Page:Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent Buckley.djvu/265

Rh by solemn oath to this institution. And also if there be any other things that need correction and reformation in the universities aforesaid, they shall be amended and ordained by those whom it regards, for the advancement of religion and of ecclesiastical discipline. But those universities which are immediately subject to the protection and visitation of the Sovereign Pontiff, his Blessedness shall take care that they be, by his delegates, wholesomely visited and reformed in the manner aforesaid, and as shall seem to him most advantageous.

CHAPTER III.

Although the sword of excommunication is the very sinews of ecclesiastical discipline, and very salutary for keeping the people in their duty, yet is it to be used with sobriety and great circumspection; seeing that experience teaches, that if it be rashly or for slight causes wielded, it is more despised than feared, and produces destruction rather than safety. Wherefore, those excommunications which, after certain admonitions previously made, are wont to be issued with the view, as it is termed, of causing a revelation, or on account of things lost or stolen, shall be issued by no one soever but the bishop; and not then, otherwise than on account of some circumstance of no common kind, and a cause which, having been diligently and very maturely weighed by the bishop, moves his mind. Nor shall he be induced to grant the said excommunications by the authority of any secular person soever, even though a magistrate; but the whole shall be left to his own discretion and conscience, when, considering the circumstances, place, person, or time, he shall himself judge that such are to be resolved on. But as regards judicial causes, it is enjoined on all ecclesiastical judges, of what dignity soever they may be, that, both during proceeding, and in giving judgment, they abstain from ecclesiastical censures, or interdict, whensoever an execution on the person or property can, in each stage of the process, be effected by them of their own proper authority; but in civil causes, which in any way appertain to the ecclesiastical