A Confession of My Faith

Be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear: having a good conscience; that whereas they speak evil of you, as of evildoers, they may be ashamed that falsely accuse your good conversation in Christ (1 Pet 3:15-16).

1. I believe that there is but one only true God, and there is no other but he. “To us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things” (1 Cor 8:6). “And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God…” (John 17:3; see also Mark 12:32; Acts 17:24).

2. I believe that this God is almighty, eternal, invisible, incomprehensible, and so on. “I am the Almighty God; walk before me, and be thou perfect” (Gen 17:1). “The eternal God is thy refuge” (Deut 33:27). “Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be honor and glory for ever and ever” (1 Tim 1:17; see also Job 11:7; Rom 11:33).

3. I believe that this God is unspeakably perfect in all his attributes of power, wisdom, justice, truth, holiness, mercy, love, and so on. His power is said to be eternal (Rom 1:20). His understanding and wisdom are infinite (Ps 147:5). He is called the just Lord, in contrast to all things (Zeph 3:5). He is said to be truth itself, and the God of truth (2 Thess 2:10; Deut 32:4). There is none holy as the Lord. “God is love” (1 John 4:8). “Canst thou by searching find out God? canst thou find out the Almighty unto perfection?” (Job 11:7).

4. I believe that in the Godhead there are three persons, or subsistences. “There are three that bear record in heaven: the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost” (1 John 5:7; see also Gen 1:26; Gen 3:22; Gen 11:7; Isa 6:8).

5. I believe that these three are equally one in nature, essence and eternity. “These three are one” (1 John 5:7).

6. I believe that there is “a world to come” (Heb 2:5; Heb 6:5).

7. I believe that there shall be “a resurrection of the dead, both of the just and unjust” (Acts 24:15). “Many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt” (Dan 12:2). “Marvel not at this: for the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, and shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation” (John 5:28-29).

8. I believe that they that “shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world, and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry nor are given in marriage: neither can they die any more: for they are equal unto the angels; and are the children of God, being the children of the resurrection” (Luke 20:34-36; see also John 10:27-29; Rev 7:16; Rev 20:6).

9. I believe that those who die impenitent shall be tormented with the devil and his angels, and shall be cast with them into “the lake that burneth with fire and brimstone” (Rev 21:8), “where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched” (Mark 9:43, 48; see also Matt 25:41, 46; John 5:29).

10. I believe that because God is by nature holy and just, even as he is good and merciful, therefore, since all have sinned, none can be saved without the means of a redeemer. “Then he is gracious unto him, and saith, Deliver him from going down to the pit: I have found a ransom” (Job 33:24). “We have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins” (Col 1:14). For “without shedding of blood is no remission” (Heb 9:22).

11. I believe that Jesus Christ our Lord himself is the redeemer. “They remembered that God was their rock, and the high God their redeemer” (Ps 78:35). “Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers; but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish, and without spot” (1 Pet 1:18-19).

12. I believe that the great reason why the Lord, the second person in the Godhead, clothed himself with our flesh and blood was so that he might be capable of obtaining the redemption that was intended for us before the world was made. “Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; (mark this) that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil; and deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage” (Heb 2:14-15). “When the fullness of time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law” (Gal 4:4-5). “Wherefore it behooved him in all things to be made like unto his brethren, and that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people. For in that he himself hath suffered being tempted, he is able to succor them that are tempted” (Heb 2:17-18). “Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree: that the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through [faith in] Jesus Christ” (Gal 3:13-14).

13. I believe that the time when he clothed himself with our flesh was in the days of the reign of Caesar Augustus. Then, I say, and not until then, was the Word “made flesh,” or clothed with our nature (John 1:14; 1 Tim 3:16). “And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed. And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judea, unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem; (because he was of the house and lineage of David:) to be taxed with Mary his espoused wife, being great with child. And so it was, that, while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered” (Luke 2:1, 4-6). This child was the one about whom godly Simeon had been told by the Holy Spirit, when the Spirit said that Simeon should not see death until he had seen the Lord’s Christ (Luke 2:25-27).

14. I believe, therefore, that this very child, as has been testified above, is both God and man, the Christ of the living God. “And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn. And there were in the same country shepherds … keeping watch over their flock by night. And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes lying in a manger” (Luke 2:7-12). And again: “But while he thought on these things, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared unto him … saying, Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife: for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost. And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name Jesus: for he shall save his people from their sins. Now all this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us” (Matt 1:20-23).

15. I believe, therefore, that the righteousness and redemption by which we who believe stand just before God, as saved from the curse of the law, is the righteousness and redemption that consists in the personal acts and performances of this child Jesus, this God-man, the Lord’s Christ. It consists, I say, in his personally fulfilling the law for us, to the utmost requirement of the justice of God. “Think not,” he says, “that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill” (Matt 5:17). By this means he became “the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth” (Rom 10:4). “For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh” (Rom 8:3). So, finishing transgressions, making an end of sins, and making reconciliation for iniquity, he brought in everlasting righteousness (1 John 3:8; 2 Tim 1:9; Heb 10:5-10; Dan 9:24).

16. I believe that, for the completing of this work, he was always sinless (Heb 4:15), and always did the things that pleased God’s justice (John 8:29). I believe that every one of his acts, both of doing and of suffering, and of rising again from the dead, was really and infinitely perfect, because he did them as God-man (Heb 7:26-28). That is why his acts before he died are called “the righteousness of God” (Rom 3:21-22), and his blood the blood of God (Acts 20:28). And “hereby perceive we the love of God, because he laid down his life for us” (1 John 3:16). The Godhead, which gave virtue to all the acts of the human nature, was in perfect union with it even then, when he hung upon the cross for our sins (Acts 10:36; John 20:28; Rom 1:4).

17. I believe, then, that the righteousness that saves the sinner from the wrath to come is properly and personally Christ’s, and ours only as we have union with him, God by grace imputing it to us. “Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ, and be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith” (Phil 3:8-9). “But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption” (1 Cor 1:30). “For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him” (2 Cor 5:21). “In the LORD have I righteousness and strength” (Isa 45:24).

18. I believe that God, as the reward of Christ’s undertakings for us, has exalted him to his own right hand as our mediator, and given him a name above every name, and made him Lord of all and judge of the living and the dead; and all this so that we who believe might take courage to believe and to hope in God (Eph 1:17-22). “And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself … unto death, even the death of the cross, (where he died for our sins). Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him; and given him a name … above every name: that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Phil 2:8-11). “And he commanded us to preach unto the people, and to testify that it is he which was ordained of God to be the Judge of quick and dead” (Acts 10:42; Acts 17:31). “Who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you, who by him do believe in God that raised him up from the dead, and gave him glory; that your faith and hope might be in God” (1 Pet 1:19-21).

19. I believe that, being at the right hand of God in heaven, he there effectually exercises the offices of his excellent priesthood and mediatorship, presenting himself continually before God in the righteousness that was accomplished for us when he was in the world. For by the efficacy of his blood he not only went into the holy place; but being there, and having by it obtained eternal redemption for us, he now, as one who receives its worth and merit from the Father, bestows upon us grace, repentance, faith and the remission of sins. Yes, he also received for us the Holy Spirit, to be sent to us to assure us of our adoption and glory. “For if he were on earth, he should not be a priest” (Heb 8:4). “Seeing then that we have a great high priest, that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession” (Heb 4:14). “For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus” (1 Tim 2:5). For “by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us. … For Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the true; but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us” (Heb 9:12, 24). “Therefore being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, he hath shed forth this, which ye now see and hear” (Acts 2:33; Acts 5:31).

20. I believe that, being there, he shall continue so until the restitution of all things; and then he shall come again in glory and sit in judgment upon all flesh. And I believe that as his sentence is, so shall their judgment be. “Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord; and he shall send Jesus Christ, which before was preached unto you: whom the heaven must receive until the times of restitution of all things … spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began” (Acts 3:19-21). For “this same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven” (Acts 1:11). “For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God…” (1 Thess 4:16). “When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory: and before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats. And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left. Then shall the king say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels: and these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal” (Matt 25:31-33, 41, 46). For “the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up. Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness, looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat” (2 Pet 3:10-12).

21. I believe that when he comes, his saints shall have a reward of grace for all their work and labor of love which they showed to his name in the world. “And every man shall receive his own reward, according to his own labor” (1 Cor 3:8). “And then shall every man have praise of God” (1 Cor 4:5). “And behold, I come quickly; and my reward is with me, to give every man according as his work shall be” (Rev 22:12). “Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord” (1 Cor 15:58). “Knowing that of the Lord ye shall receive the reward of the inheritance: for ye serve the Lord Christ” (Col 3:24).

How Christ is made ours; or, by what means this or that man has that benefit by him, so as to stand just before God now, and in the day of judgment.

Of Justification

1. I believe that, since we are sinful creatures in ourselves, no good thing done by us can procure from God the imputation of the righteousness of Jesus Christ; but that the imputation of it is an act of grace, a free gift without our deserving. “Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus” (Rom 3:24; Rom 5:17). “Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus” (2 Tim 1:9).

2. I believe also that the power of imputing righteousness lies only in God by Christ: first, because sin is the transgression of the law; and second, because the soul that has sinned is his creature, and the righteousness also is his, and his only. “Even as David also describeth the blessedness of the man, unto whom God imputeth righteousness without works, saying, Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin” (Rom 4:6-8). That is why it is said again that men “shall abundantly utter the memory of thy great goodness, and shall sing of thy righteousness” (Ps 145:7). “For he saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy” (Rom 9:15-16).

3. I believe that the offer of this righteousness, as it is tendered in the gospel, is to be received by faith, while we, in the very act of receiving it, still judge ourselves to be sinners in ourselves: “Oh wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ” (Rom 7:24-25). “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved” (Acts 16:31). The gospel is preached in all nations for the obedience of faith. “Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus; whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation, (a sacrifice to appease the displeasure of God) through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; to declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth on Jesus” (Rom 3:24-26). “Be it known unto you therefore, men and brethren, that through this man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins: and by him all that believe are justified from all things, from which ye could not be justified by the law of Moses” (Acts 13:38-39).

4. I believe that this faith, as it concerns the imputation of this righteousness for justification before God, puts itself forth in such acts as have regard purely to the offer of a gift. It receives it, accepts it, embraces it, or trusts in it. “As many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name” (John 1:12). “This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief” (1 Tim 1:15; Heb 11:13). “In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy spirit of promise” (Eph 1:13). I believe, therefore, that as to my justification from the curse of the law, I, who as I stand in myself am ungodly, am to receive, accept, embrace and trust in the righteousness that is already provided by, and wrapped up in, the personal doings and sufferings of Christ. For it is faith in that, and in that only, that can justify a sinner in the sight of God.

5. I believe that the faith that does this is not to be found in any but those in whom the Spirit of God works it by mighty power. All others, being fearful and unbelieving, dare not venture their souls and their eternity upon it. That is why it is called the faith that is wrought by the exceeding great and mighty power of God (Eph 1:18-19), the faith of the operation of God (Col 2:12; Eph 2:8; Phil 1:29). And that is why others are said to be fearful, and so unbelieving. These, together with other ungodly sinners, must have their part in the lake of fire (Rev 21:8).

6. I believe that this faith is effectually wrought in none but those who were appointed to glory before the world began. “And as many as were ordained unto eternal life believed” (Acts 13:48). “That he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory” (Rom 9:23). “We give thanks to God always for you all, making mention of you in our prayers; remembering without ceasing your work of faith, and labor of love, and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ, in the sight of God … knowing, brethren beloved, your election of God” (1 Thess 1:2-4). But of the rest he says, “Ye believe not because ye are not of my sheep, as I said” (John 10:26). These last words relate to John 10:16, which concerns the election of God. “Therefore they could not believe, because that Esaias said again, He hath blinded their eyes, and hardened their heart; that they should not see with their eyes, nor understand with their heart, and I should heal them” (John 12:39-40).

Of Election

1. I believe that election is free and permanent, being founded in grace and in the unchangeable will of God. “Even so then at this present time also there is a remnant according to the election of grace. And if by grace, then it is no more of works: otherwise grace is no more grace. But if it be of works, then is it no more of grace: otherwise work is no more work” (Rom 11:5-6). “Nevertheless the foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, the Lord knoweth them that are his” (2 Tim 2:19). “In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will” (Eph 1:11).

2. I believe that this decree, choice or election was made before the foundation of the world, and so before the elect themselves had any being in themselves. For “God who quickeneth the dead, and calleth those things which be not as though they were” (Rom 4:17) does not wait for things to exist before he determines his eternal purpose by them. Rather, having all things present to him in his wisdom, he made his choice before the world was (Eph 1:4; 2 Tim 1:9).

3. I believe that the decree of election is so far from making works foreseen in us the ground or cause of the choice, that it contains within its very heart not only the persons but also the graces that accompany their salvation. That is why it is said that we are predestinated “to be conformed to the image of his Son” (Rom 8:29): not because we already are, but “that we should be holy and without blame before him in love” (Eph 1:4). “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them” (Eph 2:10). He blessed us according as he chose us in Christ. And that is also why the salvation and calling of which we are now made partakers is no other than what was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began, according to his eternal purpose which he purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord (Eph 3:8-11; 2 Tim 1:9; Rom 8:29).

4. I believe that Christ Jesus is the one in whom the elect are always considered, and that without him there is neither election, grace nor salvation. “Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved. In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace … that in the dispensation of the fullness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are in earth, even in him” (Eph 1:5-7, 10). “Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).

5. I believe that there is no impediment attending the elect of God that can hinder their conversion and eternal salvation. “Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified. What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us? … Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God’s elect? It is God that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth?…” (Rom 8:30-35). “What then? Israel hath not obtained that which he seeketh for; but the election hath obtained it, and the rest were blinded” (Rom 11:7). “For Israel hath not been forsaken, nor Judah of his God, of the LORD of hosts; though their land was filled with sin, against the holy one of Israel” (Jer 51:5). When Ananias made intercession against Saul, saying, “Lord, I have heard by many of this man, how much evil he hath done to thy saints at Jerusalem: and here he hath authority from the chief priests to bind all that call on thy name,” what did God say to him? “Go thy way, for he is a chosen vessel unto me, to bear my name before the Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel” (Acts 9:12-15).

6. I believe that no one can know his election except by his calling. The vessels of mercy, which God prepared beforehand for glory, thus claim a share in it: “Even us,” they say, “whom he hath called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles? As he saith also in Hosea; I will call them my people, which were not my people, and her beloved, which was not beloved” (Rom 9:24-25).

7. I believe, therefore, that election does not forestall or prevent the means God has appointed to bring us to Christ, to grace and glory. Rather, it puts a necessity on the use and effect of those means, because the elect are chosen to be brought to heaven that way: that is, by the faith of Jesus Christ, which is the end of effectual calling (2 Thess 2:13; 1 Pet 1:2). “Wherefore the rather, brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election sure” (2 Pet 1:10).

Of Calling

I believe that in effectual calling the Holy Spirit must accompany the word of the gospel, and that with mighty power. I mean the calling that God makes to be the fruit of electing love. “Knowing,” says Paul to the Thessalonians, “brethren beloved, your election of God. For our gospel came not unto you in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Ghost, and in much assurance” (1 Thess 1:4-5). Otherwise people will not, and cannot, hear and turn. Samuel was called four times before he knew the voice of him who spoke from heaven (1 Sam 3:6-10). It is said of those in Hosea that as the prophets called them, so they went from the prophets, and instead of turning to them, they “sacrificed to Baalim, and burned incense to graven images” (Hos 11:2). The reason is that by nature people are not only dead in sins but enemies in their minds because of wicked works. So the call is, “Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light” (Eph 5:14).

Understand, therefore, that effectual calling is like that word of Christ that raised Lazarus from the dead, a word attended by an arm that was omnipotent: “Lazarus, come forth” (John 11:43). It was a word to the dead, but not only that. It was a word for the dead; a word that raised him from the dead; a word that overcame all opposition, and that brought him out of the grave even though he was bound hand and foot there (Gal 1:15). And this is why calling is sometimes described as quickening (Eph 2:1-2), awakening, illuminating, or bringing people out of darkness into light, which amazes and astonishes them (Heb 10:32; Acts 9:6). For just as it is a strange thing for a man who has lain long dead to be raised out of the grave, or for one who never saw the light with his eyes to be made to see what he could not so much as once imagine before, so it is with effectual calling. That is why Paul, when he was called, stood “trembling and was astonished” (Acts 9:6), and why Peter says, “he hath called us out of darkness into his marvelous light” (1 Pet 2:9; Eph 4:24).

In effectual calling the voice of God is heard, and the gates of heaven are opened. When God called Abraham, he appeared to him in glory. What Ananias said to Saul is experienced by only a few: “The God of our fathers hath chosen thee,” he says, “that thou shouldest know his will, and see that just one, and shouldest hear the voice of his mouth” (Acts 22:14). True, Saul’s call was out of the ordinary way. Yet as to the substance and truth of the work, it was no different from what all the chosen have, namely:

(1) An effectual awakening about the evil of sin, and especially of unbelief (John 16:9). So when the Lord God called Adam, he also effectually uncovered his sin to him, so much so that he stripped him of all his righteousness (Gen 3). He dealt with the jailer in the same way (Acts 16:29-30). Indeed, it is such an awakening that by it a person sees he was without Christ, without hope, and a stranger to the commonwealth of Israel, “and without God in the world” (Eph 2:12). Oh, the dread and amazement that the guilt of sin brings with it when the God of heaven reveals it! And the sight of mercy is like it, when it pleases God, who calls us by his grace, to reveal his Son in us.

(2) In effectual calling there are great awakenings about the world to come and the glory of unseen things. The resurrection of the dead and eternal judgment, the salvation God has prepared for those who love him, and the blessedness that will attend us and rest upon us at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, are great things in the soul that is under God’s awakening calls. That is why we are said to be called to glory (1 Thess 2:12): “To the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ” (2 Thess 2:14).

(3) In effectual calling there is also a sanctifying virtue. That is why we are said to be called with a holy calling (1 Thess 4:7), with a “heavenly calling” (Heb 3:1), and called to glory and virtue. “But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should show forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvelous light” (1 Pet 2:9). Indeed, effectual calling has joined to it, as its inseparable companion, the promise of thorough sanctification. “Faithful is he that calleth you, who also will do it” (1 Thess 5:24).

Of Faith

I believe that effectual calling therefore produces:

1. Faith. That is why it is said that “faith cometh by hearing” (Rom 10:17): by hearing the word that calls us “unto the grace of Christ” (Gal 1:6). For by the word that calls us, Jesus Christ is held out to us and offered to be our righteousness. That is why the apostle says again that God has called us “unto the fellowship of his Son Jesus Christ” (1 Cor 1:9), that is, to be made partakers of the riches of grace and of the righteousness that is in him.

2. It produces hope. It gives a ground for hope, and that is why hope is said to be the hope of our calling (Eph 1:18). And again: “Even as ye are called in one hope of your calling” (Eph 4:4). Now the godly wise know that whoever misses effectual calling misses eternal life, because God justifies none but those whom he calls, and glorifies none but those whom he justifies. That is why Peter said, in the words quoted earlier, “Make your calling,” and so “your election sure.” Make it sure: that is, prove your calling right by the word of God. For whoever staggers at the certainty of his calling cannot comfortably hope for a share in eternal life. “Remember the word unto thy servant, upon which thou hast caused me to hope. My soul fainteth for thy salvation, but I hope in thy word” (Ps 119:49, 81).

3. It produces repentance. When a man has heaven and hell before his eyes (as he will if he is under the power of effectual calling), or when he has a revelation of the mercy and justice of God, with a heart-drawing invitation to lay hold of the tender forgiveness of sins, and is also made to behold the goodly beauty of holiness, repentance cannot help but appear. It puts itself forth in self-revenging acts for all the wickedness the soul delighted in during the days of its ignorance. Hence that saying: “I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance” (Mark 2:17). For bringing this about, the preaching of the word of the kingdom is most fitting: “Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matt 4:17).

Of Repentance

Repentance is a turning of the heart to God in Christ: a turning of it from sin, and the devil, and darkness, to the goodness, and grace, and holiness that is in him. That is why those who are said to have repented in former times are said to loathe and abhor themselves for all their abominations. “I abhor myself,” said Job, “and repent in dust and ashes” (Job 42:6). (See also Ezek 6:9; Ezek 20:43; Ezek 36:31; Ezek 16:63.)

Godly repentance not only affects the soul with the loathsome nature of past sin; it also fills the heart with a godly hatred of sins that may yet come. When Moses feared that, being overburdened with the care of the children of Israel, some unruly or sinful passions might show themselves in him, what did he say? “Kill me, I pray thee, out of hand, if I have found favor in thy sight, and let me not see my wretchedness” (Num 11:15). See also what that which Paul calls godly repentance worked in the upright Corinthians: “Behold,” he says, “this selfsame thing, that ye sorrowed after a godly sort, what carefulness it wrought in you, yea, what clearing of yourselves, yea, what indignation, yea, what fear, yea, what vehement desire, yea, what zeal, yea, what revenge! In all things ye have approved yourselves to be clear in this matter” (2 Cor 7:11).

Of Love

Effectual calling also produces love. So Paul, after reminding the church that they were called by God, adds that concerning brotherly love they had no need for him to write to them (1 Thess 4:9). It is as if he said: If God is so kind to us as to forgive us our sins, save our souls, and give us the kingdom of heaven, let these be motives beyond all others to provoke us to love in return. Further, if we who are so loved by God are made members of one man’s body, all partakers of his grace, all clothed with his glorious righteousness, and together appointed to be the children of the next world, why should we not love one another? “Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another” (1 John 4:11).

And truly we shall, if the true grace of God is upon us, because we also see them to be the called of Jesus. Travelers from the same country love and take pleasure in one another when they meet in a strange land. Why, we are sojourning here in a strange country with those who are heirs together with us of the promised kingdom and glory (Heb 11:9). Now, as I said, this holy love works by love. Notice: love in God and Christ, when it is discovered to us, constrains us to love one another (2 Cor 5:14).

The name, therefore, and word, and truth of God in Christ, together with the sincerity of grace, of faith, and of holiness in us, are the delightful objects of this love (Ps 119:47, 127, 132, 159; Ps 5:11; Ps 69:36; Ps 101:6). For it embraces with delight and pleasure only as it discerns the image of God and of Christ in the soul, his presence in the ministry, and a suitableness in our worship to the word and mind of Christ (Ps 26:8; Ps 27:4; Ps 84:1-4; 1 Thess 5:13; Phil 1:3-7; Eph 4:32).

Love also has a blessed and heavenly faculty in bearing and suffering afflictions, putting up with wrongs, overlooking the infirmities of the brethren, and serving the needs of the saints in all Christian offices. “Charity suffereth long and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. Charity never faileth” (1 Cor 13:4-8; also 1 Pet 4:8; Gal 5:13). In a word, love aims at holy conduct in this world, so that God, and Christ, and the word of Christ “may be glorified thereby” (2 Cor 11:10-12; 1 Pet 2:12; 1 Pet 3:16).

Of the Scriptures

Concerning this word of God, I believe and confess as follows:

1. That all the holy Scriptures are the words of God. “All scripture is given by inspiration of God” (2 Tim 3:16). For the prophecy of Scripture “came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost” (2 Pet 1:21).

2. I believe that the holy Scriptures, of themselves, without the addition of human inventions, are able to make the man of God perfect in all things, and “thoroughly to furnish him unto all good works” (2 Tim 3:17). They are able “to make thee wise unto salvation, through faith which is in Christ Jesus” (2 Tim 3:15), and to instruct you in all other things that concern either the worship of God or your walk before all people (2 Pet 1:19-21).

3. I believe that the great purpose for which God committed the Scriptures to writing was that we might be instructed in the way to Christ, taught how to believe (1 John 5:13; John 20:31), and encouraged to patience and hope for the grace that is to be brought to us at the revelation of Jesus Christ (Rom 15:4). It was also that we might understand what sin is and how to avoid committing it. “Concerning the works of men,” said David, “by the word of thy lips, I have kept me from the paths of the destroyer” (Ps 17:4). “Through thy precepts I get understanding: therefore I hate every false way” (Ps 119:104). “Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee” (Ps 119:11).

4. I believe that the Scriptures cannot be broken, but will certainly be fulfilled in all their prophecies, threats, and promises, whether to the salvation or the damnation of men. They are like that flying scroll that will go over all the earth to cut off and curse (Zech 5:2-4). The blessing is also contained in them; they preach the way of salvation to us as well (Gal 3:8). “Beware, therefore, lest that come upon you, which is spoken of in the prophets; Behold, ye despisers, and wonder, and perish: for I work a work in your days, a work which ye shall in no wise believe, though a man declare it unto you” (Acts 13:40-41; see also John 10:35; John 12:37-41; John 3:17-19).

5. I believe that Jesus Christ will judge all men by the word of the Scriptures on the day of judgment, for that is the book of the law of the Lord, according to Paul’s gospel (John 12:44-50; Rom 2:16).

6. I believe that this God “made the world and all things therein” (Acts 17:24), for “in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is” (Exod 20:11). I also believe that after he made it, he distributed it among the children of men, with a portion of it reserved for the children of God, who would in every age be born to it. “When the Most High divided to the nations their inheritance, when he separated the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Israel” (Deut 32:8). For as he “made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth,” so he “hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation” (Acts 17:26).

Of Magistracy

I believe that magistracy is God’s ordinance, which he has appointed for the government of the whole world, and that it is a judgment of God to be without those ministers of God whom he has ordained to put wickedness to shame (Judg 18:7). “Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation. For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. Wilt thou not then be afraid of the power? do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the same: for he is the minister of God to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid; for he beareth not the sword in vain: for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil. Wherefore ye must needs be subject, not only for wrath, but also for conscience sake. For this cause pay ye tribute also: for they are God’s ministers, attending continually upon this very thing” (Rom 13:2-6). Many are the mercies we receive through a well-qualified magistrate. And if any magistrate should at any time be otherwise inclined, let us show our Christianity by patiently suffering, for well-doing, whatever it pleases God to inflict through them.

A Reason of My Practice in Worship

Having thus made confession of my faith, I now come to show you my practice in worship, with the reasons for it. I shall touch on these under two distinct heads:

1. With whom I dare not hold communion.

2. With whom I dare.

Only, first, note that by the word communion I mean fellowship in the things of the kingdom of Christ, or what is commonly called church communion, the communion of saints. For in civil affairs, and in the things of this world that are honest, I am not altogether cut off from the fornicators of this world (1 Cor 5:9-10). So in what follows, understand me in the first sense.

Now, then, first: I dare not have communion with those who do not profess faith and holiness, or who are not visible saints by calling. But note that by this assertion I am not meddling with the elect as elect, but only as a person is a visible saint by calling. Nor do I exclude the secret hypocrite, if he is hidden from me by visible saintship. So I dare not have communion with people on the mere supposition that they may be elect; nor dare I exclude the other on the mere supposition that he may be a secret hypocrite. I am not meddling with these things here. I only exclude the one who is not a visible saint. Now he who is visibly or openly profane cannot, then, be a visible saint. For he who is a visible saint must profess faith and repentance, and consequently holiness of life; and with no one else dare I have communion.

First, because God himself has put the difference so strictly, both by word and by deed. From the beginning he put a difference between the seed of the woman and the children of the wicked (Gen 3:15); the instinct of grace and the change of mind are his own work. But he did not only that: he also cast out from his presence the father of all the ungodly, cursed Cain, when he showed himself openly profane. He banished him to go into the land of the runaway, or vagabond, where he was ever after hidden from God’s face, and so from the privileges of the communion of saints (Gen 4:8-16).

Besides this, when afterward, through Satan’s craft, the children of Cain and the seed of Seth mixed themselves together in worship, and by that means corrupted the way of God, what followed? First, God judged it wickedness and raised up Noah to preach against it. After that, because they would not be reclaimed, he brought the flood upon the whole world of these ungodly people and saved alive only Noah and his household, because Noah had kept himself righteous (Gen 6:1-13). Here I could enlarge abundantly and add many more instances of a similar nature, but here I mean only to touch on things.

Second, because it is so often commanded in the Scriptures that all the congregation should be holy. “I am the Lord your God: ye shall therefore sanctify yourselves, and ye shall be holy; for I am holy” (Lev 11:44). “Ye shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy” (Lev 19:2). “Sanctify yourselves therefore, and be ye holy: for I am the Lord your God” (Lev 20:7; 1 Pet 1:15-16). Besides this:

(1) The gates of the temple were to be shut against all others. “Open ye the gates, that the righteous nation which keepeth the truth may enter in” (Isa 26:2). “This gate of the Lord, into which the righteous shall enter” (Ps 118:20). “Thus saith the Lord God: No stranger, uncircumcised in heart, nor uncircumcised in flesh, shall enter into my sanctuary, of any stranger that is among the children of Israel” (Ezek 44:9).

(2) Because the things of worship are holy: “Be ye clean that bear the vessels of the Lord” (Isa 52:11).

(3) Because all the limits and bounds of communion are holy: “This is the law of the house; Upon the top of the mountain, the whole limit thereof … shall be most holy. Behold, this is the law of the house” (Ezek 43:12).

Third, I dare not have communion with them because the example of the New Testament churches before us has been a community of visible saints. Paul writes thus to the Romans: “To all that be in Rome, beloved of God, called to be saints” (Rom 1:7). And to the rest of the churches thus: “Unto the church of God which is at Corinth, to them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus; called to be saints” (1 Cor 1:2). “To the saints which are at Ephesus, and to the faithful in Christ Jesus” (Eph 1:1). “To all the saints which are at Philippi, with the bishops and deacons” (Phil 1:1). “To the saints and faithful brethren in Christ which are at Colosse” (Col 1:2). “To the church of the Thessalonians, which is in God the Father, and in the Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Thess 1:1). So you see under what name those persons went of old who were counted worthy to be members of a visible church of Christ. Besides this, the members of such churches go under descriptions like these:

(1) “The called of Christ Jesus” (Rom 1:6).

(2) Men who have drunk into the Spirit of Jesus Christ (1 Cor 12:13).

(3) Persons in whom God the Father was (Eph 4:6).

(4) They were all made partakers of the joy of the gospel (Phil 1:7).

(5) Persons who were circumcised inwardly (Col 2:11).

(6) Persons who turned from idols to serve the living and true God (1 Thess 1:9).

(7) Those who were the body of Christ, and members in particular; that is, those who were visibly such, because they made profession of faith, of holiness, of repentance, of love to Christ and of self-denial when they were received into fellowship.

Fourth, I dare not hold communion with the openly profane.

(1) Because it is promised to the church that she shall dwell by herself; that is, as she is a church, and spiritual: “Lo, the people shall dwell alone, and shall not be reckoned among the nations” (Num 23:9).

(2) Because this is their privilege: “But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should show forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvelous light” (1 Pet 2:9-10).

(3) Because this is the fruit of the death of Christ, “who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works” (Titus 2:14).

(4) Because this is the commandment: “Save yourselves from this untoward generation” (Acts 2:40).

(5) Because it is not possible for us to have true and spiritual communion with such people. “Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness? And what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel? And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God, as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, and will be a Father unto you, … saith the Lord Almighty” (2 Cor 6:14-18).

Fifth, I dare not hold communion with the openly profane, because:

(1) This would be plowing with an ox and a donkey together (Deut 22:10). Heavenly persons are the best fit for communion in heavenly matters.

(2) It does not agree with the nature of our discipline, which is not forced but free, in a professed subjection to the will and commandment of Christ; others are shut out by God’s own prohibition (Lev 1:3; Rom 6:17; 2 Cor 8:12; 2 Cor 9:7, 13; 2 Cor 8:5). Paul also, when he urges Timothy to follow after righteousness, faith, love, peace and the rest (which are the very heart of church communion), tells him to do it “with them that call on the Lord, out of a pure heart” (2 Tim 2:22).

Sixth, in a word, to hold communion with the openly profane is most harmful and destructive.

(1) It was the wicked multitude that fell to lusting, and that tempted Christ in the desert (Num 11:4).

(2) It was from the profane heathen that Israel learned to worship idols. They “were mingled among the heathen, and learned their works. And served their idols; which were a snare unto them” (Ps 106:35-36).

(3) It is the mingled people whom God has threatened to plague with those same deadly punishments with which he threatened to punish Babylon itself. For he says that when a sword is upon her liars, her mighty men, her chariots and her treasures, a sword shall also be upon the mingled people that are in the midst of her (Jer 50:36-37).

And no wonder, for:

(1) Mixed communion pollutes the ordinances of God. Say to the rebels, says the Lord God, “Let it suffice you of all your abominations, in that ye have brought into my sanctuary strangers, uncircumcised in heart, and uncircumcised in flesh, to be in my sanctuary, to pollute it, even my house, when ye offer my bread, the fat and the blood, and they have broken my covenant, because of all your abominations” (Ezek 44:6-7).

(2) It violates the law. “Her priests have violated my law, and have profaned mine holy things: (how) They have put no difference between the holy and profane, neither have they showed difference between the unclean and the clean” (Ezek 22:26).

(3) It profanes the holiness of God. “Judah hath dealt treacherously, and an abomination is committed in Israel and in Jerusalem; for Judah hath profaned the holiness of the Lord which he loved, and hath married the daughter of a strange god” (Mal 2:11).

(4) It defiles the truly gracious. “Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump?” (1 Cor 5:6). Look diligently, therefore, “lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and thereby many be defiled” (Heb 12:15).

Lastly, to conclude, it provokes God to punish with severe judgments. So pay careful attention to this.

(1) As I said before, the drowning of the whole world was brought on by the sons of God mixing themselves with the daughters of men, and by the corruption of worship that followed from it (Gen 6-7).

(2) God sent a plague on the children of Israel for joining themselves to the people of Moab and for following their abominations in worship (Num 25:1-5; Josh 22:17). And let no one think that I have now changed the question. For a church to hold communion with the profane is all one with sacrificing and offering their gifts to the devil (Deut 32:16-19; Ps 106:36-40). The reason is that such people have by their sin forsaken the protection of heaven. They are given up to the lusts of their own hearts, and left to be overcome by the wicked to whom they have joined themselves (Deut 12; Deut 7:1-6).

God said, Do not join yourselves to the wicked, either in religion or in marriage, “For they will turn away thy son from following me, that they may serve other gods: so will the anger of the Lord be kindled against you, and destroy thee suddenly” (Deut 7:4). “Did not Solomon king of Israel sin by these things? yet among many nations was there no king like him who was beloved of his God” (Neh 13:26). Hear how Paul handles the point: “But I say, that the things which the Gentiles [or openly profane] sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils, and not to God; and I would not that ye should have fellowship with devils. Ye cannot drink the cup of the Lord, and the cup of devils: Ye cannot be partakers of the table of the Lord, and of the table of devils. Do we provoke the Lord to jealousy? Are we stronger than he?” (1 Cor 10:20-22).

I conclude, therefore, that it is an evil and a dangerous thing to hold church communion with the openly profane and ungodly. It pollutes his ordinances; it violates his law; it profanes his holiness; it defiles his people; and it provokes the Lord to severe and terrible judgments.

Objection. But we can prove that in every age there have been openly profane people in the church of God.

