present or absent, to repent and submit himself to the discipline of the church.

5. If after all, the person continue impenitent or contu. macious, the presbytery appoints the minister to pray for him publicly in the congregation, and he is to exhort them to join with him in prayer, that God would deal with the soul of the impenitent, and convince him of the evil of his ways. Which prayers of the church, are to be put up three several Sabbath days, a presbytery intervening betwixt each prayer.

6. The scandalous person still continuing impenitent, and making no application or submission, the presbytery is then to appoint the minister to intimate their resolution to proceed upon such a Sabbath as they shall name for pronouncing that dreadful sentence, unless either the party, or some for him, signify some relevant ground to stop the procedure, that so, upon the congregation's tacit consent and acquiescence, the sentence may have its due weight and intended effect.

7. All these slow and several steps of the church's proceedings to this high censure, do shew their tenderness towards their lapsed brother, their earnestness to have him reclaimed, and also to create a greater regard and terror of that dreadful censure, both in the party and all the people. Let not those who deserve it, or upon whom it hath been orderly and justly inflicted, mock and say, parturiunt montes, &c. For whatsoever the church shall so bind on earth, our Lord hath said it shall be bound in heaven, Mat. xviii. 18. And this censure is like a seal to all the threatenings of God in his word, which shall verily be execute against impenitent sinners.

8. The day being come, the minister is to preach a sermon suited to that solemn occasion, concerning the na ture, use, and ends of church censures; then, after the ordinary prayers and praises of the congregation are performed, the minister is to narrate all the steps of the process, shew the obstinate impenitency of the scandalous person, and that now there remained only that mean of cutting him off from the society of the faithful. Then he is to desire the congregation to join with him in prayer,

hat God would grant repentance to the obstinate person, would graciously bless his own ordinance, to be a mean for reclaiming him, and that others may fear.

9. Then immediately after prayer that terrible sentence is to be pronounced, in these or the like words, speaking to him, in the second person, if present, and of him, in the third person, if absent. "Whereas thou N.. hast been by sufficient proof convicted of, (here mention the sin) and after due admonition and prayer, remainest obstinate without any evidence or sign of true repentance. Therefore, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and before this congregation, I pronounce and declare thee N. excommunicated, shut out from the communion of the faithful, debars thee from their privileges, and delivers thee unto Satan for the destruction of thy flesh, that thy spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus."

10. Why the apostle, 1 Cor. v. 5. expresses excommunication by delivering to Satan, may be for this, among other reasons, that Satan is called the God of this, world, as world is taken in opposition to the church of God, so that delivering to him implies no more than that Mat. xviii. 17. if he neglect to hear the church, let him be to thee as an heathen man and publican, thereby letting us know how dreadful a thing it is to be shut out from the ordinary means of grace and salvation, and exposed to the temptations of our grand adversary the devil.

11. If after prayer, or before pronouncing of that sentence, the scandalous person make any public signification of his penitency, and of his desire to have the censure stopped, the minister may, upon any apparent seriousness in him, delay pronouncing him excommunicated, upon his public engagement and promise to appear before the presbytery at their next meeting, of which the minister is to make report, and the presbytery is there. upon to deal with the scandalous person as they shall see

cause.

12. After the pronouncing of this sentence, the minister is to warn the people of the effects thereof, such as, that they hold that person to be cast out of the communion of the church, and therefore they are to shun all un

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necessary converse with him; nevertheless, excommunication dissolveth not the bonds of civil or natural relations. By the act of Assembly 1596, revived Assembly 1638, sess. 23, art. 16, such are appointed to be excommunicated, as will not forbear the company of excommunicated persons. By the 10th of these canons, called Apostolical, "Si quis etiam domi cum excommunicato simul oraverit, is pariter excommunicetur." By As sembly 1643, sess. ult. and Assembly 1648, sess. 38, art. 13, if a minister haunt the company of excommunicated persons, he shall be suspended for the first fault, and deprived for the second, unless he have licence from the presbytery, or else the excommunicated person be in extremis. No civil penalty, such as escheat of moveables or caption, doth now follow upon this sentence, so that the liberty and estates of church members are not endangered by it, nor do they depend upon church-men. But upon a presbytery's representation to the privy council, against persons that are contumacious, such may not expect to enjoy their places, or be intrusted with any, as the last act made against profaneness in King William's reign doth insinuate. By James VI. Parl. 11. cap. 27, excommunicate persons are to be charged by the minister to depart from the church in time of ministration of sacraments and prayer, and not to disobey, under the penalties therein mentioned.

