THE LORD'S SUPPER 
A SERMON PREACH ED SEVERAL TIMES IN THE COURSE OF HIS MINISTRY 
BY 
ftEV. H. W. Wi ILLIAMS. P. D. 
PASTOR OFTHE VI3ALIA BAPTIST CHURCH 
Text--"As often as ye eat this bread, and drink the cup, ye proclaim the Lord's death till he come." --I. Corinthians 11:26-  
VIDALIA. GEORGIA. 1919 
 
 THE LORD'S SUPPER. 
A SERMON PREACHED SEVERAL TIMES IN THE COURSE OF HIS MINISTRY 
BY REV. H. W. WILLIAMS. D. D. 
"As often as ye eat this bread, and drink the cup, ye proclaim the Lord's death till he come."--I. Corinthians 11:26. 
No well informed Baptist has any doubt about the correct ness of the accepted views of his denomination on the subject of the Lord's Supper, and no member of any of the denomina tions which differ from us in belief and practice on this sub ject could fail to respect our position after a careful study of it- This statement is attested by the fact that distinguished leaders of denominations which practice so-called open com munion can be quoted as admitting Baptists to be consistent in their position, and compelled to it by other views which they hold. They frankly admit that the controversy between them and Baptists is concerning doctrines which lie back of the Lord's Supper. A better understanding of our position on their part would lead them to see that our interpretation of the Supper forbids any inter-communion between them and us. 
It can be shown by Baptist confessions of faith three hun dred years old that regular Baptists have for that period of time at least held the same views which they now hold on this subject; and while there have been individual Baptists, at any rate members of Baptist churches, who have professed to be lieve in open communion, there is nowhere in history the ac count of a regular Baptist church which did not contain in its articles of faith one setting forth its belief in restricted com munion. The position of Baptists has always been that the Lord's Sup per is a memorial ceremony, instituted by Jesus as an ordin ance, on an equality of importance and significance "with bap tism, to be kept and administered by a church at stated inter vals agreed upon by its members, participated in by those who are in good standing and fellowship with that or some other church of the same faith and order, as an expression of their prateful remernberance of the Lord's death, and to proclaim that death until He comes again. 
According to this position the ordinance is properly named the Lord's Supper, and to call it a sacrament is to suggest a significance which the Master did not intend it to have. A "sacrament" b a solemn oath, the oath of allegiance taken by 
 
 Roman soldiers; and the ordinance was first called by this name, and given this significance, by the Roman Catholic church, because it perceived the Supper to be a form of repeat ing an oath of allegiance to Christ and the church. It con ceived of baptism as a similar oath, and it proclaimed five others besides these two. Those who still call the Supper a sac rament have no higher authority for so naming it than the Ro man Catholic church. There is nothing in the manner in which the Lord instituted His Supper to lead to this construction of Its maning. Moreover, Christ's method of binding His peo ple to Him is not by any kind of an oath. It requires more than an oath, be it never so solemnly executed by a weak and fallible human, to bind a soul or a life to Jesus Christ. The bond which the Lord uses is one of nature which the Spirit plants in the soul at regeneration, and out of which springs love, the strongest of all bonds. There is nothing in the whole scheme of the gospel to suggest that the Lord exacts a pledge of any kind from a man as a condition of admittance into His kingdom, o^ of blessings after admission. God knows that any promise which a fallen man makes as to what he will be and do religiously is a flimsy thing. Eternal life is the gift of God freely bestowed on every one who will accept it. and the service of God and loyalty to Him are facts which develope in the soul as it grows in grace and the knowledge of Christ- 
Naming the Lord's Supper a sacrament grew out of a mis conception of the essentials of salvation. It occurred at a time when men were teaching that a man's salvation depended on his observing formal rites and ceremonies and that it could be kept only bv doing penance and repeating solemn vows. It is a tacit belief in the efficacy of the ordinances to obtain salvation which retains in certain confessions of faith the state ment that the Lord's Supper is a sea! of the covenant of grace, sealing unto true believers all the benefits of Christ's death. In such statements is couched a most hurtful doctrine. 
Now, the Baptists do not believe the Supper to be a sacra ment, an oath, and they cannot participate in its observance with those who interpret it as having this meaning. Neither could those who believe the Supper to be a sacrament parti cipate with Baptists in their celebration of this ordinance, since what they administer is stripped of every vestige of such an interpretation. 
