Practical Observations on the Discipline of Baptized Members

In Volume 8 of the Master’s Trumpet, we considered the relation of noncommunicant, baptized members to the discipline of the church.¹Gavin Beers, “The Discipline of Baptized Members,” The Master’s Trumpet, Vol. 8 (2019). Should such members be subject to the formal judicial process of ecclesiastical discipline up to and including excommunication? After noting that this question is essentially a practical application of Covenant Theology to church order, we surveyed some of the discussion surrounding it in the Dutch Reformed and Presbyterian traditions, as it revolved around two main positions. The first tended to see the church as a voluntary society and viewed excommunication in narrow terms, as the removal of someone from the privilege of communing at the Lord’s Table. The second considered the church as the sovereignly constituted people of God, including in its membership all those that God tells us to include, and it had a broader view of excommunication, as a member being cut off from the visible church. We surveyed the arguments against the formal discipline of baptized members and responded to each of these in turn, to establish the view that baptized members are under the whole discipline of the church, up to and including the censure of excommunication.

Having established this principle, we proceed in this article to deal with some practical questions of how this discipline might be implemented, at what age formal process should become relevant, and for what judicial discipline might be instigated.

Baptized Members and the Discipline of Instruction

The cases that arise in our kirk sessions that require us to look at this subject concern the process of judicial discipline. To address these properly however, we must see them in the broader context of biblical discipline.

The original 1789 book of discipline of the Presbyterian Church in the United States stated, “All baptized persons are members of the church, are under its care, and subject to its government and discipline; and when they have arrived at the years of discretion, they are bound to perform all the duties of church members.”²The Constitution of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, (Philadelphia 1789), 175. A proposed revision to the book of order in 1857 intended to replace this with:

All baptized persons, being members of the church, are under its government and training, and when they have arrived at years of discretion, they are bound to perform all the duties of members. Only those, however, who have made a profession of faith in Christ, are proper subjects of judicial prosecution.³Revised Book of Discipline Prepared by the Committee of the General Assembly, August 1858, 25. http://www.pcahistory.org/bco/pcusa/1858/rod.pdf. (Accessed 4 April 2019).

In changing the word discipline to training, the revision proposed to reduce the whole discipline of baptized members to this. While we believe this intention to have been misguided, the suggestion does highlight the vital point that training is a fundamental component of discipline.

The English word discipline is found only once in the Authorized Version of the scriptures, in Job 36:10, “He openeth also their ear to discipline, and commandeth that they return from iniquity.” It translates the Hebrew word מוּסׇר and, of its fifty occurrences in the Old Testament, it is rendered on thirty occasions. The word is derived from a verb (יׇסַר) which means to chasten, admonish or instruct, and it is one of a group of words found in Old Testament Wisdom literature that concern instruction and correction. It is twice translated “instruction,” in Prov. 1:1-3:

The proverbs of Solomon the son of David, king of Israel; To know wisdom and instruction; to perceive the words of understanding; To receive the instruction of wisdom, justice, and judgment, and equity.

The English word discipline reflects this broader meaning as it is derived from the Latin disciplina, which means instruction. This is linked in turn to the word discipulus, meaning a disciple or a learner by instruction. The same thought is conveyed in the Greek word μαθητης, which is translated “disciple” in the New Testament. where a disciple is one who has been baptized in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and who is under the whole instruction of the church. Jesus says, “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations,” or literally make disciples of (μαθητευω) all nations, “baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen” (Matt. 28:19-20). Then, concerning the whole training and discipline of children, parents are commanded to bring their children up in the “nurture (παιδεια) and admonition of the Lord,” (Eph. 6:4), where instruction and correction are clearly joined together.

All the above terms help us to understand the biblical concept of discipline and therefore, long before we get to any judicial process, a foundation of instruction must be laid as the proper context in which this can function. So to be biblical in its approach to discipline, the church must be faithful in the following three areas of instruction of its baptized members.

Baptized Members Must Be Brought Up in the Context of Covenantal Instruction

This is something our forefathers were keenly aware of. In the Reformation period, as the Church moved away from the medieval sacramental system, which employed baptism and confirmation as means of conveying grace ex opere operata,⁴Latin, meaning, “by the work performed.” It refers to the medieval scholastic and Roman Catholic view that the correct performance of the sacraments by the church conveys grace to the recipient, unless he places an obstacle in the way of that grace. the Reformers emphasised the implication of baptism as a sign and seal of the covenant of grace, and the covenant privilege of instruction of the baptized member in and by the church. The largest section of an 1812 committee report to the U.S Presbyterian Church General Assembly on the question of the discipline of baptized members⁵John B. Romeyn, “The Duty of the Church in the Instruction and Discipline of Her Baptized Children,” in Home, The School and the Church; or the Presbyterian Education Repository, Vol. V, (ed. C. Van Rensselaer), 27-68. devotes itself to the church’s duty to instruct these members as the first element of that discipline. It notes that the Reformed churches of Bohemia, France, Holland, and Scotland required that schools be set up under the oversight of the eldership in every congregation, before appealing to the Synod of Dort, who decreed observation of a threefold method of catechising. The first, called “domestic”, was to be performed by the parents. The second was “scholastic” and was the responsibility of the schoolmaster. The third was “ecclesiastic” and was the duty of the pastor and elders of the church.⁶Romeyn, The Duty of the Church, 40. They were to be the instructors of baptized children, not only in connection with but in addition to their parents. As they exercised this responsibility, the children of the church would receive instruction and develop a relationship with their church officers, who themselves would be “accustomed to their company and trained up under their eye.”⁷Ibid., 51. This principle would agree with Paul’s counsel to the Thessalonians “And we beseech you, brethren, to know them which labor among you, and are over you in the Lord, and admonish you; And to esteem them very highly in love for their work’s sake. And be at peace among yourselves.” (1 Thess. 5:12-13) In other words, the pastor and elders would get to know and be known by the baptized members of the church in the process of instruction.

