“And the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved.”
Acts 2:47
“And we beseech you, brethren, to know them which labour among you, and are over you in the Lord, and admonish you;”
1 Thess. 5:12
“Obey them that have the rule over you, and submit yourselves: for they watch for your souls, as they that must give account, that they may do it with joy, and not with grief: for that is unprofitable for you.”
Heb. 13:17
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Subsections
Self-Care: Reason to Miss Church
Persons may Transfer to a More Profitable Church
Whether Ladies have Right to Vote for Church Officers
Abstaining from Public Worship
Local Church Membership: Not Necessary for Sacraments
Missing Services & Leaving a Chuch without Permission, & Letters of Transfer
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.
Order of Contents
Articles 10+
Booklets & Books 8
Latin 3
Nature of
Rutherford’s Distinctions
Local Church Membership: Not Necessary to Visible Church
Profession of Faith Sufficient for Membership
Establishing of Particular Churches
No Instance of Local Church Membership in NT
How Local Churches may be Established
Local Church Covenant
When Vowing or Covenanting is Warranted
Right of Congregational-Assent to Installing Officers
Size of Particular Churches
Distance Membership
Obligations
Obligation to Receive
Obligation to Join
Duties of 8
Private Lay-Preaching
Habitual Non-Attendance is Sinful
Infants & Young Children in Service: Not Required
Reasons One may Not Join a Church
Relationship to Pastor
Historical
When Membership Vows came into Church
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Articles
1300’s
Wyclif, John – pt. 4, ch. 24, ‘Every Christian must be a Theologian’ in On the Truth of Holy Scripture tr. Ian C. Levy in TEAMS Commentary Series (1377-1378; Medieval Institute Publications, 2001), pp. 300-306
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1600’s
Rutherford, Samuel – A Survey of the Survey of that Sum of Church-Discipline… (London, 1658), bk. 1
ch. 23, ‘Whether Mr. [Thomas] Hooker does concludently refute this which Mr. Rutherford holds, That he who is a member of one congregation, is also a member of all congregations on earth’, pp. 129-38
ch. 25, ‘Whether a pastor or professor be first a member of the catholic visible Church before he be a member of a single congregation’ [Yes], pp. 157-61
Baxter, Richard – pp. 10-16 of ‘An Explication of some Passages in the foregoing Propositions’ in Christian Concord, or the Agreement of the Associated Pastors & Churches of Worcestershire, with Richard Baxter’s Explication & Defence of it, & his Exhortation to Unity (London: A.M., 1653)
Baxter discusses and argues the profitableness, even the need in many circumstances, of making an implicit consent to a particular church ministry (or church membership) explicit, contra those who argued that such was needless and not desirable.
Voet, Gisbert – ‘On the Nature & Relations of Church Members’ in Ecclesiastical Politics tr. by AI (Amsterdam: Joannes à Waesberge, 1663–1676), vol. 3, pp. 2-31
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1700’s
Brown of Haddington, John – Letters on the Constitution, Government & Discipline of the Christian Church 2nd ed. (d. 1787; Edinburgh: 1799)
Letter 4, ‘Of the Qualifications of Church Members’
Letter 5, ‘Of Private Christians’ Privileges & Power’
Letter 18, ‘Of Scandals & Discipline’
Letter 19, ‘Of Church-Fellowship & Separation’
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1800’s
Smyth, Thomas – ’12 Rules for Promoting Harmony Among Church Members’ ed. Andrew Myers from Smyth, Works, vol. 5, Manual
Smyth was a southern presbyterian pastor in Charleston, SC.
Cunningham, William – ‘The Place of Church Members in Acts 15’ 5 pp. from his Historical Theology, (1863), vol. 1, p. 54 ff.
Cunningham was a professor of the Free Church of Scotland.
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1900’s
Burns, Simeon – ‘Duties & Privileges of Church Members’ unknown date, 2013 Banner of Truth website, also published in the Gospel Standard, 2012
Burns was an English Particular baptist pastor “many years ago”.
Kayser, Phillip
‘Church Membership: Is it Biblical? A Brief Study of the Concept of Church Rolls’ (1993) 7 pp.
‘Public Assembly: The Biblical Call to Faithful Attendance at Public Worship’ (2005) 14 pp.
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2000’s
Fentiman, Travis – ‘There is No Clear Example of a Local Session of Elders in the New Testament, & Hence there is no Demonstrable Instance of Particular Church Membership in the New Testament’ (RBO, 2023)
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Booklets
2000’s
McGraw, Ryan & Ryan Speck – Is Church Membership Biblical? (Cultivating Biblical Godliness) Buy (RHB, 2015) 32 pp.
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Books
1600’s
Owen, John – Eshcol: a Cluster of the Fruit of Canaan brought to the Borders, for the Encouragement of the Saints Travelling Thither-ward, with their Faces Towards Syon. Or, Rules of Direction for the Walking of the Saints in Fellowship, according to the Order of the Gospel. Collected & Explained for the Use of the Church at Coggeshall (London, 1648) 130 pp. This is also in Owen’s Works, vol. 13.
This work may be read in the following modern abridgments:
Duties of Christian Fellowship: A Manual for Church Members in the Puritan Paperback Series Buy (Banner of Truth, 2017) 96 pp.
Rules for Walking in Fellowship Buy (RHB, 2014) 128 pp.
Baxter, Richard – pt. 1 ToC of The Cure of Church-Divisions, or Directions for Weak Christians to keep them from being Dividers or Troublers of the Church… (London: Symmons, 1670), pp. 1-304
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1800’s
Plumer, William – Manual for the Members of the Presbyterian Church of Petersburg, Virginia… (Petersburg, VA: 1833) 50 pp.
Sprague, William B. – Monitory Letters to Church Members (Philadelphia: Presbyterian Board of Publications, 1855) ToC
These letters on practical and Church themes are excellent.
Smyth, Thomas – Manual for the Use of the Members of the Second Presbyterian Church, Charelston ToC in Complete Works of Rev. Thomas Smyth ed. J. Flinn (Columbia, SC: 1908), vol. 5, pp. 11-158
James, John Angell – Christian Fellowship, or the Church Member’s Guide ed. J.O. Choules (Boston: 1830) ToC
James was a British congregationalist pastor.
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2000’s
Mack, Wayne & Dave Swavely – Life in the Father’s House: a Member’s Guide to the Local Church Buy (P&R, 2006) 277 pp.
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Latin
1600’s
Voet, Gisbert
‘On the mutual duties of ministers & the faithful in the ecclesiastical body’ in Select Theological Disputations, vol. 4 (Utrecht, 1667), 50. ‘A Syllabus of Questions on the Decalogue’, ‘On the 5th Commandment’, p. 796
Ecclesiastical Politics (Amsterdam: Waesberge, 1663)
vol. 3, pt. 2, bk. 1, Of the People of the Church
Tract 1
1. Of the People of the Church in General 1
2. Of the Relations, Quantity, Liberty, Power, Dignity, Equality and Obedience of the People of the Church 14
3. A Doubt and Objections Against the Equality and Obedience of Members of the Church are Taken Up 31
4. On a Hypothetical Question, First: Do the Remonstrants [Arminians] of Good Order have Power to Remove Themselves and Their Own from the Inspection, Oversight and Ecclesiastical Judgment? and to Strive for Every Kind of Exemption from the Magistrate, to Use them for their Profit? 55
Tract 2, Of that which is in Them which are Reckoned amongst the People
1. Of the Distinction[s] of those Numbered Among the People by Internal and Ecclesiastical Qualities 85
2. Of the Division of the People by External and Secular Qualities 86
3. Of that which is in Them, which are not Directly and In-and-of-Themselves in the People of the Church, but rather [are only in them] by Analogy, Reductively or by it Accidentally Falling out; and of [their] Opposites. 88
vol. 4, pt. 3, bk. 1, Tract 3, Of the Assemblies, Gatherings [Collegiis] and Corresponding Relations of the Antecedents of Churches
1. Of Senates, or Consistories, or Presbyteries 114
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The Nature of & Qualifications to Church Membership
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Rutherford’s Distinctions & Conclusions
The Due Right of Presbyteries... (London, 1644), pt. 1
Ch. 5, section 5, proposition 3, Question 6
“Whether all and every true believer must join himself to a particular visible congregation, which has independently power of the keys within itself, God offering opportunity, if he would be saved?”
3 Distinctions
1. There is a necessity of joining ourselves to a visible Church, but it is not necessitas medii, but necessitas praecepti, it is not such a necessity as all are damned who are not within some visible Church, for Augustine is approved in this, there be many wolves within the Church, and many sheep without; but if God offer opportunity, all are obliged by God his commandment of confessing Christ before men, to join themselves to the true visible Church.
“2. There is a fellowship with the visible Church internal, of hidden believers; in the Romish Babel this is sufficient for salvation, necessitate medii, but though they want opportunity to join themselves to the Reformed visible Churches, yet do they sin in the want of a profession of the truth and in not witnessing against the Antichrist, which is answerable to an adjoining of themselves to a visible Church; And so those who do not profess the Faith of the true visible Church, God offering opportunity, deny Christ before men, and this external fellowship is necessary to all, necessitate praecepti [by the necessity of precept], though our Lord graciously pardon this as an infirmity in his own, who for fear of cruel persecution, often dare [hardly] confess Christ.
3. The question is not whether all ought to join themselves to a visible Church, God offering occasion, but, if all ought by Christ’s command, to join themselves to the churches independent of their visible congregations, if they would be saved? our [congregationalist] Brethren affirm it, we deny it.
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3 Conclusions
1. An adjoining to a visible Church either formally to be a member thereof, or materially, confessing the Faith of the true visible Church, God offering occasion, is necessary to all.
2. When God offers opportunity, all are obliged to join themselves to a true visible Church:
1. Because God has promised his presence to the Churches as his Son walks in the midst of the golden candlesticks, Rev. 2:2.
2 Because faith comes by hearing a sent preacher, Rom. 10:4.
3. Separation from the true visible Church is condemned, Heb. 10:24; Jude 19; 1 Jn. 2:19.
4. Good men esteem it a rich favor of God to lay hold on the skirt of a Jew, Zech. 8:23, and to have any communion, even as a door keeper in God’s House, and have desired it exceedingly and complained of the want thereof, Ps. 84:10, vv. 1-2; Ps. 27:4; 42:1-4; Ps. 63:1-2.
3. Our [congregationalist] brethren… err, who hold all to be obliged, as they would be saved, to join to such a visible congregation of independent jurisdiction, as they conceive to be the only true Church visible instituted by Christ.
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Local Church Membership is Not Necessary to being Part of the Visible Church
See also ‘On the Phrase, “There is No Salvation Outside of the Church”, ‘Unbaptized Professing Believers & their Children are Part of the Visible Church’ and ‘Local Church Membership is Not Necessary for the Sacraments’.
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Order of Contents
Westminer
Articles 2
Quotes 6+
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Westminster Confession
Ch. 25, section 2
“The visible church, which is also catholick or universal under the gospel (not confined to one nation, as before under the law), consists of all those throughout the world that profess the true religion,[b] together with their children;[c] and is the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ,[d] the house and family of God,[e]…
[b] 1 Cor. 1:2. 1 Cor. 12:12,13. Ps. 2:8. Rev. 7:9. Rom. 15:9-12
[c] 1 Cor. 7:14. Acts 2:39. Ezek. 16:20,21. Rom. 11:16. Gen. 3:15. Gen. 17:7
[d] Matt. 13:47. Isa. 9:7
[e] Eph. 2:19. Eph. 3:15“
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Articles
1600’s
Rutherford, Samuel – A Survey of the Survey of that Sum of Church-Discipline… (London, 1658), bk. 1
ch. 19, ‘Mr. [Thomas] Hooker [a congregationalist], his formal cause of a Church visible, or Church confederating, is considered’, pp. 96-104
“It is uncharitable, and against the Word, to teach that when a church is dissolved, by no sin and scandal-visible, but by persecution or pestilence, that the dissolved members, though both real and visible converts, have no right to the ordinances: for if the formal cause, to wit, their confederacy into one visible body, as Mr. [Thomas] Hooker [a congregationalist] says, be removed, their visible and external right is removed.
The like is to be said of visible professors, and of members of another congregation, and known godly sojourners [travelers]; these Mr. Hooker [by implication] excommunicates for no scandal, visible and invisible: for impossible it is that they can meet together in one place with their own church…” – p. 96
ch. 22, ‘Whether profession makes a member of the Church visible. So Mr. Hooker’, pp. 122-28
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Quotes
Order of
Rutherford
Apollonius
London Presbyterians
Hudson
Jeanes
Baxter
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1600’s
Samuel Rutherford
The Due Right of Presbyteries… (London, 1644), pt. 2, ch. 4, section 5
p. 185
“We hold all who profess faith in Christ to be members of the visible Church, though they be not members of a visible congregation, and that the seals of the Covenant [of Grace] should not be denied to them.”
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p. 200
“Now not to be in membership of such a particular congregation is not a sin, nor a just ground of Paul’s estrangement of his ministerial power from them [as the congregationalists would have it], it may be caused by persecution when the flock are scattered by wolves.”
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p. 220
“As for schismatics who only for schism are out of the Church, and do hold no erroneous point of doctrine, and are not yet convinced [convicted by a church court], they are yet members of the visible Church, as Morton says from Gerson (Morton, Apologia de no•is R•cl., ch. 2, •at. 1, p. 7), as also Glorianus (lib. de schismat., p. 181); but he who is casten out as a schismatic, is in the same case with an excommunicate[d] person.”
