It is a joyful time when new members are added to a congregation, formally identifying themselves as believers in Jesus and committing to live as one of His disciples. All churches have some kind of admission process which allows them to decide whether somebody can be accepted as a new member. However, what criteria should a church use? Robert Baillie (1602–1662) served as a minister in Kilwinning, an army chaplain, and Professor of Divinity (later Principal) at Glasgow University. He was also one of the Scottish commissioners to the Westminster Assembly. In his writings he interacted with some who believed that people were obliged to provide evidence that they were truly regenerate before they could be accepted as church members. Robert Baillie argues in the following extract that this sets the bar for church membership too high. We cannot see into each other’s hearts, so how can we know whether someone is genuinely saved or not? Also, the Lord Himself has organised His church in the world in such a way that it will never be composed entirely of the truly regenerate. Baillie’s position strives for the highest standards for church members to live up to, while relieving us of the burden of deciding whether each individual church member is genuinely born again.

This is not a question of open profaneness in church members, but whether they have or lack true grace — i.e., whether they can show convincing signs of regeneration. The argument is not only that the church has a power and responsibility to discipline profaneness, but that there is a power in every member of the church to exclude from membership all who do not satisfy them that they are truly saved by grace.

I grant that it is earnestly to be wished that all the members of a church were most holy and gracious, and that all lawful means should diligently be used, both by pastors and people, to attain this.

I grant also that it is the duty of the church leadership to prevent every person who causes spiritual stumbling from profaning the holy things of the Lord to their own damnation. It is the duty of the church leadership not only to suspend from the Lord’s table all persons who cause stumbling, but further, if those persons are obstinate, and cannot be brought to repentance, they are to be excluded from the church, without respect of persons. I grant also that when church leaders are deficient in these duties, they ought themselves to be disciplined with church censures. These things are beyond dispute.

But the question is, Is a church essentially defective because it admits to church membership some who have not given satisfaction to every member of the church in the point of their real regeneration?

I argue that the answer to this question is No, for the following reasons.

Moses and the prophets

Moses and the prophets did not separate from the churches of their times on account of lack of convincing signs of true grace in many members of the church. Indeed, they were so far from separating from the churches of their days that they remained even to their dying day in the bosom of these churches, communicating with them in the Word, prayer, sacraments and sacrifices, even though they were assured of the evident wickedness of the majority of their fellow-members.

Moses knew the body of Israel to be a crooked and perverse generation. Isaiah tells the Jews that they were another Sodom. Jeremiah shows that Israel in his day was uncircumcised in heart, no better than Moab, Ammon, or Edom. Micah said that the godly in his time were as rare as the summer fruits, as the grapes after the vintage. Of this truth all the prophets are full, yet for all this, none of the prophets did ever think of separation.

The church in the days of Moses and the prophets was one and the same with the church of our days. The house of God, the body of Christ, the elect and redeemed people, the holy nation, the peculiar treasure and spouse of the Lamb — the difference in the true church in any age is at most only in incidental circumstances, and not in any essentials.

Whatever moral evil defiles the church now, that is a rightful cause of excommunication or separation, must be so at all times, and especially under the Old Testament. All the ceremonial differences between the church then and now only strengthen this argument, because then the causes of separation were stricter and smaller. In those days, a little ceremonial defilement would have kept someone out of the sanctuary; much more a moral uncleanness would have made the sacrifice abominable.

If, therefore, in the Old Testament a matter was no cause of separating from the church, much less can it be so now.

Christ and the apostles

Again, Christ and His apostles did not separate from the church of their time for lack of convincing signs of the true grace of every member of the church. The implications for us are clear, unless we desire a better pattern for our practices than Christ and His apostles, for anything that carries us beyond their line must be high presumption and deep hypocrisy.

Many Scriptures back this up. The scribes and Pharisees were a generation of vipers. Jerusalem was worse than Sodom and Gomorrah. Chorazin and Bethsaida were worse than Tyrus and Sidon, and to be cast lower in hell then they. Yet the Lord did not cease to preach, to pray, to go to the temple with them. Judas, when a declared traitor, did not deter Him nor any of His company from the sacrament. After he went from the table, when his wickedness was revealed, yet none of the apostles offered to cast themselves out of the body because this wicked member was not cut off.

