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was because they were not of it. They went out from us, but they were not of us.

Where could these apostates go out from but the church? If they had not been in it they could not have gone out from it. The church they went out of was the true church of Christ, founded by the apostles themselves on Christ, the foundation and chief corner-stone; in which the true and everlasting gospel was preached; the ordinances of Christ, Baptism and the Lord's Supper kept as purely as Christ himself had delivered them; the whole church plan, form, order, laws and government properly enforced and attended unto also. And these persons had professed their faith in all the essential truths of the gospel. They had been baptized in the name of the Holy Trinity. They had been regular members of churches. They had been admitted to the Table of the Lord. It may be, they had been admitted to fill up some office in the house of God: such as that of Deaconship, or of being Preachers of the word. Yet their ambitious spirits were such, they could not be content but they must bring in another gospel, contrary to what the apostles preached and in the virulency of their spirits were set most desperately on spreading the same. They therefore break through all the sacred ties and obligations of church fellowship, and went off from the various churches to which they belonged; pretending to have greater light into truth, and what they called the Person of Christ, and grace, than the very apostles themselves. They went out from us. The word us is a very distinguishing one in the New Testament. the first formation of an instituted church, which took place immediately on the ascension of Christ into heaven. See Acts i. 17. 21, 22. Peter speaking of Judas Iscariot to the church then present, says, " he was numbered with us." And of the whole church as included in the word us, he says, "Wherefore of these men which have companied with us all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, Beginning from the baptism of John, unto that same day that he was taken up from us, must one be ordained to be a witness with us of his resurrection." We have this word us made use of by the apostles, in their writings, to express the church of Christ by. As for instance: "Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us. Unto him that loved

It was made use of on

us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood." Our apostle uses this word us in the same sense here. These persons whom he here styles antichrists, had been in the church. They went out of it, without leave; they took themselves off abruptly; neither gave they their reasons for so doing; they would not acknowledge themselves under any sort of obligation to the churches to whom they belonged. Thus they openly and publicly renounced all submission to Christ's Lordship and Kingly authority over his house, the church. Thus they went out as traitors: and with a treacherous design against Christ, and the church which he hath purchased with his own blood; to corrupt his worship; to renounce his truth; to blaspheme the same; to draw away from the true churches of Christ, followers after them. They went out from us. It was most awful in them so to do. It must have been in some of them, the sin against the Holy Ghost, which is styled in this Epistle, the sin unto death. They turned their back on Christ, his gospel, his ordinances, his apostles, his churches, and every thing belonging unto him, and framed out of their own errors, heresies, whims, and fancies, a Christ,

and gospel for themselves. The apostle assigns the reason why they went out from the churches in the way and manner they did-it was because they were not of one heart and soul with the churches in the truth. They went out from us, because they were not of us. The true church of Christ is holiness to the Lord. Her real members are born of God. They have the Spirit of God. They know Christ. They live Christ. They are baptized into one and the same Spirit. They love the Truth. They abhor all and every thing which detracts from it. No marvel that these antichrists should go out, and depart from the true churches of Christ, and set up for themselves. They were not one with them, whilst they remained amongst them; therefore they only waited for an opportunity, and then they left them entirely. Thus it was in the apostle John's time, a little before the close of the apostolic age. Little children, it is the last time: and as ye have heard that antichrist shall come, even now are there many antichrists; whereby we know that it is the last time. They went out from us, but they were not of us. This is the account the apostle gives of them. As it was then, so it has been ever since. All the heresies which have tormented the churches of Christ ever since, and down even to our present times, have originated from persons who have been in the churches; who have departed from the churches. From such as have made schisms and divisions in the churches; and when any old error is newly revived, it in general springs from such persons as are disaffected to the true churches of Jesus Christ. It may be you will expect me to give you to understand what I mean by a church of Christ. Most certainly I understand a company of saints giving themselves up to the Lord, and to each other by the will of God, to walk in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord, agreeable to the rules laid down in the written word. I do not look on all the congregations of saints, to be worthy of the title of the churches of Christ. The church of England is not the church of Christ, yet many who belong to the church of Christ are in it. Many denominations amongst us, who are sound in the articles of Truth, so far as they respect salvation, yet I should not look on them as justly claiming the titles of the churches of Christ; and that for this reason, because they are not framed according to the plan and model of the New Testament account of the same. The greatest reformation of churches, which ever took place, since the reformation from popery, was in Oliver Cromwell's days. Dr. Owen, Dr. Goodwin, Dr. Chauncey, and others give the best account of the formation, plan, order, members, and officers, laws, rules, government, and discipline of the churches of Christ, which I can refer you to: except it be in the writings of Dr. Gill, who has made some improvement in the same. The churches styled independent churches, and those styled the baptized churches of Jesus Christ, are properly churches. There is no difference between these, but in the ordinance of Baptism. These have a defence in themselves, of themselves, and from themselves, to defend their members from error and heresy. Not but that many in these are weary of Christ's yoke, and often find ways and means to cast it off: and at times, error and heresies spring up amongst them: and it must be so, according to the purpose and sovereign will of God. So says the apostle to the Corinthian church. "For there must be also heresies among you, that they which are approved may be made manifest among you." 1 Epis. xi. 19. There were in that church, many who profaned the Lord's Supper, and polluted

