Cave, one of the ablest writers on Christian antiquities, says the participants in the primitive church were those “that had embraced the doctrine of the Gospel, and had been baptized into the faith of Christ. For, looking upon the Lord’s Supper as the highest and most solemn act of religion, they thought they could never take care enough in the dispensing of it.” Prim. Christ., Part I., Ch. 11, p. 333.
Bingham, in his able work on the Antiquities of the Christian Church, says of the early Christians: “As soon as a man was baptized he was communicated”—that is, admitted to the communion. Baptism, therefore, essentially preceded the Supper.—Christ. Antiq., B. 12, Ch. 4, Sec. 9, B. 15, Ch. 3.
Doctor Wall, who searched the records of antiquity for facts illustrating the history of the ordinances, says: “No church ever gave the communion to any persons before they were baptized. Among all the absurdities that were ever held, none ever maintained that any person should partake of the communion before he was baptized.” Hist. Inf. Bap., Part II., Ch. 9.
Doctor Coleman says of the early churches: “None indeed but believers in full communion with the church were permitted to be present.” “But agreeably to all the laws and customs of the church, baptism constituted membership with the church. All baptized persons were legitimately numbered among the communicants as members of the church.” Anc. Christ. Exemp., Ch. 21, Sec. 8.
Doctor Schaff says: “The communion was a regular part, and, in fact, the most important and solemn part of the Sunday worship, . . . in which none but full members of the church could engage.” Ch. Hist., Vol. I., p. 392. New Work, 1871.
Doctor Doddridge says: “It is certain that so far as our knowledge of primitive antiquity reaches, no unbaptized person received the Lord’s Supper.” Lectures, pp. 511, 512.
Doctor Dick says: “An uncircumcised man was not permitted to eat the Passover; and an unbaptized man should not be permitted to partake of the Eucharist.” Theol., Vol. II., p. 220.
Doctor Baxter says: “What man dares go in a way which hath neither precept nor example to warrant it, from a way that hath full current of both? Yet they that will admit members into the visible church without baptism do so.” Plain Scripture Proof, p. 24.
Doctor Dwight, President of Yale College, and author of “Systematic Theology,” says: “It is an indispensable qualification for this ordinance that the candidate for communion be a member of the visible church in full standing. By this, I intend that he should be a man of piety; that he should have made a public profession of religion, and that he should have been baptized.” Syst. Theol., Ser. 160, B. 8, Ch. 4. Sec. 7.
Doctor Griffin, one of the fathers of New England Congregationalism, says: “I agree with the advocates of close communion on two points: 1. That baptism is the initiatory ordinance which introduces us into the visible church; of course, where there is no baptism, there are no visible churches. 2. That we ought not to commune with those who are not baptized, and of course not church-members, even if we regard them as Christians.” Letter on Baptism, 1829, cited by Curtis on Com., p. 125.