Kitabı oku: «On Membership in the Society of Friends»

7748 M4B3

MEMBERSHIP

IN THE

SOCIETY OF FRIENDS,

BY

ROBERT BARCLAY.

this pamphlet may be placed for binding with the number for Fourth Month, 1872.

Ex Ubrift

C. K. OGDEN

ON

MEMBERSHIP

IN THE

SOCIETY OF FRIENDS,

BY

EGBERT BARCLAY.

BEING SOME REMARKS ON AN ARTICLE LATELY PUBLISHED IN THE

FRIENDS' QUARTERLY EXAMINER,"

ON BIRTHRIGHT MEMBERSHIP, BY JOHN STEPHENSON ROWNTREE.

LONDON: SAM L . HARRIS & CO., 5, BISHOPSGATE STREET WITHOUT

SESSIONS, YORK. SCOTT, CARLISLE. PENNEY, DARLINGTON.

IRWIN, MANCHESTER. WHITE AND PIKE, BIRMINGHAM.

WHEREAT, BRISTOL. EDMUNDSON, DUBLIN.

PREFACE.

THE writer of this paper had no intention ever to have addressed his fellow Members upon the subject of Birthright Membership. An article, however, appeared in the Quarterly Examiner of Fourth Month, 1872, from the pen of his friend and valued correspondent, J. S. Eowntree, in which he endeavoured to stem the growing con- viction of some of our most active and valued Members, that Birth- right Membership is at the root of some of our greatest difficulties a view which was shared by our friend J. S. Eowntree himself in 1859, and expressed to the world in his well-known Prize Essay. It should be clearly understood that the writer considers this fact to entitle his friend's arguments in favour of Birthright Membership to our most careful consideration, and that it in no way places him at a disadvantage, although allusion to it in this pamphlet is inevitable.

Incidentally, statements, similar to those which the writer has made publicly with reference to the nature of Membership in the early Society of Friends, are controverted in the article lately pub- lished in the Quarterly Examiner; and, most reluctantly, after carefully considering the subject, he feels bound by considerations of his duty towards the Society, to reply to this article as a whole, and particularly to bring forward some facts connected with Mem- bership in the early Society of Friends, which he did not intend to publish in a controversial form.

He ventures to think that the view taken by J. S. Eowntree that Membership in the early Society of Friends was a Birthright Membership is not only shown to be untenable, but that the con- trary may be considered to be fully established.

The full discussion of the subject of our present system of Membership could hardly be opened better than by a defence of our existing position by so able a writer as J. S. E., and the impos- sibility thus exhibited of defending it on any principles but those which, if carried out to their legitimate conclusion, would destroy (if it were possible) the Visible Church, and her united testimony for Christ in the midst of an ungodly world, has convinced the writer that it is the duty of all who love the great principles of the Society of Friends, seriously to consider if it is possible to prepare the way for a new and better system of Membership.

SOME REMARKS UPON J. S. ROWNTREE'S ARTICLE ON "MEMBERSHIP IN THE SOCIETY OF FRIENDS/'

Published in the " FRIENDS' QUARTERLY EXAMINER " of Fourth Month,

CHAPTEE I.

On the Membership of the Early Christian Church The Contro- versy between the Donatists and the Catholic Church, and the Membership of the Church of England.

MOST of our readers will remember the " Parable of the Bread-fruit Tree " in the ingenious and able " Short Studies on Great Subjects/' by J. A. Froude, the historian. It vividly depicts the fate of great institu- tions reared by the virtue, and maintained by the energy, of a generation of far-sighted men. It is told something after this fashion:

" The men with clear heads and brave hearts ploughed and harrowed the earth. They observed one plant larger and fairer than the rest. Its flowers were so fragrant and its fruits were so valuable that many others of mankind came and gathered under it, and those who had raised it received them with open arms. They made their homes under the sha.de of its branches which stretched over the plain, and rejoiced in its loveliness.

" The tree grew stronger and fairer, and they and their children's children watched it, age after age, as it lived on and flowered and seeded. But they took no care of the seed. The scent of the flowers and the sweet fruit were all they thought of, and they said, 'The tree is immortal, it will never die.' The wild birds and beasts of the field caught the stray fruits

B 2

4 Birthright Membership.

and seeds, and bore them away, and scattered them in far-off soils.

" At last the tree began to cease to grow, and then to droop and fade. Its leaves were not so thick, its flowers were not so fragrant; then a branch fell. But the men who lived under it denied that it was not what it once was. At last there could be no doubt that the leaves were thin and that the fruit was tasteless. But the generation was passed away who had known the tree in its beauty, and so men said it was always so its fruits were never better, its foliage was never thicker. So things went on, and strangers would come among them and say, 'Why are you sitting here under the old tree? There are young trees grown of the seed of this tree, far away, more beautiful than it ever was; see, we have brought its leaves and flowers to show you! ' But the men would not listen. They were angry.

