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 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924031320405 
 
Cornell University Library 
 
 arV15S22 
 
 The oneness of the Christian church. 
 
 3 1924 031 320 405 
 olin.anx 
 
THE 
 
 ONENESS 
 
 THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 
 
 BY 
 
 REV. DORUS CLARKE, D.D. 
 
 Elg Kiqio;, Mia Hlaiig, " Ev B&miafia. 
 
 One Lokd, One Faith, One Baptisji. 
 
 Eph. iv. \ 
 
 BOSTON: 
 
 LEE A.N"r) SHEFA-RX). 
 
 1869. 
 © 
 
£ntered, according to Act of CongreBs, in the year 1869, by 
 
 DOKUS CLAKKE, 
 
 In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. 
 
 UNiVEf^SfTYl 
 LIBRARY 
 
 8T EH EOTY PED AT THE 
 
 BOSTON STeBEOTYPE FOUoOftY. 
 
 NO. 19 SPHInO lane. 
 
CHRISTIANS OF EVERY NAME, 
 
 • Cf)i0 5JoIjiinE 
 
 IS MOST RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED. 
 
THE 
 
 ONENESS OP THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 
 
 The Church of Christ on earth has been so long 
 divided into denominations or sects, that the pop- 
 ular impression is, that this state of things is 
 incurable, and that, with all its evils, it must be 
 accepted as a finality. There is, however, an 
 underlying conviction in the minds of good men 
 that it is unnatural and wrong — that it is the 
 reproach of Christianity, not her commendation. 
 Indeed, you may put the question to the first ten 
 men whom you meet on the street, and so gen- 
 eral is the conviction that the present divided 
 state of the Church is radically inconsistent with 
 the spirit of Christianity, it is morally certain that 
 nine out of the ten will affirm its inconsistency. 
 " It was not so in the beginning," it will not be 
 so in the end, and it ought not to be so now. 
 
 The more common apology for this question- 
 able state of the Church is, that denominations 
 
 (5) 
 
6 THE ONENESS OF 
 
 are necessary to her highest efficiency, and that reli- 
 gion would stagnate uiithout them. This apology 
 assumes that the present is the best condition of 
 the Church in this probationary state. The an- 
 cient astronomers maintained, with entire una- 
 nimity, that the motions of the celestial bodies 
 must necessarily be circular, because, in like 
 manner, they assumed that that is the most perfect 
 kind of movement ; and the pertinacity with which 
 that notion was held, until it was exploded by 
 Kepler, was one of the chief obstacles to astro- 
 nomical progress. That postulate of the old 
 astronomers, however, was sadly in need of proof. 
 So, too, the hypothesis that denominations are 
 necessary to the progress of Christianity is equally 
 gratuitous. It stands directly in the way of a 
 candid examination of the subject, and also in 
 the way of that progress itself. " That which 
 gives life to churches," says D'Aubighe, " is not 
 their diversities of government, or worship, or 
 discipline, but the most holy faith." 
 
 Others have attempted to account for and ex- 
 cuse this divided state of the Church by cranio- 
 logical and intellectual diversities. One man, it is 
 said, is by nature, or by his corporeal conforma- 
 tion or mental peculiarities, a Baptist, another a 
 
THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 7 
 
 Methodist, a third an Episcopalian, a fourth a 
 Congregationalist, and so on. But it would seem 
 to require no great amount of intelligence to per- 
 ceive the absurdity of this theory. It more befits 
 the school-boy than the philosopher, the empiric 
 than the sage. It is an appeal to the argumen- 
 ium ad invidiam, and not to any principle of 
 sound philosophy or common sense. Idiosyn- 
 crasies may aggravate the evil, but cannot jus- 
 tify it. 
 
 Again, it is said that the human race, though 
 one, is divided into numerous families ; and hence 
 it is inferred that the division of the Church into 
 sects is proper and necessary. But the subjects 
 are so dissimilar that it is illogical to reason from 
 the one to the other. The object of the family 
 relation is to perpetuate the race ; the object of 
 Christianity is to save it. Division in the first 
 case is the source of strength ; but the history of 
 the Church shows that in the other it is an ele- 
 ment of weakness. Division in the one case is 
 indispensable, but it is a mere assumption to hold 
 that it is so in the other. There is no analogy 
 between the illustration and the subject to be 
 illustrated. It therefore proves nothing. The 
 inquirer is misled by an imaginary resemblance. 
 
8 THE ONENESS OP 
 
 In the absence of stronger arguments, another 
 class apologetically appeal to <BSthetic considera- 
 tions ; for instance, it is said that the Church is 
 " distinct like the .billows, yet one like the sea." 
 But the poetry of this simUe is better than the 
 Christianity. Beauty is, indeed, one of the ele- 
 ments of truth ; but, as in this case, there is often 
 much physical beauty where there is no moral 
 truth. No sensible man will be led astray by 
 the elegance of the figure, and especially so 
 when it is considered that the figure has not the 
 slightest reference whatever to divisions among 
 Christian men. 
 
 Again, it is said, " How beautiful it is to see 
 Christians marching under different banners to the 
 conquest of the world to Christ ! " But this 
 dramatic exclamation is not argument ; and, be- 
 sides, it is no assumption to suppose that the 
 " sacramental host," if it were perfectly united, 
 would present a much' bolder front to their en- 
 emies, send deeper dismay through all their ranks, 
 and sooner wake the shout of victory. Indeed, 
 it is a question of momentous interest, judging 
 from the experience of seventeen hundred years, 
 whether the Church can expect to conquer at all 
 except by her Unity. 
 
THE CHEISTIAN CHURCH. 9 
 
 The population of the earth is now estimated by 
 the most intelligent statisticians to be thirteen hun- 
 dred millions, and its annual increase far outstrips 
 the number of actual conversions to Christ. What, 
 then, is the lesson which seventeen centuries of 
 disunion among Christians teach as to the prospect 
 of an early dawn of the millennial day ? It is a 
 matter of the clearest mathematical proof, that, at 
 the present rate of proceeding, more than the in- 
 computable ages required by the geologists for 
 the " days " of the world's creation will be^ re- 
 quired again for its r-e-creation. And when we 
 think of the doom which awaits these present and 
 future unconverted myriads, — yes, the doom of a 
 single individual of them, of which John Poster 
 said, with no exaggeration, " The highest arch- 
 angel has not yet conceived a thousandth part of 
 its horror,"' — and when we think of the mighty 
 pressure of our obligations to save them, — what 
 are we to say of the- petty bickerings of Christians 
 about their denominationalisms ? 
 
 The evil, too, is on the increase. Denomina- 
 tions continue to multiply, though their number 
 long since became so excessive, that the gravity 
 of the subject hardly saves the system from popu- 
 lar contempt. When the Portuguese Jesuits ap- 
 
10 THE ONENESS OF 
 
 plied for permission to settle in Japan, the em- 
 peror replied, " You may come. As there are 
 already many sects, one more can do no harm." 
 With logic just as sound, sects are increasing in 
 Christendom not only ad libitum but ad nauseam ; 
 and the formation of a new one, which ought to 
 be more than a nine days' wonder on earth, as it 
 is in heaven, excites less attention than the dis- 
 covery of an asteroid. 
 
 But, after all, ''Is Christ divided?" These 
 apologies are little else than a libel upon Chris- 
 tianity and its Founder. They are substantially 
 an averment, that the only true religion upon the 
 earth cannot be sustained and propagated except 
 by appealing to the principle of emulation, or the 
 rivalry of sects — one of the lowest piinciples of 
 our fallen humanity. The Great Head of the 
 Church did not place its prosperity upon such a 
 sinister basis, though He may overrule that hu- 
 man weakness for its advancement. On the other 
 hand, let it be considered that the evils of schism 
 are innumerable. Its malign effects upon the 
 temper of Christians, upon their progress in piety, 
 upon an unbelieving world, and upon the spread 
 of the gospel at home and abroad, it is impos- 
 sible to estimate. In the foreign missionary work. 
 
THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 11 
 
 the territory must be parcelled out by some con- 
 ventional arrangement among the competing de- 
 nominations ; and even then interference with each 
 other is a matter of sad history. At home, the 
 evil is more serious stiU. In many of the towns 
 and villages in this country and in England, the 
 entire population could find all necessary ac- 
 commodation in a single church or chapel of 
 ordinary size ; but it is now divided into two, 
 three, or more denominations. The consequences 
 are, that, in addition to the bitterness which is 
 engendered by such divisions, the cost of sup- 
 porting religious institutions is doubled or quad- 
 rupled ; and what is worse, they are very inad- 
 equately sustained after all. Christians, in their 
 efforts to be useful, follow each other over the 
 same ground; often come into collision, to the 
 great scandal of the cause ; and teach conflicting 
 doctrines, till the people are mystified with the- 
 ories and demoralized with gospel. Call upon 
 the thoughtless multitude, as they throng the 
 " broad road," to embrace Christianity, and the 
 jeering, taunting response comes back, " It will 
 be time enough for us to do that when Christians 
 agree among themselves what Christianity is." 
 Said a woman at a cottage door, in the north of 
 
12 THE ONENESS OF 
 
 London, on a Sabbath morning, to a lady present- 
 ing a tract, " Away with you ; / have had five 
 religions at me this morning already." 
 
 In refutation of all the arg-uments in favor of 
 denominations is this indisputable fact, that Christ 
 founded a Church, but He founded no sect. This 
 simple fact alone makes sad havoc of denominar 
 tions. The very idea also of a Church, in distinc- 
 tion from the world, requires it to be one Church, 
 or a cosmical Church. A hundred churches, of 
 different names and of conflicting creeds and pol- 
 ities, are not, logically, an antithesis of the world. 
 The world is a unit ; the Church should be so 
 too. The latter should be the counterpart of the 
 former. The Unity of the Church is, therefore, 
 a logical as well as a moral necessity. 
 
 The Oneness op the Church was evidently a 
 very favorite object with its Founder. " That 
 they aU may be one," was a prayer, which, by its 
 frequent repetitions, shows that it came from the 
 deepest place in His heart. It was not simply 
 Christian Unity for which He so fervently in- 
 terceded, for aU real Christians are necessarily 
 " one " with Him in feeling ; but it was Church 
 Unity as weU — a Unity which He foresaw would 
 be destroyed by schism, and which He would have 
 
THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 13 
 
 restored, it being the alone irrefragable proof to 
 the "world" that the Father hath "sent" Him. 
 It was an open, Organic Unity — a Unity whicli 
 could be seen by the "world," that He alleged 
 to be necessary to convince the "world" of the 
 divinity of His mission. It was an Organic Unity, 
 far deeper than any mere Christian Unity how- 
 ever fervid, and on which such emotional unity 
 must rest, if it would escape the suspicion of 
 insincerity and seal the lips of gainsayers. It 
 was a Oneness of belief as well as a Oneness of 
 emotion — a Oneness of ecclesiastical polity as 
 well as a Oneness of Christian experience — a 
 Oneness of Church practice as well as a Oneness 
 of devotional spirit. Both, all are covered by a 
 correct interpretation of these tender, iterated 
 and reiterated supplications of the "world's " Ke- 
 deemer. He prayed that the Church He was 
 about to leave might be as truly, as fully, as 
 heartily " one " as Himself and the Father " are 
 one ; " but it is morally impossible that all His 
 children can be " perfect in one," in the same 
 endearing, intimate sense in which the Father and 
 the Son are " one," so long as they are separated 
 by the broad chasms of denominational prejudice 
 
14 THE ONENESS OF 
 
 and non-communion. There are no denominational 
 walls between the Father and the Son, there are 
 none between the Son and His disciples, and there 
 should be none between the disciples themselves. 
 Were it so, the "world" could not long remain 
 unconvinced that Christianity is from heaven. 
 
 But, as Christ anticipated, the evil against 
 which He so earnestly prayed befell the Church 
 at an early stage of her history. Before two 
 centuries had passed away, clerical ambition 
 proved to be more than a match for Christian 
 principle ; and the sublime spectacle of a unity 
 of faith and polity disappeared before a . unity 
 of ecclesiastical organization founded on the 
 hierarchical principle,* and from that day to the 
 
 * " During the greater part of the second century, all the 
 Churches continued to be, as at the first, independent of each 
 other. Each Church was a kind of little State, governed 
 by its own laws, which were enacted, or at least sanctioned, 
 by the people. At first, the bishops did not deny that they 
 were merely the representatives of their churches ; but, by 
 little and little, they made higher pretensions, and main- 
 tained that power was given them by Christ himself to dic- 
 tate rules of faith and conduct to the people. Hence origi- 
 nated Metropolitans, Patriarchs, and ultimately a Prince 
 of Patriarchs, the Roman Pontiff." 
 
 Mosheim's Eccl. Hist., London edition, 1847, pp. 62, 63. 
 See also Bingham's Orig. Eccles., illustrated with Maps of 
 the Patriarchates, and Hallam's Middle Ages, vol. ii. p. 144. 
 
THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 15 
 
 present, the Church of Christ , has been split into 
 sects — a state of thraldom from which she has 
 not yet had moral strength to emancipate her- 
 self. 
 
 Assuming, as an axiom in this discussion, that 
 Christ founded a Church hut no sect, it is desirable 
 to illuminate our course by obtaining, if possible, 
 an exact conception of the relation of sects to 
 the Church, etymologically considered. What, 
 then, is the " Church " in its broadest, cosmical 
 character ? According to the best authorities, it 
 is "the general or collective body of Christians." 
 And what is a "sect"? The term is derived 
 from the Latin sectus, and means a body which 
 has cut itself off from the " collective body of 
 Christians." In Hellenistic Greek, the terms 
 " sects " and " heretics " are synonymous. Origi- 
 nally, sects and heretics were not considered parts 
 of the true Church. According to these etymo- 
 logical lights, a " sect," then, is a part which has 
 voluntarily cut itself off from the main body, and, 
 according to the early conceptions, it was no 
 longer regarded as even a part of the Church of 
 Chiist. The Church is an integer ; at best, sects 
 are but fractions. The Church is the body which 
 
16 THE ONENESS OF 
 
 Christ organized ; sects are the work of men's 
 hands.* 
 
 As the term " sects " has never been in the 
 best odor, the word " denominations," being less 
 exceptionable, has been extensively substituted in 
 its place. The substituted term, however, is un- 
 natural, and it is not the precise antithesis of the 
 Church, which exact literary necessity requires. 
 "Denomination" means merely the act of naming 
 or designating ; and it has, primarily, no reference 
 at aU to ecclesiastical diversities. It is only in a 
 secondary or tropical sense that it is descrip- 
 tive of divisions among Christians. The term 
 " sects," then, is offensive, as it savors of schis- 
 matical separation from the " collective body of 
 Christians ; " and the term "denominations" is not 
 germane to the issue, and seems reluctant to do 
 service in such a cause. These verbal protests 
 against divisions among Christians are too signifi- 
 cant to be overlooked by scholarly and thoughtful 
 
 * " Those who did not wholly reject the books of the 
 Old Testament either interpreted them most absurdly, neg- 
 lecting the true import of words, or wantonly corrupted 
 them by retrenching what they di^liked, and adding what 
 they pleased. It is easy to see how these persons, after 
 assuming the name of Christians, became divided into 
 numerous sects." 
 
