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 PRINCETON, N. J. 
 
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 BV 828 .H334 1816 
 
 Hall, Robert, 1764-1831, 
 
 [On] terms of communion 
 
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 f 
 
ON 
 
 TERMS OF COMMUNION; 
 
 WITH 
 
 .2 PARTICULAR VIEW TO THE CASE 
 
 OF the' 
 
 BAPTISTS 
 
 AND 
 
 P^DOBAPTISTS. 
 
 BY ROBERT HALL, M. A. 
 
 First American (from the Third English) Edition. 
 
 " That they all may be one, as thou Father art in me, 
 and I in thee; that they also may be one in us; that the 
 world may know that thou hast sent me." — Jesus Christ. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA: 
 
 PUBLISHED BY ANTHONY FINLEY. 
 
 T. S. Manningy Printer. 
 
 1816. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 THE love of controversy was in no degree 
 the motive for writing the following sheets. Con- 
 troversy the writer considers as an evil, though 
 often a necessary one. It is to be deprecated 
 when it is directed to minute or frivolous ob- 
 jects, or when it is managed in such a manner 
 as to call forth malevolent passions. He hopes 
 the ensuing treatise will be found free from both 
 these objections; and that as the subject must be 
 allowed to be of some importance, so the spirit 
 in which it is handled, is not chargeable with any 
 material departure from the christian temper. If 
 the Author has expressed himself on some occa- 
 sions with considerable confidence, he trusts the 
 reader will impute it, not to a forgetfulness of 
 his personal deficiences, but to the cause he has 
 
undertaken to support. The divided state of the 
 the christian world has long been the subject of 
 painful reflection; and if his feeble efforts might 
 be the means of uniting a small portion of it 
 only in closer ties he will feel himself amply re- 
 warded. 
 
 The practice of incorporating private opinions 
 and human inventions with the constitutions of 
 a church, and with the terms of communion, 
 has long appeared to him untenable in its prin- 
 ciple, and pernicious in its effects. There is no 
 position in the whole compass of theology, of 
 the truth of which he feels a stronger persuasion, 
 than that no man, or set of men, are entitled to 
 prescribe as an indispensable condition of com- 
 munion, what the New Testament has not en- 
 joined as a condition of salvation. To establish 
 this position, is the principal object of the follow- 
 ing work; and though it is more immediately oc- 
 cupied in the discussion of a case which respects 
 the Baptists and the Psedobaptists, that case is 
 attempted to be decided entirely upon the prin- 
 
ciple now mentioned, and it is no more than the 
 application of it to a particular instance. 
 
 The Writer is persuaded that a departure from 
 this principle in the denomination to which he 
 belongs, has been extremely injurious, not only 
 to the credit and prosperity of that particular bo- 
 dy, (which is a very subordinate consideration,) 
 but to the general interests of truth; and that but 
 for the obstruction arising from that quarter, the 
 views they entertain of one of the sacraments 
 would have obtained a more extensive preva- 
 lence. By keeping themselves in a state of se- 
 paration and seclusion from other Christians, 
 they have not only evinced an inattention to some 
 of the most important injunctions of scripture, 
 but have raised up an invincible barrier to the 
 propagation of their sentiments beyond the pre- 
 cincts of their own party. 
 
 It has been insinuated that the Author has 
 taken an unfair advantage of his opponents by 
 
 1* 
 
VI 
 
 choosing to bring forward this disquisition, just 
 at the moment when we have to lament the loss 
 of a person whose judgment would have dis- 
 posed, and his abilities enabled him to do ample 
 justice to the opposite side of the question. He 
 can assure his readers, that none entertained a 
 higher veneration for Mr. Fuller than himself, 
 notwithstanding their difference of sentiment on 
 this subject: and that when he entered on this 
 discussion, it was with the fullest expectation of 
 having his opposition to encounter. At that time 
 his state of health, though not good, was such as 
 suggested a hope that the event was very distant 
 which we all deplore. Having been led to men- 
 tion this affecting circumstance, I cannot refrain 
 from expressing in a few words the sentiments 
 of affectionate veneration with which I always 
 regarded that excellent person while living, and 
 cherish his memory now that he is no more; a 
 man, whose sagacity enabled him to penetrate 
 to the depths of every subject he explored; whose 
 conceptions were so powerful and luminous, that 
 what was recondite and original appeared fami- 
 
vii 
 
 liar; what was intricate, easy and perspicuous ift 
 his hands; equally successful in enforcing the 
 practical, stating the theoretical, and discussing 
 the polemical branches of theology: without the 
 advantage of early education, he rose to high 
 distinction among the religious writers of his 
 day, and in the midst of a most active and labo- 
 rious life, left monuments of his piety and genius 
 which will survive to distant posterity. Were I 
 making his eulogium, I should necessarily dwell 
 on the spotless integrity of his private life, his 
 fidelity in friendship, his neglect of self-interest, 
 his ardent attachment to truth, and especially the 
 series of unceasing labours and exertions in su~ 
 perintending the mission to India, to which he 
 most probably fell a victim. He had nothing fee- 
 ble or undecisive in his character, but to every 
 undertaking in which he engaged, he brought all 
 the powers of his understanding, all the energies 
 of his heart; and if he were less distinguished by 
 the comprehension, than the acumen and solid- 
 ity of his thoughts; less eminent for the gentler 
 graces, than for stern integrity and native gran- 
 
VI 11 
 
 «kur of mind, we have only to remember the 
 necessary limitations of human excellence. While . 
 he endeared himself to his denomination by a 
 long course of most useful labour, by his excel- 
 lent works on the Socinian and Deistical contro- 
 versies, as well as his devotion to the cause of 
 missions, he laid the world under lasting obliga- 
 tions. Though he was known to profess differ- 
 ent views from the Writer on the subject under 
 present discussion, it may be inferred from a de- 
 cisive fact^ which it is not necessary to record, 
 that his attachment to them was not very strong, 
 nor his conviction probably very powerful. Be 
 this as it may, his sanction of the practice of ex- 
 clusive communion, has no doubt contributed in 
 no small degree to recommend it to the denomi- 
 nation of which he was so distinguished an orna- 
 ment. They who are the first to disclaim human 
 authority in the affairs of religion, are not always 
 least susceptible of its influence. 
 
 It is observable also, that bodies of men arc 
 very slow in changing their opinions, which with 
 
IX 
 
 some inconveniences is productive of this advan- 
 tage, that truth undergoes a severer investiga- 
 tion, and her conquests are the more permanent 
 for being gradually acquired. On this account 
 the Writer is not so sanguine as to expect his 
 performance will occasion any sudden revolu- 
 tion in the sentiments and practice of the class 
 of Christians more immediately concerned; if 
 along with other causes it ultimately contribute 
 to so desirable an issue, he shall be satisfied. 
 
 It may not be improper to assign the reason 
 for not noticing the treatise of the celebrated Mr. 
 Robinson, of Cambridge, on the same subject. 
 It is not because he is insensible to the ingenuity 
 and beauty of that performance, as well as of the 
 other works of that original and extraordinary 
 writer; but because it rests on principles more 
 lax and latitudinarian, than it is in his power con- 
 scientiously to adopt; Mr. R. not having advert- 
 ed, as far as he perceives, to the distinction of 
 fundamentals, but constructed his plea for tole= 
 
ration,* in such a manner, as to comprehend all 
 the varieties of religious belief. 
 
 The only author I have professed to answer is 
 the late venerable Booth, his treatise being gene- 
 rally considered by our opponents as the ablest 
 defence of their hypothesis. 
 
 I have only to add, that I commit the follow- 
 ing treatise to the candor of the public, and the 
 blessing of God, hoping that as it is designed not 
 to excite, but to allay animosities; not to widen, 
 but to heal the breaches among Christians, it 
 will meet with the indulgence due to good inten- 
 tions, however feebly executed. 
 
 * The intelligent reader will understand me to refer, 
 not to civil toleration by the state, but that which is exer- 
 cised by religious societies. 
 
ON TERMS OF COMMUNION 
 
 IjYTR on UCTOR T REMARKS. 
 
 WHOEVER forms his ideas of the Church 
 of Christ from an attentive perusal of the New 
 Testament, will perceive that unity is one of its 
 essential characteristics; and that though it be 
 branched out into many distinct societies, it is 
 still but one. "The Church," says Cyprian, 
 " is one which by reason of its fecundity is ex- 
 tended into a multitude, in the same manner as 
 the rays of the sun, however numerous consti- 
 tute but one light; and the branches of a tree, 
 however manv, are attached to one trunk, which 
 is supported by its tenacious root; and when 
 various rivers flow from the same fountain, 
 though number is diffused by the redundant 
 supply of waters, unity is preserved in their 
 
i2 
 
 origin." Nothing more abhorrent from the 
 principles and maxims of the sacred oracles 
 cati be conceived, than the idea of a plurality 
 of true churches, neither in actual communion 
 with each other, nor in a capacity for such com- 
 munion. Though this rending of the seamless 
 garment of our Saviour, this schism in the mem- 
 bers of his mystical body, is by far the greatest 
 calamity which has befallen the christian inte- 
 rest, and one of the most fatal effects of the 
 great apostacy foretold by the sacred penman, 
 we have been so long familiarised to it as to be 
 scarcely sensible of its enormity, nor does it 
 excite surprise or concern, in any degree pro- 
 portioned to what would be felt by one who had 
 contemplated the church in the first ages. To 
 see christian societies regarding each other with 
 the jealousies of rival empires, each aiming to 
 raise itself on the ruin of all others, making 
 extravagant boasts of superior purity, generally 
 in exact proportion to their departures from it, 
 and scarcely deigning to acknowledge the possi- 
 bility of obtaining salvation out of their pale, is 
 the odious and disgusting spectacle which mod- 
 ern Christianity presents. The bond of charity, 
 which unites the genuine followers of Christ in 
 distinction from the world, is dissolved, and the 
 
13 
 
 very terms by which it was wont to be denoted, 
 exclusively employed to express a predilection 
 for a sect. The evils which result from this state 
 of division are incalculable: it supplies infidels 
 with their most plausible topics of invective; it 
 hardens the consciences of the irreligious, weak- 
 ens the hands of the good, impedes the efficacy 
 of prayer, and is probably the principal obstruc- 
 tion to that ample effusion of the spirit which is 
 essential to the renovation of the world. 
 
 It is easier however, it is confessed, to deplore 
 the malady, than to prescribe the cure: for how- 
 ever important the preservation of harmony and 
 peace, the interests of truth and holiness are 
 still more so; nor must we forget the order in 
 which the graces of the Spirit are arranged. 
 "The wisdom which is from above is first j&wre, 
 then peaceable.''^ Peace should be anxiously 
 sought, but always in subordination to purity, 
 and therefore every attempt to reconcile the dif- 
 ferences among Christians which involves the 
 sacrifice of truth, or the least deliberate devia- 
 tion from the revealed will of Christ, is spurious 
 in its origin, and dangerous in its tendency. If 
 communion with a christian society cannot be 
 had without a compliance with rites and usages 
 2 
 
14 
 
 which we deem idolatrous or superstitious, or 
 without a surrender of that liberty in which we 
 are commanded to stand fast, we must as we va- 
 lue our allegiance forego, however reluctantly, 
 the advantages of such a union. Wherever pu- 
 rity and simplicity of worship are violated by 
 the heterogeneous mixture of human inventions, 
 we are not at liberty to comply with them for the 
 sake of peace, because the first consideration in 
 every act of worship is its correspondence with 
 the revealed will of God, which will often jus- 
 tify us in declining the external communion of 
 a church with which we cease not to cultivate a 
 communion in spirit. It is one thing to decline 
 a connection with the members of a community 
 absolutely^ or simply because they belong to such 
 a community, and another to join with them in 
 practices which we deem superstitious and er- 
 roneous. In the latter instance, we cannot be said 
 absolutely to refuse a connection with the pious 
 part of such societies, we decline it merely be- 
 cause it is clogged with conditions which render 
 it impracticable. It is impossible for a Protes- 
 tant Dissenter for example, without manifest in- 
 consistency, to become a member of the Estab- 
 lished Church; but to admit the members of that 
 community to participate at the Lord's table, 
 
without demanding a formal renunciation, of 
 their peculiar sentiments, includes nothing con- 
 tradictory or repugnant. The cases are totally 
 distinct, and the reasons which would apply for- 
 cibly against the former, would be irrelevant to 
 the latter. In the first supposition, the Dissent- 
 er, by an active concurrence in what he professes 
 to disapprove, ceases to dissent; in the last, no 
 principle is violated, no practice is altered, no 
 innovation is introduced. 
 
 Hence arises a question, how far we are jus- 
 tified in repelling from our communion those 
 from whom we differ on matters confessedly not 
 essential to salvation, when that communion is 
 accompanied with no innovation in the rites o£ 
 worship, merely on account of diversity of senti- 
 ment on other subjects. In other words, are we 
 fct liberty, or are we not, to walk with our chris- 
 tian brethren as far as we are agreed^ or must 
 we renounce their fellowship on account of error 
 allowed not to be fundamental, although nothing 
 is proposed to be done, or omitted, in such acts 
 of communion, which would not equally be done, 
 or omitted, on the supposition of their absence? 
 Such is the precise state of the question which 
 it is my intention to discuss in these pages; and 
 
16 
 
 it may possibly contribute to its elucidation to 
 observe, that the true idea of christian commu- 
 nion is by no means confined to a joint partici- 
 pation of the Lord's supper. He who in the 
 words of the Apostle's creed expresses his be- 
 lief in the connniinion of saints^ adverts to much 
 more than is comprehended in one particular 
 act. In an intelligent assent to that article, is 
 comprehended the total of that sympathy and 
 affection, with all its natural expressions and ef- 
 fects, by which the followers of Christ are uni- 
 ted, in consequence of their union with their 
 head, and their joint share in the common sal- 
 vation. The kiss of charity in the apostolic age, 
 the right hand of fellowship, a share in the ob- 
 lations of the church, a commendatory epistle 
 attesting the exemplary character of the bearer, 
 uniting in social prayer, the employment of the 
 term brother or sister to denote spiritual consan- 
 guinity, were all considered in the purest ages 
 as tokens of coinmiinion; a term which is never 
 applied in the New Testament exclusively to the 
 Lord's supper. When it is used in connection 
 with that rite, it is employed, not to denote the 
 fellowship of Christians, but the spiritual parti- 
 cipation of the body and blood of Christ.^' 
 * I. Corinthians, s. 16. 
 
17 
 
 When we engage a christian brother to present 
 supplications to God in our behalf, it cannot be 
 doubted that we have fellowship with him, not 
 less real or spiritual than at the Lord's table. 
 From these considerations it is natural to infer, 
 that no scruple ought to be entertained respect- 
 ing the lawfulness of uniting to commemorate 
 our Saviour's death, with those with whom we 
 feel ourselves at liberty to join in every other 
 branch of religious worship. Where no attempt 
 is made to obscure its import, or impair its sim- 
 plicity, by the introduction of human ceremonies, 
 but it is proposed to be celebrated in the man- 
 ner which we apprehend to be perfectly conso- 
 nant to the mind of Christ, it would seem less 
 reasonable to refuse to co-operate in this branch 
 of religion than in any other, because it is ap- 
 pointed to be a memorial of the greatest instance 
 of love that was ever exhibited, as well as the 
 principal pledge of christian fraternity. It must 
 appear surprising that the rite which of all others 
 is most adapted to cement mutual attachment, 
 and which is in a great measure appointed for 
 that purpose, should be fixed upon as the line of 
 demarcation, the impassable barrier, to separate 
 and disjoin the followers of Christ. He who ad- 
 mits his fellow Christians to share in every other 
 2* 
 
18 
 
 spiritual privilege, while he prohibits his ap- 
 proach to the Lord's table, entertains a view of 
 that institution, diametrically opposite to what 
 has usually prevailed; he must consider it not so 
 much in the light of a commemoration of his 
 Saviour's death and passion, as a religious test, 
 designed to ascertain and establish an agreement 
 4n points not fundamentah According to this no- 
 tion of it, it is no longer a symbol of our com- 
 mon Christianity, it is the badge and criterion of 
 a party, a mark of discrimination applied to dis- 
 tinguish the nicer shades of difference among 
 Christians. How far either scripture or reason 
 can be adduced in support of such a view of the 
 subject, it will be the business of the following 
 pages to inquire. 
 
 In the mean while it will be necessary, in or- 
 der to render the argument perfectly intelligible, 
 to premise a few words respecting the particular 
 controversy on which the ensuing observations 
 are meant especially to bear. Few of my readers 
 probably require to be informed, that there is a 
 class of Christians pretty widely diffused through 
 these realms, who deny the validity of infant- 
 baptism, considering it as a human invention, 
 not countenanced by the scriptures, nor by the 
 
19 
 
 practice of the first and purest ages. Besides 
 their denial of the right of infants to baptism, 
 they also contend for the exclusive validity of 
 immersion in that ordinance, in distinction from 
 the sprinkling or pouring of water. In support 
 of the former, they allege the total silence of 
 scripture respecting the baptism of infants, to- 
 gether with their incompetence to comprehend 
 the truths, or sustain the engagements, which 
 ihey conceive it designed to exhibit. For the lat- 
 ter, they urge the well-known import of the ori- 
 ginal word employed to express the baptismal 
 rite, which they allege cannot, without the most 
 unnatural violence, be understood to command 
 any thing less than an immersion of the whole 
 body. The class of Christians whose sentiments 
 I am relating, are usually known by the appella- 
 tion of Baptists; in contradistinction from whom, 
 all other Christians may properly be denominated 
 Pcedohaptists* It is not my intention to enter into 
 a defence of their peculiar tenets, though they 
 have my unqualified approbation; but merely to 
 state them for the information of my readers. 
 It must be obvious that in the judgment of the 
 Baptists, such as have only received the baptis- 
 mal rite in their infancy must be deemed in re- 
 ality xmhaptized; for this is only a different mode 
 
so 
 
 Qf expressing their conviction of the invalidity 
 of infant-sprinkling. On this ground, they have 
 for the most part confined their communion to 
 persons of their own persuasion, in which, il- 
 liberal as it may appear, they are supported 
 by the general practice of the christian worlcll, 
 which whatever diversities of opinion may have 
 prevailed, have general^ concurred in insisting 
 upon baptism as an indispensable prerequisite 
 to the Lord's table. The effect which has 
 resulted in this particular case has indeed been 
 singular, but it has arisen from a rigid ad- 
 herence to a principle almost universally adopt- 
 ed, that baptism is, under all circumstances, a 
 necessary prerequisite to the Lord's supper. 
 The practice we are now specifying has usu- 
 ally been termed strict coniinunion^ w^hile the op- 
 posite practice of admitting sincere Christians 
 to the eucharist, though in our judgment not 
 baptized, is styled free communion. Strict com- 
 munion is the general practice of our churches, 
 though the abettors of the opposite opinion are 
 rapidly increasing both in numbers and in re- 
 spectability. The humble hope of casting some 
 additional light on a subject which appears to me 
 of no trivial importance, is my only motive for 
 composing this treatise, in which it will be neces- 
 
SI 
 
 sary to attempt the establishment of principles 
 sufficiently comprehensive to decide other ques- 
 tions in ecclesiastical polity, besides those which 
 concern the present controversy. I am greatly 
 mistaken if it be possible to bring it to a satis- 
 factory issue, without adverting to topics in 
 which the christian world are not less interested 
 than the Baptists. If the conclusions we shall 
 endeavour to establish, appear on impartial in- 
 quiry to be well founded, it will follow that seri- 
 ous errors respecting terms of communion have 
 prevailed to a wide extent in the christian church. 
 It will be my anxious endeavour, in the progress 
 of this discussion, to avoid whatever is calculated 
 to irritate; and instead of acting the part of a 
 pleader, to advance no argument which has not 
 been well weighed, and of whose validity I am 
 not perfectly convinced. The inquiry will be pur- 
 sued under two parts;' in the first, I shall consider 
 the arguments in favour of strict communion; in 
 the second, state with all possible brevity the evi- 
 dence by which we attempt to sustain the oppo- 
 site practice. 
 
S3 
 
 IRGUMEjYTS for strict COMMUjYIOX 
 
 co^'sidered. 
 
 PART I. 
 
 IN reviewing the arguments which are usu- 
 ally urged for the practice of strict communion, 
 or the exclusion of unbaptized persons from the 
 Lord's table, I shall chiefly confine myself to the 
 examination of such as are adduced by the vene- 
 rable Mr. Booth, in his treatise styled "An Apo^ 
 logy for the Baptists," because he is not only held 
 in the highest esteem by the whole denomination, 
 but is allowed by his partizans to have exhibited 
 the full force of their cause. He writes on the 
 subject under discussion, with all his constitu- 
 tional ardour and confidence, which, supported 
 by the spotless integrity, and elevated sanctity 
 of the man, have contributed, more perhaps than 
 any other cause, to fortify the Baptists in their 
 prevailing practice. I trust the free strictures 
 which it will be necessary to make on his per- 
 formance, will not be deemed inconsistent witli 
 
2^ 
 
 a sincere veneration for his character, which I 
 should be sorry to see treated with the unsparing 
 ridicule and banter, with which he has assailed 
 Mr. Bunyan, a name equally dear to genius and 
 to piety. The reader will not expect me to follow 
 him in his declamatory excursions, or in those 
 miscellaneous quotations, often irrelevant, which 
 the extent of his reading has supplied: it will suf- 
 fice if I carefully examine his arguments, with- 
 out omitting a single consideration on which he 
 could be supposed to lay a stress. 
 
 SECTIOX I. 
 
 The argujnent from the order of time in which 
 baptism and the Lord^s supper are supposed to 
 have been instituted* 
 
 One of the principal pleas in favour of strict 
 communion is derived from the supposed priority 
 of the institution of baptism to the Lord's sup- 
 per. "That baptism was an ordinance of God," 
 say our opponents, " that submission to it was 
 required, that it was administered to multitudes 
 before the sacred supper was heard of, are unde- 
 niable facts. There never was a time since the 
 ministry of our Lord's successors, in which ij, 
 
25 
 
 was not the duty of repenting and believing sin- 
 ners to be baptized. The venerable John, the 
 twelve Apostles, and the Son of God incarnate, 
 all united in commanding baptism, at a time when 
 it would have been impious to have eaten bread, 
 and drank wine, as an ordinance of divine wor- 
 ship. Babtism, therefore, had the priority in 
 point of institution, which is a presumptive evi- 
 dence that it has, and ever will have, a prior claim 
 to our obedience. So under the ancient economy, 
 sacrijices and circumcision were appointed and 
 practised in the patriarchal ages: in the time of 
 Moses, xho; paschal feast^ and burning incenst^wi 
 the holy place, were appointed by the God of Is- 
 rael. But the two former being prior in point of 
 institution, always had the priority in point of 
 administrati v)n.''** 
 
 As this is a leading argument, and will go far 
 towards ieternmingthe point at issue, the read- 
 er w)ll excuse the examination of it being ex- 
 tended to some length. It proceeds obviously 
 entirely on a matter of fit, vhich it assumes as 
 undenable, the priority in point of time oi the 
 institution of christian baptis n, i that of the 
 Lord's supper; and ths again rests on another 
 
 * Booth's Apolog-y, page 41. 
 3 
 
assumption, which is the indentity of John's bap- 
 tism with that of our Lord. If it should clearly 
 appear that these were two distinct institutes, the 
 argument will be reversed, and it will be evi- 
 dent that the eucharist was appointed and cele- 
 brated before christian baptism existed. Let me 
 request the reader not to be startled at the para- 
 doxical air of this asssertion, but to lend an im- 
 partial attention to the following reasons: 
 
 1. The commission to baptize all nations, which 
 was executed by the Apostles after our Saviour's 
 resurrection, originated in his express command; 
 John's baptism, it is evident, had no such origin. 
 John had baptized for some time before he knew 
 him: it is certain then, that he did not receive 
 his commission from him. " And I knew him 
 not," saith he, "but that he should be made man- 
 ifest to Israel, therefore am I come baptizing with 
 water." If the manifesting Christ to Israel was 
 the end and design of John's mission, he must 
 have been in a pievious state of obscurity; not in 
 a situation to act the part of a legislator by en» 
 acting laws or establishing rites. John uniformly 
 ascribes his commission, not to Christ, but the 
 Father, so that to assert his baptism to be a chr'iS' 
 tian institute, is not to interpret, but to contra- 
 dict him. " And I knew him not," is his language. 
 
S7 
 
 " but he that sent me to baptize with water, the 
 same said unto me, Upon whom thou shalt see 
 the Spirit descending and remaining on him, the 
 same is he which baptizeth with the Holy Ghost. 
 And I saw, and bare record, that this is the Son 
 of God." It was not till he had accredited his 
 mission, by many miracles, and other demonstra- 
 tions of a preternatural power and wisdom, that 
 our Lord proceeded to modify religion by new 
 institutions, of which the eucharist is the first 
 example. But a christian ordnance not founded 
 on the authority of Christ, noi the effect, buf the 
 means of his manifestation, which was first exe- 
 cuted by one who knew him not, is to me an in- 
 comprehensible mystery. 
 
 2. The baptism of John was the baptism of 
 repentance^ or reformation, as a preparation for 
 the approaching kingdom of God: the institute 
 of Christ included an explicit profession of faith 
 in a particular person, as the Lord of that king- 
 dom. The ministry of John was the voice of one 
 crying in the wilderness, " Prepare ye the way of 
 the Lord, make his paths strait." All he demand- 
 ed of such as repaired to him, was to declare 
 their conviction that the Messiah was shortly to 
 appear, to repent of their sins, and resolve to 
 frame their lives in a manner agreeable to such 
 
28 
 
 an expectation, without requiring a belief in any 
 existing individual as the Messiah. They were 
 merely to express their readiness to believe on 
 him who was to come^ on the reasonable suppo- 
 sition that his actual appearance would not fail to 
 be accompanied with attestations sufficient to es- 
 tablish his pretensions. The profession required 
 in a candidate for christian baptism, involved an 
 historical faith, a belief in a cerroin individual, 
 an illustrious personage, who had wrought mira- 
 cles, declared himself the Son of God, was cru- 
 cified under Pontius Pilate, and rose again the 
 third day. As the conviction demanded in the 
 two cases was totally distinct^ it was possible 
 for him who sincerely avowed the one, to be 
 destitute of the other; and though the rejection 
 of Christ by John's converts would have been 
 criminal and destructive of salvation, it would 
 not have been self-contradictory, or absurd, since 
 he might sincerely believe on his testimony that 
 the Christ was shortly to appear, and make some 
 preparations for his approach, who was not satis- 
 fied with his character, when he was actually 
 manifested. 
 That such was the real situation of the great 
 
 • Acts xix. 4. 
 
S9 
 
 body of the Jewish people, at our Lord's advent, 
 is evident from the evangelical records. In short, 
 the profession demanded in the baptism of John 
 was nothing more than a solemn recognition of 
 that great article of the Jewish faith, the appear- 
 ance of the Messiah, accompanied indeed with 
 this additional circumstance, that it was nigh at 
 hand. The faith required by the Apostles in- 
 cluded a persuasion of all the miraculous facts 
 which they attested, comprehending the preter- 
 natural conception, the Deity, incarnation and 
 atonement, the miracles, the death, and the re- 
 surrection of the Lord Jesus. In the one was 
 contained a general expectation of the speedy ap- 
 pearance of an illustrious person under the char- 
 acter of the Messiah; in the other, an explicit 
 declaration that Jesus of Nazareth, whose life 
 and death are recorded in the Evangelists, was 
 the identical person. But in order to constitute 
 an identity in religious rites, two things are re- 
 quisite, a sameness in the corporeal action, and a 
 sameness in the import. The action may be the 
 same, yet the rites totally different or christian 
 baptism must be confounded with legal Jewish 
 purifications, the greater part of which consisted 
 in a total immersion of the body in water. The 
 diversity of signification, the distinct uses to 
 3 ^ 
 
30 
 
 which they were applied, constitute their only 
 difference, but quite sufficient to render it absurd 
 to consider them as one and the same. And sure- 
 ly he is guilty of a similar mistake who, misled 
 by the exact resemblance of the actions physical- 
 ly considered, confounds the rite intended to re- 
 nounce the future, though speedy appearance of 
 the Messiah, without defining his person, and the 
 ceremony expressive of a firm belief in an iden- 
 tical person, as already manifested under that il- 
 lustrious character. 
 
