NINE
COVENANT AND CONVERSION:
THE BOOK OF DISCIPLINE CONTROVERSY
While it is tempting to move
directly from the slavery debates to the Civil War, that would leave the
impression that only slavery divided the church. In fact, the Old School
coalition was fragmenting in more ways than one–and not all of the divisions
fell into neat sectional patterns. The next two chapters will explore further
constitutional developments in the 1850s.
Presbyterian government and
discipline had originally been formulated under the parish system in Scotland
where virtually every resident of the parish was a baptized member of the same
church. Even after the American church had made several changes, the principles
in the book did not always correspond to the practices of American
Presbyterians. The conversionist piety of the nineteenth century had rendered
certain traditional Presbyterian practices nearly obsolete. The proposed
revisions to the Book of Discipline, offered to the 1858 General Assembly,
suggest that Old School Presbyterians were wrestling with how to maintain a
balance between their contemporary setting and their more covenantal heritage.
Presbyterians traditionally affirmed
three marks of the church: the preaching of the Word, the administration of the
sacraments, and the exercise of church discipline. Without discipline the
church could not exist. Nonetheless, Presbyterians acknowledged that churches
could be “more or less pure,” depending upon how well they maintained these
three marks.[1] In the 1850s, many believed that Presbyterian
discipline was less pure than it had been.
The 1857 General Assembly appointed
a committee to revise the Book of Discipline. The immediate occasion arose from
the Presbytery of Philadelphia’s concern over unclear procedures for
ecclesiastical trials. Part of the problem, as articulated by Robert J.
Breckinridge on the floor of the Assembly, was that in an appeal to the General
Assembly, the whole 300 members sat as a court. Few cases could receive a truly
thorough hearing. Indeed, Breckinridge argued that judicial cases at the
Assembly were a farce. He feared that this rendered the Old School “practically
a Church without discipline, and must change or be forsaken of God.”[2] He declared that he “would rather come blindfolded
into the house take the first ten members he happens to touch, to try a case,
than take the whole three hundred of you as at present. (Laughter).”[3] Breckinridge argued that a body of three hundred was
much too large to engage in significant debate, and urged the Assembly to move
from presbyterial representation to synodical representation and to adopt a
ratio system to keep the number of the Assembly set at one hundred. But even
further, Breckinridge argued that a judicial commission would enable the church
to provide thorough justice for all appeals. Breckinridge distinguished between
a committee and a commission. A committee was designed “to examine and report,”
while a commission’s task was “to examine and conclude.” The Presbyterian
church already used commissions to conduct the work of missions, education, and
publication (the boards), and Breckinridge argued that a judicial commission
would enable the church to handle judicial appeals more effectively.[4]
In response to the debate, the Rev.
Dr. William M. Scott (PTS 1846, and pastor of the Seventh Presbyterian Church
of Cincinnati) moved to appoint a committee to revise the Book of Discipline.
One of the most cautious voices in the ensuing discussion was that of a ruling
elder, Judge William F. Allen of western New York. “His experience was
unfavourable to changing codes. . . . It is sometimes better to bear the
acknowledged evils of an old code than run the risk of greater ones.”[5] Others, though, hoped that the entire Presbyterian
system of trials could be conformed more closely to American jurisprudence. The
Rev. Jaheel Woodbridge (PTS 1835 and pastor at Henderson, Kentucky) thought
that the civil “forms of criminal proceeding certainly seem to be far in
advance of ours” and suggested that the church should follow suit.[6] After further discussion, the Assembly voted 108-76
to appoint a committee to propose revisions to the Book of Discipline. The
moderator, Cortlandt Van Rensselaer, appointed an honor roll of Presbyterian
legal minds: the Rev. Drs. Thornwell, Breckinridge, Hodge, James Hoge,
Alexander T. McGill, Elliott E. Swift, and Judges George Sharswood, William
Allen, and Humphrey Leavitt.
The committee reported a year later,
and its work appeared in the Old School newspapers in the summer of 1858. The
initial comments of the editors generally approved. The Philadelphia Presbyterian
called it a “vast improvement,” while the Central Presbyterian of
Richmond declared the revision “judicious and wise,” and both thought that most
of the revisions would please the church.[7] The procedures for trials were indeed clarified, but
in light of the sweeping changes proposed by the committee, these revisions
were largely ignored.
At the Assembly of 1859 the
committee, represented by its chairman, James Henley Thornwell, explained the
most significant changes. The committee wanted to produce a shorter, more
direct statement of Presbyterian discipline. Removing many statements of
principle, the committee believed that the Book of Discipline should refrain
from “preaching” or explaining the principles of discipline. “The doctrine upon
which discipline is founded, and the motives with which it should be enforced,
must all be presupposed.”[8] The new book would focus less on principles and more
on statutes. It included significant changes in principle as well.
1) It redefined an offense worthy of
discipline. The old book defined an offense as a belief or practice of a
“church member” contrary to the Word of God “or which, if it be not in its own
nature sinful, may tempt others to sin, or mar their spiritual edification.”
The committee proposed a narrower definition: any belief or practice of a
“professed believer” contrary to the Word of God as defined in the Confession
and Catechisms. This would restrict discipline to communicant members and would
further restrict discipline by excluding things that offended others without
being sinful themselves.
2) As implied above, the revision
proposed removing baptized non-communicant members from the discipline of the
church. Thornwell argued that “it was no more illogical to exempt them from
discipline, than to exclude them from the Lord's table.”[9] He claimed that a church member only becomes subject
to church discipline through a profession of faith. Since a profession of faith
was required for admittance to the Lord’s Supper, he argued that such
profession should be required for discipline as well.[10]
3) The new book proposed allowing
communicant members to renounce membership by stating that they no longer
believed themselves converted. Such persons then could be dropped from the
membership rolls without a trial. “This right to withdraw had been spoken of as
opening a back door to the church. He did not care whether back door or front
door, if persons got in improperly, it mattered little at which door they went
out, so they certainly got them out.” Since Thornwell viewed the church as the
assembly of the converted, it made no sense to make the unconverted remain. “It
had been objected besides, that this right of withdrawal at pleasure made the
church a voluntary society. He was surprised at such an objection. The glory of
their church was that it was a voluntary society. God wanted no worshippers but
voluntary worshippers.” Thornwell argued that no censure should be inflicted
upon the spiritually dead. “He would have them bear in mind that the church did
not punish--it did not bear the sword; its censures were designed as
penitential--as a means of restoring an erring brother.” The unconverted were
not brethren at all. “The proper way to deal with a member who wished to
withdraw, was not to drive him out disgraced by censure, but simply to reduce
him from the position of professed believer, to the condition of a
non-professor--to the condition of the baptized children of the church-members
over whom the church is watching--with whose errors it is bearing, and whom it
is ever remembering in its prayers.”[11]
4) The revision proposed allowing
ecclesiastical inquests--allowing church courts to “demand and receive
satisfactory explanations from any of it members concerning any matters of evil
reports” without process.
5) It proposed allowing parties to
the case to be called as witnesses (only those who denied the existence of God
or a future state of rewards and punishments could not testify).
6) It proposed allowing the lower
court to sit as a constituent part of the higher court during appeals.[12] Since appeals were not taken from one part of the
church to another, but from a regional part to the whole, the lower court
should logically not be excluded from deliberating and voting on appeals. This
proposal was rooted in Thornwell’s organic model of Presbyterian polity, which
saw lower courts as integral parts of higher courts.[13]
The Assembly decided not to debate
these points at length. The Rev. Dr. Edward P. Humphrey of Kentucky declared
his opposition, insisting that as the present book had lasted for forty years,
it would be good for another forty.[14] He was especially troubled by the withdrawal of
discipline from baptized children. He feared that this indicated a decreased
interest in infant baptism and moved the Presbyterian church towards the
Baptists. Nonetheless, he moved that the revised Book be published and sent to
the presbyteries, so that they could send their comments to the next Assembly.
The Assembly concurred.[15] The ensuing constitutional debate revealed much about
the divisions in the church.[16]
1.
The Status of Baptized Children
The change that called forth the
most opposition was the proposal to move baptized children outside of the
discipline of the church.[17] The initial notices tended to be generally agreeable.
The editors of the Central Presbyterian noted that the revision would
subject only communicant members to judicial proceedings. Since they had never
heard of a case where judicial proceedings were instituted against a baptized
non-communicant, they didn’t consider it much of a change. It would be useless
“to excommunicate one who has never communicated and who has no desire to
communicate.” The Richmond Herald, the Virginia Baptist newspaper,
claimed that this was “a manifest departure from Presbyterian Pedo-baptism of
the Old School,” but the Central Presbyterian rejected this claim.
