one; that is, the profession of the particular church in which these ordinances are administered. In fine, persons cannot reasonably pretend to have communion with a particular church in her public ordinances, and especially in the Lord's supper, while they openly persist in an obstinate opposition to any article of her profession. Persons may indeed share in that communion, who have but a small measure of knowledge: as they may have communion in a secular affair, who have little influence or opportunity of promoting it; but obstinate opposers can have no communion in it at all. These principles are agreeable to the representation which the apostle gives of the partakers of the Lord's supper. We being many, says he, are one bread and one body; for we are all partakers of that one bread. According to these words our participation of one bread in this ordinance imports a joint profession of the christian religion; just as partaking of the sacrifices in the idol's temple imported a joint profession of idolatry. As christians, in receiving the Lord's supper, partake of one bread; so they make one profession of the christian religion. The profession of receiving Christ, as tendered in the Lord's supper, is a profession of the whole christian religion. For it is a profession, not only that we rely on Christ as a Priest for pardon; but that we fully assent to all that he teaches us as a Prophet; and that we cordially submit to all the laws and ordinances which he has delivered to us as our King. you men The catholic scheme of sacramental communion, which tioned, differs from that of the apostle in two respects: First, a public profession of the whole christian religion is necessary to the sacramental communion of the apostle, for it implies a joint profession of receiving Christ as tendered to the partakers. Whereas, the public profession of those parts only of the christian religion, which are termed essential, is necessary to sacramental communion, according to this catholic scheme. Secondly, the public profession of each communicant is the profession of all who partake of the same sacramental bread, according to the apostle. But according to this catholic scheme, the public profession of some of the partakers may be different from, and in some respects opposite to, the profession of the rest. The profession of religion which is made by the partakers of the Lord's supper in any particular church is to be considered, either as a merely personal, or as a joint profession. If it be considered as merely personal, or as the profession of each individual only, there may be as many different professions as there are partakers; and there will be no communion at all in the same profession. On this supposition, the apostle could not have justly inferred from their partaking of that one bread, that they are one body. But if the profession made in the act of communicating be a social or joint profession; then it must be the profession of the society or particular church, by whose ministers this ordinance is dispensed. No other public profession of the christian religion is or can be made in the act of communicating in that particular church. Alex. The case of occasional sacramental communion, has been compared to that of a christian invited by his pagan neighbour to an entertainment, stated by the apostle in the chapter from which you have just now quoted a passage. * If the pagan, having set meat before his guest, say, this meat is a sacrifice to an idol god, the christian ought not to eat; a condition that was not mentioned in the invitation, is introduced; a condition which would make the christian, if he should eat, a partaker of his neighbour's sin. But if no such thing is intimated by his pagan host, he may freely eat, asking no questions for conscience sake. So if I sit down at the table of the Lord in another church, or receive one of her members to that holy table in my own, neither my act nor his can fairly be construed as more than an act of communion in the body and blood of the Lord; while this act is not coupled with an express or knownt condition, which is sinful. Ruf. The case you refer to, as stated by the apostle, seems to me very different from the occasional communion, of which you speak. In the case alluded to, the christian had no reason to consider an entertainment, not in a temple, but in a private house, not professedly in honour of any idol, but for bodily refreshment or civility, as connected with idolatry, unless he had received the intimation from his host which the apostle mentions. But no intelligent person who considers the necessary connexion between the dispensation of public ordinances in any particular church, and the public profession of that church, and how the former belongs to the latter, (both constituting one whole, of which whatever is professed by that church is a part,) can be at any loss to apprehend the danger of sacramental communion with that church, while her corruption in doctrine, worship and government, is such as renders secession from her necessary. Such an occasional communion is rather like the case represented by the apostle in the same chapter, of the christian who is invited to partake of the sacrifices offered to idols in a pagan temple. I do not say, that this occasional communion is as grossly criminal, as the partaking of the sacrifices in these temples; but I say, that there is as little need of an intimation to be made to any person concerning the profession of a particular church with which he proposes to communicate, as there was, in the apostle's time, of an intimation to be made to a person concerning the design of the sacrifices in an idolatrous temple. And as a christian's partaking of the idolatry of the heathens was justly inferred from his eating the sacrifices in their temples; so a person's consenting to the profession, however corrupt, of a particular church, is justly inferred from his sacramental communion with that church. Alex. It is granted, that sacramental communion implies unity; but not in these things wherein one section of the catholic church is distinguished from another. To be united in these things, is to be united in a sect. Such unity is necessary to sectarian communion; but christian unity, or union in Christ, is a sufficient reason for all christian communion.