Source: Source: Vol. 2 http://www.archive.org/details/worksgeo02haygiala
ON COMMUNICATING IN RELIGION WITH THOSE WHO ARE SEPARATED FROM THE CHURCH OF CHRIST
Introduction
WHOEVER seriously considers what has been shown
in the preceding inquiry, and the light in which
the sacred Scriptures represent all false religions, will have
no difficulty in drawing this conclusion, that all communication
with such, in religious matters, must be highly
criminal in the sight of God; because such communication
implies an approbation of their false doctrine, and is, as St. John expresses it, "a communicating with their wicked works," 2 John, 11. It might seem unnecessary, therefore, to advance anything further on this head; but as the licentiousness of the heart of man, fostered by the latitudinarian maxims so current in the world, is too apt, under some specious pretence or other, to take liberties in practice, which a bare conclusion from other principles might prove too weak to restrain; and as the spirit of God has been pleased to explain our duty on this point in the plainest terms, in His sacred Scriptures, it cannot, therefore, but be agreeable to all sincere disciples of Jesus Christ to know fully what their holy religion teaches them concerning it. This will serve for their own satisfaction in knowing their duty and the grounds of it, and will also arm them against the "cunning craftiness of such as may go about to deceive them." This appendix, therefore, is added to show, from the most incontestable authority, that it is altogether unlawful for the members of the true Church of Christ to hold any religious communication even in appearance only, with those who are separated from her communion; and that the vain pretexts which may be brought to authorise such communication are mere delusions, and, as St Paul justly calls them, "impositions of philosophy, vain deceit, according to the rudiments of the world, and not according to Christ," Col. ii. 8. This will manifestly appear by what the sacred Word of God declares upon this subject.
SECTION I: Principles premised from the Holy Scriptures.
Q. 1. Are we obliged to confess our holy faith outwardly, acknowledging ourselves to be members of the Church of Christ?