letters to Erastus by Bullinger and Gualther, showing that his _Theses_, written in 1568, had been circulated in manuscript. An English translation of the _Theses_, with brief life of Erastus (based on Melchior Adam's account), was issued in 1659, entitled _The Nullity of Church Censures_; it was reprinted as _A Treatise of Excommunication_ (1682), and, as revised by Robert Lee, D.D., in 1844. The aim of the work is to show, on Scriptural grounds, that sins of professing Christians are to be punished by civil authority, and not by withholding of sacraments on the part of the clergy. In the Westminster Assembly a party holding this view included Selden, Lightfoot, Coleman and Whitelocke, whose speech (1645) is appended to Lee's version of the _Theses_; but the opposite view, after much controversy, was carried, Lightfoot alone dissenting. The consequent chapter of the Westminster Confession ("Of Church Censures") was, however, not ratified by the English parliament. "Erastianism," as a by-word, is used to denote the doctrine of the supremacy of the state in ecclesiastical causes; but the problem of the relations between church and state is one on which Erastus nowhere enters. What is known as "Erastianism" would be better connected with the name of Grotius. The only direct reply made to the _Explicatio_ was the _Tractatus de vera excommunicatione_ (1590) by Theodore Beza, who found himself rather savagely attacked in the _Confirmatio thesium_; e.g. "Apostolum et Mosen adeoque Deum ipsum audes corrigere." See A. Bonnard, _Thomas Eraste et la discipline ecclesiastique_ (1894); Gass, in _Allgemeine deutsche Biog._ (1877); G.V. Lechler and R. Stahelin, in A. Hauck's _Realencyklop. fur prot. Theol. u. Kirche_ (1898). (A. Go.*)