Of no effect upon an apostate;
By which it appears, that upon a Christian, that should become an apostate, in a place where the civil power did persecute, or not assist the Church, the effect of excommunication had nothing in it, neither of damage in this world, nor of terror: not of terror, because of their unbelief; nor of damage, because they are returned thereby into the favour of the world; and in the world to come were to be in no worse estate, than they which never had believed. The damage redounded rather to the Church, by provocation of them they cast out, to a freer execution of their malice.
But upon the faithful only.
Excommunication therefore had its effect only upon those, that believed that Jesus Christ was to come again in glory, to reign over and to judge both the quick and the dead, and should therefore refuse entrance into his kingdom to those whose sins were retained, that is, to those that were excommunicated by the Church. And thence it is, that St. Paul calleth excommunication, a delivery of the excommunicate person to Satan. For without the kingdom of Christ, all other kingdoms, after judgment, are comprehended in the kingdom of Satan. This is it that the faithful stood in fear of, as long as they stood excommunicate, that is to say, in an estate wherein their sins were not forgiven. Whereby we may understand, that excommunication, in the time that Christian religion was not authorized by the civil power, was used only for a correction of manners, not of errors in opinion: for it is a punishment, whereof none could be sensible but such as believed, and expected the coming again of our Saviour to judge the world; and they who so believed, needed no other opinion, but only uprightness of life, to be saved.
For what fault lieth excommunication.
There lieth excommunication for injustice; as (Matth. xviii.), If thy brother offend thee, tell it him privately; then with witnesses; lastly, tell the Church; and then if he obey not, Let him be to thee as an heathen man and a publican. And there lieth excommunication for a scandalous life, as (1 Cor. v. 11) If any man that is called a brother, be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a drunkard, or an extortioner, with such a one ye are not to eat. But to excommunicate a man that held this foundation, that Jesus was the Christ, for difference of opinion in other points, by which that foundation was not destroyed, there appeareth no authority in the Scripture, nor example in the apostles. There is indeed in St. Paul (Titus iii. 10) a text that seemeth to be to the contrary; A man that is an heretic, after the first and second admonition, reject. For an heretic, is he, that being a member of the Church, teacheth nevertheless some private opinion, which the Church has forbidden: and such a one, St. Paul adviseth Titus, after the first and second admonition, to reject. But to reject, in this place, is not to excommunicate the man; but to give over admonishing him, to let him alone, to set by disputing with him, as one that is to be convinced only by himself. The same apostle saith (2 Tim. ii. 23) Foolish and unlearned questions avoid: the word avoid in this place, and reject in the former, is the same in the original, παραιτοῦ: but foolish questions may be set by without excommunication. And again, (Titus iii. 9) Avoid foolish questions, where the original περιΐστασο (set them by) is equivalent to the former word reject. There is no other place that can so much as colourably be drawn, to countenance the casting out of the Church faithful men, such as believed the foundation, only for a singular superstructure of their own, proceeding perhaps from a good and pious conscience. But on the contrary, all such places as command avoiding such disputes, are written for a lesson to pastors, such as Timothy and Titus were, not to make new articles of faith, by determining every small controversy, which oblige men to a needless burthen of conscience, or provoke them to break the union of the Church. Which lesson the apostles themselves observed well. St. Peter and St. Paul, though their controversy were great, as we may read in Gal. ii. 11, yet they did not cast one another out of the Church. Nevertheless, during the apostles’ times, there were other pastors that observed it not; as Diotrephes (3 John, 9, &c.) who cast out of the Church such as St. John himself thought fit to be received into it, out of a pride he took in preeminence. So early it was, that vain glory and ambition had found entrance into the Church of Christ.
Of persons liable to excommunication.
That a man be liable to excommunication, there be many conditions requisite; as first, that he be a member of some commonalty, that is to say, of some lawful assembly, that is to say, of some Christian Church, that hath power to judge of the cause for which he is to be excommunicated. For where there is no community, there can be no excommunication; nor where there is no power to judge, can there be any power to give sentence.
From hence it followeth, that one Church cannot be excommunicated by another: for either they have equal power to excommunicate each other, in which case excommunication is not discipline, nor an act of authority, but schism, and dissolution of charity; or one is so subordinate to the other, as that they both have but one voice; and then they be but one Church; and the part excommunicated is no more a Church, but a dissolute number of individual persons.
And because the sentence of excommunication, importeth an advice, not to keep company nor so much as to eat with him that is excommunicate, if a sovereign prince or assembly be excommunicate, the sentence is of no effect. For all subjects are bound to be in the company and presence of their own sovereign, when he requireth it, by the law of nature; nor can they lawfully either expel him from any place of his own dominion, whether profane or holy; nor go out of his dominion without his leave; much less, if he call them to that honour, refuse to eat with him. And as to other princes and states, because they are not parts of one and the same congregation, they need not any other sentence to keep them from keeping company with the state excommunicate: for the very institution, as it uniteth many men into one community, so it dissociateth one community from another: so that excommunication is not needful for keeping kings and states asunder; nor has any further effect than is in the nature of policy itself, unless it be to instigate princes to war upon one another.