Baptized persons were still church members–only not subject to judicial
process. The editors did object, however, to the removal of all discipline from
baptized youth. They argued that discipline was a far broader term than mere
judicial process, and since baptized children were disciples, they were
properly under the discipline of the church, in this broader sense. But in the
end, they regarded this revision as simply bringing the book into conformity
with Presbyterian practice.[18] Indeed, in 1853, the Synod of Pittsburgh had declared
that baptized children were not properly the subjects of church discipline.[19]
J. E. L. argued in the Presbyterian
that forbidding discipline practically denied that baptized infants were in
fact “members of the household of faith.”[20] Many feared that the change would move the church
towards a more Baptist conception of church membership. In confirmation of this
the Presbyterian cited an Irish Episcopal minister who had once said
that “There are but two places in the whole universe of God from which infants
are excluded. The one is hell; and the other is the Baptist Church.”[21]
The Home and Foreign Record reprinted an excerpt from the Rev. Joshua H. McIlvaine’s Princeton Review warning that such baptistic views of the relation of children to the church “was deeply embedded. . . in the principles of the Puritans.” The author insisted that children should be treated as though they were “presumably of the elect,” being trained under the teaching and discipline of the church. He objected to the tendency in Presbyterian churches to speak of children “joining the church” when they came for their first communion, noting that revivalism and other “spasmodic efforts” had been relied upon rather than “religious education and discipline, the Divine ordinance to which the promise of regeneration and salvation for the children of believers” was attached.[22]
Concerned that such views were growing
in the Presbyterian Church, an anonymous author in the Southern Presbyterian
Review set forth the case that all baptized members should be subject to
the discipline of the church. Failure to profess faith could be grounds for
discipline at a certain point. He disagreed sharply with Thornwell that
“voluntary assent” was necessary for discipline. Presbyterians had historically
rejected the idea that the church was a “voluntary society.” Further, the
emphasis on personal profession destroyed the Reformed doctrine of infant
baptism. “If the act of the parents in bringing the child under the covenant of
baptism cannot properly place him under church jurisdiction, except it be
confirmed by the child's own assent, why should they perform it in his infancy
at all? Let the baptismal covenant be something, or nothing.”
Thornwell’s proposal gave away too much to the Independents and Baptists.
Rejecting the voluntary principle, he insisted that “God has not given to any
human soul the right to choose whether he will belong to His visible kingdom or
not.”[23]
In reply, Thornwell insisted that he
was not challenging the doctrine of infant baptism–he agreed that all baptized
persons were “bona fide members of the Church.”[24] But just as baptized children were excluded from the
“privilege of the Lord’s Table,” he argued that they should also be excluded
from the “the disability of judicial discipline”? Both, he claimed, were
determined by profession of faith: “To those who profess no faith in Christ it
is as unmeaning and absurd to dispense the spiritual censures of the Church, as
it would be to tie a dead man to the whipping post and chastise him with rods.”
For Thornwell, profession of faith included a claim to be converted: “The
possession or non-possession of faith divides the Church into two classes so
widely apart, that it is simply ridiculous to think of treating them in the
same way.” The church seeks the conversion of baptized children, who should be
considered dead in their sins. The converted are “already alive, and are to be
dealt with as living men,” whereas baptized children are “dead, and the whole
scope of spiritual effort is to bring them to Him who can quicken the dead.
Discipline is for the living and not for the dead.”[25] Indeed, Thornwell argued that his opponents erred in
seeing discipline as “a punishment for the offender.” Rather, Thornwell
insisted that “There are no punishments in the Church of God, it is founded
upon a dispensation of grace and not of law.” Indeed, “When men show by their
contumacy that they were not sons, they are then cut off from the Church, on
the very ground that they are incapable of discipline.”[26] Excommunication, for Thornwell, was not really
discipline at all, but the declaration that discipline had failed.
Thornwell particularly objected to
the idea that baptized members could be disciplined for failing to profess
faith. Citing the Directory for Worship, he agreed that “when they come to
years of discretion, if they be free from scandal, appear sober and steady and
to have sufficient knowledge to discern the Lord’s body, they ought to be
informed, it is their duty and their privilege to come to the Lord’s Supper”[27] Thornwell stood within the historic Presbyterian
mainstream when he claimed that baptized children should not be disciplined for
lack of profession and declared that the church should not “revoke their
privileges, but bear with them as patiently as her Master;” but he departed
from the traditional view because he failed to see that the Directory did not
require a profession of conversion. Indeed, the Directory did not even require
a public profession, but only that they be “free from scandal, appear sober and
steady and to have sufficient knowledge to discern the Lord’s body.” But for
many on both sides of the debate this requirement had long been overlooked.[28]
A. Profession and Discipline: the
Edwardsean Background
Thornwell’s proposal grew out of a
gradual alteration of Presbyterian sacramental theology and practice. For over
a generation, Presbyterians had been diverging from the formal requirements of
their Directory for Worship. Presbyterians had traditionally taught that
baptism gave “an interest in and a right unto” the Lord’s Table, which right
could be exercised by faith. At baptism the infant entered into covenant with
God and with the church. Therefore all baptized persons were members of the
church. Admission to the Lord’s Table did not change the person’s relation to
the church, but was merely the proper response of the one who had been baptized
into Christ.[29] This approach had grown out of the parish system in
the established church of Scotland, where virtually every member of the
community was also a member of the church. Prior to the advent of revivalism in
Scotland in the eighteenth century, it was common to have 75-80 per cent of the
adult population of the parish partake during communion.[30] Revivalism would gradually alter Scottish practice in
some places, but its effect in America was quicker and more comprehensive due
to the voluntary nature of the church.
All changes in practice have effects
on the theology of the church. The emphasis on conversion as a prerequisite for
both the Lord’s Table and the baptism of one’s children led to a corresponding
decrease of attention to the nurture of baptized children.[31] By 1841, “L” was concerned that many Presbyterians
did not consider baptized children to be true members. “There are no empty
forms in the institutions of our holy religion; there is a living, practical import
in every ordinance. But where is the efficiency? where the great utility of
this covenant relation, when parents and pastors and church sessions, for the
most part, treat it as a mere name, a theoretic not a practical relation?”
Urging the church to take its covenant obligations more seriously, he urged the
church to consider baptized children as “indeed ‘baptized into Christ.’”[32]
Throughout the 1840s discussion had
continued as to the nature and import of baptism. The Charleston Observer reflected
the New England influence in a debate between “Justice” and “Discipulus.”
Discipulus insisted that “The seed of unbelievers are not regarded as fit
subjects for the ordinance of baptism”; therefore only the children of
communicant members should be baptized.[33] Justice, however, pointed out that this was not the
historic Reformed practice. Citing Samuel Rutherford and Theodore Beza, he
argued that all who professed the true religion should have their children
baptized–and a professor was “one who having been baptized and thus
incorporated into the visible Church, makes an outward profession of his faith
by a continued attendance upon public worship.”[34] If baptized persons were truly members of the church,
then because they were a part of the covenant community, their children should
also be baptized. Both sides acknowledged that baptism was a sign of the
covenant, but for those influenced by New England theology, the covenant was
mediated directly through the parent’s individual faith, while for traditional
Presbyterians, the covenant had a more corporate aspect, and thus they could
accept a more general profession of faith.
In 1847, Horace Bushnell published Discourses
on Christian Nurture, a pamphlet that caused no small stir in New England
for its attack on the premises of revivalism. Charles Hodge responded by
suggesting that while Bushnell’s views might be “strange” and “distorted” in
certain respects, his “organic” treatment of the relationship of the child to
the church had a downright “‘Old school’ cast.”[35] While disagreeing with Bushnell’s naturalistic mode
of expression, he agreed entirely with the basic thrust of Bushnell’s argument,
endorsing “a confident expectation, in the use of the appointed means, that the
children of believers will become truly the children of God.”[36] While appreciative of the effects of revivals, Hodge
objected that under the revival model, many “seem to regard this alternation of
decline and revival as the normal condition of the church,” forgetting the
regular means of grace.[37]
But by the 1850s the Edwardseans had
the upper hand in the Presbyterian church. In 1852 one author set forth the
Edwardsean position, attempting to defend its usage in the context of the
Presbyterian constitution. He started with the traditional argument that since
circumcision brought persons into the covenant in the Old Testament, so also
baptism must be seen as bringing persons truly into covenant in the New
Testament. And if they are members of the visible church, then their children
should be baptized. “We are to regard all baptized children as members of the
church” and therefore also the proper subjects of church discipline. And since
professing Christ is a duty of all church members, he argued that those who
failed to profess faith should be subject to discipline. “If the Presbyterian
practice were as good as Presbyterian theory, then all baptized persons, by the
time they become parents, would stand either as regular communicants of the
church or as suspended members of the church. Such as refused to come forward
and confess Christ before men would be suspended for their neglect of duty.”
The fact that the church had failed to suspend them, however, was only a legal
failing. Practically speaking, they were treated as though they had been
suspended by all Presbyterian sessions. Therefore, he argued, “I would proceed
upon the warrant of the common law, with such ungodly and disorderly
baptized persons, and refuse baptism to their children.” The common practice of
the church, therefore, could in the eyes of some, provide sufficient grounds
for ignoring the direction of the constitution. As he concluded, “Unless they
have such faith, as in our honest judgement would entitle them to come to the
Lord's Supper, they have no right to come, with their offspring, to the other
Sacrament.”[38]
Another Virginian agreed that only
the children of the “professedly pious” should be baptized. He argued that “to
render the dedication of a child to God by baptism an acceptable offering, the
baptism must be connected with faith, on the part of the parent or parents who
make the offering.” Claiming that the “custom of baptizing the children of all
who desire it, has grown out of the unscriptural idea that there is inherent
benefit in the ordinance itself,” he argued that infant baptism relied upon the
personal faith of the parent and therefore could not be given to the children
of those who lacked such personal faith.[39]
In the fall of 1856, George D.