 Mosheim's Eccl. Hist. p. 47. 
 
THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 17 
 
 men. It is also sad to notice what an amount 
 of talent and time, and money and piety, is 
 employed in hoarding up, in denominational mag- 
 azines, the materiel for mutual aggression, or, if 
 a milder phrase be preferred, for preserving "the 
 balance of power," when it should be used for 
 the overthrow of the common enemies of the 
 Church. " Shame on you," said Lucan to the 
 contending political parties at Eome ; " you have 
 turned your arms on each other when you might 
 have teen sacking Babylon." 
 
 Diverse interpretations of the Bible are the 
 objective cause of this divided state of the 
 Church. If this cause of division can be re- 
 moved, the evil will cease, real union will follow, 
 and it can be secured in no other way. There 
 are probably some eighty denominations, more 
 or less, which profess to find their faiths in that 
 Holy Book, and they all claim to be intelligent 
 in their investigations, and honest in their efforts 
 to reach the real truth. Each of these denomi- 
 nations "hath an interpretation." But if the 
 Bible be a revelation from God, its announce- 
 ments can be understood, and understood by all 
 men substantially alike. It can have but one 
 correct interpretation. If that interpretation can- 
 2 
 
18 THE ONENESS OF 
 
 not be reached, then it is practically no reveler 
 tion at all on the numerpus points wherein men 
 differ. 
 
 It is absurd to suppose that the Bible teaches 
 anything like eighty different systems of truth, or 
 even ten, or two. It teaches one great system 
 of doctrine, and, so far as it teaches anything on 
 those subjects, one form of church polity and 
 practice, and only one ; and its Divine Author 
 must have put within our reach the means of 
 ascertaining them. In a matter of supreme 
 moment, it cannot be supposed that He has 
 doomed the human race, like Tantalus, to final 
 disappointment by exciting hopes which can 
 never be realized. The world understand other 
 books alike ; why not this Book ? Macaulay's 
 "History of England," Motley's " Eise of the 
 Dutch Eepublic," and, indeed, other uninspired 
 books, generally, are interpreted by all men, the 
 world over, so nearly alike as to occasion no 
 remark. Why, then, cannot the Bible be inter- 
 preted with the same degree of unanimity ? The 
 difficulty lies not so much in the character of the 
 Book, as in the mental and moral state of the 
 interpreter. 
 
 But it is said that Homer, Shakspeare, and the 
 
THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 19 
 
 Constitution of the United States have been very 
 diversely interpreted, and it has been even affirmed 
 to be a fact, that books are necessarily subject to 
 a diversity of construction in the ratio of their 
 relative importance. Alas ! alas ! if this position 
 be correct, there is no hope of understanding the 
 Holy Scriptures at all ; for, as to the matter of 
 importance, they stand at an infinite remove be- 
 yond all other books. The theory, then, must 
 be unsound. 
 
 But the true reason why some passages in 
 Homer, Shakspeare, and such other writers have 
 been diversely understood is their various read- 
 ings, or, more properly speaking, their textual 
 inaccuracies ; and the reason why the Constitu- 
 tion of the United States, like the Scriptures, 
 has been differently interpreted is, that party spirit 
 has been the interpreter. There is no moral 
 necessity, amounting to a law, for such diversitj' 
 of construction. The Constitution of the United 
 States has never been differently understood on 
 account of textual inaccuracies ; and it is a singu- 
 lar fact, that though the ancient manuscripts of 
 the Bible contain large numbers of them, it is 
 not upon them that the denominations build their 
 diverse theories. These inaccuracies do not affect, 
 
20 THE ONENESS OF 
 
 in the slightest perceptible degree, the opinions 
 of Christendom. The sectarian spirit is the sub- 
 jective cause of the difficulty. If all men were 
 right in their moral feelings, the Bible would be 
 interpreted substantially alike. The wickedness 
 of the human heart and false interpretations of 
 the Scriptures act and react upon each other — 
 thus presenting a double difSculty and a double 
 reason why both should be removed. Party 
 spirit, whether in politics or religion, will almost 
 inevitably misinterpret, and to expose its malign 
 influence upon a right understanding of the Bible 
 is one of the primary objects of this treatise. 
 
 " The overwhelming majority of the human 
 race," says Lecky, " accept their religious opin- 
 ions from authority. Whether they do so avow- 
 edly, like the Catholics, or unconsciously, like 
 most Protestants, is immaterial. It is so much 
 easier to assume than to prove ; it is so much 
 less painful to believe than to doubt ; there is 
 such a charm in the repose of sects ; " and it 
 may be added, there is so much pride in belong- 
 ing to the oldest sect, or the newest sect, or the 
 most numerous sect, or the most aristocratic sect, 
 or the most democratic sect, or the most intelli- 
 gent sect, or the most popular sect, or the most 
 
THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 21 
 
 despised sect; "and there are such thrilling 
 pangs when old creeds are obliged to be aban- 
 doned, — that most men close their eyes to the un- 
 welcome light. Hence the oscillation and timid- 
 ity which characterize their researches after the 
 truths of the Bible." * 
 
 But it has been said, that " variations of belief 
 are the necessary consequence of honest inquiry." 
 In reply it may be safely affirmed, that they are 
 not the consequence of honest and thoroughly in- 
 telligent inquiry. Both honesty and intelligence 
 are indispensable to success. Interpreters may 
 strive to reach the pure faith of the Bible, and in 
 doing so they will unquestionably find it difficult, 
 yes, extremely difficult, to keep themselves wholly 
 free from the influence of the civilization of the 
 age, the intellectual characteristics of individuals, 
 and the preponderating disposition of the public 
 mind. The philosophy of the times surrounds 
 them and infuses itself through them like the 
 atmosphere. The obstacles in the way of reach- 
 ing correct conclusions are undoubtedly great ; 
 but they are not insurmountable. The Bible, then, 
 by possibility, can be understood, and understood 
 by all men substantially alike. There are, in- 
 
 * Rationalism in Europe, vol. ii. pp. 95 and 98. 
 
22 THE ONENESS OF 
 
 deed, such differences of idiosyncrasy, institu- 
 tions, habits, manners, customs, that, considering 
 the infirmities of the human mind, it is not 
 necessary to suppose that upon every shade of 
 thought they will ever entirely agree. Absolute 
 agreement in every possible particular, is not de- 
 manded by our argument, or by the necessities of 
 the case. But it is not too much to expect and 
 demand, that, upon every fundamental dogmatic 
 point, — upon every point necessary to the salva- 
 tion of the soul, and to a symmetrical develop- 
 ment of Christian character, — and upon every 
 question of practice relating to Church govern- 
 ment, to Christian communion, to ministerial fel- 
 lowship ; in short, upon all those points wherein 
 serious men now disagree, they can be made to 
 harmonize. Agreement is required by Christ 
 Himself at least so far forth as to destroy all 
 denominational differences. 
 
 If this be so, there must be some methods 
 somewhere within the reach of truly honest and 
 intelligent men, by which the real meaning of the 
 Scriptures, upon all these important points of 
 faith and practice, can be ascertained. This 
 being done, the practical Oneness of the Church 
 will be effected. As the whole matter turns 
 
THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 23 
 
 upon this pivotal point, it will be necessary to 
 give it as thorough an examination as is possible 
 within reasonable limits. The key to the solu- 
 tion of problems, usually regarded as very dif- 
 ficult, lies oftentimes much nearer to us than we 
 suppose, and we frequently fail of it by the very 
 ease with which we can lay our hand upon it. 
 
 There have been many plans proposed to effect 
 the union of Christians, but with all their merits 
 they have failed ; and they have failed, it is be- 
 lieved, because they have been superficial. They 
 have not ventured to grapple with the real root 
 of the difficulty. With remarkable facility they 
 seem to have evaded the very point most important 
 to be examined and settled. For any denomina- 
 tion to claim to be, "par eminence, the true Church, 
 to preach frequent homilies on the sin of schism, 
 to send out periodically expostulatory, lachry- 
 mose appeals to all others to come and join 
 them, and to hold that there can be no Church 
 Unity till that is done, will not remove the evil. 
 Platform rhetoric, which often degenerates into 
 the merest platitudes about Christian Union, 
 will not alone remove it. Exhortations to Chris- 
 tians to think more upon the points i]i which they 
 agree than on those wherein they differ, will not 
 
24 THE ONENESS OF 
 
 alone remove it. Appeals to Christians to ex- 
 orcise from themselves the sectarian spirit, and 
 to treat the members of other communions with 
 greater courtesy and kindness, will not alone re- 
 move it. To organize a sort of " general as- 
 sembly," composed of representatives of the 
 various denominations, for prayer and consulta- 
 tion upon the best methods of promoting Christian 
 harmony, will not alone remove it. No plan, 
 which, under the guise of greater Christian activ- 
 ity, proposes a rejection of the distasteful theology 
 of the Scriptures and the destruction of local 
 churches, as preliminaries to a new and popular 
 organization, can remove it. Holy love in the 
 hearts of Christians, though it should glow like 
 the seraphs', all-important as it is as a coadjutor 
 in the reform, would not alone satisfy the intel- 
 lectual conditions of the case, and therefore it 
 could not alone remove the evO. TJiere must be 
 an intellectual acceptance of a common creed, de- 
 rived from a cammon understanding of the Scrip- 
 tures. Nothing less than this will satisfy reflect- 
 ing men. Nothing less than this will answer the 
 purpose. Church Union, as well as Christian 
 Union, is the demand of the times ; and it is also 
 demanded by the necessities of the case. The 
 
THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 25 
 
 latter cannot be fully enjoyed without the former. 
 We may as well expect a pyramid to stand firmly 
 on its apex, as to expect substantial, permanent 
 Christian Union without Church Oneness. The 
 position of the column, for any useful purpose, 
 must be reversed. It must stand on its natural, 
 proper base. So, too. Christian Union must 
 stand on the firm foundation of Church Union. 
 Such are the intellectual requirements of the case, 
 that neither Church Union nor Christian Union 
 can be had, in its completeness, without an 
 harmonious interpretation of the common stan- 
 dard of appeal. 
 
 There has been much discussion, at different 
 periods of the Church, as to what are the princi- 
 ples for a thorough interpretation and full under- 
 standing of the Word of God, and various the- 
 ories on the subject have been suggested ; but the 
 writer has nowhere found any plan which square- 
 ly meets the issue, and which has been fully 
 drawn out and considered with hope of success. 
 Disclaiming all pretence to unusual perspicacity, 
 the attempt is here made to indicate what he 
 conceives to be the proper mode of proceeding 
 in the case, — a case perhaps unsurpassed for 
 delicacy and importance ; — and to group together 
 
26 THE ONENESS OF 
 
 in one view the methods, which, after long and 
 anxious study and with constant desire for illu- 
 mination from above, he is convinced will prac- 
 tically meet its necessities. 
 
 " Libera per vacuum posui vestigia princeps ; 
 Non aliena meo pressi pede." * 
 
 There are then, it is believed, four methods by 
 which, severally and jointly, the truths of the 
 Bible can be reached and ascertained. What 
 are they ? 
 
 1. Apply to the Scriptures the same rules of 
 interpretation which we use to determine the 
 meaning of all other books. This method of 
 interpretation is rational, but not rationalistic in 
 the theologically technical sense of that term. 
 In one respect the Holy Scriptures are indeed 
 unlike any other volume, and in another they 
 are unlike most others ; and these peculiaritie.s 
 must of course be duly considered. The Bible 
 is an inspired, a holy Book, and it therefore 
 demands for its correct interpretation a state of 
 moral feeling in the interpreter, which is adapted 
 to elicit and appreciate its true spiritual significa- 
 tion. This qualification, so eminently necessary 
 
 * Hor. Ep. I. 19, 21. 
 
THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 27 
 
 to understand a Book of such a character, will be 
 specially considered in the course of this discus- 
 sion. The other peculiar feature of the Bible is 
 its antiquity. We have, indeed, various books 
 which were composed in very remote ages, but 
 the earlier records of the Bible antedate them all. 
 Those records are pre-historic, and yet they are 
 to be interpreted by the same general principles 
 that we apply to other ancient books, for there 
 are none other known to men. 
 
 Keeping distinctly in view these two features 
 of the Bible which are peculiar, and which are 
 to be interpreted by rules appropriate to them- 
 selves, what are the principles of exegesis which 
 we apply to determine the meaning of other 
 books, and which should be applied to this Book ? 
 There are certain rules or canons of exegesis, 
 which have their basis in the laws of human 
 thought, in the laws of language, and in the 
 common sense of mankind, and which all men 
 use, and necessarily use, in the interpretation 
 of all written or printed books and documents. 
 Some of these rules are the following : Consider 
 all the circumstances in which the writer was 
 placed, the age in which he lived, his education, 
 philosophy, habits, taste and employment ; ex- 
 
28 THK ONENESS OF 
 
 plain doubtful passages by those which are plain ; 
 interpret ambiguous expressions by the object of 
 the argument the writer then had in hand ; make 
 him as far as possible his own interpreter ; inter- 
 pret his doubtful phrases so that they shall be in 
 harmony with the general tenor of the book ; 
 reject no doctrine which he advances merely 
 because it is new to us, or incomprehensible by 
 us, provided it is sustained by competent proof; 
 interpret his language by intendment, that is, 
 by what we know of his other writings, if 
 he has written anything else, what he must 
 have intended to say ; interpret his language 
 grammatically, for otherwise we make out a 
 meaning which, though it may be correct, is 
 j'et a meaning which lies not in those particular 
 words, and, therefore, not the meaning of the 
 writer ; take the stand-point of the author, 
 whether more or less remote, identify ourselves 
 with him, enter into his objects, his theories and 
 his prejudices so as to get hold of his very con- 
 ceptions themselves and the mode in which he 
 would convey his conceptions to others ; and 
 never allow our interest, or prepossessions, or 
 sect, or party, to have the least weight what- 
 ever in determining what he means. 
 
THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH, 29 
 
 Thorough criticism will also call upon us to 
 inquire' whether the writer, in the passage under 
 consideration, was describing that which was objec- 
 tive, something external to himself, or subjective, 
 referring to something within himself ; or whether 
 it was optical, something which he saw, or con- 
 ceptual, meaning some conception in his own 
 mind. It will also require us to ascertain wheth- 
 er he was describing a local or a cosmical scene ; 
 whether he was writing history or poetry, biog- 
 raphy or genealogy, parable or prophecy ; wheth- 
 er he was relating what he learned traditionally, 
 or what fell within his personal knowledge, or 
 what was communicated to him by the mysterious 
 illumination of the Divine Afflatus. False prem- 
 ises, too, must never be assumed for true ones, 
 nor false conclusions drawn from premises which 
 are true. Evidence for and against any tenet 
 must be weighed with the severity of judicial 
 impartiality, and sometimes acute discrimination 
 is required to ascertain whether the evidence is 
 of such a character that it can be used as an aid 
 to reach a result, or only to confirm a conclusion. 
 All the circumstances of the case must also be 
 taken into the account. " A decision perfectly 
 right on half the facts, may be perfectly wrong 
 
30 THE ONENESS OF 
 
 upon the whole of them." * It is the object of 
 the true interpreter so to place himself in the 
 position of the author as to obtain from him an 
 exact conception of the thought as it lay in his 
 own mind, and to convey it to the minds of 
 others in the precise form in which the writer 
 wished to communicate it. To do this, the very 
 idea, as it existed in the author's mind perhaps 
 hundreds or thousands of years ago, must be 
 reproduced in exactly modern equivalents. 
 
