Eleventhly. Our last inquiry shall be. Whether excommunication may he regular and valid when the matter of right is dubious and disputahle, — as many such cases may fall out, especially with respect unto the occasions of life and mutual converse, — or when the matter of fact is not duly proved hy positive witnesses on the one hand, and is denied on the other?
Ans. 1. The foundation of the ejficacy of excommunication, next and under its divine institution, lies in the light and conviction of the consciences of them that are to be excommunicated. If these are not affected with a sense of guilt, as in dubious cases they may not be, the sentence will be of no force or efficacy.
182 TRUE NATURE OF A GOSPEL CHURCH.
2. A case wherein there is a difference in tlie judgment Osgood and wise men about it is to be esteemed such a dubious case as is ex- empted from this censure. Nothing is to be admitted here to take place but what is reprovable by natural light and the concurrent judgment of them that fear God.
3. If the case be about such a right or wrong, in pretended fraud, over-reaching, or the like, as is determinable by civil laws, the church is no judge in such cases, unless it be by way of arbitration, 1 Cor. vi.
4. If the question be about doctrines that are not on points funda- mental, so as those who dissent from the church do carry it peaceably and orderly, there can be no procedure unto ecclesiastical censure; but if men will dote on their own opinions, wrangling, contending, and breaking the peace of the church about them, there are other rules given in that case.
5. If the matter of fact be to be determined and stated by luit- ness, it is absolutely necessary, by virtue of divine institution, that there be two or three concurrent testimonies; one witness is not to be regarded. See Deut. xix. 15 ; Num. xxxv. 30; Matt, xviii. 16, etc.
Wherefore the ensuing rules or directions are to be observed in the matter of excommunication : —
1. No excommunication is to be allowed in cases dubious and disputable, wherein right and wrong are not easily determinable unto all unprejudiced persons that know the will of God in such things; nor is it to be admitted when the matter of fact stands in need of testimony, and is not proved by two witnesses at the least.
2. All 'prejudices, all partiality, all provocations, all haste and precipitation, are most carefully to be avoided in this administration; for the judgment is the Lord's. Wherefore,—
3. We are continually, in all things that tend unto this sentence, and eminently in the sentence itself, to charge our consciences with the mind of Christ and what he would do himself in the case, con- sidering his love, grace, mercy, and patience, with instances of his condescension which he gave us in this world.
4. There is also required of us herein a constant remembrance that we also are in the flesh and liable to temptation; which may restrain and keep in awe that forwardness and confidence which some are apt to manifest in such cases. In all these things a watch- ful eye is to be kept over the methods of Satan, who by all means seeks to pervert this ordinance unto the destruction of men, which is appointed for their edification ; and he too often prevails in that de- sign. And if, by the negligence of a church in the management and pursuit of this ordinance, he get advantage to pervert it unto the ruin of any, it is the fault of that church, in that they have not been careful of the honour of Christ therein.
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Wherefore, — 1. As excommunication by a cursed noise and clatn- our, with bell, book, and candle (such as we have instances of in some papal coimcils), is a horrible antichristian abomination : so, —
2. It is an undue representation of Christ and his authority, for persons openly guilty of profaneness in sinning to excommunicate them who are blameless in all Christian obedience.
3. All excommunication is evangelically null where there is want- ing an evangelical frame of spirit in those by whom it is administered, and there is present an anti-evangelical order in its administration.
4. It is sufficiently evident that, after all the contests and disputes about this excommunication that have been in the world, the noise that it hath made, the horrible abuses that it hath been put unto, the wresting of all church order and rule to give countenance unto a corrupt administration of it, with the needless oppositions that have been made against its institution, there is nothing in it, nothing be- longs unto it, nothing is required unto its administration, wherein men's outward interests are at all concerned, and which the smallest number of sincere Christians in any church-society may not perform and discharge unto the glory of Christ and their own edification.
It is the mystery of iniquity that hath traversed these things into such a state and posture as is unintelligible unto spiritual wisdom, unpracticable in the obedience of faith, and ruinous unto all evan- gelical order and discipline.
CHAPTER XL
Of the communion of churches.