[Dir. for Wor. chap. ix. sec. 1.—Comp. Digests of 1873, pp. 671, 672.]
We fully agree with Dr. Thornwell in all he said about our ecclesiastical courts and other points in the new Book of Discipline, which had been the subjects of criticism, except the relation of baptized persons to the Church. As to this point, there were three views presented in the Committee of Revision. First, that which favoured the form in which the subject is exhibited in the old Book. It is there said: “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.” This undoubtedly expresses the general conviction of the Christian world. It has been embodied in the principles, and carried out in the practice of all historical Churches from the beginning, until the rise of the Independents. It undoubtedly expresses the faith and practice of our own Church, from its organization until the present time. Some of the Committee were very strenuous that it should be allowed to retain its place in the Revised Book, without alteration. A second view, while admitting that baptized persons were in some sense members of the Church, seemed to regard them as only under its fostering care, but not subject to its government or discipline. Third, as a compromise, it was proposed to say, as in the Revised Book, that while all baptized persons are members of the Church, and under its care and government, yet the proper subjects of judicial process are those who have professed their faith in Christ.* In this form it was passed, but not unanimously—Dr. McGill not being willing to give up the clear statement of the old Book. In the new form, a distinction is made between government and judicial process; that is, between discipline in its wide and its narrow sense. And as the paragraph, in its revised form, asserts that baptized persons are subject to the government of the Church, it was thought that the great principle involved remained intact. We are free to confess that the old form is, in our view, greatly to be preferred; and we are not surprised at the opposition which the change has elicited, although we voted for it, as a compromise. Dr. Thornwell’s argument assumes that the indispensable condition under which a man becomes the subject of discipline, is his own personal and voluntary profession of faith in Christ. This is perfectly intelligible and inevitable, if a personal and voluntary confession of faith is the indispensable condition of Church membership. If it is not, the principle is out of its place. It does not belong to the theory of infant Church membership. One syllogism is, Members of the Church are the proper subjects of discipline: All baptized persons are members of the Church: Therefore, all baptized persons are the proper subjects of discipline. This is the old and common doctrine. The Independent frames his argument thus: Members of the Church are the proper subjects of discipline: Only those who voluntarily profess their faith in Christ are members of the Church: Therefore, only those who thus profess their faith are the proper subjects of discipline. Dr. Thornwell adopts neither of these syllogisms. He objects to the major proposition in the former of the two. He denies that all members of the Church are the proper subjects of discipline. He distinguishes between professing and non-professing members, and makes voluntary profession indispensable to that relation to the Church, which is the foundation of discipline. But this is contrary to all analogy. A Hebrew child was a member of the Theocracy by birth, and subject to all its laws, independently of all profession. So every Englishman or American is a member of the state, and subject to its laws, without any personal and voluntary profession of allegiance. We see not how this principle can be denied, in its application to the Church, without giving up our whole doctrine, and abandoning the ground to the Independents and Anabaptists. If, as we all hold, the children of believing parents are, by the ordinance of God, to be regarded and treated as members of the Church, this of necessity involves their right to its privileges and their subjection to its laws. Dr. Thornwell objects that, according to this principle, all baptized persons must be admitted to the Lord’s table, and that we should have our Churches filled with hypocrites. This, however, is a non-sequitur. A person being a citizen of England, or America, subject to the laws of the state, does not give him the right of suffrage. That right is limited by the laws of the state. In England, and in some of the states of this Union, it depends on the possession of a given amount of property; in other states, on the attainment of the age of twenty-one; as to females, they never acquire the privilege. In every case the right is limited by what the state deems the possession of the requisite qualifications. So in the Church, admission to the Lord’s table, or to Church offices, is limited by the possession of the qualifications which the word of God prescribes. It by no means therefore follows, that because baptized persons are subject to discipline, they are entitled to admission to the Lord’s Supper.
The Doctor further objects, that as the object of discipline is not the vindication of justice, but to produce repentance, it is utterly absurd in regard to “a man who has never heard the voice of the Lord in his soul.” This is surely a strange idea. Cannot the means of repentance be used in reference to the unconverted? Dr. Thornwell himself says, that baptized persons who do not act in accordance with their obligations, should be “followed with exhortation, remonstrance, and prayers.” But are not exhortation and remonstrance means of repentance? Do they not as much suppose a recognition of the claims of God as the subjection to discipline? They are indeed forms of discipline; and we cannot help thinking that it is a contradiction in terms, to say that a man is a member of the Church and not subject to its discipline. Whether he shall be subject to that particular form of discipline implied in “judicial process,” might be a question. But as his amenability to such process is denied on grounds which, as it seems to us, involve the denial of his true relation to the Church, we are decidedly in favour of the paragraph as it stands in our present Book.
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