Around the same time as the 1812 report, there were various other discussions and acts of the General Assembly that had a direct bearing on the instruction of baptized youth. In 1809, the Assembly resolved that inquiry be made by presbyteries of all sessions within their bounds:

Whether a proper pastoral care be exercised over baptized children in their congregations, that they learn the principles of religion, and walk in newness of life before God; and that said Presbyteries do direct all sessions that are delinquent in this respect, to attend to it carefully and without delay.⁸A Digest Compiled from the Records of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, and from the Records of the Late Synod of New York and Philadelphia, (Philadelphia R. P. McCullough 1820), 78.

In 1816, Assembly recommendations were sent down to local congregations that they each establish a Bible class for the youth. A detailed course of instruction covering Bible recitation, doctrinal instruction, principles of worship, among other things, was supplied. This Bible class was to be in addition to the catechetical instruction referred to earlier.⁹Ibid. 108-111. Two years later, the Assembly of 1818 resolved that in each congregation, the privileges and responsibilities of baptized members should be regularly explained to them:

Resolved, the General Assembly recommend, and they do hereby recommend to the pastors and sessions of the different churches under their care, to assemble as often as they may deem necessary during the year, the baptized children with their parents, to recommend said children in prayer to God, explain to them the nature and obligations of their baptism, and the relation which they sustain to the Church.¹⁰Ibid., 111.

All these recommendations should be strongly considered by presbyteries and kirk sessions today, and with part of this biblical, catechetical, and covenantal instruction being focused on “the relation which they sustain to the Church,” they should be informed that their membership of the church implies that they are under her judicial discipline. This would leave all in no doubt, without excuse, and indeed with the expectation that the session has the authority and will instigate formal process against them as members of the Church, if so required. We saw in the previous article how Martin Bucer taught children of their relation to discipline in his catechism. After teaching them that the keys of the kingdom are in the hands of church officers and are used “to warn against and punish sins, to bind and excommunicate those who refuse to repent;” and “to loose and in grace receive those who desire to repent.” He asks the child:

What am I to learn from this?

Answer: To readily allow myself to be warned and punished; to readily warn my neighbour; to value highly, and diligently make use of church discipline and comfort.¹¹W. Van’t Spijker, ‘De Tucht over Doopleden’, Ambtelijk Contact, 1 November 1982, 6-9, https://bit. ly/2BLf920 (accessed 4 April 2019). Quoted here is the English translation by Pastor L. W. Bilkes of the Free Reformed Churches of North America, https://bit.ly/2Tar4QS (accessed 4 April 2019). See also Pieter VanderMeyden, Church Discipline of Baptized Members, in Officebearers Journal, Vol. 1, Spring 2018, 15-36. Theological Education Committee, Free Reformed Churches of North America.

Baptized Members Must Be Brought Up in the Context of Discriminatory Preaching

It ought to go without saying that all baptized members should be present from their earliest days, with all other members of the church, in the appointed worship services. They should not be separated from the congregation into their own “children’s church” while God is speaking to His church in the public preaching of the Word. Furthermore, as they are present, they should be addressed from the pulpit by the pastor in the sermon, as a specific group of hearers. Paul’s writing suggests a model of this as he addresses husbands, wives, parents, children, servants and masters, with the particular requirements of the Word of God to them (Eph. 5:22–6:9). Then, beyond addressing them directly in the sermon, pastors should be conscious of all baptized members in their pulpit preparation and pitch sermons at a level so that as many of them can glean as much as possible from their youngest years. His task is to communicate God’s truth and to feed Christ’s sheep, including the lambs of the flock.

It must be noted that those members of the Visible Church being addressed with Word of God are a mixed multitude. Not every member is united to Christ by true faith and therefore we do not presume our baptized members are regenerated. They need the whole Word of God, as it relates to their whole person and life, and so it is vital that the preaching is discriminatory and applicatory. This will serve as the first level of ecclesiastical discipline. Joel Beeke describes this kind of preaching:

Discriminatory preaching defines the difference between the Christian and the non-Christian. It is the key by which the kingdom of heaven is opened to believers and shut against unbelievers.¹²Joel Beeke and Ray Lanning, The Transforming Power Of Scripture, In Sola Scriptura, The Protestant Position on the Bible, ed. Don Kistler (Reformation Trust, 2009).

