Quote:
Originally posted by WrittenFromUtopia
1. No lawfully ordained ministers to oversight the congregation, administer the sacraments, etc.
2. No accountability to any other church or body of belielvers.
3. No membership system of any kind.
4. No confession of faith or statement of beliefs.
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As to if this church is a true church or not:
1 - Lawfully ordained ministers are extremely important in the
right governing of a church. That being said, lawfully ordained ministers are not part of the
esse of the church, but the
bene esse. I recommend reading (if you haven't already read it)
Presbyterian Church Government NOT the Esse of the Church.
2 - A lack of accountability to other churches I would place in the same category as the lack of lawfully ordained ministers. While important in the preservation and health of the church, a church does not lose it's essence with the lack of this accountability.
3 - No membership system of any kind. This is troublesome to say the least. Church censures become difficult, but depending upon the particular circumstances, it is hard to judge. Some independent congregations seem to deny
official membership with one breath, but in practice, keep membership by recording baptisms, etc. etc.
4 - No confession is the most difficult of the 4 you mention. If the congregation is arminian/dispy, that hacks at the very root of the gospel. No doubt, if a congregation does not have the un-adultrated gospel, it can hardly be called a true church. I do not know if this is the case in this particular situation, it very well may not be (but without a confession it is hard to say). If the church is true to the gospel however, we should be charitable in our judgement of the church.
In closing, I also believe the baptistic church to be schismatic from the one true church, but in that, we must be charitable as to the
definition, and to what constitutes a
true church. As you well know, this is defined by Calvin as 1)Preaching of the word (gospel specifically) 2)Administration of the sacraments, and 3) Church censures.
I would recommend highly reading
Unity of the Church: The Sin of Schism, by John MacPherson. He does a great job of accounting our Scottish forefathers, and their judgements of what constitues a TRUE church, even in the light of schism and seperation.