 3. Christian baptism was invariably adminis- 
 tered in the name of Jesus; while there was suf- 
 ficient evidence that John's was not performed 
 in that name. That it was not during the first 
 stage of his ministry is certain, because we learn 
 from his own declaration, that when he first ex- 
 ecuted his commission he did not know him, but 
 was previously apprised of a miraculous sign, 
 which should serve to identify him when he ap- 
 peared. In order to obviate the suspicion of col- 
 lusion or conspiracy, circumstances were so ar- 
 ranged that John remained ignorant of the per- 
 son of the Saviour, and possessed, at the com- 
 mencement of his career, that knowledge only 
 of the Messiah, which was common to enlight- 
 ened Jews. If we suppose him at a subsequent 
 
31 
 
 period to have incorporated the name of Jesus 
 with his institute, an alteration so striking would 
 unquestionably have been noticed by the Evan- 
 gelists, as it must have occasioned among the 
 people much speculation and surprise, of which 
 however, no traces are perceptible. Besides, it 
 is impossible to peruse the gospels with atten- 
 tion, without remarking the extreme reserve 
 maintained by our Lord, with respect to his 
 claim to the character of Messiah, that he stu- 
 diously avoided, until his arraignment before the 
 High Priest, the pubUc declaration of that fact; 
 that he wrought his principal miracles in the ob- 
 scure province of Galilee, often accompanied 
 with strict injunctions of secrecy; and that the 
 whole course of his ministry, till its concluding 
 scene, was so conducted, as at once to afford sin- 
 cere inquirers sufficient evidence of his mission, 
 and to elude the malice of his enemies. In de- 
 scending from the mount of transfiguration, where 
 he had been proclaimed the Son of God from 
 the 7nost excellent glo7'y^ he strictly charged the 
 disciples who accompanied him to tell no man of 
 it, till he was raised from the dead. The appel- 
 lation he constantly assumed was that of the Son 
 of Man, which whatever be its precise import, 
 could by no construction become the ground of 
 
3S 
 
 a criminal charge. When at the feast of dedica- 
 tion, " the Jews came around him in the temple, 
 saying, how long dost thou keep us in suspense; 
 if thou be the Christ tell us plainly:*' he replied, 
 '-' I have told you and ye believe not: the works 
 which 1 do in my Father's name they bear wit- 
 ness of me."* From this passage it is evident that 
 our Lord had not hitherto publicly and explicit- 
 ly affirmed himst If to be the Messiah, or there 
 would have been no foundation for the complaint 
 of these Jews; nor does he on this occasion ex- 
 pressly affirm it, but refers them to the testi- 
 mony of his works, without specifying the pre- 
 cise import of that attestation. In the progress 
 of his discourse, however, he advances nearer 
 to an open declaration of his Messiah-ship than 
 on any former occasion, affirming his Father and 
 himself to be one, in consequence of which the 
 people attempt to stone him, as guilty of blasphe- 
 my, in making himself the Son of God, As his 
 time was not yet come, he still maintains a degree 
 of his wonted caution, and vindicates his assump- 
 tion of that honour, upon principles far inferior 
 to what he might justly have urged. Yet such 
 was the effect of this discourse, that in order to 
 
 * John, X. 22. 30. 
 
33 
 
 screen himself from the fury of his enemies, he 
 found it necessary immediately to retire beyond 
 Jordan. In an advanced stage of his ministry, we 
 find him inquiring of his disciples the prevailing 
 opinions entertained respecting himself; on which 
 they reply, "Some say thou art John the Baptist, 
 others Ellas, others Jeremiah, or one of the Pro- 
 phets.*' That he was the Messiah, was not, it is 
 evident, the opinion generally entertained at that 
 time, bv such as were most favourably disposed 
 towards his character and pretensions, which it 
 could not fail to have been, had this title been 
 publicly proclaimed; but this was so far from his 
 intention, that when Peter, in the name of the 
 rest of the Apostles, uttered that glorious con- 
 fession, "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the 
 living God;" our Lord immediately enjoins se- 
 crecy. What he enjoined his disciples not to pub- 
 lish, he certainly did not publish himself, nor for 
 the same reason suffer it to be indiscriminately 
 proclaimed by his forerunner. But if we suppose 
 John to baptize in his name, we must suppose 
 what is equivalent to an explicit declaration of 
 his being the Messiah; for since he on all occa- 
 sions predicted the speedy appearance of that 
 great personage, the people could not fail to iden- 
 tify with him, the individual whose name was 
 
34 
 
 thus employed, and all the precautions maintain- 
 ed by our Saviour would have been utterly de- 
 feated. For what possible purpose could he for- 
 bid his disciples to publish, what John is sup- 
 posed to have promulgated as often as he admin- 
 istered the babtismal rite? and how shall we ac- 
 count on this hypothesis for the diversity of 
 opinion v/hich prevailed respecting his character, 
 among those who were thoroughly convinced of 
 the Divine mission of that great Prophet? From 
 these considerations, in addition to the total si- 
 lence of scripture, the judicious reader, I pre- 
 sume, will conclude without hesitation that John 
 did not baptize in the name of Jesus, which is 
 an essential ingredient in christian baptism; and 
 though it is administered, in fact in the name of 
 each person of the blessed Godhead, not in that 
 of the Son only, this instead of impairing, 
 strengthens the argument, by enlarging still far- 
 ther the difference betwixt the two ordinances in 
 question; for none will contend that John im- 
 mersed his disciples in the name of the Holy 
 Trinity. 
 
 4. The baptism instituted by our Lord, is in 
 scripture distinguished from that of the forerun- 
 ner by the superior effects with which it was ac- 
 companied; so that instead of being confounded, 
 
35 
 
 they are contrasted in the sacred historians. " I 
 indeed," said John, " baptize you with water un- 
 to repentance, but there cometh one after me who 
 is mightier than I — he shall baptize you in the 
 Holy Ghost and in fire." The rite administered 
 by John was a mere immersion in water, unac- 
 companied with that effusion of the Spirit, that 
 redundant supply of supernatural gifts and graces 
 which distinguished the subjects of the christian 
 institute. On the passage just quoted, St. Chry- 
 sostom has the following comment: — "Having 
 agitated their minds with the fear of future judg- 
 ment, and the expectation of punishment, and 
 the mention of the axe, and the rejection of their 
 ancestors, and the substitution of a new race, to- 
 gether with the double menace of excision and 
 burning, and by all these means softened their 
 obduracy, and disposed them to a desire of de- 
 liverance from these evils, he then introduces 
 the mention of Christ, not in a simple manner, 
 but with much elevation; in exhibiting his own 
 disparity, lest he should appear to be using the 
 language of complimen;, he commences by stat- 
 ing a comparison betwixt the benefit bctowed by 
 each. For he did not immediately say, I am not 
 worthy to unloose the latchet of his shoes, but 
 having first stated the insignificance of his own 
 
36 
 
 baptism, and shewn that it had no effect beyond 
 bringing them to repentance, (for he did not 
 style it the water of remission, but of repentance), 
 he proceeds to the baptism ordained by Christ, 
 which was replete with an ineffable gift^^ This 
 eminent Father, we perceive, insists on the pro- 
 digious inferiority of the ceremony performed 
 by John to the christian sacrament, from its be- 
 ing a symbol of repentance, without comprehend- 
 ing the remission of sins,f orthe donation of the 
 Spirit. The Evangelists, Mark and Luke, it is 
 true, affirm that John preached the baptism of 
 repentancey^r the remission of sins, whence we 
 are entitled to infer that the rite which he ad- 
 ministered, when accompanied with suitable dis- 
 positions, was important in the order of prepa- 
 ration, not that it was accompanied with the im- 
 mediate or actual collation of that benefit. 
 
 Such as repented at his call, stood fair candi- 
 dates for the blessings of the approaching dispen- 
 sation, among which an assurance of pardon, the 
 adoption of children, and the gift of the Spirit, 
 held the most conspicuous place; blessings pi 
 which it was the office of John to excite the ex- 
 pectation, '■y.-X of Christ to bestow. The effusion 
 of the Spirit, indeed, in the multifarious forms 
 
 • Homily xi. on Matthew, f Mark i. 4. Luke \\u 3. 
 
37 
 
 of his miraculous and sanctifying operation, may 
 be considered as equivalent to them all; and 
 this we are distinctly told, was not given (save in a 
 very scanty manner) during our Lord's abode upon 
 earth, because he was not yet glorified. Reserved 
 to adorn the triumph of the ascended Saviour, 
 the Apostles were commanded to wait at Jerusa- 
 lem until it was bestowed, which was on the day 
 of Pentecost, when '' a sound from heaven as of 
 a mighty wind, filled the place where they were 
 assembled, and cloven tongues of fire sat upon 
 each of them, and they were filled with the Holy 
 Ghost." This was the first example of that bap- 
 tism of the Spirit, as the author of which, John 
 asserts the immense superiority of the Messiah, 
 not to himself only, but to all preceding prophets. 
 In the subsequent history, we perceive that this 
 gift was, on all ordinary occasions, conferred in 
 connection with baptism. In this connection, it is 
 exhibited by St. Peter in his address on the day 
 of Pentecost: — "Repent and be baptized, every 
 one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, for the 
 remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of 
 the Holy Ghost." 
 
 Thus it was also in the case of Saul of Tarsus. 
 Agreeable to our Lord's prediction of the signs 
 which should accompany them that believe, there 
 4 
 
 # 
 
38 
 
 is reason to suppose a greater or less measure of 
 these supernatural endowments, regularly accom- 
 panied the imposition of the hands of the Apos- 
 tles on primitive converts, immediately subsequent 
 to their baptism; which affords an easy solution to 
 the surprise Paul appears to have felt, in finding 
 certain disciples at Ephesus, who though they had 
 been baptized, were yet unacquainted with these 
 communications. " Into what then," he asks, 
 " were ye baptized?" and upon being informed 
 " into John's baptism," the difficulty vanished. 
 
 Since the baptism of the Holy Ghost, or the 
 copious effusion of spiritual influences, in which 
 primitive Christians were, so to speak, immersed, 
 was appointed to follow the sacramental use of 
 water, under the christian economy, while the 
 same corporeal action performed by John w^as 
 a naked ceremony, not accompanied by any such 
 effects, this difference betwixt them is sufficient 
 to account for their being contrasted in scripture, 
 and ought ever to have prevented their being 
 confounded, as one and the same institute. 
 
 5. The case of the disciples at Ephesus, to 
 which we have just adverted, affords, a demon- 
 strative proof of the position for which we are 
 contending; for if John*s baptism was the same 
 with our Lord's, upon w^hat principle could Saint 
 
39 
 
 Paul proceed in administering the latter to such 
 as had already received the former. As I am 
 aware that some have attempted to deny so plain 
 a fact, I shall beg leave to quote the whole passage, 
 which, I am persuaded, will leave no doubt on the 
 mind of the impartial reader: — " It came to pass 
 while Apollos was at Corinth, Paul passing- 
 through the upper coasts, came to Ephesus, and 
 finding certain disciples, said unto them. Have ye 
 received the Holy Ghost since ye believed? but 
 they replied we have not even heard that there is 
 an Holy Ghost. He said unto them, into what 
 then were ye baptized? they said into John's bap- 
 tism. Paul replied, John indeed baptized with the 
 baptism of repentance, saying unto the people, 
 that they should believe on him who was to come, 
 that is on Jesus Christ. And when they heard 
 this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord 
 Jesus; and when Paul had laid his hands upon 
 them- the Holy Ghost came upon them, and they 
 spake with tongues and prophesied.'' I am con- 
 scious that there are not wanting some who pretend 
 that the fifth verse* is to be interpreted as the lan- 
 guage of St. Paul, affirming that at the command 
 
 *"When they heard this, they were haptiijed in the 
 name of the Lord Jesus." — ^icts xix. J. 
 
40 
 
 of John, the people were baptized in the name of 
 Jesus. But not to repeat what has already been ad- 
 vanced to shew that is contrary to fact (for who, 
 I might ask, were the people, who at his instiga- 
 tion were baptized in that name, or what traces 
 are in the evangelical history of such a practice, 
 during the period of his ministry?) not to insist 
 further on this, it is obvious that this interpreta- 
 tion of the passage contradicts itself; for if John 
 told the people that they were to believe on him 
 who was to come, this was equivalent to declar- 
 ing that he had not yet manifested himself; while 
 the baptizing in his name as an existing individu- 
 al, would have been to affirm the contrary. Be- 
 sides we must remark, that the persons on whom 
 St. Paul is asserted to have laid his hands were 
 unquestionably the identical persons who are af- 
 firmed in the preceding verse to have been bap- 
 tized; for there is no other antecedent, so that if 
 the meaning of the passage be what some contend 
 for, the sacred historian must be supposed to as- 
 sert that he laid his hands, not on the twelve dis- 
 ciples at Ephesus,but on John's converts in gene- 
 ral, that the Holy Ghost came upon them, and 
 that they spake with tongues and prophesied, 
 which is ineffably absurd. 
 
 Either this must be supposed or the words 
 
41 
 
 w hich in their original structure are most closely 
 combined, must be conceived to consist of two 
 parts, the first relating to John's converts in ge- 
 neral, the second to the twelve disciples at Ephe- 
 sus; and the relative pronoun expressive of the 
 latter description of persons, instead of being con- 
 joined to the preceding clause, must be referred 
 to an antecedent, removed at the distance of three 
 verses. In the whole compass of theological con- 
 troversy, it would be difficult to assign a stronger 
 instance of the force of prejudice in obscuring a 
 plain matter of fact; nor is it easy to conjecture 
 what could be the temptation to do such violence 
 to the language of scripture, and to every prin- 
 ciple of sober criticism, unless it were the horror 
 which certain divines have conceived, against ev- 
 ery thing which bore the shadow of countenancing 
 anabaptistical error. The ancient commentators 
 appear to have felt no such apprehensions, but to 
 have followed without scruple the natural import 
 of the passage.* 
 
 * The intelligent reader will not be displeased to see the 
 opinion of St. Austin on this point. It is almost unnecessary 
 to say that it is decisively in our favour; nor does it appear 
 that any of the Fathers entertained a doubt on the subject. 
 In consulting- the opinion of those who contended that such 
 as were reclaimed from heresy ought to be rebaptized, he 
 
 A ^i^ 
 
 4 i* 
 
4^ 
 
 6. Independently of this decisive fact, whoever 
 considers the extreme popularity of John, and the 
 multitude of all descriptions who flocked to his 
 
 represents them as arguing, that if the converts of John 
 required to be rebaptized, much more tliose who jwere 
 converted from heresy. Since they who had the baptism of 
 John were commanded by Paul to be baptized, not having 
 the baptism of Chi'ist, why do you extol the merit of John, 
 and reprobate the misery of heretics. " I concede to you," 
 Bays St. Austin, " the misery of heretics: but heretics give 
 the baptism of Christ, which John did not give." 
 
 The comment of Chrysostom, on the passage under con- 
 sideration, is equally decisive. "He (Paul) did not say to 
 them that the baptism of John was nothing, but that it was 
 incomplete; nor does he say this simply, or without having 
 a further purpose in view, but that he might teach and per- 
 suade them to be baptized in the name of Jesus, which they 
 were, and received the Holy Ghost, by the laying on of 
 Paul's hands." In the course of his exposition, he solves 
 the difficulty attending the supposition of disciples at Eplie- 
 sus, a place so remote from Judxa, having received bap- 
 tism from John. " Perhaps," says he, "they were then on a 
 journey, and went out, and were baptized." But even wlien 
 they were baptized, they knew not Jesus. Nor does he ask 
 them, do ye believe on Jesus, but have ye received the Holy 
 Ghost? He knew that they had not received it, but is de- 
 sirous of speaking to them, that on learning that they were 
 destitute of it, they might be induced to seek it. A little 
 afterwards he adds, " Well did he (Paul) denominate the 
 baptism of John, the baptism of repentance, and not of re- 
 nussion; instructing and persuading them that it v,'as desti- 
 
43 
 
 baptism, will find it difficult to believe, that there 
 were not many in the same situation with these 
 twelve disciples. The annunciation of the speedy 
 appearance of their Messiah was the most wel* 
 come of all intelligence to the Jewish people, and 
 did not fail for a time to produce prodigious effects. 
 The reader is requested to notice the terms em- 
 ployed to describe the effects of John's ministry, 
 and compare them with the language of the his- 
 torian, in depicting the most prosperous state of 
 the church. " Then went out to him Jerusalem, 
 and all Judaea, and all the coast around about Jor- 
 dan, and were baptized in Jordan, confessing their 
 sins." Where is such language employed to re- 
 present the success of the Apostles? Their con- 
 
 lute of that advantage: but the effect of that which was 
 g'iven afterwards, was remission." — Homily in loco, Vol. 4. 
 Eton<E. — I am aware that very learned men have doubted 
 the authenticity of Chrysostom's Commentary on the Acts, 
 on account of the supposed inferiority of it to his other ex- 
 pository works. But without having recourse to so violent 
 a supposition, its inferiority, should it be admitted, may be 
 easily accounted for by the negligence, igi\orance, or inat- 
 tention of his amanuensis; supposing (which is not impro- 
 bable) that his discourses were taken from his lips. From 
 t!ie time he was sixty years of age, he permitted his dis- 
 courses to be taken down in short-h and, just as he delivered 
 'hem. — Eiiseb. Lib. 6, c. 26. 
 
44 
 
 veits are 7iumencally stated, and at some distance 
 from our Lord's ascension, 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 scribes and pharisees, those determined 
 enemies to the gospel, dared not avow their dis- 
 belief of his mission, because all the people con- 
 sidered him as a prophet. The historian Josephus, 
 who is generally supposed by the learned to have 
 made no mention of our Saviour, bears decisive 
 testimony to his merits, and imputes the misfor- 
 tunes of Herod to the guilt he contracted by put- 
 ting him to death.^ 
 
 From these considerations, I infer, that if we 
 suppose the converts made by the Apostles to 
 have been universally baptized, on their admis- 
 sion into the church, (a fact not doubted by our 
 opponents,) multitudes of them must have been 
 in the same situation with the disciples at Ephe- 
 sus. How is it possible it should have been other- 
 wise? When the number of his converts were so 
 
 * Antiq. Jud. Lib. 8, Colon. 1691. 
 
45 
 
 prodigious, when the submission to his institute 
 appears to have been 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 moment, that some at least of the multitudes 
 who were converted on or after the day of Pen- 
 tecost, consisted of such as had previously sub- 
 mitted to the batism 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 persons. Amongst the converts on the 
 day of Pentecost, and at subsequent periods, there 
 must have been no inconsiderable number who 
 had for a time been sufficiently awakened by the 
 ministry of John to comply with this ordinance; 
 yet it is evident from the narrative in the Acts, 
 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. That 
 such a description of persons should need to be 
 converted by the Apostles, will easily be con- 
 ceived, if we allow ourselves to reflect on the cir- 
 cumstances of the times. " He v/as a burning and 
 a shining light," said our Lord, speaking of his 
 
46 
 
 forerunner, " and ye were willing for a time to re« 
 rejoice in his light." This implies that their at- 
 tachment was transient, their repentance superfi- 
 cial, and that the greater part of such as appeared 
 for awhile most determined to press into the 
 kingdom of God, afterwards sunk into a state of 
 apathy. The singular spectacle of a prophet aris- 
 ing, after a long cessation of prophetical gifts, his 
 severe sanctity, his bold and alarming address, 
 coinciding with the general expectation of the 
 Messiah, made a powerful impression on the spi- 
 rits of men, and disposed them to pay a profound 
 attention to his ministry; and from their attach- 
 ment to every thing ritual and ceremonial, they 
 would feel no hesitation in submitting to the ce- 
 remony he enjoined. But when the kingdom 
 which they eagerly anticipated, appeared to be al- 
 together of a spiritual nature, divested of secular 
 pomp and grandeur, when the sublimer mysteries 
 of the gospel began to be unfolded, and the neces- 
 sity inculcated of eating the flesh, and drinking 
 the blood, of the Son of Man, the people were 
 offended, and even of the professed disciples of 
 our Lord, many walked no more with him. A 
 general declension succeeded; so that of the mul- 
 titudes, who once appeared to be much moved by 
 his ministry, and that of his forerunner, the num- 
 
47 
 
 ber which persevered was so inconsiderable, that 
 all that could be mustered to witness his resur- 
 rection amounted to little more than five hun- 
 dred,* a number which may be considered as 
 constituting the whole body of the church, till 
 the day of Pentecost. 
 
 The parable of the house forsaken for a time by 
 an evil spirit, swept and garnished, to which he 
 returned with seven more wicked than himself, 
 it is generally admitted, was designed to repre- 
 sent this temporary reformation of the Jewish na- 
 tion, together with its subsequent apostacy. The 
 day of Pentecost changed the scene, the power of 
 the ascended Saviour began to be developed; and 
 three thousand were converted at one time. Nor 
 did it cease here; for soon after, we are informed 
 of a great multitude of priests who became obe- 
 dient to the faith; and at a subsequent period St. 
 James reminds the Apostle of the Gentiles of 
 many myriads of converted Jews, all zealous for 
 the law. 
 
 Let me ask again, is it possible to suppose that 
 none of these myriads consisted of such as had 
 been baptized by John? Were they all, without ex- 
 ception, of that impious class which uniformly 
 
 * I. Corinthians, xv. 6. 
 
48 
 
 held his mission in contempt? It is impossible to 
 suppose it; it is contradicted by the express testi- 
 mony of scripture, which afnrms two of the Apos- 
 tles to have been his disciples and companions.* 
 But if such as professed their faith in Christ, un- 
 der the ministry of the Apostles, were baptized 
 on that profession, without any consideration of 
 their having been previously immersed by John, 
 or not, what stronger proof can be desired, that 
 the institutes in question were totally distinct. 
 Were we satisfied with an argumentum ad homi- 
 nem^ with the sort of proof sufficient to silence 
 our opponents, here the matter might safely rest. 
 But independent of their concession, I must add 
 that it is manifest from the whole tenor of the 
 Acts, that the baptismal rite was universally ad- 
 ministered to the converts to Christianity subse- 
 quent to the day of Pentecost. Peter said unto 
 them, " Repent and be baptized every one of you:" 
 it is added almost immediately, " Then they that 
 gladly received his words were baptized." 
 
 It will possibly be asked, if the rite which the 
 forerunner of our Lord administered is not to be 
 considered as a christian institute, to what dispen- 
 sation are we to assign it, since it is manifestly 
 
 * John i. o5i Z^i 37. 
 
49 
 
 no part of the economy of Moses. We reply, that 
 it was a symbol of a peculiar dispensation, which 
 was neither entirely legal or evangelical, but oc- 
 cupied an intermediate station, possessing some- 
 thing of the character and attributes of both; a 
 kind of twilight, equally removed from the obscu- 
 rity of the first, and the splendour of the last and 
 perfect economy of religion. The law and the pro- 
 phets were till John; his mission constituted a 
 distinct era, and placed the nation to which he was 
 sent, in circumstances materially different from 
 their preceding or subsequent state. It was the 
 era of preparation; it was a voice which, break- 
 ing through a long silence, announced the imme- 
 diate approach of the desire of all nations^ the 
 messenger of the covenant^ in whom they delighted. 
 In announcing this event as at hand, and estab- 
 lishing a right unknown to the law, expressive of 
 that purity of heart, and reformation of life, 
 which were the only suitable preparations for his 
 reception, he stood alone, equally severed from the 
 choir of the prophets, and the company of the 
 Apostles; and the light which he emitted, though 
 it greatly surpassed every preceding illumination, 
 was of short duration, being soon eclipst-d and 
 extinguished by that ineffable effulgence, before 
 which nothing can retain its splendour, 
 5 
 
50 
 
 The wisdom of God in the arrangement of suc- 
 cessive dispensations, seems averse to sudden and 
 violent innovations, rarely introducing new rites, 
 v/ithout incorporating something of the old. As 
 by the introduction of the Mosaic, the simple 
 ritual of the patriarchal dispensation was not so 
 properly abolished, as amplified and extended into 
 a regular system of prefigurations of good things 
 to come^ in which the worship by sacrifices, and 
 the distinction of animals into clean and unclean, 
 re-appeared under a new form; so the era of im- 
 mediate preparation was distinguished by a cere- 
 mony not entirely new, but derived from the pu- 
 rifications of the law, applied to a special pur- 
 pose."* Our Lord incorporated the same rite into 
 his religion, newly modified, and adapted to the 
 peculiar views and objects of the christian econo- 
 my, in conjunction with another positive institu- 
 tion, the rudiments of which are perceptible in the 
 passover. It seemed suitable to his wisdom, by 
 such gentle gradations to conduct his church from 
 an infantine state, to a state of maturity and per- 
 fection. 
 
 Before I dismiss this part of the subject, which 
 
 * The principal part of these consisted in bathing the 
 body in water. 
 
51 
 
 has perhaps already detained the reader too 
 long, I must beg leave to hazard one conjecture. 
 Since it is manifest that the baptism of John did 
 not supersede the christian ordinance, they being 
 perfectly distinct, it is natural to inquire who bap- 
 tized the Apostles, and the hundred and twenty 
 disciples assembled with them at the day of Pen- 
 tecost. My deliberate opinion is, that in the chris- 
 tian sense of the term, they were not baptized at 
 all. From the total silence of scripture, and from 
 other circumstances which might be adduced, it is 
 difficult to suppose they submitted to that rite after 
 our Saviour's resurrection; and previous to it, it 
 has been sufficiently proved that it was not in 
 force. It is almost certain that some, probably 
 most of them, had been baptized by John, but for 
 reasons which have been already amplv assigned 
 this will not account for their not submitting to 
 the christian ordinance. The true account seems 
 to be, that the precept of baptism had no retroS' 
 pecthe bearing; and that, consequently, its obli- 
 gation extended only to such as were converted 
 to Christianity subsequently to the time of its pro- 
 mulgation. Such as had professed their faith in 
 Christ from the period of his first manifestation, 
 could not, without palpable incongruity, recom- 
 mence that profession, which would have been to 
 
52 
 
 cancel and annul their former religious preten- 
 sions. With what propriety could the Apostles 
 of the Lord, zv/io had continued with him in his 
 temptations^ place themselves on a level with that 
 multitude, which however penitent at present, 
 had recently demanded his blood with clamorous 
 importunity? not to insist that they had already 
 received the baptism of the Holy Ghost, of which 
 the sacramental use of v/ater was but a figure. 
 They were not converted to the christian religion 
 subsequently to their Lord's resurrection, nor did 
 the avowal of their attachment to the Messiah, 
 commence from that period, and therefore they 
 were not comprehended under the baptismal law, 
 which was propounded for the regulation of the 
 conduct of persons in essentially different circum- 
 stances. When St. Paul says, as many of us as 
 were baptized into Christ have put on Christ, his 
 language seems to intimate that there were a 
 class of Christians, to whom this argument did 
 not apply .^ 
 
 Having proved, I trust to the satisfaction of 
 the candid reader, that baptism, considered as a 
 christian institution, had no existence during the 
 personal ministry of our Saviour, the plea of our 
 
 * Romans vi. 3. 
 
53 
 
 opponents, founded on the supposed priority of 
 that ordinance to the Lord's supper, is complete- 
 ly overruled; whatever weight it might possess, 
 supposing it were valid, must be wholly trans- 
 ferred to the opposite side, and it must be ac- 
 knowledged, either that they have reasoned in- 
 conclusively, or have produced a demonstration 
 in our favour. It now appears that the original 
 communicants at the Lord's table, at the time they 
 partook of it, were with respect to the christian 
 baptism, precisely in the same situation with the 
 persons they exclude. 
 
 SECTION II. 
 
 The argument for strict communion^ from the or- 
 der of words in the apostolic commission consi- 
 dered. 
 
 The commission which the Apostles received 
 after our Lord's resurrection, was in the follow- 
 ing words: — " All power is given to me in hea- 
 ven and on earth. Go ye, therefore, and teach all 
 nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, 
 of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost; teaching them 
 to observe whatsoever I have commanded you.'* 
 5* 
 
54^ 
 
 From baptism being mentioned first after teach- 
 ing, it is urged that it ought invariably to be ad- 
 ministered immediately after effectual instruction 
 is imparted, and consequently before an approach 
 to the Lord's table. Whence it is concluded that 
 to communicate with such as are unbaptized, is a 
 violation of divine order.* 
 
 * *' Teach," says Mr. Booth, " is the hig-h commission, 
 and such the express command of him who is Lord of all^ 
 when addressing- those who are called to preach his word, 
 and administer his institutions. Hence it is manifest the 
 commission and command are first of all to teach; what 
 then? — to baptize, or to administer the Lord's supper? I 
 leave common sense to judge, and being* persuaded that she 
 will give her verdict in my favour, I will venture to add, a 
 limited commission implies a prohibition of such things as 
 are not contained in it; and positive laws imply their nega- 
 tive. 
 
 For instance, when God commanded Abraham to circum- 
 cise all his males, he readily concluded that neither cir- 
 cumcision, nor any rite of a similar nature, was to be ad- 
 ministered to his females. And as our brethren themselves 
 maintain, when Christ commanded believers should be bap- 
 tized, without mentioning any others, he tacitly prohibited 
 that ordinance from being administered to infants,- so by 
 parity of reason, if the same sovereign Lord commanded 
 that believers should be baptized — baptized immediately af- 
 ter they made a profession of faith, then he must intend 
 that the administration of baptism should be prior to a re- 
 ception of the Lord's supper, and, consequently, tacitly 
 
55 
 
 It may assist the reader to form a judgment of 
 the force of the argument adduced on this occa- 
 sion, if we reduce it to the following syllogism: — 
 
 The persons who are to be taught to observe 
 all things given in charge to the Apostle, are the 
 baptized alone. 
 
 But the Lord's supper is one of these things. 
 
 Therefore the ordinance of the Lord's supper 
 ought to be enjoined on the baptized alone. 
 
 Here it is obvious that the conclusion rests en- 
 tirely upon this principle, that nothing which the 
 Apostles were commissioned to enjoin on be- 
 lievers, is to be recommended to the attention of 
 persons not baptized; since, as far as this argu- 
 ment is concerned, the observation of the Lord's 
 supper is supposed not to belong to them, merely 
 because it forms a part of those precepts. It is 
 obvious, if the reasoning of our opponents be va- 
 lid, it militates irresistibly against the inculcatioa 
 of every branch of christian duty, on persons who 
 in their judgment have not partaken of the bap- 
 tismal sacrament: it excludes them not merely 
 from the Lord's supper, but from every species 
 of instruction appropriate to Christians; nor can 
 
 prohibits every unbaptized person having- communion at his 
 table." — Booth's Apology, page 34. 
 