Such preaching will discriminate between Christian virtue and counterfeit fruit, between the healthy Christian and those who are backslidden in heart. It will strengthen true hope and shatter false confidence. Beeke defines applicatory preaching as that which “applies the text to every aspect of the hearer’s life and spiritual need. In this way it seeks to promote a religion that’s truly a power, not a mere form (2 Tim. 3:5).”¹³Ibid.  When baptized members are exposed to this kind of ministry, they will be confronted with the Law and the Gospel. They will be addressed with evangelistic preaching in calls to repent and believe in Christ freely offered to them, as well as with summons to Christian discipleship. They will be confronted with the obligations of the covenant, encouraged with its precious promises and pressed with their calling to bear the reproach of Christ in the world, as those who have given their names up to him in baptism;¹⁴Larger Catechism Question 167. In Westminster Confession of Faith, (Free Presbyterian, Glasgow, 2003), 257-258. fearful warnings will also be given to them against despising their privileges and of apostasy from the Lord.

Ministers of the Gospel should be conscious of their need to so discriminate with and apply God’s Word in their preaching, and the other elders in the session must employ their authority to ensure that this is taking place in the pulpit by holding the minister to his task.

Baptized Members Must Be Brought Up in the Context of Pastoral Visitation

They are among the people of the Lord’s pasture and the “sheep of his hand,” according to Ps. 95:7. This Psalm is taken up in the New Testament and applied to the Church in Heb. 3-4, whose members are warned not to do what Israel did in the wilderness in the days of Moses. As members of the Lord’s flock, Christ’s under-shepherds are therefore to tend to all baptized members in the exercise of their pastoral care.

The 1812 report calls this “one of the principal means of disciplining our baptized members,”¹⁵Romeyn, The Duty of the Church, 40. and quotes the whole of the 1708 Act of the Church of Scotland General Assembly anent pastoral visitation. That Act stipulated that the minister was to visit the homes of members of the congregation, going with the elder who was appointed over that parish district. After acquainting themselves with the needs of the family, they would prayerfully go for an arranged visit. The Act provides substantial direction in thirteen points, with the seventh concerning children in the home:

The minister is to apply his discourse to the children, as they are capable, with affectionate seriousness; showing them the advantages of knowing, loving, seeking, and serving God, and remembering their Creator and Redeemer in the days of their youth, and honouring their parents; and to remember how they are dedicated to God in baptism; and when of age, and fit, and after due instruction of the nature of the Covenant of Grace, and seals thereof, to excite them to engage themselves personally to the Lord, and to desire, and pray for, and take the first opportunity they can of partaking of the Lord’s Supper; to be specially careful how they communicate at first…. exciting them also to daily reading of the Scriptures and to secret prayer and sanctifying of the Lord’s day.¹⁶An Abridgment of the Acts of the General Assemblies of the Church of Scotland from the year 1638 to 1810 Inclusive, (Edinburgh, Abernethy and Walker, 1811), 344.

In summary of all that we have considered here, judicial discipline of baptized members is to be built upon and function within the context of thorough teaching. There is to be covenant instruction and catechism training by the elders in the church as well as pastoral visitation and counsel administered in the home. Discriminatory and applicatory preaching from the pulpit should take place at the heart of it all. In this way, the baptized member will grow up knowing they were being addressed, instructed, watched for, prayed for and loved by the pastor and elders of the church, so, in the event of discipline, they will not only know certain things about discipline, but they will know and be known by the people disciplining them.

Baptized Members and The Discipline of Censure

The conclusion of the 1812 Committee report proposed that baptized members who come to years and do not profess their faith in Christ should be excommunicated for this failure of unbelief. It was argued that this was consistent with the 1789 Book of Discipline that stated:

All baptized members are subject to the government and discipline of the church and when the have arrived at the years of discretion, they are bound to perform all the duties of church members.¹⁷The Constitution of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, (Philadelphia 1789), 175.

As it is the chief duty of baptized members to believe in Christ, their failure to do so was deemed censurable. It is our conviction that this conclusion not only lacks an important degree of nuance, but scripture does not support it. We will address this as we proceed now to examine the issue of what baptized members should and should not be judicially disciplined for.

Before we get into specific details, we need to clarify two things in connection with church censure. The first is to refresh our understanding of church membership. Church membership, as sealed by Christian baptism, is a recognition that a person is in the administration of God’s covenant of grace. Baptism distinguishes them from the world, engages them to Christ and his service; it marks the boundaries of the visible church, but it does not automatically entitle the baptized person to all the benefits of church membership. The second is excommunication, which is the public censure that recognizes the covenant of grace sealed in baptism has been renounced, and the person is being cut off from the church by Christ’s appointed ecclesiastical government. Bearing these two things in mind, the question of judicial discipline will be viewed in connection with what constitutes a violation or a renunciation of this covenant; this can be done in relation to profession of faith or moral scandal.

