she comes to the points which you allow to be essential to the christian faith and fellowship; and then how hard it will be to retain even these essential articles, must be evident, from the acknowledged difficulty of drawing the line between them and other important points; from the close connection of one Divine truth with another, as links of the same chain; from the vanity of pretending to hold the foundation without a superstructure; and from the danger of accounting it so trivial an offence, to trample openly and obstinately upon the authority of the Supreme Lawgiver, as not to deserve the least censure of the church.

You justly allow, that, when the doctrine, the worship, or the government of the christian church is matter of controversy, a particular church ought to have a confession, expressing the sense in which she understands the scripture, in relation to the controverted subject. But, if a church admits to her sacramental communion every opposer of these articles of her confession, which are not what you call essential, though acknowledged to be important and worthy to be maintained with zeal and constancy; her confession may soon cease to be any exhibition of her sense of the controverted articles: for that confession cannot be said to be her's, of which a great part, (perhaps the far greater part) is openly and obstinately rejected by the partakers of her sacramental communion. Nay, the admission of one avowed opposer of one article of such a profession, justified and defended by her as a church, must go a great way to destroy the use of that confession, as a criterion or standard for determining her principles.

Alex. If confessions of faith were terms of sacramental communion ; then they would be the shibboleths, the symbols, the flags of religious, or rather of irreligious factions; challenges to battle among believers; wedges of dissension to split the church of Christ into pieces: whereas, indeed, they ought only to proclaim, wherein believers differ from the carnal world; and to be luminous rallying points of their strength and efforts in their conflict with the enemies of our Lord and of his Christ.*

Ruf. When I spoke of confessions of faith being terms of church communion, I proceeded upon the supposition, that a confession was not an exhibition of opinions, ceremonies, and forms of church government, not to be found in the holy scriptures. I spoke of a confession which exhibits the truths and institutions of Jesus Christ, which he enjoins his whole church to receive and maintain: such a confession never was, and never can be, either the cause, or the badge of faction. When a church requires all the partakers of her sacramental communion to declare their adherence to her whole confession, it being such as is now described; then, and not otherwise, it proclaims wherein believers differ from the carnal world: for it is the character of believers, that they adhere to all the truths and institutions of Christ without any exception. It is true, the church's confession of faith may condemn errors and corruptions in which even true believers may be ensnared; but as these errors and corruptions belong to their remaining sinful conformity to the world, so that confession, in opposing them, opposes not believers themselves as such, but what belongs to the carnal world. On the other hand, if a particular church tells the world, that she holds the essential parts only of her confession as

Plea, &c. page 318.

terms of sacramental communion, she allows her members to make little or no account of all the other parts of it. She can give no check to the open opposers of these other parts. She opens a door to endless perverse disputings against them; and also about the unanswerable question as to what is precisely the line of distinction between the essentials and the non-essentials. Thus, a particular church will be filled with schisms in the sense in which the apostle Paul uses that word, that is, for factions and parties in the same church communion; in which sense, he says, there were schisms and divisions in the Corinthian church. Thus, if a particular church has a confession of faith, and yet tells her members, that a part of it, (perhaps the far greater part) is no term of communion; the various articles of that part must be, (to use your own language) the shibboleths of religious, or rather irreligious, factions; the wedges of dissension to split such a church of Christ into pieces.

Alex. No, no; these parts of her confession, in which she allows her communicants to differ, furnishes suitable occasion for the exercise of that forbearance, which is indispensable to keeping the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace.*

