Chapter II--The Ordinances of the Church

CHAPTER II.

THE ORDINANCES OF THE CHURCH.

By the ordinances, we mean those outward rites which Christ has appointed to be administered in his church as visible signs of the saving truth of the gospel. They are signs, in that they vividly express this truth and confirm it to the believer.

In contrast with this characteristically Protestant view, the Romanist regards the ordinances as actually conferring grace and producing holiness. Instead of being the external manifestation of a preceding union with Christ, they are the physical means of constituting and maintaining this union. With the Romanist, in this particular, sacramentalists of every name substantially agree. The Papal Church holds to seven sacraments or ordinances :— ordination, confirmation, matrimony, extreme unction, penance, baptism and the eucharist. The ordinances prescribed in the N. T., however, are two and only two, viz. :— Baptism and the Lord's Supper.

I. Baptism.

Christian Baptism is the immersion of a believer in water, in token of his previous entrance into the communion of Christ's death and resurrection,— or, in other words, in token of his regeneration through union with Christ.

1. Baptism an Ordinance of Christ.

A. Proof that Christ instituted an external rite called baptism.

(a) From the words of the great commission.

Mat 28 :19—"Go ye therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost"; Mark 16 :16 —" le that believeth and is baptized shall be saved "— we hold, with Westcott and Hort, that Mark 16: 9-20 Is of canonical authority, though probably not written by Mark himself.

(6) From the injunctions of the apostles.

lets 2 : 38 —"And Peter said unto them, Repent je, and be baptised every one of jon in the name of Jesus Christ unto the remission of your sins."

(c) From the fact that the members of the New Testament churches

were baptized believers.

Rom. 6 : 3-5 ~" Or are ye ignorant that all ve who were baptised into Christ Jesus were baptised into his death? We were buried therefore with him through baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of life. For if we have become united with him by the likeness of his death, we shall be also by the likeness of bis resurrection "; Col. 2 :11,12—" in whom ye were also circumcised with a circumcision not made with hands, in the putting off of the body of the flesh, in the circumcision of Christ; having been buried with him in baptism, wherein ye were also raised with him through faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead."

(d) From the universal practice of such a rite in Christian churches of subsequent times.

B. This external rite intended by Christ to be of universal and perpetual obligation.

(a) Christ recognized John the Baptist's commission to baptize as derived immediately from heaven.

Hit. 21 :25 —" The baptism of Join, whence was it? from heaven or from men ?"— here Jesus clearly intimates that John's commission to baptize was derived directly from God; <•/. John 1: 25 — the delegates sent to the Baptist by the Sanhedrln ask him: "Why then baptizes! thou, if thou irt not the Christ, neither Elijah, neither the prophet?" thus indicating that John's baptism either in its form or its application was a new ordinance, that required special divine authorization.

For the view that proselyte-baptism did not exist among- the Jews before the time of John, see Sebneekenburger, TJeber das Alter der jtldlschen Prosclytentaufe: Stuart, in Bib. Kepos., 1833 : 338-355; Toy, in Baptist Quarterly, 1872 : 301-332. Dr. Toy, however, in a private note to the author (1884), says: "I am disposed now to regard the Christian rite as borrowed from the Jewish, contrary to my view in 1872." So holds Edersheim, Life and Times of Jesus, 2 : 742-744 —" We have positive testimony that the baptism of proselytes existed in the times of Hillel and Shammal. For, whereas the school of Shammai is said to have allowed a proselyte who was circumcised on the eve of the Passover, to partake, after baptism, of the Passover, the school of Hillel forbade it. This controversy must be regarded as proving that at that time (previous to Christ) the baptism of proselytes was customary."

Although the O. T. and the Apocrypha, Josephus and Philo, are silent with regard to proselyte baptism, it is certain that It existed among the Jews in the early Christian centuries; and it is almost equally certain that the Jews could not have adopted It from the Christians. It is probable, therefore, that the baptism of John was an application to Jews of an immersion which, beforo that time, was administered to proselytes from among the Gentiles: and that it was this adaptation of the rite to a new class of subjects, and with a new meaning, which excited the inquiry and criticism of the Sanhedrln. We must remember, however, that the Lord's Supper was likewise an adaptation of certain portions of the old Passover service to a new use and meaning. See also Kitto, Bib. Cyclop., 3 : 593.

(6) In his own submission to John's baptism, Christ gave testimony to the bindiug obligation of the ordinance (Mat. 3 : 13-17). John's baptism was essentially Christian baptism (Acts 19 : 4), although the full significance of it was not understood until after Jesus' death and resurrection (Mat. 20 :17-23; Luke 12 : 50; Rom. 6:3-6).

Mai 3 :13-17—"Suffer it now: for thus it beeomethus .to fulfil all righteousness"; lets 19 : 4 —"John baptised with the baptism of repentance, saying unto the people, that they should believe on him which should come after him, that is, on Jesus "; Mat. 20 :18,19, 23 —'' the Son of man shall be deli Tared unto the chief priests and scribes; and they shall

condemn him to death, and shall deliver him unto the Gentiles to mock, and to scourge, and to crucify ire ye

able to drink of the cup that I am about to drink?" Luke 12 : 50 —" Bat I hare a baptism to be baptized with; and how ami straitened till it be accomplished I" Rom, 6 : 3, 4 — " Or are ye ignorant that all we who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptised into his death? We were buried therefore with him through baptism unto death, that like as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of life."

Robert Hall, Works 1:367-399, denies that John's baptism was Christian baptism, and holds that there is not sufficient evidence that all the apostles were baptized. The fact that John's baptism was a baptism of faith in the coining Messiah, as well as a baptism of repentance for past and present sin, refutes this theory. The only difference between John's baptism, and the baptism of our time, is that John baptized upon profession of faith in a 8avior yet to come; baptism is now administered upon profession of faith in a Savior who has actually and already come.

(c) In continuing the practice of baptism through his disciples (John 4 : 1, 2), and in enjoining it upon them as part of a work which was to last to the end of the world ( Mat. 28 : 19, 20), Christ manifestly adopted and appointed baptism as the invariable law of his church.

John 4:1,2—"When therefore the Lord knew how that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John (although Jesus himself baptised not, but his disciples)"; Mat. 28 :19,20 —" Go je therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, baptising them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost: teaching them to observe ail things whatsoever I commanded you: and lo, I am with jou alwaj, even unto the end of of the world."

(d) The analogy of the ordinance of the Lord's Supper also leads to the conclusion that baptism is to be observed as an authoritative memorial of Christ and his truth, until his second coming.

1 Cor. 11: 26 —" For as often as je eat this bread, and drink the cup, ye proclaim the Lord's death till he come."

(e) There is no intimation whatever that the command of baptism is limited, or to be limited, in its application,— that it has been or ever is to be repealed; and, until some evidence of such limitation or repeal is produced, the statute must be regarded as universally binding.

On the proof that baptism is an ordinance of Christ, see Pepper, in Madison Avenue Lectures, 85-114; Dagg, Church Order, 9-21.

2. The Mode of Baptism.

This is immersion, and immersion only. This appears from the following considerations:

A. The command to baptize is a command to immerse.—We show this: (a) From the meaning of the original work f}airr%o. That this is to

immerse, appears:

First,— from the usage of Greek writers — including the church Fathers,

when they do not speak of the Christian rite, and the authors of the Greek

version of the Old Testament.

Llddell and Scott, Greek Lexicon — "Bami(a, to dip in or under water; Lat. imraergere." Sophocles, Lexicon of Greek Usage in the Roman and Byzantine Periods, 140

B. C. to 1000 A. D.—" SaTTTiioi, to dip, to immerse, to sink There Is no evidence that

Luke and Paul and the other writers of the N. T. put upon this verb meanings not recognized by the Greeks."

Conant, Appendix to Bible Union Version of Matthew, 1-84, has examples "drawn from writers in almost every department of literature and science; from poets, rhetoricians, philosophers, critics, historians, geographers; from writers on husbandry, on medicine, on natural history, on grammar, on theology; from almost every form and style of composition, romances, epistles, orations, fables, odes, epigrams, Bermons, narratives; from writers of various nations and religions, Pagan, Jew, and Christian, belonging to many countries and through a long succession of ages. In all, the word has retained Its ground-meaning without change. From the earliest age of Greek literature down to its close, a period of nearly two thousand years, not an example has been found in which the word has any other meaning. There is no instance in which it signifies to make a partial application of water by affusion or sprinkling, or to cleanse, to purify, apart from the literal act of immersion as the means of cleansing or purifying." See Stuart, in Bib. Hepos., 1833 : 313; Broadus on Immersion, 57, note.

Dale, in his Classic, Judaic, Christie, and Patristic Baptism, maintains that Binra alone means ' to dtp,' and that Sami^at never means 'to dip,' but only 'to put within,' giving no Intimation that the object is to be taken out again. But see Review of Dale, by A. C. Kendrick, in Bap. Quarterly, 1809 :129, and by Harvey, in Bap. Review, 1879: 141163. "Plutarch used the word Banri(a, when he describes the soldiers of Alexander on a riotous march as by the roadside dipping (lit.: baptizing) with cups from huge wine jars and mixing bowls, and drinking to one another. Here we have Banri{a used where Dr. Dale's theory would call for Bam*. The truth is that Sa*n'{u, the stronger word. came to be used in the same sense with the weaker; and the attempt to prove a broad and invariable difference of meaning between them breaks down. Of Dr. Dale's three meanings of 0<urTi'£(« — (1) intusposition without influence (stone in water), (2) intusposition with influence ( man drowned in water), (3) influence without intusposition — the last is a figment of Dr. Dale's Imagination. It would allow me to say that when I burned a piece of paper, I baptized it. The grand result is this: Beginning with the position that baptize means Immerse, Dr. Dale ends by maintaining that immersion is not baptism. Because Christ speaks of drinking a cup, Dr. Dale infers that this is baptism." For a complete reply to Dale, seo Ford, Studies on Baptism.

Secondly,— every passage where the word occurs in the New Testament either requires or allows the meaning 'immerse.'

Vat. 3 : 6, 11—"I indeed baptise you with [lit.: 'in'] water unto repentance .... he shall baptize you with [ lit.: 'in' ] the Holy Ghost and Ire "; ef. 2 Kings 5:14 — " Then went he [ Naaman ] down and dipped himself [ ifia-miaaTo ] seven times in Jordan "; Mark 1: 5, 9 —" they were baptised of him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins .... Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee, and was baptised of John in [ lit.: ¹ into' ] the Jordan "; 7:4 —"and when thej come from the market-place, except they bathe [lit.: 'baptize' ] themselves, they eat not: and many other things there be, which they have received to hold, washings [lit.: 'baptizings' ] of cups, and pots, and brazen vessels"—in this verse, Westcott and Hort, with X and B, read parriauvTai, Instead of Sairricrwi'Tai; but it is easy to see how subsequent ignorance of Pharisaic scrupulousness might have changed /Sawno-wi-Tai into pavriauivrai; but not easy to see how pavriauvrai should have been changed into fiamiatovrai.

Meyer, Com. In htcn—" iiv 0airTio-w*'Tai is not to be understood of washing the hands (Lightfoot, Wetstein), but of immersion, which the word in classic Greek and in the N. T. everywhere means; here, according to the context, to take a bath." The Revised Version omits the words "and couches," although Maimonides speaks of a Jewish immersion of couches; see quotation from Maimonides in Ingham, Handbook of Baptism, 373: "Whenever in the law washing of the flesh or of the clothes is mentioned, it means nothing else than the dipping of the whole body in a laver; for if any man dip himself

all over except the tip of his little finger, he Is still in his uucleanness A bed that

Is wholly defiled, if a man dip it part by part, it is pure." Watson, in Annotated Par. Bible, 1126.

Luke 11: 38 —" and when the Pharisee saw it, he marvelled that he had not first bathed [ lit.: 'baptized' ] himself before dinner "; cf. Ecclesiasticus 31: 25—" He that washeth himself after the touching of a dead body " (flairTi^evot dirb Mxpov); Judith 12: 7—"washed herself [ «|3a7rTi<«To ] in a fountain of water by the camp"; lev. 22 : 4-6—"Whoso toucheth anything that is unclean by the dead .... unclean until even .... bathe his flesh with water." Acts 2 : 41—"They then that received his word were baptised: and there were added unto them in that day about three thousand souls." Although the water supply of Jerusalem is naturally poor, the artificial provision of aqueducts, cisterns, and tanks, made water abundant. During the siege of Titus, though thousands died of fumine, we read of no suffering from lack of water. The following are the dimensions of pools in modern Jerusalem: King's Pool, 15 feet x 16 x 3; Siloam, 53 x 18 x 19; Hezeklah, 240 x 140x10; Bethesda (so-called), 360xlSOz 75; Upper Gihon, 316 x 218 x 19; Lower Glhon, 592 x 260 x 18; seo Robinson, Biblical Researches, 1: 323-348, and Samson, Water-supply of Jerusalem, pub. by Am. Bap. Pub. Soc'y. There was no difficulty in baptizing three thousand in one day; for, in the time of Chrysostom, when all candidates of the year were baptized in a single day, three thousand were once baptized; and, in 1879, 2222 Telugu Christians were baptized by two administrators in nine hours.

lets 16 : 33 —" And he took them the same hour of the night, and washed their stripes; and was baptized, he and all his, immediately "— the prison was doubtless, as are most large edifices in the east, whether public or private, provided with tank and fountain. See Creiner, Lexicon of N. T. Greek, sub voce—" P<utti'£io, immersion or submersion for a religious purpose." Grimm's ed. of Wilke— "Pairrifc, 1. Immerse, submerge; 2. Wash or bathe, by immersing or submerging (Mark 7: 4, also Naaman and Judith); 3. Figuratively, to overwhelm, as with debts, misfortunes, &c." In the N. T. rite, he says it denotes "an immersion In water, intended as a sign of sins washed away, and received by those who wished to be admitted to the benefits of Messiah's reign."