The Discipline of Baptized Members for Unbelief

The kind of unbelief we refer to here is not that of a baptized person who grows up in church and who comes to years but cannot say that he knows he has believed to the saving of the soul. They do not have the kind of profession of faith that will bring them to the Lord’s Table.¹⁸Reformed churches have not agreed on what constitutes a profession of faith required for participa- tion at the Lord’s Table. Some have looked for an objective confession of the truth of the Christian reli- gion that is uncontradicted by the person’s life. Others have sought a subjective confession of personal regeneration. A middle position between these two extremes, and which in the author’s opinion is the most biblical, is to require confession of the truth of the Christian religion together with a profession of heart willingness to rest on Christ, to count the cost of Christian discipleship and submit to Christ as Lord. The presence of such members may appear to complicate church life somewhat or bring a degree of confusion into someone’s understanding of covenant theology, but there is nothing in scripture by precept or example to suggest that such baptized members should be excommunicated. In the Word of God, they are still included among the covenant people of God. There is no precedent in the Old Testament for someone who was circumcised, growing up and being excommunicated because he was not able to say he knew he was circumcised in heart. Nor is there such a case in the New Testament of a baptized person being put out of the church for not being assured of his interest in Christ or having knowledge that he was born again.

This brings us to an intimately related matter, what constitutes a profession of faith? It is a question that the Reformed have historically wrestled with, and it is important to any who subscribe to the Westminster Confession of Faith. The Confession understands the nature of the visible church in relation to this:

The visible church, which is also catholic or universal under the Gospel (not confined to one nation, as before under the law), consists of all those throughout the world that profess the true religion; and of their children: and is the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ, the house and family of God, out of which there is no ordinary possibility of salvation.¹⁹Westminster Confession, Need which published edition (in the Free Press edition 1958, republished and reset in 1994, this is on pages 106-107) 107-108.

Who then are “all those that profess the true religion”? Are they only those who know they are born again? Or only those who come to the Lord’s Table? Do people who do not have the confidence to come to the Table, not profess the true religion in any way? Are they to be viewed as outside the visible church? Historically, the majority of the Reformed have answered that those who profess the true religion, and assent to the faith confessed by the church, and remain within her, should be counted as baptized members.²⁰A change takes place over this question in American Presbyterianism in the 18th century as a fall out from the ‘Halfway Covenant’ dispute among the New England Congregational Churches. As a result of this, covenant theology appears to have become more predominantly viewed in relation to personal conversion and a sensitivity to its corporate aspects was diminished. Remember that baptism does not entitle one to all the benefits of church membership: they will not come to the Lord’s Table, but they remain in the church, and if they have children and are bringing them up in the church, they will have them baptized. In relation to unbelief they will remain members until such times as they renounce their baptism and God’s covenant by professing anything other than the true religion.

So, a denial of Christianity in any of its cardinal truths would constitute a disciplinary offence. If someone were to deny the Trinity, reject the incarnation or engage in idolatry, this would be demonstrable unbelief that should be censured by the church as a renunciation of the truth of the Gospel sealed to him in baptism. It is not sufficient to remove his name from the roll of baptized members,²¹This was another issue in the Book of Discipline Controversy – the proposed revision advised they should be simply removed from the roll. he is in the act of apostatising from the truth and the church should warn, instruct, reason, and plead with him and, if he does not amend, then judicially excommunicate him because apostasy against Christ before partaking of the Lord’s Supper is the same sin in kind, but not degree, as apostasy after partaking of the Lord’s Supper.²²This thought concerning degrees in the sin of apostasy was gleaned in discussion with Rev. Michael Spangler and I am thankful for his insight.

Others who maintain this outward profession of faith and remain in the church should be probed, pastored and disciplined under the discriminatory preaching of the Word. They should be warned that the church is mixed and if they do not have true faith, they will perish among the chaff or with the foolish virgins in the day of the Lord (Matt. 3:12; 25:1-13). At the same time, they should be encouraged and drawn to hope in Christ if it is a lack of assurance of faith they wrestle with.  Someone may object to this, but if they do not believe in Christ, then they have broken God’s covenant and should therefore be disciplined. In response, we would say that God does not require the church to censure all sin, and especially heart sin. Adultery manifest in the life is censurable but adultery in the heart is not. So there is an unbelief that the Lord will censure himself, which he does not put into the hand of the church. but tells us that the wheat and tares will grow together until the end (Matt. 13:24-30).  Then there is a form of demonstrable unbelief that the Lord requires the church to act against when someone renounces their baptism by denial of the true religion or apostasy from truth.

The Discipline of Baptized Members for Moral Scandal

Cases of moral scandal predominate in the scriptural examples of ecclesiastical discipline. In Deuteronomy 21:17-22, the incorrigible youth was cut off from the people of God for his open rebellion against God’s Law and refusal to submit to the authority of his parents and amend his ways. Other Old Testament examples show discipline was to be administered for profaning worship (Lev. 18 – 19); for sexual sins, for example adultery, incest, rape, homosexuality or bestiality (Lev. 20); or despising the Word of the Lord and profaning the Sabbath (Num. 15:32-36).

The best-known case of discipline in the New Testament is recorded in 1 Corinthians 5, where there was an incestuous relationship between a man and his stepmother. Paul required the guilty member to be put out of the congregation (verse 13), by judicially handing him over to Satan for the destruction of his flesh and for his salvation (verse 5). This was to be done in the knowledge that unchecked sin would spread in the church, “a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump” (verse 6). In this case, fornication was a disciplinary offence, but he goes on to call for the same censure against “covetous, extortioners, idolaters” (verse 10), including “railers” and “drunkards” (verse 11).²³Paul’s list of those who will not inherit the kingdom of God 1 Cor. 6:9-11 and other similar passages are also helpful for direction in discipline, for example in Gal. 5:19-21.

