soever we place it if Church-officers have a power to pronounce such a person to be withdrawn from they have a power of excommunication so we consider this penalty as inflicted on the person in his relation to the Society as a Christian and withall how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.
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