Chapter XIII: Introduction: Doubts Suggested (13)

“That godly, learned man and excellent commentator Dr. Doddridge, author of ‘The Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul,’ and many other excellent works, says: ‘It is certain that Christians in general have always been spoken of as baptized persons by the most ancient Fathers, and it is also certain, so far as our knowledge of primitive Christianity extends, that no unbaptized person received the Lord’s Supper.’—(_Miscellaneous Works_, p. 510.) Dr. Wall, the great champion of Pedobaptism, says expressly: ‘No church ever gave the communion to any persons before they were baptized.’ ‘Among all the absurdities that ever were held, none ever maintained that any persons should partake of the communion before they were baptized.’ Lord Chancellor King, of the Church of England, in his work on the Church, says, page 196: ‘Baptism was always precedent to the Lord’s Supper, and none ever received the Eucharist till he had been baptized.’ And those who might have any doubt about this, he refers to the testimony of Justin Martyr, who describes the practice of the primitive churches in his famous ‘Apology,’ addressed to the Roman Emperor, about the year A. D. 138 or 139. You will find a translation of so much of this memorable document as refers to this subject, in one of your own historians, Rev. Lyman Coleman’s Apostolical and Primitive Church, page 340. ‘After baptizing the believer and making him one with us, we conduct him to the brethren, as they are called, where they are assembled fervently to offer up their common supplication for themselves, for him who has been illuminated, and for all men everywhere, that we may live worthy of the truth which we have learned, and be found to have kept the commandments, so that we may be saved with an everlasting salvation. After prayer, we salute one another with a kiss. After this, bread and a cup of wine and water are brought to the president, which he takes, and offers up praise, etc.’”

“Oh, that is enough, Mr. Courtney. I did not want to know what Justin Martyr, or Lord King, or Dr. Wall, or any body else said about it, but only what was in the Scriptures. If I understand aright, you Baptists claim that your faith and practice rests exclusively on them.”

“That is very true, Mrs. Ernest; but I thought it might be satisfactory to you to know that the same Scriptures which have led us to require baptism as an essential prerequisite to communion, have been equally able to convince all our most learned and zealous opponents, so that in whatever else we may be found to differ, we agree in this. A sect of the Baptists themselves are; I believe, the first and only people who have ever attempted to show from the Scriptures that the communion of the church may be shared with the unbaptized; and they were led to this evidently from their desire to be free from the reproach of close communion. They could not deny that immersion was the only baptism, and therefore they could not but regard their sprinkled brethren as unbaptized, and they could only commune with them by denying that baptism was an essential prerequisite to the Eucharist. But not even Robert Hall, who was the leader, or at least, the ablest champion of his sect, with all his vast learning and surpassing eloquence, could persuade the Pedobaptists that _they_ ought to dispense with baptism in _their_ communicants, though many of them and some Baptists profess to have been convinced that _Baptists_ ought to dispense with it in regard to those who wish to approach their table. But the great body of the Baptist Churches still agree with their Pedobaptist brethren in requiring baptism before communion, and we must continue to do so till some one can find in the Scriptures some precept or example for reversing the order so plainly established by Christ and the Apostles, which places repentance and faith first, then baptism, and then the breaking of bread and the other ordinances of the church of God.

“It is as evident as any thing can be, that if any Jew or Gentile had professed his faith in Christ in the Apostles’ days, and yet had neglected or refused to put on Christ in his holy ordinance of baptism, he would never have been invited to the privileges of a church member.”

“Of course he would not have been,” replied the Doctor, “for there was then no room at all for doubt about the nature or the subjects of baptism. The Apostles had the act visibly set before their eyes by Christ himself. And the people all knew what was intended when they were commanded to be baptized. If any one refused or neglected to obey, it was _prima facie_ evidence that he was no Christian, and consequently an unfit subject for communion. It showed that he either did not believe or was disobedient at heart. The early churches, therefore, were bound to reject all who would not be baptized. But now the case is very different. The mode of baptism has now, in many minds, become a matter of great uncertainty. Some think it is one thing and some another; and some think it any one of three things. Now, since good Christians may thus, while they seek and intend to do right, yet fall into the wrong, how can any church take it upon herself to decide that one of these modes is right and all others are wrong, and so exclude all who do not conform to her standard? for now a failure to conform is not, as in the Apostles’ days, an evidence of an unbelieving or a rebellious spirit, but only of a mistaken apprehension of duty, into which the most sincere and pious Christian is liable to fall.”

“I acknowledge, Doctor, that this argument has a great deal of plausibility about it. It is the best that can be offered in favor of open communion, and has succeeded in imposing upon the minds of some eminent Baptists. But now, if you will give me your candid attention for a few minutes, I will show you _that it is utterly destitute of any Scriptural foundation or logical force_.”

“You speak very confidently, sir, and I will gladly give you the attention you require; but if you can do what you say, I will concede that you are a master in logic—for I conceive it perfectly unanswerable.”

