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A41808
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Considerations upon the second canon in the book entituled Constitutions and canons ecclesiastical, &c.
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Grascome, Samuel, 1641-1708?
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1693
(1693)
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Wing G1569; ESTC R11703
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35,734
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45
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a one cannot be accepted or if it be his Institution is void They may chew the Cud upon this who have accepted any Preferments under these Schismatical Bishops for the obtaining of which they have taken Oaths whereby they denied their lawful King and consequently then incurred an Excommunication ipso facto 3. It makes the whole Administration of his Ministerial Office ineffectual You can expect no Return of Prayers made with him with whom you ought not to communicate the B. Sacrament consers no Benesit received from his Hands he cannot authoritatively bless the People of God who is himself under a Curse and excluded from being a part of them And here I think all those who have joined themselves to such Persons to be highly concerned to lay their Hands on their Hearts and consider well what they have done in communicating with them hitherto and whether they can think it safe to continue therein for in communicating with them as they are Schismaticks they make themselves Schismaticks and in communicating with them as they are Excommunicates not only all their Labour is lost but they get a Curse instead of a Blessing The matter were not altogether so bad if this Censure extended only to Clergy-men but that a thorough Provision might be made to secure the Subject in Obedience it spares none and therefore I shall consider how Excommunication affects Persons in general whether Lay-men or Clergy-men 1st Then no excommunicated Person ought to be sussered to be present at the Service of the Church and if the Minister who officiates can no other ways get rid of him he ought rather to break off and desist than to susser such a Person to join in Communion with his Flock 'T is indeed true that he may be allowed to be present when the Sermon is made as supposed to make for his Information or Conviction but even then he ought not to be intermingled with others but to stand alone and plainly distinguished from the rest of the Congregation But to the Prayers such Persons never were nor ought to be admitted 2dly Every excommunicated Person is especially debarred from being a Partaker of the Lord's Supper and antiently if any Priest did administer the Sacrament to such an one bâ—â—ore he was Canonically reconciled to the Church which originally was done by the Bishop or by Authority deputed from him he himself became liable to be deposed and no longer intrusted in the Ministry 3dly Whosoâ—ver stands excommunicated non â—rrante clave he is dismembred and cut off from the Church and consequently deprived of those Supplies and Succours which the Mâ—â—bers receive by being united together in one Body and by means thereof to Christ their Head they are like Branches cut off from the Vine there is no way or means left whereby any gratious Succours can be conveyed unto them unless there be a Reinsition and they be received and grafted in again 4ly Every excommunicate Person is under a heavy Curse the Devil has a peculiar Power over him so that his Condition is very deplorable and desperate whilsâ— he remains under that Sentence Hence the Scripture styles it a delivering unto Satan 1 Cor. 5. 5. and 1 Tim. 1. 20. and Tertullian calls it summum futuri Judicii Praejudicium the highest Presumption of what shall be his Sentence in the day of Judgment God will ratiâ—ie in Heaven the Sentence of his Church on Earth when she proceeds against Offenders in vindication of his Laws and Ordinances That Saying of our Saviour to his Apostles is enough to strike any Man with Horrour who justly incurrs the Censure of the Officers of the Church Verily I say unto you whatsoever ye shall bind on Earth shall be bound in Heaven and whatsoever ye shall loose on Earth shall be loosed in Heaven Mat. 18. 18. 5ly An excommunicated Person is or ought to be debarred from most of the Benesits and Comforts of civil Conversation he is like a blown Dear every one in the Herd even for his own Safety will push him from him or like a Man that has the Plague every one that would escape the Infection avoids him But of this more presently in its due place The State and Condition of a Person under the Sentence of Excommunication being thus briefly explain'd I think it may be sufficiently dreadful to any who have any sense of Christianity or apprehensions of the Wrath of God and if this be the state of the Revolutionists they have no great cause to brag of their Bargain and if others did carry themselves towards them as they ought to do towards Men in such a State I am apt to think they would quickly hang their Heads and if their Hearts were not as hardened as Pharaoh's very Shame would work in them remorse and bring them to Repentance But tho' I have little hopes of this both Priests and People being so generally infected yet to discharge my own part I shall proceed in my Method before propounded and shall now examine what ought to be the Behaviour and Carriage of other persons towards a person that is under Excommunication and 1. All persons ought to stand upon their Guard against him and not onely keep him from the publick Service and drive him out of their Churches as a Profaner of their Communion and one who has no Right to it and as one who is infectious and injurious to them and makes their Communion ineffectual but farther they ought to take care that they join not in any private Devotions with him nor admit him to Prayers with them tho' in their own Houses I do not say but they may pray for instruct admonish and endeavour what they can to reclaim such a one but they must not pray with him nor join in any other Act of Christian Communion with him Procul ite profani was proclaimed at the Celebration of the Heathen Mysteries and do not the Christian Mysteries deserve much more Reverence and Awâ— Ought we not as nigh as we can to have a care that we admit none of his Enemies none that have notoriously provoked him and not attoned their Crime when we perform those Acts and Offices wherein we have Access to and Communion with the great God of Heaven and Earth I confess that particular Persons ought not to take upon them by their own Authority to exclude any from Communion but iâ— they know any person to be guilty of a notorious Crime or live in a scandalous Way they ought to complain to proper Judges but when the Church has pass'd her Consure upon them they have a kind of Cain's Brand and are marked out for all Men to avoid it is our B. Saviour's own Direction to us concerning every such person that he be unto us as a Heathen Man and a Publican Mat. 18. 17. and such tho' they had been Emperours the primitive Christians were so far from admitting to their Communion that they would not so much as allow them to be bare Spectators not