had thought the end of civil punishments is not to reclaim a man's soul by repentance, and then to be taken off, but to guard the laws of the land; to preserve justice, peace, and good order; to make others fear to do evil; to uphold the public good. The magistrate must both punish and continue punishments as long as is necessary for those ends, whether the party be penitent or not.

6. How is it credible that the Holy Ghost, meaning to express a casting out from civil company or conversation only (which was not within, but without the synagogue), would choose such a word as signifieth the casting out from an ecclesiastical or sacred assembly (for such were the synagogues in which the Jews had reading, expounding, preaching and prayer, as Mr Prynne tells us)? Christ himself distinguisheth the court or judicatory which was in the synagogue from civil magistracy, Luke xii. 11, "And when they bring you unto the synagogues, and unto magistrates and powers." Magistrates and powers are civil rulers, supreme and subordinate, but the synagogues are distinct courts from both these.

7. Our opposites cannot give any other rational interpretation of the word orvváywys. Erastus, p. 315, confesseth it is very hard to tell what it was. He gives three conjectures: First, that it was some ignominy put upon a man, which I think nobody denies, and it may well stand with our interpretation. Secondly, he saith not that it was a separating of the party from all company, or society with any man (for which Mr Prynne citeth Erastus with others), but a pulling away, or casting out of a man from some particular town only, for instance, from Nazareth. Thirdly, he saith, it seems also to have been a refusal of the privileges of Jewish citizens, or the esteeming of one no longer for a true Jew, but for a proselyte; but that a proselyte, who was free to come both to temple and synagogue (for of such a proselyte he speaketh expressly), should be said to be made ἀποσυνάγωγος, it may well weaken, it cannot strengthen his cause.

8. In Tzemach David, edit. Hen. Vorstius, p. 89, we read, that when the sanhedrim did remove from Jerusalem, forty years before the destruction of the temple, there was a prayer composed against the heretics. Hen. Vorstius, in his Observ., p. 286, showeth out of Maimonides that it was a maledictory prayer appointed to be used against the heretics of that time, who in

creased mightily, and that R. Sol. Jarchi addeth this explanation of the word '' Minim, the disciples of Jesus of Nazareth. Dr Buxtorff, Lexic. Chald. Talm. et Rabbin, p. 1201, collecteth that this maledictory prayer was composed in Christ's time, and against his disciples. Surely it suiteth no story so well as that of the decree of casting out of the synagogue, John xii. 42.

After all these eight considerations, this I must add, that I do not a little admire how Mr Prynne could cite Godwin's Jewish Antiquities, lib. 5, cap. 2, for that opinion, that the casting out of the synagogue was not an ecclesiastical but only a civil censure. If he had but looked to the page immediately preceding, he had found this distinction between the ecclesiastical and civil courts of the Jews." The office of the ecclesiastical court was to put a difference between things holy and unholy, &c. It was a representative church, hence is that, dic ecclesiæ, Matt. xviii. 17, Tell the church, because unto them belonged the power of excommunication, the several sorts of which censure follow." And so he beginneth with the casting out of the synagogue, as the first or lesser excommunication, or niddui, and tells us among other effects of it, that the male children of one thus cast out were not circumcised.

To Mr Prynne's fourth exception the answer may be collected from what is already said. We never find the temporal magistrate called the ruler of the synagogue, nor yet that he sat in judgment in the synagogue. The beating or scourging in the synagogues was a tumultuous disorderly act : we read of no sentence given, but only to be put out of the synagogue, which sentence was given by the synagogical consistory, made up of the priest or priests and Jewish elders; for the power of judging in things and causes ecclesiastical, did belong to the priests and Levites, together with the elders of Israel, 1 Chron. xxiii. 4; xxvi. 30, 32; 2 Chron. xix. 8; and, therefore, what reason Mr Prynne had to exclude the priests from this corrective power, and from being rulers of the synagogue, I know not. Sure I am the scriptures cited make priests and Levites to be judges and rulers ecclesiastical, of which before. As for the chief ruler of the synagogue, Archysynagogus errat primarius in synagoga doctor, say the Ĉenturists, cent. 1, lib. 1, cap. 7, and if so, then not a civil magistrate.