DSlllnger, Kirche und Klrchen, 337 —" The Baptists are, however, from the Protestant point of view, unassailable, since for their demand of baptism by submersion they have the clear Bible text; and the authority of the church and of her testimony is not regarded by either party "— f. c, by either Baptists or Protestants, generally. Prof. Harnack, of Giessen, writes in the Independent, Feb. 19, 1885—"!. Baptlzcln undoubtedly signifies immersion (vlntauehrn). 2. No proof can be found that it alanines anything else in tin- N.T. and in the most ancient Christian literature. The suggestion regarding a 'sacred sense' is out of the question. 3. There is no passage in the N. T. which suggests the supposition that any New Testament author attached to the word oaptttein any other sense than etnlauchen = untertauchen (immerse, submerge)." See further statement of Prof. Harnack, below. On the Scripture passages mentioned, see Com. of Meyer, and Cunningham, Croall Lectures.

Thirdly,— the absence of any use of the word in the passive voice with 'water' as its subject confirms our conclusion that its meaning is "toimmerse." Water is never said to be baptized upon a man.

(b) From the use of the verb /San-Wfu with prepositions:

First,— with fif ( Mark 1 : 9 — where 'InpiSavijv is the element into which the person passes in the act of being baptized).

Mark 1:9—" And it came to pass in those days, that Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee, and was baptised of John in [lit.: 'into'] the Jordan."

Secondly,—with iv (Mark 1 : 5, 8; c/. Mat. 3 : 11. John 1 : 26, 31, 33; cf. Acts 2 : 2, 4). In these texts, ev is to be taken, not instrumentally, but as indicating the element in which the immersion takes place.

Hark 1:5, 8—"thej were baptised of him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins I baptized you with

[lit.: 'in'] wafer; but he shall baptise you with [lit.: 'in'] the Holy Ghost "—here see Meyer's Com. on Mat. 3:11—^uei- is, in accordance with the meaning of 0aTrric> (immerse), not to be understood instrumentally, but on the contrary, in the sense of the element in which the immersion takes place." Those who pray for a ' baptism of the Holy Spirit' pray for such a pouring out of the Spirit as shall till the place and permit them to be Hooded or immersed in his abundant presence and power; see C. E. Smith, Baptism of Fire, 1881 : 305-311.

(c) From circumstances attending the administration of the ordinance (Mark 1:10 — avaftaivuv Ck Tov viaroc; John 3 : 23 — Mara Ttovm; Acts 8 : 38, 39 — KdTtStjoav fir T6 vnup — avkfttjaav en Tov Maror.).

Mark 1 :10 —" coming up out of the water "; John 3 : 23 —" And John also was baptising in £non near to Salim, because there was much water there "—a sufficient depth of water for baptizing; see Prof. W. A. Stevens, on .-Enon near to Salim. in Journ. Soc. of Bib. Lit. and Exegesis, Dec, 1883. Acta 8 : 38, 39 —" And they both went down into the water, both Philip and the eunuch; and he baptised him. And when they came up out of the wafer

(d) From figurative allusions to the ordinance.

Mark 10 : 38 —"Are ye able to drink the cup that I drink? or to be baptised with the baptism that I am baptised with?"—here the cup is the cup of suffering in Gethsemane; cf. Luke 22 : 42 —"Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me"; and the baptism is the baptism of death on Calvary, and of the grave that was to follow; cf. Luke 12 : 50 —" I have a baptism to be baptised with; and how am I straitened*till it be accomplished I" Death presented itself to the Savior's mind as a baptism, because it was a sinking under the floods of suffering. Rom. 6 : 4—"We were buried therefore with him through baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of life "— Conybeare and Howson, Life and Epistles of St. Paul, say on this passage that "it cannot be understood without remembering that the primitive method of baptism was by immersion."

1 Cor. 10 :1. 2 —" our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea; and were all baptised unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea "; Col. 2 ■ 12 —" having been buried with him iu baptism, wherein ye were also raised with him "; Heb. 10 : 22—" having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our body washed [ AeAovo-M< Voi ] with pure wafer"—here Trench, N. T. Synonyms, 218, 217, says that "aovoj implies always, not the bathing of a part of the body, but of the whole." 1 Pet 3 : 20, 21—"saved through wafer: which also after a true likeness doth now save you, even baptism, not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the interrogation of a good conscience toward God, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ "—as the ark whose sides wen? immersed in water saved Noah, so the immersion of believers typically saves them; that is, the answer of a good conscience, the turning of the soul to God, which baptism symbolizes.

(e) From the testimony of church history as to the practice of the early church.

Dean Stanley, in his Address at Eton College, March, 1879, on Historical Aspects of American Churches, speaks of immersion as " the primitive apostolical, and, till the 13th century, the universal, mode of buptism, which is still retained throughout the Eastern churches, and which is still in our own church as positively enjoined in theory as it is universally neglected in practice." The same writer, in the Nineteenth Century, Oct., 1879, says that "the change from immersion to sprinkling has set aside the larger part of the apostolic language regarding baptism, and has altered the very meaning of the word." Neander, Church Hist., 1: 310—" In respect to the form of baptism, it was, in conformity with the original institution and the original Import of the symbol, performed by immersion, as a sign of entire baptism into the Holy Spirit, of being entirely penetrated

by the same It was only with the sick, where exigency required it, that any

exception was made. Then it was administered by sprinkling; but many superstitious persons imagined such sprinkling to be not fully valid, and stigmatized those thus baptized as clinics."

Until recently, there has been no evidence that clinic baptism, i. e„ the baptism of a sick or dying person in bed by pouring water copiously around him, was practised earlier than the time of Novatian, in the third century; and in these cases there is good reason to believe that a regenerating efficacy was ascribed to the ordinance. We are now, however, compelled to recognize a departure from N. T. precedent somewhat further back. The latest testimony is that of Prof. Harnack, of Giessen, in the Independent of Feb. 19, 1883—" Up to the present moment we possess no certain proof from the period of the second century, in favor of the fact that baptism by aspersion was then even facultatively administered; for Tertullian (Do Pcenit., 6, and De Haptlsmo, 12) Is uncertain; and the age of those pictures upon which is represented a baptism by aspersion is not certain. The 'Teaching of the Twelve Apostles,' however, has now instructed us that already, in very early times, people in the church took no offense when aspersion was put in place of immersion, when any kind of outward circumstances might render immersion impossible or impracticable Hut the rule was also

certainly maintained that immersion was obligatory if the outward conditions of such a performance were at hand." This seems to show that, while the corruption of the N. T. rite began soon after the death of the apostles, baptism by any other form than immersion was even then a rare exception, whicli those who introduced the change sought to Justify upon the plea of necessity. See Schaff, Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, 29-57. and other testimony in Coleman, Christian Antiquities, 275; Stuart, in Bib. Repos., 1883 :355-3H3.

Dexter, in his True Story of John Smyth and Sebaptism, maintains that immersion was a new thing in England in 1641. But if so, it was new, as Congregationalism was new —a newly restored practice and ordinance of apostolic times. For reply to Dexter, sec Long, in Bap. Rev., Jan., 1883 : 12, 13, who tells us, on the authority of Blunt's Ann. Book of Com. Prayer, that from 1085 t<> 1549, the ' Salisbury Use' was the accepted mode and this provided for the child's trine immersion. "The Praycrbook of Edward VI. succeeded to the Salisbury Use in 1549; but in this, too, immersion has the place of honor — affusion is only for the weak. The English church has never sanctioned sprinkling ( Blunt, 226). In 1664, the Westminster Assembly said 'sprinkle or pour,' thus annulling what Christ commanded 1600 years before. Queen Elizabeth was immersed in 1533. If in 1641 immersion had been so generally and so long disused that men saw it with wonder and regarded it as a novelty, then the more distinct, emphatic, and peculiarly their own was the work of the Baptists. They come before the world, with no partners, or rivals, or abettors, or sympathizers, as the restorers and preservers of Christian baptism."

(/) From the doctrine and practice of the Greek church.

De Stourdza, the greatest modern theologian of the Greek church, writes: "Panri(*i signifies literally and always ' to plunge.' Baptism and immersion are therefore identical, and to say 'baptism by aspersion' is as if one should say 'immersion by aspersion,' or any other absurdity of the same nature. The Greek church maintain that the Latin church, instead of a 0<«rTi<7f»6i, practice a mere pavTia^,— instead of baptism, a mere sprinkling"—quoted in Conant on Mat., appendix, 99. See also Broadus on Immersion, 18.

The prevailing usage of any word determines the sense it bears, when found in a command of Christ. We have seen, not only that the prevailingusage of the Greek language determines the meaning of the word 'baptize' to be 'immerse,' but that this is its fundamental, constant, and only meaning. The original command to baptize is therefore a command to immerse.

For the view that sprinkling- or pouring constitutes valid baptism, see Hall, Mode of Baptism. Per umtra, see Hovey, in Baptist Quarterly, April, 1875; Wayland, Principle* and Practices of Baptists, 85; Carson, Noel, Judson, and Pengilly, on Baptism; especially recent and valuable is Hurrage, Act of Baptism.

B. No church has the right to modify or dispense with this command of Christ. This is plain:

(a) From the nature of the church. Notice:

First,— that, besides the local church, no other visible church of Christ is known to the New Testament. Secondly,—that the local church is not a legislative, but is simply an executive, body. Only the authority which originally imposed its laws can amend or abrogate them. Thirdly,— that the local church cannot delegate to any organization or council of churches any power which it does not itself rightfully possess. Fourthly,— that the opposite principle puts the church above the Scriptures and above Christ, and would sanction all the usurpations of Borne.

(6) From the nature of God's command:

First,— as forming a part, not only of the law, but of the fundamental law, of the church of Christ. The power claimed for a church to change it is not only legislative but constitutional. Secondly,— as expressing the wisdom of the Lawgiver. Power to change the command can be claimed for the church, only on the ground that Christ has failed to adapt the ordinance to changing circumstances, and has made obedience to it unnecessarily difficult and humiliating. Thirdly,— as providing in immersion the only adequate symbol of those saving truths of the gospel which both of the ordinances have it for their office to set forth, and without which they become empty ceremonies and forms. In other words, the church has no right to change the method of administering the ordinance, because such a change vacates the ordinance of its essential meaning. As this argument, however, is of such vital importance, we present it more fully in a special discussion of the Symbolism of Baptism.

For advocacy of the church's right to modify the form of an ordinance, see Coleridge, Aids to Reflection, In Works, 1 : 333-349— '• Where a ceremony answered, and was intended to answer, several purposes which at its first institution were blended in respect of the time, but which afterward, by change of circumstances, were necessarily disunited, then either the church hath no power or authority delegated to her, or she must be authorized to choose and determine to which of the several purposes the ceremony should be attached." Baptism, for example, at the first symbolized not only entrance into the church of Christ, but personal faith in him as Savior and Lord. It is assumed that entrance into the church and personal faith are now necessarily disunited. Since baptism is in charge of the church, she can attach baptism to the former, and not to the latter.

We of course deny that the separation of baptism from faith Is ever necessary. We maintain, on the contrary, that thus to separate the two is to pervert the ordinance, and to make it teach the doctrine of hereditary church membership and salvation by outward manipulation apart from faith. We say with Dean Stanley (on Baptism, In the Nineteenth Century, Oct., 1879), though not, as lie does, with approval, that the change In the method of admistering the ordinance shows *' how the spirit that lives and moves in human society can override the most sacred ordinances." We cannot with him call this spirit" the free spirit of Christianity "— we regard it rather as an evil spirit of disobedience and unbelief. See Curtis, Progress of Baptist Principles, 234-345.

Olijectimi*: 1. Immersion is often impracticable.—We reply that, when really impracticable, It is no longer a duty. Where the will to obey is present, but providential circumstances render outward obedience impossible, Christ takes the will for the deed.

2. It is often dangerous to health and life.—We reply that, when it is really dangerous, it is no longer a duty. But then, we have no warrant for substituting another act for that which Christ has commanded. Duty demands simple delay until it can be administered with safety. It must be remembered that ardent feeling nerves even the body. "Brethren, if your hearts be warm, lee and snow can do no harm." The cold climate of Russia does not prevent the universal practice of immersion by the Greek church of that country.

3. It is indecent.—We reply, that there is need of care to prevent exposure, but that with this care there is no indecency, more than in fashionable sea-bathing. The argument is valid only against a careless administration of the ordinance, not against immersion itself.

4. It is inconvenient.—We reply that, in a matter of obedience to Christ, we are not to consult convenience. The ordinance which symbolizes his sacrificial death, and our spiritual death with him, may naturally involve something of inconvenience, but joy in submitting to that inconvenience will be a test of the spirit of obedience. When the act is performed, it should bo performed as Christ enjoined.

5. Other methods of administration have been blessed to those who submitted to them.—We reply that God has often oondescended to human Ignorance, and has given his Spirit to those who honestly sought to servo him, even by erroneous forms, such as the mass. This, however, is not to be taken as a divine sanction of the error, much less as a warrant for the perpetuation of a false system on the part of those who know that it is a violation of Christ's commands. It is, in great part, tho position of its advocates, as representatives of Christ and his church, that gives to this false system its power for evil.

3. The Symbolism of Baptism.

Baptism symbolizes the previous entrance of the believer into the communion of Christ's death and resurrection,— or, in other words, regeneration through union with Christ.

A. Expansion of this statement as to the symbolism of baptism. Baptism, more particularly, is a symbol:

(a) Of the death and resurrection of Christ.

Rom. 6 : 3 —" Or are ye ignorant that all we who were baptised into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death ?'' cf. Hat 3 :13 —" Then cometh Jesns from Galilee to the Jordan nnto John, to be baptized of him "; Hark 10 : 38 — "Are ye able to drink the cap that I drink? or to be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?" Lake 12: 50 —"Bull hare a baptism to be baptized with; and how am I straitened till it be accomplished!" For the meaning of these latter passages, see note on the baptism of Jesus, under B., (o), below.

(6) Of the purpose of that death and resurrection,— namely, to atone for sin, aud to deliver sinners from its penalty and power.

Rom. 6 : 4 - -" We were buried therefore with him through baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of life "; cf. 7,10,11 —" for he that hath died is justified from sin .... For the death that he died, he died unto sin once: but the life that he liveth, he liveth unto God. Even so reckon ye yourselves to be dead unto sin, bat alive onto God in Christ Jesus "; 2 Cor. 5 :14 —" we thus judge that one died for all, therefore all died."

(c) Of the accomplishment of that purpose in the person baptized,—

who thus professes his death to sin and resurrection to spiritual life.