" At last, some of their own wiser men brought out specimens of the old fruits, which had been laid up to be preserved, and compared them with its present bearing, and they saw the tree was not as it had been, and such of them as were good reproached themselves and said it was their own fault. They had not watered it, and had forgotten to manure it. So then, like their first fathers, they laboured with might and main. This was only partially successful, and they grew weary and looked for a shorter way. They tried grafting from the shoots which the strangers had brought. This did not answer,, and then they tied on the preserved fruits to the tree; but there were not enough, so they supplemented them with leaves and fruit and flowers of wax and clay. Their little children were taught to hold their tongues about it. If the little ones and the weak ones believed, it answered all purposes. But some saw that this was not honest and truthful conduct, and passed out in search of other

Birthright Membership. 5

homes under the shade of the young trees grown of the seed of this tree, far away."

We leave our readers to apply the moral, if there be any, and to consider whether there are any portions of the parable which apply to the present state of the Society of Friends. We think if it be so, that J. S. Eowntree, in his able Prize Essay on the Causes of the Decline of the Society of Friends, may be considered one of the people who showed us that the Society was once a flourishing tree, and clearly proved to us its decline. One of the characteristics of this Essay was that it was full of reasons why the tree was dying, but contained no clear instructions to the people who dwelt under it, as to the right course to be taken. He told us there were causes for its decline, which were the result of human apathy, of faulty methods of culture; that the seeds of the tree were not reared into fresh, young and vigorous trees, with all the care and skill which the value of such a tree demanded. He told us in the Essay that Birthright Membership was one of the main causes of the decline of the Society. The effect of this rule of the Society was that the old tree was depended upon, instead of the natural and divine method of renewing the old tree being taken advantage of. The digging about the roots and manuring the old tree had been neglected, because the men had not the experience which they would have had if they had been constantly engaged in rearing young trees. We may add that it was once the fashion to deprecate the rearing of young trees, because it was said "they produced nothing but leaves." Then came a period when some praised the cultivators but forced them to adopt methods of cultivation which were ill-adapted to the end desired, instead of acknowledging that they had no experience to guide others, and advising them to keep close to their Book which, although it did not contain precise and exact information as to details,

6 Birthright Membership.

laid down with the utmost clearness the general prin- ciples which should guide them in cultivating new trees. These men had not faith to believe that if the right method were followed these young trees would produce at last rich ripe fruit, and that a multitude of people would, as of old, rejoice and find sustenance in the flowers and fruit, and that the blessings of the old tree would thus be indefinitely extended.

In " Quakerism Past and Present " J. S. Kowntree forcibly described the evils arising from Birthright Membership, and it was considered by some of the most able and pious members of Dissenting Churches, who had the most kindly feelings towards the Society of Friends, that he had under-stated these evils, and that this single matter of Birthright Membership was sufficient in itself to account for the vast decline in numbers of the Society in proportion to the increase of the population. The Dissenting Churches of the Commonwealth, although they had had their times of depression, had not only maintained their increase with the population, but had vastly increased their numbers relatively to it. They considered that many of the things which J. S. Eowntree considered causes, were only the necessary effects of this one thing, and that our eyes were blinded by the institution itself, or that we should long ago have condemned it as con- trary to the principles of the New Testament which we profess, and to right reason; and some of them have declared that on similar arrangements as to Member- ship, their societies could not exist and flourish for many years. A system of hereditary Membership would necessarily vitiate the choice of Church officers, and the healthy growth of the Society would be interfered with, and a crop of evils and abuses would be gradu- ally developed.

J. S. Kowntree's article in the Quarterly Examiner practically tells us that his first thoughts were NOT

Birthright Membership. 7

the best, and that in the matter of Membership the Society has only to go on in a somewhat similar groove; and he attacks the views of those among us who have lately advocated what, we venture to think, are more Scriptural and rational views of Membership in a Christian Church.

One of the peculiarities of the Article is that he gathers together all which has been said by those whose views he wishes to refute, and re-states them. The effect of this is to separate his adversaries' argu- ments and proposals from their natural connection, and, like a skilful general, to attempt to defeat them in detail.

He attempts to prove that of all Christian Churches the mediaeval Society of Friends, the Church of Eng- land, and the Church of Rome, have seized the true idea of Membership in the visible Church of Christ, excluding the more vigorous Protestant Churches in this country, on the Continent, and especially in the United States of America, who, in his opinion, have developed false ideas as to Membership.