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A Survey of the Survey of that Sum of Church-Discipline penned by Mr. Thomas Hooker... (1658), bk. 1
p. 102
“[Rutherford’s] Answer: …no godly visible professors can tie themselves by [a] covenant or oath to exercise the common Christian acts of a church-member only to such a [local-church] society, but in an occasional and providential way: for it is as unlawful to tie Church-worship to one society or place under the New Testament, as it was to tie it of old to Bethel and Gilgal, Hos. 4:15 & 9:14 & 12:11; Amos 4:4, which is a demonstration that a godly professor carries about a soul with him, stands in need of Church-feeding by the Lord’s Supper and other Church ordinances in all the Christian world, and that he is to warn, admonish, comfort all Church-members, and to labor to gain a trespassing brother, not of the single congregation only whereof he is a member, Mt. 18, and neither Scriptures, nor sound divinity, nor the Law of Nature (which is not destroyed by the Gospel) will warrant to limit the word, ‘brother’, as Mr. [Thomas] Hooker does, and his Brethren, Mt. 18:15, ‘If thy brother trespass, if he hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother;’ to a brother only of the congregation of which the offended brother is a member…”
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p. 103
“This doctrine [of Hooker, a congregationalist] deprives godly travellers, sojourners, savoury professors of the Lord’s Supper… of Church-teaching, rebuking, prayer, Church comforts… and of all communion with Christ, the Head of the visible Church… for no scandal or sin, but only for going about a lawful duty in all the visible Churches on earth, as is clear: Cant. 1:7 & 2:1-4; Ps. 27:4 & 73:16-17 & 84:4 & 42:1-4; Heb. 2:12; Ps. 22:22 & 40:9-10…”
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ch. 21, p. 119
“It is bad divinity to join the nocent [noxious] excommunicate[d] man with the innocent dissolved member.”
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ch. 24, p. 139
“The seed of dissolved members, visible saints, are then [upon Hooker’s congregationalist argument and paradigm that the visible Church is restricted to particular church membership] without any sin in parents and children (to speak comparatively) [are] born pagans, but the Scripture teaches us of no losing of covenant-right but by sin, either of the parties themselves or of their parents.”
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p. 159
“Apostles and members-dissolved are not fixed members of a single congregation, and yet members they must be of the visible, Church-catholic: sure it is no paradox, that the Apostles are such members, for they had right to all the seals in all congregations; Therefore, they must by this reason be members and no members: the like may be said of godly professors-sojourners [travellers], of these baptized by John Baptist, Mt. 3, by Peter, Acts 10, by Paul, Acts 16. For if we say that professors are only members of a particular congregation, then we confine a brother to be gained only to one congregation: ‘let all the rest perish: they are not my brethren.’”
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p. 161
“From all this its clear that it is false which Mr. [Thomas] Hooker says, ‘that all particular churches are all the members that the Church-visible has.’ For apostles, godly sojourners, dissolved members, are not members of congregations, nor are they congregations themselves, and yet they are members of the visible, integral, catholic Church.”
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Wilhelm Apollonius
A Consideration of Certain Controversies at this Time Agitated in the Kingdom of England concerning the Government of the Church of God (London: 1645), ch. 1, ‘Of the Qualification of Church-members’, p. 2
“…the external visible Church of Christ; which is the company of those who professe the true faith, for the exercise of Church-communion and fellowship amongst themselves, to which hypocrites may belong.”
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Sundry London Presbyterian Ministers
The Divine Right of Church Government… (1645; 1654; 1844), pt. 2, ch. 10, section II
“Then finally, it is possible to be a believer and yet in no visible church (for Independents hold there is no church but a particular congregation, which is their only church); but a man is no sooner a true believer, but he is a member of the invisible Church: he is no sooner a professed believer, but he is a member of the general visible Church, though he be joined to no particular congregation.”
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Samuel Hudson
in Question 2, ‘Concerning Private Members’, pp. 257-8 of A Vindication of the Essence & Unity of the Church catholic, Visible, & the Priority Thereof in Regard of Particular Churches, in Answer to the Objections made Against it… (London, 1650)
“1. Particular converts are first converted into the Church-catholic entitive, and secondarily conjoined into particular consociations, for the more opportune enjoyment of ordinances actually and constantly.
2. Every member of a particular congregation is a member of the Church-catholic entitive, and that relation does primarily belong unto him.
3. External profession of the true faith and subjection to God’s ordinances is enough to make a man capable of being a member of the Church-catholic visible, and so also of a particular congregation, quoad externam formam [as far as the external form].
4. By baptism members are visibly and ministerially admitted into the Church-catholic visible.
5. By excommunication rightly administered, an offender is cast out of the Church-catholic visible, as much as out of a particular congregation.
6. Federal holiness belongs to none primarily because [they are] born of members of a particular congregation, but [rather as they are] of the Church-catholic.
7. They that are only in the Church-catholic visible are not ‘without’ in the apostle’s sense [1 Cor. 5:12].
8. Children of believing parents have right to baptism, though their parents were not members of any particular congregation, and [they] are debarred from their due if [they are] denied it.
9. Every visible believer is or ought to be a member of the particular Church wherein and among whom he dwells. [This ought to be qualified by regular circumstances conducing to edification.]
10. The being in the general Covenant [of Grace] gives right to the ordinances, and not any particular covenant; neither do we find any mention in Scripture of any particular covenant either urged or used at admission of members into a particular congregation, or at the constitution thereof.
11. The invisible members of the Church which have internal communion with Christ are also visible members and have external communion in external ordinances.
12. The departure of a member from a particular congregation and removal to another for convenience or by necessity is no sin; but departing from the Church-catholic, and ceasing to be a member thereof, is a sin.”
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Henry Jeanes
The Want of Church-Government… (London, 1650), p. 28 Jeanes was an English presbyterian.
“We distinguish of admission: It is either negative or positive; negative, is nothing else but a non-hinderance; and though there be no eldership, the minister may not hinder those whom he has no power, I mean no lawful authority to hinder. Now the minister singly by himself has no authority to hinder, keep back, or cast out scandalous persons: for so the power of jurisdiction would be seated in him alone.
But now secondly, there is an admission that is positive, judicial, and implies a previous forensical examination by the eldership, as of the parties admitted, so sometimes of witnesses, and authoritative declaration of fitness: And this is to be only in collegio presbyteriali, in the college of presbyters, and properly as they are in court, but not seperatim [separated], and out of court.
Now I conceive that this juridical and authoritative admission is not of absolute necessity unto administration of the Lord’s Supper. By baptism the baptized are admitted or entered into the Church-visible, 1 Cor. 12:13, ‘By one Spirit we are all baptized into one body.’ See Rutherford in his Due Right of Presbyteries, [pt. 1, ch. 9, section 9, point 7] p. 254[-55]. Now in some cases the Lord’s Supper may be administered unto those of years that are baptized without any new authoritative judicial admission of the eldership.
First, this may be gathered from Acts 2:41-42. Those three thousand souls whose baptism is mentioned, verse 41, have their receiving of the Lord’s Supper recorded, verse 42, and there is not a word of any juridical admission of them by the eldership coming between their baptism and their receiving of the Lord’s Supper.”
.
Richard Baxter
Christian Concord, or the Agreement of the Associated Pastors & Churches of Worcestershire, with Richard Baxter’s Explication & Defence of it, & his Exhortation to Unity (London: A.M., 1653), ‘A Brief Explication of some Passages in the Profession’, p. 17
“4. For the profession itself, understand that we distinguish between that which makes a man a member of the universal Church (which must go first) and that which makes or declares a man to be a member of a particular church. And therefore we have first put down so much as is necessary to the former (largely, as being of most weight) and then put down that which is necessary to the later (briefly).”
.
The Safe Religion, or Three Disputations for the Reformed Catholic Religion against Popery... (London: Miller, 1657), ‘Query: Whether Popery be a safe way to salvation?’, p. 177
“The word ‘Church’ does usually signify among Christians, a Christian society or a company of Christians associated for God’s worship and mutual edification: sometime any company of Christians whether so associated or not: sometimes those are called ‘Christians’ as distinct from infidels…”
.
The Cure of Church Divisions… (London, 1670), pt. 1, Direction 18, ‘Understand well the necessity of your Communion with all the Universal Church, and wherein it consists, and how far to be preferred before your Communion with any particular Church’, pp. 115-18
“As your baptism makes you members of the universal Church, in order of nature before you are members of a particular church, so your relation to the universal Church is more noble, more necessary and more durable than your relation to any particular church.
It is more noble, because the society is more noble. The whole is more excellent than a little part: It is more necessary because you cannot be saved and be Christians without being members of the universal Church: But you may be Christians and be saved without being a member of any stated particular church. It is more durable because you can never separate from the universal Church or cease to be a member of it without being separated from Christ: but diverse occasions may warrant your removal from a particular church.
Live not therefore in those narrow and dangerous principles as if your congregation or your party were all the Church of Christ, or as if you had no Christian relation to any other ministers or people, nor owed any duty to them as members of the same Body. But remember that all Christians, persons and congregations are but the members of the Kingdom of Christ.”
.
Schism Detected in both Extremes, or Two Sorts of Sinful Separation… (London: 1684), ch. 4, p. 23
“11. As he that swears and keeps his allegiance to the king is a subject and member of the kingdom, though he be no member of any corporation; so, though he disown a thousand fellow subjects; yea, though he deny the authority of constable, justice, judge; so he that is devoted to Christ truly in the baptismal covenant, is a Christian, and a member of the universal Church, though he were of no particular church, or did disown a thousand members, or any particular officer of the Church.”
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What is a Profession of Faith Sufficient for Church Membership?
Order of
Articles 2
Quotes 6+
No Presumptive Regeneration & does Profession give a Proper Right to Membership & Sacraments?
.
Article
1600’s
Rutherford, Samuel – 3rd Conclusion, pp. 251-255 of Ch. 9, Section 9, ‘Of the Addition of Members to the Church’ in The Due Right of Presbyteries... (1644), pt. 1
“3rd Conclusion. A visible profession of the truth and doctrine of godliness is that which essentially constitutes a visible church, and every member of the visible church;
Only our [Independent] Brethren and we differ much about the nature of this profession which is required in members added to the Church. Our Brethren will have none members of the visible Church, but such as are satisfactory to the consciences of all the visible church, and give evidences so clear, as the judgement of discerning men can attain unto, that they are truly regenerated.
We again do teach that the scandalously wicked are to be cast out of the Church by excommunication, and these of approved piety are undoubtedly members of the visible Church, so these of the middle sort are to be acknowledged members of the Church, though the Church have not a positive certainty of the judgement of charity that they are regenerated, so they be known: 1. to be baptized, 2. that they be free of gross scandals, 3. and profess that they be willing hearers of the doctrine of the Gospel.
Such a profession as gives evidences to the positive certainty of the judgment of charity, of sound conversion, is not required to make and constitute a true, visible-Church.”
Baxter, Richard – Direction 12 in The Cure of Church Divisions… (London, 1670), pt. 1, pp. 101-3
.
Quotes
Order of
English Puritans
Ashe, Rathband, Ball
Rutherford
Baillie
Stillingfleet
Baxter
.
1600’s
Partially Conforming English Puritans
A Refutation of the Errors of Separatists (1604; 1644; RBO, 2025), pt. 3, p.
“First, that some of them [Bible verses] concern the invisible Church, and therefore are ignorantly applied [by Separatists] to the description of them that are members of the visible Church, as if no measure of faith and holiness were to be allowed by men in the judging of the members of the visible-Church but that only which the Lord Himself allows of in judging of the elect members of the visible Church.
Whereas it is evident that to the making of the members of the visible Church an outward obedience and profession of faith is sufficient, though there be no inward grace, nor truth in the heart.”
.
Simeon Ashe, William Rathband, John Ball et al.
‘Reply’, pp. 78-82 (irregular numbering) to VI. Position, ‘That None are to be Admitted as Members but they must Promise Not to Depart or Remove Unless the Congregation will give Leave’ of ‘The Reply made unto the Said Answer [of the New England Congregationalist Puritans], & Sent Over unto Them, Anno 1640’ in A Letter of Many Ministers in Old England, Requesting the Judgement of their Brethren in New England Concerning Nine Positions… Together with… (London, 1643) The VI. Position was that of the novel congregationalist Church-government of the New England puritans. Here the English, conforming, Anglican puritans respond to their arguments.
And here we entreat leave to put you in mind of that which you have considered already, that is, that the Church and every member thereof has entered into Covenant, either expressly or implicitly to take God for their God and to keep the words of the Covenant and do them, to seek the Lord with all their hearts and to walk before Him in truth and uprightness: but we never find that they were called to give account of the work of grace wrought in their souls,or that the whole Congregation were appointed to be judge thereof. ‘You stand all of you this day’ (says Moses) ‘before the Lord your God, etc. that thou shouldst enter into Covenant with the Lord thy God.’ All the people that were born in the wilderness Joshua circumcised, but it is incredible to think that among that great multitude there was not one who did not give good testimony of the work of grace in his soul: We read often times that Israel after some grievous fall and revolt renewed their Covenant to walk with God, to serve Him only and to obey his voice, as in the days of Joshua, the Judges, David, Samuel: Also Joash, Josiah, and Nehemiah, etc. but no particular enquiry was made what work of grace God had wrought in the hearts of every singular person, but the confession and profession of obedience was taken. When John the Baptist began to preach the Gospel and gather a new people for Christ, he admitted none to baptism but upon confession of their sins; but we read of no question that he put forth unto them to discover the work of grace in their souls or repelled any that voluntarily submitted themselves upon that pretense.
It appears many ways that when the apostles planted churches they made a Covenant between God and the people whom they received. But they received men upon the profession of faith and promise of amendment of life, without strict inquiry what sound work of grace was wrought in the soul. In after ages, strangers from the Covenant were first instructed in the faith and then baptized upon the profession of faith and promise to walk according to the Covenant of Grace. Now the profession at first required of all that were received to baptism was that they believed in the Father, Son and Holy Ghost. This was the confession of the eunuch when he was baptized, ‘I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.’ The creed is honored of the ancients with glorious titles as the rule of faith, the sum of faith, the body of faith, the persuasions of faith: but by the creed they understand that rule of faith and law of faith, and institution of Christ which was then given when He was about to ascend into heaven and commanded his disciples saying, ‘Go teach all nations,’ etc. It is true, that in after times as occasion required some other articles were added as explanations of the former, to meet with the heresies of the times which began to trouble the Church. But for substance of matter in things to be believed, the Church never required other acknowledgement of them that were to be received into the congregation of Christ’s flock and admitted into her communion. And for things to be done, or the practical part, she requires of them that were to be received to baptism an abrenuntiation of the devil, the world and the flesh with all their sinful works and lusts.
The first principles then of the doctrine of Christ being received, and the foresaid profession being made, the apostles and the Church following the example of the apostles never denied baptism unto such as sought or desired it. If this be the Covenant that members admitted into Church-fellowship do enter into, and this be all you require of them whom you receive, you have the practice of the apostles and the whole Church in after ages for your precedent. B ut if you proceed further then thus, and put men to declare what work of grace God has wrought in their soul, in this or that way, which perhaps is not determined by the Word of grace, at least not agreed upon among yourselves, we beseech you consider by what authority you do it, and upon what grounds you stand. But we will enter no further upon this matter, because it comes not within the compass of these positions, and to attribute so much to private letters as to make them the ground of another dispute, we may not.”
