Do the Unimmersed Commune?

[This article was written last year during the pendency of the discussion to which it alludes. Some of its expressions may, therefore, sound a little out of time. It is not, however, deemed necessary to alter them now. At the time when they were penned the Quarterly was expected to be started soon.]

The subject of communion has been, for some time, engrossing much of the attention of our brotherhood. It has been conspicuously discussed both in the Millennial Harbinger and in the American Christian Review. Brethren Pendleton and Errett have occupied most of the space in the former work; brother Franklin has occupied most of the space in the latter. It cannot be denied that at times the discussion has become a little piquant; and I have thought that now and then I could even taste in it some slight traces of acetic acid and salt. Perhaps this was all imaginary. But suppose it was not, what then? I love to read a thing when it becomes a little racy, and can stand it when it becomes even a little rare, to use a favorite term of the Epicurean, when ordering his steak. I do not mean that I like to see a discussion look bloody; but with me let it look almost any way rather than cadaverous. Away with that sickly sentimentalism which screams out at every strong epithet of an earnest man! I love epithets; and if they detonate like percussion caps or flash like meteors, all the better. Only let them be not unbecoming the gravity of religious discussion and the fraternity of Christians. As for the condiments just named, they are excellent things, as is well known even to children. Salt is a capital disinfectant, keeping out bad odors, and both salt and acetic acid have fine conservative properties. Even religious discussions cannot do well without them.

Some brethren have augured ill from the discussion as conducted in these two journals. Frightful rents and heresies in the church have suddenly shot across their horizon. I shall not deny that I have seen some things to regret; yet I have seen nothing to fear. When brethren become earnest in a discussion we are not to infer wrath; neither when they differ in opinion are we to infer heresies. Good will surely come out of this discussion, and in the end we shall be a wiser, if not a better, people.

I believe the discussion to be both necessary and well-timed — well- timed because it serves to give a little employment to our thoughts at a time when they greatly need employment on Christian themes—necessary, because it will lead to more definite as well as more accurate views of a most important subject. Heretofore communion has occupied no great share of our attention. Our views and language respecting it are, in many instances, borrowed wholly [41] from the parties around us, and not derived immediately from the word of God. The subject needs a thorough reconsideration, and our words and speech, where either may be defective, a thorough correction. Hitherto we have deemed a few hasty paragraphs, or a few brief, and frequently very unstudied remarks at the table, quite enough to set forth the true conception of this impressive and significant rite. Possibly in this we have been wrong. Now that the subject is before the brotherhood in a mooted form, let it receive a patient, and, if need be, a protracted examination. Still no lengthy examination of the subject is proposed in the present paper. A statement of it, as I understand it, is what is proposed rather than an elaborate discussion of it.

The present discussion, be it remembered, is one confined to entirely to our brotherhood. We are not conducting it with others, but strictly amongst ourselves. This being so, the following particulars may be assumed:

1. That belief in Christ, a fixed purpose to forsake sin, and the immersion of the body in water, are necessary to constitute a man a Christian—always and everywhere necessary. In other words, and generally, it is here assumed that it takes two things to constitute a man a Christian; namely: 1. The right spirit or mental frame; 2. The right act or acts; and that no more can the right spirit, without the right acts, constitute him a Christian, than can the right acts, without the right spirit. What I mean by the right spirit and the right acts is the spirit and acts prescribed in the New Testament. With the right spirit, without the right acts, a man may be eminently good and pious, but he is not a Christian. Though he should be in spirit only as faultless as a seraph, he is not a Christian. God may esteem him very highly, much more so than many of the immersed, and even very certainly save him; still, with becoming decency be it said, he is not a Christian. In this case God esteems him as a good man and not as a Christian; and the distinction between the two is as palpable to thought, as is the distinction to the eye, between the words good and Christian used to denote them respectively. With the right acts, without the right spirit, a man may be pre-eminently moral, still he is no Christian; and though all the world should pronounce him one, yet he is not one in the sight of God. These things, for the present, I take for granted without stopping to argue them.

2. That the Kingdom or Church is something wholly distinct from the world; that between them exists a line deep, legible, and ineffaceable; that from the world into the kingdom a man cannot pass except by a birth of water and spirit, and that without this birth he is not a Christian. With our brethren these positions are postulates and not matters of controversy. [42]

3. That the institution called the Lord’s Supper exists wholly within the kingdom; and in no sense nor in any part out of it.

