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, or the promotion of division and dissension in the church. This also requires exclusion from church fellowship, and from the Lord's Supper which is its appointed sign.

Rom. 16:17-"Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them that are causing the divisions and occasions of stumbling contrary to the doctrine which ye learned: and turn away from them." 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. 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 be 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 cominunion is permitted without it.

Arnold, Prerequisites to Communion, 80-"It may perhaps be objected that the passages cited under the four preceding subdivisions refer to church fellowship in a general way, without any specific reference to the Lord's Supper. In reply to this objection, I would answer, in the first place, that having endeavored previously to establish the position that the Lord's Supper is an ordinance to be celebrated in the church, and expressive of church fellowship, I felt at liberty to use the passages that enjoin the withdrawal of that fellowship as constructively enjoining exclusion from the Communion, which is its chief token. I answer, secondly, that the principle here assumed seems to me to pervade the Scriptural teachings so thoroughly that it is next to impossible to lay down any Scriptural terms of communion at the Lord's table, except upon the admission that the ordinance is inseparably connected with church fellowship. To treat the subject otherwise, would be, as it appears to me, a violent putting asunder of what the Lord has joined together. The objection suggests an additional argument in favor of our position that the Lord's Supper is a church ordinance." "Who Christ's body doth divide, Wounds afresh the Crucified; Who Christ's people doth perplex, Weakens faith and comfort wrecks; Who Christ's order doth not see, Works in vain for unity; Who Christ's word doth take for guide, With the Bridegroom loves the Bride."

D. The local church is the judge whether these prerequisites are fulfilled in the case 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.

(b) 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.

(d) The only organized body known to the New Testament is the local church, and this 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.

(f) 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.

(g) This care that only proper persons are admitted to the ordinances should be shown, not by open or forcible debarring of the unworthy at the time of the celebration, but by previous public instruction of the congregation, and, if needful in the case of persistent offenders, by subsequent private and friendly admonition.

"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. The minister is not to administer the ordinance of the Lord's Supper at his own option, any more than the ordinance of Baptism. He is simply the organ of the church. He is to 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 the case of sick members who desire to communicate, brethren may be deputed to hold a special meeting of the church at the private house or sick room, and then only may the pastor officiate. If an invitation to the Communion is given, it may well be in the following form: "Members in good standing of other churches of like faith and practice are cordially invited to partake with us." But since the comity of Baptist churches is universally acknowledged, and since Baptist views with regard to the ordinances are so generally understood, it should be taken for granted that all proper persons will be welcome even if no invitation of any sort is given.

Mr. Spurgeon, as we have seen, permitted unbaptized persons temporarily to partake of the Lord's Supper unchallenged, but if there appeared a disposition to make participation habitual, one of the deacons in a private interview explained Baptist doctrine and urged the duty of baptism. If this advice was not taken, participation in the Lord's Supper naturally ceased. Dr. P. S. Henson proposes a middle path between open and close communion, as follows; "Preach and urge faith in Jesus and obedience to him. Leave choice with participants themselves. It is not wise to set up a judgment-seat at the Lord's table. Always preach the Scriptural order-1. Faith in Jesus; 2. Obedience in Baptism; 3. Observance of the Lord's Supper." J. B. Thomas: "Objections to strict communion come with an ill grace from pedobaptists who withhold communion from their own baptized, whom they have forcibly made quasi-members in spite of the only protest they are capable of offering, and whom they have retained as subjects of discipline without their consent."

A. H. Strong, Cleveland Sermon on Our Denominational Outlook, May 19, 1904 — “If I am asked whether Baptists still hold to restricted communion, I answer that our principle has not changed, but that many of us apply the principle in a different manner from that of our fathers. We believe that Baptism logically precedes the Lord's Supper, as birth precedes the taking of nourishment, and regeneration precedes sanctification. We believe that the order of the ordinances is an important point of Christian doctrine, and itself teaches Christian doctrine. Hence we proclaim it and adhere to it, in our preaching and our practice. But we do not turn the Lord's Supper into a judgment-seat, or turn the officers of the church into detectives. We teach the truth, and expect that the truth will win its way. We are courteous to all who come among us; and expect that they in turn will have the courtesy to respect our convictions and to act accordingly. But there is danger here that we may break from our moorings and drift into indifferentism with regard to the ordinances. The recent advocacy of open church-membership is but the logical consequence of a previous concession of open communion. I am persuaded that this new doctrine is confined to very few among us. The remedy for this false liberalism is to be found in that same Christ who solves for us all other problems. It is this Christ who sets the solitary in families, and who makes of one every nation that dwells on the face of the earth. Christian denominations are at least temporarily his appointment. Loyalty to the body which seems to us best to represent his truth is also loyalty to him. Loye for Christ does not involve the surrender of the ties of family, or nation, or denomination, but only consecrates and ennobles them,

"Yet Christ is King in Zion. There is but one army of the living God, even though there are many divisions. We can emphasize our unity with other Christian bodies, rather than the differences between us. We can regard them as churches of the Lord Jesus, even though they are irregularly constituted. As a marriage ceremony may be valid, even though performed without a license and by an unqualified administrator; and as an ordination may be valid, even though the ordinary laying-on of hands be omitted; so the ordinance of the Lord's Supper as administered in pedobaptist churches may be valid, though irregular in its accompaniments and antecedents. Though we still protest against the modern perversions of the New Testament doctrine as to the subjects and mode of Baptism, we hold with regard to the Lord's Supper that irregularity is not invalidity, and that we may recognize as churches even those bodies which celebrate the Lord's Supper without having been baptized. Our faith in the larger Christ is bringing us out from our denominational isolation into an inspiring recognition of our oneness with the universal church of God throughout the world.'' On the whole subject, see Madison Avenue Lectures, 217-260; and A. H. Strong, on Christian Truth and its Keepers, in Philosophy and Religion, 238-244.

