_The Smalcald Articles.
                      Articles of Christian Doctrine
               which were to have been presented on our part
           to the Council, if any had been assembled at Mantua
               or elsewhere, indicating what we could accept
                      or yield, and what we could not._
                         by Dr. Martin Luther, 1537
                   Translated by F. Bente and  W. H. T. Dau
                                Published in:
                  _Triglot Concordia: The Symbolical Books
                        of the Ev. Lutheran Church_.
        (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1921), pp. 453-529.
 
        THE THIRD PART OF THE ARTICLES.
         
        IX. Of Excommunication. 
         
        The greater excommunication, as the Pope calls it, we regard
        only as a civil penalty, and it does not concern us ministers
        of the Church. But the lesser, that is, the true Christian
        excommunication, consists in this, that manifest and obstinate
        sinners are not admitted to the Sacrament and other communion
        of the Church until they amend their lives and avoid sin. And
        ministers ought not to mingle secular punishments with this
        ecclesiastical punishment, or excommunication. 
         
        
 
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