Good Advice

Good Advice

“There is need of church unity, a woeful need. But let us talk church unity sensibly. Let us not attempt to make it mean what it is not,—the counting of so many heads under one ecclesiastical name,—the joining together of a bundle of fellowship sentiments and the rooting up of mighty convictions. Should Methodists talk unity with Unitarians, Universalists, and Jews? Should Baptists, Presbyterians, Episcopalians, and even Lutherans (save the mark) do so? Is it honest? Is it even charitable? How hollow and insincere must be such talk on the part of Christians, when they know they must sacrifice the Godhood of Christ by talking unity! And yet that very thing was done in the city of Philadelphia.”

“Now a Christian can have social fellowship with all men who differ from him; but can he have doctrinal and church fellowship with them?—Never.”

“Why not begin at the right end when you talk church unity? Why should a Methodist talk church unity with a Baptist (or vice versa) when the former has seventeen ununited Methodist bodies to talk it with and the latter fifteen Baptist bodies? Why should a Lutheran talk unity with a Presbyterian (or vice versa), when the latter has twelve separate Presbyterian bodies to talk it with, and when the former has four general bodies and fourteen independent synods, divided chiefly linguistically and temperamentally rather than confessionally, to talk it with? Do we really get very far talking church unity in this loose, insincere, and sentimental fashion? Let us talk church unity at home before we go too far abroad?”