There should be no question that a communicant member should be disciplined for such moral scandals, but this equally applies to baptized members whose baptism obligates them to live a life of covenant obedience to God, as much as it obliges the communicant member. God says to every baptized person what he said to Abraham. “Walk before me and be thou perfect,” (Gen. 17:1), and so the church is not to tolerate scandal in a baptized member’s life any more than she will tolerate it in the life of her communing members. There is one baptism (Eph. 4:5), calling all who have it to one standard of holy living by which all members are to be disciplined. Failure to discipline baptized members in this way has led to churches being filled with hypocrites. People grow up in the church and then go off and live as they please. No discipline is applied and they later think that they can come back to present their children for baptism.

Then there is the scandal occasioned by a person’s contumacy²⁴Contumacy is the stubborn refusal to comply with authority, in this case the courts of the church. against the authority of church courts. Jesus addressed this in Matt. 18:15-18. where he described the process of discipline from private rebuke to public excommunication. If through the process the person refuses to repent and then finally rejects church authority, Jesus calls for them to be put out of it. “If he neglect to hear the church, let him be unto thee as an heathen man and a publican” (Matt. 18:17).. This is the language of excommunication, and the church clearly has an authority to bind such by their decision, which brings us back to what we said about excommunication: it is the judicial removal of someone from the church and the public declaration that the covenant of grace sealed in baptism has been renounced so that they are no longer to be regarded as a church member. In this case the evidence of apostasy is their rejection of the ecclesiastical authority Christ has ordained in His church when they are doing what He requires them to do. In doing this they are not merely rejecting men but setting themselves up as an enemy of Christ. Such contumacy is a very solemn thing, as in principle. it is a rejection of God’s covenant by refusing Christ in the government of His church.

With all that we have considered here on disciplinable offences, let us inquire again into the case of someone who cannot say he has the faith to come to the Lord’s Table, but he remains orthodox in his understanding, upright in his life and diligent upon the means of grace. He continues within the gates of Zion, brings his family up in the church and is free of doctrinal and moral scandal. It would appear to be ecclesiastical cruelty to treat such a baptized member of the church in the same way that we would treat those who outwardly deny the faith by rejection of the truth, scandalous sin in the life, or rebellion against the government Christ appointed in the church. In this connection, the Book of Order of the Presbyterian Church in America gives wise counsel and specifies that adult noncommunicant members should not be excommunicated for their non-profession:

Adult non-communing members, who receive with meekness and appreciation the oversight and instruction of the Church, are entitled to special attention. Their rights and privileges under the covenant should be frequently and fully explained, and they should be warned of the sin and danger of neglecting their covenant obligations.²⁵The Book of Church Order of the Presbyterian Church in America, 6th Edition, 28-4, (Lawrenceville, GA. 2009), www.pcahistory.org/bco/rod/27/02.html (accessed 4 April 2019).

Baptized Members and the Disciplinary Process

We have provided the overall context for the discipline of baptized members in the covenantal instruction, discriminatory preaching, and close pastoral care of the church. After this we examined what should constitute a disciplinary offence. This leaves us to consider some practical matters toward a form of process that may be followed in the administration of discipline to baptized members. It should be noted that a procedure for the discipline of baptized members is not explicitly laid down in the Free Church Practice,²⁶The Practice of the Free Church of Scotland In Her Several Courts, (Edinburgh, Knox Press, 8th Edition, 1995). however much of what applies there to communicant members will be relevant to this case also.

When Should the Disciplinary Process Start?

An obvious practical question is what age a baptized member might become liable to formal church discipline. In the previous article we referred to Walter Steuart of Pardovan, writing in the early eighteenth century, observed that boys from the age of fourteen and girls from the age of twelve could be charged before the courts of the Church.²⁷Walter Steuart Pardovan, Collections and Observations Concerning the Worship, Discipline and Govern- ment of the Church of Scotland, (Edinburgh: W. Gray, 1770), 215. Pardovan writes, “When minors are convened before church judicatories, their curators are not to be cited as before civil courts, though they may be acquainted therewith, that their pupils may receive suitable advice and instruction from them. A minor, that is a male past fourteen, and a female past twelve years of age, may be called before church judicatories, when guilty; as for pupils under that age, it will be rare if ever they be concerned as delinquents, except “ubi militia supplet ætatem,” that is, where strength of nature is as far advanced in them as it useth to be in others of riper years.” In the society of that time, this agreed with the respective ages that boys and girls were deemed to have come out of their minority and moved into adulthood. They were also the ages at which it was legal for males and females to marry in medieval and early modern Scotland. To translate this into contemporary terms, the legal age to marry ranges in most Western nations between sixteen and eighteen years old.²⁸In North Carolina, USA, where the author resides, it is legal to marry from the age of sixteen.

