THE SIGNIFICANCE OF CHURCH FEDERATION.
By T
THE federation of all the churches of the land, including all classes of Protestants, the Catholics, the Unitarians, the Universalists, and the Jews, is significant. Many of the reasons that are urged for this union, or federation, rather, are good. Union and harmony are of divine origin, and should be encouraged wherever and whenever it is possible. In that wonderful prayer of the Saviour recorded in the seventeenth chapter of John, He most earnestly prays that His disciples “all may be one.” This is indeed a prayer for unity, but is it prayer for federation? Let the following words from the same prayer answer: “And for their sakes I sanctify Myself; that they also might be sanctified thru the truth. Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on Me thru their word; that they all may be one; as Thou, Father, art in Me; and I in Thee, that they also may be one in Us; that the world may believe that Thou hast sent Me.” John 17:19-21. The foregoing words from the Saviour’s prayer are not the plans of a confederation, but the breathing of the divine desire for the most perfect harmony, which is the most perfect oneness. The Lord prayed that His followers might be sanctified “thru the truth.” He who seeks to join the Master in the answer to His prayer will be earnestly striving to know the truth. He will not be satisfied with anything else. And every gem of truth that he finds he will treasure up as something to be prized and lived. He will not hold truth as a cold theory, but will have it as a living, vital, acting principle in his everyday life. It will guide him in his thinking, and in his talking, and in all his doing. It will be the divine motive power within him that is building him over day by day into a strong new man in Christ Jesus. A mere federation can not do anything of this kind for us. Any combination or federation, no matter how good it may seem in its exterior, nor how much it may promise in glowing generalities, should be decidedly avoided if it asks us to stifle any of our convictions and smother up the truth that God is seeking to kindle into a flame in our souls. Men who form a federation without holding the fundamental principles of truth above everything else, are heaping together material that will sooner or later be set aflame, and there is no reckoning the disaster that will follow. This may not seem to be always true when applied to the people of the State or nation, but it is decidedly true when applied to the truth and work of God. The Lord gives men plain, clear, eternal truth to stand upon, and this truth, if allowed to bear its sway, will produce harmony and union. It will produce the gentlest kindness and the tenderest and the most all-pervading love. God’s real truth lifts men above the necessity of federation, and completely unifies them in the strong ties of heaven’s harmonies and divine union. Upon the question of the importance of a union of Christian believers there should be no doubt. It is indeed deplorable that there are so many sects. But human prejudice is such that men get set in their ideas, and they refuse to candidly seek for truth. The investigations that they make are not for truth, but for plausible arguments by which they hope to bolster up the creed or dogma that they have already accepted as right. God’s Word is not a jumble of ideas that men can not understand. But to understand the Word of God we must study that Word, and not the creeds or other ideas that men have formulated in regard to that Word. And as we study the Word itself, the matter is made plain in regard to the necessity for oneness and harmony. The scripture already quoted is very clear upon this point, and the following is equally as plain:— “I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called, with all lowliness and meekness, with long-suffering, forbearing one another in love; endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all; and thru all, and in you all.” Eph. 4:1-6. These words from the apostle Paul make it clear beyond a doubt that God does not recognize anything but oneness in His work. Now what will we do? Will we seek to join in a federation, and make it one of the strongest points in that confederacy to pass over everything upon which we differ, regardless of how important these things may be to the minds of numerous individuals? Such a confederacy might seem wise from the standpoint of human expediency, but it must be plain to the faithful student of God’s Word that the Father in heaven will not recognize it. God wants union and harmony, and not a confederacy. A confederacy may cover up the real confusion and want of harmony that actually exist, but at the same time it is smothering the truth. Then, too, a confederacy that is formed on such a basis as is proposed for the federation of the churches, is placed upon wrong principles. And anything of that kind may seem all right at the beginning, and may promise glorious results, but it will end in oppression. For the glitter and the tinsel glory of such a movement will finally lead men to be intolerant of everything and everybody that will not swing into line with the confederacy. The men who are forming this federation would spurn such an idea now as an absurd impossibility. But when once started on a wrong course, it is difficult to predict what will be the end.