Gal. 3 : 27—"For as many of you as were baptized into Christ did put on Christ"; 1 Pet. 3 : 21—"which [water] also after a true likeness doth now save you, even baptism, not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the interrogation of a good conscience toward God, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ"; cf. Gal. 2: 19, 20—"For I through the law died unto the law, that I might live unto God. I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I that live, bat Christ hveih in me, and that life which I now live in the flesh I lire in faith, the faith which is in the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself up for me '; Col. 3 : 3 —" For ye died, and jour life is hid with Christ in

God."

(d) Of the method in which that purpose ia accomplished,— by onion with Christ, receiving him and giving one's self to him by faith.

Rom. 6 : 5 —" For if we have become united [<ri>*id>vToi] with him bj the likeness of his death, we shall be also by the likeness of his resurrection "-(tu^utoi, or vvtxntibvKus, is used of the man and the horse as vrrown tog-ether in the Centaur, by Lucian, Dial. Mort., 16 : 4, and by Xenophon, Cyrop.,

4 : 3 :18. Col. 2 :12 —" Having been buried with him in baptism, wherein ye were also raised with him through faith in the working of God. who raised him from the dead." Dr. N. S. Burton: "The oneness of the believer and Christ Is expressed by the fact that the one act of Immersion sets forth the death and resurrection of both Christ and the believer."

(e) Of the consequent union of all believers in Christ.

Eph. 4 : 5—"one Lord, one faith, one baptism"; 1 Cor. 12 :13—"For in one Spirit were we all baptised into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether bond or free; and were all made to drink of one Spirit"; cf. 10 : 8, 4 —" and did all eat the same spiritual meat; and did all drink the same spiritual drink: for they drank of a spiritual rock that followed them: and the rock was Christ."

(/) Of the death and resurrection of the body,— which will complete the work of Christ in us, and which Christ's death and resurrection assure to all his members.

1 Cor. 15 : 12, 22 —" Now if Christ is preached that he hath been raised from the dead, how say some among you that

there is no resurrection of the dead? For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive." In the

Scripture passages quoted above, we add to the argument from the meaning of the word BairTiiiu the argument from the meaning of the ordinance. Luther: Baptism is "a sign both of death and resurrection. Being moved by this reason, I would have those that are baptized to be altogether dipped Into the water, as the word means and the mystery signifies." See Calvin on Acts 8 : 38; Conybeare and Howson on Rom. 6:4; Boardman, in Madison Avenue Lectures, 115-135.

B. Inferences from the passages referred to:

(a) The central truth set forth by baptism is the death and resurrection of Christ,—and our own death and resurrection only as connected with that.

The baptism of Jesus in Jordan, equally with the subsequent baptism of his followers, was a symbol of his death. It was his death which he had in mind, when he said "In ye able to drink the cup that I drink? or to be baptised with the baptism that I am baptised with?" (Hark 10 : 38); "But I have a baptism to be baptised with; and bow am 1 straitened till it be accomplished I" (Luke 12 : 50). The being immersed and overwhelmed in waters is a frequent metaphor in all languages to express the rush of successive troubles; compare Ps. 69 : 2—"I am come into deep waters, where the floods overflow me"; 42 : 7—" ill thy waves and thy billows are gone over me "; 124 : 4, 5 —" Then the waters had overwhelmed us. The stream had gone over our soul: Then the proud waters had gone over our soul."

So the suffering, death, and burial, which were before our Lord, presented themselves to his mind as a baptism, because the very idea of baptism was that of a complete submersion under the floods of waters. Death was not to be poured upon Christ —it was no mere sprinkling of suffering which he was to endure, but a sinking into the mighty waters, and a being overwhelmed by them. It was the giving of himself to this, which he symbolized by his baptism in Jordan. That act was not arbitrary, or formal, or ritual. It was a public consecration, a consecration to death, to death for the sins of the world. It expressed the essential nature and meaning of his earthly work: the baptism of water at the beginning of his ministry consciously and designedly prefigured the baptism of death with which that ministry was to close.

Jesus' submission to John's baptism of repentance, the rite that belonged only to sinners, can be explained only upon the ground that he was "made to be sin on our behalf" (2 Cor.

5 :21). He had taken our nature upon him, without its hereditary corruption indeed, but with all its hereditary guilt, that he might redeem that nature and reunite it to God. As one with humanity, he had in his unconscious childhood submitted to the rites of circumcision, purification, and legal redemption (Luke 2: 21-24; cf. Ix. 13:2,13: see Lange, Alford, Webster, and Wilkinson on Luke 2:24) — all of them rites appointed for sinners. ⁴¹ Made in the likeness of men" (Phil. 2:7), "the likeness of sinful flesh" (Rom. 8:3), he was "to pnt away sin by the sacrifice of himself" ( Heb. 9 : 26).

In his baptism, therefore, he could say, "Thus it booometh us to fulll all righteousness" (Mat 3 :15), because only through the final baptism of suffering and death, which this baptism in water foreshadowed, could he "make an end of sins" and "bring in ererlasting righteousness" (Dan. 9 : 24) to the condemned and ruined world. He could not be "the Lord our Righteousness" (Jor. 23: 6) except by first suffering the death due to the nature he had assumed, thereby delivering It from its guilt and perfecting It forever. All this was Indicated in that act by which he was first "made manifest to Israel" (John 1: 31). In his baptism in Jordan, he was buried in the likeness of his coming death, and raised In the likeness of his coming resurrection.

As that baptism pointed forward to Jesus' death, so our baptism points backward to the same, as the centre and substance of his redeeming work, the one death by which we live. We who are "baptized into Christ" are "baptised into his death" (Rom. 6:3), that is, into spiritual communion and participation in that death which he died for our salvation; In short, in baptism we declare in symbol that his death has become ours.

(6) The correlative truth of the believer's death and resurrection, set forth iu baptism, implies, first,—confession of sin and humiliation on account of it, as deserving of death; secondly,—declaration of Christ's death for sin, and of the believer's acceptance of Christ's substitutionary work; thirdly,— acknowledgment that the soul has become partaker of Christ's life, and now lives only in and for him.

A false mode of administering the ordinance has so obscured the meaning of baptism that it has to multitudes lost all reference to the death of Christ, and the Lord's Supper is assumed to be the only ordinance which Is intended to remind us of the atoning sacrifice to which we owe our salvation. For evidence of this, see the remarks of President Woolsey in the Sunday School Times: "Baptism it [ the Christian religion ] could share In with the doctrine of John the Baptist, and if a similar rite had existed under the Jewish law, it would have been regarded as appropriate to a religion which inculcated renunciation of sin and purity of heart and life. But [ In the Lord's Supper ] we go beyond the province of baptism to the very penctrale of the gospel, to the efficacy and meaning of Christ's death."

(c) Baptism symbolizes purification, but purification in a peculiar and divine way,— namely, through the death of Christ and the entrance of the soul into communion with that death. The radical defect of sprinkling or pouring, as a mode of administering the ordinance, is that it does not point to Christ's death as the procuring cause of our purification.

It is a grievous thing to say by symbol, as those do say who practice sprinkling in place of immersion, that a man may regenerate himself, or, if not this, yet that his regeneration may take place without connection with Christ's death. Edward Beeoher's chief argument against Baptist views is drawn from John 3 : 22, 25 —" a questioning on the part of John's disciples with a Jew about purifying." Purification is made to be the essential meaning of baptism, and the conclusion is drawn that any form expressive of purification will answer the design of the ordinance. But if Christ's death is the procuring cause of our purification, we may expect It to be symbolized In the ordinance which declares that purification; If Christ's death is the central fact of Christianity, we may expect it to be symbolized in the initiatory rite of Christianity.

(d) In baptism we show forth the Lord's death as the original source of holiness and life in our souls, just as in the Lord's Supper we show forth the Lord's death as the source of all nourishment and strength, after this life of holiness has been once begun. As the Lord's Supper symbolizes the sanctifying power of Jesus' death, so baptism symbolizes its regenerating power.

The truth of Christ's death and resurrection is a precious jewel, and it is (riven us in these outward ordinances as in a casket. Let us care for the casket lest we lose the gem. As a scarlet thread runs through every rope and cord of the British navy, testifying that it is the property of the Crown, so through every doctrine and ordinance of Christianity runs the red line of Jesus' blood. It is their common reference to the death of Christ that binds the two ordinances together.

(e) There are two reasons, therefore, why nothing but immersion will satisfy the design of the ordinance: first,—because nothing else can symbolize the radical nature of the change effected in regeneration — a change from spiritual death to spiritual life; secondly,— because nothing else can set forth the fact that this change is due to the entrance of the soul into communion with the death and resurrection of Christ.

Christian truth is an organism. Part is bound to part, and all together constitute one vitalized whole. To give up any single portion of that truth is like maiming the human body. Life may remain, but one manifestation of life has ceased. The whole body of Christian truth has lost its symmetry and a part of its power to save.

(/) To substitute for baptism anything which excludes all symbolic reference to the death of Christ, is to destroy the ordinance, just as substituting for the broken bread and poured out wine of the communion some form of administration which leaves out all reference to the death of Christ would be to destroy the Lord's Supper, and to celebrate an ordinance of human invention.

Baptism, like the Fourth of July, the Passover, the Lord's Supper, is a historical monument. It witness's to the world that Jesus died and rose again. In celebrating it, we show forth the Lord's death as truly as in the celebration of the Supper. But it is more than a historical monument. It is also a pictorial expression of doctrine. Into it are woven all the essential truths of the Christian scheme. It tells of the nature and penalty of sin, of human nature delivered from sin in the person of a crucified and risen Savior, of salvation secured for each human soul that Is united to Christ, of obedience to Christ as the way to life and glory. Thus baptism stands from age to age as a witness for God — a witness both to the facts and to the doctrines of Christianity. To change the form of administering the ordinance is therefore to strike a blow at Christianity and at Christ, and to defraud the world of a part of God's means of salvation. See Ebrard's view of Baptism, in Baptist Quarterly, 1K6M : 257, and in Olshauaen's Com. on N. T., 1 : 270, and 3 : 604. Also Ligbtfoot, Com. on Col., 2 : 20, and 3:1; A. H. Strong, Baptism of Jesus.

4. The Subjects of Baptism.

The proper subjects of baptism are those only who give credible evidence that they have been regenerated by the Holy Spirit,— or, in other words, have entered by faith into the communion of Clirist's death and resurrection.

A. Proof that only persons giving evidence of being regenerated are proper subjects of baptism:

(a) From the command and example of Christ and his apostles, which show:

First, that those only are to be baptized who have previously been made disciples.

Mat 28 :19—" Go je therefore, and make disciples of ill the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and ot the Son and of the Holy Ghost"; Acts 2 : 41 —" Then they that reotiTed his word were baptited."

Secondly, that those only are to be baptized who have previously repented and believed.

Hat 3 :1, 2, 6 —" Repeat ye ... . nuke je ready the way of the Lord .... and they were baptised of him in the rifer Jordan, confessing their sine"; acts 2 : 37, 38—"Now when they heard this, they were pricked in their heart, and said onto Peter and the rest of the apostles, Brethren, what shall we do? and Peter said unto them, Repent ye, and be baptised ef ery one of you "; 8 :12 —" Bnt when they believed Philip preaching good tidings concerning the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptised, both men and women "; 18 : 8 —" and Crispus, the ruler of the synagogue, believed in the Lord with all his house; and many of the Corinthians hearing believed, and were baptised "; 19 : 4 —"John baptised with the baptism of repentanoe, saying unto the people, that they should beliefe on him which should come after him, that is, on Jesus."

(6) From the nature of the church — as a company of regenerate persons.

John 3:5—" Bxcept a man be born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God "; Rom. 6 :13 —" Neither present your members unto sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves unto God, as alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God."

(c) From the symbolism of the ordinance — as declaring a previous spiritual change in him who submits to it.

Acts 10 : 47—" Can any man forbid the water, that these should not be baptised, which have received the Holy Ghost as well as we?" Rom. 6 : 2-5—"We who died to sin, how shall we any longer live therein? Or are ye ignorant that all we who were baptised into Christ Jesus were baptised into his death? We were buried therefore with him through baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of life. For if we have become united with him by the likeness of his death, we shall be also by the likeness of his resurrection."

See Dean Stanley on Baptism, 24 —" In the apostolic aire and in the three centuries which followed, it Is evident that, as a general rule, those who came to baptism came in full age, of their own deliberate choice. The liturgical service of baptism was framed for full-grown converts, and is only by considerable adaptation applied to the case of Infants "; Wayland, Principles and Practices of Baptists, 93; Robins, In Madison Avenue Lectures, 138-159.

B. Inferences from the fact that only persons giving evidence of being regenerate are proper subjects of baptism:

(a) Since only those who give credible evidence of regeneration are proper subjects of baptism, baptism cannot be the means of regeneration. It is the appointed sign, but is never the condition, of the forgiveness of sins.

Passages like Mat. 3 :11, Mark 1 : 4, 16 :16, John 3 : 5, Acts 2 : 38, 22: 16, Eph. 5 : 26, Titus 3 : 5, and Heb. 10 : 22, 23, are to be explained as particular instances "of the general fact that, in Scripture language, a single part of a complex action, and even that part of it which is most obvious to the senses, is often mentioned for the whole of it, and thus, in this case, the whole of the solemn transaction is designated by the external symbol." In other words, the entire change, internal and external, spiritual and ritual, is referred to in language belonging strictly only to the outward aspect of it. So the other ordinance is referred to by simply naming the visible "breaking of bread," and the whole transaction of the ordination of ministers is termed the "imposition of hands" (Acts 2 : 42; 1 Tim. 4 : 14).

