faith. But a church seems to do enough for securing soundness of doctrine in her communion, when she requires this acknowledgment from ministers, without asking it from her other members.

Ruf. A person, who openly and obstinately refuses to assent to any article of a church's confession, containing nothing but what is to be found in the word of God, is chargeable with obstinacy in error, and opposition to one or more of the truths of God: and though this obstinacy is more aggravated in ministers; yet there is no good reason to warrant a church's conniving at, or letting it pass without censure, in other church members. Many of the reasons that require ministers to acknowledge the church's confession, render it necessary for other church members to do so. Ought ministers to agree to the same confession of faith, that the church may with one mind and one mouth glorify God? Such agreement is no less requisite for the same end in other members, who constitute the body of the church. It is as necessary for the people in general, as for the ministers, that they be agreed, in order to their walking comfortably in the fellowship of the gospel. Again, are ministers required to agree to the church's confession, because they are public teachers? and should not the other members give the like evidence of their soundness in the faith; since they also are called to teach their families and others privately? In this respect, all the Lord's people are prophets. It seems scarcely more necessary, that the public teaching of ministers should be agreeable to the church's confession, than that the private teaching of other members should be so. Is the approbation of a church's confession necessary to guard against the danger of an erroneous ministry? and is not the danger of receiving into, or retaining in the communion of any particular church, multitudes of private persons, who may be attached to error, and zealous to propagate it, equally great? and is not the church's requiring an approbation of her confession, a proper mean to be used against the latter, as well as against the former of these dangers ?

In a word, though the qualifications requisite in order to ministerial communion be different from those necessary to the communion of private christians, yet there ought to be no difference between ministers and other members of the church in respect of the faith, or in respect of the confession of it; and a departure from any article of the true faith, ought to be censured, not only in ministers, but also in other

members.

§ 12. If our time were not gone, I would urge, as an argument against the scheme of catholic communion, that it is inconsistent with the faithful exercise of that holy discipline which Christ appointed to be maintained in his church. This is implied in what has been already offered. But the importance of it deserves a distinct consideration.

Alex. I would be glad to hear your observations on this topic before you go. I shall mention any exceptions to your reasoning, that may

occur.

Ruf. The neglect of this discipline is highly displeasing to the Lord Christ. He severely threatened the church of Pergamos, for having in her communion, some that held the doctrine of Balaam, and others that held the doctrine of the Nicolaitans; and also the church of Thyatira, for suffering that woman Jezebel to teach and seduce his ser

vants. Though the error that is held by persons, refusing their consent to the confession of a particular church, may not be so gross as the errors of Balaam and the Nicolaitans, or those taught by Jezebel ;yet, as according to the confession of that church, they are real errors, they really contradict the doctrine of Christ; and, therefore, are things that he hates: so that if the open and avowed maintainers of them be not censured, but received into or retained in the communion of the church, that communion is thereby corrupted: and any church, which is chargeable with such corruption, ought to consider the reproofs and threatenings denounced against these churches as applicable to herself.

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The practice of this discipline is enjoined, when the church is directed to purge out the old leaven; and to mark and avoid those who hold doctrine contrary to what she has received as the doctrine of Christ, 1 Cor. v. 6, 7. Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump? Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened. The apostle is here speaking of sacramental communion; and shews, not only that every church member should, in the exercise of faith and repentance, purge out his sonal impurities; but that the church ought to separate from her communion, such as, upon enquiry, she finds to be leaven, or persons incorrigibly attached to some error or sinful practice. Rom. xvi. 17. Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them who cause divisions and offences, contrary to the doctrine which ye have received; and avoid them. 2 Thess. iii. 6, 14. Now we command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye withdraw yourselves from every brother that walketh disorderly, and not after the tradition which he received of us. According to these texts, it is the indispensable duty of a church, that has adopted a confession, stating no other doctrines than such as are contained in the holy scriptures, to hold the avowed and obstinate opposers of any article of that confession, to be chargeable with causing divisions and offences, contrary to the doctrine which she has received. This must be more especially the case, when a separate society is erected and kept up on purpose to oppose any such article of Christ's truth. Farther, if all the articles of a church's confession be according to the tradition of the apostles recorded in scripture; then, it must be good order to acknowledge them all; and it must be disorderly to reject any of them. Those who persist openly and obstinately in opposing the doctrine that we have received as the doctrine of Christ, and in thus causing divisions and offences, are to be marked and avoided. But surely we cannot be said, in the sense of these texts, to avoid them, or withdraw from them, while we admit them to all the intimacy of sacramental communion.

