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manded, or they are able to go through with. And it may ART. prove a great snare to them, when by such rash vows they are engaged into such a state of life, in which they live in constant temptations to sin, without either command or promise, on which they can rest as to the execution of them.

This is to lead themselves into temptation,' in opposition to that which our Saviour has made a petition of that prayer which he himself has taught us. Out of this, great distractions of mind, and a variety of different temptations, may, and probably will, arise; and that the rather, because the vow is made; there being somewhat in our natures that will always struggle the harder because they are restrained. It is certain that every man, who dedicates himself to the service of God, ought to try if he can dedicate himself so entirely to it, as to live out of all the concerns and entanglements of life. If he can maintain his purity in it, he will be enabled thereby to labour the more effectually, and may expect both the greater success here, and a fuller reward hereafter. But because both his temper and his circumstances may so change, that what is an advantage to him in one part of his life may be a snare and an encumbrance to him in another part of it, he ought therefore to keep this matter still in his own power, and to continue in that liberty, in which God has left him free, that so he may do as he shall find it to be most expedient for himself, and for the work of the gospel.

Therefore it is to be concluded, that it is unlawful either to impose or to make such vows. And, supposing that any have been engaged in them, more, perhaps, out of the importunity or authority of others, than their own choice; then though it is certainly a character of a man that shall dwell in God's holy hill, that though he swears to his own hurt, yet he changes Psal. xv.4. not he is to consider, whether he can keep such a vow, without breaking the commandments of God, or not: if he can, then, certainly, he ought to have that regard to the name of God, that was called upon in the vow, and to the solemnities of it, and to the scandals that may follow upon his breaking it, that if he can continue in that state, without sinning against God, he ought to do it, and to endeavour all he can to keep his vow, and preserve his purity. But if, after he has used both fasting and prayer, he still finds that the obligation of his vow is a snare to him, and that he cannot both keep it, and also keep the commandments of God; then the two obligations, that of the law of God, and that of his vow, happening to stand in one another's way, certainly the lesser must give place to the greater. Herod's oath was ill and rashly made, but worse kept, when, for his oath's sake,' Matt. xiv. he ordered the head of John the Baptist to be cut off. Our Saviour condemns that practice among the Jews, of vowing that to the corban or treasure of the temple, which they ought to have given to their parents; and imagining that, by

9. xv. 5.

ART. such means, they were not obliged to take care of them, or XXXII. to supply them. The obligation to keep the commandments

of God is indispensable, and antecedent to any act or vow of ours, and therefore it cannot be made void by any vow that we may take upon us and if we are under a vow, which exposes us to temptations that do often prevail, and that probably will prevail long upon us, then we ought to repent of our rashness in making any such vow, but must not continue in the observation of it, if it proves to us like the taking fire into our bosom, or the handling of pitch. A vow that draws many temptations upon us, that are above our strength to resist them, is, certainly, much better broken and repented of, than kept. So that, to conclude, celibate is not a matter fit to be the subject either of a law or a vow; every man must consider himself, and what he is able to receive: He that marries does well, but he that marries not does better.'

ART. XXXIII.

ARTICLE XXXIII.

Of Excommunicate Persons, how they are to be avoided.

That Person which, by open Denunciation of the Church, is rightly cut off from the Unity of the Church, and Excommunicate, ought to be taken of the whole Multitude of the Faithful as a Heathen and a Publican: Until he be openly reconciled by Penance, and be received into the Church by a Judge that hath Authority thereunto.

ALL Christians are obliged to a strict purity and holiness of life and every private man is bound to avoid all unnecessary familiarities with bad and vicious men; both because he may be insensibly corrupted by these, and because the world will be from thence disposed to think, that he takes pleasure in such persons, and in their vices. What every single Christian ought to set as a rule to himself, ought to be likewise made the rule of all Christians, as they are constituted in a body under guides and pastors. And as, in general, severe denunciations ought to be often made of the wrath and judgments of God against sinners; so if any that is called a brother, that is, a Christian, lives in a course of sin and scandal, they ought to give warning of such a person to all the other Christians, that they may not so much as eat with him,' but 1 Cor. v. may separate themselves from him.

11.

In this, private persons ought to avoid the moroseness and affectation of saying, 'Stand by, for I am holier than thou: Isai. lxv. 5. "if one is overtaken in a fault, then those who are spiritual Gal. vi. 1. ought to restore such an one in the spirit of meekness: every one considering himself, 'lest he be also tempted.' Excessive rigour will be always suspected of hypocrisy, and may drive those on whom it falls either into despair on the one hand, or into an unmanageable licentiousness on the other.

The nature of all societies must import this, that they have a power to maintain themselves according to the design and rules of their society. A combination of men, made upon any bottom whatsoever, must be supposed to have a right to exclude out of their number such as may be a reproach to it, or a mean to dissolve it: and it must be a main part of the office and duty of the pastors of the church, to separate the good from the bad, to warn the unruly, and to put from among them wicked persons. There are several considerations that shew not only the lawfulness, but the necessity, of such a practice.

