canon; and therefore meant not to involve the multitudes of

But now he that exnothing at all, or he

fornicators, which were in the world. communicates a church, either does obliges every one in that church, to separate from that multitude: and then if he must not go out of the world, he must go out of that country, which no spiritual power can command, and which the Apostle never did intend, as appears in his caution and the whole economy and reason of that canon.

8. But I am to add this also, that there is scarce any case practicable, in which, if it be indifferently permitted to the people to separate from the communion of their superior, it will not very quickly proceed to mischief, and become intolerable; a remedy worse than the disease. When Nestorius had preached these words, "Whoever shall say that the Virgin Mary is the mother of God, let him be accursed,” the people had reason to be offended; but they did ill, when they made a tumult: for when the people are stirred, zeal is the worst thing about them. Thus when the two deacons of Pope Vigilius were displeased with their bishop in the cause of the three articles, which the Pope had condemned in the fifth general council, they very pertly withdrew themselves from his communion: and the effect of it was, that almost all the Roman church, and divers other western churches, did so and so did the people of Istria to their bishops in the same cause, and so did many more: and the evil grew so great, when every one would, as he pleased, withdraw himself from the communion of their bishop or priest, that it was, under great penalty, forbidden by the eighth synod, the tenth chapter".

9. But this may be done in these following cases:

(1.) When the superior hath manifestly erred in faith, that is, in an article of his creed, or a plain proposition of Scripture, in an article established or declared by that authority which hath bound him and them equally, and in which they conceive no Thus the priests and people of Constantinople withdrew themselves from the communion of Eunomius, because he erred in an article determined by the whole church, and established by the laws of emperors, and, as they believed, clearly declared in Scripture. But when Plato the monk withdrew

error.

S. Cyril. ep. 18. ad Cælestinum.

• Paulas Diacon. de gest. Longob. lib. 3. cap. 12.

Theodoret. lib. 4. cap. 14.

himself from the communion of Tirasius the patriarch of Constantinople, because he refused to excommunicate the emperor, it was an insolence fit to be chastised by the rod of ecclesiastical discipline 9.

10. (2.) Priests may withdraw themselves from the communion of their bishop, and people from the communion of their priests, in things declared by laws to be against the peace of God and the church, when the fact is evident and notorious. But this is not to be done by single persons, but by the whole community and the reason is, because the fact is not evident, or not scandalous to that degree as to deserve this canonical punishment, unless the congregation be offended, or the congregation note it; for though the bishop be more public than any single person, yet he is not more public or of more concernment than all his diocess. These particulars, that is, this leave and this caution, I have from Origen, explicating in what sense we are bound to cut off our right hand: Ego qui videor tibi manus esse dextra, et presbyter nominor, et verbum Dei videor prædicare, si aliquid contra ecclesiasticam disciplinam et evangelii regulam gessero, ita ut scandalum toti ecclesiæ faciam, in uno consensu ecclesia conspirans excidat me dextram suam, et projiciat à se ;"" If I, that am thy hand, and preach the word of God, do any thing against the discipline of God's church, and the rule of the gospel, so that I give offence to the whole church, let the whole church, consenting together, cut me off and throw me away."

66

11. (3.) But all this is to be understood to be done by permission or authority of the prince, in case he shall interpose; because where public divisions and breach of peace are in agitation, the commonwealth is more concerned oftentimes than religion; and therefore where the laws of God do not intervene, the laws of the king must, or the whole separation is a sin. And therefore we find, that when Gregory I. bishop of Rome, had thus refused to communicate with John bishop of Constantinople, he was commanded by the emperor Mauritius to communicate with him. And it is very fit, that such heats and private judgments, and zealous, but unnecessary, proceedings should be kept from inconveniences by such public persons, who are to take care of peace

q Baron. A. D. 795.

VOL. XIII.

R R

r In Josu. hom. 7.

and of the public. For if such separations be not necessary, they are not lawful; and if they be not the only way to avoid a sin, they are a ready way to commit one.

For because every man's cause is right in his own eyes, when such heats as these happen between confident persons, every man is judge in his own cause; and what is like to be the event of such things, all the world can easily imagine.

12. But now concerning those other two proper kinds of excommunication, the greater and the lesser, they have the same consideration, if we mean them, according as the church now uses them; that is, if they be imposed upon men against their will. For as for the lesser excommunication, so as it was used in the primitive church, and so as the church of England wishes it were now restored, when penitents came and submitted themselves to the discipline of the church, and had exercises, stations, and penitential times, allotted to them, and were afterward with joy and comfort restored to the peace of the church, it is a ministry done by consent, and without any evil, and no man hath to do with it. But if the consent of the criminal be not in it, the bishop cannot compel him; but the bishop and the king can. And therefore we find, that the emperors made laws in this very particular; and Justinians commanded, that no ecclesiastic person should excommunicate any one, unless the cause were first approved. Which law was commended by the council of Paris under Ludovicus; and by John VIII. who, upon the authority of that law, inhibited some bishops from excommunicating one Bichertinus.

