a person may be a Christian who has not been bap

tized at all.

But is it the case that among all the Protestant sects, the C. Baptists have the only regularly authorized ministry? and are they the only ministers that can baptize legally? Strange it is that of all the converts of our time, none are to keep in remembrance the death of their crucified Lord by the ordinances he has appointed for that purpose, but those that are baptized by one particular denomination of Christians! Among the Presbyterians and other sects thousands are annually brought into the kingdom of Christ, and he has made it their duty to eat of the bread and drink of the cup. Now, who shall administer this sacrament to them? The truth is the C. Baptists would not, nor could they if they would, for thousands of them perhaps never heard one of their preachers. Now if those ministers whom God has blest in their awakening and salvation are not to administer this ordinance to them, thousands and millions of them must go down to the grave without ever obeying the command, "Do this in remembrance of me." Is this the way Christ manages the concerns of his kingdom? Does he qualify a minister to save souls, and to oversee the church of God as a faithful pastor, and still he must not administer the Lord's supper? Who will charge him with such management as this? Christ has but one church-one family-and thousands are brought into that church or family in the different denominations, but not by baptism. The word church (ekklesia in the Greek) signifies a company called out. It is compounded of (ek) out of, and (kleo) to call. A man may be baptized a dozen times, and after all not be called out of the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of God's Son. Nor can a C. Baptist initiate a person into that kingdom by baptizing him, any more than I can.

CLOSE COMMUNION ARGUMENTS ANSWERED. 185

We have now, First, examined the sense of the term. communion. Secondly, the time and circumstances of its institution. Thirdly, the design of Christ as far as he has revealed it; and, Fourthly, we have tried to prove that Christians or disciples of Christ, irrespective of their sectarian names, baptized or unbaptized, are the proper subjects, and have found in all this research nothing to militate or to preponderate against free communion of saints, even of the weight of a straw.

V. Consider the arguments in favor of close communion.

1. Order of the ordinances. Says Mr. E. Foster, in his "Terms of Communion," Without order every thing is distorted and unseemly, loses its power to please, and ceases to be useful. Order in religion is as beautiful as in the works of creation.

'Let all things be done decently and in order,' says Paul, and surely in this, we shall honor God and the religion we profess." I contend for order; and that the Lord's supper should be celebrated in a manner both decent and in order. The order St. Paul would have Christians observe in this ordinance was, that "if any were hungry they should eat at home, and that one should, in eating, wait for another. He says he had received of the Lord Jesus how it was to be done, that in the night in which he was betrayed he took bread, &c. He first took the bread and then the cup. This is the established order. But in the text quoted, 1 Cor. 14:40, what kind of order was St. Paul speaking of? He was speaking of the disposition of spiritual gifts in the church, and how they should be improved that one only should speak at a time-how the prophets should speak and that no one should speak in an unknown tongue without an interpreter, &c. To bring this to prove an order of time in the celebration of the ordinances of the Church of Christ is just as reasonable as the text the Fathers used to bring as a proof

of infant baptism, "Give to him that asketh," and ere long they found that very young infants "cried for baptism."

I have already shown the order of the institution of the ordinances, and that in order of time the supper was instituted first-that it represents an action or circumstance that took place prior to that circumstance. represented by the ordinance of baptism. "Without order every thing is unseemly." I see nothing unseemly in the way my Presbyterian brethren, for instance, celebrate this supper. Unseemly" means indecent; and as long as there is nothing indecent in the way they celebrate the supper it is of course" decent and in order."

If Christ had taught this "order" as the close communionists do, we should have understood.it. But as he has not taught it, perhaps it would be somewhat becoming for men not to insist upon establishing it now. Says the same author, "It was the duty of the Jewish priests to offer sacrifices at the temple, but it was their duty to wash or bathe themselves first." So it was, but what made it their duty? God commanded it. Lev. 22:6. If God had made it the duty of the disciples to bathe themselves before coming to the Lord's table, he would have commanded it. God's command made it their duty; but God has never commanded Christians to bathe themselves, or to be baptized, just before eating this supper.

Again, "It was the duty of all Israel to march at the command of God, but it was their duty to march in a prescribed order, not in any other order nor in disorder." How was this order to be ascertained? Did one tribe say, "We think we ought to move first?" Not so. God commanded that the tribe of Judah should march first. Numbers 10:13, 14. He determined the order. If he had not told them who should go forward, then it would have been no sin for the tribe of Issachar to have taken the lead. Now if I could find in the Bible, "Thus

says God, you must be baptized before you celebrate the supper;" that I should at once call the order; but it is not there. But why take a positive command of God in a given case in order to prove that he has positively commanded that which he never has commanded? The above statements of order are calculated to cast a false impression; for they are held up in false colors. God's commanding one thing does not prove that he has commanded every thing we can imagine-nor that what we judge to be the order of his arrangements is that order. As far as we have followed the order of the sacraments, as argued by our close communion brethren, we find they place a bare matter of human judgment on even footing with a command of Jehovah. I will give one other specimen of the same kind of argument. "It was the duty of Nadab and Abihu to burn incense before the Lord; but it was not their duty to burn it with strange fire.". We will take a view of this circumstance. Levit, 10:1. "And Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, took either of them his censer, and put fire therein and put incense thereon, and offered strange fire before the Lord, which he COMMANDED them NOT." Do you suppose while the trembling child of God comes to the Lord's table that he knows that the Lord commanded him not! Where is that command? It is only a command of men. This is perhaps the reason that unbaptized Christians are not burnt up like Nadab and Abihu, or struck dead, as were Annanias and Sapphira for coming to the Lord's table, viz: they break only the commands of men. For well informed men to bring up this circumstance of God's wrath against these priests for breaking his known command, in order to keep the feeble follower of Christ away from his board, by holding up the glittering sword of Almighty vengeance over their heads should they partake, is, I think, not only inconsistent but cruel! What is proved by this passage? Why, that God

did command them not to burn incense with strange fire, and that because they did it he cut them offand it proves also that under circumstances as criminal God would cut us off, and that while God displays, (instead of vengeance,) his love to all who love his Son and obey him in this ordinance, no Divine command is violated or trampled by their obedience. It would require an infinite number of such arguments, as I have quoted, in favor of close communion to prove it. These arguments are not conclusive, for this reason. A violation of a positive command is taken to prove it wrong to violate no positive command of God whatever. In fact, they are hostile to the close communion cause, and entirely irrelevant to the purpose for which they are brought; for they prove that if we break a positive command of God, God will not be well pleased with us; and, instead of sending his spirit into our hearts, he would send his curses upon our heads; and this proves the reverse of what they intend to prove by it, that is, no positive command is violated when any of Christ's disciples come around his table, where he refreshes them with his Holy Spirit, and fills their souls with his love. This proves that they are not transgressing any command of God. If I understand the foregoing arguments, they are sophistical. They come under that class of sophisms termed "petitio principii," a begging of the question. The question begged is that baptism is an indispensable prerequisite to a proper observance of the Lord's supper. That no person, therefore, who has not been immersed in water can properly observe that supper is the conclusion. This conclusion would be correct, if the question was not begged. "Baptism," say they, "is prerequisite to the Lord's supper." If we ask how that fact is proved, the answer is, "Baptism is prerequisite to the Lord's supper." Thus a man proves God is eternal, because he is without beginning or end; that is, God is eternal because he is eternal.