Answer. In many ages, indeed, it has been so. But mark this: they did not appear to be such when they were first received into communion (Exod 12:48). Nor was it God’s pleasure that they should be kept among them as such, except with a view to their admonition, repentance and amendment of life. And if they failed in that, God at once threatened the church. Either he cut them off from the church, as he did the idolaters, fornicators, murmurers, tempters and Sabbath-breakers, along with Korah, Dathan, Achan and others (2 Cor 6; 1 Cor 5; Exod 32:25; Num 25:1-9; Num 21:5-6; Num 14:37; Num 16; Num 15:32-36; Josh 7). Or else he cut them off together with the church and all, as he dealt with the ten tribes at one time and the two tribes at another (2 Kgs 17; Ezek 22; Ezek 23). “My God will cast them away, because they did not hearken unto him: and they shall be wanderers among the nations” (Hos 9:17).

I might enlarge on this a great deal here, but I intend to be brief. Yet let me tell you that when Nehemiah understood by the book of the law of the Lord that the Ammonite and the Moabite should not come into the congregation of God, “they separated from Israel all the mixed multitude” (Neh 13:1-3).

Many have pleaded for the profane, that they should remain in the church of God. But such people have not considered that God’s wrath has at all times been shown with great indignation against such offenders and their fancies. Indeed, they do not like to plead for them under that description, but rather say, as Korah and his company did, “All the congregation are holy every one of them” (Num 16:3). But it makes no difference by what name they are called, if by their deeds they show themselves openly wicked. For names and notions do not sanctify the heart and nature; they do not make virtues out of vice; nor can they save such advocates from the heavy curse of both God and men (Prov 17:15; Prov 24:24). “The righteous men, they shall judge them after the manner of adulteresses, and after the manner of women that shed blood; because they are adulteresses, and blood is in their hands” (Ezek 23:45).

I Dare Have Communion with Visible Saints

Second, I have now shown you those with whom I dare not have communion; next I will show you those with whom I dare. But before I do, I want you:

First, to take notice that, as to shadowy or figurative ordinances, I believe Christ has ordained only two in his church, namely water baptism and the Lord’s Supper. Both of them are of excellent use to the church in this world, since they are to us representations of the death and resurrection of Christ, and are, as God shall make them, helps to our faith in it. But I do not count them the fundamentals of our Christianity, nor the grounds or rule of communion with saints. They are servants, our mystical ministers, to teach and instruct us in the weightiest matters of the kingdom of God. I therefore declare here my reverent esteem for them. Yet I dare not remove them, as some do, from the place and purpose where God has set and appointed them, nor ascribe to them more than they were ordered to have in their first and original institution. It is possible to commit idolatry even with God’s own appointments. But I pass over this, and come to the matter I proposed.

Second, then, I dare have communion, church communion, with those who are visible saints by calling: with those who have been brought over to faith and holiness by the word of the gospel. And it makes no difference to me what their life was before, if they are now “washed,” if they are “sanctified,” if they are “justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God” (1 Cor 6:11).

Now, for the discovery of this faith and holiness, and so for fellowship in church communion, I hold it necessary that a faithful account of it be given by the person who is to be received. Yes, and if need be, by witnesses also, for the satisfaction of the church, so that she may receive in faith and judgment such as will best suit her holy profession (Acts 9:26-28; 1 Cor 16:10; 2 Cor 8:23). Observe this: these texts concern extraordinary officers. And yet you see that, in order to their being received by the church, a faithful account was given to the churches of the faith and holiness of these very persons. For no one may intrude himself upon, or thrust himself into, a church of Christ unless the church first has knowledge of the person to be received and is satisfied with him. Otherwise a door is opened for all the heretics in the world; yes, for devils too, if they appear in human shape.

But Paul shows you the manner of receiving when he pleads for the admission of himself and his companions, after the false apostles had thrown some disgrace upon him. “Receive us,” he says, “we have wronged no man, we have corrupted no man, we have defrauded no man” (2 Cor 7:2). And so concerning Timothy: “If Timotheus come,” he says, “see that he may be with you without fear: for he worketh the work of the Lord, as I also do” (1 Cor 16:10). Also, when Paul supposed that Titus might be suspected by some, see how he pleads for him: if “any do inquire of Titus, he is my partner and fellow-helper concerning you: or our brethren be inquired of, they are the messengers of the churches, and the glory of Christ” (2 Cor 8:23). Phoebe also, when she was to be received by the church at Rome: see how he speaks on her behalf: “I commend unto you Phoebe our sister, which is a servant of the church which is at Cenchrea: that ye receive her in the Lord, as becometh saints, and that ye assist her in whatsoever business she hath need of you; for she hath been a succorer of many, and of myself also” (Rom 16:1-2).

Yes, when the apostles and brethren sent their letters from Jerusalem to Antioch, under what descriptions did those go who were the messengers to them? “It seemed good unto [the Holy Ghost and to] us, … to send chosen men unto you with our beloved Barnabas and Paul, men that have hazarded their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Acts 15:25-27). Saul had been in Antioch before, but since false apostles had brought him under suspicion, he needed a fresh commendation.

Now the occasions on which these commendations were written were not simply or only for the sake of church relation, but for other reasons as well. Yet because the persons concerned were to be received by the churches as faithful, and as those who would share church privileges with them, their faith and faithfulness were therefore reported to the churches, as of those who were particularly joined in body there. Besides, Timothy and Titus, being extraordinary officers, stood as members and officers in every church where they were received. Likewise Barnabas and Saul, Judas and Silas, remained as members and officers where they were sent. It was necessary, therefore, that the letters of recommendation should be in substance the same as the account that ought to be given to the church by or for the person who is to be joined in body there.

But to return: I dare have communion, church communion, with those who are visible saints by calling.

Question. But by what rule would you receive them into fellowship with yourselves?

Answer. Even by a discovery of their faith and holiness, and by their declaring that they are willing to subject themselves to the laws and government of Christ in his church.

Question. But do you not hold that they ought to be received into fellowship by water baptism, and not otherwise, since that is the initiating and entering ordinance?

Answer. No. But wait, and take my meaning along with my words. For here lies the mistake: people think that because baptism was administered upon conversion in times past, it is therefore the initiating and entering ordinance into church communion, when the word testifies no such thing of it. Besides, that it is not so will be plain if we consider the nature and power of such an ordinance.

That ordinance, then, which is the initiating or entering ordinance (as I said before), gives to those who partake of it a right to, and a being of, membership with that particular church by which it is administered. I say, a right to, and a being of, membership, without the addition of any other church act. This is evident from the law of circumcision, which was the initiating law of old. For by the administration of that very ordinance the partaker of it was at once a member of that congregation, without the addition of any other church act (Gen 17). This is declared in its first institution, and that is why it is called the token of the covenant: the token or sign of righteousness, of Abraham’s faith, and of the visible membership of those who joined themselves to the church with him; the very inlet into church communion, which gave a being of membership among them.

And so Moses himself explains it: “every man’s servant that is bought for money, when thou hast circumcised him, then shall he eat” of the Passover (Exod 12:44). He needs no other church act added to empower him to do so; his circumcision has already given him a being there, and so a right to, and privilege in, church relation. “A foreigner and an hired servant shall not eat thereof” (because not circumcised). “And when a stranger shall sojourn with thee, and will keep the passover to the LORD, let all his males be circumcised, and then let him come near and keep it” (for then he is one of the church), “and he shall be as one born in the land: for no uncircumcised person shall eat thereof” (Exod 12:48).

Nor could anything else, according to the law of circumcision, give the most devout person who ever breathed a being of membership with them. “He that is born in thy house, and he that is bought with thy money, must needs be circumcised: … and the uncircumcised man child, whose flesh of his foreskin is not circumcised, that soul shall be cut off from his people” (Gen 17:13-14). Note, then, that whatever is the initiating ordinance admits no one into church communion except those who first partake of it. The angel sought to kill Moses himself for attempting to make his child a member without it (Exod 4:24-26). Note again that, as it admits no one to membership without it, so, as I said, the very act of circumcising them, without the addition of any other church act, gave them a being of membership with that very church by which they were circumcised.

But none of this can be said of baptism. First, no one is debarred, or threatened with being cut off from the church, if they are not first baptized. Second, neither does it give the person baptized a being of membership with this or that church by whose members he has been baptized. John gathered no particular church, yet he was the first and great baptizer with water. He preached Christ to come, baptized with the baptism of repentance, and left his disciples to be gathered by Christ (Acts 19:3-5). “And unto him shall the gathering of the people be” (Gen 49:10).

Besides, after Christ’s ascension, Philip baptized the eunuch, but did not by that make him a member of any particular church. We read only that Philip was caught away from him, and that the eunuch saw him no more, but went on his way rejoicing to his master and his country of Ethiopia (Acts 8:35-40). Nor was Cornelius made a member of the church at Jerusalem by being baptized at Peter’s command at Caesarea (Acts 10-11). Nor were those who were converted at Antioch, by those who had been scattered from the church at Jerusalem, joined to the church at Jerusalem by their baptism, if they were baptized in water at all (Acts 11:19). No, they were afterward gathered and joined in one body among themselves by other church acts. What shall I say? Into what particular church was Lydia baptized by Paul, or those first converts at Philippi (Acts 16)? Yes, even in Acts 2, baptizing and adding to the church appear to be distinct acts.

But if baptism were the initiating ordinance, then the one who was baptized would be made a member, made a member of a particular church, by the very act of water baptism. And in that case no one ought, by God’s ordinance, to have baptized anyone except with a view to admitting them by that act to a being of membership in this particular church. For if it is the initiating ordinance, it enters them into the church. What church? Into a visible church. Now there is no visible church but one that is particular, the universal church being utterly invisible and known to none but God. The person who is baptized, then, stands by that act a member of no church at all, neither of the visible nor yet of the invisible. A visible saint he is, but he is not made so by baptism; for he must be a visible saint beforehand, or else he ought not to be baptized (Acts 8:37; Acts 9:17; Acts 16:33).

Take it again: baptism in water makes you no member of the church, neither particular nor universal; nor does it make you a visible saint. It therefore gives you neither a right to, nor a being of, membership at all.

Question. But why, then, were they baptized?

Answer. So that by that figure their own faith in the death and resurrection of Christ might be strengthened, and so that they themselves might see that they have professed themselves dead, and buried, and risen with him to newness of life (Col 2:12; Rom 6:4). It did not seal to the church that they were so (the church’s satisfaction on that point arose from better arguments), but it taught the person himself that he ought to be so. Further, it confirmed to his own conscience the forgiveness of sins, if by unfeigned faith he laid hold upon Jesus Christ (Gal 3:26; 1 Cor 15:29; Acts 2:38; Acts 22:16; 1 Pet 3:21).

Now then, if baptism is not the initiating ordinance, we must look for entrance some other way, by some other appointment of Christ, unless we will say that we may enter his visible kingdom without rule, without order and without an appointment of Christ. The church under the law had its initiating and entering ordinance. So, unless we should think that Moses was more punctual and exact than Christ, it cannot be otherwise than that our Lord also has his entering appointment. Now whatever Christ has made the door of entrance into the church, by that we may certainly enter. And seeing baptism is not that ordinance, we ought not to seek to enter by it, but may with a good conscience enter without it.

Question. But by what rule, then, would you gather persons into church communion?

Answer. Even by that rule by which they are shown to the church to be visible saints, and willing to be gathered into their body and fellowship. By that word of God, therefore, by which their faith, experience and conduct are examined and found good, by that the church should receive them into fellowship with them. Mark this: not according to how they practice things that are circumstantial, but as their faith is commended by a word of faith, and their conduct by a moral precept. Therefore it is worth noticing that after Paul had declared himself sound in the faith (2 Cor 5:18-21), he comes down to the body of the law: “Receive us,” he says; “we have wronged no man, we have corrupted no man, we have defrauded no man” (2 Cor 7:2). He does not say, “I am baptized,” but, “I have wronged no man…” And if churches, after the confession of faith, made more use of the ten commandments to judge the fitness of persons, this seeming strictness would not carry them beyond Christian tenderness toward those they receive into communion.

I will say, then, that it is by the word of faith and of good works (moral duties gospelized) that we ought to judge the fitness of members, and by that same word we ought also to receive them into fellowship. For whoever proves sound in these things has the antitype of circumcision, which was formerly the entering ordinance. “For he is not a Jew, which is one outwardly; neither is that circumcision, which is outward in the flesh. But he is a Jew, which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit … whose praise is not of men, but of God” (Rom 2:28-29; Phil 3:1-4). Now a confession of this by word and life makes this inward circumcision visible. So when you know someone to be circumcised in this way, you ought to admit him to the Lord’s Passover. He, if anyone, has not only a share in church communion but a visible right to the kingdom of heaven.

Again: “For the kingdom of God” (or our service to Christ) “is not meat and drink, but righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Ghost. For he that in these things serveth Christ, is acceptable to God, and approved of men” (Rom 14:17-18; Deut 28:47). By the word righteousness he means what James means by the royal law, the perfect law (Jas 2:8-9): that is, the moral precept evangelized, or delivered to us by the hand of Christ. The law was given twice on Sinai. The second time it was given with a proclamation of the grace and mercy of God, and of the pardon of sins, going before it (Exod 19; Exod 34:1-10). It is the second giving that is meant here, for in that way it comes after faith, which first receives the proclamation of forgiveness. That is why we are said to do this righteousness in the joy and peace of the Holy Spirit.

Now whoever serves Christ in these things is accepted by God and approved by men. For who can justly find fault with the person who fulfills the royal law from a principle of faith and love? “If ye fulfill the royal law according to the scripture, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself, ye do well” (Jas 2:8); you are approved by men. Again, whoever has loved another has fulfilled the law, for love is the fulfilling of the law. So the person who serves Christ according to the royal law, with faith and love going before, is a fit person for church communion: God accepts him, and men approve him. If you want proof that the royal law is the moral precept, read the passage (Jas 2:8-12). It is also called the law of liberty, because the bondage is taken away by forgiveness going before. And this is the law by which we are judged, as the passage says, fit or unfit for church communion.

Therefore I say that the rule by which we receive church members is the word of the faith of Christ and of the moral precept evangelized, as I said before. I am “under the law to Christ,” says Paul (1 Cor 9:21). So when he forbids us communion with people, they are people who are destitute of the faith of Christ and live in the transgression of a moral precept. “I have written unto you,” he says, “not to keep company, if any man that is called a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner, with such an one no not to eat” (1 Cor 5:11). He does not say, “if any man is not baptized, or has not had hands laid on him, or joins with the unbaptized.” Those are fictitious, scriptureless notions. “For this, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Thou shalt not covet; and if there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. Love worketh no ill to his neighbor: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law” (Rom 13:9-10).

The word of faith and the moral precept are what Paul lays on the Galatians and the Philippians, always steering clear of outward circumstances. So when he had dealt with faith in writing to the Galatians, he turns point-blank to moral duties: “For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature. And as many as walk according to this rule, peace be on them, and mercy, and upon the Israel of God” (Gal 6:15-16). “As many as walk according to this rule.” What rule? The rule by which people are proved to be new creatures: the word of faith and the moral precept.

That is why Paul urges the Ephesians not to walk “as other Gentiles, in the vanity of their mind,” seeing they had received Christ, and had “heard him, and had been taught by him as the truth is in Jesus.” He urges them to put off the old man. What is that? Why, “the former conversation,” which is “corrupt according to the deceitful lusts”: lying, anger, sin, giving place to the devil, corrupt talk, all bitterness, wrath, clamor, evil speaking, with all malice. And he urges them to “put on the new man.” What is that? It is what is “created in righteousness and true holiness”: being “renewed in the spirit” of their mind, and putting away all these things (Eph 4).

“For in Christ Jesus”: these words are put in on purpose to show us the nature of New Testament administrations, and how they differ from the old. Under Moses, an outward conformity to an outward and carnal ordinance was enough to give people a place of membership among the Jews, provided they submitted to it. But in Christ Jesus it is not so. The national Jewish congregation was made of Abraham’s flesh, but it is Abraham’s faith that makes New Testament churches. Those who are of faith are the children of faithful Abraham. Those who are of faith, the same are the children of Abraham (Gal 3:7-9). So then, since the seed is now spiritual, the rule must also be spiritual, namely, the word of faith and holiness. This is the gospel’s circumcision knife, sharper than any two-edged sword. It is the knife by which New Testament saints are circumcised in heart, ears and lips.

“For in Christ Jesus” there is no outward and circumstantial thing, but the new creature. None are subjects of the visible kingdom of Christ but those who are visible saints by calling. Now what shows a person to be a visible saint must be conformity to the word of faith and holiness. “And they that are Christ’s, have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts” (Gal 5:24). Listen to how delightfully Paul handles the point. The new creatures are the Israel of God. The new creature has a rule of his own to walk by, and as many as walk according to this rule, peace be on them, and mercy, and upon the Israel of God.

Paul commands the Philippians the same. Treating there of his own practice in the doctrine of faith and holiness, he requires them to walk by the same rule and to mind the same thing. He says that he desires to be found in Christ; that he reaches forward to the things that are before; that his way of life is in heaven, flatly opposite to those whose God is their belly, who glory in their shame, and who mind earthly things. “Brethren,” he says, “be followers together of me, and mark them which walk so” (Phil 3:17). Mark them for what? As persons who are to be received into fellowship and into the choicest communion of saints.

And indeed this is the safest way to judge the fitness of persons. For take away the confession of faith and holiness, and what can distinguish a Christian from a Turk? No one can reject the person who truly receives the faith, who squares his life by the royal, perfect, moral precept, and who walks in it in the joy and peace of the Holy Spirit. Whoever objects to him cannot be a man: not a man in Christ, not a man of understanding. “The law is not made for a righteous man,” neither to bar him from the communion of saints if he desires it, nor to cast him out if he is in. “But for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and for sinners, for unholy and profane, for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, for manslayers, for whoremongers, for them that defile themselves with mankind, for men-stealers, for liars, for perjured persons, and if there be any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine; according to the glorious gospel of the blessed God, which was committed to my trust” (1 Tim 1:9-11).

Paul also, when he wanted to leave an everlasting conviction on the Ephesians about his faith and holiness, first treats of the sufficiency of Christ’s blood and the grace of God to save us, and then adds, “I have coveted no man’s silver, or gold, or apparel” (Acts 20:33). He brings them to the moral precept to prove by it the sincerity of his good conduct. And when people have juggled all they can and made ever so much prattle about religion, yet if their greatest excellence, as to the visibility of their saintship, lies in an outward conformity to an outward circumstance in religion, their profession is not worth two mites.

“Let us walk honestly, as in the day; not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying. But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfill the lusts thereof” (Rom 13:13-14). And it is worth noticing that after the apostle had told us, in verses 9 and 10 of this chapter, that the moral precept is the rule of good conduct, and had urged us to make no provision for the flesh, he adds that, with these things provided for, we may receive into communion with us anyone who believes in Christ Jesus, however weak and however dark in circumstantials. And he chiefly sets out to prove this in the rest of his epistle.

For no one may lightly reproach or vilify a person of sound faith whose conduct in the world is honest, however he may fail in circumstantials. Indeed, such persons are the honor of Christian congregations. True, he suffers loss for want of light in the things about which he is in the dark, such as baptism or the like. But that is not the initiating ordinance, nor the visible mark of a saint. Yes, it makes no breach in a good and holy life, and it encroaches on no one’s right but his own. His faith may be effectual without it, and his life approved by the worst of his enemies. Seeing all this, why should his friends, while he keeps the law, dishonor God by breaking it? “Speak not evil one of another, brethren. He that speaketh evil of his brother, and judgeth his brother, speaketh evil of the law, and judgeth the law: but if thou judge the law, thou art not a doer of the law, but a judge” (Jas 4:11).

The one who is judged must, in the opinion of the one who judges him, fail somewhere; otherwise why is he judged? But to be worthy of judgment he must fail in substance, for then he deserves to be judged (1 Cor 5:12). His failure, then, is in a circumstance, for which he ought not to be judged.

Objection. But notwithstanding all you have said, water baptism ought to go before church membership. Show me one person in the whole New Testament who was received into fellowship without it.

Answer. 1. That water baptism has in the past gone first is granted. But I never saw proof that it must of necessity do so.

2. No one ever received it without light going before, unless they were playing the hypocrite. Besides, it is no wonder that in the primitive times it was so generally practiced first, for even the unconverted knew it belonged to the disciples of Jesus Christ (John 1:24-27). Yet to prove that all who were received into fellowship even then were baptized first would strain a weak man’s wits, if arguments were closely built on these three texts of holy Scripture (1 Cor 1:14-16; Gal 3:27; Rom 6:3). But I pass them by and say this: if you can show me the Christian who in the primitive times remained in the dark about it, I will show you the Christian who was received without it.

But suppose I grant more than can be proved: that baptism was the initiating ordinance, and that it once gave a place of membership to those who partook of it, as circumcision did of old. Yes, suppose men were then forbidden to enter into fellowship without it. Even so, the case may be such that, these things notwithstanding, people might be received into fellowship without it. All these things belonged to circumcision. That was the initiating ordinance; that gave a place of membership; that was the ordinance without which it was positively commanded that no one should be received into fellowship. Yet for all this, more than six hundred thousand were received into the church without it (Josh 5). Yes, they were received and also kept there, and that by Moses and Joshua, even those to whom the land was promised, when the uncircumcised were cut off.

But why, then, were they not circumcised? No doubt there was a reason. Either they lacked time, or opportunity, or instruments, or something. But they could not have given a bigger reason than this: “I have no light in it.” And that is the reason at this day why many a faithful man declines to take up the ordinance of baptism. But I say, whatever the hindrance was, it does not matter. Our brothers have a hindrance that is plain, and invincible, one that neither all the men on earth nor the angels in heaven can remove. For it is God who creates light. And for them to do it without light would only prove them unfaithful to themselves and make them sinners against God: “For whatsoever is not of faith is sin” (Rom 14:23).

If, therefore, Moses and Joshua thought fit to have communion with six hundred thousand uncircumcised persons, when by the law not one such person ought to have been received among them, why may I not have communion, the closest communion, with visible saints as described above? Why not, even though they lack light in that matter, and so cannot submit to that which God never made the wall of division between us? I will therefore hold communion with such people.

First, because the true visible saint has already submitted to something better, namely, to the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ, by which he stands just before God. He has also taken the most exact and strict rule under heaven as the rule by which he squares his life before men. He has like precious faith with the best of saints, and a conduct becoming the gospel of Christ, according to the light he has received. He is therefore to be received. Received, I say, not by your light, and not because in circumstances he agrees with your opinion, but according to his own faith, which he ought to keep to himself before God. “Conscience, I say, not thine own, but of the other: for why is my liberty judged of another man’s conscience?” (1 Cor 10:29).

Some, indeed, object that what the apostles wrote, they wrote to gathered churches, and so to people who were baptized. And therefore, they say, the arguments in the epistles about circumstantial things do not bear on the case in hand. But I tell such people that, as to the first part of their objection, they are utterly mistaken. First Corinthians, the epistle of James, both the epistles of Peter, and the first epistle of John were expressly written to all the godly as well as to particular churches. Again, if water baptism, like the circumstances with which the churches were pestered of old, troubles their peace, wounds the consciences of the godly, and dismembers and breaks their fellowships, then, although it is an ordinance, it is for the present to be prudently set aside. For the edification of the church, as I will show shortly, is to be preferred before it.

Second, and mark this: “One Spirit … one hope … one Lord, one faith, one baptism” (not of water, for as 1 Corinthians 12:13 says, “by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body”), “one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all” (Eph 4:1-6). This is a sufficient rule for us to hold communion by. It is also a sufficient rule by which to strive to maintain that communion, and to keep it in unity within the bond of peace against all attempts whatsoever.

Third, I am bold, therefore, to have communion with such people, because they also have the doctrine of baptisms (Heb 6:1-2). I say, the doctrine of them. For here you must note that I distinguish between the doctrine and the practice of water baptism. The doctrine is what the outward sign presents to us, or what the outward circumstance of the act preaches to the believer: namely, the death of Christ, my death with Christ, and also his resurrection from the dead, and mine with him to newness of life. This is the doctrine that baptism preaches, or what the outward action signifies to the believing receiver.

Now I say that whoever believes in Jesus Christ has something richer and better than that: he is dead to sin and lives to God by him. He has the heart, power and doctrine of baptism. All he lacks, then, is the sign, the shadow, or the outward circumstance of it. And even that is not despised, but only forborne for want of light. He has the best of baptisms. He is baptized by that one Spirit. He has the heart of water baptism, and lacks only the outward show. Even if he had it, it would not prove him a truly visible saint; it would not tell me he had grace in his heart. It is no distinguishing mark to anyone else of my sonship with God.

It is, indeed, a sign to the person baptized, and a help to his own faith. By that circumstance he should know that he has received forgiveness of sins, if his faith is as true as his being baptized is felt by him. But if for want of light he does not partake of that sign, his faith can see the same thing in other things: in exceedingly great and precious promises. Yes, as I have also hinted already, if he does not appear to be a brother before, he does not appear to be a brother by that. And as for those who content themselves with making that the mark of visible church membership, I fear they make it little better than the mark of their sonship with God.

Fourth, I am bold to hold communion with visible saints as described above because God has communion with them, and we are strictly commanded to follow his example in this case. “Receive ye one another as Christ also received us,” says Paul, “to the glory of God” (Rom 15:1-7). Yes, even though they are saints whose opinions are contrary to yours; even though it goes against the mind of those who are strong. “We then that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak, and not to please ourselves” (Rom 15:1). What infirmities? Those that are natural are common to all, so these must be infirmities that are sinful, which cause a person, for want of light, to err in circumstantials. Even the strongest may sometimes be out of the way. And the reason on which he grounds this admonition is that “Christ pleased not himself; but, as it is written, The reproaches of them that reproached thee, fell on me” (Rom 15:3).

You say that to have communion with such weak brothers is a reproach to your opinions and practice. Grant it. Your dullness and deadness and imperfections are also a reproach to the holiness of God. If you answer, “No, for Christ has borne our sins,” the reply is still the same: their sins have also fallen on Christ. So he who has taken your sins away from before the throne of God has taken away their shortcoming in conformity to an outward circumstance in religion. Both your infirmities and theirs have fallen on Christ. Yes, if notwithstanding your great sins you stand complete by Christ before the throne of God, why may not your brother, notwithstanding his little ones, stand complete before you in the church?

Vain man! Do not think that your peace with God is maintained by the strictness of your order, in outward and bodily conformity to outward and shadowy circumstances. Peace with God is by faith in the blood of his cross, and he has borne the reproaches of you both. Therefore the one who has communion with God for Christ’s sake is as good, and as worthy of the communion of saints, as you are. He errs in a circumstance; you err in a substance. Who must bear these errors? On whom must these reproaches fall? Some of the things of God that are excellent have not been approved by some of the saints (Phil 1:10). What then? Must they be cast out of the church for this? No. These reproaches, by which the wisdom of heaven is reproached, have fallen on me, says Christ.

But to return. God has received him; Christ has received him; therefore receive him. There is more solidity in this argument than if all the churches of God had received him. Now this receiving, because it is set before the church as an example, must be something visible to them. And it is best described by that word which shows who the visible saint is. So whoever you can judge by the word to be a visible saint, one who walks with God, you may judge by that same word that God has received him. And the person whom God receives and holds communion with, you should receive and hold communion with. Will anyone say, “We cannot believe that God has received any but those who are baptized”? I will not suppose a brother to be so stupefied, and therefore I will not answer that.

Receive him “to the glory of God.” “To the glory of God” is put in on purpose to show what dishonor they bring to God who scorn to have communion with people whom they know to have communion with God. For how does this man or that church glorify God, or count the wisdom and holiness of heaven above their own, when they refuse communion with people who, as the word convinces them, have communion with God? “Now the God of patience and consolation grant you to be like minded one towards another according to Christ Jesus” (Rom 15:5). By this word patience, Paul hints at how many imperfections the choicest Christians mingle with their best performances. And by the word consolation, he shows how readily God overlooks and passes by them, and comforts you notwithstanding.

Now it is plain that this mind should be in Christians toward one another, because Paul prays that it might be so. But this is a heavenly gift, and therefore it must be fetched from heaven. So let the patience of God, and the willingness of Christ to bear the reproaches of the weak, and the consolations the weak have in God notwithstanding, moderate your passions and put you to prayer, that you may be minded like Jesus Christ.

Fifth, because a failure in such a circumstance as water does not unchristian us. This must be granted, not only from what was said before, but because thousands upon thousands who could not consent to it as we have done have acquitted themselves and their Christianity before men more gloriously than we are likely to do, and are now with the innumerable company of angels and the spirits of just men made perfect. What is said of eating, or not eating, may in this respect be said of water baptism. If I am baptized, I am not the better; if I am not, I am not the worse. Not the better before God; not the worse before men.

I still mean this as Paul does: provided I walk with God according to my light. Otherwise it is false. For if a person who sees it to be his duty scornfully neglects it, or if one who has no faith in it foolishly takes it up, both are the worse for this, being convicted in themselves as transgressors. So whoever does it according to his light does well. And whoever does not do it, or dares not do it, for want of light, does not do ill, for he shows his heart to be sincere with God: he dares not do anything except by light in the word.

So if he is not by grace a partaker of light in that circumstance which you profess, he is still a partaker of the liberty and mercy by which you stand. He has liberty to call God Father, as you do, and to believe he will be saved by Jesus. His faith, like yours, has purified his heart. He is tender of the glory of God, as you are, and can claim by grace an interest in heaven, which you must not do on account of water. You are both, then, Christians before God and men without it. Let the one who can, preach to himself by that sign; let the one who cannot, preach to himself by the promises. But still, let us rejoice in God together; let us exalt his name together.

The baptized can indeed thank God for something that another cannot. But may not the unbaptized thank God for something that the baptized cannot? Would you be content for me to judge you because you cannot give thanks with me for my light? Why then should he judge me because I cannot give thanks with him for his? “Let us not therefore judge one another any more: but judge this rather, that no man put a stumblingblock or an occasion to fall in his brother’s way” (Rom 14:13). And since the things in which we exceed one another are such as neither make nor mar Christianity, let us love one another and walk together by that glorious rule set out above, leaving each other in all such circumstances to our own master and our own faith. “Who art thou that judgest another man’s servant? to his own master he standeth or falleth. Yea, he shall be holden up: for God is able to make him stand” (Rom 14:4).

Sixth, I am therefore for holding communion in this way because the edification of souls in the faith and holiness of the gospel is of greater concern than agreement in outward things. I say it is of greater concern to us, and of far more profit to our brother, than our agreeing in, or contending over, the business of water baptism (John 16:13; 1 Cor 14:26; 2 Cor 10:8; 2 Cor 12:19; Eph 4:12; 2 Tim 3:17; 1 Cor 8:1; 1 Cor 13:1-4).

That the edification of the soul is of the greatest concern is beyond measure evident, because heaven and eternal happiness are so directly at stake in it. Besides, this is what Christ died for, what the Holy Spirit was given for, yes, what the Scriptures and the gifts of all the godly are given to the church for. Yes, and if gifts are not bent to this very work, those who have them are said to be proud or uncharitable, and they stand only as ciphers, or worse, among the churches of God. Further, edification is what cherishes all grace. It makes Christians quick and lively, makes sin lean and dwindling, and fills the mouth with thanksgiving to God.

But to contend with gracious people, with people who walk with God, and to shut such people out of the churches because they will not sin against their own souls, shows you to be uncharitable (Rom 14:15). You seek to destroy the work of God (Rom 14:20). You breed contentions, janglings, murmurings and evil suspicions. You give occasion for whisperings, backbitings, slanders and the like, rather than godly edifying, contrary to the whole current of the Scriptures and to the peace of all communities. Let us therefore leave off these contentions, “and follow after the things that make for peace, and things wherewith one may edify another” (Rom 14:19). And know that the edification of the church of God does not depend on, and is not tied to, this or that circumstance. Especially when the godly hold different persuasions about it in their hearts, it becomes them, in the wisdom of God, to take more care for their peace and unity than to widen and enlarge their uncomfortable differences.

Although Aaron transgressed the law because he did not eat the people’s sin offering, yet since he could not do it with satisfaction to his own conscience, Moses was content that he left it undone (Lev 10:16-20). Joshua was so zealous against Eldad and Medad for prophesying in the camp, without first going to the Lord at the door of the tabernacle as they were commanded, that he desired Moses to forbid them (Num 11:27-28). But Moses called his zeal envy, and prayed to God for more such prophets. He knew that although they failed in a circumstance, they were right in what was better. The edification of the people in the camp was what pleased Moses.

In Hezekiah’s time the people came to the Passover in an improper manner, and “did eat it otherwise than it was written.” Yet the wise king would not forbid them, but rather allowed it, knowing that their edification was of greater concern than holding them to a circumstance or two (2 Chr 30:13-27). Yes, God himself approved the wisdom of the king, and healed, that is, forgave, the people at the prayer of Hezekiah. And notice that, in spite of this disorder in circumstances, the feast was kept with great gladness. The Levites and the priests praised the Lord day by day, singing with loud instruments to the Lord; indeed, there had been no joy like it in Jerusalem from the time of Solomon until that very time. What shall we say? All things must give place to the profit of the people of God. Yes, sometimes laws themselves must give place for the people’s outward preservation, and much more for their godly edifying.

When Christ’s disciples plucked the ears of grain on the Sabbath, no doubt out of real hunger, and were rebuked by the Pharisees for it as for something unlawful, how did their Lord help them? By excusing them and rebuking their adversaries. “Have ye not read,” he said, “what David did when he was an hungered, and they that were with him; how he entered into the house of God, and did eat the showbread, which was not lawful for him to eat, neither for them which were with him, but only for the priests? Or have ye not read in the law, how that on the sabbath days the priests in the temple profaned the sabbath, and are blameless?” (Matt 12:1-5). Why blameless? Because they did it for the edification of the people. In those days the keeping of outward things was more strictly commanded than it is now. Yet when the profit and edification of the people came into competition with them, laws and ordinances were broken, and the breach of them was borne with. If that is so, how much more may we have communion, church communion, where no law is broken by it!

Seventh, therefore I am for holding communion in this way, because love, which above all things we are commanded to put on, is worth far too much to be broken over baptism. Love is also more clearly shown when it receives a person for the sake of Christ and grace than when it refuses him for want of water. And notice, as I have also said before, that this exhortation to love is grounded on putting on the new creature. That new creature has swallowed up all the distinctions that had been common among the churches before, such as: I am a Jew, you are a Greek; I am circumcised, you are not; I am free, you are bound. Because Christ was all in all of these, “Put on therefore,” he says, “as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, long-suffering,” that is, with reference to the infirmities of the weak, “forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any: even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye: and above all these things put on charity, which is the bond of perfectness” (Col 3:12-14).

This forbearing and forgiving has in view not only private and personal injuries, but also errors in judgment about inclinations and distinctions that tend to division, and about separating on the grounds laid down in Colossians 3:11. However small these things may now seem to us, who are past them, they were strong and weighty to those who in that day were entangled in them. Some saints back then did not feel free to preach to anyone but the Jews. They denied the word of life to the Gentiles and contended with those who offered it to them, which was a greater error than this one about baptism (Acts 11:1-19). But what should we do with saints of that kind? Why, love them still, forgive them, bear with them, and maintain church communion with them. Why? Because they are new creatures, because they are Christ’s; for this swallows up all distinctions. Further, because they are elect and beloved of God. Divisions and distinctions are of shorter date than election. So do not let things that are only momentary, and hatched in darkness, break the bond that is from everlasting.

