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THE UNITED CHURCH
OF THE
UNITED STATES

THE UNITED CHURCH

UNITED STATES

ERRA TUM.
On pao-e 242 omit lines twelve and thirteen.

CHARLES WOODRUFF SHIELDS
PROFESSOR IN PRINCETON UNIVERSITY

NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
1895

CHARLES WOODRUFF SHIEl
PROFESSOR IN PRINCETON UNIVERSITY

Copyright, 1S9S, by Charles W. Shields

TO THE
CATHOLIC UNITY CIRCLE
COMPRISING THE REVEREND DOCTORS
Edward Abbott Edward B. Coe
David Nelson Beach Charles Cuthbert hall
George Dana Boardman William Reed Huntington
AMORY H. Bradford Wm. Chauncy Langdon
Charles Augustus briggs henry Y. satterlee
THESE COLLECTED ESSAYS ARE INSCRIBED
WITH THE BROTHERLY LOVE OF
THE AUTHOR.

PREFACE.

It has been becoming evident to many thoughtful observ
ers that the chief Christian problem of our age is the Re
union of Christendom, and that the most favorable conditions
for its solution are found in this New World, where the
churches and denominations of the Old World have become
compacted together within a new political environment, yet
with perfect freedom of action and intercourse. The growth
of public interest in the question during the past ten years
has been surprising. If the present volume have no higher
value, it may serve to mark the course of opinion in this new
direction, and to afford some outlook for the future. It con
tains the results not only of private study, but of conference
with representative thinkers holding all the possible views in
respect to the problem of American Church Unity.
The interest of the writer in the subject dates as far back
as the year 1862, when he published a Manual of Worship in
the United States Army and Navy, compiled from ancient
liturgies and modern formularies, and jointly recommended
by eminent clergymen of all denominations. This was fol
lowed in 1864 by his edition of the Book of Common Prayer,
as amended by the Presbyterian Divines in the Royal Com
mission of 1661, and as designed, with other more special
objects, " to increase the spirit of catholicity and fraternity
among such Churches of the Reformation as originally con
tributed to the formation of the Prayer-book, by restoring
to more general use those liturgical formulas which are
their several production or common inheritance and, next
to the Holy Scriptures, the closest visible bonds of their
unity." Some results of his studies at that time were em-
v

vi Prefa

ace.

bodied in an essay which, after awaiting a ripened state of
public interest for twenty years, at length appeared in the
Century Magazine of 1885, under the title of "The United
Churches of the United States," and at once drew forth a wide
discussion from leading divines in different denominations.
Together with that discussion, it forms the first part of this
collection of papers. As belonging to the early history of
the question it is presented without amendment, although
some expressions and suggestions have already been made
obsolete by the rapid progress of opinion.
In the following year the House of Bishops of the Protest
ant Episcopal Church at Chicago issued the proposals, after
ward amended by the Lambeth Conference of 1888, and now
known as the Quadrilateral or Four Articles of Church Unity.
The author has advocated these articles in a paper read before
various circles of representative divines in New York, Boston,
Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington, and before several
public assemblies, after introductory addresses by President
Seth Low, of Columbia College ; by President Daniel Gilman,
of the Johns Hopkins University, and by the Hon. Justice
William Strong, of the United States Supreme Court. It is
here reproduced, with a review of some of the valuable opin
ions to which it gave expression.
The other essays refer to different practical aspects of the
question as still under discussion ; and two essays have been
added, which are designed to illustrate the unifying value of
the English liturgy among the Christian denominations, and
the momentous importance of church unity as a Sociological
Question. The periodical press has been furnishing us with various
symposia, which at times make church unity look like a
bubble or a dream. For some minds even the iridescence
is gone. But other minds only see more plainly that the
great problem is not to be solved by the denominational
opinions of more or less interested leaders, but rather by a
long educational process requiring many years, perhaps sue-

Preface. vii
cessive generations, ere it will come to full effect. To such
minds there is not only the promise of Holy Scripture but
the logic of Providence in the movement. If there be such a
thing as historic cause and effect, the chief historic Churches
are already recoiling from their rash extremes toward sub
stantial agreement and re-union. The growth of Church
unity in the coming century would be no more marvelous
than that of State unity in the past century. In the ecclesi
astical as well as political sphere our country seems destined
to become the wonder of Christendom, not by renewing its
time-worn issues and fighting them over again, but by burying
them out of sight forever in one United Church of the United
States, i-

CONTENTS.

^- PAGE
The United Churches of the United States  1-32
Organic Unity of Churches.
Germs of Organic Unity.
Agreements in Doctrine.
Agreements in Polity.
Agreements in Worship.
Revivalism and Ritualism.
The Claims of jEstheticism.
New-made Liturgies.
Excellence of the English Liturgy.
Catholicity of the English Liturgy.
Reaction Toward the English Liturgy.
II.
Denominational Views of Church Unity  33-63
Episcopalian Opinions.
Presbyterian Opinions.
Congregationalist Opinions.
Consensus of these Opinions.
Signs of Church Unity.
Proposals of the House of Bishops.
Historic Relations of Presbytery and Episcopacy.
Reunion of Presbytery and Episcopacy.
Advantages of Historic Episcopacy. III.
The Four Articles of Church Unity,  . 65-109
Church Unity Defined.
Federation of Churches.
Assimilation of Denominations.
False Ecclesiasticism.
False Denominationalism.
Feasibility of Church Unity.
The New Promise of Church Unity.
The Claim of the Historic Churches.
The Claim of the Reformed Churches.
The Need of a Practical Consensus.
The Chicago and Lambeth Proposals.
Catholicity of the Four Articles. ix

X Contents.
Catholicity of the Historic Episcopate.
Adaptability of the Historic Episcopate.
Unifying Power of the Historic Episcopate.
Unification by Confederation.
Unification by Consolidation.
Unification by Organic Growth.
Organic Reunion of Presbytery and Episcopacy.
Ideal Fulfilment of Church Unity.
Slow Growth of Church Unity.
Logical Tendencies to Church Unity.
Decline of the Denominational Spirit.
Revival of the Ecclesiastical Spirit.
Popular Tendencies to Church Unity.
The Coming Campaign of Education.
IV.
Denominational Views OF the Quadrilateral,  111-13+
Congregational Opinions.
Presbyterial Opinions.
Episcopal Opinions.
Review of the Ecclesiastical Situation.
Favorable Signs.
Unfavorable Signs. V.
The Quadrilateral Standard among the Denominations, . . 135-165
Congregational Denominations.
Presbyterial Denominations.
Episcopal Denominations.
Church Unity Societies.
Catholic Unity Circles.
Studies in the Quadrilateral.
The League of Catholic Unity.
VI.
The Historic Episcopate and the Three Church Polities, . . 167-178
Preliminary Principles.
The Scriptural Episcopate.
The Apostolic Episcopate.
The New Made Episcopate.
Comprehensiveness of the Historic Episcopate.
Its Alleged Hierarchism.
Its Alleged Sacerdotalism.
Studies in the Historic Episcopate. VII.
The Historic Presbyterate and the Historic Episcopate, . . 179-214
Appeal to Presbyterians and Episcopalians.
Apostolic Succession.
Practical Union by Ignoring the Question.

Contents. xi
Gradual Unification.
Pulpit Exchanges.
Presbyterian Orders.
Mutual Recognition.
Hypothetical Ordination.
Concurrent Ordination.
The Hope of Reunion. VIII.
The Historic Liturgy and the Historic Churches,  215-256
Analysis of Prayer Book.
Composition of Daily Offices.
Composition of Communion Office.
Composition of Baptismal Offices.
Composition of the Occasional Offices.
Catholic Formularies.
Protestant Formularies. IX.
The Sociological Question of Church Unity  257-285
Early Christian Socialism.
Anti-Christian Socialism.
Spurious Christian Socialism.
Christian Doctrine of Social Distinctions.
Christian Doctrine of Poverty.
Christian Doctrine of Stewardship.
Non-Christian Socialism.
Church and State Socialism.
The Masses and the Classes.
Capitalistic Laborers.
Derangement of Social Classes.
Social Need of Church Unity.
The Church the Great Social Teacher.
The Church the Social Conservator.
The Church the Social Regenerator.
Urgent Need of Church Unity.

THE UNITED CHURCHES OF THE
UNITED STATES.

I.
THE UNITED CHURCHES OF THE UNITED STATES.
The associative tendency of the Christian masses has shown
itself wherever they could act freely together. In our own
country for more than a hundred years there has been a
steady effort after religious unity, following the political
movement through the successive stages of the colonization,
the confederation, the constitution, and the recent consolida
tion of the United States. During the colonial period the
few mission churches scattered along the Atlantic coast were
temporarily fused together by the evangelistic labors of
Whitefield and Wesley. In the revolutionary war they were
simply massed and compacted in the common struggle for
civil as well as religious freedom. Since the declaration of
Independence we have seen them at first separately organiz
ing themselves, and then spontaneously combining in great
common causes, such as the American Bible Society, the
American Tract Society, the American Sunday School
Union, the American Boards of Domestic and Foreign
Missions, as well as the various moral reforms in which
they became leagued against vice and infidelity on the plat
form of their common Christianity. In the late civil war
they appeared as one holy phalanx of charity and mercy in
the Sanitary and Christian commissions ; and at the present
time they are interlaced by a network of Young Men's
Christian Associations, Inter- Denominational Alliances and
Church Congresses, designed to combine them practically in
Christian work and intercourse, to say nothing of inter-
3

4 The United Churches.
ecclesiastical councils, based upon organic bonds of unity
between kindred churches.
It is true that all such compacts, being temporary expedi
ents, as fast as they serve their purposes must decay and
disappear ; and it is also true that in some cases the dissolu
tion of a league of churches has been followed by their
seeming recoil and reassertion of sectarian peculiarities in
more pronounced form than ever, as may now be seen in the
various boards of charity and missions maintained by the
different denominations. But it will be found, at the same
time, that another set of causes has been tending, if not to
bring them together again in closer bonds and on a more
enduring basis, yet at least to reveal to them, more and more
clearly, the ultimate grounds of a true organic unity.
Organic Unity of Churches.
By the organic unity of churches is here meant such unity
as inheres in their internal organization, and is traceable in
their forms of doctrine, government, and worship, as well
as in their whole historic life and development; and is
not, therefore, due to any mere artificial arrangement or
conscious effort. Institutions are not made, but grow;
and sometimes they grow so slowly that one generation
rejects as irrational and visionary what the next generation
accepts as the logic of events. Whole churches, as well as
states, have thus been reasoned out of the divine right of
English monarchy and American slavery ; and it is safe to
assume that any scheme of ecclesiastical union which could
now be devised, even though the true one, would be repudi
ated, perhaps by all existing denominations, as involving the
suppression of some essential truth or the sacrifice of some
valuable principle. We are not yet ready for such schemes,
and it would only be a waste of time to discuss them. The
first lesson to be learned is, that the unification of the Ameri
can churches, if it is ever to come at all, cannot be precipi
tated by platforms, coalitions, compromises, in short by any

Organic Unity of Churches. 5
mere external association of the different denominations,
which leaves them still without internal modification and
vital connection, as true and living branches of the Vine of
Christ. How then is such organic unity or union ever to be
reached ? Perhaps we can trace a rough likeness between
the case of the American churches at the present time and
that of the American states at the close of the revolution.
The articles of confederation had proved a rope of sand. The
colonies, in becoming independent of the British crown, had
also become independent of one another, and with their di
verse creeds, institutions, races, and climates seemed on the
verge of anarchy. It was not until they had surrendered
some of their sovereign attributes and readjusted their whole
domestic polity, that they could come into the more perfect
union of the constitution ; and ever since then they have been
racked with internal conflicts, until at last welded together by
the fiery blows of civil war. In like manner the different
denominations, after having been loosely confederated in
various compacts and alliances, are falling apart in fresh es
trangement, wasting their resources in mere propagandism,
and often wrangling over time-worn theological issues in the
face of their common foes. And now, it is thought by some,
they can only be driven together again by the rod of persecu
tion. The peace of Westphalia, they will tell us, was but a
truce, and the warfare once waged between the Catholic and
Protestant powers of Europe is yet to be decided by some
terrible intestine struggle within our own borders, fulfilling
the great Armageddon of the Apocalypse. With the sects
thus cast into the furnace of affliction, to be purged of their
errors, and melted and molded to one likeness, the church
militant is at length to come forth from the ordeal united and
triumphant.

6 The United Churches.
Germs of Organic Unity.
We need not, however, push a mere political analogy so
far. Rather may we hope that the age of religious wars is
past, and that any remaining issues between religious parties
are to be fought out, not with carnal weapons, but with spir
itual. Certainly, the American churches have at least gained
all the freedom that they need. Free of the state and free of
one another, they may now peacefully work out their respec
tive missions without let or hindrance. But while thus left
to the combined action of Providential events and spiritual
causes, it is inevitable that in the long future they will
undergo much modification, perhaps gradual assimilation to
each other, or to some one divine model toward which they
are tending. Despite their present divided and distracted
appearance, if we will survey them from a high outside point
of view, in a Christian philosophical mood, we shall discern
amongst them vast unifying tendencies which have been oper
ating quietly through successive generations, and which can
only be measured by comparing one period of their history
with another. We can no more control such tendencies than
we can control the winds of heaven. It is the part of wisdom
to recognize them and shape our course by means of them.
We need not forsake our respective positions; we cannot
force an immediate harmony of views ; but at least we may
profitably engage in a study of the existing germs or grounds
of organic unity in the American churches.
In entering upon this study, whatever theories of the church
we may severally hold, we should lay aside even just preju
dices, so far as to take into view impartially the various
Christian bodies claiming an ecclesiastical title and jurisdic
tion, which are co-extensive with the nation, or which may be
otherwise due them in courtesy. Such are the " Evangelical
Lutheran Church in North America," (Northern and South
ern) ; the " Presbyterian Church in the United States "
(Northern and Southern) ; the " Protestant Episcopal Church

Agreements in Doctrine. 7
in the United States ;" the " Reformed Church in America "
(Dutch), the "Reformed Church in the United States"
(German) ; the " Roman Catholic Church," the " United
Brethren " (German and Moravian), the " United Presbyterian
Church of America," the " Universalist Church in the United
States," the " Baptist Churches " (Calvinistic and Arminian),
the " Congregational Churches " (Trinitarian), the " Disciples
of Christ " (Campbellite), the " Society of Friends," the
" Unitarian Churches." Some of these bodies, and others
which might have been named, are inconsiderable in numbers
and influence, and not likely to play any chief part in the
development of American Christianity. Confining our atten
tion to the great Christian denominations of the country, we
may fairly concede to them the possession of ecclesiastical
elements more or less perfectly organized ; and our task will
be to look into their respective forms of doctrine, of polity,
and of worship, in search of the three corresponding grounds
of unity which are afforded by their dogmatic agreement,
their ecclesiastical or political likeness, and their hturgical
culture. Agreements in Doctrine.
The first of these three grounds of unity is the least hope
ful. Perfect consent in theological views, were it attained
between the different denominations, might indeed issue in
their perfect union, if not in their homogeneous organiza
tion, since among other doctrines it would include the same
doctrine of church polity ; but it may be doubted if such
consent is in the nature of the case attainable. Doctrinal
distinctions are largely due to the paradoxical relations of
essential truths which are alike derived from Holy Scripture,
as well as to original diversities in human nature which are
alike legitimate. Accordingly, they appeared among the
Apostles themselves in the two schools of St. Paul and St.
Peter; they were renewed among the church-fathers by
Augustine and Pelagius ; they were reaffirmed among the
schoolmen by Thomas Aquinas and Dun Scotus ; they were