Alex. With regard to the text in 2 Thess. iii. 6. Paul explains his meaning, verse 11. For we hear, says he, that there are some who walk disorderly among you, working not at all, but are busy-bodies: adding, verse 12. Now them that are such we command, and exhort by our Lord Jesus Christ, that with quietness they work, and eat their own bread. And, by way of stimulating them to honest industry, he reminds the Thessalonians of an order he had passed, when he was with them: viz. That no lazy professor of religion, should receive any support from the public charity; which is the import of the command,

That if any would not work, neither should he eat. From such disorderly persons, the Thessalonians were charged to withdraw; and the duty of christians, in similar cases, is still the same.*

Ruf. I grant all this; but what then? Because the apostle here speaks of one instance of walking disorderly, does it follow that there are no other instances of such walking? or that other instances of it, do not equally warrant the withdrawing which the apostle enjoins? Surely, the obstinate rejection of an article of a church's confession, which is agreeable to the tradition received from the apostles by the holy scriptures, must warrant the censure here meant by withdrawing, no less than the indolent neglect of the business of a worldly calling. Alex. But, Rufus, this text is nothing to your purpose; as it seems clear, that it is not a charge to withhold church communion.

Ruf. How does it seem so clear?

Alex. For four reasons: 1st, The terms are entirely different from those which the scripture elsewhere uses, in regard to church fellowship. 2ndly, A church, in her collective capacity, does not withdraw herself from an offender. She authoritatively puts him away from her communion. 3dly, The withdrawing here enjoined was to be a means of bringing the disorderly brother to a sense of his misbehaviour, and a compliance with the apostle's mandate for abandoning his idle and impertinent habits: in case of disobedience, he was to be reported to the apostle for ulterior judgement; and, in the mean time, his brethren were to have no company with him, verse 14. Therefore, he was still in communion. 4thly, Even after this withdrawing, this reporting, this having no company with him, he was not to be accounted as an enemy, but admonished as a brother.

The alternative is, that Paul speaks of private familiar intercourse. His terms apply to this exactly.

The only other place in which the word rendered have company, occurs in the New Testament, is in 1 Cor. v. 9, 11. where it is also used in the sense now mentioned. If the offender resisted these milder proceedings, they were to decline his company altogether; but to leave with his conscience, a friendly and faithful admonition of his sin, of his disgrace, and of his peril.†

Ruf. With regard to your first and second reason, it may be observed, that when I quoted this text, I did not mean that the apostle is here formally directing the office-bearers in the church, how to inflict censure on those that walk disorderly; but that, in this solemn charge, he declared persons of such a description to be proper objects of censure; and warned the Thessalonians (speaking to them in general, and not exclusively to the office-bearers,) to have neither sacramental communion, nor unnecessary private intercourse with them, while they persisted in their offensive conduct. Declining public sacramental communion, however, with such open offenders, was not less, but more necessary as a means of making them ashamed, than the declining of private intercourse with them. The Greek word rendered have company signifies familiar, friendly, brotherly intercourse; which might be in religious as well as in civil society; and from which we cannot reasonably suppose, that the apostle would have directed the Thessa

* Plea, &c. pages 336, 337. † Id. pages 337, 338.

