Syracuse University Library
Special Collections Research Center
Gerrit Smith Broadside and Pamphlet Collection

Union of Christians : Nathan to David.

Smith, Gerrit, 1797-1874.

Digital Edition.

This digitization project was supported by Regional Bibliographic Databases and Interlibrary Resources Sharing Program funds, awarded by the New York State Library.

Call number: Smith 418

UNION OF CHRISTIANS.

NATHAN TO DAVID.

PETERBORO, December 4th, 1841.

My Dear David, -

Were I to inform you, that our neighbor A. has resolved, that he and his wife must henceforth have separate apartments; that their conjugal fellowship must cease; and their family be dissolved; - and were I to add, that this is, in no wise, because he doubts her sincerity or love; but merely because she refuses to subscribe to the justness of some of his opinions: - you would pronounce a very severe sentence on such unnatural and wicked conduct. But, my dear friend, the sentence would scarcely leave your lips, before, with my accustomed plainness, I would tell you, that it is a sentence against yourself; that "thou art the man;" - and that, in the letter, though I admit not in the spirit, of your transgression, you far transcend the wickedness of A. For he breaks up but his own family: but you are sufficiently daring to break up the family of Jesus Christ.

The family of Jesus Christ on earth - his Church on earth - consists of all on earth, who love Him. As soon as a man comes to love Him, he becomes a member of his Church, and entitled to the benefit of all its ordinances and privileges. Regeneration is not the right to membership in that Church: - it is such membership. Regeneration is not the claim to admission into it: - it is such admission. Now, you have the presumption to say, that certain ones, who, you admit, love the Savior, and are "born again," and to whose views, therefore, you accord sincerity, shall be excluded from his family because in relation to Baptism, or the Lord's Supper, or the Sabbath, or some other subject, they do not think as you do.

In vindication of yourself, and of this outrage on the rights of your equal brother, you will, perhaps, say, that the opinions, which you hold, are right, and that the counter opinions of the christian disciples, whom you proscribe, are wrong. This, for the sake of argument, I am willing to admit to the fullest extent. But truth may require us to make a similar admission in behalf of those opinions of our neighbor A., which his wife controverts. So, gaining nothing thus far, you will be very like to resort to the remark, that, on Divine authority, husband and wife are "one flesh" - that, by Divine command, husband and wife are to dwell together, until death part them; and that God alone can dissolve their family relations. But you will feel, that you can derive no advantage from this remark, when I press you with the inquiry, whether the relation between Jesus and his disciples is less intimate or less secure against dissolution, than that between husband and wife? The Savior's disciples are members of that mystical body of which He is the head; and, in still stronger and Bible language, they are "members of his body, his flesh and his bones." In that spiritual temple of which He is the corner stone, they are "lively stones:" and when inspiration likens Him to a vine, it also likens them to its branches. And can you still think to disparage the relation between Jesus and his disciples by comparing it with that between the husband and his wife? How strange you should forget, that they are the bride at that marriage, where He is the bridegroom - that, in a word, He is their husband and they are his wife! If then it be wrong to attempt to dissolve a relation, which pertains to this life only, who can measure the impiety and blasphemy of the hand, that is put forth to dissolve a relation, which is no less intimate; which is as unending, as the eternal existence of its subjects; and which, in all its aspects, is infinitely more sacred and important?

You will say, that persons have a right to organize a religious society, and to make the acknowledgment of certain doctrines and duties preliminary to membership. I will not deny it. I will not deny, that they have a right to organize a society on tile basis of Calvin's or Arminiu's views, or one from which Pedobaptists, or one from which Baptists shall be excluded. My objection to such associations, as the Methodist, Baptist and Presbyterian sects, is that they assume to be identical with the Church of Christ. A Methodist Church, or a Baptist Church, or a Presbyterian Church, but for such assumption, might, perhaps, be well enough: but it is a purely human institution, and is entirely another thing than the Church of Christ.

The Bible teaches, beyond a doubt, that the Church of Christ is his body; and that all, who "have redemption through his blood," compose that body. Now for an Association, which is employed in tearing that body into pieces - in owning one part and rejecting another - to call itself the Church of Christ, is to be guilty of a misnomer, that would be exceedingly ludicrous, if it were not also exceedingly wicked.