Hat. 3 :11 —" 1 indeed baptized you with water unto repentance "; Hark 1: 4 —" the baptism of repentance unto remission of sins"; 16 :16—" He that believeth and is baptised shall be saved "; John 3 : 5—"Except a man be born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God"—here Nicodemus, who was familiar with John's baptism, and with the refusal of the Snnhedriu to recognize its claims, Is told that the baptism of water, which lie suspects may be obligatory, is indeed necessary to that complete change by which one enters outwardly, as well as inwardly, into the kingdom of God; but he is taught also, that to "be born of water" Is worthless unless it Is the accompaniment and sign of a new birth of "the Spirit"; and therefore, in the further statements of Christ, baptism Is not alluded to; see verses 6, 8 —" that which is born of the Spint is spirit so is every one that is born of the Spirit."

lets 2 : 38 —" Repent ye, and be baptized .... unto the remission of jour sins "— on this passage see Hackett: "The phrase 'in order to the forgiveness of sins' we connect naturally with both the preceding verbs ('repent' and 'be baptised'). The clause states the motive or object which should Induce them to repent and be baptized. It enforces the entire exhortation, not one part to the exclusion of theother "—1. c, they were to repent for the remission of sins, quite as much as the}' were to be baptized for the remission of sins. Acts 22 :16 — "arise, and be baptised, and wash away thy sins, calling on his name "; Sph. 5:26 —" that he might sanctify it [ the church ], having cleansed it by the washing of water with the word "; Tit. 3 : 5 —" According to his mercy he Eared us. through the washing of regeneration [ baptism ] and renewing of the Holy Ghost [ the new birth ] " > Heb. 10 : 22 —" Earing our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience [ regeneration ] and our bodies washed with pure water [baptism ]"; <•/. Acts 2 : 42—''the breaking of bread "; 1 Tim. 4 : 14 —"the laying on of the hands of the presbytery."

Dr. A. C. Kendrick: "Considering how Inseparable they were in the Christian profession — believe and be baptized — and how imperative and absolute was the requisition upon the believer to testify his allegiance by baptism, it could not be deemed singular that the two should be thus united, as it were. In one complex conception .... We have no more right to assume that the birth from water involves the birth from the Spirit, and thus do away with the one, than to assume that the birth from the Spirit Involves the birth from water, and thus do away with the other. We have got to have them both, each in its distinctness, in order to fulfil the conditions of membership in the kingdom of God."

Campbellism, however, holds that Instead of regeneration preceding baptism and expressing itself in baptism, it is completed only in baptism, so that baptism is a means of regeneration. With this form of sacramentallsm, Baptists are necessarily less in sympathy than with pedobaptisin or with sprinkling. The view of the Disciples, of whom Alexander Campbell was the founder, confines the divine efficiency to the word. It was anticipated by Claude Pajon, the Reformed theologian, in 1673; see Dorner, Gescb. Prot. Theologie, 448-450. That this was not the doctrine of John the Baptist would appear from Josephus, Ant., 18 : 5 : 2, who in speaking of John's baptism says: "Baptism appears acceptable to God, not In order that those who were baptized might get free from certain sins, but in order that the body might be sanctified, because the soul beforehand had already been purified through righteousness."

For the High Church view, see Sadler, Church Doctrine, 41-134. On F. W. Robertson's view of Baptismal Regeneration, see Gordon, in Bap. Quar., 1889 : 405. On the whole matter of baptism for the remission of sins, see Willmarth, in Bap. Quar., 1877:1-28 ( verging toward the Disciple view); and, per ctmtra, see Bap. Quar., 1877 : 476-489; 1872: 214: Jacob, Eccl. Polity of N. T., 255, 256.

(6) As the profession of a spiritual change already wrought, baptism is primarily the act, not of the administrator, but of the person baptized.

Upon the person newly regenerate the command of Christ first terminates; only upon his giving evidence of the change within him does it become the duty of the church to see that he has opportunity to follow Christ in baptism. Since baptism is primarily the act of the convert, no lack of qualification on the part of the administrator invalidates the baptism, so long as the proper outward act is performed, with intent on the part of the person baptized to express the fact of a preceding spiritual renewal (Acts 2 :37, 38).

Acts 2 : 37, 38 —¹⁴ Brethren, what shall we do ?.... Repent ye and be baptized." If baptism be primarily the act of the administrator or of the church, then invalidity in the administrator or the church renders the ordinance itself invalid. But if baptism be primarily the act of the person baptized —an act which It is the church's business simply to scrutinize and further, then nothing but the absence of Immersion, or of an intent to profess faith in Christ, can invalidate the ordinance. It is the erroneous view that baptism is the act of the administrator which causes the anxiety of High Church Baptists to deduce their Baptist lineage from regularly baptized ministers all the way back to John the Baptist, and which induces many modern endeavors of pedobaptists to prove that the earliest Baptists of England and the Continent did not immerse. All these solicitudes are unnecessary. We have no need to prove a Baptist apostolical succession. If we can derive our doctrine and practice from the New Testament, it is all we require.

(c) As intrusted with the administration of the ordinances, however, the church is, on its part, to require of all candidates for baptism credible evidence of regeneration.

This follows from the nature of the church and its duty to maintain its own existence as an institution of Christ. The church which cannot restrict admission to its membership to such as are like itself in character and aims must soon cease to be a church by becoming indistinguishable from the world. The duty of the church to gain credible evidence of regeneration in the case of every person admitted to the body involves its right to require of candidates, in addition to a profession of faith with the lips, some satisfactory proof that this profession is accompanied by change in the conduct. The kind and amount of evidence which would have justified the reception of a candidate in times of persecution may not now constitute a sufficient proof of change of heart.

If an Odd Fellows' Lodge, in order to preserve Its distinct existence, must have its own rules for admission to membership, much more is this true of the church. The church may make its own regulations with a view to secure credible evidence of regeneration. Yet it is bound to demand of the candidate no more than reasonable proof of his repentance and faith. Since the church is to be convinced of the candidate's fitness before it votes to receive him to its membership, it is generally best that the experience of the candidate should be related before the church. Yet In extreme cases, as of sickness, the church may hear this relation of experience through certain appointed representatives.

Baptism is sometimes figuratively described as "the door into the church." The phrase Is unfortunate, since, if by the church Is meant the spiritual kingdom of God, then Christ is Its only door: if the local body of believers is meant, then the faith of the candidate, the credible evidence of regeneration which he gives, the vote of the church itself, are all, equally with baptism, the door through which he enters. The door, in this sense; Is a double door, one part of which is his confession of faith, and the other his baptism.

(d) As the outward expression of the inward change by which the believer enters into the kingdom of God, baptism is the first, in point of time, of all outward duties.

Regeneration and baptism, although not holding to each other the relation of effect and cause, are both regarded in the New Testament as essential to the restoration of man's right relations to God and to his people. They properly constitute parts of one whole, and are not to be unnecessarily separated. Baptism should follow regeneration with the least possible delay, after the candidate and the church have gained evidence that a spiritual change has been accomplished within him. No other duty and no other ordinance can properly precede it.

Neither the pastor nor the church should encourage the convert to wait for others' company before being baptized. We should aim continually to deepen the sense of Individual responsibility to Christ, and of personal duty to obey his command of baptism Just so soon as a proper opportunity is afforded. That participation in the Lord's Supper cannot properly precede baptism, will be shown hereafter.

(e) Since regeneration is a work accomplished once for all, the baptism which symbolizes this regeneration is not to be repeated.

Even whore the persuasion exists, on the part of the candidate, that at the time of baptism he was mistaken in thinking himself regenerated, the ordinance is not to be administered again, so long as it has once been submitted to, with honest intent, as a profession of faith in Christ. We argue this from the absence of any reference to second baptisms in the New Testament, and from the grave practical difficulties attending the opposite view. In Acts 19 : 1-5, we have an instance, not of rebaptism, but of the baptism for the first time of certain persons who had been wrongly taught with regard to the nature of John the Baptist's doctrine, and so had ignorantly submitted to an outward rite which had in it no reference to Jesus Christ and expressed no faith in him as a Savior. This was not John's baptism, nor was it in any sense true baptism. For this reason Paul commanded them to be "baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus."

In the respect of not being repeated. Baptism Is unlike the Lord's Supper, which symbolizes the continuous sustaining power of Christ's death, while baptism symbolizes its power to begin a new life within the soul. In Acts 19:1-5, Paul instructs the new disciples that the real baptism of John, to which they erroneously supposed they had submitted, was not only a baptism of repentance, but a baptism of faith in the coming Savior. "ind when they heard this they were baptised into the name of the Lord Jesus"— as they had not been before. Here there was no rebaptism, for the mere outward submersion in waUr to which they had previously submitted, with no thought of professing faith in Christ, was no baptism at all —whether Johannine or Christian. See Brooks, in Baptist Quarterly, April, 1867, art.: Rebaptism.

Whenever it is clear, as in many cases of Carapbellite immersion, that the candidate has gone down into the water, not with intent to profess a previously existing faith, but in order to be regenerated, baptism is still to be administered if the person subsequently believes on Christ. But wherever It appears that there was intent to profess an already existing faith and regeneration, there should be no repetition of the Immersion, even though the ordinance had been administered by the Campbellltes.

To rebaptizc whenever a Christian's faith and joy are rekindled so that he begins to doubt the reality of his early experiences, would, in the case of many fickle believers, require many repetitions of the ordinance. The presumption is that, when the profession of faith was made by baptism, there was an actual faith which needed to be professed, and therefore that the baptism, though followtnl by much unbelief and many wanderings, was a valid one. Rebaptism, in the case of unstable Christians, tends to bring reproach upon the ordinance itself.

(/) So long as the mode and the subjects are such as Christ has enjoined, mere accessories are matters of individual judgment.

The use of natural rather than of artificial baptisteries is not to be elevated into an essential. The formula of baptism prescribed by Christ is "into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost."

Mat 28 :19 —" baptising them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost"; cf. Acta 8 :16 —"Thej had been baptised into the name of the Lord Jens"; Rom. 6 : 3— "Or are ye ignorant that all wo who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptised into his death?" Gal. 3 : 27 —" For as manj of you as were baptized into Christ did put on Christ." Baptism is Immersion into God, into the presence, communion, life of the Trinity; see Com. of Clark, and of Lange, on Mat 28 :19; also C. E. Smith, in Bap. Rev., 1881:305-311. President Wayland and the Revised Version read, "into the name." Per contra, see Meyer (transl., 1 : 281, note) on Rom. 6:3; cf. Mat. 10 : 41; 18 : 20; in all which passages, as well as in Mat 28:19, he claims that «it TM 6Vo>ia signifies "with reference to the name." In Acts 2 : 38, and 10 : 48, we have "in the name." For the latter translation of Mat. 28 :19, see Conant, Notes on Mat., 171. On the whole subject of this section, see Dagg, Church Order, 13-73; Ingham, Subjects of Baptism.

C. Infant Baptism.

This we reject and reprehend, for the following reasons:

(a) Infant baptism is without warrant, either express or implied, in the Scripture.

First,— there is no express command that infants should be baptized. Secondly,— there is no clear example of the baptism of infants. Thirdly,— the passages held to imply infant baptism contain, when fairly interpreted, no reference to such a practice. In Mat. 19 : 14, none would have 'forbidden,' if Jesus and his disciples had been in the habit of baptizing infants. Prom Acts 16 : 15, cf. 40, and Acts 16: 33, c/. 34, Neander says that we cannot infer infant baptism. For 1 Cor. 16: 15 shows that the whole family of Stephanas, baptized by Paul, were adults (1 Cor. 1 : 16). It is impossible to suppose a whole heathen household baptized upon the faith of its head. As to 1 Cor. 7 : 14, Jacobi calls this text "a sure testimony against infant baptism, since Paul would certainly have referred to the baptism of children as a proof of their holiness, if infant baptism had been practiced." Moreover, this passage would in that case equally teach the baptism of the unconverted husband of a believing wife. It plainly proves that the children of Christian parents were no more baptized, and had no closer connection with the Christian church, than the unbelieving partners of Christians.

Mat. 19 :14 —" Suffer t he little children, and forbid them not, to oome unto me; for to such belongeth the kingdom of heaven"; Acta 16:15—"And when she [Lydia] was baptized, and her household"; cf. 40—"And they went out of the prison, and entered into the house of Lydia; and when they had seen the brethren, they comforted them, and departed." Acts 16 : 33—The jailor "was baptized, he and all his, immediately"; cf. 34—"And he brought them up into his house, and set meat before them, and rejoiced greatly, with all his house, having believed in God "; 1 Cor. 16 :15 —" Ye know the house of Stephanas, that it is the first-fruits of Achaia, and that they have set themselves to minister unto the saints"; 1; 16—"And I baptised also the household of Stephanas"; 7 :14— "For the unbelieving husband is sanctified in the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified in the husband: else were your children unclean; but now are they holy "— here the sanctity or holiness attributed to unbelieving members of the household is evidently that of external connection and privilege, like that of the 0. T. Israel.

A review of the passages held by pedobaptists to support their views leads us to the conclusion expressed in the North British Beview, Aug., 1852 : 211, that infant baptism is utterly unknown to Scripture. See also Jacob, Eccl. Polity of N. T., 270-275; Neander's view, in Kitto, Bib. Cyclop., art.: Baptism; Kendrick, in Christian Rev., April, 1883; Curtis, Progress of Baptist Principles, 96; Wayland, Principles and Practices of Baptists, 125; Cunningham, lect. on Baptism, in Croall lectures for 1888.

(b) Infant baptism is expressly contradicted:

First,— by the Scriptural prerequisites of faith and repentance, as signs of regeneration. In the great commission, Matthew speaks of baptizing disciples, and Mark of baptizing believers; but infante are neither of these. Secondly,— by the Scriptural symbolism of the ordinance. As we should not bury a person before his death, so we should not symbolically bury a person by baptism until he has in spirit died to sin. Thirdly,— by the Scriptural constitution of the church. The church is a company of persons whose union with one another presupposes and expresses a previous conscious and voluntary union of each with Jesus Christ. But of this conscious and voluntary union with Christ infante are not capable. Fourthly, — by the Scriptural prerequisites for participation in the Lord's Supper. Participation in the Lord's Supper is the right only of those who can "discern the Lord's body" (1 Cor. 11 : 29). No reason can be assigned for restricting to intelligent communicants the ordinance of the Supper, which would not equally restrict to intelligent believers the ordinance of Baptism.

Infant baptism has accordingly led in the Greek church to infant communion. This course seems logically consistent. If baptism is administered to unconscious babes, they should participate in the Lord's Supper also. But if confirmation or any intclligent profession of faith is thought necessary before communion, why should not Bucq confirmation or profession be thought necessary before baptism? On Jonathan Edwards and the Halfway Covenant, see New Englander, Sept., 1884 :601-614.

