Need of union

Front matter

UNITEB STATES OF AMERICA,

Tb

NEED OF UNION;

Preface

"There shall be one Flock (^poimne)^ and one Shepherd." John X. i6. — Jesus Christ.

" For ye are yet carnal; for whereas there is among you envying and strife and divisions, are ye not carnal and walk as men ? For while one saith, ' I am of Paul,' and another, ' I am of Apollos,' are ye not carnal ? " i Cor. iii. 3, 4. — St. Paul.

" He has not the love of God who does not seek the unity of the Church." — St. Augustine.

" The Gospel cannot accomplish its great triumph, and collect the redeemed from every land, until the law of Christ be fulfilled by these Protestant sects, until they become one." — Richard Baxter.

" I affirm with awe and trembling that while the Church continues in her present divided and factious condition, she is a false witness to her Redeemer and Lord; she fatally misrepresents His principles and His Kingdom to the millions He died to save." — President Sturtevant, of Illinois College.

" I do not believe that Christianity administered by denominational machinery, will ever reach the masses." — Rev. E. P. Marvin, of Lockport.

*' I believe our divisions are eating all faith out of the American heart." — Bishop Whipple, of Minnesota.

" In my judgment, it is about time for the truly Christian people to begin to look the matter of denominationalisms square in the face, as being themselves morally wrong before God, and to cease from- expecting real Christian union without Church oneness." — DoRUS Clarke, D.D., of Boston.

" Keep you your opinion ; I mine, and that as steadily as ever. You need not endeavor to come over to me, or bring me over to you. I do not desire to dispute those points, or to hear or to speak one word concerning them. Let all opinions alone on one side and the other. Only 'Give me thine hand.' " .... " Love me with a very tender affection, as a friend that is closer than a brother, as a brother in Christ, a fellow-citizen of the New Jerusalem, a fellow-soldier engaged in the same warfare, under the Captain of our salvation." — John Wesley.

" The union of Christians — that is the Reformation of the Nineteenth Century." — Dr. Merle D'Aubigne.

Chapter I. Divisions Hurt The Saviour

The Body of Christ 7

Apologies for denominations 10

Denominations in Corinth 14

The union societies 16

So-called union meetings 18

The Second Advent 21

CHAPTER H.

DIVISIONS GRIEVE THE HOLY SPIRIT.

Our missionary failure 26

Mohammedanism 30

The Holy Spirit grieved 32

Revivals 34

A strange thing 35

The Hippodrome and the Depot. 37

CHAPTER HI.

DIVISIONS HURT THE FOREIGN FIELD.

What is the trouble ? 41

Testimony of missionaries 42

Testimony of heathen 44

Heathen visitors 47

Mexico 50

Italy 52

India 54

Japan 58

CHAPTER IV.

DIVISIONS HURT THE HOME FIELD.

A Christian Church 64

The Eastern States 68

"Out West" 71

How we work this field 73

Waste of money 'j']

Waste of machinery 81

Causes apathy 85

Causes infidelity 89

Trifling remedies 91

CHAPTER V.

DIVISIONS HURT THE MINISTRY.

The minister's true position 95

This position hurt 99

The question of support 102

Clerical salaries .... 104

Clerical removals 106

The aged clergyman 107

Effect on clerical stamina 109

CHAPTER VI.

DIVISIONS HURT THE TRUTH.

The light of the world 112

The one Truth 113

Hidden from men 116

Growth of knowledge hurt 121

Range of knowledge hurt 125

Development hindered 128

Party zeal 1 30

Sectarian bishops 131

Broad-churchism 133

CHAPTER VII.

DIVISIONS HURT OUR ONENESS.

Christians really one 136

The one Church 143

What is the Church } 147

The one organization 148 .

The one group 151

The oneness hurt 155

Sects not represent the Church.. . 157

Sects not strengthen the Church . 1 59

The wrong concealed 161

CHAPTER VIII.