 The true interpreter of the Scriptures desires 
 to reach the mind of the Holy Ghost. When 
 Kepler, after repeated trials, discovered that the 
 planets move round the sun not in circular but 
 in elliptical orbits, and demonstrated that, upon 
 geometrical principles, they cannot possibly re- 
 volve in any other, — and when the wisdom of the 
 Creator in that geometrical arrangement, which 
 had escaped the notice of all astronomers, flashed 
 upon his mind, — he exclaimed, " God, I think 
 Thy thoughts after Thee ! " 
 
 These principles of interpretation are axiomatic. 
 They commend themselves to the judgment of 
 pure and universal reason. They are the property 
 of no party, but the common property of all 
 
 * Garbett's Bampton Lectures, 1867. London edition, 
 p. 281. 
 
THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 31 
 
 parties. They favor no party but the right party. 
 If any individuals or any denominations are afraid 
 to commit themselves to the guidance of these 
 principles, and are unwilling to be landed wher- 
 ever a faithful application of them will inevitably 
 conduct them, they are confronted by their want 
 of honesty, and betray a consciousness that ' their 
 theories are unsound and untenable. They could 
 not give clearer proof of their want of correct 
 moral feeling, and of a secret conviction in their 
 own minds that their system, in some respects at 
 least, is indefensible. 
 
 These principles are trite, indeed, but they are 
 true. Nor are any of them mere truisms, as 
 some of them have recently been said to be by a 
 very respectable authority.* They are not, as he 
 affirms, like saying that " a foot is equal to twelve 
 inches, which is as much as to say that a foot is 
 a foot." They all promote advance of thought, 
 and truth is the logical result of their proper use. 
 Indeed, there can be no proper interpretation of 
 language without them. They take cognizance 
 of the laws of the human mind, and of the laws 
 of language, as a medium of intercommunication 
 between intellectual beings. They are used in 
 
 * Professor Tayler Lewis, Six Days of Creation, p. 13, 
 et seq. 
 
32 THE ONENESS OF 
 
 all our courts of justice to determine the meaning 
 of contested documents, and they are daily used 
 by all men, consciously and almost unconsciously, 
 in settling cases of doubt. If God has spoken 
 to men, it was certainly done in harmony with the 
 laws to which men are accustomed in conveying 
 their thoughts to each other, or it is no commu- 
 nication at aU. 
 
 These principles of exegesis, therefore, bind all 
 interpreters. This mode of interpretation may 
 be difficult, but it is the only true mode. It is 
 an old maxim that "truth lies beneath the sur- 
 face." To reach it requires labor ; but that labor 
 can be performed. Nothing less than this will 
 satisfy the demands of an honest, thorough, and 
 successful exegesis of the Word of God. 
 
 Lesbian rules — rules which accommodate them- 
 selves to the wishes of men, and bend to all the 
 demands of denominational prejudice — have been 
 quite too long employed to elucidate, or rather to 
 misinterpret, the Scriptures. It was highly unfor- 
 tunate for the interests of truth, that most of the 
 interpreters, immediately succeeding the apostolic 
 age, were so thoroughly imbued with the Platonic 
 philosophy, and, after the second century, with 
 the Gnostic philosophy. 
 
THE CHRISTIAN CHUECH. 33 
 
 Under the influence of those philosophies they 
 adopted many misleading principles of exegesis, 
 which affect to some extent even the opinions of 
 the present day. A scientific system of herme- 
 neutics had then no existence. The laws of lan- 
 guage and of mental conception were little under- 
 stood. Whim, prejudice, scholastic philosophy, 
 and an exuberant imagination, were the factors in 
 biblical interpretation. Hence it is, that "pa- 
 tristic exegesis "is so often the by-word of mod- 
 ern scholars, and that so little reliance can be 
 placed upon the opinions of the early Fathers as 
 to the nature of the Church, its internal police, 
 its terms of communion, or the status of the 
 clergy. Hence it is, too, that many ecclesiastical 
 questions, to settle which the appeal is usually 
 made to the post-apostolic Fathers, remain im- 
 settled still, and must be determined, not by what 
 they thought, but by a fundamental interpreta- 
 tion of the New Testament itself.* " The re- 
 markable difference between the writings of the 
 Apostles and those of the Apostolic Fathers, who 
 
 * Referring to Clement, Ignatius, and Polycarp, the first 
 three Apostolic Fathers, Mosheim says, "These writers of 
 the first age of the Church possessed little learning, genius, 
 or eloquence." — &cl, Bist., p. 39. 
 
34 THE ONENESS OF 
 
 are yet so close upon the former in point of time, 
 is a remarkable phenomenon of its kind. While 
 in other cases such a transition is usually quite 
 gradual, in this case we find a sudden one. Here 
 there is no gradual transition, but a sudden 
 spring — a remark which is calculated to lead us 
 to a recognition of the peculiar activity of the 
 Divine Spirit in the souls of the Apostles. The 
 time of the first extraordinary operations of the 
 Holy Spirit was followed by the time of the free 
 deoelopmeni of human nature in Christianity ; and 
 here, as elsewhere, the operations of Christianity 
 must necessarily be confined before it could pene- 
 trate further, and appropriate to itself the higher 
 intellectual powers of man."* "The general 
 character of the period, previous to Cyprian, is 
 that of abstract indefiniteness. What the theo- 
 logians of this period say concerning the nature 
 of the Church is so frequently devoid of clear- 
 ness and precision, that it is almost impossible 
 fully to ascertain their real sentiments on this 
 point : it is nothing uncommon to see the same 
 Fathers evading, or even rejecting, consequences 
 which necessarily follow from their general rea- 
 sonings. They thus evince a fickleness which 
 
 * Neander's History of the Church, toI. ii. p. 329. 
 
THE CHRISTIAN CHUKCH. 35 
 
 prevents us from forming any decided and cer- 
 tain opinion as to their ideas of the nature of the 
 church." * 
 
 The Divine Inspiration of the Holy Scriptures 
 is a fact which so broadly distinguishes them from 
 all other writings, that it very naturally leads to 
 the supposition that the mode of interpreting 
 them must be equally peculiar. The inference 
 is, that that which came down from Heaven 
 must be looked upon with other eyes, handled 
 with other hands, and interpreted by other 
 canons than profane. Transcendental methods 
 only, it was supposed, could be appropriate. 
 This impression had great weight with the early 
 Fathers, and it gave rise to the allegorizing 
 interpretations of that day. Philo was perhaps 
 the most distinguished representative of that 
 class of exegetes. That method was the bane 
 of very much of the patristic exegesis. Ire- 
 nseus, the best of the Apostolical Fathers, held 
 that the Scripture is full of profound meanings, 
 and that we are as little able to understand "the 
 abundance of nature, as the superabundance of 
 Scripture." f Origen supposed that Scripture has 
 
 * Kothe, 1. c, p. 575. 
 
 t Adv. Haer., IV. 18, et II. 28. 
 
36 THE ONENESS OF 
 
 a threefold sense, corresponding to the trichoto- 
 mous division of men into body, soul, and spirit ; 
 and Clement of Alexandria attempted to estab- 
 lish the theory that the laws of Moses have a 
 threefold, and even a fourfold sense.* Baptismal 
 water was held to possess more excellent quali- 
 ties than common water, and the bread used 
 in the eucharist to be different from common 
 bread ; and the Bible, being inspired, became, 
 ipso facto, a hieroglyphic, which needed a magic 
 key to decipher it. 
 
 The. Rabbins held that God so gave the law to 
 Moses, that a thing can be shown to be clean 
 and .unclean in forty-nine different ways, and 
 they found " mountains of sense " even in the 
 Hebrew and Greek letters. 
 
 So, in later times, the influence of Aristotle 
 was scarcely more favorable to a correct under- 
 standing of the Scriptures. His philosophy, en- 
 forced by the moral power of Eome, was, for 
 centuries, supreme in the literary world. It was 
 a religious as well as a philosophical heresy, to 
 question his complicated and inconsequential 
 method of reasoning.f Hence the vagaries 
 
 * Hagenbach, vol. i. p. 87. 
 
 t " The Aristotelian philosophy led not a few to discard 
 
THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 37 
 
 which distinguished the interpretations of the 
 schoolmen. Thomas Aquinas proved to his own 
 satisfaction, and, as he thought, to the satisfac- 
 tion of others, that inferiors in the church are 
 bound to submit to superiors, by these words : 
 " The oxen were ploughing, and the asses feed- 
 ing beside them ; " and the Angelic Doctor has 
 some disciples at the present day, who, in their 
 interpretation of the Bible, like himself, set at 
 nought all common sense. Not a little of the 
 Biblical criticism of these enlightened times is a 
 sin against the alphabet. " Heaven and earth," 
 it is said, "fight in vain against dunces." 
 
 Cocceius, of Leyden, held that the Scripture 
 must be "made to mean just as much as it can," 
 and hence the familiar saying among scholars, 
 " Grotium nunquam in sacris litteris (V. T.) in- 
 venire Christum, Coccejum ubique" — " Grotius 
 could not find Christ anywhere in the Old Tes- 
 tament ; Cocceius can everywhere." He trans- 
 formed all the words of Scripture into literal 
 truth, and has been followed, in our day, by 
 counter critics, who go to the other extreme, 
 
 the doctrines of Divine Providence, the immortality of the 
 soul, the creation of the vforld, and other points, and thus 
 to become promoters of irreligion." — Mosheim's Ecd. His- 
 tory, p. 436. 
 
38 THE ONENESS OF 
 
 and empty them of their meaning by circum- 
 scribing them into the narrowest signification 
 possible. 
 
 Into the same category of absurd exegesis 
 must be placed much of the "higher criticism," 
 somewhat ostentatiously so called, which is now 
 quite popular among the rationalistic interpre- 
 ters of Germany and France. For example. Dr. 
 Schenkel, in his " Charakterbild Jesu," says, 
 The assurances which Jesus gave to persons of 
 deranged mind, "acting beneficially on their ner- 
 vous system, produced those restorative effects ; " 
 His calming the storm on the lake was a part of 
 that "torrent of legend" which overlaid his life 
 by later enthusiasms ; His resurrection was not a 
 fact of history, but a "creation of the imaginative 
 devotion of His disciples ; " and the sin against 
 the Holy Ghost is not the sin of unbelieving per- 
 sons, but the sin, forsooth, of those who "defend 
 the ancient faith of Christians against the attacks 
 of rationalists"! Dr. Strauss, in "Das Leben 
 Je.su," denying the possibility of miracles, of 
 the invisible world, and of a Personal God, 
 applies Hegel's doctrine of "Absolute Idealism" 
 to the Gospel narratives, and affirms that "the 
 sanctity of Jesus was only relative, and that he 
 
THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 39 
 
 fell far below the Absolute Idea to which the 
 thought of the apostolical age endeavored to 
 elevate him." M. Eenan, in " La Vie de J(5sus," 
 — a volume which fascinates by its incomparable 
 style, — holds that there is no such being as a 
 Personal God, and that the "god" with whicli 
 Jesus held such intimate communion was onlj' 
 the "category of the ideal;" that his "tone 
 of thought was a psychological result of the 
 sublime scenery of Northern Palestine;" that he 
 was born just at that nick of time when "the 
 world itself forced victory upon him ; " that he 
 " had this chance " of appearing at that critical 
 moment when " nothing but a perverse stupidity 
 could escape a success which was all but inevi- 
 table ; " that the world was so ripe for his 
 religion, that "he and his apostles had just 
 adroitness enough not to be wholly unequal to 
 the opportunity;" and that "the whole history 
 of early Christianity is only a sort of delicious 
 pastoral," — " toute I'hisioire du Christianisme 
 naissant est devenue de la sorte une delicieuse 
 pastorale." 
 
 There are also other methods of interpretation 
 existing among ourselves, which, though they are 
 less transcendental, lead to conclusions equally 
 
40 THE ONENESS OF 
 
 deceptive. A blind faith in tradition or parental 
 instruction, substituting sound for sense, and 
 fanciful meanings for real ones, are now most 
 fruitful sources of error. There is many a man 
 who goes to the Bible for his faith, but on the 
 mentally reserved condition, that it has got to 
 mean what he wishes it to mean. Werenfels, a 
 Dutch commentator, whose works were published 
 at Amsterdam one hundred and fifty years ago, 
 says, with profound truth, "He that goes to the 
 Bible to find his own faith, will be sure to find it 
 there ; " and yet, even in these days of greatly 
 augmented light, this is probably the practice of 
 a large majority of those who regard themselves 
 as honest and intelligent interpreters of the Word 
 of God. 
 
 But, after all, perhaps the most subtle and un- 
 suspected form of false interpretation is a sort of 
 psychical metempsychosis, which men practise 
 upon themselves. They consciously or uncon- 
 sciously infuse themselves into the Bible, or 
 inform it with their own spirit, and sentiments, 
 and philosophy; and then, in turn, take back 
 and accept their own theories as the teachings 
 of that Holy Book. But the highest authority 
 says, "Ye shall not add unto the word which I 
 
THE CHRISTIAlSr CHURCH. 41 
 
 command you, neither shall ye diminish aught 
 from it." " If any man shall add unto these 
 things, God shall add unto him the plagues that 
 are written in this Book ; and if any man shall 
 take away from the words of the Book of this 
 prophecy, God shall take away his part out of 
 the Book of Life, and out of the holy city, and 
 from the things which are written in this Book." 
 
 In the light of these general principles we see 
 the doubtful wisdom of those scholars who are 
 translating the Scriptures, avowedly in the in- 
 terest of their respective denominations. Their 
 translations will not be acknowledged to be of any 
 authority by others ; they are undermining the 
 public confidence in the common version, which 
 for centuries has commanded the highest respect 
 of the Anglo-Christian world ; and they are lend- 
 ing their influence to promote divisions among 
 good men. They emulate the liberal spirit of the 
 enthusiastic fireman, who, in a warm debate as to 
 what color the "machine" should be painted, 
 exclaimed, "Any color, so that it is red." 
 
 "Unless above himself lie can 
 Erect himself, how mean a thing is man ! " 
 
 Ignorant criticism, transcendental criticism, su- 
 perficial criticism, and party criticism have quite 
 
42 THE ONENESS OF 
 
 too long filled the world with error, and reared 
 walls of separation within "the Church of the 
 Living God." 
 
