CHAPTER V.

DISCIPLINE BY THE CHURCHES.

THE discipline of the apostolical churches was administered by each body of believers collectively; and continued to be under their control until the third or fourth century. About this period the simple and efficient discipline of the primitive church was exchanged for a complicated and oppressive system of penance administered by the clergy. But the church itself possesses the only legitimate authority for the administration of discipline. Its members form a voluntary association. They have the right to enact their own laws, and to prescribe such conditions of membership with themselves, as they may judge expedient and agreeable to the word of God. The right to administer ecclesiastical discipline was guaranteed to the churches from their first organization under the apostles; but was finally lost by the usurpation of the priesthood under the Episcopal hierarchy.

I. The right to administer ecclesiastical discipline was originally vested in the church itself.

The argument in support of this proposition is derived: 1. From the Scriptures.

2. From the early Fathers.

3. From the authority of modern ecclesiastical writers.

4. From the fact, that the entire government of the church was vested in that body itself.

1. The argument from Scripture.

Our Lord himself is generally supposed to teach, in Matt. 18: 15-18, that the public discipline of offenders should be administered by the authority of the church.

These instructions are understood to have been given prospectively, and to contain the rules by which the discipline of the Christian church should be administered. But whether given prospectively, with reference to the Christian church which was about to be established, or designed to exhibit the proper mode of procedure in the discipline of the Jewish synagogue, they doubtless develope the principle on which ecclesiastical censure should be conducted under the Christian dispensation. Vitringa has clearly shown that the directions of our Lord, in this instance, accord with the established usage of the synagogue, which, as we have already seen, was the pattern of the primitive church, both in its government and forms of worship. He has shown, fully, that this sentence was to be pronounced in accordance with a popular vote in public assembly; and that the same course of procedure was to be the rule of the Christian church. The church therefore, like the synagogue, is the ecclesiastical court of impeachment for the trial of offences. If private remonstrance proves ineffectual, the case is to be brought before the church convened in public assembly; to be adjudged by a public vote of that body, after the manner of the Jewish synagogue.

This rule of discipline was also established in the Christian church by apostolical authority.

We have on record one instance of a trial before the church which was instituted by the command of the apostle Paul, and conducted throughout agreeably to his instructions. A Christian convert in Corinth, and a member of

1 Vitringa, De Synagoga Vet. Lib. 3. p. 1. c. 9. Augusti, Denkwürdigkeiten, IX. S. 43. seq. Pfaff, De Originibus Juris Eccles.

the church which had recently been established in that city, had maintained an incestuous connexion with his father's wife. This shocking sin, unexampled even among the Gentiles, the apostle rebukes with righteous abhorrence. The transgressor ought to be put away from among them; and, uniting with them as if present in their assembly convened for the purpose, Paul resolves to deliver him unto Satan, in the name, and with the power of the Lord Jesus Christ, i. e., by the help and with the authority of the Lord, 1 Cor. 5: 3-5.

Upon this passage we remark:

(a) The decision was not an official act of the apostle, a sentence pronounced by his authority alone. It was the act of the church. Absent in body, but present in spirit with them when assembled together, the apostle pronounces his decision as if acting and co-operating with them. By this parenthetic sentence, "When ye are gathered together, and my spirit," he indicates the intervention and co-operation of the church in the sentence pronounced upon the transgressor. "The apostle," says De Wette,2 "qualifies the earnestness with which he speaks in the third verse, by reference, first, to the authority of Christ, and secondly, to the co-operation of the church; agreeably to the republican spirit of ancient Christianity, personating himself as present in spirit in their assembly." Such also is Neander's interpretation of the passage. "When the apostle speaks of an excommunication from the church, he regards himself as united in spirit with the whole church, 1 Cor. 5: 4, setting forth the rule, that their action is requisite in all such concerns of general interest."" Even in this very chapter, he refuses to be himself the judge in such cases, submitting them to the church themselves. "What have I to do to judge them

2 Comment. ad locum.

3 Allgem. Gesch. I. S. 292. Comp. S. 350. Apost. Kirch. I. pp. 319, 320.

that are without?" i. e., men of the world, "Do not ye judge them that are within ?" i. e., members of the church. "But them that are without God judgeth," zpíva, or rather xoivat, will judge, which is the approved reading. "Therefore put away from among yourselves that wicked person," vs. 12, 13. The severe censure with which the apostle reflects upon the Corinthians for tolerating the offender so long, shows that the responsibility rested with them. They should have put away this offence from among them.4 But if it was wholly the act of the apostle, why censure them for neglecting to do that which they had no right or authority to do? Are the members of the Episcopal church to be blamed for the general neglect of discipline in their communion, while the clergy have the sole power of administering that discipline? Neither could the Corinthians deserve censure, unless they had authority to administer the discipline which they had neglected. Both here, and in 2 Cor. 2: 3-11, the apostle refers distinctly to their neglect in this matter.

Again, in 2 Cor. 2: 6, he speaks of the excommunication as the act of the church. The punishment was inflicted, vnò ræv nhatóvoor, "of many," i. e., by the many, the majority. Bilroth paraphrases this in connection with the preceding verse, as follows: "Whether he, or the offender, have caused grief to me, comes not into consideration. It is not that I must suffer for him, but you; at least, a part of you; for I will not be unjust, and charge you all with having been indifferent concerning his transgressions. Paul proceeds still further, v. 6; he calls those who had reprehended the transgressor, the majority, who had condemned his vice and been grieved by it."

Once more, the apostle does not himself restore the transgressor, now penitent for his sin; but exhorts the Corinthians to do it. But if the church had themselves the authority

4 Mosheim, Institutiones Majores, P. II. c. 3. § 14.

to receive him again to their communion, had they not also the right of censure? "The punishment which they had extended over him, by excluding him from their communion, is declared to be sufficient, since he had reformed himself, (on ixavóv, see Winer, p. 297). The apostle himself, therefore, proposes, v. 7, that they should again treat him in a friendly manner, and comfort him, in order that he might not be worn away by over-much grief."5 In v. 10, again, he signifies his readiness to assent to their decisions; whom they forgive, he forgives also, and because they had forgiven him.

(b) This sentence was an actual excommunication; not a judicial visitation analogous to that upon Simon Magus, Acts 13: 11. By this sentence he was removed from the church of Christ, and reduced to his former condition as a heathen man. This, according to the most approved commentators, is the full meaning of the phrase, παραδοῦναι τῷ Σατανά. The world, in the angelology of the Jews, and agreeably to the Scriptures, comprises two great divisions; the kingdom of Christ and the kingdom of Satan. By this sentence of excommunication, the incestuous person is transferred from the visible kingdom of our Lord, to the dominion of Satan, and in this sense delivered unto him.

(c) The ultimate object of this discipline was the reformation of the offender; the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus. It was not a penance, an arbitrary, prelatical infliction of pains and penalties, but a disciplinary process for the spiritual benefit of the individual.

(d) It is questionable, perhaps, whether the sentence was accompanied with the judicial infliction of any disease whatMany of the most respectable commentators understand, by the delivering "to Satan, for the destruction of the flesh," the visitation of some wasting malady. The phrase

ever.

5 Bilroth, Comment, ad locum.