“Let all things be done unto edifying… Let all things be done decently and in order.”
1 Cor. 14:26, 40
“…our authority, which the Lord hath given us for edification, and not for your destruction…”
2 Cor. 10:8
“Do we begin again to commend ourselves? or need we, as some others, epistles of commendation to you, or letters of commendation from you? Ye are our epistle written in our hearts, known and read of all men: Forasmuch as ye are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart.”
2 Cor. 3:1-3
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Subsections
May Leave for a More Profitable Church
Impure Church may be Better than a Purer Church
Abstaining from Public Worship
Absence due to Danger & Spreading Disease
Absence for Persecution
Erasure & Removing from the Rolls
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Order of Contents
Intro
Leaving due to Providence without Permission 8+
. American Presbyterianism 4
Letter of Transfer: Useful, Not Necessary 8+
Missing Services 4
Occasionally Attending other Churches 4
Mid-Week Services: Not Absolutely Necessary 2
Attending Different Church than Family 1
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Intro
Travis Fentiman
MDiv.
Updated 3-23-24
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With the rise of an emphasis on the local church, membership and the authority of elders, some have concluded that a church member needs permission from the elders to leave a church. This was the teaching of congregationalism during the puritan era, in contrast to presbyterianism. The basic position of this webpage is that of Samuel Rutherford, a presbyterian Westminster divine and spokesman of the Second Reformation in Scotland.
Let it be prefaced that in a healthy church there should be no issue about leaving with good reasons. Nor would one want to unduly hurt friends, other Christians or the church officers by unnecessarily leaving as a member without saying a word: that is against common sense, personal responsibility and charity. Likewise it may be profitable to seek the elders’ counsel in going elsewhere if they are trustworthy, it is safe and makes sense to do so and if they may be of help to you. However, when persons leave churches it is often over disagreements where people do not see things the same way. Hence, we are brought back to the principle of the matter.
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The Puritan Era
In the late 1630’s it became more known that the churches newly planted in New England had adopted new practices of Church government, namely of congregationalism. In the 1640’s independent sects proliferated in London. These events evoked a strong response from the puritans in the English establishment and the presbyterians, including the Scottish.¹ Distinctives of this new platform of Church government included requiring the consent of the church for someone to leave it and regarding letters commending a Christian’s character as formally giving a church-right (or not, in their absence) to the ones designated, especially with respect to the sacraments. Hence the congregationalists insisted on using recommendatory letters, even prohibiting membership and the sacraments to some Christians who did not have them (such as Christians who had come to New England from Old England).²
¹ Sang H. Ahn, Covenant in Conflict: The Controversy over the Church Covenant between Samuel Rutherford & Thomas Hooker PhD diss. (Grand Rapids: Calvin Theological Seminary, 2011), pp. 54-66
² The following contains the English, moderate, puritan Richard Bernard’s 32 Questions to the New England puritans, their response and Richard Mather’s further explanation and defense of the New England practices: Richard Mather, Church-Government & Church-Covenant Discussed, in an Answer of the Elders of the Several Churches in New-England to Two & Thirty Questions, Sent over to them by Divers Ministers in England, to Declare their Judgments Therein (London, 1639 / 1643) For an early perception and attempted documentation of New England congregationalist practices on the specific points, see the English puritan, William Rathband, 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), pp. 7, 10, 32, 37-38. For a response with some qualifications, see the moderate congregationalist, 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.
As the practice and understanding of the English presbyterians and moderate puritans, as well as the Scottish presbyterians,¹ differed, writers of these groups began to defend their received practices against the novelties of the congregationalists and disputed the nature and theological underpinnings of church membership, recommendatory letters and requisites for the sacraments.²
¹ On the one hand the Scottish churches had established a network of organization such that churches often denied membership to a newcomer without a “testimonial” from their previous church (Margo Todd, The Culture of Protestantism in Early Modern Scotland, Yale University Press, 2002, pp. 12, 392), yet: (1) this author, Travis Fentiman, is not aware of any example of a Scottish church member in good standing in that era needing permission from his session to leave a church (or being disciplined for doing so), (2) many of the Scots argued the recommendatory letters in Scripture were from charity, (3) Rutherford argued the letters did not in themselves carry the authority of a church-right and that profession of faith gives right to chuch membership wherever one goes; (4) he also argued that leaving a congregation need not be done by a church’s ministerial power, nor was a matter of discipline, and (5) the Scots exampled in practice and taught in their theology that neither letters nor particular church membership were necessary for the sacraments; see the next footnote. To explain Scottish churches sometimes denying membership to those without testimonials: it appears it arose from the notion of order (and other concerns) where requisites were in place such that testimonials could be consistently expected.
² The congregationalists generally held particular church membership to be necessary for the sacraments; the presbyterians did not: ‘Local Church Membership is Not Necessary to Partake of the Sacraments’.
To confirm and illustrate the difference further, a later, leading English congregationalist, Isaac Chauncey (d. 1712), when he asked, “May not a church member not chargeable with any scandalous sin go away to another church without a dismission?” responded: “No! For it will cause confusion in the churches and God is the God of order and not confusion [1 Cor. 14:33]…”† Chauncey gives further reasons for this, including from Paul’s commendation of Phebe in Rom. 16:1-2, all which reasons are shown by the presbyterians and puritans below to be invalid.
† Chauncy, Ecclesiasticum, or a Plain & Familiar Christian Conference concerning Gospel Churches & Order… (London, 1690), ch. 6, p. 116
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Reasons:
The Visible Church
What were some of the beliefs, reasons and motivating factors why the independants and congregationalists initiated their new practices? Some early, important congregationalists had either denied there was a universal visible Church,¹ or defined it to be limited to members of particular congregations (dwelling in the same area).²
¹ John Cotton: “For I do not read that the Scripture does anywhere acknowledge a catholic visible Church at all.” The Way of Congregational Churches Cleared… (London: Simmons, 1648), pt. 2, ch. 1, p. 5. This is a bit difficult to square with the Apostles’ Creed, “I believe in the… holy catholic Church…” and the teaching of most of Church history up through the Reformation. That Cotton is wrong, see ‘On the Visible Church’ and ‘On the catholic (Universal) Church of Christ’.
² Richard Mather: “…there is no visible Church, but only a particular congregation.” “…we may gather that men may be members of Christ, joined to the Lord by faith and love, and yet for the present not be members of the visible Church: And that when God is so gracious to true believers, as to make them members of his visible Church, it is requisite that they join in covenant before.” Answers to the 32 Questions, p. 10 & A Discourse touching the Covenant between God & Men, & especially concerning Church-Covenant…, pp. 16 & 19 in Church-Government & Church-Covenant Discussed… (1639; 1643); Thomas Hooker, A Survey of the Sum of Church-Discipline: wherein the Way of the Churches of New-England is Warranted… (1648), ch. 4, pp. 45-55
This creates some problems, as persons would then cease to be part of the visible Church, having Christ as their visible Head, King and Ruler (though being visibly professing believers, ruled by Christ’s Spirit and laws), through no fault of their own (as Rutherford argues) when scattered in persecution, or for other providential, necessary or lawful reasons. The reformed and presbyterians held, contrary to these congregationalists,º with much support from Church history before them, that church government is not essential to the visible Church and particular church membership is not necessary to being a part of the catholic (universal), visible Church.ª Notice what Westminster Confession (1646), 25.2 does and does not say when it defines what the visible Church is:
“The visible church, which is also catholic or universal under the gospel… 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…”
[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.”
º Some of the more sane congregationalists, especially later, such as John Owen, affirmed that the “name of the Church under the New Testament… is taken… (2) For the whole number of visible professors in the whole world…” An Enquiry into the Original, Nature, Institution, Power, Order & Communion of Evangelical Churches… (London: Richardson, 1681), ch. 2, p. 17.
ª See also ‘On Christians & Congregations being under the Presbytery apart from Having any Local Session’.
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Covenanting
A driving part of the congregationalist paradigm was their distinctive belief and practice that a man-drawn-up, particular-church covenant was necessary to the right constitution of a particular church. Hence, in leaving a church, one was possibly breaking this particular covenant, which was established with the rest of the church members’ consent. Hence, the church’s consent was needed to let a church member go.
The presbyterians held, in accord with Scripture, that no such man-drawn-up covenant was necessary for the establishment of a particular church in Scripture and that the Covenant of Grace, the covenant that Christians enter into, was not established by the mutual consent of Christians, much less the Christians of a particular church.¹ Nor do factors such as changing jobs, moving, etc. divide Christian fellowship in principle.² Nor can covenants bind beyond God’s Law,³ and there may be circumstances where removal from a congregation is morally necessary apart from notice, permission or approval being attained from the church, especially considering the inconveniences, delay and possibly even abuseª attaining such approval (if it comes) may entail.
¹ See ‘A Local Church Covenant is Not Necessary for Church Membership’, ‘How Local Churches may be Established’ and ‘The Visible Church is Outwardly in the Covenant of Grace’.
² ‘The Communion of Saints Is Trans-Spatial’
³ ‘Vows, Oaths, Covenants & Constitutions can Never Bind Beyond God’s Law’
ª See the quotes below by Ashe, Rathband, Ball and Colman, Pemberton, Woodbridge and Bradstreet. For unsourced references in this Intro, see the quotes below on this page.
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Biblicism
Independents and congregationalists had a strong Biblicist streak amongst them. In seeking to be modeled after the apostolic Church they often found things in the New Testament having some degree of circumstantiality and made them perpetually, universally obliging church ordinances, such as the holy kiss, foot washing, anointing with oil, love feasts,¹ and, letters of transfer. A characteristic of Biblicism is to make select, relative, contextually conditioned duties found in Scripture, often of secondary or tertiary importance (or less), to be treated as primary or absolute.²
¹ See ‘On Customs, the Holy Kiss, Foot Washing, Anointing with Oil, Love Feasts, etc.’.
² See ‘Some Ethical Duties have a Stronger Priority upon us, & Overrule Others’.
With time it became clear not all the congregationalists were of the same mind: some of them were more moderate and made greater qualifications and allowances (yet this tends to undermine the principles their form of government derives from). Hence some of the moderate congregationalists and their arguments are referenced below. Note that though some of the below arguments are directed against all the people of the congregation having a decisive say in a person’s removal, numerous of the arguments apply equally to elders having such a say.
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Arguments
Some of the moderate English puritans (Ashe, Rathband, Ball; Ashe and Rathband were Westminster divines) as well as Richard Baxter (a moderate English congregationalist) distinguished between a person causelessly or abruptly breaking away when and whither they please, and forsaking fellowship, versus a person not departing unless the church give leave. The latter stipulation is found nowhere in Scripture, nor by consequence, especially not:
“before he have acquainted the church whither he goes, and upon what occasions, and whether the place be dangerous, where he is likely to be infected or safe, where he may be edified.” (Ashe, Rathband, Ball)
Likewise, with regard to Christians coming from another place, which equally applies to those leaving a church, Thomas Weld, a moderate New England congregationalist, informs:
“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.”
Daniel Cawdrey, a presbyterian Westminster divine, Elnathan Parr, a moderate puritan and James Wood, a Scottish covenanter, argue the recommendatory letters of saints in the New Testament (Acts 18:27; Rom. 16:1-2; 1 Cor. 4:17; 16:3, 10-11, 15-18; 2 Cor. 8:16-24; Eph. 6:21-22; Col. 4:7-10; Phil. 2:19-24, 25-30; 4:2-3; 1 Thess. 3:2; Phile. 9-12) are not formally part of the power of the keys of Church government (such as ordination, excommunication, etc.), but derive from natural lawª and common Christian charity:† one could and ought to so recommend an honest unbeliever. If letters of recommendation had virtue to admit a member into communion, then their absence could exclude a member from communion (on par with excommunication).
ª See ‘On Natural Law in Church Government’.
† So also Andrew Melville, Commentarius in divinam Pauli epistolam ad Romanos, on Rom. 16:1-2 appended to Charles Ferme, A Logical Analysis of the Epistle of Paul to the Romans, ed. William L. Alexander (Edinburgh: Wodrow Society, 1850), p. 511 and John Brown of Wamphray, An Exposition of the Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Romans… (Edinburgh: Paterson, 1766), on Rom, 16:1-2, pp. 583-84.
