that if baptism be a blessing, excommunication is a real punishment: there being the same authority for excommunication as for baptism. And if men ridicule it, they do it at the peril of their souls.
In short, this authority is necessary, if it is necessary to preserve the honour of religion. It is appointed by Jesus Christ. The ends proposed by it are, to reform wicked men, and to remove scandals. If the sentence is duly executed, the offender is really deprived of the ordinary means of salvation. It is indeed a sentence passed by men, but by men commissioned by God Himself; that is, by the Holy Ghost.
The authority of Christ is to be respected in the meanest of His ministers.
Excommunication, the most dreadful punishment which a Christian can suffer, becomes less feared than it ought to be, through the countenance which excommunicated persons meet with, contrary to the express command of God, "With such a one, no not to eat."
A true penitent will be willing to bear the shame of his sins (where he has given offence) before men, that he may escape the confusion of them hereafter. But then he ought to know, that to submit to the outward part of penance, is not to submit to God, unless it proceed from the fear and love of God.
A man may see his sin, confess it, abhor it, and yet be a false penitent. Judas did all this. What he wanted was the grace of God, to see the mercy of God as well as His justice.
Those who are the first to lead men into sinful courses, seldom trouble themselves to recover them out of them. The ministers of Christ must do it, or they must die in their sin.
Mark v. 4. "And they laughed him to scorn." O, my Lord and Master! let me not be driven from my duty, by the infidelity and scoffs of the world.
How desperate soever the condition of a sinner may appear, we must neither insult over it, nor despair of his conversion.
A person who has offended and scandalized others by his sins, ought, before he be admitted to the peace of the Church, and to receive the Sacrament, to give some good ground of assurance, by a sober life, that he is a true penitent.
