Church discipline

"O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you, that you should not obey the truth! This only would I learn of you, Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? Are ye so foolish? having begun in the Spirit, are you now made perfect by the flesh? These people did not intend to give up the Savior, they were only going to help Him; they did not intend to cast off the Spirit, they were only going to perfect that which was lacking in His work; they had begun in the Spirit, and were going to the law to be made perfect. Ah! says Paul, the law belongs to the children of the flesh; to them it speaks; the works of it are the works of the flesh. Your perfection from thence will be only perfection in the flesh, and where you go for perfection there you must go for righteousness. Christ is our righteousness and sanctification too; go to the law for one, and you must go to the law for the other; by going for perfection there that yoke will entangle you again, and bring you into bondage. God makes us perfect by the Spirit, which unites to and makes us one with Christ, in whom we are complete. These poor souls were coming to be circumcised, and take the law on them as a rule of life, in order to perfect the Spirit's work. These preachers, Paul says, bewitched them, zealously affected them; yea, they would have excluded them from Christ, that they might affect them: "ye are fallen from grace," says Paul. "Christ shall profit you nothing."
Peter on the mount of transfiguration did not intend to exclude the Savior when he said, "Let us make three tabernacles; one for Thee, and one for Moses, and one for Elias; when Moses and Elias heard, they withdrew, as all good servants ought to do. "And a voice came out of the cloud saying, This is My beloved Son, hear Him." Moses resigned his office to the Mediator of the better testament, who is the end of the law for righteousness, to whom Moses had borne witness. And Elias withdrew also, and left the Savior in His prophetic office, as that great prophet to whom all the prophets gave witness; and I believe that Jesus, in the highest sense, was Elias that was to come. And it is said that, suddenly when the disciples had looked round about, that is, after Moses and Elias, "they saw no man any more save Jesus only with themselves," Mark 9:8; and He is sufficient; and it is a thousand pities that we have so many in our days who are fetching Moses in again; but they will get neither peace nor good works from him, but rather confusion. The Master and the servant must not be coupled together; they are not co-masters; co-rulers, co-yokers, co-mediators, co-builders, co-lawgivers, co-husbands, nor co-sovereigns. "The law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ."
There are several of our present divines who, not withstanding their zeal for Moses, and desire to copy after him, do not at all imitate him in this point; he kept the blessing pointed out two different mountains for the blessing and the curse; and different men were named and appointed for each work; these were typical of ministers of the Spirit, and those of the letter; Simeon, Levi, Juda, Issachar, Joseph, and Benjamin, shall stand on mount Gerizim to bless; and Reuben, Gad, Asher, Zebulun, Dan, and Naphtali, shall stand on mount Ebal to curse, Deut. 27:12, 13. Zion and Sinai must be kept apart; they are two different mountains, and two different cities are founded on them: "For this Agar is mount Sinai in Arabia, and answereth to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children." (Gal. 4:15) And woe be to that man that is found a citizen of this bond city in the great day! Tyre, Nineveh, Babylon the literal, and Babylon the mystical, may one day understand the awful allegory, when they will be found to belong to the city of destruction, Isa. 19:18.
But God hath built His city on the mountain of eternal election. He hath laid this everlasting foundation there, His foundation is in that holy mountain. "The Lord loveth the gates of Zion more than all the dwellings of Jacob." Psa. 87:2. God hath founded this city Himself, and the poor of His people shall trust in it, Isa. 14:32. He hath appointed salvation to be her walls and bulwarks; He is known in her palaces for a refuge; His dwelling place is in Zion; He hath chosen her, she is to be His rest forever: here will He dwell; for He has desired it. He will abundantly bless her provision and satisfy her poor with bread. He will clothe her priests with salvation, and her saints shall shout aloud for joy, Psa. 132:13-16.
It was this city that Abraham and Isaac had in view, they kept it in the eye of their faith, and it made them forget their own country and their native home; they sought a city that hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God, Heb. 11:10. Upon mount Zion God hath commanded the blessing, even life for evermore. To this mountain Jacob looked when he was on his death bed, and knew that God's eternal love was the bounds of this city, and that all his blessings came from thence. "The blessings of thy father have prevailed above the blessings of my progenitors, unto the utmost bound of the everlasting hills." This is Solomon's little city with few men in it, which the great king came to beseige with great bulwarks, which the poor wise man by his wisdom delivered, who is so little regarded for his great deliverance. (Ecc. 9:14-16) This is the only city of refuge under the gospel; and it is near to flee into, and it is a little one; but God will never destroy it, nor the lot of His inheritance who become citizens of it.