 Against all these manifold and manifest absur- 
 dities, the intelligence and Christian principle of 
 the age enter their decided protest. Thorough 
 and honest scholarship should assert itself in this 
 matter, The piety of the times should earnestly 
 invoke illumination from on high. The learning 
 of the day is competent to the desired reform. 
 The laws of human thought, the idioms and 
 structure of ancient and modern languages, the 
 force of rhetoric in its widest sense, the canons 
 of exegesis, the archaeology of Palestine and the 
 neighboring countries, — in short, all that is human 
 in the Scriptures, — can now be mastered and un- 
 derstood. Besides, Christ never intended that 
 the Revelation He has made to men should be 
 a sealed book, and that His Church should be " a 
 world-wide" and a world-long "debating club 
 over its contents." He never intended that she 
 should be " ever learning, but never able to come 
 to the knowledge of the truth." Her faith and 
 internal police He has Himself settled for all 
 men and all time. They are constant quantities, 
 and quantities which are ascertainable by a proper 
 
THE CHRISTIAN CHUECH. 43 
 
 use of the means which He has put into our 
 hands. He will make no new revelation to inter- 
 pret the old ; for — we write it with all reverence 
 — another effort to be understood would be no 
 more successful. 
 
 The real meaning of the Holy Scriptures; as to 
 all their linguistic characteristics, — and that is 
 all this head of our argument contemplates, — can 
 then be reached by an intelligent and faithful 
 application of the usual canons of exegesis. All 
 that is human in the Sacred Records can be suc- 
 cessfully interpreted by philological and gram- 
 matical principles. 
 
 In the arrangements of Divine Providence, 
 means are wisely adapted to their ends. He 
 has so ordered events that, within the last fifty 
 years, the science of Biblical interpretation has 
 been carried to a degree of thoroughness — which 
 approaches absolute perfectness — in Germany, 
 Great Britain, and the United States. Our ex- 
 egetical apparatus hardly admits of improvement. 
 Just at the time when such a loud demand for 
 harmony among Christians comes up from every 
 part of Christendom, He has thus placed in their 
 hands, as He had never done before, the means 
 of securing it. At no previous time could such 
 
44 THE OXEXESS OF 
 
 a close and exact criticism be brought to the 
 interpretation of the "Word of God. K the hon- 
 esty of the age is equal to its critical ability, the 
 great desideratum may be relieved at an early 
 day. Thorough work is indeed required. "We 
 need to drive an Artesian criticism down through 
 the super-imposed strata of false interpretation to 
 the pure fountain of truth. We need to reach a 
 rounded, a symmetrical, a finished system. We 
 need to reach the last analysis and the highest 
 generalization of truth. We need to reach what 
 Cudworth calls "the immutable morality." " Ex- 
 egesis," says Xiebuhr, '-is the irait oi finished 
 study." Professor Tyndall affirms that to Mi- 
 chael Faraday, the great recent scientific dis- 
 coverer, " it was a discomfort to reason upon 
 data which admitted of any doubt. He hated 
 what he called " doubtful knowledge," and ever 
 tended either to transfer it into the region of 
 undoubtful knowledge, or of certain and definite 
 ignorance. Pretence of all kinds, whether in life 
 or in philosophy, was hateful to him. He wished 
 to know the reality of our nescience as well as 
 of our science. " Be one thing or the other," 
 he seemed to say to an unproved hypothesis ; 
 " come out as a solid truth, or disappear as a 
 
THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 45 
 
 convicted lie." Let this spirit of rigid demon- 
 stration be brought to the interpretation of the 
 Scriptures, and a bottom exegesis will be reached, 
 and the grand obstacle to ecclesiastical harmony 
 removed. 
 
 One principle of interpretation already stated, 
 by its eminent importance, requires more special 
 consideration. All parts of the Bible must be 
 interpreted in harmony with its main design. 
 The evident object of a book must control the 
 meaning of individual expressions. Its consis- 
 tency must be maintained. What, then, is the 
 grand object of the Bible ? It has been the opinion 
 of candid men in all the ages, and therefore it 
 is no assumption to say, that that object is the 
 salvation of this lost world. If there be any 
 central Actor in the Scriptures, it is Jesus 
 Christ. To Him everything in the Old Testa- 
 ment points. . To Him " gave all the prophets 
 witness." Prom Him, too, the New Testament 
 receives its significance and interpretation. 
 Prom Him the apostles received their commis- 
 sion to disciple the world. In the words of 
 Jean Paul Eichter, " He who was the Holiest 
 among the mighty, and the Mightiest among 
 the holy, has lifted with His pierced hand 
 
46 THE ONENESS OF 
 
 empires off their hinges, has turned the stream 
 of centuries out of its channel, and still governs 
 the ages." And if there be any one fact in 
 His history which forms "the crisis of the 
 world," it is His Grucifixion ; and if His Cruci- 
 fixion has any import which is most pronounced, 
 — any which vitalizes many human hearts and 
 all history itself, — any which broadly discrimi- 
 nates it from the death of all martyrs, — any 
 which makes it stand out solitary and alone, 
 unapproached and unapproachable in this world's 
 annals, — as inanimate nature by its convulsions 
 attested at the time, — it is an Atonement. 
 That a real Atonement for sin is indispensable, 
 is loudly proclaimed by every man's conscious- 
 ness of guilt and need of pardon, and by our 
 inmost convictions that the moral government 
 of God, which sin has violated, can be main- 
 tained only by such an expedient. The grand 
 object of the Bible, then, is to reveal the Atone- 
 ment and its relation to the Salvation of men. 
 And here we stand face to face with the coun- 
 cils of Eternal Mercy, and must be careful 
 what construction we put upon those councils. 
 It being the great intent of the Scriptures to 
 reveal to man this plan of Redemption through 
 
THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 47 
 
 Infinite Grace, they must be interpreted ever- 
 more by the light of that transcendent design. 
 
 Most of the differences of faith and practice 
 within the evangelical pale, it is believed, can 
 bo composed by a faithful application to the 
 Now Testament of these principles for inter- 
 preting language. If it be said that on some 
 points of practice the Scriptures, even when 
 correctly interpreted, will be found to be silent, 
 and that much is left to be determined by the 
 sound discretion of men, it is sufficient to reply, 
 that though that may be true yet it is also 
 true, that when Christians have come to a 
 united understanding of the Holy Oracles, there 
 will be little danger that their " discretion " 
 will create discrepancies of any importance 
 whatever. 
 
 2. Another method of ascertaining what the 
 Bible teaches, is to interpret it by "the analogy 
 of faith." " If any man prophesy, let him 
 prophesy according to the proportion," xura ttjc 
 (liiiloyidi' Tri; 7ii(/rfw;, or the analogy "of faith." 
 The meaning of individual parts of the Scriptures 
 must be tested by the general tenor of the 
 whole, or by what is called " the analogy of 
 Scripture ; " and the general tenor of the whole 
 
48 THE OXEXESS OF 
 
 can find embodiment and expression only in the 
 symbols of the Church. " The analogy of 
 faith " is, therefore, the concurrent belief of the 
 church, or a resultant from "the analogy of 
 Scripture." Practically, they are one and the 
 same. The phrase "analogy of faith" will, 
 therefore, be used here to mean the general 
 teachings of the Bible, or, what is the same 
 thing, the general belief of the Church in all the 
 ages. There has been much discussion as to 
 what is the precise nature and value of this 
 method of interpretation.* Whitby held that 
 " analogy of faith " is no proper principle of 
 exegesis, because the apostle is treating of those 
 who spoke by inspiration, and not of those who 
 explain what is spoken by others. But that 
 objection was made without sulEcient discrimi- 
 nation. As there were inspired men, whose 
 authority to speak in His name God had abun- 
 dantly attested by " signs, and wonders, and 
 divers miracles, and gifts of the Holy Ghost," 
 so it follows —^ on the principle that He cannot 
 contradict Himself — that whoever teaches any- 
 thing inconsistent with the teachings of those 
 
 * See Seller, Keil, Ernestj, Beck and Morus. 
 
THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 49 
 
 men, must be a false prophet. We have, then, 
 Divine authority for using " analogy of faith " 
 to interpret what they said ; for it is only by a 
 comparison of their views with each other that 
 we can reach the truth they jointly endeavored 
 to convey. 
 
 Another objection to its use has been, that the 
 Apostle employed it merely as a test of the sincer- 
 ity of our convictions. This objection, however, 
 is decisively overruled by the fact, that such a 
 use was not germane to his argument, which was, 
 not to prove the sincerity of any man, but to 
 distinguish between those who employed their 
 " gifts " properly, and those who used them 
 improperly. This is precisely the mode in which, 
 and the purpose for which, it is here recommend- 
 ed ; namely, as a test of truth between opposing 
 claims. 
 
 But Campbell * seems to think this test super- 
 fluous, because " Lutherans, Calvinists, Armini- 
 ans, and others can respectively appeal to it 
 with equal propriety for the confirmation of their 
 opinions." Very well ; let them do it. That is 
 the very thing desired. Let every denomination 
 make that appeal, and the one, if any, which is 
 
 * Prel. Diss. D. IV. on the Gospels. 
 4 
 
50 THE ONENESS OF 
 
 sustained by the "analogy of faith," we must 
 all admit, has the strongest claims to the con- 
 fidence of the world. It is the nearest to the 
 Scriptural ground — yes, it is actually upon it. 
 But the argument cannot enure to the benefit of 
 any denomination which originated in early times 
 and died, or of any the dogmatic principles of 
 which are of modern date. The denomination, 
 in principle if not in name, must have had a long 
 career. Its creed must have been examined and 
 scrutinized by the ablest and best men in the 
 churches, and that scrutiny must have been repeat- 
 ed again and again through many centuries, till the 
 eflbrt to reach the real truth exhausted itself by a 
 close approximation to perfect results. History 
 knows but one such process. Seventeen centuries 
 have witnessed but one such consecutive efi'ort to 
 eliminate from any system of doctrine the last 
 vestiges of error. There has been one great stream 
 of doctrine running down through the Church 
 ii'om the apostolic age to the present in a con- 
 tinuous channel, ami but one. There have been 
 many side rivulets, but they have not long main- 
 tained an independent course. They have soon 
 fallen into the main current, and have contributed 
 to swell its increasing volume, or they have taken 
 
THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 51 
 
 other directions and been lost in the sands of 
 the desert. 
 
 Church polity, being a matter of much less 
 importance than doctrinal faith, has not been 
 subjected to so severe an ordeal. The very 
 names of all the denominations arc comparatively 
 modern, and many of them of quite recent origin. 
 None of them were known in apostolic or in post- 
 apostolic times. They have no continuous history 
 for eighteen hundred years. The correctness of 
 a polity must therefore be tested, not by its use 
 for eighteen centuries, because no such case has 
 existed, but by a fundamental examination of the 
 New Testament, and by its adaptation to the 
 popular necessities, and to the most enlightened 
 civilization to which the world will ever attain. 
 Continuity of the ecclesiastical principles of the 
 apostolic age is required, and not the continuity 
 of a sect. It is a remarkable fact that none of 
 the churches mentioned in the New Testament 
 were designated" by any sectarian name, and for 
 the very satisfactory reason that sects had then 
 no existence. Christ and the apostles made no 
 provision for such an anomalons condition of the 
 Church. 
 
 But what is that great current of dogmatic 
 
52 THE ONENESS OF 
 
 faith which has run through all the Christian 
 centuries ? If the Church of Christ has always 
 held any one set of doctrines, be it what it may, 
 that fact certainly furnishes the strongest pre- 
 sumptive evidence that it is the true one. It is 
 certainly safe to assume, that the doctrines she 
 has always held, are more likely to be true than 
 those she has always rejected. Those doctrines, 
 whatever they may be, are accredited by the 
 " analogy of faith," and are therefore Scriptural. 
 
 This argument proceeds on the incontestable 
 ground, that the mass of sincere Christians can- 
 not be fundamentally wrong in their religious 
 belief; first, because fundamental error is pre- 
 cluded by the very terms of the thesis ; secondly, 
 an inestimable amount of Christian intelligence, 
 character and usefulness has been the result 
 of the faith they have held ; and thirdly, the 
 contrary position would stultify the human un- 
 derstanding, unsettle the foundations of human 
 reasoning, and reduce faith and morals alike to 
 chaos. Neither of these three truths are factors 
 of any false system. 
 
 It is presumed that every one will perceive the 
 wide difference between the position, that " anal- 
 ogy of faith " is a proper principle of interpreta- 
 
THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 53 
 
 tion, and the Eomish doctrine that the " Church " 
 is the only infallible expounder of the Scriptures. 
 This principle is a much broader principle, and it 
 is entirely disinterested. The Romish theory is 
 narrow and selfish. All denominations can appeal 
 to the first for the verification or the falsification 
 of their systems ; none can appeal to the last but 
 the Papists themselves. No individual church is 
 the umpire in the case, but it must itself take 
 that for truth which is certified to it by the 
 proper methods of interpretation. The question 
 is, not what any particular church has believed, 
 but what has been the general belief of the Church 
 universal ? It is only by the application of this 
 broad and disinterested principle — the real "anal- 
 ogy of faith" — that the truth can be reached 
 and determined. 
 
 It is necessary here further to premise, that 
 the Holy Scriptures Were not written in the form 
 of a Creed or Symbol. They are not formative 
 and structural, but miscellaneous and fragmen- 
 tary. The first disciples of Christ did not, in 
 their inspired writings, propound dogmatic sys- 
 tems. Peter and James simply relate what was 
 delivered to them without any subjective reflec- 
 tion ; but John and Paul wrote somewhat more in 
 
54 THE ONENESS OF 
 
 the style, though not in the formulated manner 
 of dogmatic theology. The embodiment of their 
 teachings into Confessions of Faith was subse- 
 quent work and the work of time. Creeds are 
 the growth of generations, sometimes of centu- 
 ries, and represent the advancing cultus of the 
 Church. Though the truths of the Bible are 
 invariable quantities, capable neither of addition 
 or subtraction, and are, in themselves, finished 
 and perfect, human conceptions and representa- 
 tions of them are progressive. 
 