First, that the contagion of an ill example and of bad prac

ART. tices may not spread too far to the corrupting of others: Evil XXXIII. communications corrupt good manners.' Their doctrines will eat and spread as a gangrene:' and therefore, in order to the preserving the purity of those who are not yet corrupted, 2 Tim. ii. it may be necessary to note such persons, and to have no 2 Thess. iii. company with them.'

1 Cor. xv. 33.

17.

14.

6

A second reason relates to the persons themselves, that are so separated, that they may be ashamed; that they may be Jude 23. thus pulled out of the fire, by the terror of such a proceeding, which ought to be done by mourning over them, lamenting their sins and praying for them.

1 Cor. v. 2, 5, 7.

2 Cor. ii. 1, 2, 3.

20.

The apostles made use even of those extraordinary powers that were given to them for this end. St. Paul delivered 1 Tim.i. Hymenæus and Alexander unto Satan, that they might learn not to blaspheme.' And he ordered that the incestuous person at Corinth should be delivered to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit might be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus. Certainly a vicious indulgence to sinners is an encouragement to them to live in sin; whereas when others about them try all methods for their recovery, and mourn for those sins in which they do perhaps glory, and do upon that withdraw themselves from all communication with them, both in spirituals, and as much as may be in temporals likewise; this is one of the last means that can be used in order to the reclaiming of them.

Another consideration is the peace and the honour of the Gal. v. 12. society. St. Paul wished that they were cut off that troubled the churches great care ought to be taken, that the name of God and his doctrine be not blasphemed,' and to give no occasion to the enemies of our faith to reproach us; as if we designed to make parties, to promote our own interests, and to turn religion to a faction; excusing such as adhere to us in other things, though they should break out into the most scandalous violations of the greatest of all the commandments of God. Such a behaviour towards excommunicated persons would also have this further good effect; it would give great authority to that sentence, and fill men's minds with the awe of it, which must be taken off, when it is observed that men converse familiarly with those that are under it.

These rules are all founded upon the principles of societies, which, as they associate upon some common designs, so, in order to the pursuing those, must have a power to separate themselves from those who depart from them.

In this matter there are extremes of both hands to be avoided some have thought, that because the apostles have, Gal.i.8, 9. in general, declared such persons to be accursed, or under an 1 Cor. xvi. anathema, who preach another gospel,' and such as love not the Lord Jesus, to be Anathema Maran-atha,' which is generally understood to be a total cutting off, never to be admitted till the Lord comes;' that therefore the church

22.

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may still put men under an anathema, for holding such ART unsound doctrines, as, they think, make the gospel to become another, in part at least, if not in whole; and that she may thereupon, in imitation of another practice of the apostles, deliver them over unto Satan, casting them out of the protection of Christ, and abandoning them to the Devil: reckoning that the cutting them off' from the body of Christ is really the exposing them to the Devil, who goes about as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. But with what authority soever the apostles might, upon so great a matter as the changing the gospel,' or the 'not loving the Lord Jesus,' denounce an anathema, yet the applying this which they used so seldom, and upon such great occasions, to every opinion, after a decision is made in it, as it has carried on the notion of the infallibility of the church, so it has laid a foundation for much uncharitableness, and many animosities: it has widened breaches, and made them incurable. And, unless it is certain that the church which has so decreed cannot err, it is a bold assuming of an authority to which no fallible body of men can have a right. That delivery unto Satan' was visibly an act of a miraculous power lodged with the apostles: for as they struck some blind or dead, so they had an authority of letting loose evil spirits on some to haunt and terrify, or to punish and plague them, that a desperate evil might be cured by an extreme remedy. And therefore the apostles never reckon this among the standing functions of the church; nor do they give any charge or directions about it. They used it themselves, and but seldom. It is true, that St. Paul being carried by a just zeal against the scandal, which the incestuous person at Corinth had cast upon the Christian religion, did adjudge him to this severe degree of censure: but he judged it, and did only order the Corinthians to publish it, as coming from him, with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ:' that so the thing might become the more public, and that the effects of it might be the more conspicuous. The primitive church, that being nearest the fountain, did best understand the nature of church-power, and the effects of her censures, thought of nothing, in this matter, but of denying to suffer apostates, or rather scandalous persons, to mix with the rest in the sacrament, or in the other parts of worship. They admitted them upon the profession of their repentance, by an imposition of hands, to share in some of the more general parts of the worship; and even in these they stood by themselves, and at a distance from the rest and when they had passed through several degrees in that state of mourning, they were by steps received back again to the communion of the church. This agrees well with all that was said formerly concerning the nature and the ends of church-power; which was given for edification, and not for 2 Cor. x. 8 destruction.' This is suitable to the designs of the gospel,