But not only does the writer inform us that he con- siders the reasons now thrown before us sufficient to alter his own published opinions addressed to the Christian world outside our Society as to the detri- mental influence of Birthright Membership, but "con- clusive" against an attempt to substitute a letter system. He presses upon our notice the fact that " two great sections of the Christian Church/' viz. the Roman Catholic and the Church of England (see page 258) " unite with Friends " in admitting infants into Church Membership. He appears to consider, because the greater part of the Christian world take these views, that in some way this furnishes presumptive proof of their correctness. Ought not this to be a strong inducement to the Society of Friends to re-examine our position, and to inquire whether the corruption and failing

8 Birthright Membership.

strength of the Church of Rome and the Church of England, our own decline in numbers, and the small direct service we have rendered to the spread of Christianity, may not be contrasted with the work of the Protestant Dissenting Churches, who have had no small part in the great revival of Spiritual Religion during the last century? It would be also profitable for us to consider if a sound system of Christian Mem- bership has not had something to do with the force, energy, and enduring nature of the work in times past, and also whether the diffusion in later times, of less stringent ideas as to Christian Membership, such as those now advocated by J. S. R., has not had some- thing to do with the present prevalence among these Churches of less ardour and devotion in the diffusion of the blessings of the Christian Religion.

We must first notice the allusion in this article to the fact that the controversy is not a new one, and that this was one of the difficulties of the Early Christian Churches that the question they debated was really the terms of Christian Association, or, as it is euphoniously termed in the article, " a difference of view between the advocates of a restricted and a com- prehensive Membership." This allusion to the question as one which has remained unsettled for 1500 years would necessarily tend to make our Body hopeless of coming to a right decision a state of mind eminently favourable for the question of Membership among us remaining untouched, unless we have the courage to go a little father and inquire, first, Why did this difficulty arise in the early Christian Church? and secondly, Did the settlement of the question by what is termed the establishment of " a comprehensive Membership " tend to the maintenance of the original purity and efficiency of the visible Church, as an instrument both for the propagation of the Gospel, and for the training of its members and the children of its members in

Birthright Membership. 9

Scriptural truth, and in a spiritual apprehension of the cardinal principles of the Gospel of Christ 1

If we can answer these questions we shall be in a better position for judging whether our sympathies as a Protestant Church ought to be "alternately enlisted" first on one side and then on the other. Not only is this chapter in the History of the Church well worthy to be remembered, but we venture to think that the answers to these two questions will show that the in- troduction of this " Comprehensive Membership," or, in other words, of Infant Baptism, was the first step which tended to make the Kingdom of Christ a king- dom of this world, and paved the way for the great apostacy from the simplicity of the Gospel of Christ.

The celebrated Claudius Salmasius, of the University of Ley den, gives us the following information: " In the first two centuries after the birth of Christ, no one re- ceived baptism except those who were instructed in the faith and doctrine of Christ, and who were able to testify that they believed, in conformity with the words 'Who- soever believeth and is baptised/ &c. Therefore the first thing was to believe, and from this the order of the Catechumens arose in the Church. The custom was also firmly held as a perpetual one, that after baptism the Lord's supper should be given. After this the opinion gained ground that only those who were baptised could be saved. From this arose the custom of baptis- ing infants at birth, and because they gave the Lord's supper to adult catechumens, after Infant Baptism was introduced, the Lord's supper was also administered to Infants."

Neander also distinctly tells us that Baptism, in the early Christian Church, was not originally applied to any but adults; because baptism and the possession of faith were strictly connected (Neander 's History, Bohn's Standard Library, vol. iv. page 429, and vol. i. page 430), and also that " there does not appear to be any

10 Birthright Membership.

reason for deriving Infant Baptism from an Apostolical Institution."*

Then came in the doctrine which condemned all men to perdition for the sin of Adam, and its logical sequence issued in the doctrine of the " damnation of unbaptised infants," and in consequence the extreme anxiety of Christian parents to have their offspring baptised, and thus the idea of a certain magical efficacy of baptism and the Lord's supper which were con- ceived to convey Grace to the recipient crept in. Then followed a view of the importance of a clear line of Apostolic Succession to convey, by bodily and visible means, this inherent efficacy.

We can readily see that the Baptism of the newly- born infants of Christian parents did away with the original idea and intention, and the practical action of the early Christian Church which was consequent upon this idea, viz. that a man or woman was first to be convinced by the preaching and teaching of Christianity of its truth. This led to the practice of handing over the converts to " Catechists." This was no distinct office in the early Church, but some persons who, it might be, had distinguished themselves among the Church readers of the New Testament Scriptures; and "able and learned laymen" were selected, e.g., at Alexandria they were required to be " men of liberal education," who were able to satisfy the doubts and

 See also the First Apology of Justin Martyr, who is con-

sidered to have lived about the year A. D. 114, pages 59, 60 and 63, Ante-Nicene Library: " Since at our birth we were born without our own knowledge or choice, in order that we may not remain the children of necessity and ignorance, but may become the children of choice and knowledge, and may obtain in the Water of Baptism the remission of sins," &c. He says, page 59, that for Baptism " we have received this reason from the Apostles." And page 63: " after we have thus washed him who has been convinced and assented to our teaching."

