Dear Brethren: - We have chosen as the subject of our circular to you this year, CLOSE COMMUNION. This perhaps is the most successful weapon employed against us. It is seized upon by popular declaimers, and the prejudices of the ignorant and the unthinking, and not unfrequently [sic] the pious and warm-hearted, are aroused against us, as an uncharitable, exclusion, and bigoted denomination. We are charged with debarring the Lord's children from their Parent's table; of refusing to hold fellowship with those whom we admit to be the redeemed of the Lord; and in this way, of creating a schism in the body of Christ. These are grave charges, and, if they can, certainly deserve to be met and exposed. That to the superficial observer of things, these charges have a semblance of truth, we admit; but to one who will candidly and carefully examine the whole subject, that they are as insubstantial and utopian as the castles of a dream, we now propose briefly to demonstrate.
1st. It is untrue that the Lord's Supper is a test of Christian Fellowship. Our Lord instituted it for no such purpose; the Apostles and primitive Saints observe[d] it to no such end. This is the great and capital error of our opponents on this question. They have given to the ordinance a design of their own - have made it a test of Christian fellow ship; and have assumed that it was instituted for this purpose without one particle of scripture proof, and in direct opposition, as we will see presently, of the law of the ordinance: and yet out of this invention of their imaginations, they have manufactured all their weapons against us. We fearlessly appeal to the institution of the Supper, to all that is said in relation to it in the New Testament, and we challenge the production of the first passage bearing the remotest reference to the Supper's being a test of Christian Fellowship.
Let us hear the Apostles upon this subject, I Corinthians 11, 23-29: "For I have received of the Lord that which I also delivered unto you, that the Lord Jesus, the same night in which he was betrayed, took bread, and when he had given thanks, he brake it and said; Take eat, this is my body which is broken for you, this do in remembrance of me. After the same manner also he took the cup, when he had supped, saying; This cup is the New Testament in my blood; this do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me. For as often as ye eat this bread and drink this cup, ye do shew the Lord's death till he come. Wherefore, whosoever shall eat this bread and drink this cup of the Lord unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord. But let a man examine himself and so let him eat of that bread and drink of that cup; for he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation, to himself not discerning the Lord's
body." Here is the whole law of the ordinance, with the reasons of its institution, and the design of its observance. There is not an intimation that it was designed for the manifestation of Christian fellowship. No, it is to be observed in remembrance of the Lord's sufferings, and to shew forth his death till he comes. And each individual is to examine himself, not others; and if he eat and drink unworthily, he injures no one but himself. Christian fellowship consists in love, peace, joy in the Holy Ghost, and not in outward ordinances. It is a unity of spirit, of hope, of feeling. It is the ligament that binds together the hearts of all who love the Saviour. And the test of this fellowship is bearing one another's burdens; covering with a mantle of charity our differences; and laboring together, so far as we can consistently, in the common kingdom of our Lord. "Our hopes, our ends, our aims are one:" this is Christian fellowship. And there is as much fellowship between the Baptists, and the Evangelical Pedo-baptist denominations, as there is between themselves. Indeed, there is far more harmony of doctrine and feeling between the Baptists and Presbyterians, than between Presbyterians and Methodists; and generally there are better feelings towards us on the part of the Methodists, than they entertain towards the Presbyterians. These are notorious facts; and yet in their very face it is declared, that we non-fellowship all other Christians! This is one of the serious consequences of perverting the scriptures. Our opponents pervert the design of the ordinance of the supper, and conclude from that perversion that we do what all the facts in the case contradict! The Lord's supper not being designed as a test of Christian fellowship, as we have shown it is not, it follows of course that all which may he said in reference to our exclusiveness and bigotry on communion falls harmless at our feet.