It is love, not baptism, that shows the world we are Christ’s disciples. It is love that is the undoubted mark of our interest in God and our sonship with him. I mean when we love as saints, and desire communion with others because they have fellowship with one another in their fellowship with God the Father and his Son Jesus Christ (1 John 1:3). The truth and sincerity of our love to God is shown when we keep his commandments out of love to his name. Yet we should remember again that the two head and chief commandments are faith in Jesus and love to the brethren (1 John 3:23). So then, the one who claims to love, and yet does not seek his brother’s profit first of all, does love, but what he loves is his own opinions and perverse notions. “Love is the fulfilling of the law” (Rom 13:10); but he does not fulfill it who judges his brother and treats him as nothing, who makes his brother stumble, offends him and weakens him (Jas 4:11; Rom 14:21). And he does all this for the sake of a circumstance, something his brother cannot consent to unless he sins against his own soul or, like a Papist, lives by an implicit faith.

Love, therefore, is sometimes more seen and shown in holding back from urging and pressing what we know than in publishing and imposing it. “I could not,” says Paul (love would not let me), “speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ. I have fed you with milk, and not with meat: for hitherto ye were not able to bear it, neither yet now are ye able” (1 Cor 3:1-2). The apostle considered not only the knowledge he had in the mysteries of Christ, but also the temper, the growth and the strength of the churches. Accordingly, he kept back from them, or passed on to them, whatever might be for their profit (Acts 20:18-20). So Christ says, “I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now” (John 16:12). It may be that some will count these old and threadbare texts. But such people must know that the word of the Lord must stand forever (Isa 40:8). And I would dare to say to them: if the best of your new tricks is to slight and abuse old Scriptures, it shows that you are fonder of your unwarranted opinion than you are swift to hear and ready to yield to the authority that is infallible.

But to conclude this point: when we try to force our brother beyond his light, or to break his heart with grief, to push him beyond his faith or to bar him from his privilege, how can we say, “I love”? What shall I say? To hold fellowship with one another for the sake of an outward circumstance, or to make that the door to fellowship which God has not made the door; yes, to make it the charter that includes and excludes, the bounds, bar and rule of communion, when the word of the everlasting testament gives no warrant for it: to speak charitably, if this is not for want of love, it is for want of knowledge in the mysteries of the kingdom of Christ. Strange! Take two Christians equal in every point but this one. No, let one go far beyond the other in grace and holiness. Yet this circumstance of water shall drown and sweep away all his excellencies. He is not counted worthy of the reception that will be given with hand and heart to a novice in religion, because the novice consents to water.

Eighth, but for God’s people to divide into parties, or to shut one another out of church communion, even over greater points and on higher pretenses than this of water baptism, has in the past been counted carnal, and those who did it have been counted babyish Christians. Paul and Apollos, Cephas and Christ, were no doubt higher things than those we contend about. Yet when the Corinthians made divisions over them, how sharply they were rebuked! Are you not carnal, carnal, carnal? For where there are envyings, strife, divisions or factions among you, “are ye not carnal?” (1 Cor 1:11-12; 1 Cor 3:1-4). While one says, “I am of Paul,” and another, “I am of Apollos,” are you not carnal?

See, then, where all your endeavors, zeal and labor to bring about divisions among the godly come from. Let Paul or Cephas, or Christ himself, be the burden of your song; yet the heart they flow from is carnal, and your actions are proofs of childishness. No doubt, when these contentions were among the Corinthians, and one man was run down so that another might be promoted, it was thought great wisdom to give a carnal brother a lift in widening the breach. But why should he be rebuked who said he was for Christ? Because he was for Christ in opposition to his holy apostles. That is why Paul says, “Is Christ divided” (1 Cor 1:13), or separated from his servants? Note, then, that these divisions are disowned by the very persons they were made about: neither Paul, nor Apollos, nor Cephas, nor Christ is here. Let the cry be ever so loud, “Christ,” “Order,” “The rule,” “The command,” or the like; carnality is still at the bottom of it, and those who do it are only babes. Their zeal is only a puff of air (1 Cor 4:6).

And notice that the great division at Corinth was helped forward by water baptism. The apostle hints at this when he asks, “Were ye baptized in the name of Paul?” (1 Cor 1:13). Ah, brethren! Carnal Christians with outward circumstances will, if they are left alone, make sad work in the churches of Christ, against their spiritual growth. But “I thank God,” says Paul, “that I baptized none of you…” (1 Cor 1:14). Not that baptism was not then an ordinance of God, but they abused it by making parties with it. “I baptized none of you, but Crispus and Gaius … and the household of Stephanas” (1 Cor 1:14-16). These were men of note among the brethren, men of good judgment, reverenced by the rest. They can tell you, Paul means, that I did not intend to make a party for myself by it. “Besides, I know not whether I baptized any other” (1 Cor 1:16). By this offhand way of recounting whom he had baptized, he shows that he made no such great matter of baptism as some do in these days. No, he shows that he made no matter of it at all with respect to church communion. For if he did not pay attention to whom he himself had baptized, he paid much less attention to who had been baptized by others. But if baptism had been the initiating or entering ordinance, and appointed as such by God, no doubt he would have made more conscience of it than to pass over it so lightly.

“For Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel” (1 Cor 1:17). The gospel, then, may be effectually preached, and yet baptism be neither administered nor mentioned. For the gospel is good news to sinners on the ground of free grace through Christ; but baptism, with things of a like nature, is a duty enjoined on people who have already received the gospel. I do not say this because I want to teach men to break the least of the commandments of God. I say it to persuade my brethren of the baptized way not to lean too heavily on it, and not to make it an essential of the gospel of Christ, nor yet of the communion of saints.

“He sent me not to baptize”: these words are spoken with holy indignation against those who abuse this ordinance of Christ. In the same way, when he speaks of the ministers themselves, whom they had also abused, he as it were tramples on them, as if they were nothing at all: “Who then is Paul, and who is Apollos?” “He that planteth is not any thing, neither is he that watereth, but God that giveth the increase” (1 Cor 3:5, 7). Yet for all this, the ministers and their ministry are a glorious appointment of God in the world. Baptism also is a holy ordinance. But when Satan abuses it and wrenches it out of its place, making what God ordained for the edification of believers the one weapon to break in pieces the love, the unity and the concord of saints, then what is baptism? Then baptism is not anything either.

And this is no new doctrine. For God, by the mouth of his prophets of old, cried out against his own institutions when they were abused by his people. “To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me,” saith the LORD: “I am full of the burnt-offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts; and I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of he goats. When ye come to appear before me, who hath required this at your hands, to tread my courts? Bring no more vain oblations, incense is an abomination to me; the new moons and sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with; it is iniquity, even the solemn meeting. Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth: they are a trouble unto me, I am weary to bear them” (Isa 1:11-14). And yet all these were his own appointments. Why then did he so abhor them? Because the people kept hold of the evil of their doings, and used these as they used others of his appointments, that is, “for strife and debate, and to strike with the fist of wickedness” (Isa 58:4). So when what is great in the things of God is outweighed by what is small, it is the wisdom of those who see it to put weight on the other end of the scale, until the things thus abused balance in their proper place. But to pass over this and proceed.

Ninth, suppose we reject saints who are visible saints by calling: saints who have communion with God, who have received the law at the hand of Christ, and whose conduct among men is holy. If we reject them when they desire to have communion with us, then, as far as it lies in us, we take from them their very privileges, and the blessings to which they were born of God. For Paul says, not only to the gathered church at Corinth but to all the scattered saints who in every place call on the name of the Lord, that Jesus Christ is theirs; that Paul, and Apollos, and the world, and life, and death, and all things are theirs, because they are Christ’s and Christ is God’s. But, he says, let no man glory in men, such as Paul and Cephas, excellent as these were, because this privilege comes to you on another footing, namely, by faith in Jesus Christ. “Drink you all of this” is an inheritance settled on faith, not on baptism. No, baptized persons may still be shut out from this, while he who discerns the Lord’s body has right and privilege to it (1 Cor 11:28-29). But consider what it is to exclude Christians from church communion, and to deny them their heaven-born privileges, for the want of something that God never made a wall of division between us.

(1) This looks too much like a spirit of persecution (Job 19:28).

(2) It has more regard for a form than for the spirit and power of godliness (2 Tim 3:5).

(3) This is to make laws where God has made none, and to be wise above what is written, contrary to God’s word and our own principles.

(4) It is to direct the Spirit of God.

(5) It binds all men’s faith and light to my opinion.

(6) It takes away the children’s bread.

(7) It withholds from them the increase of faith.

(8) It tends to harden the hearts of the wicked.

(9) It tends to make wicked the hearts of weak Christians.

(10) It sets open a door to all temptations.

(11) It tempts the devil to fall on those who are alone and have no one to help them.

(12) It is the nursery of all vain wranglings, backbitings and strangeness among Christians.

(13) It gives the world occasion to reproach us.

(14) It holds staggering consciences in doubt about the right way of the Lord.

(15) It gives occasion to many to turn aside to most dangerous heresies.

(16) It abuses the holy Scriptures. It wrenches God’s ordinances out of their place.

(17) It is a prop to Antichrist.

(18) Shall I add this? Is it not the very thing that did much to bring down these judgments that we now feel and groan under? I will dare to say it was a cause of them.

Tenth, and lastly, bear with one word more. What greater contempt can be thrown on the saints than for their brethren to cast them off, or to deny them church communion? Do you not think the world may say, with some ground for it, “Some great iniquity lies hidden in the skirts of your brethren,” when in truth the transgression is your own? But I say, what more can the church do to sinners or the openly profane? You will have civil dealings with the worst of men, and what more do you have with these?

Perhaps you will say, “We can pray and preach with these, and hold them to be Christians, saints and godly.” Well, but let me ask you one more thing. Do you believe that out of real conscience they cannot consent, as you do, to water baptism? And that if they had light on it, they would do it as willingly as you? Why then, as I have shown you, our refusal to hold communion with them has no ground in the word of God. But can you commit your soul to their ministry and join with them in prayer, and yet not count them fit for other gospel privileges? I would like to know by what Scripture you do it.

Perhaps you will say, “I do not commit my soul to their ministry; I only hear them occasionally, to test them.” If this is all the respect you have for them and their ministry, you may have as much for the worst man who pisses against the wall. But if you can hear them as God’s ministers, and sit under their ministry as God’s ordinance, then show me where God has a gospel ministry such that the persons ministering may not, though they desire it, be admitted with you to the closest communion of saints. But if you sit under their ministry for fleshly, self-serving ends, you hear the word like an atheist; and while you judge your brother, you yourself are practicing what the worst of men practice. But I say, where do you find this piecemeal communion with men who profess faith and holiness as you do, and separation from the world? If you object that my principles lead me to have communion with everyone, I answer: with all such as I have described above, if they will have communion with me.

Objection. Then you may have communion with the members of Antichrist.

Answer. If there is a visible saint still remaining in that church, let him come to us, and we will have communion with him.

Question. What, even though he still stands as a member of that sinful number, and professes himself one of them?

Answer. You suppose an impossibility. For it cannot be that a man should at the same time visibly stand as a member of two bodies diametrically opposed to each other. So it must be supposed that whoever professes himself a member of a church of Christ must forthwith, no, beforehand, forsake the antichristian one. If he refuses to do that, it is evident that he does not sincerely desire to have fellowship with the saints.

Question. But he says he cannot see that the company you stand opposed to, and conclude to be antichristian, is indeed the antichristian church.

Answer. If so, he cannot desire to join with another company if he knows them to be professedly and directly opposed to it. I hold, therefore, to what I said at first: that if there are any saints in the antichristian church, my heart and the door of our congregation are open to receive them into closest fellowship with us.

Objection. But what if they still keep some antichristian principles?

Answer. If they are principles that eat out the vitals of a church, then as soon as they are detected, such a person must either be kept out, if he is out, or cast out, if he is in. For it must be the prudence of every community to preserve its own unity with peace and truth. The churches of Christ may do this, and yet, as I have already shown, receive persons who differ on the point of water baptism. For doing it or not doing it neither makes nor mars the vitals or foundation of church communion.

Objection. But this is receiving people for opinion’s sake, as you said of us before.

Answer. No. We receive him for the sake of Christ and grace, and for our mutual edification in the faith. And that we do not regard opinions (I mean in lesser matters) is evident, for the things we differ about are no breach of communion among us. We let every man keep his own faith in such things to himself before God.

A Short Application

1. Keep a strict separation, I beg you, from communion with the openly profane. And let no one use his liberty in church relations as an occasion for the flesh, but in love serve one another. “Looking diligently … lest any root of bitterness” (any poisonous herb, Deut 29:18) “springing up trouble you, and thereby many be defiled” (Heb 12:15). And let the things that were earlier reasons for my separation be motives to you to maintain the same. And remember that when men have said all they can for a sinful mixture in the worship of God, the arm of the Lord is made bare against it.

2. In the midst of your zeal for the Lord, remember that the visible saint is his. He is privileged in all those spiritual things that you have in the word and live in the practice of, and he is to share in them according to his light in them. Do not quarrel with him about things that are circumstantial, but receive him in the Lord, as becomes saints. If he will not have communion with you, the neglect is his, not yours. But the openly profane say, “Why can’t we be reckoned saints too? We have been christened, we go to church, we take communion.” Poor people! This will not do. As long as your life and conduct show you to be openly profane, we cannot receive you into our fellowship without sinning. By your ungodly lives you show that you do not know Christ, and while you are such, the word counts you as no better than beasts. Now judge for yourselves whether that would not be a strange community, made up of men and beasts. Let beasts be with the beasts; you know you do the same yourselves. You do not bring your horse or your hog to your table; you put them in a room by themselves. Besides, I have shown you before that for many reasons we cannot have communion with you.

(1) The church of God must be holy (Lev 11:44; Lev 19:2; Lev 20:7; 1 Pet 1:15-16; Isa 26:2; Ps 118:20; Ezek 43:12; Ezek 44:9; Isa 52:11).

(2) The example of the churches of Christ in former times has been a community of visible saints (Rom 1:7; 1 Cor 1:2; Eph 1:1; Col 1:2; 1 Thess 1:1; 2 Thess 1:1-5).

Poor carnal man, there are many other reasons urged in this little book that show why we cannot have communion with you. It is not that we refuse you out of pride or stubbornness, or because we scorn you as men. No, we pity you and pray to God for you. If you were converted, we could receive you into fellowship with us with joy. Have you never read in Daniel that iron does not mix with miry clay (Dan 2:43)? No more can the saints mix with you in the worship of God and the fellowship of the gospel. When the people you read of in the fourth chapter of Ezra tried to join the children of the captivity in the work of the temple, what did the children of Judah say? “Ye have nothing to do with us to build an house unto our God; but we ourselves together will build unto the Lord God of Israel” (Ezra 4:3).

I return now to those who are visible saints by calling, yet who stand at a distance from one another on the grounds I described before. Brethren, draw close; draw close; be one, as the Father in Christ is one.

1. This is the way to convince the world that you belong to Christ and are the subjects of one Lord, whereas the opposite makes them doubt it (John 13:34-35; John 17:23).

2. This is the way to increase love, that grace so much desired by some and so little enjoyed by others (2 Cor 7:15).

3. This is the way to savor and taste the Spirit of God in one another’s experience. If you find it there in truth, you cannot help but bless the name of our Lord Jesus Christ for it, if you are saints (1 Thess 1:2-4).

4. This is the way to increase knowledge, or to see more in the word of God; for two may come to know what one does not see (Isa 52:8).

5. This is the way to remove secret jealousies and grumblings against one another. Yes, this is the way to prevent much sin, and greatly to frustrate that scheme of hell (Prov 6:16-19).

6. This is the way to bring out of the world and into fellowship those who now stand aloof from our gospel privileges because of our empty wrangling.

7. This is the way to make Antichrist shake, totter, and tremble (Isa 11:13-14).

8. This is the way to leave Babylon a dwelling place for devils only, and to make it a hold for foul spirits and a cage only for every unclean and hateful bird.

9. This is the way to hasten the work of Christ’s kingdom in the world, and to speed his coming to the eternal judgment.

10. And this is the way to obtain much of that “Well done, good and faithful servant” when you stand before his face.

“I beseech you, brethren, suffer the word of exhortation: for I have written a letter unto you in few words” (Heb 13:22).

Sir,

I have read and considered your seemingly serious reflections on that part of my plain-hearted confession of faith which gives the reason for my freedom to share communion with those saints and faithful people who differ from me about water baptism. I have weighed them as well as my rank and abilities allow me. But I find your book, if I am not mistaken, falls far short of a fair reply. So I thought it fitting not only to point out the irrelevancies scattered here and there all through your book, but also to tell you that, in my simple opinion, your rigid principles, which disturb the peace of the church, are not fit for any age or state of the church.

But before I enter the body of your book, allow me to say a little to you about your preamble to it. In it are two faults unworthy of the seriousness you claim, because they are empty of love and humility. The first is that you quietly disdain my person because of my low birth among men, branding me as a person of that rank, one who need not be heeded or listened to.

Answer. What it is that earns a man respect with you, I do not know. But this is certain: whoever despises the poor reproaches his Maker; and yet “a poor man is better than a liar” (Prov 19:22). To admire fine clothing or gold rings, or the people who wear them, or to be partial in your judgment or your regard for the sake of flesh and blood, undoubtedly convicts you of being a transgressor of the law, and not without partiality, in the middle of all your apparent holiness.

Again, you say, “I had not meddled with the controversy at all, had I found any of parts that would divert themselves to take notice of you.”

Answer. What need do you have, before you have shown one syllable of a reasonable argument against what I assert, to trample like this on my person, my gifts and my grace, if I have any, so disdainfully under your feet? (Read Ps 1:1-2.) What kind of a you am I? And why is my rank so low that the most gracious and godly among you may not duly and soberly consider what I have said? Was it not the trick of the false apostles of old to talk this way? To spatter a man with mud so that his doctrine might be disregarded? “Is not this the carpenter?” (Mark 6:3) and “His bodily presence is weak and his speech contemptible” (2 Cor 10:10) were not words the saints used to have in their mouths. For they knew that “the wind bloweth where it listeth” (John 3:8).

Nor is it high birth, worldly breeding or wealth that those who strive for strict order in the things and kingdom of Christ should hold in regard and esteem. It is electing love, grace, and the wisdom that comes from heaven (Jas 3:17). Do I need to read you a lecture? “Hath not God chosen the foolish … the weak … the base, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are?” (1 Cor 1:27-28). Why then do you despise my rank, my state and my standing in the world?

As for my confession of faith, which you also secretly despise: if it is good and godly, why may it not be accepted? “If I have spoken evil, bear witness of the evil; but if well, why smitest thou me?” (John 18:23). If you and the brethren of your way thought it fitting to show the world what you held, in case by that means you might escape prison, why might not I, after more than eleven years of enduring prison, give the world a view of my faith and practice, in case by that means wrong thoughts and false judgments of me might be lessened and removed?

But you suggest that I did it because I was so eager to be known in the world for my singular faith and practice. How singular my faith and practice are, you may come to know better hereafter. But as to whether I did it for popular applause and fame, as your words seem to imply (for they come from a taunting spirit), you will know that better in the day of God, when your evil suspicions of your brother, and my purposes in writing my book, will be published on the housetops (Luke 12:1-4).

And even now, before I go any further, I will give you a taste of my reason for publishing the part of my book that you so hotly oppose. It was because of the continual assaults that the rigid brethren of your way made, not only on this congregation, to tear it apart, but also on many others around us, in the hope that they might break us in pieces and draw disciples away from us after themselves. Assaults, I say, on this congregation from time to time for no less than these sixteen or eighteen years. Yes, they have sent for me myself and tried to persuade me to break communion with my brethren. They have also often tampered with many others, in the hope that their seeds of division might take root.

Nor did they altogether fail in their purpose, for they did tear some away from us and cut them off from our body. But they took none except those they now begin to be ashamed of. The judgment of God has so followed their design that the people they won over then are now a stench and a reproach to religion. Nor were these spirits content with the discord they sowed among us; they went on to seize on others. But I will pass over these things. The wild and unsound positions they have urged to defend their practice would take too much room to set down here.

Now, Sir, the cause of my publishing my papers was to settle the brethren, the brethren of our own fellowship, and to prevent such disorders among others. And considering my responsibility in the house of God, I could do no less than give them warning, that every man might deliver his soul.

You go on to say, “It is my liberty, as well as others into whose hands it falls, to weigh what you have said in truth’s balance, and if it be found too light, to reject it whether you will or no.”

Answer. Only grant me, without mocking me, the same liberty you want to take, and with God’s help I ask for nothing more than to fend for myself among you.

As to your saying that I proudly and imperiously insult people because I say they are “babes and carnal, that attempt to break the peace and communion of churches, though upon better pretenses than water”: you must know that I am still of that mind, and shall be as long as I see the effects that follow. Those effects are the breach of love, the drawing of Christians away from the weightier things of God, and the making of them quarrel and burn with resentment against one another.

You are pleased to charge me with raging, for laying those eighteen particular crimes to the charge of those who exclude Christians from church communion and deny them their heaven-born privileges for lack of something which God never made the dividing wall between us. I say this: when you can prove that God has made water baptism that wall, and that the weight of the eighteen charges that follow rests wholly and only on that, then it will be time enough for you to call my language uncharitable. But even if that were granted, I question whether your saying that I rage will be justified in the day of judgment.

You say you will take no notice of my great noise, as you call it, about an initiating ordinance.

Answer. 1. Although you do not, I must. For if baptism is not that ordinance but some other is, and if visible saints may enter into fellowship by that other, and are nowhere forbidden to do so because they lack light about water baptism, then it is a matter of weight for me to consider, yes, and for others too who are unprejudiced.

2. How ignorant you are of those who hold baptism to be the initiating ordinance, I do not know; nor how long you have been of your present persuasion. This I do know: men of your own party, as serious and godly as you, and perhaps more learned, have urged it within the past twelve months. Mr. D., in my hearing, affirmed it from Romans 6:1-2 at the meeting in Lothbury. My much esteemed Mr. D. A. also asserted it twice in a conference with me.

3. But whatever you say, whether for it or against it, it makes no difference. For while you deny that baptism is the entering ordinance, you count it the wall, the bar, the bolt and the door, the very thing that must separate the righteous from the righteous. Yes, you make lack of light about it a ground for shutting the most godly out of your communion, while every novice in religion is received into your bosom and is esteemed by you because he has submitted to water baptism, and on what ground, God knows.

I am glad that you agree with me about which is the initiating ordinance. But at the same time, allow me to correct what I take to be one extravagant expression of yours. You say, “It is consent on all hands and nothing else, that makes them members of particular churches, and not faith and baptism.” You might have stopped at “and nothing else.” You had no need to reject faith in particular; your first error was bad enough. What, nothing else but consent? What, not even so much as a regard to the material or the end? Why then are not all the gangs of all the highwaymen in the land truly constituted churches of Christ, unless you can prove that they hold together by something other than consent? What? Consent and nothing else?

But why do you throw out faith? Why, because I throw out baptism. And because you cannot, in the case at hand, bring baptism back in, out must faith go too. Your action is much like that of the harlot who stood to be judged by Solomon: because her own child was dead, she would have her neighbor’s killed as well (1 Kgs 3:26).

Faith, Sir, both in the profession and the confession of it, is of immediate and also absolute concern, even in the very act of the church’s receiving this or that member. Throw out faith, and there is no such thing as a Christian, whether visible or invisible. You ought to receive no one except on the church’s comfortable satisfaction that you are now receiving a believer. Faith, whether it is saving faith there or not, is the great consideration with the church in receiving anyone. We do not receive men as men, but receive the person directly on this supposition: he has faith; he is a Christian.

Sir, consent alone, without faith, makes no one a member of the church of God. If it did, a church would never cease to be a church, no matter whom it received. Indeed, by this assertion you have justified the church of Rome itself as both good and godly to this day, unless you can prove that it received its unbelieving members at first, and receives them now, without their own consent. The church has no such liberty to receive people without regard to faith. Yes, faith and holiness must be the essentials, the basis on which and for the sake of which you receive them. Holiness, I say, yet not holiness in circumstantial matters, but holiness that is such in its very heart. So I beg you, in your next book, word it better, lest while you slight me and trample on me, you stand blameworthy yourself before everyone.

As for the scriptures you speak of, I did not bring them forward in my first book to show that persons unbaptized in water might hold communion with the church, though I am fully convinced they may. I brought them to show that knowledge of those persons, of their faith and holiness in general, ought first to be shown to the church before she can lawfully receive them (Acts 9:26-31; 1 Cor 16:10; 2 Cor 8:23). As to my answer to a question, which you have first corrupted and then abused in your book, I tell you again: a discovery of a person’s faith and holiness, and a declaration of their willingness to subject themselves to the laws and government of Christ in his church, is sufficient ground for receiving such a member.

But you comment by asking whether baptism is one of the laws of Christ.

Answer. It is not one of those laws, nor any part of them, by which the church, as a church, is to show her obedience. For although baptism is given by Christ our Lord to the church, it is not given for them to worship him by as a church. Show me what church ordinance it is, and when or where the church, as a church, is to practice it as one of those laws and appointments by which he has commanded his church to show him her obedience. Again, I do not find in all the Bible that submitting to water baptism is a sign or mark that any of the primitive churches ever required of someone who wanted to hold fellowship with them. Nor do I find that it pours such grace and holiness into those who submit to it as to fit them for such a privilege, or that the churches acknowledged it as a sign of that.

I do not find, as I told you in my first book, that baptism is a sign to anyone but the person who is baptized (Col 2:12; Rom 6:1-4; 1 Cor 15:29; Acts 2:38; Acts 22:16; 1 Pet 3:21). The church has her satisfaction about the person from better proof.

I also told you that baptism does not make you a member of the church, nor does it make you a visible saint. Therefore it gives you neither the right to membership nor the being of membership at all. Why, Sir, did you not answer these things? Instead you slip past them, along with others, as if they did not concern you, and trouble your reader with the kind of insinuations that must be distasteful to godly ears.

You make the moral law none of Christ’s, but Moses’; not the Son’s, but the servant’s. And because I plead for faith and holiness according to “moral duties gospelized” (those are my words) as the measure by which we ought to judge the fitness of members, you tell me that Moses is therefore more indebted to me than Christ is.

Sir, do you not yet know that a difference is to be put between those rules that reveal the essentials of holiness and those that are not such in themselves? And that faith and the moral law belong to the first kind, and baptism and the like to the other? Take love to God, the hatred of idols, refraining from blasphemy, honoring our parents, doing no murder, refraining from theft, not bearing false witness, not coveting, and so on. Are these, I say, not the precepts of the Lord Jesus, just because Moses delivered them? Or are these the sort that may better be broken than, for lack of light, to hold back from baptism with water? Or does a man who lives in neglect of these, and meanwhile bustles about those you call gospel commands, most honor Christ or best fit himself for fellowship with the saints? Do I need to tell you that the faith of Christ, together with the ten commandments, are as much gospel commands now as baptism is? And that they ought to be held in as much respect among the holy ones as baptism or any other such thing, and far more?

Yes, shall I tell you that baptism will neither admit a man into fellowship nor keep him there if he is a transgressor of a moral precept? And that a man who believes in Jesus and fulfills the royal law glorifies God more, and honors religion in the world more, than one who keeps ten thousand figurative laws, if there were so many?

As to those commands that concern God’s instituted worship in a church, as a church, I have told you that baptism is not one of them, and you have been driven to confess it. The church, then, must first look to faith, then to good living according to the ten commandments. After that she must regard those appointments of our Lord Jesus that concern her outward order and discipline. Then she walks as becomes her: sinning if she neglects either, sinning if she overvalues either.

But why did you not answer the texts I brought forward to strengthen my argument, namely Rom 14:17-18; Deut 28:47; Jas 2:8-12; 1 Cor 9:21; 1 Cor 5:9-11; Gal 6:15-16; Phil 3; 1 Tim 1:9-11; Acts 20:28-32; Rom 13:13; Jas 4:11; 1 Cor 5:12? Deal fairly. Answer those texts, together with the argument built on them; and when you have done that in a godly manner, you may condemn more boldly.

You tell me that in my book I say, “None ever received baptism without light therein.” What if I did? (I did not.) But you grant it yourself. And now I will ask you, and please deal fairly in your answer: May a man be a visible saint without light about it? May he have a good conscience without light about it? And seeing that baptism is no part of the worship that Christ instituted in his church for them to practice as a church, must he be kept in the dark about everything else concerning the worship of God in his church until he receives light about baptism?

You have answered already: “That they ought to be ashamed, and to repent of that abomination (their sprinkling) before they come to have a sight of the pattern of the house of God, the goings in and the comings out thereof” (Ezek 43:10-11). But, Sir, where do you find that because a man lacks light about water baptism, or because he has been sprinkled, he is to be kept in the dark about all the other temple institutions until he is ashamed of that and repents of it? Please produce the texts, for Ezekiel does not help you at all. He speaks only of the pattern of the house, and the goings out and comings in of it.

As for the coming in, you have already confessed that baptism is not the entering ordinance. And as for the worship that Christ has instituted in his church, as a church, I say (and you have said so too) that baptism is none of its forms, none of its ordinances, none of its laws. For baptism, as to its practice, is something outside the church, outside the house of God. Then by your own text, if a man repents of his christening in childhood, he may be received into fellowship without submitting to baptism. But I will not press you too far.

You add, “Is it a person’s light that gives being to a precept?”

Answer. Who said it was? Yet it is his light and faith about it that can enable him to do it acceptably.

You ask again, “Suppose men plead lack of light in other commands?”

Answer. If those commands are not such that neglecting them disqualifies a person for membership, he may still be received into fellowship.

“But what if a man lacks light about the Supper?”

Answer. There is more to be said in that case than in the other. For the Supper is part of the worship which Christ has instituted for his church to take part in as a church, presenting them as such, in their communion with their Head and with one another as members of him. “The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ? For we being many are one bread, and one body; for we are all partakers of that one bread” (1 Cor 10:16-17). So since this is a duty binding on the church, as a church, and on every member of that body as such, they are obliged in that case to deal more closely with the members than in a matter that does not concern them in that way, and with which, as such, they have nothing to do. No man baptizes by virtue of his office in the church; no man is baptized by virtue of his membership there.

“But what if a man lacks light about his duty to the poor?”

Answer. If he does, God must give it to him; I mean, light to know his duty as a church member. Now I will add: but what if a man who can give a shilling gives nothing? I suppose all the church can do in that case is to warn him, exhort him, charge him and show him his duty. And if he neglects it, they can show him that “He which soweth sparingly shall reap also sparingly” (2 Cor 9:6). But to cut a man off for this, as you so eagerly urge, would show that church to be, at least as I think, a little too bold with so high and weighty a censure. I am not pleading here for the miser, but trying to cool your heat. And even if it were granted that such people deserve what you would have done to them, this makes no difference to the case at hand.

Now as for your suggestion “That moral evils are but sins against men,” you speak very ill-advisedly. The moral evil, as you call it, whether you mean a breach of the first table or of the second, is first and immediately a sin against God. And it is more intolerable, yes, and more damnable, than for a man, for lack of light, to hold back from either baptism or the Lord’s Supper.

But you say, “We have now found an advocate for sin against God, in the breach of one of his holy commands?”

Answer. As if none of the moral precepts were his! But, Sir, whom have I pleaded for in the denial of any one ordinance of God? Yes, or in the neglect of one either? All I say is that people must have light, so that they may not act in darkness, or live like Papists by an implicit faith.

But I see you make no difference between an open breach of the law and holding back from something that is doubtful to the person concerned. So I will suppose a case. Here is a man who lacks light about baptism, yet his neighbor presses him to it. He says he does not see it to be his duty; the other says he sins if he does not do it. Now since “whatsoever is not of faith is sin” (Rom 14:23), what should this man do? If you say, let him use the means, I say so too. But what if, when he has used them, he still remains in the dark about it? What will you advise him now? If you tell him to wait, do you not encourage him to live in sin as much as I do?

No, more than that. Since you will not let him obey God in his other institutions because he lacks light about this one, what is that but to say: “Since you live in neglect of baptism for lack of light, we will make you, as long as you remain so, live in breach of all the rest as well, though quite against your light”? And where you are commanded to do this, you may show me the place when you find it.

Now you urge that you are one of those who say, “The epistles were written to particular churches, and so serve nothing at all for our kind of communion.” You urge further, “That it will be difficult for me to prove that they were also directed to particular saints.”

Answer. I wish there were nothing harder than that among the good things I have to do. But what could be the reason why our author, with others of his opinion, should contend so hard to prove that all the epistles were written to particular churches? Why, because the members of those churches were, as they think, every one baptized; and so the epistles from which we draw our arguments for the love and harmony of the saints would belong only to themselves.

But if this is true, there is virtue indeed in partaking of water baptism, and more than I ever dreamed of. For if baptism takes away the epistles, and consequently the whole Bible, from all who are not baptized, then the other churches, and also individual saints, are in a very sorry condition. For he asks me very devoutly, “Whether any unbaptized persons were concerned in these epistles?” But why would they take the holy Scriptures from us? Truly, so that we might have nothing to justify our practice with. For if the Scriptures belong only to baptized believers, then they do not belong to the rest. And in truth, if they could persuade us to grant them this, we would make a poor job of justifying our practice.

But I would ask these men if the word of God came out from them? Or if it came to them only? (1 Cor 14:36). Or whether Christ has not given his whole word to everyone who believes, whether they are baptized or not, in church fellowship or out of it (John 17:14). Or whether every saint does not in some sense have the keys of the kingdom of heaven, which are the Scriptures and their power. Would to God they had learned more modesty than to take from all others in this way, and claim for themselves, and that for the sake of their keeping a circumstance of religion, so high and glorious a privilege.

But let us come a little to proof. What church will this author find in Rome at the time the epistle was sent to the brethren there, besides the church that was in Aquila’s house (Rom 16:5), although many more saints were then in the city? Indeed, the apostle, in his greeting at the beginning, embraces them only as brethren, without the least hint of their being gathered into fellowship: “To all that be in Rome, beloved of God, called to be saints: Grace to you…” (Rom 1:7). To all there, to all in that city who are beloved of God and converted to the Lord Jesus Christ. That there was a church in Aquila’s house, and that there were many more saints besides, is just as plain, and that from the text itself. Besides, when I consider the rules given them in the fourteenth and fifteenth chapters about receiving one another, it strongly suggests to me that they were not yet in fellowship, but were, as it were, just about to enter it when Paul wrote his epistle to them.

The first epistle to Corinth was also written to all those “that in every place call upon the name of Jesus Christ our Lord” (1 Cor 1:2). But it will be hard work for our author to show that no one in those days called on the name of our Lord except those who were first baptized. The second epistle, too, was written not only to the church at Corinth but also to “all the saints which were in all Achaia” (2 Cor 1:1). To the Galatians and Thessalonians, it is true, his greeting was only to the churches there. But the three epistles just mentioned were addressed to all other saints as well, as were those to the Ephesians, Philippians and Colossians, in which the faithful and saints in Christ Jesus were every one included too. Besides, to what particular church was the epistle to the Hebrews written? Or the epistle of James? Or both of Peter’s, and the first of John? No, that of John was written to some who were at that time out of fellowship, “that also may have fellowship with us,” that is, with the church (1 John 1:1-4). So these brethren must not keep all the Scriptures to themselves. We have, then, the same privilege as all saints: to use the Scriptures for our godly edification, and to defend ourselves by them from the assaults of those who would make a prey of us. But let me pass over this and come to the next point.

