McG-3-LETTER III.

LETTER III.

Dear Sir:--In my last I suggested the fact that the New Testament furnishes a complete scheme for the union of Christians and to this scheme I wish to call your attention in the present letter. But before I do so, permit me to remark that the proceedings of your associates, in the organization of their Society, indicate a very indefinite idea both of the relation which the denominations represented sustain to each other now, and of that which they lack in order to the right relation. You affirm the existence of "spiritual unity," without defining in what that unity consists. You also admit, notwithstanding this spiritual unity, a sinful state of division, without indicating the points of difference in which lies the sin. You seem like a collection of consulting physicians, who know nothing of the patient except that he is sick, and who proceed to prescribe for him without stopping to ascertain the character of his disease. Such practice would save the physician some trouble, but would not be very wholesome for the patient.

Now, it seems to me that a physician, in order to practice successfully, should first be acquainted with all the symptoms which indicate a state of health, and then, before he begins to prescribe, should examine the patient, to see in what respects his symptoms differ from these. So with the man who undertakes to heal the divided state of the churches. Let him first inquire in what points a healthy and scriptural state of things requires churches to be united; and then ascertain in what points the churches in question are actually divided. When this preliminary work is thoroughly done, the object to be attained is distinctly in view, and the means of attaining it may be more readily discovered.

You have unwittingly performed a part of this preliminary work in the preamble to your constitution. You say, "We believe the Holy Scriptures to be given by inspiration of God," "We believe in God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit;" "We do all trust for redemption in the same Savior, and are all renewed by the same Holy Spirit;" "We believe in the eternal salvation of all the faithful in Christ Jesus;" and "We do all lead substantially the same life of obedience, faith, and prayer." Now, here is a declaration of your union in at least four essential particulars. You are united, first, in the one God and Father of all; second, in the one Lord; third, in the one Spirit; fourth, in the one hope. If you are truly and scripturally united in these four points of unity, you have already fulfilled numerically more than half the requirements of the Scriptures in respect to union. You feel and acknowledge, however, that there is something yet remaining, the want of which is sinful, though you seem to have no definite idea as to what it is. Will you receive it when I now repeat to you the Apostle Paul’s testimony upon these undiscovered points? He exhorts the brethren to "keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace," and then proceeds to point out seven particulars in which this unity must be preserved. He says: "There is one body and one spirit, even as you 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 through all, and in you all." (Ephesians 4:2-6.) Here is the scheme of Christian unity to which I have referred above, as being furnished in the New Testament. If in these seven points all the churches of Christ, so called, were united, their union would be in every respect what the Word of God demands. The "sin and manifold evils of division" to which your Association testifies, would be removed, and the prayer of the Savior for his disciples would be answered. On the other hand, if, in any one of the seven, Christians remain divided, there remain with this division all the evils of strife and schism.

If it be granted that in the four points named above your twelve denominations are united, it must be admitted that in the other three of the perfect seven they are divided. They have neither one faith nor one baptism, nor one body. Do not these three things constitute precisely the points of division which you deplore? Does not this apostolic schedule give you a better diagnosis of the disease than you bad before your minds when drawing up your articles of association? Or is it rather true that you knew these things, but ventured not to speak of them lest sonic old irritation might spring up to mar the harmony of your meeting? Sir, these three things cannot be ignored. You may endeavor to pass them by, and persuade yourself that you have effected a union without them, but they will continue to stare you in the face, whichever way you turn, and with a finger of scorn, like specters of the imagination, will mock your hollow pretense of Christian union. Such a union can only be a truce between contending parties, a mere lull in the unexhausted storm. These three mountains of difficulty must be dug down, these rough places made smooth, before the strife and envy of Protestantism will know an end. We desire to march bravely up to the issue and declare candidly how this can and must be done. But before we do so we had better turn back a moment, and see whether this is all that needs to be done.

Thus far we have not called in question the assumption that the so-called "Evangelical Christians" are really united in four of the seven elements of union. Neither do we intend to deny that in three of these they are united in a degree quite satisfactory. The one hope is so dear to every human heart, and comes with so happy an adaptation to every sorrowing and sin-stricken soul on earth, that even disciples who are divided in everything else feel constrained by the very yearnings of their nature to stand united in this. The same cannot be said of any other one among the golden seven. Even in reference to the one God, while there is union among all Protestants, there is a deep gulf of’ division between them and all Catholics. That there is one God, implies there is to be only one, that only one object of worship is to be recognized. But Catholicism has introduced a multiplicity of beings to whom prayers are offered, and who share the worship due to God alone. Not till all this idolatry is abandoned, till every saint is dethroned from the place of prayer, and every idolatrous image is stripped from the walls of churches, can the Catholic and Protestant communities be united in the "one God and Father of all." But in this respect, and, I may add, in respect to the one Spirit, there is no discord among the parties who have gone into the "Cincinnati Union Association." Can the same be said in reference to the one Lord? I need scarcely remind one of your position and attainments, that the term Lord, here applied to Jesus, designates him in his law making capacity. He is head and Lord over his church, and rules in it as an absolute monarch. He has delegated to no one, except his twelve ambassadors to the world, the right to prescribe laws in his kingdom, and even to them he gave this authority only as they should speak by direct inspiration from him. This authority, therefore, is supreme, absolute, and exclusive; so that it amounts to no less a crime than rebellion and usurpation for any man or any angel to make a law of faith or practice for any portion of his kingdom. To be united in the one Lord, then, is to unitedly submit to his authority and his alone; to observe the laws of faith and conduct prescribed by him, and to reject all others though they should be enacted by an angel from heaven. (Colossians 1:8.) In this, my dear sir, your associates are far from being united. Which one of them is not governed in part by laws of human origin, which cannot be found in the statute book of our one Lord and Master? By every such law you are individually alienated from one another, and in mass alienated from the one Lord. It is true, and I give you full credit for it, you honor him in many things, you depend upon his blood for pardon, and doubtless you love him much; but notwithstanding all this, and more which might be said in your favor, there stands the naked and undisguised fact, that you allow other laws than his to govern you, other law-makers than Jesus to rule over you. In the name of the Lord, and by the authority of his holy apostle, I demand your attention to this fearful fact, and call upon you to abandon, for the sake of Christ, and for the sake of union, your man-made rules of faith and practice. What will you lose by doing so? You yourself and your whole Association have declared, before heaven and earth, that the statutes of the King, the Holy Scriptures, are the only infallible and sufficient rule; then, if you lose all others, you lose only what is fallible and insufficient, while the sufficient and infallible all remains. In so far as you hold to the infallible law of the one Lord, you are now united, you are divided only by the difference existing between your insufficient and fallible rules of faith and practice; if, then, you throw away those, you throw away nothing but the sinful division which you lament, and you find yourself at once, as if by the touch of a magician’s wand, united in the one Lord. I only ask this in conclusion, can you, dare you, make the sacrifice here demanded? I leave this question with you till I write again.

Yours for the service of one Lord,

J. W. MCGARVEY.