You will say, that the members of the Churches in Colosse and Ephesus were baptised; and that none could have been christians. or members of those Churches, who disobeyed the Apostolic command to be baptised. Admitted. And, now you will ask, why have persons, at the present time, who refuse to be baptised, any better right to be classed with christians and church members? My reply is, that they have no better right, if they believe, that the Apostolic injunction to submit to this ordinance is upon themselves also. But it is an indisputable fact, that many of them do not believe it; and that of those, who do not, there are thousands of whose piety no man stands in doubt. Call it improper, wicked, for the Quaker to say, that Baptism and the Lord's Supper belong to an expired dispensation - you, nevertheless, will admit his sincerity, and that lie may be a christian.

You will say, that baptism is the rite by which a person is introduced into the Church of Christ. I will take contrary ground and allege that he who submits to it, thereby signifies, that he believes in Jesus, and is already in the Church. This and this only was signified by the eunuch's and the jailer's, and Lydia's submission to the rite. That they coupled with their baptism the remotest idea that they thereby became members of the Church, is as foreign to truth and as violent to probability, as some other allegations, which are employed to bolster up Sectarianism.

Let it not be, thought that I agree with those who regard as obsolete the ordinances referred to. In my own judgment, their present is no less their past obligation. But like the "assembling of themselves together" - like provision for tile preached Gospel - and like disclipine - Baptism and the Lord's Supper are but duties of Church members - not conditions of their membership.

You will, perhaps, refer me to the different meanings, which the New Testament puts upon the word "Church." On this point I have but to say, that whilst, in its most comprehensive sense, the Church includes all the blood - bought in heaven and earth; so, in its least comprehensive sense also, it includes all of that character in the given locality, be that locality a city, a village, or a family. All the "beloved of God" in Rome were comprised in the Church of Rome; and "the Church that was in their house" included all the piety in the family of Priscilla and Aquila. Would you see one of the striking differences between the local churches of the Apostolic age and of this? You see it in the fact, that, whilst the former were the component parts of - unitedly the whole of - Christ's Church on earth, the adding together of the latter leaves many, very many

of the friends of Jesus uncounted. Thousands and tens of thousands of those friends, because they cannot pronounce the Shibboleth of sect, are sentenced to stand without the pale of these self, instead of Christ - constituted churches.

[2]

Have I said enough, my dear David, to convince you, that you are guilty of a sin similar to and far greater than that of which our neighbor A. is guilty? Then turn away your indignation from him and direct it against yourself, and exclaim in the words of your sin-convicted royal name-sake: "I have sinned against the Lord." Then throw back your sectarianism into that bottomless pit whence it sprung, and frankly acknowledge the indivisibility of the Church of Christ.

Surprise is often expressed, that one, who calls a Baptist Church, or a Presbyterian Church, or a Methodist Church, a merely human institution, should continue to worship with the persons, who compose it. But my justification for continuing to worship with them is, that I believe them to be friends of the Savior and members of his Church. I worship with them in their true, and not in their sham Church capacity. To break off from them, because they have fallen into the sin of sectarianism, would be to fall into that very sin myself. But to cling to them because, their errors notwithstanding, they are christians still, and because the most erring christian is, as much as the most perfect, a member of Christ's family, is to abide by, and honor the principles of christian union. Those advocates of christian union, who so freely advise to a separation from Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians, &c., need be on their guard, lest an ungoverned zeal to propagate its tolerant and precious principles drive them to contravene those very principles.

You see, from what I have just written, why it is, that I cannot go along with abolitionists in their disfellowshipping of all slave-holding professors of religion. I believe, that there are friends of God, who are so benighted, as to consent to stand in the relation of slaveholder: and I must give up my christian union principles; ere I can consent to the exclusion of any acknowledged friends of God from christian and church fellowship.

Think not, my dear friend, that, because I can worship with sectarian christians, their sectarianism is but a small grief to me. Doubt not, that it is a source of distress to my heart, by night and by day, that the truly pious pastor, on whose public ministrations I attend from Sabbath to Sabbath, should be so wrong-headed and wrong-hearted, as to reject from Church communion those, whom he admits the Savior receives. Oh, that will be the happiest day of my life, when I shall see the now divided christians of this vicinity unitedly and publicly confessing the sin of sectarianism, and the truth of the doctrine, that the door of the Church of Christ on earth is no narrower than the door of Heaven - that a title to admission into the one is a title to admission into the other - and that it is, as well their delight as their duty, to open their hearts as wide to receive each other, as Jesus opens his to receive them all.

NATHAN.