You object because I said, “If water baptism (like the circumstances with which the church was pestered of old) troubles the peace and wounds the consciences of the godly, and dismembers and breaks their fellowships, then, although it is an ordinance, it is for the present prudently to be shunned.” At this (as I said) you object, and say, “Did I ever find baptism a pest or plague to churches? And did God ever send an ordinance to be a pest and plague to his people?”

I answer: I did not say that God sent it for any such end at all. God’s ordinances are none of this in themselves, nor are they so when they are used as God meant them and for the end for which he sent them. Yet both baptism and the Lord’s Supper, by being wrested out of their place, have been a great affliction to the godly, both in this age and in others. What do you say to the breaking of bread, which the devil, by abusing it, made an engine in the hands of the Papists to burn, starve, hang and draw thousands? What do you say to John of Leiden? What work did he make by abusing the ordinance of water baptism? And I wish this age had not given cause to complain of this matter, through the church-rending spirits that some are possessed with, who have also had baptism with water for their engine.

Yes, as for you yourself, Sir, so far as I can perceive, if you could only get the opportunity, you yourself (I say), under pretense of this innocent ordinance, as you call it, would not hesitate to make inroads, and outroads too, into all the churches in the land that do not suit your fancy. For you have already been bold enough to affirm “that all those that have baptized infants ought to be ashamed and repent before they be shown the pattern of the house.” And what is this but a threat that, if you could have your way with them, you would quickly take from them their present church privileges, and let them see nothing of these until those qualifications, especially submission to water baptism, were found in each one of them?

As to the persons you speak of, who “have rent churches in pieces by making preaching by method, doctrine, reason and use to be antichristian,” or who did so because they could not have other ministrations performed according to their own fancies: “the imprudence of such, with yourselves, has been heartbreaking to many a gracious soul, a high occasion of stumbling to the weak, and a reproach to the ways of the Lord.” As for proof that it may be prudently shunned, I referred you then to what would be offered afterward; but at this you cry out, and so pass it by.

And now, reader, although this author has objected in this way to some passages in this first argument of mine for communion with unbaptized persons, he misses the body of my argument and passes over it as a thing not worth answering. Whether that is because he forgot, or because he knew in himself that he did not know what to do with it, I will not now determine. First, I effectively prove “that baptism is not the initiating ordinance.” Second, I prove “that though it was, yet the case may so fall out that members might be received without it.” Third, I prove “that baptism makes no man a visible saint, nor gives any right to church fellowship.” Fourth, I prove “that faith, and a life becoming the law of the ten commandments, should be the chief and most solid argument with true churches to receive saints to fellowship.” Fifth, I prove “that circumcision in the flesh, which was the entering ordinance of old, was a type of circumcision in the heart.”

These things, with others, our author lets pass, although the strength of this first argument lies in the proof of them. I must entreat him in his next book to cast his eye on them and give a fair answer, and also to the Scriptures on which each of them is built; otherwise he must allow me to say that I have been wronged. Further, I raise a question from three scriptures: whether all the saints, even in the primitive times, were baptized with water. To this also he answers nothing, though he ought to have done so if he takes it in hand to confute me. The scriptures are 1 Corinthians 1:14-16, Romans 6:3 and Galatians 3:27. Yet even if they were effectively answered, my argument would not be weakened at all.

You come to my second argument, drawn from Ephesians 4:4-6. I will now enlarge on it a little more, and then take notice of your objection. The apostle, then, in that fourth chapter of Ephesians, exhorts the church there, “with all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love; endeavoring to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace” (Eph 4:2-3). This done, he presents them with such arguments as might fasten his exhortation upon them to good purpose.

1. The first is, because the body is one. There is “one body”; therefore they should not divide. For if the church of Christ is a body, there ought to be no rending or schism among them (1 Cor 12).

2. His second argument is: there is “one spirit,” that is, one quickening principle by which the body is made to live. For having asserted before that Christ indeed has a body, it was fitting that he should show also that this body has life and motion. Now that life is none other than that nourishment, or spirit of life, from which “the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working of the measure in every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love” (Eph 4:16). And since this spirit is first and chiefly in the head, none but those who hold the head can have this nourishment ministered to them. Besides, this is the spirit that knits the body together and makes it increase with the increase of God (Col 2:19). This is “the unity of the spirit” which he has just exhorted them to keep.

3. The third argument is, because their hope is also only one. “Even as ye are called,” he says, “in one hope of your calling” (Eph 4:4). It is as if he were saying, “My brethren, if you are called with one calling; if your hope, both as to the grace of hope and as to its object, is only one; if you hope for one heaven and for one eternal life: then maintain that unity of the spirit and of hope, while you are here, in love, ‘and the bond of peace’ (Eph 4:3).”

4. The fourth argument is: there is “one Lord,” or husband, or prince, to whom this church belongs. Therefore, if we have only one husband, and only one Lord and prince, let us not tear ourselves into many parties, as if we had many husbands, lords and princes to govern us, who are his wife, his house and his kingdom. “Is Christ divided?” (1 Cor 1:13).

5. The fifth argument is: there is “one faith,” by which we all stand justified by one Lord Jesus Christ; “one faith,” by which we escape the wrath of God; “one faith,” by which alone those who have it are blessed. Yes, seeing there is but “one faith,” by which we are all put into one way of salvation, let us hold together as such.

6. The sixth argument is: there is “one baptism.” Now we have come to the pinch, namely, whether it is the baptism of water or not. That I must positively deny.

(1) I deny it because water baptism has nothing to do in a church as a church. It neither brings us into the church nor is any part of our worship when we come there. How then can the peace and unity of the church depend on water baptism? Besides, he says expressly that it is the “unity of the spirit,” not water, that is intended here; and the arguments brought to enforce it are such as wholly and immediately concern the duty of the church as a church.

(2) Further, that other text which treats of our being baptized into a body says expressly that it is done by the Spirit: “For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body” (1 Cor 12:13). Here the church is presented under the figure of “one body”; here a baptism is mentioned by which they are brought, or initiated, into this body. Now, to say that this is the baptism of water is utterly against the words of the text: “For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body.” Besides, if the baptism here is of water, then it is the initiating ordinance. But I have proved the contrary, and this author stands by my doctrine on that point.

So then: the baptism here concerns the church as one body, and water has nothing to do with entering men into the church, nor with commanding them to practice it as a church for the sake of their peace or communion, nor with the worship of God as such. And (I say again) the baptism in the sixth argument is urged for precisely no other purpose than the church’s peace as a body. It must therefore be that baptism by virtue of which they were initiated and joined together in one. And since that baptism is only the one which the Spirit performs, this, therefore, is that one baptism.

7. The remaining argument is also effective: there is “One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all” (Eph 4:6). If we are “one body”; if there is but “one spirit” to it; if we have but “one hope, one faith,” and are all baptized by “one spirit” into that “one” body; and if we have but “one Lord, one God,” and he is in every one of us: then let us also be “one.” And let those who are qualified in this way both join together and hold together as one.

But our author objects against this that “now I employ my pen against every man, and give the lie to all expositors, for they hold this one baptism to be none other than that of water.”

Answer. What if I should also send you to answer those expositors who expound certain scriptures for infant baptism, and by them brand us as Anabaptists? Must this drive you from your belief of the truth? Expositors I reverence, but I must live by my own faith (Hab 2:4). God has nowhere bound himself to them more than to others with respect to revealing his mind in his word. But it does not become you to run to expositors like this, who, as to your own notions in many things, are but of yesterday. “To the law, and to the testimony” (Isa 8:20), for “out of the mouth of babes” the Lord has “ordained strength” (Ps 8:2).

But you bid me tell you “what I mean by Spirit baptism.”

Answer. Sir, you mistake me. I am not treating here of our being baptized with the Spirit with respect to the Spirit’s coming from heaven into us, but of that act of the Spirit, once come, which baptizes us into a body or church. It is one thing to be baptized with the Spirit in the first sense, and another to be baptized by the Spirit in the sense I am treating of. For the Spirit to come upon me is one thing; for the Spirit, once come, to implant, embody or baptize me into the body of Christ is another. Your question, therefore, is grounded on a mistake, both of my judgment and of the words of the apostle.

So in this way I soon put an end to your objections. For the Spirit to come down upon me is one thing, and for the Spirit to baptize or implant me into the church is another; for to be possessed with the Spirit is one thing, and to be led by that Spirit is another. I conclude, then: seeing the argument taken from that one baptism properly concerns church fellowship, and seeing water baptism does not meddle with church fellowship as such, it is the other baptism, namely the one in 1 Corinthians 12:13, that is intended here, and no other.

But you add, “If nothing but extraordinary gifts are called the baptism of the Spirit in a strict sense, then that baptism (1 Cor 12) must be water baptism, as well as that in the Ephesians.”

Hold on: you draw your conclusions before you have cause. First prove that the baptism in Ephesians is meant of water baptism, and that the baptism in 1 Corinthians 12:13 is the baptism you would have it be; and then conclude that my argument is void. I do not say that it is the baptism of the Holy Spirit according to the common notion. But for you to assert that it is the baptism of water gives the lie to the text. And that it is an act of the Holy Spirit, baptizing the saints into a body or church, you will hardly be able to prove untrue.

But see how, while you would have this to be baptism with water here, you contradict and condemn your own notion. You say water baptism is not the entering ordinance; yet the baptism here is such as baptizes us into a body. Therefore, before you say next time that this baptism in 1 Corinthians 12:13 is meant of water baptism, affirm that water baptism is the initiating or entering ordinance, so that your opinion and your doctrine may hang together better.

We come to my third argument, which is to prove that it is lawful to hold church communion with the godly, sincere believer, even though he has not been baptized with water, because he has the doctrine of baptisms (Heb 6:2). This doctrine I distinguish from the practice of baptism. The doctrine is what is presented to us by the outward sign, or what is preached to the believer by the outward circumstance of the act: namely, the death of Christ, and my death with Christ; also his resurrection from the dead, and mine with him to newness of life. Our author calls this “one of the strangest paradoxes that he has lightly observed.”

Answer. How light he is in his observation of things, I do not know. This I am sure of: the apostle mentions the doctrine of baptisms. Now, that the doctrine of a man, or of an ordinance, is the meaning of what is preached is plain to common sense. What is Christ’s doctrine, Paul’s doctrine, scripture doctrine, but the truth couched under the words that are spoken? So the doctrine of baptism, yes, and the doctrine of the Lord’s Supper, are those truths or mysteries which such ordinances preach to us.

And it is plain from all the Scriptures that the doctrine of baptism, in this sense, is the great end for which baptism and the Lord’s Supper were instituted. It is what the apostle is seeking in that eminent sixth chapter of Romans: “Know ye not that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ, were baptized into his death? Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection” (Rom 6:3-5). What is discussed here but the doctrine of baptism, that is, what baptism teaches? And with it comes a hint that this doctrine was the chief thing, for whose sake that shadow was instituted; and also that those who have the doctrine, or the thing signified by baptism, they only must reign with Christ.

Again, this is what he is seeking among the Corinthians: “If the dead rise not at all,” he says, “why then were you baptized for the dead?” (1 Cor 15:29). Why then were you baptized? What did baptism teach you? What doctrine did it preach to you? Further: “Buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him from the dead” (Col 2:12). What is chiefly asserted here but the doctrine alone which water baptism preaches? And with it comes a hint that they, and they only, are the saved of the Lord who have heard, received and live in this doctrine.

The same may be said of the Lord’s Supper: it also has its doctrine. But our author objects against this, saying, “That this is called the doctrine of baptism, I am yet to learn.”

Answer. Your ignorance of the truth does not make it an error. But I ask you, what is the doctrine of baptism, if not what baptism teaches, that is, what is signified by it? In the same way, that is the doctrine of Christ and of the Scriptures which he and they teach as the mind of God.

But you say, “I took the doctrine of baptism to be the command that a believer should be baptized, for such ends as the gospel expresses.”

Answer. To assert that a figurative ordinance is of God is one thing; the doctrinal meaning of that ordinance is another. A man may preach the command and yet preach none of the doctrine which baptism preaches. The doctrine does not lie in the command, but in the mystery revealed to faith by the act.

You object, “If the resurrection is the doctrine of baptism, why does the apostle make that and the doctrine of baptism distinct things in Hebrews 6?”

Answer. The resurrection, simply considered, is not the doctrine of baptism; rather, Christ’s resurrection is, and mine by him. Besides, there is more in it than the mystery of this resurrection: there is first my death, and then my rising with him.

But you add, “Under the law, all the sacrifices of that dispensation, with their sabbaths, were types of that Christ who was the substance of all those ceremonies. If any of them, then, who professed faith in the Messiah to come should, upon scruples or for lack of pretended light, neglect the whole or part of that typical worship, why may not a man say of them, as this advocate of the practice under debate does, they had the richer and better sacrifice?”

Answer. First, it does not become you to imagine that when the brethren refuse to be baptized as you and I would have them, they do so for lack of pretended light, unless your boldness will lead you to judge that all men who do not come up to our judgment lack sincerity. Their conscience may be better than either yours or mine; and yet God, for purposes best known to himself, may hold back from giving them conviction of their duty in this particular. But what? Because they are not baptized, do they not have Jesus Christ? Or must we now be afraid to say that Christ is better than water baptism?

Yes, God himself, for the sake of this better thing, has allowed a suspension of some of his ordinances in his church, and yet owned them as his truly constituted congregation. What do you say to the church in the wilderness? I touched you with it in my first book, but I see you did not care to meddle with it. That church received members in a way that was not prescribed by the revealed mind of God, but directly against it; yet it stood as a true church, and its members were true members. Also, that church in that state was one before whom, among whom and to whom God continually made himself known to be their God, and owned them as his special treasure.

And now that I have fallen upon it, let me enlarge a little. This church, according to the worship of God then instituted, had circumcision for its entering ordinance (Gen 17:13-14), without which it was unlawful to receive anyone into fellowship with them. Indeed, anyone who was received without it was to be cut off and cast out again. Further, as to the Passover, the uncircumcised were utterly forbidden to eat it (Exod 12:48). Now, if our brethren had as express a prohibition to justify their groundless opinion as there is here to exclude the uncircumcised from the communion of the church and from the Passover; I say, if they could find it written, “No unbaptized person shall enter, no unbaptized person shall eat of the supper,” what a noise they would make about it! But let the reader observe this. Circumcision was the entering ordinance, while our author says baptism is not. This church was expressly forbidden to receive the uncircumcised, while we have not a syllable now forbidding the unbaptized. Yet this church received members without this entering ordinance, and otherwise than by it. They also admitted them to the Passover. Yes, they entertained them, retained them, and held communion with them for as long as forty years without it. I say again, the number of communicants of this sort was no fewer than six hundred thousand. Moreover, the land of Canaan was given to these uncircumcised people, yes, and possession of part of it, before they were circumcised; but the old circumcised ones might not enter it. I dwell on this at more length because our author has overlooked my first mention of it.

And now I ask, what was the reason that God continued his presence with this church notwithstanding this transgression? Was it not because they had that richer and better thing, “the Lord Jesus Christ”? For they all ate of that spiritual bread, and drank of that “spiritual rock that followed them: and that rock was Christ” (1 Cor 10:3-4). I confess I find them under rebukes and judgments in the wilderness, and that they were many times threatened with destruction. But I still do not find so much as one reproof for their receiving uncircumcised members. Further, in the New Testament, where we have a catalog of their sins and also of their punishment for them, we find not a word about circumcision, nor the smallest hint of the least rebuke for neglecting the entering ordinance (1 Cor 10:5-10). I will therefore say of them, as I have also said of my brethren, “They had the richer and better thing.”

But you object “that this puts the whole of God’s instituted worship, both under the law and gospel, to the highest uncertainties.”

Answer. This throws our opposers off their road and quenches the flame of their unwarrantable zeal. For the entering ordinance, the ordinance without which no man might be added to the church, was laid aside for forty years. Yes, more than six hundred thousand communed with them without it. I say again, if they did this and held communion with God all the same, and yet, as far as we read, had not one small reproof all that time for doing so, why may we not now enter communion, hold communion, maintain communion, church communion, without being judged and condemned by you? And why should we be, because for lack of light we cannot all be baptized first? This is especially so considering that baptism makes no man a saint, is not the entering ordinance, and is no part of the worship of God enjoined on the church as a church. To conclude, although we receive members who are unbaptized in water, we do not leave God’s instituted worship at uncertainties, especially what he has commanded us as his church. We only confess our lack of light in some things. But we see no word to warrant the forbearance of our duty in all things for lack of persuasion in one.

You object that I call baptism a circumstance, and that I nickname it an outward show.

Answer. What a deep reproof! But why did you not show me my wrong in calling it this, when I set it against the substance and the thing signified? Is it the substance? Is it the thing signified? And why may I not give it the name of a show, when you call it a symbol and compare it to a gentleman’s livery? But you say I call it an outward show.

Answer. Is it an inward one? What is it? You reply, “It is a command.”

Answer. But does that install it in a place and dignity that was never intended for it?

You object further, “They cannot have the doctrine of baptism who do not understand our way of administering it.”

This is your mistake, both about the doctrine and about the thing itself. But if you will not scorn to take notice of me, I advise you again to consider this. A man may find that baptism is commanded. He may be informed who ought to administer it. He may also know the proper subject, and that the manner of baptizing is dipping. And he may desire to practice it because it is commanded, and yet know nothing of what water baptism preaches, or of the mystery that baptism shows to faith. But the doctrine of baptism is not the practice of it, not the outward act, but the thing signified; and every believer has that. To deny this shows you to be far too bold.

But you say, “Who taught you to divide between Christ and his precepts, that you word it in such terms, ‘That he that has the one…’?”

Answer. To say nothing of faith and the word, truly, reason itself teaches it. For if Christ is my righteousness, and not water; if Christ is my advocate, and not water; if there is good and blessedness in Christ that is not in water; then Jesus Christ is better than water. And in these things he is to be eternally divided from water, unless we will make them co-saviors and co-advocates, things equally good and profitable to men.

But you say, “I thought that he that has Christ had an orderly right to all Christ’s promises and precepts, and that the precepts of Christ are part of the riches that a believer has in and by Christ.”

Answer. A believer has more in Christ than either promise or precept. But not all believers know all the things that God has given them by Christ. Must they not use and enjoy what they do know, because they do not know everything? Or must they neglect the weightier matters because they lack mint, and anise, and cummin? This “orderly right” you claim is your own fancy. There is not a syllable in the whole Bible that bids a Christian forbear his duty in other things because he lacks, as you term it, the symbol, or water baptism.

But you say, “He that despises his birthright of ordinances, our church privileges, will be found to be a profane person, as Esau, in God’s account.”

Baptism is not the privilege of a church as such. But what? Are they all Esaus indeed? Must we go to hell and be damned for lack of faith in water baptism? And take notice: I do not plead for despising baptism, but for bearing with our brother who cannot submit to it for lack of light. He has the best of baptism, namely, what it signifies. He lacks only the outward show. And if he had that, it would not prove him a truly visible saint. It would not tell me he had the grace of God in his heart. It is no distinguishing mark to anyone else of my sonship with God. But why did you not answer these parts of my argument? Why did you only cavil at words? Even if they had been left out, the argument still stands good: “He that is not baptized in water, if he is nevertheless a true believer, has the doctrine of baptism. Yes, he ought to have it before he is convinced that it is his duty to be baptized, or else he plays the hypocrite. There is therefore no difference between the believer who is baptized with water and the one who is not yet, except his going down into the water to perform an outward ceremony there, the substance of which he already has. And he is not commanded to do this with respect to membership with the church, but to obtain by it a further understanding of his privilege by Christ, which he made profession of before, and that as a visible believer.”

But to come to my fourth argument, which you touch as tenderly as if it burned your fingers. “I am bold,” I said, “to have communion with visible saints, as before, because God has communion with them, whose example in this case we are strictly commanded to follow.” “Receive ye one another, as Christ also received us to the glory of God” (Rom 15:7). Yes, even though they are saints whose opinion is contrary to yours or mine. “We that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak, and not to please ourselves” (Rom 15:1). These are infirmities that are sinful, for natural infirmities are common to all. They are infirmities, therefore, that for lack of light cause a man to err in circumstantial things. And the reason on which Paul grounds this admonition is this: “For even Christ pleased not himself; but, as it is written, The reproaches of them that reproached thee fell on me” (Rom 15:3).

You say to this “that it is Paul’s direction to the church at Rome how to receive their brethren, church members.”

I answer as follows.

1. What? Are the poor saints not now in this city? Are they not concerned in these instructions? Or is the church not directed at all by these words how to behave toward those who were not yet in fellowship? A bold assertion! But it is grounded on nothing except that you would have it so.

2. But how will you prove that there was a church, a rightly constituted church, at Rome besides the one in Aquila’s house (Rom 16)? Neither this epistle nor any other in the whole book of God affirms it. Besides, since Paul in this last chapter greets the church as being in this man’s house, but greets the others only as individual saints, it gives you further ground to be convinced that those others were not yet embodied in such a fellowship.

3. But suppose there was another church besides. It does not follow that the apostle exhorts them to receive only persons already in fellowship. No, it is “Him,” even every “Him that is weak in the faith receive ye, but not to doubtful disputations” (Rom 14:1).

4. Suppose again that the receiving exhorted to here is such as you would have it. Yet the rule by which they are directed to do it is the one by which we perceive that Christ has received them. But Christ did not receive them by water baptism, but as given to him by the Father. Therefore, the one concerning whom we are convinced that he is given to Christ by the Father, “him should we receive.”

5. But why should I grant you what cannot be proved? Yet even if you could prove it, it avails nothing at all. For you may not, cannot, and ought not to dare to limit the exhortation to receiving one another into each other’s affections only, and not also receiving saints into communion.

But you object, “To make God’s receiving the rule of our receiving in all cases will not hold.”

Answer. Keep to the point, man! If it holds in the case at hand, that is enough, and that you have not denied. And that it holds here is plain, because it is commanded. But let the reader know that your bringing in that way of God’s receiving which is invisible to us is nothing but an unfair straddling over my argument, which treats only of a visible receiving, such as is evident to the church. You knew this, but by evading it you sought to turn the reader from considering the strength of this argument of mine. “The receiving, then,” I said, “because it is set as an example to the church, must be such as is visible to them, and is best discovered by that word that describes the visible saint. Whomever, then, you can judge a visible saint, one who walks with God, you may, indeed you ought to, judge by the same word that God has received him. Now him whom God receives, him you should receive.” But will anyone object that they cannot believe God receives the unbaptized saints? I will not suppose you so stupefied, and therefore I shall make no answer.

But you seem to be much offended because I said, “Vain man! Do not think that by the strictness of your order in outward and bodily conformity to outward and shadowy circumstances your peace is maintained with God.” But why so much offended at this? “Because,” you say, “you intend by this the brethren of the baptized way.”

Answer. If they are vain men and set up their own order, however strict they make it, they deserve to be rebuked. If “they have rejected the word of the Lord; what wisdom is in them?” (Jer 8:9). And as you suggest the first, I affirm the second. But if you would be justified in excluding those with whom you still see God has communion, because they do not yet see a shadow as you do, produce the Scripture for such an order, so that we may believe it is the order of God. But deal fairly, lest we expose your nakedness and others see your shame. You tell me of the order of the Colossians (Col 2:5). But if you can prove that that church refused to hold communion with a saint whom they knew to be received by Christ and to hold communion with Christ, or that none but those baptized in water are received by him and hold communion with him, then you justify your order. In the meantime the whole of my argument stands firm against you: “You must have communion with visible saints, because God has communion with them, whose example in this case we are strictly commanded to follow.”

But you ask me whether “outward and bodily conformity” has become a crime.

Answer. I never said so. But know that to glorify God with our bodies concerns chiefly far higher and weightier things than water baptism. “Whatsoever is not of faith is sin” (Rom 14:23). And consider what it is to set up an ordinance, even an ordinance of God, so that by it the church may be pulled to pieces, or truly visible saints excluded from communion with their brethren. I say again, to make water baptism a bar and division between saint and saint, who in every other respect are alike gracious and holy: this is like fasting “for strife and debate, and to smite with the fist of wickedness” (Isa 58:4). It is not to be found anywhere in the whole Bible, but is wholly an order of your own devising. As to the peace you raise an objection about, you have granted me what I intended. And now I add further that for church peace to be founded on water baptism, or on any other external rite that has nothing to do with the church as a church, is poor peace indeed. Church peace is founded in blood, and in love to each other for Jesus’ sake (Phil 2:1-4): in bearing with and forbearing one another in all circumstantial things that do not concern church worship as such (Eph 4:31-32). And in my other treatise I have proved that baptism is not such a thing, and therefore it ought not to be urged to make rents and divisions among brethren.

But you ask whether my peace is maintained in a way of disobedience, and conclude that if it is, you fear it is false.

Answer. If the first were true, you would not need to doubt the second. But it may be thought that he has little to say in the controversy who is forced to stuff out his papers with such needless prattle as this.

My fifth argument is “that a failure in such a circumstance as water baptism does not unchristian us.” This you are compelled to grant. And I conclude with your own words: persons ought to be Christians before they are visible Christians, such as any congregation in the land may receive to communion with themselves, because God has shown us that he has received them. “Receive him to the glory of God.” “To the glory of God” is put in on purpose, to show what dishonor they bring to him who scorn to have communion with those whom they know maintain communion with God. I say again, how does this man or that church glorify God, or count the wisdom and holiness of heaven above their own, when they refuse communion with those concerning whom they are nevertheless convinced that they have communion with God? But you have not denied my argument, nor meddled with the conclusion at all. That conclusion is “that therefore, even because a failure here does not unchristian us, does not make us insincere,” and, I add, does not lay us open to any revealed judgment or displeasure of God (if it does, show where), therefore it should not, it ought not to, expose us to the displeasure of the church of God.

But you say that I rank gospel precepts with abrogated Old Testament ceremonies.

Answer. You should have given your reader my words, so that he might have judged from my own mouth. I said there, having just spoken of Christianity itself, “that thousands of thousands who could not consent to water as we do are now with the innumerable company of angels and the spirits of just men made perfect.” What was said of eating, or not eating, may in this respect be said of water baptism: neither if I am baptized am I the better, nor if I am not am I the worse; not the better before God, not the worse before men. I still mean this as Paul did: provided I walk with God according to my light. Otherwise it is false. For if a man who sees it to be his duty scornfully neglects it, or if he who has no faith about it foolishly takes it up, both are the worse for this. I mean, as to their own sense of things, being convicted in themselves as transgressors. He therefore who does it according to his light does well; and he who does not do it, for lack of light, does not do ill. For he proves his heart to be sincere with God even by that forbearance of his. And I tell you again, it is nowhere recorded that this man is under any revealed threatening of God for not being baptized with water, when he has no light in it. Rather, he is admitted through God’s grace to as many promises as you are. If therefore he is not a partaker of that circumstance, he is still a partaker of that liberty and mercy by which you stand with God.

But it is too bold of you to presume to imagine that I practice instituted worship on the same account as Paul practiced circumcision and shaving. What? Because I will not let water carry away the epistles from the Christians, and because I will not let water baptism be the rule, the door, the bolt, the bar, the wall of division between the righteous and the righteous, must I therefore be judged a man without conscience toward the worship of Jesus Christ? The Lord deliver me from superstitious and idolatrous thoughts about any of the ordinances of Christ and of God. But my fifth argument stands against you untouched. You have not denied, much less confuted, the least syllable of it.

You tell me my sixth argument is edification.

Answer. If it is, why is it not embraced? But my own words are these: “I am for holding communion in this way, because the edification of souls in the faith and holiness of the gospel is of greater concern than agreement in outward things. I say, it is of greater concern with us, and of far more profit to our brother, than our agreeing in, or contesting for, water baptism” (John 16:13; 1 Cor 14:12; 2 Cor 10:8; 2 Cor 12:19; Eph 4:12; 1 Cor 13:1-2; 1 Cor 8:1). Now why did you not take this argument apart and answer those scriptures on which its strength depends? But if contending and falling out about water baptism is better than edifying the house of God, produce the texts, so that we may be informed.

You say, “Edification is the end of all communion, but all things must be done in order, orderly.”

Answer. When you have proved that there is no such thing as an orderly edifying of the church unless water baptism goes before it, then it will be time enough to think you have said something.

You add, “Edification as to church fellowship, being a building up, does suppose the being of a church; but pray show us a church without baptism.”

Answer. See here the spirit of these men, who for lack of water baptism have at one stroke unchurched all such congregations of God in the world! But against this I have urged, and still urge, that water baptism gives neither being nor well-being to a church, nor is it any part of that instituted worship of God that the church as such should be found practicing. Therefore her edification as a church may, yes, and ought to, be attained without it.

But you say, “Show us a New Testament church without baptism.”

Answer. What do you say to the church all along the book of Revelation, right through the reign of Antichrist? Was that a New Testament church or not? Again, if baptism is outside the church as a church; if it has nothing to do with constituting a church; if it is not the door of entrance into the church; if it is no part of church worship as such; then, although all the members of that church were baptized, the church is still a church without water baptism. But all the churches in the New Testament were such; therefore, etc. Again, if baptism concerns believers as particular persons only; if it concerns their own conscience only; if it does not make a man a visible believer to me; then it has nothing to do with church membership. For that which concerns my own person only and my own conscience only, that which is no mark of my visible saintship to the church, cannot be an argument to them to receive me into fellowship with themselves. But this is true. Therefore, etc.

You proceed, “If by edification is meant the private increase of grace in one another, in the use of private means, as private Christians in meeting together, how does the principle you oppose hinder that? Endeavor to make men as holy as you can, that they may be fitted for church fellowship when God shall show them the orderly way to it.”

Answer. What a lot of private things we now have brought out to public view! Private Christians, private means, and a private increase of grace. But, Sir, are none but those of your way the public Christians? Or ought none but those who are baptized to have the public means of grace? Or must their graces be increased by nothing but private means? Were you awake just now? Or have you grown so high in your own fancies that none have, or are to have, anything but private means of grace? And are there no public Christians, or public Christian meetings, but those of your way? I did not think that all but Baptists should only live in holes.

But you find fault because I said, “Edification is greater than contesting about water baptism.”

Answer. If it is not, confute me; if it is, stop caviling. Water baptism, and all God’s ordinances, are to be used for edification, not to breed heats and contentions among the godly. Therefore edification is best.

Objection. “I had thought that the preaching and opening of baptism might have been reckoned a part of our edification.”

Answer. The act of water baptism has no place in church worship, neither in whole nor in part. Therefore pressing it on the church serves no purpose at all.

Objection. “Why may you not as well say that edification is greater than breaking of bread?”

Answer. So it is; otherwise the breaking of bread would never have been instituted to edify us with. That which serves is not greater than the one who is served by it. Baptism and the Lord’s Supper were both made for us, not we for them; therefore both were made for our edification, and neither for our destruction. But again, the Lord’s Supper, not baptism, is for the church as a church. So if we will maintain the church’s edification, the Supper must be maintained in it; yes, and used often, to show the Lord’s death until he comes (1 Cor 11:22-26). Besides, because it is a great part of church worship as such, it is therefore pronounced blessed. The Lord openly blessed it before he gave it; yes, and we ought to bless it also: “The cup of blessing which we bless” (1 Cor 10:16), not to say more. Therefore your reasoning from the one to the other will not hold.

Objection. “How does contesting for water baptism come to be so much against you?”

Answer. First, because weak brethren cannot bear it. We are commanded to receive them, but not to doubtful disputation, and this is doubtful to them; therefore for their sakes I must forbear it (Rom 14:1). Second, because I have not seen any good effect, but the contrary, wherever such hot spirits have gone before me: “For where envying and strife is, there is confusion,” or tumults, “and every evil work” (Jas 3:16). Third, because by the example of the Lord and of Paul we must consider the present state of the church, and not trouble them with what they cannot bear (John 16:13; 1 Cor 3:1-3). I conclude, then, that edification in the church is to be preferred above something the church, as a church, has nothing to do with. “All things, dearly beloved, are for our edifying” (1 Cor 14:5; 1 Cor 12:26; 2 Cor 12:19; Eph 4:16; Rom 15:2; 1 Cor 14:3; 2 Cor 10:8; 2 Cor 13:10; Rom 14:19).

Before I wind up this argument, I present you with several instances showing that the breach of God’s precepts has been borne with when it came in competition with edification.

First, there is the case of Aaron, who let the sin offering be burned that should indeed have been eaten (Lev 10:16-20). Yet because he could not eat it to his edification, Moses was content. But the law was transgressed by it: “The priest that offereth it for sin shall eat it” (Lev 6:26).

To this you reply, “That was not a constant, continued forbearing of God’s worship, but a suspending of it for a season.”

Answer. We also suspend it only for a season; when persons can be baptized to their edification, they have the liberty. But this was not a bare suspension; it was a flat transgression of the law: “Ye should indeed have eaten it.” Yet Moses was content (Lev 10:16-20).

But you say, “Perhaps it was suspended on just and legal grounds, though they are not expressed.”

Answer. The express rule was against it: “Ye should indeed,” said Moses, “have eaten it in the holy place, as I commanded” (Lev 10:18). But good sir, are you now for unwritten verities? For legal grounds, though not expressed? I will not drive you any further; here is Rome enough. As for Eldad and Medad, it cannot be denied that their edifying of the people was preferred before their conforming to every circumstance (Num 11:16-26).

You add, “That Paul withstood Peter over a seemingly low thing.”

Sir, if you make only a seemingly low thing of dissembling, and of teaching others to do the same, especially where the doctrine of justification is endangered, I cannot expect much good conscience from you (Gal 2:11-13).

As for your answer to the case of Hezekiah, it is faulty in two respects. 1. You make the Passover a type of the Lord’s Supper, when it was only a type of the body and blood of the Lord: “For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us” (1 Cor 5:7). 2. You make it an example to yourself for admitting persons unprepared to the Lord’s Supper.

Answer. May you indeed receive persons into the church unprepared for the Lord’s Supper, yes, unprepared for that and for other solemn appointments? For that is how you word it. Oh, what an engine you have made of water baptism! So, gentle reader, while this author tears us in pieces for not making baptism the orderly rule for receiving the godly and conscientious into communion, he can receive persons if they are baptized, though they are unprepared for the Supper and other solemn appointments! I would have you consult the place, and see whether it supports such an act as this: that a man who pleads for water baptism above the peace and edification of the church ought to be received, although unprepared, into the church, to the Lord’s Supper, and to other solemn appointments. Consider especially the nature of right church constitution, and the severity of God toward those who came unprepared to his table of old (1 Cor 11:28-30). A riddle indeed! That the Lord should, without a word, so severely command that all who lack light in baptism be excluded from church privileges, and yet, against his word, admit unprepared persons to the Lord’s table and to other solemn appointments!

But good sir, why so short-winded? Why could you not make the same work with the other scriptures as you did with these? I must leave them on your hands unanswered. And standing by my argument, I conclude this: if laws and ordinances of old have been broken, and the breach of them borne with, when the profit and edification of the church came in competition with them, and that at a time when the observance of outward things was more strictly commanded than now, how much more may we have communion, church communion, when no law of God is transgressed by it! And note that all this while I do not plead, as you do, for unprepared persons, but for the godly, and such as walk with God.

