O PRINCETON, N. J. <J* 
 
 Presented by Mr. Samuel Agnew of Philadelphia, Pa. 
 
 BX 8 .H38 1837 
 
 Harris, John, 1802-1856. 
 
 Union 
 
UNION. 
 
UNION; 
 
 THE DIVIDED CHURCH MADE ONE. 
 
 1V« TTCiVTSC SV m<Tl. 
 
 BY THE EEV. JOHN HARRIS, 
 
 Author of 
 
 "MAMMON," "THE GREAT TEACHER," &C., &C. 
 
 LONDON : 
 THOMAS WARD AND CO., 
 
 PATERNOSTER. ROW. 
 
WILLIAM TYLER, 
 
 PHINTER, 
 EOIT-COPRT, FLEF.T-STREr.T. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Page 
 
 PREFACE Vii 
 
 INTRODUCTION 1 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE SCRIPTURE DOCTRINE OF THE UNITY OP THE CHURCH 9 
 
 CHAPTER 11. 
 
 THE NATURE OF THAT UNITY; OR, WHEREIN ITS ONENESS 
 
 CONSISTS Sr 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 SCHISM, THE BREACH OF THAT UNITY 83 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE CAUSES OF SCHISM; ESPECIALLY THOSE WHICH EX- 
 ISTED FROM APOSTOLIC TIMES TO THE PERIOD OF THE 
 REFORMATION 102 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE PRINCIPAL MEANS WHICH HAVE PERPETUATED DIVI- 
 SIONS FROM THAT PERIOD TO THE PRESENT 130 
 
Page 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 VARIOUS TESTS BY WHICH THE SCHISMATICAL SPIRIT MAY 
 
 BE DETECTED IN INDIVIDUALS AND IN CHURCHES.... 15.5 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 ITS SINFl'LNESS AND EVILS 10?' 
 
 CHAPTER VIU. 
 
 ITS PLEAS AND DISGUISES 200 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 ITS REMOVAL ; OR, THE KIND OF UNION TO BE ATTEMPTED 214 
 
 CHAPTER X, 
 
 THE MEANS BY WHICH THIS UNION SHOULD BE SOUGHT . . 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 THE REASONS WHICH SHOULD IMPEL THE CHRISTIAN 
 
 CHURCH TO UNITE 266 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 Perhaps there is no denomination of Protestant 
 Christians whose religious opinions are now precisely 
 what they wei"e fifty years ago. Retaining the same 
 general platform of evangelical truth, and adhering, 
 for the most part, as closely as ever to the letter of 
 our distinctive tenets, certain modifications of parti- 
 cular points of doctrine have yet insensibly takei^' 
 place, eminently favourable, as far as they go, to our 
 closer approximation, and visible union. 
 
 Owing however to the operation of other and 
 hostile causes, it is lamentably obvious that such ap- 
 proximation has not occurred. The Christian Church 
 is still "a house divided against itself." There, 
 
Vlll PREFACE. 
 
 where we might have looked for the sepulchre of all 
 the evil passions, we find their rendezvous and their 
 home. Political governments, it is said, are, for the 
 present, tired of war; but that divine institution 
 which should have been known as the peacemaker of 
 the world, and which ought to have exhibited a model 
 of holy unanimity, even if all the world were in arms, 
 gives signs of continuing to distinguish itself by con- 
 flict if all the world were at peace. Even the sub- 
 terranean fires of the earth are said to be burning out 
 and expiring ; but the devouring flames of ecclesias- 
 tical strife seem fed from an inexhaustible source, and 
 show little direct indication of abating their volcanic 
 activity. Well would it be for mankind if the fear- 
 ful efflects they produce were no more injurious than 
 those of the lava from the crater. But while this only 
 spreads a local alarm, and suspends the affairs of a 
 town, these are retarding the movements of our poli- 
 tical government, agitating the heart of the nation, 
 making the very foundations of society vibrate, and 
 shedding a pernicious influence on the interests of 
 humanity at large. The molten waves of the former 
 
PREFACE. ix 
 
 prevent the cultivation of the soil only ; the latter, by 
 virtually opposing a religious system of national edu- 
 cation, is dooming a large domain of immortal mind 
 to worse than perpetual sterility, and transferring to 
 it the cui'se originally pronounced on the ground, 
 " thorns also and thistles shalt thou bring forth." 
 And while the material element destroys only, at 
 most, the life that now is, and overwhelms a town or a 
 city, the more desolating element of ecclesiastical 
 dissension, by impairing the piety and usefulness of 
 the Church, is abandoning multitudes to a death 
 beyond the grave. "Return, O Lord, how long?" 
 
 Meantime, while the existing evil not only justifies 
 but demands every scriptural effort at amelioration, 
 it is natural that many a reader should be desirous to 
 know the spirit and scope of a volume on Christian 
 Union, before he commits himself to its entire pe- 
 rusal. As far as that desire may relate to the follow- 
 ing pages, the writer is perfectly ready to reply, that 
 in adverting to the history and evils of schism his 
 object has been, not to criminate parties, but to 
 
X PREFACE. 
 
 inculcate mutual forbearance, to lay bare the disease 
 with a simple view to its removal — that the union 
 which he advocates, so far from requiring the subju- 
 gation or absorption of any one section of the faithful, 
 guarantees the integrity and security of each by seek- 
 ing the fellowship of all — and that, agreeable as that 
 union must be in itself, and eminently advantageous 
 as it would be to those who are immediately con- 
 cerned, he pleads for it chiefly for the sake of that 
 world whose myriads are daily perishing in their 
 guilt, and whose conversion, according to the prayer 
 of Christ, is conditionally suspended on the instru- 
 mentality of a united Church. 
 
 Were he to suppose that in the development of 
 these views he has introduced nothing at which party 
 feeling will take offence, he would evince an igno- 
 rance of the past and the present but little suited to 
 the execution of his task. Indeed, when it is con- 
 sidered that this morbid feeling could hardly listen to 
 the enforcement of Christian unity even in the lan- 
 guage of Scripture itself, mthout pronouncing it, for 
 
PREFACE. Xi 
 
 the present, impracticable and unseasonable, the 
 question is, whether such offence is not to be looked 
 for and regarded as a sign of his impartiality and 
 fidelity to his object. Be this as it may, he can 
 ti'uly aver to those of every community whom alone 
 he desires to behold united — " the faithful in Christ 
 Jesus" — that while, on the one hand, he has not 
 knowingly omitted a single sentence merely for the 
 sake of gratifying one party, he has not, on the other, 
 introduced a word for the mere purpose of criminat- 
 ing any other party. So that if, in any instance, it 
 should be his lot to reap division where his only aim 
 has been to sow unity, he will regard it as an addi- 
 tional reason to appeal from earth to heaven, and, 
 in the appropriate language of the Collect for Unity, 
 say, " O God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, 
 our only Saviour, the Prince of Peace ; give us grace 
 seriously to lay to heart the great dangers we are in 
 by our unhappy divisions. Take away all hatred and 
 prejudice, and whatsoever else may hinder us from 
 godly union and concord : that, as there is but one 
 body, and one Spirit, and one hope of our calling, 
 
Xll PREFACE. 
 
 one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Fa- 
 ther of us all, so we may henceforth be all of one 
 heart, and of one soul, united in one holy bond of 
 truth and peace, of faith and charity, and may with 
 one mind and one mouth glorify thee ; through Jesus 
 Christ our Lord. Amen." 
 
UNION, 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 There appears to be a growing conviction among 
 Christians in the present day, that the Church of 
 Christ, notwithstanding its increasing activity and 
 enlargement, is labouring under many and serious 
 evils. Indeed, the attention which these evils are 
 attracting, constitute one of .the most hopeful signs 
 of the times ; especially, as it seems to be connected 
 with a desire to ascertain and apply the appropriate 
 remedies. 
 
 1. The result of the writer's observation and read- 
 ing would lead him to infer, that the principal evils 
 to be deplored are reducible to three heads — Covet- 
 ousness. Schism, and Indevotion. In other words, 
 that the great wants of the Christian Church are 
 Liberality, Union, and a spirit of Prayer. This 
 opinion by no means undertakes to place these 
 
2 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 desiderata in the order in which they should be met, 
 nor to determine their comparative importance. It 
 simply affirms that they exist ; and that the removal 
 of one of them would be the removal of a train of 
 minor and dependent evils ; if not, also, the removal 
 of the other two. 
 
 2. The first of the three evils which we have 
 named has been recently considered in a Treatise 
 expressly on the subject, and which is still engag- 
 ing a measure of the public attention. The pre- 
 sent Essay relates to the second evil of the series 
 — Schism. And, without seeking to aggrandise the 
 importance of this subject at the expense of the other 
 two, it may be clearly shown that it possesses one 
 very important feature peculiar to itself. Schism is 
 an evil, the existence of which is undeniable, and the 
 degrees of which, in every age, are strictly definable. 
 The Great Founder of the Christian Church, ex- 
 plicitly requires that it shall be one. And here it 
 will be permitted by the reader, and will be suffi- 
 cient for the writer, to assume, that the oneness 
 intended is, at least, a union of afiection. " By 
 this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if 
 ye love one another." Every instance of division, 
 therefore, which incapacitates Christians for recipro- 
 cating sincere expressions of Christian love with any 
 part of the Church, is an unequivocal breach of this 
 great law of unity. Let the subject of difference be 
 ever so trivial in itself, and the breach apparently 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 3 
 
 ever so narrow, still if it reach down to the heart, it 
 is schism : or let it embrace ever so many particulars, 
 and some of them even of considerable importance, 
 still if it leave the heart entire, and allow a visible 
 interchange of Christian offices, the sin is absent. 
 The law of Christ on the subject is so definite, that 
 we can lay our finger, so to speak, on the very 
 point where the sin of schism begins ; and, by com- 
 paring the existing state of the Christian Church with 
 the express requirements of that law, we can deter- 
 mine, with all the exactness of a chemical analysis, 
 the places and the degrees in which it exists. 
 
 Now the same definiteness and precision cannot 
 be predicated, either of Christian liberality, or of a 
 spirit of prayer. These are subjects of individual 
 concern ; and as the circumstances of every Christian 
 differ from those of every other Christian, they must 
 necessarily be left to the individual responsibility of 
 each to God. But Christian union relates to be- 
 lievers in their collective capacity ; and, therefore, 
 the great Lawgiver has not left the duty to be modified 
 by circumstances, nor adjusted by individuals. He 
 has determined that nothing shall ever justify the 
 absence of substantial union — of visible affection — 
 from the ranks of his followers. Besides, the most 
 earnest supplication may be that which is offered in 
 the closet with "the door shut;" and the amplest 
 donation made by " the right hand," may be that of 
 which even "the left hand" knows nothing ; — a fact of 
 
4 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 which the worldly professor of religion is quick to take 
 advantage; and which renders it extremely difficult 
 to bring home to an unwilling mind the charges of 
 covetousness and indevotion which may lie against it. 
 But the union of the Christian Church is a visible 
 thing; and its relative value consists chiefly in its 
 visibility. It stands in the same relation to liberality 
 and prayer, as the walls of the temple did to the 
 services within. The munificence and devotion of 
 the worshippers could be judged of only by the 
 worshippers themselves; but whoever chose to walk 
 about Zion, and mark her bulwarks, could easily 
 report the state of her towers and walls : if these 
 were rent and dilapidated, and in a state to invite 
 rather than to repel an invader, he would then be 
 justified in concluding that the fires on the altar were 
 burning but dimly, and that the sacred courts were 
 comparatively deserted. 
 
 In the same way, the divided condition of the 
 Christian Church will assist us in judging of the 
 state of its internal piety. When we attempt to 
 exhibit its covetousness and indevotion, as compared 
 with the Primitive Church, or with the require- 
 ments of the Christian Lawgiver, we are regarded 
 by the great bulk of worldly professors as indulg- 
 ing in exaggeration ; and a suspicion will occasion- 
 ally cross our own minds, that the representation 
 is too repulsive to be true. But the divided state 
 of the Christian Church shows that the suspicion is 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 5 
 
 unwarranted : it says to us, in language not to be 
 misunderstood, " Can any representation of the in- 
 ternal state of the Christian community be greatly 
 exaggerated, when its external state is so rent and 
 dismantled ? Remember the all-pervading unity of 
 affection which the Saviour required in his Church; 
 contrast that oneness with its actual condition at this 
 moment ; and then say, whether the alarming degree, 
 in which Christian union is wanting in the Church, 
 would not justify your utmost fears concerning the 
 absence of liberality and devotion also? What can 
 you expect from a Church whose members, instead 
 of worshipping together in one spirit — laying all the 
 fuel of its affections upon one altar — withdraw, and 
 separate into parties, and erect each its distinct altar, 
 one on Mount Gerizim, and another on Mount Zion 
 — what, but that the fires on each should burn dimly ? 
 What can you expect from the man who loveth not 
 his brother-Christian whom he hath seen, but that he 
 cannot love God whom he hath not seen?" Thus the 
 subject of schism not only possesses a feature peculiar 
 to itself, it may also be made highly subservient in 
 detecting the presence, and determining the probable 
 amount of covetousness and indevotion. 
 
 3. But important as the subject of schism is in 
 itself, and useful as it may be made as a test of the 
 state of the Church generally, the writer would re- 
 member that the utility of any Treatise on it will 
 materially depend, under God, on the spirit in which 
 B 3 
 
6 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 it is discussed. When the state of the ancient temple 
 was to be reported on, an angel was the agent sent, 
 and a golden measuring rod the instrument he was 
 to employ — the highest created intelligence and an 
 unerring standard. The writer cannot pretend to 
 approach his task with the pure and passionless 
 mind of an angelic nature ; but he earnestly desires 
 to imitate him in forming a lofty estimate of the hal- 
 lowed employment he has undertaken; in bringing 
 no line or measure to the work, but the perfect rule 
 of Divine Revelation ; and in applying that rule with 
 as steady and impartial a hand as if he saw the Lord 
 of angels himself looking on. Feeling that he is ap- 
 proaching a subject which the passions of men have 
 enveloped in considerable mist and difficultv, he 
 would humbly invoke — implore — importune God for 
 the indispensable illumination and guidance of his 
 Holy Spirit. Remembering that it is a subject 
 which will bring to light much of the infirmity 
 of some of the holiest and most honoured ser- 
 vants of God — men "of whom the world was not 
 worthy," and who " are now without fault before the 
 throne of God" — he would bring to it a spirit of 
 patient forbearance and tender compassion. Recol- 
 lecting that it is a subject on which some of the best 
 of men have grievously differed and misrepresented 
 each other, he would approach it with deep humilia- 
 tion; calling injustice and wrong by their proper 
 names wherever he may find them ; not extenuating 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 7 
 
 the crimes and follies of those whose memories in 
 other respects he may hold dear ; unveiling the faults 
 of other parties, not for purposes of unholy exulta- 
 tion and repi'oach, but simply from fidelity to the 
 cause of truth, to extract lessons of humility and 
 Christian charity, and to inculcate a mutual oblivion 
 of the past — firmly believing, as he does, that when- 
 ever the breaches of the churches shall be healed, it 
 will be a season, not of triumph to any single party, 
 but of mutual concession and of general humiliation, 
 
 that "in those days, and in that time, the 
 
 children of Israel shall come, they and the children 
 of Judah together, going and weeping : they shall go, 
 and seek the Lord their God." Fully aware how 
 nearly even a virtuous indignation is allied to hatred, 
 and how often schism has been decried in the true 
 spirit of schism, he would distrust the purity of every 
 passion but that of love for the truth, and the desire 
 of conciliating and uniting all its followers. And im- 
 pressed with the idea that the honour of God is 
 deeply concerned in the present attempt, he would 
 prosecute it as if he saw the eye of flaming fire rest- 
 ing on him, or as if he had reached the thrice-hal- 
 lowed spot where the Greater Intercessor prayed for 
 his people " that they all might be one," and heard 
 him still repeating the request. 
 
 With such impressions, and in the exercise of such 
 a spirit, we propose, in the treatment of the subject, 
 to pursue the following plan : — I. To exhibit the 
 
8 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Scripture doctrine of the Unity of the Church. II. 
 The Nature of that Unity; or, wherein its Oneness 
 consists. III. We shall then show that Schism is the 
 Breach of that Unity. IV. Trace the Causes of 
 Schism ; especially those which existed from the Ear- 
 liest Age of the Christian Church to the Period of 
 the Reformation. V, The principal Means which 
 have perpetuated the Divisions of Christians from 
 that period to the present; and which are still in 
 fatal operation. VI. Various Tests by which the 
 Schismatical Spirit may be detected in Individuals 
 and in Churches. VII. Its Sinfulness and its Evils. 
 VIII. Its Pleas and Disguises. IX. Its Removal; 
 or, the Kind of Union to be Attempted. X. The 
 Means by which this Union should be sought. XI. 
 And, finally, the Reasons which should impel the 
 Christian Church to Unite. 
 
CHAPTER 1. 
 
 THE SCRIPTURE DOCTRINE OF THE UNITY OF 
 THE CHURCH. 
 
 As schism is a relative term, it is natural and proper 
 that we should begin with an inquiry into the nature 
 of that to which the term relates — the Christian 
 Church. And in every inquiry relating to Christian 
 doctrine or duty, our first concern should un- 
 doubtedly be to ascertain the mind of God as re- 
 vealed in his word. 
 
 The term exxA»)o-i« (Ecclesia,) in the New Testa- 
 ment, which our translators have rendered by the 
 word church, is one which originally denotes a popular 
 assembly, or gathering of persons into one place, 
 without any reference to the character of the persons 
 convened, or to the object of their meeting. In this 
 general sense it is employed. Acts xix. 32. But as 
 a religious appellation, it invariably denotes either 
 the whole body of the faithful, or some one assembly 
 of such persons associated together for the worship 
 
10 
 
 THE SCRIPTURE DOCTRINE OF 
 
 of God. In the former sense, our Lord affirmed,* 
 " upon this rock will I build my church ; " contem- 
 plating the majestic assembly — the number which 
 no man can number — who, in all the ages to come, 
 should form the great Christian community: and in 
 the same sense it is affirmed, that " he is the Head 
 over all things to the church, which is his body." 
 When the term church is employed in the latter 
 sense, it is always accompanied with a specification 
 of the place where it was accustomed to convene ; — 
 as, " the church which is at Corinth," " at Ephesus," 
 or, "at Rome:" — so that it differs from the former, 
 only as a part differs from the whole ; while the idea 
 of UNION essentially pervades them both. 
 
 The collective oneness of believers, appears to 
 have been designedly taught by each of the series of 
 types appointed from the beginning to adumbrate 
 the nature of the Christian Church. He who " sees 
 the end from the beginning," saw fit to sketch an 
 outline of his ultimate and most comprehensive pur- 
 poses on some of his earliest and minutest works ; 
 impressing on the first stone the figure of the com- 
 plete pyramid — and on the atom the laws of the 
 globe. He who " made all things for himself," 
 appears to have so made them, that the least should 
 contain a prophecy of the greatest; and that the 
 natural should mutely prefigure and promise the 
 spiritual. Thus, the earliest social relation, and that 
 
 • Matt. xvi. 18. 
 
THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 11 
 
 which is the appointed source of every other — the 
 marriage union — reflects, in "a mystery," the union 
 of Christ and his Church. And the creation at first 
 of only one woman, and the Divine permission ever 
 since of but one contemporaneous wife, appear to 
 have been divinely intended to denote the collective 
 oneness of " the bride, the Lamb's wife." Eph. v. 
 25—33 ; Rev. xix. 8. 
 
 As a family is the natural result of marriage, so the 
 next great type in the series appointed to denote the 
 unity of the Church, was the oneness of a family. This 
 appears to have been the pervading idea of the patri- 
 archal dispensation; of which Abraham was the 
 principal person. And hence it was, according to the 
 Apostle Paul, that Ishmael was cast out ; in order, 
 partly, that the typical family might remain at peace 
 and unity within itself. Gal. iv. 28 — 31. 
 
 As a number of families fonii a nation, so "the 
 church in the wilderness" — the " twelve-tribed " 
 Israelites assembled at the foot of Sinai, and after- 
 wards at the festivals on Sion, were a national emblem 
 of the collected Church. " Ye are come," saith the 
 Apostle, " unto Mount Sion, and unto the city of the 
 living God."* Like the Jews, but in a sense supe- 
 rior, you have one common centre, in which you not 
 merely meet, but where you habitually reside — in 
 
 * Schoettgen has amply proved, in his dissertation on this subject, 
 that by this phrase is to be understood the Church of the New Tes- 
 tament. 
 
12 
 
 THE SCRIPTURE DOCTRINE OF 
 
 God's only palace upon earth, his Church. Like the 
 tribes resorting from all parts of Judea to Jerusalem 
 — like the Panathenaica, or great convention 
 {■KOLvr^yupic) of the Athenians — you form one "general 
 assembly" (Ttuvriyvpt;) — one glorious concessiis of a]\ 
 orders. All of you are equally " first-bom ;" having 
 equal rights on earth, and the prospect of the same 
 inheritance in heaven. And being all alike civitate 
 donati, made free of the Church, you are enrolled in 
 the same celestial register. You all meet at the same 
 throne, and in the same presence ; and by assembling 
 there, you meet with the spirits of all the perfected 
 just : for the throne of the great pater-familias, of 
 whom the whole family in heaven and earth is 
 named, is the rendezvous of all his spiritual offspring. 
 One Mediator — better far than Moses — unites your 
 interests, and represents them all in his own person ; 
 and presents your supplications in his one priestly 
 censer. And one atonement — such as Abel never 
 offered — lays the foundation of your common hope. 
 And to all this you have come. As those who, being 
 admitted freemen, were said to have come into the 
 very constitution of the Roman polity — to have the 
 jus civitatis Romance, the rights of citizenship — though 
 living a thousand miles off, so you belong to the great 
 commonwealth of the Christian Church. 
 
 In the local unity and representative oneness of 
 the Jewish tribes, then, we behold a projected shadow 
 of that spiritual entireness which was to be realised in 
 
THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH. 13 
 
 the constitution of the Christian Church. The tribes 
 collected at Sinai, or on Sion, were " an allegory," of 
 which the Church of Christ is the truth, liberated and 
 embodied. 
 
 The unity of the Church was a doctrine not 
 only prefigured, but predicted. One of the earliest 
 characteristics of the Messiah was, that "to him 
 should the gathering of the people be." Under his 
 reign, saith Isaiah, " Ephraim shall not envy Judah, 
 and Judah shall not vex Ephraim." While the 
 union of the two is often predicted, in evident refer- 
 ence to the ultimate union of the Church under 
 Christ ; then " one king shall be king to them all, 
 — neither shall they be divided into two kingdoms 
 any more at all ;" he will " turn to the people a pure 
 language, that they may all call upon the name of 
 the Lord, to serve him with one consent;" and he 
 will give to them " one heart and one way." They 
 shall constitute a Church, in whose peaceful bosom 
 but one heart shall exist, to sway their motions and 
 direct their actions, — a heart which shall beat in har- 
 mony with heaven, and whose every pulse shall 
 diffiise life and joy to the remotest members. And so 
 far from shunning each other, and seeking separate 
 paths, they shall have but " one way," in which 
 they shall advance together — a loving, happy pilgrim- 
 band. 
 
 Accordingly, " when the fulness of time was come," 
 and Christ appeared on earth, he devoted himself to 
 
 c 
 
14 THE SCRIPTURE DOCTRINE OF 
 
 the great office of realising those types and fulfilling 
 those predictions ; in other words, he sought to unite 
 us to each other, by restoring us to God. 
 
 For this purpose, he assumed an identity of nature. 
 " Both he that sanctifieth, and they who are sancti- 
 fied, are all of one ; for which cause he is not ashamed 
 to call them brethren, saying, I will declare thy name 
 unto my brethren; in the midst of the church will I 
 sing praise unto thee." By assuming our nature into 
 a union with his own, he has demonstrated to our 
 hopes that nothing great or illustrious is to be denied 
 us ; that all heaven is open before us : so that he would 
 have our only object of contention to be, which shall 
 approach the nearest to his own exalted state. By 
 thus honouring and crowning our nature in the face 
 of the universe, he would not merely shame us out of 
 our mutual differences, but would present us to each 
 other as new and magnificent objects of affection. 
 By describing himself as standing " in the midst of 
 the church," — its central and solar glory — he would 
 have us to feel our union to each other in our com- 
 mon dependence upon him. And by " calling us 
 brethren," he would remind his followers that they 
 form a brotherhood; and that they are not to be 
 ashamed of, nor in any way to disgrace, the sacred 
 relationship. Whatever infii-mities and defects they 
 may see in a fellow-Christian, they are to remember 
 that he is treading the ascent of truth and goodness : 
 that, at length, he wall reach an elevation in that 
 
THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 15 
 
 upward path, where he will be richly entitled to all 
 their esteem ; that the holiest of those who are now 
 before the throne will finally hail him as a companion, 
 and delight in his converse ; and that whatever excel- 
 lences he will then display, he now possesses in the 
 principle or seed. They are to remember that all 
 the followers of Christ are even now the objects of 
 his ennobling love; that he is not ashamed to call 
 them brethren, and is, at this moment, discharging 
 for them all the kind and beneficent offices of bro- 
 therhood; and, remembering this, their affections 
 should expand and embrace the whole as members of 
 the family of Christ. 
 
 But not only did our Lord plainly imply that such 
 was his object, he expressly declared it. " I am the 
 good shepherd," said he, " I know my sheep, and am 
 known of mine. As the Father knoweth me, even 
 so know I the Father: and I lay down my life for 
 the sheep. And other sheep I have which are not of 
 this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall 
 hear my voice ; and there shall be one fold, and one 
 shepherd. Therefore doth my Father love me, 
 because I lay down my life that I may take it again." 
 From which remarkable exposition of the Divine 
 plans we learn, that the proper and natural aspect 
 which the human family ought ever to have presented 
 to the eyes of the universe is that of the oneness of a 
 flock in close and constant nearness to its Divine Shep- 
 herd; that under the disturbing influence of sin, "all 
 
16 
 
 THE SCRIPTURE DOCTRINE OF 
 
 we like sheep have gone astray," wandering not only 
 from God, but from each other also ; " turning every 
 one into his own way;" that the object of the advent 
 of Christ is to reclaim us from our wanderings, and 
 to restore us to the Divine embrace from which we 
 have been lost; that so intently is the benevolence of 
 God set on our recovery, that ineffably as he had 
 loved the Saviour from eternitj', he loves him still 
 more for sustaining our liabilities, and thus setting 
 his paternal compassion free to save us; and that, in 
 reward for that mediation, all who are saved shall 
 form one fold under him, " the great Shepherd of 
 the sheep." So that, in truth, the recovery and 
 union of believers under Christ, is the ultimate 
 design of God in the mediation of his Son. 
 
 And with this representation agrees also the tenour 
 of our Lord's practical teaching. His favourite topics, 
 of this nature, were humility before God, and a spirit 
 of forbearance and love towards men. And be it re- 
 membered that he insisted on the latter as tending 
 to, and expressive of, the former. The same pride 
 which proclaims its independence of God, essays also 
 to insulate itself from man, and to subordinate every 
 thing to its own interest. And the same humility 
 which lies low at the footstool of God, declines to be 
 called "master," and is willing to become the "ser- 
 vant of all." 
 
 So far from making his religion the occasion of 
 new contentions, he would have his disciples to " for- 
 
THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 17 
 
 give from the heart every one his brother their tres- 
 passes" — to proclaim a general amnesty, an act of 
 oblivion of all injuries, a year of jubilee — and that 
 jubilee he would have us to make perpetual. So far 
 from allowing his disciples to draw oflF, on account of 
 their religion, into separate factions, he would have that 
 religion to bind them in a confederation for securing 
 the peace of the world. And instead of allowing us 
 to go to the throne of grace with a feeling of estrange- 
 ment from our brethren on account of our religious 
 differences, he would have our religion to operate as 
 the chief incitement to prayer in their behalf. He 
 not only charges us to do for them all the good we 
 can ourselves, but taking us into " our Father's" pre- 
 sence, he invests us with the office of mutual inter- 
 cessors ; empowers us to touch and set in motion, for 
 each other, an almighty agency ; making it at once 
 our honour and office to assist, as subordinate agents, 
 in training and conducting each other to eternal life. 
 
 Not satisfied with inculcating mutual affection 
 on his people in general terms, he concentrated and 
 expressed his will on the subject in a neio command. 
 As the Lawgiver of his church, possessing all authority 
 in heaven and earth, he was empowered to enact what 
 laws he pleased. But, in the exercise of that high 
 prerogative, the only subject on which he chose for- 
 mally to legislate was, the mutual affection of his 
 people : "A new commandment give I unto you, that 
 ye love one another." By calling it a new command, 
 c 3 
 
18 
 
 THE SCRIPTURE DOCTRINE OF 
 
 he would be understood as giving it additional solem- 
 nity, as incorporating it with the ancient tables, and 
 publishing it as an integral part of the eternal moral 
 law. While to complete its power, and to render its 
 appeal to their hearts irresistible, he proposes his own 
 example as the model and motive to obedience, 
 adding, " as I have loved you, that ye love one 
 another." He might justly have engrossed the love 
 of his people to himself; but, no, he consented to 
 take the love they owe to him, in the form of love 
 to each other. He delighted to contemplate his 
 church as a community of hearts, cemented by at- 
 tachment to a common object, and thus rendered 
 one. 
 
 Not only did he enjoin the duty of mutual 
 aflPection by a new command, to promote our intelli- 
 gent obedience he explained the reason in which it 
 is founded; "for," said he, "all ye are brethren" — 
 born into the same family, children of the same hea- 
 venly Father, partakers of the same new nature, and 
 tending to the same eternal home. 
 
 The mutual affection which he commended, 
 and the reason of which he thus explained, he also 
 affectingly exemplified. Often had his disciples 
 contested the question of precedence in his kingdom. 
 How beautiful, impressive, and instructive the sight 
 which stands before them : — the Lord of glory, fold- 
 ing in his arms a helpless babe, as an emblem of the 
 humility which adorns his kingdom ! Thus did he 
 
THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 19 
 
 seek both to dry up that fountain of ambition which 
 threatened to embitter the Church, and to inculcate 
 that love which seeketh not her own. 
 
 But by what new expedient shall he still further 
 secure this object? Behold him washing his disciples' 
 feet ! And why should he thus inculcate the conde- 
 scending offices of brotherly love, but because he knew 
 that — like the ligaments and arterial net-work of the 
 human frame — the health and happiness of his body, 
 the Church, depends on their binding power and 
 reciprocating influence ! 
 
 To bind his people together still more effect- 
 ually, he made their affection to each other the 
 badge of their discipleship to him. " By this," said 
 he, " shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if 
 ye have love one to another." Sin is the great prin- 
 ciple of repulsion by which men are severed and kept 
 aloof from each other, and led to pursue their respect- 
 ive ends apart. Christ came into the world to be a 
 new centre of attraction, around which they might 
 rally and reunite. So that if there be a community 
 on the face of the earth, distinguished from all others 
 by the absence of selfishness and the ardour of their 
 love, all who behold them might be constrained to 
 say, " These are certainly the followers of Him whose 
 name is Love." 
 
 Having commanded, exemplified, and enforced 
 the mutual affection of his people, he did not leave 
 the performance of the sacred duty to depend on the 
 
20 
 
 THE SCRIPTURE DOCTRINE OF 
 
 result of their own prayers alone ; — he prayed himself 
 with an earnestness that would not be denied, that they 
 all might he one. " Neither pray I for these alone, 
 but for them also who shall believe on me through 
 their word; that they all may be one." Here the 
 great Intercessor, when only a step from the cross, 
 comprehending his people at a glance in all the nations 
 of the earth, and all the ages of time, prays that they 
 all may he one — incorporated in one body, animated 
 by one spirit, united in that love which is the bond of 
 perfectness : — that they may be one as we are one, as 
 thou Father art in me and I in thee — closely, spiritually, 
 indissolubly ; how intimate and sacred the union 
 of which the mysterious trinity in unity is the hea- 
 venly pattern: — that they may be made perfect in 
 one, their oneness is necessary to their perfection. 
 Not only is their oneness in each succeeding age 
 necessary to their perfection for the time being, but 
 the final unity of all is necessary to the perfection of 
 the entire body. As it is said of the Jewish church, 
 " that they without us could not be made perfect," so 
 the church in heaven is waiting " till we all come in 
 the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the 
 Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of 
 the stature of the fulness of Christ." Such was the 
 specific object for which the Saviour prayed in the 
 presence of the cross, and by which he taught his 
 disciples that they had no separate interests, bound 
 them to each other with the cords of love, and im- 
 
THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH. 21 
 
 pressed it on them that henceforth and for ever he 
 and they were one. 
 
 And having so prayed, in order to give efficacy 
 to his intercession, he ascended the cross. Then was 
 the new centre of Divine attraction established. 
 Then was fulfilled the involuntary prediction of Caia- 
 phas, who said, " It is expedient for us that one man 
 should die for the people, and that the whole nation 
 perish not. And this spake he not of himself; but 
 being high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus 
 should die for that nation ; and not for that nation 
 only, but that also he should gather together in one 
 the children of God that were scattered abroad" — 
 that operating as the attractive of our hearts to him- 
 self, and the centre of our unity to each other, he 
 should form his people into one entire globe of love. 
 Then was commenced the fulfilment of his own pre- 
 diction, " And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, 
 will draw all men unto me," — detaching them from 
 their separate points of selfishness, where they have 
 stood frowning on each other and me, all eyes and 
 hearts shall meet together by centering in me. His 
 cross, like the ark in the wilderness, is the centre 
 around which his people are to encamp ; so that they 
 cannot separate into factions, or withdraw from each 
 other, without retiring at the same time from the 
 presence of the cross. 
 
 And the union of his Church, which he had 
 thus lived to inculcate, and died to secure, he still 
 
22 
 
 THE SCRIPTURE DOCTRINE OF 
 
 continues to enforce by the ordinances of baptism 
 and the Lord's-supper. " For by one Spirit are we 
 all baptised into one body : " as the individual is 
 made one by the soul which pervades all the parts of 
 his system and unites them together, so all the mem- 
 bers of the Christian Church are pervaded and made 
 one by the one Spirit which inhabits them, and of 
 whose presence baptism is the sign. " And we, 
 being many, are one bread, and one body : for we are 
 all pai'takers of that one bread ;" the one loaf, and the 
 one cup, of which all partake, however numerous, is an 
 evidence and sign that there is but one body of which 
 they are all members. So that as long as these ordi- 
 nances are administered in his Church, our Lord is 
 virtually calling on his people to be one. He is 
 reminding them that the image they are to present 
 to the world is that of a holy, happy, united family, 
 entering his house together through the one door of 
 Christian baptism, and sitting down together at a 
 family feast of love. 
 
 The visible unity of the Church, which had been 
 thus presignified in the Old Testament, and which 
 had formed so conspicuous a feature in the ministry 
 of our Lord, continued to be enforced by the con- 
 duct and writings of the apostles. In confirmation 
 of this statement, let us look through the "Acts of 
 the Apostles," and the Epistles, and we shall find that 
 each, in succession, contemplates, directly or in- 
 directly, the oneness of the Church. 
 
THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH, 23 
 
 The thousands converted on the day of Pentecost, 
 consisted of "Jews from every nation under heaven;" 
 but, notwithstanding their necessary diversity of 
 objects, characters, and prejudices, the principle 
 which drew them to Christ, drew them so effectually 
 to each other, that "the multitude of them that 
 believed loere of one heart, and of one soul." Who 
 does not recognise in that nucleus of the Christian 
 Church — that earliest hour of its existence — a signifi- 
 cant intimation of the unity which was intended to 
 fuse and form the faithful of every age and every 
 nation under heaven, into one harmonious and 
 devoted brotherhood ? 
 
 But, distinguished as the members of that church 
 must have been by almost every variety of prejudice 
 and character, there was yet one important respect 
 in which they met — they were all Jews. Although 
 they harmonise easily together, will they equally unite 
 with the believing Gentiles? No sooner had Peter 
 beheld the vision which forbade him to " call any 
 man common or unclean" — and "Paul and Silas 
 declared what great things God had wrought by 
 them among the heathen" — than all "the elders 
 and brethren at Jerusalem rejoiced" that "to the 
 Gentiles also God had granted repentance unto life." 
 The enclosure of Jewish restriction was thrown open 
 and broken down, heart met heart, and they who 
 were once afar off, were forthwith introduced and 
 
'24 
 
 THE SCRIPTURE DOCTRINE OF 
 
 •welcomed as " fellow-citizens of the saints and of the 
 household of God." 
 
 Having surmounted the first difficulty, however, 
 of receiving the converted Gentile into Christian 
 fellowship, many of the believing Jews still found it 
 hard to conceive that his state could be quite secure 
 unless he joined with them in attaching importance 
 to certain parts of the Mosaic ritual. In opposition 
 to this prejudice, the apostles, especially St. Paul, 
 protested that the great principle of union between 
 Jew and Gentile was the common salvation of Christ : 
 " for he is our peace who hath made both one, and 
 hath broken down the middle wall of partition be- 
 tween us, to make in himself of twain one new 
 
 man, so making peace." 
 
 Now this twofold doctrine — that Jew and Gentile, 
 Barbarian, Scythian, bond and free — all believers, 
 without national, civil, or social distinction, are in- 
 corporated into one \asible body — and that Christ is 
 the basis and bond of this incorporation — is a subject 
 which imparts an entire character to some of the 
 epistles, and which furnishes a clue to much in nearly 
 all. And it is observable how invariably the inspired 
 penmen take occasion from this subject to insist and 
 enlarge on the obligations of mutual love ; and how 
 often they ascend from this point to the contempla- 
 tion of a union in Christ, which is destined to include, 
 not only the holy of every age and nation, but also of 
 other worlds. 
 
THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH. 25 
 
 The first of the apostolical epistles is to be found 
 in Acts XV. 23 — 29 ; and may be called " an epistle 
 to restore peace." The whole narrative is pertinent 
 and instructive. An attempt is made by certain 
 erring members of the church at Antioch, to compel 
 others to conform to their prejudices. The Christian 
 liberty of a part of the church is invaded, and the 
 peace of the whole disturbed. Paul and Barnabas, 
 had they obeyed their early prepossessions, would have 
 sided with those who attempted the imposition ; but 
 this their fidelity to their Lord, and to Christian 
 liberty, forbade. Or, in the exercise of that high 
 authority which they possessed, and of the great in- 
 fluence they had acquired, they might have put their 
 veto on the attempted imposition ; but this they for- 
 bore, both because they would not lord it over God's 
 heritage, and because they supremely valued the 
 peace and unity of the Christian Church. Humbly 
 consenting in this emergency to form part of a depu- 
 tation, they hasten to Jerusalem — their sole object, 
 the Cliristian liberty and union of the Church. In the 
 council which was there assembled — the first ever held 
 in the Christian Church — nearly all the official powers 
 of the Church militant met. But their only concern 
 was to obey the dictates of their Lord, and their only 
 aim to preserve the unity of the Church entire. " And 
 to this agree the words of the prophets," said James, 
 " as it is written. After this I will return, and will 
 build again the tabernacle of David which is fallen 
 
26 
 
 THE SCRIPTURE DOCTRINE OF 
 
 down ; and I will build again the ruins thereof, and I 
 will set it up : that the residue of men might seek 
 after the Lord, and all the Gentiles, on whom my 
 name is called, saith the Lord, who doeth all these 
 things. Known unto God are all his works from the 
 beginning of the world." As if he had said, — the 
 admission of the Gentiles may have outrun our ex- 
 pectation, and taken us by surprise ; but it was a part 
 of the Divine plan before man had breathed, or the 
 world was made. In pursuance of that plan, the 
 Almighty Architect is now at work, realising the type 
 of the " tabernacle of David " by the erection of his 
 spiritual temple. In every age the glorious fabric 
 has been rising and advancing. The erection has 
 now reached that critical juncture, in which new ma- 
 terials — Gentile converts — are to be collected and 
 employed. " Wherefore my sentence is, that we 
 trouble them not " — that we do nothing calculated to 
 disturb the peace, or retard the progress of the spi- 
 ritual building. " But that we write to them," to the 
 effect that, as we sacrifice our prejudices in pro- 
 nouncing them, under God, absolved from the rite of 
 circumcision, so they are kindly admonished to ab- 
 stain, not only from things essentially and universally 
 wrong, but also from things strangled and from blood, 
 that the conscience of the pious Jew may not be 
 wounded. 
 
 Accordingly a letter was sent, conceived in the 
 very spirit of conciliation and love, and " laying upon 
 
THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH. 27 
 
 them no greater burden than these necessary things." 
 Such was the nature of the first epistolary offering 
 laid upon the altar of Christian unity. Though it is 
 unostentatiously interwoven with the Scripture narra- 
 tive, it richly deserves to stand out conspicuously in 
 letters of gold, in the recollection of the Church, as a 
 model, in temper and aim, for all who should subse- 
 quently attempt to compose the differences of Christian 
 parties. How admirable was the entire proceeding ! 
 Instead of exercising their power to abridge the free- 
 dom of the Church, they nobly employ it as the 
 champions of its liberty ! The course they advise is 
 that of mutual concession, and the spirit they breathe 
 that of Christian love. They offer up their own pre- 
 judices at the shrine of the Church ; and teach us to 
 regard the peace of its members as cheaply purchased, 
 if we can preserve or restore it by imitating their 
 example. 
 
 The Epistle to the Romans. — Dr. Paley, with 
 his usual perspicuity, has shown that the principal 
 object of the argumentative part of this epistle is " to 
 place the Gentile convert upon a parity of situation 
 with the Jewish, in respect of his religious condition, 
 and his rank in the Divine favour." As this was the 
 great question at issue, the apostle, like a wise phy- 
 sician, addresses himself first to the cause of the 
 disease, before he begins the local application. By a 
 variety of arguments, he disabuses both parties of all 
 hopes of salvation from themselves, strips them of 
 
28 
 
 THE SCRIPTURE DOCTRINE OF 
 
 their fancied pleas, and shows them to themselves 
 self-condemned and silent before God, while he 
 establishes the great central truth of justification 
 by faith in Christ. Here only could Jew and Gen- 
 tile alike find peace ; and here, in finding peace 
 with God, they became one with each other. The 
 doctrinal part of the epistle reaches to the close 
 of the eleventh chapter. Having, at this point, com- 
 pleted his great argument for Christian unity, he 
 occupies most of the remainder of the epistle in ap- 
 plying it. In chap. xii. he shows that such displays 
 of mercy as Jews and Gentiles had received, should 
 induce them, having first dedicated themselves to 
 God, 1, 2; to think humbly of themselves, 3; to look 
 on all Christians as forming " one body in Christ," 
 4, 5 ; to fill their respective offices in the church so 
 as most to subserve the general good, 6 — 8 ; and to 
 let the law of love flow out into the various channels 
 of cheerfulness, patience, hospitality, mutual sym- 
 pathy, humility, peacefulness, and a readiness to for- 
 give. In chap. xiii. he enforces the universal law of 
 Christian love, 8 — 10 ; which turns the whole world 
 into a neighbourhood, and the whole Church into a 
 family; and which, so far from "working ill" to any, 
 lives only for the good of all, and so " fulfils the 
 whole law." From chap. xiv. we learn that in things 
 indifferent Christians should not condemn each other, 
 1 ; particularly concerning ceremonial observances, 
 2 — 6; for Christ alone is the Lord of conscience. 
 
THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 29 
 
 7 — 9. Instead, therefore, of judging each other, we 
 should prepare for our own judgment at his tribunal, 
 10 — 13. Nor should we do any thing, meantime, 
 calculated to distress a weak or tender conscience, 
 lest we "destroy one for whom Christ died," 14 — 
 16. Remembering that the kingdom of God con- 
 sists not in outward things, but in the universal and 
 imperishable elements of " righteousness, and peace, 
 and joy in the Holy Ghost," Christians should " fol- 
 low after things which make for peace," and rather 
 deny themselves certain privileges than be the means 
 of grieving a weak brother, 17 — 21. 
 
 Continuing this healing strain in chap, xv., and 
 thus evincing, by frequent iteration, his deep anxiety 
 to see the Church at one, he exhorts the strong to 
 bear the infirmities of the weak, and each to please 
 not himself but his neighbour, 1, 2. Reminding 
 Christians that such is the example of Christ, 3, 4 ; 
 that our gratitude for him should blend all hearts, 
 and call forth a united burst of praise, as if the whole 
 Church were only " one mind, with one mouth glori- 
 fying God;" that we should accept each other as 
 Christ has received us, and because of the gracious 
 regard which he has shown to Jews and Gentiles in 
 imparting to them the Gospel according to the tenour 
 of ancient prophecy, 8 — 17; beseeching them for 
 " Christ's sake," if they will strive, to " strive toge- 
 ther in prayer," 30 ; and praying that " the God of 
 peace " may be with them all, 33. Chap. xvi. beau- 
 D 3 
 
30 
 
 THE SCRIPTURE DOCTRINE OF 
 
 tifully opens with a number of Christian salutations 
 to members of each of the two parties, by which the 
 apostle would set them an example in his own person 
 of mutual and impartial love in Christ, 1- — 19. And 
 after solemnly warning Christians to " mark them 
 who cause divisions and offences contrary to the doc- 
 trine " of Christ, and to avoid them ; and giving an 
 awful 'description of the character of such, 17, 18; he 
 assures them that "the God of peace" shall soon en- 
 able them to trample Satan, the great disturber of 
 the Church, under their feet, 20. 
 
 The First Epistle to the Corinthians. — The 
 very first topic on which the apostle felt himself 
 called to insist, in addressing the members of the 
 church at Corinth, relates to the factions into which 
 they had divided. For no sooner has he ex- 
 pressed his gratitude to God for their affluence in 
 spiritual gifts, than he proceeds to reprove their 
 violent dissensions, and vindicates himself from 
 having occasioned them, 10 — 17. And as he well 
 knew that a fond regard for eloquence and philosophy 
 was a principal cause of their divisions, he reminds 
 them how little stress is to be laid on these, since the 
 whole scheme of salvation is constituted on the prin- 
 ciple " that no flesh should glory in his presence." 
 Hence the unostentatious style, but yet supernatural 
 character of his own preaching, and of the Gospel 
 generally, chap. ii. And hence, too, the carnality 
 of their " envying, and strife, and divisions," in one 
 
THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 31 
 
 saying, " I am of Paul ; and another, I am of 
 Apollos." Chap. iii. 1 — 4. For he reminds them 
 that he and his fellow-apostles are only instruments 
 employed by God in the erection of the Christian 
 temple ; that if any man turns that temple of God 
 into a Babel by unhallowed clamours and divisions, 
 " him will God destroy and that as the Church is 
 one, so all good is made indivisible and one, and as 
 such is the property of the believer in Christ, 5 — 23. 
 Let them on every account, then, allay their proud 
 and factious spirit, and he would come shortly to ex- 
 amine and correct the abuses which had crept in 
 among them, chap. iv. 
 
 But earnestly as the apostle would inculcate the 
 unity of the Christian Church, not less is he con- 
 cerned for its purity. Indeed he enforces the latter 
 in order to the former. For, if he pauses in the in- 
 culcation of unity at the close of the fourth chapter, 
 it is only that, having denounced the sins of incest, 
 pride, litigiousness, fornication, and giving various 
 directions concei-ning marriage, virginity, idolatrous 
 fellowship, and decorum in public worship, in the 
 following six chapters, he may return to the subject 
 of Christian union again in the eleventh chapter, 
 mth still greater effect. That this is his scope is 
 evident, first, from his interspersed exhortations that 
 no man should use his Christian liberty so as to 
 wound the conscience of a brother, chap. viii. 9 — 13 ; 
 his accommodation of himself to the prejudices of 
 
32 THE SCRIPTURE DOCTRINE OF 
 
 men in order to bring about their salvation, ix. 
 18 — 23, and x. 32, 33; his representation that "we, 
 though many, are one bread and one body," x. 17 ; 
 and, secondly, from his resuming the subject of schism 
 as of primary importance, as soon as ever he has cor- 
 rected their other irregularities. " For, first of all," 
 saith he, " when ye come together in the church, I 
 hear that there be divisions among you," xi. 18. Hav- 
 ing endeavoured to heal this schism as far as it related 
 to the ordinance of the Lord's-supper, he proceeds to 
 the subject of spiritual gifts, and shows that however 
 great the diversities of these gifts may be, they all 
 proceed from the same Divine source, and are in- 
 tended for the benefit of the same body in which all 
 Christians are united. " For by one Spirit are we 
 all baptised into one body, whether we be Jews or 
 Gentiles, whether we be bond or free ; and have been 
 all made to drink into one Spirit." Chap. xii. 1 — 14. 
 Inculcating humility and mutual affection in the use 
 of those gifts, he pursues the similitude of the human 
 body still further, represents Christians as so united 
 in one body as to have a perfect identity of interests, 
 and insists on a tender care of the least member on 
 account of its subserviency to the good of the whole. 
 14—31. 
 
 But that which is of far greater importance to the 
 welfare and unity of the Christian Church, than the 
 greatest opulence of gifts, is evangelical love. This 
 paramount principle, by its humble, hallowed, en- 
 
THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 33 
 
 during, and sympathetic influence, binds the whole 
 Church together, and assimilates earth to heaven, 
 chap. xiii. Therefore let Christians " follow after 
 charity," xiv. 1 ; and " all things" in the church will 
 " be done decently and in order," 40. In chap. xv. 
 he extinguishes an incipient heresy by a masterly 
 argument on the resurrection ; exhorts them, instead 
 of dividing into factions, to unite and enlarge their 
 hearts for the relief of the poor Christians at Jerusa- 
 lem, xvi. 1 — 4 ; and to let all their " things be done 
 with charity," 14; concluding with the impartial and 
 catholic benediction, " My love be with you all in 
 Christ Jesus. Amen," 24. 
 
 The Second Epistle to the Corinthians. — In 
 this epistle, the great desire of the apostle is to 
 present the church at Corinth " as a chaste virgin to 
 Christ," xi. 2 ; his great " fear, lest when he came .... 
 he should find debates, envyings, wraths, strifes, 
 backbitings, whisperings, swellings, tumults," xii. 20 ; 
 his final admonition, that they " be perfect, be of good 
 comfort, be of one mind, live in peace," xiii. 11 : and 
 his last assurance that " the God of love and peace 
 should be with them," 11. 
 
 The Epistle to the Galatians. — Soon after 
 St. Paul had planted " the churches of Galatia," 
 their harmony and orthodoxy were impaired by the 
 seductive influence of a Judaizing zealot. Having 
 repelled his errors, principally, by demonstrating that 
 Christ alone is the ground of our justification before 
 
34 
 
 THE SCRIPTURE DOCTRINE OF 
 
 God, he affirms that all the temporary distinctions of 
 the Mosaic economy are merged, and that all 
 believers alike " are the children of God by faith in 
 Christ Jesus ; ... for ye are all one in Christ Jesus," 
 iii. 26 — 29. And having thus shown the superiority 
 of the Gospel to Judaism, and its power to make 
 all one, he inculcates love as the fulfilling of the 
 only law that remains, v. 13, 14 ; warns them against 
 those evil propensities of the flesh so fatal to the 
 peace and oneness of the Church, and among which 
 " hatred, variance, and emulations," are conspicuous ; 
 and enforces the cultivation of those fruits of the 
 Spirit which assimilate the Church on earth to the 
 Church in heaven, v. 15 — 26. 
 
 Epistle to the Ephesians. — As St. Paul was 
 now a prisoner at Rome, in consequence of having 
 provoked the Jews, by affirming that the observance 
 of the Mosaic ritual was not essential to salvation, he 
 may be regarded as the suffering champion of the 
 liberty and union of the Church. As the church at 
 Ephesus had been planted by his instrumentality, he 
 had been apprehensive lest advantage should be 
 taken of his imprisonment to unsettle the minds of 
 its Gentile members. But finding they were at pre- 
 sent united and firm in the faith, he seems to exult 
 in his freedom from the necessity of controversy, and 
 soars with a wing which sweeps the whole horizon of 
 the Church, mounts from earth to heaven, and passes 
 from the Ephesian church to the final consummation 
 
THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 35 
 
 of all things. Entering at once on his favourite 
 theme — the oneness of the Church — he discloses, with 
 the first stroke of his inspired pen, the sublime design 
 of God in the economy of the Gospel — " that in the 
 dispensation of the fulness of times he might gather 
 together in one all things in Christ, both which are 
 in heaven, and which are on earth ; even in him ;" 
 chap, i. 10 — and then unveils the throne of Christ 
 on the summit of creation, where the Father hath 
 exalted him " far above all principality and power . . . 
 and gave him to be the head over all things to the 
 Church, which is his body," 21—23. To fill the 
 Ephesians with the liveliest gratitude, they are led 
 back, in thought, to the mouth of hell where God 
 had found them ; are shown the hand of grace con- 
 ducting them to Christ who sprinkles them with his 
 blood, ii. 13; to the temple where he is seen break- 
 ing down the wall of partition between Jew and Gen- 
 tile " to make in himself, of twain, one new man, so 
 making peace," 14, 15; baptising them with "one 
 Spirit," 18; naturalising, and making them free of 
 the great Christian commonwealth ; and building 
 them all into " a holy temple," so " harmoniously 
 connected" as to be made indivisible, "Jesus Christ 
 himself being the chief corner-stone," 19 — 22. 
 
 For the full and fearless assertion of this sublime 
 truth, which was too vast for the narrow minds of his 
 bigoted countrymen, the apostle was now "a pri- 
 soner," chap. iii. 1. But so far from disparaging it 
 
36 
 
 THE SCRIPTURE DOCTRINE OF 
 
 on this account, he would " make all men see it," 9 : 
 and all worlds admire it, 10 ; and prays that the Ephe- 
 sians especially may comprehend it; — bowing his 
 knees for this end "unto the Father of our Lord 
 Jesus Christ, of whom the whole family in heaven 
 and earth is named" — not families, as if each order 
 formed a distinct household — but " family," because, 
 however numerous and diversified, they are all one 
 in Christ. Nor can he conclude this chapter without 
 an ardent breathing that the whole Church, without 
 one jarring note, would employ itself, through Christ, 
 in one perpetual song of praise to God, 14 — 21. 
 
