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Concerning baptism, they (the followers of Luther) teach that it is necessary to salvation; that by baptism is offered the grace of God; and that children are to be baptized, who, being presented to God by baptism, are received into the grace of God. They condemn the anabaptists, who disapprove of the baptism of children, and affirm that children are saved without baptism."* Some of the most learned divines of the church of England have contended that baptism is not only regeneration, but justification; and have made elaborate attempts to explode every other notion of that blessing.†

Such are the principles whence this vaunted unanimity is derived; principles which our brethren reprobate on all occasions, while, with a strange inconsistency, they accuse us of presumption in refusing our assent to their legitimate consequences. Let it be recollected also, that the points in which they, in common with ourselves, dissent from a vast majority of the professors of christianity, are of incomparably more importance than the particular in which they agree; for whether baptism be, on all occasions, a necessary preliminary to communion, is a trivial question, compared to that which respects the identity of baptism with rege

neration.

The argument from authority, however, when fairly stated, is entirely in our favour; nor would

Augsburg Confession, Article IX.

† See Waterland's Sermon on that subject.

it be easy to assign an example of bolder deviation from the universal practice of the christian church, than the conduct of our opponents supplies. They are the only persons in the world of whom we have either heard or read, who contend for the exclusion of genuine christians from the Lord's table; who ever attempted to distinguish them into two classes, such as are entitled to commemorate their Saviour's death, and such as are

excluded from that privilege. In what page of

the voluminous records of the church is such a distinction to be traced? Or what intimation shall we find in scripture of an intention to create such an invidious disparity among the members of the same body? Did it ever enter the conception of any but baptists, that a right to the sign could be separated from the thing signified; or that there could be a description of persons interested in all the blessings of the christian covenant, yet not entitled to partake of its sacraments and seals?

In the judgement of all religious communities besides, and in every period of the church, excommunication or exclusion has been considered as a stigma, never to be inflicted but on men of ill lives, or on the abettors of heresy and schism; and though innumerable instances have occurred, in which the best of men have, in fact, been excluded, they were either accused of fundamental error, or adjudged, on account of their obstinate resistance to the authority of the church, to have forfeited the privileges of christians. They were

not excommunicated under the character of mistaken brethren, which is the light in which we profess to consider pædobaptists, but as incurable heretics and schismatics. The puritans were expelled the church of England on the same principle; and although at the restoration, a vindictive spirit was unquestionably the chief motive to those disgraceful proceedings, yet the pretensions of ecclesiastical authority were carried so high in those unhappy times, as to furnish the pretext for considering them as contumacious contemners of the power, and disturbers of the peace of the church. In the whole course of ecclesiastical proceedings, no maxim was more fully recognised, than that the sword of excommunication cut asunder the ties of fraternity, and consigned the offender, unless he repented, to hopeless perdition.

In some dissenting societies also, it is true, creeds are established which every candidate for admission is expected to subscribe; and though these summaries of christian doctrine frequently contain articles, which, admitting them to be true, are not fundamental, they were originally deemed such by their fabricators, or supposed, at least, to be accompanied with such a plenitude of evidence as no sincere inquirer could resist; and they are continued under the same persuasion.

The right of rejecting those whom Christ has received; of refusing the communion of eminently holy men, on account of unessential differences of opinion, is not the avowed tenet of any sect or

community in Christendom, with the exception of the majority of the baptists, who, while they are at variance with the whole world on a point of such magnitude, are loud in accusing their brethren of singularity. If we have presumed to resist the current of opinion, it is on a subject of no practical moment; it respects an obscure and neglected corner of theology; while their singularity is replete with most alarming consequences, destroys at once the unity of the church, and pronounces a sentence of excommunication on the whole christian world.

Having, without disguise, exhibited, in their full force, the reasoning of the advocates of strict communion, and replied to it in the best manner we are able, it must be left to the impartial reader to determine on which side the evidence preponderates; of which he will be able to judge more completely, when we have stated at large the grounds of the opposite practice, which we have reserved for the Second Part of this treatise; where we shall have an opportunity of noticing some minor objections, which could not be so conveniently adverted to in the former.

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PART II.

THE POSITIVE GROUNDS ON WHICH WE JUSTIFY THE PRACTICE OF MIXED COMMUNION.

SECTION I.

Free Communion urged, from the Obligation of Brotherly Love.

THAT we are commanded, in terms the most absolute, to cultivate a sincere and warm attachment to the members of Christ's body, and that no branch of christian duty is inculcated more frequently, or with more force, will be admitted without controversy. Our Lord instructs us to consider it as the principal mark or feature by which his followers are to be distinguished in every age. "By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye love one another. As I have loved you, ye ought also to love one another;" whence it is evident that the pattern we are to follow is the love which Christ bore to his church, which is undoubtedly extended indiscriminately to every member. The cultivation of this disposition is affirmed to be one of the most essential objects

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