Note 417 — Chapter XIII
Reading edition
As Erastianism is a word vaguely used, I subjoin the principal theses in the Book on Excommunication, by Erastus, and his own account of the occasion of his writing it.
"Excommunication is nothing else but a public and solemn exclusion from the sacraments, especially the Lord's Supper, after an investigation by the elders."—Thesis viii.
"In the Old Testament none were debarred from the sacraments on account of immorality of conduct."—Thesis xxiii.
"Christ did not hinder Judas, who betrayed Him, from eating the paschal lamb."—Thesis xxviii.
"It is not the will of Christ that His kingdom in these lands should be circumscribed within narrower limits than He appointed for it anciently amongst the Jews."—Thesis xxxi.
"As in the account given of the celebration of the sacraments we see no mention is made of excommunication, so neither in the history of their institution can anything warranting that practice be discovered."—Thesis xxxvii.
"'Tell it to the church' means nothing else than tell it to the magistrate of thy own people."—Thesis lii.
"I see no reason why the Christian magistrate at the present day should not possess the same power which God commanded the magistrate to exercise in the Jewish commonwealth."—Thesis lxxii.
"If then the Christian magistrate possesses not only authority to settle religion according to the directions given in the Holy Scriptures, and to arrange the ministries thereof, but also, in like manner, to punish crimes, in vain do some among us now meditate the setting up of a new kind of tribunal, which would bring down the magistrate himself to the rank of a subject of other men."—Thesis lxxiv.
According to Erastus, an ignorant man, a heretic, or an apostate should be excluded from the sacraments. But sins were to be punished by the civil magistrate.
The theses were handed about in MS., and not published till 1589—six years after the death of the author—with only the fictitious name "Pesclavii," 1589. The work was reprinted at Amsterdam, in 1649. Two old English translations exist, published in 1659 and 1682. There is a modern one by Rev. R. Lee, D.D., Edinburgh, 1844.
The occasion of writing the theses, Erastus says, was a proposition that a select number of elders should sit in the name of the whole church, and judge who were fit to be admitted to the Lord's Supper, which he thought would introduce dangerous divisions.
Theodore Beza wrote a reply, published at Geneva, 1590. Selden's views of excommunication in his Table Talk (p. 56) are similar to those of Erastus, though not so full.
Hobbes wrote his Leviathan in 1651, in which he says (pt. iii., ch. 42, p. 287, London edition), "The books of the New Testament, though most perfect rules of Christian doctrine, could not be made laws by any other authority than that of kings or sovereign assemblies." His doctrine with regard to Christianity is, that socially considered it is "good and safe advice," but not obligatory law till the government of a country shall make it so. This part of the philosopher's theory runs on the same line with Erastianism, only it is pushed further.