 Now as all true Christians, and all holy intelli- 
 gences are thus intimately united, the apostle en- 
 treats the Ephesians to " keep the unity of the Spirit 
 in the bond of peace," iv. 1 — 3; reminding them, as 
 a most powerful motive, that the entire Church con- 
 stitutes but " one body," is pervaded by " one Spirit," 
 and animated by " one hope ;" and that there is 
 only " one Lord, one faith, and one baptism," 4 — 6. 
 However distinguished from each other by the va- 
 rious offices and gifts bestowed by Christ on his en- 
 thronement, this variety is intended, not to separate, 
 but to unite and complete them, 7 — 13. For as the 
 human body is formed and matured by the union of 
 all the members to each other under the head, and 
 by the fitness of each member for its own office and 
 place in the body, so the Church is formed and ma- 
 tured bv the union of all its members under Christ 
 
THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 37 
 
 its head, and by the sympathy of every part with the 
 whole, 7 — 16. Let Christians then distinguish them- 
 selves from the rest of the world by "putting away" 
 all the malevolent passions, and by practising the 
 most difficult duties of charity, till they all walk in 
 love as the "dear children" of him whose name is 
 Love, 31, 32; chap. v. 1, 2. Indeed, the domestic 
 circle is, in this respect, to copy the mutual subjec- 
 tion, sympathy, and union of the Christian Church. 
 For so closely are we united to him and to each 
 other, that "we are members of his body, of his 
 flesh, and of his bones." Let the husband and the 
 wife, then, behold in their own union, and in the love 
 they owe to each other, memorials of the "great 
 mystery .... concerning Christ and the Church," 
 21—32. 
 
 The Epistle to the Philippians. — Whatever 
 the immediate occasion of this epistle may have 
 been, the tenderest fears of the apostle had been 
 alarmed at hearing that the peace of the flourishing 
 little church at Philippi was disturbed. The wound 
 inflicted, indeed, does not appear to have been deep, 
 but, oh, with what inimitable tenderness does he at- 
 tempt to heal it. What pathos can exceed the yearn- 
 ing of his soul when entreating that church, " if there 
 be any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if 
 any fellowship of the Spirit, if any bowels and mercies, 
 fulfil ye my joy, that ye be hke-minded, having the 
 same love, being of one accord, of one mind?" an 
 
 E 
 
38 
 
 THE SCRIPTURE DOCTRINE OF 
 
 entreaty which he most touchingly enforces by the con- 
 descension and love of their Divine Redeemer, ii. 1 — 
 11. Let them, therefore, "beware . . . beware . . . 
 beware," of those factious and turbulent persons who 
 had disturbed their Christian peace, by furiously con- 
 tending for the observance of the Jewish ritual. In 
 opposition to all such pretences, let them copy his 
 own example by fixing their entire dependence on 
 Christ, and aiming at the loftiest attainments in piety, 
 iii. 1 — 14. This is the point in which all Christians 
 are agreed ; and being agreed on that which is of pri- 
 mary importance, they should allow each other a lati- 
 tude of amicable difference on that which is only of 
 subordinate import; let them do this, and even their 
 subordinate differences will soon disappear, 15, 16. 
 Descending to particulars, the apostle entreats two 
 individuals — between whom probably the dissension 
 had existed — " that they be of the same mind in the 
 Lord;" exhorts the whole church to let their modera- 
 tion — swisixsi, mutual forbearance and self-command, 
 be universally apparent, as they would not be found 
 sunk in self-indulgence, or embroiled in quarrels, at 
 the coming of Christ ; and promising them that God 
 shall be with them as the God of peace, iv. 1 — 9. 
 
 The Epistle to the Colossians. — The garden 
 of the Lord at Colosse, hitherto "fruitful in every 
 good work," was now beginning to be overrun with 
 the weeds of Rabbinism and Platonism, together with 
 the tenets and practices of the Essenes. Though 
 
THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 39 
 
 there is no positive evidence that the apostle had en- 
 joyed the honour of planting it, his assistance is de- 
 sired to correct and remove the evils which infested 
 it. In order, at once, to confirm their faith, enlarge 
 their views, and promote their union, he opens to 
 them the supreme and universal headship of Christ, 
 i. 15 — 20. Here, first, as in the epistle to the Ephe- 
 sians, all orders of holy intelligences are represented 
 as collected, subordinated, and united under the me- 
 diatorial reign of Christ ; even the angels who, as 
 faithful subjects, had been morally arrayed against 
 rebellious man, are now reconciled to us, and made 
 one. And, here, secondly, descending to the Church 
 on earth, the Jews and Gentiles — between whom an 
 irreconcileable difference had hitherto subsisted — ap- 
 pear harmonised together. To see that union in 
 Christ universal, the apostle agonised in desire and 
 effort, ii. 1, 2. To prevent their disunion, he entreats 
 them to beware of all the errors of men " not holding 
 the Head, from which all the body by joints and 
 bands, having nourishment ministered, and knit to- 
 gether, increaseth with the increase of God," 19. 
 For the Church of Christ, so far from originating new 
 distinctions, is intended to merge and efface old ones, 
 for " Christ is all, and in all." And then, thirdly, 
 narrowing the subject still farther, till he had brought 
 all its practical weight to bear on the particular 
 church he was addressing, the apostle beautifully and 
 emphatically sums up all in the exhortation, " Put on 
 
40 
 
 THE SCRIPTURE DOCTRIXE OF 
 
 therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, 
 bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, 
 meekness, long suffering ; forbearing one another, 
 and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel 
 against any : even as Christ forgave you, so also do 
 ye. And over all these things put on charity, which 
 is the bond of perfectness. And let the peace of God 
 rule in your hearts, to the which also ye are called in 
 one body ; and be ye thankful," iii. 11 — 15. 
 
 The First and Second Epistles to the Thessa- 
 LONiANS. — The church at Thessalonica was the abode 
 of peace. Here the voice of faction had never been 
 heard : nor had the Holy Spirit of God been grieved 
 by the least disturbance of that sacred calm in which 
 he loves to dwell. All was tranquillity, unity, and 
 love. We should not have been surprised, therefore, 
 if the apostle, in writing to its members, had omitted 
 to introduce his favourite theme, and had confined 
 himself entirely to the immediate object of his epistle. 
 But, no ; so greatly is he delighted with the '•' good 
 tidings" of their " faith and charity," that he stops to 
 exult in it, and longs to witness it, iii. 6 — 11. As if, 
 however, no degree of union of which the Church is 
 capable on earth were close enough to satisfy his 
 heavenly conceptions of Christian oneness, he prays, 
 " the Lord make you to increase and abound in love 
 one towards another, and towards all men," \'2. Nor 
 yet is his avarice of love satisfied : for, saith he, " as 
 touching brotherly love ye need not that I write unto 
 
THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 41 
 
 you : for ye yourselves are taught of God to love one 
 another. And indeed ye do it toward all the bre- 
 thren who are in all Macedonia : but we beseech you, 
 brethren, that ye increase more and more," iv. 9, 10. 
 Divine as their love was in its origin, mutual as it 
 was in its exercise, and comprehensive as it was in its 
 embraces, taking in all the brethren of all the other 
 churches in all Macedonia, he would yet see it en- 
 large in its objects, and increase in its ardour, till it 
 had encircled and bound the whole Church into one 
 compacted globe of love. And that nothing might 
 ever occur to retard their progress towards so glorious 
 a consummation, he charges them to exercise affec- 
 tion and reverence towards their Christian teachers ; 
 watchfulness and sympathy towards each other ; and 
 patience and beneficence towards all, v. 13 — 15. 
 
 His second epistle is intended to correct a partial 
 misapprehension of the first. Yet so far is he from 
 omitting the mention of Christian unity that, although 
 nothing had occurred meantime to disturb it, he 
 makes it the first subject of exulting gratitude to 
 God, i. 3; and the last subject of earnest prayer, 
 " Now the Lord of peace himself give you peace al- 
 ways by all means," iii. 16. 
 
 The Epistles to Timothy. — The character and 
 office of Timothy would necessarily invest him with 
 great influence. Having to "do the work of an evan- 
 gelist," he would be constantly moving among the 
 churches; the apostle therefore was anxious that, 
 E 3 
 
42 
 
 THE SCRIPTURE DOCTRINE OF 
 
 among other objects, he should move in the eccle- 
 siastical firmament like a star, connecting, and cheer- 
 ing, and shedding a benign influence on them all. 
 For this end, he charges him to avoid the subtle dis- 
 tinctions, and endless logomachies, which were begin- 
 ning to obtain among those professing godliness, as 
 unprofitable in themselves, and fatal to the peace of 
 the Church, 1 Epist. i. 4 ; vi. 20 ; 2 Epist. ii. 23 ; pre- 
 dicts the arrival of times when the Church would be 
 infested with all the elements of formality, heresy, 
 schism, and apostacy, 2 Epist. iii. 1 — 9 ; iv. 3, 4; and 
 exhorts Timothy to avoid such " self-willed," " fierce," 
 " evil men and seducers," as pests of the Church, 
 1 Epist. i. 6, 7 ; vi. 3 — 5 ; to follow after charity, 
 1 Epist. vi. 1 1 ; 2 Epist. ii. 22 ; to be an example of 
 charity, 1 Epist. iv. 12; to look on charity as "the 
 end of the commandment" — the complement or 
 fulfilment of the law, 1 Epist. i. 6 ; and to regard a 
 spirit of love as an indispensable qualification in all 
 those whom he assisted to place in any of the offices 
 of the Christian Church, 1 Epist. iii. 2, 3; 2 Epist. 
 ii. 24, 25. And he also distinctly intimates what the 
 Church should be ; not an arena of controversy, where 
 every word is a weapon ; not a battle-field, where 
 one side speaks only to breathe defiance against the 
 other; but "a house," 1 Epist. iii. 15; 2 Epist. ii. 20, 
 21 ; " the house of God," of which the Jewish temple 
 was an emblem ; and in which all the family of God, 
 so far from contending among themselves, should 
 
THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 43 
 
 unite and make common cause for the conversion of 
 the world ; that " all men," in answer to the " sup- 
 plications, prayers, and intercessions," oiFered up 
 through "one Mediator," "who gave himself a ran- 
 som for all, to be testified in due time," might join 
 them as members of the same happy family, 1 Epist. 
 ii. 1—6. 
 
 The Epistle to Titus. — In the epistle to Titus, 
 the same duties are inculcated relative to the peace 
 and unity of the Church as in the epistles to Timothy. 
 If the affectionate union of believers is a blessing to be 
 jealously preserved, how important that the teachers 
 and officers of the Christian Church should in their 
 own persons abstain from all acrimonious contentions, 
 should exemplify a spirit imbued with the gentleness 
 and benevolence of Christ, and should inculcate the 
 same spirit upon others. Accordingly, the apostle, ever 
 provident of the harmony and welfare of the Church, 
 directs Titus to avoid that fruitful source of alterca- 
 tion the Jewish controversy, i, 14; iii. 9; instructs 
 him that a bishop must " not be self-willed, not soon 
 angry, but .... a lover of good men," ^iXxyu^ov, 
 a lover of goodness, wherever he finds it. i. 7, 8; and 
 charges him to enforce on Christians " to speak evil 
 of no man, to be no brawlers, but gentle, showing 
 meekness unto all men," iii. 2 ; urging the duty by 
 the consideration of their own former depravity, and 
 of the amazing scheme of mercy by which " God 
 our Saviour" has redeemed us. 
 
44 
 
 THE SCRIPTURE DOCTRINE OF 
 
 The Epistle to Philemon. — The epistle of St. 
 Paul to Philemon, though written only to a pri- 
 vate Christian on a private subject, contains prin- 
 ciples which, if expanded, would fill the universal 
 Church with love. Like a cool and balmy leaf fresh 
 plucked from the tree of life, it is presented by 
 an apostolic hand to heal a chafed and perturbed 
 spirit. It is almost impossible to peruse it, with- 
 out catching the melting tenderness and healing 
 spirit which it breathes. The very occasion which 
 produced it conveys a lesson which, so far from 
 permitting a spirit of altercation and division in 
 ourselves, teaches us to do all we can to allay 
 animosities, and to reconcile others who are at 
 variance. But this lesson is more than implied. 
 For though there is but one topic of gratitude 
 introduced, that one is the love which unites each 
 Christian with every other, and blends the whole 
 into one Church, 4 — 7. 
 
 The Epistle to the Hebrews. — The design of 
 the sacred writer in this epistle is to demonstrate the 
 pre-eminence of Christ, to infer the necessary su- 
 periority of the Christian to the Jewish dispensation, 
 and to exhibit the consequent absurdity and guilt of 
 leaving the former for the sake of the latter. But 
 one of the excellences of the Mosaic economy was, 
 that it organised all its members into a united " com- 
 monwealth," or Church. The apostle therefore shows 
 that the Gospel does the same in a superior manner. 
 
THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 45 
 
 All Christians are "brethren, partakers of the 
 heavenly calling ;" forming " a house," or great 
 temple -structure, of which Moses himself is only a 
 living stone, vphile Christ is the Builder; over the 
 Christian house, Christ is supreme, uniting in his 
 individual person the offices which in the Jewish 
 economy were distributed among many, and thus 
 giving to his Church one unchangeable centre, iii. 
 1—6. Especially is he to be regarded as the " High 
 Priest over the house of God," so much superior in 
 every respect to the Aaronic priesthood, that all 
 Christians are laid under the weightiest obligations 
 entirely to confide in him, to cultivate purity, to hold 
 fast their profession, exhort and help each other, and 
 to maintain Christian communion, x. 21 — 25. In- 
 deed, the Christian Church is not only united in its 
 own members, it is a constituent part of that great 
 organic body of which the Jewish church itself is only 
 an integral part; and which will not be considered 
 complete till the believers of all dispensations are 
 gathered into one perfect Church, xi. 40. Being 
 therefore encompassed with so great a cloud of wit- 
 nesses, let them see us, among other things, " follow 
 after peace with all men" — Jews and Gentiles — one 
 on earth as they are one in heaven. Let us even re- 
 gard the Church militant as having come to the 
 Church triumphant so as to form one general as- 
 sembly like that of the Jews at Sinai or on Sion, xii. 
 22 — 24. And having been introduced into the final 
 
46 
 
 THE SCRIPTURE DOCTRIXE OF 
 
 dispensation — " a kingdom which cannot be moved," 
 28; let us recognise the identity of our interests, 
 " let brotherly love continue," xiii. 1 — 3. For " here 
 we have no continuing city, but we seek one to 
 come," 14. Let all Christian pastors and people look 
 on themselves as forming one flock, to which " the 
 Great Shepherd" is related by "the blood of the ever- 
 lasting covenant ;" and " the God of peace" will 
 bring them to perfection, 20, 21. 
 
 The General Epistle of James. — In this epistle 
 we hear a new voice lifted up to hush the troubled 
 elements of the Church. "The twelve tribes scat- 
 tered abroad" were not only exposed to the persecu- 
 tions of an apostate world, but were also in danger 
 of being wasted by errors and evils among them- 
 selves. To staunch the bleeding wounds of the 
 Church, the Apostle James exhorts them, among 
 other duties, to remember the equalising tendency 
 of the Gospel in a moral respect between the rich 
 and the poor, chap. i. 9, 10 ; to receive the word of 
 God with meekness, and to reduce it to practice, 
 avoiding that fierce and fier}- zeal which would fill 
 the Church with flames for the honour of God ; and 
 remembering that practical religion consists in per- 
 sonal purity and relative benevolence, 19 — 27. He 
 charges them to show no partiality inconsistent with 
 the Gospel of Christ ; declares that such partiality 
 is a breach of the royal law of love, ii. 1 — 9 ; and 
 insists on the insufficiencv of anv faith which does 
 
THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH. 47 
 
 not work by love, 14 — 26. He cautions them, 
 therefore, against ambitiously assuming the office of 
 teaehei's; enlarges on the fatal effects of an un- 
 bridled tongue ; and urges a candid, benevolent dis- 
 position, guarding them against censoriousness and 
 animosities ; and against that love of the world which 
 tends to produce them, iii., iv., 1 — 5. And then 
 reminding them that to "speak evil of a brother, 
 and to judge him," is to usurp the prerogative of 
 God and to affront the high authority of his law, 1 1 ; 
 the apostle once more cautions them to " grudge not 
 one against another," v. 9, but mutually to unbosom 
 themselves in social confession ; to become inter- 
 cessors for each other at the throne of grace ; and, 
 instead of leaving a wanderer from the truth to 
 perish, to try the mighty efficacy of prayer for his 
 conversion. Thus would the apostle awaken in each 
 believer a generous interest for all the rest, and have 
 him to regard himself as an appointed guardian of 
 the whole. Is it the sublime declaration of Christ 
 that of all which the Father hath given him he will 
 lose nothing ? in an inferior sense, the individual 
 Christian is not only to watch over the welfare and 
 safety of the entire Church, but, according to the 
 apostle James, he is never to see a solitary wanderer 
 from the fold of Christ without wrestling in prayer 
 with God for his recovery: that he being restored 
 to the Church, the Church may be restored to its 
 entireness. 
 
48 
 
 THE SCRIPTURE DOCTRINE OF 
 
 The General Epistles of Peter. — All the Chris- 
 tians " scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappa- 
 docia, Asia, and Bithynia, having purified their souls 
 in obeying the truth through the Spirit unto un- 
 feigned love of the brethren," are here exhorted to 
 " love one another with a pure heart fervently 
 being born again into the same spiritual family, i. 
 1 — 22, 23. Laying aside all those evil dispositions 
 which would keep them at a distance from God and 
 from each other, they are to come to Christ the living 
 foundation, that, as living stones, they might be built 
 up on him and united to each other, with all the 
 compactness and oneness of a spiritual temple. In 
 this temple — by an easy transition of metaphor— 
 they are ordained to officiate harmoniously together 
 at the altar of God. For, in a sense far superior to 
 Israel of old, they " are a chosen generation, a royal 
 priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people" — titles 
 which imply the greatest similarity and the closest 
 union, ii. 1 — 10. He exhorts them, therefore, "be 
 ye all of one mind, having compassion one of 
 another; love as brethren," iii. 8 — 11. And again 
 he repeats, " above all things have fervent charity 
 among yourselves, for charity shall cover the multitude 
 of sins" — throwing its mantle over them, and hiding 
 them from public view ; while he would have all the 
 gifts and graces of each placed as in a common fund, 
 and employed for the benfit of the whole, iv. 8 — 11. 
 
 The same <j:»Aa8cA^»a, or, love of the brethren, so 
 
THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH. 49 
 
 earnestly inculcated in the first epistle, is urged 
 again in the very opening exhortation of the second, 
 and placed among the highest attainments of Chris- 
 tian excellence. For when all diligence has been 
 given to acquire faith, virtue, knowledge, temperance, 
 patience, and godliness — brotherly-kindness and 
 charity are essential to use, embellish, and crown 
 the whole, i. 5 — 7. 
 
 The Epistles of John. — On the first of these 
 epistles, three preliminary remarks deserve attention. 
 First, its title as a catholic epistle : reminding us that 
 as it is insci'ibed without limitation to the universal 
 Church, all the members of that Church are sup- 
 posed to be one on the great principles which it 
 inculcates. This remark, indeed, might have been 
 made, in a qualified sense, concerning the three 
 preceding epistles. But this epistle is not inscribed, 
 as they are, to the faithful of a particular class, 
 but addressed to the Church universal to the end 
 of time. Second, its avowed and specific design — 
 "these things write we unto you that ye also may 
 have fellowship with us;" implying that Christian 
 benevolence is not exclusive but expansive, and 
 that it pants to behold the entire body of the faithful 
 in fellowship. And, thirdly, its pervading spirit of 
 affection, worthy of him who leaned on the bosom of 
 incarnate compassion, and meriting for it the name 
 of "a treatise of love." Here, the Church is a 
 temple, the God of which is love ; the services of 
 
50 
 
 THE SCRIPTURE DOCTRINE OF 
 
 which are love ; and in which all the assembly are 
 " little children," listening to the paternal breathings 
 of a patriarchal apostle, entreating them with the 
 reiterations and overflowings of tender importunity 
 to " love one another." 
 
 On the unity of the Christian Church this epistle 
 is decisive. It teaches us that " fellowship with the 
 Father and with his Son Jesus Christ," is fellow- 
 ship with each other, i. 1 — 4. After repeating the 
 "old" and "new commandment," it pronounces a 
 want of brotherly love to be utterly incompatible 
 with walking " in the light," ii. 9 — 11. " For this is 
 the message that ye heard from the beginning, that 
 ye love one another :" from which the apostle takes 
 occasion to denounce the man who hates his bro- 
 ther as a murderer; to show that brotherly love 
 is . essential to prove that we have passed from 
 death unto life; and that our love, instead of 
 being professional merely, should induce us libe- 
 rally to relieve the distressed, and even if ne- 
 cessary to die for them ; urging it by the consider- 
 ation that Christ died for us, iii. 10 — 23. He states 
 that one of the criteria by which antichrist is known 
 is by the absence of brotherly love; and enforces 
 mutual affection from the love of God in giving his 
 Son to die for sinners, and from that sense of consist- 
 ency which requires that he who loves God, love his 
 brother also, iv. 7 — 21. Besides which, if we are 
 born of God we shall love all those who, like our- 
 
 9 
 
THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 51 
 
 selves, have been begotten of him ; so that brotherly 
 love is an essential sign of regeneration, v. 1- — 3. In- 
 deed, in one chapter the apostle sunas up the whole of 
 evangelical duty by declaring, " this is the command- 
 ment, that we should believe on the name of his Son 
 Jesus Christ, and love one another, as he gave us 
 commandment," iii. 23. And in the following he in- 
 timates, that all relative religion is comprised in 
 "this commandment. That he who loveth God love 
 his brother also," iv. 21. 
 
 The second epistle of John is an epitome of the 
 first ; in which he earnestly enforces " the command- 
 ment which we had from the beginning, that we love 
 one another," 5. 
 
 From the third epistle we learn that kindness to 
 Christians, as such, engages the Divine commend- 
 ation, while a spirit of turbulence, slander, and over- 
 bearing ambition in the Church, incurs the Divine 
 displeasure, 5 — 11. 
 
 The General Epistle of Jude. — In this epistle 
 we are taught that there is a " common salvation ;" 
 that for the preservation of this chartered gift, in 
 which all Christians have an equal interest, we are 
 earnestly to contend; that self-willed, contentious, 
 scandalous professors, relinquish their interest in it, 
 and "separate themselves," by so doing, from the 
 true Church; and that Christians, considering their 
 exposure to this danger, and its consequences, should 
 make common cause, labour to secure their own 
 
52 
 
 THE SCRIPTURE DOCTRINE OF 
 
 confirmation in faith and love, do nothing to hasten 
 the fall of the erring, but, on the contrary, " save 
 them with fear, pulling them out of the fire." 
 
 Revelation. — In this mysterious book, the Chris- 
 tian Church, under whatever aspect she appears, is 
 represented as one. Assailed by persecution, she is 
 seen as " a woman " fleeing " into the wilderness," 
 xii. 1. When assailed by another form of evil, the 
 Church is " a camp" and " a city," xx. 9. In a state 
 of distinguished prosperity, she is " the bride, the 
 Lamb's wife," xxi. 9. And when enjoying her final 
 triumph, one song engages and unites every voice of 
 saints and angels ; one vision of glory " in the midst 
 of the throne" attracts every eye ; and one spot before 
 the throne receives their several crowns. 
 
 By indulging thus freely in Scripture quotation, 
 and attempting so extended an analysis of the in- 
 spired epistles, the end gained is manifold. We are 
 thus taking our cause, at once, into the only court 
 in the universe competent to pronounce on its 
 merits; and, while yet standing on the threshold, 
 we are bowing in reverential homage to its supreme 
 authority. We are acquainting ourselves with the 
 ample space which it occupies in the word of God ; 
 with the impressive manner in which it is there 
 introduced, and the hallowed spirit in which it is 
 treated; while we see how constantly the subject 
 occupied the mind of the Son of God ; how regularly 
 it presented itself to the minds of his apostles when 
 
THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 53 
 
 bowing at the throne of grace, or when writing, 
 under a higher dictation, to the primitive churches; 
 of what vast importance it must be in the estima- 
 tion of that Holy Spirit under whose inspiration 
 they wrote, and by whose provident superintendence 
 it is inseparably inwrought into the very texture 
 of the sacred page. Like persons about to enter 
 some ancient temple, we hope, by acquainting our- 
 selves first with its eventful history, and by linger- 
 ing awhile in its outer courts, that our spirits 
 will be prepared to enter, and will harmonise 
 with the sacredness of the scene. 
 
 But these ends have been gained incidentally, while 
 aiming to establish our chief position — the unity 
 of the Church. As the result of our investigations 
 on this doctrine, we find that the Temple of Re- 
 velation is pictured over on all sides by the hand 
 of the Spirit, with illustrations of its truth, and proofs 
 of its importance. Following the steps of inspired 
 guidance, we find that the subject is distributed 
 into three principal compartments, in each of which 
 Christ is the central object. In the first of these, 
 an apostle points us to a scene where at a height 
 far above all heavens sits the Only-begotten of the 
 Father on the throne of the universe. Before him, 
 and stretching away into interminable space, appear 
 the thrones and dominions and principalities and 
 powers — comprising the unfallen intelligences of hea- 
 ven, and the number which no man can number, 
 
 F 3 
 
54 
 
 THE SCRIPTURE DOCTRINE OF 
 
 saved from the earth — all radiant with his glory, 
 living in his smiles, and joined in his praise. This, 
 we learn, is the archetype in the eternal mind, to 
 which in the dispensation of the fulness of times 
 he will gather together in one all things in Christ. 
 
 In the second, the scene of which is on earth, we 
 recognise the Catholic Church of the redeemed. Here 
 Christ appears again in the centre and foreground, 
 assuming humanity as their representative, issuing 
 his commands, praying, dying, that they all might 
 be one. Here all dispensational distinctions are 
 abolished ; " the Gospel is preached unto Abraham," 
 rendering him, in effect, if not in name, a Chris- 
 tian ; and " he is the Jew who is one inwardly," 
 rendering the Christian " an Israelite indeed." Here 
 no natural distinctions remain ; " the Barbarian, 
 Scythian, bond and free," wear alike the righteous- 
 ness and the name of Christ. Here Adam, and 
 the last of his race, embrace each other, and re- 
 joice in the image of " the second Adam, the Lord 
 from heaven." Here, in one part, the Church is re- 
 presented as a temple, and we easily discern the addi- 
 tions made to the structure in each successive dispen- 
 sation, and admire the perfect manner in which the 
 several parts mutually depend, and combine to sup- 
 port and connect the whole. In another, the col- 
 lective Church appears under the likeness of a human 
 body, in which we not only mark the fitness of each 
 member for its peculiar office, and the union of all to 
 
THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 55 
 
 each other, but admire how the whole body has in all 
 ages been growing to a " perfect man" — a colossal 
 stature of sanctified humanity, with Christ for its vital 
 and glorified Head. And, in another, the Catholic 
 Church is collected together as a loving family, in 
 which each member seems to live only to study the 
 welfare and reflect the happiness of his brethren. 
 While, in different parts of the great family, apostles 
 are seen presenting letters, dictated by the Spirit, 
 and inscribed to " all them that are in Christ Jesus." 
 
 The third compartment represents particular 
 churches ; some of which are receiving apostolic con- 
 gratulations on their union and prosperity ; others, 
 are evidently listening with ominous delight to the 
 whispers of slander, and the plausible sophistries of 
 error, while friendly and anxious countenances are 
 turned on them in warning, expostulation, and pity; 
 and others have separated into factious groups, and 
 converted the sanctuary into an arena of angry 
 debate, from which the grieved Spirit of love is de- 
 parting, and where an infernal hand is seen scatter- 
 ing abroad firebrands, arrows, and death. Among 
 each of these classes are messengers inspired from 
 heaven, reminding them that they have " one Lord, 
 one faith, one baptism showing them that they 
 cannot indulge in mutual mistrust or aversion without 
 bursting one or other of the cords of love which con- 
 stitute the bond of peace ; praying for the reconcilia- 
 tion and reunion of such as are alienated ; weeping 
 
56 SCRIPTURE DOCTRINE OP UNITY OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 over the obstinacy of that alienation, or else rejoicing 
 in its removal; pointing them to the cross as the 
 magnet of all hearts; and showing them that by 
 coming to it they have come to the rendezvous of all 
 the just, to the general assembly and Church of the 
 first-born whose names are written in heaven. What 
 other impression then can we derive from the survey 
 than this, that unity is a sign of the true Church, arid 
 that so complete is this unity, that the atom does not 
 more certainly form an integral portion of the ma- 
 terial universe than the meanest and obscurest be- 
 liever has his appointed place and portion in the one 
 great family which is gathering together in Christ ? 
 so that unscripturally to expel a single Christian, or 
 to disturb the harmony of a single church, is to break 
 the peace of the universe. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE NATURE OF CHRISTIAN UNITY; OR, WHEREIN THE 
 ONENESS OF THE CHURCH CONSISTS. 
 
 From the preceding examination of Scripture it ap- 
 pears, that unity is one of the essential characteristics 
 of the Christian Church. We proceed to inquire, in 
 the next place, what we are to understand by that 
 unity which is thus represented as blending all the 
 faithful into one community. 
 
 I. And here it is natural for us to glance, first, at 
 some of the ideas which have more or less obtained, 
 and at the attempts which at different times have 
 been made in the Church to realise this union. For 
 if, on bringing them to the test of Scripture, either of 
 them shall prove in accordance with that only stand- 
 ard, our inquiry will be ended, and our object gained; 
 if, however, when weighed in the Divine balances, 
 they are found wanting, we shall be justified in dis- 
 missing them entirely from our minds, and our way 
 will be cleared for further inquiry. 
 
58 THE NATURE OF CHRISTIAN UNITY. 
 
 1. Some have sought to unite the Church by equal- 
 ising all its members in every respect ; by establishing 
 an ultra-democracy which should dispense with all 
 official distinctions, and consequent subordination. 
 But, besides that no society can exist without order, 
 and order supposes discipline, and discipline govern- 
 ment, it is evident that the Christian union incul- 
 cated in Scripture is quite compatible with the 
 greatest diversity of official distinctions, and of spi- 
 ritual gifts. For not only did our ascended Lord 
 give " some, apostles ; and some, prophets ; and some, 
 evangelists ; and some, pastors and teachers ;" but he 
 gave them expressly to promote the union and wel- 
 fare of his body the Church — gave them "for the 
 perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, 
 for the edifying of the body of Christ." And that 
 some, at least, of these offices were not intended to 
 be confined to the primitive Church is evident, for 
 they are to be continued "till we all come in the 
 unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of 
 God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the 
 stature of the fulness of Christ." Official distinctions 
 in the Church then consist with its perfect oneness, 
 and are essential to it. 
 
 Others have professed to unite the Church by 
 adopting the opposite extreme. Taking the plat- 
 form of the military government of Rome* for its mo- 
 del, and, indeed, in many respects, taking its place, 
 
 * See Cave's Primitive Christianity. 
 
THE NATURE OF CHRISTIAN UNITY. 59 
 
 the Romish church built up, in hierarchal order, a 
 towering structure of ecclesiastical grandeur, gra- 
 dation above gradation — a living pyramid — on 
 whose summit was enthroned a ruling mind, and 
 at whose base stretched out the kneeling and obe- 
 dient world. This was spiritual despotism, in its 
 " pride of place," mistaking professed submission for 
 vital union. But even that submission was only 
 apparent; for, as we shall hereafter have occasion 
 to show, the elements of resistance and repulsion 
 were so often in activity, that— strange anomaly ! — 
 the world was occasionally called in to give peace to 
 the Church. Had that submission to the Pope, how- 
 ever, instead of being only apparent and partial, been 
 universal and complete, the power that enforced it 
 would still have wanted that sine qua non of all official 
 authority in the Church — the warrant of its Divine 
 Head. But had he willed a unity of this nature, his 
 apostles would of course have enjoined and enforced 
 it. Yet when discoursing expressly on the unity of 
 the Church, concerning such a constitution they are 
 silent. They even specify the nature of the fellow- 
 ship they enjoin — that it is to consist of faith, of love, 
 and of common obedience to the will of Christ — but 
 not a word do they utter concerning a universal go- 
 vernment under one visible head. So far were they 
 from connecting together the churches of various 
 lands, by the appointment of one official head, that 
 they did not connect together, in this way, the 
 
60 
 
 THE NATURE OF CHRISTIAN UNITY. 
 
 churches even of the same province. Indeed, the 
 state of the poHtical world, at the time, rendered the 
 subjection of the universal Church to one visible head, 
 utterly impracticable. And when in process of time 
 that mockery of a union was attempted, it excited the 
 earnest deprecation of some of those who were appa- 
 rently most interested in its success.* 
 
 In some periods and sections of the Church, 
 attempts have been made to blend Christians into one 
 body by enforcing universally the same discipline, 
 government, and ceremonies of worship. This was 
 mistaking uniformity for union. This our Lord him- 
 self forbore ; and forbore as inconsistent with the 
 universal design of his new economy. For, while a 
 minute and unbending ritual, like that of the Jewish, 
 is admirably adapted to distinguish a people from the 
 rest of the world, the system that proposes to unite all 
 nations in a common brotherhood, should possess the 
 
 * Ego autem fidenter dico, &c. " I confidently affirm," says 
 Gregory I., {lib. 6., Ep. 30,) " that whoever calls himself Universal 
 Bishop, or desires to be so called, is a forerunner of antichrist, 
 because he proudly sets himself above all others." See also denun- 
 ciations of the same attempt at supremacy, in his 4th, 6th, and 7th 
 Epistles. 
 
 " Oh that there were none of this presidency !" exclaims Gregory 
 Nazianzen, (Orat. 28,) " none of this pre-eminence of place, and 
 arrogant aiming at prerogative !" Superbum nimis est, &c. " It is 
 too arrogant and immoderate for any one to pass beyond his own 
 proper sphere, and in despite of antiquity to invade the rights of 
 others, and assail the primacies of so many metropolitans for the 
 purpose of aggrandising the dignity of one." — Leo, I., Ep. 55. 
 
THE NATURE OF CHRISTIAN UNITY. 
 
 61 
 
 simplicity and self-adjusting nature of a general prin- 
 ciple. Accordingly, our Lord, having discharged us 
 from the cares and vexatious obligations of the ancient 
 ceremonial, enacts a code of more generous authority, 
 prescribes only that which is absolutely necessary, and 
 leaves us to learn our duty from facts and examples, 
 rather than from formal precepts. Treading in the 
 footsteps of their Lord, the apostles exhibited the 
 same noble superiority, where principle was not con- 
 cerned, to all the detail of ecclesiastical observance. 
 With the Jewish Christian, they could shave the head 
 and practise circumcision; and with the Gentile 
 Christian they could disparage both.* The same 
 hand that adjusted the yoke on the neck of the former, 
 because he believed he ought to wear it, tenderly 
 and promptly removed it from the latter, because his 
 conscience was galled by the imposition. Thus 
 evincing, that unbroken uniformity of discipline and 
 ceremonies is by no means essential to Christian 
 union.f 
 
 * " And this so continued, that fifteen Christian bishops, in suc- 
 cession, were circumcised, even until the destruction of Jerusalem, 
 
 under Adrian, as Eusebius reports God tolerated them 
 
 in their error, till time and a continual dropping of the lessons and 
 
 dictates apostolical did wear it out And in the descent 
 
 of so many years, I find not any one anathema passed upon 
 
 any one of the bishops of Jerusalem or the believers of the circum- 
 cision ; and yet it was a point as clearly determined as any 
 
 of those questions that at this day vex and crucify Christendom." — 
 Jeremy Taylor's Liberty of Prophesying. 
 
 t Actum suum disponit et dirigit unusquisque Episcopus, &c. 
 G 
 
62 
 
 THE NATURE OF CHRISTIAN UNITY. 
 
 And attempts have been made also to. find this 
 union in identity of opinion on all points of faith and 
 practice.* But while, as we shall presently show, 
 
 {Cyp. Ep. 52.) Every bishop orders and directs his own acts, hav- 
 ing to render an account of his proceedings to the Lord. 
 
 The conscience of his people assisting, (sub populi assistentis con- 
 scientia, Ep. 7S,) every bishop hath in the government of his church 
 the free power of his will, having to render an account of his own 
 act unto the Lord. (JEp. 72.) 
 
 " This AvTovofxia, and liberty of churches, doth appear to have 
 long continued in practice inviolate ; although tempered and modelled 
 in accommodation to the circumstances of time and place." — Bar- 
 row's Discourse concerning the Unity of the Church. But that the 
 difference of observances which this liberty occasioned was regarded 
 as perfectly compatible with Christian union, see Aug. Ep. 86. 
 Cyp. Ep. 7b. Iren. apud Euseb. v. 24. Socr. v. 22; vii. 19. 
 
 • " The first Christians used no written Creed ^ the Confession 
 of Faith which was held necessary for salvation, was delivered to 
 children or converts, by word of mouth, and intrusted to their me- 
 mory. Moreover, in the several independent churches, the rule of 
 faith was liable to some slight changes, according to the opinion and 
 discretion of the Bishop presiding in each. Hence it arose, that 
 when the creeds of those numerous communities came at length to 
 be written and compared together, they were found to contain some 
 variations ; this was natural and necessary ; but when we add, that 
 those variations were for the most part merely verbal, and in no in- 
 stance involved any question of essential importance, we advance a 
 truth which will seem strange to those who are famiUar with the 
 angry disputations of later ages. But the fact is easily accounted 
 for — the earlier pastors of the Church drew their belief from the 
 Scripture itself, as delivered to them by writing or preaching, and 
 they were contented to express that belief in the language of Scrip- 
 ture. They were not curious to investigate that which is not clearly 
 revealed, but they adhered firmly and fedthfully to that which they 
 
 5 
 
THE NATURE OF CHRISTIAN UNITY. 63 
 
 there are certain essential requisites, without which a 
 man cannot be a Christian, and without which a so- 
 ciety cannot be a church, yet beyond these central 
 truths there is a large circle where opinion is allowed 
 to walk at large, and where Christian charity finds an 
 appropriate sphere for bearing, believing, and hoping 
 all things. Diversity of opinion on many points is 
 not only to be accounted for, but is even necessitated 
 by differences of mental constitution, by varieties of 
 education, by the influence of early and peculiar as- 
 sociations, and by a thousand other causes too subtle 
 to be traced, and too personal and unique to be de- 
 scribed ; and is only in harmony with all the works of 
 Him who combines the greatest variety of accident 
 and form with unity of principle and design. So that 
 if the man does not relinquish his rationality on be- 
 coming a Christian, but retains his right to use it ; 
 and if a church is to be a society of thinking as well 
 as of "faithful" men, a perfect and universal identity 
 of sentiment is neither to be expected nor desired. 
 Nor does the Bible demand it. This is evident from 
 the language of the apostle in his epistle to the 
 Romans. " Him that is weak in the faith receive ye, 
 but not to doubtful disputations. For one believeth 
 that he may eat all things: another, who is weak, 
 eateth herbs. Let not him that eateth despise him 
 
 knew to be trae ; therefore their variations were without schism, 
 and their differences without acrimony." — Waddington' s Church 
 History. 
 
64 
 
 THE NATURE OF CHRISTIAN UNITY. 
 
 that eateth not; and let not him who eateth not 
 judge him that eateth : for God hath received him."* 
 Here are two classes of Christians — in the same 
 church — differing on a doubtful point. And the fact 
 to be remarked is, that the apostle does not disclose 
 which was right by deciding the question at issue. 
 But, denouncing their mutual want of charity, he ap- 
 proves the conscientiousness of each ; encourages 
 both to retain their respective opinions ; and exhorts 
 them, notwithstanding this diversity, to be united and 
 one ; assigning as the great reason why each should 
 receive the other, that God hath received him. 
 
 In his epistle to the Philippians, he treats a similar 
 difference, in a similar way. " Let us therefore, as 
 many as be perfect, be thus minded ; and if in any 
 thing ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even 
 this unto you. Nevertheless, whereto we have already 
 attained, let us walk by the same rule, let us mind 
 the same thing."f From which we learn that up to 
 a certain point they agreed ; that beyond that point 
 they dift'ered ; that by walking harmoniously together 
 as far as they agreed, they might hope, by aid from 
 on high, to see the point of coincidence extended 
 farther and farthei'. The great lesson, therefore, 
 which the Church is to infer is, that perfect identity 
 of sentiment is not necessary to Christian union, but 
 that Christian union is necessarj', or, at least, emi- 
 nently conducive to that coincidence of opinion. 
 
 * Rom. xiv. 1—3. t Phil. iii. 15, 16. 
 
THE NATURE OF CHRISTIAN UNITY. 65 
 
 11. Now if none of these plans is Christian unity, 
 nor essential to it, let us inquire, in the next place, 
 wherein it does consist. And we observe, first, that 
 the foundation of a scriptural union among Christians 
 is laid in the belief of those truths which are essential 
 to our union with Christ. Here, we presume, the 
 following propositions will be admitted as soon as 
 read ; — that Christianity, in common with every other 
 system, contains some principles which serve at once 
 to identify and distinguish it ; — that as the inculca- 
 tion of morality is not peculiar to the Gospel, its 
 essence must be sought for in that in which it is 
 peculiar — in being a remedial system, a provision of 
 mercy for a sinful world through a Divine Mediator ; 
 and that as Christianity is a provision of mercy, its 
 fundamental truths may be expected to be few and 
 simple, if only to be in accordance with its kind and 
 compassionate design. 
 
 But how are these truths, few and simple as they 
 may be, to be discriminated and determined ? Had 
 this question never engaged our attention before, we 
 should naturally adopt some or all of the following 
 methods ; we should inquire whether, on a devout 
 and careful perusal of the Gospel as a whole. Chris- 
 tians generally have received an identity of impres- 
 sion as to its scope and design ; — whether it con- 
 tained within its pages any thing professing to be an 
 epitome or abridgment of the system which it re- 
 veals; — whether the apostolic preaching contained 
 G 3 
 
66 THE NATURE OF CHRISTIAN UNITY. 
 
 any one leading feature; — or, whether the question 
 of fundamental truth was ever agitated in apostolic 
 times, and determined by apostolic authority. Now, 
 on adopting this course of inquiry, we not only obtain 
 replies ; and these replies not merely agree ; but, by 
 the unanimous verdict of the orthodox Church, they 
 all prove to be one; and that one, the doctrine of justi- 
 fication hy faith in the atoning sacrifice of Christ. 
 
 Let us hear the final commission which our Lord 
 gave to his apostles when he charged them with the 
 duty of evangelising the world; — they were to 
 " preach repentance, and the remission of sins, in his 
 name, among all nations." If we inquire of St. 
 Paul the subject of his preaching, he replies, " Christ, 
 and him crucified ;" or, the substance of apostolic 
 preaching generally, his answer is still the same, — 
 "?«e preach Christ crucified;" and the reason as- 
 signed is, that " he is made of God unto us, wisdom, 
 and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemp- 
 tion." The prevailing impression of the Christian 
 Church is, that the New Testament is, in brief, " a 
 faithful saying, .and worthy of all acceptation, that 
 Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners :" 
 and this, too, is its own compendium of itself. 
 
 But if ever the apostle referred to the fundamental 
 truth of the Gospel, it was surely when he uttered the 
 fearful anathema, " If we, or an angel from heaven, 
 preach any other Gospel unto you than that which 
 we have preached, let him be accursed." Now here 
 
THE NATURE OF CHRISTIAN UNITY. 67 
 
 the point to be remarked is, that the Galatians 
 had not renounced the Christian profession ; — they 
 still retained the doctrines they had been taught ; — 
 but some part of those doctrines they were in danger 
 of surrendering to false teachers ; — and that part 
 is considered by the apostle as so fundamental, 
 that he puts it for the whole Gospel. What then 
 is that vital and essential truth, the belief of which 
 amounts to a belief of the Gospel, and the rejection 
 of which, either by a Christian or a church, is a 
 rejection of Christianity? Let us seek an answer 
 by inquiring, what was that counter-doctrine for 
 which the Galatians were in danger of renouncing 
 this fundamental truth? The entire drift of the 
 apostolic argument shows that it was justification by 
 the works of the laic. In opposition to this funda- 
 mental error it is that the apostle affirms the 
 fundamental truth, " Christ hath redeemed us from 
 the curse of the law, being made a curse for us :" 
 fearfully denouncing the teacher of the antagonist 
 error, to whatever order of beings he might belong, 
 and from whatever region of space he may come, 
 as a subverter of the entire Gospel ; and declaring 
 concerning every man who seeks justification through 
 any other medium, " that Christ can profit him 
 nothing." Here again, then, we meet the one grand 
 doctrine in question ; so that from whatever point 
 of the circle we may commence our search, we 
 find this to be the central truth ; and however 
 
68 THE NATURE OF CHRISTIAN UNITY. 
 
 we may vary the inquiry, " What is truth ; funda- 
 mental truth ?" the response of the living oracle 
 is invariably the same, Justification by faith in the 
 atoning sacrifice of the Son of God. 
 
 This parent truth necessarily involves in it, (accord- 
 ing to our apprehension,) the divinity of Christ, 
 the necessity of renewal and sanctification by the 
 Holy Spirit, and whatever is commonly called evan- 
 gelical in doctrine ; while it sprinkles the path of 
 duty with atoning blood, and is the seminal prin- 
 ciple of universal holiness. But whatever the precise 
 amount of truth which it may comprehend, it is 
 evidently the doctrine by the humble and hearty 
 belief of which a man becomes united to Christ, 
 and consequently one with his people. Whatever 
 variety of sentiment he may hold on subordinate 
 points, the cordial reception of " redemption through 
 the blood of the cross" unites him to " the Head of 
 the body," and thi-ough the Head to the body itself. 
 Whatever the order and discipline of the particular 
 church to which he may belong, his union to Christ, 
 being derived from an independent and superior 
 source, is left untouched, as well as his union to 
 the body of Christ. And that church itself, teaching 
 this faith, and composed of such members, is a true 
 church, and an integral part of the great Christian 
 community. 
 
 Thus the basis of the unity of the Church is laid 
 in the unity of the faith. By giving us "one Lord"' 
 
THE NATURE OF CHRISTIAN UNITY. 
 
 69 
 
 to provide for us a "common salvation," the "one 
 God and Father of all" has wisely ordered that all 
 the saved shall be generalised and united in "one 
 faith" concerning him, by the "one baptism" of the 
 "one Spirit" who actuates and lives in them as "one 
 body." 
 
 2. But this is a faith which does not, and which 
 cannot, exist alone — if works hy love. By giving us a 
 new centre, it brings us into a new circle : by ally- 
 ing us to Christ, it detaches us from the world, and 
 introduces us into the society of those who have ex- 
 perienced a similar transition. In each of these we 
 recognise a brother ; and feel, by sympathy, that our 
 principles and interests are common to all. And the 
 more clear, comprehensive, and vigorous our faith in 
 Christ, the stronger will be our affinity and love to 
 the brethren. The apostle therefore prayed for the 
 Colossians, "that their hearts might be comforted, 
 being compacted together (o-0|«-/3(/3a(r9sv9ej) in love, 
 and unto* all riches of the full assurance of under- 
 standing, to the acknowledgment of God, and of the 
 Father, and of Christ." He knew that the bare un- 
 derstanding of the truth — the first rudiment of piety — 
 would be a basis of union among them ; but he knew 
 also that the assurance of understanding would draw 
 their union closer still; and the full assurance still 
 nearer; and the riches, all the riches of that full 
 
 * Kai fi£, even by. See Macknight in loco. See also Acts vii. 35, 
 compared with Gal. iii. 19, 
 
70 
 
 THE NATURE OF CHRISTIAN UNITY. 
 
 assurance would make the cohesion complete; and 
 hence he desired to see their faith in Christ attain 
 perfection, in order that their mutual affection might 
 blend them into one. The tendency of gravitation is 
 to bring all portions of matter together, and the 
 nearer they approach a common centre the greater 
 that tendency becomes ; in the Christian Church, the 
 cross is that centre, so that its members could not 
 cleave to it, without finding that their hearts had 
 united and become one. 
 
 But there is a reason for this love which lies deeper 
 still — the all-pervading presence and influence of that 
 "one Spirit" to whose regenerating operation it is 
 owing that there is any Church in existence, or any 
 faith and love to cement its members together.* The 
 several parts of the human body are united and em- 
 ployed by the pervading soul as one organic whole ; 
 and in a similar way, the Holy Spirit — the soul of the 
 Church — by pervading and actuating each of its 
 members, becomes the uniting and sjonpathetic prin- 
 ciple of the whole : " for by one Spirit are we all bap- 
 tised into one body." Of the entire Church from the 
 first member to the last, " there is one body, and one 
 Spirit. The Spirit that lived in David, lived in 
 Paul, is now living in the Christian reader of these 
 
 * Membra vero Christi, &c. " The members of Christ are joined 
 together by a uniting charity, and by the same cleave close to their 
 head which is Christ."— ^tt^. de Unit. cap. 2. " For the communion 
 of the Spirit is wont to knit and unite men's minds." — Bas. Ep. 182. 
 
THE NATURE OF CHRISTIAN UNITY. 71 
 
 pages, to whatever denomination of the faithful he 
 may belong, and will equally live and act in the last 
 believer that shall cross the threshold of the Church ; 
 thus descending and flowing, age after age, in un- 
 broken continuity throughout the whole Christian 
 body. And hence it is given in charge to the faith- 
 ful of each successive generation, that they "keep 
 the unity of the Spirit" unsevered and entire — that 
 there be no breach in its continuous diffusion through- 
 out the entire Church. 
 
 Most beautifully is this spirit-derived union of love 
 adverted to by St. Paul in his first epistle to the 
 Thessalonians : " As touching brotherly love, ye need 
 not that I write unto you ; for ye yourselves are taught 
 of God to love one another" Their brotherly love 
 was a divine instinct — an essential property of their 
 new nature — implanted, independent of any formal 
 instruction on the subject, by the agency of the Holy 
 Spirit — and, as such, common to all who enjoy his 
 influence. " For the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, 
 peace ;" in which enumeration the apostle assigns the 
 firs^ place to love, to denote not merely its primary 
 importance, but also the certainty of its production. 
 For as love was the first fruit blighted by sin in Eden, 
 it is the first which is reproduced by the Spirit in that 
 garden of the Lord which is now committed to his 
 divine cultivation. 
 
 In harmony with these representations of Scripture, 
 the love of the brethren is declared to be the peculiar 
 
72 THE NATURE OF CHRISTIAN UNITY. 
 
 sign given by God to their own individual conscious- 
 ness by the possession of which they might know that 
 they have passed from death unto life. And " by this," 
 said Christ, " shall all men know that ye are my dis- 
 ciples if ye have love one to another" — intimating 
 that while other signs might identify them as belong- 
 ing to a party, this alone would mark them out as 
 belonging to him, and would soon come to be recog- 
 nised as a leading feature in the great Christian family. 
 The " new command " of our Lord, therefore, that we 
 " love one another," is not to be regarded as a mere 
 act of authority. Love cannot be arbitrarily com- 
 manded. It is the spontaneous complacency of the 
 soul in those in whom it perceives a congeniality of 
 spiritual taste, a community of holy interests, a reflec- 
 tion of the paternal image. Now as these incitements 
 to holy love would always exist among his followers, 
 our Lord knew that in enjoining the duty of mutual 
 affection, he was only speaking to natures divinely pre- 
 configured to it, interpreting and encouraging feel- 
 ings of which they were already conscious, and giving 
 to that which they felt as a sanctified impulse, the 
 sanction and stimulus of a Divine obligation. He 
 was directing them, not merely to allow the exercise 
 of mutual love, but encouraging them to cherish and 
 cultivate it; to give a loose to the ardour of their 
 brotherly affection by taking his love to them as 
 the pattern of their love to each other; and thus 
 not merely gratifying their own new nature, but 
 
THE NATURE OF CHRISTIAN UNITY. 73 
 
 delighting him their Lord and Saviour. Besides 
 which, the injunction was obviously intended to con- 
 vey the idea that obedience to this new command 
 would involve obedience to every other requirement ; 
 for "love is the fulfilling of the law." This is a 
 sentiment emphatically repeated in no less than six 
 of the epistles ;* reminding us that as love alone — 
 the love of God — has been sufficient to save a world, 
 so love — the love of the brethren — would, if allowed 
 to operate unchecked, be equal to all the duties they 
 owe to each other, and would fill and expand the 
 Church with that element of peace and joy in which 
 the Spirit delights to dwell. 
 
 III. Faith and love, then, in the sense explained, as 
 necessarily including universal holiness, constitute the 
 twofold bond of the unity of the Christian Church. 
 And that they form the only bond essential to that 
 unity is evident from the following considerations : — 
 
 1. They are evidently the only bond which ex- 
 isted, or which could have existed, among the 
 Christians of the first churches. In the order of 
 nature the object precedes the act — the truth to be 
 believed precedes the act of believing it. But it was 
 by simply believing the Gospel — the doctrine of re- 
 demption through the atoning sacrifice of Christ — 
 that the first Christians became eligible to form a 
 church: — the object of their faith preceded their 
 
 * 1 Cor. xiii. ; Rom. xiii. 8 — 10 ; Gal. v. 14 ; 1 Tim. i. 5 ; James 
 ii. 8—11 ; John iv. 7—14. 
 
 H 
 
74 THE NATURE OF CHRISTIAN UNITY. 
 
 existence as a church, and was the condition and 
 reason of their organisation : while the mode of 
 conducting their worship, the form of church govern- 
 ment, and every opinion independent of and subordi- 
 nate to that great doctrine were, in the order of 
 nature, subjects for subsequent consideration. As 
 far indeed as these were prescribed by apostolic 
 authority, they were to be received as imperative, 
 because divinely inspired. But their very prescription 
 supposed a church already in existence ; or, at least, 
 the existence of Christian men ehgible to become a 
 church. Now that which was sufficient to render 
 them eligible for membership, and to bind them toge- 
 ther as a church, must be still adequate for the same 
 purposes. 
 
 2. Accordingly, when the apostles were expressly 
 describing the principles which unite us to Christ and 
 to each o\h&v— faith and love form the inspired sum- 
 mary of the whole. " For in Christ Jesus neither 
 circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision ; 
 but faith which worketh by love." * " Now the end of 
 the commandment is charity out of a pure heart, 
 and of a good conscience, and of faith unfeigned." f 
 " And this is his commandment, That we should 
 believe on the name of his Son Jesus Christ, and love 
 one another, as he gave us commandment." % 
 
 3. And as faitli and love are the only requisites for 
 communion with Christian church, so a are they the 
 only elements of its prosperity, •* After I heard,"' 
 
 * Gal. V. 6. t 1 Tim. i. 5. +1 John iii. 23. 
 
THE NATURE OF CHRISTIAN UNITY. 75 
 
 says St. Paul, " of your faith in Christ, and love 
 to all the saints, I cease not to give thanks for you."* 
 " We are bound to thank God always for you, 
 brethren, as it is meet, because that your faith grow- 
 eth exceedingly, and the charity of every one of you 
 all towards each other aboundeth."f The growth of 
 their faith and love was not merely the sign of pros- 
 perity, it was prosperity itself. 
 