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Samuel Rutherford
The Due Right of Presbyteries… (1644), pt. 2, ch. 4, section 5, pp. 231-32
“‘But’ (says he [John Robinson, a Separatist]) ‘the bare profession of fundamentals makes not a Church; they must be a company of faithful people, and if they must not be truly faithful, then they must be falsely faithful; for God requires true and ready obedience in his word, according to which we must define Churches, and not according to casual things.’
[Rutherford’s] Answer: This is a special ground that deceives the Separatists, their ignorance (I mean) of the visible Church, for the visible Church consists essentially neither of such as be truly faithful, nor of such as must be falsely faithful; for the ignorant man sees not that the visible Church includes neither faith, nor unbelief in its essence or definition.
It is true, to the end that professors may be members of the invisible Church, they must be believers, and must believe, except they would be condemned eternally; but to make them members of the visible Church, neither believing nor unbelieving is essential, but only a profession ecclesiastically intear[?], that is not scandalous & visibly & apparently lewd and flagitious, such as was the profession of Simon Magus when he was baptized with the rest of the visible Church, Acts 8.
And God indeed requires of us true worship and ready obedience, as he says, but not that a visible Church should be defined by true and sincere obedience: for essentials only are taken in a definition, and casual corruptions are only accidental to Churches and fall out through men’s faults, and therefore should not be in the definition either of a visible or an invisible Church; nor should ready and sincere obedience which is a thing invisible to men’s eyes be put in the definition of a visible Church, for it is accidental to a visible Church, and nothing invisible can be essential to that which essentially is visible; the visible Church is essentially visible.”
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A Survey of the Survey of that Sum of Church-Discipline penned by Mr. Thomas Hooker… wherein the way of the churches of N. England is now re-examined (London, 1658), Book 1, ch. 14,
Ch. 15, pp. 67-8
“Mr. [Thomas] Hooker: ‘…But these three [qualifications are] assigned by Mr. Rutherford [in order to be accepted as a member of the Church]: 1. To profess the Faith; 2. Eagerly to desire the Seals; 3. To desire Church-fellowship, counting it a disparagement not to be born again, if not admitted to the Sacraments, [yet all this] may agree to a drunkard [according to Hooker].’
Answer: …if the [drunkard] man be a born heathen, and shall come to get these three requisites, and profess as Magus did, he is to be received a member: but if he hath not these three requisites, for he lives in sorcery, as Magus and Elymas, and opposeth the Gospel, the openly lying profession is scandalous; such a profession Mr. Rutherford saith is not his requisites:
If he be a pagan, and continue in habitual drunkenness, he may be holden out while he gives evidences to others of amendment, and then he may be admitted to the outer court, as a hearer; though a profession of faith, if not belied with worshipping of false gods, can hardly consist with paganism [and hence he is part of the visible Church in some way and should therefore be a member of a church].”
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p. 53
“…yea I teach that the profession of Demas, Magus, doth not notify that they are true believers: And though visible profession should notify true faith, it is not necessary that it must offer to judicious charity such overweighing evidences as the Church cannot lawfully admit Magus a member, but they must first positively judge him a real convert; and the like John must judge of all Jewry whom he baptized.”
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pp. 56-57
“First Argument [of Rutherford]: In the first receiving of members by the apostles, there was but a professed willingness to receive the Gospel, howbeit some received it not from the heart.
Mr. Hooker answereth: ‘There was not only a professed willingness, but a practical reformation, that in the judgement of charity giveth grounds of hope that there is something real, before the contrary appear; Therefore, Peter who received Magus upon his approbation of the truth and outward conformity thereunto in the course of his life, rejected him as one in the gall of bitterness, who had no share in Christ, and therefore certainly would not suffer him in the privileges of communion, so persisting without repentance.’
[Rutherford’s] Answer 1: [Hooker says:] ‘Not professed willingness, but also practical reformation is required.’ But is not professed willingness in murderers of Christ, who said, ‘What shall we doe to be saved?’ some practical reformation? There is nothing but conjectures that the apostles did not admit all and every one of the three thousand until they had experience of their state of grace and judicially determined so of them all.
([Margin note:] Mr. Hooker neither proves, nor can prove that the apostles had habitual experience in so few hours, all and every one of the 3,000 (Acts 2) gave evidence of real conversion to the apostles.)
(2). This practical reformation was not an experience of their practice of savory walking, required by Mr. Hooker (p. 1. ch. 2, pp. 14-15) in visible saints before admission, except some four or five hours time may create an habitual experience, for the same very day they were baptized (Acts 2:41).
(3) Mr. Hooker should prove that the apostles found this practical reformation in all, Ananias, Saphira, and the whole 3000; and that the apostles tried and smelled the savouriness of saving grace in all; in Saphira; the text giveth not the least jot of this, we must take it upon the naked assertion of Mr. Hooker
(4) That this practical reformation gave to the apostles’ judgement of charity ground of hope that there was something real, that is, the whole number, about three thousand (none excepted, for all were made Church-saints visible) gave grounds of hope that they were all really (otherwise their speaking and hearing the word was real, that is, not imaginary) internally and effectually called, and born over again of the spirit, and so chosen to life eternal from eternity, before the apostles durst, without the offending of God, admit them to Church-fellowship and visible communion; those [things] (I say) must be proven. If I durst [dare], I am not far from judging the godly and judicious in cold-blood, free of heat of dispute, dare not so judge of the text, Acts 2 or Acts 8.
(5) There is no shadow, Acts 8, that Peter (Mr. Hooker should say Philip) admitted not Magus while he saw such grounds of the sorcerer’s real conversion and real predestination to glory.
(6) Peter said that Magus had no share in Christ. True, but said he that he was an unbaptized man who had no share in the visible Church? No.
(7) But he would not suffer Magus to share in the privileges of communion, he persisting without repentance.
True, but it is no answer to the argument from the manner of receiving in, this is something to the casting out, (8) that Peter reproveth him in the gall of bitterness [and] 2. Exhorts him to repent, to pray for pardon, [these last two things] were great privileges of Church-communion bestowed upon Magus.”
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Robert Baillie
“Only we observe that the Independents here go farther from the Reformed Churches, both in the strictness and in the loosness of their satisfactions. The Brownists [separatists] are satisfied with the signs of personal grace, but the Independents require more: they proceed to a trial by a long conversation of the sociable and complying disposition of the person to be admitted with the spirits of the whole Church whereof he is to be a member; without this suitableness of spirit they will reject them whom otherwise they find to be saints.
But their chief excess here is in looseness. The Brownists will not dispense with known errors and sins in the members; they will not admit of Anabaptists, of proud, luxurious, contentious people. If they find any such to have crept in among them, they profess their judgement is for their casting out by censures.
But the Independents will here be more wise for the increase of their party: and however they will have nothing to do with presbyterians, nor with such people who can live in their confused congregations, yet they make it their rule to hold out none for any error that is not fundamental, nor for any sin that is not continued in against conscience; walking according to this rule they swallow down without trouble the small gnats of Anabaptism and all other sects, who err not fundamentally and obstinately, and against conscience: How many sectaries are thus far guilty, who can determine? The little spot of luxury in apparel, in diet, and many fleshly delights, of strife, of disdainful railing, and such other faults (as are too common in their members) are of easy digestion.”
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Edward Stillingfleet
Irenicum, a Weapon-Salve for the Church’s Wounds, or the Divine Right of Particular Forms of Church-Government Discussed & Examined... (London: Mortlock, 1662), pt. 1, ch. 7, pp. 137-39
“I confess, when persons are entered into a visible Church-society by baptism, if they will own that profession they were baptized into, and are not guilty either of plain ignorance of it, or manifest scandal, and demand as their right the other ordinances of the Gospel, I see not by what power they may be excluded. If we fix not in a serious visible profession as the ground of giving right, but require positive evidences of grace in every one to be admitted to ordinances as the only thing giving right, for my part, setting aside the many inconveniences besides which attend that in reference to the persons to be admitted, I see not how with a safe and good conscience ordinances can be administered by any.
My reason is this: Every one, especially a minister, in that case ought to proceed upon certain grounds that the person admitted has right to the ordinance to be administered; but if positive signs of grace be required, a man’s conscience cannot proceed upon any certainty, without infallible knowledge of another’s spiritual state, which I suppose none will pretend to.
My meaning is, that which gives right, must be something evident to the person admitting into it, if it be his duty to enquire after it; but if only positive signs of grace be looked on as giving right, the ground of right can never be so evident to another person, as to proceed with a good conscience, i.e. with a full persuasion of another’s right to the administration of any ordinance to him.
If it be said that these are required only as tokens of a true visible profession, and it is that which gives the right, I reply, Our knowledge of, and assent to the conclusion can be no stronger, nor more certain than to the premises from whence it is inferred; if therefore true profession gives right, and our knowledge of that proceeds upon our knowledge of the work of grace, we are left at the same uncertainty we were at before. But if we say, that an outward profession of the Gospel (where there is nothing rendering men uncapable of owning it, which is ignorance, nor declaring they do not own it, which is scandal) is that which gives a visible right to the ordinances of the Church as visible, we have something to fix ourselves upon, and to bottom a persuasion of the right of persons to ordinances.
Christ when He instituted Churches, did institute them as visible societies, that is, to have marks whereby to be known and distinguished, as other societies in the world are; now that which puts a difference between this and other societies, is an open profession of Christianity, which profession is looked upon as the outward expression of the internal consent of the soul to the doctrine and laws of the Gospel. Which outward evidence of consent, where there is nothing evidently and directly oppugning it, is that which the Church of God in admission of visible members is to proceed upon.
I nowhere find that ever Christ or his apostles in making disciples, or admitting to Church-membership, did exact anymore than a professed willingness to adhere to the doctrine which they preached; nor that they refused any who did declare their desire to join with them. An owning Christianity is all we read of antecedent to admission of Church-members. And if anything else be further required as necessary, we must either say the Word of God is defective in institutions of necessity to the Church, which I suppose the assertors of it will not be so inconsistent to their own principles as to do; or else must produce where anything further is required by the Word of God.
…
3. The reality of consent may be sufficiently manifested without an explicit [man-composed Church-] covenant, as in the joining with those who are under the same profession in the common acts of the society and acceptance of, and submission to the rulers of that society, which implicitly is that covenant which they would have expressed; and actions in this case, are as declarative and significative as words.”
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Richard Baxter
Christian Concord, or the Agreement of the Associated Pastors & Churches of Worcestershire, with Richard Baxter’s Explication & Defence of it, & his Exhortation to Unity (London: A.M., 1653), ‘Objections Answered’
“For 1. Though we offer Christ and Church-membership with Him, to all, yet we do not admit all to be church-members: For we admit not them that either refuse Christ or refuse to be members on his terms. Nor do we admit all that will make this profession barely with the tongue: For we have agreed, for those that understand not the foundations, to catechize them first: And those that are notorious or proved scandalous sinners, we shall first require their serious profession of repentance and promise of reformation.
2. We desire to know what you would require of men more than we do? on Scripture grounds? Are not all the fundamentals in our profession? Dare you refuse him that owns them all, as not believing truths enough to salvation? And to know the sincerity of his heart, what can you require more than we do in our Profession of Consent? Can any but a true Christian make that Profession sincerely? I know you dare not affirm it. Will you devise means of your own head to shut out hypocrites, as if you had more care of the purity of the Church than Christ had that purchased it with his blood? You will say: ‘Men may profess all this by rote as a form.’ I answer:
1. Bless God if truth have so much friendship as to be professed: I know many professors that were contemptuously unthankful for this mercy who have not so much left themselves as a bare profession of the fundamentals, but are given up to the open denial of them and to profess opposition to them. It would be taken for a mercy in India, yea in Italy or Spain, yea in France, if all could but be brought to an open profession of God’s pure truth, though with most it were but formal.
2. But I would know how you will do to know men’s hearts? Will you require an account of the manner of their conversion? Alas, you require them but to delude you, or themselves, or to do an impossibility. May not any man of knowledge tell a fair tale of conversion that never had it? Is there not many a thousand Christians that never knew the time or manner of their conversion? And are there not many that do know much of the workings of God’s Spirit on their hearts, that have not words of their own to utter it? If you say, you would hear them give some testimony or signs, at least as at present, of the work of grace on them, I answer:
What better signs can they give you than our Profession does contain? Sure I am there is the true description of a Christian. I have lately seen a book of the experiences of Church-members given in (its like not all at the first admittance, and its like made the best of) but yet I am sure sadly defective to an understanding eye (many of them). Pretend not to more then your part in searching men’s hearts.
If you say, ‘These are but words put into their mouths.’ I answer:
1. Prove that they come not from the heart if you can.
2. And are not the words of your church-members learned before hand? Somebody taught them, or they could not express their minds.
3. Doubtless our way is full as strict as we can find any Scripture to warrant us (and we again desire you, if you will go further, to prove it by Scripture). But if any pastors will be careless in the execution, we cannot fully remedy that. Peruse our Propositions well, and tell us what you would have more herein? If any pastor among yourselves will be careless in examining members, and admit men on bare words, you will not blame your own principles for that. I could never see but the brethren of the Classical way do come up to as much strictness for the qualification of members as your own principles do require, or as you can desire them, so be it the execution be but answerable: And that will lie on the persons that manage the work and not so much on the principles.
4. I pray you observe how easy Christ is in Scripture in admitting men to Him and taking members into his Church: the Acts of the Apostles throughout will tell you. How suddenly after conversion they were baptized, even thousands. But with those that are in his Church Christ is more strict, and requires that their lives be answerable to their profession. At first He admits them without any further trial, the same day that they profess repentance and faith: But afterwards he will cast them out again if they deny him by their works. If therefore you cannot blame us in our Propositions for casting out the scandalous, you have less reason to blame us for want of strictness in the admission. Remember also the freeness of grace, and let not your pulpit sound with the name of free-grace when your practice contradicts it by shutting the door against those that offer to come in on Christ’s own terms. If Christ question you for this, it will be but a cold answer to say, ‘Lord, we could not perceive that they spoke sincerely,’ for you must prove the contrary before you exclude him.
