What if they shall excommunicate me, hath the offender and imprison him in the county jail, tili doctrine of meekness any salve for me then? Hummond's Pract. Catech. The office is performed by the parish-priest at interment, but not unto persons excommunicated. Ayliffe's Parergon. EXCOMMUNICATION was originally instituted for preserving the purity of the church; but ambitious ecclesiastics converted it by degrees into an engine for promoting their own power, and inflicted it on the most frivolous occasions. The power of excommunication, as well as other acts of ecclesiastical discipline, was lodged in the hands of the clergy, who distinguished it into greater and less. The greater, called avreλng apopoμos, i. e. total separation and anathema, consisted in an absolute and entire exclusion from the church and the participation of all its rites. When any person was thus excommunicated, notice was given of it by circular letters to all the most eminent churches, that they might confirm this act of discipline, by refusing to admit the delinquent to their communion. The consequences of this excommunication were very terrible. The excommunicated person was avoided in civil commerce and outward conversation. No one durst receive him into his house, or eat at the same table with him; and, when dead, he was denied the solemn rites of burial. The less excommunication, simply called apoptopos, i. e. separation or suspension, consisted in excluding men from the participation of the eucharist, and the prayers of the faithful. But they were not expelled the church; for they had the privilege of being present at the reading of the Scriptures, the sermons, and the prayers of the catechumens and penitents. This excommunication was inflicted for smaller crimes; such as neglecting to attend the service of the church, misbehaviour in it, and the like. The causes of excommunication in England are, contempt of the bishop's court, heresy, neglect of public worship and the sacraments, incontinency, adultery, simony, &c. It is described to be twofold. But if the judge of any spiritual court excommunicates a man for a cause of which he has not the legal cognizance, the party may have an action against him at common law, and he is also liable to be indicted at the suit of the king. Heavy as the penalty of excommunication is, there are many who would despise the brutum fulmen of mere ecclesiastical censures. The law, therefore, steps in to their aid, and lends a supporting hand to an otherwise tottering authority. By the common law, an excommunicated person is disabled to do any act that is required to be done by one that is probus et legalis homo. He cannot serve upon juries; cannot be a witness in any court; and cannot bring an action to recover lands or money due to bim. And if, within forty days after the sentence has been published in the church, the offender does not submit to the sentence of the spiritual court, the bishop may certify such contempt to the king in chancery. Upon which there issues out a writ to the sheriff of the county, called from the bishop's certificate a significavit; or from its effect, a writ de excommunicato capiendo; and the sheriff shall thereupon take the he is reconciled to the church, and such reconciliation certified by the bishop; upon which another writ de excommunicato deliberando, issues out of the chancery to release him. The Romish pontifical mentions three kinds of excommunication, viz. 1. The minor, incurred by those who have any correspondence with an excommunicated person. 2. The major, which falls upon those who disobey the commands of the holy see, or refuse to submit to certain points of discipline, in consequence of which they are excluded from the church militant and triumphant, and delivered over to the devil and his angels. 3. Anathema, which is properly that pronounced by the pope against heretical princes and countries. Excommunication, in the Church of Scotland, consists only in an exclusion of openly profane and immoral persons from the ordinances of baptism and the lord's supper, but is seldom publicly denounced, and is attended with no civil incapacity whatever. Excommunication, in the Greek Church cuts off the offender from all communion with the 318 fathers of the first council of Nice, and with the saints; consigns him over to the devil and the traitor Judas; and condemns his body to remain after death as hard as a flint, or piece of steel, unless he humbles himself, and makes atonement for his sins by a sincere repentance. The form abounds with dreadful imprecations; and the Greeks assert that if a person dies excommunicated, the devil enters into the lifeless corpse; and therefore, in order to prevent it, the relations of the deceased cut his body in pieces, and boil them in wine. It is a custom for the patriarch of Jerusalem annually to excommunicate the pope and church of Rome; on which occasion, he drives a nail into the ground with a hammer, as a mark of malediction. Excommunications, in the Jewish Church.