 4. But if ever the apostles had deemed faith and 
 love insufficient, and had proceeded to add some other 
 bond, it would surely have been when they feared 
 these ties were in danger of being burst asunder by 
 the member of the particular church to which, at any 
 time, they were writing. And yet, when addressing 
 the Philippians on the perpetuation of their union 
 and prosperity, this is the only direction of the apostle, 
 " Stand fast in one spirit, with one mind striving 
 together for the faith of the Gospel," — adhere to the 
 faith in unanimity and love. And when agonising 
 {>)Xixov ayMva.) in soul for the peace and welfare of the 
 churches at Colosse and Laodicea, his only solicitude 
 was, that their hearts might be " knit together in love, 
 and unto all riches of the full assurance of under- 
 standing, to the acknowledgment of God, and of the 
 Father, and of Christ." Faith and love form the 
 apostolic terms of communion with the Christian 
 Church, the means and substance of its prosperity, 
 and the grand catholicon for all its maladies. 
 
 * Eph. i. 15, 16. t 2 Thess. i. 3. 
 
76 THE NATURE OF CHRISTIAN UNITY. 
 
 5. To constitute faith and love the principles of 
 unity in the Christian Church is only in consonance 
 with the Divine requirements of the moral law ; — for 
 what is it but to exhibit religion anew under its two- 
 fold aspect of love to God and love to man? What 
 is it but to bring the two tables of the law from the 
 Jewish temple into the Christian Church, that they 
 may lean against the cross, and be sprinkled with 
 its blood ? For it is only by believing in Christ that 
 the soul is restored to the capacity of loving sincerely 
 either God or man. 
 
 6. In times of persecution, faith and love were the 
 only bonds of unity which Christians in many in- 
 stances could retain. As the " woman fled into the 
 wilderness," whatever of earthly ornament or human 
 appendage had formed a part of her attire, was cast 
 away, and she appeared only in her celestial dress, 
 " clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, 
 and upon her head a crown of twelve stars." In the 
 fastnesses of Caledonia, Wales, and Piedmont, Chris- 
 tianity found a retreat from her pursuers ; and as she 
 sat, with the Bible on her knees, and her children at 
 her feet, showed, for ages, how well the Church can 
 subsist in the only unity which the Gospel recognises, 
 by simply " speaking, aAjjSeuovTfj, maintaining^ or pro- 
 fessing the truth [of the Gospel] in love." 
 
 7. And as any additions to faith and love have at 
 times been found impracticable, so are they always 
 unnecessary. What can bring the sinner to the foot 
 
THE NATURE OF CHRISTIAN UNITY. 
 
 77 
 
 of the cross till faith effects it ? and when faith has 
 led him there, and induced him to clasp it, what addi- 
 tional power can be necessary to detain him ? And 
 when love, as the natural result of faith, and in obe- 
 dience to Christ, has united him to the brotherhood, 
 how supererogatory to add any thing to a principle 
 which of itself "beareth all things, believeth all 
 things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. " To 
 think of bringing any thing merely human to the 
 aid of a principle so self-sufficient, and of making 
 such supplement indispensable, seems to be as incon- 
 sistent with reason and Scripture, as it would be to 
 think of supplying its entire absence by the same im- 
 potent means. 
 
 IV. Having thus illustrated the scriptural nature of 
 the unity of the Church, we find ourselves in posses- 
 sion of the following important results. The fact 
 that faith is an essential element of Christian union 
 implies that the Church is a holy community ; the 
 fact that love is equally essential necessarily makes 
 it a visible union; while from the two causes com- 
 bined it follows that this holy and visible union is 
 universal. 
 
 1. The Church is "a congregation of faithful men" 
 — a community of regenerated characters.* The faith 
 
 • Ecclesiam veram intelligere non audeo, &c. " I dare not under- 
 stand the true Church to consist but of holy and righteous men." Auy. 
 de Bapt. 5. 27. " There are many who communicate in sacraments 
 H 3 
 
 n 
 
78 THE NATURE OF CHRISTIAN UNITY. " 
 
 which draws them to Christ, detaches them from sin, 
 and aUies them to holiness. This is their only glory 
 in the eyes of Christ, and their chief distinction from 
 the world around. The ungodly world is one vast 
 confederation of evil, and the design of Christ in in- 
 stituting a Church is, not merely to provide an asylum 
 for all the spiritual excellence of earth, but chiefly to 
 create in the midst of this awful confederation, a 
 counteracting agency of good. The indiscriminate ad- 
 mission into his Church, therefore, of the godly and the 
 ungodly would be an obvious frustration of his design. 
 And hence the numerous and various precautions 
 which he has taken to maintain for his Church a 
 spiritual character; proclaiming when he was about 
 to form it, " Repent ye, for the kingdom of heaven is 
 at hand;" inscribing this memorable sentence over 
 the entrance of his Church, " Except a man be bom 
 again, he cannot enter :" prescribing for it a code of 
 discipline,* which, if faithfully administered, would 
 have the effect of rebuking every sin the moment it 
 appeared, and of casting from its bosom every hypo- 
 crite and ungodly intruder, the moment his character 
 became known :f calhng its members by names and 
 titles which none but converted men can own :J as- 
 signing them duties which none but spiritual men can 
 
 with the Church, and yet they are not in the Church." Idem. De 
 Unit. Eccl. c. 20. 
 
 • Matt, xviii. 15—20. t 1 Cor. v. 11—13. ; Rev. ii. iii. 
 
 j Rom. i. 7 ; 1 Cor. i. 2 ; Eph. i. 1 ; Col. i. 2 ; iii. 13. 
 
THE NATURE OF CHRISTIAN UNITY. 79 
 
 perform :* and conferring on them privileges which 
 such men only can relish or desire. 
 
 Accordingly, the members of the first church were 
 those "^Aa^ believed;" and those who were subse- 
 quently added to them were tbj o-«^oj«,ev«j, " those that 
 were saved.'' While the exhortations of the apostles 
 to the churches they addressed, and especially the 
 tenour of our Lord's messages to the seven Asiatic 
 churches, evince the Divine solicitude that such only 
 should be admitted and retained within its pale, in 
 order that the spiritual and distinctive character of 
 his Church might be maintained. 
 
 2. By rendering the Church a union of affection, 
 the institution is made visible. Love, even of an or- 
 dinary kind, soon betrays its existence. The love of 
 the brethren originates in a cause, and leads to re- 
 sults, peculiar to itself. The faith which detaches 
 the heart from the world, does not destroy the so- 
 cial principle, but only leads it to seek gratification 
 in another direction. The institution of the Chris- 
 tian Church is intended to meet this want — to 
 furnish the social principle with a sphere in which 
 it might enjoy ample scope and activity for the 
 production and reciprocation of good. Here, we are 
 to look on the faults of others only to pity and pray 
 for them ; f and to contemplate their excellences 
 
 * Matt. V. 16 ; Luke Ti. 27, 28 ; 1 Thess. v. 16, 17, 18. 
 t Hence Origen, in bis panegyric on the church at Athens, de- 
 clares, " every division, every schism was detestable to you ; you 
 
80 
 
 THE NATURE OF CHRISTIAN UNITY. 
 
 only to admire and imitate : to lessen their cares by 
 sympathy, and to multiply their pleasures by partici- 
 pation ; to find and fabricate our happiness in pro- 
 moting the happiness of others, and " so fulfil the law 
 of Christ." Hero, whatever relates to the advance- 
 ment of the kingdom of Christ is to unite all hearts, 
 and to be enibarked in as a common interest, in the 
 success of which every one is equally concerned. 
 And by this congeniality of character, and identity of 
 interests, the Church is to exhibit the spectacle of a 
 vast community actuated " witli one heart and one 
 soul." " Bi/ this" said Christ, " shall all men know 
 that ye are my disciples ; " and b\/ this the world did 
 distinguish them. So intense, self-denying, and ac- 
 tive was their love, that it stood forth in contrast with 
 the selfishness of the world, like the verdure of para- 
 dise set in tiic desert. TcrttiUian, in his Apology, 
 gives us the very words in which numbers admired 
 their conduct, " See," said they, *' how they love one 
 another, and are ready to lay down their lives for 
 each other." • 
 
 3. And from the combined influence of this faitli 
 and love, it follows that this holy and visible union was 
 universal. As it did not originate in a cause peculiar 
 to any particular portion of the Ciiristian Church. 
 
 wept over the failings of your neighbours ; you thought their defects 
 your own, and were impatient after every good work." 
 
 * Vide, inquiunt, ut se diliguut ; et pro alterutro mori paraM 
 sunt. 
 
THE NATURE OF CHRISTIAN UNITY. 81 
 
 but in one comnaon to the whole, it necessarily em- 
 braced the entire body. " We know," says the 
 apostle John, " that we have passed from death unto 
 life, because we love the brethren," — we love them 
 as brethren, on account of their spiritual relationship 
 to Christ, their attachment to him, and the traces 
 they exhibit of his Divine image ; and, therefore, 
 wherever we behold a genuine Christian, we recog- 
 nise a brother — a member of the family of Christ. 
 And hence they exhibited a union not merely of indi- 
 vidual Christians, but of churches. Having pro- 
 fessed by baptism their faith in Christ, they were 
 cordially received to the communion of the Lord's- 
 supper ; and having joined in that feast of Christian 
 fellowship with one church, they were deemed 
 eligible to communion with every other church.* 
 Tokens of Christian salutation, and offices of bro- 
 therly love, were familiarly interchanged.f They 
 were ready to unite in the Church on earth with all 
 with whom they hoped to meet and mingle in the 
 worship of the Church in heaven. Minor differences 
 
 * And hence Chrysostom complains of Epiphanius, that when he 
 came to Constantinople, " he came not into the congregation accord- 
 ing to custom and tfie ancient manner he joined not with us, nor 
 communicated with us in the word, and prayer, and the holy commu- 
 nion." — Cfirys. ad Innoc. P. Ep. 122. 
 
 t " Both common charity and reason require, most dear brethren, 
 that we conceal nothing from your knowledge of those things which 
 are done among us, that so there may be common advice," &c. — 
 Cyp., Ep. 29. {Ad Cler. Rom.) 
 
82 
 
 THE NATURE OF CHRISTIAN UNITY. 
 
 they do not appear to have thought of; but in the 
 exercise of that comprehensive regard which taught 
 them to "love the brotherhood," they included in 
 their large and complacent embrace " all who in 
 every place called upon the name of our Lord Jesus 
 Christ, both theirs and ours." If ever the prayer of 
 Christ, " that they all might be one," was answered, 
 it was then ; when, whatever the internal state of 
 particular churches, they exhibited to the world the 
 sublime and glorious spectacle of a universal agapa, 
 to which every Christian brother, on presenting the 
 tessera of discipleship, received the cordial welcome 
 of a friend of Christ. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 SCHISM, THE BREACH OF THE UNION OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 As the union of the Christian Church is twofold, 
 consisting of faith in Christ and love to the brethren, 
 it is evident that it must be capable of a twofold rup- 
 ture. The breach of the former is heresy or apos- 
 tacy, the violation of the latter is schism. But as 
 apostacy, or a departure from God, necessarily in- 
 cludes schism, or a departure from the brethren ; so 
 schism, in its scriptural import, argues an impaired 
 state of faith in Christ, and tends to impair it still 
 farther. Schism, therefore, is to be regarded as the 
 breach of the unity of the Church. 
 
 But as this is an inquiry relating entirely to a 
 scriptural question, our first concern should un- 
 doubtedly be to ascertain " the mind of the Spirit." 
 Let us then appeal " to the law and to the testi- 
 mony." 
 
 The term " schism," though it occurs but once* in 
 
 * 1 Cor. xii. 25. 
 
84 
 
 SCHISM, THE BREACH OF 
 
 its untranslated form in our English version of the 
 New Testament, occurs in the Greek, either as a 
 noun or a verb, in eighteen instances. In ten of these 
 it is applied literally to denote the violent divulsion 
 of some material substance, such as the rending of the 
 rocks, or of the vail at the crucifixion of Christ. In 
 five instances the word is applied figuratively, to de- 
 note states of mind in which difference of opinion 
 was attended with eruptions of temper, and conse- 
 quent altercation. In only three instances is the 
 term applied to the Church ; and all of these are in 
 the first Epistle to the Corinthians. Here, then, if 
 any where, we may expect to learn the nature of 
 schism. 
 
 The first is as follows : — " Now I beseech you, 
 brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that 
 ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no divi- 
 sions {(T-x^KTitoLra.) among you; but that ye be per- 
 fectly joined together in the same mind and in the 
 same judgment. For it hath been declared to me of 
 
 you, my brethren that there are contentions 
 
 among you. Now this I say, that every one of you 
 saith, I am of Paul, and I of Apollos, and I of 
 Cephas, and I of Christ."* That the unanimity 
 which the apostle enjoins, is not a mere identity 
 of opinion on matters of faith is evident, for to 
 such no allusion is made, nor does it appear that 
 
 * 1 Cor. i. 10—13. 
 
THE UNION OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 83 
 
 on such any difference of opinion existed.* The 
 Corinthians would have instantly inferred, even 
 without any explanation, that the subject on which 
 the apostle would have them to be one, was that 
 on which, at the time, they were many. But by 
 adverting expressly to the nature of their " conten- 
 tions," he places the question beyond a doubt. Four 
 parties, at least, existed in this Christian church. 
 And having divided, contentions arose respecting the 
 superiority of the leaders whose names they had 
 adopted, and the way in which they endeavoured to 
 strengthen their several fi^ctions. Adverting to the 
 subject of their disputes again in the third chapter, 
 the apostle speaks of their (S(p(^oo-Tatr»«() factions. 
 What then was the nature of the "schisms" which 
 the apostle here sought to extinguish ? A factious pre- 
 ference of the ministers by whom they had believed, to 
 the loss of that brotherly love which they owed to each 
 other. An exclusive regard for the members of a party, 
 when they ought to have been affectionately embracing 
 the whole Church. And hence his aim is to remove 
 their party-regards from himself, and Apollos, and 
 
 * " Theophylact. — ' Since mauy may be united in matters of intel- 
 lect, and yet differ in sentiment ; for when we believe the same 
 things, but yet are not knit together in charity, we hold the same 
 notions, but differ in sentiment: — this being the case, the apostle, 
 by adding to the words rw avru) voi, the words, rr/ avri] yvw/ijj, ex- 
 presses a wish that they might differ neither on points of faith, nor 
 onmatteisof sentiment.' — See also Chrysostom." — Professor Bill- 
 roth in loco. 
 
86 
 
 SCHISM, THE BREACH OF 
 
 Cephas, and to centre them on Christ alone, as the 
 only way of restoring their love to each other. He 
 reminds them in the verse immediately preceding, 
 that they have been "called into the fellowship of 
 Jesus Christ our Lord he tenderly entreats them 
 all as "brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus 
 Christ;" and, pointing them to the cross, touchinglv 
 i-eminds them that Christ alone has poured out for 
 them his blood. Thus would he hush their alterca- 
 tions, and heal their divisions, by calling them around 
 the cross, there to feel that they are all one in Christ. 
 
 The second passage is as follows : — " Now, in this 
 that I declare unto you, I praise you not, that ve 
 come together not for the better, but for the 
 worse. For, first of all, when ye come toge- 
 ther in the church, I hear that there be divi- 
 sions ((Tj^io-ju-aTa) among you ; and I partly believe 
 it ... . When ye come together, therefore, into one 
 place, this is not to eat the Lord s-supper. For in 
 eating every one taketh before other his own supper : 
 and one is hungry, and another is drunken. What I 
 have ye not houses to eat and to drink in ? or despise 
 ye the Church of God, and shame them that have 
 not ? ^ATiat shall I say to you ? shall I praise you in 
 this? I praise you not."* Three things are here 
 
 * 1 Cor. xi. 17 — 22. " The expression KvpiaKov cu—vov compre- 
 hecds here, as L'steri has correctly remarked, the entire observance, 
 as well of the Lord's-supper, properly so called, as of the Agapse, 
 which were commonly associated with it." — Billroth, "routov 
 
THE UNION OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 87 
 
 distinctly specified deserving our particular attention : 
 — first, the general charge alleged against the church 
 at Corinth — " I hear there be schisms among you ; 
 and I partly believe it." Second, the serious mistake 
 in which these schisms had originated, or by which 
 they had been fostered — " When ye come together 
 into one place, this is not to eat the Lord's-supper " 
 — to partake of that is more than simply eating, as 
 you seem to suppose, in one place, in mere local union. 
 Third, the nature of the schisms which ensued — " for 
 in eating every one taketh before other his own sup- 
 per: and one is hungry, and another is drunken." 
 As they assembled in one place, and as one church, 
 love would have brought them together united in 
 spirit and purpose ; but they came regardless of 
 each other's feelings and circumstances — and this 
 was schism. Affection would have taught them to 
 wait the arrival of their fellow-members; but they 
 selfishly began without delay — and this ivas schism, 
 
 dnirvoi' denotes the supper which each one had brought as his own 
 contribution to the common meal, IIpoX., antecapit, has reference 
 to the eagerness ■m\h which each one (of the richer sort, we may pre- 
 sume) snatched up the food he had brought, and filled himself there- 
 with, before the poorer class could well touch it ; which would cause 
 them (who had brought little or nothing with them) to fare very 
 scantily. And as this (which is to be understood of the agapa pre- 
 ceding the Lord's-supper) was not an ordinary meal, it was a viola- 
 tion o{ propriety as well as of Christian charity so to act; for though 
 each brought his own supper, yet when it had been thrown into the 
 common stock, it ceased to be his own. Thus the plenty of some 
 shamed the wants of others ; which occasioned heart-burnings, and so 
 defeated the very end of the solemnity." — Bloomfield. 
 
88 
 
 SCHISM, THE BREACH OF 
 
 Sympathy would have taught them to unite their 
 means in a common Agapa, or feast of love; but 
 those who had abundance not only indulged to ex- 
 cess, they shamefully forgot their poorer brethren 
 who had nothing, and thus made them feel the 
 smart of their poverty — and this was schism. The 
 state of things which is here described, then, is charac- 
 terised hi/ the absence of Christian sympathy and love, 
 and this the apostle condemns as a state of schism. 
 
 In the third and last passage in which the word 
 schism occurs, the object of the apostle appears to 
 be to sum up and enforce all that he had previously 
 written on its nature and evils. " God hath tem- 
 pered the body together, having given more abun- 
 dant honour to that part which lacked; that there 
 should be no schism in the body; but that the members 
 should have the same care one for another. And 
 whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with 
 it ; or one member he honoured, all the members rejoice 
 with it."* In the beautiful apologue of which this 
 passage is the conclusion, the corporeal system is 
 contemplated as a whole composed of many parts; 
 each of these parts is supposed to be endowed with 
 individual life and separate intelligence ; but it is 
 implied that all of them are intended to be united, 
 by a sense of dependence and a sentiment of affection, 
 common to the whole ; and it is the absence of this 
 sympathetic bond which is represented as the " schism 
 
 t * 1 Cor. xii. 24—26. 
 
THE UNION OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 89 
 
 in the body." The application is obvious and inevit- 
 able. The Christian Church — composed of many 
 members — is the body of Christ ; each of these mem- 
 bers, though possessing a distinct and separate con- 
 sciousness, is vitally related to the whole; and, in 
 order to the completeness and well-being of the 
 whole, it is intended that " the members should have 
 the same care one for another. And whether one 
 member suffer all the members suffer with it, or one 
 member be honoured, all the members rejoice with 
 it." Now, if such be the united action and the 
 reciprocal sympathy of the members of the Christian 
 Church, in the absence of schism — the icant, or the 
 violation, of that mutual care and sympathy is the evil 
 thing which the apostle denominates schism. 
 
 In further corroboration of this position, we might 
 advert, were it necessary, to the inimitable eulogy on 
 Christian charity which immediately follows in the 
 thirteenth chapter. Having described the malady 
 with which the Corinthian church was afflicted, he 
 here proceeds to prescribe for it. For a church in 
 the last stage of schism, love is the only and the 
 infallible remedy. And as the nature of a disease 
 may be inferred from the character of the remedy, 
 schism must be regarded as directly opposed to the 
 love of the brethren. 
 
 Having now considered the only places in Scrip- 
 ture in which the term schism is employed in reference 
 to the Church, we find ourselves brought to the foUow- 
 
 i3 
 
90 
 
 SCHISM, THE BREACH OF 
 
 ing general conclusion — a conclusion replete with in- 
 terest and important instruction for every Christian 
 and Christian church in Christendom — that an exclu- 
 sive, factious, and uncharitable spirit, wherever, and in 
 combination with whatever, it may exist, is essential 
 schism. The writer is aware, that as the term is 
 ecclesiastically employed in Scripture in reference to 
 the state of things, in a particular church alone, it has 
 been contended that it cannot be strictly applied to 
 the act of separation from a church, or to the state of 
 things existing between churches already distinct. 
 
 But, first, as the term is employed in Scripture, in 
 its literal signification, to denote not merely a 
 division hi a thing, but also a total separation of its 
 parts :* secondly, as separation fi'om a church, when 
 occasioned by schism in it, is but the same principle 
 extended in its application, and producing its appro- 
 priate effects : and, thirdly, as even the writers in 
 question consent on this latter account to carry the 
 term from strifes and factions in a church to their 
 natural results in actual and visible separation, we 
 feel ourselves warranted in laying it down as an 
 incontrovertible position, that an exclusive, factious, 
 and uncharitable spirit, wherever it exists, is essential 
 
 * Thrice in relation to the veil of the temple, Matt, xxvii. 51, 
 "the veil of the temple was rent in twain;" taxioQi) tis ovo utto 
 avu}Otv twQ KUTiu. Mark xv. 38. idem. Luke xxiii. 45., fiiaov, 
 " in the midst." And once in relation to the garment of Jesus, John 
 six. 24, " they said, Let us not rend it," (/iii (tyictw/^si',) where the 
 rending avoided was a division into four distinct parts. 
 
THE UNION OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 91 
 
 schism. Indeed, if schism consist, as we have seen, 
 in the violation of that brotherly love which should 
 unite all Christians in one, this is the only conclu- 
 sion at which we can arrive. 
 
 Now from this general proposition it follows, first, 
 that the schismatic principle may exist in only one 
 member of a Christian church. It is, indeed, com- 
 monly found to distinguish a faction ; but this is 
 simply because it does not begin to attract notice 
 until it has enlisted a party, and has made itself 
 heard in its party clamours, and felt in its party 
 measures. But how many of the divisions which 
 have rent the Christian Church can be traced up to 
 the unhallowed temper or overbearing conduct of a 
 single member ! How probable is it that the schisms 
 in the church at Corinth thus originated ; for even 
 when the apostle addressed it, his admonition to 
 " mark them that cause offences," indicated that the 
 chief agents of the evil were a few well-known indi- 
 viduals. And how directly should this reflection 
 lead the active and influential Christian to examine 
 whether or not his activity tends to unite or to 
 separate. He may not be one of a party, he may be 
 a party himself. 
 
 Second : a church may be professedly and exter- 
 nally united, and yet it may be filled with schism. 
 The Christians at Corinth assembled together in one 
 place— believed substantially the same doctrines — 
 and, to all outward appearance, maintained the unity 
 
 8 
 
92 
 
 SCHISM, THE BREACH OF 
 
 of a church, and yet, at that very time, they were 
 completely pervaded with a spirit of schism. " Every 
 one of you saith," writes the apostle, " I am of Paul," 
 &c. ; the disease was epidemic ; and not one had en- 
 tirely escaped the infection. 
 
 Third : a church may be not only externally one, 
 but really one in doctrine and discipline, and yet be 
 schismatic. The schism in the church at Corinth 
 did not consist in the separation and departure of any 
 of its members to form a distinct society; for the 
 very time when their schisms were most apparent was 
 when they had " come together into one place to eat 
 the Lord's-supper." Nor did their schisms consist in 
 offering resistance to any of the officers or authorities 
 divinely appointed in the church ; on the contrary, 
 they were disposed rather to multiply authorities in 
 the persons of Paul, ApoUos, and Cephas ; and to be 
 proud of their various endowments, and of the dis- 
 tinct offices to which they pointed. Nor did their 
 schisms consist in any departures from the faith, or in 
 any changes of the constitution of the Christian 
 Church; for however erroneous the view they enter- 
 tained of what was necessary to the right celebration 
 of the Lord's-supper, it was not that erroneous view 
 itself which the apostle denominated schism, but its 
 practical results. The sin consisted in those unchris- 
 tian tempers, acrimonious disputes, and factious com- 
 binations, which disturbed the peace, and destroyed 
 the sympathetic unity of the Church. 
 
THE UNION OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 Fourth: schism may exist in the same church, or 
 among the same Christians, in very dilFerent degrees. 
 This is especially the case when a rupture in a 
 church is made visible and permanent by actual de- 
 parture and separate communion from it. " If the 
 Corinthians are charged with schism, on account of 
 that spirit of contention, and that alienation of their 
 affections from each other, which merely tended to an 
 open rupture, how much more would they have in- 
 curred that censure had they actually proceeded to 
 
 that extremity ? Though it may be applied to such 
 
 a state of contention as consists with the preservation 
 of external union, it is most eminently applicable to 
 a society whose bond of union is dissolved, and where 
 one part rejects the other from its fellowship. If 
 there is any meaning in terms, this is schism in its 
 highest sense."* 
 
 Fifth : in the event of a separation, the question as 
 to whether the guilt of schism attaches to the party 
 leaving, or to the party left, is of course to be decided 
 only by the spirit ^and conduct of the respective par- 
 ties.f The fact of their separation merely determines 
 the relative position in which they are now standing 
 to each other; the guilt of that fact is to be looked 
 
 * Robert Hall, on Christian, in opposition to Party Communion, 
 t When an overflowing Christian Society colonises, or erects a 
 second place, by common consent, for the reception and accom- 
 modation of its surplus members, this is not separation, but diffusion 
 — both are still one in love and in Christ. 
 
94 SCHISM, THE BREACH OF 
 
 for in the unscriptural causes which have produced 
 the division and placed them in that position ; and in 
 whichever party we find these causes, there we have 
 detected, and are warranted to charge, the sin of 
 schism. 
 
 Whence it follows, 1, That where persons have been 
 separated and cut off from a church, the charge of 
 schism may lie, not against the church which has ex- 
 communicated them, but against themselves. The 
 church may have cut them off as the only method 
 of saving itself from being overrun and destroyed by 
 the spirit of schism; just as the amputation of a limb 
 may be the only method of preventing the entire dis- 
 solution of the natural body. In casting them out of 
 its bosom, the church may be only exercising that 
 power of Christian discipline with which it is in- 
 trusted by its Divine Head for the preservation of its 
 purity and peace ; and for the actual employment of 
 which, when necessary, he holds it responsible. And 
 when performing their excision, so far from exhibiting 
 a want of charity, it may feel as if it were cutting off 
 a right hand, or plucking out a right eye ; and may 
 do it " even weeping." 
 
 Or, 2, Where separation from a church has taken 
 place, the charge of schism may lie, not against 
 the persons who secede, but against the church whose 
 communion they have left. That circumstances may 
 arise, not only justifying secession, but making it a 
 sacred duty, is evident from such commands of Scrip- 
 
THE UNION OF THE CHURCH. 95 
 
 ture as the following : — " If any one teach hetero- 
 doxies from such withdraw thyself."* " With- 
 draw yourselves from every brother that walketh dis- 
 orderly, and not after the tradition which he received 
 of us."f " Come out of her, my people, that ye be 
 not partakers of her sins.":f Obedience to the will of 
 Christ, then, may render separation from a church an 
 imperative obligation. For instance, when the church 
 at Pergamos had received the apocalyptic warning to 
 repent on peril of Divine displeasure, had fifty of its 
 members trembled and determined, in the strength 
 of God, to obey — and had they respectfully applied 
 to the great body of that church, representing their 
 strong desire to reifiain in communion with it, and 
 their consequent anxiety to see it cleansed from " the 
 doctrine of Balaam," and from " the doctrine of the 
 Nicolaitanes," in order that they might be able consci- 
 entiously to continue in its bosom — and had the great 
 majority of that church, not only refused to listen 
 both to the voice of the Divine warning and of the 
 Christian remonstrance and entreaty, but had it even 
 proceeded to draw up a creed or prescript in which 
 the very doctrines objected to (those of Balaam and 
 Nicolaitanes) were embodied, stamped with assumed 
 infallibility, and made necessaiy articles of faith — and 
 had the fifty then mournfully and peaceably with- 
 drawn from a church which had first misled and after- 
 wards oppressed them — which of the two parties would 
 
 * 1 Tim. vi. 3—5. f 2 Thess. iii. 6. I Rev. xviii. 4. 
 
96 SCHISM, THE BREACH OF 
 
 have been chargeable with the guilt of schism ? To 
 wait for a reply is unnecessary. 
 
 Accordingly, in meeting the charge of schism, 
 which the church of Rome brings against that of 
 England, the ablest advocates of the latter occupy 
 precisely this ground. " For when," says the ever- 
 memorable Hales, " either false or uncertain conclu- 
 sions are obtruded for truth, and acts, either unlawful 
 or ministering just scruple, are required of us to 
 be performed, in these cases, consent were conspiracy, 
 and open contestation is not faction or schism, but 
 
 due Christian animosity." " For where cause of 
 
 schism is necessary, there, not he that separates, but 
 he that is the cause of separation, is the schismatic."* 
 The learned Barrow, in his " Treatise of the Pope's 
 Supremacy," has a chapter f enumerating the reasons 
 which justify separation from the church of Rome. 
 He shows, that to withdraw from communion with 
 churches " in case of their maintaining errors, or of 
 their disorderly behaviour, is a practice approved of 
 by Great and General Synods, as also by divers 
 popes;" and quotes with approbation the language of 
 St. Jerome, retorting on John, Bishop of Jerusalem, 
 his ecclesiastical superior, the charge of schism — 
 " Who makes a schism in the church ? we, whose 
 whole house in Bethlehem communicate with the 
 church: or thou, who either believest aright, and 
 proudly concealest the truth, or art of a wrong belief, 
 
 * Tract concerning Schism, &c. 
 
 t Chap. vii. 
 
THE UNION OF THE CHURCH. 97 
 
 and really makest a breach in the Church? Art 
 thou alone the Church ? and is he who ofFendeth thee 
 excluded from Christ?" "Men would do well to 
 consider," says Bishop Taylor in his Liberty of 
 Prophesying,* " whether or no such proceedings do 
 not derive the guilt of schism upon them who least 
 think it ; and whether of the two is the schismatic, he 
 that makes unnecessary and (supposing the state of 
 things) inconvenient impositions, or he that disobeys 
 them because he cannot, without doing violence to 
 his conscience, believe them : he that parts com- 
 munion because without sin he could not entertain it, 
 or they that have made it necessary for him to 
 separate by requiring such conditions which to man 
 are simply necessary, and to his particular are either 
 sinful or impossible." And, saith Chillingworth, in 
 addressing the Romanists, " The Protestants were 
 not fugitivi but fugati they were, by you neces- 
 
 sitated and constrained to separate, because you will 
 not suffer them to do well with you, unless they would 
 do ill with you." They cannot communicate with 
 you, " not so much because you maintain errors and 
 corruptions, but because you impose them, and have 
 so ordered your communion, that either we must 
 communicate with you in these things, or nothing." 
 They could not profess what they believed to be false, 
 nor comply with what they considered superstitious ; 
 this would have been a violation of conscience, and 
 
 * Section xxii. 
 K 
 
98 SCHISM, THE BREACH OF 
 
 treason against its Lord ; their withdrawment, there- 
 fore, was an act of self-preservation, rendered una- 
 voidable by the highest necessity. Consequently, the 
 blame of separation attached, not to them, but to 
 those whose spirit of imposition had made so painful 
 a measure necessary. This is the great principle on 
 which the conduct of the Reformers in seceding from 
 the Romish church admits of the amplest vindication. 
 
 Or, 3, The separatists may not only be free from 
 the charge of schism, but they may have separated 
 chiefly to avoid schism. The great sect of the Dona- 
 tists maintained that their own church was the only 
 true, uncorrupted, universal church — separated them- 
 selves from the communion of all other parts of the 
 Church — required of a candidate, as a necessary con- 
 dition of communion, that he should renounce com- 
 munion with all other churches — pronounced the 
 administration of the ordinance of the Lord's-supper, 
 out of their own communion, null and void — and 
 re-baptised those who joined them from other 
 churches, and re-ordained their ministers ; — " a con- 
 dition," says Chillingworth, "both unnecessary and 
 unlawful to be required, and therefore the exacting of 
 it was directly opposite to the Church's Catholicism ; 
 in the very same nature with their errors who required 
 circumcision .... as necessary to salvation. For who- 
 soever requires harder or heavier conditions of men 
 than God requires of them, he it is that is properly 
 an enemy of the Church's universality, by hindering 
 
THE UNION OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 99 
 
 either men or countries from joining themselves to it. 
 
 And seeing the present church of 
 
 Rome persuades men they were as good 
 
 not to be Christians, as not to be Roman Catholics ; 
 believe nothing at all, as not to believe all she im- 
 poses on them ; be absolutely out of the Church's 
 communion, as be out of her communion, or be in any 
 other: whether she be not guilty of the same crime 
 with the Donatists, and those zealots of the Mosaical 
 law, I leave it to the judgment of those who understand 
 reason." Now, it is easy to conceive of a member or 
 members separating from an exclusive and intolerant 
 community, like that of the Donatists, not only with- 
 out justly incurring the charge of schism, but ex- 
 pressly to avoid it. " We must be separatists," they 
 might have said, " because we cannot be sectarian. 
 Were we schismatical we would remain Donatists, 
 but as we are catholic we leave them. We love the 
 Church of Christ so much, that we cannot continue 
 in the church of Donatus. We think so much of 
 union, that we are content to sacrifice uniformity in 
 subordinate matters for the sake of obtaining it." By 
 thus emerging from their sectarian enclosure, would 
 they not have been leaving schism behind them? 
 And by thus taking the whole Church to their heart, 
 would they not have been setting a noble example 
 of universal love, and hastening the day when, in 
 answer to the prayer of Christ for his followers, they 
 all shall be one ? 
 
100 
 
 SCHISM, THE BREACH OF 
 
 Or, 4, Although the first separatists from a church 
 may have been schismatical, those who continue the 
 separation may not be so. " They who alter, with- 
 out necessary cause, the present government of any 
 state, civil or ecclesiastical, do commit a great fault ; 
 yet they may be innocent who continue this alteration 
 
 when continuance of time hath once settled 
 
 it." * Tliey may perpetuate it conscientiously and 
 amicably, so as to endear themselves to the commu- 
 nity left, and to identify themselves with the universal 
 Church. 
 
 Whence it follows, as well as from the general pro- 
 position which has led to these inferences, that the 
 removal of denominational distinctions, or the absorp- 
 tion of all sects by one, is by no means necessary to 
 extinguish schism. " We see that in many things, and 
 they of great concernment, men allow to themselves 
 and to each other a liberty of disagreeing, and no 
 hurt neither. And certainly if diversity of opinions 
 were of itself the cause of mischiefs, it would be so 
 ever, that is, regularly and universally, (but that we 
 see it is not :) for there are disputes in Christendom 
 concerning matters of greater concernment than most 
 of those opinions that distinguish sects and make fac- 
 tions; and yet because men are permitted to differ 
 in those great matters, such evils are not conse- 
 quent to such differences as are to the uncharitable 
 managing of smaller and more inconsiderable ques- 
 
 * Chillingworth, chap. v. 4. 
 
THE UNION OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 101 
 
 tions It is not the differing of opinions 
 
 that is the cause of the present ruptures, but want of 
 charity; it is not the variety of understandings, but 
 the disunion of wills and affections ; it is not the 
 several principles, but the several ends, that cause 
 our miseries. Our opinions commence and are up- 
 held according as our turns are served and our inte- 
 rests are preserved, and there is no cure for us but 
 piety and charity."* Let Judah cease to vex Ephraim, 
 and Ephraim cease to envy Judah ; they might still 
 exist distinct as tribes, for they would be one as bre- 
 thren. Calvinist and Arminian, Presbyterian and 
 Methodist, Episcopalian, Baptist, and Independent, 
 are specific names, innocent in themselves ; only let 
 love subordinate them to the generic name of Chris- 
 tian, and it will be seen that variety of sect is per- 
 fectly compatible with the unity of the Church. 
 
 * Taylor's Liberty of Prophesying. 
 
 K 3 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 CAUSES OF SCHISM ; ESPECIALLY THOSE WHICH EXISTED 
 FROM APOSTOLIC TIMES TO THE PERIOD OF THE REFORM- 
 ATION. 
 
 In attempting to investigate the causes of schism, we 
 have to turn to those dark pages of ecclesiastical 
 history from which the sceptic derives his strongest 
 objection to Christianity, and which contain, accord- 
 ing to his representations, the substance of its annals. 
 Having gratuitously asserted, and ostentatiously dis- 
 played, the mild and tolerant nature of ancient poly- 
 theism, he places it in invidious contrast with the 
 contentions and persecutions which from age to age 
 have stained the Christian name ; and then proclaims, 
 as by sound of trumpet, the superior spirit of the 
 former, and denounces the latter as a convicted cri- 
 minal and a curse. Now, as this is the chief, if not 
 the only point of superiority to the Gospel which the 
 advocates of ancient heathenism claim for it — as the 
 impression of its truth, by incessant repetition is so 
 
CAUSES OF SCHISM. 103 
 
 general that even a Bacon* is found unguardedly 
 stating, that " the quarrels and divisions about reli- 
 gion were evils unknown to the heathen" — and as 
 the supposed tendency of the Gospel to produce dis- 
 sensions has created, perhaps, stronger prejudices 
 against it than all the other cavils of infidelity com- 
 bined, it seems not only proper but necessary that a 
 chapter which might otherwise tend to nourish this 
 prejudice, should be introduced by a few warning and 
 corrective remarks. 
 
 The following series of hints might easily be illus- 
 trated from history, and enlarged to any extent. 
 
 1. Even allowing that the theory of the tolerant 
 spirit of ancient heathenism had ever been carried 
 into practice, it could not have been accounted a 
 virtue. For if polytheism allowed the unlimited 
 reception of new divinities, the admission of an addi- 
 tional god to the Olympian conclave, was not the 
 tolerance of a new religion, but only a step towards 
 the completion of that which already existed. Nor 
 was there any more ground for praise in such admis- 
 sion, than there is in the church of Rome on the 
 canonisation of a saint, or in the act of an officer who 
 registers a baptism or a birth. 
 
 •2. But the plausible theory of the tolerant spirit 
 of Paganism is never known to have been realised 
 in practice. The Athenians allowed no altera- 
 tion whatever in the religion of their ancestors; 
 
 * Essay on Unity of Religion. 
 
104 
 
 CAUSES OF SCHISM. 
 
 and the lives of -^schylus, Anaxagoras, Diagoras, 
 Protagoras, Prodicus, Socrates, and Alcibiades, de- 
 cided that innovation in religion was death. The 
 holy or sacred wars among the Grecian states ; 
 the sanguinary contests between the respective 
 votaries of the different gods of Egypt;* and the 
 cruel extermination of the disciples of every other 
 religion except that of Zoroaster, in Persia, con- 
 spire to prove that bigotry is peculiar to no clime, 
 but is indigenous to our nature. As to the vaunted 
 toleration of the Roman government, we learn from 
 Livy,f that about 430 years before Christ, orders 
 were given to the iEdiles to see that "none except 
 Roman gods were worshipped, nor in any other than 
 the established forms." Mecaenas earnestly ex- 
 horted Augustus to " hate and punish" all foreign 
 religions, and to compel all men to conform to the 
 national worship : and Augustus and his successors 
 literally followed his counsel. Tiberius prohibited 
 the Egyptian worship; banished the Jews from 
 Rome ; and restrained the worship of the Druids in 
 Gaul. Domitian and Vespasian banished the phi- 
 losophers from Rome, some of whom were confined 
 in the islands, and others put to death. From all 
 of which it would appear that intolerance was an 
 original law of Rome — that this law was never re- 
 
 • Juvenal, Sat. xv. 
 
 t B. iv. c. 30. See also i. xxxix. c. xvi. Cicero de Legibm c. ii. 
 8. Valerius Maximus b. i. c. 3. Dio Cassius, p. 490 — 2. 
 
CAUSES OF SCHISM. 
 
 105 
 
 pealed — and that, from time to time, it was let loose 
 on the professors of other religions with terrible effect. 
 While the history of France during the revolution 
 proclaims, that hot as were the fires of persecution 
 which Polytheism often kindled, Atheism has a 
 furnace capable of being " heated seven times hot- 
 ter" — that intolerance is inherent in our fallen 
 nature. 
 
 3. Not only did persecution exist prior to the intro- 
 duction of Christianity, it employed its utmost power 
 for the extinction of the Gospel. " The dragon 
 stood ... to devour the child as soon as it was born." 
 The infant Church was cradled in suffering. Its 
 champions were covered with the scars of conflict. 
 Its members dated from their persecutions. All the 
 instruments of suffering were prepared — all the ap- 
 paratus of torture and death were brought out and 
 arrayed in its path to arrest its progress. Philosophy, 
 descending from that contempt with which she had 
 professed to view the early steps of the Gospel, joined 
 hands with the pagan priesthood, and conferred on 
 the Church the unintentional honour of distinguishing 
 it from all other " superstitions" by the superior 
 activity of its deadly hate. Armed with the sword of 
 the civil power, and mai'ching under its banners, 300 
 years were spent in labouring to crush the Christian 
 Church. Yet, during all these ages of persecution, 
 it does not appear that the emperors had occasion to 
 enact any new penal laws. So amply was the 
 
106 
 
 CAUSES OF SCHISM. 
 
 ancient armoury of the Roman code stored with 
 the weapons of persecution, that they had only to 
 select and wield them at pleasure. Nor should it be 
 forgotten that the bad pre-eminence of raising per- 
 secution from a law to a science, was reserved for 
 a pagan. Julian it was who first taught the theory of 
 persecution, and made it a branch of practical philo- 
 sophy. 
 
 4. If Christianity has practised persecution, she 
 learned the dreadful art from her own personal suffer- 
 ings at the hands of her pagan tormentors. Long 
 instructed in the maxims of intolerance, and accus- 
 tomed to the spectacle of persecution, it was hardly 
 possible that Christians should suddenly forget the 
 lessons of their pagan oppressors; or support with 
 perfect equanimity the transition they experienced 
 from being the ofFscouring of all things to become the 
 lords of the world. But, to the honour of the Chris- 
 tian name be it remembered, that universal toleration 
 was first taught, even at the time of that transition, 
 and taught by one professedly Christian. Constan- 
 tine, in his Edict of Milan — whatever his motives, 
 and however inconsistent his subsequent conduct — 
 proclaimed universal toleration ; protecting all, pagan 
 as well as Christian, worship ; " that they who erred 
 might enjoy the blessing of peace and quietness 
 equally with the faithful."* 
 
 5. But the greatest waste of human life has been 
 
 * Apud. Euseb. de Vita Constant. 
 
CAUSES OF SCHISM. 
 
 107 
 
 occasioned, not by religion, true or false, but by causes 
 purely political. The wars of political society, says 
 Burke, " have slaughtered upwards of seventy times 
 the number of souls this day on the globe." So that 
 if the quarrels and bloodshed occasioned by a nominal 
 Christianity is to be employed as an argument against 
 the Gospel, the greater evils arising from civil society, 
 supply a still stronger argument for returning to a 
 state of savage nature.* 
 
 6. Many of the contentions, wars, and massacres, 
 professedly religious, have, in their origin, been really 
 and simply political. Thus the Crusades themselves, 
 or, as they were called, to answer a purpose, the 
 Holy Wars, unquestionably originated not in any 
 reverence for the land they wasted, but in the rapa- 
 city and ambition of two of the most turbulent popes 
 who ever filled the pontifical throne. And in the 
 same way, the wars of the League, commonly as^ 
 cribed to a religious origin, took their rise in the per- 
 sonal resentments and ambitious projects of the 
 leaders of factions, and the princes of the blood. Po- 
 litical causes having drawn the sword, a corrupt reli- 
 gion was only employed to poison its edge, that the 
 wound inflicted might be the more difficult to heal. 
 
 7. All those persecutions and wars which have pro- 
 fessedly originated in religious motives, have been 
 undertaken in direct opposition to the spirit of the 
 
 * See that admirable piece of irony by Burlte, " A Vindication of 
 Natural Society." 
 
108 
 
 CAUSES OF SCHISM. 
 
 Gospel, and are denounced by it. Popery may have 
 been to blame — human nature may have been to 
 blame — (for every man has more or less of the priest 
 in his heart, as far as that term is associated with the 
 idea of bigotr)-,) but the Gospel never. So far from 
 this, it proclaims "peace on earth and good-will to- 
 wards men." To every individual who would draw 
 a material sword in its defence, its language is, 
 " Put up thy sword again into its place." And 
 if the sword be not quickly sheathed, it flies from 
 the place as from an uncongenial element : so that in 
 every scene of intolerance, the presence of the Gospel 
 has always been felt like a burden and a restraint ; 
 nor was it till men had succeeded in forgetting 
 or defying it, that persecution felt itself at full liberty 
 to kindle its fires, and indulge its hate. And often, 
 alas, at such times, the Bible itself has been the first 
 martyr cast into the flames. 
 
 8. In proportion as the Gospel triumphs, persecu- 
 tions cease, and a spirit of forbearance and charity 
 succeeds. To take the character of Christianity from 
 its corrupted form in the middle ages, is as inconsist- 
 ent as to judge of the mountain stream of the Jordan 
 from an analysis of the bituminous waters of the 
 Dead Sea in which they are lost. To judge of them 
 fairly, they should be traced to their fountain, and 
 examined in their purity. If ever benevolence was 
 made visible in human form, it was in the person of 
 the Divine Founder of Christianity. And the cha- 
 
CAUSES OF SCHISM. 
 
 109 
 
 racter of Christ, is the character of his dispensation. 
 Within the wide limits of his dominions he allows no 
 blood to be seen, but that of his own atoning sacrifice 
 — no sword to be wielded, but that weapon of ethereal 
 temper, the sword of the Spirit, whose strokes alight 
 only on the conscience, and whose edge is anointed 
 with a balm to heal every wound it may inflict. If 
 one of his professed subjects offend, the loyal and 
 obedient are only empowered to rebuke the offender, 
 and to refuse him their society. Accordingly, ex- 
 communication was the earliest, and for ages the 
 only, weapon the Church employed. " We ought," 
 says Chrysostom, * "to reprove and condemn im- 
 pieties and heretical doctrines, but to spare the men, 
 and to pray for their salvation." Though burning 
 with zeal against erroneous opinions, the apostolical 
 fathers, like the apostles themselves, neither author- 
 ised nor hinted any severity on the persoiis of those 
 opposed to them. And now again, after having been 
 overlaid for ages by the accumulated errors and op- 
 pressions of the world, the spirit of the Gospel is rising 
 and shaking the mountain-weight from its breast, and 
 resuming its celestial character. Unlike the Jordan, 
 it is not only pure in its fountain, but is gradually 
 purifying the element of corruption which had neu- 
 tralised and absorbed it. Like the waters of pro- 
 phetic vision — its own appropriate type — it is "going 
 
 * Serm. de Anathemate. 
 L 
 
110 
 
 CAUSES OF SCHISM. 
 
 down into the desert and into the sea to heal the 
 waters. And it shall come to pass that the waters 
 shall be healed, and every thing shall live whither the 
 river comes." Wherever it appears, the spectre of 
 intolerance shrinks and retires from its presence, 
 while the Divine principle of charity lifts up its head 
 and feels re-assured. The splendid hope which some 
 entertain, that Christianity will ultknately unite the 
 whole Church in every article of faith and practice, 
 in inward sentiment as well as outward form, is only, 
 it is to be feared, a visionary prospect; though the 
 fact that the Gospel should have awakened such an 
 expectation, proclaims aloud its conciliator)' spirit. 
 There is, however, a union which its subjects pray 
 for, and its promises secure, a union of affection, 
 which, "linking heart to heart, shall leave the judg- 
 ment free, and out of the varying tones of many 
 minds shall form one harmonious whole." 
 
 Having thus endeavoured to arm the general 
 ^reader against one of the most effective weapons of 
 infidelity, we are prepared to look, without shrinking, 
 at the worst dissensions and evils which have stained 
 the history of the Christian Church ; for we feel 
 assured, that if he has not piety to weep over those 
 evils, his common sense will at least distinguish be- 
 tween them and that Gospel which denounces them, 
 and which is their only cure. 
 
 Bellarmine enumerates twenty-six various schisms 
 prior to 1450. And "all schisms," says Hale, "have 
 9 
 
CAUSES OF SCHISM. 
 
 Ill 
 
 crept into the Church by one of these three ways, 
 either upon matter of fact, or upon matter of opinion, 
 or on point of ambition." As our present inquiry 
 relates, however, not so much to the kinds of schism, 
 as to the sources whence it proceeds, we propose 
 to show that it has originated mostly in the opiniative 
 self-importance of the members of the Church — in the 
 imposing spirit of its ministers — in the corruption of 
 both combined — and in the arrogance, intolerance, 
 and ambition which one church has exercised towards 
 another. 
 
 To suppose that schism has, in any instance, arisen 
 from a single and unmixed motive, especially where 
 the agents have been many, and their characters 
 various, would argue a very slender acquaintance with 
 the complicated springs of human action. To take it 
 for granted that the motive assigned by the schis- 
 matic party, or its opponents, is the real or the only 
 motive by which it is actuated, would evince a 
 very superficial knowledge of human character. All 
 that we can hope for, in an inquiry like the present, 
 is an approximation to the truth. And, though 
 schism may have sprung from other causes than those 
 we have enumerated, we think it will be found that 
 all the principal dissensions which have rent the 
 Christian Church, have sprung from one or other of 
 the sources we have named. 
 
 I. The first cause we have specified, and which 
 originated the first schism in the Church, is a spirit of 
 
112 
 
 CAUSES OF SCHISM. 
 
 self-importance in its members. Proud of their 
 gifts, wanton in their freedom, and idolising the 
 talents of their respective ministers, the members 
 of the church at Corinth split into factions, dis- 
 regarded the claims and feelings of all who did not 
 belong to their particular party, and exhibited all 
 that self-sufficiency, love of disputation, and con- 
 tumacy, so prominent among the vices of the Greek 
 character. About fifty years after they had received 
 the apostolic rebuke, the same spirit of impatient 
 self-importance led them to the undeserved dismissal 
 of certain of their presbyters, and called forth a 
 friendly remonstrance from Clement, and a deputa- 
 tion from the church at Rome. 
 
 Such was the first "root of bitterness" in the 
 Christian vineyard — the origin of dissension in the 
 Church. It appears to have been the excess of 
 a principle wisely implanted in the human breast for 
 the resistance of oppression, the preservation of inde- 
 pendence, the pursuit of truth, and the encourage- 
 ment of enterprise and improvement. But when 
 let loose in the Church, it degenerates into the 
 true spirit of sectarianism ; is vain, opiniative, and 
 impatient of restraint. Perhaps, no wound has ever 
 been inflicted on the peace of the Church, which this 
 spirit has not inflamed, and tended to render incura- 
 ble. In doctrine, it is speculative, fond of novelty, 
 confident, and prolific of error ; hence arose Eutychi- 
 anism, Photinianism, Sabellianism, and many other 
 
CAUSES OF SCHISM. 
 
 113 
 
 ancient errors, which are only so many names of 
 schism. In discipline, it is impatient of government; 
 looks on the milder graces as weaknesses ; and is not 
 convinced that it is free unless it is refractory and in 
 a state of active resistance. In a time of ecclesiasti- 
 cal peace, it languishes for change, mistakes restless- 
 ness for activity, and is ingenious in discovering 
 grounds for dissatisfaction. When Christians are 
 contending for the faith, it is apt to mistake a love of 
 strife for the love of the truth. When interested in 
 the choice of a minister or bishop, (as in the ancient 
 Church it often was,) it must needs set up its own 
 idol, though peace, and love, and even whole churches, 
 should be the first sacrifices laid on its altar. 
 This is what Cyprian calls Erigere altare contra altare ; 
 and even describes as the fertile cause of all eccle- 
 siastical disorders. And this is what appears to have 
 originated the " grand schism," which, beginning in 
 the rival elections of Urban VI. and Clement VII., 
 divided the Roman church from 1378 to 1417, 
 and contributed more than any other event to hasten 
 the downfall of Papacy. And in times of Reforma- 
 tion, this same pragmatic spirit has often quibbled 
 about trifles, or pushed its demands to extremities, 
 which have made the spirit of improvement itself 
 turn away, and converted a change which might have 
 been a blessing into a curse. Thus, in the third 
 century, the maligned Novatians* — the earliest 
 
 * The Puritans of their day — called Cathari, pure, 
 L 3 
 
114 
 
 CAUSES OF SCHISM. 
 
 ecclesiastical reformers, and the first body of Chris- 
 tians that separated from the general Church — un- 
 happily went the length of refusing to re-admit any, 
 however contrite, who had been once separated from 
 the communion of the Church. And, in the same 
 way, the Donatists in the fourth century — the second 
 body separated from the general Church — who equal- 
 led their adversaries in soundness of doctrine, and 
 surpassed them, both in strictness of discipline and 
 purity of morals — extravagantly required that every 
 member should be re-baptised, and every minister 
 re-ordained, who came over to them from any other 
 church. By which excesses, reformation became 
 proud intolerance, and separation schism. 
 
 II. A second source of disunion in the Church — 
 and the counterpart of the first — is a spirit of imposi- 
 tion in its officers. Truth is one and indivisible ; but 
 the introduction of error is an introduction of an ele- 
 ment of division. Christian love, the product of that 
 truth, is one ; and is meant to place us in harmony 
 with all that receive it ; but to make that which is 
 not essential to salvation essential to Christian com- 
 munion is error, and as such is an element of division 
 in the Christian Church. 
 
 " Men are so in love with their ovm fancies and 
 opinions," says Bishop Taylor, " as to think faith and 
 all Christendom are concerned in their support and 
 maintenance ; and whoever is not so fond, and does 
 not dandle them like themselves, it grows up to a 
 
CAUSES OF SCHISM. 
 
 115 
 
 quarrel, which, because it is in materia theologice, is 
 made a quarrel in religion, and God is entitled to it ; 
 and then if you are once thought an enemy to God, 
 it is our duty to persecute you even to death, we do 
 God good service in it ; when, if we should examine 
 the matter rightly, the question is either in materia 
 non revelati, or minus evidenti, or non necessarid ; either 
 it is not revealed, or not so clearly, but that wise and 
 honest men may be of different minds, or else it is not 
 of the foundation of faith, but a remote superstructure, 
 or else of mere speculation, or, perhaps, when all comes 
 to all, it is a false opinion, or a matter of human inte- 
 rest, that we have so zealously contended for ; for to 
 one of these heads most of the disputes of Christen- 
 dom may be reduced ; so that I believe the present 
 fractions (or the most) are from the same cause 
 which St. Paul observed in the Corinthian schism, 
 * When there are divisions among you, are ye not 
 carnal?' Thence come schisms and parting of 
 communions, and then persecutions, and then wars 
 and rebellion, and then the dissolutions of all friend- 
 ships and societies. All these mischiefs proceed not 
 from this, that all men are not of one mind, for that 
 is neither necessary nor possible, but that every 
 opinion is made an article of faith, every article 
 is a ground of a quarrel, every quarrel makes a 
 faction, every faction is zealous, and all zeal pre- 
 tends for God, and whatsoever is for God cannot be 
 too much. We by this time are come to that pass. 
 
