of some of its Members They are frequently to exhort and advise them for this end are we plac'd in the communion of Saints and tho' to instruct the Flock God hath appointed a whole Order of Men on purpose yet is it also the Duty of every private Christian in his place and calling to exhort one another daily whilst it is call'd to day to consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works They are prudently and with much affection to admonish and reprove them we must not be so rudely civil as to suffer sin to lie upon them without disturbance so runs the Precept Thou shalt not hate thy Brother in thy heart but thou shalt rebuke thy Brother and not suffer sin to be upon him and if any man be overtaken in a fault says the Apostle ye that are spiritual restore such an one in the spirit of meekness considering that thou also may'st be tempted They are to bewail their sins and to pray for their reformation this is the true spirit and temper of a good man he cannot see God dishonour'd his Laws trampled upon his Brother wilfully undoing himself but he must be deeply touch'd and affected with it Rivers of water run down my eyes says the Psalmist because men keep not thy law And when in Ezekiel's time the Jewish Church both Priests and People were very much corrupted the Holy Ghost gives it as the particular mark of the faithful and upright not that they separated but sighed and cryed for all the abominations that were done in her Of the same holy frame and disposition of mind was St. Paul he could not mention those in the Church at Philippi who whilst they profest Christianity shew'd themselves by their sensuality and earthly-mindedness to be enemies to the Cross of Christ without sorrow and tears Of whom says he I have told you often and now tell you weeping that they are enemies to the Cross of Christ whose God is their belly c. They are to avoid as much as they can their company especially all familiarity with them and tho' in order to their conviction and reformation and in such cases where necessary business requires it and the publick Worship of God can't be perform'd but in conjunction with such persons I may be in their company without blame yet in all other cases I am to shew my dislike and abhorrence of their sins by shunning their society If any man obey not our Word by this Epistle note that man and have no company with him that he may be asham'd Again says the same Apostle I wrote to you in an Epistle not to keep company if any man be a fornicator or an idolater or c. with such an one no not to eat If private and often repeated Admonitions by himself or before one or two more will not do they are then to tell the Church of them that by its more publick Reproofs the scandalous Member may be reclaim'd or by its just Censures be cut off from the Communion If he shall neglect to hear them tell it to the Church Our Church hath given every Minister of a Parish power to refuse all scandalous and notorious sinners from the Lord's Supper and as slack and as much disus'd as Discipline is amongst us were such persons more generally inform'd against and complain'd of they would not find it so easie a matter to continue in their offences and the Church together You see by what means the Church may either be clear'd in some measure of such publick Offenders or the Members of it together with the Ordinances of God secur'd from infection by their fellowship By this did the Primitive Christians shew their Zeal for their Religion as well as by suffering for it They were infinitely careful to keep the honour of their Religion unspotted and the Communion of the Church as much out of danger as they could from the malignant influence of bad examples for this reason they watch'd over one another told them privately of their faults and when that would not do brought them before the cognizance of the Church And tho' lapsing into Idolatry in times of persecution was the common sin that for some Ages chiefly exerciz'd the Discipline of the Church yet all Offences against the Christian Law all Vices and Immoralities that were either publick in themselves or made known and prov'd to the Church came also under the Ecclesiastical Rod and were put to open shame and pennance this was that Discipline that preserv'd their Manners so uncorrupt and made their Religion so renown'd and triumphant in the World and how happy would it be for us in this loose and degenerate Age as our own Church expresses her wishes and desires were it again in its due force and vigour restored and resettled amongst us But if after all imaginable care and endeavour by private Christians some scandalous Members through the defects of Power in the Discipline or of Care and Watchfulness in Governours should remain in the Church whatever pollution those whose Office it is to rebuke with all Authority may draw on themselves by suffering it private Members that are no way neither by consent nor councel nor excuse accessary to their sin can receive none for sin no otherwise pollutes than as it is in the will not as it is in the understanding as it 's chose embrac'd and not as it 's known I may know Adultery and yet be chast see Strife and Debate in the City and yet be peaceable hear Oaths and Curses and yet tremble at