evident to be matter of Prudence, Security, and a free unconstrained Difcipline; and they paffed into power by confent and voluntary Submiffion, having the fame effect of Conftraint, Fear and Authority, which we fee in fecular Jurifdiction; not becaufe Ecclefiaftical Difcipline hath a natural proper coercion as. Lay Tribunals have, but becaufe Men have fubmitted to it, and are bound to do fo upon the Intereft of two or three Chriftian Graces. 3. In pufuance of this Caution and Provifion, the Church fuperinduced Times and Manners of Abstention, and Expreffions of Sorrow and Canonical Punishments, which they tied the delinquent People to fuffer before they would admit them to the holy Table of the Lord. For the Criminal having obliged himself by his Sin, and the Church having declared it when the fhould take notice of it, he is bound to repent to make him capable of Pardon with God; and to prove that he is penitent, he is to do fuch Actions which the Church in the virtue and purfuance of Repentance fhall accept as a Teftimony of it fufficient to inform her. For as fhe could not bind at all. (in this fenfe) till the Crime was publick, though the Man had bound himself in fecret; fo neither can fhe fet him free till the Repentance be as publick as the Sin, or fo as the can note it and approve it. Though the Man be free as to God by his internal A&; yet as the publication of the Sin was accidental to it, and the Church-cenfure confequent to it, fo is the publication of Repentance and confe-. quent Abfolution extrinfecal to the Pardon, but acci- l dentally and in the prefent Circumstances neceffary. This was the fame that the Jews did, (though in other Inftances and Expreffions) and do to this Day to their prevaricating People; and the Effenes in their Affemblies and private Colleges of Scholars, and publick Universities. For all thefe being Affemblies of voluntary Perfons, and fuch as feck for Advantage, are bound to make an artificial Authority in their Superiors, and fo to fecure Order and Government by their own Obedience and voluntary Subordination, which is not effential and of proper Jurifdiction ,, in the Superiour; and the band of it is not any coercive Power, but the denying to communicate fuch Benefits which they feek in that Communion and Fellowship. 4. Thefe, I fay, were introduced in the Special Manners and Inftances by pofitive Authority, and have not a Divine Authority commanding them; but there is a Divine Power that verifies them, and makes thefe Separations effectual and formidable: For because they are declarative and minifterial in the fpiritual Man, and fuppofe a delinquency and demerit in the other, and a Sin against God, our bleffed Saviour hath declared, that what they bind on Earth fhall be bound in Heaven; that is, in plain fignification, the fame Sins and Sinners which the Clergy condemns in the Face of their Affemblies, the fame are condemned in Heaven before the Face of God, and for the fame reafon too. God's Law hath fentenced it, and thefe are the Preachers and Publifhers of his Law, by which they ftand condemned: and thefe Laws are they that condemn the Sin, or acquit the Penitent, there and here; whatsoever they bind here Summum futuri judicii præjudici-hall be bound there, that is, the Sentence of God at the Day of Judgment fhall fentence the fame Men whom the Church does rightly fentence here. It is fpoken in the future [it fhall be bound in Heaven:] not but that the Sinner is first bound there, or firft abfolved there: But becaufe um eft, fi quis ità deliquerit, ut à communicatione orationis & conventus & omnis fan&ti commercii relegetur. Tertul. Apol. c. 39. Atq; hoc idem innuitur per fummam Apoftoli cenfuram, in reos maximi criminis fit ανάθεμα μαρα váda, i.e. excommunicatus majori excommunicatione; Dominus veniet, judicium hæc cenfura Ecclefiæ eft relativa & in ordine. Tum demum poenas dabit; ad quas, nifi refipifcat, hic confignatur. feil. ad judicandum eum: ad quod all binding and loofing in the interval is imperfect and relative to the Day of Judgment, the Day of the great Sentence, therefore it is fet down in the Time to come, and fays this only, the Clergy are tied by the Word and Laws of God to condemn fuch Sins and Sinners; and that you may not think it ineffective, becaufe after fuch Sentence the Man lives and grows rich, or remains in Health and Power, therefore be fure it fhall be verified in the Day of Judgment. This is hugely agreeable with the Words of our Lord, and certain in Reafon : For that that the Minister does nothing to the final Alteration of the state of the Man's Soul by way of Sentence, is demonftratively certain, because he cannot bind a Man, but fuch as hath bound himself, and who is bound in Heaven by his Sin before his Sentence in the Church; as also because the binding of the Church is merely accidental, and upon Publication only; and when the Man repents, he is abfolved before God, before die Sentence of the Church, upon his Contrition and Dereliction only; and if he were not, the Church could not abfolve him. The confequent of which evident Truth is this, that whatfoever Impofitions the ChurchOfficers impofe upon the Criminal, they are to avoid Scandal, to teftify Repentance, and to exercife it, to inftru&t the People, to make them fear; to reprefent the A&t of God, and the fecret and the true ftate of the Sinner: And although they are not effentially neceffary to