116 
 
 CAUSES OF SCHISM. 
 
 we think we love not God except we hate our bro- 
 ther ; and we have not the virtue of religion, unless 
 we persecute all religions but our own : for luke- 
 warmness is so odious to God and man, that we, 
 proceeding furiously upon these mistakes, by sup- 
 posing we preserve the body, we destroy the soul of 
 religion ; or by being zealous for faith, or, which is 
 all one, for that which we mistake for faith, we are 
 cold in charity, and so lose the reward of both." 
 They who secede in consequence of such impositions 
 may be wrong ; but they who occasion the secession 
 must be wrong. The seceders, if wrong, are so only 
 in the second place ; the first error consisted in sow- 
 ing the seeds of schism. The spirit of which we 
 are now speaking, delighted with the decency of 
 forms, is blind to the indecency of the divisions they 
 create. It originated the second schism of the 
 Church by enforcing the observance of Easter on a 
 particular day. Victor, Bishop of Rome, a.d. 196, 
 arrogantly ordered the Asiatics to conform to the 
 practice of Rome. They temperately, but firmly, 
 resisted the aggression. Irritated at their refusal, 
 he issued an edict of excommunication against all 
 the churches of Asia. This act contained the first 
 germ of papal arrogance; and occasioned a schism 
 between the East and the West which was not 
 healed for one hundred and thirty years. 
 
 Indeed, to the activity of this spirit is to be as- 
 cribed all those rites and human additions, which 
 
CAUSES OF SCHISM. 
 
 117 
 
 went on accumulating age after age, till the Church 
 had become full; till outward religion had become 
 an elaborated ceremonial to which invention itself 
 could add nothing more ; and which only waited till 
 the Council of Trent should pronounce the whole 
 infallible and unalterable, in order to render the 
 imposition complete. And as every addition had 
 sooner or later occasioned dissension, so this crowning 
 act, intended to secure to the whole fabric eternal 
 repose, greatly hastened its downfall by proclaiming 
 aloud the necessity of a Reformation. " Instead of 
 composing differences in religion," says Bishop Bur- 
 net,* "things were so nicely defined that they were 
 made irreconcilable. Abuses for which there had 
 been nothing but custom, and that much questioned, 
 were now made warrantable." 
 
 The Reformers, accustomed to this spirit of im- 
 position in the Romish Church, brought away so 
 much of it with them, though smarting under its 
 effects, that even to this day the leaven continues 
 to work, in different degrees, in almost every Pro- 
 testant church. In the Church of England, it 
 retained so many of the vestments, and enforced so 
 many of the ceremonies of the Romish church, that 
 many left her communion. Hence arose the sect of 
 the Puritans, with the lamentable sequel of their 
 sufferings and exile. In 1662, it issued the Act of 
 Uniformity, requiring the solemn "assent and con- 
 
 * History of the Reformation, Vol. III., Part II., p. 278. 
 
118 
 
 CAUSES OF SCHISM. 
 
 sent" of all her ministers to observances to which 
 many of them objected; the consequence was that 
 two thousand of her ablest sons seceded, and Non- 
 conformity ensued. In the several communities into 
 which Nonconformity has since divided, the same 
 spirit is to be found under qualified forms, sowing dis- 
 cord, and creating new divisions. Here, its favourite 
 instrument is a Test — an instrument which, by incor- 
 porating private opinions and human inventions with 
 the scriptural terms of Christian Communion, pre- 
 vents many from entering, or occasions them dis- 
 quiet and induces them to leave after they have 
 entered. 
 
 The same spirit which stands at the entrance of 
 St. Peter's, with the creed of Pius IV., " anathema- 
 tising all things contrary thereto ;" and which stands 
 at the gate of St. Paul's, requiring subscription to 
 thirty-nine articles and the adoption of a ritual, as 
 the terms of admission ; stands also at the door of 
 many a chapel, requiring the applicant to pronounce 
 the Shibboleth of the party within, before he can be 
 allowed to cross the threshold, or be made free of the 
 sect. It stands at the door of the pulpit, and says to 
 the man whose life has been spent in the " unautho- 
 rised" proclamation of " Christ crucified," and whose 
 crown in heaven is laden with the gems of ministerial 
 success, " Descend, I know you not — my mark is not 
 upon you — make way for one, who, though a stranger 
 to vital piety, and even denying the doctrines of grace, 
 
CAUSES OF SCHISM. 119 
 
 has yet more than atoned for the defect by the ready 
 reception of my peculiar mark." And taking its stand 
 at the table of the Lord, it guards the feast more jea- 
 lously from the uncertificated believer, than from the 
 sealed unbeliever. Nay, in some cases, after the " man 
 of God" has been breaking to the multitude the 
 bread of life from the pulpit, this spirit has met him 
 on his way to the table of the Lord, and forbidden his 
 approach. And thus does it make that sacred spot 
 which should be the rallying point of all the faithful, 
 the point of their repulsion and separation. There, 
 where those who had been divided before should be- 
 come one, it meets those who up to that point had 
 been one, and compels them to separate. At the 
 mouth of that harbour in which the entire Church 
 should ride together at anchor in safety and repose, 
 it has thrown across a bar which none can pass who 
 will not submit to its pilotage and its terms. Happy 
 for the Church — happy for the world, that the power 
 of this spirit terminates on earth : how often else 
 would it have detained the unyielding Christian from 
 his crown, in the chamber of affliction ; or have pre- 
 vented his entrance into heaven, by placing at its 
 portal more than a fictions saint, and requiring more 
 than the " Peter's pence." But he who has the 
 " keys of hades and of death openeth and no man 
 shutteth, and shutteth and no man openeth." 
 
 According to Chillingworth,* "this presumptuous 
 
 * Clhap. iv. 16. 
 
120 
 
 CAUSES OF SCHISM. 
 
 imposing of the senses of men upon the words of 
 God .... and laying them upon men's consciences 
 together under an equal penalty; this vain conceit 
 that we can speak of the things of God better than 
 in the words of God ; this deifying our own interpret- 
 ations, and tyrannous enforcing them upon others .... 
 is, and hath been, the only fountain of all the schisms 
 of the Church, and that which makes them immortal ; 
 the common incendiary of Christendom, and that 
 which tears into pieces, not the coat, but the bowels 
 and members of Christ: Ridente Turca nec dolente 
 JudcBO. Take away these walls of separation, and all 
 will quickly be one. Take away this persecuting, 
 cursing, burning, damning of men for not subscribing 
 to the words of men as the words of God ; require of 
 Christians only to believe Christ, and to call no man 
 master, but him only ; let those leave claiming infal- 
 libility that have no title to it, and let them that in 
 their words disclaim it, disclaim it likewise in their 
 actions." 
 
 III. The third cause of division in the Church 
 which we named, is its departure from scriptural 
 purity and primitive simplicity — in other words, its 
 general corruption. The very first step which the 
 Church took in departure from its Divine original, 
 contained in it the principle of future discord. What- 
 ever that step may have had to recommend it at 
 the time, however long it may have been in pro- 
 ducing its legitimate effects ; the seed was sown, and 
 
CAUSES OF SCHISM. 
 
 121 
 
 the bitter fruit was certain : — in this respect resem- 
 bling that fabled tree of which it is related, that who- 
 ever reposed in its shade, and inhaled its odour, 
 though they lay down as friends, awoke to be enemies. 
 Its earliest consequence would naturally be, to pre- 
 pare the way for a second step, if not even to 
 necessitate it. The effect of these would be to create 
 a distaste for that book which seemed, at least, to 
 rebuke the departure. And when once this feeling 
 came to be indulged — when once expediency carried 
 it over the word of God — the path of corruption 
 would be broad and easy. Alas, how early in the 
 history of the Church this dreadful consummation 
 arrived ! and with what fearful rapidity the materials 
 of corruption were collected and combined ! 
 
 But every part of that prodigious organisation of 
 evil involved the elements of repulsion and dissolu- 
 tion. The " Unity of the Church," indeed, was the 
 theme of loud and constant boast. But it was the 
 union of the contents of a boiling cauldron — kept 
 together by iron force — but restless, heaving, and 
 frequently fermenting over into a fire which instantly 
 consumed them; for whoever left the Church, left 
 to his destruction. Even Popes were, at times, 
 denounced as heretics ; others were excommunicated 
 as rivals. Anathemas were hurled — churches were 
 cut off — and empires laid under ban. Many of the 
 religious fraternities and institutions which sprang 
 up, originated in a vague sense of the want of the 
 
 M 
 
122 
 
 CAUSES OF SCHISM. 
 
 unity and peace proper to a church : but they them- 
 selves soon yielded to the surrounding corruption, 
 and indicated by their decline the eventual decay 
 of the whole system. INIany left, from time to time, 
 chiefly for the sake of leaving schism behind them ; 
 but they were denounced as schismatics, and punished 
 accordingly. The Reformation commenced ; — but 
 the Council of Trent embodied tenets, which till 
 then had been left comparatively free, into a binding 
 and perpetual creed. Protestantism, therefore, came 
 into existence both by right and by compulsion. 
 Those materials of corruption which had, from the 
 first, been creating and necessitating division, now 
 produced their natural results. The Reformation 
 was, principally, a conflict between the elements of 
 schism and the principles of catholic Christian fellow- 
 ship; so that when these had disengaged and de- 
 tached themselves, little more than those remained. 
 The church of Rome ceased to be catholic, and 
 became Roman Catholic — the great schismatic of 
 Christendom, denouncing and consigning to perdition 
 all who do not belong to her communion. 
 
 Well had it been for the cause of truth if all who 
 left the Papal church, had left behind them the whole 
 of its corruptions. Some of them escaped, indeed, 
 much less infected than others — but none of them 
 entirely free. And just in proportion as either of the 
 Reformed churches retained the old leaven, in that 
 exact proportion has it occasioned division, and in- 
 
CAUSES OF SCHISM. 
 
 123 
 
 dulged in the exclusive spirit. " Every plant," said 
 Christ — and he spoke prospectively, as well as in 
 reference to existing evils — "every plant which my 
 heavenly Father hath not planted shall be rooted 
 up." Whether it relate to laxity of discipline, to the 
 multiplication of offices, to the imposition of rites, 
 the assumption of exclusive powers, or the adoption 
 of unscriptural tests, the time will come when the 
 worldly exotic will be rooted up and cast away. No 
 plea of expediency, of custom, of antiquity, or of 
 numbers, will save it from extirpation. In the mean- 
 time, God will not entirely forsake that portion of his 
 vineyard in which it exists, provided other plants of 
 " his right hand planting " are found there also. 
 " Showers of blessing" shall descend there; and 
 often shall it "smell like a field which the Lord 
 hath blessed ;" but far more fragrant and fruitful 
 would it be, were it not for those petty and para- 
 sitical additions which have gradually shaded and 
 overtopped many of its fairest plants. While man, 
 in the meantime, holding in his hand the word of 
 God, and discovering no warrant for them there, 
 shall often inquire, " How came they to be intro- 
 duced ? and why are they suffered to continue ? " 
 and shall either remain to be dissatisfied, or depart to 
 prepare another and a separate enclosure. Thus cor- 
 ruptions multiply divisions ; and charity, if it survive, 
 survives only by retiring, and retires only to mourn. 
 IV. A fourth, and a very fertile source of schism. 
 
124 
 
 CAUSES OF SCHISM. 
 
 is to be found in that spirit of intolerance, and self- 
 willed ambition, which seeks to subordinate all men 
 and all things to itself. Socrates of Constantinople 
 excuses himself for occasionally introducing secular 
 affairs into his ecclesiastical history, by pleading that 
 he did so merely to relieve the reader, who would 
 otherwise be bewildered with the quarrels of rival 
 bishops and churches contending for the supremacy. 
 And yet this was as early as the sixth century. The 
 head of the mighty serpent, indeed, was seen project- 
 ing from its den as early as the second century, when 
 Victor, bishop of Rome, arrogated the power of 
 commanding the East ; and again in the third, when 
 Stephen excommunicated the churches of Asia and 
 Africa for daring to differ from him on the subject 
 of baptism ; but the fangs and the poison were then 
 wanting. As ages elapsed, the huge reptile uncoiled 
 its voluminous folds, emerged farther and farther 
 from its fearful recess, and moved on from object to 
 object, coiling around and drawing all things to itself, 
 till nearly the whole of Europe was either lying 
 complacently in its folds, or imprisoned and crushed 
 in its deadly convolutions, as in the links of fate. But 
 the history of its progress to this fearful result, is 
 the history of the vilest passions, and the most fatal 
 schisms — schisms in which the great sees of Alexan- 
 dria, Constantinople, Antioch, and especially Rome, 
 stand forth in the attitude of fixed and sworn hostility 
 to each other, and to every rival power. 
 
CAUSES OF SCHISM. 
 
 125 
 
 It is of the essence of intolerance that it cannot 
 hear of the existence of a rival, without taking what 
 it conceives to be the most expeditious method, not 
 of reclaiming, but of punishing and destroying him. 
 Hence it was that as soon as ever the material sword 
 came within its reach in the time of Constantine, 
 it seized and wielded the weapon with deadly effect. 
 Controversies, which would otherwise have cooled 
 and evaporated on paper, were thus raised to an 
 adventitious importance, and bequeathed as legiti- 
 mate quarrels to posterity. And sects — the Arian 
 especially — which would otherwise probably have 
 discharged their ardour in words, and then have 
 gradually fallen back into the ranks of the orthodox, 
 were thus engaged to maintain and fortify their 
 hostile position. 
 
 The Inquisition is to be regarded as the true 
 personification of intolerance. All the principles 
 and practices of bigotry which for ages had been 
 accumulating and gathering strength, were collected 
 and organised in that terrible engine of persecution. 
 And with what appalling and wide-wasting effect did 
 the Church work it ! From the moment it was 
 completed, intolerance gave itself up to the fearful 
 office. "Not merely the results of thought, but 
 thinking itself;" not merely heretical opinions, but 
 new opinions of any kind; became the marks of its 
 hatred, and received its deadly bolts. The only way 
 M 3 
 
126 
 
 CAUSES OF SCHISM. 
 
 in which it now evinced attachment to its creed, was 
 by destroying all who questioned it. 
 
 It might have been hoped that the reformers who 
 had themselves been scourged by intolerance from 
 the church of Rome, would have jealously guarded 
 against its intrusion into the new churches. But, 
 alas, the demon possessed them. Love was the first 
 sacrifice immolated on the altar of Truth. Luther, 
 Calvin, Cranmer, and Knox, protected their creeds, 
 as far as they had the power, with temporal penalties. 
 And even some of those who were driven by into- 
 lerance from England to Amei'ica, commenced a 
 persecution against the Quakers no less furious than 
 that from which they themselves had fled. 
 
 Nor does the cause of intolerance languish yet. 
 Though more than ever disowned and reprobated 
 with the tongue, it enjoys the secret countenance, 
 and the tried and faithful services, of a mixed mul- 
 titude in all communions. It can boast of animosities 
 as bitter — dominations as lordly — exactions as op- 
 pressive — calumnies as unfounded — and contentions 
 as furious as ever. It finds as much difficulty as ever 
 in conceiving of salvation out of its own little enclo- 
 sure. It still looks on the reformer who only ventures 
 humbly to suggest, and mildly to plead, as a schis- 
 matic and a foe. It still clings, if not with greater, at 
 least with equal, tenacity to its own little devices and 
 ceremonial additions, as to the great verities and 
 
CAUSES OF SCHISM. 
 
 127 
 
 ordinances of heaven; enforcing them all as of 
 equal authority. It is as unable as ever to perceive 
 the preferableness of leaving the conscience free in 
 non-essential things, as the Lord of conscience has 
 done ; and of thus forbearing to widen a breach which 
 ought never to have existed. Infallibility it repu- 
 diates as a doctrine, yet still gives itself the unwinning 
 airs of that lofty attribute. Penal canons which have 
 long been superannuated, it still retains unrepealed, 
 as the darling memorials of its more palmy days. 
 Not one jot will it abate of its exclusive and jure- 
 divino claims, though the great Head of the Church 
 is evidently and impartially employing and prospering 
 every Christian denomination, not according to its 
 supposed apostolic descent, but its apostolic piety and 
 zeal. Angels rejoice over one sinner that repenteth ; 
 but, in every religious community, the spirit of into- 
 lerance exults more in a proselyte from another 
 church than in a convert from the world. By " the 
 honour of Christ," it still means the interest of its 
 own party; by " Christian charity," the love of that 
 party ; and by " scriptui'al union," the subjugation of 
 Christendom to the cherished peculiarities of that 
 party. 
 
 These are the causes, then, which we regard as 
 having been, in all ages of the Church, most prolific 
 of unchristian divisions. Many of those divisions, 
 indeed, which ecclesiastical writers have consented to 
 
128 
 
 CAUSES OF SCHISM. 
 
 call schisms, have originated in other causes, and 
 should have been called by other names. But where- 
 ever schism has existed — wherever the law of Chris- 
 tian love has been violated — or the peace of the 
 Church disturbed — or those have been separated who 
 ought to have been united — there, one or other of 
 these causes, combined perhaps with many minor 
 influences, is sure to be found present and active. 
 
 Among the many important reflections suggested 
 by this chapter, the following seem almost forced on 
 our attention. 1. That the additions which man has 
 made, from time to time, to the ordinances of God, 
 have been the most fruitful sources of agitation 
 and quarrel. 2. That even these have not led to 
 actual separation, until they have been authoritatively 
 enforced and made indispensable. 3. That neither 
 the one nor the other could have taken place, if the 
 authority of the Bible had been revered and regarded 
 as paramount. 4. That the supreme authority of 
 the Bible waned in the Church just in proportion as 
 unsanctified wealth, and rank, and influence, were 
 allowed to gain the ascendant; till the Church had 
 become a worldly corporation, and the Bible was 
 silenced and virtually expelled. 5. That the admis- 
 sion of irreligious men to place or power in a Christian 
 church, is the admission of so many agents of schism ; 
 and hence it is, partly, that, in the consummation of 
 that kingdom which is never to be rent or moved, all 
 
CAUSES OF SCHISM. 
 
 129 
 
 such are to be excluded. 6. And, that the Christian 
 love which the Gospel breathes, and which is to be 
 found in the faithful alone, is the only balm to heal 
 the wounds with which the Church is bleeding at 
 the hands of schisni. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE MEANS BY WHICH THE DIVISIONS OF THE CHURCH 
 ARE PERPETUATED. 
 
 Owing to the operation of the causes specified in the 
 preceding chapter, the map of Christendom presents 
 to the eye of an observer three grand divisions, each 
 of which is again divided and subdivided into nu- 
 merous parts. In the first grand division are to be 
 found the churches and sects which date prior to the 
 Reformation. Here are the ancient, isolated, and 
 deeply interesting Syrian churches of Malay-ala — the 
 Waldensian church, in the Protestant valleys of Pied- 
 mont — the Greek church, with its cold and childish 
 formalities — the picture-loving and amulet-wearing 
 Russian church — the fasting and ascetic church of 
 Armenia — the semi-Mohammedan Georgian — the 
 incense-loving Coptic — the corrupt, but independent 
 and papal-hating church of Abyssinia — and, lastly, 
 and chiefly, the baptised paganism of the church of 
 Rome. 
 
MEANS PERPETUATING DIVISIONS, &c. 131 
 
 The second division contains the churches and 
 sects commencing with the Reformation. These 
 consist of the German Lutheran church — the distinct 
 churches of Sweden, Denmark, Geneva, the Hel- 
 vetic reformed churches, and the reformed churches 
 of France, the united Church of England and Ireland, 
 and the Church of Scotland. 
 
 And the third, includes those sects and churches 
 which have subsequently arisen out of the Reforma- 
 tion, and which are in existence at the present time. 
 Here — confining our attention to the principal deno- 
 minations existing in Britain — we behold the Con- 
 gregational Independents, the Baptists, the Friends 
 or Quakers, the Presbyterian Dissenters, and the Me- 
 thodists, with more than one respectable and flourish- 
 ing secession. 
 
 Having traced these divisions of the Christian 
 Church to their principal sources in the preceding 
 chapter, we have now to point out the influences 
 which have originated and perpetuated the last class 
 of those divisions ; especially as they exist between 
 the Church of England and the various bodies of sepa- 
 ratists; and which are still, in some respects, widen- 
 ing the separation, as well as occasioning among the 
 separatists new divisions. 
 
 Did our limits permit, we should, for this purpose, 
 present the reader, first, with an account of those spe- 
 cific acts by which new breaches have from time to time 
 been occasioned, or by which existing divisions have 
 
132 
 
 MEANS PERPETUATING THE 
 
 been widened : and then, secondly, we should point 
 out those general causes which led to those acts, and 
 which are still perpetuating and aggravating their 
 consequences. But as our limits require us to 
 choose between the two, we shall select the latter; 
 aiming, however, to supply partially, by historical 
 illustration, the want of the former. 
 
 The same causes which produce divisions, subse- 
 quently operate to prolong them. And hence a 
 spirit of factious self-importance — of arbitrary impo- 
 sition — of consequent corruption — and of arrogant 
 intolerance and ambition, having originated schisms, 
 are still active in promoting their continuance. But 
 following these waters of strife in their tortuous 
 course through the Church, we find that, like other 
 streams, they branch off in various directions, taking, 
 as they proceed, other forms, and new denomina- 
 tions. 
 
 1. The first of these causes in the order of time, if 
 not of rank, is the predominance of secular influence 
 in the internal and spiritual affairs of the Church. This, 
 indeed, was the primary occasion of secession from 
 the English Establishment. Had the Reformation 
 here, as on the Continent, arisen more directly from 
 the bosom of the Church itself— had it been the gra- 
 dual result of investigation, controversy, ecclesiastical 
 zeal, and popular desire, instead of springing almost 
 suddenly as it did, from royal spleen and caprice, 
 there is reason to conclude that it would have re- 
 
DIVISIONS OF THE CHURCH. 133 
 
 tained fewer traces of the church from which it had 
 come. 
 
 " But Henry VIII. took the lead ; power became 
 revolutionary; and hence it happened, at least in its 
 origin, that, as a redress of ecclesiastical abuses, as 
 an emancipation of the human mind, the reform in 
 England was much less complete than upon the Con- 
 tinent. It was made, as might naturally be ex- 
 pected, in accordance with the interests of its au- 
 thors. The king and the episcopacy, which was here 
 continued, divided between themselves the riches 
 and the power of which they despoiled their prede- 
 cessors, the Popes. The effect of this was soon felt. 
 The Reformation, people cried out, had been closed, 
 while the greater part of the abuses, which had in- 
 duced them to desire it, were still continued. 
 
 "The Reformation appeared under a more po- 
 pular form ; it made the same demands of the bishops 
 that had been made of the Holy See ; it accused them 
 of being so many Popes. As often as the general 
 fate of the religious revolution was compromised, 
 whenever a struggle against the ancient church took 
 place, the various portions of the revolution party 
 rallied together, and made common cause against the 
 common enemy ; but this danger over, the struggle 
 again broke out among themselves; the popular form 
 again attacked the aristocratic and royal reform, de- 
 nounced its abuses, complained of its tyranny, called 
 
 N 
 
134 
 
 MEANS PERPETUATING THE 
 
 upon it to make good its promises, and not to usurp 
 itself the power which it had just dethroned."* 
 
 As it was, indeed, it received a national existence 
 somewhat earlier than it otherwise would ; but what 
 it gained in point of time, it lost in purity and in 
 capacity of receiving subsequent improvement. It 
 was modelled too closely after the form of a civil 
 government, not far at that time from despotic, and 
 partook too largely of its lordly spirit. Splendour 
 was considered its royal birthright ; and hence, many 
 of those appendages which ought to have been cast 
 off, and left at the threshold of the ancient church, 
 were unhappily retained. A large body of the Pu- 
 ritans objected to these ; " but, at this moment," 
 writes Bishop Jewel, " the Queen is unable to endure 
 any change whatever in matters of religion." Some 
 of the bishops themselves deprecated them; "but," 
 adds the same authority, '^we are not consulted."! 
 The royal will was paramount, and would not bend ; 
 and a large secession from the Establishment was the 
 result. 
 
 Then was opened a fountain of secularity which 
 has ever since been flowing and operating pre- 
 judicially to the interests of the English Church 
 and of religion. The Crown retaining the eccle- 
 siastical patronage and power which it then asumed, 
 
 • Guizot's History of Civilisation in Europe, 
 t See his Letters to Peter Martyr and BuUinger. 
 
DIVISIONS OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 135 
 
 has continued pouring in a stream of worldli- 
 ness, in a constant succession of worldly minis- 
 ters. And the Establishment, unwilling to relin- 
 quish the temporal distinction and prerogatives with 
 which it was then invested, has continued to feed 
 the worldliness of some of its members, and to grieve 
 the spirit, and impair the usefulness of others. The 
 consequence of which has been, that those without the 
 church have never ceased to object and reproach, and 
 those within have never ceased to rejoin. Besides 
 which, the spirit of division is necessarily engendered 
 and kept alive in her own bosom, between the spi- 
 ritual who love her for her intrinsic excellence, and 
 relative usefulness, and the secular who esteem her 
 principally for her outward attractions and her dowry. 
 In the vocabulary of the latter, "those professed 
 members of the Establishment who affect the title of 
 evangelical .... are schismatics," and their Bible and 
 Missionary Society operations pronounced unautho- 
 rised. For as in the individual Christian, sin is the 
 source of internal dissension, "warring against the 
 law of the mind," so in a Christian church, whether 
 established or not, secularity, in the exact proportion 
 in which it obtains, must necessarily operate as a dis- 
 turbing power. 
 
 II. Divisions, already existing, have been greatly 
 exasperated and increased by the adoption of unscrip- 
 tural tests and terms of communion, for the real or 
 pretended purpose of procuring uniformity. True it 
 
136 
 
 MEANS PERPETUATING THE 
 
 is that all churches must have some terms of commu- 
 nion; but that any society assuming the name of a 
 church, should establish conditions, distinct from those 
 enjoined by Christ and his apostles, is, one would 
 think, sufficiently presumptuous. That these terms 
 should consist, partly, of things which the imposers 
 themselves acknowledge to be " indifferent and insig- 
 nificant," seems to add folly to presumption. But 
 that these insignificant things should be enforced, on 
 men who conscientiously object to them, on pain of 
 temporal ruin, seems to be an act conceived in the 
 spirit of pure intolerance. "To multiply articles," 
 says Bishop Taylor, " and to adopt them into the 
 family of the faith, and to require assent to such ar- 
 ticles . . . .equal to that assent we give to matters of 
 faith, is to build a tower upon the top of a bulrush ; and 
 the further the effect of such proceedings does extend, 
 the worse they are; the very making such a law is 
 unreasonable; the inflicting spiritual censures upon 
 them that cannot do so much violence to their under- 
 standing as to obey, is ineffectual and unjust." " If 
 they be little things only that we add," says the ca- 
 tholic-spirited Howe, "we must know that there is 
 nihil minimum — nothing little in religion. What if, 
 little as they are, many think them sinful, and are 
 thereby thrown off from our communion ! The less 
 they are, the greater the sin to make them necessary, 
 to hang so great things upon them, break the church's 
 peace and unity by them, and of them to make a new 
 
DIVISIONS OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 137 
 
 Gospel, new terms of life and death, a new way to 
 heaven .... It is, in effect, to say. If you will not take 
 Christianity with these additions of ours, you shall not 
 be Christians, you shall have no Christian ordinances^ 
 no Christian worship : we will, as far as in us is, ex- 
 clude you heaven itself, and all means of salvation. 
 And upon the same ground on which they may be 
 excluded one communion by such arbitrary measures, 
 they may be excluded another also, and be received 
 nowhere. And if the terms of these communions 
 differ, they all exclude one another ; and hence, so 
 many churches, so many Christendoms. If this be 
 sinful, it is a sin of the deepest die. And if the holy 
 Scriptures speak with such severity, as we know they 
 do, of the altering of man's landmarks, what may we 
 think of altering God's ! "* 
 
 And yet such was the famous Act of Uniformity, 
 by which, in 1662, the English Church lost two 
 thousand ministers, many of whom ranked among 
 the most pious, useful, and exemplary of her clergy ; 
 the validity of Presbyterian ordination was renounced; 
 the ministrations of the foreign churches were dis- 
 owned; the terms of conformity raised higher than 
 before the civil wars ; and, contrary to the manner of 
 proceeding in the times of Elizabeth and Cromwell — 
 both of whom reserved for the subsistence of each 
 ejected clergyman a fifth of his benefice — no pro- 
 vision was made for those who should be deprived 
 
 * Preface to The Carnality of Religious Contention. 
 N 3 
 
138 MEANS PERPETUATING THE 
 
 of their livings ;* in consequence of which the demon 
 of schism received an accession of seven-fold activity, 
 and an indefinite grant of life. 
 
 But if we suppose the act so sinful, "how far," 
 asks the same impartial Howe, " doth the guilt of 
 it spread ! How few among the several sorts and 
 parties of Christians are innocent, if the measures 
 of their several communions were brought under just 
 and severe examination ! How few that lay their 
 communions open to visible Christians as such, 
 excluding none of whatsoever denomination; nor 
 receiving any that by Christian rational estimate 
 cannot be judged such ! " Yes, how few the churches 
 that have not had the Hydes and the Sheldons of 
 that day among their advisers and their members ! 
 How few that have not even now their own little 
 Acts of Uniformity extant and in operation ! How- 
 large the sect of the intolerant in every church — 
 men to whom history relates all the instances of the 
 wickedness and inutility of persecution in vain — 
 who lay great stress on little things, magnifying 
 trifles into matters of grave importance — who flatter 
 themselves that their creed or test includes aU truth 
 and excludes all error — that their little enclosure, 
 with its wicket entrance, contains and monopolises 
 the Saviour of the world— who would make their 
 conscience the universal rule, and look on every 
 conscience that differs from it as culpably ignorant 
 
 * Mosheim, Vol. v., p. 369. Note. 
 
DIVISIONS OF THE CHURCH. 139 
 
 and even punishably perverse— and whose millennium 
 consists of a state of unexceptionable conformity to 
 their creed. 
 
 Ever let us remember that the Christian Church, 
 in its scriptural state, contains nothing but pure and 
 catholic principles of all-embracing love. The ex- 
 clusive spirit, therefore, is the schismatic spirit; and 
 he who prescribes a term of communion with it 
 of his own devising — however simple in itself, and 
 plausible in its appearance — is putting a price on 
 the bread of life, and throwing a bar across the 
 entrance to a city of refuge ; and they who continue 
 that term, share his responsibility, and are charge- 
 able with perpetuating the schism of intolerance. 
 
 III. The evil in question is maintained also, 
 according to Lord Bacon,* "by an extreme and 
 unlimited detestation of some heresy or corruption 
 of the Church already acknowledged and convicted. 
 
 Men have made it as it were their 
 
 scale, by which to measure the bounds of the 
 most perfect religion — taking it by the farthest dis- 
 tance from the error last condemned." This strong 
 tendency of a divided Church to seek truth in 
 extremes, he afterwards traces in a manner which 
 serves to illustrate the progress of ecclesiastical divi- 
 sions generally. This proneness to embrace the 
 opposite of wrong as necessarily right, is seen in 
 the extreme demand which some of the Puritans 
 
 * Chorcli ControTcrsies. 
 
140 
 
 MEANS PERPETUATING THE 
 
 made for the re-ordination of the clergy from the 
 Papal church ; and in the antagonist position main- 
 tained by the Church of England, that they alone 
 could properly serve at her altars without re-ordination. 
 It led some of the Nonconformists to condemn those 
 of their brethren who practised "occasional con- 
 formity," or communion with the Church of England; 
 and led some of the members of that church to 
 introduce a bill into the House of Commons against 
 " occasional conformity," which utterly incapacitated 
 a man for holding any civil office, unless his com- 
 munion with the Establishment was constant. Thus, 
 many of the adherents of each side, forgetting the 
 great Christian principles which they held in com- 
 mon, degenerated into a faction, which strictly pro- 
 hibited its respective members from intercommunion ; 
 and which thus changed the catholic " communion of 
 saints " into the exclusive communion of partisans. 
 
 And still this factious spirit may be traced, jealous 
 of any communication between the parties, except 
 an interchange of frowns, and looks of defiance. 
 Each side may be conscious of certain defects in its 
 own system, and may perceive certain excellences in 
 the system of the other; but it fears to confess the 
 former, or to admit and adopt the latter, lest it should 
 look like a concession to the superiority of its oppo- 
 nents. It is an ancient maxim of wisdom, that it is 
 right to learn even from an enemy; accordingly, an 
 army no sooner finds that the foe is employing a new 
 
DIVISIONS OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 141 
 
 and an effectual weapon, than it immediately copies 
 and adopts the deadly invention ; but an ecclesiastical 
 faction, heedless of the maxim, and more saturated 
 with hostility than the ranks of war, would regard the 
 adoption of a useful principle or measure by its 
 supposed opponents, as an adequate reason for never 
 introducing it into its own service. Many a Church- 
 man perceives the benefit which would accrue to 
 public devotion, by combining with the liturgy the 
 advantages of free prayer ; and many a Dissenter 
 feels that parts of the liturgy would enhance the 
 advantages of extemporaneous prayer : but the spirit 
 of party forbids the improvement, lest the one should 
 appear to be conceding to the other. Indeed, there 
 is reason to fear, that should either become so far 
 superior to this evil spirit as to adopt the improve- 
 ment, the other would regard it as an additional 
 argument for remaining in statu quo. Thus it is 
 that the advocates of a principle degenerate into the 
 partisans of a faction ; the pretended preference for 
 truth becomes a conflict of prejudices ; and men 
 who should be living together at the equator, have 
 removed from each other to the poles. 
 
 IV. An obstinate attachment to things as they 
 are, is another cause of perpetuating divisions. The 
 blind zeal of innovation, we admit, is equally to be 
 condemned. But the spirit of which we now speak 
 is, not that which deprecates revolution, but which 
 refuses improvement. Had it existed under the 
 
14-2 
 
 MEANS PERPETUATING THE 
 
 patriarchal dispensation, it would fain have prolonged 
 that imperfect economy to the present day. It 
 forgets that immutability belongs alone to infinite 
 perfection; and that gradual change is a condition 
 essential to adaptation and finite progression. It 
 may flow from three causes. Sometimes, it arises 
 probably from a reluctance to surrender any thing 
 which was once held dear by our ancestors. But, 
 however chivalrous, and, to a certain extent laudable, 
 such a feeling may be, we should bear in mind that, 
 by correcting an abuse, we are not questioning their 
 piety, only admitting that they were not perfect ; that 
 the will of God is paramount to every other con- 
 sideration ; and that the best tribute we can pay to 
 departed excellence is to try to improve on it. Some- 
 times, it may spring from a selfish regard to temporal 
 emolument. The makers of shrines for the goddess 
 Diana could little be expected to allow any change 
 in the form or worship of the image, if the sale or the 
 profits of the shrines were to be thereby diminished. 
 As little can those be expected to listen to any plan 
 of ecclesiastical improvement whose highest desires 
 are realised in obtaining a worldly competence from 
 their religious ofilce ; except, indeed, the plan should 
 secure an increase of property and distinction. To 
 all such, the idea of change is closely associated with 
 the idea of loss, poverty, and ruin. And, in other 
 instances, it doubtless originates in pride. The 
 adoption of a proposed change would imply that we 
 
DIVISIONS OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 143 
 
 had been wrong ; that we were not so wise yesterday 
 as we are to-day — a humiliation which our self- 
 importance cannot brook. A spirit of improvement, 
 by marking the signs of the times, taking counsel 
 of wisdom, and correcting obvious defects, would 
 be eminently a spirit of conciliation. By evincing 
 merely a ivillingness to advance, where improvement 
 was necessary, we should be disarming our bitterest 
 foes, and changing the more estimable of our oppo- 
 nents into friends ; we should be rendering that 
 which is good much more efficient; that which is 
 efficient, popular ; and that which is popular, per- 
 manent. But a spirit of blind and bigoted attach- 
 ment to things as they are, by virtually claiming 
 infallibility, proclaims our infatuation ; renders re- 
 conciliation hopeless ; and furnishes those who diflPer 
 from us with a ground of self-justification and 
 triumph. 
 
 V. A fruitful source of the schismatic spirit in 
 the present day, is the wide-spread prevalence of 
 ecclesiastical assumption. The writer is aware that 
 a large class of British Christians look on the political 
 ascendency of the Episcopal Church through its con- 
 nexion with the State, as one of the chief causes of 
 schism. And, no doubt, the exaltation of one part of 
 the Christian community to the necessary depression 
 of the other parts, has inflamed — whether justifiably 
 or not, we stop not here to inquire — the jealousies 
 and animosities of all. But judging from the Chris- 
 
144 
 
 MEANS PERPETUATING THE 
 
 tian amity and co-operation which have existed in 
 many places between Episcopalians and Dissenters, 
 notwithstanding the political ascendency in question ; 
 and remembering how much closer still the bonds 
 of union might be drawn on the removal of certain 
 canonical restrictions; we are led to conclude that 
 both might enjoy the substantial fruits of Christian 
 union, even during the existence of that ascendency. 
 On the other hand, remembering the exclusive 
 spirit of a certain part of the Christian community 
 in America, where no such political ascendency 
 exists, we are compelled to infer that the separation 
 of Church and State would not necessarily heal 
 existing divisions ; but the cause we have just speci- 
 fied — ecclesiastical assumption — might still be nearly 
 as prolific as ever in alienation and strifes. 
 
 Though the reader may unhappily have become 
 familiar with the language and tenets of such assump- 
 tion — so frequently has it of late been employed — 
 though he may be aware that it affirms the Estab- 
 lished Church to be the only true and real church, 
 (the church of Rome excepted ;) declares the 
 ministry of every other communion to be invalid; 
 its sacraments nugatory; and its members con- 
 sequently exposed to perdition — he may not be so 
 familiar with the fact that these air-built claims and 
 unchristian denunciations do not belong to the 
 original constitution of the English Church, but are 
 the subsequent additions of a Protestant Popery. 
 
DIVISIONS OF THE CHURCH. 145 
 
 There is not in her Articles, Homilies, or Liturgy, 
 a single sentence that disfranchises other Protestant 
 churches ; nor is the validity of her sacraments any 
 where traced up to the Episcopal succession. On 
 the contrary, the twenty-third article was wisely 
 framed so as to acknowledge the orders of Christian 
 ministers of all denominations ; for it declares, that 
 " we ought to judge those to be lawfully called and 
 sent into the ministry which are chosen and called 
 to this work by men who have public authority given 
 unto them in the congregation to call and send 
 ministers into the Lord's vineyard." Accordingly, 
 a considerable number of ministers were, in the 
 reigns of Edward "VI. and Queen Elizabeth, em- 
 ployed in the English Establishment, who had only 
 received Presbyterian ordination in Holland or at 
 Geneva. Knox, the Scots Reformer; Whittingham, 
 Dean of Durham; the learned Wright, of Cam- 
 bridge ; Morrison, a Scots divine ; and Travers, 
 chaplain to Secretary Cecil, and lecturer to the 
 Temple, are among the names which first occur to 
 us. " All the churches professing the Gospel," 
 writes Travers to Lord Treasurer Burleigh, " receive 
 likewise to the exercise of the ministry among them, 
 all such as have been lawfully called before in any 
 of the churches of our confession. And in the 
 
 Church of England the same hath been 
 
 always observed unto this day." 
 
 We know, also, that several of the foreign Re- 
 o 
 
146 
 
 MEANS PERPETUATING THE 
 
 formers were invited to England by Edward. Peter 
 Martyr had the divinity chair given him at Oxford ; 
 Bucer had the same at Cambridge ; while Ochinus 
 and Fagius had canonries in English cathedrals. 
 " The Reformers," says Neale, " admitted the ordi- 
 nation of foreign churches by mere presbyters till 
 towai-ds the middle of this reign, (Elizabeth;) when 
 
 their validity hec/an to he disputed and denied. 
 
 Thus the Church advanced in her claims, and re- 
 moved by degrees to a greater distance from the 
 foreign Protestants." And, having reached a spot 
 sufficiently distant to satisfy their arrogance and in- 
 tolerance, the children of bigotry have busied them- 
 selves ever since in building themselves in from the 
 approaches of Christian charity ; and, at this moment, 
 the writers of the Oxford Tracts are employed in 
 completing the ramparts, mounting their artillery, 
 and denouncing the whole of Protestant Christendom, 
 with the mimic thunders of the Vatican. "Almost 
 the only Protestant church who have retained the 
 episcopal form, are we,* in this nineteenth century, 
 to exhibit to the world the odious intolerance which 
 would unchurch almost all the churches of Christen- 
 dom, except that which has long been defaced by 
 inveterate corruptions, and stained with the blood of 
 the saints ? Never again, I hope, will any one who 
 calls himself a minister of Christ in the Church of 
 
 * Fundamental Reform of the Church Establishment, &c. By a 
 Clergyman. P. 44. 
 
 9 
 
DIVISIONS OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 147 
 
 England, so offend against Christ through his people, 
 as to deny his commission to the great and good men 
 who laboured with Luther, Zuingle, Calvin, and 
 Knox, to establish the profession of the Gospel in 
 Germany, Switzerland, and Scotland. Never may 
 the faithful ministers of Christ now labouring in the 
 Pays de Vaud, at Geneva, in France, and in Ger- 
 many, think of us, as disgraced by the bigotry which 
 would deny them to be ministers of Christ. Never 
 may Guassen, Adolphe Monod, Merle d'Aubigne, 
 Colany Nee, Tholuck, and the other excellent men 
 who are labouring on the Continent to promote reli- 
 gion, think of us, as extruding them from the visible 
 Church of Christ. By so doing, we in fact excom- 
 municate ourselves, and are found in melancholy 
 isolation from the purest churches of Christ, and in 
 hateful conjunction with that one which the word of 
 God has branded with an irreversible anathema. 
 But if we fraternise with the churches on the Conti- 
 nent, we are equally bound to recognise the churches 
 of America, and the Dissenters of England. Their 
 orders are the same — their discipline little differs. 
 What reason is there for allowing the Presbyterian 
 orders of Geneva, and denying the congregational 
 orders of New England ? And if the congregational 
 orders of New England be allowed, why should we 
 disallow those of Bristol, of Birmingham, or of Lon- 
 don? When will our sectarian jealousies cease? 
 Surely we cannot any longer deny the orders of 
 
148 
 
 MEANS PERPETUATING THE 
 
 foreign churches ; and common sense forbids that we 
 allow those orders abroad and disallow them at home. 
 But if we do no longer disallow them, the acknow- 
 ledgment should be public, and generous, and bro- 
 therly. Let not other denominations see, or fancy, 
 that we now cherish an irreligious sectarianism in 
 ourselves, more exclusive and more proud than 
 that which we condemn in them." 
 
 Nor let the Dissenter hastily conclude that he is 
 quite invulnerable to the charge of sectarian assump- 
 tion. As often as he dogmatises on the minute 
 particulars of the apostolic pattern ; denounces as 
 unsound and unsafe whatever is not at the farthest 
 possible remove from certain supposed errors; de- 
 mands that every church on earth should be moulded 
 according to his notions of the primitive model ; 
 and, in the pride of his heart, anticipates the univer- 
 sal extension of his favourite government unim- 
 proved and entire ; he is making an additional 
 remove from the enlarged and enlightened charity 
 of the Gospel, is an active agent of dissension, and 
 is proving himself nearer of kin than he imagines to 
 the intolerants of Oxford and of Rome. 
 
 VI. Another very effectual means of perpetuating 
 divisions among Christians consists in the illiberal 
 prejudices instilled by a party education into the 
 minds of youth. The religious department of in- 
 struction is occupied, by many a parent and tutor, 
 not so much with the inculcation of the fundamental 
 
DIVISIONS OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 149 
 
 doctrines and cardinal duties of Christianity, as in 
 teaching their pupils the peculiarities of their own 
 party, and the errors and evils of those from whom 
 they chiefly differ. But even were they sensible of 
 this impropriety, and disposed to avoid it, where is 
 the stream of ecclesiastical history to which they can 
 point the youthful lip, unadulterated by the ore and 
 earth of the party-channel through which it flows? 
 and how few the youth who have read treatises of 
 doctrinal theology without imbibing prejudices against 
 a party, owing to the unjust representation they 
 received of its peculiar tenets, or of their supposed 
 practical consequences. Thus character is poisoned 
 in its infancy, by the very means which should have 
 been its aliment and life. The mind becomes a 
 soil prepared for the growth of every root of bitter- 
 ness ; predisposed for whatever is intolerant in spirit, 
 angry in controversy, and slanderous in report. 
 The party whose prejudices he inherits, gains a 
 bigot ; every other party, an enemy ; and the univer- 
 sal Church of Christ, whose agent and ornament he 
 might have become, is stained with disgrace. 
 
 VII. The application to our opponents of re- 
 proachful epithets is also to be numbered among the 
 auxiliaries of schism. Terms of this kind have 
 always been acting an important part in the history 
 of mankind. On every subject exciting to the pas- 
 sions, whether good or bad, their influence has always 
 been great; and especially, therefore, on that most 
 o 3 
 
150 
 
 MEANS PERPETUATING THE 
 
 momentous and exciting of all subjects — religion. 
 Here, almost every appellation has been either a 
 weapon, a stigma, a pass-word, or a badge. Nearly 
 every leading ecclesiastical term has an eventful history 
 of its own. Epithets which at first were innocent 
 and merely distinctive, like the distinctive rods of 
 the Egyptian diviners, have been changed into ser- 
 pents by the necromancy of the passions. Terms 
 which, at first, only served, have at length, like many 
 an obscure individual in eastern lands, come to 
 exercise a despotic sway. And terms which were 
 once offensively employed, have at length, like an- 
 cient weapons of war, been displaced by others more 
 sure in their aim, and more destructive in their 
 effect ; and have even come to be employed as terms 
 of honour and excellence. The transmigration of 
 ecclesiastical terms is no fable. 
 
 The epithets, Puritans, Methodists, Sectarians, 
 Schismatics, Saints, Evangelicals, Voluntaries, Com- 
 pulsories, have each in turn been pressed and 
 sworn into the service of party. And the worst 
 purposes of party they answer in two ways. They 
 are so easily remembered and expeditiously applied, 
 compared with an argument, that numbers who 
 could neither comprehend nor employ the latter, 
 ai'e retained in the cause of faction by means of 
 the former. And, having once employed them, their 
 anger rises, and their contempt of those against whom 
 the epithets are cast increases, in exact proportion to 
 
DIVISIONS OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 151 
 
 the frequency with which they are repeated. And, 
 besides inflaming the passions of those who employ 
 them, by excitement, they wound and irritate those 
 who are their objects, by insult. An argument might 
 be answered or evaded ; a historical fact might be 
 met by a counter fact ; and an assertion be neutralised 
 by denial; and, in either case, the second person 
 feels that he has done something, and is satisfied. 
 But a term of reproach is the barbed and poisoned 
 arrow of controversy which remains and rankles ; 
 which turns anger into hatred, and an opponent into 
 a foe. True, he may retaliate in kind ; but, in that 
 case, the evil is doubled ; " the rent is made worse." 
 
 VIII. The very exceptionable manner in which 
 ecclesiastical controversies are conducted in the pre- 
 sent day, necessarily tends to inflame division. And 
 here we might advert to the growing frequency with 
 which the pulpit is made the vehicle of inflammatory 
 appeals. That hallowed spot which, like another 
 Calvary, should be sacred to the cross, is lighted up 
 with the strange fires of " the wrath of man." When 
 the minister should pour out nothing but the result of 
 his closet devotions and scriptural meditations, he 
 boils over with the unholy excitement of newspaper 
 and pamphlet appeals. Where the private Christian 
 comes for the pure bread of life, he receives it, if 
 at all, mixed with the gravel and thorns of ecclesiasti- 
 cal debate. And, there, where the perturbed should 
 come to be tranquillised, the peaceful leave in a state 
 
152 
 
 MEANS PERPETUATING THE 
 
 of alarming apprehension of some impending cala- 
 mity. 
 
 Another circumstance to be greatly deplored is, 
 that the religious controversy should have fallen 
 so completely into the hands of men whose principal 
 qualification for conducting it lies in their pugna- 
 city ; and who have acquired the office chiefly by the 
 reckless extravagance of their statements, and the 
 energy of their abuse. These are the Circum- 
 celliones of the third century, and the Montanarii 
 of the fourteenth — the mercenaries and bludgeon- 
 men of the war, who are comparatively regardless 
 whether party triumphs over principle or the reverse, 
 provided they continue to enjoy their notoriety and 
 to receive their pay. Bacon remarked concerning 
 the " Church Controversies " of his day, that to 
 search and rip up wounds with a laughing coun- 
 tenance ; to intermix Scripture and scurrility in one 
 sentence ; the majesty of religion and the contempt 
 and deformity of things ridiculous ; is a thing far 
 from the reverence of a devout Christian, and hardly 
 becoming the honest regard of a sober man. There 
 are now lying before the writer numerous extracts 
 from anonymous pamphlets, magazines, essays, tracts, 
 and newspapers, in which all that Bacon deprecated 
 is done, and much more. Here, on both sides, 
 historical facts are distorted. Scripture is misquoted 
 and misapplied, faults are blackened and magmfied 
 into startling crimes, the rules of argumentative 
 
DIVISIONS OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 153 
 
 justice are grossly violated, obvious mistakes are 
 eagerly seized and aggravated into intentional false- 
 hood, candid admissions are taken advantage of and 
 turned into grave accusations, the sanctity of private 
 friendship is profaned, old and one-sided information 
 is received and employed in preference to that which 
 is more recent and complete, seeming inconsistencies 
 enlarged on as real contradictions, parts of statements 
 quoted as the whole, and citations perverted so as to 
 convey a meaning contrary to the intention of the 
 author, and of truth ; and all this is done too in 
 the name of the God of Truth and Love — with a 
 plausible affectation of sincere concern for the pros- 
 perity of religion ! The consequence is, that the 
 calm and Christian reasoner shrinks from the unholy 
 conflict ; the voice of the aged counsellor is drowned 
 in the clamours of party; the meek and prayerful 
 retire from the strife of tongues ; and the arena is 
 left comparatively to men whose only object is to 
 return blow for blow — men, whose element is a 
 tempest, and their chief distinction that, like a 
 certain bird of prey, they can fly only in a storm. 
 The world meanwhile looks on amused ; the partisan 
 heartens and cheers on his champion to the next 
 onset; the unwary Christian spectator himself in- 
 sensibly encourages and imbibes the factious spirit; 
 and, in some instances, an individual who only meant 
 to step between the hostile ranks as a mediator, has 
 soon sided with a party, and joined in the fray. 
 
154 MEANS PERPETUATING DIVISIONS, &c. 
 
 While many periodical publications, conceived and 
 commenced on Christian principles, have quickly dis- 
 covered that their own friends mistook their freedom 
 from passion for want of spirit; and, therefore, in 
 order to maintain their ground, they inflame where 
 they ought to have extinguished, and add to the 
 conflagration of a temple already on fire. 
 
 IX. And then the conduct of a large proportion of 
 the religious public aggravates this evil considerably, 
 by confining its reading and intercourse exclusively 
 to its own party. If truth were preferred to triumph, 
 men would remember that it is not the monopoly of 
 a party ; and, on enlarging the sphere of their reading 
 and observation, they would find so much to question 
 where they had hitherto placed implicit confidence ; 
 and so much to approve where they had previously 
 bestowed all their suspicions and censures, that the 
 evil complained of would in a great measure neu- 
 tralise itself. Instead of this, however, they are 
 content to hear faults imputed to others without any 
 examination, and praise lavished on themselves with 
 little qualification; until, having heard for years of 
 nothing concerning their own party but its excellence, 
 nor of their opponents but their errors and evils, it 
 ceases to be wonderful that they should identify all 
 goodness with the former, and feel as if the greatest 
 virtue next to loving and applauding it, must consist 
 in vilifying and opposing the latter. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 TESTS OF THE SCHISMATICAL SPIRIT IN INDIVIDUALS 
 AND IN CHURCHES. 
 
 While the reader has been occupied, in the pages 
 immediately preceding, in tracing the divisions of 
 Christians, and the perpetuation of the evil, to their 
 various causes, his mind, whether consciously or not, 
 has no doubt occasionally applied the description to 
 what he knows of himself, of the church to which he 
 belongs, or of other churches from which he diflFers — 
 and has drawn its conclusions of guilt or innocence 
 accordingly. But supposing him to be daily impress- 
 ed with the magnitude of the evil we deplore, he will 
 not be satisfied with so vague and cursory an applica- 
 tion of the subject ; he will be ready at once to insti- 
 tute " great searchings of heart." Were Christians 
 in general but to become adequately affected with 
 the enormity of the evil, a loud and irresistible cry 
 would be heard in every church, calling, not merely 
 for individual scrutiny, but for the instant, impartial, 
 and prayerful examination of each church in its col- 
 
156 TESTS OF A SCHISMATICAL SPIRIT 
 
 lective capacity. The announcement would go forth, 
 " Blow ye the trumpet, sanctify a fast, call a solemn 
 assembly," as if the trumpets of Sinai had convoked 
 us together — as if he " who walks in the midst of the 
 churches," had just despatched epistles to the " angels " 
 of our respective communities — we should not merely 
 " suffer," but invite the word of exhortation, and lay 
 ourselves open to its searching influence. As if he 
 himself had come down to conduct the solemn pro- 
 cess of investigation, we should humbly invite him to 
 ascend the seat of judgment, and say, " Search us, O 
 God, and see what evil there is in us, and lead us in 
 the way everlasting." And suppose that in compli- 
 ance with our request he should actually assume the 
 office; — as each church, in succession, came up for 
 inspection ; as its history was slowly, patiently, and 
 impartially brought to light; as its state, at pre- 
 sent, passed under the eye of flaming fire ; and as the 
 heart of each of its members was laid open and bare 
 — what strange and unexpected disclosures would 
 take place ! How many of our present subjects of 
 congratulation and joy would prove to be reasons for 
 humiliation and grief ! how many who have hitherto 
 enjoyed the title of champions of the truth, would 
 depart, branded as agents of strife and ringleaders of 
 faction ! In many instances, the accuser would be 
 seen taking the place of the accused ; and the sup- 
 posed and compassionated victim of schism be de- 
 nounced as its author. Terms of communion not 
 
IN INDIVIDUALS AND IN CHURCHES. 157 
 
 prescribed in the word of God — tests of discipleship 
 devised by man — symbols of party, and badges of 
 distinction — many of those things which the churches 
 generally make their boast and their glory — would be 
 denounced as the creatures of faction, and the causes 
 of strife, where, otherwise, charity would have reigned 
 in peace. 
 
