ernment, the rejection of these instruments, as the offspring of human ambition, is not so trifling and inconsiderable a matter as many would have us to believe. It is an errour which cuts deep and wide. It saps the very foundations of that system of ecclesiastical order which God has established. Its tendency is to annihilate all distinctions between the holy, and the profane, and to remove government from the church of Christ. Those who reject Creeds may not intend this much. But to this, their errour unquestionably leads; and their system fairly carried out, would inevitably be productive of these results. While, therefore, we would deprecate the prostration of evangelical order in the church of God, let us hold fast that ecclesiastical constitution, which, having been formed under the direction of scriptural principles, furnishes, under God, an efficient guaranty for its protection.

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LETTER VII.

CHRISTIAN BRETHREN,

IN the preceding discussions, the right of the Church to deal with, and cast out of her communion, offenders against her purity and laws, has been established, and the principles and rules of her procedure ascertained. It yet remains to be inquired, how the church should act in relation to those who have been excluded from sealing ordinances, and according to what principles she should proceed in restoring them to her fellowship.. These are points which are not, perhaps, sufficiently understood by all, or if understood, do not receive that share of attention which their importance demands.

As one leading design of discipline is to promote the good of offenders, by bringing them to repentance, it would seem evident, that the church should not consider herself as divested of all responsibility in relation to such, when she has suspended or excluded them from her communion. These acts of discipline should be followed by other appropriate efforts, for the accomplishment of the desired end. What kind of agency should

be employed by the church in such cases, the scriptures indicate with sufficient plainness.

To us it appears very obvious, that when persons have been authoritatively excluded from church privileges, upon sufficient grounds, the members of the church should avoid familiar intercourse with them, farther than may be necessary to the discharge of the duties arising out of their relation to them as members of domestic and civil society. This has already been incidentally noticed, in sustaining the right of the church to exclude from her communion obstinate offenders, who might resist more lenient measures of bringing them to a sense of their sins. The passages of scripture which bear more directly on the subject, are the following: "If he neglect to hear the church, let him be unto thee as an heathen man, and a publican."*"I wrote unto you in an epistle, not to keep company with fornicators: yet not altogether with the fornicators of this world, or with the covetous, or extortioners, or with idolaters: for then must ye needs go out of the world. But now I have written unto you, not to keep

is called a brother, be a foy, if

any man that or covetous, or an

idolater, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner; with such an one, no not to eat." To the same purpose, is the direction of Paul to the Thessalonians. “And if any man obey not our word by this epistle, note that man, and have no company with him, that he may be ashamed."

Now it is manifest, we think, that in all these places, II. Thess. 3. 14.

* Matt. 18. 17. †I. Cor. 5. 9-11.

a suspension of familiar intercourse with the persons described, is enjoined. On this point, there can be no difficulty. Nor can there be much hazard in saying, that it is private intercourse, and not church fellowship, which is here primarily intended. Both the terms and the connection prove this. The principal difficulty pertains to the relation sustained by those from whom familiar intercourse is to be withheld: whether it be that of members in communion, or, of persons excluded from the special privileges of the church. That it is the latter, and not the former, appears to us demonstrably evident. And nothing short of the most decisive scriptu、 ral testimony could induce us to believe, that the members of the church are authorized to treat as heathens and publicans," and "keep no company" with their fellow-members, who have never been officially and regularly excluded from the communion of the Saints.

I am aware that a very respectable writer has decided, that the person with whom the members of the church at Thessalonica were directed to "have no company," "" was still in communion. ??* But against this opinion there are several objections. 1. It constitutes each individual member, the judge of his brother's conduct, and that too, without the formality of a trial. 2. It lays a foundation for a collision of practice among the members of the church, in relation to offenders, as it is evident that all would not judge alike of his offence. Of course, their treatment of him would be different.. 3. It breaks in upon the vital principles of church fellowship and brotherly love, which ought to bind the N2.

Mason's Plea, p. 338.