Jonathan Edwards: Communion Controversy

A sermon preached in Back Free Church in September 2003 on the words "This do in remembrance of me" (1 Corinthians 11:28).

The entry in the record of the Northampton Church for June 22, 1750, simply says, "Rev Jonathan Edwards was dismissed". It leaves a great deal unsaid; and the little that it does say arouses our interest and invites analysis. After all, Edwards was no ordinary preacher, but a man whose intellectual powers and spiritual life made him a giant among men. And nor was his any ordinary ministry: he had seen the revival power of the Great Awakening shatter the spiritual slumber of his parish and bring many, young and old, into the kingdom. Yet suddenly he found himself out of favour with the congregation which had enjoyed such extraordinary privileges during his ministry.

No study of Edwards can ignore the reasons and controversy surrounding his dismissal. Known as the 'communion controversy', the strife focussed on the question of the proper qualifications for communicant membership in the church. In addition to highlighting Edwards' profile in this anniversary year of his birth, I have another reason for drawing attention to this controversy now. We will administer the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper, God willing, in a couple of weeks' time. And the question constantly raises its head: who ought to be at the Lord's table?

The Background

Edwards became the minister of Northampton following the death of his grandfather, Samuel Stoddard, in 1729. Edwards had been his assistant in Northampton since 1727, and Stoddard himself had been minister there since 1669. Over the course of that long ministry, Stoddard's influence and standing grew to gigantic proportions, so that some people regarded him almost like a god [Marsden, 114]. The following year, Edwards married.

Part of Stoddard's influence in the church was to be seen in the way he opened up the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper. The rise of Puritanism in the seventeenth century had re-evaluated and re-assessed the doctrine of the sacraments, and bequeathed to us the position of Westminster that there are only two sacraments: baptism and the Lord's Supper. In New England, the practice was to baptise all the infants, and to admit those who were converted to the Lord's Table.

Some people saw a tension between the two sacraments being administered in this particular way. They seemed to contradict one another. On the one hand, baptism seemed to say that the church was inclusive: all the children of the community, pledged in covenant to Christ, were brought up in the church under the influences of the Gospel. On the other hand, the Lord's Supper seemed to say that the church was exclusive, that only a select few were entitled to participate in the Sacrament, because of the insistence on conversion prior to participation.

Some people resolved this tension by changing the emphasis in baptism, and by making baptism as exclusive as the Lord's Supper. In other words, they became Baptists [eg Roger Williams, Marsden p32]. Others, however, like Samuel Stoddard, resolved it by changing the emphasis in the Lord's Supper, and by making the communion as inclusive as baptism. Stoddard insisted that the qualification for the Lord's Supper ought to be the same as for baptism: a profession of the true faith, with a life free from scandal.

Stoddard's position was possibly related to his own personal experience. He became the minister of the church at Northampton in 1669. While administering the sacrament in 1677, he had such a wonderful experience of Christ's love that he subsequently dated his conversion to that experience. He bolstered his position with two main arguments.

First, Stoddard asked, how can any church know who is truly converted? The church admits to her ordinances on the basis of what she sees and what she hears from those she interviews. But only Christ is an infallible judge, and only his asssessment is flawless. How can we say that the Lord's Supper is only for the converted, when it is impossible for us to know who they are?

But his second argument was even more basic. The Lord's Supper, he said, is a means of grace. Therefore the grace that we need for conversion may be given to us in the Sacrament. From that point of view, the Lord's Supper might well be a converting ordinance, and, if it is, then all who receive baptism on the basis of a profession of the true faith, with a life free from scandal, are also entitled to come to the Lord's Table. It may be that those who are not genuinely converted might indeed be converted by means of their participation.

Edwards knew when he took a different view of admission to the Lord's Supper that many would find fault with him simply because he did not agree with Samuel Stoddard. And that fact lay heavily with him. Edwards made his views public in his work An Humble Inquiry into the Rules of the Word of God concerning the qualifications requisite to a complete standing and full communion in the visible Christian church. His opening words in the author's preface are these:

My appearing in this public manner on that side of the question, which is defended in the following sheets, will probably be surprising to many; as it is well known that Mr Stoddard, so great and eminent a divine, and my venerable predecessor in the pastoral office over the church in Northampton, as well as my own grandfather, publicly and strenuously appeared in opposition to the doctrine here maintained.