All that ever I could hear to the contrary was but this much: ‘All men must prove their claim to privileges and not put another to disprove it.’ To which I say:
Suppose that rule had no exceptions: They prove it thus, ‘I am engaged to Christ by my baptismal Covenant; I stand to that Covenant, believing what is mentioned in this Profession, and consenting to what is here mentioned; therefore I expect the church-privileges of a Christian.’ When he has thus laid his claim, and shown his title, you must have something to prove it insufficient, or you must not dare to deny him his privilege. If you can prove that there is no probability that he is sincere in this profession, it must be either from his gross ignorance of the meaning of the words which he utters, or else by his wicked life: in both which cases we agree with you.
But in the name of God brethren, take heed as of polluting the Church by loose admissions, so much more of cruelty to poor souls. Remember how ill this beseems them that have tasted so much mercy as we ourselves have done: and how prone they should be to cover their brethren’s infirmities who are conscious of so many of their own; and how backward to uncover their nakedness and to make the worst of their case that have need of such gentle handling ourselves. Remember Paul’s command, Rom. 14:1, ‘Him that is weak in the faith receive, but not to doubtful disputations.’ See Gal. 6:1-3. Remember how oft Christ was accused for being a friend or companion to publicans and sinners? and by whom he was so accused? and how oft He showed lenity and how seldom severity? and how dreadfully He judges rash judgers? and how unmeet it is that the servant should be stricter in keeping out than the Master is; and that man should pretend to be more righteous than God. Remember also that good Christians must have a great desire of the largeness as well as of the purity of Christ’s Church.
Of thirty parts which the world may be divided into, nineteen are said to be pagan-idolaters, and six parts Mohammedans, and but five parts Christians. And of these Christians, when you have counted, the Abyssinians, the Greeks, the Papists, of all which (with the other smaller parties, as the Coptics, the Jacobines, etc.) it is hard to say which are the more ignorant and defective; how few are the Reformed Churches! And does it beseem you with this poor handful to go so near the quick and to pare away more than Christ allows you? One seven years converse with Indians and Turks would make some men more charitable to weaker common Protestants while they lived.
Above all take heed (in the name of Christ I warn you) that you be not cruel to Christ’s lambs: that you shut not them out for want of mere words. Experience has ascertained me that there are Christians that are much with God, powerful in secret groans and strivings, and do understand the substance of the fundamentals and much more, nay that are very able to help the ignorant, and great promoters of God’s work in their places, who yet are not able to give a minister or understanding friend any considerable account of their faith: partly through bashfulness, but most through some secret, natural unreadiness of speech and disability to express their minds. Take heed what you do with poor ignorant men and women that live well and show a fear of offending God. He that gently drives and carries his lambs in his arms will not thank you for shutting them out or casting them in the ditch. I know there is need of caution, also for avoiding the looser extreme: but I am now speaking to you. Remember one thing more, and again I say remember it:
Whether the fearful scandals, blasphemies and apostasies of professors in this age, when many stand fast and fear God, that were accounted but common, civil, ignorant people, be not a warning and testimony from heaven against our over-valuing mere gifts and words, and our under-valuing poor weak Christians that want [lack] them, and yet are as loath to sin as others.
…
For 1. Protestants have taken the [Apostles’] Creed, Lord’s Prayer and Ten Commandments for a sufficient test of Christian doctrine, so far as to discern who are Christians and [are] to be communicated with; at least taking them with that explication which an ordinary believer may easily and certainly find out in the rest of the Scriptures. They take those to be no fundamentals which so many hundreds of men, yea the most learned and godly on earth cannot yet agree in or find out the sense of.”
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The Christian Religion expressed: I, briefly in the Ancient Creeds, the Ten Commandments & the Lord’s Prayer, and, II, more largely in a Profession taken out of the Holy Scriptures, containing 1, the articles of the Christian Belief, 2, our consent to the Gospel Covenant, 3, the Sum of Christian Duty according to the primitive simplicity, purity, and practice, fitted to the right instruction of the ignorant, the promoting of holiness, and the charitable concord of all true believers… (London: 1660), The Order & Discipline of this Church, agreeable to the Word of God
“II. We own all those as visible Christians and members of the universal Church that make a credible profession of Christianity and destroy it not by heresy or ungodly lives.
III. So many of these as also consent to hold communion with this church as members of it, submitting to the ministers and discipline of Christ, we shall esteem our flock and special charge, and faithfully perform the duties of our office for their good, as we are able.”
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The Cure of Church Divisions… (London, 1670), pt. 1, Direction 16, pp. 112-13
“Profession of Christianity is every man’s Church-title. No man is to prove the sincerity of his own profession; nor may the Church require such proof at his hands; For how can a man prove to another the sincerity of his own heart?
But the fuller testimony he gives of it, the better it is: And therefore none should refuse to make his own profession, as fully credible to the church as he is able; nor is the church to be blamed for enquiring after the fullest credibility, so be it they do it but ad melius esse [to the better existence], and not ad esse [to the existence of it]; not laying his title upon it, nor refusing him for want [lack] of it.
But every profession as such is credible in some degree, which is not disproved. Because men are, under God, the only competent judges of their own hearts: and the belief of one another is the ground of human converse: And it is an injury to any man to account him a liar, without sufficient proof.
He that will disprove a man’s profession must prove first that he does not tolerably understand what he says; secondly, or that he speaks not seriously, but in jest; or not voluntarily, but in hypocrisy by constraint, or for some by end: Thirdly, or that he contradicts his own words by some more credible words or deeds.
And if you never yet thus disproved men’s profession of Christianity before the pastors of the church and yet cry out against the pastors for admitting them, you are not true reformers, but disorderly mutineers and peevish censurers in the Church of Christ. Christ’s orders and men’s right, and all church-justice, must not be trodden down and sacrificed to your humor and arbitrary way.”
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A Second Admonition to Mr. Edward Bagshaw (London: Simmons, 1671), ‘To those Readers…’, p. 6
“10. And men are much furthered in the way of separation by forgetting what good even hypocrites themselves may receive by their station in the visible Church: And that it is not for nothing that the Great Master of the Church has so ordered the terms of admission (upon mere profession of consent to the baptismal Covenant) and of exclusion (upon proved impenitency in gross sin after sufficient admonition and patience) as that multitudes of bad men ever have been and will be in the visible Church:
Though the regular station that such persons should choose, till they come up to sincere consent, is the place of catechumens, if they were not baptized in infancy, and the place of penitents if they were, yet supposing that they intrude further by a false profession, yet God has provided great advantages in Church communion for their good and secured the innocent from imputation of sin by reason of their presence.
11. And men are induced to separation by forgetting how tender Christ is of the weakest of his members that are sincere, and that he had rather many hypocrites were received than one true Christian shut out: For He has a day at hand in which He will separate the tares from the wheat, and will take out of his kingdom all things that offend and them that work iniquity. And they consider not how impossible it is to shut out all hypocrites and not to shut out many weak ones that are sincere.
12. And it much wrongs them that they forget what a mercy it is that Christ has not made the power of the pastors or Church to be arbitrary in admissions or exclusions, but has tied them up to certain terms and prescribed to them whom to receive or reject: And that they consider not what confusions otherwise would be brought into the Church and what Church-tyranny men would exercise; and how the difference of men’s judgments, interests, temptations and passions would make almost as many sorts of Churches as there are individual governors and Churches. And one would make one measure and another another measure of their communion.”
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That Recognizing a Credible Profession of Faith does not Entail Presuming Regeneration, & does a Credible Profession give a Proper Right to Church Membership & the Sacraments?
Article
1600’s
Rutherford, Samuel – Book 1, ch. 22, ‘Whether profession makes a member of the Church visible?’ in A Survey of the Survey of that Sum of Church-Discipline Penned by Mr. Thomas Hooker (1658)
Rutherford is arguing against the New England divine, Thomas Hooker, a congregationalist, who held that the judging of a credible profession of faith entails accounting the person to be a regenerate Christian.
“…when the Gospel is come to a people, if the question be, what gives to this man, not to this man true real right to membership, and ordinances, and seals, so as he may claim them before God and not sin: the meritorious right is Christ’s death, the condition upon his part is faith; hence visible profession as such cannot give right…
Profession is in order to the rulers and members of the Church, which have hand according to their place, either formal or tacit consent, to receive in members… the question is, what profession is required in such as the rulers may without sin admit to membership and ordinances; we say a profession morally true, not real conversion judged to be real by men.
Now this confession or profession doth not make a Church-member, but declare a Church-member, and it only declares him to the conscience of the rulers, that they sin not in admitting such: but declares him neither to have right before God nor to his own conscience. Yea, for all this profession [Simon] Magus sinned in being baptized, Magus usurped, and hath no true and real right, no not ecclesiastic, except in a most unproper sense; [yet] the Church hath right and command to receive him to member membership and seals…” – p. 123
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On the Establishing of Particular Churches
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There is No Clear Example of a Local Session of Elders in the New Testament, & Hence there is no Demonstrable Instance of Particular Church Membership in the New Testament
Order of Contents
Intro
Quotes
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Intro
In Acts 2 where it speaks of persons being “added to the Church” (Acts 2:41, 47), there were only apostles (Acts 2:37, 42-43) and perhaps some extraordinary officers that governed that single body of Christians throughout Jerusalem. Deacons had yet to be appointed (Acts 6:1-6) and ruling elders only show up later in the New Testament (1 Cor. 12:28; Rom. 12:8; their regular ordination falls under the categories only described near the end of the N.T. era: 1 Tim. 3:1-7). While the early Christians in Acts 2 met in various houses, the Lord’s Supper being administered to them by the apostles (Acts 2:46, or perhaps unnamed Christian ministers), there is no evidence the Christians were partitioned into particular, organized districts with specified elders, and there is evidence such did not pertain (Acts 2:44-47). Hence being added to the Church, as Rutherford and many presbyterians maintained against the congregationalists, referred to being added to the universal visible Church by baptism, and therein being put under the (universal or regional) Church governors as a result. “Church” is in the singular (Acts 2:47), and it is clear they were too sizable to meet in one assembly (Acts 2:41, 46).
When Acts 14:23 says that through the various cities “they had ordained them elders in every church,” the Greek, presbyters, here and in other passages (e.g. Titus 1:5), refers properly to ministers.† This (1) being done by regional officers together (Acts 14:14) and/or evangelists that had authority for this (Titus 1:4-5), and (2) the qualifications of presbyters including teaching and refuting false teaching (Titus 1:9-11), lends itself to those being ordained as being ministers or teachers (which have their membership in a presbytery). While multiple ministers or teachers could have been being ordained in each city (or not), this is consistent with each city having a presbytery with multiple assemblies of Christians meeting throughout it, without particular sessions of elders, and there is no explicit mention of the latter in the text(s).
† For example, so the Westminster assembly interpreted it: Notes of Debates & Proceedings of the Assembly of Divines… at Westminster… ed. David Meek (Edinburgh: Ogle, 1846), 1644, sessions 181 & 183, p. 6 & 1644, March 22, pp. 45-46 in The Works of Mr. George Gillespie… in Two Volumes (Edinburgh: Ogle, 1846), vol. 2. Gillespie does allow for Acts 14:23 to speak of “elders (both ruling and preaching)”, but even ruling elders being ordained does not necessitate the presence of local sessions, as ruling elders, in the absence of sessions, could have sat on the city’s presbytery (Acts 20:17, 28; 1 Cor. 12:28); Gillespie, A Treatise of Miscellany Questions (1649), ch. 2, p. 4 (rt. col) in Works of Gillespie, vol. 2.
Classical presbyterians rightly argued the elderships in the major cities mentioned in the New Testament (such as in Jerusalem, Corinth, Ephesus and Antioch) were regional in nature, and hence were presbyteries. For instance:
Samuel Rutherford, ‘The Doctrine of the Presbyterial Churches of Jerusalem, Corinth, Ephesus, Antioch, Vindicated’ in The Due Right of Presbtyeries… (London, 1644), pt. 1, pp. 425-84
Presbyterians also rightly argued the “church” in Mt. 18:17, “And if he shall neglect to hear them, tell it unto the church,” referred to “the representative body of the Church,”¹ that is, her governors, not necessarily limited to (or explictly naming) a particular, local session. Besides much other evidence and arguments for this, when certain Christians had complaints in the early Church, they communicated them, not to a local session (which they likely didn’t have), but to a regional authority, such as the apostle Paul (1 Cor. 1:11; 11:18; Phil. 4:2).
¹ George Gillespie, An Assertion of the Government of the Church of Scotland... (Edinburgh: 1641), pt. 2, ch. 1, pp. 114-15
Thus when Heb. 13:17 says, “Obey them that have the rule over you, and submit yourselves: for they watch for your souls, as they that must give account,” (cf. v. 7), given there is no evidence for particular sessions in the context, it likely meant those early Christians were to obey in the Lord the governors of the Church, whether regional governors or governors of the universal Church (such as apostles, prophets and evangelists). All officers of the Church, as presbyterians have maintained, have been fundamentally given by Christ to the Church universal, and to serve and govern it, in some respect (Eph. 4:11-13 with Acts 6:1-7), which is why their ordination is valid (and not repeated) for whatever various particular churches they may be subsequently called to.
All that said, and much more could and should be said, a Christian seeking and submitting to a particular church’s government by way of particular church membership, in healthy situations (2 Cor. 10:8; 13:10), for a closer discipleship by the local church governors, is a legitimate inference from New Testament principles of Church government, and is desirable and of ethical weight.
Gillespie in the quote below, does not seek to establish local church sessions of elders by way of proof-text from the New Testament; on the contrary he assumes they may not have been present. He rather infers the usefulness of sessions of elders, where they may be had, from principles of Biblical, presbyterian polity. The authority of sessions derives not from proof-text, but from their being elders (whose authority is clear in the New Testament), and that in combination together, qualified by the particular-church setting, including as under presbyteries.
For more, see ‘On Christians & Congregations being under the Presbytery apart from Having any Local Session’. More resources will be added here when it is convenient.
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Quotes
Order of
Gillespie
.
1600’s
George Gillespie
A Treatise of Miscellany Questions (1649), ch. 2, p. 6 (rt. col) in The Works of Mr. George Gillespie… in Two Volumes (Edinburgh: Ogle, 1846), vol. 2
“It is like[ly] enough (though I confess not certain) that no elderships were yet erected in those churches, Acts 14:23.”
