QUESTION IX. 95 27. But he forbids them to allow the same degree of civility to a fornicator, extortioner, or idolater who calls himself a brother or a christian ; with such a one, he says, weshould keep no com- pany, not so much as to eat with him. So in 2 Thess. iii. 6, 11, 14. concerning disorderly christians and busybodies that will not work to maintain themselves, the apostle says, withdraw your- selves from every such brother, which may signify a withdrawment from spiritual or from civil communion with him, or perhaps in- clude both. He forbids the Thessalonians to have any company with him, that he maybe ashamed ; 2 These. iii. 14. and the rea- son seems to be this : These practices are justly accounted shameful by the light of nature, and among the heathens ; now when a man professes so holy a religion as christianity is, and yet practises these shameful vices, he is guilty of a double crime, and aggravates his iniquity; he is a hypocrite and a deceiver as well as a vicious man, and the apostle exhorts the church to make him know and feel the shame of it. SECT. II. Another objection a-kin to the former, seems na- turally to rise here, and to want an answer too, viz. Suppose a man be a real and hearty christian, holding all the necessary ar- ticles of the christian faith, and he proposes himself to Commu- nion with a church of narrow and uncharitable principles, who make more fundamentals than Christ has made, shall snch a man be excluded from communion, merely for want of orthodoxy in the judgment of an unskilful church ? Axsw. Without doubt it is a criminal thing in any assembly, or church of Christ, to imagine and create new fundamentals, and impose them upon others, or to establish narrow and uncha- ritable rules of communion ; yet it is possible that such a church may act in the sincerity of their hearts, for the honour of Christ, and the purity of his ordinances ; many suchchurches there have been in our age, and more inthe ageof our fathers ; and though it be faulty in them to exclude true christians, yet they must still be thevisible judges of the fitness of persons for their own visi- ble communion, and they are accountable for their conduct only to Christ, their supreme Lord and judge. It is better, in my opinion, therefore, that a person who is a real christian, should join himself to some other distant church, though it may be with some inconvenience ; or perhaps it may be better that he should live without ordinances of special comma- Mon, which are not absolutely necessary to salvation, than that he should break the settled peace of a church, which walks with God in faith, and holiness, and comfort, though their principles of communion may be a little too narrow and uncharitable, and not to be vindicated. No man ought to come into a voluntary society, and become a member thereof, without'th consent of the society, though perhaps they unjustly refuse to give their consent. They
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