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Chapter 15—On Communion, Answering The Charge Of Discrimation
Mr. Bridgman: "Are the elect, redeemed, and regenerated of the Lord, to be kept from, or thrust back if they approach the Lord's table, because they have not been immersed in cold water—although, as the elect, their names are in the Lamb's book above." My Reply: 1. The Lamb's book above is no rule for our conduct in the church below, but the revealed and written will of God, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, given under heaven. 2. Neither election, redemption, nor regeneration, constitute any perceptive law of institutions, or of order in the church; but the word of the God of all such grace. We are to be neither law-makers for the wicked, nor breakers of divine law for the saints.…
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15 Christian Baptism
Ordination, in its popular sense, is that form of service by which men are admitted to the ranks of the Christian ministry, and to the exercise of its functions. So important a relation does this service sustain to the character of the men who fill their pulpits and become the instructors and guides of the churches, that ritualistic communions hold it as a sacrament. While ordination is but one of the avenues by which worthy men can be admitted to, and unworthy men excluded from, the sacred office, yet it is one, and should be sedulously guarded by watchful churches and conscientious Councils and Presbyteries—that the ministry be kept pure and true to its high calling. For, while neither churches nor Councils can prevent a…
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Chapter 14—On Communion, Answering The Charge Of Exclusivity
Mr. Bridgman: "I would ask that minister in all seriousness, Have you and your denomination exclusively the keys of the Church of Christ." My Reply: In reply to this we say no; nor do we ever pretend to any such thing, "We are but servants, and our great Master's word and the example of his first servants on his New Testament establishment, is our law, rule, and only authority of order and of action. We lock nothing up that the scriptures have not locked up, and we have got no keys to unlock what the word of God does not unlock, if you have. If that word be no law to you it is to us; and you have, for all what you have written…
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A Very Strange Sound In Our Ears
Strange things I've heard Reformed Baptists say: "We must believe like John Calvin, but evangelize like James Arminius!" "If it were not for Paedobaptism, I would be a Presbyterian!" "A church is at high risk of pastoral dictatorship unless more than one pastor is appointed." "Christians need the church like babies need milk...it is their nourishment for life." "Hyper-calvinists have no urgency to preach the gospel to dying sinners," said one while spending a day visiting with me in the sitting room, instead of urgently preaching the gospel to my neigbors. "It is the unbeliever's duty to believe on Christ, and the believer's duty to obey the [moral] law!" "God wants you to come to Christ; the only thing keeping you from salvation is your…
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14 Ordination
Ordination, in its popular sense, is that form of service by which men are admitted to the ranks of the Christian ministry, and to the exercise of its functions. So important a relation does this service sustain to the character of the men who fill their pulpits and become the instructors and guides of the churches, that ritualistic communions hold it as a sacrament. While ordination is but one of the avenues by which worthy men can be admitted to, and unworthy men excluded from, the sacred office, yet it is one, and should be sedulously guarded by watchful churches and conscientious Councils and Presbyteries—that the ministry be kept pure and true to its high calling. For, while neither churches nor Councils can prevent a…
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Chapter 13—On Communion, Answering The Charge Of Inconsistency
Mr. Bridgman: "That your sect goes too far, much too far, or to be thoroughly consistent with a bad principle, not far enough." My Reply: 1. We go too far for you and for your opinion it seems, and too far for the confederating, accommodating, faithless, fleshly spirit of the age; and consequently too far for our own carnal interest, but not far enough to establish a bad principle, and so not too far for the word of God, and not far enough for you to condemn us, except by your own opinion. This is just were we wish to be, out-running all supineness in regard to the sacred text as our only standard and our rule, without going into extravagance by any unhallowed constructions…