|| Ruf. The catholic church comprehends all that profess the true religion. There is a lawful and necessary division of it into sections in * 1 Corinth. x. 27, 28. 1 Corinth. x. 20, 21. † Dr. Mason's Plea for Catholic Communion, p. 332. | Plea for Catholic Communion, page, 359. respect of local situation. But when a number of people, bearing the christian name, combine together as a distinct society, for the purpose of maintaining and propagating doctrines and practices, which, instead of belonging to the true religion, are contrary to it; they ought not, considered as such a combination, to be called a lawful section of the catholic church It is not denied, that they belong to the catholic church; but it is denied, that there ought to be any such section or division in it. Thus, there ought to be no section of the catholic church, having for the peculiar end of its distinct subsistence, the support of an episcopal hierarchy, unknown in the scripture, or the propagation of antipedobaptism, or of antiscriptural doctrine, in opposition to that of God's election, redemption, effectual calling and the conservation of his people, as delivered in the scripture; or for the support of ways and means of divine worship not found in scripture. If the catholic visible church were brought to a suitable discharge of her duty, she would abolish all such sections. But no society ought to be called such an unlawful section, while it can be shewn that it subsists as a separate society for no other end, than for the maintaining of something in the doctrine, worship or government of the church which belongs to the christian religion as delivered in the word of God, or for exhibiting a testimony against prevailing errors and corruptions which the scripture requires the catholic church to condemn. Such a profession of any party of christians is no sectarian profession; and an union with them is not a sectarian, but properly a christian union; and, being cordial and sincere, is a union in Christ; and communion upon the ground of this union is truly christian communion. On the other hand, however much of our holy religion any body of christians hold in common with others, and however many of them we may charitably judge to be saints, yet while their distinguishing profession is contrary to the word of God, communion with them, as a body so distinguished, is sectarian communion; as it implies a union with them in that which ought to be rejected by the whole catholic church. Alex. There is no argument for the communion of different congregations, founded upon their union in one sect, which is not equally good for the communion of the sects themselves, on account of their union in one church-catholic. To maintain the necessity of amalgamating different sects into one sect, in order to communion among their members, is to maintain the necessity of amalgamating different congregations into one congregation for that end.* Ruf. Several parts indeed of the catholic visible church, particularly, congregations under one presbytery, may warrantably hold sacramental communion together; because they all make the same profession of the faith; they are one bread, one body. But this is not an argument for, but against sacramental communion between many other parts of the catholic church; as between Papists and Protestants, between Socinians and Calvinists, between Episcopalians and Presbyterians, between those who are obstinately and openly declining from certain points of reformation already attained and those who are endeavouring to adhere to them. For these parties contradict one another in their public profession; and therefore cannot sincerely say; * Plea for Catholic. Communion, page, 361.. we are one body, one bread; we will glorify God with one mind and with one mouth. It is evident then, that the same argument, that is, the same union in one profession, which warrants the communion of congregations with one another, condemns sacramental communion between those, who, though they belong to the same catholic visible church, make professions of the faith contradictory to one another. Thus, there is no necessity for what you call amalgamating different congregations into one, in order to render communion between them warrantable. It is only requisite, that these church members agree in making the same profession of the faith, and in a corresponding practice. Upon this ground they may all have edifying and comfortable communion together in sealing ordinances, however many different worshipping congregations they may severally belong to. § 6. Alex It has been proposed, as the true and only safe rule of interpreting social communion, that it should always go as far as the acts that express it, but is not necessary to be extended farther; and that no particular act of communion is to be interpreted as reaching beyond itself; unless it be coupled with other acts by an express or known condition.