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Since the ministers of Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of God, were commissioned to teach, and to be an example of all believers, it is plain that they were, by the very nature of their office, given the chief and leading part in all judgments concerning religion. But it seems that their power went further than this; and that they were invested with the inherent right of judging and censuring, independently of the people, when they judged it necessary. Thus our blessed Saviour, not only said to the church, consisting of his ministers and people, "whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; but he said to the apostles only, and through them to their successors in the sacred ministry, "whosesoever sins ye remit they are remitted, and whosesoever sins ye retain they are retained "." Hence St. Paul alone "delivered Hymenæus and Alexander to Satan, that they might learn not to blaspheme:" and to Timothy he said, "A man that is a heretic, after the first and second admonition, reject." It was probably by observing these circumstances, that christians were induced universally to devolve the judgment of all causes on their chief pastors, the bishops of the catholic church, who, however, usually judged with the advice of their clergy', and at length deputed a portion of their power to their vicars, chancellors, and archdeacons.

The cognizance of the causes of the clergy was specially reserved to the ministers of Jesus Christ, by St. Paul, who writes to Timothy: "Against a presbyter receive not an accusation, but before two or three witnesses thus constituting him the judge of the pres

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s Matt. xviii. 18.

n John xx. 23.

1 Tim. i. 20.

Tit. iii. 10.

' Du Pin, De Antiq. Eccl. Discipl. Dissert. iii. p. 249.

m 1 Tim. v. 19.

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byters at Ephesus. It would not have been decorous indeed, that the sheep should judge their shepherds, the children their spiritual parents, those who are ruled their rulers: and the same principle of fitness and decency requires that those who preside in every church should not be judged by the inferior clergy and laity of their churches, but by those who, like themselves, succeed to the principal and apostolical power.

The judgments of particular churches in the causes of laity and clergy, were not final; an appeal was allowed to provincial synods", and in later times from: the bishop to the metropolitan.

For many ages the judgments of the church were conducted according to fixed rules indeed, but without the formality of juridical proceedings. It was not until the twelfth century, that ecclesiastical jurisdiction in courts proceeding according to the forms of the Roman law, was introduced into the church °.

SECTION II.

ON ECCLESIASTICAL CENSURES.

The ecclesiastical censures mentioned in scripture are public rebuke, or admonition, and the greater excommunication, or anathema.

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The former is authorized by the following passages, "A man that is a heretic, after the first and second admonition, reject 2. "Rebuke them sharply that they may be sound in the faith "." Them that sin rebuke before all, that others also may fear." These passages

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authorize not only verbal admonitions, but formal episcopal censures of books, propositions, and persons.

The second censure is mentioned in the following texts: "If he neglect to hear the church let him be unto thee as an heathen man, and a publican. 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 "." "Whosesoever sins ye remit they are remitted unto them, and whosesoever sins ye retain are retained "." “I verily, as absent in body but present in spirit, have judged already... concerning him that hath so done this deed, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, when ye are gathered together, and my spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ, to deliver such an one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.... Purge out therefore the old leaven put away from among yourselves that wicked person A man that is an heretic, after the first and second admonition, reject "." "We command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye withdraw yourselves from every brother that walketh disorderly, and not after the tradition which he received from us "." "I would they were even cut off that trouble you." "Some concerning faith have made shipwreck, of whom is Hymenæus and Alexander, whom I have delivered unto Satan, that they may learn not to blaspheme." From these passages we learn that the judgment of the church against an obstinate and impenitent offender, declaring him to be as an heathen man and a publican, is ratified

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2 Thess. iii. 6, 7.

i Gal. v. 12.

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8 Tit. iii. 10.

by God himself: and that he who is rightly excommunicated, clave non errante, is cut off from the way of salvation so that unless he receive the grace of repentance, he will certainly perish. The awful nature of this censure obviously renders it necessary, not only that the most conscientious diligence be employed in investigating any case to which it may be applied, but that its use be sparing, and only in extreme cases '.

The external effects of anathema are, an exclusion from the sacraments, from all christian privileges, from all religious intercourse with christians, and from all other intercourse as far as possible, except between relations, whose reciprocal duties are imposed by the Divine law; as rulers and subjects, parents and children, &c.

Since the church is empowered to inflict these penalties collectively, on great and obstinate offenders against the Divine law, she has also the power of inflicting a portion of them when the offence is inferior: the greater power including the less. Hence arose the other censures, viz. the lesser excommunication, interdict, suspension, irregularity, degradation, all of which are partial exclusions from christian privileges. The lesser excommunication consists in a suspension from the sacraments or offices of the church, in order to bring the offender to repentance. It is the opinion of some persons, that excommunications late sententiæ, or to be incurred ipso facto, (introduced in the middle ages",) are always to be understood of the lesser excommunication ". Interdict was a censure introduced in the

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middle ages, prohibiting the celebration of public ser+ vice. Suspension is an interdiction to a clergyman to exercise ministerial functions for a limited time, and does not seem to have existed very early in the church. Irregularity is incurred by any clergyman under suspension who performs any ministerial act: it consists in an incapacity to receive superior orders, or to obtain benefices. Degradation, or deposition, is the perpetual deprivation of all right to exercise ministerial functions, or to possess any privileges or emoluments attached to them. These are, as I have observed, partial exclusions from christian privileges; and the church, which is given the power of the greater excommunication in cases of obstinate sin, is reasonably believed to be invested with the power of inflicting milder censures where there is a probable hope of amendment. Accordingly the church universal has exercised the discipline of the suspension of penitents from the sacraments, and deposition of the clergy, apparently from the time of the apostles.

SECTION III.

ON PENITENCE AND ABSOLUTION.

The object of the church's censures, being "edification and not destruction "," the recovery, not the mere

See Van Espen, Jus. Eccl. Universum, pars iii. tit. xi. c. ix; Tractatus de Censuris, c. ix; Fleury, Institut. au Droit Eccles. part iii. c. 21.

P Van Espen, Jus. Eccl. Univers. pars ii. tit. x; Tract. de Censuris, c. x; Fleury, c. 19. Irregularity is rather an incapacity than a censure, but it is a consequence of ecclesiastical censures. See Fleury, part i

C. 4. the modern canonists reckon only three sorts of censure, suspension, excommunication, and interdict.

See Gibson, Codex Tit. xlvi. According to Fleury, c. 19, the solemn degradation of ecclesiastics, which required the assistance of several bishops, has long been disused in France.

a 2 Cor. xiii. 10.

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