13. The minister is to conclude this censure with prayer to this purpose, that God, who hath appointed this terrible sentence for removing of offences, and reducing of obstinate sinners, would ratify in heaven, what in his name, and by his warrant, hath now been done on earth, and that the shutting him out of the church may fill him with fear and shame, break his obstinate heart, and be a mean to destroy the flesh, and recover from the power of the devil, that his spirit may yet be saved, and also that others may be stricken with fear, and not dare to sin so presumptuously, or contemn the authority and voice of his church. See Knox's Forms, prefixed to the old Psalms. Then the congregation is to be dismissed

with the blessing, after singing the last part of the 101st Psalm.

14. The 4th art. cap. 30. of our Confession of Faith saith, that for the better attaining the ends of church censures, the officers of the church are to proceed by admonition and suspension from the sacrament of the Lord's supper for a time, and by excommunication from the church. The difference then betwixt these two censures is; suspension from the Lord's supper, which imports that the person so censured is in imminent danger of being excommunicated and cut off from the church; but before that heavy and finishing stroke be inflicted, there are further means to be used, such as prayers and admonitions, in order to his reclaiming, 2d Thess. iii. 6. 14. 15. “Now we command you brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye withdraw yourselves from every brother that walketh disorderly and if any man obey not our word by this epistle, note that man, and have no company with him, that he may be ashamed, yet count him not as an enemy, but admonish him as a brother." Whereas, when a person is cut off by that high censure, he is to be looked on as a heathen man, Matth. xviii. 17. upon which the church ceaseth to be his reprover, they giving him over for dead or desperate, and will administer no more of the medicine of church discipline unto him, 1 Cor. xii. 13. "For what hath the church to do to judge them that are without? Do not they judge them that are within? But them that are without, God judgeth."

15. Persons guilty of relapse in adultery, or who are often guilty of other gross scandals, are to be more summarily excommunicate than in ordinary processes, both for the heinousness of the sin, and for terror to others. See sess. 38. Assem. 1648. There is no excommunication absolutely summary, that is, without previous citations, admonitions and prayers, but it is comparatively summary, because they are not first suspended, as in ordinary church procedures against scandalous persons. I am sure, where there is no obdurate contumacy, but on the contrary, edifying signs of true repentance, to such sinus ecclesia semper patet: for the repentance of the greatest sinners

is more edifying and grateful than their excommunication; and if the Holy One of Israel, who is absolute and sovereign in bestowing of his mercy and grace to whom and when he will, shall think fit, by giving unfeigned repentance to that notour atrocious sinner, to signify his forgiving of him, and receiving him into his favour; how dare any church upon earth presume to deliver such a person unto Satan?

16. In case the excommunicate person continue obstinate, after the sentence of the presbytery is intimated in all the kirks within their bounds, they are to give an account thereof to the synod, who are to appoint intimation thereof to be made in all the kirks of their bounds; and if need be, the synod is to bring the case to the Assembly, that the sentence may be intimate through all the churches of the kingdom. Assembly 1704. sess. 10. Assembly 1648. August 10. Only let this be remembered, that if he come to be absolved, justice be done him, in causing the absolution be intimate, wherever the excommunication had been, so the plaister will be proportioned to the sore.

17. There is in the canon law a church censure which they call Interdictum, by which they excommunicate whole kingdoms and provinces for the fault of some, whereby they make the innocent suffer with the guilty, through the forbidding the public exercise of God's worship in that kingdom, place, or province. They have a particular Interdictum by which they excommunicate a number of persons specially designed. By the first of these the inhabitants are only affected and reached with its censure during their abode or residence in the place interdicted. But the particular Interdict doth reach and follow the particular persons thereby censured, wherever they sojourn.

18. Calderwood in his History, page 205, tells us, that anathematization is a censure of an higher degree than excommunication, but the reformed churches generally esteem excommunication to be Severissima disciplina, et ultimum fulmen ecclesiæ; and in the 16th sect. art. 1. of the Directory for church government, as it was