Armstrong and “Old School,” spent more than seven months wrestling with the
issue of excommunicating baptized children. The occasion for the discussion was
the Dutch Reformed reprinting of Dr. John B. Romeyn’s 1812 report urging the
church to cut off baptized children who failed to profess faith by a certain
time. Armstrong argued that Presbyterian practice uniformly opposed this. He
argued that while baptized children were subject to “discipline,” this did not
include judicial discipline. Armstrong argued that the practice of the
Presbyterian church was the proper interpreter of its law: “It is a general
rule that the interpretation of any law which is sanctioned by uniform practice
under that law, must be received as the true interpretation until set aside by
competent authority.” And the practice of the Presbyterian church was clear:
baptized children were never excommunicated.[40] Indeed, Armstrong argued that baptized children
cannot be removed from the “communion” of the church because they have never
been received into communion in the first place.[41] Baptized non-communicants have no “vital union with
Christ,” and so they are shut out from the table. Armstrong took a literal
definition of the word and argued that excommunication cut one off from the
communion of the church.[42]
“Old School” replied by objecting
that Armstrong was asking the church to trade in her principles just because
her practice has not conformed to her standards. “Our standards teach that the
children of the church are members of the church, and yet it is
notorious that the ‘uniform practice’ of the church is not to treat them
as members.” Citing Samuel Miller’s complaints in the 1820s as evidence of
degeneration in America, “Old School” pointed out that historically the
Scottish and colonial American churches had treated children as proper subjects
of discipline.[43]
Further, Old School argued that
scripture and church order defined excommunication more broadly than just being
cut off from the “communion of the church.” Rather, it cut one off from the church
itself. He took four weeks to trace the exegetical and historical understanding
of excommunication, demonstrating that “the term ‘excommunicated’ is equivalent
to ‘being destroyed from among the people,’ and the former expression is used
instead of the latter because it is shorter and more convenient.” Since
baptized children formed part of the visible church, they were, by definition,
subject to the penalty of excommunication if they refused to “hear the Lord
Jesus Christ.”[44]
Armstrong replied by citing
Thornwell: “The baptized non-professor is actually in the very position in
relation to the sacraments and communion of the church, in which
excommunication put the professing offender. The key is turned and both are
shut out from the inner sanctuary.”[45] Nonetheless, Armstrong also agreed with Hodge’s
presumption of election–that the church baptizes a person because “we presume
he is one of the elect.”[46]
In their lengthy debate over the
meaning of excommunication and whether baptized non-communicants could suffer
it, both assumed that if discipline were applied to non-communicants, then it
would require the church to excommunicate those who failed to profess faith.[47] This reflects the degree to which Edwardsean
principles had gained a foothold in the Old School. As covenant theology became
more and more identified with individual conversion, the idea of an adult
non-communicant member was becoming increasingly difficult to hold together
with the idea that all baptized persons were full members. The Thornwellians,
therefore, reduced baptized non-communicants to nominal members, while their
opponents sought to eliminate the category of adult non-communicants
altogether.
Only a few recognized the false
dichotomy. The Rev. J. G. Shepperson was one. He published a defense of the
traditional Presbyterian view in the Southern Presbyterian Review
in 1853.[48] The editors (who included Thornwell), noted that they
preferred the Edwardsean view, but would allow Shepperson to present his case.
Shepperson argued that “A Christian profession does not consist, either wholly
or in part, in a declaration that he who makes it either is, or believes
himself to be, a regenerate person.” Shepperson rejected the claim that “the
Church is to consist solely of regenerate persons,” and fretted that Thornwell
and others claimed that members could dissolve their connection with the church
simply by claiming to be unconverted.[49] He pointed to both the Old and New Testaments, where
professions of faith made no claims to regeneration or conversion but simply
declared belief in “the Lord Jesus.”[50]
Therefore, Shepperson argued, “The
Church is the visible kingdom of God, distinguished from every other society by
this important circumstance, that all her members, and no others, are bound by
a solemn and public covenant to the evangelical service of Jehovah.” Through
baptism, each member is obligated to keep covenant with God: “As it is by
baptism one is made a member of the Church, it is , of course, by that
ordinance he is brought into this covenant. And a Christian profession is
simply a cordial and open acknowledgement of the obligation which the covenant
imposes.”[51] Shepperson rejected the evangelical emphasis on
personal experience, and emphasized the objective reality of the sacraments.
Whether infant or adult, baptism “is the same, and its symbolical meaning the
same; moreover, it seals the same promises, and imposes the same obligation.”[52]
Likewise, Shepperson argued that
very young children could make valid profession of faith: “it cannot be
consistently maintained concerning any human being, that he is too young to
become a communicant, unless it is maintained that he is likewise too young to
become an evangelical believer; and that the command to believe has, as yet, no
application to his case.”[53] In reply to those who claimed that children were “not
competent to transact serious business,” Shepperson argued that “a child is
capable of deciding, which is preferable, the service of Christ, or the service
of Satan.” Indeed, he argued that it was “in the Church we enjoy those
means which the Saviour has appointed for confirming the souls of the
disciples; hence the more pressing the danger, the more urgent the
necessity for such a connexion.”[54] Therefore the only proper ground of excommunication
was when someone explicitly, by word or deed, “renounced the baptismal
covenant. . . his allegiance to the Lord Jesus.”[55] While Thornwell might wish to allow a member to
withdraw, Shepperson argued that withdrawal from the church was nothing less
than excommunication–and excommunication required an “explicit avowal” that the
offender was an apostate–an enemy of Christ.[56]
B. The Creation of a New Ritual:
Public Profession
But as Presbyterians gradually
adopted the New England practice of requiring a personal profession of
conversion, they also began adopting the Congregationalist ritual of public
profession as well. The Presbyterian Form of Government stated that the session
had the power to receive members. Traditionally this had been done by
examination. The only public ritual that accompanied the admission of a person
to the Lord’s Table was the Lord’s Supper itself. Gradually, however,
Presbyterians began to imitate the rite of public profession found in the New
England Congregational churches. Predictably, the New School took the lead, but
even they were cautious. In 1865, the New School General Assembly declared that
new members were received by the vote of the session, and except in the case of
new converts who needed to be baptized, no further rite was required.
Nonetheless, they permitted sessions to “prescribe a public profession of faith
before the whole church as a convenient usage, and for this purpose may employ
a church confession and covenant.” But they insisted that these public
professions were entirely optional and must never be presented as though this
were the real entrance into church membership.[57] The reunited General Assembly of 1872 added that if a
session chose to have a public profession for covenant youth it must show a
clear distinction from that used for public professions associated with adult
baptisms.[58] The Presbyterian church, though influenced by
congregational forms, was still intent on keeping the sacrament of baptism
distinct from its new rites of public profession.
But these official developments
simply reflected the growing practice of the church. Numerous churches were
creating a new ritual in Presbyterian worship–the public profession of faith.
But these changes did not come without objections. In 1847 Samuel Miller
declared that the practice of receiving members by public profession was “not a
child of Presbyterianism, but wholly inconsistent with it, and the real
offspring of Congregationalism. . . . The church with us is regulated by the Session,
made up of representatives of the church members.” Miller went on to
insist that “Our fathers of the Church of Scotland know nothing of the public
parade in the middle aisle now so common.”[59]
Several presbyteries also weighed in
on the issue. In 1855 the Presbytery of Elizabethtown in New Jersey wrote a
letter to all sessions throughout the Old School, urging them to return to the
Presbyterian practice of receiving communicants directly by the session,
“without receiving publicly on consenting to a confession read to them.”[60] In 1856 the Presbytery of Cincinnati received a
complaint regarding the practice of the Seventh Presbyterian Church of
Cincinnati which had permitted the public profession of baptized persons at the
same time as the baptism of new converts. One observer commented, “in coming to
the ordinance of the Lord's supper for the first time nothing is required of
them in the constitution of the church, but simply, ‘that they shall be
examined as to their knowledge and piety.’ That is all.” Indeed, he suggested
that anything more communicates the wrong message. He feared that this would
“necessarily lead to error in doctrine as well as disorder in practice.”[61] New rituals invariably led to new theology. By
introducing the innovation of public profession, Old School Presbyterians were
functionally creating a new sacrament.
In 1862 “A True Presbyterian”
objected that many Kentucky churches had begun to “ask the member or members
received, to stand up in the aisle or pew, and give their assent to certain
articles, and make pledges in regard to their future conduct, and avow their
sense of the fearful responsibility connected with a public profession of
religion.” He argued that this approach placed the focus on the new communicant
himself rather than Christ. The session should call him to fix his eyes on
Christ as the source of his hope, and not point him to his own profession.