“I know, Doctor, that it is the best and strongest argument which can be made for open communion; and yet I am sure I can satisfy you that it ought not to have the _very slightest weight_ in the decision of this controversy—because it has not even the shadow of a foundation in the Word of God on which to rest. But before I enter upon it further, I will, with your consent, go back and take up the first general proposition which I purposed to establish when we entered upon this discussion, and that was, as you will recollect, _That every church of Christ has the exclusive right within herself to decide who shall be partakers of her communion_. We have seen already in what manner your church and others are accustomed to exercise this right. It is simply the right to determine who shall be entitled to the privileges of membership—a right which must of necessity belong to every such organization in order to preserve its purity or perpetuity.”

“I do not,” said the Doctor, “feel disposed to dispute with you about this. If a Baptist church is a church of Christ, I am willing to grant that within certain limits it is to judge of the qualifications of its members and communicants.”

“What are the ‘limits,’ Doctor, to which you refer?”

“The requirements of the Scriptures. She is to require only such qualifications as the Scriptures demand.”

“But who is to judge of what the Scriptures demand, Doctor, the church or the applicants for her communion?”

“She must, of course, judge for herself. The Scripture is given for her guidance. She must examine for herself, and be governed by her understanding of its instructions. Those who are not of her membership can have no right to dictate to her in the matter of their own reception—that is self-evident.”

“But now, Doctor, what if she should, upon a careful examination of the Scriptures come to the conclusion, as your church has done, that no one is permitted to commune that has not been baptized?”

“Then as a matter of course she will do as we do—admit none who have not been baptized.”

“But suppose she should come to the additional conclusion that sprinkling and pouring are not baptism, and that, contrary to the decision of your church, _dipping of the person in the water is necessary_ to constitute a Scriptural baptism—what then?”

“Why, then I suppose she must admit none who have not been thus ‘dipped,’ for she cannot recognize any others as baptized.”

“Of course she must. That is self-evident. And now, Doctor, I trust you see the fallacy of your boasted argument for open communion; for if every church is to decide _for herself_ who shall commune, subject only to the laws of Christ, and if _she_ is to be the interpreter and judge of these laws, and should be led to determine that these laws demand that every communicant _shall have been immersed_, what could she do for those who had been only sprinkled or poured upon? Must she not reject them, however good and pious they might be? They may be sincere and honest—they may be intelligent and learned; but _they_ are not to decide this question _for_ the church. Those without cannot dictate the terms of communion to those who are within. The church must for herself examine. For herself she must decide, and upon _her own_ decision she must act. What if the nature of baptism _be_ the subject of doubt to many good and holy men—she as a church has nothing to do with their doubts, unless they are her own members. What if good and pious men, seeking to go right, _do_ sometimes go wrong, she as a church is not to forsake what _she_ thinks right, and go wrong too, merely to accommodate them. On the contrary, she is to stand firmly, like a great rock in the wilderness, a fixed and settled way-mark, which men may see afar off in their wanderings, and by it be guided back into the old paths. If others, like the mariner at sea without his chart and compass, wander to and fro, being wafted about with every wind of doctrine—she is to stand like the light-house, against whose base the winds and waves beat alike in vain, standing ever erect, and sending far across the ocean of doubts and uncertainties the calm and changeless light by which they may direct their course into the destined haven.

“Now look at your argument again. In the days of the Apostles, every one knew certainly what baptism was, and every church was bound to exclude all who had not been baptized. But now, many good and pious people have become doubtful what baptism is. Some think it one thing, and some another; and _therefore_ no church of Jesus Christ ought to have any opinion about it; and every one ought to be received who thinks _himself_ baptized. The church has no right to decide even as to what constitutes the very act by which men are admitted to her membership, or as to who shall be permitted to enjoy the peculiar and distinctive privileges of members. This must all be left to the good and pious, _without her ranks_, to determine for her. If _they_ have doubts, she must give up her right to determine for herself, and humbly receive those who judge themselves to be worthy and well qualified, although she may have no doubts at all. Do you not see, that if the principle on which your argument rests be once admitted, it will destroy not only the independence, but the very organization of the churches? The principle is this—A Baptist Church has decided that certain prerequisites are needful to her membership or communion; but there are certain persons, out of her ranks, who think she ought not to require these preliminaries, and demand the privileges of church members without having complied with them. The church consents to their demand—admits them on _their_ terms—abandons her own judgment, and repudiates her own rules—does she not at once lose her distinctive character, and cease to be a Baptist Church? Is she a church at all, when those without make laws for her—decide questions of faith and practice for her, and determine who shall take the place of members at her table, and by what rules she shall exercise her discipline?—for if they determine that she has no right to exclude a member for want of baptism, they can, of course, with equal reason determine that she has no right to exclude any one for any other cause.