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An Assertion of the Government of the Church of Scotland... (Edinburgh: 1641), pt. 2
ch. 2, 128-30
“Last of all, we are to distinguish between the condition of the primitive churches, before the division of parishes, and the state of our churches now after such division. At the first, when the multitude of Christians in those great cities of Rome, Corinth, Ephesus, etc. was not divided into several parishes, the common presbytery in the city did suffice for the government of the whole [as described in the N.T.], and there was no need of a particular consistory [session] of elders for every assembly and congregation of Christians within the city, except perhaps to admonish, rebuke or exhort, or to take notice of such things as were to be brought into the common presbytery.
But after that parishes were divided, and Christian congregations planted in the rural villages, as well as in the cities, from henceforth it was necessary that every congregation should have at hand, within itself, a certain consistory, for some acts of church government, though still those of greater importance were reserved to the greater presbytery…
If it be said that I seem to deny the divine right of the same, or that they have any warrant from the pattern of the apostolic Church, I answer: I acknowledge the conformity of the same with the pattern thus far:
1. It is to be suposed that in some small cities (especially the same not being wholly converted to the Christian faith) there was but one Christian congregation, the eldership whereof did manage matters of jurisdiction proper thereto.
2. Even in the great cities, at the first there was but one congregation of Christians, and so but one particular eldership.
3. After that the Gospel had spread, and Christians were multiplied in those great cities, it is true, they were all governed by a common presbytery, but that presbytery was not remote, but ready at hand among themselves.
Now in this we keep ourselves as close to the pattern, as the alteration of the Church’s condition by the division of parishes will suffer us, that is to say, we have a common presbytery for governing the congregations within a convenient circuit, but withal our congregations have, ad manum, among themselves, an inferior eldership for lesser acts of government; though in respect of the distance of the seat of the common presbytery from sundry of our parishes, they cannot have that ease and benefit of neareness which the apostolic Churches had, yet by the particular elderships they have as great ease of this kind as conveniently can be.”
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ch. 3, pp. 146-47
“I confess there might be in some towns no greater number of Christians than did meet together in one place, notwithstanding whereof the pastor or pastors and elders of that congregation, might and did manage the government of the same, and exercise jurisdiction therein. I confess also that in those cities wherein there was a greater number of Christians than could meet together into one place for the worship of God, the presbytery did consist of the pastors and elders within such a city:
For it cannot be proved that there were at that time any Christian congregations in landward villages (the persecution forcing Christians to choose the shelter of cities, for which reason many are of opinion that the infidels in those days were called pagani, because they alone dwelt in pagis [districts]) and if there had been any such adjacent to cities, we must think the same should have been subject to the common presbytery, their own pastors and elders being a part thereof.
Howsoever it cannot be called in question that the presbytery in the apostolic Churches was made up of as many as could conveniently meet together, for managing the ordinary matters of jurisdiction and Church-government. The pastors and elders of diverse cities could not conveniently have such ordinary meetings, especially in the time of persecution; only the pastors and elders within one city had such conveniency.
And so to conclude, we do not forsake, but follow the patern, when we join together a number of pastors and elders out of the congregations in a convenient circuit, to make up a common presbytery, which has power and authority to govern those congregations; for if the presbytery which we find in those cities wherein the apostles planted churches, be a sure pattern for our classical presbyteries (as we have proved it to be)…”
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How may Local Churches be Established?
Quotes
Order of
Baillie
Rutherford
Secondary Sources
.
1600’s
Robert Baillie
A Dissuasive from the Errors of the Time, wherein the Tenets of the Principal Sects, Especially of the Independents, are Drawn Together in One Map (1645), ch. 6, p. 107 Baillie objects to the below.
“In New England at the erection of a new [congregationalist] Church, they are content with the presence both of the magistrate and ministers of the neighbor churches, but they declare that neither is necessary, and that the presence of either gives no authority to the action, and the absence of both detracts no authority from it. That the whole power to gather a congregation and to erect a church is alone in the covenanting persons.”
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Samuel Rutherford
A Survey of the Survey of that Sum of Church-Discipline penned by Mr. Thomas Hooker… wherein the way of the churches of N. England is now re-examined (London, 1658), p. 190
“Its a wide mistake that a presbyterian Church has its formal essence from a voluntary, actual combination in such bounds, or such a circuit more or less. That is not a pillar of presbyterian Churches.
For their near association, by dwelling where they may edify or scandalize one another, gives them right to be an associated Church; not simply habitation, but the habitation of such and such professors in covenant with God, baptized and giving themselves up in profession to Christ as disciples, before there be a formal consent, they are obliged to associate: yea, nor does that voluntary combination make a presbyterial Church.”
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Secondary Sources
John Coffey, Politics, Religion & the British Revolutions: The Mind of Samuel Rutherford, p. 204. HT: Andrew Myers
“It should not surprise us, therefore, that in the [Westminster] Assembly debates, Rutherford and Gillespie sided with the English Independents on several points where they disagreed with the English Presbyterians. As liturgical practice was concerned, the Scottish radicals agreed with the Independents on the value of extemporary prayer, and the dangers of a fixed liturgy.70 Rutherford also opposed those who favoured a system of rigidly fixed congregations, with no freedom to seek fellowship outside the parish. He argued that being in the vicinity of a church was not an adequate basis for determining church membership, but that the consent of the people was also necessary. Although he thought that a church covenant was not needed at a local level, he did favor a ‘voluntary agreement’ on the part of the church members in order to form a congregation. [Wayne] Spear suggests that Rutherford’s views may have had something to do with the mildness with which the Assembly treated the gathering of churches.71
70. See above. See also [Robert S.] Paul, Assembly of the Lord, p. 445.
71. Spear, Covenanted Uniformity, pp. 214-17. Paul argues that the Scots ecclesiology ‘in some ways was closer to the Independents’ than to that of the English Presbyterians, who pressed for a simplified form of the traditional English parish. Assembly of the Lord, p. 345. See also p. 209.”
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Wayne Spear
Covenanted Uniformity in Religion: The Influence of the Scottish Commissioners Upon the Ecclesiology of the Westminster Assembly, p. 217. HT: Andrew Myers
“Among the Scottish Commissioners at the Westminster Assembly, Samuel Rutherford was the foremost representative of this type of piety, and in the Assembly debate on fixed congregations, he supported the Independents to some degree. He said that being in the vicinity was not an adequate basis for determining church membership, but that the consent of the people was also necessary. While he rejected the necessity of a church covenant on the local level, he did advocate a “voluntary agreement” on the part of church members in order to form a congregation.1 It may be that his views had something to do with the mildness with which the Assembly treated the gathering of churches.
1. MS, II, fol. 30.”
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A Local or Particular Church Covenant is Not Necessary for Church Membership
Order of
Rutherford’s Distinctions
Articles 10+
Quotes 4
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Rutherford’s Distinctions & a Conclusion
The Due Right of Presbyteries… (London, 1644), pt. 1, ch. 5, Section 5, Proposition 3, Question 6, pp. 84-88
6 Distinctions
1. There is a Covenant of free grace, betwixt God and sinners, founded upon the surety Christ Jesus, laid hold on by us when we believe in Christ; but a church covenant differenced from this is in question, and sub judice lis est [is the dispute under judgment].
2. There is a covenant of baptism, made by all, and a covenant virtual and implicit renewed when we are to receive the Lord’s Supper, but an explicit positive professed Church covenant, by oath, in-churching a person, or a society, to a state-church [state of being in the church] is now questioned.
3. An explicit vocal covenant whereby we bind ourselves to the first three articles [of Congregationalists above in the section] in a tacit way, by entering in a new relation to such a pastor, and to such a flock, we deny not, as if the thing were unlawful, for we may swear to perform God’s commandments, observing all things requisite in a lawful oath. 2. But that such a covenant is required by divine institution, as the essential form of a church and church-membership, as though without this none were entered members of the visible Churches of the apostles, nor can now be entered in Church-state, nor can have right unto the seals of the covenant, we utterly deny.
4. We grant:
[1.] A covenant in baptism which is the seal of our entry unto the visible Church.
2. That it is requisite that such heretics, papists, infidels, as be received as members of our visible Church (from which Papists have fallen, having received baptism from us) do openly profess subjection to God, and his Church, in all the ordinances of God. And that infidels give a confession of their faith before they be baptized.
3. Nor deny we that at the election of a pastor, the pastor and people tie themselves, by reciprocation of oaths, to each other, the one to fulfill faithfully the ministry that he has received of the Lord; the other to submit to his ministry in the Lord; but these reciprocal oaths make neither of them members of a visible Church, for they were that before these oaths were taken.
5. Any professor removing from one congregation to another, and so coming under a new relation to such a church, or such a ministry, is in a tacit and virtual covenant to discharge himself in all the duties of a member of that congregation, but this is nothing for a church-covenant; for when six are converted in the congregation whereof I am a member, or an excommunicated person heartily and unfeignedly repents, there arises a new relation betwixt those converts and the Church of God; and a tie and obligation of duties to those persons greater than was before, as being now members of one mystical and invisible body. Yet our [congregationalist] Brethren cannot say, there is requisite that the church renew their church-covenant towards such…
So when one enters into Covenant with God, and by faith lays hold on the Covenant, there results from that act of taking the Lord to be his God, a covenant-obligation to do duty to all men, as the covenant of God does oblige him… and he is obliged to a duty by that covenant with God to his children, which are not yet born… now it is true a virtual and tacit covenant results toward all these, even toward the beast, the children not yet borne, etc. when the person first by faith enters in Covenant with God; but none master of common sense and judgement will say there is required a vocal and explicit, and professed covenant…
6. I understand not how our brethren do keep Christian and religious communion with many professors of approved piety, and that in private conference, praying together, and publicly praising together, and yet deny to have any church-communion with such approved professors, in partaking with them the seals of the covenant, and censures of the Church. I doubt how they can comfort the feeble minded, and not also warn and rebuke them, which are called acts of Church-censure.
Then the question is not:
[1.] If there be a tacit and virtual covenant when persons become members of such a visible congregation.
2. Nor do we question whether such a church-covenant may be lawfully sworn. We think it may, though to swear the last article [of theirs] not to remove from such a congregation without their consent, I think not lawful, nor is my habitation in such a place a matter of Church-discipline.
3. But the question is if such a church-covenant, by divine or apostolic warrant, not only be lawful, but the necessary and apostolic mean, yea and the essential form of a visible Church; so as without it persons are not members of one visible Church, and want all right and title to a Church-membership, to the seals of grace, and censures of the Church. Our [congregationalist] brethren affirm, we deny.
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Conclusion
The former considerations being clear, we hold that such a church-covenant is a conceit destitute of all authority of God’s Word, Old or New Testament, and therefore to be rejected as a way of men’s devising.
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Articles
1600’s
English Puritans – pt. 1, pp. 220-21 in A Refutation of the Errors of Separatists (1604; 1644; RBO, 2025)
Edwards, Thomas – pp. 11-12 in ‘Reasons Against the Independant Government of Particular Congregations,’ Reason 4 in Reasons Against the Independant Government of Particular Congregations: as also Against the Toleration of such Churches… (London, 1641)
Ball, John – 6th Position, ‘That none are to be admitted as members [according to congregationalists] but they must promise not to depart or remove unless the congregation will give leave’ (1640) in A Trial of the New-Church Way in New-England & in Old (London, 1644), pp. 68-82
First under the ‘Answer’ is given the New England congregationalists’ elaboration of their view. Then Ball replies under ‘Reply’ (p. 78 ff.).
Sang Ahn gives background in Covenant in Conflict, pp. 54-57:
“It is obvious that the Puritans, who obtained the charter of the Massachusetts Bay Company from Charles I and came to New England in 1630, were not Separatists. They, though being non-conformists, considered themselves as loyal members of the Church of England. Secession or separation from the national church, for them, was a sin of schism. Nevertheless, in less than seven years, Puritans in the mother country began to hear that their brethren in New England actually followed the ways of the Separatists.
Accordingly, in 1637, a formal and written communication was made, in which Puritans in England put forward “Nine Propositions,” to which their “Reverend and beloved Brethren” in the New World replied in 1639. This early debate was compiled by Simeon Ash and William Rathband and, four years later, published with John Ball’s ‘Reply’, under the title ‘A Letter of Many Ministers in Old England’…
The main purpose of these propositions was to find whether or not the New England brethren actually adopted the methods of the Separatists which they once denounced before they left England…
Many ministers in Old England… were surprised at the rumor about their brethren’s sudden turn to Separatism. Particularly, they were frightened when they received a report that the above nine propositions were practiced by New Englander ‘as the only Church way, wherein the Lord is to be worshipped.’
Of course, this report seemed to be exaggerated. Thus, John Cotton, representing “the Elders of the Churches in New England,” provided an answer to this letter in which he assured them that New England Congregational churches had nothing to do with “the ways of rigid separation.”…
Cotton’s above answer was sent to England in 1639 and Ball’s comments and reply were finished by 1640. For some reason, however, their works were not published until 1643.”
Rathband, William – A Brief Narration of Some Church Courses Held in Opinion & Practice in the Churches Lately Erected in New England: Collected out of Sundry of their Own Printed Papers… (London, 1644)
ch. 5, ‘Of the manner of their first erecting of a visible Church’, pp. 20-23
Rathband in this volume and two chapters describes the congregationalists’ novel practices in setting up, by claimed divine necessity, a new local church by means of a particular church-covenant.
ch. 7, ‘Of church membership and admission of more members into the Church thus constituted and erected’, pp. 29-31
Rutherford, Samuel
‘Proposition 3 [of the Congregationalists]: All are Entered by Covenant into a Church-State, or into a Membership of a Visible Church’ ch. 5, section 5, proposition 3, question 6 in The Due Right of Presbyteries (London: 1644), pt. 1, pp. 83-130
A Survey of the Survey of that Sum of Church-Discipline Penned by Mr. Thomas Hooker… (London, 1658)
bk. 1
ch. 19, ‘Mr. Hooker, his formal cause of a church-visible, or church-confederating, is considered’, pp. 95-104
ch. 20, ‘The Arguments of Mr. Hooker for a church-covenant considered and removed’, pp. 105-15
…
ch. 24, ‘The Arguments of Mr. Rutherford against the Church-Covenant are Vindicated’, pp. 138-56
…
ch. 26, ‘The Arguments of Mr. Hooker for a church-covenant considered and removed’, pp. 162-71
bk. 4
pp. 445-49 of ch. 8, ‘Whether Covenant-right to Baptism be Derived from the Nearest Parents Only [No], or from the Remoter, the Grandfathers’
Apollonius, Wilhelm – ch. 2, ‘Of a Church-Covenant’ in A Consideration of Certain Controversies at this Time Agitated in the Kingdom of England concerning the Government of the Church of God (London: 1645), pp. 13-23
Apollonius (1602-1657) was a Dutch divine, requested to write this book by his presbytery (it was also approved by them) for the help of the English Church being disturbed by Independents and sectaries. He argues a thoroughgoing presbyterianism according to the Word of God, against the necessity of a church-covenant.