God's Name Noah was a good Man in an evil World Lot a righteous person amongst the conversation of the wicked neither is there any more fear of pollution from wicked men in Sacred than in Civil Society Our Saviour and his Apostles were not the least defil'd by that society they had with Scribes and Pharisees nor by that familiarity they had with the accursed Judas tho' he eat the Passover with them and they kept him company after they knew him to be a Traytor What pollution did Abel receive from Cain when they sacrific'd together Or Elkanah and Hannah from Eli's debauch'd Sons when at Shilo they worshipt together The good and bad indeed communicate together but in what not in sin but in their common duty and tho' to communicate with sin is sin yet to communicate with a sinner in that which is not sin can be none Communion is a common union many partaking of one thing wherein they do agree now the common union of the good and bad in the Church is not in evil but in hearing of the Word in receiving of the Sacrament and in other holy Ordinances and Exercises when therefore some do evil the communion in spiritual things is not polluted because evil is no part of the union in common one with another but the error of man by himself out of the Communion which he
is not only for the more solemn Worship of God and the publick profession of Religion but also for the more effectual edification and salvation of mens souls By Baptism we were admitted into the Church incorporated into that Divine Society and entitled to all the Priviledges of the Gospel to the end that in the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God we might come to a perfect man unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ But how this is to be attain'd without being admitted to all the Acts and Offices of Communion with the Church to the Communion of Prayers and Sacraments and the Word and all other Priviledges and Duties is not easily to be understood hence we may observe that edification in Scripture is usually applied to the Church and tho' the edification of the Church consists in the edification of the particular Members of it yet because that is not to be had but in the Unity and Communion of the Church 't is usually stiled the edifying of the Church and the edifying the body of Christ hence Faith is said to come by hearing and hearing by the Word of God Hence we are said to be born again not of corruptible seed but of incorruptible by the Word of God which liveth and abideth for ever The same is exprest in those words of our Saviour's Prayer for his Disciples Sanctifie them through thy truth thy Word is truth God's Church is his Family which he especially takes care of and provides for he that is of it is under the Schechina the wing of the Divine Majesty and his special grace and providence It cannot but be of mighty advantage towards our growth and improvement in all Christian graces and virtues to have therein dispens't to us the lively Oracles of God and provision made for a constant succession of dispensers of the Bread of Life to fit it to all needs and all capacities Not to be left to the deceits and whispers of a private spirit to personal conjectures or secret insinuations but to have the publick Doctrine of the Church to be our Guide and Leader to have our Devotions mingled with the concurrent Prayers of all God's people and so by their joynt forces after an humble but powerful manner to besiege and beleaguer Heaven to have before our eyes all the great Examples in God's Church to have our Faith strengthen'd our Repentance heighten'd our Love inflam'd our Hopes and our Comforts rais'd by the Holy Communion Will not the flame of others kindle our zeal and affections and will it not put us into a transport of devotion to see therein Christ crucified before our eyes pouring out his Blood for us bowing his Head as it were to kiss and stretching out his Arms as it were to embrace all that are penitent and return to him These are some of the great Blessings and Advantages that cannot be had but in Church-Communion To which if we shall add that our improvement in holiness and virtue is more to be ascrib'd to the internal operations of God's spirit than any virtue or efficacy there can be in those external administrations that God is pleas'd to promise his spirit to believers only as they are Members of his Church and no otherwise than by the use and ministry of his Word and Sacraments we shall farther see the necessity of mens holding actual Communion with the Church in order to their sanctification and salvation We are not now discoursing what God can or will do in some extraordinary cases when Communion with a true visible Church cannot be had as in a general Apostacy of the Church or Persecution for Religion or unjust Excommunication but what is God's ordinary method and means of bringing men to salvation and that he himself tells us is by adding them to the Church and the Lord added to the Church daily such as should be saved To this purpose we may observe not only in general that whatever Christ did and suffered for Mankind 't was for them as incorporated into a Church Christ loved his Church and gave himselffor it Christ redeem'd his Church with his ownblood Christ is the