“Look at your argument again. It takes it for granted, that because you and some other good and pious men doubt about the nature of the act of baptism, that therefore NO ONE _can arrive at any certainty_ in regard to it; and therefore no church of Christ has any right to take any decisive action in regard to it. If this be true in respect to baptism, it is, of course, equally so in regard to other things; and the necessary result will be, that no church has a right, in regard to _any_ subject, to hold opinions, and to _act_ upon them, if good and pious people of other denominations chance to differ from them. Your argument, if it is good for any thing at all, destroys all church independence and all church sovereignty, and makes it necessary for every church of Christ to go out and ask those who are not of her membership, and have no special interest in her affairs, what she may believe, and teach, and do; and this in regard to matters which are to her of the most vital importance, involving her very existence, by determining for her who she shall admit to the privileges of membership.”

“Oh, no, Mr. Courtney, I did not intend to intimate that the church had no right to deny _membership_ to those who might sincerely and honestly differ from her on matters about which good men have not been able to agree. But we were speaking of only _occasional communion_.”

“The principle is the same, Doctor, whether the communion be occasional or continual. If he may commune once, why not twice? If twice, why not a dozen times—and, indeed, every time the table is spread? And if he may, of right, continually enjoy this peculiar and distinctive privilege of church membership, why not every other privilege? If we have no right to exclude you from communing with us _occasionally_, we have none to exclude you _perpetually_—and if we have no right to exclude _you_, who are not a member of our church, we could not, of course, exclude one who is a member for a similar cause. Your right to determine for a church the terms of its communion, includes the right to determine for it any other principle of faith or practice. If you may dictate who shall commune _once_, you may with equal propriety dictate who shall commune all the time. And yet, you modestly require us, because forsooth you and some other good and pious men are doubtful about the nature of baptism, to yield _our_ convictions to _your_ doubts, and assure us that _we have no right_ to decide for ourselves upon the nature of the very act of initiation into our membership—forgetting, of course, that your own church has positively decided for herself, page 146 of the Confession, where she declares that ‘dipping of the person in water is _not_ necessary;’ and on page 431 (chap. vii. of Directory), where she absolutely requires the minister to ‘baptize the child with water, by pouring or sprinkling it on the face of the child, without adding any other ceremony.’ Presbyterians can decide for _themselves_ what baptism is; so can Methodists; so can Lutherans; so can Episcopalians; so can Roman Catholics; so can every body else who will decide that it is sprinkling or pouring. But if the Baptists claim the same privilege, they are counted guilty of the most unheard-of presumption, and all the Pedobaptist world desires to know by what authority they venture, like other churches, to think for themselves, investigate for themselves, and come to their own conclusions; or, if they must think, and investigate, and decide, yet you demand to know how they can dare to carry out their convictions in their practice.”

“Oh, no, Mr. Courtney, we do not,” said Mrs. Jones, “object to your _deciding for yourselves_. It is to the nature of your decision that we object. If you had decided, like all the rest of the Christian world, that baptism was sprinkling or pouring, or that it was of little consequence which way it was done, no one could object to your exercise of the abstract right to decide for yourselves. But we _do_ think it is evidence of either bigotry or self-conceit, when you set up your opinions against the whole religious world.”

“Your idea of church independence, then, is simply this: Every Baptist church has a full and perfect right to think and decide for herself on all matters of faith and practice, provided she will always think and decide just as your church does.

“But, Doctor, I have another objection to your argument, which makes me wonder how it could ever for a single moment have imposed upon any thinking Baptist—and that is, that it assumes, and takes for granted as the very basis on which it rests, _that no one now can certainly know what the act of baptism was_. In the days of the Apostles, you say, there could not be any doubt about this, and therefore all who would not be baptized, must of necessity have been excluded; but now it is so very uncertain, that good men, meaning to go right, may yet go wrong, and must not on that account be excluded. Let us look at it again in this light. The Apostles knew what baptism was, for they had _seen_ the Saviour himself baptized. The early churches knew, for they had _seen_ the Apostles baptize according to the pattern which Jesus showed in Jordan. But we who live in these ends of the earth, are entirely dependent for our information on the _written Word of_ _God_. The Holy Spirit of Inspiration attempted to convey to us in writing such an account of the organization of a church, and the ordinances of Christ’s visible kingdom, that we might continue them to the end of time; but he made such bungling work of it, that it is now absolutely impossible to find out what he meant. We can neither know _who_ were the persons to be initiated, nor by what act they are to be brought in.

“It is true, that he commanded people first to _believe_ and then to be baptized. It is true, that he never, in a single instance, commanded any one to be baptized _who had not believed_. And that there is not in the record a _single case_ in which any but a professed believer ever was baptized, nor is there a single allusion, direct or indirect, to the baptism of an unconscious babe. And yet men say, that no one now can certainly determine that he did not command, and does not now require, that little infants who cannot believe or perform any act of intelligent worship, shall be baptized, and thus made members of his churches.