—Elias, a German rabbi, and others, speak of three kinds of excommunication among the Jews: the first was niddui, or separation of the person from things holy, for the space of thirty days; the second, chirem, or anathema, which ratified the former, and excluded the offender from the synagogue, and from civil commerce; the third, shammatha, which was published by 300 or 400 trumpets, and implied a final exclusion from the synagogue. But Selden has pretty fully evinced that niddui and shammatha are promiscuously used, and oft signify the same censure; and therefore that there were but two kinds of excommunication among the Jews; a lesser and a greater. Among the modern Jews, excommunication is attended with the most terrible conse quences. The excommunicated person is refused all human assistance; if there is a corpse in his house, or a child to be circumcised, none must help him. He is cursed by the book of the law, by the curse of Joshua against Jericho, by that of Elisha against the children, by heaven and earth, and God is besought that a whirlwind may dash him to pieces. He is pelted with stones if he appears in the streets; and, if he obtains absolution, it is upon the most mortifying conditions; for he is publicly tied to a post and whipped; after which he lays himself down at the door of the synagogue, and all those who go out pass over him. Such was the case with the famous Acosta, born in Portugal about the beginning of the seventeenth century, who, after embracing Judaism, became dissatisfied with the Jewish rites, was excommunicated, and lay under the sentence fifteen years; was re-admitted into the synagogue upon making his submission; was excommunicated a second time, and was for seven years abandoned by his friends, and reduced to a wretched condition; when he again made his submission, and was publicly scourged, &c., as above mentioned. The death of any under the sentence of excommunication is celebrated by the Jews with feasting and diversion. The introduction of various excommunications into the Jewish church seems to be entirely a tradition of the elders, for the law of Moses mentions but one, viz. "That soul shall be cut off from among his people.' EXCO'RIATE, v. a. 2 Old Fr. excorier, from EXCORIA'TION, n. s. Lat. er privative, and corium skin. To flay; strip off the skin. It hath marvellously enhanced the revenues of the crown, though with a pitiful excoriation of the poorer sort. Howel. An hypersarcosis arises upon the excoriated eye-lid, and turneth it outward. in fevers; A looseness proves often a fatal symptom for it weakens, excoriates, and inflames the bowels. Arbuthnot. The pituite secerned in the nose, mouth, and intestines, is not an excrementitious, but a laudable humour, necessary for defending those parts from excoId. riations. Survivor sole, and hardly such, of all Cowper. the EXCORIATION, in medicine and surgery, galling, or rubbing off of the cuticle, especially of the parts between the thighs and about the anus. In adults, it is occasioned by riding, much walking, or other vehement exercise, and may be cured by vulnerary applications. In children there is often an excoriation, not only of the parts near the pudenda, chiefly of the groin and scrotum, but likewise in the wrinkles of the neck and under the arms; proceeding from the acrimony of urine and perspiration, and oceasioning itching pains, crying, restlessness, &c. The parts affected should be often washed with warm water, and sprinkled with drying powders, as flour, chalk, tutty, or lapis calaminaris, tied loosely in a rag, and the powder shaken out on the parts; but ceruse, which some nurses use in this way, is very dangerous. EXCREMENT, n. s. EXCREMENTITIOUS, Fr. excrement, recrement; Italian, escremento, recreEXCRETION, n. s. mento; Spanish EXCRETIVE, adj. and Portuguese, EXCRETORY. adj. & n. s. excremento; Lat. excrementum, recrementum, à excerno, from er and cerno; Gr. pivo, to separate. The refuse part of human food; that which is rejected or voided by the natural passages; sometimes ap plied to any everescence, as hair, &c. Excre- It fares with politick bodies as with the physical; each would convert all into their own proper substance, and cast forth as excrement what will not so be Raleigh's Essays. changed. God hath given virtue to springs, fountains, earth, plants, and the excremental parts of the basest living creatures. Raleigh. We see that those excrements, that are of the first digestion, smell the worst; as the excrements from the belly. Bacon. The excrementitious moisture passeth in birds through a fairer and more delicate strainer than in beasts. Id. The moss from apple-trees is little