BLOOD

From the earliest times the clergy have been forbidden to sit in judgment on capital offences, or in cases of blood; a rule still maintained among us; for the bishops, who, as peers of parliament, are a component part of the highest court of judicature in the kingdom, always retire when such cases are before the House. BODY. The Church is called a body. (Rom. xii. 5; 1 Cor. x. 17; xii. 13; Eph. iv. 4; Col. iii. 15.) Like every other body, society, or corporation, it has a prescribed form of admi ion, baptism; a constant badge of membership, the eucharist; peculiar duties, repentance, faith, obedience; peculiar privileges, forgivene of sins, present grace, and future glory; regularly constituted officers, bishops, priests, and deacons. The Church is the body, of which Christ is the Head.