COMMUNION OF SAINTS

(See Saints .) This is an article of the Creed in which we profe to believe, as a nece ary and infallible truth, that such persons as are truly sanctified in the Church of Christ , while they live among the crooked generations of men, and struggle with the miseries of this world, have fellowship with God the Father , (1 John i. 3; 2 Peter i. 4,) with God the Son , (1 John i. 3; 2 John 9; John xvii. 20, 21, 23,) with God the Holy Ghost , (Phil. ii. 1; 2 Cor. xiii. 14,) as dwelling with them, and taking up THEIR habitations in them; that they partake of the care and kindne of the ble ed angels, who take delight in the ministration for their benefit, being “ministering spirits sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation” (Heb. i. 14; Luke xv. 10; Matt, xviii. 10); that besides the external fellowship which they have in the word and sacraments, with all the members of the Church, they have an intimate union and conjunction with all the saints on earth, as the living members of Christ . (1 John i. 7; Col. ii. 19.) Nor is this union separated by the death of any; but as Christ , in whom they live, is the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world, so have they fellowship with all the saints, who, from the death of Abel, have departed in the true faith and fear of God , and now enjoy the presence of the Father , and follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth. (Heb. xii. 22, 23.) “Indeed,” says Bishop Pearson, from whom this article is taken, “the communion of saints in the Church of Christ with those who are departed is demonstrated by their communion with the saints alive. For if I have communion with a saint of God as such, while he liveth here, I must still have communion with him when he is departed hence; because the foundation of that communion cannot be removed by death. The mystical union between Christ and his Church, the spiritual conjunction of the members with the head, is the true foundation of that communion which one member hath with another, all the members living and increasing by the same influence which they receive from him. But death, which is nothing else but the separation of the soul from the body, maketh no separation in the mystical union, no breach of the spiritual conjunction; and, consequently, there must continue the same communion, because there remain eth the same foundation. Indeed the saint before his death had some communion with the hypocrite, as hearing the word, profe ing the faith, receiving the sacraments together; which being in things only external, as they were common to them both, and all such external actions ceasing in the person dead, the hypocrite remaining loseth all communion with the saint departing, and the saints surviving cease to have farther fellowship with the hypocrite dying. But seeing that the true and unfeigned holine of man, wrought by the powerful influence of the Spirit of God , not only remain eth, but also is improved after death; seeing that the correspondence of the internal holine was the true communion with other persons during life, they cannot be said to be divided by death, which hath no power over that sanctity by which they were first conjoined. But although this communion of the saints in paradise and on earth, upon the mystical union of Christ their head, be fundamental and internal, yet what acts or external operations it produces is not so certain. That we communicate with them in hope of that happine which they actually enjoy is evident; that we have the Spirit of God given us as an earnest, and so a part of their felicity, is certain. But what they do in heaven in relation to us on earth particularly considered, or what we ought to perform in reference to them in heaven, besides a reverential respect and study of imitation, is not revealed unto us in the Scriptures, nor can be concluded by nece ary deduction from any principles of Christianity. They who first found this part of the article in the creed, and delivered their exposition to us, have made no greater enlargement of this communion, as to the saints of heaven, than the society of hope, esteem, and imitation on our side, of desires and supplications on their side; and what is now taught by the Church of Rome is as an unwarrantable, so a no vitious, interpretation.”