COMMUNION WITH BRETHREN OF OTHER DENOMINATIONS - Robert Murray Mcchene

TO THE EDITOR OF THE “DUNDEE WARDER.”

DEAR SIR, —Allow me, for the first time in my life, to ask a place in your columns. My object in doing so is not to defend myself, which we are all perhaps too ready to do, but to state simply and calmly what appear to me to be the scriptural grounds of Free Ministerial Communion among all who are faithful ministers of the Lord Jesus Christ, by whatever name known among men. These views I have long held: they were maintained by the early Reformers, and by the Church of Scotland in her best days; and I bless God that, by the decision of the last General Assembly, they are once more declared to be the principles of our beloved church. I am anxious to do this, because the question is one of great difficulty, requiring deeper thought than most have bestowed upon it; and it is of vast importance, in this day of conflicting opinions, to be firmly grounded on the Lord’s side.

Of the respectable ministers, who so lately officiated for me during my illness, I shall say nothing, except that they agreed to assist me in a time of need in the kindest manner, and that, however much I differ from them on several points of deepest interest, I, along with many in the church, do regard them as faithful ministers of Christ; and I trust they will utterly disregard the poor insinuations as to their motives (contained in the letters of your correspondents), which, I regret to say, disfigure your last paper.

In order to clear our way in this subject, allow me to open up, first, the subject of Free Communion among private Christians, and then that of Free Communion among Christian ministers.

1. I believe it to be the mind of Christ, that all who are vitally united to Him, should love one another, exhort one another daily, communicate freely of their substance to one another when poor, pray with and for one another, and sit down together at the Lord’s table. Each of these positions may be proved by the word of God. It is quite true that we may be frequently deceived in deciding upon the real godliness of those with whom we are brought into contact. The apostles themselves were deceived, and we must not expect to do the work of the ministry with fewer difficulties than they had to encounter. Still I have no doubt from Scripture that, where we have good reason for regarding a man as a child of God, we are permitted and commanded to treat him as a brother; and, as the most sacred pledge of heavenly friendship, to sit down freely at the table of our common Lord, to eat bread and drink wine together in remembrance of Christ. The reason of this rule is plain. If we have solid ground to believe that a fellow-sinner has been, by the Holy Spirit, grafted into the true vine, then we have ground to believe that we are vitally united to one another for eternity. The same blood has washed us, the same Spirit has quickened us, we lean upon the same pierced breast, we love the same law, we are guided by the same sleepless eye, we are to stand at the right hand of the same throne, we shall blend our voices eternally in singing the same song: “Worthy is the Lamb!” Is it not reasonable, then, that we should own one another on earth as fellowtravellers to our Father’s house, and fellow-heirs of the incorruptible crown? Upon this I have always acted, both in sitting down at the Lord’s table and in admitting others to that blessed privilege. I was once permitted to unite in celebrating the Lord’s Supper in an upper room in Jerusalem. There were fourteen present, the most of whom, I had good reason to believe, knew and loved the Lord Jesus Christ. Several were godly Episcopalians, two were converted Jews, and one a Christian from Nazareth, converted under the American missionaries. The bread and wine were dispensed in the Episcopal manner, and most were kneeling as they received them. Perhaps your correspondents would have shrunk back with horror, and called this the confusion of Babel. We felt it to be sweet fellowship with Christ and with the brethren; and as we left the upper room, and looked out upon the Mount of Olives, we remembered with calm joy the prayer of our Lord that ascended from one of its shady ravines, after the first Lord’s Supper: “Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe in me through their word, that they all may be ONE.”

The table of Christ is a family table spread in this wilderness, and none of the true children should be absent from it, or be separated while sitting at it. We are told of Rowland Hill that, upon one occasion, “when he had preached in a chapel where none but baptized adults were admitted to the sacrament, he wished to have communicated with them, but was told respectfully, You cannot sit down at our table. He only calmly replied, “I thought it was the Lord’s table.”

The early Reformers held the same view. Calvin wrote to Cranmer that he would cross ten seas to bring it about. Baxter, Owen, and Howe, in a later generation, pleaded for it; and the Westminster Divines laid down the same principle in few but solemn words: “Saints, by profession, are bound to maintain an holy fellowship and communion in the worship of God— which communion, as God offereth opportunity, is to be extended unto all those who in every place call upon the name of the Lord Jesus.” These words, embodied in our standards, show clearly that the views maintained above are the very principles of the Church of Scotland.

