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    to watch over them ; to reprove and exhort them ; to endeavour to correct their irregularities and supply their deficiencies by all prndent measures ; but if these cannot be done , they must be left to the decision of the supreme judge . The members of the church have performed their ditty

    further they could not consistently proceed . T ©» separate persons who come under this predicament from their fellowship would not be warrantable , since their irregularities and deficiencies are not of the kind that can reasonably be con-, sidered , as identifying those who are in religious profession with them * as the adherents of doctrines and modes of

    worship , which are ., in their own nature ,, indulgent to vicious practice * A member of a Christian society may be judged covetous , which is the instance your correspondent brings forward , but the proof of this , from the nature of the case * is not of a public and decisive kind . He may have pressing demands for his money in channels , with which few

    may be acquainted ; he may lay out more than is commonly known in acts of private benevolence and charity . Another raay be thought to be profuse and extravagant ; to indulge himself and his family in articles of luxury and scenes of amusement , neither suited to his situation in the

    world nor his station in the church . A third may be inclined to paroxynas of anger ; or to habitual sullenness and moroseness ; or to indiscreet levity and , gaiety . l > id those who are immediately in religious association with persons of these different characters know and do their duty ^ they would ^ without doubt ., in the spirit of meekness and love , labbuF to correct and improve them ; but still their imperfections are not of the kind which demand , for the causes before

    specified , as flagrant immoralities do , their being excluded iroin the fellowship of the church . I would briefly remark on the subject of the Lord ' s supper , that amongst most sects of modern christians ^ too great stress is laid on the participation of it , as the principal nexus or link of union ; and therefore to refuse a

    person assisting with them in that nte ^ is deemed the most direct and eligible mode of separating an unworthy member from them . It ought however to be considered , according to the primitive ideas relating : to discipline , that he who is so

    unhappy as to be separated from the communion ot the church , is not to be viewed as having right of participation with it in any other of its solemn ana devotional acts . He may indeed be present ^ if he chuse , at the performance

    Untitled Article

    41 & Defence of Church Discipline

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Aug. 2, 1807, page 418, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2383/page/22/