their Power i. e. their right of Governing this Society not meerly from consent and confederation of parties but from that Divine institution on which the Society depends The want of understanding the right notion of power in the sense here set down is certainiy the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of Erastianisme and that which hath given occasion to so many to question any such thing as Power in the Church especially when the more zealous then judicious defenders of it have rather chosen to hang it upon some doubtful places of Scripture then on the very nature and constitution of the Christian Church as a Society instituted by Jesus Christ. This being then the nature of power in general it is I suppose clear that an outward coactive force is not necessary in order to it for if some may have a right to govern and others may bee obliged to obedience to those persons antecedently to any civil constitution then such persons have a just power to inflict censures upon such as transgress the rules of the society without any outward force It is here very impertinent to dispute what effects such censures can have upon wilful persons without a coactive power if I can prove that there is a right to inflict them in Church officers and an obligation to submit to them in all offenders I am not to trouble my self with the event of such things as depend upon divine institutions I know it is the great objection of the followers of Erastus that Church censures are inflicted upon persons unwilling to receive them and therefore must imply external and coactive force which is repugnant to the nature of a Church But this admits according to the principles here established of a very easie solution for I deny not that Churchpower goes upon consent but then it s very plain here was an antecedent consent to submit to censures in the very entrance into this Society which is sufficient to denominate it a voluntary act of the persons undergoing it and my reason is this every person entring into a Society parts with his own freedome and liberty as to matters concerning the governing of it and professeth submission to the rules and orders of it now a man having parted with his freedome already cannot reassume it when hee please for then hee is under an obligation to stand to the Covenants made at his entrance and consequently his undergoing what shall bee laid upon him by the Laws of this society must bee supposed to bee voluntary as depending upon his consent at first entrance which in all societies must bee supposed to hold still else there would follow nothing but confusion in all Societies in the world if every man were at liberty to break his Covenants when any thing comes to lye upon him according to the rules of the Society which hee out of some private design would bee unwilling to undergo Thus much may serve to settle aright the notion of power the want of understanding which hath caused all the confusion of this controversie The next thing is in what notion wee are to consider the Church which is made the subject of this power As to which wee are to consider This power either as to it 's right or in actu primo or as to it's exercise or in actu secundo Now if wee take this power as to the fundamental right of it then it belongs to that universal Church of Christ which subsists as a visible Society by vertue of that Law of Christ which makes an owning the profession of Christianity the duty of all Church members If wee consider this power in the exercise of it then it being impossible that the universal Church should perform the executive part of this power relating to offences I suppose it lodged in that particular Society of Christians which are united together in one body in the community of the same Government but yet so as that the administration of this power doth not belong to the body of the society considered complexly but to those officers in it whose care and charge it is to have a peculiar oversight and inspection over the Church and to redress all disorders in it Thus the visive faculty is fundamentally lodged in the soul yet all exterior acts of sight are performed by the eyes which are the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Overseers of the body as the other are of the Church so that the exercise and administration of this power belongs to the special Officers and Governours of the Church none else being capable of exercising this power of the Church as such but they on whom it is setled by the founder of the Church it 's self This Society of the Church may bee again considered either as subsisting without any influence from the civil power or as it is owned by and incorporated into a Christian state I therefore demand whether it bee absolutely necessary for the subsistence of this Christian society to bee upheld by the civil power or no And certainly none who consider the first and purest ages of the Christian Church can give any entertainment to the Affirmative because then the Church flourished in it's greatest purity not only when not upheld but when most violently opposed by the civil power if so then it 's being united with the civil state is only accidental as to