56 
 
 they exhort Psedobaptists to walk worthy of their 
 high calling, to adorn their christian profession, 
 to cultivate brotherly love, or to the performance 
 of any duty resulting from their actual relation to 
 Christ, without a palpable violation of their own 
 principles. In all such instances, they would be 
 teaching them to observe injunctions which Christ 
 gave in charge to the Apostles for the regulation 
 of christian conduct, while they deem it neces- 
 sary to repel them from the sacrament, merely on 
 account of its forming a part of those injunctions. 
 Nor can they avoid the force of this reasoning, 
 by objecting that though it may be their duty to 
 enjoin on unbaptized believers some parts of the 
 mind of Christ respecting the conduct of his 
 mystical members, it will not follow that they are 
 to be admitted to the Lord's table; and that their 
 meaning is, that it is only subsequently to bap- 
 tism, that all things ought to be enforced on the 
 consciences of Christians. For if it be once ad- 
 mitted that the clause on which so much stress is 
 laid, is not to be interpreted so as absolutely to 
 exclude unbaptized Christians from the whole of 
 its import, to what purpose is it alleged against 
 their admission to the eucharist? or how does it 
 appear that this may not be one of the parts in 
 which they are comprehended? 
 
57 
 
 When the advocates for strict communion re- 
 mind us of the order in which the two positive 
 institutions of Christianity are enjoined, they ap- 
 pear to assume it for granted that we are desirous 
 of inverting that order, and that we are contend- 
 ing for the celebration of the eucharist previous 
 to baptism, in the case of a clear comprehension 
 of the nature and obligation of each. We plead 
 for nothing of the kind. Supposing a convert to 
 Christianity convinced of the ordinance of bap- 
 tism, in the light in which we contemplate it, we 
 should urge his obligation to comply with it, pre- 
 vious to his reception of the sacrament, with as 
 little hesitation as the most rigid of our opponents; 
 nor should we be more disposed than themselves 
 to countenance a neglect of known duty, or a 
 wanton inversion of the order of christian ap- 
 pointments. Whether in such circumstances the 
 attention of a candidate for christian communion 
 should first be directed to baptism, is not the 
 question at issue; but what conduct ought to be 
 maintained towards sincere Christians, who after 
 serious examination profess their conviction of 
 being baptized already, or who in any manner 
 whatever, are withheld by motives purely consci- 
 entious, from complying with what we conceive 
 to be a christian ordinance. To justify the ex- 
 
58 
 
 elusion of such from the Lord's table, it is not 
 sufficient to allege the proscribed order of the in- 
 stitutions; it is necessary also to evince such a 
 dependence of one upon the other, that a neglect 
 of the first from involuntary mistake, annuls the 
 obligation of the second. Let this dependence 
 be once clearly pointed out, and we give up the 
 cause. It has been asserted, indeed, with much 
 confidence, that we have the same authority for 
 confining our communion to baptized persons, as 
 the ancient Jews for admitting none but such as 
 had been circumcised, to the passover: a simple 
 recital, however, of the words of the law, with 
 respect to that ancient rite, will be sufficient to 
 demonstrate the contrary: " When a stranger 
 shall sojourn with thee, and will keep his pass- 
 over to the Lord, let all his males be circumcised, 
 and then let him come and keep it, and he shall 
 be as one that is born in the land; for no uncir' 
 cumcised person shall eat thereof" But where, 
 let me ask, is it asserted in the New Testament 
 that no unbaptized person shall partake of the eu- 
 charist?* So far from this, it has been, I trust, 
 
 * " Was it the duty, think you, of an ancient Israelite to 
 worship at the sanctuary, or to partake of the paschal feast, 
 before he was circumcised? Or was it the duty of the Jewish 
 priests to burn incense in the holy place, before they offer- 
 
59 
 
 satisfactorily shewn that of the original commu- 
 nicants at its first institution, not one was thus 
 qualified. 
 
 I presume it will be acknowledged that the 
 Jewish law was so clear and express in insisting 
 on circumcision as a necessary preparation for 
 partaking of the paschal lamb that none could 
 mistake it, or approach that feast in an uncircum- 
 cised state, wjthout being guilty of wilful impiety; 
 and if it is intended to insinuate the same charge 
 against Psedobaptists, let it be alleged without 
 disguise, that it may be fairly met and refuted. 
 But if it be acknowledged that nothing but such 
 involuntary mistakes, such unintentional errors 
 as are incident to some of the wisest and best of 
 men, are imputable in the present instance, we 
 are at a loss to conceive upon what principle they 
 are compared to wilful prevarication and rebel- 
 lion. The degree of blame which attaches to the 
 conduct of those who mistake the will of Christ 
 with respect to the sacramental use of water, we 
 shall not pretend to determine; but we feel no he- 
 sitation in affirming, that the practice of compar- 
 ing it to a presumptuous violation and contempt 
 
 ed the morning or evening service? The appointments of 
 God must be administered in his own way, and in that or- 
 der which he has fixed."— jBoo^A's apology ^ page 143. 
 
60 
 
 of divine law, is equally repugnant to the dictates 
 of propriety and of candour. Among the innu- 
 merable descendants of Abraham, it is impossi- 
 ble to find one since their departure from Egypt, 
 who has doubted of the obligation of circumci- 
 sion, of the proper subjects of that rite, or of its 
 being an indispensable prerequisite to the privi- 
 leges of the Mosaic covenant. Among Chris- 
 tians, on the contrary, of unexceptionable charac- 
 ter and exalted piety, it cannot be denied that the 
 subject, the mode, and the perpetuity of baptism, 
 have each supplied occasion for controversy; 
 which can only be ascribed to the minute parti- 
 cularitv with which the ceremonies of the law 
 were enjoined, compared to the concise brevity 
 which characterises the history of evangelical in- 
 stitutes. We are far, however, from insinuating 
 a doubt on the obligation of believers to submit to 
 the ordinance of baptism, or of its bf ing exclu- 
 sively appropriated to such; but we affirm that in 
 no part of scripture is it inculcated as a prepara- 
 tive to the hordes supper^ and that this view of it 
 is a mere fiction of the imagination. 
 
 When duties are enjoined in a certain series, 
 each of them on the authority in which they ori- 
 ginate becomes obligatory; nor are we excused 
 from performing those which stand later in the 
 
61 
 
 series, on account of our having from misconcep- 
 tion of their meaning, or from any other cause, 
 omitted the first. To exemplify this by a familiar 
 instance: It will be admitted that the law of na- 
 ture enforces the following duties, resulting from 
 the relation of children to their parents: first to 
 yield impUcit obedience in the state of nonage: 
 next, in maturer age to pay respectful deference 
 to their advice, and a prompt attention to their 
 wants; lastly, after they are deceased, affection- 
 ately to cherish their memory, and defend their 
 good name. None will deny that each of these 
 branches of conduct is obligatory, and that this is 
 the order in which they are recommended to 
 our attention. But will it be contended that he who 
 has neglected the first, ought not to perform the 
 second; or that he who has failed in the second, 
 ought to omit the third? To such an absurd pre- 
 tence we should immediately reply that they are 
 all independently obligatory, as respective dic- 
 tates of the divine will; and that for tiim who has 
 violated one of them to urge his past delinquen- 
 cies as an apology for the present, would only 
 prove an aggravation of his guilt. It is true that 
 son.e dutits are so situated, as parts or appenda- 
 ges of preceding ones, that their obligation may 
 be said to result from them; as for example, the 
 6 
 
63 
 
 duty of confessing Christ before men arises from 
 the previous duty of believing on him, and that 
 of joining a christian society, presupposes the 
 obligation of becoming a Christian. In such cases, 
 however, as the connection betwixt the respec- 
 tive branches of practice is founded on the nature 
 of things, it is easily perceived, and rarely, if 
 ever, the subject of controversy. In a series of 
 positive precepts, this principle has no place; as 
 ihey originate merely in arbitrary appointment, 
 their mutual relation can only be the result of 
 clear and express command, and as reason could 
 never have discovered their obligation, so it is as 
 little able to ascertain their intrinsic connection 
 and dependence, which wherever it subsists, must 
 be the effect of the same positive prescription 
 which gave them birth. It cannot be pretended 
 that an unbaptized believer is intrinsically dis- 
 qualified for a suitable attendance at the Lord's 
 table, or that it is so essentially connected with 
 baptism, as to render the act of communion, in 
 itself, absurd or improper. The communion has 
 no retrospective reference to baptism, nor is bap- 
 tism an anticipation of communion. Enjoined at 
 different times, and appointed for different pur- 
 poses, they are capable, without the least incon- 
 venience, of being contemplated apart; and on no 
 
63 
 
 occasion, are they mentioned in such a connec- 
 tion, as to imply, much less to assert, that the one 
 is enjoined with a view to the other. Such a con- 
 nection, we acknowledge, subsisted betwixt the 
 rites of circumcision and the passover; and all we 
 demand of the advocates of strict communion is, 
 that instead of amusing us with fanciful analogies 
 drawn from an antiquated law, they would point 
 us to some clause in the New Testament which 
 asserts a similar relation betwixt baptism and the 
 Lord's supper. But here, where the very hinge 
 of the controversy turns, the scriptures are silent. 
 They direct us to be baptized, and they direct us 
 to commemorate the Saviours death, but not a 
 syllable do they utter to inform us of the insepa- 
 rable connection betwixt these two ordinances. 
 This deficiency is ill supplied by fervid declama- 
 tion on the perspicuity of our Lord's commission, 
 and the inexcusable inattention or prejudice which 
 has led to a misconception of its meaning; for let 
 the persons whom these charges may concern be 
 as guilty as they may, since they are still acknow- 
 ledged to be christians, the question returns, why 
 are they debarred from the communion of saints, 
 and while entitled to all other spiritual privileges, 
 supposed to be incapacitated from partaking of 
 the symbols of a crucified Saviour? How came 
 
64 
 
 the deteriorating effects of their error respecting 
 baptism, to affect them but in one point, that of 
 their eligibility as candidates for communion, 
 without spreading farther? That it just amounts 
 to a forfeiture of this privilege, and of no other, 
 is a conclusion to which, as it is certain it cannot 
 be established by reason, we ask to be conducted 
 by revelation; and we intreat our opponents for 
 information on that head again and again, but in- 
 treat in vain. 
 
 Were we to judge from the ardent attachment 
 which the abetters of strict communion, on all oc- 
 casions, profess to the positive institutes of the 
 gospel, we should suppose that the object of their 
 efforts was to raise them to their just estimation, 
 and to rescue them from desuetude and neglect. 
 We should conjecture that they arose from a so- 
 licitude to revive certain practices which had pre- 
 vailed in the purest ages of the church, but were 
 afterwards laid aside, just as the ordinance of 
 preaching was, during the triumph of the papacy, 
 almost consigned to oblivion; and that the conse- 
 quence of complying with their suggestions, would 
 be a more complete exhibition of Christianity in 
 all its parts. But their zeal operates in quite a 
 contrary direction. The success of their scheme 
 tends not to extend the practice of baptism, no, 
 
65 
 
 not in a single instance, but merely to exclude 
 the Lord's supper. Leaving the former appoint- 
 ment unaltered and untouched, it merely pro- 
 poses to abolish the latter; and as far as it is prac- 
 ticable, to lay the christian world under an inter- 
 dict. The real state of the case is as follows: — 
 On the subject of baptism, and particularly whe- 
 ther it is applicable to infants, opinions are divi- 
 ded, and the majority have come, as we conceive, 
 to an erroneous conclusion. How do they pro- 
 pose to remedy this evil? By throwing all manner 
 of obstacles in the way of an approach to the 
 Lord's table, and as far as their power extends, ren- 
 dering it impracticable by clogging it with a con- 
 dition at which conscience revolts. They propose 
 to punish men for the involuntary neglect of one 
 ordinance, by compelling them to abandon the 
 other; and because they are uneasy at perceiving 
 them perform but one half of their duty, oblige 
 them, as far as lies in their power, to omit the 
 whole. I must confess I feel no partiality for 
 those violent remedies, which under the pretence 
 of reforming, destroy; or for that passion for or- 
 der which would rather witness the entire desola- 
 tion of the sanctuary, than a defalcation of its 
 rites; and in spite of all the efforts of sophistry, I 
 must he permitted to believe that our Lord's ex- 
 6^ 
 
66 
 
 press injunction en his followers, ", do this in re- 
 tnembrance of me," is a better reason for the 
 celebration of the communion than can be addu- 
 ced for its neglect. 
 
 SECTION III. - 
 
 The argument from apostolical precedent^ and from 
 the different stgmfications of the txvo institu- 
 tions, considered* 
 
 In vindication of their practice, our oppo- 
 nents are wont to urge the order of administra- 
 tion in the primitive and apostolic practice. They 
 remind us that the members of the primitive 
 church were universally baptized; that if we ac- 
 l^nowledge its constitution in that respect to be 
 expressive of the mind of Christ, we are bound 
 to follow that precedent, and that to deviate from 
 it in this particular, is virtually to impeach either 
 the wisdom of our Lord, or the fidelity of his 
 Apostles.* 
 
 • " The order of administration," says Mr. Booth, " in 
 the primitive and apostolic practice, now demands our no- 
 tice. That the Apostles when endued with power from on 
 hig-h, understood our Lord in the sense for which we 
 
67 
 
 With respect to the universality of the prao 
 tice of christian baptism, having already stated 
 our views, it is not necessary to repeat what has 
 already been advanced, or to recapitulate the 
 reasons on which we found our opinion, that it was 
 not extended to such as were converted previous 
 to the Lord's resurrection. Subsequently to that 
 period, we admit, without hesitation, that the 
 converts to the christian faith submitted to that 
 ordinance, prior to their reception into the chris- 
 tian church. As little are we disposed to deny 
 that it is at present the duty of the sincere be- 
 liever to follow their example, and that supposing 
 him to be clearly convinced of the nature and im- 
 port of baptism, he would be guilty of a criminal 
 irregularity who neglected to attend to it, pre- 
 vious to his entering into christian fellowship. 
 
 plead, and practised according-ly, is quite evident. Then 
 lliey that gladly received his word were, what? admitted 
 to the Lord's table? No, but baptized: — And the same day 
 there ivere added to them about three thousand souls; and 
 they conti7iued stedfast in the Apostles'* doctrine and fellowships 
 and in breaking of bread, and in prayer. If our brethren do 
 not look upon the apostolic precedent as expressive of the 
 mind of Christ, and as a pattern for future imitation, to 
 the end of the world, they must consider the Apostles as 
 either ignorant of our Lord's will, or as unfaithful in the, 
 performance of it." — Booth* s Apologyy page 47, 48, 
 
68 
 
 On the obligation of both the positive rites en- 
 joined in the New Testament, and the prior claim 
 of baptism to the attention of such as are pro- 
 perly enlightened on the subject, we have no dis- 
 pute. All we contend for is, that they do not so 
 depend one upon the other, that the conscientious 
 omission of the first, forfeits the privilege, or 
 cancels the duty, of observing the second; nor are 
 we able to perceive that what in the present in- 
 stance is styled apostolic precedent, at all decides 
 the question. To attempt to determine under 
 what circumstances the highest precedent pos- 
 sessess the form of law, involves a difficult and 
 delicate inquiry; for while it is acknowledged 
 that much deference is due to primitive example, 
 there were certain usages in apostolical times, 
 which few would attempt to revive. There is one 
 general rule, however, applicable to the subject, 
 which is, that no matter of fact is entitled to be 
 considered as an authoritative precedent, which 
 ?iecessanly arose out of existing circumstances, so 
 that in the then present state of things, it could 
 not fail to have occurred. The foundation of this 
 rule is obvious. Nothing is of the nature of law, 
 but what -emanates from the will of the legisla- 
 tor; but when a particular fact, recorded in an 
 historical narration, is so situated, that the con- 
 
69 
 
 trary would have appeared incongruous or absurdi 
 in other words, when it could not fail to be the re- 
 sult of previous occurrences, such a fact is desti- 
 tute of the essential characteristic of a law; it has 
 no apparent dependence upon a superior will. 
 
 Hence many practices occur in the history of 
 the apostolic transactions, which it is universally 
 admitted we are not obliged to imitate. It is an 
 unquestionable fact, that the eucharist was first 
 celebrated with unleavened bread, on the even- 
 ing, in an upper room, and to the Jews only; but 
 as we distinctly perceive that these particulars 
 originated in the peculiar circumstances of the 
 time, we are far from considering them as bind- 
 ing. On the same principle we account for the 
 members of the primitive church consisting only 
 of such as were baptized, without erecting that 
 circumstance into an invariable rule of action. 
 When we recollect that no error or mistake sub- 
 sisted, or could subsist, among Christians at that 
 period, we are compelled to regard it as the ne- 
 cessary consequence of the state of opinions then 
 prevalent. While all the faithful concurred in 
 their interpretation of the law which enjoins it, 
 how is it possible to suppose it neglected? or 
 whence could re-baptized communicants have 
 been drawn? Is this circumstance, to which so 
 
70 
 
 much importance is attached, of such a nature 
 that no account can be given of it, but upon the 
 principle of our opponents? or is it the necessary 
 consequence of the then actual situation of the 
 church? If the latter be admitted, it ceases for 
 the reason alreadv alleged, to be a precedent, or 
 a rule for tlie direction of future times. 
 
 We are willing to go a step further, and to ac- 
 knowledge that he who, convinced of the divine 
 origin of Christianity by the ministr\^ of the Apos- 
 tles, had refused to be baptized, would at that pe- 
 riod have been justly debarred from receiving the 
 sacramental elements. While the Apostles were 
 yet living, and daily exemplifying the import of 
 their commission before the eves of the people, 
 it would have been impossible to pretend igno- 
 rance, nor could that sincerity fail to be suspect- 
 ed, which was not accompanied with an implicit 
 submission to their authority. 
 
 "He that receiveth you," said our Lord, " re- 
 ceiveth me; he that rejecteth you, rejecteth me/' 
 Agreeably to which we find that the disciple 
 whom Jesus loved did not scruple to use the fol- 
 lowing language: — " By this ye know the spirit of 
 truth and the spirit of error; he that is of God 
 heareth us; he that is not of God heareth not 
 us." Such a conduct was perfectly proper. As 
 
71 
 
 there can be but two guides in religion, reason 
 and authority, and every man must form his be- 
 lief, either by following the light of his own mind, 
 or the information and instruction he derives from 
 others, so it is equally evident it is only by the 
 last of these methods that the benefit of a new 
 revelation can be diffused. Either we must sup- 
 pose an infinite multitude of miracles performed 
 on the minds of individuals to convey the know- 
 ledge of supernatural truths, or that one or more 
 are thus pre tern aturally enlightened, and invested 
 with a commission to speak in the name of God 
 to others; endowed at the same time with such 
 peculiar powers, such a controul over nature, or 
 such a foresight of future contingencies as shall 
 be sufficient to accredit and estaWish his mission. 
 He who refuses to submit to the guidance of 
 persons thus attested and accredited, must be 
 considered as virtually renouncing the revelation 
 imparted, and as the necessary consequence, for- 
 feiting his interest in its blessings. On these 
 grounds it is not difficult to perceive, that a pri- 
 mitive convert, or rather pretended convert, who 
 without doubting that baptism, in the way in 
 which we practise it, formed a part of the apos- 
 tolic commission, had refused compliance, would 
 have been deemed unworthy christian commu- 
 
nion, not on account of any specific connection 
 betwixt the two ordinances, but on account of 
 his evincing a spirit totally repugnant to the mind 
 of Christ. By rejecting the only authority estab- 
 lished upon earth for the direction of conscience, 
 and the termination of doubts and controversies, 
 he would, undoubtedly, have been repelled as a 
 contumacious schismatic. But what imaginable 
 resemblance is there betwixt such a mode of 
 procedure, and the conduct of our Psedobaptist 
 brethren, who oppose no legitimate authority, 
 impeach no part of the apostolic testimony, but 
 mistaking (in our judgment at least) its import 
 in one particular, decline a practice which many 
 of them would be the first to comply with, were 
 they once convinced it was the dictate of duty, 
 and the will of heaven. In the one case we per- 
 ceive open rebellion, in the other, involuntary 
 error: in the one, the pride which opposes itself 
 to the dictates of inspired wisdom, in the other, 
 a specimen (an humbling one it is true) of that 
 infirmity, in consequence of which we all see but 
 in part, and know but in part. Since whatever 
 degree of prejudice or inattention we may be dis- 
 posed to impute to the abettors of infant sprink- 
 ling, the principles on which they proceed are 
 essentially diiferent from those which could alone 
 
73 
 
 have occasioned the introduction of that practice 
 in apostolic times, we are at a loss to conceive 
 the propriety of classing them together, or of ani- 
 madverting upon them with equal severity. The 
 Apostles would have repelled from their commu- 
 nion men, who while they professed to be fol- 
 lov^^ers of Christ, refused submission to his in- 
 spired messengers; in other words, they would 
 have rejected some of the worst of men: there- 
 fore, say our opponents, we feel ourselves justi- 
 fied in excluding multitudes whom we acknow- 
 ledge to be the best. I am at a loss whether 
 most to admire the logic, the equity, or the mo- 
 desty of such a conclusion. 
 
 Besides, this reasoning from precedent is of so 
 flexible a nature that it may with equal ease be 
 employed in a contrary direction, and be turned 
 to the annoyance of our opponents. As it is an 
 acknowledged fact, that in primitive times all the 
 faithful were admitted to an equality of partici- 
 pation in every christian privilege; to repel the 
 great majority of them on account of an error, 
 acknowledged not to be fundamental, is at once a 
 wide departure from the apostolic example, and 
 a palpable contradiction to the very words em- 
 ployed in its first institution; " drink ye all of it; 
 do this in remembrance of me:" words addressed, 
 7 
 
as has already been proved, to persons who had 
 not received christian baptism. If it be replied, 
 that though all Christians originally communi- 
 cated, yet from the period of the Pentecost, at 
 least, they were all previously initiated by im- 
 mersion, the inquiry returns, were they baptized 
 on account of the necessary connection of that 
 appointment with the eucharist, or purely in de- 
 ference to the apostolic injunction? To assert the 
 former would be palpably begging the question; 
 and if the latter is affirmed, we reply, that as they 
 practised as they did, in deference to the will of 
 God, so our Psedobaptist brethren, in declining the 
 practice which we adopt, regulate their conduct 
 by the same principle. 
 
 The shew of conformity to apostolic precedent 
 is with the advocates of strict communion, and 
 nothing more; the substance and reality are with 
 us. Their conformity is to the letter, ours to the 
 spirit; theirs circumstantial and incidental, ours 
 radical and essential. In withholding the signs 
 from those who are in possession of the thing 
 signified, in refusing to communicate the symbols 
 of the great sacrifice to those who are equally 
 with themselves sprinkled by its blood and 
 sharers of its efficacy, in dividing the regenerate 
 into two classes, believers and communicants. 
 
75 
 
 and confining the Church to the narrow limits of 
 a sect, they have violated more maxims of anti- 
 quity, and receded further from the example of 
 the Apostles, than any class of Christians on re- 
 cord. 
 
 We live in a mutable world, and the diversity 
 of sentiment which has arisen in the christian 
 church on the subject of baptism, has placed 
 things in a new situation, and has given birth to 
 a case which can be determined only by an ap- 
 peal to the general principles of the gospel, and 
 to those injunctions in particular, which are de- 
 signed to regulate the conduct of Christians, 
 whose judgment in points of secondary moment 
 differ. These we shall have occasion to discuss 
 in another part of this treatise, where it will, we 
 trust, be satisfactorily shewn that we are furnish- 
 ed with a clue fully sufficient for our guidance: 
 and when we consider the impossibility of com- 
 prehending in any code whatever, every possible 
 combination of future occurrences and events, we 
 shall perceive the necessity of having recourse to 
 those large and comprehensive maxims, which 
 the prospective wisdom of the Father of lights, 
 and the Author of revelation, has abundantly 
 supplied. 
 
 Were it not that more are capable of number- 
 
76 
 
 ing arguments, than of weighing them, the men- 
 tion of the following might be omitted. The sig- 
 nification of the two positive ordinances of the 
 gospel are urged in proof of the necessity of bap- 
 tism preceding the Lord's supper. The first, we 
 are reminded by our opponents, is styled by theo- 
 logians the sacrament of regeneration^ or of ini- 
 tiation; the second, the sacrament of nutrition.^^ 
 To argue from metaphors is rarely a conclusive 
 mode of reasoning, but if it were, the regenerate 
 state of our Psedobaptist brethren would surely 
 afford a much better reason for admitting them 
 to the sacrament of ?iutritio7i, than their miscon- 
 ception of a particular command for prohibiting 
 them, unless we chuse to affirm that the shadow 
 is of more importance than the substance, or that 
 
 * " In submitting- to baptism," says Mr. Booth, " we 
 ave an emblem of our union and communion with Jesus 
 Christ, as our great representative, in his death, burial, 
 and resurrection. And as in baptism we profess to have re- 
 newed spiritual life; so in communicating" at the Lord's ta- 
 ble, we have the emblem of that heavenly food by which 
 we live, by which we grow, and by virtue of which we hope 
 to live for ever. Hence theological writers have often call- 
 ed baptism the sacrament of regeneration, or of initiation, 
 and the Lord's supper the sacrament of «2///vV«?7z." — Booth'' e 
 .apology. 
 
»y 
 
 7- 
 
 the sacrament of nutrition is not intended to 
 nourish. 
 
 Their actual possession of spiritual life, in con- 
 sequence of their union to the head of the Church, 
 necessarily implies a title to every christian pri- 
 vilege, by which such a life is cherished and 
 maintained, unless there were an express prohi- 
 bition to the contrary; nor is it to be doubted that 
 the acknowledgment of Pssdobaptists, as Chris- 
 tians, implies a competence to enter into the full 
 import of the rites commemorative of our Lord's 
 death and passion. To consider the Lord's sup- 
 per, however, as a mere commemoration of that 
 event, is to entertain a very inadequate viev/ of 
 it. If we credit St.. Paul, it is also 2l federal rite^ 
 in which in token of our reconciliation with God, 
 we eat and drink in his presence: it is a feast upon 
 a sacrifice, by which we become partakers at the 
 altar, not less really, though in a manner more 
 elevated and spiritual, than those who under the 
 ancient economy presented their offerings in the 
 temple. In this ordinance, the cup is a spiritual 
 participation of the blood, the bread of the body 
 of the crucified Saviour:* and as our Paedobap- 
 tist brethren are allowed to be in covenant with 
 
 * 1 Corinthians xi. 16. 
 7* 
 
7S 
 
 God, their title to every federal rite foliows of 
 course, unless it is barred by some clear unequi- 
 vocal declaration of scripture; instead of which 
 we meet with nothing on the opposite side but 
 precarious conjectures, and remote analogies. 
 
 Our opponents are extremely fond of repre- 
 senting baptism under the New Testament, as es- 
 sential as circumcision under the old, inferring 
 from thence that no unbaptized person is admis- 
 sible to the eucharist, for the same reason that 
 none who was not circumcised, was permitted to 
 partake of the paschal feast. But besides that is 
 to reason from analogy, a practice against which, 
 when applied to the discussion of positive insti- 
 tutes, they on other occasions earnestly protest, the 
 analogy fails in the most essential points. Cir- 
 cumcision is expressly stated as a necessary con- 
 dition of admission to the passover: a similar 
 statement respecting baptism will decide the con- 
 troversy. The neglect of circumcision, which 
 could proceed from nothing but presumptuous 
 impiety, incurred the sentence of excision; that 
 soul shall be cut off from the people. Whatever 
 may be meant beside by that commination, it will 
 not be doubted that it included the entire forfeit- 
 ure of the advantages of that peculiar covenant, 
 which God was pleased to establish with the Is- 
 
79 
 
 raelitish people; and the exclusion from the pas- 
 chal feast, as well as from the other sacrifices, 
 was the necessary appendage of that forfeiture. 
 
 The most violent Baptist will not presume to 
 insinuate that the neglect of baptism, from a mis- 
 conception of its nature, is exposed to a similar 
 penalty. It is evident, from the history of the Old 
 Testament, that an Israelite became disqualified 
 for sharing in whatever privileges distinguished 
 that nation, only in consequence of such a species 
 of criminality as cut him off from the covenant. 
 An interest in that covenant (the particular nature 
 of which it is not necessary to insist upon) and a 
 free access to all the privileges aud institutions of 
 the Jewish people were inseparable, so that nothing- 
 would have appeared to an ancient Jew more ab- 
 surd, than to disunite the covenant itself, from the 
 federal rites by which it was ratified and confirm- 
 ed. The invention of this ingenious paradox be- 
 longs exclusively to the abettors of strict commu- 
 nion, who in the same breath affirm that Psedobap- 
 tists are entitled to all the blessings of the new and 
 everlasting covenant, and forbidden to comme- 
 morate it: and scruple not to assert, that though in- 
 terested as much as themselves in the great sacri- 
 fice, it would be presumption in them to approach 
 the sacred symbols, which are appointed for no 
 
80 
 
 other purpose but to hold it forth. It is certainly 
 with a very ill grace that the champions of such 
 monstrous and unparalleled positions, ridicule 
 their opponents for inventing a new and eccen- 
 tric theology.* 
 
 Before I dismiss this head, I must remark that 
 in insisting upon the prior claim which baptism 
 possesses to the attention of a christian convert, 
 the advocates of strict communion triumph with- 
 out an opponent. We know of none who contend 
 for the propriety of inverting the natural order 
 of the christian sacraments, where they can both 
 
 * " The last century," says Mr. Booth, page 36, " was 
 the g-rand era of improvement, of prodigious improvement, 
 in light and liberty. In light, as well divine as philosophi- 
 cal, by the labours of a Bacon, a Boyle, and a Newton. In 
 pretended theological knowledge by those of a Jesse or a 
 Bunyan. Did the former by deep researches into the system 
 of nature, surprise and instruct the world, by discoveries 
 of which mankind has never before conceived: the latter, 
 penetrating into the gospel system, amused mankind by 
 casting new light on the positive institutions of Jesus 
 Christ; and by placing baptism am.ong things of little im- 
 portance in the christian religion, of which no ancient the- 
 ologian ever dreamed — none we have reason to think tli at 
 ever loved the Lord Redeemer." A little after he adds, " tlie 
 practical claim of dispensing power by Jesse and Bunyan, 
 made way for the inglorious liberty of treating positive in- 
 stitutions in the house of God just as professors please." 
 
