parallel on earth. Nothing in the order of means, is equally adapted to awaken compunction in the guilty, with spiritual censures impartially administered; the sentence of excommunication in particular, harmonizing with the dictates of conscience, and re-echoed by her voice, is truly terrible: It is the voice of God, speaking through its legitimate organ, which he who despises, or neglects, ranks with 'heathen men and publicans,' joins the synagogue of Satan, and takes his lot with an unbelieving world, doomed to perdition. Excommunication is a sword, which, strong in its apparent weakness, and the sharper, and the more keenly edged for being divested of all sensible and exterior envelopements, lights immediately on the spirit, and inflicts a wound which no balm can cure, no ointment can mollify, but which must continue to ulcerate and burn, till healed by the blood of atonement, applied by penitence and prayer. In no instance is that axiom more fully verified, 'The weakness of God is stronger than men, and the foolishness of God is wiser than men,' than in the discipline of his church. By encumbering it with foreign aid, they have robbed it of its real strength; by calling in the aid of temporal pains and penalties, they have removed it from the spirit to the flesh, from its contact with eternity, to unite it to secular interests; and, as the corruption of the best things is the worst,

have rendered it the scandal and reproach of our holy religion.

"While it retains its character, as a spiritual ordinance, it is the chief bulwark against the disorders which threaten to overrun religion, the very nerve of virtue, and, next to the preaching of the cross, the principal antidote to the 'corruptions that are in the world through lust.' Discipline in a church occupies the place of laws in a state and as a kingdom, however excellent its constitution, will inevitably sink into a state of extreme wretchedness, in which laws are either not enacted, or not duly administered; so a church which pays no attention to discipline, will either fall into confusion, or into a state so much worse, that little or nothing remains worth regulating. The right of inflicting censures, and of proceeding in extreme cases to excommunication, is an essential branch of that power with which the church is endowed, and bears the same relation to discipline that the administration of criminal justice bears to the general principles of government. When this right is exerted in upholding the 'faith once delivered to the saints," or enforcing a conscientious regard to the laws of Christ, it maintains its proper place, and is highly beneficial. Its cognizance of doctrine is justified by apostolic authority; 'a heretic, after two or three admonitions, reject:' nor is it to any purpose to urge the difference be

twixt ancient heretics and modern, or that to pretend to distinguish truth from error, is a practical assumption of infallibility."

It is a question worthy of consideration, "How church members should conduct themselves toward those who are thus separated from their communion." We are not left without instructions on this head. "If any man obey not our word by this epistle, note that man, and have no company with him, that he may be ashamed. Yet count him not as an enemy, but admonish him as a brother." 2 Thes. iii. 14, 15. “I have written unto you, not to keep company, if any man that is called a brother, be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner, with such an one, no not to eat.” 1 Cor. v. 11. Two things are here evident: first-We are expressly commanded, to withdraw from all voluntary association with such individuals. We are to shun their company. We are not even to sit down with them at an ordinary meal, nor freely to converse with them on secular affairs, except they are our relations, or we are necessarily thrown by the contingencies of business into their society. Of course, none of the relative ties are to be dissolved, nor any of the social duties to be neglected; but all voluntary intercourse with excommunicated persons, who are not related to us by the ties of nature, is to be cautiously avoided: and this is to be done, to

testify our abhorrence of the sin, and that the offender himself may be ashamed, and feel the awful, situation in which his transgression has placed him.

But it is equally evident from the apostolic injunction, that excommunicated persons are not to be utterly forsaken and abandoned. "Count him not as an enemy, but admonish him as a brother." Pains should be taken to bring them to repentance. They should not be given up to their sins, and given over, as it were, to become more and more vile. The pastor and members should seek opportunities to admonish and warn them: "Peradventure God may give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth." Upon their penitence and reformation, they should again be received into communion with compassion and love, joy and gratitude. "Better," says Dr. Owen, "never excommunicate a person at all, than forsake and abandon him when he is expelled, or refuse to receive him back again upon his repentance; but there is a class of persons unto whom, if a man be an offender, he shall be so for ever."

Great care should be taken by a church, to display the most inflexible IMPARTIALITY in the exercise of discipline. To allow the riches, talents, or influence of any offender, to blind the eyes of the society, and to screen him from punishment, is a most flagrant crime against the authority of Christ, and the laws of his kingdom,

We can scarcely conceive of any thing more displeasing in his sight, any thing more likely to bring down his fearful indignation upon a church, than to allow his temple to be defiled, out of compliment to secular distinctions.

No member should be allowed to resign, in order to avoid expulsion. If he has done any thing worthy of censure or separation, he should not be allowed to retire with his conduct unnoticed. "It becomes not the wisdom and order of any society, intrusted with authority for its own preservation, as the church is by Christ himself, to suffer persons obnoxious to censure by the fundamental rules of that society, to cast off all respect unto it, to break their order and relation, without animadverting thereupon, according to the authority wherewith they are intrusted. To do otherwise is to expose their order unto contempt, and proclaim a diffidence in their own authority for the spiritual punishment of offend

On the Removal of Members from one Church to another in the same Town.

This of course can happen only in those places where there are more than one church of the same denomination, and in such places it is a very common occurrence. Church fellowship is a very sacred bond, which ought not to be

* Dr. Owen on Church Government, p. 222.