 1. Such an investigation, however, is reserved for 
 another day. Let us aim impartially to anticipate its 
 awards, by sitting in judgment on ourselves noiv. In 
 order to assist the reader in this important exercise, 
 we would respectfully ask him, first, whether he has 
 ever considered the possibility — we say the bare pos- 
 sibility — of his being a schismatic ? or whether he is 
 prepared to admit the possibility that the church to 
 which he belongs may be in any degree amenable to 
 the charge ? We are persuaded that many a Christian 
 knows so little of the scriptural nature of schism, and 
 has heard it charged so exclusively on parties to 
 which he does not belong, that the idea of associating 
 the sin with himself or his church, is almost as start- 
 ling and difficult to him, as if the sin were theft or 
 even murder. And yet the possibility we have de- 
 scribed must be admitted by him, in order that the 
 subject in its present stage may obtain an entrance 
 into his mind. To this end, it will surely be suffi- 
 cient to remind him that had he been a member of 
 either of the most flourishing of the primitive churches, 
 his liability to the evil in question would have been 
 
 p 
 
158 TESTS OF A SCHISMATICAL SPIRIT 
 
 obviously implied in the cautions which the inspired 
 epistles to those churches contain against it. He will 
 find by a reference to the brief analysis of those epis- 
 tles contained in our first section, that the churches of 
 Ephesus, Philippi, and Thessalonica — the prime of 
 the best — were anxiously admonished against all ap- 
 proaches to unchristian divisions; as if the apostle 
 would thus warn the Christians and churches of all 
 subsequent times that they are not exempt from 
 the same danger. " He that hath an ear to hear, 
 let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches." 
 
 2. But if the evil be possible, it may also at one 
 time and degree or another have been actual. The 
 reader may almost take it for granted that the 
 denomination to which he belongs has not escaped 
 the charge of, at least, tending to schism, by those 
 who differ from it ; and unless he knows the cha- 
 racter of each, of all, the members who have ever 
 belonged to it, some of them may have scattered the 
 seeds of division ; and, unless he knows every incident 
 of its history, some of those incidents may have 
 tended to create dissension ; and, unless he could 
 say how the constitution of his church would have 
 struck him if he had never heard of it till to-day, 
 or if he had been taught from infancy to prefer 
 another constitution, some of the feelings which, in 
 that case, the object of his present admiration might 
 have justly excited, might have tended to keep him at 
 a distance from it. 
 
IN INDIVIDUALS AND IN CHURCHES. 159 
 
 3. Has the reader, then, ever examined the con- 
 stitution, history, and state of the church to which 
 he belongs, by that standard by which all churches, 
 and all their members will be finally judged — the 
 word of God? Is he satisfied that were all books 
 except this lost from the earth, his church would 
 find its entire constitution sanctioned and supported 
 by the facts and principles recorded there ? Does 
 he belong to a class who persuade themselves that 
 their church is perfect — that Infinite Perfection 
 could not say to it, " I have somewhat against 
 thee?" and if he does not, has he ever searched for 
 the beam or the mote? does he deplore it? and is 
 he ready to assist in casting it out ? 
 
 4. The schism of the church at Corinth did not 
 respect its conduct towards other churches, but was 
 confined to the members of its own little circle. 
 Has the conduct of the reader ever tended to dis- 
 turb the peace of the particular assembly with which 
 he worships ? If, when an evil report has been pro- 
 pagated concerning any of its members, he has im- 
 properly lent himself to promote its circulation, 
 " taking up a reproach against his neighbour" — if, 
 when his personal accommodation has been involved, 
 he has preferred his own ease to the peace of the 
 society at large — if, when called to exercise his in- 
 fluence in any of its arrangements and appointments, 
 he has raised or encouraged a faction, saying, " I 
 am of Paul, or, I am of ApoUos" — if, when a question 
 
160 
 
 TESTS OF A SCHISMATICAL SPIRIT 
 
 of precedence has arisen, he has shown that he 
 " loveth to have the pre-eminence," and has angrily 
 contended for it — if, when a real evil has called for 
 excision, he has gone about it roughly and unfeel- 
 ingly, instead of cutting it off as if it had been his 
 own hand, or plucking it out as if it were his own eye 
 — if, owing to superior endowments, or wealth, or 
 office, he possesses influence, but demeans himself 
 haughtily or arbitrarily, " lording it over God's heri- 
 tage" — or if, comparatively destitute of influence, 
 he be yet capricious, complaining, heady, and med- 
 dling — in either of these cases, his conduct is cal- 
 culated to reproduce the scenes which disgraced the 
 church at Corinth; he is chargeable with having 
 indulged a schismatical spirit. 
 
 5. Howe, in his sermons on "the Carnality of Re- 
 ligious Contentions," enumerates the following indica- 
 tions of such carnality : — when we make little account 
 of the important things in which we agree, compared 
 with the lesser things about which we differ — when 
 we lay gi'eater stress than is needful on some unscrip- 
 tural words in delivering scriptural doctrine — when 
 we show too little indulgence to one another's mis- 
 takes and misapplication of Scripture terms — when 
 we are over- intent to mould and square the truths of 
 the Gospel by human measures and models — when 
 there is a discernible proneness to oppose the great 
 things of the Gospel to one another, and to exalt 
 and magnify one above or against another — when any 
 
IN INDIVIDUALS AND IN CHURCHES. 161 
 
 contend with unusual zeal for the sacredness or spirit- 
 uality of a particular opinion, in order that under that 
 pretence, they may indulge their carnal inclination 
 with the greater liberty — when in maintaining a truth 
 in opposition to others, we industriously pervert their 
 meaning, and impute to them things they never say — 
 when such disputes arise at length to wrath and angry 
 strife — when we proceed to judge of the consciences 
 and states of those from whom we diffei* — when we 
 unduly exalt ourselves and seek to subjugate all to 
 our standard — and when we discover a pleasure in 
 having such disputes continued without any limit or 
 rational design. 
 
 6. Though the reader may be guiltless in each of 
 these respects, he may yet belong to a particular 
 church, or a denomination, which exacts unscriptural 
 conditions from those who seek communion with it; 
 which excludes some whom Christ has received, and, 
 perhaps, receives others whom Christ has not ac- 
 cepted; which raises the mere lines of ecclesiastical 
 demarcation into lofty ramparts on which to plant the 
 artillery of an interminable conflict, and which thus 
 presents an exclusive and repulsive aspect to every 
 other part of the Christian community, — and, by 
 silently conniving at these evils, he may be implicated 
 in the guilt which they involve. 
 
 Whatever the denomination of Christians to which 
 the reader may belong, he can hardly look around 
 without perceiving that there is one class of the 
 
 p 3 
 
162 TESTS OF A SCHISMATICAL SPIRIT 
 
 Christian public more directly confronting his deno- 
 mination than any other. Towards any of the others 
 his feelings and conduct may not be unscriptural, but 
 what is his temper towards that? Is he cool and dis- 
 tant towards its members ? If he had fallen into 
 Christian or friendly conversation with one of them 
 as a stranger, would he become reserved towards him 
 on discovering his denominational badge? Has he 
 ever been conscious of impatience on listening to an 
 account of their prosperity ? When repeating a re- 
 port of their faults or disgraces, has the evil never 
 been magnified in his hands ? Does he experience a 
 pleasure in relating their inconsistencies, " rejoicing 
 in iniquity," because it is their iniquity ? Would he 
 complacently witness a course of conduct towards 
 them, which he would deem improper and intolerant 
 towards any other class? Has he on no occasion 
 worshipped with them ; or, if he have, has he resolved 
 that he never will again ? Would it be in vain for 
 one of them to apply to him for pecuniary aid, even 
 if the object to be aided bid fair to effect good of the 
 highest kind ? Is he pleased at any measure which, 
 by drawing his own party into closer compact, draws 
 it proportionably off from them ? Is he most pleased 
 with those champions of his party who assail them 
 with the roughest violence ? And is he inclined to 
 depreciate the less violent of his own party as neutral 
 and tame? 
 
 7. The reader himself, perhaps, has appeared before 
 
IN INDIVIDUALS AND IN CHURCHES. 163 
 
 the public as the advocate of the denomiriational 
 system to which he belongs, or of the particular state 
 and relations in which his denomination at present 
 stands. But every Christian is not called to this 
 special task ; many have injured the cause they have 
 espoused, by their rashness and incompetence. Was 
 he more anxious to state the truth amiably, or 
 smartly and pungently ? Did he think more of what 
 the truth required of him, or of what was expected of 
 him by his party ? Did he indite as if under their 
 eye, and as if receiving already by anticipation the 
 applause of being their champion ? And when that 
 particular exercise ended, what was the new state 
 of his mind towards the party opposed ? — one of 
 increased, or of diminished concern for their welfare ? 
 Did it leave him in the attitude of prayer or of 
 pugnacity? — imploring the Spirit to lead them into 
 all truth, or looking angrily around for an antagonist ? 
 Did he from the first reflect whether or not he was 
 called in the providence of God to enter on this 
 particular course ? whether he could scripturally 
 expect the Divine blessing on the act, and on his 
 mode of pursuing it ? whether his leading incitement 
 was personal reputation, a sanguine and irascible 
 temper of mind, or the glory of God ? Was he ac- 
 tuated by a profound reverence for the truth ? And 
 did he vindicate the lofty claims of the truth only in 
 the spirit of truth ; avoiding all that is inaccurate and 
 partial in statement; unfair in argument; unkind in 
 
164 TESTS OF A SCHISMATICAL SPIRIT 
 
 animadversion ; contemptuous, and ungenerous in 
 sentiment; flippant, sarcastic, and unjust in expres- 
 sion ; and maintaining throughout a spirit of candour 
 and impartiality ? Did he evince a due regard to the 
 real extent of the differences in question ; not magni- 
 fying a microscopic point of outward observance into 
 a size which eclipsed the cross ; and which might lead 
 one to infer that the neglecter of that point, and the 
 blasphemer of that cross, were both on a level ? 
 
 8. There are certain ecclesiastical solvents, or 
 moral tests, which it is hardly possible to apply with 
 any degree of fairness to the subject before us, with- 
 out detecting the schismatical or party-spirit, in what- 
 ever proportions, or with whatever better combina- 
 tions it may exist. The reader has occasionally heard 
 of the usefulness of the parties who stand more 
 directly opposed to him ; usefulness of a kind which 
 is likely to furnish subjects for joy among the angels 
 of God, and of high praise in eternity ; — has he 
 heard of it with grudging, spoken of it with depre- 
 ciation, or been sullenly silent concerning it both 
 before God and man ? We read of Barnabas, that 
 " when he was come, and had seen the grace of God," 
 he, in circumstances far less favourable to gratitude, 
 " was glad." And the only reasons assigned are, that 
 " he was a good man, and full of the Holy Ghost." 
 While, with a noble superiority to petty jealousies, 
 and a supreme concern for the great cause of the 
 Gospel, St. Paul writes, that though " some preach 
 
IN INDIVIDUALS AND IN CHURCHES. 165 
 
 Christ even of envy and strife. . . .not sincerely, 
 supposing to add affliction to my bonds. . . .What 
 then ?. . . .Christ is pi*eached ; and I therein do re- 
 joice, yea, and will rejoice." Now, can the reader 
 satisfactorily account for the sullen silence of which 
 we have spoken, as contrasted with this Christian 
 magnanimity, except on the ground of party-spirit ? 
 
 He may have heard also of certain disgraces 
 which those parties may have sustained, in the 
 persons of some of their members, or in the failure 
 of some of their plans ; and, in such cases, the 
 Scripture enjoins him to weep with those that weep, 
 and to cast the large mantle of Christian charity 
 over their imperfections. If, however, in opposition 
 to these injunctions, the reader looked, if not exult- 
 ingly, at least complacently, on their failures and 
 defects— if, so far from spreading the mantle of 
 charity over them at the time, he even now occa- 
 sionally takes off the veil which the more lenient 
 hand of time has thrown over them, and calls atten- 
 tion to them afresh — if, while he is blind to all the 
 honours of their 'scutcheon, he is ever mindful of its 
 blots — if he cares much less about the injury which 
 the general cause of religion may sustain by his ex- 
 hibition of their defects, than for the pleasure he 
 seeks in their humiliation — hesitates little to wound 
 religion, provided he can inflict the stab through 
 their side — can he scripturally account for this con- 
 duct except on the principle of a factious spirit ? 
 
166 TESTS OF A SCHISMATICAL SPIRIT 
 
 9. While the reader very properly contends that 
 there are doctrines which constitute the essence of 
 Christianity; which characterise it as a si/stem, and 
 make it what it is; and that all are capable of per- 
 ceiving these doctrines, and bound to receive therfi ; 
 he has no doubt also heard of those constitutional 
 varieties of individual minds which naturally lead 
 men to view the same object under different aspects 
 — one, giving a preference to this outward modifi- 
 cation of religion, and another to that ; yet both 
 agreeing in the reception of essential truth. Now, 
 if he often wonders at the obtuseness, and animad- 
 verts on the perverseness, of those who thus diflPer 
 from him in religion, without ever giving them the 
 benefit of those obvious reflections ; if he never 
 places himself, by a slight and very common effort 
 of the imagination, in their circumstances, nor asks 
 himself how much like them he should probably 
 have been in their situation ; never makes allowances 
 for the educational and other influences through 
 which they have passed ; or, making these reflections, 
 feels no remission of his displeasure towards them, 
 how can he explain this inconsistency except by con- 
 fessing to a bigoted spirit ? 
 
 10. The Bible enjoins, and no doubt the judg- 
 ment of the reader assents to, the duty of prayer 
 for all men. Perhaps he is ready to add that he 
 performs this duty. But if there be a class of 
 Christians for whom he could not easily bring him- 
 
IN INDIVIDUALS AND IN CHURCHES. 167 
 
 self to pray by name; if he only brings himself to 
 comprehend them in his intercessions at all by 
 concealing them (so to speak) among a multitude of 
 other objects — by allowing them to pass under some 
 term of vague generalisation — surely he does not 
 deceive himself by supposing that he prays for them. 
 
 Had the Jewish high-priest erased the name of one 
 of the tribes from his breast-plate, and yet pleaded 
 that he prayed for that tribe when he prayed for all 
 Israel, could the mockery have passed ? And if the 
 reader can thus carry a feeling of dislike towards 
 those supposed into the presence of God — to the very 
 throne of grace — if he can only advert to them there 
 as if they were enemies — can pray specifically and 
 cordially for unbelievers, while he is silent concern- 
 ing them ; in what way can he account for his con- 
 duct except by ascribing it to a sectarian spirit? 
 
 11. The cause of God is one, and his Church one. 
 Every believer has his appropriate place in that one 
 Church : and every instance of usefulness takes place 
 in virtue of that one design of mercy. And you, 
 reader, doubtless, profess to believe, whether formally 
 or not, in the holy catholic church, and in the communion 
 of saints. But if, instead of rising to the contem- 
 plation of this great whole, your habitual conception 
 of the Church is confined to your own party — if 
 when that is languishing you feel as if the entire 
 kingdom of God M'ere in a crisis, though, perhaps, 
 every other section of the Church is flourishing — if 
 
168 TESTS OF A SCHISMATICAL SPIRIT. 
 
 by labouring in the vineyard, you mean labouring only 
 in a party corner, and evince dislike at associating 
 with the members of another party, even when the 
 work to be done can be accomplished only by such 
 association — in fine, if your best sympathies circulate 
 only among those of your own denomination, how 
 can you account for it or describe it, but as a 
 sectarian spirit? 
 
 If, as the result of these hints for self-examination, 
 the reader should begin to suspect that he is per- 
 sonally implicated in the subject, he will further 
 evince his impartiality by considering the evils of 
 schism. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE GUILT AND EVILS OF SCHISM. 
 
 Were men to be distributed according to the various 
 opinions which they entertain concerning the moral 
 nature of ecclesiastical divisions, they might be 
 ranked in the following classes : — Those who look on 
 every separation from themselves as schism, and who 
 describe it in terms of laboured exaggeration. — Those 
 who, considering themselves unjustly condemned for 
 separation, have, in the consciousness of their own 
 comparative innocence, come to undervalue the ex- 
 ternal unity of the Church, and to speak of its divi- 
 sions in terms of comparative extenuation. — Those 
 who, confining their attention to the emulation and 
 increased activity to which, by the overruling pro- 
 vidence of God, some of those separations have led, 
 have come to speak of division in terms of implied 
 approbation. — And those who, taking their views from 
 the word of God, regard those separations only as 
 schism which violate the great law of Christian love ; 
 
 Q 
 
170 THE GUILT AND EVILS OF SCHISM. 
 
 and those only as schismatics who either give or 
 unnecessarily take occasion of separation ; viewing 
 the guilt of such divisions as depending on circum- 
 stances so various that God alone can determine its 
 amount. But however different their estimate of 
 schism, they all unite, in certain circumstances, in 
 denouncing it as an evil. Only attempt to fasten the 
 sin on those even who appear to hold it most lightly, 
 and the manner in which they writhe under the 
 charge, betrays how odious it becomes when turned 
 into a personal imputation. In the same way, each 
 party, in a time of angry division, has been eager to 
 fasten the imputation on the other; thus evincing 
 the general sense of its demerit, by the advantage 
 they hoped to gain in casting it at their opponents. 
 
 " In dealing about this business among Christians," 
 writes Owen in his treatise on schism, " the advantage 
 hath been extremely hitherto on their part who found 
 it their interest to begin the charge. For whereas 
 themselves perhaps were, and are of all men, most 
 guilty of the crime, yet by their clamorous accusation, 
 putting others on the defence of themselves, they 
 have in a manner clearly escaped from the trial of 
 their own guilt, and cast the issue of the question 
 
 purely on them whom they have accused It is 
 
 the manner of men of all persuasions who undertake 
 to treat of schism, to make their entrance with in- 
 vectives against the evils thereof, with aggravations 
 
THE GUILT AND EVILS OF SCHISM. 171 
 
 of its heinousness. All men, whether intending the 
 charge of others, or their own acquitment, esteem 
 themselves concerned to do so." 
 
 But while schism is thus branded by universal 
 consent, and while parties have been bandying the 
 charge and criminating each other, anxious only on 
 which the charge should finally settle, how insensible 
 have they been to the fact that they were meanwhile 
 familiarising themselves, in common, with the sin 
 itself, drinking into its spirit, presenting to the world 
 a spectacle of ridicule and reproach, and frustrating 
 the very ends for which a Church has been instituted, 
 and for which Christianity is continued on earth. 
 " For how many sad centuries of years," writes Howe, 
 " hath Christianity been at an amazing stand ! .... Is 
 this the religion which so early, by its own native 
 light and power conquered so many nations, and 
 which we expect to be the religion of the world ? 
 .... For thirteen or fourteen hundred years hath the 
 Church been gradually growing a multiform, mangled, 
 shattered, and most deformed thing ; broken and 
 parceled into nobody knows how many several sorts 
 of communions. . . . Carnality hath become, and long 
 been in it, a governing principle, and hath torn It 
 into God knows how many fragments and parties ; 
 each of which will now be the Church, enclose itself 
 within its own peculiar limits, claim and appropriate 
 to itself the rights and privileges which belong to the 
 Christian Church in common, yea, and even Christ 
 
172 
 
 THE GUILT AND EVILS OF SCHISM. 
 
 himself, as if he were to be so enclosed and confined : 
 and hence it is said, Lo, here is Christ, or there he is, 
 till he is scarce to be found any where ; but as, through 
 merciful indulgence, overlooking our sinful follies, 
 he is pleased to afford some tokens of his presence 
 both here and there." 
 
 In order that we may see and lament the wide- 
 wasting evils of schism, we propose to consider the 
 account given of them in the New Testament, to- 
 gether with the fearful effects which it is at this 
 moment producing on Christians individually, on 
 the visible Church, and through these on the world 
 at large. 
 
 1. 1. In the closing scenes of the Jewish economy, 
 we see how the jealous spirit of party turns neigh- 
 bouring temples into hostile fortresses, so that Zion 
 and Gerizim stand frowning at each other ; and con- 
 verts their respective worshippers into bitter foes, so 
 that "the Jews have no dealings with the Samari- 
 tans." It resents a slight constructive insult from an 
 opposing party in the Church, more than an avowed 
 assault from the world, and " calls down fire from 
 heaven" to avenge it. It recognises no authority in 
 the Church which is not countersigned with its own 
 hand — will not allow a demon to be cast out by one 
 " who follows not with us " — and in " haling to prison" 
 those who venture to differ from it, " verily thinks 
 that it is doing God service." 
 
 2. A spirit of contention and division is, in effect, a 
 
THE GUILT AND EVILS OF SCHISM. 173 
 
 repeal of the whole evangelical law. In six of the 
 epistles it is affirmed, that " love is the fulfilling of the 
 law." The law of love to God and man, which was 
 proclaimed from Sinai, has been republished from 
 Calvary, enforced by more appropriate and powerful 
 motives, and constituted the grand practical charac- 
 teristic of the Christian economy. But schism is the 
 breach of Christian love, and consequently a violation 
 of the whole Christian law. 
 
 3. It appears to have been the first sin which dis- 
 turbed the peace of the Christian Church, as such. 
 The sin of Ananias and Sapphira had been destructive 
 only to themselves. But it is the terrible distinction 
 of this sin that, besides injuring its originators and im- 
 mediate instruments, it tends to waste and destroy 
 the community. Such was its tendency in the church 
 at Antioch. Acts xv. 
 
 4. It not only disturbed the peace, but threatened 
 the existence of several of the apostolic churches. 
 Hence, the immediate occasion of many of the in- 
 spired epistles ; and the deep, earnest, and even ago- 
 nising solicitude which they express for the restora- 
 tion of unity and peace. If believers constitute a 
 living temple, this is the spirit which " defiles the 
 temple of God;" profaning the sanctity, and dimming 
 the glory of the whole edifice. Well, therefore, may 
 it be added concerning the author of such sacrilege, 
 " him will God destroy." 
 
 5. It displaced the great central doctrine of justifi- 
 
 Q 3 
 
174 THE GUILT AND EVILS OF SCHISM. 
 
 cation by faith, by fixing the attention on points of 
 ceremonial observance. It led numbers to moot " un- 
 learned questions" and "gender strifes," in the very 
 presence of the cross ; as, in the third and fourth cen- 
 turies, it induced men curiously to "anatomise the 
 person of Christ," when they should have been pros- 
 trate before him in adoration. Hence, the chief ob- 
 ject of some of the epistles was to recall the minds of 
 those primarily addressed to that only ground of our 
 acceptance with God — the mediation of Christ. Phil, 
 iii. 1—8. 
 
 6. The scriptural classification of this sin illustrates 
 its vile and aggravated nature, for it stands associated, 
 both in its origin and tendencies, with many of the 
 principal sins. 1 Cor. iii. 3; 2 Cor. xii. 20; Gal. v. 15 — 
 21. Here, its origin is imputed to carnality, to the lusts 
 of the flesh, to the predominance of the sinful and 
 worldly over the renewed and spiritual part of our 
 nature; many of the baser passions are found in its 
 company, either as its offspring or congenial asso- 
 ciates ; and it is represented as degrading its victims, 
 in some respects, below the mere level of humanity, 
 into beasts of prey, who return bite for bite, and are 
 " consumed one of another." 
 
 7. It often amounts to a virtual usurpation of the 
 throne of Christ, and of his highest prerogative as Lord 
 of conscience. Rom. xiv. ; James iv. 11. According 
 to these scriptures, among the highest rights which 
 Christ has acquired by his sacrificial death, are those 
 
 8 
 
THE GUILT AND EVILS OF SCHISM. 175 
 
 which relate to the conscience, so that to attempt to 
 impose our appointments on the conscience of an- 
 other, or to denounce him for not subordinating his 
 conscience to ours, is to ascend the tribunal, displace 
 the Saviour, put on the brightest of his many crowns, 
 and tyrannise where he should reign — an invasion of 
 his throne which he will not fail to resent. 
 
 8. That such a spirit must be incompatible with fel- 
 lowship with God is evident, for " he that loveth not 
 his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God 
 whom he hath not seen?" 1 John ii. 9 — 11, and chap- 
 ters iii. iv. It grieves, and repels from it " the 
 Holy Spirit of God," Eph. iv. 30—32 ; and takes as 
 its appropriate agents and associates, such as " cause 
 divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine" of the 
 cross. Rom. xvi. 17, 18; 1 Tim. vi. 4, 5; Titus 
 i. 10. 
 
 9. It acts hypocritically, imposing an outward rite 
 under a pretence that it is aiming solely at the ho- 
 nour of God and the good of men, declaring that 
 without it " they cannot be saved." Acts xv. 1. But 
 at the same time throws off restraint, and indulges 
 itself in the violated name of Christian liberty, and at 
 the costly price of a wounded conscience in a weaker 
 brother. Rom. xiv. 13, 15, 20, 21. 
 
 10. Among the recorded acts of the schismatical 
 spirit are, indecorum in the public worship of God, 
 1 Cor. xi. 18 ; the formation of factions among the 
 worshippers, 1 Cor. iii. 4 ; the reckless profanation of 
 
176 THE GUILT AND EVILS OF SCHISM. 
 
 the Lord's-supper, 1 Cor. xi. 20 — 22; and the con- 
 sequent rending of the body of Christ. Chap. xii. 
 Thus, in the extremity of its rage, it forbears nothing, 
 however sacred, and is awed by nothing, however 
 dreadful. Gratified it will and must be, though 
 Christ should be present, and his table be the 
 scene of profanation. Accompanied by all the male- 
 volent passions — a flock of harpies and vultures — it 
 fiercely descends upon the sacred feast, pollutes and 
 preys on consecrated things, lacerating even " the 
 members of his body, of his flesh, and of his 
 bones." 
 
 11. Bent on the gratification of its ravenous appe- 
 tite, it hesitates not to " destroy with its meat one for 
 whom Christ died," Rom. xiv. 15 — to devour im- 
 mortal souls. But well may our surprise at its enor- 
 mities cease, when we learn, Rom. xvi. 18 — 20, that 
 Satan, the author of sin and prime disturber of the 
 universe, is the parent of schism in the Church. En- 
 tering the sacred enclosure — the paradise of the new 
 creation — he early sowed the seeds of dissension, 
 and effected " another fall of man." Aware that the 
 conversion of the world is suspended on the unity 
 of the Church, he leaves no means untried, and 
 no agency unemployed, which is likely, by embroiling 
 the Church, to frustrate its design, and to prolong his 
 possession of the world. While, by the same means, 
 the Church has often been rendered an easy conquest 
 to the world : and, short of this, has furnished it with 
 
THE GUILT AND EVILS OF SCHISM. 177 
 
 sport, and even awakened emotions mingled with pity 
 and contempt. 
 
 But though schism was included in that mystery 
 of iniquity, of which the apostles, even in their day, 
 could say, it "doth already work;" it was reserved 
 for subsequent times to behold the great engine of 
 evil in full operation. Some, even then, were 
 " doting about questions" — sick with them — exhibit- 
 ing symptoms of the wrangling disease ;* but it re- 
 mained for recent times for a man to write — and to 
 acquire immortality by the sentence — "the itch of 
 disputing has become the disease of the Church."f 
 
 II. 1. As to the professor of Christianity, the evil 
 in question operates to his personal injury in various 
 ways. " Upon the religious intellect, sectarian feelings 
 and fellowship," says Dr. Mason, " produce an effect 
 analogous to that of the division of labour upon 
 mechanical ingenuity. By concentrating its opera- 
 tions in a few points, or perhaps in a single one, 
 they render it peculiarly acute and discriminating 
 within those limits, at the expense of enfeebling or 
 destroying its general power. Conversations are 
 cherished, books are read, time expended, faculties 
 employed, not for the purpose of acquiring larger 
 views of the Redeemer's truth, grace, kingdom, and 
 
 * Bishop Wilkins's Sermons. 
 
 t The well known epitaph of Sir H. Wotton in the college at 
 Eton — " Hie jacet primus hujus sententise auctor — Disputandi pru- 
 ritus fit ecclesia scabies." 
 
178 THE GUILT AND EVILS OF SCHISM. 
 
 glory : but for the purpose of training more accurate 
 disputants upon the heads of sectarian collision. 
 Here men distinguish themselves ; here they shine ; 
 here they gratify their vanity, which they often 
 mistake for conscience With one the watch- 
 
 word is, our excellent, our apostolical Church — with 
 another, the doctrine of baptism — with a third, the 
 solemn league and covenant — with a fourth, the divine 
 right of presbytery — with a fifth, the unparalleled con- 
 stitution of Methodism — with a sixth, the scriptural 
 Church order of the Independents." 
 
 2. " Nor does the practical judgment suffer less 
 than the religious intellect. This is clearly seen in 
 the estimate which animated sectarians form of 
 character. The good qualities of their own adherent 
 they readily perceive, admire, and extol ; his failings 
 they endure with patience ; and his faults, which they 
 dare not justify, they can overlook and extenuate. 
 But should he quit their connexion, the first are 
 disparaged, the second are no longer tolerable, and 
 the third swell into crimes. On the other hand, 
 virtues and graces in a different party, they are apt 
 to admit with reluctance, and rarely without qualifi- 
 cation But lo ! all is altered ! Our 
 
 breasts fill with the milk of human kindness ; and we 
 welcome to our hearts the very man whom a week 
 before we eyed askaunt, and should have thought 
 to have been a spot in our feast of charity. Nay, 
 we often are summarily convinced, that a person of 
 
THE GUILT AND EVILS OF SCHISM. 179 
 
 dubious character has been injured and persecuted. 
 Our inquiries are conducted with the nicest deHcacy. 
 So gentle our temper ! so charitable our construc- 
 tions ! so large an allowance for infirmity ! so deep 
 our sympathy ! Whence the miracle ? Has a 
 seraph, with fire from the altar of God, touched 
 these men of unclean lips, and taken away the stains 
 which alarmed our purity ? Oh no ! they are pre- 
 cisely what they were. Wherefore, then, this change 
 in eyesight, in feelings, in behaviour? Simple 
 inquirer, thou knowest nothing of party magic! 
 They have come, or are coming, or are expected to 
 come, over to us." 
 
 3. The necessary effect of the two preceding evils 
 is to impair our piety. The appointed channel in 
 which religion flows is, through the understanding, to 
 the heart. And hence it has often occurred that men 
 in finding religion, have found a mind. But while 
 piety, by bringing them into the presence of great 
 and ennobling objects, has enlai'ged and exalted the 
 little mind, the sectarian spirit, by detaining men 
 chiefly among trifles, tends to dwarf and shrivel the 
 most expansive intellect — to reduce it to the dimen- 
 sions of the object on which it settles, a point. And 
 thus, it not only contracts the understanding, and 
 prevents the full flow of religious influence to the 
 heart; it actually degrades and devotes the under- 
 standing to other and inferior purposes, so that the 
 heart is left in an unwatered, barren, withered state. 
 
180 THE GUILT AND EVILS OF SCHISM. 
 
 When the worshipper should be looking gratefully 
 and complacently over the assembled church, he is 
 prying about curiously for the marked members of his 
 own sect, and thinks the temple empty because they 
 are so few. And when he should be within, lost in the 
 radiance of the Holiest of all, he is to be found 
 without, in some dim and distant corner of the build- 
 ing, angrily disputing with a fellow-worshipper about 
 the most approved attitude of devotion. 
 
 4. Nor can this injury be inflicted on his piety 
 without proportionally diminishing his enjoyment. The 
 blessed God has so laid his vast and gracious plans 
 that he can be enjoyed fully only in communion; 
 and hence the consummation of spiritual happiness 
 is reserved for the complete assembly of heaven. 
 It follows, however, that the nearer the Church 
 approaches at present to that final and full commu- 
 nion, the nearer it will approach to that final and 
 full enjoyment. But to this consummation the 
 spirit of party presents an insuperable obstacle. 
 By dividing the Church into unfriendly sections, it 
 divides its joys and multiplies its sorrows. Instead 
 of rejoicing in the prosperity of the whole Church, 
 its victim can rejoice heartily only in the success of 
 his own party. His God is, properly speaking, not 
 the God of the whole Church, but only the patron 
 of a party. And when, like the great Intercessor 
 above, he might be enjoying the godlike satisfaction 
 of taking the interests of the whole Church into the 
 
THE GUILT AND EVILS OF SCHISM. 181 
 
 presence of God, his breastplate contains the name 
 of only one of the tribes — he is only the advocate 
 of a paity. 
 
 5. From this it follows that a spirit of division 
 tends to destroy " a sense of our common interests." 
 Although Christ, as " the head of his body the 
 Church," designs the health and growth of the 
 whole, the hand is unnaturally pleased at arrest- 
 ing and appropriating the nourishment which be- 
 longs to the foot, and the right side congratulates 
 itself at the paralysis of the left, as promising it 
 a monopoly of the circulating life. My church, your 
 church, their church, are phrases so prevalent, that 
 His universal Church, which comprehends them all, is 
 comparatively forgotten. No united prayers, no joint 
 endeavours are made for a common good. Less 
 pecuniary assistance is rendered, by the wealthy 
 Christian, to religious objects coming from different 
 parties, than as if they all belonged to his own party. 
 And even complacency is felt at accessions to his 
 own sect, though obtained at the expense of all the 
 rest; forgetting that the injury of one member is the 
 injury of the whole body. 
 
 6. Losing sight of the common interests of the 
 Christian Church, each party appoints terms of com- 
 munion with itself which disparage and virtually re- 
 peal the bond of scriptural union. It is not enough 
 that a man exercise "repentance towards God, and 
 faith in our Lord Jesus Christ" — if he would obtain 
 
 R 
 
182 THE GUILT AND EVILS OF SCHISM. 
 
 admission into a party church, he must pronounce 
 the Shibboleth of its members. In addition to bein<y 
 a Christian, he must swear himself sectarian. A 
 series of very slight changes in his creed will drive 
 him in quick succession from communion with many 
 an Independent church to a Methodist — from a 
 Methodist to a Baptist — from a Baptist to the Epis- 
 copalian — from the Episcopalian to the Presbyterian, 
 or back again to the Independents. His piety, 
 meantime, stands him in no stead with either. Piety 
 is professedly in nearly equal request with all ; but 
 the piety of the Bible — the " fine linen white and 
 clean which is the righteousness of the saints '" is as 
 nothing, till it is dyed in the party-colour of the sect. 
 
 7. Another consequence resulting from the same 
 cause is, that the brotherly love which ought to subsist 
 between the cliurches of Christ is made impossible, and a 
 mashed affectation of charity passes in its stead. It 
 would be a self-contradiction for children of the same 
 parent to profess that they cherish a very tender 
 affection for each other, and yet refuse to sit at the 
 same table, or to exchange the mutual expressions of 
 fraternal love. And equally absurd and hypocritical 
 is it for the members of different churches to pretend 
 that their attachment to real Christians of whatever 
 name is sincere, and yet withhold from them the 
 obvious and natural evidences of love. They mis- 
 take worldly politeness for the sanctified ardour of 
 Christian love. Instead of cordially welcoming them 
 
 9 
 
THE GUILT AND EVILS OF SCHISM. 183 
 
 to the table of the Lord, and to the intimacies of 
 Christian-fellowship, they content themselves with 
 the bare avoidance of rudeness, and say, "De- 
 part in peace." Instead of pouring in oil and wine 
 into their smarting wounds, they consider it praise- 
 worthy forbearance that they do not inflict an addi- 
 tional stab, and "pass by on the other side." How 
 cutting the sarcasm which should now say, " See how 
 these Christians love," when they have only just 
 religion enough to hate ; when they call on Christians 
 to come out from their fellow-christians and to come 
 over to themselves, as loudly as they call on the irre- 
 ligious to come out from the world and be separate ; 
 when they rejoice in an instance of proselytism more 
 than in a conversion ; when the sect of the schis- 
 matical, including members of all churches, is the most 
 active, numerous, and extending sect of the day ; 
 and when a scant and gauzy afiectation of charity is 
 supposed to be an adequate substitute for the warm 
 and ample robe of Christian love. 
 
 8. The sectarian spirit, so far from extinguishing 
 existing differences of religious sentiment, tends to 
 magnify them, and to create others. It is in the 
 nature of things, that those who differ from each 
 other, and who have proclaimed that difference to 
 the world by taking their stand in separate parties, 
 should be anxious to justify their respective grounds 
 of difference. But by shutting themselves up in 
 separate enclosures, they deprive themselves of the 
 
184 THE GUILT AND EVILS OF SCHISM. 
 
 opportunity, and even lose the desire, of mutual 
 explanation; and by shutting others out, they pre- 
 judice them against their peculiar sentiments even 
 though founded in truth. "The wall of separation 
 is continually strengthened, each party fortifying it 
 on his own side" Their pride is engaged to maintain 
 their respective opinions; for, having avowed them, 
 their surrender would be deemed a surrender of 
 honour. The Bible itself is made a partisan; 
 ground for new discrepancies are there fancied or 
 descried; and, consequently, additional reasons for 
 receding a step farther off. New subjects of con- 
 tention arise; new antagonists rush to the conflict; 
 new materials for continuing and extending the war 
 are collected ; and each party would fain enforce the 
 law of Solon, compelling every one to range under 
 one or other of the contending banners, till the whole 
 Church should be embroiled. 
 
 9. Wherever the spirit of party is seen, we may feel 
 assured that the spirit of calumny is not far distant. 
 How rare the Christian magnanimity of largely and 
 liberally praising even the excellences belonging to 
 another party ! How few the men of any denomina- 
 tion who might safely be left to state the cause of 
 those who differ from them ! or be intrusted with 
 their rights ! How large the sect of the slanderers ! 
 — of men who listen with evident satisfaction to a 
 detail of the errors and imperfections of their op- 
 ponents ; who seize their inadvertencies with avidity, 
 
THE GUILT AND EVILS OF SCHISM. 185 
 
 and fasten on the blemishes of even a single indivi- 
 dual to asperse the character of a whole denomina- 
 tion ; who require ten witnesses to a testimony ad- 
 vantageous to their opponents, but who wait not for 
 two when the testimony is adverse; and who violate 
 the ninth commandment with little hesitation, pro- 
 vided the neighbour witnessed against belong to 
 another party. " Credulity," it is said, " is the 
 magnet of lies ;"* and such magnets are to be found 
 in every party, attracting and treasuring up the flying 
 slanders reported of other parties, making them the 
 staple of their conversation, and thus constituting 
 themselves the accusers of the brethren. 
 
 10. The fear of misrepresentation thus produced, 
 is highly unfavourable to the removal of denominational 
 evils, and to any ecclesiastical improvements. Each 
 party is afraid to advert to its own defects, lest they 
 should be magnified and turned by their opponents 
 into a song of triumph; still less can it think of 
 adopting a single excellence, however self-recom- 
 mending, from their system. The consequence is, that 
 it carries about with it a consciousness of its defects 
 in silence; or, if one of its members courageously 
 points them out with a view to amendment, he is 
 regarded as an enemy in the camp; and others of 
 his party, perhaps, will not only denounce him for 
 the exposure, but will laud the very evils complained 
 
 * Magnes mendacii credulitas. 
 
 r3 
 
186 THE GUILT AND EVILS OF SCHISM. 
 
 of, and labour to embalm them in eloquence, and 
 to perpetuate them as excellences. 
 
 11. The unfriendly divisions which exist among 
 Christians greatly dishonour Christianity in the eyes 
 of the world. As long as Christians contended only 
 with real foes without the Church, their ranks 
 were compact, and their number and strength went 
 on increasing. But from the moment they began to 
 contend with fancied foes within, their conquests 
 ceased, and the day of their weakness began. All 
 historians who have adverted to the subject, are 
 unanimous in representing the endless schisms which 
 divided and sub-divided the once flourishing churches 
 of the East, as having prepared the way for Mo- 
 hammedanism, filled its ranks, and even invited its 
 march over their ruins. Equally certain is it that 
 the contentions of our Reformers retarded the pro- 
 gress, and enfeebled the spirit, of the Reformation ; 
 so that some of the advocates returned to the 
 Church of Rome, and others retired and wept in 
 secret. And who does not know that our divisions 
 are the disgrace of Protestantism in the eyes of 
 the Romanist, and tend to rivet the fetters of 
 his superstition ? One of his published " reasons 
 why he cannot conform to the Protestant religion " 
 is, because " it is not one — the different branches of 
 the pretended reformation are divided from one 
 another in faith and communion." * True it is, 
 
 • Reasons, &c., published by Keating and Brown. 
 
THE GUILT AND EVILS OF SCHISM. 187 
 
 indeed, that the Romish church itself is essentially- 
 divided on a variety of points both of doctrine and 
 discipline; that its boasted unity is merely artificial 
 and mechanical — the unanimity of the deaf con- 
 cerning sounds, or of the blind concerning colours. 
 But this does not release the sectarian Protestant 
 from the guilt of perpetuating those divisions by 
 which the unreasoning Papist is flattered into a pre- 
 ference for his own system of errors. Who does not 
 know that numbers have been proselyted to Popery 
 owing to our divisions. " Thousands," says Baxter, 
 " have been drawn to Popery by this argument 
 already, or confirmed in it. And I am persuaded 
 that all the arguments in Bellarmine, and all their 
 other treatises, have not been so effectual to make 
 Papists here, as the multitude of sects among our- 
 selves." And who is not aware that infidelity itself 
 derives its choicest weapons from the divisions existing 
 in the Christian Church? One of the two reasons 
 assigned for the apostacy of Julian is, that when he 
 saw the dissensions of the Christians, and their 
 rancour against each other, he took refuge from their 
 broils in the quiet of Paganism, " Our controver- 
 sies about religion," says Stillingfleet, " have brought 
 at last even religion itself into a controversy." True 
 it is again, that the plea which infidelity drives from 
 this source, is too evidently sophistical for any but a 
 depraved heart to employ. Still, this does not 
 discharge us from the guilt of furnishing the sceptic 
 
188 THE GUILT AND EVILS OF SCHISM. 
 
 with weapons, however impotent, with which he 
 seeks to maintain his position of hostility against 
 God. 
 
 And what is the result of these disgraceful and 
 wasting divisions ? — that Mohammedanism, Popery, 
 and irreligion still divide the civilised world between 
 them — that reformed Christianity finds, on number- 
 ing her followers, that she still stands in a most 
 insignificant minority — and, worse still, that (like the 
 two contending armies which knew nothing of the 
 earthquake that had threatened to ingulf them both 
 during the conflict) they are so engrossed with their 
 internal quarrels, that they are still comparatively 
 insensible to their consequent weakness, and to the 
 disgrace they are inflicting on religion in the eyes 
 of the world. Shame, shame on the Church ! and 
 alas, for the perishing world ! 
 
 12. Our divisions are essentially ruinous to the souls 
 of men. The ways in which they operate to this 
 dreadful effect are various. One of these may be 
 inferred from the preceding paragraph — they tend to 
 confirm the irreliffious in their impiety. These men, 
 say they, do not admit the possibility of mistake on 
 any of the points about which they contend. They 
 affirm that every thing is as clear as the light of 
 noon. The probability is, therefore, that they are 
 all fighting in the dark. At all events, we are 
 content to wait till the articles of peace are settled 
 between them ; for were we to join either of the 
 
THE GUILT AND EVILS OF SCHISM. 
 
 189 
 
 parties at present, all the others would pronounce 
 us wrong ; and wrong we can only be by remaining 
 as we are. Thus they reason, and — are lost. Our 
 dissensions prove serious impediments to the sincere 
 inquirer after the truth. " I have found in my own 
 conversation," says Howe, " that some even in dis- 
 tress, in agonies, have said, ' Lord, be merciful to 
 us ; I know not which way to go ; one preaches one 
 thing, another preaches quite the contrary.' I know 
 they mistake. We do generally, in substance, preach 
 
 the same Gospel But in the meantime it is 
 
 a thing of very ill- consequence to lay stumbling- 
 blocks before the blind ; bars and obstructions in the 
 way of the weak and the lame, whereby they may 
 be turned out of the way who should rather be 
 strengthened." Besides which the sectarian spirit 
 passes with numbers for the religious spirit, and is 
 their substitute for true piety. " Have you never known 
 such a case, when it might be said — There goes a 
 proud, ambitious man, a false man, a malicious man ; 
 but a man of great zeal for his church ? This atones 
 for all his crimes ; and both quiets his conscience, 
 and salves his credit together. And who can doubt 
 but this man must be very fond of his own opinions, 
 and zealously contend and dispute for them upon any 
 occasion, when they are to do him so great service, 
 and to stand him in so much stead — to supply the 
 room for him of all religion and morality ?" Men of 
 this class are the Crusaders of the Church ; who 
 
190 THE GUILT AND EVILS OF SCHISM. 
 
 mistake the polemics of their party for the doctrines 
 of salvation; who regard a chivalrous contention for 
 a creed, as a good equivalent for believing it ; and 
 whose confidence of their spiritual security it would 
 be all but impossible to shake, since they are 
 conscious of a readiness to fight, if necessary, in 
 defence of religion — the religion of their party. 
 " Oh ! how many millions of souls," exclaims Baxter, 
 " are kept in ignorance and ungodliness, and deluded 
 by faction, as if it ivere true religion 1 " As if the 
 obstacles to the salvation of men were not sufficiently 
 great without, we thus multiply the difficulties of 
 some by our dissensions, and confirm the fatal de- 
 lusions of others. JVe, who are appointed instru- 
 mentally to save them, become the accessaries to, 
 and occasions of, their destruction. 
 
 13. But besides the evils we have enumerated, and 
 which have always been flowing from the divided 
 Church, its growing activity of late, as an agent of 
 good to the world, has brought to light other evils of 
 a most alarming character. The wounds which it 
 exhibited in a comparatively quiescent state, become 
 increasingly felt and inflamed by every effort which 
 it makes to move. In consequence of its divisions, 
 the cause of national education and religious improve- 
 ment is impeded and impaired. The people generally 
 ask for knowledge ; the government is wiUing to re- 
 spond to the request; but the professed friends of 
 education are divided through the fear that each party 
 
THE GUILT AND EVILS OF SCHISM. 191 
 
 will pervert and employ it as a power for its own pur- 
 poses. The principle of universal instruction is car- 
 ried ; but who shall settle the practice ? The question 
 of questions has become a party question ; that which 
 might prove a national blessing is perverted into a 
 national curse; and the heritage we are bequeath- 
 ing to posterity is "a heritage of dissension. The 
 time for conciliation is childhood ; but it appears that 
 we prefer to arm posterity for the contest, rather than 
 to do away with the necessity of contending at all. 
 Surely this has neither the foresight of sound policy, 
 nor the benevolence of philanthropy. The dictates 
 of such would say, ' We are brothers, we are brothers ; 
 let us not sow the seeds of internal discord from gene- 
 ration to generation. Let us cease to split straws; 
 at least, let us not use them for fuel to light up 
 the fires of perpetual contention for our children's 
 children.' "* 
 
 Obstacles, often insurmountable, present them- 
 selves from the same quarter, to the efforts which are 
 made to enlighten and evangelise our adult population. 
 This is especially the case in our smaller towns and 
 rural districts. He who knows any thing of their moral 
 statistics is aware that, in such places, many a circle 
 might be drawn, including from five hundred to five 
 or six thousand souls, comparatively abandoned to the 
 ignorance of baptised heathenism. Here, it might be 
 supposed, a Christian agent would only have to come 
 
 * Literary Gazette. 
 
192 THE GUILT AND EVILS OF SCHISM. 
 
 and labour from one part of the Church, in order 
 to secure the encouraging " God speed" of every 
 other part. Not so, however. Often does it happen 
 that he no sooner attempts to enlighten this dark- 
 ness than he finds himself resisted — not merely by 
 the demons of ignorance and vice, but by a de- 
 mon more hazardous to encounter and difficult to 
 allay— the spirit of religious party. He is soon 
 made to feel that he is treading enchanted ground, 
 and has incurred the unappeasable displeasure of 
 its guardian spirit. Prejudice misunderstands his 
 object, and construes the impulse of his compas- 
 sion into a crime ; authority frowns on him ; and im- 
 piety, secretly encouraged, will not unfrequently 
 threaten him with personal violence. If he perse- 
 vere, it is only by maintaining the spirit of an ancient 
 martyr; but numerous are the instances in which the 
 prospect of encountering so much hostility, effectually 
 deters the philanthropist from making the attempt ; 
 or in which, having made it, he retires disheartened 
 and defeated by those at whose hands he was entitled 
 to look for benediction and aid. Meanwhile, the 
 " people are destroyed through lack of knowledge," 
 
 14. And — to conclude this long catalogue of evils 
 arising from our divisions — thej/ enfeeble and endanger 
 our missionary operations, and delay the conversion of 
 the world. They do this, partly, ly dividing our 
 limited instrumentality. One church abounds more in 
 the zeal which bums for active exertion, and another 
 
THE GUILT AND EVILS OF SCHISM. 193 
 
 in the wisdom which is profitable to direct; in which 
 case co-operation would be strength, but isolation is 
 weakness and folly. One society calls aloud for 
 agents, and pledges itself to raise the funds for their 
 support: while another proclaims that it has agents 
 ready, if it did but possess means for sending them 
 forth. Here, sympathy with each other's wants, by unit- 
 ing their respective means, would happily supply them 
 both; while a spirit of division is making that which 
 is already little, still less. The combined resources 
 of the whole Church would be only adequate to its 
 work; but, as if we possessed them in superfluous 
 abundance, we so effectually reduce them by our 
 divisions, that their insignificance tempts opposition, 
 and not unfrequently incurs defeat. 
 
 Not only do our dissensions divide and weaken our 
 missionary resources at home, they also tend to coun- 
 teract their influence abroad. It is in vain to say 
 that but little disagreement exists as yet among our 
 Christian missionaries abroad; the seeds of discord 
 only ask for time, and they will not fail to bear 
 their proper fruit. It is in vain to say that good is 
 done notwithstanding our disunion ; the partial good 
 which is effected abroad, is effected by merging the 
 disputes of home — in fact, by uniting, or by pretend- 
 ing to a degree of fraternity which the relative state 
 of parties at home will not justify. And would not a 
 knowledge of our differences there be fatal to our 
 usefulness? Would it not shake the confidence of 
 
 s 
 
194 THE GUILT AND EVILS OF SCHISM. 
 
 the religious noviciate there; and embroil the 
 churches ; and cover the breast of the idolater with 
 an additional coat of resistance to the arrows of the 
 Lord ; and arm the Brahmin, the sceptic, and everj- 
 hostile hand, with a new weapon of attack ? To ex- 
 pect that a divided Church should be honoured bv 
 God in the conversion of the world, is to expect that 
 the prayer of Christ will be frustrated in pure in- 
 dulgence to our perverseness. Having implored the 
 unity of his disciples as essential to the final success of 
 his Gospel, we cannot expect the end independent of 
 the means, without impugning his wisdom, and 
 hoping that his prayer may be forgotten. To in- 
 dulge in a spirit of dissension is to counteract the 
 object of our own intercessions. For, if we pray that 
 the will of God may be done on earth as it is in 
 heaven, we are to remember that it is obeyed there 
 unanimously and harmoniously, as well as universally ; 
 so that we are virtually requesting that it may not be 
 done by us, or, at least, in our present divided state, 
 but at some indefinitely distant time, when all the 
 wounds of the Church shall be healed. Besides 
 which, we are to remember, that the unity of the 
 Church is not merely a scripture doctrine, its practi- 
 cal and visible exhibition is evidently intended to be 
 the grand means for the conversion of the world, and 
 a leading design of the Christian dispensation. By 
 our divisions, therefore, we are either intentionally 
 counteracting the plans of God, or else they evince 
 5 
 
THE GUILT AND EVILS OF SCHISM. 193 
 
 an expectation that, in homage to our importance, 
 he will repeal his own well-ordered designs, put 
 extraordinary honour on those who love their own 
 particular opinions in preference to his commands, 
 and publish himself to the world as the Patron of 
 variance and divisions among his people. 
 
 And more than all, our dissensions impede the 
 usefulness of the Church and delay the conversion of 
 the world, hy grieving the Holy Spirit of God. Were 
 any particular section of the Church to proclaim its 
 independence of Divine influence, it would be de- 
 nounced as heteredox by the common consent of 
 Christendom. And yet, the necessity of such in- 
 fluence is not insisted on in Scripture more clearly 
 or frequently, than the necessity of Christian union 
 in order to the full impartation of that influ- 
 ence. So that to expect religious prosperity with- 
 out the aid of the Spirit, and to expect that aid 
 in a divided Church, are two expectations equally 
 unscriptural and profane. Had the morning of the 
 day of Pentecost found the disciples assembled in 
 strife or split into factions, can we imagine that the 
 Divine Spirit would have filled with his presence a 
 house already filled with another spirit, an antagonist 
 spirit of malevolence? — or that he would have 
 even approached the contentious scene ? Something 
 quicker and stronger than reasoning — an instinctive 
 conviction — tells us that he would not. What is the 
 change, then, which we suppose him to have since 
 
196 THE GUILT AND EVILS OF SCHISM. 
 
 undergone — or what the peculiar grounds which lead 
 us to expect — that he should mingle with our strifes, 
 and countenance our schisms ? He is still the Spirit 
 of peace, and can he approve of our wars ? He is 
 still the Spirit of love — and can he dwell amidst 
 elements of anger and hostility? Or, as the Spirit 
 of union — can he consistently put marked honour on 
 the instrumentality of a church, which seems to have 
 prescribed to itself, as the great condition of its 
 moving, that it will move only in parties, and work 
 only in factions ? Indeed, it is well worthy the con- 
 sideration of the Christian Church, whether it is not 
 occupying, at this moment, a position of infatuation 
 and guilt in relation to the promised Spirit, similar 
 to that of the ancient Jewish church in relation to the 
 promised Messiah — whether it is not equally true of 
 each, that " he came to his own, and his own received 
 him not." 
 
