SECTION VII. Abrogation of a Law by a competent, that is, by the supreme Power, may be just and reasonable, though the Law itself be neither PAGE Fear that makes our Reason useless, and suffers us not to consider, leaves the Actions it produces, free from Crime, even though itself In every good Action the Means and the End must be symbolical: so that, 1. a good Action done for an evil End, and, 2. an evil To do an Action of itself lawful, for temporal Regards, for Ends of Profit, Pleasure, or Honour, is not unlawful, except it be acci- The End and Intention of a Law is under the Commandment, as much as the Action itself commanded in order to the End..... SECTION VI. SECTION VII. THE RULE OF CONSCIENCE. BOOK III. CHAP. IV.-Continued. OF THE POWER OF THE CHURCH IN CANONS AND CEN SURES, WITH THEIR OBLIGATIONS AND POWERS OVER THE CONSCIENCE. RULE IX. Excommunication, inflicted upon a light Cause, binds externally but not internally; but, if it be inflicted upon an unjust Cause, it binds not at all. 1. THIS latter part of the rule is evident and consented to by all. For in this the civil and ecclesiastical power differ. The civil power, if it condemns the innocent, hath effect upon him, and does afflict or put him to death: but the ecclesiastical power does nothing, unless the man hath done the mischief to himself. For God having undertaken to verify what the church does, it must be supposed that the church must do right, else God will not verify it; and then it signifies nothing, but that the governors ecclesiastical have sinned. "Ejiciunt oves qui contra justitiam de ecclesia separant," saith St. Jerome"; "They that, against right, cast a man from the church," they are ill shepherds," and drive the sheep" from their folds where Christ loves to see them and therefore Alexander II. says that "unjust excommunications are not to be slighted and neglected;" and Gerson c says, it is honourable to the Church, that such a prelate should be resisted to his face.' But this in case of injustice and manifest abuse: such are those excommunications in In Jerem. cap. xxiii. b 24. q. 1. c. Audivimus. a VOL. XIV. De Vita Spirit. an. Lect. 2. ad em. B |