• cd Q_ (0 /? 1c -9- * cu -a ^^ lc ^S ^ Q- w *s> fc o ta 5 *S g 03 C w O bfl C\ »£5 ^ < ^ l^ g "aj sT fe £ O M ta « ^ tf CO "& 2 LETTER I. ON THE WORD CHURCH. Introduction — The Baptist position respecting the word — Its true meaning, a collection of Christians — Those in any city — In any family — Xot organizations — The Baptist definition of a church not descriptive of apos- tolic churches — Pedobaptist churches as truly N". T. churches as any other — The church, a designation for the body of Christ's disciples in the world — Equi- valent to " the household of faith" — Examples — Baptist concessions — The nature of this body — How entered — Who are its members — Baptizing into the fellowship of particular churches, not a scriptural act — Conclusion. Mr Dear Friend : — You have now laid before me, one by one, your reasons for adhering to the practice of restricted communion. Your position is, that you have no right to commune at the Lord's table with any but believers who have made an immersional profession of Christianity. 14 OPEN COMMUNION. Your argument is, that none others are in the church as Christ constituted it ; that the Lord's supper is for these alone ; and that, inasmuch as we are called upon to preserve the constitution of the church in its original form, and to keep the ordinances as they have been delivered to us, you are not at liberty to commune with unbaptized churches, or even with those who, though baptized, practise intercommunion with such churches. Your reasons for holding these views I have carefully weighed ; and yet, however much I agree with you as a Baptist, I cannot see the force of your arguments as a close communionist. To my mind your reasoning is palpably more or less unfounded and illogical, and altogether incon- clusive. And if you will bear with me I will endeavor to show you wherein your argument is inconsistent with truth and with several of your own concessions. It is important, then, that we determine, in the first place, whether Pedobaptist assemblies are scriptural churches or not, that is, churches in a scriptural sense of the word ; and whether church does or does not, in the language of the Holy Ghost, sometimes denote the body of professing Christians among men. You. say, in common with the denomination, that " a visible church of Christ is a congregation of baptized [immersed] ON THE WORD CHURCH. 15 believers, associated by covenant in the faith and fellowship of the gospel ;"* which, if true, would leave Christ without any churches in the world but Baptist churches. Again, you say that you agree with Dr. Fuller that the word church has, in the Bible, but two meanings ; that it denotes either " a visible church of Christ," or the spiritual body of all who are converted ; that it is never applied to the body of professing Christians in the world, but that this use of the word " is a tertium quid unknown to the Bible."f On both these points, however, I am compelled to differ with you. I admit that the word is often used, as in Eph. i. 22, to denote the body of the redeemed, the spiritual church as it is sometimes called. But that this is the only meaning, except one, which the word has when applied to a religious body, is a conclusion to which you must have come with- out due examination ; for no impartial student of the New Testament can admit that the only other sense in which the word is used, is, to denote an organized society of Christians, or indeed that the * See Encyclopaedia of Religious Knowledge, Art. Bap- tism ; and Articles of Faith of Baptist churches gene- rally. f See R. Fuller on Bap. and Com. ; Curtis on Com., tfcc. 16 OPEN COMMUNION. idea of organization has anything to do with it. This idea does not enter into the word sxxXyjtfia at all. The word, in its ordinary acceptation among the Greeks, signified merely an assembly, a body of people called together by some circum- stance or other. And when used in a religious sense in the New Testament, it denotes simply a collection of Christians — any collection. That is to say, a Christian church, or church of God, according to the New Testament idea of a church, is neither more nor less than an asssembly or body of Christians, without any reference to organization, size, or manner of assembly. Some- times the word denotes what we denominate a meeting : that is, it refers to Christians in the capacity of an assembled congregation engaged in worship or met together for worship. Almost the only passages, however, in which it has this meaning, are 1 Cor. xiv. 19, 28, 33, 34, 35.* In other places it is applied to the body of Christians residing or sojourning together in the same city or town. This use of the word is very common. The idea of an assembly is still preserved in it ; but it is with reference to individuals congregated * In Acts xix. 32, 39, 41, -where it is translated " assembly," it has this meaning, though not with refer- ence to a body of Christians. ON THE WORD CHURCH. lV and dwelling or sojourning together within the precincts of the same city or village. Thus, we read of "the church which was at, Jerusalem,"* " the church of the Laodiceans,"f " the church of Ephesus;"J these several expressions denoting the company of Christians at Jerusalem, at Laodicea, at Ephesus, embracing every visible saint in the city. If the word were similarly used by us, it would denote, when we spoke of the church of God in New York or in any other place, the entire body of the acknowledged people of God in that place. This, however, is a use of the word which is entirely ignored at the present day. We never hear of the church of God in any parti- cular place as a term denoting all the professing Christians who reside or sojourn there, unless they happen to belong to one organized congre- gation, and have their names entered upon the same church roll. Nor is it to be wondered at that such is the case, when we consider how the existence of denominations keeps Christians, even in small villages, at a distance one from another, and breaks up that apostolic unity which was originally felt among all Christians who resided in the same immediate neighborhood. It is also used with reference to smaller com- * Acts viii. 1. f Col. iv. 16. \ Rev. ii. 1. 2* 18 OPEN COMMUNION. panies or bands of Christians. Thus, while we find the Christian community at Ephesus spoken of as the church of Ephesus, we read, in distinc- tion from this, of the church at the house of Aquila and Priscilla,* who then resided at Ephesus, and the church at whose house formed but a part of the Ephesian church, or body of Christians in that city. Again, the Christian band at Colosse was the church of the Colossians. i And yet, within this church, we read of the church at the house of Nymphas,f and again, of the church at the house of Philemon.J These churches may have been the Christian members of these several families — the body of disciples who dwelt together and composed the same household ; or they may have been the Christian circles that met at these different houses, from time to time, for religious purposes ; for these houses appear to have been the dwellings of such as were ordained to watch over the spiritual interests of the Christians in their midst, of which there were probably a number in every city where there were Christians, like Paul's own hired house in Rome ; for we read of a plurality of elders or bishops being ordained "in every * 1 Cor. xvi. 19. f Col. iv. 15. % Comp. Philem. ii. 10, 12, with Col. iv. 8, 9. ON THE .WORD CHURCH. 19 city,"* or "in every church," as it is elsewhere expressed,! church here denoting the Christian body in the cities spoken of in the context. Thus we perceive what apostolic churches were. They were not, like modern churches, organiza- tions which, on the one hand, include no one whose name is not on their rolls, however exem- plary may be his walk as a professing Christian or constant his attendance upon divine services with them ; or, on the other hand, embrace every indi- vidual whose name is on their records, whether he resides in Maine, or California, or the Celestial Empire, or nobody knows where, while the church to which he belongs, may be in the heart of the American Union. They were not orga- nizations of any sort. That is .to say, while they had their elders or bishops and their deacons, as cities now have their mayors and aldermen, they were not covenanted together in church relations, their names enrolled upon a piece of parchment, and each church consisting only of the individuals thus associated together. They were companies of Christians, in a sense more or less general, of which every individual Christian among them was a member, and those * Tit. i. 5, 7. f Acts xiv. 23. Comp. Acts xx. 17. 28. 1 Tim. hi. 2, 4, v. 17. 20 OPEN COMMUNION. who were miles away from them and rarely or never appeared among them, were not members. This will suffice to show not only that the com- mon idea of a church, as an organization, is not a scriptural one, but that the supposition that visible churches are divinely organized societies, receives no support either from the meaning of the word ixxXyjtfia, or from the acts and circum- stances of the apostles and first Christians. It shows, too, that your definition, or rather I should say, the Baptist definition of a visible church, is radically defective. In the first place, it denies to Pedobaptist congregations, which are as truly churches of Christ as any other, their right to this appellation ; since jtheir members are generally unimmersed. So far as they are organizations, it is true they possess an element unknow r n to the ixx\ri BAPTISM NOT A TERM OF COMMUNION. SO from his blindness after his conversion, arose and was baptized, then received meat and ivas strength- ened ;* that Peter commanded those who had received the Holy Ghost under his preaching at Caesarea to be baptized ; after which they prayed him to tarry certain days ;f that Lydia attended to the things spoken by Paul ; and when she was baptized, she besought him and his companions to make her house their home\ In no instance do we read of the converts to Christianity, under the apostles, ever continuing steadfast in their attend- ance upon the teaching of their instructors, in Christian fellowship (or the having of things in common, or the making of joint contributions for the gospel's sake, as the case may have been), and in prayers; or of their rejoicing, eating an ordinary meal, or performing the rites of hospitality, till after they had been baptized. If this sort of argu- ment proves that baptism is indispensable to com- munion, it proves that it is indispensable, too, to engaging in these other duties and exercises aright. If, therefore, your position and practice are called for by apostolic precedent, consistency requires you to maintain likewise that no Christian has any right to continue steadfast in reading the Word of God, in attending the sanctuary in fel- * Actsix. 18, 19. f Acts x. 48. % Acts xiv. 14, 15. 8* 90 OPEN COMMUNION. lowshiping with Christian*, in contributing to benevolent objects, and in prayer, or to rejoice in God, to entertain his brethren, or to eat another meal, till he is immersed I There is no possible half-way ground between the two. Nor is there any more absurdity or Puseyism in the latter con- clusion than the former. Again you say that the signification of the two ordinances proves baptism to be prerequisite to the supper ; that baptism is emblematic of a new birth and the supper of the constant nourishment which the new life demands; that "the metapho- rical representation, therefore, requires that bap- tism should always be received as a condition of communion ;"* and that, " it is preposterous to place the new life and its nourishment before the new birth in which that new life began."f But I confess I am unable to see the relevancy of this reasoning. It assumes, what you are continually assuming, but what is not true, that open com- munionists teach that the supper may be eaten by young converts as the first act of visible disci- pleship. Moreover it makes baptism regenerative ; otherwise how are " the new life and its nourish- ment placed before the new birth" by the com- * Howell on Com., p. 47. f R. Fuller on Bapt. and Com., p. 189. BAPTISM NOT A TERM OF COMMUNION. 