“True, his people are always spoken of as a renewed and regenerated people; as a holy and peculiar people, zealous of good works. The churches of the Scriptures were addressed as active, intelligent, and pious people. And we know, from sad and frequent observation, that the baptism of an infant does not regenerate it or make it any holier than it was before. We know that baptized children do not, on account of their baptism, grow up servers of God and of his laws, yet no one now can tell that Christ did not require these unconverted children of wrath and heirs of hell, to be brought into his church and counted among its members.

“And then as regards the act of initiation, which the Scriptures call baptism, your argument takes for granted that nobody can now tell what it was. True, the very word itself declares that it was immersion, if we should read it as we do in any other book. No scholar ever dreamed of its meaning to sprinkle or to pour, in any book except the Bible, nor in any part of the Bible but the New Testament, nor in any place in the New Testament where it does not refer to the ordinance. Everywhere else its signification is sufficiently plain. When Josephus, writing in the same language, and about the same time with the Evangelists, speaks of a youth being baptized in a lake till he was drowned, no scholar ever doubted that the lad was _dipped_. When he speaks of a ship being baptized in the sea, no one ever ventured to doubt that he meant to say it was _sunk_. No one ever doubted what Hippocrates means when he speaks of the surgeon baptizing his probe into a wound. No one doubts what Homer means when he speaks of the blacksmith baptizing a huge pole axe in water to harden the steel. Those who are engaged in teaching our young men a knowledge of the Greek language, never have any difficulty in deciding about the meaning of this word in any of the poets, or philosophers, or historians of Greece. The Lexicons of the language all agree in giving ‘_to dip_,’ ‘_to plunge_,’ as at least its primary and most common signification; and no one of them gives to sprinkle or to pour—and yet you say, no one can tell for certain that this word means _to dip_, and not to sprinkle or to pour.

“It is true, according to the testimony of Dr. Barnes, that this word is used in the New Testament in the place of the Hebrew word ‘_tabal_.’ And Professor Stuart, one of your own ablest scholars, expressly says, that this word _tabal_ always means ‘_to dip_.’ It is true that in the fifteen places where Dr. Barnes says it occurs in the Old Testament, it is translated ‘_dip_’ or ‘_plunge_,’ in every place but one, and there it is ‘_dyed_,’ which supposed a previous act of dipping, yet no one can know that it does not mean to sprinkle or to pour.

“It is true, that your most eminent Biblical scholars, as Stuart, Kitto, Chalmers, and McKnight, agree that it meant immerse, and state expressly that immersion was the act which was performed in the first churches; and yet you say, no one can certainly know what it was which Christ commanded, and the church must now require.

“It is true, the Holy Spirit, as if to obviate the very possibility of any misunderstanding, makes frequent and varied _allusions_ to it in the Word, speaking of it as a burial, a bath, and the like. True, he has gone into particulars, so far as to explain that it was done in the ‘rivers,’ and places where there was ‘much water:’ and that they went down into the water to do it, and came up out of the water after it was done; and yet we can’t know any thing about what it was.

“True, the history of the early churches, written by the sprinklers themselves, as the Magdeburg Centuriators, Mosheim and Neander, clearly shows that, in the language of the _London Quarterly_, devoted to the interests of the Church of England, ‘There can be no question that the original form of baptism—the very meaning of the word—was complete immersion, and that for at least four centuries any other form was either unknown or regarded as an exceptional, almost a monstrous case.’

“True, we can show from ancient rituals and church canons, that for more than thirteen hundred years it was the only act recognized as baptism, except in cases of alarming sickness.

“True, we have the most unexceptionable records, made by the sprinklers themselves, showing the very time and manner of the change from immersion to sprinkling, and the very decree of the Pope, on whose authority it was done; and yet you take for granted that no Baptist Church now can tell for certain which it was that Christ commanded. And on this ground you demand as a right that she shall give to those who have submitted to the Pope’s ordinance of sprinkling, under the false impression that it was baptism, the same church privileges that she offers to those who have entered into Christ’s visible kingdom through the door which he appointed.

“If _you_ have any doubts about the nature of baptism or the subjects of baptism, you may plead them for what they are worth before his bar to whom we all must give account; but you must not expect Baptist Churches to participate in them, or to act as though it were to them a matter about which there was even the slightest uncertainty. If there are any two things which they are satisfied are clearly and definitely set forth in the Word of God, they are, that believers are the only persons commanded to be baptized, and that those commanded to be baptized are commanded to be immersed. They have therefore not even the shadow of a doubt that you are unbaptized, and if baptism is a Scriptural prerequisite, as you yourselves believe and teach, then you are not prepared and cannot claim communion at their hands, unless you undertake to decide for them whom they shall consider as baptized.”

