Page:The Church, by John Huss.pdf/328

276 pleasure in you, neither will I accept an offering at thy hand," Mal. 1:10. And Christ's apostle suspended all who were guilty of criminal offence from the ministry of Christ's body and blood and the Lord, as he said: "Wherefore whoso shall eat the bread and drink the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord," I Cor. 11:27. Likewise, we read of the severe suspension of Eli and his family, in that he did not duly correct his sons, as the Lord said to Eli: "Wherefore kick ye at my sacrifices and my offerings which I have commanded that they should be offered in my temple and honorest thy sons above me, to make yourselves fat with all the chiefest of the offerings of Israel my people? Therefore the Lord saith to Israel, I said indeed that thy house and the house of thy father should minister for ever before me, but now the Lord saith, Be it far from me, for he who honoreth me, him will I honor, and they that despise me shall be lightly esteemed. Behold the days come that I will cut off thy arm and the arm of thy father's house and this shall be the sign unto thee that shall come upon thy two sons, on Hophni and Phinehas; in one day they shall die, both of them. And I will raise me up a faithful priest, who shall do according to my heart and my mouth," I Sam. 2:29–35. Likewise, of the suspension of the king, Saul, who, in the face of God's commandments had spared God's enemies, we read: "Because thou hast rejected the word of the Lord, the Lord also hath rejected thee from being king," I Sam. 15:23.

It is plain how suspension varies, for one is a suspension from office, one from a benefice or from some other good from which the sinner is justly suspended on account of open sin. Likewise, there is a suspension in fact and a suspension by law and there are other sorts of suspension. But, as has been said, suspension by law belongs chiefly to God to originate and regulate, but suspension in fact occurs when God sometimes through good, sometimes through bad,