REPLY TO "DO THE UNIMMERSED COMMUNE?"

The importance this subject begins to assume among our brethren arises not from any speculative value that may be thought to reside in the question itself, but from the practical influence its decision is to have over the conduct of our churches toward other professors of religion. The inquiry, should we commune with pious unimmersed persons of other churches? can neither be ignored as useless, nor settled without discussion. This is our apology for pushing the investigation a little further in the present number of the Quarterly.

The three grand postulates laid down on the second page of the article under consideration will be fully admitted by every one well instructed in the kingdom of God; nor do we base the strength of our reply on any supposed ability to discount the value of these positions. The substance of these postulates is, that no man can enter the church or kingdom on earth without a birth of water and Spirit; that the Lord’s Supper is an institution belonging wholly to the church, and therefore, that none but the immersed were ever contemplated in the Scriptures as communicants at the Lord’s table. That these are Bible truths is wholly unassailable, the command being to preach them fully and to bring all honest hearted to their full appreciation and acceptance.

Notwithstanding this full admission of postulates it may still be a legitimate inquiry, whether God ever makes allowance for the unfortunate circumstances of some good men so as to admit them into his church with anything less than a perfect understanding, and a perfect obedience to these established conditions of salvation. It must be admitted that a great many pious people have studied the Bible most of their lives without ever having arrived at the particular truths eliminated by brother Campbell and others a few years ago—men who would have rejoiced to be immersed had they known it would please God—whom, as our author says, “God accepts as his, because they would be Christians had they the chance”—men whom God saves “because they do the best can in the circumstances which surround them.” For these I intercede, and claim for them a place in the church of Christ in spite of their intellectual mistakes. The beady sectarian, the indifferent sinner, and the self-willed bigot may stand in the court of final appeals without counsel from me; I appear not in their defense. [200]

Before proceeding to the discussion of this subject, the reader will permit me to place a caveat in sight of all. In pleading intensely for any single truth is it not possible even for a good man so to concentrate all his thoughts on a single point as to disqualify him for giving due weight to any other consideration that would tend to modify his views? May he not, for example, so focalize all his thoughts on John iii: 5, as to deprive other passages of due attention? This passage, with some, stands out as an inexorable law, an iron rule that God himself can scarcely manage even when the circumstances seem to demand it. Does the Almighty become the slave of his own law? Admitting he has never explicitly promised to modify that condition of salvation even when men “do the best they can,” still the inquiry before us is a legitimate one. We are not to argue whether it is right and necessary to preach the doctrine of John iii: 5, nor will it be necessary for any valorous knight-errant, booted and spurred, panoplied, to charge on his favorite Rosinante, around this passage and sware by all the gods to defend it, as he would his lady-love, from all insults whatever, for no attack is to be made upon that important Scripture; the only question being whether according to Scripture, every soul is absolutely and unalterably shut out of the kingdom who has not been immersed, regardless of palliating circumstances. Let us then calmly approach the investigation.

I. In sustaining the negative to the above inquiry, we no more disturb the gospel arrangements for salvation than the gifted author of the article we are reviewing has done to sustain the affirmative. The sum of all that is taught in said article, may be briefly comprehended in this, that while God established certain regular conditions of entrance both into heaven and the church, the conditions of entering heaven may be, and doubtless will be relaxed, as in the case of Luther, but that the conditions of entering the church can no more be modified than the laws of the Medes and Persians. I hope I do not misrepresent the learned brother. If I misrepresent him in any respect it must be in saying that he teaches certain definite conditions of getting to heaven, and that these conditions are sometimes modified in favor of such men as Luther, because of their unfavorable circumstances. And yet I cannot think that even this misstates his views. He will surely admit that the way into heaven, like that into the church, is not only plain but well defined. “Blessed are they that do his commandments for they shall have a right to the tree of life, and shall enter in through the gates into the city.” It is he that “does the will of the Father in heaven” that shall enter the kingdom. [201]