8 The United Churches.
emphasized among the reformers by Calvin and Arminius;
they were early transferred to our own churches by Whitefield
and Wesley, and have since spread with enormous growth
over the whole continent ; and they are likely to continue in
some form until the end of the world.
If history teaches anything plainly, it shows that the at
tempt to organize churches on the basis of mere dogmatic
distinctions will always tend to schism rather than unity.
They often exclude more true Christians than they include,
and sooner or later go to pieces in some fresh dissension.
And even more difficult would it be to connect together con
flicting churches on such a basis. It is certain that none of
the leading Protestant confessions, not the Augsburg, not the
Belgic or Heidelberg, not the Westminster, not the Thirty-
nine Articles would now be generally accepted by the American
churches. It is doubtful if any of the great Catholic creeds,
the Athanasian, the Nicene, or even the Apostles' Creed,
would afford a platform broad enough to embrace all the
denominations calling themselves Christian. And still less
could they be marshaled together by any of the new-made
creeds of our own time and country.
Nor can it be said that such attempts as have hitherto been
made at a dogmatic confederation of churches have been
very successful or promising. The Evangelical Alliance of
Protestant churches, though based upon a partial consent in
doctrine, took a polemical attitude by its very name against
the Roman Catholic Church. The proposed league of the
Protestant Episcopal and Russian Greek churches would
have excluded all the other Protestant churches, besides
covertly involving the gravest doctrinal differences. Even
the Presbyterian churches in their late general council could
not reach a consensus of their own kindred standards. The
Congregational churches, discarding all the old creeds, are
engaged in framing a new one. And other large family
groups of churches, such as the Baptist and the Methodist,
show but few signs of either agreeing among themselves

Agreements in Doctrine. 9
or seeking agreement with the rest of the American
churches. To see how complex is the problem before us, we should
need only to bring together the various creeds and confessions
for comparison and contrast, and arrange them in their de
grees of difference between the extremes of Catholicism and
Protestantism. It would be found, at the first view, that the
points of variance are simply endless, embracing a variety of
opinions upon numerous questions in every department of
sacred science, theology, anthropology, christology, soteriol-
ogy, ecclesiology, eschatology. On closer examination we
would see that the two extremes of Unitarianism and Roman
ism, in their latest outcome, would utterly refuse to coalesce,
consenting in nothing but the few articles of natural religion
which Christianity has in common with Judaism and Paganism.
Next, we would find that between these extremes the chief
evangelical confessions, whilst agreeing with the Roman Cath
olic creeds in some essential doctrines, such as the trinity, the
incarnation, the atonement, disagree with them in others no
less essential, and still further disagree among themselves by
all the differences known to Lutheranism, Calvinism, Armin-
ianism. Then, we would discover that the Lutheran, Calvin
istic, and Arminian confessions, though largely consentient
as to the chief essential doctrines termed evangelical, are
most widely dissentient as to some relatively non-essential
doctrines, such as are held by Episcopalians, Presbyterians,
and Congregationalists. And, lastly we would see that it is
precisely some one of these non-essential doctrines which each
denomination puts in the front as its standard, claims as the
source of its life and the only reason for its existence, and
often cherishes as an inherited faith, hallowed by the blood
of martyrs and endeared by all the associations of home and
kindred. In a word, the concords of American creeds would
be so drowned and lost in their discords as to leave us hope
less of anything like a true doctrinal harmony.
From this showing of the case, it is plain that the utmost

ID The United Churches.
we can hope for is some ultimate consensus which cannot now
be formulated into a common creed of the churches, but must
be largely matter of surmise and speculation. We may as
sume, not unreasonably, that it will exhibit the essential faith
in distinction from the non-essential, and exalt the great things
in which Christians agree above the small things in which
they differ ; and we may expect, on good grounds, that in the
course of its evolution some dogmas will be sloughed off as
erroneous, others reduced to a relative importance, and still
others left indifferent. But we cannot hope to see it start
forth at one blow as a feat of logic by some ambitious peace
maker, or even carefully wrought out as a piece of legislative
wisdom by some advanced body of divines met to adjust the
disputes of Christendom. Rather must we look forward to
it as to a coming survival of truth over error, to be slowly
evolved from the present conflict of opinion, in the general
progress of Christian knowledge, and through a growing
spirit of Christian freedom, charity, tolerance, and catholicity.
It is a cheering remark of Dr. Schaff, at the close of his
survey of the creeds of Christendom, " That the age of sepa
ration and division is passing away, and the age of the reunion
of a divided Christendom is beginning to dawn." Glance at
some of the grounds of this inspiring hope here in our coun
try. In the first place, we should not overlook the doctrinal
agreement already known and expressed, such as the consent
of the Roman Catholic and some Protestant churches in the
Athanasian, Nicene, and Apostles' creeds ; the consent of the
Lutheran and Moravian churches in the Augsburg confes
sion ; the consent of the various Episcopal churches, the Prot
estant, the Methodist, the Reformed, in the Thirty-Nine
Articles ; the consent of the Congregational, the Baptist, and
the various Presbyterian churches in the Westminster Stand
ards, together with the indorsement by the reunited Presby
terian Church of the Heidelberg catechism of the Dutch and
German Reformed churches. In the second place we may
find some tendencies to a doctrinal agreement between these

Agreements in Doctrine. 1 1
different groups of churches, — in their American revisions of
these various standards which show, now and then, a slight
though unsought mutual approximation ; in their fraternal
intercourse, which always brings into view a large latent con
sent in the great evangelical doctrines of our common Chris
tianity ; in their very -controversies, which often serve only to
show how trifling is their dissensus as compared with their
fundamental consensus ; and even in their heretical departures,
which sometimes express that consensus with a primitive
simplicity free from the scholastic technicality of the old
creeds, whilst their pulpit expositions of it are ever setting it
forth with scriptural freedom, freshness and power. And
lastly, we may everywhere discern the signs of a waning
interest in the mere dogmatic distinctions, which have long
hindered the growth and assertion of a true doctrinal agree
ment, — such as the decline of theological controversy in the
New England churches, the disappearance of the old and new
schools in the reunited Presbyterian Church ; the comprehen
sion of doctrinal differences within the Episcopal church, and
the rise of Broad Church parties in other churches ; the spread
of open communion in the Baptist churches ; the liberty of
preaching in the Methodist church ; the allowance of hereti
cal departures in many churches up to the point of scandal;
the searching revision of creeds in the light of modern^
thought and science ; the disuse of the old scholastic cate
chisms, the decay of polemic preaching, and the growing'
preference for evangelical themes of a moral and practical pur
port. Through the silent action of such causes, it may yet
happen in some distant future, not indeed that all dogmas
shall be obliterated, but subordinated and graduated in
harmony with the one universal faith. Even now, could the
American churches, leaving their existing standards un
changed, be simply confederated in a formal profession of the
Nicene or Apostles' Creed,^ in which most of them might
' This suggestion was published two years before the Episcopal Declarations
at Chicago and Lambeth, proposing these two creeds as doctrinal bases of
Church Unity.

I 2 The United Churches.
readily join, their denominational dogmas would at once sink
toward a proper relative value, their essential consensus would
begin to emerge into view, and so far forth they would appear
to the world as the United Churches of the United States.
Agreements in Polity.
The second and more hopeful ground of unity is that of
ecclesiastical likeness or affinity in church government. The
problem is no longer to produce agreement as to the whole
mass of dogmas, but only a single doctrine or set of doctrines
of minor importance except when made by some extreme
view to involve other more essential doctrines. And it would
seem easier to secure external attachment to an ecclesiastical
polity than internal unanimity in all the endless points of
theological science. Experience has shown that Christians
who agree in scarcely anything else may hold the same views
of church government and even dwell together in the same
organization. The church has often included different schools
of theology, but no school of theology ever yet included the
whole church. Indeed it is a common reproach of Protes
tantism that in its grand effort for freedom and progress, it
has given birth to a medley of jarring sects, by exaggerating
doctrinal differences which had been allowed and adjusted
within the pale of the church from the Apostles' time until the
Reformation. And that such outward ecclesiastical unity
may be more than the mere enforced uniformity or feigned
conformity, so often charged against State churches, might be
proved by examples in free churches where no political re
straints have been imposed. Even conflicting churches, the
most unlike in their dogmatic standards, Lutheran, Calvinis
tic, Arminian, Socinian, may be found substantially alike in
their ecclesiastical organization.
In order to bring into view these latent affinities of the
American churches, we may conveniently group them in
three great classes according to their structural likeness :
First, Congregational, those which make each local congre
gation self-governed and independent, such as the Baptist, the

Agreements in Polity. 13
Unitarian, and the Orthodox churches ; Second, Presbyterial,
those which unite congregations under presbyteries composed
of representative clergymen and laymen, such as the Lu
theran, the Dutch and German Reformed, and the various
Presbyterian churches ; Third, Episcopal, those which subor
dinate both congregations and presbyteries to bishops as a
higher order of clergymen, such as the Methodist, the Prot
estant, and the Reformed Episcopal, the Moravian, and the
Roman Catholic churches. It will be seen at a glance that
these three classes when viewed together, present a scale
rising from the simplest to the most complex forms of polity,
and on closer inspection it would be found that each higher
class includes the lower with more or less modification, Pres
byterian churches being not without Congregational ele
ments and Episcopal churches being not without Presbyterial
elements. Nor can it be said that some organic union of these more
or less kindred organizations would be wholly beyond analogy
and precedent. In less than two hundred years the world has '
seen a medley of incongruous polities, theocratic, monarchic,
democratic, aristocratic, grow up into that cluster of homo
geneous republics known as the United States, by a series of
transforming events, — first by the ascendancy of the Protest
ant over the Catholic powers in North America, then by the
revolutionary destruction of the royal and proprietary charters
in the colonies, and at last by a vindicated constitution for
ever guaranteeing the freedom of states, classes, and races.
And so complete a political metamorphosis could not but
affect the religious bodies which have been more or less
involved in it. Freed thereby from the papal supremacy, from
a foreign establishment, and from all connection with our own
government, they were at the same time freed from the causes
which once drove them asunder, and brought under the
causes which have since drawn them together. Not only has
each group of kindred churches been fraternizing and coal
escing ; Congregational with Congregational ; Presbyterial

14 The United Churches.
with Presbyterial ; Episcopal with Episcopal ; but the differ
ent groups have been growing like each other, in their struc
ture as well as in their aim and spirit. Congregational
churches, no longer in conflict with a Presbyterian parliament
and monarchy, have themselves been becoming Presbyterial,
with their series of representative associations, consociations,
conferences, and councils, and their facile combination
with Presbyterian bodies in fit emergencies. Presbyterial
churches, delivered from a prelatical peerage as well as from
state patronage, have been allowing Congregational freedom
in their parishes and adopting Episcopal elements in their
overseeing boards, agencies, and secretaryships, as well as
becoming pervaded with churchly tendencies. Episcopal
churches, freed from royal control and left wholly self-de
pendent, have been admitting Presbyterial deputies, clerical
and lay, into their diocesan conventions and standing com
mittees, and otherwise curtailing the extraneous powers of
the episcopate ; whilst some churchmen have almost stript it
of doctrinal significance and left it with a mere expediential
or political value, as a sort of Episcopal Presbyterianism or
so-called Congregationalism tinctured with Episcopacy. Re
formed Episcopalians interpret the Ordinal in the sense of the
early Presbyterian school of Archbishop Usher. Methodist
Episcopalians also hold to an Episcopacy without apostolic
succession, and have adopted lay-representation as well as lay-
preaching in their administrative policy. The Moravians
practically tend to a kind of Presbyterian Episcopacy. Even
the Roman Catholics, at the late Plenary Council, seem to
have taken the first step toward bringing their Episcopal sys
tem into formative contact with republican institutions. At
the same time the average American lay-man has a growing
dislike of hierarchical orders and exclusive pretensions.
With the exception of the Anglican and Roman Catholic
churchmen who claim a divine right and special grace in their
own ministry, the chief Christian bodies have been fast becom
ing congruous in polity as well as consentient in doctrine.

Agreements in Worship. 15
It is conceivable that these assimilative changes may go on,
together with lessening dogmatic differences, until all exist
ing ecclesiastical distinctions shall have become more super
ficial than fundamental, more nominal than real, if not them
selves be merged in some comprehensive polity which shall
be at once Congregational, Presbyterial, and Episcopal, and
wherein Protestant freedom and intelligence shall appear re
conciled with Catholic order and authority. Already, indeed,
were it possible for the leading denominations to give visible
expression to their own hidden structural unity by acts of
mutual recognition, organic connection, and cooperative char
ity, like the scattered bones which Ezekiel saw coming to
gether into a great army, they would at once start into new
life and activity as the United Churches of the United States.
Hitherto we may seem to have been investigating grounds
of unity which are obscure and only lead out into a visionary
future ; but the one still to be considered — liturgical culture —
belongs to our own time, and calls for practical thought and
action.
Agreements in Worship.
It would seem that the first step toward true church unity
must be liturgical rather than doctrinal or strictly ecclesiasti
cal. Christians who differ cannot begin to agree until they
come together in the region of devout feeling and are thus
predisposed to brotherly concord. Hence it was amid the
Pentecostal fervors in the early church that all divisions of
race, language, lineage, sect and party became for the time
effaced, and ever since then it has been found that in the fire
of true devotion the sternest sectarian feuds melt away and
are forgotten. People of all creeds, Calvinists, Arminians,
Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Baptists, Methodists, can and do
unite in performing the same acts of worship, in observing
the same sacraments, and in commemorating the same relig
ious events. And such devotions are not confined to times
and scenes of revival excitement. When they have become
expressed liturgically in time-hallowed hymns and prayers

