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As if the apostle had said, "Although I am absent from you in body, yet in mind and consent I am present with you, and also by my discerning spirit, by which I am enabled to discern things done at a distance; and accordingly by the authority and power given me by our Lord Jesus Christ, I have already determined, that when you are solemnly gathered together in the name of Christ, and have my spirit concurring with you, and the power of Christ confirming the sentence pronounced by you, that you deliver this incestuous person unto Satan, by casting him out of the church, and leaving him to God's executioner to inflict destructive punishment on his body, to bring him to repentance on his body, to bring him to repentance for the saving of his soul."
Here note, 1. The censure and sentence pronounced: excommunication, which consisteth of two parts,
(1) Privative, in a separation from the communion of saints.
(2) Positive, which is here expressed by delivering unto Satan, who had then a power over the excommunicated person's body to torment it with diseases; which power though now ceased, yet the Christian church has at this day a power to exclude enormous offenders from the ordinary means of grace and salvation, and to expose them to the malice and temptations of their grand adversary the devil, by depriving them of church communion, which is a more dreadful punishment than persons are sensible of.
Note, 2. The person inflicting this censure, St. Paul, I have judged already. He pronounced it judicially, and requires the Corinthians to denounce it solemnly. I have judged already; implying that he did not determine rashly and suddenly, but advisedly, as became a judge.
And mark, they must denounce solemnly what he had determined judicially, and this in the face of the whole church, when ye are gathered together; that is, in the presence of the chief pastor, and all his flock at Corinth.
A public crime must have a public doom, that others may hear and fear: yet remark, the congregation or church were witnesses of the censure, but they did not judge and determine it: the apostle did that. The power of the keys is in the hand of the church only, quoad khreysin not quoad khteysin: that the church may have the benefit of them, not the managing of them, for that is committed to the pastors only, as appears, Mat_16:17-20.
Note, 3. The solemn and awful manner in which the censure and excommunication was and ought to be pronounced, In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ; that is, having first, in a solemn manner, called upon the Lord Jesus Christ for his direction and benediction; or, in the name of our Lord Jesus, that is, according to the command of Christ, by the power and authority of Christ, and with an eye to the glory of Christ; this should be the ends, in denouncing church censures: and then Christ will by at the consistory, and his co-operation will make good the censure, as his commission was our warrant to pronounce it; and then the penitent may and ought to dread the sentence, as coming out of Christ's own mouth, and to be inflicted by Christ's own hand.
Note, 4. The miserable case and state which the person that is duly excommunicated is in: by is then delivered unto Satan, as God's executioner, to inflict severe punishments on the person's body, now cast out of God's special protection, deprived of the church's communion, and exposed to the temptations and snares of our grand adversary, Satan. St. Austin in his time declared, that it was then thought gravius quam gladio feriri, much more grievous to be excommunicated than to be beheaded.
But, Lord! where are the persons at this day, who tremble when their sins have brought them into this miserable case and state?
Note, 5. That persons ought not to be in this severe and solemn manner proceeded against, but for notorious, scandalous sins. To denounce this awful censure upon every slight and trivial occasion, is to prostitute one of the most venerable ordinances of Christ to contempt and scorn.
Note, 6. The great and special end for which the ordinance of excommunication was instituted by Christ in his church, and executed by his apostles; namely, to recover the fallen person by repentance, and to be a warning to others. The reforming, and not the ruining of men, was the intention of this ordinance: the censure is not mortal, but medicinal.
It is, 1. For the destruction of the flesh, so lasciviant in him; for the mortifying his lusts, by afflicting him with grief and sorrow.
2. For the saving of his spirit, that is, his soul, that this may be recovered out of the snare of the devil.
Lastly, The time is expressed, when the penitent person shall find the benefit of this painful ordinance; namely, in the day of the Lord Jesus; not but that a penitent in this life shall find some ease in his conscience, and satisfaction in his spirit: but the full benefit of ecclesiastical censure is reserved to the day of the Lord, the day of judgment: then will Christ manifest to the church triumphant the good effect of the power of the keys, which he hath committed to his ministers, to be exercised publicly in the church militant; he will then reveal how all stand bound in heaven, whom his church never loosed on earth; and all whom his church hath loosed on earth, shall then appear to be loosed in heaven.