Page:The Church, by John Huss.pdf/323

Rh back to Christ's fold and to life eternal as a measure ordained for a final end. Therefore, St. Augustine, Homilia, de penitentia, also 2: 1, Multi, says: Excommunication ought not to be mortal but medicinal." Again, Cum medicinalis. de Sent. Excom., liber 6: 7. A notorious sinner after the third warning or public citation, when he refuses to be corrected, ought on account of his criminal offence to be kept from communication according to the Saviour's command, where he said to Peter: "If thy brother sin against thee, go show him his fault between thee and him alone. If he hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother. But if he will not hear thee, take with thee one or two more that at the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established. And if he refuses to hear them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to hear the church also, let him be unto thee as the Gentile and the publican," Matt. 18:15–17. This exposition is given above at the beginning of of this treatise, in which the conditions of a true prelate are indicated. Nevertheless, this is yet to be noted, that Christ said: "If he sin," that is, commit the sin of a criminal offence, for on that account he is deserving of correction and he is not to be excommunicated for anything whatsoever. But if he show himself incorrigible, after the third reproof, then he ought to be carefully avoided as a heathen Gentile and a publican; otherwise not. Let, therefore, prelates see to it that they act cautiously, lest they excommunicate so easily subjects for temporal gain.

Hence, St. Augustine, Sermo de Quadragesima: "We cannot deprive of the communion, because this prohibition is not yet mortal or medicinal, except in the case of one who has of his own accord confessed or has been named or convicted in some secular or ecclesiastical tribunal." And he also says on these words, "If any man that is named a brother be a fornicator or covetous or an idolater or a reviler or