saviour of the body that is the Church But also in particular that the Apostle confines the influences and operations of the spirit to the unity of the Church there is one body and one spirit Upon this account viz. the efficacy of the means afforded in Christ's Church and the necessity of keeping in communion with it in order to salvation was it that the Primitive Christians lookt upon it as so dreadful a thing to be shut or cast out of it as laughing a matter as some now adays make it as much as they slight the priviledge and benefit to be of Christ's Church and count it their glory and saintship voluntarily to cut off themselves from it I am sure the Primitive Christians had a far different opinion of it with them to be cast out of the Church and to be deliver'd up to Satan signified the same thing and the one accounted full as dreadful a doom as the other hence was it that this sentence was rarely past against an offender but with grief and sorrow in him that was forc'd to do it and that those against whom it was past us'd the most ardent importunities and were willing to undergo the severest penances in order to be restored into the bosom of it you might have beheld them kissing the chains of imprison'd Martyrs washing the feet of Lazars wallowing at the Temple-doors on their knees begging the Prayers of Saints you might have seen them stript and naked their hair neglected their bodies wither'd their eyes dejected and sometimes crying out in the words of David as the great Theodosius in the state of penance My soul cleaveth to the dust quicken thou me O Lord according to thy Word Thus much seems to be enough to be said on the Second Proposition but that our passage to the Third may be the clearer I shall add a little by way of Answer to an Objection or two that lies in our way And the first is Obj. Do not all the Members of Christ's Church that come to the blessed Sacrament having not the power of Godliness as well as the Form come unworthily and to their own great sin and danger no less than being guilty of the Body and Blood of Christ and eating and drinking their own damnation And can they have a right to that they are so unworthy of In doing which they sin so hainously and for doing which they shall be punished so severely Answ I Answer these two things 1. All even the best men in a strict legal sense are unworthy and that even of common mercies from God much more of this prime Duty and Priviledge of Christianity Every man in his best estate is altogethervanity We are all an unclean thing and
himself and they only that have been partakers with him in it shall answer for Obj. But does not the Apostle say A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump Ans This is a proverbial speech and shews only that sin like leaven is of a very spreading and diffusive nature not that it actually defiles where it is not admitted A People in one Assembly are as a lump and a wicked person amongst them is as leaven but now altho' the leaven is apt to conveigh it self through the whole lump yet only are those parts actually leaven'd with it that take the leaven so it is with the Church the sinner by his bad example is apt to spread the infection through the whole body but only such as allow or any way communicate with him in his sin are actually infected such as Chloe that reprove the offender and present him doing their utmost endeavour in their place to reform him remain in spight of its malignity unpolluted Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees says our Saviour he adviseth not his Disciples to leave their Assemblies but to beware that they take no leaven of them shewing thereby that a good man that stands upon his guard may be where leaven is and yet not be leaven'd The incestuous person was not cast out of the Church of Corinth and yet the Apostle says at least of some of them ye are unleaven'd And why may not the joynt Prayers of the Church and the Examples of Pious and Devout Men in the Communion be as sovereign an antidote against the infection as the bare company of wicked men is of power to convey it Why should not the holy Ordinances of God and the presence of holy men at them be of as much virtue and efficacy to purge and sanctifie the whole body as the impurities of the bad are to stain and pollute it especially considering that the sins of the wicked shall never be imputed to the righteous but the Prayers of the righteous have obtain'd pardon for the wicked Obj. But were not the pollutions of sin typified by the legal uncleannesses And was not every thing that the unclean person touch'd made unclean Ans Those legal and ceremonial pollutions concern not us under the Gospel we may touch a grave a dead person a leper and not at all be the less clean it 's not any outward uncleanness but the corruption and depravity of the inner man that incapacitates men for the Worship of God and Communion with him 2. Those legal pollutions did not defile the whole communion but only those particular persons whom the unclean person touch'd for 1. there was no sacrifice appointed for any such pollution as came upon all for the sin of some few 2. Tho' the Prophets many times reproved the Priests for not separating the clean from the unclean the precious from the