our Pardon, yet they are become neceffary when the Church hath feized upon the Sinner by publick Notice of the Crime; neceffary (1 fay) for the removing the Scandal, and giving Testimony of our Contrition, and for the receiving all that Comfort which he needs, and cati derive from the promises of Pardon, as they are published by him that is commanded to preach them to all them that repent. And therefore although it cannot be neceffary as to the obtaining Pardon, that the Prieft should in private abfolve a fick Man from his private Sins, and there is no lonfing where there was no precedent binding, and he that was only bound before God, can before him only be loofed: Yet as to confefs Sins to any Chriftian in private may have many good Ends, and to confefs them to a Clergyman may have many more; fo to hear God's Sentence at the Mouth of the Minifter, Pardon pronounced by God's Ambaffador, is of huge Comfort to them that cannot otherwise be comforted, and whofe Infirmity needs it; and therefore it were very fit it were not neglected in' the Days of our Fear and Danger, of our Infirmity and Sorrow. 5. The Execution of this Miniftery being an Act of Prudence and Charity, and therefore relative to chan Р ging ging Circumstances, it hath been, and in many Cases may, and in fome must be refcinded and altered. The Time of Separation may be lengthened and fhortned, the Condition made lighter or heavier; and for the fame Offence the Clergyman is depofed, but yet_admitted to the Communion, for which one of the People, who hath no Office to lofe, is denied the Benefit of communicating; and this fometimes when he might lawfully receive it: And a private Man is separate, when a Multitude or a Prince is not, cannot, ought not. And at laft, when the cafe of Sickness and danger of Death did occur, they admitted all Men that defired it: Sometimes without Scruple or Difficulty, fometimes with fome little Reftraint in great or infolent Cafes, (as in the Cafe of Apoftacy, in which the Arelat. C,3. Council of Arles denied Abfolution, unless they received and gave publick Satisfaction by Acts of Repentance; and fome other Councils denied at any time to do it to fuch Perfons) according as feemed fitting to the prefent Neceffities of the Church. All which Particulars declare it to be no part of a divine Commandment, that any Man fhould be denied to receive the Communion if he defires it, and if he be in any probable Capacity of receiving it. Vide 2 Cor. 2. 10. & S. Cyprian, Ep. 73 6. Since the Separation was an A& of Liberty and a dire& Negative, it follows that the Reftitution was a meer doing that which they refufed formerly, and to give the holy Communion was the Formality of Abfolution, and all the Inftrument and the whole Matter of Reconcilement; the taking off the Punishment is the pardoning of the Sin: For this without the other is but a Word; and if this be done, I care not whether any thing be faid or no. Vinum Dominicum miniftratoris gratia eft, is alfo true in this Senfe; to give the Chalice and Cup is the Grace and Indulgence of the Minifter: And when that is done, the Man hath obtained the Peace of the Church; and to do that, is all the Abfolution the Church can give. And they were vain Disputes which were commenced fome few Ages fince, concerning the forms of Abfolution, whether they were indicative or optative, by way of Declaration, or by way way of Sentence: For at first they had no Forms at all, but they faid a Prayer, and after the manner of the Jews, laid Hands upon the Penitent, when they prayed over him, and fo admitted him to the holy Communion. For fince the Church had no Power over her Children, but of excommunicating and denying them to attend upon Holy Offices and Minifteries refpectively, neither cou'd they have any Abfolution, but to admit them thither from whence formerly they were forbidden: Whatsoever Ceremony or Form did fignify, this was fuperinduced and arbitrary, alterable and accidental; it had variety, but no neceffity. 7. The Practice confequent to this, is, that if the Penitent be bound by the pofitive Cenfures of the Church, he is to be reconciled upon thofe Conditions which the Laws of the Church tie him to, in cafe he can perform them: If he cannot, he can no longer be prejudiced by the Cenfure of the Church, which had no relation but to the People, with whom the dying Man is no longer to converfe. For whatfoever re- Cauf. 26. lates to God, is to be tranfacted in fpiritual Ways, by 6. & Q.7. Contrition and internal Graces; and the Mercy of the Church is fuch, as to give him her Peace and her Bleffing, upon his undertaking to obey her Injunctions, if he shall be able: Which Injunctions, if they be declared by publick Sentence, the Minifter hath nothing to do in the Affair, but to remind him of his Obligation, and reconcile him, that is, give him the holy Sacrament. 8. If the Penitent be not bound by publick Sentence, the Minifter is to make his Repentance as great, and his Heart as contrite as he can, to dispose him by the repetition of Acts of Grace, in the way of Prayer, and in real and exterior Inftances, where he can, and then to give him the holy Communion in all the fame Cafes in which he ought not to have denied it to him in his Health, that is, even in the beginnings of fuch a Repentance, which by human Signs he believes to be real and holy: And after this, the event must be left to God. The reafon of the |