GROUNDS AND METHODS 
 
 01 
 
 ADMISSION TO SEALING ORDINANCES; 
 
 OR, 
 
 WHO SHOULD BE RECEIVED TO THE LORD'S TABLE? 
 
 WHOSE CHILDREN SHOULD BE BAPTISED ? 
 
 HOW SHOULD WE RECEIVE YOUNG COMMUNICANTS? 
 
 BY 
 
 REV. D. D. BANNERMAN, M.A. 
 
 free st. Leonard's church, perth. 
 
 (Edinburgh : 
 
 ANDREW ELLIOT, 17 PRINCES STREET. 
 
 1882. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 The Paper, which forms the first two chapters of this 
 little work, was written at the request of the Pro- 
 gramme Committee appointed by the First General 
 Council of the Presbyterian Alliance. It was read in 
 part at the Council at Philadelphia in September, 
 1880, and appears in the volume of their proceedings. 
 It is now published separately with a few slight altera- 
 tions, and with an additional chapter on " Methods of 
 Admission to the Lord's Table for the first time." 
 The origin of the book will explain one or two allu- 
 sions which I have not thought it needful to remove. 
 The fact of its having been prepared in part for a 
 Council of the Reformed Churches may also serve 
 as an apology for its bearing somewhat more of an 
 academic and ecclesiastical cast than it might other- 
 wise have had. 
 
 D. D. B. 
 
C N T E N T S. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Who Should be Received to the Lord's Table ? .1 
 
 The Church, in its ideal, a pure Communion ; but this not 
 realised on earth — How should this state of things be 
 regarded? — Two extremes — (1.) Lax discipline or none — 
 Stoddard's theory — Independent theory — Plymouthism, 
 "Join the purest" — Distinction between duty of office- 
 bearers and of applicant — True grounds of admission — What 
 meant by "credible profession" — President Edwards and 
 Dr. Hodge. 
 
 Scripture evidence on subject — (1.) Our Lord's teaching ; 
 (2.) Practice of apostles ; (3.) Teaching of epistles. 
 Practical advantages of position advocated. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Whose Children should be Baptised ? . . .40 
 
 (1.) How far general agreement — Cases of orphans, heathen 
 children, slaves — (2.) May children be baptised whose parents 
 are baptised, but not in full communion ? — Highlands of 
 Scotland — Continental Churches — " Half-way covenant ." in 
 New England. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Methods of Admission to the Lord's Table for the 
 
 first time, 48 
 
 Christian instruction of the young and ignorant in Refor- 
 mation times — Return in this to spirit and methods of early 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Church— Luther's "Little Catechism " — Calvin's — The three 
 great Protestant catechisms — Catechising with the Reformers 
 only a means to an end — " The school of Christ " — How best 
 to receive the catechumens to full communion with the 
 Church. 
 
 Confirmation : corruption and abuses of it in Roman 
 Catholic Church — In what sense opposed, and in what ap- 
 proved by Reformers — Testimony of Dr. Hodge — Calvin's 
 position on subject. 
 
 Confirmation in Church of England — In Continental 
 Churches — "Bishopping" in Scotland — Want of guidance 
 on part of Church — Methods devised and used by individual 
 ministers — Davidson of Prestonpans in 16th century ; Don- 
 aldson of Dalgetie in 17th century ; Willison of Dundee in 
 18th century. 
 
 Methods of dealing with "young communicants," and of 
 admission to the Lord's Table in Free Church of Scotland ; 
 in Cnited Presbyterian Church ; in Established Church. 
 
 Form for "public reception into full communion of those 
 baptised in infancy " in Reformed Dutch Church in America 
 (Presbyterian) — "Order of confirmation" in Reformed 
 Episcopal Church in America. 
 
GROUNDS AND METHODS 
 
 OF 
 
 ADMISSION TO SEALING ORDINANCES. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 WHO SHOULD BE RECEIVED TO THE LORD'S TABLE ? 
 
 11 The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion 
 of the blood of Christ ? The bread which we break, is it not the 
 communion of the body of Christ ? For we, being many, are 
 one bread, and one body : for we are all partakers of that one 
 bread." 
 
 " But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that 
 bread and drink of that cup." 
 
 " If any man that is called a brother be a fornicator, or covet- 
 ous, or an idolater, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner ; 
 with such an one no not to eat. . . . Do not ye judge them that 
 are within ? But them that are without God judgeth." — 1 Cor. 
 x. 16 ; xi. 28 ; v. 11-13. 
 
 THE two meanings in which I shall chiefly use 
 the word " Church " in this chapter are those 
 regarding which there is general agreement in 
 Reformed Christendom. 
 
 1 . The " Church " means in Scripture the 
 whole company of the elect — " all who have 
 been, are, or shall be gathered into one under 
 Christ the Head." 1 " Ecclesia universalis," 
 
 1 Conf. c. xxv. 1. 
 
2 ADMISSION TO SEALING ORDINANCES. 
 
 says Luther, quoting with emphatic approval 
 words of John Huss, which had been condemned 
 by the Church of Rome, " est prcedestinatorum 
 universitas." 1 
 
 This iC General Assembly and Church of the 
 first-born, which are written in heaven," all agree 
 to call the " Church invisible," in this sense at 
 least that, although all its members are seen 
 and known of God, it is impossible that they 
 should now be gathered into one place, or that 
 each should be seen and known certainly by the 
 eye of man. 
 
 2. The word Church in Scripture means a 
 society or fellowship in any place of professed 
 believers, or " visible saints " — to use the old- 
 fashioned phrase — meeting together statedly for 
 worship, and visible in their associated capacity 
 to the eyes of men. 2 It is not needful for 
 our present purpose to inquire whether this 
 society is to be confined to the single congre- 
 gation worshipping together, or whether, as Pres- 
 byterians believe, there is Scripture warrant for 
 saying that the principle of representation may 
 come in, and the unity and responsibilities of the 
 Church visible be carried further. Nor need we 
 refer now to that doctrine of the catholic visible 
 
 1 Kostlin, Luther's Lehre von der Kirche. Stuttg. 1853, p. 9. 
 8 Owen, Works (Goold's ed.) xv. 252 f. 262, 320 f. Banner - 
 man, The Church of Christ, i. 11 f. 15. 
 
THE CHURCH A PURE COMMUNION. 3 
 
 Church, the kingdom of Christ on earth, which 
 holds so marked a place in the Westminster 
 standards, and in the thoughts of the great 
 ecclesiastical divines of the seventeenth century. l 
 
 We have no occasion in this chapter to go be- 
 yond the two senses of the word now indicated, 
 using it to denote, first, the whole company of 
 those who are Christ's; and secondly — what all 
 admit to be the unit at least, of the Church as 
 manifested on earth — the worshipping congrega- 
 tion, gathered in the name of Christ, and joined 
 together on the basis of some common relation 
 to him. What kind of relation, and hoiv to be 
 tested, is what we shall have to consider presently. 
 
 The Church, therefore, is essentially a fellow- 
 ship — a communion. It consists of those "called 
 out " — as the name eiacXijo'ia suggests — from the 
 promiscuous multitude, and gathered together for 
 common ends. And in the first and highest 
 sense the Church is essentially, and from its very 
 nature as defined, a " pure communion." 
 
 Setting aside for the present such cases as that 
 of the infant children of believers, and keeping 
 to that of members in complete standing, the true 
 Church as existing on earth is the fellowship of 
 true believers with their Lord and with each 
 other, and of such only. " All saints who are 
 
 1 Walker, Theology and TTieologians of Scotland. Edin. 1872. 
 Lect. iv., "Doctrine of the Visible Chureh." 
 
4 ADMISSION TO SEALING ORDINANCES. 
 
 united to Jesus Christ, their Head, by His Spirit 
 and by faith, have fellowship with Him in His 
 graces, sufferings, resurrection, and glory. And 
 being united to one another in love, they have 
 communion in each other's gifts and graces." 1 
 If any man is not a true believer, he is not of 
 that fellowship. " If any man love not the Lord 
 Jesus Christ," he is under the anathema 2 of that 
 " holy catholic Church, which is invisible. " 
 
 " The Church," said Melanchthon, in that 
 Defence of the great Reformation Confession of 
 Au^sburof, which became itself a standard in the 
 German Church, " the Church is primarily — 
 before all else — the society of those who have 
 faith and the Holy Spirit in their hearts." 3 
 " Es weiss, Gottlob, ein Kind von sieben Jahren," 
 Luther puts it in his emphatic way, " was die 
 Kirche sei, namlich die heiligen Glaubigen, und 
 die Schaflein, die ihres Hirten Stimm horen." 4 
 All Reformed Christendom holds that the Church, 
 in its ideal and in its true constituency — " ecclesia 
 quce re vera est coram Deo " (Calvin) — is and 
 must be a pure communion. 
 
 1 Conf. c. xxvi. 1. 2 1 Cor. xvi. 22. 
 
 3 Apol. Conf., Aug. iv. So in the early editions of his " Loci : " 
 " Ecclesia proprie et principaliter significat congregationein 
 justorum, qui vere credunt Christo et sanctificantur Spiritu 
 Christi." Cf. Jul. Miiller, Dogmatische Abhandlungen. Bremen, 
 1870, pp. 297. Krauss, Protestantischc Dogma von der unsicht- 
 laren Kirche. Gotha, 1S76, pp. 34-42. 
 
 4 Art. Schmalk, cf. Calvin, Inst., lib. iv. c. 1, 3, 7. 
 
THE CHURCH A PURE COMMUNION, 5 
 
 But then it is as universally admitted that, 
 in point of fact, that is not realised on earth. 
 Whenever you pass from " saints united to Christ 
 by His Spirit and faith," to " saints by profession," 
 from the very nature of the case, an element of 
 uncertainty comes in, do what you will to avoid 
 it. It is owned on all hands that, as there was 
 a traitor among the twelve, as there were an 
 Ananias and Sapphira in the Pentecostal Church, 
 so there may be, and generally are, men and 
 women not real believers in every worshipping 
 congregation in this world, and that the solemn 
 ordinance of the Lord's Supper, " the com- 
 munion " — which, from its very nature and 
 name, ought to be the sign and embodiment of 
 the truest fellowship — is actually partaken of by 
 not a few who have no part or lot in the matter 
 of salvation. 
 
 Further, it is almost as generally allowed that 
 this involves serious guilt on the part of members 
 or office-bearers, or both. 
 
 Well, our present subject calls us to consider : 
 In what light are we to look upon this state of 
 things, and how ought it practically to be dealt 
 with ? If the Church on earth ought to be a 
 "pure communion," a fellowship of true believers 
 only, by what means is that to be brought about 
 or aimed at ? Or, translating these questions 
 into the ecclesiastical language of the Pro- 
 
6 ADMISSION TO SEALING ORDINANCES. 
 
 gramme : What are the Scriptural grounds and 
 methods of admission to sealing ordinances ? 
 
 What that last phrase means I need not pause 
 to explain in this Council. " Sacraments," as 
 the Westminster Confession expresses it, " are 
 holy signs and seals of the covenant of grace, 
 immediately instituted by God, to represent 
 Christ and His benefits, and to confirm our 
 interest in Him ; as also to put a visible differ- 
 ence between those that belong unto the Church 
 and the rest of the world, and solemnly to engage 
 them to the service of God in Christ according 
 to His word" — c. xxvii. 1. And both the 
 sacraments of the New Testament are rightly 
 included by the Programme Committee in the 
 designation of the subject, because the question 
 of qualifications for membership in the visible 
 Church is equally raised by both. Except as 
 regards the relative order of the two ordinances — 
 a point which, though it greatly disturbs our 
 Baptist brethren, 1 happily creates no practical 
 
 1 Comp. on the one side And. Fuller, " On Terms of Com- 
 munion," Works. Lond. 1837, vol. v. pp. 288-311 ; and on the 
 other Robert Hall, " On Terms of Communion," Works. Lond. 
 1831, vol. ii. The question discussed is not, as might be sup- 
 posed from the heading, that of the qualifications for Church 
 membership generally, but simply that which divides the " strict 
 communion Baptists " from those of that denomination who 
 advocate "free" or "mixed" communion, the former party 
 excluding from the Lord's table all Christians not baptised by 
 immersion at full age, and the latter admitting Christians 
 baptised in infancy. 
 
DUTY OF OFFICE-BEARERS & APPLICANT. 7 
 
 difficulty for us — to ask what is needful in an 
 applicant for adult Baptism is the same thing as 
 to ask what is needful in an applicant for ad- 
 mission to the Lord's Table. 
 
 With reference to Baptism as dispensed to 
 infants, the general admission among competent 
 theologians that adult Baptism forms the normal 
 instance of the administration of this sacrament, 1 
 makes it suitable to treat the case of infants 
 separately, and in the light of principles reached 
 in discussing the general question. Many diffi- 
 cult and delicate practical points will thus be 
 best approached. 
 
 On what principles, then, ought sealing ordin- 
 ances to be administered ? What is the mind of 
 Christ, the Head, for His Church, office-bearers, 
 and members in this thing ? For it is clear that 
 two classes of questions naturally arise, questions 
 for the Church or its representatives who admit 
 in its name, and questions for the person seeking 
 admission to the communion of the Church. 
 We may ask — 1st, What sort of persons are the 
 office-bearers justified, before God, in receiving 
 to Baptism or the Lord's Table ? Or, 2nd, 
 What sort of persons are themselves justified 
 before God in coming forward ? The two ques- 
 tions are quite distinct : Was it right in Philip 
 
 1 Cunningham, Works. Edin. 1863, ii. 125 f. Bannerman, 
 Church of Christ, ii. 108 f. 
 
8 ADMISSION TO SEALING ORDINANCES. 
 
 the Evangelist to admit Simon, the Samaritan 
 soothsayer to the communion of the Church ? 
 and — Was it right in Simon himself to make 
 the profession in connection with which he was 
 admitted. 1 
 
 The subject is an important one, both from a 
 theoretical and a practical point of view, as all 
 must feel who have studied it, and the wide 
 literature connected with it. It leads into many 
 difficult and complicated questions in both spheres, 
 which call for a clear understanding and a firm 
 grasp of the principles of God's Word bearing 
 upon them, and no little Christian wisdom and 
 faithfulness in applying those principles. 
 
 Two things are obvious almost at a glance in 
 reading the words of our Lord and His apostles 
 regarding Church membership. (1.) There 
 ought to be discipline in the Church, a certain 
 exercise of authority for the admission or exclu- 
 sion of members, as indeed, no society requiring 
 common action for common ends can possibly 
 subsist in an orderly way without it; and (2.) 
 There may be an excess of it. It may be 
 exercised, even from praiseworthy motives, on 
 wrong principles, and by incompetent hands, and 
 the result be evil in the Lord's eyes. 
 
 For example, in Matt, xviii. 1 5, our Lord tells 
 us how an offending " brother," a fellow-disciple, 
 
 1 Acts viii. 5-24. 
 
PLACE AXD LIMITS OF DISCIPLINE. 9 
 
 is to be dealt with about his trespass, ending 
 with " but if he neglect to hear the Church, let 
 let him be unto thee as an heathen man and a 
 publican." And on the other hand, in an earlier 
 chapter of the same Gospel (xiii. 24-30, 36-43), 
 " the kingdom of heaven," the Church as mani- 
 fested in this world, is likened to a field in which 
 the owner sowed good seed, but an enemy mingled 
 tares ; these representing respectively, as our 
 Lord expounds it, "the children of the kingdom" 
 and "the children of the wicked one." And 
 when the servants appeal to the householder : 
 1 Wilt thou then that we go and gather them 
 up ? " his answer is, " Nay, lest while ye gather 
 up the tares, ye root up also the wheat with 
 them. Let both grow together until the 
 harvest; " clearly showing this, at least, that 
 mistaken zeal for the purity of the Church's 
 membership might be ready to use means for 
 that right end which were not right, which 
 would do more harm than good, and were against 
 the will of the Church's Head. 
 
