If you deny that heretics are evil, why does Paul desire them to be cut off? Why does he say that heretics are condemned by their own judgment? Why does he say that their consciences are seared with a hot iron? Why does he admonish that we are to avoid those who do evil to such an extent that we are not even to eat with such? What then? Why does love furnish these clauses in Paul? Without doubt the function of justice by which punishment may be exacted from the wicked may never be removed from Christianity. To the contrary, judges are to punish criminals by the love of good, and hatred of vice, not of men. Nor should the severity of the administration of justice be effeminized, not to mention that matters must not be governed by their emotions so as to throw matters headlong or to corrupt justice.
