Excommunication. "True, my young friend," replies the other, with a Burghleyian shake of the head, "but don't you see that it is impossible in a National Church?”

This is what may be called a general solution of the problem how to reconcile the Church of England and the Primitive Church. And truly when the argument stops here it must be allowed to pass for unanswerable.

But some more discursive champions of existing institutions have ventured further; the talismanic words have been expanded, and their logical force displayed to our view.

"Of all problems," says Mr. Le Bas, "which can task the wisdom and piety of man, there is none perhaps more full of perplexity than the construction of the scheme of Spiritual Discipline for a great national and established Church." So far the old story, but he proceeds, "When Christian communities were small, and surrounded by societies lost in the outer darkness of Paganism, the task of spiritual government was one of comparative facility. Communion with the Church was in primitive times regarded as the highest and most transcendent of privileges, &c......And hence it was that years of contrition, &c......were frequently submitted to, to secure in time the restoration of the transgressor to the Ark of Christ's Church. But when the visible boundaries of the Church were enlarged, the case was widely different: and afterwards, when the world was called after the name of Christ, to

be a Christian was unhappily no longer regarded as so high an honour, &c......The inevitable consequence was, that Church Discipline was gradually overpowered by the abounding of iniquity.'

That is to say, so long as Church Discipline was so vigorously enforced that none were allowed to retain the privileges of Christians who did not regard these privileges as very "high and transcendent," it was very easy to enforce Church Discipline; but afterwards, when "the case was evidently different," and people were let into the Church for asking, whether they "regarded it as a high honour" or no, i. e. when Church Discipline was given up, "the inevitable consequence was, that it was overpowered." Really I know nothing equal to this except the speech of Dr. Johnson's Ghost, "What is permanent cannot be removed, for when removed it soon ceases to be permanent."

Of course, if a national Church means a Church to which every one is admitted that chooses, to set up a system of discipline in such a Church without unnationalizing it, is a pretty difficult "problem." But it should be remembered, that however good an excuse this may be for having no discipline in a national Church, it is no excuse for having a national Church at all. If a national Church means a Church without discipline, every argument for discipline is an argument against a national Church; and the best thing we can do is to unnationalize ours as soon as possible.

I am, however, very far from agreeing with Mr.

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Le Bas in this notion of a national Church. I cannot see why, if the body of a nation are sincere converts to Christianity, it might not be possible to enlarge the visible boundaries" of the Christian community, and to allow the nation to "call itself after the name of Christ," without admitting into the Church any "who are insensible to the high honour of being called a Christian." It will hardly、 be thought that the increased number of sincere converts could have any tendency to degrade in each other's eyes the religion to which they were converted at least this is not the case with any other matter except religion. Maxims of morality are not less prized because every one acknowledges them to be just a poet is not the less admired because he has many admirers: a man is not the less disposed to value his college, or his city, or his country, because it is larger than other colleges, cities, and countries. Nor is it easy to see what should make the case of Christianity different, except indeed the humiliating fact, that as its visible boundaries were enlarged, the clergy learned to think more of the numbers than the sincerity of their converts.

The true cause of the decay of Church Discipline is not that nations have become Christian, but that the clergy have wished to make them appear Christian, either before they were so or after they have ceased to be so. And if at the present day it is difficult to enforce Church Discipline in England, it is not because we have a national Church, but VOL. I.

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because the clergy are too anxious to keep up the show of one.

The body of the English nation either are sincere Christians or they are not: if they are, they will submit to Discipline as readily as the primitive Christians did. If not, let us tell the truth and shame the devil: let us give up a national Church and have a real one.

§2. [On Excommunication1.]

The report of the late ecclesiastical commission has shown that the restoration of a Godly Discipline in the Church is not so difficult a problem as has been imagined. The Commissioners suggest a process for the trial of delinquent clergymen which might be extended without restriction to the trial of all delinquents: and if the evidence which they have judged sufficient for suspension or deprivation of offending clergymen, was made sufficient for the excommunication of notorious ill-livers, we should be provided with means for enforcing a very efficient system of Church Discipline.

Yet on this subject of Church Discipline the Commissioners say not one word. It has not even attracted their attention: they could not have passed it over in more marked silence if they had wished to show that they thought the very notion of it childish.

1 [Written in 1834.]

Now this is surely enough to set serious people thinking, and to put them upon re-examining the foundations of their own opinion, as well as the declaration of the Church, that "a Godly Discipline is much to be wished." Good and learned men have set their names to a document, which treats Church Discipline as they could but treat it, if they thought it a "trifle" and a "dream." A Commission of Hoadlys could not have made it of less consequence than they have done. Were they right in this? or were they wrong?

In making up our minds on this question, it seems to me that we have to discuss a preliminary point about which too much has been taken for granted in late writings, i. e. the nature of EXCOMMUNICATION and ABSOLUTION, in the use of which Church Discipline consists. What these are, then, and how they bear on the main question, will be the subject of this paper.

It is now generally assumed that the right, by which the Church may excommunicate unworthy members, is nothing more than what belongs to other Societies as such, i. e. of excluding those who will not conform to its regulations: that excommunication is simply an act of the members of the Church through their constituted governors; involving no consequences but what the Society consents to enforce (such as a withdrawal of communion and social intercourse ;) and being in fact nugatory where such consent does not exist. With these notions of Excommunication, it is natural that