There is evidence that the Reformed churches have always been sensitive to this issue of minority in relation to church discipline, so that parental authority and discipline was not usurped by the church. John A Lasco’s order for the Dutch refugee church in London, in the sixteenth century, is an example of this, and its form of process commends itself to us:

When they have reached the age of around 14 years and have not been taught sufficiently the principles of the Christian life or they live licentiously, and they despise the private admonitions of the brethren, then the ministers shall admonish and rebuke them in the light of the Word of God. The ministers also shall investigate the cause of their ignorance or licentiousness with the purpose to lead them to a godly life.

If it appears that the parents are in part to be blamed for their children’s licentiousness, then they shall first be admonished. If the parents despise these admonitions, then they shall be rebuked for their gross sin in accordance with Christian order and discipline. If, however, it appears that the children alone are to be blamed and not the parents, then one shall comfort the parents and consult with them as to how the unruliness of the children can best be curbed. In the meantime, the ministers of the Word shall reprimand and rebuke (though with wisdom) these children by impressing upon them the divine threats. If nevertheless in this way they do not mend their ways, then they shall not be admitted to the use of the Lord’s Supper until they shall have come to repentance. If despite keeping them from the Lord’s Supper and rebuking them, some one among these children is not touched but rather continues in all wickedness to despise his parents (which sin in accordance with God’s ordinance ought to be punished with death), then when he will have reached the age of 18 or 20, he will be excommunicated from the congregation as a despiser of the grace and of the covenant of God, and the congregation shall grieve over him for following the world. From the excommunication of such children, one can learn that it is not sufficient to have received the seal of the covenant, baptism, in our young years. We dishonour Christ while having his Name on our forehead, unless our life is in accordance with His Name.²⁹Van’t Spijker, ‘De Tucht’

The church would begin its formal disciplinary role when the member was around fourteen years old, that is just coming out of their minority but still related to the authority and care of the parent. From this time until the age of eighteen to twenty, direct admonition would be given to the member along with encouragement and comfort to faithful parents. The baptized member was liable to suspension from the privilege of the Lord’s Table at this age, but over the age of eighteen, when the person was in their clear adult majority, if all correction had been refused, they were to be excommunicated from the church.

The 1925 procedure of the Christelijke Gereformeerde Kerken also has a number of helpful points.³⁰Pieter VanderMeyden, Church Discipline of Baptized Members, in Officebearers Journal, Vol. 1, Spring 2018, (Theological Education Committee, Free Reformed Churches of North America), 27-29.

a)    It agrees in principle that baptized members are under the discipline of the church.

b)    This is to be applied in different ways at different ages: under sixteen years of age; from sixteen to twenty-one; and over the age of twenty one.

c)    Under the age of sixteen, the member should only be admonished, rebuked, and exhorted alongside their parents.

d)    Over the age of sixteen, they are subject to formal process and cannot be removed from membership without it.

e)    If they continue in sin over the age of twenty-one, they should be removed by formal process.

f)    It is expected that by the age of twenty-one, a profession of faith will have been made, but the form is careful to distinguish between those who are careless and in sin and those who remain faithful in the Church without liberty to confess their faith.

The steps in the procedure are: first, serious admonition to the baptized member. If there is no remedy, then an announcement is made to the congregation without identifying the person by name, while asking the congregation to pray. If there is still no remedy, a further announcement is made in which the offender is publicly named. After this step, the person is declared to be no longer a member of the church. Between each step, the person is repeatedly exhorted and admonished by the pastors and elders to repent. When the synod adopted their form of process, they also made provision for the repentance and return of the person who had been excluded:

Members by Baptism who have been excluded from the Church, and who later repent of their sin, shall be received again into the Church, after a period of probation, followed by public confession of their guilt and profession of faith.³¹Ibid. 29.

How Should the Disciplinary Process Proceed?

It was noted above that our Free Church Practice makes no explicit reference to the case of baptized members, however, Robert Forbes, writing in his Digest of Rules and Procedure of the Inferior Courts of The Free Church of Scotland, in 1856, comments on the exercise of discipline:

The object of church discipline is the glory of God, the purity of the Church, and the spiritual good of the offender. It is thus not so much a punishment as a privilege, and one of the ordinances of the New Testament Church. Its subjects are primarily church members; but the children of members who have arrived at a proper age, and all adherents, are also amenable to the Session when they fall into gross sin. The offences of which notice is to be taken before a Session do not comprehend every kind of infraction of the divine law, but those only which occasion scandal, or tend to bring reproach on religion, or to mar edification.³²Robert Forbes, Digest of Rules and Procedure of the Inferior Courts of The Free Church of Scotland, (Edinburgh, Johnstone and Hunter, 1856), 43. When Forbes refers to “members” in this statement, he is speaking of communicant members, the “children of members” are also baptized members of the church. “Adherents,” historically in Scotland, refer to adult baptized members who continue in the church but who do not come to the Lord’s Table. They adhere to the outward profession of true religion and attendance on the means of grace. It is the opinion of the author that this terminology lacks clarity and can lead to those termed “adherents” as being thought of as something other than members of the church. Throughout these articles, such adherents are considered as baptized church members.

