-37 Chapter 37. Of Ecclesiastical Discipline.

1-37 Chapter 37. Of Ecclesiastical Discipline. An adjunct of the Word and Sacraments is Discipline:
which in respect to the sum of the matter has always
been one, and so it may fitly be handled in
this one place.

1. Holy Discipline is a personal application of the Will of God by censures, either for the prevention or the removal of scandals from the Church of God.
2. For in preaching the Word, the Will of God is propounded and really applied to beget and increase Faith and Obedience. In the administration of the Sacraments, the Will of God is also personally applied by the seals to confirm Faith and Obedience. In the exercise of Discipline, the Will of God is also personally applied in the censures for removing those vices which are contrary to Faith and Obedience.
3. Hence it is that Discipline is usually joined with the Word and Sacraments by the best Divines, in the notes610 of the Church; for though it is not a note that is plainly essential and reciprocal (as the Word and Sacraments are),611 yet it should necessarily be present for the complete estate of a Church.612
4. This Discipline is ordained and prescribed by Christ himself, Matthew 16:19; Matthew 18:15-17.613 And so it is plainly by Divine right;614 nor may it be taken away, diminished, or changed by men at their pleasure.
5. Indeed, whoever does not do as much as he can to establish and promote this Discipline in the Churches of God, sins against Christ, the author and ordainer.
6. The persons about whom it ought to be exercised are the members of visible instituted Churches, without any exception, Matthew 18:15; 1 Corinthians 5:11, and not others, 1 Corinthians 5:12.615 For it pertains to those, and only those who have the right to partake of the Sacrament.
7. The Sacrament applies the Will of God to those persons; that is, it applies those means of spiritual reformation which Christ has given only to his Church, 2 Corinthians 10:4.616
8. It respects sins and scandals in those persons; for it is a wholesome healing plaster617 for those wounds and diseases to which the sheep of Christ are subject, 1 Corinthians 5:5.618
9. It forbids and takes away those offences, because it effectually and personally applies the Will of Christ: the impugning and abolishing of those offences.
10. But because it effectually urges obedience toward Christ, it is not without singular reason that a great part of the Kingdom of Christ, as he visibly governs the Church, is placed in this Discipline by the best Divines.
11. And this is the true reason why the Discipline of Christ is solidly constituted and exercised together with doctrine in so few churches: because most even of those who would seem to know Christ, and to hope in him, refuse to receive the whole Kingdom of Christ, and to yield themselves wholly to him.
12. But as Discipline is a part of the Kingdom of Christ, so Discipline is also a part of the Gospel: for it is a holy manner of promoting the Gospel, ordained in the Gospel.619 Therefore, those who reject Discipline neither receive the whole Kingdom of Christ, nor the whole Gospel.
13. But because every part of the Kingdom of Christ is necessary in its measure, and what is chiefly necessary is that which effectually represses sin, men do not content themselves safely enough in Churches that are lacking Discipline, unless that public defect is offset by private care, and watching over one another.
14. The parts of this Discipline are brotherly correction, and excommunication.
15. For Discipline not only or chiefly consists in the thunderclaps of Excommunications620 and Anathema’s,621 but chiefly in Christian correction.
16. Nor is the proper end of reproof that there might then be an excuse for Excommunication (although by accident that does sometimes follow); rather, the proper end is that the necessity of Excommunicating might be prevented if possible, and the sinner, by timely repentance, may be retained in the Church.
17. CORRECTION, increpation,622 or admonition, ought to be used in every sin to which the medicine of Discipline agrees, yet in various ways according to the difference between the sin being secret, or known. For in hidden sins, those three degrees are to be observed which Christ prescribed in order, in Matthew 18:15-17.623 But in public sins, such a gradation is not necessary, 1 Timothy 5:20.624
18. These admonitions should always be taken from the word of God, not men’s decrees; otherwise they will not pierce to the conscience.
19. A plenary excommunication625 is not to be used unless contumacy626 is added to the sin, Matthew 18:17. For the sinner who is rightly admonished must, of necessity, appear either penitent or obstinate; but the penitent is not to be excommunicated; only the one that is obstinate.
20. Yet in the more heinous offences, great patience and delay is not necessary or profitable in order to expect repentance; and discerning contumacy is done as in the more usual faults.
21. When the thing itself may allow for delay, it is agreeable to Scripture and reason that excommunication first begins by suspension or abstention from the Supper, and from similar privileges of the Church; this is usually called the lesser Excommunication.
22. Yet we must not stay in this degree, but by this means and during this time, repentance is to be urged; there being no hope of it, we must proceed at length to a complete severing from the Communion of the faithful, which is usually called the greater Excommunication.
23. But because an obstinate sinner cannot be separated from the faithful unless the faithful are separated from him, and this also makes for their wholesome shame, 2 Thessalonians 3:14, those who are lawfully excommunicated are to be avoided by all Communicants — not in respect to duties that are plainly moral or otherwise necessary, but in respect to those parts of conversation which usually accompany approval and inward familiarity.
Os, orare, vale, conviva, mensa, negatur.627 With the secluded, neither confer, nor pray Salute, nor feast, nor eat with day by day.
24. Only the penitent should be loosed from the bond of Excommunication; nor should loosing be denied to anyone who is penitent. But it is not a sufficient repentance if someone says, “I repent, I will do so no more,” and yet does not otherwise show Repentance. But such judgments of serious repentance should appear to be satisfied in them, as the Church is bound to be. Otherwise hypocrisy is nourished, and the Church is mocked, and Christ himself.
25. Yet in some sins, a weak repentance (such that it appears to be true) may be allowed them in other sins.
26. The power of this Discipline in respect to the right itself, pertains to that Church of which the offender is a member in common; for it belongs to her to cast out the one she first admitted. And the conserving or cutting off of members concerns the whole body equally. It is therefore to be executed with the consent of the Church; and that is not only by the Church permitting it, but also approving and appointing it.
27. Yet the Elders have the chief parts in acting out and exercising Discipline. And that is not only in directing the public action, and pronouncing sentence, but also in the preceding admonitions, in which they must make up for that which they see was neglected by private persons.
28. The usual censure of the Popes, of pontific Bishops and their officers, themselves deserve a grievous censure. For they are profanations of the Name of God, props of an unjust government, and snares to catch other men’s money — not spiritual remedies for such sins.
29. Indulgences, Commutations, and human transactions, in those things for which Christ has ordained the Discipline of the Church, are wages of the great Whore.628