 What, then, has been the " faith " of the 
 church through all the Christian ages ? The 
 Creeds and Confessions, which have been formed 
 at various times, teach, with greater or less 
 explicitness, the doctrines of the Existence, the 
 Unity, the Personality, and the Perfections of 
 God, — the Trinity of Persons in the Unity of 
 the Godhead, — the Supreme Divinity of the 
 Lord Jesus Christ, — the Personality and Deity 
 of the Holy Ghost, — the fall of man, — his need 
 of regeneration, — the vicarious atonement of 
 Christ, — justification by faith and not by works, 
 — ■ the general judgment, ^ and the eternal du- 
 ration of the rewards and punishments of the 
 future world. They also affirm the binding 
 
THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 55 
 
 nature of the ordinances of Baptism and the 
 Lord's Supper, tlie sacredness of the Christian 
 Sabbath, and the Divine institution of the Chris- 
 tian ministry. A cordial belief in these great 
 articles of revealed religion has always been 
 demanded by intelligent Christians, with but few 
 exceptions, as a pre-requisite to Christian fellow- 
 ship. That there have been among them differ- 
 " ences of belief on minor points is very true, — 
 and that some of them have held these tenets 
 under that very elastic condition, " for substance 
 of doctrine," — or have held views, which to us 
 appear incompatible with an intelligent and cor- 
 dial acceptance of the doctrines of grace, — is 
 equally trae ; but, with every abatement, this is 
 an epitome of their religious faith. This was sub- 
 stantially the faith of Paul, and John, and Peter; 
 of Polycarp, and Irceneus, and Ignatius ; of Cyprian, 
 and Basil, and Justin Martyr ; of Gonstantine, 
 and Chrysostom, and Augustine ; of Pulgentius, 
 and Justine, and Gregory -flie First ; of Bede, 
 and Anselm, and Bernard ; of Wickliffe, and 
 Luther, and Calvin ; of Cranmer, and Baxter, and 
 Howe ; of Cudworth, and Hooker, and Taylor ; of 
 Owen, and Milton, and Locke ; of Eutherford, and 
 Knox, and Eobinson ; of Watts, and Doddridge 
 
56 THE ONENESS OF 
 
 and Scott ; of Fuller, and Wesley, and White- 
 field ; of Witherspoon, and Wilberforce, and 
 Gordon ; of Hall, and Venn, and Cowper ; of 
 Edwards, and Chalmers, and Dwight ; of D'Au- 
 bigne, and Neander, and Monod ; of Alexander, 
 and Woods, and Taylor ; of the Waldenses, the 
 Armenians, and the Nestorians ; of the Church 
 of Geneva, the Church of England, and the 
 Church of Scotland. This was also the faith 
 of the Puritan Fathers of New England, of the 
 Scotch Covenanters and Eeformed Dutch who 
 came to New York, and of the Huguenots who 
 fled from France to South Carolina. This is 
 also the faith of an immense majority of the 
 professed Christians now in the United States, 
 including the Baptist Churches, the Presbyterian 
 Churches, the Congregational Churches, the Re- 
 formed Dutch Church, the Lutheran Church, the 
 Episcopal Church, and the Methodist Episcopal 
 Church, as well as the numerous missionary 
 churches which they have planted in heathen 
 lauds. This must then be taken to be the Con- 
 sensus of the Church of God on earth. It is the 
 Creed of Christendom. The Christian Church has 
 always held that system of religious faith, which 
 is familiarly known among us as the Evangelical 
 system. 
 
THE CHRISTIAN CHUKCH. 57 
 
 If, then, you would ascertain the real meaning 
 of the Scriptures, stop and listen reverently to 
 the great voices which are sounding along the 
 galleries of time, — to the accordant chorus of 
 the great and the good of all the ages. Their 
 decision, as to what are the truths of the Bible, 
 is most emphatic and pronounced. In this mat- 
 ter, "the voice of the people is the voice of 
 God." So far, then, as the "analogy of faith" 
 throws light on this subject, • — and it throws 
 much, — it shows us what the truth really is* , 
 
 It is not at all inconsistent with this argument, 
 that the later Confessions of Faith are more full 
 and explicit on some points than those of the 
 patristic and mediaeval ages. They become so 
 just as rapidly as different heretics denied the 
 essential doctrines of grace, and brought them 
 under direct and critical examination. 
 
 The apostle Jude calls upon the " beloved," 
 to whom he wrote, to " contend earnestly for 
 the faith which was once delivered to the saints." 
 
 * "As the theologian passes the several ages of the Church 
 in review, and becomes acquainted with the results to which 
 the general mind of the Church has come in interpreting the 
 Scriptures, he runs little hazard in regard to their meaning 
 and contents." — Professor Shedd's Discourses and Essays, 
 p. 151. 
 
58 THE ONENESS OF 
 
 This expression clearly implies that a formal 
 body of truth, known as "the faith," had even 
 then been organized under apostolic supervision 
 and with apostolic sanction. It was the " faith," 
 — not fides qua creditur, hut fides quce creditur,- 
 not the act of believing, but the thing believed.* 
 That this is the true meaning of Jude is the 
 opinion of Erasmus, Beza, Wolfius, Grotius, 
 Hammond, Whitby, Sherlock, Doddridge, Alford, 
 Bengel, De Wette, Sticr and others. 
 
 The "Apostles' Creed," so called, though not 
 probably framed by the apostles but by later 
 writers, was the next most important attempt 
 to incorporate the truths of the Bible into for- 
 mulated articles."}" That venerable symbol, hus, 
 through the centuries since its formation, com- 
 manded the respect and assent of all true be- 
 lievers ; and such are its simplicity, brevity and 
 general correctness, that it might well be ac- 
 cepted as the basis of a universal or cosmical 
 Church. J 
 
 * Garbett's Bampton Lectures. 1867. Lond. edit. p. 7. 
 
 t Moslieim says, "This Creed arose from small begin- 
 nings, and was gradually enlarged, as occasions required, in 
 order to exclude new errors from the Church." — Ecd. Hist. 
 London edition. 1867. p. 40. 
 
 X The battle-field of Cliristianity has always been around 
 
THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 59 
 
 That symbol is in the following terms : "I 
 believe in God, the Father Almighty, maker of 
 heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ his only- 
 Son our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy 
 Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under 
 Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead and buried ; 
 he descended into hell ; the third day he rose 
 again from the dead ; he ascended into heaven, 
 and sitteth on the right hand of the Father 
 Almighty ; from thence he shall come to judge 
 the quick and the dead. I believe in the Holy 
 Olwsi ; the Holy Catholic Church ; the commun- 
 ion of saints ; the forgiveness of sins ; the res- 
 urrection of the body ; and the life everlasting. 
 Amen." 
 
 The Symbolum Quicunique, commonly ascribed 
 to Athanasius but more probably composed under 
 the influence of Augustine, is still more explicit 
 as to the character of Christ ; — " This is the 
 catholic faith, that we worship One God in a 
 Trinity, and a Trinity in a Unity, neither con- 
 founding the Persons, nor dividing the Substance. 
 
 the Cross. " What ihinlc ye of Christ ? " is the question 
 which has long agitated the world, and will long continue 
 to agitate it. The reader cannot fail to notice, as we 
 proceed, how much it has had to do in the adjustment of 
 the creeds of all the Christian ages. 
 
60 THE ONENESS OP 
 
 The Father is eternal, the Son is eternal, the 
 Holy Spirit is eternal." 
 
 When Arius denied the real Deity of Christ, 
 Constantine summoned at Nicsea the first (Ecu- 
 menical Council, A. D. 325, to pass upon that 
 question ; and that council, composed of three 
 hundred and eighteen clergymen, representing the 
 intelligence and piety of that day, formally in- 
 serted in their Creed the article of His Supreme 
 Divinity, and with great scientific precision of 
 statement. The sneer of Gibbon about the 
 "iota" which separates the semi-Arian from the 
 Orthodox faith (Homoiousion from Homoousion) 
 was equally characteristic and gratuitous. A 
 letter or two, indeed, represented all the differ- 
 ence between the Heterodox and Orthodox parties, 
 and yet that difference was infinite. The Arians 
 held the Homoiousion, as it implied the rejection 
 of the Deity of Christ while pretending to hold 
 it ; and hence the Nicene Council inserted the 
 Homoousion, as the symbol of the belief of the 
 Christian Church in the literal Godhead of her 
 Founder — a term which could not, by any possi- 
 bility, be perverted.* The definitions of the 
 
 * " The difference between the Homoiousion and the 
 Homoousion convulsed the world for the simple reason, 
 
THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 61 
 
 Nicene Symbol are wonderful specimens of dis- 
 criminating statement ; and, on the points upon 
 which that Council delivered themselves, the most 
 subtle and scientific minds of later days have been 
 unable to make scarcely the slightest improve- 
 ment. That Symbol embodies the germinal prin- 
 ciples of all the later Confessions. 
 
 Afterward, the Nestorian and Eutychian contro- 
 versies called out the trenchant definitions of the 
 Athanasian Creed, which was designed not to add 
 to the truth, but to guard it against new phases 
 of error, — " Who, although He be God and Man, 
 yet He is not two, but one Christ ; not by con- 
 version of the Godhead into flesh, but by taking 
 of Manhood into God ; One altogether ; not by 
 confusion of Substance, but by unity of Per- 
 son." 
 
 Three other (Ecumenical Councils were called 
 to determine as many different questions, re- 
 lating to the doctrine of the Trinity and the 
 Person of Christ ; and their decisions, too, have 
 been universally accepted, not merely by the 
 Greek and Eoman Churches, but by Protestant 
 
 that in that difference lay the whole question of the real 
 truth or falsehood of our Lord's actual Divinity." 
 Llddon's Bampton Lectures, London edition, p. 435. 
 
02 THE ONENESS OF 
 
 Churches, as setting forth the real teachings 
 of the Holy Scriptures. " There are but four 
 things," says the "judicious" Hooker, "which 
 concur to make complete the whole state of our 
 Lord Jesus Christ — his deitij, his manhood, the 
 conjunction of both, and the distinction of the 
 one from the other, being joined in one. Four 
 principal heresies there are which in those things 
 have withstood the truth ; Avians, by bending 
 themselves against the Deity of Christ ; Apollo- 
 narians, by maiming and misinterpreting that 
 which belongeth to his human nature ; Nestori- 
 ans, by rending Christ asunder and dividing him 
 into two Persons ; and the followers of Eutyches, 
 by confounding in his person those natures which 
 they should distinguish. Against these there 
 have been/oMr most famous ancient general Coun- 
 cils ; the Council of Nice in 325, to define against 
 Arians ; the Council of Constantinople in 381, 
 against ApoUonarians ; the Council of Ephesus in 
 481, against Nestorians ; and the Council of Chal- 
 cedon in 451, against EutycMans. In four words 
 — a).rfiiaz, jeliai;, aSiUiQuai;, u(xuy;(vTOi;, truly, per- 
 fectly, indivisibly, distinctly ; the first being applied 
 to his being God ; the second to his being man ; 
 the third to his being both, one ; and the fourth 
 
THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 63 
 
 to liis still continuing in that one, both." * " The 
 earlier symbols of the Church, that is, the Apos- 
 tles' Creed and the Nicene and Athanasian 
 Creeds, may be called the Shibboleth of the 
 Catholic Church, by which slie was distinguished 
 from all heretics." f 
 
 Again, in 1530, it became necessary to defend 
 the real Divinity of Christ against other perver- 
 sions, and the Augsburg Confession, drawn up 
 by Luther and Melanchthon, re-afSrmed that truth 
 with new safeguards, and asserted the necessity, 
 freeness and efficacy of Divine Grace. In 1553, 
 the Thirty-Nine xViiicles were sanctioned by the 
 English Parliament, which was another important 
 step in Biblical interpretation. J In 1619, the 
 Synod of Dort defined, with greater clearness 
 than any preceding Confession, the important 
 difference between Calvinism and Arminianism ; 
 the Waldensian, Bohemian, Augustinian and Tet- 
 rapolitan Confessions, and several others, though 
 not here arranged in chronological order, all con- 
 tained improvements on their predecessors ; and in 
 
 * Eccl. Polity, Bk. V. Sect. 54. 
 
 t Hagenbach's History of Doctrines, vol. i. p. 6. 
 
 J A detailed account of the formation of the Thirty-Nine 
 Articles may be found in Strype's Memorials of Archbishop 
 Cranmer, Vol. I. p. 392. 
 
64 THE ONENESS OF 
 
 1643, the Westminster Confession was constructed, 
 and it surpassed all others for symmetry, compre- 
 hensiveness and completeness. That Confession 
 has met with such general favor among Evangeli- 
 cal Christians, that few attempts have since been 
 made to form a better one ; for the Helvetic 
 Confession in 1645, the Cambridge Platform in 
 1648, the Savoy Confession in 1680, and the Say- 
 brook Platform in ITOS, are little else than re- 
 affirmances of the Westminster. We thus have 
 a series of Confessions extending back to the 
 Apostolic age, amounting in all to some forty in 
 number, proclaiming the existence and the iden- 
 tity of what is now known as the Evangelical 
 System of Faith. 
 
 In the great departments of scientific thought — 
 Philosophy, Law, Theology — progress has been 
 made which reilects the highest credit upon the 
 human understanding. Plato, Aristotle, Des- 
 cartes, Kant, Locke, Eeid, Hamilton, Porter, 
 are names which represent the advance in phil- 
 osophic speculation ; Liw, in its widest sense, 
 has made constant progress from the ideal Ee- 
 public of Plato, the Pandects of Justinian, the 
 Magna Charta of England, the Utopia of Sir 
 Thomas More, the Oceana of Harrington, the 
 
THE CHRISTIAN CHUECH. G5 
 
 Code Napoleon, the British Eeform Laws, to that 
 crowning act of popular freedom — the last 
 Amendment of the Constitution of the United 
 States ; but nowhere has investigation been 
 attended with more brilliant results than in 
 Theology, scientia scientiarum. Taking our point 
 of departure from the puerile interpretations of 
 the earliest Fathers, where can we find greater 
 intellectual achievements than we discover, as we 
 pass along through the centuries, in the succes- 
 sive additions to the stock of correct theological 
 thought, till we come to the exact terminology 
 of the scientific, self-consistent, rotund Symbol 
 of Westminster. That Symbol is the accumu- 
 lated thought of ages. 
 
 It need hardly be said, to guard against mis- 
 conception, that the churches do not by any 
 means regard the Westminster Confession as of 
 equal authority with the Holy Scriptures. The 
 one is a human, the other a Divine production. 
 The one is fallible, the other infallible. Many 
 centuries of prayer, and study, and painstaking 
 may not have filtered out of that Symbol every 
 particle of error, but it is, unquestionably, the 
 best uninspired compendium of the teachings of 
 5 
 
66 THE ONENESS OF 
 
 the Bible which the wisdom of man has been 
 able to frame. 
 
 It is not a little ioteresting to note how a few 
 leading minds, which have wrought principally 
 outside of Councils and Confessions, have largely 
 contributed to this splendid result. Luther gave 
 the finishing scientific touch to the doctrine of 
 "justification by grace." Calvin surpassed aU 
 other men in the grand synthesis of Christian 
 doctrine which we find in the "Institutes." 
 Leibnitz, with strength almost superhuman, wres- 
 tled with the tremendous problem of moral evil. 
 Edwards illuminated the " History of Redemp- 
 tion," the "Freedom of the Will," "Original 
 Sin," and the distinction between natural and 
 moral ability, with unwonted light from on high ; 
 and as the soundest theology is useless without 
 its practical applications, who has set a better 
 example than Edwards of so enforcing its truths 
 upon the guilty, that many of the congregation 
 sprang to their feet in terror, and clung to the 
 balusters of the pews to save themselves from 
 sinking into heU ; or who has transfigured those 
 truths with a personal religious experience more 
 sweet, more devout, more transcendent, and car- 
 ried his hearers up to loftier heights of celestial 
 
THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 67 
 
 joy, — heights so lofty that they mistook their 
 emotions for beatific visions and seraphic rap- 
 tures ? Interpretations of the Bible which pro- 
 duce such practical results, must certainly be 
 taken to have reached its true meaning — its 
 inmost verities. 
 