 Now, if the preceding be a correct representation 
 of the evils of schism, it would appear that as the 
 design of God is to erect a spiritual temple from the 
 ruins of the fall, so the object of the demon Schism 
 is to mar that work in every step of its progress, and 
 to reduce it again to its original chaos. Taking 
 possession of the individual Christian, it so incor- 
 porates with his system, and transforms him into its 
 own nature, that he is no longer himself ; his judg- 
 ments are so impaired that, however rational on other 
 subjects, the Divine image itself, unless seen in one 
 
THE GUILT AND EVILS OF SCHISM. 197 
 
 particular light, is shunned as if it resembled the like- 
 ness of an enemy ; the strongest ties of Christian and 
 natural relationship are burst asunder like the bands 
 of the demoniac among the tombs; communion with 
 his party is mistaken for communion with the Deity; 
 and even the Great God himself is circumscribed 
 within narrow limits, and worshipped only as the God 
 of a faction. Impatient to commence its work of 
 ruin, the spirit of schism waited not for the gradual 
 process of worldliness to sap the piety of the Church, 
 but bursting into the temple while yet the apostles 
 were personally conducting the worship, it broke in 
 pieces the tables of the law of love as impediments 
 to all its subsequent designs, and threw down the 
 cross in favour of an outward and superannuated rite. 
 Calling to its aid "variance, wrath, strife, seditions, 
 heresies," it divided the assembled worshippers into 
 angry factions ; gave to each a party standard and an 
 inflammatory watchword ; and changed the peaceful 
 Church into a hostile camp. Forcing its way even 
 to the table of the Lord, it laid unhallowed hands on 
 the sacred feast, turned the cup of blessing into a 
 curse, and planted a symbol of strife in the very 
 place of the cross. Clothed in the garb of a pre- 
 tended zeal for the truth, and filling its hands with 
 manacles and chains, it entered the thrice-holy place 
 where God and conscience alone should meet, dared 
 to ascend the throne where God alone should sit, and 
 summoning into its presence all who denied or even 
 s 3 
 
198 THE GUILT AND EVILS OF SCHISM. 
 
 doubted its authority, loaded them with fetters in the 
 name of the God of liberty and love. In vain did 
 its victims protest and plead, and appeal in bitterness 
 of soul from earth to Heaven — the Demon heard not 
 their cries, saw not their tears ; and if it had, what 
 were weak consciences to it? wounded consciences, 
 or even ruined souls, to it ? — a thousand-fold more 
 terrible than Moloch or the fabled Minotaur, it found 
 music in groans, and, feasting on blood, ravenously 
 devoured " him with its meat for whom Christ died." 
 
 Disdaining the ruin of only a single Christian, or 
 a particular church, its aim is to embroil and destroy 
 the whole Christian community. Times have been 
 when all the armed powers of the earth were fighting 
 in its pay, and all the engines of torture active in its 
 service. Not satisfied with such limited and ordinarv 
 aids, it has devised improved methods of inflicting 
 suffering, and furnished the world with hints of 
 cruelty. While its desolating march through Chris- 
 tendom might be easily traced, by the light of the 
 martyr-fires which its own hands have kindled; by 
 the cries of the sufferers left prostrate in its rear; 
 by the ruins of Christian temples which it rased to 
 the ground, and by the prisons and inquisitions 
 which those ruins enabled it to erect in their 
 stead. 
 
 If, in the present day, the spirit of schism is less 
 conversant than formerly with the grosser forms of 
 persecution, it is not owing to any change in its 
 
THE GUILT AND EVILS OF SCHISM. 
 
 199 
 
 nature ; its operations are as active, extensive, and 
 fearful in their effects as ever. Though perpetually 
 convicted of error, it cannot think of speaking in 
 less than a tone of infallibility, or of requiring less 
 than implicit deference to its oracular strains. As 
 if penal measures had invariably succeeded instead 
 of invariably failed, it is as sanguine as ever that 
 they would secure submission to its will. In its ser- 
 vice slander prepares the subtlest poison ; breathes a 
 suspicion on acts over which all heaven is rejoicing ; 
 makes it a virtue to hate men whom it should be 
 a happiness to love ; and, by perverse misapplications 
 of Scripture, converts even the sword of the Spirit 
 into an assassin's dagger. As if it were a sworn 
 agent of the powers of darkness, and were actually 
 experimenting on the infinite divisibility of the 
 Church, it continues absorbed in punctilios, and 
 insisting on comparative trifles; heedless, meantime, 
 of the cries of the souls it is ruining, of the laugh 
 of the world it is amusing, of the remonstrances 
 of the Heaven it is offending ; regardless, that among 
 the most obvious consequences of its conduct are, 
 the grieved Spirit of God retiring from it to the 
 greatest possible distance compatible with the con- 
 tinued existence of the Church — the infliction of 
 fresh wounds on the body of Christ — the prolonga- 
 tion of the reign of Antichrist — and the postpone- 
 ment of millennial triumphs. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE PLEAS AND DISGUISES OF SCHISM. 
 
 The evils of schism are so obvious and fearful, that 
 we might well believe it impossible for a word to 
 be uttered in palliation, did not facts affirm the 
 contrar)' ; and did we not know that no single evil 
 has ever been obliterated from the long catalogue 
 which sin has produced, through the want of a 
 defence. An evil, indeed, is generally defended, not 
 in its own naked and proper character, but by as- 
 suming the mask and name of a virtue ; but the 
 pleas and disguises of schism are so transparent and 
 obvious, that we might well wonder how any one 
 could ever be beguiled by them, and still more 
 that he should expect others to allow them to pass 
 for valid reasons. 
 
 I. If, for instance, in order to expose the evils of 
 schism, we place them in contrast with the unity of 
 the primitive Church — when c/m7rA-coramunion was 
 
THK PLEAS AND DISGUISES OF SCHISM. 201 
 
 ca//io/2C-communion — it is sometimes objected, that 
 " circumstances, since then, have materially altered ; 
 that many things which were easy at first, are imprac- 
 ticable now ; and that, although prior to the existence 
 of divisions, it might have been the duty of Christians 
 to avoid them, yet to return from them now is impos- 
 sible." Such are the pleas and excuses of an igno- 
 rant and inconsiderate sloth. 
 
 According to this representation, the waters of the 
 sanctuary, like another Euphrates, have only to sepa- 
 rate, to wear for themselves new channels, or to stag- 
 nate into pools, reducing the Church to the desola- 
 tion of another Babylon, and, from that moment, it 
 ceases to be the duty of Christians to attempt to unite 
 them again — to restore the Church to its primitive 
 prosperity. Sin has only to wait till it can plead 
 antiquity, in order to establish its title to undisturbed 
 dominion. The task of reformation has only to be- 
 come difficult in order to cease to be obligatory. It 
 is true, there existed in the primitive Church causes 
 of separation much more weighty than many of those 
 which have since led to division, and yet no separa- 
 tion took place ; and that example was no doubt 
 meant to be binding on the Church in all subsequent 
 times ; but, it was only necessary to depart from it, in 
 order to annul its authority. It is true, also, that the 
 command of Christ requires union ; but only as long 
 as such union is perfectly convenient; as soon as ever 
 
202 THE PLEAS AND DISGUISES OF SCHISM. 
 
 it becomes difficult to continue, or to restore it, he 
 permits us to be as divided as we please. 
 
 The startling inconsistency of this language, and 
 the profanity of the sentiments which it implies, are 
 evident. And yet, unless the objector is prepared to 
 avow them at the tribunal of God, we would ad- 
 jure him to examine whether they are not fairly 
 involved in the excuses on which he is disposed to 
 rely. 
 
 II. " But the word of God declares that unanimity 
 of sentiment is essential to union ; in the absence of 
 such unanimity, therefore, union would be hypocrisy, 
 and divisions are inevitable." This excuse for schism 
 might be entertained if the union which the Scrip- 
 tures enjoin demanded perfect identity of religious 
 opinion. But that such is not the nature of the una- 
 nimity they require, has already been made suffi- 
 ciently apparent* The oneness of sentiment which 
 they inculcate, relates only to those articles of faith 
 which are essential to unite us to Christ ; if they insist 
 on any agreement beyond this, it is agreement of 
 affection. " Be perfectly joined together," says 
 the apostle,f "in the same mind and in the same 
 judgment" — or, as the word is elsewhere translated,:^ 
 purpose — a passage which is often quoted to prove 
 that entire identity of religious opinion is essential to 
 Christian-fellowship. A reference to page 84 will 
 
 * See chap. ii. t 1 Cor. i. 10. X Acts xx. 3. 
 
THE PLEAS AND DISGUISES OF SCHISM. 203 
 
 show, however, that the unanimity enjoined related 
 not to " opinions," but to " leaders." So that, rightly 
 understood, it implies that, notwithstanding their cir- 
 cumstantial differences, the Christians addressed 
 should yet be one in heart. 
 
 Apostolical practice illustrated apostolical teaching : 
 that the unanimity, therefore, which the apostles in- 
 culcated as necessary to Christian-fellowship is such 
 as we have described, is evident from the fact, that 
 minor differences of opinion were actually permitted 
 by them in the churches which they planted and watch- 
 ed over. For well they knew that such differences were 
 inevitable to humanity in its present probationary 
 state ; that where piety flourishes they will not impede 
 the free circulation of Christian love ; and that, even 
 if they did, the way to diminish them is, not to make 
 them grounds of division, but to view them in con- 
 nexion with those infinite and eternal principles on 
 which we are one. 
 
 And history and experience demonstrate that 
 unanimity of affection is perfectly compatible with 
 circumstantial variety of religious opinion. Where 
 is the particular church even, whose members are all 
 absolutely agreed on every theological tittle ? yet 
 numerous are the particular churches which are 
 living in internal harmony and love. In many an 
 Episcopalian edifice the Calvinist and the Arminian 
 worship together in peace ; and in many a Dissenting 
 chapel, the Baptist and Paedobaptist commune to- 
 
204 THE PLEAS AND DISGUISES OF SCHISM. 
 
 gether at the table of the Lord. The " United 
 Christian churches" * established in Scotland, in- 
 cluding Calvinists, Baxterians, Presbyterians, Bap- 
 tists, Independents, and Methodists, are said to 
 exhibit the delightful spectacle of Christians, of 
 almost every variety of sentiment entertained by the 
 orthodox, walking together in harmony and love. 
 And could a community of Melancthons, Jewels, 
 Latimers, Leightons, Baxters, Bates, and Howes be 
 formed, how easy to foresee the delightful concord in 
 which they would live together; merging their trivial 
 differences in the magnificent truths which made them 
 one ; or alluding to those differences only in a way 
 which enhanced their mutual esteem. And what is 
 it but an inferior state of knowledge and piety, 
 which prevents their professed descendants of the 
 present day from honouring their principles, by ex- 
 emplifying their catholic spirit? 
 
 III. " We do not entertain sentiments of hostility 
 to any other branch of the Christian Church ; nor do 
 we desire the continuance of its present divisions ; in- 
 deed, we long for the unity of the whole Church in 
 the bond of peace." These professions may be made 
 sincerelv ; but, often, it is to be feared, they are only 
 the language of self-deception and schism. Can 
 those who utter it be satisfied with making Christian 
 love to consist in the bare absence of active hostility, 
 
 * See Bowes on Christian Union ; a treatise of considerable re- 
 search, and breathing an excellent spirit. 
 
THE PLEAS AND DISGUISES OF SCHISM. 205 
 
 or even of conscious dislike ? Can mere professions 
 of religious friendship, when unaccompanied by the 
 natural evidences of Christian esteem and confidence, 
 serve to demonstrate any thing but their insincerity ? 
 And as to the peace which they profess to sigh for — 
 are they prepared to obtain it on any but the mag- 
 nanimous condition that the universal Church shall 
 capitulate and submit to their terms? They are 
 clamorous for union ; but then it must be by uni- 
 formity — of which their own church shall be the 
 model; and subjugation — in which they alone shall 
 remain supreme. All who differ from them being 
 necessarily wrong, it would of course be treason to 
 the cause of truth, to think of any alternative but 
 perpetual war or unqualified submission. Quando 
 solitudinem fecere appellant pacem — when they have 
 made a desplation they will call it peace. And thus 
 under a pretended desire for union, they pertinaciously 
 cherish the principles of division. 
 
 The Dissenter who employs the language supposed, 
 should remember that, in order to evince his sin- 
 cerity, he must inquire what aspect his particular 
 church most probably presents to the Dissenters of 
 other communities, and must labour to remove from 
 it every thing unscriptural and repulsive : while, in 
 relation to the members of the Established Church, 
 he must be conscious of a readiness to make the 
 necessary allowances for men in the possession of 
 temporal superiority and legal power, to meet them 
 
 T 
 
206 
 
 THE PLEAS AND DISGUISES OF SCHISM. 
 
 in the spirit of liberal Christian concession, and 
 laboriously and perseveringly to employ the various 
 methods of scriptui'al conciliation. And the Church- 
 man should remember that, if he would sincerely 
 employ this language, he must be conscious of regret 
 at the spirit of assumption which too generally per- 
 vades his community, and of a willingness to co- 
 operate in the removal of those ecclesiastical restric- 
 tions in which principally that spirit originates. 
 " Few churches," remarks Bishop Taylor,* " that 
 have framed bodies of confession and articles will 
 endure any person that is not of the same confession ; 
 which is a plain demonstration that such bodies of 
 confession and articles do much hurt, by becoming 
 instruments of separating and dividing communions, 
 and making unnecessary or uncertain propositions a 
 
 certain means of schism and disunion As for 
 
 particular churches, they are bound to allow com- 
 munion to all those that profess the same faith upon 
 which the apostles did give communion ; for whatso- 
 ever preserves us as members of the Church, gives us 
 title to the communion of saints ; and whatsoever 
 faith or belief that is to which God hath promised 
 heaven, that faith makes us members of the Catholic 
 Church. Since, therefore, the judicial acts of the 
 Church are then most prudent and religious when 
 they nearest imitate the example and piety of God, 
 to make the way to heaven straiter than God made 
 
 Sections sxi., sxii. 
 
THE PLEAS AND DISGUISES OF SCHISM. 207 
 
 it, or to deny to communicate with those whom God 
 will vouchsafe to be united, and to refuse our charity 
 to those who have the same faith, because they have 
 not all our opinions, and believe not every thing 
 necessary which we overvalue, is impious and schis- 
 matical ; it infers tyranny on one part, and persuades 
 and tempts to uncharitableness and animosities on 
 both ; it dissolves societies, and is an enemy to peace ; 
 it busies men in impertinent wranglings, and by 
 names of men and titles of factions it consigns the 
 interested parties to act their differences to the 
 height, and makes them neglect those advantages 
 which piety and a good life bring to the reputation 
 of Christian religion and societies." 
 
 4. " But the truth must be maintained ; you 
 would not have us sacrifice the tTuth." Most freely 
 do we admit that nothing connected with religion is 
 unimportant, or absolutely indifferent; and, that, 
 important as the harmony and peace of the Church 
 may be, the interests of truth and holiness are still 
 more so ; partly, because they are the only foundation 
 on which the temple of peace can be built. And 
 most earnestly do we deprecate that latitudinarian 
 indifference which would attempt reconciliation at the 
 expense of truth, as evil in its origin, and highly 
 dangerous in its tendency. The principles of reve- 
 lation are immortal and immutable ; and he who 
 fancies that he has a dispensing power here, or who 
 acts as if he had, by making a single concession to 
 
208 THE PLEAS AXD DISGUISES OF SCHISM. 
 
 an object or a party at the expense of Truth, from 
 that moment writes himself traitor to her throne, and 
 becomes disquaUfied for her service. 
 
 We have to remind the objector, however, that 
 there is a wide difference between denouncing schism 
 and asking for the sacrifice of truth. If we could 
 present him with no alternative between schism and 
 uniformity — if we were to propose perfect unanimity 
 of opinion instead of unanimity of affection — he 
 would then have ground for repeating and urging his 
 objection. But let him observe, first, — a truth which 
 we have often repeated already — that we do not ask 
 him to sacrifice his opinions, but only his unchristian 
 bigotry. We do not ask the Independent to become 
 an Episcopalian, nor the Episcopalian to become an 
 Independent. We do not ask the Calvinist to 
 change sides with the Arminian, nor the Baptist 
 with the Paedo-baptist : but only to exchange the 
 visible expressions of that love which they ought 
 mutually to cherish as heirs together of the grace 
 of life. We have to remind him, secondly, that 
 by maintaining his present position, he most likely 
 is sacrificing the truth, in more senses than one ; 
 while by maintaining the unity of the Spirit in 
 the bond of peace, he would be vindicating and 
 magnifying the truth. At present he is saying in 
 effect, The grand doctrines of salvation are nothing 
 as a basis of Christian union, unless their reception 
 be accompanied by certain shades of opinion which I 
 
THE PLEAS AND DISGUISES OF SCHISM. 209 
 
 myself have adopted ; the fact that " God hath re- 
 ceived him " into his favour, is no argument why I 
 should receive him into communion, although in- 
 spired authority has affirmed that it is, unless he will 
 consent to adopt every tittle of my creed : — and thus 
 the truth as it is in Jesus is reduced to a level with 
 truth as it is in a party. Whereas, by making those 
 doctrines the ground of Christian union, he would be 
 exalting them before the eyes of the world, and 
 proclaiming, that so great and glorious are they in his 
 estimation, that every thing else appears compara- 
 tively little. At present, he is sacrificing truth, also, 
 by indulging his attachment to particular shades of 
 opinion, at the expense of all that large portion of 
 the Bible which inculcates love to the brethren. He 
 is putting contempt on the truth by putting contempt 
 on the brotherhood. He is disparaging so large and 
 vital a portion of the Bible, that if he persist in sacri- 
 ficing it, even though he retain every other part, he is 
 endangering his salvation. " I," said Baxter, — and the 
 sentiment was worthy the inspired pen of the seraphic 
 John — " I can as willingly be a martyr for love as for 
 any article of the creed." But in his infatuated zeal 
 for a punctilio or a party, the objector appears ut- 
 terly to forget that there is such an article as love in 
 his creed, or such a doctrine as love in the Bible. 
 He defends some little angle or ornament in the 
 temple of truth at the expense of one of the pillars. 
 He contends for the letter — or rather, perhaps for a 
 T 3 
 
210 THE PLEAS AND DISGUISES OF SCHISM. 
 
 letter — of the truth, in a way which tramples on the 
 spirit which pervades the whole. Whereas, thirdly, 
 we have to remind him that by cultivating catholic 
 fellowship, he would be not merely not sacrificing the 
 truth, not merely maintaining it, but most likely 
 promoting his own peculiar views of it. He might 
 still inculcate those views from the pulpit and the 
 press, and recommend them by the amiable influence 
 of his example ; for controversy itself may be so 
 conducted as to win esteem instead of alienating it. 
 Love is a key which would afford him the readiest 
 and the surest access to the hearts and consciences 
 of others. If his peculiar views are scriptural, as 
 they came down at first from the calm region of 
 heaven, so their self-recommending excellence is more 
 likely to be seen and appreciated in the serene at- 
 mosphere of peace than in any other. And as the 
 whole system of revealed truth originated in the love 
 which compassionated our fatal ignorance, is he not 
 likely to be more successful in propagating it, the 
 more he inculcates it in the spirit in which it was 
 first conceived ? 
 
 Let us ask the objector : if only one sect remained 
 — and if that were a small sect distinguished from 
 the great body of the faithful by believing that 
 Christian communion was unnecessary, and the 
 union of the Church a matter of indifference : — in 
 other words, suppose that the only portion of truth 
 which remained in the least jeopardy were the 
 
THE PLEAS AND DISGUISES OF SCHISM. 211 
 
 doctrine of brotherly love — what is the spirit in 
 which he would contend for it ? Surely he would 
 not vindicate the claims of love in the spirit of 
 anger. Surely he would not think of winning that 
 little faction over, and of thus restoring the Church 
 to its first integrity, by decrying and denouncing 
 them. Brotherly love — the doctrine in question — 
 would disown such means ; it would dictate overtures 
 of peace, point to its obvious advantages, seek for 
 friendly interviews, be seen weeping, be heard in- 
 terceding, and thus would it soon assert its known 
 omnipotence, and lead them all in happy triumph. 
 This would be contending for the truth with the 
 only weapons which its Author permits: why will 
 not the objector employ them now, and gain the 
 victories of love? 
 
 5. " But are not divisions useful ? have they not 
 been the means of exciting emulation, quickening 
 Christian activity, and of thus instrumentally diffusing 
 the blessings of the Gospel ? " When the objector 
 utters this sentiment, he is probably thinking of in- 
 stances in which a dissenting church, having divided, 
 has sometimes succeeded in planting a second or 
 even a third community ; or else of the way in which 
 Dissenters, by forming benevolent and religious so- 
 cieties, are alleged to have been the means of 
 arousing the dormant energies of the Establishment, 
 and of inducing it to constitute similar societies. 
 But let him remember that, in order to estimate the 
 
212 THE PLEAS AND DISGUISES OF SCHISM. 
 
 effects of hostile division, he should compare them, 
 not with the effects of another evil — of supineness, 
 heresy, or any other unscriptural state into which a 
 church can fall — but with the probable effects which 
 would result from the scriptural union of the divided 
 parties, and from their harmonious obedience to the 
 will of Christ. Let him remember that while the 
 partial good resulting from this rivalry is apparent, 
 and has probably been nearly reaped, the harvest of 
 evil is yet to come, and can be estimated fully by Him 
 alone who sees the end from the beginning. And let 
 him remember, also, that not a tittle of that good 
 which he exultingly points at, has resulted from our 
 divisions properly considered ; for we are not to sup- 
 pose that the " God of order" has become the patron 
 of confusion, sanctioning our disorders, and turning 
 them into approved means of grace. The good re- 
 ferred to, has resulted from motives either right or 
 wrong; — if from right motives, that is only saying 
 that it has sprung, not from our divisions, but from 
 our piety in spite of our divisions; — if from wrong 
 motives, then it is to be ascribed entirely to the over- 
 ruling providence of God : and our feelings in refer- 
 ence to it should resemble those of the penitent Jews 
 on the day of Pentecost, when they saw that the blood 
 they had shed on Calvary had been wonderfully 
 made the element of human salvation — feelings of 
 humility, penitence, and adoring gratitude. As to an 
 objector who should affirm, without any qualification, 
 
THE PLEAS AND DISGUISES OF SCHISM. 213 
 
 that the Church is better in a state of division than 
 of union, we can only wonder at his not advancing 
 a step further and affirming that no church what- 
 ever would be best of all — for to such a result 
 his opinions would unquestionably lead. He is, in 
 effect, avowing that had our Lord and his apostles 
 acted wisely they would have formed, not one visible 
 and united Church, but separate and rival commu- 
 nities, like those at present existing ; that they would 
 not have recorded sentiments deprecating and de- 
 nouncing division, but rather encouraging it; that 
 sectarianism is a great improvement on the original 
 constitution of the Christian Church ; that the pros- 
 pect of the final union of the Church is to be zea- 
 lously retarded by all who desire its prosperity; and, 
 to be consistent, he ought to institute an inquiry 
 whether the Church is yet sufficiently divided; and 
 •whether the piety and usefulness of that particular 
 community of fifty or five hundred to which he may- 
 belong, would not be materially increased by minute 
 subdivision ; for if the division of the entire Church 
 be a blessing, why should the separation of his par- 
 ticular community be regarded as an evil ? 
 
 Having attempted an exposition of the evils of divi- 
 sion, and shown the futility of the more popular ob- 
 jections to its removal by a restoration of Christian 
 union, we are now prepared to entertain the subject 
 which naturally follows in the ensuing chapter — the 
 nature of the union to be sought. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE KIND OF UNION TO BE ATTEMPTED. 
 
 To ask the Christian Church, in its present divided 
 and distracted state, for an audience on the subject 
 of its union, might at first appear to be a vain and 
 useless request. Let us lay it down, however, at 
 once, as an infallible proposition, 
 
 1. Tliat union is attainable ; and that, sooner or later, 
 it icill be obtained. The divisions of the Church are 
 not to be perpetual. The name of Jehovah shall 
 be one throughout all the earth. In the lapse of 
 time, therefore, the period must arrive when the Jlrst 
 movement towards that oneness shall be made. 
 Amidst much that is apparently discouraging in the 
 signs of the times, it may, we think, be made to 
 appear that it is not an unseasonable nor a hopeless 
 aim to attempt that movement now, 
 
 2. But, here, the first caution necessary is, that we 
 do not set our standard of union too high. By 
 
THE KIND OF UNION TO BE ATTEMPTED. 
 
 215 
 
 attempting too much, the timid and cautious will be 
 alai-med — the spirit of party will become vigilant and 
 suspicious— and even wisdom and piety themselves, 
 should they be prevailed on to countenance the 
 attempt, will do so hopeless of success. While we do 
 not lose sight, then, of the scriptural model of primi- 
 tive union, we must remember that the Church has, 
 by a long period of disunion, disqualified itself for a 
 sudden and complete return to that only and perfect 
 state ; and, while we readily admit that the agency of 
 God could, perfectly, and at once, heal our breaches, 
 yet instead of waiting for such a miracle, we must be 
 content with making approximations, and gratefully 
 accept every return to each other, as a proof that he 
 is graciously returning to us. 
 
 3. Having erected our standard of union, we must 
 not expect that any one party will concede more 
 than ourselves, in order to meet it. If, in order 
 to reach it, sacrifices are necessary, these sacrifices 
 must be mutual. We must be prepared to give 
 as much as we ask; and, instead of waiting till 
 others move, we must ourselves set the example 
 of concession in the hope of being followed. The 
 glory of leading here is, in some respects, greater 
 than that of the martyr's crown. When so much 
 had been done at Marpurg to effect an agreement 
 between Luther and the Helvetians, he magnani- 
 mously resolved that they should not make larger 
 grants for peace, nor carry away the honour of being 
 
 9 
 
216 THE KIND OF UNION TO BE ATTEMPTED. 
 
 more desirous of union than he. Let a passion for 
 this honour seize the Christian Church, and the 
 work of reconciliation will be easy. 
 
 4. Let us not imagine that Christian union would 
 necessarily follow if certain changes in ecclesiastical 
 affairs could be effected. " We might be awfuUy 
 disappointed :* and we should most certainly be so, 
 if we relied upon any external state of things, 
 if we failed of a proportionate increase in watch- 
 fulness against sin, and devotedness to God; if we 
 were not ' given to prayer ; ' if we did not realise 
 all the objects of ' our most holy faith.' " We might 
 all subscribe to the same creed — bow to the same 
 human authority in religion — form a church nomi- 
 nally one; and yet, as it has often been with the 
 church of Rome, our internal dissensions might 
 almost realise the account of the infernal " portress," 
 whose progeny having crept 
 
 " into her womb, 
 
 And kennelled there ; yet there still barked and howled, 
 Within, unseen." 
 
 5. We must not be disheartened or deterred 
 from our attempt by the fact that similar attempts, 
 in former times, have so generally failed. If they 
 failed, we may rest assured that it was not owing 
 to any obstacle interposed by the hand of God, 
 but because the plan proposed was unscriptural 
 
 * Rev. Dr. J. P. Smith. 
 
THE KIND OF UNION TO BE ATTEMPTED. 
 
 217 
 
 in its nature, or attempted too much, or was made, 
 or met, in an unscriptural spirit; yet even then 
 tliere was probably much in it pleasing to God, 
 and profitable to many of the parties engaged. 
 Our aim must be, in the strength of God, to as- 
 certain and avoid the rocks on which they foun- 
 dered, and to steer our course with the Bible in 
 our hand, and the glory of God in our eye ; and 
 then, " though Israel be not gathered" by our 
 immediate efforts, yet "shall we be glorious in the 
 eyes of the Lord." We shall have entered a pro- 
 test for God against the divisions of his people, 
 and our example may stimulate the Christians of 
 a later age to a more successful effort. 
 
 6. We must proceed under a calm, definite, 
 deep sense of duty to God, and of the pressing 
 exigencies of his Church. If we are actuated only 
 by a momentary impulse, a thousand obstacles 
 will arise to deter us from advancing. Some, whom 
 we had expected to find most conceding and concilia- 
 tor}', will prove exacting and repulsive. Others, from 
 whom we had expected examples of magnanimity, 
 will be found contending for trifles; simply because 
 they have contended for them till to them they have 
 ceased to be trifles ; till they have become objects 
 which, to their apprehensions, it would be treason to 
 surrender, and is chivalry to defend. While " the 
 love of many" whom we had expected to see burning 
 for union, will "wax cold," and chill all around them. 
 
 u 
 
218 THE KIND OF UNION" TO BE ATTEMPTED. 
 
 But if we have taken an enlightened survey of the 
 necessities of the Church, and listened to the unfal- 
 tering voice of duty, none of these things will move 
 us. Remembering that we are advancing along a 
 path which the great Reconciler himself trod, "re- 
 sisting unto blood," we shall " arm ourselves likewise 
 with the same mind." 
 
 1. Union, to be permanent, must he based on the 
 sujjreme and sole authority/ of the loord of God, and on 
 the inalienable right of private judgment. Any asso- 
 ciation in the Church, founded on principles which 
 should overlook, or do violence, to either of these 
 conditions, however unanimously adopted by the par- 
 ties first forming it, is sure, sooner or later, to be 
 dissolved, and is likely to be attended with dissension 
 till it is dissolved. 
 
 If the Bible be a revelation from God, its autho- 
 rity, on eveiy subject to which it relates, must be 
 regarded as paramount. To read that revelation is 
 not merely the right but the duty of every human 
 being — a I'ight in relation to his fellow-men — a duty 
 in relation to God. But if it be his duty to read, he 
 is equally bound to read M ith the view of understand- 
 ing its contents, and of following his convictions of its 
 requirements. This obligation, arising from the do- 
 minion of God over his creatures, is, in the order of 
 nature, prior to every other — and hence, no exercise 
 of human authority can justly interfere with duties 
 which are previously due to God. And as it is prior 
 
THE KIXD OF UNION TO BE ATTEMPTED. 
 
 219 
 
 so is it superior to every other — no human power can 
 discharge him from it — it comprehends the sovereign, 
 the outlaw, and the obedient subject alike; for it 
 regards men as moral and responsible agents — rela- 
 tions in which they all agree. And as the obligation 
 cannot be removed from him by any human hand, 
 neither can he himself devolve it on another- This 
 is a birthright which he cannot sell. If his views of 
 the will of God, and the obedience which he renders 
 him, be not the result of his own conscientious con- 
 victions derived from the Bible, they are formality or 
 impiety. His personal accountableness indeed does not 
 forbid him the aids of an enlightened human inter- 
 pretation of that word, but rather implies it ; for such 
 interpi-etation being accompanied by arguments and 
 reasons, these reasons are necessarily submitted to his 
 judgment; consequently, as far as they are concerned, 
 he is still left to his convictions. And to imagine 
 that an obedience flowing from any other source 
 could be acceptable to God, is to suppose that he will 
 be pleased even where there is no sincere intention 
 to please him. Whereas man is as responsible for the 
 nature of his professed obedience, as for his disobe- 
 dience ; nor can his faith or his worship approve itself 
 to God as an expression of love, only in so far as it 
 approves itself to his own conviction as that which the 
 word of God requires. To form and follow his own 
 convictions of the revealed will of God is an inalien- 
 
220 THE KIND OF UNION TO BE ATTEMPTED. 
 
 able right of which no human being can justly de- 
 prive him, and an imperative duty from which no 
 created authority can absolve him. 
 
 The supremacy of the word of God, and the rights 
 of conscience, are the grand though simple principles 
 of the Reformation ; and the Protestant who under- 
 values them is saying, in effect, Let us relapse again 
 into the bosom of the Romish church. Acting con- 
 sistently on these, we shall not attempt a unity which 
 means uniformity ; which substitutes submission to 
 authority for the investigation of truth; which pre- 
 vents a difference of opinion by allowing no opinion 
 at all. We shall be jealous for the honour of the 
 Bible, and tender of the right of others to judge for 
 themselves of its meaning, as conditions involving 
 our own liberty and well-being. We shall allow to 
 each his denominational differences, and yet receive 
 him as a believer in Christ. 
 
 But not only do the principles in question prohibit 
 every attempt at union at the expense of Christian 
 liberty, they powerfully tend to produce union com- 
 patible with that liberty. Suppose there were at 
 present only a small number of Christians upon earth, 
 and these living apart, and ignorant of each other's 
 existence — suppose that they were ignorant of the 
 existence of even a written revelation, and that the 
 sum total of their doctrinal belief amounted simply to 
 this, that Jesus Christ came into the world to save 
 
THE KIND OF UNION TO BE ATTEMPTED. 
 
 221 
 
 sinners — suppose that, living undei- the influence 
 of this fundamental and saving truth, they felt an 
 earnest desire for Christian communion, without know- 
 ing where to obtain it— that, in order to gratify 
 this desire, and to organise them into a society, the 
 Divine Redeemer had assembled them together — 
 and suppose that thus ignorant and thus assem- 
 bled, he should then introduce them to each 
 other as mutually desirous of Christian commu- 
 nion, and should produce the Book, saying, " Be- 
 hold the charter of your common salvation ; within 
 its sacred pages you will find a warrant, and even a 
 command for the fellowship you seek. In every ques- 
 tion that may arise concerning the cultivation of that 
 fellowship, consult and submit to its authority as 
 supreme; and, should a difference of opinion obtain 
 concerning the interpretation of any part of that 
 authority, regard each other as following his con- 
 scientious views of that authority, and love each 
 other on that account." Would they not feel that 
 even in the mutual adoption of the Book, the pre- 
 liminaries of union were already settled? In the 
 common reception of the Bible as the word of God, 
 and in the acknowledgment of its supremacy, to- 
 gether with the consequent duty of every man to 
 follow his conscientious views of its dictates, is laid 
 the foundation, and the only foundation, on which 
 can be built the temple of Christian peace. But 
 u 3 
 
222 THE KIND OF UNION TO BE ATTEMPTED. 
 
 where is the Protestant Christian, or Christian de- 
 nomination, which does not professedly admit and 
 admire that foundation ? Here, then, is the first 
 essential to Christian union, already — by supposition, 
 at least — in our possession. 
 
 II. The second essential, and naturally following 
 from the former, is substantial oneness of faith. With- 
 out such an agreement there could be no Christian 
 motive to unite ; preaching, would be perpetual con- 
 troversy; and intercourse, pure contention. While 
 more than substantial agreement is unnecessary and 
 unattainable. But this is not only attainable, it 
 already exists. Justification by faith in the atoning 
 sacrifice of the Son of God, together with the doc- 
 trines which it necessarily involves, is held alike by 
 Episcopalian and Presbyterian, Independent, Metho- 
 dist, Baptist, and Friend, and by all the orthodox sec- 
 tions of which the Christian community consists. 
 Now, suppose again that the assembly we have just 
 imagined, having received the Book, and unani- 
 mously agreed to follow its dictates, should proceed, 
 in companies, to ascertain its essential doctrines. 
 Would it not surprise and delight them to find that 
 they had all arrived at the same conclusion ? that 
 on the great basis of evangelical doctrine they were 
 already one ? And would they not be ready to con- 
 clude that as nothing could separate them from the 
 love of Christ, so nothing could possibly arise to sever 
 
THE KIND OF UNION TO BE ATTEMPTED. 223 
 
 them from the love of each other in him. Here, 
 then, is a second essential to Christian unity, in 
 present existence. 
 
 III. But the belief of the Gospel is valuable 
 only so far as it renews the heart and forms the cha- 
 racter to holiness. What is the design of the whole 
 economy of mercy, but to rescue a portion of our 
 race ruined by sin ; to expel that sin from their 
 nature ; and to restore them to holiness and heaven ? 
 And what is the Church of Christ, but the society of 
 those on whom that lofty design has begun to take 
 effect, collected into a community preparatory to 
 their translation to the general assembly above ? To 
 unite with any others in Christian fellowship would 
 be highly undesirable and opposed to the will of God, 
 even were such union possible ; for as well might 
 Christians disband and unite with the world, as to 
 receive the world into their communion; the effect 
 in each case would be the same — the destruction of 
 the spiritual character of the faithful. Nor would it 
 be possible, if desirable ; for what communion hath 
 light with darkness, or what fellowship hath Christ 
 with Belial ? The union sought then is a fellowship 
 of Christians; and, consequently, that church whose 
 communion is the most pure, is the most eligible, and 
 likely to be the most ready, for catholic union. 
 
 IV. Such an association would be necessarily ce- 
 mented by brotherly love. Having all experienced a 
 change which had impressed the same image Qii every 
 
224 THE KIND OF UNION TO BE ATTEMPTED. 
 
 heart, they would love as brethren. Nothing less 
 than this will satisfy the demands of Scripture ; — no 
 unity of opinion in the bond of ignorance — no unity 
 of profession in the bond of hypocrisy — nothing, but 
 the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace: for 
 " love is the fulfilling of the law." " And thoucfh I 
 bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I 
 give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it 
 profiteth me nothing." And nothing less than such 
 love will satisfy Christians themselves, for they " are 
 taught of God to love one another." They do not 
 find it necessary to labour to love each other ; bro- 
 therly love is a principle common to every Christian, 
 and its exercise is spontaneous : " we know that we 
 have passed from death unto life, because we love the 
 brethren." 
 
 V. But this love will necessarily discover itself in 
 appropriate acts and expressions ; and thus the union 
 will be 7nade visible to the world. One of these visible 
 expressions of love to each other, the Head of the 
 Church has himself specifically appointed in the 
 ordinance of " the Lord's-supper." Though this, 
 indeed, is not, as some seem to imagine, the whole of 
 Christian fellowship, it is a most vital and important 
 branch of it ; and though it denotes also communion 
 with God, it does not the less imply communion with 
 each other. " The cup of blessing which we bless, 
 is it not a communion, or joint participation, of the 
 blood of Christ ? the bread which we break, is it not 
 
THE KIND OF UNION TO BE ATTEMPTED. 225 
 
 a joint participation of the body of Christ ? Because 
 there is one bread, we, the many, are one body ; for 
 we are all partakers of that one bread."* The moral 
 of the ordinance may be expressed in the language of 
 St. John, " Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought 
 also to love one another." Hence, in its celebration, 
 we are commanded to put away "the leaven of malice 
 and wickedness" — to cultivate benevolent feelings 
 towards the entire brotherhood. Never does the 
 Christian Church appear more distinctly in its proper 
 character as the family of God, than when it is ob- 
 serving this ordinance ; and is it from this family 
 feast that the children are to be excluded ? It is an 
 epitome of that heavenly multitude, in which "all 
 nations, tribes, and tongues," breathe the same spirit, 
 and appear in the same character — that of redeemed 
 sinners; and is it the harmony of such a scene that 
 we would mar by the enforcement of our peculiarities ? 
 Shall the great symbol of our common Christianity 
 be degraded into the badge and criterion of a party ? 
 Shall the rite which more than any other is adapted 
 to cement mutual attachment, and which is in a great 
 measure appointed for that purpose, be fixed upon as 
 the line of demarcation to separate and disjoin the 
 followers of Christ ? A union which should propose 
 to omit the communion of Christians, or of churches, 
 in this ordinance, would be radically defective and 
 
 * 1 Cor. X. IC, 17. This is the translation of Grotius, Diodati, 
 and Castalio ; also of Waterland, Bishop Pearce, and many others. 
 
226 THE KIND OF UNION TO BE ATTEMPTED. 
 
 unscriptural ; and the church which intentionally 
 places an obstacle in the way of such communion, or 
 knowingly allows it to remain, is obviously opposing 
 the will of God. 
 
 VI. Unanimity of heart would infallibly produce 
 unanimity of action in the Christian cause. Impelled 
 by the same motive towards the same object, what 
 could result but harmonious progress together ? The 
 relative design of an individual conversion is, that 
 the man may become an instrument of good to 
 others. For the same object, a number of con- 
 verts are to be organised into a particular church ; 
 that their union may be strength. But for the same 
 reason that we combine as Christians to form a 
 particular church, we should unite as churches and 
 denominations. The very circumstance of our union 
 itself would attract notice; and hence the object our 
 Lord's supplication that his people might be one was, 
 that the world might perceive that the Father had 
 sent him. The institution of the Christian Church 
 is meant to economise and combine all the ener- 
 gies and passions of sanctified humanity; to collect 
 all the scattered agencies of good which earth con- 
 tains, and to organise them into a vast engine 
 whose entire power should be brought to bear 
 on the conversion of the world. The practicability 
 of such co-operation among Christians of different 
 denominations, has long been demonstrated in the 
 constitution and working of the British and Foreign 
 
THE KIND OF UNION TO BE ATTEMPTED. 
 
 227 
 
 Bible Society, and of the Religious Tract Society. 
 In the former of these, Christians of different per- 
 suasions are seen, merging their peculiar opinions 
 on the minor topics of revelation, and uniting 
 before the world in the grand assertion, that the 
 Bible is the pure word of God — that on all subjects 
 of a religious nature, its authority is supreme — that 
 every human being possesses the sacred right, and 
 is under a solemn obligation, to examine and follow 
 its dictates — that on all its distinctive and leading 
 doctrines they are one — and that their firm convic- 
 tion is, that its universal circulation and cordial 
 reception would be attended with the holiest, hap- 
 piest, and most heavenly results. In the latter 
 Society, Christians of various denominations combine 
 to circulate those great truths in which they all 
 agree, and which they believe to be the only truths 
 essential to salvation. The subject of baptism, 
 forms of church government, and whatever dis- 
 tinguishes them as members of particular communi- 
 ties, are here held in abeyance. These, in the spirit 
 of moderation, they can discuss in other forms, and 
 at other times. But here they unite, as Christian 
 members of the one universal Church, to propagate 
 among their perishing fellow-men the truths on which 
 their own souls rely for eternal life ; and thus tell the 
 world, that in the cause of their Redeemer's glory, 
 and of human salvation, they are one. While the 
 public anniversaries of these noble institutions, as 
 
228 THE KIND OF UNION TO BE ATTEMPTED. 
 
 well as of most of our Missionary Societies, have often 
 been festivals of Christian love, " such as heaven 
 stoops down to see." 
 
 At some of our foreign missionary stations, also, 
 where the strifes and estrangements of home are for- 
 gotten, the frequent union of ministers and churches 
 of different persuasions exhibits a delightful spectacle 
 of Christian harmony and love. Why should not 
 parallel scenes, and on a grander scale, be witnessed 
 at home? Why should not ministers who associate 
 on the platform reciprocate in the hallowed employ- 
 ment of the pulpit ? If the Episcopalian clergyman 
 be welcome to the pulpit of the Dissenter, why should 
 not Dissenting ministers be admitted to the pulpits 
 of the Establishment ? " Why must the Scotch 
 Presbyterians alone have the benefit of the instruc- 
 tions of Dr. Chalmers in London, when every pulpit 
 of the Establishment ought to welcome him? Why 
 must Dr. Cooke betake himself to Surrey Chapel ? 
 Why must the Dissenters alone listen to Dr. Ward- 
 law, or Mr. Jay ? The objection, that bad doctrine 
 might thus be taught by the Dissenters from the 
 pulpits of the Establishment is not valid. If a cler- 
 gyman wish for bad doctrine, what is to hinder him 
 finding it in the Establishment? And if he does not 
 wish for it, he would not admit an unsound Congrega- 
 tionalist, any more than he would an unsound Epis- 
 copalian now, to preach for him."* Surely such 
 
 * Fundamental Reform, &c., by a Clergyman. 
 
THE KIND OF UNION TO BE ATTEMPTED. 
 
 229 
 
 restrictions are not to be continued for ever ! 
 Even if they are prolonged till that millennial period 
 which is the prevailing hope of the Christian Church, 
 surely they will vanish then ! How ill would they 
 harmonise with its communion of saints, or consist 
 with the light, liberty, and prosperity of its lioly 
 catholic Church ! But who shall say how much that 
 period would be hastened by their prompt and volun- 
 tary removal now ? At present, how little compara- 
 tively do we know of each other; and as that little 
 relates principally to our differences and our faults, 
 how necessarily does it increase dislike, and widen 
 our divisions ! On the other hand, let us only meet 
 on common ground, hail each other as auxiliaries to 
 the same grand cause, and co-operate for the com- 
 mon interests of the world, and how necessarily 
 would our groundless dislikes give place to a feeling 
 that would deprecate every project to disjoin, and 
 welcome only such measures as tended more closely 
 to unite ! If it be true of the blessed God, that 
 " they who know his name will put their trust in him," 
 it must be true in a subordinate but corresponding 
 sense, that the more his people, as such, know of each 
 other — of their mutual resemblance to him, their 
 common concern for the salvation of the world, and 
 their zeal for his glory — the more sincerely will they 
 admire each other's piety, and the more will they 
 unite for the achievement of their common ob- 
 ject. 
 
 X 
 
230 THE KIND OP UNION TO BE ATTEMPTED. 
 
 VII. If we do not add, that Cliristians should he 
 one in name, it is not because we regard such one- 
 ness as unimportant, or as ultimately unattainable; 
 but because we believe that it will be among 
 the latest triumphs, if not the very crowning 
 act, of brotherly love. Whereas the unity which 
 we would now inculcate seems more proximate, 
 and would of itself be sufficient to render Christians, 
 though still distinct in name, in substance one. 
 What is of much more immediate importance, and 
 more easily attainable, and more urgently enforced 
 in Scripture, is, that the union of Christians should be 
 visible. For this our Saviour prayed ; and prayed 
 for it as a requisite to the conversion of the world. 
 It is in vain to reply that his followers are now, and 
 ever have been, one, as members of that one body 
 of which he is the glorified Head. This is known 
 only to the Church in heaven ; and understood only 
 by the Church on earth; whereas the world must 
 see it. Our Jerusalem, like that of old, must both be 
 " builded as a city that is compact together," and be 
 "set upon a hill." Evidence must be given to the 
 senses of men, that not merely in profession, but 
 in heart and object, we are one. The fact should 
 be too plain to be misunderstood; and too palpable 
 to remain a secret. 
 
 Now the elements of union which we have de- 
 scribed, include all that is necessary to produce this 
 
 visibility. By practically admitting the supremacy 
 
 9 
 
THE KIND OF UNION TO BE ATTEMPTED. 231 
 
 of the word of God, we should feel ourselves called 
 on to revise the constitution of the Church to which 
 we belong, and to remove from it whatever infringed 
 on that supremacy, or even appeared to assume 
 an equality with it. And by acting on the uni- 
 versal right of private judgment, we should perceive 
 the inconsistency of all ecclesiastical assumption 
 and imposition, and deprecate every thing like 
 penalty or degradation for exercising that right ; and 
 thus some of the principal roots of bitterness would 
 at once and eflPectually be cut up and destroyed. 
 Born into the same family, adoring the same Re- 
 deemer, making his character our common model, 
 the salvation of the world for which he died our 
 common solicitude, and his glory our only end, 
 what would result but the visible oneness of all who 
 answered to this description ? In order to render 
 the spectacle perfect, indeed, the union should be 
 one of churches and denominations, as such; but 
 even short of this, such a union of individual 
 Christians — of a considerable number of the mem- 
 bers of different denominations — would of itself be 
 a pledge and prelude of the speedy and complete 
 union of the whole, and even of the approaching 
 conversion of the world. Like the friendly pro- 
 vinces of the same continent, speaking the same 
 language, living in allegiance to the same sovereign, 
 and engaged in mutual and general traffic, the 
 
232 THE KIND OF UNION TO BE ATTEMPTED. 
 
 Church would present one scene of spiritual com- 
 merce, carried on chiefly for the advantage of the 
 world, and visible to the universe. God would 
 bless us, and all the ends of the earth would 
 fear him. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE WAY IN WHICH UNION SHOULD BE SOUGHT. 
 
 Were we to present a sketch of all the attempts 
 which have been made to preserve or restore the 
 unity of the Church, they would be found to consist 
 of three kinds. 
 
 First. Those which have aimed to repress diversity 
 of religious opinion, and to produce outward con- 
 formity to a given standard, bt/ employing the principle 
 of coercion. Of this nature are all authoritative 
 " Creeds," " Forms of Concord," Ecclesiastical " He- 
 noticons," or " Edicts of Union," " Acts against 
 Schism," Royal " Concordats," and " Acts of Uni- 
 formity," " Fines," imprisonments, and punishments 
 inflicted by the civil power. Constantino, who was 
 the first to employ the material sword in the Church, 
 and who did so apparently with the sincere desire of 
 restoring the peace of the Church, no sooner dis- 
 covered its inefficacy than he retraced his steps. 
 Happy had it been for Christendom if the Church 
 x3 
 
•2:34 
 
 THE WAY IN WHICH 
 
 had been convinced by the result of his single expe- 
 riment. Since then, however, it has been repeated in 
 everj- age, and its failure has as often followed. The 
 history of religious coercion includes the great " Book 
 of Martyrs;" its spirit is directly opposed to the 
 genius of the Gospel; and its inutility, as well as its 
 schismatic tendency, is seen in the present divided 
 state of the Christian Church. 
 
 Second. Those who have employed argumentative 
 discussion with the view of obtaining concession and 
 compromise. Of this nature have been the numerous 
 " Public Disputations," " Charitable and Religious 
 Conferences," as well as many Diets and Councils — 
 assembled, sometimes by royal authority, and some- 
 times voluntarily, by the mutual desire of those com- 
 posing them ; in which authority, learning, wit, wis- 
 dom, argument, ingenuity, persuasion, friendship, 
 piety, and patience, all were present and exhausted 
 their resources ; but the result of which has been, 
 generally speaking, that the breach has been made 
 wider than before. " The more men dispute," ob- 
 serves Douglas, in his " Error? of Religion," " the less 
 likely are they ever to agree. In an argument, it is 
 not what an opponent is saying, but the answer which 
 
 is to be given to him, that is considered 
 
 Disputants, inflamed against each other, mutually with- 
 draw from each other's errors, regardless that they 
 are leaving the truth, from which thev have both de- 
 parted, in the middle between them ! and each look- 
 
UNION SHOULD BE SOUGHT. 
 
 235 
 
 ing only at the mistakes of the other, is confident that 
 he must be in the right, because his opponent is in 
 the wrong." 
 
 The third, proceeds on the catholic principle of 
 uniting on the great basis of evangelical doctrine in 
 which we already agree, and of exercising mutual for- 
 bearance on all subordinate matters. This is the 
 only plan which now remains for the Church to pur- 
 sue ; and this is the scriptural plan. " That union 
 among Christians which it is so desirable to recover, 
 must, we are persuaded, be the result of something 
 more heavenly and divine than legal restraints or 
 angry controversies. Unless an angel were to descend 
 for that purpose, the spirit of division is a disease 
 which will never be healed by troubling the waters. 
 We must expect the cure from the increasing preva- 
 lence of religion, and from a copious communication 
 
 of the Spirit to produce that event The 
 
 general prevalence of piety in different communities 
 would inspire that mutual respect, that heartfelt ho- 
 mage for the virtues conspicuous in the character of 
 their respective members, which would urge us to ask 
 with astonishment and regret, Why cannot we be one ? 
 What is it that obstructs our union?"* Shame — 
 everlasting shame on the Church, that the efficacy of 
 this plan should yet remain to be tried ! 
 
 1. But the success even of this plan materially 
 
 * Hall's Zeal without Innovation. 
 
236 
 
 THE WAY IN WHICH 
 
 depends, under God, on the spirit and manner in 
 which it is pursued. Most of the introductory re- 
 marks in the preceding chapter relative to the kind of 
 union sought, are equally applicable here, concerning 
 the way in which it should be attempted. We should 
 cherish the firmest conviction that, as there is the 
 right kind of union, and as that union will ultimately 
 obtain, so there is the right method of attempting it ; and 
 that method we are under an obligation to ascertain 
 and put into practice. 
 
 2. As we should not erect our standard of union 
 too high, neither should we he too sanguine or impatient 
 concerning its adoption. To the majority of Christians, 
 the subject is as yet comparatively novel : and as it 
 would not be desirable that their compliance should 
 outrun their enlightened convictions; so we must 
 expect that even after such convictions are produced, 
 early prejudices and mutual distrust will still for 
 a while maintain their ground. " This kind goeth 
 not forth but by" the spirit of love. 
 
 3. However we may deplore what we may deem 
 unscriptural in the constitution and usages of other 
 churches, we shoidd nevei- contemplate their conformity 
 to OUR model without much self-distrust. Every pro- 
 position with which we are acquainted for absorbing 
 other sects in any given denomination, has worn, at 
 least, a very questionable aspect; many of them are 
 too arrogant and sectarian to leave their origin in 
 doubt. 
 
UNION SHOULD BE SOUGHT. 
 
 •237 
 
 4. Excellent documents have been drawn up from 
 time to time by the healing spirits of the Church, 
 under the names of " Declarations," " Comprehen- 
 sions," and " Forms of Agreement" — to be subscribed 
 by the Christians of different persuasions as the basis 
 of their union. We confess, however, that we have 
 no faith in the utility of such measures as the means 
 of promoting union. Tliat union to be scriptural 
 must be the effect of love : if that love exists already, 
 such subscriptions are unnecessary : and if it do not, 
 subscription is a poor substitute for it. Besides 
 which, such documents themselves are almost cer- 
 tain, sooner or later, to become the occasions of 
 contention. 
 
 " Some have endeavoured to reunite these frac- 
 tions," writes Bishop Taylor, in his introduction to 
 the Liberty of Prophesying, " by propounding such 
 a guide which they were all bound to follow ; hoping 
 that the unity of a guide would have persuaded unity 
 of minds; but who this guide should be, at last 
 became such a question, that it made part of the 
 fire that was to be quenched, so far was it ft-om 
 extinguishing any part of the flame. Others thought 
 of a rule, and this must be the means of union, or 
 nothing could do it. But supposing all the world had 
 been agreed of this rule, yet the interpretation of it 
 was so full of variety, that this also became part of 
 the disease for which the cure was pretended. All 
 
238 
 
 THE WAY IN WHICH 
 
 men resolved upon this, that though they yet had not 
 hit upon the right, yet some way must be thought 
 upon to reconcile differences in opinion ; thinking, so 
 long as this variety should last, Christ's kingdom was 
 not advanced, and the work of the Gospel went on 
 but slowly. Few men in the meantime considered, 
 that so long as men had such variety of principles, 
 such several constitutions, educations, tempers, and 
 distempers, hopes, interests, and weaknesses, degrees 
 of light, and degrees of understanding, it was im- 
 possible all should be of one mind. And what is 
 impossible to be done is not necessary it should be 
 done ; and therefore, although variety of opinions was 
 impossible to be cured, (and they who attempted it 
 did like him who claps his shoulder to the ground to 
 stop an earthquake,) yet the inconveniences arising 
 from it might possibly be cured, not by uniting their 
 beliefs, — that was to be despaired of, — but by curing 
 that which caused these mischiefs, and accidental in- 
 conveniences of their disagreeings." 
 
 5. Nor would we advocate the formation of a new 
 Denomination — including Christians of various per- 
 suasions — as a means of promoting union. As far as 
 such a step may be the result of mutual love, it would 
 assuredly occasion joy among the angels in the pre- 
 sence of God. But if adopted, formally, as an ex- 
 periment or a means, it would want the cordiality — the 
 central fire of love — which would be necessary to fuse 
 
UNION SHOULD BE SOUGHT. 
 
 239 
 
 the parties into one consolidated whole, and to con- 
 vince the world that they were one in more than in 
 name. 
 
