the
communicants.

The various statements of Scripture, if rightly understood, must exactly
harmonize, and a closer investigation of the case of this transgressor
is all that is required to prove that he was not tried and condemned by
a tribunal composed of the whole mass of the members of the Church of
Corinth. His true history reveals facts of a very different character.
For reasons which it would, perhaps, be now in vain to hope fully to
explore, he seems to have been a favourite among his fellow-disciples;
many of them, prior to their conversion, had been grossly licentious;
and, it may be, that they continued to regard certain lusts of the flesh
with an eye of comparative indulgence. [224:1] Some of them probably
considered the conduct of this offender as only a legitimate exercise of
his Christian liberty; and they appear to have manifested a strong
inclination to shield him from ecclesiastical censure. Paul, therefore,
felt it necessary to address them in the language of indignant
expostulation. "_Ye are puffed up_," says he, "and have not rather
mourned that he that hath done this deed might be taken away from among
you....._Your glorying is not good_. Know ye not that a little leaven
leaveneth the whole lump." [224:2] At the same time, as an apostle bound
to vindicate the reputation of the Church, and to enforce the rules of
ecclesiastical discipline, he solemnly announces his determination to
have the offender excommunicated. "I verily," says he, "as absent in
body, but present in spirit, _have judged_ already as though I were
present, concerning him that hath so done this deed, in the name of our
Lord Jesus Christ, _when ye are gathered together_, and my spirit, with
the power of our Lord Jesus Christ, _to deliver such an one unto Satan_
for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the
day of the Lord Jesus." [224:3] To deliver any one to Satan is to expel
him from the Church, for whoever is not in the Church is in the world,
and "the whole world lieth in the wicked one." [224:4] This discipline
was designed to teach the fornicator to mortify his lusts, and it thus
aimed at the promotion of his highest interests; or, as the apostle
expresses it, he was to be excommunicated "for the destruction of the
flesh, [225:1] that the spirit might be saved in the day of the Lord
Jesus." It is obvious that the Church of Corinth was now in a state of
great disorder. A partisan spirit had crept in amo