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Another special requisite to moderation of discipline is as Augustine discourses against the Donatists, that private individuals must not, when they see vices less carefully corrected by the Council of Elders immediately separate themselves from the Church; nor must pastors themselves, when unable to reform all things which need correction to the extent which they could wish, cast up their ministry or by unwonted severity throw the whole Church into confusion. What Augustine says is perfectly true: "Whoever corrects what he can, by rebuking it, or without violating the bond of peace, excludes what he cannot correct, or justly condemns while he patiently tolerates what he is unable to exclude without violating the bond of peace, is free and exempted from the curse," (August. contra Parmen. Lib. 2 c. 4.) He elsewhere gives the reason. "Every pious reason and mode of ecclesiastical discipline ought always to have regard to the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. This the apostle commands us to keep by bearing mutually with each other. If it is not kept, the medicine of discipline begins to be not only superfluous, but even pernicious, and therefore ceases to be medicine," (Ibid. Lib. 3 c. 1.) "He who diligently considers these things neither in the preservation of unity neglects strictness of discipline, nor by intemperate correction bursts the bond of society," (Ibid. cap. 2.) He confesses, indeed, that pastors ought not only to exert themselves in removing every defect from the Church, but that every individual ought to his utmost to do so; nor does he disguise the fact, that he who neglects to admonish, accuse, and correct the bad, although he neither favors them, nor sins with them, is guilty before the Lord; and if he conducts himself so that though he can exclude them from partaking of the Supper, he does it not, then the sin is no longer that of other men, but his own. Only he would have that prudence used which our Lord also requires, "lest while ye gather up the tares, ye root up also the wheat with them," (Matth. 13: 29.) Hence he infers from Cyprian, "Let a man then mercifully correct what he can; what he cannot correct, let him bear patiently, and in love bewail and lament.
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1.Obviously Calvin "writing against the Steelites" is anachronistic. But the Steelites would do well to listen to Calvin from the Institutes, Book 4, Chapter 12, Sec. 11. As well as form Book 4, Chapter 10 (See Calvin Against the Steelites). Back
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