We come now to my seventh argument for communion with godly persons, though they are unbaptized, which you say is love. My argument is this: “Therefore I am for communion in this way, because love, which above all things we are commanded to put on, is worth far too much to be broken over baptism.” And let the reader note that you do not deny so much as one syllable of this argument, but run off to another story. Still, I will follow you. I add further that love is more clearly shown when we receive one another for the sake of Christ than when we refuse his children for want of water. And I tell you again that this exhortation to love is grounded not on baptism, but on the putting on of the new creature, which has swallowed up all distinctions (Col 3:9-14). Yes, there are ten arguments in this one which you have not so much as touched; but you object thus:

“The man who makes affection the rule of his walking, rather than judgment, it is no wonder if he goes out of the way.”

Answer. Love to those whom we are persuaded God has received is love that is guided by judgment; and to receive those who are such, because God has bidden us (Rom 14), is judgment guided by rule. My argument therefore has forestalled all your noise, and still stands on its legs against you.

As to the duties of piety and charity you boast of, do not sound a trumpet, and do not tell your left hand about them. We are talking now of the communion of saints, church communion. And I plead that to love and hold together as such is better than to break in pieces for want of water baptism. My reason is this: we are exhorted in all things to put on love, the love of church communion; but you, on the contrary, set against it, “Above all things put on water.” For with the best saint under heaven who lacks that, you refuse communion. In this way you make baptism, though it is no church ordinance, a bar to shut out the godly, and a trapdoor to let the unprepared into churches, to the Lord’s Supper, and to other solemn appointments.

But you object, “Must our love to the unbaptized indulge them in an act of disobedience? Can we not love their persons, gifts and graces without loving their sins?”

Answer. We do not plead for indulging. “But are there not with you, even with you, sins against the Lord your God?” (2 Chr 28:10). But why can you indulge the Baptists in many acts of disobedience? For to come into the church unprepared is an act of disobedience; to come to the Supper unprepared is an act of disobedience; and to come so to other solemn appointments as well is an act of disobedience.

“But for these things,” you say, “you do not cast out, nor keep any out of the church.”

Answer. But what acts of disobedience do we indulge them in?

Your answer: “In the sin of infant baptism.”

Answer. We do not indulge them in it. But being commanded to bear with one another’s infirmities, we put up with it, since it is indeed an infirmity in our eyes, though in theirs, they say, it is a duty, until God persuades them otherwise. If you are without infirmity, then throw the first stone at them yourself. They keep their faith on that matter to themselves, and do not trouble their brethren with it. We believe that God has received them; in our eyes they do not lack proof of their sonship with God. Nor has he made water a wall of division between us; and therefore we do receive them.

Objection. “I take it to be the highest act of friendship to be faithful to these professors, and to tell them they lack this one thing in gospel order, which ought not to be left undone.”

Answer. If it is the highest piece of friendship to preach water baptism to unbaptized believers, the lowest act of friendship must be very low indeed. But on the contrary, I count it so far from being any act of friendship to press baptism, as we understand it, on those who cannot bear it, that it is a great abuse of my brother’s peace, of the law of love, of the law of Christ, and of the society of the faithful. “Love suffereth long, and is kind, is not easily provoked” (1 Cor 13). “Let us therefore follow after the things that make for peace, and things wherewith one may edify another” (Rom 14:19). “Let every one of us please his neighbor for his good to edification” (Rom 15:2). “Bear you one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ” (Gal 6:2).

But you say, “I suspect that when this comes to be weighed in God’s balance, it will be found to be nothing less than flattery, for which you will be reproved.”

Answer. It seems you only suspect it; so I think you should not be certain of the principles from which you suspect it. But this carries little weight with me. For take a man who will presume to claim the epistles for himself and his fellows for the sake of baptism, who will condemn all the churches of Christ in the land for want of baptism, and who will count his brother as profane Esau and as rejected as idolatrous Ephraim because he lacks his way of water baptism. Such a man departs from his usual rigid way when he only suspects his brother of being a flatterer, and does not affirm it. I therefore leave this suspicion of yours to be resolved at the day of judgment, and in the meantime I trample on your harsh and unchristian surmises. As to our love to Christians in other cases, I hope we shall also endeavor to follow the law of the Lord; but because that does not concern the matter in hand, it is not our business to treat of it now.

My argument treats of church communion. In pursuing it I prove the following:

1. That love is grounded on the new creature (Col 3:10-15).

2. That it is grounded on our fellowship with the Father and the Son (1 John 1:2-3).

3. That with respect to this, it is the fulfilling of the royal law (Jas 4:11; Rom 14:21).

4. That it shows itself in acts of forbearing rather than in publishing some truths: communicating only what is profitable, and forbearing to publish what cannot be borne (1 Cor 3:1-2; Acts 20:18-20; John 16:12).

5. I show further that to have fellowship for the sake of an outward circumstance, to make it the ground of fellowship, or to receive one another chiefly on account of it, making baptism the charter that includes and excludes, the bounds, bar and rule of communion, when there is no word for it in the word of the everlasting testament, is, to speak charitably, if it is not for want of love, then for want of light in the mysteries of the kingdom of Christ. Strange! Take two Christians equal in all points but this one. No, let one go beyond the other in grace and goodness as far as a man is beyond a babe. Yet water shall turn the scale; it shall open the door of communion to the lesser, and command the other to stand back. And yet water is no proof to the church of this babe’s faith and hope, has nothing to do with his entering into fellowship, and is no part of the worship of the church. These things should have been answered, seeing you take it upon yourself to condemn our practice so roundly.

You come now to my eighth argument, which you not only render falsely, but by doing so you abuse your reader. I did not say that the church at Corinth shut one another out of communion. What I said was that for God’s people to divide into parties, or to shut one another out of church communion, even over greater points and on higher pretenses than water baptism, has in times past been counted carnal, and those who did it babyish Christians. And then I brought in the factions that were in the church at Corinth. But what! May not the evil of denying church communion now be counted carnal and babyish, when it is proved bad by a lesser crime in the church at Corinth, unless the breach of communion must be charged on those at Corinth also?

You grant that my argument is good, saying, “The divisions of the church at Corinth were about the highest fundamental principles, for which they are often called carnal”; and yet you cavil at it. But if they were to be blamed for dividing, though over the highest points, are you not much more to be blamed for condemning your brethren to perpetual banishment from church communion? They are sound in all the great points of the gospel, and right in all church ordinances also, and fail only in the point of baptism, for want of light.

As to your quibble about Paul and Apollos, whether they or others were the persons, though I am satisfied you are mistaken, it does not weaken my argument. For if those people were blameworthy for dividing, even over the highest fundamental principles, as you say, how you ought to blush for carrying yourself as you do toward persons perhaps more godly than ourselves, because they do not agree with you in a circumstance! That the divisions at Corinth were helped on by the abuse of baptism is evident to me from Paul’s so often suggesting it: “Were ye baptized in the name of Paul? I thank God that I baptized none of you … lest any should say, I had baptized in mine own name” (1 Cor 1:13-15).

I do not say that those who baptized them designed this, or that baptism in itself brought it about. Nor did I say, though our author pretends I did, “that they were most of them baptized by their factious leaders.” But that they had their factious leaders is evident; and that these leaders made use of the names of Paul, Apollos and Christ is just as evident. For by these names they were beguiled, with the help of abused baptism.

But you say, “Where lies the force of this man’s argument against baptism, as to its place, worth and continuance?”

I answer: I have no argument against its place, worth or continuance, although you seek to slander me in this way. But this kind of sincerity of yours will never make me one of your disciples. Did I not tell you, in this very argument, “That I do not speak as I do to persuade or teach men to break the least of God’s commandments, but so that my brethren of the baptized way may not lay too much upon it, may not make it an essential of the gospel, nor yet of the communion of saints”? Yet he pretends that I urge two arguments against it. But reader, you may know that I have no such reasoning in my book. Besides, I would be a fool indeed, if I were against it, to make use of such weak arguments. My words, then, are these:

“‘I thank God,’ said Paul, ‘that I baptized none of you but Crispus…’ (1 Cor 1:14). Not that it was not an ordinance then, but they abused it by making parties with it, as they also abused Paul and Cephas. Besides, he said, ‘I know not whether I baptized any other’ (1 Cor 1:16). By this careless account of whom he had baptized, he shows that he made no such great matter of it as some in these days do. No, he shows that he made no matter of it at all with respect to church communion. For if he did not heed whom he himself had baptized, much less did he heed who were baptized by others. But if baptism had been the initiating ordinance, and, I now add, essential to church communion, then no doubt he would have made more conscience of it than to pass it by so lightly.”

I add further that where he says he “was not sent to baptize” (1 Cor 1:17), he spoke with a holy indignation against those who had abused that ordinance. “Baptism is a holy ordinance. But when Satan abuses it and wrenches it out of its place, making what God ordained for the edification of believers the only weapon to break in pieces the love, unity and concord of the saints, then, as Paul said of himself and his fellows, What is baptism? Neither is baptism anything (1 Cor 3:5-7). This is no new doctrine. For God, by the mouth of the prophet of old, cried out against his own appointments when they were abused by his own people (Isa 1:11-15), because they used them ‘for strife, and debate, and to smite with the fist of wickedness’ (Isa 58:4).”

But to stop taking notice of these things in this way, my argument stands firm against you: “For if those at Corinth were blameworthy for dividing, though their divisions were, if you say true, about the highest fundamentals, you ought to be ashamed to banish your brethren in this way from the privileges of church communion forever, for want of so low a thing as water baptism.” I do not call it low with respect to God’s appointment, though even in that respect it is far from the highest place. I call it low in comparison with those fundamentals over which, you say, “the Corinthians made their divisions.”

You come next to my ninth argument, and serve it as Hanun served David’s servants (2 Sam 10:4): you have cut off half its beard, and its garments up to its buttocks, thinking to send it home in shame. You state it thus: “That by denying communion with unbaptized believers, you take from them their privileges to which they are born.”

Answer. Do I have such an argument in all my little book? Are not my words, verbatim, these? “If we reject visible saints by calling, saints who have communion with God, who have received the law at the hand of Christ, who live holy lives among men, and who desire to have communion with us, then, as much as lies in us, we take from them their very privileges, and the blessings to which they were born of God.” This is my argument: now confute it.

Paul says, not only to the gathered church at Corinth but to all the scattered saints who in every place call upon the name of the Lord (1 Cor 1:2), that if Jesus Christ is theirs, then Paul and Apollos and Cephas, and the world, and all things else are theirs (1 Cor 3:22).

But you answer, “We take nothing from them; we only keep them from a disorderly practice of gospel ordinances. We offer them their privileges in the way of gospel order.”

Answer. Where do you have one word of God that, for want of water, forbids the best communion of saints to a person qualified as my argument describes? There is not a syllable for this in all the book of God. So then, in this plausible defense of yours, you make your scriptureless light, which in very deed is darkness (Isa 8:20), the rule of your brother’s faith. And how well you will come off for this in the day of God, you might soon begin to conceive, if you were not wedded to your wordless opinion.

I know your reply: “New Testament saints are all baptized first.”

Answer. Suppose it granted. Were they baptized so that they might thereby be qualified for their right to the communion of saints, so that without submitting to water they were to be denied the other? Further, suppose I should grant this groundless notion. Were not the Jews in Old Testament times to enter the church by circumcision (Gen 17; Exod 12)? For that was the very entering ordinance, though water is not. Besides, as I said before, there was a full prohibition against anyone uncircumcised entering into fellowship, with a threat to cut them off from the church if they entered without it. Yet more than six hundred thousand entered that church without it. But what if someone like you had stood up then and objected: “Sir Moses, what is the reason that you transgress the order of God by receiving members without circumcision? Is not that the very entering ordinance? Are you not commanded to keep out of the church all who are not circumcised? Yes, and as for all those you have received in this way, are you not commanded to cast them out again, to cut them off from among this people?” (Gen 17:13-14; Exod 12:44-46). I say, would not this man have had a far better argument to resist Moses than you, with your wordless notion, have to shut men out of the church who are more holy than many of ourselves? But do you think that Moses and Joshua and all the elders of Israel would have thanked this fellow, or concluded that he spoke on God’s behalf? Or that they should then, for the sake of an order better than what you call order, have set to the work that you would be doing, namely, to break the church in pieces for this?

But you say, “If any will find or force another way into the sheepfold than by the footsteps of the flock, we have no such custom, nor the churches of God.”

Answer. What was done of old I have shown you. That Christ, not baptism, is the way into the sheepfold is plain. And that the person in my argument is entitled to all these things, namely, Christ, grace, and all the things of the kingdom of Christ in the church, is just as evident from the scriptures I have urged.

But you add, “That according to my old confidence I affirm that ‘Drink ye all of this’ is entailed to faith, not baptism: a thing,” you say, “soon said, but never yet proved.”

Answer. 1. That it is entailed to faith must be confessed on all hands.

2. That it is the privilege of the one who discerns the Lord’s body, and that no one is to deny it to him, is just as evident from the text, “and so let him eat” (1 Cor 11:28), because he is worthy. Therefore he, and he only, who discerns the Lord’s body is the worthy receiver, the worthy receiver in God’s estimation. But to imagine even once that none discern the Lord’s body but the baptized is both foolish and ridiculous.

Therefore to exclude Christians, and to deny them their heaven-born privileges, for want of something God never made the wall of division between us, looks too much like a spirit of persecution (Job 19:28). And it carries in it those eighteen absurdities you have cried out against so hotly. And I still add, “Is it not this that greatly prevailed with God to bring down those judgments which we, the people of God, groan under at present? I will dare to say it was a cause of them.” (And so it was in my first copy; but for a the printer put in the.) Yes, I will go further: I fear, I strongly fear, that the rod of God is not yet to be taken from us. For what sin among Christians is more provoking than to deny one another their rights and privileges, to which they are born of God? And then to father these doings of theirs on God, when he has not commanded it, neither in the New Testament nor in the Old!

But I may not pass this by lightly. Because I have gathered eighteen absurdities from this abuse of God’s ordinances, that is, from the sin of binding the brethren to observe an order not founded on the command of God (and I am sure you have no command to shut out from communion men as good, as holy, and as sound in the faith as ourselves), you therefore call my conclusion devilish, top-full of ignorance and prejudice, and me one of Machiavelli’s scholars, and proud and presumptuous as well, impeaching the judgment of God.

Answer. But what is there in my proposition that considerate men can be offended at? These are my words: “But to exclude Christians from church communion, and to deny them their heaven-born privileges, for want of something God never made a wall of division between us, looks too much like a spirit of persecution. This respects the form more than the spirit and power of godliness… Shall I add, Is it not this that greatly prevailed to bring down those judgments which we feel and groan under at present? I will dare to say it was a cause of them.” A was in my copy, and in its place the printer put in the. For this, although I speak only the truth, I will not beg you to believe me. Besides, the bookseller asked me, because of the printer’s haste, to leave the last sheet to be checked over by him, which is why it was not among the errata. But, I say, where is the proposition offensive? Is it not a wicked thing to make bars to communion where God has made none? Is it not wickedness to make that a wall of division between us which God never commanded to be so? If it is not, justify your practice; if it is, take shame. Besides, the proposition is universal; why then should you be the one chiefly intended? But in this you have done like the lawyers of old, who, when Christ reproved the Pharisees for wickedness in front of them, said, “Master, thus saying thou reproachest us also” (Luke 11:45).

But you pretend, and would have the world believe too, that the eighteen absurdities that naturally flow from the proposition I make are the effects of baptism. You say to me, “None but yourself could find an innocent truth big with so many monstrous absurdities.”

I answer: This is nothing but speaking wickedly for God, or rather, speaking to justify your wordless practice. I do not say that baptism has any absurdity in it, though your abuse of it has them all, and many more, while you make it, without warrant from the word, a kind of flaming sword to keep the brotherhood out of communion, because they cannot consent to it after your manner. And let no one be offended that I suggest baptism may be abused to the breeding of such monstrous absurdities; for greater truths than that have been just as much abused. What do you say to “This is my body”? To give no more examples, though I could give many: are these not the words of our Lord? Are they not part of the Scriptures of truth? And yet look: even with those words, the devil, by abusing them, made an engine to let out the heart’s blood of thousands. Baptism also may be abused, and it is, when we lay more on it than God has commanded. And that you do so is plain from what I have already said, and from what I will yet say in answer to your fourteen arguments.

My last argument, you say, is this: “The world may wonder at your conduct toward these unbaptized persons in keeping them out of communion.”

Answer. You set up your own words and then fight against them. But my words are these: “What greater contempt can be thrown upon the saints than for their brothers to cut them off from church communion, or to bar them from it?” And now I add: Is this not to deliver them to the devil (1 Cor 5), or to put them to shame before all who see what you do? Only one thing can prevent that, and it is this: bystanders see that these brothers of yours, whom you treat so badly, are men as holy as ourselves. Do you do any more than this to the openly profane, yes, to all the wizards and witches in the land? For all you can do to them (I speak now of church acts) is to bar them from the communion of saints.

And now I say again, the world may well wonder when they see you deny holy men of God that liberty of the communion of saints which you keep to yourselves as your own monopoly. They may not understand the grounds of profession or of communion, yet they can both see and say that these holy men of God are not one inch behind you in any visible act of holiness. Yes, I will put it to you yourselves. Those many, yes, very many, whom you so severely deny communion (and on how little ground, men of God can see): are they not as good, as holy, as blameless in life, and as sound in the faith as many among ourselves, if not sounder? This is the only place where they stop: without light, they cannot be driven into water baptism, I mean baptism as we understand it. But what if they were driven into it? That would be little sign to me that they were sincere with God.

To conclude this: when you have proved that water baptism, which you yourself have said is not a church ordinance, is essential to church communion, and that the church may, by the word of God, bolt, bar, and forever shut out those far better than ourselves who have not been baptized with water according to our understanding of it, then it will be time enough to talk of grounds for doing so. In the meantime I must take the liberty of telling you, “There is not one syllable in all the Bible for such a practice. Therefore your great cry about your order is wordless, and therefore faithless, and is a mere human invention.”

Your Fourteen Arguments

I come now to your fourteen arguments, and I will consider them impartially.

Your first argument to prove it lawful to reject the unbaptized saint is this: “Because the great commission of Christ (Matt 28), from which all persons have their authority for their ministry, if any authority at all, does clearly direct the contrary. By that commission ministers are first to disciple, and then to baptize those so made disciples, and afterward to teach them to observe all that Christ commanded them, as to other ordinances of worship. If ministers have no other authority to teach them other parts of gospel worship before they believe and are baptized, it may be strongly supposed they are not to admit them to other ordinances before they have passed this one first enjoined in the commission.”

Answer. That the ministers are to disciple and to baptize is granted. But that the commission (Matt 28) prohibits them from teaching the disciples who have no light in baptism other parts of gospel worship remains for you to prove. May I add that this position is so absurd and empty of truth that no one who has ever read with understanding of the love of Christ, the nature of faith, the end of the gospel, or the reason for instituted worship (which is edification) should so much as once imagine it?

But where are they forbidden here to teach them other truths before they are baptized? This text could just as fairly be used to deny heaven and glory to the unbaptized believer. Why, our author himself, in the midst of all his flutter about this twenty-eighth chapter of Matthew, dares to draw no more from it than that “it may be strongly supposed.” See then, gentle reader, the ground on which these brethren lay the weight of their separation from their fellows: it is nothing but a supposition, without warrant, wrung out of this blessed Word of God. Strongly supposed! But may it not be just as strongly supposed that the presence and blessing of the Lord Jesus with his ministers is laid on the same ground too? For this is how he concludes the text: “And lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world” (Matt 28:20). But would anyone, I ask, conclude from these words that Christ Jesus has here promised his presence only to those who, after discipling, baptize those who have been made disciples, and that those who do not baptize will have neither his presence nor his blessing? I say again, if anyone drew that conclusion from this text, would not all experience prove him empty of truth? So you must leave the words as you found them. They do not favor your groundless supposition at all.

To conclude: these words have not laid baptism in the way to bar the saint from the fellowship of his brethren, any more than to hinder his inheritance in life and glory. Mark reads it this way: “He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned” (Mark 16:16). He lets baptism, which he mentioned in the promise, drop when he comes to the threatening. God also deals this way with respect to his worship in the church. He commands all of his will, every bit of it, to be done, but he bears with our coming short in this duty, and that one, and another. But let’s go on.

Your second argument is this: “That the order of Christ’s commission, as well as the matter contained in it, is to be observed may easily be concluded from God’s severity toward those that sought him not according to due order (1 Chr 15:13). Was God so exact with his people then, that all things to a pin must be according to the pattern in the mount (Heb 8:5; Heb 9:11), whose worship then, compared to the gospel, was but after the law of a carnal commandment; and can it be supposed he should be so indifferent now as to leave men to their own liberty, to time and place his appointments, contrary to what he had given an express rule for in his word as before (Ezek 44:7, 9-10)? It was the priest’s sin formerly to bring the uncircumcised in heart and flesh into his house.”

Answer. I have proved that there is no such order in that commission as you pretend. As for your far-fetched example (1 Chr 15), it is quite beside your purpose. The express word was that the priest, not a cart, should carry the ark of God. Also, they were not to touch it, and yet Uzza did (Exod 25:14; 1 Chr 15:12-16; Num 4:15; 1 Chr 13). Now, if you can make that twenty-eighth chapter of Matthew say, “Receive no one who has not been baptized first,” or say that Christ would have those of his who are not yet baptized kept ignorant of all other truths that concern church communion, then you are saying something. Otherwise you are only raising a mist before the simple reader; but anyone who likes may hang on your sleeve and take your word for it. As for the pins and tacks of the tabernacle, they were expressly commanded. When you have proved by the Word of God that you ought to shut saints out of your communion for lack of baptism, then you may begin, with more justice, to draw your parallel. How fitly you have urged Ezekiel 44 to insinuate that unbaptized believers are like the uncircumcised in heart and flesh, I leave for even beginners in the gospel to consider.

Your third argument is this: “The practice of the first gospel ministers with those that first trusted in Christ reveals the truth of what I assert. Certainly they that lived at the spring-head, or fountain of truth, and had the law from Christ’s own mouth, knew the meaning of his commission better than we; but their constant practice in conformity to that commission, all along the Acts of the Apostles, reveals that they never arrived at such a latitude as men plead for nowadays. They that gladly received the word were baptized, and they, yes, they only, were received into the church.”

Answer. How well you have proved what you assert is plain from my answer to the two previous arguments. I add this. Some things have not yet been shown by the authority of the Word: that the ministers and servants of Jesus Christ in the first churches were commanded to refrain from preaching other truths to unbaptized believers (for that is what you have to prove); or that they were to keep them out of the church; or that the apostles and first fathers have given you to understand by their example that you ought to keep people as good as yourselves out of churches. The account in Acts 2 does not prove that the three thousand were required to be baptized in order to have fellowship with the church. Nor does it say that they, yes, they only, were received into the church. But suppose all this. As much was done at the first institution of circumcision, and so on, and yet afterward thousands were received without it.

Your fourth argument is this: “None of the Scripture saints ever attempted this church privilege without baptism; if they did, let it be shown. The eunuch first desired baptism before anything else; Paul was first baptized before he did attempt to join with the church. Our Lord Christ, the great example of the New Testament, entered not upon his public ministry, much less any other gospel ordinance of worship, till he was baptized.”

Answer. That none of the Scripture saints (if there are any saints who are not Scripture ones) so much as attempted this church privilege first remains for you to prove. But suppose they were all baptized because they had light in it: what then? Does this prove that baptism is essential to church communion? Or that Christ commanded in the twenty-eighth chapter of Matthew, or gave his ministers authority by it, not to make known to believers other parts of gospel worship if they happen to lack light in baptism? The eunuch, Paul, and our blessed Lord Jesus did none of them, by their baptism, set themselves before us as examples of how to enter into church communion. What church was the eunuch baptized into, or made a member of? But where is it said that the unbaptized believer, however excellent in faith and holiness, must be shut out from the communion of saints for lack of water baptism, or be barred from the privilege of his Father’s house? This is what you have to prove.

Your fifth argument is this: “If Christ himself was made manifest to be the sent of God by baptism, as appears (Mark 1:9-10), then why may not baptism, as the first fruits of faith and the first step of gospel obedience as to instituted worship, be a manifesting, revealing ordinance upon others who thus follow Christ’s steps?”

Answer. That Jesus Christ was manifested as the sent of God by baptism, or that baptism is the first fruit of faith and the first step of gospel obedience as to instituted worship, is both without proof and without truth. The text does not say that he was manifested to be the sent of God by baptism. No, it does not even say that he was thereby manifested to others to be anything at all. So you have only wronged the text in using it to prove your practice, which has no word from God behind it. Indeed, John himself knew him to be a man of God before he was baptized, for he says, “I have need to be baptized of thee, and comest thou to me?” (Matt 3:14). And afterward he knew him to be the sent of God, yet not in or by his baptism, but after he was baptized: that is, by the descent of the Holy Spirit after he had come out of the water, as he was praying. For the heavens were opened to John (John 1:30-34), and he saw and bore record, because he saw the Spirit descend from heaven and remain on Jesus after his baptism, as he was praying (Matt 3:13-17; Luke 3:21-22). So we find him made known to be the sent of God before his baptism and after it, but not by baptism at all.

And that baptism is the fruit of faith, or that faith ought to be tied to taking its first step in the instituted worship of God in water baptism: this you must prove. It is not found expressed anywhere in the whole Bible. Faith acts according to its strength and as it sees. It is not tied or bound to any outward circumstance. One believes he may do this or that, and another believes he may not.

Your sixth argument is this: “If baptism be in any sense any part of the foundation of a church, as to order (Heb 6:1-2), it must have place here or nowhere. Why are those things called first principles, if not first to be believed and practiced? Why are they rendered by the learned the A, B, C of a Christian, and the beginning of Christianity, milk for babes, if it be no matter whether baptism be practiced or no? If it be said water baptism is not there intended, let them show me how many baptisms there are besides water baptism. Can you build and leave out a stone in the foundation? I intend not baptism a foundation any other way but in respect of order, and it is either intended for that or nothing.”

Answer. Baptism is in no sense the foundation of a church. I find no foundation of a church but Jesus Christ himself (Matt 16:18; 1 Cor 3:11). Yes, the foundation mentioned in Hebrews 6:1-2 is nothing else but this very Christ. For he is the foundation not only of the church but of all the good that is ever found in her. He is the foundation of our repentance, and of our faith toward God (verses 1 and 2). Further, baptisms are not mentioned here with respect to the act in water but with respect to the doctrine, that is, what it signifies: “the doctrine of baptisms.” And notice that neither faith, nor repentance, nor baptisms are called foundations here. The Holy Spirit intends something else here as the foundation, a foundation for them all: a foundation of faith, of repentance, of the doctrine of baptisms, of the resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgment. And this foundation is Jesus Christ himself. These are the first principles, the milk, the A, B, C, and the beginning of the Christian religion in the world. I dare not say that it makes no difference whether water baptism is practiced or not. But it is not a stone in the foundation of a church, no, not even with respect to order. It is not a sign to another person of my sonship with God. It is not the door into fellowship with the saints. It is no church ordinance, as you yourself have testified. So then, as to church work, it has no place in it at all.

Your seventh argument is this: “If Paul knew the Galatians, only upon the account of charity, no other way to be the sons of God by faith but by this part of their obedience, as he seems to imply, then in the same way we judge of the truth of men’s profession of faith, when it shows itself by this selfsame obedience, baptism being an obligation to all following duties” (Gal 3:26-27).

Answer. This argument of yours is built on no more than a seeming implication, and it has been overthrown more than ten times already. I might leave it with you until your seeming implication has become a real one, and until both have come to carry greater conviction with your own conscience. But truly, sir, you grossly abuse your reader. Must implications, yes, must seeming implications, now stand in for arguments, to maintain your confident separation from your brethren? Yes, must things like these be the basis on which you build those heavy censures and condemnations that you raise against your brethren who cannot go along with you, because you lack the Word? A seeming implication! But are these words of faith? Or do the Scriptures help you only to seeming implications and maybe-so’s for your practice? No, they do not even help you to those. For I dare boldly affirm it, and I challenge you to prove the contrary if you can: there is not so much as a seeming implication in all the Word of God that supports your shutting men better than ourselves out of the things and privileges of our Father’s house. That passage to the Galatians does not say that Paul knew them to be the sons of God by faith in no other way but by this part of their obedience. Rather, it prompts them to conclude that they themselves were the sons of God if they were baptized into the Lord Jesus. Ordinarily that could not be known to anyone but themselves, because being baptized in this way concerns a special act of faith, which only God and the one who has that faith and exercises it can know about. It is one thing for the one who administers baptism to baptize in the name of Jesus, and another thing for the one who receives it to be baptized by it into Jesus Christ. Being baptized into Christ is the act of the faith of the one who is baptized, rather than his going into the water and coming out again. But to claim that Paul knew this to be the state of the Galatians in no other way but by their outward act of being baptized with water is both wild and unsound, and a miserable implication indeed.

Your eighth argument is this: “If being baptized into Christ be a putting on of Christ, as Paul expresses, then they have not put on Christ, in that sense he means, that are not baptized. If this putting on of Christ does not respect the visibility of Christianity, assign something else as its signification. Great men’s servants are known by their master’s liveries; so are gospel believers by this livery of water baptism, that all that first trusted in Christ submitted to; which is in itself as much an obligation to all gospel obedience as circumcision was to keep the whole law.”

Answer. For a reply to the first part of this argument, go back to the answer to the seventh. Now, that no one has put on Christ in Paul’s sense, yes, in a saving sense, the best sense, except those who have gone into the water as you would have them do: this will be hard for you to prove, and indeed it is ungodly for you to assert it. Your comparing water baptism to a gentleman’s livery, by which a man is known to be his, is fanciful. Just go ten doors away from where people know you, and see how many of the world, or of Christians, will know you by this fine livery to be someone who has put on Christ. What! Known by water baptism to be someone who has put on Christ, as a gentleman’s man is known to be his master’s servant by the fine clothes his master gave him? Away with you, foolish man! You have quite forgotten the text: “By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another” (John 13:35). As for baptism being binding in itself, strictly speaking, that is false. For set it by itself, and it stands without the stamp of heaven on it, and without its meaning too; and how, as such, it should bind anyone, I cannot see. When you insinuate that it comes in the place of circumcision and binds as circumcision did, you do not know what you are saying (Acts 15:1-2). Circumcision was the initiating ordinance, but you have denied that role to baptism. Further, circumcision bound men to obey the whole law then, when it was urged by the false apostles and received with an erroneous conscience (Gal 5:1-4). Would you urge water baptism like that? Would you have men receive it with such consciences? Circumcision in the flesh was a type of circumcision in the heart, and not of water baptism (Rom 2:28-29; Phil 3:3).

Your ninth argument is this: “If it were commendable in the Thessalonians that they followed the footsteps of the church of Judea (1 Thess 2:14), who, it appears, followed this order of adding baptized believers to the church, then they that have found out another way of making church members are not by that rule praiseworthy, but rather to be blamed. It was not what came since, in corrupted times, but that which was from the beginning: the first churches were the purest pattern.”

Answer. I do not find in 1 Thessalonians 2:14 that the text says there was a church of Judea. And as for the Thessalonians being commended for refusing to have communion with unbaptized believers (for that is our question), prove it by the Word, and then you will be doing something. Again, to say that the commendation there mainly concerns their being baptized, or concerns it at all, or that they were commended for following the churches of God which in Judea were in Christ Jesus in the example of water baptism, is quite beside the Word. The verse runs like this: “For ye, brethren, became followers of the churches of God which in Judea are in Christ Jesus: for ye also have suffered like things of your own countrymen, even as they have of the Jews.” So this text commends them, not because they were baptized with water, but because they stood their ground, though baptized with suffering, like those in Judea, for the name of the Lord Jesus: for suffering like things from their own countrymen, as those churches did from the Jews. Will you not stop abusing the Word of God even now, and stop turning it out of its place to maintain your unchristian practice of rejecting the people of God and shutting them out of their blessed privileges? The unbaptized believer, instead of being ashamed for entering into fellowship without baptism, will be ready, I suspect, to put you to shame for bringing Scriptures so far beside the purpose, and for stretching them so miserably to uphold you in your fancies.

Your tenth argument is this: “If it be so that any of the members at Corinth, Galatia, Colossae, Rome, or those that Peter wrote to were not baptized, then Paul’s arguments to them for the resurrection, or to press them to holiness from that ground (Rom 6; Col 2; 1 Cor 15) were beside the point and altogether needless. Yes, it bespeaks his ignorance and throws contempt on the Spirit’s wisdom (Heb 6; 1 Pet 3:21), by which he wrote, if that must be asserted as a ground to provoke them to such an end, which had no being. And if all the members of all those churches were baptized, why should anyone plead for an exemption from baptism for any church member now?”

Answer. Suppose they all were. If all these churches were baptized, what then? That does not answer our question. We ask where you find it written that those who are baptized should keep men as holy as themselves, and as much loved by the Lord Jesus, out of church communion for want of light in water baptism. The reason we plead for their admission, though they do not yet see that it is their duty, is that we are not forbidden but commanded to receive them, because God and Christ have received them (Rom 14; Rom 15).

Your eleventh argument is: “If unbaptized persons must be received into churches only because they are believers, though they deny baptism, then why may not others who are negligent in any other gospel ordinance of worship plead for the same privilege, on the same ground of want of light, let it be what it will? So then, as the consequence of this principle, churches may be made up of visible sinners instead of visible saints.”

Answer. 1. I do not plead for believers simply because they are believers, but for such believers as we are persuaded by the word that God has received.

2. There are some ordinances which, if they are neglected, take the very being of a church, as to her visible gospel constitution, quite away. But baptism is not one of them. It is no church ordinance as such, nor any part of faith, nor any part of that holiness of heart or life that shows me to the church to be indeed a visible saint. The saint is a saint before baptism, and may walk with God, and be faithful with the saints and to his own light as well, even though he is never baptized. Therefore to plead for his admission makes no way at all for the admission of the openly profane, or for receiving, as you profess you do, persons unprepared for the Lord’s table and other solemn appointments (see page 29 of your book).

Your twelfth argument is: “Why should professing Christians have more light in breaking of bread than in baptism, that this must be so urged for their excuse? Has God been more sparing in making known his mind in the one rather than the other? Are there more precepts or precedents for the supper than for baptism? Has God been so generous in making himself known about the supper that few or none who own ordinances scruple it? And must baptism be such a rock of offense to professing Christians that very few will inquire after it or submit to it? Has not man’s wisdom interposed to darken this part of God’s counsel, by which professing Christians seem willingly led, though against so many plain commands and examples, written as with a sunbeam, so that he who runs may read? And must an advocate be engaged to plead for so gross a piece of ignorance, which the weakest babes of the first gospel times were never guilty of?”

Answer. Many words to little purpose.

1. Must God be called to account by you as to why he gives more light about the supper than about baptism? May he not show to, or hide from, this or that servant of his whichever of his truths he pleases? Some of the members of the church at Jerusalem had a greater truth than this kept from them, for all I know, as long as they lived (Acts 11:19); yet God was not called into question about it.

