The Reviving of Religion

Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump of dough? Clean out the old leaven so that you may be a new lump, just as you are in fact unleavened. For Christ our Passover also has been sacrificed (1 Cor 5:6-7).

From One Hundred Talks to Theological Students by A.H. Strong, in the entry entitled, "Church Discipline":

I remember reading about an old Scotchman who told another, 'We have had a great revival of religion in our church.' 'How many were brought in?' asked the other. 'Oh!' was the reply, 'we did not get any in, but we got a lot of them out.' The best evidence of revival-spirit in any church is the disposition to exclude members who will not walk in the way of the Lord.

This exclusion is absolutely necessary for the sake of those who are living true Christian lives. It is a terrible thing for young people to know that well-to-do and influential members hardly ever come to the Lord's Supper, and are rarely in attendance upon public worship. These young people cannot see such examples without being influenced by them. We need to watch over our membership, and to give them from time to time such tender admonitions as shall prevent their straying away.

... It is my firm conviction that our churches must be smaller if they would be larger.