The Baptist position does not recognize any kind of pre sence of Christ in the elements used in celebrating the Supper. They discard utterly the doctrine of Transubstantiation. which represents the bread and the wine as changing into the real flesh and blood of our Lord when consecrated bv the officiat ing- minister. The doctrine of Consubstantiation, which is 
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 only a slight modification of the other, representing that the flesh and blood of Christ are "in and under the bread and wine," so that His flesh and blood are partaken of along with the elements, is just as repulsive to Baptists. Neither do they assent to the "Spiritual Presence" views as taught by many Protestant denominations, by which it is claimed that "worthy receivers, outwardly partaking of the visible ele ments in this sacrament, do then also inwardly by faith, really and indeed, yet not carnally and corporally, but spiritually, receive and feed upon Christ curicified, and all benefits of His death; the body and blood of Christ being as really, yet spirit ually, present to the faith of believers in that ordinance, as the elements themselves are, to their outward senses." This teaching is really only a modifcation of the grosser doctrine by which is claimed an actual presence of the flesh and blood of Christ in the bread and wine- All such teaching has its basis in a mysticism which is entirely foreign to the meaning of the Lord's Supper- It is a relic of a superstitious age, and belongs along with baptismal regeneration, doing penance, in dulgences, and prayers for the dead. By this teaching we are asked to believe that the soul needs some go-between to enable it to come to God; that the soul cannot approach its Creator directly, but must come through the medium of the church, and priest, and external ceremonies. Baptists repudiate this doctrine. The Supper as they administer it has no presence of Christ, except as He is always present where His people are engaged in worship; partaking of it is in no way essential to our receiving the benefits of His death, and in no sense seals the covenant of grace. It is to be observed in order to set forth in symbols the broken body and shed blood of the Re deemer, so as to fix the fact of His death more vividly in our memory, and to proclaim it in an impressive manner before the world until He shall come again. 
Hence Baptists cannot participate in any ceremony which purports to give efficacy to the covenant of grace, and to be a vehicle for the operations of that grace. They regard these interpretations of the Supper, standing in the rituals and con fessions of faith by which some protestant denominations are bound, as too wide of the truth to allow of such endorsement as intercommunion with them would signify- On the other hand, no member of any of these denominations which retain the doctrine of a special presence of Christ in the bread and wine, whether it be in actual flesh and blood or only in spirit, could partake of the Lord's Supper with Baptists as they ad minister it, without a serious compromise of convictions, or repudiation of their own confessions of faith. 
The Supper is sometimes called a communion, which word is used only once in the New Testament with reference to this 
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 ordinance, and there signifies participation in, or association with, the body and blood of Christ. The word also means agreement, not only as to their belief concerning the Supper itself, but as to the distinctive tenets of the denomination ad ministering the ordinance. If such an agreement does exist, communing together is an act of insincerity and a false pre tense. It is bad enough for Christians to be divided, and to disagree about so many things, but no remedy for this is found in inter-communion, which is only a pretense of union. There fore for any church to invite to the Lord's Supper with it per sons who are members of another church in known disagree ment with it in doctrine and practice is to ask them to com promise their convictions; or for the time being to renounce their own principles and give endorsement to doctrines which they do not believe. The practice of open communion, there fore places contempt, by the church administering the ordin ance, upon the members of churches in disagreement with it. 
The respect which Baptists have for the members of de nominations differing1 from us in faith and practice, and our un willingness to lead them into any compromise, even if we had no other reason for it, would compel us to practice restricted communion. 
Another reason for the position of Baptists on this subject is that there can be no inter-communion among churches which cannot allow an interchange of members. If there are any fundamental differences between two denominations, such as justify their mainlining separate organizations, their can be no interchange of members; and if a member as says to go from one to the other he breaks fellowship with the denomnation which he leaves. Then no church can cons'-stently admit to the Lord's Supper with it a person whom it could not admit into its membersip; or. whom it should exclude from membership if he were a member. 