81 
 
 be attended to, that is when the nature of each is 
 clearly understood and confessed. To administer 
 them under any other circumstances, it will be 
 acknowledged, is impracticable. We administer 
 baptism, let it be remembered, in every instance 
 in which our opponents will allow it ought to be 
 administered; and the only difference is, that 
 we have fellowship, in another ordinance, with 
 those members of the body of Christ, whom 
 they reject. Let it once be demonstrated that the 
 obligation of commemorating the Saviour's death, 
 is not sufficiently supported by his express injunc- 
 tion, but derives its force and validity from its in- 
 separable connection with a preceding sacrament, 
 and we are prepared to abandon our practice, as 
 a presumptuous innovation on the laws of Christ. 
 Till then we shall not be much moved by the 
 charge of claiming a dispensing power with 
 which we are frequently accused — a power which 
 I presume no Protestant ever dreamed of usurp- 
 ing, and the assumption of which implies such 
 impiety as ought to render a Christian reluctant 
 to urge such a charge. 
 
 To remind us of "the destruction of Nadab 
 and Abihu by fire from Heaven, the breach that 
 V. as made upon Uzzah, the stigma fixed, and the 
 curses denounced upon Jerusalem, together with 
 
82 
 
 the fall and ruin of all mankind by our first Ai- 
 ther's disobedience to a positive command," is 
 more calculated to inflame the passions, than to 
 elicit truth, or conduct the controversy to a satis- 
 factory issue. When the sole inquiry is, what is 
 the law of Christ, and we are fully persuaded that 
 our interpretation of it is more natural and rea- 
 sonable than that of our opponents, it is not a lit- 
 tle absurd, to charge us with assuming a claim of 
 dispensing with its authority. We know that he 
 commanded his followers to be baptized; we know 
 also that he commanded them to shew forth his 
 death till he came: but where shall we look for a 
 tittle of his law which forbids such as sincerely, 
 though erroneously believe themselves to have 
 complied with the first, to attend to the last of these 
 injunctions? Where is the scriptural authority for 
 resting the obligation of the eucharist, not on the 
 precept that enjoins it, but on the previous recep- 
 tion of baptism? As the scripture is totally silent 
 on this point, we are not disposed to accept the 
 officious assistance of our brethren in supplying 
 its deficiency; and beg permission to remind them, 
 that to add to the word of God, is equally crimi- 
 nal with taking away from it. 
 
 Do we neglect the administration of that rite 
 to any class of persons, whose state of mind is 
 
83 
 
 such as would render it acceptable to God? Do 
 we neglect to illustrate and enforce it in our pub- 
 lic ministrations? Are we accustomed to insinuate 
 that serious inquiry into the mind of Christ on 
 this subject, is of little, or no importance? Are 
 we found to decline its administration in any case 
 whatever, in which our accusers would not equal- 
 ly decline it? Nothing of this can be alleged. Do 
 they argue from the language of the original in- 
 stitute, from the examples of scripture, and the 
 precedent of the early ages, that it is the duty of 
 believers without exception to be immersed in 
 the name of Jesus? So do we. Are they disposed 
 to look upon such as have neglected, whether 
 from inattention or prejudice, to perform this du- 
 ty, as mistaken Christ'iaiis? We also consider them 
 in the same light. In what respect then are we 
 guilty of dispensing with divine laws? Merely be- 
 cause we are incapable of perceiving that an invo- 
 luntary mistake on this subject, disqualifies for 
 christian communion. But how extremely unjust 
 to load us, on that account, with the charge of as- 
 suming a dispensing power, when the only ground 
 on which we maintain our opinion, whether true 
 or false, is our conviction that it is founded on a 
 legitimate interpretation of the oracles of God. 
 The dispute is not concerning their authority, but 
 
84 
 
 their meaning; and we dispense widi baptism in no 
 other sense, than that of denying it to be in all cases 
 essential to communion; in which, whether we 
 are mistaken or not, is a point open to controver- 
 sy; but to be guilty first of a misno7ner in defining 
 our sentiments, and afterwards to convert an odi- 
 ous and erroneous appellation into an argument, is 
 the height of injustice. 
 
 With what propriety our practice is compared 
 to that of the church of Rome, in confining the 
 communion to one kind, the intelligent reader 
 will be at no loss to perceive.^ In that as in va- 
 rious other instances, that Church in order to raise 
 the dignity of the priesthood, assumes a power 
 
 * "It must, I think, be acknovvledg-ed," says Mr. Booth, 
 ** even by our brethren themselves, that we have as good a 
 warrant for omitting- an essential branch of an ordinance, or 
 to reverse the order in which the cojistituent parts of an or- 
 dinance were originally administered, as we have to lay aside 
 a divine institution, or to change the order in which two 
 different appointments were first fixed. And if so, were a 
 reformed and converted Catholic, still retaining the popish 
 error of communion in one kind only, desirous of having 
 fellowship with our brethren at the Lord's table; they must 
 if they would act consistently, on their present hypothesis, 
 admit him to partake of the bread, though from a princi- 
 ple of conscience, he absolutely refused the wine in that 
 sacred institution." — BootWs Apology^ page 51. 
 
85 
 
 of mutilating a divine ordinance. We are charge- 
 able with no mutilation, nor presume in the small- 
 est particular to innovate in the celebration of ei« 
 ther sacraments; we merely refuse to acknow- 
 ledge that dependence, one upon the other, on 
 which the confidence of our opponents is so ill 
 sustained by the silence of scripture. 
 
 We will close this part of the discussion by re- 
 marking that there is a happy equivocation in the 
 word dispense^ which has contributed not a little 
 to its introduction into the present controversy. 
 It may either mean that we do not insist upon 
 baptism as an indispensable condition of com- 
 munion, in which sense the charge is true, but 
 nothing to the purpose, since it is a mere state- 
 ment, in other words, of our actual practice. Or 
 it may intend that we knowingly and deliberately 
 deviate from the injunctions of scripture; a seri- 
 ous accusation, which requires not to be asserted, 
 but proved, 
 
86 
 
 SECTION IV. 
 
 Our supposed opposition to the universal suffrages 
 of the church considered. 
 
 In admitting to our communion those whom 
 we esteem unbaptized^ we are accused of a pre- 
 sumptuous departure from the sentiments of all 
 parties and denominations throughout the chris- 
 tian world, who however they may have differed 
 upon other subjects, have unanimously concur- 
 red in considering baptism as a necessary preli- 
 minary to communion.* 
 
 * This charge is urged with inuch declamatory vclie- 
 mence by Mr. Booth in his Apolog-y: — "A sentiment so pe- 
 culiar, and a conduct so uncommon," he says, " in regard 
 to this institution, ought to be well supported by the testi- 
 mony of the Holy Ghost. For were all the christian churches 
 now in the world asked, except those few who plead for 
 free communion, whether they thought it lawful to admit 
 mibaptized believers to fellowship at the Lord's table, there 
 is reason to believe they would readily unite in the declara- 
 tion of Paul, -we have no such custom, neither the churches of 
 God that -were before us. Yes, considering the novehy of their 
 sentiments and conduct, and what a contradiction they are 
 to the faith and order of the whole christian church, coiisi 
 dering that it was never dispiited, as far as I can learn, prior 
 
87 
 
 The first remark which occurs on this mode 
 of reasoning is, that it is merely an argumentum 
 ad verecundiam^ an attempt to overawe by the 
 weight of authority, without pretending to enter 
 into the merits of the controversy. It assumes 
 for its basis the impossibility of the universal pre- 
 valence of error, which if it be once admitted, 
 all hopes of extending the boundaries of know- 
 ledge must be relinquished. My ^s ^ t,j o , bse rvatinn J|g| A^ 
 is, that it comes with peculiar infelicity from the ** 
 members of a sect, who upon a subject of much 
 greater moment have presumed to relinquish the 
 precedent, and arraign the practice of the whole 
 christian world, as far at least as they have been 
 exhibited in these latter ages. 
 
 Quis tulerit Gracchos, de seditione querentes. 
 
 After setting an example of revolt, it is too late 
 ior them to inculcate the duty of submission. 
 
 to the sixteenth century, by orthodox or heterodox, by 
 Papist or Protestant, whether imbaptized believers should 
 be admitted to the Lord's table; they all agreeing- in the 
 contrary practice, however much they differed in matters 
 of equal importance, it may be reasonably expected, and it 
 is by us justly demanded, that the truth of their sentiment, 
 und the rectitude of their conduct, should be proved, fully 
 proved, from the records of inspiration."— i?oo?/i'.^ Jpolo^Tj, 
 ■'n^e 34. 
 
88 
 
 The question of the necessary dependence of 
 communion on baptism, being of no practical mo- 
 ment whatever in any other circumstances than 
 our own, it is not to be wondered at if it has ne- 
 ver been subjected to scrutiny; since cases of con- 
 science, among which this inquiry may be classed, 
 are rarely if ever investigated until circumstances 
 occur which render their discussion necessary. 
 But as jjj^^j^^sprinkling is valid in the esteem 
 of all but the Baptists, and there is no pretence 
 for considering the latter as unbaptized, it is not 
 easy to conceive what motive could exist for making 
 it an object of serious attention. That crude and 
 erroneous conceptions should prevail upon ques- 
 tions, the decision of which could have no influ- 
 ence on practice, will not surprise those who reflect, 
 that truth has been usually elicited by controversy, 
 and that on subjects of too great importance to 
 be entirely overlooked, opinions have prevailed 
 to a great extent, which are now universally ex- 
 ploded. Though the employment of coercion in 
 the affairs of conscience, is equally repugnant to 
 the dictates of reason and of scripture, it was for 
 ages successively resorted to by every party in 
 their turn; nor was it till towards the close of the 
 seventeenth century that the principle of toleration 
 was established on a broad and scientific basis, by 
 
89 
 
 the immortal writings of Milton aud of Locke. 
 These reflections are obvious; but there are 
 others which tend more immediately to annihi- 
 late the objection under consideration. It is well 
 known that from a very early period the most ex- 
 travagant notions prevailed in the church with 
 respect to the efficacy of baptism, and its absolute 
 necessity in order to attain salvation. The descent 
 of the human mind from the spirit to the letter, 
 from what is vital and intellectual, to what is 
 ritual and external in religion, is the true source 
 of idolatry and superstition in all the multifarious 
 forms they have assumed; and as it began early 
 to corrupt the religion of nature, or more properly 
 of patriarchal tradition, so it soon obscured the 
 lustre, and destroyed the simplicity of the chris- 
 tian institute. In proportion as genuine devotion 
 declined, the love of pomp and ceremony increas- 
 ed; the few and simple rites of Christianity were 
 extolled beyond all reasonable bounds; new ones 
 were invented to which mysterious meanings 
 were attached, till the religion of the New Tes- 
 tament became, in process of time, as insupporta- 
 ble a yoke as the Mosaic law. The first effects of 
 this spirit are discernible in the ideas entertained 
 of the ordinance, so closely connected with the 
 subject of the present treatise. From an errone- 
 8^ 
 
90 
 
 ous interpretation of the figurative language of a 
 few passages in scripture, in which the sign is 
 identified with the thing signified, verv^ similar to 
 the mistake which afterwards led to transubstan- 
 tiation, it was universally supposed that baptism 
 was invariably accompanied with a supernatural 
 effect, which totally changed the state and charac- 
 ter of the candidate, and constituted him a child 
 of God, and an heir of the kingdom of Heaven. 
 Hence it was almost constantly denoted by the 
 terms Uluminatioii^ regeneration^ and others, ex- 
 pressive of the highest operations of the Spirit; 
 and as it was believed to obtain the plenary re- 
 mission of all past sins, it was often, in order to 
 insure that benefit, purposely deferred to the 
 latest period of life. Thus Eusebius informs us 
 that the Emperor Constantine " finding his end 
 fast approaching, judged it a fit season for purify- 
 ing himself from his offences, and cleansing his 
 soul from that guilt which in common with 
 other mortals he had contracted, which he be- 
 lieved was to be effected by the power of myste- 
 rious words, and the saving laver." " This," said 
 he, addressing the surrounding bishops, " is the 
 period I have so long hoped and prayed for, the 
 period of obtaining the salvation of God.*' Pas- 
 sing with the utmost rapidity through the prepa- 
 
91 
 
 ratory stage, that of a catechumen, he hastened 
 to what he regarded as his consummation; and no 
 sooner ^^ as the ceremony completed, than he ar- 
 rayed himself in white garments, and laid aside 
 the imperial purple, in token of his bidding adieu 
 to all secular concenis.* We have here a fair spe- 
 cimen of the sentiments which were universally 
 adopted upon this subject in ancient times. Even 
 Justin Martyr, who flourished about the middle 
 of the sedond century, confounds baptism with 
 regeneration. " Whoever," says he, " believe the 
 things which are affirmed by us to be true, and 
 promise to live accordingly, are afterwards con- 
 ducted to a place where there is water, and are 
 regenerated by the same method of regeneration 
 which we have experienced."t Theophilus, a 
 contemporary writer, and the sixth bishop of An- 
 tioch, holds the same language. TertuUian, the 
 earliest and most learned of the Latin Fathers, 
 exclaims with rapture, " O happy sacrament, by 
 which, being washed from the former sins of our 
 blindness, we are delivered unto eternal life. "J 
 And agreeable to the fantastic style of imagery 
 which characterises his writings, he appears to be 
 particularly delighted with denominating Chris- 
 
 * Eiisebius in vita Constaiitini, 1. 4. c. 61, 62. 
 I Apol. p. 159, Ed. 1651. + De Baptismo, Ed. 16r6, p. 224. 
 
92 
 
 tians, little fishes, who are born in water, and are 
 safe only in that element. Were we to attempt 
 accurately to trace the progress of these opinions, 
 in the first ages, and adequately to represent the 
 extent of their prevalence, we should be under 
 the necessity,, by numberless quotations from the 
 Fathers, of extending this inquiry to a most un-^ 
 reasonable length. 
 
 Suffice it to remark, that there is scarcely a 
 writer in the three first centuries, to descend no 
 lower, who has not spoken upon this subject in a 
 manner, which the advocates for strict commu- 
 nion at least, would deem unscriptural and im- 
 proper: scarcely one from whom we should not 
 be taught to infer, that baptism was absolutely 
 necessary to salvation. That this is the doctrine 
 which pervades the formularies of the Church of 
 England, is too evident to require to be insisted 
 on: nor is it less so, that similar sentiments on 
 this head are exhibited, to a greater or less ex- 
 tent in the creeds of most, if not all established 
 churches. Is it surprising then that tliose who 
 contend for baptism as essential to salvation, 
 should consider it as an essential prerequisite to 
 communion? Or is it not a much juster occasion 
 for surprise, that our opponents should urge us 
 with an inference which it is acknowledged was 
 
93 
 
 deduced from erroheous premises, as though wc 
 were under the necessity of admitting a conclu- 
 sion, while the only argument by which it is sup- 
 ported is given up.^ 
 
 For our parts, we must be permitted to look 
 with suspicion on the genuine product of error, 
 no more expecting to derive truth from errone- 
 ous premises, than grapes froin thorns, or figs 
 from thistles. In the present instance, there is 
 no doubt that the opinion of the absolute necessity 
 of baptism, previous to communion, sprang from 
 those lofty and superstitious ideas respecting its 
 efficacy, which our opponents would be the first 
 to disclaim. Ask a Roman Catholic, a Lutheran, 
 or a member of the Church of England, on what 
 ground he rests the absolute necessity of the bap- 
 tismal rite, as a qualification for the eucharist; 
 and each of them will concur in reminding you, 
 that it is by that ordinance we become the chil- 
 
 * When I consider the firm hold which these imscriptural 
 ideas respecting baptism had taken of the minds of men, 
 throughout all parts of the christian world at an early pe- 
 riod, and recollect the confidence with which ancient wri- 
 ters assert the impossibility even of infants being saved 
 without baptism, the practice of infant-sprinkling seems an 
 almost necessary result. Who with such a conviction, pos- 
 sessed of the common feelings of a parent, could fail to se- 
 cure to his infant offspring such infinite benefits? 
 
94 
 
 dren of God, and heirs of his kingdom. The 
 Augsburgh Confession, to which all the Luthe- 
 ran churches are supposed to assent, and which 
 was solemnly presented to Charles the Fifth at 
 the Imperial Dici, as the authentic exhibition of 
 their sentiments, expresses itself in the following 
 terms:—"' Concerning baptism, they (the follow- 
 ers of Luther) teach that it is necessary to salva- 
 tlon; that by baptism is offered the grace of God; 
 and that children are to be baptized, who being 
 presented to God by baptism, are received into 
 the grace of God. They condemn the Anabap- 
 tists, who disapprove of the baptism of children, 
 and affirm that children are saved without bap- 
 tism.'** Some of the most learned divines of the 
 Church of England have contended that baptism 
 is not only regeneration, but justification; and 
 have made elaborate attempts to explode every 
 ether notion of that blessing.f 
 
 Such are the principles whence this vaunted 
 unanimity is derived, — principles which our 
 brethren reprobate on all occasions, while with 
 a strange inconsistency they accuse us of pre- 
 sumption in refusing our assent to their legiti- 
 mate consequences. Let it be recollected also, 
 
 * Augsburgh Confession, Article 9. 
 t See Waterland*s Sermon on that subject. 
 
95 
 
 that the points in which they, in common with 
 ourselves, dissent from a vast majority of the pro- 
 fessors of Christianity are of incomparably more 
 importance than the particular in which thev 
 agree; for whether baptism be, on all occasions, 
 a necessary preliminary to communion, is a trivial 
 question, compared to that which respects the 
 identity of baptism with regeneration. 
 
 The argument from authority, however, when 
 fairly stated, is entirely in our favour; nor would 
 it be easy to assign an example of bolder devia- 
 tion from the universal practice of the christian 
 church, than the conduct of our opponents sup- 
 plies. They are the only persons in the world 
 of whom we have either heard or read, who con- 
 tend for the exclusion of genuine Christians from 
 the Lord's table; who ever attempted to distin- 
 guish them into two classes, such as are entitled 
 to commemorate their Saviour's death, and such 
 as are excluded from that privilege. In what page 
 of the voluminous records of the Church is such 
 a distinction to be traced? Or what intimation 
 shall we find in scripture of an intention to create 
 such an invidious disparity among the members 
 of the same bodv? Did it ever enter the concep- 
 tion of any but Baptists, that a right to the sign 
 could be separated from the thing signified; or 
 
96 
 
 that there could be a description of persons in- 
 terested in all the blessings of the christian cove- 
 nant, yet not entitled to partake of its sacraments 
 and seals? 
 
 In the judgment of all religious communities 
 besides, and in every period of the Church, ex- 
 communication or exclusion has been considered 
 as a stigma, never to be inflicted but on men of 
 ill lives, or on the abettors of heresy and schism; 
 and though innumerable instances have occurred, 
 in which the best of men have in fact been ex- 
 cluded, they were either accused of fundamental 
 error, or adjudged on account of their obstinate 
 resistance to the authority of the Church, to have 
 forfeited the privileges of Christians. They were 
 not excommunicated under the character of mis- 
 taken brethren, which is the light in which we 
 profess to consider Psedobaptists, but as incura- 
 ble heretics and schismatics. The Puritans were 
 expelled the Church of England on the same 
 principle; and although at the Restoration, a vin- 
 dictive spirit was unquestionably the chief motivx 
 to those disgraceful proceedings, yet the preten- 
 sions of ecclesiastical authority were carried so 
 high in those unhappy times, as to furnish the 
 pretext for considering them as contumacious 
 contemners of the power, and disturbers of the 
 
97 
 
 peace of the Church. In the whole course of ec- 
 clesiastical proceedings, no maxim was more fully 
 recognised than that the sword of excommunica- 
 tion cut asunder the ties of fraternity, and con- 
 signed the offender, unless he repented, to hope- 
 less perdition. 
 
 In some dissenting societies alio, it is true, 
 creeds are established which every candidate for 
 admission is expected to subscribe; and though 
 these summaries of christian doctrine frequently 
 contain articles, which admitting them to be true, 
 are not fundamental, they were originally deem- 
 ed such by their fabricators, or supposed at least 
 to be accompanied with such a plenitude of evi- 
 dence as no sincere inquirer could resist; and they 
 are continued under the same persuasion. 
 
 The right of rejecting those whom Christ has 
 received; of refusing the communion of eminently 
 holy men, on account of unessential differences 
 of opinion, is not the avowed tenet of any sect 
 or community in Christendom, with the exception 
 of a majority of the Baptists, who while they are 
 at variance with the whole world on a point of 
 such magnitude, are loud in accusing their breth- 
 ren of singularity. If we have presumed to resist 
 the current of opinion, it is on a subject of no 
 9 
 
98 
 
 practical moment; it respects an obscure and neg- 
 lected corner of theology; while their singularity 
 is replete with most alarming consequences, de- 
 stroys at once the unity of the church, and pro- 
 nounces a sentence of excommunication on the 
 whole christian world. 
 
 Having without disguise exhibited in their full 
 force the reasoning of the advocates of strict 
 communion, and replied to it in the best manner 
 we are able, it must be left to the impartial read- 
 er to determine on which side the evidence pre- 
 ponderates; of which he will be able to judge more 
 completely, when we have stated at large the 
 grounds of the opposite practice, which we have 
 reserved for the second part of this treatise; 
 where we shall have an opportunity of noticing 
 some minor objections, which could not be so 
 conveniently adverted to in the former. 
 
99 
 
 PART II. 
 
 THE POSITIVE GROUNDS ON WHICH WE JUSTIFY 
 THE PRACTICE OF MIXED COMMUNION. 
 
 SECTION I. 
 
 Free coJJtmunion urged^ from the obligation of 
 brotherly love. 
 
 THAT we are commanded, in terms the most 
 absolute, to cultivate a sincere and warm attach- 
 ment to the members of Christ's body, and that 
 no branch of christian duty is inculcated more 
 frequently, or with more force, will be admitted 
 without controversy. Our Lord instructs us to 
 consider it as the principal mark or feature by 
 which his followers are to be distinguished in 
 every age. " By this shall all men know that ye 
 are my disciples, if ye love one another. As I 
 have loved you, ye ought also to love one ano- 
 tlier j" whence it is evident that the pattern we are 
 
100 
 
 to follow is the love which Christ bore to his 
 Church, which is undoubtedly extended indiscri- 
 minately to every member. The cultivation of 
 this disposition is affirmed to be one of the most 
 essential objects of the christian revelation, as 
 well as the most precious fruit of that faith by 
 which it is embraced. " Seeing," says St. Peter, 
 " ye have purified your hearts by obeying the 
 truth unto an unfeigned love of the brethren, see 
 that ye love one another with a pure heart fer- 
 vently." Agreeably to which, the beloved disciple 
 affirms it to be the chief evidence of our being 
 in a state of grace and salvation. " By this we 
 know that we are passed from death unto life, be- 
 cause we love the brethren." Let it also be re- 
 membered, that the mode in which we are com- 
 manded to exhibit and express this most eminent 
 grace of the Spirit, is the preservation of union, 
 a careful avoidance of every temper and practice 
 which might produce alienation and division. To 
 this purpose, St. Paul reminds us of that union 
 which subsists betwixt the several parts of the 
 body, the harmony with which its respective func- 
 tions are carried on, where the noblest organ is 
 incapable of dispensing with the action of the 
 meanest, together with that quick feeling of sym- 
 pathy which pervades the whole; all which, he 
 
101 
 
 tells us, is contrived and adjusted to prevent a 
 schism in the body. In applying this illustration 
 to the subject before us, it is impossible not to 
 perceive that when one part of Christ's mystical 
 body refuses to co-operate with another in a prin- 
 cipal spiritual function, such as communing at 
 the Lord's table, that every evil subsists against 
 which we are so anxiously guarded; and what is 
 more extraordinary, subsists upon the principle 
 we are opposing, by divine appointment. In the 
 last prayer our Saviour uttered, in which he ex- 
 pressly includes all who should hereafter believe, 
 he earnestly intreats that they may be all one, 
 even as he and his Father were one, that the 
 world might be furnished with a convincing evi- 
 dence of his mission. For some ages the object 
 of that prayer was realized, in the harmony which 
 prevailed amongst Christians, whose religion was 
 a bond of union more strict and tender than the 
 ties of consanguinity; and with the appellation of 
 Brethren, they associated all the sentiments of 
 endearment that relation implied. To see men of 
 the most contrary character and habits, the learn- 
 ed and the rude, the most polished and the most 
 uncultivated, the inhabitants of countries alienated 
 from each other by institutions the most repug- 
 nant, and by contests the most violent, forgetting 
 9* 
 
their ancient animosity, and blending into one 
 mass, at the command of a person whom they 
 had never seen, and who had ceased to be an in- 
 habitant of this world, was an astonishing specta- 
 cle. Such a sudden assimilation of the most dis- 
 cordant materials, such love issuing from hearts 
 naturally selfish, and giving birth to a new race 
 and progeny, could be ascribed to nothing but a 
 divine interposition: it was an experimental proof 
 of the commencement of that kingdom of God, 
 that celestial economy, by which the powers of 
 the future world are imparted to the present. 
 When we turn from contemplating this, to the 
 practice under consideration, we see an opposite 
 phenomenon; a sect of Christians coming to an 
 open rupture and separation in point of commu- 
 nion with the whole christian world; and we ask 
 whether it be possible to reconcile such a conduct 
 with the import of our Saviour's prayer. If it is 
 not, it must be condemned as antichristian, unless 
 we hesitate to affirm, that whatever is repugnant 
 to the mind of Christ, merits that appellation. 
 Let it be remembered too, that though the prayer 
 we have adduced was uttered by him who pos- 
 sessed a perfect knowledge of futurity, and was 
 thoroughly apprized of the diversities of senti- 
 ment which would arise among his foilowers, he 
 
103 
 
 was not deterred by that consideration from com- 
 prehending in this his desire of union, all who 
 should hereafter believe on his name. 
 
 Whatever attachment our opponents may pro- 
 fess to those whom they exclude, their behaviour, 
 it must be acknowledged, is so ill adapted to ac- 
 credit their professions, that in the eyes of the 
 world, who judge by sensible appearances, and 
 are strangers to subtle distinctions, such a pro- 
 ceeding will inevitably be considered as a practi- 
 cal declaration that the persons from whom they 
 separate are 7iot Christians. There is no reason 
 to doubt that the precepts of the gospel on this, 
 as well as every other breach of morals, are to be 
 interpreted on a liberal scale; and that when they 
 enjoin any particular disposition in general terms, 
 we must consider the injunction as comprehend- 
 ing all its natural demonstrations, all its genuine 
 expressions. But to refuse the communion of sin- 
 cere Christians, is not a natural expression of 
 christian love, but so diametrically opposite, that 
 we may fairly put it to the conscience of those 
 who contend for such a measure, whether they 
 find it possible to carry it into execution without 
 an inward struggle, without feeling emotions of 
 sorrow and concern. It is to inflict a wound on 
 the very heart of charity, for no fault, for none at 
 
104 
 
 kast of which the offender is conscious, for none 
 which such treatment has the remotest tendency 
 to correct; and if this is not being guilty of " beat- 
 ing our fellow-servant," we must despair of as- 
 certaining the meaning of the terms. 
 
 Were the children of the same parent, in con- 
 sequence of the different construction they put 
 on a disputed clause in their father's will, to re- 
 fuse to eat at the same table, or to drink out of 
 the same cup, it would be ridiculous for them to 
 pretend that their attachment to each other re- 
 mained undiminished; nor is it less so for Chris- 
 tians to assert that their withdrawing from com- 
 munion with their brethren, i- no interruption to 
 their mutual harmony and affection. It is a se- 
 rious and awful interruption, and will ever be con- 
 sidered in that light as long as the interior senti- 
 ments of the mind continue to be interpreted by 
 their natural signs. I have known more instances 
 than one of good men complaining of the un- 
 easiness, I might say the anguish, they felt on 
 those occasions, when they witnessed some of 
 their most intimate friends, persons of exalted 
 piety, compelled, afterjoining in the other branch- 
 es of worship, to withdraw from the Lord's table, 
 as though ''they had no part or lot in the mat- 
 ter." We have been accustomed to conceive that 
 
105 
 
 the dictates of the Holy Ghost were always in 
 harmony with his operations, the precepts of the 
 gospel with its spirit; and that nothing was en- 
 joined as matter of duty on Christians, which of- 
 fered violence to the best feelings of the renewed 
 heart. We have always supposed that by the law 
 of Christ we v/ere called to mortify the old man 
 only with his affections and lusts; but if the doc- 
 trine of our opponents be true, we shall be fre- 
 quently summoned to the strange discipline of re- 
 pressing the movements of Christian charity; and 
 the practice of quenching the Spirit, instead of 
 being regarded with the horror, will become on 
 many occasions an indespensable duty. For this 
 new and unheard-of conflict, in which the injunc- 
 tions of Christ, and the dictates of his Spirit, 
 propel us in opposite directions, we acknowledge 
 ourselves unprepared. 
 
