Poems & Letters 14

To separate the tares from the wheat on the Lord's threshing-floor, the winnowing-fans of your ordinance must be sought; for He who appointed you to hold the primacy of the chief place willed that we should carry out in deed what you command, but that you should command what is to be done. For a certain one of the citizens, as has now been reported, joined himself some years ago in marriage to the sister of his deceased wife — a thing I have now heard, being approached in the presence of many. The accuser of so great a crime set forth the character of the atrocious deed not with hidden whispering, but proposed these things in the very presence of the one who had committed them. And he, with the same boldness by which he had dared the unlawful act, being all but pitiable, under your dispensation did not deny it.

Prescribe therefore under what condition he is to be restrained: whether that they should mourn together, or whether a sequestration is to be enjoined, or what manner of penance — instruct us. For it is not, I think, a lesser matter to take into marriage a wife's sister than a brother's wife. Yet you, as I have suggested, determine what seems best; for apart from your ordinance I scarcely decide what ought to be pronounced concerning such a cause. For I withdraw him from communion, or permit it, only tremblingly, unless I have been strengthened by your authority.