(c) The rise of infant baptism in the history of the church is due to sacramental conceptions of Christianity, so that all arguments in its favor from the writings of the first three centuries are equally arguments for baptismal regeneration.

Neander's view may be found In KItto, Encyc.,1: 287—"Infant baptism was established neither by Christ nor by his apostles. Even in later times Tertullian opposed it, the North African church holding to the old practice." The newly discovered Teaching of the Apostles, which Bryennios puts at 140-160 A. D., and Llghtfoot at 80-110 A. D., seems to know nothing of infant baptism.

Prof. A. H. Newman, in Bap. Rev., Jan., 1884 —" Infant baptism has always gone hand In hand with State churches. It is difficult to conceive how an ecclesiastical establishment could be maintained without infant baptism or Its equivalent. We should think. If the facts did not show us so plainly the contrary, that the doctrine of Justification by faith alone would displace infant baptism. But no. The establishment- must be maintained. The rejection of infant baptism implies insistence upon a baptism of believers. Only the baptized are properly members of the church. Even adults would not all receive baptism on professed faith, unless they were actually compelled to do so. Infant baptism must therefore be retained as the necessary concomitant of a State church.

"But what becomes of the Justification by faith? Baptism, If it symbolizes anything, symbolizes regeneration. It would be ridiculous to make the symbol to forerun the fact by a series of years. Luther saw the difficulty; but he was sufficient for the emergency. 'Yes,' said he, 'Justification is by faith alone. No outward rite, apart from faith, has any efficacy.' Why, it was against opero nperata that he was laying out all his strength. Yet baptism is the symbol of regeneration, and baptism must be administered to infants, or the State church falls. With an audacity truly sublime, the great reformer declares that infants are regenerated in connection with baptism, and that they are Mmultancmwlu juntifletl by personal faith. An infant eight days old believe? 'Prove the contrary if you can!' triumphantly ejaculates Luther, and his point is gained. If this kind of personal faith Is said to Justify infants, is it wonderful that those of maturer years learned to take a somewhat superficial view of the faith that Justifies?"

See Christian Review, Jan., 1851; Neander, Church History, 1:811, 813; Coleman, Christian Antiquities, 258-380; Arnold, in Bap. Quarterly, 1889 :32; Hovey, in Baptist Quarterly, 18T1:75.

(d) The reasoning by which it is supported is uuscriptural, unsound, and dangerous in its tendency:

First,— in assuming the power of the church to modify or abrogate a command of Christ. This has been sufficiently answered above. Secondly, — in maintaining that infant baptism takes the place of circumcision under the Abrahamic covenant. To this we reply that the view contradicts the New Testament idea of the church, by making it a hereditary body, in which fleshly birth, and not the new birth, qualifies for membership. "As the national Israel typified the spiritual Israel, so the circumcision which immediately followed, not preceded, natural birth, bids us baptize children, not before, but after spiritual birth." Thirdly,—in declaring that baptism belongs to the infant because of an organic connection of the child with the parent, which permits the latter to stand for the former and to make profession of faith for it,— faith already existing germinally in the child by virtue of this organic union, and certain for this same reason to be developed as the child grows to maturity. "A law of organic connection as regards character subsisting between the parent and the child,— such a con

nection as induces the conviction that the character of the one is actually included in the character of the other, as the seed is formed in the capsule." We object to this view that it unwarrantably confounds the personality of the child with that of the parent; practically ignores the necessity of the Holy Spirit's regenerating influences in the case of children of Christian parents; and presumes in such children a gracious state which facts conclusively show not to exist.

On the theory that baptism takes the place of circumcision, see Pepper, Baptist Quarterly, April, 1857; Palmer, in Baptist Quarterly, 1871:314. The Christian Church is either a natural, hcrcilitaru body, or it was merely typified by the Jewish people. In the former ease, baptism belongs to all children of Christian parents, and the church is indistinguishable from the world. In the latter case, it belongs only to spiritual descendants, and therefore only to true believers. "That Jewish Christians, who of course had been circumcised, were also baptized, and that a large number of them insisted that Gentiles who had been baptized should also be circumcised, shows conclusively that baptism did not take the plnce of circumcision The notion that the

family is the unit of society is a relic of barbarism. This appears in the Roman law, which was good for property but not for persons. It left none but a servile station to wife or son, thus degrading society at the fountain of family life. To gain freedom, the Roman wife had to accept a form of marriage which opened the way for unlimited liberty of divorce."

Prof. Moses Stuart urged that the form of baptism was immaterial, but that the temper of heart was the thing of moment. Francis Way land, then a student of his, asked: "If such is the case, with what propriety can baptism be administered to those who cannot be supposed to exercise any temper of heart at all, and with whom the form must be everything? "—The third theory of organic connection of the child with its parents is elaborated by Bushnell, in his Christian Nurture, 90-223. Per contra, see Bunsen, Hippolytus and his Times, 179, 211; Curtis, Progress of Baptist Principles, 262. Hezekiah's son Manasseh was not godly; and it would be rash to say that all the drunkard's children are presumptively drunkards.

(e) The lack of agreement among pedobaptists as to the warrant for infant baptism and as to the relation of baptized infants to the church, together with the manifest decline of the practice itself, are arguments against it.

The propriety of infant baptism is variously argued, says Dr. Bushnell, upon the ground of "natural innocence, inherited depravity, and federal holiness; because of the infant's own character, the parents' piety, and the church's faith; for the reason that the child is an heir of salvation already,

and in order to make it such No settled opinion on infant baptism

and on Christian nurture has ever been attained to."

Bushnell, Christian Nurture, 9-89, denies original sin, denies that hereditary connection can make a child guilty. But he seems to teach transmitted righteousness, or that hereditary connection con make a child holy. He disparages "sensible experiences" and calls them "explosive conversions." But because we do not know the time of conversion, shall we say that there never was a time when the child experienced God's grace? See Bib. Sac, 1872 : 665.

On the Decline of Infant Baptism, see Vedder, in Baptist Review, April, 1882 :173-189, who shows that in fifty years past the proportion of infant baptisms to communicants has decreased from one in seven to one in eleven; among the Reformed, from one in twelve to one in twenty; among the Presbyterians, from one in fifteen to one in thirty-three; among the Methodists, from one in twenty-two to one in twenty-nine: among the Congregatlonalists, from one in fifty to one in seventy-seven.

(/) The evil effects of infant baptism are a strong argument against it r

First,— in forestalling the voluntary act of the child baptized, and thus practically preventing his personal obedience to Christ's commands.

The person baptized In Infancy has never performed any act with intent to obey Christ's command to be baptized, never has put forth a single volition looking toward obedience to that command; see Wilkinson, The Baptist Principle, 40-48.

Secondly,— in inducing superstitious confidence in an outward rite as possessed of regenerating efficacy.

French peasants still regard infants before baptism as only animals (Stanley). The haste with which the minister is summoned to baptize the dying child shows that superstition still lingers in many an otherwise evangelical family In our own country. The English Praycrbook declares that In baptism the Infant Is "made a child of Ood and an inheritor of the kingdom of heaven." Even the Westminster Assembly's Catechism, 28 : 6, holds that grace is actually conferred in baptism, though the efficacy of it Is delayed till riper years. Mercersburg Review: "The objective medium or instrumental cause of regeneration is baptism. Men are not regenerated outside the church and then brought into it for preservation, but they are regenerated by being incorporated with or engrafted Into the church through the sacrament of baptism." Catholic Review: "Unbaptlzed, these little ones go into darkness; but baptized, they rejoice In the presence of God forever."

Thirdly,—in obscuring and corrupting Christian truth with regard to the sufficiency of Scripture, the connection of the ordinances, and the inconsistency of an impenitent life with church-membership.

Infant baptism in England is followed by confirmation as a matter of course, whether there has been any conscious abandonment of sin or not. In Germany, a man is always understood to be a Christian unless he expressly states to the contrary — in fact, he feels insulted if his Christianity is questioned. At the funerals even of infidels and debauchees the pall used maybe inscribed with the words: "Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord." Confidence in one's Christianity and hopes of heaven based only on the fact of baptism In Infancy, are a great obstacle to evangelical preaching and to the progress of true religion.

Fourthly,— in destroying the church as a spiritual body, by merging it in the nation and the world.

Ladd, Principles of Church Polity: "Unitarlanism entered the Congregational churches of New England through the breach in one of their own avowed and most important tenets, namely, that of a regenerate church-membership. Formalism, indlfferentism, neglect of moral reforms, and. as both cause and results of these, an abundance of unrenewed men and women, were the cause's of their seeming disasters in that sad epoch." But we would add, that the serious and alarming decline of religion which culminated in the Unitarian movement in New England had its origin in infant baptism. This introduced into the church a multitude of unregenerate persons and permitted them to determine its doctrinal position.

Fifthly,— in putting into the place of Christ's command a commandment of men, and so admitting the essential principle of all heresy, schism, and false religion.

There is therefore no logical halting-place between the Baptist and the Romanist positions. The Roman Catholic Archbishop Hughes of New York, said well to a Presbyterian minister: "We have no controversy with you. Our controversy is with the Baptists." The greatest work favoring the doctrine which we here condemn is Wall's History of Infant Baptism. For the Baptist side of the controversy see Arnold, In Madison Avenue Lectures, 1B0-182; Curtis, Progress of Baptist Principles, 274, 275; Dagg, Church Order, 144-202.

II. The Lord's Supper.

The Lord's Supper is that outward rite in which the assembled church eate bread broken and drinks wine poured forth by its appointed representative, in token of its constant dependence on the once crucified, now risen Savior, as source of its spiritual life; or, in other words, in token of that

abiding communion of Clirist's death and resurrection through which the

life begun in regeneration is sustained and perfected.

On the Lord's Supper in general, see Weston, in Madison Avenue Lectures, 183-186; Dagg, Church Order, 203-214.

1. The Lord's Supper an Ordinance instituted by Christ.

(a) Christ appointed an outward rite to be observed by his disciples in remembrance of his death. It was to be observed after his death; only after his death could it completely fulfil its purpose as a feast of commemoration.

Luke 22 ■ 19 —" And lis took bread, and when he had given thanks, he brake it. and gave to them, saying, This is my body which is given for you: this do in remembrance of me. And the cup in like manner after supper, saying, This cap is the new covenant in my blood, even that which is poured out for you"; 1 Cor. 11 : 23-25 —" For I received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, how that the lord Jesus, in the night in which he was betrayed, took bread; and when he had given thanks, he brake it, and said, This is my body, which is for you; this do in remembrance of me. In like manner the cup, after supper, saying, This cup is the new covenant in my blood: this do, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me." Observe that this communion was Christian communion before Christ's death, Just as John's baptism was Christian baptism before Christ's death.

(6) From the apostolic injunction with regard to its celebration in the church until Christ's second coming, we infer that it was the original intention of our Lord to institute a rite of perpetual and universal obligation.

1 Cor. 11 : 26 —" For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink the cup, ye proclaim the Lord's death till he come"; cf. Mat. 26 : 29—"But I say unto you, I shall not drink henceforth of this fruit of the vine, until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father's kingdom "; Mark 14 ; 25 —" Verily I say unto you, I will no more drink of the fruit of the vine, until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God."

(c) The uniform practice of the N. T. churches, and the celebration of such a rite in subsequent ages by almost all churches professing to be Christian, is best explained upon the supposition that the Lord's Supper is an ordinance established by Christ himself.

Acts 2 : 42 —" And they continued stedfastly in the apostles' teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread and the prayers "; 46 —" And day by day, continuing stedfastly with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread at home, they did take their food with gladness and singleness of heart"—on the words here translated "at home" (*m' o!>cok), but meaning, as Jacob maintains, " from one worship-room to another," see page 540, (c). Acts 20 : 7 —" And upon the first day of the week, when we were gathered together to break bread, Paul discoursed with them "; 1 Cor. 10 :16 —" The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not a communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not a communion of the body of Christ? seeing that we, who are many, are one bread, one body: for we all partake of the one bread."

2. The Mode of Administering the Lord's Supper, (a) The elements are bread and wine.

Although the bread which Jesus broke at the institution of the ordinance was doubtless the unleavened bread of the Passover, there is nothing in the symbolism of the Lord's Supper which necessitates the Romanist use of the wafer. Although the wine which Jesus poured out was doubtless the ordinary fermented juice of the grape, there Is nothing in the symbolism of the ordinance which forbids the use of unfermented juice of the grape. Neither the one nor the other is to be regarded as essential to the validity of the ordinance. Cider, milk, or even water, may be substituted for wine, when this latter is not to be obtained, just as dried flsh is substituted for bread in Iceland.

A don Irani Judson, however (Life, by his Son, 352), writes from Iturmnh: "No wine to be procured in this place, on which account we are unable to meet with the other churches this day in partaking of the Lord's Supper." For proof that Bible wines, like all other wines, are fermented, see Presb. Rev., 1881:80-114; 1882 :78-108, 804-399, 586. Per contra, see Samson, Ulble Wines. On the Scripture Law of Temperance, see Presb. Rev., 1888 :287-824.

(6) The communion is of both kinds,— that is, communicants are to partake both of the bread and of the wine.

The Roman Catholic church withholds the wine from the laity, although it considers the whole Christ to be present under each of the forms. Christ, however, says: "Brink ye ill of it" (Mil 28 : 27). To withhold the wine from any believer is disobedience to Christ, and is too easily understood as teaching that the laity have only a portion of the benefits of Christ's death. Calvin: "As to the bread, he simply said 'W» eat.' Why does he expressly bid them all drink? And why does Mark explicitly say that 'they air drank of it¹ (Mark 14 : 23)?" Bengel: Does not this suggest that, if communion in "one kind alone were sufficient, it Is the cup which should be used? The Scripture thus speaks, foreseeing what Rome would do."

(c) The partaking of these elements is of a festal nature.

The Passover was festal in its nature. Gloom and sadness are foreign to the spirit of the ordinance. The wine Is the symbol of the death of Christ, but of that death by which we live. It reminds us that he drank the cup of suffering in order that we might drink the wine of Joy. As the bread is broken to sustain our physical life, so Christ's body was broken by thorns and nails and spear to nourish our spiritual life.