the constitution of a Church and if this bee only accidental then it must bee supposed furnished with every thing requisite to it 's well ordering antecedenty to any such union and abstractly from it For can wee imagine our Blessed Saviour should institute a society and leave it destitute of means to uphold it's self unless it fell into the hands of the civil power or that hee left every thing tending thereto meerly to prudence and the arbritrary constitutions of the persons joyning together in this society Did our Saviour take care there should bee a society and not provide for means to uphold it Nay it is evident hee not only appointed a society but officers to rule it had those officers then a Right to Govern it or no by vertue of Christs institution of them if not they were rather Bibuli than Caesares Cyphers than Consuls in the Church of God If they had a power to govern doth not that necessarily imply a Right to inflict censures on offenders unless 〈◊〉 will suppose that either there can bee no offenders in a Christian Church or that those offenders do not violate the Laws of the society or there bee some prohibition for them to exercise their power over them which is to give power with one hand and take it away with the other or that this power cannot extend so far as to exclude any from the priviledges of the Church which is the thing to bee discussed Having thus cleared our way I now come to the resolution of the question its self in order to which I shall endeavour to demonstrate with what evidence
the subject is capable of these following things First that the Church is a peculiar Society in its own Nature distinct from the Common-wealth Secondly that the power of the Church over its members doth not arise from meer confederation or consent of parties Thirdly That this power of the Church doth extend to the exclusion of offenders from the priviledges of it Fourthly That the fundamental rights of the Church do not escheat to the Common-wealth upon their being united in a Christian State If these principles bee established the Churches power will stand upon them as on a firm and unmoveable basis I begin with the first That the Church is a peculiar Society in its own nature distinct from the Common-wealth which I prove by these arguments 1 Those Societies which are capable of subsisting apart from each other are really and in their own nature distinct from one another but so it is with the Church and Common-wealth For there can bee no greater evidence of a reall distinction than mutual separation and I think the proving the possibility of the souls existing separate from the body is one of the strongest arguments to prove it to bee a substance really distinct from the body to which it is united although wee are often fain to go the other way to work and to prove possibility of separation from other arguments evincing the soul to bee a distinct substance but the reason of that is for want of evidence as to the state of separate souls and their visible existence which is repugnant to the immateriality of their natures But now as to the matter in hand wee have all evidence desirable for wee are not put to prove possibilâ—â—y of separation meerly from the different constitution of the things united but wee have evidence to sense of it that the Churh hath subsisted when it hath been not onely separated from but persecuted by all civil power It is with many men as to the union of Church and State as it is with others as to the union of the Soul and Body when they observe how close the union is and how much the Soul makes use of the Animal Spirits in most of its operations and how great a sympathy there is between them that like Hyppocrates his Twins they laugh and weep ' together they are shrewdly put to it how to fancy the Soul to bee any thing else then a more vigorous mode of matter so these observing how close an Union and Dependence there is between the Church and State in a Christian Common-wealth and how much the Church is beholding to the civil power in the Administration of its functions are apt to think that the Church is nothing but a higher mode of a Common-wealth considered as Christian. But when it is so evident that the Church hath and may subsist supposing it abstracted from all Civil Power it may bee a sufficient demonstration that however neer they may be when united yet they are really and in their own nature distinct from each other Which was the thing to bee proved 2 Those are distinct societies which have every thing distinct in their nature from each other which belong to the constitution or government of them but this is evident as to the Church and Common-wealth which will appear because their Charter is distinct or that which gives them their being as a society Civil societies are founded upon the necessity of particular mens parting with their peculiar Rights for the preservation of themselves which was the impulsive cause of their entring into societies but that which actually speaks them to bee a society is the mutual consent of the several parties joyning together whereby they make themselves to bee one Body and to have one common interest So Cicero de Repub. defines populus