they are looked upon as his mortal enemy; and they treat both the Church and her Ministers worse than this legion did Jesus Christ. They despise their power, set at nought their persons, and threaten and persecute them for their good will. Vide Quesn.
There is not any greater or more dreadful sign of the wrath of God, than when he abandons a sinner to his lusts, and permits him to find means of satisfying them.
The public good is the sole end of Church discipline. The interest of the governors of the Church is no way concerned in it; but only the advantage of their flock, that sinners may be converted; that contagion may be hindered from spreading; that every one may be kept to his duty, and in obedience to the laws of God; that judgments may be averted from the public, and that God in all things may be glorified; that differences among neighbours may be made up, and charity improved, &c.
Discipline (saith our Homily of the right use of the Church, Part II.) in the primitive Church was practised, not only upon mean persons, but upon the rich, the noble, and the mighty; and such as St. Paul saith, were even given to Satan for a time.
Those that make a mock, a sport, a jest of sin, too plainly betray a love of wickedness in themselves.
Exemption.
A legal exemption cannot free a man from guilt, beyond the extent of that power which grants the exemption. If it be a human power, it can extend no farther than to exempt a man from human penalties, not from those that are purely spiritual.
Eccles. viii. 5. "Reproach not a man that turneth from sin."
They whom fear renders cowardly in the exercise of their ministry, forget that they act in the name and place of Christ, and are to account to him for the mischief the Church receives thereby.
Deut. i. 17. "Ye shall not be afraid of the face of men, for the judgment is God's."
O righteous judge of the world, give me and my substitutes grace, patiently to hear, and impartially to weigh, every cause that shall come before us in judgment.
