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Observe here, 1. How dull the disciples of Christ were under Christ's own teaching, how apt to put a carnal sense upon his words; they apprehended he had spoken to them of the leaven of bread, what he intended of the leaven of the Pharisee's doctrine.
Observe, 2. The smart and sharp reproof which Christ gave his disciples, for not understanding the sense and signification of what he spake. The Lord Jesus Christ is much displeased with his own people, when he discerns blindness and ignorance in them after more than ordinary means of knowledge enjoyed by them; How is that ye do not yet understand?
Observe, 3. The metaphor which Christ sets forth the corrupt doctrine of the Pharisees and partly for its diffusiveness. Leaven is a piece of sour dough, that diffuses itself into the whole mass or lump of bread with which it is mixed.
From whence our Saviour intimates, that the Pharisees were a sour and proud sort of people; and their doctrine like themselves, poisonous and pernicious in their consequences; the contagion of which our Lord warns his disciples to avoid and shun.
Whence learn, That error is as damnable as vice; persons erroneous in their judgments are to be avoided, as well as those that are lewd and wicked in their conversations. He that has a due care of his soul's salvation, must as well beware of erroneous principles as of debauched practices.
Observe, 4. Our Saviour does not command his disciples to separate from communion with the Pharisees, and oblige them not to hear their doctrine; but only to beware of the errors that they mixed with their doctrine. We may and ought to hold communion with a church, though erroneous in doctrine, if not fundamentally erroneous. Separation from a church is not justifiable upon any other ground than that which makes a separation between God and that church: which is either the apostacy of that church into gross idolatry; or in point of doctrine into damnable heresy, or imposing sinful terms of communion.