91 munion of unbaptized persons? Is baptism ne- cessary in order to that birth ? Is it necessary in order to indicate such a birth ? If not, where is the force of your reasoning ? Is it true that the life, represented in communion as possessed by the communicant, is not possessed by him unless he has been previously baptized ? If not, where is the necessity of baptism previous to an act which is not a profession of baptism, but of discipleship and faith and love ? I say, communion is not a profession of baptism. In other words, it is not a symbol of an immersional profession of disciple- ship. It was not in the case of the eleven at the institution of the supper. It was not with primi- tive disciples on subsequent occasions. JSor is it now. If communion were a profession of bap- tism, as baptism is of faith, of course it would require baptism to precede it, or its symbolical character would be falsified. But as such is not the case, your appeal to the emblematic import of the ordinances amounts to nothing. The last reason you give is, that circumcision was a prerequisite to the passover, and the ana- logy requires that baptism should be to the Lord's supper. You say, with Mr. Booth, " I take it for granted that circumcision was absolutely neces- sary for every male in order to communion at the paschal supper and in the solemn worship of the 92 OPEN COMMUNION. sanctuary. If this be allowed, the consequence is plain and the argument, though analogical, is irref- ragable ; for the paschal feast and sanctuary ser- vices were not more of a positive nature than the Lord's supper, nor were the former more peculiar to that dispensation than the latter is to this."* To this it is sufficient to say, that, while sound analogical arguments are irrefragable, in this case the analogies are very far from holding good. Circumcision was made a prerequisite to the passover by an express law. " No uncircumcised person shall eat thereof."f But no such connex- ion is established between baptism and the supper. There is no law, as you acknowledge, prohibiting unbaptized persons from communing. It is of no avail for you, while you make this admission, to undertake to show why unbaptized persons are not prohibited. Turn it and twist it as you will, it is still true that such persons did commune in the Savior's time, and that there never was issued any command for them not to commune, unless, forsooth, it is found in the injunction, "This do in remembrance of me." But there is also another, and a no less import- ant point in which the analogy is wanting. You make baptism, in this argument, analogous to cir- * Vindication, sect v. f Exod. xil 48. BAPTISM NOT A TERM OF COMMUNION. 93 cumcision. But Paul teaches that the circumcision of the Abrahamic covenant symbolizes, not baptism, but " the putting off of the body of the sins of the flesh," that circumcision which, to every child of God, is the token of his being within the covenant made by the Father to Christ, the antitype of Abraham. For as a man carried the token of his being a member of God's ancient covenant people by being circumcised in the flesh ; so an individual is marked as a spiritual Jew or a believer by a spi- ritual circumcision."* The analogy requires, there- fore, not baptism, but sanctification, as the prere- quisite corresponding to circumcision as a pre- requisite to the passover. And your argument should run thus : As none but Jews, or members of the passed-over nation, could truly partake of the passover in commemoration of the deliverance wrought under Moses in Egypt, so none but be- lievers can feed by faith on Christ crucified in commemoration of the deliverance from sin and death wrought for man in the death of Christ, the antitype of the paschal lamb of the Israelites. And inasmuch as, in accordance with their obvi- ous scriptural design, the visible church and its ordinances of baptism and the supper are but a visible representation of the invisible church and * Col. iL 11; Rom. ii. 28, 29. 94 OPEN COMMUNION. its members* acts of dying to sin and rising in Christ to a life of holiness, and of living by faith upon his death as the spiritual food of their souls; this argument teaches, not that those who would partake worthily of the supper be baptized, but that, as members of the visible church, they be spiritually circumcised — identified in heart with " the circumcision who worship God in the Spirit and rejoice in Christ Jesus and have no confidence in the flesh." If consistently carried out, then, the analogy would require the law of the Lord's sup- per to be this, " Let no unbeliever partake of it." So far from its affording an evidence of the indis- pensable prerequisiteness of baptism to commu- nion, it has no bearing upon the question at all. Such are the reasons you and others assign for regarding baptism a divinely prescribed sine qua non for communion. But a man of your good sense must see, that really none of them support the idea, whilst several of them testify directly against it. The position that the want of baptism is a divinely recognised barrier to communion, as though the Lord's table belonged to none among us but the immersed, is one that cannot be sus- tained. The best attempts to defend it only show to what weaknesses Christian men are liable. For, in view of the utter irrelevancy and the suicidal character of these attempts, how ridiculously dog- BAPTISM NOf A *ERM OF COMMUNION. OB inatic and painfully destitute of truth are such asseverations as these < " Christian baptism is one of the divinely ordained and unchangeable terms of communion."'* " In the apostles' days it was constantly required as a preparation for the com- munion."! " God's regulations forbid the unbap- tized [i. e. Pedobaptiets] to partake of the .sup- per."]; "He orders that the baptized only shall communicate; who will dare to abrogate this order ?"§ That is, God orders that Pedobaptists, that all professing Christians who have not made their profession by immersion, shall not com* memorate their Lord^s death ! If this is not teach- ing for doctrines the commandments of men, I know not what is. As to any express " order" to restrict the Lord's supper to " the baptized only," I challenge all Christendom to produce it. It cannot be produced. As Mr. Kinghorn says, " the New Testament does not prohibit the unbaptized from receiving the Lord's supper." And what is more than this, neither does the voice of the Christian church, nor the commission, nor the' practice of the apostles, nor the meaning of the ordinances, nor the supposed analogy between the * Howell on Com.- p. 50. f Ibid, p. 45* X R. Fuller on Bapt. and Com.,, p. 195, § Ibid. p. 198. 9b OPEN COMMUNION. terms of admission to the passover and the terms of communion, afford the least shadow of a reason for inferring that such a restriction is consonant with the mind of Christ, but the contrary. The apostles and primitive Christians were obviously strangers to the idea that the supper is for per- sons as baptized believers. They practised on the principle that it is the Lord's table and for his disciples as such, commemorating his love and death. If there were any with whom they could not commune, evidently it was not their unbap- tized fellow-disciples like Peter, James, and John, but such as they could not fellowship as Christians. And those with whom they would not commune, if there were any such, could not but regard their refusal to do so as equivalent to a refusal to ac- knowledge their Christian character. Acting on apostolic principles, not only are we not at liberty to refrain, but we cannot have the wish to refrain, from communing with any who stand before the world, and whom we acknowledge as credible pro- fessing Christians. If we decline communing with any, it must be because we cannot regard them as members of the common Christian brotherhood ; a light in which we cannot view pious Pedobaptists. In the erecting of anything as a term of commu- nion which causes a restriction of the Lord's sup- per from them, we are guilty of a gross mal- BAPTISM NOT A TERM OF COMMUNION. 97 administration of the ordinance. If we are satis- fied that an individual is a disciple of Christ, the question as to how he has professed Christ is one we have nothing to do with when we gather around the emblems of our Savior's body to com- memorate his death. So long as it is a stubborn fact that there are multitudes of holy and zealous Christians who differ from us in their views re- specting the act and subjects of baptism, and, of course, are unbaptized as we believe, it is enough to know that those with whom we engage in the solemn ordinance of commemorating the Savior's death, are members together with us of the com- mon household of faith. Nay more; I consider it unworthy of any enlightened mind, and beneath the dignity of the religion of Christ, to descend at any time, much more at such a time, to the in- quiry how a disciple, eminent it may be for his piety and usefulness, has made his profession of Christianity. Such a course ill becomes a follower of Christ. t Yours, as ever, in all sincerity, &c LETTER V. ¥88 WANT OF BAPTISM NOT TltE TRUE GROUNT* UPON WHIClt RESTRICTED COMMUNION PROCEEDS. Close communidnistS require something more than re- pentance, faith, and baptism^^^ne supper made a de- nominational ordinance^-The insincerity of Baptists— 3 Their reasons for making it a denominational ordi-^ nance, no reasons— =Their practice inconsistent with their professions — 'The foil y of Contending for baptism as a term of communion. My Dear Fr+end J — I have addressed you in my former letters as though you really acted upon the principle that repentance, faith, and baptism Were the qualifications for communion, which whoever had, might come to the Lord's table. But you do not act upon this principle ; and all you say about the necessity of baptism to Communion^ I confess, I regard as nothing better than dust and smoke. It might be spared, the whole of it ; for it has nothing whatever to do with regulating your administrations of the Lord's supper. The want of baptism is not the trife ground upon which the restriction you practise, proceeds ; for an indivi- dual's being an immersed and consistent Christian RESTRICTION, NOT FOR WANT OF BAPTISM. 99 is no evidence whatever that he may be allowed a place at the Lord's table with you. So far from considering the Lord's supper an ordinance for believers as baptized persons, as you profess to consider it, you make it a denominational affair altogether. In this, however, you act only in con- formity with the principles and practice of the denomination ; for the rules of close-communion churches, the United States over, require of all communicants something more than repentance, faith, baptism, and a godly walk and conversation ; and that is, that they be members of some church • of like faith and order. You know very well that the immersed members of the Congregational, Presbyterian, and other evangelical denominations, immersed it may be by Baptist ministers, are never allowed to commune in close-communion churches ; or if allowed, it is only in violation of their rules. It was simply because I questioned the propriety of this course, that the council which met in the autumn of 1851 to recognise me as pastor of the church at Westport, refused to do it. They had examined me on all the various points on which it is customary to examine on such occasions — experimental religion, call to the ministry, doctrinal views, church polity and bap- tism. Apparently only one question more re- mained to be asked. It was this : " In adminis- 100 OPEN COMMUNION. tering the Lord's supper, would you invite to it any credible Christians who are baptized, or would you restrict your invitations to such as are mem- bers of Baptist churches ?" My reply was, " I would invite any who are baptized and leading consistent Christian lives." But for this reply, and because I was unable, after all that was said, to see the impropriety of it, the council refused to install me. In the Congregational and Methodist churches in the place, there were several immersed members ; and if I had been allowed to extend a general invitation to all baptized persons, these, of course, when present, would have been included. But this, alas ! would have been contrary to the traditions of the elders ! The course pursued by these brethren of the Essex and Champlain Asso- ciation, is the very course that Mr. Remington defends and pleads for. In proof of this, take the following from his Defence of Restricted Commu- nion :* Rev. Mr. R., a Methodist, he tells us, hap- pened to be present on a certain communion occa- sion where Mr. C, a Baptist minister, officiated. As the church were about to proceed to the ad- ministration of the supper, said Mr. B., "I should like, if agreeable, to commemorate the death and sufferings of our Lord Jesus Christ with you." * P. 14, 15. RESTRICTION, NOT FOR WANT OF BAPTISM. 