Baptists hold that there are three imperative conditions precedent to the privileges of the Lord’s Supper: 1. Regeneration. No unconverted person can with propriety, or of right, eat and drink at that sacred feast, in commemoration of Christ’s death. They must be persons dead to sin, and alive to God; born again, through the operation of the Spirit. 2. Baptism. Buried with Christ in baptism on a profession of faith in Him. No person, however good, and however manifestly regenerate, is prepared without baptism, according to the Divine order, to receive the Supper. Without baptism he cannot enter the fellowship of the church, where the Supper alone is to be enjoyed. 3. An orderly walk is necessary. An upright and consistent Christian walk, and godly conversation among the saints, and before the world. For though one may be truly regenerate, and properly baptized, yet if he be a disorderly walker, violating his covenant obligations, living in sin, and bringing reproach on the Christian profession, he has no right to sit at the Lord’s Table.
The ordinances are a sacred trust which Christ has committed to the churches as custodians, and which they are to watch and guard from all profane intrusion, and improper use, with the most sedulous fidelity. Baptists believe that in order to maintain the purity and spirituality of the churches, it is necessary to maintain the ordinances pure; and especially necessary to restrict the Supper to regenerate and godly persons, baptized on a profession of their faith, into the fellowship of the saints. To adopt any other rule, or to allow any larger liberty, would break down the distinction between the church and the world; would bring in a carnal and unconverted membership, and transfer the sacred mysteries of the body and the blood of Christ from the temple of God to the temple of Belial. This would be disloyalty to Christ.
The Apostolic plan was as follows: Those who believed and gladly received the Word, were baptized. Then they were added to the church. Then they continued steadfastly in the Apostles’ doctrine, and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayer.
Notice, they were not baptized till they had received the Word and believed. They were not added to the church till they had believed and been baptized. They did not engage in the breaking of bread (that is, the Supper,) till they had believed, been baptized, and were added to the church. This is the Divine order; and this is the order which Baptists maintain and defend.
pedobaptist close communion
It has already been shown that Pedobaptists themselves practice a restricted or close communion, limiting the privilege to baptized (as they call them) members of evangelical churches, and that their communion is more liberal than that of the Baptists only, and only by so much as their baptism (so-called) is more liberal than that of Baptists.
But in some respects Pedobaptists practice a “close communion,” restrictive in its conditions, far beyond anything known to Baptists whose illiberality they are accustomed to magnify. They exclude a large class of their own members from the Lord’s Table—namely, baptized children! Baptists do not deny the Lord’s Supper to their own members in good standing. If children are suitable subjects for baptism, it seems most unreasonable and unjust to deny them the Supper. If they can be benefited by one ordinance, can they not be equally benefited by the other? If they can receive the one on the faith of sponsors, can they not receive the other in the same way? Who has authorized parents or ministers to give baptism to unconverted and unconscious children, and refuse them the Lord’s Supper? By denying the Supper to baptized children, Pedobaptists act contrary to the traditions of the ancient churches, which they are accustomed to cite with so much assurance, in defense of infant baptism. Do they not know that those ancient churches (not the primitive churches) gave the Lord’s Supper to infants for many centuries? And the Greek Church, through all its branches, continues still the same practice.
Doctor Coleman says: “After the general introduction of infant baptism, in the second and third centuries, the sacrament continued to be administered to all who had been baptized, whether infants or adults. The reason alleged by Cyprian and others for this practice was, that age was no impediment. Augustine strongly advocates the practice. The custom continued for several centuries. It is mentioned in the third Council of Tours, a. d. 813; and even the Council of Trent, a. d. 1545, only decreed that it should not be considered essential to salvation. It is still scrupulously observed by the Greek Church.” Anc. Christ. Exemp., Ch. 22, Sec. 8; Bing., Orig., B. 15, Ch. 4, Sec. 7. Many other writers bear the same testimony.
the power of sympathy
There is a small class of Baptists who are at times inclined to desire, and it may be, to seek a wider liberty at the Lord’s Table than they find accorded in their own churches. The one prevailing argument with them is sympathy. To them it seems kindly and fraternal to invite all who say they love our common Lord and Saviour to unite in commemorating His death in the Supper. Even if they have not been baptized, they themselves believe they have, and they are good Christian people. “Why stand upon a technicality?” they say. To such the service is merely a sentimental service; a kind of love feast to show Christian fellowship, rather than an instituted commemoration of their dying Lord. They have neither Scripture, logic, expediency, the scholarship, nor the concurrent practice of Christendom, either past or present, to sustain their position. But sympathy influences them; yet sympathy should not control conduct in matters of faith, or in acts of conscience. It is a grave perversion when affection for his disciples sways us more than fidelity to our Lord. We should not be so kind to them as to be untrue to Him. Sincere Christians will honor those who are loyal to Christ, even though they differ in opinion.