better than an Id. The poyson's gone thro' all; poysons. Chiefly the chiefest parts; but some effect In nails, and hairs, yea excrements, will show : Donne. So lies the poyson sin in the most low. Moses burns and stamps the calf to powder, and gives it Israel to drink-that instead of going before Israel, it might pass through them; so day they might find their god in their excrements; to the just shame of Israel. Bp. Hall's Contemplations. Their sordid. avarice rakes as the next The lungs are the grand emunctory of the body; and the main end of respiration is continually to discharge and expel an excrementitious fluid out of the Woodward. mass of blood. An animal fluid no ways excrementitious, mild, ela Arbuthnot on Aliments. borated, and nutritious. The excrements of horses are nothing but hay, and, Id. as such, combustible. The symptoms of the excretion of the bile vitiated, are a yellowish skin, white hard fæces, loss of appe tite, and a lixivial urine. perspiration and urine appear to be loaded with salts of various kinds, and to tinge linen with different shades of yellow; both redden blue paper, and both appear to contain phosphoric acid. Human urine, however, is peculiarly characterised in the possession of lithic acid, an acid secreted in no other animal than man; and which crystallises round the sides of the vessel in which it is deposited, in the form of red polygonal salts, vulgarly denominated red sand. It contains also a large quantity of extractive matter of a peculiar kind, denominated by the French chemists urée. The urine of animals that feed on vegetables alone is proved by Fourcroy to contain benzoic acid instead of phosphoric, and to hold a larger portion of extractive matter. From urine, nitre, ammonia, and its muriat are extracted, and it is greatly used in the scouring of woollen cloths. The dung of different animals is employed for a variety of important purposes. That of the herbivorous quadrupeds appears a mixture of bile, &c., with a considerable portion of the fibrous vegetable food. Hence, the great use of camels' dung in Arabia and Egypt as fuel. A considerable quantity of ammonia is produced by the burning of dung, from which, mixed with sea-salt, the earliest sal-ammoniac was obtained. Cow-dung is of no small use in the preparation of cloth, as it mixes with water, and possesses cleansing powers similar to those of soap. The fæces of dogs and carnivorous animals have a most powerful corroding effect upon animal substances when the putrid fermentation is established. The approving Good!' (by no means good in Humming like flies around the newest blaze, Gorging the little fame he gets all raw, EXCUBIE, in antiquity, the watches and guards kept in the day by the Roman soldiers, contradistinguished from the vigila, which were kept in the night. The excubia were placed either at the gates and entrenchinents, or in the camp; for the latter there was allowed a whole manipulus to attend before the prætorium, and four soldiers to the tent of every tribune. The excubia at the gates of the camp, and at the entrenchments, were properly called stationes. One company of foot and one troop of horse were assigned to each of the four gates every day. EXCULPATE, v. a. ? Fr. disculper; Lat. EXCULPA'TION, n. s. exculpo, er and culpo, Sculpa, a fault. EXCULPATORY, adj. crescenza; Span, and EXCRESCENCE, or Fr. excrescence, ex- Port. excrescencia; Lat. excrescentia, ab excrescere, All beyond this is monstrous, 'tis out of nature, 'tis an excrescence, and not a living part of poetry. Dryden. We have little more than the excrescencies of the Spanish monarchy. Addison on the War. They are the excrescences of our souls; which, like our hair and beards, look horrid or becoming, as we cut or let them grow. Tatler Tumours and excrescences of plants, out of which generally issues a fly or a worm, are at first made by such insects which wound the tender buds. Bentley. Expunge the whole or lop the excrescent parts Of all, our vices have created arts; Then see how little the remaining sum, Which served the past, and must the times to come. Pope. EXCRESCENCE, in surgery, a preternatural tumor upon the skin, either in the form of a wart or tubercle. If they are born with a person, as they frequently are, they are called nævi materni, or marks from the mother; but if the tumor is large, so as to depend from the skin, like a fleshy mass, it is then called a sarcoma. See SURGERY. EXCRUCIATE, v. a. Į Lat. excrucio, er EXCRUCIATION. and crucio, crux, crucis, a cross. To put to pain, torture, torment. He (Socrates) wittingly did marry her to exercise his patience, that, by the practice of enduring her shrowish heats, he might be able to brook áll compa Το clear from blame, or charge. Exculpatory, is that which has the tendency to excuse or free from blame. A good child will not