1 Cor. 11: 29 —" For ho that eateth and dnnketh, eatoth and drinketh judgment onto himself, if ho discern not the body." Here the authorized version wrongly had "damnation" instead of "judgment.'' Not eternal condemnation, but penal Judgment in general, is meant. He who partakes " in an unworthy manner" (terse 27), (. e., in hypocrisy, or merely to satisfy bodily appetites, and not discerning the body of Christ of which the bread is the symbol (terse 29), draws down upon him God's Judicial sentence. Of this Judgment, the frequent sickness and death in the church at Corinth was a token. See verses 30-34, and Meyer's Com.

(d) The communion is a festival of commemoration,— not simply bringing Christ to our remembrance, but making proclamation of his death to the world.

1 Cor. 11: 24, 26—" This do in remembrance of me ... For as often as ye eat this bread and drink this cup, ye proclaim the Lord's death till he oome." As the Passover commemorated the deliverance of Israel from Egypt, and as the Fourth of July commemorates our birth as a nation, so the Lord's Supper commemorates the birth of the church in Christ's death and resurrection. As a mother might bid her children meet over her grave and commemorate her, so Christ bids his people meet and remember him. But subjective remembrance is not its only aim. It is a public proclamation also. Whether it brings perceptible blessing to us or not, it is to be observe*! as a means of confessing Christ, testifying our faith, and pul>Ushiug the fact of his death to others.

(e) It is to be celebrated by the assembled church. It is not a solitary observance on the part of individuals. No "showing forth" is possible except in company.

lets 20 : 7—"gathered together to break bread"; 1 Cor. 11 : 18, 20, 22, 33, 34 —" when ye come together in the

church assemble yourselves together have ye not houses to eat and to drink in? or despise ye the church

of God, and put them to shame that hate not? when ye come together to eat If any man is hungry, let

him eat at home; that your coming together be not for judgment"

Jacob, Eccl. Polity of N. T., 191-194, claims that in lets 2 ; 46—"breaking bread at home"— where we have o*«ot, not oUia, oI«os Is not a private house, but a ¹ worship-room,' and that the phrase should be translated "breaking bread from one worship-room to another," or "in various worship-rooms." This meaning seems very apt in lets 5:42—"Ind every day, in the temple and at home [ rather, 'in various worship-rooms' ], they oeaaed not to teach and to preach Jesus as the Christ"; 8 : 3—"Bat Saul laid waste the church, entering into every house [rather, 'every worship-room' ], and haling men and women committed them to prison"; Rom. 16: 5—"Salute the church that is in their house [ rather, 'in their worship-room' ] "; Titus 1:11 —" men who overthrow whole houses [ rather, 'whole worshiprooms' ], teaching things which they ought not, for filthy lucre's sake."

The celebration of the Lord's Supper in each family by itself is not recognized in the New Testament. Stanley, in Nineteenth Century, May, 1878, tells us that as infant communion is forbidden in the Western Church, and evening communion is forbidden by the Roman Church, so solitary communion is forbidden by the English Church, and death-bed communion by the Scottish Church.

(/) The responsibility of seeing that the ordinance is properly administered rests with the church as a body; and the pastor is, in this matter, the proper representative and organ of the church. In cases of extreme exigency, however, as where the church has no pastor and no ordained minister can be secured, it is competent for the church to appoint one from its own number to administer the ordinance.' 1 Cor. 11: 2. 23 —" Sow I praise you that ye remember me in all things, and hold fait the traditions, even u I delir

ered them to yon for I received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, how that the Lord Jesus, in the

night in which he was betrayed, took bread." Here the responsibility of administering the Lord's Supper is laid upon the body of believers.

(g) The frequency with which the Lord's Supper is to be administered is not indicated either by the N. T. precept or by uniform N. T. example. We have instances both of its daily and of its weekly observance. With respect to this, as well as with respect to the accessories of the ordinance, the church is to exercise a sound discretion.

Acts 2 : 46 —" And day by day, continuing stedfastly with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread at home [ or perhaps, 'in various worship rooms' ] "; 20 : 7 —" And upon the first day of the week, when we were gathered together to break bread." In 1878, thirty-nine churches of the Establishment in London held daily communion; in two churches it was held twice each day. A few churches of the Baptist faith in England and America celebrate the Lord's Supper on each Lord's day. Carlstadt would celebrate the Lord's Supper only in companies of twelve, and held also that every bishop must marry. Reclining on couches, and meeting in the evening, are not commanded; and both, by their inconvenience, might in modern times counteract the design of the ordinance.

3. The Symbolism of the Lord's Supper.

The Lord's Supper sets forth, in general, the death of Christ as the sustaining power of the believer's life.

A. Expansion of this statement.

(a) It symbolizes the death of Christ for our sins.

1 Cor. 11: 26—" For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink the cup, ye proclaim the Lord's death till he come "; cf. Hark U : 2* —" This is my blood of the covenant, which is shed for many "— the blood upon which the covenant between God and Christ, and so between God and us who are one with Christ, from eternity past was based. The Lord's Supper reminds us of the covenant which ensures our salvation, and of the atonement upon which that covenant was based; cf. Eeb. 13 : 20 —"blood of an eternal oovenant."

(6) It symbolizes our personal appropriation of the benefits of that death. 1 Cor. 11: U— "This is my body, which is for yon."

(c) It symbolizes the method of this appropriation, through union with Christ himself.

1 Cor. 10 :16—"The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not a communion of [marg.—'participation in'] the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not a communion of [marg.—'participation in'] the body of Christ?" Here "isitnot a participation "-— 'does it not symbolize the participation?' So Hat. 26 :26 —"This is my body " — ■ this symbolizes my body.'

(d) It symbolizes the continuous dependence of the believer for all spiritual life upon the once crucified, now living, Savior, to whom he is thus united.

Cf. John 6 : 53 —" Verily, Terily, I say onto you, except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, ye hare not life in yourselTes" — hero is a statement, not with regard to the Lord's Supper, but with regard to spiritual union with Christ, which the Lord's Supper only symbolizes; see page 543, (a).

(e) It 8ymbolize8 the sanctilication of the Christian through a spiritual reproduction in him of the death and resurrection of the Lord.

Rom. 8 : 10 —" And if Christ il in yon. the body ii dead because of tin; bnt the spirit il life because of righteousness '': Phil. 3 :10 —" That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, becoming conformed unto his death; if by any means I may attain unto the resurrection from the dead." The bread of life nourishes; but it transforms me, not I it.

(/) It symbolizes the consequent union of Christians in Christ, their head.

1 Cor. 10 :17 —" seeing that we, who are many, are one bread, one body: for we all partake of the one bread." The Roman Catholic says that bread is the unity of many kernels, the wine the unity of many berries, and all are chunged into the body of Christ. We can adopt the former part of the statement, without taking the latter. By being united to Christ, we become united to one utiothcr; and the Lord's Supper, as it symbolizes our common partaking of Christ, symbolizes also the consequent oneness of all In whom Christ dwells.

(g) It symbolizes the coming joy and perfection of the kingdom of God.

Luke 22 :18 —" For I say onto you, I shall not drink from henceforth of the fruit of the Tine, until the kingdom of God shall come "; Mark 14 : 25 —" Verily, 1 say unto yon, I shall no more drink of the fruit of the Tine, until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God"; Mat 26 : 29—"But I say unto you. I shall not drink henceforth of this fruit of the vine, until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father's kingdom."

Like baptism, which points forward to the resurrection, the Lord's Supper is anticipatory also. It brings before us, not simply death, but life; not simply past sacrifice, but future glory. It points forward to the great festival, "the marriage-supper of the Lamb'' (rot. 19:1), Dorner: "Then Christ will keep the Supper anew with us, and the hours of highest solemnity in this life are but a weak foretaste of the powers of the world to come." Sec Madison Avenue Lectures, 176-218; The Lord's Supper, a Clerical Symposium, by Pressense, Luthardt, and English Divines.

B. Inferences from this statement.

(a) The connection between the Lord's Supper and Baptism consists in this, that they both and equally are symbols of the death of Christ. In baptism, we show forth the death of Christ as the procuring cause of our new birth into the kingdom of God. In the Lord's Supper, we show forth the death of Christ as the sustaining power of our spiritual life after it has once begun. In the one, we honor the sanctifying power of the death of Christ, as in the other we honor its regenerating power. Thus both are parts of one whole — setting before us Christ's death for men in its two great purposes and results.

If baptism symbolized purification only, there would be no point of connection between the two ordinances. Their common reference to the death of Christ binds the two together.

(6) The Lord's Supper is to be often repeated,—as symbolizing Christ's

constant nourishment of the soul, whose new birth was signified in Baptism.

Yet too frequent repetition may induce superstitious confidence in the value of communion as a mere outward form.

(c) The Lord's Supper, like Baptism, is the symbol of a previous state of grace. It has in itself no regenerating and no sanctifying power, but is the symbol by which the relation of the believer to Christ, his sanctifier, is

vividly expressed and strongly confirmed.

We derive more help from the Lord's Supper than from private prayer, simply because it is an external rite, impressing the sense as well as the intellect, celebrated in company with other believers whose faith and devotion help our own, and bringing' before us the profoundest truths of Christianity — the death of Christ, and our union with Christ in that death.

(d) The blessing received from participation is therefore dependent upon, and proportioned to, the faith of the communicant.

In observing the Lord's Supper, we need to discern the body of the Lord (1 Cor. 11:29) — that is, to recognize the spiritual moaning of the ordinance, and the presence of Christ, who through his deputed representatives gives to us the emblems, and who nourishes and quickens our souls as these material things nourish and quicken the body. The faith which thus discerns Christ is the gift of the Holy Spirit.

(e) The Lord's Supper expresses primarily the fellowship of the believer, not with his brethren, but with Christ, his Lord.

The Lord's Supper, like baptism, symbolizes fellowship with the brethren only as consequent upon, and incidental to, fellowship with Christ. Just as we are all baptized "into one body" (1 Cor. 12 :13), only by being "baptised into Christ" (Rom. 6 : 3), so we commune with other believers in the Lord's Supper, only as we commune with Christ. Christ's words: "this do in remembrance of me" (1 Cor. 11: 24), bid us think, not of our brethren, but of the Lord.

The offence of a Christian brother, therefore, even if committed against myself, should not prevent me from remembering Christ and communing with the Savior. I could not commune at all, if I had to vouch for the Christian character of all who sat with me. Tills does not excuse the church from effort to purge its membership from unworthy participants; it simply declares that the church's failure to do this does not absolve any single member of it from his obligation to observe the Lord's Supper. See Jacob, Eccl. Polity of N. T., 285.

4. Erroneous Views of the Lord's Supper.

A. The Komanist view,— that the bread and wine are changed by priestly consecration into the very body and blood of Christ; that this consecration is a new offering of Christ's sacrifice; and that, by a physical partaking of the elements, the communicant receives saving grace from God. To this doctrine of "transubstantiation," we reply:

(a) It rests upon a false interpretation of Scripture. In Mat. 26 : 26, "this is my body" means: "this is a symbol of my body." Since Christ was with the disciples in visible form at the institution of the supper, he could not have intended them to recognize the bread as being Ids literal body. "The body of Christ is present in the bread, just as it had been in the passover lamb, of which the bread took the place " (John 6 : 53 contains no reference to the Lord's Supper, although it describes that spiritual union with Christ which the supper symbolizes; cf. 63. In 1 Cor. 10 : 16, 17, Knivuvia Tov aujiam^ -oi Xptamv is a figurative expression for the spiritual partaking of Christ. In Mark 8 : 33, we are not to infer that Peter was actually "Satan," nor does 1 Cor. 12 : 12 prove that we are all Christs. Cf. Gen. 41 : 26; 1 Cor. 10 : 4).

Mat 26 : 28—"This is my blood which is shed" cannot be meant to be taken literally, since

Christ's blood was not yet shed. Hence the Uouay version ( Roman Catholic), without warrant, changes the tense and rends "which shall bo shed." At the institution of the Supper, it is not conceivable that Christ should hold his body in his own hands, and then break it to the disciples. Zwingle: "The words of institution are not the mandatory 'become': they are only an explanation of the sign." When I point to a picture and say: "This is George Washington," I do not mean that the veritable body and blood of George Washington are before me. So when a teacher points to a map, and says: "This is New York," or when Jesus refers to John the Baptist, and says: "This is Elijah which is to come" (M»t 11:14). Jacob, The Lord's Supper, Historically Considered —"It originally marked, not a real presence, but a real absence, of Christ as the Son of God made man "— that is, a real absence of his hotly. Therefore the Supper, reminding us of his body, is to be observed in the church "till lie come" (1 Cor. 11: 26).

John 6 : 53 —" Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, ye hare not life in yonrselrtt" must be interpreted by verse 63 —" It is the spirit that qnickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I hare spoken unto yon are spirit, and are life." 1 Cor. 10 :16,17 — " The cap of blessing which we bless, is it not a communion of [mars;.—'participation in'] the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not a communion of [marg.—'participation in'] the body of Christ?" Mark S : 33—"Bat he taming about, and seeing his disciples, rebuked Peter, and saith, Get thee behind me, Satan "; 1 Cor. 12 :12 —" For as the body is one and hath many members, and all the members of the body, being many, are one body; so also is Christ" cf. Gen. 41 : 26 —" The seven good kine are seven years; and the seven good ears are seven years: the dream is one "; 1 Cor. 10 : 4 —" they drank of a spiritual rock that followed them: and the rock was Christ"

(6) It contradicts the evidence of the senses, as well as of all scientific tests that can be applied. If we cannot trust our senses as to the unchanged material qualities of bread and wine, we cannot trust them when they report to us the words of Christ.

Gibbon was rejoiced at the discovery that, while the real presence Is attested by only a single sense — our sight [as employed in reading the words of Christ] —the real presence is disproved by three of our senses, sight, touch, and taste. It Is not well to purchase faith in this dogma at the price of absolute scepticism. Stanley, on Baptism, in his Christian Institutions, tells us that, in the third and fourth centuries, the belief that the water of baptism was changed into the blood of Christ was nearly as firmly and widely fixed as the belief that the bread and wine of the communion were changed into his flesh and blood.

(c) It involves the denial of the completeness of Christ's past sacrifice, and the assumption that a human priest can repeat or add to the atonement made by Christ once for all (Heb. 9 : 28 — ana£ irpoocvex®zk ). The Lord's Supper is never called a sacrifice, nor are altars, priests, or consecrations ever spoken of, in the New Testament. The priests of the old dispensation are expressly contrasted with the ministers of the new. The former "ministered about sacred things," i. e., performed sacred rites and waited at the altar; but the latter "preach the gospel" (1 Cor. 9 : 13, 14).