He was conscious of the fact that Stoddard had been highly regarded, and that his views carried great weight in the churches of Northampton and the surrounding districts. He also knew that many of the townspeople would raise the issue of why he had not made his views known earlier, before he was elected Stoddard's successor. There were some who used the whole issue to suggest that he had taken over as minister of Northampton by deceit and stealth.

Before we go any further, it is perhaps important to note a few things.

First, there have always been controversies in the church over the application of certain principles and the administration of various ordinances. Not least of these has been differences of opinion about the sacraments: questions over baptism have ranged from the proper subjects, mode and meaning of baptism; questions over the Lord's Supper have ranged from the presence of Christ in the symbols to the proper recipients of the Lord's Supper. Sometimes these questions have divided churches, or (as in Edwards' case) led to changes in men's ministries. We cannot make these opinions the tests of whether we will have fellowship with fellow-believers. But while we are in the church, we will have different views on different subjects. But we do well to remember the dictum of Richard Baxter:

In essential things, unity,
In non-essentials, liberty,
In all things, charity.

Secondly, we must never judge a man's spiritual relation to God on the basis of his agreements or disagreements with us. Edwards, conscious as he was of the shadow of Stoddard looming over these matters, still judged him as 'so great and eminent a divine'. It recalls MacCheyne's view of Edward Irving, of whom MacCheyne said that he wronged Christ greatly, yet loved him much.

Thirdly, we ought to take Edwards' counsel to heart, that no matter how venerable and highly esteemed people may be in our estimation, we cannot "make the authority of the greatest and holiest of mere men the ground of our belief of any doctrine in religion" (I, 431). Men may be held in high esteem, and reputed to be eminent in holiness, piety, learning and ministry, but their doctrines are not authoritative for these reasons. Men are not right in their opinions just because they are spiritual, and, as our Catechism reminds us, there is only one rule that God has given to direct us how we may glorify and enjoy him: and it is not the views of eminent people. Our only standard, as Edwards was at pains to point out, is the Word of God.

The position Edwards adopted in the communion controversy was the traditional Puritan view which had been held in New England. His written contribution was in three works: the Humble Enquiry, which appeared in 1749, a work entitled Misrepresentations corrected and the truth vindicated, which appeared in 1752, and his protracted Narrative of the communion controversy, which was written over the course of the 1750s. There is every indication that Edwards found the whole business thoroughly trying; he would have rathered steer clear of any controversy, particularly one which saw him at odds with the views of his grandfather. He was also aware of the fact that there was much riding on this particular debate:

I am conscious, not only is the interest of religion concerned in this affair, but my own reputation, future usefulness, and my very subsistence, all seem to depend on my freely opening and defending myself...

Edwards knew that his own name, standing and livelihood depended on how he answered the question: who ought to come to the Lord's table; but, more than that, that it was a question which brought him right to the heart of true religion

Who are qualified to be members of the church in complete standing?

In his Humble Inquiry, he deals with three main issues. In the first part, he states and explains the issue. He puts the question in this way:

Whether, according to the rules of Christ, any ought to be admitted to the communion and privileges of members of the visible church of Christ in complete standing, but such as are in profession, and in the eye of the church's christian judgement, godly or gracious persons?

So Edwards is recognising certain basic issues regarding the church. First, the church is a society governed by CHRIST'S RULES. That is absolutely fundamental. Every office-bearer within the Free Church has to answer the question "Do you believe that the Lord Jesus Christ, as King and Head of the Church, has therein appointed a government in the hands of Church-officers, distinct from, and not subordinate in its own province to, civil government...?" In other words, all who are in office declare their belief that Christ governs the church, and that he is the sole determinator of all that goes on in the church.

