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which moves our colonial bishops and clergy to frame disciplinary canons in order that he that runneth may now read the true character of Christian ethics,-be he never so barbarous, ignorant, or sensual,-just as clearly as the unbelievers of old time were compelled to "see how these Christians love" by their deeds of charity'.

The last topic, therefore, by which we shall enforce the duty of restoring Spiritual Discipline, is, that Reason itself proclaims the necessity of it. This is the true argument from analogy, and finds its place here not upon the principle of a climax,-for, as has been already stated, the strongest arguments had precedence, but with the view of silencing those cavillers who, looking upon the Church as something external to themselves, though they may still call themselves Churchmen, are wont to put the advocates of truth to silence by loud charges of unreasonableness; and who, knowing little and caring less for the Divine commission, upon which the whole theory of Discipline rests in the system of the Church, must be met upon their own grounds, and beaten with the weapon of their choice.

Comber, in his "Discourse of Excommunication," rested his entire argument, as to its obligation, upon the adoption of it into Christianity by our blessed Saviour; but, before entering upon the proof of that adoption, he preferred to trace the original idea and practice of excommunication, first, to the light of natural reason and the practice of the Gentiles, who had no other guide; and secondly, to the custom of the Jews before our Lord's incarnation. The altered state of ecclesiastical feeling, and the general ignorance or disregard of our Church's mind upon this subject, rendered necessary a very different arrangement, and a more full selection of topics for the purpose of this article; but we gladly avail ourselves of Comber's powerful assistance, when, as now, we follow in his track.

"The light of natural reason," he says, "shows us that no society ever did or can subsist without governors, nor can those governors do their duty, or preserve the society committed to their care, without a power to punish such as break the rules of this society, and commit offences tending to the subversion of it; for otherwise the society itself must be precarious, and would soon come to ruin, as wanting sufficient means to preserve itself. Now since it is certain that Jesus hath instituted a society which is called the Church, and which is really distinct from the civil state, being appointed for other ends, and governed by other measures, ruled by distinct officers, and guided by peculiar laws;

2 The example of David, as exhibited in the 24th Psalm, which he composed for the installation of the ark in the newly-erected tabernacle, is too good to be passed over without notice; it conveys a striking rebuke to all who, when similarly employed, take no heed to the qualification of the worshippers; and never ask, Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? Or who shall stand in his holy place?""

a society which did subsist when the civil state opposed it, and must continue (whatever changes human governments suffer) unto the end of the world. Therefore, the rulers of this society, the Church, must have some power to punish all those who do disturb the good order thereof by a false faith or corrupt worship, or by dissolute manners. And if our Lord had not entrusted the Church with such a power, reason and necessity would have compelled the rulers of the Church to have assumed it, because the Church cannot subsist without it. No man can so much as govern a family in the capacity of a father or master, unless he be invested with power to let in and turn out of his family such as he sees fit, and to dispense or withhold the benefits belonging to his family as he sees occasion; much less can a larger society be maintained in peace and safety without the exercise of such a power. And as the father or master may, and doth exercise this authority within his own family, though it be a part of the commonwealth, without damage to the prince's power, so in this society of the Church, since the ends of it are different from that of the civil government, the ecclesiastical governors may exercise their power and authority without encroachment on the prince's sovereignty. The ends of temporal princes being to preserve their people in outward peace and plenty, in the enjoyment of their temporal rights and privileges, while they live upon the earth. But the ends of the spiritual governors are to make Christians holy here and happy hereafter, and their rules and punishments are both suited to this end. The rules are precepts of piety and charity, and the penalties are proportionable, viz., not corporal but spiritual; that is, the depriving them of all the comforts and benefit of Church communion at present, and the declaring them to be worthy of Divine vengeance unless they repent. So that the rulers of the world need have no jealousy for their authority, on the account of this spiritual jurisdiction from his servants, who declares his kingdom is not of this world. They are to watch for men's souls, to make them inwardly good; to reform their manners, and fit them for a blessed eternity. And they govern as fathers, by arguments and persuasion, by spiritual promises and threatenings, by the rod of Church censures, not by the sword as the civil magistrate doth. Yet as the prince takes care of the lives and worldly concerns of his subjects, and punisheth those who injure them in either of these, so doth the spiritual governor, in his proper way, punish those who act contrary to the welfare of their own or others' souls, whether by teaching false doctrine, or setting a bad example. And as there are three ends of outward and civil punishments, first, vovdeoía, instruction to the offender to repent and amend; secondly, Tapádayμa, warning to others not to follow so bad an example; and thirdly, Tiuopia, vindication of the society from the scandal which might be cast upon it for suffering evil acts to be done so also the spiritual penalties aim at the same ends, viz., to reform the offender, to warn others not to follow the ill example, and to clear the Church from that scandal which the acts of evil men, professing themselves Christians, may bring on it if they be not punished. All which ends are obtained by this spiritual penalty of excommunication duly inflicted by the Church, and humbly submitted to by the offender; which doth clearly show that it is neces