to bee caetus multitudinis juris consensu et utilitatis communione sociatus There is no doubt but Gods general providence is as evidently seen in bringing the World into societies and making them live under Government as in disposing all particular events which happen in those societies but yet the way which providence useth in the constitution of these societies is by inclining men to consent to associate for their mutual benefit and advantage So that natural reason consulting for the good of mankinde as to those Rights which men enjoy in common with each other was the main foundation upon which all civil societies were erected Wee finde no positive Law enacting the beeing of civil societies because nature it's self would prompt men for their own conveniencies to enter into them But the ground and foundation of that society which we call a Church is a matter which natural reason and common notions can never reach to and therefore an associating for the preserving of such may bee a Philosophical Society but a Christian it cannot bee And that would make a Christian Church to bee nothing else but a society of Essens or an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of Pythagorians who do either not understand or not consider whereon this Christian society is founded for it is evident they look on it as a meerly voluntary thing that is not at all setled by any Divine positive Law The truth is there is no principle more consistent with the opinion of those who deny any Church power in a Christian state then this is and it is that which every one who will make good his ground must bee driven to for it is evident that in matters meerly voluntary and depending only on consideration such things being lyable to a Magistrates power there can be no plea from mutual consent to justifie any opposition to supream authority in a Common-Wealth But then how such persons can bee Christians when the Magistrates would have them to bee otherwise I cannot understand nor how the primitive Martyrs were any other then a company of Fools or Mad-men who would hazard their lives for that which was a meer arbritrary thing and which they had no necessary obligation upon them to profess Mistake mee not I speak not here of meer acts of discipline but of the duty of outward professing Christianity if this bee a duty then a Christian society is setled by a positive Law if it bee not a duty then they are fools who suffer for it So that this question resolved into it's principles leads us higher than wee think for and the main thing in debate must bee whether there bee an obligation upon conscience for men to associate in the profession of Christianity or no If there bee then the Church which is nothing else but such an association is established upon a positive Law of Christ if there bee not then those inconveniencies follow which are already mentioned Wee are told indeed by the Leviathan with confidence enough that no precepts of the Gospel are Law till enacted by civil authority but it is little wonder that hee who thinks an immaterial substance implies a contradiction
make the power of censures in the Christian-Church to be nothing else but a lex cenfederatae disciplinae whereas this power hath been made appear to be derived from a higher original then the meer arbitrary consent of the several members of the Church associating together And how far the examples of the Synagogues under the Law are from reaching that of Christian Churches in reference to this because in these the power is conveyed by the founder of the Society and not left to any arbitrary Constitutions as it was among the Jews in their Synagogues It cannot be denyed but consent is supposed and confederation necessary in order to Church power but that is rather in regard of the exercise then the original of it for although I affirm the original of this power to be of Divine institution yet in order to the exercise of it in reference to particular persons who are not mentioned in the charter of the power its self it is necessary that the persons on whom it is exerted should declare their consent and submission either by words or actions to the rules and orders of this Society Having now proved that the power of the Church doth not arise from meer consent of parties the next grand inquiry is concerning the extent of this power Whether it doth reach so far as to excommunication For some men who will not seem wholly to deny all power in the Church over offendors nor that the Church doth subsist by divine institution yet do wholly deny any such power as that of excommunication and seem rather to say that Church officers may far more congruously to their office inflict any other mulct upon offendors then exclude them from participation of Communion with others in the Ordinances and Sacraments of the Gospel In order therefore to the clearing of this I come to the third Proposition That the power which Christ hath given to the officers of his Church doth extend to the exclusion of contumacious offendors from the priviledges which this Society enjoyes In these terms I rather choose to fix it then in those crude expressions wherein Erastus and some of his followers