Ruf. It is a great sin to deny openly any truth of God, and particularly such truths as you allow to be important and worthy to be contended for with zeal and constancy: and therefore love, sincere love to our brother, who is fallen into this sin, requires us, both in our pri vate and official capacity, to admonish and reprove him. Hence, it is evident, that a church's forbearing to reprove or censure, in such a case, those who apply for admission to her sacramental communion, is not the forbearance which the scripture inculcates, a forbearance in love. Nor can it be agreeable to the unity of the spirit for a particular church to admit to her sacramental communion, any open and obstinate opposers of what is justly stated in her confession as a truth of the Lord Jesus: for, the unity of the spirit, which is the bond of the church's peace, has the Holy Spirit for its author as a spirit of truth; and, therefore, a church's conniving at error, or her neglecting to censure the erroneous, is not to be ascribed to the Holy Spirit: led by him, the officers and members of a particular church will be valiant for the truth on the earth: their hearts will be comforted, being knit together in love, and unto all riches of the full assurance of understanding.† How can this be the case, while they hold communion with the open and obstinate opposers of any of the truths of Christ, especially of those which being stated in their confession of faith, or their public testimony, they have bound themselves to maintain? Is not a church's retaining such opposers in her communion quite contrary to the mutua! love which ought to animate her members in the joint profession of the same Divine truths? Can we sincerely embrace, in the fellowship of the gospel, those who profess their firm resolution to cut off, if they are able, our legs or arms? And are we to find no fault with this resolution; because, legs and arms not being essential, we may be useful, honored, and happy without them? Surely, if professors had as much regard for the truths of Christ, as they have for these members, they would not be so apt to relish the proposal of sacramental communion with such as openly avow their opposition to any of these truths.

* Plea, &c. page 349. † Coloss. ii. 2.

Alex. Supposing, that a particular church has adopted such a confession of faith as the Westminster Confession; it cannot be in effect a term of christian communion. Will a discreet man allow, that every plain christian, who knows enough for his salvation, and has learned to glorify God in his body and his spirit, can also be acquainted with the whole doctrine of such a standard? The most strenuous advocates for your opinion, in their examination of applicants for sacramental communion, never go into the details of these standards.*

Ruf. When a confession of faith is held by a particular church, as a term of her sacramental communion, it is not meant, that all whom she admits to that communion, are expected to have the same measure of acquaintance with that confession, and with the grounds of all its articles. There are always various degrees of knowledge among church members: in this, as in other respects, some will be farther advanced than others. This may easily be inferred from the variety of their capacities and opportunities of learning. But the confession of a particular church ought to be uniformly a term of communion in this sense, that none ought to be admitted to sealing ordinances who avow an obstinate attachment to tenets or practices inconsistent with that confession. Thus, the church may go on toward more perfection in her communion; or at least, she may retain the measure of it which she has attained. Thus, she may avoid the evil for which the churches of Pergamos and Thyatira were so severely threatened: the one for having in her communion those who held the doctrine of Balaam, and that of the Nicolaitans; and the other, for having those in it who taught their followers to commit fornication, and to eat things sacrificed to idols. Thus, too, the weak are encouraged to seek a more perfect knowledge of the truths exhibited in the public confession, as truths contained in the Holy Scriptures; that their communion with the church may be more perfect; they being more able to glorify God with the same mind and mouth, according to that confession.

Let us only consider what a happy change it would make in the case of the catholic visible church, if all, who were admitted to sacramental communion, would agree in an unanimous adherence to such a form of sound words as the Westminster confession of faith and catechisms; renouncing, at the same time, the errors and corruptions of some, who have professed adherence to that confession; and whose perversions of it, if admitted, would destroy the use of it, as any test of soundness in the faith.

The expectation, that the catholic church may yet come to hold as terms of communion, not only some, but all the articles of such an orthodox confession of the truth in opposition to all the various schemes of error, which have prevailed in various times and places, is not so chimerical as many suppose. There appears to be reason to believe, that it will at length be the case, from the promises that God hath given his church of the increase of light and knowledge; as when he foretells, that the light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun sevenfold as the light of seven days:-from his promises of the unity of the church, as when he declares, that he will give them one heart and one way; that the Lord shall be one, and his name one, through all the earth; that he will turn to the people a pure lan

* Plea, &c. page 356.

guage, and that they shall all call on the name of the Lord, and serve him with one consent; that when the Lord shall bring again Zion, the watchmen on her walls shall see eye to eye, and with the voice toge ther shall they sing:-from his having engaged thoroughly to plead the cause of Zion, which is the cause of truth, his own cause:-from the duty, incumbent on the church and her members, of holding fast every Divine truth, and of rejecting every contrary error :-from the close connection of all the doctrines contained in the holy scriptures, as links of the same chain, as having the same Divine authority stamped on them all, and as having the same chief end, the glory of God, and the same next subordinate end, the spiritual good of his people:-from the ability and disposition of the new nature in believers to know and acknowledge the true doctrines of the divine word, and to reject the contrary errors; for Christ's sheep know or distinguish his voice: a stranger will they not follow, for they know not the voice of strangers-from the promise of the Holy Spirit to be yet more eminently poured out as a Spirit of truth :-and from the great measure of agreement in a testimony for Divine truth, which has sometimes been actually attained in the church at large, or in some parts of it.