sary to the being, and the well-being of this spiritual society, the Church, even upon principles of natural reason, that its governors should have this power. And that none may doubt whether natural reason doth teach this, we will show that the very Gentiles (who had no other guide but the light of natural reason) did frequently use this kind of excluding all those from their society, especially from joining in their sacrifices, who were unfit and unworthy. And though there were no law to turn such persons out by violence, yet their order was obeyed by all, to the shame of those pretended Christians who despise the commands, and deride the authority, of our Lord's ministers in the like case."—A Discourse, &c. pp. 2—4.

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From the long catalogue of disciplinary enactments and cedures by which Comber established his assertion, we will present the reader with a brief selection. Draco decreed that murderers should be excluded from the drink-offerings and festivals, from the temples and public assemblies; agreeable to which is that edict of Edipus, in Sophocles, against the parricide: Μήτ ̓ εἰσδέχεσθαι μήτε προσφωνεῖν τινα, Μήτ ̓ ἐν θεῶν εὐχαῖσι, μήτε θύμασι, κοινὸν ποιεῖν, μήτε χέρνιβας νέμειν. Plato ordains of such as strike their parents, πάντων ἱερῶν εἴργεσθαι and accordingly, Julius Pollux informs us that there was at Athens one called the "King of the Sacrifices," whose duty it was to proclaim that the contumacious, or such as were of disposition contrary to the holy rites, should abstain from the mysteries. This excommunication was attended with solemn curses, and befel not only the shedder of blood, but the offender against religion, or good manners. Herodotus instances five cities of Ionia excluding a sixth from all communion in their sacrifices, because one of their citizens, called Agasicles, had stolen a brazen tripod dedicated to Apollo. Virgil notes the care taken by the priests of Proserpine to exclude unhallowed or profane persons; "Procul, O procul este profani, conclamat vates, totoque absistite luco;" words, the very echo of an older and universal Greek charge, Εκὰς, ἑκὰς ἔστε βέβηλοι. Suidas gives this explanation of the expression Τίς τῇδε ; "Those who were to offer cried out rís rñde; who is here? then the people charitably answered, Πολλοὶ καὶ ἀγαθοὶ, many and good persons; and this the sacrificers did, that they whose consciences accused them of any impurity, might withdraw themselves from the holy rites;" which warning was considered so sacred in its nature, that even Nero is reported by Suetonius to have abstained from the Eleusinian rites, after the appointed officer had proclaimed that no impious or unclean person should be present there. Cæsar testifies of the Druids in Gaul, that "if any private or public person stand not to their decrees, they forbid him their sacrifices, which is the highest punishment among them; for they who are thus interdicted, are reckoned in the number of