Hudson, Samuel
p. 7 of The Essence & Unity of the Church catholic Visible: & the Priority thereof in Regard of Particular Churches Discussed (London, 1645)
A Vindication of the Essence & Unity of the Church-Catholic Visible, & the Priority Thereof in Regard of Particular Churches (London, 1650), question 1 The volume was dedicated to the Westminster Assembly.
Question 1
pp. 90-97 of ch. 4, ‘That the Church-Catholic visible is one Integral, or totum Integrale‘
p. 135 of ch. 6, ‘That the Church-Catholic visible is an Organical, yet similar body. Yea, one Organical body’
pp. 181-82 of ch. 8, ‘An answer to M. Ellis’s Prejudices…’
pp. 222-26 of Question 2
pp. 38-53 of An Addition or Postscript to The Vindication… in Answer to the Objections made Against it both by Mr. [Samuel] Stone & Some Others (London, 1658)
Baillie, Robert – pp. 106-8 in ch. 6, ‘An Enumeration of the Common Tenets of the Independents’ in A Dissuasive from the Errors of the Time, wherein the Tenets of the Principal Sects, Especially of the Independents, are Drawn Together in One Map (1645)
Bastwick, John – pp. 305-8 in The Utter Routing of the Whole Army of All the Independents & Sectaries… (1645/1646)
Wood, James – pp. 347-48 of pt. 2, section 12 of A Little Stone Pretended to be Out of the Mountain [Dan. 2:35], Tried (1654)
Wood (c.1609-1664) was a Scottish covenanter, Resolutioner and an esteemed, professorial colleague of Rutherford. Wood, according to the later Free Church of Scotland professor, James Walker, was ‘among our ablest men’ and wrote ‘perhaps the best Scottish discussion of Church authority’ in his treatise against Independency. This work was written against the English Independent Nicholas Lockyer (1611-1685).
“…A work by Professor Wood of St. Andrews in answer to Lockyer, who was the first to introduce the Independent theory into Scotland…: – James Bannerman, Church of Christ 2.450
Cawdrey, Daniel – pp. 125-26, 148-51 in Independency, a Great Schism, Proved Against Dr. Owen his Apology in his Tract of Schism… (London, 1657)
Stillingfleet, Edward – pp. 138-40 in ch. 7 in Irenicum, a Weapon-Salve for the Church’s Wounds, or the Divine Right of Particular Forms of Church-Government Discussed & Examined... (London: Mortlock, 1662), pt. 1 irregular page numbering
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Quotes
Order of
London Presbyterians
London Presbyterian Synod
Baxter
Voet
.
1600’s
London Presbyterian Ministers
The Divine Right of Church Government (1646/1654), pt. 2, ch. 13, position 2
“Divers single congregations are called one church, as has at large been proved… inasmuch as all the believers in Jerusalem are counted one church… And why are diverse congregations styled one church?
2. Not in regard of any explicit church covenant knitting them in one body. For we find neither [the] name nor thing, print nor footstep of any such thing as a church covenant in the Church of Jerusalem, nor in any other primitive apostolical church in all the New Testament; and to impose an explicit church covenant upon the saints as a necessary constituting form of a true visible Church of Christ, and without which it is no Church, is a mere human invention, without all solid warrant from the word of God.”
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London (Presbyterian) Provincial Assembly
A Vindication of the Presbyterial-Government & the Ministry… (London, 1650), pt. 2, p. 105
“2. You must reject all such doctrines as hold forth a strictness above what is written…. Devout people are much taken with doctrines that carry a show of strictness and of much purity; but you must not be wise above what is written… And therefore when you are taught that whosoever will enter into Church-fellowship, must first take a Church-covenant; and that whosoever will be admitted unto the Lord’s Supper, must not only be free from ignorance and scandal, but he must have other and more strict qualifications, you must enquire what word they have for these assertions and where God has not a mouth to speak, you must not have an ear to hear, nor a heart to believe.”
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Richard Baxter
Christian Concord, or the Agreement of the Associated Pastors & Churches of Worcestershire, with Richard Baxter’s Explication & Defence of it, & his Exhortation to Unity (London: A.M., 1653)
‘An Explication of some Passages in the foregoing Propositions’, p. 14
“Reason 12. Those (moderate men) that are most against Church-covenantings, speak only against the necessity of them; but the lawfulness they deny not, no nor the convenience in case of liberty; no nor the necessity of the thing, but only of the circumstantials and manner of expression, and ends by some affixed. They require that the people expressly consent to the choice of their minister, and that they be examined before the sacrament of their knowledge in the fundamentals. This differs from what we propound but in circumstances.
And I should think it more seasonable and convenient to be satisfied of our people’s spiritual sufficiency and capacity for Church-communion at our first reformation of a disordered Church, or in a well-ordered Church, at their first transition out of the state of imperfect, infant members, and admission into the number of adult members (and after this, to suppose their right good to communion and Church privileges, till it be on sufficient grounds disproved, excepted against or questioned by any) than to try them as only for admission to the Lord’s Supper, suffering them to live quietly in the reputation of members, [even] so [when] they will not come to the Table of the Lord.”
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‘A Brief Explication of some Passages in the Profession’, p. 17
“…the reasons of our prefixing the Preface were these:… 2. That we may not be thought to go on their grounds that take our churches for no churches before an express covenant [be made by the members], superadded to all former signs of consent; or that we may not be judged to go about the gathering of new churches where were none before; when indeed we do all this but in reformation of those that are churches already.”
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Gisbert Voetius
Ecclesiastical Politics tr. by AI (Amsterdam: Joannes à Waesberge, 1663–1676), vol. 1, ‘The Nature of the Instituted Church’
p. 19 (PDF p. 11)
“V. A confederation or stipulation is required [of laymen coming to a congregation], whereby they promise God and the Church to continue and progress in that communion of Saints… But more explicitly, those being admitted to the communion of the Church enter into that holy confederation when they respond not only to particular questions about repentance, faith, and gratitude, specifically applied to themselves,
but also to those general questions which conclude the series:
Do they acknowledge the doctrine of our churches to be the orthodox faith and the way of salvation?
Do they promise by God’s grace to persevere in that doctrine until death?
Do they promise to live holily and worthily according to that doctrine?
Do they submit to ecclesiastical discipline?
And this is the method of stipulation and confederation in our churches. As for the manner of confederation by oath or the subscription of a formula or instrument, it does not seem necessary. It suffices that this is done before many witnesses, but we do not consider it illicit; as we shall soon discuss in the Problems.”
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pp. 52-53 (PDF pp. 49-50)
“10th Question: Is the profession of faith and promise—that is, this sacred covenant—required to be confirmed by solemn oath and subscription? Response:
Conclusion: This is not simply, nor everywhere or always, necessary; nor does apostolic practice teach this. For it could ordinarily suffice if that solemn promise is made in the presence of the whole Church, or before a synod with many witnesses. Especially when it pertains to matters of God, before his eyes and in his house, namely the Church. An oath is the end of all contradiction, introduced because of human wickedness.
Because we must greatly distance ourselves from the evil practice of Papal clerics, who too rashly confirm their causes with dire oaths, curses, and the pledging of souls.
Because it is proper for the faithful to be earnest, sincere, and simple, like sheep and doves. Therefore, care must be taken that this abundant caution does not, in some way, seem to cast doubt on their proper fourth way.
Conclusion: Nevertheless, it is not illicit to take extra caution, whether for
adversaries, or for extraordinary wickedness, frauds and deceptions of men, or for any other just cause.
Because, in the renewal and restatement of the sacred covenant, such was done (see 2 Chron. 15:12-15; Neh. 9:38 and 10:1). Therefore, why could this not be done in some case at the first institution of the covenant?
Because an oath may be declaratory and promissory in the matter of confession, profession of faith, and embracing the Church and its cause, as Paul’s example teaches (see 2 Cor. 1:23; Rom. 9:1). This, combined with the example of God’s people (see 2 Chron. 15; Neh. 9-10), was imitated by the king and nobility in Scotland in 1581, and by the French Church in the National Synod of Alès in 1619, where they received and confirmed the doctrine of the National Synod of Dordrecht against today’s Pelagians. Furthermore, in Scotland in 1638 and recently in 1643, the nobility, ministers, and people in Scotland and England were united in a solemn confederation. Here, compare what has been said elsewhere about the pledging of souls for their doctrine and cause, and about oaths in public form or church confessions. Part 3, Selected Dissertation on the Oath of Religion.
Because not only are oral declarations before the whole Church required, but also subscriptions by the ordinary ministers, elders, and deacons among us are not without reason expected…
…it would not be absurd or illicit if, in some case, and for the reasons previously mentioned, a subscription from the members of the Church were required.
4. Because oaths and subscriptions hold a significant place in any confederations and assemblies, and why not in sacred and ecclesiastical matters, if necessity demands it.
Conclusion: We reject here oaths of obedience to the Pope, those concerning the Council of Trent; also, the abjurations of reformed doctrine and Church; furthermore, inquisitorial oaths and those arising ex officio [“from duty” unto self-incrimination]. In brief, all oaths and all sacred subscriptions that are not made in injustice, but in truth and judgment.”
.
pp. 64-68 (PDF p. 70)
“Question: How is an ecclesiastical covenant necessary? Answer:
Conclusion 1. It is not necessary as a means to eternal salvation, since explicit communion with a particular visible Church is not necessary.
Conclusion 2. It is necessary as a means to external communion with the visible Church, some covenant partly implicit and tacit, partly explicit and vocal.
Conclusion 3. It is necessary for well-being, that is, it facilitates legitimate ecclesiastical communion and mutual edification, so that at least such explicit profession and covenant is maintained, which we have mentioned above is well or at least moderately maintained in properly ordered
Churches.
Conclusion 4. Yet we do not consider our own form, let alone the more exact and laborious one which is urged today by some (into whose requirements we inquired a little earlier), to be so absolutely necessary that without it Churches which are thus far without it would not in any way be Churches to us; nor would there be members, nor consequently would all those Churches be destroyed, as to their matter or body, as to their species and form; or if this is not done, then from outside (if not against them), from some withdrawing members, and others from other places joining their number, new and separate Churches should be erected in the same city or village. The reasons are:
1. Because that external form of profession of faith, promise, and admission into Church communion is fundamentally divine; but in its final formality and perfection it is ecclesiastical, for it is an application to particular circumstances of persons, places, times, and that through intervening free deliberations and ecclesiastical constitutions, which can be changed or remitted in cases of necessity.
2. Because with such canonical formalities, though lawful, indeed excellently conducted, the essence of the Church should not be so strictly alleged, and in it and through it the essence of the communion of saints;
3. Because with the canonical formalities of the Papacy rejected, indeed of the ancient Church itself (as prescribed by the Code of Canons of the Universal Church) in great part and even largely restored by established freedom and apostolic simplicity, we should not contend through ambiguities for the same or similar precipitations, and impose the yoke of new ecclesiastical authority and ecclesiastical constitutions so rigidly that we seem to leave nothing to the judgment and freedom of other Churches, not even in matters of detail.
4. For what appears to follow from this is absurd and inconvenient, namely, that it should be necessary to immediately withdraw from those Churches to which the external
form of this covenant and its most integral integrity are not present. I do not see how this would not amount to rejecting Donationism and dividing Churches into the smallest parts, indeed into dust, after the manner of the Anabaptists (although today much has been lacking and improved among them).
Conclusion 5. Nevertheless, whoever is in conscience bound by the necessity of divine precept to seek and promote the most perfect and exact things in this matter, according to Phil. 3:15, Heb. 6:1, and 2 Cor. 11:2-3.”
.
When Swearing a Vow, Oath or Covenant is Warranted
Quotes
Order of
Apollonius
Westminster
.
1600’s
Apollonius
A Consideration of Certain Controversies at this Time Agitated in the Kingdom of England, concerning the Government of the Church of God (1645), ch. 2, ‘Of a Church-Covenant’ Apollonius was a Dutch presbyterian.
pp. 15-16
“3. We grant that there may be an express and solemn covenant, in the presence of God and the Church, upon extraordinary occasions, entered into, by all the members of the visible Church of one nation or kingdom: when the Church in that kingdome or nation has made defection from God and his worship, or some other necessity call for it; for the preserving, or propagating, or restoring of the decayed worship of God.
By which covenant notwithstanding there does not acrue to the Church of that kingdom any new right, but that right which before they had to enjoy the ordinances of God, which by reason of their defection, or some other cause, was hindered and as it were suspended, they may now freely and purely again reduce to practise. Thus did the Church of God under the Old Testament often in the time of defection, or extraordinary necessity, enter into a solemn covenant in the presence of God.”
.
p. 18
“2. Under the Old Testament the particular churches in the synagogues entered not into any solemn church-covenant in the admission of members: but only on extraordinary occasions, when they had made defection from God, all the faithfull of the whole national Church renewed their covenant with God, for restoring the decayed worship of God; or when they were by some other necessity called upon for renewing such a covenant.”
.
Westminster Confession of Faith, ch. 22
“I. A lawful oath is a part of religious worship, wherein, upon just occasion, the person swearing solemnly called upon God…
II. Yet as, in matters of weight and moment, an oath is warranted by the Word of God under the New Testament, as well as under the Old;[e] so a lawful oath, being imposed by lawful authority, in such matters, ought to be taken.[f]
[e] Heb. 6:16. 2 Cor. 1:23. Isa. 65:16
[f] 1 Kings 8:31. Neh. 13:25. Ezra 10:5“
.
The Right of Congregational Assent to the Installation of Officers in Ordinary Circumstances
See also our webpage, Patronage.
Patronage was the erroneous historical practice of civil patron’s over-riding the congregational election of officers.
.
Articles
Binnie, William – The Concurrence of Popular Election & Official Ordination, p. 132 ff. 16 pp.
