A42763:62
CXI propositions concerning the ministry and government of the ChurchCXI propositions concerning the ministerie and government of the Church
Edinburgh: printed by Evan Tyler, 1647
Title page typeset from the transcription.
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
28.
Excommunication ought not to be proceeded unto, except when extreme necessity constraineth: But whensoever the soul of the sinner cannot otherwise be healed, and that the safety of the Church requireth the cutting off of this or that Member, it behoveth to use this last remedy. In the Church of Rome indeed Excommunication hath been turned into greatest injustice and tyranny (as the Pharisees abused the casting out of the Synagogues, which was their Excommunication) to the fulfilling of the lust of their own minds; Yet the ordinance of Christ is not therefore by any of the Reformed Religion to be utterly thrust away and wholly rejected. What Protestant knows not that the vassals of Antichrist have drawn the Lords Supper into the worst and most pernicious abuses, as also the Ordination of Ministers and other ordinances of the Gospel? Yet who will say that things necessary, (whether the necessity be that of command, or that of the means or end) are to be taken away because of the abuse?
Excommunication ought not to be proceeded unto, except when extreme necessity constraineth: But whensoever the soul of the sinner cannot otherwise bee healed, and that the safety of the Church requireth the cutting off of this or that Member, it behoveth to use this last remedy. In the Church of Rome indeed Excommunication hath beene turned into greatest injustice and tyrannie (as the Pharisees abused the casting out of the Synagogues, which was their Excommunication) to the fulfilling of the lust of their own mindes; Yet the ordinance of Christ is not therefore by any of the Reformed Religion to be utterly thrust away and wholly rejected. What Protestant knows not that the vassals of Antichrist have drawn the Lords Supper into the worst and most pernicious abuses, as also the Ordination of Ministers and other ordinances of the Gospel? Yet who will say that things necessary, (whether the necessity be that of command, or that of the means or end) are to be taken away because of the abuse?