Luther never was immersed, and according to our brother, never did commune; and yet he got to heaven. He never did the will of God so far as to enter the kingdom on earth, and yet the writer “does not deny that God took him when he died.” Did not the Lord then suspend the operation of the established laws, the normal conditions of getting into heaven, in this case? These conditions are to come into Christ, to live in Christ, and to die in Christ. If Luther was not in the kingdom, he certainly failed in all these conditions, unless he came into Christ without coming into the kingdom. Still he found some way into heaven without baptism, without the kingdom, without communion, without becoming a Christian, without “doing his commandments.” Now if after all these failures Luther still reached the heavens, it must be that God relaxed the rigor of the conditions on account of the adverse “circumstances” which the Reformer could not control. God must have seen that he would have done right in all these particulars “if he had had a chance”—made allowance for the unavoidable mistakes of his head, and accepted the intentions of his heart. To all this I have no objections. We agree that it was right he should be saved in the absence of correct views of baptism.

Should we now affirm that the same considerations that excused Luther at the gate of heaven, and admitted him in the absence of some of the fixed conditions, may also have excused him at the door of the church, and may have admitted him in the absence of some of the regular conditions of initiation there, who could invalidate the reasoning? Does the gate of heaven swing open more carelessly than that of the church? What an enormous compromise of the conditions of final salvation must be made to accept such a man in heaven! Would his admission into the church in default of the single act of immersion be a compromise of truth half so great as to admit him to the right hand of God when with the Bible in his hand he missed the church in all its length, breadth, and importance? It will not be questioned that the road to heaven is through the church—through the holy place into the most holy. There is as little Scripture to point out any other way to heaven, as there is to show how a man may enter the church without immersion. If the Holy One can make allowance for the circumstances of men so far as to admit them to the honors of his immediate presence, despite their ignorance and failures in duty, why may he not manage the case for a pious prayerful soul seeking the kingdom below, even if he has not learned the duty of immersion? The strange plan of having a God-fearing, God-loving man to walk all along through life just outside the holy place, and then enter the most holy, by a kind [202] of side-door, is certainly a new invention, deserving of a patent. The church in such cases is not an dispensable—not necessary for Luther “to enter in by the door into the fold”—the holy place, the candlestick, the shew bread, and altar of incense may all be left to one side, and the Lord must cut a new door through the ram skins, and badger skins, and gold-covered plank, to get this outside traveler into the most holy. This is a poor compliment to the church, which is the real way to heaven, and which doubtless does conduct every soul, responsible for gospel light, that ever will see God. If Luther is now in the holy place above, it is because he was in the church below; if he was in the church he was a Christian, and if a Christian he could commune, and did commune.

II. Having shown, I think, that the essayist in attempting to escape one difficulty, has fallen into several others, I proceed to present other considerations which seem to invite a reconsideration of his views.

1. If Luther was not immersed he never did, according to the view I am opposing, obtain remission of sins. Immersion being as much a condition of remission as of entering the kingdom, the logic that would hinder the latter would also forbid the former. Pardon without immersion! If this were possible perhaps one could enter the kingdom without immersion, for it is alike the antecedent of both. Although the writer has not expressed an opinion as to Luther’s forgiveness, we may safely infer he does not believe the old Reformer ever was pardoned on earth—certainly not till toward the close of his life, or about the time of his death, just so as not to take any sin with him into heaven. If this be not the position assumed, and Luther is allowed to have been pardoned at all before his dying hour, it must have been without immersion. He was pardoned before his death, or at his death, or after he got to heaven or never. If he is in heaven at all, he is there either with his sins or without them; the former position will not be assumed—how then did he obtain remission? The only rational answer is that the heavenly Father, seeing his good intentions and great efforts to serve him, passed over his intellectual mistakes, admitted him into his kingdom here, and took him through the church into heaven; all of which would be more consistently done than to raise a sinner unforgiven to the heavenly kingdom.