 Thus it appears that, for more than seventeen 
 hundred years, the wisest, holiest men in all the 
 Church have most strenuously endeavored, by a 
 continuous self-correcting process, to penetrate, 
 reach and enucleate the inmost heart and mean- 
 ing of the Scriptures. Experiment is the great 
 means of verification. The world has produced 
 no better minds than those, which, in different 
 ages, have employed their acutest and profound- 
 est powers in this herculean investigation. Au- 
 gustine and Athanasius, in the Early Church ; 
 Anselm and Aquinas, of the Church of the Mid- 
 dle Ages ; and Luther, and Calvin, and Edwards, 
 of the Modern Church, have brought dialectics to 
 the interpretation of the Scriptures, which have 
 never been surpassed in human story ; and if 
 such men, and many others, who were nearly 
 their compeers for acuteness and depth of re- 
 search and who have found the same dogmatic 
 truths in the Bible, have failed to reach its real 
 
68 THE ONENESS OF 
 
 meaning, success would seem to be impossible 
 to human endeavor. But they have not failed. 
 This rapid review of the progress which has 
 been made in collecting the more important 
 truths of the Bible into formularies and symbols, 
 till those efforts have exhausted themselves by 
 near approximation to perfect results, shows 
 quite conclusively that they have succeeded, and 
 it shows, too, what those truths really are. 
 
 Now, if there have been fifty or twenty par- 
 allel cases — or if there has been one parallel 
 case — of effort to ascertain the true meaning 
 of the Scriptures, carried on through so many 
 centuries by the best men in the churches, all 
 taxing their highest endeavors to reach "the 
 truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the 
 truth," and yet have come to results conflicting 
 with those of the Westminster Symbol, then it 
 
 will 
 
 " cast 
 
 Ominous conjecture on the whole success," — 
 
 this argument from "analogy" will have to be 
 abandoned. But the world knows no such case. 
 It has not existed. The only Faith, then, which 
 has passed through that ordeal, and which has 
 been oecumenically pronounced correct, must be 
 
THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 69 
 
 the Faith of the Bible. It is morally impossible 
 that it can be otherwise. It is also morally im- 
 possible to unsettle the Faith which for eighteen 
 centuries has been crystallizing' into this concrete 
 form. It is impossible to overthrow truths which 
 are concatenated by such internal sequence and 
 coherence. They must be ultimate truths. This 
 historical or analogical method may then be safe- 
 ly accepted as a most important means of ascer- 
 taining the true signification of the Scriptures. 
 
 3. Another method of determining what reli- 
 gious doctrines are truly scriptural is, to inquire 
 whether they are acceptable or repulsive to the 
 natural feelings of the heart. The two methods 
 of interpretation already considered were in some 
 sense exoteric ; the two that remain are esoteric. 
 Those were objective ; these are subjective. 
 
 The Scriptures themselves authenticate this in- 
 ward test of truth. " The carnal mind is enmity 
 against God, is not subject to the law of God, 
 neither indeed can be." "The natural man re- 
 ceiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for 
 they are foolishness unto him ; neither can he 
 know them, because they are spiritually dis- 
 cerned." "They are of the world, therefore 
 speak they of the world, and the world heareth 
 
70 THE ONENESS OF 
 
 them. "We 'are of God. He that knoweth God, 
 heareth us. He that is not of God, heareth not 
 ns. Hereby," that is, by this test, "know we 
 the spirit of truth and the spirit of error." The 
 facts are here affirmed, that the distinctive truths 
 of the Bible are cordially accepted and loved by 
 all real Christians, and that they are totally re- 
 pugnant to the taste of the "world," or of the 
 " natural man." By the application of this test, 
 we have then the highest presumptive proof that 
 certain religious tenets are true, and that certain 
 others are false. Discrimination, however, is 
 here to be made. It is indispensable to a cor- 
 rect understanding and a proper application of 
 this test, that we distinguish between that oppo- 
 sition, which arises from a perverted education 
 and consequent imperfect conceptions of the 
 truth, and that repugnance to it which is often 
 felt by the moral sensibilities. The first is pure- 
 ly intellectual ; the last is wholly moral. The 
 first is simply the result of misconception, and 
 therefore it is no test at all. The other is emo- 
 tional, and it is therefore a real and proper test. 
 It is one of the phases of human psychology, 
 that, in a matter so important as that now before 
 us, the intellectual sometimes so far overrides 
 
THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 71 
 
 the moral, that truths which are acceptable to 
 the taste of all good men, are, by prejudice, 
 rejected altogether, or are held with many 
 mental protests. Here is a point where tradi- 
 tion or education has wonderful effect. Doubt- 
 less much of the controversy among Christians- 
 of the evangelical communions, arises from mis- 
 conception of each other's views. They do not 
 agree in their ^terminology. They attach differ- 
 ent meanings to the same terms ; and hence it 
 often turns out, that when the doctrine about 
 which they differ is expressed in other words, 
 they instantly find themselves at one. Logoma- 
 chy is a proverbial source of misunderstanding 
 and division. 
 
 Take, for illustration, a familiar example. The 
 simplest statement of the doctrine of " election," 
 as it is held by Paul in the eighth and ninth 
 chapters of the Epistle to the Eomans, awakens 
 in the minds of some truly Christian men a host 
 of objections ; but waive that scriptural formula, 
 and state that doctrine without any dilution in 
 other terms, and it is at once accepted. The 
 sanctified hearts of prejudiced men really love 
 truths, which a wrong education has taught them 
 to reject. 
 
72 THE ONENESS OF 
 
 But passing by this intellectual opposition to 
 the truth, which has no relation to the present 
 issue, the appeal is now made to the unsanciified 
 heart. 
 
 "To teach moral truth," says Liddon, "is to 
 throw down a challenge to human nature — 
 human nature being such as it actually is ; that 
 is to say, conscious of more or less disloyalty to 
 the moral light which it already possesses, and 
 indisposed to become responsible for knowledge 
 of a yet higher standard of moral truth, the 
 existence of which it may already suspect." * 
 According to this test, any religious doctrines 
 which are distasteful to the unrenewed heart, are 
 therefore true. The fact that they are offensive, 
 is the strongest presumptive evidence that they 
 are right; and instead of being a suflScient reason, 
 as many seem to suppose, why they should be 
 rejected, it is the scriptural reason why they 
 should be embraced. 
 
 Hostility to the doctrines of the Evangelical 
 system of Faith is the normal temper of the 
 human heart. It was so in the days of Christ 
 and the Apostles, and it is so still. The heart 
 is fertile of expedients to get rid of this system. 
 
 * Bampton Lectures, p. 168. 
 
THE CS.RIST1XS CHURCH. 73 
 
 It has made more denominations than conscience 
 has ever made. Indeed, not a few of the denom- 
 inations have been formed, and are now sustained, 
 for the sole purpose of quieting fears which are 
 awakened by the Evangelical doctrines. Men 
 desire a religion which will not disturb them. 
 They desire a religion which has no pains and 
 penalties. But the Evangelical theory allows 
 them no peace while living in sin. In it, there 
 is a " fearful looking for of judgment." Hence 
 it is, that this system is the object of their 
 special aversion. Against no other system have 
 the shafts of ridicule and sarcasm been hurled 
 with such persistent vigor, and such concentrated 
 venom. It has encountered the sneering cynicism 
 of Celsus and Porphyry, of Edward Gibbon and 
 Oliver Wendell Holmes, and the bolder vitupera- 
 tion of Julian the Apostate, Thomas Paine and 
 Theodore Parker. Its enemies have subsidized 
 the pulpit and the press in their unholy warfare, 
 and wealth and taste, and learning and fashion 
 have joined hands to destroy it. We find this 
 dislike of Evangelical truth in the " higher criti- 
 cism " of Strauss, of Schenkel, of Hegel, of 
 Renan, and of the Oxford Essayists and Eeview- 
 ers; and we find it, too, on some of the pages 
 
74 THE ONENESS OF 
 
 of the Atlantic Monthly and the North American 
 Review. By the universal instinct of both the 
 ignorant and the refined, this system has been 
 singled out, in all times and nations vs^here it 
 has been known, as the special object of bur- 
 lesque and contempt. Culture and comity may 
 qualify the asperity of the terms in which this 
 opposition is expressed, but in no degree the 
 asperity of the heart. "The ofience of the 
 cross " has not " ceased." 
 
 Pe?- contra, the Scriptures, interpreted in the 
 interests of naturalism, create no emotional dis- 
 turbance. A Christianity, falsely so called, which 
 rejects a Personal God, is quite acceptable to 
 Spinoza and Ealph Waldo Emerson. A Chris- 
 tianity, again miscalled, Avithout Christ as a Di- 
 vine Person, an Atoning Savior, and a Pinal 
 Judge, awakens no aversion. A Christianity, 
 still misnamed, which does not demand a re- 
 generation of the heart as an indispensable pre- 
 requisite to salvation, arouses no enmity. A 
 Christianity, of the pseudo type, which limits the 
 punishment of sin to the present life, meets with 
 no special objection. A Christianity, stiU false, 
 wWch teaches that, "though some men seem to 
 be too bad for heaven, they are yet too good for 
 
THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 75 
 
 hell," is tolerated. A Christianity, false again, 
 which teaches that if there be any punishment in 
 the future state it will be temporary, and will 
 be succeeded by everlasting joy, is gingerly en- 
 dured. In short, if you will eliminate from the 
 Scriptures everything which is supernatural, and 
 especially that doctrine which Paul preached 
 and which is the most repulsive of all, — " Jesus 
 Christ and Him crucified," — which was "to the 
 Jews an offence and to the Greeks a folly," 1 
 
 Cor. i. 23, 'fll^cls Si y.rjgiaao^uev Xgiaiov iajavQuiftifoi'^ 
 lovSaloig ^hv o:i&vSu).ov, Ellrjcji 5e [i(x)qlav ^ — the hu- 
 man heart will give you a carte blanche to interpret 
 the remainder as you please. 
 
 It is a fact of great significance, that of all 
 the beliefs which claim to be Christian, no one 
 of them awakens any opposition in the human 
 heart except the Evangelical. That, then, must 
 be the true faith. The unhumbled heart indi- 
 cates it with a certainty as infallible, as the un- 
 influenced magnetic needle points to the pole. 
 
 A true interpretation of the Scriptures is not 
 likely to be reached in the face of prejudice 
 against the truth, whether that prejudice arises 
 from ignorance or malice. Both are serious ob- 
 stacles, but the latter is the most implacable and 
 
76 THE ONENESS OF 
 
 the most difficult to be removed. Very slight 
 untoward iniiuences will deflect the needle from 
 its polarity, and put in jeopardy the best ship 
 with all it contains. Very slight emotional dis- 
 turbances, too, will prevent an honest inquiry 
 after religious truth. A mote will blur the clear- 
 est vision. Men cannot see the truths of the 
 Bible, in their exact forms and in their true re- 
 lations, if the least particle of prejudice be inter- 
 posed. No man is an honest interpreter while 
 he is under the influence of any prepossession 
 against the truth of which he is in quest, and 
 though deliverance from it is indispensable, such 
 deliverance is about the highest achievement of 
 humanity. 
 
 For eighteen centuries and more, Evangelical 
 Christianity has endured this opposition of the 
 heart with entire equanimity. When it has been 
 smitten on the one cheek, it has turned the other 
 also. It sheds tears of compassion over its ene- 
 mies, and cries, with all earnestness, " Father, 
 forgive them, for they know not what they do ! " 
 and then it passes on to fulfil its mission of ' 
 mercy, — instructing the ignorant, cheering the 
 disconsolate, relieving the oppressed, making 
 codes of legislation more humane, lifting whole 
 
THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 77 
 
 nations to higher planes of civilization, and 
 spreading such beneficence over its wide do- 
 main, that the world is resonant with its praise. 
 But these temporal blessings are mere incidental 
 benefits, which Christianity "scatters by the way 
 on her -sublime march to immortality." 
 
 The crowning authentication which Heaven 
 has given this System is its transforming influ- 
 ence upon the hearts of men. It has already 
 humbled multitudes which arithmetic fails to 
 number; but its conquests will be far greater in 
 future times. Here is the moral power which is 
 to save the world, and fill heaven with regener- 
 ated souls. On the other hand, which of the 
 false systems does the Holy Spirit bless to the 
 conversion of men ? Under none of them, where 
 there is an entire absence of evangelical motives, 
 does any man cry out, in prostrating anguish of 
 spirit, "God be merciful to me a sinner!" It 
 is a matter of universal notoriety, that all pure 
 Revivals of religion are the effects of the Evan- 
 gelical Faith, and of none other. Their neces- 
 sity is admitted by no other; indeed, they are 
 the scorn and derision of all others. This sys- 
 tem alone recognizes their indispensableness to 
 the conversion of the world, and it alone con- 
 
78 THE ONENESS OP 
 
 tains within itself the power which will trans- 
 form this planet, with all its sin and misery, into 
 the very Paradise of God. 
 
 The seal of the Divine approbation is thus 
 placed upon it. It has the " superscription " 
 of the Most High. " Is not my word iike as 
 a fire? saith the Lord." "The word of God," 
 rightly interpreted and properly felt, "is quiet 
 and powerful, sharper than any two-edged sword, 
 piercing even to the dividing asunder of the soul 
 and spirit, of the joints and marrow, and is a 
 discerner of the thoughts and intents of the 
 heart." When, then, you find any religious 
 doctrines which "cut you to the heart;" which 
 execute upon you the terrors of the law; which 
 agitate you by day and allow you uo sleep at 
 night ; which convince you that you are a guilty 
 and ruined man, that you can never save your- 
 self, and that God must do it or you will perish, 
 — you may be morally certain that you have 
 arrived at the very verities of the Bible. Error 
 does not make men feel so; the truth does. 
 This principle of interpretation is, therefore, in- 
 valuable. As between the Evangelical denomina- 
 tions on the one side, and all others which claim 
 to find their faiths in the Bible on the other, this 
 
THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 79 
 
 test of truth will be found to be convenient, 
 easily applied, searching, infallible, decisive. 
 
 4. Another method of ascertaining the real 
 meaning of the Scriptures, is the experimental, 
 or a practical compliance with the will of God so 
 far as we now know it. "If any man will do 
 His will, he shall know of the doctrine." " Then 
 shall we know, if we follow on to know the 
 Lord." "Blessed art thou, Simon Bar Jona, for 
 flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but 
 my Father which is in heaven." " In Thy light 
 shall we see light." To understand the spiritual 
 import of the Bible, the moral feelings of the 
 inquirer must be in harmony with the truth itself. 
 The eye cannot see, unless it is adapted to the 
 light.* The ear cannot hear, unless it is adapted 
 to the laws of sound. So in the interpretation 
 of the Scriptures, " there must be two answering 
 spirits." f It is a pregnant fact that the Scrip- 
 tures, when speaking of man in his intellectual 
 capacity, do not speak of the understanding or 
 the reasoning powers, but of the " understanding 
 
 * Goethe affirms this trutli with great beauty, — War nicht 
 das Auge sonenhaft, wie konnten wir das Lickt erhlicken, 
 &.C. — Were not the eye akin to the sun, how could we be- 
 hold the light ? 
 
 t Ecce Deus, p. 181. 
 
