In the book "Old Landmarkism" we read:
"
Baptist churches, with all their rights, have no right to be
inconsistent, nor to favor a practice unwarranted by the Word of God, and productive of
evils. Under the inflexible law of "usage," which compels the pastor to invite "all members of sister churches present" to the Lord’s Supper, the following
inconsistencies and evils, exceedingly prejudicial to our denominational influence and growth, are practiced and fostered.
1. Baptist Churches that practice intercommunion have practically no communion of their own. They have church members, church conferences, church discipline, but no church communion; and, therefore, no scripturally observed Lord’s Supper, and, therefore, none at all, as I have shown in Chapter VII. The communion of such churches is
denominational, and not
church communion.
2. Baptist Churches that practice intercommunion have no guardianship over the Lords Supper, which is divinely enjoined upon them to exercise. They have control of their own members to exclude them from the table if unworthy, but none whatever of others more unworthy who may come. Such churches can exclude heretics, drunkards, revelers, and "every one that walketh disorderly" from their membership, that they may not defile the feast; but they cannot protect the table from such so long as they do not limit it to their membership.
3. There are Baptist Churches that exclude from their own membership all drunkards, theater-goers, dancers, horse-racers, and visitors of the race-course, because they cannot fellowship such practices as Godly walking or becoming a Christian, and therefore believe that they are commanded to purge the feast of all such characters as leaven, and, yet, by the invitation to the members of all other Baptist Churches, they receive the very same characters to their table every time they spread it.
The evils of denominational communion
1. It opens the door to the table to all the ministerial impostors that pervade the land. They have repeatedly started from Maine or Canada, and "gone through" all our churches to the Southern Gulf and the Pacific Coast, and they can usually be traced back to the place whence they came by a grass-widow left in "perplexity" every one hundred fifty, or two hundred miles on the "back tract." These impostors hold "revival meetings" until all their borrowed sermons are exhausted, and make it a point to do all the baptizing, and have the weakness of some other ministers to keep a record of the number of their baptisms. It is needless to say that the church is often divided by their influence, and left in confusion and disgrace when they are exposed. California can witness to the evils resulting from these characters.
The remedy is, let no strange traveling preacher be admitted to the table as a participant, nor into our pulpits, until the church has written back and learned that he is in all respects worthy.
2. Denominational communion never has been sustained, and never can be, but at the expense of peace. It has always been the occasion of discord among brethren. It has alienated churches one from the other. It has distracted and divided associations, and all for the very good reason that it is departure from the simplicity that is in Christ.
3. It has encouraged tens of thousands of Baptists, on moving away from the churches to which they belong, to go without transferring their membership to a church where they are going, as they could have the church privileges—preaching and COMMUNION—without uniting with, and bearing the churches burdens. Nor has it stopped here. It has done more in this way to multiply backsliders and apostates all over the country than any other one thing that can be named. If Baptists could have no such privileges without membership, they would keep their membership with them and enjoy it.
4. To this evil may be traced four out of five, if not nine out of ten, of all the councils called to settle difficulties between churches during the last twenty-five years. The difficulties have in one form or another, grown out of this practice, and would not have been, had our churches observed only church communion.
5. All the scandal heaped upon us as "close communion Baptists" with much of the prejudice produced in the public mind and fostered against us, has come from our denominational communion. Had our churches severely limited their communion as they have their discipline, to their own members, we should no more have heard of "close communion Baptists" then we now do of "close-membership Baptists," or "close-discipline Baptists."
6. We annually lose thousands and tens of thousands of worthy persons who would have united with us, but for what they understand as our unwarranted close-communion. Our practice can never be satisfactorily explained to them as consistent, so long as we practice a partial, and not a general, open communion. Our denominational growth is very materially retarded by our present inconsistent practice of intercommunion. If we practiced strict church communion, these, and all Christians, could understand the matter at once; and no one would presume to blame us for not inviting members of other denominations to our table, when we refuse, from principal, to invite members of other Baptist churches—our own brethren.
7. It is freely admitted by reliable brethren who enjoy the widest outlook over the denomination in America, that for the last few decades of years the general drift has been, and now is, setting towards "open communion"—it is boasted of as a "broadening liberalism." There are numbers in all our churches—and the number is increasing, especially in our fashionable city and wealthy town churches—who are impatient of the present restrictions imposed upon the table; because, not being able to divide a principle, they are not able to see the consistency of inviting members of sister churches, and rejecting those whom we admit to be evangelical churches, as though all evangelical churches are not sister; nor can they divine why Pedobaptists ministers are authorized to preach the gospel and to immerse; are invited to occupy our pulpits, and even to serve our churches as supply pastors for a season—all their ministrations recognized as valid, and yet there are debarred from our table. They work for us, and we refuse to allow them to eat. The only ground upon which we can successfully meet and counteract the liberalizing influences, which are gently bearing the Baptists of America into the slough of open communion, is strict local church communion, and the firm and energetic setting forth of the "Old Baptist Landmarks" advocated in this little book."
Old Landmarkism, J. M. Graves, Chapter IX, The inconsistencies and evils of intercommunion among Baptists.
Landmark Baptists are group unto their own. And sometimes, not even that.
God Bless
Till all are one.