2. Such a man being neither pardoned nor in the kingdom, he surely did not enjoy the Holy Spirit. The Spirit does not inhabit an unclean sinful soul. If he does dwell with any outside the kingdom the chapter and verse should doubtless be named. Now nothing is plainer than that those “not having the Spirit” shall [203] never see the Lord.—Jude 19. As God is to quicken the saints’ mortal bodies by the Spirit that dwells in them, Luther not having that Spirit cannot attain to the first resurrection. Those who are accounted worthy to obtain that world are all “sealed as servants of God.”—Rev. vii. If Luther was not in the kingdom for want of immersion, or for any other cause, he could have attained neither to the pardon of sins nor to the Holy Spirit, nor to any of its fruits, as these are blessings found within and not without the kingdom. That an unforgiven sinner could enjoy all these spiritual blessings outside the church, would be rather a dangerous doctrine to preach—“blessed with all spiritual blessings in Christ”—not out of Christ. I had always considered church-membership in a gospel land a sine quo non in the way to heaven—not one of the ways, but the way—there being no private path outside the walls of Zion leading to heaven. If the Lord entertains so unalterable a regard for the established forms of entering the church below, it seems strange that he would virtually abandon all regard for the proper manner of entering his church above, and that at a ten-fold greater sacrifice of truth—straining out the gnat and swallowing the camel. And all this is true unless it can be proved that the single act of immersion outweighs the remission of sins, the gift of the Spirit, church-membership, a clean heart, and all the fruits of the Spirit. Why choose the harder part? It is agreed on all sides, that Luther was “taken to heaven when he died;” it remains therefore as indisputable truth that he was in the kingdom on earth, was pardoned, received the Spirit and was a Christian—the same logic that apologizes for his not having entered heaven according to established order being quite sufficient to apologize for his not having entered the church in a perfect way.

3. What proof have we in the Scriptures that any but Christians will enter that rest? those who have left Egypt, crossed the wilderness and the Jordan? This remark does not include infants, idiots, heathen, or any other soul that ought not to be judged in the New Testament, but those only who may become Christians. With this qualification all the world might be considered Christians or sinners. If no pious unimmersed person was ever born of God, where is the evidence that any one of them ever has been or ever will be saved? “The dead in Christ (Christians) are to rise first.” “Blessed and holy is he (the Christian) that has part in the first resurrection.” “Those who sleep in Jesus will God bring with him.” Who else will he bring? Luther and all such will he bring provided they sleep in Jesus, into whom they must have come without immersion if at all. This ordinance, with some good people, seems inexorably to [204] blockade the way into Christ, not even admitting the decent apology of unfortunate circumstances which is potent enough at the gate of heaven. With such persons immersion was not made for man, but man for immersion. The great Arbiter of all human affairs can make allowance for almost any intellectual blunder except a mistake in regard to this ordinance which is something like the sin against the Holy Ghost—never forgiven in this world even if it is in the next. The heart may glow with love like Baxter’s and the whole life be fragrant of heaven as John Howard’s—no matter, it all goes for little, if this be wanting they are but sounding brass and tinkling cymbals. Now if Luther or any other pious sprinkled believer is ever saved it will be because they learned and obeyed as much of divine truth and duty as justified the Lord under all the circumstances, in admitting them into his kingdom here, and through this into heaven. This I prefer to believe until it is proved that those who are not Christians—so far from God that they could never commune—will ever be saved; or until it shall appear that truth upon the whole is compromised more by the view I submit than by the one I oppose. In the one case God accommodates his mercy to men over a failure as to a single ordinance, but in the other he must extend his mercy over many a failure into justification in heaven. The thought that immersion is equal in importance to all that a man misses by not being a member of the church; that a failure in this would form as great an obstruction at the door of the church as a failure in the items of pardon, the Holy Spirit, &c., does at the door of heaven, reminds us of a passage in Lalla Rookh:

“Take all the pleasures of the spheres,
And multiply each through endless years,
One moment of heaven is worth them all.”

III. This leads to a brief discussion of a subject we do not feel fully able to handle, and shall not complain of a courteous dissent from the view submitted. In all that has been said of Luther, and such like, no Scripture authority has been cited, either by the essayist or his reviewer, to show that God will make any allowance for the unfortunate circumstances so often referred to. I now ask, do the Scriptures teach that God will in any case, or for any cause, pass by the neglect or the violation of his law without bringing on the threatened penalty or withholding the intended blessing? A few witnesses shall testify.

