Reliquiæ Baxterianæ, or, Mr. Richard Baxters narrative of the most memorable passages of his…

§ 336. 4. And for the Adjuncts; your Discipline of Excommunication is all enforced with Imprisonment and the utter ruin of the Excommunicate, upon a Writ de Excommunicato capiendo: If you say that it is the Magistrate's Action, and not ours, I answer, 1. You are the Judges, and make the Magistrate your Executioners. 2. You take the very Life of your Discipline to lye in it! How ordinarily do you say, That were it not for the Sword and Corporal Penalty, who would care for Excommunication? And your Confession hath in it much of Truth, as to your Excommunications: But hereby you corrupt the Discipline of the Church, and lamentably corrupt the Church it self. It is a great Truth which the Churches welfare lieth on, That no Man is fit for the Communion of the Church, that so far despiseth it, as not to be moved by a mere Excommunication. Shall he have the Communion of the Church, who will rather be cast out of it than repent? when, of old, Penitents long begged the Churches Communion prostrate, or at the Church ⟨p. 404⟩Door, before they were re-admitted: And now if Ten thousand Men scorn the Churches Communion, and will stand out a bare Excommunication, you will drive them into the Church, and to a feigned Repentance by the fear of a Jail: And so all Men shall be Members of your Churches, that do but so far love their Skins, as rather to endure the Church than the Prison: (of this also the Scots Presbytery hath been guilty in part): And what Churches these are, it is easy to judge. And you cannot say that this is only Male-administration; for it is the very Constitution of your Government.

§ 336. 4. And for the Adjuncts; your Discipline of Excommunication is all enforced with Imprisonment and the utter ruine of the Excommunicate, upon a Writ de Excommunicato capiendo: If you say that it is the Magistrate's Action, and not ours, I answer, 1. You are the Judges, and make the Magistrate your Executioners. 2. You take the very Life of your Discipline to lye in it! How ordinarily do you say, That were it not for the Sword and Corporal Penalty, who would care for Excommunication? And your Confession hath in it much of Truth, as to your Excommunications: But hereby you corrupt the Discipline of the Church, and lamentably corrupt the Church it self. It is a great Truth which the Churches welfare lieth on, That no Man is fit for the Communion of the Church, that so far despiseth it, as not to be moved by a meer Excommunication. Shall he have the Communion of the Church, who will rather be cast out of it than repent? when, of old, Penitents long begg'd the Churches Communion prostrate, or at the Church