimes they were wholly forbidden to enter the Church, so much as to hear the Scriptures read, or hear a sermon preached, till they showed some signs of relenting; and every one shunned and avoided them in common conversation, partly to establish the Church's censures and proceedings against them, and partly to make them ashamed, and partly to secure themselves from the danger of infection or contagion. Thus far the Church went in her censures by her own natural right and power."-Antiquities of the Christian Church, book xvi. c. ii. sect. 2 and 3.

same sound. It contrasts the liberty allowed to other religious bodies, with the restrictions laid upon the Church, especially in respect of Corrective Discipline; and, after a severe exposure of the contradiction between the Church's written laws (which are shown to be strictly scriptural), and the too ordinary practice, and of the manifold evils to religion which result therefrom, it concludes with an earnest appeal for the co-operation both of clergy and laity, to remove so great a scandal.

4

Of the four writers now mentioned, Archdeacon Wilberforce alone proceeded to discuss the necessity of superseding our present Ecclesiastical Courts in the cognizance of all purely spiritual matters (leaving to them their testamentary and matrimonial jurisdiction), and of the mode in which their office and the labours which ought to attach to it, may be advantageously discharged by local, unpaid tribunals, much more closely resembling the scriptural exemplars. On this branch of the subject, however, we do not now propose to enter, our object being to add our own testimony to the necessity for an effective restoration of spiritual discipline, and to enlist the learning, piety, and prayers of our readers in its behalf, rather than to offer any scheme for its execution, or prematurely discuss the plan propounded. Faith and hope ought indeed to characterize those who put their hand to the work of recovering freedom for the spiritual power, in so lax an age as the present; when clear and uncompromising convictions of duty, on all questions concerned with divine right, are very rare; and when young men, with awakened consciousness of the inconsistency of many traditional practices, and keener apprehensions of responsibility, being too often deserted by their natural guides, their elders, are apt to be betrayed into an air, or at least exposed to a charge, of lording it over God's heritage; which engenders unmerited suspicion, and endangers the success of any effort calculated to rid religion of its scandals. We observe, therefore, with the liveliest satisfaction, that "the promotion of Corrective Discipline" forms one of the four chief objects of the "Church Union Society" recently instituted at Bristol; a Society which, combining laity and clergy, and already numbering amongst its members many of the most active, experienced, and attached Churchmen in all parts of the country, and aiming at strictly legitimate results, cannot fail, with God's blessing, to forward the cause it advocates. We have heard too with a similar feeling, that Mr. Sweet's circular has been largely dis

4 It will be well both for himself, and for the Church and State generally, if the honourable member who has undertaken to introduce an Ecclesiastical Courts' Bill in the next Session of Parliament, will lay Archdeacon Wilberforce's arguments to heart, before attempting the fulfilment of his promise.

VOL. X.-NO. XIX.-SEPT. 1848.

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tributed by him, and wholly or in part reprinted in several dioceses, by co-operating clergymen; and that its subject and suggestions have furnished matter for many deeply interesting discussions in ruri-decanal chapters and other clerical assemblies. The adherents thus gained, and the sifting which the subject thus meets with, cannot but hasten the time for a strong expression of Church feeling on a matter so vital to Christianity: meanwhile it is well, we think, that the two experimental forms of petition, given in the Circular, differ so entirely in character, though one in aim; for the strict and consistent details of No. 1, grounded as they are on Scripture and our own Canons, are calculated to test the exact sentiments of the clergy; whilst No. 2, omitting details, and simply urging a restoration of "wholesome and scriptural discipline" for the removal of offences, would probably attract a larger number, who not having carefully weighed the matter, but more or less realizing the defect complained of, prefer to leave all details to the sole consideration of their spiritual rulers, or such synod as may be empowered to act with them. For ourselves, we can see no reason why the proposed petitions may not be almost as various as the petitioners, in mode of expression, provided only the one object, a restoration of spiritual discipline, be aimed at by all; and that we may contribute our quota to the promotion of so desirable an end, we propose to assist the systematic discussion of the subject by offering our views, under certain heads (róπo), upon each of its chief aspects, according to the most natural division of, I. Arguments in favour of a restoration of Corrective Discipline; and II. The difficulties urged against such a restoration. A division, of which it is obvious to remark that, if the first part should amount to a moral demonstration, if, i. e. it can be shown that our duty to God and man, embraces the vigilant and active exercise of Discipline, then the first harsh aspect of the second part is wonderfully softened, its heavy weight immeasurably lessened, and the practicability of overcoming all obstacles is a foregone conclusion. For whatever Providence, Almighty and Allwise, imposes as a duty is, ex vi termini, practicable by us: one essential element of duty, is feasibility. To deny this, were simply to deny God's attributes; to question it, were to loosen the keystone of Christian morals. Oh! how do Christians cast away their privileges, and trample on the most precious jewels of their

5 No. 1. is, "A form of petition agreed to by a large body of Clergy in the Deaneries of Ackley and Sparkenhoe, Diocese of Peterborough, in Lent, 1847;" and is addressed "to the Most Reverend and Right Reverend the Bishops of the United Church of England and Ireland." No. 2. is, "A form of petition to the Archbishop of Canterbury, originated in Lancashire, in 1847.”