2. The second scriptural communion is Ministerial Communion. Here also I believe it to be the mind of Christ, that all who are true servants of the Lord Jesus Christ, sound in the faith, called to the ministry, and owned of God therein, should love one another, pray one for another, bid one another God-speed, own one another as fellow-soldiers, fellow-servants, and fellow-labourers in the vineyard, and, so far as God offereth opportunity, help one another in the work of the ministry. Each of these positions also may be proved by the word of God. I am aware that, practically, it is a point of far greater difficulty and delicacy than the communion of private Christians, because I can own many a one as a fellow-Christian, and can joyfully sit down with him at the Lord’s table, while I may think many of his views of divine truth defective, and could not receive him as a sound teacher. But although caution and sound discretion are no doubt to be used in applying this or any other Scripture rule, yet the rule itself appears to be simple enough—that, where any minister of any denomination holds the Head, is sound in doctrine and blameless in life, preaches Christ and Him crucified as the only way of pardon and the only source of holiness, especially if he has been owned of God in the conversion of souls and upbuilding of saints, we are bound to hold ministerial communion with him, whenever Providence opens the way. What are we that we should shut our pulpits against such a man? True, he may hold that Prelacy is the scriptural form of church government; he may have signed the 37th article of the Church of England, giving the Queen the chief power in all causes, whether ecclesiastical or civil: still, if he be a Berridge or a Rowland Hill, he is an honoured servant of Christ. True, he may hold Establishments to be unscriptural—he may not see, as I do, that the Queen is the minister of God, and ought to use all her authority in extending, defending, and maintaining the Church of Christ: still, if he be like some I could name, he is a faithful servant of Christ. True, he may have inconsistencies of mind which we cannot account for—he may have prejudices of sect and education which destroy much of our comfort in meeting him (and can we plead exemption from these?)—he may sometimes have spoken rashly and uncharitably (I also have done the same): still, I cannot but own him as a servant of Christ. If the Master owns him in his work, shall the sinful fellow-servant disown him? Shall we be more cautious than our Lord? True, he may have much imperfection in his views; so had Apollos. He may be to be blamed in some things, and withstood to the face; so it was with Peter. He may have acted a cowardly part at one time; so did John Mark. Still I maintain that unless he has shown himself a Demas, “a lover of this present world,” or one of those who have a “form of godliness, denying the power thereof,” we are not allowed to turn away from him, nor to treat him as an adversary.

Such were the principles of the Reformers. Calvin says of Luther, when he was loading him with abuse, “Let him call me a dog or a devil, I will acknowledge him as a servant of Christ.” The devoted Usher preached in the pulpit of Samuel Rutherford; and at a later date, before the unscriptural Act of 1799 was passed, to hinder faithful English ministers from carrying the light of divine truth into the death-like gloom of our Scottish parishes, a minister of the Synod of Glasgow defended himself for admitting Whitfield into his pulpit in these memorable words:— “There is no law of Christ, no Act of Assembly, prohibiting me to give my pulpit to an Episcopal, Independent, or Baptist minister, if of sound principles in the fundamentals of religion, and of sober life.” The same truth is clearly to be deduced from the 25th chapter of the Confession of Faith, where it is declared that “the visible church consists of all those throughout the world that profess the true religion, together with their children.” And then it is added, “Unto this catholic, visible church, Christ hath given the ministry,” etc. From which it plainly follows, that faithful ministers belonging to all parts of the visible church are to be recognised as ministers whom Christ hath given. Such I believe to be the principles of God’s word; such are clearly the views of the standards of our Church; and I do hail it as a token that the Spirit of God was really poured down upon the last General Assembly, that they so calmly and deliberately swept away the unchristian Act of 1799 from the statute-book, and returned to the good old way.