According to Forbes, the church was assumed to have a locus in the discipline, not only of her communicant members, but also the children of such and her adult baptized members , here referred to as “adherents.” This being the case, the relevant steps of discipline laid out in the Free Church Practice should be followed in the case of baptized members. They may receive pastoral admonition; citation to appear before the session; they may be charged and evidence processed in connection with the charge; and if necessary, they may be censured and excommunicated.³³The Practice of the Free Church of Scotland, 88-115. However, a few notable differences specific to their noncommunicant status will need to be considered.

The first is that the censure of suspension from the Lord’s Table will not be available to employ against the baptized member. As he is a noncommunicant member, he has not yet been granted this privilege. This censure of suspension is usually referred to as the lesser excommunication, and serious thought should be given to it in the case of a baptized member, because, if this step is skipped, then the process to the greater excommunication is significantly shortened. As the church is to mix mercy with her judgment and to bear patiently with her members in seeking to recover them from their sin, to give space for repentance, consideration should be given as to how this should be done in the case of baptized members.

One way to address this might be to consider what we mean by the “lesser excommunication.” As it applies to a communicant member, it is not only their suspension from the Lord’s Table, but also the removal of other privileges of membership, such as the right to have their children baptized, or the right to vote in the election of office-bearers. Baptized members also enjoy some of these privileges, and so the lesser excommunication for them could be the revocation of these rights, for instance, the right to have their children baptized, for a stated period of time, in which the church looks for repentance and reformation of life. The suspension could be announced to the congregation with an exhortation to prayer, and the case could be reviewed at the end of the stated period, and either the lesser excommunication renewed for another period, or the greater excommunication applied.  The significant thing to note here is that a form of the lesser excommunication may be applied to a baptized member.

Another area for particular consideration is the way a baptized member is exhorted by the session throughout the disciplinary process. The Free Church Practice provides sample disciplinary procedures and advice to sessions on how they should speak to those being disciplined. The arguments and appeals made to a baptized member will be specific to their status as noncommuning. They will not be spoken to about a removal from the Lord’s Table, but they may be exhorted that when they should be giving diligence to make their calling and election sure, and laying hold of the privilege of the Table, they are on the contrary rejecting the privileges they already have, and shutting themselves out of others they should be laying hold of. They might also be addressed of the solemnity of rejecting God’s covenant and the danger of taking their children out of this with them. Not only would their own blood be on their hands but the blood of their children, and children’s children likewise.

What we are proposing then would look like this. Baptized members are to be brought up in the church in the context of covenantal instruction, discriminatory preaching and pastoral care. Under the age of sixteen, the session would usually exhort and admonish for delinquent behavior in support of the parents. At the age of sixteen, the baptized member would then become liable to the formal judicial process of the church in the following steps.

1.   Summons to appear before the kirk session.
2.   Charge concerning scandal.
3.   If guilt is established, the lesser excommunication to be applied in a period of suspension from the privileges of church membership they already enjoy. This suspension to be announced to the congregation and their prayers solicited.
4.   Session review of the case at the end of the stated period of suspension, and either a renewal of this suspension, or an escalation to the greater excommunication, with the relevant pronouncement made in the congregation, and prayers offered.
5.   If the sentence of the greater excommunication is passed, the person should be declared to be no longer a member of the visible church.
6.   At each step in the process, the baptized member should be counselled, exhorted to repentance, and prayed for by the session.

The whole process has, as its motive, the glory of God and the good of the souls of baptized members. “For my brethren and companions’ sakes, I will now say, Peace be within thee.

Because of the house of the LORD our God I will seek thy good”