To the fifth I answer, 1. If there was an

exclusion from reading, expounding, preaching and prayer, then much more from sacraments, in which there is more of the communion of saints. 2. He that was cast out of the synagogue might not enter into the synagogue, saith Menochius in John ix. 22, therefore he did not communicate in prayer with the congregation, nor in other acts of divine worship (which how far it is applicable to excommunication in the Christian church I do not now dispute; nor are all of one opinion concerning excommunicate persons' admission unto some, or exclusion from all public ordinances, hearing of the word and all), I know Erastus answereth, the word synagogue may signify either the material house-the place of assembling, or the people-the congregation which did assemble. And some who differ in judgment from us in this particular, hold that when we read of putting out of the synagogue, the word synagogue doth not signify the house, or place, of public worship (which yet it doth signify in other places, as Luke vii. 5; Acts xviii. 7), but the church or assembly itself. But I take it to signify both jointly; and that it was a casting out, even from the place itself, such as that, John ix. 34, kai é¿éßadov ȧvròv Ew," And they cast him out," or excommunicated him, as the English translators add in the margin; besides I take what it is granted --it was a casting out from the assembly or congregation itself. But how could a man be cast out from the congregation, and yet be free to come where the congregation was assembled together? O! but he must keep off four cubits' distance from all other men. And was there so much room to reel to and fro in the synagogue? I do not understand how a man shall satisfy himself in that notion. But I rather think Bertramus speaks rationally, that he that was excommunicate by niddui was shut out ab hominum contubernio atque adeo ab ipsius Tabernaculi aditu. de Rep. Jud., cap. 7, which niddui he takes to be the same with casting out of the synagogue. He that was cast out from men's society must needs be excluded from the public holy assemblies, and from the place where these assemblies are. Whereunto agreeth that which we read in Exc. Gem. Sanhedrim, cap. 3, sect. 9, A certain disciple having, after two-and-twenty years, divulged that which had been said in the school of R. Ammi, he was brought out of the synagogue, and the said rabbi caused it to be proclaimed, This is a revealer of secrets.

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As for that which Mr Prynne addeth in the close, that those who were cast out of the synagogue might yet resort to the temple, he hath said nothing to prove it. I find the same thing affirmed by Sutlivius de Presbyt., p. 25 (though I had thought Mr Prynne's tenets of this kind should never have complied with those of Episcopal men against the anti-episcopal party); but neither doth Sutlivius prove it: only he holds that the casting out of the synagogue was merely a civil excommunication; and his reason is that which he had to prove, that Christ and his disciples, when they were cast out of the synagogues, had, notwithstanding, a free access to the temple. To my best observation I can find no instance of any admitted to the temple while cast out of the synagogue. I turn again to Erastus, p. 314, to see whether he proves it. He gives us two instances, first of Christ himself, who was cast out of the synagogues, and yet came into the temple. But how proves he that Christ was άroovváyayos? For this he tells us only quis dubitat,-who makes question of it? I am one who make a great question of it, or rather put it out of question, that Christ was not cast out of the synagogues; for what saith he himself, John xviii. 20, "I ever taught in the synagogue and in the temple, whether the Jews always resort." Christ was cast out of the city of Nazareth, in the tumult, by the people, Luke iv. But here was no consistorial sentence; it was not the casting out of the synagogue of which our question is. The other instance which Erastus gives helps him as little. The apostles, saith he, were cast out of the synagogue, and yet immediately went to the temple and taught the people, Acts iv. and v. And how many synagogues was Paul cast out of? 2 Cor. xi. yet he is not reprehended for coming into the temple.

Ans. I find nothing of the synagogue in those places which he citeth. It was the

E

council, not the synagogue, which the apostles had to do with, Acts iv. and v.

