Chapter 18—23. "As my Father hath sent me," says our Lord, "even so send I you. And what He had said this, He breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost. Whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained."1309
Therefore, if they represented the
Church, and this was said to them as to the
Church herself, it follows that the
peace of the
Church looses
sins, and estrangement from the
Church retains them, not according to the will of men, but according to the will of
God and the prayers of the
saints who are
spiritual, who "
judge all things, but themselves are judged of no man."
1310
For the
rock retains, the
rock remits; the
dove retains, the
dove remits;
unity retains,
unity remits. But the
peace of this
unity exists only in the good, in those who are either already
spiritual, or are advancing by the obedience of
concord to
spiritual things; it exists not in the bad, whether they make disturbances abroad, or are
endured within the
Church with lamentations,
baptizing and being
baptized. But just as those who are tolerated
with groanings within the
Church, although they do not
belong to the same
unity of the
dove, and to that "glorious
Church, not having spot or wrinkle, or any such thing,"
1311
| 1311 Eph. v. 27. Cp. Retract. ii. 18, quoted above on I. xvii.
|
yet if they are corrected, and confess that they approached to
baptism most
unworthily, are not
baptized again, but begin to
belong to the
dove, through whose
groans those
sins are remitted which were retained in them who were estranged from her
peace; so those also who are more openly without the
Church, if they have received the same sacraments, are not freed from their
sins on coming, after correction, to the
unity of the
Church, by a repetition of
baptism, but by the
same
law of
charity and
bond of
unity. For if "those only may
baptize who are set over the
Church, and established by the
law of the
gospel and ordination as
appointed by the
Lord," were they in any
wise of this
kind who
seized on
estates by treacherous frauds, and increased their
gains by compound interest? I trow not, since those are established by ordination as
appointed of the
Lord, of whom the
apostle, in giving them a standard, says, "Not
greedy, not given to
filthy lucre."
1312
Yet men of this
kind used to
baptize in the time of Cyprian himself; and he confesses with many lamentations that they were his fellow-
bishops, and
endures them with the great
reward of tolerance. Yet did they not confer
remission of
sins, which is granted through the prayers of the
saints, that is, the
groans of the
dove, whoever it be that baptizes, if those to whom it is given
belong to her
peace. For the
Lord would not say to robbers and usurers, "Whose soever
sins
ye remit, they shall be remitted to him; and whose soever
sins ye retain, they shall be retained." "Outside the
Church, indeed, nothing can be either bound or loosed, since there there is no one who can either
bind or loose;" but he is loosed who has made
peace with the
dove, and he is bound who is not at
peace with the
dove, whether he is openly without, or appears to be within.
24. But we know that Dathan, Korah, and Abiram,1313
who tried to usurp to themselves the right of sacrificing, contrary to the
unity of the people of
God, and also the sons of
Aaron who offered
strange fire upon the
altar,
1314
did not
escape punishment. Nor do we say that such offenses remain unpunished, unless those guilty of them correct themselves, if the patience of God leading them to repentance
1315
give them time for correction.
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