DIVISIONS HURT OUR FELLOWSHIP.

Our schisms 165

Division wrong in itself 168

The origin of it 172

Scripture fellowship 175

Difference of opinion 176

The Divine example 182

This fellowship broken up 183

The Lord's Supper 187

Contents.

CHAPTER IX.

DIVISIONS HURT OUR LOVE.

Love, the spirit of Christianity. , . 194

Love, the sign of Christianity . . . 195

Love has been hurt 195

Denominations separate us 197

Separation begets bigotry 198

Bigotry begets strife 202

Drifting farther apart 207

Love, the foremost duty 211

Love will come if we let it come. . 213

Union in love easily attained 215

CHAPTER X.

DIVISIONS HURT OUR VARIETY.

Variety in creation 218

Christian variety a blessing 220

Essential to happiness 222

Variety infinite 225

Worship 227

Reciprocal benefit 229

Compression and schism 232

Worse than schism. 235

Toleration 237

The principle acknowledged 239

Controversy 241

CHAPTER XL

DIVISIONS HURT OUR LIBERTY.

Individual liberty 245

This liberty lost 249

The sectarian yoke 253

Sectarian laws 256

Ministerial penalties 258

Liberty of preaching 261

Liberty of enterprise 266

Gospel liberty safe 271

CHAPTER XII.

DIVISIONS HURT OUR DISCIPLINE.

Discipline perverted 275

The world let in 276

Worldly money 277

Worldly boarders 281

Worldly music 283

Worldly members 284

The unguarded pass 286

Too weak to discipline 289

Worldly money, no help 290

Methodist experience 294

Victor Hugo's suggestion 296

CHAPTER XIII.

DIVISIONS HURT OUR CHARITY.

The common treasury 298

The entire surrender 301

The full scope 3^3

Contraction fatal 306

The Church of New York 309

How it ought to be 312

How it is 314

The impression made 316

Charity through agents 319

Charity in confusion 327

CHAPTER XIV.

DIVISIONS HURT OUR TESTIMONY.

The sure evidence 324

Ratio of converts declining 326

What is the matter } 328

Tone of decision lost 331

Benjamin Franklin 333

Stephen Girard 334

Abraham Lincoln 336

The Centennial Exposition 338

Growth of infidelity 340

CHAPTER XV.

DIVISIONS HURT OUR POWER.

Power of union 346

Weakness of sect 348

Feeble with God 35°

Feeble against Popery 353

Feeble against prevailing wrong.. 358

Feeble in the nation 361

Church power no danger 367

CHAPTER I.

OUR DIVISIONS HURT THE SAVIOUR.

" O, may that holy prayer,

His tenderest and His last, His constant, latest care.

Ere to His throne He passed, No longer unfulfilled remain.

The world's offence, His people's stain !"

THE BODY OF CHRIST.

It was a peculiarity of the early Christians that they took in a very literal way, those numerous passages of Scripture which identify the redeemed with their Redeemer. In their baptism they had the initial X, representing the name of Christ, marked upon their foreheads ; in making their signatures they used this initial, as if Christ's name had become their own ; when interrogated as to their faith, their answer was, " We are the sons of God ; " and at death this name of Christ was inscribed upon their tombs. Professor De Launay, who spent much time in exploring the Roman Catacombs, speaks of distinguishing the Christian tombs by this mark, and also by the frequent motto, " In ChristT

Looking into the Testimony, we find that at the moment of our faith there is born in us something we did not have before ; not a new habit, or motive, or principle, or hope, but a new life. A foreign plant, an exotic comes up from the soil of the heart, like a lily from a compost heap ; a divine existence rises from a bed of corruption. It is not a lower life developing into a higher, but a life rooted in its opposite, a life springing up from death. The old nature is left as incurably corrupt — " dead in trespasses and sins ; " '' that which is I orn of the flesh is flesh" — and out of it comes what the Bible calls " the new creation." Thus are we " quickened together with Christ," " begotten again unto a lively hope."

