, who be they to whom Christ
hath committed the power of excommunication, that with them they may cause
it to remain, and correct the usurpation of prelates, who bereave them of
it. Let us next consider what princes may, or should do, after that the
sentence of any man's excommunication or reconciliation is given forth by
them to whom the power of this discipline pertaineth. The Archbishop of
Spalato is of opinion,(1116) that not only it is free to princes to
communicate with excommunicate persons, but also, that if they shall
happen to communicate with them, the church (for the reverence she oweth
to princes) should straight absolve them, and that her sentence of
excommunication should no longer have any strength. What! Shall the church
draw and put up again the spiritual sword at the pleasure of princes? Or
because princes will perhaps cast holy things to dogs, must others do so
likewise? O prodigious licentiousness, and hellish misorder, worthy to be
drowned in the lake of Lethe! But what, then, is the part of the prince,
after that the church hath given judgment? Surely, whensoever need is, he
ought, by the private judgment of Christian discretion, to try and examine
whether this discipline be rightly executed or not. If he find the
execution thereof to be unreprovable, and that yet the sinner goeth on in
his contumacy, then, by his civil power,(1117) he ought further to punish
him in his person or worldly estate, that he may either reform or repress
such an one as hath not been terrified by the church's censures. But if,
after trial, he understand that the sentence given forth is unjust and
erroneous, either through the ignorance or the malice of the
ecclesiastical and regular judges, then he ought to interpone his
authority, and cause a due proceeding; for, in such extraordinary cases of
the failing of ecclesiastical persons, princes may do much in things
spiritual, which, ordinarily, they cannot.

It remaineth to show who have the power of those censures and punishments
which are proper to ecclesiastical persons. Where, first, we are to
consider, that there are two sorts of faults which make ecclesiastical men
worthy to be punished, viz., either such as violate sacred, or such as
violate civil and human duties: the one is to be judged by ecclesiastical
judges alone, and that according to the laws of God and the church; the
other by civil judges alone, and that according to the civil and municipal
laws of the commo