Now, if these premises be correct, and I most conscientiously believe them to be, then I ask, how can a man who is out of the kingdom participate in a rite which exists wholly in it? If the man cannot enter the kingdom without being born again, nor the rite be removed out of the kingdom into the world; then it seems to me that participation in the rite by the man is impossible. If I set a table in my house it is most clear that no one can partake thereat without first entering the house. Equally clear would it seem to be, that no one can partake of the Lord’s table without first entering the kingdom. May it not be, then, that in the present controversy we have been assuming true what is, in fact, not true? We have been assuming that the unimmersed do commune; but may this not be false? I will not affirm that it is false; but I must deny that it is true. That the unimmersed seem to commune, I grant. Certain it is that they break the bread and drink the cup; but is this a genuine communion? It is what we call communion, I well know, but is it so viewed and accepted by the Lord? Candidly I cannot think it. The case resembles a vitiated immersion. A man professes to believe in his heart that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, seems penitent and sincere; yet in fact he is not a believer. I immerse this man. Now, so far as I am concerned, so far as the audience is concerned, this seems a genuine immersion; yet in fact it is not so. The absence of faith has vitiated it, and it is not accepted by the Lord as the act appointed by him. Precisely so in the case of communion. A man to all human appearance communes—he certainly breaks the bread and drinks of the cup; yet this is not a real communion. The man is not in the kingdom, and this vitiates his act. It is hence not accepted of the Lord as the act appointed by Him. The act appointed by Him is appointed to be performed by none but a Christian; consequently when performed by another, it is not the act appointed by him; hence it is no communion. Even granting that the communicant is perfectly sincere; still this cannot alter the nature of his act, only so far, it may be, as to render it uncriminal. Mere sincerity cannot entitle a man to commune; he must be a Christian and sincere, otherwise he neither can nor does commune. If a man be out of the kingdom, neither sincerity alone, nor sincerity and piety alone, can alter his relation thereto; neither consequently can they alone entitle him to commune. When out of the kingdom, but one thing can alter his relation to it; namely, a birth of water and spirit. This alone, therefore, can entitle him to commune. [43]

But suppose a man to be a true believer in Christ, to be truly penitent, to be sprinkled and not immersed, and sincerely to think this baptism, to be a strictly moral man, and to feel in heart that he is a Christian—what then? May he not commune? I answer yes; provided it can be first shown that sincerely thinking so transmutes an act of sprinkling into an act of immersion, or causes God to accept the thing he has not appointed for the thing he has. Otherwise, I say, not that the man may not commune, but that he cannot and does not commune. The Christian man is not a character compounded of a mere bundle of good intentions and inferences; but a positive, determinate character, all of whose lineaments and qualifications are distinctly set down in the word of God, and without which a man is not a Christian. Men may clamor at this if they see fit, and string together whole scores of ad captandum questions put as mere appeals to the feelings and prejudices of the multitude: I heed them not. What! will retort the astounded opponent, utterly shocked and scandalized at the boldness of what is here said, do you mean to say that Martin Luther was not a Christian? I mean to say distinctly and emphatically that Martin Luther, if not immersed, was not a Christian—this is what I mean to say. I do not mean to deny that Martin Luther was an eminently good and pious man; neither do I mean to deny that God took him when he died—I deny that he was a Christian. Nor am I unapprised of the effect which writing thus, has on the feelings of many excellent and benevolent people; but for one, I cannot repress in my heart the deep, honest convictions thereof; at least I will not. It is high time that the world understood the present point; and that we understood ourselves. If we mean to teach without mincing the matter, that immersion, for this is the only difficulty in the way, is necessary, always and everywhere, since the founding of the kingdom, to constitute a Christian, let is be unqualifiedly said; and then let it stand forever as the unalterable expression of our faith. Or if we do not mean to teach thus, let us avow what we do mean to teach. Candidly, I am tired of publishing to the world a tenet, as something taught in Holy Writ, and in the same breath proclaiming a set of inferences which falsify it. If a man can be a Christian without immersion, let the fact be shown; or if a man can or may commune without being a Christian, let the fact be shown. I deny both. Immovably I stand here. But I shall be told that this is Phariseeism, that it is exclusivism. Be it so; if it be true and this is the only question with me respecting it, then I am so far the defendant of Phariseeism and exclusivism. I stagger at nothing if true, at every thing if false.

