to the whole community in full assembly met? or to those appointed by the congregation to hear and adjudicate such matters? Certainly the congregation has ears as well as a tongue, and it is not all ears nor all tongue. Every well-organized church has its eldership, who hear all such matters, and who bring them before the whole assembly only when it is absolutely necessary, and even then at a convenient season. IX. The elders hear the matter; and if the case be one that requires a special committee, which Paul calls "secular seats of judicature," 1 Cor. vi. 4, they appoint it; then, and not till then, if their decision of the matter be refused, they bring it before the whole congregation, and he is excluded from among them, that he may be as a heathen man and a publican-one entitled only to civil, and not to christian respect-one whose company is to be eschewed rather than courted.

X. The whole community can act, and ought to act, in receiving and in excluding persons: but in the aggregate, it can never become judges of offences and a tribunal of trial. Such an institution was never set up by divine authority. No community is composed only of wise and discreet full grown men. The christian church engrosses old men, young men, and babes in Christ. Shall the voice of a babe be heard, or counted as a vote in a case of discipline! What is the use of bishops in a church, if all are to rule-of judges, if all are judges of fact and law! No wonder that broils and heart burnings, and scandals of all sorts disturb those communities ruled by a democracy of the whole-where every thing is to be judged in public in full assembly. Such is not the Christian system. It ordains that certain persons shall judge and rule,* and that all things shall "be done decently and in order."

XI. Besides matters of private trespass between brethren, there are matters of public wrong, or acts of injustice towards the whole Christian community, and also towards them that are without. Drunkenness in a professor, for example, is a sin against God and against all the Christian brotherhood. It is, moreover, a public nuisance to all men, so far as it is witnessed or known. The transgressor in such a case, if he be not penitent and reform, must be convicted of the offence. An attempt at convicting him of the offence

* 1 Tim, iii. 5; v. 17. Acts xx, 28-31. Heb. xiii. 17, &c. &e.

is not to be made till he fail to acknowledge it. A failure to acknowledge, or an attempt to deny, calls for conviction, and precludes the idea of repentance.

XII. In all cases of conviction the church is to be addressed through its rulers. No private individual has a right to accuse any person before the whole community. The charge, in no case, is to be preferred before the whole congregation. Such a procedure is without a precedent in the law or in the gospel-in any well regulated society, church, or state. If, then, any brother fall into any public offence, those privy to it notify the elders of the church, or those for the time being presiding over it, of the fact, and of the evidences on which they rely. The matter is then in the hands of the proper persons. They prosecute the investigation of it; and on the denial of the accused, seek to convict him of the allegation.

XIII. When a person is convicted of any offence, he is unworthy of the confidence of the brethren; for conviction supposes concealment and denial; and these, of course, are evidence of impenitence. We do not say that such a one is never again to be worthy of such confidence; but that until he has given satisfactory proofs of genuine repentance, he is to be treated as one not of the body of Christ.

XIV. In all cases of hopeful repentance, the transgressor is to be restored with admonition. The acknowledgment of an offence, and of repentance for it, are, in all cases, to be as public as the sin itself. Peter's sin and repentance are as public as his name. So was David's. So should be those of all transgressors. Those who have caused the Saviour and his faithful followers to blush, ought themselves to be made to blush before the world; and if their sorrow and amendment be genuine, they will do it cheerfully and fully. "Them that sin rebuke before all, that others also may fear."-1 Tim. v. 20.

XV. Whether it may be always prudent in the incipient stages of every case of discipline to have open doors, or whether some cases may not require closed doors, are questions referred to human prudence; but in the case of the ultimate decision of the congregation, and in that of exclusion, there can be but one opinion on the necessity and utility of its being done in the presence of all who may please to attend.

CHAPTER XXVII.

EXPEDIENCY.

I. "All things lawful are not expedient, because all things lawful edify not." So Paul substantially affirmed. A position of licentious tendency, if not well qualified. As defined by its author, it is perfectly safe. He only assumed that there were many things which he might lawfully do, which were not expedient for him to do. He might, for example, have married a wife, eat the flesh of either Jewish or Pagan sacrifices, or drunk the wine of their libations, &c. &c. according to the Christian law; but in the circumstances of his peculiar vocation and localities, to have done these things would have been inexpedient.

