first advance; but Jesus taught that the injured one should not wait for
his brother to come to him, but go himself, and seek to adjust the
difficulty; by so doing he might be the means of saving his brother's
soul. If the offender proved to be obdurate, the brother who had
suffered the trespass was to take two or three others with him, and
again try to bring the transgressor to repentant acknowledgment of his
offense; such a course provided for witnesses, by whose presence later
misrepresentation would be guarded against.

Extreme measures were to be adopted only after all gentler means had
failed. Should the man persist in his obstinacy, the case was to be
brought before the Church, and in the event of his neglect or refusal to
heed the decision of the Church, he was to be deprived of fellowship,
thereby becoming in his relationship to his former associates "as an
heathen man and a publican." In such state of non-membership he would be
a fit subject for missionary effort; but, until he became repentant and
manifested willingness to make amends, he could claim no rights or
privileges of communion in the Church. Continued association with the
unrepentant sinner may involve the spread of his disaffection, and the
contamination of others through his sin. Justice is not to be dethroned
by Mercy. The revealed order of discipline in the restored Church is
similar to that given to the apostles of old.[825]

The authority of the Twelve to administer the affairs of Church
government was attested by the Lord's confirming to them as a body the
promise before addressed to Peter: "Verily I say unto you, Whatsoever ye
shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever ye shall
loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven."[826] Through unity of purpose
and unreserved sincerity they would have power with God, as witness the
Master's further assurance: "Again I say unto you, That if two of you
shall agree on earth as touching any thing that they shall ask, it shall
be done for them of my Father which is in heaven. For where two or three
are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them."
Peter here broke in with a question: "Lord, how oft shall my brother sin
against me, and I forgive him? till seven times?" He would fain have
some definite limit set, and he probably considered the tentative
suggestion of seven times as a very liberal measure, inasmuch as the
rabbis prescribed a triple forgiveness only.[827] He m