In sum, the power of excommunication cannot be extended further than to the end for which the apostles and pastors of the Church have their commission from our Saviour; which is not to rule by command and co-action, but by teaching and direction of men in the way of salvation in the world to come. And as a master in any science may abandon his scholar, when he obstinately neglecteth the practise of his rules; but not accuse him of injustice, because he was never bound to obey him: so a teacher of Christian doctrine may abandon his disciples that obstinately continue in an unchristian life; but he cannot say, they do him wrong, because they are not obliged to obey him. For to a teacher that shall so complain, may be applied the answer of God to Samuel in the like place, (_1 Sam._ viii. 7) _They have not rejected thee, but me_. Excommunication therefore, when it wanteth the assistance of the civil power, as it doth, when a Christian state or prince is excommunicate by a foreign authority, is without effect; and consequently ought to be without terror. The name of _Fulmen excommunicationis_, that is, the _thunderbolt of excommunication_, proceeded from an imagination of the Bishop of Rome, which first used it, that he was king of kings; as the heathen made Jupiter king of the gods, and assigned him, in their poems, and pictures, a thunderbolt, wherewith to subdue and punish the giants, that should dare to deny his power. Which imagination was grounded on two errors; one, that the kingdom of Christ is of this world, contrary to our Saviour’s own words, (_John_ xviii. 36) _My kingdom is not of this world_; the other, that he is Christ’s vicar, not only over his own subjects, but over all the Christians of the world; whereof there is no ground in Scripture, and the contrary shall be proved in its due place. [Sidenote: Of the interpreter of the Scriptures, before civil sovereigns became Christians.]