AN OVERVIEW OF THE OPEN-COMMUNION ISSUE

Compiled by R. E. Pound

Introduction: By Open Communion is meant the allowance of those not properly baptized by immersion as professed believers, to take the Lord’s Supper with the church. The historic and Biblical method of Communion, the Lord’s Supper, is that baptized believers in the gospel church partake of the Supper. The three basic methods of Baptist participation are discussed in my work entitled The Lord’s Supper.

Part I: The Origin of Open Communion

Among Baptists: Poland, the 1500s

Throughout the course of Church History, the clear and united testimony is that baptism must precede church membership and taking of the Lord’s Supper. This may be demonstrated by a careful reading of Orchard’s History of Open Communion, and the works cited. Further evidence to this is found in President Henry Lawrence’s work entitled, Of Baptism, second edition, published about 1652. Henry Lawrence was Oliver Cromwell’s President of the Council of State. David Benedict, Baptist Historian, also speak, to this point

The Socinian movement in Poland during the 1500s marked the introduction of Open Communion into the Baptist Ranks. Orchard and Benedict both give good accounts of this. Faustus Socinus was an Arian and Open Communionist. David Benedict stated:

Lelius Socinus came first into Poland, where it is supposed he sowed the seeds of Socinianism about the middle of the sixteenth century. After tarrying here awhile, he went to Zurich, where he died in 1562. He had acquired no determinate plan of doctrine, but Faustus Socinus, his nephew, came into Poland in 1579, and from the papers which his uncle left behind him, is supposed to have drawn the system which now bears the name of Socinian.. A History of the Baptists, 1813, page 180.

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Part II: The Origin of Open Communion

Among Baptists: England, the1600s

During the 1630s, many of the Anglican ministers left the Established church and became Baptists of the mixed communion sort. That is, they gathered churches that included both those baptized as infants and those baptized as professed believers.  This practice gained wide acceptance in Wales during that decade and remained as the dominant party until the efforts of John Myles during the 1650s.

In England, John Tombs, was the first who defended open communion. He was what is called a Dry-Baptist. He held Baptist sentiments but never came over all the way to the Baptist position of total separation. His church was of the mixed communion order. Robert Ballie, Presbyterian writer of those times, discussed Tombs and his views and practices in Anabaptism the True Foundation of Independency, London, about 1646.

Henry Jessey became a Particular Baptist about 1646.  Hansard Knollys baptized him, but due to the spirit of those times, Mr. Jessey remained a mixed-communionist minister and continued to pastor a mixed communion church in London until his death a few years later.  His work entitled Storehouse (short title) advocates this view, and Jessey indicates that he and his church were the first known in London practicing such a position.  Jessey may be considered the first Particular Baptist leader in London who practiced open communion. Many closed Baptists attended his congregation and several closed communion men left the church after Jessey’s death and found membership in a close communion church.

Baptists who Opposed Open Communion in the 1600s

Benjamin Cox was an Established minister, Anglican, who preached and taught closed communion.  The Anglicans ejected him over his views and therefore he became a Baptist. An account of this is preserved in the Old Faith Baptist Library.  We also have his work on the Lord’s Supper. Cox became a strong Particular Baptist voice in favor of closed communion.

The General Baptist, William Allen, wrote against open communion in part two of his able work, Some Baptismal Abuses, with a Second Part Touching Communion with the Unbaptized, London; 1653.  This second part is one of the best answers to open communion published during those, or any other times.  He cited I Cor. 12:13 as water baptism as did most of the other Baptists of those times.

Henry Lawrence (Laurence) published his first edition Of Baptism while in exile in Holland.  His second edition was enlarged and came out in London during 1659.  This is one of the most scholarly and historical treatments showing the right and due order of baptism in order to church membership and before the Lord’s Supper, ever published by a Baptist statesman.  He also wrote against the Seekers, A Vindication of the Scriptures and the Ordinances, London; 1652.

John Tombs’ practices excited both Pedobaptist and Baptists alike.  Both groups stood against his new practices. The Marshall-Tombs debates have been preserved in books. Other Pedobaptist, including Robert Ballie, spoke against Tombs’ and his novel practices.  Men like Henry Lawrence and William Allen represented the Baptist side. Tombs’ writings against Pedobaptism are classics and well presented.

