THOSE who reach truth will reach unity: for truth is one. But men may, and often do, gain unity without truth, which is so far from being a good that it is a great evil. It makes falsehood strong and the professors of it contented in their errors. A mistaken notion of the Christian unity spoken of in the Scriptures, which represents it as consisting in having one community on earth to which all Christians belong or ought to belong, and to whose government all are bound to submit,
*The above extract is a quotation from Whately’s Detached Thoughts and reprinted from the Watchword (Edited by Dr. Begg). We have no sympathy with views advocated by the Archbishop on certain subjects but we feel he is raising an issue here that many of our Church leaders to-day would do well to consider.—Editor.
has led the truth being made the secondary and not the paramount object.
The Church is undoubtedly one, and so is the human race one, but not as a society, for as such it is only one when considered as to its future existence. Its present unity consists in that its various societies are designed to be modelled on the same principles, and to enjoy common privileges: one Lord, one faith, one baptism; and all forming part of that great society of which the Head is in heaven, and of which many of the members only “live unto God” or exist in His counsels: some having long since departed, and some being not yet born. The term unity is applicable to the Universal Church as one in reference to its supreme Head in heaven; not as one community on earth, as the human race is one in respect of the one Creator and Governor; but this does not make it one family or one state.
The Apostles founded Christian Churches all based on the same principles, and having the same object in view, but all quite independent of each other . . . Now I have little doubt that the sort of variation resulting from this independence and freedom, so far from breaking the bond of peace, is the best preservative of it. A number of neighbouring families living in perfect unity, will be thrown into discord as soon as you compel them to form one family, and to observe in things intrinsically indifferent the same rules: e.g., one likes early hours, and another late; one likes the windows open, and another shut; and thus by being brought too close together, they are driven into ill-will by one being perpetually forced to give way to another.
The principle of sacrificing truth to unity creeps in gradually. The sacrifice first demanded is, in general, not a great one. Men are led on step by step from silence as to some mistake, to connivance at fallacies, and thence to suppression, and then to misrepresentation of truth, and ultimately to the support of known falsehood. Unity, when made the first object is always an evil, since, besides the possibility that men may be united in what is erroneous and wrong in itself, it must be remembered
that whatever absolute truth there may be in what is assented to in such a principle, it is not truth to those who assent to it, not on conviction, but for union’s sake.
Peace is too dearly purchased by slavery of any kind, especially spiritual slavery. To give up everything that is worth contending about, in order to prevent hurtful contentions, is, for the sake of extirpating noxious weeds, to condemn the field to perpetual sterility.