Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

attend to communion with Jefus Chrift, fays a judicious author, do labour to keep their hearts chafte to him in his ordinances, inftitutions, and worfhip. They will receive nothing, practise nothing, own nothing in his worship, but what is of his appointment. They know that from the foundation of the world he never did allow, nor ever will, that in any thing the will of the creature should be the measure of his honour, or the principle of his worship, either as to matter or manner. It was a witty and true fenfe that one gave of the fecond commandment; Non imago,non fimulachrum prohibetur; fed,non facies tibi. It is a making to ourselves, an inventing, a finding out ways of worthip or means of honouring God, not by him appointed, that is fo feverely forbidden.'* To ferve God otherwife than he requireth,' fays another learned writer, 'is not to worship, but to rob and mock him. In God's fervice, it is a greater fin to do that which we are not to do, than not to do that which we are commanded. This is but a fin of omiffion; but that a fin of facrilege and high contempt. In this we charge the law only with difficulty; but in that with folly. In this we discover our weakness to do the will, but in that we' declare our impudence and arrogancy to control the wifdom of God. In this we acknowledge our own infuf ficiency; in that we deny the all-fufficiency and plenitude of God's own law. We fee the abfurdity and wickedness of will-worship, when the fame man who is to perform the obedience, shall dare to appoint the laws; implying a peremptory purpofe of no further observance than may consist with the allowance of his own judgment. Where

* Dr. Owen on Communion with God, p. 170.

as true obedience must be grounded on the majesty of that power that commands; not on the judg ment of the subject, or benefit of the precept impofed. Divine laws require obedience, not fo much from the quality of the things commanded (though they be ever fo holy and good) as from the authority of him that inftitutes them.'*

That the gofpel fhould be preached to all nations for the obedience of faith; and that, under certain restrictions, they who receive the truth, fhould be formed into a church ftate, few can doubt: and it is equally clear from the foregoing positions, that it belongs to the fupreme, royal prerogative of Jefus Chrift, to appoint the terms and conditions on which his people shall have a place in his house and a feat at his table. For we cannot suppose, with any appearance of reason, that thefe conditions are arbitrary; or fuch as every diftinct community. may think fit to impofe. No; a gospel church has no more power to fix the terms of communion, or to fet afide thofe prefcribed by Jefus Chrift, than to make a rule of faith, or to fettle ordinances of divine worship. This is one characteristic of a church, as distinguished from a civil fociety; the terms of admiffion into the latter are difcretional; provided they do not interfere with any divine law; but thofe of the former are fixed by him who is King in Zion. No congregation of religious profeffors, therefore, has any authority to make the door of admiffion into their communion, either ftraiter, or wider, than Chrift himself has made it. The original form of this house, [i. e. the church of Chrift] was not precarious and

Bp. Reynold's Works, p. 163, 422.

Dr. Ridgley's Body of Divinity, p. 343, Glasgow edic

uncertain; to be altered, and changed, and broke in upon by man, or by any set of men at pleasure. This would reflect on the wifdom and care, as well as on the fteadiness of Chrift; who is in his house, as well as in the highest heavens, the steady and the faithful Jefus; the fame yesterday, to-day, and forever, and not in the leaft given to change: but its form is fixed, particularly in the New Testament. Had not Mofes, nor any of the elders. of Ifrael, fo much power over the tabernacle as to alter or change a pin thereof? and with what face can man pretend to a power to model and alter at pleasure gofpel churches? As if Chrift, the true Mofes, had forgot, or neglected, to leave with us the pattern of the house.'*

Baptifm and the Lord's fupper are pofitive appointments in the Chriflian church, about which we cannot know any thing, relating to their mode of administration, fubject or defign, except from the revealed will of their great Inftitutor. For, as a learned writer obferves, All pofitive duties, or duties made fuch by inftitution alone, depend entirely upon the will and declaration of the per fon, who inftitutes and ordains them, with respect to the real design and end of them; and confequently, to the due manner of performing them.' It behoves us, therefore, well to confider the rule which our Lord has given relating to thefe ordinances. Because we can have no other direction in this fort of duties; unless we will have recourse to mere invention, which makes them our own infli tutions, and not the inftitutions of those who first ap pointed them.'t

* Mr. Bragge, on Church Discipline, p. 9.

Bp. Headley's Plain Account, p. 3.

[ocr errors]

That there is a connexion between the two poíitive inftitutions of the New Teftament, is manifeft from the word of God; and that one of them must be prior to the other, in order of adminiftration, is evident from the nature of things: for a person cannot be baptized and receive the facred fupper at the fame inftant. Here, then, the queftion is, (if any doubt may be moved on a point fo evident, without affronting common fenfe) which of them has the previous claim on a real convert's obedience? Baptifm, or the Lord's Supper? If we appeal to the perfuafion and practice of Chriftians in all nations and in every age, it will clearly appear, that the former was univerfally confidered, by the churches of Chrift,* as a divinely appointed prerequifite for fellowship in the latter, till about the middle of the last century, here in England; when fome few of the Baptifts began to call it in question, and practically to deny it. This our brethren now do, who defend and practife free communion. For they admit Pædobaptifts to the

That there were people of different denominations in the second and third centuries, who pretended a regard to the name of Jefus Chrift, and yet rejected baptifm, is readily allowed; but then, it may be observed, that many of them had as little efteem for the Lord's fupper. Nay, as a learned writer afferts, the generality of them renounced the fcriptures themselves. Nor am I ignorant that Socinus, in the latter end of the fixteenth century, confidered baptifm as an indifferent thing, except in reference to fuch as are converted from Judaifin, Paganism, or Mahometanism; but our brethren with whom I am now concerned will hardly allow, that focieties formed on the principles of thofe ancient corrupters of Christianity, nor yet on those of Socinus, are worthy to be called, Churches of Chrift. Vid. Suicerum, Thefaur. Ecclef. fub voce Baxtioμά; and Dr. Wall's Hift. Inf. Bap.. Part II Chap. V.

Lord's table; though, on their own principles, in

fant fprinkling is not baptifm. This appears from hence. That only is bap. tism which Christ appointed as fuch. That, therefore, which effentially differs from what he appointed, cannot be baptifm. But they believe, as well as we, that pædobaptifm, as now practifed, effentially differs from the appointment of Chrift, both as to mode and fubject: yet a mode of administration, and a fubject to whom it fhould be administered, are neceffary to the existence of baptifm, as an ordinance of Chrift; for without these it is only an abstract notion. If, then, the proper fubject be a profeffing believer, and the appointed mode immerfion in water, which they maintain as well as we; it is not real baptifm where these are wanting. Agreeable to that faying of an ancient writer: They who are not rightly baptized, are, doubtlefs, not baptized at all.'* But that our brethren do not confider infant fprinkling as having the effentials of Chriftian baptifm in it, is put beyond a doubt by their own conduct. For they no more fcruple to baptize profeffing believers, who have been fprinkled in their infancy, than we do: and yet, I prefume, they are not very fond of being confidered, or called, Anabaptifls; which, notwithstanding, is their proper character, if they allow that the afperfion of infants has the effentials of baptifm in it.

This, then, is a fact, a notorious, undeniable fact, that our brethren practically deny the neceffity of baptifm in order to communion at the facred fupper for they do not, they cannot believe the af

* Baptifmum quum rite non habeant, fine dubio non ha bent. Tertull. de Baptifine, cap. xv. p. 230.

« AnteriorContinuar »