firmed in Heaven? If so, what advantage will a sinner get by going to another society, if after all JESUS CHRIST shall confirm the sentence of his former Pastor? And for want of being recon. ciled by Him, shall shut him out of Heaven?

• It is true our Lord hath not given us any power to compel men by outward force, either to come into, or to continue in His Church; but will people for this reason despise the power which CHRIST has given us? They will hardly do so, if they know what St. Paul hath said upon this: "The weapons we use," saith he,

are not carnal, but mighty through GoD1;" that is, GoD can humble the stoutest sinner, and make the power of His ministers effectual, when they use their power for His glory, and according to His will.

You see, good Christians, that we take upon us no authority but what CHRIST has given us; what His Apostles exercised, and what we are bound by our most solemn vows to exercise.

Every Bishop, for instance, at his consecration, solemnly promises, that he will correct and punish disobedient and criminous persons within his diocese, according to such authority as he has by GOD's word'. What authority he has by God's Word, you have already heard and all serious Christians must acknowledge, that we should become adversaries to ourselves, to our Church, and our country, if we should suffer CHRIST's discipline to fall into decay, while we are warranted and bound both by the laws of GOD and this land, to exercise it; especially when vices of this kind begin to grow upon us.

Only let us take care that we use this authority as the Apostle directs, for edification, and not for destruction 3.

And if we must be forced to shut this unhappy person out of the Church, let it be with the same compassion and reluctancy that a father turns his rebellious son out of his house, not with a design that he should starve and be lost for ever; but that being made sensible of the misery of being out of his father's house, he

1 2 Cor. x. 4.

2 See Consecration Service.

32 Cor. x. 8. See too the Service for the Consecration of Bishops, in the Prayer just before Consecration.

may more earnestly desire to return and be received into favour, and become a more dutiful child for the time to come.

God has infinite expedients to bring back sinners that are gone away from Him. We know how the prodigal son was brought to a sense of his condition by the miseries he met with when he was from under his father's care. How David's eyes were opened by a parable. How Manasseh became an instance of repentance, when in bonds 3. And we should not despair, but be confident rather that GOD will bless his own institutions in the hands of us His ministers, for the good of all such persons as draw these censures upon themselves. And it will be far from being severity to them, if by these means they may be brought to a sense of their evil condition, and “their souls saved in the day of the LORD JESUS 4."

This is the design of Church censures; and that they may have this good effect, the Apostle has given directions to all Christians' not to accompany with such, that they may be ashamed. And our holy Church in her Articles, as you will find it in the thirtythird Article of the Church of England, has declared in these words: That person which by open denunciation of the Church is rightly cut off from the unity of the Church, and excommunicated, ought to be taken of the whole multitude of the faithful, as a heathen and publican, until he be openly reconciled by penance, and received into the Church by a judge that hath authority there

unto.

Pursuant to which Article, the Church, in the eighty-fifth Canon, appoints, That all persons excommunicated, and so denounced, be kept out of the church by the churchwardens.

And in the sixty-fifth Canon, directs, That all such as stand lawfully excommunicated, shall every six months be openly denounced and declared excommunicate; that others may be thereby admonished to refrain their company and society, &c.

As for any temporal penalties or incapacities which an excommunicate person may be exposed to; these do not properly belong

1 Luke xv. 17.

32 Chron. xxxiii. 12.

2 2 Sam. xii. 1, &c.

4 1 Cor. v. 5.

5 2 Thess. iii. 6. 14.

to the Church; they are no part of our sentence; they are altogether in the hands of the civil magistrate. Our sentence is purely spiritual; it is the sentence of JESUS CHRIST, and only concerns the good of the souls of those He has committed to our care. It is part of that ministry which we received by the imposition of hands, and which we most humbly pray God to enable us to exercise to His glory, to the putting a stop to the growing vices of the age, and to the edification of the Church of Christ, which He has purchased with His blood'. Amen.

THE SENTENCE.

It is with great reluctancy, GOD is our witness, and after many prayers to God for their conversion, that we proceed to this last remedy which CHRIST has appointed for the conversion of sinners.

But we hope you are not shut out, that you may ever remain out of the Church; but that you may become sensible of your errors, and return with more zeal to your Heavenly Father.

In the mean time we must do our duty, and leave the event to GOD.

In the name of JESUS CHRIST, and by the authority which we have received from Him, we separate you from the communion of the Church, which He has purchased with His blood, and which is the society of all faithful people; and you are no longer a member of His body, or of His kingdom, until you be openly reconciled by penance, and received into the Church by a judge that hath authority so to do.

When Persons excommunicated are received back into the

Church.

I, an unworthy minister of JESUS CHRIST, by the same authority and power, even that of our LORD JESUS CHRIST; by which for thy obstinacy, and other crimes, thou hast been excluded from the communion of CHRIST'S Holy Church: By the same power,

1 Acts xx. 28.

I do now release thee from that bond of excommunication, according to the confession now made by thee before God and this Church; and do restore thee again unto the communion of the Church of CHRIST: beseeching the ALMIGHTY to give thee His grace, that thou mayest continue a worthy member of the same unto thy life's end, through JESUS CHRIST Our LORD. Amen.

OXFORD,

The Feast of St. John the Baptist.

[SECOND EDITION.]

These Tracts are published Monthly, and sold at the price of 2d. for each sheet, or 7s. for 50 copies.

LONDON: PRINTED FOR J. G. & F. RIVINGTON,

ST. PAUL'S CHURCH YARD, AND WATERLOO PLACE.

1839.

GILBERT & RIVINGTON, Printers, St. John's Square, London.

TRACTS FOR THE TIMES.

VIA MEDIA.

No. I.

Laicus.-Will you listen to a few free questions from one who has not known you long enough to be familiar with you without apology? I am struck by many things I have heard you say, which show me that, somehow or other, my religious system is incomplete; yet at the same time the world accuses you of Popery, and there are seasons when I have misgivings whither you are carrying me.

Clericus. I trust I am prepared, most willing I certainly am, to meet any objections you have to bring against doctrines which you have heard me maintain. Say more definitely what the charge against me is.

L. That your religious system, which I have heard some persons style the Apostolical, and which I so name by way of designation, is like that against which our forefathers protested at the Reformation.

C. I will admit it, i. e. if I may reverse your statement, and say, that the Popish system resembles it. Indeed, how could it be otherwise, seeing that all corruptions of the truth must be like the truth which they corrupt, else they would not persuade mankind to take them instead of it?

L. A bold thing to say, surely; to make the earlier system an imitation of the later!

C. A bolder, surely, to assume that mine is the later, and the Popish the earlier. When think you that my system (so to call it) arose ?-not with myself?

L. Of course not; but whatever individuals have held it in our Church since the Reformation, it must be acknowledged that they have been but few, though some of them doubtless eminent

men.

C. Perhaps you would say (i. e. the persons whose views you are representing), that at the reformation, the stain of the old theology was left among us, and has shown itself in its measure ever since, as in the poor, so again in the educated classes ;