1 6 The United Churches.
which breathe the common Christian heart of all ages, in sig
nificant rites and emblems which set forth the essential Chris
tian faith in all churches, and in annual festivals which thrill
the whole Christian world with the consciousness of great
Christian facts and doctrines, there is then afforded a perma
nent practical communion of saints between different denom
inations. It is such a liturgical fusion that has long been going on
amongst us, hidden and unnoticed. The great historical
churches, whose doctrinal standards have remained fixed for
generations and whose ecclesiastical bounds are still jealously
guarded, have meanwhile been so modifying their service-
books and insensibly so interchanging their modes of worship
that now, with scarce a thought of any incongruity. Catholic
creeds are recited in Protestant assemblies, Anglican rites are
couched in Lutheran forms, Presbyterian prayers are intoned
by Episcopalian priests, Wesleyan hymns are sung after Cal
vinistic sermons, portions of High Mass are chanted by Cov
enanter choirs, and Puritan meeting-houses are decked with
Christmas evergreens and Easter flowers. It is in fact no
longer possible to ignore a deep and wide-spread liturgical
movement pervading the leading denominations like a ground-
swell and threatening some day to upheave and bury out of
sight the sectarian differences in which the popular mind has
ceased to take interest. The general demand, as we are often
told by the secular press, is for more of Christian life and
worship and less of a mere metaphysical theology. The
people, not content with having the choicest literature and
oratory in the sermon, are calling for the aids of music and
architecture in the service and secretly revolting from a mode
of worship in which a theological lecture is the one all-
absorbing feature and by which feeling has been divorced
from expression, devotion from art, and doctrine from every
day life. In some denominations, as in the Lutheran, the
Dutch and German Reformed, the Presbyterian and the
Methodist, their own defunct liturgies have been restored or

Agreements in Worship. 17
republished and brought into discussion, whilst in others
attempts are made to construct new formularies, without re
gard to antiquity, catholicity or authority. At the same time,
the Protestant Episcopal Church has been reaping a harvest
of conversions not likely to have been made upon strictly
dogmatic grounds, and is itself already engaged in the timely
work of enriching the prayer-book and adapting it to Ameri
can life and institutions.
It would be a great mistake to think this whole movement
due to the clergy alone, or even confined to the educated and
fashionable classes. In some churches the people have been
acquiring the liturgical culture which once belonged only to
the priest and choir, and can say or sing in English the
Gloria, Te Deum, etc., whose Latin titles show their origin.
Where such culture is not found, the plainest and rudest,
gathered in slums or in the backwoods, seem glad to become
active worshipers instead of mere passive listeners, and to
have their devotion enkindled through the senses as well as
the intellect and conscience. And as if to insure such a cul
ture in the future, the whole rising generation in our Sunday-
schools is being trained into a liturgical habit by a crude
lectionary, responsive psalter, recited prayers, and often all
the appliances of a dramatic ritual.
Even those who do not sympathize with the movement
have ceased to deride it, and exchanging indifference for
grave astonishment at its portentous bearing, are casting,
about for means of explanation and resistance. By many of
them it will no doubt be summarily set down to the account!
of our original depravity, as due to a general decline of vital
religion, or to the increase of wealth, luxury, and fashion, or
to the demoralizing influences of a civil war, or to some /
merely temporary excess or aberration of modern civilization.
After duly allowing for such causes, however, we may still
accept the new development as a necessary, and in the main
a sound reaction of the Protestant mind from an extreme into
which it was driven under the impulse of the Reformation, —

1 8 The United Churches.
an extreme which was unavoidable in so great a religious
revolution, and which was needed at the time for the purifica
tion of European Christianity and for the colonization of the
American churches, but which, now that those great ends
have been attained, may well give place to some more mod
erate and reasonable course. In other words, it would seem
the true policy neither to ignore nor to oppose this reaction
ary tendency, but to candidly recognize what is true and valu
able in it, to indicate its needed checks and safeguards, and
to provide for its legitimate gratification. We need not re
nounce existing Protestantism as a failure ; we cannot accept
existing Catholicism as a success ; but surely we may look
somewhere between these extremes for the path of wisdom
and safety. Revivalism and Ritualism.
On surveying the present state of religious culture we shall
find two conflicting theories of worship, in neither of which
exclusively is the great body of Christian people likely to
abide. The one, for want of a better word, has been called
revivalism ; the other is known as ritualism. The one would
take exalted religious sentiment amounting to rapture as the
normal state of every worshiping congregation ; the other
aims at the outward expression of religious sentiment in a
ceremonial and artistic form, with the view of impressing the
mind through the imagination and the senses. The most
perfect example of revivalism, that to which it constantly
appeals for its warrant, was the rapt assembly at Pentecost,
with its many-tongued psalmists and inspired prophets, its
transports and fervors and miraculous conversions. The
typical illustration of ritualism, and that to which it naturally
reverts for its model, was the medieval cathedral, with its
supposed re-enactment of the great tragedy of the Cross,
amid all the aesthetical influences of architecture, sculpture,
painting, music, and eloquence. Whilst the affinities of re
vivalism are with new and rude populations, which have
neither the means nor the taste for literary and artistic modes

Revivalism and Ritualism. 19
of worship, the tendencies to ritualism are found in older and
richer communities, whose culture and art must sooner or
later permeate their religious as well as domestic and social
life. Now, it is enough thus to fairly state the two theories in
order to see that neither can hope to exterminate its oppo
site, or arrogate to itself the whole truth in respect to the
vital matter of Christian worship. Too often their respective
advocates have proceeded upon such assumption, until they
have simply become incapable of appreciating each other.
The mere revivahst has ended in decrying all artistic culture
as essentially irreligious, and conceiving it to be impossible
for refined and fashionable people to be as good Christians as
himself, whilst the mere ritualist has at length reduced his
whole religion to a fine art, and learned to look upon all other
manifestations of religious feeling as vulgar rant and hypoc
risy. But the history of Christianity shows that neither
tendency can be safely pushed to an extreme. Even in the
primitive church the revival spirit, with all the advantage of
miraculous gifts, gave rise to so shocking abuses that the
Apostles enjoined a more decorous and formal mode of
worship, and often since then, when not wisely checked and
guided, it has fostered a spasmodic type of piety, consisting
of nervous exaltations, followed by dreary collapses, destruc
tive of all normal church growth and healthy Christian activ
ity. In like manner the ritualistic spirit very soon began to
harden the simple usages of primitive worship into an elabo
rate ceremonial to which all the arts contributed, until the
church became a temple of the Christian Muses ; and in our
day even that earnest expression of a once living belief has
sometimes given place to a mere scenic symbolism akin in
effect to the spectacular drama.
At the same time notwithstanding these extremes, the essen
tial good that is in each tendency is still apparent. It would
be folly to treat as mere morbid excitement such a great
religious awakening as that which attended the preaching of

20 The United Churches.
Whitefield and Wesley, when like new apostles they traversed
the American colonies, kindling them into a flame of devotion ;
and on the other hand it would be almost an insult to argue
that liturgies foster a low type of Christian faith and practice,
in view of so illustrious examples as Bernard, Herbert, Taylor,
and Keble. In our own time much of the earnest working
Christianity of the Church of England has gone into the
ritualistic party, and in our own country a high order of litur
gical service may be found associated not only with faithful
pulpits, but with city charities and frontier missions. Even
the evangelists. Moody and Sankey, resort to a kind of crude
ritualism in their revival meetings, whilst the ritualist Fathers
Maturin and Knox-Little tincture their ritual with a kind of
mild revivalism. The simple truth is that both tendencies are
legitimate and valuable within the limits which they impose
upon each other. There are churches, especially those still
doing pioneer work, in which revival methods must long pre
vail ; and there may be times in the history of all churches
when such methods will be needed to refresh their languid
faith, and quicken them into new life ; but for the ordinary
sound states of feeling in churches becoming replenished with
learning and culture, the need of a more or less literary and
artistic form of worship presents itself as a foregone conclu
sion for which due provision should be made.
The Claims of ^stheticism.
It will be easy at this point to sneer at literary and artistic
tastes as weak and trivial compared with religious interests.
That is not the question : that may be granted. Nevertheless
the faculties used in the cultivation of letters and the fine arts,
small as they may be, are an original part of human nature and
essential to a fully developed manhood. Unless they be
simply obliterated, they must somehow share in the regenera
tive power of the Christian faith, and find their due place in
any symmetrical scheme of Christian nurture. Neglect them
or train them apart from religious ideas and influences, and

The Claims of yEstheticism. 2 1
sooner or later they will ally themselves with vice and super
stition, and at length appear in some terrible Nemesis of faith
like that which avenged the Puritan rigor with the licentious
reign of Charles II. Moreover, it has become a practical
question how to deal with them. The culture which has
invaded our homes cannot be kept out of our churches. In
fact it has already come into them, and come to stay. If we
will not go back to the Puritan meeting-house, the Covenanter
psalm- singing, the Methodist camp-meeting, the Quaker
silence, we must go forward to some new adjustment of the
advanced civilization and Christianity of our day.
Precisely what that adjustment should be, how far the con
temporaneous literature and art of a community can be wisely
admitted within the sphere of Christian worship, it might not
be easy to decide as an abstract question. Practically, how
ever, as we have seen, it is being settled for us by the course
of providential events, by the spontaneous working and inter
action of the two interests. The much-dreaded corruption of
religion by science, of piety by art, of devotion by taste, has
not come to pass. Allowing for exceptions we may fearlessly
claim just the opposite result. Pulpits as orthodox and stead
fast as any of the last generation are to-day reinforced with all
the stores of modern literature, and applying Scripture doc
trine, as never before, to current questions in trade, morals,
politics, and philosophy. Congregations as devout and earnest
as any once gathered in the barn-like chapel or imitated
Greek temple, are now worshipping in Christian buildings,
amid Christian emblems and legends, and with the aid of
choir and organ offering up the glorias and canticles of a Chris
tian ritual. In short, churches which have been longest on
the soil and most fairly express our national life and social
growth, without any loss of their early purity and zeal, and
without the least compromise of their distinctive orthodoxy,
are adopting all the elements of liturgical worship.

2 2 The United Churches.
New-made Liturgies.
Leaving it to appear hereafter, how much of this movement
is crude and rash and likely to pass away, we come at once to
the practical questions — How is it to be met and satisfied?
Whereto does it tend ? And to the former question the
answer is plain, that it cannot be met and satisfied by new-
made liturgies or patchwork services. Such expedients pro
ceed upon a misconception of the true liturgic ideal as an
historical growth and flower of the piety of the whole church
in all lands and ages. In distinction from extemporaneous
worship, a liturgy is a system, for both minister and people, of
fixed forms of prayer and praise, of administering rites and
ceremonies, of methodically reading the Holy Scriptures, of
commemorating events and doctrines, together with any
literary and artistic aids which may be afforded by the exist
ing state of religious culture. Such a system cannot be made
by one man, in a day. To attempt it would be to set at nought
the wisdom of eighteen centuries of Christian worship. It
would be the absurdity of composing new hymns as well as
prayers, of framing new creeds, of celebrating the Lord's
Supper, baptism, matrimony and burial with new ceremonies,
of constructing tables of Scripture lessons, which have never
been tested, and of instituting Christian festivals of which the
church has never heard. It is something like this absurdity
which is perpetrated whenever a liturgy-maker sits down in his
study to write out an original and complete formulary for the
use of his people or of his denomination, in ignorance and
sometimes in contempt of the devotional treasures which
have been accumulating for ages.
And scarcely any better is the incongruous mixture some
times made of liturgical with extemporaneous worship. Each
is good in its own place, and either in place is better than the
other out of place. In social prayer-meetings, especially
during times of revival, the prayers, hymns, and exhortations
will be free and spontaneous, and anything like a liturgy

New-m,ade Liturgies. 23
would be felt as an intolerable bondage, but in large assem
blies on public occasions there must be more of method and
formality. It would seem a strange impropriety, when we
think of it, to improvise stated, ordinary acts of divine service,
to extemporize the administration of solemn rites, to express
the moods and wants of but one individual out of a thousand
people and often leave their most essential devotions to his
chance impulse. And yet something very much like this
will be endured by intelligent congregations who have taken
steps to formulize their worship in some respects but not in
others ; who will come together for impromptu services in a
cathedral-like structure adapted to ritual uses ; who will insist
upon a carefully written sermon, but sit listless through long
desultory prayers ; who will let their children read the same
appointed Scripture lesson with all the Sunday-schools in
Christendom, but have their own public reading of God's
word arranged, if arranged at all, on some occult principle
known to the minister alone ; who will grope after him through
a service supposed to be introductory to the unknown theme
of his sermon ; who will only join him intelligently in saying
a Psalter which was meant to be sung, or have his unpre
meditated effusions mixed with a few liturgical forms, such as
the Lord's Prayer, the Apostles' Creed, the Commandments,
the Glorias, torn piecemeal from their only proper liturgical
connection ; who will keep anniversary days and weeks of
prayer by human appointment, but discard the observance of
Lent as without divine warrant, or perhaps celebrate Christ
mas, Good Friday, and Easter as mere public or social inci
dents, without regard to the Christian year in which they find
their true significance ; in a word, who will seek to blend
fragments of the ancient liturgy with an otherwise informal
service. The wonder is that the two can live together, and
it would seem certain that sooner or later one or the other
will have to be abandoned.
This brings us to the other practical question as to the
issue of the liturgical movement, and the answer is already at

24 The United Churches.
hand: — it must have its logical conclusion in the English
prayer-book as the only Christian liturgy worthy of the name.
I do not forget the Lutheran, Dutch and German Reformed
and early Presbyterian formularies, each admirable in its own
day and for its own purpose ; and were it at all likely that any
of them could now come into general use among our churches
it might be well to pause and estimate their claims. But on
their face it will be seen that, being of foreign origin and
modern translation, they are wanting in the quaint classical
English of the age of Shakespeare, as well as in that solemn
Scriptural style which is so desirable in order to separate the
phrase of public worship from that of ordinary literature and
conversation. Moreover, in their structure it will be found
that they break more entirely with Christian antiquity than
would now be deemed desirable, whilst their own contents,
as we shall see, have been largely included in the prayer-
book compilation, together with other forms of still greater
liturgical value.
Let it be here premised that by the English prayer-book
in this essay is meant the liturgy of the Church of England
as it has existed substantially for more than three hundred
years, long before any other American churches had come
into being; and that liturgy chiefly in distinction from the
Articles and the Ordinal, with neither of which isit indissolu-
bly connected, as is shown, not only by their separate origin
and use, but also by the existence of other versions repre
senting other views of doctrine and polity, Calvinistic,
Arminian, Socinian, Presbyterian, Methodist, and Congrega
tional. For the main purpose of this argument the Protes
tant Episcopal edition, with which we are happily so familiar,
need not be taken specially into account, but our attention
simply fixed upon that ancient service, whose structure and
contents have remained essentially the same through all the
revisions to which it has been subjected and amid all the varie
ties in which it is still extant.

