CHURCH DISCIPLINE, Disciplina ecclesiastica, includes all the means employed by the Christian church, besides the ministration of word and sacraments, to secure on the part of its office-bearers and members a faithful adherence to their profession and a cor responding blamelessness of life. It rests upon the authority of Christ, and at the same time necessarily arises, in some form of it, out of the very constitution of the church as a society. Among the early Christians, it soon assumed forms of great severity towards offenders, especially towards the lapsed (q.y.). At a later period, the disci pline of the church was chiefly exercised with respect to persons accused of heresy and schism. The penances of the church of Rome have long formed an important part of its discipline, and therewith its indulgences (q.v.) are closely connected, as well as its doctrine and rule of auricular confession (see CONFESSION). in the Protestant churches, public confession of sins by which public scandal has been given, and submission to public rebuke, are sometimes required. Practices more analogous to those of the
primitive church were established in many churches after the reformation, but iu gen eral have fallen greatly, or entirely, into disuse. The power of exclusion from the Lord's Supper, and from the rights and privileges of church membership, is, however, generally retained and exercised, until, by profession of repentance, and by reformation of life, the cause of such exclusion is removed; and ministers or other office-bearers are, upon offense given in their doctrine or conduct, suspended from their functions, or altogether deposed from their office. The exercise of C. D. belongs more or less exclu sively to a hierarchy, or to the office-bearers assembled in church-courts, or to the mem bers of each congregation, according as the church is Episcopalian, Presbyterian, or independent in its church government. There is an increasing tendency among Chris tians in general to scrutinize closely the claim of right to exercise C. D., and the limits within which it may be exercised.