101 Mr. C. " But, my brother, you must be baptized before you come with us to the Lord's table ; and you know our principles, that we consider no bap- tism valid but immersion." Mr. R. " True ; but I have been immersed." Mr. C. " Let me inquire then, my brother, do you, both by precept and example, sanction immersion as the only gospel baptism ?" Mr. R. " 0, no sir ! I believe that sprinkling and pouring are either valid gospel baptism." Mr. C. " I thought so ; and you cer- tainly know that with such views and practice we should make ourselves very inconsistent to admit you to the communion with us." Here is an in- dividual who is refused a seat at the Lord's table, not because of a want of repentance, faith, or bap- tism, but because he differed somewhat from his Baptist brother in belief respecting baptism, and, of course, in practice and denominational locality. This Mr. Remington gives as an illustration of what may happen, and under the circumstances ought to happen, in any close-communion body ; a doctrine which the American Baptist Publica- tion Society endorse, and the denomination from Maine to California act upon. Even the members of Freewill Baptist churches, you know, are never invited, and never would be communed with, if it could be avoided. But it is not for want of repent- ance, faith, and baptism ; for the moment a Free- 9* 102 OPEN COMMUNION. will Baptist joins a close-communion church, he is no longer unqualified. Nor are members of Cal- vinistic open Baptist churches, persons like Alex- ander Carson, Baptist W. Noel, and a large share of the Baptists in England and Canada, regarded by " regular " Baptists, like yourself, as proper fellow communicants. You say, "We cannot with propriety extend an invitation to those Bap- tists who practise open communion. We must limit it to those of our order." And so say all hearty restricted communionists, who never, if possible, allow a free-communion Baptist to par- take of the Lord's supper with them.* Even Prof. Curtis, with all his laboring to support the idea that the celebration of the Lord's supper is intended to signify, and does signify, that the com- municants are all members of the same visible church, and that the eucharist is therefore a parti- cular-church ordinance, shows most clearly that to his own mind it is no such thing, but neither more nor less than a denominational ordinance. This is apparent throughout the whole volume. For your satisfaction, however, I will specify two or three of those passages in which this is most obvious. On page 108 he says, "We take our stand upon this, that if the Lord's supper is a church ordinance, * See Judd's Remains, p. 351. RESTRICTION, NOT FOR WANT OF BAPTISM. 103 if it is the appointed symbol of church relations, it should only be celebrated together with those with whom we can consistently sustain those rela- tions." " This," adds a friendly pen, " is one of the strong positions maintained through much of the able argumentation of Mr. Curtis in his book ;"* a sentence which, if it were not known to be put forth in all seriousness, and by a friend, might be regarded as thrown out in irony. "Able argu- mentation " or not, however, it is a fair specimen of the logic and the conclusiveness of the reason- ing that runs through the whole volume. It requires no very great penetration of mind to per- ceive that a symbol of what is, is not a symbol of what may or can be. Mr. C, therefore, on the supposition that the eucharist is "the appointed symbol of church relations," ought not to argue that it should be celebrated only with those with whom we can sustain, but with those with whom we do sustain, those relations. This, however, is a closer communion than he advocates, or is will- ing to advocate. His idea is that the communion is a symbol of denominational relations existing between the communicants. And if this idea were just, the conclusion that the supper should only be celebrated together by those who can consistently * Christian Review, vol. xvi. p. 222. 104 OPEN COMMUNION. unite in particular-church relations, would be cor- rect. Such a conclusion however, you perceive, cannot be arrived at from his premises. Again he says, " If the Lord's supper is a church ordi- nance, and indicates a church fellowship among all those who partake together, it is a violation of truth in symbols to invite to occasional commu- nion those whom our constitutional principles would forbid to be members of our churches/'* As this sentence stands there is no logic in it. But if, in place of the italicised words " whom our constitutional principles would forbid to 6e," we read " who are not," the conclusion then arrived at — that it would be unlawful to commune with those who are not members of our particular church — will naturally and necessarily follow from Mr. C.'s premises. But this is not the conclusion to which he would come. The conclusion to which he himself comes — that we may invite to occa- sional communion those whom our constitutional principles would not forbid to be members of our church — is just the one to which he wishes to come. This shows that his premises are at fault. And they can be rectified only by substituting "denomination- al ordinance," and " denominational fellowship " in place of the expressions " church ordinance " and " church fellowship." For example : " If the * P. HI. RESTRICTION, NOT FOR WANT OF BAPTISM. 105 Lord's supper is a denominational ordinance and indicates a denominational fellowship among all those who partake together, it is a violation of truth in symbols to invite to occasional communion those whom our constitutional principles forbid to be members of our church ;" that is, such as are not in our denomination. As this conclusion is the one to which Prof. C. would come, but one that cannot be drawn from his premises or from any other than the position that the supper is a symbol of denominational relations, it shows that his idea is, in fact, that it is a denominational ordinance. This is more palpable, perhaps, in the following sentences: "All that our course, in declining to celebrate with members of other deno- minatio?is 7 exhibits, is that such persons do not belong to churches of our order ;" that is, to our denomination.* " We do not own them as Bap- tists."! And in referring to the Methodists and their love-feast, he says, " We do not feel their regulation as to this feast the least infringement upon Christian charity or fellowship, because the love-feast is intended only for the members of their own churches. We only do not see why they can- not at least allow us to take the same view of the supper."]; The whole volume shows, that, while * P. lit. f P. 237. X P. 110. 106 OPEN COMMUNION. lie theorizes about a particular-church ordinance, his conclusions, like his practical administrations of the institution and his invitations to it, make it, in reality, a denominational affair. And so it is with the denomination from one end of the country to the other. Their invitations are always restricted. to members of "sister churches," which, in the mouth of a close communionist, you know, always means members of close Baptist churches. It mat- ters not what or how many other baptized Chris- tians may be present, none but close communion- ists are included in the invitation. The adminis- tration of the supper is designed to be restricted from all others, and any departure from this rule is regarded an irregularity worthy of censure, and, if unrepented of or persisted in, worthy of disci- pline even to excommunication. And yet, when asked whether this is not the Lord's table, you say, " yes ! and this is the very reason why we dare not admit those who have not the prerequisites which the Lord re- quires ; were it our table, we would give vent to our feelings and joyfully invite our brethren." This is the language of every apologist for re- stricted communion.* But how much sincerity is *See Cone's "Terras of Com." R. Fuller on Bapt and Com., p. 197. Howell on Com., p. 107. RESTRICTION, NOT FOR WANT OF BAPTISM. 107 there in it ? If repentance, faith, and baptism are " the prerequisites which the Lord requires," why- make any distinction among such as have these prerequisites ? Why invite to the Lord's table close communionists only ? Why decline com* munion with Freewill and other open-communion Baptists and with baptized members of other churches ? The answer is not found in the reply that they have never repented from dead works, believed on Christ, or been baptized. But it lies in the fact that though they may not be destitute of " the scriptural prerequisites," they have not the prerequisites we require; that is, they are not close communionists { though they may be mem* bers of the church of Christ, they belong not to our denomination ; though they may be entitled to a place at his table, they cannot come to ours, I know you attempt to justify this course by saying that communion with baptized Chris* tians not members of what you are pleased to call regular Baptist churches, is an irregularity not consistent with gospel order. But, pray, where's your proof for this ? Do you think that Philip and the apostles would not have admitted the Ethiopian eunuch — a member of no close- communion church, as you yourself admit"' — to * See A. Fuller, Works, vol. iii. p. 512. R 5 Fuller on Bapt. and Com,, pp* 146, 147. 108 OPEN COMMUNION. the Lord's table ? What is there in close-com- munion churches that renders them alone, above all others, deserving of the appellation " churches in gospel order ?" So far as they are organiza- tions they are not in gospel order, or rather they are not gospel or New Testament churches ; and so far as they are close communionists and party communionists, they are still farther removed from anything that is sanctioned in the Word of God. According to your views, the whole apostolic church, which consisted of no organizations, much less of close-communion organizations, must have been a community of disorderly walkers from whom all good Christians — all regular Baptists — were commanded to withdraw ! A very sad state of things indeed ! But you ask, " Does not the apostle write to the Colossians of his joying and beholding their order and the steadfastness of their faith ? Does he not praise the Corinthians for keeping the ordi- nances as they had been delivered to them ? Does he not command us to withdraw from all that walk disorderly F But what has this to do with justifying your mode of administering the Lord's supper ? His reference in the first of these passages* is not to order in the sense in which * Col. il 5. RESTRICTION, NOT FOR WANT OF BAPTISM. 109 you use the word when you speak of churches of our order, but to well-ordered Christian lives. Any professing Christians who are leading such lives, whether in Baptist churches or not, are in the church in gospel order ; that is to say, they are members of the Christian church and walking orderly in the gospel sense of the word. Upon your own ground, therefore — the ground that the Lord's supper is for the church in gospel order — you must either be a free communionist, or give to the language of Scripture an unwarranted sig- nification. As to 1 Cor. xi. 2 ; you are continually ringing the changes upon it ; but it is not for the correct administration of baptism or the proper observance of the supper, that the apostle here praises the Corinthians. Of this a bare glance at the original will satisfy you. Or take Dr. Kendrick's transla- tion which gives the apostle's idea very well. " I praise you, brethren, that ye remember me in all things and hold fast the precepts which I delivered to you." Eespecting the manner in which they professed to keep the Lord's supper, the apostle says in the 17th verse of this very chapter, "I praise you not." This ordinance they obviously did not keep as it should be kept. Look at the 20th and 21st verses. " When ye come together into one place, this is not to eat the Lord's supper," 10 110 OPEN COMMUNION. though ye profess such to be } r our object ; " for in eating, every one taketh before other his own supper;" he anticipates his brethren and becomes drunken, instead of tarrying for them, while they are left without anything to eat or drink, when they come. Was this "keeping the ordinance" of the eucharist as the apostle may be supposed to have delivered it to them ? No. Hence his censure, " I praise you not." But respecting the instructions which he had previously given them, he could praise them for adhering to them. The passage has not the remotest reference to the order and manner of observing the Christian ordi- nances, but simply to their remembering the apos- tle in all things and desiring to carry out his instructions, as was manifest by their writing to him for advice. There is, therefore, no truth in your conclusion that the churches are here com- mended for keeping the ordinances of baptism and the supper as they were delivered, and cen- sured for deviating from the example and teaching of the apostles. Even if this were the scope of the verse, it could not bear against open com- munionists as such ; for it is not they, but you, who deviate from the example of the apostles, not merely in withholding the supper from those of their fellow disciples whose profession has not been made by immersion, but in restricting it RESTRICTION, NOT FOR WANT OF BAPTISM. Ill from many whose profession has been made thus. Then as to the disorderly walking of which the apostle speaks in 2 Thess. hi. 6, you assume that it is a want of membership in some "regular" Baptist church. 