A second admonition to the parliament

And in these cases they are by the persons / and order afore / not shut out of the church door as we use / but o•t of the church¹ of God / and communion and fellowship of the saints / they are delivered to satan / and to be esteemed / and to be no more taken for Christian men / till they repent / then Heathens or Turks §20are / save that / as they may be allowed / yea and procured if it may be to come to hear sermons / so also they may be conferred with by the brethren / to bring them to repentance. But they shall not be allowed to the sacrament / the pledge of Christ his league with his church / until by repentance they may be admitted as afore is said / into the fellowship of the church again. Neither shall any brother / or sister / use his or their company / but to admonish them / and exhort them to repentance §30/ or as he or she may the heathens company / for their necessary affairs in the world / as they may have dealing together / or as a wife / which² may not depart from her husband if he will abide with her / and yet she may be admitted to the fellowship of the congregation / if she contemn not the doing of the church / but do her uttermost to call her husband home. In like case / if it were y• wife that were excommunicated / he should be admitted / ⟨p. 49⟩and not she. Shortly to say: Excommunication³ is a fearful thing / as it is prescribed by the scriptures / and used by the Churches of Christ reformed accordingly. No punishment to it in this world / but only hell eternally / for he that is in it / either he hath his conscience seared which a hot iron / I mean it is brawned / and he hath no feeling / or else he cannot be without a hell •n his conscience: for he is out of the fellowship of the Saints / he cannot claim to be of Christ his body / nor that his promises and mercy belong to him / if he seek not to be received by repentance into the congregation of Christ again / nor he may not have that comfortable pledge of Christ his supper in fruition with the church / till his repentance be accepted by that church.