 In point of fact, two extremes in this matter 
 have been manifest in the history of the Church. 
 
 I. There have been, and there are, com- 
 munities, nominally Christian, in which the 
 greatest laxity and corruption of manners have 
 widely prevailed, without any remedy being 
 sought for, or any general wish for it being 
 
io ADMISSION TO SEALING ORDINANCES, 
 
 apparent. And there are other Churches, with 
 many signs of spiritual life, and very many most 
 excellent and consistent Christians in their 
 ministry and membership, where at the same 
 time, alongside of the former, we see many others 
 whose lives are palpably of an opposite kind ; 
 and the door of communion is practically open 
 to any who desire, from whatever motive, to 
 enter, and no attempt is made by the Church — 
 and perhaps, from its constitution and circum- 
 stances, no attempt is practicable — to exercise 
 upon those within its pale that " godly discipline 
 of the primitive Church," the absence of which 
 the Church of England deplores every year in 
 the preface to the Commination Service. 
 
 Everything which exists generally finds some 
 one, in virtue of that fact, to produce reasons for 
 its existence, and for its right to continue to be. 
 But apart from that tendency — which is far 
 from being without its advantages — principles 
 which would open the Lord's Table to men not 
 even professing to be Christians have been 
 defended by some truly good and able men, who 
 were not embarrassed in this matter by their 
 ecclesiastical position, and who were of a 
 thoroughly Evangelical spirit. 
 
 It may not, e.g., be so well known to all 
 members from the other side of the Atlantic as 
 it doubtless is here, that about the beginning of 
 
STODDARD AND EDWARDS. 
 
 last century a theory of this kind was pro- 
 pounded by Mr. Stoddard, the grandfather of 
 President Edwards, and himself an eminent and 
 pious man. He taught that "unconverted people, 
 as such, had a right in the sight of God to the 
 Lord's Supper ; " that " those who really rejected 
 Christ, and disliked the Gospel way of salvation, and 
 knew this to be true of themselves," might and 
 should come to the sacrament, and be admitted 
 by the Church, on the ground that it is a con- 
 verting ordinance, and that they desire to get a 
 blessing from it. Through Mr. Stoddard's 
 influence these views were widely adopted by the 
 ministers and people of New England ; and in 
 1750 Jonathan Edwards himself was actually 
 deprived of his charge at Northampton for 
 opposing this theory and urging greater purity 
 of communion. 1 I must not pause now to point 
 out how this theory of Stoddard's was a natural 
 reaction from the previous theory and practice of 
 Independent churches in New England, but may 
 j ust say in passing, that as few evils in this world 
 are without some compensating benefit, so the 
 deplorable injustice by which Edwards was 
 ejected from his ministry at Northampton had 
 two good results : it gave us his great treatise on 
 " Qualifications for Communion in the Visible 
 
 1 Works. Lond. 1834, I. p. clvii. ff. Hodge, Syst. TkeoL iii. 
 563-570. 
 
12 ADMISSION TO SEALING ORDINANCES. 
 
 Christian Church," and it helped at least to 
 make him a Presbyterian. 1 
 
 II. But the other extreme — that represented 
 by the servants in the parable — has been more 
 generally attractive to men of a devout and 
 earnest spirit; and it is easy to see why it 
 should have been so. It is a true and lofty 
 thought that the Church of Christ in its ideal is 
 essentially a 'pure communion of those " washed 
 and sanctified and justified in the name of the 
 Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God." It 
 is true that the hypocrite and the unbeliever 
 have no right to join themselves, even in name, 
 to its fellowship on earth, and that all lawful and 
 Scriptural means should be used to bring this 
 home to the conscience of all such persons. " Do 
 we," a Scottish divine wrote nearly 230 years 
 ago, " in opposing your doctrine concerning the 
 necessary qualifications of Church members in 
 relation to external Church fellowship, oppose a 
 thing because it is such as it ought to be ? Nay, 
 we but oppose you who make the door of the 
 visible Church straiter than ever the Lord made 
 
 1 " As to the Presbyterian form of Church government," he 
 wrote in July, 1750, to Dr. John Erskine, of Edinburgh : " I 
 have long been perfectly out of conceit of our unsettled, inde- 
 pendent, confused way of Church government in this land ; and 
 the Presbyterian way has ever appeared to me most agreeable 
 to the Word of God, and the reason and nature of things." 
 Works, ut supra, p. clxiii. 
 
INDEPENDENT THEORY. 13 
 
 it, and so in effect disclaim the way allowed by 
 God Himself for ordering His Church as not wise 
 enough, nor accurate enough. Or do we set 
 ourselves against a Church, such as you describe, 
 consisting of all truly godly, so far as men can 
 judge? God forbid, and far be it from us. 
 Were there such a Church in the world, it would 
 be very dear and precious in our estimation, and 
 we should bless the Lord for the riches and power 
 of His grace bestowed upon them. We wish from 
 our souls that our Churches, and all the Churches 
 in the world, were of such a complexion and con- 
 stitution. And we acknowledge that, as it is the 
 duty of every professor in the visible Church in 
 the sight of God that they be, not only ' so far as 
 men can judge,' but in truth and in deed, truly 
 gracious, having true saving faith, repentance, 
 and sanctification ; so that it is the duty of 
 ministers, and of every one in the Church, accord- 
 ing to their station and capacity, to endeavour, 
 by all means instituted by God, that it may 
 be so." 1 
 
 It is most fit and right that Christian men and 
 women should be deeply grieved at every instance 
 in which one called a brother or sister in the Lord 
 has manifestly yielded to unholy impulses, and 
 
 1 Wood, Examination of Mr. Lockyer's Lecture at Edinburgh, 
 (1651) Concerning the Matter of the Visible Clmrch. Edinburgh, 
 1654, 103 ; cf. Miiller ut supra, 886 f. 
 
14 ADMISSION TO SEALING ORDINANCES. 
 
 has brought reproach on the name of Christ and 
 of Christian in such a way that even the " love 
 that hopeth all things " must doubt, or more than 
 doubt, whether the root of the matter were ever 
 found in them. 
 
 "Unhappy instances of this kind may multiply 
 in the experience of a Christian man ; they may 
 seem to thrust themselves in his way, until he 
 is greatly saddened and disheartened. Then, 
 perhaps, he turns to others, in whose lives there 
 are no positive offences of that sort ; but he sees 
 them eager and absorbed in worldly things, with 
 little apparent warmth or interest in the things of 
 God ; and he says within himself, hastily, but not 
 unnaturally : " These, too, are sensual, having not 
 the Spirit." Thus he comes to feel as if he could 
 not trust those with whom he is joined in outward 
 fellowship for sympathy in the spiritual matters 
 which he has most at heart. He looks round 
 him in the congregation on a communion Sabbath, 
 and sees one and another there whose presence 
 seems to him to make it not a pure fellowship 
 in which the Lord's presence and blessing might 
 be confidently and joyfully expected. 
 
 It is an easy step from this point to the con- 
 clusion : " There is something far wrong in this 
 state of things. Some different principle ought 
 to be applied to secure that none but the truly 
 converted and spiritually minded shall enter the 
 
"JOIN THE PUREST:' 15 
 
 Church as members, or sit at the Lord's Table. 
 Should not the Church, or its representatives, lay 
 it on their conscience to receive none to com- 
 munion unless they are fully persuaded, on suffi- 
 cient evidence, that this man is born again, and 
 is a new creature in Christ Jesus ? " This is 
 what is generally known as the Independent 
 theory of admission to sealing ordinances. 1 
 
 And then a further question will arise for some 
 minds : If the Church is essentially a pure com- 
 munion, does not impurity in its membership, 
 which might have been prevented, destroy the 
 essence of a Church, and turn away all Divine 
 blessing from its ordinances ? And ought we not 
 to separate from any professedly Christian society 
 which does not appear to us a pure communion 
 in this sense ; and, if absolute purity cannot be 
 attained on earth, at least "join the purest"? 
 Has the old warning no application here ? "Come 
 out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of 
 her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues ; " 
 " Come out from among them and be ye separate, 
 saith the Lord ; and touch not the unclean thino- 
 and I will receive you and be a Father unto you, 
 and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the 
 Lord Almighty." 
 
 1 It is held by Independents under various forms, which need 
 not be referred to here. The practice of very many Independent 
 churches is substantially identical with our own. 
 
16 ADMISSION TO SEALING ORDINANCES. 
 
 Many of us are familiar with such reasonings 
 and their results, in the case of the Plymouth 
 Brethren. 
 
 Now, such a line of thought and feeling has 
 undoubtedly much about it which ought to awaken 
 genuine sympathy and respect. 1 I am convinced 
 that the want of such sympathy and respect has 
 greatly impaired the effectiveness of many a 
 pamphlet against Plymouthism. If we wish rightly 
 to meet error in doctrine or practice, the first thing 
 needful is clearly to recognise to what truth or 
 side of truth it allies itself in earnest minds, and 
 what true spiritual instincts are seeking satisfac- 
 tion in this way. 
 
 Plymouthism, with its errors and its unhappy 
 results, can be best met on the one hand by the 
 true Scriptural doctrine concerning the Church, 
 and on the other by the practical manifestation 
 of that spirit of mutual help and fellowship which 
 ought to characterise all the members of the 
 Church. It may be well for each of us to con- 
 sider how far we, in our Church relationship, may 
 have been lacking in that inward grace of 
 brotherly love from which there would naturally 
 spring those words and deeds of frank and kindly 
 Christian intercourse and friendship for which 
 
 1 Compare Bersier's interesting account of how he was led 
 from the school of Vinet in this matter to the position which he 
 now holds.— L'Eglise. Paris, 1877, pp. 6, f. 8-16. 
 
PLYMOUTHISM. 
 
 many are half consciously craving, and the sup- 
 port of which some temperaments peculiarly miss. 
 
 Such thoughts and feelings as have led some 
 to Plymouthism naturally arise in the minds of 
 earnest men and women, perhaps recently brought 
 under the power of the truth, who have learned 
 to shrink strongly from sin and to cherish fervent 
 desires after holiness and the fellowship of the 
 holy, but have not been accustomed, it may be, 
 to think out their thoughts clearly for themselves, 
 nor to recognise the importance of grasping 
 the whole teaching of Scripture on any subject 
 instead of simply one part or aspect of it. At 
 the same time it is obvious that the practical 
 conclusion to which such a theory of " pure com- 
 munion " points, and the attitude towards others 
 which it almost necessitates, have much about 
 them which is likely to ally itself to human infirmi- 
 ties as well as to Christian instincts. " Pure com- 
 munion," in the Plymouthistic sense, appeals not 
 only to the zeal of a young convert, but to his 
 natural self-confidence, his proneness to sweeping 
 criticism and hasty inferences from half-seen 
 truths, his tendency to plume himself on being 
 now superior in insight and attainment to those 
 to whom he had hitherto looked up. 
 
 The main and decisive question regarding 
 qualifications for Church membership is, of 
 course, "What saith the Scripture?" But, be- 
 
 c 
 
1 8 ADMISSION TO SEALING ORDINANCES. 
 
 fore proceeding to that, two considerations may. 
 be noted, which are of the nature of presumptive 
 evidence against the theory of pure communion 
 to which reference has been made. 
 
 (1st), It manifestly reduces the possibility of 
 Church fellowship to a minimum. " Join the 
 purest" plainly means " Join the smallest" If 
 the essence of a Church is destroyed, or at least 
 its purity fatally tainted, by the presence of an 
 unworthy member in its fellowship, one about 
 whom there may reasonably be suspicions — as 
 has been often asserted from the days of Ter- 
 tullian and the Novatians 1 onwards — then there 
 is less danger of that with a hundred members 
 than with five hundred, with twenty than with a 
 hundred, with ten than with twenty. Nay, of 
 whom can a man be so sure as of himself, and 
 perhaps one or two of his own family, whose 
 spirits for years he has had more opportunity of 
 trying than in the case of any beyond that 
 circle ? Once lay such responsibility for purity 
 of communion upon a scrupulous conscience, and 
 experience has amply shown what a future of 
 constant divisions is before you, ending not un- 
 frequently in absolute and literal individualism 
 in religion. 2 
 
 1 Gieseler, Eccles. Hist. (Eng. Trans.) Edin. 1846, i. 284 ; 
 Neander, Church Hist. (Torry's Transl.) i. 330 ff. iii. 270, 
 34. 
 
 2 According to this theory, as Wood points out to Lockyer, 
 
TESTIMONY OF HISTORY. 
 
 For (2nd) the testimony of history on the 
 subject is very clear and unmistakable. The 
 views about pure communion now referred to 
 were far too obvious not to occur soon. Where- 
 ever Christianity ceased to be persecuted ; where- 
 ever men saw in any country that it was the 
 winning cause, and social and other advantages 
 were connected with it, there it speedily became 
 manifest that some had found their way into the 
 Church who were not of it. The same diffi- 
 culties and feelings of distress arose in pious 
 minds, and the same method of escape naturally 
 
 suggested itself. The method has been tried, in 
 fact, over and over again at intervals — some- 
 times pretty wide ones — for the last 1600 years 
 — now by those calling themselves the pure ones 
 (pi KaOapoi) in the third century ; now by the 
 Donatists in the fourth and fifth ; now by various 
 of the smaller sects in Germany and Holland 
 in the sixteenth century, and again by the 
 " Seekers " and others under the English Com- 
 monwealth in the seventeenth. And it has 
 always wrought out its own refutation. The 
 theory with its attendant practice, more or less 
 strict, lived for a generation or two, was examined 
 and rejected by the ripest Christian judgment of 
 
 "likely there never was in the world a true visible Christian 
 Church, unless it was that of the eleven after that Judas hanged 
 himself, nor ever shall be." — P. 84. 
 
20 ADMISSION TO SEALING ORDINANCES. 
 
 the Church of the time, and then gradually died 
 out, disappearing so completely that when, a century 
 or two afterwards, from the old causes, it sprang 
 up again, it had generally been quite forgotten, 
 and so came with the power of novelty to run 
 the same cycle and end as before. Its reappear- 
 ance is not by any means among the worst 
 signs of an age. Through the natural operation 
 of human infirmities, it has often been associated 
 with seasons of revival for which, as a whole, the 
 Church had reason to give hearty thanks. It 
 has emerged again in an aggressive form in our 
 own time. But nothing has been said in support 
 of it by Darby, Macintosh, Davis, or Kelly, so far 
 as I have seen, which had not been said before 
 in substance, and often almost in the same words, 
 by those, e.g., with whom Augustine contended 
 in the fifth century, and those whom Richard 
 Baxter in England, and Wood, of St. Andrews, in 
 Scotland, had to oppose upon this topic in their 
 day. 1 
 
 Every age, of course, must fight its own battle, 
 but it may do so with better heart as it comes 
 
 1 J. N. Darby, " What is the Church ? " Lond. 1870. " The 
 Doom of Christendom." " What is the Church as it was in the 
 Beginning, and what is its Present State ?" " What the Christian 
 has amid the ruin of the Church," &c. C. H. Macintosh, " The 
 Assembly of God." Davis, " Help for Inquirers ;" " Scriptural 
 Inquiry as to what is the Church. 1 ' W. Kelly, " Lectures on 
 the Church of God." 
 
