Certain disputations of right to sacraments, and the true nature of visible Christianity defending…

3. I also distinguish between the excluding of a man from communion as No true Christian, and excluding him as a scandalous or infectious Christian. As it was one thing for the Jews to remove the dead, and another to remove a Leper from the camp. And I suppose that 1. Ordinarily we are not to exclude any from our communion for a scandalous sin openly repented of. 2. Yet it is possible that it may be of so heinous a nature, that for the Credit of Religion, and the avoiding of all occasion of Reproach by those without, it is not meet to admit such an Offender into our communion, till after some convenient time and larger manifestation of our disowning their crime, and of their extraordinary repentance of it. But this is but temporary. 3. It is possible also that a man may have such an itching zeal to propagate a false opinion, though consistent with Christianity, that we may be bound to exclude him our actual communion, to avoid the infection of the Church: As also that his crime may so induce others to imitation, that though it be consistent with Christianity, we must exclude him as an infectious Leper, because a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump.

3. I also distinguish between the excluding of a man from communion as No true Christian, and excluding him as a scandalous or infectious Christian. As it was one thing for the Jews to remove the dead, and another to remove a Leper from the camp. And I suppose that 1. Ordinarily we are not to exclude any from our communion for a scandalous sin openly repented of. 2. Yet it is possible that it may be of so hainous a nature, that for the Credit of Religion, and the avoiding of all occasion of Reproach by those without, it is not meet to admit such an Offender into our communion, till after some convenient time and larger manifestation of our disowning their crime, and of their extraordinary repentance of it. But this is but temporary. 3. It is possible also that a man may have such an itching zeal to propagate a false opinion, though consistent with Christianity, that we may be bound to exclude him our actual communion, to avoid the infection of the Church: As also that his crime may so induce others to imitation, that though it be consistent with Christianity, we must exclude him as an infectious Leper, because a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump.