Confirmation and restoration the necessary means of reformation, and reconciliation; for the healing of…Confirmation and restauration the necessary means of reformation, and reconciliation; for the healing of…

Object. 11. But if you admit them into the Church in Infancy, say the Anabaptists, you will be obliged to excommunicate them all, that prove ungodly when they come to age, and not to let them silently pass out of the Church again.

Answ. Excommunication is either an excluding them from all Relation of members to the Catholic Church, or from the actual Communion of the Church, or from both. The former we can do but Declaratively. In the latter we also adjoin the charge of God, for the execution of the sentence. But those that were never personal Professors of Faith, nor admitted into the Communion of Adult-Christians, are not fit to be cast out of it: And this is the common use of Excommunication, to remove those, as unfit, from the Communion of the Adult, that once were in it, and forfeit that Communion: which cannot belong to them that never were in it. And for our Declaring them Deserters or Apostates, we may do it upon just occasion, but we are not bound to do it publicly by all that are guilty; this being not the Excommunication, that is so enjoined in the Scriptures. Where do you find that the Church in Scripture-times or after, was wont ⟨p. 254⟩to Excommunicate Apostates? And yet Apostates were formerly of the Church. It is those that hang on, and pretend still to be of the Church, and intrude into the Actual Communion of it, that we must cast out, when they deserve it.

Answ. Excommunication is either an excluding them from all Relation of members to the Catholike Church, or from the actual Communion of the Church, or from both. The former we can do but Declaratively. In the latter we also adjoyne the charge of God, for the execution of the sentence. But those that were never personal Professours of Faith, nor admitted into the Communion of Adult-Christians, are not fit to be cast out of it: And this is the common use of Excommunication, to remove those, as unfit, from the Communion of the Adult, that once were in it, and forfeit that Communion: which cannot belong to them that never were in it. And for our Declaring them Desertours or Apostates, we may do it upon just occasion, but we are not bound to do it publikely by all that are guilty; this being not the Excommunication, that is so enjoyned in the Scriptures. Where do you find that the Church in Scripture-times or after, was wont