Excellence of the English Liturgy. 25
Excellence of the English Liturgy.
The English liturgy, next to the English Bible, is the most
wonderful product of the Reformation. The very fortunes of
the book are the romance of history. As we trace its de
velopment, its rubrics seem dyed in the blood of martyrs ;
its offices echo with polemic phrases ; its canticles mingle
with the battle-cries of armed sects and factions ; and its suc
cessive revisions mark the career of dynasties, states, and
churches. Cavalier, covenanter, and puritan have crossed their
swords over it ; scholars and soldiers, statesmen and church
men, kings and commoners, have united in defending it.
England, Germany, Geneva, Scotland, America, have by turns
been the scene of its conflicts. Far beyond the little island
which was its birthplace, its influence has been silently
spreading in connection with great political and religious
changes, generation after generation, from land to land, even
where its name was never heard.
At first sight, indeed, the importance which this book has
acquired may seem quite beyond its merits, as the Bible
itself might appear to a superficial observer a mere idol of
bigotry and prejudice. But the explanation is in both cases
somewhat the same. It is to be found in the fact that the
prayer-book, like the sacred canon, is no merely individual
production, nor even purely human work, but an accumula
tion of choice writings, partly divine, partly human, expres
sing the religious mind of the whole ancient and modern
world, as enunciated by prophets and apostles, saints and
martyrs, and formulated by councils, synods, and conferences,
all seeking heavenly light and guidance. Judaism has given
to it its lessons and psalter ; Christianity has added its epistles
and gospels; Catholicism has followed with its canticles,
creeds, and collects ; and Protestantism has completed it with
its exhortations, confessions, and thanksgivings. At the same
time each leading phase of the reformation has been impressed
upon its composite materials. Lutheranism has molded its

26 The United Churches.
ritual; Calvinism has framed its doctrine; Episcopal ianism
has dominated both ritual and doctrine ; whilst Presbyterianism
has subjected each to thorough revision. And the whole has
been rendered into the pure English and with the sacred
fervor peculiar to the earnest age in which it arose ; has been
wrought into a system adapted to all classes of men through
all the vicissitudes of life ; and has been tested and hallowed
by three centuries of trial in every quarter of the globe.
Catholicity of the English Liturgy.
It would be strange if a work which thus has its roots in
the whole church of the past should not be sending forth its
branches into the whole church of the future ; and any one
who will take the pains to study its present adaptations,
whatever may have been his prejudices, must admit that there
is no other extant formulary which is so well fitted to become
the rallying-point and standard of modern Christendom. In
it are to be found the means, possibly the germs, of a just
reorganization of Protestantism as well as an ultimate recon
ciliation with true Catholicism, such a Catholicism as shall
have shed everything sectarian and national, and retained
only what is common to the whole Church of Christ in all
ages and countries. Whilst to the true Protestant it offers
evangelical doctrine, worship, and unity on the terms of the
Reformation, it still preserves for the true Catholic the
choicest formulas of antiquity, and to all Christians of every
name opens a liturgical system at once Scriptural and reason
able, doctrinal and devotional, learned and vernacular, artis
tic and spiritual. It is not too much to say that were the
problem given, to frame out of the imperfectly organized and
sectarian Christianity of our times a liturgical model for the
communion of saints in the one universal church, the result
might be expressed in some such compilation as the Enghsh
Book of Common Prayer.
This ideal fitness of the work to serve as the nucleus of a
reunited Christianity will especially appear in the American

Catholicity of the English Liturgy. 2 7
churches, if we view it in connection with their historical
origin and their present condition. In the first place, it sus
tains historical relations to those churches, which though
forgotten or obscured, are vital and enduring. Owing to the
mode of its compilation from other liturgies, the very mate
rials out of which it was at first formed have an organic
affinity for the various ecclesiastical elements which now lie
around it in this country as disjecta membra, as yet unassimi-
lated and discordant. Whilst its Catholic or ancient portions,
derived from the Greek and Latin churches, may be regarded
as the common heritage of all Christians, its Protestant por
tions can be traced back to their sources in those Reformed
churches of Germany, Geneva, Holland, Scotland, and Eng
land in which the American churches have severally originated ;
and were they now disposed to any formal correspondence or
union, they would only have to come together in the light of
their common history in order to see that the English prayer-
book, next to the Holy Scriptures, affords the closest visible
bonds between them. The Evangelical Lutheran Church,
besides recognizing in it some of the ancient Catholic formu
las which she has also retained, could find in the offices of
baptism, matrimony, and burial large portions of the liturgies
of Luther, Melancthon, and Bucer. The Reformed churches
(Dutch and German) could refer important parts of the daily
prayer and communion service to a common origin with their
own liturgies in the formularies of Calvin, Lasco, and Pol-
lanus. The Presbyterian church, whose standards were
framed mainly by presbyters of the Church of England in
the Westminster Assembly, could not only discern in the
articles of religion the original skeleton of her confession of
faith, but trace through the entire liturgy her revising hand,
and might regain a living embodiment of her directory of
worship in that amended prayer-book which some of her own
founders strove to establish two centuries ago. The Protest
ant Episcopal church, the only church that has faithfully kept
and honored the whole book among us, after guarding her

28 The United Churches.
connection with the Anglican, Latin, and Greek churches,
might also acknowledge her large indebtedness to other
Protestant churches, now in a position, as never before, to
recognize and respect their mutual relationship. The Metho
dist Episcopal church, which herself originated in an Oxford
movement, besides deriving the model of her polity from the
Ordinal, still retains the prayer-book as edited and authorized
by Wesley. Even the Congregational churches (Trinitarian,
Unitarian, Baptist), though without the same historical con
tinuity, might look for broken links in the Westminster cate
chisms and King's Chapel prayer-book, as well as in the early
Puritan revisions before the rise of Independency. In fact,
nearly all the leading denominations, were they to retrace their
history, would come back to the English liturgy as a work
which their ecclesiastical forefathers did not so much aim to
destroy as to amend ; which they finally abandoned only in
the larger interests of civil and religious freedom ; and which
they might now, in the changed circumstances of another age
and country, easily resume and modify without the least sacri
fice of denominational pride or logical consistency.
Reaction Toward the English Liturgy.
If this picture seem strange and visionary, let it be ob
served in the second place, that the American churches for
some time past have been steadily, though unconsciously,
drifting back toward the midway position held by the English
prayer-book between the extremes of Catholic and Protestant
Christianity. Whilst the European churches, Roman, Angli
can, Scotch, Dutch, German, have for several centuries re
mained fixed in their original seats as state religions, with
but little intercourse and mutual modification, the American
churches meanwhile, escaping from these narrow confines,
have migrated to another hemisphere, become compacted to
gether under a republican form of government, made free and
equal before the law, and left to their own spontaneous devel
opment. The result is that they have been slowly rebound-

Reaction Toward the English Liturgy. 29
ing from the rash extremes into which they were driven by
sectarian warfare in the Old World, and no longer held apart
by political restraints, are now under common impulses tend
ing toward substantial unity in the midst of trivial diversity.
In matters of order and worship here and there, they have
actually exchanged positions in their recoil, and come nearer
to each other than to their respective mother churches on the
other side of the Atlantic. Presbyterians have been adopting
the liturgical usages which once kindled the wrath of Jenny
Geddes into a revolution of the three kingdoms, whilst Epis
copalians have been admitting the lay elements which brought
Archbishop Laud to the scaffold. Congregationalists are re
producing the church buildings which their ancestors defaced
as Popish chapels, whilst American churchmen are proposing
to make the old Puritan Thanksgiving a holy day in the
Church year. Baptist ministers have begun to borrow from
a prayer-book which John Bunyan renounced for the Elstow
jail, whilst neighboring rectors have engaged in prayer-meet
ings which the bishops of that day would have legally sup
pressed as a crime. Methodist congregations, founded by
John Wesley, have costly churches, service-books, and writ
ten sermons, whilst the Oxford reformers of to-day have sur-
pliced lay-readers, clerical exhorters, and ritual missions.
Not long since an association of city ministers devised a
" non-Episcopal observance of Lent," whilst Lenten revivals
were being conducted by a Protestant order of priests. The
whole Christian world is alive with such changes, and becom
ing visibly marshaled for the issue. On the one side are the
various Protestant churches, already beginning to resume
those portions of the prayer-book which were once falsely
associated with tyranny and superstition, and in spite of in
herited prejudices, exploring anew the whole field of Catholic
antiquity ; and it would be strange indeed, if these enlight
ened Christian bodies, thus moving in the Hne of great
historical causes, should pause in the midst of so inevitable re
actions. On the other side are the Roman and Anglican

30 The United Churches.
churches, no longer able to bind up the Catholic portions of
the prayer-book with hierarchy and social caste, but them
selves permeated as never before with the influences of
Protestant freedom and culture ; and it remains to be seen
whether even these least pliable types of organized Christian
ity must not yet yield to the pressure of democratic institu
tions and the plastic force of American society. Be that as it
may, so long as the religious, poHtical, and social influences
by which the different denominations are being sifted and
fused together continue to operate amongst them, they will
in various degrees unitedly approximate a Catholicism which
shall be truly Protestant, as well as a Protestantism which
shall be truly Catholic. In a word, if we are ever to have
anything answering to the grand conception of the United
Churches of the United States, it must come through that
spirit of Protestant Catholicism of which the English liturgy
properly amended and enriched, would be the best conceiv
able expression.
And now the very process of such a liturgical concretion
of different denominations about the nucleus of the prayer-
book has reached a point where it only awaits accomplishment.
Bring together the fragments of that ancient liturgy as pre
served by some churches, or coming into use in others, and
recombine them as they may be found in its various offices ;
restore more fully the links of the Christian year, which are
already socially arid legally recognized among us, and let
them be illustrated by the epistles and gospels which have
marked their circuit for centuries past; arrange the present
random lessons so that the whole Scriptures may be publicly
read in their inspired connection; reduce the rambling "long
prayer" to the lucid order and fullness of the Litany, and
add a few well-chosen collects from the best liturgies ; purge
existing hymnals of their copious doggerel and enrich them
only with hymns which have become classical, and at the
same time scrupulously retain a learned pulpit and the liberty
of extemporaneous worship for fit times and occasions ; and

Reaction Toward the English Liturgy. 31
the result would be an American liturgy expressing the es
sential common faith of Catholic and Protestant Christianity.
The general conclusion of our study is now before us : a
doctrinal compact of the American churches can only be
looked for in the distant future; their ecclesiastical confed
eration may be nearer at hand ; but their liturgical fusion is
passing before our eyes toward its only logical issue in the
prayer-book. How such a fusion is likely to affect the
relations existing between the Protestant Episcopal Church
and other American churches ; whether it will leave those
relations unchanged or at length lead to mutual recognition
and organic connection — are interesting questions which may
here force themselves into some minds ; but they are not the
most urgent questions growing out of the investigation ; they
belong, as we have seen, to the future rather than to the
present; and they are quite aside from the main object of this
essay. I have simply aimed to present certain facts and
truths to those who are deeply interested in knowing them.

II.
DENOMINATIONAL VIEWS OF
CHURCH UNITY.

II.
DENOMINATIONAL VIEWS OF CHURCH UNITY.
The reader will have observed that the preceding essay was
in no sense representative of denominational views, as held in
any church or party, but was simply an independent survey
of all Christian denominations with their existing grounds of
organic unity in doctrine, polity, and worship. The paper
was written with no thought whatever of the criticism which
has been converged upon it by champions of the different
churches. It has been under discussion for many months, until
nearly all the interested parties have been fully heard. In
offering a brief reply, I might regret the seeming odds of a
battle with so many giants at once, did I not hope to stay out
of the battle as much as possible, and keep to the main ques
tion, in which alone the public can be interested. A mere
controversy on Christian unity would indeed be but a sorry
absurdity. As it has been strangely assumed that the essay put forth
some new-made scheme of denominational union, in particu
lar a formal coalition on the basis of the Anglican prayer-
book, I beg to recall with emphasis my introductory state
ment : —
" We are not yet ready for such schemes, and it would only be a waste
of time to discuss them. The first lesson to be learned is that the unifi
cation of the American Churches, if it is ever to come at all, cannot be
precipitated by platforms, coalitions, compromises, in short by any mere
external association of the different denominations, which leaves them
still without internal modifications and vital connections, as true and
living branches of the Vine of Christ." 35

36 Views of Church Unity.
In pursuance of this statement, the former paper was a
mere historical sketch of the unconscious growth of leading
American Churches toward organic likeness and oneness, as
seen especially in their liturgical communion. The plain facts
presented in that sketch have not been denied by any of the
distinguished respondents, and all the objections to some sup
posed liturgical scheme of union have, therefore, been but so
many formidable javelins hurled into the air. The position
taken was briefly this: Our chief historical churches have
long been reacting toward the Protestant Catholicism ex
pressed in the English prayer-book. That position has not
even been assailed or questioned. Here the case might rest,
if the aim had been to succeed in an argument rather than to
arrive at the truth.
But while the critics of the essay have seemed somewhat
to differ from it, they have much more largely agreed with it,
and with one another, and have thus revealed a remarkable
consensus of opinions, upon which we may now build up a
constructive argument for the continued growth of church
unity in the future along the lines revealed by the discussion.
To this task the present paper is mainly devoted. If it shall
be performed even imperfectly, the protracted discussion will
not have been in vain.
We have seen that the various ecclesiastical and quasi-
ecclesiastical or pseudo-ecclesiastical bodies of which our
American Christianity is composed may be studied in three
general groups or classes, according to the principles prevail
ing in their structure: The Episcopal, including the Roman
Catholic, Methodist, and Protestant Episcopal Churches ; the
Presbyterial, including the I>utheran, Reformed, and Pres
byterian Churches ; the Congregational, including the
Baptist, Orthodox and Unitarian churches. Representative
divines in each group have spoken on the question of
Christian union or church unity, and thus furnished the
materials for a full comparison of views. Let us take them
in the order which we have adopted.

Episcopalian Opinions. 37
Episcopalian Opinions.
The Right Rev. Bishop Dudley and the Rev. Dr. J. H.
Hopkins of the Protestant Episcopal Church, have treated
the essay with great kindness, justice, and clearness. They
both admit substantially its general conclusions — that full
dogmatic agreement is still a long way off, and that the litur
gical fusion, which has begun, is but a desirable first step
towards true church unity. But as to the matter of polity,
they consistently hold that Episcopacy affords the only basis
or form of organic oneness.-^ Against this opinion their
opponents will urge several considerations : —
First. That forms of doctrine and worship, or creeds and sac
raments, as well as polity, are ecclesiastical elements affording
grounds or germs of organic unity, and are much more im
portant than any mere polity, though it were imagined to be
of the most perfect Episcopal form.
Second. That as a matter of fact the Episcopal polity,
though common to the Greek, Roman, and Anglican churches,
is but little known in the Protestant churches of Europe and
America. Third. That Presbytery, rather than Episcopacy, is the one
polity which by common consent has continued historically,
from the Apostles' time until the present day, in all the chief
churches of Christendom, both Catholic and Protestant.
Fourth. That the claim to an Apostolate, as maintained in
these letters, is not allowed by other Protestant churches nor
by the Roman Catholic Church, and is practically viewed by
both as involving organized schism rather than organic unity.
Fifth. That instead of seeking a remote alliance with the

1 " Leaving out of view entirely the question of a scriptural revelation, and
granting that there is no definite ecclesiastical polity laid down in Scripture, yet
none other than a threefold Ministry of Apostolic succession can by any possi
bility be made satisfactory to the great and ancient Churches of the East and of
the West, even could the Anglican Communion be induced for the sake of unity
to accept another." — Bishop Dudley.