 I. If we would prepare our minds for the subject 
 of Christian union, let us come to it from the study of 
 ecclesiastical history. Could all the lessons which 
 that history teaches be summed up in one word, that 
 word would surely be moderation. And if all 
 Christians could arise together from its unprejudiced 
 and devotional perusal, the effect could only be one 
 — to induce them to strike hands in a covenant of 
 mutual forbearance and love. 
 
 II. Let us consider also the natural history and 
 necessary imperfections of the human mind. How 
 impotent is our reason, how dark our understanding, 
 how wayward our passions, how deeply rooted our 
 prejudices. How more than probable is it that no 
 two individuals pass through precisely the same pro- 
 cess in reaching their religious conclusions — that 
 early propensities, prescribed courses of study, do- 
 mestic and local impressions, artificial habits of 
 thought, physical temperament, future prospects, and 
 the infinite complication of influences through which 
 we pass, make it impossible for any two persons ever 
 to see the same object from the same point of view, 
 or through exactly the same medium, so that, in 
 effect, they never see absolutely the same object. 
 How more than probable is it that a slight change 
 in our circumstances would have produced a great 
 
240 
 
 THE WAY IN WHICH 
 
 change in our opinions; and that if the judgment of 
 any one is to be a standard to the world, there are 
 thousands more eligible than ours. So that unless 
 we can show that by some magic charm, or mira- 
 culous exemption, we have escaped the disturbing 
 influences incident to humanity, and can claim per- 
 fection, we need the forbearance of our fellow- 
 Christians ; and the tenderness we need for our- 
 selves, we shall feel bound to extend to others. 
 
 III. Let us make, in thought, a tour of the British 
 churches — or, if we please, of Christendom : and, 
 having admired the deep devotional spirit which 
 marks the worship of one community, the unction 
 which pervades the preaching of another, the purity 
 and primitive simplicity of a third, the pecuniary 
 liberality of a fourth, the characteristic freedom, 
 activity, and zeal, of a fifth, the self-correcting power 
 and careful discipline of a sixth, the constitutional 
 compactness and unity of a seventh, and the rapid 
 improvement of an eighth — let us say, is there 
 nothing in all this which should enlarge our charity 
 towards other churches, and which we wish to see 
 copied by our own ? Superior on the whole, as we 
 may allowably believe our own community to be, do we 
 need to be I'eminded that it admits of improvement ; 
 and that the particular excellence which it most 
 requires, is most likely already existing and even 
 flourishing in some other church ? We surely do not 
 believe that the religion of a party, as parties now 
 
UNION SHOULD BE SOUGHT. 
 
 241 
 
 exist, will ever be the religion of the world ; so that 
 even if our community should ultimately prove to be 
 the one nearest perfection, it will have to undergo 
 considerable modification before it can receive uni- 
 versal extension. " Taking the three great forms 
 of church government, Episcopacy, Presbyterianism, 
 and Congregationalism, I should proceed thus :* — 
 These three systems of discipline, brought honestly 
 and impartially to the test of Scripture, are all right 
 and all wrong, — though right and wrong in different 
 degrees. There is something in the record in favour 
 of all, but the book is not the exclusive property 
 of any. There is more, perhaps, in support of 
 each than the thoroughgoing advocates of the others 
 will admit. There is more of episcopacy than is 
 quite palatable to the presbyterian and the inde- 
 pendent; there is more of presbyterianism than the 
 independent and the episcopalian can easily digest ; 
 and there is more of Congregationalism than either 
 the priest or the presbyter can manage to get rid of. " 
 And do we not know that the wisest and the most 
 magnanimous of each party are the readiest to admit 
 this — that many of them frankly allow that every 
 existing system, in its practical working, requires 
 many deviations from the letter of its principles — 
 that no single existing system takes in every op- 
 portunity and mode of doing good — that, could 
 a plan be devised, for instance, combining the uniting 
 
 * Rev. T. Binney. 
 Y 
 
242 
 
 THE WAY rx WHICH 
 
 principle and the power of Episcopacy and Presby- 
 terianism with the local freedom and actinty of 
 Congregational Independence, it would bring the 
 constitution of our churches much nearer to the 
 apostolic model than any of the prevailing systems ? 
 But even such a plan would no doubt admit of still 
 farther improvement ; and, when completed, its 
 greatest excellence perhaps would be, that it allowed 
 an occasional departure from its own rules — that it 
 only asked to be treated as a means subordinate to an 
 end infinitely greater. 
 
 IV. From different churches, let us turn to their 
 individual members ; and are we not constrained to 
 admit, as Howe did, that " of every diflFering party, 
 we know some by whom we find ourselves much 
 excelled in things far greater than those in which 
 we differ?" And if so, must not that system need 
 revision, and that state of mind call for humihation, 
 which prevents us from taking them to our 
 heart? Let us remember that individual or Chris- 
 tian communion may precede church communion, 
 and be the means of leading to it; just as the 
 intercommunion of some denominations may precede 
 and produce the union of the Church universal. 
 It is almost proverbial that men may be better 
 than the creed they profess ; and it is equally true 
 that they be more catholic than the community 
 to which they belong. Although belonging to a 
 schismatical and exclusive church, they may be 
 disposed to cultivate a universal sympathy with 
 
UNION SHOULD BE SOUGHT. 
 
 243 
 
 Christian excellence. And the state of things 
 wanted is that in which we shall not refuse to com- 
 mune with them as Christians, because we cannot 
 commune with them as Episcopalians or Inde- 
 pendents; nor refuse to hold partial fellowship with 
 them, because our fellowship with them cannot be 
 complete ; but that which, like the magnet rolled in 
 the dust, and drawing to itself every kindred par- 
 ticle, will attract and unite the catholic and Chris- 
 tian of every church. 
 
 V. And in order to realise this state of things 
 for ourselves, and to promote it in the Church 
 generally, how few Christians need to acquire any 
 new views on the subject : were they only to carry 
 out acknowledged principles, and to reduce existing 
 views to practice, the change desired would be 
 effected. We profess, for instance, to believe in 
 the supreme authority of the word of God, and in 
 the right of every man to follow his own convictions 
 of its dictates. Let us act consistently with our 
 profession, and we shall not, we cannot, look coldly 
 on a Christian brother for conscientiously following 
 such convictions, even though they conduct him 
 to conclusions differing, in some respects, from our 
 own. To punish him with the loss of our sympathy 
 on this account is to say, either that he does not 
 possess the right of private judgment, and thus 
 to relinquish our own right; or else we are con- 
 victing ourselves of gross inconsistency and bigotry. 
 
244 
 
 THE WAY IN WHICH 
 
 Let US act consistently with our profession, and 
 we shall not only not exclude him from our sym- 
 pathies, we shall feel that the system or the state 
 of things, which in any way depresses him for ex- 
 ercising an acknowledged right, must be wrong — 
 that we are bound to do all we can to remedy the 
 evil — and that till then, he is entitled to more even 
 than an ordinaiy measure of our Christian regard. 
 
 VI. We have shown that the union sought is 
 that which is based on the common reception of 
 evangelical doctrines. Let us ask ourselves, if, in 
 the church to which we belong. Christian union 
 is built on these doctrines alone : and, if it be not, 
 let us remember that in proportion as we increase 
 the number of requisites to communion, we multiply 
 the occasions of dissension and division. That union 
 is not likely to be firm and lasting, the centre of 
 which is a trifle, or which even includes trifles. 
 While the more we reduce the number of those 
 things which the Gospel warrants us to regard as 
 essential to Christianity, the more attractive and 
 binding the centre of our unity, the larger the sphere 
 of our Christian charity, and the greater the number 
 of Christians and Christian churches comprehended 
 and embraced in our views of the brotherhood. If we 
 belong to an exclusive church, and do not see it our 
 duty to leave that church, we are bound to do all we 
 can for its improvement, and to evince more than 
 ordinary concern to conciliate the Christians of other 
 
UNION SHOULD BE SOUGHT. 245 
 
 communions. That church is but little prepared 
 to unite with others, which is in a state of disunion 
 within itself ; but in all our attempts to draw the mem- 
 bers of our own communion nearer to each other, 
 we must be careful that we employ no measures 
 calculated to draw them to a greater distance from 
 other communities. 
 
 VII. Having rejected all terms of communion 
 which are not terms of salvation, and thus narrowed 
 as much as possible the conditions of Christian fellow- 
 ship, we should then be ready to fraternise with all 
 ichom we regard as practical believers, and with such 
 anil/. To admit an ungodly man into the Church 
 of Christ, and to reject a sincere Christian, are acts 
 equally schismatic in their tendency: in the former 
 case we are admitting an element of division, and 
 in the latter rejecting an element of union. So that 
 to make the Church more holy, and to make it 
 catholic and one, are the same thing. Till men 
 have fellowship with God in the participation of 
 the blessings of redemption, they may profess the 
 same creed, and be united in the common enjoyment 
 of outward privileges; but they can know nothing 
 of that sacred union of kindred spirits which con- 
 stitutes the happiness of Christians below, and 
 the glory of heaven above. But all whom he forms 
 and actuates by his Spirit, and admits to communion 
 with himself, are made free of his Church univer- 
 sal ; and it is at our peril that we impede their 
 
 Y 3 
 
246 
 
 THE WAY IN WHICH 
 
 communion with any part of it. Let evangelical 
 piety, then, be the only and sufficient passport to 
 our hearts, and our churches. 
 
 VIII. When a schism existed in the church at 
 Corinth, the remedy which the apostle prescribed 
 as infallible, was the cultivation of Irotlierly love* 
 Again, when consulted respecting the divisions in 
 the church at Colosse — when he describes himself 
 as enduring an agony for the maintenance of 
 their union — and when we might suppose, therefore, 
 that his deep solicitude would omit the recommenda- 
 tion of no means essential to that oneness, his great 
 and only expedients were, that they would take a 
 firmer grasp of evangelical doctrine, and that their 
 " hearts might be knit together in love."f And were 
 he now to address an epistle to the churches of Bri- 
 tain respecting their divided state, the probability is 
 that an important part of its burden would be the 
 cultivation of that Christian charity which beareth 
 and believeth, hopeth and endureth, all things. No- 
 thing, nothing can supply its place; while it would 
 infallibly bring every requisite to union in its train. 
 Oh, if we would see the unhappy divisions of the 
 Church cemented, let us try the virtue of this 
 healing principle. Let us " love the brotherhood " — 
 not the particular community only to which we im- 
 mediately belong — this is to love factiously, to love in 
 
 * 1 Cor. xiii. f Col. iii. 2. 
 
 7 
 
UNION SHOULD BE SOUGHT. 
 
 247 
 
 a way which divides more than it unites — but the 
 Christian character as such. Wherever it exists, let 
 our love flow towards it, as bearing the royal image 
 and superscription of our common Lord. Let us see 
 to it that our union with a particular church exists 
 independently of our common sympathy with certain 
 peculiar views ; and our union with the church uni- 
 versal in defiance of such views. Let us aim to 
 acquire clear and enlarged views of the great central 
 truths of religion, that every thing else may appear 
 comparatively trivial, and that our differences respect- 
 ing them may become trivial also. Instead of con- 
 demning our brethren for their fidelity to their con- 
 victions of the revealed will of Christ, let us honour 
 their conscientiousness, and rejoice that the Lord of 
 conscience has such faithful subjects. Never let us 
 impute to their doctrines inferences which they dis- 
 own ; nor to their proceedings evil motives which are 
 not apparent. So far from shunning their society, let 
 us cultivate friendly intercourse with the excellent of 
 every name ; owning them before the world as our 
 brethren, defending their reputation, honouring their 
 piety and usefulness, and seeking occasions for evinc- 
 ing our sympathy and Christian regard. Were such 
 a spirit to obtain amongst us, its eye would discern 
 excellences where before we had seen nothing but 
 faults; its mantle would be thrown over defects 
 which before had been exposed to the sun; and its 
 tongue would insinuate truth through the medium 
 
248 
 
 THE WAY IN WHICH 
 
 of the heart, which mere argument or evidence could 
 never induce the reason to receive. Were such a 
 spirit to prevail amongst us, remarks Howe, as soon 
 should we think of confining our aflFection to men of 
 our own stature, as to those of our own party ; as soon 
 should we suspect our right hand of designs against 
 our left, as indulge suspicions of each other's hostile 
 intentions. As soon should we think of being angry 
 with the colours of a rainbow, as with the particular 
 shading or mingling of a truth in a brother's creed, 
 if, at the same time, we saw that it " wasround about 
 the head " of Him that sits on the throne. The sparks 
 of jealousy and passion which our little collisions 
 have occasioned, and which the breath of an infernal 
 agency is ever applied to inflame, would fade and 
 be extinguished before the solar fires of love ; while 
 those differences themselves would either melt into 
 one common form, or else we should feel no incon- 
 venience whatever from their continuance. As often 
 as we mingled together at the table of our common 
 Lord, we should feel ourselves drawn closer to each 
 other, by coming nearer to Him, the great centre 
 of the whole. And to feel that we are one in him, 
 would serve in the stead of a thousand arguments to 
 promote peace, and be a surer bond of lasting union, 
 than a thousand ingenious schemes of human device ; 
 while the very absence of such schemes and formal 
 professions would be the strongest evidence of the 
 reality of our love. We feel now, that the simplest 
 
UNION SHOULD BE SOUGHT. 
 
 249 
 
 description of love is its highest praise; we should 
 find then, that every act in its service was its own 
 high reward that, as it survives the existence of 
 faith and hope, and is the only principle that ascends 
 from earth to heaven, so it can now bring heaven 
 down to earth ; making it impossible for those who 
 have lived in its calm and holy light ever to descend 
 again into the dark and stormy regions of unsanc- 
 tified passions. Oh that we were Christians ! 
 
 IX. Let us co-operate with our brethren, as far as 
 we can without compromising principle, in plans of 
 general usefulness : which is only saying, " Let us 
 not love in word only, but also in deed and in truth." 
 How mournful and disgraceful is the fact, that, 
 whereas, a few years ago, the origination of a bene- 
 volent institution on atholic principles was the 
 signal for the best men of all parties to unite, a 
 similar proposition now would be almost sure to ori- 
 ginate a party measure in direct opposition ! Is it 
 not the fact that many a school, association, and 
 society, have been set on foot, not because they were 
 felt by their originators to be necessary, but solely 
 because, in each instance, a similar institution had 
 been projected by Christians of another name ; so 
 that its supporters are actually held together, by no 
 sympathy of love to each other, or for their object, 
 but by sheer sympathy of hostility to those other 
 Christians ? All the good they intend by the effort 
 is, to supersede or dispossess those Christians ; and 
 
250 
 
 THE WAY IN WHICH 
 
 should they succeed in this object, their own insti- 
 tution itself is discontinued, as having answered the 
 great end for which it was commenced. Alas, alas, 
 for the Christian name ! 
 
 Let us bless God, however, that there is common 
 ground of benevolent activity on which thousands of 
 Christians of various names continue to unite still — 
 that one bond, at least, of their visible union remains 
 yet unbroken. And it is the growing conviction of 
 the writer that, as this is almost the last ligament 
 which visibly holds them together, so it is likely to be 
 the first and the principal means which God will 
 employ in again restoring them to each other's love. 
 Whether he will compel us thus to unite in mere 
 self-defence against the counter activity of a world 
 whose interests we are betraying and neglecting by 
 our divisions ; or whether by an eflFiision of the spirit 
 of love and zeal, he may lead us to think more of the 
 will of Christ, than of the claims of party, we stay 
 not now to inquire. But, judging of the superior 
 facilities for union which plans of benevolent activity 
 present, and from the deepening conviction of Chris- 
 tians that such combination is made essential to the 
 conversion of the world, we repeat our belief that 
 benevolent co-operation is likely to be the principal 
 means of restoring Christian union. 
 
 And oh, if Christians were wise for God, how inva- 
 luable an opportunity for uniting to advance his 
 kingdom now presents itself in the religious education 
 
UNION SHOULD BE SOUGHT. 
 
 251 
 
 of the rising race ! Whether general education be 
 desirable or not is no longer the question — it has 
 become inevitable — the only question left open is, 
 whether it shall be good or bad. Never could a con- 
 junction of circumstances be more favourable than the 
 present for rendering that education all that piety 
 and patriotism could desire — a new generation thirst- 
 ing for instruction — the great majority of the adult 
 population, not merely admitting the existence of the 
 want, but even clamorous that it should be satisfied — 
 the government willing to meet the demand — and all 
 looking to the Christian denominations, and waiting 
 for nothing but their united assent and cordial co- 
 operation. The youthful mind of the nation is placed 
 at their disposal ; let them seize the opportunity and 
 unite in training it for God, and the latest poste- 
 rity will reap the advantage and bless them for it ; 
 but let them neglect it — it is passing — and never may 
 it return again, but will certainly pass into the hands 
 of a power which will teach it to laugh at their divi- 
 sions, and to trample on their weakness. Where is 
 the wisdom equal to the crisis ? and what a motive to 
 supplicate a speedy effusion of the great uniting 
 Spirit ! 
 
 Christian reader, take not your views of duty from 
 any mere party-point ; or they will certainly be nar- 
 row, low, disgraceful to that name which is destined 
 to^ absorb every other — the great name of Christ. 
 If you are active only with a party, is there not reason 
 
252 
 
 THE WAY IN "WHICH 
 
 to fear that you are active only for a party ? Or do 
 you find a luxury in any of those annual festivals of 
 love, where Christians of various denominations unite 
 for the promotion of a common object ? Seek, then, 
 to enjoy such communion more frequently still. As- 
 cend that mount of vision which commands the field 
 of the world ; let your survey take in the whole ; 
 how vast the multitudes ! how urgent and awful their 
 condition ! how brief the hour for benefiting them ! 
 how mighty the interest pending on that short hour ! 
 Wherever your eye falls, it encounters some signal to 
 be active ; some object in an imploring or command- 
 ing attitude, urging you to come to the help of the 
 Lord, to the help of the Lord against the mighty. 
 Take such a survey, and we will defy you to be inac- 
 tive, or to be active only for a party. You will dis- 
 solve into compassion for the world. You will join 
 hearts with all who bear the family likeness of Christ. 
 You will think only of swelling Ms train ; of prose- 
 lyting to his one Church. You mil feel that you are 
 an agent for Christ ; that you stand related to that 
 infinite circumference of good of which he is the 
 central gloiy. You will pray for a blessing upon 
 yourself, and your own particular church, only that 
 the whole may be benefited, and the world saved. 
 You will hold yourself free for the embrace of great 
 plans of operation ; rejoice, like the spirits above, in 
 the prosperity of a part of the Church, as implying 
 the welfare of the whole ; and the only contention you 
 
UNION SHOULD BE SOUGHT. 253 
 
 will view with complacency will be that of the vine 
 with the olive, which shall bear the best and the 
 most abundant fruit. 
 
 X. 1. With all these means, prayer must be con- 
 joined — social prayer — social prayer expressly for the 
 outpouring of the Holy Spirit. The evident absence 
 of brotherly love, and the general prevalence of 
 estrangement and asperity, demonstrate how little, 
 how very little the Christians of different communi- 
 ties pray for each other. There is that in the very 
 nature of prayer for another which brings us into the 
 closest union with him. Having taken his case to the 
 footstool of Mercy, and having thus, in a sense, 
 espoused it and made it our own, we feel our peace 
 and happiness involved in the success of our suit. 
 Now, could we plead thus, in private, for the visible 
 union of the faithful, without coming forth from the 
 closet in a healing spirit of concession, mediation, 
 and love ? Oi", if a number of Christians of different 
 persuasions were to "agree to ask" for each other, in 
 their separate devotions, a spirit of forbearance, ten- 
 derness, and mutual affection, and were they to meet 
 together immediately afterwards, would it not be to 
 exchange a more cordial grasp, and more confiding 
 looks of brotherly love ? 
 
 2. But if this state of feeling would be the happy 
 result of our private supplications for each other, how 
 much more would it ensue from our united requests ! 
 If, in conversation, we are sometimes drawn towards 
 
•2.54 
 
 THE WAY IX WHICH 
 
 each other, and see our heart reflected in the heart of 
 our brother, how much more are the responses of the 
 soul called forth bv prayer I How could we feel 
 estranged from the heart which had poured itself forth 
 before God in our behalf? How could we hear him 
 entreat of God, as a high favour, to be more closelv 
 united with us, without becoming conscious of a 
 desire to be more closely united to him ? How could 
 mutual claims and rights be disregarded, or any of 
 the social graces languish, among those who had thus 
 mingled together their tenderest and purest feelings 
 at the throne of their common Father? Would thev 
 not — must they not — delightfully feel that they " are 
 all one in Christ Jesus?" and would not the feeling 
 necessarily and visibly embody itself before the 
 world ? 
 
 •*3. But not only are we to pray for union, and 
 to pray for it socially, we are to honour the Divine 
 arrangements by imploring that it may be effected in 
 his own appointed way — by the effusion of his Holy 
 Spirit. By simply praying for the blessing of union 
 with our brethren, we are merely bringing our own 
 spirits to the object; but the triumph of prayer is to 
 bring another Spirit, the Almighty Spirit, to accom- 
 plish it, and to become the one soul of the Church. 
 By the former we are only acting negatively — ceasing 
 to be obstacles to each other's union — laying our 
 hearts together like precious metals in the crucible, 
 and offering them to the action of a higher agency ; 
 
 9 
 
UXIOX SHOULD BE SOUGHT. 
 
 255 
 
 by the latter, we are drawing down that melting and 
 transforming power which is to fuse the whole and to 
 impress it with the Divine image. 
 
 And, here, let us remember, — 1. That the divisions 
 of the Church are expressly attributed in Scripture 
 to the absence of the Spirit. \\'hen " the staflF of 
 Beauty'" — our union to God — is broken, immediately 
 " the staff of Bands" — the brotherhood between 
 Judah and Israel — is cut asunder." * When he is 
 gone, the uniting soul is gone, and the body dissolves. 
 And of those who " separate themselves," it is said 
 that they are " sensual, having not the Spirit "\ So 
 that even if Christians were one to-day, they would 
 be divided to-morrow, without the presence of the 
 Divine Spirit. 2. The agency which shall unite the 
 Church must be one which is able both to reach the 
 spirits of men, and even to cope with that great spirit 
 who is the leader and fomenter of all strife ; so that 
 no agency less powerful than that of the Divine 
 Spirit could effect it. 3. Why is it that so vast a 
 body as the faithful have in all ages been united as 
 they have — united on subjects on which all other 
 men differ — why, but owing to this one cause, the 
 presence among them of an all-pervading Spirit? 
 leaving us to infer, that if ever this body becomes 
 more united, it must be the result of the same agency 
 — that as the Spirit is still like liimself, however the 
 Church may have become unlike itself, more of 
 
 * Zech. si. t Jude 19. 
 
256 
 
 THE WAY IN WHICH 
 
 the same cause would produce more of the same 
 effect. 4. Whenever this result is prefigured or pro- 
 mised in Scripture, it is represented as the direct 
 result of a Divine influence. If bone came to his 
 bone in the valley of vision, it was because the 
 Spirit came, in answer to prayer, and breathed upon 
 them. If the two sticks of Judah and Benjamin 
 became one in the hand of the prophet, it was be- 
 cause the prophet himself was in the hand of God. 
 And if believers shall " have one heart and one way," 
 it will be because God will fulfil his promise to " give 
 them." 5. Accordingly, the economy of the Gospel 
 is emphatically the dispensation of the Spirit ; 
 whatever good may result to man, or whatever 
 glorv redound to God, from the instrumentalitv of 
 the Gospel, is to be ascribed to the presence and 
 agency of the Spirit. 6. Now one of the principal 
 and primary objects of his presence in the Church is 
 to unite its members in one. " For there is one 
 body, and one Spirit and there is only one body, 
 because there is but one Spirit. He first converts 
 men to one way, that he may then unite them in one 
 heart, in order to exhibit and employ them as one body, 
 which he shall animate and inhabit as the one soul of 
 the whole. 7. So that to ask for an effusion of the 
 Spirit, is to ask, in effect, for the union of the Church. 
 Till bone had come to his bone in Ezekiel's vision, 
 and the several parts of the body were united, there 
 was no breath in them — in other words, the union of 
 
UNION SHOULD BE SOUGHT. 257 
 
 the body is essential to its life ; and accordingly the 
 Spirit animates only as he unites, and keeps united 
 all whom he animates. 8. Whence it follows, that 
 we are^ to seek the union of the Church not only hy 
 the Spirit, but for him. Union is not to be regarded 
 as an end; but only as a means which he is to employ 
 to a farther end. To expect the scriptural union of 
 his Church without his agency ; and to expect that he 
 will effect a union for its own sake alone — a union 
 which should supersede his presence, and render us 
 independent of his aid, are both equally inconsistent 
 and presumptuous. As the Spirit of light, he would 
 illuminate and make our judgments one in the re- 
 ception and belief of fundamental truth ; as the Spirit 
 of love, he would render a oneness in more than 
 fundamental truth unnecessary ; for having one Head 
 we should have but one heart ; and, then, as the Spirit 
 of life, he would actuate the entire body of the faithful 
 in one undivided effort for the glory of God, and 
 speedily give the world to its instrumentality. 9. Now 
 this Divine Spirit — the great principle of union and 
 life in the Church — is promised unconditionally to 
 prayer. " Ask, and ye shall receive."* We are as- 
 sured that the effectual fervent prayer of even one 
 of the faithful availeth much; but, as if to induce 
 them to assemble in numbers and unite in asking, our 
 Lord promises to their united prayers what he does 
 
 * Luke xi. 9, 13. 
 z 3 
 
•258 
 
 THE WAY IN WHICH 
 
 not promise to their separate and solitary requests. 
 " If two of you shall agree on earth as touching any 
 thing that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of 
 my Father who is in heaven. For where two or 
 three are gathered together in my name, there am I 
 in the midst of them."* Here is a promise made 
 expressly to the united prayer of even two or three, 
 over and above the promises made to each of them 
 when engaged in private devotion. Here is a power 
 conferred on the united prayer of even two believers, 
 greater than the amount of power and efficacy 
 attaching to the prayers of the same two indi- 
 viduals in their single and solitary petitions. Here 
 is the Great Head of the Church, who lost no 
 opportunity of inculcating the union of his spiritual 
 body, honouring the union of only two of his people 
 in prayer, by investing it with an influence in 
 heaven, greater than that which he promises to 
 all his people praying separately. As if he had 
 said, for instance, in anticipation of our present 
 subject, " If you pray to unite, evince your sincerity 
 by uniting to pray, and your prayer shall be 
 granted. Having prayed apart and alone, you will 
 be prepared to pray together, which is itself a 
 blessing, an incipient union ; and by praying to- 
 gether, though your number should be the lowest 
 capable of being united, consisting of only two. 
 
 * Matt. xis. 19, 20. 
 
UNION SHOULD BE SOUGHT. 
 
 259 
 
 the Divine Spirit shall descend to ratify and bless 
 the union, and to make it the means of a still 
 greater. But if such be the result of the union 
 of only two or three, what would be the power 
 of fifties, hundreds, or thousands ? If my people 
 came to pray for the spirit of union in companies, 
 communities, and united denominations, the scenes 
 of Pentecost should be repeated; soon should they 
 all be one, as the Father is in me and 1 in Him ; 
 they should be one in us, and the world would believe 
 that the Father had sent me." 
 
 Oh, if we valued union as Christ does, we should 
 feel that the collected and united prayers of the 
 whole Christian world would not be equal to the 
 magnitude of the blessing, or to the ardour of 
 our desires. If we knew the might of united prayer, 
 we should pant to behold a convocation of all the 
 churches of Christendom, in the persons of their 
 ministers and representatives, prostrate in the fer- 
 vour of believing and united supplication. If we 
 knew how complacently God, from the throne of 
 his glory, would look down on such a scene, or 
 even on the least approximation to it — how em- 
 phatically the blessed Spirit is appointed to honour 
 it before the eyes of the universe — how full the 
 heavens are at this moment of his waiting influence 
 — how inevitably the salvation of a ruined world 
 would ensue — could we stand aloof from each other 
 any longer ? A voice would go forth from every section 
 
260 
 
 THE WAY IN WHICH 
 
 of the Christian community, saying, in anxious, bro- 
 therly, burning accents, " Come, and let us go speedily 
 to pray before the Lord." The universal Church, 
 like " the city of the Ephesians," in reference to 
 "the great goddess Diana," would become one 
 " worshipper " — so completely would all their souls 
 be turned into desire, and all that ardent desire 
 flow in one channel, for the gift of the great 
 uniting Spirit. From such a scene, Christ could riot 
 be absent. There would he be in the midst of them. 
 There would he be to breathe on them, and say. 
 Receive ye the Holy Ghost. By one and the same 
 act, they would receive the crowning gift of the 
 Christian dispensation, and he the fulfilment of his 
 final prayer — for they all would be one. 
 
 XI. In addition to all these means of promoting 
 Christian union, or rather with a view of bringing 
 them into operation, the apostle would enjoin it on 
 all ministers of the Gospel to look on themselves as the 
 appointed peacemakers of the Christian Church. Ec- 
 clesiastical history testifies, alas, how culpably they 
 have, in this respect, forgotten the design of their 
 office. " There are few schisms in churches," says 
 Flavel, " in which ministers have not had some hand. 
 Jerome, on Hosea ix. 8, has these words, ' Searching 
 the ancient histories, I can find none who have more 
 rent the Church of God than those that sustain the 
 office of ministers.' " One of Luther's habitual 
 prayers was, " From vain-glorious doctors, conten- 
 
UNION SHOULD BE SOUGHT. 261 
 
 tious pastors, and unprofitable questions, good Lord 
 deliver us." " Had the ministers of the Gospel," says 
 Baxter in his Reformed Pastor, " been men of peace, 
 and of catholic rather than factious spirits, the Church 
 
 of Christ had not been in the case it now is 
 
 Commonly, it even brings a man under suspicion of 
 favouring some heresy, or abating his zeal, if he do 
 but attempt a pacificatory work. As if there were no 
 zeal necessary for the great fundamental verities of 
 the Church, unity and peace, but only for parties, 
 
 and some particular truths ; as if all zeal for 
 
 peace proceeded from an abatement of our zeal for 
 holiness; and as if holiness and peace were so fallen 
 out, that there were no reconciling them : when yet 
 it has been found, by long experience, that concord is 
 a sure friend to piety, and piety always moves to 
 concord ; while, on the other hand, errors and heresies 
 are bred by discord, as discord is bred and fed by 
 them." 
 
 What, if the Levites, appointed to watch the 
 Jewish temple night and day, had sacrilegiously set 
 fire to the very building which their office required 
 them to guard from the incendiary ! Their flagrant 
 conduct would only and fairly have represented the 
 guilt of those who abuse the peaceful and guardian 
 office they occupy in the Christian temple, into an 
 opportunity for kindling strife and inflaming divisions. 
 The Epistles of St. Paul to Timothy and Titus 
 (analysed in our first section) show that it is the 
 
262 
 
 THE WAY IN WHICH 
 
 office of the ministry, partly, to warn the Church 
 against divisions, to rebuke its self-willed and con- 
 tentious troublers, and to soothe its feverish throbbings 
 with the healing hand of love. They are, indeed, to 
 maintain the truth ; but they are to " maintain it in 
 love" — (Eph. iv. 15) — an intimation to "the sacred 
 order," says Doddridge, " that it was the design of 
 the ministry to preserve peace and charity, as well as 
 orthodoxy, regularity, and discipline, in the Church;" 
 an intimation, too, it might be added, that controversy 
 itself should be so conducted as to win esteem instead 
 of alienating it. 
 
 Some of the advocates of union, indeed, have 
 proposed that societies should be formed, and lec- 
 turers be sent forth to disseminate scriptural inform- 
 ation on the subject; a plan which might be executed 
 with advantage. Archbishop Wake thought that 
 the adoption of " a common church service" would 
 shortly conduce to the union desired. And probably 
 it would. But such a measure presupposes a degree 
 of unanimity, which it should be the laborious en- 
 deavour of ministers to produce. Let them follow 
 the example of the apostle Paul in his ministry — 
 preaching " Christ crucified :" glorying in the Gospel 
 as the ministry of reconciliation, an institution for 
 restoring men to God, and to each other in him. 
 Let them copy him in his epistolary correspondence — 
 and what were his letters to the churches but pro- 
 clamations of peace, inspired edicts from the throne 
 
UNION SHOULD BE SOUGHT. 263 
 
 of love; commanding believers, as they valued the 
 favour of the King of saints, and hoped for a crown 
 above, to " be kindly affectioned one towards another." 
 Let them imitate him in his healing conduct towards 
 those whose diflPerences from each other were only 
 circumstantial, by sending them together to gaze at 
 the cross ; by habitually exhibiting and exalting 
 Christ before their eyes as their common centre, 
 and their only hope. Why is it, a person might 
 be ready to ask, on beginning to read the First Epistle 
 to the Corinthians — why is it that the apostle repeats 
 the name of Christ so often ? Not a sentence, but 
 Christ is introduced by name — hardly a clause in 
 which his name and even his titles do not recur, 
 until we feel as if the apostle were writing principally 
 for the sake of repeating that blessed name. Let 
 him read on to the 12th verse, and he will discover 
 that the design is to call off attention from names 
 which divide — such as Paul, ApoUos, and Cephas — 
 by centering it on Him in whom these, and all other 
 appellations, meet and merge — the Lord Jesus Christ. 
 Let them go and do likewise ; remembering that if 
 little things occupy the attention of their people, it is 
 only owing to the absence of great ones ; that " our 
 church " is a little thing compared with " our Lord," 
 and " our denomination " a trifle compared with our 
 " common salvation ;" that if those whom they address 
 are saved, they will be saved not as denominationalists 
 but as Christians, and not as members of a particular 
 
264 
 
 THE WAY IX WHICH 
 
 church, but as belonging to the Church universal. 
 Let them follow him in his magnanimity towards his 
 schismatic rivals; rejoicing that Clirist is preached, 
 though from inferior motives; offering to co-operate, 
 and actually assisting, in every endeavour calculated to 
 enlarge the kingdom of Christ ; and, instead of eyeing 
 the prosperity of other churches askance, while all 
 heaven is rejoicing at it, sympathising in that pros- 
 perity, and thus making it their own. Let them 
 imitate his prayers ; wrestling with God, in private, 
 for the peace and unity of his Church ; deploring, in 
 public, the existence of so many barriers to the free 
 and general communion of the Church ; confessing 
 its divisions as its scarlet sin; admonishing their 
 people to pray for the impartation of the Holy 
 Spirit as the only and infallible remedy; and 
 taking every opportunity of associating with the 
 ministers and members of other denominations in 
 united prayer for a united Church ; remembering 
 that the great Intercessor above prays, not for a 
 party, — that the names of all the tribes are engraven 
 on his breast-plate, and that those prayers are likely 
 to be the most successful which most nearly resemble 
 his own. And let them copy the apostolic example, 
 in often dwelling, themselves, on the final union of 
 the whole Church, and in leading their people to the 
 contemplation of the same august prospect. Let 
 them do this, and they " shall be called the repairers 
 of the breach, the restorers of paths to dwell in." 
 
UNION OUGHT TO BE SOUGHT. 263 
 
 Often let them lead their people to the lofty contem- 
 plation of that day, when that name shall be deemed 
 by Christians the most appropriate which is most 
 expressive of their common subjection to Christ, 
 and their universal love to each other— when every 
 party appellation shall be forgotten and lost in the 
 great name of Christ — and when Judah and Ephraim 
 shall be one. Oh, how natural would a spirit of 
 conciliation become, after gazing on such a pros- 
 pect ! As if we had come down from a vision of 
 heaven, from beholding those who while here dif- 
 fered from each other, all united and happy in 
 each other's society there, our necessary concessions 
 would appear so trifling that we should not feel 
 them to be sacrifices — our union would at once 
 begin. 
 
 2 A 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 
 MOTIVES AND ARGUMENTS TO UNION. 
 
 In proceeding to the enforcement of some of the 
 most cogent reasons for Chiistian union, it might 
 be proper to anticipate two inquiries, which might 
 otherwise impair the desired impression. " Is the 
 present a suitable season for bringing the question 
 of union before the Church? And, have we any 
 rational hope of promoting such union?" 
 
 1. In brief reply to the first inquirj-, we remark, 
 that as the obligation to Christian union is perpetual, 
 the obligation of enforcing it is perpetual also ; so 
 that from the first moment of division in the Church 
 to the final sounding of the trump of God, the incul- 
 cation of the duty can never be absolutely out of 
 place — that if the present be a season of peculiar dis- 
 traction in the Church, so much the more reason for 
 labouring to restore it to its right mind — that as the 
 darkest hour is commonly that which precedes the 
 dawn, so it is historically true, that the gloomiest 
 9 
 
MOTIVES AND ARGUMENTS TO UNION. 267 
 
 season of the Church has been generally that selected 
 by God for saying to it, " Arise, and shine, for thy 
 light is come " — that we really know of no time hav- 
 ing elapsed in the past, more suitable than the 
 present, for the inculcation of union ; since the sub- 
 ject, whenever raised, could scarcely have failed to 
 awaken discussion on the party questions now in 
 debate — that as to waiting for some more suitable 
 period in the future, — as we have no right to expect 
 that such time will ever arrive unless we employ the 
 appropriate means, we are solemnly bound to do all 
 we can to hasten it on — and, finally, that it is our 
 sober and cheering conviction that, inflamed as is the 
 state of party feeling in the Church at present, there 
 is (and partly on that very account) as deep a con- 
 viction of the necessity of union, and as earnest and 
 powerful a desire after it, in many a Christian bosom, 
 as at any preceding period ; that the number of such 
 is increasing ; and that a scriptural appeal on the 
 subject is much more likely to affect the heart of the 
 Christian now, with the torn and mangled state of the 
 Church before his eyes, than as if we were deluding 
 each other with the cry of " peace, peace, when 
 there is no peace." 
 
 2. Admitting, however, that the present is as suit- 
 able as any other season, and in some respects even 
 more so, for the introduction of our subject, "have 
 we," it might be asked, " any rational hope of pro- 
 moting the union of the Church ? " To which we 
 
268 MOTIVES AND ARGUMENTS TO UNION. 
 
 reply, that when we recall to mind the long-estab- 
 lished reign of those prejudices by which Christians 
 are divided — the almost uniform and total failure of 
 the numerous, various, and strenuous endeavours 
 which have been made to heal them — the still 
 prevailing disinclination to second such attempts 
 — and the formidable obstacles which must be re- 
 moved before a general union of Christians can be 
 effected — we freely confess that were we to be san- 
 guine of any thing like speedy and general success 
 one moment, our fears, whether justifiable or not, 
 would arise and rebuke us the next. On the other 
 hand, we are not without grounds for expecting that 
 a considerable approximation to Christian union is at 
 hand. Such an approximation would be only in 
 harmony with the spirit of the age, and with those 
 various movements in society, which seem destined 
 to be the means of temporally enlightening and im- 
 proving the human race; and though the Church 
 may only be indirectly affected by such an influence, 
 still influenced it necessarily must be by the tenden- 
 cies of that society in which it exists. The sword of 
 persecution, too, sleeps in its scabbard ; and the spirit 
 of intolerance rarely ventures forth in the light of day. 
 Our hopes, however, rest, under God, chiefly on 
 influences of a purely religious nature. The grow- 
 ing diff'usion of scriptural knowledge in the present 
 day, cannot fail gradually to bring into question the 
 existence of whatever is antiscriptural and antisocial 
 
MOTIVES AND ARGUMENTS TO UNION. "269 
 
 in the Church. Those great benevolent and mission- 
 ary enterprises, in which the best of every denomina- 
 tion are embarked in obedience to the will of their 
 common Lord, make them feel increasingly the need 
 of practical union and general co-operation ; in 
 order, both to make the most of their resources at 
 home, and to avoid the fatal results of visible disunion 
 and eventual collision before the eyes of the heathen 
 abroad. And, more and mightier than all, the 
 prayer presented by the great Intercessor; and 
 repeated by his followers in every subsequent age, 
 " that they all might be one." As certainly as that 
 prayer was offered, it will be answered; so that at 
 this moment its accomplishment is nearer than at any 
 preceding moment, and the next moment it will be 
 nearer still. Every prayer of his people has been 
 hastening it on ; and, should the effect of the present 
 appeal be to heighten the fervour of a portion of 
 those who are already suppliants for the union of the 
 Church, and to add but ten other suppliants to their 
 number, we should confidently reply to the supposed 
 inquiry. We believe that we have a strong and scrip- 
 tural warrant for expecting the approaching union 
 of the Church. 
 
 3. Our present appeal is made, be it remembered, 
 not to the nominal religionists of the Christian com- 
 munity. We do not expect that those whose only 
 attachment to religion is one of prejudice, will re- 
 main attached to it in defiance of prejudice. We are 
 2 A 3 
 
•270 MOTIVES AND ARGUMENTS TO UNIOX. 
 
 not so romantic as to imagine that the bigoted, whose 
 loyalty to religion consists entirely in an obstinate 
 defence of one or other of its out-works, should capi- 
 tulate to the voice of reason, or even of Scripture 
 itself ; their " occupation would be gone " — their 
 religion vanished — they would have nothing left in 
 which to trust ! We do not expect that the selfish 
 will voluntarily construct a plan for the reduction of 
 their own importance in the Church; especially if 
 nothing better than union is to ensue. We are not 
 so ignorant of human nature as to expect that those 
 to whom "gain is godliness," will place in the remotest 
 degree of hazard their " means," their " living," " the 
 main chance," for any thing so airy and intangible as 
 Christian unity. So long as the " pavement " of the 
 temple is " beaten gold," how can they be expected 
 to lift their eyes even to the " vision beatific?" And 
 as to the sensual and immoral, till they can forgive 
 the Gospel for standing between them and their sinS, 
 we do not expect that they will forgive those who are 
 aiming to conform to its requirements ; and until they 
 are united to Christ, we do not desire a closer union 
 with them than that which arises from seeking their 
 salvation. 
 
 4. Our appeal is made " to the faithful in Christ 
 Jesus," of every community — to those who hope to be 
 associated in heaven with all the " called, and faith- 
 ful, and chosen ; " and our entreaty is, that they will 
 acknowledge and visibly unite with them in the 
 
MOTIVES AND ARGUMENTS TO UNION. '271 
 
 Church on earth. We do not ask them to hate cer- 
 tain portions of the Church, to avoid them, to re- 
 nounce all communion with them. Oh, had there 
 been a requirement of this nature in the Bible, how- 
 hard would it have been considered by some, and 
 how certain a proof that the whole Gospel was an 
 imposture, by others ; — but we ask them to love ; we 
 urge them to gratify the instinctive affection of their 
 new nature ; to augment their happiness a thousand 
 fold, by opening the arms of their heart, and embrac- 
 ing all who are received by Christ. We ask them, 
 not to exclude any of the present objects of their 
 Christian regard, but to include others ; not to 
 demolish their temple, but only, by removing " the 
 middle wall of partition," to enlarge it ; to renounce 
 nothing of their denominational character but its un- 
 scriptural exclusiveness. We do ask them practically 
 to admit, that " the supremacy of the Bible, and 
 the right of private judgment," are words which 
 have a meaning. We do ask that the Bible may be 
 allowed to overrule and expel from among them that 
 rival and impostor, Expediency — that they will con- 
 sent to discuss the questions which divide the Church, 
 on purely religious grounds — that they will regard the 
 adherence of nominal Christians as a necessary source 
 of weakness; so that were all the nominalists in 
 Christendom to desert their respective communities, 
 and to attach themselves to any one denomination, 
 that denomination (all other things being equal) 
 
272 MOTIVES AND ARGUMENTS TO UNION. 
 
 would from that moment be shorn of its proper 
 strength and utility, and become a mass of mere 
 worldliness. We do ask that they will cease to 
 treat the great principles which they hold in 
 common as trifles, and to exalt trifles into the 
 throne of great principles — that they will cease to 
 think of conciliating the irreligious by any thing 
 short of scriptural conversion ; and that they all 
 unite together in a godlike endeavour for that end — 
 that they will remember that there is a principle of 
 union existing between the pious churchman and the 
 pious dissenter infinitely more intimate and binding 
 than there is between either of these and the irreli- 
 gious of their respective communities, that while the 
 bond which unites the one is accidental and tem- 
 porary, that which unites the other is fastened by the 
 hand of God himself, and fastened for eternity — that 
 they will bear in mind that, as Christians, they belong 
 properly to no one external communion, but that 
 whatever they have or are in this capacity, they possess 
 only in common with the entire body of the faithful 
 — and that, in order to be brought into a scriptural 
 state of union with this body, they absolutely need 
 the impartation of the Holy Spirit, and should ear- 
 nestly cry for his advent among them. 
 
 5. And now let Christians devoutly consider the 
 grounds on which we ask this, and the reasons 
 which bind them to comply — reasons so cogent that 
 the least of them all is infinitely greater than the 
 
MOTIVES AND ARGUMENTS TO UNION. 273 
 
 greatest, than all the reasons which can be adduced 
 against it — reasons so many, and various, and diffused 
 over so wide a space, that no single mind can collect 
 and combine them — so affecting and weighty, that 
 although the wisest and the holiest men have in all 
 ages united to enforce them with tears and entreaties, 
 and though some of these appeared even to have 
 been continued on earth chiefly to enforce them, 
 devoting their whole lives to the work, yet they never 
 have, never can have, full justice done to them — 
 reasons so sacred, that they have their seat in the 
 bosom of God — so vast, that they measure with the 
 universe — and so deeply laid in the Divine purposes, 
 that the great object of the advent itself — the salva- 
 tion of the world — is suspended on their taking 
 effect. 
 
 I. Ought we not even to be shamed into the sup- 
 pression of many of our factious proceedings, when 
 we remember the associations which bind together 
 multitudes of the irreligious ? Shall they, with all 
 that is selfish and antisocial in their nature, live on a 
 more friendly footing, and enjoy more unreserved 
 intercourse with each other, than the children of the 
 family of the God of peace ? 
 
 II. Science, too, is loudly boasting of her catho- 
 licity. " Science, the partisan of no country, but 
 the beneficent patroness of all, has liberally opened a 
 temple where all may meet. She never inquires 
 about the country or sect of those who seek admission. 
 
274 MOTIVES AND ARGUMENTS TO UNION. 
 
 The philosopher of one country should not see an 
 enemy in the philosopher of another. He should 
 take his seat in the temple of science, and ask not 
 who sits beside him." Such is the language of 
 science ; while that of the Church is almost entirely 
 the reverse. It is true that science does not descend 
 into the heart as religion does; appeals not to our 
 great interests and responsibilities ; and, consequently, 
 leaves the depth and mass of our moral nature un- 
 moved. But if, on this account, it does not contain 
 the same occasions for disunion among its followers, 
 neither does it furnish the same reasons for union. 
 Their goddess and temple are mere abstractions ; our 
 God is the only Absolute Existence in the universe : 
 their knowledge and pursuits are bounded by time ; 
 ours are from heaven, and for it, and are commen- 
 surate with eternity. And shall tliey have to set us 
 an example of peace? Shall "the disputers of this 
 world," rebuke, by their unity, the followers of the 
 Prince of Peace ? They ought to find peace in the 
 Church, when they are distracted by the cares, and 
 dissatisfied with the emptiness of the world : shall they 
 be driven from the Church to find calm and enjoy- 
 ment in the world ? 
 
 III. Even the political quiet of the country is 
 disturbed by the broils of Christians. Great civil 
 interests are neglected, the organisation of a system 
 of national education is delayed, the movements of 
 the Legislature thwarted and thrown into confusion. 
 
MOTIVES AND ARGUMENTS TO UNION. 275 
 
 and important questions of humanity and good 
 government are compelled to wait, till the intended 
 peacemakers of the world have adjusted their own 
 quarrels, and agreed among themselves. 
 
 IV. And this reminds us of the scriptural reasons 
 for our union. What was the design of the whole 
 Gospel economy ? The angels who heralded the 
 advent of its Divine Founder, announced that its 
 object was peace on earth, and good-will towards men. 
 The divisions of his followers, however, seem to 
 intimate, that Christianity possesses the strange and 
 questionable virtue of attracting all classes to itself, 
 and of repelling them all from each other — that it 
 converts all the enmity which they once felt against 
 God, into hostility against each other — that those 
 who were meant to be the peacemakers of the world, 
 so far from fulfilling their office, have not yet been 
 able to settle the preliminaries of even a truce among 
 themselves, but are among the principal disturbers of 
 society. And thus it is that our mutual contentions 
 are actually placing in hazard the character and 
 design of the Christian dispensation. 
 
 V. But during the early ages of Christianity, the 
 Church visibly and really maintained its intended unity ; 
 and ought not this consideration to exercise a healing 
 influence on Christians of the present day ? With a 
 thousand reasons for division of which we happily 
 know nothing, the first Christians were one. The 
 petty bickering which occasionally disturbed the 
 
276 MOTIVES AND ARGUMENTS TO UNION, 
 
 peace of a particular society, did not aflFect the 
 union of the general Church. " They who are at 
 Rome," said the Bishop of Caesarea in a letter to 
 Cyprian, "do not entirely observe all things which 
 
 have been handed down from the beffinnino' 
 
 So, likewise, in a very great number of other pro- 
 vinces, many things vary according to the diversity of 
 place and people ; but, nevertheless, their variations 
 have at no time infringed the peace and unity of the 
 catholic Church." Converging from the most oppo- 
 site points. Christians met together at the cross, and 
 the principle which drew them to that, bound them 
 also to each other. And shall that example exist for 
 us in vain? Shall we tempt the world to infer that 
 the Gospel exhausted its benevolent power in its first 
 efforts? that its uniting influence is irrecoverably lost? 
 Of this we may be assured, that until we practically 
 regard the unity of the primitive Church as obligator)- 
 on ourselves, its history exists only to aggravate our 
 guilt and to increase our condemnation. 
 
 VI. Every inspired injunction of mutual forbearance 
 among Christians, is a scriptural argument for the unity 
 of the Church. When the apostle interfered to com- 
 pose the difierences in the church at Rome, though 
 he admitted that they implied the existence of 
 erroneous views, he not only did not enjoin the 
 expulsion of the erring, he did riot even peremptorily 
 pronounce on which side the charge of error lay, 
 but attempted to effect a reconciliation while each 
 
MOTIVES AND ARGUMENTS TO UNION. 277 
 
 retained his peculiar tenets. And the ground on 
 which he rests the obligation of each party to exercise 
 forbearance with the other is, " for God hath received 
 him."* " We then that ai*e strong ought to bear 
 the infirmities of the weak, and not to please our- 
 selves. Wherefore receive ye one another, as Christ 
 also hath received us to the glory of God."f Here, 
 then, is an apostolic canon for the regulation of the 
 conduct of such Christians as fundamentally agree, 
 while they differ on points of subordinate importance — 
 a canon which imperatively requires them to exercise 
 a reciprocal toleration and indulgence — to give each 
 other credit for a conscientious deference to the will 
 of Christ — to view each other as mutually received 
 of God — and all this that they may on no account 
 proceed to an open rupture. So that all the parties 
 which at present divide the Church owing to diver- 
 sities of opinion which are not inconsistent with 
 salvation, exist in open violation of this sacred canon, 
 impeach the inspired wisdom which enjoins it, and 
 repeal all those commands of mutual toleration which 
 harmonise with its spirit. Oh, how should it humble 
 those parties to reflect, that were they to pass an act 
 of oblivion for all the alienations and feuds of the 
 past, mutually to concede the points at issue, and 
 forthwith to embrace and become one— vast as the 
 sacrifices would appear in their own eyes, and great 
 
 * Rom. xiv. 3. f Rom. xv. 1 — 7. 
 
 2 B 
 
278 
 
 MOTIVES AND ARGUMENTS TO UNION. 
 
 as the event would certainly be in its happy results — 
 it would after all be only and simply an exercise of 
 Christian forbearance, an act of obedience to the 
 heavenly voice which says, " forbear." And shall 
 they who are commanded even to love their enemies, 
 show that they have not Christianity enough to bear 
 with their friends ? Shall they whose religion re- 
 quires them to pray for their deadly persecutors, 
 show that they have not religion enough to pray 
 with their brethren of another name ? Is this to 
 " forbear one another in love ? " 
 
 VII. Let Christians remember that Christ com- 
 viands their unity. And the unity he enjoins is that 
 which is cemented by love ; so that mutual forbear- 
 ance itself is to be exercised, not reluctantly, but as 
 the result and expression of Christian affection. " A 
 new commandment give I unto you, that ye love 
 one another." He will not accept that as love to the 
 brethren, which consists only of love to a party. The 
 affection which he demands is that which embraces 
 Christians as Christians, and therefore all Christians 
 — which loves on a universal reason. He will not 
 accept that as love to the brethren which merely 
 tolerates their existence — which simply gives them 
 leave to be — which allows them to worship God only 
 on the stern condition that they remove to a dis- 
 tance, and remain apart from us. Surely we cannot 
 suppose that such a state of mind could ever justify 
 us in saying, " We know that we have passed from 
 
 5 
 
MOTIVES AND ARGUMENTS TO UNION. 279 
 
 death unto life :" and yet the state of mind which 
 believers are mutually to cherish would justify them 
 in saying that, for it would furnish a scriptural proof 
 of their being in a state of salvation. It is not pos- 
 sible that love of any kind should confine itself to 
 mere negative expressions — to bare abstinence from 
 the infliction of injury — least of all the fraternal 
 love which Christ requires in his people. It " suf- 
 fereth long, and is kind, and never faileth;" for 
 its exemplar is the ever-active and all-fruitful love of 
 Christ to themselves. 
 
 To render this exercise of love still more obli- 
 gatory, our Lord inculcates it as the principal mark 
 by which his followers are to be distinguished in 
 every age; as the chief evidence of our being in a 
 state of union with himself ; as furnishing to the 
 world a convincing proof of the divinity of the Gos- 
 pel ; and as the all-pervading principle which alone 
 can prevent a " schism in the body." That it might 
 have a pattern which should move as well as teach, 
 our Lord proposes himself — " as I have loved you, 
 that ye also love one another;" intimating, at once, 
 how rich their fraternal love should be in its fruits, 
 and how ample in its embrace, for his love is ex- 
 tended indiscriminately to every member of his 
 spiritual body. And to render the command irre- 
 sistible, he waits till the cross is in view before he 
 utters it — urges it as his last request — repeats it as 
 peculiarly the law of Calvary — as if he would make 
 
280 MOTIVES AND ARGUMENTS TO UNION. 
 
 it impossible for them ever to revisit the hallowed 
 scene without hearing it issue from the cross afresh ; 
 or ever to meet around his table without feeling 
 themselves bound to pledge each other anew to 
 mutual love, over the sacred symbols of his love 
 to them. Oh, if Christians did but remember that 
 they cannot turn away from each other, without tuni- 
 ing away from their dying Lord ; without rudely 
 violating the only new command which his lips of 
 love ever uttered; without sullenly disregarding a 
 request which came forth with his blood, with what 
 mutual concessions would they approach each other 
 and embrace. " Beloved, if God so loved us, we 
 ought also to love one another." 
 