 In order to place this part of our subject in its 
 strongest light, it is necessary to recur to what 
 we have suggested before, respecting the two-fold 
 import of the eucharist that it is first a feast up- 
 on a sacrifice, in which we are actual partakers by 
 faith of the body and blood of the Redeemer of- 
 fered upon the cross. Considered in this view, it 
 is 2L federal rite^ in which we receive the pledge 
 of reconciliation, while we avouch the Lord to 
 
106 
 
 be our God, and surround his table as a part of 
 his family. In its secondary import, it is intend- 
 ed as a solemn recognition of each other as 
 members of Christ, and consequently, in the lan- 
 guage of St. Paul, " as one body, and one bread." 
 Now we either acknowledge Paedobaptists to be 
 Christians, or we do not. If not, let us speak out 
 without reserve, and justify their exclusion at 
 once, upon a broad and consistent basis. But if 
 we reject a sentiment so illiberal, why refuse to 
 unite with them in an appointment, which as far 
 as its social import is concerned, has no other 
 object than to express that fraternal attachment 
 which we actually feel? Why select as the line of 
 demarcation, the signal of disunion, that particu* 
 lar branch of worship, which if we credit the in- 
 spired writers, was ordained in preference to ev- 
 ery other, to be the symbol of christian unity? 
 That they are equally capable with ourselves of 
 deriving the spiritual edificaiion and improve- 
 ment attached to this ordinance, is implied in the 
 acknowledgment of their being Christians; while 
 with respect to its import as a social act, or an act 
 of communion, it implies neither more nor less 
 than a recognizance of their claim to that title. It 
 neither implies that they are baptized, nor the 
 v-'ontrary; it has no retrospective view to that or- 
 
107 
 
 dinance whatever; it implies neither more nor less 
 than that they are members of Christ, and the 
 objects consequently of that fraternal attachment, 
 which our opponents themselves profess to feel. 
 
 SECTION II. 
 
 The practice of open communion argued^ from the 
 express injunction of scripture respecting the 
 conduct to be maintained by sincere Christians 
 who differ in their religious sentiments. 
 
 We are expressly commanded in the scriptures 
 to tolerate in the church those diversities of opi- 
 nion which are not inconsistent with salvation. 
 We learn from the New Testament that a diver- 
 sity of views subsisted in the times of the Apos- 
 tles, betwixt the Jewish and Gentile converts es- 
 pecially, the former retaining an attachment to 
 the ancient law, and conceiving the most essential 
 parts of it to be still in force; the latter from cor- 
 recter views, rejecting it altogether. Some de- 
 clined the use of certain kinds of meat forbidden 
 by Moses, which others partook of without scru- 
 ple: *'one man esteemed one day above ano- 
 ther," conscientiously observing the principal Jew- 
 ish solemnities; " another esteemed every day 
 
108 
 
 alike." Among the Jewish converts, very differ- 
 ent sentiments were entertained on the subject of 
 circumcision, which all appeared to have observed, 
 though upon different principles; the more en- 
 lightened, like St. Paul, from a solicitude to avoid 
 unnecessary offence: the more superstitious, from 
 persuasion of its intrinsic obligation; and some 
 because they believed it impossible to be saved 
 without it; by which they endangered, to say the 
 least, the fundamental doctrine of justification, by 
 faith. Against the sentiment last mentioned, we 
 find St. Paul protesting with vehemence, and af- 
 firming with all the authority of his office, that 
 " if any man was circumcised" with such views, 
 " Christ profited him nothing;" but on no occa- 
 sion proceeding to excommunication. The con- 
 tention arising from the discussion of these points 
 became so violent, that there appeared no method 
 of terminating it, but to depute Paul and Barnabas 
 to go up to Jerusalem, to consult the Apostles, 
 who being solemnly convened on the occasion, is- 
 sued the famous decree contained in the fifteenth 
 of the Acts, by which the liberty of the gospel 
 was confirmed, and the domineering spirit of Jew- 
 ish zealots repressed. Though the success of this 
 measure was great, it was not complete; a contra- 
 riety of opinion and of practice prevailed in the 
 
109 
 
 church respecting Jewish ceremonies and obser- 
 vances, which considerably impaired its harmo- 
 ny. But instead of attempting to silence the re- 
 maining differences, by interposing his autho- 
 rity, St. Paul enjoins mutual toleration. " Him 
 that is weak in faith receive ye not to doubtful 
 disputations. For one believeth that he may eat 
 all things; another who is weak eateth herbs. Let 
 not him that eateth despise him that eateth not; 
 and let not him that eateth not, judge him that 
 eateth; for God hath received him. Who art thou 
 that judgest another man's servant? unto his own 
 master he standeth, or falleth. Yea, he shall Idc 
 holden up; for God is able to make him stand. 
 One man esteemeth every day alike. Let every 
 man be fully persuaded in his own mind."* 
 
 To the same purpose are the following injunc- 
 tions in the next chapter:— »" We then that are 
 strong, ought to bear the infirmities of the weak, 
 and not to please ourselves. Now the God of peace 
 and consolation grant you to be like minded one 
 towards another according to Jesus Christ, that 
 ye may with one mind and with one mouth, glo- 
 rify God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus 
 Christ. Wherefore receive ye one another, as 
 
 * Romans xiv. 1, 5. 
 10 
 
110 
 
 Christ also received us, to the Glory of God.'** 
 It cannot be denied that the passages we have ad- 
 duced contain an apostolic canon for the regula- 
 tion of the conduct of such Christians as agree in 
 fundamentals, while they differ on points of sub- 
 ordinate importance; by this canon they are com- 
 manded to exercise a reciprocal toleration and in» 
 dulgence, and on no account to proceed to an 
 open rupture. In order to apply it to the question 
 under consideration, it is only necessary to con- 
 sider to what description of persons the rule ex- 
 tends. The persons we are commanded to re- 
 ceive are the weak in Jaith, From the context, as 
 well as from other parts of his epistles, it is cer- 
 tain that St. Paul means to designate by that ap- 
 pellation, sincere though erring Christians; and in 
 the instance then under contemplation, persons 
 whose organs were not yet attempered to the 
 blaze of gospel light and liberty, but who still 
 clung to certain legal usages and distinctions, 
 which more comprehensive views of revelation 
 would have taught them to discard. The term 
 rveak is employed by the same writer in his epis- 
 tle to the Corinthians, to denote an erroneous con- 
 science, founded on a false persuasion of a certain 
 
 * Romans xv. 1. 6. 7. 
 
Hi 
 
 power and efficacy attached to idols, of which they 
 are really destitute. " For himself," he tells us, 
 ** he knew that an idol was nothing, but everv me 
 was not possessed of that knowledge; for some 
 with conscience of the idol, with an interior con- 
 viction of its power, eat of the sacrifice, as a thing 
 ojfFered to an idol, and their conscience being xveak^ 
 is defiled." In the chapter whence these words 
 are quoted, the term weak occurs not less than five 
 times, and in each instance is used as svnonymous 
 with erroneous. I have insisted the more on this 
 particular, in order to obviate a misconception 
 v/hich may arise from the acknowledged ambigu- 
 ity of the w^ord zueak^ which might be supposed 
 to intend not a mistaken or erring mind, but a 
 mind not sufficiently confirmed in the truth to 
 which it assents. The certainty of its compre- 
 hending the case of error being once admitted, it 
 is not necessary to multiply words to evince its 
 bearing on the present controversy; all that re- 
 mains to be considered is the principle on which 
 toleration is enforced, which every impartial read- 
 er must perceive is the assumption that the er- 
 rors and mistakes to be tolerated are wot funda- 
 mental^ not of such a nature, in other words, as to 
 prevent those who maintain them from being ac- 
 cepted with God. " Let not him that eateth de- 
 
±12 
 
 spise him who eateth not; and let not him thateat= 
 eth not, judge him that eateth; for God hath re' 
 ceived hitn.^* What can this mean but that the er- 
 ror in question to whichsoever side it be imputed, 
 was of a description not to exclude its abettor 
 from being an accepted servant of God, who as 
 he at present bears with his infirmity, is well able, 
 whenever he pleases, to correct and remove it. 
 He further proceeds to urge a spirit of forbear- 
 ance from a consideration of the perfect integrity 
 with which both parties maintained their respec- 
 tive opinions. Both were equally conscientious, 
 and therefore neither deserved to be treated with 
 severity. " Wherefore receive ye one another," 
 he adds, " even as Christ has received you to the 
 o^lorv of the Father." When he thus commands 
 Christians to receive each other, and enforces that 
 duty by the example of Christ, it surely requires 
 little penetration to perceive that the practice en- 
 joined ought to be commensurate to that example, 
 and that this precept obliges us to receive all 
 whom Christ has received. To interpret it other- 
 wise, is to suppose the example irrelevant, and at 
 once to annihilate the principle on which the in- 
 junction is founded. 
 
 Having paved the way to the conclusion to 
 which we would conduct the reader, we have 
 
113 
 
 only to remark, that in order to determine how 
 far these apostolic injunctions oblige us to tole- 
 rate the supposed error of our Psedobaptist 
 brethren, we have merely to consider whether 
 it necessarily excludes them from being of the 
 number of those whom Christ has received, to 
 the glory of the Father, whether it be possible 
 to hold it with christian sincerity, and finally, 
 whether its abettors will stand or fall in the eter- 
 nal judgment. 
 
 If these questions are answered in the way 
 which christian candour irresistibly suggests, and 
 which the judgment of our opponents approves, 
 they conclude in favour of the admission of Paedo- 
 baptists to communion, not less forcibly than if 
 they had been mentioned by name; and all at- 
 tempts to evade them, must prove futile and abor- 
 tive. If it be asserted on the contrary, that a 
 mistake on the subject of baptism is not compre- 
 hended in the above description, the passages 
 adduced must be acknowledged irrelevant, and 
 the whole controversy assumes a new aspect. 
 
 In the same spirit the Apostle earnestly presses 
 on the Philippians the obligation of maintaining 
 an uninterrupted harmony, and of cultivating a 
 fraternal affection to each other, even while he is 
 contemplating the possibility of their entertaining 
 10 ^ 
 
114! 
 
 different apprehensions respecting truth and duty. 
 After proposing himself as an example of the re- 
 nunciation of legal hopes, and the serious study 
 of perfection, he adds, "Let us therefore, as many 
 as are perfect^ as many as have obtained correct 
 and enlarged views of the gospel, be thus mind- 
 ed; and if in any thing ye are otherwise minded, 
 or rather differently minded, possessing different 
 views and apprehensions on certain subjects, God 
 will reveal even this unto you.^ Nevertheless, 
 wherein we have already attained, let us walk by 
 the same rule, let us mind the same thing." Here 
 the case of a diversity of sentiment arising among 
 Christians is distinctly assumed, and the proper 
 remedy suggested, which is not the exercise of a 
 compulsory power, much less a separation of com- 
 munion, but the ardent pursuit of christian piety, 
 accompanied with a humble dependence on divine 
 teaching, which it may reasonably be expected, 
 will in due time correct the errors and imperfec- 
 tions of sincere believers. The conduct to be 
 maintained in the meanwhile, was a cordial co- 
 operation in every branch of worship and of prac- 
 
 * See an admirable criticism on this passage in Bishop 
 Horseley*s Sermons, where the word tngac, which is the 
 key to the whole passage, is most happily elucidated.— Fo^ 
 % page 358. 
 
115 
 
 lice, with respect to which they were agreed, with- 
 out attempting to affect a unanimity by force; and 
 this is precisely the conduct which we contend 
 should be maintained towards our Psedobaptist 
 brethren. If they can be repelled from the Lord's 
 table, without violating both the letter and the spi- 
 rit of the preceding and of similar admonitions, 
 we are prepared, however reluctantly, to acquiesce 
 in their exclusion; but if they cannot, it deserves 
 the serious consideration of the advocates of that 
 measure, how they can reconcile the palpable in- 
 fringement of such precepts with the scrupulous 
 adherence to the dictates of scripture, to which 
 they make such loud pretensions. 
 
 It will surely not be denied that the precepts 
 of the gospel are entitled to at least as much re- 
 verence as apostolical precedents, when it is re* 
 membered that the language of the former, as is 
 befitting laws, is clear and determinate, while in- 
 ferences deduced from the latter are frequently 
 subject to deb i:e; not to remark, that if we con- 
 sider the spirit of scripture precedent, it will be 
 found entirely in our favour. 
 
 When the abettors of exclusive communion 
 are pressed with the conclusions resulting from 
 the passiges we have quoted, and others of a si- 
 milar tendency, their usual answer is that the in» 
 
116 
 
 spired writers make no mention of baptism on 
 these occasions, and that no allusion is had to a 
 diversity of opinion on the positive institutions 
 of the gospel; which is perfectly true, and per- 
 fectly foreign to the purpose for which it is al- 
 leged; for the question at issue is not— What 
 were the individual errors we are commanded to 
 tolerate; but — What is the ground on which that 
 measure is enforced, and whether it be sufficiently 
 comprehensive to include the Psedobaptists. That 
 it is so, that they are actually included, can only 
 be denied by affirming that they are precluded 
 from divine acceptance, since it is precisely on 
 that ground that St. Paul rests the plea of tolera- 
 tion. To object to the application of a general 
 principle to a particular case, that it is not the 
 identical one which first occasFoned its enunci- 
 ation, is egregious, trifling, and would go to the 
 subversion of all general principles whatever, and 
 consequently put an end to all reasoning. When 
 a doubtful point in morality is to be decided by 
 an appeal to a general principle, it is an essential 
 property of such a principle to extend to more 
 particulars than one; since if it did not, it would 
 cease to be a principle, and the point in question 
 would be left to be decided by itself; and if not 
 self-evident, could admit of no decision whatever. 
 
117 
 
 When Nadab and Abihu, intoxicated with wine, 
 offered strange fire upon the ahar and were struck 
 with instant death for their presumption, Moses 
 by divine command prescribed the following ge- 
 neral rule for the worship of God: — '' I will be 
 sanctified of all them that draw nigh unto me, and 
 before all the people will I be glorified." Who 
 can be at a loss to perceive the absurdity of limit- 
 ing that precept to the prohibition of intoxication, 
 the crime which occasioned its first promulgation, 
 instead of extending it to every instance of levity 
 and impiety, in an approach to the divine Majesty. 
 My consciousness of the extreme weight of pre- 
 judice which the truth has to encounter, together 
 with the inaptitude of many who are most inte- 
 rested in this controversy to ascend to first princi- 
 ples, is my only apology for insisting upon a point 
 so obvious; chusing rather to hazard the contempt 
 of the wise, than not to impress conviction on the 
 vulgar. 
 
 With such as admit the possibility of P^edo- 
 baptists being saved, there remains in my appre- 
 hension no alternative, but either to receive them 
 into their communion without scruple, as com- 
 prehended within the apostolic canon, or to affirm 
 that decision to be founded on erroneous grounds^ 
 which at once removes the controversy to a su- 
 
118 
 
 pei-ior tribunal, where they and the Apostle must 
 implead each other. Let us however, briefl)^ ex- 
 amine certain distinctions they have recourse to, 
 in order to elude the force of these passages. In 
 the first place, it has been alleged that though we 
 are commanded to receive our mistaken brethren, 
 we are not instructed to receive them at the 
 Lord's table, or into the external communion of 
 the church; and that such injunctions are conse- 
 quently irrelevant to the inquiry respecting the 
 right of persons of a similar character to those 
 external privileges of which they make no men- 
 tion. "Is there no way," say our opponents, 
 "of receiving him that is weak in faith, but by 
 admitting him to the Lord's table? Must the ex- 
 hortation to receive a christian brother be con- 
 fined to that single instance of true benevolence?"^ 
 To this we reply that we know of none who as- 
 sert that the term receive must necessarily be 
 limited to the single act of a reception at the 
 Lord's table; but we affirm without hesitation, 
 that he is not received in the sense of the Apos- 
 tle, who is denied that privilege. Had the parties 
 whom he addressed proceeded to an open rupture 
 in point of communion, would they, in the judg- 
 
 * Booth's Apology, page 101. 
 
119 
 
 ment of our opponents, have complied with the 
 purport and spirit of his injunction? And if, after 
 adopting such a measure, they had appealed to the 
 Apostle, whether there " were no other way of 
 receiving their brethren but by admitting them 
 to the Lord's table," would he, or would he not, 
 have considered himself as mocked and insulted? 
 Mr. Booth enumerates many instances in St. 
 Paul's episdes, in which he enjoins Christians to 
 r^cfzVe certain persons, such as Phoebe, Onesimus, 
 Epaphroditus, and himself, where an admission 
 to the Lord's table was not intended, but some- 
 thing which he informs us would manifest their 
 love in a much higher degree.* What a con- 
 vincing demonstration of the propriety of with- 
 holding from persons of a similar character, that 
 lower, that inferior token of esteem which is in- 
 cluded in christian fellowship! And because the 
 bare admission of all the persons mentioned to 
 the external communion of the church, did not 
 satisfy the ardent benevolence of the Apostle, 
 without more decided and discriminate marks of 
 attachment, nor answer in the opinion of our op- 
 ponents to the full import of the word receive^ the 
 true method of realising his intentions, is to re- 
 ject the modern Phosbe and Onesimus altogether. 
 
 * Booth's Apology, page 10^, 
 
ISO 
 
 ^» Supposing however," says Mr. Booth, " that 
 there were no way of receiving one that is weak 
 in faith, but by admitting him to the Lord's table, 
 this text would be far from proving that which 
 our opponents desire; unless they could make it 
 appear, that the persons of whom the Apostle 
 immediately speaks, were not members of the 
 Church of Rome, when he gave the advice."* If 
 there be any weight in this argument it must pro- 
 ceed on the supposition, that if the persons whom 
 the Apostle enjoin the Romans to receive, had 
 not been already members, there is no sufficient 
 ground for believing, notwithstanding the strain 
 of his admonitions, that they would have been ad- 
 mitted. But is it possible to suppose that he 
 would have recommended a class of persons so 
 earnestly to the affectionate regards of a christian 
 society whom he would not have previously 
 deemed eligible to their communion; or that the 
 primitive discipline was so soon relaxed as to 
 occasion the continuance in the church of such 
 as would have been originally deemed unworthy 
 candidates? Most assuredly they who upon valid 
 grounds would have bten rejected if they had not 
 already been members, were never permitted to 
 boast the protection and patronage of an inspired 
 * Booth*s Apology, pag'e 82. 
 
1^1 
 
 Apostle after they became such. In every well- 
 ordered society, the privileges attached to it are 
 forfeited by that conduct in its members, what- 
 ever it be, which would have been an effectual 
 obstacle to their admission, and to suppose this 
 maxim reversed in a christian church, and that 
 an Apostle would caress, protect, and commend 
 persons who might justly have been debarred 
 from entering, is an absurdity, which few minds 
 can digest. The necessity of recurring to such 
 suppositions, is itself a sufficient confutation of 
 the system they are brought to defend. 
 
 Our opponents still insist upon it that no con- 
 clusion can be drawn from the command to re- 
 ceive the weak in faiths unless it could be shewn 
 that they were iinbaptized. But this mode of 
 reasoning pursued to its consequences, would 
 annihilate all the general axioms of scripture,* 
 and considering the infinite divr • < of human 
 circumstances, render them a most incompetent 
 guide. If the Holy Spirit has been pleased to 
 
 * " Bat admitting that to be a fact," says Mr. Booth, " of 
 which there is not the^least evidence, the conclusion drawn 
 from the passage would not be just, except it were also 
 proved, that the weak in faith were unbaptized, or at least 
 so considered by their stronger brethren, for that is the 
 point in dispute between us/' — Booties Apology ^ page 104. 
 11 
 
12^ 
 
 command us, without exception, to receive the 
 weak infaithy and instructed us in the grounds on 
 which his decision proceeded, which is plainly 
 the acceptance of such with God — if the Apostles 
 acting under his direction, goverened the church 
 on the same principles, and suffered no breach of 
 communion to be effected, but on account of a 
 vicious life, or fundamental error, the criminality 
 attached to an opposite course of procedure will 
 be very little extenuated by a circumstantial dif- 
 fcence in its objects. Had those whom the Apos- 
 tles commanded their converts to tolerate, been 
 tinbapt'izedy the inference in favour of Psedodap- 
 tists would unquestionably have been more ob- 
 vious, but not more certain, because nothing can 
 be more evident than that they urged the duty 
 of toleration on a principle which, even in the 
 judgment of our opponents, equally applies to 
 the Paedobaptists, which is that the error in each 
 case is compatible with a state of salvation, and 
 may be held with an upright conscience. 
 
 However systems and opinions may fluctuate, 
 truth is eternal; and if these were solid grounds 
 of mutual forbearance and indulgence heretofore, 
 thev must still continue su(h; but if they were not, 
 St. Paul must be acknowledged to have reasoned 
 inconclusively, and all idea of plenary inspiration 
 
1S3 
 
 must be abandoned. As the case stands, the ad- 
 vocates of exclusive communion mast either as- 
 sert, in direct contradiction to his statement, that 
 the compatibility of an error with a state of sal- 
 vation, and with what comes nearly to the same 
 point, the perfect sincerity of its abettor, is not a 
 sufficient reason for its being tolerated in the 
 church, or consign the Psedobaptists, who die in 
 their sentiments, to eternal destruction. In this 
 dilemma, they are at liberty to adopt which posi» 
 tion they please, but from both it is impossible to 
 escape. 
 
 In order, as it should seem, to perplex the mind 
 of the reader on this part of the subject, our op- 
 ponents endeavour to confound that interposition 
 of mercy, by which impenitent sinners are intro- 
 duced into a state of salvation, with the gracious 
 acceptance of behevers.^ 
 
 * " Yet permit me to ask," says Mr. Booth, "is the di- 
 vine conduct, is the favour of God, or the kindness of Christ 
 in receiving sinners, the rule of our proceeding* in the ad- 
 ministration of positive institutions? Whom does God, 
 whom does Christ receive? None but those who believe 
 and profess faith in the Lord Messiah? Our brethren will 
 not affirm it. For if divine compassion did not extend to 
 the dead in sin; if the kindness of Christ did not relieve the 
 enemies of God, none of our fellow race would ever be 
 •saved. But does it hence follow that we must admit the 
 
i24i 
 
 With this view we are reminded that God re- 
 ceives such as are dead in sins. Whether it be 
 safe to assert that God accepts the impenitent at 
 all, while their impenitence continues, I shall not 
 stay to inquire: it is certain they are not received 
 in the sa77ie sense as genuine Christians, nor in the 
 sense the Apostle intended when he enjoined for- 
 bearance towards the xueak in faith. That Christ 
 receives men in their sins^ so as to adopt them 
 into his family, and make them heirs of eternal 
 life, is a doctrine offensive to pious ears, most 
 remote from the language of scripture, and from 
 all sober theology. But if they intend something 
 essentially distinct from this, for what purpose it 
 is introduced, except with a view to shelter them- 
 selves under the cover of an ambiguous term, I 
 am at a loss to conjecture.' In the meantime, it 
 is obvious that the design of these contortions is 
 to get rid if possible of a principle which origi- 
 nated not with us, but with St. Paul, that we 
 ought to accept those whom we acknowledge 
 Christ to have accepted. This is still more evi- 
 
 unbelieving, or the unconverted, either to baptism or the 
 holy supper? Our gracious Lord freely accepts all that de- 
 sire it, and all that come, but are we bound to receive every 
 one that solicits communion v/ith x^sV— Booth's .Spolo^y, 
 page 106. 
 
125 
 
 dent, when we find them adducing the excommu- 
 nication of unworthy members, such as the in- 
 cestuous man at Corinth, who it is asserted was 
 all along an object of divine favour, as a proof 
 that the rule which that inspired writer has laid 
 down, may be safely neglected. In reply to which, 
 it is sufficient to ask — In what light was the in- 
 cestuous person regarded,* when he declared his 
 determination to deliver him to Satan for the 
 destruction of the flesh. Was it under the cha- 
 racter of a member of Christ, or an enemy to the 
 gospel? If we believe his own representation, he 
 deemed it necessary for him to be expelled as an 
 infectious leaven, the continuance of which would 
 corrupt the whole mass; so that whatever proofs 
 of repentance he might afterwards exhibit, these 
 could have no influence on the principle on which 
 he was excluded. When the professors of Chris- 
 tianity are guilty of deliberate violation of the 
 
 * "Besides, gospel churches," says Mr. Booth, "are 
 sometimes obliged to exclude from their communion those 
 whom he has received, as appears from the case of the in- 
 cestuous person in the church of Corinth. And have those 
 churches which practise free communion never excluded 
 any for scandalous backslidings, whom notwithstanding, 
 they could not but consider as received of Christ?" — Booth'a 
 .Apology, page 106. 
 
 11^ 
 
1§6 
 
 laws of Christ, they are to be treated agreeably 
 to the conduct they exhibit, as bad men, with a 
 hope that the severity of discipline may reclaim 
 and restore them to the paths of rectitude. 
 
 To justify the practice of exclusive commu- 
 nion, by placing Pasdobaptists, who form the great 
 body of the faithful, on the same level with men 
 of impure and vicious lives, is equally repugnant 
 to reason, and offensive to charity; at the same 
 time that it is manifest from this mode of rea- 
 soning, that the measure contended for is consi- 
 dered in the light of punishment* Whether our 
 Paedobaptist brethren are the proper objects of it, 
 or whether it is adopted to promote the only le- 
 gitimate ends of punishment, must be left to fu- 
 ture inquiry. 
 
 SECTION III. 
 
 P(^dobaptists a part of the true churchy and their 
 exclusion on that accou72t unknvfid. 
 
 Before v/e proceed to urge the argument an- 
 nounced in this section, it will be necessary to as- 
 certain the precise import of the word church, as 
 it is employed in the holy scriptures. If we exa- 
 mine the New Testament, we shall find that the 
 
 
i27 
 
 term church, as a religious appellation, occurs in 
 two senses only; it either denou s the whole body 
 of the faithful, or some one assembly of Christians 
 associated for the worship of God. In the former 
 sense, it is styled in the Apostle's creed, catholic, 
 or universal; a belief in the existence of which, 
 forms one of its principal articles. In this sense, 
 Jesus Christ is affirmed to be " Head over all things 
 to the church, which is his body." It is in this 
 collective view of it, that we affirm its perpetuity. 
 When the term is employed to denote a particular 
 assembly of Christians, it is invariably accompanied 
 with a specification of the place where it was ac- 
 customed to convene, as for example, the church 
 at Corinth, at Ephesus, or at Rome. Now it is 
 manifest from scripture, that these two significa- 
 tions of the word differ from each other only as a 
 part differs from a whole, so that when the whole 
 body of believers is intended, it is used in its ab- 
 solute form; when a particular society is meant, it 
 is joined with a local specification. It is never 
 used in the New Testament as in modern times, 
 to denote the aggregate of christian assemblies 
 throughout a province, or a kingdom; nor do we 
 ever read of the church of Achaia, Galatia, et ce- 
 tera, but of the churches in the plural number; the 
 word being constantly apphed either to the whole 
 number of the faithful, scattered throughout the 
 
±28 
 
 world, or to some single congregation or society. 
 It is equally obvious that whenever the word church 
 occurs in its absolute form, it comprehends all ge- 
 nuine Christians without exception, and as that 
 church is affirmed to be his bodij^ it could not enter 
 into the conception of the inspired writers that 
 there were a class of persons strictly united to 
 Christ, who yet were none of its component parts. 
 By orthodox Christians it is uniformly maintain- 
 ed that union to Christ is formed by faith, and as 
 the Baptists are distinguished by demanding a pro- 
 fession of it at baptism, they at least are precluded 
 from asserting that rite to have any concern in ef- 
 fecting the spiritual alliance in question. In their 
 judgment at least, since faith precedes the applica- 
 tion of water, the only means of union are possess- 
 ed by the abettors of infant sprinkling equally with 
 themselves; who are therefore equally of the "body 
 of Christ, and members in particular/' But since 
 the Holy Ghost identifies that body with the church, 
 explaining the one by the other, (" for his body's 
 sake, which is the church,") it seems impossible to 
 deny that they are fully entitled to be considered 
 in the catholic sense of the term, as members of 
 the christian church. And as the universal church 
 is nothing more than the collective body of the 
 faithful, and differs only from a particular assembly 
 of Christians, as the whole from a part, it is equally 
 
1S9 
 
 impossible to deny that a Paedobaptist society is, 
 in the more limited import of the word, a true 
 church. 
 
 If we consider the matter in a light somewhat 
 different, we shall be conducted to the same con- 
 clusion, and be compelled to confess that Paedobap- 
 tist societies are, or at least may be, notwithstand- 
 ing the practice of infant sprinkling, true churches. 
 The idea of plurality, it will be admitted, adds no- 
 thing to the nature of the object to which it is at- 
 tached. The idea of a number of men differs no- 
 thing in kind from that of a single man, except that 
 it involves a repetition, or multiplication of the 
 same idea. But the term church is merely a nume- 
 rical term, denoting a multitude, or an assembly 
 of men; and for the same reason that a number 
 of men meeting together constitutes an asse^ibly, 
 or church^^ in the most cemprehensive import of 
 the word, so a number of Christians convened for 
 the worship of God, constitutes a christian assem- 
 bly, or a church. Such an assembly, will necessa- 
 rily be modified by the character of the mem- 
 bers which compose it; if their timents are er- 
 roneous, the church will proportionably imbibe a 
 tincture of error; but to affirm that though it con- 
 
 * Acts xix. 32 — " For the assembly was confused." The 
 original word is h iKKXHTtaj the term usually rendered church* 
 
130 
 
 sists of real Christians, a society of such assem- 
 bled for christian worship is not a true church, is 
 to attribute to the idea oi plurality or oi nu7nber the 
 power of changing the nature or essence of the ob- 
 ject with which it is united, which involves a con- 
 tradiction to our clearest perceptions. If we ad- 
 here to the dictates of reason or of scripture, when 
 we give the appellation of a church to a particular 
 society of Christians, we shall mingle nothing in 
 our conceptions, beyond what enters into our ideas 
 of an individual Christian, with the exception of 
 this circumstance only, that it denotes a number 
 of such individuals actually assembled, or wont 
 to assemble for the celebration of divine wor- 
 ship. Though the definition of a church has of- 
 ten been the occasion of much confused disqui- 
 sition, especially when the term has been appli- 
 ed e!iclusively to the clergy, the Baptists, I be- 
 lieve, are the only persons who have scrupled to 
 assign that appellation to societies acknowledged to 
 consist of spiritual worshippers a notion which, 
 however repugnant to the dictates of candour, or 
 of common sense, is the necessary appendage of 
 the practice, equally absurd, of confining their com- 
 munion to their own denomination. 
 