To illustrate this point, suppose that a person should ask for membership in a Methodist church, but should frankly state to the minister to whom he applies that he does not believe anything to be baptism except immersion of believers; that he does not believe the Lord's Supper to be a sacrament, nor that there is any presence of Christ in the bread and the wine when used to celebrate this ordinance; that he is strictly a Calvinist in his faith; and that he does not believe in the Episcopal form of church government; and moreover that he is determined to be an earnest propagandist of his fath a<; long as he lives; could the Methodist church consistently and safely admit him to its membership? Of course it could not receive him. Suppose that a person who is a member of a Methodist church should earnestlv teach and contend for these views which oppose the doctrines and practice of Metho- 
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 dists, how would the church deal with him ? Their Discipline consistently states that "if a person of our church endeavor to sow dissension in any of our societies by inveighing against either our doctrines or discipline, such person so offending shall be first reproved by the preacher in charge; and if there be persistence in such practices, the offender shall be dealt with as in case of immorality." In a case of immorality, 
where the charges are sustained by evidence, the immoral per son is to be declared "suspended, or expelled, according to the verdict of the committee" which tried him. In either case a member thus expelled would not be admitted to the com 
munion with the church which expelled him. But a member expelled for disseminating doctrine contrary to Methodist be 
lief or practice, or articles of religion, could be received into a Baptist church by baptism on a profession of his faith, but would still be an expelled member of the Methodist church, and still guilty of the practices for which it expelled him, and so debarred from communing with the church from which he was expelled. His joining a Baptist church did not change his relation to the Methodist church, nor in any way affect its action in dealing with him. But what would be the differ ence between this excluded member who joined a Baptist church and any other conscientious Baptist ? Does not every Baptist stand in the relation of an excluded member of a Methodist church, or any other church differing fundamentally 
from us in doctrine and practice? Every conscientious Bap tist is guilty of charges for which Methodists would expel him, and so is not eligible to the communion with them; for their Discipline explicitly states that "no person shall be admitted to the Lord's Supper among us who is guilty of any practice 
for which we would exculde a member of our church." This is entirely proper; and effectually excludes from the Lord's Supper with Methodists all members of Baptist churches. 
By the same process it can be shown that all Methodists are excluded from participating with Baptists in the Lord's Supper- Not only so, but by the same method of illustrating the principle, it can be shown that no denomination which dif fers fundamentally in faith and pactice from other denomina tions can consistently practice intercommunion with any one of them. Baptists, at any rate, differ so radically in their belief and practices from other denominations that an.inter 
change of members is impossible, without a change of con victions on the part of the member seeking a change of membeship. So for this reason, also, there can be no intercom munion between them and these other denominations. This reasoning makes it clear that open communion must be justi fied by sentiment rather than bv principle. But in religion it is not allowable to displace principle with sentiment. It is 
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 this sentiment and not the facts in the case which has created all of the outcry against Baptists for their practice of so-called close communion. The outcry, if any should be made, should be directed against those who disregard principle for senti ment in any religious practice. But to sound an outcry is not the way to deal with a situation of this kind. The only course worthy of intelligent, conscientious Christians is to make such a thorough study of the subject as would enable them to un derstand one another, and therefore forbid their misjudging one another. It is high time that all evangelical denomina tions were excluding from their confessions of faith and arti cles of religion, and from the practices made binding by these rituals, everything which savors of sacramentalism, mysticism, and the dependence of salvation on the observance of ordin ances and ceremonies- 
It remains for me to state what has been regarded gene rally the principal reason which Baptists have for their prac tice of non-intercommunion. It is that they might preserve the original and necessary sequence of the two ordinances. 7 hat every one should be baptized before coming to the Lord's Supper is hardly controverted by any sect of Christians. At this point they are all practically agreed. It is too plain a truth to admit of controversy. Baptism is the initial rite by which one announces his entrance into the kingdom of Curist. It is the first duty after believing on Christ, and as it is tj be performed but once, all other observances enjoined upon Chris tians come after baptism. The only controversy on this point is concerning what constitutes baptism. Even here there has never been a serious disagreement as to the original act. On this point now there is practical unanimity among all Chris tian scholars of the world- This is not the time for any leng thy argument on this point. But to show the trend of thou.srht among others than Baptist scholars, let me quote from Dr. Phillip Schaff, a distinguished scholar and church historian, for many years teacher of church history in Union Theological Seminary, himself a Presbyterian. He is quoted as saying: "On strictly exegetcal and historical grounds, baptism must be immersion. Without prejudice no other interpertation would ever have been given to Bible baptism. It is the most natural interpretation, and such we must always give. Im mersion is natural and historical; sprinkling is artifcial, and an expediant for convenience's sake. * * * In order to be true to its original meaning, and its vital relation to redemp tion through Christ Jesus, baptism must be immersion. Why do you wish to get rid of it? Eminent theologians have wast ed their learning to defend infant-sprinkling- Imposition is not exposition. All the early defenders of Christianity taught that nothing but immersion was baptism, and all the Greek or 
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 Oriental churches continue to immerse to this day." This dis tinguished author and teacher does not stand alone among Pedobaptist scholars in frankly admitting the position of Bap tists that the original act of baptism, and the only act recogniz ed for the first three hundred years of the Christian era as valid baptism, was immersion. No scholar of any Christian creed of today would risk his reputation on a denial of this fact. 
