two or three witnesses every word may be established ; and if he shall neglect to hear them, tell it unto the church : but if he neglect to hear the church, let him be unto thee as a heathen man and a pub- lican.' He that shall be refractory under private and public admoni- tion, is to be shut out from church communion; he that to small faults shall add contumacy, is to be cut off from the saints' society. We must turn our backs upon him that turns his back upon the church. As we would keep ourselves untainted, as we would preserve the church from being infected, as we would not have the name of God blasphemed, and as we would have the refractory Christian ashamed and humbled, we must neither have sacred nor civil society with him.
(9.) A ninth sort of persons that Christians must have no intimate, no sacred, no special communion with, are fools: Prov. ix. 6, 'For- sake the foolish, and live ; and go in the way of understanding ;' chap, xiv. 7, ' Go from the presence of a foolish man, when thou perceivest not in him the lips of knowledge;' chap, xxiil 9, ' Speak not in the ears of a fool ; for he will despise the wisdom of thy words.' i There is no profit, no pleasure, no delight to be had in the society of fools. Fools are neither capable of doing good nor of receiving good ; and therefore what should good souls do among such? A fool hath neither an ear to hear, nor an eye to see^ nor a heart to understand, nor a memory to retain, nor a will to choose, nor affections to embrace, any thing that is good. And therefore their company is to be shunned and avoided. The society of fools is as dangerous as it is vexatious: Prov. xiii. 20, ' He that walketh with wise men shall be wise ; but a com- panion of fools shall be destroyed.' The Hebrew word, ^n"*, that is here used, signifies to be broken ; yea, to be broken as sometimes an army is broken by some fierce and sudden surprisal ; a companion of fools shall be broken in his credit, in his estate, in his name, in his reputation ; yea, in his very wits, for nothing contributes so much to make a man a fool as the company of fools.
(10.) The tenth and last sort of persons that Christians must have no familiarity nor society with, are scortiers. Such as scorn the saints, and scorn religion, and scorn profession ; such who scorn every way of Christ, and every institution of Christ: Prov. ix. S, ' Reprove not a scorner, lest he hate thee.' Wise and gracious reproofs are pearls, that are not to be cast before scorners.2 Now certainly, if I may not re- prove scomers, then I may not keep company with scorners : Prov. xxii. 10, ' Cast out the scorner, and contention shall go out ; yea, strife and reproach shall cease.' The scorner must be cast out of your family and out of your company. Strife and contention, shame and reproach, are the scorner's attendants ; and therefore he that would be rid of them must cast out him. The Hebrew word, ti^lJ, here trans- lated * cast out,' signifies not simply to eject or east out ; but to cast out or drive out, as God did drive Adam out of paradise. Gen. iii. 24,
^ Who would hang a jewel in a swine's ear, or sow precious seed among craggy rocks, or put sweet liquor into a musty vessel ? &c.
^ Quintinus the libertine was a great scoffer and scorner of the saints ; he called the apostle Paul a broken vessel ; John a foolish youth ; Peter a denier of God ; and Matthew a usurer, &c. — Calvin.
HeB. XII. 14.] AND BEAUTY OF HOLINESS. 69
for the word is the same ; and this God did, as the Rabbins observe, with violence and displeasure. So must the scorner be cast out, or drove out. Look, as God did drive out the Amorite, and the Canaanite, and the Hittite, and the Perizzite, and the Hivite, and the Jebusite before his people, Exod. xxxiv. 11; so must the scorner be driven out of the society of the saints ; for the Hebrew word is the same in both places. Look, as Sarah would have Abraham to cast out the bond- woman and her son, Gen. xxi. 10 ; so must the scorner be cast out of the company of the saints ; the word is still the same. Look, as the sea casteth up mire and dirt, Isa.. Ivii. 20 ; so should Christians cast out scorners from among them ; the word being still the same. The scorner con8.trues everything to the worst ; he envies those that excel him ; he disdains those that are below him ; he is never con- tented, never satisfied, he is still a-quarrelling, still a-fretting, and still a-perplexing of himself and others ; and therefore you must cast him out with scoffing Ishmael,. or the house will be too hot to hold you. Cast out the firebrand, and the fire goes out ; cast out Jonah, and the storm shall cease ; cast out the bond-woman and her scornful son, and all will be quiet. David's blessed man is described by this, Pfi. i. 1^ that he ' sits not in the seat of the scornful.' Scorners are no companions for blessed men. Of all men the blessed man will never choose the scorner for his pew-fellow. God himself scorns the scorner : Prov. iii. 34,. ' Surely he scorneth the scorner,' &c. Of all men in the world God casts the greatest contempt and scorn upon scorners, and therefore why should we make such our bosom-associates ? And thus you see the several sorts of persons that God hath shut out from the communion of his people. Well, Christians, remember this, dead stones must not be laid in a living temple. No stones but hewn stones were ta be brought and laid in the building of Solomon's temple, which was a type of the church of Christ in gospel-days.^ Certainly such stones, such souls, as are not hewn by the word and Spirit, are not fit to be laid in Christ's building. In Josiah's days, when the pass- over was kept, there were porters at every gate of Jerusalem, that no unclean or uncircumcised ones might enter, 2 Chron. xxxv. And the
* English Annotations' on Rev. xxi. 27, do say, that in the last church on earth, discipline in likelihood shall be so strictly executed that no profane person shall be found there, only elect persons, so far as men can judge.2 That vain persons are to be shut out from sacred com- munion with the people of God, is further evident by the judgment of many approved authors. As,
Chrysostom saith that '- the table of the Lord is that whereon the carcase is laid, and that we must not sufier chattering jays to come thereunto ; for only high-flying eagles are to feed thereupon.' There- upon the same author protested ' that he had rather give his life to a murderer, than Christ's body to an unworthy receiver, and rather sufier his own blood to be poured out like water, than to tender Christ's blessed blood to a base liver.' And again, ' Church-officers,' saith he,
* are to keep the sacrament pure, as a man would keep a pleasant spring clean whereat he useth to drink, not letting the feet of filthy beasts
1 1 Kings V. 15-18 ; 2 Chron. ii., and ii. 2, 18; 1 Pet. ii. 5.
* 2 vols, folio, 1657 J better known as the ' Assembly's Annotations.' — O.