38 Views of Church Unity.
Greek and Latin Churches, it were better to begin with some
organic connection of the kindred English-speaking Protest
ant churches. Congregational, Presbyterial, and Episcopal,
and on the basis of their common Anglo-Saxon Christianity
to aim at the more general unity of Christendom.
Whether these views be right or wrong, they are existing
matters of opinion which must enter into the present discus
sion, as may appear hereafter. It is a very pleasing feature of
both of these letters that they breathe an earnest Christian
desire and hope of ultimate church unity.
The Rev. Dr. George R. Crooks, of the Methodist Episco
pal Church, also writes in a union spirit and is in accord with
the essay on some essential points, with differences which
seem mainly verbal. Mistaking the word " organic," as
hitherto defined and used, he applies it to that figurative
organism or spiritual body of Christ in which all true Chris
tians are joined as members, rather than to those ecclesiastical
organizations or organized churches which are not one, but
many, and more or less hostile to each other.^ Organic one
ness, in the former sense of one Christian body, is indeed an
established fact, and happily a fact that goes without the say
ing in these papers, since they would scarcely be possible but
for its tacit assumption ; but organic oneness, in the common
sense of one church organization, is unhappily not a fact ; and
though such unity be not deemed vital or fundamental, yet it
may be important, if not indispensable, as will hereafter be
shown. Dr. Crooks also mistakes the term Catholic for
" Roman Catholic,'' and is thereby led into a view of the rela
tions of Protestantism and Catholicism which may be modi
fied by one or two suggestions.
First. True Catholicism, if defined to be historic Christianity
as freed from Roman errors, is not inconsistent with " New

^ " The unity of the Churches is an established, a divine fact, and that unity
is necessarily organic. The Church is already one by virtue of the life which
pertains to all its members as members of Christ. ' '

Episcopalian Opinions. 39
Testament Christianity," but is the choicest fruit of its own
divine development in history. The Protestants themselves,
as their name implies, did not wholly renounce it ; nor can
we renounce it, unless we are ready for the frightful theory
that during fifteen centuries from the Apostles' time until the
reformation there was no Church or providence, but only one
long reign of sin and Satan.
Second. Such Catholic Christianity is in fact more or less
fully retained by Protestant churches in their forms of doc
trine, polity, and worship, which are not to be found clearly
set forth in the New Testament, but are very largely an out
growth from it in Church history under divine Providence.
The Methodist Church, for example, has a modified episco
pate, liturgy, and articles, which it inherited directly from
the Church of England, remotely from the Church of Rome,
though without other accompanying dogmas held in those
churches. Third. The Protestant body in its recoil from Romanism
may have gone too far away from Catholicism, into such ex
tremes as sectarianism, rationalism and revivalism ; but a
healthy reaction has already begun, as we have shown, in
regard to the historic liturgy, and it may yet extend to the
other diseases or abuses of Protestantism, until a true church
unity shall have taken the place of our sectarianism, and our
latest rationalism at length give way to the vindicated
Catholic faith.
Fourth. The Roman Church and the chief Protestant
churches, notwithstanding their wide differences, rest primarily
upon the same Holy Scriptures and share largely the same
Catholic Christianity ; and it is at least conceivable that in the
lapse of time, by the transmuting force of American institutions,
and under the pressure of common dangers, they may be
brought slowly together from their present extremes, having
shed their respective errors until at last they join in the one
essential faith of Protestant Catholicism as the full flower of
New Testament Christianity. Professor Crooks himself

40 Views of Church Unity.
argues very forcibly that the chief Roman dogma of sacer
dotal supremacy is doomed to die out, both in Church and
State, in the wake of political causes ; and he may thus refute
his own imaginary picture of an immediate crude coalition
of " Romanists and Protestants in one ecclesiastical govern
ment." Fifth. The English liturgy, as we have seen, affords the
grounds and germs of such a gradual coalescence of Protestant
with Catholic Christianity in the American churches ; and
when the Methodist Episcopal Church completes its reaction
with the rest, the Wesleyan prayer-book, instead of lying a
nullity, will serve to bring it into more visible communion
and organic connection with the other great historic churches
of Christendom.
Dr. Crooks, as a representative of episcopacy without
apostolical succession, finds no organic bond between the
Greek, Latin, and Anglican churches, but hopes for some
closer union of the Protestant churches, to be reached by
recognizing their essential spiritual unity as a divine fact ; by
acknowledging one another's churchly standing in their inter
course ; and by coming into more organic cooperation for the
great ends of their common Christianity.
Presbyterian Opinions.
The two representatives of the Presbyterian church have
reviewed the essay from different standpoints. The late Dr.
Archibald Alexander Hodge, as if with a prophetic utterance,
and in an elevated Christian tone befitting the theme, discussed
the doctrine of the invisible Catholic Church, and set forth in
glowing terms its unbroken unity, as including not merely all
true believers on earth, but the whole company of the redeemed
in heaven.
The surviving disputants may well recognize such doctrine
as common ground, while still taking to themselves the
reproach that the visible church as yet so little reflects the one
ness of the Church invisible. Unhappily, our existing de-

Presbyterian Opinions. 41
nominations cannot be viewed merely as so many harmonious
groups of organized churches, or legitimate varieties of
church organization, dwelling together in manifest unity.
Having been largely produced by warring sects and factions,
excommunicating and unchurching one another, they exhibit
an apparent dismemberment of the very body of Christ, which
has become the great flagrant scandal of our age and country,
and has made it the plain duty as well as impulse of all Chris
tian people to seek for more outward organic unity, as well as
to hail the providential signs of its inward growth and expres
sion. In any other view, we could only adjourn our questions
of doctrine to the millennium, and wait until we may all join
in the perfect liturgy of heaven. Practically, indeed, this is
the course taken by some extremists who would consecrate
mere denominationalism, extenuate sectarianism, and make
schism itself chronic, in the face of their own false dormant
ideal of an invisible Catholic Church.
In contrast with such errors. Dr. Hodge has impressively
shown that the various church organizations, through the in
dwelling Spirit, will yet grow together toward a true organic
unity consistent with due variety, as but so many members in
the one mystical body of Christ. And the latter part of his
letter refers to such unity in the three organic spheres of doc
trine, polity, and worship. As to the first, his hopeful view
of the dogmatic consensus of Protestant Trinitarian churches
is a most valuable and timely contribution to the general argu
ment for church unity, and would be only more complete
could it include on the basis of a common American Christian
ity, those Unitarian churches which express the flower of
Puritan culture, as well as the great Roman Catholic Church
which is already in the lead on such social questions as mar
riage, temperance, education, and property. As to the second
opinion, that unity in polity would be more difficult than unity
in dogma, I have nothing to add to the former paper, except
what may be found in the sequel. As to the third, it may be
said that the argument from numbers against the growth of

42 Views of Church Unity.
liturgical communion, like most statistical arguments, can be
used on both sides of the question, and will probably be met
from the other side by such answers as the following : —
First. That the liturgical churches of Christendom out
number in membership the non-liturgical churches as three
or four to one.
Second. That in this country it is the least ecclesiastical
denominations, the evanescent sects, that are without liturgi
cal tendencies, as they are crude in their doctrine and polity ;
while only the historical churches, of European origin, can
yield the proper data of the church problem, and these are
vitally connected with the contents of the English liturgy in a
ratio of forty or fifty to one. Moreover, as we have seen, they
are already, knowingly or unknowingly, resuming elements
and portions of that liturgy in their worship, and logically
tend to it as the best devotional formulary of Catholic and
Protestant Christianity.
This starts the only question in the other letter demanding
attention. In meeting it, I must reluctantly forsake, for the
moment, an independent position, and come down to the
denominational ground which the critic has taken. The
Rev. Dr. Howard Crosby, declaring himself an out-and-out
Presbyterian, offers seven objections to the prayer-book as
received opinions in the Presbyterian Church.-' With due
respect, I am obliged to say that not one of them has any
foundation in the recognized standards of that body. My
replies must be brief.
First. The Directory for Public Worship (ch. v.) does not

^ I. " They object to the breaking up of prayer into little fragments, each be
ginning with an invocation and ending with a formal peroration. They consider
this style of prayer too artificial and leading to a mechanical worship.
2. They object to the open-eyed reading of prayer, as tending to withdraw the
mind from the unseen.
3. They object to the stereotyped prayer, however excellent.
4. They object to the Litany in toto, as putting the believer far off from God,
calling on him to spare him as a miserable sinner. . . . The Litany has no

Presbyterian Opinions. 43
" object to the stereotyped prayer, however excellent," but
does object to " mean, irregular, or extravagant effusions, as
a disgrace of divine service." Such effusions, becoming
themselves stereotyped, are worse than any " open-eyed read
ing of prayer," and in fact sometimes open the eyes of the
unhappy listeners.
Second. The Larger Catechism (Q. 186-188) does not
object to the invocation, peroration, and well ordered brief
petitions which it finds in the Lord's Prayer as being " too
artificial and tending to a mechanical mode of worship ;" but
it does prescribe the right use of that liturgical form and
didactic model of common prayer. To repeat it, at least once
in each public office is not treating it " as a mere magical
formula," but is keeping strictly within the scriptural rubric,
"When ye pray, say Our Father."
Third. The Shorter Catechism (Q. 99) enjoins the whole
word of God as a rule of prayer ; and if therefore any " Pres
byterians object to the Litany in toto as putting the believer
far off from God and calling on him to spare him as a miser
able sinner," they simply object with the Pharisee to the
very words of the contrite Publican, as well as to the peniten
tial prayers of priest and people weeping between the porch
and the altar. If they object to its devout repetitions as
" unmeaning," they must object to the like repetitions in
Holy Scripture. If they could object to its solemn pleadings
and tender entreaties and manifold intercessions as " having no
feature suited to the child of God or joint heir with Christ,"
feature suited to the "heir of God or joint-heir with Christ." Many of the
features of the Litany (like the prayer against sudden death) are but relics of
Romanism, and its repetitions are unmeaning.
5. They object to the absolution declaration, which is only a toning down of
the Roman absolution bestowal.
6. They object to the repetitions of the Lord's Prayer, as if it were a magical
formula, which was made effective by frequent repetition.
7. They object to the clear remnants of transubstantiation in the Communion
Service and of baptismal regeneration in the Baptismal Service — two doctrines
which Presbyterians abhor."

44 Views of Church Unity.
they would object to the supplications of the prophets and
apostles themselves. But before they object to its scriptural
petition against sudden death as "a relic of Romanism," they
should consult the Roman original (a subitanea et improvisa
morte) or the Anglo-Saxon version (a subita et eterna morte).
They might also profitably consider the beams in their own
extempore litanies, the " irreverent," the " sarcastic," the
" tedious prayers," etc., of which that accomplished Presby
terian divine, Dr. Samuel Miller, speaks in his useful treatise.
Fourth. The Form of Government (ch. iii. v.) does not
" hold that all believers are priests " in the sense of being
Ministers, or that " a minister is only an ordained ruler and
leader of the people, with no more authority to pronounce
absolution upon the penitent than any one who is not a min
ister ;" but it does most plainly distinguish him from the mere
representatives of the people as a minister of Christ and
ambassador from God, declaring pardon in Christ's stead.
The Confession also (ch. xxx.) names among his high func
tions, " power to open the kingdom of heaven unto penitent
sinners by the ministry of the Gospel, and by absolution from
censures, as occasion shall require." Consistently with such
teaching, the declarative Absolution, prefixed to the English
daily service is simply an authoritative proclamation of the
Gospel, made solemn and direct by a special act of worship
on the part both of minister and people. If any Presbyterians
are thoughtless enough to object to that formula as " a rem
nant of the Roman Absolution," they should be informed that
its very motive was as Protestant as its meaning ; that it was
first suggested by Calvin himself; that it was taken very largely
from a Calvinistic liturgy ; and that it was alternatively called
the Absolution or Remission of sins, in deference to Puritan
scruples against a word of Popish sound.
Fifth. The Confession of Faith (ch. xxviii.) does not " ab
hor the doctrine of baptismal regeneration " as rightly stated,
but does declare it a "great sin to contemn this ordinance,"
guards carefully against the abuse of it, and defines it as a

Presbyterian Opinions. 45
"sign and seal of regeneration even unto infants " (Q. 177).
And the Baptismal Offices merely express the substantial
sense of this definition in strong liturgical terms. Any Pres
byterians who abhor such doctrine may find it discreetly
maintained by that saintly man, the late Dr. Archibald Alex
ander, in the second chapter of his work on religious experi
ence. As to the Holy Supper, the Confession takes some
higher views of the Real Presence than can anywhere be
found in the English Communion office. In fact, the only
" remnant of transubstantiation " that appears in that office is
a solemn ordinance against it as " idolatry to be abhorred of
all faithful Christians." Presbyterians who are horrified at
such a rag of popery will have their horror increased on
learning that the stringent rubric was first procured by that
uncompromising reformer, John Knox, in 1552, and fully
confirmed at the last revision in 1661, according to Mr. Proc
ter's history of the prayer-book, " in compliance with the
wishes of the Presbyterians."
Sixth. The chief framers of the above named standards,
though certainly " not in love with the Episcopal liturgy " as
it was imposed upon them by the Act of Uniformity two cen
turies ago, protested that they had " not the least thought of
depraving or reproaching the Book of Common Prayer," but
wished only to "avoid both the extreme that would have no
forms and the contrary extreme that would have nothing
but forms ;"^ and their exceptions to the prayer-book, in
matters of mere usage and taste as well as principle, like
some of the objections before us, have long since been fully
met by the changed conditions of American Presbyterianism
which now neither enjoins nor forbids the use of a liturgy.
Seventh. The Presbyterian Book of Common Prayer affords
a summary refutation to Dr. Crosby's objections, all and each
of them. Among the legal revisers of the English Liturgy
in 1 66 1 were the very authors of the Presbyterian formularies,
1 Documents of Revision, l66l.

46 Views of Church Unity.
such as Anthony Tuckney, Regius Professor of Divinity at
Cambridge, who had written nearly the whole of the larger
Catechism ; John Wallis, Savilian Professor of Geometry at
Oxford, who had been secretary to the Westminster divines,
and had himself prepared the Shorter Catechism ; Edward
Reynolds, afterwards Bishop of Norwich and author of the
general Thanksgiving, who had composed the most important
parts of the Confession of Faith ; Edmund Calamy, the very
leader of the Presbyterian clergy, who with Spurstow, New-
comen, and Arrowsmith had been in the Assembly's com
mittee that framed the Directory of Worship and Church
Government; to say nothing of the learned Lightfoot, the
silver-tongued Bates, the saintly Baxter, and other great
Presbyterian scholars whose praise is in all the churches.
The emendations and exceptions of such men, duly modi
fied by American authorities, precedents, and usages, yield an
edition of the prayer-book' to which no Presbyterian can
bring any objections whatever without taking the ground
from under his feet. On such ground an out-and-out Presby
terian, could only become a valiant champion, not merely
of the prayer-book, but of that church unity which is an
essential principle of Presbyterian polity as well as the flower
of Christian charity.
Resuming now our task, we may sum up Presbyterian
opinion, according to the teachings of Dr. Hodge, as based
upon the inward spiritual oneness of the churches, yet look
ing forward to their outward organic oneness, still to be
attained through the slow ripening of their knowledge, \ov t,
and zeal, and other graces of the Holy Spirit.

