Now of suspension this is to be said that, in the statement, to suspend is an administrative act or to prohibit any good thing on account of a criminal offence. Hence, what the old decretals call suspension the new law and decretals call the interdict, and then they speak of ecclesiastical suspension from an office or from a church benefice or of an ecclesiastical interdict from executing an office of the church.
This definition of suspension, therefore, being laid down, it is to be noted that, just as it is proper in itself in the first instance for God to excommunicate a man, so also it is proper for Him in the first instance to suspend him. Hence it is impossible for a pope or bishop to suspend any one justly, except as he has been before suspended of God, just as it is impossible for the pope to think anything righteously unless the thought be before suggested of God. Hence the apostle rightly says: “Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think anything as of ourselves, but our sufficiency is of God,” II Cor. 3:5. And the supreme Bishop himself said: “Apart from me ye can do nothing,” John 15 : 5. From this it is clear that a suspension pronounced by a prelate is only worth as much as God almighty makes it to be worth. Hence, God’s efficient suspension extends itself to priests, kings and every one in authority whom He removes from office or whom He takes from life by a decree of retribution. Hence, He suspends any one from the sacerdotal dignity, as it is written: “Because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee. Thou shalt be no priest to me,” Hosea 4:6; “Bring no more vain oblations,” Isaiah 1 : 13; and “I have no pleasure in you, neither will I accept an offering at thy hand,” Mal. 1 : 10. And Christ’s apostle suspended all who were guilty of criminal offence from the ministry of Christ’s body and blood and the Lord, as he said: “Wherefore whoso shall eat the bread and drink the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord,” I Cor. 11 : 27. Likewise, we read of the severe suspension of Eli and his family, in that he did not duly correct his sons, as the Lord said to Eli: “Wherefore kick ye at my sacrifices and my offerings which I have commanded that they should be offered in my temple and honorest thy sons above me, to make yourselves fat with all the chiefest of the offerings of Israel my people ? Therefore the Lord saith to Israel, I said indeed that thy house and the house of thy father should minister for ever before me, but now the Lord saith, Be it far from me, for he who honoreth me, him will I honor, and they that despise me shall be lightly esteemed. Behold the days come that I will cut off thy arm and the arm of thy father’s house … and this shall be the sign unto thee that shall come upon thy two sons, on Hophni and Phinehas; in one day they shall die, both of them. And I will raise me up a faithful priest, who shall do according to my heart and my mouth,” I Sam. 2 : 29-35. Likewise, of the suspension of the king, Saul, who, in the face of God’s commandments had spared God’s enemies, we read: “Because thou hast rejected the word of the Lord, the Lord also hath rejected thee from being king,” I Sam. 15 : 23.
It is plain how suspension varies, for one is a suspension from office, one from a benefice or from some other good from which the sinner is justly suspended on account of open sin. Likewise, there is a suspension in fact and a suspension by law and there are other sorts of suspension. But, as has been said, suspension by law belongs chiefly to God to originate and regulate, but suspension in fact occurs when God sometimes through good, sometimes through bad, ministers suspends by the natural order of things any offending prelate from his office and ministry when he is actually in criminal offence. For he sins by the very fact that he falls into mortal sin, whatever it be that he may do, and consequently he is forbidden of God to sin in that way, and consequently he is suspended by God from that office. Hence, the prophet says: “God said unto the sinner, What hast thou to do, to declare my statutes, and that thou hast taken my covenant in thy mouth? seeing thou hatest instruction and castest my words behind thee. When thou sawest a thief thou rannest with him, and hast been a partaker with adulterers. Thy mouth abounds in evil and thy tongue blabbeth deceit. Thou sittest and speakest against thy brother and thou settest up slander against thy mother’s son,” Psalm 50 : 16-20. Here God enumerates the sins for which He suspends the sinner from the publication of His covenant which is the law of truth. The first sin is disobedience to God, the second, rejection of His words; the third, theft; the fourth, adultery; the fifth, wickedness of mouth, which divides itself into lies, blasphemy, false testimony, deceit, slander, vain speaking, malediction, base speaking, and such like; the sixth, the sin of taking offence at Christ.