Yea, we live and subsist in order upon the good nature and wis- dom of men who judge it best neither to exert their power nor act their principles in this matter: for whereas they esteem all the in- habitants of the land to belong unto their church, if they should in the first place excommunicate all that ought to be excommunicated by the rule and law of the gospel, and then all that ought to be so according to their own laws and canons, — both which a man would think they were obliged in point of conscience unto, — and in pursuit of their sentence send out the " capias" for them all, I very much question whether any of them would go to prison or no, and' then in what a fine case would this government be! and if they should all go to jail, I am persuaded the king would be in an ill state to defend his realms against his enemies.
(3.) Every society hath this power towards those who are incor- porated in it by their oiun consent, and not towards others; for whence should they have such a powei', or who should commit it unto them? Nor can any be cast out from those privileges which they never had an interest in nor a right unto. The apostle's rule holds in this case, especially with respect unto churches, " What have we to do to judge them that are without?" And as unto the exercise of this power, they are all to be esteemed to be witliout who are not rightly incorporated into that particular church by which they may be ejected out of it. A power of excommunication at random, towards all that those who exercise it can extend force unto, hath no foundation either in the light of nature or authority of the Scripture; and it would be ridiculous in any corporation to disfranchise such as never belonged unto it, who were never members of it.
(4'.) The only reason or cause for the expulsion of any person out of such a society is a wilfxd deviation from the rules and laws of
] 58 TKUE NATUKE OF A GOSPEL CHUilCH.
the society, whose observance he had engaged unto upon his entrance into it. Nothing else can be required, unto the preservation of a man's interest in any right or privilege, but what he took upon him- self to perform in his admittance into it. And if the great rule of every church-society be, " That men observe and do whatsoever the Lord Christ hath commanded," none can be justly ejected out of that society but upon a wilful disobedience imto his commands. And therefore the casting of men out of church-communion on light and trivial occasions, or for any reasons or causes whatever but such as essentially belong unto the rules and laws whereon the church doth originally coalesce into a society, is contrary unto natural light and the reason of the things themselves.
Thus far, I say, is every lawful confederate society enabled and warranted, by the light of nature, to remove from its communion, and from a participation in its rights and privileges, any of its num- ber who will not walk according to the rules and principles of its coalescency and constitution. Whereas, therefore, the rule of the con- stitution of the church is, " That men walk together in holy obedience unto the commands of Christ, and in the observance of all his institu- tions, without giving offence unto one another or those that are without by any sinful miscarriage, and do abide in the profession of the truth," if any one shall wilfully and obstinately transgress in any of these things, it is the right and duty, and in the power, of the church to remove him from its society.
2. But this is not the entire nor the next immediate ground, reason, or warranty, of ecclesiastical excommunication ; for this natu- ral equity will not extend itself unto cases that are in things spiritual and supernatural, nor will the actings of the church thereon reach unto the consciences of men for the proper ends of excommunication. Wherefore it was necessary that it should have a peculiar institution in the church by the authority of Jesus Christ; for, —
(1.) The church is such a society as no men have right or power either to enter into themselves or to exclude others from but hy vir- tue of the authority of Christ. No warranty from the light of nature, nor from the laws of men, nor their own voluntary confederation, can enable any to constitute a church-society, unless they do all things expressly in obedience unto the authority of Christ; for his church is his kinsfdom, his house, which none can constitute or build but himself. Wherefore it is necessary that the power of admission mto and exclusion from the church do arise from his grant and institu- tion ; nor is it in the power of any men in the world to admit into or exclude from this society but by virtue thereof.
(2.) Excommunication is an act of authorit}^, as we shall see after- ward. But no authority can be exercised in the church towards any person whatever but by virtue of the institution of Christ; for the
OF EXCOMMUNICATIOJf. 159
authority itself, however ministerially exercised by others, is his alone, and he exerts it not but in the ways of his own appointment. So, in particular, the apostle directs that excommunication be exerted " in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ;" that is, in and by his autho- rity, 1 Cor. V, 4.