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objections of heathen, and meet them on their own ground. (See Neander, vol. i. 423.)

We believe that there is no evidence whatever that the children of Christian parents, except when their parents were able and willing to teach them the truths of Christianity, were in any case exempted from this teaching. In a word, some knowledge of what Christi- anity is, was found needful before any person could put faith in Christ, and resolve to "do the things which He says." And is it not equally needful now?

In the last year of the second century, Tertullian was a zealous opposer of Infant Baptism,""" which is a sufficient proof, in the opinion of Neander, that the practice was not of apostolical institution, and that (to use J. S. R.'s words) a "Comprehensive Member- ship" was not the original Membership of the Church of Christ. Now what was the necessary effect of this universal prevalence of Infant Baptism at the time of Augustine and Donatus '\ It was this: Christianity became the inheritance of a particular division of man- kind, viz., those who were fortunate enough to have Christian parents; and the idea of proclaiming the State a Christian State clearly arose from this How great would be the gain of Christianity if we could baptise ALL the children who were born. Then the Church and State would be identical, and no further persecution could arise from pagan governors. Now, Donatus contended that " Church and State should be kept wholly distinct from each other," and the Bishop Donatus repelled the advances of the Imperial officer with the remark " What has the Emperor to do with

 With regard to young children Tertullian says " The Lord

does indeed say ' Forbid them not to come unto me.' Let them ' come,' then, while they are growing up. Let them ' come' while they are learning while they are being taught whither to ' come. ' Let them become Christians when they have become able to know Christ."

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the Church?"* (Neander,vol. iii. page 276). Again, the Donatists maintained that the Church " should cast out from its body those who were known by open and manifest sins to be unworthy Members" (Neander, vol. iii. page 291). They asked "Did the Apostles ever persecute any one 1" The Donatists urged, in reply to their ad- versaries who were contending for the retention of open sinners in the Church, and for the offices of the Church sanctifying the man, and not the man the office, that " the field " in the parable quoted by J. S. Eowntree " is the world " and not the Church; that the appli- cation of the parable of the net, proved that, in the visible Church, the mixing in of secret sinners was in- evitable the object and construction of the net not being to catch bad fish but good; that a complete sepa- ration was impossible, but what they demanded was the " exclusion of persons manifestly vicious," from the Society of believers. We may remark that the parable of the field has been interpreted by the advocates of the connection of the Church with the State in the sense in which our friend J. S. E. interprets it, and by all the advocates of the separation of Church and State by the early Independents, Baptists, and the early Friends, in the same sense as the Donatists, and they have all dwelt upon the interpretation of our Lord as above quoted, setting aside all other human inter- pretation; and they come to the decision that " the FIELD is the WORLD." We may reasonably be sus- picious of the interpretation of this and similar texts by the clergy of the Church of England, who have been pledged, both by their solemn promises and by the fact that the whole revenues of the State Church hang upon this acceptance of the idea of a State Church

 He charged the Donatist Churches to receive none of the

Emperor's money. The Donatist Bishops also testified that the cor- ruption of the Church had originated in the confusion of the Church and State.

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embracing a whole country, and on their receiving as Members of the Church, on principle, vicious as well as truly Christian persons.

Such were the principles of the Donatists, who ap- pealed to numerous passages of Scripture to show that a Catholic Church corrupted by the introduction on principle and the retention of unworthy Members, was like those who bowed the knee to Baal; and the little band who held to the principles of the Apostles might, after all, be the real, visible Church, and be owned by Christ at his coming.

Surely our Religious Society ought not to be in doubt as to -which principles it can, on the whole, accept. Surely the student of the facts of this con- troversy will not, if he has rightly understood and accepted our religious principles, indulge in that wa- vering disposition of mind, which our friend J. S. R. describes! Great principles were indeed involved; but we venture to hope that, after this necessarily imperfect statement of them, no Member of our Society will fail to see that those of the " Catholic Church " led to the enormous corruptions of Rome; and that the same ideas in the Church of England, at the present time, are leavening this country with precisely the same principles, and that they are eating like a canker into the vitals of the English Church; and what the reaping will be of such a sowing no one can predict. On the other hand, the principles of the Donatists, in the main, were principles of the Protestant Dissenters (and of the ancient Society of Friends), and were again developed by the Reformation, and thus the vital truths they contended for were not destined by Divine Providence to be lost.