him that he might be ashamed yet ver 15. Count him not as an Enemy but admonish him as a Brother Yet in some respects it appeareth to be the will of God that an Excommunicated Person should be treated worse than an Heathen 1 Cor. 5.9 10. I wrote you an Epistle saith the Apostle not to company with Fornicators Yet not altogether with the Fornicators of this World or with the Covetous or with Extortioners or Idolaters for then must you needs go out of the World Ver. 11. But now I have written to you not to keep Company if any Man that is called a Brother be a Fornicator or Covetous or an Idolater or Railer or a Drunkard or an Extortioner with such a one no not to eat By which it appeareth that such Persons as are here specified were to be withdrawn from and to that degree that Men should rather have an Intimacy of Communion with Heathens than with them What further Direction we have in this Case is in the Epistles to Tituâ— and Timothy Tit. 3.10 A Man that is an Heretick after the first and second Admonition reject 2 Tim. 3.2 Men shall be lovers of their own selves Covetous Boasters Proud Blasphemers disobedient to Parents unthankful unholy without natural Affection Truce-breakers incontinent fierce Despisers of that which is good Traitors Heady-minded Lovers of Pleasures more that Lovers of God Having a Form of Godliness and denying the Power thereof from such turn away Rom. 16.17 Mark them which make Divisions amongst you contrary to the Doctrine which you have received and avoid them This is the most of what we find in Holy Writ concerning this Institution of Christ both as to the Doctrine concerning it and concerning the Practice of it from whence may be easily gathered that the Description which the Canonists anciently gave of it is not much amiss for Panormitan telleth us That Excommunication is nothing else but a Censure pronounced by the Canon or the Judg Ecclesiastical by which a Person is deprived of the Communion of the Sacraments and sometimes with Men. The former of which he calleth the lesser the latter the greater Excommunication It is a more Theological Description of it to say It is an Institution of Christ for keeping the Purity of his Church by which such as he hath authorized thereunto have Power in such order and manner as he hath appointed to separate from the more intimate Communion of a Church in such Ordinances as may not be administred to Pagans such Persons as Christ hath declared unfit for that Communion untill they have declared their bearty Repentance for such Miscarriages CHAP. II. A further Inquiry concerning the Persons whom God intrusted with the Power of Excommunication being one of the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven they are proved to be Apostles and Pastors of Churches with the consent of the Body of the Church WE are for the fuller understanding of the Will of God in this Institution in the first place to inquire to whom our Lord Jesus hath trusted this Power He tells Peter Mat. 16.19 And I will give unto thee the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven A Text the Papists make great use of But is no more than he tells all his Disciples of John 20.23 Whose soever Sins you remit they are remitted to them and whose sover Sins you retain are retained and in the Rule he gives us Mat. 18. concerning Offences not committed publickly for such Cases there is no need of fraternal Correption as appears 1 Tim. 5.20 Those that sin rebuke before all he commands the third time they should tell the Church and if the Offender would not hear the Church he should be as an Heathen or a Publican The Church can be no single Person nor doth he write to the Bishops or Pastors but to the Church of Corinth about the incestuous Person 1 Cor. 5. and directs them that the Act should be done when they should be gathered together in the Name of Christ There are in Excommunication two things The Judgment of the Cause and the Pronouncing of the Sentence The pronouncing or publishing of the Sentence is a meer Ministerial Work yet we do not find that it was ever done but by a Bishop or Minister But the main business is to inquire whom Christ the Lord of the Church hath betrusted with hearing these Causes and judging concerning them for of his Appointment they must be who hath any thing to do to turn any out of his House but either he himself who is the Lord of the House or such as he hath delegated thereunto St. Paul saith he had delivered up to Satan Hymeneus and Philetus He ordereth Titus the Bishop or Pastor at least of Crete to reject an Heretick after the first and second Admonition He writes to the Church of Corinth where they were gathered together to deliver up the incestuous Person to Satan From whence we may indeed conclude That the Minister is concerned but not that it was ever committed to him alone without the consent of the Congregation and it is a Rule of Reason Quod omnes tangit ab omnibus tangi debet the whole Body is concerned in the cutting off of any Member and in vain shall any Officers cast one out of Communion with the Church with whom yet the Church will keep Communion Nothing appears more clear to me than that it belongeth to the Bishop or Pastor with the whole Church to hear such Causes and the Pastor and Officers to judg of them which being granted I cannot see how any Person can be lawfully Excommunicated by any