three facts explained
Baptists give the following reasons in justification of their course in the following cases:
1. They do not invite Pedobaptists to the Lord’s Supper with them, because such persons are not baptized, as has been shown, they being simply sprinkled. They may be true converts, and have the spiritual qualifications, but they are destitute of the ceremonial qualification—baptism. The “buried in baptism” comes before the “breaking of bread.”
2. They do not accept the invitation of Pedobaptist churches to eat at the Lord’s Table with them, for the same reason; they are not baptized Christians. And while the appreciate their Christian fellowship, they could not accept their church fellowship, and sit at the Lord’s Table with them, without accepting their sprinkling and indorsing their baptismal errors.
3. They do not invite immersed members of Pedobaptist churches to the Lord’s Supper with them, because such persons, though they may be truly regenerate and properly baptized, are walking disorderly by remaining in and giving countenance to churches which hold and practice serious errors as to both the ordinances. These churches use sprinkling for baptism and administer the ordinance to infants, both of which are unscriptural. And yet such persons, by remaining in them, encourage and support these errors, instead of protesting against them by leaving them. They insist on immersion for themselves, and yet by a strange inconsistency give their fellowship and influence to perpetuate and sanction sprinkling for others. This is inconsistent and disorderly Christian walking; and, therefore, very properly, Baptists decline to invite them to the Lord’s Supper.
pedobaptist witnesses
In further proof that the position of Baptists as to the Lord’s Supper is correct and Scriptural; that the difficulty lies with baptism, and not with the Supper; and that they must still continue to restrict the ordinance to baptized believers, or else admit that sprinkling is baptism, we cite the concessions of distinguished Pedobaptist scholars and Divines in evidence on our side.
Justin Martyr, one of the early Christian Fathers, says of the Supper: “This food is called by us the Eucharist, of which it is not lawful for any one to partake but such as believe the things taught by us to be true, and have been baptized.” Apol. I, C. 65. 66. See Schaff’s Church Hist., Ch. 2. p. 516.
Mosheim, in his Church History, says: “Neither those doing penance, nor those not yet baptized, were allowed to be present at the celebration of this ordinance.” Eccl. Hist., Cent. 3, Part 2, Ch. 4, Sec. 3.
Neander, the great church historian, says: “At this celebration, as may be easily concluded, no one could be present who was not a member of the Christian Church, and incorporated into it by the rite of baptism.” Ch. Hist., Vol. 1., 327. Boston, 1849.