13ut how absurd ! Even suppos- ing Paul had known anything of close-commu- nion organizations, who can believe that he would ever have swerved so far from himself, as to pro- nounce all who were not members of such bodies, disorderly walkers? The entire context teaches plainly enough that he refers to the leading of an idle and dissolute life, a life opposed to that allud- ed to in Col. ii. 5, just noticed. " We command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye withdraw yourselves from every brother that walketh disorderly, and not after the tradition (or instructions) which he received of us. For yourselves know how ye ought to follow us ; for we behaved not ourselves disorderly among you. . . . For even when we were with you, this we commanded you, that if any would not work, neither should he eat. For we hear that there are some which walk among you disorderly, working not at all, but are busy-bodies," &c. The " disor- derly" here are the same as the "unruly" in 1 Thess. v. 14, — " warn them that are unruly" — and denotes such as are refractory, contumacious, dis- 112 OPEN COMMUNION. solute, disorderly in life and conduct. Where any are thus disorderly, we are commanded to withdraw from them, not only in sacramental communion, but in everything else, expressive of fellowship, as members of the household of faith. The injunction, of course, reaches to all professing Christians, wherever we are brought into eontact with them ; but it was originally addressed to a particular body of Christians, the church of the Thessalonians, respecting their conduct one toward another, and not toward members of other churches. " We hear that there are some which walk among you disorderly. . . . Note them and have no com- pany with them." Disorderly walkers in your own church, then, are the persons you are here more especially commanded to withdraw from ; not pious members of other churches and denomina- tions. The passage has nothing to do with any Christians of irreproachable walk and conversa- tion. And when urged, as you urge it, in sup- port of restricting the administration of the Lord's supper to members of close Baptist churches, it is most sadly out of place. But, if the Lord's supper be really a denomina- tional ordinance, as you would have it, why all the ado that you make about baptism as being a term of communion ? Where is the force of it, when a believer's qualifiedness turns not on the RESTRICTION, NOT FOR WANT OF BAPTISM. 113 question, " Has he been baptized ?" but on the question, " Is he a member of some sister church of like faith and order ?" The practice that re- stricts the Lord's supper from any baptized be- liever of irreproachable life, is an open abandon- ment of the ground on which you and all re- stricted communionists profess to act. Dr. Howell, for example, the great American champion of the system, lays it down, in language that admits of no ambiguity, that " repentance toward God, faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, and baptism in the name of the holy Trinity, are incontrovertibly the terms of communion, appointed and established by the King in Zion, and from which we are forbidden, by the most sacred obligations, at any time, for ANY PURPOSE, OR UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCE, TO depart. ' What thing soever I command you,' saith the Lord Jehovah, ' observe to do it. Thou shalt not add thereto, nor diminish from it V " Again, "Repentance toward God, faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, and baptism in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, are indispensable terms of approach to the Lord's table, and to which those who have observed THESE PRELIMINARIES CANNOT AFTERWARDS BE DE- BARRED OF ACCESS, BUT IN CONSEQUENCE OF A FORFEITURE OF CHRISTIAN CHARACTER, BY IMMO- 10* 114 OPEN COMMUNION. rality or heresy."* This is language which strikes a death blow at the restriction you practise. And remember that it is not merely the language of Dr. Howell, but of the American Baptist Publica- tion Society, by whom the work is endorsed and issued. And yet, neither is Dr. Howell, nor are the members of the Publication Society, nor are our brethren generally, regulated in their practice by this rule, any more than you yourself are. The restricted communion of Baptist churches, the United States over, makes neither more nor less than membership in churches of like faith and order, the qualification for communion with them. Apologize for it, and seek to vindicate it as much as you may, still the fact remains the same, and it cannot be denied that this is what is really made the one and all-embracing prerequisite for a seat at the Lord's table, by the "regular" Baptists in this country. Such being the case, to what pur- pose, I say, is all this verbiage about " repentance, faith, and baptism being the divinely ordained and unchangeable terms of communion," as Dr. How- ell expresses it ? Why not at once deny the sacra- mental table to be the Lord's, and honestly and avowedly contend for its being a denominational table ? If it be true, as the practice of restricted * On Com., pp. 102, 266. RESTRICTION, NOT FOR WANT OF BAPTISM. 115 communion from one end of the land to the other says, that the qualification for communion is not repentance, faith, and baptism merely, but simply a place in the Baptist denomination, then let us hear no more about not communing with others, on the ground of their not being baptized. For the truth's sake, let us have consistency and honesty. Let it be frankly and fearlessly asserted that the communion table is not the Lord's, nor for his people, but a denominational table for those only who are of our denomination. If the system is justifiable, there is nothing to gain by urging false pleas in its behalf and cloaking its deformi- ties under falsehoods, nor anything to be feared by placing it on its true basis and attempting to de- fend it as it is. Should it fall when placed there, and left to stand without the fictitious props which now support it, let it fall. It is unworthy to stand ; and the sooner it falls the better, as well for those who practise it as for the church at large, and for the general advancement, among men, of the pure and ennobling principles of the gospel of the Son of God. Yours, as ever, in all sincerity, &c. LETTER VI. COMMUNION NOT A SYMBOL OF INDIVIDUAL CHURCH FELLOWSHIP. A third ground of defence — A strange position — A false one — No proof to sustain it — Proof against it — An ex- ample of a particular-church ordinance — If this ground of defence is good, useless to talk of baptism as a term of communion, or of other Baptists as disorderly walkers — The position falsified by the universal prac- tice of restricted communionists — What is necessary to a right reception of the ordinance — The presence of a minister not necessary — Andrew Fuller's opinion — Ex- amples of apostolic communion; at Tezpoor; at the sessions of the Evangelical Alliance, London, 1851 — Conclusion. My Dear Friend : — I come now to notice your third position. First, you said you restricted the Lord's supper from others on the score of their not being baptized ; but seeing that this is not the true ground on which you proceed, you endea- vored to justify yourself by saying that those who are not members of close-communion churches are disorderly walkers, from whom we are commanded to withdraw ; but finding that you are not sus- tained in this, you now say that sacramental com- COMMUNION NOT CIIURCH FELLOWSHIP. 117 mimion is a token of individual-church fellowship, to which members of other churches have no right, and ought not to feel hurt if not invited. This is the ground Prof. Curtis takes, with a view, as he informs us, to satisfy those individuals of the propriety of restriction, who can neither see how the want of baptism in itself can be a barrier to communion, nor believe that the supper was ever intended to be a denominational ordinance. This position is certainly a very singular one, to say nothing else of it. And so Mr. Curtis acknow- ledges ; for he concedes that " all parties in this country appear satisfied so far as church member- ship is concerned,"* whilst, at the same time, he admits the existence of a general dissatisfaction among Christians respecting the mode in which Baptists administer the supper, which could not be the case if they considered the breaking of bread " a token, divinely appointed to symbolize, among other things, the relation which each mem- ber of any particular church bears to every other member ;"f a virtual admission, on Mr. C.'s part, that the view he attempts to defend is a novel and repugnant one. The younger Fuller goes even farther than this, and denies to the supper the character of a particular-church ordinance. * On Com., p. 107. \ Ibid. pp. 116, 117. 118 OPEN COMMUNION. When he says, " We admit that our (Pedobaptist) brethren are entitled to the Lord's supper, inas- much as all Christians are entitled to all the privi- leges of the Christian church,"* he cannot consi- der it a particular-church privilege, for he calls it expressly one of the privileges of the Christian church. Nor indeed does Mr. Curtis really consi- der it such, as I have already shown. The truth is, the position is not only a singular one, but a false one. There is nothing in history, revelation, reason, or facts to sustain it. That the Lord's sup- per is a social ordinance is plain enough. But that it belongs to individual churches and is to be observed by them as churches in the common acceptation of the word, instead of belonging to the disciples of Christ to be observed by them as disciples, whether they are members of our private family circle, or of a band of our Christian friends and relatives meeting with us, or of our particular church, or of a dozen churches, of an association, a presbytery, or any other body of Christians, assembled for worship or where worship would be appropriate, whether in our dwelling houses or our Banctuaries, whether with or without an ordained minister, is a proposition yet to be demonstrated. Mr. Booth lays it down, that " the Lord's supper * On Com. Conv. 3. COMMUNION NOT CHURCH FELLOWSHIP. 119 is a church ordinance, nor ought ever to be ad- ministered but to a particular church as such;" but does not prove it. Dr. Fuller does the same. He affirms that " the Lord's supper belongs to visible churches, and is to be observed by these churches as churches." But he does not prove it. The most he does do is to show that it is a social ordinance for Christians, and not for the world ; a point which nobody questions. Even Prof. Curtis not only begs the question altogether, but denies it again and again, and proves anything but the proposition he lays down to be established. His book, indeed, as a specimen of logic, is a perfect curiosity. As evidence of the correctness of the view he advances, he points to 1 Cor. xi. 21, 33. " * When ye come together therefore into one place, this is not to eat the Lord's supper. For in eating, every one taketh before other,' &c. 4 Wherefore, my brethren, when ye come together to eat, tarry one for another.' " From the coming together of the Corinthians to eat the supper and from their being exhorted to tarry one for another, he concludes not that we are thereby taught when we do come together for the purpose of breaking bread that we should do it decently and appropri- ately, but " that the Lord's supper is committed to * P. 85. 120 OPEN COMMUNION. the guardianship of visible churches !" He refers, too, in illustration and support of his position, to the Jewish passover ; and because it was eaten in families and by families, he is pleased to call it a family ordinance ; a mode of reasoning that would prove our national fasts to be church fasts, and our state thanksgivings, family thanksgivings, since they are observed by churches and by families. Every body knows, however, that the passover was not to commemorate some family deliverance, or mark some family relations less comprehensive than the family of Israel — the Hebrew nation. It was not expressive of relations subsisting between individuals as dwellers together under the same roof, or partakers of daily food at the same table, as you and he argue when you would have it thought that the Lord's supper was instituted and enjoined for a purpose somewhat similar. Such an idea is unworthy of any reader of the Scrip- tures, much more of the senior Professor of a Theological Seminary. Mr. C. assumes, too, that the twelve disciples were a church, according to the common idea of a church as an organization ; and in addition to this, that because the Savior insti- tuted the supper in their presence, without calling in his mother, or Martha, or her sister, or the seventy, or any others, it was as a particular-church ordinance that he instituted it ! This is a sample COMMUNION NOT CHURCH FELLOWSHIP. 