But what have they gained if they could prove that Christ or his apostles, while known to be excommunicate from the synagogues, were admitted into the temple? How often did they come into the temple when the priests, and elders, and scribes, would gladly have cast them out, but they feared the people, and so were restrained? Nay, what if they could give other instances that such as were cast out of the synagogue were permitted to come into the temple, what gain they thereby? If we understand the casting out of the synagogue to be meant of niddui, of the lesser excommunication, as Drusius, Bertramus, Grotius, and Godwin understand it, we are not at all pinched or straitened; nay, though we should also comprehend the cherem, or greater excommunication, under this casting out of the synagogue, all that will follow upon the admission of such into the temple will be this, that excommunicate persons, when they desired to make atonement for their sin by sacrifice, were, for that end, admitted into the temple, (which who denies?) but still with a mark of ignominy upon them as long as they were excommunicated, as I have showed before, chap. iv. Finally, whereas Mr Prynne concludeth his discourse of this point, that we may as well prove excommunication from Diotrephes, 3 John 10, as from the casting out of the synagogue, I admit the parallel thus:-The Pharisees did cast out from the synagogue such as professed Christ; Diotrephes did cast out of the church (as John saith) such as received the brethren. Both clave errante; the ecclesiastical censure was abused and misapplied, yet from both it appeareth that ecclesiastical censures were used in the church. There was a casting out of the synagogue used among the Jews, which the Pharisees did abuse; there was a casting out of the church used among Christians, which Diotrephes did abuse. I remember I heard Mr Coleman once draw an argument against excommunication from that text in John concerning Diotrephes, which is, as if we should argue thus: The Scripture tells us it is a sin to condemn the righteous, therefore it is a sin to condemn. It is a sin to cast out of the church godly persons who love and receive the brethren, therefore it is a sin to cast out of the church. A fallacy à dicto secundum quid ad dictum simplici

ter. The weight is laid upon the application of such a censure to such persons. An unjust excommunication is not imitable, but a just excommunication is imitable, according to the warning given us in the words immediately added, "follow not that which is evil, but that which is good."

CHAPTER VII.

OTHER SCRIPTURAL ARGUMENTS TO PROVE AN EXCOMMUNICATION IN THE JEWISH

CHURCH.

Another scripture proving excommunication in the Jewish church (which is also parallel to that casting out of the synagogue, as Erastus himself told us) is Ezra x. 8, "That whosoever would not come within three days, according to the counsel of the princes and elders, all his substance should be forfeited, and himself separated from the congregation (or church: it is kahal in the Hebrew, and ékkλnoia in the Greek) of those that had been carried away."

This separation from the congregation or church is not meant of banishment, but of excommunication, as it is interpreted by Lyra, Hugo Cardinalis, Cajetan, Nicholaus Lombardus, Mariana, Cornelius à Lapide; of Protestants, Pellicanus, Lavater, Diodati, the Dutch Annotations, the late English Annotations, all upon the place; also by Zepperus, de Pol. Eccl., lib. 3, cap. 7, and divers others who cite that place occasionally. Ampsingius, Disp. Advers. Anabaptist, p. 276, doth from that place confute the Anabaptists' tenet, that there was no other but a civil tribunal in the Jewish church. church. Beda, upon the place, calls this assembly a synod, finita synodo, &c. Josephus, Antiq., lib. 11, cap. 5, expresseth the punishment of those who would not come to Jerusalem at that time, thus, åñadλorpɩw✪ŋσημένων τοῦ πλήθους, καὶ τῆς ουσίας ἀντῶν κατὰ τὴν τῶν πρεσβυτέρων κρίσιν ἀφιερωθη σομένης. A double punishment ἀπαλλοτρίω σις and ἀφιέρωσις: the former is referred to the persons themselves, and it signifieth an abalienation of those persons from the congregation, not a banishing or driving of them out of the land; for åraλλorpiów signifieth to abalienate a person or thing, by renouncing and quitting the right, title, and interest, which formerly we had in that person or thing; so houses, lands, persons,