/ r ERDICT OF HIS 7'< )R )'. 2 r 
 
 to know that it is really an old adversary whom 
 it is meeting in a new garb, but no stronger than 
 when he was defeated on the same ground long 
 ago. And no age and no Christian man, in 
 lacing any serious question of doctrine or practice, 
 has any right to neglect the deliberate decisions 
 of the highest sanctified judgment of the Church 
 upon the same question in former generations. 
 The promise of " the Spirit of truth to guide 
 into all the truth " was not given for us and our 
 generation alone, but has been fulfilled all along 
 the way by which God has led His Church on 
 earth. And it is well for us, therefore, to re- 
 member that once and again, and yet again, the 
 verdict of history has been given upon this 
 theory of "pure communion," and has declared 
 that, however plausible in some of its aspects, it is 
 radically unsound and practically unworkable. 
 
 The question then is, what is the true and safe 
 ground between the two unscriptural extremes of 
 lax discipline and neglect of the grave responsi- 
 bilities which do lie upon the Church in this 
 matter on the one hand, and on the other of 
 using means with a view to purity of communion 
 which are unwarranted and incompetent ? In 
 answering this question, it is of the first import- 
 ance to keep clearly before us a distinction made 
 at the outset. It serves, if rightly understood 
 and applied, to clear up not a little confusion of 
 
22 ADMISSION TO SEALING ORDINANCES. 
 
 thought upon this subject, to prevent many con- 
 sciences from being burdened with painful respon- 
 sibilities which they are not called to take upon 
 them, and by assuming which they are brought 
 into a wholly morbid state. And it tends to put 
 the responsibility effectively upon those to whom 
 it realty belongs. I mean the distinction between 
 the ground of admission to sealing ordinances " in 
 foro ecclesiae " and " in foro Dei," to use the old 
 formula. In other words, what according to 
 Scripture will fully justify ^/ie Church, or its office- 
 bearers, in admitting a man is one thing ; what 
 according to Scripture will justify the man him- 
 self in the sight of God in asking admission is 
 another and quite a different thing. 
 
 As to the first, I believe that what Scripture 
 requires is a serious and intelligent profession of 
 faith in Christ and obedience to Him, with a cor- 
 responding conduct ; as to the second, the real 
 existence in the man of what he professes — a true 
 faith and sincere obedience. The Church is 
 responsible only for what concerns the first-named 
 qualification ; the man himself, and he only, for 
 what concerns the second. That is to say, the 
 sates of the kingdom of Christ on earth should be 
 open to every one coming with a credible pro- 
 fession of what is needful for entrance into the 
 kingdom of Christ in heaven. l 
 
 1 By "cmfo'We" profession there is implied no judgment, 
 
TRUE GROUXDS OF ADMISSION. 23 
 
 This is, in substance, the answer given by the 
 Reformed Church generally by the lips of all her 
 leading theologians who have discussed this sub- 
 ject. 1 In all essential points it is just the answer 
 of President Edwards in his masterly treatise on 
 " Qualifications for Communion." 
 
 It seems to me that the lamented Dr. Charles 
 Hodge — I speak with the greatest reverence for 
 his memory — has been hardly fair to Edwards in 
 the statement of his position given in the "System- 
 atic Theology" (iii. 569 tT.). "According to 
 this theory," Dr. Hodge says, " the Church con- 
 sists of those who are 'judged' to be regenerate. 
 None but those thus declared to be true believers 
 
 whether of charity or otherwise, on the part of the minister or 
 elders admitting the applicant, as to his real spiritual state, but 
 simply a judgment as to certain facts, namely, as explained 
 above, that the man makes this profession in an apparently seri- 
 ous spirit, that he has knowledge enough to understand what he 
 is doing, and that there is nothing in his known conduct to give 
 the lie to what he now says and does. Cf. Durham, Treatise 
 concerning Scandal. Edin. 1659, 88 ff. Wood, ut supra, 29 f. 
 152 f. 
 
 1 So, e.g., Prof. Wood, of St. Andrews, in his singularly clear 
 and able reply to Lockyer, the first champion of the Independent 
 theory of church-membership upon Scottish ground. The latter, 
 who was Provost of Eton under Cromwell, and a man of some 
 eminence in his day, had given his lecture — published at Leith, 
 in 1652 — the ambitious name of " A Little Stone out of the 
 Mountain." Hence, the quaint first title of Wood's reply : "A 
 Little Stone, pretended to be out the Mountain, tried and found 
 to be a Counterfeit." Cf. Apollonii, Consideratin, &c. cap. 1, " De 
 qualification membrorum ecclesia?." Lond. 1644. 
 
24 ADMISSION TO SEALING ORDINANCES. 
 
 are to be received as members of the Church." 
 Now, I admit that Edwards gives some ground 
 for such a representation by a certain ambiguity 
 in one clause of his thesis : " That none ought to 
 be admitted as members of the visible Church of 
 Christ in complete standing but such as are in 
 profession, and in the eye of the Church's Christ- 
 ian judgment, godly or gracious persons." 1 But 
 this ambiguity is removed if we have due regard 
 to the explanation of the statement which he him- 
 self gives. What the Church "judges" is not, 
 according to him, that the applicant is regenerate, 
 but simply that he makes a serious and intelli- 
 gent profession of faith and obedience, and that 
 his outward conduct is agreeable thereto ; this, 
 as he expressly says, whatever the private sus- 
 picions or fears of the minister, or any other, 
 about him may be. 2 
 
 Edwards' position, in fact, is thoroughly Pres- 
 byterian in substance, although with a tinge of 
 the old Independent phraseology, very natural in 
 a New England man. An additional proof of 
 this may be found in his willingness to subscribe 
 the Westminster Confession, 3 including, of course, 
 its well-known definition of the visible Church as 
 
 1 Worlcs. Lond. 1834, i, 434. 
 
 2 Ibid. 435, 452, 475. 
 
 3 Expressed to Dr. Erskine in the letter already referred to, 
 Worlcs, i. clxiii. 
 
OUR LORD'S TEACHING. 25 
 
 consisting of all those who profess the true re- 
 ligion, together with their children. 
 
 "With respect to the Scripture evidence for this 
 view of the true grounds of admission to sealing 
 ordinances, it is impossible to do more than indi- 
 cate it in the most general way. It is derived 
 from many quarters, and is of many kinds, direct 
 and indirect. Strong arguments in behalf of the 
 position now laid down may be drawn from gene- 
 ral principles and considerations connected with 
 the Scripture doctrine of the Church, its nature, 
 and design. It is supported — as Edwards and 
 others have conclusively shown — by the basis on 
 which God placed His Church in the Old Testa- 
 ment dispensation, and by what is told us of the 
 principles of the Baptist's ministry. But let us 
 pass at once to the teaching of our Lord and the 
 precepts and practice of His apostles on this sub- 
 ject. We must refer to a few passages only, and 
 barely indicate the kind of proof which they 
 afford. 
 
 1st, As to our Lord's teaching. 
 
 I need not say here how unmistakably and 
 emphatically He required a real spiritual change 
 in all who would be His disciples indeed, and 
 have place in His true and spiritual Church — 
 " Except a man be born again he cannot see the 
 kingdom of God. . . . Except a man be born of 
 water and of the Spirit he cannot enter into the 
 
26 ADMISSION TO SEALING ORDINANCES. 
 
 kingdom of God." " Except ye be converted and 
 become as little children ye shall not enter into 
 the kingdom of God." " Not every one that 
 saith unto Me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the 
 kingdom of heaven ; but he that doeth the will 
 of My Father which is in heaven." 1 
 
 Nor is it necessary for our present purpose to 
 refer to passages as to dealing with a brother 
 who has trespassed, as to the keys of the king- 
 dom of heaven, &c, which prove that discipline 
 is to be exercised in the visible fellowship of 
 believers on earth. The question before us is 
 rather as to the limits of discipline — the point 
 at which, with respect to the applicant for com- 
 munion or the member claiming full privileges, 
 the responsibility of the Church or its office- 
 bearers ceases, although that of the man himself 
 remains. 
 
 Now I need not prove, for it is admitted on 
 all sides, that the Saviour in His teaching both 
 states and takes for granted that, in point of 
 fact, there will be always more or fewer unworthy 
 members in the visible Church on earth. That, 
 of course, does not settle the point, Who are to 
 blame for their presence there, themselves or 
 others ? But it may be helpful to some minds 
 to remember that this fact which so troubles 
 them was clearly before the mind of the Head 
 
 1 John iii. 3 ff. ; Matt. vii. 21 ; xviii. 3. 
 
JUDAS AMONG THE TWELVE. 27 
 
 of the Church from the first. Sad though it be 
 in itself, it did not take Him by surprise, nor 
 does it defeat His purpose of blessing for His 
 Church and by it. " When once the Master of 
 the house is risen up and hath shut to the door," 
 He told His disciples, " many " should " stand 
 without and knock," and plead in vain : " We have 
 eaten and drunk in Thy presence, and Thou hast 
 taught in our streets ; " but He shall say, " I 
 know you not, whence ye are. Depart from Me, 
 all ye workers of iniquity." 1 
 
 Nay, that very experience, painful as it must 
 be to every spiritually-minded man, of close 
 outward connection in solemn acts of worship 
 with one of whom there is much reason to fear that 
 he has no real interest in the things of God, was 
 part of the daily life of the Saviour upon earth. 
 And with Him it was no mere dread or suspicion. 
 While He sometimes apparently spoke of all the 
 apostles, on the ground of their profession, as if 
 all were true disciples (" Ye that have followed 
 Me, ye also shall sit on twelve thrones, judging 
 the twelve tribes of Israel "), at other times He 
 showed that He knew well and felt painfully 
 that there was a traitor even in the inmost circle 
 of the infant Church : "Ye are clean; but not 
 all ; " " Have not I chosen you twelve, and one 
 of you is a devil ? " 
 
 1 Luke xiii. 25-30. 
 
28 ADMISSION TO SEALING ORDINANCES. 
 
 But I must not dwell on this. I would draw 
 attention for a moment or two to that remark- 
 able series of parables regarding the Church or 
 kingdom of heaven as manifested on earth — 
 those parables in which we see the wheat and 
 the tares together in the field ; the draw-net, 
 enclosing fishes good and bad ; the guests at the 
 king's supper, worthy and unworthy ; the wise 
 and foolish virgins together in the house, alike 
 in name and outward preparation and avowed 
 purpose. Now, in the teaching of those parables, 
 three things stand out clearly as to the fellow- 
 ship of the Church on earth : (1.) That there is 
 an actual mingling in it now of the worthy and 
 the unworthy, and that it is not by the hands of 
 men, but of angels or the Lord of angels, that 
 the final separation is to be made : " They shall 
 gather out of His kingdom all the stumbling- 
 blocks " [iravra to. o-KavSaXa) " and them which 
 do iniquity ; " " He shall thoroughly purge His 
 floor, and gather His wheat into the garner." 1 
 (2.) That the Church or its office-bearers are 
 implicitly or expressly forbidden to do, in the 
 way of separation, what they may be disposed to 
 think they might, and what possibly, to a certain 
 extent, they could do. And (3.) That the 
 reason for this prohibition is that there are 
 some kinds of separation for which their hands 
 
 1 Matt. xiii. 41 ; iii. 12. 
 
THE TARES A. YD THE Will: AT. 2<j 
 
 are incompetent, their eyes not sufficiently keen 
 or sure, and in trying to effect which they would 
 be certain to do harm, although seeking to do 
 good. 
 
 Thus, e.(j., in Matt, xiii. 24 ff, the servants 
 8CLW, as they believed, the tares. Should they 
 not therefore go and gather them up? "But 
 he said, Nay ; lest while ye gather up the tares " 
 — they might succeed in removing some of these 
 — " ye root up also the wheat with them." 
 There could hardly be a more direct reply, by 
 anticipation, to the arguments of those who urge 
 that the Church on earth should be constituted 
 upon the principle of admitting and retaining 
 none but the regenerate, and that the office- 
 bearers are bound to be persuaded in their own 
 judgment that a man is truly converted before 
 receiving or retaining him as a member in their 
 fellowship. 
 
 The only possible escape from the plain teach- 
 ing of this parable is to assert that the argument 
 proves too much ; that according to this view 
 there should be no discipline in the Church at 
 all. But to make such an assertion is simply to 
 evince ignorance of the first principles of sound 
 and sober interpretation of Scripture. It is an 
 axiom, admitted by all who are competent to 
 judge in the matter, that no parable was ever 
 meant to teach all truth. Each one is designed 
 
30 ADMISSION TO SEALING ORDINANCES. 
 
 to bring out, in a vivid and impressive way, 
 some special truth or aspect of truth, which again 
 was meant to be supplemented by other parables 
 or passages of the Word. The duty of Church 
 discipline, of caring in a suitable way for purity 
 of communion, rests upon its own full evidence. 
 Here, and in other like passages, we learn an 
 important companion truth, namely, the danger 
 of measures to which we might be prompted by 
 a mistaken zeal for the honour of the Master. 
 As Augustine said in reply to Donatist advocates 
 of pure communion : " We ought to obey our 
 Lord in the Gospel, both when He tells us that 
 he who will not hear the Church should be to us 
 as an heathen man and a publican, and when He 
 forbids us to gather out the tares, lest in so 
 doing we root up the wheat also ; for both 
 precepts may well be kept." 1 
 
 2nd, The practice of the apostles shows how 
 they understood the principles laid down by our 
 Lord when, both before and after His resurrection, 
 He " gave commandments to the apostles whom 
 He had chosen, speaking of the things pertaining 
 to the kingdom of God." 2 
 
 We see in the Apostolic Church a vigorous and 
 faithful discipline, as, e.g., in the case of Simon 
 
 1 Comp. Wood, ut supra, 163-6. Trench, On the Parables, 
 86 f. Miiller, 312 f. 
 3 Acts i. 2 f. 
 
PRACTICE OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 Magus, but no test for admission beyond a pro- 
 fession, on the part of the applicant, of faith in 
 Christ, and a purpose to follow Him. So with 
 the 3000 on the day of Pentecost, and with the 
 5000 shortly after. So with the admissions 
 under Philip at Samaria. No blame whatever 
 seems imputed to the evangelist for receiving the 
 soothsayer into the Church too hastily. On the 
 contrary, we find him immediately afterwards 
 honoured to receive the Ethiopian treasurer on 
 a still shorter probation and on precisely the 
 same principles. So with Cornelius at Csesarea, 
 with the converts at Philippi, and many others. 
 
 The difficulty which is apt to strike one in 
 connection with these cases is, in fact, not as 
 to the strictness, but the apparent ease with 
 which applicants were admitted. It might not 
 be quite plain at first sight how, when pro- 
 fessing converts were so quickly received to 
 communion, there could be sufficient evidence 
 that their profession was a serious and intelli- 
 gent one. When we consider, however, on the 
 one hand, the peculiar circumstances of the 
 time, that to profess Christianity meant then to 
 be ready to suffer or even to die for it; and, 
 on the other hand, the simplicity and power of 
 the apostles' preaching, we shall see that there 
 really was a reasonable guarantee that the 
 applicant understood sufficiently what he was 
 
32 ADMISSION TO SEALING ORDINANCES. 
 
 doing, and was in earnest in the profession he 
 made. But certainly there was no time for 
 such lengthened examination and probation as 
 could warrant the office-bearers of the Church 
 in saying of such as the Samaritan soothsayer, 
 that he, in their deliberate judgment, was a 
 regenerate man, and admitting him on that 
 ground. 
 
 3rd, And so also in the Apostolic Epistles. 
 