8 Omi^ Divisions Hurt the Saviour,

This explains that strange presence within us of both Deity and devil, as set forth in the seventh of Romans ; it explains the many allusions in the Gospel to our actual oneness with the person of our Lord — " Born of God ; " '' Created in Christ Jesus ; " "As Christ is, so are we in this world ; " " Our life is hid with Christ in God;" "Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you," etc.

We generally slide over these as figurative expressions, but the first Christians took them as written. They read the Epistles as really directed to the " Beloved in God," to the " Brethren in Christ." They looked on themselves as actually one with Christ ; crucified with Him, dead with Him, risen with Him, justified, sanctified, and glorified with Him. This belief gave them a feeling unknown before and scarcely known since ; a feeling of joyousness and vivacity, of utter freedom from condemnation. It made their lives an exultation, their music a song, their holy supper a banquet of delight. It led them to actually despise this present world, to often court martyrdom, and to look so eagerly for the second coming of the Lord that the Apostles had to rebuke them for their impatience.

We find in this the secret of the unity of the early Church. There was no fixing or arrangement about it ; no councils were called, or plans of agreement drawn up. They were a body corporated in Christ. Each Christian, as he looked on himself, said, " I now live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me ; " as he looked on his fellow, he said, " Christ in us, the hope of glory ; " as he looked on the whole body of believers, he saw them as parts of Christ, " He is the Head of His body — the Church." Unity came, of course, just as one person comes from one soul. Believers no more thought of judging each other than the right hand thinks of judging the left. They no more divided from each other, or cut each other off, than one foot goes without the other foot, or one eye uncouples from the other eye. Christ was left to manage His own body. The government was in the Head, not in the arms, or fingers, or toes.

The early Christians signified this when they ate the Lord's Supper. They always had on the table a single loaf of bread. Partaking of this one loaf, they held as showing them, and in a certain sense making them, one body. This idea is unfortunately lost in our present translation of the Bible, but it is clearly exhibited in the original, which reads : " The loaf which we break, is it not the communion of the Body of Christ ? For we, being many, are one loaf, one body ; for we are all partakers of that one loaf." i COR. x. 16, 17.

The inspired writers take great pains to set forth this truth. St. Paul says in the Ephesians, " God gave Him to be the Head over all things to the Church, which is His body, the fulness of Him that filleth all in all." And again, in ist Corinthians he says, ''As the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body ; so also is Christ!' Pause, believing reader, over these last words, until you have taken in their full meaning — nay, but you can not take it all in — "So ALSO IS Christ." — The Church and its Head, as one, are called by that one name, ''The Christ." "We are members of His -body, of His flesh, and of His bones."

It gives us a clearer idea of the wrong of division in the Church, to look at it in the light of this fact. We see it, then, not merely as an unfortunate disagreement among friends, we see it as a cruelty, a crime ; we see it to be the mutilation, the amputation, the dismemberment -of a living body, the body of Jesus Christ. The apostle .considers it and speaks of it as exactly that. Hear him : " Now ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular ; " " There should be no schism in the body, but the members should have the same care one for another."

Looking at it in this way, we may get a clue to the strange earnestness which Christ Himself manifested on this subject. He seems to regard division as a wrong done to His divine person. The unity of His people was a thing He did not so much argue, or entreat, or command ; it was a thing for which He poured out His soul, over and over again, in agony of prayer. It was in His mind connected in some divine way with his own oneness with the Father :

"■ 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 beheve that thou hast sent me.

" And the glory which thou gavest me, I have given them ; that they may he one, even as we are one.

10 Oitr Divisions Hurt the Sa vtour.

" I in them, and thoa in me, that they may be made perfect in one ; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them as thou hast loved me." — John xvii. 21, 22, 23.

In this way He prayed for it ; prayed for it just before Gethsemane and the cross ; prayed for it while Judas was bargaining away His blood. In that solemn hour the thing on His mind was the unity of His people, and He dreaded their division, the division of His spiritual body, more than He did the tearing asunder of His flesh and bones on the tree.