Further, it “conveys the impression that the person thus assenting is then and
thus introduced into the Church. Whereas, according to the theory of the
Presbyterian Church, such an one was ‘engrafted into Christ,’ and partook of
the benefits, (to some extent) of the New Covenant, and became members of the
visible Church, when baptized.” In addition, he said that such public
professions created a new catechism for the church, ignoring the church’s
catechisms.[62] The editor, Stuart Robinson, concurred that the practice
was foreign to Presbyterian doctrine. He pointed out that the Synod of Kentucky
had “formally censured the use of the abbreviated creeds framed by pastors for
such purpose” many years before.[63]
C. The Decline of Infant Baptism?
In 1857 Charles Hodge suggested that
a careful analysis of Presbyterian baptismal statistics over the past fifty
years indicated that the Old School was seeing a significant decline in the
practice of infant baptism. At first glance, Hodge’s statistics seemed
startling to most. While the birthrate had dropped considerably in the
nineteenth century, that was inadequate to explain the fourfold decline in
infant baptisms. But traditional Presbyterian baptismal practices had changed
considerably since 1800. Through the eighteenth century Presbyterians had
baptized the children of all members, and since all baptized persons were considered
members, they did not require parents to profess faith personally before
bringing their children for baptism.
Edwardsian influence led to a
growing number of Presbyterians who would only baptize the children of those
who had personally professed faith. When the Synod of New York and Philadelphia
refused to endorse the Edwardsean view in the 1770s, the Rev. Jacob Green
formed the independent Morris Presbytery in 1780. In 1794 the General Assembly
insisted that all that was necessary was a “visible and credible profession of
Christianity,” refusing to require a profession of conversion.[64] Nonetheless, by the 1810s a number of younger
ministers were switching to the Edwardsean practice. Jacob’s son, Ashbel Green,
however, returned to the Presbyterian church and defended the traditional
Presbyterian practice, resisting his father’s innovations throughout his life.
After the excision of the New
School, the baptismal rate increased slightly because the New School was
largely Edwardsean in its baptismal practice, whereas the Old School was
divided. By 1857, however, many Old School churches had adopted the Edwardsean
plan of baptizing only the children of communicant members–and only allowing
those who believed themselves to be converted to become communicant members.[65] The traditionalists were now in the minority. While
some authors were able to show that Hodge’s statistics were considerably off
mark, nonetheless it was clear that Presbyterian baptismal practices had
changed.[66]
D. The Debate
Thornwell’s proposal to restrict
discipline to those who had personally professed faith, therefore, came at a
time when Old School Presbyterians already worried about the declining importance
of infant baptism in their church. Of course, given the Edwardsean majority in
the church, many agreed with Thornwell, who generally disagreed with him in
church polity. William Engles, editor of the Presbyterian, and
ordinarily a strong supporter of Princeton, concurred that baptized children
were not proper subjects of discipline: “they have made no covenant vows; they
have never, by any act of their own, acknowledged their subjection to the
authorities of the Church.”[67] The Thornwellian view assumed a theory of
republicanism that insisted upon the consent of the governed–or in this case,
the consent of the disciplined.
One Pittsburgh writer went further.
He argued that the long practice of calling baptized persons “Church members.
. . is a misnomer.” He insisted that a “profession of faith in Christ” was
necessary for both government and discipline. “Without ‘faith in Christ’ the
merely baptized are not a whit better than others.” The only advantage they have
is the “special interest, sympathies, and prayers of the Church for their
conversion and salvation.”[68]
But others objected to this line of
reasoning. “Conservative” wrote in the Presbyterian objecting to the
“radical” implications of this change. Claiming that the “consent of the
governed” was not accurate even in politics, he pointed out that we have no
choice as to whether we will be born into God’s covenant, any more than whether
we will be born into civil citizenship.” A citizen cannot avoid the penalties
of the law by claiming that he did not agree to it personally. Further,
“Conservative” wondered what the church could then do about gross immorality in
a baptized person? Thornwell had argued that the church only has jurisdiction
of baptized persons through their parents–but what happens under that theory
when they reach the age of 21? “It is incorrect to say that our system of
government predicates discipline on the possession of spiritual life in its
subject, and that its object is only to reclaim the backslider and recall to
repentance.” Thornwell had failed to articulate the correct doctrine of
discipline: “A just excommunication of a church-member proceeds on the
supposition that he has now done something so thoroughly inconsistent and
obdurate that it shows he is not a true child of God.” Another object of
discipline, therefore, was to lop off dead branches. But “Conservative” did not
then side with those who desired to discipline adult noncommunicants for
unbelief. “As long as they live morally, and attend the means of grace
regularly, the privileges of that minor citizenship in Zion will by no means be
cut off by expulsion.”[69] Standing firmly with Hodge and McGill, “Conservative”
refused to surrender the traditional Presbyterian doctrine of children in the
covenant.
The basic question at stake was
whether the church should approach baptized children as a part of the covenant
community, or as outsiders. William Engles, editor of the Philadelphia Presbyterian
joined Thornwell in taking the latter view. While admitting that they had a
preferred status to the heathen, Engles argued that baptized children were
“heirs of promises which they have not yet embraced.” As such they had the
“status of avowed unbelievers,” and were considered “dead in trespasses and
sins.” Further, excommunication would be pointless, since “the baptized
nonprofessor is actually in the very position in relation to the sacraments and
communion of the Church, in which excommunication puts the professing
offender.”[70]
The Central Presbyterian of
Virginia, on the other hand, agreed with Hodge. While it was not possible to
suspend a non-communicant from the Lord’s Table, there might be cases where a
rebellious non-communicant should be removed from the church.[71] The editors argued that judicial process was
generally unwise, but they rejected Thornwell’s view that the baptized were not
under the general discipline of the church.[72]
One Virginia correspondent suggested
“that the arguments of the Columbia Doctor [Thornwell] are framed to support a
system of rules, elaborated upon principles applicable to the discipline of an
ideal church, which blends in its constitution the elements of purity and
fallibility, in which however, the pure greatly predominates.”[73]
David McKinney, editor of the Presbyterian
Banner of Pittsburgh, objected that Thornwell’s view “unchurches our
baptized youth.”[74] Appalled that Thornwell would consider baptized
children to be “of the world,” and no better than excommunicants, McKinney
declared that Thornwell had “no right so to speak of the children of the
Church. They are born in the family. They are the offspring of God's
handmaidens. He says of them: They are mine.” He admitted that the church’s
practice fell short of this doctrine, but that simply meant that “We have been
sinners against the Word of God and our Standards; and now the effort is being
made to alter our Standards, so as to make them conform to our sinful
practice.” Calling upon the church to return to its roots, he called upon the
Pittsburgh region to “teach our children that they are Christians, educate them
as Christians, and treat them as Christians,” in the confidence that God would
in fact give them the grace promised in their baptism.[75]
Likewise M. Peden argued in the New
Orleans True Witness that baptized children are “included in the
covenant which God has ratified with their parents.” If they are capable of
moral action, then they are subject to discipline. The elders should care for
the entire flock. And if discipline is exercised with the goal of repentance,
then it might be the means of drawing the baptized to true faith.[76]
2.
“But What If I’m Not Converted?”
Conversion having become the central
theme of American Protestant piety, some members rushed to profess faith, but
later concluded that they had deceived themselves, and wished to withdraw from
the church. Desiring an orderly departure, they requested the session to remove
their names from the rolls of the church. But the church order had no provision
for simply “leaving.” Presbyterian church order was designed for a parish
church system in Scotland, in which conversion played a relatively minor role.
But under pressure from the individualism of evangelical pietism, Presbyterian
church order would be reworked. The question came to the General Assembly in
1848 as an overture from the Presbytery of Montgomery in southwestern Virginia,
“asking whether church sessions have the right, under the constitution, to
allow members to withdraw from the communion of the church who are not guilty
of any immoral conduct, and who do not manifest an intention to connect
themselves with any other Church.” The Bills and Overtures Committee, chaired
by the Rev. Dr. James Henley Thornwell, recommended that the Assembly should
answer in the affirmative.
The Rev. Dr. Edward P. Humphrey of
Kentucky immediately objected. The constitution plainly only allowed for a
member to be removed “1. by regular trial, 2. by dismission to another body,
and 3. by death.” Humphrey argued that “The obligation which a man takes upon
himself is a vow to God, and God only can absolve him from it. It is a
fundamental principle of Protestantism, that while the church cannot be the
Lord of the conscience, neither can it interfere to relieve the conscience of
its responsibilities.” Unless guilty of immorality, a member could not be
removed from the church.[77]
After several others agreed,
Thornwell replied that they had not understood the point of the question. “It
is asked whether persons may withdraw from the Church who have been received
unadvisedly, and are now satisfied that they are not converted persons, yet are
regular in all their private and public duties.” Thornwell argued that such
persons should not be disciplined, because the point of discipline was “to
ascertain whether a man is or is not a member of Christ's body? But if he
confesses that he is not, it is the best evidence that can be given, and the
session may declare the fact to the church.” Further, while Thornwell agreed
with Humphrey’s statement on conscience, he turned it on its head, allowing
church members to withdraw according to the dictates of their own consciences.