 These are addressed to those " called saints," 
 " brethren in the Lord," to " the Church of 
 God which is at Corinth," " to them that are 
 sanctified in Christ Jesus," " to them that 
 have obtained like precious faith with us," 
 &c. And yet, at the same time, it appears 
 from the same Epistles that there are some in 
 those Churches of whom the apostle "stands 
 in doubt, lest he has bestowed upon them labour 
 in vain;" others "who have sinned already and 
 not repented," who have given way to gross dis- 
 orders and heresies ; and some retained in com- 
 munion, whom he has to enjoin the Church at 
 once to put out of their fellowship. 1 The fitting 
 remedy for such a state of things, where the evil 
 has gone the length of "scandal," i.e., open sin, 
 or serious error in doctrine, is pointed out — viz., 
 the faithful exercise of discipline; "we command 
 you, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that 
 
 1 1 Cor. v. 1 ff. ; xi. 21 ; xv. 12 ; 2 Cor. xii. 20 f. ; Gal. iv. 11 ; v. 4. 
 
TEACHING OF THE EPISTLES. 33 
 
 ye withdraw yourselves from every brother that 
 walketh disorderly, and not after the instruction 
 which he received from us." "A man that is an 
 heretic, after the first and second admonition, 
 reject." " Them that sin, rebuke before all, that 
 others also may fear." l But no change is indicated 
 as to the principles of admission to membership, 
 rior doubt implied as to their soundness. 
 
 Now, it is plain that the titles by which those 
 apostolic Churches are addressed, and the state 
 of matters actually existing among them, are just 
 what we should expect upon the supposition that 
 the grounds of admission in each case had been 
 those above stated. Their members had been 
 received on profession of faith in Christ, and pur- 
 pose to follow holiness. The Christian society 
 or Church in each place had been constituted on 
 the ground of that profession ; and they are, 
 therefore, addressed in terms of it. But it by no 
 means followed that the actual spiritual condition 
 of each of the members corresponded to the titles 
 given to the Church as a whole. " In the super- 
 scription of letters to societies of men," as Presi- 
 dent Edwards puts it, " we are wont to give that 
 title or denomination which properly belongs to 
 them as members of such a body. Thus if we 
 should write to the Royal Society of London, or 
 the Royal Academy of Sciences at Paris, it would 
 
 1 2 Thess. iii. 6 ; Titus iii. 10 ; 1 Tim. v. 20. 
 
 D 
 
34 ADMISSION TO SEALING ORDINANCES. 
 
 be proper and natural to give them the title of 
 "Learned;" for whether every one of the mem- 
 bers truly deserve the epithet or not, yet the 
 title is agreeable to their profession, and what 
 is known to be aimed at and professedly insisted 
 on in the admission of members. ... So it seems 
 to be the manner of the apostles in their epistles 
 to Christian Churches to address them under 
 titles which imply a profession and visibility of 
 true holiness." " Not any pretended skill of the 
 pastor's iu discerning the heart, but the person s 
 own seriows profession concerning what he finds 
 in his own soul, after he has been well instructed, 
 must regulate the public conduct with respect to 
 Lim, where there is no other external visible thing 
 to contradict and overrule it. And a serious pro- 
 fession of godliness, under these circumstances, 
 carries in it a visibility to the eye of the Church's 
 rational and Christian judgment." 1 
 
 I have thus briefly indicated some of the 
 Scripture evidences for what I believe to be the 
 tme ground of admission to sealing ordinances in 
 the Church. The position advocated further 
 commends itself by its great practical advantages, 
 as all who have sought to act upon it know. 
 
 To admit any one to communion on the 
 principle of saying or implying that he was a 
 converted person, in my judgment, is what I 
 1 Works, i. 456, 475. 
 
PRA CTICA L COXSIDERA T10NS. 
 
 should be very sorry to do, both for my own sake 
 and for his, unless shut up to it by the plainest 
 teaching of Scripture, and that, as we have seen, 
 leads to a very different conclusion. 
 
 1 . For my own sake. 
 
 All ministers and elders, who hold the views 
 on this subject which I support, must feel that 
 they have responsibility enough in doing their 
 own part towards applicants for admission, in 
 dealing tenderly yet faithfully with them, in 
 avoiding what might flutter and perplex the 
 young and ignorant, in putting the truth 
 clearly and simply, in showing them about what 
 a man is to examine himself, in using all suitable 
 means to bring them to a right spirit in dealing 
 with the great question of their own salvation — 
 in dealing with Christ, the Lord, for themselves. 
 We should altogether refuse to be, or to seem, 
 responsible in any w r ay — save as regards faith- 
 fulness in such preliminary steps — for then- 
 answer, for the conclusion that it is right for 
 them to make a public profession of faith in 
 Christ, and obedience to Him. 
 
 We may have our own impressions on the 
 point. Of some we may stand in doubt, as they 
 come forward ; upon others we may look with 
 hope and confidence ; over others, again, we may 
 have great joy of heart. It may be the duty of 
 a minister to advise a man to ivait, while it may 
 
36 ADMISSION TO SEALING ORDINANCES. 
 
 not be his duty to refuse him access to com- 
 munion, if he persists in his desire, and takes the 
 full responsibility of his action. 
 
 But it is the greatest relief to every true 
 minister of Christ to feel that what he is called 
 to make the ground of his admission of appli- 
 cants, is not a judgment even of charity as to 
 their spiritual state — of which God alone can 
 rightly judge — but a judgment of facts, which 
 we are competent, with due care and faithfulness, 
 to judge upon, namely, that the applicant has 
 knowledge enough to understand what he is 
 doing, and that his profession is seriously made, 
 with nothing in his outward life, so far as known 
 to us, to bring discredit upon it. 1 
 
 2. For the sake of the applicant himself. 
 
 I should be most unwilling, as a minister, to 
 take any other position than that now explained. 
 We avoid thereby not a few obvious dangers. 
 Difficulties enough remain within the sphere left 
 to the pastor in this matter, 2 and mistakes may 
 still be made. A young minister, especially, is 
 apt to expect that all experiences of conversion 
 -and the Christian life are to be cast in one 
 
 1 Bannerman, Church of Christ, i. 79 f. Candlish, The 
 Christian Sacraments, 106 f. 
 
 2 The well-known answer to the question in the Larger 
 Catechism : " May one who doubteth of his being in Christ, or 
 of his due preparation, come to the Lord's Supper ? " is admirable 
 in spirit, but difficult of practical application in particular cases. 
 
DANGERS LESSENED OR A VOIDED. 37 
 
 mould. But the limitation of his responsibility 
 makes it less likely that weak but sincere 
 believers will be rejected, and the wheat thus 
 rooted up in the attempt to get rid of all the 
 tares. " Were this," says Wood, " made an 
 universal rule of admission into Church fellow- 
 ship, namely, a declaration of the experimental 
 work in their heart, that they may be judged 
 regenerate, verily, many an honest, gracious soul 
 would never obtain such a judgment upon them 
 while they live ; there being many such who, put 
 them to declarations of this kind, could say little 
 or nothing. . . . Nay, it were in effect to erect 
 a stage for hypocrites to out themselves upon, 
 and to cast a stumbling-block in the way of 
 honest hearts not indued with the gift of express- 
 ing themselves." 1 
 
 Certainly, by the position laid down we reduce, 
 to a great extent, the temptation to insincere pro- 
 fession of experiences, which the applicant knows 
 will be expected, which a hypocrite will make 
 readily, and which one not wishing to be so may 
 be pushed into by pressure of circumstances. 2 
 
 1 Wood, ut supra, 147. 
 
 2 " This accurate and pretended cleanly way of these Brethren,'' 
 says Wood, in words which might seem written with an eye to 
 more recent developments of the theory of pure communion, 
 " though it tend to exclude many who may be truly regenerate, 
 yet may let in any unregenerate, if they can but play the hypo- 
 crite handsomely, and have some book-learned knowledge." — 163. 
 
38 ADMISSION TO SEALING ORDINANCES. 
 
 Again, if the minister or the elder's judgment 
 of the applicant being a converted person is the 
 warrant for his admission, he will be very apt to 
 rest in that afterwards ; the more so, it may be, 
 the more elaborate the process by which the 
 minister satisfies himself. 
 
 Where the pastor takes the attitude already 
 indicated, he is far more likely to reach the great 
 end of arousing conscience, and of making the 
 man or woman with whom he is dealing feel 
 how solemn a thing it is to covenant with Christ, 
 and how the duty and responsibility of it lie upon 
 himself or herself alone. To have that individual 
 responsibility earnestly and affectionately laid 
 upon the conscience by a true minister of Christ 
 is the most awakening experience through which 
 the applicant can pass. He is made to realise 
 that, while of such things as knowledge and out- 
 ward conduct man may judge, as to the true 
 qualifications in the sight of God, He that 
 judgeth him is the Lord. "When it comes to the 
 turning-point of the whole matter, Is it right for 
 him to call himself a disciple of Christ, to profess 
 faith and obedience? he is sent alone into the 
 presence of the King to find his answer there in 
 secret on his knees. The profession involved in 
 his coming to the table of communion is thus 
 emphatically his oiun profession of the hope that 
 is in him as to his personal relation to Christ ; 
 
DANGERS LESSENED OR A VOIDED. 39 
 
 and he makes it as such before the Lord and 
 before His people. 
 
 Instances will no doubt rise to the memories 
 of many pastors here, in which young people 
 were in this way aroused to a sense of spiritual 
 need, and led to seek and find a Saviour, and 
 whose after-life proved the reality of the change 
 which they then underwent, but who came to 
 them quite ready to assent vaguely to any form 
 of profession which the minister might put into 
 their lips, and who would have said " Yes " to 
 any leading questions asked. 
 
4o ADMISSION TO SEALING ORDINANCES. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 WHOSE CHILDREN OUGHT TO BE ADMITTED TO 
 BAPTISM. 
 
 " Suffer the little children to come unto Me, and forbid them 
 not ; for of such is the kingdom of God." — Mark x. 15. 
 
 " For the promise is unto you and to your children, and to all 
 that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call." 
 — Acts ii. 39. 
 
 " Else were your children unclean ; but now are they holy." — 
 1 Cor. vii. 14. 
 
 "Lovest thou Me ? . . . Feed My lambs." — John xxi. 15. 
 
 rilHIS, as Dr. Hodge truly 'says, is "a very 
 ■*■ delicate, difficult, and important question.' 1 
 I can offer but a few notes, indicative chiefly of 
 the kind of problems that arise in connection 
 with it, and of the lines in which a solution has 
 been sought. 
 
 I. All Presbyterians agree that the infants of 
 members of the visible Church in full standing- 
 ought to be baptised. There is, further, very 
 general agreement that infants should be baptised 
 who are in such a position that members of the 
 Church can rightly stand to them so far " in loco 
 parentum" can become responsible for their 
 
WHOSE CHILDREN SHOULD BE BAPTISED? 41 
 
 Christian education, and are willing so to do. 
 This latter head includes such cases as those of 
 orphans, children adopted in Christian families 
 or by Christian missions at home or abroad. 
 The question of the Baptism of heathen children 
 was before the Synod of Dort. A few years after 
 Hoornbeek, a leading theologian of the Dutch 
 Church, discussed a number of points of this 
 kind in a letter to John Durie. 1 The rule of the 
 Church of Scotland in such cases is given, as 
 follows, by Steuart of Pardovan : "In case of 
 children exposed, whose Baptism after inquiry 
 cannot be known, the session is to order the 
 presenting of the child to Baptism, and the 
 session itself is to see to the Christian education 
 of the child. As also when scandalous persons 
 (i.e., those out of communion for gross offences) 
 cannot prevail with any fit person, or rather 
 relation, to present the child in their name, or 
 when the relations of deceased parents refuse to 
 become their sponsors, then the session is to 
 order as is said." 2 
 
 Some interesting extracts are given by Dr. 
 Hodge from the decisions of the Assembly of the 
 American Presbyterian Church regarding the 
 
 1 Eplstola ad celeberrim virum, Joh. Durceum. Lugdun Batav. 
 1660, 313-56. 
 
 2 Collections. Edin. 1709, 124 ; comp. Act IV. of Assembly, 
 1712. 
 
42 ADMISSION TO SEALING ORDINANCES. 
 
 Baptism of apprentices, " chiidreD of parents in 
 servitude," and heathen children. 1 
 
 But II. May those infants be baptised who are 
 not in such plainly exceptional circumstances, 
 who are children of parents themselves baptised 
 and not under discipline, but not members in full 
 standing ? 
 
 How, e.g., are ministers in the Highlands of 
 Scotland to deal with parents outwardly con- 
 sistent in life, and most regular in Church attend- 
 ance, who will on no account make the profession 
 implied in coming to the Lord's Table ? How are 
 our brethren in the Protestant Churches of France, 
 Italy, and Spain to deal with men who have dis- 
 carded all faith in the doctrines of the Church of 
 Rome, in which they were baptised, who are de- 
 sirous that their children should receive Baptism 
 from Protestant pastors and be brought up under 
 Christian influences, although they are not pre- 
 pared to make or imply any positive profession of 
 faith themselves ? Are we to refuse to such men 
 any recognised standing in the visible Church for 
 themselves or their children ? 
 
 It is obvious that the more strict the rules 
 regarding admission to the Lord's Table, the more 
 pressing in a practical point of view such questions 
 become. It is natural, therefore, to find them 
 
 1 Syst. Thiol. Lond. and Edin. 1873, iii. 561 f. Moore, 
 Presbyt. Digest. Philadelphia, 1873, 664 f. 
 
WHERE PARENTS NOT COMMUNICANTS. 43 
 
 emerging at an early date among the Independent 
 Churches of New England. About the same 
 time, or somewhat earlier, they were fully dis- 
 cussed in Holland. We may note three of the 
 answers then given to the question : May the 
 children of parents baptised, but not in full com- 
 munion, be received to Baptism ? 
 
 1. Yes ; on the ground of the parents' Baptism. 
 The parents are members of the visible Church, 
 although not in full communion. Their standing 
 as such was recognised by their Baptism, and has 
 not been forfeited so long as they are not actually 
 cut off from it in the exercise of discipline. They 
 have, indeed, failed to improve their privileges as 
 they ought, and are not yet qualified for admis- 
 sion to the Lord's Table ; but this failure in duty 
 on their part must not be visited upon their 
 children by denying them Baptism. 1 
 
 2. Yes; because Baptism is but the initial 
 sacrament. A higher standard of attainment and 
 profession is needful for admission to the Lord's 
 Supper than in the case of one seeking Baptism 
 for himself, or at all events, for his children. This 
 view was advocated in Holland in the seventeenth 
 century. It was the theory popularly known in 
 New England about the same period as the Half- 
 way Covenant. It was decided in a Synod at 
 
 1 Hoornbeek, ut supra, 315 f. Comp. Bersier, L'Eglise, 14 f. 
 Hodge, TJie Church and its Polity. Edin. 1879. 215 f. 
 
44 ADMISSION TO SEALING ORDINANCES. 
 
 Boston, where the question was fully discussed, 
 that " such baptised persons as, without being 
 prepared to come to the Lord's Supper, were of 
 blameless character, and would own for themselves 
 their baptismal obligations, ought to be allowed 
 to present their children for Baptism." 
 
