Of Excommunication

The greater excommunication, as the Pope calls it, we regard only as a civil penalty, and it does not

concern us ministers of the Church. But the lesser, that is, the true Christian excommunication, consists

in this, that manifest and obstinate sinners are not admitted to the Sacrament and other communion of the

Church until they amend their lives and avoid sin. And ministers ought not to mingle secular

punishments with this ecclesiastical punishment, or excommunication.