THE

RULE OF CONSCIENCE.

BOOK III. CHAP. IV.—Continued.

OF THE POWER OF THE CHURCH IN CANONS AND CENSURES, WITH THEIR OBLIGATIONS AND POWERS OVER THE CONSCIENCE.

RULE IX.

Excommunication, inflicted upon a light Cause, binds externally, but not internally; but if it be inflicted upon an unjust Cause, it binds not at all.

1. THIS latter part of the rule is evident and consented to by all. For in this the civil and ecclesiastical power differ. The civil power, if it condemns the innocent, hath effect upon him, and does afflict or put him to death: but the ecclesiastical power does nothing, unless the man hath done the mischief to himself. For God having undertaken to verify what the church does, it must be supposed that the church must do right, else God will not verify it; and then it signifies nothing, but that the governors ecclesiastical have sinned. "Ejiciunt oves qui contra justitiam de ecclesia separant," saith St. Jerome ; "They that, against right, cast a man from the church," they are ill shepherds, "and drive the sheep" from their folds where Christ loves to see them and therefore Alexander II. says, that "unjust excommunications are not to be slighted and neglected;" and Gerson says, 'it is honourable to the church, that such a prelate should be resisted to his face.' But this in case of injustice and manifest abuse: such are those excommunications in a In Jerem. cap. xxiii. b 24. q. 1. c. Audivimus.

VOL. XIV.

b

e De Vita Spirit. an. Lect. 2. ad em.

B

the Bulla cœnæ Domini,' in which those persons who do their duty, who do not consent to the errors and abuses of the church of Rome, who read good books that discover their horrible impieties, are excommunicated: it is 'brutum fulmen; it is harsh as the noise of peacocks, but does no harm to them that are intended.

2. But now, in the other part of the rule, there is difficulty, and it is occasioned by a discourse of St. Leod; "Let not the communion be, easily or lightly, denied to any Christian, nor at the pleasure of every angry priest; because the mind of the avenger ought, unwillingly and with a kind of grief, to proceed to the infliction of vengeance, even upon a great guilt. For we have known some, for slight actions and words, excluded from the grace of the communion, and a soul for which the blood of Christ was shed, by the infliction of this so severe a punishment, wounded, and, as it were, disarmed and spoiled of all defence, exposed to the assaults of the devil, that it might be easily taken." By which words St. Leo seems to say, that he, who, for a trifling cause, is excommunicate, does nevertheless feel all the evils of that greatest censure. He says well and true: but he does not say, that he is separate from God, that he shall perish everlastingly, -that God will in heaven verify what is done upon earth; but he, reproving this impiety, that the greater excommunication should be inflicted for trifles, tells the real evils which do follow: for the excommunicate, being separate from the communion, denied the prayers of the church, banished from the communion of saints, is divested of all these excellent helps and spiritual defensatives against the power of the devil. Now this is very true, though the case were wholly unjust; and much more, if the cause be something, though not sufficient. De facto' the man is deprived of the helps of the church, and the advantages of holy ordinances: and though God will, if the man be a good man and devout, hear his private prayers, and supply him with secret strengths, and in his behalf rebuke the devil; yet it is a worthy cause of complaint in St. Leo, to consider that this evil was done for little things, and that, for so small occasions, God should be put to his extraordinary way, and the man be deprived of the blessings of the ordinary.

3. But whether this sentence, so slightly inflicted, do really bind the soul before God, is a question which Origen inquired into, but durst not affirm it; but concludes that it obliges in the church and before men: for whether it obliges before God or no, " Deus scit; nos autem pronunciare non possumus, secundum quod scriptum est, ' Nolite judicare, ," "God only knows, but we must not judge." But yet if it be his unhappy lot to fall into such a calamity, " factum valet, fieri non debuit;" the ecclesiastical ruler did very ill in it, yet the man is bound to the church. "Qui ergo in peccato levi correptus-non se emendat, nos quidem sic eum debemus habere, quasi publicanum, et ethnicum, abstinentes ab eo, ut confundatur;" "He therefore that is taken and excommunicate for a small fault, and will not amend, we must esteem him as a heathen and a publican, that he may be ashamed. Indeed the church hath put a heavy and an unequal load upon such a person, and hath erred greatly; for no man is to be separate from the church of God, but he that separated himself from God, and hath left his duty: but therefore if the church do excommunicate him, whose action or words though it be faulty, yet it can consist with the state of a good man, and does not destroy the love of God, the censure was too heavy as to the external, and false as to the internal; for the man is not fallen from God, but does communicate with the head, and continues to receive of the spirit of Christ.