 The propositions on which this conclusion was 
 based are given by Dr. Hodge, who adds that this 
 decision " came to be approved by the general 
 practice of the Congregational Churches of New 
 England. Such also," he goes on, " it is believed, 
 although on somewhat different principles, was 
 the general practice of the Presbyterian Church 
 in this country until within a comparatively recent 
 period of its history. 1 
 
 Dr. Hodge himself appears to incline to this 
 position. He quotes with approbation Dr. Cotton 
 Mather's defence of it. " Those," he says himself, 
 " who, having been themselves baptised, and still 
 professing their faith in the true religion, having 
 competent knowledge, and being free from scan- 
 dal, should not only be permitted, but urged and 
 enjoined to present their children for baptism, 
 that they may belong to the Church, and be 
 brought up under its watch and care. To be un- 
 baptised is a grievous injury and reproach, which 
 no parent can innocently entail upon his children. 
 The neglect of baptism, which implies a want of 
 
 1 Syst. Theol. in. 567 ff. 572. 
 
THE HALF-WA Y COVENANT. 45 
 
 appreciatioii of the ordinance, is one of the dying 
 sins of this generation." 1 On the other hand, 
 Dr. Hodge clearly states that " the requirements 
 for participation in both sacraments are the same. 
 . . . Those, under the Christian dispensation, en- 
 titled to baptism are entitled to the Lord's Sup- 
 per. Those who, unbaptised, would be entitled 
 to baptism for themselves, are entitled, and they 
 only, to present their children for baptism. 
 Baptism and the Lord's Supper are not convert- 
 ing ordinances. They are to be administered only 
 to those who profess to be Christians." 2 
 
 In the Highlands of Scotland, while the theory 
 of Church membership is that of the Westminster 
 Standards, the practice is to a considerable extent 
 akin to that of New England under the " Half-way 
 Covenant." Many truly earnest and consistent 
 Christians hold back there from participation in 
 the Lord's Supper, while receiving Baptism for 
 their children. No doubt with respect to them 
 the position of the pastor may often be : " These 
 are virtually communicants. I should have no 
 hesitation in admitting them to full communion 
 did they apply for it, although from special 
 scruples and distrust of themselves they shrink 
 from doing so."°' 
 
 1 P. 579. 2 P. 574 f. 
 
 3 Comp. Schleiermacher's conception of an outer and inner 
 circle of " Aspirants " and Members of the Church. Christlichc 
 Glaube, 2nd ed. § 148. 2, § 150. Midler, v.t sv.pra, 35G f. 
 
46 ADMISSION TO SEALING ORDINANCES. 
 
 III. Yes ; because both sacraments are seals of 
 an external covenant. The visible Church is 
 based upon this covenant, and it is to the Church 
 visible that the sacraments belong. The con- 
 ditions of entrance are a profession of historical or 
 intellectual faith in the true religion, and an out- 
 ward conformity to its rules. Applicants for the 
 sacraments, therefore, do not profess to be Christ- 
 ians except in an outward way. They simply 
 declare that they are not infidels or scoffers, and 
 that they wish Church privileges for themselves 
 and their children. 
 
 De Marck and Gomar advocated this theory in 
 Holland. Vitringa and others strongly opposed 
 it. De Moor gives a full account of the con- 
 troversy. 
 
 This was, in substance, the position of Stoddard, 
 Blair, and others in America in the eighteenth 
 century, to which reference has been already 
 made. l 
 
 All who have given any attention to this sub- 
 ject must agree with the suggestion of the Theo- 
 logical Faculty of Utrecht in 1648 regarding one 
 of George Gillespie's famous CXI. Propositions, 
 that further light was desirable on the question, 
 "How, and how far the power of the Church has 
 to do with (and its duty may be discharged 
 towards) incomplete members of the Church, so 
 
 1 Hodge, ut supra, 563, 566. 
 
DUTY OF CHURCH TO CATECHUMENS. 47 
 
 to speak ; that is to say, those baptised in 
 infancy and all other catechumens, and even 
 hearers." 1 
 
 1 Hoornbeek, at supra, 3j6. 
 
48 ADMISSION TO SEALING ORDINANCES. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 METHODS OF ADMISSION TO THE LORD S TABLE 
 FOR THE FIRST TIME. 
 
 ' ' One shall say, I am the Lord's ; and another shall call him- 
 self by the name of Jacob ; and another shall subscribe with his 
 hand unto the Lord, and surname himself by the name of 
 Israel." — Isa. xliv. 5. 
 
 O God of Bethel ! by whose hand 
 
 Thy people still are fed ; 
 V\'ho through this wear}' pilgrimage 
 
 Hast all our fathers led : 
 Our vows, our prayers, we now present 
 
 Before Thy throne of grace : 
 God of our fathers ! be the God 
 
 Of their succeeding race. 
 Through each perplexing path of life 
 
 Our wandering footsteps guide ; 
 Give us each day our daily bread, 
 
 And raiment fit provide. 
 
 ■* * •* -5:- ■;:- C * 
 
 Such blessings from Thy gracious hand 
 
 Our humble prayers implore ; 
 And Thou shalt be our chosen God. 
 
 And portion evermore. 
 
 Second Paraphrase (Philip Doddridge). 
 
 Volk des Herm, bring dein Geschlechte 
 Xach dem alten Licht und Re-chte 
 
CARE FOR THE YOUNG BY REFORMERS. 49 
 
 Her zum Kiinig aller Knechte ; 
 
 Sprich : Herr, hier ist dein Geschupf ! 
 
 * * * * * * * . 
 
 Kommt, ihr Kinder, die wir haben 
 Als vieltheure Gottes Gaben ; 
 Nehmt vom Scbatz, dran wir uns laben, 
 
 Den eucb zugedachten Tbeil 
 Einen Theil am Liebesbande 
 Mit dem ewgen Vaterlande, 
 Aberauch am Kreuzestande, 
 
 Und am Weltverleugnungssinn. 
 Wollet ibr eucb binden lassen ? 
 Jesu Kreuz mit Freuden fassen, 
 Und die falsche Rube hassen ? 
 
 Willst du, liebes Kindervolk ? 
 
 Confirmations-lied (Graf voy Zijnzendorf). 
 
 TN nothiDg was the true spirit of the Reforma- 
 -*■ tion more plainly seen than in the care 
 taken in all the Reformed Churches for the 
 Christian instruction of the young and ignorant. 
 In every country where the Reformation pre- 
 vailed, three great movements went on together ; 
 the Gospel was preached ; the Bible was given 
 to the common people in their own tongue ; and 
 the young and neglected were systematically 
 trained in the knowledge of Divine truth. As 
 the Scottish Reformers expressed it, " Theyouth- 
 heid and the puir were brought into the school 
 of Christ." 
 
 The leaders of the Reformation went back in 
 this respect as in others, both to New Testament 
 teaching and to the example of a purer antiquity. 
 
 E 
 
50 ADMISSION TO SEALING ORDINANCES. 
 
 Much faithful work had been done in the early 
 centuries in connection with the training of 
 catechumens, and their reception into full com- 
 munion with the Church. 1 But times were 
 changed since the days when Chrysostom gave the 
 people of Antioch his w First and Second Cate- 
 chetical Instruction for those about to be baptised," 
 and Augustine wrote his treatise " On Catechis- 
 ing the Uninstructed," at the request of a deacon 
 of Carthage, who was himself labouring in that 
 work, and felt discouraged by its difficulties. 2 
 It had been very different during the middle 
 ages. For centuries the Church of Rome had 
 shut up the Bible from the people, and had 
 done nothing for the Christian nurture of the 
 young. Not till Protestant catechisms had been 
 abroad for more than a generation did Rome pro- 
 duce, in self defence, the ponderous Latin Cate- 
 chism of Trent. 
 
 It is interesting to find that wherever, beyond 
 the pale of Rome, evangelical life had been main- 
 
 1 Cyril of Jerusalem, e.g., is known to us as a writer almost 
 solely from his Catechetical Lectures. Eighteen of these were 
 delivered to candidates for Baptism, at evening services, in the 
 Empress Helena's Basilica in Jerusalem, about the middle of 
 the fourth century. They were followed up by five noon-day 
 lectures, in the Anastasis, or Chapel of the Resurrection, " to those 
 lately baptised." 
 
 2 This worthy deacon, like many others of Augustine's friends 
 and correspondents, bore what some would call a Puritan name. 
 He was known as " Brother Deo-Gratias," or " Thank-God." 
 
THE YOUTHHEAD AND THE POOR. 51 
 
 taiiRil, or had sprung up afresh under the 
 quickening breath of God's Word and Spirit, 
 there earnest attention had been given to the 
 Christian training of the young. The Waldensians 
 in the Italian Alps, and the Bohemian brethren 
 amid their hills and forests, had catechisms long 
 before the Eeformation. 1 The Hussites sent a 
 Latin copy of their catechism to Luther six years 
 before he wrote his " Kleiner Katechismus." 2 
 
 But the great spring time of blessing for " the 
 youthhead and the poor " in Europe began in the 
 lGth century. The very foremost minds on the 
 side of the Reformation in Germany, Switzer- 
 land, France, and Britain, gladly gave . their 
 strength to frame simple forms of Gospel teaching 
 for the young and ignorant, couched in their own 
 mother tongue. John Brentz, the Reformer of 
 Wiirtemberg, was about the first to lead the way 
 by publishing a Catechism in 1524 for the use 
 of the Protestant schools which he set on foot. 
 It is worthy of note that to this day there is 
 probably no country in Germany where there is 
 more of evangelical life among the people than 
 in Wiirtemberg. Brentz was closely followed by 
 Luther, whose admirable " Little Catechism " 
 appeared in 1529. Calvin, wrote a French 
 
 1 Zezschwitz, die Katechismen der Waldenser und Bohmischen 
 Brilder. Erlangen, 1863. 
 
 1 Schaff, Creeds of Christendom. New York, 1878, i. 248. 
 
52 ADMISSION TO SEALING ORDINANCES. 
 
 catechism at Geneva in 1536. Re- written by 
 him a few years later, it passed into all the 
 languages of Europe, and did noble service, 
 especially in France and Scotland. Out of it in 
 great measure rose the Heidelberg or Palatine 
 Catechism in 1563, and the Shorter Catechism of 
 the Westminster Assembly in 1647. These two 
 hold as undoubtedly the foremost place in the 
 Churches of the Reformed or Calvinistic group as 
 the " Little Catechism " does in those of the 
 Lutheran. " These," says the historian of the 
 Creeds of Christendom, " are the three most 
 popular and useful catechisms that Protestantism 
 has produced, and have still the strongest hold 
 upon the Churches they represent. They have 
 the twofold character of catechisms and sym- 
 bolical books. They are alike Evangelical in 
 spirit and aim ; they lead directly to Christ as 
 the one and all-sufficient ' Saviour, and to the 
 Word of God as the only infallible rule of the 
 Christian's faith and life." 1 
 
 Along with and besides these great typical 
 catechisms, were a multitude of other formularies., 
 written in all the tongues of Europe, some of an 
 elaborate, and some of a very simple kind, which 
 remain to show what an amount of loving care 
 and 'pains were bestowed upon this part of the 
 
 1 Schaff, i. 247, 467-70, 533-54. Bonar, Catechisms of the 
 Scottish Reformation. Lond. 1866. Preface, >:xvi-xxx. 
 
THE AIM OF CATECHISING. 53 
 
 Church's work in Reformation times. But all 
 these things were only means to a great end. 
 What the Reformers bad at heart was not merely 
 to communicate knowledge, but that the young 
 should be won for Christ, that they should be 
 brought, as they came to years of understanding, 
 to enlist themselves openly in His service, and 
 that they should be. fitted to serve Christ and 
 their own generation according to the will of 
 ( i i kL That was in their eyes the crown and 
 consummation of a course of Christian training. 
 The catechism was but a help placed by the 
 ( 'hurch in the hand of the Christian parent, 
 teacher, or pastor, as they strove to bring the 
 child, the youth, or maiden, " into the school of 
 Christ," in the highest sense, into true union and 
 fellowship with the Master Himself, and with the 
 company of His faithful people on earth. 
 
 When, therefore, there was reason to hope 
 that this end, through God's blessing, had been 
 attained, the question naturally arose, How 
 might the final step, so far as outward fellowship 
 was concerned, best be taken ? When the 
 catechumens were prepared to profess intelli- 
 gently their faith in Christ and obedience to 
 Him, how might the Church most fitly recognise 
 the fact, and receive them into her fellowship as 
 members in full standing, and entitled to all 
 Christian privileges ? To express the same thing 
 
54 ADMISSION TO SEALING ORDINANCES. 
 
 in ecclesiastical language, — What was the best 
 method of admission to sealing ordinances in the 
 Church? 
 
 Between Baptism and the sacrament of com- 
 munion, the Roman Catholic Church had placed 
 the rite of confirmation. This, by the develop- 
 ment of the hierarchical system, had come to 
 mean consecration by the hands of the bishop, 
 coupled with anointing with oil and other cere- 
 monies. It had been raised to the rank of a 
 sacrament, and was declared to confirm and 
 increase the grace conferred in Baptism, and to 
 imprint a •" character indelibilis " upon the 
 recipient. As such it was rightly rejected by 
 the Reformers as clearly unscriptural, opposed to 
 the whole teaching of the Gospel as to the way 
 of salvation and the nature of the Church. 
 " But," as Dr. Hodge well puts it, " confirma- 
 tion, as a solemn service, in which those recog- 
 nised in their infancy as members of the Church 
 on the faith of their parents, are confirmed in 
 their Church standing on the profession of their 
 own faith, is retained in form or in substance in 
 all Protestant Churches. 
 
 In the Lutheran, and in most of the Reformed 
 or Calvinistic Churches on the continent of 
 Europe, children baptised in infancy, when they 
 come to years of discretion, are publicly examined 
 as to their knowledge of Christian doctrine, and 
 
CONFIRM A TION. 5 5 
 
 if free from scandal, are called upon to assume 
 for themselves their baptismal vows, and are 
 recognised as members of the Church in full 
 communion. 
 
 In most Presbyterian Churches in Great 
 Britain and Ireland, and especially in America, 
 something more than competent knowledge and 
 freedom from scandal being required, in order to 
 admission to sealing ordinances, baptised youth 
 are not, as a matter of course, admitted to the 
 Lord's Supper on their arrival at the years of 
 discretion. .... The same examination as to 
 knowledge, the same profession as to faith, the 
 same engagements as to obedience, in short, the 
 same assumption of the obligations of the 
 baptismal covenant, and the same consequent 
 access to the Lord's Table, which in other 
 Churches constitute confirmation, in ours con- 
 stitute what we are accustomed to call admission 
 to sealing ordinances. The only difference is 
 that we require more than knowledge and free- 
 dom from scandal as the condition of confirming 
 baptised persons as members of the Church in 
 full communion. 
 
 It is a great mistake, therefore, to represent 
 confirmation as a prelatical service." 1 
 
 . l Hodge, The Church and its Polity. Lond. 1879, p. 157. 
 Comp. Matthes, Comparative Symbolik aller Christl. Confessionen, 
 592 f. 
 
56 ADMISSION TO SEALING ORDINANCES. 
 
 That this was the position taken on this sub- 
 ject by the most competent theologians of the 
 Protestant Churches in Reformation times might 
 easily be proved. It may be enough to give a 
 few extracts from Calvin, who draws the true 
 distinction in this matter with his wonted judg- 
 ment and clearness of thought. 
 
 " It was an ancient custom that the children of 
 Christians, after they had come to years of dis- 
 cretion, should be presented before the bishop, in 
 order that they might fulfil that duty which was 
 required of adults who offered themselves for 
 Baptism. For such persons sat among the 
 catechumens, until having been duly instructed 
 in the mysteries of the Christian religion, they 
 were able to make confession of their faith before 
 the bishop and people. 
 