Some New England, moderate congregational ministers (Colman, Pemberton, Woodbridge, Bradstreet) rightly note the Scriptural commendations do not formally transfer saints from one particular congregation to another; rather, they generally are sent from a regional apostle to regional churches and recommend that the saint be received as a Christian of eminence and singular goodness (not as a particular-church member).¹ The ministers affirm “there may be a good use of letters of recommendation, and especially among strangers,” and yet they see them as an unnecessary inconvenience and irrelevant where common sense dictates. Ashe, Rathband and Ball taught one ought not “to press customs only expedient for the time as standing rules necessary at all times…”
Rutherford, that champion of divine right presbyterianism, besides other things, (1) argues that under the New Testament only “moral defects and sinful scandals” can “exclude men from the seals of grace, except you bring in ceremonies in the New Testament of your own devising” (and lacking a recommendatory letter is no moral fault, nor necessarily is leaving a church without express permission or giving a reason), (2) argues such letters do not give a church-right to the saints, but only declare the church-right the saints have to the ordinances of the Covenant of Grace by their faith, which faith goes with them wherever they go, (3) assumes and illustrates how providential necessities take priority over church membership, and (4) answers by what warrant and authority besides that of the church or letters of transfer a Christian may leave a church for another (in the greatest work ever defending and expositing classical presbyterianism):
“It is true, none should remove from one congregation to another without God go[ing] before them, nor can they change countries without God’s warranting direction, Gen 12:1; 46:4, but that such removal is a matter of Church-discipline, and must be done by a ministerial power, is unwarranted by any word of God.” – Due Right of Presbyteries (London, 1644), pt. 2, ch. 6, section 1, p. 329, margin note
Rutherford’s implicit reasoning in his context in light of the congregationalist paradigm and arguments, including from Rutherford proof-texting Gen. 46:4 (God telling Jacob, “I will go down with thee into Egypt”), is that God’s direction and call by nature’s light and laws, and presence in providence, is of greater authority than that of a church. Removing from a congregation need not be done by a ministerial power of the church (the necessity of the Church’s power for this being unwarranted in the Word) and that so removing does not fall under the purview of church discipline.†
† This is confirmed in Rutherford’s teaching that church-members, due to various providences, may be “dissolved,” or erased from the rolls.
Seeing as Rutherford had previously in the same volume related that it was legitimate to change churches due to greater spiritual edification and for avoiding impediments therein, using the analogy of removing from a cold and smoky gallery of the great house of Christ’s visible Church to lie and eat in the chamber of the same (pt. 1, ch. 4, p. 73), the conclusion follows that he held receiving greater spiritual edification and eliminating impediments to this to be indicative of God’s obliging direction, call and presence going before.
The congregationalists had used as a proof-text for their man-drawn-up particular church covenants Jer. 50:5, “Come, and let us join ourselves to the Lord in a perpetual covenant…” They claimed the drawn up covenants did not bind beyond Scripture, yet still held that the particular church’s consent was needed to leave. Rutherford responded, if that covenant formally bound one to a particular church, then for a person to leave would be a breaking of this oath of God, and the church’s granting of such, instead of punishing this covenant-breaking, would be on par with papal indulgences. Further:
“Neither is any covenant called an everlasting covenant in the Scripture but the Covenant of Grace, Jer. 31:33; 32:40; Isa. 54:9-10, and that is made with the invisible catholic Church of believers, as is the Covenant [in] Jer. 50:5, and not a covenant with one visible congregation…”
Likewise today sometimes membership vows are held to more tightly bind one to a particular church and her members. Yet, presbyterianism in her classical era did not practice membership vows (they are not necessary to church membership: the apostles never used them, etc.),† vows, oaths and covenants can never bind beyond God’s Law, and the Covenant of Grace, which does bind all Christians by virtue of them being Christian, which all vows must be consistent with, binds one spiritually to all Christians and does not of itself tie a person to one particular church more than another.
† ‘When did… Membership Vows come into the Reformed Churches?’
Given that all things are to be done unto edification (1 Cor. 14:26), edification is a prime and sufficient reason why a person may seek another church, said John Owen:
“But whereas the principal end of all particular churches is edification, there may be many just and sufficient reasons why a person may remove himself from the constant communion of one church unto that of another. And of these reasons he himself is judge on whom it is incumbent to take care of his own edification above all other things.”º
º For numerous more puritan testimonies that personal edification is a legitimate reason to choose a different church, see ‘Persons may Leave for a More Profitable Church’. See also, on degrees of necessity, ‘What Constitutes Necessity?’
Afterall, Church government and worship is to be exercised in accord with the general rules of the Word (WCF 1.6), of which doing all unto edification is one (1 Cor. 14:26), and “what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him?” (1 Cor. 2:11)
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Objection from Purity
The text Owen, a congregationalist, uses to claim that churches ought “not to receive any without testimony from some of the brethrens of known integrity in the churches,” Acts 9:26,¹ regarding Saul turned Paul coming to meet the disciples in Jerusalem (cf. Gal. 1:17-2:9), is a particular instance, not speaking specifically to the issue, and it does not reflect on all circumstances (but rather arises from natural law in a specific circumstance).
¹ Owen, Eshcol: a Cluster of the Fruit of Canaan… or, Rules of Direction for the Walking of the Saints in Fellowship, according to the Order of the Gospel… (London, 1648), Rule 10, p. 93 Note this is not a systematic treatise.
The principle Owen was operating off of in seeking to put forth his case was “To mark diligently and avoid carefully all causes and causers of divisions…”,² which prioritized principle of purity and separation was a distinctive hallmark of congregationalism.³
² Owen, Eshcol, Rule 10, p. 82
³ Cf. Owen, Eshcol, pt. 2, Rule 5, pp. 49-55.
At least two errors occur in Owen’s implicit reasoning: First, Owen’s standard is higher than that of the apostles, who, in baptizing and receiving into the Church thousands of people (Acts 2:41; 4:4), not only did not require testimonials of others, but accepted the external professions of faith as they were presented and did not further investigate the persons’ histories. Rutherford makes two relevant distinctions about the church-judging of professions (in arguing against congregationalism):
“4th Distinction: A seen profession is the ground of members’ admission to the visible Church. Hence there is a satisfaction of the conscience of the Church in admitting of members, either in the judgment of charity, or in the judgment of verity [which is not wholly needed].
5th Distinction. There is a satisfaction in the judgment of charity positive, when we see signs which positively assure us that such a one is regenerate: and there is a satisfaction negative when we know nothing on the contrary which has a latitude: for I have a negative satisfaction of the regeneration of some, whose persons or behaviour I know neither by sight nor report. This [negative satisfaction] is not sufficient for the accepting of a Church-membership, therefore somewhat more is required.”¹
¹ Rutherford, The Due Right of Presbyteries… (London, 1644), pt. 1, ch. 9, section 9, p. 243
That more which is required beyond a negative satisfaction is not a positive satisfaction of regeneration (which the congregationalists insisted on),¹ but rather, as is demonstrated in the apostolic history: “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.”² Christian professors without letters of transfer may have this much, and it is a serious matter to deny them church membership and privileges insofar as:
“Materially it is all one not to admit members of such a church to your church, as to separate from such a church and to excommunicate such members: for it is a negative and authoritative leaving of such to Satan, if it be not a positive excommunication.”³
¹ See ‘Contra Presumptive Regeneration’.
² Rutherford, Due Right of Presbyteries, pt. 1, ch. 9, sect. 9, p. 251
³ Rutherford, Ibid., p. 243
It is true, as the later constitution of the Chuch of Scotland would explicate:
“it be the duty of pastors and ruling elders to use all diligence and vigilance, both by doctrine and discipline respectively, for preventing and purging out such errors, heresies, schisms, and scandals, as tend to the detriment and disturbance of the Church…”†
† Form of Process (1707), 8.18 in The Practice of the Free Church of Scotland in her Several Courts 8th ed. (Edinburgh: Knox Press, 1995), p. 196
However, errors and gross scandals tending to the disturbance of Christ’s Church which are known, and are able to be looked into, must be distinguished from those that are not. Christians meeting the above criteria without letters of recommendation or transfer ought to be admitted into church membership and its privileges. Rutherford:
“It is no less sin to sadden the heart of a weak one and to break the bruised reed [Mt. 12:20], than out of overplus of strong charity to give the hand to an hypocrite as a true Church-member.”ª
ª Rutherford, Due Right of Presbyteries, pt. 1, ch. 9, sect. 9, p. 251
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Providing Life-Giving Means of Grace is More Fundamental &
Needful than Exclusion Therefrom
The second error in Owen’s reasoning is that (1) obligations unto positive, nourishing, life-giving means unto spiritual health and salvation, and (2) to refrain from associations of corruption, or to prosecute them, with an attendent burden of proof and public procedure, are not of the same nature or weight, nor do they bear the same burden of prerequisites.
Henry Jeanes (d. 1662), a London presbyterian minister, wrote a treatise regarding a similar context¹ at the urging of ten of his colleagues. In the first of three points here to be excerpted from that treatise, Jeanes explains how positive commands, necessary to Christians, such as the Lord’s Supper, may not be wholly neglected or omitted. This is very relevant to those professing the Christian faith, having a fundamental right and obligation unto the means of grace, whether they should be barred from church membership, the seals of the Covenant of Grace and a closer shepherding bond with the overseers of the church due to not having a letter of recommendation. If Christians have a right and obligation to something, ministers are obliged to accommodate and serve that.
¹ For context to Jeanes’s treatise, see the notes under it in the Articles section on the page, ‘Local Church Membership is Not Necessary to Partake of the Sacraments’.
Jeanes wrote:
“…a minister’s universal and total abstinence from administration of the Lord’s Supper unto that flock or Church over which God has made him an overseer, is unlawful, though for the eschewing of scandal… Affirmative precepts tie us to do the things they require, though not at all times, yet at some time or other. And therefore universally and totally to abstain from what they command is sinfully to omit what is commanded by them….”
“Nothing necessary to salvation, both by the necessity of God’s command and as an ordinary means of salvation, is to be wholly and altogether omitted… they serve for the nourishment and increase of all our graces, and therefore they may be said to be instrumental in the bringing us unto salvation itself… 2 Pet. 1:11.”ª
ª Jeanes, The Want [Lack] of Church-Government [is] No Warrant for a Total Omission of the Lord’s Supper. Or a Brief & Scholastical Debate of that Question… (London, 1650), p. 8, 24
If this be the case, then the lack of a commendatory letter, of itself, ought not to keep a professing Christian from a closer right to the means of grace.
Secondly, Jeanes went on to explain how the Lord’s Supper is more worship (and therefore more primary) than negative discipline and exclusion:
“Administration of the Lord’s Supper is a more important and necessary duty than exclusion, etc. or any other part of the exercise of discipline, for it is more properly and immediately the worship of God than the exercise of discipline…† God is more worshipped by the administration of the sacraments than by Church censures; The sacraments are a principal worship of God; Church censures and the exercise of discipline: less principal.
† [See ‘Acts of Church Government & Discipline are Worship, in a Secondary Sense’]
Now it is improbable that a less principal worship of God should be a necessary antecedent to a principal worship… Now exclusion (and we may say the like of all other acts of discipline) is not before the Lord’s Supper in regard of the order, either of essential dependency, or of essential eminency and perfection. The Lord’s Supper has not an essential dependency upon exclusion, or any other acts of discipline:‡ and it is in ratione cultus [the rule of worship] of more essential eminency and perfection, as being more immediatly and properly the worship of God. And therefore it is apparent that exclusion is not a necessary antecedent to it…
‡ [Ministers administrating the Lord’s Supper is by the power of order whereas negative Church discipline is by the power of jurisdiction. Exercise of the power of order is more fundamental and basic, and requires less requisites than the exercise of the power of jurisdiction. See ‘On ‘the Power of Order’ vs. ‘the Power of Jurisdiction’.]
…the exercise of discipline is more separable from the Church than the sacraments, as appears by what our divines write against the Papists touching the marks of the Church…”º
º Jeanes, Want of Church-Government No Warrant, pp. 31-32
Thirdly, Jeanes describes how giving food to children is more fundamental and necessary for overseers than keeping dogs away with the rod of discipline:
“Discipline and all branches of it are compared to a spiritual rod, 1 Cor. 4:21. The Lord’s Supper is compared to spiritual food or bread; Now it is unlikely that a rod should be a necessary antecedent to food or bread, that is, that children be kept without bread until a rod be provided to whip the dogs and swine… So the commandment for the celebration of the Lord’s Supper is more clear, express, and evident than that for the exercise of discipline.”