' The Book of Common Prayer, as amended by the Presbyterian Divines in
the Royal Commission of 1661, and in agreement with the Directory for Public
Worship of the Presbyterian Church in the United States. With a supplementary
treatise by the author of these essays.

Congregationalist Opinions. 47
Congregationalist Opinions.
The letters of the two learned divines representing the Or
thodox Congregational churches, though making no allusion
to the essay, admit of a logical connection with it as affording
valuable opinions needed to complete this survey. President
Seelye, of Amherst College, gives a profoundly spiritual view
of the fellowship of saints and of churches, and likens the
universal church to a universal state, as being one in its
essence, though manifold in its forms. Congregational, Presby
terial, Episcopal, and as tending finally to a Christian theoc
racy, in which the autonomy of the particular church shall
be consistent with the autocracy of the universal church. The
analogy, however, fails at the essential point, since there is no
invisible universal State corresponding to the invisible cath
olic Church of which Christ is the head.
Professor Fisher, of Yale College, in his more practical and
very suggestive letter, maintains that, since the decree of Papal
infallibility. Christian union is practicable only among Protes
tant denominations ; and he finds three obstacles to such
union — one, in the reigning dogmatic intolerance ; another, in
the prevalent ritual diversity, especially as to the rite of bap
tism, and a third, in the divine-right theory of church govern
ment as held by Episcopalians, Presbyterians, and some Con
gregationalists. At the same time, he admits that a mere
governmental, as distinguished from a sacerdotal Episcopacy,
would not be repugnant to other Protestants, and that an
optional liturgy, used alternatively with spontaneous worship,
might in some cases prove an advantage. Professor Fisher
clearly discerns the rising spirit of church unity, when he
says : " The centrifugal age of Protestantism is closed. The
centripetal action has begun."
Although both of these writers say but little of any organi
zation beyond the limits of the local church or parish, yet it
is well known that such organization exLsts, more or less
ecclesiastical in its tendencies and without destroying the self-

48 Views of Church Unity.
government of congregations, as is seen in their voluntary
association for some church purposes, as well as in that prac
tical Congregationalism which prevails under presbyterial and
episcopal systems.
Two eloquent divines have spoken for the Unitarian Con
gregational churches. We can all agree with the Rev. Dr.
Edward Everett Hale, when he asserts that Christian Unity
exists in America now, in the sense in which he understands
it.' But church unity, the fusion of Christian sects into the
one church, does not exist, nor can " people who want it find it
by going out of doors," by simply mingling together in humane
recreations, however good and healthful. The civilized Chris-
tain of this epoch does not always live out-of-doors. Church
organizations, with creed and ritual rooted far back in history,
have earned their right to be ; and just now they are reassert
ing that right. Dr. Hale very aptly likens them to the inde
pendent colonies before they had become compacted in the
national union; and denies that "the work of the church is
better done by its several sections when they keep a strict
organization among themselves, and each lets the other sec
tions severely alone." That was once the war cry, we
remember, of a large section of the United States ; and now
and then we hear something like it among the united
churches. But if ever we get a good working constitution
for them, it will harmonize the local with the general church
in all forms of Christian well-doing, and, unlike that lost
formula of church polity which our accomplished critic de
scribes, it can neither be mislaid nor burned in a Boston fire.
More forlorn even than the " Man without a Country," whom
he has depicted, would be a Christian without the Church.
With a generous largeness of view, Professor A. P. Peabody,
1 " The simple truth seems to be that Christian unity exists in America now
for any one who wants it. Those people have it, who were born out-of-doors,
in the open air freedom of the Christian Church. . He has only to walk
out of his own house and go to work with other men in some good enter
prise, which the good God wishes to have carried through."

Congregationalist Opinions. 49
of Harvard University, reveals the ground common to Uni
tarianism and Orthodoxy in the divine humanity of Christ,
though he maintains, like other correspondents, that full
agreement in the realm of metaphysical divinity is not attain
able, nor desirable. His practical conclusion is that Christians
should unite in recognizing heartily their common Christ-
likeness, in promoting Christian righteousness, and in main
taining Christian worship so far as the common faith will
allow. These are not only important grounds of Christian
union, but may also be ranked among the conditions precedent
to church unity.
As an able representative of the Baptist Congregational
churches, the Rev. Dr. R. S. MacArthur, of New York City,
dwells upon the growth of union in worship by means of
liturgies as well as revivals, and upon the large amount of
essential unity in doctrine which already exists in default of
anything like organic union. But when Dr. MacArthur so
intrepidly maintains that " organic union can only be reached
at the baptistery," because many scholars have admitted that
immersion is a scriptural mode of baptism, he forgets what an
insignificant minority have held that it is the only scriptural
mode, and how prevalent infant baptism has been in the uni
versal church.'' The spread of open communion in his own
denomination is one of the most cheering signs of the times,
and affords practical ground for the hope thatpedobaptist and
anabaptist congregations might yet be embraced within the
same denominational or ecclesiastical system. The need of
the hour is not concession, but toleration.
Of all the congregationalist letters. Orthodox, Unitarian,
Baptist, it may now be summarily remarked, that not one of
them has exhibited Congregationalism as hostile to church
unity or as wholly inconsistent with some ecclesiastical or-

1 ' ' The point I make is this : All are agreed on immersion as baptism ; all
cannot agree on anything else. . . The plain teaching of the Bible to the
unlearned, is'in harmony with the conclusions of the highest scholarship."
4

50 Views of Church Unity.
ganization of congregations, which did not trench upon their
local rights and privileges.
Such are the three chief sets of opinions now before us for
comparison. At first sight the differences might seem to be
very great ; but it will be found that some of them are
greater within the same denomination than between different
denominations, or greater within the same group than between
different groups of churches. And it will also be found that
all the differences are much less vital and important than the
agreements. Consensus of Opinions.
In the first place, there is a consensus of Congregationalist,
Presbyterian, and Episcopalian opinions in regard to the
spiritual oneness of all true Christians, however variously
they may be organized in their different churches and denom
inations. This unity has been described with more or less
clearness as a communion of saints, a universal fellowship of
believers, a spiritual unity of churches, an invisible Catholic
Church ; but however expressed, it is a note of essential
harmony amid the apparent discord. It enables the strictest
churchman, whether he be an Episcopalian, a Presbyterian,
or a Congregationalist, to recognize heartily the Christian
character of multitudes, now attached to organized forms of
Christianity, which he believes to be false and pernicious, and
cannot by any official act recognize as regular or valid ; and
it affords a broad platform on which our churches may com
bine more or less consciously and formally, in the confession
of the same Catholic creed, and largely in the use of the
same historic liturgy. Underneath all existing structures of
church polity ever remains this common Christianity, this
united faith in Christ, as their one divine foundation.
In the second place, even as to the remaining differences in
polity, the writers are agreed that such barriers are not fixed
and final, but shall yet, somehow, disappear in the church of
the future. The Episcopalian may hope to see the episcopate
supersede all other systems or become their unifying bond

Consensus of Opinions. 5 1
and center. The Presbyterian may look forward to some
further extension of the Presbyterial principle through exist
ing church organizations. The Congregationalist may antici
pate self-governing congregations even under presbytery or
episcopacy, as stripped of hierarchical claims. Each may
project his ideal church into a millenium, more or less dis
tant; may behold in that church a unity consistent with more
or less diversity ; and may see that church unity at length
attained through causes more or less divine or human. But
all will consent to view the present sectarian condition of
Christianity, especially of Protestant Christianity, as abnor
mal and transient, and stand ready to welcome any hopeful
means of promoting greater oneness and harmony.
In the third place, the remaining differences in mere church
polity admit, even now, of a theoretical adjustment. Without
wandering off into a vague future, we can fancy an ecclesiasti
cal system in which Congregationalism, Presbyterianism, and
Episcopalianism, as we know them in this country, might so
limit and modify each other as to exist without conflict, each
in its own beneficent sphere of action. In such a complete
polity presbytery would keep the equipoise between the
centrifugal tendencies of Congregationalism and the centri
petal tendencies of episcopacy, ever preserving particular
congregations in their due autonomy, and at the same time
combining them in a true cathedral system of schools, mis
sions, and charities. It may be the destiny of the American
church thus to bring into normal connection and organic life
three ecclesiastical elements, which, in the Anglican estab
lishment were forced together in false relations or driven out
of it into hurtful extremes, but which in this new world have
had full scope and development until now they are ready for
a just coalescence. In this manner might be reached what
was described in the former essay as " some comprehensive
polity, which shall be at once Congregational, Presbyterial,
and Episcopal, and wherein Protestant freedom and intel
ligence shall appear reconciled with Catholic authority and

52 Views of Church Unity.
order." By this means the very terms Presbyterial, Congre
gational, Episcopal would lose their polemic sense, and all
sectarian titles vanish in an organization which would be in
fact, even if not in name, the American Catholic Church.
In the fourth place, such an ideal adjustment of differences
in church polity has long been becoming actual in the history
of the American churches. As we have seen, the old issues
between them are all but dead, if not ready for honorable
burial. The Cavalier, the Covenanter, the Huguenot, and the
Puritan now live only in history and romance. Their hot
blood has become peacefully blended in their American
descendants, and we now dwell upon their virtues rather than
upon their faults. He must simply fight against himself who
would fight against any one of them. In other words, the
unconscious assimilation of churches, after a hundred years
of intermarriage and social fusion, has reached a point where
they differ more in names than in things. Congregationalists
have now and then an extemporized presbytery called an As
sociation, and here and there a truly episcopal divine without
the title of Bishop. Presbyterians in emergencies practice
the most independent Congregationalism, and love to speak of
their pastors as parochial bishops, lacking only the excellent
rite of confirmation. Episcopalians, after having been also
without that rite during the two hundred years of their
colonial history, may now boast of presbyterian elements in
their polity and a congregationalist freedom in their ritual.
And all three are not only professing the same essential doc
trines, but singing the same hymns and beginning to say the
same prayers. Let such changes go on, and after awhile we
may wake out of our useless strifes to find that we have only
been viewing the same shield from different standpoints, the
same church under different phases ; becoming Presbyterians,
Congregationalists, Episcopalian;;, by turns without knowing it.
In the fifth place, this gradual fusion of such ecclesiastical
differences has at length come into public consciousness as an
avowed aim for concerted action. Christian people all over

Signs of Church Unity. 53
the land are trying to find how much they agree, rather than
how much they differ. Leading minds in the various churches,
from their several points of view, are approaching the great
problem of compacting our American Christianity against the
gathering foes which menace it. Union in church as well as
in state is looming high and large as the question of questions
before which all others must sink into insignificance. Not
union for the mere sake of union — that is but a sectarian
sneer ; — but union as the very heart in the body of Christ and
crown of all the graces; union as a duty no less than as a
sentiment; union for the maintenance of truth and religion
and virtue ; union to prevent so immense a waste and friction
in our charities and missions ; union for the preservation of
Christianity itself amid dangers hitherto unknown ; union
against the materialism that is corrupting the life of the nation ;
against the socialism that is assailing property, marriage,
government, law, and order ; against the agnosticism that is
undermining all creeds, codes, and manners ; against the sec
tarianism that is parleying and wrangling in full view of such
enemies ; union, if need be, against the very disunion that
would keep the churches, as it would have kept the States,
discordant and dismembered, in the supreme hour of peril.
Signs of Church Unity.
Never were the signs, as well as the needs, of such union
more apparent. Never was the feeling so deep and growing
that the divisions in the Christian church must somehow
come to an end. It will not be quenched by such adjectives
as " sentimental," " romantic," " Utopian." Sectarian interests
may throw obstacles in the way, a false conservatism may
raise alarms, and veteran divines draw the sword to fight their
battles over again, — but in vain. In this movement the
people are more determined than their rulers, and the church
universal will prove stronger than any sect or party. Look
at the progress made since the question was opened a few
months ago. The chief denominations of the country have

54 Views of Church Unity.
been taking practical steps toward church unity in distinc
tion from mere Christian union. The Congregational
churches of New England have been removing the walls
which separate Baptists from Pedobaptist communions. The
Presbyterian churches of the Middle States have been settling
the vexed question of their psalmody, while those of the
South and the North are adjusting their political differences,
and those of the East are in conference with the Reformed
churches, Dutch and German. The Cumberland Presby
terian and Methodist churches of the West are blending Cal
vinism with Arminianism. The great Lutheran churches
give signs of becoming more homogeneous and American.
The Baptist churches have declared for union of denomina
tions. The Episcopal church has been inwardly moved as
never before towards other Protestant churches. The Evan
gelical Alliance is taking the form of a national league. And
as a visible presage of the new era, we have already had what
might be called a provisional Congress of the "United
Churches of the United States."
Proposals of the American Bishops.
In the midst of these remarkable movements, the assem
bled Bishops of the Protestant Episcopal Church have sent
forth a noble and far-reaching declaration seeking to embrace
all branches of Christendom in the bonds of a true church
unity. The four terms proposed are so large and fair that
they will almost carry consent in their statement.
First. The Holy Scriptures are already the accepted basis
of all Christian churches, besides affording the consensus of
Christianity with Judaism, and with heathenism in the work
of missions.
Second. The Nicene Creed was simply the faith of the
undivided early church, and still expresses the most essential
consensus of nearly all modern churches, with room for their
later creeds, such as the Thirty-nine Articles, the West
minster, Augsburg, and Heidelberg confessions.