 " Those, therefore, who had been baptised as 
 infants, because they had not then made con- 
 fession of their faith before the Church, at the 
 close of their boyhood or in early youth were 
 presented again by their parents and examined 
 by the bishop according to the form of the 
 Catechism which was then in common use. And 
 in order that this service, which was rightly held 
 to be a solemn and sacred one, might have more 
 of impressiveness and dignity about it, the action 
 of imposition of hands was employed. . . . Such 
 a laying on of hands, which should be simply in 
 
CAIAI.X ON CONFIRMATION. 57 
 
 place of a benediction, I approve of, and would wish 
 to see restored and used in a pure manner in the 
 present day. ... As Augustine affirms, it is 
 nothing else than a prayer for him on whom our 
 hands are laid." 1 
 
 After showing the essential difference between 
 such an action and the imposition of hands by 
 the apostles in connection with the bestowal of 
 miraculous gifts, and exposing the errors of the 
 Popish doctrine of confirmation, Calvin concludes: 
 " I wish sincerely that we should retain this 
 custom, which, as I have said, was in use among 
 the ancients before this abortive image of a sacra- 
 ment was born into the world ; not that there 
 should be such a confirmation as the Romanists 
 pretend, which cannot be so much as named with- 
 out injury to baptism, but a catechetical service 
 in which boys or youths should give an account 
 of their faith before the Church. 
 
 Now it would be the best method of cate- 
 chising if a formula were drawn up for this 
 purpose, setting forth and explaining in a popular 
 way a summary of the chief heads of our religion, 
 in which the whole Church of the faithful should 
 agree without controversy. A boy of ten years 
 of age might present himself to make confession of 
 his faith. He would be questioned on each of 
 
 1 Comp. Bannerman, Church of Christ, ii. 431-4, on Imposition 
 of Hands in Ordination. 
 
58 ADMISSION TO SEALING ORDINANCES. 
 
 the heads and give suitable answers. If he were 
 ignorant of any of them, or did not fully under- 
 stand, he would be further instructed. Thus the 
 Church would be a witness to his profession of 
 the one true and pure faith in which the whole 
 company of the faithful worship the one God. 
 
 " If this discipline were observed in the present 
 day it would assuredly give a spur to the sloth- 
 fulness of some parents who carelessly neglect the 
 instruction of their children, as if it were a thing 
 with which they had no concern ; but in that 
 case they could not omit it without public dis- 
 grace. There would then be more harmony of faith 
 among the Christian people ; nor would so many 
 show such ignorance and lack of instruction, 
 and be so easily carried away by new and strange 
 doctrines." 1 
 
 But all were not equally discriminating in this 
 matter. In the Church of England, for example, 
 confirmation was still made the exclusive pre- 
 rogative of the bishop of the diocese, instead of 
 being assigned, as Calvin would have assigned it, 
 to the bishop in the New Testament sense of the 
 word, the pastor under whom the catechumens 
 had been trained, and to whom they naturally 
 
 1 Instit. lib. iv. c. xix. 4, 12, 13. Coinp. Comment on Heb. 
 vi. 2. Calvin's statements on this subject were closely followed 
 in the Catechism by Xowell, Dean of St. Paul's, which was 
 approved by Convocation in 1562. Xowell's Catechism (Parker 
 Society ed.) Cambridge, 1853, pp. 88 f. 211 f. 
 
CONFIRMA TION IN ENGLISH CHURCH. 59 
 
 looked as their spiritual guide and father in the 
 Lord. Apostolic authority was claimed for the 
 laying on of the bishop's hands. In the order 
 for confirmation, as in the baptismal service, the 
 regeneration of the baptised was distinctly 
 asserted. The qualifications for confirmation 
 stated in the canons and rubrics, " if explained 
 according to the letter," as an eminent Episco- 
 palian writer on the subject frankly admits, 
 " would seem only to imply an acquaintance 
 with the catechism, and the benefit, whether 
 influential or not, of instruction in its fundamental 
 principles. This would include every species of 
 the ungodly." 1 
 
 How, in spite of such errors and defects, and 
 not a few abuses arising out of them, confirma- 
 tion seasons in the Church of England have often 
 been times of signal blessing, can be easily under- 
 stood by any one who reads the chapter on confir- 
 mation in the work to which reference has now 
 been made. It would be hard to find a better 
 specimen, of evangelical teaching, and of faithful 
 and tender dealing with the hearts and consciences 
 of young people in connection with their admis- 
 sion to Church privileges. Such earnest and lov- 
 ing pastoral care for the young could not but bear 
 
 1 Bridges, Vicar of Old Newton, and author of the well-known 
 "Exposition of Psalm cxix.," The Christian Ministry, 4th ed. 
 429. 
 
60 ADMISSION TO SEALING ORDINANCES. 
 
 fruit. It was eminently fitted to keep back the 
 spiritually unprepared, to bring waverers to a 
 right decision, and to make the time of a first 
 public Christian profession a time of great 
 blessing — 
 
 " When trembling at the sacred rail 
 
 We hid our eyes and held our breath, 
 Felt Thee how strong, our hearts how frail, 
 And longed to own Thee to the death." l 
 
 As regards the Protestant Churches on the Con- 
 tinent, confirmation in the Roman Catholic and 
 prelatic sense was everywhere rejected, but in the 
 sense and to the effect desired by Calvin, it was 
 in not a few cases retained. In other cases, where 
 for a considerable period no observance of the 
 kind had existed, it was restored, as the need 
 became felt for some definite recognition by the 
 Church of those entering its membership in full 
 communion for the first time. 
 
 This took place especially wherever evangelical 
 life was strong, and where the old Reformation 
 spirit of care for the young continued, or was re- 
 vived in any marked degree. It was so, for 
 example, in connection with the "Pietistic" move- 
 ment in Germany in the 17th century. Spener, 
 in particular, did much to concentrate attention 
 on the significance and importance of the step 
 taken by the catechumens when passing into the 
 
 1 Keble, "Confirmation, in ■ Christian Year.' " 
 
CONFIRMATION ON THE CONTINENT. 61 
 
 position of members in full standing. He viewed 
 it especially as a renewal of the baptismal cove- 
 nant, the obligations of which are voluntarily 
 assumed by the applicant for admission to the 
 Lord's Table. Through his influence confirma- 
 tion services, embodying this idea, were intro- 
 duced in Frankfort in 1GGG, whence they spread 
 to many other places. They are now almost uni- 
 versal, in one form or other, both in the Lutheran 
 and Reformed, branches of the Protestant Church 
 on the Continent. 1 
 
 Abuses could be named which have connected 
 themselves with such services. It was inevitable 
 that it should be so where formalism and sacra- 
 mentarianism prevailed in the Church, and where, 
 through the Erastian character of its relation to 
 the State, confirmation was required as a neces- 
 sary qualification before young people could enter 
 upon any trade or profession. 
 
 But, as in the Church of England, wherever in 
 Germany or Holland there was evangelical life in 
 the pastorate, and the preparatory training and 
 examination of the catechumens were conducted 
 in the right spirit, there confirmation seasons have 
 been known and remembered as times of great 
 spiritual blessing. The place which the service 
 
 1 Matthes, Comp. Symb. 592 f. Nitzsch, Prdktische Theo- 
 loyie, ii. 147 ff., 2te Aufl. Oosterzee, Practiced Theology. Lon. 
 1878, 430-4. 
 
62 ADMISSION TO SEALIXG ORDIXAXCES. 
 
 holds in the eyes of devout pastors and theolo- 
 gians of the German Church is well described by 
 Nitzsch. l " Confirmation, as an observance, is 
 religious, but not sacramental. It is a gross mis- 
 take to regard it as presenting a channel for the 
 communication of the gift of the Holy Spirit. . . . 
 With us it is held to form a suitable transition- 
 step between Baptism and a first communion, 
 both because the Baptism of the child was a 
 pledge for its Christian and churchly education, 
 and also because participation in the Lord's 
 Supper presupposes a certain measure of Christian 
 development, and consequently that that educa- 
 tion has borne fruit and has so far reached its 
 end. 
 
 Christ draws the baptised child into the realm 
 of influences through which life and salvation are 
 designed to flow to him. But these influences 
 work through the "Word of God and the fellow- 
 ship of the Church. . If the baptised child does 
 not become a believer, through willing subjection 
 of himself to the truth made known, then his 
 Baptism remains for him, as Luther says, a dead 
 
 1 Best known, perhaps, in this country from his masterly 
 work "A Protestant Answer to Mbhler's Symbolism" (Protes- 
 tantische Beantwortung der Symbolik Mohlers). K confirma- 
 tion has something of a Popish sound to some ears, no one will 
 doubt the Protestantism of the author of the most conclusive 
 reply to what is perhaps the ablest apology for Boman 
 Catholicism written in our day. 
 
CONFIRM A TION IN GERMANY. 63 
 
 treasure. It is therefore the xluty of the Church 
 to train up the baptised little one in the know- 
 ledge of salvation ; to bring him especially to a 
 knowledge of himself in the Christian sense, for 
 which end instruction is indispensable. Suppose 
 that he never comes to the Lord's Table, but is 
 to die before he is confirmed, he must, neverthe- 
 less, be so trained from his earliest years of 
 understanding that he may live a Christian life 
 and die a happy death. If, however, he is 
 brought on as a catechumen to ripeness for com- 
 munion, the Church has a right to be satisfied ol 
 his fitness in this respect. . . . An intelligent 
 Christian profession, a voluntary joining of himself 
 to the fellowship of faith, and waiting on the 
 means of grace, these things must be established 
 as facts within the cognisance of the Church ; on 
 the orderly and solemn expression of them, thus 
 established, the authority to enter the full com- 
 munion of the Church is given. 
 
 The specific aim of all the instruction and 
 training is that the young person be brought to 
 a living, experimental knowledge of the Gospel, 
 an aim which includes in itself that of a 
 suitable confirmation of the baptismal cove- 
 nant, or a right preparation for the communion, 
 .and which is in no way opposed to the other 
 objects already spoken of as regards the instruc- 
 tion of the young, and laying the foundations of 
 
64 ADMISSION TO SEALING ORDINANCES. 
 
 Christian knowledge. To this end, of a living 
 apprehension of the Gospel, everything is to be 
 made subordinate, all school and disciplin- 
 ary influences, all pastoral care and spiritual 
 •nurture of the catechumens. The whole teach- 
 ing and training, with all the means of grace 
 and the Church itself, have this for their 
 true aim, that a' child of man should become 
 a child of God, and be saved through faith ; 
 that his Baptism should have its true and full 
 meaning, and his calling and election be made 
 sure." 1 
 
 In other parts of Reformed Christendom, again 
 — as, for example, in Scotland — w r hile the evils 
 of sacramentarianism were avoided, something of 
 a recoil to an opposite extreme took place. It 
 was veiy natural that it should be so. Confir- 
 mation in the Roman Catholic and Prelatic sense 
 was part of a system much and justly bated in 
 Scotland. " Bishopping," as it was commonly 
 called, had been one of the " Five Articles of 
 Perth " pressed by James VI., under the influence 
 of Laud, upon a reluctant nation. There w r as a 
 natural dislike to the very name. It was not so 
 eas}^, or as it seemed so safe, to say in such 
 circumstances, as Calvin said of the confirmation 
 practised in the early Church : " We should 
 retain in our day this institution in a pure form, 
 1 Xitzsch, Prak. Theol ii. 166 f. 
 
BISHOPPING* IX SCOTLAXD. 6; 
 
 correcting the superstitions which have been 
 attached to it." l 
 
 Thus it came to pass in Scotland that while 
 confirmation was strenuously and — in the form 
 in which the Scottish Reformers had to deal with 
 it — rightly rejected, nothing was put in its place. 
 Sound views were held as to the Church stand- 
 ing of the children of believers. Much attention 
 was given to catechising and the religious instruc- 
 tion of the young. There was a high standard 
 of Church-membership. But in studying the 
 history and development of Church life in this 
 country, one cannot help feeling that in Scotland, 
 in the days of the first and second Reformations, 
 there was in general a certain loss of spiritual 
 power and opportunity at the point of transition 
 
 1 " Quamobrem hodie retinenda pura institiitio est ; super- 
 stitio autem corrigenda." — In Epist. ad Hcb., cap. vi. 2. Calvin 
 himself fully appreciated the motives and feelings of those who 
 shrunk from such a proposal. " I am not at all surprised," he 
 says in a letter to Farel, "that the kind of examination about 
 which I wrote " — the reference is to something which might take 
 the place of the Roman Catholic confession before mass — " gave 
 rise to some scruples on the part of that good brother. It is 
 nothing new for good souls to fear lest we should be slipping 
 back into some superstition as often as they hear that we are 
 proposing something which has any affinity or likeness what- 
 soever to any of the inventions of the Papists. But while, on 
 the one hand, I do not desire that they should be less watchful 
 against danger from that quarter — for we cannot be too careful 
 in that respect — yet, on the other hand, I would wish them to 
 take a little more pains to separate the wheat from the chaff and 
 refuse/' — Opera (Corpus Reformatorum), xi. p. 41. 
 
 F 
 
66 ADMISSION TO SEALING ORDINANCES. 
 
 between the ranks of the catechumens of the 
 Church and her ordinary membership. 
 
 There was a want of something which would 
 lead children of Christian parents to realise the 
 special call which Christ had addressed to them in 
 their Baptism — a call, perhaps, still unanswered, 
 — and which would vividly set before them what 
 the " Larger Catechism " calls " the needful, but 
 much-neglected duty of improving our Baptism." 1 
 And there was also lacking some practical and 
 visible recognition by the Church, as such, of the 
 step — so often a decisive one for good or evil 
 in the spiritual history of the young — which 
 takes an applicant for communion from the posi- 
 tion of a baptised member of the Church into 
 that of a member in full standing. 
 
 No guide was given to ministers and people 
 with respect to this matter, as there was with 
 respect to the celebration of marriage, the visita- 
 tion of the sick, days of public fasting, &c, either 
 in the Book of Common Order or the West- 
 minster Directory for Public Worship. Yet, 
 surely, the question was an important one : In 
 what manner, on Scriptural principles, may the 
 solemn admission and welcome of young disciples 
 of Christ to the fellowship of His people be most 
 suitably conducted ? The answer might well 
 
 1 Qu. 167. Comp. Candlish, The Christian Sacraments, 73-83 
 — "Efficacy and Practical Use of Baptism." 
 
WANT OF GUIDANCE ON PART OF CHURCH. 67 
 
 have engaged the best wisdom and warmest piety 
 of the Church, and, coming with the authority of 
 its highest Court, would have carried weight 
 everywhere. 
 
 A few instances may be given of how, in the 
 absence of any such assistance from the Church, 
 individual ministers recognised the want of which 
 I have spoken, and strove to answer the question 
 as best they could for themselves. 1 I take one 
 from each of three successive centuries of Scottish 
 Church history. 
 
 Few ministers of the Church of Scotland in the 
 sixteenth century did better service than John 
 Davidson of Prestonpans. Like many others of 
 that generation who had been trained in the 
 school of Knox, he was not only a learned divine 
 and a devoted Christian pastor, but a man of 
 affairs. His natural force of character, ready 
 wit, and shrewd judgment, gave him weight and 
 influence with men of all classes. Whatever he 
 
 1 A similar state of things existed in the Presbyterian Church 
 in America. In an interesting and valuable work by a minister 
 of that Church on Presbyterian Liturgies, the following state- 
 ments occur : "A subject in which our present directory of wor- 
 ship leaves much to be desired is the ' admission of persons to 
 sealing ordinances of the Church.' The want of any provision 
 for that service has been generally remedied among us by the 
 adoption of voluntary and extraneous forms, such as are in use 
 among our Congregational brethren. This deficiency the 
 Draught of 17S7 admirably supplies. We quote it at some 
 length," &c. — Baird, Chapter on Liturgies, London, 1856, 244. 
 
68 ADMISSION TO SEALING ORDINANCES. 
 
 took in hand, he threw into it a certain heartiness 
 and goodwill to the work, which are peculiarly his 
 own. 
 