But I shall be told that I am missing the question; that the [44] question is, not whether a man can be a Christian without immersion, since it is conceded he cannot, but whether, if a pious, unimmersed person, who sincerely believes himself to have been baptized, and who feels in his heart that he is a Christian and ought to commune—whether if he proposes to commune, I have the right to forbid him? I argue, first, that if he can really commune, that is, commune acceptably to God, he may commune; but, second, if he cannot commune acceptably to God, then he may not commune at all, and if he may not commune at all, then not only have I the right, but it is my solemn duty to forbid him to perform the act which he cannot perform. Suppose, now, that Brother Pendleton, for his is less likely than any one else to deem me capable of being discourteous toward him, or to take offense at the personality—suppose he should affirm, that this pious, unimmersed man can commune acceptably to God; and that therefore he has the right to do so. I ask Brother Pendleton how he knows this? and I make the question a special point. All he knows is, that the man who is certainly a Christian can commune acceptably; but that he who is not certainly a Christian can do so is something he does not know. How then dare he assert it? Should he assert it, however, not as a fact taught in the Bible, but as a mere opinion or honest inference, I then have no controversy with my brother, and love him none the less either for holding or expressing the opinion; only in that case I think him not so good a logician as his former pupil. Will he forgive me this vanity?

But, on the other hand, suppose Brother Pendleton should ask me, how I know that the act of this pious, unimmersed person is not acceptable to God? I reply, I do not know it at all, neither is it my business to pretend to know it. I may legitimately deny that any act is, as an act of worship, acceptable to God, unless He has expressly or by implication enjoined it; and sure I am, He has never enjoined that the unimmersed either shall or may commune. True, the Bible does not expressly prohibit the unimmersed to commune; but then no one will contend that a man may do the things which the Bible does not prohibit, merely because it does not prohibit them. We infer duties, not from what the Bible does not say, but from what it does say.

But I shall be asked, what harm, after all, can come of the pious unimmersed’s communing? I answer, if all men saw as far and thought as well as Brother Pendleton sees and thinks, perhaps but little harm would come of it. But such is not the case; and hence I think that evil only, and not good, must result from the practice. The conviction is somehow deeply, and I think most correctly, fixed in the popular mind, that none but a Christian may commune, and that if two men commune together, this is proof [45] positive that each regards the other as a Christian—(the latter part of the sentence is not necessarily correct.) But Brother Pendleton sets down and communes with the pious unimmersed, though holding that none but Christians may commune. From this act one of two inferences will be drawn, and no labor on his part can prevent it; namely, either that he holds the unimmersed to be Christians, and hence regards immersion as not necessary to becoming a Christian; or, if he regards immersion as necessary to becoming a Christian, that his practice is inconsistent with what he holds. Let me tell my brother plainly that his own positions in the Harbinger have placed him before large numbers of our brethren as either thus holding or thus inconsistent. I wish I could feel that his positions have done him injustice. Does Brother Pendleton hold that a man who is not a Christian, (I use the term strictly,) may commune? Suppose he does not. Yet does he hold that the unimmersed may commune? Suppose he does. Then that immersion is not necessary, according to him, to becoming a Christian, is intuitively evident. Or does he hold that a man is not a Christian without immersion, and that unless a Christian he may not commune? If so, let him plainly avow it; and this will exclude the unimmersed. I trust my brother will use no epithet to qualify the term Christian. Let him not say of the man, he may commune, if a Christian in spirit, or in heart, or in deportment; but let him plainly say, that he may not commune unless a Christian, or that he may commune without being one; also, that he is a Christian without immersion, or that he is not one without it. All men will then understand Brother Pendleton. But, perhaps, he will say that some of these points are of a nature so delicate, that he should shrink from deciding them on his own individual responsibility. Some of them are grave points, I grant, but then I well know that he has them all decided in his own mind. Let us have that decision.

Does Brother Pendleton take the position, and this is the position I understand him to take, that if a pious man, though not strictly a Christian, desires to commune with us, he may, on his own responsibility, do so; and we may not forbid him? I then reply, that, when he says of the man, he may commune if he sees fit, this is a mere opinion of Brother Pendleton, and is to be so held and so expressed, and that it is not a thing to be published to the world as something taught in Holy Writ. Let us not lose sight of our just and cherished distinction between matter of opinion and matter of faith.

