This Edwards insists upon, yet he does not venture to assert that all Jews admitted to circumcision and the passover, were, in the judgment of charity, truly regenerate persons.
2. The New Testament contains no command to the Church to assume the prerogative in question. There is the command often repeated to recognize as brethren all who profess their faith in Christ. There are explicit directions given as to those who, although calling themselves brethren, are to be rejected. (1 Cor. v. 9, 10 j Rom. xvi. 17 ; 2 Thess. iii. 6 ; Tit. iii. 10 ; Matt. vii. 15-17.) But there is no command to exclude those whom the Church or its officers do not in their hearts believe to be the true children of God. The gates of the kingdom of God are not to be opened or shut at the discretion of weak, fallible men. Every man has a right and is bound to enter those gates, except those whom Christ has commanded his Church to reject.
3. The Apostles, it is plain, never acted on the principle in question. This is clear, as remarked above, from their baptizing converts immediately after the profession of their faith. It is obviously impossible that there should have been any protracted examination of the religious experience of the three thousand converted on the day of Pentecost, or of the five thousand brought in by the sermon of Peter, recorded in the third chapter of Acts. The Acts of the Apostles and the Epistles of the New Testament afford abundant evidence that the early churches did not consist exclusively of those whom the Apostles " judged " to be regen- erated persons. The Church of Jerusalem was filled with men who were so " zealous of the law," that Paul feared that they would not receive him even when he came to bring alms to the people. Paul charges the churches of Galatia with having turned aside to another gospel. He reproves the Corinthians with the grossest irregularities ; and the Epistles of John are no less ob- jurgatory.
4. Experience proves that all attempts to preserve the purity of the Church by being more strict than the Bible, are utterly futile. The tares cannot be separated from the wheat.
5. Such attempts are not only futile, they are seriously inju- rious. They contravene the plan of God. They exclude from the watch and care of the Church multitudes whom He com- mands his people' to look after and cherish. In confining the visible Church to communicants, it unchurches the great majority even of the seed of the faithful.
6. There is an obvious inconsistency in having one rule for
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578 PART III. Ch. XX. — THE MEANS OF GRACE.
admission into the Church, and another for continued member- ship. If Christ requires us to reject all whom in the judgment of charity we are not constrained to believe to be regenerate, then He requires us to excommunicate all those of whom this belief is not entertained. But no Church acts, or can act on that principle. No man once admitted to Church privileges can be debarred from them, except after a trial and conviction on the charge of some " scandal " or " offence."
The sacraments as all admit are to be confined to members of the Church. But the Church does not consist exclusively of communicants. It includes also all who having been baptized have not forfeited their membership by scandalous living, or by. any act of Church discipline. All members of the Church are professors of religion. They profess faith in Christ and are under a solemn vow to obey his laws. If they are insincere or heartless in this profession, the guilt is their own. The Church is, and can be responsible only for their external conduct ; so long as that is not incompatible with the Christian character, and so long as the faith is held fast, the privileges of member- ship continue.
This seems clearly the doctrine of the«standards of our own Church. Those standards teach, (1.) That the sacraments are signs and seals of the covenant of grace. (2.) That consequently all who partake of them do thereby profess to accept of that covenant for their own salvation ; they profess to receive the Lord Jesus Christ as He is offered to them in the gospel. (3.) That although a man may doubt of his being in Christ he may be a worthy partaker of the sacraments, if he " unfeignedly desires to be found in Christ, and to depart from iniquity." J (4.) That the Church has no authority to exclude from the sacraments any except those who, although they may profess faith, are ignorant or scandalous. In answer to the question, " May any who profess the faith, and desire to come to the Lord's Supper, be kept from it ? " it is answered, " Such as are found to be ignorant or scandalous, notwithstanding their pro- fession of the faith, and desire to come to the Lord's Supper, may and ought to be kept from that sacrament by the power which Christ hath left in his Church, until they receive instruc- tion, and manifest their reformation." This, according to Pres- byterians, is the extent of the power of the Church, in the matter of shutting the doors of the kingdom of God.
1 Larger Catechism, answer to the 172d Question.