“Oh, we are willing to acknowledge,” replied Mrs. Jones, “that we cannot demand it as a matter of _right_. But the _courtesy_, Mr. Courtney. What we may not demand as a right, we surely may claim on the ground of Christian courtesy and kindness—I had almost said upon the ground of common politeness. And now I ask you seriously to say if you do not think that you Baptists are selfish and discourteous, to say the least, in your refusal to invite any but immersed believers to sit down with you? You admit that others are just as good Christians as yourselves, do you not?”

“Certainly; we do not refuse because you are not pious, but because _you have not been baptized_. And you as well as we believe that the Master does not permit _all Christians_, but only all Christians who are members of a visible church, and who have been baptized. You never invite a person to your communion merely because you consider him a converted man and a good Christian. You wait till he has joined the church, and been baptized.”

“But we think,” said Mrs. Jones, “that we have been baptized. You will grant that we are as sincere and honest in our opinions as you are in yours. The great majority of the Christian world think _our_ opinion better founded than yours: would it not, therefore, be proper and becoming in you to show so much respect to the decision of more than half of Christendom, and so much Christian liberality to those who conscientiously differ from you, as to extend your invitation to them, not of right, but purely out of courtesy and politeness?”

“That can never be properly called Christian courtesy, madam, which asks for the sacrifice of Christian principle—and I am quite as willing to meet the demands of open communion on this ground as on the other. But before we enter into the argument, I would like to go back and call up the third proposition, which I stated at the beginning of this discussion, and that is—_That no church can either neglect or refuse to exercise the right which has been given her by her Head, to preserve the purity of her communion, without being guilty of open rebellion against the positive requirements of the law of Christ._

“We have already seen that every church possesses this right, and it is plain that the _duty_ to exercise it follows from its possession. _Somebody_ must decide who shall be communicants; if not, there is no bar between the church and the world. If every one who chooses may not come, who shall decide who may? We answer, the church herself.”

“By what rule?”

“By the law of Christ, as laid down in his word.”

“May she not neglect or refuse to decide for herself, and leave it to those without to come or not to come, as _they_ may think best?”.

“No; for God has constituted _her_ the guardian of his ordinances, which he has placed within her gates.”

“But may she not reverse his order, and give communion first, and then baptism?”

“No; she must, of course, be governed by _his law_.”

“May she not dispense with baptism altogether?”

“Certainly not, if _his law_ requires it.”

“May she not treat all those as baptized who _think themselves_ baptized?”

“No; she is to be governed by _his Word as she understands it_, and not as it may be understood by _those without her ranks_. She is to examine and decide for herself. She is to recognize and treat as baptized those only whom she believes to have actually been baptized according to the Scripture model. She is not the lawgiver, but simply the executor of the laws of Christ. She is not at liberty to set them aside for any whims of her own. Nor is she at liberty to enforce one part and not another. If, therefore, _he requires_ baptism as a prerequisite to communion, she _dare_ not in any case refuse or neglect to do so also. She _must_ see his rules carried out, or she becomes unfaithful to her trust, and a rebel to her Lord.

“If you have any doubt that each church _is_ constituted thus by Christ the guardian of her own purity, and of the sanctity of his ordinances as administered within her doors, I refer you to Romans xiv. 5, and 2 Thess. iii. 6, in which the power of the church to determine whom they will receive, and the duty of the church to withdraw from every one who walked disorderly, is distinctly recognized. But both the right and the imperious obligation for its constant, faithful, and impartial exercise, follows of necessity from the simple fact, that if the church does not herself exclude the unprepared and the unworthy, there is no one to do it; and it cannot be done at all.

“I am now ready to answer your question about the Christian courtesy of refusing to invite the unbaptized to our communion. Permit me to put it in proper form for you, and let us see how it will sound. We will suppose it to be communion day at the Baptist church, and that your church in a body comes to our door, and asks admission to our table—not as a matter of right, but on the ground of Christian courtesy. You say to us, very affectionately and kindly—Dear brethren in Christ, we are fully persuaded that no unbaptized person, according to the laws of our Redeemer, should ever be permitted to approach his table. _We_ never permit any to come to it in _our_ church whom _we_ do not believe to have been baptized. We could not do it without sinning against God. We know very well, brethren, that _you act upon the same rule_. You agree with us that it would be very wrong and sinful to permit any to approach _your_ table whom you do not think have been baptized. We know, also, that you believe that we have _not_ been baptized, and consequently that you _cannot permit us to approach without doing what you would regard as an act of open and deliberate rebellion against the laws of Christ_. But we regard you all as Christian gentlemen and ladies, and quite familiar with the laws of _politeness_ and Christian _courtesy_, and it must be very evident to you that these laws require you to invite us to your communion. You surely will not be so _impolite_ as to refuse us.”

“Oh, Mr. Courtney, that is too bad! Surely you have no right to look upon us in such a light as that!”

“I am well aware, madam, that your people have not been accustomed to see in this light your claims that we should invite you to our communion. You are so accustomed to think of _yourselves as baptized_, that you cannot fully realize the fact that others should think differently. But thus the case must always appear to the mind of any well informed Baptist. Nor is this by any means the worst of it.

