Object. Then you may have communion with the members of antichrist.
Ans. If there be a visible saint yet remaining in that church; let him come to us, and we will have communion with him.
Quest. What, though he yet stand a member of that sinful number, and profess himself one of them.
Ans. You suppose an impossibility; for it cannot be that, at the same time, a man should visibly stand a member of two bodies diametrically opposite one to another. Wherefore it must be supposed, that he who professeth himself a member of a church of Christ, must forthwith, nay before, forsake the antichristian one. The which if he refuseth to do, it is evident he doth not sincerely desire to have fellowship with the saints.
[Quest.] But he saith he cannot see that that company to which you stand opposite, and conclude antichristian, is indeed the antichristian church.
[Ans.] If so, he cannot desire to join with another, if he know them to be professedly and directly opposite. I hold therefore to what I said at first; That if there be any saints in the antichristian church, my heart, and the door of our congregation is open to receive them, into closest fellowship with us.
Object. But how if they yet retain some antichristian principles.
Ans. If they be such as eat out the bowels of a church, so soon as they are detected he must either be kept out, while out, or cast out, if in: for it must be the prudence of every community to preserve its own unity with peace and truth: the which the churches of Christ may do; and yet as I have shewed already, receive such persons as differ upon the point of water baptism. For the doing or not doing of that neither maketh nor marreth the bowels or foundation of church communion.
Object. But this is receiving for opinion sake; as before you said of us.
Ans. No; we receive him for the sake of Christ, and grace, and for our mutual edification in the faith; and that we respect not opinions, I mean in lesser matters, 'tis evident; for things wherein we differ are no breach of communion among us; we let every man have his own faith in such things to himself before God.