A53671:336
A brief instruction in the worship of God, and discipline of the churches of…
A brief instruction in the worship of God, and discipline of the churches of the New Testament, by way of question and answer with an explication and confirmation of those answers.
London : s.n., 1667
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.
First, The nature of it, that it is an authoritative act and so principally belongs unto the Elders of the Church, who therein exert the power that they have received from the Lord Christ, by and with the consent of the Church according to his appointment, Matth. 16.19. John 20.23. Matth. 18.18. 1 Cor. 5.4. Titus 3.10. 1 Tim. 1.20. 2 Cor. 2.6. And both these the Authority of the Eldership and the consent of ⟨p. 204⟩the Brethren, are necessary to the validity of the sentence, and that according to the appointment of Christ, and the practice of the first Churches.
Secondly, The effect of it, which is the cutting off, or casting out of the person offending from the communion of the Church, in the privileges of the Gospel, as consequently from that of all the visible Churches of Christ in the earth by virtue of their communion one with another, whereby he is left unto the visible kingdom of Satan in the World, Matth. 18.17. 1 Cor. 5.2, 5, 13. 1 Tim. 1.20. Titus 3.10.