121 of " the able argumentation " that runs through his whole book. With equal conclusiveness might I assume that the twelve were an association, or a presbytery, and infer that because the Savior insti- tuted the supper in their presence alone, therefore it must be an associational or presbyterial ordi- nance, to be celebrated only by the clergy when convened in an association or a presbytery. Or granting that the eleven were "a church," I might with equal propriety argue that Christian baptism is a particular-church ordinance to be administered only to churches as churches, because it was instituted in the presence of these disciples alone, and its administration given in charge to them, and not to Mary, or Martha, or any other of the disciples.* So instinctively unscriptural is this position of yours, that it would be an altogether uncalled for expenditure of words, to enter into any argument to show its falsity. • Suffice it simply to refer to two facts. First, as there were in the apostles' days no such bodies as those now called churches, so there could not have been any symbol of fellowship between individuals as members of such churches — a fellowship, as Mr. Curtis tells us, over and above that fellowship which Christ- * See Matt, xxviii. 16-19. 11 122 OPEN COMMUNION. ians have with Christians, as members of the body of Christ. In the second place, we read, in Acts ii., that the disciples, after the day of Pente- cost, continued with one accord upon the apostles' instructions in the temple, but that they broke bread from house to house, or at home. Instead of considering the celebration of the supper an act for churches as churches, they observed it as an institution for Christians as Christians, com- memorating their Lord's death in the way and place to them most natural, meet, and convenient, while, at the same time, agreeable to the object of the ordinance. And thus it was regarded and observed not only in the apostolic age, but for ages after. As Neander remarks : " As to the celebration of the holy supper, it continued to be connected with the common meal, in which all, as members of one family, joined, agreeably to its first institution." * If you ask for an example of a particular-church ordinance, I would instance a church meeting, where one is entitled to act on ordinary matters relating to the church of which he is a member, cast his vote, &c. ; a right to which no one who is not a member of that church, is entitled or feels entitled in consequence of his being a church * Planting and Training, &c, p. 103. COMMUNION NOT CHURCH FELLOWSHIP. 123 member elsewhere. It is riot an institution of Christ's, like baptism or the Lord's supper. Mem- ber* of other churches can lay no claim to it, for the simple reason that they are not members 'of the body for whom it was instituted and designed. Not so the Lord's supper. This is an ordinance common to the professed members of his body. It is non-professors and professors that are walking disorderly in the scriptural sense of the phrase, who alone can be debarred from it on the ground that they are not members of the body for whom it was instituted : a remark which cannot be made respecting the business meetings of individual churches. But if this position of yours be correct, it is all folly to talk about baptism as a term of com- munion, or of members of other churches as disorderly walkers. Restricted communion, on this ground, is not only an abandonment of the position taken by Dr. Howell, that repentance, faith, and baptism are the terms of approach to the Lord's table, "to which those who have observed these preliminaries cannot afterwards be debarred of access, but in consequence of a for- feiture of Christian character by immorality or heresy ;" but it is also a professed abandonment of the position exposed in my last letter, that the supper is a denominational ordinance, and, a* 124 OPEN COMMUNION. such, cannot be celebrated with any out of the denomination. It first makes every celebration of the Lord's supper, not observed by a chwch as a church, an illegal act ; then makes member- ship in the particular church in which it is observed, the only and the necessary qualification for communion. So that if this is the rule that is to direct us in our administrations of the supper, the less that is said about anything else as a reason for practising restricted communion the better. I sometimes wonder how many more turns you will take in defence of your practice, before you will allow that it is a thing you adopted before you were aware of its true charac- ter, and in the magnanimity of Christian con- sistency abandon it, instead of trying to defend it with arguments so perfectly puerile and unworthy of yourself. I have all along been supposing that you, and Mr. Curtis, and others, who contend that the supper is divinely appointed as a symbol of individual-church fellowship, do really regard and administer it thus. But the truth is, you do not. Your constant practice speaks another language. It says that you would have the communion to indicate that those who break bread together, are not necessarily members of the same church, but of the same denomination. If the Lord's suppe: COMMUNION NOT CHURCH FELLOWSHIP. 125 be indeed divinely instituted as a token that all who commune together upon any given occasion are members of the same visible church, it cannot, either truthfully or lawfully, be celebrated together by any who are not members of the same church. A minister cannot even break bread with a church over which he is not pastor and to which he does not belong. The members of an association cannot commune with the church with whom they meet to transact their business. In short, all communion must be done away except between members of the same visible church. This, how- ever, is drawing the cords of restriction much tighter than you or others have ever done it, or, I trust, will ever be willing to do it. I rejoice that your practice does not exhibit quite so gross an abuse of this sacred ordinance. You hold that we have a right to invite members of other churches to commune with us, provided they be of the same faith and order. But in so doing, you practically deny the Lord's supper to be a token of individual-church fellowship. Why, then, all this meaningless talk about the Lord's supper's being a divinely appointed symbol of such fellowship ? It is but another cloak only half thrown over a deformed figure to screen from observation deformities which will not suffer them- selves to be screened, and which are too prominent 11* 126 OPEN COMMUNION. to be hidden. It is a position opposed not only to your own sentiments and practice, but to truth and Scripture. All that is necessary to a scriptural and proper reception of the memorials of the love and death of our Lord, is that we receive them from time to time, as his professed disciples, in faith, in remem- brance of him, and in a manner becoming an act so sacred. As to the time, it may be the Sabbath or a week day ; and as to the occasion, it may be the assembling together of a church, or the meet- ing of an association, or of a few Christian friends at a private house, or of any Christians worshipping together in any place, either with or without an ordained minister. It would be well if Christians acted more on this apostolic plan, especially if churches, when without pastors, would continue steadfast in their observance of the Lord's supper. Not merely is there nothing in the injunction, " This do in re- membrance of me," or in the Scriptures, or early history of the church, that tends in the least to favor the idea that the supper is for churches as churches ; but there is nothing in them tending even to show the necessity of the presence of an ordained minister to preside and administer the emblems. In this I am happy to have the con- currence of so distinguished a restricted commu- COMMUNION NOT CHURCH FELLOWSHIP. 127 nionist as Andrew Fuller. " I see nothing objec- tionable," he says, "if, when a church is destitute of a pastor, the Lord's supper were administered by a deacon or aged brother. I know of no scrip- tural authority for confining it to ministers. Nay, I do not recollect any mention in the Scriptures of a minister being employed in it, unless we reckon our Lord one." Again, in giving the sub- stance of a reply he made to a Baptist church in Edinburgh in 1805, respecting administering the Lord's supper without an ordained elder, he says, " I told them that I had long been of opinion that there was no scriptural authority for confining the administration of the Lord's supper to a minister. I had no doubt but that the primitive pastors did preside at the Lord's table, as well as in the recep- tion and exclusion of members, and in short in all the proceedings of the church ; and that where there was a pastor,' it was proper that he should continue to do so. But that, when a pastor died or was removed, the church was not obliged to desist from commemorating the Lord's death, any more than from receiving or excluding members ; and that it was as lawful for them to appoint a deacon or any senior member to preside in the one case as in the other. Finally, I told them that it was not the practice of our English churches ; that they, many of them, would send for the pastors of other 128 OPEN COMMUNION. churches to perform this office; and that I, for one, had often complied with such requests. / could wish, however,, that it were otherwise, and that every church, when destitute of a pastor, would attend to the Lord's supper among themselves."* Before closing this letter, let me adduce, in illustration of my views, a couple of examples, from modern times, of what I consider apostolic communion; the one affording an instance of communing at home; the other, of communing after the Pauline manner when the disciples as- sembled together for the purpose. The first you will find in the Missionary Maga- zine for February, 1852, page 114. Mr. Danforth of our Mission in Assam, writing from his station, Gowahatti, under date of November 26, 1851, after speaking of his attending the general meeting of the Mission at Sibsagor, says, " On our return we called on Mr. Bruce of Tezpoor, where we spent one day. In the evening some of the friends of the station called upon us, after which we had a short religious service and administered the Lord's supper. The communion was a refreshing season, and reminded us of the primitive Christians who frequently broke bread in the middle of the night ;" and, he might have added, at their homes and among their Christian friends. * Works, vol. iii. pp. 494, 496. COMMUNION NOT CHURCH FELLOWSHIP. 129 The other example occurred a short time before, at the close of the sessions of the Evangelical Alli- ance in London, August, 1851. "It had been proposed that the foreign brethren should invite the members of the Conference, as well as those who had been present at its sessions, to join them in partaking of the sacred elements, the pledges of the union of all true Christians in their divine Head. Accordingly they assembled, more than four hundred persons, of all nations, speaking dif- ferent languages, and attached to distinct deno- minational connexions; but all united in their profession of a common Christianity, all engaged in the same labors for disseminating it, all serving under one celestial King, and all hoping for an admission into one heavenly world The scene reminded one strongly of the time when all kindreds shall unite with one voice in a common hymn of praise to their Savior, and when, instead of many tongues, there shall be one immortal lan- guage. After the conclusion of the ceremony addresses were made in their native languages by Mr. Fisch of Lyons, Dr. Kuntze of Berlin, and Bap- tist W. Noel of London ; and when hymns had been again sung, the exercises were concluded by Dr. Baird. I have never witnessed a scene," says the writer of this account, " which showed more evidently the union of Christians, notwithstanding 130 OPEN COMMUNION. their own peculiar tenets, and a more convincing answer to the calumnious accusations of adversa- ries who seek to find in these peculiarities eviden- ces of dissension."* Whenever Christians are assembled together thus, and can unite, as was done on either of these occasions, in commemorating their Lord's death, nothing can be plainer, it would seem, than that it is both lawful and meet for them to do so, whatever their particular-church connexions may be. To me there is something exceedingly Ro- mish in the idea that the supper should be received at the hands of a church as a particular- church act. It bespeaks subjection to an enact- ment that is perishable after the manner of all human impositions. It robs the emblematic sup- per of that gospel simplicity and freedom from yokes peculiar to the New Testament dispensation, with which it was invested by the Savior at its i institution. But I have already dwelt too long on this point. Restricted communion, even if it were practised on this ground, could not be defended on it for a moment. As an ordinance for the household of faith, its participation can be a symbol of no fel- lowship less embracing than fellowship among * N. Y. Journal of Commerce, Sept. 24, 1851. COMMUNION NOT CHURCH FELLOWSHIP. 