“As the Word of God is the life and soul of this Church, so this godly order and discipline is, as it were, sinews in the body, which knit and join the members together with decent order and comeliness. It is a bridle to stay the wicked from their mischiefs. It is a spur to prick forward such as be slow and negligent, yea, and for all men it is the Father’s rod, ever in readiness to chastise gently the faults committed, and to cause them afterward to live in more godly fear and reverence. Finally, it is an order left by God unto his Church, whereby men learn to frame their wills and doings according to the law of God…”
‘The Order of Ecclesiastical Discipline’
The Scottish Book of Common Order 1564
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Subsections
Positive Laws & Ordinances
Church Order, Policy & Ordinances
Jurisprudence
Historic, Reformed Books of Discipline
How Laws & Commands of Human Authorities Bind the Conscience
Authorities’ Mere Will, Determination or Judgment: Insufficient Ground of
. Obedience
Ordination
Excommunication
Extraordinary Call
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Order of Contents
Power & Nature of Church Discipline
Judicial Power of the Church
Church Discipline
Right of Church Discipline
Discipline: Not a Necessary Mark of the Essence of the Visible Church
Acts of Church Government & Discipline are Worship
Righteous Discipline: Binding unto All Visible Churches
Unregenerate Officers may Exercise Valid Discipline
Church Disciplines Sin as Scandal, Not as Sin
Practical Specifics
Error & Godliness’s Incompatibility
When Least Errors are to be Disciplined
Obligation to Step-Up Church Discipline
Waiving a Ministerial Requirement for Peace’s Sake
Quorum
Who May & Ought to Speak at a Church Council?
Barrier Act
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On the Judicial Power of the Church
Latin
Voet, Gisbert – Ecclesiastical Politics (Amsterdam, 1663-1676), vol. 4, pt. 3, bk. 4, Tract 1, ‘Of Ecclesiastical Power’
8. Of the Jurisdiction or the Judicial Power of the Church, pp. 798-800
9. Of Ecclesiastical Punishment or Correction & Censure, pp. 800-801
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Church Discipline
Binnie, William, Church Discipline, p. 98, 7 pp. in The Church
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On the Right of Church Discipline
Samuel Rutherford
The Divine Right of Church Government... (1646), ‘To the Ingenuous and Equitable Reader’, unnumbered page
“It is said [about the divine right of Church government] that, ‘All this is but a plea for a dominion of an higher nature, even over the consciences of men by censures.’
But why a dominion? Because a power of censures? Surely, if they were not spiritual censures, and such as have influence on the conscience, we should yield a domination were the business. But this power of censuring spiritually is as strong as authoritative in dispensing rebukes, threats, Gospel-charges and commands in the Word preached, as in censures; The power is ministerial only in the Word, not lordly; and why should it be deemed a dominion, and an arbitrary power in the one, and not in the other?”
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The Exercise of Discipline is Not a Necessary Mark of the Essence of the Visible Church
Samuel Rutherford
The Due Right of Presbyteries… (1644), ch. 9, section 9, pp. 287-8
“Other two questions here are shortly to be discussed, as belonging to this purpose, as: 1. Whether discipline be a mark of the visible Church? Mr. [John] Robinson says [that] the power of censures is simply necessary for the being of the Church; sundry of our divines affirm it is. So the learned professors of Leiden, and Ursinus with Pareus. Great Junius says [that] it is a note belonging to the Church’s order, ad decorum; the [Lutheran] Augsburg Confession leaves it out from amongst the notes, and so does Calvin and Whittaker, making two notes only: Word and sacraments. Learned Beza makes only the preaching of the Word a note, not excluding the other two.
I think distinctions may help the matter:
1. There is a power of discipline, and there is a care thereof. True Churches have a power given them of Christ, and this Robinson proves, and no more; yet the care to exercise the power may be wanting [lacking] in a true Church.
2nd Distinction: Right discipline is not necessary for the essence of a visible Church:
[1.] All our divines condemn Anabaptists and Pelagians, who plead that righteous men only, and such societies as have right discipline, to be true Churches.