“…the exercise of discipline is not a necessary antecedent unto the exercise of other branches of the power of order, to wit: the power of preaching, baptizing, etc.“
“Me thinks it is somewhat a strange kind of reasoning, because the rod of discipline is wanting [lacking], the children should be denied bread; yea, but you will say, dogs will eat the children’s bread: Why, will you therefore starve the children because dogs without your default may snatch the children’s portion? Shall the children be debarred (as I may say) their daily bread, because it will become accidentally poison unto dogs?…
As it is better for God’s sheep to feed upon pasture where some weeds grow rather than starve for want [lack] of food: So it is better for God’s shepherds to suffer some weeds to grow in the sheeps’ pastures if they cannot prevent it, than to starve their flocks; yea, and as it is better for the sheep to feed among goats rather than starve, so it is better the shepherds should suffer the goats to feed upon the sheeps’ pasture though it should poison them, than for the sheep to be kept from it;”‡
‡ Jeanes, Want of Church-Government No Warrant, pp. 32, 33, 34-35
Hence, a letter of recommendation or transfer ought not to be a necessary prohibition to church membership and closer rights to the means of grace, even in light of the Scriptural principle Owen highlighted, “to mark diligently and avoid carefully all causes and causers of divisions,” especially as Scripture gives the story in the parable (which serves as a fundamental premise to all Church discipline):
“The servants said unto him, ‘Wilt thou then that we go and gather them up?’ But he said, ‘Nay; lest while ye gather up the tares, ye root up also the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest…'” (Mt. 13:28-30)
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Objection from Good Order
It may be objected that elders do have governance over the moral actions of church members, especially as they affect the congregation, and that the congregation may suffer ill effects (or scandal) from a member leaving apart from due procedural order, or without giving a reason. However:
1. That specific procedural order and giving a reason before leaving a church is not prescribed in Scripture.
2. A person can leave, even abruptly, in good, moral order, given the circumstances, and that by natural law and necessity, though it be not according to procedural order or the chosen stipulation(s) of the elders.¹ Order is not good when it does not fit the circumstances and necessities, or is unduly inconvenient.ª
¹ See ‘A Lawful Command in the General might Not be able to be Lawfully Obeyed in Particular Circumstances’, ‘That Subjection does Not Always Entail Obedience’ and in general, ‘How Far the Laws & Commands of Human Authorities Bind the Conscience’ (Only so far as God’s Law does).
ª ‘On Obedience or Resistance to Laws that are Inconvenient’
3. A person professing the true religion leaving membership of a particular church and its government is still a part of the visible Church (WCF 25.2)¹ and under the government of officers as they are in and participate in Christ’s universal visible Church (Eph. 4:11-13).
¹ ‘Local Church Membership is Not Necessary to being Part of the Visible Church’
4. Abstaining from attending a certain church and abstaining from giving a reason to the elders for such is not a sin of commission, doing something God has explicitly forbidden in Scripture. If attending that church or giving a reason for leaving be a duty, yet not every duty can be or is required to be done in every and all circumstances, as our duties are manifold. WLC 99.5:
“…what God forbids, is at no time to be done;[w] what He commands, is always our duty;[x] and yet every particular duty is not to be done at all times.[y]
[w] Job 13:7,8. Rom. 3:8. Job 36:21. Heb. 11:25.
[x] Deut. 4:8,9.
[y] Matt. 12:7.”
See also, ‘On How Positive Commands Are Not to be Done at All Times & Circumstances’ and ‘On the Priority of not Doing that which is Forbidden over Keeping that which is Commanded (when they Cannot be Done at the Same Time)’.
5. Good order and the eldership is to serve the edification, welfare and safety of the people (Eph. 4:11-13); the people are not required to unduly sacrifice their edification, welfare and safety to justify positive procedures, order or the place and stipulations of elders.‡ Church government only has power unto edification, none to destruction. (2 Cor. 10:8; 13:10)
‡ Rutherford: “the Church of believers are superior and above the Church of Church-guides, because rulers and officers are servants and means employed by Christ for the Church of believers as for the end; office-bearers are for believers as the means for the end, but believers are not for office-bearers. Medicine is for our health and meat for our life…” A Peaceable & Temperate Plea for Paul’s Presbytery in Scotland... (London, 1642), ch. 3, p. 34. See also, ‘The 5th Commandment does not Take Precedence Over 6th Commandment’.
6. Order (which includes church membership altogether) is ethically secondary to more fundamental ethical concerns,¹ and Natural Law, in Necessity, Over-Rules Positive Law when They Conflict. To exalt good order over every other possible moral or spiritual obligation in church members and their health is ecclesiastical tyranny, and church authority can only oblige obedience, or discipline disobedience, in concurrence with moral law.²
¹ Rutherford: “I conceive all jurisdiction of man over man to be as it were artificial and positive…” “Reformation of religion is a personal act that belongs to all, even to any one private person according to his place… For my acts and duties of defending myself and the oppressed do not tie my conscience conditionally, so the king [or any jurisdiction] consent, but absolutely, as all duties of the law of nature do (Jer. 22:3; Prov. 24:11; Isa. 58:6; 1:17).” Lex Rex… (1644; Edinburgh: Ogle, 1843), question 2, pp. 2, xxiii. See the Intro to ‘On the Ordinances, Order & Policy of the Church’.
² ‘How Church Rulings Do & Do Not Bind, on Guilt & Innocence in Breaking Them’
7. If you can be received into another church by your profession of faith (as in the practice of presbyterian churches; see Rutherford below), then receiving a letter of transfer or other procedural certificate is not absolutely necessary.
8. Scandal is not simply displeasing people, taking offense where none is given is sinful and occasioning passive scandal may be justified by a morally necessary or higher good.
9. Baxter rightly taught: “where churches are near and there is no great hurt or disorder [that] will follow it, you may join with another church without removing your dwelling: But this you may not do when the hurt to the public is like[ly] to be greater than the good to you.”ª When the good to you, in this matter, is likely to be greater than the hurt to the public, the action is ethical. This should also be qualified by what Rutherford rightly taught: “The obligation to care for my own salvation is more principal than my obligation to care for the salvation of my brother…” (see the reasons for this).º
ª Baxter, The Cure of Church Divisions… (London, 1670), Direction 36, p. 204
º ‘On Love of God, Self-Love & Love for those Close to Us, in Relation to Others’
10. There may be good and sufficient reasons not to meet with the elders in the circumstances they require (especially when they will not allow other accommodations). If you do not need permission from them to leave, you are not beholden to justify your leaving to them with your reason(s). It is not always appropriate to give one’s personal reasons to others (by nature’s light and laws), even to elders.† If your elders think they have a right to your personal reasons for doing something that is not inherently wrong, your situation cannot be distinguished from a system of spiritual abuse.¹ If you are to follow elders so far as they follow Christ (1 Cor. 11:1), then you are not to follow them so far as they do not follow Christ.
† ‘Is it Morally Lawful to Decline to Answer All Questions, or to Plead the American 5th Amendment?’ (It may be)
¹ See ‘Pressure to do what You’re Not Comfortable with’ on the page, ‘On Cultic Characteristics’.
11. Where an adult has not done wrong, the consent of the governed, by God-given natural law, is a necessary requisite and has in part sustained the person in the relationship.† When that consent is withdrawn, for sufficient reasons known to the individual, it morally terminates that relationship (cf. Num. 16:21; Rom. 16:17; 2 Cor. 6:17; 2 Thess. 3:6; 1 Tim. 6:4-5).¹ Good public and procedural order flows out of and is contoured around those parameters, if it is safe, decent and profitable so to do. The alternative is slavery. When having consented to church membership (your consent being a requisite for it), it was in the Lord (1 Thess. 5:12) and implicitly qualified by² and conditioned on the whole of his Word, including that it be unto edification (Eph. 4:11-12; 1 Cor. 14:26; 2 Cor. 10:8; 13:10).
† Rutherford: “Every man by [pure] nature is a free-man born…” “Because freedom is natural to all…” “As a man may not make away his liberty without his own consent…” “Man by nature is under government paternal, not politic properly, but by the free consent of his will.” Lex Rex… (1644; Edinburgh: Ogle, 1843), question 13, pp. 51, 53
¹ In addition, as Rutherford rightly taught, another requisite to membership is “their near association, by dwelling where they may edify or scandalize one another, [as this] gives them right to be an associated Church…” A Survey of the Survey of that Sum of Church-Discipline penned by Mr. Thomas Hooker… (London, 1658), bk. 2, ch. 3, p. 190. As this is the case, so the ceasing of that ability and right also terminates the relationship, as is evidenced in the Bible verses cited. John Corbet: “that relation, and [I being] made uncapable of it… consequently the said capacity ceasing, the obligation ceases.” The Nonconformist’s Plea for Lay-Communion with the Church of England (London: 1683), pt. 2, p. 19
² See ‘All Vows are Qualified’.
12. The church is able to remove you from the rolls apart from church discipline: ‘That Removing from the Rolls and/or Erasure, in some Cases, is Natural, Biblical & Possible and/or Necessary’. The general principle of 1 Cor. 7:15 (though set in a different context) applies: if any “depart, let him depart. A brother or a sister is not under bondage in such cases: but God hath called us to peace.”
13. If you are nonetheless admonished, rebuked or done worse by your session of elders (which is church discipline) apart from due process† for leaving and remaining silent, they not knowing your reasons (which may justify the action, the action not being inherently wrong), they holding you guilty until proven innocent, it is a folly and shame unto them (Prov. 18:13). To conclude that you are wrong in the matter, that you have no sufficiently justifying reasons they might not know about (there is a lot they don’t know), wouldn’t they have to be omniscient?
† For a summary of the historic Church of Scotland on this process, according to its constitution, see William Mair, A Digest of Laws & Decisions Ecclesiastical & Civil Relating to the Constitution, Practice & Affairs of the Church of Scotland… (Edinburgh: Blackwood, 1887), ch. 15, p. 221 ff.
Elders that do this will shortly be treading over and abusing persons with sincere consciences morally obeying the Lord in faith, whether they realize it or not. “But why dost thou judge thy brother?… for we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ.” (Rom. 14:10) If you fall victim to this, know that erroneous Church discipline is null and void and “rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven.” (Mt. 5:11-12)
14. It is better that numerous who are guilty get off than the innocent be condemned. (Dt. 19:15)
15. If one were required to hazard personal safety for church government procedures or stipulations of elders,ª Christ’s Church would have power for destruction and could be weaponized and turned into a bear-trap (all in the name of Christ).º But Christ’s house is a free society† for all those that walk uprightly serving their Lord, apart from the binding of any man-made traditions (Mt. 15:9; Col. 2:20-23). Gal. 5:1, “Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.”
ª ‘Declining a Church Order without Scandal or Contempt does Not Incur Guilt’
º See ‘The Trap’ in the Intro on the page, ‘On Cultic Characteristics’, and the cultic characteristic, ‘Hard to Leave’.
† Rutherford speaks of “All free societies” in reference to the Church: A Survey of the Survey of that Sum of Church-Discipline Penned by Mr. Thomas Hooker... (London: J.G., 1658), bk. 3, ch. 1, p. 287; David Dickson: “the free society of the Church…” A Brief Explication of the other Fifty Psalms, from Ps. 50 to Ps. 100 (London: Smith, 1663), on Ps. 61:1-3, p. 64; Owen: “The Light of Reason, and the fundamental constitutive principles of all free societies, such as the Church is…” A Discourse concerning Evangelical Love... (London, 1672), ch. 5, p. 235; Owen: “the City of God and the people of Christ therein, which is indeed the only true free society in the world…” An Enquiry into the Original, Nature, Institution, Power, Order and Communion of Evangelical Churches... (London: Richardson, 1681), ch. 11, p. 225.
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Close
Those who teach that a person may only leave a church by (1) letter of transfer, (2) excommunication or (3) death, are infected with Biblicism and are terribly mistaken. God’s Moral Law will do.† “Dear brethren, yield to the clear and evident truth of God.”‡
† See ‘Fundamentally, God Only is the One Lawgiver’ and ‘Law Arises out of the Circumstances’.
‡ Rutherford, Due Right of Presbyteries, pt. 2, ch. 4, section 5, p. 199
Delineating what reasons are sufficient (or not) for a church member leaving has been deliberately omitted, as the issue may be highly circumstantial, even varying person by person, and any such list would inevitably leave out unthought of reasons that ought to be included. Given all possible circumstances which may occur throughout the world and time, potential justifying reasons for a church member leaving for another church are not only widely diverse, but innumerable. Yet leaving for greater spiritual profit (1 Cor. 14:26) and/or safety may be justifiably put on that list, and the general rule holds: one should leave if it is better to do so; if it is not better, one should not leave. Fulfilling good, and the highest good one can, is part of God’s moral law (Ps. 34:14; 37:16; 69:30-31; 118:8; Prov. 15:16-17; 16:8, 16, 32; 27:5; Eccl. 4:9; 5:5; 7:5; Song 1:2; Isa. 7:15; Hos. 2:7; Amos 5:14; Mt. 12:11-13; 18:8-9; Lk. 5:39; 10:42; 1 Cor. 7:9, 38; 1 Pet. 3:11) and is morally binding.
As the greater has been demonstrated, so the lesser follows: the above and below material also applies to missing church functions due to sufficient personal circumstances and reasons, including self-care and upkeep: permission is not required. God’s Law is a “perfect law of liberty” and whoever walks therein, “this man shall be blessed in his deed.” (James 1:25)
May the material on this page be a great blessing to you in understanding and walking in the will of God.