Again, I understand Brother Pendleton to hold that it is extremely indelicate, if not presumptuous, to think that all the pious unimmersed are not Christians. I have reason to know much of [46] my brother’s kind heart, and clear mind; and that it is hard for him when speaking from the former to pronounce any good man not a Christian. Let him, then, not be offended with me, if I tell him that when he speaks thus, he speaks from the heart alone, and not from the head. I am not insensible to his amiableness in this respect. But this is not a question to be decided by affection, or sympathy, or anything else, save the clear, hard light of the Bible. By it, and it only, must every man stand or fall. I then ask my brother, whether, in the light of this sacred test, even he can pronounce Martin Luther a Christian without an epithet—a Christian in the sense in which the term occurs in the Bible—a Christian in the sense in which he applies the term to his venerable father, the President of Bethany College? If he replies he can; I ask him to make the world sensible that he consistently believes immersion necessary to becoming a Christian; or if he says he cannot; then let him say outright that Luther was not a Christian; and we shall deem him, though none the less kind, certainly the more consistent. To think that a pious man is not a Christian hurts me no less than it hurts Brother Pendleton. But then I owe a stern duty to the teachings of Holy Writ, which I must meekly pay, though it cost me every feeling of my heart, and unchristianized all the world besides. I love a lofty charity which refuses to note all the little errors of frail humanity; but I love not less that sublime regard for the truth which is ready to immolate even earth rather than one jot, or one tittle thereof shall fail. It is not that I love Luther less, but that I love truth more, which impels me to think him not a Christian. In affection for his memory, in admiration for so strong a brain, his great heart, his devotion to truth, and his shining deeds, I claim to be the inferior not even of the accomplished Pendleton. Still, admiration of the great man on the one hand, shall never enfeeble my regard for the voice of truth, which on the other, asks my fealty and defense. When we have settled the question as to Luther, the preceding questions are put, not as implying that Brother is not, or does not hold what they embrace, but for the sake of setting doubtful points, or points of difference, in the strongest light before the reader.

That the foregoing positions are offensive to the pious unimmersed, that they render it the more difficult for us to come into profitable contact with them, I well know, and that they even seem to imply a feeling of self superiority on our part, I shall not deny. All this I sincerely regret. But I have long since learned that you never correct men’s errors by seeming to treat them as not errors; and that it is the spirit and air with which you tell a [47] man he is wrong which give him offense, rather than the mere fact of telling him so. Let the unimmersed be told of their error with a spirit as sweet and kind as that in which you would address the wife of your bosom, but at the same time with a purpose as firm and uncompromising as that in which you would snatch the hand of your child from theft. To the spirit which brethren Pendleton and Errett would have us manifest to the pious unimmersed in the parties of the day, none can object; but that these brethren have, in claiming for these pious unimmersed the right to commune, put forth a position deeply injurious to the truth of Christ, I cannot but think. And if they imagine that this is said in a captious or fault-finding spirit, or in a spirit which would impeach them with groundless error, they know not the hand that pens these lines. Brother Pendleton is my steadfast friend, but that he has stained the pages of the Harbinger with an error, I as conscientiously believe as I believe him to be my friend. Should he call this bold, I will not deny it; should he think it said by the wrong person, it would hurt me; but should he feel that it is unkind, then we are issue. But this he will not do; for Brother Pendleton is a candid man, and he loves candor in others.

It is proper to remark here, that Brother Pendleton has most distinctly reiterated his belief, that immersion is necessary to becoming a Christian, a reiteration in no case necessary with the writer of this; and that he has clearly defined his claim for the pious unimmersed. But that his belief, and his claim are inconsistent is the precise point which strikes me with force; nor do I believe that even he can ever reconcile them. That they are inconsistent to his mind, I do not for a moment believe; for he is incapable of holding a known inconsistency; but that they are inconsistent to my mind, I am not ashamed to avow, however they may appear to others.

In the course of this discussion the word right, or an expression equivalent to it, is one of frequent occurrence. We speak of the right of a man to commune, and of our right to forbid him. This term needs qualification. It is one which it is extremely difficult to use without creating a false impression, or leading to a false conclusion. Indeed, it is hardly too much to say, that it is a dangerous term to use, especially in a question like the present. The following qualifications are submitted with deference: A man is viewed in the two-fold character of man and Christian. A man, as a Christian, has the right to perform an act, as an act of worship, only when it is expressly sanctioned by Holy Writ. What is not thus sanctioned, he has no right to perform. He has no rights except such as he has derived from this source. It is on this ground we say that the unimmersed may not commune. The [48] Bible does not recognize the unimmersed as Christians; it hence grants them no rights as such. A man, as man, has the right to do—1st, Whatever is necessary to constitute him a Christian; he has the right to believe and to the use of all the means necessary to belief, the right to repent, and the right to be immersed, and none whose duty it is to immerse can forbid him, for two rights cannot conflict; 2d, Whatever is for his own well-being or that of others, and is not inconsistent with the Bible. Beyond these a man has no rights either as a man or as a Christian. Hence when I claim the right to forbid the unimmersed to commune, my claim has this extent only; that as a teacher of the truth I must tell him he has not the right to commune. This done, I can proceed no farther. If he still insists that the has the right to commune, and communes, I am clear. But in this case I would hand him neither the loaf nor the cup. He should take them for himself.

