discipleship; and it is this recognition of each by all as Christians that constitutes the suggestion and basis of church organization. The church is naught else but a company of people united in the bonds of Christian fellowship. Organization adds nothing to the responsibility of the individual members, and the church as a whole is under no higher or different obligation in any respect from that which would rest upon the aggregate of its membership if they were not organized. We owe organization, as well as all else that we can do for Christ, simply as matter of Christian duty. Baptists should be the last to deny these propositions. Nothing could be more in harmony with the genius of the denomination than the identification of church fellowship with Christian fellowship. Nothing could more aptly suggest the fundamental ideas by which Baptists seek to justify themselves before the world. Nothing could more pointedly or more favorably emphasize the doctrine of a regenerate church membership, or the principles underlying the discipline of Baptist churches. The Baptist rule and practice are to receive as members all whose Christian profession is, in their opinion, attested by a life of obedience to the law of Christ. testation of discipleship is the title to membership. And the title holds good so long as the attestation of discipleship remains intact. The fellowship of the church for its members is simply the fellowship of scripturally attested Christians for another scripturally attested Christian. It is church fellowship, and it is also nothing else but Christian fellowship. The two are one, and that one is Christian fellowship. The at The desire and attempt to establish a difference in kind and terms between church fellowship and Christian fellowship arises, and has an existence, only in connection with close communion. It is a marked instance of special pleading, and the result is a notable specimen of unreason and inconsistency. It gives rise, for example, to a double standard in the attestation of Christian discipleship, and in Christian fellowship. Baptists fellowship as Christians, in their own churches, only those whom they profess to regard as obedient in the matter of baptism; but for those in the membership of other denominations whom they regard as disobedient, they still avow Christian fellowship. In the one case they insist upon a duly attested discipleship; in the other they dispense with the attestation. Or, rather, they grant the fellowship while denying the attestation. Do Baptists then think disobedience no compromise of Christian discipleship? Or have they a conviction, unformulated but potent, that their traditional views as to what constitutes obedience in baptism are too rigidly literal to be true and practical? There is, at least, a question as to what Baptists mean by Christian fellowship; and it is doubtful if that which we may grant to those we regard as disobedient is what inspired writers would characterize as Christian fellowship. Again the query suggests itself, why, if they must withhold church fellowship at all, they do not do it consistently by refraining from all church unions with the disobedient? And again, why the obligation to discountenance disobedience does not rest as fully upon individual Christians as upon churches? The ethics of close communion are badly mixed. The practice itself is badly mixed, as I think its advocates will find, if (as they are not accustomed to do) they will explain precisely what is meant by the expressions church fellowship and Christian fellowship, and then make the alleged distinction practical by showing under just what circumstances the fellowship is Christian, and just when there is church fellowship. THE. FUNDAMENTAL ERROR. The fundamental error of Baptists in close communion, if I mistake not, is in maintaining one or the other of two inconsistent opinions: namely, first, that pedobaptists are disobedient in baptism; and, secondly, that it is right to fel 1 Strong's Theology, Part. vii. chap. ii. II. 5. lowship pedobaptists as Christians. One or the other of these propositions must be false. Disobedience is sin, and it cannot be right to fellowship sin as Christian. And the difficulties of close communion, to some of which I have referred, are an offspring of the attempt to ingraft the falsehood (whichever of the above propositions it may be that is false) upon the Baptist system. The falsehood will not harmonize, and until it is ejected the system will be borne down with a burden of absurdities and inconsistencies. As in line with this diagnosis, the following considerations deserve attention: I. To fellowship the disobedient as Christians is to fellowship their disobedience as Christian conduct. Of course this is not saying that I indorse a man's conduct as right in all respects if I fellowship him in any public capacity. As a member of a temperance society, for example, I might without inconsistency fellowship a man whose business methods, or even his personal habits, are known to be morally bad. These faults are not in the sphere of our fellowship as advocates of temperance, and therefore I may fellowship him as a temperance man without indorsing his faults. Taking an occasional glass of beer is in itself a comparatively trifling offence; but it is in the sphere of the fellowship, and therefore may not be condoned. But all morality is in the sphere of religion. All disobedience to divine commands is sin. It is therefore incompatible with Christian fellowship. For this reason, and because they think the Scriptures so require, Baptist churches "withdraw" from such of their members as "walk disorderly" and "obey not" the divine "tradition." The sinner and the sin are identified and inseparable. To fellowship the one is to fellowship the other. And hence it is written, "Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness?" 2. If pedobaptists are disobedient in the matter of baptism, their offence is not a venial one. It is not a mere irregularity or informality in church organization. Disobedi ence is always sin, and always to be disallowed as unchristian. At the same time, none are perfect. There are always faults to be found. And we cannot regard a microscopic legalism, that should exhaust itself with ferreting out and judging the faults of our fellows, as a very high order of Christianity. Much better is it to be so filled with the Master's work, and with love for the souls of men, that time and strength shall fail us to take cognizance of any but the most serious and really notable offences. But if the pedobaptist practice as to baptism is really disobedient, then it is a sin of such prominence and obtrusiveness that only an antinomian indifferentism could overlook it or tolerate it as Christian. essence of pedobaptism. If the pedobaptist were to adopt Baptist views as to baptism, he would no longer be a pedobaptist, but a Baptist, though not necessarily a close communionist. To the sin of disobedience, therefore, he adds the sin of schism-the violation of Christian unity. I might pursue this indictment further, and add many serious counts; but I will only remind our Baptist brethren that the word disobedience in this connection is a very serious one-so serious, indeed, that it seems very doubtful if they have adequately apprehended its practical bearings with reference to their own conduct. 3. If Baptists must regard the pedobaptist practice in baptism as disobedient, then they are definitely forbidden to fellowship pedobaptists as Christians. Baptists should read their own proof-texts a little more carefully,—2 Thess. iii. 6, 14, for example. These texts are used by them as authority for the maintenance of church discipline. But if they authorize withdrawal from one professed disciple because of his disobedience, they equally authorize withdrawal from all who disobey. Note the language: "Now we command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye withdraw yourselves from every"-member of the local church? No,-"from every brother that walketh disorderly, and not after the tradition which he received of us." The same comprehensiveness of statement is found in the fourteenth verse: "If any man obey not," etc. Why should not these commands apply to "brethren" outside the local church, as well as within its membership? Baptists should certainly feel constrained to a consistent withdrawal of church fellowship from the disobedient, which means abstinence from all church unions with them. And why is not Christian fellowship, as well as church fellowship, forbidden? The commands are general in form; and, like many another command addressed to a church, are as obviously adapted for the guidance of individual members as of the body; the idea of Christian fellowship is much more conspicuous in the New Testament than is that single phase of it called church fellowship; and disobedience is much more frequently represented as incompati- · ble with Christian discipleship than as a breach of church order. We read many statements similar in doctrinal import to that of 1 John ii. 4: "He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him." And where do we find an intimation that church fellowship should ever be withdrawn for reasons that are consistent with a continuance of Christian fellowship? When we bear these facts in mind, and reflect further that the context in 2 Thess. iii. is wholly made up of exhortations to personal duties, rather than to church action; the evidence seems to be satisfactory that the command to "withdraw" from "every brother"-" any man"-who does not "obey," means that the attestation of the disobedient brother's discipleship is compromised by his disobedience, and that he is, therefore, no longer entitled to recognition as a Christian. Will Baptists deliberately repudiate this conclusion? Will they, in one breath, proclaim the doctrine of a regenerate church membership attested by an orderly walk; and, in the next, assert that disobedience is compatible with discipleship? Will they aver that disobedience, even when it rises to the |