2nd. No unbaptized person has a right to come to the Lord's Table. Jesus and the Apostles have placed baptism before the Lord's Supper. The great commission of our Saviour says: "Go ye, therefore, and teach (or make disciples of) all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost; teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you." The Divine order then is, 1st, to make disciples. 2nd, to baptize them; and 3rd, to teach them the observance of all things
commanded -- the supper, of course. The Apostles acted in strict accordance with this commission. Hence we read, Acts 2, 41-42, "Then they that gladly received the word were baptized; and the same day there were added unto them about three thousand souls: and they continued steadfastly in the Apostles' doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread and in prayers." Here we see they were made disciples -- "gladly received the word;" then they were baptized; and after that they break the bread. This then is heaven's order. We cannot -- we dare not change it. We dare not set [sic] in the temple of God, showing ourselves to be God, by assuming to change times and 1aws. These are privileges which only the demon effrontery of the man of sin, and son of perdition arrogates. "The Bible, and the Bible alone is the religion of Protestants," and it shall be our only guide in this matter. We choose to follow God rather than man. Following the Bible order, it is clear beyond the power of contradiction, that to come aright to the Lord's table, the individual must be a disciple, a believer, one that gladly receives the word, and then he must be baptized in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.
That this opinion is not peculiar to us, is evident from the fact that Justin Martyr in his Apology presented to the Emperor of Rome, giving a full account of the opinions & practice of the Christians in the middle of the second century, says: "This food is called by us the Eucharist, of which it is not lawful for any one to partake, but such as believe the things that are taught by us to be true, and have been baptized." Dr. Wall, in his history of Infant Baptism, says: "No church ever gave the communion to any person before they were baptized. Among all the absurdities, that ever were held, none ever maintained that any person should partake of the communion before they were baptized."
It might be shown by other proofs, that in nothing is the religious world at this time more unanimous, than in the opinion that every one before coming to the Lord's table ought to be baptized. Even the Papists, while they have made many absurd additions to this ordinance, have denied the wine to the people, and taught the monstrous nonsense that the elements used are the actual body and blood of Jesus Christ, yet have not ventured to say that the divine order was wrong, viz: baptism first, and then the supper. Let these things be remembered. The whole controversy turns here. For,
3rd. We hold that the immersion of real disciples and true believers in water is the only Christian Baptism. Here is the head and front of our offending. It is our close baptism, and not our close communion, against which so many complaints are uttered. We do not believe that unconscious babes ought to be baptized. Jesus never commanded their baptism. There is no passage in the Bible where Baptism is mentioned, which says any thing of infants, and there is no passage that mentions infants which makes the slightest allusion to baptism. God has put them assunder [sic]; let no man join them together! Nor do we read any where in the Bible, that the sprinkling or pouring a few drops of water on the face, was practised [sic] as baptism. Our Saviour "was baptized of John in Jordan," and "went up straightway out of the water." John baptized the people "in the river of Jordan, confessing their sins." And he baptized "in Enon, near to Salim, because there was much water there." Philip and the Eunuch "went down both into the water," and when he had baptized him, they came "up out of the water." Paul says: "We are buried with him by baptism into death, that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we a1so should walk in newness of life."
It is a fact well known, that while all critics and Lexicographers of any note (as Prof. Stuart says) admit that baptizo means to dip, to plunge, to immerge into any thing liquid, that no lexicographer of any repute has ever said that it means to sprinkle or to pour. The strongest advocates of sprinkling and pouring now say, that baptizo is not a word of mode, that it is a generic term, meaning to wash in any way. Were we to grant this, still we could not receive their sprinkling or pouring, because that is not washing in any way! and consequently; according to their own showing is not baptism at all.
But it is not our purpose to discuss the subjects and mode of baptism. It is enough that we honestly and conscientiously believe that infant baptism, or that sprinkling or pouring is no baptism; and that consequently we do not think that persons so received, into any denomination, have a right to the Lord's table. The law of the ordinance forbids it. If we go to the Lord's table with those who believe and practice these doctrines, and set [sic] down with a community who were sprinkled in infancy or were sprinkled in adult age, we utter by our act, a falsehood before angels and men, for we would thus declare that we believe they were baptized. No Baptist believes this; and no Baptist can believe it: he ought to feel aggrieved then whenever urged by another to declare that he believes what he does not. It is all an ingenious device to induce us to surrender our principles. Other expedients were once tried to make us abandon them. So far then from inviting us to attend to the Lord's table, our Pedo-baptist brethren thought us unworthy of the world. They whipped us; fined and imprisoned us; burnt us; killed us, in every way that ingenuity could invent or malice inflict. These were the means employed even in the past century, to make us surrender our principles respecting baptism. And do they invite our brethren to the Lord's table in Germany and Denmark now? No, they persecute them.