“It is always and everywhere considered an act of great discourtesy to ask one to do any thing which it is well known he will regard as a moral wrong, though it should be asked of him only as a private individual, and in his personal capacity. But the discourtesy is much greater when you ask him, as a public man, in his official capacity, and in direct and open opposition to his _avowed_ and _publicly acknowledged_ sentiments, to do what not only you know he would consider wrong, but what all the world knows, or might know, he would so regard; what he has again and again _publicly declared_ that he _could not do_ without a grievous disregard of his conscientious convictions of right. To ask, for instance, of a Son of Temperance, whom you _know_ is pledged not to drink intoxicating liquors; whom you _know_ feels that he is under peculiar and solemn obligations not to drink; yet to ask him not merely to disregard the obligation, which _you_ know, and which the world knows, that he recognizes as binding upon his conscience; but to ask him to do it _publicly and officially as a Son of_ _Temperance_, in the Division room, would be something such an act of discourtesy, though much less flagrant than it is to ask a Baptist, as a Baptist, in his public capacity as a church member, to disregard his obligations to his Saviour, by which the purity of the church and the sanctity of the ordinances are to be preserved.”

“Oh, dear, no! Please, Mr. Courtney, don’t think so hardly of us. I am sure none of our ministers or members ever intended any thing of the sort when they invited you to our communion, or complained that you did not invite us to yours. We never thought about its being a matter of _conscience_ with you.”

“And why should you not have thought of it, when we have preached it in the pulpit, and proclaimed it through the press, and repeated it continually in private conversation? No one _need_ be ignorant of the ground on which Baptists stand in regard to this question. Their sentiments have been long and plainly before the world. There is no one who has any occasion to complain of them, who does not know, or might not know, that _they cannot dispense with what they conscientiously regard_ as Christian baptism; and that on _this_ account, and not from any impoliteness or discourtesy, they are debarred from inter-communion with sprinkled Christians.

“But I have not done with this question of courtesy. I want our Pedobaptist friends to see precisely where they stand. After you have asked us to disregard the most sacred obligations, to repudiate our conscientious convictions of duty, and as a church, in our assembled and official capacity, to refuse obedience to what you well know we all regard as the imperative law of Christ, and to perform an act which you well know we earnestly believe he has forbidden; when we respectfully decline to do it, and kindly give you our reasons, you set up a great and senseless cry of bigotry, of selfishness, of ignorance, and (will you pardon me for saying it?) =of christian discourtesy=; as though it were more discourteous for us firmly to resist all your solicitations to disregard our Master’s Word, than it is for you, who profess like us to love him, to ask us to do it, or complain of us for not doing it.”

“But we do not ask you to do what we think wrong.”

“No, you only ask us to do what _you know WE think wrong_, and then abuse us because we dare not do it. But let it pass. I should think, Doctor, you would find some serious, if not insuperable difficulties in your plan of inter-communion with other denominations, over whose discipline you have no control.”

“How so?”

“Let me explain. The peculiar and distinctive privilege of a church member in good standing in your church, is the liberty of approach to the Lord’s table. When you exclude the unworthy, they can no longer be permitted to sit down with you at this sacred feast. Now suppose you exclude a member to-day for heresy in doctrine, or irregularity in practice, and he goes to-morrow and unites with some other denomination, can he not, according to your principles, come right back, and claim a seat at your table as the member of another denomination, although you have just driven him away as a member of your own?”

“That might possibly happen; but I do not think we have ever been much troubled with cases of that sort.”

“That is because your open communion is held in theory, but seldom reduced to practice. If there were, in fact, that inter-communion between you and Baptists, which many of you profess so much to desire, I can conceive that it might happen very often, to the utter destruction of any effective discipline in both bodies. Let us see. You require of all your communicants who have children, that they bring them to the church for baptism, do you not?”

“Certainly; it is the solemn duty of every Christian parent to dedicate his offspring to God in this holy ordinance at his earliest convenience.”

“Very good. Now suppose some one of them should take a fancy to ask you for the _text_ on which this requirement is based. You might, as you very well know, search all the New Testament, from Matthew to Revelation, and you could not produce a solitary precept or example. You would try to satisfy him with a wordy jargon about the covenant of circumcision, etc. But he might reply, Jewish children were _circumcised_ at eight days old, because God commanded it to be done. If Christian children are to be _baptized_, you can show where he commanded that.”

“You will say—No, but a command was not necessary; they were to be baptized as a matter of course.

