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which is the temple wherein Chrift dwells, and our houfe of prayer, there Satan can never come to deceive us, or to endanger our fafety.

CHAPTER V.

Containing Brief Obfervations upon the NATURE and USEFULNESS of CHRISTIAN DISCIPLINE.

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That God intended to establish an excellent government, order, and discipline in the church, under the gofpel difpenfation, appears from divers paffages of the prophets in the Old Teftament, who faw into and wonderfully defcribed the Christian state; a few of which I fhall inftance. Ifa: xxxii. 1. "Behold a king fhall reign in righteouf"nefs, and princes fhall rule in judgment." Chap. xxxiii. 5, 6. The Lord is exalted: for he dwelleth on high, he hath filled Zion with judgment and righteoufnefs; and wifdom and knowledge fhall be the ftability of thy times, and ftrength "of falvation." Chap. xxviii. 5, 6. " In that ແ day fhall the Lord of hofts be for a crown of glory, and for a diadem of beauty unto the refidue of his people: and for a fpirit of judg"ment to him that fitteth in judgment, and for ftrength to them that turn the battle to the gate." Our Lord and Saviour Jefus Chrift, Matth. xviii. 15, 16, 17, 18. clearly directs his followers how to proceed in the exercise of difcipline and good order, both with respect to individuals, and to the church; he affured them, that whatfoever

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whatsoever of this kind is done under divine direction upon earth, fhall be ratified and confirmed in heaven. Chap. xix. 28. he promises fuch who have followed him in the regeneration, that they fhall be exalted in his kingdom, fitting upon thrones to judge and govern his people. We find among the eminent gifts of the Spirit, Paul reckons helps in government, 1 Cor. xii. 28. In chap. the 5th, he blames that church very highly for their neglect of practising found judgment in the way of discipline, fhewing them the neceffity of putting thofe guilty of corrupt practices out of the community, left as a leaven they should affect the whole lump. Verf. II. he points out how unfafe it was for the Lord's people to have any fociety with the workers of iniquity. Verf. 12. and 13. that it is the church's duty to judge thofe that are within, viz. her own members, leaving the judging of thofe that are without to God. In chap. the 6th, he blames them as sharply for going to law one with another before the unjust, fhewing that it would have been better they had fuffered themfelves to have been defrauded, and that every matter of difference or controverfy fhould be judged and determined by the church, in regard to its own members.

A religious fociety, gathered by God's power, who have received diverfities of gifts and qualifications, are confidered as a body properly tempered by their holy head (who is perfect in wisdom) that it may well exift by pure laws, rules, and comely orders, both within and without; for the maintaining whereof every member hath its proL 2

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office and station wherein it is to act, yet only by the guidance of the Holy Head, who is known ever to prefide over his humble dependent people, a present help in the needful time, fupplying all their wants, as they wait his time.

Pertinent to this is Eph. iv. 15, 16. « But speak"ing the truth in love, may grow up into him in

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all things, which is the head, even Chrift, from "whom the whole body fitly joined together, and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, "according to the effectual working in the mea "fure of every part, maketh increafe of the body, "unto the edifying of itself in love,"

The apostle, in 1 Cor. xii. with great ftrength of reafon and perfpicuity, fheweth the diversities of gifts, differences of administrations and operations, all by the fame Spirit, who worketh in all as he will; that notwithstanding this variety, all, and of all forts, are baptized into one body, and made to drink into one Spirit; he fays, verf. 14. "For the body is not one member, but many;' and fheweth they are all ufeful to and dependent upon one another, therefore none have a right to apprehend fuch a felf-fufficiency, as to be inde pendent of other members; nay, that thofe members of the body, which feem to be more feeble, are ufeful. The near union, harmony, and fympathy of this glorious body, is fet forth in verfe 26. And whether one member fuffer, all the "members fuffer with it; or one member be ho

noured, all the members rejoice with it.”

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For brevity's fake, I forbear at prefent making more quotations on this fubject, These are fuf ficient to demonstrate fully the strong obligation all baptized members are under, rightly to understand their places in the body, and to come up in a faithful difcharge of their duty therein, as in the fight of God, to whom they must be accountable. And it likewife appears that every member, entered as fuch by his or her voluntary confent, is ftrictly bound to keep and maintain the established rules of that body; the breach of which not only renders him or her guilty in God's fight, but also accountable to the body. It also behoves this body, immediately upon the tranfgreffion of its rules and orders, to exert itself in dealing with tranfgreffors, and to administer found judgment, in order to restore them; or, on failure of fuccefs in that, to disown or refuse to have unity with such, and to let the world know they are not of their body; that the reputation thereof may be preferved amongst those which are without, as well as for its own peace and fafety within; seeing by a neglect hereof, others may be infected by the corrupt member, and his evil may fpread in the body like a leprofy; but that which is the most affecting, the Lord may be provoked to withdraw from that body which neglects the exercise of true judgment against evil; as in the cafe of Achan, Joshua vii. and alfo that of the tribe of Benjamin, Judges xix. and xx.

It is too obvious to be denied, that the profeffors of Chriftianity, by lofing the power and

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life of religion, loft the true fpirit of difcipline and good order in their churches. Instead of which, they have fubftituted rules, orders, and canons, &c. of their own invention, principally calculated to support that power by which the clergy (fo called) got their wealth, and by which they have procured them to be enforced where they judged neceffary by human law. The present state of church government appears to be truly deplorable, amongst most of the divided parts of Christian profeffors that I know of; confequently they are in a very corrupted state, greatly lacking that judg ment and righteoufnefs which was to fill Sion, and the wisdom and knowledge which was predicted would be the stability of her times.

Cave and King, in their Primitive Christianity, clearly fhew, from the writings of many of the antients, particularly for the first three hundred years after Chrift, that much care and zeal were maintained to preserve the church clean and pure by a wholsome discipline.

King fhews, that not only the teachers, but the whole church were concerned and active in dealing with, receiving fatisfaction from, or finally cenfuring people in common; and also that no teachers were fet over them, but only fuch as the whole church unanimously agreed to receive; and that the common people, generally called laity, were equally concerned with others in depofing and cenfuring ministers, when they ceased to have unity with them, page 22 to. 25, and page 112, 116. He and Cave, from Tertullian, both fhew, that

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