2. Novatians and Donatists came near to them in this also, as we may see in Augustine. So Richard Field, Parker [and] Cartwright make it necessary to the well-being of the Church:
1. Because it is not indifferent.
2. Because it is commanded in God’s Word.
3. Discipline in the substantial points is immutable.
4. It is necessary in respect of the end.
And all this the learned Parker demonstrates to be true. But it is not necessary simply to the being of it: as a city may be without walls, a garden without an hedge.
3rd Distinction: The power and right to discipline is a propriety essential to the Church, and is not removed from it till God remove the candlestick and the Church cease to be a visible Church; but the exercise may be wanting and the Church a true visible Church, from which we are not to separate.
4th. Discipline is a necessary note and inseparable from a visible Church, whole, entire and not lame and imperfect. But a Church may retain the essence and being of a visible Church, and yet have no discipline in actual use, or little; and though want of discipline do leaven a Church, yet it does not (as Robinson says) evert the nature thereof and turn it into Babylon and a den of dragons.
Robinson will have profaneness and impiety, by absolute necessity, rooted out by discipline; but he is too hasty. Nay, not by public preaching of a sent pastor through absolute [necessity], but only through ordinary and conditional necessity. You bind the Almighty too hard.”
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Acts of Church Government & Discipline are Worship, in a Secondary Sense
Article
Ames, William – sections 17-19 in ch. 13, ‘Instituted Worship’ in The Marrow of Theology tr. John D. Eusden (1623; Baker, 1997), bk. 2, p. 280
Ames (1576-1633) was an English, puritan, congregationalist, minister, philosopher and controversialist. He spent much time in the Netherlands.
Here he carefully explains how Church discipline is worship in its relation to more primary acts of worship.
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Quotes
Samuel Rutherford
The Due Right of Presbyteries (1644), pt. 1,
p. 47
“…nor are acts of [Church] discipline necessarily tied to the Lord’s Day. They are (I grant) acts of divine worship…”
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p. 193
“Is it a fault to be members of a national Church? See if (Acts 1, 6 & 15) there be not a Church-meeting, and public exercise of praying, discussing of matters by the Word, choosing of officers, refuting of false doctrine? This is worship, and it is not the worship of a particular Church…”
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Henry Jeanes
The Want [Lack] of Church-Government… (London, 1650), p. 31 Jeanes was an English presbyterian.
“…administration of the Lord’s Supper is a more important and necessary duty than exclusion [from it], 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, as may be seen in the place before quoted out of Ames, bk. 2, [Marrow of] Theology, ch. 13, n. 17-18.
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. Now it is improbable that a less principal worship of God should be a necessary antecedent to a principal worship. There is says Rada:
duplex ordo naturae; alius ordo essentialis dependendentiae; alius est ordo essentialis eminentiae et perfectionis; qualis est inter excedens, & excessum.
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 of more essential eminency and perfection; as being more immediatly and properly the worship of God.”
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James Durham
The Dying Man’s Testament to the Church of Scotland, or, A Treatise Concerning Scandal… (Edinburgh, 1659), pt. 2, ch. 2, p. 69
“…this exercise of discipline for restraining of scandals is to be subservient to the preaching of the Word: which is the main and great edifying ordinance; Therefore discipline would be ordered so as it may not mar, but further that… 1. That no censure would be blindly or implicitly made use of, but both in reference to the party, and others, there would be instruction, exhortation, conviction, etc. by the Word going before or alongst with the same. In which respect (though improperly) censures may be some way looked upon as sacraments in a large sense in these particular cases, because there is in them both some signifying and confirming use; They being considered with respect to the end wherefore they were appointed.”
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Righteous & Valid Discipline in One Church is Binding unto All Visible Churches
Quote
Samuel Rutherford
The Due Right of Presbyteries… (1644), pt. 2, ch. 4, section 5, pp. 194-5
“…The case is not here as in earthly cities: a man who is a free citizen in one burrough is not for that a free citizen of all the burroughs and cities on earth; nor is he who is civilly excommunicated and cast out of his city privileges in one city, cast out of his city privileges in all other cities whereof he is a free member: and the reason is, there is not one common owner and Lord of all the cities on earth, who can give or take away, in a law-way, city privileges;
But the case is far otherwise in the privileges of visible Churches, for he who is a member of one visible congregation is by his baptism and sincere profession, and his professed standing in Covenant with God, a member of all visible congregations on earth, as he is baptized in all congregations on earth; and if he be excommunicated out of a single congregation, he is excommunicated out of all, and loses right to the seal of the Lord’s Supper in all visible congregations, as his sins are bound in Heaven to all also, for that one common Head and Savior, who gives him right to the seals of Christ’s body and blood in one, gives him right to these seals in all. For we worthily communicate with Christ in his body and blood, not as his body was broken and his blood shed for one single visible congregation, but as broken and shed for the whole Church-universal.”