131 individuals as members of that household ; and so long as this consists of more than one congrega- tion of Christians, or includes more than one de- nomination, it cannot be a symbol of either deno- minational or particular-church fellowship. Your plea for restriction, therefore, on the ground that communion is a symbol of individual-church fel- lowship, is as unfounded as that which proceeds upon the assumption that it is only " for the church in gospel order ;" and both are equally contrary to truth and apostolic precedent. In all sincerity, I am, as ever, Yours, &c. LETTER VII. CONCLUDING CONSIDERATIONS. Restricted communion an uncandid system — Places others in a false lights unchurching them and placing them on a level with unbelieving Jews, &c. — The true position of Pedobaptists illustrated — The fact not to be overlooked that all were agreed in the apostles' days as to what baptism was, not so now — Close communion clashes with the spirit of Christ — The sad shifts often made in consequence. — The practice schis- matic — As a policy, false — Dr. Carson's testimony — A desecration of the Lord's supper — A modern inno- vation — Conclusion. My Dear Friend : — I have now finished my examination of the several reasons you urge in defence of restricted communion. But, in addi- tion to what I have already advanced, there are several facts which, in deciding upon the merits of this question, I deem worthy of no little consi- deration. These I will now lay before you, then conclude all I have to say for the present respect- ing your practice. 1. One of the first things that strikes an indi- vidual in looking at the system of restricted com- CONCLUDING CONSIDERATIONS. 133 mimion, is its glaring want of candor and consis- tency. It is not what it professes if) be. It restricts the supper from others professedly on the ground of their not being baptized. It asserts its readiness to admit to the Lord's table any who have been baptized and are leading irreproachable Christian lives. Yet it excludes many such, and betrays an utter insincerity of profession. When met with this fact, it changes its ground, takes another stand, and yet another, and says, com- munion is a symbol of particular-church fellow- ship, and therefore it is that others are excluded. But in so doing, it takes a stand equally false, the supper being never administered as a particular- church ordinance, but as a denominational obser- vance. There is a want of candor on the part of its advocates, in not presenting their reasons for it in their true light and on their true bases, while they endeavor to shield themselves under subter- fuges which have only the appearance of truth. A system that needs such a mode of defence is not of God. He is light, and in him is no darkness at all. And if we would walk in the light as he is in the light, we should not be close commu- nionists. 2. It places others in a false position. There is no system of restricted communion that can be adopted without doing this. But it is emphati- 12 134 OPEN COMMUNION. cally true of the system you pursue. It practi- cally unchurches other denominations, and throws them among the unbelieving, non-professing world. You withhold the supper, then say, " Were un- baptized persons admitted in the apostles' days ?" Supposing, for argument's sake, that they were not ; what then I " Why," you say, " Pedobap- tists ought not therefore to be admitted now." Is not this placing them on the same footing with the infidel Jews and idolatrous heathen of old ? Un- baptized persons, if not allowed to come to the Lord's table then, were excluded not because they had not received the ordinance of baptism, but because they could not be regarded as fellow- disciples. If we proceed on apostolic principles, we must make use of apostolic reasons for the course we pursue. You profess to proceed on such principles ; you profess, therefore, virtually to de- cline communion with others because you cannot regard them in any other light than as non-pro- fessors, or at least as faithless and disobedient professors. And this you do, not by implication merely, but in the most unequivocal terms possible, calling them disobedient, disorderly, rebellious, disregarded of the divine will, &c. ; language appropriate only to such as are of the synagogue of Satan. Just look, for a moment, at the language of those whom you CONCLUDING CONSIDERATIONS. 135 point to as the defenders of your practice, with whom, you hesitate not to say, you agree perfectly in these assertions. " All Pedobaptists," says one, " are, however ignorantly, openly disobedient to a command of Christ."* Says another, "They refuse subjection to Christ and violate the laws of his house."f And another, " The essential pre- liminaries being disregarded, they cannot approach the table of the Lord."J " Their reception by us would, on our part, amount to a conspiracy with them in their design to overthrow the law of God, and render us, not Christian communicants, but partners in their rebellion against the authority of the supreme Legislator /"§ Evangelical and pious Pedobaptists disobedient and rebellious ! Holy men like Owen and Baxter, Doddridge and Scott, Chalmers and McCheyne, Edwards and Davies, Whitefield and Tennent, Brainerd and Payson openly disobedient! rebels against the authority of God ! refusing subjection to Christ, and design- ing to overthrow his laws ! "Would to God we had more such ! or that all who mate these mo- dest charges, and consider themselves obedient above others, would only supply their place ! But where does such language place "all Pedobap- * Curtis on Com., p. 248. \ Kinghorn, Terms of Com. % Howell on Com., p. 178. § Ibid., p. 87. 136 OPEN COMMUNION. tists ?" Out of " the church which is subject unto Christ" among the godless whose sentence, as written out by the pen of inspiration, is, " Unto them that are contentious and obey not the truth but obey unrighteousness, indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish." It not only throws them out of the visible church, but out of the in- visible. Can you be surprised to hear close com- munionists denounced as illiberal and bigoted when they make use of such language, and prac- tise a course which, if consistently interpreted, necessarily leads to the unchurching and condem- nation of every body but themselves ? I would ask, in all kindness and for truth's sake, if it would not be more just and in accordance with facts if, instead of calling our brethren rebels, and disregarded of the divine will, you would be content with pronouncing them either mistaken or ignorant of that will, as they themselves regard us on account of our views of baptism. We would do well to have, at least, charity enough to suppose that they are Pedobaptists, not through disobedi- ence and rebelliousness, but through the influence of education, and early formed impressions, and, it may be, other circumstances perfectly compatible with " the answer of a good conscience," a con- science quite as sensitive to the claims of truth and duty generally as ours. Pedobaptists" are such, CONCLUDING CONSIDERATIONS. 137 just as we are Baptists — from education and prin- ciple. As such, they only do what in their love for their Master they honestly and sacredly believe to be in accordance with his will. There is no forcing their consciences any more than the con- sciences of Baptists. And to charge men that walk with God with open disobedience and a de- sign to overthrow the law of God, instead of allow- ing, as truth and candor require, that they walk according to the light that is in them, is to place them in a grossly false position ; and to refuse to commune with them because they will not sin against their souls, is to act more in accordance with the genius of Hildebrand than the spirit of Christ. To set the matter in its true light, take an illus- tration. A father, residing in a distant country, sends home to his son a communication containing certain directions which he desires that son to comply with. The son loves his father and desires to carry out his will. But for some reason or other, not arguing a rebellious spirit at all, nor a design to overthrow his father's injunctions, nor even a want of love, he mistakes his father's mind, and fails of complying with the exact letter of his communication. The spirit of the requirement, however, is carried out. Can any one say, that son is disobedient ? Has he not rendered obedi- 12* 138 OPEN COMMUNION. ence to the best of his knowledge ? Or, is it true, that however much he may have been desirous of carrying out his father's will, he was still disobe- dient ? Does obedience lie in the letter and not in the spirit 3 Every one sees that a charge of disobedience against such a son would be a most foul calumny. But his case is precisely similar to that of our brethren against whom these charges of disobedience, rebellion, and insubordination are preferred. Overlooking entirely the influence of education and of contact with men and things around us in shaping our views, you argue as though you felt that before persons enter the church they must be perfect apostles, having sifted from error all the creeds of those with whom they have been brought up, so as to be, in every particular, upon scriptural ground. Else if they chance to enter the church as Pedobaptists, or indeed with any erroneous views, they are disobedient and rebellious. At this rate, the entire church would be a company of rebels and contemners of the divine will. But the great mass of Pedobaptists are such from edu- cation and contact with Pedobaptist principles; just as the great mass of Baptists are such from a corresponding cause. The latter are no more obe- dient than the former; nor are the former any more entitled to the name of rebels than the latter. CONCLUDING CONSIDERATIONS. 139 Had the former been educated as Baptists, the probability is, they would have been Baptists. Had the latter been educated as Pedobaptists, the probability is, they would have been Pedobaptists. If immersion upon a profession of faith were the only thing now known as baptism, we should all be Baptists ; there is no question of it. But if, on the other hand, the only baptism known consisted in an aspersion, we should none of us be Baptists ; but, alas ! we should all be " disobedient," " refus- ing subjection to Christ," and consequently with- out a place in his kingdom ! The fact is not to be overlooked, as you yourself admit, that in the apostles' days all were agreed as to what baptism was. The whole church knew of but one form and recognised but one. A refusal, therefore, to be immersed then would have been a plain case of disobedience. But now Christians are not agreed upon this point; and equally pious men may be found on both sides. Under existing cir- cumstances what propriety, then, or truth of illus- tration is there in saying, " Suppose that in the days of the apostles any one had refused to be immersed, can we doubt what would have been his treatment ? Who believes that such a candi- date would have been admitted to the Lord's table ?"* I ask you to say candidly whether pious * See R. Fuller on Bapt. and Com, p. 196. 140 OPEN COMMUNION. Pedobaptists are not, by such reasoning, placed upon the same footing with contumacious unbe- lievers? You see they are. Away, then, with these false charges of disobedience, rebellion, and disregard of the divine law ! Away with them for ever ! It makes me blush for Christianity to hear such charges uttered by Christians against their brethren in the Lord. 3. It is mortifying to Christian feelings. It is true, as you say, that a refusal to unite, even with those we most love, in an infraction of the law of God, is a most appropriate exercise of our best propensities. But no law of God is broken by communing with any consistent professing Chris- tian. We have none of these feelings of mortifi- cation in declining to commune with non-pro- fessors, however much we may love them, or however earnestly we may desire to see them warrantably communing with us ; because we are satisfied the Lord's supper is not for them. Nor is there anything repulsive or apparently un- charitable in declining to invite members of other churches and denominations to a place in our church meetings, and giving them the right of suffrage there. But why is this ? Plainly be- cause the one is an institution of the Lord's, for the Lord's church ; while the other is ours, for our church. Feeling that " all the Lord's children CONCLUDING CONSIDERATIONS. 