Censures And Councils
By Gordon H. Clark, Ph.D.
"The Lord Jesus, as king and head of his Church, hath therein appointed a government in the hand of church-officers, distinct from the civil magistrate." In the United States, perhaps better than anywhere else in the world, the separation of church and state has been maintained. Whenever, as in the Middle Ages, and wherever, as in Spain and other Roman countries today, the church controls the state, the church has been corrupt; and why Anglicans and Scandinavian Lutherans want politicians to control the church, is beyond the understanding of an American Calvinist. If we know what is good for us, both civilly and ecclesiastically, we shall resist the socialistic extension of governmental authority that has already, in one or two instances, infringed on our inalienable religious liberty.
To the officers whom Christ has appointed for his Church, he has given authority to impose censures. "Church censures are necessary for the reclaiming and gaining of offending brethren; for deterring of others from like offenses; for purging out of that leaven which might infect the whole lump; for vindicating the honor of Christ and the holy profession of the gospel; and for preventing the wrath of God which might justly fall upon the Church, if they should suffer his covenant and the seals thereof to be profaned by notorious and obstinate offenders" (sec. iii) .
Because this principle has become virtually a dead letter in most of the denominations, the results it was supposed to have prevented have overtaken us. Offending brethren are not reclaimed, nor are others deterred from offending; the leaven that should have been purged has infected the whole lump; instead of Christ's honor being vindicated, people have no respect for a pusillanimous church; and the wrath of God seems about to fall upon us. From ecclesiastical country clubs, good Lord, deliver us!
"For the better government and further edification of the Church, there ought to be such assemblies as are commonly called synods or councils. . . . It belongeth to synods and councils, ministerially, to determine controversies of faith and cases of conscience . . . which decrees and determinations, if consonant to the word of God, are to be received with reverence and submission."
Some Christians do not believe in synods or councils and have therefore insisted on a strictly congregational form of government. The congregation admits new members, inflicts censures (if it wishes), and ordains men to the ministry—all without supervision by or appeal to a higher court. Perhaps it is not surprising that congregationalists overlook or reinterpret I Tim. 5:14, which indicates that ordination should occur by the laying on of the hands of the presbytery; it is more surprising that they proceed without an express New Testament instance of ordination by the laity; but what goes beyond my Presbyterian comprehension is the total repudiation of synods and councils in the light of Acts 15.
At the same time one must admit that some errors are less pernicious than others. In the history of the church much less damage has been done by Congregationalism than by synodical usurpation of unlimited power. Though it is not wise to flee from one extreme to the other, congregational revulsion from ecclesiastical tyranny can easily be appreciated by all except the tyrants.
Now, the Confession states that the decrees of councils are to be received with submission, if they are consonant to the word of God. And in the next section it says, "all synods or councils . . . may err and many have erred; therefore they are not to be made the rule of faith and practice." A. A. Hodge in his Commentary on the Westminster Confession states that "if their decisions are opposed plainly to the word of God, the private member should disregard them."
How different this Presbyterian position is from the position of Dr. Eugene Blake, Stated Clerk of the U.S.A. General Assembly, who said, "The will of the majority of the Presbytery is the will of God." According to another official in that denomination, "Now that the Committee has acted, that becomes the action of the Presbytery, and that is the will of God." Such a position as this may be popery, it may be paranoia, but whatever it is, it is not Presbyterian.
These delusions of grandeur, delusions of deity we might say, have led some churches to violate the Confession of Faith by transgressing upon civil authority. They forget they are the church and aspire to be the federal government. This is not Presbyterianism, either. The Confession says, "Synods and councils . . . are not