Alex. Though I cannot grant that an approbation of all the confession of a particular church, such as the Westminster confession, ought to be required of private persons in order to their admission to baptism and the Lord's supper; yet, I allow that she ought to put this, her confession of faith, into the hands of her officers, to be by them inculcated and supported. Nothing can be more absurd than to employ, as preachers, and guardians of her religion, men, who for aught she knows, may labor to subvert the whole system, she is endeavouring to build up. She has, therefore, a right, and it is her duty, on the ground of self-preservation, as well as if fidelity to her King, to exact from them, an explicit avowal of their belief on all these topics, which more nearly or remotely affect the main interests of truth; and a positive unequivocating agreement to maintain them. For this purpose, she must bring them to a test; which can be done so effectually in no form, as that of requiring an approbation of her confession. In a church's confession of faith, then, are strictly and indispensably her terms of official union.*

Ruf. You then allow, that the orthodoxy of those, who are candidates for the ministry, ought to be ascertained, not by a bare acknowledgement of the scriptures, which the grossest heretic is ready to make; nor by delivering a confession of his own composing, and in the express words of scripture, which persons of erroneous principles may easily frame in such a manner as to impose upon the simple; but by declaring his approbation of a confession of faith, framed by the church, in a plain and direct opposition to the errors of the times. You grant, that we ought to be well satisfied as to the orthodoxy of these candidates, to whom we intrust the care of immortal souls. Yet, I cannot help observing, that the manner in which you express yourself, implies an opinion, that it is not properly the confession itself as á tessera or form of sound words, or as one whole; but rather something in it, which a candidate should be required to approve for you speak of exacting from him, not a simple approbation of the church's

Plea, &c. page 352, 353.

confession as one whole, but "an avowal of his belief on all these "topics which more nearly or remotely affect the main interests of "truth;" as if there were some parts of the confession which he need not be required to approve; as not much, if at all, affecting these interests and you do not say, that a church's terms of official union are her confession, but that they are in it; as if they were only some part of it: so that one is still at a loss to know, how far you allow a church's confession to be a term even of official communion.

Alex. The confession of a particular church is a human thing; as such, the church cannot require a candidate to approve it indefinitely, or without exception.

Ruf. When a person approves of the confession of a particular church, he approves of it, as a subordinate standard, stating scripture truths and institutions, in direct and express opposition to prevailing errors and corruptions. It is true, there is an exception implied in the consideration of it as a standard subordinate to the holy scriptures, which constitute the supreme standard. So that a person's adherence to such a confession, cannot bind him to any thing which he may ever find in that confession inconsistent with the scripture standard. But, if a candidate for the ministry is convinced, that this is the case with any article of the confession, which he is required to approve, or to maintain, he cannot honestly comply. When a person receives the confession of a particular church, he declares, (as the members of the church of Scotland did, when they entered into the national covenant concerning their confession,) that he believes it to be "God's undoubt"ed truth and verity, grounded only upon his written word." It is evident, that an adherence to certain things in a confession, that are connected with the main interests of truth, is not an honest adherence to the confession itself. And, if an approbation of these things, while they are not specified, be all that a candidate means by his approbation of a confession, it is not too much to say, that he deals deceitfully with God and man.

It is vain to say, that the confession of a particular church is a human thing: for, candidly interpreted, it may be found to contain nothing but the undoubted truths of God's word. It is either possible for men to express these truths in their own words, or it is not. If it is not possible, then his words cannot be understood: and all attempts to state, explain, illustrate or apply them, as in public preaching or in writing, are vain; a supposition grossly absurd. But if it be possible for men to express the truths of the scripture in their own words; then the doctrines or instructions contained in a confession, may be no other than the truths of God's word: and, if they are actually no other, then a church may warrantably require of her members, and of such as desire admission to her communion, a public assent to her whole confesssion, nor can that assent be refused without impiety. No church has a right to require her members to receive any of the doctrines or commandments of men; but her Divine Head authorises her to exact of her members an adherence to all his truths and institutions. In this case, he is saying, He that receiveth you, receiveth me ; and he that despiseth you, despiseth me.

Alex. You think, that the members in general, of any particular church, should be required to acknowledge her whole confession of