The true and only way of concord of all the Christian churches the desirableness…

§. 8. As gravity, convincing reason, compassion and patience are certainly necessary, so it seemeth very convenient at least that when the sinner is admonished before the Church, the Congregation join with the Pastor in earnest Prayer to God for his conviction and repentance, and if that prevail not at once, in tolerable cases to do it again, before the sinner be cast out: Ye ought to mourn, saith St. Paul, 1 Cor. 5. Men will not cut off a corrupt member of the body hastily, nor till flat necessity, nor without sense of pain.

§. 8. As gravity, convincing reason, compassion and patience are certainly necessary, so it seemeth very convenient at least that when the sinner is admonished before the Church, the Congregation joyn with the Pastor in earnest Prayer to God for his conviction and repentance, and if that prevail not at once, in tolerable cases to do it again, before the sinner be cast out: Ye ought to mourn, saith St. Paul, 1 Cor. 5. Men will not cut off a corrupt member of the body hastily, nor till flat necessity, nor without sense of pain.

§. 9. It is not every sin that a man repenteth not of, that is a just cause of excommunication: For there is no man living that hath not some sins which he no otherwise repenteth of, than as in general he hateth all sin so far as he knoweth it: For every man hath sins of ignorance, and every man hath some degree of error, and some faithful men have more than others, and take some sins to be duties or no sins; and some have darker minds than others that are hardly convinced and cannot perceive the force of an argument against the prejudice before received. And some are educated where some sins are praised, and converse with such persons as by their parts and interest in them harden them in their error; How many thousand zealous Papists, Nestorians, Eutychians, Greeks take others for heretics by mistake, and perhaps by words and actions wrong or persecute them, and never repent of it, because they err? How many Lutherans slander Calvinists, and they the Lutherans, and Papists and Protestants oft make each others matters seem otherwise than they are; Yea so do Conformists and Nonconformists, Anabaptists and Paedobaptists and most that disagree, and yet repent not, thinking that to be true that is not, and so that they do well?