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One may Leave a Particular Church without Permission from the Church, Due to Moral Necessities & Providence
Order of
Articles 2
Quotes 8
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Articles
1600’s
Baxter, Richard – Title 7, ‘Directions to Merchants, Factors [Agents], Chaplains, Travellers that live among Infidels’ in A Christian Directory (London: White, 1673), pt. 4, ch. 19, pp. 131-36
Jackson, John – Sermon 26, ‘How Shall Those Merchants Keep up the Life of Religion, who, while at Home, Enjoyed All Gospel-Ordinances, and when Abroad, are not only Destitute of Them, but Exposed to Persecution? Ps. 120:5’ in Puritan Sermons, vol. 1 This Jackson was not the Westminster divine.
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Quotes
Order of
Cotton
English Puritans
Rathband
Rutherford
Hudson
Durham
Voet
Baxter
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1600’s
John Cotton
God’s Promise to his Plantation, as it was delivered in a Sermon (London, 1630), pp. 8-14
“And thirdly, see God making room for us [the New England colony from old England] by some lawful means.
But how shall I know whether God has appointed me such a place, if I be well where I am, what may warrant my removal?
There be four or five good things, for procurement of any of which I may remove. Secondly, there be some evil things, for avoiding of any of which we may transplant ourselves. Thirdly, if withal we find some special providence of God concurring in either of both concerning ourselves, and applying [in] general grounds of removal to our personal estate.
First, we may remove for the gaining of knowledge. Our Saviour commends it in the queen of the South, that she came from the utmost parts of the earth to hear the wisdom of Salomon: Mt. 12:42. And surely with him she might have continued for the same end, if her personal calling had not recalled her home.
Secondly, some remove and travail for merchandise and gain-sake; Daily bread may be sought from far, Prov. 31:14. Yea our Savior approves travail for merchants, Mt. 13:45-46, when He compares a Christian to a merchantman seeking pearls: For He never fetches a comparison from any unlawful thing to illustrate a thing lawful. The comparison from the unjust steward, and from the thiefe in the night is not taken from the injustice of the one, or the theft of the other; but from the wisdom of the one, and the suddenness of the other; which in themselves are not unlawful.
Thirdly, to plant a colony, that is, a company that agree together to remove out of their own country, and settle a city or commonwealth elsewhere. Of such a colony we read in Acts 16:12 [of Philippi], which God blessed and prospered exceedingly and made it a glorious Church. Nature teaches bees to do so when as the hive is too full, they seek abroad for new dwellings: So when the hive of the commonwealth is so full that tradesmen cannot live one by another, but eat up one another, in this case it is lawful to remove.
Fourthly, God allows a man to remove when he may employ his talents and gifts better elsewhere, especially when where he is, he is not bound by any special engagement. Thus God sent Joseph before to preserve the Church: Joseph’s wisdom and spirit was not fit for a shepherd, but for a counselor of state; and therefore God sent him into Egypt. To whom much is given, of him God will require the more: Lk. 12:48.
Fifthly, for the liberty of the ordinances, 2 Chron. 11:13-15. When Jeroboam made a desertion from Judah, and set up golden calves to worship, all that were well affected, both priests and people, sold their possessions and came to Jerusalem for the ordinances’ sake. This case was of seasonable use to our fathers in the days of Queen [Bloody] Mary, who removed to France and Germany in the beginning of her reign, upon proclamation of [the] alteration of religion [to Romanism], before any persecution began.
Secondly, there be evils to be avoided that may warrant removal:
First, when some grievous sins overspread a country that threaten desolation, Mic. 2:6-11: When the people say to them that prophesy, ‘Prophesy not;’ then verse 10, ‘Arise then, this is not your rest.’ Which words though they be a threatening, not a commandment; yet as in a threatning a wise man foresees the plague, so in the threatening he sees a commandment, to hide himself from it. This case might have been of seasonable use unto them of the Palatinate, when they saw their orthodox ministers banished [by Lutherans], although themselves might for a while enjoy liberty of conscience.
Secondly, if men be overburdened with debts and miseries, as David’s followers were, they may then retire out of the way (as they retired to David for safety) not to defraud their creditors (for God is an avenger of such things, 1 Thess: 4:6), but to gain further opportunity to discharge their debts and to satisfy their creditors, 1 Sam. 22:1-2.
Thirdly, in case of persecution, so did the apostles in Acts 13:46-47.
Thirdly, as these general cases, where any of them do fall out, do warrant removal in general: so there be some special providences or particular cases which may give warrant unto such or such a person to transplant himself, and which apply the former general grounds to particular persons.
First, if sovereign authority command and encourage such plantations by giving way to subjects to transplant themselves and set up a new commonwealth. This is a lawful and expedient case for such particular persons as be designed and sent: Mt. 8:9, and for such as they, who are sent, have power to command.
Secondly, when some special providence of God leads a man unto such a course. This may also single out particulars, Ps. 32:8, ‘I will instruct and guide thee with mine eye.’ As the child knows the pleasure of his father in his eye, so does the child of God see God’s pleasure in the eye of his heavenly Father’s providence.
And this is done three ways:
First, if God give a man an inclination to this or that course, for that is the spirit of man; and God is the Father of spirits: Heb. 12:9; Rom. 1:12; 1 Cor. 16:12. Paul discerned his calling to go to Rome by his [Greek], his ready inclination to that voyage; and Apollos his loathness to go to Corinth Paul accepted as a just reason of his refusal of a calling to go thither. And this holds, when in a man’s inclination to travail, his heart is set on no by-respects, as to see fashions, to deceive his creditors, to fight duels, or to live idly, these are vain inclinations; but if his heart be inclined upon right judgment to advance the Gospel, to maintain his family, to use his talents fruitfully, or the like good end, this inclination is from God. As the beams of the moon darting into the sea leades it to and fro, so does a secret inclination darted by God into our hearts lead and bow (as a bias) our whole course.
Secondly, when God gives other men hearts to call us, as the men of Macedon did Paul, ‘Come to us into Macedonia, and help us.’ When we are invited by others who have a good calling to reside there, we may go with them, unless we be detained by weightier occasions. One member has interest in another, to call to it for help, when it is not diverted by greater employment.
Thirdly, there is another providence of God concurring in both these, that is, when a man’s calling and person is free, and not tied by parents, or magistrates, or other people that have interest in him. Or when abroad he may do himself and others more good than he can do at home. Here is then an eye of God that opens a door there, and sets him loose here, inclines his heart that way, and outlooks all difficulties. When God makes room for us, no binding here, and an open way there, in such a case God tells them, He will appoint a place for them.
Secondly, this may teach us in every place where God appoints us to sit down, to acknowledge Him as our Landlord. The earth is the Lord’s, and the fulnesse thereof; his are our countries, our towns, our houses; and therefore let us acknowledge Him in them all. The apostle makes this use of it amongst the Athenians, Acts 17:26-27. He has appointed the times and places of our habitation, that we might seek, and grope after the Lord. There is a threefold use that we are to make of it, as it appears there:
[First] Let us seek after the Lord, why? Because if thou commest into an house, thou wilt ask for the owner of it: And so if thou come into a foreign land, and there find an house and land provided for thee, wilt thou not inquire, where is the landlord? Where is that God that gave me this house and land? He is missing, and therefore seek after Him.
Secondly, thou must feel after Him, grope after Him by such sensible things, strive to attain the favor of your Landlord, and labour to be obedient to Him that has given you such a place.
Thirdly, you must labour to find Him in his ordinances, in prayer and in Christian communion. These things I owe Him as my Landlord, and by these I find and enjoy Him. This use the very pagans were to make of their several plantations: And if you knew Him before, seek Him yet more, and feel after Him till you find Him in his ordinances and in your consciences.
Thirdly, when you have found God making way and room for you, and carrying you by his providence unto any place, learn to walk thankfully before Him, defraud Him not of his rent, but offer yourselves unto his service: Serve that God and teach your children to serve Him that has appointed you and them the place of your habitation.”
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English Puritans
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 6th Position was that of the novel congregationalist Church-government of the New England puritans. Here the English, conforming, puritans respond to their arguments.
“It is one thing abruptly to break away when and whither they please, and forsake fellowship, another thing not to depart or remove habitation unless the congregation will give leave. Also it is one thing mutually to compound and agree not to depart from each other without consent and approbation, another to require a promise of all that be admitted into society that they shall not depart without the church’s allowance. If such a promise be required of all members to be admitted we cannot discern upon what grounds your practice is warranted.
First, you exclude all such as be not set members from the sacrament of the Supper, and their children from baptism, and yet hinder them from entrance into Church society because they cannot promise continuance in the place where they are resident for the present. Here we desire to be satisfied from the Word of God by what you require it. Did the apostles ever stipulate with such as desired to be baptized that they must abide in particular society and not remove thence without approbation from the Church? or did they deny the seals unto them, because they could not make any such promise? Was it ever heard of in the Church of God from the beginning thereof unto this day that any such thing was propounded unto or required of members to be admitted into Church-fellowship? That church-covenant which is [held] necessary [by you] was not in use in the apostles’ times, but the Covenant [of Grace] they entered into bound no man to this condition for ought we read. They did not prescribe it; no Church ever yet covenanted it as necessary to the preservation of the body.
Secondly, it pertains not to the whole congregation to take notice of, be acquainted with, or judge of the cause of every particular member’s removal. May not a servant remove from his master to another congregation? or the father bestow his son or daughter in marriage to one of another congregation, but the whole Church must be called to council in this matter? If the assembly once grow to be populous, of necessity they must be negligent in or weary of such an heavy task; and for the present, for everyone to challenge so much authority over [the] other is usurpation. Let it be shown that ever by divine right this power was committed to the Church and then we will confess it to be expedient and necessary. But till then we think the Church is over ridged in exacting such a condition of the members and the members themselves go beyond their measure as busy-bodies in other men’s matters and things whereof they are not well able to judge many times if they arrogate such power unto themselves; we allow not rashness, or precipitancy, pride or self-conceitedness; we know it is meet that weighty matters should be managed by council, but it is not necessary to bring every particular thing to the whole Church.
In the multitude of counselors there is peace, but over-many counselors oft causes distraction and different apprehensions breed delays. The nature of your church-covenant as you describe it infers not a necessity of bringing every such business unto the church, for you bind yourselves mutually to watch over one another and in love to admonish one another in the Lord, to prevent sin and to encourage in well-doing as it concerns every man within the limits of his place and calling. But this essentially ties not any man to a perpetual residence in one place, for then even occasional absence should be a breach of covenant unless it be by consent and approbation of the Church.
You say in your [church-]covenant you promise to perform no new duty to your brethren which was not before commanded of the Lord, but only revive and renew your purposes afresh of performing such duties to that particular body into which you are then to be incorporated, as were before enjoined in the Word. But in the Word of truth it is not commanded either expressly or by consequent that no member of a congregation should remove or occasionally be absent from the place of his habitation before he have acquainted the church whither he goes, and upon what occasions, and whether the place be dangerous, where he is likely to be infected, or safe, where he may be edified. These things are matters of weight and to be undertaken with advice, but the knowledge thereof belongs not to every particular member of the society. And the church shall burden herself above measure if she take upon her to intermeddle in all such occasions. Neither is it safe to commit the determination of such matters ever to the vote of the multitude or weight of reasons as they shall apprehend the matter. And if such business must be determined on the Lord’s Day, and to go before the administration of the Word, sacraments and alms, lest the holy things be polluted by notorious obstinate offenders, we fear the time appointed for the exercise of religion shall be profaned with unseasonable disputes. Instances might be alleged if it were a matter to be insisted upon.
As for the [church-]covenant itself which you mutually enter into, if therein you exact nothing but what God requires both for trial and stipulation, far be it that we should disallow it, but if ye contstrain men to meddle with things that belong not to them and wind them up higher than God would, and strain everything to the pitch that you seem here to do in this branch, a godly and sober mind may well pause before he make such promise. All members of the Church are not equally necessary to the preservation of the whole body; and if to the removal of some it were expedient to have the consent, not only of the whole society, but of neighbouring societies, ministers especially, it is very much to draw this to the removal or abode of every particular member. And if any man shall not intermeddle with every business of this kind, as questioning whether it does belong to him or no, or not ask the advice of the whole society, as knowing the most to be unfit to counsel in such a case, does he break his covenant therein and so commit a sin in a sort like the sin of Ananias and Sapphira? Judge yourselves if in other cases you would not censure this to be an high encroachment upon Christian liberty and a strict binding of men’s consciences by human constitutions.
May you not expect to hear from your own grounds that herein you have devised an expedient or necessary rite or custom to preserve the unity and prevent the dissolution of the body which never came into the mind of the Lord Jesus, the Savior of the Church, and that in so doing (if your exposition will hold good) you break the Second Commandment? Rites and customs expedient to prevent confusion for the time, let them be observed as customs expedient, and what God requires in the examination or admission of members, let that take place according to the precedents given in the Scriptures and the constant practice of the universal Church in the purest times. But to press customs only expedient for the time as standing rules necessary at all times, and for all persons to put that authority into the hands of men which God never put upon them, to oblige men to intermeddle further in the affairs of men than the Word does warrant to bind the conscience, and that under so heavy a penalty as the sin of Ananias and Sapphira, where God has not bound it, and to debar known and approved Christians from the seals of the Covenant because they cannot promise as settled members to abide and stay in the society unless they shall obtain leave of the congregation to depart, and to charge them in the mean season to be men who against light refuse subjection to the Gospel, this is that which we cannot approve, which yet we suspect will follow from your judgment and desire to be resolved of in your practice.”