80 THE ONENESS OP 
 
 heart" — making the "heart" to be the great 
 
 intuitive faculty. This is the psychology of the 
 
 Bible. This "understanding heart," wrought 
 
 within us by the special influences of the Holy 
 
 Spirit in regeneration, is the key which opens 
 
 to the intellectual perceptions the wondrous 
 
 system of Eevealed Truth. Those truths "are 
 
 all plain to him that understandeth." Thus Keble 
 
 sung, — 
 
 " " This is a Book, Tcho runs may read, 
 Which heavenly truth imparts. 
 And all the lore its scholars need, 
 Pure eyes and Christian hearts." 
 
 Every observing man is aware of the influence 
 which our philosophy exerts upon our dogmatic 
 opinions. Different men have different philoso- 
 phies, and this conducts them to different theolo- 
 gies. This cause of theologic divergence needs 
 to be very seriously considered. It is impossible 
 wholly to divest ourselves of its influence, and, 
 were it possible, it is not desirable to do so pro- 
 vided our philosophy is in harmony with the phi- 
 losophy of the Bible. Though the primary object 
 of the Scriptures is not to teach us what the true 
 philosophy is, they imply a system of philosophy 
 which is true. Something more than a knowledge 
 of languages and of the canons of criticism is 
 
THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 81 
 
 needed to reach it. It cannot be understood, 
 except by a true Christian experience. 
 
 Philosophers from the time of Socrates have 
 never been agreed as to the number, tlie nature, 
 the nomenclature, and the classification of the 
 mental and moral powers, or as to their relations 
 to each other, to the truths of the Bible, and to 
 the action of the Holy Spirit upon them in regen- 
 eration ; and they never will be agreed, till their 
 systems recognize the most important phenomena 
 in human history, ■ — conviction of sin, conversion 
 to Christ, and the subsequent process of sanctifi- 
 cation. That mental and moral experience is in 
 harmony with a true psychology. What two 
 philosophers have ever agreed in their definitions 
 of the familiar terms, "mind," "heart," "con- 
 science," "moral sense," "will," "affections," 
 "reason," "judgment," " understanding," " im- 
 agination," "memory," or have shown the rela- 
 tions of these faculties and powers to that 
 wonderful and well-authenticated change in many 
 men, — their passage "from darkness into marvel- 
 lous light"? No philosophy can be sound which 
 does not recognize that remarkable phenomenon 
 in human life. That phenomenon is of such 
 transcendent moment to every human being, that 
 6 
 
82 THE ONENESS OF 
 
 it throws all other concernments entirely into the 
 shade, and it has too close a relation to our intel- 
 lectual powers to be ignored by any thorough 
 mental philosopher. 
 
 Let then all the intellectual and moral facul- 
 ties be singled out and properly defined, named, 
 arranged and classified ; and especially let their 
 normal relations to divine truth and to the work 
 of the Spirit in regeneration and sanctification be 
 clearly described, and we shall soon see jarring 
 systems of theology come into harmony, the 
 Gospel preached more effectively, the Holy Ghost 
 work more powerfully, and the dogmatic differ- 
 ences among Christians minimized down to in- 
 finitesimal quantities. The long-standing con- 
 troversy between Calvinists and Arminians, who 
 have experienced the power of the Gospel on 
 their hearts, will be adjusted ; the " schools " in 
 New England and in the Presbyterian Church will 
 vanish ; and other imbroglios cease. 
 
 The highest authorities sustain these views of 
 the subject. John Stuart Mill says, "A true 
 psychology is the indispensable scientific basis of 
 morals." The words of Anselm are replete with 
 wisdom, — "I do not Icnow in order that I may 
 believe, but I believe in order that I may know." 
 
THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 83 
 
 The profound Pascal also says with the truest 
 philosophy, "Divine things are infinitely above 
 nature, and God only can place them in the soul. 
 He has designed that they shall pass from the 
 heart into the head, and not from the head into 
 the heart." Augustine affirms that " faith pre- 
 cedea scientific knowledge." John Norton, of 
 Boston, used to say, " Men do not need new 
 light, but new sight." An obedient heart is the 
 best discerner of truth. Intimacy with Christ is 
 the beat insight. To the man whose spiritual 
 eyes have been opened, 
 
 " A glory gilds the sacred page, 
 Majestic like the sun." 
 
 This experimental intuition is a witness whose 
 testimony cannot be overthrown. It is the evi- 
 dence of consciousness, - — • the highest evidence 
 known to man. Nothing can be more certain, — 
 nothing more conclusive. This faith, so satisfy- 
 ing, so illuminating, so tenacious, can be ac- 
 counted for upon no principle of philosophy. It 
 is of celestial origin. It has " subdued kingdoms, 
 wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped 
 the mouths of lions, and quenched the violence of 
 fire." It has triumphantly sustained many a 
 
84 THE ONENESS OF 
 
 Christian in his mortal agony at the stake, and 
 made him sing, " None but Christ, None but 
 Christ," as the encircling flames dismissed his 
 joyful spirit to "join the glorious company of the 
 apostles, the goodly fellowship of the prophets, 
 and the noble army of the martyrs." Eousseau 
 has well said, on the supposition that Christianity 
 is a fable, " L'Evangile a des caracteres de verite 
 si grands, si frappants, si parfaiiement inimito 
 hies, que I'inventeur en serait plus Stonnant que 
 le heros " — " The inventor of characters so grand, 
 so striking, so perfectly inimitable, would be more 
 Wonderful than the hero." 
 
 That interpretation of the Bible, then, which 
 finds in it a Faith so self-sacrificing, so calm, so 
 unflinching even in death, must be the true inter- 
 pretation, for it is just the Faith which every 
 human being needs, and which, it must bo pre- 
 sumed, the Scriptures were given to teach. Such 
 Faith is the highest generalization of Revealed 
 Truth. 
 
 To immortal beings, passing from this pre- 
 paratory state to a higher sphere of existence, 
 triumph in the transit is the only sanity. In that 
 supreme moment, all the past is suddenly con- 
 densed into the present, and we are confronted 
 
THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 85 
 
 with that mysterious and awful Future, in the 
 presence of which all heroism falters, and philoso- 
 phy has nothing to offer. We need a Faith which 
 can do all for us, as lost sinners, which is indis- 
 pensable by way of preparation for that dread 
 moment, — a Faith which can amply sustain us 
 if called to meet the king of terrors in his most 
 appalling forms, — a Faith which can soothe and 
 comfort in the absence of all the appliances of 
 domestic affection, — a Faith which sets the 
 gates of Heaven ajar and floods the dark valley 
 with light and joy. Such Faith is the alone 
 Faith in the Atoning Blood. It is therefore the 
 Faith of the Scriptures. 
 
 A rSsumS of the whole case then shows that 
 these four methods of interpretation, — the exe- 
 getical, the historical, the executive, and the experi- 
 mental, — if faithfully used, are competent to 
 settle every important case of doubt, and to 
 "lead us into all truth." It is believed that 
 there are no theological or ecclesiastical ques- 
 tions, now in dispute among men who accept the 
 Holy Scriptures as a Revelation from God, which 
 these methods, in their severalty and by their 
 union, cannot reach and determine. These ques- 
 tions are not so difficult of solution as some which 
 
86 THE ONENESS OF 
 
 have been raised by modern science, or by the 
 enigmatical language of prophecy. They lie 
 more within the range of the usual canons of 
 interpretation. It may be difficult to ascertain 
 the precise length of the "days" in the First 
 of Genesis, — whether they were the vast, olamic 
 periods demanded by the geologists, or whether 
 they were mere solar days ; it may severely tax 
 the ability of criticism to determine, whether the 
 "■^^hole earth" covered by the Deluge, was sim- 
 ply the land of Shinar and the adjacent countries, 
 or whether it was the orbis terrarum of Coperni- 
 cus ; it may demand unusual scrutiny to defend 
 the origin of the human race against the plausi- 
 ble attacks of the "development" theory, and 
 to explain the number of the beast and the era 
 of the millennium. Some of these questions 
 carry us into that adumbrated border territory 
 between Revelation and Science, which has but 
 recently begun to be explored, and others of them 
 were intentionally precluded from interpretation, 
 until they should be explained by the occurrence 
 of the facts predicted. But the dogmatic and 
 ecclesiastical differences among believers in the 
 Divine Revelation, and especially those which 
 separate the Evangelical brotherhood into rival 
 
THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 87 
 
 denominations, involve no such prophetical, archas- 
 ological and ethnological diflSculties. They have 
 long been matters of daily discussion, and can 
 be decided by very simple and obvious principles 
 of interpretation. If the honesty of the age 
 were equal to its intelligence, such questions 
 would soon be relegated to the "tomb of the 
 Capulets." 
 
 It would probably be presumptuous to alBrm, — 
 indeed it might be a begging of the question at 
 issue to afiirm, — that any one denomination now 
 hold all the truths of the Bible in their absolute 
 perfectness. "The most straitest sect" may not 
 be exactly straight. But if the tests of truth 
 here stated be the true ones, it is possible to 
 ascertain what the Bible teaches upon the points 
 wherein Christians differ ; and that denomination 
 which best satisfies these four conditions must 
 be regarded as the soundest denomination, and 
 as standing the nearest to the platform on which 
 all Christians should stand together. And can- 
 not honest men, of every name, be brought to 
 this Scriptural ground ? It were a stultification 
 of human reason to hold that it cannot be done. 
 It were a denial of the power of Christian love 
 to hold that it cannot be done. It were a reflec- 
 
88 THE ONENESS OF 
 
 tion upon the Holy Spirit, whose office it is to 
 "lead us into all truth," to assert that it cannot 
 be done. It would call in question the propriety 
 of the Savior's prayer " that they all may be 
 one," to affirm that it cannot be done. What 
 untold advantages would result to the Church 
 and to the world, were this oft-repeated prayer 
 of the Eedeemer to be answered ! 
 
 " Oh, 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." 
 
 Such harmony among Christians would wrest 
 the most potent weapon from the arsenal of infi- 
 delity. It would remove the greatest impedi- 
 ment to the prosecution of the home and foreign 
 missionary work. It would unify and give un- 
 wonted power to the efforts of Christians for 
 the speedy conversion of the world. It would 
 antedate, by generations if not by centuries, 
 the time when "the earth shall be filled with 
 the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the 
 waters cover the sea." 
 
 No one can be more profoundly impressed than 
 
THE CHEISTIAN CHUECH. 89 
 
 the writer with the magnitude of the obstacles 
 to this desired reform. To challenge the propri- 
 ety of religious sects in the Church of Christ, will 
 be regarded by many quite as preposterous, as 
 to call in question the precession of the equinoxes 
 or the utility of the art of printing. Little can 
 be expected in this matter of men of cast-iron 
 denominational prejudices. Little can be ex- 
 pected of men, whose positions or antecedents 
 have strongly committed them to the support 
 of their denominational peculiarities. By some 
 who are " set for the defence of the Gospel," 
 but who set themselves, as well, if not first of 
 all, for the defence of their favorite sectarian 
 theories, it is not unlikely that the idea of Church 
 Unity will be greeted with the mild epithets, 
 "Utopian," "chimerical," "visionary," "im- 
 possible." It may be said that the Oneness of 
 the Church will be effected about the time that 
 the mathematicians succeed in squaring the circle. 
 Indeed, it may be the "best abused" theory 
 which has recently been broached. 
 
 The question, however, demands a hearing, 
 and the spirit of the age clearly shows that it 
 will have a hearing. Despite all opposition, the 
 drift of the times is unquestionably towards 
 
90 THE ONENESS OF 
 
 Christian Union and Church Oneness. The sub- 
 ject cannot be put down any more than Banquo's 
 ghost. It is too late in the day to count it in 
 with the creations of Baron Munchausen or the 
 Arabian Nights. Ridicule and the strength of 
 sectarian prejudice to the contrary notwithstand- 
 ing, the walls of separation between good men 
 are trembling to their foundations. The exclu- 
 sivism of religious denominations has been so 
 long and so successfully assaulted, that not a 
 few of its defenders begin to talk of capitulation. 
 Tempora mutantur, et nos mutamur in illis. 
 
 We are quite too far along in the Christian 
 centuries to make it safe to assume, that any 
 changes in the social, civil or religious condi- 
 tion of the world, which the interests of humanity 
 clearly demand, may not be expected ; and that 
 efforts, appropriate to their introduction, may 
 not be put forth with strong conviction of suc- 
 cess. The prophets who predict that such efforts 
 will fail, are more likely to be themselves the 
 butt of ridicule, than the men, who, forecasting 
 the drift of the times, make use of the current 
 to accomplish their purposes. " Institutions," 
 says Herbert Spencer, "that have lost their 
 roots in men's respect and faith, are doomed. 
 
THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 91 
 
 and the day of their dissolution is not far off. 
 How the crisis will be brought about, no one can 
 with certainty say. Whether by the continu- 
 ance and increase of individual protests, or 
 whether by the union of many persons for the 
 practice and propagation of some better system, 
 the future alone can decide." * Under the influ- 
 ence of popular institutions, and carried along, 
 as society now is, by the resistless momentum 
 of the age, traditional reverence is fast losing- 
 its power to uphold usages which have no claim 
 to support but their antiquity. 
 
 But it may be said that our religious convic- 
 tions are matters of conscience, and that, of 
 course, they are held with peculiar tenacity and 
 are not likely to be changed. This is not the 
 place to enter into an extended examination of the 
 difiScult and ill-understood subject of conscience ; 
 but the objection requires it to be said, that 
 conscience, being one of the original and most 
 important elements of our moral constitution, is 
 entitled to our highest respect, not as a guide to 
 duty, — for that is not its office, — but as a mon- 
 itor of what we suppose to be duty. Never- 
 theless, it is so largely a matter of education, 
 
 * Universal Progress, pp. 109, 110. 
 
92 THE ONENESS OF 
 
 that contradictory tenets may be held with an 
 equal degree of conscientiousness, and the most 
 absurd and wicked theories may be held with as 
 much conscientious pertinacity as the soundest 
 and the holiest principles. It therefore be- 
 hooves every inquirer after truth fuUy to ascer- 
 tain the materials of which his conscience is 
 composed, before he permits it to veto any 
 change which Christ demands at his hands. 
 The ingredients of which many consciences 
 are composed, may be thus roughly tabulated, 
 namely : ■ — • 
 
 25 parts of ignorance, 
 
 25 parts of self-wiU, 
 
 25 parts of tradition, and 
 
 25 parts of intelligence, 
 
 100 parts ; 
 
 of which a large share is not at all adapted to 
 the ascertainment of truth, or obliges men to 
 maintain their present beliefs. Many consciences 
 are made up, in part, of other ingredients stiU, 
 and the elements in different persons may be 
 very differently proportioned ; but in aU cases, 
 where the unworthy materials are not rejected, 
 and where the intelligence and the honesty are 
 
THE CHEISTIAN CHURCH. 93 
 
 not complete, some error is embraced which 
 ought to be abandoned. Believing that we are 
 right, and knowing that we are right, are very 
 different things ; and we cannot absolutely know 
 that we are right in our religious belief, till we 
 have reached the real meaning of the Word of 
 God. 
 