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Unregenerate Officers may Exercise Valid Discipline
Samuel Rutherford
A Peaceable & Temperate Plea… (1642)
ch. 7, p. 73
“1. that the claim and title that a people has to Christ is not the ground why the keys are given to that people, as to the original subject, because they may have the Word, sacraments and keys a long time, and yet want [lack] faith in Christ, and so all title and claim to Christ: All which time they have the keys, discipline, and sacraments;
and I believe their acts of discipline, censures, and sacraments are valid, therefore the Church redeemed and builded on the rock Christ, is not the kindly subject of the keys.
2. The keys are given to professors clothed with a ministerial calling, whether they be believers or unbelievers, howbeit God gives them for the salvation and edification of believers.”
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ch. 18, p. 276
“16. If the power of the keys be given to believers,
as believers [as congregationalists say], because Christ is their King, Priest and Prophet, and all things are theirs, Paul, Apollo, Cephas, the world?
1. It is asked, if none have the power of the keys, but believers, and if all acts pastoral of preaching, binding and loosing, excommunicating performed by unbelieving ministers and professors be not hence made null, as performed à non habentibus potestatem, as if Turks and pagans had performed these? We think they must be null.
2. We think children baptized by unbelieving ministers
not baptized.
3. An unbelieving pastor not essentially a pastor.
4. If, because Christ is given to the elect, and all things are theirs, and so all ministerial power of the keys, it is questioned, if amongst these all things given to the believers, we may not include the magistrate’s sword, the king’s power, the master’s power over the servant, the captain’s power over the soldier, so that by that same reason there be no kings, no judges, no masters, no captains, save only believers, we see not how this
follows not, as well as that the power of the keys, and all things are given to believers, because Christ is given to them.”
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That the Church does Not Discipline Sin as Sin, but as Scandal
Quote
1600’s
Francis Turretin
p. 285-6, 290-1 of Question 31, ‘Does a legislative power properly so called, of enacting laws binding the conscience, belong to the church? Or only an ordaining (diataktike) power, of sanctioning constitutions and canons for the sake of good order (eutaxian)? The former we deny; the latter we affirm against the Romanists.’ under ‘Ecclesiastical Power’ in the 18th topic, ‘The Church’ in Institutes, vol. 3
“However, we think that no proper lawmaking (nomothetiken) power was given to the church by which she can make laws directly and by themselves binding the conscience; but only an ordaining power (diataktiken), which can form constitutions and canons for the preservation of peace and good order (eutaxias), which on this account do not bind the conscience by themselves and directly, but only indirectly in case of scandal; that these are… only an order by ministers; not of the essentials of Christ’s kingdom, but only of the external accidents and things indifferent; nor are they good per se, but only on account of circumstances and their relation (schesin) to the end.
…
IV. (2) …[Moral] Laws bind the conscience per se and directly, and a violation of them incurs guilt; but constitutions bind the conscience only indirectly, and a violation of them incurs guilt; but constitutions bind the conscience only indirectly and mediately in case of scandal and contempt. Hence the guilt arising from their violation is not properly on account of the violation of the constitution, but on account of the neglect of the authority which God ordained, and on account of the scandal given.
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On the Incompatibility of Error & Godliness
George Gillespie
Treatise of Miscellany Questions, ch. 12, ‘Whether a Sound Heart and an Unsound Head can Consist Together? and Vice Versa; or, Whether Truth and Holiness be not Insepararable Companions?’ in Works, vol. 2
“It is one of the greatest objections against the suppressing… of… errors and schisms: O, say they, this is a persecuting of those that are godly; this is a wound to piety, and the power of godliness.