Cunningham, William
Historical Theology (1863)
vol. 1, ‘Right of the Christian People to Elect Officers in the Early Church’, p. 189 ff. 8 pp.
vol. 2, ‘Popular Election of Office Bearers’, p. 534 ff. 10 pp.
‘The Rights of the Christian People’, pp. 290-470 being ch. 11 of his Discussions on Church Principles (1863)
.
On the Size of Local Churches
Quotes
Order of
Baillie
Rutherford
.
1600’s
Robert Baillie
Dissuasive
.
Samuel Rutherford
The Due Right of Presbyteries… (London, 1644), pt. 1, ch. 9, section 9, p. 242
“…and a numerous congregation, we dislike with you [John Cotton, a congregationalist].”
.
.
On the Permissibility of Distance Church Membership
Quote
1600’s
Gisbert Voetius
Ecclesiastical Politics tr. by AI (Amsterdam: Joannes à Waesberge, 1663–1676), vol. 1, ‘The Nature of the Instituted Church’, pp. 59-60 (PDF pp. 62-64)
“7th Question: Is it necessary in essence for the Church, or at least as a requirement, that all its members be closely united in terms of locality? Response:
Conclusion: It is very convenient, so this should generally be observed, that members are constituted from a common locality, such as from a neighborhood or city.
Because such is suggested by the practice of the Apostolic Church. For we do not read that the inhabitants of Cenchreae were included in the Church of the Corinthians, or vice versa.
Because if they can observe one another more easily, they can stimulate love and
good works, Hebrews 10, and give and receive examples.
Because in this way they can best encourage, comfort, and build each other up, 1 Thess. 5:11,14, and indeed as mentioned in Heb. 3:13.
Conclusion: Therefore, it should not be proven that without a just necessity, citizens, for example, of our city should be enrolled in the Church of a neighboring city or village, and vice versa.
Because this inconvenience exists and affects many looking towards ecclesiastical
communion; for the enjoyment of which God primarily instituted gatherings and ecclesiastical societies: See the statements of the preceding problem.
Because it breeds confusion, contentions, and divisions among members and churches; it removes harmony and weakens the vigor of ecclesiastical discipline. Hence, ancient canons have prohibited transitions and appeals to other churches for both private believers and clergy. See the Canons of the African Church, especially Canons 23, 28, 54, 105, 125, and notably the Canons and Acts of the Council of Carthage in the year 419, where a synodical letter to Boniface, Bishop of the Roman Church, shows that one should not be summoned from Africa across the sea to the See of Rome. The constitutions, decrees, and practices of the Belgian Churches absolutely prohibit any transfer from one church to another, whether of the same language or a different one, without good permission and dismissal, or written testimony from the church of which one is a member. This especially applies to those transient members around whom the office of correction or even censorship is exercised.
Because it smacks of schismatic and factious behavior or carnal curiosity, i.e., factionalism, pride, and disdain; similarly as in the Church of Corinth, 1 Cor. 1:12 & 3:3.
Conclusion: If in any case, due to urgent reasons, it is granted to someone or some people to be enrolled in a church outside their place of residence, or to remain in the same church after moving to a nearby city or village, this must be done with the advice and consent of both churches.
Conclusion: Another reason is far different when churches are not of the same confession or at least differ to the extent that the advantages of local presence and cohabitation are postponed for the tranquility of conscience and safer and much
greater edification. This must be dealt with elsewhere in detail, and we may touch on it below.
Conclusion: Where faithful cannot enjoy the benefits of close cohabitation, they should not be circumscribed by the boundaries of that church and excluded from it, just as those who live outside the parish, city, or village should not be forced to join it any more than those who live there.
Because the circumstance of location and civil cohabitation is external and accidental to the church; therefore, it is not of its nature or essence.
Because it is not a necessary requirement. Ecclesiastical communion acts can be carried out among those members, although not as promptly, abundantly, easily, and excellently. For more and less do not alter the species.
Because the status of a clandestine and troubled church often requires such a thing due to persecutions, heresies, schisms, and similar disturbances.
Because the defects of other faithful, churches, and ministers in many places leave nothing else for the faithful but to resort to this last refuge, especially since they cannot use the first ship.”
.
.
On the Ethical Obligations of Church Members
.
Who ought to be Received into Church Membership
On Messianic Jews
Justin Martyr
Dialogue with Trypho, ch. 47 in ANF 1.218 Justin Martyr (c. 100 – c. 165) was an early Church father.
“And Trypho again inquired, ‘But if some one, knowing that this is so, after he recognises that this man is Christ, and has believed in and obeys Him, wishes, however, to observe these [Mosaic institutions], will he be saved?’
I said, ‘In my opinion, Trypho, such an one will be saved, if he does not strive in every way to persuade other men— I mean those gentiles who have been circumcised from error by Christ, to observe the same things as himself, telling them that they will not be saved unless they do so. This you did yourself at the commencement of the discourse, when you declared that I would not be saved unless I observe these institutions.’
Then he replied, ‘Why then have you said, ‘In my opinion, such an one will be saved,’ unless there are some who affirm that such will not be saved?’
‘There are such people, Trypho,’ I answered, ‘and these do not venture to have any intercourse with or to extend hospitality to such persons; but I do not agree with them. But if some, through weak-mindedness, wish to observe such institutions as were given by Moses, from which they expect some virtue, but which we believe were appointed by reason of the hardness of the people’s hearts, along with their hope in this Christ, and [wish to perform] the eternal and natural acts of righteousness and piety, yet choose to live with the Christians and the faithful, as I said before, not inducing them either to be circumcised like themselves, or to keep the Sabbath, or to observe any other such ceremonies, then I hold that we ought to join ourselves to such, and associate with them in all things as kinsmen and brethren.
But if, Trypho,’ I continued, ‘some of your race, who say they believe in this Christ, compel those gentiles who believe in this Christ to live in all respects according to the law given by Moses, or choose not to associate so intimately with them, I in like manner do not approve of them. But I believe that even those, who have been persuaded by them to observe the legal dispensation along with their confession of God in Christ, shall probably be saved.
And I hold, further, that such as have confessed and known this man to be Christ, yet who have gone back from some cause to the legal dispensation, and have denied that this man is Christ, and have repented not before death, shall by no means be saved.'”
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On the Obligation to Join a Church
Quote
1600’s
Samuel Rutherford
The Due Right of Presbyteries... (London: 1644), pt. 1, p. 79
“1st Conclusion. An adjoining to a visible Church either formally to be a member thereof, or materially, confessing the Faith of the true visible Church, God offering occasion, is necessary to all:
1. Because we are to be ready to give a confession of the hope that is in us, to every one who asks, 1 Pet. 3:15.
2 Because he who denies Christ before men, him also will Christ deny before the Father and before the holy angels, Mt. 10:33.
3. Yet if some die without the Church, having faith in Christ, and want opportunity to confess Him before men, as repenting in the hour of death, their salvation is sure, and they are within the invisible Church: so is that to be taken, extra Ecclesiam nulla salus, none can be saved who are every way without the Church, both visible and invisible; as all perished who were not in Noah’s Ark.
2nd Conclusion. When God offers opportunity, all are obliged to join themselves to a true visible Church:
1. Because God has promised his presence to the Churches as his Son walks in the midst of the golden candlesticks, Rev. 2:2.
2. Because faith comes by hearing a sent preacher, Rom. 10:4.
3. Separation from the true visible Church is condemned, Heb. 10:24; Jude v. 19; 1 Jn. 2:19.
4. Good men esteem it a rich favour of God to lay hold on the skirt of a Jew, Zech. 8:23, and to have any communion, even as a door keeper in God’s House, and have desired it exceedingly and complained of the want thereof, Ps. 84:10. v. 1-2; Ps. 27:4; Ps. 42:1-4; Ps. 63:1-2.”
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On the Duties of Church Members
Articles
1600’s
London Provincial Assembly – pp. 85-111 in A Vindication of the Presbyterial-Government & the Ministry… (London, 1650), pt. 2
This is an exhortation to Church members.
Flavel, John – ‘A Double Scheme, or Table of the Sins & Duties Attaching to Church Membership’ in Works (London: Baynes, 1820), vol. 6, pp. 586-89
.
1800’s
Skinner, Thomas H. – A Discourse on the Duties of Church Members (1829) 16 pp. There was also an edition published by the American Tract Society in 1833.
Skinner was the pastor of Fifth Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia.
Burns, Jabez – Hints to Church Members on the Duties & Responsibilities of Christian Fellowship new ed. (London: Houlston & Wright, 1860) 36 pp.
This in general is good and has an emphasis on personal religion.
Dale, Ralph W. – The Duties of Church Members. Address... Ref (1891)
Dale was an English congregationalist.
.
2000’s
Burns, Simeon – ‘Duties & Privileges of Church Members’ unknown date, 2013 Banner of Truth website, also published in the Gospel Standard, 2012
Burns was an English Particular baptist pastor “many years ago”.
.
Book
1600’s
Owen, John – Duties of Christian Fellowship: A Manual for Church Members in Puritan Paperback Series Buy (Banner of Truth, 2017) 96 pp.
.
Latin Article
1600’s
Voet, Gisbert
‘On the mutual duties of ministers & the faithful in the ecclesiastical body’ in Select Theological Disputations, vol. 4 (Utrecht, 1667), 50. ‘A Syllabus of Questions on the Decalogue’, ‘On the 5th Commandment’, p. 796
.
Lay-Persons may, & Ought to, Preach Privately
See also, ‘How Preaching by Ministers is Different from Lay Evangelism’ and ‘Cases in which Laymen Preaching is Warranted’.
.
Quotes
Baxter
Turretin
.
1600’s
Richard Baxter
Five Disputations of Church-Government & Worship (London: R.W., 1659), 5th Disputation, ch. 2, p. 422
“The Emperor Constantine… was wont to write prayers and orations or sermons of his own making (Eusebius, On the Life of Constantine, bk. 4, ch. 55 & 32 & 29) and reads some common prayers himself to the congregation in his house, ch. 17.
(For he made his house a church and preached in it ordinarily himself, though he was both a layman and unbaptized; His sermon about Christianity to the clergy is published by Eusebius: and he preached a funeral oration about the immortality of the soul in his ordinary preaching place, a little before his death: Eusebius, ibid. ch. 55, etc. 29. etc. 17)”
.
Francis Turretin
Institutes (P&R), vol. 3, 18th Topic, Question 23, p. 215
“…the private preaching of the gospel, by which individual believers are bound by the common law of love to teach, to admonish and to lead their brethren and neighbors to faith and salvation; but concerning public preaching with authority, the necessity of which is laid upon those who by a special call are consecrated to the public work of the ministry.”
.
.
Is Habitual Non-Attendance at Public Worship, when within a Person’s Means, Sinful? Yes
Quote
1600’s
Samuel Rutherford
A Survey of the Survey of that Sum of Church-Discipline penned by Mr. Thomas Hooker… wherein the way of the churches of N. England is now re-examined (London, 1658), Book 3, ch. 1, p. 282-3
“Mr. Hooker [a congregationalist]: ‘It’s a staple rule, no man by nature has an ecclesiastical power over another by constraint; one comes a Christian convert from China, to a country or city where many churches are, none of them can, by the rule of the Gospel, compel him to join with one more than another. He may freely choose what is most suitable to his heart, and may be most to promote his spiritual edification.’
[Rutherford’s] Answer: …The man comes from China acknowledging God in all his ways, as Abraham left his country (Gen. 12); if he be an idolater, they should not lodge him (2 Jn. 10); he comes not as indifferent to be married [the analogy used by congregationalists for joining] to this or this church, or to none at all; as a man sins not if he marry none at all (1 Cor. 7).
But if he be a professor that joins to no Church, he lives scandalously; therefore the adequate cause of membership, or to this membership, is not mutual consent, as in marriage, but both parties are under a command to confess Christ before men; and its a selfish thing to make a man’s own heart the judge and determiner of his membership, and not the churches led by the rule of the Word: and so the Church is obliged to receive him, and he is obliged to join a member, according to Cant. 1:7-8; Mt. 10:32.”
.
.
Infants & Young Children being in the Public, Adult Worship Service is Not Required
Order of Contents
Bible Verses
Quote
History
.
Bible Verses
Ex. 23:17 “Three times in the year all thy males shall appear before the Lord God.”
1 Sam. 1:21-24 “And the man Elkanah, and all his house, went up to offer unto the Lord the yearly sacrifice, and his vow. But Hannah went not up; for she said unto her husband, I will not go up until the child be weaned, and then I will bring him, that he may appear before the Lord… And Elkanah her husband said unto her, Do what seemeth thee good; tarry until thou have weaned him… So the woman abode, and gave her son suck until she weaned him. And when she had weaned him, she took him up with her… and brought him unto the house of the Lord in Shiloh: and the child was young.”
Neh. 8:1-3 “And Ezra the priest brought the law before the congregation both of men and women, and all that could hear with understanding… And he read therein before the street that was before the water gate from the morning until midday, before the men and the women, and those that could understand; and the ears of all the people were attentive unto the book of the law.”
Lk. 2:22 “And when the [40] days of her purification according to the law of Moses [Lev. 12:1-4] were accomplished, they brought him to Jerusalem, to present him to the Lord;”
.
Quote
1600’s
Samuel Rutherford
A Survey of the Survey of that Sum of Church Discipline… (London, 1658), bk. 3, ch. 6, p. 343
“9. That this instituted Church is to meet together all of them, even the whole Church for the administration of the holy ordinances of God, to public edification, 1 Cor. 14:27 [as the Independents would have it], is a manifest debarring of infants born within the visible Church from being members of that Church which Christ in his Gospel has instituted, etc., for they are neither capable of convening in one place every Lord’s Day, nor of public edification by prophesying, as is meant, 1 Cor. 14:23…”
.
History
On the Scottish Reformation
Articles
Todd, Margo – pp. 35-38, 45-46 in ch. 1, ‘The Word & the People’ in The Culture of Protestantism in Early Modern Scotland (Yale University Press, 2002)
Denlinger, Aaron – ‘Is Family-Integrated Worship the Historical Norm? [No]’ (2016) at Reformation21
.
Reasons One may Not Become a Member of a Particular Church
See also ‘When it’s Right to Abstain from Public Worship’.
.
Quotes
Order of
Rutherford
Weld
Westminster
Owen
.