141 have an undoubted right to his table," as Dr. Howell expresses it, and that those whom w 7 e decline communing with as members of other denominations, are his children following, in their love for Christ, their honest convictions of duty as we do ours, is it strange that it is a mortifica- tion to us to decline communion with them ? And does not this mortification of feeling evidently arise from a consciousness of the questionable and un- christlike course we are pursuing ? I might give a number of instances of the awkward situation in which restricted com- munionists sometimes feel themselves to be placed by this system, and of the puerile, wretched, and un- becoming shifts made in order to avoid the pain of declining to commune with Pedobaptists. But a single case must suffice. The Baptist church in a beautiful village in Northern New York a few summers since, was without a pastor. During that time a ministering Baptist brother came to the place and spent a few weeks on a visit. On the first Sabbath of one of those summer months, the Lord's supper was to be administered according to the usual practice of the church when not without a pastor. Arrangements were made accordingly, and the visiting brother who, by the way, at this very moment holds one of the most influential positions in the denomination, was to 142 OPEN COMMUNION. officiate. In the mean time, however, a distin- guished Congregational minister arrived with the view of spending a few days in the place with some of his friends who were members of the Baptist church. Courtesy in part, and in part a de- sire to hear the truth from his lips, induced our Bapdist brother to request him to preach the Lord's day he was there. This happened to be the first Sabbath in the month. But what was to be done? Could they invite him to preach for them, and then attend to the administration of the sup- per after giving him time to leave the house ? O no! this would be too mortifying! Besides, what necessity for it ? He was to be there but this one Sabbath, and as it was an extraordinary case, the church being without a pastor, and it mattering very little whether or not the supper was celebrated at its regular time, to avoid all unpleasantness the communion, it was said, might as well as not be deferred till the next Lord's day. Accordingly the Lord's supper was, on this account, deferred till the ensuing Sabbath, when our Con- gregational brother would not be present either to break to them the bread of life, or, in return, be prevented by them from eating so much as a crumb from his Master's table. Instances like this, you know, are continually occurring among our churches in one form or another. CONCLUDING CONSIDERATIONS. 143 Now the question arises, If it is right, if it is in accordance with the spirit of Christ to refuse a Pedobaptist brother a place at the Lord's table, why such shifts as this to avoid the appearance of unwillingness to commune with one from whose lips the truth can be received with delight ; a kind of shift at once degrading to the church that makes it and condemnatory of tile system under which any one feels necessitated to do it? If the practice is right, there certainly is nothing to be ashamed of in an honest, straightforward, fearless, and consistent carrying of it out. But does not this feeling of mortification in being compelled to decline to commune with men eminent in the church, and distinguished for their piety and usefulness, instinctively tell us there is something wrong somewhere ? The very fact that close communion is antagonistic to the spirit of Christ and the promptings of brotherly love, and shrinks from being brought into contact with them, is, in itself, an incontrovertible proof of its unhallowed nature ; for the requirements of Christ are only an embodiment of his spirit, and a pro- per carrying out of those can never conflict with this. 4. The practice is also schismatic in its influence. It recognises a wall of separation between the members of the family of God where, of all places, such a separation is most inconsistent with the one- 144 OPEN COMMUNION. ness of the Christian brotherhood. As the supper is designed for all acknowledged fellow-disciples, the non-communing with any such indicates, if there is anything in the symbolic import of the ordinance, that between the communicants and those from whom the supper is restricted, there is a want of fellowship as members of the body of Christ. It is true, this may not be the intention of any who practise restricted communion ; ' but so long as the supper is considered, as it was in- tended to be, an ordinance for Christ's disciples irrespective of their denominational or particular- church connexions, it is impossible for such an impression not to be made upon those who know nothing of the false views which may be taken of the ordinance by such as administer it as a denominational institution. The consequence is, this apparent non-fellowship and exclusiveness creates distance of feeling, repugnance, and dis- gust. Nor ought any one to expect it to be otherwise ; for no one has a right to expect the correct views of others to be accommodated to his own unscriptural and false ideas of things. In its practical tendency, therefore, restricted communion is obviously schismatic, which is one of the surest evidences of its not being in accordance with the mind of Christ. Free communion, on the contrary, leads Christians to a deeper conscious- CONCLUDING CONSIDERATIONS. 145 ness of the fact that, however much they may differ in name, they are still members of one common family. While the one system repels, the other tends to soften down denominational prejudices, to unite Christians in closer bonds, and to prepare them for seeing each other and the truth through a medium, that does not distort or impart a false coloring. 5. And as it is schismatic, so, as a policy, it is false. There can be no question that the growth and influence of the Baptist denomination, great as they are, would be vastly increased were it not for this practice. There are multitudes of intelli- gent, influential, and devoted Christians, the land over, who are really Baptists, but who have no sympathy for restricted communion, and on this account will not connect themselves with Baptist churches. I do not blame them. Far from it; for I believe it better to seek a home among those who may differ from us on the subject of baptism but who exercise a Christian largeness of soul and a gospel charity toward others, than among those who may agree with us upon this subject while in their administrations of the Lord's supper they trample upon the unmistakeable teachings of Scrip- ture, and the hallowed promptings of the spirit of Christ. It is perfectly ridiculous to see any one attempting to show that " a Pedobaptist church is 13 146 OPEN COMMUNION. no home for a Baptist," when a close-communion church, as such, ought to be a home for no Christian, and when, as the only alternative (where there are no open-communion churches), Baptists must seek homes among churches of other denominations. But what I wanted to call your attention to, is the fact, that in consequence of the exclusive and belittling character of this system, a large amount of piety, influence, and means which properly belongs to the denomination, is turned off into other channels. So that if the Baptist deno- mination is less numerous than it might be, if its influence, both at home and abroad, is not what it should be, Baptists have nothing to blame for this more than their own dwarfing, antichristian, and odious system of denominational communion — a system that decapitates all non-conformists, as unwarranted as the papal restrictions of th*r use of God's Word, and as intolerant as the spirit that drove Roger Williams, as a dangerous man, from his home. It goes to work to advance the truth in the very way best calculated to blind men to it, and to keep them from examining it. It runs directly counter to the voice of reason and the genius of Christianity, which teach that if we would win from error, we are not to expect to suc- ceed by the use of harsh, coercive, and repulsive means, but by those that are mild, conciliatory, CONCLUDING CONSIDERATIONS. 147 and attractive. As the late Dr. Carson, and a Baptist of no mean name, remarks, " Ignorance of any divine institution is an evil, and must be felt as such by a church as far as it exists in any of its body. But the question is, What is God's way of getting rid of the evil? We believe," he says, " that it is by forbearance, affectionate instruction, and prayer. Many on the contrary have thought that the most effectual way to make a disciple receive an ordinance of Jesus, is to refuse him fel- lowship till he has complied. Notwithstanding all we have heard in favor of this plan, we still deem it the wisdom of man. Accordingly we have found that God has made foolish this wis- dom. Long has it been tried without success; and of late, in some parts of Ireland it has been carried so far that some individuals can scarcely find a second to unite with them in constant fel- lowship. By permitting Satan to work them up to this frenzy, it appears to us that God has fixed his seal of disapprobation on the sentiment in its lowest degree, and would load sober-minded Christians, who have been led away by its plausi- bility, to examine more attentively the ground of their opinion."* What candid and reflecting mind does not feel * Moore's Life of Carson, pp. 86, Si. 148 OPEN COMMUNION. that there is a truthfulness in these words which speaks for itself and cannot be gainsayed ? The gospel, by its loveliness and attractiveness, draws men into obedience ; but this system would drive them into it. Overlooking the great principles in which the power of the gospel lies, and going con- trary to them, it vainly seeks to bring men to a knowledge of the truth by setting it in a repulsive and odious light. Such a system, be it from what source it may, cannot be of God. 6. But one of the greatest objections I have to the practice, is that it desecrates the Lord's supper, using it as it does for purposes altogether unlaw- ful. The immediate object of the ordinance is to bring before our minds, by sensible tokens, the sufferings and death of our crucified Lord ; for as often as we partake of the sacramental loaf and cup we make an exhibition of him as crucified and dying ; or, as the apostle concisely expresses it, we show his death. A correct administration of the ordinance will, therefore, always awaken peni- tence, humility, and love for him who bore our sins in his body on the tree, as well as unite us more closely to those with whom we commune as fellow-disciples engaged with us in the same solemn and melting memorial act. The practice of restricted communion, however, awakes, not unfrequently, feelings of mortification and shame CONCLUDING CONSIDERATIONS. 149 that need to be repented of, and makes those who are truly united to Christ feel as though there was little or no oneness of heart between them. The administering of the supper in such a way as necessarily to awaken feelings so little akin to those designed to be awakened is truly humiliat- ing. It deprives it of those lovely and exalting features which it possesses as an ordinance of Christ, and makes it an instrument for evil. In its design the supper is for believers as members of the Christian body, not as members of a parti- cular denomination. Even if, under circumstances that are perfectly compatible with love for Christ, there should be found any who are without bap- tism, but who, notwithstanding this, are acknow- ledged as members of Christian churches, there can be no question that the supper is for them as truly as for any otfcer disciples. To confine it, under these circumstances, even to the baptized is a course unjustified by all the teachings of Chris- tianity. But when its restriction is carried further than this, and the communion is made a denomi- national thing, as it really is, its administration is more than unjustifiable ; it calls for reprehension from every Christian as a course that degrades the ordinance and dishonors him who instituted it. We are at liberty to adopt no terms of com- munion not established by the Savior. This you 13* 150 OPEN COMMUNION. admit. And yet, contrary to the precedent left us by the Savior himself, you not only insist upon an immersional profession of discipleship where disci- pleship has already been honestly and fully entered upon under other circumstances, but you demand of the communicant a place in some restricted- communion church before he and you can com- memorate together the death of your ascended Lord. If this is not the offspring of party spirit it would be hard to say what is. It is a desecra- tion of the Lord's supper, which finds no parallel in the history of Christian churches ; a tampering with a divine institution of which the world itself is not guilty. 1. Besides all this, restricted communion is a modern innovation, something altogether unknown till within the last three centuries. I^m aware it is sometimes said, that good Jfchn Bunyan was the father of the opposite practice. But they who say this only point us to the time when restricted communion was first introduced, and, as it ex- tended, met with opposition from those who were imbued with, the spirit of Christ. For it was in Bunyan's time that Baptists first refused to com- mune with others; and then the practice origin- ated in a spirit of retaliation and party exclusive- ness. It evidently did not exist in the apostles' days. There were no restrictions of the supper CONCLUDING CONSIDERATIONS. 151 then practised toward any known and acknow- ledged Christian brother, as is daily done now. And during the whole of the first two centuries of the Christian era such a thing was utterly un- known. If we come down to a later day and sup- pose infant-baptism to have been introduced toward the end of the second or the beginning of the third century, wkich corresponds to the time at which it is first distinctly noticed ; as Robert Hall very justly remarks, we cannot suppose a shorter space than two centuries was requisite to procure it that complete establishment whieh it possessed in the time of St. Austin. During that long interval there must have been Baptists and Pedobaptists contemporary with each other. What became of that portion of the ancient church which refused to adopt the baptism of infants ? Did they separate from their brethren in order to form distinct and exclusive societies ? Of this not the faintest trace or, vestige is to be found in ecclesiastical history ; and the supposition is completely confuted by the concurrent testi- mony of ancient writers to the universal incorpo- ration of orthodox Christians into one grand com- munity. Not the shadow of evidence ean be pro- duced to prove the existence, during that long tract of time, of a single society of which adult baptism was the distinguishing characteristic. 252 OPEN COMMUNION. Terttillian, it is acknowledged, is the first who dis- tinctly and unequivocall y adverts to the baptism of infants ; and as he expresses his disapprobation of it at the same time, without the remotest intima- tion of the propriety of making it the ground of separation, he must be allowed to form one instance of the practice of mixed communion ; and unless we are dispos'ed to assert that infant-bap- tism at once supplanted the original ordinance, multitudes must have been in precisely the same situation. Among the Waklenses, for instance, at a later day, we find that there were many who adhered to Baptist principles, and were stigmatized and reproached by their Romish persecutors as. Anabaptists ; while it appears also, on the other hand, that there were not wanting some among them who practised the baptism of infants. No indication, however, is discoverable of any rupture in external communion among them on this account. Indeed, we read of the separate exist- ence of no Baptist churches anywhere upon the continent during the whole period of the middle ages, and until the time of the Reformation. The necessary inference, therefore, is, either that there were during that interval no Baptists there, or rather that they were incorporated in societies, together with Pedobaptists.* * See R. Hall, Works, vol. i,, pp. 481-483. CONCLUDING CONSIDERATIONS. 153 And if we pass from the continent to England, and suppose the existence of Baptist sentiments there to date no farther back than the days of Wickliffe, we find that, for at least two centuries and a half, close communion was unknown there. But if, as some suppose, Baptists existed in Eng- land as far back as the beginning of the seventh or even of the twelfth century ; then so much longer was mixed communion practised before the modern innovation began ; for during the period prior to Wickliffe, if there were any Baptists in England they were not known as such by distinct organizations. But whatever may be the truth respecting the existence of Baptist sentiments in England before A. D. 1370, it is certain that their prevalence can be distinctly dated from that time ; and yet they found no embodiment in Baptist churches as such, till several years after the beginning of the seventeenth century. As on the continent, so here, Baptists were scattered through- out the country maintaining their discriminating sentiments, yet mingling with their Pedobaptist brethren in both church and sacramental com- munion. It was not till the reign of Charles L that they began to form a distinct body or de- nomination contending for the divine authority of baptism and the necessity of it as a term of com- munion. Crosby, in his history of the English 154 OPEN COMMUNION. Baptists, says that they began to form themselves into separate societies in 1633, five years after the birth of John Bunyan, and hardly three years before the banishment of Roger Williams in this country. Up to that time they had been inter- mixed in churches with other nonconformists, though during nearly the whole of the preceding reign they had contended more or less strenuously for their principles as Baptists. Eleven years after this, the whole number of Baptist churches in England was fifty four, seven of which were in London ; and when John Bunyan became pastor of the church at Bedford the number was still greater. Most of these churches, in consequence of the opposition which they received from others, refused to commune with them altogether. To some however, among whom were John Hum- phrey and John Bunyan, this course appeared uncalled for and unchristian, and they contended for the continuance of that free intercourse at the Lord's table which had been steadily maintained between Baptists and Christians of other per- suasions from the first. Restricted communion, therefore, appears evidently as a modern innova- tion. It was a thing only of recent date when Humphrey, in 1653, wrote his u Free Admission to the Sacrament," and Bunyan, some ten years alter,, his Ci Differences about Water Baptism no CONCLUDING CONSIDERATIONS. 155 Bar to Communion." And now it has scarcely the sanction of two hundred years, and that from only a portion of the denomination at any time. Why then, since it is a thing that was unknown to the apostles and unheard of in the Christian church for sixteen hundred years, should we now seek to uphold it with all its inconsistencies and improprieties ? The answer can be found only in the fact that we do not recognise, as we should, the oneness which exists between us and those of other denominations as members of the great Christian brotherhood. This oneness is not a felt reality. I make no question that this is the real difficulty at the bottom of this whole system. Do away with this, and we shall have little if any fel- low-feeling for a course that repels them from us as disobedient and rebellious. It is gratifying, however, to know, as I do know, that there are multitudes belonging to our churches who would gladly see the practice abolished, and would readily abjure it, but for the want of ministerial co-operation and sanction, the fear of being con- sidered fickle-minded, and the dread of excommu- nication and unkind treatment, in some cases, from those they love. We all know what influence these things have upon minds which have not, by encountering them, learned to despise them and to rise above them. But we have every reason to 156 OPEN COMMUNION. believe that the day is at hand when the system of restricted communion must be abolished, if not entirely, at least to a very great extent. Present indications show that the strong tide of feeling which for years past has been increasing against it, cannot much longer be successfully kept back. Its inconsistencies and glaring antichristian charac- ter, are becoming daily more and more felt. And when the mind of the denomination is fairly en- lightened to see them, it must come to the conclusion that the system is not only uncalled for, but unscrip- tural and unworthy of a follower of Christ. This is all we need. When this is the case the enlightened mind of the masses can no longer submit to the dictation of the few in favor of error. The absur- dity of the practice and its inconsistency with itself and with the mind of Christ will be too apparent to leave any honest and enlightened mind willing to be identified w r ith it. And now, my friend, I must conclude. I can- not doubt that you have hitherto followed the sys- tem with a conscience void of offence toward both God and man, not having seen its inconsistencies and unwarrantable character. But can you any longer ? In view of the arguments which I have advanced, to say nothing of others, do you not feel that your position is a weak one ? Would you not be ashamed to have your character as a rea- CONCLUDING CONSIDERATIONS. 157 soner judged of by your pleadings in favor of restricted communion, and your character as a Christian of catholic views by your practice in this matter ? I know you would. You would blush to find your arguments in defence of other ques- tions as weak and irrelevant as those you offer in support of this practice. Why not, then, aban- don it ? " If the system be not warranted by the will of Christ, it should be at once and forever abandoned."* If our object is the attainment of truth and of a firm and peaceful foothold thereon, we must be ready to admit our errors and renounce them when we see them. As Noah and his family, by committing themselves in the ark to the waters, were lifted above the ruins and corrup- tions of the old world and safely landed on Ararat ; so we, by committing ourselves upon the waters of God's truth, shall be borne upward and away from error, and safely conveyed to a position of firmness and peace. It is no evidence of consist- ency to continue in error. To be in error is the common lot of mankind. To acknowledge and abandon it is but the part of wisdom, honesty, and true magnanimity. It may be humiliating to our pride ; but to be enslaved by pride and kept from breathing the free and bracing atmosphere of * Taylor's Defence of Restricted Com. 14 158 OPEN COMMUNION. truth, this — this is most degrading to the soul. They alone are the truly free and happy, who, disdaining the influences of this debasing despot, and enamored with the truth, follow cheerfully wherever she leads the way, knowing that let her lead where and whither she may, it will always be away from error and toward God. It is a most fearful responsibility that any one assumes who imposes false and unscriptural terms of communion and practically forbids from obser- ving the ordinance those to whom Christ himself says, " This do, in remembrance of me." In view of- what I have presented, and as much more per- haps which I might have presented, I cannot, I dare not so administer the supper as virtually to exclude any who are visibly his disciples and who may be present with us at the time of com- memorating his death. It matters not to me how they have made their profession of Christianity if I am satisfied of their Christian character. Com- mon sense leaches me that if, as in the apostles' days, there were but one way of administering bap- tism known among us, they would be as much Baptists as you or I ; and that therefore it is per- fectly ridiculous to decline communing with them if they should happen not to be immersed. Nor do I care where they hold their church relations. Let them be credit&jbie members of the Christian CONCLUDING CONSIDERATIONS. 159 fraternity, and neither you nor I have any right to require of them other terms of approach to the Lord's table. If this is false ground, I ask you, for the truth's sake and for our Master's sake, to prove it. I ask not for sophistry, equivocations, puerilities, unscriptural appeals, and party repre- sentations, but for argument that will carry weight with it to the mind of a thinking, common-sense Christian man desirous of seeing the truth, and abiding by it. Until this is afforded me, I must not only claim the liberty of practising free com- munion myself, but insist upon it as *he duty of others, for a rejection of which, however, I judge no man, but simply point to him whose revealed will seems to say so plainly concerning restricted communion, "Who hath required this at your hands?" As ever, in all sincerity, Yours, &c. THE END, RECENT AND VALUABLE PUBLICATIONS BY 3VE- TOT. ZDOZD33. THE OLD AND THE NEW; OR, CHANGES OF THIRTY TEARS IN THE EAST. * BY Wm. GOODELL, Missionary of A. B. C. F. Missions in Constantinople. 1 vol. 12 mo. With numerous Illustrations, THE FRIEND OF MOSES ; OR A DEFENCE OF THE PENTATEUCH, AS THE PRODUCTION OF MOSES, AND AN INSPIRED DOCUMENT, AGAINST THE OBJECTIONS OF MODERN SCEPTICISM. BY W. T. HAMILTON, D.D. MEMOIR AND SERMONS OF REV. Wm. J. ARMSTRONG, D.D,, Late Secretary of Am. B'd of Com. for Foreign Missions. EDITED BY REV. HOLLIS READ. THE PATH OF LIFE; BY REV. HENRY A. 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