4. But yet even such a man is bound externally: for this is the meaning of that famous saying of St. Gregory f; "Pastoris sententia etiam injusta timenda est;" "The sentence of a bishop, though it be unjust, is to be feared;" that is, though it be in a cause, that is not great and competent enough, but if it be in a light matter, yet it is to be feared; not only because the man is deprived of the prayers and communions of the church (which, though it happen to an innocent person, is a great evil, and therefore is to be feared though it be in all senses unjust); but also, because it binds the man that is deprehended even in a light fault, to submit to the judgment and satisfactions of the church. The burden is very great, and ought not to have been imposed; but when it is, it must be suffered, because no repentance can be too great for any

sin: and although the bishop made a false judgment concerning the man, and he does not stand so before God as before the church, that is, for his first little offence; yet being censured and unfortunate, if he refuses to obey that, which is indeed too much to be imposed, but will do him no hurt, it is not his first little sin, but his great contempt, that is to be accounted for before God with the greatest severity.

5. But then if it be inquired, in what cases only excommunication may be lawfully inflicted; the answer is easy: but I choose to give it in the words of the fathers, because there is in this case reason and authority too. "Ubi peccatum non est evidens, ejicere de ecclesia neminem possumus, ne forte eradicantes zizania, eradicemus simul cum ipsis etiam triticum :" so Origen: "Unless the fact be evident, no man must be excommunicate, for else we may peradventure root up the wheat with the tares."-But that is not enough.

6. No man must be excommunicate but he that is " peccator gravis et scandalosus," " a grievous and a scandalous sinner;" so St. Gregory: and like to this is that of Aristotle; Διαλυτέον οὐ πᾶσιν, ἀλλὰ τοῖς ἀνιάτοις διὰ τὴν μοχθηρίαν, “ We must not separate from every sinner; but from the intolerable and malicious." - For what should a man proceed to violent remedies, when a gentle application will make the cure? and, for a trifling cause, to cut a man off from the communion of the church, is to do as the man in the fable, that, espying a fly upon his neighbour's forehead, went to put it off with a hatchet and struck out his brains. And therefore the fathers in the council of Wormsi decreed, " Ut nullus sacerdotum quenquam rectæ fidei hominem pro parvis et levibus causis à communione suspendat: præter eas culpas pro quibus antiqui patres arceri jusserunt aliquid committentes:" " In the infliction of censures the church should follow the practice of the primitive fathers, excommunicating no true believer but for some very grievous fault."

7. Neither is this sufficient of itself: a scandalous sin alone is not enough; for excommunication is the last remedy. "Omnia prius tentanda quam bello experiendum;" When nothing else will do it, then this is to be used for if the man will be amended by private correction, or by public admonition, if he be ready to hear his brother, or to obey the church,-why should he be esteemed as a heathen man and a publican? "Si non audierit ecclesiam," is the condition of using the keys; "If he will not hear the church:"-so it is in the charter; if, being publicly convict and reproved by the bishop, he will not be humbled, but remains incorrigible and perseveres in his sin, then he is to be excommunicated and smitten with the anathema. Like to this is that of Chrysippus: Προσήκει τὰ μὲν ὅλως παραπέμπεσθαι, τὰ δὲ μικρᾶς ἐπιστροφῆς τυγχάνειν· τὰ δὲ ἐπὶ μεῖζον, τὰ δὲ ὅλως διαλύσεως ἀξιοῦσθαι. "Some things are to be turned from, with our head a little aside; and from some things we must run away: some things are more earnestly to be avoided; and from others we must be parted for ever." So St. Gregory in the place above cited. "Spirituali gladio superbi et contumaces necantur, dum de ecclesia ejiciuntur;" so St. Cyprian*: "The proud and contumacious are slain by the spiritual sword, when they are thrown out of the church." -" Inobediens truncatur," is St. Jerome's1 expression; "He that is rebellious or disobedient to the discipline and correction of the church, is to be cut off."

8. Now all these must be joined together. If the fact be not notorious or proved, a man must not be so severely smitten we know not why. And if the fact be evident, yet, unless it be great, it deserves not the biggest punishment. For the judge is cruel, and not just, that puts a man to deathwith torments, for spitting in his parlour: and the judgment of the church, being nothing else but an effective and terrible declaration of the judgment of God, must not be exterminating and final, for things of little concernment, but according to the wisdom which we see, and the mercy which we hope for. And after all, if it be evident and great, yet the last remedy must not be used at first: and a man will not have his arm cut off for a felon upon his finger, or the gout in his wrist, or an ulcer that can, by any other means, be cured. But when in a great pestilence and danger of infection, there is no other remedy; when the fire rages desperately, and can by no other means be stopped; then pull the house down, and separate the infected from the city; he is fit for nothing but charnelhouses, and the society of the dead.