vile the holy from the prophane yet did they never teach that because the unclean came into the Congregation through the neglect of their duty the whole Communion was polluted by it but as many as touch'd the unclean person were unclean so as many as have fellowship with the wicked in their sins are polluted by it to partake with men in their sins in a moral sense answers to the legal touching an unclean thing 3. When it 's said that the unclean person that did not purifie himself defil'd the Tabernacle and polluted the Sanctuary the meaning is that he did so to himself but not to others so does a wicked man the Ordinances of God in respect of himself but not of others The Prayers of the wicked tho' join'd with those of the Church are an abomination unto God whilst at the same time the Prayers of good men go up as a sweet smelling savour and are accepted by him The person that comes unworthily to the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper eats and drinks judgment to himself but that hinders not but that those who at the same time come better prepared may do it to their own eternal comfort and salvation To the pure all things are pure but to them that are defil'd and unbelieving is nothing pure but even their mind and conscience is defil'd The weakness of this suggestion that the whole Communion and the Ordinances of God are polluted by the wicked mans company at and among them being laid open The truth of the Proposition may be sarther evinc'd from these particulars 1. From the example of God's People in the Church of the Jews We do not find that the sins either of the Priests or the People became at any time an occasion of separation to them What sins could be greater than those of Eli ' s Sons What higher aggravations could there be of sin Whether we consider the quality of the persons that sinn'd being the High-Priests Sons or the publick scandal and impudence of the sin Lying with the women before the door of the Tabernacle yet did not the People of God not Elkanah and Hannah by name refrain to come up to Shilo and to joyn with them in the publick Worship nay they are said to transgress who refus'd to come tho' they refus'd out of abhorrence and detestation to the wickedness of those men They abhorr'd the sacrifices of the Lord ye make the Lord's people to transgress In Ahab's time when almost all Israel were Idolaters and halted betwixt God and Baal yet then did the Prophet Elijah summon all Israel to appear on Mount Carmel and held a religious communion with them in Preaching and Praying and offering a miraculous Sacrifice neither did the seven thousand that had kept themselves upright and not bowed their knee to Baal absent themselves because of the Idolatry of the rest but they all came and join'd in that publick Worship perform'd by the Prophet All the people fell on their faces saying the Lord he is God the Lord he is God All along the Old Testament when both Prince and Priests and People were very much deprav'd and debauch'd in their manners we do not find that the Prophets at any time exhorted the faithful and sincere to separate or that they themselves set up any separate meetings but continued in communion with the Church preaching to them and exhorting them to repentance 2. From the example of God's People in the New Testament In the Apostolick Churches of Corinth Galatia and the seven Churches in Asia many of the Members were grown very bad and scandalous yet do we not read of the example of any good man separating from the Church or any such Precept from the Apostles so to do They do not tell them that the whole body was polluted by those filthy Members and that if they would be safe themselves they must withdraw from their communion but exhort them to use all means to reclaim them and if neither private nor publick Admonitions and Reproofs would do then to suspend them from the Communion of the Church
till by repentance and amendment they render'd themselves capable of being restored to peace and pardon The Spirit of God in the Second of the Revelation sends his Instructions to the Angels that is to the Bishops of those seven Churches in Asia whose Office it was to Preach repentance to them and by their authority to reform abuses but gives them no command to cease the publick Administrations or to advise the unpolluted part to separate from the rest nay altho' those Candlesticks were very foul yet was our Lord pleas'd still to bear with them and to walk in the midst of them and certainly so long as Christ affords his presence in a Church none of its Members ought to withdraw theirs 3. From our Saviour's own example who notwithstanding the Church of the Jews in his time was a most corrupt Church and the Members of it very leud and vicious yet kept in communion with it and commanded his Disciples so to do We read that the Scribes and Pharisees who rul'd the Ecclesiastical Chair at that time had perverted the law corrupted the worship of God were blind guides devoured widows houses were hypocrites and such as only had a form of godliness yet did not our Saviour separate from their Communion but was made under the Law freely subjected himself to all the Rites and Ceremonies of it he was circumcis'd on the eighth day redeem'd by a certain