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But that the

and circumstances which are peculiar to it. principle of disloyalty is such that it may involve an ecclesiastical offence by the word of God, is beyond doubt; and it is only to the principle that we now give any consideration.

REASONS FOUNDED ON REVELATION.

The doctrine we maintain arises inevitably from the nature and duty of obedience to the civil authority. The nature of the obedience enjoined is religious. It has God's highest sanctions. To violate the injunction is sin. Sin is to be removed by inculcating truth; and when it breaks out in open acts of scandal, it may be met by ecclesiastical supervision, trial, and censure. This is the case with every grade and kind of offence which affects private or public morals, or the welfare of society, or the influence and good name of religion among men.

Disloyalty is no exception to this. Open disobedience to rulers, when it manifests itself in disturbing or threatening the peace of society, or aims or connives at resistance to lawful authority, or subverting the Government, is a sin and a scandal by the word of God; and if committed by a member of the Church, he may be arraigned and punished for it as clearly as for any other scandal. If not, why not? Is it because this is a civil offence, and punishable by the State? So is arson, so is murder, so is fraud; and yet, will a man pretend that one may burn down his neighbor's house, or take his life in cold blood, or cheat him out of his property, and not be disturbed by the Church, because the State may take cognizance of these. offences? This is in the highest degree preposterous. Nor is it enough that the State does actually punish for these crimes; the Church may also inflict censure for them, in the same case, in the person of the same indi

vidual on whom the State has inflicted its highest sentence. It would be a singular spectacle to behold a man incarcerated justly as a civil penalty for forgery, and yet the Church take no action, and he, in consequence, remain in good standing, on the ground that he was already suffering punishment from the State. Nor, on the other hand, is the Church to be governed or limited by the State in such cases. The State is not infallible. A man may be punished unjustly. If the victim of tyranny, or prejudice, or ignorance, or incompetency, be a member of the Church, the whole case may be ecclesiastically considered and decided, notwithstanding the State may have acted upon it. The Church is not bound in such case by what the State has done, so far as to be debarred an adjudication; and if, in her judgment, her member is oppressed, she may so declare. She may consider the testimony, conduct the case by her own rules of proceeding, and come to a decision independent of the State and contrary to its judgment. She cannot release from prison, nor restore to life, but she may place the man in good standing within her pale, and show the most clear reasons, it may be, for her decision; and in nothing of this does she show the least insubordination or disrespect towards the civil authority, but may be entirely submissive to it. All this arises from the fact that the respective jurisdictions of the Church and the State, though embracing the same persons and covering the same offences, have different spheres to fill, and different ends to serve, in their cogniz ance of the same conduct.

SPIRITUAL JURISDICTION BROADER THAN CIVIL.

But the difference between these separate ruling powers does not stop here. The spiritual jurisdiction is both deeper and broader than the civil. It embraces offences

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which the latter does not touch; and in those which the civil power does consider, there are moral elements which the spiritual power alone deems important. There are a multitude of offences, any one of which, habitually committed, would destroy a man's standing in the Church, and upon trial would cast him out of it; and yet, though guilty of all of them, his good standing before the laws of the land would not be affected. And there are grades of the same radical offence which the Church holds to be stamped with guilt, but which the State overlooks. A man may be guilty of "perjury," and the State will punish him; but all false swearing, or false statements under oath, are not "legal perjury." But by the laws which regulate ecclesiastical discipline, lying, deception, falsehood, all which enter into the moral elements of perjury, -are themselves offences which the Church may consider, whether committed under oath or not. A variety of hearings and pleadings in almost any case before a Church court, which a civil court would not consider, or would rule out entirely, may be deemed important, and may be decisive of the result which is reached. The principle here involved is of the highest moment. The jurisdiction of the Church, as embracing a man's conduct, or as cognizant of any act of his life, reaches where the State cannot go, because its rule is spiritual, and deals primarily with the heart and conscience; and although in actual discipline the Church deals only with acts, there are classes of actions and elements of conduct which are deemed proper for its consideration which do not come within the civil statute.

This may be illustrated in regard to the offence of disloyalty. Who will pretend to say, that, because a man may not have committed "treason" in the technical sense of the statute, he may not have been actually guilty of it before the law of God? or that, because there may not be

ground for prosecution before a civil court for that offence, it therefore follows necessarily that there cannot be ground for charges before a spiritual court? To decide that there cannot be, is to decide that the Church must simply follow in the wake of the State; to take the position that only offences of the same nature belong to both; to confound the jurisdictions, which are distinct, into one; to join together what God has forever separated. Any person may be safely challenged to point out where such a position is sustained by the word of God. It is, therefore, a totally erroneous doctrine to maintain that the Church cannot go beyond the State in inquiring into this or any other alleged offence; or that either is precluded, within its own proper sphere, from canvassing an offence against its own law, by reason of what the other may have done or not done.

DISLOYALTY ACTUALLY CONDEMNED BY THE CHURCH.

Passing from these abstract principles, we find that the Church has sustained them in its actual practice. Nothing is better settled in its whole history. Disobedience to the civil authority, disloyalty, treason, and misprision of treason, have always been treated as ecclesiastical offences. This is shown in the records of every Church. Members have been excommunicated, and ministers have been deposed, for such offences by the Church; and they have also, for the same crimes, been punished by the State. These things have occurred, as is well known, in every country in Christendom.

Sometimes they have occurred in times of quiet, but most commonly in times of civil war. We say nothing upon the merits of any particular case. Great injustice may sometimes have been done in ecclesiastical convictions for disloyalty; while, on the other hand, no doubt, some men

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may have gone "unwhipt of justice" by the Church, as some will go hereafter. All we are seeking is the sanction of the principle, and we find that abundantly sustained in the history of the Church.

Several of the leading denominations at the North, during our present civil war, have acted on the right and duty of the Church to discipline their members, and especially their ministers, for disloyalty. In some instances they have censured, suspended, or silenced them. We know nothing of the merits of these special cases, but they illustrate the principle, that disloyalty is deemed to be an offence within the proper cognizance of the Church. The secular prints, in some cases, and at least one "religious" journal, have made a great outery that such proceedings were a violation of the Church's spiritual principles, and an interference with the rights of the citizen. But all such outbursts are senseless, stupid, silly, and have no other importance than that they give "aid and comfort" to rebels in arms against the Government. The Church has as clear a jurisdiction over its ministers and members, touching loyalty and disloyalty, as over their conduct touching drunkenness or profanity.

PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH.-DR. MOPHEETERS.

One of the most noted cases, of recent occurrence, by which the doctrine for which we contend has been illustrated by an actual adjudication, is that of the Rev. Samuel B. McPheeters, D. D., Pastor of the Pine Street Presbyterian Church in St. Louis, Missouri. It was decided in the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church, at Newark, New Jersey, in May last. The trial lasted several days, and the decision was given after a full discussion, in which Dr. McPheeters and a large number of members of the Assembly participated.