Second, he is recognising that there are distinctions of membership in the church. All baptised infants, for example, he acknowledges to be in some senses members of the church. We operate with a distinction between members and adherents, but that is probably not a distinction which the Puritan fathers would have made. Baptism is a seal of the promises of the covenant; following from Old Testament circumcision, it does bring people under the authority of the church. We need to recover the idea of membership through baptism. But there is a distinction between those who are fittingly baptised and those who then profess faith personally and come into what Edwards calls a COMPLETE standing in the church.

Third, Edwards recognises that the church itself has to make judgements concerning those who wish to profess faith. That is peculiarly the duty of the Kirk-Session, the ruling elders, although in Stoddard's time the profession of faith was made before the whole congregation.

As Edwards explains the question, he wants to distinguish between the qualifications which will allow the church to admit a person to membership and the qualifications which lead a person to take that step of obedience and faith. In other words, I take that step of profession because I have good reason in myself to do so; the church admits me into membership because IT has good reason to do so, and the reasons in both cases are different. I come because of what is going on in my heart and life. The church, however, admits me because of what it sees visibly and externally of my life.

He also wants to make a distinction between the foundation of repentance and faith in a man's heart, and the influence that brings on his conscience to motivate him to act in faith and profess Christ. In other words, while Stoddard wanted to say that a man might be converted at the sacrament, Edwards wanted to say that a man ought to find evidence of conversion in himself and then subsequently take the step of profession.

The second part of his enquiry deals with reasons for his position, and it is here that some of his detailed argumentation comes across with power. The basic question Edwards wants to ask is this: what does the New Testament say about the nature of church membership? And he notes that the word that is most often used to designate the members of the church of Christ in the world is the word SAINT. That is a word that has come to have a very limited, narrow usage in the vocabulary of Christians: saints are people we have venerated or canonised. But that is not how the word is used in the New Testament: all the people of God are saints. Edwards cites various Scriptures to demonstrate this: 'the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints' (Ephesians 1:18); when he shall come to be glorified in his saints (2 Thessalonians 1:10). So, says Edwards,

The word is used so as to have respect not only to real saints, but to such as were saints in visibility, appearance and profession; and so were outwardly, as to what concerns their acceptance among men and their outward treatment and privileges, of the company of saints...

...it appears that the distinction of real and visible or professing saints is scriptural, and that the visible church was made up of these two, and that none are according to Scripture admitted into the visible church of Christ, but those who are visible and professing saints or Christians.

This idea of 'visible saints' brings us to the heart of Edwards' view of church membership. For Edwards, the outward profession of our faith ought to correspond to the inward reality of our hearts. Edwards knew that there have always been hypocrites in the church, and he also knew that many sincere people may doubt their faith. But he took is as his bottom line that where there is saving faith, it will be evident in visible and public profession.

Some people accused Edwards of saying that it was possible to have a perfect church in the world, which was a point he strenuously denied. But what he did want to emphasise again and again was that our piety ought to show itself in our obedience, and our public profession ought to show what is in our will and in our heart. He demonstrates this from the book of Acts and the epistles with many quotations to demonstrate that the profession of faith includes profession of the personal elements of the faith, such as repentance and holiness, which are truly personal.

What is the essence of the Lord's Supper?

So for those whose outward profession corresponds to the inward reality of their heart, what takes place at the Lord's Table? What is involved in the Lord's Supper for them?

Edwards's answer is superb: the Lord's Table is a mutual giving of hearts:

There is in the Lord's supper a mutual solemn profession of the two parties transacting the covenant of grace, and visibly united in that covenant; the Lord Christ by his minister, on the one hand, and the communicants (who are professing believers) on the other. The administrator of the ordinance acts in the quality of Christ's minister, acts in his name, as representing him; and stands in the place where Christ himself stood at the first administration of this sacrament, and in the original institution of the ordinance. Christ, by the speeches and actions of the minister, makes a solemn profession of his part in the covenant of grace. He exhibits the sacrifice of his body broken and his blood shed; and in the minister's offering the sacramental bread and wine to the communicants, Christ presents himself to the believing communicants, as their propitiation and bread of life; and by these outward signs confirms and seats his sincere engagements to be their Savior and food, and to impart to them all the benefits of his propitiation and salvation. And they in receiving what is offered, and eating and drinking the symbols of Christ's body and blood also profess their part in the covenant of grace. They profess to embrace the promises and lay hold of the hope set before them, to receive the atonement, to receive Christ as their spiritual food, and to feed upon him in their hearts by faith. Indeed what is professed on both sides is the heart. For Christ, in offering himself, professes the willingness of his heart to be theirs who truly receive him; and the communicants, on their part, profess the willingness of their hearts to receive him, which they declare by significant actions. They profess to take Christ as their spiritual food, and bread of life. To accept of Christ as our bread of life, is to accept of him as our Savior and portion; as food is both the means of preserving life, and is also the refreshment and comfort of life.