2. Breaking of bread, not baptism, is a church ordinance, and one that must also be often repeated. Yes, it is an ordinance so full of blessedness as to set forth vividly union and communion with Christ to all the members who eat of it worthily. I say, the Lord’s supper is such that while the members sit at that feast, they show to each other the death and blood of the Lord, as they ought to do, till he comes (1 Cor 10:15-17; 1 Cor 11:25-26). The church as a church is therefore much more concerned in that than in water baptism, both as to her faith and comfort, and as to her union and communion.

3. Your supposition that very few professing Christians will seriously inquire after water baptism is too harsh. What! Must all the children of God who are not baptized for want of light still be branded with want of serious inquiry after God’s mind in it?

4. That I am an advocate, engaged to plead for so gross a piece of ignorance as want of light in baptism, is just like the rest of your jumbling. I plead for communion with men who are godly and faithful. I plead that those may be received whom God has shown us he has received, and whom he has commanded us to receive.

Your thirteenth argument is: “If obedience must reveal the truth of a man’s faith to others, why must baptism be shut out, as if it were no part of gospel obedience? Is there no precept for this practice, that it must be thus despised as a matter of little use? Or shall one of Christ’s precious commands be blotted out of a Christian’s obedience to make way for a church fellowship of man’s devising?”

Answer. 1. This is only round and round, the same thing over and over. That my obedience to water is not what reveals my faith to others is evident from the whole body of the Bible: we find nothing there that affirms it. And I will now add this: if a man cannot show himself a Christian without water baptism, he will never show either saint or sinner that he is a Christian by it.

2. Who they are that despise it, I do not know. But that church membership may exist without it stands with both Scripture and reason, as my arguments make plain, seeing that even you yourself have concluded that it is no church ordinance (page 40 of your book), nor the entering ordinance (pages 3 and 4). So all your arguments prove no more than this: that you are so wedded to your notions, which have no word from God behind them, that charity can have no place with you. In all this time, have you given me so much as one small piece of a text to prove it unlawful for the church to receive those whom she perceives, by the word, that the Lord God and her Christ have received? No. And therefore all you have said amounts to nothing.

Your last argument is: “If the baptism of John was so far honored and dignified that those who submitted to it are said to justify God, and those who did not are said to reject his counsel against themselves, so that their receiving or rejecting the whole doctrine of God takes its name from this single practice, is there not as much to be said of the baptism of Christ, unless you will say that it is inferior to John’s in worth and use?”

Answer. 1. That our being called believers, and our being said to receive the doctrine of the Lord Jesus, is not to be reckoned from our baptism is evident. For according to our understanding of baptism, only those who have already received the doctrine of the gospel, and so show it to us by their confession of faith, ought to be baptized. This might serve as an answer to the whole.

2. But the baptism of John was “the baptism of repentance, for the remission of sins” (Mark 1:4; Matt 3:6; Luke 3:3), of which water was only an outward sign. Now what is the baptism of repentance but an unfeigned acknowledgment that they were sinners, and so stood in need of a Savior, Jesus Christ? This baptism, or baptism understood in this way, the Pharisees would not receive (Luke 7:29-30). For they “trusted in themselves that they were righteous,” and that they were “not as other men,” and that they had need of no repentance (Luke 18:9; Luke 10:29; Luke 15:7). It was not that they would have refused to be baptized with water, if that could have been done without acknowledging that they were sinners (Matt 3:7). Therefore, seeing that the counsel of God had regard to the remission of sins by Jesus Christ rather than to the outward act of water baptism, you ought not, as you do by this reasoning of yours, to make it end in the outward act of being baptized, at least in the revelation of it. You ought to make it end in unfeigned and sound repentance and the receiving of Jesus Christ by faith (Eph 1:7-8, 11).

Further, a desire to submit to John’s water baptism, or to be baptized by him in water, did not by that single act demonstrate the receiving of the whole doctrine of God, as you suggest. Why did John reject the Pharisees who would have been baptized (Matt 3:7), and why did Paul examine those who had been (Acts 19:2-3)? If your doctrine is true, why did they not rather say, “Oh! Seeing you desire to be baptized, seeing you have been baptized, you need not be questioned any further. Your submitting to John’s water, even that single act, is to us a sufficient testimony that you have received the whole doctrine of God”? But I ask, why did John call them vipers? And why did Paul ask them whether they had yet “received the Holy Ghost”? Yes, it is evident that a man may desire water, that a man may be baptized, and yet neither own the doctrine of repentance nor know on whom he should believe. It is evident, I say, and that by the same texts (Matt 3:7; Acts 19:2-4).

You have therefore grounded this last argument of yours, as well as the rest, on an utter mistake of things.

Your Questions

I come now to your questions. Although they are mixed with gall, I will patiently see if I can turn them into food.

Your first question is: “I ask your own heart whether popularity, and the applause of a variety of professing Christians, is not at the bottom of what you have said, which has been your snare to pervert the right ways of the Lord, and to lead others into a path in which we can find none of the footsteps of the flock in the first ages?”

Answer. Setting aside any retaliation in the manner of your question, I say, and God knows I speak the truth, that I have been tempted to do what I have done by a provocation sixteen years long. I have been tempted, I say, by the brethren of your way, who, whenever they saw their opportunity, have made it their business to try to tear us to pieces. My own self they have tried to persuade to forsake the church. Some they have torn right away from us. Others they have tried and tried to divide and break off from us, but by the mercy of God they have so far been prevented. You may have a fuller account in my next, if you think fit to demand it. But I thank God that I have written what I have written.

Question 2. “Have you dealt as a brother, or like a Christian, in throwing so much dirt on your brethren in print, in the face of the world, when you had an opportunity before printing to converse with those of reputation among us, being allowed the liberty by them at the same time to speak among them?”

Answer. I have thrown no dirt on them, nor laid anything to their charge, if their practice is warranted by the word. But you have not been offended at the dirt you yourselves have thrown at all the godly in the land who are not of our persuasion, in counting them unfit to be communed with, or kept company with, in the house of God. This dirt you never complained of, nor would you, I suspect, to this day, if you might still be left alone to throw it. As to my book, it was printed before I spoke with any of you, or knew whether I might be accepted by you. As to those of reputation among you, I know others not one bit inferior to them, and I have liberty to consult with whomever I like best.

Question 3. “Does your conduct answer to the law of love or civility, that when the brethren took steps to send for you to a conference, and their letter was received by you, you should go out of the city again after knowing their desires, and not grant them a meeting, when the glory of God and the vindication of so many churches are concerned?”

Answer. The reason I did not come among you was partly that I considered my own weakness. Being a slow-witted man, I did not count myself able to take on so many of the chief of you as I was then told intended to meet me. I also feared that in personal disputes heated words and bitter contentions might arise, a thing my spirit takes no pleasure in. I feared too that both I and my words would be misrepresented, and not without cause. For if those who answer a book will alter arguments and wrench them out of their place, and make my sentences stand in their own words, not mine, when (I say) my words are there in a book to be seen, what would you have done had I gone wrong among you in the least, either in matter or manner, even if only in appearance? As for the many churches which you say are concerned, as well as the glory of God, I do not hesitate to say that it is only your opinions, which have no word from God behind them, that are concerned. The glory of God is vindicated: we receive him whom God has received, and that “to the glory of God” (Rom 15:7).

Question 4. “Is it not the spirit of Diotrephes of old in you, who loved to have the preeminence, that you are so bold as to keep all the brethren who are not of your mind in this matter from having any welcome in the churches or meetings to which you belong, though you yourself have not been denied the same liberty among those who are of a contrary mind to you? Is this the way of your retaliation? Or are you afraid that the truth should invade your quarters?”

Answer. I can say that I would not have the spirit you talk of; whatever I have of it, may God take it from me. But what was the spirit of Diotrephes? Why, it was not to receive the brethren into the church, and to forbid those who would (3 John 9-10). This I do not do. I am for communion with saints because they are saints. I shut none of the brethren out of the churches, nor do I forbid those who would receive them. I say again: show me the man who is a visible believer and who walks with God, and though he differs with me about baptism, the doors of the church stand open for him, and he shall be admitted to all our heaven-born privileges. But how did Diotrephes come so lately into our parts? Where was he in those days when our brethren of the baptized way would neither receive into the church nor pray with men as good as themselves, because they were not baptized, but would either stand, like Quakers, with their hats on their heads, or else withdraw till we had finished?

As to our not allowing those you plead for to preach in our assemblies, the reason is that we cannot yet prevail with them to repent of their church-rending principles. As to the retaliation, mark the hand of God, and remember Adoni-bezek (Judg 1:7). Let the truth come into our quarters, and welcome. But as for sowers of discord, because the Lord hates it (Prov 6:19), we ourselves will also avoid them (Rom 16:17-18).

Question 5. “Is there no contempt cast on the brethren who desired your satisfaction, in that at the very time when you had opportunity to speak to them, instead of doing so you committed the letters to others, by way of reflection on them?”

Answer. It is no contempt at all to consult men wiser and more judicious than the man who wrote, or than I am either. But why not consult with others? Is wisdom to die with you? Or do you count everything that you yourselves have no hand in as done to your disparagement?

Question 6. “Did not your presumption prompt you to provoke them to printing, in your letter to them, when they desired to be found in no such practice, lest the enemies of truth should take advantage of it?”

Answer. What provoked you to print will be best known at the day of judgment, whether it was your fear of losing your opinion, which has no word from God behind it, or my plain answer to your letter. The words in my letter are: “As for my book, never put off answering it till you speak with me, for I strive not for mastery but truth.” Though you did not desire to write, yet among us there was continual labor to tear us to pieces, and my first book was written to prevent that. And let whoever will take advantage, so long as the truth of God and the edification of my brother are promoted.

Question 7. “Is not your principle and practice equally against others as well as us, namely Episcopalians, Presbyterians, and Independents, who are also on our side as to our practice, though they differ with us about the subject of baptism? Do you delight to have your hand against every man?”

Answer. I acknowledge water baptism to be God’s ordinance, but I make no idol of it. Where you now call on the Episcopalians, and the Presbyterians too, and the rest, to side with you, you will not find them easily persuaded to join with you against me. They are against your manner of dipping as well as against your view of the subject of water baptism. Nor do you, for all your flattering of them, agree with them in everything but the subject. Do you allow their sprinkling? Do you allow their signing with the cross? Why then have you so stoutly condemned these things as antichristian a hundred times over? I am not against every man, though by your abusive language you would set everyone against me. But I am for union, concord, and communion with saints as saints, and for that cause I wrote my book.

To conclude:

1. In all I have said, I make a distinction among my brethren of the baptized way. I know some are more moderate than others.

2. When I plead for the unbaptized, I chiefly mean those who are not baptized in the way my brethren judge right, according to the first pattern.

3. If anyone shall count my papers worth scribbling against, let him deal with my arguments and the things that immediately depend on them, and not conclude that he has refuted a book when he has only quarreled with words.

4. I have done when I have told you that I strive not for mastery, nor to show myself singular, but, if it might be, for union and communion among the godly. And do not count me an enemy because I tell you the truth.

5. And now, dissenting brethren, I commend you to God, who can pardon your sin and give you more grace, and an inheritance among those who are sanctified by faith in Jesus Christ. Amen.

Sir,

I have received and considered your short reply to my Differences in Judgment About Water Baptism No Bar to Communion. I observe that you do not touch the argument at all. Instead you labor as hard as you can, and harder than you ought, to throw odium on your brother for reproving you for your error, namely, “That those believers that have been baptized after confession of faith made by themselves ought, and are in duty bound, to exclude from their church fellowship, and communion at the table of the Lord, those of their holy brethren that have not been so baptized.”

This is your error. I call it error because it is not founded on the word, but is a mere human device. For although I do not deny, but acknowledge, that baptism is God’s ordinance, yet I have denied that baptism was ever ordained by God to be a wall of division between the holy and the holy: the holy who are, and the holy who are not, baptized with water as we are. You, on the contrary, assert both by doctrine and by practice that it is. And therefore you separate yourselves from all your brethren who differ from you in that matter. In spite of their saving faith and holy lives, you count them not fitly qualified for church communion, and all because they have not been baptized as you have. Further, you count their communion among themselves unlawful, and therefore unwarrantable. You have concluded that “they are joined to idols, and that they ought not to be shown the pattern of the house of God, until they be ashamed of their sprinkling in their infancy, and accept of and receive baptism as you.” Yes, you count them, as they stand, not to be the churches of God, saying, “We have no such custom, nor the churches of God.” At this I have called for your proofs, and you have attempted to produce them. But in the end you have shown nothing other than this: “That the primitive churches had those they received baptized before so received.”

I have told you that this, even if it were granted, does not come up to the question. For we do not ask “whether they were so baptized,” but “whether you find a word in the Bible that justifies your concluding that it is your duty to exclude those of your holy brethren that have not been so baptized.” At this you cry out that I am taking up the arguments of those who plead for infant baptism. I answer: I take up no other argument but your own, namely, “That there being no precept, precedent, nor example in all the Scripture for our excluding our holy brethren that differ in this point from us, therefore we ought not to dare to do it.” On the contrary, we ought to receive them. For God has given us sufficient proof that he himself has received them, and he has commanded us to follow his example in this case (Rom 14:3, 15). This might serve as an answer to your reply. But if I ended here, some might perhaps make ill use of my brevity. So I will briefly follow after you and examine your short reply, at least wherever there is any show of argument.

Your first five pages are spent proving me either proud or a liar, because I stated on the title page of my Differences that your book was written by the Baptists, or the brethren of your way.

In answer to this: whoever reads your second, fifth, and sixth questions to me, if he reads them without bias, may perhaps not be easily persuaded otherwise. But in your reply you have left out the last two. Whether you did so for brevity’s sake, or because you were conscious that the sight of them would overthrow your insinuations, I leave to sober people to judge. But suppose I had failed in this. Does that warrant your unlawful practice?

You ask me next how long it has been since I was a Baptist, and then add, “It is an ill bird that fouls his own nest.”

Answer. Passing over your slovenly language, I must tell you that I know of none to whom that title belongs so properly as to the disciples of John. And since you want to know by what name I would be distinguished from others, I tell you: I would be, and hope I am, a Christian. And if God should count me worthy, I choose to be called a Christian, a Believer, or some other such name that is approved by the Holy Spirit (Acts 11:26). As for those factious titles of Anabaptists, Independents, Presbyterians, and the like, I conclude that they came neither from Jerusalem nor from Antioch, but rather from hell and Babylon. For they naturally tend to divisions: “you may know them by their fruits.”

Next, you tell us of your goodly harmony in London, or of the “amicable Christian correspondence between those of different persuasions there, until my turbulent and mutinous spirit got up.”

Answer. I told you the cause of my writing, and you have not disproved it, either in whole or in part. And now I ask: what kind of Christian correspondence do you have with them? Is it the kind that relates to church communion? Or is it only the kind you are commanded to have with every brother who walks disorderly, so that they may be ashamed of their church communion, which you condemn? If it is the latter, your great flourish will add no praise to them. And that you should glory in a correspondence with them as Christians, while you count them under so deadly a sin that, as they now stand, it will by no means allow you to admit them to their Father’s table, I do not find easy to believe.

Further, your Christian correspondence, as you call it, does not keep you from now and then filching some of their members away from them, nor from teaching those you take away to judge and condemn those who are left behind. Now who boasts of this besides yourself, I do not know.

As for Mr. Jessey’s judgment on the case in hand, you know that it condemns your practice. And since in your first book you called for an author’s testimony, I have presented you with one whose arguments you have not condemned.

As for your insinuating that my abusive and unworthy behavior was the cause of the brethren’s attempting to break our Christian communion, that is not only false but ridiculous. It is false, for they tried to make me one of their disciples too, and sent both to me and for me for that purpose; and this attempt began more than sixteen years ago. Besides, it is ridiculous. Surely their pretended order, and what they call our disorder, was the cause. Otherwise they must make themselves out to be very malicious, seeking the overthrow of a whole congregation for the unworthy behavior of one, even if it had been so.

Now, since you tell me on page 9 “that Mr. Kiffin has no need of my forgiveness for the wrong he has done me in his epistle,” I ask: did he tell you so? But let that lie as it is. I will at this time turn his own argument on him, and I want his direct answer. There being no precept, precedent, or example for Mr. Kiffin to exclude from Christian communion his holy brethren who differ with him about baptism, he ought not to do it. But there is neither precept, precedent, nor example; therefore he ought not to do it.

You blame me for writing his name out in full. But I know he is not ashamed of his name. And for you to suggest otherwise, even in the remotest way, must be damaging to him.

Your artful, sniping suggestions to the world about me, my imprisonment, and the like, I freely bind on myself as an ornament among the rest of my reproaches, until the Lord wipes them off at his coming. But they are no argument that you have a word that binds you to exclude the holy brethren from communion.

Now what if, as you suggest, the sober Dr. Owen, though he told me and others at first that he would write an epistle for my book, afterward waived it? This too is to my advantage, because it was the earnest pleading of several of you that stopped his hand at that time. And perhaps it was more for the glory of God that truth should go naked into the world than seconded by so mighty an armor-bearer as he.

You also tell me that some of the sober Independents have shown dislike for my writing on this subject. What of it? If I should also say, as I can without lying, that several of the Baptists have wished your book burned before it ever came to light, is your book any the worse for that?

On page 13 you tell us that you do not meddle with Presbyterians, Independents, or mixed Communionists (a new name), but are for liberty for all according to their light.

Answer. Then I ask: suppose a holy man of God who differs from you in the manner of water baptism, as those named above do. Suppose, I say, that such a one should desire communion with you while still abiding by his own light in the matter in question. Would you receive him into fellowship? If not, are you not dissembling?

But you add, “If unbaptized believers do not walk with us, they may walk with them with whom they are better agreed.”

Answer. Then it seems you are only flattering them. For all your pretense of giving them their liberty, you do not agree that they should have it with you. This is how the Papists give the Protestants their liberty: because they have no choice in the matter.

Again, do you not pursue them with clamors and outcries that their communion, even among themselves, is unwarrantable? How then do you give them their liberty? No, do not these very things declare that you would take it away if you could?

“For the time that I have been a Baptist,” you say, “I do not remember that ever I knew that one unbaptized person did so much as offer themselves to us for church fellowship.”

Answer. This is no proof of your love for your brethren. It is rather an argument that your rigidness has been so plain from that day to this that those good souls despaired of making any such attempt. We know they have done it elsewhere, where they hoped to meet with encouragement.

On page 14 you seem to take back your earlier position, now denying that baptism is the initiating ordinance. And indeed Mr. D’Anvers told me that you would have to retract that opinion, and that he had spoken, or would speak, to you about doing so. Yet some still acknowledge it to be the initiating ordinance, and in particular your great helper Mr. Denne, who strives to maintain it by several arguments. But your denial may be a sufficient refutation of him. So I leave the two of you to agree about it between yourselves, and I conclude that you have overthrown him.

But it seems that although you do not now own baptism to be the entrance into a particular church, yet, as you tell us on page 14 of your last, “you never denied that baptism makes a believer a member of the universal, orderly, church visible.” And in this Mr. D’Anvers and you agree. “Persons enter into the visible church thereby,” he says.

Answer. 1. Universal means the whole church. This word takes in all its parts, from Adam to the very end of the world, whether in heaven or on earth. Now that water baptism makes a man a member of this church I do not yet believe, nor can you show me why I should.

2. The universal, orderly church. What church this could be, if by orderly you mean harmony or agreement in the outward parts of worship, I do not understand either.

And yet this must be what you mean, because at the end you add the word visible to it all: “The universal, orderly, visible church.” Now I would still like to learn from this brother where this church is. For if it is visible, he can tell us where and also show it. But to be brief, there is no such church. The universal church cannot be visible, since a great part of that vast body is already in heaven, and a great part, perhaps, is not yet born.

But if by universal he means the whole of that part of this church which is on earth, then it is neither “visible” nor “orderly.”

(1) It is not visible, for that part always remains utterly invisible to even the best man’s eye.

(2) This church is not orderly; that is, it does not have harmony in its outward and visible parts of worship, since some parts oppose and contradict the others most severely. Indeed, would it be uncharitable to believe that some of the members of this body could willingly die opposing what other members hold to be a truth of Christ? For instance, here at home: could not some of those called Baptists die opposing infant baptism? And again, could not some of those who are for infant baptism die for it as a truth? Here, then, is no order, but an evident contradiction, and that in parts of worship which both sides count to be visible parts of worship indeed.

So then by “universal, orderly, visible church” this brother must mean only those saints who have been, or are, baptized as we are. This is clear, because baptism, he says, makes a believer a member of this church. His meaning, then, is that there is a universal, orderly, visible church, made up of the Baptists alone; that everyone who is baptized is thereby made a member of the universal, orderly, visible church of Baptists; and that the whole number of the rest of the saints are utterly excluded.

But now, if other men should do as this man does, how many universal churches would we have? A “universal, orderly, visible church of Independents,” a “universal, orderly, visible church of Presbyterians,” and the like. And which of them, if they were as confused in their notions as this brother, might not, judging by their own light, contend for their universal church as he does for his? But they have more sense.

But suppose this unheard-of, fictitious church were the only true universal church. Still, whoever they baptize must first be a visible saint. If a visible saint, then a visible member of Christ; and if so, then a visible member of his body, which is the church, before they are baptized. Now when a man is already a visible member of the church, whatever has made him so has forestalled every claim that anyone may make for this or that ordinance, or credit to it, as the thing that makes him so (Acts 8:37; Acts 19:17; Acts 16:33). His visibility is already there. He is already a visible member of the body of Christ, and after that he is baptized. His baptism, then, makes him neither a member nor a visible member of the body of Jesus Christ.

You go on: “That I said it was consent that makes persons members of particular churches is true.”

Answer. But that it is consent and nothing else, consent without faith and so on, is false. Your later attempt to heal your unsound saying will do you no good: “Faith gives being to, as well as proof for, membership.”

What you now say of the epistles, that they were written to particular saints, and to those outside churches as well as in them, I always believed. But in your first book you were pleased to say, “You were one of them that objected against our proofs out of the epistles, because they were written to particular churches (meaning these baptized), and that they were written to other saints would be hard for me to prove.” But you do well to give way to the truth.

What I said about baptism being a pest, take my words as they lie, and I still stand by them: “Knowing that Satan can make any of God’s ordinances a pest and plague to his people, even baptism, the Lord’s table, and the holy Scriptures; yes, the ministers also of Jesus Christ may be allowed to abuse them, and wrench them out of their place.” So I ask you, if you write again, either to consent to this position or to deny it before you go on with your outcry.

But I must still keep telling you, though you do not love to hear it, that, supposing your opinion has hold of your conscience, if you could have your will you would make inroads and outroads too in all the churches in the land that are not as you are. You reckon that church privileges do not belong to those who are not baptized as we are, saying, “How can we take these privileges from them before they have them? We keep them from a disorderly practice of ordinances, especially among ourselves.” By this you imply that you do what you can among others too. And whoever will judge those he does not walk with, or say, as you do, that like Ephraim they are “joined to an idol, and ought to repent and be ashamed of that idol before they be shown the pattern of the house,” and then back it all up by citing a text, does so either in jest or in earnest. If in jest, it is abominable. If in earnest, his conscience is engaged. And once it is engaged, it drives him to do what he can to root out what he counts idolatrous and abominable from the churches elsewhere, as well as from the one he stands in relation to. This being so, it is reasonable to conclude that you lack not the heart, but only the opportunity, for your inroads and outroads among them.

As for those five things I mentioned in my second book, you should not have reckoned that they were found nowhere just because they were not found under the head I mention. And now, in case you miss them again, I will present them to you here:

1. “Baptism is not the initiating ordinance.”

2. “That though it were, the case may so fall out that members might be received without it.”

3. “That baptism makes no man a visible saint.”

4. “That faith, and a life becoming the ten commandments, should be the chief and most solid argument with churches to receive to fellowship.”

5. “That circumcision in the flesh was a type of circumcision in the heart, and not of water baptism.”

To these you should have given fair answers; then you would have done like a workman.

Now we have come to pages 22 and 23 of yours, where you labor to insinuate “that a transgression against a positive precept, respecting instituted worship, has been punished with the utmost severity that God has executed against men, on record, on this side of hell.”

Answer. 1. Mr. D’Anvers says “that to transgress a positive precept respecting worship is a breach of the first and second commandments.” If so, then it is for the breach of these that such severe rebukes befall the sons of men.

2. But you cite the case of Adam eating the forbidden fruit, yet to no great purpose. Adam’s first transgression was that he violated the law that was written in his heart, in that he listened to the tempting voice of his wife; and only afterward did he transgress by eating of the tree. He was bad, then, before he ate of the tree. That badness spread through his whole nature, and then he bore this evil fruit of eating what God had forbidden (Gen 3). Either make the tree good and his fruit good, or the tree bad and his fruit bad (Matt 12:33; Luke 6:43-44). Men must be bad before they do evil, and good before they do good. Again, which was the greater judgment: to be defiled and depraved, or to be put out of paradise? Settle that in your next.

But as to the matter in hand: what positive precept do they transgress who will not reject the one whom God bids us receive, if he lacks light about baptism?

As for my calling for Scripture to prove it lawful to exclude them in this way, blame me for it no more. Truly I must still do it. And if you had had just one to give, I would have had it long before this. But on page 23 you wonder that I should ask for a Scripture to prove a negative.

Answer. 1. Are you at that door, my brother? If a drunkard, a swearer, or a whoremonger should desire communion with you, and when you refused, demanded your grounds, would you think his demands such as you ought not to answer? Would you not readily give him grounds by the score? No doubt you would deal with us the same way, except that in this matter you are outside the covers of the Bible.

2. But again, you have acted as those who must produce a positive rule. “You count it your duty, a part of your obedience to God, to keep those out of church fellowship that are not baptized as you.” Then I demand: what precept bids you do this? Where are you commanded to do it?

On page 24 you object that Ephesians 4:5 and 1 Corinthians 12:13 do not mean Spirit baptism. But Mr. Jessey says it is not, and cannot be, the baptism with water, and you have not refuted him at all. And now for the church in the wilderness: “You thought, as you say, I would have answered myself in the thing.” But so far I have not, and neither have you. But let us see what you urge for an answer.

1. You say, “Though God dispensed with their obedience to circumcision in that time (Gen 17; Exod 12), it follows not that you or I should dispense with the ordinance of water baptism now.”

Answer. God commanded circumcision and made it the initiating ordinance into church communion. But Moses and Aaron and Joshua and the elders of Israel dispensed with it for forty years. The dispensing with it, then, was ministerial, and that with God’s allowance, as you yourself affirm. Now if they might dispense with circumcision, even though it was the initiating ordinance, why may we not receive God’s holy ones into fellowship, since we are not forbidden to do it but commanded? Yes, and why should we make water baptism, which God never ordained for that end, a bar to shut people out of church communion and let them in?

2. You ask, “Was circumcision dispensed with for want of light, it being plainly commanded?”

Answer. Whatever the cause was, want of light is as great a cause as any. And to say it must necessarily follow that they had to see it, because it was commanded, has too much of the tang of free will about it, or of the sufficiency of our own understanding. It encroaches too hard on the glory of the Holy Spirit, whose work it is “to bring all things to our remembrance, whatsoever Christ hath said to us” (John 14:26).

3. You ask, “Cannot you give yourself a reason, that their moving, traveling state made them incapable, and that God was merciful? Can the same reason, or anything like it, for refusing baptism, be given now?”

Answer. I cannot give myself this reason, and you cannot satisfy me with it either. Their traveling state could not have hindered them, if you consider that they might have lain still in one place for years together, and no doubt did.

(1) They were forty years going from Egypt to Canaan, and they made only forty-two journeys to get there.

(2) At times they made several of these journeys in one and the same year. As I take it, they had made eleven of them by the end of the third month after they came out of the land of Egypt (compare Exod 19:1 with Num 33:15).

(3) Again, in the fortieth year we find them at Mount Hor, where Aaron died and was buried. Now that was the year they went into Canaan, and in that year they made nine or ten more journeys before they got over the Jordan (Num 33:38 and following). So here were twenty journeys in less than a year and a half. Divide the rest of the time among the rest of the journeys, and they had more than thirty-eight years to make their twenty-two journeys in. I do not see how this could be such a traveling, moving state that it would hinder them from keeping this ordinance in its season, that is, from circumcising their children on the eighth day. This is especially so when you consider that circumcising them in their infancy, as they were born, could be done with more safety than letting them live until they were grown men.

If you should think that their wars in the wilderness might have hindered them, I answer: as far as I can discern, they had ten times as much fighting in the land of Canaan, where they were circumcised, as in the wilderness, where they were not. And if carnal or outward safety had been the argument, they would certainly not have circumcised themselves in the sight, as it were, of thirty-one kings (Josh 5; Josh 12). I say, they would not have circumcised their six hundred thousand warriors and laid them open to the attempts and dangers of their enemies. Nothing of the kind you are pleased to suggest, then, was the reason they had not yet been circumcised.

4. “An extraordinary instance to be brought into a standing rule, are no parallels.” That is the sum of your fourth.

Answer. The rule was an ordinary one: circumcision. The laying aside of this rule became just as ordinary, for as long a time as forty years, and in the whole church besides. But it is a poor shift to have nothing to say except that the case was extraordinary, when it was not.

But you ask, “Might they do so when they came into Canaan?”

Answer. No, no. And no more shall we go on doing as we do now “when that which is perfect is come” (1 Cor 13:10).

You add, “Because the church in the wilderness (Rev 12) could not come by ordinances … therefore when they may be come at, we need not practice them.”

Answer. Nobody told you so. But are you out of that wilderness mentioned in Revelation 12? Is Antichrist down and dead to anything but your faith? Or are we who have gotten ahead of our brethren in baptism the only ones out of that Egyptian darkness? For shame, be silent! You yourselves are still under so great a cloud that you imagine for yourselves a rule of practice not found in the Bible: that is, to count it a sin to receive your holy brethren, though you are not forbidden to do it but commanded (Rom 14; Rom 15).

Your great flourish against my fourth argument I leave to those who can judge the weight of your words, and the same goes for what you say about the fifth or sixth.

As for the example I gave you of Aaron, David, and Hezekiah, who did things that were not commanded, and that in holy matters, and yet were held excusable: neither you nor your supporters can overthrow it by any means. Aaron transgressed the commandment (Lev 6:26; Lev 10:18). David did what was not lawful. And those in Hezekiah’s time “did eat the passover otherwise than it was written” (2 Chr 30:18). But here I see the shoe pinches, and that makes you glad to borrow Mr. Denne’s evasion for help. Mr. D’Anvers cries out at this too, though to no purpose, charging me with asserting that ignorance absolves from sins of omission and commission. But, sirs, first fairly take from me the texts, along with others that I can urge, and then begin to accuse.

You have done a poor job of mending your suggestion about unwritten verities. But any shift will do, so long as it shifts off the force of the truth. In the same way you have also propped up your assertion “that you neither keep out, nor cast out from the church, if baptized, such as come unprepared to the supper, and other solemn appointments.” Let us leave your words and mine for wiser men to ponder.

My seventh argument, as I said, you have not so much as touched, nor the ten reasons within it; you have only mocked at the ten. But we will show them to the reader.

1. Love, which above all other things we are commanded to put on, is worth far too much to be broken over baptism (Col 3:14).

2. Love is more clearly shown when we receive someone for the sake of Christ and grace than when we refuse him for want of water.

3. The church at Colossae was charged to receive and bear with the saints because they were new creatures.

4. There were some saints in the church at Jerusalem who opposed the preaching of salvation to the Gentiles, and yet they kept their membership.

5. Divisions and distinctions among saints are of later date than election and the signs of it, and therefore they should give way.

6. It is love, not baptism, that shows the world we are Christ’s disciples (John 13:35).

7. It is love that is the undoubted mark of our interest in Christ and our fellowship with him (Rom 12:10; Rom 16:10).

8. Fellowship with Christ is enough to invite a person to our communion, and the new creature is the great rule of our fellowship with Christ (1 John 1:3).

9. Love is the fulfilling of the law. Therefore the one who has it is accepted by God and ought to be approved by men. But the one who judges his brother and sets him at nothing does not fulfill it (Gal 6:16; Phil 3:16; Rom 14; Jas 4:11).

10. Love is sometimes seen and shown more in forbearing to urge and press what we know than in publishing it and imposing it (John 16:12; 1 Cor 3:1-2).

11. When we try to force our brother beyond his light, or to break his heart with grief, or to rely on him beyond what his faith will bear, or to bar him from his privileges, how can we say, “I love”?

12. To make something the door to communion which God has not made the door, to make it the charter that includes and excludes, the bar, the bounds, and the rule of communion, comes from want of love.

There are two thrown into the bargain.

If any of these, sir, do not please you in this dress, just say the word, and I will put them into the form of syllogisms for you as well as my wits will serve.

Now it is evident that you say in practice (for some speak with their feet, that is, by their walk, Prov 6:13) that water is above love and all other things. For if people have everything but water, you refuse them for want of that. Yes, and you will be so bold as to refuse communion with them, though you have no word of God for it.

In our discussion of the carnality that caused the divisions at Corinth, you ask, “Who must the charge of carnality fall upon, them that defend, or them that oppose the truth?”

Answer. Perhaps on both, but certainly on those who oppose it. So look to yourselves, “who without any command of God to warrant you, exclude your brother from communion; your brother whom God has commanded you to receive.”

You make yourself merry with my ninth argument at the beginning, but why then do you so cut and hack at it a little later, and throw it into the fire, as it were? You can by no means avoid those seventeen absurdities. For if you have not one word of God that commands you to shut your brethren out of your communion for want of water baptism (and indeed you have not, though you mock me for speaking a word in Latin), I say, if you do not have one word of God to make this a duty for you, then unavoidably:

1. You do it by a spirit of persecution.

2. You do it with more respect to a form than to the spirit and power of godliness.

3. It also makes laws where God makes none, and it is being wise above what is written.

4. It is a directing of the Spirit of the Lord.

5. And it binds all men’s consciences to our light and opinion.

6. It takes away the children’s bread.

7. And it withholds from them the increase of faith.

8. It tends to make the hearts of weak Christians wicked.

9. It tends to harden the hearts of the wicked.

10. It sets open a door to all temptations.

11. It tempts the devil to fall upon those who are left alone.

12. It is the nursery of all vain wrangling.

13. It gives the world occasion to reproach us.

14. It holds wavering consciences in doubt about the right ways of the Lord.

15. It abuses the holy Scriptures.

16. It is a prop to Antichrist.

17. And it gives many people occasion to turn aside to most dangerous errors.

And though you so abhor the last that you cannot contain yourselves when you read it, yet I affirm, as I did in my first book, “That to exclude Christians from church communion, and to debar them their heaven-born privileges, for the want of that which God never yet made a wall of division between us, did, and does, and will prevail with God to send those judgments we have felt, or may hereafter feel.” Think of me what you like.

I come next to what you have said in justification of your fourteen arguments. “Such as they were,” you say, “I am willing to stand by them. What I have offered, I have offered modestly, according to the utmost light I had into those scriptures upon which they are grounded; having not arrived at such a peremptory way of dictatorship, as that what I render must be taken for laws binding to others in faith and practice; and therefore I express myself by suppositions, strong presumptions, and fair seeming conclusions from the premises.”

Answer. Your arguments, as you truly say, are built on, or drawn from, suppositions and presumptions, and all because you lack the words of holy Scripture to help you. Let the reader take note of this. I have often called for the word but could never yet get it, because you do not have it, whether in precept, precedent, or example; and so you come out with your seeming implications and presumptions instead.

