as any other random proposition. It proceeds cu the assumption, that man's natural farities are sufficient to show God's whole method of dealing with us; whereas we have no reason to suppose that they afford us more than the faintest and most partial glimpse into it. In fact, it would be just as rational for a blind man to deny the reality of light, or a deaf man the reality of music, as for our blind and deaf hearts to deny the reality of any operation of the Holy Spirit, however invisible.

Obviously then, a less conclusive argument could not possibly have been devised against the reality of the powers supposed to be conveyed in Ordination, than that these powers do not manifest themselves to our experience.

§3. Human Excommunications and Absolutions no infringement of the Prerogative of God.

The claims of the Christian Priesthood are opposed, not merely because they do not manifest themselves to our experience, but as being in themselves unreasonable, nay blasphemous; and this charge is supposed to apply especially to the claim to excommunicate and absolve.

It is said, that, if human sentences of excommunication and absolution are supposed to have any effect in the next world, this is in fact taking judgment out of the hand of God. The claim to pass such sentences is treated as a claim to pass the irreversible sentence at the last day; and the claima1

are hated, as arrogating to themselves the absolute disposal of the eternal happiness or misery of their fellow-creatures.

Between this notion of excommunication and absolution, and the notion that they are mere formal declarations, of what the person pronouncing them supposes to be the terms of salvation, it seems to be thought that no medium can be conceived. These sentences must be either every thing or nothing; either mere forms, or usurpations of omnipotence.

Now it will not take many words to show, how Excommunication and Absolution may have real effects; the one favourable, the other unfavourable to man's condition in the sight of God, both in this world and in the next; and yet neither the one be able to save, nor the other to damn us.

For it will perhaps be granted, that the thing spoken of in the Bible as "the Kingdom of Heaven” is a reality; and that admission into it is set forth as a real blessing, exclusion from it as a real calamity. Nor will it be pushing matters very far to assume, that this blessing consists in bettering man's condition with respect to the favour of God, and this calamity in deteriorating it; nay that in the next world those that are within this kingdom will, as such, be more favourably circumstanced than those without it. And yet it is absolutely certain, from the most explicit declarations of our Lord, that many who are without this kingdom shall be saved, and many who are within it damned.

For on the me ban ve Kov La Jean in harus was not indinder vron tie Emma o hares. inas este as the Enguca gree than be:" and of the other 1 & LAIN declared than the Enguon of evelik i n which was cast no es mi gatuerst of a kind; and wiia vien va ful. tier are u shore, and sut Vgate the good mu vessels, but cast the bac ara sial I II the end of the varic: The Anges stal zone jati. and sever the wicket from among the s. and stal cast them into the furnace of fre" These at EVIL consideration finer for mecration at For versy: they are however most clear ended u

show us, that, bewerer great the messing a admission into the Kingdom of Even the slipers of that Kingdoms are not exempted from fear LUČ trembling. To assume then that do spiriTHE blessing can be real, without insuring SE TEDNE, nor spiritual calamity real and yet short of damnation, is most shallow theology.

Now when to these considerations we add the fact, that those who put the power of excommunication and absolution highest, define it to consist in admitting to or excluding from this very Kingdom of Heaven, which can be thus proved immediately from Scripture to confer real spiritual blessings, and yet not to insure salvation, it certainly does seem unaccountable how it ever could have entered into any one's head, to confuse them with "the irre versible sentence at the last day.”

Still however it is asserted, that the power to confer or withdraw the favour of God, however circumscribed may be its effects, is in its very nature unfit to be trusted to fallible man, except with such limitations as render it altogether nugatory. Excommunication and Absolution, it is said, must be supposed to take effect, either only in those cases where they are deserved, and so will come to nothing, because the favour of God would have been gained or forfeited without them through the desert of the parties; or in all cases, whether deserved or not, and so will be inconsistent with God's justice, and therefore incredible.

Now, however plausible this reasoning may seem, it involves a fallacy either way. For, though the sentence only took effect where it was deserved, it might nevertheless have a real effect; and though it took effect in all cases, it would not be inconsistent with any thing we know, either through nature or revelation, respecting God's justice.

With regard to the supposition that the sentence only takes effect when it is deserved, the fallacy of the inference drawn from it, is exposed very clearly in Law's admirable Letters to Bishop Hoadly.

"The whole argument'," says he, "amounts to this, that a right censure of the Church hath no effect, because a wrong one hath not. I should think any one in mighty want of a proof, who should say that the excommunication of the inces

1 [The quotation which follows is erased in the MS.]

tuous Corinthian could have no effect, because the excommunication of some virtuous person will not have any effect; yet this is your Lordship's demonstration, that it can signify nothing when it is right, because it signifies nothing when it is wrong. Is it an argument, my Lord, that when a bullet flies through a man's head it has no effect upon him, because it will have no effect if it miss him? Is it a proof that motion cannot produce heat, because rest cannot produce heat? If not, how comes it to be an argument that a right sentence hath no effect, because a wrong one hath not the same effect? A right sentence is as opposite to a wrong one as motion is to rest; and it is as good sense to say motion has no such effect, because rest has no such effect, as to say a right sentence has no effect, because a wrong one has not the same.....Your Lordship's argument is this, that the sentence hath not such an effect in some circumstances, because it hath not the same effect in all circumstances: which resolves itself into this proposition, that nothing can produce any particular effect, unless it produce the same effect in all circumstances. Your Lordship might as well have called it a demonstration against all effects in the world, as against the effects of spiritual censures: for there is nothing in the world, no powers either natural, moral, or political, which produce their effects, but in some supposed right circumstances; yet this ecclesiastical power is demonstrated away by your Lordship, because it does not produce the same effect in all circumstances."