Many members of the apostolic churches were so far from convincing signs of true grace, that what was most evident in their life was the works of the flesh. In the Corinthian church were fundamental errors, open idolatry, grievous scandal, bitter contentions, profanation of the Lord’s Table. In the Galatian church were errors which destroyed grace, and made Christ of none effect. In the churches of Ephesus, Laodicea, and the other golden candlesticks, various members were so evidently faulty that the Lord threatened to remove the candlestick. Yet from none of these churches did any of the apostles ever separate, nor did they give the least warrant to any of their disciples to make a separation from any of them.

The nature of the church

If we believe Scripture, it is the nature of a visible church that it is such a body whose members are never all gracious. It is not like the invisible church, the church of the elect.

The visible church is a heterogeneous body, and the parts of it are very dissimilar, some chaff, some corn, some wheat, some tares. It is a net of fish, good and bad; a house in which are vessels of honour and dishonour; a fold of sheep and goats; a tree of green and withered branches; a table of guests, some with and some without a wedding garment. In the best churches of the Scripture we have too many bad members, including Judas, Ananias and Sapphira, Simon Magus, Hymeneus and Philetus, Demas and the like.

In a word, every visible church is a society in which many are called, few are chosen. So unless we will alter the nature of all the visible churches of which Scripture speaks, we must grant that in every church there are some members which have no true grace. If so, how can they give convincing and satisfactory signs of that which is not to be found? Hypocrites may put a good front on the outside of something which does not exist on the inside, but shall we lay an obligation on every hypocritical member of a church to be so eminently skilful in the art of counterfeiting as to produce in the midst of his gracelessness such clear, evident and satisfactory signs of his true grace that it will convince the hearts of every member of the church that there is something in his heart which certainly is not there?

The Corinthians were referred to as “sanctified in Christ, and called to be saints.” If this refers to an inward, efficacious call, it is true not of every member, but only of some, and is attributed to the whole church of Corinth indefinitely, because of these some, who truly were elected, justified, and sanctified. That this was not true of all and every one of that church is clear by the apostle’s complaint of many among them. Some he complained of for incest, of others for injurious defrauding of their neighbours, of some for carnal schisms, of others for profane drunkenness at the Lord’s table itself, of others for fundamental errors.

Christ is said to have died for the Galatians’ sins, and separated them from this evil world. If this refers to true grace, yet it may not be applied to every member of the Galatian church, for in the next words, the apostle testifies that some of them were removed to “another gospel,” and that they were foolish and bewitched to rebel against the truth.

The relation of the church to the persons of the Trinity is, that it is the body and spouse of Christ, the temple of the Holy Ghost, the sons and daughters of the Father. This must be understood (along with many similar privileges) of the universal and invisible church. When any such privileges are referred to a particular visible church, they must be understood of that church not according to every one of its members, but only its living and gracious members.

The burden on every member

It would not be right to separate from a church because of the lack of something that cannot reasonably be expected of every member of a congregation. But if every member is supposed to be satisfied that every other member shows signs of true regeneration, it would end up in an unreasonable situation.

For one thing, every member of the congregation would need to have the power to judge all their fellow members, as to whether they should be let in to or kept out of church membership. This way lies anarchy!

For another thing, how is it possible to attain any well-grounded certainty about the true grace in the heart of any other person? The “hidden man of the heart” and “the new name” are not certainly known to any but to those who have them. The grounds of each individual’s own certainty, the act of their faith either direct or reflex, the witness of their conscience, or the sealing of the Spirit, cannot go outside their own heart. All the demonstrations which can be made to someone else are so often found false that they can provide at most a fallible opinion, or a charitable hope, far from any certainty of sense or science, never mind faith or direct revelation.

Then also, it lays on the conscience of every weak one a burden that is unbearable to the strongest. They will be kept in constant perplexity and doubt what to do — whether to stay in the church, or under the pain of sin to separate from it, till they have accurately examined and verified and attained to a full satisfaction and assurance of mind about the regeneration of every member, however many members were in the church they belonged to. The burden of such a task might break the back of the strongest pastor, much more of a poor lamb.

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