it; some who denied the resurrection of the dead; yet the church at Corinth being properly organized according to our Lord's institution, remained a true church, though all the members of it, were not one with the Lord Jesus Christ. Just as the gospel remains immutable in its truths, doctrines, and grace, notwithstanding Hymeneus and Alexander, have put the same away from them, and made shipwreck of faith and a good conscience. It is an honour to belong to a true church of Christ. It is to be lamented any should be admitted into it, without having a clear and scriptural knowledge of it: for when they profess, and give themselves up to walk with a church, it is very dangerous to depart from that church, unless any immorality, or heresy spring up, and is connived at by the majority of members. Or, unless a member has good reason to believe he should increase with the increase of God, more, by removing his communion to another church. In the present day, there is very little conscience made of these things. But whoever observe it, will see, it is no honour to remove from one church to another: nor is it a blessing to any church to receive any disaffected member into their communion. It is always best when the church in its members, is gathered into its own holy fellowship, by the ministration of the same minister of the gospel. Then they uniting in the same faith, the obligations they subject themselves unto, as the yoke, and by the divine authority of Christ, will have a very blessed effect, and lasting effect on them. It is very grievous to the churches of the saints, when they have to say of such and such, as are immoral and erroneous, They went out from us, but they were not of us. In the general, the Lord sets his mark upon them, as those he is grievously displeased with. But I drop this, and proceed to my next particular: which is,

2. To shew how the apostle confirms his assertion. He had said, They went out from us, but they were not of us. He gives this reason of their going out from them-They did not belong to them. Though they were for a season numbered with them, yet they were never of them, or of their number; if they had, they would have most certainly remained with them this is his argument. For if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us.

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How solemn! how awful! These antichrists came out of the apostolical church of Jesus. They had been in it. Their names had been registered in their church book. They had been church members with the best of saints: yet all this did not preserve them from the foulest apostacy. They had heard, and professed to have received, and believed the very same doctrine the apostles preached: yet this did not keep them stedfast in the faith. They were carried away with lust and lasciviousness. This led them to corrupt the doctrine of God's free grace: to suit it to encourage their own corrupt affections: and from hence to proceed to set forth such a different Christ, and such a different gospel, and such a different spirit, as eclipsed the whole glory of that Christ, and gospel which was preached and declared by the apostles themselves. If these wretches had not for a season been under the profession of Christ, and in the church, amongst his people, they could not have acted as they did. They could not so completely have corrupted the gospel, if they had not had the notional scheme of the same in their minds. It answered their end for a season to remain in the churches to whom they had given in their names. It suited them to leave these