Proposals of the American Bishops. 55
Third. The Gospel Sacraments, whenever and wherever
rightly administered, cannot but exhibit the communion of
that visible Catholic Church which includes all baptized
Christians and their children.
Fourth. The Historic Episcopate might become an added
bond among existing church systems, if viewed according
to the meaning of the phrase, as a fact rather than as a
doctrine, without raising the question whether it has been a
development of the apostolate or of the presbyterate of the
early church.
It is this last proposal which is likely to stir the keenest
debate, and all eyes are now turned toward this one point as
the focus of the discussion. If the unifying movement is to
go forward, it is plain that it should be led and guided by
those churches or systems which are historically and logically
most nearly allied in doctrine, polity, and worship, as well as
providentially fitted to represent the Protestant and Catholic
wings of Christendom. Now these conditions are met by
Presbytery and Episcopacy ; by Presbytery as included in
the Lutheran, Reformed, Congregational, Presbyterian, and
Methodist churches ; and by Episcopacy as found in the
Greek, Latin, Anglican, and Protestant Episcopal churches,
— not Presbytery and Episcopacy, viewed merely as comple-
mental institutions in an ideal polity, but also as kindred
ecclesiastical elements, with the same roots in Scripture and
in History, and having a true and vital affinity for each other.
Here we touch the embers of smouldering controversies,
which a breath might kindle into a flame. It would be easy
enough to recall old grievances and revive dying prejudices
which arose in another age and country, when Presbyterians
and Episcopalians made martyrs of each other by turns, in a
fierce and sectarian warfare, until, like two combatants
chained apart, they were forced by the civil arm to settle down
into the established churches of England and Scotland.
There are those who would be in haste to import the waning
castes of churchman and dissenter into a free republic, to

56 Views of Church Unity.
apply the effete policy of the seventeenth century to the nine
teenth, and to measure the wants of a hemisphere by those
of an island. But the large hearts and noble minds on both
sides will resolutely keep dead issues out of sight, will rise
above sects and parties to the view of general and lasting
interests, and will seek to minimize their trivial differences in
order to gain the maximum amount of sincere and honorable
agreement. Historical Relations of Presbytery and Episcopacy.
Approaching the question in this spirit, we shall be at no
loss for favorable signs and arguments. Not only do the
mother-churches of England and Scotland bear an original
likeness as twin daughters of the Reformation, descended
from the same Catholic church, with the same historical con
tinuity from the apostles' time, and only different lines of suc
cession since they parted ; not only may their existing stand
ards be correlated and blended, the Book of Common Prayer
as but a liturgical expression of the Directory for Public
Worship, the Confession of Faith as but a logical expansion
of the Articles of Religion, and the diocesan Episcopate as
but a fit complement of the synodical Presbytery, — but besides
all this, the two forms of polity, as transplanted to our shores,
have developed new types of church life and culture, which
would be especially valuable in combination, and have already
become leading factors in our Anglo-American civilization,
the one as expressive of the best Protestant, and the other of
the most Catholic Christianity. Add still further : that for a
hundred years past they have been unconsciously coming
together and growing like each other. At the very outset,
when they became independent of the mother-churches, the
American Directory was enriched with liturgical rules and
suggestions, and the American Ordinal was enlarged by an
alternative form of authorization. Ever since then American
Presbyterianism has been steadily reacting from the narrow
views of the Puritans and Covenanters toward a larger Chris-

Reunion of Presbytery and Episcopacy. 5 7
tian culture and more liturgical mode of worship, as well as
producing a pure theology and a learned ministry unsurpassed
in the country ; while American Episcopacy, having escaped
from the Anglican establishment with a Catholic faith and
noble liturgy, has been admitting presbyterial government, lay
and clerical, into its dioceses and combining extempore prayers
with its liturgy, until it has surrendered the very points on
which the Presbyterian party in the Church of England was
defeated two centuries ago. We have lived to see Episco
palian prayer-meetings as well as Presbyterian prayer-books.
The two hereditary foes have not merely met half-way, but
actually crossed the lines as in friendly rivalry on the battle
fields of former generations.
Reunion of Presbytery and Episcopacy.
Now it seems worth while to ask if the ancient family feud
might not somehow be effaced and forgotten. Both churches,
after long estrangement, have come back to ground where
they may well recognize and respect their common lineage,
their organic likeness, and their reciprocal interests. Both of
them, in fact, have long since conceded enough, and more than
enough, for a full and frank understanding. Had such con
cessions been made in the beginning, no separation could
have occurred. Were such concessions now more generally
known, a reunion might soon follow. Even that last barrier
to reunion, the vexed question of orders, when fairly met and
sifted, may but disclose a ground or link of organic connec
tion in the one simple fact that Episcopal ordination could
take nothing from, but only add something to Presbyterian
ordination, howsoever either may be viewed by either party.
Presbyterians do not differ from Episcopalians more than
Episcopalians differ from one another in estimating that rite.
In such a state of opinion the differences are no longer worth
weighing against the agreements and accruing advantages.
As it might prove a great gain to American Episcopacy to be

58 Views of Church Unity.
reenforced with Presbyterian orthodoxy and churchliness,
so it might prove a great gain to American Presbytery to
recover the Episcopal order and liturgy. The reunion would
be as organic to each as the original rupture was disorganiz
ing to both. Indeed, it could easily be shown that the chief
authors of the Presbyterian standards, if now living, would
find their ideal in our Protestant Episcopacy; or, in other
words, that the American Episcopacy of to-day has recovered
English Presbytery of a classic type, and so fully recovered
it that the two systems, at fit times and places, especially in
our large cities and great missions, might wisely and well be
conjoined or confederated, if not at length merged in one
organization. How far such union or fusion is now feasible need not here
be discussed. Whatever changes of church law or practice
might be needed, the way to them could be found as soon as
there is the will to find them. Presbyterian usage already
concedes the validity of episcopal ordination, and the episco
pal Ordinal enjoins no polemic theory of presbyterial ordina
tion, but is even held to involve presbyterial coordination.
Why not begin at once to act upon these facts and principles ?
Why should there be a so-called hypothetical ordination on
the one side or a covert conditional acceptance of it on the
other. Let both parties openly and generously recognize
each other in concurrent ordinations or reordinations, as
occasion requires. By such means all question of valid
ministrations would at length die out, as in a marriage of
rival houses. The most extreme Episcopalian, from his own
point of view, would only be sanctioning orthodox learning,
churchly aims, and evangelical labors ; and the most extreme
Presbyterian, from his own point of view, would only be
gaining more authority or grace for a larger service ; and the
two together would simply be honoring both episcopacy and
presbytery in the one catholic and apostoHc Church of
Christ.

Advantages of Episcopacy. 59
Advantages of Episcopacy.
Without claiming to speak for others, but looking at the
question from a strictly undenominational point of view, I
venture to hope that in any union to be devised the historic
episcopate can be retained, if only as one remaining bulwark
against the well-meant but lawless evangelism which is run
ning wild in our churches and bringing all the divine institu
tions of the Christian religion into contempt. The great
revivalists, Whitefield and Wesley, were trained clergymen
and ever appeared as such, even when driven from the pulpit
into the field. But our lay evangelists are pressed from the
field into the pulpit, and a divine success is claimed for them
on the very ground that they are not clergymen but mere
laymen. When earnest and gifted preachers of the Gospel,
like Mr. Moody, decline to become ordained ministers of
any church, while everywhere exercising ministerial functions,
with learned divines and faithful pastors sitting at their feet,
and the whole order of God's house set aside, can we wonder
if the popular inference should be that the ministry itself is
but a human convenience, if not already a failure? Is any
transient good, done by them, to be weighed for one moment
against the lasting evil of overthrowing the most sacred
ordinances and institutions, to say nothing of feverish excite
ments, whose track is often that of the simoon through the
fairest pastures of Christ ? Our chief danger in this land and
age of freedom is not hierarchy. Instead of too much eccle
siasticism, there is too little. The clergy are fast losing their
normal rank and influence. The time may yet come when
pure presbytery and true episcopacy shall appear not only
congruous but inseparable, and together essential in main
taining that " catholic visible church unto which Christ hath
given the ministry, oracles, and ordinances of God."
There is also a large and growing class of minds in all
churches for whom the historic episcopate, as now associated
with the prayer-book, seems practically the only guarantee

6o Views of Church Unity.
of a pure scriptural worship. Time was indeed when that
liturgy had been so rigorously enforced as to extinguish all
other forms of devotion. No wonder Milton could then cry
out against it : " To imprison and confine by force, within a
pin-fold of set words, those two most unimprisonable things,
our prayers and that divine spirit of utterance which moves
them, is a tyranny that would want longer hands than those
giants who threatened bondage to heaven." But out of that
tyranny we have long since fought our way to a ruinous
victory. The time has now come to distinguish liberty from
license in the worship of God, and to assert order and decency
against confusion in the assemblies of saints. Keep for fit
times and places the free, extempore service which has been
so dearly won ; but keep also that historic liturgy which has
come down to us from all the Christian ages. Let the people
have pure English and sound doctrine at least in their devo
tions ; let them learn the whole word of God in appointed
lessons ; let them offer up prayers which they can call their
own; let them follow their Lord, from his cradle to his cross,
through each year of his grace; let them receive holy sacra
ments and rites in the meet words of apostles, saints, and
martyrs; let them thus worship with angels and archangels
and the whole company of the redeemed on earth and in
heaven. Already, indeed, some of these things have been
reclaimed for them as their just heritage, and we are begin
ning to find that the prayer-book can co-exist with the prayer-
meeting as easily as episcopacy can concur with presbytery.
Besides these advantages, the historic episcopate might
also bring a valuable conservative force into our presbyterial
systems of church government. Aside from the claim of
apostolical succession, it is appreciated as a spiritual and
ancient institution of the Christian religion as fitted to secure
the choicest wisdom, learning, and piety of the Church in the
direction of its affairs, and as demanded by new exigencies
which have arisen in our time and country. Since it became
detached from the English peerage and monarchy, it has

Advantages of Episcopacy. 6i
grown into harmony with our Republican institutions, while
supplying needed checks upon their radical tendencies.
Moreover, it is certain that Episcopacy as well as Presbytery
would have a voice in any Provisional Congress or General
Council of the Lutheran, Reformed, Congregational, Presby
terian, Methodist, and Protestant Episcopal churches which
could be duly called ; and should the time ever come for the
federation or consolidation of these bodies, it might be found
that a House of Bishops and House of Presbyters, like the
Senators and Representatives in our National legislature,
would support and balance each other, reconciling rival claims
and interests, and ever securing the new popular institutions
of the American church as well as keeping it in the line of
historic Christianity. He would be a bold prophet who would
strike out either presbytery or episcopacy from the future
Christian civilization of this continent.
The chief obstacles to a reunion of our episcopal and pres
byterial systems are not so much any doctrinal differences
inhering in those systems as the mere incidental influences of
denominational pride, inherited prejudice and general ignor
ance — an ignorance largely enveloping the clergy as well as
the people. Nothing would seem plainer than that both
parties left their grievances behind them three thousand miles
away, two hundred years ago ; and yet the memory of them
so rankles in our blood that we still shudder at them as if we
might encounter another Laud in some good bishop of an
American diocese, or provoke some Janet Geddes to hurl her
tripod in response to a Presbyterian liturgy. The political,
social, and religious conditions which once kindled so fierce a
strife between Presbytery and Episcopacy, and drove them
asunder to so rash extremes, could not be transferred to this
free land and can never arise among its free churches ; but we
seem often to fancy that the same battle is still raging, and
fill the air with the old familiar slogans and cheer on our
champions to new encounters, though all the while no lordly

62 Views of Church Unity.
prelates are sitting in our legislatures, and no bloody Claver-
house is abroad pursuing our peaceful worshipers ; though
no psalm-singing Puritans are despoiling our new cathedrals
and no outlawed Covenanters are waylaying our excellent
bishops. Episcopalians are ever boasting of a church lineage
which they espoused but yesterday ; and Presbyterians, of a
line of martyrs whom they no longer follow. We forget that
those honored Anglican prelates would have dispersed our
Episcopal Conventions as so many rebels, schismatics, and
dissenters, and those revered Scottish worthies would have
made swift bonfires of our Presbyterian hymnals, organs, and
service-books. And should some candid investigator expose
to us, in the clear light of history, how groundless are our
prejudices and how foolish our divisions, we can do nothing
perhaps but accept his statements, as highly interesting but
very useless, and scarcely know whether to frown or smile
upon him as, by turns, he provokes admiration or indignation
on both sides of the question.
The writer cannot hope to escape such influences. By
some of his most respected readers this paper may be viewed
as a pure speculation. It will be easy to call it the dream of
a recluse, or say that the time is not ripe for it. Neverthe
less, the present generation might see it becoming real, if only
events move forward as fast as they have moved since the
former paper was written. And no prophet is needed to tell
us what would be the issue.
Let the day ever come for a general reunion of Presbytery
and Episcopacy, either by formal agreement or by practical
fusion, and it would mark the turning point in the problem
of an American Catholic Church. It would be but the form
ing nucleus of a wide confederation and consolidation of
churches and denominations, which are already in ministerial
communion and more or less organic connection. Presbytery
would include the German, Dutch, French, Scotch, and Eng
lish type of Protestantism ; Episcopacy would involve the

Advantages of Epnscopacy. 63
Greek, Latin, Anglican, and American germs of Catholicity;
and all these varied elements acquiring fresh vigor would
come into new and vital relations, correcting and molding each
other. Our best American Christianity would react upon our
whole American civilization against the crying evils of sec
tarianism, infidelity, and vice. The great vanguard churches
of the land, no longer idly saying one to another in the very
front of battle, " I have no need of thee," would stand com
pact together, and grow up in Christ the Head as his living
members, and at length, it may be, lead on to one United
Church of the United States.

III.
THE FOUR ARTICLES OF CHURCH
UNITY.

III.
THE FOUR ARTICLES OF CHURCH UNITY.
It has been said that the greatest wonder of the World's
Fair was its Parliament of Religions. It put upon exhibition
not merely the principal Heathen beliefs, but the various
Christian denominations, with champions rehearsing their
claims. Whether it shall pass away like another Babel or
open a new Pentecost, depends upon the use now made of
its lessons. And its chief lesson was not the supremacy of
Christianity, which required no proof; but the absolute need
of harmony and unity in order to establish its supremacy
throughout the earth. Let that lesson go unheeded, and the
Christian Religion may only have exposed its weakness in
the face of its enemies. Henceforth the conquest of heathen
ism, as well as the maintenance of civilization, will demand
more than ever the reunion of Christendom.
Let us approach this momentous question, as far as we may,
with strict definitions and clear conceptions. While such
preliminaries are essential to all good thinking and sound
opinion, they are especially needful in dealing with so difficult
a problem as Church unity, and one already so beclouded
with vague terms and specious phrases. Several distinctions
are to be premised and maintained throughout the inquiry.
Church Unity Defined.
First of all. Church unity should be distinguished from
Christian unity or the oneness of believers in Christ. There
is a sense in which all Christians are one already, and one
simply because they are Christians. They are one in the
unity of the spirit. They are spiritually united to Christ by
67

68 The Four Articles of Church Unity.
faith and love as branches of one vine and members of one
body. They thus form one holy brotherhood, one mystical
fellowship, one communion of saints, the world over. This
one invisible Church, as it is often called, persists in and
through all visible churches and denominations, survives their
mutations and destructions, and remains intact even amid
their conflicts and schisms. And it cannot be too highly
exalted in the present discussion. That we are all one in
Christ is an admitted fact from which we proceed, and the
common ground upon which we stand. Without it we could
not even consider the question before us. But while Christian
unity is thus to be held as the condition precedent to church
unity it is not church unity itself. By a vague figure of
speech it is sometimes confounded with church unity, and
even miscalled organic unity in allusion to a metaphorical
organism ; but in a strict sense it can only be applied to the
spiritual fellowship of saints or invisible church. Neverthe
less this invisible church ever becomes more or less visible
in organic form and strives to manifest its oneness. It can
no more exist without an organism or an organization than
the soul without the body. Organization, if not essential to
its very being, is at least indispensable and of divine origin
and warrant. The institutions of Christianity, its ministry
and sacraments, are revealed in the Scriptures, no less than
its doctrines. In fact, but for its institutions we should have
had neither its Scriptures nor yet its doctrines. As a bare
Gospel, apart from the church, it might have died out in the
first century, with no more echo in history than the teachings
of Socrates or the morals of Seneca. It became, however, a
compact organization in the midst of pagan society, with its
sacraments and its Scriptures; and it continued thus compact
.and undivided for some centuries afterward. In that one
fCatholic Apostolic Church we have an example and model
jpf church unity, not only as consistent with Christian unity
but as expressing and maintaining it. Indeed, it is only in
and through such church unity that Christian unity can find

Federation of Churches. 69
due and full expression. Without such unity it must remain
as a vague ideal or crude sentiment, if it be not made a mere
pretext for schism and excuse for sectarianism. The most
factious sectaries are sometimes loudest in their appeals to
the Christian unity which they have defied and obscured, yet
cannot destroy. Never let it be forgotten that Christian
unity, spiritual oneness, already exists as a divine fundamental
fact in the churches ; and the real problem is, how to express
this Christian unity in an organic church unity which shall
exhibit the mystical body of Christ as no longer mutilated
and distracted, but with its various members in normal exer
cise and conscious harmony.
Federation of Churches.
Church unity should also be distinguished from Church
union or the federation of denominations.^ The different
Christian bodies in our country have often become externally
conjoined without internal modification or concession, some
what as sovereign states form leagues and compacts. Under
the impulse of common aims and the pressure of common
dangers they have been combined in Bible and Tract Societies,
in Sunday-school Unions, in Boards of Domestic and For
eign Missions, and in various associations for promoting
temperance, purity, charity, peace, and other Christian virtues.
Such coalitions, though purely superficial and transient,
besides furthering the good ends in view, have served to
demonstrate an essential agreement amid the general diver
sity. We have also had examples of a more organic union
of denominations, based upon affinity in doctrine, polity, and
worship, such as the recent federation of the different Angli
can bodies in Canada. In some cases divided Churches
have been reunited, as when the Old and New School
1 It should be premised that, throughout this essay, the word " denomination"
will be used in the legal sense (see Preface of the Prayer-book), as applicable
alike to all Christian bodies. Catholic or Protestant, whatever may be their
ecclesiastical claims or merits.

