Excommunication therefore had its effect only upon those, that believed that Jesus Christ was to come again in glory, to reign over and to judge both the quick and the dead, and should therefore refuse entrance into his kingdom to those whose sins were retained, that is, to those that were excommunicated by the Church. And thence it is, that St. Paul calleth excommunication, a delivery of the excommunicate person to Satan. For without the kingdom of Christ, all other kingdoms, after judgment, are comprehended in the kingdom of Satan. This is it that the faithful stood in fear of, as long as they stood excommunicate, that is to say, in an estate wherein their sins were not forgiven. Whereby we may understand, that excommunication, in the time that Christian religion was not authorized by the civil power, was used only for a correction of manners, not of errors in opinion: for it is a punishment, whereof none could be sensible but such as believed, and expected the coming again of our Saviour to judge the world; and they who so believed, needed no other opinion, but only uprightness of life, to be saved. [Sidenote: For what fault lieth excommunication.] There lieth excommunication for injustice; as (_Matth._ xviii.), If thy brother offend thee, tell it him privately; then with witnesses; lastly, tell the Church; and then if he obey not, _Let him be to thee as an heathen man and a publican_. And there lieth excommunication for a scandalous life, as (_1 Cor._ v. 11) _If any man that is called a brother, be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a drunkard, or an extortioner, with such a one ye are not to eat_. But to excommunicate a man that held this foundation, that _Jesus was the Christ_, for difference of opinion in other points, by which that foundation was not destroyed, there appeareth no authority in the Scripture, nor example in the apostles. There is indeed in St. Paul (_Titus_ iii. 10) a text that seemeth to be to the contrary; _A man that is an heretic, after the first and second admonition, reject_. For an _heretic_, is he, that being a member of the Church, teacheth nevertheless some private opinion, which the Church has forbidden: and such a one, St. Paul adviseth Titus, after the first and second admonition, to _reject_. But to _reject_, in this place, is not to _excommunicate_ the man; but to _give over admonishing him, to let him alone, to set by disputing with him_, as one that is to be convinced only by himself. The same apostle saith (_2 Tim._ ii. 23) _Foolish and unlearned questions avoid_: the word _avoid_ in this place, and _reject_ in the former, is the same in the original, παραιτοῦ: but foolish questions may be set by without excommunication. And again, (_Titus_ iii. 9) _Avoid foolish questions_, where the original περιΐστασο (_set them by_) is equivalent to the former word _reject_. There is no other place that can so much as colourably be drawn, to countenance the casting out of the Church