Page:Remarks on Some Late Decisions Respecting the Colonial Church.djvu/18

 word in the same sense throughout the same train of argument, or, whenever it bears a new sense, to mark the difference clearly. Loosely, we speak of jurisdiction as synonymous with authority to command. More accurately, it means authority to pronounce a judicial sentence. By a sentence I mean, not a mere opinion on a disputed question, which may be disregarded at pleasure, but a declaration or order carrying with it some obligation to obedience. If by disobedience I expose myself to some legal sanction—to be imprisoned for contempt of court, or to have my goods seized by the sheriff—that is a legal obligation; if to some evil not imposed by law, such as the expulsion from a club to which I like to belong, there is a force analogous to, but not identical with, a legal obligation; if only to my own self-reproach, nothing but what we call a moral obligation remains. The meaning of jurisdiction, then, is not limited by adding to it the word "coercive," since all jurisdiction must be coercive in one way or another. Jurisdiction may exist in a religious society, as well as in a political one; excommunication may to some men be a more dreadful penalty than fine or imprisonment is to others; and jurisdiction in some shape does exist in most religious societies. But where a religious society has been taken under the tutelage of the State, the jurisdiction which it would have exercised over its members is apt to become merged, and the sanctions appropriate to that jurisdiction lost, in those which the State supplies.

Jurisdiction is necessarily "coercive," but it is not necessarily "legal" and it may be legal in a primary, or secondary, sense. An arbitrator appointed under a deed or agreement