would state the question and some of their imprudent adversaries have accepted it viz. Whether Church-officers have power to exclude any from the Eucharist Ob moralem impuritatem And the reasons why I wave those terms are 1. I must confess my self yet unsatisfied as to any convincing argument whereby it can be proved that any were denyed admission to the Lords Supper who were admitted to all other parts of Church-society and owned as members in them I cannot yet see any particular reason drawn from the nature of the Lords Supper above all other parts of divine worship which should confine the censures of the Church meerly to that ordinance and so to make the Eucharist bear the same office in the body of the Church which our new Anatomists tell us the parenchyme of the liver doth in the natural body viz. to be colum sanguinis to serve as a kind of strainer to separate the more gross and faeculent parts of the blood from the more pure and spirituous so the Lords Supper to strain out the more impure members of the Church from the more Holy and Spiritual My judgement then is that excommunication relates immediately to the cutting a person off from communion with the Churches visible society constituted upon the ends it is but because communion is not visibly discerned but in administration and participation of Gospel ordinances therefore exclusion doth chiefly refer to these and because the Lords Supper is one of the highest priviledges which the Church enjoyes therefore it stands to reason that censures should begin there And in that sense suspension from the Lords Supper of persons apparently unworthy may be embraced as a prudent lawful and convenient abatement of the greater penalty of excommunication and so to stand on the same general grounds that the other doth for qui potest majus potest etiam minus which will hold as well in moral as natural power if there be no prohibition to the contrary nor peculiar reason as to the one more then to the other 2. I dislike the terms ob moralem impuritatem on this account because I suppose they were taken up by Erastus and from him by others as the controversie was managed concerning excommunication among the Jews viz. whether it were meerly because of ceremonial or else likewise because of moral impurity As to which I must ingenuously acknowledge Erastus hath very much the advantage of his adversaries clearly proving that no persons under the Law were excluded the Temple-worship because of moral impurity But then withall I think he hath gained little advantage to his cause by the great and successful pains he hath taken in the proving of that my reason is because the Temple-worship or the sacrifices under the Law were in some sense propitiatory as they were the adumbrations of that grand sacrifice which was to be offered up for the appeasing of Gods wrath viz. the blood of Christ therefore to have excluded any from participation of them had been to exclude them from the visible way of obtaining pardon of sin which was not to be had without shedding of blood as the Apostle tells us and from testifying their faith towards God and repentance from dead works But now under the Gospel those ordinances which suppose admission into the Church by baptism do thereby suppose an alsufficient sacrifice offered for the expiation of sin and consequently the subsequent priviledges do not immediately relate to the obtaining of that but a grateful comemmoration of the death of Christ and a celebration of the infinite mercy and goodness of God in the way of redemption found out by the death of his Son And therefore it stands to great reason that such persons who by their profane and unworthy lives dishonour so holy a profession should not be owned to be as good and sound members of the society founded on so sacred a foundation as the most Christian and religious persons To this I know nothing can be objected but that first the passeover was commemorative among the Jews and secondly That the priviledges of that people were then very great above other people and therefore if God had intended any such thing as excommunication among his people it would have been in use then To these I answer 1. I grant the passeover was commemorative as to the occasion of its institution but then it was withall typical and annunciative of that Lamb of God who was to take away the sins of the world and therefore no person who desired expiation of sins was to be debard from it but the Lords Supper under the Gospel hath nothing in it propitiatory but is intended as a Feast upon a sacrifice and a Federal rite as hath been fully cleared by a very learned person in his discourse about the true notion of the Lords Supper