Council or Synod it must proceed from the Church gathered together and that the Officers of many Churches gathered together should make a Church clothed with Authority from Christ to Excommunicate I cannot understand from any thing of Holy-Writ And indeed I take one of the first warpings from the Rule of Christ as to this Ordinance to have been then For had the Cause been of much more weight than the mis-timing of Easter I cannot understand by what Authority unless usurped Victor could Exccommunicate the Churches of Asia But to pass this for more than five hundred Years after Christ the Churches never allowed it within the Power of any but either of the Collective Church or the Bishops and Pastors in their respective Churches to hear the Causes of Persons with reference to the Solemn Sentence of Excommunication and to determin any to it In the third Century the Power rested penes Seniores Ecclesiae in the Elders of the Church as appears from Tertullian's Apologetick and the Denunciation of the Sentence was by a Bishop or Presbyter this Origen hinteth to us again and again Thus it was in Cyprian's Time in the Case of Fortunatus Foelicissimus Maximus and Jevinus and thus if we will believe Ecclesiastical History Fabranus Excommunicated the Emperor Philip tho I give little Credit to Eusebius in that Story believing the course of excommunicating Emperors of
Sentence it speaketh so much as one would think more were needless to be said So as the hasty thundering out of Excommunications which we see in our Days is so far from deriving any Repute or Authority from Holy Writ that it cannot so much as derive from the Popish Canon Law CHAP. V. The Original of those Corruptions which have been or are found in the Church as to Excommunications SInce the Pope claimed to himself the Title of the Head of the Visible Church all Ecclesiastical Power hath been pretended to derive from him who grants it or such part of it as he pleaseth to Archbishops Bishops Arch-deacons c. with a Power also to them to delegate it unto others Those who are broken off from the Church of Rome and yet will have National and Diocesan Churches must make Bishops the Spiritual Heads of them clothed with immediate Power from Christ to influence their several Churches and to deal out God's Ordinances unto them To keep my self to that particular Ordinance which is the Subject of my Discourse The Canon Law of old determined That Laymen being licensed from the Pope the Vicar of Christ might excommunicate and even Bishops might not in some particular Causes reserved to his Holiness Since Bishops extended their Dioceses beyond the reach of their own Eye and the possibility of their own Personal Care there was a necessity also of their delegating their Power as to Jurisdiction Whether this necessity did not arise from their own Error in taking Charges which according to the Divine Rule they could not discharge I leave to others to inquire as also by what Authority any Ecclesiastical Officer can depute another to use the key of Discipline committed to him more than the Key of Knowledg or the Administration of Sacraments Supposing them to have a Power to delegate they must either delegate it to Ministers or Lay-men To have deputed only Ministers of particular Congregations had been both very unreasonable and dangerous unreasonable that a Minister of a particular Congregation should have a Power to excommunicate the Members of another for the Bishop could not make him Pastor of the whole Diocese And dangerous too to the Episcopal Function lest People should have been nursed up in an Opinion that the Minister did it by his own Power immediately derived from Christ and so there had been no need of a Bishop for Jurisdiction Thus when one absurdity is granted an hundred follow Upon this point I will only add the Testimony of Sir Francis Bacon sometimes Lord Chancellour of England not so much for the Authority as for the Reason of it Two things there are saith he in our Episcopal Government in which I was never satisfied 1. The single Exercise of their Authority 2. Their Deputation of it After he had spoken fully to the first he comes to the latter Our Bishops saith he exercise their Jurisdiction by Chancellours Commissaries Officials c. We see that according to the Laws of all Nations throughout the World Offices which require Skill and Trust are not executed by Deputation unless it be so expressed in the Original Commission and in that case it is lawful No Judg in any Court ever substituted a Deputy The Bishop is a Judg and that in Matters of an higher Nature how cometh he to substitute another when as all Trust is personal and inherent in the Person trusted and cannot be transferred to another Certainly as to this from the beginning it was not so It is saith he probable that when Bishops gave themselves too much to the Pomp of this World and in Kingdoms became Peers and Councellours to Princes they delegated their Jurisdiction which was proper to them as a thing beneath their Greatness and like Kings and Count-Palatines would have Councellours and Judges under them That learned Author speaks a great deal more in this Cause Nor hath any consciencious learned Man that I know defended this Power of hearing and judging Causes in order to Excommunication in the hands of any save only such as have been Ministers of the Gospel or the whole