“Very well, then. Of course it _was done_, and you can show me at least _one case_ among the thousands of ‘both men and women,’ in which there was one little child. But you can’t find it. And he begins to doubt the propriety of performing as an ordinance of Christ, what Christ did not command. He cannot be persuaded to bring up the little ones into the church. You exhort him and reason with him in vain; and you are obliged at last to exclude him. I have read of such a case. You exclude him, and he comes to us, and we receive him. Now he holds the same opinions, and is guilty of the same practices. But though you could not commune with him as a member of _your own church_, because he was guilty of the _heinous sin_ of denying infant baptism, you will _welcome_ him back the very next Sabbath as a Baptist. You urge him to sit down to the same table from which you have just now formally expelled him. And I suppose, if he should decline to accept, you would henceforth abuse him as narrow-minded, selfish, bigoted, and intolerant Baptist, who thought himself too good to commune with other Christians.

“The same thing might happen to us, and this furnishes an additional reason _why we cannot_ commune with other denominations. I have said we could not, because you were in our view _unbaptized_; and that is of itself an unanswerable and all-sufficient reason, if there were no other. But there is another growing out of this matter of church discipline. Let us suppose a case for illustration. A minister in our church has imbibed the idea that the sprinkling ceremony, which you borrowed from the Roman Catholics, is valid baptism, and insists upon introducing it into our churches. We would regard it as a great wrong. We would, for the peace and purity of our communion, at once expel him, and deny him the privileges of the church. He goes to you, and you receive him gladly, and the very next day he comes back and claims, as a member of your church, privileges which we had just now formally denied him as a member of _our own_. Do you not see that this rule, carried out in actual practice, must necessarily destroy the force of all attempts at church discipline?”

“But how do Baptists now avoid that difficulty among themselves?”

“Very easily and simply. The right to our communion never extends beyond the reach of our discipline.”

“Then how can members of one Baptist Church claim a seat at the table of another; for, if I understand your church polity, every one of your churches is an independent body.”

“They _cannot_ claim it as a _right_, and our invitation to commune is extended by courtesy only to those whose faith and practice is so like our own, that no person could be a member in good standing with them who would not stand equally well with us.

“The rule adopted by Mr. Wesley (Discipline, see. 5th), and which is founded alike in Scriptural principles and common sense, is the same in substance as that which regulates our practice. That is, ‘no person shall be admitted to the Lord’s Supper among us, who is guilty of any practice for which we would exclude a member of our church.’ This rule you see at once compels us to deny all who teach and practice sprinkling for baptism, and all who engage in what we regard as the sinful though solemn mockery of baptizing unconscious infants, or any others who have not made a personal and credible profession of repentance and faith, according to the plain requirements of the Word of God, which _always and everywhere_ puts repentance and faith before baptism, as it puts baptism before communion. We are bound to this course by that solemn and most impressive injunction of the Apostles, 2 Thess. iii. 6—‘Now we command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you withdraw yourselves from every brother that walketh disorderly, and _not after the tradition which ye received from us_.’”

“Y declare, Mr. Courtney,” said Mrs. Jones, “I had no idea that you Baptists had so good and satisfactory reasons for your singular exclusiveness; and I promise you now that I will never complain of you again. In fact, if I ever become a Baptist, I shall be a close communion Baptist.”

“I do not see,” said Mrs. Ernest, “how any one can take the Scripture for his guide, and be any thing else; and I have been thinking all the time that there must be some good Bible reason for it, or else Theodosia and her uncle would not have agreed to it—but now, when I come to think of it, I have not heard either of them say a word on the subject.”

The reader will recollect, that at the beginning of this conversation Professor Jones had gone out of the room, for some cause at that time unexplained. He returned after a few minutes, but took no part in the conversation, in with indeed he seemed to feel but very little interest. Mrs. Jones had quickly noticed his abstracted manner, so different from his ordinary behaviour; and had several times cast an uneasy glance into his face, hoping to read there the cause. But she could only learn that it was in some way connected with Theodosia, whom he loved with the affection of a father. Each time she looked, his eye was resting with an expression of the deepest pity upon his lovely niece, who took no more part in the conversation than himself. In truth she had spoken very little to any one since the appearance of Mr. Percy at the courthouse on the preceding night. His relation of his experience of grace, and his declaration of his desire to be baptized, had placed him in a new relation to her. She did not know that he had then never seen her letter—and once (but only for a moment) the thought intruded into her heart that all this change had been made for _her_ sake, and not for Christ’s. She repelled it, however, in the instant that it came, and all day long had held herself ready to welcome him back to his place in her heart as her betrothed, and felt that she could love him now with an affection even deeper and more intense, higher and purer and holier than that which with such agony of effort she had been trying to strangle in her heart. She thought he would have come and spoken to her before she left the meeting, but he did not seem to notice her presence there. She was sure he would call in the morning—but dinner was on the table, and he had not come. That letter of hers must have prevented; but surely there was not in it any harsh expression, any single word of unkindness. Did not her heart _ache_ with the very intensity of her love, while she was writing it? And now she tried to recall it, sentence by sentence, and word by word, to see if there was any thing there which she should not have said.