But I shall be told that in thus assuming to forbid the unimmersed to commune, I assume to decide the question whether he is or is not a Christian—a question which I have not the right to decide. I deny the charge and disclaim the right. The man tells me he is a believer, I accept it; he tells me he is penitent, I accept it; he tells me he is unimmersed, on this the Bible decides him to be out of the kingdom, not a Christian. I make no decision of my own, but simply accept the Bible’s decision, and on this base my statement that the man has not the right to commune. But it may be insisted that I still virtually decide the question, since I assume to determine what the Bible decides. I grant it, and reply that I am not to be blamed on that account. Every man does precisely the same, and could not do less if he would.

But I shall be asked, since it is conceded that there are Christians among the parties of the day, whether I would exclude them from communion? I reply, I would exclude no man from communion who is a Christian, but every man who is not. A Christian man is a member of the body of Christ and my brother, and I would commune with him in a loving spirit though I met him in the vilest sinks of Rome. Hell can rear no barriers so high, nor sin dig trenches so deep and foul, as to shut out from my fellowship him whom Christ has washed in his own blood. And though I admired a man with my whole strength, and loved him as my own flesh, and even wept over his deficiencies as feelingly as a mother weeps over the deformity of her babe, yet would I not “eat” with him, unless he was one of the “one body.” But when I concede that there are Christians amongst the parties of the day, let me not be accused of concealment. I recognize no human being as a Christian who is not immersed. Men may call this by what name they see fit, it moves me not. It is my faith; if [49] wrong, let the world reject it—if it is right, let the world take heed. But should even a Christian propose to commune with me as a Papist, or as a partisan of any kind, I should certainly decline his offer. To be accepted, the proposition would have to be made by him simply as a Christian, and in no other character or capacity.

The inconsistency of the Baptists in recognizing the unimmersed as Christians, and yet refusing to commune with them, glares even on the mind of a half idiot, from very shallowness. No sort of defense can be made for it. While their course in declining to commune with the other immersed, who are their peers both in life and spirit, must be pronounced intensely bigoted. I could never be so unjust to my common sense, to say nothing of the truth, as to fall into the inconsistency of the Baptists. If a man be a Christian, that is enough for me; I am ready to commune with him. In error he may be in some points, but this shall not cause me to reject him. Yet I should delight to see the day come when the Baptists would relax a little their austere and unhallowed rules on this point, and when we and they at least should enjoy the pleasure of cultivating more fraternal relations over the loaf and cup. I am not ashamed to avow that I even seek this; not because I covet the approbation and caresses of the Baptist, but for far worthier reasons—I seek it because it is right in itself.

But perhaps the occasion will be taken, as I believe it has been pending the present discussion, that God has a “people” even in Babylon, and that since His, they therefore, though unimmersed, have the right to commune. I reply, that the conclusion does not follow from the premises. If all who are in Babylon are unimmersed, then God has no people in it, in the sense in which Christians are his people. He then has a people in it either in this sense, that though not Christians, they are a pious people and will be saved, since their not being Christians has resulted, not from willful disobedience or perverseness of heart, but from unavoidable darkness of mind; or in this, that they would be Christians if they had the chance, but not having it, they cannot be. They have the disposition or ready will but not the opportunity. It was in this latter sense that he Lord had “much people” in Corinth, as he said to Paul: Acts 18, 10; or rather, in the city were many people for Him, as the passage ought to read. They were for Him, that is, ready to become His or about to become His, but at that time not His. This they were yet to become. The passage here, and that in Revelation 18, 4, are different. In Revelation it is “my people;” in Acts a people for me. In Corinth they were yet to become Christians, and hence did not pretend to be Christians, whereas in Babylon they pretend to [50] be Christians, or think they are Christians, and though not so, since they are a pious people, God accepts them as His, not because they are indeed Christians, but because they would be had they had a chance. Still, neither in the one case were they Christians nor in the other are they. Consequently in the one case they had not, and in the other they have not the right to commune. For I lay it down as a position never to be gainsayed, that none but a Christian can commune. In the sense in which He had a people in Corinth, and in the sense in which He has a people in Babylon, I rejoice to think He still has thousands scattered over the world, and in the various parties of the day, on whose final happiness we, in our narrow calculations, are not reckoning. On this ground alone have I hope for many of the pious whom I am still compelled in pain to regard as not Christians.

