Chapter XII (continued, part 3)
table, then we see not how Dr. Thornwell's arguments are to be resisted. It is the duty of all who hear the gospel, to commemorate the death of Christ in the manner which he has appointed. Some, however, have not the qualifications which he has commanded his Church to require in those whom she receives to the Lord's supper. Others are prevented by illness, by providential hindrances, or by scruples of conscience. Now if the question is whether a Church member may absent himself from the Lord's supper, without justly subjecting himself to suspension or excommunication, we presume no one would be disposed to answer in the negative. He may be in a state of spiritual darkness; he may seriously doubt his own conversion; he may have erroneous views of the qualifications for that service. In all such cases he should be tenderly instructed, admonished, and borne with in all long-suffering and patience. But if he keeps aloof from this ordinance through indifference, or a worldly spirit, he is certainly deserving of censure, first of admonition, and if that prove ineffectual, of suspension. We should therefore be disposed to side with Dr. Thornwell in saying that there are cases in which a session would be fully justified in permitting a member to absent himself from the Lord's supper. But we would not call this withdrawing from the Church. This mode of expression is derived from the Congregational theory of the Church, which makes the regenerate the materials and confederation the formal cause of a Church. A covenant into which certain believers enter with each other, according to this doctrine, makes them a Church. This is a voluntary compact and association, from which any man may withdraw, or from which he may be excluded. But according to the Presbyterian doctrine a man can no more withdraw from the Church, than he can withdraw from the moral government of God. The Church consists of all those who profess the true religion together with their children. Such children are baptized because they are Church members. The only possible way in which they can cease to
be members, is either by open apostasy, or excommunication. Suspension from Church privileges is not exclusion from the Church, but simply a refusal to allow the full benefits of Church communion to certain persons for a season, just as a father may withhold from a disobedient son, the privileges of the family circle for a season without disowning him as a child. According to the Presbyterian theory of the Church therefore, no man can withdraw from it. He cannot cease to profess the true religion, except by denying its doctrines, for which he should be cut off. 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 he neglects his duties, he should be dealt with for his disobedience; tenderly admonished, suspended, or excommunicated as the case may be. Being born within the Church, or professing in baptism the true religion, 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. The Church is a voluntary society not in the sense that a man may enter and withdraw from it, at pleasure; but because no one can be forced to enter it, or coerced to remain in it. In the same sense obedience to the moral law must be voluntary. But it does not follow that because a man cannot lawfully be forced to profess the true religion, he may cease to make that profession without censure. While therefore we agree with the majority of the Assembly in saying no man can be allowed to withdraw from the Church, we agree with Dr. Thornwell in thinking he may, in certain cases, be allowed to absent himself from the Lord's table, without incurring the sentence either of suspension or excommunication.