26.2 Section III

    Section III.–This communion which the saints have with Christ, doth not make them in any wise partakers of the substance of the Godhead, or to be equal with Christ in any respect: either of which to affirm, is impious and blasphemous. Nor doth their communion one with another as saints, take away or infringe the title or property which each man hath in his goods and possessions.

Exposition This section guards against two heretical opinions–the one relating to the saints’ communion with Christ; the other, to their communion with one another. Certain mystics have employed impious and blasphemous terms in reference to the saints’ union and communion with Christ, as if they were deified or christified. They have not scrupled to use the phrases of being "goaded in God," and "christed in Christ," and other expressions equally wild. In the beginning of the sixteenth century, the Anabaptists of Germany, among other absurd and dangerous tenets, contended for the necessity of a community of goods among Christians. This doctrine never made much progress in this country, and modern Anabaptists entirely reject it. In opposition to these extravagant notions, our Confession teaches: -

1. That the saints’ communion with Christ does not involve a participation of the substance of his Godhead, nor constitute an equality between him and them in any respect. The union that subsists between Christ and believers leaves them distinct persons; and the communion which believers have with Christ does not raise them to an equality with him in dignity. gluey cannot participate in his divine excellencies, which are incommunicable; neither can they share with him in the glory of his mediatory work. He had none to co-operate with him in that arduous work, and he alone must bear the glory; as the saints are not deified, neither are they exalted to be mediators and saviours in conjunction with Christ.

2. That the saints’ communion with one another does not take away or infringe upon the rights of private property. The perpetual obligation of the eighth commandment, the admonitions of the New Testament to charity and hospitality, the particular precepts addressed to the high and to the low, to the rich and to the poor–all plainly prove that, under the gospel, each man retains a property in his goods and possessions. We are told, indeed, that in the primitive Church "all that believed had all things common, and sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all men, as every man had need."–Acts ii. 44, 45. From this "it has been supposed that there was a real community of goods among the Christians of Jerusalem; or that every man, renouncing all right in his property, delivered it over to a public stock, to which all had an equal claim. It appears, however, from the story of Ananias and Sapphira (Acts v. 4), that the disciples were under no obligation, or bound by no positive law, to dispose of their property for the benefit of the Church; and that, after it was sold, they could retain the whole, or any part of the price, provided that they did not, like those unhappy persons, practise dissimulation and deceit; and it is further evident, from the passage we have quoted, that although in many instances they laid down the price at the apostles’ feet, entrusting them with the distribution, yet they sometimes reserved it in their own hands, and gave it to the indigent, according to their own ideas of their need. These considerations seem to prove, that there was not an actual community of goods in the primitive Church; but that, in consequence of the fervent charity which united their hearts and interests, "no man,’ as Luke informs us in the fourth chapter, "said that ought of the things which he possessed was his own,’ or appropriated them to his own use, but readily parted with them for the supply of his brethren. There is no evidence that the conduct of the Church of Jerusalem was followed by any other Church, even in the apostolic age; but as far as it is an example of generous love triumphing over the selfish affections, and exciting men to pursue the welfare of others as their own, it is worthy to be imitated to the end of the world."