sterus Dictionar. Trilingue, where ȧpopiouòs is the only Greek word given both for the three Hebrew words, niddui, cherem, and schammata, and for the Latin excommunicatio. Wherefore ȧpopit in this place is extermino, excommunico, repudio, which is one of the usual significations of the word given by Stephanus and by Scapula. It is a word frequently used in the canons of the most ancient councils to express such a separation as was a church censure, and, namely, suspension from the sacrament of the Lord's supper; for, by the ancient canons of the councils, such offences as were punished in a minister by ka@aipeois, that is, deposition, were punished in one of the people by apoptoμòs, that is, segregation or sequestration. Zonaras, upon the 13th canon of the eighth General Council, observeth a double ȧpopioμòs used in the ancient church: one was a total separation, or casting out of the church, which is usually called excommunication; another was a suspension or sequestration from the sacrament only, of which I am to speak more afterward in the third book. I hold now at the text in hand, which may be thus read, according to the sense and letter both, when they shall excommunicate you, &c., howbeit the other reading, when they shall separate you, holds forth the same thing which I speak of. Separate from what? Our translators supply, from their company. from what company of theirs? Not from their civil company only, but from their sacred or church assemblies, and from religious fellowship, it being a church censure and a part of ecclesiastical discipline; in which sense, as this word frequently occurreth in the Greek fathers and ancient canons, when they speak of church discipline, so doubtless it must be taken in this place. 1. Because, as Grotius tells us, that which made the Jews the rather to separate men in this manner from their society, was the want of the civil coercive power of magistracy, which sometime they had. And I have proved before, that the civil sanhedrim, which had power of criminal and capital judgments, did remove from Jerusalem, and cease to execute such judgment, forty years before the destruction of the temple. 2. Because, in all other places of the New Testament where the same word is used, it never signifieth a bare separation from civil company, but either a conscientious and religious separation, by which church members did intend

But

to keep themselves pure from such as did walk (or were conceived to walk) disorderly and scandalously, Acts xix. 9; 2 Cor. vi. 17; Gal. ii. 13; or God's separating between the godly and the wicked, Matt. xiii. 49; xxv. 32; or the setting apart of men to the ministry of the gospel, Acts xiii. 2; Rom. i. 1; Gal. i. 15. 3. A civil separation is for a civil injury; but this separation is for wickedness and impiety, whether accompanied with civil injury or no; they shall cast out your name as evil, s rovnpòv, or, as it seems, the Syraic and Arabic interpreters did read, is wornpur, tanquam improboram, as of wicked and evil men. The sense is the same.

Thus far of the Jewish church, the Jewish ecclesiastical sanhedrim, the Jewish excommunication. I proceed to the Jewish exomologesis, or public confession of sin.

CHAPTER VIII.

OF THE JEWISH EXOMOLOGESIS, OR PUBLIC DECLARATION OF REPENTANCE BY CONFESSION OF SIN.

As there were some footsteps of public confession among the heathen, and, namely, among the Lacedemonians, who made him that was deprehended in a crime to compass the altar, and there to express his own shame, and to pronounce some disgraceful words against himself;1 so, I make no doubt, they had this (as many other rites) from an imitation of the people of God, who had their own exomologies and public testimonies of repentance, which may thus appear.

First. A man was to put his hand upon the head of the sacrifice which he brought, and so it was accepted to make atonement for him, Lev. i. 4, and this was done in the tabernacle before the priest. Genebrardus and Lorinus, in Psal. xxxi. 5, tells us out of Aben Ezra and other rabbinical authors, and ex libro Siphri, that when he that brought the sacrifice did put his hands between the horns of the beast which was to be offered, he did distinctly commemorate that sin for which he did then repent, professing his detestation thereof, and promising to do so no more. Mr Ainsworth, on Lev. i. 4, to the same purpose, citeth out of Maimonides in his Treatise of offering sacrifices,

1 Lorinus in Psal. iii. 1, 5, ex Plutarcho.