“The Protestant church knows no man unless he is voluntarily subject to her
authority: and the vow of subjection is binding no longer than he feels that he
has a right to submit to them.”[78]
Judge Hepburn objected that members
should not be allowed to dissolve their relation to the church at pleasure. He
“spoke with much energy” against Thornwell’s view, comparing the “union of the
church and members to the marriage relation. . . which should be protected with
the most sacred care.” Dr. Lord concurred. He feared that if the “new principle
were adopted it would be a virtual declaration that absence from communion is
no offence, and any man who wishes to get out of the church would simply stay
away, and then withdraw.”[79]
Thornwell replied to the marriage
analogy “by showing that the invisible church, the whole number of believers
wherever found, in Presbyterian, Episcopal or Romish communions are the bride,
the Lamb's wife, and no organization that may embrace believers and unbelievers
is to be spoken of as in such union with the Saviour.” The visible church, he
argued, did not merit such exalted language. He urged church sessions to work
diligently to ascertain whether an individual member was truly in “vital union”
with Christ, but “if it did not exist, he would have the professed union
dissolved.”[80]
The Rev. B. M. Smith of Virginia
contended that both abstaining from the Lord's table and professing Christ when
not a Christian were offenses worthy of discipline. If the church would
excommunicate such offenders, it would “prevent hasty applications for
admission into the church, and thus save the necessity of casting out. He would
make the way out of the church the more difficult that unworthy persons might
be deterred from coming in.”[81]
In his annual review of the
Assembly, Charles Hodge argued that at times it could be proper to allow a
person to absent himself from the Lord’s Table. “But we would not call this
withdrawing from the church.” Hodge objected that Thornwell had articulated a
basically congregational approach, “which makes the regenerate the materials
and confederation the formal cause of a church covenant.”[82] This explained Thornwell’s insistence that church
membership was a “voluntary compact and association.” But Presbyterians taught,
according to Hodge, that “a man can no more withdraw from the church, than he
can withdraw from the moral government of God. . . . He cannot free himself
from the obligation of submitting to the discipline of the church, of communing
with it, and of discharging all the duties of a church member, any more than he
can free himself from the obligation of the moral law.” If through rejecting
the gospel or moral lapses, he departs from the faith, then he should be
disciplined. But through his baptism (whether infant or adult) “he has incurred
obligations and responsibilities from which he can never free himself, he has
assumed a yoke which he can neither cast off, nor have removed by any human
hand.” Hodge agreed that the church is a voluntary society “in the sense that.
. . no one can be forced to enter it, or coerced to remain in it,” but no one
can depart from it without censure.[83]
While Thornwell’s position was
soundly rejected in theory in 1848, a judicial case from the Presbytery of
Sangamon in the Synod of Illinois brought the issue back to the General
Assembly in 1851. Mr. Ambrose Stone “repeatedly requested the session [of Irish
Grove Presbyterian Church] to dissolve his connection with the Church of
Christ, assigning as the only reason for this course of conduct that he
believed he had never been born again, and that he had no love to Christ.”[84] The session finally concurred and “dismissed him to
the world, removing him from the roll of the church.” When Sangamon Presbytery
reviewed the minutes of the Irish Grove session, it declared this a declaration
of excommunication without process, therefore null and void, and thereby
restored Mr. Stone to his unwanted membership. After the Synod of Illinois
affirmed the judgment of the presbytery, the session, led by the Rev. William
Perkins, pastor of the Irish Grove church, appealed this decision to the
Assembly, insisting that erasure was appropriate for one who had simply erred
in judgment in professing faith in the first place.
After considerable discussion, the
Assembly denied the appeal, 38 to sustain, 43 to sustain in part and 79 to
deny. The winning vote, though in line with the 1848 decision, fell short of a
majority. Supporters of the Assembly’s denial argued that the session acted
unconstitutionally because it did not charge Stone with sin but simply
dismissed him from the church. They claimed that membership was a lifetime
commitment and refused to permit members to throw off their connection as if
the church were “no more than a literary society.”[85] The Assembly’s judgment declared flatly: “no Church
Session has authority to dissolve the connection of a communicant with the
Church of Christ, except by excommunication.”[86]
However, a slim majority thought the
session’s action in some sense appropriate but divided on its
constitutionality. Thirty-eight commissioners voted to sustain the appeal,
arguing that “if the action of the session was not strictly according to the
letter of the Constitution, it was in the spirit,” while another forty-three
declared that “while the Session did right in dismissing Mr. Stone under the
circumstances, its action was not strictly constitutional, according to the
letter, and that therefore the appeal should be sustained in part.”[87] Indeed, some argued that discipline could not be
applied, because Stone had done nothing deserving discipline. They claimed that
“the candour and honour of such persons in acknowledging their self-deception
as soon as it is ascertained, and in wishing to throw off the christian name
which they feel they have no right to wear, deserves praise rather than
censure.”[88]
Robert L. Dabney observed in the Watchman
and Observer that the basic question was “what shall be done with those
church members who, without any open immorality, have lost their interest in
spiritual religion, and desire to put an end to their connexion with the
church?” Dabney agreed with the principle adopted by the Assembly. But “we were
sorry to hear it urged, that a self-deceived, unregenerate church member cannot
be disciplined out of the church, because there is nothing for which
to discipline him.” In Dabney’s view, Ambrose Stone was in fact guilty of a
sin worthy of excommunication. “The self-deceived and unconverted professor of
religion acknowledges a sin that is the master sin of all. . . . Let him be
disciplined therefore, for the confessed sin of UNBELIEF.”[89]
So by the late 1850s, the church was
thoroughly divided on the wisdom and meaning of allowing members to resign. One
correspondent wrote to the Presbyterian, asking whether someone who
regretted taking membership vows could simply withdraw from the church. The
editor replied that he could only be removed by regular judicial process (i.e.,
through excommunication). In light of this, he urged churches to take greater
care in admissions to the Lord’s Table, suggesting that churches adopt a more
thorough catechetical course to prevent “hasty admissions.”[90] When some argued that the apostles admitted converts
immediately, “Vigilans” countered that the apostles had “the supernatural gift
of discerning spirits.” Since the Lord’s Supper was “only for regenerate
souls,” hasty admissions were dangerous, and the church should ensure that
potential communicants clearly bore the fruit of regeneration.[91] Benjamin Gildersleeve complained that sessions no
longer took the time with potential communicants to ascertain the “evidences of
their qualifications to be admitted into the fellowship of the church.”[92] If the church would invest more time in investigating
professions, it would have less need to discipline later.
These arguments showed how far the
Presbyterian church had come from its former practice of requiring communicants
only to believe the gospel and live free from scandal. These authors assumed
that the Lord’s Supper was only for the professed regenerate. When Hodge and
Shepperson argued for the traditional Presbyterian view, they found themselves
in a shrinking minority.
So when Thornwell’s committee
proposed in 1858 to modify the Book of Discipline to allow sessions to simply
remove the names of members who wished to withdraw, he had reason to believe
that the church would accept his proposal.
One of the earliest responses came
from the Rev. Nathan Hoyt, pastor at Athens, Georgia. After thirty-five years
of pastoral ministry, Hoyt called for mercy for those who recognized their
mistake in believing that a work of grace had truly happened.[93] As another author in the Philadelphia Presbyterian put
it, the church could not avoid spurious professions, so the proper response was
to allow withdrawal without discipline. Otherwise churches would end up
excommunicating “one who has been guilty of nothing more than mistaking
spurious exercises of mind for genuine, and taking upon himself a profession of
religion under an erroneous impression–for what, in other words, was his
misfortune rather than his fault.” Further, the practice of the church already
showed some change to be needed. Without it, sessions and individuals would
continue to find a “back door,” ignoring the law of the church.[94]
But many hesitated to authorize a
“back door” to the church. One southerner insisted that “church membership is
an enlistment for life, and should be an indissoluble tie.”[95] Concerned that those guilty of serious sin would use
dismissal as a quick escape, he argued that expulsion from the church meant
“dismission to the kingdom of Satan.” It amounted to excommunication–but gave
no clear warning to the person removed.[96]
Thornwell disagreed. He argued that
withdrawals without judicial process were in fact a form of discipline. Those
erased from the church’s rolls were not, in fact, excommunicated but suspended
“for an indefinite time.” Excommunication was too harsh, and inappropriate for
one who did not claim to be regenerate, “as it might repel him from all those
influences under which his continued connection with the Church would probably
still keep him.”[97] Nonetheless, Thornwell insisted that the one
“withdrawing” should be “treated as an offender” and removed from the
membership of the church[98]
Few seemed to understand this
distinction. Since Presbyterians had historically viewed discipline as a
judicial process, Thornwell’s category of cases without process seemed like a
privilege rather than discipline. For “Conservative,” this confusion argued
against Thornwell’s proposal. If the church didn’t understand it, then it would
be used improperly as a back door out of the church.[99]
3.
“Caesar Is No Model for Christ”
Thornwell also proposed that the new
Book of Discipline include the principle of ecclesiastical inquest: “that every
church court has the inherent right to demand and receive satisfactory
explanations from any of its members concerning any matter of evil report.”[100] Some, such as Cortlandt Van Rensselaer, objected that
this “inquisitorial” power was contrary to free government. Thornwell replied
that, under the present system, a slandered person had no way to redress the
situation without a messy trial. An ecclesiastical inquest allowed the
vindication of the innocent by requiring members to answer the session’s
questions. Thornwell professed to be “greatly astonished to find it made an
objection to this power, that it might require men to criminate themselves. If
they have done wrong, this is precisely what a church court ought to try to
do.” Thornwell objected that the Presbyterian church was beginning to model
itself after American civil courts–with their rights-based jurisprudence. “A
spiritual court aims at producing and fostering a given state of heart; a civil
court is for the protection of rights. . . . Caesar is no model for Christ.”[101] Therefore, Thornwell argued that sessions and
presbyteries should have power to pass summary judgment on sins committed or
confessed in their presence.