Here doubtless I shall be met with the assertion, that it is inconsistent to admit that a man may be saved, and yet deny that he can commune. I shall not deny a seeming inconsistency; but a real one I must certainly deny. If God saved none but Christians, the inconsistency would be real. But this is not the case. He saves many who are not Christians—saves them because they do the best they can in the circumstances which surround them. Yet the grounds on which he saves these are different from the grounds on which men become Christians; and hence are not the grounds on which persons may commune. The rules by which God judges some men, to save them, are not the rules by which we are to judge them, to let them commune. He as Lord may, in making a decision, take into account what we dare not even think of. To be short, because we conjecture that God will save a certain character who is not a Christian, we are not to proceed to treat him as though entitled to all the privileges of Christians. We must be governed strictly by the law, and in no case presume to disregard it.

Near the commencement of the present controversy a question was raised as to the practice of our churches in the premises. A word on this is demanded. Our churches in the West, I am sorry to say, without an exception known to me, permit the unimmersed to commune. They do not, I grant, invite them to commune; and yet their language is so understood by the unimmersed. “Let man examine himself,” they say, “and so let him eat and drink.” This the unimmersed construe thus; Let a man determine for himself whether he is or is not a Christian; and if he determines that he is, then let him eat. This is unjust to the truth, and not just to the unimmersed. The language was never designed to start the question—Is the man a Christian or is he not? No such thought was in the Apostle’s mind. The following is the question [51] the language raises: Is a Christian worthy to eat and drink? And surely, that a Christian is or is not worthy, is a very different thing from the question, is a man a Christian or is he not? Our churches have thoughtlessly glided into this practice; thoughtfully and at length I trust they will abandon it. It has been deemed one of those indifferent or harmless things which, though unsanctioned by the Bible, may nevertheless be tolerated in the church. Yet all such unsanctioned usages must, in the end, prove a curse. Let all our preachers and overseers, when citing the preceding language, plainly tell their audiences to whom alone it applies, and the only question it was designed to raise. Then, and not before, shall we be free from the charge, often and with effect urged against us, of inconsistently communing with those whom we regard as not Christians.

In the outset of the current reformation, our motto was: a thus saith the Lord, for every article of our faith, a precept or a precedent for all we do. In the light of this cherished postulate, what defense can we plead for our act when we set down to commune with the unimmersed? Did Paul ever do it? Did Peter ever do it? or did either ever command or counsel it? Let us be most careful of this; that we take our practice strictly from the holy word of God; and that what it does not clearly sanction we neither do nor countenance. Then and only then shall we be safe.

I extremely regret the position taken prominently and chiefly by brethren Pendleton and Errett on this question. It will subject us to the charge of having abandoned, in the persons of eminent brethren, the forgoing cardinal principle, of inconsistency between what we preach and what we practice, and of being a divided people in sentiment. This was most unnecessary. Had these brethren published what they have said, avowedly as mere matter of opinion, no controversy could have arisen thereon. But they have given to their utterances a far graver aspect than can be ascribed to mere opinion. Hence their position wears a serious air. I wish every thought they have penned on it were erased. Had I the age of the position to justify it, I should certainly request these brethren to reconsider the ground they have taken. But such request they might think impertinent, and therefore treat it cavalierly. Hence it is not made.

In the foregoing remarks I have cited nothing from the writings of the brothers named. My reasons for this are these. 1. All they have said has been long since read by all who will see this piece. 2. Brother Pendleton at least will not think me capable of intentionally misrepresenting him. Brother Errett does not know me so well, though I hope he has no reason to think differently; 3. If the foregoing statements misrepresent them or [52] their views, I wish the opportunity of publishing the correction from their own hands. The sense in which I understand their views is the sense in which their views are generally understood. But I am more than anxious that they shall afford me and many others the opportunity of understanding their views, as the expression, on their part, of mere matters of opinion. The controversy would then be at an end.

DO THE UNIMMERSED COMMUNE?