 Thus, when in 1588 Bancroft "first broke the 
 peace among the Reformed Churches " on the 
 subject of Church government, by his sermon at 
 Paul's Cross, John Davidson came forward to 
 expose, as he said, " Dr. Bancroft's rashness in 
 railing against the Church of Scotland," which 
 he did in a way that rejoiced the heart of 
 Andrew Melville. 1 
 
 But for nothing does Davidson more deserve 
 to be remembered than for his labours for the 
 intellectual and spiritual good of the young and 
 ignorant in his own parish. At his own cost, he 
 erected there a church and manse, provided a 
 glebe and garden, built a schoolmaster's house 
 and a grammar-school, and bequeathed books 
 and money to equip it for the teaching of the 
 three learned languages — Latin, Greek, and 
 Hebrew. 2 Alike in church and school he spared 
 no personal toil and pains for the Christian 
 instruction of the young and the neglected. 
 
 In 1599, the Provincial Assembly or Synod of 
 Lothian and Tweeddale considered and approved 
 •'A Form of Examination and Catechism, written 
 
 1 Cunningham, Works, iii. 527 ff. ; M'Crie, Life of Melville y 
 2nd ed. vol. i. 305-310 ; ii. 159. 
 
 2 M'Crie, Mchille, ii. 414. 
 
METHODS USED BY INDIVIDUALS, 69 
 
 by our brother, Maister John Davidson." This 
 little treatise, which was published by the author- 
 ity of the Synod, sets before us an interesting 
 picture of faithful pastoral work, in connection 
 especially with preparation for the communion. 1 
 The title is : " Some Helps for Young Scholars 
 in Christianity : the form of familiar instruction 
 and examination of rude- people, entering to be 
 di>eiples in the school of Christ ; practised in the 
 new-erected kirk of Salt-Prestoun and parish 
 thereof, before the communion, not without 
 experience of some profit and edification of God's 
 people. Praised be God, blessed for ever, through 
 Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen." 
 
 " After that the writer hath taken up the 
 names in writ," Davidson tells us, " of sae monie 
 as for the time are present of them that were 
 warned to that diet, according to our visitation 
 passing before, and hath demanded of every ane 
 whether they can say the Ten Commands, the 
 Belief, and the Lord's Prayer, and hath tried 
 some maist suspected of ignorance in that case — 
 though otherwise they affirm, as the manner is, 
 they can say them — and exhortation given to 
 learn with diligence where they want anything : 
 
 1 It is easily accessible in Dr. Bonar's valuable little work, 
 Catechisms of the Scottish, Reformation. Lond. 1866, 324-57. 
 
 2 That is, uninstructed. Davidson uses the word as Augustine 
 does in the title of his tract, " De Catechizandis rudibus." 
 
70 ADMISSION TO SEALING ORDINANCES. 
 
 we proceed to prayer, after this or the like 
 manner following : — 
 
 " Bless us, gude Lord, and this familiar exercise 
 that presently we are to have, by Thy grace, in 
 catechising and instructing Thy people familiarly 
 in the way of truth ; that thereby our own 
 misery by nature and happy estate by grace in 
 Christ being the better known to every ane of 
 us, and this grace in Christ truly believed, we 
 may learn to deny all confidence in ourselves 
 and all other creatures, and putting our hail 
 trust in our alone Saviour Jesus Christ, may 
 study to earnest and unfeigned repentance and 
 amendment of life all our days, through Jesus 
 Christ our Lord. To whom, with the Father 
 and the Holy Ghost, be praise and glory, now 
 and ever. Amen." 
 
 Thereafter, in four brief sections, to be taken 
 up evidently on successive days, we have four 
 short expositions of the main points of Christian 
 faith and practice, in their bearing especially on 
 the Lord's Sapper, with simple questions and 
 exhortations arising out of the subject in hand. 
 
 In the rubrics, or directions for the service, 
 there are not a few marks of the homely wisdom 
 and kindly authority with which John Davidson 
 took order among his " rude people," the salters 
 and fishermen of Prestonpans, " long sitting by 
 the sea coast," as he tells them, " in no less 
 
DA VIDSON OF PRES TONPANS. 7 1 
 
 darkness than did they of Galilee that dwelt by 
 the Lake of Gennesareth, whilk was to them as 
 a sea." The whole book breathes a warm, hope- 
 ful, evangelical spirit, which reminds one of 
 Luther and the Heidelberg Catechism. It shows 
 very vividly what a vigorous grasp Scottish min- 
 isters of the sixteenth century took of this part 
 of their pastoral work, and how earnestly they 
 were seeking, by practical essays and experiments 
 of this kind, to shape out for themselves the best 
 methods for the Christian instruction of the 
 young and ignorant, and their preparation for 
 full communion in the Church. 1 
 
 Passing on to the middle of the seventeenth 
 century, look at the methods used then as 
 regards admission to the communion in a land- 
 ward parish in Fifeshire. 
 
 From the unsettled state of the country, 
 arising out of Cromwell's invasion, the Lord's 
 Supper had not been dispensed in Dalgetie for a 
 considerable time. It was felt suitable that the 
 first communion season after peace had been 
 
 1 One of the mottos which Davidson put on his title-page 
 expresses this aspect of his work with a touch of characteristic 
 humour : " Multa cavillari promptius est quani semulari. 
 
 It is mair easy faults to pike 
 
 In monie things than do the like." 
 "If anything be wrang here," he adds at the end of his Cate- 
 chism, "it is of weakness and not of wilfulness, and therefore is 
 humbly submitted to the loving and advised correction of the 
 godly learned by God's Word." 
 
72 ADMISSION TO SEALING ORDINANCES. 
 
 restored should be kept with special solemnity. 
 The minister and elders, therefore, began by 
 appointing a week of prayer for guidance and 
 blessing in the matter. Thereafter the session 
 passed an " Act " to the following effect : — 
 
 u The session, taking into consideration the trial and 
 examination of people in order to the communion, do 
 think fit — (1.) That people of all ranks within the congre- 
 gation be examined ; and that none be admitted to come to 
 that ordinance that refuse to submit themselves to trial. 
 (2.) That some of the most judicious of the elders be ap- 
 pointed from time to time, to be concurring with the 
 minister in this work, that such as shall in any measure be 
 found qualified may be admitted, and others laid by for the 
 present till further pains be taken upon them. (3.) That 
 people be tried — 1st, In their knowledge of the grounds of 
 religion, whether they be such as in some measure are able 
 to " discern the Lord's body ;" 2nd, in the point of prayer, 
 whether they be aiming in any measure at the seeking of 
 God, and if they be heads of families, whether they have 
 prayer and God's worship in their families, yea, what rare 
 they have to bring up their children in the knowledge of 
 the Lord, according to their solemn engagement at baptism, 
 and how they carry themselves towards their servants in 
 things that relate to godliness. . . . (5.) How they walk 
 in their stations, whether they follow the duties of their 
 calling, whether they live without scandal and offence, 
 especially if they be free of drunkenness, of swearing, and 
 profaning the name of God, and if in some measure their 
 conversation and walking be suitable to the Gospel ; yea, 
 if their endeavour and desire tend that way. 
 
 " And the session, however they resolve to use tenderness 
 toward such are now come to years, and have been bred 
 in ignorance, if so be they be in any measure concerned, 
 
DONALDSON OF DALGETIE. 73 
 
 have any good affection to the way oi' Cod, are labouring 
 lor more knowledge and live soberly, yet they think that 
 such as are young and have had the means of a better 
 education ought to be exactly tried, and not admitted to 
 ilu' communion till they be in some measure qualified, 
 lest by the sudden and rash admitting of them they be 
 hardened in sin and ignorance." 1 
 
 Thereafter for several months the parish was 
 carefully visited, district by district, and people 
 of all ranks examined by minister and eldeis. 
 Several of the latter were men of the highest 
 social standing in the county, so that there 
 was no difficulty in finding examiners likely to 
 deal in a suitable way with persons in different 
 positions in society, as the session probably had 
 in view in one of their resolutions. 
 
 More than a fortnight before the communion 
 Sabbath, a number of young persons are reported 
 upon in the session as having been carefully 
 dealt with in their own districts by minister and 
 riders, and as now " in some measure qualified." 
 A week later, these young people appear together 
 before the session. They are " seriously exhorted," 
 as the session record bears, " to study the Scrip- 
 tures and the knowledge of God, and to walk in 
 some suitableness to the Gospel, and so receive 
 their tokens." 2 
 
 1 Ross, Pastoral Work in Covenanting Times. Lond. 1877. 
 122 f. 
 
 2 Ross, 133. 
 
74 ADMISSION TO SEALING ORDINANCES. 
 
 No better instance of a faithful and fruitful 
 ministry in the eighteenth century could be 
 given than that of Willison of Dundee. His 
 name is an honoured one still among the best of 
 our Scottish peojDle. Some of his works in the 
 department of practical theology are of lasting 
 value. Others of a more popular kind, such as 
 the " Mother's Catechism " and " The Afflicted 
 Man's Companion," are household words over all 
 Scotland. 
 
 Throughout his ministry of nearly fifty years, 
 Willison devoted himself with special earnestness 
 and success to the care of the young among his 
 flock. It is interesting to observe how often and 
 how strongly he insists upon the importance of a 
 wise and carefully-considered method of admis- 
 sion to a first communion. I can give but a few 
 extracts in illustration. 
 
 In the preface to his Sacramental Catechism, 
 after referring to the Act of Assembly, 1706, 11, 
 regarding instruction and exhortation before 
 admission to the Lord's Supper, Willison pro- 
 ceeds : " Accordingly, I have known some 
 ministers at very much pains with young persons 
 before their first communicating instructing them 
 as above directed, telling them that they were 
 now to enter into the state of adult Church- 
 membership, to be taken into Christ's family, and 
 share in the children's privileges sealed to them 
 
WILUSON OF DUNDEE, 75 
 
 in baptism ; that, therefore, they must now make 
 a choice for themselves, ratify their parents' 
 deed, and become Christians by their own volun- 
 tary consent, as well as by their parents' dedica- 
 tion, and renew their baptismal covenant with 
 judgment and understanding. And after much 
 pains taken upon them in private, they have 
 called their young communicants together in a 
 public manner, catechising them, and opening up 
 to them the nature of the Gospel covenant and 
 their baptismal engagement ; and with some 
 solemnity asking each of them their consent 
 thereunto, and taking them engaged personally 
 to renew covenant with God in secret, and make 
 choice of God for their God, and Christ for their 
 Saviour and Husband, before they should 
 approach to His Table ; and upon these terms 
 giving them their tokens. 
 
 " Unto all which they joined suitable direc- 
 tions and encouragements, concluding all by 
 giving up and recommending these young com- 
 municants to God in solemn and fervent prayer. 
 Which method I have known accompanied with 
 great tenderness and many tears among the young 
 people; one of them helping to affect another 
 — yea, and make very moving impressions upon 
 the whole audience ; and I doubt not but such 
 occasions have been to some the time of their 
 espousals to the Lord Jesus Christ, which 
 
76 ADMISSION TO SEALING ORDINANCES. 
 
 they are to remember with thankfulness and 
 praise." 1 
 
 In his " Young Communicant's Catechism," 
 Willison has a section entitled, " A proposal for 
 young communicants : their express renewing 
 the baptismal engagements before their first 
 admission to the Lord's Table ; which practice 
 might be much for edification, especially if duly 
 managed and done with some solemnity before 
 witnesses, such as ministers, elders, and other 
 young persons." The questions which follow are 
 good but cumbrous. 
 
 A passage to the same effect occurs in his 
 " Directions to Ministers of the Gospel," in a 
 remarkable sermon preached by him before the 
 Synod of Angus and Mearns in 1733, with 
 special reference to the first Secession. 2 
 
 In the three great sections into which the 
 Presbyterian ism of Scotland is at present un- 
 happily divided, more attention has been given 
 of late years to the matter which Willison and 
 other worthies of the Scottish Church in former 
 centuries had so much at heart. 
 
 In the Free Church of Scotland, the General 
 Assembly of 1871 had before it a careful report 
 by the Home Mission Committee regarding the 
 duty of the Church to different classes of her 
 
 1 Willison, Practical Works, 442. 
 - Practical Works, 589-92, 835-37. 
 
THE FREE CHURCH OF SCOTLAXD. 77 
 
 members. Special reference was made in this 
 report to those who have been recognised as 
 members in their infancy by Baptism. " They 
 should in early life be made aware of the obliga- 
 tions laid on them by their Baptism. The eye 
 of the Church should ever follow those who, 
 when infants, were baptised into her communion. 
 Ministers and elders should see to it that they 
 grow up in the knowledge of the truth as it is in 
 Jesus, and that they early give themselves to the 
 Lord. 
 
 M The Committee recommend the adoption of 
 the system of congregational catechising of the 
 young, as well as family catechising, and also 
 that a general roll of all members, young and old 7 
 be kept by the kirk-session. The children should 
 be the care, not of their own parents only, but of 
 the congregation, whose prayers and efforts should 
 be directed to preserve them from falling, to pro- 
 mote their growth and steadfastness, until, by a 
 personal acceptance of Christ, and a public pro- 
 fession of faith in Him, they become members of 
 the Church in full communion." 
 
 The committee also recommended that a copy 
 of a card drawn up by them, containing a few 
 counsels to young communicants, should be given 
 to each person admitted for the first time to the 
 Lord's Table. 
 
 The Assembly unanimously approved of these 
 
78 ADMISSION TO SEALING ORDINANCES. 
 
 proposals of the committee, and recommended all 
 sessions to act upon them. 1 This, to a consider- 
 able extent, has been done. The methods com- 
 monly used in the Free Church of Scotland are 
 in substance as follows : — 
 
 Applicants for admission to the Lord's Table 
 for the first time attend the minister's preparatory 
 classes for some weeks previous to the com- 
 munion. They are dealt with individually in 
 private by the minister and the elder of the dis- 
 trict to which they belong. If, after due instruc- 
 tion and consideration, they see their own way to 
 make the profession implied in coming to the 
 Lord's Table, and if the pastor and elder see no 
 reason for keeping them back or advising delay, 
 their names are reported to the session for 
 approval. On this being obtained, the " young 
 communicants," as they are commonly called in 
 Scotland, are admitted together in presence of the 
 minister and elders. 
 
 This is generally done either at the close of 
 one of the preparatory services before the com- 
 munion, or at a short special service, to which the 
 congregation are invited, for the purpose of re- 
 ceiving and welcoming those added to their 
 fellowship at this time. Such services are often 
 
 1 Blue Bool, 1871, p. 249. Comp. Report on " Welfare of the 
 Youth of the Churcb," submitted to Assembly of 1874 in Blue 
 Book of that year, p. 253. Append, xxvii. B. 
 
METHODS USED IN FREE CHURCH. 79 
 
 largely attended, and have proved to be times of 
 much solemnity and spiritual impression. The 
 names of the young communicants are read over 
 publicly, and they receive their tokens or com- 
 munion cards from the minister, who gives them 
 the right hand of fellowship in name of the 
 session, and is followed in this by the elders pre- 
 sent. In some cases a suitable text of Scripture 
 is given to each of those thus admitted. In others, 
 the card above referred to is given, along with a 
 few words of encouragement and counsel. It is 
 to the following effect : — 
 
 " You are a member of the Free Church of 
 Scotland. See that you are a member of Christ's 
 body, the Church. 
 
 As professing Christ, you are bound to live in 
 and for Him, to walk in His steps, and to adorn 
 His doctrine in all things. For the increase of 
 that spiritual life which leads to life eternal, you 
 must diligently attend to the following among 
 other means of grace : — 
 
 I. Secret prayer and the private reading of the 
 Scriptures. 
 
 II. The sanctification of the Sabbath and the 
 services of God's house. 
 
 III. The sacrament of the Lord's Supper, with 
 the private exercises and public services that 
 should accompany its observance. 
 
