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From: Dohms
Date: Wed, 7 Feb 1996 06:45:58 -0700 (MST) To: Richard Bacon
Cc: David Seekamp
Subject: RE: Winter Presbytery Meeting and Separation Issue
Dear Brother,
In the cases of Pastor Price, the Barrows, and the Plouffes, letters of dismission were received from the OPC, the RCUS, and the Canadian Reformed Church respectively. However, in none of these cases were formal charges issued to church judicatories for public acts of idolatry. There were public testimonies given bearing witness to the presbyteries and sessions (or consistories) that these practices were contrary to both the Scripture and our confessional standards. However, no formal judicial process was followed in the separations that occurred.
We are presently in the process of receving the Plouffes into membership in our congregation. In the case of the Birgers, they have ceased worshipping with the PCA congregation which they attended due to several issues (among which again are unrepented violations of the second commandment). They have indicated the conditions under which they would return to worship with the congregation there: conformity to the biblical standards and the subordinate standards of the Westminister Assembly and Church of Scotland. They are worshipping with a group of believers that meet in the home of a presbyterian minister (Fred Dilella) who lives about three hours from the Birgers. They have been in an on going debate with the session, but they have not formally charged the session with violations of the second commandment. Each of these families is seeking to move to locations where they might be able to regularly sit inder the faithful preaching of God's Word and the faithful administration of the Lord's Supper.
The references from our standards which we have cited in our counsel to these families have been: the Scripture (Rom.16:17; Eph.5:11; 2 Thess.3:6; 1 Tim.6:3-6; Titus 3:10-11; Rev.2:5; 3:16; 19:4; Prov.19:27; Jer.15:19); the Larger Catechism Question 104 (*making men the lords of our faith and conscience; slighting and despising God and his commands; resisting and grieving of His Spirit*), Question 108 (*The duties required in the second commandment are, the receiving, observing, and keeping pure and entire, all such religious worship and ordinances as God hath instituted in his word . . . as also the disapproving, detesting, opposing, all false worship; and, according to each one's place and calling, removing it, and all monuments of idolatry*), and Question 109 (*The sins forbidden in the second commandment are, all devising, counselling, commanding, using, and any wise approving, any religious worship not instituted by God himself; tolerating a false religion . . . all superstitious devices, corrupting the worship of god, adding to it, whether invented and taken up of ourselves, or received by tradition from others, though under the title of antiquity, custom, devotion, good intent, or any other pretence whatsover . . . all neglect, contempt, hindering, and opposing the worship and ordinances which God hath appointed*). As we understand the original intent of the Westminster divines (as made clear by the Solemn League and Covenant and the National Covenant of Scotland), churches that did not conform to these standards in doctrine, worship, and government were not permitted to exist within the covenanted nations of England, Ireland, and Scotland. And professing Christians who openly opposed these standards were not only subject to the censures of the church, but were as well subject to the sanction of the civil magistrate.
As we understand their positon, such was their view of *the true religion.* These were the fundamentals of the true religion, and to depart from them was to put oneself or ones church outside the pale of the visible church. Thus, the necessity by application (if we would follow the original intent of these confessional standards) of separating from all such churches who walk not according to the tradtions of the apostles which have been faithfully passed on to us through our presbyterian forefathers in the faith. If we should separate from and not even have fellowship with individuals who walk not according to the tradition of the apostles, how much more we must separate and not have fellowship with those churches that do not walk according to apostolic tradition (which is what the Westminister Assembly designated "the true religion") for corporate apostasy from the tradition of the apostles is only a further and more grievous aggravation of the personal apostasy to which the inspired writers refer.
These we believe to be a brief summary of our standards which warrant our counsel to these families to separate from these churches until such a time (which we fervently pray will soon be realized) as these churches return (by God's grace) to "the true religion" from which they have departed. This we humbly offer as our justification in giving such counsel to these families.
Respectfully submitted,
The session of Puritan Reformed Church Edmonton
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