Presentación, análisis e interpretación de resultados de responsabilidad

The disposition adopted by churches towards impenitent offenders, excommunicated from the congregation, was hard but not entirely lacking

121_{ARPB, 61.}

122 _{Whitely, ‘Church Discipline in Loughwood’, 290.}

123_{ARPB, 191.The use of square brackets indicates words that are supplied by the editor (B.R.}

White) of the manuscript where damage has rendered it impossible to read the original.

124 _{Whitely, ‘Church Discipline in Loughwood’, 289.}

mercy. The instructions of the Midland messengers to their churches in 1656 was,

our carriage to a person cast out of the church ought to be as towards a heathen or a publican, Mt. 18.17. If wee find him hardened and persisting in sinne then to leave him and take no more notice of him that of another wicked person. But if wee find him willing to heare us and soe likely to be gained then to use such meanes as the Scriptures affordeth for the regaineing of him.126

This procedure was almost identical to that operating in the Western

Association where, when the occasion demanded, churches could pronounce severe sanctions couched in scriptural terms, as in the case of Richard Copp of Axminster:

. . . but he still stiffly persisting therein and indeavouring to cause divisions in the church and to draw away others after him, was by the church in the name of Christ – delivered up to Satan, and was judged fit to be no further communicated with than a heathen or publican. And that upon these scriptures (viz) 1 Tim. 6:3,5 verses, Romans 16:17, Titus 3:10.127

In this instance the terms of excommunication, namely ‘shunning’, were every bit as uncompromising as that associated with the ban used by continental Anabaptists.128 Procedures of this type had also been available to the

ecclesiastical courts prior to their emasculation in 1641, when the sentence of ‘greater excommunication’ could be passed on a sinner, depriving them of ordinary social support and common benefits, though this was not commonly employed.129 _{When this judgement was given, however, the excommunicated} suffered social and economic ostracism, being unable to buy or sell, not to be employed, unable to sue or give evidence in court, thereby depriving them the opportunity to recover debts. Neither could they give bail, make a will, or

126_{ARPB, 26-27.}

127 _{Whitely, ‘Church Discipline in Loughwood’, 290.}

128 _{See George H. Williams, The Radical Reformation (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1962),}

485-499.

129 _{One example from the early seventeenth century is noted by R.A. Marchant who cites the}

appeal of a parish priest to the archdeacon’s register in Nottingham on behalf of Mary Bell a pregnant parishioner on the brink of giving birth:

‘I have received a writ of Excommunication against Marie Bell (my parishioner) and I dare not stay it without warrantie from your Court. Will you be pleased to be certified, that she waites her every houre, and not able to travaile halfe a mile out of the towne. Let mee entreat so much favour of you (if it may bee) as to reverse that which is done, or els to absolve her againe, that she be not deprived of womens helpe, which now shee is like to stand in need of. I hope you will pittie a woman in her case.’ Cited in Brian Outhwaite, The Rise and Fall of the English

Ecclesiastical Courts, 1500 – 1860 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,

receive a legacy. Such ‘discipline by the purse’,130 _{which effectively cut a} person off from common civil rights, compares harshly with the spiritual penalties applied in Baptist congregations.

Following excommunication, churches in the Abingdon Association agreed to notify neighbouring churches of their decision to prevent an offender joining an adjacent congregation. However, if the offender subsequently showed satisfactory repentance, the neighbouring churches would likewise be informed of this change of status.131

It was acknowledged that restoration had been the intention of

excommunication in its Christian origins, a means of warning rather than mere punishment. Excommunicated persons were not supposed to be cast out of the church permanently, but until such time they repented.132 If repentance was not forthcoming then shunning was to be fully implemented. In Oxford, the church resolved that,

a person lawfully cast out be looked upon as one whom the saintes doe and must put away from among themselves, and whom they doe and must turne away from, and whom they doe and must avoid and reject.133

The imperative in this resolution reflected the fear of spiritual contamination by contact with an excommunicant, and those who failed to observe the rule of shunning were also in danger of being cast out. What about the situation, asked the Midland and Abingdon Associations, of listening to the preaching and praying of an excommunicant? This question presupposed someone being cast out for a difference of theological conviction, regarded by some as anathema, and by others as a brother. In response the Messengers asserted,

it is not lawful at any time to heare an excommunicated person preach unless some necessity shall be found to require some able brethren to heare in order to a present discovery and refutation of his errors.134

One circumstance which gave rise to a dilemma such as this was the question of laying on of hands as an ordinance of Christ.135 Those who insisted on

130 _{So called by Bishop Hacket. See Christopher Hill, Society and Puritanism, 307.} 131_{ARPB, 130.}

132 _{See Rosalind Hill, ‘The Theory and Practice of Excommunication in Mediaeval England’,}

History 42.144 (1957), 1-2. In this article Hill also draws attention to the pre-Christian origins

of excommunication among the Druids.

133_{ARPB, 196.} 134_{ARPB, 38.}

making laying on hands a divisive and schismatic issue were to be put out of the church. But what then of those who disagreed with the grounds of

excommunication and being sympathetic to this theology sought them out to receive the laying on of hands? This was the response:

wee judg it his greater evill under a twofold consideration. First, not seeking reconciliation to the offended brethren Mt. 5. 23f., and, next, in that hee goeth after an excommunicated person for to have hands layd upon him who should have bine to him as an heathen or a publican for which evill the church is to deale with [him] as a great offender.136

By hearing an excommunicated preacher the decision of the church, from which he was excommunicated, was rendered null and void, and the authority of the church compromised. The Abingdon messengers warned the churches that such behaviour

doth utterly make voyd the authoritye given of Christ to the churches to

excommunicate such members as Gospell rule requires to be layd by and so doth open a wide dore to confusion and licentiousness.137

This was a plea for congregational unity when discipline was imposed, and personal dissent, leading to a breach of the ban, compromised the authority of Christ in his church risking spiritual and moral anarchy.

This discussion of the practice of discipline among the Particular Baptists has shown that observance of scriptural principles in their congregations was a conviction of first importance, and those who defied the authority of the local church were dealt with with a degree of severity. The agreed policy of church leaders was that those who had been admonished and excommunicated should be regarded no longer as a brother or sister. Their judgements, however, were not always supported by rank and file members of the church, who clearly understood the implications of democratic church government.

4.4. Theology of Discipline among Particular Baptist