The judicious reader will see in this last point, not only here but in other places too, what poor shifts you are driven to in order to keep your pen going. But, sir, since you are not peremptory in your proof, how did you come to be so absolute in your practice? For all your seeming modesty, you will neither grant communion with you to those who turn aside from your “seeming implications” and do not go along with you in your strong presumptions, nor allow them communion among themselves. You must not, you say; you dare not, lest you countenance their idolatry and nourish them up in sin; they live in breach of gospel order, and like Ephraim are joined to an idol. And as for your love, it amounts to this: you deal with them this way and withdraw from them, and all because of some strong presumptions and suppositions.

But you tell me that “I use the arguments of the paedobaptist, to wit, But where are infants forbidden to be baptized?”

But I frankly tell you, I do not know what paedo means, so how should I know his arguments?

I take no man’s argument but Mr. K.’s (I must not name him any further). I say, I take no man’s argument but his at present, namely, “That there being no precept, precedent, or example, for you to shut your holy brethren out of church communion; therefore you should not do it.” That you have no command to do it is clear, and you must of necessity grant it. Now where there is no precept for a foundation, nothing that you can suggest by all your reasonings can deliver you from the guilt of adding to his word. Are you commanded to reject them? If yes, where is it? If no, for shame, be silent.

“Let us say what we will,” you say, “for our own practice; unless we bring positive scriptures that yours is forbidden, though nowhere written, you will be as a man in a rage without it; and would have it thought you go away with the garland.”

Answer. 1. I am not in a rage; I am earnestly contending with you for the truth. And say what you will or can, even with far more squibs, jeers, and taunts than you have mixed into your writing so far, we still cry, “Scripture, Scripture!” And it is a bad sign that your cause is unsound when you snap and snarl because I call for Scripture.

2. If you had a Scripture for this practice, that you ought to shut your brethren out of communion for want of water baptism, I would be done. But the word of God has left you without support, and you confess it!

3. And as you do not have a text that justifies your own practice, neither do you have one that condemns our holy and Christian communion. We are also commanded to receive him who is weak in the faith, for God has received him. I read of no garlands except those in the Acts (Acts 14:13); you may have them. And I say moreover that honest and holy Mr. Jessey has justified our practice, and you have not condemned his arguments. So they all still stand on their feet against you.

I leave your second, third, fourth, fifth, and sixth arguments under my answers, where they lie suppressed. In your seventh you again complain because I touch your “seeming implications,” saying, “I am not used to saying, as John Bunyan does, this I say, and I dare to say. I please myself by commending my apprehensions soberly, and submissively to others much above me.”

Answer. 1. Seeming implications are a base and unworthy foundation for a practice in religion, and therefore I speak against them.

2. When you say you submit your apprehensions soberly to those much above you, it is false, unless you conclude that no one is above you except those of your own opinion. Have you soberly and submissively commended your apprehensions to those congregations in London that are not of your persuasion in the case at hand? And have you consented to stand by their opinion? Have you soberly and submissively commended your apprehensions to those you call Independents and Presbyterians? And are you willing to stand by their judgment in the case? Do you not reserve to yourself the liberty of judging what they say, and of choosing what you judge to be right, whether they agree with you or not? If so, why do you put on such a pretense before all the world, in print, claiming to submit to others’ judgment while you go on condemning their judgments? You have only one way out: perhaps you think they are not above you, and by that proviso you secure yourself. But it will not do.

As for the offense you take at my comment on your calling baptism “a livery,” and as for your calling it “the Spirit’s metaphorical description of baptism”: both phrases are boldness without the word. Nor do I find baptism called an enlisting ordinance, or the solemnizing of the marriage between Christ and a believer. But perhaps you got this from Mr. D’Anvers, who pleases himself with this way of wording it. He says, moreover, in justification of you, “That persons entered into the visible church thereby” (that is, by baptism, which is untrue, though Mr. Baxter also says it) “are by consent admitted into particular congregations, where they may claim their privileges due to baptized believers, being orderly put into the body, and put on Christ by their baptismal vow and covenant: for by that public declaration of consent, is the marriage and solemn contract made between Christ and a believer in baptism.” And, he says, “if it be preposterous and wicked for a man and woman to cohabit together, and to enjoy the privileges of a married state without the passing of that public solemnity: so it is no less disorderly upon a spiritual account, for any to claim the privileges of a church, or be admitted to the same, till the passing of this solemnity by them.”

Answer. But these words are very black. First, he has not only implicitly forbidden Jesus Christ to hold communion with the saints who are not yet his by baptism; he also boldly charges him, if he does, with being as preposterous and wicked as a man who lives with a woman in the privileges of a married state without passing that public solemnity. Second, he here also charges everyone who merely dares to claim church communion without baptism with the same wickedness; yes, and the whole church too, if they admit such members to their fellowship.

And now, since cleaving to Christ by vow and covenant will not do without baptism after a personal confession of faith, what a condition all those poor saints of Jesus are in, who have avowed themselves to be his a thousand times without this baptism! Yes, and what a case Jesus Christ is in too, by your argument, for holding with them that communion which belongs only to those who are married to him by this solemnity! Brother, God give him repentance. I know that he said it through ignorance and a preposterous zeal. Let him unsay it again with tears, and by a public renunciation of such wicked and horrible words. But I pass you by thus sparingly.

I will not trouble the world any further with an answer to the rest of your books. The books are public to the world: let people read and judge. And if it had not been for your effort to brand me with reproach and scandal, a thing that does not become you, I would not have needed to give you two lines in answer.

And now, my angry brother, if you write again, please keep to the question, namely, “What precept, precedent, or example do you have in God’s word to exclude your holy brethren from church communion for want of water baptism?” As for Mr. Denne’s great measure, please yourself with it. When you make his arguments your own and tell me so, perhaps you may have an answer. But considering him, and comparing his notions with his way of life, I judge that it would be better for him to become better in morals before he is worthy of an answer.

The Conclusion

Reader, when Moses tried to reconcile the brethren who were striving against each other, the one who did the wrong thrust him away, unwilling to be hindered in his ungodly attempts. But when Moses kept on trying to make peace between them, the same man tried to charge him with a murderous and bloody design, saying, “Wilt thou kill me as thou didst the Egyptian yesterday?” (Exod 2:14; Acts 7:24-29). This is a thing too commonly thrown at those who seek peace and pursue it. “My soul,” says David, “hath long dwelt with him that hateth peace. I am for peace,” he said, “but when I speak, they are for war” (Ps 120:6-7).

One would think that even nature itself would count peace and concord a thing of the greatest worth among saints, especially since they, above all people, know themselves. For he who knows himself best is best able to pity and bear with another (Heb 5:2). Yet even among these, some will arise who make divisions among their brethren and seek “to draw away disciples after them” (Acts 20:30), crying all the while that they, even they, are in the right, and that all who do not hold with them are in the wrong and must be withdrawn from (Rom 16:17). But when every one of them has said all he can, it is one of the things the Lord hates, to sow “discord among brethren” (Prov 6:19).

Yet we have had many years’ experience of these mischievous attempts, as others in other places have also had, as could be shown if occasion required it. And this has come especially from those of the rigid way among our brethren, the so-called Baptists. Their principles will neither allow them to admit to communion the saint who differs from them about baptism, nor allow them to consent that such saints should hold communion in a church state among themselves. Instead, they take every occasion they can, both to reproach their church state and to pick off from among them whoever they can and draw them to themselves.

These things are grievous to those who are concerned, as we are, though perhaps those who are at peace are too little concerned in the matter. So when I could no longer hold back, I thought it good to set before the public the lawfulness of our holy communion, and the unreasonableness of their seeking to break us to pieces. At this Mr. William Kiffin, Mr. Thomas Paul, Mr. Henry D’Anvers, and Mr. Denne fell upon me with might and main, some comparing me to the devil, others to a madman, others to a fool, and the like, for my seeking peace and truth among the godly. More than that, they began to cry murder, as if I intended nothing less than to accuse them to the magistrate and make them incapable of a share in the commonwealth. Yet all I struck at was their heart-breaking, church-rending principles and practice: their shutting their holy brethren out of communion with them, and their condemning that communion even among those brethren themselves. They also follow me with slanders and reproaches, counting such things, it seems, to be arguments in their own defense.

But in the meantime I call for proof, Scripture proof, to convince me that it is a duty to refuse communion with those saints who differ from them about baptism. At this Mr. Paul takes offense. My demand for proof of their rejecting the unbaptized believer, however excellent in faith and holiness, he calls a clamorous calling for proof, made with high and swelling words, which he counts not worthy of an answer. But I know the reason: this demand shuts him out of the Bible, as he himself also suggests. And so, when he comes to assault me with arguments, he can do it only by seeming implications, suppositions, and strong presumptions. He tells you further in his reply “that this is the utmost of his light in the scriptures urged for his practice.” Of that light you may easily judge, good reader, if you have only the common understanding of the mind of God concerning brotherly love.

How strange, that the Scripture, which everywhere commands and urges us to love, to forbearance, and to bearing our brother’s burden, should yet imply, or implicitly suggest, that we should shut them out of our Father’s house! Or that those scriptures which command us to receive the weak should yet command us to shut out the strong! Do you think, reader, that the Scripture has two faces and speaks with two mouths? Yet by these men’s doctrine it must. It says expressly, “Receive one another, as Christ also received us to the glory of God” (Rom 15:7). But these men say that it is not a duty; that it is preposterous and idolatrous. They conclude that to receive this brother is not a custom of theirs, nor of the churches of God. So they are telling you that those who receive such a brother are not any of the churches of God, let them talk as long as they like. See their charity, their fairness and love, in the midst of their great pretensions of love!

But be assured, Christian reader, that for these uncharitable words and actions of theirs they have no footing in the word of God. Nor can they clear themselves by holding up to the world the friendly terms they keep with their brethren. It is church communion I plead for, and church communion they deny them. Yet church communion is Scripture communion, and we read of no other among the saints. True, we are commanded to withdraw “from every brother that walketh disorderly … that he may be ashamed,” yet not to count him as an enemy, but to admonish him as a brother (2 Thess 3:6, 14-15). If this is what they intend (for I know of no other communion that we ought to have with those to whom we deny church communion), then what ground of rejoicing those who are treated this way by their brethren have, I leave to them to consider.

In the meanwhile, I affirm “that baptism with water is neither a bar nor bolt to communion of saints, nor a door nor inlet to communion of saints.” This is the very argument of my books. And, as some of the moderate among them have themselves affirmed, neither Mr. Kiffin, Mr. Paul, nor Mr. D’Anvers has made it invalid, though they have made their assault vigorously enough.

As for Mr. Denne, I suppose they do not count him one of themselves, though both he and Mr. Lamb, like to like, are brought in as authors and abettors of their practice and to refute my peaceable principle. As for Mr. Denne, if any of the three will make his arguments their own, they may see what I, their servant, can do. But I will not spend paper and ink on him, nor on Mr. Lamb either. The one has already given his profession the lie; and as for the other, perhaps those who know his life will see little conscience in the whole of his religion, and conclude that he is not worth taking notice of. Besides, Mr. Paul has also concluded against Mr. Denne that baptism is not the initiating ordinance, and that his own utmost strength for justifying his practice is “suppositions, imports, and strong presumptions”: things they laugh at, despise, and deride when their brethren bring them to prove infant baptism.

I will not return railing for railing, though one of these opponents, Mr. D’Anvers by name, told me that Mr. Paul’s reply, when it came out, would provoke me enough to so beastly a work. But what is the reason for his writing so, if not the peevishness of his own spirit, or a want of better matter?

This I thank God for: that some of the brethren of this way have lately become more moderate than they used to be, and that those who still keep their former sourness are left by their brethren to the vinegar of their own spirits. Their brethren candidly confess that, if those of their company could bear it, they have liberty in their own souls to hold communion with saints as saints, even though they differ about water baptism.

Well, God banish bitterness out of the churches, and pardon those who keep up schisms and divisions among the godly. “Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity! It is like the precious ointment upon the head, that ran down upon the beard, even Aaron’s beard: that went down to the skirts of his garments; (further, it is) as the dew of Hermon, that descended upon the mountains of Zion: (mark this) for there the LORD commanded the blessing, even life for evermore” (Ps 133).

I was advised by some, who had the wise man’s proverb in mind, not to let Mr. Paul pass with all his bitter invectives. But I consider that “the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God” (Jas 1:20). Therefore I will leave him to the censure and rebuke of sober people, among whom I have no doubt his unsavory dealings with me will be brought to his remembrance in due season. Farewell.

I am yours to serve you, Christian, as long as I can look out of these eyes that have had so much dirt thrown at them by many.

John Bunyan

This is how I came to meddle with this controversy in this way. For reasons best known to myself, I had found by searching that what are called the women’s meetings lacked a foundation in the word to support them. So I called them into question in our fellowship. Having done so, I was asked for my reasons, as was only reasonable, and I gave them, and that practice ceased among us. So subject to the word were our women, and so willing to let go of what could not be proved by it to be their duty to practice.

But when I had done this, Mr. K. heard of my proceedings in this matter, by what means I do not know, though I think he knew little of either the question or the answer. He set pen to paper and drew up four arguments to justify these meetings. When they were finished, they were sent down into our parts, not to me but to some of his own persuasion, who kept them, or sent them, or lent them wherever they thought good. And so, about two years later, they were conveyed into my hand with this note, which follows here:

“Brother Bunyan, this enclosed was sent to me from godly women whose custom for a long time has been to meet together to pray, who, hearing of your contrary opinion, sent this. It came from Mr. K., who would like to know what objections you have against it, and he is ready to give his further advice. Please be so good as to give your answer in writing, for Mr. K. expects it.

“Your friends in the Lord, S. B., S. F.

“Please be so good as to leave your answer with S. F. in Bedford.”

Now, having received the papers and considered their contents, I was at first in doubt with myself whether the thing was feigned or true, and to that end I wrote to these women again. But calling to mind that I had heard something of this before, I concluded there was ground to believe, as I still do, that it was true and not feigned. And so I resolved to answer his demand and expectation. But to say nothing more about this, I will next present you with the arguments he sent, and then with my way of handling them.

He begins with this question: “Whether women fearing God may meet to pray together, and whether it is lawful for them to do so?” That done, he falls to wondering, saying, “It seems very strange to me that any who profess the fear of God can make any question about its lawfulness, the rule for praying being so general to all, and there being so many instances of its practice on several occasions in the word of God, for their encouragement in it.”

He next presents us with his arguments, which are four in number, but in truth not one of them proves the thing he urges them for, as I hope to make plain by the time I have done.

1. He says, “If women may praise God together for mercies received for the church of God, or for themselves, then they may pray together. The proof of this is plain (Exod 15:20-21). If it is objected that the case was extraordinary, and that Miriam was a prophetess, to this I answer that the danger of ruin and destruction, and our deliverance from it, if the Lord grants it, cannot be looked on as anything but extraordinary. For the designs of ruin against the church and servants of God are as great as at the time when God delivered his people from the hand of Pharaoh. And it will call for praises, if the Lord pleases to send it, as it did then. And whereas it is further objected that Miriam was an extraordinary person, to this I answer that the duty itself of praising God for the mercy was incumbent on all, inasmuch as they were partakers of the mercy. And the same Spirit of Christ that was in her is also in all his servants, given for the same end: both to pray for the mercies we stand in need of, and to praise God for them.”

2. “If women in imminent danger to themselves and the church of God have prayed jointly together for deliverance, and God has answered and approved of it, then women may jointly pray together. The instance we have is famous (Esth 4:16). We see there that she and her maidens prayed and fasted together, and the Lord gave a gracious answer and deliverance.”

3. “If God has in gospel times promised the pouring out of his Spirit on women to that very end, that they may pray together apart from men, then it is not only their liberty but their duty to meet and pray together. But God has promised his Spirit to that end (Zech 12:10-13). It is plain that this scripture is a promise of gospel times. And it is to be noted that the text does not say, in the singular number, ‘He shall pray apart, and his wife apart,’ but ‘They shall pray apart, and their wives apart.’ And in Malachi 3:16 God takes notice of all those who speak often together and call upon his name.”

4. “If God has so approved of women meeting together to pray in gospel times as to take that very occasion to make known to them his mind and will concerning Jesus Christ, then it is lawful for women to pray together. But God has so approved of their meeting to pray together (Acts 16:13). By this text it appears that it was a frequent practice for women to meet and pray together.”

These are Mr. K.’s arguments. The conclusion of his paper follows. “And besides all these particular instances,” he says, “what do those general rules mean, to build up one another in our most holy faith, and to pray in the Holy Ghost (Jude 20)? But this extends to all who believe, both men and women, unless anyone will say that women are not to be built up in their most holy faith. Therefore let no one hinder you from a duty so incumbent on you in a special manner, in such a day as this is. Cannot many women who have used this practice say by experience that they have met with the Lord in it, and have found many blessed returns of prayer from God, both to themselves and to the church, in which God has owned them? Therefore what God has borne witness to and approved of, let no man deter you from. Please turn to the scriptures quoted, which I hope will give you full satisfaction.”

These are his arguments, and this is his conclusion. I cannot help saying that there is not only boldness in it, but flattery. There is boldness in fathering his misunderstanding on the authority of the word of God. And there is flattery in soothing people along in a way of their own, by making them the judges in their own cause. I hope to make this plainer shortly.

Since his women told me in their letter that Mr. K. expects my answer, I count myself called to show the unsoundness of his opinion. Indeed, as they hint, he would confine me to answering in writing. But his papers have been I know not where, and I know no way to check his extravagances except by scattering my answer abroad. And as I will not be confined to an answer in writing, so neither will I be confined to his methods of argument. What kind of scholar he is, I do not know. For my part, I am not ashamed to confess that I know neither the mode nor the figure of a syllogism, and scarcely know which is the major and which the minor. It seems to me that I find little sense in his arguments, and far less truth. I also hold that he has stretched and strained the holy word out of its place, to make it shore up his foolish notions, if that could have been done. Therefore I shall first take these texts away from the errors he has joined them to, and then fall to picking the bones of his syllogisms.

But as I shall not confine myself to his mode and way of arguing, neither shall I take notice of the question on which he states the matter in controversy. Instead I shall propose here the same question that, in substance, was handled among us when the thing itself was in doubt among us, namely:

Whether, where a church of Christ is situated, it is the duty of the women of that congregation, ordinarily and by appointment, to separate themselves from their brethren, and so to assemble together to perform some parts of divine worship, such as prayer and the like, without their men?

This was our question; this we debated; and this Mr. K. might have sent for and spoken to, since he is so determined to be a confuter. And, courteous reader, since I have presented you here with the question, I will also present you with the method I took when I handled it among my brethren. First, I opened the terms of the question. Second, I then showed what assemblies they were that used to perform divine worship to God. Third, I went on to show whose prayers were used in such worship, or were desired by Paul and others.

1. By “church of Christ” I mean one gathered or constituted by the rule of the word of God, and walking after it. By “situated” I mean wherever such a church happens to be, whether in whole or in its parts. By “separating” I mean their meeting together by an appointment of their own, and, being so met, attempting to perform divine worship by prayer without their men. Having explained the question in this way, I come, as a preparation for resolving it, to my second point.

2. I now show what kind of assemblies they were that used to perform divine worship to God in former times. I find that there have been three sorts of assemblies in which divine worship has been performed.

(1) It has been performed in mixed assemblies, that is, in assemblies made up of saints and sinners. I say divine worship has been performed in such assemblies, because there the saints have been edified, and sinners convicted and converted and made to confess their sins, to the glory of God. We read of these assemblies in these scriptures (Matt 5:1; Matt 13:1; Matt 23:1; Mark 4:1; Mark 2:1; Mark 6:2; Mark 10:1; Luke 5:1; Luke 8; Luke 12:1; Luke 13:1; Luke 15:1; Luke 20:1; 1 Cor 14:23), and in many others.

(2) I also find that the church by herself, that is, as distinct from the world, has met together to perform it by themselves (Mark 4:34; Acts 2:1-4; Acts 13:1-2; Acts 15:4; Acts 20:7; John 20:19-26).

(3) I find also that assemblies for divine worship have been made up of the elders and principal brethren of the church, with none of the rest of the congregation present (Matt 10:1; Luke 9:1; Acts 1:3; Acts 2:17-18; Gal 2:1-2), along with several other scriptures besides.

But in all the Scripture I do not find that the women of the churches of Christ used to separate themselves from their brethren and, being so separated, perform worship together among themselves, or in that congregation of their own; or that they made an appointment to do so by allowance of the word. So far, therefore, this must stand as a human invention, and Mr. K. as its promoter.

3. This done, I come in the third place to show you whose prayers, or by whose mouth prayer, used to be made in such assemblies as are proved lawful above, or were desired by Paul or others.

(1) Whose prayers were used, or who was the mouth? I find them called the prayers of the church in general, or of its principal men in particular (Judg 2:4-5; Judg 20:8, 26; Joel 1:14; Joel 2:15-17; Acts 12:5; Acts 13:1-3).

(2) Also, when Paul or others desired that prayers should be made for them by others, they desired the prayers either of the church in general or of the brethren in particular. (But he never desires or bids a women’s meeting, that prayers might be made there for them.)

[1] He desires the prayers of the church in general (Col 4:2; Phil 1:19; Phil 4:6; 1 Thess 5:17; Heb 13:18).

[2] Or, if he desires the prayers of certain persons, he calls only on the men and brethren in particular, but never on a woman, either by name or by sex, to do it (1 Thess 5:25; 2 Thess 3:1; Rom 15:30; 1 Tim 2:8).

Nor, as I said, was the apostle alone in this. Christ speaks a parable to this end, “that men ought always to pray” (Luke 18:1). James says, “the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man” (Jas 5:16). Moses sent the young men to sacrifice (Exod 24:5). And in the time of Zechariah the people sent their men to pray before the Lord (Zech 7:2). I do not believe that any of these despises the prayers of women. But by these we are taught who is commended to us as the mouth in assemblies for prayer.

One word more. In the time of Jeremiah the prophet, the women had made their cakes to the queen of heaven (though what they did was as right in their own eyes as if they had done true worship indeed). When the prophet questioned them for what they had done, they could not justify the act itself except by pleading that they did not do it “without their men” (Jer 44:17-19).

Having premised these few things, I shall now come more directly to discuss the question itself, namely: Whether, where a church of Christ is situated, it is the duty of the women of that congregation, ordinarily and by appointment, to separate themselves from their brethren, and, being so separated, to assemble together to perform divine worship by prayer without their men?

This was our question, and to it I will now give a negative answer. For I find in Christ’s testament no command to do so; no, nor any example either. And where there is neither of these, it cannot be a duty laid on them; no, nor even a liberty, but presumption to attempt it.

The command, says Mr. K., is general to all. But I answer: yes, and yet it is limited, and confined to the order and manner of performance. Women may pray, yes, they ought to pray. What then? Is it their duty to help carry on prayer in public assemblies with men, as the men do? Are they to be the audible mouth there, before all, to God? No, truly; and yet the command to pray is general to all. Women of the various churches of Christ have no command to separate themselves from the men of their congregations to perform prayer in their own company without them; and yet the command to pray is general to all. We must therefore distinguish between persons and performances, though we may not exclude either. Mr. K. knows, too, that the manner and order in which this or that duty must be done is, in some cases, as essential as the very matter of worship.

But we will come to my reasons for dissenting from Mr. K. in this. After that I will consider his arguments, and the scriptures he would prop them up with. As for my reasons for dissenting from him, they are these.

1. To appoint meetings for divine worship, whether of the whole church or of its parts, is an act of power. That power resides in the elders in particular, or in the church in general, but never in the women considered by themselves. Mr. K. does indeed insinuate that this power resided in them too, for he says, “God has in gospel times promised the Spirit to women to that very end, that they may pray together, apart from men.” Now if the Spirit is given them to this very end, that they may do it apart from men, then they have a power residing in themselves to call their own sex together to do it. And what fine doings such a conclusion will make, even the blind can see. But more of this shortly. Meanwhile we will attend to our own assertion, namely, “That to call the church, or parts of it, together to perform divine worship to God is an act of power, which power resides in the church in general, or in the elders in particular.” We will treat the last of these first.

(1) As for the eldership: of old it was Moses and Aaron, with the priests, who were to call the church together to perform divine worship to God, both as a whole and in its parts (Num 10:7-8; Deut 4:14; Deut 31:11-12; Exod 4:29; Exod 12:21; Exod 17:5). In later times, too, it was the elders and chief men of the church who did it (Josh 24:1; Ezra 10:5-9; Acts 14:27; Acts 15:3).

(2) Or, if their calling together to perform divine worship was not by the elders alone, yet it was by the power that resided in the church for that purpose, and the church jointly ordered it (Judg 20:8, 18; Ezra 3:1; Zeph 2:1-3; Acts 12:12; 1 Cor 5:4; 1 Cor 11:20). All these are plain cases. But never, so far as I have ever read in the Bible, did women, ordinary believing ones, take this power of the elders, or of the church, on themselves.

If someone asks, “Who appointed that meeting mentioned in Acts 12:12?”

I answer, it was appointed by the power of the church. For her own convenience, if the church cannot all come into one place at once to perform the duty (as it is not likely four or five thousand could in times of persecution, which was their case), they may meet some here and some there, for their edification and comfort. Compare Acts 12:5 with Acts 12:12 and Acts 12:17. Nor do I question the lawfulness of this or that part of the church assembling together for prayer, even though the elders and the greater part of the brethren are absent, provided, first, that such men as call such assemblies are countenanced by the elders or the church in doing it (1 Tim 2:8; 2 Tim 2:22). But that the sisters of this or that church may call their own sex together to perform such worship to God by themselves (for this is the thing in debate), I find no warrant for.

2. Because this kind of worship, when it is done in and by a company, is ministerial to that company as well as petitionary to God. That is, those who pray to God as the mouth in assemblies teach that assembly as well as beg mercies from him. And I do not find that women may assemble to do this. To see that such prayer is a kind of ministering in the word to those who stand by, consider 1 Corinthians 14:15-19 well. Therefore let them keep silence in the church, and in its parts, when they are assembled to worship God.

In all public worship by prayer, teaching is set on foot in two ways: first, by propounding to that assembly the things that must, by agreement, be prayed for; and second, by proving that they suit the will of God, so that prayer may be made in faith (1 John 5:14).

(1) For all such prayer must be made for the things agreed on first, and consequently for things that are proved by the word to be good and suitable for the seasons, persons, or things for which, or about which, such prayers are made. For those who have meetings for prayer without this pray at random, and not by rule.

“If two of you shall agree on earth, as touching anything that they shall ask” (according to God’s will), “it shall be done for them,” says Christ, “of my Father which is in heaven” (Matt 18:19). Now I say, if the things prayed for in assemblies must first be jointly agreed on, then those things must first be proposed, expounded, and proved to be good by the word, by some one or more of that assembly: good for the persons, seasons, or things for which the prayer is made. And besides the gifts required to do this, if this is not teaching, then I am wrong. And yet this must first be done, to instruct all present, to help their faith, and to quicken their spirits to and in that worship, so that they may as one man have their eyes on the Lord (Zech 9:1).

But I do not believe that this power is given to women, not even to ordinary believing women who are held in the highest regard in the churches. I do not believe they should minister to God in prayer before the whole church, for then I would be a Ranter or a Quaker. Nor do I believe they should do it in their own womanish assembly, for the reason urged before. And I will add this. Brethren whom the church has not previously called to open the Scriptures, or to speak to God in prayer in the church, are not at first to be admitted to do this except before the elders or principal brethren, so that they may hear and judge (1 Cor 14:26-29). If that is so, how can it be thought fitting or lawful for women, who must be supposed to have received no such gifts, to use this power? I say, how can anyone imagine that God binds women to do this in such a way as utterly shuts out the elders and all the men in the congregation from any possibility of understanding and judging what they do? And yet this is the doctrine of Mr. K., for he says, “That the Spirit of God is promised to women to this very end, that they may pray together, apart from men.” But God is not the author of this confusion in the churches.

(2) But second, as teaching by prayer in assemblies is set on foot in this way, so also everyone who in such meetings is the mouth of the whole assembly to God ministers doctrine to that assembly, as well as presenting petitions to God. Otherwise how can that assembly say amen at their prayer or giving of thanks? For to say amen is an effect of conviction, or of edification, that the bystander has received from the one who is ministering in that assembly before God (1 Cor 14:15-17). Yes, I believe that those who pray in assemblies, or who give thanks there for mercies received, ought to labor to speak not only with fervent words but with such soundness of doctrine, while they mention, urge, or plead the promise with God, that the whole assembly may be enlightened, taught, taken, and carried away in their spirits, on the wing of that prayer and of faith, to God, whose face they have come to seek and whose grace they are gathered together to beg. Now this is called praying and praising to the teaching and edifying of others, as the scripture named before makes plain (1 Cor 14:14-19). But by what word of God the sisters of the various churches may set up this way of teaching one another in their assemblies, I do not know.

3. The Holy Spirit particularly insists on the inability of women to manage well the worship now under consideration, and therefore they ought not to presume to take it on. They are forbidden to teach, yes, to speak in the church of God. And why are they forbidden, except because of their inability? They cannot manage in an orderly way the worship to God that is to be performed before him in assemblies. I speak now of our ordinary believing women, and I know of no extraordinary ones among the churches. They are not built to manage such worship; they are not the image and glory of God, as the men are (1 Cor 11:7). They are placed beneath, and are called the glory of the man. Therefore they are weak, and are not permitted to perform public worship to God.

When our first mother, who was not burdened with those weaknesses, whether sinful or natural, that our women have now, stepped out of her place only to speak a good word for worship, you see how she was foiled and made a fool of in it. She utterly failed in the performance, though she briskly attempted the thing. Yes, she failed so badly at it that at one stroke she overthrew not only the reputation of women in this matter forever, but her own soul, her husband, and the whole world besides (Gen 3:1-7). The fallen angel knew what he was doing when he made his assault on the woman. His subtlety told him that the woman was the weaker vessel. He knew also that the man was made the head in worship, and the keeper of the garden of God. The Lord God took the man, said to the man, commanded the man, and made him keeper of the garden (Gen 2:15-17). Therefore the management of worship belonged to him.

As I said, the serpent was aware of this. And therefore he comes to the woman, speaks to the woman, and deals with the woman about it, and so overcomes the world. It is from this consideration, then, that Paul tells Timothy that he did not permit a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. But to call the church, or parts of it, together to perform solemn worship, and in such a call to exclude or shut out the men, is usurping that authority over them to a high degree. And he gives the reason for this prohibition of his: “For Adam was first formed, then Eve” (and therefore Adam had the headship in worship). “And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression” (1 Tim 2:13-14).

But again, it seems to me that if women must be managers of worship in assemblies, they should do it as Eve did, before Adam, in the presence of the men. Yet I think no one will allow that, though it would be the best way to correct miscarriages. How then should it be thought fitting for them to do it alone? If children are not thought fit to help the mariners guide the ship, shall they be trusted even with a boat at sea alone? The matter in hand is a parallel case.

4. The weight of this worship is indeed so great that the strongest, and those best able to perform it, usually come off from it blushing and repenting of their shortcomings in performing it well, even though they engage in it by good and lawful authority. What then will those do who are much weaker here, and who, like Eve, set about it by usurping authority, on their own head and by their own will? You know what it cost Nadab and Abihu to offer strange fire with incense, which was a type of prayer, though they were men and the sons of Aaron. Yet Mr. K. cries up the sisters, the women, the women’s meetings, and the like, and how they have prevailed with heaven. Poor man, I am sorry for his weakness, and that he should show himself so nunnish in such a day as this.

But to return: as all worship in assemblies ought to be performed with the most exact order and solemnity, so this worship of prayer ought to be performed with even more, if possible, than all the rest; and this makes it heavier still. When men preach they have to do with men, but when they pray in assemblies they have to do with both men and God at once. And I say, if it is so great a matter to speak to men before God, how great a matter is it to speak to men and God at once: to God by way of petition, and to men by way of instruction! But I am persuaded that if those who are most fond of women’s meetings for prayer had to petition the king for their lives, they would not set women to be their advocates with him, especially if the king had declared beforehand by law that he did not permit a woman to speak before him in an open audience.

There are also many temptations that attend the duty of praying in assemblies, especially for those who are directly employed in it. Those so employed, if they are awake, are aware of these temptations, and are forced to wrestle with them and to groan greatly under them. Therefore we do not put the weak on this service: not the weak, even though they are men; not them in the presence of the strong. How then should the weakest of all be put upon it, and that when they are together by themselves? Men, though strong, and though acting by lawful authority in this, are not able to do it except with unutterable groans. How then shall all those who attempt it without that authority perform it as acceptable worship to God? This work, therefore, is as much too heavy for our women now as the thing Eve engaged in at first was too heavy for her.

5. If this worship may be managed by the sisterhood of the churches gathered together in the absence of their men, what is the significance of man being made head of the woman in worship as well as in nature (1 Cor 11:3, 7)? Yes, more: why are the elders of the churches called watchmen, overseers, guides, teachers, rulers, and the like, if this kind of worship may be performed without their guidance and government (Ezek 3:17; Ezek 33:7; Acts 20:28; Eph 4:11; Ps 78:72; Heb 13:17)?

(1) Why is man made the head of the woman in worship, in the worship now under debate, the worship that is to be performed in assemblies? And why are the women commanded to be silent there, if they may gather by themselves and set up and manage worship there? Worship was ordained before the woman was made. Therefore the word of God at the first did not come directly to her, but to him who was first formed and made the head in worship (Gen 2:16-18; 1 Cor 14:35-36). And this is why women are so strictly bound to this headship that if they want to learn, they must ask their husbands at home (1 Cor 14:35), not appoint meetings of their own sex to teach one another.

Question. “But what must they do who have unbelieving husbands? And what must they do who have none?”

Answer. Let them attend on those ordinances that God has appointed for the building up and perfecting of the body of Christ (Eph 4:11-13), and learn as the angels do (Eph 3:10; 1 Pet 1:12).

(2) But I say, if they must do what Mr. K. says they are bound in duty to do, namely, meet by themselves apart from their men, and, so met, perform this most solemn worship to God, how shall the elders and overseers, the watchmen, rulers, and guides in worship, perform their duty to God and to the church of God in this? For they are quite excluded from this kind of worship and utterly shut out of doors. Unless, that is, someone says that to watch, to oversee, and to guide the matter and manner of performing this worship in assemblies is no part of the watchman’s or overseer’s work, or, in their lawful absence, the work of the principal men of the church. Nor will the faithful and dutiful overseer leave worship to be performed by every weak brother, no, not even in the best part of the congregation assembled to worship. And yet I believe it might with more warrant be left to them than to the strongest among our ordinary ones of the other sex.

Also, if we have unbelievers looking on, our elders and watchmen earnestly desire that our worship be performed by the most able. How then can it be thought that they should be so foolish as to turn a company of weak women loose to be abused by the fallen angels? Can it be thought that the women’s congregation, since they have it without a command, will fare better among those envious spirits than those who are lawfully called fare before the world?