Church or the Lawfulness of Deputations in the Case It was first practised in the Church of Rome and that in latest and most corrupt Ages From the same Authors are derived Excommunications for light and trivial things a thing condemned by all Ancient Councils and up and down in the Canon-Law which forbiddeth all Excommunications unless for Heresy or for some Mortal Sin But we must know to what an heighth of Power the Advocates for the Church of Rome had cryed up that Church That it was impossible any could be guilty of a more Mortal Sin than not coming when any Officers of that Church said Come or not going when they said Go or not doing this or that when they said Do it Hence it came to pass that when as originally the Church had nothing to do to send for any as a Criminal but he that was accused as such for some Crime for which according to the Law of God he was if found guilty to be excommunicated in which Case indeed his non-appearance might be interpreted a Confession of the Guilt and a Contumacy in it The Church of Rome having from the Favour of Princes got for their Bishops the Cognisance of a Multitude of temporal Causes and consequently Authority to summon People to answer and to decree in the Cause their not appearing to such Summons or not obeying such Decrees was also judged a Contumacy to the Church and the Crime deserving Excommunication than which a greater Abuse cannot easily be imagined And it is no wonder that after that Excommunication came to be the Work of those who had no place in the Church of Christ as to matters of Judgment and also came to be thundred out upon every light occasion and so had lost all the repute of a Divine Institution thence it came as slightly to be managed or denounced all the Gravity and Seriousness of the Administration was lost The leisurable Admonitions given with the Interposition of many Days and Months were turned to the slighty saying thrice in a breath I admonish you the first time I admonish you the second time I admonish you the third time CHAP. VI. The Reason of the contempt of Excommunications frome hence The Arts of the Papists to strengthen it with other Penalties from Canon and Common and Statute Laws The Magistrates discerning their Errors even in Popish Times restraining them again by several Writs of Prohibition and Supersedeas and Attachments and the Writ de Cautione admittenda BY this time Excommunication which rightly administred was the most formidable Sentence that could be pronounced in any Court under Heaven at once depriving the Person of that special Providence of God peculiar to his Church and of the Communion of Saints and of the hope of the Pardon of Sins without a Repentance testified became a contemptible thing in the Eyes of the People and tho a
much latter Date In the fourth Century we read of many Excommunicated yet none but by Bishops or Pastors The Bishop of Laodicea Excommunicated Apollinarius The Bishop of Alexandria Excommunicated Aris c. Still it was the Work of Bishops or Pastors and none other Thus it was in the 5th and 6th Centuries Nay in the 7th Century the Centuriators tell us That the Power was only in Bishops and Priests but Pope Boniface had invested Monks with it Anno 1518. When the Power of Excommunication came into the hands of Laicks under the Notion of Officials I know of no History will inform us but it is easie to be concluded that it must do so from the time that Bishops claimed to themselves the sole Power in it and charged themselves with so many Churches as a thousand Eyes tho very watchful could not possibly oversee there was a necessity they should delegate their Power in this Cause to others because it was not possible they should execute it themselves nor could they delegate it to the Curates because then a short time would have discovered to whom it did of right belong nor could the Grandeur of Prelates have been upheld without a Court nor the Officers of that Court have lived with out having something to do We still maintain that Bishops alone can Excommunicate Ordination Confirmation and Jurisdiction are all pretended Differences betwixt them and other Minsters of the Gospel The Execution of this Sentence by Officials is pretended to be but by Delegation only why they may not also delegate to such Officials their Authority also to preach and baptize and ordain Ministers and administer the Eucharist as to hear the Causes of Persons complained of for Error and Heresy or Leudness of Life will deserve their own Thoughts and every serious and thinking Man's Enquiry These things considered I cannot but be amazed when I read what I find in Dr. Burnet's Collection of Records pag. 239. added to his first Part of the History of our Reformation how some of our great Bishops and Doctors in the time of King Hen. 8th in the beginning of our Reformation delivered themselves upon this Question The Bishops of Canterbury Hereford St. Davids and Westminster Dr. Day Coren Leighton Cox Simmons declared their Judgments contrary to Scripture and all Antiquity That Lay Persons might Excommunicate if they were appointed thereto by the Magistrate So as they held it seems that Christ gave the Power of Excommunication to Magistrates or that whether he did or no they might take and delegate it The Bishops of York and Durham and Dr. Edgworth denied it Three more held it was given to the Church and