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churches at such seasons; when they could, to distil their pernicious influences, as they thought and hoped, it would gain converts to them. Then they went out from the apostles and churches of the saints, because they were not of us, says John; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us. For Christ is yesterday, to-day, and the same for ever: so are the truths and doctrines which have respect unto Him, and in and by which He is revealed unto, and set before his church and which his saints have such evidence of in themselves, that one for them all, says, “For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away: But the word of the Lord endureth for ever. And this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you." 1 Pet. i. 24, 25. These heretics left the churches, because they were not of them; only nominally. They were not the elect of God. They were reprobates. Their going out of the churches, and perverting the truth as it is in Jesus, was a most convincing evidence of this. They might, and undoubtedly did, boast of superior light to all others in the doctrines of grace. They were slaves to their own lusts. They were covetous. They were greedy of reward. They were full of gainsaying. Jude describes them as clouds without water, carried about of winds. As trees whose fruit withereth, without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots. He likens them to raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame. To wandering stars. To whom, says he, is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever. The account is enough to make us tremble. It is evident these could never belong to Christ. And yet if they had not been professors of Christ, and for a season in the visible churches of Christ, they could never have come out of them. And had they been one in mind and spirit with the real churches of Christ, they would not have left them : but they were not. For if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us. They would have accounted it their glory and honour so to have done. Little children, it is the last time: and as ye have heard that antichrist shall come, even now are there many antichrists; whereby we know that it is the last time. They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us: but they went out, that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us. The pernicious. heresies of the present times, are Socinianism, Arianism, Arminianism, and Antinomianism: of the latter the most corrupt reviver of it, was one James Relly, who had been a preacher in Mr. George Whitfield's connexion. His doctrine from his writings is stated to be this-that Christ took the whole humanity into union; so that He is all mankind, and all mankind is Jesus Christ-that all are saved by virtue of union with Him— that they are all so saved in Him, and has so put away all their sin, that there is no sin in them, nor in any thing they do-that Christ's birth is our new birth, and all were born again in Christ, when he was born for

us.

According to him, some are elected to know the Truth; others are not such are delivered thereby from all fears of sin and hell: others are not they die fearing they shall be cast into hell; but there is no hell for them, for Christ is the head of every man, and every man is saved in Jesus Christ. This man lived according to his wretched notions, and died in the same. He never had any great number of followers; for as one once said to me, it is too gross for any to receive, except such pro

fessors, as never found any thing in all their profession, having never attained unto the true knowledge of Christ; for the saints of God cannot meddle with it: and it is too profane for those we call the outward people; yet the works of this man are by some very highly admired. I confess I look on them very dangerous; nor would I, for ten thousand worlds venture to look into, or meddle with them. I should be for crying out, shame on such as do. All heretics come out of the church: most of them have been preachers and teachers in it: they are raised up by Satan, first to disturb the peace of the church, and next to pollute and defile it with their abominable falsehood. The words of the apostle are very suitable here. "Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are." 1 Cor. iii. 16, 17. But I will go on, and proceed to my last particular, which is

3. To shew the reason, why these antichrists went out of the church. It was that they might be made manifest, that they did not belong to the church of Christ, let them make their boast of the same as they might. But they went out, that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us. So says the apostle. They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us: but they went out, that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us.

This was their end for their going out, but it was the Lord's end in thrusting them out, and it might be, some of these might have been thrust out by apostolic, and also by church authority. "A man that is an heretic, after the first and second admonition, reject: Knowing, that he that is such is subverted, and sinneth, being condemned of himself;" so speaks the apostle to Titus, ch. iii. 10, 11. The same apostle speaking of Hymeneus and Alexander, whose horrible errors and sins laid him under the necessity of exercising his apostolical authority to cast them out of the visible church, he says, "Whom I have delivered unto Satan, that they may learn not to blaspheme." 1 Tim. i. 20: so it might have been the case with some of these. However this might, or might not be, yet so it was they went out from the true churches. They quitted the fellowship of the saints. They could not bear their testimony for Christ; nor like any longer to be with, or amongst them. In the holy and secret mystery of the Lord's providence, it was evidenced they were not the Lord's beloved ones. It was hereby made manifest they were not of the church. They were at best but external members. They had no being, nor root in Christ. They were but external branches, even when they made the most flourishing appearance. The Lord Jesus Christ therefore, who searcheth the heart and trieth the reins, willed to make this full evidence, and give this convincing evidence of it to themselves and others, that they were never in any true sense one with his church and people: and the apostle says what he here does on this subject, that the churches of the saints, and the saints in those churches, might not be too much distressed, at what they saw, and heard, concerning the apostacy, horrible doctrines, blasphemies, and immoralities of these persons. Nothing but the worst of crimes were to be looked for from them. It is, it hath been, and God will have it, so-all that is in the heart of fallen man shall be discovered: not all in one individual;

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