A DISCOURSE Concerning the POWER OF EXCOMMUNICATION IN A Christian Church By way of Appendix to the IRENICUM BY EDWARD STILLINGFLEET Rector of Sutton in Bedfordshire LONDON Printed for Henry Mortlock at the sign of the Phoenix in St. Pauls Church-yard neer the Little North-door 1662. A DISCOURSE Concerning The Power of Excommunication IN A Christian Church IT is a matter of daily observation and experience in the world how hard it is to keep the eyes of the understanding clear in its judgement of things when it is too far engaged in the dust of controversie It being so very difficult to well manage an impetuous pursuit after any opinion nothing being more common then to see men outrun their mark and through the force of their speed to bee carryed as farr beyond it as others in their opinion fall short of it There is certainly a kind of ebriety of the mind as well as of the body which makes it so unstable and pendulous that it oft times reeles from one extream unto the quite contrary This as it is obvious in most eager controvertists of all ages so especially in such who have discovered the falsity of an opinion they were once confident of which they think they can never after run farr enough from So that while they start at an apparition they so much dread they run into those untroden paths wherein they lose both themselves and the truth they sought for Thus wee find it to be in the present controversie for many out of their just zeal against the extravagancies of those who scrued up Church power to so high a peg that it was thought to make perpetuall disâ—ord with the Common-wealth could never think themselves free from so great an inconvenience till they had melted down all Spiritual power into the Civil State and dissolved the Church into the Common-wealth But that the world may see I have not been more forward to assert the just power of the Magistrate in Ecclesiasticalls as well as Civills then to defend the fundamental Rights of the Church I have taken this opportunity more fully to explain and vindicate that part of the Churches power which lies in reference to offenders It being the main thing struck at by those who are the followers of that noted Physitian who handled the Church so ill as to deprive her of her expulsive faculty of Noxious humours and so left her under a miserere mei I shall therefore endeavour to give the Church her due as well as Caesar his by making good this following principle or hypothesis upon which the whole hinge of this controversie turnes viz. that the power of inflicting censures upon offenders in a Christian Church is a fundamentall right resulting from the constitution of the Church as a society by Jesus Christ and that the seat of this power is in those Officers of the Church who have derived their power originally from the Founder of this society and act by vertue of the Laws of it For the cleare stating of this controversie it will bee necessary to explain what that Power is which I attribute to the Church and in what notion the Church is to be considered as it Exerciseth this Power First concerning the proper notion of Power by it I cannot see any thing else to bee understood then a right of Governing or ordering things which belong to a Society And so Power implies only a moral faculty in the person enjoying it to take care ne quid civitas detrimenti capiat whereby it is evident that every well constituted Society must suppose a Power within its self of ordering things belonging to its welfare or else it were impossible either the being or the rights and priviledges of a Society could bee long preserved Power then in its general and abstracted notion doth not necessarily import either meer authority or proper coaction for these to any impartial judgement will appear to bee rather the severall modes whereby power is exercised then any proper ingredients of the specifick nature of it which in generall imports no more then a right to Govern a constituted Society but how that right shall bee exercised must bee resolved not from the notion of Power but from the nature and constitution of that particular Society in which it is lodged and inherent It appears then from hence to bee a great mistake and abuse of well natured readers when all Power is necessarily restrained either to that which is properly coercive or to that which is meerly arbitrary and onely from consent The originall of which mistake is the stating the notion of Power from the use of the Word either in ancient Roman authors or else in the Civil Laws both which are freely acknowledged to bee strangers to the exercise of any other Power then that which is meerly authoritative and perswasive or that which is Coactive and Penal The ground of which is because they were ignorant of any other way of conveyance of Power besides external force and arbitrary consent the one in those called Legal Societies or Civitates the other Collegia and hetaeriae But to us that do acknowledge that God hath a right of commanding men to what duty hee please himself and appointing a Society upon what terms best please him and giving a Power to particular persons to govern that Society in what way shall tend most to advance the honour of such a Society may easily bee made appear that there is a kind of power neither properly coactive nor meerly arbitrary viz. such a one as immediately results from Divine institution and doth suppose consent to submit to it as a necessary Duty in all the members of this Society This Power it is evident is not meerly arbitrary either in the Governours or members for the Governours derive their Power or right of Governing from the institution of Christ and are to bee regulated by his