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, 1:369; 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.

A portion of the English Baptists, and the Free Will Baptists in America, are the only bodies which in their standards of faith accept and maintain the principles of open communion. As to the belief and practice of the Methodist Episcopal denomination, the New York Christian Advocate states the terms of communion as being: 1. Discipleship; 2. Baptism; 3. Consistent church life, as required in the "Discipline"; and F. G. Hibbard, Christian Baptism, 174, remarks that, "in one principle the Baptist and pedobaptist churches agree. They both agree in rejecting from the communion at the table of the Lord, and denying the rights of church fellowship to all who have not been baptized. Valid baptism, they consider, is essential to constitute visible church membership. This also we [Methodists] hold. . . . . The charge of close communion is no more applicable to the Baptists than to us."

The Interior states the Presbyterian position as follows: "The difference between our Baptist brethren and ourselves is an important difference. We agree with them, however, in saying that unbaptized persons should not partake of the Lord's Supper. Close communion, in our judgment, is a more defensible position than open communion." Dr. John Hall: "If I believed, with the Baptists, that none are baptized but those who are immersed on profession of faith, I should, with them, refuse to commune with any others."

As to the views of Congregationalists, we quote from Dwight, Systematic Theology, sermon 160-"It is an indispensable qualification for this ordinance that the candidate for communion be a member of the visible church of Christ, in full standing. By this I intend that he should be a man of piety; that he should have made a public profession of religion; and that he should have been baptized." The Independent: "We have never been disposed to charge the Baptist church with any special narrowness or bigotry in their rule of admission to the Lord's table. We do not see how it differs from that commonly admitted and established among Presbyterian churches."

The Episcopal standards and authorities are equally plain. The Book of Common Prayer, Order of Confirmation, declares: "There shall none be admitted to the holy communion, until such time as he be confirmed, or be ready and desirous to be confirmed "-confirmation always coming after baptism. Wall, History of Infant Baptism, part 2, chapter 9 - "No church ever gave the communion to any persons before they were baptized. Among all the absurdities that ever were held, none ever maintained that any person should partake of the communion before he was baptized."

(b) 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 he has been also baptized.

Ezra's reform in abolishing mixed marriages with the surrounding heathen was not narrow nor bigoted nor intolerant. Miss Willard said well that from the Gerizim of holy beatitudes there comes a voice: "Blessed are the inclusive, for they shall be included," and from Mount Ebal a voice, saying: "Sad are the exclusive, for they shall be excluded." True liberality is both Christian and wise. We should be just as liberal as Christ himself, and no more so. Even Miss Willard would not include rumsellers in the Christian Temperance Union, nor think that town blessed that did not say to saloon keepers: "Repent, or go." The choir is not narrow because it does not include those who can only make discords, nor is the sheepfold intolerant that refuses to include wolves, nor the medical society that excludes quacks, nor the church that does not invite the disobedient and schismatic to its communion.

(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. Dr. Meredith in Brooklyn said to his great Bible Class that a man, though not a Christian, but who felt himself a sinner and needing Christ, could worthily partake of the Lord's Supper. This is the logic of open communion. The Supper is not limited to baptized persons, nor to church members, nor even to converted people, but belongs also to the unconverted world. This is not only to do away with Baptism, but to make the Lord's Supper a converting ordinance.

(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 pedobaptists 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." Constitutions of the Holy Apostles, book 2, section 7 (about 250 A. D.)—“But if they [those who have been convicted of wickedness ] afterwards repent and turn from their error, then we receive them as we receive the heathen, when they wish to repent, into the church indeed to hear the word, but do not receive them to communion until they have received the seal of baptism and are made complete Christians."

(e) It tends to do away with the visible church altogether. For no visible 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.

Dr. Walcott Calkins, in Andover Review: "It has never been denied that the Puritan way of maintaining the purity and doctrinal soundness of the churches is to secure a soundly converted membership. There is one denomination of Puritans which has never deviated a hair's breadth from this way. The Baptists have always insisted that regenerate persons only ought to receive the sacraments of the church. And they have depended absolutely upon this provision for the purity and doctrinal soundness of their churches."

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, unimmersed 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 he 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 Martineau's Essays, 1:94-"Sentimentality consists in setting the sympathetic aspect of things, or their loveableness, above their æsthetic 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.

"2d. 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.

"3d. Pedobaptists 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 fix 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.

"7. 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