II. Law itself is, indeed, at best, but an expedient-a means, supposed at the time of its promulgation, suitable to some rational end. But, owing to the mutability of things, laws often fail to be the best means to the ends proposed; and are therefore abolished, or, for the time being, suspended. This is true of all laws and institutions prescribing the modes and forms of action, whether in religion or morality. Moral laws, properly so called, are, indeed, immutable; because the principle of every moral law is love, and that never can cease to be not only a way and means, but the only way and means to rational, to human happiness. Positive precepts, however, prescribing the forms of religious and moral action, emanating from God himself, have been changed, and may again be changed, while all the elements of piety and morality are immutable. It would now, for example, be immoral to marry a natural sister; yet it was for a time done by divine authority. It became inexpedient to continue the practice, and the law was changed.

III. There is, therefore, a law of expediency, as well as the expediency of law. This law of expediency, as it is, indeed, the basis of the expediency of law in the divine government, has been, as in the case of David eating the loaves of the presence, and the priests profaning the Sabbath by the labours of the temple, occasionally elevated above the precepts that prescribe the forms of religious and moral action. True, indeed, that such cases are exceedingly rare;

and they are rare reasoners who can safely decide when any particular precept, prescribing the form of action, may, for the sake of the action itself, be waved or suspended. It is, moreover, exceedingly questionable, whether, under the more perfect institution of Christianity, the law of expediency can ever clash with any moral or religious precept in the new

covenant.

IV. Still there are many things left to the law of expediency, concerning which no precepts are found in the apostolic writings. To ascertain these is the object of this chapter. They are then, in one sentence, those things, or forms of action, which it was impossible, or unnecessary to reduce to special precepts; consequently they are not faith, piety, nor morality; because, whatever is of the faith, of the worship, or of the morality of christianity, was both possible and necessary to be promulgated; and is expressly and fully propounded in the sacred scriptures. The law of expediency, then, has no place in determining the articles of faith, acts of worship, nor principles of morality. All these require a "thus saith the Lord" in express statements, and the sacred writings have clearly defined and decided them. But in other matters that may be called the circumstantials of the gospel and of the church of Christ, the people of God are left to their own discretion and to the facilities and exigencies of society.

V. Many things, indeed, that are of vital importance to the well-being and prosperity of the kingdom of Christ, are left to the law of expediency. A few examples will suffice. Can any one imagine any measures of more consequence than the safe keeping of the apostolic writings, the multiplication of copies, the translation of them into different languages, and the mode of distributing them throughout the whole world? Now who can show a positive or special precept for any one of these four vital points? Scribes or copyists, paper-makers, printers, book-binders, and venders of the oracles of God, are as unknown to the apostolic writers as mails, post-offices, rail-roads, and steam-engines. So negligent, too, has the kingdom of Christ been on some of these points, that she has not at this hour a received сору of the Living Oracles. We American and English people have a received version by authority of a king; but we have not a RECEIVED ORIGINAL by the authority of any king or government, civil or ecclesiastic. A startling fact, truly! But who dares to deny it!

VI. Next to these are meeting-houses, baptisteries, Lord's tables, the emblematic loaf and cup, times of convocation, arrangements for the day, &c. &c. Acts of parliament, decrees of synods and councils, but no apostolic enactments, statutes, or laws, are found for any of these important items. There is neither precept nor precedent in the New Testament for building, hiring, buying, or possessing a meetinghouse; for erecting a baptismal bason, font, or bath; for chancel, altar, table, leavened or unleavened bread, chalice, cup, or tankard, and many other things of equal value.

VII. There is no law, rule, or precedent, for the manner of eating the Lord's supper, no hint as to the quantity of bread and wine to be used by each participant; nothing said about who should partake first, or how it shall be conveyed from one to another. These are all discretionary matters, and left to the prudence and good sense of the Christian communities-in other words, to the law of expediency.

VIII. Touching these, and very many other such matters and things, nothing is enacted, prescribed, or decided by apostolic authority; but all the things to be done are enjoined in very clear and broad precepts, or in very striking and clear apostolic precedents. General laws and precepts, embracing the whole range of religious and moral action, are often found in the sayings of the Lord, and of his ministers of the new institution, from which also our duties and obligations may be clearly ascertained. "That marriage is honourable in all," is clearly taught; but who ever read a verse on the manner in which this most important of all social institutions is to be performed? No age is fixed at which the covenant shall be made or ratified-no time of life prescribed for its consummation-nothing said about who shall perform the service, the formula, the witnesses, the record, &c. And, still more singular, there is no table, or law, or statute in all the new covenant, saying who may, or who may not enter into that relation on any principle of consanguinity or affinity. By the consent of the Christian church the Jewish law obtains in this matter.

IX. The communion of saints, of all Christian churches -the co-operation of churches as one holy nation, a kingdom of priests, as a peculiar people in all common interests and benefits-an efficient gospel ministry, supported justly and honourably by the whole community-are matters clearly and fully taught by both apostolic precept and authority;