Laws in the execution of it and the members though their Consent bee necessarily supposed yet that consent is a Duty in them and that duty doth imply their submission to the Rulers of this Society neither can this power bee called coactive in the sense it is commonly taken for coactive power and external force are necessary correlates to each other but wee suppose no such thing as a power of outward force to bee given to the Church as such for that properly belongs to a Common-wealth But the power which I suppose to bee lodged in the Church is such a power as depends upon a Law of a superiour giving right to Govern to particular persons over such a Society and making it the Duty of all members of it to submit unto it upon no other penalties then the exclusion of them from the priviledges which that Society enjoys So that supposing such a Society as the Church is to bee of Divine institution and that Christ hath appointed Officers to rule it it necessarily follows that those Officers must derive
should think as much of calling any thing a Law but what hath a civil sanction But I suppose all those who dare freely own a supreme and infinite essence to have been the Creator and to bee the ruler of the World will acknowledge his Power to oblige conscience without being beholding to his own creature to enact his Laws that men might bee bound to obey them Was the great God fain to bee beholding to the civil authority hee had over the Jewish Common-Wealth their government being a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to make his Laws obligatory to the consciences of the Jews What had not they their beings from God and can there bee any greater ground of obligation to obedience than from thence Whence comes civil power to have any Right to oblige men more than God considered as Governour of the World can have Can there bee indeed no other Laws according to the Leviathans Hypothesis but only the Law of nature and civil Laws But I pray whence comes the obligation to either of these that these are not as arbitrary as all other agreements are And is it not as strong a dictate of nature as any can bee supposing that there is a God that a creature which receives it's being from another should bee bound to obey him not only in the resultancies of his own nature but with the arbitrary constitutions of his will Was Adam bound to obey God or no as to that positive precept of eating the forbiden fruit if no civil Sanction had been added to that Law The truth is such Hypotheses as these are when they are followed close home will bee found to Kennel in that black Den from whence they are loath to bee thought to have proceeded And now supposing that every full Declaration of the Will of Christ as to any positive institution hath the force and power of a Law upon the consciences of all to whom it is sufficiently proposed I proceed to make appear that such a divine positive Law there is for the existence of a Church as a visible body and society in the World by which I am far from meaning such a conspicuous society that must continue in a perpetual visibility in the same place I finde not the least intimation of any such thing in Scripture but that there shall alwaies bee some where or other in the world a society owning and professing Christianity may bee easily deduced from thence and especially on this account that our Saviour hath required this as one of the conditions in order to eternal felicity that all those who beleeve in their hearts that Jesus is the Christ must likewise confess him with their mouths to the world and therefore as long as there are men to beleeve in Christ there must bee men that will not bee ashamed to associate on the account of the Doctrine hee hath promulged to the world That one Phrase in the New Testament so frequently used by our blessed Saviour of the Kingdome of Heaven importing a Gospel state doth evidently declare a society which was constituted by him on the principles of the Gospel Covenant Wherefore should our Saviour call Disciples and make Apostles and send them abroad with full commission to gather and initiate Disciples by Baptism did hee not intend a visible society for his Church Had it not been enough for men to have cordially beleeved the truth of the Gospel but they must bee enter'd in a solemn visible way and joyn in participation of visible Symbols of bread and wine but that our Saviour required external profession and society in the Gospel as a necessary duty in order to obtaining the priviledges conveyed by his Magna Charta in the Gospel I would fain know by what argument wee can prove that any humane Legislator did ever intend a Common-wealth to bee governed according to his mode by which wee cannot prove that Christ by a positive Law did command such a society as should be governed in a visible manner as other societies are Did he not appoint officers himself in the Church and that of many ranks and degrees Did hee not invest those officers with authority to rule his Church Is it not laid as a charge on them to take heed to that flock over which God had made them Overseers Are there not Rules laid down for the peculiar exercise of their Government over the