seek to exculpate herself at the Clarissa. expence of the most revered characters. By this fond and eager acceptance of an exculpatory comment, Pope testified that, whatever might be the seeming or real import of the principles which be had received from Bolingbroke, he had not intentionally attacked religion; and Bolingbroke, if he meant to attack him, without his own consent, an instrument of mischief, found him now engaged, with his eyes open, on the side of truth. Johnson. EXCULPATION, LETTERS OF, in Scotch law, a writ or summons issued by authority of the court of justiciary, at the instance of a pannel, for citing witnesses to prove his defences, or his objections to any of the jury or witnesses cited against him. EXCUR', v. n. Lat. ercurso, ex from, and curso, to run; Fr. and Span. excursion; Italian, exeursione. To pass beyond limits: the act of doing so; an expedition or digression beyond usual bounds; a ramble, or irregular journey. Expect not that I should beg pardon for this erowsion, till I think it a digression to insist on the bles sedness of Christ in heaven. Boyle's Seraph. Love. His disease was an asthma, oft excurring to an orthopnoria; the cause, a translation of tartarous humours from his joints to his lungs. Harvey. The mind extends its thoughts often beyond the atmost expansion of matter, and makes excursions into that incomprehensible. Locke. The causes of those great excursions of the seasons into the extremes of cold and heat, are very obscure. Arbuthnot on Air. I am too weary to allow myself any excursion from the main design. Atterbury. The muse whose early voice you taught to sing, Prescribed her heights, and pruned her tender wing; Her guide now lost, no more attempts to rise, But in low numbers short excursions tries. Pope. But why so far excursive, when at hand Fair-handed Spring unbosoms every grace ? Thomson. Of animals which feed excursively [the flesh] is allowed to have a higher flavour than that of those who are couped up. Boswell. EXCUSATI, in church history, slaves who, flying to any church for sanctuary, were excused and pardoned by their masters; but these were obliged to take an oath to that purpose before they could again obtain possession of them; and, if they broke the oath, they were punished and fined as persons guilty of perjury. Fr. excuser; Ital. escusare, iscusare, and scuare; Spanish and EXCUSE', v. a., n. s. EXCU'SABLE, adj. EXCU'SABLENESS, n. s. EXCUSATION, Port. escusar; Latin, EXCUSATORY, adj. excusare, i. e. extra EXCUSE LESS, adj. causam (ponere), to Excus'er, n. s. place beyond or out of the cause. To extenuate; deliver from charge or obligation; to remit; pardon; vindicate. As a substantive, it means the act or plea of apology, or the cause for which one is excused. Excusation is synonymous with excuse as a substantive. Excusatory is apologetical. Excuser, he who pleads for, or pardons another. And all bigunnen togider to excuse hem, the firste seyde I haue bought a toun, and I haue nede to go out and se it, Y preie thee haue me ercusid, Wiclif. Luk. 14. If I hadde not come and hadde not spokun to hem thei schulden not haue synne, but now thei han noon excusacioun of her synne. Id. Jon 15. Accusing or else excusing one another. Romans. Be gone, I will not hear thy vain excuse; But, as thou lov'st thy life, make speed from hence. Shakspeare. Heaven put it in thy mind to take it hence, That thou might'st win the more thy father's love, Pleading so wisely in excuse of it. Id. Henry IV. Not only that; I was set upon by some of your servants, whom because I have in my just defence evil entreated, I came to make my excuse to you. Sidney. Though he were already stept into the winter of his age, he found himself warm in those desires, which were in his son far more excusable. Id. Let no vain hope your easy mind seduce; For rich ill poets are without excuse. Roscommon. I speak not of your innocent or excusable mistakes in cases of great difficulty, nor yet of excusing a cause bad in the main from unjust aggravations. Baxter. It may satisfy others of the excusableness of my disBoyle. satisfaction, to peruse the ensuing relation. Before the Gospel, impenitency was much more excusable, because men were ignorant. Tillotson. Nothing but love this patience could produce; And I allow your rage that kind excuse. Dryden. Children, afraid to have their faults seen in their naked colours, will, like the rest of the sons of Adam, be apt to make excuses. Locke. Nor could the real danger of leaving their dwell ings to go up to the temple, excuse their journey. South. EXCU'SS, v. a. Lat. excussus. To seize EXCU'SSION, n. s. S and detain by law: legal seizure. If upon an ercussion there are not goods to satisfy the judgment, his body may be attached. Ayliffe. The person of a man ought not, by the civil law, to be taken for a debt, unless