It has often been my prayer, that no unfaithful minister might ever be heard within the walls of St Peter’s. My elders and people can bear witness that they have seldom heard any voice from its pulpit that did not proclaim “ruin by the Fall, righteousness by Christ, and regeneration by the Spirit.” Difficult as it is in these days to find supply, I had rather that no voice should be heard there at all than “the voice of strangers,” from whom Christ’s sheep will flee. Silence in the pulpit does not edify souls, but it does not ruin them. But the living servant of Christ is dear to my heart, and welcome to address my flock, let him come from whatever quarter of the earth he may. I have sat with delight under the burning words of a faithful Lutheran pastor. I have been fed by the ministrations of American Congregationalists and devoted Episcopalians, and all of my flock who know and love Christ would have loved to hear them too. If dear Martin Boos were alive, pastor of the Church of Rome though he was, he would have been welcome too; and who that knows the value of souls and the value of a living testimony would say it was wrong?

Had I admitted to my pulpit some frigid Evangelical of our own church — (I allude to no individual, but I fear it is a common case) one whose head is sound in all the stirring questions of the day, but whose heart is cold in seeking the salvation of sinners, would any watchful brother of sinners have sounded an alarm in the next day’s gazette to warn me and my flock of the sin and danger? I fear not. And yet Baxter says of such a man, “Nothing can be more indecent than to hear a dead preacher speaking to dead sinners the living truth of the living God.” With such ministers I have no communion. “O my soul, come not thou into their secret; unto their assembly, mine honour, be not thou united.”

In conclusion, let me notice the effect of this Free Ministerial Communion upon our glorious struggle for Christ’s kingly office in Scotland. I believe, with many of my brethren, that the Church of Scotland is at this moment a city set upon a hill that cannot be hid. I believe she is a spectacle to men and to angels, contending in the sight of the universe for Christ’s twofold crown—his crown over nations, and his crown over the visible Catholic Church. She stands between the Voluntary on the one side, and the Erastian on the other, and with one hand on the word of God, and the other lifted up to heaven, implores her adorable Head to uphold her as a faithful witness unto death, in a day of trouble, and rebuke, and blasphemy. In generations past this cause has been maintained in Scotland at all hands, and against all enemies; and if God calls us to put our feet in the blood-stained footsteps of the Scottish worthies, I dare not boast, but I will pray that the calm faith of Hugh Mackail, and the cheerful courage of Donald Cargill, may be given me. But is this a reason why we should not live up to the spirit of the New Testament, in our dealing with Christians and Christian ministers of other denominations? Is this a reason why we should not wipe off every stain from the garments of our beloved church? Is it not the very thing that demands that each member of our church should set his house in order, purging out all the old leaven of carnal division, reforming his own spirit and family, according to the rule of God’s word; that elders and ministers should seek revival and reformation in their private and public walk, and pant after more of the spirit of our suffering Head and Elder Brother? If a faithful Episcopal minister be wrong in his views of church government, as I believe he is; if many of our faithful Dissenting brethren are wrong in opposing Christ’s headship over nations, as I believe they are, what is the scriptural mode of seeking to set them right? Is it to set up unscriptural barriers between us and them? Is it to count them as enemies, however much Christ acknowledges them as good and faithful servants? Is it to call them by opprobrious epithets, to impute mean and wicked motives for their undertaking the holiest services, to rake among the ashes for their hard sayings? I think not. Christ’s way is a more excellent way, however unpleasant to the proud, carnal heart. “Let us, therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded; and if in anything ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you.” I have looked at this question from the brink of eternity, and in such a light, I can assure your correspondents that, if they know the Lord, they will regret, as I have done, the want of more caution in speaking of the doings and motives of other men. Let us do our part towards our Dissenting brethren according to the Scriptures, however they may treat us. We shall be no losers. Perhaps we may gain those who are brethren indeed to think more as we do. At least they will love us, and cease to speak evil of us.

If our church is to fall under the iron foot of despotism, God grant that it may fall reformed and purified; pure in its doctrine, government, discipline, and worship; scriptural in its spirit; missionary in its aim, and holy in its practice; a truly golden candlestick; a pleasant vine. If the daughter of Zion must be made a widow, and sit desolate on the ground, grant her latest cry may be that of her once suffering, now exalted Head: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”—I remain, dear sir, yours, etc.

ST PETER’S, DUNDEE, July 6, 1842.