such as they should depute unto it But something must be allowed to that time when we were beginning to reform and our greatest Men had too great a Tincture of Popery both as to Doctrine Worship and Discipline In Edward the Sixth's time What the Opinion of Archbishop Cranmer and many others were appears by that Systeme of Ecclesiastical Canons which they composed by Commission from that excellent Prince and are to be found in the Book called Reformatio Legum Ecclesiasticarum where they determine That no one Person should execute this Power but that the Archbishop or Bishop or some other lawful Judge with a Justice of the Peace and the Proper Minister of the Place where the Party accused dwelleth or some other appointed by him and two or three other Religious Ministers should meet in whose Presence after a full Handling and weighing the Cause the Party should be Excommunicated They had said before p. 161. c. 6. That the consent of the whole Church was to be wished but because that is hard to be procured they orainded as aforesaid Now what difficulty was there in obtaining the consent of the whole Church but the extending the Notion of a Political Governing Church beyond the number of so many as in one place could be gathered together or could be under the Government of the same Officers out of the Cause of Appeals in which Causes it might possibly be so extended But I observe in the Determination of those Great and Reverend Persons if the consent of the Congregation be not necessary which yet I incline much to believe they had put in all who can pretend to any such just Power viz. The Bishop and the Minister of the place and if the other be only allowed as Witnesses to whom the Judicial Power belongs not possibly that Determination was not evil But I conclude with the Evidence of Holy Writ the consent of all valuable Antiquity and from the Evidence of Reason That Christ hath not betrusted this Church-Key with any but the Pastor and Officers and Members of the particular Church to which the Offender doth belong and any Excommunication decreed or executed by any other is no more than a Civil Punishment and the effect of an Humane Law and can pretend to no Institution of Christ nor Authority from Apostolical Writings and it were well the Name of Christ were left out of those Sentences which can pretend to no Authority from him CHAP. III. An Inquiry into those Crimes for which alone according to the Divine Rule Excommunication ought to proceed and be issued by the Church THe next thing we have to consider is the Objects of this Punishment admitting it a meer Civil Punishment The Objects of it must be determined by the Laws of Men and the Justice or Injustice of the Execution of it upon them must be determined by the Law of God another Day But by a Parity of Reason if it be an Institution of Christ's the Objects of this Censure must be determined by the Law of God and it is not in the Power of Man to make an Alteration in the Case nor hath the Scripture left us without a Determination in the Case Three things according to Scripture must concur to make an Object of this heavy Censure 1. The Party must be a Sinner whose Sins you retain are retained 2. Nor is every Sinner the object of it but he must be 1. Either an Heretick Titus 3.10 One that hath made Shipwrack of the Faith 1 Tim. 19. Or a scandalous flagitious Sinner such as hath made Shipwrack of a good Conscience an Incestuous Person one that is Proud Covetous a Boaster a Blasphemer one disobedient to Parents Vnthankful Vnholy without Natural Affection a Covenant-Breaker a false Accuser one that is fierce Incontinent a Despiser of such as are Good Traitors Heady High-minded one who is a Lover of Pleasures more than a Lover of God One that tho he may have a Form of Godliness yet denieth the Power of it 2 Tim. 3. One that obeyeth not the Word of God that walketh disorderly 2 Thess 3.6 14. One that is a Fornicator an Idolater a Drunkard a Railer an Extortioner 1 Cor. 5. One that causeth Divisions contrary to the Doctrine of Christ Rom. 16.17 And not only these but in reason such as shut a
of every Subject of England These Prohibitions are sometimes granted absolutely in some Causes with a Quâ—â—sque till the Ecclesiastical Judg amendeth his illegal Proceedings nor was this the only Writ in these Causes If Ecclesiastical Judges should adventure to disobey these Writs the Law in that Case provided a Writ of Attachment That in case the Ecclesiastical Judg would adventure to proceed notwithstanding such a Writ of Prohibition he might be forced to yield Obedience to it Of this are many Instances in the Register of Writs And in regard the Ecclesiastical Judges might have so far proceeded notwithstanding such Prohibition as the Party might be laid up in Prison upon the Writ de Excommanicato capiendo the Law in that case provided a Writ of Supersedeas to deliver the Person out of Prison to follow his Attachment of the Judg for his Contempt of the King 's Writ of Prohibition There is a notable Precedent of this Writ in the Registry of Writs which because it is not known to all I shall take the pains to translate for the benefit of such Persons as may fall under these illegal extravagant Oppressions and not know what to do The King to the Sheriff greeting c. A. B. hath shewed us that whereas C. D. hath sued him in the Court Christian before