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William Rathband
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) Rathband was a Westminster divine.
“…I intend not in this relation to set down all things which they [the New England churches] hold or practice in discipline or church-government, but such things only or for the most part, wherein there lies some difference between them and us, or other the best Reformed Churches. Neither do I intend to wrap up all and every one of the elders (much less members) of the New England churches in the same imputations: Forasmuch as it is most certain that though in practice they act generally all alike, yet in their opinion of things practiced, much more in the grounds and reasons thereof, some of them do not only differ from the rest but have stiffly opposed the rest therein, which I write to preserve the just repute of some eminent persons there from such censures and hard opinions as others of them, perhaps, may seem to merit and incur.”
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“Ch. 8, Of their Dismissing of Members from one church to another, or otherwise.
1. No person once thus admitted (as aforesaid) into any of their churches ought to remove thence without the consent of the said church first sought and obtained. For if he do, they hold that he breaks covenant with God and the Church and like Ananias and Sapphira lies against the Holy Ghost. Answer to 9th Position, p. 73; Apology of the Churches in New England for Church Covenant, p. 39; R.M. to E.B., p. 6. Inasmuch as they conceive their covenant binds them not to depart without consent. Ibid.
2. Therefore when any would remove, they require that he first give notice thereof to their church wherewith he is in covenant and lay before them (how many soever they be) in a public meeting both his reasons for which he desires to remove and also to what other church he would remove, and consult with them about both. Answer to 9th Position, p. 74; Apology, p. 20.
3. If upon examination they approve both of his reasons why and of the place whither he would go, then they consent, and giving him letters of dismission and recommendation to that other church, they send him away with their prayers and blessing. Ibid.
4. If contrarily they approve not, either the one or the other, they dissuade him from his purpose; if they prevail not, they will not hold him by violence (for that they cannot), yet they will neither give their consent, nor give him their letters of recommendation (though he were otherwise never so well deserving), nor send him away with their benediction as otherwise they would. Ibid. Yea, he shall depart little better than an excommunicate, as a covenant breaker with God and man, and as one that is wise in his own conceit and refuses to hearken to counsel. Ibid.”
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Samuel Rutherford
The Due Right of Presbyteries… (London, 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.”
.
ch. 6, section 1, pp. 328-30
“We see not how letters of recommendation, most lawful as we judge, and necessary, can resign ministerial power, a liberty bought with Christ’s blood (as you say) to any other church, for we think all the visible Churches are one catholic visible Church and should have a visible communion, and so that there is no resignation of ministerial power in these letters, but they are declaratory of the Christian behavior of the dismissed Christian. We ask if dimissory letters be authoritative and done by the church as the church, and how can a church usurp authority (by your way) over a sister church to recommend a sojourner to a church-state and church liberties and seals of the Covenant? one church has no authority over another. If these letters be merely private and merely declaratory, to manifest and declare the sojourner’s Christian behavior, only then he had power and right without these letters or any act of resignation, or giving away ministerial power, to be a Church-member of the visible Church to the which he goes. Therefore, he was a member of the visible Church to which he goes before the dimissory letters were written; and the letters do resign no right but only notify and declare the sojourner’s preexistent right, and so there is a visible Church and a visible communion of all congregations on earth, and must be an external power and authority in all for synods. Let our [congregationalist] brethren see to this.
[Margin note:] It is true, none should remove from one congregation to another without God go before them, nor can they change countries without God’s warranting direction, Gen 12:1; 46:4, but that such removal is a matter of Church-discipline, and must be done by a ministerial power, is unwarranted by any word of God.
3. [In congregationalism] The person to remove must be dismissed and loosed by the consent of the whole congregation (if conveniency permit) else he is not exonered of his church-oath made to that congregation; What if conveniency do not permit? then is he loosed from an oath without consent of the Church, which did by oath receive him. I thinkejusdem potestatis est(as the law says) ligare et solvere, ‘that’ Church ‘power which binds must loose.’
4. If the [man-drawn-up] church-covenant be an everlasting covenant, as Jer. 50:5 [which the congregationalists proof-texted], tying the man to the membership of that particular congregation forever, I see not how the church can use [letters of transfer like] indulgences and Pope-like dispensations against the oath of God, to break it upon light and frivolous reasons [such as moving, etc.]; for if God punish covenant breaking, so also should the church, and can by no indulgence be accessory to the breach of God’s oath; there is too great a smell of Popery, Arminianism, and Socinianism in this way in my weak judgement. But if the man be not sworn a member of that particular church by his oath, he is sworn a member of the visible Church universal, which our brethren cannot well say. Neither is any covenant called an everlasting covenant in the Scripture but the Covenant of Grace, Jer. 31:33; 32:40; Isa. 54:9-10, and that is made with the invisible catholic Church of believers, as is the Covenant [in] Jer. 50:5, and not a Covenant with one visible congregation; and what warrant has the Church to dispense with the breach of such an everlasting Covenant?
5. The testimony of other churches, if it be a warrant to you, in faith, to receive into the church such a one as a saint and a temple of the Holy Spirit, how should it not also be a warrant to you to cast out and excommunicate also?
6. The person coming from another Church, if of approven piety, is received, by lifting up of the hands, or silence of the church, as you say:
1. Have we a warrant from God’s Word for such a new inchurching?
2. Why is he not received by a church oath? as a minister transplanted to another church must have ordination and election of new [according to congregationalists], for to you there is alike reason.
3. If there be no need of a new church oath to make him a member of that visible congregation, seeing now he is loosed from the former, you insinuate his former church-oath did make him a member of a visible church, and so he that is a visible member in a church, is a visible member of all, and so there must be a visible Church-catholic, if there be a catholic visible membership in any one member, and so you destroy what you build.”
.
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…”
.
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…”
.
p. 104
“4. If providence necessitate him, as he is chased by persecution to one city, and is banished out of that, that he must fly to another and from that to another, and from that to a third, and is providentially necessitated to have no certain dwelling, as was Abraham and the saints’ case, Heb. 11:37-38; 1 Cor. 4:11, so was Christ’s case, Mt. 8:20…”
.
ch. 21, p. 119
“It is bad divinity to join the nocent [noxious] excommunicate[d] man with the innocent dissolved member.”
.
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.’”
.
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.”
.
ch. 26, p. 164
[If losing membership in a local congregation makes one not to be a member of the visible Church, then a pastor ceasing to be a pastor of a dissolved congregation would defrock him, as congregationalists held. Yet:]
“When the congregation is dissolved by persecution, the godly pastor [on the supposition of congregationalism] is cast out of his Master’s service by the nature of this [local-church] covenant [of the congregationalists], because he is faithful to Christ, and that by Christ Himself.”
.
bk. 2,ch. 6, p. 348
“Many martyrs faithfully perform congregational duties, yet does not Christ make good this promise [to build them on the Rock, Mt. 16], for when members are dissolved by banishment, they are thrown off the rock [Hooker had defined a local congregationalist church as those built on the Rock].
That which by our Savior is set down, as contrary to their comfortable union with and building upon Christ their rock, is being foiled [by governments banishing faithful local church members out of the local church] with the temptations of Satan and Hell, and being thrown off the rock [on the congregationalists’ definition], like the hypocrite, Mt. 7, who is the house built on the sand… and so by this interpretation the Lord’s dissolving of a church, which often is a work of mercy, and putting of his children to an honorable condition of martyrdom, and glorifying of God by suffering and scattering of his Church, as Acts 8:12, must be a throwing them off the rock Christ and a prevailing of the ports of Hell against them: contrary to the scope and intent of Christ in the text.”
.
Samuel Hudson
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), Question 2, ‘Concerning Private Members’, pp. 257-58 Hudson was an English presbyterian.
“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.
…
7. They that are only in the Church-catholic visible are not ‘without’ in the apostle’s sense [1 Cor. 5:12].
…
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.
…
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.”
.
James Durham
The Dying Man’s Testament to the Church of Scotland, or a Treatise concerning Scandal… (Edinburgh, 1659), pt. 4, ch. 7, ‘General Grounds leading to Unity’, pp. 320-24
“2. Whatever defects do not make union with a church and her ordinances sinful do not warrant separation…
3. Union with a church is lawful for those (i) whose callings lead them to a particular church and (ii) they can fulfill the duty of their callings without impediment, even if others fail to fulfill their duty…
4. Union must be maintained even if principles generally acknowledged in a church are not applied in practice…
5. Union must be maintained when the inconveniences following from separation are more harmful to the church than the inconveniences following union, provided that nothing makes union with a church and her ordinances sinful…
6. Union must be maintained when union with a church and her ordinances doesn’t require (i) personal sin or (ii) complicity in others’ sin.”
.
Gisbert Voetius
Ecclesiastical Politics tr. by AI (Amsterdam: Joannes à Waesberge, 1663–1676), vol. 1, ‘The Nature of the Instituted Church’, pp. 62-63 (PDF p. 67)
“That this covenant is not dissolved without the consent of this Church. Distinguish here direct dissolution from indirect, or that which consequently accompanies something else.
The former is when someone decides to migrate elsewhere of his own accord; cessation of actual and explicit communion with and in that particular Church follows migration. Here, a free person is subject to the judgment of no Church… Unless someone extends ecclesiastical unity and power with the Pontificals to all secular matters, ‘in order,’ as they say, ‘to spiritual matters’.
…
Furthermore, another departure is different from renunciation and separation or division, from exchange: just as one moves from one room to another in the same house, or from house to house in the same city.
The former is directly subordinated to the judgment and authority of the Church; the latter is not at all. For he does not depart from Christ and ecclesiastical communion who migrates from one church to another. But he does depart who through migration forsakes all external communion of the Church or even passes over to sects.”
.
Richard Baxter
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
“It [one’s membership in the universal Church] 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.”\
.
Direction 58, p. 290
“Eleventhly, [it is superstition] that he that is a member of one church may not communicate with any other but by the consent of the pastor and people of that one.
Twelfthly, that he that is a member of a church may not remove his relation to another church (when his occasions and personal benefit require it and the public good of many is not hurt by it) without the consent of the pastor and people of that church.”
.
Direction 59, p. 238
“There are many cases in which local separation may be lawful:
First, as if our callings justly remove us to another place or country.
Secondly, if our spiritual advantage bind us to remove to a better minister and more suitable society when we are free.
Thirdly, if our lawful pastors be turned out of the place, and we follow them, and turn away but from usurpers.
Fourthly, if the pastors turn heretics or wolves.
Fifthly, if the public good of the churches require my removal.
Sixthly, if any sin be imposed on me, and I be refused by the Church unless I will commit it.
In these and some other such cases a remove is lawful.”
.
A Christian Directory: a Sum of Practical Theology and Cases of Conscience (1673), pt. 3, Christian Ecclesiastics, Question 104, ‘Is a pastor obliged to his flock for life? Or is it lawful so to oblige himself? And may he remove without their consent? And so also of a church-member, the same questions are put.’ Baxter was a congregationalist.
“IV. As to the people’s case, it needs no other answer:
1. No member may remove without cause:
2. Nor abruptly and uncharitably to the church’s dissatisfaction, when he may avoid it.
But 3. He may remove upon many just causes (private or public) whether the church and pastors consent or not, so the manner be as becomes a Christian.”
.
On Withdrawing from a Congregation in American Presbyterianism
Articles
1800’s
Hodge, Charles – Discussions in Church Polity… (NY: Scribner’s Sons, 1878), pt. 2, ch. 12
section 1, ‘The Session says who are church members’ (1850) 190-91
“…asking the General Assembly to take such action in the case of members of the Church who remove, without certificate, or who fail, for a length of time, to attend upon the ordinances of the gospel, as will secure constitutional and uniform action throughout the Presbyterian churches…
It [a session or presbyterial court] can do what it pleases, as a Church court, provided it infringes on no article of its contract with other courts, and on no principle of the Word of God. It has no need therefore to go to the General Assembly to ask power to do what from its very nature as a Church court it has the right to do.