Watchman, watchman, see to your duty! Look well to the manner of worship that is to be performed according to your commission. Do not trust Eve with worship and with its defense, as Adam did. See that all things are done in worship as befits you, a head both by nature and by office. And do not leave prayer in company, which is, and ought to be counted, so solemn a part of worship, to be done in a way you have no means of knowing. Watch in and over all such worship yourself. Be diligent to know the state of your flocks, whether they are flocks of men or of women; and look well to your herds, and you will have milk enough, not only for men and babes, but also for the maintenance and life of your maidens, so that they need not go with their pitchers to seek water where their God has not sent them (Prov 27:23-27). Beside the shepherds’ tents there is provision enough for them (Song 1:8).

But to conclude this point, I will ask this man whether, by pleading for these women’s meetings, he is not declaring that the women without their men are better able by themselves to maintain divine worship than the men are without their elders. For he himself will not allow the men always to perform worship without his oversight and inspection, and yet he pleads for the women to have such worship in their own congregation among themselves, shutting the men out of it forever. For, he says, the Spirit is promised to be given to them for that very end, that they may meet together to pray apart, without their men.

And now for Mr. K.’s arguments, which, as I said, are four in number. First, we will take the Scriptures from them; and second, we will pick the bones of their carcasses.

Yet in taking the Scriptures from his arguments, I will do it in the way that is most to his advantage, making each of them as formidable an objection against myself as I can.

Objection 1. Miriam took a timbrel in her hand and went out, and all the women went out after her, praising God with timbrels and dances for their deliverance. Therefore the women of the churches of Christ may appoint meetings of their own, separate from their brethren, and then and there perform divine worship by prayer in that congregation of theirs, without their men (Exod 15:20-21).

Answer. 1. Miriam was a prophetess, and I suppose none of our women will claim to be one. Mr. K. labors to get around this by saying that the work of praising was incumbent on all. Yet, by his leave, judgment and discretion, and a spirit of leadership suited to the duty, were found, as far as we read, in none of the women but her. Why else is it said that Miriam led them forth, that Miriam the prophetess did it? By Mr. K.’s argument, another woman might have done it as well. In this way he degrades the prophetess so that he may win favor with ordinary women, and prompt them on to a work for which he has a superstitious affection.

2. But his assertion carries no weight. The women were not left, in that extraordinary service, to the spirit of ordinary believers. Nor can I count it anything but crooked dealing to bring in extraordinary persons, in their extraordinary acts, to prove it lawful for ordinary persons to do what is not commanded them.

3. But though Miriam did go forth, or come out, with the women, she did not go from the men into some remote place in the wilderness to worship by themselves. Rather, she went or came out, and the women followed her, from the place by the sea where they then were, after Moses, to sing as befitted her sex. For though she was an extraordinary woman, she might not make herself equal with Moses and Aaron. Therefore she came behind in worship, yet with the body of the people, as it is said, “So Moses brought Israel from the Red Sea” (Exod 15:22). Women, even prophetesses, must wear some badge or other of inferiority to those who are prophets indeed (1 Cor 11:3-9). And I choose to understand that Miriam did this:

(1) Because the text last mentioned says so.

(2) Because Miriam and all the women sang with the words of the men (compare Exod 15:1 with Exod 15:21).

(3) Because they sang them after the men, as taking them from their mouths. For, the text says, Miriam answered them, and so handed it down to those of her sex, saying, “Sing ye to the Lord, for he hath triumphed gloriously” (Exod 15:1, 21).

(4) Because she commanded the women to sing the same song; this is why it is called the song of Moses, not of Miriam (Rev 15:3).

(5) From all this I conclude that Miriam did not draw the women away into some place where neither Moses, nor Aaron, nor the elders of Israel could see, behold, and observe their manner of worship. Rather, as her modesty befitted her, she led them out from the place where they were, to sing, to dance, and to praise God after the men.

(6) This scripture, therefore, does not favor this man’s opinion, namely, “That it is the duty of the women of the churches of Christ to separate themselves from their brethren, and as so separate, to perform divine worship by themselves.”

Objection 2. Esther the queen performed this duty of prayer with her maidens, without their men. Therefore the women of gospel churches may separate themselves from their brethren and perform it among themselves (Esth 4:16).

Answer. 1. Esther was in the house of the king’s chamberlain, and could not at that time come to her brethren, no, not even to her uncle Mordecai, to consult how to prevent an approaching judgment. Indeed, Mordecai and she were obliged to speak to one another through Hatach, whom the king had appointed to attend the queen (Esth 4:5-9). So at that time she could by no means have communion with the church. No wonder, then, if she fasted with her maidens alone, for she must either do so now or not do it at all. But here I will ask our arguer whether Esther counted it a burden or a privilege to be separated from her brethren in this way, and so forced to perform this work as she did. If a privilege, let him prove it. If a burden, he has little reason to use her practice then as a ground for women who are at liberty to separate from their brethren and perform such worship by themselves, in their own company, without their men.

2. We do not read that she desired any of the women who were at liberty to come away from the men to be with her. From this we may gather that she valued their liberty to worship with the men far above a women’s meeting. She counted herself and her maidens already too many to be in such bondage.

3. Nor did she attempt to take that unavoidable work on herself except by begging the men that she might be borne up in it by their faith and prayers (Esth 4:15-16). This clearly lets us conclude that she counted such work too hard for women to perform by themselves, without the help of their men.

4. Besides, this women’s meeting, as Mr. K. would have it, was made up of no one but the queen and her household maids, and only a few of them. Nor will we complain of our honest women, when the case is such that they cannot go out to the church to do this, if they pray with their maids at home.

5. But what if Esther did pray with her maids in her private room, because she could not come out to her brethren? Is it fair to make the necessity of a woman in bondage a law for women at liberty? This argument, therefore, is erroneous, and must not have this text to prop it up. So we take the text away from his words and proceed to look at his next.

Objection 3. But the prophet Zechariah says that the Spirit is promised to be given in New Testament times to women, so that they may pray together apart from men (Zech 12:11-13).

Answer. The text says nothing of the kind, but is greatly abused by this man. Indeed, it says their wives shall mourn apart, but it does not say they shall do so together. And that they shall separate themselves from their brethren at God’s direction to do so is something this text knows nothing of. Sometimes many may be together, apart from others. But I see no reason at all why Mr. K. should rack and strain this text to serve his purpose and justify his women’s meeting. My reason against him is this: the look spoken of here, upon him whom we have pierced, which is to be the cause of this mourning, is to come by an immediate revelation of the Holy Spirit, who is not accustomed to tell us beforehand when he will come down upon us in this way. But such a meeting as Mr. K. intends must be the product of consultation and time. “I will pour,” says God, “upon the house of David … the spirit of grace and of supplications: and then they shall look” (Zech 12:10); that is, when that Spirit so works with them as to enable them to do so. Now, I say, since this mourning is to be the effect of this look, and so comes before one is aware (Song 6:12), I would like to know whether Mr. K. can prove that these women were to have notice beforehand of when they would have this look. But as it would be ridiculous to conclude this, so it is just as ridiculous to think of proving his women’s meetings from this text.

Nor does the conclusion he has drawn from it prove anything more than that he is ignorant of the work of the Spirit in this matter, or that his fondness for women’s meetings has made him forget his own experience. For how can someone who has had even one such look upon Jesus Christ draw such a conclusion from this text? And to suppose that all those women should have this look at the same time, all the women of the house of David and of the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so that all of them, by the direction of the Holy Spirit, might separate themselves from their men to hold a women’s meeting or meetings by themselves for this, is more fanciful than one would imagine a man could dream. Suppose he says that the women have a promise to have this look whenever they please, or that they are sure to have it because it is tied to their meeting (for this seems to come nearest to his conclusion). Even then, I leave it to anyone to judge what unavoidable problems would follow from it. But I take this mourning to be the kind another of the prophets speaks of: “They shall be on the mountains like doves of the valleys, all of them mourning, every one for his iniquity” (Ezek 7:16). All those souls, therefore, who will be counted worthy to have this look will mourn apart, or by themselves, when they have it. For though a man cannot set for himself the time when he will repent of his sins, or when the Holy Spirit will work, yet he will truly repent. He will do it, I say, when he works in this way, not waiting until someone else can do so too. And since our own iniquity will then make us consider our own case above all, mourning apart, every one for their own iniquity, is the most naturally fitting thing. And this is the mourning that will be in the house of David, in Jerusalem, the church, among both men and women, at all times when the Holy Spirit helps us to look on him whom we have pierced. I pray God will give Mr. K. and me more of these looks on a crucified Christ, for then we will understand this scripture and others like it, instead of drawing such incoherent inferences from them as he does.

Objection 4. “Women used in gospel times to meet together to pray. Therefore the women in gospel churches may separate themselves from their brethren to perform divine worship by themselves without their men” (Acts 16:13). This is another of his scriptures, brought in to hold up this fancy. But,

Answer. 1. It is not said that the women of churches met together alone to pray, but that Paul went down to a riverside where prayer was customarily made, and spoke to the women who gathered there. It looks most agreeable to the word, therefore, to think that the law was read there by the Jewish priests to the women of that city who had become proselytes, and that prayer was mixed in with it, as was their custom in all such service. But this is only conjecture. And yet, for all that, it is better grounded, and has more reason on its side, than any of this man’s arguments for his opinion about his women’s meetings. But further,

2. There was at that time no gospel church of Christ there, nor before that any gospel ministry, and consequently no church obedience. So even if it were granted that there were none but women at that meeting, and that their custom was to meet at that riverside to pray, it still does not follow that their practice was to be a pattern, a rule, a law to women in churches, to separate from their brethren and perform divine worship in their own women’s congregation without their men.

3. There was no gospel believer there. Lydia herself, before Paul came there, had her heart shut up against the faith of Jesus Christ. And how a company of strangers to gospel faith should, in what they were doing, be a pattern to the women in churches, a pattern of Christian worship, I do not understand.

4. If Paul’s call to Philippi had come by the vision of a woman, or of a women’s meeting, what an argument this man would have drawn from it to justify his women’s meetings! But since it came by a man, he has lost an argument there. Even so, he ventures to say that God so approved of that meeting as then, at that very time, to take the opportunity to make known his mind and will to them concerning Jesus Christ.

5. And now that I am into this, since Mr. K. insists on having this scripture justify such a practice, I wonder that he so lightly overlooked Paul’s going to that meeting, for he certainly went there (Acts 16:13-16). Yes, how plausibly, to his way of thinking, he might have pleaded that Paul, by this act of his, was a great lover, supporter and commender of what he calls the women’s meetings! Paul went to the women’s meeting at Philippi; therefore it is lawful for the women of gospel churches to separate from their brethren and to gather by themselves for the performance of some parts of divine worship. I say, how easily he might have said this, and then have popped in those two verses quoted above, and so have killed the old one! For the word lies open to being abused by men’s ignorance. And it would have been better than it is if this had been the first time this man had treated it so, to justify his rigid principles. But when men, out of a foolish conceit of their own abilities, or out of prejudice against those who contradict their errors, are tempted to show their folly, they will not lack an opportunity to do it from false glosses put on the text.

6. But Paul went to that company to preach Christ’s gospel to them, not because they merited his coming, but by the grace of God. So also Peter and John went up into the temple at the hour of prayer, and Paul into the synagogue at Antioch (Acts 3:1-3; Acts 13:14-16). But this man might just as fairly have urged that the healing of the lame man who lay at that time at the gate of the temple, and the conversion of those whom Paul converted at Antioch, were procured by the prayers of the sisters and by their reading of the law in that synagogue at Antioch, as argue, as he has done, that God was so well pleased with that women’s meeting at Philippi, or so well approved of it, as he imagines it, as to send his minister to them.

7. But again, that this women’s meeting should be so deserving, and that while they were without the faith of Christ, as to procure a gospel minister to be sent to them so that Christ might be made known to them, and yet that so few of them should be converted to the faith, seems an even greater paradox to me. For we do not read that a single one of the women then, or of the people of the town who used to go to that meeting, was ever converted to Christ (for Lydia was from Thyatira). We read of several brethren, but we do not hear of one more of those women (Acts 16:40). “But Lydia worshiped God, so her practice might carry weight.” Although it is said that she worshiped God, she was still only a proselyte, as those in Acts 13 were, and knew no more of Christ than the eunuch did (Acts 8). “But wait, she had faith.” Will that make every practice acceptable, yes, a law and commandment to others, and make the work of those who have no faith meritorious? But we must touch on these things shortly.

Objection 5. “But,” says Mr. K., “Malachi 3:16 supports these meetings.”

Answer. Not at all, though Mr. K. has been pleased to change a term in the text to make it speak his mind; for he has taken out thought and put in call. But none of this will do his work. For when he has done what he can, it will be hard to make that scripture say, “It is the duty of women in gospel churches to separate from their brethren, to perform divine worship among themselves.”

Objection 6. “But Jude 20 justifies these meetings, unless,” he says, “anyone will say that women are not to be built up in their most holy faith.”

Answer. How eagerly the man would grab hold of something! Only he lacks divine help, that is, the word of God, to ground his ideas on. But does the apostle here deal at all with the women and their meetings? Or are the women alone the beloved, the ones to be built up? Does he not speak there to the church, which consists of men and women? And are not men the more noble part in all the churches of Christ? But can women be built up in their most holy faith in no other way than by meetings of their own without their men?

But “Building up yourselves,” I suppose, is the phrase he holds on to. But cannot the church, and every woman in it, build themselves up without their women’s meetings? What do they have the word, their prayer closet and the grace of meditation for, if not to build themselves up with them? He does not say, “Build up one another”; but if he had, it could well have been done without a women’s meeting. But anything to save a drowning man! This text, then, is written to the church of Christ, and exhorts it to faith and prayer; but it does not speak a word about a women’s meeting, and so it is trifling with the word to suggest it. While I see this irrelevant handling, therefore, I cannot help thinking that our arguer has lost his wits, or is setting himself up as a head over those he means to rule. The women’s letter to me also seems to imply the same, when they say, “Mr. K. would like to know what objections you have against it (his arguments), and he is ready to give his further advice.”

Having thus taken from his arguments those holy words of God which he has abused to make them stand, I come next to the arguments themselves, and I intend to pick their bones for the crows.

1. He says “that the same Spirit that was in Miriam is also in all God’s servants for the same end, both to pray for mercies we stand in need of, and to praise God for mercies received.”

Answer. (1) But the question is whether Miriam, as she led the women out to dance, acted only as an ordinary saint. And if you dodge this, you choose the tongue of the crafty and use the words of deceit; for she managed that work as “Miriam the prophetess.” In your next letter, please tell your women so.

(2) But even as Miriam the prophetess, she did not lead the women away from their men to worship by themselves in some remote place, as we have shown before.

2. He says “that God has promised to pour out his Spirit in gospel times to that very end, that women might pray together apart from men.”

Answer. (1) Not to repeat what was said before, I add that if by men he means the brethren, the prophet will not be his witness, for he neither says nor hints at any such thing.

(2) And he had better look in good time at how little this saying falls short of making God and his holy prophet the author of schism in worship, and an encouragement to schism in it. For if they may withdraw to do this at one time, they may withdraw to do it at another. And if the Spirit is given to them for this very end, that they may go off by themselves from the church to perform this divine worship at one time, then, for all the limits this man has set them, they may go off by themselves to do it always. But, as I said, since the whole of this proposition is false, the error is all the greater.

3. “God,” he says, “has so well approved of women meeting together to pray in gospel times, as then, and at that time, to take occasion to make known his mind and will to them concerning Jesus Christ” (Acts 16:13).

Answer. Let the reader consider what was said before; and now this follows: if this assertion is true, then the popish doctrine of merit is sound, yes, the worst kind of it, which is works done before faith. For we read that none of these women except Lydia feared or worshiped God; and yet he says that God so approved of that meeting as then, at that very time, to send them his gospel, which is one of the richest blessings. Nor will it help to throw Cornelius in my way now, for the deserving here, as far as we read, belonged to women who did not fear God. Here Lydia alone bore that character. It is said that she worshiped God, but she was not all the women; yet Mr. K. says this of them all. I also know that some had faith in the Messiah to come, though when he came they did not know him in person. But that is not the case here either; these women who, as he imagines, kept up this meeting were not, as far as we read, of that sort of people.

4. He said “that Esther and her maids fasted and prayed, and the Lord gave a gracious return, or answer and deliverance”; that is, to the church, which was then under the rage of Haman.

Answer. Let the reader remember what was said before. And now I ask this man:

(1) Whether Mordecai and the good men of that time did not pray and fast as well as she? And if so, whether they might not obtain at least some small part of the mercy, as well as those women?

(2) If so, whether Mr. K., in attributing the deliverance of this people to the prayer of the queen and her maids (for he lays it there alone), is not arguing deceitfully, and whether this does not tend to puff up that sex, to their hurt and damage! Yes, whether it does not tend to make them unruly and headstrong? But if they are more gently inclined to obedience, no thanks to Mr. K.

(3) And if I should ask Mr. K. who gave him authority to attribute the deliverance of this people in this way to whatever persons and prayers he pleases, I suppose it would not be easy for him to answer. The text does not say that the prayers of these women procured the blessing. But Mr. K. has a women’s meeting to vindicate here, and that is why his mind has gone so far astray. Prayers were heard, and the church was delivered. And I do not doubt that these good women had a hand and a heart in the work. But even if everything Mr. K. has said on this point were granted too, yet this scripture, as has already been proved, will not justify his women’s meeting.

5. He appeals to the women, whether they have not obtained, by their prayers in these meetings of theirs, many blessed returns of prayer from God, both for themselves and for the church of God.

Answer. I count this not one bit better than the very worst of his paper. For besides the silliness of his appeal, by which he makes these good women judges in their own cause, his words tend directly to puff them up to their destruction. I have sometimes been amazed to see, when something extraordinary has happened for the good of the church of God, that a few women who met together to pray should be possessed with the notion that they fetched the benefit down from heaven, when perhaps ten thousand men in the land prayed for the mercy as hard as they did. Yes, I have observed that even when the things given were not so much as thought of by them, they have still been apt to conclude that their meeting together did it. But poor women, you are to be pitied; your tempter is to bear the blame, that is, this man and his fellows.

I come now to some objections that may still be raised, and I will speak a word to them.

Objection 1. It is said, “Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them” (Matt 18:20).

Answer. To gather together in Christ’s name is to gather together by his authority, that is, by his law and commandment (Acts 4:17-18, 30; Acts 5:28, 40; Col 3:17). But we have no law or commandment of Christ that the women of this or that church should separate themselves from their brethren to maintain meetings among themselves for the performing of divine worship. Therefore such meetings cannot be in his name, that is, by his authority, law and commandment; and so they ought not to be at all.

Objection 2. “But women may, if sent for by those of their own sex, come to see them when they are sick, and when they have come together in this way, pray in that assembly before they part.”

Answer. The law of Christ is, “Is any sick among you? let him” (and the woman is included in the man) “call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him …” And to this command a threefold promise is made: (1) “And the prayer of faith shall save the sick.” (2) “And the Lord shall raise him up.” (3) “And if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him” (Jas 5:14-15). And considering that this counsel is backed with so much grace, I think it best in all such cases, as in all others, to make the word of God our rule.

Objection 3. “But women sometimes have cases which modesty will not allow to be made known to men. What must they do then?”

Answer. They and their husbands are one flesh, and are no longer to be counted as two. Let them tell their grief to their husbands. So Rachel asked her husband for children, and did not go to a nest of women to make her complaint to them (Gen 30:1). Or let them take themselves to their prayer closets, as Rebekah did (Gen 25:20-23). Or if they are in the assembly of the saints, let them pray in their hearts, as Hannah did (1 Sam 1:13). And if their petition is lawful, I do not doubt that they may be heard.

Our author will perhaps say that I have not spoken to his question, which was, “Whether women fearing God may meet to pray together, and whether it is lawful for them to do so?”

But I answer that I have, with respect to all such godly women as are in the churches of the saints (1 Cor 14:33-35, compared with 1 Cor 14:15-17). And when he has told us that his question concerned only those outside the churches, then I will confess that I mistook him. Yet he will gain nothing by it, since his question, to be sure, has those in the churches especially in view. His arguments, too, are for justifying that practice of theirs. Now the reason I set aside the form of his question was that it was both scanty and lean of words as to the matter of the controversy in hand. I also thought it best to make it fuller and more distinct, for the edification of our reader. And if after all this Mr. K. is not pleased with what I have done, let him take up the question and answer it better.

Perhaps the man may fly to the case of utter necessity, and so bring out another question: whether, if the men of a church should all die, be murdered, or be cast into prison, the women of that church may not meet together to pray, and whether it is not lawful for them to do so. But when he produces a necessity for putting such a question, and then puts it to me, I will, as God helps me, give him an answer to it.

But some may say, “Our women do not do this on their own initiative. They are allowed by the church to do what they do.”

I answer: no church allowance is a foundation sufficient to justify what is neither commanded nor allowed by the word. Besides, who that has eyes in their head does not know what has already come into the churches, and what more may come in, through such a gap as this?

And now, to give the reader a cautionary conclusion.

Caution 1. Take care not to let the name or good show of a thing breed in your heart a religious reverence for that thing. Look to the word for your foundation, for it is the word that authorizes whatever may be done with warrant in the worship of God. Without the word, things are human inventions, however splendid or beautiful they may appear. No doubt the friars and nuns and their religious orders had a good intent at first, and so did compulsory vows of chastity, single life and the like. But they were all without the word. And therefore, as their foundation lacked divine authority, so the practice lacked holiness from the Holy Spirit. The word prayer is in itself so holy in appearance that whoever forbids it seems at once to be a devil. And yet we find that prayers have been out of joint and used in a disorderly way (Matt 6:5-8; Matt 23:14; Jas 4:3). Therefore someone may call them into question without incurring the danger of damnation; and if he finds them out of order, he may labor to set them in joint again.

I am not one of those who say, “What profit should we have if we pray unto God?” (Job 21:15). But I find no good footing in the word for the kind of service I have dealt with above. I know that error and human inventions in religion never present themselves except with wiped lips and as demure a face as can be. And I am persuaded that this opinion of Mr. K.’s is a vagrant, yes, a mere alien as far as the Scriptures are concerned. So, being an officer, I have arrested it and put it in the stocks, and there I will keep it until I see by what authority it has leave to come and go as it pleases among the godly in this land.

Caution 2. Yet by all I have said, I never meant to suggest in the least that believing women are not saints as well as men, and members of the body of Christ. And I will add this: as they and we are united to Christ and made members of his mystical body, the fullness of him who fills all in all (Eph 1:23), so there is no superiority, as far as I know, but we are all one in Christ. For the man is not without the woman, nor “the woman without the man, in the Lord” (1 Cor 11:11); nor are we counted as male or female in him (Gal 3:28). Only we must observe that this is spoken of that church which is his true mystical body, and not of every particular congregation of professing Christians. The churches of Christ here and there are also called his body. But no church here, however famous, must be taken for the one I mentioned before.

As Christ, then, has a mystical body, which is called his members, his flesh and his bones (Eph 5:30), so he has a body politic: congregations shaped by the skill his ministers have in his word, for bearing up his name and preserving his glory in the world against Antichrist. In this church, order and discipline have been placed from the foundation of the world, for nourishing up the true mystical body of Christ. Therefore in this church, laws, statutes and government are to be looked after and given heed to, for the edification of that which is at last to arrive at a perfect man, at the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ (1 Cor 12:27-30; Eph 4:11-13).

Now, where there is order and government by laws and statutes, there must of necessity also be distinctions of sex, rank and age. Yes, offices and officers must also be there, for our furtherance and joy of faith. From this government and rule our ordinary women are excluded by Paul. Nor should this be any offense to them, since it is done by the wisdom of God.

In this church there are often many hypocrites and formal professors, and heresies, “That they which are approved may be made manifest” (1 Cor 11:19). Since these are there, and are allowed to act as they so often do, they provoke the truly godly to contend with them by the word. For these hypocrites and formal professors naturally lean toward denying the power of godliness and setting up forms of their own in its place (Mark 7:6-9; 2 Tim 3:5).

And this is done for the sake and for the good of those who are the true members of the body of Christ, and who are to arrive at his haven of rest. From these the others will at last be purged, and with them all their things that offend. “Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Who hath ears to hear let him hear” (Matt 13:43).

This church, which consists of all who are righteous in God’s account, is to have a house in heaven (John 14:1-3) and to be God’s habitation there (Eph 2:21). There they will be governed by their Head without the officers and laws that are necessary here. And at last both will be subject to him who once put all things under Christ, that God may be all in all (1 Cor 15:23-27). Therefore, my beloved sisters, this inferiority of yours will last only a little while. When the day of God’s salvation has come, that is, when our Lord descends from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and the trump of God, these distinctions of sex will be laid aside, and every pot will be filled to the brim. For with a notwithstanding you will be saved and gathered up to that state of happiness, if you continue in faith and charity and holiness with sobriety (1 Tim 2:15).

Caution 3. I do not doubt at all that it is lawful for women to pray, and that both in private and in public. Only, when they pray publicly, they should not separate from the church but join with it in that work. Nor should they be the mouth of the assembly; rather, in heart, desires, groans and tears, they should go along with the men. In their closets they are free to speak to their God, who can bear with them and pity them along with us, and pardon all our weakness for the sake of Jesus Christ.

And here I will take the occasion to say that there may be a twofold miscarriage in prayer: one in doctrine, the other in the frame of the heart. All of us are too much subject to the second; women are more easily subject to the first. And it is for this reason, at least so I think, that women are not permitted to teach or speak in assemblies for divine worship, but to be, and to learn, in silence (1 Cor 14:33-35). For the one who fails in the frame of his spirit hurts only himself, but the one who fails in doctrine corrupts those who stand by (1 Cor 15:33). Let the woman be alone with Rebekah in the closet; or, if she is in company, let her, with Hannah, speak to herself and to God. And let her not doubt that if she is humble and keeps within bounds, she will share the mercy with her brothers.

Caution 4. Nor by what I have said are women barred from any work or employment that the word lays on them. They have often been called out to be God’s witnesses, and have borne famous testimony for him against the sons of the sorceress and the whore. I remember many of them with comfort, those eminent daughters of Sarah, whose daughters you also are, as long as you do well and are not afraid with any amazement (1 Pet 3:1-6). Whatever the word of God calls you to, whatever the word commands you, do it; and the Lord be with you.

But as for this matter of the women’s meetings: there is indeed nothing in the word to support it, and calling assemblies together for worship is an act of authority that belongs to the church, its elders or its chief men. So let me urge you to be content to be under subjection and obedience, as the law also says. We hold that it is God’s word we are to look to in all things that pertain to worship, because it is the word that authorizes and sanctifies what we do.

Caution 5. Women! They are an ornament in the church of God on earth, as the angels are in the church in heaven. And there is some likeness between them, for they cover their faces in acts of worship (Isa 6:2; 1 Cor 11:10). But as the angels in heaven are not Christ, and so are not admitted to the mercy seat to speak to God, so neither are women on earth; it is the man who is to worship before him with open face and be the mouth in prayer for the rest. As the angels, then, cry “Holy, Holy, Holy” with faces covered in heaven, so let the women cry “Holy, Holy, Holy” with their faces covered on earth. Yes, this is what they should do, because of the angels: “For this cause ought the woman to have power,” that is, a covering, “on her head, because of the angels” (1 Cor 11:10). This is not only because the angels are present, but because women and angels, as to their worship in their respective places, resemble each other. For the angels are inferior to the great Man Christ, who is in heaven; and the woman is inferior to the man who truly worships God in the church on earth.

It seems to me, holy and beloved sisters, that you should be content to wear this power, this badge of your inferiority, since its cause arose at first from yourselves. It was the woman whom the serpent first made use of, and by whom he then overthrew the world. Therefore the woman, to the world’s end, must wear tokens of her place as an underling in all matters of worship. To say nothing of what she cannot shake off, namely her pains and sorrows in childbearing, which God has riveted to her nature (Gen 3:16; 1 Tim 2:15), there is her silence and shame, and a covering for her face as a token of it, which she ought to practice whenever the church comes together to worship (1 Cor 11:13; 1 Tim 2:9).

Do you think God gave the woman her hair so that she might deck herself and set off her fleshly beauty with it (1 Tim 2:9)? It was given her to cover her face with, as a token of shame and silence, because sin came into the world by the woman. And perhaps the reason the angels cover their faces when they cry “Holy, Holy, Holy” in heaven is to show that they still bear in mind, with a kind of abhorrence, how their fellows fell from there. Modesty and shamefacedness become women at all times, and especially in times of public worship. The more of this is mixed with their grace and person, the more beautiful they are both to God and to men.

But why must the women have shamefacedness, since they live as uprightly as the men? I answer: in remembrance of the fall of Eve, and the apostle applies it to that. For a woman to shave her head (necessity has no law) and to look with open face in worship, as if she could be a leader there, is so far from doing what becomes her that it shows she has forgotten what God would have her remember with shame forever.

Caution 6. In what I have said about the women’s meetings, I have not concerned myself at all with those women who were extraordinary ones, such as Miriam, Deborah, Huldah, Anna, or the rest, like the daughters of Philip the evangelist, Priscilla, the women Paul said labored with him in the gospel, or the like. For they might teach and prophesy, and had power to call the people together to do so. Yet this I must say concerning them: notwithstanding so high a calling, they ought still to carry about with them, and did carry, the badge of their inferiority to those who were prophets indeed. And so it is said, under pain of being guilty of disorder, that if they prayed in the church or prophesied there with their head uncovered, they dishonored their head (1 Cor 11:5).

The prophetesses were below the prophets, and the covering for their head was to be worn as a token of this. And perhaps it was for lack of regard to this order that when Miriam began to hold her head up above Moses, God covered her face with a leprous scab (Num 12:10). Hence these women, when prophets were present, used to keep still as to acts of authority, and leave those to be exercised by those who were higher than they. And even Miriam herself, though she really was a prophetess, always came behind, not only in name but in worship, except when she was in her own disorders (Num 12:1).

And it is worth your further notice that when God tells Israel to take heed in the plague of leprosy, and diligently observe to do what the priests and Levites taught them, he joins this to that exhortation: that they should “remember what God did unto Miriam by the way” (Deut 24:8-9). Surely this suggests that they should not give heed to women who would be putting themselves forward in matters of worshiping God. Much less should we invest women with power to call congregations of their own, there to perform worship without their men.

Yet I will say, notwithstanding all this, that if any of these high women had separated themselves (though we never read that they did), and others of their own sex with them, to worship apart by themselves; or if they had given out a commandment to do so, and had joined God’s name to that commandment, I would freely have consented that our women should do the same, when led out and conducted in worship by so extraordinary a one. Yes, more: if any of these high women had laid it down as law that the women of the churches in New Testament times ought to separate themselves from their men and, being separate, perform divine worship among themselves, I would have subscribed to it. But I found nothing like this in the word of God to sanctify such a practice. I saw so many scriptures wrested out of their place to justify so foolish a conceit, and all this done by a conceited man, one who, as his sisters say, expects my answer. So I found myself bound to say something to suppress this opinion of his.

But to return to the good women in the churches, and to finish my discourse with them.

1. These meetings of yours, honorable women, in which you attempt to perform divine worship by yourselves without your men, have no authority from the word to sanctify them. They will be found to be will-worship in the day when you, in this matter, are measured with that golden reed, the law of God (Rev 11:1). And “who hath required this at your hand?” (Isa 1:12) may leave you hard put to find an answer, notwithstanding all that Mr. K. has said to uphold you.

2. These meetings of yours need not be. There are elders or brethren in all the churches to call and manage this worship of God in the world, if you keep to your subjection and worship as you are commanded.

3. These meetings of yours, instead of being an ornament to the church you belong to, are a shame and blemish to those churches. For they show either the unruliness of such women or that the church lacks the skill to govern them (1 Cor 14:23). Have you not “in your flock a male?” (Mal 1:14).

4. Suppose your meetings were lawful in some cases. Yet since the brethren can manage them better, you and your meetings ought to give way. To see that the church together, with the brethren as the mouth to God, is best able to manage this solemn worship, consider the following:

(1) The gifts for all such service are found most of all in the elders and leading men of the church, and not in its women.

(2) The spirit for conduct and government in that worship is not in the women, but in the men.

(3) The men are admitted in such worship to stand with open face before God, a token of great admittance to liberty and boldness with God, a thing denied to the women (1 Cor 11:4-5).

(4) When meetings for prayer are commanded, the men are named as the mouth to God, but ordinary women never are, in all the Scriptures. Where the women and children and those that suck the breasts are called, with the bride and bridegroom and the whole land, to mourn, yet it is the ministers and elders and chief of the brethren, and they only, who are told to say, “Spare thy people, O Lord! and give not thine heritage to reproach” (Joel 1:13-14; Joel 2:15-17).

(5) The word that encourages praying in faith in assemblies is given to men. And it is the word that makes and sanctifies an ordinance of God. Therefore in all assemblies for worship, men should be the ones to manage it, and the others should join in their places.

Objection. But the woman is included in the man, for the same word signifies both.

Answer. (1) If the woman is included here, let her not exclude the man. But by them the man is excluded. By this women’s meeting the man is excluded from worship; from worship, though he is the head over the woman in worship and is appointed by God’s ordinance to manage it. And this is an exclusion of the worst kind (1 Cor 11:3).

(2) Though the woman is sometimes included when the man is named, yet the man is not excluded when he himself is named as chief. But to cut him off from being the chief in all assemblies for worship is to exclude him, and that where he is named for that very role as chief.

(3) The woman is included when the man is named, yet only in her place. If she worships in assemblies, her part is to hold her tongue and learn in silence; and if she speaks, she must do it (I mean as to worship) in her heart to God.

(4) Nor do I think that any woman who is holy and humble will take offense at what I have said. For I have not in anything sought to degrade women, or to take from them what nature or grace or an appointment of God has invested them with; I have labored to keep them in their place. And no doubt to stay where God has put us is not only what most deeply concerns us, but what becomes us best.

Sisters, I have said what I have said to set you right, and to keep you from attempting to do things in a way to which you are not appointed. Remember what God did to Miriam, and be afraid.

Be in your closets as often as you like; the oftener the better. This is your duty, this is your privilege; this place is sanctified to you for service by the holy word of God. Here you may be without making ordinances clash, without presuming upon the power of your superiors, and without thrusting out your brethren or putting them behind your backs in worship.

Be also in worship as often as you possibly can when the church, or parts of it, are assembled for that purpose according to God’s appointment. And when you are there, join heart and soul with your brethren in all holy petitions to God. Let the men in prayer be the mouth to God, and let the women follow after with groans and desires. Let the men stand with open face in this worship, because they are the image and glory of God; and let the women be clothed in modest apparel, with shamefacedness, as a token that they remember what I touched on earlier.

When women keep their places, and men manage their worship of God as they should, we will have better days for the church of God in the world (Jer 29:10-14). Women are not to be blamed for being forward to pray to God; only let them know their bounds. And I hope it is not idleness in the men that makes them put their good women on this work. Surely those who can hardly tie their shoes and their garters before they arrive at the tavern, or get to the coffeehouse door in the morning, can hardly spare time to be a while in their closets with God. Morning closet prayers are now thrown away by most professing Christians in London; and what kind of prayers they make at night, God knows, and their conscience, when it is awake, will know. However, I have cause to look at home in this; and God mend me and all his servants in it, and in whatever else we are wrong.

I am done, once I have said that there are some other things concerning women on which I may also give my judgment when I have the opportunity. But for now, I ask that these lines be taken in good part, for I seek edification, not contention.