Heb. 9 : 28 —" so Christ also, having been once offered "— here oirof means ' once for all,' as in Jude 3 — "the faith which was once for all delivered unto the saints "; 1 Cor. 9 :13,14 —" Know ye not that they which minister about sacred things eat of the things of the temple, and they which wait upon the altar have their portion with the altar? Even so did the Lord ordain that they which proclaim the gospel should live of the gospel." Romanism Introduces a mediator between the soul and Christ, namely, bread and wine — and the priest besides.

Dorner, Glaubenslehre, 2 :880-087 (Syst. Doct., 4 :146453) —" Christ is thought of as at a distance, and as represented only by the priest who offers anew his sacrifice. But Protestant doctrine holds to a perfect Christ, applying the benefits of the work which he long ago and once for all completed upon the cross." Chillingworth: "Romanists hold that the validity of every sacrament but baptism depends upon its administration by a priest; and without priestly absolution there is no assurance of forgiveness. But the intention of the priest is essential In pronouncing absolution, and the intention of the bishop is essential in consecrating the priest. How can any human being know that these conditions are fulfilled?" In the New Testament, on the other hand. Christ appears as the only priest, and each human soul has direct access to him.

(d) It destroys Christianity by externalizing it. Komanists make all other service a mere appendage to the communion. Physical and magical salvation is not Christianity, but is essential paganism.

Council of Trent, Session vn, On Sacraments In General, Canon iv: "If any one saith that the sacraments of the New Testament are not necessary to salvation, but are superfluous, and that without them, and without the desire thereof, men attain of God, through faith alone, the grace of Justification; though all [ the sacraments ] are not indeed necessary for every individual: let him be anathema." On Baptism, Canon iv: "If any one saith that the baptism which is even given by heretics in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, with the intention of doing what the church doth, is not true baptism, let him be anathema." v: "If any man saith that baptism is free, 1. e., not necessary to salvation: let him be anathema." Baptism, in the Romanist system, is necessary to salvation: and buptism, even though administered by heretics, is an admission to the church. All baptized persons who, through no fault of their own, but from lack of knowledge or opportunity, are not connected outwardly with the true church, though they are apparently attached to some sect, yet in reality belong to the soul of the true church. Many belong merely to the hixly of the Catholic church, and are counted as its members, but do not belong to it* «>u7. So says Archbishop Lynch, of Toronto, and Pius IX extended the doctrine of Invincible ignorance, so as to cover the case of every dissentient from the church whose life shows faith working by love.

Adoration of the host (Latin hmtia, victim) is a regular part of the service of the mass. If the Romanist view were correct that the broad and wine were actually changed into the body and blood of Christ, we could not call this worship idolatry. Christ's body in the sepulchro could not have been a proper object of worship, but it was so after his resurrection, when it became animated with a new and divine life. The Romanist error is that of holding that the priest has power to transform the elements; the worship of them follows as a natural consequenco, and is none the less idolatrous for being based upon the false assumption that the bread and wine are really Christ's body and blood. For the Romanist view, see Council of Trent, Session xm, Canon m; per contra, see Calvin, Institutes, 3 : 585-603.

B. The Lutheran and High Church view,— that the communicant, in partaking of the consecrated elements, eats the veritable body and drinks the veritable blood of Christ in and with the bread and wine, although the elements themselves do not cease to be material. To this doctrine of "consubstantiation" we object:

(a) That the view is not required by Scripture.—All the passages cited in its support may be better interpreted as referring to a partaking of the elements as symbols. If Christ's body be ubiquitous, as this theory holds, we partake of it at every meal, as really as at the Lord's Supper.

(6) That the view is inseparable from the general sacramental system of which it forms a part.—In imposing physical and material conditions of receiving Christ, it contradicts the doctrine of justification only by faith; changes the ordinance from a sign, into a means, of salvation; involves the necessity of a sacerdotal order for the sake of properly consecrating the elements; and logically tends to the Romanist conclusions of ritualism and idolatry.

(c) That it holds each communicant to be a partaker of Christ's veritable body and blood, whether he be a believer or not,— the result, in the absence of faith, being condemnation instead of salvation. Thus the whole character of the ordinance is changed from a festival occasion to one of mystery and fear, and the whole gospel method of salvation is obscured.

For the view here combated, see Gerhard, x : 353 —" The bread, apart from the sacrament instituted by Christ, is not the body of Christ, and therefore it is apro^arpia ( breadworship) to adore the bread in those solemn processions" (of the Roman Catholic church) 397 —" Faith does not belong to the substance of the eucharlst; hence it is not the faith of him who partakes that makes the bread a communication of the body of Christ: nor on account of unbelief In him who partakes does the bread cease to be a communi

cation of the body of Christ." See also Sadler, Church Doctrine, 134-1119; Pusey, Tract No. DO, of the Tractarlan Series; Wilberforee, New Mirth; Nevins, Mystical Presence.

Per contra, see Calvin, Institutes, 2 : 5Z5-5S4; ti. P. Fisher, in Independent, May 1,1884 —" Calvin differed from Luther, in holding that Christ is received only by the believer. He differed from Zwingle, in holding that Christ is truly, though spiritually, received." See also E. G. Koblnson, in Ilaptist Quarterly, 18«9 : &5-109; Rogers, Priests and Sacraments. Consubstantlation accounts for the doctrine of apostolic succession and for the universal ritualism of the Lutheran church. Bowing at the name of Jesus, however, is not, as has been sometimes maintained, a relic of the Papal worship of the Real Presence, but is rather a reminiscence of the fourth century, when controversies about the person of Christ rendered orthodox Christians peculiarly anxious to recognize Christ's deity.

5. Prerequisites to Participation in the Lord's Supper.

A. There are prerequisites. This we argue from the fact:

(a) That Christ enjoined the celebration of the Supper, not upon the world at large, but only upon his disciples; (6) that the apostolic injunctions to Christians, to separate themselves from certain of their number, imply a limitation of the Lord's Supper to a narrower body, even among professed believers; ('•) that the analogy of baptism, as belonging only to a specified class of persons, leads us to believe that the same is true of the Lord's Supper.

B. The prerequisites are those only which are expressly or implicitly laid down by Christ and his apostles.

(a) The church, as possessing executive but not legislative power, is charged with the duty, not of framing rules for the administering and guarding of the ordinance, but of discovering and applying the rules given it in the New Testament. No church has a right to establish any terms of communion; it is responsible only for making known the terms established by Christ and his apostles. (l>) These terms, however, are to be ascertained not only from the injunctions, but also from the precedents, of the New Testament. Since the apostles were inspired, New Testament precedent is the "common law" of the church.

English law consists mainly of precedent, that is, past decisions of the courts. Immemorial customs may be as binding as are the formal enactments of a legislature.

C. On examining the New Testament, we find that the prerequisites to participation in the Lord's Supper are four, namely:

First,— Regeneration.

The Lord's Supper is the outward expression of a life in the believer, nourished and sustained by the life of Christ. It cannot therefore be partaken of by one who is "dead through . . . trespasses and sins." We give no food to a corpse. The Lord's Supper was never offered by the apostles to unbelievers. On the contrary, the injunction that each communicant "examine himself" implies that faith which will enable the communicant to "discern the Lord's body " is a prerequisite to participation.

1 Cor. 11: 27-29 -—" Wherefore whosoever shall eat the bread or drink the cup of the Lord in an unvorthy manner, shall be guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord. But let a man prove himself, and so let him eat of the bread, and drink of the cup. For he that eateth and dhnketh, eateth and drinketh judgment unto himself, if he discern not the Lord's body.'VSchaff. In his Church History. 2 :517, tells us that in the Greek church. In the seventh and eighth centuries, the bread was dipped in the wine, and both elements were delivered iu a spoon. See Edwards, on Qualifications for Full Communion, in Works, 1:81.

Secondly,— Baptism.

In proof that baptism is a prerequisite to the Lord's Supper, we urge the following considerations:

(a) The ordinance of baptism was instituted and administered long before the supper.

Hit. 21: 25—"The baptism of John, whence was it? from heaven or from men?"—Christ here Intimates that John's baptism had been instituted by God before his own.

(6) The apostles who first celebrated it had, in all probability, been baptized.

Acts 1: 21, 22—" Of the men therefore which have companied with us all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out

among us, beginning from the baptism of John of these must one become a witness with us of his resurrection'';

19 : 4 —" John baptized with the baptism of repentance, saving unto the people, that they should believe on him which should come after him, that is, on Jesus."

Several of the apostles were certainly disciples of John. If Christ was baptized, much more his disciples. Jesus recofrnized John's baptism as obligatory, and it is not probable that he would take his apostles from among those who had not submitted to it. John the Baptist himself, the first administrator of baptism, must have been himself unbaptized. But the twelve could fitly administer it, because they had themselves received it at John's hands. See Arnold, Terms of Communion, 17.

(c) The command of Christ fixes the place of baptism as first in order after discipleship.

Hat. 28 :19, 20— "Go je therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, baptising them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost: teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I commanded you"—here the first duty is to make disciples, the second to baptize, the third to instruct in right Christian living. Is it said that there is no formal command to admit only baptized persons to the Lord's Supper? We reply that there is no formal command to admit only regenerate persons to baptism. In both cases, the practice of the apostles and the general connections of Christian doctrine are sufficient to determine our duty.

(d) All the recorded cases show this to have been the order observed by the first Christians and sanctioned by the apostles.

lets 2 : 41, 46 —" Then they that received his word were baptised .... and day by day, continuing steadfastlv with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread at home [rather, 'in various worship-rooms'] they did take their food with gladness and singleness of heart"; 8 :12 —" and when they believed Philip .... they were baptized "; 10 : 47, 48 —" Can any man forbid the water, that these should not be baptized, which have received the Holy Ghost as well as we? and he commanded them to be baptised in the name of Jesus Christ"; 22 :16 —" And now why tarriest thou? Arise, and be baptised, and wash away thy sins, calling on his name."

(e) The symbolism of the ordinances requires that baptism should precede the Lord's Supper. The order of the facts signified must be expressed in the order of the ordinances which signify them; else the world is taught that sanctification may take place without regeneration. Birth must come before sustenance—'nascimur, pasoimur.' To enjoy ceremonial privileges, there must be ceremonial qualifications. As none but the circumcised could eat the passover, so before eating with the Christian family must come adoption into the Christian family.

As one must be "born of the Spirit" before he can experience the sustaining Influence of Christ, so he must be "born of water" before he can properly be nourished by the Lord's Supper. Neither the unborn nor the dead can eat bread or drink wine. Only when Christ had raised the daughter of the Jewish ruler to life, did he say: "Give her to eat" The ordinance which symbolizes regeneration, or the Impartation of new life, must precede the ordinance which symbolizes the strengthening and perfecting of the life already begun.

(/) The standards of all evangelical denominations, with unimportant exceptions, confirm the view that this is the natural interpretation of the Scripture requirements respecting the order of the ordinances.

"The only protest of note has been made by a portion of the English Baptists." To these should be added the comparatively small body of the Free Will Baptists in America. Pedobaptist churches In general refuse full membership, office-holding, and the ministry, to unbaptlzod persons. The Presbyterian church does not admit to the Communion members of the Society of Friends. Not one of the great evangelical denominations accepts Robert Hall's maxim that the only terms of communion are terms of salvation. If individual ministers announce this principle and conform their practice to it. It is only because they transgress the standards of the churches to which they belong.

See Tyerman's Oxford Methodists, preface, page vi —"Even in Georgia, Wesley excluded dissenters from the Holy Communion, on the ground that they had not been properly baptized; and he would himself baptize only by immersion, unless the child or person was in a weak state of health." Baptist Noel gave it as his reason for submitting to baptism, that to approach the Lord's Supper conscious of not being baptized would be to act contrary to all the precedents of Scripture. See Curtis, Progress of Baptist Principles, 304.

(g) The practical results of the opposite view are convincing proof that the order here insisted on is the order of nature as well as of Scripture. The admission of unbaptized persons to the communion tends always to, and has frequently resulted in, the disuse of baptism itself, the obscuring of the truth which it symbolizes, the transformation of scripturally constituted churches into bodies organized after methods of human invention, and the complete destruction of both church and ordinances as Christ originally constituted them.

John Bunyan's church, once Baptist, Is now a Congregational body. Some of the deacons of Regent's Park church in London have never been baptized in any form. Arnold, Terms of Communion, "6: The steps of departure from Scriptural precedent have not unfrcquently been the following: (1) administration of baptism on a weekday evening, to avoid giving offence; (2) reception, without baptism, of persons renouncing belief in the baptism of their infancy; (3) giving up of the Lord's Supper as non-essential — to be observed or not observed by each Individual, according as he finds it useful; (4) choice of a pastor who will not advocate Baptist views; (5) adoption of Congregational articles of faith: (6) discipline and exclusion of members for propagating Baptist doctrine. See also Curtis, Progress of Baptist Principles, 398-298.

Thirdly,— Church membership.

(a) The Lord's Supper is a church ordinance, observed by churches of Christ as such. For this reason, membership in the church naturally precedes communion. Since communion is a family rite, the participant should first be member of the family.

acts 2 : 46, 4" —" breaking bread at home [ rather, 'in yarious worship-rooms' ]" (see Com. of Meyer); 20 ; 7 —" upon the Ant day of the week, when we were gathered together to break bread "; 1 Cor. 11 : 18, 22 - "when ye come together in the church .... hare ye not bouses to eat and to drink in? or despise je the church of God, and put them to shame that hare not?"

(b) The Lord's Supper is a symbol of church fellowship. Excommunication implies nothing, if it does not imply exclusion from the communion. If the Supper is simply communion of the individual with Christ, then the church has no right to exclude any from it.

1 Cor. 10 :17—"we, who ire man J, are one bread, one body: for we all partake of the one bread." Though the Lord's Supper primarily symbolizes fellowship with Christ, it symbolizes secondarily fellowship with the church of Christ. Not all believers In Christ were present at the first celebration of the Supper, but only those organized Into a body— the apostles. I can Invite proper persons to my tea-table, but that does not give them the right to come uninvited. Each church, therefore, should invite visiting members of sister-churches to partake with it. The Lord's Supper is an ordinance by itself, and should not be celebrated at conventions and associations, simply to lend dignity to something else.