Church in all the parts of it Were not these officers admitted into their function by a most solemn visible rite of imposition of hands And are all these solemn transactions a meer peece of sacred Pageantry and they will appear to bee little more if the Society of the Church bee a meer arbitrary thing depending onely upon consent and confederation and not subsisting by vertue of any Charter from Christ or some positive Law requiring all Christians to joyn in Church Society together But if now from hence it appears as certainly it cannot but appear that this Society of the Church doth subsist by vertue of a Divine positive Law then it must of necessity be distinct from any civil Society and that on these accounts First because there is an antecedent obligation on conscience to associate on the account of Christianity whether Humane Laws prohibit or command it From whence of necessity it follows that the constitution of the Church is really different from that of the Common-wealth because whether the Common-wealth bee for or against this Society all that own ir are bound to profess it openly and declare themselves members of it Whereas were the Church and Common-wealth really and formally the same all obligation to Church Society would arise meerly from the Legislative Power of the Common-wealth But now there being a Divine Law binding in conscience whose obligation cannot bee superseded by any Humane Law it is plain and evident where are such vastly different obligations there are different Powers and in this sense I know no incongruity in admitting imperium in imperio if by it wee understand no external coactive power but an internal power laying obligation on conscience distinct from the power lodged in a Common-wealth considered as such An outward coactive power was alwayes disowned by Christ but certainly not an internall Power over Conscience to oblige all his Disciples to what Duties hee thought fit Secondly I argue from those Officers whose rights to govern this Society are founded on that Charter whereby the Society its self subsists Now I would willingly know why when our Saviour disowned all outward power in the world yet he should constitute a Society and appoint Officers in it did hee not intend a peculiar distinct Society from the other Societies of the world And therefore the argument frequently used against Church-power because it hath no outward force with it by the constitution of Christ is a strong argument to mee of the peculiarity of a Christian Society from a Common-wealth because Christ so instituted it as not to have it Ruled at
soever we place it if Church-officers have a power to pronounce such a person to be withdrawn from they have a power of excommunication so we consider this penalty as inflicted on the person in his relation to the Society as a Christian and withall how nearly conjoyned their civil and spiritual eating were together 1 Corinth 11.20 21. and how strongly the argument will hold from Civil to Sacred viz. à remotione unius ad remotionem alterius not from any fancyed pollution in Sacris from the company of wicked men but from the dishonour reflecting on the Society from such unworthy persons partaking of the highest priviledges of it Thus from these three Hypotheses this Corollary follows that where any persons in a Church do by their open and contumacious offences declare to the world that they are far from being the persons they were supposed to be in their admission into the Church there is a power resident in the Pastors of the Church to debar such persons from the priviledges of it and consequently from Communion in the Lords Supper 1. Because this expresseth the nearest union and closest confederation as the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 among the Grecian Common-wealths did 2. Because this hath been alwayes looked on with greatest veneration in the Church of God and therefore it is least of all fit those persons should be admitted to the highest priviledges of the Church which are unworthy of the lowest of them There remain only some few objections which are levelled against this opinion concerning the power of excommunication which from the Question being thus stated and proved will be soon removed The first is that this excommunication is an outward punishment and therefore belongs not to Church-officers but to the Magistrate 2. Because it neither is nor ever was in the power of any Church-officer to debar any offending member from publick worship because any heathens may come to it 3. It cannot lie as to exclusion from the Lords Supper because Christ is offered as spiritual food as well in the Word Preached as in the Sacrament To these I answer 1. I do not well understand what the Objectors mean by an outward punishment for there can be no punishment belonging to a visible Society such as the Church is here considered to be but it must be visible i. e. outward or a thing to be taken notice of in the world and in this sense I deny that all visible punishment belongs only to the Magistrate but if by outward be meant forcible punishment then I grant that all coactive power belongs to the Magistrate but I deny that excommunication