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As if the apostle had said, "My jurisdiction extendeth not to the heathens, I have nothing to do to judge and censure them that are without the church: but such as are within the pale of the church, your own members, who own your jurisdiction, these you have an undoubted right and power to judge, leaving the other to the judgment of God: therefore I advise, nay, charge you, to put away from yourselves that wicked and incestuous person, by excommunicating and banishing him from your communion."
As banishment is a civil excommunication, so excommunication is a spiritual banishment: magistrates must drive malefactors out of civil societies, and church officers must expel enormous offenders out of their religious societies; for they who are unfit for civil converse, are much more unfit for spiritual communion.
The last words, Therefore put away from among yourselves that wicked person, help us clearly to understand the former precept, 1Co_5:7. Purge out the old leaven, &c that they are not in their first and proper sense to be interpreted of particular persons purging out their lusts, and mortifying their corruptions, though that be a very necessary duty; but it is to be understood of every Christian church's duty to pruge out from among them all flagitious and enormous offenders.