 It is also your duty — 
 
8o ADMISSION TO SEALING ORDINANCES. 
 
 (1.) To study well the history and principles 
 of the Free Church. 
 
 (2.) To contribute as you are able to the sup- 
 port of her ministry, of her missions to the Jews 
 and to the heathen, and her other Christian 
 enterprises. 
 
 The true member of the Church must be a 
 prayerful, intelligent, and cheerful giver. 
 
 Should you have to leave your district and join 
 another congregation, remember to see your min- 
 ister before you leave, and get from him your 
 certificate of Church membership, and to give that 
 certificate as soon as possible to the minister of 
 the congregation which you join. 
 
 " So we, being many, are one body in Christ, 
 and every one members one of another." " Let 
 your light so shine before men that they may see 
 your good works, and glorify your Father which is 
 in heaven." " Stand fast, therefore, in the liberty 
 wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not 
 entangled again with any yoke of bondage." " As 
 we have therefore opportunity, let us do good unto 
 all men, especially unto them who are of the 
 household of faith." 
 
 In the United Presbyterian Church of Scot- 
 land the following questions have been authorised 
 by the Synod to be put to applicants for ad- 
 mission : — 
 
 1. "Do you acknowledge the Scriptures of the 
 
UNITED PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH. 
 
 Old and New Testaments to be the Word of God, 
 and the only infallible rule of faith and practice 9 
 
 2. Do you believe in God, — in the Father, the 
 Son, and the Holy Ghost, one God ? 
 
 3. Do you acknowledge yourselves to be by 
 nature guilty, depraved, and helpless ? And do 
 you believe that salvation is only from the grace 
 of God, through the obedience unto death of His 
 Son, and the sanctifying influence of the Holy 
 Ghost ? 
 
 4. Do you believe in Jesus Christ as your 
 Saviour, own Him as your Lord, and engage, in 
 dependence on the promised aids of His Spirit, 
 to observe His ordinances and obey His laws ? 
 
 5. Do you, as far as your knowledge extends, 
 approve, as agreeable to the Word of God, of the 
 views of Divine truth and duty held by this 
 Church, and of the principles on which its con- 
 stitution and order are founded ? 
 
 6. Do you promise to submit to the session of 
 this congregation, as over you in the Lord; to 
 contribute according to your ability for the support 
 and extension of the Gospel, and to study to pro- 
 mote the welfare of the congregation; and by a holy 
 life to adorn the doctrine of God our Saviour? " 1 
 
 These questions are very commonly put by 
 the pastor, in presence of the session and congre- 
 
 1 Summary of Principles of United Presbyterian Church 
 (approved by Synod), p. 16. 
 
 G 
 
82 ADMISSION TO SEALING ORDINANCES. 
 
 gation, to the young communicants. They signify 
 their assent, and are admitted accordingly. 
 
 As regards the Established Church of Scotland, 
 I am not aware that any special action has been 
 taken in this matter by the Assembly or the 
 Church, as such. " The Church Service Society," 
 however, which embraces a large number of the 
 ministers of the Establishment, has published a 
 volume of forms of worship under the title of 
 " Euchologion," which has passed through several 
 editions, and is widely used. 
 
 In this work there is an " Order for the Admis- 
 sion of Catechumens to the Confirmation of the 
 Baptismal vow, and to the participation of the 
 Lord's Supper." It has some excellent features, 
 but is open to objection, from a slight tendency 
 to sacrament arian ism, in expression, at least, in 
 several of its statements. 1 
 
 Forms of service of this kind, intended for the 
 admission of catechumens to full communion, 
 have been frequently drawn up, with varying 
 success, by eminent men in the Presbyterian 
 Church, from Richard Baxter, in his " Reformed 
 Liturgy," to Dr. A. A. Hodge, in his " Manual 
 of Forms for Baptism, Admission to the Com- 
 munion, &c, conformed to the doctrine and discip- 
 line of the Presbyterian Church." 2 I conclude by 
 
 1 Euchologion : A Booh of Common Order. 3rd ed., 158-63. 
 2 Philadelphia, 1S77. 14-30. 
 
DUTCH REFORMED CHURCH. 83 
 
 giving two instances of such forms, used by 
 Churches. 
 
 The Dutch Reformed Church in America is 
 known over all the world as one of the most ortho- 
 dox of the fifty-two Churches on the roll of the Pres- 
 byterian Alliance. It has always been honourably 
 distinguished alike for soundness in the faith, for 
 interest in higher theological education, and for 
 zeal in the cause of missions. Its missionaries 
 laboured among the Indians of North America in 
 the seventeenth century, even before Eliot. In 
 our days, the Dutch Reformed Church was the 
 first to preach the Gospel in Japan, and has done 
 so with remarkable success. It would be hard 
 to find anywhere literary and theological institu- 
 tions more fully equipped and better manned 
 than those of New Brunswick and Hope Col- 
 lege. 
 
 Like most of the Continental Protestant 
 Churches, and like the German Reformed Church 
 in America, the Dutch Reformed Church has 
 always used an optional liturgy in conjunction 
 with free prayer in the public worship of God. 1 
 This liturgy contains the following " order for 
 
 1 The General Synod, in approving a revision of the liturgy in 
 1873, added this note : "This revised liturgy is set forth as a 
 general expression of the way in which the public services of 
 religion should be performed. It is to be understood that it is 
 not of binding authority, but is only recommended as containing 
 suitable offices for public religious service." 
 
8 4 ADMISSION TO SEALING ORDLXAKCES. 
 
 the public reception into full communion of those 
 who have been baptised in infancy " : — 
 
 "The candidates shall stand before the min- 
 ister. "While they are coming forward, an appro- 
 priate hymn may be sung. Then the minister 
 will say : 
 
 Dearly beloved in Christ, as children of your 
 heavenly Father, you stand here for the deliberate 
 and public ratification in your own persons of that 
 covenant of God of which your Baptism is the 
 seal. You have already been duly instructed, 
 and have made confession before us of your faith 
 in the blessed Saviour. And now in this most 
 solemn manner, before God and His Church, you 
 are to repeat and renew that confession. 
 
 I ask each one of you, then : 
 
 Dost thou believe in God the Father Almighty, 
 maker of heaven and earth ? 
 
 Answ. I do. 
 
 Dost thou believe in Jesus Christ His only 
 Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy 
 Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under 
 Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried ; 
 He descended into hell ; the third day He rose 
 again from the dead ; He ascended into heaven, 
 and sitteth at the right hand of God the Father 
 Almighty; from thence He shall come to judge 
 the quick and the dead? 
 
 Ansiv. I do. 
 
"DUTCH REFORMED" METHOD. 
 
 Dost thou believe in the Holy Ghost, the holy 
 ( atholic Church, the communion of saints, the 
 forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, 
 .dhI the life everlasting? 
 
 Ansiv. I do. 
 
 Dost thou purpose steadfastly to continue to 
 tbe end of thy life in the truth affirmed in these 
 articles of the Christian faith, as they are taught 
 here in this Church, according to tbe Word of 
 God, rejecting all heresies and schisms repugnant 
 thereto? 
 
 An&w. I do. 
 
 Dost thou promise to persevere in the com- 
 munion of the Christian Church, and in the 
 diligent use of all the means of grace, especially 
 in the hearing of the Word and the use of the 
 Lord's Supper, to seek the things that make for 
 purity and peace, and to submit thyself to all 
 ( ihristian care and admonition ? 
 
 Ansiv. I do. 
 
 Then the minister will say : 
 
 Since, then, thou hast witnessed this good con- 
 fession ; in the name of the Church and of Jesus 
 Christ her Lord and Head, I do now welcome 
 thee to full communion with the people of God. 
 
 (The following, or some other appropriate bless- 
 ing, will then be used, given to each one separ- 
 ately or to all together, as the minister may choose): 
 
 The mountains shall depart and the hills be 
 
86 ADMISSION TO SEALIXG ORDINANCES. 
 
 removed ; but my kiDdness shall not depart from 
 thee, neither shall the covenant of my peace be 
 removed, saith the Lord that hath mercy on thee. 
 
 The Lord bless thee and keep thee. The Lord 
 make His face to shine upon thee and be gracious 
 unto thee. The Lord lift up His countenance 
 upon thee and give thee peace. Amen. 
 
 The minister will then offer the following- 
 thanksgiving : — 
 
 Almighty and everlasting God, we thank and 
 praise Thee that Thou hast vouchsafed unto these 
 Thy servants power and grace to own and accept 
 for themselves Thy holy covenant, sealed and 
 confirmed unto them in their Baptism. Strengthen 
 them, we beseech Thee, with the Holy Ghost the 
 Comforter. Increase in them daily Thy manifold 
 gifts of grace : the spirit of wisdom and under- 
 standing, the spirit of counsel and might, the 
 spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord. 
 Keep them from the evil that is in the world. 
 Defend them from the pow T er of the devil. 
 Enable them to walk in the Spirit, that they 
 may not fulfil the lusts of the flesh ; and so lead 
 them in the knowledge and obedience of Thy 
 Word, that they may obtain everlasting life, 
 through Jesus Christ our Lord, who with Thee 
 and the Holy Ghost, liveth and reign eth, ever one 
 God, world without end. Amen." 1 
 
 1 The Liturgy of the Reformed Church in America. New York, 
 1873, 32-34. 
 
REFORM KD EPISCOPAL CHURCH. 87 
 
 The other instance which I give is from the 
 liturgy of the Reformed Episcopal Church in 
 America. Its office for confirmation is a good 
 specimen of the judicious and generally success- 
 ful way in which this Church has revised the 
 Anglican prayer-book in the interests of Protestant 
 and evangelical doctrine. 
 
 " When the persons about to confirm their bap- 
 tismal covenant have taken their appointed places 
 before the bishop, the following preface shall be 
 read : — 
 
 Beloved, it is written that when the apostles 
 at Jerusalem had heard that Samaria had received 
 the Word of God, they sent unto them Peter and 
 John, who, when they were come and had prayed 
 for them, laid their hands on those who were bap- 
 tised in the name of the Lord Jesus. Also in 
 the same Scripture we read that St. Paul laid his 
 hands upon certain disciples at Ephesus after their 
 Baptism. In accordance therefore with apostolic 
 custom and the practice of the early Church, we 
 have retained this rite of laying on of hands upon 
 those who are baptised, in order that they may 
 thus give further testimony to their faith in Christ, 
 and to their unchanged purpose to lead a new life, 
 following the commandments of God, and walking 
 in His holy ways. 
 
 Then shall the Bishop say : 
 
 Do ye here, in the presence of God and of this 
 
ADMISSION TO SEALING ORDINANCES. 
 
 congregation, solemnly profess repentance towards 
 God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ ? 
 
 And every one shall audibly answer : 
 
 I do. 
 
 Bishop. Do you believe all the articles of the 
 Christian faith as contained in the Apostles' 
 Creed ? 
 
 Ansiv. I do. 
 
 Bishop. Do you steadfastly purpose by God's 
 help to renounce the devil, the world, and the 
 flesh, and to keep God's holy will and command- 
 ments, and to walk in the same all the days of 
 your life ? 
 
 Ansiv. I do. 
 
 Bishop. Our help is in the name of the Lord : 
 
 Answ. Who hath made heaven and earth. 
 
 Bishop. Blessed be the name of the Lord. 
 
 Ansiv. Henceforth, world without end. 
 
 Bishop. Lord, hear our prayer. 
 
 Ansiv. And let our cry come unto Thee. 
 
 Bishop. Let us pray. 
 
 Almighty and everlasting God, who in Thitie 
 infinite mercies hast called us to the knowledge of 
 Thy truth and faith in Thy Son Jesus Christ ; 
 graciously look upon these Thy servants, accept 
 their confessions, and favourably receive this re- 
 newed offering of themselves which they now 
 make unto Thee. Strengthen them, we beseech 
 Thee, Lord, with the Holy Ghost the Comforter, 
 
REFORMED EPISCOPAL CHURCH. So 
 
 and daily increase in them Thy manifold gifts 
 of grace, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, 
 the spirit of counsel and ghostly strength, the 
 spirit of knowledge and true godliness, and fill 
 them, O Lord, with the spirit of Thy holy fear, 
 DOW and for ever. Amen. 
 
 Then all kneeling before the bishop, he shall 
 lay his hands upon the head of every one 
 severally, saying : 
 
 Defend, 6 Lord, this Thy child (or, this Thy 
 servant) with Thy heavenly grace : that he may 
 continue Thine for ever, and daily increase in 
 Thy Holy Spirit more and more, until he come 
 unto Thine everlasting kingdom. Amen. 
 
 Bishop. The Lord be with you. 
 
 Ansv:. And with Thy spirit. 
 
 Bishop. Let us pray. 
 
 Almighty and everliving God, who makest us 
 both to will and to do those things which are 
 good and acceptable unto Thy Divine Majesty : 
 we make our humble supplications unto Thee 
 for these Thy servants, who have now thus pub- 
 licly ratified and confirmed the solemn obligations 
 of their baptismal covenant, and have dedicated 
 themselves anew to Thee and Thy service. Let 
 Thy Fatherly hand, we beseech Thee, ever be 
 over them ; let Thy Holy Spirit ever be with 
 them ; and so lead them in the knowledge and 
 obedience of Thy Word, that they now and ever- 
 
 H 
 
go ADMISSION TO SEALING ORDINANCES. 
 
 more, rejoicing in Thy salvation, may lay hold 
 on eternal life, through our Lord Jesus Christ ; 
 who, with Thee and the Holy Ghost, liveth and 
 rekmeth ever, one God, world without end. 
 Amen. 
 
 almighty Lord and everlasting God ! vouch- 
 safe, we beseech Thee, to direct, sanctify, and 
 govern both our hearts and bodies in the ways of 
 Thy laws, and in the works of Thy command- 
 ments, that, through Thy most mighty protec- 
 tion, both here and ever, we may be preserved 
 in body and soul ; through our Lord and Saviour 
 Jesus Christ. Amen. 
 
 Almighty God ! who showest to them that are 
 in error the light of Thy truth, to the intent that 
 they may return into the way of righteousness : 
 grant unto all those who are admitted into the 
 fellowship of Christ's religion that they may avoid 
 those things which are contrary to their profes- 
 sion, and follow all such things as are agreeable 
 to the same ; through our Lord Jesus Christ. 
 Amen. 
 
 Then the bishop shall bless them, saying : The 
 blessing of God Almighty, the Father, the Son, 
 and the Holy Ghost, be upon you, and remain 
 with you for ever. Amen. 
 
 Members of other Churches uniting with this 
 Church need not be confirmed except at their own 
 request. 
 
REFORMED EPISCOPAL CHURCH. 91 
 
 Note. — The administration of the order of 
 confirmation is confined to the bishops, not as of 
 Divine right, but as a very ancient and desirable 
 form of Church usage." 1 
 
 1 Book of Common Prayer of the Reformed Episcopal Church. 
 Philadelphia, 1874. In the " Declaration of Principles " prefixed 
 to this Prayer-book the following statement is made: — "This 
 Church, retaining a liturgy which shall not be imperative or 
 repressive of freedom in prayer, accepts the • Book of Common 
 Prayer,' as it was revised, proposed, and recommended for use 
 by the General Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church, 
 17S 5, reserving full liberty to alter, abridge, enlarge, and amend 
 the same, as may seem most conducive to the edification of 
 the people, 'provided that the substance of the faith be kept 
 entire.' " 
 
 LORIMER AND GILLIES, PRINTERS, 31 ST. ANDREW SQUARE, EDINBURGH. 
 
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