 Having shewn, we trust to the satisfaction of 
 the reader, that paedobaptism is not an error of 
 such magnitude, as to prevent the society which 
 
131 
 
 maintains it from being deemed a true church, I pro- 
 ceed to observe that to repel the members of such 
 a society from communion, is the very essence 
 of schism. Schism is a causeless and unnecessary 
 separation from the church of Christ, or from any 
 part of it; and that secession cannot urge the plea 
 of necessity, where no concurrence in what is 
 deemed evil, no approbation of error or supersti- 
 tion, is involved in communion. In the case before 
 us, by, admitting a Psedobaptist to the Lord's sup- 
 per, no sanction whatever is given to infant-sprink- 
 ling, no act of concurrence is involved or implied; 
 nothing is done, or left undone, which would have 
 not been equally so, if his attendance were with- 
 drawn. Under such circumstances, the necessity 
 of preserving the purity of worship, or of avoid- 
 ing an active co-operation in what we deem sinful 
 or erroneous fthe only justifiable ground of sepa- 
 tion), has no place. The objection to his admission 
 is founded solely on a disapprobation of a particu- 
 lar practice considered, not as it affects us, since 
 no part of our religious practice is influenced by 
 it, but in relation to its intrinsic demerits. 
 
 Division amongst Christians, especially when 
 it proceeds to a breach of communion, is so fraught 
 with scandal, and so utterly repugnant to the ge- 
 nius of the gospel, that the suffrages of the whole 
 christian world have concurred in regarding it as 
 
13S 
 
 an evil, on no occasion to be incurred, but for the 
 avoidance of a greater — the violation of conscience. 
 Whenever it becomes impossible to continue in a 
 religious community, without concurring in prac- 
 tices, and sanctioning abuses, which the word of 
 God condemns, a secession is justified by the apo- 
 calyptic voice, " Come out of her my people, that 
 ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive 
 not of her plagues." On this principle, the con- 
 duct of the Reformers in separating from the Ro- 
 man Hierarchy, admits of an ample vindication: 
 in consequence of the introduction of superstitious 
 rites and ceremonies, it became impracticable to 
 continue in her communion, without partaking of 
 her sins; and for a similar reason the Non-con- 
 formists seceded from the Church of England, 
 where ceremonies were enforced, and an ecclesi- 
 astical polity established, incompatible as they con- 
 ceived, with the purity and simplicity of the chris- 
 tian institute. In each of these cases, the blame of 
 schism did not attach to the separatists, but to that 
 spirit of imposition which rendered such a mea- 
 sure requisite. In each instance it was an act of 
 self-preservation, rendered unavoidable by the 
 highest necessity, that of declining to concur in 
 practices at which their conscience revolted. But 
 what similarity to this is discernible in the conduct 
 of the advocates of strict communion? They are 
 
133 
 
 not engaged in preserving their own liberty, but in 
 an attack on the liberty of others; their object is 
 not to preserve the worship in which they join, pure 
 from contamination; but to sit in judgment on the 
 consciences of their brethren, and to deny them 
 the privilege of the visible church on account of a 
 difference of opinion, which is neither imposed on 
 themselves, nor deemed fundamental. They pro- 
 pose to build a church, upon the principle of an 
 absolute exclusion of a multitude of societies, which 
 they must either acknowledge to be true churches^ 
 or be convicted, as we have seen, of the greatest 
 absurdity; while for a conduct so monstrous and 
 unnatural, they are precluded from the plea of ne- 
 cessity, because no attempt is made by Psedobap- 
 tists to modify their worship, or to controul the most 
 enlarged exercise of private judgment. Upon the 
 principle for which I am contending, they are not 
 called to renounce their peculiar tenets on the sub- 
 ject of baptism, nor to express their approbation 
 of a contrary practice; but simply not to sever 
 themselves from the body of Christ, nor refuse to 
 unite with his church. 
 
 However familiar the spectacle of christian so- 
 cieties who have no fellowship or intercourse with 
 each other has become, he who consults the New 
 Testament will instantly perceive, that nothing 
 more repugnant to the dictates of inspiration, or tg 
 12 
 
the practice of the first and purest age, can be con- 
 ceived. When we turn our eyes to the primitive 
 times, we behold one church of Christ, and one 
 only, in which when new assemblies of christians 
 arose, they were considered not as multiplying, but 
 diffusing it; not as destroying its unity, or impair- 
 ing its harmony, but being fitly compacted together 
 on the same foundation, as a mere accession to the 
 beauty and grandeur of the whole. The spouse of 
 Christ, like a prolific mother, exulted in her 
 numerous offspring, who were all equally cherish- 
 t-d in her bosom, and grew up at her side. As the 
 necessity of departing from these maxims, or of 
 appearing to depart from them at least, by. forming 
 separate societies, arose entirely from that spirit 
 of ecclesiastical tyranny and superstition which 
 was gradually developed, so a similar measure is 
 justifiable as far as that necessity extends, and no 
 farther. In the case of strict communion, it has no 
 place whatever. In that case, it is not a defensive, 
 but an offensive measure; it is not an assertion of 
 christian liberty, by resisting encroachment; it is 
 itself a violent encroachment on the freedom of 
 others; not an effort to preserve our own worship 
 pure, but to enforce a conformity to our views, in 
 a point acknowledged not essential to salvation. 
 That the unity of the church cannot be maintained 
 upon those princij>les, that if every error is to be 
 
135 
 
 opposed, not by mild remonstrance, and scriptural 
 argument, but by making it the pretext of a breach 
 of communion, nothing but a series of animosities 
 and divisions can ensue, the experience of past 
 ages has rendered sufficiently evident. If amidst 
 the infinite diversity of opinions, each society 
 deems it necessary to render its own peculiarities 
 the basis of union, as though the design of Chris- 
 tians in forming themselves into a church, were not 
 to exhibit the great principles of the gospel, but to 
 give publicity and effect to party distinctions, all 
 hope of restoring christian harmony and unanimity, 
 must be abandoned. When churches are thus con- 
 stituted, instead of enlarging the sphere of chris- 
 tian charity, they became so many hostile confe- 
 deracies. 
 
 If it be once admitted that a body of men asso- 
 ciating for christian worship have a right to enact 
 as terms of communion, something more than is 
 included in the terms of salvation, the question 
 suggested by St. Paul — " Is Christ divided," is 
 utterly futile: what he considered as a solecism is 
 reduced to practice, and established by law. How 
 is it possible to attain or preserve unanimity in the 
 absence of an intelligible standard: and when we 
 feel ourselves at liberty to depart from a divine 
 precedent, and to affect a greater nicety an.) scru- 
 pulosity in the separation of the precious and tht; 
 
136 
 
 vile, than the Searcher of Hearts; when we follow 
 the guidance of private partialities and predilec- 
 tions, without pretending to regulate our conduct 
 by the pattern of our great Master; who is at a 
 loss to perceive the absolute impossibility of pre- 
 serving the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace? 
 Of what is essential to salvation, it is not difficult to 
 judge: the quiet of the conscience requires that the 
 information on this subject should be clear and 
 precise: whatever is beyond, is involved in com- 
 parative obscurity, and subject to doubtful dispu- 
 tation. 
 
 There are certain propositions which produce 
 on a mind free from prejudice such instantaneous 
 conviction, as scarcely to admit of formal proof. 
 Of this nature is the following position, that it is 
 presumptuous to aspire to a greater purity and 
 strictness in selecting the materials of a church, 
 than are observed by its divine founder; and those 
 whom he forms and actuates by his Spirit, and 
 admits to communion with himself, are sufficiently 
 qualified for the communion of mortals. What 
 can be alleged in contradiction to a truth so indu- 
 bitable and so obvious? Nothing but a futile dis- 
 tinction (futile in relation to the present subject) 
 betwixt the moral, and the positive parts, of Chris- 
 tianity. We are told again and again that the 
 Lord's supper is a positive and arbitrary institu- 
 
137 
 
 tlon, in consequence of which, the right to it Is 
 not to be judged of by moral considerations, and 
 general reasonings, but by express prescription and 
 command. 
 
 Willing to meet objectors on their own ground, 
 we request them to point us to the passage in the 
 code of inspiration, where unbaptized Christians 
 are forbidden to participate; and all the answer we 
 receive, consists merely of those inferences and 
 arguments from analogy, against which they pro- 
 test, so that our opponents, unsupported by the 
 letter of scripture, are obliged to have recourse to 
 general reasoning, not less than ourselves, how- 
 ever lame and defective that reasoning may be. 
 
 When we urge them with the fact that all genu- 
 ine Christians are received by Christ, and that his 
 conduct in this instance is proposed as a pattern 
 for our imitation, they are compelled to shift their 
 ground; and although it is evident to every one 
 who reflects that we mean to assert the obligation 
 of adhering to that example, only as far as it is 
 known, they adduce the instance of immoral pro- 
 fessors, who though received, as they contend, by 
 Christ, are justly rejected by the church. But how, 
 we ask, are we to ascertain the fact that such per- 
 sons are accepted of Christ, till they give proof of 
 their repentance? Is it precisely the same thing to 
 neglect a known rule of action, as to cease to fol- 
 12 * 
 
i38 
 
 low it, when it is involved in hopeless obscurity? 
 Admitting for argument's sake that disorderly- 
 livers have uninterrupted union with the Saviour, 
 it is impossible that we should know it, while they 
 continue impenitent, and therefore, on such occa- 
 sions, it ceases to be a rule. But in rejecting 
 Pasdobaptists in the mass, they reject a numerous 
 class of Christians whom they know and acknow- 
 ledge, to be temples of the Holy Ghost. If the two 
 cases are parallel, we acknowledge the justice of 
 the conclusion; if not, what more futile and ab- 
 surd? Let it be remembered, however, that all this 
 quibbling and tergiversation, are employed to get 
 rid of an apostolic canon, and that they bear upon 
 our principles in no other sense, than as they tend 
 to nullify or impair the force of an inspired maxim. 
 If we are in an error, we deem it no small felicity, 
 to err in such company. 
 
 Before I close this section, I must be permitted 
 to remark an inconsistency in the conduct of our 
 opponents, connected with this part of the subject, 
 which has often excited my surprise. Disclaim- 
 ing, as they do, all communion with Psedobaptists, 
 and refusing to acknowledge them as a legitimate 
 part of the christian church, we should naturally 
 expect they would shun every approach to such a 
 recognition of them with peculiar care in devo- 
 tional exercises, in solemn addresses to the Deity. 
 
139 
 
 Xothing, on the contrary, is more common than 
 the interchange of religious services betwixt Bap- 
 tists and Independents, in which the Peedobaptist 
 minister is solemnly recommended to the Supreme 
 Being as the pastor of the church, and his blessing 
 earnestly implored on the relation they stand in to 
 each other; nor is it unusual for a Baptist to offici- 
 ate at the ordination of an Independent minister, 
 by delivering a charge, or inculcating the duties of 
 the people, in a discourse appropriated to the occa- 
 sion. They feel no objection to have communion 
 with Psedobaptists in prayer and praise, the most 
 solemn of all acts of worship, even on an occasion 
 immediately connected with the recognition of a 
 religious society; but no sooner does the idea of 
 the eucharist occur, than it operates like a spell, and 
 all this language is changed, and these sentiments 
 vanish. It is surely amusing to behold a person 
 solemnly inculcating the reciprocal duties of a re- 
 lation, which on his principles has no existence; 
 and interceding expressly in behalf of a pastor and 
 a church, when if we credit his representations at 
 other times, that church is illegitimate, and the 
 title of pastor consequently a mere usurpation. 
 Although it must be acknowledged that the ap- 
 proach of Psedobaptists to the sacred table is on 
 their principles a presumptuous intrusion, it is sel- 
 dom that the advocates of strict communion feel 
 
140 
 
 any scruple in attempting, by devotional exercises^ 
 to prepare the mind for the right performance of 
 what they are accustomed to stigmatize as radically 
 wrong. For my part, I am utterly at a loss to re- 
 concile these discrepancies. Is it that they consider 
 less attention to truth, a less exact correspondence 
 betwixt the language and the sentiments, requisite 
 in addressing the Deity, than in discoursing with 
 their fellow mortals? Or is it not more candid to 
 suppose that devotion elevates them to a higher re- 
 gion, where they breathe a freer air, and look down 
 upon the petty subtleties of a thorny, disputatious 
 theology, with a just and sovereign contempt? 
 
 SECTION IV. 
 
 rhe exclusion of P^dohaptists from the Lord^s 
 table considered as a punishment. 
 
 The refusal of the eucharist to a professor of 
 Christianity canHje justified only on the ground of 
 his supposed criminality; of his embracing hereti- 
 cal sentiments, or living a vicious life. As the sen- 
 tence of exclusion is the severest the church can 
 inflict, and no punishment just, but in proportion 
 to the degree of preceding delinquency, it follows 
 of course that he who incurs the total privation of 
 church privileges, must be considered eminently in 
 
141 
 
 the light of an offender. When the incestuous per- 
 son was separated from the church at Corinth, it 
 was regarded by St. Paul as a punishment^ and that 
 of no ordinary magnitude: — " Sufficient/' said he, 
 " is this punishment, which was inflicted of many." 
 Nor is there any difference, with respect to the 
 present inquiry, betwixt the refusal of a candidate, 
 and the expulsion of a member; since nothing will 
 justify the former of these measures, which might 
 not be equally alleged in vindication of the latter. 
 Both amount to a declaration of the parties being 
 unworthy to communicate. The language held by 
 our opponents is sufficiently decisive on this head: 
 — '*It is not every one," says Mr. Booth, ''that is 
 received of Jesus Christ, who is entitled to com- 
 munion at his table; but such, and such only, as re- 
 vere his authority, submit to his ordinances, and 
 obey the laws of his house.''* Hence to be consist- 
 ent with themselves, they must impute to Paedo- 
 baptists universally, a degree of delinquency equal 
 to that which attaches to the most flagrant breaches 
 of immorality; and deem them equally guilty in 
 the sight of God, with those unjust persons, idola- 
 ters, revellers, and extortioners, who are declared 
 incapable of entering into the kingdom of heaven. 
 For if the guilt imputed in this instance, is acknow- 
 
 * Apolog-y, pag-e lOr. • 
 
14S 
 
 ledged to be of a totally different order from that 
 which belongs to the openly vicious and profane, 
 how come they to be included in the same sen- 
 tence; and where is the equity of animadverting 
 upon unequal faults, with equal severity. 
 
 To be consistent also, they must invariably re- 
 fuse to tolerate every species of imperfection in 
 their members, which in their judgment is equally 
 criminal with the Paedobaptist error; but how far 
 they are from maintaining this impartiality, is too 
 obvious to admit of a question. In churches whose 
 discipline is the most rigid, it will not be denied 
 that many are tolerated, who are chargeable with 
 conduct more offensive in the sight of God, than a 
 misconception of the nature of a positive institute; 
 nor will they assert that a Brainerd, a Doddridge, 
 or a Leighton, had more to answer for at the su- 
 preme tribunal, on the score of infant-baptism, than 
 the most doubtful of those imperfect Christians, 
 whom they retain without scruple in their commu- 
 nion. Let them remember too, that this reason- 
 ing proceeds not on the principle of the innocence 
 of error in general, or of infant-sprinkling in par- 
 ticular; but on the contrary, that it takes for grant- 
 ed, that some degree of blame attaches to a neglect, 
 though involuntary, of a positive precept; we wish 
 only to be informed, on what principle of equity i 
 
143 
 
 is proposed, in the infliction of ecclesiastical cen- 
 sures, to equalize things which are not equal. 
 
 From those injunctions of St. Paul which have 
 already been distinctly noticed, where he enforces 
 the duty of reciprocal toleration, we find him in- 
 sisting on certain circumstances, adapted to dimi- 
 nish the moral estimate of the errors in question, 
 and to shew that they involved a very inconsidera- 
 ble portion of blame, compared to that which the 
 zealots on either side, were disposed to impute. — 
 Such is the statement of their not being fundamen- 
 tal, of the possibility of their being held with a pure 
 conscience, and the certainty that both parties were 
 equally comprehended within the terms of salva- 
 tion. In thus attempting to form an estimate of the 
 magnitude of the mistakes and misconceptions of 
 our fellow Christians in a moral view, for the pur- 
 pose of regulating our treatment of them, we are 
 justified by the highest authority; and the only ra- 
 tional inquiry seems to be, whether infant-baptism 
 is really more criminal than those acknowledged 
 imperfections, which are allowed to be proper ob- 
 jects of christian forbearance. If it be affirmed that 
 it is, we request our opponents to reconcile this as- 
 sertion with the high encomiums they are wont to 
 bestow on Paedobaptists, many of wh m they feel 
 no hesitation in classing, on other occasions, with 
 the most eminent saints upon earth. That they are 
 
144 
 
 perfectly exempt from blame, we are not contend- 
 ing; but this strange combination of vice arid vir- 
 tue in the same persons, by which they are at once 
 justly excluded from the church as criminal, and 
 extolled as saints, is perfectly incomprehensible. 
 The advocates of this doctrine attempt to con- 
 ceal its deformity, by employing an attenuated and 
 ambiguous phraseology, and instead of speaking of 
 Psedobaptists in the terms their system demands, 
 are fond of applying the epithets, irregular, disor- 
 derly, &c. to their conduct. Still the question re- 
 turns — Is this imputed irregularity, innocent, or 
 criminal? If the former, why punish it at all? If 
 the latter, surely the punishment should be propor- 
 tioned to the guilt; and if it exceed the measure 
 awarded to offences equally aggravated, we must 
 either pronounce it unjust, or confound the distinc- 
 tion of right and wrong. But if the forfeiture of 
 all the privileges attached to christian society, is 
 incurred merely by infant-baptism, while numer- 
 ous imperfections both in sentiment and practice 
 are tolerated in the same church, it cannot be de- 
 nied that the former is treated with more severity 
 than the latter. If it be more criminal, such treat- 
 ment is just: but if a Doddridge and a Leighton 
 were not, even in the judgment of our opponents, 
 necessarily more criminal in the sight of God than 
 the most imperfect of those whom they retain in 
 
145 
 
 their communion, it is neither just in itself, nor 
 upon their own principles. 
 
 If we consider the matter in another light, the 
 measure under consideration will appear equally in- 
 capable of vindication. As it is unquestionably of 
 the nature oi pu7iishment^ so the infliction of every 
 species of punishment is out of place, which has 
 no tendency to reform the offender, or to benefit 
 others by his example; which are its only legiti- 
 mate ends. Whatever is beside these purposes, is 
 ^ useless waste of suffering, equally condemned by 
 the dictates of reason and religion. The applica- 
 tion of this principle to the case before us, is ex- 
 tremely obvious. 
 
 I am far from thinking lightly of the spiritual 
 power with which Christ has armed his church. It 
 is a high and mysterious one, which has no paralk4 
 on earth. Nothing, in the order of means, is equally 
 adapted to awaken compunction in the guilty, with 
 spiritual censures impartially administered: the sen- 
 tence of excommunication in particular, harmonis- 
 ing with the dictates of conscience, and re-echoed 
 by her voice, is truly terrible: it is the voice of 
 God, speaking through its legitimate organ, which 
 he who despises, or neglects, ranks with ''heathen- 
 men and publicans," joins the synagogue of Satan, 
 and takes his lot with an unbelieving world, doomed 
 to perdition — Excommunication is a sword which, 
 13 
 
146 
 
 strong in its apparent weakness, and the sharper^, 
 and more efficacious for being divested of all sen- 
 sible and exterior envelopements, lights immedi- 
 ately on the spirit, and inflicts a wound which no 
 balm can cure, no ointment can mollify, but which 
 must continue to ulcerate and burn, till healed by 
 the blood of atonement, applied by penitence and 
 prayer. In no instance is that axiom more fully ve- 
 rified, "The weakness of God is stronger than 
 men, and the foolishness of God is wiser than men," 
 than in the discipline of his church. By incumber- 
 ing it with foreign aid, they have robbed it of its 
 real strength; by calling in the aid of temporal pains 
 and penalties, they have removed it from the spirit 
 to the flesh, from its contact with eternity, to unite 
 it to secular interests; and as the corruption of the 
 best things, is the worst, have rendered it the 
 scandal and reproach of our holy religion. 
 
 While it retains its character, as a spiritual ordi- 
 nance, it is the chief bulwark against the disorders 
 which threaten to overturn religion, the very nerve 
 of virtue, and next to the preaching of the cross, 
 the principal antidote to the '' corruptions that are 
 in tlie world through lust." Discipline in a church 
 occupies the place of laws in a state; and as a king- 
 dom, however excellent its constitution, will inev- 
 itably sink into a state of extreme wretchedness, in 
 which laws are either not enacted, or not duly ad- 
 
147 
 
 ministered; so a church which pays no attention to 
 discipline, will either fall into confusion, or into a 
 state so much worse, that little or nothing will re- 
 main worth regulating. The right of inflicting cen- 
 sures, and of proceeding in extreme cases to ex- 
 communication, is an essential branch of that pow- 
 er with which the church is endowed, and bears 
 the same relation to discipline that the administra- 
 tion of criminal justice, bears to the general prin- 
 ciples of government. When this right is exerted in 
 upholding the "faith once delivered to the saints," 
 or enforcing a conscientious regard to the laws of 
 Christ it maintains its proper place, and is highly 
 beneficial. Its cognizance of doctrine is justified 
 by apostolic authority: " a heretic after two or three 
 admonitions reject;*' nor is it to any purpose to urge 
 the difference betwixt ancient heretics and modern, 
 or that to pretend to distinguish truth from error 
 is a practical assumption of infallibility. While the 
 truth of the gospel remains, a fundamental contra- 
 diction to it is possible, and the difficulty of deter- 
 mining what is so, must be exacth proportioned 
 to the difficulty of ascertaining the import of re- 
 velation, which he who affirms to be insurmounta- 
 ble, ascribes to it such an obscurity as must defeat 
 its primary purpose. 
 
 He who contends that no agreement in doctrine 
 is essential to communion, must, if he understand 
 
148 
 
 himself, either mean to assert that Christianity con- 
 tains no fundamental truths, or that it is not neces- 
 sary that a member of a church should be a Chris- 
 tian. The first of these positions sets aside the ne- 
 cessity of faith altogether; the last is a contradic- 
 tion in terms. For these reasons, it is required 
 that the operation of discipline should extend to 
 speculative errors, no less than to practical enor- 
 mities. But since it is not pretended that Paedo- 
 baptists are heretics, it is evident that they are not 
 subject to the cognizance of the church, under that 
 character. As they differ from us merely in the in- 
 terpretation of a particular precept, while they avow 
 the same deference to the legislator; the proper 
 antidote to their error is calm, dispassionate argu- 
 ment, not the exercise of power. Let us present 
 the evidence on which our practice is grounded, to 
 the greatest advantage, to which the display of a 
 conciliating spirit will contribute more than a little; 
 but to proceed with a high hand, and attempt to 
 terminate the dispute by authority, involves an ut- 
 ter misconception of the true nature and object of 
 discipline, which is never to decide what is doubt- 
 ful, or to elucidate what is obscure, but to promul- 
 gate the sentence which the immutable laws of 
 Christ have provided, with the design in the first 
 place, of exciting compunction in the breast of the 
 offender, and next of profiting others by his exam- 
 
149 
 
 pie. The solemn decision of a christian assembly, 
 that an individual has forfeited his right to spirit- 
 ual privileges, and is henceforth consigned to the 
 kingdom of Satan, is an awful proceeding, only in-- 
 ferior in terror, to the sentence of the last day. 
 
 But what is it which renders it so formidable? 
 It is its accordance with the moral nature of man, 
 its harmony with the dictates of conscience, which 
 gives it all its force. When, on the contrary, the 
 pious inquirer is satisfied with his own conduct, 
 viewing it with approbation and complacency* 
 when he is fortified, as in the present instance, by 
 the example of a great majority of the christian 
 world, who are ready to receive him with open 
 arms, and to applaud him for the very practice 
 which has provoked it, how vain is it to expect that 
 his exclusion from a particular church, will operate 
 a change? when he learns too, that his supposed er- 
 ror is not pretended to be fatal, but such as may 
 be held with a good conscience, and with faith un- 
 feigned, and is actually held by some of the best 
 of men, it is easy to foresee what sentiments he 
 will feel towards the authors of such a measure, 
 and how little he will be prepared to examine im- 
 partially the evidence of that particular opinion, 
 which has occasioned it. Such a proceeding, not 
 having the remotest tendency to inform, or to 
 alarm the conscience, is ineffectual to every pur- 
 13* 
 
150 
 
 pose of discipline; and as it professedly comprises 
 nothing of the nature of argument, no light can 
 be derived from it, towards the elucidation of a 
 controverted question. It interposes by authority, 
 instead of reason, where authority can avail no- 
 thing, and reason is all in all: and while it is con- 
 temptible as an instrument employed to compel 
 unanimity, its power of exciting prejudice and 
 disgust is unrivalled. Such are the mischiefs re- 
 sulting from confounding together the provinces 
 of discipline and of argument; and since the prac- 
 tice which we have ventured to oppose, if it 
 have any meaning, is intended to operate as a 
 punishment, without answering one of the ends 
 for which it is inflicted, it is high time it were con- 
 signed to oblivion. 
 
 There is another consideration sufficiently re- 
 lated to the part of the subject before us, to justify 
 my introducing it here, as I would wish to avoid 
 the unnecessary multiplication of divisions. What- 
 ever criminality attaches to the practice of free 
 communion, must entirely consist in sanctioning' 
 the improper conduct of the parties with whom we 
 unite; and if it be wrong to join with Paedobaptists 
 at the Lord's table, it must be still more so in them 
 to celebrate it. When an action allowed in itself 
 to be innocent or commendable, becomes improper, 
 as performed in conjunction with another, that im- 
 
151 
 
 propriety must result solely from the moral incom- 
 petence to that action, of the party associated. Thus 
 in the instance before us, it must be assumed that 
 Paedobaptists are morallij culpable in approaching 
 the sacred symbols, or the attempt to criminate us 
 for sanctioning them in that practice, would be ri- 
 diculous. As it is allowed that every baptized be- 
 liever not only may partake, but ought to partake, 
 of that spiritual repast, his uniting with Paedobap- 
 tists on that occasion, is liable to objection on no 
 other ground than that it may be considered as in- 
 timating his approbation of their conduct in that 
 particular. Upon the principles of our opponents 
 their approach is not only sinful, but sinful to such 
 a degree, as to communicate a moral taint to what, 
 in other circumstances, would be deemed an act of 
 obedience. Here the first question that arises is 
 -—Are the advocates of infant-baptism criminal 
 in approaching the Lord's table? 
 
 Be it remembered, that our controversy with 
 them respects the ordinance of baptism only, which 
 we suppose them to have misconceived, and that 
 it has no relation to the only remaining positive in- 
 stitute. Believing, as many of them unquestiona- 
 bly do, that they are as truly baptized as ourselves, 
 and there being no controversy betwixc us on the 
 subject of the eucharist, it is impossible for them, 
 even on the principles of our opponents, to enter- 
 
152 
 
 tain the least scruple respecting the obligation of 
 attending to that ordinance. Admitting it possible 
 for them to believe what they uniformly and inva- 
 riably profess, they cannot fail of being fully con- 
 vinced, that it is their duty to communicate. Under 
 ■these circumstances ought they to communicate, or 
 ought they not? If we answer in the negative, we 
 must affirm that men ought not to pursue that course 
 which, after the most mature deliberation, the un- 
 hesit;iting dictates of conscience suggest; which 
 would go to obliterate and annul the only immedi- 
 ate rule of human action. Nor can it be objected 
 with truth, that the tendency of this reasoning is to 
 destroy the absolute difference betwixt right and 
 wrong, by referring all to conscience. That apart 
 from human judgments, there is an intrinsic, moral 
 difference in actions we freely admit, and hence re- 
 sults the previous obligation of informing the mind, 
 by a diligent attention to the dictates of reason and 
 religion, and of delaying to act till we have sufficient 
 light; but in entire consistence with this, we affirm 
 that where there is no hesitation, the criterion of 
 immediate duty is the suggestion of conscience; 
 whatever guilt may have been previously incurred, 
 by the neglect of serious and impartial inquiry. 
 That this, under die modifications already specified, 
 is the only criterion, is sufficiently evident from the 
 impossibility of conceiving any other. If it lead 
 
153 
 
 (as it easily may, from the neglect of the previous 
 inquiry already mentioned) to a deviation from ab- 
 solute rectitude, we must not concur in the action 
 in which such deviation is involved. 
 
 To apply these prmciples to the case before us. 
 Whatever blame we may be disposed to attribute 
 to the abettors of infant-baptism, on the score of 
 previous inattention, or prejudice, as there is no- 
 thing in their principles to cause them to hesitate 
 respecting the obligation of the eucharist, it is un- 
 questionably their immediate duty to celebrate it, 
 they would be guilty of a deliberate and wilful of- 
 fence were they to neglect it. And as it is their du' 
 ty to act thus, in compliance with the dictates 
 of conscience, we cannot be guilty of sanctioning 
 %vhat is evil in them, bv the approbation implied in 
 joint participation. As far as they are concerned, 
 the case seems clear; and no sanction is given to 
 criminal conduct. It remains to be considered only 
 how the action is situated with respect to ourselves; 
 and here the decision is still more easy, for the ac- 
 tion to which we are invited is not only consistent 
 with rectitude, but would be allowed by all parties 
 to be an instance of obedience, but for the con- 
 currence of Paedobaptists. — Thus much may suf- 
 fice in answer to the first question, respecting the 
 supposed criminality of the act of communion as 
 performed by the advocates of infant-baptism: a 
 
154 
 
 criminality which must be assumed as the sole basis 
 of the charges adduced against the practice we are 
 defending. 
 
