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 Lord's 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?

29. They, therefore, who with an high hand do persevere in their
wickedness, after foregoing admonitions stubbornly despised or carelessly
neglected, are justly, by excommunication in the name of the Lord Jesus
Christ, cut off and cast out from the society of the faithful, and are
pronounced to be cast out from the church, until being filled with shame
and cast down, they shall return again to a more sound mind, and by
confession of their sin and amendment of their lives, shall show tokens of
repentance, Matt, xviii. 16-18; 1 Cor. v. 13, which places are also
alleged in the Confession of Bohemia, art. 8, to prove that the
excommunication of the impenitent and stubborn, whose wickedness is known,
is commanded of the Lord: but if stubborn heretics or unclean persons be
not removed or cast out from the church, therein do the governors of the
church sin, and are found guilty, Rev. ii. 14, 20.

30. But that all abuse and corruption in ecclesiastical government may be
either prevented and avoided, or taken away, or lest the power of the
church, either by the ignorance or unskilfulness of some ministers here
and there, or also by too much heat and fervour of mind, should run out
beyond measure or bounds, or contrariwise, being shut up within straiter
limits than is fitting, should be made unprofitable, feeble, or of none
effect,--Christ, the most wise lawgiver of his church, hath foreseen and
made provision to prevent all such evils which he did foresee were to
arise, and hath prepared and prescribed for them intrinsical and
ecclesiastical remedies, and those also in their kind (if lawfully and
rightly applied) both sufficient and effectual: some whereof he hath most
expressly propounded in his word, and some he hath left to be drawn from
thence by necessary consequence.

31. Therefore, by reason of the danger of that which is called _clavis
errans