In view of this anguish of our Lord on the subject, the coolness with which Christians look on His body cut into a hundred sects, is amazing. At the close of his presidency, Washington sent a farewell address to his countrymen. Calling himself " their old and affectionate friend," he urged them to avoid division, and to make their union perpetual. Those words have been an inspiration to the Republic ; three hundred thousand lives have been laid down to make them good. But the d3/ing prayer of Jesus, among those called by His name and saved by His blood, seems unheeded. He looked down from the cross, and saw the soldiers parting His raiment ; He looked forward and saw us rending His body. We know it, yet there is hardly an effort to stop the wrong.

APOLOGIES FOR DENOMINATIONS.

The excuses made for this state of things cannot stand a moment's investigation. Let us consider them.

(i). '^ The denominations are rights because the Israelites zvere divided into twelve tribes!'

The two cases are not parallel. The Jewish nation (not the Jewish religion) was divided into twelve families, each of which had its distinct place around the tabernacle, and its distinct territory in the promised land ; just as each State in this Union has its fixed boundaries. Our sects, on the contrary, are opposing religions, conflicting Christianities. Professing the same Bible and the same Saviour, they interpret that Bible differently, and organize that Saviour's Church on different models, and with their different creeds and different organizations, are everywhere trying to occupy the same territory at the same time ; so that every town and village in the land is disturbed ^:^y their strife. Our nation has not been at

Our Divisions Htirt the Saviour, ii

all like the Church, except from 1861 to 1865, when interpreting the Constitution differently, we all tried to get into the same fields at the same time.

(2). '^ The denominations are merely the different regiments of the same army.''

The brigades and regiments of an army are the various members of one body, each of which has its functions specified in harmony with ail the other members. They all together compose one organization, moved by one mind. Each sect, on the contrary, is in itself a complete and independent body, professing to give the whole Christian truth, to do the whole Christian work, and trying to spread over the whole Christian field. No sect has a function which the others do not try to perform. Each has a full system of ministries, missions, schools, and publications ; each acts without regard to the rest, and all are pushing and foraging in the same places. That is not military organization — it is anarchy.

(3). ^^ Each sect teaches some special doctrine better tha?i the other sects doV

It is true that each sect is organized on some particular doctrine ; but this is not a blessing, it is an evil. Christ never authorized His truth to be partitioned out among separate parties. He meant each disciple to have all that He revealed. Two gentlemen in Troy composing a firm that failed, became bitter enemies. Among the assets was a valuable oil painti ig. Neither' would sell his interest in it to the other, nor allow it to be sold to a third party. So they cut the picture, fram.e and all, through the middle, and each partner took a half. That is what the sects have done with the truth. They have split it up among them. There is an Eye party, a Nose party, and a Mouth party ; an Arm party, a Breast party, and a Foot party. Each party has concentrated around its own lim.b of the Body, studied it and preached it, and in consequence has, in great measure, lost sight of the other limbs, and has distorted its own out of all proportion. Every truth that has been made the hobby of a denomination has, in this way, been injured ; magnified in one quarter and belittled in another.

Take the doctrine of Election. It is in the Bible perfectly plain, and perfectly adjusted, and does not stand in the slightest need of human explanation or support. But the Presby-

12 Our Divisions Hurt the Saviotir.

terian standards are set for its defense ; and they champion it until it crowds upon God's mercy and justice, and pushes even the infants into hell who stand in its way. Consequently, the Methodists dislike it, the Unitarians hate it, and the world at large looks on it with contempt. The doctrine would be held to-day with more even balance and by more people had the denomination never existed.

