1: They are greatly to be reprehended which by suffering of wickedness, set forth the Church of God to be mocked and scorned of infidels.
2: There are none more proud then they that least know themselves.
3: Excommunication ought not to be committed to one man's power, but must be done by the authority of the whole congregation, after the matter is diligently examined.
a: In mind, thought and will.
b: Calling upon Christ's name.
4: There is not doubt but that judgement is ratified in heaven, wherein Christ himself sitteth as judge.
5: The excommunicate id delivered to the power of Satan, in that that he is cast out of the house of God.
c: What it is to be delivered to Satan, the lord himself declareth when he saith, Let him be unto thee as a heathen and publican, Matthew 18:17, that is to say, to be disfranchised and put out of the right and liberty of the city of Christ, which is the church, without which Satan is lord and master.
6: the end of excommunication is not to cast away the excommunicate, that he should utterly perish, but that he may be saved, to wit, that by this means his flesh may be tamed, that he may learn to live to the Spirit.
7: Another end excommunication is, that others be not infected, and therefore i must of necessity be retained in the Church, that the one be not infested by the other.
d: Is naught, and not grounded up on good reason, as though you were excellent, and yet there is such wickedness found amongst you.
8: By alluding to the ceremony of the Passover, he exhorteth them to cast out that unclean person from among them. In times past, saith he, it was not lawful for them which did celebrate the Passover, to eat unleavened bread: insomuch that he was holden as unclean and unworthy to eat the Passover, whosoever had but tasted of leaven.
e: By lump he meaneth the whole body of the Church, every member whereof must be unleavened bread, that is, be renewed in spirit, by plucking away the old corruption.
f: The lamb of the Passover.
g: Let us lead our whole life, as it were a continual feast, honestly, and uprightly.
9: Now he speaketh more generally: and that which he spake before of the incestuous person, he showeth that it pertaineth to others, which are known to be wicked and such as through their naughty life are a slander to the Church, which ought also by lawful order be cast out of the community of the Church. And making mention of eating of meat, either he meaneth those feasts of love whereat the supper of the Lord was received, or else their common usage and manner of life: which is rightly to be taken, lest any man should think, that either matrimony were broken by excommunication, or such duties hindered and cut off thereby, as we owe one to another: children to their parents, subjects to their rulers, servants to their masters, and neighbour to neighbour, to win one another unto God.
h: If you should utterly abstain from such men's company, you should go out of the world: therefore I speak of them which are in the very bosom of the Church, which must be called home by discipline, and not of them which are without, with whom we must labour by all means possible, to bring them to Christ.
10: Such as are false brethren, ought to be cast out of the congregation, as for them which are without, they must be left to the judgement of God.

Chapter 5

1. That they have winked at him who committed incest with his stepmother, 2,6. he showeth should cause them rather to be ashamed, them to rejoice. 10. Such kind of wickedness is to be punished with excommunication, 12. lest other be infected with it.

It is 1 heard certainly that there is fornication among you: and such fornication as is not once named among the Gentiles, that one should have his father's wife.
2 2 And ye are puffed up and have not rather sorrowed, that he which hath done this deed, might be put from among you.
3 3 For verily as absent in body, but present in a spirit, have determined already as though I were present, that he that hath thus done this thing,
4 When ye are gathered together, and my spirit, in the b name of our lord Jesus Christ, that such one, I say, 4 by the power of our Lord Jesus Christ,
5 5 Be c delivered to Satan, for the 6 destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.
6 7 Your rejoicing d is not good: know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump?
7 8 Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new e lump, as ye are unleavened: for Christ our f Passover is sacrificed for us.
8 Therefore let us keep the g feast, not with old leaven, neither in the leaven of maliciousness and wickedness: but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.
9 9 I wrote unto you in an epistle, that ye should not company together with fornicators,
10 And not h altogether with the fornicators of this world, or with the covetous, of with extortionists, or with idolaters: for then ye must go out of the world.
11 But now I have written unto you, that ye company not together: if any that is called a brother, be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortionist, with such one eat not.
12 10 For what have I to do, to judge them also which are without? do ye not judge them which are within?
13 But God judgeth them that are without: Put away therefore from among yourselves that wicked man.