The use and effect of excommunication, whilst it was not yet strengthened with the civil power, was no more than that they, who were not excommunicate, were to avoid the company of them that were. It was not enough to repute them as heathen, that never had been Christians; for with such they might eat and drink; which with excommunicate persons they might not do; as appeareth by the words of St. Paul, (_1 Cor._ v. 9, 10, &c.) where he telleth them, he had formerly forbidden them to _company with fornicators_; but, because that could not be without going out of the world, he restraineth it to such fornicators, and otherwise vicious persons, as were of the brethren; _with such a one_, he saith, they ought not to keep company, _no not to eat_. And this is no more than our Saviour saith (_Matth._ xviii. 17), _Let him be to thee as a heathen, and as a publican_. For publicans, which signifieth farmers and receivers of the revenue of the commonwealth, were so hated and detested by the Jews that were to pay it, as that _publican_ and _sinner_ were taken amongst them for the same thing: insomuch, as when our Saviour accepted the invitation of Zacchæus a publican; though it were to convert him, yet it was objected to him as a crime. And therefore, when our Saviour to _heathen_ added _publican_, he did forbid them to eat with a man excommunicate. As for keeping them out of their synagogues, or places of assembly, they had no power to do it, but that of the owner of the place, whether he were Christian, or heathen. And because all places are by right in the dominion of the commonwealth; as well he that was excommunicated, as he that never was baptized, might enter into them by commission from the civil magistrate; as Paul before his conversion entered into their synagogues at Damascus, (_Acts_ ix. 2) to apprehend Christians, men and women, and to carry them bound to Jerusalem, by commission from the high-priest. [Sidenote: Of no effect upon an apostate;] By which it appears, that upon a Christian, that should become an apostate, in a place where the civil power did persecute, or not assist the Church, the effect of excommunication had nothing in it, neither of damage in this world, nor of terror: not of terror, because of their unbelief; nor of damage, because they are returned thereby into the favour of the world; and in the world to come were to be in no worse estate, than they which never had believed. The damage redounded rather to the Church, by provocation of them they cast out, to a freer execution of their malice. [Sidenote: But upon the faithful only.]