A session must have a right to say who are the members of the church over which it presides. It might as well ask for power to erase from its roll the names of the dead, as to seek authority to say that those who have left them and wandered off no one knows where, have left them, and are no longer under their watch and care… According to our view the sessions have all the power they need in this matter inherent in themselves…”
section 5, ‘Dismission of Members to other Churches’ (1873) 236-39
“It is a common infirmity with many men to wish their opinions turned into laws. They think certain things right and expedient, and instead of being content to act on their own judgment, and allow others to act on theirs, they desire their view of the matter to be made obligatory on all their brethren… Another thinks that a regular dismission of a Church member should be given only in certain cases, and he wishes his private judgment to be turned into a public law. In an extended Church like ours, there are few evils which ought to be more sedulously avoided than excessive legislation. Leave as much liberty to all concerned as possible, if you wish to preserve peace or union.
As to this question of communion, it is well known that there are two very different views arising out of different theories of the nature and design of the Church. The one view is that of the great body of the Christian world, and is the clear doctrine of our standards. It assumes that the terms of Christian communion are unalterably fixed in the Word of God, and can be neither increased nor diminished by any human authority. This is one great principle. Another is, that nothing can justly be required as a term of Christian communion, which Christ has not made necessary to admission to heaven. In other words, that we are bound to receive and treat as Christian brethren all whom Christ receives as disciples. We are not to make ourselves stricter or holier than He…
Every Church must receive, in fact, all whom she regards as the true followers of Christ. Therefore, the lowest terms of salvation are the highest admissible terms of communion. If these principles are correct, it follows that however restrictive are the conditions a Church may see fit to establish as the terms of ministerial fellowship, it must recognize as a sister Church every body which holds and teaches the fundamental doctrines of the gospel, however erroneous it may be in other respects; and, therefore, it cannot with any consistency refuse either to receive members from such Church, or to dismiss them to it. That is, so far as general principles are concerned. For there may be particular cases in which, for special reasons, it is proper to refuse to receive a member from another Presbyterian church, belonging to our own body…
The other radically different view of Christian communion is that which is characteristic of our Scotch brethren, and especially of the secession portion of them. They regard the Church so much as a witness for the truth, that they overlook its wider aspect as a “congregation of faithful men,” or ” the communion of saints.” They consider themselves, therefore, as joining in the testimony of any Church with which they commune; and they require all who wish to commune with them to join in their peculiar testimony, whatever it may be. Of course they cannot consistently commune themselves, nor allow their members to commune with any other than their own churches.
Even some of the leaders of the Free Church of Scotland seemed, at first, in danger of falling into this false theory. They were in their zeal for cutting off all communion with the Established Church [of Scotland], lest, as they said, they should vitiate their testimony. Happily for them and the cause of Christ, this was a passing cloud. That Church has adhered to the scriptural doctrine, which has ever been held sacred by the great body of Protestants. Christian communion is communion of men as Christians, not as Presbyterians, Methodists, or Episcopalians. We recognize those with whom we commune, or to whom we dismiss our members, as Christians, and as nothing more. We give no sanction to their peculiarities, whatever they may be…
We have so often heard the strongest feeling expressed by our pastors on this subject, that we are persuaded that any attempt of the General Assembly to prevent their enjoying on this subject the liberty wherewith Christ hath made them free, would be followed by the most unhappy consequences. We rejoice, therefore, in the wise disposition of this matter recorded above.”
section 6, ‘The Right of Church Members to Withdraw from the Communion of the Church’ (1873) 239-42
Hodge essentially held that such withdrawal is disciplinable, if such a person “neglects his duties” (p. 241).
.
Historical
Articles
1800’s
Hodge, J. Aspinwall – What is Presbyterian Law as Defined by the Church Courts? (1882; 1899)
‘May a Session refuse to receive a communicant presenting a certificate from another church? [Yes]’ 144
‘May members be received without a formal meeting of the Session [Possibly, under Presbytery]’ 144
‘Whom may the Session dismiss’ 145
‘May a suspended member be dismissed? [Yes]’ 146
‘How may a restored member be dismissed?’ 147
‘May a certificate of dismission be indefinite? [Yes & No]’ 147
‘May members be dismissed to another denomination? [Yes]’ 147
‘Is the Session the only body that may grant a certificate of dismission? [No]’ 148
‘Can members of a dissolved church obtain letters? [Yes]’ 148
‘When does dismission take effect?’ 149
‘May a dismission which is irregular be valid? [Yes]’ 149
Forms
‘What is the form of a regular certificate?’ 149
‘What is a form of a certificate of reception?’ 150
‘What is the form of a qualified certificate of dismission?’ 150
‘What is a letter of credence?’ 151
‘May membership be terminated in any other way? [No]’ 151
‘May a member connect himself with another church on profession of faith? [This is disorderly; may be struck from roll]’ 151
‘How are absent members to be treated? [May be erased]’ 152
‘May a member’s name be erased at his request?’ 154
‘How are members receieved and dismissed in other churches’ 156-59
.
2000’s
Wallace, Peter – 2. ‘But What if I’m Not Converted’ in “The Bond of Union”: The Old School Presbyterian Church and the American Nation, 1837-1861 PhD Diss. (Notre Dame, 2004), vol. 2, pp. 624-32
This traces the history in 1800’s American Presbyterianism of a similar but different question, whether a church member, realizing he is unconverted, may simply withdraw from the church, as such, without a trial for discipline. Thornwell argued yes; C. Hodge and others argued no.
.
Book of Church Order
Orthodox Presbyterian Church (USA)
Book of Discipline (2024), ch. 2, ‘Jurisdiction’, B. The Session’s Jurisdiction
“3. The names of members shall be removed from the roll of the church only by order of the session and according to the following provisions:
a. Members may be removed by a letter of transfer to another congregation approved by the session…
b. Members may be removed when they desire to be dismissed to a church of which the session cannot approve as a church of like faith and practice. If it appears to the session that the spiritual interests of the members will be advanced by their uniting with such a church, it shall grant them certificates of standing, and, upon being informed that they have joined such a church, shall remove their names from the roll and record the circumstances in its minutes.
c. Members shall be removed from the roll of the local church by ordination as a teaching elder [as their membership is then received in presbytery], according to the Form of Government, Chapter VI, Section 4.
d. Members may be removed by erasure according to the following provisions:
(1) When a member desires dismissal to a church of which the session cannot approve as a church of like faith and practice, nor a church which will advance his spiritual interests, and he cannot be dissuaded, it shall grant him a certificate of standing, unless the session institutes disciplinary action against him; on being informed that he has joined such a church the clerk shall erase his name from the roll and record the circumstances in its minutes.
(2) When a member of a particular church, whether or not he be charged with an offense, informs the session that he does not desire to remain in the fellowship of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, and the efforts of the session to dissuade him from his course have failed, it shall erase his name from the roll and record the circumstances in its minutes, unless the session institutes or continues other disciplinary action against him.
(3) When a member unites with a church of another denomination without a certificate of dismission, the session may erase his name from the roll and record the circumstances in its minutes.
(4) When a member cannot be found, the session may, after two years, erase his name from the roll and record the circumstances in its minutes.
(5) When a member, without adequate reason, persists in attending a church of another denomination in preference to his own, or persistently and over an extended period of time absents himself from the stated services of the church, his name may be erased from the roll according to the following procedures: he shall be earnestly and personally dealt with by the session. If this effort fails, he shall be notified that at a meeting of the session not less than two months later his standing shall be reviewed. The session shall inform him of the time, date, and place of this meeting and invite him to show why his name should not be erased from the roll. If satisfactory reasons are not presented, the session shall erase his name from the roll, record the circumstances in its minutes, and send notification to him.
(6) When a noncommunicant member neglects the ongoing exhortation of the session to profess faith in Christ and rejects the covenantal responsibility of submission to home or church, the session may upon prior notification erase his name from the roll.
e. Noncommunicant members may be removed with their parent(s).
f. Members shall be removed at their death. The session shall remove the name of the deceased from the roll and record the fact in its minutes.
g. Members may be removed by excommunication according to this Book of Discipline, Chapter VI, Sections B.5, C.1, and C.2.”
.
Using a Letter of Recommendation, or Transfer, may be Useful, Profitable & for Good Order in Many Circumstances, but it is Not in All Cases Necessary
Order of Quotes
Parr
Rathband
Rutherford
Weld
Cawdrey
Wood
Baxter
New England Congregationalists
.
1600’s
Elnathan Parr
A Plain Exposition upon the Whole Thirteenth, Fourteenth, Fifteenth & Sixteenth Chapters of the Epistle of Saint Paul to the Romans… (London: Eld, 1622), on Rom. 16:1-2, p. 314 Parr makes letters of commendation a duty of common Christian charity.
“Doctrine: We must if occasion require commend good Christians to others. So does Paul Phoebe here, and many others in his epistles. So did the brethren at Lystra and Iconium commend Timothy to Paul, Acts 16:2. So did the Brethren commend Gaius to John, 3 Jn. v. 3, and John, Demetrius, 3 Jn. 12. And in the primative Church it was so ordinary to give Christians letters of commendations, that he which acknowledged them not, was taxed as if he had denyed the faith.
And there is great reason for it: For first it concerns them which are requested to commend, that they may show their charity: Secondly, the commended, that they may bee holpen. Thirdly, them to whom, that they may do good to the worthy, and not be deceived by the unworthy.”
.
William Rathband
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) Rathband was a Westminster divine.
“…I intend not in this relation to set down all things which they [the New England churches] hold or practice in discipline or church-government, but such things only or for the most part, wherein there lies some difference between them and us, or other the best Reformed Churches. Neither do I intend to wrap up all and every one of the elders (much less members) of the New England churches in the same imputations: Forasmuch as it is most certain that though in practice they act generally all alike, yet in their opinion of things practiced, much more in the grounds and reasons thereof, some of them do not only differ from the rest but have stiffly opposed the rest therein, which I write to preserve the just repute of some eminent persons there from such censures and hard opinions as others of them, perhaps, may seem to merit and incur.”
.
pp. 6-7
“3. That the church may consist of none but real saints so far as in them lies: they hold the church is bound to make strict inquiry and take exact trial of all such persons as are to be admitted into church-fellowship: yea, so much and so long as until they have thoroughly approved their sincerity. Discourse of Cov. p. 10; Answer to 9th Position, p. 70; Apology, p. 2, 43; R. M. to E. B., p. 5; R. M. to T. S….
4. In which trial they use to require, first, letters of recommendations from other churches or persons absent. Answer to 32 Questions, pp. 28-29; Apology, p. 1.
.
p. 10
“7. When any member of any of the churches of their own way go from one church to another only as travelers or sojourners for the time, they are admitted to sacraments, only bringing with them letters of recommendation from their own church. Ans. to 32. q., p. 29. But when any such member comes from one of their churches to another to be admitted as a fixed member there, then he is not admitted (notwithstanding any letters of recommendation or any other testimonial or evidence whatsoever) without such a new examination as aforesaid, and as if he had never been examined nor admitted into church-society before. Ans. to 32. q. pp. 29-30; Ans. to 9. Pos., p. 62; Apology, p. 2, 7, 9, 35.”
.
Ch. 10, pp. 37-38
“2. By virtue of this church communion, they say, one church by letters of recommendation may give power to another church over any of her members for excommunication, and the ministers of one church may convey power to the ministers of another church for administration of the sacraments to any of their members. Cotton, Catechism, p. 7; Apology, pp. 2, 14, 26, 40; J.W. to T.S…
3. But without such letters of recommendations and formal granting over of such power, from one church and minister to another, it were unlawful in any case to administer any church ordinance to any church or members but their own or to admit them to any church communion upon any pretense whatsoever. Apology, pp. 14, 26, 40.”
.
Samuel Rutherford
The Due Right of Presbyteries… (London, 1644), pt. 2, ch. 4, section 5, pp. 195-96 Rutherford (c. 1600–1661) was a Scottish presbyterian Westminster divine.
“I answer, recommendatory letters can never give a Church-right to the Church-privileges of the seals of the Covenant: they do but only notify, manifest and declare the Church-right which the man had before.
Therefore, either he cannot in any sort be capable of the seals of the Covenant in another congregation than his own whereof he is an inchurched member [as upon a congregationalist view], which destroys all communion of sister Churches, or if he be capable of the seals in another congregation [which be the case], he was capable and had a Church-right in himself before he received recommendatory letters: yea, these whom we recommend by letters as fit to partake of the sacraments in another congregation, we presuppose they have Church-right to the seals in another congregation-visible than in their own whereof they are members, except our testimony be false. Therefore, before our recommendatory letters, the person of approved piety was a member of all the visible Churches about, hoc ipso, and ‘by that same reason,’ that he is a member of one visible congregation:
Yea Peter clearly insinuates that all who have received the Holy Ghost, are to be baptized, Acts 8:47, as Philip, Acts 8:37, and that if the Eunuch believed, he might be baptized. So that faith, to speak properly, does give us right to the seals, and to speak accurately, a visible profession of faith does not give a man right to the seals of grace, but only it does notify and declare to the Church that the man has right to the seals because he believes, and that the Church may lawfully give to him the seals, and that profession is a condition required in the right receivers of the seals in an ecclesiastical way;
But faith gives the right to these seals, and because the faith of the believer goes with the believer when he goes to another visible congregation than his own, that faith gives him right to the seals in all places and in all congregations: for faith gives right to receive Christ sacramentally, not in one congregation only, but in all, and a visible profession does as a condition notify this faith and Church-right in all congregations.”