R. concerning Debts and Chattels which belong not to Testaments or Marriages and altho the same A. B. hath delivered R. our Letter of Prohibition forbidding him to proceed in the Cause aforesaid yet the said R. nevertheless hath proceeded in the said Court contrary to our said Prohibition for which we have according to the Custom commanded R. to be attatched by our Letters directed to him to appear before our Justices to shew cause why he proceeded in the Ecclesiastical Court contrary to our Prohibition and for as much as the aforesaid R. whiles the Plea of Attachment hath been depending before our said Justices aforesaid as is afore said hath maliciously procured the said A. B. to be taken that so he might hinder him from prosecuting the said Attachment before our Justices according to the Laws and Customs of our Kingdom We command you that if it be so that you by no means execute our Writ for the 〈◊〉 of him the said A. upon the Occasion aforesaid until the Plea of the said Attachment be determined in our Court before our said Justices according to the Laws and Customs of our Kingdom and if you have taken him upon the account aforesaid we command you to deliver him from the Prison in which upon that account he is detained in the mean time This Writ saith the Register issueth out of the Chancery if the Party be taken and imprisoned before the return of the Attachment if it be in the time of the Vacation otherwise it issueth out of the other Courts after the Attachment The like Writ issueth if the Ecclesiastical Judg proceeded after an Appeal provided the Appeal be made appear to the Court by some publick Instrument and the Party obtaining it proveth by Witnesses or by Oath that he is diligent in the Prosecution of his Appeal and it must be within the compass of a Year after his Appeal By which two Writs appear the illegal and extravagant Proceedings in those times by Judges in the Ecclesiastical Courts proceeding to excommunicate Persons and then to certify against them and imprison them both contrary to the Canon Law and in contempt of the King's Writs from thence and also contrary to the Rules of their own Law according to which after an Appeal the inferiour Court ought to proceed no further till the Cause was by the Judg ad quem remitted to them Nor was the Writ of Prohibition and the Writs of Attachment and Supersedcas relating to that Writ the only Writs that were invented in those most corrupt and Popish Times to relieve the Subjects oppressed in and by the Ecclesiastical Courts for there are many Causes in which Prohibitions will not lye where those Courts may proceed and excommunicate and after forty days signify and have a Writ out against the Person to imprison him now that they might not at their Pleasure keep Men in Prison to their Ruine the common Law hath provided of ancient Times a Writ de Cautione admittenda Because it is but little understood I will give my Reader some account of it The old Popish Canon Law had ordained that if a Person were excommunicated right or wrong he should not be absolved unless he gave a fitting Caution to obey the Commands of the Church in form of Law This appeareth from that part of the Canon Law which is called the sixth of the Decretals Pope Boniface in the Year 1294 set two Bishops to gather up the Decretals of some former Popes and to be added to five of Gregory the ninth and to some of his own and the Book to be called Sextus upon which Johannes Andreas a Bononian glossed Now in this part of the Canon Law we read it again and again enjoined that Persons excommunicated should 〈◊〉 be absolved unless they gave Caution see Sexti Decretal l. 5. Tit. 5. de usuris Sol. 2. Tit. 6. cap. 1. l. 5. c. 24. Tit. 11. The Glossator upon that part of the Law every where expoundeth that term of a fitting Caution That a fitting Caution may be fide-jussoria or Pignoratitia or Juratoria that is by Sureties by Pledg or by an Oath He also determineth the Caution by Oath only to be taken where the Party should not be able to give Security by Bond and Sureties nor by Pledg The Caution by Sureties was looked upon as the greatest Caution and therefore in our Law in a Writ to the Sheriff commanding him to take Caution of a Party thus imprisoned which we find in our Regist Brevium p. 67. commands him to take Cautionem saltem Pignoratitiam at least a Caution by Pledge But notwithstanding this that Men may see how natural a desire it is in some kind of Men to torment their Brethren the Church here in England having got a Priviledge of a Writ to imprison the Person that had stood Forty days Excommanicated they would keep Men in Prison as long as they pleased till they compelled them to do and pay what they listed tho they offered them Caution according to the Canon Law Let us hear what Doctor Cozens in his Apology for certain proceedings in Causes Ecclesiastical p. 1. c. 2. says of this Writ of Excommunicato capiendo It is saith he a Liberty peculiar to this Church of England above all the Realms in Christendom that I read of that if a Man stand wilfully forty days together Excommunicated and be accordingly certified by the Bishop into the Chancery that then he is to be committed to Prison by Virtue of a Writ directed to the Sheriff nothwithstanding that in one Precedent in the Register of this Writ it is said Quod hujusmodi Breve nostrum ex gratiâ nostrâ pracedat By