The afternoon wore slowly away. She sat at the window where she could see the door of his office, but it was never opened. She listened to every foot fall on the pavement, but she heard not his familiar step. Once the latch of the front door was moved, and she sprang from her seat, and felt the blood crimson all her face and neck; but she sat down in a moment, for she knew it was her brother Edwin. Mr. Courtney called after supper. Mr. Percy had not come yet; but she hoped to meet him at her uncle’s. He was not there—and her spirit retired within itself; and she sat as mute, and almost as unconscious of what was passing around her, as a marble statue.

When Uncle Jones went out, it was to see Dr. Woodruff, a cousin of Mr. Percy, who was also his most devoted friend and confidant. He was to have officiated as the bridegroom’s friend on the expected wedding-day, and had just returned from Mr. Percy’s mother’s, where he had spent the day with one whose earthly career seemed likely soon to close. He had come in to break the melancholy tidings as best he could to Theodosia.

The facts, as he related them to Professor Jones, were briefly these: The servant who waited on Mr. Percy’s office had gone there in the morning, and had found the young man lying upon his face on the floor, with Theodosia’s letter in his hand. When the servant entered he seemed to be asleep. He aroused him, and raised him up; but his looks were so wild, and his face was so pale and his words (rather muttered than spoken) so strange and unnatural, that he placed him on the bed and ran for his cousin, the doctor.

When Doctor Woodruff came, and read the letter, he understood how it had been. Mr. Percy, from the time he wrote and sent that distressing letter to Theodosia, in the previous week, had been in a state of most intense mental excitement. Much of the time he had been suffering extreme agony of mind. His physical powers had become greatly exhausted, and his nervous system debilitated and excitable. He had gone from the meeting in the courthouse (where he had so unexpectedly had an opportunity to ask for Christian baptism) to his office. There he found Theodosia’s letter. He had never till then conceived that his letter would have occasioned such distress to her, or that it would have led her to such a determination. Yet if he had been entirely self-collected, and his mind had not been already exhausted by long continued over-excitement, the shock which the reading of her reply now gave him, would have been speedily followed by calmer thoughts, and an instant determination to see her at once, confess his fault, ask her forgiveness, and set himself right in her heart. But exhausted in body and excited in mind as he was, the revulsion of feeling was too great to be endured. He read on till he came to where she said, “When you return, I pray you to consider me but as one dead. It will be better for us both.” The paper seemed to grow black before his eyes. The room was suddenly darkened. He felt a strange, dreamy calmness creep over his brain. He sunk down out of his chair in a deep swoon, or fainting fit, upon the floor. He became conscious after a time, but had not strength to rise; and subsided again into a strange, unquiet sleep, mixed with half-waking dreams, in which he saw a beauteous form, more like an angel than a being of the earth, who came and raised him up, and looked into his eyes so sadly, so reproachfully, and yet so tenderly, that he struggled to tell her how his heart bled at the remembrance of the act which caused her so much sorrow—but he could not speak. He strove to raise his hand and make some sign to assure her that he loved her better for her firm adherence to the truth, but the muscles would not obey the will. He could not move—he could not speak—and she was gone. Oh, how deep and how long was the darkness of that night! She was gone! He felt that she was lost to him forever. The very light of his life was darkness now—and yet he waited and watched for her return. Could she leave him thus? Would she not love him still? Hark! he hears her footstep. The door opens. Some one touches him. He starts from his slumber to greet her with some word of love, but he sees only his servant, who is trying to remove him from the floor to the bed. He stares at him with the strange gaze of incipient madness, and bids him leave him to rest in peace. The doctor saw at once that a long and fearful brain fever was the best that he could hope for; and while his strength was yet comparatively undiminished, resolved to remove him to his mother’s house, some two miles in the country. This done, he prepared such remedies as his medical skill suggested, sat down, and watched beside his bed till he was satisfied that there was no immediate danger; and then, at his mother’s request, came in to explain to Theodosia the reason why he had not called on her. He had thought best to explain, as we have seen, to Uncle Jones, and leave him to make it known to his niece.

The Professor had been so much occupied with this matter, that he scarcely heard the discussion which was going on in his presence. He was glad when a pause in the conversation showed that the parties engaged had, for the present, at least, exhausted their ammunition, and were prepared for a temporary truce, if not for a permanent peace. He turned their attention to some other subject, and in a few minutes the Reverend Doctor took his leave.

Uncle Jones walked home with Theodosia. They walked slowly; and when Mrs. Ernest and Mr. Courtney had gotten some way before them, he broke the silence by reminding her that she had not spoken a word all through the evening; “and,” said he, “I will tell you why. You were distressed that Mr. Percy had not called to see you since his return, and wondering what could be the cause. Will it relieve your mind to tell you that he is sick?”

“I will not deny to you, uncle, that such was the subject of my thoughts. I hope he is not seriously unwell.”

“The doctor does not think him in any immediate danger, but fears it will be long before he can resume his business.”