In the same way Order has suffered from the Episcopalians, Liberty from the Independents, Baptism from the Baptists, and Spirituality from the Quakers. Every divine feature a sect has undertaken to set forth has been overdrawn. The Nose party has spread the nose half over the face, and the Mouth party has stretched that organ from ear to ear. The beautiful contour of Truth has been destroyed, and she stands before men as deformed and ugly. We have not only torn asunder the body of Christ, but we have disfigured it, until as Isaiah says, " His visage is so marred, more than any man, and his form more than the sons of men."

(4). " Btit inivard harmony exists among the sects ; there is spiritual unity and that is all that is needed''

Study of the New Testament will show that mere spiritual unity cannot meet the requirements of the case. What the Saviour prayed for was not mere peace among His people, or friendship, or love — it was oneness. We were not to be different bodies, dealing kindly with each other, but one body. Our union was to be like that between the Father and the Son, not an alliance, but a unity of nature, an identity of life — '' One Body ; " that is the Bible word for it. The body is not a treaty of peace between independent eyes and legs and fingers ; it is not a partnership between the hands and arms, the limbs and the trunk ; it is one structure, moved by one mind and for one purpose. The Scriptural ideal of the church is a single, individual being — '^ a Bride adorned for her husband." We would leave it to any unbiased jury in the land whether friendship between different independent bodies answers the description of the Church given by St. Paul :

" There is one body and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope ot 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."

" As we have many members in one body, and all members have not the same office ; so we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another."

Indeed, it is impossible for oneness of heart to exist in a divided Church. The idea that there is inward unity between denominations which have opposing creeds, ministries, and organizations, which have their separate schools, orphan asylums, and old ladies' homes, which can not go into any Western village, or into a single heathen country together, is a mere dream. In this world, inward feeling will be shown in outward action ; flesh and blood will move according to our thoughts. A gentleman being invited by a Boston lady to a tea-party '' to meet a few minds," replied, that he would gladly come, but he really would have to bring his body along with him ! So, whatever spiritual unity we may have, will be expressed in our ecclesiastical relations. If a Christian loves his fellow Christian, he will seek union with him. John Wesley used to say, '' If your heart is as my heart, give me your hand." And Father Hyacinthe has put it in these words : " It does not suffice me to seek consolation in the Church invisible ; I feel the need of reposing in the unity of the Church visible."

In praying for the unity of His people it is certain that Christ meant a visible unity, for He adds, in two instances, " That the world may believe that thou hast sent me ;" ''that the world may know that thou hast sent me." It was to be a unity seen by men ; a unity perceptible to every spectator. Men never see our emotions— they only see our works, the exhibition of those emotions. Christ evidently meant, therefore, not merely the unity of Christian souls, but the unity of the Christian Church. He meant that the inward feeling should be registered in the outward body. The oneness of His people was not to be a hidden thing, known only in Heaven, but an open protest against the selfishness, and strifes, and hatreds of the world ; a manifest proof that the new-born were under one Divine leader.

We find, furthermore, that the Apostles understood Jesus to mean more than heart-oneness. They kept themselves and the churches they planted all in visible oneness. Had the division of the Church into denominations been contemplated by Christ or His apostles, they would have provided for it. But in all the New Testament there is not one word of direction or legislation for them. We are nowhere told of the particular functions which the different sects are to discharge.

14 Oiw Divisions Hurt the Saviour.

Presbyterians are not ordered to hold this position ; Methodists to go in the van, or Episcopalians to bring up the rear. Nothing is said about sects, except to prohibit and denounce them.

DENOMINATIONS IN CORINTH.

