to admit and
receive one into her communion and familiar fellowship: therefore, to the
whole church it likewise pertaineth to cast one out of her communion.
Sure, the sentence of excommunication is pronounced in vain, except the
whole church cut off the person thus judged from all communion with her:
and the sentence of absolution is to as little purpose pronounced, except
the whole church admit one again to have communion with her. Shortly, the
whole church hath the power of punishing a man, by denying her communion
unto him: therefore, the whole church hath the power of judging that he
ought to be so punished. The whole church hath the power of remitting this
punishment again: therefore, the whole church hath the power of judging
that it ought to be remitted.

2. The Apostle, in 1 Cor. v., showeth that the Israelites' purging away of
leaven out of their dwellings in the time of the passover, was a figure of
excommunication, whereby disobedient and obstinate sinners, who are as
leaven to infect other men, are to be avoided and thrust out of the
church. Now, as the purging away of the leaven did not peculiarly belong
unto any one, or some few, among the Israelites, but unto the whole
congregation of Israel; so the Apostle, writing to the whole church of
Corinth, even to as many as should take care to have the whole lump kept
unleavened, saith to them all, "Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth
the whole lump? Purge out, therefore, the old leaven. Put away from among
yourselves that wicked person," 1 Cor. v. 6, 7, 13.

3. Christ hath delivered the power of binding and loosing to every
particular church or congregation, collectively taken, which thus we
demonstrate:--If our brother who trespasseth against us will neither be
reclaimed by private admonition, nor yet by a rebuke given him before some
more witnesses, then, saith Christ, "Tell it unto the church; but if he
neglect to hear the church, let him be unto thee as an heathen man and a
publican. 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," Matt. xviii. 17, 18: where he showeth, that, in the Christian
church (which he was to plant by the ministry of the apostles),
excommunication was to be used as the last remedy for curing of the most
deadly and desperate evils; which excommunication he setteth forth by
allusion unto the order and custom of the Jews in his ti