 When we reflect that the whole of our opponents' 
 reasoning turns upon the disqualification of Paedo- 
 baptists for the Lord's supper it is surprising that 
 we rarely, if ever, fijd them contemplate the sub- 
 ject in that ligSit, ur advert to the criminality of 
 breaking down that sacred inclosure. The subor- 
 dinate agents are severely censured, the principal 
 ofi*enders scarceh noticed: and if my reader be dis- 
 posed to gratify his curiosity by making a collec- 
 tion of all the uncandid strictures which have been 
 passed upon the advocates of psedobaptism, it is 
 more than probable the charge of profaning the 
 Lord's supper, would not be found among the num- 
 ber. Yet this is the original sin; this the epidemic 
 evil, as widely diffused as the existence of paedo- 
 baptist communities: and if it be of such a nature 
 as to attach a portion of guilt to whatever comes 
 into contact with it; it must, considering its exten- 
 sive prevalence, be one of the most crying enormi- 
 ties. It is an evil which has spread much wider 
 than the sacrifice of the mass: it is a pollution 
 which (with the exception of one sect only), at- 
 taches to all flesh, and is unblushingly avowed by 
 the professors of Christianity in every part of the 
 universe. And what is most surprising, the only 
 
155 
 
 persons who have discovered it, instead of lifting 
 up their voice, maintain a profound silence; and 
 while they are sufficiently liberal in their censures 
 on the popular error respecting baptism, are not 
 heard to breathe a murmur agamst this erroneous 
 abuse. In truth they are so little impressed with it, 
 that they decline urging it even where the mention 
 of it would seem unavoidable. When they are re- 
 buking us forjoining with our Paedobaptist brethren 
 in partaking of a sacrament for which they are sup- 
 posed to want the due qualifications, it is not their 
 presumption in approaching on which they insist, 
 as might be reasonably expected; on that subject 
 they are silent, while they vehemently inveigh 
 against the imaginary countenance we afford to 
 the neglect of baptism. Thus they persist in con- 
 struing our conduct, not into an approval of that act 
 of communion in which we are engaged, but into 
 a tacit admission of the validity of infant-baptism, 
 against which we are known to remonstrate. In 
 short, they are disposed to attack our practice in any 
 point, rather than in that which, if we are wrong, 
 it is alone vulnerable, that of its being an expres- 
 sion of our approbation of Pasdobaptists celebrat- 
 ing the eucharist. In the same spirit, when thev 
 have once procured the exclusion of the obnoxious 
 party from their assemblies, they are completely 
 satisfied; their communion elsewhere gives them 
 
156 
 
 no concern, though it must be allowed, on the sup* 
 position of the pretended disquahfication, that the 
 evil remains in its full force. Nor are they ever 
 known to remonstrate with them on this irregula- 
 rity during its continuance; nor, should they after- 
 terwards become converts to our doctrine, to recal 
 it to their attention, with a view to excite compunc- 
 tion and remorse; so that this is perhaps the only 
 sin for which men are never called to repentance, 
 and of which no man has been known to repent. 
 When our Lord dismissed the woman taken in 
 adultery, though he did not proceed to judge her, 
 he solemnly charged her to sin ?io 77iore: the advo- 
 cates for strict communion, when they dismiss Pas- 
 dobaptists, give them no such charge; their lan- 
 guage seems to be — " Go, sin by yourselves, and 
 we are satisfied." 
 
 The inference I would deduce from these re- 
 markable facts is, that they possess an internal con- 
 viction that the class of Christians whom they pro- 
 scribe, would be guilty of a great impropriety in 
 declining to communicate in the sacramental ele- 
 ments; and that the union of Baptists with them 
 in that solemnity, so far from being liable to the 
 imputation of '^ partaking in other men's sins," is 
 not only lawful, but commendable. 
 
±57 
 
 SECTION V. 
 
 On the hnpossibUity of reducing the practice of strict 
 communion to any general principle. 
 
 When a particular branch of conduct is so cir- 
 cumstanced, as to be incapable of being deduced 
 from some general rule, or of being resolved into 
 some comprehensive principle, founded on reason, 
 or revelation, we may be perfectly assured, it is 
 not obligatory. Whatever is matter of duty, is a 
 part of some whole^xhQ relation to which is sus- 
 ceptible of proof, either by the express decision of 
 scripture, or by general reasoning; and a point of 
 practice perfectly insulated, and disjointed from 
 the general system of duties, whatever support it 
 may derive from prejudice, custom or caprice, can 
 never be satisfactorily vindicated. From want of 
 attention to this axiom, both the world and the 
 church have in different periods, been overrun 
 with innumerable forms of superstition and folly; 
 to which the only effectual antidote is, an appeal to 
 principles. Unless I am much mistaken, the ques- 
 tion under discussion will afford a striking exem- 
 plification of the justness of this remark. If it be 
 found impossible to fix a medium betwixt the tole- 
 14 
 
158 
 
 ration of all opinions in religion, and the restric- 
 tion of it, to errors not fundamental^ the practice 
 of exclusive communion must be abandoned, be- 
 cause it is neither more nor less than an attempt 
 to establish such a medium. By errors not funda- 
 mental^ I m,ean such as are admitted to consist with 
 a state of grace and salvation; such as are not sup- 
 posed to prevent their abettors from being accept- 
 ed of God. With such as contend for the indis- 
 criminate admission of all doctrines on the one 
 hand, or with the abettors of rigid uniformity, who 
 allow no latitude of sentiment on the other, we 
 have no concern: since we concur with our oppo- 
 nents in deprecating both these extremes; and while 
 we are tenacious of the *' truth as it is m Jesus,*' 
 we both admit that some indulgence to the mis- 
 takes and imperfections of the truly pious is due, 
 from a regard to the dictates of inspiration and 
 the nature of man. The only subject of controversy 
 is, how far that forbearance is to be extended: we 
 assert to every diversity of judgment, not incom- 
 patible with salvation; they contend that a differ- 
 ence of opinion on baptism is an excepted case. — < 
 If the word of God had clearly and unequivocally 
 made this exception, we should feel ourselves 
 bound to admit it, upon the same principle on 
 which we maintaui the infallible certainty of reve- 
 
159 
 
 Litioii; but when we press for this decision, and 
 request to be directed to the part of scripture 
 which for ever prohibits unbaptized persons from 
 approaching the sacrament, in the same manner as 
 the Jews were prohibited from celebrating the pass- 
 over, who had not submitted to circumcision, we 
 meet with no reply but precarious inferences, and 
 general reasoning. 
 
 However plausible their mode of arguing may 
 appear, the impartial reader will easily perceive it 
 fails in the main point; which is to establish that 
 specifc difference betwixt the case they except out 
 of their list of tolerated errors, and those which 
 they admit, which shall justify this opposite treat- 
 ment. Thus when they ask whether God has not 
 "commanded baptism; whether it is not the be- 
 liever's duty to be found in it;"^ it is manifest 
 that the same reasons might be urged against bear- 
 ing with any imperfection in our fellow-christian 
 whatever; for which of these, we ask, is not incon- 
 sistent with some command, and a violation, in a 
 greater or less degree, of some duty; with this dif- 
 ference indeed, that many of the imperfections 
 which christian churches are necessitated to bear 
 with, are seated in the will, while the case before 
 us involves merely an unintentional mistake. " It 
 
 * Booth's Apolog-y, page 123. 
 
160 
 
 is not every one," says Mr. Booth, " that is re* 
 ceived of Jesus Christ, who is entitled to commu- 
 nion at his table; but such, and only such, as revere 
 his authority, submit to his ordinances, and obey 
 the laws of his house." This is the most formal 
 attempt which that v/riter has made to specify the 
 difference betwixt the case of the abettors of in- 
 fant-baptism, and others; for which reason, the 
 reader will excuse my directing his attention to it 
 for a few moments. We are indebted to him, in 
 the first place, for a new discovery in theology; we 
 should not have suspected, but for his assertion, 
 that there could be a description of persons whom 
 Christ has received, who neither revere his autho- 
 rity, submit to his ordinances, nor obey his laws. 
 — How Mr. Booth acquired this information we 
 know not; but certainly in our Saviour's time it 
 was otherwise. " Then are ye my disciples," said 
 he, " if ye do whatsoever I have commanded 
 you." I congratulate the public on the prudence 
 evinced by the venerable author, in not publishing 
 the names of these highly privileged individuals, 
 who have proved their title to heaven, to his satis- 
 faction, without reverence, submission, or obedi- 
 ence; wishing his example had been imitated in 
 this particular by the authors of the wonderful 
 conversions of malefactors, many of whom I fear 
 belong to this new sect. 
 
161 
 
 This singular description, however, I scarcely 
 need remind the reader, is designed to charac- 
 terise Baptists in opposition to Paedobaptists; and 
 were it not the production of a man whonri I highly 
 revere, I should comment upon it with the severity 
 it deserves. Suffice it to remark, that to mistake 
 the meaning of a statute, is one thing, not to re- 
 verence the legislator, another; that he cannot sub- 
 mit with a good conscience to an ordinance, who is 
 not apprised of its existence; and that a blind obe- 
 dience, even to divine laws, would be far from 
 constituting a reasonable service. Every conscien- 
 tious adherent to infant-baptism reveres the au- 
 thority of Christ, not less than a Baptist, and is dis- 
 tinguished by a spirit of submission and obedience 
 to every known part of his will; and as this is all 
 to which a Baptist can pretend, and far more than 
 many who without scruple are . tolerated in our 
 churches, can boast; we are as far as ever from as- 
 certaining the spedfic difference betwixt the case 
 of the Psedobaptist, and other instances of error 
 supposed to be entitled to indulgence. In spite of 
 Mr. Booth's marvellous definition, reverence, sub- 
 mission, and obedience, are such essential features 
 in the character of a Christian, that he who was 
 judged to be destitute of them, in their substance 
 and reality, would instantly forfeit that character; 
 while to possess them in perf^tion, is among the 
 14* 
 
i6a 
 
 brightest acquisitions of eternity. It should be re- 
 membered too, that the general principles of mo- 
 rality are not less the laws of Christ, than positive 
 rites, and if we credit Prophets and Apostles, much 
 to be preferred in comparison; so that it must be 
 acknowledged that he who is deficient in attention 
 to these, while he is more exemplary in discharg- 
 ing the former than a baptized Christian, (a very 
 frequent case,) stands higher in the scale of obe- 
 dience. So equivocal is the line of separation here 
 attempted. 
 
 When the necessity of tolerating imperfection is 
 once admitted, there remains no point at which it 
 can consistently stop, till it is extended to every 
 gradation of error, the habitual maintenance of 
 which is compatible with a state of salvation. The 
 reason is, that it is absolutely impossible to define 
 that species of error, so situated as not to preclude 
 its possessor from divine acceptance, although it 
 forfeits his title to the full exercise of christian 
 charity. The Baptists who contend for confining 
 the Lord's supper to themselves, imagine they have 
 found such an error in the practice of initiating in- 
 fants into the christian church. But it is observa- 
 ble that they can reduce it to no class^ nor define it 
 by any geJieral idea; and when we urge them with 
 the apostolic injunction, to bear with each other's 
 infirmities, they have nothing to reply, but merely 
 
163 
 
 that St. Paul is not speaking of baptism, which 
 is true, because one thing is not another: but it 
 behoves them to shew that the principle he estab- 
 lishes does not include this case, and here they are 
 silent. 
 
 If we impartially examine the reasons on which 
 we rest the toleration of any supposed error, we 
 shall find they invariably coincide with the idea of 
 its not being fundamental, — If it be alleged, for ex- 
 ample, that the error in question relates to a sub- 
 ject less clearly revealed than some others, what is 
 this but to insinuate the ease with which an honest 
 inquirer may mistake respecting it? If the little 
 practical infiaence it is likely to exert, is alleged as 
 a plea for forbearance, the force of such a remark 
 rests entirely on the assumption of an indissoluble 
 connection betwixt a state of salvation, and a cer- 
 tain character, v.hich the opinion in question is 
 supposed not to destroy. If we allege the example 
 of eminently pious men, who have embraced it, 
 v.-e infer from analogy the actual safety of the per- 
 son by whom it is held; and in short, it is impos- 
 sible to construct an argument for the exercise of 
 mutual forbearance, but what proceeds upon this 
 principle; a principle which pervades the reasoning 
 of our opponents on every other occasion, except 
 this of strict communion, which they make an in- 
 sulated case, capriciously exempting it from thear- 
 
164 
 
 uitration of all the general rules of scripture, a? 
 well as from the maxims to which, in all other in* 
 stances, they are attached. 
 
 Reluctant as I feel to trespass on the patience of 
 the reader, by unnecessarily prolonging the discus- 
 sion, I am anxious if possible to set the present ar- 
 gument in a still stronger light. I observe, there- 
 fore, that if it be contended that a certain opinion 
 is so obnoxious as to justify the exclusion of its 
 abettor from the privilege of christian fellowship, 
 it must be either on account of its involving a con-* 
 tradiction to the saving truth of the gospel, or on 
 account of its injurious effects on the character. 
 As those of our brethren to whom this reasoning 
 is addressed, positively disclaim considering in- 
 fant-baptism in the former light, they will not at- 
 tempt to vindicate the exclusion of Psedobaptists on 
 that ground. In vindication of such a measure, 
 they must allege the injurious effects it produces 
 on the character of its abettors. Here, however, 
 they have precluded themselves from the possibi- 
 lity of urging that the injury sustained is fatal^ by 
 the previous concession that it does not involve a 
 contradiction to saving truth. Could they, without 
 cancelling that concession, urge the fatal nature of 
 the influence in question, they would present an ob- 
 ject to the mind sufficiently precise and determinate; 
 an object which may be easily conceived, and accu- 
 
165 
 
 ratcly defined. But as things are now situated, they 
 can at most only insist on such a kind and degree 
 of deteriorating effect as is consistent with the 
 spiritual safety of the party concerned; and as 
 they are among the first to contend that every spe- 
 cies of error is productive of injurious effects, it 
 is incumbent upon them to point out some conse- 
 quences worse in their kind, or more aggravated 
 in degree, resulting from this particular error, than 
 what may be fairly ascribed to the worst of those 
 erroneous or defective views which they are ac- 
 customed to tolerate. These injurious consequences 
 must also occupy an intermediate place between 
 two extremes; they must, on the one hand, be de- 
 cidedly more serious than can be supposed to re- 
 sult from the most crude, undigested, or discor- 
 dant views, tolerated in regular Baptist churches, 
 yet not of such a nature on the other, as to involve 
 the danger of eternal perdition. Let them specify, 
 if it be in their power, that ill influence on the char- 
 acter which is the natural consequence of the tenet 
 of infant-sprinkling, considered per se or indepen- 
 dent of adventitious circumstances and the opera- 
 tion of accidental causes, which justifies a treat- 
 ment of its patrons, so different from what is given 
 to the abettors of other errors. This malignant in- 
 fluence must, I repeat it, be the natural or necessa- 
 ry product of the practice of paedobaptism; because 
 
166 
 
 the simple avowal of this is deemed sufficient to 
 incur the forfeiture of church privileges, without 
 further time or inquiry. However vehemently 
 the supporters of such a measure may declaim 
 against it, or however triumphantly expose the 
 principles on which it is founded, they have done 
 nothing towards accomplishing their object — the 
 vindication of strict communion; since the same 
 mode of proceeding might be adopted towards any 
 other misconception, or erroneous opinion; and if 
 it may be forcibly expelled, as soon as it is confuted, 
 there is an end to toleration. Toleration has no place, 
 but in the presence of acknowledged imperfection. 
 It is absolutely necessary for them, as they would 
 vindicate their conduct to the satisfaction of reason- 
 able men, to prove that some specific deteriorating 
 effect results from the practice of infant-baptism, 
 distinct from the malignant influence of error in 
 general, and of those imperfections in particular 
 which are not inconsistent with salvation. 
 
 Though the opposition betwixt truth and error 
 is equal in all cases, and the former always suscep- 
 tible of proof, as well as the latter of confutation; 
 all error is not opposed to the saine truths; and 
 lience arises a distinction betwixt such erroneous 
 and imperfect views of religion as, however they 
 may in their remoter consequences impair, do tiot 
 contradict the gospel testimony, and such as do. 
 
167 
 
 We lay this distinction as the basis of that forbear- 
 ance towards the mistakes and imperfections of 
 good men for which we plead; and as the case of 
 our Psedobaptist brethren is clearly comprehended 
 within that distinction, feel no scruple in admitting 
 them to christian fellowship. We are attached to 
 that distinction because it is both scriptural and in- 
 telligible; while the hypothesis of the strict Bap- 
 tists, as they style themselves, is so replete with 
 perplexity and confusion, that for my part I abso- 
 lutely despair of comprehending it. It proceeds 
 upon the supposition of a certain medium between 
 two extremes which they have not even attempted 
 to fix: and as the necessary consequence of this, 
 their reasoning, if we chuse to term it such, floats 
 and undulates in such a manner, that it is extreme- 
 ly difficult to grasp it. On the pernicious influence 
 of error in general we entertain no doubt, but we 
 demand again and again to have that precise inju- 
 rious efl'ect of infant-sprinkling pointed out and 
 evinced, which is more to he deprecated, than the 
 probable result of those acknowledged imperfec- 
 tions to which they extend their indulgence. This 
 must surely be deemed a reasonable requisition, 
 though it is one with which they have not hitherto 
 thought fit to comply. 
 
 The operation of speculative error on the mind 
 is one of the profoundest secrets in nature, and to 
 
168 
 
 determine the precise quantity of evil resulting 
 from it in any given case, (except the single one of 
 its involving a denial of fundamental truth,) trans- 
 cends the capacity of human nature. We must, in 
 order to form a correct judgment, be not only per- 
 fectly acquainted with the nature and tendency of 
 the error in question, but also with the portion of 
 attention it occupies, as well as the degree of zeal 
 and attachment with which it is embraced. We 
 must determine the force of the counteracting 
 principles, and how far it bears an affinity to the 
 predominant failings of him who maintains it, 
 how far it coalesces with the weaker parts of his 
 moral constitution. These particulars, however, it 
 is next to impossible to explore, when the inquiry 
 respects ourselves; how much more to establish a 
 scale which shall mark by just gradations the ma- 
 lignant influence of erroneous conceptions on others. 
 On the supposition of a formal denial of saving, 
 essential truth, we feel no difficulty; we may deter- 
 mine, without hesitation, on the testimony of God, 
 that it incurs a forfeiture of the blessings of the 
 new and everlasting covenant, among which the 
 communion of saints holds a distinguished place. 
 But such a supposition is foreign to the present in- 
 quiry. 
 
 Instead of losing ourselves in a labyrinth of me- 
 taphysical subtleties, our only safe guide is an ap- 
 
169 
 
 peal to facts; and here we find from experience, 
 that the sentiments of the Paedobaptist may consist 
 with the highest attainments of piety exhibited in 
 modern times, with the most varied and elevated 
 forms of moral grandeur, without impairing the 
 zeal of missionaries, without impeding the march 
 of confessors to their prisons, or of martyrs to the 
 flames. We are willing to acknowledge these tenets 
 have produced much mischief in communities and 
 nations, who have confounded baptism with rege- 
 neration; but the mere belief of the title of infants 
 to that ordinance, is a misconception of a positive 
 institute, much less injurious than if it affected 
 the vital parts of Christianity. But be it what it 
 may we contend that it is impossible, without a to- 
 tal disregard of truth and decency, to assert that it 
 is intrinsically and essentially more pernicious in 
 its effects, than the numerous errors and imperfec- 
 tions which the advocates of strict communion feel 
 no scruple in tolerating in the best organized 
 churches. It is but justice to add, that few or none 
 have attempted to prove that it is so; but have 
 satisfied themselves with a certain vague and loose 
 declamation, better adapted to inflame prejudice, 
 than to produce light or conviction. 
 
 In the government of the church, there is a 
 choice of three modes of procedure, each consist- 
 ent with itself, though not equally compatible with 
 15 
 
170 
 
 the dictates of reason or scripture. We may either 
 open the doors to persons of all sentiments and 
 persuasions, who maintain the messiahship of 
 Christ; or insist upon an absolute uniformity of 
 belief; or limit the necessity of agreement to arti- 
 cles deemed fundamental, leaving subordinate 
 points to the exercise of private judgment.* The 
 strict Baptists have feigned to themselves a fourth, 
 of which it is not less difficult to form a cle r and 
 consistent conception, than of a fourth dimension. 
 They have pursued the clue by which other in- 
 quirers have been conducted, till they arrived at a 
 certain point, when they refused to proceed a step 
 further, without being able to assign a single rea- 
 son for stopping, which would not equally prove 
 they had already proceeded too far. They have at- 
 tempted an incongruous mixture of liberal princi- 
 ples with a particular act of intolerance; and these, 
 like the iron and clay in t feet of Nebuchadnez- 
 zar s image, will not mix. Hence all that want of 
 coherence and system in their mode of reasoning, 
 which might be expected in a defence not of a 
 theory, so properly, as of a capr ous sally of pre- 
 judice. 
 
 Before I close t s part of tl e subject, I must 
 iust remark the sensi le chagrin which the venera- 
 ble Booth betrays at our insisting o ^ he distinc- 
 tion betwixt fundamentals and non-fundamentals 
 
171 
 
 ill religion, and the singular manner in which he 
 attempts to evade its force. After observing that 
 we are wont in defence of our practice to plead that 
 the points at issue are not fundamental — "Not 
 fundamental," he indignantly exclaims, "not essen- 
 tial. But in what sense is submission to baptism 
 not essential? To our justifying righteousness, our 
 acceptance with God, or our interest in his favour? 
 So is the Lord's supper, and so is every part of our 
 obedience. They (the friends of open communion) 
 will readily allow that an interest in the divine 
 favour is not obtained by miserable sinners, but 
 granted by the eternal Sovereign: and that accep- 
 tance with the High and Holy God is not on con- 
 ditions performed by us, but in consideration of 
 the vicarious obedience, and propitiatory sufferings 
 of the great Emanuel." 
 
 " To the pure, all things are pure." In the mind 
 of Mr. Booth, nothing was associated with this 
 language, I am persuaded, but impressions of piety 
 and devotion; though its unguarded texture and 
 ambiguous tendency are too manifest. For my own 
 part, I am at a loss to put any other construction 
 upon it than this; either that faith and repentance 
 are in no respect conditions of salvation, or that 
 adult baptism is of equal necessity and importance. 
 When it is asked — What is essential to salvation, 
 the gospel-constitution is pre-supposed, the great 
 
17S 
 
 facts in Christianity assumed; and the true import 
 of the inquiry is — What is essential to a personal in- 
 terest in the blessings secured by the former, in the 
 felicity of which the latter are the basis; in which 
 light, to reply — The atonement and righteousness of 
 Christ is egregious trifling, because being things 
 out of ourselves^ though the only preliminary basis 
 of human hope, it is absurd to confound them with 
 the characteristic difference betwixt such as are 
 saved, and such as perish. When in like manner 
 an inquiry arises — What is fundamental in religion, 
 as we must be supposed by religion to intend a 
 system of doctrines to be believed, and of duties to 
 be performed, to direct us to the vicarious obe- 
 dience of Christ, not as a necessary object of be- 
 lief, but as a transaction absolute and complete in 
 itself, and to pass over in silence the inherent dis- 
 tinction of character, the faith with its renovating 
 influence to which the promise of life is attached, 
 is, to speak in the mildest terms, to reply in a man- 
 ner quite irrelevant; and when to this is joined, 
 even by implication, a denial of the existence of 
 such a distinction, we are conducted to the brink 
 of a precipice. The denial of this is the very core 
 of antinomianism, to which it is painful to see so 
 able a writer, and so excellent a man as Mr. Booth, 
 make the slightest approach. We would seriously 
 ask whether it be intended to deny that the belief 
 
17 S 
 
 of any doctrines, or the infusion of any principles 
 or dispositions whatever, is essential to future hap- 
 piness,- if this be intended, it supersedes the use 
 and necessity of every branch of internal religion. 
 If it is not, we ask, Are correct views on the sub- 
 ject of baptism to be classed among those doc- 
 trines? 
 
 Had we been contending for an indulgence to- 
 wards such as are convinced of the obligation of 
 believers' baptism, but refuse to act up to their con- 
 victions, and shrink from the cross, some parts of 
 the expostulation we have quoted, might be consi- 
 dered as pertinent; but to attempt to explain away 
 a distinction, the most important in theology, the 
 only centre of harmony, the only basis of peace and 
 concord, and the grand bulwark opposed to the 
 sophistry of the church of Rome, is a humiliating 
 instance of the temerity and imprudence incident 
 to the best of men. The Jesuit Twiss, in that con- 
 troversy with the Protestants, which gave occasion 
 to the inimitable defence of their principles by the 
 immortal Chillingworth, betrayed the same impa- 
 tience with our author at this distinction; though in 
 perfect consistence with the doctrines of a church 
 which pretends, by an appeal to an infallible tribu- 
 nal, to decide every controversy, and to preclude 
 every doubt. 
 
 Nothing but an absolute despair of giving a 
 15 « 
 
174 
 
 satisfactory reply to the arguments drawn from 
 this quarter, could have tempted Mr. Booth to 
 quarrel with a distinction so justly dear to all Pro- 
 testants; and it is no small presumption of the just- 
 ness of our sentiments, that the attempt to refute 
 them is found to require the subversion of the 
 most received axioms in theology, together with 
 the strange paradox, that while much more than v/e 
 suppose is necessary to communion, nothing is 
 essential to salvation. In consideration, however, 
 of the embarrassment of our opponents, we feel it 
 easy to overlook the effusions of their discontent; 
 but as it is not usual to consult the enemy on the 
 choice of weapons, we shall continue to employ 
 such as we find most efficacious, though they may 
 not be the most pleasant to the touch. 
 
 SECTION VI. 
 
 The impolicy of the practice of strict comnitmion 
 considered. 
 
 •In the affairs of religion and morality, where a 
 divine authority is interposed, the first and chief 
 attention is due to its dictates, which we are not 
 permitted to violate in the least instance, though we 
 proposed by such violation to promote the interests 
 of religion itself. She scorns to be indebted even 
 
lor conquest, to a foreign force: the weapons of 
 her warfare are not carnal. We have on this ac- 
 count carefully abstained from urging the impru- 
 dence of the measure we have ventured to oppose, 
 from an apprehension that we might be suspected 
 of attempting to bias the suffrage of our readers, by 
 considerations and motives disproportioned to the 
 majesty of revealed truth. But having, as I trust, 
 sufficiently shewn that the practice of strict com- 
 munion derives no support from that quarter, the 
 way is open for the introduction of a few remarks 
 on the natural tendency and effect of the two oppo- 
 site systems. I would just premise that I hope no 
 offence will be given to Psedobaptists by denomi- 
 nating their sentiments on the subject of baptism 
 erroneous^ as though it were expected that our as- 
 sertion should be accepted for proof. It is design- 
 ed as a simple statement of my opinion; and is as- 
 sumed as the basis of my reasoning with my stricter 
 brethren. 
 
 Truth and error, as they are essentially opposite 
 in their nature, so the causes to which they are in- 
 debted for their perpetuity and triumph, are not 
 less so. Whatever retards a spirit of inquiry, is 
 favourable to error; whatever promotes it, to truth. 
 But nothing, it will be acknowledged, has a greater 
 tendency to obstruct the exercise of free inquiry, 
 than the spirit and feeling of a party. Let a doc- 
 
176 
 
 frine, however erroneous, become a party distinc- 
 tion, and it is at once intrenched in interests and 
 attachments which make it extremely difficult for 
 the most powerful artillery of reason to dislodge 
 it. It becomes a point of honour in the leaders of 
 such parties, which is from thence communicated 
 to their followers, to defend and support their re- 
 spective peculiarities to the last; and as a natural 
 consequence, to shut their ears against all the pleas 
 and remonstrances by which they are assailed. 
 Even the wisest and best of men are seldom aware 
 how much they are susceptible of this sort of in- 
 fluence; and while the offer of a world would be 
 insufficient to engage them to recant a known truth, 
 or to subscribe an acknowledged error, they are 
 often retained in a willing captivity to prejudices 
 and opinions which have no other support, and 
 which, if they could lose sight of party feelings, 
 they would almost instantly abandon. To what 
 other cause can we ascribe the attachment of Fe- 
 nelon and of Pascal, men of exalted genius, and 
 undoubted piety, to the doctrine of transubstantia- 
 tion, and other innumerable absurdities of the 
 church of Rome? It is this alone which has insured 
 a SO! t of immortality to those hideous productions 
 of the human mind, the shapeless abortions of night 
 and darkness, which reason, left to itself, would 
 have crushed in the moment of their birth. 
 
