WE have been so accustomed to the exhortations of leaders in the religious world of the imperative duties of the Churches to make every effort for unification, and the untold blessings that are to follow from such a consummation have been sounded in our ears, that it may seem in the estimation of some, mere waste of time to pause and take stock of dangers that may beset such schemes of unification. The spirit of Lausanne is abroad in the Churches to-day, and even in quarters where it would be least expected. But it is no exaggeration to say that if the spirit that made the Lausanne conferences possible prevails, that it will spell disaster to the faith once for all delivered to the saints. A good deal of the driving force behind such movements receives its impetus from misguided zeal directed by a mistaken interpretation of certain New Testament passages, and an inability to distinguish things that differ. These movements derive a good deal of their success also from the spirit of compromise in matters of faith and practice. When we say this, it is not to be understood that we are opposed to external union when it is consummated in the interests of the truth, or that we treat lightly the New Testament teaching on the duty of unity in the Church of Christ. We are not advocating the separation (or as it would be called now, individualism) of Independency or of Plymouth Brethrenism. Our famous Presbyterian ecclesiastical writers of the seventeenth century stressed this external unification in their controversy with the Independents, but it betrays a lack of judgment in historical matters to make use of their arguments in connection with matters that have a different setting. Whatever may be said for external unity, and we have no desire to minimise its importance nor belittle the force of the arguments that point in that direction, yet when we find the texts of the New Testament which manifestly deal with spiritual unity applied to external unity, it is high time to protest against such wresting of the Word of God. Visible or external unity is not synonymous with the spiritual or invisible unity of the New Testament, and if the arguments for external unity lead its advocates to take up such a position, it is the imperative duty of those who see different to utter a protest against such teaching. This was one of the great dangers to the faith that was very prominent in the recent Union movement in Scotland. That such dangers exist and need exposure is all the more necessary because of the plausible arguments by which they are presented to the public for acceptance. We purpose to direct attention to some of these dangers.
1. A wrong interpretation has been put upon certain important New Testament texts, and thereby external unity has been hopelessly confused with spiritual unity.
The advocates of the unification of the Churches have in season and out of season appealed to our Lord’s Prayer for unity (John xvii., 20, 21.) But the unity He prayed for was not the unity of a mixed multitude, of believers and unbelievers. It was a unity that embraced believers the wide world over irrespective of all geographical barriers. Christ never prayed for a unity which would be broken some day, which must inevitably be the case if the unification brought together believers and unbelievers. He prays that they may be one as the Father and He are one, but that is an everlasting unity. Men, otherwise, careful as exegetes, have been unaccountably led astray in their interpretation of our Lord’s Prayer when they have become obsessed with the idea of the unification of the Churches.
2. There is also a great danger of compromising the truth in these movements for union, and as far as Scotland is concerned we have abundant evidence of this in many of the unions that have taken place.
One or both of the contracting parties agree to differ. Principles and doctrines which at one time were considered sufficiently important to demand sacrifices, and even separation, are minimised. Whenever this spirit of drift begins to show itself, it is an indication of something wrong. It is a virtual avowal that in taking a distinctive or separate stand for the doctrines or principles there was a serious mistake made. Once such a tendency takes possession of individuals or Churches no one can tell where it will end. The policy of drift is to be carefully guarded against alike in the individual and the Church.
3. There is also the great danger of emphasising external unity at the expense of more important truths.
Great care must always be taken to guard against destroying the well-balanced symmetry of Scripture truth. The thought before our minds is so admirably expressed by Professor Smeaton that we quote him at some length—”The duty and advantages of Union,” he says, “have been greatly exaggerated. No one, indeed, at the commencement of these negotiations* put the matter on any very transcendental grounds. No one for a time had any idea that outward ecclesiastical Union was such an imperative obligation, that we must have it at any cost and with any amount of concession. The necessity of such a thing can in no way be deduced, as we shall afterwards prove, from the doctrine of Jesus and His apostles. The Church has her own peculiar unity in her Lord before those humanly concocted schemes of external unification begin. And all these schemes have their dangers as well as their advantages. They are right when they bring to light or give expression to the spiritual, invisible and everlasting unity which knits all the members in every place to their Head, and to each other in Him. They are fraught with danger, and are more cognate to Popish than Protestant sentiments when advocated as an indispensable duty at any cost, or merely with a view to give a particular Church a more worthy or respectable position in the eye of others. The expected advantages are, to a large extent, illusory, and they threaten the united body with all the dangers of a hierarchy, oftentimes a self-constituted order of men. The notion which I see expressed in certain quarters of the Church, that you cannot recede from these Union efforts without sin, is one I do not share. That position, by whomsoever it is propounded, just means that some men have invented a new code of ethics on the subject of External Ecclesiastical Union—a theory unknown to the Protestant Church—and they have succeeded in fettering their own consciences; and they are proceeding, as far as in them lies, to do the same ill turn to their neighbours. I cannot allow any man to put the matter in this light. I cannot concede that External Ecclesiastical Union, even though it be Protestant and Presbyterian Union, is to be elevated into such a rank that it shall be made a religious duty, irrespective of all considerations of fitness and brotherly love. I cannot allow men to bind the conscience of the Church with such a dogma when visible unification is not synonymous with Union to Christ, nor with Union to the people of Christ. It is a matter desirable indeed when it is found to be practicable, convenient, or workable. But every Church from the days of the Apostles has been acting on the principle that many things may warrantably prevent it” (“National Christianity and Scriptural Union.”)
*That is the early Union negotiations in the Free Church.
4. Another danger is the tendency that shows itself in these negotiations to stress the material side of things while ignoring the spiritual.
For instance, the worldly principle that union is strength is applied as it were an axiomatic truth. Outward unity does not always spell strength for the cause of Christ—in fact sometimes the breaking up of this external unity has been a sure sign of the working of living, spiritual forces. The separate existence of denominations is not always a sign that the cause of their separate existence is a mere point of will, a determination to be singular, or a self-righteous spirit which glories in exclusiveness.
Jesus, Very God of Very God.
We read, and are assured, that Jesus, by eternal generation, is God of God, and very God of very God. But while we cannot dive into the depths, we bathe our souls in the refreshment of the surface. For hence it follows that He is sufficient to deal with God, and to satisfy God, and thus to save His people to the uttermost. We see not Melchisedek’s cradle; but we distinctly see him on earth. Eye-witnesses, who heard Jesus and handled Him, give testimony that He, too, has tabernacled in our clay, and thus was qualified to shed His life-blood as our Ransom.—Dean Henry Law,