his goods and estate have been first excussed. Id. Parergon. EX'ECRATE, v. a. Ex'ECRABLE, adj. Ex'ECRABLY, adv. EXECRATION, n. s. Fr. execrer; Ital. esecrare, essecrare; Span. and Port. erecrar; Lat. execrari, of er, privative, and sacrare, to make holy. To curse; to pronounce evil detest. upon; Of the visible church of Jesus Christ those may be, in respect of their outward profession, who, in regard of their inward disposition, are most worthily both hateful in the sight of God himself, and in the eyes of the sounder parts of the visible church most execrable. Hooker. Give sentence on this execrable wretch, That hath been breeder of these dire events. Shakspeare. Mischance and sorrow go along with you, And threefold vengeance 'tend upon your steps! -Cease, gentle queen, these execrations. Id. For this we may thank Adam! but his thanks Shall be the execration. Milton's Paradise Lost. The Indians, at naming the devil, did spit on the ground in token of execration. Stillingfleet. Extinction of some tyranny, by the indignation of a people, makes way for some form contrary to that which they lately execrated and detested. Temple. As for Pilate's personal qualities; such a person deserved to bear the guilt of a fact so execrably base; was worthy to be employed therein, and ready enough to undergo it. Barrow. When execrable Troy in ashes lay, Through fires, and swords, and seas, they forced their way. Furies! rise, Dryden. The tyranny that doomed them to the fire, tion or completion; put to death: as a neuter Against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judg ment. Men may not devise laws, but are bound for ever to use and execute those which God hath delivered. Hooker. Fitzosborn was executed under him, or discarded into foreign service for a pretty shadow of exilement. Spenser. My sweet mistress I like thy counsel; and how well I like it, Is not the causer of the timeless deaths, As blameful as the executioner? Id. I would not be thy executioner : I fly thee, for I would not injure thee; Thou tell'st me there is murder in mine eyes. Id. The sad-eyed justice, with his surly hum Id. Henry V. Id. Henry VI. The treacherous Fastolfe wounds my peace, EXECRATION, in antiquity, a kind of punishment, consisting of direful curses and marks of infamy; such was that used against Philip of Macedon by the Athenians. A general assembly of the people being called, they made a decree, that all the statues and images of that king, and of all his ancestors, should be demolished, and their very name razed; that all the festivals, sacred rites, priests, and whatever else had been instituted in honor of him, should be profaned; that the very places where there had been any monument or inscription to his honor, should be detestable; that nothing should be set up, or dedicated in them, which could be done in clean places; and, lastly, that the priests, as often as they prayed for the Athenian people, allies, armies, and fleets, should as many times detest and execrate Philip, his children, kingdom, land they consider that they cannot be guilty of oppression. and sea forces, and the whole race and name of the Macedonians. At the taking and demolishing of cities, it was usual amongst the Greeks and Romans to pronounce curses upon, and load with direful execrations, the rebuilders of them. Lat. execo. To cut out; I wish no better It is a comfort to the executioners of this office, when Id. He did, after the death of the earl, buy of his erecutrix the remnant of the term. Id. When things are come to the execution, there is no secrecy comparable to celerity. Id. Essays. Sir William Bremingham was executed for treason. Davies. EXE'CT, v. a. I The cannon against St. Stephen's gate executed EXE'CTION, n. s. to cut away. The act of well, that the portcullis and gate were broken, and cutting out. Sir J. Hayward. The execution had been too cruel, and far exceeding the bounds of ordinary hostility. Id. What are we the better for God's own laws, without execution? Bp. Hall. To have seen them struck dead upon the earth had been fearful; but to see the earth at once their executioner and grave was more horrible. Were it not for the effusion of blood which would follow an exection, the liver might not only be erected, but its office supplied by the spleen and other parts. Harvey on Consumptions. EXECUTE, v. a. & v.n.` EXECUTION, EXECUTIONER, EXECUTIVE, EXECUTRIX, Fr. executer; Ital. essequire, essecutare; Span. and Port. erecutar, esecutar; Lat. exequor, from er, expletive, and sequor, to follow. To perform; bring into ac entry opened into the city. Bp. Hall's Contemplations. Sir Richard was committed to the Fleet in exection for the whole six thousand pounds. Clarendon. He, born of the greatest blood, submitted himself to be servant to the executioner that should put to death Musidorus. Sidney. |