±77 
 
 It is observable that scientific truths make their 
 way in the world, with much more ease and ra- 
 pidity than religious. No sooner is a philosophical 
 opinion promulgated, than it undergoes at first a 
 severe and rigorous scrutiny; and if it is found to 
 coincide with the results of experiment, it is spee- 
 dily adopted, and quietly takes its place among the 
 improvements of the age. Every acquisition of this 
 kind is considered as a common property; as an 
 accession to the general stores of mental opulence. 
 Thus the knowledge of nature, the further it ad- 
 vances from its head, not only enlarges its channel 
 by the accession of tributary streams, but gradu- 
 ally purifies itself from the mixture of error. If we 
 search for the reason of the facihty with which 
 scientific improvements established themselves in 
 preference to religious, we shall find it in the ab- 
 sence of combination, in there being no class of 
 men closely united, who have an interest, real or 
 imaginary, in obstructing their progress. We hear, 
 it is true, of parties in the republic of letters; but if 
 such language is not to be considered as entirely 
 allusive and metaphorical, the ties which unite them 
 are so slight and feeble, compared to those which 
 attach to religious societies, as scarcely to deserve 
 the name. The spirit of party was much more sen- 
 sibly felt in the ancient schools of philosophy than 
 in modern, on account of philosophical inquiries 
 
178 
 
 embracing a class of subjects which are now consi- 
 dered as no longer belonging to its province. Before 
 revelation appeared, whatever is most deeply in- 
 teresting in the contemplation of God, of man, or 
 of a future state, fell under the cognizance of phi- 
 losophy; and hence it was cultivated with no incon- 
 siderable portion of that moral sensibility, that soli- 
 citude and alternation of hope and fear, respecting 
 an invisible state, which are now absorbed by the 
 gospel. From that time the departments of the- 
 ology and philosophy have become totally distinct; 
 and the genius of the former, free and unfettered. 
 In religious inquiries, few feel themselves at 
 liberty to follow, without restraint, the light of evi- 
 dence, and the guidance of truth, in consequence 
 of some previous engagement with a party; and 
 though the attachment to it might originally be 
 purely voluntary, and still continues such, the na- 
 tural love of consistency, the fear of shame, to- 
 gether with other motives sufficiently obvious, pow- 
 erfully contribute to perpetuate and confirm it. 
 When an attachment to the fundamental truths of 
 religion is the basis of the alliance, the steadiness, 
 constancy, and perseverance it produces, are of the 
 utmost advantage; and hence we admire the wis- 
 dom of Christ in employing and consecrating the 
 social nature of man in the formation of a church. 
 It is utterly impossible to calculate the benefits of 
 
179 
 
 the publicity and support which Christianity de- 
 rives from that source; nor will it be doubted that 
 the intrepidity evinced in confessing the most ob- 
 noxious truths, and enduring all the indignities and 
 sufferings which result from their promulgation, is 
 in a great measure to be ascribed to the same cause. 
 The concentration of the wills and efforts of Chris- 
 tians, rendered the church a powerful antagonist to 
 the world. But when the christian profession be- 
 came split and divided into separate communities, 
 each of which, along with certain fundamental 
 truths, retained a portion of error, its reformation 
 became difficult, just in proportion to the strength 
 of these combinations. Religious parties imply a 
 tacit compact not merely to sustain the fundamen- 
 tal truths of revelation (which was the original de- 
 sign of the constitution of a church) but also to 
 uphold the incidental^eculiarities by which they 
 are distinguished. They are so many ramparts or 
 fortifications, erected in order to give a security 
 and support to certain systems of doctrine and dis- 
 cipline, beyond what they derive from their native 
 force and evidence. 
 
 The difficulty of reforming the corruptions of 
 Christianity is great, in a state of things where the 
 fear of being eclipsed, and the anxiety in each de- 
 nomination to extend itself as much as possible, 
 engage, in spite of the personal piety of its mem- 
 
180 
 
 bers, all the solicitude and ardour which are not 
 immediately devoted to the most essential truths; 
 where correct conceptions on subordinate subjects 
 are scarcely aimed at, but the particular views 
 which the party has adopted, are either objects of 
 indolent acquiescence, or zealous attachment. In 
 such a state, opinions are no otherwise regarded, 
 than as they affect the interest of a party; whate- 
 ver conduces to augment its members, or its cre- 
 dit, must be supported at all events; whatever is of 
 a contrary tendency, discountenanced and sup- 
 pressed. How often do we find much zeal expend- 
 ed in the defence of sentiments, recommended nei- 
 ther by their evidence nor their importance, which, 
 could their incorporation with an established creed 
 be forgotten, would be quietly consigned to ob- 
 livion. Thus the waters of life, instead of that un- 
 obstructed circulation which would diffuse health, 
 fertility, and beauty, are diverted from their chan- 
 nels, and drawn into pools and reservoirs, where 
 from their stagnant state they acquire feculence 
 and pollution. 
 
 The inference we would deduce from these facts 
 is, that if we wish to revive an exploded truth, or 
 to restore an obsolete practice, it is of the greatest 
 moment to present it to the public in a manner 
 least likely to produce the collision of party. But 
 this is equivalent to saying, in other words, that it 
 
181 
 
 ought not to be made the basis of a sect; for the 
 prejudices of party are always reciprocal, and in 
 no instance is that great law of motion more ap- 
 plicable, that re-action is always equal to action, 
 and contrary thereto. While it is maintained as a 
 private opinion, by which I mean one not charac- 
 teristic of a sect, it stands upon its proper merits, 
 mingles with facility in different societies, and in 
 proportion to its evidence, and the attention it ex- 
 cites, insinuates itself like leaven, till the whole is 
 leavened. 
 
 Such, it should seem, was the conduct of the 
 Baptists before the time of Luther. It appears 
 from the testimony of ecclesiastical historians, that 
 their sentiments prevailed to a considerable extent 
 among the Waldenses and Albigenses, the precur- 
 sors of the Reformation, to whom the crime of an- 
 abaptism is frequently ascribed among other here- 
 sies: it is probable, however, that it did not prevail 
 universally; nor is there the smallest trace to be 
 discovered of its being made a term of commu- 
 nion. When the same opinions on this subject were 
 pubhclv revived in the sixteenth century, under the 
 most unfavourable auspices, and allied with turbu- 
 lence, anarchy, and blood, no wonder they met 
 with an unwelcome reception, and that contempla- 
 ted through such a medium, they incurred the re- 
 16 
 
18S 
 
 probation of the wise and good. Whether the Eng- 
 lish Baptists held at first any part of the wild and 
 seditious sentiments of the German fanatics, it is 
 difficult to say: supposing they did, (of which I am 
 not aware there is the smallest evidence) it is cer- 
 tain they soon abandoned them, and adopted the 
 same system of religion with other non-conform- 
 ists, except on the article of baptism. But it is 
 much to be lamented that they continued to insist 
 on that article as a term of communion, by which 
 they excited the resentment of other denomina- 
 tions, and facilitated the means of confounding 
 them with the German Anabaptists, with whom 
 they possessed nothing in common besides an opi- 
 nion on one particular rite. One feature of resem- 
 blance, however, joined to an identity of name, 
 was sufficient to surmount in the public feeling the 
 impression of all the points of discrepancy or of 
 contrast, and to subject them to a portion of the 
 infamy attached to the ferocious insurgents of 
 Munster. From that period, the success of the 
 baptist sentiments became identified with the 
 growth of a sect, which, rising under the most un- 
 favourable auspices was entirely destitute of the 
 resources of worldly influence, and the means of 
 popular attractioFi; and an opinion which by its na- 
 tive simplicity and evidence, is entitled to com- 
 
 i 
 
183 
 
 mand the suffrages of the world; was pent up and 
 confined within the narrow precincts of a party, 
 where it laboured under an insupportable weight 
 of prejudice. It was seldom examined by an im- 
 partial appeal to the sacred oracles, or regarded in 
 any other light than as the whimsical appendage of 
 a sect, who disgraced themselves at the outset by 
 the most criminal excesses, and were at no subse- 
 quent period sufficiently distinguished by talents or 
 numbers to command general attention. 
 
 Nothing is more common than for zeal to over- 
 shoot its mark. If a determined enemy of the 
 Baptists had been consulted on the most effectual 
 method of rendering their principles unpopular, 
 there is litde doubt but that he would have recom- 
 mended the very measures we have pursued: the 
 first and most obvious effect of which has been to 
 regenerate an inconceivable mass of prejudice in 
 other denominations. To proclaim to the world 
 our determination to treat as "heathen-men and 
 publicans," all who are not immediately prepared 
 to concur with our views of baptism, what is it 
 less than the language of hostility and defiance; ad- 
 mirably adapted to discredit the party which ex- 
 hibits, and the principles which have occasioned 
 such a conduct. By thus investing these principles 
 with an importance which does not belong to them. 
 
184 
 
 by making them co-extensive with the existence of 
 a church, they have indisposed men to listen to the 
 evidence by which they are supported; and attempt- 
 ing to establish by authority the unanimity which 
 should be the fruit of conviction, have deprived 
 themselves of the most effectual means of pro- 
 ducing it. To say that such a mode of proceeding 
 is not adapted to convince, that refusing Psedobap- 
 tists the right of communion has no tendency to 
 produce a change of views, is to employ most in- 
 adequate language: it has a powerful tendency to 
 the contrary; it can scarcely fail to produce impres- 
 sions most unfavourable to the system with which 
 it is connected, impressions which the gentlest 
 minds find it difficult to distinguish from the ef- 
 fects of insult and degradation. 
 
 It is not, however, merely by this sort of re-ac- 
 tion, that prejudice is excited unfavourable to the ex- 
 tension of our principles; but by the instinctive 
 feelings of self-defence. — Upon the system of strict 
 communion, the moment a member of a psedobap- 
 tist church becomes convinced of the invalidity of 
 his infant-baptism, he must deem it obligatory upon 
 him to relinquish his station, and dissolve his con- 
 nection with the church; and as a superiority of 
 ministerial talents and character is a mere matter 
 of preference, but duty a matter of necessity, he 
 
 1 
 
185 
 
 must at all events connect himself with a baptist 
 congregation, whatever sacrifice it may cost him, 
 and whatever loss he may incur. Though his pas- 
 tor should possess the profundity and unction of 
 an Edwards, or the eloquence of a Spencer, he 
 must quit him for the most superficial declaimer, 
 rather than be guilty of spiritual fornication. How 
 is it possible for principles fraught with such a co- 
 rollary, not to be contemplated with anxiety by our 
 paedobaptist brethren, who, however they might be 
 disposed to exercise candour towards our senti- 
 ments, considered in themselves, cannot fail to per- 
 ceive the most disorganising tendency in this their 
 usual appendage. Viewed in such a connection, 
 their prevalence is a blow at the very root of pae- 
 dobaptist societies, since the moment we succeed 
 in making a convert, we disqualify him for conti- 
 nuing a member. We deposit a seed of alienation 
 and discord, which threatens their dissolution, so 
 that we need not be surprised if other denomina- 
 tions should be tempted to compare us to the Eu- 
 phratean horsemen in the apocalypse, who are de- 
 scribed as " having tails like scorpions, and with 
 them they did hurt." 
 
 To these causes we must undoubtedly impute 
 the superior degree of prejudice displayed by that 
 class of christians, to whom we make the near- 
 16^ 
 
186 
 
 est approach, compared to such as are separated 
 from us by a wider interval. A disposition to fair 
 and liberal concession on the points at issue, is al- 
 most confined to the members of established 
 churches; and while the most celebrated episcopal 
 divines, both Popish and Protestant, as well as those 
 of the Scotch church, feel no hesitation in acknow- 
 ledging the import of the word baptize is to im- 
 merse^ that such was the primitive mode of bap- 
 tism, and that the right of infants to that ordinance 
 is rather to be sustained on the ground of ancient 
 usage than the authority of scripture, our dissent- 
 ing brethren are displeased with these concessions, 
 deny there is any proof that immersion was ever 
 used in primitive times, and speak of the exten- 
 sion of baptism to infants with as much confidence 
 as though it were amongst the plainest and most 
 undeniable dictates of revelation.* 
 
 * Campbell, speaking of the authors of the vulgate vers*ioi"i, 
 observes — " Some words they have transferred from the ori- 
 g-inal into their language; others they have translated. But it 
 would not be always easy to find their reason for making this 
 difference. Thus the word (sri^irojul, they have translated cir- 
 cumcisio, which exactly corresponds in etymology; but the 
 word BdLTrriTfisL they have retained, changing only the letters 
 from Greek to Roman. Yet the latter was just as suscepti- 
 ble of a literal version into Latin as the former. Immersio, 
 iinctia^ answers as exactly in one case, as circumcimj in the 
 
187 
 
 To such a height has this animosity been cati-i- 
 ed, that there are not wanting persons who seem 
 anxious to revive the recollection of Munster, and 
 by republishing the narrative of the enormities per- 
 
 otlier," A little after he observes — "I should think the word 
 immersion (which though of Latin origin, is an English noun, 
 regularly formed from the word to immerse,) a better Eng- 
 lish name than baptism, were we now at liberty to make a 
 choice; but we are not.*' — Preliminary Dissertations to theTrans- 
 
 tation of the Gospels, page 354, 355. 4to. ed. He elsewhere 
 
 mentions it as one of the strongest instances of prejudice, 
 that he has known some persons of piety who have denied 
 that the word baptize signifies to immerse. 
 
 With respect to the subject^ it is worthy of observation that 
 the authors of the celebrated scheme of popish doctrine and 
 discipline called the Interim, enumerate the baptism of infants 
 among traditions, and that in the most emphatic manner. For 
 having stated that the church has two rules of faith, scrip- 
 ture and tradition, they observe, after treating of the first, 
 ecclesia habet quogue traditiones, inter alia baptismus parvido- 
 rum" &c. they mention, however, no other, from whence it is 
 natural to infer that they considered this as the strongest in- 
 stance of that species of rules. The total silence of scripture 
 has induced not a few of the most illustrious scholars to con- 
 sider infant-baptism not of divine right; amongst whom, were 
 v/e disposed to boast of great names, we might mention Sal- 
 masius, Suicer, and above all. Sir Isaac Newton, who, if we 
 may believe the honest Whiston, frequently declared to him 
 liis conviction that the Baptists were the only Christians who 
 had not symbolized with the church of Rome. — See Whiston'' s 
 Memoirs of his own Life. 
 
188 
 
 petrated there, under the title of the History of the 
 Baptists, to implicate us in the infamy and guilt of 
 those transactions. While we must reprobate such 
 a spirit, we are compelled to acknowledge that the 
 practice of exclusive communion is admirably 
 adapted to excite it, in minds of a certain order. 
 
 That practice is not less objectionable on another 
 ground. By discouraging Psedobaptists from fre- 
 quenting our assemblies, it militates against the 
 niost effectual means of diffusing sentiments which 
 we consider most consonant to the sacred oracles. 
 It cannot be expected that pious worshippers 
 will attend, except from absolute necessity, where 
 they are detained, if we may so speak, in the courts 
 of the Gentiles, and denied access to the interior 
 privileges of the sanctuary. 
 
 The congregations accordingly, where this prac- 
 tice prevails, are almost entirely composed of per- 
 sons of our own persuasion, who are so far from 
 requiring an additional stimulus, that it is much of- 
 tener necessary to restrain than to excite their ar- 
 dour; while the only description of persons who 
 could be possibly benefitted by instruction are out of 
 its reach; compelled by this intolerant practice to join 
 societies, where they will hear nothing but what is 
 adapted to confirm them in their ancient prejudices. 
 Thus an impassable barrier is erected betwixt the 
 
189 
 
 Baptists and other denominations, in consequence 
 of which, few opportunities are afforded of trying 
 the effect of calm and serious argumentation, in 
 situations were alone it could prove effectual. In 
 those baptist churches in which an opposite plan 
 has been adopted, the attendance of such as are not 
 of our sentiments meeting with no discouragement, 
 is often extensiv£^Baptists and Psedobaptists, ^P^^ ^ 
 participating in tfie same privileges, become closely 
 united in the ties of friendship; of which the effect 
 is uniformly found to be a perpetual increase in 
 the number of the former, compared to the latter, 
 till in some societies the opposite sentiments have 
 nearly subsided and disappeared. 
 
 Nor is this more than might be expected from 
 the nature of things, supposing us to have truth 
 on our side. For admitting this to be the case, 
 what can give permanence to the sentiments to 
 which we are opposed, except a recumbent indo- 
 lence, or an active prejudice; and is it not evident 
 that the practice of exclusive communion has the 
 strongest tendency to foster both those evils, the 
 former by withdrawing, I might say repelling, the 
 erroneous from the best means of instruction; the 
 latter by the apparent harshness and severity of 
 such a proceeding. It is not by keeping at a dis- 
 tance from mankind that we must expect to ac- 
 
190 
 
 quire an ascendancy over them, but by approach- 
 ing, by conciliating them, and securing a passage 
 to their understanding through the medium of their 
 hearts. Truth will glide into the mind through the 
 channel of the affections, which were it to approach 
 in the naked majesty of evidence, would meet with 
 a certain repulse. 
 2^ ^^JW Betraying a total ignorance ^^forgetfulness of 
 ^ these indubitable facts, what is the conduct of our 
 opponents? They assume a menacing aspect, pro- 
 claim themselves the only true church, and assert 
 that they alone are entitled to the christian sacra- 
 ments. None are alarmed at this language, none 
 are induced to submit, but turning with a smile 
 or a frown to gentler leaders, they leave us to 
 triumph without a combat, and to dispute with- 
 out an opponent. 
 
 If we consider the way in which men are led to 
 form just conclusions on the principal subjects of 
 controversy, we shall not often find that it is the 
 fruit of an independent effort of mind, determined 
 to search for truth in her most hidden recesses, and 
 discover her under every disguise. The number of 
 such elevated spirits is small; and though evidence 
 is the only source of rational conviction, a variety 
 of favourable circumstances usually contribute to 
 bring it into contact with the mind, such as fre- 
 
191 
 
 quent intercourse, a favourable disposition towards 
 the party which maintains it, habits of deference 
 and respect, and gratitude for benefits received. 
 The practice of confining communion to our own 
 denomination, seems studiously contrived to pre- 
 clude us from these advantages, and to transfer 
 them to the opposite side. 
 
 The policy of intolerance is exactly proportion- 
 ed to the capacity of inspiring fear. The church 
 of Rome for many ages practised it, with infinite 
 advantage, because she possessed ample means of 
 intimidation. Her pride grew with her success, her 
 intolerance with her pride; and she did not aspire 
 to the lofty pretension of being the only true churchy 
 till she saw monarchs at her feet, and held king- 
 doms in chains; till she was flushed with victory, 
 giddy with her elevation, and drunk with the blood 
 of the saints. But what was policy in her, would 
 be the height of infatuation in us, who are neither 
 entitled by our situation, nor by our crimes, to as- 
 pire to this guilty pre-eminence. I am fully per- 
 suaded that few of our brethren have duly reflect- 
 ed on the strong resemblance which subsists be» 
 twixt the pretensions of the church of Rome, and 
 the principles implied in strict communion; both 
 equally intolerant, the one armed with pains and 
 penalties, the other, I trust, disdaining such aid; 
 
19S 
 
 the one the intolerance of power, the other of 
 weakness. 
 
 From a full conviction that our views as a de- 
 nomination correspond with the dictates of scrip- 
 ture, it is impossible for me to entertain a doubt 
 of their ultimate prevalence; but unless we retrace 
 our steps, and cultivate a cordial union with our 
 fellow-christians, I greatly question whether their 
 success will in any degree be ascribable to our ef- 
 forts. It is much more probable that the light will 
 arise in another quarter, from persons by whom 
 we are unknown, but who, in consequence of an 
 unction from the Holy One, are led to examine the 
 scripture with perfect impartiality, and in the ar- 
 dour of their pursuit after truth, alike to overlook 
 the misconduct of those who have opposed, and of 
 those who have maintained it. 
 
 Happily, the final triumph of truth is not depen- 
 dant on human modes of exhibition. — Man is the 
 recipient, not the author of it: it partakes of the 
 nature of the Deity; it is his offspring, its indisso- 
 luble relation to whom is a surer pledge of its per- 
 petuity and support than finite power or. policy. 
 While we are at a certainty respecting the final 
 issue, " thf times and the seasons God hath put in 
 his own power;" nor are we ever more liable to err, 
 than when m surveying the purposes of God, wc 
 
193 
 
 descend from the elevation of general views, to a 
 minute specification of times and instruments. How 
 long the ordinance of baptism, in its purity and 
 simplicity, may be doomed to neglect, it is not for 
 us to conjecture; but of this we are fully persuaded, 
 it will never be generally restored to the church 
 through the medium of a party. This mode of pro- 
 cedure has been already sufficiently tried, and is 
 found utterly ineffectual. 
 
 The labour bestowed upon these sheets has not 
 arisen from an indifference to the interests of truth, 
 but from a sincere wish to promote them, by dis- 
 engaging it from the unnatural confinement in which 
 it has been detained by the injudicious conduct of 
 its advocates. How far the reasoning adduced, or 
 the spirit displayed on this subject, is entitled to ap- 
 probation, must be left to the judgment of the re- 
 ligious public. If any offence has been given by 
 the appearance of unbecoming severity, it will give 
 me real concern; and the more so because there are 
 not a few amongst our professed opponents in this 
 controversy, to whom I look up with undissembled 
 esteem and veneration. 
 
 Having omitted nothing which appeared essen- 
 tially connected with the subject, I hasten to close 
 this disquisition; previously to which, it may not 
 be improper briefly to recal the attention to the 
 17 
 
194 
 
 principal topics of argument. We have endeavour- 
 ed to shew that the practice of strict communion 
 derives no support from the supposed priority of 
 baptism to the Lord's supper in the order of insti- 
 tution, which order is exactly the reverse; that it is 
 not countenanced by the tenor of the Apostles* 
 commission, nor by apostolic precedent, the spirit 
 of which is in our favour, proceeding on principles 
 totally dissimilar to the case under discussion; that 
 the opposite practice is enforced by the obligations 
 of christian charity; that it is indubitably compre- 
 hended within the canon which enjoins forbearance 
 towards mistaken brethren; that the system of our 
 opponents unchurches every Paedobaptist commu- 
 nity; that it rests on no general principle; that it 
 attempts to establish an impossible medium; that it 
 inflicts a punishment which is capricious and un- 
 just; and finally, that by fomenting prejudice, and 
 precluding the most effectual means of conviction, 
 it defeats its own purpose. 
 
 Should the reasoning under any one of these 
 heads be found to be conclusive, however it may 
 fail in others, it will go far towards establishing 
 our leading position, that no church has a right to 
 establish terins of commiaiion, which are not terms 
 of salvation. With high consideration of the talents 
 of many of my brethren who differ from me, I have 
 
195 
 
 yet no apprehension that the sum total of the argu- 
 ment admits a satisfactory reply. 
 
 A tender consideration of human imperfection 
 is not merely the dictate of revelation, but the law 
 of nature, exemplified in the most striking man- 
 ner, in the conduct of him whom we all profess to 
 follow. How wide the interval which separated his 
 religious knowledge and attainments from that of 
 his disciples; he, the fountain of illumination, they 
 encompassed with infirmities. But did he recede 
 from them on that account? No: he drew the bond 
 of union closer, imparted successive streams of ef- 
 fulgence, till he incorporated his spirit with theirs, 
 and elevated them into a nearer resemblance of 
 himself. In imitating by our conduct towards our 
 mistaken brethren this great exemplar, we cannot 
 err. By walking together with them as far as we 
 are agreed, our agreement will extend, our differ- 
 ences lessen, and love, which rejoiceth in the truth, 
 will gradually open our hearts to higher and nobler 
 inspirations. 
 
 Might we indulge a hope that not only our de- 
 nomination, but every other description of Chris- 
 tians, would act upon these principles, we should 
 hail the dawn of a brighter day, and consider it as 
 a nearer approach to the ultimate triumph of the 
 church, than the annals of time have yet recorded. 
 In the accomplishment of our Saviour's prayer, we 
 
196 
 
 should behold a demonstration of the divinity of 
 his mission, which the most impious could not re- 
 sist; we should behold in the church a peaceful 
 haven, inviting us to retire from the tossings and 
 perils of this unquiet ocean, to a sacred inclosure, 
 a sequestered spot, which the storms and tempests 
 of the world were not permitted to invade. 
 
 " Intus aqua dulces, vivoque sedilia saxo; 
 Nympharum domus: hie fessas non vincula naves 
 TJUa tenent, unco non alligat anchora morsu." 
 
 Virgil. 
 
 The genius of the gospel, let it once for all be 
 remembered, is not ceremonial, but spiritual, con- 
 sisting not in meats or drinks, or outward observ- 
 ances, but in the cultivation of such interior graces, 
 as compose the essence of virtue, perfect the cha- 
 racter, and purify the heart. These form the soul 
 of religion; all the rest are but her terrestrial at- 
 tire, which she will lay aside when she passes the 
 threshold of eternity. When, therefore, the obli- 
 gations of humility and love come into competi- 
 tion with a punctual observance of external rites, 
 the genius of religion will easily determine to which 
 we should incline: but when the question is not 
 whether we shall attend to them ourselves, but 
 whether we shall enforce them on others, the an- 
 swer is still more ready. All attempts to urge men 
 
197 
 
 forward even in the right path, beyond the mea- 
 sure of their light, are impracticable in our situa- 
 tion, if they were lawful; and unlawful, if they 
 were practicable. Augment their light, conciliate 
 their affections, and they will follow of their own 
 accord. 
 
 17* 
 
\0$t$a^0. 
 
 AN objection to the hypothesis which assigns 
 the origin of christian baptisni to the commission 
 which the Apostles received at our Lord's resur- 
 rection, may possibly be urged from the baptisms 
 performed by his disciples during his personal mi- 
 nistry; and as no notice is taken of that circum- 
 stance in the body of the work, I beg leave to sub- 
 mit the following observations to the reader: — We 
 are informed by one of the evangelists, that Christ, 
 by the instrumentality of his disciples, at one 
 period "made and baptized more disciples than 
 John."* The following remarks may possibly cast 
 some light on this subject: — 
 
 1. A divine commission was given to the son of 
 Zechariah, to announce the speedy manifestation 
 
 * John iv. 1. 
 
of the Messiah; or which is equivalent, to declare 
 that "the Kingdom of God was at hand;" with 
 an injunction solemnly to immerse in water as 
 many as, in consequence of that intelligence, pro- 
 fessed repentance and reformation of life; and as 
 he was the only person who had been known to in- 
 itiate his disciples by that rite, it was natural for 
 him to be distinguished by the appellation of the 
 Baptist or the Immerser. The scriptures are to- 
 tally silent respecting any mission to baptize apart 
 from his. It is by no means certain, however, that 
 he was the only person who performed that cere- 
 mony: indeed, when we consider the prodigious 
 multitudes who flocked to him, the "inhabitants 
 of Jerusalem, Judaea, and all the region round 
 about Jordan," it seems scarcely practicable: he 
 most probably employed coadjutors, though the 
 practice having originated with him, it was foreign 
 to the purpose of the evangelists to notice that cir- 
 cumstance. 
 
 2. Our Lord, who had already evinced the pro- 
 foundest respect to his mission, by receiving bap- 
 tism at his hands, was, in consequence of his being 
 the Messiah, undoubtedly authorised personally to 
 perform any religious rite or office which was at 
 that time in force, as well as to delegate to others 
 the power of performing itj and as immersion in 
 
token of repentance and preparation for the King, 
 dom of God, then at hand, was an important branch 
 of the rehgion then obligatory, it was with the 
 greatest propriety that he not only submitted to it 
 himself, but authorised his disciples to perform it. 
 This, however, is by no means sufficient to consti- 
 tute a distinct rite or ordinance; and since it was 
 not accompanied with a distinct confession of faith, 
 nor possessed any distinct signification, it could not 
 be considered as originating a new institution, but 
 as a mere Co-operation with his forerunner in one 
 and the same work. 
 
 3. We have already shewn at large that the prin- 
 cipal difference betwixt John's baptism, and that 
 which the Apostles were commissioned to perform 
 after our Saviour's ascension, consisted in the 
 former not being celebrated in the name of Jesus. 
 But there is just as much difficulty in supposing it 
 performed by his disciples in that name, during his 
 abode on earth, as by his forerunner. It would 
 have equally defeated the purpose of that caution 
 which he uniformly maintained; and it is absurd to 
 suppose that he would strictly charge his disciples 
 to tell no man that he was the Christ, while he au- 
 thorised them to disclose that very secret to the 
 mixed multitude, as often as they baptized^ nor 
 
202 
 
 could the use of his name in that ordinance be se= 
 parated from such a disclosure. 
 
 4. In addition to this, it must be remembered 
 that John and our Lord (by the hands of his dis- 
 ciples) both baptized at the same period; their mi- 
 nistry was contemporary. Now if we assert that our 
 Lord enjoined one confession of faith in baptism, 
 and John another, we shall have different dispen- 
 sations of religion subsisting at the same time, and 
 must suppose the people were under an obligation 
 to believe one thing as the di^iples of John, and 
 another as the disciples of Christ. But this it is 
 impossible to admit. There is unquestionably at all 
 seasons, a perfect harmony in the economies of 
 religion, so that two different ones are never in 
 force at one and the same time. The first ceases 
 when the next succeeds, just as Judaism was abo- 
 lished by Christianity, and the Patriarchal dispen- 
 sation superseded by Judaism. Unless we are pre- 
 pared to assert that the dispensations of religion 
 are not obligatory, one light in which they must be 
 considered is that of different laws, or codes of 
 law; but it is essential to the nature of laws, that 
 the new one, except it be merely declaratory, inva- 
 riably repeals the old. In whatever particular it 
 differs, it necessarily abolishes or annuls the for- 
 mer. But as John continued to baptize by divine 
 
S03 
 
 authority, at the same time with the disciples of 
 our Saviour, it is evident his institution was not 
 superseded. Consequently, it was of such a nature 
 that it could subsist in conjunction with the bap- 
 tisms performed by our Lord, through the hands 
 of his Apostles. But for the reason already alleged, 
 this could not have been the case, unless it had been 
 one and the same thing. The inference I wish to 
 deduce from the whole is, that the baptisms cele- 
 brated by Christ's disciples during his personal 
 ministry, in no respect differed from John's either 
 in the action itself, or in the import, but were 
 merely a joint execution of the same work; agree- 
 ably to which, we find a perfect identity in the lan- 
 guage which our Saviour enjoined his disciples to 
 use, and in the preaching of John: " Repent ye, 
 for the Kingdom of God is at hand." Whatever 
 information our Lord imparted to his disciples be- 
 yond that which was communicated by his fore- 
 runner, (which we all know was much), was given 
 in detached portions, at distinct intervals, and was 
 never embodied or incorporated with any positive 
 institution, till after his ascension, which may be 
 considered as the commencement of the christian 
 dispensation, in its strictest sense. 
 
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