This claim caused quite a stir among
those who wanted Presbyterian judicial process to conform to American legal
traditions. “Justice” objected that passing sentence without a trial was
dangerous. He admitted that a written confession might obviate a trial, but he
feared abuse of such a wide-ranging power.[102]
Thornwell’s suggestion that the
lower court not be excluded from voting in appeals to a higher judicatory
received a similar response. While Charles Hodge supported this, agreeing that
the lower court formed an organic part of the higher court, others objected.
“Conservative,” writing in the Presbyterian, argued that Hodge and
Thornwell were utopian. While their proposal made theoretical sense, in
practice large presbyteries could sometimes control the outcome of a synodical
vote, with the effect of denying the right of appeal in some synods.[103] The Central Presbyterian concurred,
adding that no analogy to civil courts applied, because lower court justices do
not sit on appellate courts.[104]
The other main proposed revision
altered the definition of an offense–that sin for which a member could be
brought to trial. The old book included not only behaviors sinful in themselves
but anything “which, if it be not in its own nature sinful, may tempt others
to sin, or mar their spiritual edification.”[105] Thornwell argued that this contradicted the
Confession’s statement that the Word of God is the sufficient standard for
faith and life. He proposed making the Confession and Catechisms the standard
by which the church defined offenses. This, in his view, did not elevate the
Confession to scriptural status, because
if a thing is proved to be
wrong directly from the Bible, our Confession of Faith requires us to condemn
it. . . . If a thing is shown to be wrong from our standards, we, as
Presbyterians, have declared, that it is so taught in the Sacred Scriptures. To
us the propositions are identical: Whatever the Bible condemns, our Confession
of Faith condemns, and whatever the Confession of Faith condemns, the Bible
condemns. They are the same authority; the Confession is nothing except as the
Bible speaks in it and through it; and in adopting it, we have averred it to be
an honest and faithful interpretation of God’s teachings.[106]
A
confessional church, Thornwell argued should take its confession seriously.
Therefore he claimed that “nothing is heresy which is not repugnant to our
standards of doctrine; and nothing is unlawful which is not repugnant to our
standards of practice. . . . This creed, in its whole compass, covers all that
we believe to be necessary to the salvation and spiritual prosperity of the
soul. It is, therefore, the standard by which we are to try and to judge one
another.”[107]
William Engles strongly objected to
this line of reasoning. The revision erred, in his opinion, by making the
Westminster Standards the only rule for an offense. The Confession set forth
the faith of the church, and did not contain an exhaustive list of all
offenses! Nonetheless he saw some wisdom in Thornwell’s argument. An offense
should be defined as anything contrary to the Word of God and the standards.
The old book made it clear that “Nothing, therefore, ought to be considered by
any judicatory as an offence. . . which cannot be proved to be such from
Scripture; or from the regulations and practice of the church, founded on
Scripture.”[108] Engles insisted on retaining Scripture as the primary
standard for defining an offense.[109] “Conservative” concurred, objecting that Thornwell’s
revision exchanged an infallible standard for a fallible one.[110]
4.
Later Developments
The General Assembly of 1860 was
supposed to vote on the revised Book of Discipline, but got bogged down in a
debate over the status of baptized children. Finally the Assembly voted to
table the matter until the following year.[111] The following year, the church divided, and the
discussions took on a very different character in the two churches.
A. Northern Discussions
The northern Old School continued
its committee, but eliminated the most radical of Thornwell’s proposals without
much dissent. The new chairman, Alexander T. McGill, led the committee in
restoring the old book’s position that baptized youth came under the discipline
of the church. It also removed the “back door” provision allowing communicant
members to withdraw from the church.[112] Nonetheless, the 1865 General Assembly noted that
sessions increasingly hesitated to discipline for fear of the consequences of a
protracted judicial case, “an evil in the Church, which, if not eradicated in
time, may result in her total corruption and disintegration.”[113]
The big arguments in the north
returned to Breckinridge’s original proposal to establish a judicial
commission. One pastor argued that the present appeals system was essentially
unsound. “Large bodies debate; small bodies alone can confer.”[114]originally
published in the Presbyterian. Hovey K.
Clarke, a Detroit lawyer, agreed, pointing out that the Assembly’s judicial
committee had in fact become a judicial commission without the authority of the
church’s constitution. He pointed to two recent cases where the aggrieved
parties believed that the judicial committee misunderstood the facts, but the
Assembly never heard them because it merely accepted the Committee’s report
without entering judicial proceedings. “How long will it be, under such a
system,” asked Clarke, “before all discipline will actually become
‘impossible’?” Clarke argued that a permanent judicial commission could at
least receive constitutional authority to decide cases.[115]
The 1864 Assembly created a
committee to examine this subject at the request of four northeastern synods.
The committee submitted its report the following year, which went down to the
presbyteries for study. The makeup of the committee suggested the changing of
the guard since 1861: three ministers, Elijah R. Craven (PTS 1848), pastor of
the Third Presbyterian Church of Newark, New Jersey, John Krebs (PTS 1830),
pastor of Rutgers Street Church in New York City, and Isaac Candee (PTS 1828),
pastor at Galesburg, Illinois, were joined by two judges, ruling elders Martin
Ryerson of New Jersey and Samuel Linn of eastern Pennsylvania.[116] Only Krebs had strong connections to the pre-1861 Old
School leadership.
The committee started by stating the
obvious: since scripture does not prescribe how to prosecute appeals, any
number of systems might be permissible. But it insisted that a judicial
commission was desirable due to the need for more careful discipline. It
pointed out that in 48 of 79 cases of discipline, the Assembly had overturned
the synodical decision–the synod and the Assembly disagreeing in three-fifths
of the cases. While admitting that the synods could be in error, the committee
suspected a faulty appeals process as the culprit.
It offered two possible solutions.
First was a temporary commission appointed at the end of each Assembly,
remaining behind to decide judicial cases. The committee did not favor this,
because such men, already weary of deliberation, might have to remain away from
their congregations for several extra weeks. The second option was a standing
commission of four ministers and four elders, each serving a four year term.
While the Assembly would retain power of review, appeal from the commission
would only be allowed in cases of heresy. While admitting that the commission
might err, the committee argued that error was far more likely in an Assembly
of 300 than in a commission of eight who would have time to hear the case thoroughly.[117] Eventually the church concurred.
B. Southern Presbyterian Canons
of Discipline (1866)
The southern Old School, on the
other hand, continued to wrestle with the status of non-communicant members.
After the war, as the southern Presbyterian church debated its “Canons of
Discipline,” this question remained at the fore. The proposed revision
distinguished between a general discipline that included baptized children and
judicial discipline that did not.
The Rev. A. W. Miller objected that
the former sort of discipline lacked teeth. It would be impossible, under this
provision, to enforce “general” discipline because only in judicial discipline
could any censure be imposed–even the milder forms of admonition and rebuke.
John B. Adger replied that this was
the point. Baptized children did not have “the grace of God in them, and
discipline being intended for the living members but not to be wasted on the
dead, it is not possible to be felt or understood by them. Such are our
baptised children until the light of God illuminates their souls.” Adger
defended the position of the late James Henley Thornwell admirably. He insisted
that baptized children already stood outside the communion of the church;
therefore, “to excommunicate them would be folly, for they are now just exactly
where they would be if we proceeded so unwarrantably.” Baptized
non-communicants must be instructed in the Word of God, not disciplined for
their failure to follow it. If they are outside of Christ, then they do not yet
have the grace necessary to obey God.
Miller replied that if instruction
failed, discipline must follow. “If the want of qualification to be admitted to
communion be a misfortune, then it should not terminate with censure; but if
the want of qualification be unbelief, it is not a misfortune, but a crime, and
such a crime will send the soul to hell.” The debate still focused on the
non-communicant adult who refused to profess faith. Miller argued that the
church had a duty to warn the unbelieving member both in word and in deed. “If
the Head of the Church may justly cast the child out of the Church into hell,
may not the Church cast their children into the world, and possibly be the
means of bringing them into the right path, and benefit the whole of the
Church?”
But as before, not all were happy
with the dichotomy that Adger and Miller proposed. The Rev. Dr. Rice sided with
Miller when he asserted that he could not find the distinction between two
kinds of discipline in scripture, but he disagreed with both when he added, “I
cannot see any difference between one member and another.” He thought that
Adger was correct in saying that excommunication was the wrong approach for
those who do not profess faith, but he feared that if they removed discipline
from all baptized non-communicants, then they could not deal with severe moral
failings either.
Most, however, remained preoccupied
with the problem of the non-communicant member who lacked faith. The Rev. Dr.
Benjamin Palmer defended the committee, objecting to casting out non-professing
members simply because they have not professed faith.[118] In the end the southern church adopted Thornwell’s
vision of the halfway membership of covenant children.