1. In Joshua, 5th chapter, it appears that although every male Jew, young and old, was circumcised when they left Egypt, this rite was altogether neglected for the space of forty years; and when all were safe over the Jordan, Joshua circumcised them at the [205] command of the Lord. From the days of Abraham the Jews had circumcised their male children. The law declared that whatever male was not circumcised when eight days old, should be cut off from among his people. For forty years this law was undeniably neglected, for which neglect the penalty certainly was not executed. The reasons that influenced the divine Mind in so winking at the sins of a people who were by no means ignorant of this law may not be very well understood, but that some reason existed, that justified his bending the law to the circumstances of the people, may be safely affirmed. I am aware it may be replied that baptism is an organic law, relating to the very creation of the Christian state, and that circumcision not being such could be more easily set aside. It should be remembered, however, that the upper kingdom has its organic laws also, viz: a proper initiation into the kingdom below—not attained to by Luther or any other unimmersed person, and that organic law is equally in the way in both cases. If our heavenly Father may have justifiable reasons for managing as he did in regard to circumcision, and sets aside the organic law of heaven to admit Luther there, it would be singular if he could not manage to admit him into the church.

2. When David was flying for life before Saul he came to Nob, to Ahimelech the priest, and being very hungry asked for five loaves of bread. He was told there was no “common bread” there, nothing but “hallowed bread.” “So the priest gave him the hallowed bread, for there was no bread there but shew bread.” The Saviour, in Matt. xii, admits it to have been unlawful for David and his companions to eat this bread, and yet justifies the deed under the circumstances. The lesson taught is that the law was made for man, and not man for the law, and that whenever God sees that in certain peculiar conjunctions of things the law does not minister to man’s good, he may with great propriety suspend the normal operation of that law.

3. “Or have ye not read in the law how that on the sabbath days the priests in the temple profane the sabbath and are blameless.” Here is a telling sentence—even the priests, and that in the temple and on the sabbath, break that sabbath, and yet are blameless. What this profanation consisted in is not material to the present argument, it being quite sufficient to note that the Saviour recognized it as a profanation, and that with impunity. The last two circumstances were quoted by the Saviour in justification of another of the same kind—the disciples plucking ears of corn on the sabbath—showing that all these facts bear the same moral complexion and are alike opposed to the severe deductions of a merciless legalism. If a man may violate a known law, and be [206] blameless, how much the more blameless if the law be unknown as is the case with many with regard to immersion.

Here would follow an examination of the whole doctrine of the intentions as intimately allied to the last remarks, but we must be content with the statement of a few facts, in answer to the following query: How does God regard those whose intention and effort it is to do his will, but who for any cause whatever fail literally to do his commandments?

1. The true meaning of the parable of the vineyard in Mat. xx, is thought to lie in close proximity with the answer to this question. Those employed at the eleventh hour were paid a penny a day not as a matter of justice but of goodness. They could not claim a penny for their one hour’s work, but the good master knew they had been in the market-place all day wanting work—their intention was good, and in spirit they had worked all day, and though not legally, yet morally they deserved as much as the others. God knows that many a good man would know his will early in life, and know it perfectly if he could, and would just as lief be immersed as sprinkled if he knew he desired it. The laborers failed to work for want of a chance; and hundreds fail to be immersed for want of a chance. My child believes all I teach it, right or wrong, and suspects every man who controverts my views. If I teach it sprinkling, it can scarcely be said to have an opportunity to know better. And why should any man’s eye be evil because God is good enough to bless the unfortunate beyond the mere regulations of a law he has a right to suspend?

2. Luke xii: 48, one is beaten with many stripes and one with few stripes. The cause of the difference made in their treatment is not found in the relative number or enormity of their sins, but in the fact that one knew more than the other. This proves that God does not judge men by the “hard light of the Bible,” but rather moves mere legality into the rear of his more favorite moral forces. He then that received “few stripes” escaped in part the exactions the law would have demanded had no moral considerations operated in his favor. This circumstance is not quoted to discount the force of the law in John iii: 5, but to show that God has a way of making allowance for those who do not know his will.