In other words, the sacrament is effective for those who know Christ, who discern his body, and who are in fellowship with the Lord Jesus Christ.

This is further explained in the third part of the Humble Inquiry, which deals with twenty objections to his position. Two years later he was also obliged to deal with arguments which had been published against his position. But many of the leading townspeople, who had been admitted by Stoddard into church membership and church leadership, refused to adopt Edwards' return to Puritan and biblical standards, and also refused to allow him public debate on the issue of the Lord's Supper. The bitter dispute ended with his dismissal.

One of the aspects of the debate was Edwards' own demeanour. Rev David Hall said of him:

I never saw the least symptoms of displeasure in his countenance the whole week, but he appeared like a man of God, whose happiness was out of the reach of his enemies, and whose treasure was not only a future but a present good, overbalancing all imaginable ills of life, even to the astonishment of many, who could not be at rest without his dismission [Marsden, 361].

When the news of his dismissal reached Scotland, several of Edwards' colleagues in Scotland tried to persuade him to accept a charge here. But since he was now 46, with a large family to support, he did not wish to move across the Atlantic. We can only guess at how the eighteenth century Church of Scotland might have been blessed by his presence here.

Lessons From the Communion Controversy

There are, I think, several lessons that we learn about Jonathan Edwards from the communion controversy.

The first is the high view that he had of Jesus Christ. The sole impulse of the position that he adopted arose from his conviction that Christ is indeed the supreme Lord of all, the Head of his people, and the final arbiter of faith and life. These are words we hear so often: at ordination services, at baptism services, in the regular preaching of the Gospel. Yet they compel us to ask whether we have adopted the motto of Paul writing to the Colossians: that in all things HE might have the pre-eminence. Are we living our lives with this end in view, that Christ will have all the glory and honour and praise?

The second lesson is the high view that Edwards had of the church. Although the church was to be in the world, to affect the society in which it is to be found, Edwards' argument was that the church was altogether different from any other society. It is Christ's body, God's household, his city, his army. How much we need to recover this high view of the church, as the place where God has set his name and to which he has committed himself in the ongoing interests of his kingdom.

Thirdly, there is the high view that Edwards has of the sacrament of the Lord's Supper. "The sacraments," says Edwards, "are covenant privileges ... Covenant privileges are covenant benefits, or benefits to which persons have a right by the covenant. But persons can have no right to any of the benefits of a covenant, without compliance with its terms ... he that has no interest in the covenant and will not comply with it, has no interest in it". In the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, God's people, who are parties to his covenant of grace, are invited to participate in a public profession of their faith, to give and receive at the table, to renew their pledge to Christ and their loyalty to him. Let us not think such low thoughts of the Lord's Supper as to refuse to participate in it if we have an interest in the covenant.

Finally, there is the high view that Edwards has of Christian profession itself. We are back at this notion of visible saints. God wants men and women who will be unashamed to wear their faith on their sleeves, and who will show by their daily living what it is to be a Christian. 'What is it to be a saint by profession,' asks Edwards, 'but to be by profession a saint?' (I, 438). At last, that is the great test: it is not that I am perfect, or that I do not let the Lord down; it is simply whether, in the course of my daily living, I make it known that my great desire is to be ruled under the Lordship of Jesus Christ.

May God enable us so to live, that, whatever the cost of our discipleship, we will put Christ before us in all things.

ŠIain D. Campbell 2003