Conclusion
The debates over the revision of the
Book of Discipline reveal how Old School Presbyterians were developing a more
constitution-driven view of the church. The more or less constant flow of
amendments to the church order after the 1850s signaled the trend toward a more
statute-based polity. At the same time, the debates demonstrated that the
southern church generally had a lower view of the status of baptized children,
which may well be connected to southern appreciation for revivals. While many
northern Presbyterians recovered a more covenantal emphasis on Christian
nurture, southerners emphasized conversion as the central moment of Christian
identity.
[1]Westminster
Confession of Faith 25.4
[2]“General
Assembly,” CP 2.25 (June 20, 1857) 97.
[3]“General
Assembly” Presbyterian 27.24 (June 13, 1857) 94.
[4]Charles
Hodge, “General Assembly,” BRPR 29.3 (July 1857) 491. Breckinridge had
argued back in 1848 that the General Assembly did not “derive its power from
the Presbyteries, nor is it limited to the exercise of powers named in the
Constitution of the Church. It derives its power, and its very right to exist
and act from God himself, and may, the Bible alone considered, do every
act which any lawfully constituted Church court may do.” Therefore he approved
of commissions as the best way to conduct judicial cases. RJB, “Some Thoughts
on the Developement of the PCUSA during the ten years which have elapsed since
its Disruption in 1838,” SPR 2.3 (December, 1848) 337. Likewise, Stuart
Robinson suggested in 1855, after some debate at the General Assembly, that the
simplest procedure would be to reduce the size of the Assembly, but otherwise
to appoint a commission. Echoing Breckinridge, he claimed that “no sane man,
who had a just cause, but would prefer that any ten, of three hundred
respectable gentlemen, should try his cause–rather than let the whole
three hundred try it.” “The General Assembly of 1855,” Presbyterial Critic
1:8 (August, 1855) 348-349.
[5]Charles
Hodge, “General Assembly,” BRPR 29.3 (July 1857) 492.
[6]Charles
Hodge, “General Assembly,” BRPR 29.3 (July 1857) 493.
[7]Editorial,
“Revised Book of Discipline,” Presbyterian 28.34 (August 21, 1858)
134; CP 3.35 (August 28, 1858) 138.
[8]J. H.
Thornwell, “Revised Book of Discipline,” SPR 12.3 (October 1859) 376.
[9]“Book of
Discipline,” CP 4.23 (June 4, 1859) 90.
[10]“General
Assembly” Presbyterian 29.23 (June 4, 1859) 89.
[11]“Book of
Discipline,” CP 4.23 (June 4, 1859) 90.
[12]“Book of
Discipline,” CP 4.23 (June 4, 1859) 90.
[13]“General
Assembly” Presbyterian 29.23 (June 4, 1859) 89. As it turned out,
at least two members of the committee, Charles Hodge and Alexander T. McGill,
disagreed with Thornwell on the question of the status of baptized children,
and the practice of letting the lower court sit with the higher court in
judgment on an appeal. The practice of submitting minority reports, however,
was not very common.
[14]“Book of
Discipline,” CP 4.23 (June 4, 1859) 90.
[15]“General
Assembly” Presbyterian 29.23 (June 4, 1859) 89.
[16]After
several months of unremitting criticism in the church newspapers, Thornwell
commented that “The contrast between the courtesy with which the members of the
Committee, personally considered, have been treated, and the freedom with which
their production has been handled, may be taken as an apt illustration of the
genius of Presbyterianism, which teaches charity to the man without concessions
to his errors.” J. H. Thornwell, “Revised Book of Discipline,” SPR 12.3
(October 1859) 373.
[17]A survey
of southern sacramental debates can be found in E. Brooks Holifield, The
Gentleman Theologians: American Theology in Southern Culture, 1795-1860 (Durham,
NC: Duke University Press, 1978) chapter seven.
[18]“The
Committee's Report,” CP 3.36 (September 4, 1858) 142. It is interesting
to note how often Pittsburgh and South Carolina concurred, in spite of their
radical difference on slavery.
[19]Presbyterian
Advocate 16.19 (February 22, 1854); cf. Presbyterian Advocate 16.5
(November 23, 1853). While young children were often left at home during
worship services, one Virginian complained that parents were leaving their
eight to fourteen year old children home in order to take care of their younger
siblings. Whatever might be done with the younger ones, by the time children
reached the age of eight, it was expected that they would at least come to
worship.“Children Absent from the House of God,” W&O 7.12 (Oct 30,
1851).
[20]J. E.
L., “Revised Book of Discipline,” Presbyterian 28.38 (September 18,
1858) 149.
[21]Presbyterian
28.40 (October 2, 1858) 158.
[22][Joshua
H. McIlvaine], “Covenant Education” Home and Foreign Record 12.4 (April
1861) 105-6. The full essay was, “Covenant Education,” BRPR 33.2 (April,
1861). McIlvaine (PTS 1841), who had been ordained in the New School, brought
the First Presbyterian Church of Rochester into the Old School in 1853. From
1860-1870 he was professor of Belles Lettres at the College of New Jersey.
[23]Anonymous,
“The Changes Proposed in our Book of Discipline” SPR 12.1 (April, 1859)
49-50. He also pointed out that the Form of Government (15.4) allowed all
baptized persons in who submit to the discipline of the church and contribute
to it, to vote for pastor. The proposed revision would render the Form of
Government meaningless.
[24]J. H.
Thornwell, “Revised Book of Discipline,” SPR 12.3 (October 1859) 398.
[25]Thornwell,
“Revised Book of Discipline,” 400.
[26]Thornwell,
“Revised Book of Discipline,” 401.
[27]Thornwell,
“Revised Book of Discipline,” 401-402, citing “Directory for Worship” 9.1
(1839).
[28]Thornwell,
“Revised Book of Discipline,” 405.
[29]For more
on traditional Reformed and Presbyterian sacramental theology and practice, see
Hughes Oliphant Old, The Shaping of the Reformed Baptismal Rite in the
Sixteenth Century (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1992); E. Brooks Holifield, The
Covenant Sealed: The Development of Puritan Sacramental Theology in Old and New
England, 1570-1720 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1974); Lewis Bevens
Schenk, The Presbyterian Doctrine of Children in the Covenant (New
Haven: Yale University Press, 1940).
[30]John
Macpherson, “The Doctrine of the Church in Scottish Theology” in Anthology
of Presbyterian and Reformed Literature Vol. V, edited by Christopher
Coldwell (Dallas: Naphtali Press, 1992).
For a brilliant study of the development of Presbyterian discipline in
Scotland, see Michael F. Graham, The Uses of Reform: 'Godly Discipline' and Popular Behavior in
Scotland and Beyond (Leiden: E.J.
Brill, 1996).
[31]Glenn A.
Hewitt has provided a study of some of the theological paradigms in the
controversy. Glenn A. Hewitt, Regeneration and Morality: A Study of Charles
Finney, Charles Hodge, John W. Nevin, and Horace Bushnell (Brooklyn:
Carlson Publishing, 1991).
[32]L,
“Baptized Non-Professors” Presbyterian (August 14, 1841) 130. The Synod
of Virginia addressed these concerns in their “Pastoral Letter Of the Synod of
Virginia on the Baptism and Instruction of the Children of Church Members,” Watchman
of the South 8.11 (Oct 31, 1844) 41.
[33]Discipulus,
“The Proper Subjects of Infant Baptism,” CO 15.7 (February 13,
1841) 27.
[34]Justice,
“The Children of Baptized Parents the Proper Subjects for Baptism,” CO
15.11 (March 13, 1841) 43. Justice noted that Beza had urged that even the
children of the excommunicated should be baptized in hope of their repentance.
This was part of Beza’s argument for the validity of Roman Catholic baptism:
“Popery is an erring of the Christian Church. Wherefore the Lord hath in the
midst of that gulf of Papistry preserved baptism, that is, the first entering
into the Church.” Justice cites Beza’s “Epistle 10,” Works (London,
1574) 623.
[35]Charles
Hodge, “Bushnell on Christian Nurture,” BRPR 19.4 (October 1847) 501.
[36]Hodge,
“Bushnell on Christian Nurture,” 503. It is not accurate to say that Hodge
initially approved of Bushnell’s work, and then later came to question it.
Hodge states serious objections both at the beginning and the end of his
review, stating only that he approves of Bushnell’s goal, not his naturalistic
explanations.
[37]Hodge,
“Bushnell on Christian Nurture,” 518.
[38]Hortor,
“Familiar Letters--No. 7,” W&O 8.22 (January 13, 1852); Points to
Minutes of 1816 p618 and to Ashbel Green's 69th lecture on the Shorter
Catechism. This constitutional claim to the importance of precedence was
rejected by R. J. Breckinridge, who argued that Presbyterian law was rooted in
Scotch and Roman law–not English or American law. Scottish courts, he claimed,
did not decide cases en thesi, but always required an actual case.
Precedent, therefore, while useful, was not binding on the courts of the
church. The constitution remained the authority, regardless of the practice of the
church. Charles Hodge, “General Assembly,” BRPR 29.3 (July 1857) 491.
[39]Silvanus,
“The Children of Believers Only, Proper Subjects of Baptism,” CP 1.28
(July 12, 1856).
[40]GDA
[George D. Armstrong], “The Relation of the Church to her baptized children No
1,” CP 5.39 (September 29, 1856) 153.
[41]GDA,
“The Relation of the Church to her baptized children No 2,” CP 5.40
(October 6, 1856) 157.
