1. _That those in trust have power to examine such as desire to partake of this_ Legacie, _whether they be of sufficient knowledg, and of good conversation, or no_. 2. _That they have power to refuse all such as either refuse to be examined, or upon examination, are found insufficient._ 3. _That if the Church Officers would give up their account with joy at the great day of judgment, they ought not to rest satisfied with private Reports or Informations of others; but to examine the persons themselves, that thereby they may faithfully discharge their trust in a matter of so great concernment_; And that they that will have the Sacrament, according to the will of Christ, ought first to submit themselves to such examination.
Besides this that hath been said, to prove that those that would come to the Sacrament ought first to submit to examination; We shall further offer these following Arguments.
1. We argue from that general exhortation of the Apostle, 1 _Pet._ 3.15. _But sanctifie the Lord God in your hearts, and be ready alwayes to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear._
Now if Christians are bound to give an account of their Faith and hope to every one that asketh them, _yea even to heathen Persecutors_: how much more ought they to do it to the Officers of the Church? especially at such a time, when they desire to be admitted to an _Ordinance_ that is not common to all sorts of Christians, but peculiar to such as are indued with knowledg, and of an unblameable life and conversation.
2. _From that power that Jesus Christ hath seated in his Church, of examining such as are by the Will of Christ to be excommunicated from the Sacrament._ That there is a power of examining, in order to excommunication, appears from Matth. 18.16, 17. and from Revel. 2.2. where Christ commends [85]the Angel of the Church of _Ephesus_, _because he could not bear them which were evill, and had tryed them who said, they were Apostles, and were not, and had found them lyars_. This trying was not only _charitative_, and _fraternall_, but _authoritative_ and _judiciall_. For it was an act of the Angel of the Church; which Angel is not to be understood individually, [86]but collectively, for all the Angels in _Ephesus_. And that there were more Angels then one in _Ephesus_, appears from _Act._ 20.17. (The like may be said of the Angel of the Church of _Smyrna_, _Pergamus_, _Thyatira_, &c. for Christ speaks unto each Angel in the plural number, Rev. 2.10, 13, 14.)