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SHORT

STATEMENT OF THE REASONS

FOR

CHRISTIAN IN OPPOSITION TO PARTY

COMMUNION.

PREFACE.

AFTER having discussed so largely, in some former publications, the question of strict communion, that is the prevailing practice in the Baptist denomination of confining their fellowship to members of their own community, it was not my intention to trouble the public with the subject any farther, not having the least ambition for the last word in controversy.. But it has been suggested to me, that it would not be difficult to condense the substance of the argument within a smaller compass, so as to render it accessible to such as have neither the leisure nor the inclination to peruse a large performance. It has been my endeavor to cut off every thing superfluous, and, without doing injury to the merits of the cause, to present the reasoning which sustains it, in a concise and popular form; how far I have succeeded, must be left to the judgement of the reader.

I would only remark here, that all I have seen and heard concurs to convince me that the practice of strict communion, rests almost entirely on authority, and that were the influence of a few great names withdrawn, it would sink under its own weight. Among those of recent date, none has been more regarded than that of the late venerable Fuller; and as he left a manuscript on this subject to be published after his death, he is considered as having deposed his dying testimony in its favor. That he felt some predilection to a practice to which he had been so long accustomed, and whose propriety was very rarely questioned in his early days, is freely admitted; but that he all along felt some hesitation on the subject, and that his mind was not completely made up, I am induced to believe from several circumstances. First, from the fact of his proposing himself to commune at Cambridge, with the full knowledge of there being Pædobaptists present. Secondly, from a conversation which passed, many years ago, between him and the writer of these lines. In re

ply to his observation that we act precisely on the same principle with our Pædobaptist brethren, since they also insist on baptism as an essential pre-requisite to communion, it was remarked, that this was a mere argumentum ad hominem; it might serve to silence the clamors of those Pædobaptists, who, while they adhered to that principle, charged us with bigotry; but that still it did not touch the merits of the question, since a previous inquiry occurs, whether any thing more is requisite to communion, on scriptural grounds, than a vital union with Christ; his answer was, When mixed communion is placed on that footing, I never yet ventured to attack it. Hence I am compelled to consider his posthumous tract rather as a trial of what might be adduced on that side of the controversy, with a view to provoke further inquiry, than the result of deliberate and settled conviction.

Be this as it may, great as his merits were, he was but a man, and as such liable to err, even on subjects of much greater importance. All I wish is, that without regard to human names or authorities, the matter in debate may be entirely determined by an unprejudiced appeal to reason and Scripture.

The prevalence of this disposition to bow to authority, and to receive opinions upon trust, is strikingly illustrated by the following anecdote. A highly respected friend of mine, on asking one of his deacons, a man of primitive piety and integrity, what objections he had to mixed communion, he replied with great simplicity, that he had two-in the first place, Mr. Fuller did not approve of it, and in the next, the Scripture declares, that he who pulls down a hedge, a serpent shall bite him. The good man very properly placed that reason first, which carried the greatest weight with it.

In short, there is a certain false refinement and subtlety in the argument for strict communion which would never occur to a plain man, who was left solely to the guidance of Scripture. In common with almost every other error, it derived its origin from the public teachers of religion, and with a change of sentiment in them, it will gradually disappear; nor will it be long ere our churches will be surprised that they suffered themselves to be betrayed, by specious but hollow sophistry, into a practice so repulsive and so impolitic. Amicus Plato, amicus Socrates, sed magis amica veritas. October 7th, 1826.

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