The method of Discipline

Here is Baxter's method of Church Discipline as recorded in Dr. William's Library, Baxter Manuscript, 2:256.

"As to my Practice: I do, if it be secret, make the fault at first no more public than the owner made it, but secretly admonish him to repent and reform. If it be public, or if he repent not, and reform not, I admonish before two or three, and then call him to our meeting (where the representative church, viz. 2 presbyters, 4 deacons and 24 delegates meet once a month for such work) and there endeavour his humiliation and reformation. If he declare not repentance there, or if he do but return again to the sin, I do in the face of the congregation mention his crime and our proceedings, and again with all seriousness and compassion there summon him to repentance: and if he refuse I desire the congregation to join in earnest prayer for him. This I do once or twice or thrice as prudence shall direct, considering the quality of the sin and sinner and the measure of the scandal. If yet he hear not the church, I do, from certain texts recited, require them to avoid him, and no more."

This sounds strikingly similar to Jesus' very own teaching in Matthew 18:15-17...

"If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector."