(' 
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 §p\ €mm\\m] 
 
 OK, 
 
 THE PEIXCIPLES OF KESTKICTED COMMUKION 
 
 EXAMINED AND PROVED TO BE 
 
 UNSCRIPTURAL AND FALSE, 
 
 EY S. W WHITNEY, A.M., 
 
 Pa«or of the- Baptist Church, Wesiport, N. Y. 
 
 *' This DO in' remembrance of me. 
 " Drink ye all of it." 
 
 SECOND EDITION. 
 
 PUBLISHED BY L. M. LEE, 
 . RIC:HM0ND, yA^, ;
 
 Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year iSao, by 
 
 S. W WHITNEY, 
 
 in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the Southern District 
 of New York. 
 
 1«. cpAiGHBtA]^, p9i>T;'isft Xnd.stereotYpbk,. 
 53 Vesey street, N. Y.
 
 
 UJ(» 1 
 
 1?5 4 
 
 l^xihn. 
 
 The design of this little volume is to bring to the test 
 of Scripture and reason both the principles upon which 
 the close communion of the Baptist denomination to 
 this country professes to proceed, and those upon which 
 it actually does proceed. The writer is a Baptist ; and 
 his object has been to take a candid view, as a Baptist, 
 of the real force of the arguments urged by his brethren 
 in defence of their practice. His letters are neither 
 more nor less than the argument of a Baptist with a 
 Baptist. He has taken nothing as conceded which 
 restricted comraunionists do not concede, or for which 
 he has not been able to refer to their writings to sustain 
 him. At the same time, he has avoided urging any 
 plea in his defence which might be likely not to weigh 
 with a Baptist mind as such. Hence he has left un- 
 touched, besides other arguments, that deduced from 
 the scriptural injunction of brotherly love, so ably set 
 forth by Hall, Mason, Noel, and others; for to a Bap- 
 tist mind the argument has no force whatever. It is 
 not on this gi'ound that he has placed the question at 
 all. He is perfectly willing the practice should stand 
 or fall upon the truth or falsity of the ground on which 
 its advocates place it; and his inquiry has been — Is this 
 ground true or false ? Believing, as he does, that it is 
 demonstrably false, he feels it to be a duty that he owes
 
 IV PREFACE. 
 
 to liis God, his brethren, and to the church at large, to 
 prove it, and to give his proof to the public. This he 
 now does. From some who differ from him he knows 
 what to expect. But he is happy to know, on the 
 other hand, that there are many, and Baptists too, who 
 will welcome his humble efifort as a token of the dawn 
 of a coming brighter day. 
 
 That the volume, as it now goes forth to the public, 
 may be accompanied with the Divine blessing, and aid 
 in doing away with one of the most uncalled for and 
 unscriptural bars to the full intercommunion of Chris- 
 tians in things emblematic of their union to Christ and 
 to one another as members of his family, is the sincere 
 prayer of the author. 
 
 S. W. WHITNEY. 
 
 Flushing, L. I., May 1, 1853.
 
 Cnnhnis. 
 
 LETTER I. 
 
 ON THE WORD CHURCH. 
 
 Page 
 Introduction — The Baptist position respecting the 
 word — Its true meaning, a collection of Christians 
 — Those in any city — In any family — N^ot organi- 
 zations — The Baptist definition of a church not 
 descriptive of apostolic 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 — Equivalent to "the house- 
 hold of faith" — Examples — Baptist concessions — 
 The nature of this body — How entered — Who are 
 its members — Baptizing into the fellowship of par- 
 ticular churches, not a scriptural act — Conclu- 
 sion 9 
 
 LETTER II. 
 
 THE POINT OF DIFFERENCE BETWEEN OPEN AND CLOSE 
 COMMUNIONISTS. 
 
 Kot respecting the terms of membership in Bap- 
 tist churches— -Not respecting the propriety of com-
 
 VI CONTENTS. 
 
 Page 
 
 muning with non-professors — N"ot respecting the 
 order of administering the ordinances to new con- 
 verts — Not whether Baptists are as free as others 
 or not — But whether it is proper for them to com- 
 mune at the Lord's table with unimmersed mem- 
 bers of the Christian church 32 
 
 LETTER m. 
 
 BAPTISM NOT A TERM OF COMMUNION. 
 
 Introduction — Baptists themselves deny baptism to 
 be a sine quA non for communion — The want of 
 baptism not a disqualification in the apostles' 
 days — The communicants at the first supper were 
 without Christian baptism — Proofs that John's 
 baptism was not Christian baptism — (L) Their ob- 
 ject and import distinct — (2.) A distinction care- 
 fully preserved between them by the N. T. writers 
 — (3.) John's disciples after the resurrection rebap- 
 tized — (4.) Christian baptism not instituted till 
 after the resurrection — (5.) Christian baptism an 
 ordinance of Christ's ; John's was not — Others be- 
 sides the eleven disciples communed steadfastly 
 without baptism — Conclusion 43 
 
 LETTER IV. 
 
 BAPTISM NOT A TERM OF COMMUNION. 
 
 The Lord's Supper, an ordinance for the Saviour's 
 disciples — Baptist concessions — The assertion that
 
 CONTENTS. Vll 
 
 Page 
 open commnnionists, in denying baptism to be a 
 term of communion, differ from all Christendom, 
 "untrue — Xo proof from the commission that bap- 
 tism is indispensable to communion — None from 
 the practice of the apostles ; an absurd and suici- 
 dal appeal — None from the signification of the 
 ordinances ; proof for the contrary — None from 
 the terms of eating the Jewish passover — Conclu- 
 6ion. 1Z 
 
 LETTER V. 
 
 THE WANT OF BAPTISM NOT THE TRUE GROUND UPON 
 WHICH RESTRICTED COMMUNION PROCEEDS. 
 
 Close commnnionists require something more than 
 repentance, faith, and baptism — The supper made 
 a denominational ordinance — The insincerity of 
 Baptists — Their reasons for making it a deno- 
 minational ordinance, no reasons — Their practice 
 inconsistent with their professions — The folly of 
 contending for baptism as a term of communion. . 94 
 
 LETTER VL 
 
 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 example 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 Bap-
 
 VIU CONTENTS. 
 
 Page 
 tists as disorderly walkers — The position falsified 
 hj the universal practice of restricted communion- 
 ists — What is necessary to a right reception of the 
 ordinance — The presence of a minister not neces- 
 sary — Andrew Fuller's opinion — Examples of apos- 
 tolic communion ; at Tezpoor ; at the sessions of 
 the Evangelical Alliance, Loudon, 1851 — Conclu- 
 sion 112 
 
 LETTER VIL 
 
 CONCLUDING CONSIDERATIONS. 
 
 Restricted communion an uncandid system — Places 
 others in a false light, unchurching them and plac- 
 ing them on a level with unbelieving Jews, <fcc. — 
 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 conse- 
 quence — The practice schismatic — As a policy, 
 false — Dr. Carson's testimony — A desecration of 
 the Lord's Supper — A modern innovation — Con- 
 clusion 128
 
 (Dptn Cnmrannifln. 
 
 LETTER T. 
 
 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 — Not organizations — The 
 Baptist definition of a church not descrij^tive 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. 
 
 My 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.
 
 10 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 hav^e 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- 
 cUisive. 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 WOED CHURCH. 11 
 
 believers, associated by covenant in the faitb 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 w^ord " is a 
 ieriium 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 w-ith- 
 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 Encyclopsedia of Religious Knowledge, Art. 
 Baptism ; and Articles of Faith of Baptist churches gene- 
 rally. 
 
 f See R. Fuller on Bap. and Com,; Curtis on Com.,
 
 12 OPEN COMMUNION. 
 
 idea of organization Las any thing to do with it. 
 This idea does not enter into the word h'/kri(floL 
 at all. The word, in its ordinary acceptation 
 among the Greeks, signified merely an assembly, a 
 body of jDeople 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 assembly 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, 89, 41, where it is translated " as- 
 Beml y," it has this meaning, though not with reference 
 to a body ui Christians.
 
 ON THE WORD CHURCH. 13 
 
 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 Laodicean s,"f " the church of 
 Ephesus;";]; 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. N'or is it to be wondered at 
 that such is the case, when we consider how the 
 existence of denominations keeps Christians, even 
 in small vilhiges, 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 neighboihood. 
 
 It is also used with reference to smaller com- 
 
 * Acts viii. 1. f Col w. 16. X I^«^- ii- 1- 
 2
 
 14 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. 
 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 whore 
 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. 
 
 X Comp. Philem. ii. 10, 12, with Col. ir. 8, 9.
 
 ON THE WORD CHURCH. 15 
 
 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 apostoHc churches were. 
 They were not hke 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 uobody knows where, while the 
 church lo 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. 6, Y. 
 
 f Acts xiv. 23. Comp. Acts xx. IT, 28. 1 Tim. iii. 2, 
 4. V. 17.
 
 16 OPEN COMMUNION. 
 
 wlio 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 sJcxX-zitf/a, 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 their members are generally 
 unimmersed. So far as they are organizations, it 
 is true they possess an element unknown to the 
 hxXridiai of the New Testament ; but as bands of 
 Christians they are what are denominated in 
 Scripture churches of God. They are, therefore, 
 quite as much scriptural churches as any other 
 among us, though in certain points they may be 
 less conformed tban others to the doctrines and 
 practice of primitive Christians. Again, if churches 
 of Christ are limited to ^^ congregat ions coYenanted 
 together for purposes of worship," as your de- 
 finition certainly implies, then the body of Chris- 
 tians in New York, or Philadelphia, or any other
 
 ON THE WORD CHURCH. 11 
 
 city, cannot be a church of Christ ; a position at 
 variance with what is, perhaps, the most frequent 
 New Testament use of the word. Your definition, 
 too, virtually declares that Peter, James, and John 
 were not members of the church of Jerusalem '* 
 for, as I shall show in a future letter, they were 
 not " believers who by bcqotism^ that is to say, by 
 immersion, had professed themselves disciples of 
 the Saviour."f In short, it makes it out that there 
 were no such things as " churches of Christ" in 
 the apostles' days,J; not even one at Jerusalem ; 
 the members of the churches of the New Tes- 
 tament not having* been associated and bound 
 together '' by covenant." I do not say that they 
 were not associated " in faith and fellowship," as 
 well as in communities, and labors, and sufferings, 
 and forms of worship, and other things. But 
 that they were associated by covenant in any of 
 these things, is an idea not only totally foreign 
 from the true meaning of the Greek word sxxXojo'ja, 
 but contrary to the genius and history of apostolic 
 Christianity. Your definition of a church of God, 
 therefore, I cannot but consider as altogether gra- 
 tuitous, unsupported by a correct view of the 
 churches of the New Testament, and, as a scrip- 
 
 * Gal. ii. 9. 
 
 f Christian Review, vol. i. p. 525. 
 
 X See Rom. xvi. 16. 
 
 2*
 
 18 OPEN COMMUNION. 
 
 tural definition, contradictory to the testimony of 
 inspiration. 
 
 Let us now inquire whether the expression, 
 " the church," is ever used in the New Testament 
 to denote the visible body of Christians among 
 men. 
 
 It is evident that when used unqualifiedly, as 
 in Eph. iii. 21, "Unto him be glory in the 
 church by Jesus Christ throughout all ages," it 
 cannot denote a particular church. An individual 
 band of Christians is never called the church, 
 unless there are some qualifying words connected 
 with the expression, — as in the phrases, "the 
 church of the Thessalonians,'^ " the church which 
 was at Antioch^'' and so on, — or unless there is 
 something in the context showing that a parti- 
 cular church is referred to, or something requiring 
 the word to be understood as having such a re- 
 ference, as in Acts xx. 1*7, "From Miletus Paul 
 sent to Ephesus, and called for the elders of the 
 church," that is, of the church of Ephesus, " the 
 flock over which the Holy Ghost had made them 
 overseers," as it is said a few verses after. But 
 when the word is found without any qualifications 
 whatever, either expressed or implied, its only 
 other scriptural use is not, as you say, to denote 
 the body of ti-ue believers in the world, the church 
 invisible. But, as the church at the house of
 
 ON THE WORD CHURCH. 19 
 
 Aquila denoted the body of Christians at his 
 house, and as the church of Ephesus denoted the 
 body of Christians at Ephesus, including both the 
 members of the church at the house of Aquila 
 and all other Christians in that city, so, by a still 
 more extended application of the terra, the un- 
 qualified expression, "the church," denotes, not 
 unfrequently, the body of professing .Christians 
 throughout the world embracing all acknowledged 
 visible disciples of Christ. 
 
 The phrase, "the household of faith," is evi- 
 dently used in this sense. " As we have oppor- 
 tunity," says Paul, " let us do good unto all men, 
 especially unto them who are of the household of 
 faith."* His especial reference is not to true be- 
 lievers as believers, but to such as are of the house- 
 hold of believers, the Christian church. And so 
 church is repeatedly used. For example : 
 
 Acts ii. 47. " The Lord added to the church 
 daily such as should be saved ;" that is, to the 
 Christian body, by bringing men to repentance 
 and faith ; these inward acts being immediately 
 followed by the outward one of confessing him 
 and professing discipleship to him. The ad- 
 dition here spoken of was unquestionably 7nade 
 in Jerusalem. But this does not necessarily imply 
 
 * Gal. vi. 10.
 
 20 OPEN COMMUNION. 
 
 that it was tlie increase of tlie band of Christians 
 in Jerusalem as such, that is here designed to be 
 noticed. On the contrary, the tenor of the record 
 forbids such an interpretation. The thing spoken 
 of is the increase of the Christian community, 
 the enlargement and strengthening of the cause 
 of Christ, some of whose adherents were collected 
 at Jerusalem, while the rest were scattered about 
 in difterent parts of the country, as appears from 
 the fact that the Saviour, after his resurrection, 
 "was seen of above five hundred brethren at 
 once," while on the day of Pentecost the number 
 of the names assembled together at Jerusalem, 
 was only "about a hundred and twenty."* In 
 this view I am far from being alone. To say 
 nothing of others, Prof. Ripley, who like yourself 
 defends restricted communion, in his Notes on the 
 Acts, speaks of the addition of the three thousand, 
 mentioned a verse or two previous, as "an ac- 
 cession to the Christian company," of which he 
 had, just before this, taken occasion to show, only 
 a portion were at Jerusalem. 
 
 Again, 1 Cor. xii. 28. "God hath set some 
 in tJie church, first apostles, secondarily prophets," 
 &c. ; that is, in the Christian body, distinguished 
 as a community from the world. But you say, 
 
 * 1 Cor. XV. 6. Acts i. 15.
 
 ON THE WORD CHURCH. 21 
 
 " No : cliiircL is Lere a generic word, compre- 
 hending all the visible churches as churches." 
 True, it is a generic word ; but it is always used to 
 denote a number of individuals^ more or less. It 
 is never, either here or elsewhere, used to denote 
 several churches collectively, any more than the 
 word flock is ever used to signify a number of 
 flocks taken together. Such a use of the word 
 is, as Neander very justly observes, " quite contrary 
 to the phraseology of the apostolic age."* It 
 denotes here, obviously, as in the preceding in- 
 stance, the body of professing Christians in tho 
 world. And so says Prof. J. T. Smith. In his 
 "New Testament and Historical Arguments for 
 Infant Baptism Examined," he remarks, in com- 
 menting on the meaning of the " one body " in 
 1 Cor. xii. 13, that " the 'one body ' is the visible 
 church ; and that the visible church is referred to 
 by the phrase, is evident from the whole connexion. 
 ' Now are ye the body of Christ and members in 
 particular. And God hath set some in the churchy 
 flrst apostles, tfec.'" Now whatever is apparent 
 from this comment, nothing is more so than that 
 by " the church " in this verse, Prof. S. understands 
 the apostle, as I do, to mean " the visible church," 
 the body of Christ's disciples. 
 
 * Planting and Training, ttc, Ryland's Trans, p. 92.
 
 22 OPEN COMMUNION. 
 
 Once more. 1 Cor. xv. 9. " I am not meet to 
 be called an apostle, because I persecuted the 
 church of God." Gal. i. 13. "Beyond measure 
 I persecuted the church of God and wasted it." 
 Phil. iii. 6. " If any other man thinketh he hath 
 whereof he might trust in the flesh, I more .... 
 concerning zeal, persecuting the church." Not 
 the church invisible certainly. The persecuting 
 Saul little cared whether the objects of his malice 
 were anything more than " disciples of the Lord," 
 like Ananias and Sapphira, in profession and ap- 
 pearance only. Nor was it members of the 
 church at Jerusalem as such that he persecuted, 
 but any and all who were identified with Christ 
 by a profession of his name, wherever he found 
 them. And so Prof. Ripley regards it ; for in his 
 Review of Dr. Griffin's Letter on Communion, he 
 designates Saul of Tarsus as a " persecutor of the 
 church^'' without qualifying the expression at all, 
 as he would have done had his idea been that it 
 was some particular church of which he was a 
 persecutor. It was against the sect of the Naza- 
 renes as such, that the young man breathed out 
 threatenings and slaughter. His own confession 
 afterwards before the Roman tribune, Claudius 
 Lysias, was, "I persecuted this way unto the 
 death ;"^ that is, I persecuted to death those of this 
 
 * Acts xxii. 4.
 
 ON THE WORD CHURCH. 23 
 
 persuasion — the professors of this religion. And 
 his language before Lysias is the same in meaning 
 as when he says to the Corinthians and Galatians, 
 "I persecuted the church." That the object of 
 his persecution was not the church in Jerusalem 
 as such, is farther evident from the fact of which 
 he himself informs us, that among other churches 
 in Judea it could be said, and was said, upon their 
 hearing of his conversion, " He that persecuted 
 us in times past, now preacheth the faith he once 
 destroyed."* 
 
 Even Mr. Curtis, who professes to take the same 
 view that you do, admits that the word may some- 
 times be used thus in the Scriptures. And I pre- 
 sume the denomination agree with him in this, 
 since his work is published by the American 
 Baptist Publication Society, and has been endorsed 
 by the Christian Review and Baptist journals 
 generally, as sound and scriptural. His language 
 is this : " There may be a figurative use of the 
 word church in two or three passages of the New 
 Testament, without all the ideas of a regular 
 organization being involved. In some points of 
 view, unquestionably, those who make a credible 
 profession of the Christian faith, must be regarded 
 as a whole. They are a body distinct from the 
 world, but operating upon it with a certain degree 
 * Gal. i. 22, 23.
 
 24 OPEN COMMUNION. 
 
 of uniformity and power. This body is distinct 
 from the invisible church universal, in that all who 
 are professors of religion, and some, therefore, who 
 are only professors, are mixed up with true Christians 
 in the present world. It is distinct from any parti- 
 cular visible church, since it embraces members of all 
 truly Christian churches throughout the world. 
 Such abody as this, however, he concludes, "cannot, 
 in any other than a merely figurative sense, be called 
 a church."^ But whether it can be called thus with- 
 out a figure or not, is nothing to the purpose, nor 
 does it affect the question under consideration in 
 the least. With as much propriety might it be 
 said that the phrase, "the body of Christ," can- 
 not denote the church except figuratively. And 
 yet the apostle uses it in this sense repeatedly. 
 The simple question is, figurative or not, is the 
 word ever used at all in the Scriptures as a desig- 
 nation for "all credible professors of Christianity ?" 
 Prof. Curtis admits it is, and that, as such, "it 
 embraces members of all truly Christian churches 
 throughout the world." If you cannot agree with 
 him, to say nothing of others, you have the most 
 intelligent of our denomination opposed to you. 
 And if you can, then you admit all that I am 
 contending for. This, however, is not a figurative 
 use of the word any more than in the expression 
 * On Communion, p. 284.
 
 ON THE WORD CHURCH. 25 
 
 "the church which was at Jerusalem." In sup- 
 posing that " all the ideas of a regular organiza- 
 tion are involved " in a literal use of the word, 
 Prof. Curtis has in his mind's eye the common idea 
 of a church, not the literal import of the Greek word 
 £xxX-/]o'ia, which, as you cannot but see, denotes 
 neither directly nor indirectly an organization, but 
 simply a collection of individuals. The place 
 within which they are collected may be a house, 
 a city, or a world. 
 
 But I need not dwell longer on this point. The 
 word is understood and continually used thus by 
 all classes of Christians, and by Baptists no less 
 than by others, as a reference to their writings will 
 easily show. And I think you must yourself be 
 prepared to agree with me that your position re- 
 specting the word is a foregone conclusion and 
 untenable. 
 
 Now as to the nature of the body denoted by 
 the word. It was designed to be a visible repre- 
 sentation, so far .^as it should go, of the church 
 invisible, or body of true saints among men. This 
 is evident from its being called a household of 
 faith, as well as from the fact that none but those 
 who really exercise faith in Christ can be proper 
 individuals for professing faith in him and being 
 numbered among his disciples. So that, if the 
 Christian church were what it was designed to be, 
 3
 
 26 OPEN COMMUNIOX. 
 
 it would be a representation of the cliurcli invi- 
 sible. 
 
 And such being the case, an entrance into it is 
 obtained by an avowal on the part of the candi- 
 date, and an acknowledgment on the part of 
 others, of his membership in the church invisible ; 
 or, as we commonly say, by the making of a pro- 
 fession of Christianity. With some, however, it is 
 a favorite idea that hoi^tism is the door of entrance 
 into the Christian church. But this is overlooking 
 entirely the fact that the church is designed to 
 represent the body of believers in the world. 
 Those whom the Scriptures recognise as its mem- 
 bers are the professed people of God. The act 
 which introduces them into this number is obvi- 
 ously the making of a profession of Christianity. 
 Baptism may be the accompaniment of that act, 
 and I believe, as firmly as you, that it should 
 always be. But still it is only an accompaniment ; 
 and, if wanting, does not necessarily invalidate 
 one's profession, or prove that he is not a member 
 of the Christian body. When duly administered, 
 it is at most only a token of something else; and 
 this something else is the renunciation of the world 
 and entering upon discipleship to Christ. If bap- 
 tism, as such, were the entrance door into the 
 Christian church, then not merely would all wlio 
 have been baptized be members, if they had not
 
 ON THE WORD CHURCH. 27 
 
 been excommunicated, but none would be mem- 
 bers but such ; however long, or zealously, or cre- 
 dibly, they may have served Christ and passed 
 among men as his disciples. But if this were the 
 case, the Christian church would not be the body 
 of professing Christians in the world, which I have 
 just shown it is. The real door into it, therefore, 
 is the making of a profession of Christianity, let 
 the form in which that profession is made be what 
 it may. Whoever has passed through this door 
 and maintains a consistent Christian character, I 
 care not who he is, is in the visible church of 
 Christ. 
 
 It follows from this, then, that every credible 
 evangelical Pedobaptist is a member no less than 
 his Baptist brother who, so far as conformity to 
 apostolic forms is concerned, has doubtless the 
 advantage over him. There is no half-way ground 
 that we can take. If Pedobaptists are not in the 
 church of Christ where are they ? In the world ? 
 Among non-professors ? No part of the house- 
 hold of faith ? You cannot admit this. But the 
 Scriptures recognise no midway position between 
 the church and the world ; nor can we. We 
 must, therefore, either unchurch them altogether, 
 which no one worthy of the Christian name can 
 do, or we must admit them fully and unqualifiedly 
 to be a part of the visible church of God. If the
 
 28 OPEN COMMUNION. 
 
 cliurcli were a household of the baptized^ the case 
 would be different. But as it is, it is a household 
 of faith. So long as the only known form of 
 making an honest Christian profession was by im- 
 mersion, of course one could not be a member of 
 the Christian body without immersion. But as 
 that is not the case now, there is no shadow of a 
 reason for regarding the visible church of Christ 
 as embracing only the Baptist denomination. Nay, 
 so long as it is a stubborn fact that multitudes of 
 holy and zealous Christians differ from us in 
 their views of the act and subjects of baptism, and 
 on this account are unimmersed, it is most unjust 
 and unchristian in us, by our actions, to declare 
 that they are not in the church of God, especially 
 when it is admitted that their only failing is in 
 confessing Christ before men in a manner different, 
 as we believe, from that the Saviour intended, 
 while they have the spirit of obedience and love 
 for him which he requires, and which would lead 
 them to do precisely in this thing as we do, did 
 they but believe as we do. 
 
 A word, in conclusion, about baptizing into" the 
 fellowship of a particular church. We often hear 
 the expression, but it is an unauthorized use of 
 words, and tends to convey, if not to establish, a 
 wrong impression of the true object of baptism. 
 Such bodies as we call churches did not exist in
 
 ON THE WORD OHURCn. 29 
 
 tlie apostles' clays ; and, of course, there was then 
 no baptizing into the fellowship of such bodies. 
 Besides, you will agree with me that baptism is a 
 symbol of union professed to the crucified, buried, 
 and risen Saviour, to be received upon an indi- 
 vidual's entering upon a life of union to him and 
 his people. As, therefore, upon receiving this 
 ordinance, a person is baptized into Christ; he is 
 also baptized into the fellowship of them that are 
 Christ's, that is, the Christian body, not into the 
 fellowship of any one particular church more than 
 another. As Andrew Fuller very justly observes, 
 " The nature and design of baptism, as given in 
 the New Testament, shows it to have been the 
 initiatory ordinance of Christianity. It was not 
 an initiation into a particular church, seeing it was 
 administered, in some cases, as that of the Ethio- 
 pian eunuch, in which there was no opportunity 
 of joining any; but it was an initiation into the 
 body of professing Christians."* There is no such 
 thing recognised in the New Testament as bap- 
 tizing into the fellowship of a particular church. 
 When an individual received the ordinance in 
 those days, he was thereby received into the fel- 
 lowship of the visible church of God ; and, with- 
 out any farther ceremony, he was a member not 
 
 ♦ Works, vo\ iii. p. 512. 
 3*
 
 30 OPEN COMMUNION. 
 
 merely of the band of Christians where he was 
 baptized, if there was any such band there, but of 
 any other among whom his lot might be cast. 
 Wherever he met, as an acknowledged disciple of 
 Christ, with other disciples, his meeting with them 
 thus made him a member of their church or Chris- 
 tian circle. The employment, therefore, of this 
 ordinance as a symbol of admittance into particu- 
 lar churches is unjustifiable ; and to speak, as many 
 do, of baptizing into the fellowship of such bodies, 
 is, of course, incorrect. 
 
 Thus much have I thought it necessary to say 
 respecting your position on the word church, in 
 order that we might clearly see what weight there 
 is in your reasoning about " the church as Christ 
 constituted it," and about " preserving its consti- 
 tution in its original form." From the foregoing 
 considerations, it is evident these expressions are 
 unmeaning, so far as they relate to churches as 
 organizations, and to the church as a body of 
 baptized ones, instead of a body of professing 
 Christians. We preserve the constitution of the 
 church in its original form, by regarding, as was 
 done in the apostles' days, all acknowledged profess- 
 ing Christians, and only such, as its members. And 
 we " keep the ordinances as they have been deli- 
 vered to us," by administering them to scriptural 
 subjects, in a scriptural manner, and for scriptural
 
 ON THE WORD CHURCH. 31 
 
 purposes — baptism, to those entering upon visible 
 disciplesliip to Christ, to denote their profession 
 of union, and pledge of allegiance, to him their 
 crucified, buried, and risen Lord ; and the supper^ 
 to such as are his visible disciples, reprofessing 
 their union, and repledging their allegiance, to 
 him. On the former of these point?, we are agreed ; 
 on the latter we differ. The object of my future 
 letters will be to show that our difference here is 
 uncalled for. 
 
 Yours in all sincerity, (fee.
 
 LETTER II. 
 
 THE POINT OF DIFFERENCE BETWEEN OPEN AND 
 CLOSE COMMUNIONISTS. 
 
 Kot respecting the terras of membership in Baptist 
 churches — IN'ot respecting the propriety of communing 
 with non-professors — Not respecting the order of 
 administering the ordinances to new converts — Not 
 whether Baptists are as free as others or not — But 
 whether it is proper for them to commune at the 
 Lord's table with unimmersed members of the Chris- 
 tian church. 
 
 My Dear Friend : — In my former letter I took 
 occasion to animadvert upon your views of the 
 word church. Before proceeding any farther, let 
 us understand precisely what the point of differ- 
 ence between us on this communion question is. 
 
 It is not respecting the terms of membership in 
 particular churches, that we differ. I agree with 
 you fully in your quotations from Mr. Curtis, that 
 " the true and proper way is for Christians to form 
 themselves into churches with those with whom 
 they agree in practice and opinion. Let those who 
 hold to believers' baptism join churches which 
 practise thus, and those who conscientiously
 
 OPEN AND CLOSE C0MMUXI0NIST3. 33 
 
 believe in infant bjiptisrn, and are prepared to 
 practise it, join churches composed of those whose 
 views are simihir." The question of individual- 
 church nieinhership is one of expediency entirely 
 And I see no necessity, under ordinary circum- 
 stances, for commingling Baptists and Pedobap- 
 tists together in the membership of the same 
 church. 
 
 But do you say, that it would be preposterous 
 to commune with a man, and then not permit 
 him to vote in ordinary matters relative to the 
 order and instruction of the connfrefr^vtion ? Do 
 you ask whether this would not be admitting him 
 to the greater privilege and denying him the less? 
 Your objecting proceeds upon the idea that the 
 Lord's supper is an individual-church privilege, or 
 a privilege that we may extend to, or withhold 
 from, whom we please, which is not the case. The 
 privilege of membership in churches with us, how- 
 ever, is of this character. That is to say, our 
 churches are not divinely organized societies ; nor, 
 for entering them as organizations, are there any 
 divinely prescribed terms or forms. So that, so (at 
 as admission to membership in them is concerned, 
 we are, of course, left to act in such a way as shall 
 be most obviously for the welfare of individual 
 churches in particular, and the Redeemer's king- 
 dom in general.
 
 34 OPEN COMMUNION. 
 
 You perceive, therefore, that the question 
 respecting the terms of membership in churches 
 with us, is not only one of expediency, but wholly 
 foreign from that respecting the terms of sacra- 
 mental communion as such. Consequently, all 
 reasonino: about the orpranization of visible 
 churches and the terms of membership therein, 
 when employed in defence of restricted commu- 
 nion, is to no purpose. There is no such thing as 
 the unlawfulness of mixed membership. But 
 respecting its undesirableness, we are agreed. 
 This is not the point of difference between us. 
 
 Nor is it, whether we may commune with any 
 who are unimmersed, irrespective of the consider- 
 ation whether they are professors of Christianity 
 or not. With non-professors, even though they 
 may be believers, the communion question has 
 nothing to do. It relates only to the propriety of 
 communing with acknowledged professing Chris- 
 tians who are unimmersed, that is, with Pedobap- 
 tists. That they are professing Christians and a 
 part of the household of faith, you admit. And 
 so do Baptists universally, in whose behalf Prof. 
 Curtis employs these words : " It has frequently 
 been urged that, by our course, we at least 
 unchurch all other denominations. But this is a 
 complete error. We do not unchurch them. We 
 will not deny the claims of any body of evange-
 
 OPEN AND CLOSE COMMUNIOXISTS. 35 
 
 licwil Christians, organized for maintaining social 
 worsliip, to be considered a Christian church."* 
 Indeed tlie charjxe of phicinir the members of 
 other denominations outside the pale of the Chris- 
 tian church is one which pious Baptists, you 
 know, have always repelled. Restricted commu- 
 nion is not pleaded for on the ground that they 
 are non-professors, and a part of the world for 
 whom the supper was not designed. Xor are open 
 communionists charged with desiring to make the 
 table of the Lord free to the world, as well as the 
 church. Such a charge would be crushed under 
 the weight of its own truthlessuess ; for we agree 
 with you that the u on-professing world have no. 
 right to the Lord's supper. The point of differ- 
 ence between us is not resjiecting the admission to 
 tli'j Lord's table of non-professors, whether irnim- 
 mersed or immersed. 
 
 Nor is it about the order of administering the 
 ordinances to them. You greatly mistake when you 
 suppose the whole diflference between us- lies in the 
 question whether the several duties commauded in 
 the apostolic commission are to be observed in the 
 order in which they are enjoined by Christ, or 
 whether they are left to be regulated by tho con- 
 venience or inclination of his disciples. So far from 
 
 *0n Com. pp. 144, 190, 2G4, 280. See also Christian 
 Review, vol. xiv., pp. 224, 225, which sustaina Mr. C. in 
 these declarations.
 
 '^6 OPEN COMMUNION. 
 
 this being the whole inquiry, there is no difference 
 between us here. Open communion Baptists do 
 not defend the latter of these conclusions, as you 
 say they do ; — a statement which, I confess, I am 
 •surprised at your making, for Robert Hall, whose 
 writings on this subject you profess to have read 
 •with care, says, very plainly : " When the advo- 
 cates of strict communion remind us of the order 
 in which the two positive institutions of Christian- 
 ity are enjoined, they assume it for granted that 
 we are desirous of inverting that order, and that 
 we are contending for a celebration of the eucha- 
 rist previous to baptism in the case of a clear com- 
 prehension of the nature and obligation of each. 
 We plead for nothing of the kind. Suppose a 
 convert to Christianity convinced of the ordinance 
 of baptism in the light in which we contemplate 
 it, we should urge his obligation to comply with 
 it previous to his reception of the sacrament, with 
 ;as little hesitation as the most rigid of our oppo- 
 nents; nor should we be more disposed than 
 themselves to countenance a neglect of known 
 -duty or a wanton inversion of the order of Chris- 
 lian appointments. Whether, in such circumstan- 
 ces, the attention of a subject for Christian com- 
 munion should first be directed to baptism, is not 
 .the question at issue."* No one denies that, so 
 
 * Works, vol. i. pp. 305, 306.
 
 OPEN AND CLOSE COMMUNIONISTS. 37 
 
 far as non-professors are concerpeJ, the order to be 
 observed by us in administering the ordinances is, 
 baptism before the supper ; not, however, as a 
 prerequisite to communion, but as the appointed 
 form of making a profession of Christianity, which 
 profession is necessary to one's being a visible dis- 
 ciple or in the visible church, which one must 
 needs be, in order to come to a table spread only 
 for, those who are visibly Christ's. All the reason- 
 ing, therefore, that is expended in proving this to 
 be the designed order, is wholly uncalled for. No 
 one questions it ; at least open communionists do 
 not. And to advance reasons in support of this 
 order, as though it were arguing in defence of 
 restricted communion, is an evasion of the whole 
 question. It betrays, too, an oversight of the end 
 for which, and the individuals for whom, the ordi- 
 nances were intended. AVhat would be thought 
 of one who should have been heard, in the apos- 
 tles' days, contending for the order of adminis- 
 tering the ordinances to those who were acknow- 
 ledged to be in the Christian church, but who, 
 like the eleven and otliers, had not entered by 
 imnicrsiou I Would he not be set down as a 
 person who did not understand what he was talk- 
 ing about I one who was either ignorant of, or 
 who had entirely lost sight of, the object of, at 
 least, one of the ordinances, or for whom it was
 
 t>8 OPEN COMMUNION. 
 
 ■intended? Most assuredly. This, however, is 
 just the position in which you place yourself by 
 admitting Pedobaptists to be in the household of 
 faith, or, which is the same thing, saying that you 
 •do not unchurch them, while at the same time 
 you talk of the order of administering the ordi- 
 'iiances to them. A member of the visible church 
 of Christ is not a scriptural subject for baptism, 
 and as to the order of administering the sacra- 
 'ments to non-professors, there is no difference 
 ^between us. This is not the question before us. 
 
 Nor is it, whether we are as free or not in our 
 communion as others are. Some, indeed, like Mr. 
 Remington, seem to think this is the whole ques- 
 tion. Instead of justifying the practice of restric- 
 tion by the principles of the AYord of God and the 
 practice of the primitive disciples, they seek to 
 defend it on the ground that " Pedobaptists are 
 not open comraunionists." Even if it were true 
 that Baptists were more free and liberal in their 
 administrations of the Lord's supper than other 
 denominations — which, however, is about as capa- 
 ble of being proved as that a barred and bolted 
 house is easier of access than one with open doors 
 whose inmates stand to welcome you in — what 
 would this have to do with justifying the practice 
 of close communion ? The question is not. Are 
 ^we as free as others ? but, Are we as free as God's
 
 OPEN AND CLOSE COMMUNIONISTS. 39 
 
 AVon] and the genius of tlie ennobling religion of 
 Christ require us to be ? — a religion which, instead 
 of possessing one retail ative or exclusive feature, 
 seeketh not her own, but hopelh all things, and 
 draws together and binds tonrether in Christ cruci- 
 fiod, at all times and under all circumstances, the 
 membership of the common household of faith. 
 Will the errors and malpractices of others, imagi- 
 nary or real, justify us in pursuing a course that 
 is opposed to the Scriptures, to apostolic precedent, 
 to the dignity of the religion of the Son of God, 
 and to the principles of that hberty wherewith 
 Christ makes free ? But, alas ! the best of men 
 are but men, and more or less prone to follow 
 men instead of Christ ! It is truly lamentable to 
 see men of piety and usefulness, men who are 
 lights in the world, ornaments in the church of 
 God, and as Christians admired of all, so far los- 
 ing sight of the principles on which alone truth 
 can be defended as to seek to justify themselves 
 by appealing, in support of their views, to tho 
 unhallowed feelings of depraved liumanity. It is 
 a weak cause indeed that is sustained by such a 
 course, and a bad one alone that needs it. And 
 yet this is the mode, as you very well know, in 
 which hundreds are made confirmed restricted 
 communionists. When all other arguments fail, 
 this, in nine cases out of ten, is sure to be plied,
 
 40 OPEN COMMUNION. 
 
 if not to effect the end desired. The question of 
 truth and duty is lost sight of, while the differences 
 and disaffections existing from time to time among 
 the members of other denominations and their 
 want of fellowship for restricted communionists, 
 are pointed to, and from these an argument is 
 drawn, appealing, unconsciously it may be, but 
 none the less strongly, to the selfish feelings, and 
 awakening, in the bosoms of such as are influenced 
 thereby, anything but the spirit of Christ. 
 
 I shall not, however, attempt to defend the 
 claims of free communion by any such mode of 
 warfare as this. "With those who profess to take 
 their fellow men as their standard of duty, and to 
 make their actions the rule of Christian conduct, 
 I have nothing to do. It is by the Word of God 
 alone that I would have the propriety of restricted 
 communion tested. If it is right, it can be 
 sustained by scriptural arguments, without 
 recourse to self-justifications founded on the mal- 
 practices of others. And not only so, but it is 
 absolutely impolitic to urge in its defence the 
 errors of others, whether real or imaginary. This 
 is a course calculated at once to awaken suspicion, 
 and to lead a mind imbued with the spirit of 
 Christ strongly to question the propriety of the 
 practice, even if it were lawful. 
 
 But to return, and to conclude. The only
 
 OPEN AND CLOSE COMMUXIONISTS. 41 
 
 question between us is, AVliat are the terms upon 
 wliich alone the Lord's table can be approached ? 
 Are they really, as you say, repentance, faith, and 
 a profession of discipleship to Christ by immer- 
 sion ? Is the want of an imniersional profession, 
 on the part of a disciple whose acknowledg-ed 
 visible discipleship of live, twenty-five, or fifty 
 years, more or less, was entered upon without it, 
 but under circumstances which ar^jue nothinij 
 whatever against his Christian character, a 
 divinely recognised disqualification for his uniting 
 with us in commemorating his master's death ? 
 Is not the injunction, " This do in remembrance 
 of me," given to any but Baptists ? Can the 
 Lord's supper be lawfully observed by none but 
 tliem ? Are we forbidden from communing with 
 persons out of our own denomination ? Or in one 
 word, have we no right to commune with unim- 
 niersed members of the Christian church ? This 
 you will perceive is the wliole inquiry, for the 
 point of diiferenee between us is, respecting the 
 propriety of our communing with members of 
 other churches on the score of their not being 
 -qualified for commemorating the death of Christ 
 Obvious Jis the answer to these questions may 
 seem, let us, nevertheless, to the law and to the 
 testimony, and abide by their decisions. As Mr. 
 Taylor says, "In a question of so much im- 
 4*
 
 42 OPEN COMMUNION, 
 
 portance, no considerations of policy should 
 influence us without the clearest evidence of 
 scriptural precedent. "Whatever may become of 
 denominational preferences, let the dictation of 
 the King of Zion and the example of the apostolic 
 churches, be cheerfully followed."* 
 
 Yours in all sincerity, &c. 
 
 * Defence of Restrieted Godq.
 
 LETTER III. 
 
 BAPTISM NOT A TERM OF COMMUNION ! BAPTIST 
 
 CONCESSIONS — THE ARGUMENT FROM JOHN's 
 BAPTISM. 
 
 Introduction — Baptists themselves deny baptism to be a 
 sine gnd non for communion — The want of baptism 
 not a disqualification in the apostles' days — The com- 
 municants at the first suj>i)er were witliout Christian 
 baptism — Proofs that John's baptism was not Christian 
 baptism — (1.) Their object and import distinct — (2.) 
 A distinction carefully preserved between them by 
 the N. T. writers — (3.) Jolin's disciples after the 
 resurrection rebaptized — (4.) Christian baptism not 
 instituted till after the resurrection — (5.) Christian 
 baptism an ordinance of Christ's; John's was not — 
 Others besides the eleven disciples communed stead- 
 fastly without baptism — Conclusion. 
 
 My Dear Friend : — We are now to examine 
 the ground upon whicli you profess to base your 
 practice of restricting tlie Lord's sup])er from 
 members of other denominations; namely, the 
 position that Christian baptism, or, as we always 
 mean by this, an immersional profession of Chris- 
 tianity, is a divinely prescribed term of com- 
 munion. If this were so, then your practice, so far
 
 44 OPEN COMMUNION. 
 
 at least as restricting the supper from the unim- 
 mersed is concerned, would not merely be right 
 and justifiable ; it could not lawfully be otherwise. 
 But as it is, I regard it as the paltriest of 
 assumptions which, if stripped of all its sophistry 
 and of the authority and influence of a few great 
 names, would shrink in shame from pubHcity. 
 
 Perhaps I ought to have remarked before, 
 that I concur with you fully in the persuasion 
 that the Scriptures, correctly interpreted and 
 properly understood, require every individual, on 
 making a profession of Christianity, to do it by 
 being immersed in the name of Christ or of the 
 Trinity ; and that if any had refused to do this 
 in the apostles' days, when there was no differ- 
 ence of opinion about what baptism was, or who 
 its subjects were, he would not have been a law- 
 ful subject for communion. And I w^ould add 
 that if there could be no honest professors of 
 Christianity now except Baptists, I should have no 
 hesitation in concluding with you that we have 
 no right to commune with any others. But as it 
 is, not only do I hesitate to come to such a con- 
 clusion, but my feelings of Christian duty, charity, 
 and propriety, all revolt fiom it. Setting aside 
 this fact, however, and saying nothing, for the 
 present at least, about the apparent inconsistency 
 of restricted communion with the spirit of Christ,
 
 BAPTISM NOT A TERM OF COMMrNION. 45 
 
 let US see if the want of an immersional profession 
 of (liscipleship to the Savior is really, in itself, a 
 divinely recognised dis<|ualification for observing 
 the Lord's supper. 
 
 And fii-st, let me call your attention to the fact 
 that, if baptism be a term of communion, we must 
 of necessity regard unimmersed Christians {^ 
 unqualified for communing even among them- 
 selves. This is inevitable. If Christian baptism 
 be a divinely constituted sine qua non for com- 
 munion, obviously no one has a right to the 
 Lord's supper without it. So that if we really 
 consider it an indispensable term of communion, 
 we must roo^ard the unimmersed as doinjx what 
 they have no right to do at all, and as violating 
 their Master's will whenever they partake of the 
 sacramental loaf and cup in remembrance of him. 
 But what say those who stand forth most con- 
 spicuously as the defenders of restricted com- 
 munion ? Just what you say : just what might 
 be expected of those who take false positions, the 
 consistent carrying out of which is always sure to 
 prove their falsity. In one breath they deny, 
 what in another they aflirm. This moment, like 
 yourself, they contend that Christian baptism is 
 an indispensable term of communion. The very 
 next, perhaps, they unite with you in assuring the 
 world that Tedobaptists are entitled to the Lord's
 
 46 OPEN COMMUNION. 
 
 supper. Says one, " The 'New Testament does 
 not forbid the uubaptized from receiving the 
 Lord's supper."* Says another, " Does a Pedo- 
 baptist honestly believe, after an impartial exami- 
 nation of the best evidences to which he can gain 
 access on the subject, that he has received Chris- 
 tian baptism, and that he has truly entered the 
 congregation of Christ in the way of divine 
 appointment ? Let him prosecute the course he 
 has adopted. All the Lord's children have an 
 undoubted right to his table, because whatever is 
 his is theirs."f Says a third, " Undoubtedly all 
 Christians," and Pedobaptists among them, " tire 
 entitled, in the strictest sense of the tenn^ not only 
 to the Lord's supper, but to all the privileges of 
 the Christian church. Sincerely believing they 
 have entered the visible church in the way of 
 divine appointment, their title to its peculiar 
 privileges inevitably follows, since every Christian 
 is under a sacred obligation to recognise what he 
 sincerely believes to be the divine will. They do 
 right in partaking of the Lord's supper, though in 
 our opinion unbaptized."]; And another, more 
 recent still, says, " There is no reason why we 
 should breathe a murmur against them because 
 
 * Kinghorn, as quoted by Hall. 
 
 f Howell on Com. pp. 99, 107. 
 
 X J, Gr. Fuller, on Com. Conversation, iii.
 
 BAPTISM NOT A TERM OF COMMUNION. 47 
 
 tliey take the Lord's supper in their own 
 churches."* Now with what sincerity can you 
 allow thai persons whom you regard as destitute 
 of Christian baptism, are entitled to the Lord's 
 supper, and may lawfully commune among them- 
 selves, while you contend that Christian baptism 
 is a divinely ^;/'e6Y?"/&Cf? qualification for com- 
 munion ? What regard for God's requirements 
 or jealousy for his will is there in such a course 
 as this? It seems to me neither more nor less 
 than a downright tampering with the mind of 
 God, to believe baptism to be a divinely required 
 preliminary to communion, and yet allow that 
 persons do right to commune without it, and that 
 there is no reason why we should breathe a mur- 
 mur ao'ainst them for so doino-. If Christian 
 baptism is a divinely prescribed term of com- 
 munion, and, as we hold, nothing is Christian 
 baptism but a professing of faith in Christ by 
 immersion, then Pedobaptists are not entitled to a 
 place at the sacramental table, and do not do 
 right in communing. But if, as you say, they are 
 touloifbtedly entitled to it, and even do rigbt. in 
 partaking of it, then you admit, in their case at 
 least, that Christian baptism is not a necessary 
 qualification, and, of course, not in itself a divinely 
 
 • Curtis on Com., p. 190.
 
 48 OPEff COMMUNIOIC. 
 
 constituted qualification. And this is all that I 
 am contending for. I have it, therefore, in my 
 favor, at the outset, that you agree with me, that 
 the want of Christian baptism is not a necessary 
 barrier to lawful communion. And here I might 
 leave the question as conceded ; but I desire to 
 show that I stand on a firmer basis than your 
 concessions. 
 
 Let us turn, then, to the consideration of a 
 second fact. It is this, that the want of Christian 
 baptism w^as not a disqualification in the apostles^ 
 days. 
 
 And first, I think it susceptible of the clearest 
 demonstration that the participators of the Lord^s 
 supper at its institution were without it. I know 
 you hold that they were uot; and that, because 
 such v/as the case. Christian baptism is essential to 
 communion. But is not this a begging of the 
 whole question? Is it not assuming (1) that 
 John's baptism was identical with Christian bap- 
 tism, (2) that the twelve had all received it, and 
 (3) that because they had received it, therefore the 
 want of it would have disqualified them for the 
 supper ? Even if it were a fact that the twelve 
 were baptized, it is impossible to conceive how 
 yoi; can conclude from this that baptism is a sine 
 quit lion for communion. Had it been recorded 
 that they were not allowed to commune for want
 
 BAPTISM KOT A TERM OJ' COMMUNIOIC. 49 
 
 of baptism) or until they liad been baptised, then 
 your conclusion would be natural and just. But 
 the mere fact, supposing it to be a fact, that they 
 were baptized as they sat around the Lord's table, 
 affords not the least shadow of evidence that it 
 was necessary for them to be baptized before they 
 took their places there. If, however, it can be 
 shown that this is not a fact, but that they com^ 
 muned without having received Christian baptism, 
 your position that this ordinance is indispensable 
 to communion, is at once and for ever overthrown. 
 And such, I promise to show you, was the case. 
 
 In saying this, I do not say that the Saviour's 
 disciples had not received the baptism of John, 
 any more than that they had not received the 
 baptism of the Holy Ghost, whatever the truth in 
 these cases may be ; but merely that they had 
 not received the baptism which, by the apostolie 
 commission, we are authorized to administer. I 
 simply affirm that their case is similar to that of 
 our Pedobaptist brethren, that their discipleship 
 to Christ was not entered upon by an immersion 
 in the name of the Father, the Son, a,nd the 
 Holy Ghost. I will not deny that in a certain 
 sense they may all have been baptized. Nor will 
 I deny that in a certain sense the members of the 
 Greek church are baptized, that is to say, they are 
 immersed. But being immersed in infency, neither 
 5
 
 60 OPEN COMMtJNiOlN. 
 
 you nor I can admit tliat they have received the 
 ordinance of Christian baptism, since this is not 
 merely an immersion, but an immersion in token 
 of a profession of faith in our crucified and risen 
 Lord. Just so — without placing the ordinance 
 administered by John upon the same level with 
 the infant-immersion of the Greek church, or, in 
 the least, questioning its divine origin — allowing 
 that the Savior's disciples had been baptized by 
 John, I hold that they were without Christian bap- 
 tism, unless, after having received John's baptism, 
 they were immersed again and upon a profession 
 of faith in Christ, which no one supposes ; or un- 
 less the institution of the forerunner and the ordi» 
 nance of Christian baptism are one and the same. 
 That they are not identical, but are essentially 
 different, if not a self-evident proposition, is cer- 
 tainly susceptible of the clearest demonstration. 
 
 The first circumstance I would refer to as evi- 
 dence of the want of identity between these two 
 institutes, is the obvious diflfereuce between the 
 object and import of each. I admit that the out- 
 ward act was the same in both cases — an im- 
 mersion. So is it in Christian baptism, and the 
 infant-baptism of the Greek church. But this ia 
 no proof that the two are one ordinance. I 
 admit, too, that they were both sanctioned by the 
 authority of Christ. So was the Jewish passover,
 
 BAPTISM KOT A TERM OF COMMUXION. 51 
 
 as well as the Lord's supper. This, however, is no 
 evidence that the two ordinances are identical. In 
 order to make out an identity of acts, it must be 
 shown that their meaning and the end for which 
 they were sanctioned are the same. And here lies 
 the great difference between these two baptisms. 
 Their meaning and the end for which they were 
 instituted, are widely different. 
 
 John was Ckrisfs forerunner. As such, the 
 great end for which he was commissioned was " to 
 » make ready a p( ople prepared for the Lord," to 
 bring the Jews into a state of expectation for the 
 immediate appearance of the long promised Mes- 
 siah, and of readiness for receiving him as such, 
 "whenever it was evident who he was. In the 
 accomplishment of this end, the baptism he ad- 
 ministered served a two-fold purpose. In the first 
 place, it was to be instrumental, hke the Savior's 
 own miracles, in affording to the Jews evidence as 
 to who the true Messiah was. Consequently, im- 
 mediately after the baptism of Jesus, we find the 
 heavens were opened, and a voice descended 
 saying, " This is my beloved Son in whom I am 
 well pleased." Up to this moment, even John 
 himself knew not Jesus as the Messiah, the Son 
 of God, however well acquainted he had been with 
 him before as the Son of Mary and a person of 
 remarkable sanctity of life. His own testimony
 
 62 OPEN COMMUNION. 
 
 is, in order that the Messiah should be made 
 manifest unto Israel, therefore am I come baptizing 
 in water.* This was one important object to be 
 accomplished by means of the rite administered 
 by the son of Zachariah, an object for which 
 Christian baptism was never intended. But it 
 was also designed to mark such as professed to 
 receive the message he proclaimed. As the great 
 end of his ministry was not to make disciples of 
 Jesus of Nazareth, but to make ready a people 
 prepared for the Messiah's coming, so he adminis- ' 
 tered baptism, not upon a profession of Chris- 
 tianity, but in token of repentance and an avowed 
 readiness to receive as the Messiah him who was 
 soon to be manifested to them as such. " His 
 language was precise and appropriate. It was 
 not a demand of present faith in any known indi- 
 vidual, but was limited to a future faith on a 
 certain personage who was about to evince his 
 title to the character he assumed by his personal 
 appearance and miracles." He administered " the 
 baptism of repentance, saying unto the people 
 that they should believe on him who was to 
 come."f Christian baptism, however, demands a 
 present faith. It is administered, not in token 
 
 * John i, 31. f Acts xix. 4.
 
 BAPTISM KOT A TERM OF COMMUNION. 53 
 
 that such as receive it will believe, but that they 
 do beUeve — not on a Messiah about to come, but 
 on one ah-eady come. If this ordinance were 
 identical with John's baptism, it would be an over- 
 turning of the whole gospel, a rejection of Jesus 
 of Nazareth as the Christ, a looking for a Mes- 
 siah yet to come ; an object utterly inconsistent 
 with its design. 
 
 The import also of these institutions, as well as 
 their object, is totally distinct. Christian baptism 
 is a baptism unto Christ. It is significant of union 
 professed to the crucified, buried, and risen Sa- 
 vior, and in Him of union to the Holy Ghost as 
 a renewed person, and to the Father as a son. 
 " Ye are all children (or sons) of God," says an 
 apostle, " by faith in Christ Jesus," who is preemi- 
 nently the Son of God ; " for as many of you as 
 have been baptized into Christ have put on 
 Christ ;"* that is, have professedly, and really, if 
 your profession is true (which the apostle assumes 
 it is), become United to Christ, and by your union 
 to him who is the Son of God, ye are, in him, 
 sons of God too, transformed through the renewing 
 of the IL>ly Ghost into the image of Him who is 
 the fiist-born among many brethren. But the 
 baptism of John was not a baptism unto Christ. 
 
 * Gal. iii. 26, 2Y. 
 5*
 
 54 OPEN COMMUNION. 
 
 If It bad been, instead of seeing multitudes flock 
 to bim to be baptized, be would scarcely have seen 
 one, so inconsistent was tbe lowly character of 
 Christ with the Jewish idea of what their Messiah 
 was to be. Besides, the idea of their having been 
 baptized unto Christ, is incompatible with the fact 
 that their baptism was in token of their being 
 prepared for bis coming. Nor was the ordinance 
 they received administered in the name of Christ, 
 or of the Trinity. This is allowed on all hands. 
 And it is evident, too, from the reply of those 
 disciples of John to Paul at Ephesus, who said, 
 they had not so much as heard of a Holy Ghost; 
 and from Paul's asking them, " Unto what, then, 
 were ye baptized ?" that is, " unto what if not unto 
 the name of Christ?" This, I say, aside from 
 other evidence, is suflScient to show that John's 
 baptism was not administered in the name of the 
 Trinity, or upon a profession of Christianity. His 
 language was not like Peter's — "Repent and be 
 baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus 
 for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the 
 Holy Ghost," but " I baptize you unto, or in token 
 of, repentance ; bring forth, therefore, fruits meet 
 for repentance, and believe on him who shall 
 soon come." His baptism was not, therefore, a 
 symbolic putting on of Christ, or a profession of 
 union and discipleship to him. It was simply an
 
 BAPTISM NOT A TERM OF COMMUNIOX. 55 
 
 expression of preparedness to embrace as tlie Mes- 
 siah liim who was about to appear in that charac- 
 ter, together, of course, with that repentance and 
 purification of life implied in being prepared for 
 his coming. 
 
 We see, therefore, that the object and meaning 
 of these two institutions are essentially distinct. 
 The consequence must be that the baptisms them- 
 selves are distinct, and not to be regarded as one 
 and the same. 
 
 The same conclusion forces itself upon us when 
 we consider tbe distinction always preserved be- 
 tween these two ordinances by the New Testament 
 writers. If the two w^ere identical, why should 
 those luho practised Christian baptism ever speak 
 of a "John's baptism," as though it were some- 
 thing different from that which they themselves 
 administered ? That any persons previous to the 
 instituting of Christian baptism, or who had never 
 heard of Christian baptism, should have called the 
 rite administered by the forerunner and his disci- 
 ples "John's baptism," in distinction from the 
 divers other baptisms then employed, is to be 
 expected. To expect anything else would be to 
 look for something contrary to nature. But if 
 Christian baptism is a mere continuation of John's, 
 if the two institutions are identical one with the 
 other, if they are not essentially distinct, it is a
 
 56 OPEN COMMUNION. 
 
 little singular that those lolio practised the former 
 sboiild tliiis carefully avoid confounding it with 
 the latter. Matthew, Mark, and Luke, for exam- 
 ple, who wrote several years after the death of 
 Christ, never call the forerunner's act baptism 
 simply ; but they invariably designate it " the bap- 
 tism of John," "the baptism of repentance," "the 
 baptism of water," and so on, as carefully as they 
 do the baptism of the Holy Ghost by its appro- 
 priate epithets. Peter, too, speaks of " the bap- 
 tism which John preached,"* as though it were 
 something different from that he himself preached. 
 Paul, too, calls it "the baptism of repentance,"f 
 in distinction from the ordinance of Christian bap- 
 tism. Now the question is. If the two ordinances 
 are identical, why is one of them thus carefully 
 and invariably designated by those who adminis- 
 tered the other, while they never designate the 
 ordinance they themselves administered by any 
 other name than baptism ? Can anything account 
 for this distinction, carefully preserved between 
 them, but the fact that the two ordinances were 
 essentially distinct, and felt to be so ? The ordi- 
 nance they themselves administered, they called, 
 by way of preeminence, baptism merely ; that of 
 the forerunner, by way of distinction, the baptism 
 
 * Acts X. 37. f Acts xiii. 24; xix. 4.
 
 BAPTISM NOT A TERM OF COMMUNION. 57 
 
 of repentance, and so on. They invariably leave 
 off the distinguishing terms that are employed in 
 connexion with the baptism John administered, 
 and thus make a distinction between their own in- 
 stitution and his. To me this fact seems of no 
 little weight in deciding the question. 
 
 Another circumstance, and one that affords in- 
 dubitable evidence that these institutions are dis- 
 tinct, is the fact that those of John's disciples who 
 became converts to Christianity after the Savior's 
 resurrection, on becoming such, were rebaptized ; 
 that is, were baptized unto Christ. An instance 
 of this we have in the baptism of twelve of the 
 forerunner's disciples at Ephesus, the account of 
 which is given in Acts xix. The apostle Paul, 
 having come to Ephesus and found these disciples 
 there, asked them if they had received the Holy 
 Ghost since they first believed. Their reply was, 
 " We have not so much as heard whether there 
 be any Holy Ghost." Whether it was because, in 
 those days, the reception of the Holy Ghost was a 
 usual accompaniment of Christian baptism, or be- 
 cause this ordinance was administered in the name 
 of the Holy Ghost, in connexion with that of the 
 Father and of the Son ; yet so it was, that their 
 saying they had not so much as heard of a Holy 
 Ghost, disclosed the fact that they had not re- 
 ceived Christian baptism. This led Paul to inquire
 
 68 OPEN COMMUNION. 
 
 of them, "Unto what, then, were ye baptized," 
 i, e. if not imto the name of Christ ? And they 
 said, " Unto John's baptism," in token of repent- 
 ance and an expectation of a Messiah to come. 
 Then said Paul, " John verily baptized [adminis- 
 tered] the baptism of repentance, saying to the 
 people that they should believe on him who should 
 come after him," explaining this by adding, " that 
 is, on Christ Jesus." And when they heard this, 
 we are told they were baptized in or unto* the 
 name of the Lord Jesus. They made a profession 
 of faith in Christ, and were no longer disciples of 
 John, or expecters of a coming Messiah. 
 
 I can hardly suppose you will contend that there 
 was no rebaptism in this case. It is impossible to 
 believe that the sentence, " and wdien they heard 
 this they were baptized in the name of the Lord 
 Jesus," refers to all who came to John, and not to 
 these twelve individuals at Ephesus; in which 
 case, the record contained here would be, not that 
 these persons received baptism .when they had 
 heard Paul's explanation, but that all who heard 
 the forerunner were immediately baptized by him 
 in the name of the Lord Jesus. This is contrary 
 to fact, and a view which no intelligent and candid 
 reader of the passage can take, as the warmest 
 
 * In the Greek the preposition is the same here as in 
 verse 3, where it is translated "unto."
 
 BAPTISM NOT A TERM OF COMMUXION. 59 
 
 friends and ablest defenders of your restricted 
 views confess. Prof. Kipley, for example, in his 
 note on the passage says, " Some writers Lave 
 contended that these men did not receive baptism 
 after Paul met with them. But as to the simple 
 inquiry whether they w^ere baptized anew, an 
 affirmative answer seems unavoidable if we follow 
 the most obvious and natural meaning of the pas- 
 sage as conveyed both in our translation and in 
 the original Greek." Prof. Curtis expresses his 
 view of the passage thus : " The former baptism 
 of these persons was not an avowal of their per- 
 sonal faith in the fundamental principles of Chris- 
 tian doctrine — it was not a credible profession to 
 the loorld of faith in Jesus or the Holy Ghost. 
 Paul, THEREFORE, prououuced it invalid in toto. 
 They were rebaptized.'"^ And Prof. Hackett, a 
 very accurate interpreter of New Testament Greek, 
 in his Commentary on the Acts, places at the be- 
 ginning of the nineteenth chapter, the heading, 
 " Paul comes to Ephesus and rebaptizes certain 
 disciples of John ;" and under the fifth verse he has 
 this note, " Some of the older writers maintained 
 that Luke records these words (' Now they having 
 heard were baptized'), as a continuation of Paul's 
 remarks. The object" of this interpretation, he adds, 
 
 ^ Christian Review, vol. xi.pp. 199, 200.
 
 60 OPEN COMMUNION* 
 
 " was to rescue tbe passage from those wllo appealed 
 to it in order to justify rebaptism. This, however, 
 misstates the fact in regard to John's baptism. He 
 did not administer it in the name of Jesus. No 
 one, at present, contends for that interpretation." 
 
 Taking it for granted, then, that you admit the 
 rebaptism of these persons, foi» there can be no 
 doubt about it, the only inquiry to be settled is, 
 Was their first baptism John's ? Nor is there any 
 room for doubt here. We have their own words 
 for it that they " were baptized unto John's bap- 
 tism." And Paul, so far from intimating to them 
 that the baptism they had received could not have 
 been a genuine John's baptism, but must have 
 been some spurious or defective administration of 
 it, and that the}^ ought, on this account, to be bap-^' 
 tized anew, conceded that it was genuine, by say- 
 ing, " John indeed baptized the baptism of repent- 
 ance." As much as if he had said, " You may 
 indeed have received John's baptism ; but this is 
 not a baptism unto Christ " Upon hearing which, 
 it was very natural they should be, as we read 
 tliey were, " baptized unto the name of the Lord 
 Jesus." A most conclusive proof that the baptism 
 of John and the Christian ordinance are two things 
 essentially distinct. 
 
 In addition to the fact recorded in these verses, 
 our knowledge of the popularity of John and of
 
 BAPTISM NOT A TERM OF COMMUNIOJJ. Gl 
 
 the multitudes wlio flocked to his baptism, forces us 
 to believe that there were many others in the same 
 situation with these twelve disciples. Look at the 
 terms in which the effects of John's ministry are 
 described : " Then went out to him Jerusalem, and 
 all Judea, and all the region round about Jordan^ 
 and w^ere baptized of him in Jordan, confessing their 
 sins." Such language is nowhere used to represent 
 the success of the apostles. As Robert Hall remarks, 
 " Their converts are numerically stated ; and at some 
 distance from our Lord's ascension they appear to 
 have amounted to about five thousand, while a 
 great majority of the nation continued impenitent 
 and incredulous. We read of no party formed 
 against the son of Zechariah, no persecution raised 
 against his followers ; and such was the reverence 
 in which he continued to be held after his death, 
 that the Pharisees, those determined enemies of 
 the gospel, dared not avow their disbelief of his 
 mission, because all the people considered him as 
 a prophet. From these considerations it is very 
 evident, if we suppose the converts made by the 
 apostles to have been universally baptized on their 
 admission into the church (a fact not doubted by 
 our opponents), that multitudes of them must 
 have been in the same situation with the disciples 
 at Ephesus. Among the converts on the day of 
 Pentecost, and at subsequent periods, there mwst 
 C
 
 6^ OPEN C0MMUNI05T. 
 
 have been no inconsiderable number who bad for 
 a time been sufficiently awakened by the ministry 
 of John to comply with this ordinance ; yet it is 
 evident from the narrative, as well as admitted by 
 our opponents, that Peter enjoined on them all, 
 without exception, the duty of being immersed in 
 the name of Christ."* And we are told that all 
 who gladly received the word were baptized. No 
 exceptions are recorded as having been made 
 amono- all those three thousand converts in favor 
 of such of them as may have received baptism at 
 the hands of John. You say, however, that none 
 of these could have been disciples of John, inas- 
 much as they were all pricked in their hearts and 
 exhorted to repent and be baptized for the remis- 
 sion of sins ; an exhortation which John's disci- 
 ples had already received. But this is making 
 out, that the Christian church was coextensive 
 with the forerunner's baptism, since it proceeds 
 upon the idea, that his disciples, as such, were 
 professing Christians ; and not only so, but that 
 Jerusalem, and all Judea, and all the region round 
 about Jordan, were Christians, and needed not to 
 be pricked in their hearts and exhorted to repent, 
 which every one knows is contrary to fact. Can 
 you believe, then, that of these three thousand 
 
 ^ Works, vol. I pp. 300, 301.
 
 BAPTISM NOT A TERM OF COMMUNION. 63 
 
 every individual must have been of those who had 
 not received John's baptism ? " When," to use 
 tlie language of Hall, " the number of his con- 
 verts was so prodigious, when the submission to 
 his institute was almost national, when, of so small 
 a number as twelve, two at least of the apostles 
 were of his disciples, who can doubt, for a mo- 
 ment, that some, at least, of the multitudes who 
 were converted on or after the day of Pentecost, 
 consisted of such as had previously submitted to 
 the baptism of John ? Is it possible that the 
 ministry of the forerunner and of the apostles of 
 our Lord should both have been productive of 
 such great effects among the same people, at the 
 distance of a few years, without operating, in 
 a single instance, in the same direction and 
 upon the same people? No. But if such as 
 professed their faith in Christ, under the ministry 
 of the apostles, were baptized upon that profes- 
 sion, without any consideration of their having 
 been previously immersed by John or not, what 
 stronger proofs can be desired that the institutes 
 in question are totally distinct ? Were we satis- 
 fied," continues Hall, "with an arr/iimentaiii ad 
 homincm, with the sort of proof sufficient to 
 silence our opponents, here the matter might safely 
 rest. But independent of their concession, it is 
 manifest from the whole tenor of the Acts, that
 
 64 OPEN COMMUNION. 
 
 the baptismal rite was universally administered to 
 the converts to Christianity, subsequent to the day 
 of Pentecost."* 
 
 But what completely settles the question is the 
 fact that Christian baptism was not instituted till 
 after the resurrection of Christ, when the object 
 of John's baptism was at an end. It was now no 
 longer necessary " to make ready a people pre- 
 pared for the Lord." When Christ arose from the 
 dead, and the seal was thereby set to his Messiah- 
 ship, inasmuch as by his resurrection he " was 
 declared to be the Son of God with power," it 
 was fully revealed who the Messiah was. The 
 object of the ministry of one who came, as a fore- 
 runner, to prepare a way for the Lord, was then, 
 if not before, necessarily at an end, and, together 
 with it, ceased the object of his baptism. There 
 was no longer any propriety in preaching faith in 
 a Messiah yet to come. A new era had com- 
 menced. Those who had not hitherto acknow- 
 ledged Jesus as the Christ, the Son of the living 
 God, and should henceforth believe on him, now 
 that he was crucified and risen, were to make an 
 acknowledgment and profession of this faith by 
 an outward, self-denying act, emblematic of union 
 to him as the crucified, buried, and risen One. 
 
 * Works, vol. i. pp. 801, 302.
 
 BAPTISM NOT A TERM OF COMMUNION. 65 
 
 This act is the submission to Christian baptism. 
 And the words of the institution of this ordinance 
 are contained in Matt, xxviii. 19 ; words not given 
 till after the Savior's resurrection : " Go, teach all 
 nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, 
 and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." Here 
 is the first of our hearing anything of baptizing 
 in (into) the name of Christ. This is not only 
 our authority, but as the younger Fuller expresses 
 it, our primary authority, for the administration of 
 Christian baptism. For, had not the Savior, after 
 his resurrection, instituted this ordinance and en- 
 joined it upon his followers, we should have been 
 left without any ordinance of the kind to adminis- 
 ter ; baptism would be no more binding than the 
 passover, the institute administered by John being 
 obviously obsolete after the death and resurrection 
 of Christ. As we date the Lord's supper from its 
 first celebration, on the night before the crucifixion, 
 so are we to date the ordinance of baptism from 
 the giving of the commission. Each is to be 
 looked for from the time of its institution. TsTo 
 one would go back into the Jewish passover for 
 the former ; nor, with any more propriety, can the 
 latter be sought in the rite administered by John. 
 This is rendered doubly clear when we consider 
 what Christian baptism is. " Know ye not," says 
 Paul, " that so many of us as were baptized into 
 6*
 
 66 OPEN COMMUNION. 
 
 Christ, were baptized into his death ?"* As much 
 as if he had said (as is evident from a reference 
 to the context and the apostle's argument there), 
 Know ye not that all of us who have received 
 Christian baptism, have entered upon a profession 
 of union to Christ as crucified ? Such a profes- 
 sion was not made upon receiving the baptism of 
 John. It could not have been made. The idea 
 of their Messiah's being a crucified one was utterly- 
 repugnant to the minds of the Jews ; and had the 
 forerunner's rite been a baptism unto Christ's 
 death, he would not have seen Jerusalem, and all 
 Judea, and all the region round about Jordan, 
 coming to him to be baptized. And yet such is 
 the ordinance of Christian baptism — a profession 
 of union to a crucified Savior. If, then, the ordi- 
 nance we are commanded to administer, could not 
 have been in use previous to the Savior's death, 
 of course the baptism of John is not Christian 
 baptism. f 
 
 * Horn, vi, 3, 
 
 f It ma}'^ be asked, What were the baptisms adminis- 
 tered by the Savior's disciples under his personal ministry ? 
 From the nature of the case, they could not have been 
 administrations of the ordinance of Christian baptism. 
 They were not professions of discipleship to Christ, or of 
 faith in him as the Messiah ; but, like the baptism adminis- 
 tered by John, were in token of repentance and an
 
 BAPTISM NOT A TERM OF COMMUNION. 67 
 
 But I will suppose you are still unsatisfied that 
 these two institutes are totally distinct. I will 
 suppose it possible for you yet, after all the evi- 
 dence I have adduced, to believe that they were 
 both administered for the same purpose ; that 
 there is not a distinction preserved between them 
 by the sacred writers ; that John's disciples were 
 in no case rebaptized after the resurrection ; and 
 
 expectation of the speedy ushering in of the kingdom of 
 God. " They differed in no respect from John's, either 
 in the action itself or in the import, but were a joint 
 execution of the same work ; agreeably to which we 
 find a perfect identity in the language which our Savior 
 enjoined his' disciples to use, and in the preaching of 
 John : 'Repent ye, for the kingdom of God is at hand.' " 
 — Hall. If the Savior's sanctioning John's baptism with 
 his own authority and directing his disciples to adminis- 
 ter it, is any proof, as some suppose it is, that the bap- 
 tism they gave, during his personal ministry, was the 
 same as the ordinance we are commanded to administer, 
 then the same mode of reasoning will prove that the 
 passover feasts they prepared and received at his bidding 
 were identical with the ordinance of the Lord's supper ; 
 for John's baptism issued from the personal authority of 
 Christ in no other sense than the passover did. When- 
 ever, by reasoning of (his sort, it can be shown that 
 John's baptism and Christian baptism are essentially the 
 same, it must follow, by parity of reasoning, that the 
 Lord's supper is one with the passover. So that this 
 kind of arguing, if it proves anything, proves too much.
 
 68 OPEN COMMUNIOS". 
 
 that our authority for administering baptism does 
 date farther back than the giving of the commis- 
 sion : I say, I will suppose this possible, though I 
 cannot think it at all probable ; still, there is one 
 consideration more which must satisfy every candid 
 mind of the utter impossibility of these institu- 
 tions being identical. That Christian baptism 
 was instituted by the Savior, whether before his 
 death or not, and derives its authority from him, 
 you, of course, will not question. To suppose 
 anything else would be to suppose that it is not 
 an ordinance of Christ^s. To say that he insti- 
 tuted it before he entered upon his personal 
 ministry would be a contradiction in terms. But 
 John had been administering the baptism of re- 
 pentance some time before Christ began his public 
 career. During this time he had baptized at least 
 two, if not all, of those who afterwards consti- 
 tuted the twelve disciples. These two, npon the 
 Savior's being pointed out to them immediately 
 after his baptism, forthwith became his disciples.* 
 But they were not baptized anew when they did 
 this. The circumstances, as they are narrated, 
 preclude all ground for supposing that they then 
 made a baptismal profession of their faith in him. 
 Now the question arises, were they ever baptized 
 
 * See John i. 35-40.
 
 BAPTISM NOT A TERM OT COMMUNION. 69 
 
 during the period that elapsed between that mo- 
 ment and the time of the Savior's death ? We 
 have no record of any such transaction ; no one 
 believes such a thing ever occurred. It is a moral 
 certainty it did not. To what conchision, then, 
 are we driven? Either that Christian baptism 
 originated before the ministry of Christ; that is 
 to say, was an institution of his before he enjoined 
 it ; or that these two disciples were without Chris- 
 tian baptism at the institution of the supper. 
 But the former is absurd. It follows, therefore, 
 that at least Andrew and his fellow disciple were 
 unbaptized, that is, they were like our Pedobap- 
 tist brethren, without an immersional profession of 
 Christianity, when they communed with the Sa- 
 vior around that first-spread sacramental board. 
 And if the remaining twelve disciples had received 
 John's baptism, they were all in the same condi- 
 tion. If they had not, then they were in no sense 
 baptized ; for the narrative of their call, their leav- 
 ing all and following Christ, renders it certain 
 that they made no baptismal profession of disei- 
 pleship to him on so doing. And it is very evi- 
 dent that they did not do it at any subsequent 
 period previous to their Master's death. The con- 
 clusion, therefore, is irresistible, that they were all 
 without Christian baptism at the time of the 
 institution and first celebration ^ of the Lord's
 
 YO OPEN eOMMUNiON. 
 
 supper. How, then, can you maintain that 
 " baptism is a divinely required term of commu- 
 nion ?" or that the want of it is a divinely recog- 
 nised disqualification for commemorating our 
 Lord's death? If the Savior himself did not 
 make the want of it a bar to communion, how 
 dare we? When he teaches us that this ordi- 
 nance, as such, is not an essential preliminary 
 to communion, who are we that we should be 
 contending that it is ? 
 
 But let us also see what the Savior's immediate 
 followers thought of the supposed indispensable- 
 ness of baptism to a place at the sacramental 
 table. Besides the few who were present at the 
 first supper, there were, in the apostles' days, 
 numbers who communed steadfastly without ever 
 having made a baptismal profession of Chris- 
 tianity. They were those who had embraced 
 Christ previous to the day of Pentecost, all who 
 were reckoned as members of the Christian 
 church when the apostolic commission was issued. 
 They consisted of " above five hundred brethren," 
 at least."^'" These, of course, had not received 
 Christian baptism before the Savior's resurrection, 
 the ordinance not then being instituted. And 
 "from the total silence of Scripture, and from 
 
 * See 1 Car. xy. 6,
 
 BArirSM KOT A TERM OF COMMUNION. 71 
 
 Other circumstances that might be adduced, it is 
 difficult to suppose that they submitted to that 
 lite after his resurrection. It is almost certain 
 that some, probably most, of them had been bap- 
 tized by John ; but, for reasons which have been 
 already assio-ned, this will not account for their 
 not submitting to the Christian ordinance. The 
 true account seems to be, that the precept of bap- 
 tism had no retrospective bearing, and that, con- 
 sequently, its obligation extended only to such as 
 were converted to Christianity subsequently to 
 the time of its promulgation. Such as had pro- 
 fessed their faith in Christ, from the period of his 
 first manifestation, could not, without palpable 
 incongruity, recommence that profession, which 
 would have been to cancel and annul their former 
 religious pretensions. With what propriety could 
 the apostles of the Lord, who had continued with 
 him in his temptations, place themselves on a level 
 with that multitude which, however penitent at pre- 
 sent, had recently demanded his blood with such 
 clamorous importunity ? They were not converted 
 to the Christian religion subsequently to their 
 Lord's resurrection, nor did their avowal of attach- 
 ment to him commence from that period, and 
 therefore they were not comprehended under the 
 baptismal law which was propounded for the re~
 
 72 OPEN coMMumoit, 
 
 gulation of the conduct of persons in essentially 
 diflferent circumstances."* 
 
 If this account be correct,— and can you show 
 that it is not ? — then this entire number of Chris- 
 tians continued without ever being, in the Chris- 
 tian sense of the word, baptized. And yet, in 
 obedience to the Savior's command, they broke 
 bread in remembrance of him. Abstaining from 
 even the appearance of having a greater regard 
 for their Divine Master's ordinances than he him- 
 self had, they made nothing a term of commu- 
 nion which he did not. They neither considered 
 themselves, though without baptism, unqualified 
 for commemorating his death, and communing 
 with him and his at the sacramental table, nor 
 did they regard others, in like circumstanceSy dis- 
 qualified for uniting with them. What, then, are 
 we that we should decline communion with such ? 
 Who- hath required it at our hands ? 
 
 Yours in all sincerity, &c^ 
 
 * Hall's Works, vol. L pp, 30&, 804.
 
 LETTER IT. 
 
 BAPTISM NOT A TERM OF COMMUNION I — THE AR- 
 GUMENT FROM THE supper's BEING AN ORDI- 
 NANCE FOR THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH AN EX- 
 AMINATION OF THE REASONS FOR REGARDING 
 BAPTISM A TERM OF COMMUNION. 
 
 The Lord's Supper, an ordinance for the Savior's dis- 
 ciples — Baptist concessions — The assertion that open 
 communiouists, in denying baptism to be a term of 
 communion) differ from all Christendom, untrue — Xo 
 proof from the commission that baptism is indispen- 
 sable to communion — Xone from the practice of the 
 apostles; an absurd and suicidal appeal — ]^r^one from 
 the signification of the ordinances; proof for the con- 
 trary — None from the terms of eating the Jewish pass- 
 over — Conclusion. 
 
 Mr Dear Friend : — My last letter, you will re- 
 collect, was devoted to showing that an immer- 
 sional profession of Christianity is not a sine qud 
 non for communion. The two considerations that 
 I urged were your concession to the truth of this 
 position, and the fact that the Savior and his 
 first disciples did not deem the want of baptism a 
 disqualification for communion. I have another 
 argument which I will now offer, and then pro- 
 7
 
 "74 OPEN COMMUNION. 
 
 ceed to examine your reasons for holding the con- 
 trary opinion. That argument hes in the fact 
 that the Lord's supper is an ordinance for the 
 Christian church, and, as such, cannot be withheld 
 from any who are its members. To enter into 
 any lengthened argument to prove this, is alto- 
 gether unnecessary. It would be too much like 
 attempting to prove a self-evident proposition. 
 The circumstances under which the supper was 
 instituted, the analogy between it and the Jewish 
 •passover as a national ordinance, its symbolical 
 character, all plainly pronounce it to be an insti- 
 tution for the observance of the Christian church. 
 " This do ye in remembrance of me ;" not the 
 immersed only, but all disciples. "Drink ye all 
 .of it ;" not merely the baptized, but all the mem- 
 bers of the household of faith who may be pre- 
 sent, for it is the Lord's table, designed for any 
 who are members of his body. In accordance 
 with which the apostle says, " The cup of blessing 
 which we bless, is it not the communion of the 
 blood of Christ ? The bread Avhich we break is 
 it not the communion of the body of Christ ? 
 For we being many are one bread and one body, 
 for we are all partakers of that one bread."* 
 
 * 1 Cor. X. 16, 17. The expression "^that one bread" 
 here denotes the same as " this bread " and "-this bread
 
 BAPTISM NOT A TERM OF COMMUNION. 75 
 
 Or in other words, '' the drinking of the cup 
 of blessing Avhich we bless, is it not, to all ap- 
 pearances, a partaking in common of the blood 
 of Christ ? The eating of the loaf which we 
 break, is it not, to all appearances, a partaking 
 in common of the body of Christ, the sacri- 
 fice offered for sin ? For since the loaf is 
 one, we who are many are, to all appearances, 
 one ; for we all partake of the one loaf emblema- 
 tic of the body of Christ crucified." Sacramoncal 
 communion is a symbol of communion not only 
 with Christ, but with one another as individuals 
 communing with him ; that is, with one another 
 as Christians. For since the supper is one and 
 the same in meaning and object wherever among 
 Christians it may be received, they who partake 
 of it, though many, are thereby declared to be of 
 the same community, the community who profess- 
 edly live by faith upon Christ crucified. Its 
 observance represents a fellowshiping together of 
 persons, not as baptized ones, but as Christians ; 
 just as the drinking of the cup of demons repre- 
 sents a fellowshiping together of persons, not as 
 unbaptized ones, but as demon-w^orshippers. It is 
 consequently an ordinance for the church of 
 
 of the Lord" in the 26th and 2'7th verses of the next 
 chapter ; that is, the bread used by Christians on sacra- 
 mental occasions as emblematic of the Lord's body.
 
 '76 OPEN COMMUNION. 
 
 Christ. And so you allow, notwithstanding all 
 your efforts to prove baptism to be a term of 
 communion, which, if it were true, would prove 
 the supper to be, not for the Christian body, but 
 for baptized believers only ; or, if you please, for 
 believers as persons who have made an iramer- 
 sional profession of Christianity. You agree with 
 me that " the communion is enjoined upon the 
 church till the second coming of Christ ;"* that it 
 is " a positive appointment in the Christian 
 church — a positive institution of Christianity /"f 
 that it is " a spiritual repast, not to be spread in 
 the world or for the world, it being plainly an 
 institution in the church and/or the churchy^ 
 
 But if the Lord's supper is an ordinance for the 
 Christian church, and enjoined upon its members 
 without qualifications or restrictions,' except that 
 they examine themselves, and see to it that they 
 eat and drink believingly, we are not at liberty to 
 recognise anything as a term of communion which 
 shall either exclude ourselves from communing 
 with any such, or preclude them from communing 
 with us when present together where it is admi- 
 nistered. The only question, then, that can be 
 
 * Judd's Remains, p. 339. Howell on Com. pp. 24, SY. 
 
 f Booth's Yindication. 
 
 i R. Fuller, Bapt. and Cora. pp. 185, 186.
 
 BAPTISM NOT A TERM OF COMMUNION. 77 
 
 raised, is, " Is the Christian Church confined to 
 the immersed ?" If nothing can be called the 
 church of Christ but the Baptist denomination, 
 then restricted communion is right, and no others 
 should be suflfered to come to the Lord's table, 
 because, not being in the church, they are not en- 
 titled to commune. But the Church of Christ, as I 
 have already shown, is the body of his professing 
 disciples, and includes them ail. As in the apostles' 
 days it embraced those whose profession of Chris- 
 tianity had not been made by immersion, as well as 
 those whose had, so now. And such being the case, 
 the want of immersion, in itself considered, can 
 be no barrier to communion. As the younger 
 Fuller says, "our brethren are entitled to the Lord's 
 sup[)«r, inasmuch as all Christians are entitled 
 to all the privileges of the Christian church."* If 
 this were not the Lord's table, but ours, the case 
 W'Ould be different. But as it is, we are not at 
 liberty to adopt any terms of communion not 
 established by the Lord himself. We are not at 
 liberty, therefore, to sanction a restriction of the 
 ordinance from any who are credible members of 
 the great Christian brotherhood. The apostles 
 and primitive Christians practised no such restric- 
 tions ; nor can we. 
 
 I come now to an examination of the reasons 
 
 * J. G. Fuller on Com. iii. Couv.
 
 78 OPEN COMMUNION. 
 
 you adduce to prove that baptism is a term of 
 communion. 
 
 And first, you say that I differ from all Chris- 
 tendom, and that if you err in holding baptism to 
 be a term of communion, you are, at all events, 
 in company with all Christians of all ages. This, 
 however, I can regard in no other light than 
 merely as an attempt to overawe with the weight 
 of authority. And to be frank, I must say I con- 
 sider it an attempt altogether unworthy of an 
 ingenuous and truth-loving mind. For, to say 
 nothing of apostolic principles and practice ; to 
 say nothing of the views of some of the noblest 
 spirits and brightest lights the Baptist denomina- 
 tion has ever had, such as John Bunyan, Roger 
 Williams, Robert Hall, John Foster, the two Hal- 
 danes, Alexander Carson, Baptist W. Noel, and 
 so on ; it is not true that " baptism has been held," 
 as you say it has, " in all ages and by all denomi- 
 nations to be a divinely prescribed term of commu- 
 nion."* Others may, perhaps, say this with truth ; 
 but neither you, nor I, nor any other Jjaptist can. 
 "When you say that baptism has been held by all 
 denominations to be a term of communion, either 
 you are no Baptist, or your assertion is not true ; 
 either you admit affusion and aspersion to be bap- 
 
 * Howell on Com. p. 51.
 
 BAPTISM NOT A TERM OF COMMUNION. 79 
 
 tism as well as immersion, and so falsify your own 
 principles, or there is no truth in your statement ; 
 for a professing of Christ by immersion — the 
 thing that you are contending for, and the only 
 thing that you are willing to admit to be 
 baptism — has not been held by all denomina- 
 tions to be necessary to communion. If you 
 say that what has been considered baptism by 
 them has been regarded in this light, I have 
 only to say that this is a sophistical use of a word 
 unworthy of a cause professing to be based upon 
 the truth. In contending that baptism is a term 
 of communion, you never mean that a person 
 must have received either immersion, aspersion, 
 or affusion, before he can come to the Lord's table, 
 but that he must be an immersed believer. What 
 truth is there, then, in the declaration that " bap- 
 tism is regarded by all denominations as a term 
 of communion ?" coming, I say, from you who 
 admit nothing to be baptism where there is no 
 immersion. None whatever ; and your appeal to 
 the voice of the Christian church is a suicidal 
 one. In no" age and by no denomination, except 
 the close-communion Baptists of modern times, 
 has the want of an immersional profession of 
 Christianity been considered a barrier to the Lord's 
 table. And, as I showed in the beginning of my 
 last letter, even you yourself, in common with the
 
 80 OPEN COMMUNION. 
 
 denomination, hold that in certain cases baptism 
 is not necessary to communion : for you say that 
 Pedobaptists are entitled to the Lord's supper and 
 qualified for communing, provided they do it 
 among themselves, — a remark, however, which you 
 cannot make respecting individuals Avho make no 
 professions to Christianity. This appeal of yours, 
 ray dear sir, proves not only that the voice and 
 practice of other denominations, but that your own 
 concessions are against you. It shows, not that I, 
 but that you, and those who agree with you, are 
 the ones who, in this matter, stand alone. 
 
 Nor is your reference to the apostolic commis- 
 sion to much better purpose. " The commission," 
 you say, " clearly indicates that baptism preceded 
 the Lord's supper, and is prerequisite to it.'""^ But 
 here again you beg the entire question, assuming 
 that if young converts are to be baptized before 
 they come to the table of the Lord, therefore un- 
 immersed professing Christians must be. You 
 argue that because the commission enjoins the 
 duty of baptizing such as are brought to a saving 
 knowledge of the truth, and then of going on 
 with them and teaching them to observe all 
 Christ's requirements, therefore before they can 
 teach their fellow disciples whose discipleship may 
 
 * Tujlor, Bapt. a Term of Cora.
 
 BAPTISM NOT A TEKM OF COMMUNION. 81 
 
 not Lave been entered upon by immersion, to 
 observe the Lord's supper, they must see to it that 
 those disciples are not without Christian baptism. 
 But a more illogical conclusion it would be diffi- 
 cult to draw. If the commission requires us to 
 see that believers are invariably immersed before 
 they observe the supper, it requires us also to see 
 that they are immersed before they observe any 
 other of the " all things" that Christ has com- 
 manded. But, as you yourself admit, it does not 
 limit us to the immersed as the individuals whom 
 we are to instruct in the observance of other com- 
 mands. How, then, either directly or indirectly, can 
 it limit us to such persons as the only ones whom 
 we are to teach to observe the command, " This do 
 in remembrance of me," when this is bound up in 
 the same bundle with all other commands enjoined 
 upon Christians? The commission contains not 
 the remotest allusion to the idea that we are not 
 to sanction or encourage unbaptized persons in ob- 
 serving the supper, if there should happen to be 
 any such among us who really regarded them- 
 selves baptized, and whose want of baptism argued 
 nothing whatever against their piety, zeal, or faith- 
 fulness to their Master. It aifords no evidence 
 whatever that the supper is never to be eaten but 
 by believers as baptized persons — a view which it 
 must teach in order to sustain the idea that bap-
 
 82 OPEN COMMUNION. 
 
 tism is a divinely required qualification for com- 
 munion. It simply requires the commissioned 
 servants of Christ, after having baj^tized such as 
 they have discipled, to instruct them fully in the 
 mind and will of their Master, and to teach them 
 to observe all his injunctions. As to professing 
 Christians who may be without Christian baptism, 
 as these very disciples were to whom the commis- 
 sion was originally given, it is necessarily silent ; 
 for it relates to those whom w^e disciple and intro- 
 duce into the Christian church, and not to those 
 whom we find already in it. This appeal, there- 
 fore, to the commission in support of your views, 
 is wholly irrelevant. And it is as absurd as it is 
 irrelevant ; for it assumes an injunction to instruct, 
 in the observance of whatever Christ has enjoined, 
 those whom we have discipled and baptized, is 
 tantamount to an injunction not to sanction an ob- 
 servance of the Lord's supper by such as may be 
 without Christian baptism, even though they are 
 Christ's acknowledged disciples and fully recog- 
 nised as such under all other circumstances. 
 
 Another of your reasons for regarding baptism 
 a 81776 qua non for communion, you find in the 
 practice of the apostles on the daj^ of Pentecost 
 and after. " The apostles," you say, " first 
 preached ; secondly, the people believed ; thirdly, 
 they that believed were baptized; fourthly, they
 
 BAPTISM NOT A TERxM OP COMMUNION*. 83 
 
 tliat gladly received the word and were baptized 
 continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine, and 
 fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in pray- 
 ers. When the people of Samaria believed Philip 
 preaching the things pertaining to the kingdom of 
 God, they were not received immediately to the 
 communion, but were first baptized. And when 
 the Holy Ghost fell on the Gentile converts at 
 Ca2sarea, evincing to the apostles that God had 
 accepted them, Peter commanded them to be bap- 
 tized. In no instance until they had submitted to 
 baptism, were the disciples ever permitted to ap- 
 proach the holy table."* And therefore you con- 
 clude that baptism is indispensable to breaking 
 bread ; or that the want of it is a divinely pre- 
 scribed barrier to free communion. 
 
 But to say nothing of the fact which I have 
 already proved, that the primitive disciples, and 
 even the Lord himself, did commune with such as 
 had never received Christian baptism, what does 
 all this display of yours amount to ? It assumes 
 that the question in debate is, whether or not 
 young converts shall be admitted to the Lord's 
 table previous to their making an acknowledged 
 profession of Christianity ; which is not the question 
 at all. So far as the real point at issue is concerned, 
 
 •■ * Howell on Coin. pp. 44, 45.
 
 g4 OPEN COMMtJNlOK. 
 
 it proves notliing. It simply shows that the apo§« 
 ties, as free communionists do, after having received 
 their converts into the visible Christian body, com* 
 inuned with them. Farther than this, all this show 
 of argument amounts to nothing. 
 
 Or, if it proves any thing in favor of your posi-^- 
 lion, it proves too much, If it demonstrates that 
 baptism is indispensable to Christians' approaching 
 the Lord's table aright, it demonstrates also that 
 it is necessary to their constancy in attending upon 
 the teachings of Christ, the prophets, and the 
 apostles; to continuance in Christian fellowship 
 and e ngagement in prayers one with another. It 
 proves that it is an indispensable condition to 
 rejoicing in believing, to eating an ordinary mealj 
 and to acts of hospitality* For we read that they 
 that gladly received the word and were baptized, 
 continued steadfast upon the teachings of the apos^ 
 ties, and in fellowship^ and in prayers, as well as 
 in breaking bread ;'^ that the Ethiopian eunuch, 
 after his baptism, went on his way rejoicing ;\ 
 that the Philippian jailor and his family, after 
 hearing the word, were first baptized ; then, when 
 he had brought Paul and Silas back again into 
 his house, he set meat before them and rejoiced^ 
 believing in God \\ that Paul, on being restored 
 
 ^ Acts iL 42, f Acts viii. 89. % Acts xvi. 84. ^
 
 fiAPTtSM NOT A TERM Ot' COMMtNlOl>r. 85 
 
 from his blindness after his conversion, arose and 
 was baptized, then received meat and loas strength-' 
 cned ;'^ that Peter commanded those who had 
 received the Holy Ghost under liis preaching at 
 Caesarea to be baptized ; after which they prayed 
 him to tarry certain f/«ys ;f that Lydia attended 
 to the things spoken by Paul ; and when she was 
 baptized, she besought him and his companions to 
 make Iter house their home^ In no instance do 
 we read of the converts to Christianity, under the 
 apostles, over 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 
 :n 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 iti 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 hkevvise that no Christian has 
 any rio-ht to continue steadfast in readino- the 
 Word of God, in attending the sanctuary in fel- 
 
 Acts ix 18 19. ^f Acts x. 48i X ^<^ts siv. 14, 15 
 8
 
 86 OPElN^ COMMUNION, 
 
 lowsliiping vritli Christians, in contributing to 
 benevolent objects, and in j^rayer, or to rejoice in 
 God, to entertain Lis brethren, or to eat another 
 meal, till he is immersed ! There is no possible 
 half-way ground between the two. Nor is there 
 any more absurdity or Puseyism in the latter con- 
 elusion 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 hfe demands ; that *' the metapho* 
 rical representation, therefore, requires that bap- 
 tism should always be received as a condition of 
 communion i'"^ 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 hov/ 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, 1§9,
 
 BArTISM IsOT A TERM OF COMMUNIOX. 8*7 
 
 munion of iinbaptized persons? Is baptism ne- 
 cessary in order to tliat birtli ? Is it necessary in 
 order to indicate such a birtli ? If not, where is 
 the force of your reasoning ? Is it true that tlie 
 hfe, 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 immerswnal 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. Nor 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
 
 88 OPEN COMMUNION. 
 
 sanctuary. If this be allowed, the consequence is 
 plain, and the argument, though analogical, is irre- 
 fragable ; 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 uncircuracised 
 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, vrhile you make this admission, to 
 undertake to show why unbaptized persons are 
 not prohibited. Turn 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. xii. 48.
 
 BAPTISM NOT A TERM OF COMMUNION. 89 
 
 ciimcision. 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 pass-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. ii. 11 ; Rom. ii, 28, 29. 
 8*
 
 90 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 Avould 
 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 aff"ording 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 as a divinely prescribed shit 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 NOT A TERM OF COMMUNIOX. 91 
 
 matic and painfully destitute of truth are such 
 asseverations as these : " Christian baptism is one 
 of tlie divinely ordained and unchangeable terms 
 of communion."* " In the apostles' days it was 
 constantly required as a preparation for the com- 
 manion."f " God's regulations forbid the unbap- 
 tized [i. e. Pedobaptists] to partake of the sup- 
 per."! "He orders that the bjlptized 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 prohibiji. 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. 
 
 ^ R. Fuller oa Bapt. and Com., p. 195. 
 § Ibid. p. 198.
 
 92 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- 
 knowledo'e their Christian character. Actino; 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. 93 
 
 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. 
 
 Yours, as ever, in all sincerity, &c.
 
 LETTER V. 
 
 THE WANT OF BAPTISM NOT THE TRUE GROUND 
 UPON WHICH RESTRICTED COMMUNION PROCEEDS. 
 
 Close communionists require something more than re- 
 pentance, faith, and baptism — The supper made a de- 
 nominational ordinance — The insincerity of Baptists — 
 Their reasons for making it a denominational ordi- 
 nance, no reasons — Their practice inconsistent with 
 their professions — The folly of contending for baptism 
 as a term of communion. 
 
 My Dear Friend : — I liave addressed you ia 
 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, 
 1 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 true ground upon which the 
 restriction you practise, proceeds; for an indivi- 
 dual's being an immersed and consistent Christian
 
 RKSTRICTIOX, NOT VOU WANT OF BAPTISM. 95 
 
 is no evidence whatever tliat lie 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 cliurch 
 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- 
 tnaincd to be askedi It was this : " In adminis-*
 
 96 OPEN COMMt'NioK* 
 
 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 repl}^, and 
 because I was unable, after all that was said, to 
 see the impropriety of itj the council refused to 
 install me. In the Congregational and Methodist 
 churches in the place, there were several immersed 
 members ; and if I liad 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, ofiiciated. 
 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 
 Bufferings of our Lord Jesus Christ with you.'* 
 
 * P. 14. 16»
 
 RESTRICTION?, KOT FOR WANT OF BAPTISM. 97 
 
 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. G. " 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 ivith such views and practice we 
 should make ourselves very inconsistent to admit 
 you to the communion with us." Here is an indi- 
 vidual 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
 
 98 OPEN COMMUKION-. 
 
 will Baptist joins a close-communion cliurcli, lie 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. Ou 
 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. ?5I»
 
 RESTRICTION, NOT FOR WANT OF BAPTISM. 99 
 
 if it is the appointed symbol of clmrcli relations, 
 it should only be celebrated together with those 
 Avith whom we can consistently sustain those rela- 
 tions." " This," adds a friendly pen, " is one of 
 the strong ^;os/^20)is 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 specirnen 
 of the logic and the conclusiveness of the reason- 
 ing: that runs throuo-h 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. svi. p. 222.
 
 100 OPEN COMMUNION. 
 
 ur.ite in particular-cliurcli 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 j^'^^nciples 
 ivould forbid to he 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 ^;n/?c?}:>Ze5 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.
 
 KESTRICTION, NOT FOR WANT OF BAPTISM. 101 
 
 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 
 declinina: to celebrate with members of other deno- 
 minations^ 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 
 reirulation as to this l^east the least infrino-ement 
 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 vieto of the 
 supper."J The whole volume shows, that, while 
 
 * P. 117. t P. 237. X P. 110. 
 
 9*
 
 102 OPEN COMMUNION. 
 
 he theorizes about a particular-church ordinance, 
 his conclusions, like his practical administrations of 
 the institution and his invitations to it, make it, in 
 reahty, 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, "0 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 feehngs and joyfully invite our brethren." 
 This is the language of every apologist for re- 
 stricted communion."^ But how much sincerity is 
 
 * See Cone's "Terms of Com." R. Fuller on Bapt. 
 and Com,, p. 197. Howell on Com., p. 107.
 
 RESTRICTION, NOT FOR WANT OF BAPTISM. 103 
 
 tliere 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 decHne 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 
 siiying that communion with baptized Chris- 
 tians not members of what you are pleased to 
 call rer/ula?' 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. E, Fuller on 
 Bapt. and Com,, pp. 146, 147.
 
 104 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 1 A very sad state of 
 things indeed ! 
 
 But you ask, "does not the apostle WTite 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 V 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 
 
 * Vol. ii. 5.
 
 RESTRICTIOX, NOT FOR WANT OF BAPTISM. 105 
 
 you use the word when you s}>eak of churches of 
 our order, but to well-ordered Christian lives, 
 ilny 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 tho 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 j^recepts which I delivered 
 io you."' Respecting the manner in -which they 
 professed to keep the Lord's supper, the apostle 
 says in the lYth verse of this very chapter, "I 
 praise you notr 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,"
 
 106 OPEN COMMUNION. 
 
 though ye profess such to be your 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 encharist as the apostle may be supposed to 
 have delivered it to them ? K'o. Hence his cen- 
 sure, I praise you not." But respecting the in- 
 structions which he had previously given them, 
 he could praise them for adhering to them. The 
 passage has not the remotest leference 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
 
 ?IESTR1CTI0N, ^Or FOR WANT OF BAPTISM. 10? 
 
 from many v/liose pvofession has been made 
 thus. 
 
 Then as to the disorderly walking of which the 
 ■apostle speaks in 2 Thess. iii. 6, you assume that 
 it is a want of membership in some "regular'^ 
 Baptist church. But how absurd ! Even suppos- 
 ing Paul had known anything of close-commu- 
 jiion 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 hfe, a life opposed to that alluded 
 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 «s ; 
 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 btisy-bodies" &g. 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-
 
 103 OPEN COMMUNIOir. 
 
 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 foith. 
 The injunction, of course, reaches to all professing 
 Christians, wherever we are brought into contact 
 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 
 yow 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 support 
 of restricting the administration of the Lord's 
 supper to members of close Baptist churches, it is 
 most sadly out of place. 
 
 f, 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 OP BAPTISM. 109 
 
 question, " Has lie been baptized ?" but on tho 
 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 towards 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, uor diminish from it.' " 
 Again, " Repentance toward God, faith in our 
 Lord Jesus Christ, and baptism in the name of the 
 Father, and of the Sen, 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 IMMQ- 
 
 10
 
 110 OPEN COMMUNION. 
 
 RALiTY OR HERESY."* This IS language wliicli strikes 
 a death-blow at the restriction yon practice. And 
 remember that it is not merely the language of 
 Dr. Howell, but of the American Baptist Publica- 
 tion Society, by whom the w^ork 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 ajl 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. Ill 
 
 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 
 f^ilse 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 walk- 
 ers — The position falsified by the universal practice of 
 restricted communionists — What is necessary to a right 
 reception of the ordinance — The presence of a minister 
 
 . not necessary — Andrew Fuller's opinion — Examples of 
 apostolic communion; at Tezpoor; at the sessions 
 of the Evangelical Alliance, London, 1851 — Conclu- 
 sion. 
 
 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 CHURCH FELLOWSHIP. 113 
 
 mimion is a token of individiial-churcli 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 "ail 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, divinel}'- 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. f Ibid, pp 116, 117. 
 
 10*
 
 114 OPEN COMMUNION. 
 
 When lie 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 
 sanctuaries, 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. 115 
 
 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. 
 ' 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 ivhen 
 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.
 
 116 OPEN COMMUNION. 
 
 the giiardiansliip of visible churches !" He refers, 
 too, in ilkistration 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 ftists, 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 unw^orthy 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. Il7 
 
 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 Chris- 
 
 * See Matt, xxviii. 16-19.
 
 118 OPEN COMMUNION. 
 
 tians 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, &q., p. 103.
 
 COMMUNION NOT CHURCH FELLOWSHIP. 119 
 
 member elsewliere. It is not an institution of 
 Christ's, like baptism or the Lord's supper. Mem- 
 bers 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 ail 
 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, as
 
 120 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 church 
 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 supper
 
 COMMUNION NOT CHURCH FELLOWSHIP. 121 
 
 be indeed divinely instituted as a token that all 
 who commune together upon any given occasion 
 are members o,f 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 can- 
 not commune with the church with whom they 
 meet to transact their business. In short, all 
 corfim union 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 wilHng 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 divinebj 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
 
 122 0?EN COMMtJNlOK. 
 
 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 
 bf 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 worshii^ping 
 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. 123 
 
 nionist as Andrew Fuller. " I see notliing 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. JSTay, 
 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 Vhere 
 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
 
 124 OPEN COMMUNION. 
 
 churclies to perform this office ; and that I, for 
 one, had often complied with such requests. / 
 could ivish, 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. 125 
 
 The other example occurred a short time before, 
 at the close of the sessions of the Evangel ieal 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 
 11*
 
 126 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 Testaaient dispensation, 
 with which it was invested by the Savior at its 
 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. 127 
 
 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 he 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 VIL 
 
 CONCLUDING CONSIDERATIONS. 
 
 Restricted communion an uncandid system — Places 
 others in a false light, 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. 129 
 
 munion, is its glaring want of candor and consis- 
 tency. It is not what it professes to 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 sucll, 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-
 
 130 OPEN COMMUNION. 
 
 cally true of the system you pursue. It practi- 
 cally uncliurches 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 ;||vhat then ? " 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, disregarders 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
 
 CONCLUDlNa CONSIDERATIONS. 131 
 
 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 witli 
 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, 
 "VVhitefield and Tennent, Brainerd and Payson 
 openly disobedient ! rebels against the authority 
 of God I refusing subjection to Christ, and design- 
 ing to overthrow his laws 1 Would to God we 
 had more such ! or that all who make these mo- 
 dest chargeS) and consider themselves obedient 
 above others, would only supply their place I But 
 where does such language place " all Pedobap* 
 
 * Curtis on Com., p. 243. f Kinghorn, Terms of Com. 
 X Howell on Comv, p. iTS* § Ibid., p. 87.
 
 132 OPEN COMMUNION, 
 
 lists ?" Out of " the cliurcli wliicli is subject unto 
 Christ^^'' among tlie 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 ilHberal 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 disregarders 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 circumst?nces 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 CONSIDERATIONg. 133 
 
 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 u 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
 
 134 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 ? 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 w^ould 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.
 
 COXCLUDING CONSIDERATIONS. 135 
 
 Had the former been educated as Baptists, tlie 
 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.
 
 136 OPEN COMMUNION. 
 
 Pedobaptists are not, by sucli 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 w^e 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 unchari- 
 table in declining to invite members of other 
 churches and denominations to a place in our 
 church meetings, and giving them the right of 
 suff"rage there. But why is this ? Plainly be- 
 cause the one is an institution of the Lord's, for 
 the Lord's church ; Avhile the other is ours, for 
 our church. Feeling that " all the Lord's children
 
 CONCLUDING CONSIDERATIONS. 137 
 
 have an undoubted right to his table," as Dr. 
 Howell expresses it, and that those whom we 
 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 mortification 
 to us to decline communion with them? And 
 does not this mortification of feeling evidently ai'ise 
 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 commu- 
 nionists 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 sufiice. 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 ac- 
 cordingly, and the visiting brother who, by the 
 way, at this very moment holds one of the most 
 influential positions in the denomination, was to 
 12*
 
 138 OPEN COMMUNION. 
 
 oflSciate. In the meantime, 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 
 desire to hear the truth from his hps, induced our 
 Baptist 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 
 supper 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.
 
 CONCLUDINa CONSIDERATIONS. 139 
 
 Now the question arises, If it is riglit, 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 the 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, straight-forward, 
 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, 
 sueh a separation is most inconsistent with the one-
 
 140 OPEN COMMUNION. 
 
 Dess of the Cliristian broth erhood. 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 hy 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 view^s 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. 141 
 
 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 Avho have no 
 sympathy for restricted communion, and on this 
 account will not connect themselves w^ith 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 towards others, than among those 
 who may agree with us upon this subject while in 
 their administration 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
 
 142 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 the 
 use of God's AVord, 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. 143 
 
 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 ah 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 lead 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, 87.
 
 144 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 
 raen 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 reslrictel communion, however, awakes, not 
 -unfrequently, feelings of mortification and shame
 
 CONCLUDING CONSIDERATIONS. 146 
 
 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 other 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
 
 146 OPEN COMMUNION. 
 
 admit. And yet, contrary to the precedent left ns 
 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 gTiilty. 
 
 Y. Besides all this, restricted communion is a 
 modern innovation, something altogether unknown 
 till within the last three centuries. I am aware it 
 is sometimes said, that good John 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 suppeir
 
 CONCLUDING CONSIDERATIONS. 147 
 
 then practised toward any known and acknow- 
 ledged Christian brother, as is daily done now. 
 And durino; 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, which 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 which 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 can 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.
 
 148 OPEN COMMUNION. 
 
 TertuUian, it is acknowledged, is the first wlio dis- 
 tinctly and unequivocally 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 disposed to assert that infant-bap- 
 tism at once supplanted the original ordinance, 
 multitudes must have been in precisely the same 
 situation. Among the Waldenses, 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."* 
 
 * SeeR. Hall, Works, vol. i., pp. 481-483.
 
 CONCLUDING CONSIDERATIONS. 149 
 
 And if we pass from the continent to England, 
 and suppose the existence of Baptist sentiments 
 there to date no further 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 I. 
 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 
 13*
 
 150 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 " Free Admission 
 to the Sacrament," and Bunyan, some ten years 
 -after, his "Differences about Water Baptism no
 
 CONCLUDING CONSIDERATIONS. 151 
 
 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 
 diflSculty 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 belono-inof 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
 
 15S OPEN COMMUNION?. 
 
 believe that the day is at hand when the system 
 of restricted commimion must be abolislied, 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 with 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. 153 
 
 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 ofifer in 
 support of this practice. Why not, then, aban- 
 don it ? " If the system be not warranted by the 
 will of Christ it should he at once and for ever 
 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.
 
 154 OPEN COMMUNION. 
 
 truth, tbis — 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 wdiere and whither she may, it will always be 
 <iway 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 iis 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 teaches 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 comnmuing with them 
 if they should happen not to be immersed. Nor 
 do I care where they hold their church relations. 
 Let them be creditable members of the Christian
 
 CONCLUDING CONSIDERATIONS. 155 
 
 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 raind 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 the duty of 
 others, fur 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, <kc. 
 
 T n R K X D .
 
 PUBLISHED BY M. W. DODD. 
 "THE BIBLE ITS OWN INTEEPEETER." 
 
 A COMPLETE CONCORDANCE 
 
 Or, a Dictionary and Alphabetical Index to the Bible. 
 BY ALEXANDER CRUDEN", M.A. 
 By which, 
 
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 word in the verse. To which is added, 
 
 n. The •siffnifications of the principal words, by which their true meaning 
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 every student of the Word of God.
 
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