 Again, it maybe objected that "learned men 
 have already been engaged for many centuries in 
 ascertaining the true meaning of the Scriptures, 
 and that our denomination have already arrived at 
 it, and that we hold the absolute truth." But the 
 fact that many other denominations can and do 
 say the same thing, demonstrates the futility of 
 such logic, and proves that the true interpretation 
 upon some points may not yet have been had by 
 any of them. 
 
 The theory, that by a bottom interpretation 
 of the Scriptures all sincere believers can be 
 speedily brought into agreement, is accredited by 
 social changes which have already taken place, 
 and which were as unexpected and perhaps as 
 great. History is full of examples, showing that 
 apparent impossibilities in the progress of society 
 have been overcome, and sometimes suddenly 
 overcome. Galileo's theory of the motion of the 
 
94 THE ONENESS OF 
 
 earth triumphed, though it was pronounced a her- 
 esy by the infallible inquisitors of Rome. The 
 Copernican system overthrew the Ptolemaic, 
 though the latter had been universally accepted 
 by scientific men for fourteen hundred years. 
 Every physician in Europe, above the age of 
 forty, discarded Harvey's theory of the circula- 
 tion of the blood. Who believed, twenty years 
 ago, that the earth would so soon be encircled 
 with telegraphic lines ? Ten years ago, who be- 
 lieved that American slavery would be so suddenly 
 scattered to the winds ? Five years ago, who 
 believed that the enormous power of the English 
 aristocracy, fortified by wealth and cemented by 
 centuries, would so soon be paralyzed, and that a 
 nation, proverbially averse to change, would so 
 quickly send such a large popular representation 
 to Parliament ? So, too, the union of all real 
 Christians in some Church organization, effected 
 by a correct interpretation of the Scriptures, by 
 an unwonted effusion of the Holy Spirit, and by 
 a far greater personal consecration to Christ, may 
 be an event, which, at no distant day, will be a 
 matter of history and not of disbelief. 
 
 But it may be asked, " Is the writer chimerical 
 enough to expect that an adjustment of denomi- 
 
THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 95 
 
 national differences can be effected at any early 
 date ? " That will depend entirely on the provi- 
 dence and grace which are from above. "It is 
 not for us to know the times or the seasons, which 
 the Father hath put in His own power." Besides, 
 the question of time, which men are always in- 
 clined to ask as a sort of relief from present duty, 
 has nothing to do with our obligations in the 
 case. "Duties are ours; events are God's." 
 If the Bible can be understood by all men with a 
 degree of unanimity sufficient to exclude all de- 
 nominational differences, then those differences 
 have no solid ground on which to stand, and 
 must be held to be intrinsically sinful ; and it 
 should be no question among good men how long 
 sin shall be indulged. 
 
 There is also another view of the matter which 
 is to be taken. If the position be sound that all 
 sectarian differences are groundless and sinful, 
 then that fact can he made patent to the public a2> 
 prehension, and it will form a part of the public 
 opinion. A principle will thus be created which 
 " the world will not willingly let die." That 
 theory has, indeed, already become the accepted 
 theory of many of the most intelligent men. 
 " Principles," it is said, " have no modesty." 
 
96 THE ONENKSS OF 
 
 They may for a time be ignored, but they will 
 assert their claims to cognition. They may be 
 overborne, but cannot be overthrown. A deaf 
 ear may be turned to their remonstrances, but 
 they will knock at the door of conscience till they 
 are heard. Living as we do under the moral 
 government of God, they must necessarily con- 
 tinue to assert and reassert themselves. They 
 are ceaselessly persistent. They never rest till 
 they gain the victory. In what year of our Lord 
 they will triumph we may not know, but in some 
 year of Grace they certainly will. 
 
 There is still another encouraging hope. The 
 world has ever advanced by starts. It was so 
 at the calling of Abraham, at the Advent of 
 Christ, the Invention of the Mariner's Compass, 
 the Discovery of America, the Eeformation in the 
 sixteenth century, the Declaration of American 
 Independence, the construction of the Eailway 
 and Telegraph, and the issuing of the Proclama- 
 tion of Emancipation. In such events society 
 shot ahead of itself. They were eras in history. 
 Prom them men took new observations, and found 
 their true latitude and longitude. Such great 
 movements come from a superhuman impulse, 
 communicated to men not by miraculous power, 
 
THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 97 
 
 but through' the usual ohamiels of influence. 
 These special impulses are not of frequent occur- 
 rence. They seem to be reserved for those occa- 
 sions of extreme, exigent necessity, which can 
 be relieved only by celestial help. When that 
 help is vouchsafed, social conditions, which 
 seemed as fixed as the everlasting hills, are sud- 
 denly changed. The change may have been un- 
 accountable in its origin, it may have had little 
 apparent connection with human agency, yet it 
 was so obviously proper, that it is at once grate- 
 fully accepted, and it takes its place, as by a 
 natural sequence, in the ordinary course of 
 events. 
 
 Half a century ago, or about the time of the 
 formation of the National Bible and Tract Socie- 
 ties, it was regarded as a marvellous advance 
 in catholicity, that many Christians of various 
 names agreed to disagree. That was an impor- 
 tant step in the right direction ; but it was 
 an armistice, not a peace. One day quietness 
 reigned ; but the next, and with slight provoca- 
 tion, too, the thunder of war was heard all along 
 the lines. Meanwhile, increasing numbers have 
 become tired of this internecine strife, and deep- 
 •7 
 
98 THE ONENESS OF 
 
 ly convinced of its inconsistency with the spirit 
 of the Gospel. 
 
 There is, unquestionably, just at present, an 
 unusual activity among the denominations. What 
 the result will be, it may be difficult to foreteU; 
 but it would seem to loosen rather than tighten 
 sectarian bands. It may portend a speedy and 
 unexpected adjustment of denominational differ- 
 ences, for the movement is clearly taking on the 
 type of liberality, and not of intenser sectarism. 
 
 The present divided state of the Church is 
 quite acceptable to Satan, but not to Christ. 
 Satan would have it so ; Christ would not. It is 
 high time, then, for the Church to repent of her 
 divisions, return to her pristine organic unity, 
 disappoint the hopes of her enemies, and unite 
 her efforts for the speediest moral regeneration 
 of our race. The Unity of the Church is a corol- 
 lary from the Unity of her Founder, and she 
 should re-assert it, in its primitive beauty and 
 power, as the indispensable element of success. 
 
 Another consideration, which has an important 
 bearing upon this reform, should by no means be 
 overlooked, and is itself an evidence that they 
 must put forth their best exertions to sustain 
 themselves. With all their activity, the Prom- 
 
THE CHEISTIAN CHURCH. 99 
 
 dence of God is dealing with many of the denomi- 
 nations in methods, not at all significant of His 
 approbation, or complimentary to their pride, 
 or prognostic of their long continuance. Look 
 at the facts. Into some of them it is found to 
 be impossible to infuse much of the esprit de 
 corps, and others are plethoric with its excess. 
 Some pronounce the "Shibboleth" of their party 
 with accuracy 'and great gusto, but to others the 
 spirit of pect is so alien that they can hardly 
 "frame to pronounce it" at all. Some denomi- 
 nations are in danger of dying of dignity, and 
 others of syncope. Some are tottering to their 
 foundations because they cannot much longer 
 lean for support on the arm of the State, and 
 others are becoming unpopular by their exclu- 
 siveness. Some were rent in pieces by the war, 
 and the disjecta membra obstinately refuse to 
 come together and articulate. Some are concen- 
 trating their resources in large newspaper and 
 book establishments, bristling all over like hostile 
 forts with the enginery of war, and yet are agi- 
 tated with questions of lay representation, ex- 
 clusive communion, and uncanonical preaching, 
 which portend early changes in their rSgime. 
 Rome has nearly lost her temporal power, and is 
 
100 THE ONENESS OF 
 
 fast losing her spiritual hold upon the nations of 
 Europe ; and large numbers in another communion, 
 claiming to be Protestant but enervated by ritual- 
 ism, are returning to the mummeries of mediaeval 
 night. The " disestablishment " of the Irish 
 Church will naturally be followed by the " dis- 
 establishment " of the Church of England and 
 the Church of Scotland. Those events, how- 
 ever, so horrifying to British prejudices, will be 
 a benediction to them all, though they will be 
 placed in entirely new relations to the nation and 
 the world. The teachings of Mill, of Comte, of 
 Herbert Spencer, of Darwin and Huxley, and 
 other such men, together with the destructive 
 "historic criticism" imported from Germany, are 
 diffusing a profounder irreligion among all classes, 
 and loosening the very foundations of morality 
 throughout the kingdom. " What," asks the 
 Times, in a recent article, " in the face of such 
 a fact as this, can we think of all the metaphysi- 
 cal quibbles, the vestment squabbles, and the 
 gratuitous innovations \yhich are now distracting 
 the attention of half our clergy, and which they 
 think, and are sometimes encouraged to think, 
 the great questions of the day ? It is worse 
 than Nero fiddling while Eome was burning. 
 
THE CHEISTIAlf CHURCH. 101 
 
 While they are compassing sea and land to make 
 one proselyte to lighted candles, there are thou- 
 sands of people around them ignorant of the very 
 alphabet of morality and reason." The same dis- 
 position to " tithe mint and anise and cummin," 
 at the expense of " the weightier matters of the 
 law," is evidently on the increase in this country. 
 " Now, the zeal is for some shibboleth of doc- 
 trine ; now, for some form of Church government ; 
 now, for the mode of an ordinance ; now, for 
 vestments and the shape of a garment ; now, 
 for Church architecture and altar forms ; now, for 
 the paraphernalia and artistic arrangement of a 
 liturgical service ; and now, for the sacredness of 
 consecrated grounds and parish limits." * Noth- 
 ing, under God, would seem to be competent suc- 
 cessfully to resist these superstitious and anti- 
 religious tendencies but a thorough union of all 
 Christians among themselves, and a united^effort 
 to uphold and spread the great truths of the 
 Gospel. 
 
 Besides, feudal civil institutions are every- 
 where rapidly going by the board, and will logi- 
 cally draw after them the feudal institutions of 
 the Church. It is a foregone conclusion that the 
 
 * President Hopkins's Baccalaureate Sermon, 1868. 
 
102 THE ONENESS OF 
 
 democratic spirit will ultimately shape the politi- 
 cal statics of all the nations of the earth, and 
 there is equal reason to expect that it wUl domi- 
 nate the Church of Christ, so far forth as, in con- 
 nection with the teachings of the New Testament, 
 to give a popular complexion to her polity 
 throughout the world. 
 
 In conclusion, the divisions of the Church 
 loudly appeal to the scholarship of the age for 
 relief. No real and permanent cure can be ob- 
 tained, which is not founded on an intelligent and 
 united understanding of the Scriptures. Think- 
 ing men must be satisfied. The judgment must 
 be convinced. The best criticism of the times 
 is therefore invoked by the emergency. The 
 most earnest appeal is appropriately made to 
 the sanctified and consecrated talent of the pul- 
 pits and the theological seminaries. Clerical 
 ambition was the originator of sects, and clerical 
 scholarship should destroy them. As the clergy 
 were first " in the transgression," they should be 
 first in the reform ; and measures ought to be 
 immediately adopted by large-minded scholars, 
 both clerical and lay, to see if some incipient 
 steps cannot be taken to bring a few minds in the 
 different denominations into concert upon the sub- 
 
THE CHRISTIAN CHUECH. 103 
 
 ject of an original and fundamental interpretation 
 of the Scriptures. The first step may be the most 
 difficult; but if that can be judiciously taken, it 
 may lead to others which will surprise the world 
 by their success. 
 
 The appeal is also made to the catholic feeling 
 of the more enlightened members of the Churches. 
 There are not a few — and the number is increas- 
 ing — with whom the prosperity of the Eedeemer's 
 kingdom is altogether paramount to the pros- 
 perity of any party. They hail with joy every 
 indication of an increase of true liberality among 
 good men. Denominational obligations, as such, 
 are held by them at a large discount. There is a 
 strong inclination among them to coalesce even 
 at the expense of all such minor interests, and 
 very little effort is needed to bring them out upon 
 the platform of the broadest and truest Christian 
 Catholicism. In their ardent love of Scriptural 
 truth and of their Ever .Blessed Redeemer, and 
 in their self-sacrificing desire for the earliest possi- 
 ble conversion of the world to Him, they cannot 
 be satisfied with sectarian narrowness, and will 
 spurn it altogether when they come to see, with 
 clarified vision, how seriously it impedes the 
 march of Christianity over the earth. Let such 
 
104 THE ONENESS OF 
 
 men, found as they are in all the Churches, cher- 
 ish their holier convictions, and respond to every 
 movement for a cordial union of all real Chris- 
 tians upon the basis of a fundamental interpreta- 
 tion of the New Testament. 
 
 The most devoted piety, too, must permeate this 
 delicate and difficult undertaking. Never were 
 prayer and love to Christ more indispensably 
 necessary. Intelligent Christians of every name 
 truly love each other, and many of them have 
 even a passionate love of their common Kedeemer. 
 That love finds warm expression in the Union 
 prayer meeting, on the platform, and by the way- 
 side. Sometimes, as on missionary ground, de- 
 nominational distinctions are quite forgotten amid 
 common trials, common labors, common hopes, 
 and common joys. Frequently, on the bed of 
 death, all such differences vanish, as the imper- 
 fections of earth give place to the holiness of 
 eternity. Frequently, too, in the vigor of health, 
 the tide of Christian affection rises so high, as 
 almost to overleap denominational barriers and 
 sweep them out of existence. Let that spirit be 
 increased and continue to increase, till, in con- 
 nection with an honest and intelligent scholarship. 
 Christians " see eye to eye." The nearer they 
 
THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 105 
 
 get to heaven in their spirit, the nearer will they 
 get to each other. The Church of Christ is but 
 One, and all her divisions should cease in a united 
 and strenuous eifort to bring all men into line 
 with the Eedeemed, preparatory to the grand cel- 
 ebration of victory above. The heart throbs with 
 joy and the eyes fill with tears at the thought of 
 the possibility of a reunited Christendom. How 
 many cavillers would it silence ! How many 
 infidels would it save ! How many languishing 
 hopes of the world's conversion would it reassure 
 and inspire ! With what indomitable power 
 would it clothe the sacramental host ! How 
 they would then go forth from conquest to con- 
 quest under the victorious banners of their King, 
 and Heaven and Earth soon vie in the shout of 
 triumph, " The kingdoms of the world are be- 
 come the kingdoms of our Lord and of His 
 Christ, and He shall reign forever and ever ! " 
 
 " One army of the Living God, 
 One Chukch, above, below ; 
 Part of the Host have crossed the flood, 
 And part are crossing now." 
 

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