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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.”
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Daniel Cawdrey
Vindiciæ Clavium: or, A Vindication of the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven, into the Hands of the Right Owners… (1645), ch. 4, ‘Of the Subject of Church-Liberty’, p. 41 Cawdrey (1588–1664) was a presbyterian Westminster divine.
“2. A second way of your communion of [congregationalist] churches, is, ‘By way of recommendation, as Paul in the behalf of Phoebe, etc.’
But this is so far from being any part of the power of the keys that it is a duty which a church or party owe to any Christian that is godly, not by virtue of any particular church-membership, but by the common interest of Christianity, yea, by the common right of humanity, even to an honest heathen, according to the Ninth Commandment, which requires us to bear true witness to our brother if we be thereto required. The letters are only declarative, of the good behaviour of the party, occasioned to remove to such a place.
Was this (think you) a part of the power of the keys delivered to Peter and the rest of the apostles? Besides, if there be any virtue in these letters, to admit a member into communion, is there not a like virtue in them to excommunicate one ungodly? And if these letters dimissory have power to admit a member of one church to be a member of another, without any new covenanting, have they not the like power to admit the pastor of one church, to be a pastor of another Church, without any new ordination? which yet, I believe, you do not practice.”
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Independency a Great Schism, Proved against Dr. Owen… (London: 1657), ch. 8, pp. 175-76
“[John Owen:] ‘To make men members of any particular churches, their own consent is required.’
If he mean this of an explicit consent (as I suppose he does, or he says nothing) it is fully disproved above; and implicit confessed [consent is] sufficient. A man that removes his habitation (as both he and we grant, it’s free for him to do) may, by setting down in another congregation and submitting himself to all the ordinances of Christ there, with performance of all offices of love to the members of that congregation, implicitly and yet sufficiently consent[s] to be a member thereof. And on the other hand, a man may not remove his habitation from a congregation wherein he has long consented to communicate, and yet remove his consent to be a member of another, as we see too much, in this loose and wandering age.”
[The last sentence means, that while it is ok to move and become a member of another church, still keeping fellowship with the previous church in principle, it is not ok to move and renounce the previous church that one had been a long time member of, as the Independents were doing in coming out of the established Church.]
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James Wood
A Little Stone, Pretended to be out of the Mountain, Tried & Found to be a Counterfeit… (Edinburgh, 1654), pt. 2, section 3, p. 250
“3. The matter that Paul recommend Phebe for to the Roman Christians was a duty of common Christian love, to entertain her kindly as a Christian, to assist her as they could in her affairs at Rome, a duty jure naturali [by natural law] incumbent to all Christians both conjunctly and severally. And so the recommendation for that on her behalf might well be directed to all, elders and peo∣ple.
But interest of concurring in actings of Church government, being not juris naturalis but juris positivi [by positive law], persons must be sure of special warrant and vocation for concurring in them. So that ’tis but a very sick consequence, if letters of recommendation for such purpose, as these for Phebe, may be (or if ye will, ought to be) directed to the whole Church, then ought the whole Church also to concur in actings of Church government and jurisdiction [as in congregationalism]…”
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John Owen
The True Nature of a Gospel Church & its Government… (London, 1689), ch. 10, pp. 225-26 Owen was a congregationalist.
“1. Where persons are esteemed members of churches by external causes without their own consent, or by parochial cohabitation, they may remove from one church unto another by the removal of their habitation according unto their own discretion. For such cohabitation being the only formal cause of any relation to such a church in particular, upon the ceasing of that cause, the relation ceases of its own accord.
2. Where persons are members of churches by mutual confederation, or express personal consent, causeless departure from them is an evil liable unto many aggravations.
3. But whereas the principal end of all particular churches is edification, there may be many just and sufficient reasons why a person may remove himself from the constant communion of one church unto that of another. And of these reasons he himself is judge on whom it is incumbent to take care of his own edification above all other things. Nor ought the church to deny unto any such persons their liberty desired, peaceably and according unto order.
4. It was declared before that where any persons guilty of, and under admonition for any scandalous sin, do withdraw from the communion of any church, their so doing is no impediment unto a farther procedure against them.”
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Richard Baxter
The Cure of Church Divisions… (London, 1670), pt. 1, Direction 58, p. 289 Baxter was a congregationalist.
“Fourthly, [it is superstition] that he who is a member only of the universal Church may not in transitu be admitted to communion with particular churches unless he bring a certificate from a particular church of which he sometime was a member.”
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Church Concord, containing: I. a Dissuasive from Unnecessary Division & Separation, & the Real Concord of the Moderate Independents with the Presbyterians… (London: Parkhurst, 1691), pt. 2, Question 2, p. 68.
“Also in case of removal of our habitations, or change of our family relations, or other the like reasons, it is lawful to remove from one church to another (without any unjust censuring of that which we remove from): And if the first church will not consent (after due means for their satisfaction) we may remove without their consent.”
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1700’s
New England Congregationalist Ministers: Benjamin Colman, Ebenezer Pemberton, Timothy Woodbridge, Simon Bradstreet
Gospel Order Revived, being an Answer to a book lately set forth by… Increase Mather… entitled, The Order of the Gospel… (NY: William Bradford, 1700), Question 14, pp. 28-29 Mather was also a New England congregationalist minister, however he was not a spokesman for all the churches.
“Q. 14. Is the practice of the churches of New England in granting letters of dismission or recommendation from one church to another according to Scripture and the example of other churches?
The reverend Author [Mather] refers to many Scriptures to prove the affirmative, but not one of them reaches the question or proves a dismission for this end, scil. to take a person off from being a member of one Church to be made a member of another. The epistles or letters he refers to are all apostatical or ministerial, not the letters of one church to another, some only excepted, which is mentioned as writ by the brethren, but [by the] apostle, on whose behalf they wrote, was not a member of their church; nor do they write to those in Achaia to receive him as a member, but rather as a minister, or as a Christian of eminence and singular goodness.
Indeed there may be a good use of letters of recommendation and especially among strangers, and where a member removes from one church to another, a mutual satisfaction may be labored after.
But we cannot but think such letters frivolous when in the same town and at two streets distance, a person known over all the town for an exemplary conversation prefers another’s ministry. Civility will constrain such persons to acquaint then ministers of their purposes and the same Christian civility obliges such a minister to acquaint the other pastor (if need be) to whose ministry they repair, that they have carried themselves well in his communion and that he hopes they may prove blessings in all other.
But as for the brethren, we need not go to them to make a second speech now to ask leave to withdraw and to render an account to every impertinent talker who thinks the man married to him and that his bed is broke into, or that there’s no just reason for a divorce.
Moreover, some people are forever dissatisfied; neither conveniencies of habitation, liking the others ministry, profiting under it or dislike of some customs and practices which he would willingly be rid of the light of, can satisfy. And what must the grieved person do further in this case? Why, truly he has done his duty and may hear and communicate where God and his own sober conscience directs him. Nor ought any minister of Christ to reject his claim to the Lord’s Table with him.
To say no more, our reverend Author having in a former treatise proved that persons baptized are thereby subjects of discipline, we think they all ought to be accountable to the society where they are, there persons being dismissed by the providence of God whether they have letters of dismission or not. Else by their principles, an ordained minister in London formerly of communion with a church in Boston, being called to office in a particular church and having accepted the pastoral care thereof, must first send over a pacquet to New England for a letter of dismission. And don’t you think he would be well employed?”
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On Missing Services due to Moral Factors Arising from Circumstances & Providence: Permission is Not Necessary
See also:
‘What Constitutes Necessity?’
‘Self-Care & Upkeep as Legitimate Reason for Missing Public Worship & Church Activities’
‘Law Arises out of the Circumstances’
‘Merciful & Necessary Works may take up the Whole Lord’s Day’
‘On Public Worship under Persecution’
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Westminster
Confession of Faith 21.6
“…God is to be worshipped every where… so more solemnly in the public assemblies, which are not carelessly or willfully to be neglected or forsaken, when God, by his word or providence, calleth thereunto.[i]
[i] Isa. 56:6,7. Heb. 10:25. Prov. 1:20,21,24. Prov. 8:34. Acts 13:42. Luke 4:16. Acts 2:42.”
[Note that worshipping God in public assemblies is qualified by when “his word or providence, calleth thereunto.” The sin prohibited is not declining from attending public assemblies simply, but only for the reasons of being careless, willfully neglectful or forsaking them, none of which apply when one one is absent due to moral and providential factors.]
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Order of Quotes
Bownd
Rutherford
Durham
Howe
Willard
.
1500’s
Nicholas Bownd
The True Doctrine of the Sabbath… Buy (Naphtali & RHB, 2015), ch. 12, pp. 225-238. This may be read in full in the 1606 ed. on p. 213 ff.
“12. Works of Necessity and Mercy on the Sabbath
And Whatsoever the Present Time Requires May be Done, Though not to God’s Service
…what things soever the time present necessarily requires to be done for our own furtherance, the commodity of our brethren, or the preservation of any of the creatures, which cannot be deferred unto another day without loss or hindrance, neither could any ways be provided before (for the occasion was but now offered),, though they do no ways belong to any part of God’s service immediately… though they do keep us from it, or call us away when we be at it, yet they are permitted unto us. We may lawfully do them, though they be never so painful and full of labor, without any offense against the law of the Sabbath, wherein notwithstanding bodily rest is so straitly [strictly] required, as we have learned…
Where he brings in the example of Elijah in this case, fleeing for the space of many Sabbaths together from the persecution of Jezebel, as it is set down more at large in the first book of the Kings.
“That And Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done, and withal how he had slain all the prophets with the sword. Then Jezebel sent a messenger unto Elijah, saying, So let the gods do to me, and more also, if I make not thy life as the life of one of them by to morrow about this time. And when he saw that, he arose, and went for his life, and came to Beersheba, which belongeth to Judah, and left his servant there. But he himself went a day’s journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a juniper tree: and he requested for himself that he might die; and said, It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life; for I am not better than my fathers. And as he lay and slept under a juniper tree, behold, then an angel touched him, and said unto him, Arise and eat. And he looked, and, behold, there was a cake baken on the coals, and a cruse of water at his head. And he did eat and drink, and laid him down again. And the angel of the Lord came again the second time, and touched him, and said, Arise and eat; because the journey is too great for thee. And he arose, and did eat and drink, and went in the strength of that meat forty days and forty nights unto Horeb the mount of God.” (1 Kings 19:1-8 [from the KJV, not Bownd])
Where we see that in this long journey of forty continual days and nights, which he undertook at the commandment of God, and that also for the safeguard and preservation of his live [life], he did flee and took great pains in traveling divers Sabbath days together [and was not attending public worship]. Such is the great liberality and mercy of God towards us…
…
And that I might not stand long in the particulars which are infinite, if there be any sudden eruption or breaking in of waters; if any casuality by fire upon men’s houses or goods; if any breaking into shops or houses by thieves, or such like; we ought so to meet with these present occasions, which by no wisdom could have been prevented at another time (for so they were now seen, nay they did but even now offer and show themselves), as may most serve for the benefit of men in preserving the creatures; which as they were made in the beginning, so are still to be preserved for his use. Neither can they decay without his great loss and hindrance; in so much that upon these occasions men may not only be absent from the church, but also if they were now in the midst of God’s service, they might safely depart from it; yea, sometimes unto the leaving of no one person in the church.
…
And further, that in such cases of danger we may go all out of the church, and break off the chiefest parts of God’s worship for a time, we have the example of the apostle Paul:
“And upon the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul preached unto them… and continued his speech until midnight… And there sat in a window a certain young man named Eutychus, being fallen into a deep sleep: and as Paul was long preaching, he sunk down with sleep, and fell down from the third loft, and was taken up dead. And Paul went down, and fell on him, and embracing him said, Trouble not yourselves; for his life is in him. When he therefore was come up again, and had broken bread, and eaten, and talked a long while, even till break of day, so he departed.” (Acts 20:7[-11])
Where we see that upon the Lord’s Day, when this casualty fell out even in the midst of God’s worship, and a little before the sacrament, that the congregation was for a time dissolved, and Paul the preacher, and the rest of the people, the hearers, came forth to succor this man, and then returned to perform the rest of God’s service that remained.”
.
1600’s
Samuel Rutherford
The Divine Right of Church Government (London, 1646), Appendix, ‘An Introduction to the Doctrine of Scandal’, Question 6, pp. 81-82
“God places acts of providential necessity as emergent significations of his approving will, which are so to us in place of a divine commandment of God’s revealed will, and these providential acts of necessity do no less oblige us to moral obedience than any of the express written commandments of God….