1600’s
Samuel Rutherford
The Due Right of Presbyteries… (1644), pt. 2, ch. 4, section 5, pp. 198-99
“God has appointed no lawful calling, such as trafficking by seas and frequent travelling ordinary to transient members of the visible Church, to be inconsistent with the lawful partaking of the ordinances of grace and seals of the Covenant; for only those who do not try and examine themselves and are profanely scandalous are excluded as swine from the holy things of God and from the Lord’s Supper, not men, because they are necessarily busied in a lawful calling and must ordinarily travel to far countries and so cannot be members of a single parish:
1. This is a physical impediment and not a sin, nor a moral impediment, excluding any from the seals of grace, yea and [such a prohibition is] an unwritten tradition.
2. I speak against that difference which the author makes betwixt the seals of grace in the Old Testament and the seals of grace in the New Testament, for there were physical and civil defects in the Old Testament which by a divine law made some incapable of the Passover, as if any were lepers, bastards, born Moabites and Ammonites or typically unclean, or had touched the dead, they could not eat the Passover though otherwise they did believe in Christ to come and were morally clean; but by the contrary under the New Testament there be no physical or ceremonial defects, no callings, no civil relations, but only moral defects and sinful scandals which do exclude men from the seals of grace, except you bring in ceremonies in the New Testament of your own devising for all nations, so they believe in Christ, Jew, or Gentile, Barbarian, or Scythian, bond or free, male or female, are to be baptized, Mt. 28:19; ‘God is no accepter of persons,’ or nations, or callings, Acts 10:34-35; compare this with verses 46-47 and Gal. 3:27, ‘For as many of you as have been baptized unto Christ, have put on Christ,’ v. 28, ‘There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus;’ so Gal. 6:15, ‘For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision avails any thing, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature.’
I must then say, it is boldness in men to say that there is a lawful calling in the New Testament which our Brethren are pleased to call ‘the strong hand of God’, which makes persons who are new creatures and baptized unto Christ uncapable of the seals of grace. Dear [congregationalist] Brethren, yield to the clear and evident truth of God.”
.
Thomas Weld
An Answer to W.R.’s [William Rathband’s] Narration of the Opinions & Practices of the Churches lately Erected in New England: Vindicating those Godly & Orthodoxal Churches [in New England]… (London, 1644), Answer to ch. 3, pp. 19-20 Weld (1590?–1662) was a New England congregationalist. Rathband was a moderate English puritan.
“The last and worst report of all the rest [of the New England churches] is in Article 12, where he [William Rathband] reports that if any amongst us do not seek and desire church fellowship in our way, [we] account them despisers of it, yea wicked and graceless persons.
To which I answer with detestation: God forbid. We speak as knowing God hears all our words; we hope we are far from such a spirit: for we know well that many gracious and precious saints there amongst us may, and sometimes do, for a good time abstain from seeking and desiring church fellowship for other grounds than despite, wickedness and gracelessness:
Sometimes because they are not settled in a place: sometimes because they desire more experience of the ministers and people where they should join: some for want of clear light and full conviction of the church-ways we walk in: and some others out of many fears about their own spiritual estate before God, judging themselves (through temptation) out of a state of grace and dare not venture upon the seals, etc. whom we yet esteem precious souls and have labored by all arguments we were able to encourage to come into church fellowship.”
.
Westminster Confession
ch. 1.6
“…there are some circumstances concerning the worship of God, and the government of the Church, common to human actions and societies, which are to be ordered by the light of nature and Christian prudence, according to the general rules of the Word, which are always to be observed.[o]
[o] 1 Cor. 11:13,14. 1 Cor. 14:26,40“
.
21.6
“…public assembliies, which are not carelessly or wilfully to be neglected or forsaken, when God, by his word or providence, calleth thereunto.”
[Note that there are times when providence may not be calling, or it calls otherwise, and note that God’s Word is not contrary to the light of nature, Christian prudence or the general rules of the Word (WCF 1.6). If one is missing assemblies or not joining a church due to right reason, this is not to “carelessly or willfully” neglect them, much less forsake them. See ‘Scripture Upholds Nature’s Light & Law & Right Reason’.]
.
John Owen
A Discourse concerning Evangelical Love, Church-Peace & Unity… (London, 1672), ch. 3, pp. 83-84
“For as a Relation unto a particular visible Church walking according to the Order and Rule of the Gospel, is the Duty of every Believer to give himself up unto; as that which is a means appointed and sanctified to the fur∣therance of his Edification and Salvation; so where it cannot be obtained through invin∣cible outward Impediments, or is omitted through ignorance of Duty, or is on just Causes refused where opportunities make a tender of it; or where the being and benefit of it is lost through the Apostasie of those Churches whereunto any persons did belong, the utter want of it, and that alwayes, is not such as necessarily infers the eternal loss of their Souls who suffer under it.”
.
On One’s Relationship to their Pastor
Quote
1600’s
John Bairdie
Balm from Gilead, or the Differences about the Indulgence Stated & Impleaded in a Sober & Serious Letter to Ministers & Christians in Scotland (1674; London: Cockerill, 1681), p. 173
“Be not easily tempted to cast at your ministers of whose heart-honesty you have had sufficient demonstration. If once Satan get you to begin a little to spurn at them, he will not cease tempting and providence may justly let snares be rained on you, occasions of stumbling be afforded you, till ye turn quite off and become wild. Notorious it is that people’s idolizing, inamoredness with some, and rooted prejudice at others upon partialities and by-respects are both a cause, foment and consequent of woeful divisions, 1 Cor. 1:11-12 and 3:3-4.
O esteem your pastors highly in love for their work’s sake and let not every petty difference cast you and them out: Keep not distance with them, but go and lovingly confer with them anent what ye and they differ in: And if ye get not satisfaction, recommend the matter to God, but let love and peace stand entire notwithstanding. What is Satan’s great engine, and consequently his design for marring your good of ministers; but by stating prejudices in your minds at them? Shut your ears and hearts then to all charms that would suggest ill thoughts of your honest ministers.
Receive not lightly ill reports of them, spread perhaps industriously to make them odious (Jer. 20:10) to alienate you from them, as Gal. 4:15-16. Be not then too credulous, try e’re ye trust, and admit no bad impressions of them before ye have found that truly they deserve [them].”
.
Historical
.
When did Public Professions of Faith before the Congregation (as opposed to simply before the Session) & Membership Vows come into the Reformed Churches?
In the Post-Reformation
Quotes
Robert Baillie
A Dissuasive from the Errors of the Time, wherein the Tenets of the Principal Sects, Especially of the Independents, are Drawn Together in One Map (1645), ch. 6, pp. 105-6
“Concerning the matter of the Church, the Independents have learned all their unjust scrupulosity from the other; as the Brownists [separatists] require every church member to be a saint, really regenerate and justified, who at their admission have publicly satisfied the whole congregation by convincing signs of their true holiness: the other requires the same.
Whatever indulgence here the Independents profess to give, either to weak ones in whom they find the least of Christ, or to women whom they remit from the congregation to speak more privately in the eldership (yet this is no other than the present practice of the Brownists at Amsterdam.”
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Wilhelm Apollonius
A Consideration of Certain Controversies at this Time Agitated in the Kingdom of England concerning the Government of the Church of God (London: 1645), ch. 1, ‘Of the Qualification of Church-members’, pp. 10-11
“We reject the opinion of those [English Independants and congregationalists] who think that in the Church none are to be admitted as members into the external fellowship of the Church, but such as have been by a strict examination first tried by other believers, or the elders of the Church, in the exercises of piety… and have manifested to them evident signs of regeneration: and have afterwards, before the whole body of the Church, publicly professed a sincere confession of faith; and have either by a continued speech, or by questions and answers, made manifest by evident signs the saving grace of God in them… and [are of] such a spirit that in a church covenant sincerely, faithfully, and godlily in the presence of God and the whole church, they both can and will walk in the ways of God. For we read not that in the apostolical Church this manner of admitting church members was in use.”
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Intro to American Presbyterianism
According to the sources below, there were precedents to membership vows (such as public professions of faith before the congregation) in American presbyterianism as early as 1865 and before, due to congregational influence. Such practices were first tolerated, then allowed and then officially held as optional. Finally membership vows were prescribed by church law as a standard practice in the national American presbyterian Church in 1894. This final enactment has been said by Dr. Barry Waugh to be largely due to the competing counter-influence of para-church organizations.
Before this modern practice, presbyterian churches simply had persons desiring membership in a local church privately meet with the session in order to be examined as to their profession of faith. This being accepted by the session as sufficient for membership in the local church, the session may then announce their reception into the church in an appropriate circumstance (outside of worship). The only ‘ritual’ connected with coming into communicant church membership, for American presbyterianism, was for the individual then to proceed to take the Lord’s Supper at that assembly for the first time (which may not happen for a few months, as the Lord’s Supper was often held quarterly).
In the Second Reformation of Scotland, and in that era generally, as Rutherford argues, professing Christians who were not members under the authority of a local session were yet allowed, and should, partake of the Lord’s Supper (as it is a Biblical right), whereas the opposite view and practice (held to by modern presbyterianism) was a distinctive and novel practice of congregationalism during the puritan era.
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Quote
Peter Wallace, “The Bond of Union”: The Old School Presbyterian Church and the American Nation, 1837-1861 (Notre Dame, 2004), ch. 9
B. The Creation of a New Ritual: Public Profession
But as Presbyterians gradually adopted the New England practice of requiring a personal profession of conversion, they also began adopting the Congregationalist ritual of public profession as well. The Presbyterian Form of Government stated that the session had the power to receive members. Traditionally this had been done by examination. The only public ritual that accompanied the admission of a person to the Lord’s Table was the Lord’s Supper itself. Gradually, however, Presbyterians began to imitate the rite of public profession found in the New England Congregational churches. Predictably, the New School took the lead, but even they were cautious. In 1865, the New School General Assembly declared that new members were received by the vote of the session, and except in the case of new converts who needed to be baptized, no further rite was required. Nonetheless, they permitted sessions to “prescribe a public profession of faith before the whole church as a convenient usage, and for this purpose may employ a church confession and covenant.” But they insisted that these public professions were entirely optional and must never be presented as though this were the real entrance into church membership.[57] The reunited General Assembly of 1872 added that if a session chose to have a public profession for covenant youth it must show a clear distinction from that used for public professions associated with adult baptisms.[58] The Presbyterian church, though influenced by congregational forms, was still intent on keeping the sacrament of baptism distinct from its new rites of public profession.
[57]Moore, Digest 129
[58]Moore, Digest 671-678
But these official developments simply reflected the growing practice of the church. Numerous churches were creating a new ritual in Presbyterian worship–the public profession of faith. But these changes did not come without objections. In 1847 Samuel Miller declared that the practice of receiving members by public profession was “not a child of Presbyterianism, but wholly inconsistent with it, and the real offspring of Congregationalism. . . . The church with us is regulated by the Session, made up of representatives of the church members.” Miller went on to insist that “Our fathers of the Church of Scotland know nothing of the public parade in the middle aisle now so common.”[59]
[59]“Dr. Samuel Miller to the Rev. Smith Sturges,” June 21, 1847, quoted in Samuel Miller, Jr., The Life of Samuel Miller, D.D., LL.D. (Philadelphia: Claxton, Remsen and Haffelfinger, 1869) II, 485.
Several presbyteries also weighed in on the issue. In 1855 the Presbytery of Elizabethtown in New Jersey wrote a letter to all sessions throughout the Old School, urging them to return to the Presbyterian practice of receiving communicants directly by the session, “without receiving publicly on consenting to a confession read to them.”[60] In 1856 the Presbytery of Cincinnati received a complaint regarding the practice of the Seventh Presbyterian Church of Cincinnati which had permitted the public profession of baptized persons at the same time as the baptism of new converts. One observer commented, “in coming to the ordinance of the Lord’s supper for the first time nothing is required of them in the constitution of the church, but simply, ‘that they shall be examined as to their knowledge and piety.’ That is all.” Indeed, he suggested that anything more communicates the wrong message. He feared that this would “necessarily lead to error in doctrine as well as disorder in practice.”[61] New rituals invariably led to new theology. By introducing the innovation of public profession, Old School Presbyterians were functionally creating a new sacrament.
[60]St Louis Presbyterian 11.45 (May 10, 1855).
[61]Observer, “Unconstitutional Practice in the Church,” PW 16.1 (September 25, 1856).
In 1862 “A True Presbyterian” objected that many Kentucky churches had begun to “ask the member or members received, to stand up in the aisle or pew, and give their assent to certain articles, and make pledges in regard to their future conduct, and avow their sense of the fearful responsibility connected with a public profession of religion.” He argued that this approach placed the focus on the new communicant himself rather than Christ. The session should call him to fix his eyes on Christ as the source of his hope, and not point him to his own profession. Further, it “conveys the impression that the person thus assenting is then and thus introduced into the Church. Whereas, according to the theory of the Presbyterian Church, such an one was ‘engrafted into Christ,’ and partook of the benefits, (to some extent) of the New Covenant, and became members of the visible Church, when baptized.” In addition, he said that such public professions created a new catechism for the church, ignoring the church’s catechisms.[62] The editor, Stuart Robinson, concurred that the practice was foreign to Presbyterian doctrine. He pointed out that the Synod of Kentucky had “formally censured the use of the abbreviated creeds framed by pastors for such purpose” many years before.[63]
[62]A True Presbyterian, “Mode of Admitting Baptized Persons to the Lord’s Supper,” True Presbyterian (June 12, 1862).
[63]Editorial, “Mode of Admitting Baptized Persons to the Lord’s Supper,” True Presbyterian (June 12, 1862).
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Articles
Barry Waugh
‘History of Membership Vows, Presbyterian Church in America’
“In conclusion, the five membership vows used by the PCA were added to the Directory for Worship of the Book of Church Order by the PCUS in response to the growth of parachurch-interdenominational ministries in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
This has been shown in particular with the addition of vow four that requires a member to support the church. The case was not developed in this brief article, but it is believed that the four vows adopted in 1894 were intended to distinguish church membership in the PCUS as a shepherded, historic, confessional, and evangelistic church from the parachurch, revivalism, and interdenominational churches.”
‘Overture Regarding Voluntary Societies, 1889’ 13 paragraphs
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A pastor to an appreciative congregation:
“I know you love me, but I did not die for you.”
John ‘Rabbi’ Duncan
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