Church Discipline and Deuteronomy
By Editor
A FRIEND has sent us a copy of the Anglican Church Chronicle, published in Honolulu, from the leading editorial of which we take the following:— “We are not quite sure that it is altogether correct to be always using entreaty to get people who are pledged to the performance of certain duties, to carry out their pledges. There ought to be some recognized judicial means of compelling erring church-members to a sense of their delinquencies.” Well there was once some recognized judicial means of compelling church people, and others too, to conform to the customs of the church, and that was the Inquisition. It was quite an effective means, so far as it went; but we never heard that it succeeded in making people conscientious. But then, the Church Chronicle no doubt thinks that conscientiousness in the performance of church duties is a minor affair, so long as the duties are performed, and in this it is by no means singular. An anonymous correspondent says: “I have always supposed that the root of ‘Deuteronomy’ was Deus, and that the book had reference to intercourse with the Deity.” This explanation certainly has the merit of originality and novelty. We very much doubt if anybody else in the world ever thought of such a derivation; but there are no doubt very many who do not know the origin of the name of the fifth book in the Bible, and so we give it. The word “Deuteronomy” is formed of two Greek words, deuteros, second, and nomos, law, and means the second giving of the law. The law was first given by the Lord upon Mt. Sinai, but Moses rehearsed it to the people, and all the events connected with the giving of it, just before his death.