Church concord

3. When we cannot hold local Communion with a true Church without committing some sin, which they would force upon us, and which we may escape by leaving them, we ought to withdraw from the local Communion of that Church (for we must not wilfully sin, nor do evil that good may come by it:) Yet so as that still we must hold Internal, and also External distant Communion, by owning them as a true Church, and corresponding with them as a Neighbour Church.

4. If a true Church in the corruption of the Materials become uncapable of its Ends, and we have with sufficient patience tried the means of its Reformation without success, it is ordinarily (unless some greater matter hinder accidentally) our Duty to forsake it: Yea and to esteem it no more a true Church, if it be the Principal Ends that it's become uncapable of. As if the Body were fallen into an Opinion against Communion and Public Worship, and yet should think they might hold their Relations: This were a contradiction. If they would in Public, worship God with a Worship false in the Essentials, and which is no Church-worship, but Impiety or Deceit. And though I will not now determine how far Discipline is necessary to a Church, more than to say that the Power is Essential to the Pastors Office, yet I may boldly conclude that in point of Duty. if a Church be so corrupted by Heresy or Impiety that Discipline cannot be exercised in it, because the greater part do own the Heresy or Sin, or the Sinners in their Sin, and this be not in one or a few Acts, but they are against the course of Discipline in the main, and Vote for Wickedness, or against Piety, or the public Censures of the Church, or refuse to execute them; and if after sufficient patience I cannot reform them, I shall take it to be my Duty to take with me the better part of the Church, and forsake the rest, as to local Communion, and perhaps first to cast them out from us (as to their Relation) though we are the lesser part: Unless in some cases, where Public Good requireth a delay, and suspendeth my Duty for the time.

4. If a true Church in the corruption of the Materials become uncapable of its Ends, and we have with sufficient patience tryed the means of its Reformation without success, it is ordinarily (unless some greater matter hinder accidentally) our Duty to forsake it: Yea and to esteem it no more a true Church, if it be the Principal Ends that it's become uncapable of. As if the Body were fallen into an Opinion against Communion and Publick Worship, and yet should think they might hold their Relations: This were a contradiction. If they would in Publick, worship God with a Worship false in the Essentials, and which is no Church-worship, but Impiety or Deceit. And though I will not now determine how far Discipline is necessary to a Church, more than to say that the Power is Essential to the Pastors Office, yet I may boldly conclude that in point of Duty. if a Church be so corrupted by Heresie or Impiety that Discipline cannot be exercised in it, because the greater part do own the Heresie or Sin, or the Sinners in their Sin, and this be not in one or a few Acts, but they are against the course of Discipline in the main, and Vote for Wickedness, or against Piety, or the publick Censures of the Church, or refuse to execute them; and if after sufficient patience I cannot reform them, I shall take it to be my Duty to take with me the better part of the Church, and forsake the rest, as to local Communion, and perhaps first to cast them out from us (as to their Relation) though we are the lesser part: Unless in some cases, where Publick Good requireth a delay, and suspendeth my Duty for the time.