These Sections teach —

1st. As to the nature and extent of the power conferred upon the Church of admitting and excluding from the fold, and of disciplining its members.

2d. As to the ends of this discipline.

3d. As to the methods through which it should be administered.

All Church power must be exercised in an orderly manner through the officers spoken of above, freely chosen for this purpose by the brethren ; and it relates— " 1. To matters of doctrine. She has a right to set forth a public declaration of the truths which she believes, and which are to be acknowledged by dll who enter her communion. That is, she has a right to frame creeds or confessions of faith, as her testimony for the truth and her protest against error. And as she has been commissioned to teach all nations, she has the right of selecting teachers, of judging of their fitness, of ordaining and sending them forth into the field, and of recalling and deposing them when unfaithful. 2. The Church has pow<^r to set down rules for the ordering of public worship 3. She has power to make rules for

her own government; such as every Church has in its book of discipline, constitution or canons, etc. 4. She ha^ power to receive into fellowship, and to exclude the unworthy from her own communion." *

This last power is commonly styled " the power of the keys ;'^ i. e. of opening and closing the doors of the Church, of admitting or excluding from sealing ordinances. Matt. xvi. 19. In view of two unquestionable facts — (a) to forgive sin is an incommunicable attribute of God and Christ ; (b) God has given to no class of men the faculty of absolutely discriminating the good from the bad — it follows that the Church power of opening and shutting, of binding and loosing, spoken of in Matt. xvi. 19 and in the second Section of this Chapter, is purely ministerial and declarative. Church censures declare simply what is, to the best of their knowledge, in the opinion of the church officers pronouncing them, the mind and will of Christ in the case. And they have direct binding effect only in so far as the relations of the person censured to the visible Church is concerned. They can have effect upon the relations of the censured to God and to Christ only in so far as they represent the will of Christ in the case, and because they do.

The ends of Church discipline are declared to be — (a.) The purity of the Church, and hence the glory and approbation of God. (6.) The recovery of the erring brother himself (c.) The force of example to deter others from like sin. (d.) The exhibition of righteous- •less and fidelity to principle presented to the world vithout.

The better to attain all these ends, for which the dis- * " What is Presbyterianism?" Rev. C. Hodge, D. D.

cipline is intended, the church officers should — (1.) Proceed in a regular order to administer discipline, using, according to their character, first all means of moral reclamation before they proceed to absolute exclusion. The proper method of procedure, under all circumstances, is plainly stated in the " Book of Discipline," which forms part of the Confession of Faith of our Church. The successive stages of discipline there unfolded are — (a) private admonition, (6) public admonition, (c) suspension, (d) excommunication,

(2.) The discipline should be wisely and justly proportioned " to the nature of the crime and demerit of the person."

In opposition to the Erastians, who assign the power of inflicting the censures of the Church to the civil magistrate, our Confession here affirms, that the keys of the kingdom of heaven are committed to the officers whom Christ has appointed in his Church. " I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven," said Christ to Peter, " and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven." — Matt. xvi. 19. By " the keys of the kingdom of heaven," we are to understand the power and authority of exercising government and discipline in the Church; in virtue of which, those intrusted with these keys have power to "bind and loose," by inflicting and removing censures; and their proceedings, when conducted agreeably to Scripture, are ratified in heaven. Presbyterians maintain that these keys were given to Peter, as an apostle and elder; and, therefore, that the gift extends to all the apostles, and after them, to all ordinary elders, to the end of time. The same thing that is expressed in the above passage by binding and loosing, is elsewhere expressed by remitting and retaining sins. But Christ addressed these words to all the apostles : " Peace be unto you ; as the Father hath sent me, so send I you. Whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained." — John xx. 21, 23. It is true that this power is ascribed to the Church : " Tell it unto the Church," &c. (Matt, xviii. 17); but by the Church, in this passage, is to be understood the rulers or elders of the Church; and this text further confirms the doctrine of our Confession, that the power of discipline is committed solely to the office-bearers of the Church. The Church and the State may take up the same cases, but under a different consideration; it is only when viewed as crimes

306 CONFESSION OF FAIliI. [^CHAP. XXXI.

against the State that they come under the cognizance of civil rulers, and are to be punished with civil pains; viewed as scandals against religious society, they come under the cognizance of the rulers of the Church, and can only be removed by ecclesiastical censures.

Church censures are necessary for vindicating the honour of Clirist and his religion — maintaining the purity of his worship — reclaiming offenders — deterring others from the like offences — removing contagion from the Church — and pj-eventing the wrath of God, which might justly fall upon the Church, if they should suffer the seals of his covenant to be profaned by notorious and obstinate offenders.

The censures of the Church are spiritual in their nature and effects. They are appointed by Christ for the benefit of offenders, and have a tendency, as means, to promote their recovery, and not their destruction. As offences differ in degi*ees of guilt and circumstances of aggravation, the Church is to proceed according to the nature and degree of the offence committed. In some cases a simple admonition will suffice. — Tit. iii. 10. A greater degree of guilt will call for a rebuke, solemnly administered in the name of Jesus Christ. — Tit. i. 13; 1 Tim. v. 20. Scandals of greater magnitude will reqviire the suspension of the offender from the sacrament of the Lord's supper for a season. — 2 Thess. iii. 14. This is called the lesser excommunication; and the highest censure which the Church has the power to inflict is called tlie greater excommunioation. — Matt, xviii. 17. We have an example in the case of the incestuous man, who was delivered " unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit might be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus." — 1 Cor. v. 5. It does not, according to the Popish notion, consist in literally delivering up the offender to the devil, but in casting him out of the Church into the world, which is described in Scripture as Satan's kingdom.