— Psalm 122:8-9

Footnotes

• 1
  Gavin Beers, “The Discipline of Baptized Members,” The Master’s Trumpet, Vol. 8 (2019). ↩︎
• 2
  The Constitution of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, (Philadelphia 1789), 175. ↩︎
• 3
  Revised Book of Discipline Prepared by the Committee of the General Assembly, August 1858, 25. http://www.pcahistory.org/bco/pcusa/1858/rod.pdf. (Accessed 4 April 2019). ↩︎
• 4
  Latin, meaning, “by the work performed.” It refers to the medieval scholastic and Roman Catholic view that the correct performance of the sacraments by the church conveys grace to the recipient, unless he places an obstacle in the way of that grace. ↩︎
• 5
  John B. Romeyn, “The Duty of the Church in the Instruction and Discipline of Her Baptized Children,” in Home, The School and the Church; or the Presbyterian Education Repository, Vol. V, (ed. C. Van Rensselaer), 27-68. ↩︎
• 6
  Romeyn, The Duty of the Church, 40. ↩︎
• 7
  Ibid., 51. This principle would agree with Paul’s counsel to the Thessalonians “And we beseech you, brethren, to know them which labor among you, and are over you in the Lord, and admonish you; And to esteem them very highly in love for their work’s sake. And be at peace among yourselves.” (1 Thess. 5:12-13) ↩︎
• 8
  A Digest Compiled from the Records of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, and from the Records of the Late Synod of New York and Philadelphia, (Philadelphia R. P. McCullough 1820), 78. ↩︎
• 9
  Ibid. 108-111. ↩︎
• 10
  Ibid., 111. ↩︎
• 11
  W. Van’t Spijker, ‘De Tucht over Doopleden’, Ambtelijk Contact, 1 November 1982, 6-9, https://bit. ly/2BLf920 (accessed 4 April 2019). Quoted here is the English translation by Pastor L. W. Bilkes of the Free Reformed Churches of North America, https://bit.ly/2Tar4QS (accessed 4 April 2019). See also Pieter VanderMeyden, Church Discipline of Baptized Members, in Officebearers Journal, Vol. 1, Spring 2018, 15-36. Theological Education Committee, Free Reformed Churches of North America. ↩︎
• 12
  Joel Beeke and Ray Lanning, The Transforming Power Of Scripture, In Sola Scriptura, The Protestant Position on the Bible, ed. Don Kistler (Reformation Trust, 2009). ↩︎
• 13
  Ibid. ↩︎
• 14
  Larger Catechism Question 167. In Westminster Confession of Faith, (Free Presbyterian, Glasgow, 2003), 257-258. ↩︎
• 15
  Romeyn, The Duty of the Church, 40. ↩︎
• 16
  An Abridgment of the Acts of the General Assemblies of the Church of Scotland from the year 1638 to 1810 Inclusive, (Edinburgh, Abernethy and Walker, 1811), 344. ↩︎
• 17
  The Constitution of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, (Philadelphia 1789), 175. ↩︎
• 18
  Reformed churches have not agreed on what constitutes a profession of faith required for participa- tion at the Lord’s Table. Some have looked for an objective confession of the truth of the Christian reli- gion that is uncontradicted by the person’s life. Others have sought a subjective confession of personal regeneration. A middle position between these two extremes, and which in the author’s opinion is the most biblical, is to require confession of the truth of the Christian religion together with a profession of heart willingness to rest on Christ, to count the cost of Christian discipleship and submit to Christ as Lord. ↩︎
• 19
  Westminster Confession, Need which published edition (in the Free Press edition 1958, republished and reset in 1994, this is on pages 106-107) 107-108. ↩︎
• 20
  A change takes place over this question in American Presbyterianism in the 18th century as a fall out from the ‘Halfway Covenant’ dispute among the New England Congregational Churches. As a result of this, covenant theology appears to have become more predominantly viewed in relation to personal conversion and a sensitivity to its corporate aspects was diminished. ↩︎
• 21
  This was another issue in the Book of Discipline Controversy – the proposed revision advised they should be simply removed from the roll. ↩︎
• 22
  This thought concerning degrees in the sin of apostasy was gleaned in discussion with Rev. Michael Spangler and I am thankful for his insight. ↩︎
• 23
  Paul’s list of those who will not inherit the kingdom of God 1 Cor. 6:9-11 and other similar passages are also helpful for direction in discipline, for example in Gal. 5:19-21. ↩︎
• 24
  Contumacy is the stubborn refusal to comply with authority, in this case the courts of the church. ↩︎
• 25
  The Book of Church Order of the Presbyterian Church in America, 6th Edition, 28-4, (Lawrenceville, GA. 2009), www.pcahistory.org/bco/rod/27/02.html (accessed 4 April 2019). ↩︎
• 26
  The Practice of the Free Church of Scotland In Her Several Courts, (Edinburgh, Knox Press, 8th Edition, 1995). ↩︎
• 27
  Walter Steuart Pardovan, Collections and Observations Concerning the Worship, Discipline and Govern- ment of the Church of Scotland, (Edinburgh: W. Gray, 1770), 215. Pardovan writes, “When minors are convened before church judicatories, their curators are not to be cited as before civil courts, though they may be acquainted therewith, that their pupils may receive suitable advice and instruction from them. A minor, that is a male past fourteen, and a female past twelve years of age, may be called before church judicatories, when guilty; as for pupils under that age, it will be rare if ever they be concerned as delinquents, except “ubi militia supplet ætatem,” that is, where strength of nature is as far advanced in them as it useth to be in others of riper years.” ↩︎
• 28
  In North Carolina, USA, where the author resides, it is legal to marry from the age of sixteen. ↩︎
• 29
  Van’t Spijker, ‘De Tucht’ ↩︎
• 30
  Pieter VanderMeyden, Church Discipline of Baptized Members, in Officebearers Journal, Vol. 1, Spring 2018, (Theological Education Committee, Free Reformed Churches of North America), 27-29. ↩︎
• 31
  Ibid. 29. ↩︎
• 32
  Robert Forbes, Digest of Rules and Procedure of the Inferior Courts of The Free Church of Scotland, (Edinburgh, Johnstone and Hunter, 1856), 43. When Forbes refers to “members” in this statement, he is speaking of communicant members, the “children of members” are also baptized members of the church. “Adherents,” historically in Scotland, refer to adult baptized members who continue in the church but who do not come to the Lord’s Table. They adhere to the outward profession of true religion and attendance on the means of grace. It is the opinion of the author that this terminology lacks clarity and can lead to those termed “adherents” as being thought of as something other than members of the church. Throughout these articles, such adherents are considered as baptized church members. ↩︎
• 33
  The Practice of the Free Church of Scotland, 88-115. ↩︎