The Panpresbyterian Council at Philadelphia, in 1880, refused to observe the Lord's Supper together, upon the ground that the Supper is a church ordinance, to be observed only by those who are amenable to the discipline of the body, and therefore not to be observed by separate church organizations acting together. Substantially upon this ground, the Old School General Assembly long before, being invited to unite at the Lord's table with the New School body with whom they had dissolved ecclesiastical relations, declined to do so. See Curtis, Progress of Baptist Principles, 304; Arnold, Terms of Communion, 36.

Fourthly,— An orderly walk.

1 Cor. 5 : 9,11—"I wrote unto you in my epistle to have no company with fornicators bnt now I write unto

you, not to keep company, if any man that is named a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or an extortioner; with such a one no, not to eat"; 2 Than. 3 : 6 —" Now we command you, brethren, .... that ye withdraw yourselves from every brother that walketh disorderly, and not after the tradition which they received of us."

Disorderly walking we may, with Arnold, class under four heads: (a) Immoral conduct.

1 Cor. 5:1-13 —Paul commands the Corinthian church to exclude the Incestuous person: "Put away the wicked man from among yourselves."

(6) Disobedience to the commands of Christ.— Since baptism is a command of Christ, we cannot properly commune with the unbaptized. To admit such to the Lord's Supper is to withhold protest against a plain disobedience to Christ's commands, and to that extent to countenance such disobedience.

1 Cor. 14 : 37—"If any man thinketh himself to be a prophet, or spiritual, let him take knowledge of the things which I write unto you, that they are the commandment of the Lord"; 2 Thess. 1:1—"Paul, and Silvanus, and Timothy, unto the church of the Thessalonians in God our Father and the lord Jesus Christ"; 3 :11,14 —"For we hear

of some that walk among you disorderly, that work not at all. but are busybodies And if any man obey not our

word by this epistle, note that man, that ye have no company with him, to the end that he may be ashamed."

(c) Heresy.—Since pedobaptists hold and propagate false doctrine with regard to the church and its ordinances — doctrine which endangers the spirituality of the church, the sufficiency of the Scriptures, and the lordship of Christ—we cannot properly admit them to the Lord's Supper. To admit them, or to partake with them, would be to treat falsehood as if it were truth.

Titus 3 :10—"a man that is heretical [Am. Revisers: 'a factious man' ] after a trst and second admonition refuse"; cf. acts 20 : 30 —" from among your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after them." The Panpresbyterian Council, mentioned above, refused to admit to their body the Cumberland Presbyterians, because, though they adhere to the Presbyterian form of church government, they are Arminian in their views of the doctrines of grace.

Arnold, Terms of Communion, 73—" Pedobaptists are guilty of teaching that the baptized are not members of the church, or that membership in the church Is not voluntary; that there are two sorts of baptism, one of which Is a profession of faith of the person baptized, and the other Is profession of faith of another person; that regeneration Is given in and by baptism, or that the church is by the law of its constitution necessarily composed in great part of persons who do not give, and wore never supposed to give. any evidence of regeneration; that the church has a right to change essentially one of Christ's institutions, or that it is unessential whether it be observed as he ordained It or in some other manner; that baptism may be rightfully administered in a way which makes much of the language in which it is described in the Scriptures wholly unsuitable and inapplicable, and which does not at all represent the facts and doctrines which baptism is declared in the Scriptures to represent; that the Scriptures are not In all religious matters the sufficient and only binding rule of faith and practice."

(d) Schism.— Since pedobaptists, by their teaching and practice, draw many away from scripturally constituted churches,— thus dividing true believers from each other and weakening the bodies organized after the model of the New Testament,— it is imperative upon us to separate ourselves from them, so far as regards that communion at the Lord's table which is the sign of church fellowship.

Rom. 16 : 17—"Now I beseech you, brethren, mark Ihem which are causing the divisions and occasions of stumbling, contrary to the doctrine which ye learned: and turn away from them." Mr. Spurgeon admits Pedobaptists to commune with his church "for two or three months." Then they are kindly asked whether they are pleased with the church, its preaching, doctrine, form of government, etc-. If they say they are pleased, they are asked if they are not disposed to lie baptized and become members? If so inclined, all is well; but if not, they are kindly told that It is not desirable for them to commune longer. Thus baptism is held to precede church membership and permanent communion, although temporary communion is permitted without it. ,

D. The local church is the judge whether these prerequisites are fulfilled in the cose of persons desiring to partake of the Lord's Supper.—This is evident from the following considerations:

(a) The command to observe the ordinance was given, not to individuals, but to a company.

(6) Obedience to this command is not an individual act, but is the joint act of many.

(c) The regular observance of the Lord's Supper cannot be secured, nor

the qualifications of persons desiring to participate in it be scrutinized,

unless some distinct organized body is charged with this responsibility.

"What is everybody's business is nobody's business." If there be any power of effective scrutiny, it must be lodged in the local church.

(d) The only organized body known to the New Testament is the local church, and tins is the only body, of any sort, competent to have charge of the ordinances. The invisible church has no officers.

(e) The New Testament accounts indicate that the Lord's Supper was observed only at regular appointed meetings of local churches, and was observed by these churches as regularly organized bodies.

Acts 20 : 7—" And upon the first day of the week, when we were gathered together to break bread "; 1 Cor. 11:18, 20, 22, 33 —" When ye come together in the church .... When therefore ye assemble yourselves together .... Despise ye the church of God ? .. . When ye come together to eat,"

(/) Since the duty of examining the qualifications of candidates for baptism and for membership is vested in the local church and is essential to its distinct existence, the analogy of the ordinances would lead us to believe that the scrutiny of qualifications for participation in the Lord's Supper rests with the same body.

The minister is not to administer the ordinance of the Lord's Supper at his own option, any more than the ordinance of Baptism. Ho is simply the organ of the church. He is co follow the rules of the church as to invitations and as to the mode of celebrating the ■ordinance, of course instructing the church as to the order of the New Testament. In case of sick members who desire to communicate, brethren may be deputed by the church to hold a special meeting: of the church at the private house or sick-room, and then only may the pastor officiate. On the whole subject, see Madison Avenue Lectures, 217-242, 243-260.

E. Special objections to open communion.

The advocates of this view claim that baptism, as not being an indispensable term of salvation, cannot properly be made an indispensable term of communion.

Robert Hall, Works, 1 :285, held that there can be no proper terms of communion which are not also terms of salvation. He claims that "we are expressly commanded to tolerate in the church all those diversities of opinion which are not inconsistent with salvation." For the open communion view, see also John M. Mason, Works, 1 :3-369; Princeton Review, Oct., 1850; Bib. Sac. 21 : 449; 24 : 482; 25 : 401; Spirit of the Pilgrims, 6 : 103, 142. But, as Curtis remarks, in his Progress of Baptist Principles, 292, this principle would utterly frustrate the very objects for which visible churches were founded — to be "the pillar and ground of the truth" (1 Tim. 3 :15"); for truth is set forth as forcibly In ordinances as In doctrine.

In addition to what has already been said, we reply: (a) This view is contrary to the belief and practice of all but an insignificant fragment of organized Christendom.

The English Baptists, and the Free Will Baptists in America, are the only bodies which in their standards of faith accept and maintain the principle of open communion.

(6) It assumes an unscriptural inequality between the two ordinances. The Lord's Supper holds no higher rank in Scripture than does baptism. The obligation to commune is no more binding than the obligation to profess faith by being baptized. Open communion, however, treats baptism as if it were optional, while it insists upon communion as indispensable.

Robert Hall should rather have said: "No church has a right to establish terms of baptism which are not also terms of salvation," for baptism is most frequently in Scripture connected with the things that accompany salvation. We believe faith to be one prerequisite, but not the only one. We may hold a person to be a Christian without thinking him entitled to commune unless be has been also baptized.

(c) It tends to do away with baptism altogether. If the highest privilege of church membership may be enjoyed without baptism, baptism loses its place and importance as the initiatory ordinance of the church.

Robert Hall would admit to the Lord's Supper those who deny baptism to be perpetually binding on the church. A foreigner may love this country, but he cannot vote at our elections unless he has been naturalized. Ceremonial rites imply ceremonial qualifications.

(d) It tends to do away with all discipline. When Christians offend, the church must withdraw its fellowship from them. But upon the principle of open communion, such withdrawal is impossible, since the Lord's Supper, the highest expression of church fellowship, is open to every person who regards himself as a Christian.

H. F. Colby: "Ought we to acknowledge that Evangelical Podobaptists are qualified to partake of the Lord's Supper? We are ready to admit them on precisely the same terms on which we admit ourselves. Our communion bars come to be a protest, but from no plan of ours. They become a protest merely as every act of loyalty to truth becomes a protest against error."

(e) It tends to do away with the visible church altogether. For no risible church is possible, unless some sign of membership be required, in addition to the signs of membership in the invisible church. Open communion logically leads to open church membership, and a church membership open to all, without reference to the qualifications required in Scripture, or without examination on the part of the church as to the existence of these qualifications in those who unite with it, is virtually an identification of the church with the world, and, without protest from scripturally constituted bodies, would finally result in its actual extinction.

At the Free Will Baptist Convention at Providence, Oct., 1874, the question came up of admitting pedobaptists to membership. This was disposed of by resolving that "Christian baptism is a personal act of public consecration to Christ, and that believers' baptism and Immersion alone, as baptism, are fundamental principles of the denomination." In other words, unlmmersud believers would not be admitted to membership. But is It not the Lord's church? Have we a right to exclude? Is this not bigotry? The Free Will Baptist answers: "No, it Is only loyalty to truth."

We claim that, upon the same principle, he should go further, and refuse to admit to the communion those whom be refuses to admit to church membership. The reasons assigned for acting upon the opposite principle are sentimental rather than rational. See John Stuart Mill's definition of sentimentality, quoted in Martlneau's Essays, 1: M —" Sentimentality consists In setting the sympathetic aspect of things, or their loveableness, above their aesthetic aspect, their beauty; or above the moral aspect of them, their right or wrong."

Objections To Strict Communion, And Answers To Them (condensed from Arnold, Terms of Communion, 82):

"1st. Primitive rules are not applicable now. Reply: (1) The laws of Christ are unchangeable. (2) The primitive order ought to be restored.

"2nd. Baptism, as an external rite, is of less importance than love. Reply: (1) It is not Inconsistent with love, but the mark of love, to keep Christ's commandments. (2) Love for our brethren requires protest against their errors.

"3rd. Petloltaptists think themselves baptized. Reply: (1) This Is a reason why they should act as if they believed it, not a reason why we should act as if it were so.

(2) We cannot submit our consciences to their views of truth without harming ourselves and them.

"4th. Strict Communion is a hindrance to union among Christians. Reply: (1) Christ desires only union In the truth. (2) Baptists are not responsible for the separation.

(3) Mixed communion Is not a cure but a cause of disunion.

"5th. The rule excludes from the communion baptized members of pedobaptist churches. Reply: (1) These persons are walking disorderly, in promoting error. (2) The Lord's Supper Is a symbol of church fellowship, not of fellowship for individuals, apart from their church relations.

"6th. A plea for dispensing with the rule exists in extreme cases where persons must commune with us or not at all. Reply: (1) It is hard to tlx limits to these exceptions: they would be likely to encroach more and more, till the rule became merely nominal. (2) It Is a greater privilege and means of grace, In such circumstances, to abstain from communing, than contrary to principle to participate. (3) It is not right to participate with others, where we cannot invite them reciprocally.

"7th. Alleged inconsistency of our practice, (a) Since we expect to commune in heaven. Reply: This confounds Christian fellowship with church fellowship. We do commune with pedobaptists spiritually, here as hereafter. We do not expect to partake of the Lord's Supper with them, or with others, In heaven, (b) Since we reject the better and receive the worse. Reply: We are not at liberty to refuse to apply Christ's outward rule, because we cannot equally apply his Inward spiritual rule of character. Pedobaptists withhold communion from those they regard as unbaptized, though they may be more spiritual than some in the church. (c) Since we recognize pedobaptists as brethren in union meetings, exchange of pulpits, etc. Reply: None of these acts of fraternal fellowship Imply the church communion which admission to the Lord's table would imply. This last would recognize them as baptized: the former do not.

"8th. Alleged impolicy of our practice. Reply: (1) This consideration would be pertinent, only if we were at liberty to change our practice when It was expedient, or was thought to be so. (2) Any particular truth will Inspire respect in others in proportion as its advocates show that they respect it. In England our numbers have diminished, compared with the population, in the ratio of 33 per cent.; here we have increased 60 per cent., in proportion to the ratio of population.

Summary. Open communion must be justified, if at all, on one of four grounds: First, that baptism is not prerequisite to communion. But this is opposed to the belief and practice of all churches. Secondly, that Immersion on profession of faith is not essential to baptism. But this is renouncing Baptist principles altogether. Thirdly, that the individual, and not the church, is to be the Judge of his qualifications for admission to the communion. But this is contrary to sound reason, and fatal to the ends for which the church is Instituted. For, if the conscience of the individual is to be the rule of the action of the church in regard to his admission to the Lord's Supper, why not also with regard to his regeneration, his doctrinal belief, and his obedience to Christ's commands generally? Fourthly, that the church has no responsibility in regard to the qualifications of those who come to her communion. But this is abandoning the principle of the independence of the churches, and their accountableness to Christ, and it overthrows all church discipline."

See also Hovey, in Bib. Sac, 1862: 133; Pepper, in Bap. Quar., 1867: 216; Curtis on Communion, 292; Howell, Terms of Communion; Williams, The Lord's Supper; Theodosia Earnest, pub. by Am. Bap. Pub. Soc.; Wilkinson, The Baptist Principle. In concluding our treatment of Ecclesiology, we desire to call attention to the fact that Jacob, the English Churchman, in his Ecclesiastical Polity of the N. T., and Cunningham, the Scotch Presbyterian, in his Croall Lectures for 1886, have furnished Baptists with much valuable material for the defense of the New Testament doctrine of the Church and its Ordinances. In fact, a complete statement of the Baptist positions might easily be constructed from the concessions of their various opponents.