on certain fixed rules, the violation of which may be their destruction. On the other hand, the existence of a voluntary association depends solely on the will of its members: so long as that remains unchanged the body endures. Still the law may take from its members the civil rights exercised through its instrumentality; may confer them all upon another body, declaring the attribute of legal succession to be in the latter. This, however, would not deprive the other of any particle of its capacity: the machine would remain the

same.

Suppose an individual were to withdraw from an ecclesiastical society, taking with him the whole of its funds-funds in which he had only an equal interest with each other member-could any one doubt whether a court of justice would compel him to make restitution of all, at least excepting his own share? Would the objection that such an exercise of power might prevent persons withdrawing themselves, though they could not conscientiously remain, avail anything to the delinquent? Well, suppose one member of the same society is excluded by the rest; in other words, that they withdraw from him, and that they take with them the whole of the funds-his share as well as theirs. Cannot the law now compel restitution to him? It is contended by some that this is a very different case from the former. But wherein does it differ? We had a right to exclude him from our communion; no one can call that in question. But did the right to exclude him comprehend the right to take from him his property, or to retain that portion of it which he had confided to your keeping? Yes, it is replied, for he had agreed that his title to this property should depend on the continuance of his membership. But was it not a condition of this agreement, that he should not be excluded unless by a certain prescribed process? Yes, it was. Was that process adopted in his case? No; yet he was legally excluded, for no court of justice has the power to force us to take him back: that would be an interference with our rights of con science. But though the specific performance of your contract, in all its parts, cannot be enforced, may not a civil court make you pay him damages for the loss he has sustained, or restore the civil rights themselves, of which he has been deprived, where that is possible? But it may be said, no court has a right to determine whether we adopted the prescribed method of process or not: this is a question which no such tribunal can pretend to adjudicate. Why so? Be

cause it is impossible for it rightly to expound ecclesiastical laws: the church itself is alone competent to that task; and, besides, the contract provided that every question of this sort should be decided by the church: no other tribunal was mentioned. But can a civil court refuse to consider a case, proper in every other respect for its consideration, because it is a very difficult one; because the judges feel incompetent to the undertaking? Such a refusal would be a new thing under the sun. Courts of justice have sometimes been compelled to search into all the mysteries of religious creeds, into the remotest regions of theological lore, in order to settle questions of civil right: they have done it without daring to shrink from the task. If it was expressly agreed that the decision of the church should, in all such cases, be final and eonelusive, that is a valid plea; without such express agreement, the objection evidently can avail nothing. But a court's having the power to award damages or restitution to the excluded member, might often prevent our separating from him: we might be induced to do violence to our consciences, rather than lose a portion of our funds. We supposed him to offer the same plea in the case first mentioned: its absurdity is too manifest to need exposure. Suppose a company of persons to associate together, agreeing to be governed, in their intercourse and dealings with each other, by fixed rules, which, among other things, provide for the expulsion of members for certain offences, by a prescribed process; that they all contribute to a fund, for building a place of meeting; and that then one portion expel the rest contrary to the mutual agreement, but retain in their possession the whole fund. Will any one contend, that the law cannot interfere to redress the grievance, simply because the house, when built, was to be a church, and the company were associated together for the worship of God?

The principles which govern the cases thus presented must rule every question that arises in regard to those rights of property which belong to the members of ecclesiastical bodies. We will apply them to one that may present difficulties to some minds. The right to vote in the election of trustees, whether incoporated or unincorporated, who are to manage church funds, is clearly a right of the kind just mentioned. A person who is unconstitutionally excluded from the church, and in consequence thereof, from participation in the choice of trustees, may undoubtedly recover damages, or even the actual enjoyment of the privilege in question. But

his right of suffrage, it is said, cannot be restored, unless he be also forced back into the communion from which he has been expelled. This is not exactly true. If the civil authority decrees restitution of his privilege, he must indeed be allowed to vote in the election of trustees, but is restored to membership for no other purpose. In such case, however, the other members, if they cannot remain joint tenants with him of a mere civil right, must either proceed to expel him in a constitutional manner, or, if that be not possible, must pay him his price for voluntary secession, or relinquish altogether the right in dispute. At most they will have to settle only a question between conscience and worldly interest.