I do not deny but there may be, and is, true piety in many who are somewhat infected with the leaven of false doctrine, and live in some erroneous opinion…
Those that are truly godly may in diverse things differ in opinion. Every error is not inconsistent with holiness, yet every error doth pro tanto [by so much], and proportionably retard, hinder, and prejudge holiness; and although the devil sow his tares among Christ’s wheat (I mean in the same persons as well as in the same church), yet who will say that a field of wheat is nothing the worse for the tares?…
And this I hold as a good rule in practical divinity… so error of judgment, if continued in, doth not only hinder growing, but makes a dangerous decreasing and falling short in true piety…
It is to be observed that sometimes the Scripture speaketh of an error of the judgment concerning the faith as a fountain and cause of ungodliness, profaneness… 2 Tim. 2:16-19; Gal. 5:4; 2 Jn. 9; as contrariwise, there is a light and knowledge which preserveth from sin and ungodliness, and leadeth the soul in ways of holiness and obedience, Ps. 9:10; 119:33-34; Jn. 17:17. If the knowledge of God, of his Christ, and of his Word, and will, and name and statutes, preserve us from sin, and lead us in the ways of obedience, then, by the rule of contraries, error of judgment in these things will ensnare us in sin and wickedness.”
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Richard Baxter
A Christian Directory: a Sum of Practical Theology and Cases of Conscience Buy (1673), pt. 4, Christian Politics, Ch. 12, ‘Directions Against Scandal as Given’, p. 81
“§ 10. 1. False doctrine is directly scandalous: for it seduces the judgment, which then misguides the will, which then misrules the rest of the faculties! False doctrine, if it be in weighty practical points, is the pernicious plague of souls and nations.”
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When the Least Errors are to be Disciplined
James Durham
Treatise on Scandal (1659), ch. 8, When Some Errors are to be Foreborne, p. 205-206:
“…there may be somethings truly errors that may and should be forborne [tolerated] in themselves, yet their consequents ought not to be forborne, and this also may be at one time, and in one Church more necessary to be adverted to than in another, because consequents of schism, faction, division, etc. may sometimes follow on the meanest [the least] errors.
And seeing these are always enemies to edification, even when they arise from the least ground, they are never absolutely to be foreborne; for to say, I am of Paul, and I am of Apollos, and for one to think such a man a better preacher than another, seems to be no great matter; yet when it begins to rent [tear] them, and to make factions in Corinth, it is not to be forborne, but to be reproved: And in the former difference of meats, the apostle condemns always the offence and schism that followed on it, although he did not peremptorily decide anything as to men’s practices, or censure for the opinion itself…
Thus the differences and errors concerning Church-government by bishops, and in the Congregational way, may, we conceive, in themselves be forborne in persons where they are not vented to the shaking and drawing away of others; but if pressed in practice, to the renting of a Church, and preferred or equalled to the true government that is established by the Word, in that case they are not to be foreborn, because then truth is to be vindicated, and obstructions to edification in the renting or distracting of a Church to be removed, and at one time more than at another, as such an offence does waken a schism, and disturb order and union in one Church or at one time more than another: hence we see, Acts 15, some things are put in that decree in reference to that time, only for preventing of schism and scandal…”
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On the Obligation to Step-Up Church Discipline in Order to Reclaim One’s Brother
Article
Rutherford, Samuel – pp. 297-8 of The Divine Right of Church Government (1646)
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That a Court might Waive a Ministerial Requirement for the Sake of Peace
Note that the below section concerns officers already in the Church, not necessarily those entering the Church’s government.
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Article
Durham, James – pp. 385-388 of pt. 4, ch. 14 of ‘What is to be done in order to union about divisions concerning doctrinal determinations?’ in The Dying Man’s Testament… (1659)
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On a Quorum
George Gillespie
English-Popish Ceremonies (1637), bk. 3, ch. 8, Digression 4, p. 189
“2. When we teach that the pastor or pastors of every particular Church and congregation, with the elders of the same, being met together, have power to bind and loose, we understand this, only of such places wherein a competent number of understanding and qualified men, may be had to make up an eldership: otherwise let there be one eldership [involving assessor elders] made up of two or three of the next adjacent parishes, according as was ordained by the Church of Scot∣land, in the seventh chapter of the Second Book of Discipline. Sine totius, etc. ‘Without the consent of some whole Church’ says Zanchius (In. 4. Praec., col. 756),
‘no man ought to be excommunicat. Yea I adde, if it be a small Church, and not consisting of many learned and skillfull men, Excommunication ought not to bee done, except the nighbour Churches be asked counsell of.’