price being a Son and a First-born observ'd their Passover and other Feasts enjoin'd by their Law yea and that of the dedication too tho' but of humane institution was baptiz'd amongst them preach'd in their Temples and Synagogues reason'd with them about Religion exhorted his Disciples to hear their Doctrine tho' not to follow their Practice What greater cause on the account of corruption in manners could be given to separate from a Church than was here yet how careful was our Saviour both by his Example and Precept to forbid and discountenance it They sit in Moses 's chair hear them 4. From the Apostle's express command to hold communion with the Church of Corinth notwithstanding the many and great immoralities that were amongst the Members of it There were Schisms and contentions amongst them strifes and envyings fornication and incest eating at the Idols table and coming not so soberly as became them to the table of our Lord yet does the Apostle not only not command them to separate but approves their meeting together and exhorts them to continue it But let a man examine himself and so let him eat of that bread and drink of that cup In which words the Apostle plainly solves the Case I am discoursing on and shews what private Christians in whose power it is not judicially to correct Vice are to do when they see so many vicious Members intruding to the blessed Sacrament viz. not to abstain from it but by preparation and examination of themselves to take care that they be not of their number If to separate had been the way the Apostle would then have manag'd his Discourse after this manner There are many Schisms and Strifes in the Church there is an incestuous person not cast out many proud contemners of their Brethren men of strange opinions of untam'd appetites and unbridled passions and therefore I advise you not to come amongst them nor to partake of the holy Sacrament with them lest you be infected with their Sores and partake of their Judgments But advising men to examine themselves and then to come he plainly intimates that 't was their duty to continue in the Communion of the Church notwithstanding these as if he had said I do not mention the foul Enormities of some that come to this holy Table to discourage you from coming lest ye should be polluted by their sins but to excite you to a due care and examination of your selves that you be not polluted by any sinful acts and compliances of your own and then there 's no danger of being defil'd by theirs But as clear and satisfactory as this Proposition seems to be it yet suffers very much from the Exceptions of some weak understandings who meeting often in Scripture with such Commands and Exhortations as these to separate to come out not to touch to have no fellowship with and the like presently without staying to examine the sense of the Texts conclude that it is the duty and character of good men to be always separating and tho' wherever those places of Scripture are found they are for the most part to be understood with relation to Idolaters and Idolatrous Practices either amongst Jews or Gentiles yet will they have them extended to every thing and person that either really is or they think fit to call a corruption or a corrupt Member in the Church of God Many Texts of Scripture are misunderstood and misappli'd by them to this purpose I shall instance only in two as the chief and hope in rescuing them from the false glosses they labour under to give a deliverance to all the rest The first is Obj. 1. Those words of the Apostle Wherefore come out from among them and be ye separate saith the Lord and touch not the unclean thing Ans This being the main place to which they fly upon all occasions as their strongest hold I shall give it a more particular consideration and that by shewing these three things 1. The occasion of this Apostolical admonition 2. What were the persons the converted Corinthians were to separate from 3. What was the unclean thing they were not to touch 1. What was the occasion of this Apostolical Exhortation To this purpose you must know that the converted Corinthians liv'd in civil Society amongst the unbelieving Gentiles by whom many of them being their kinsfolk and friends after the flesh were often invited to their Idol-feasts to which some of them did not scruple to go and eat of the things sacrific'd to Idols even in the Idol's Temple thinking it not unlawful to do so so long as they knew that an Idol was nothing and did not intentionally go and eat in any honour to the Idol Now from this Practice the Apostle dissuades them by these two Arguments 1. Upon the account of scandal to their weak brethren telling them that tho' they that were strong knew that an Idol was nothing in the World and that there was but one God and so could not be suppos'd to worship the Idol when they eat of the Idol's sacrifice yet some other weak Christians and new Converts might not know so much and consequently by their practice might be drawn into sin not only to go to those Feasts but to do it in honour to the Idol 2. As harmless an action as they esteem'd it that 't was plain Idolatry Be not ye Idolaters as were some of them as it is written they sate down to eat and to drink and rose up to play that is they