3. The ten lepers that were commanded to go and show themselves to the priests to be cured did not literally obey, for “it came to pass as they went they were healed”—healed without showing themselves to the priests. All we desire to prove by this is, that Jesus has here stereotyped the comforting truth that he is above all law—that though our duty ties us to the law, he does not tie himself to it, and that he sometimes takes [207] the purpose of the heart instead of the deed. Abraham’s purpose to slay Isaac is to the same effect.

The instances cited in this third paragraph refer to the persons who not only intended to do right, but who knew what was right. There is another question that searches still farther into the deep things of God than any of the preceding, viz: Will God credit any man for seriously and religiously doing as a command, that which he has not commanded?

1. We discover Rom. xiv: 14, that it is wrong for a man to do that which he thinks to be wrong, though the act itself be innocent enough. If a weak brother, just converted from idolatry, considered it wrong to eat meat that had been offered to an idol, to him it would be wrong, notwithstanding “there is nothing unclean in itself.” “But to him that esteemeth anything to be unclean to him it is unclean.” Sin would attach to the soul by an act which in itself is not sinful. Sin it seems is generated not only by a transgression of the expressed law of God, but by a violation of the convictions of the soul of man, even when his convictions are wrong. Now if sin may be generated by violating the convictions of the soul where no law of God’s word is broken, why may not virtue, which God will accept, be generated by following the impulses of a religious heart even where God has issued no command? This inquiry is fairly answered in Rom. xiv: 6. “He that regardeth the holy day, for which observance there was no existing law, regardeth it to the Lord.” “He that eateth not to the Lord, he refrains from eating and giveth God thanks.” He regards the day to the Lord. Paul thought the religious complexion of this deed a good thing. To the Lord he eateth not. This too seems to have been credited as good, for he giveth God thanks in it. God neither commanded the one, nor forbade the other, yet he recognized the good intention, in both cases, to serve him. According to the hard light of mere legality this struggle of a religious heart would all go for nothing, but according to the more gracious system of Christianity, which judges by the secrets of the heart, they are to be credited for what they try to do. It is only on this principle that the Saviour declared the widow’s two mites were more than all the benefactions of the rich—it cost her a greater effort—she had more heart in the work than they. To apply the principle to those who innocently mistake sprinkling for baptism, why may not the same gracious eye look upon them with allowance because they intend to serve God in it—do it unto the Lord though not commanded? It is not intended to compare a New Testament ordinance with a Jewish holy day, but to discover a principle in moral government which may often be seen in the smallest circumstance as well as in the most important command. [208]

2. God is our father and we are his children. And what man of you having a son whom you know to be tremblingly anxious to obey you, but who for some reason misapprehending your wishes does not obey as you meant, but with the consciousness of an honest heart, looks up into your face for an approving smile, would have the heart to frown him from your presence? Monstrous! I thank God that he has a father’s heart.

3. Finally, the end of the whole system of religion is love. When a poor feeble sinner learns enough of Jesus to love him, and tries to express that love by doing something he deems the will of God, I cannot think he will coldly disregard his act merely because he erred in judgment. If so who of us will be saved? It is just as easy to be mistaken on the subject of baptism under adverse circumstances, as on many other religious questions. The truth is, baptism is undeniably on the way from the world into the church—it is no less on the way from the world to heaven. The church stands directly between the sinner and the heavenly kingdom. Whether any person, responsible for New Testament light, will ever see heaven without being a Christian, is more than doubtful. Neither Luther, nor Baxter, nor Newton, nor Brainerd, if not Christians, have ever seen the Lord. If saved they must have been in the kingdom here; must have been pardoned, sanctified by the Spirit; must have been Christians; must have been loved, so had a right to commune, could commune, and did commune.

I now close the discussion of this interesting theme by repeating that whatever God may do in cases where allowance ought to be made, our duty as Christian ministers is to preach constantly the whole truth, leaving the entire margin beyond that to the discretion of him who will judge the world in righteousness. The object of the present article is not to diminish aught from the value and the power of any command of God, but to cultivate a field of thought which heretofore may have been somewhat neglected. May the Lord enlarge our minds to see the whole truth in all its bearings upon poor humanity, and make us all still abler ministers of his holy word.

Theta.

REPLY TO AN ARTICLE ENTITLED “DO THE UNIMMERSED COMMUNE?”