Page:Letters of John Huss Written During His Exile and Imprisonment.djvu/247

 pontiffs, Adrian IV., Alexander III., Innocent III., Boniface VIII., Innocent IV., and Clement IV., to interdict towns and countries, in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, and concludes by quoting, against this custom, an admirable letter of St Augustin to a young bishop, who, on account of the ill-conduct of a holy father, had excommunicated his whole family. This is the letter:—“Instruct me, I pray you, by strict reason or Scripture, in what case, should you know of any, the child should be excommunicated for the sin of the father, the wife for that of the husband, the servant for the master, and even the children that may be born in the house thus excommunicated, since, as long as it remains so, it is impossible to procure for the children, even when in danger of death, the grace of regeneration produced by Baptism. The chastisement which God inflicted on several of the impious who had despised his law, and in which he included all belonging to them, was an external punishment, which fell only on the body, in order to fill the living with dread; but the excommunication resulting from the power given us by these words:‘That which you shall have bound on earth, shall be bound in heaven,’ falls even upon the soul; and it is said of souls: ‘The soul of the father belongs to me, as likewise the soul of the son; and that which has sinned shall die.’ Perhaps you have heard of some bishops of great repute, who anathemised sinners with the whole of their families; but if they were