[42]GDA,
“The Relation of the Church to her baptized children No 3,” CP 5.41
(October 13, 1856) 161.
[43]Old
School, “The Relation of Baptized Children to the Church--No 1,” CP 5.41
(October 13, 1856) 165. He cites the Scottish authority, Pardovan, as saying
that males at 14 and females at 12 could be the proper subjects of judicial
discipline, and pointed out that the 1798 General Assembly affirmed the principle
that baptized persons were in fact subject to discipline.
[44]Old
School, “The Relation of Baptized Children to the Church--No 2-5,” CP
5.42-26 (October 20-November 17, 1856) 169, 173, 177, 181. Quote from p177.
[45]GDA,
“The Relation of the church to her baptized children No 4 (in reply to Old
School’s No’s 1 and 2),” CP 5.48 (December 1, 1856) 189.
[46]GDA,
“The Relation of the church to her baptized children No 5,” CP 5.49
(December 8, 1856) 193.
[47]The
debate continued almost weekly until May 4, 1857.
[48]Rev. J.
G. Shepperson, “On the Nature and Importance of a Christian Profession, and its
Connexion with Membership in the Visible Church,” SPR 6.4 (April, 1853)
484-507.
[49]Shepperson,
“Christian Profession,” 490.
[50]Shepperson,
“Christian Profession,” 490-491. R. J. Breckinridge made a similar argument at
least on this point in , “The Nature and Import of a Christian Profession,” Danville
Quarterly Review 1.2 (June, 1861) 230-247.
[51]Shepperson,
“Christian Profession,” 494.
[52]Shepperson,
“Christian Profession,” 500.
[53]Shepperson,
“Christian Profession,” 504.
[54]Shepperson,
“Christian Profession,” 504.
[55]Shepperson,
“Christian Profession,” 505.
[56]Shepperson,
“Christian Profession,” 506.
[57]Moore, Digest
129.
[58]Moore, Digest
671-678.
[59]“Dr.
Samuel Miller to the Rev. Smith Sturges,” June 21, 1847, quoted in Samuel
Miller, Jr., The Life of Samuel Miller, D.D., LL.D. (Philadelphia:
Claxton, Remsen and Haffelfinger, 1869) II, 485.
[60]St
Louis Presbyterian 11.45 (May 10, 1855).
[61]Observer,
“Unconstitutional Practice in the Church,” PW 16.1 (September 25, 1856).
[62]A True
Presbyterian, “Mode of Admitting Baptized Persons to the Lord’s Supper,” True
Presbyterian (June 12, 1862).
[63]Editorial,
“Mode of Admitting Baptized Persons to the Lord’s Supper,” True Presbyterian
(June 12, 1862).
[64]Baird, Digest,
81.
[65]B. “Is
Infant Baptism Neglected?” Presbyterian 27.5 (January 31, 1857) 17.
He cites Ashbel Green and Archibald Alexander as two defenders of the
traditional Presbyterian practice.
[66]Editorial,
“The Supposed Decline of Infant Baptism,” True Witness 3.47 (February
26, 1857).
[67]Presbyterian 29.16
(April 16, 1859) 62.
[68]L. D.,
“The Revised Discipline--Baptized Members,” Presbyterian Banner 6.52
(September 18, 1858).
[69]Conservative,
“The Revised Book of Discipline, Concluded,” Presbyterian 30.1
(January 1, 1860) 1. William Engles, the editor, replied that he remained
convinced by Thornwell’s argument “that you cannot apply spiritual discipline
except to those who profess to be spiritually minded.” Editorial, “Revised Book
of Discipline,” Presbyterian 30.1 (January 1, 1860) 2.
[70]Editorial,
“Revised Book of Discipline,” Presbyterian 30.16 (April 21, 1860) 62.
[71]Editorial,
CP 4.33 (August 13, 1859) 130.
[72]“The
Status of the Baptized Child,” CP 5.22 (June 2, 1860) 86.
[73]Anonymous,
“Revision of the Book of Discipline,” CP 5.5 (February 4, 1860) 17.
[74]Editorial,
“The Proposed Changes,” Presbyterian Banner 7.32 (April 30, 1859).
[75]Editorial,
“The Revised Book of Discipline,” Presbyterian Banner 8.35 (May 19,
1860).
[76]M.
Peden, “The Discipline of the Baptized Children of the Church--Its Extent and
Method,” True Witness 5.19 (August 13, 1858).
[77]Charles
Hodge, “The General Assembly,” BRPR 20.3 (July, 1848) 407. Hodge’s
quotations came from the New York Observer.
[78]Charles
Hodge, “The General Assembly,” 408.
[79]Hodge,
“The General Assembly,” 409.
[80]Hodge,
“The General Assembly,” 409.
[81]Hodge,
“The General Assembly,” 409.
[82]Hodge,
“The General Assembly,” 410.
[83]Hodge,
“The General Assembly,” 412.
[84]Minutes
(1851) 33.
[85]Chorepiscopus
[Robert L. Dabney], “The Last General Assembly” W&O 6.51 (July 31,
1851) 201.
[86]“General
Assembly” W&O 6.44 (June 12, 1851) 174. While the vote of the
Assembly was not recorded in the Minutes, the makeup of the committee is
suggestive of who was arguing for the strict construction of the church’s
constitution on this point. The moderator, the Rev. Edward P. Humphrey of
Kentucky, appointed ministers James K. Burch (Cincinnati), Lewis Cheeseman
(Philadelphia), John Stockton (Washington), Elisha P. Swift (Ohio), and Joshua
F. Green (Arkansas), along with ruling elders Alexander Downing (Mississippi)
and Hugh Nelson (East Hanover) were appointed a committee to express the
Assembly’s judgment.
[87]Charles
Hodge, “The General Assembly,” BRPR 23.3 (July, 1851) 548.
[88]Chorepiscopus
[Robert L. Dabney], “The Last General Assembly” W&O 6.51 (July 31,
1851) 201.
[89]Chorepiscopus
[Robert L. Dabney], “The Last General Assembly” W&O 6.51 (July 31,
1851) 201.
[90]A Church
Member, “Release from Church Membership,” Presbyterian 26.34 (August 23,
1856) 134.
[91]Vigilans,
“Hasty Admissions,” Southern Presbyterian 7.2 (October 27, 1853) 5.
[92]Editorial,
“The Sealing Ordinances of the Church,” W&O 8.14 (Nov 11, 1852) 54.
[93]N. H.
(Athens, Georgia), “Revised Book of Discipline,” Presbyterian 27.44
(October 30, 1858) 173.
[94]Presbyterian 29.16
(April 16, 1859) 62.
[95]Anonymous,
“The Changes Proposed in our Book of Discipline” SPR 12.1 (April, 1859)
59.
[96]Anonymous,
“The Changes Proposed in our Book of Discipline” SPR 12.1 (April, 1859)
36-83.
[97]J. H.
Thornwell, “Revised Book of Discipline,” SPR 12.3 (October 1859) 397.
[98]Thornwell,
“Revised Book of Discipline,” 398.
[99]Conservative,
“The Revised Book of Discipline, No. II,” Presbyterian 29.50
(December 10, 1859) 177.
[100]Thornwell,
“Revised Book of Discipline,” 378.
[101]Thornwell,
“Revised Book of Discipline,” 379.
[102]Justice,
“Revised Book of Discipline,” Presbyterian 28.37 (September 11, 1858)
145. The editor, William Engles, had made similar comments earlier. Presbyterian 29.16
(April 16, 1859) 62.
[103]Conservative,
“The Revised Book of Discipline, No. V,” Presbyterian 29.53
(December 31, 1859) 189. Engles had made similar arguments earlier. Presbyterian 29.16
(April 16, 1859) 62.
[104]“Revised
Book of Discipline,” CP 4.32 (August 6, 1859) 128.
[105]J.
H. Thornwell, “Revised Book of Discipline,” SPR 12.3 (October 1859) 384.
[106]Thornwell,
“Revised Book of Discipline,” 386.
[107]Thornwell,
“Revised Book of Discipline,” 387.
[108]Book
of Discipline I.iv. Constitution (Philadelphia: Presbyterian Board of
Publication, 1839) 460.
[109]Presbyterian 29.16
(April 16, 1859) 62.
[110]Conservative,
“The Revised Book of Discipline, No. III,” Presbyterian 29.51
(December 17, 1859) 181.
[111]“General
Assembly,” CP 5.22-23 (June 2-9, 1860).
[112]“Northern
Items, from the New York Observer,” reprinted in CP 7.36
(September 4, 1862).
[113]“Narrative
on the State of Religion,” Minutes (1865) 598.
[114]A Pastor, “The Constitution of Courts of Appeal in the Presbyterian Church,” (np, nd) 9.
[115]Hovey
K. Clarke, “The Book of Discipline and the Next Assembly,” (Detroit: n.p,
1865). The cases were the Hamilton case from the Synod of Sandusky and the
Worrell case from the Synod of Illinois at the 1863 General Assembly.
[116]Minutes
(1864) 314.
[117]Report
of Committee on Appellate Courts (New York: Edward O. Jenkins, 1865).
[118]“General
Assembly,” Southern Presbyterian 1.48 (November 29, 1866).