26. The act of retaining sins is that which is called by the Church _excommunication_, and by St. Paul _delivering over to Satan_. The word _excommunication_ sounding the same with ἀποσυάγωγον poiein], _casting out of the synagogue_, seems to be borrowed from the Mosaical law; wherein they who were by the priest adjudged leprous, were commanded (Levit. xiii. 46) to be kept apart out of the camp, until by the judgment of the priest they were again pronounced clean, and by certain rites, among which the washing of the body was one, were purified. From hence in process of time it become a custom of the Jews, not to receive those who passed from Gentilism to Judaism, supposing them to be unclean, unless they were first _washed_; and those who dissented from the doctrine of the synagogue, they cast out of the synagogue. By resemblance of this custom, those that came to Christianity, whether they were Jews or Gentiles, were not received into the Church without baptism; and those that dissented from the Church, were deprived of the Church’s communion. Now, they were therefore said _to be delivered over to Satan_, because all that was out of the Church, was comprehended within his kingdom. The end of this kind of discipline was, that being destitute for a time of the grace and spiritual privileges of the Church, they might be humbled to salvation; but the effect in regard of secular matters, that _being excommunicated_, they should not only be prohibited all congregations or churches, and the participation of the mysteries, but as being contagious they should be avoided by all other Christians, even more than heathen. For the apostle allowed to accompany with heathen; but with these, _not so much as to eat_ (1 Cor. v. 10-11). Seeing then the effect of _excommunication_ is such, it is manifest, in the first place, that _a Christian city cannot be excommunicated_. For a Christian city is a Christian Church, (as hath been declared above, in art. 21), and of the same extension; but a Church cannot be excommunicated. For either she must excommunicate herself, which is impossible; or she must be excommunicated by some other Church; and this, either _universal_ or _particular_. But seeing _an universal Church_ is no _person_, (as hath been proved in art. 22), and therefore neither acts nor does any thing, it cannot _excommunicate_ any man; and a particular Church by excommunicating another Church, doth nothing. For where there is not one common congregation, there cannot be any excommunication. Neither if some one Church (suppose that of Jerusalem), should have excommunicated another, (suppose that of Rome), would it any more have excommunicated this, than herself: for he that deprives another of his communion, deprives himself also of the communion of that other. Secondly, _no man can excommunicate the subjects of any absolute government all at once, or forbid them the use of their temples or their public worship of God_. For they