formally considered is a forcible punishment 1. Because every person at his entrance into this Society is supposed to declare his submission to the rules of the Society and therefore whatever he after undergoes by way of penalty in this Society doth depend upon that consent 2. A person stands excommunicate legally and de jure who is declared authoritativly to be no member of the Society though he may be present at the acts of it as a defranchised person may be at those of a Corporation 3. A person falling into those offences which merit excommunication is supposed in so doing voluntarily to renounce his interest in those prviledges the enjoyment of which doth depend upon abstaining from those offences which he wilfully falls into especially if contumacy be joyned with them as it is before excommunication for then nothing is done forcibly towards him for he first relinquisheth his right before the Church-Governour declares him excluded the Society So that the offendor doth meritoriously excommunicate himself the Pastor doth it formally by declaring that he hath made himself no member by his offences and contumacy joyned with them To the second I answer That I do not place the formality of excommunication in exclusion from hearing the Word but in debarring the person from hearing tanquam pars eoclesiae as a member of the Church and so his hearing may be well joined with that of Heathens and Infidels and not of members of the Church To the third I answer That exclusion from the Lords Supper is not on the accounts mentioned in the objection but because it is one of the chiefest priviledges of the Church as it is a visible Society Having thus cleared and asserted the power of excommunication in a Christian Church there remains only one enquiry more which is Whether this power doth remain formally in the Church after its being incorporated into the Common-wealth or else doth it then escheate wholly into the Civil power The resolution of which question mainly depends on another spoken to already viz. Whether this power was only a kind of Widows estate which belonged to it only during its separation from the Civil power or was the Church absolutely infeoffed of it as its perpetual right belonging to it in all conditions whatsoever it should be in Now that must appear by the Tenure of it and the grounds on which it was conveyed which having been proved already to be perpetual and universal it from thence appears that no accession to the Church can invalidate its former title But then as in case of marriage the right of disposal and well management of the estate coming by the wife belongs to the husband so after the Church is married into the Common wealth the right of supream management of this power in an external way doth fall into the Magistrates hands Which may consist in these following things 1. A right of prescribing Laws for the due management of Church-censures 2 A right of bounding the manner of proceeding in censures that in a settled Christian State matters of so great weight be not left to the arbitrary pleasure of any Church-officers nor such censures inflicted but upon an evident conviction of such great offences which tend to the dishonour of the Christian Church and that in order to the amendment of the offendors life 3. The right of adding temporal and civil sanctions to Church-censures and so enforcing the spiritual weapons of the Church with the more keen and sharp ones of the Civil state Thus I assert the force and efficacy of all Church-censures in foro humano to flow from the Civil power and that there is no proper effect following any of them as to Civil rights but from the Magistrates sanction 4. To the Magistrate belongs the right of appeals in case of unjust censures not that the Magistrate can repeal a just censure in the Church as to its spiritual effects but he may suspend the temporal effect of it in which case it is the duty of Pastors to discharge their office and acquiesce But this power of the Magistrate in the supream ordering of Ecclesiastical as well as Civil Causes I have fully asserted and cleared already From which it follows That as to any outward effects of the power of excommunication the person of the Supream Magistrate must be exempted both because the force of these censures doth flow from him in a Christian State and that there otherwise would be a progress in infinitum to know whether the censure of the Magistrate were just or no. I conclude then that though the Magistrate hath the main care of ordering things in the Church yet the Magistrates power in the Church being cumulative and not privative the Church and her officers retain the fundamental right of inflicting censures on offenders Which was the thing to be proved Dedit Deus his quoque Finem §. 1. §. 2. §. 3. §. 4. §. 5. §. 6. §. 7. §. 8. §. 9. §. 10. §. 11. §. 12. Apud Agust de Civit. de l. 2. c. 21. §. 13. §. 14. §. 15. §. 16. Iren. p. 2. c. 3. Iren. p. 1. c. 8. §. 4. §. 17. in Luk. 6.22 §. 18. §. 19. Matth. 16.19 Iren. p. 2. ch 5. §. 5. p. 212. Acts 2.41 1 Pet. 3.21 Tit. 3.5 Acts 8.33 Isa. 22.20 Cypr. Ep. 73. sect 6. §. 20. §. 21. Heb. 9.22 §. 22. 1 Cor. 5.11 2 Thess. 3.14 §. 23. Iren. p. 1. c. 2. sect 7.