…
I may absent myself from hearing the Word when I find going to church may endanger my life, for non-obedience to affirmatives [affirmative commands] in a greater necessity is ordinary.
And therefore Christian prudence, with which the Wisdom of God keeps house, Prov. 8:12, does determine many things of scandal: And prudence is a virtue commanded in the Word of God, for a wise man observes times, and so will he observe all other circumstances…
4th Rule. That which is necessary, in specie, ‘in the kind’, as to go to Church and hear the Word, to come to the house of God and worship, may be, in individuo, ‘in a particular exigence’ of providence, not morally necessary, but the contradicent thereof morally lawful. David does lawfully forbear to come to the Lord’s house, if he knew Saul may kill him, by the way.”
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James Durham
The Law Unsealed, or a Practical Exposition of the Ten Commandments... (Glasgow, 1676), p. 134
“4. The manner of performing this worship of sanctifying the Lord’s Day in holy duties is required not only to be in public, nor only in secret, but [also] by the members of each family jointly, and apart from other families. For 1. It [the 4th Commandment] cannot be understood to require worship only in public together, because:
1. There may be in some cases no access to public worship, and yet the command of sanctifying the Lord’s Day lies still on, and no doubt by families.
2. Waiting on public worship is but one piece of sanctifying the Lord’s Day, and that but in a part of it; therefore there must be some other thing included here.”
.
1700’s
John Howe
The Works of John Howe, vol. 5, Containing the Treatises: On Divine Prescience and the Trinity… (d. 1705; Religious Tract Society, 1863), ‘Some Consideration of a Preface to an Inquiry Concerning the Occasional Conformity of Dissenters, etc.’, pp. 278-79
“Negative precepts oblige to every point of time. Affirmative do not so. He that is always under obligation to pray solemnly, is not obliged to be always solemnly at prayer. The worship of God is better than most actions of our lives; yet the saving of a town or house from fire, yea, plucking of a sheep or an ox out of a ditch, is sometimes to be preferred.
The most sacred, external act of duty becomes sin, when it excludes that which is more a duty at that time. How fatal, how totally destructive an error might it have proved, before, to the Jewish nation, always to have thought it unlawful to defend themselves on the Sabbath-Day! (as it was once said to have been; Plutarch, de Superst.)”
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Samuel Willard
A Complete Body of Divinity… (d. 1707; Boston, 1726), Sermon 172, Q. 60, pp. 584-88
“The whole Sabbath is not to be spent in public, nor yet in private ordinarily, except when the providence of God prevents the opportunity of public assemblies, which is wont [accustomed] to fall out in times of persecution…
2. Such as fall out extraordinarily, or on special occasions, which put unavoidable necessity of intermitting the proper duties of the Day; and if we do not attend them, we shall be further exposed. And of this sort are:
(1.) To fight or fly from an invading enemy: if not to be aggressors on such a Day, yet to stand on their own defense, when assaulted. The law of self-preservation calls for it, and the thing itself puts by duties of worship, and if this were not a duty, but unlawful, we should by it become a prey to them that hate us. And as to flying, when oppressed on a Sabbath by a prevailing foe, against whom we cannot defend ourselves, our Savior supposes it lawful, though afflictive, in Mt. 24:20, ‘Pray that your flight be not on the Sabbath Day.’”
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Historical
On the Scottish Reformation
Quotes
Margo Todd, The Culture of Protestantism in Early Modern Scotland (Yale University Press, 2002)
p. 28, fn. 14
“…rural parishes where people had to travel great distances to the kirk on Sunday often made exceptions to the two-sermon rule in winter, when return from an afternoon sermon would be made in the dark…”
.
“…the emphasis in the attendance campaign was on the two Sunday sermon times. There were a few exceptions to required Sunday attendance. Legitimate excuses included verifiable illness or childbirth, caring for young children, necessary travel–as for fisherman during their season, or for merchants overseas (though the latter were expected to attend protestant services when in port), unusual distance from the kirk and extraordinarily severe weather.
Not surprisingly, the last shows most frequently in the session minutes of Highland parishes in the winter. Mortlach’s elders, for instance, typically excused winter absences ‘for tempest of storm’ or ‘storm of water’. Sessions also relaxed attendance requirements in rural areas, where villages could be several miles from the nearest parish church; in Ayrshire, for example, a particularly isolated landward man was allowed to come very fourth Sunday in summer and every sixth in winter. In Orkney, Barbara Scletir escaped censure for absence when ‘keeping her bairn [child] who was sick and heavily diseased’; severe gout served to excuse a Perth woman.”
.
“There were, moreover, good reasons for a fourth of the congregation to have been absent on a given Sunday here [in Inveravon]… Then there was the distance that many of these rural parishoners had to travel to the kirk. This factor explicitly drove [the] session to adjust its expectations, ruling ‘in respect the parish is far dispersed’ that some absences would be tolerable, particularly in winter.”
.
One may Occasionally Attend other Churches on the Lord’s Day
See also ‘For Occasional Hearing’ and ‘On Occasional, Qualified, Material Conformity without Sin’.
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Order of Quotes
London Presbyterians
Baxter
London Ministers
Tallents
.
1600’s
The Presbyterian, Provincial Assembly of London
Jus divinum ministerii evangelici. Or the Divine Right of the Gospel-Ministry… (London, 1654), pt. 2, ch. 1, pp. 11-12
“But would you then have every man bound to keep constantly to the minister under whom he lives?
We are not so rigid as to tie people from hearing other ministers occasionlly, even upon the Lord’s Day. But yet we believe that it is most agreeable to Gospel order upon the grounds forementioned that he that fixes his habitation where there is a godly, able, orthodox minister, should ordinarily wait upon his ministry, and join to that congregation where he dwells rather than to another.”
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Richard Baxter
Catholic Communion Doubly Defended by Dr. Owen’s Vindicator & Richard Baxter… (London: Parkhurst, 1684), section 2, pp. 9-14
“31. It is lawful to have transient communion with an occasional assembly of Christians that are no fixed Church, nor the minister the fixed pastor of any particular church.
32. It is lawful to have transient communion with a church of strangers or neighbours, without taking an account of the calling of their pastors or of their discipline.”
.
Church Concord, containing: I. a Dissuasive from Unnecessary Division & Separation, & the Real Concord of the Moderate Independents with the Presbyterians… (London: Parkhurst, 1691), pt. 2, Question 2, pp. 67-68
“Nor is it any sinful separation or disorder for the members of one church to communicate occasionally with other churches of Christ, seeing our relation to the universal Church is more strict and inviolable than to any particular church as such.”
.
London Ministers
A Collection of Cases & other Discourses lately written to recover Dissenters to the communion of the Church of England by some Divines of the City of London (London, 1685), vol. 1, ‘The Non-Conformists Plea for Lay-Communion with the Church of England’, p. 45
“…he [Arthur Hildersham] lays down this as the character of one that does this innocently:
‘He only makes right use of the benefit of hearing such as have more excellent gifts than his own pastor’s, and learns thereby to like his own pastor the better, and to profit more by him.’ (Lecture 58)
That this is to be but seldom, we have the concurrent testimony of the Provincial Assembly of London, who upon this question, ‘Would you have a man keep constantly to the minister under whom he lives?’ do answer:
‘We are not so rigid as to tie up people from hearing other ministers occasionally, even upon the Lord’s Day. But yet we believe ’tis most agreeable to Gospel-order, upon the grounds forementioned.’ (Jus Divinum Minist. Evangel., pp. 11-12)
Thus it is resolved also by one of a more rigid way, who puts this question: ‘Whether members of particular churches may hear indifferently elsewhere?’ and returns this answer:
‘God will have mercy and not sacrifice, as distance of habitation, handing such a point. But most certainly members of churches ought mostly to be with their own churches…’ (Methermeneut, p. 72)”
.
Francis Tallents
A Short History of Schism: for the Promoting of Christian Moderation & the Communion of Saints (London: Parkhurst, 1705) Tallents (1619–1708) was a non-conforming English presbyterian minister.
“To worship God sometimes with those with whom we do not always is oft a duty and a special means to prevent, remove or greatly to lessen the sin of schism, and to promote that which is so desirable, catholic communion.”
.
‘And sometimes the main reason why they go to worship God with them is to show they hold communion with them; that though there be many things amiss, against which they bear a real testimony by their non-conformity, yet they go to them to show to the world they separate not from them, and the better to maintain that spiritual love which ought to be among the members of the churches of Christ.”
.
One is not Absolutely Obliged to Attend Mid-Week Services
Order of Quotes
Bucer
Gillespie
.
1500’s
Martin Bucer
On the Reign of Christ tr. Satre & Pauck in Melanchthon & Bucer in The Library of Christian Classics, vol. 19 (London: SCM Press LTD, 1969), bk. 1, ch. 11, ‘Setting Aside Certain Times for the Worship of God’, pp. 250 & 251
“…the two services which He wished to be held daily for his people of old [per Leviticus], in the morning and in the evening, to which only those who had the leisure might gather to hear his Word and to pray…”
“For we see very few people at daily religious gatherings, as those first Christians were accustomed to gather in the Temple. For some are impeded by the necessity of seeking their daily bread, others by religious indifference.”
.
1600’s
George Gillespie
English Popish Ceremonies (1637), pt. 1, ch. 7, section 7, p. 24 Gillespie was a Scottish presbyterian, Westminster divine.
“Cessation from labor for prayers or preaching on those appointed days of the week [by the Church], at some occasions, may be omitted…
3. …to leave work to come to the ordinary weekly meetings, they are only exhorted… for in one place where his [the bishop’s] antagonist maintains truly that the craftsman cannot be lawfully commanded nor compelled to leave his work and to go to public divine service, except on the day that the Lord has sanctified…
…the 9th Head of the [Scottish] First Book of Discipline [1560], which says: ‘In great towns, we think expedient that every day there be either sermon or common prayers, etc.’ where there is nothing of compulsion or a forcing command; only there is an exhortation.”
.
.
May One Attend a Different Church than One’s Family if One’s Soul is being Famished? Yes
Quote
1600’s
Samuel Rutherford
The Due Right of Presbyteries (1644), pt. 1, ch. 4, section 4, question 5, p. 71
“1. I see not how all these arguments [of Thomas Hooker] taken from moral commandments, do not oblige son as well as father, servant as master, all are Christ’s freemen, son or servant, so as they are to obey what ever Christ commands, Mt. 18:10, and with the Spouse to seek Christ in the fullest measure and in all his ordinances; and son and servant are to know their own heart, so as they have need of all Christ’s ordinances, and are no more to remain in a congregation where their souls are famished because fathers and masters neglect to remove to other congregations where their souls may be fed in the fullest measure; [If the sinful exercise of an authority over us releases us from God’s commandment] then the apostles Acts 4:29 & 5:29 were to preach no more in the name of Jesus, because the rulers commanded them to preach no more in his name.”
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.
.
“And at that time there was a great persecution against the church which was at Jerusalem; and they were all scattered abroad throughout the regions of Judaea and Samaria, except the apostles.”
Acts 8:1
“I commend unto you Phebe our sister, which is a servant of the church which is at Cenchrea: That ye receive her in the Lord, as becometh saints, and that ye assist her in whatsoever business she hath need of you:”
Rom. 16:1-2
“For this Hagar is mount Sinai in Arabia, and answereth to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children. But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all.”
Gal. 4:25-26
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Related Pages
Reasons for Not Becoming a Member of a Church
Natural Law Over-Rules Positive Law
Self-Care: Reason to Miss Church
Local Church Membership: Not Necessary for Sacraments
Habitual Non-Attendance, when within a Person’s Means, is Sinful
Not Absolutely Obliged to Attend Mid-Week Services
When One may Attend a Different Church than Family
Infants & Young Children in Service: Not Required
Local Church Covenant: Not Necessary for Membership
On Occasional, Qualified, Material Conformity without Sin
Whether Ladies have Right to Vote for Church Officers
How Human Laws do & don’t Bind the Conscience
Worship Includes Conscience Issues
Implicit or Blind Faith & Obedience
One Cannot Repent where One Cannot See Blame
Wounded, Afflicted & Troubled Consciences
On How to Decide Between Competing Duties
On the Ordinances, Order & Policy of the Church
How Church Rulings Do & Do Not Bind, on Guilt & Innocence in Breaking Them, & on Contumacy
Formal Ground of Obedience: Nature & Scripture, Not the Church
How Far Church Orders may Limit Christian Liberty
Church May Not Discharge What the Word Warrants
Objection: ‘If I only obey the Church when I agree, her authority is as Private Counsel
Declining a Church Order without Scandal or Contempt does Not Incur Guilt
5th Commandment does not Take Precedence Over the 6th Commandment
On Works of Necessity & Mercy on the Sabbath
Independent Churches have No Authority for Greater Excommunication
Congregationalism & Independency
Independent Churches have No Authority for Greater Excommunication