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the impious and wicked; all men turn away from them, and will not meet them, nor speak with them; nor can they have any benefit of the law, nor receive any kind of honour." "The Germans," says Tacitus, "punished cowards by exclusion from their sacrifices, as well as councils; and Tuisco, their first lawgiver, allowed none but the priests to execute, bind, or chastise malefactors; that so men might not only take it for a corporal penalty by the prince's command, but as due vengeance from the gods." Therefore excommunication was then thought a sadder penalty than stripes, imprisonment, or death itself. "Which opinion, adds Comber, "of these poor barbarians will rise up in judgment one day against those wretched pretenders to Christianity, who slight the censures of the Church of Christ, and value not their just exclusion from those Divine ordinances which He hath appointed." It is clear from this that Comber did not suppose it possible for the clergy to forget that they are charged with the execution of discipline; much less that they would ever acquiesce in deprivation of it by human laws, and even deny its obligation, and spurn it as an invention of the "dark ages.' Such excess of contempt was reserved for a later generation; when not only the people are to be taught to revere Church censures as God's ordinance, and to assist in their execution, after the manner contemplated by the framers of our XXXIX Articles; but many even of bishops and priests also require to be reminded to stir up, in this respect, the gift that is in them by the laying-on of hands. Finally, this general consent of all nations (thus explained) doth declare that natural reason did teach the very heathens, who wanted the revealed will of God, that it was necessary to the being and the honour of religion, to give their priests a power to cast out all notorious, infamous, and scandalous criminals from their temples, and to exclude them from all communion in their sacrifices." The Gentiles, which had not the law, did by nature the things contained in the law, so far as their views of acts disqualifying for worship accorded with the truth. And shall we, who have not the law only, but the Gospel also, bearing unmistakeable testimony to our duty in this behalf, turn a deaf ear to Reason and Revelation, both? resist the compunctions of a conscience, sensible, if not of engagements to exercise Discipline, at least of offence at the forced ministrations consequent on its abeyance? and thus encourage presumption, and perpetuate scandals? God forbid! But may He of his infinite goodness, so direct and bless the prayers and efforts of those who realize our evil state, and labour for a restoration, that the interval may be a short one before all English Churchmen shall read with shame and contrition of soul, this lesson in the records of pagan discipline, “ Go and do thou likewise."

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ART. VI.-1. Proceedings of the First Anti-State-Church Conference, held in London, April 30, May 1 and 2, 1844. 2. Minutes of the First Annual Meeting of the Council of the British Anti-State-Church Association, held at the Guildhall Coffee-house, in the City of London, on Tuesday, May 6, 1845. 3. Minutes of the Second Annual Meeting of the Council of the British Anti-State-Church Association, held at the Baptist Chapel, Belvoir-street, Leicester, on Thursday, May 7, and Friday, May 8, 1846.

4. British Anti-State-Church Association for the Liberation of Religion from all State Interference. Proceedings of the First Triennial Conference, held in Crosby Hall, Bishopsgate-street, London, May 4, 5, and 6, 1847.

5. Minutes of the Meeting of the Council, held on Tuesday, May 2, 1848, at the Offices of the British Anti-State-Church Association. 6. Tracts of the British Anti-State-Church Association. 1-30. London, 1844-1848.

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7. Tracts for the Million. Nos. 1--22. London, 1845-1848. THERE is no surer sign of an approaching crisis in the affairs of men than when antagonistic principles lead to coincident conclusions, when those who in theory are at the greatest conceivable distance from each other, occupying opposite extremes in the world of thought, are involuntarily thrown together in their practical tendencies. Such unnatural conjunctions of things in their nature inharmonious are both ominous of impending change, and symptomatic of some great anomaly, some serious derangement, in the existing state of affairs. The strange combinations of the most adverse elements of religious and political life, which had recently taken place, cast before them the shadows of the revolutions since accomplished on the Continent of Europe; and considering how much the recoil of those events has been felt throughout the world, and in our country among the rest, it is impossible to contemplate, without considerable alarm, every manifestation among ourselves of a similar concurrence of parties which have nothing else in common, in the expediency of certain practical measures of supposed reform and relief. It is an ill sign when the advocate of Church principles finds himself

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