Suppose several members excluded from an ecclesiastical or other voluntary association. Each one that feels himself injured may appeal to the laws of the land for redress. But there is another case to be considered. If these members alone, or together with those opposed to their exclusion, who are willing to co-operate with them, are sufficient in number, according to the law of the society, to meet and exercise all its functions; if circumstances admit of their meeting, and they do so meet, claiming to be themselves the true association and rested with all its rights, the laws must decide in which of the two parts the succession is really preserved; and this will depend upon the question, which is formed in accordance with the original contract? Both cannot be so formed. And to the one decreed the rightful body, or to its legal representative, will be adjudged all the civil rights appertaining to the original association, or damages in lieu thereof. If neither body be constituted according to agreement, of course the one in possession has the best right, and the law will not deprive it of any portion of that right at the suit of the other.

In all cases, then, in which it is alleged that one or more persons, forming part of a voluntary society, have broken the contract of association, or, in other words, have violated its conventional law, and that damage has thereby accrued to civil rights, the question whether a civil injury has been sustained is a proper one for a court of justice to determine. The decision, too, must depend on that of the question whether a valid contract has been broken; to decide which it is necessary to examine into the constitution and rules of the society, and by them to measure the acts complained of, whether performed by persons in their individual capacity, or by a quorum of the body when regularly convened and

organized. The acts and proceedings of ecclesiastical assemblies are, therefore, subject to examination and review in a court of law, and, if they have violated the mutual compact, must, whenever so examined, be pronounced utterly void, though only as regards the civil rights immediately involved in the suit.

Some have seemed to suppose that the fact of a charter being granted to a voluntary association, incorporating a body of trustees, distinct from the association itself, whether appointed by it or not, makes an essential difference in its legal liability. This is a mistake. The grant only adds to the number of its civil rights the corporate privileges bestowed, and to the list of remedies for a violation of the conventional law of the society sundry forms of proceeding against it through the medium of the corporation. The trustees in such cases stand in the same relation to the society, as if the latter had itself created their office. An incorporated body of trustees is a more convenient instrument, than one of equal number unincorporated, and through the former the association may be reached by a writ of quo warranto, to which the other would not be liable.

We shall now endeavour to apply the rules above explained to the Presbyterian church, and so far as they are applicable to the particular case before us.

"The radical principles of Presbyterian church government and discipline"-to adopt the language of a note to Chap. XII. of the form of government, are, "That the several different congregations of believers, taken collectively, constitute one church of Christ, called emphatically the church;-that a larger part of the church, or a representation of it, should govern a smaller, or determine matters of controversy which arise therein;-that, in like manner, a representation of the whole should govern and determine in regard to every part and to all the parts united, that is, that a majority shall govern: and consequently that appeals may be carried from lower to higher judicatories, till they be finally decided by the collected wisdom and united voice of the whole church.” This theory of government may be illustrated more fully by tracing the natural progress of a Presbyterian church, from its origin in a new settlement, to the formation of a judicatory corresponding in rank to the present General Assembly. The sketch will be found to agree in all important particulars with the history of the actual rise and progress of the Presbyterian church in the United States.

We may picture to ourselves, in the first place, a single congregation, formed of scanty and scarcely homogeneous materials, and while struggling into life bearing hardly any well defined organic shape. The whole church being as yet but a single worshipping assembly, the governing majority of the church is the majority of the session,-the only ecclesiastical court in existence;-the pastor presiding over the representatives of his flock. In this condition of things the principles of church government, if the embryo organization be perfect, is the same as ever afterwards, operating however through a machinery less complicated than that of regularly connected congregational, presbyterial, synodical and general assemblies. Then other congregations of a similar kind spring up, shoots diverging from the parent trunk first planted, or as if from seeds scattered by birds of passage in the soil. As soon as these several congregations are sufficiently organized, and confirmed in their strength, for the concert, which, from the first, may have existed between them, or their pastors, to grow into regular ecclesiastical deliberation and action, a presbytery is the result;-a body consisting of all the ministers, and one ruling elder from each congregation -the former sitting in their own right, as a distinct estate, and the latter as the representatives of the people. Now the governing majority of the church is the majority of the presbytery, to which of course appeals lie from the several subordinate judicatories-the sessions. But in process of time this presbytery becomes too large for frequent meeting, and the convenient despatch of its business, and therefore is divided into two or more parts, each becoming a perfectly organized and distinct court. Now the decision of no one of these parts is the decision of a majority of the whole church; there must therefore be some new body created in which the whole may be represented. This new body is the Synod, formed after the model of the presbytery, from which appeals lie to its judgment. So, also, is created a still larger judicatory-a General Assembly-when the exigencies of the church require its establishment; as before, in the case of the Synod, the object being to obtain, in a convenient manmea, the sense of the majority of the whole body ecclesiastical. This General Assembly, according to the present constitution of the Presbyterian church in the United States, is the highest judicatory, representing in one body all the particular churches of the denomination, not directly, but as representatives of the presbyteries, themselves being represen