 VIII. And how powerfully should the love of the 
 brotherhood be enforced by the consideration that 
 their union is indissoluble. Those who are constituted 
 brethren by virtue of their relation to Christ, will, and 
 must, be brethren for ever. Cold and formal towards 
 each other they may be, suspicious and distant they 
 may be, but, in spite of all, the principle of brother- 
 hood continues, and will continue for ever. Nothing 
 which they can themselves do to effect a separation — 
 no process which can be adopted by their enemies — 
 can ever annihilate their fraternity to others, or the 
 fraternity of others to them. The vital ligature 
 which unites them to God, is that which also unites 
 them to each other ; and as there is " nothing which 
 shall be able to separate us from" the one, our con- 
 
MOTIVES AND ARGUMENTS TO UNION. 281 
 
 nexion with the other is indissoluble. What true 
 sublimity does this fact of essential perpetuity impart 
 to the relationship of the Christian family ! How 
 lamentably are their existing divisions at variance 
 with it ! How impossible would it be for them to 
 become duly alive to it without consenting to merge 
 those differences — without approximating to the spirit 
 of that blessed region where love is a divine reality, 
 and the brotherhood is complete ! 
 
 IX. The fellowship of Christian denominations 
 should be cultivated from the consideration that the 
 wisest and the best of each have most earnestly desired it, 
 and that now they are perfectly one in the Church above. 
 Many of them (men, of whom the world was not 
 worthy) have left their desire on record — a fact which 
 will be adduced in evidence against the troublers of 
 the Church in the day of final account. Some of 
 them died with the desire on their lips; they could 
 not bequeath a legacy of peace to the Church as 
 their dying Lord did, but they approached his ex- 
 ample as nearly as they were able, by earnestly 
 desiring it for those they left behind. Some of them 
 who had contended too eagerly concerning minor 
 points, saw and acknowledged their error even on 
 this side death. How admirable the letter in which 
 Ridley, writing to Hooper — when both of them were 
 prisoners for Christ — laments their " little jarring in 
 time past about the by-matters and circumstances of 
 religion," but assures him that, " with his whole 
 2 B 3 
 
282 MOTIVES AND ARGUMENTS TO UNION. 
 
 heart, in the bowels of Christ, he loves him for the 
 truth's sake, which abideth in us." And can we sup- 
 pose that in heaven they are conscious of any regret 
 on the subject of their agreement, except that it was 
 not made earlier ? " If the ruptures of the Church 
 might be composed," says Chillingworth, " I do 
 heartily wish that the cement were made of my 
 dearest blood." 
 
 " I confess," writes Owen, " I would rather, much 
 rather, spend all my time and days in making up and 
 healing the breaches and schisms that are amongst 
 Christians, than one hour in justifying our di^dsions, 
 even therein, wherein on the one side they are 
 capable of a just defence." " Far more comfort were 
 it for us," writes Hooker, in his " Ecclesiastical Polity," 
 " to labour under the same yoke as men who look for 
 the same eternal reward of their labours ; to be en- 
 joined with you in bonds of indissoluble love and 
 unity ; to live as if, our persons being many, our 
 souls were but one, rather than in such dismembered 
 sort to spend our few and wretched days in a tedious 
 prosecuting of wearisome contentions, the end where- 
 of, if they have not some speedy end, will be heavy 
 on both sides." How solemn the adjuration of 
 Bishop Hall, when preaching before the Synod of 
 Dordt — " We are one body, let us also be of one 
 mind. By that tremendous name of the Almighty 
 
 God by your own souls — by the most 
 
 holy compassions of Jesus Christ our Saviour, aim 
 
MOTIVES AND ARGUMENTS TO UNION. 283 
 
 at peace, brethren ; enter into peace ; that laying 
 aside all prejudice, party spirit, and evil aflFections, 
 we may all come to a happy agreement in the same 
 truth." " It has long been my grief, as well as my 
 wonder," writes Boyle, " to see such comparatively 
 petty differences in judgment make such wide 
 breaches and vast divisions in affection." " I," ex- 
 claimed Baxter, in the golden sentence we have 
 already quoted, " I can as willingly be a martyr for 
 Love as for any article of the creed." And such is 
 the spirit breathed in the writings of a Wesley,* a 
 Whitefieldjf and indeed of all the most distinguished 
 " fathers of the modern churches." 
 
 And can we suppose that they who were the 
 mediators and healing spirits of their day, have any 
 thing to regret, except that they were not more in 
 earnest? Oh, could we take our differences into 
 their presence — could we convoke and consult a 
 synod of the blessed — how certainly should we be- 
 hold those whose disciples and descendants have been 
 ever at variance here, sitting together in heavenly 
 places in Christ Jesus ; how earnestly would they 
 unite in admonishing those followers, if they honour 
 their memory, and would enhance their happiness, to 
 blot from their writings the controversial and conten- 
 tious page in which once they gloried — to merge their 
 names at once and for ever in the great Christian 
 
 * See his Sermon on a Catholic Spirit, 
 t See his Letter to the Religious Societies. 
 
284 MOTIVES AND ARGUMENTS TO UNION. 
 
 name — and to emulate the union of heaven, if they 
 would obtain an ante past of its joys ! " Let us but 
 imagine what their blessed spirits now feel at the 
 retrospect of their earthly frailties, and can we do 
 other than strive to feel as they now feel, not as they 
 once felt ? So will it be with the disputes between 
 good men of the present day ! and if you have no 
 other reason to doubt your opponent's goodness 
 than the little point in dispute, think of Baxter and 
 Hammond, of Milton and Taylor, and let it be 
 no reason at all."* 
 
 X. But if the union of the Church militant would 
 be thus agreeable to the Church triumphant, Iwv: 
 much more agreeable would it be to the nature of Him 
 who is the Author of both — the Blessed God! He is 
 " the very God of peace." Whatever the glorified 
 above, or the redeemed on earth, may know of peace, 
 they know only as recipients and instruments; but 
 He is its very God. He is the fountain whence all 
 the streams of peace which are at this moment circu- 
 lating through the universe, immediately flow. And 
 his Church was intended, under Christ, to be the 
 channel of peace to this troubled world. How 
 agreeable, then, would it be to his exalted nature 
 to see his Church answering its high design : no 
 longer reflecting from its bosom the tempestuous 
 and angry sky of earthly strife, but the calm of a 
 
 * Coleridge. 
 
MOTIVES AND ARGUMENTS TO UNION. 285 
 
 higher region — giving back to heaven its own image, 
 and presenting to earth the means of becoming 
 like it. 
 
 XL How agreeable would it be to Him who has 
 selected as one of his most appropriate titles, " the 
 Prince of Peace ! " who chose that the peacemakers 
 should be called, more emphatically than others, the 
 children of God— leaving us to infer that they more 
 nearly resemble their Heavenly Father; who be- 
 queathed to his Church a legacy of peace ; who 
 prayed in death that his followers might be one ; and 
 who would still be invoked by them " as the Lord 
 of peace himself." As " the head of his body the 
 Church," he feels the shock and suffering of all that 
 is inflicted on the members ; and not the less that 
 the hand which inflicts it is its own. How congenial 
 would it be to his gracious nature to see that his 
 people were no longer crucifying him afresh, and 
 putting him to an open shame — that they were no 
 longer losing sight of his cross in a fierce contention 
 about his seamless robe — no longer forgetting his 
 atoning blood in their thirst for the blood of each 
 other — but that they were all looking upon him who 
 had been thus wounded in the house of his friends, 
 were mingling their tears and supplications together, 
 and then, emulating the winged zeal of the angels at 
 his advent, were going into all the world, preaching, 
 " peace on earth, good-will towards men ! " 
 
 Xn. How agreeable would the restoration of unity 
 
286 MOTIVES AND ARGUMENTS TO UNION. 
 
 be to that Divine Agent who is given to the Church as 
 the Spirit of love, joy, and peace! "There is but one 
 body and one Spirit, a Spirit that spreads vital in- 
 fluence through the body. What can we think of that 
 Spirit that feels every where ? that is in the body a 
 universal sentient ? How can that Spirit but be 
 grieved ? How should any of us like it, to have our 
 living body torn limb from limb, and part from part ! 
 Though with him passion and disturbance can have 
 no place, intellectual resentment is infinitely greater 
 and deeper than we can either feel or conceive."* 
 But in the same sense and degree in which the dis- 
 severed and distracted state of the Church now 
 grieves him, the restoration of its unity and peace 
 would yield him ineffable delight. The very desire 
 of such restoration sincerely and generally expressed 
 would open the windows of heaven, and cause him to 
 return. If even a good man is conscious of pure 
 satisfaction in only attempting a family reconciliation, 
 how inconceivable would be the satisfaction of the 
 Divine Spirit in restoring and ratifying the peace of 
 the great family of God ! What benevolent spirit in 
 heaven would not find an additional heaven in being 
 despatched even to assist in such an office ! Who, 
 then, shall attempt to describe the satisfaction of Him 
 to whom the office belongs, and to whom it belongs, 
 because it is congenial and proper to his nature ? In 
 
 * Howe. 
 
MOTIVES AND ARGUMENTS TO UNION. '287 
 
 restoring the torn members of the Church to each 
 other, and heaUng its wounds, he would be only gra- 
 tifying his own nature. And having prepared the 
 body, he would be able to return to his appropriate 
 office of being the life of that body, and through it, 
 the glorifier of Jesus in the conversion of the world. 
 
 XIII. But if the unity of the Church would be 
 thus agreeable to the Father, to the Son, and to the 
 Holy Spirit, let us consider its eminent Jitness and 
 consequent agreeableness to the blessed Trinity in Unity. 
 Of this we are reminded by our Lord himself in his 
 intercessoi-y prayer — " that they all might be one, as 
 thou Father art in me, and I in thee, that they also 
 might be one in us." Of the Divine subsistencies in 
 the Trinity the Church knows nothing scripturally, 
 but as they subsist in the unity of the Godhead, 
 acting together in the economy of our salvation. 
 And of all the partakers of that salvation, the world 
 ought to have known nothing practically, but as they 
 were seen together in the unity of the Church, acting 
 together for the conversion of the world. How suit- 
 able is it that those who have to ascribe their salvation 
 to a plan in which the Father, the Son, and the Holy 
 Spirit have united their infinite perfections, and who 
 have been all baptised into their one sacred name, 
 should themselves unite in a community of love and 
 duty in return — that the members of each Christian 
 church, feeling the penury of their utmost love, should 
 call on the members of every other church to unite 
 
288 MOTIVES AND ARGUMENTS TO UNION. 
 
 with them, and thus multiply their means of glorify- 
 ing the Triune God ! And how supremely agreeable 
 to the Blessed Trinity, looking down from the throne 
 of their infinite glory, to behold the image of their 
 own ineffable union reflected in the intimate and in- 
 dissoluble oneness of the Church; and the Church 
 contending only which part of it shall be most instru- 
 mental in going into all the world, preaching the 
 Gospel to every creature, and baptising them into the 
 threefold name of God ! 
 
 XIV. A tender appeal for the unity of the Church 
 is derivable from the fact that it owes its existence 
 entirely to infinite love. If, like many an earthly 
 kingdom and institution, it had originated in strife, in 
 strife it might have been maintained; but it is the pure 
 creation of Love. If it be true that in God we live, 
 and move, and have our being — if, as men, we inhabit 
 his infinite essence, it is true that, as Ch?-istians, we 
 inhabit his very heart, dwell in his love. It is to this 
 fact the apostle alludes when he would have us to 
 comprehend with all saints the fourfold dimensions of 
 the love of God. INIaterial substances have onlv 
 three dimensions ; but the Church, having for its 
 temple the heart of God, is to search for the cir- 
 cumference in all directions round, and be lost in 
 the love which passeth knowledge. Christians, the 
 Church is the institution of love ; shall we make it 
 the scene of hatred? It stands in the heart of God; 
 shall we fill it with malevolence ? What should we 
 
MOTIVES AND ARGUMENTS TO UNION. 289 
 
 have thought of the disciples, had they audibly 
 quarrelled on Calvary, and in the hearing of their 
 dying Lord And yet all our contentions are con- 
 ducted in the presence of the love which led him 
 there ! Is not this crucifying him afresh ? 
 
 XV. The union of Christians would be not only 
 eminently agreeable to the Author of their salvation, 
 and in accordance with what they owe to his love, it 
 would be supremely advantageous to themselves. How 
 necessarily would it tend to harmonise our views on 
 those points which are noiv the sources of division ! Is 
 not this the gracious way in which God seeks to 
 terminate our guilty quarrel with himself? Instead 
 of moving off from us to the greatest possible dis- 
 tance, has he not come nearer to us than ever, dwelt 
 amongst us, established a ministry of reconciliation, 
 and invited us to "come and reason" with him at a 
 throne of grace? And by pursuing this gracious 
 course towards us, is he not intentionally showing 
 us the right way of becoming reconciled to each 
 other ? and would he not honour and bless the 
 imitation of his own methods? 
 
 The spirit of conciliation which would then prevail 
 would of itself do more towards the adjustment of 
 disputed points than all the treatises which they have 
 ever called forth. Suspicion would be painful to us ; 
 and crimination laborious and hateful : we should 
 refrain from it not only because required by God 
 to do so, but also by a prohibition and law of our 
 2 c 
 
290 MOTIVES AND ARGUMENTS TO UNION. 
 
 Christian nature. Mutual explanation alone, fra- 
 ternally sought, and promptly, patiently, and kindly 
 given, would obviate many a difficulty, and prove 
 many an objection, now deemed insuperable, to have 
 been quite unfounded. The simplest means of con- 
 ciliation would then become means of grace, for God 
 would bless them. In the presence of the great 
 objects which would engage our attention, many of 
 the points at issue now would at once be eclipsed 
 and for ever lost sight of. While the Spirit of God, 
 descending into the clear and serene atmosphere 
 which would then fill the Church, would either, as 
 the Spirit of Truth, lead us into all truth respecting 
 the few points that remained, or else, as the Spirit of 
 Love, would render such illumination unnecessary. 
 Thus union would produce unanimity, and unanimity, 
 by reaction, promote union. 
 
 XVI. It would greatly promote the piety of the 
 Church. Hence the prayer of St. Paul for the 
 Thessalonians — " The Lord make you increase and 
 abound in love one toward another, and toward 
 all men : to the end he may stablish your hearts un- 
 hlameable in holiness before God." Having put away 
 the childish things — the toys and trifles which now 
 engage our attention, and occasion our disputes — 
 " we should feel with much greater influence than ever 
 the force of high motives; we should be thrown 
 directly upon all that is vast, ennobling, and pure, 
 in the objects of our faith :" we should view the whole 
 
MOTIVES AND ARGUMENTS TO UNION. 291 
 
 path of duty as from heaven. Breath, now wasted in 
 controversy, would be turned into the incense of 
 prayer. Christian intercourse would then be, what 
 it always should have been, a religious ordinance — an 
 exercise of mutual benevolence — a channel of grace. 
 And the only spirit invoked in the Church would 
 be the Spirit of grace. 
 
 XVII. In a variety of ways, the union of Chris- 
 tians would greatly increase their capacity for useful- 
 ness. " Union is strength." When it was once 
 demanded of Agesilaus why Lacedsemon had no 
 walls, he replied, " The concord of the citizens is its 
 strength." And as a city or a kingdom becomes 
 powerful in proportion as its parts act in concert, so 
 would it be with the Christian Church. Talent, 
 which is consuming itself in the flames of angry con- 
 troversy, would then be sanctified, and set at liberty, 
 for a holier office. Zeal would come from one part of 
 the Church, to be directed by Wisdom from another 
 part. Preaching, where it is now, in consequence of 
 the withering influence of dissension, productive of 
 comparatively little good, would then, by being 
 devoted intensely to the exhibition of Christ cruci- 
 fied, be attended with Pentecostal success. Churches 
 which have now to complain of weakness and worldli- 
 ness, would then, by copying the visible unanimity 
 and concentrated zeal of the primitive saints, be 
 crowned with primitive triumph, and be more than a 
 match for hostile myriads. Resources, which, divided, 
 
•292 MOTIVES AND ARGUMENTS TO UNION. 
 
 are not equal to the religious cultivation of a countr)-, 
 would, when united, be equal to an attempt on a 
 continent. And, having made the attempt, instead of 
 fearing in every Christian stranger that approached 
 our sphere of labour, an agent from a rival church 
 deputed to supplant us, we should hail him, from 
 whatever section of the Church he might have come, 
 as a brother beloved, and as a reinforcement of our 
 spiritual strength. 
 
 XVIII. Christians would be inspired with a sacred 
 fortitude and courage. The desertion or mutiny of part 
 of an army, disheartens all the rest. And Christians, 
 " unless united, signify but as so many single persons ; 
 each one caring and contriving only how to shift for 
 himself. Love makes them significant to one another. 
 Every one understands himself to be the common 
 care of all the rest." The conviction that they can- 
 not fail without grieving those whom they love and 
 ■who love them, would keep them from the thought of 
 declining ; and the assurance, that in every enterprise 
 of benevolence they carried with them the sympathies 
 and prayers of the Church, would put them on deeds 
 of heroism in the cause of God, which would call 
 forth the applauses of all heaven. 
 
 XIX. But especially would union increase their 
 capacity for usefulness, by increasing their capacity for 
 the reception and operation of that Holy Spirit tcho 
 alone can croicn their activity with success. In order 
 that the slain in the valley of vision might become 
 
 8 
 
MOTIVES AND ARGUMENTS TO UNION. 293 
 
 an efficient body, it was necessary, not only that 
 life should enter into each separately, they must 
 fall into order with a view to the union and organi- 
 sation of the whole — and, theri) as " an exceeding 
 great army," a skilful commander alone was wanting 
 to lead them forth to conquest. The Leader of the 
 hosts of God is already waiting. Let them not only 
 be compact in their several sections, but let those 
 sections be united with each other, and as one body, 
 he will lead them forth "terrible as an army with 
 banners." Nothing shall be too great for them to 
 attempt ; and every conflict shall be a victory. 
 
 XX. How loudly is such a union called for by the 
 fact that, though at present they refuse to co-operate, 
 God is graciously commending them to each other, 
 by employinc/ them all, as far as their divisions permit, 
 and, according to the amount of their piety and zeal, im- 
 partially blessing them all. Where is the denomina- 
 tion which engrosses all religious excellence to itself ? 
 or which pretends to a monopoly of the Divine favour ? 
 Where is the Christian Church which has not been 
 the means of saving some souls from death ? Shall 
 we ascribe this, as the Jews maliciously ascribed the 
 miracles of Christ, to Satanic agency ? If not, there 
 is no alternative left us but to ascribe it to God. 
 And shall we cast from our presence those whom 
 God is distinguishing with his favour ? In honouring 
 their instrumentality, he is answering their prayers, 
 and sending them from his throne with his blessing ; 
 2 c 3 
 
294 MOTIVES AND ARGUMENTS TO UNION. 
 
 and shall we meet them on the way, and " curse 
 whom the Lord hath blessed?" Shall we meet them 
 as they descend from the mount, and look angrily on 
 those on whom God has been smiling? Shall we 
 admit that every instance of their usefulness is an 
 attestation, under the great seal of Heaven, that they 
 are his servants — an "epistle of commendation" to 
 our hearts ; and shall we yet close our hearts against 
 them, and thus affront the Being whose signature 
 they bring ? Let us be assured that the Lord whom 
 they serve is saying to them, as he did to his first 
 disciples, " He that despiseth you, despiseth me." As 
 we would not despise the Lord that bought us, then, 
 let us recognise the usefulness of all whom he employs ; 
 and, by co-operating with them, let us seek to aug- 
 ment that usefulness, and to participate in its joys. 
 
 XXI. Such a union could not fail to strike the 
 world with awe. Whether it was announced by any 
 public manifesto from the united churches or not, 
 so remarkable an event would necessarily attract 
 general attention. That Christians should have con- 
 sented to hold their differences in abeyance, that 
 they should have agreed to sacrifice their particular 
 predilections, and that they should have done this 
 solely to facilitate the progress of the Gospel — this 
 would evince so unquestionable a zeal for the con- 
 version of the world, that cavillers would be con- 
 founded, the prejudiced conciliated, and the general 
 heart be impressed. Only let the proclamation go 
 
MOTIVES AND ARGUMENTS TO UNION. 295 
 
 forth, "Christians are one" — the "gates of hell" 
 would tremble at the sound ; and more honour would 
 accrue to the Gospel than it has received from the 
 Church since the days of the martyrs.* 
 
 XXIL But not merely would it arrest the public 
 eye, it would assail and affect the public heart. The 
 world would not long be left at leisure to speculate 
 and wonder. Men would find that the Church had 
 united for an object — that that object was themselves 
 — that they were assailed on all sides by the combined 
 and omnipotent forces of love. The Spirit himself 
 would be the leader of the Christian host ; his sword, 
 the weapon they employed ; his inspiration animating 
 them to the fight ; and his power crowning them with 
 success. Scenes of apostolic triumph would be wit- 
 nessed again. Jesus would see of the travail of his 
 soul and be satisfied ; for men, convinced that such a 
 union of disinterested love in a selfish world could 
 only be resolved into a heavenly cause, and breathed 
 upon by the great renewing Spirit, would at length 
 believe that God had sent him, and would gratefully 
 capitulate to his offered grace. 
 
 XXIII. From all this would necessarily result a 
 vast enhancement of our happiness. Happy, indeed, we 
 may now be comparatively in the favour of God ; but 
 how much happier should we then be in the super- 
 added favour of all his people ; for in their sympathy 
 
 * This view is powerfully enforced in the New Model of Chris- 
 tian Missions. 
 
296 MOTIVES AND ARGUMEXTS TO UNION. 
 
 we should find the reflection of his smiles, and an 
 additional channel in which his love might flow. 
 " Oh, what cheerfulness, strength, and pleasure, did 
 the primitive Christians reap from the unity of their 
 hearts in the way and worship of God ! Next to the 
 delight of immediate communion with God himself, 
 none like that which arises from the harmonious 
 exercise of the graces of the saints in their mutual 
 duties and communion one with another. How are 
 their spirits dilated and refreshed by it ! What a 
 lively emblem is there of heaven ! the courts of princes 
 afford no such delights."* To the joys of internal 
 communion would be added those of external 
 triumph. Our joy would be the joy of harvest — a 
 harvest of immortal souls gathered in to Christ; the 
 joy of angels over one repenting sinner, multiplied 
 by the numbers which would then be added unto the 
 Lord daily ; the joy of Christ himself, for which he 
 endured the cross, despising the shame — for in his 
 satisfaction and gloiy we should find our own. Of 
 such a Church God himself would not be ashamed. 
 Answering, as it would, his Divine intention, he 
 would pronounce it good. He would rejoice over it 
 with singing. In the light of his countenance would 
 begin its millennial day. Nothing that could add to 
 its prosperity would be withheld. No gift that could 
 enrich it, no honour that could distinguish it in the 
 eyes of the world, would be deemed too costly to 
 
 * Flavel. 
 
MOTIVES AND ARGUMENTS TO UNION. 297 
 
 confer. " A great voice out of heaven would be 
 heard, saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with 
 men, and he will dwell among them." 
 
 XXIV. And is it of all this that our divisions 
 are depriving us ? They are depriving us of more — 
 of all that happiness which the fruits of our union would 
 produce in the final judgment and in eternity. Accord- 
 ing to St. Paul, in the fourteenth chapter of his 
 Epistle to the Romans, the subject of our present 
 divisions is to come under examination at the judg- 
 ment-seat of Christ. Nolo we are presuming to 
 judge each other, then he will sit in judgment on 
 us all. We shall find ourselves associated then with 
 many of those whom we now condemn. And will 
 it detract nothing from our bliss to remember that 
 on earth we refused them our communion, avoided 
 them, contributed nothing whatever towards the ac- 
 quisition of that spiritual excellence in which they 
 will then eclipse the sun ? We are to suppose, not 
 only that believers individually, but that entire 
 churches will reap the result of their collective use- 
 fulness, in an award of collective happiness. And 
 will it detract nothing from our felicity to remember 
 that we knew little of collective usefulness ? to see 
 that the additional crown which we should have won 
 as co-workers, as party-workers we have lost ? Ac- 
 cording to the same apostle, when writing to the 
 Thessalonians, in the passage we have before cited, 
 the union of Christians now will be a great augmenta- 
 
298 MOTIVES AND ARGUMENTS TO UNION. 
 
 tion of their happiness then. He prayed for that 
 union, " to the end their hearts may be established 
 in holiness before God, even our Father, at the com- 
 ing of our Lord Jesus Clirist with all his saints." Now 
 when he shall so " come to be glorified in his saints," 
 one of the facts relating to them which will redound 
 to his glory will be, that he should have made them 
 all one in himself. But if their union then will add 
 lustre to his glory, will it add nothing to the happi- 
 ness of those among them who shall be able to 
 remember that they honoured him in the same way 
 here upon earth ? That they here presented to the 
 world the heavenly spectacle of a united Church ? On 
 the other hand, will it detract nothing from our joy 
 to remember that we had to die before we would 
 unite with more than a party ? that we left the Church 
 as divided as we found it? and that our departure 
 was actually the departure of an obstacle to union ? 
 
 And are our divisions thus casting their shadows 
 forwards into eternity ? Are they not only impairing 
 our happiness and usefulness now, but even threaten- 
 ing to dim the lustre of the crown which shall be 
 assigned us then ? And for what ? Who is to be the 
 gainer ? What is the compensation ? ^Vhen is it 
 to accrue ? Assemble the Church, and inquire. 
 Surely, if an advantage is ever to result, it must by 
 this time have appeared. Fifteen hundred years 
 have been allowed the Church to try the merits of 
 division. Summon the various parties, and learn 
 
MOTIVES AND ARGUMENTS TO UNION. 299 
 
 what these merits are. Alas ! some of them are em- 
 broiled too deeply to heed the call. And of those 
 that do, some refuse to approach lest they should be 
 contaminated by the touch of another denomination ; 
 while the rest, estranged from each other, exhibit 
 signs of mutual jealousy and distrust. And is this 
 the religion of love, in praise of whose fraternal and 
 sympathetic spirit inspiration prepared its loftiest 
 strains ? How has its gracious spirit evaporated ! 
 and whither has it fled ? Are these the descendants 
 and representatives of the men who were so rich in 
 their affections, and lavish of their all for Christ, that 
 hostility itself was often disarmed, and their enemies 
 turned into admiring friends ! Is this the Church 
 which was to be made transparent by the enshrined 
 glory, to repel the presumptuous approach, to invite 
 admiration, and to find in its unearthly excellence its 
 lustre and defence ? Alas, its divisions have made it 
 the scorn of the world ; have often proceeded to such 
 extremities that the world itself, after looking on 
 awhile in derision, has at length interfered in pity to 
 part the combatants. Is this the Church which was 
 to advance like a bannered host, carrying with her 
 the sympathies of the groaning creation, gathering up 
 trophies at every step, and returning at length from 
 the circuit and conquest of the world, laden with 
 many crowns for him who had caused her to triumph 
 in every place ? Alas, how often, and to what a wide 
 extent has she herself been worsted — worsted and 
 
.'iOO MOTIVES AND ARGUMENTS TO UNION. 
 
 disgraced, till Imposture has dared to threaten her 
 with extinction — Popery has caricatured her likeness 
 and successfully passes in her stead — Infidelity points 
 at her "the slow unmoving finger" of scorn— and no 
 form of error, no system of deception, deems itself 
 too impotent to contend with her, too mean to vie 
 with her, or too insignificant to be accepted in her 
 stead ! Is this the body which was to be made one 
 by the inhabiting and all-pervading Spirit ; and of 
 whose unity the most intimate and compacted objects 
 in creation were considered the most appropriate 
 emblems ? Alas, the body is so dislocated, dismem- 
 bered, and mangled, and the disjecta membra so scat- 
 tered, that it has become another vision of dry bones ; 
 and another resurrection which shall bring bone to 
 his bone is alone adequate to its condition ! And was 
 it for this that Divinity and humanity met in the per- 
 son of the Son of God ? Was it for this he bowed 
 his head upon the cross, and died to show that God is 
 Love ? Was it for this he instituted a Church, 
 prayed for its unity, endowed it with his Spirit, and 
 gave to it the field of the world for the scene of its 
 triumphs? Our hearts feel that it was not. The 
 sighs of numbers mourning in secret over the blighted 
 peace, the prostrate energy, the humbled honour of 
 the Church, assure us that it was not. All the unre- 
 claimed, neglected, perishing portions of the world, 
 protest that it was not. Shame — equal shame — on 
 the Jews who crucified the Son of God, and on 
 
MOTIVES AND ARGUMENTS TO UNION. 301 
 
 Christians who, in the person of his members, have 
 for ages been crucifying him afresh, and are still put- 
 ting him to an open shame. Blessed Saviour, we 
 need that thou shouldest add to the prayer for the 
 unity of thy disciples the prayer for thy murderers, 
 " Father, forgive them, for they know not what they 
 do." 
 
 Well might the apostle so passionately beseech the 
 members of the Corinthian church, by the name of 
 our Lord Jesus Christ, to heal their divisions. Sup- 
 posing he foresaw only a thousandth part of the evils 
 which would spring from schism, well might he endure 
 an agony of solicitude for the peace of the church at 
 Colosse ! Would an entreaty less pathetic, or a con- 
 cern less profound, have been suited to the magnitude 
 of the occasion ? Where, then, is the energy of 
 appeal, and the anguish of concern, which would be 
 equal to the divisions of the Church now ? Christian, 
 there is not an object in the wide creation, which 
 does not sympathise in solicitude for our peace — 
 there is not a holy intelligence in the universe, which 
 does not join in an entreaty, urging us, for Christ s 
 sake, to unite. They are all interested in it : — from 
 Him who sits on the throne "expecting till his 
 enemies are made his footstool," and waiting for his 
 followers to unite for that end, through all ranks of 
 holy existences round about his throne, and down 
 through every class of this lower creation groaning 
 and waiting to be delivered — all, have a momentous 
 2 D 
 
302 MOTIVES AND ARGUMENTS TO UNION. 
 
 Stake in the union of the Church, and entreat us, for 
 Christ s sake, to be one. 
 
 Christian, you are not insensible to sights of sorrow 
 and suflFering : you could not look on a lacerated, 
 bleeding, human being, without shuddering in sym- 
 pathy. See, then, that marred but majestic spectacle 
 of suffering ! it is the mangled form of Divine 
 Christianity — her garments rent — her sacred person 
 wounded — and life streaming out at every wound; 
 and, as she turns on us a mournful and imploring 
 aspect, a voice from each of those wounds entreats 
 us to unite. Shall we staunch them? or shall our 
 answer to her entreaty be the infliction of yet more 
 wounds? Before she quits our presence, a voice 
 from afar comes pealing on our ear — the cry of the 
 victims of superstition seeking ease of mind in 
 self-inflicted tortures of body — of the conscience- 
 stricken idolater eagerly inquiring if there be a 
 Saviour from despair — of the dying on the shores 
 of eternity asking, but asking in vain, concerning 
 the dark unknown before them — all, combining 
 and beseeching us to unite and hasten to their 
 relief. In aid of their entreaty, comes a voice 
 from the past — not merely from the depths of 
 dungeons which Bigotry has built, from flames 
 which she has kindled, and from the ruins 
 of Christian temples she has laid waste — a 
 sound of more solemn and appalling import — the 
 voice of the myriads who, through the divisions 
 
MOTIVES AND ARGUMENTS TO UNION. 303 
 
 and consequent neglect of the Church, have gone 
 down to final destruction, entreating us to unite 
 and send unto their brethren lest they also come 
 into the place of torment. And shall all these 
 entreaties come to us in vain ? But above and 
 beyond them all, a voice may be heard, whose 
 every accent should thrill through the universal 
 Church — the voice of the great Intercessor within 
 the veil, still praying, still pleading, "that they all 
 may be one." And shall he pray thus alone ? Will 
 not his people join him ? Shall not church after 
 church unite in the prayer till the entire body of 
 behevers have joined him? till the burden of the 
 church above has become the burden of the Church 
 below ? Oh ! happy day for the earth — the first of 
 the millennium. And happy day for heaven — the 
 first of a millennium there ; for the union of Chris- 
 tians on earth would be the glory of the blessed 
 above. 
 
 Christian, you can assist to hasten it on. From 
 this day your duty is clear, definite, imperative — you 
 are to become an agent and an element of Chris- 
 tian unity. Is the Church divided ? resolve, in the 
 strength of God, that, as far as you are concerned, it 
 shall not remain so — that, if it do, it shall not be 
 your fault. 
 
 Is the subject of Christian union very generally 
 misunderstood, disregarded, and unfelt? explain, 
 recommend, and enforce it in every scriptural way ; 
 
304 MOTIVES AND ARGUMENTS TO UNION. 
 
 put into circulation every tract, pamphlet, and book 
 likely to advance its claims ; show especially that the 
 Bible is full of it from beginning to end. Is an 
 impartial endeavour at union likely to incur, as it 
 ever has done, the obloquy of the partial and the 
 prejudiced of all parties? welcome the reproach, 
 " count it all honour," and behold in it an additional 
 incentive to persevere. Are there certain obstruc- 
 tions, the removal of which you deem an indispen- 
 sable prerequisite to union ? Let the spirit and 
 manner in which you seek to remove them demon- 
 strate that you seek it, not for its own sake, but for 
 the sake of union — and that you aim even at union, 
 not for its own sake, but for the sake of that great 
 object with which the divided Church is still trifling 
 — the conversion of the world. Is it true, that there 
 are some to be found in every community of the 
 faithful who long for the visible fellowship of the 
 whole? claim kindred with them, and take them 
 to your heart ; co-operate with them in the same 
 society, and for a common object ; and see if there 
 be not some scheme of Christian beneficence yet 
 untried around which all may rally, and in which 
 all may unite. Is it true, that the young are less 
 influenced by the spirit of party than those who 
 have long mingled in its strifes ? Betake yourself to 
 them; imbue them with the spirit, and claim them 
 for the cause, of Christian union, before schism 
 shall have seized and sworn them into the service 
 
MOTIVES AND ARGUMENTS TO UNION. 305 
 
 of party. Show them the prospect which awaits 
 the earth in the subhme spectacle of a united 
 Church: take them to the mount of vision where 
 they can behold it ; — " from the tops of the rocks 
 I see him, and from the hills I behold him ; how 
 goodly are thy tents, O Jacob, and thy taber- 
 nacles, O Israel ! " — urge them to live — to die, if 
 necessary — in order to turn that vision into reahty. 
 Is Christ interceding for the oneness of his body, 
 the Church ? Resolve that you will daily join 
 him in the entreaty. Is his Spirit grieved at its 
 dissensions, yet waiting to return ? Confess its guilt, 
 deprecate his displeasure, and invoke an effusion of 
 his healing influence. 
 
 Are souls ruined, is the world perishing, through 
 its divisions ? Yes, and on it will go for a time, 
 trying to save them by its divided efforts — labouring 
 to succeed without uniting. But no, never ; the 
 plan is fixed by Him who changeth not — the 
 unity of the Church must precede the salvation 
 of the world. Publish this truth abroad ; be assured 
 that those Christians who differ most, are all one 
 on this subject — they all desire to save their fel- 
 low-men. So that never can you insist on this 
 ground for union, without touching a chord which 
 vibrates through all their hearts alike. Resolve, 
 therefore, to keep this motive to union in view 
 yourself, and to insist on it with others — that 
 the visible unity of Christians must precede the 
 2 D 3 
 
306 MOTIVES AND ARGUMENTS TO UNION. 
 
 conversion of the world, and is the appointed 
 means by which it is to be effected. They are 
 all believers in your blessed Lord, and glory in 
 his image. Resolve, then, that their people shall 
 be your people, since their God is your God. 
 Their eventual union, remember, is absolutely cer- 
 tain ; and, oh, the glorious results of that union, 
 what tongue can tell ? A triumphant Church — 
 a converted world — a glorified Redeemer — a re- 
 joicing universe. But eye hath not seen, nor 
 ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart 
 of man to conceive its blessed effects. Covet 
 to witness it. Pourtray its splendours to your 
 mind; and enjoy it, in anticipation, daily. Let 
 it be the joy set before yow, as it was, and is, 
 before your Divine Redeemer ; and you will ac- 
 count no labour too great, no sacrifice too costly, 
 that can accelerate its arrival, even by a mo- 
 ment. And remember, also, that a united Church 
 awaits your arrival in heaven. Every element 
 there tends to unite. Act now, as you will wish, 
 ten thousand ages hence, you had acted ; and 
 from this day you will seek to heal the divisions 
 of the Church ; and myriads of ages hence, you 
 will be still blessing God that you did so. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 page 
 
 Advocates, denominational, frequent conduct of 163 
 
 Antioch, church at, divided 25 
 
 Apostles, the. Christian union enforced by 22 
 
 Apostolic churches, differences of opinion in 203 
 
 , evils of schism in 173 
 
 Articles of English church. Christian liberality of 
 
 Assumption, ecclesiastical, prevalence of H3 
 
 Augustine, quotations from 70, 77 
 
 Bacon, Lord, quotations from 103, 139,152 
 
 Baptism, Christian, union enforced by 22 
 
 Barnabas, disinterested conduct of 164 
 
 Barrow, Dr., quotations from 62, 96 
 
 Basil, quotation from 70 
 
 Baxter, Rev. R., quotations from 187, 190, 209, 261, 283 
 
 Believers, oneness of, taught in ancient types 10 
 
 Bible, its paramount authority 218 
 
 Billroth, Professor, quotations from 85, 86 
 
 Binney, Rev. T., quotation from 241 
 
 Bloomfield, Rev. Dr., quotation from 87 
 
 Body, the human, Church compared to 88 
 
 Bowes, Rev. J., his work on Union 204 
 
 Brethren, love-of, test of Christian character 71 
 
 , the relation of Christians to each other 18 
 
 Burke, Hon. E., quotation from 107 
 
 Calumny an attendant on schism 184 
 
 Chillingworth, quotations from 97, 98, 119, 282 
 
 Christ, mediation of, intended to unite his Church 16 
 
 , his new commandment 17 
 
 , his requirement of unity 2,72,278 
 
 , his teaching conducive to unity 16 
 
 — , his union with his people 14, 24 
 
 Christendom, map of, three divisions of 130 
 
 Christian dispensation, its superiority to Judaism 44 
 
 Christianity dishonoured by schism 186 
 
 , her lamentations over divisions 302 
 
 Christian spirit, importance of in discussing schism 5 
 
 Christians, Protestant, gradual change in their views (Pref.) vii 
 
 , the first, used no creed 62 
 
 , union of, prayer of Christ for 20, 287, 303 
 
 Chrysostom, quotations from 81, 85, 109 
 
 Church, a, wlien in a state of schism 91 
 
 , divisions of, how perpetuated 130 
 
 , import of the term 9 
 
 , its divided state indicative of low state of piety 4 
 
 , interest in, destroyed by schism ... .' 181 
 
 of England, its assumptions 146 
 
 , schism, the breach of the 83 
 
 , the, a congregation of the faithful 77 
 
 , a house divided against itself (Pref.) vii 
 
 , a temple ... ... ... ... ... 54 
 
 , a visible union of Christians 79 
 
 , principal evils in 1 
 
 , union of, universal 80 
 
 , predicted 13 
 
 , prefigured 10 
 
 8 
 
308 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 
 1^2 
 
 Churclies of Christ, their love injured by schisni ... 
 
 
 ... ... 55 
 
 Coleridge, S. T., quotation from 
 
 284 
 
 Collect, the, for unity ... ... ... ... 
 
 (Pref.) xi 
 
 Colossians, Epistle to the, condemnatory of schism 
 
 38 
 
 , Paul's prayer for the 
 
 69 
 
 Conformity, occasional, former objections to ... 
 
 140 
 
 Coustantine, toleration proclaimed by ... ... 
 
 ... ... 106 
 
 Controversies, exceptionable manner of conducting 
 
 151 
 
 Corinth, church at, divided ... ... ... 
 
 112 
 
 , character of its schism 
 
 159 
 
 , epistles to, condemnatory of schism 
 
 30 
 
 , Paul's concern for its purity ... ... 
 
 31 
 
 Cross of Christ, the centre of attraction ... 
 
 21 
 
 Crusades, origin of 
 
 107 
 
 Cyprian, quotations from 
 
 61, 81 
 
 Denomination, new, undesirableness of 
 
 238 
 
 Denominations of Christians, each may tend to schism 
 
 158, 161 
 
 Despotism, spiritual, its evil elfects 
 
 59 
 
 Differences, religious, magnified by schism 
 
 183 
 
 Discipleship, Christian love the badge of 
 
 19 
 
 Dissenters, the manner in which they should look upon others 
 
 205 
 
 , unscriptural assumptions of ... ... 
 
 148 
 
 Division, spirit of, the repeal of evangelical law 
 
 ... 173 
 
 Divisions, pretended usefulness of 
 
 211 
 
 , their aspect on eternity ... ... ... ... 
 
 2S7 
 
 Doddridge, Dr., quotation from ... ... ... ... ... 
 
 .' 262 
 
 Donatists, the, an exclusive community 
 
 99 
 
 Douglas, J., quotation from 
 
 234 
 
 Ecclesiastical assumptions, prevalence of ... 
 
 148 
 
 Education, national hindered bv schism ... ... ... 
 
 ... 274 
 
 , party prejudices concerning ... ... 
 
 148, 190 
 
 Elizabetli, Queen, ecclesiastical power of 
 
 ... ... 146 
 
 Enjoyment, Christian, diminished by schism ... ... ... 
 
 ' '. 180 
 
 Ephesians, Epistle to, condemnatory of schism 
 
 '. 34 
 
 Epithets, reproachful, a source of schism 
 
 149 
 
 Essenes, errors of ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 
 
 38 
 
 Euscbius, quotation from 
 
 106 
 
 Evils, principal, in the Church ... ... ... ... ... 
 
 1 
 
 Examination, duty of personal, in search of schism 
 
 155 
 
 E.vcuses and pleas of schismatics ... 
 
 201 
 
 Faith and love, the bond of the Church 
 
 73 
 
 , conducting the sinner to the cross ... ... 
 
 77 
 
 , oneness of, essential to union ... ... ... ... 
 
 222 
 
 , scriptural, productive of love 
 
 69 
 
 Family relation, typical of the Church 
 
 u 
 
 Fellowship with God, inconsistent with schism 
 
 175 
 
 Flavel, Rev, J., quotation from 
 
 260 
 
 Flock, a, an emblem of the Church 
 
 IS 
 
 Forbearance, the dutj' of Christians ... 
 
 276 
 
 Galatians, Epistle to the, condemnatory of schism 
 
 33 
 
 , their error on justilication 
 
 67 
 
 Gospel, persecution destroved by the ... ... ... 
 
 108 
 
 Government church, advantages of various forms of ... 
 
 241 
 
 Gregory 1 , Pope, quotation from 
 
 60 
 
 Guizot, M,, ([uotation from 
 
 134 
 
 Hales, quotations from 
 
 96, 110 
 
 Hall, Bishop, quotation from 
 
 282 
 
 , Rev. 11., quotations from 
 
 93, 235 
 
 Heathenism, ancient, intolerance of 
 
 103 
 
 Hebrews, Epistle to, enforcing union 
 
 44 
 
 Henry VIll., King, his agency in the Reformation 
 
 133 
 
 Heresy, extreme detestation of 
 
 139 
 
 Hooker, quotation from 
 
 282 
 
 Howe, Rev. J., quotations from 136, 
 
 160, 171, 189, 242 
 
 Improvement, reluctance to its introduction 
 
 141 
 
IXDEX. 
 
 309 
 
 Page 
 
 Indecoram in worship, produced by schism 175 
 
 Influence, secular, in the Church 132 
 
 Inquisition, intolerance of 125 
 
 Intellect, the religious, injured by schism 177 
 
 Intolerance, cruelty of 125 
 
 , its present character 126 
 
 James, epistle of, exhorting to holy love 46 
 
 , his address at Jerusalem 25 
 
 Jealousy, extreme, between Christian parties 140 
 
 Jerome, quotation from 96 
 
 Jerusalem, council held at 25 
 
 Jewel, Bishop, quotation from 134 
 
 Jews, ancient, jealousy of 172 
 
 John, epistles of, their character and design 49 
 
 Jude, epistle of, an exhortation to union 51 
 
 Judgment, the, injured by schism 178 
 
 Justification by faith, universally received by Christians 66 
 
 , comprehensive character of 68 
 
 Lord's-supper, Christian union enforced by the 22 
 
 Love and faith the bond of the Church 73 
 
 , brotherly, common to Christians 224, 246 
 
 , church founded by 288 
 
 , the fulfilment of Christ's wiU 73 
 
 to Christians, its true character 72 
 
 Luther, his prayer 260 
 
 Macknight, Dr., quotation from 69 
 
 Marriage, typical of the united Church 10 
 
 Mason, Dr., quotation from 177 
 
 Mediation, Christ's, intended to promote unity 16 
 
 Ministers, Christian, their ofRce as peace-makers 260 
 
 Missionary operations impeded by schism 192 
 
 Moderation, importance of, taught by history 239 
 
 Mosheim, Dr., quotation from 138 
 
 Nation, an emblem of Christian union 11 
 
 Nazianzen, Gregory, quotation from 60 
 
 Neal, quotation from „ 146 
 
 Novatians, the earliest reformers ... 113 
 
 Officers, church, imposition of, a cause of schism 114 
 
 Opinion, a diversity of, necessitated 63 
 
 Order, its existence essential to union 58 
 
 Owen, Dr., quotations from « 170,232 
 
 Paley, Dr., quotation from 27 
 
 Party-reading, evil of 154 
 
 Paul, a prisoner for union 34 
 
 , the example of, to be imitated 262 
 
 and Barnabas, their fidelity 25 
 
 Peace, Christ the Prince of 285 
 
 Pentecost, union of Christians on 23 
 
 Peter, epistles of, exhortations to Christian union 48 
 
 Philemon, epistle to, expressive of gratitude for ChrisHan love 44 
 
 Philippi, church at, differences in 64 
 
 PhUippians, epistle to, condemnatory of schism 37 
 
 Piety impaired by schism 1 79 
 
 Platonism, heresy of 38 
 
 Prayer for all, dutj' of 166 
 
 , its necessity to promote union 253 
 
 Press, party character of 152 
 
 Purity, scriptural, departure from 120 
 
 Reformation, imperfections of 122 
 
 Reformers, intolerance of 126 
 
 Revelation, book of, illustrative of union 52 
 
 Ridley, Bishop, quotation from 281 
 
 Roman Church, " grand schism" in 113 
 
 Romanist, his objection to Protestantism 186 
 
 Romans, epistle to, condemnatory of schism 27 
 
 Rome, church at, differences in 63 
 
310 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Page 
 
 Samaritans, ancient, jealousy of 172 
 
 Satan, the parent of schism 176 
 
 Schism, causes of 102,128 
 
 . classification of 174 
 
 , early prevalence of 121 
 
 , guilt and evils of 169 
 
 , hjTJOcritical character of 175 
 
 , importance of Christian spirit in discussing 5 
 
 , its definite character ... ... ... 2 
 
 , its scriptural meaning 84 
 
 , pleas and disguises of 200 
 
 , the breach of Christian union 83 
 
 Schism, the parties guilty of 94,116 
 
 , twenty-six kinds of, enumerated by BeUarmine 110 
 
 , views of difierent parties respecting 169 
 
 Schismatical spirit, tests of 155 
 
 Schoettgen, his view of Mount Zion 11 
 
 Science, the catholicity of 273 
 
 Separatists, their possible freedom from schism 98 
 
 Shepherd, Christ the, of his people 13 
 
 Smith, Dr. J. P., quotation from 216 
 
 Socrates, of Constantinople, his ecclesiastical historj' 124 
 
 Souls of men ruined by schism 188 
 
 Spirit, the Holy, the agent of union 254 
 
 , grieved by schism 195 
 
 Stillingfleet, quotation from 187 
 
 Taylor, Bishop, quotations from 61,97, 101,114,136,206, 237 
 
 Temple of Revelation, the 53 
 
 , the spiritual 196 
 
 Tests, unscriptural, sources of schism 135 
 
 Theophylact, quotation from 85 
 
 Thessaloniaus, epistles to, condemnatory of schism 40 
 
 , their love of Divine origin 71 
 
 Timothy, epistles to, condemnatorj- of schism 41 
 
 , his influence as an evangelist 41 
 
 Titus, epistle to, condemnatorj' of schism 43 
 
 Travers, quotation from 145 
 
 Trent, council of 122 
 
 Truth, the importance of maintaining the 207 
 
 Uniformity, act of 117,137 
 
 mistaken for union 60, 224 
 
 Union, Christian, enforced by New Testament 52, 278 
 
 , how to be sought 233 
 
 , its advantages to Christians 289 
 
 , its influence on piety 290 
 
 , its obligation on Christians 3, 52 
 
 , productive of action 226. 249 
 
 , its visible character 4, 224, 230 
 
 , motives to 266 
 
 , indissoluble 280 
 
 . , repealed by schism 181 
 
 , to be attempted 214 
 
 Unity of the Church, its essential characteristic 57 
 
 , scriptural character of 9, 57 
 
 , predicted 13 
 
 , prefigured 10 
 
 , basis laid in faith 65 
 
 , its attainment improperly sought 58 
 
 Usteri, quotation from 86 
 
 Victor of Rome, arrogance of 124 
 
 Waddington, quotation from 63 
 
 Wilkins, Bishop, quotation from 177 
 
 Wotton, Sir H., epitaph of 177 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS OF SCRIPTURE. 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 liii. 
 
 Ver. 
 
 6 . 
 6 , 
 
 JEREMIAH. 
 
 ZECHARIAH. 
 
 MATTHEW. 
 
 XV. 13 123 
 
 xvi. 18 10 
 
 xviii. 2, 3 IS 
 
 xviii. 35 16 
 
 xix. 19, 20 258 
 
 xxiii. 8 18 
 
 Page 
 
 Ch. 
 
 Ver. 
 
 285 
 
 X. 
 
 32, 33 
 17—22 
 
 15 
 
 xi. 
 
 
 xii. 
 
 1—31 
 
 
 xii. 
 
 
 7 
 
 xii. 
 
 24—26 
 
 
 xiii. 
 
 
 1 CORINTHIANS. 
 
 Pagr 
 32 
 
 32 
 22 
 
 xvi. 1-^, 14, 24 
 
 2 CORINTHIANS. 
 
 XI. 
 
 xii. 
 xiii. 
 
 JOHN. 
 
 XI. 
 
 xii. 
 xiii. 
 xiii. 
 xiii. 
 
 XV. 
 
 xvii. 
 
 XIX. 
 XV. 
 
 14—17 
 
 52 
 
 32 
 
 ACTS. 
 
 5 
 
 32 
 
 23—29 
 
 ROMANS. 
 
 xu. 
 xiii. 
 xiv. 
 xiv. 
 
 vm. 
 ix. 
 
 1—8 
 
 28 
 
 8— 10 28 
 
 1—3 63, 277 
 
 1—21 28, 174 
 
 1—7 277 
 
 1—33 29 
 
 1—20 29, 176 
 
 1 CORINTHIANS. 
 
 10—17 30, 84, 202 
 
 1—23 31 
 
 9— 13 31 
 
 18—23 32 
 
 Ifi, 17 22, 32, 224 
 
 GALATIANS. 
 
 26—29.. 
 28—31.. 
 13—26.. 
 
 
 15 
 
 
 ] 
 
 
 21 
 
 
 
 
 21 
 
 iii. 
 
 1—21 
 
 
 19 
 
 iv. 
 
 1—32 
 
 17 
 
 72 
 
 iv. 
 
 11—13 
 
 2 
 
 19 
 
 iv. 
 
 
 
 279 
 
 V. 
 
 1—32 
 
 20, 
 
 287 
 
 V. 
 
 1—23 
 
 
 
 V. 
 
 25—33 
 
 EPHESIANS. 
 
 33 
 33 
 33 
 
 06 
 34 
 11 
 34 
 
 35 
 36 
 58 
 262 
 37 
 35 
 11 
 
 PHILIPPIANS. 
 
 27 75 
 
 1—11 38 
 
 1—14 38, 174 
 
 15, 16 64 
 
 COLOSSIANS. 
 
 15—20 39 
 
 1, 2, 19 39 
 
 2 69 
 
 2 246 
 
 11—15 40 
 
 1 THESSALONIANS. 
 
 6—12., 
 13 
 
 9, 10... 
 13—15.. 
 23 
 
 ... 40 
 ... 298 
 ..41, 71 
 .. 41 
 .. 284 
 
312 
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS OF SCRIPTURE. 
 
 2 THESSALONIANS. 
 
 Ch. Ver. Page 
 
 ii. 16 41 
 
 1 TIMOTHY. 
 
 i. 4, 6, 7 42 
 
 ii. 1—6 43 
 
 iii. 2, 3, 15 42 
 
 iv. 12 42 
 
 vi. 3—5, 11, 20 42 
 
 2 TIMOTHY. 
 
 ii. 20—25 42 
 
 iii. 1—9 42 
 
 iv. 3, 4 42 
 
 TITUS. 
 
 i. 7, 8, 14 43 
 
 iii. 2, 9 43 
 
 PHILEMON. 
 
 4-7 44 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 ii. 12 14 
 
 iii. 1—6 45 
 
 X. 21—25 45 
 
 xi. 40 45 
 
 xii. 22—24 11, 45 
 
 xiii. 1—3, 14, 20, 21 46 
 
 JAMES. 
 
 i. 9, 10 46 
 
 i. II 174 
 
 1. 19—27 46 
 
 ii. 1—9, 14, 26 46 
 
 iv. 1—5, 11 47 
 
 V. 9 47 
 
 1 PETER. 
 
 1- 1—23 48 
 
 ii- 1—10 48 
 
 ii- 25 15 
 
 ui. S— 11 48 
 
 iv. 8—11 48 
 
 2 PETER. 
 
 i- 5—7 49 
 
 1 JOHN. 
 
 i- 1—4 50 
 
 ii- 9—11 50 
 
 iii- 10—23 50, 51 
 
 iii- 14 „ 81 
 
 iv- 7—21 50, 51 
 
 V. 1—3 51 
 
 2 JOHN. 
 
 5 51 
 
 3 JOHN. 
 
 5-11 51 
 
 JUDE. 
 
 19 255 
 
 REVELATION. 
 
 xii. 1 52 
 
 xix. 8 li 
 
 XX. 9 52 
 
 xxi. 9 52 
 
 xxi. 15 6 
 
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