John Myles and his revival in Wales is a classic example of the success of Closed Communion practices against open communion. The Glasshouse Particular Baptist Church in London set Myles into Wales in the early 1650s. He worked closely with the historic church at Olchon and their united efforts produced many converts and churches of the closed communion order.

The Bunyan-Baptist Conflicts

As time went on John Bunyan drew the attention of both Baptists and Pedobaptists.  The General Baptists considered Bunyan as a reprobate and wrote several works against him. Here is a statement from my essay Particular Baptist Origins:

The Open Membership Baptists

B. R. White named these as such. (See his Particular Baptist Records 1650-1660, pages 40-42.)  They were those few Baptists who denied that baptism was essential to the constitution of a gospel church.  They also admitted the unbaptized to the Lord’s Supper.  In the 1630s, Powell and his friends seem to have been of this sort.  Later in the 1640-1680s, Henry Jessey, John Tombs and John Bunyan were of this sort.  During their lifetime, they made up a small minority and their followers were very few.  Jessey and Bunyan were dissenters while Tombs never left the established church.  He tried to reform the established church as a Baptist minister from the inside.  While his church was never recognized among the older brethren, yet they did not reject Tombs’ baptisms administered nor his ministry.  Nor did they reject Jessey’s.

John Bunyan summed up his conflicts with the Baptists over this issue by saying:

So then by “universal, orderly, visible church,” this brother (John Spilsbury) must mean those of the saints only that have been, or are baptized as we; this is clear, because baptism, saith he, makes a believer a member of this church: his meaning then is, that there is an universal, orderly, visible church, and they alone are the Baptists; and that every one that is baptized, is by that made a member of the universal, orderly, visible church of Baptists, and that the whole number of the rest of saints are utterly excluded.

The Works of John Bunyan, vol. 1, p. 467

Thomas Grantham was a General Baptist who devoted several pages of his sixth Treatise answering John Bunyan and his errors.  On pages 177 and 178 of his Christianismus Primitivus, London, 1678 he argues that all members of the UNIVERSAL CHURCH ARE MADE SUCH BY WATER BAPTISM, SO ALL THE MEMBERS OF THE PARTICULAR CHURCHES MUST HAVE WATER BAPTISM.

John Denne, another General Baptist, stated in 1673:

Wherefore John Bunyan and his doctrine ought to be exploded as a detected gangrene increasing unto more ungodliness 2 Tim. 2:18. p. 124

Touching his faith [Bunyan's] let the God of Heaven answer, I John 2:3--He that says he knows me, and keeps not my commandments is a liar; p. 72

And then, if one baptism, what other, but that one (viz., Baptism of Water) so generally practiced by all Disciples?

He [Bunyan] will tell us the Baptism of the Spirit, for by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body. To which I answer, The Baptism of the Spirit was not general, and could not be intended by ONE BAPTISM.

John Denne: Truth Outweighing Error, p. 86.

Further Particular Baptist writers against John Bunyan were Henry D’Anvers, Thomas Paul, and William Kiffin.

In the 1670s, Thomas Paul published his Some Serious Reflections on Mr. Bunyan’s Confession and His Communion with Unbaptized Persons.

To the credit of the Pedobaptists, it seems that none of them became involved in such an irregular practice as open communion and they raised a united voice against it. The disorder began in Poland among the Socinians and came into England later and became popular by such efforts as Jessey’s, Tombs’ and Bunyan’s.

The 1600s closed with few Baptists embracing open communion and Baptists did not take it up largely until near the close of the 1700s. B W White published his Particular Baptists Records, 1650-1660; and Particular Baptist Organizations, and gives very good coverage of these issues.

Open Communion in the 1700s

It was not until the late 1700s that open communion became a serious problem among the English Baptists. Orchard spoke to this point in his History of Open Communion. He identified Robert Robinson of Cambridge, the Baptist Historian, as an open communionist.  

Robert Robinson helped pave the way for the disorderly practice of Open Communion.  However, its popularity rose and gained many eager converts in England during the early 1800s by the writings and influence of Robert Hall Jr., who followed Robinson at Cambridge.

                          Open Communion in the 1800s

In  the 1800s  there was  still  need to warn of  the danger  of  open communion . R.B.C. Howell wrote in 1846, The Terms of Communion at the Lords Table, and John  L. Waller  wrote in 1859 Open  Communion  shown  to be  Unscriptural and  Deleterious