And as touching the pastor’s part, Calvin says well (Book of Epistles, col. 180), Nunquam, etc. ‘I never thought it expedient, that the liberty of excommunicating should be permitted to every pastor.’ The fear of great inconveniences, which he thought likely to follow upon such a custom, if once it were permitted, makes him profess in that epistle that he durst not advise Liserus to excommunicate any man without taking counsel of other pastors.
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Who May, & Ought to Speak at a Church Council?
Intro
The early and medieval Church ecumenical councils of old invited certain lay persons to be members of the councils. The reformed Westminster Assembly in the 1600’s not only included as members persons from the English House of Lords & Commons, which civil figures were considered laymen, but also included other laymen of religious attainments who held no political or church office. Gillespie below affirms this in principle.
The principle is implicitly seen in Acts 15 at the Jerusalem Synod:
“And when they [‘Paul and Barnabas, and certain other of them’] were come to Jerusalem, they were received of the church, and of the apostles and elders, and they declared all things that God had done with them…
And when there had been much disputing, Peter rose up, and said unto them, ‘Men and brethren…’…
Then all the multitude kept silence, and gave audience to Barnabas and Paul, declaring what miracles and wonders God had wrought among the Gentiles by them…
Then pleased it the apostles and elders with the whole church, to send chosen men of their own company to Antioch…
And they wrote letters by them after this manner, ‘The apostles and elders and brethren send greeting unto the brethren which are of the Gentiles in Antioch and Syria and Cilicia… It seemed good unto us, being assembled with one accord, to send chosen men unto you with our beloved Barnabas and Paul…” – Acts15:4,7,12,22-23,25
There was a dispute on this principle and passage between the independents and presbyterians. The independents argued from this that laymen, in ordinary and regular circumstances, could exercise the keys of the Kingdom of Christ, the government of his Church, Church discipline, etc.
The presbyterians, on the other hand, rightly argued that laypersons may be present, speak to the issues (as appropriate) and that their general consent ought to be sought (they having a concurrence therein), yet the decisive vote, will and power from which the bindingness of the decrees attain, comes solely from the rulers of the Church, or the elders (as Church-governing power comes top-down from Christ in Heaven, Eph. 4:11-13, through his ordained officers, and not bottom-up, as in civil government).
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George Gillespie
A Dispute Against the English-Popish Ceremonies… (1637), Pt. 3, ch. 8
p. 147
“That such inconveniencie may be shunned, it is fit that when any change is to be made in the policy of a Church, not the clergy alone, but the elders also, and men of understanding among the layity, in a lawfull assembly, freely give their voices and consent thereunto. Good reason have our writers to hold against Papists, that laymen ought to have place in councils, wherein things which concern the whole Church are to be deliberated upon.”
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Digression 3, ‘Of the Judging of Controversies and Questions of Faith’, p. 176-7
“The subordinate public judgment, which is extraordinary, is the judgement of a council, assembled for the more public and effectual establishment and declaration of one or more points of faith and heads of Christian doctrine, and that in opposition to all contrary heresy, or error, which is broached and set a foot in the Church. (M. Ant. De Dom. de Rep. Eccl., bk. 7, ch. 3, n. 32)
From which council, no Christian man who is learned in the Scriptures may be excluded, but ought to be admitted to utter his judgement in the same. For in the indagation [investigation] or searching out of a matter of faith, they are not the persons of men which give authority to their sayings, but the reasons and documents which every one brings for his judgment.”
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A Precedent to the Barrier Act, 1707
Samuel Rutherford
A Peaceable & Temperate Plea... (1642), ch. 7, p. 83
“2. A representative Church may be thought a number sent by a community and elected to give laws absolutely tying, as if believers should say, ‘We resign our faith and conscience to you, to hold good whatever you determine without repeal or trial;’ that is blind faith; that we disclaim: all our rulers’ acts in our assemblies do bind, 1. conditionally, if they be lawful and convenient, 2. matters to be enacted are first to be referred to the congregations and elderships of particular congregations before they be enacted.”
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Related Pages
The Regulative Principle of Church Government