lonians to exclude any, with whom they had, at the same time, regular sacramental communion. The expression, note such a person, represents him as an object of church censure; as bearing a public mark, serving to distinguish him from those that were in the full enjoyment of the privileges of the visible church. As to your assertion, that the offending brother was to be referred to the apostle for ulterior judgement, I can see no ground for it in the text. On the contrary, the judgement here delivered, is decisive and final. You allow, that when the apostle wrote this epistle, the offender was still in communion. This may be justly inferred from his being called a brother, and from the direction to withdraw from him, and to note him; but not from the Greek word in the sense to which it is limited in your criticism: for, supposing him to have been secluded from sacramental communion, such a direction with regard to the private carriage of the Thessalonians towards him would have been proper. Accordingly, their having no company with him is mentioned as what was to be the manner of their behaviour towards him in consequence of their having noted him by some censure of the church. Indeed, supposing him to have persisted in his offensive conduct, and the office-bearers and other members of the Thessalonian church to have obeyed the apostle's command, to withdraw from him, and to have no company with him; it is not conceivable, that they could, at the same time, continue to have sacramental communion with him. The apostle's directing the Thessalonians not to account him as an enemy, but to admonish him as a brother, does not prove that he was not to be laid under the censure of the church. There are various degrees of church censure. Admonition, rebuke, suspension from sealing ordinances, are salutary and medicinal. When a person becomes the object of such censures, though he may be considered in spiritual danger and infirmity, yet he is not to be counted as an enemy, but as a brother. It seems plain, therefore, that the person here described, was an object of church censure; and one who, while he continued such, was not to be admitted to sacramental communion.

It may be added, that one of the instructions which this passage affords us is, that our withdrawing from persons or churches, on account of their obstinacy in opposing some truth or duty of God's word, is consistent with our owning them as brethren in the Lord: for though the Thessalonians were to note a church member as walking disorderly, and to have no company with him; yet, they were still to regard him as a brother.

Alex. The apostle, however, does not mean, that we are to hold no sacramental communion with churches or their members, that have defects or blemishes. Did he say to the christians of his time, the churches of Corinth, of Rome, of Galatia, are disorderly, and you must have no communion with them, or with their members? no such thing.*

Ruf. They, who, on presbyterian principles, oppose what you term catholic communion, are far from saying, that we are to hold no communion with churches or their members that have blemishes. It is unfair, as was formerly observed, to impute to them the opinion of the Brownists. This charge is just as groundless as that, which the Papists

* Plea, &c. page 340.

bring against the Protestants, of the same sort of schism with that of the ancient Donatists. I am far from charging the various religious societies, whose sacramental communion, I think, we ought to decline, with as great corruption as that of the Popish church; but the principle, on which we ought to decline sacramental communion with them, is the same: namely, That it is an unlawful communion, in which we cannot consistently make a faithful profession of Divine truth; nor exhibit a judicial testimony for it, according to that conformity to the word of God, which we, on sufficient grounds, believe his church has attained. On this principle, it is evident, that it is not the occurrence of defects or blemishes, with which a church may be chargeable; it is not even the errors and corruptions of individuals or of factions in a church, that are the bars to our sacramental communion with her; but such errors and corruptions, such backsliding courses as she, in her collective or representative capacity, avows, justifies, and holds fast as a part of her profession; disregarding any judicial testimony that has been given against such evils.

Whatever faults or disorders the apostle Paul reproved in the christians at Corinth, at Rome, or in Galatia; we have no account, that, after his reproofs and injunctions, the churches in these places persisted obstinately in the evils reproved; or, that the apostle, while they, in their united capacity, avowed their rejection of any one of the doctrines or commands of Christ delivered by him, allowed himself or others to have sacramental communion with them. How the apostle would have acted in such a case, seems to be sufficiently determined by the passage we have just now been considering: If any man, says he, obey not our word by this epistle, note that man, and have no company with him, that he may be ashamed. By a parity of reason, would not the apostle have said: If any particular church obey not our word, or, in her ecclesiastical capacity, refuse to receive any doctrine or command delivered by us in writing, under the infallible direction of the Holy Spirit; note that church, and have no communion with her or her members, that they may be ashamed of their error or disorder?

Alex. It is a mistake to think, that a particular church has no right to censure disorderly members of other churches, who apply to her for sacramental communion. The catholic church has the right of restraining a disorderly member by the agency of any one particular church, in which he may have enjoyed her communion. Any individual, wearing and disgracing the christian name, provided his church membership be ascertained, may, according to the statutes of the Redeemer's kingdom, be called to account, reproved, excommunicated, by any christian church, on the spot where he happens to be, even without an act of formal communion there; much more then, after that act.*

Ruf. I cordially agree to this observation: I think it most useful and important. But it appears to be contrary to your scheme of catholic communion. For, in the first place, the right of restraining a disorderly member, which you ascribe to the catholic church, is just what I have been contending for, as the right of every particular church; the right of refusing to admit to her sacramental communion, the

* Plea, &c. pages 363, 364.