Tomline on Article XXXIII: Of Excommunicate Persons, how they are to be avoided

It is an essential property of every society, that it has power to make such laws as are necessary for its preservation and support, according to the end and design for which it was originally formed; and every society has also power to punish those who offend against its laws. This power of punishment must always extend to the ” cutting off” those who, by their conduct, have proved themselves unworthy to continue mem- bers of the society. Thus, every civil govern- ment has the power of inflicting banishment or death, where the heinousness of the crime will

justify

522 EjppasUkm of the [p aet in.

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(a) Potter’s Ant. v. i. p. Q4/J.

(b) Ceesar. de Bell. Gall, lib. 6, cap. 13.

(e) Ex. c. 12. V. 19. Lev. c. 7. v. 20. c. 17. v. 14.

[…]

and it appears from the New Testament, that the practice ^^ of casting or putting out of the synagogue” prevailed among them in the time of our Saviour (d).

Under the Gospd dispensation, St Paul di- rected the Corinthians to excommunicate a man who had been guilty of an incestuous mw* riage (e) ; and afterwards, upon his giving inroofs of repentance, he ordered them to receive him agfun into the church (/). The same Apostle said to Titus, to whom he had entrusted the care of the Cretan churches, ’ A man that is an heretic after the first and second admonition, reject (g).” And our Saviour himself said to his disciples, If thy brother shall trespass against thee, go and tdl him his &ult between thee and him alone. If he shall hear thee, tho hast gained thy brother ; but if he will not hear thee; then take with thee one or two more, that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established* And if he shall neglect to hear them, tell it unto the church; but if he neglect to hear the church, let him be unto thee as an heathen man, and a pub Kcan (hy And if Christ gave this direction

concerning

(d) John, c. 9. V. 22 & 34. c. it. T.42. c. 16. v. 2.

(e) 1 Cor. c. 6.‘v. 13. (f) 2 Cor. c. 2. v. 6.

(g) Tit. c. 3. V. 10. (h) Matt. c. 18. v. 15, &c.

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concerning the private trespass of one Christiao against another, the same authority ought surely to be allowed to the church in case of public offences ; and it is incumbent upon all its mem- bers no longer to consider such offenders as be- longing to their society, that is, that person,*

WHICH BY open DENUNCIATION OF THE

AN HEATHEN AND PUBLICAN. ” Mark them which cause divisions and offences contraiy to the doctrine which ye have learned, .and avcnd them (iy Those who gave any countenance to persons under the public censures of the church were, in early times, liable to the same punish- ment as the offenders themselves. This waB necessary for the support of the discipline of the church.

The Article very properly adds, until he

BE openly reconciled by PENANCE, AND THAT HATH AUTHORITY THEREUNTO. As the

efficacy of repentance, in regaining the favour of God, is unequivocally declared in Scripture, it becomes us to pay all possible regard to it in

the fO Rom. c.i6. V. 17.

jLfiT. XXXIII.] Thirty-nim Articles. 525

.Ae present world ; and therefore if we have rea- son to believe that an excommunicated person sincerely repents of his crimes, we ought to re- ceive him, and treat him again as a fellow Chris- tian. And iat this we have the example of St Paul, in the case of the incestuous person at Corinth; but as excommunication is a public sentence pronounced by a lawful magistrate, so restoration of an excommunicated person to com- \ munion with the diurch, ought to be a public act, executed by a judge who hath authority THEREUNTO, and with such forms, and after such acts of public penance, as the church has thought proper to prescribe.

Excommunication was practised in the early times of the church for certain oflfences, and excommunicated persons were upon repentance again restored to communion. There were two sorts of excommunication, the less, and the greater; by the former, men were excluded from partaking of the eucharist, but they were allowed to attend the other parts of divine ser- vice; by the latter they were entirely expelled from the church, and were not permitted to be present at the performance of any public office of religion ; the former was temporary, but the latter was perpetual, unless the delinquent gave foil proof of his repentance. These punish- ments,

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leDts, while there was a just sense of religian, and separation from tbe puUk wondiip was ooa- ttdered as a great evil, were found to have a very sidutary effect; but the power of excomsra* nication whidi was at first kept within due bounds, was gradually eidai]ged, and was at kst carried to an exorbitant hetjiit, and pti veiled to the worst purposes by the popes of Rome; they inflicted it upon the most trifling and an* proper occasioas, mud in a maimer authooied neither by itsason nor Scripture, and utterly unknown in the more aniient times. Among dvd early Christians, excommsmication did not deprive a person of any of his natural or civii rights ; but the popes pretended, by tfaeir ex- communications, not only to take away the common rits of nature and of social life, such as the obedience due from children to their pa- rents, and protection fitom the magistrate, but also to dqpose princes frqm their thrones, and ediisolve subjects from their aUegiance ; they eves inteniticted whole churches and nations, and forbade them the use of the Sacraments ; they endeavoured, for the most frivolous and unjust causes, to dissolve every tie \iiiich keeps man- kind united, and to deprive whole countries of every social and religious comfort. Tlie conse- quence of this extravagant a*nd mischievons

usurpation

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usurpation of authority was, that, in process of time, ’ papal excommunication fell into total dis- regard ; and at the Council of Trent it was ex- pressly acknowledged, ” Cum experientia doceat, si excommunicatio temere aut levibus ex causis incutiatur) magis contemni quam formidari, & pemiciem potius parere quam salutem.” Most of the reformed churches asserted the power of excommunicaticm ; it makes a part of our church discipline (kX but it has of late years been very rarely exercised.

(k) Vide Blackstone and Bum,

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