13. By this I do not mean to say, that the ecclesiastical judge hath not power to deny a criminal the peace and communion of the church, by declaring him to be unworthy to communicate; but because as the laws and as the customs of the world are now, there is disgrace, and there is temporal evil consequent to such ecclesiastical separations, the bishop can be restrained in the actual exercise of his spiritual authority, if there be any thing in it of temporal concernment.

11. And therefore if the bishop did excommunicate any of the prince's servants, or any whom the prince had a mind to excommunicate and convene withal, the censure was to be reversed; "ut quod principalis pietas recipit, nec à sa

$ 123d novel.

cerdotibus Dei alienum habeatur," as the fathers of the twelfth council of Toledot did decree; that "what the piety of the prince does receive, the bishops may not reject." For to avoid the company of any person is an effect of excommunication indeed, but not inseparable: and because to converse with any of his subjects is a right of kings, that none of his bishops can divest him of, the bishop can excommunicate no man without the king's leave; that is, he cannot separate him from the society of the faithful. And therefore Ivo bishop of Chartres, justified himself upon this account for conversing with one Gervasius that was excommunicate: "Pro regia enim honorificentia hoc feci, fretus auctoritate legis, si quos culpatorum," &c. "I did it (saith he) relying upon the authority of the law, and for the honourable regard of the king."-And this he advises to others also, in his one hundred and seventy-first epistle; and St. Anselm, though he was extremely troubled with the Pope's peevish injunction against the King of England's right in the matter of investitures, yet in his epistle to Prior Ernulph he gives leave, that though he durst not, by reason of the Pope's personal command to the contrary, yet they might communicate with those whom the Pope had excommunicated for receiving investitures from the king. Now although this appendage of excommunication, that is, abstention from the civil society of the criminal, is wholly subject to the laws and power of princes; yet the spiritual part of the excommunication, that is, a separation from the communion by declaring such a person to be unworthy, and using to him the word of his proper ministry, is so wholly under the power of the ecclesiastic order, that when the king commands that the company of the excommunicate should not be avoided, yet the man is not absolved from his sentence in the court of conscience, but is bound to satisfy the church, if she have proceeded legally and canonically. The king can take off the temporal penalty, but not the spiritual obligation; that is, the man is not to demand the sacrament, till he be absolved. If the king commands it, the bishop must not deny his external ministry : but the man sins that demands it, because he communicates unworthily, that is, by a just power, but not by a just disposition. He must repent of his crime, before he can come innocently. t Cap. 3. Epist. 62.

15. For it is to be observed, that, in this affair, one part concerns the criminal, and another concerns the people. The criminal is bound to abstain from the communion: that duty is incumbent upon him, because he is judged to be unworthy of it by that authority which he is bound to trust, in case there be no apparent error. But to be thrust from civil society is not directly any duty of his, but is incumbent on the people. Now though the bishop can, in some cases, advise this, yet in a Christian commonwealth, he cannot, without leave, command it: and therefore the censure or judgment of the church is to have effort upon the conscience of the guilty, and this invades no man's right; it is for his good that is concerned, and is wholly a spiritual power, and intrenches not upon the civil right of any man, much less upon the public and supreme power. In the lesser excommunication, if the subjects be not voluntary, or be not subjected by him that hath the power over them, that is, the king, they cannot be compelled by the bishop to any external act or abstention. But if they do themselves submit, or are submitted by their supreme, they are bound not only to obey the censure of the church, but themselves to go away from company, that know not of this calamity: as I have already instanced.

16. The sentence of the greater excommunication, though to be estimated in many particulars by the former measures, yet hath in it something of particular consideration. This is the great anathema maranatha,' the excision of a man from the body of the church; without which body, whosoever is in that manner justly separate, there is no salvation to him: and this the church called by the name of ' anathema.' Not that whenever the word anathema' is used, the greater excommunication is signified; for it is very often used as an earnest expression of the dislike of a thing: so the clergy of Edessa, when they purged their bishop Ibas of the crimes objected to him in the council of Chalcedony, they solemnly protested they knew no evil of him, "anathematizantes nosmetipsos, et terribili gehennæ nosmetipsos obnoxios facientes, si novimus ;" "anathematizing themselves and exposing themselves to the guilt of eternal damnation, if they knew any such thing." Such anathemata are