4th. The practical operations of open communion prove that it is a delusive system. Those who clamor for this custom do not practice it. They ask us to do what they will not do themselves. They do not commune with all they believe to be the children of God. There are hundreds out of the visible church whom they admit to be pious, and yet they will not commune with them because they have not been baptized. And yet they demand of us to commune with unbaptized persons! Again; they will not commune with a large number - a full moiety of their own members -- their infant members: we commune with all our members. Yet theirs, they say, is open, and ours, close communion! If a Methodist Minister were to preach some of the doctrine of the Presbyterian Confession of Faith, he would be silenced as soon as if he had preached infidelity. Yet the next day he could join the Presbyterians, and the third day sit at the Lord's table with the Methodists! He was too heterodox for the Methodist pulpit, but not for the Lord's table. And if a Presbyterian Minister or Elder were to embrace Methodism, he would be deposed without delay: yet by joining the Methodists he could come and sit with the Presbyterians at the Lord's! table thus making the Presbyterian pulpit and the seats of the Presbyterian eldership more sacred than the table of our Lord!! Such are the absurdities of open communion!
5th. Experience proves that this practice is ruinous to the Baptist cause. Many of our Churches in England tried it; - and they were withered up like the barren fig tree under the curse of the Redeemer. The zeal and talents of the great and good Bunyan could not make it prosper; and it proved blasting and mildew to the churches, though sustained by the matchless oratory of Robert Hall. The Churches there have felt its folly, and the mass of them have receded from the practice, and peace and prosperity now visit their borders. The same is true of every Baptist church in this country that has followed it. These facts speak volumes. It is the voice of God speaking in his providences, warning us against the sin of abandoning his statutes, and of truckling for the breeze of popular applause! No Christian ought to ask another to violate his conscience - to do that which he verily believes is not authorized by the word of God. Our Pedo-baptist friends do this whenever they invite us to their table - they ask us to say we believe they are baptized! And if [B]aptists say this by their actions, when their hearts tell them it is not true, no marvel that God visits them with coldness [and] leanness in religion!
A few other remarks, and we are done. We would by no means be understood to say, that all who are baptised have a right to the Lord's supper. The terms of the Commission require that persons should be believers before baptism; and if believers in the scriptural sense; then they have passed from death unto life, have everlasting life, and forgiven of their sins, are born of God, and are the children of God. Persons who had not such faith when baptized, are not invited by the Lord to his table. Let us remember, it is to the Lord's table, that he invites the guests; thus as his servants we can only deliver his invitation - to inform others who it is he has invited. We have quoted to you that invitation - his law, in relation to the ordinance. The Baptists in past ages have maintained that law in the face of persecution and of Death. The Baptists of Germany and Denmark are doing the same now. Shall we surrender it at the mere puff of the breath of popular declaimers? Shall we quail before the harmless clamors of ignorence [sic] and prejudice? Shall we, in a word in this favored land where the Lord has so much blessed us, prove secreant to this trust? No never! the Lord being our helper, never, NEVER!
[From the Campbell County Baptist Association Minutes, 1845, pages 3-8. From a photocopy from the Kenton County Public Library, Covington, KY. Scanned and formatted by Jim Duvall.]
["Circular Letter originally written by J. L. Waller, for the Bracken Association was presented by Bro. {John L.} Brown, (who was appointed to write our letter) and was adopted;" from the Minutes, p.2.]
CIRCULAR LETTER [1845]
Kentucky Circular Letters