An Objection Answered.

trembling. I rejoice, therefore, that I have confidence in you in all things,” 2 Corinthians 7. And with respect to the person who has caused us so much distress, “Sufficient to such a man is this punishment, which was inflicted of many. So that now ye ought rather to forgive him, and comfort him, lest perhaps such a one should be swallowed up with overmuch sorrow. Wherefore, I beseech you, that ye would confirm your love toward him. To whom ye forgive any thing, I forgive also: Nay, I have already forgiven him for your sakes, as in the presence of Christ,” 2 Corinthians 2:6-10. Great God! appoint over thy flock vigilant, charitable, and courageous pastors, who may discern the sinner through all his deceitful appearances, and separate him from thy peaceful fold, whether he be an unclean goat or a ravenous wolf. Permit not thy ministers to confound the just with the unjust, rendering contemptible the most sacred mysteries, by admitting to them persons with whom virtuous heathens would blush to converse. Touch the hearts of those pastors who harden thy rebellious people, by holding out tokens of thy favour to those who are the objects of thy wrath: and permit no longer the bread of life, which they carelessly distribute to all who choose to profane it, to become in their unhallowed hands the bread of death. Discover to them the impiety of offering their holy things to the dogs: and awaken in them a holy fear of becoming accomplices with those hypocritical monsters, who press into thy temple to crucify thy Son afresh; and who, by a constant profanation of the symbols of our holy faith, add to their other abominations the execrable act of eating and drinking their own damnation, and that with as much composure as some among them swallow down the intoxicating draught, or utter the most impious blasphemies.

AN OBJECTION ANSWERED.

BEFORE we proceed to the consideration of another trait of the character of St. Paul, it will be necessary to refute an objection to which the preceding trait may appear liable. “Dare you,” it may be asked, “propose to us as a model, a man who could strike Elymas with blindness, and deliver up to Satan the body of a sinner?”

ANSWER. The excellent motive, and the happy success of the apostle’s conduct in both these instances, entirely justify him. He considered affliction not only as the crucible in which God is frequently pleased to purify the just, but as the last remedy to be employed for the restoration of obstinate sinners. Behold the reason why the charity of the primitive Church demanded, in behalf of God, that the rod should not be spared, when the impiety of men was no longer able to be restrained by gentler means: determining, that it was far better to be brought to repentance, even by the sharpest sufferings, than to live and die in a sinful state. To exercise this high degree of holy and charitable severity toward a sinner, was, in some mysterious manner, “to deliver up his body to Satan,” who was looked upon as the executioner of God’s righteous vengeance in criminal cases. Thus Satan destroyed the first-born in Egypt, smote the subjects of David with the pestilence, and cut off the vast army of Sennacherib. St. John has thrown some light upon this profound mystery by asserting, “There is a sin unto death,” 1 John 5:16: and the case of Ahab is fully in point; for when that king had committed this sin, a spirit of error received immediate orders to lead him forth to execution upon the plains of Ramoth-Gilead, 1 Kings 22:20, 22. This awful doctrine is farther confirmed by St. Luke, when he relates, that in the same instant, when the people, in honour of Herod, “gave a shout, saying, It is the voice of a god and not of a man, the angel of the Lord smote him, because he gave not God the glory: and he was eaten up of worms, and gave up the ghost,” Acts 12:22, 28. The punishment thus inflicted, by the immediate order of God, was always proportioned to the nature of the offence. If the sin was “not unto death,” it was followed by some temporary affliction, as in the cases of Elymas and the incestuous Corinthian. If the crime committed was of such a nature that the death of the sinner became necessary, either for the salvation of his soul, for the reparation of his crime, or to alarm those who might probably be corrupted by his pernicious example, he was then either smitten with some incurable disease, as in the case of Herod; or struck with immediate death, as in the case of Ananias and Sapphira, who sought to veil their hypocrisy with appearances of piety, and their double-dealing with a lie. Had M. Voltaire considered the Christian Church as a well-regulated species of theocracy, he would have seen the folly of his whole reasoning with respect to the authority of that Church in its primitive state. And convinced that God has a much greater right to pronounce, by his ministers, a just sentence of corporal punishment, and even death itself, than any temporal prince can claim to pronounce such sentence by his officers: that daring philosopher, instead of pointing his sarcasms against an institution so reasonable and holy, would have been constrained to tremble before the Judge of all the earth.

Finally. It is to be observed, that when this kind of jurisdiction was exercised in the Church, the followers of Christ, not having any magistrates of their own religion, lived under the government of those heathenish rulers, who tolerated those very crimes which were peculiarly offensive to the pure spirit of the Gospel. And on this account God was pleased to permit the most eminent among his people, on some extraordinary occasions, to exercise that terrible power, which humbled the offending Church of Corinth, and overthrew the sorcerer Elymas in his wicked career. If it be inquired, What would become of mankind, were the clergy of this day possessed of the extraordinary power of St. Paul? We answer, The terrible manner in which St. Paul sometimes exercised the authority he had received, with respect to impenitent sinners, is not left as an example to the ecclesiastics of the present day, unless they should come (which is almost impossible) into similar circumstances, and attain to equal degrees of discernment, faith, and charity, with this apostle himself.