A movement toward denominational division started in the Church at Corinth. Those loving the doctrines of grace (Presbyterians) began to form a club under the name of Paul ; those loving warm emotions and eloquent appeals (Methodists) began to classify themselves under the name of Apollos ; those attached to the ancient forms (Episcopalians) tended to a sect under the name of Cephas, or Peter; and those inclined to do what the Saviour did in every act of worship (Baptists) were branching off under the name of Christ. What did St. Paul do? He condemned the movement with indignation. Hear him :

" It hath been declared unto me, of you, my brethren, by them which are of the house of Chloe, that there are contentions among you. Now this I say, that every one of you saith, I am of Paul; and I of Apollos ; and I of Cephas ; and I of Christ. Is Christ divided .'' Was Paul crucified for you ? or were ye baptized in the name of Paul ? "

Commenting on this passage, the venerable Dr. Schmucker, of the Gettysburg Lutheran Theological Seminary, says :

" The apostle does not introduce into his argument the points of diversity ^mong them, on account of which they were arraying themselves into different parties. The simple facts that they were baptized into Christ, and into Christ alone, that is, were members of the^ Church in good standing, and that Christ must not be divided, are the only arguments he deems requisite to prove the impropriety of their divisions and of their assumption of different names. He would have them Christians, and nothing but Christians. Not Pauline Christians, nor Apolline, nor Cephine, nor Lutheran, nor Calvinistic, nor Wesleyan Christians ; not because he had any antipathy to Apollos or Peter ; but because any such divisions, based on difference of opinion, or personal attachments, naturally tended to rend asunder the body of Christ.

" The argument of Paul for the unity of the Redeemer's visible Church is two-fold : first, he maintains that this unity, and the impropriety of divisions on party grounds, are evidently pre-supposed by the fact that all its members are baptized into the name of Christ Jesus ; and secondly, from the fact that all divisions based on difference are equivalent to dividing the one body of Christ.

" The apostle therefore distinctly forbids the cutting up of those whom he would acknowledge as Christians at all, into different parties or sects. And this he does even by anticipation ; for in all probability these parties had not yet fully separated from one another."

On the same subject, the Rev. James B. Dunn, D.D., pastor of the First Presbyterian church of Boston, remarks :

"It is not the want of Christian love or fellowship among these parties that the apostle complains of. They are not charged with bitterness and hatred toward each other. This is not, as some seem to suppose, the gravamen of his argument ; but it is against the existence of these parties that he utters his rebuke, and one would suppose his argument would be an overwhelming one, for it strikes at the root of the evil and cuts off the limb on which they stood. 'Is Christ divided? ' Were there more Christs than one } There was but one Christ ; so there is but one Church and one name for you all. ' Was Paul crucified for yo^i ? ' No. There was but one crucified for you, and that was the very Christ. As neither Paul, nor Apollos, nor Cephas was crucified for you, so there should be none of you calling yourselves Paulites, or Apollosites, or Cephasites. But as Christ was crucified for you, so you should be called by His name, or Christians.

" Can it be possible that the divisions of Christ's Church in our day have so blinded our minds that we can believe the apostle did not mean to prohibit or condemn the various divisions among Christians of the present time ? Must we not be very blind not to see that the reasoning of this greatest of all the apostles utterly condemns all such names and divisions of the Church as exist this day }

" It would seem, from this argument, that not until Christ is divided, till His seamless garment is rent, till there are more Christs than one, till Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas was crucified for us, and, by parity of reasoning, until Arminius, or Calvin, or Wesley, or John the Baptist, or some other men have been crucified for us, have we any right to take such denominational names. When our sins can be blotted out through some one of these men, when we are redeemed by their blood, when they are our Lord and Master, then may we be baptized in their name and be called after them. When one Christ has been crucified for the Baptists, another for Congregationalists, a third for Lutherans, and so on to the end of the endless genealogies of the so-called Christian sects, then may they rightly exist, and not before."

Denominations are therefore condemned in Scripture, even if harmony exists between them.

And thanks be to the Holy Spirit who dwells in every converted heart, much deHghtful harmony does exist among us. Every true Christian does at times yearn toward his brethren, and frequently does he reach over the separating walls to shake hands with them. But this is no apology for our sects. It comes not from them, but in spite of them. For, just so far as there is attachment to a sect, there is cultivated a sectarian spirit. Sectarianism comes from a sect as naturally as leaves come from a tree. Says Elder James Gregg, of Illinois :