ARTICLE IV.

A WAY OUT OF CHURCH DISUNION.

BY THE REV. SAMUEL ZANE BATTEN.

THE question of church unity is of quite perennial interest. It is a question very dear to the heart of Christendom. The church, we are told on apostolic authority, is the body of Christ, the place where his honor dwells, the pillar and ground of the truth. But, to the casual observer, that body seems to be severed into countless fragments, with very little regard for one another, with little concern for the unity of the body, and with each fragment claiming to be the whole body. Both within and without the church there are many mournful reflections on the present state of things. There can be no question but that the present denominational differences are confusing to the moral sense of the world, that they are embarrassing to many inquiring souls, and that they are wasteful in the extreme. We are all more or less familiar with the various overtures, compromises, and schemes of federation that have been proposed and promulgated. But, with it all, the Master's high-priestly prayer for the unity of his followers seems very far from realization. Thus far, division seems to be the actual fact, and unity to be the empty dream.

In what follows there is no attempt to construct one more plan of federation, or scheme of unity. My aim is to indicate some of the causes which have resulted in disunion, and to state some of the conditions implied in all real unity.

Two great causes have coöperated to bring about disunion: (1) A narrow conception of the church; and (2) a wrongful abandonment of primary Christian truth.

For a moment let us turn our eyes away from the present, and fix them upon the church of the first century. Every student of the New Testament has been impressed with one fact: Jesus Christ wrote nothing. Other teachers have carefully written out their thoughts; they have rewritten and revised, and have done all in their power to be correctly represented to posterity. Here is one who speaks to all peoples and for all times; he assumes as a matter of course that his words shall be known throughout the world to the end of the ages. Yet never a word does he commit to writing. Those words which he calls the words of life are committed to the frail and fading memories of untrained men. Neither did he give any developed teaching to his followers. In his lifetime he framed no system of ethics or theology; he formulated no confession of faith; he outlined no synthetic philosophy for the guidance of his disciples. He drops a few great seminal truths which he allows the disciples to unfold under the Spirit's tuition. The Master assumes that great changes are before men; that the truth he casts into the ground shall grow and spread until it has filled the whole earth. New relationships will be formed among men, and new associations will be required; a church will be founded, a society bearing his name and continuing his work. Yet, so far as we can affirm, not one word was uttered concerning the form of this new society; there is no systematic teaching concerning its functions and officers; no rules are given, no constitution is framed for the future church. But Jesus knew whom he was trusting; the Spirit will be with them, and, out of their own experience, shall take of the things of Christ and show them to men; the self-organizing life of the Spirit in the body shall determine the form

of the new society. So far as we can gather from the teachings of Jesus, the form and constitution of this church. held a very subordinate place in his mind. A polity is necessary to the church; but no polity is prescribed by the Founder of the church. The reason for this is obvious. Had he constructed a rigid and unchangeable institution, and prescribed its exact functions and methods, he would have made it impossible, by that very fact, for the church to be efficient in all lands and in all ages. Just so far as it would be efficient in one set of social conditions, it would be inefficient in a different set of conditions.

All through the apostolic age the same thing obtains. A hard-and-fast ecclesiastical institution, with its mold of doctrine, its forms of worship, its officers and functions all defined, is utterly unknown. During the first century everything is fluid, free, and spontaneous; everything is determined by the self-organizing life of the Spirit within the church. There is no prescribed form of organization, no exact definition of doctrines, no universally recognized order of officers. The church appears as a society of Godinhabited men, loyal to Christ, associated for the promotion of holiness of life, organized for the one purpose of carrying out the Master's commission, providing a free and open field on which heavenly righteousness may be trained, and seeking in all ways to uplift and purify the common life of mankind. All the churches are bound together in the unity of the Spirit, but there is no visible expression of that bond. The church was a body of believers in union with Christ, a body in which his Spirit dwelt, a body which existed for the training of men in righteousness, and which laid upon its members the obligation of love and holiness. Throughout this age the emphasis of thought and act falls upon the work of the church and the conduct of its members. Forms of organization, modes of worship, molds of doctrine, and questions of polity hold a very sub

ordinate place; indeed, it may be questioned whether they are more than merely incidentally mentioned.

But not always is this happy Christian state of things to continue. During the next three centuries, Christianity spreads far and wide, and gets itself firmly established in the East and West. Christian truth has won recognition in the schools of Antioch, Alexandria, and Rome. That Christianity should now take on a philosophic cast is not strange; that errors should creep into the church is not unexpected. At any rate, account for it as we may, between the close of the apostolic age and the beginning of the fifth century a great change has come over the life and thought of the church. In the earlier part of this period the emphasis falls upon the conduct of the disciples and the work of the church. This is shown very clearly in that early writing "The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles." This primitive manual of Christian teaching is concerned wholly with the moral and spiritual elements of Christianity. Love to God and love to man, with all that these imply, are emphasized as the great duty of life. This is "the Way of Life." The tests of membership are wholly moral and spiritual. "Whoever cometh and teacheth you all these things aforesaid, receive him." By the correspondence between his life and the moral precepts of the gospel a man's fitness for membership was tested. The more nearly we come to the apostolic age, the more clearly do we see that the church is an assembly of men with a passion for holiness and an enthusiasm for God's kingdom.

But by the time we reach the middle of the fourth century we find that the basis of Christianity has entirely changed. Those men who assembled at Nicæa were terribly in earnest; but, from their conduct in the council, one would hardly expect much light and truth. The very fact that such a council should be, demonstrates beyond question that a great change has taken place in the life

and thought of the church. It shows most conclusively that the emphasis has been shifted from a passion for righteousness to the discussion of theological subtleties. The so-called Athanasian Creed, though belonging to the next century, shows the drift of things: "Whosoever will be saved, before all things it is necessary, that he hold the Catholic Faith; which faith except every one do keep whole and undefiled, without doubt he shall perish everlastingly." The change from the moral and spiritual teaching of "The Two Ways," to the fifth century with its elaborate creed full of metaphysical mysteries and verbal subtleties, is like the change from the Sermon on the Mount to a session of the Talmudists. In this later period the catechumens are no longer trained in the moral requirements of "The Two Ways"; rather they are instructed in the mysteries of creedal statements. Agreement of opinion, which has formed the basis of union in the schools of Greek philosophy, has more and more come to be the bond of fellowship within the churches. The church no longer appears as an assembly of earnest men hungering and thirsting after righteousness, and seeking the kingdom of God; it has become a hard-and-fast institution, with well-defined forms of worship and carefully elaborated creeds; intent on preserving uniformity of belief and practice. "The church became, not an assembly of devout men, grimly earnest about living a holy life-its bishops were statesmen; its officers were men of the world; its members were of the world, basing their conduct on the current maxims of society, held together by the loose bond of a common name, and of a creed which they did not understand."1

With modifications these tendencies have existed down to our own day, and are at work around us. This tendency has divaricated in the progress of history; one branch 1 Dr. Edwin Hatch, Hibbert Lectures, p. 349.