* Ruf. Whatever is an express or known end for which any particular church is erected and supported, is necessarily to be considered as an express and known condition of sacramental communion with that church. For none ought to partake of the peculiar privileges of any society, but such as are friendly to the known ends, for which it subsists; and therefore in partaking of these privileges, persons are to be considered as professing to be so. On this principle, the apostle condemned christians, who ate and drank in the Pagan temples as chargeable with idolatry The public profession of any particular church declares the peculiar end for which it subsists as a distinct and separate body from other churches. This is the public profession of the ministers of that particular church, and of all that sit down along with them at the Lord's table declaring themselves to be one bread, one body. This is the only true and safe rule of interpreting social communion. According to this rule, there is no adventitious condition coupled with the act of communicating; there is nothing introduced but what is necessarily implied in the act itself as a social act, the act of the society or particular church in which the Lord's supper is dispensed. In this interpretation there is no more communion supposed, than what the act of communicating in any particular church expresses; no going beyond that, Alex. If the sacramental table were only the property of such a particular church, then her officers might require an approbation of the peculiar ends of her erection and subsistence, as a term of admission to her own table. But as it is the Lord's table, and not hers, his people have a right to a seat at it without complying with such a condition.t Ruf. Your objection would be of weight on the supposition, that the ends, for which a particular church is erected and subsists as such, are only of human device and appointment. But if these ends be no *Plea for Catholic Communion, p. 332. Plea, &c. p. 19. other than those which are declared, in the holy scriptures, to be the ends for which Christ erected his church; such as, that the doctrine of Christ may be purely preached; that there may be no mixture of human inventions in the worship of God; that the sacraments may be rightly administered; that the officers of the church, her government and discipline, may be such as Christ hath appointed, and no other; then whoever openly opposes any of these ends, acts, in that respect, contrary to the will and command of the Lord Jesus; and while he is obstinate in his opposition to any thing acknowledged by a particular church to be one of the ends for which Christ erected his church, he cannot be, in his public profession, one bread, one body, with those who publicly profess, that the very thing which he opposes is one of these ends and therefore he cannot be a regular partaker of the Lord's supper, as dispensed in such a particular church: and no one has a right to be an irregular, or disorderly partaker. Alex. When I communicate with a particular church, I acknowledge her to be a true church of Christ. I acknowledge her sacramental table for his own ordinance, where it is my duty to shew forth his death, and my privilege to look for a blessed experience of its benefits. This, all this I acknowledge cheerfully, without following her, directly or indirectly, in things in which she does not follow Christ.* Ruf. This acknowledgment must mean either your public profession, or the secret intention of your mind in the act of communicating. It cannot mean your public profession in the act of receiving the Lord's supper as dispensed in any particular church; for the public profession you make in that act, as it is a social act, can be nothing. different, either in quantity or quality, from that of your fellow communicants, or from that of the particular church with which you communicate; and therefore it cannot be a profession of some things, such as the particulars you have mentioned, exclusive of other things belonging to the profession of that church. Nor can it be a profession you have made at any other time or place; for, according to your own rule, the profession, made in communicating, should go no farther than the acts that express it. But supposing that your acknowledgment means the secret intention of the mind, it cannot prevent your public profession from being the same with that of the particular church with which you communicate: nor can it exempt you from a participation in those parts of her public profession, in which she does not follow Christ. I know, my friend abhors the nefarious doctrine of the Jesuits about mental reservation and the direction of the intention. But if you should suppose, that by secret acknowledgments in your own mind your public act of communicating with a corrupt church is altered, and freed from that participation, which naturally belongs to it, in the evil as well as in the good of her public profession, your scheme would certainly resemble that of the Jesuits, which is so successfully ridiculed in Pascal's celebrated Provincial Letters. If a Jesuit had proposed, on some account or another, to partake of the Lord's supper in a heretical church, he would have reasoned with himself in this manner: "I know well, that my joining with that church in the public and so"cial act of communicating is an acquiescing in her whole profession : "Nay, it is all the profession I can make in the solemn act of commu |