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THE

AMERICAN

BIBLICAL REPOSITORY.

JULY, 1839.

SECOND SERIES, NO. III.—WHOLE NO. XXXV.

ARTICLE I.

SACRAMENTAL COMMUNION.

By the Rev. Noah Porter, D. D. Farmington, Conn.

"Is thy heart right with God? If it be, give me thy hand. I do not mean, 'be of my opinion.' You need not. Neither do I mean 'I will be of your opinion,' I cannot. Let all opinions alone; only give me thine hand."-Wesley.

In the sacrifice of the passover, it was ordained in Israel that it should not be offered within any of their gates; but only in the place which the Lord their God should choose to place his name in. There the assembled nation were to sacrifice the passover at even. The design was that it should be an act of solemn public communion on the part of the whole people; and for this purpose, even those who were detained at home, were required to testify their concurrence with those who were assembled at the tabernacle, by uniting with them in the use of unleavened bread. There was to be no leavened bread seen in all their coasts seven days.* .* So also the ordinances of the New Testament, and especially the feast in which Christ our passover is represented as slain for us, are designed to be communional; and to unite in communion the whole Israel of God. Although in the present world that communion cannot be uni

* Deut. 16: 1-6.

SECOND SERIES, VOL. II. NO. III.

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versal in its visible form, there is nothing exclusive in its nature. All the circumcision," as they have opportunity are required to join, and of course all are bound to receive each other, in its solemnities. Neither sectarian distinctions, nor differences on questions of reform, modes of doing good, or any other subject, which do not involve the essentials of Christianity, can warrantably be made a ground of exclusion. "Receive ye one another as Christ also received us to the glory of God," is the divine rule. A credible profession of the gospel is the only indispensable condition, which we are authorised to require. Or, as the same thing is stated by Robert Hall, "No man, or set of men, are entitled to prescribe as an indispensable condition of communion, what the New Testament has not enjoined as a condition of salvation."

The truth of this principle with application to sectarian differences has of late been extensively admitted; and its prevalence has been hailed as the dawn of a better day. But it may be doubted whether even among the different denominations in this country which are acknowledged by each other to be essentially christian, it has not for a few of the last years been losing ground; and it is notorious that great numbers belonging to these denominations severally have taken positions in relation to each other which are inconsistent with it. In their zeal for reform they have usurped the power which Christ has vested in his church for the preservation of its distinctive character as a society of visible believers, to array public sentiment against particular forms of evil, by excluding from its communion those who are not persuaded to concur in their measures, even though they would not dare to pronounce them unworthy of the christian name. In those divisive measures also which have been so unhappily resorted to, under the pretence, and, as we doubt not with respect to many individuals with the sincere desire, of maintaining the true faith and order of the gospel, it is impossible for impartial observers not to perceive that the great principle of "receiving one another, as Christ also receives us," has been very extensively disowned, or the true spirit of it lamentably forgotten. It is time, then, that this fundamental principle in the constitution of the church of God were reviewed, and the obligations imposed by it, solemnly pondered. With this in view the following considerations are submitted.

1. A credible profession of the Gospel is confessedly the only

indispensable condition authorized by the New Testament for admission to the ordinance of baptism. "Go ye-preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved." "Go ye-teach (evangelize) all nations, bap tizing them." "Repent ye and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ." "As many as gladly received the word were baptized." "What doth hinder that I should be baptized? If thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest." These passages clearly imply that whoever gives reasonable evidence of faith in Christ, be he in other respects what he may, is entitled to christian baptism. At the hands of any minister of Christ he may demand it in the name of their common Lord. And where is the passage in all the Scriptures which intimates that other conditions are requisite for one of the special ordinances of the New Testament, than are requisite for the other? When you have received a person to baptism on a profession of his faith, where is your warrant for excluding him from the Lord's supper? By baptism you seal him as a member of the christian church; and where is the evidence that the Lord's supper is not to be administered to all the accredited members of the church? These ordinances are the common inheritance of the family of God, and cannot lawfully be separated.

2. The Lord's supper is especially designed to be a symbol of the union of Christians as fellow members of the body of Christ. The church of Christ is one. Unity is its essential characteristic. All its sincere members are spiritually joined together in Christ, and all its visible members are of course bound to acknowledge each other in the sacred relation. In its first and purest age they did this. Familiar as the spectacle of different christian societies who have no fellowship with each other has become, in the beginning it was not so. Then the gospel was acknowledged and felt to be a bond of union between all those who embraced it. The world saw it, to their astonishment binding together in ties more tender and sacred than those of consanguinity itself, those whose characters and feelings had before been most discordant and repulsive. "Behold," they said, "how these Christians love one another!" From corruptions, indeed, both in doctrine and practice, the primitive church could not, more than the modern, pretend to be free; but those were not suffered to rend the bond of her union. If they were subversive of the common faith, their authors, being irreclaimable,

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