a. The Lord’s Table for the Lord’s People
[Directory for Worship, chap. viii., sec. iv. Digest of 1873, pp. 669, 44, 307, 487, 495.]
Several of the answers proposed by the Committee of Bills and Overtures to the questions submitted to them, contain important principles. Of these answers the following are of the most consequence:
- An inquiry on the lawfulness of admitting to the Lord’s Supper persons not holding the doctrines, or submitting to the discipline of the Presbyterian Church. The Committee reported a resolution, stating in substance, that as to the knowledge and deportment of persons applying, the session must judge, save in the case of persons invited to sit from other churches. After some inquiries and explanations the report was adopted.
The principles of Church communion are so clearly laid down in Scripture, and so distinctly stated in our Standards, that whenever we see such inquiries as the above presented, we take it for granted they come from Congregationalists, who think, in many cases, each particular parish Church may establish its own terms of communion, or from some other source, foreign to our own Church. Knowledge to discern the Lord’s body, faith to feed upon him, repentance, love, and new obedience, are the only conditions of Christian communion which any Church on earth has a right to impose. The Lord’s table is for the Lord’s people—and we commit a great sin, if we presume to debar any man, giving credible evidence of being a child of God, from our Christian fellowship. All imposition of other terms, whether relating to unessential doctrines, to slavery, temperance, hymnology, or anything else, is setting up ourselves above God in his own house; and that is the vital germ of antichrist.
b. Credible Evidence of Conversion alone required []
[Directory for Worship, chap. ix., sec. iii.—Comp. Digest of 1873, pp. 306, 475, 495, 674–677.]
The ecclesiastical principles of this discourse [“a Discourse delivered in Dec. 1839, by J. C. Coit,” of Cheraw, S. C.] we regard as in direct conflict with the standards of the Presbyterian Church. It is the leading doctrine of this sermon that no man is to be regarded and treated as a Christian who does not adopt the standards of the Presbyterian Church, or some formula of doctrine of like import. The exclusive principle of Christianity, the writer teaches, is faith in the doctrine of Christ according to our standards; all who do not adopt that doctrine as thus set forth, we are bound to denounce, and to have no communion with them as Christians. He censures the Church for having “intermingled in religious correspondence with Arminians, Methodists, and Pelagians.” He sneers repeatedly at the expression “Sister Churches.” He exclaims, “We turn the New School Presbyterians out of our house, because we say they deny our faith, our gospel; and avowed Arminians are invited into it, welcomed and embraced as Christian brethren.” This idea pervades the whole discourse, and unless we are prepared to maintain this exclusive principle, all talk of reform, he calls, mere vapouring.
Now we confidently affirm, that this is not the doctrine of the Presbyterian Church, but, on the contrary, is in direct opposition to her spirit and principles. The first proof of the correctness of this declaration, though negative, is conclusive. The fact that our Church no where enjoins the adoption of the Confession of Faith as a term of Christian communion, is proof positive that she does not consider it necessary. She wisely demands the adoption of that Confession of all who are admitted to the office of bishop, or ruling elder, or deacon, but she has never required it of the private members of the Church. Many of our New School brethren went to the extreme of asserting that our Church required of her ministers nothing but what was essential to the Christian character; and now it seems that some are for going to the opposite extreme, and teach that the Confession of Faith is the test not only of ministerial, but of Christian communion. These extremes are equally dangerous and equally opposed to our standards.
It is not, however, by merely abstaining from requiring the adoption of the Confession of Faith by private members, that our Church teaches that such adoption is not necessary to Christian communion, but by expressly teaching the contrary doctrine. Our standards from beginning to end teach that we are bound to regard and treat as Christians, and to receive to our communion as such, all who give credible evidence of being true Christians; and she no where prescribes, as part of that evidence, the adoption of the whole system of doctrine contained in our Confession of Faith. “The Catholic Church,” our Confession teaches, “hath been sometimes more, and sometimes less visible. And particular churches, which are members thereof, are more or less pure, according as the doctrine of the gospel is taught and embraced, ordinances administered, and public worship performed more or less purely in them. The purest Churches under heaven are subject both to mixture and error; and some have so degenerated as to become no Churches of Christ, but synagogues of Satan.”* In describing those who ought not to be admitted to Christian communion, the Confession says: “All ignorant and ungodly persons, as they are unfit to enjoy communion with him, so are they unworthy of the Lord’s table.” It is here plainly taught that those who are fit for communion with the Lord should be admitted to his table. And what a monstrous doctrine is the opposite assumption! Who are we, that we should refuse communion with those with whom Christ and the Holy Ghost commune? We devoutly thank God that no such anti-Christian doctrine is countenanced by our Church. In the Larger Catechism, in answer to the question, [] May one who doubteth of his being in Christ, or of his due preparation, come to the Lord’s supper? it is said, “One who doubteth of his being in Christ, or of his due preparation to the sacrament of the Lord’s supper, may have true interest in Christ, though he be not assured thereof, and in God’s account hath it, if he be duly affected with the apprehension of the want of it, and unfeignedly desires to be found in Christ, and to depart from iniquity, in which case (because promises are made, and this sacrament is appointed for the relief of even weak and doubting Christians) he is to bewail his unbelief, and labour to have his doubts resolved; and so doing, he may and ought to come to the Lord’s supper, that he may be further strengthened.” And in the immediately-following answer we are taught that it is only “the ignorant and scandalous” whom we are authorized to debar from communion. The qualifications for the Lord’s supper, as laid down in the Shorter Catechism, are knowledge to discern the Lord’s body, faith to feed upon him, repentance, love, and new obedience. In the Directory, chapter 8, we are told that “the ignorant and scandalous are not to be admitted to the Lord’s supper.” And in the following chapter, in reference to the young, it is said, “When they come to years of discretion, if they be free from scandal, appear sober and steady, and have sufficient knowledge to discern the Lord’s body, they ought to be informed, it is their duty and privilege to come to the Lord’s supper.” And on the same page it is said, “Those who are to be admitted to sealing ordinances, shall be examined as to their knowledge and piety.”