The controversy is concerning whether or not churches or individuals have the right to substitute some other act and call it baptism. The Book of Common Prayer of the .Episcopal church says: "The church hath power to decree Rites or Ceremonies, and is authority in controversies of faith." The Discipline of the M. E. Church South says: "It is not neces sary that rites and ceremonies should in all places be the same, or exactly alike. * * * Every particular church may or dain, change, or abolish rites and ceremonies, so that all things may be done to edification." Calvin wrote: "The word bap tize signifies to immerse, and it is certain that the rite of im mersion was observed by the ancient church." But he added that "The church did grant liberty to herself, since the begin ning, to change the rite somewhat, except the substance." This is exactly the position of the Roman Catholic church. The same position was expressed by an eminent Dean of West minister when he said, "Those who (in New Testament times) were baptized were plunged, submerged, immersed into the water. * * * But speaking generally, the civilized world has decided against it. It is a striking example of the triumph of common sense and convenience over the bondage of form and custom." 
Man}' other authorities admit that the change from im mersion to other acts as substitutes for the original act of bap tism was effected by the order of the church, and they must justify these substitutes by the church's right, without any explicit instruction on this point, to change an express com mand of the' Lord. Baptists claim that no church ever had any such right;.that it is the destruction of the ordinance to change it in such a radical and unauthorized manner; that no substitute for the original act of baptism is valid; that no one has been baptized unless he has been immersed on a profes sion of his faith in Christ. Their contention is not on the im portance of Baptism, but on the importance of obedience to the express command of our Lord, and against the presumptin of any person or organization of persons to change that command "If ye love me, ye will keep my commandments," and, "Whoso ever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of 
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 heaven; but whosoever shall do and teach them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven-" As far as the prin ciple is concerned there is no difference between breaking the least and the greatest commandment, for license to change one ordinance of the Lord for convenience' sake carries with it the right to change any or all the rest of God's commands to suit our convenience or notions. Such a rule would imperil every teaching of God's word. It is little short of sacrilege to set up what men call common sense as authority above the com mandments of the Lord. 
Now, because Baptists so believe, and, with the rest of Christendom, contend that one should be baptized before he partakes of the Lord's Supper, they cannot participate in the celebration of the Supper with those who have not followed the Lord in Baptism. According to our convictions no per son has been baptized at all who has not been immersed upon a personal profession of his faith in Christ, and as every one should be baptized before coming to the Lord's Table, we must teach by our practice what we profess to believe, and so re fuse the Supper to the unbaptized. 
There is nothing in the quibble over our refusing to par ticipate in this ordinance with other denominations which practice immersion. We must refuse to participate with them on other grounds than this. We are disagreed with them as to important articles of faith, as well as to the signi ficance of the Supper and its place in the Christian system, and it would be compromising them as well as ourselves to parti cipate in an ordinance which is intended to express the agree ment and fellowship of all participating. 
The correctness of our position on the whole subject is justly recognized by eminent men of the other denominationA Methodist theologian writes: "It is just to remark that in one principle Baptists and Pedabaptists agree. They agree in rejecting from the table of the Lord, and of denying the right of church-fellowship to, all who have not been baptized. The only question that then here divides us is, what is essential to valid baptism." Dr. John Hall, who was for many years a Presbyterian pastor in New York city, said: "If I believed with the Baptists, that none are baptized but those who are im mersed on a profession of their faith, I should, with them, re fuse to commune with anv others." A writer in the Christian Observer, a leading Presbvterian journal, says: "If the Bap tist position as to the mear>in?r of the word baptized be correct, then close communion is Scriptural: then, no doubt, no one who has not been baptized by immersion may partake of the sacrament of the Lord's Supper that is logical." Here Bap tists may safely rest the cause of close communion. 
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