70 The Four Articles of Church Unity.
Presbyterian Churches again became one ecclesiastical body.
The Methodist Episcopal and Protestant Methodist churches
were merged together in the same manner. At first sight this
would seem to be a most hopeful field in which to labor for
church unity. Why should the Protestant Episcopal and
Reformed Episcopal churches remain apart after the Chicago
Declaration ? Why do not the Dutch and German Re
formed churches come together, when they are so much
alike that it is hard to tell one from the other ? What should
hinder the great Methodist churches. Northern and Southern,
or the Presbyterian churches. North and South, from reunit
ing as one church since we are under one government?
Might not the different Lutheran Synods and Councils be
colligated ? Could not the large family of Baptist denomina
tions be at least confederated ? Is there anything in the
claims of local autonomy to forbid a more organic union of
Congregational churches ? Ought not the chief denomina
tions thus to unite in kindred groups ? And then, on the
basis of such special unions, why not build up a general
confederation in some grand national council of denominations,
a sort of Congress of the United Churches of the United
States, having its Senate of Bishops as the conservative ele
ment, and its House of Presbyters as the progressive element,
with its ratio of Congregational representation and its legisla
tion restricted to domestic charities and foreign missions ?
What a magnificent spectacle would such an ecclesiastical
confederacy present to the rest of Christendom ! How it
would shine like a constellation in the firmament of the Uni
versal Church ! The bare mention of it is inspiring and ele
vating. But the bare mention also shows it to be crude and
visionary. At the first touch of analysis the nebulous
splendor dissolves into the stars of which it is composed.
Confederation is not unification. It is but a mechanical union
of social bodies, not their chemical fusion and vital growth.
It has twice proved a failure in our political history ; first,
when it could not hold the United States together, and after-

Assimilation of Denominations. 7 1
ward when it strove to tear them apart. There could be no
perfect union of churches or of states, without some mutual
concession of sovereignty, some submission to common
authority, some agreement in essential opinions. At its best
estate, on its face, denominational confederation is but masked
denominationalism, and a mere temporary expedient, carrying
its own dissolution with it. Often it is only a truce in mid
battle, or patching of old family quarrels. If it serve as a
first step toward church unity it cannot be the last one, but
must advance or else recoil with fresh estrangement and
harsh assertion of sectarian prejudice worse than before.
First or last, whatever else it may be, it is not church unity.
Assimilation of Denominations.
Church unity should be distinguished still further from
Church uniformity or the assimilation of denominations.
This is the other extreme from federation. It would efface
denominational distinctions and reduce all Christian bodies to
one type of doctrine, polity, and worship. It is a process
which seems to have been long going on in our country. The
Churches of the Old World as transferred to the New, and
compacted together under one political system, have been
growing like each other through social intercourse and uncon
scious imitation. Protestants have been reviving the Catholic
sisterhood and fraternity under new names and guises ; while
Catholics are resorting to the Protestant platform and news
paper in their conflicts and troubles. Episcopalians have
restored Presbyterian elements to their polity and extempore
prayers to their liturgy; while Presbyterians are recovering
Episcopal agencies of administration and liturgical modes of
worship. Both Presbyterians and Episcopalians have learned
something from the Methodist revival ; while Methodists have
learned to have choirs and divinity schools as well as camp-
meetings and lay preachers. Lutherans, Congregationalists,
Baptists, in like manner, are taking on all the hues of the
Church year and ritual. At first sight there might seem to be

72 The Four Articles of Church Unity.
no limit to such assimilation. We are ready to fancy the de
nominations blending into a sort of composite likeness. But
on closer view the superficial resemblances vanish, and the old
essential differences assert themselves. Each will be found
prizing more the distinction which it keeps than the differences
which it has effaced. And such distinctions cannot and
should not be wholly obliterated. Absolute uniformity is not
possible either in the world of nature or of grace. According
to the chosen metaphors of Scripture, the Church is one vine,
but with different branches ; one body, but with various mem
bers ; one building, but of composite structure. In political
society we see the greatest variety of classes, parties, and
opinions ; aristocratic, democratic, republican, socialist, popu
list ; no one of them absorbing or exterminating the rest. As
little in religious society may we hope to find all Christians at
once becoming Baptists, or Congregationalists, or Methodists,
or Presbyterians, or Episcopalians, or Romanists. Much less
could they be made alike by any civil or ecclesiastical process.
The experiment of enforced uniformity has been tried for
several hundred years in Episcopal England and Presbyterian
Scotland, with only a brood of non-conforming sects growing
up around both establishments. The same lesson is taught us
here by the conflict of usage with rubrics, by the disuse of
directories, and by the rise of heresy under the strictest creeds
and confessions. All experience shows that a rigid uniformity
in doctrine and ritual could only breed dissent and schism,
and issue in renewed failure. Were it attained, instead of pro
moting Church unity, it would destroy it.
The definition of a true Church unity is now before us. It
would not ignore our common Christianity, but would more
fully express and maintain it. It would not undervalue
denominational confederation, but would look beyond it to a
more perfect union of denominations. It would not obliterate
denominational peculiarities, or sacrifice them to a cast-iron
uniformity, but it would legitimate, subordinate, and readjust
them in one large ecclesiastical system as different members

False Denominationalism. "jt,
knit together in the one living body of Christ. In a word, it
would maintain unity in variety as well as variety in unity.
False Ecclesiasticism.
At this point we shall be met by several objections which
must be cleared out of the way before we can proceed. It will
be said that Church unity tends to ecclesiasticism. History
will be invoked to warn us against any renewed compact of
denominations as involving the latent evils of churchly power
and state religion. But history does not repeat itself, where
the conditions are changed ; nor do revolutions ever go back
ward. The dread of priestcraft which once had fitness in
European countries has no place in modern civilization,
though it may linger as an inherited prejudice in some of our
popular discussions and partisan appeals. With the pope him
self little more than a state prisoner at Rome, any supremacy
of the papacy in international politics has become a dead issue.
With the Anglican and Scottish establishments already
doomed and waning, any domination of prelacy or presbytery
in our political affairs is but the ghost of a dead issue. And
to imagine the wrangling sects of this country combining to
seize the United States Government and convert it into a
theocracy is to imagine a species of ecclesiasticism which
cannot be stated without showing its intrinsic absurdity. Let
us not be frightened by the mere word " ecclesiasticism." The
real dangers which threaten us are not in the ecclesiastical
sphere, but in the political or social sphere ; not in the hier
archy of the dead past, but in the anarchy of the living pre
sent. And against such dangers Church unity simply means
the mustering together of our common Christianity in defence
of our common civilization. False Denominationalism.
There is a kindred objection, that Church unity would
destroy the witness-bearing character of the denominations.
At their origin each of them had some high mission to fulfil,

74 The Four Articles of Church Unity.
some great problem to solve, some special doctrine or princi
ple to uphold. The Lutheran and the Huguenot protested
against the papacy. The Covenanter made a solemn league
against prelacy. The Puritan fled away from a false ecclesi
asticism into the wilderness. The Methodist broke the bonds
of formalism with a pentecostal revival. These are not small
achievements, to be lightly esteemed or rashly put in peril.
Granting them, however, it remains to ask, whether by this
time such denominational missions have not been sufficiently
accomplished, and whether in this country they are any
longer in place. Why continue mere Protestants in a land
where Roman CathoHcism is coming under American influ
ences if not already in the ordeal of reformation; mere
Covenanters, where Episcopacy has long since conceded
nearly everything for which the Presbyterian party in the
church of England contended ; mere Puritans, where the
lost ideal of the church is coming back into the Puritan
consciousness ; or mere revivalists, where even orthodoxy and
ritualism are leavened with Methodist usages and influences.
Would it not be better to bring together such denominational
types as complementary traits of Christian character, and
harmonize such denominational claims as rival schools or
tendencies in one church system? As expressed in diverse
organizations called churches, they become frightfully exag
gerated ; they tend to obscure or mutilate more essential
truths; and they lead to immense waste, loss, and conflict in
all missionary and humanitarian efforts. Whereas the same
different beliefs and usages as tolerated in one organization or
in one church would retire from public view ; would sink
into due relative insignificance ; would modify and check one
another; and would render both missions and charities more
compact and efficient. There is, in fact, no good thing for
which the denominationalist pleads, which in such a system
might not be retained, while much sin and evil that he laments
would be avoided. Church unity, it has been aptly said, is
"not anti-denominational but super-denominational."

Feasibility of Church Unity. 75
Feasibility of Church Unity.
The most practical objection is, that church unity, however
desirable in itself, is not feasible. Often it is accepted as a
" pium desiderium," a consummation devoutly to be wished,
but not to be actually sought after; and sometimes its advo
cates are only pitied as amiable visionaries. Against such
skepticism stands not merely the scriptural ideal of one
church but all analogy and much experience. Take the
analogy of living nature. As we ascend the organic scale,
from the mollusk up to the mammal, rank above rank, species
after species, we find increasing unity amid increasing variety,
the more complex the more compact the structure, until at
the summit in man, as naturalists tell us, all inferior organisms
are recapitulated as many members in one body, and set
forth as the very masterpiece of creation. And what God
has wrought in the kingdom of nature, shall He not yet
work out in the kingdom of grace ? Take the nearer analogy
of political society. In our own country, during less than
two centuries, we have seen the most varied nationalities,
English, French, Dutch, Spanish ; in the most varied climates.
Northern, Southern, Eastern, Western ; with the most varied
creeds. Catholic, Huguenot, Puritan, Cavalier, Covenanter;
under the most varied governments, theocratic, monarchic,
aristocratic, democratic, all together emerging at length as
the United States with the realized motto, " E pluribus
Unum." And what worldly men have done in their political
relations, cannot Christian men do in their religious relations ?
Go back to the experience of early Christian society. In
that first organization of the church we see congregational,
presbyterial, episcopal institutions, but no separate Episco
palian, Presbyterian, and Congregationalist denominations
with the apostles in one, the presbyters in another, and a few
synagogues in the third. We find various schools of doctrine
as distinct as those of Luther, Calvin, and Arminius, but no
PauHne, Petrine, and Johannean churches so-called, unchurch-

76 The Four Articles of Church Unity.
ing one another for a dogma or a rite. On the contrary, w
behold all our unhappy divisions dwelling together in or
undivided Apostolic Church. And what the church has bee
once, may it not become again ? Look abroad in Christia
society now. Every denomination is asserting unity again:
diversity. The Baptists and the Congregationalists, in spil
of their localism, would become national and comprehensiv
The Lutherans, the Presbyterians, the Methodists would h
called churches " of the United States." The Reforme
would be no longer Dutch or German. The Protestai
Episcopalians would drop their very name from the title o
the church. The Catholics would show themselves America
as well as Roman. All, in one form or another, have befoi
them the ideal of one American Catholic Church.
The New Promise of Church Unity.
I do not forget the past experiments in Church unity. He
not the Western church for twelve centuries been vainly trj
ing to make peace with the Eastern church ? Did not tb
Eastern church refuse to make peace with the Reforme
churches ? Could the Reformed churches even make peac
among themselves ? Were popes, prelates, and presbyteric
successful in securing uniformity or conformity among th
churches of England, Scotland, and Ireland ? Have the nume:
ous eirenicons since devised by large-hearted ecclesiastics lik
Usher, Leighton, Pusey, Muhlenberg proved any more sue
cessful ? Why follow in the train of these dismal failures
For a twofold reason : first, because it is only through n
peated failures that we can pass to ultimate success ; and als(
because former causes of failure are dying out in our age an
country. Geographical barriers to unity have disappeare(
The Eastern and Western churches, the German, Frencl
English, and Scottish churches, are here compacted togethe
within one territory and fusing into one nationality. Politic;
barriers have disappeared. The temporal power of the Pop
the civil establishment of prelacy and presbytery, have give

The Claim of the Historic Churches. 'j'j
place to free churches in a free land, conspiring under one
government with one patriotic aim. Dogmatic barriers are
disappearing. Lutheranism, Calvinism, Arminianism, by their
own attritions, concessions, and revisions are approaching one
common faith and ritual. At the same time, powerful causes
of unity are working. Democratic influences are undermin
ing the walls of mere Romanism. A papal theocracy has
humbled monarchies, and subdued aristocracies, but never
has it conquered a democracy ; and out of such a conflict it
could only emerge itself conquered. Social influences are
consolidating Protestantism. The Huguenot, the Puritan, the
Cavalier, the Covenanter have been intermarrying for several
generations, until now he who fights unity will have war in
his own household. Religious influences are working. The
spirit of unity itself is seizing the Christian masses like a pas
sion, and carrying their wrangling leaders along with them as
with the might of a revolution. Never before in any Chris
tian century, nowhere else in any Christian country, have all
the conditions been so favorable for realizing the long-lost
ideal of one Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church.
In order to keep this discussion within the region of facts,
two principles are important, the one as to the scope, and the
other as to the basis of unity. The first is that a true church
unity must include all existing churches within its scope. Its
horizon must be as wide as Christendom, and its point of view
must be taken in the midst of the churches and not within the
narrow pale of any of them. Otherwise we shall lose sight
of large portions of the Christian world, or only seek to unify
some portions against the others.
The Claim of the Historic Churches.
First of all, we must take into our view the great historic
churches which have come down to us from the Apostles' time.
It is hard to believe that the devil has governed the Christian
Church for twenty centuries. We shall fly in the face of uni-

78 The Four Articles of Church Unity.
versal Providence if we try to date the Christian era from the
Diet of Worms, or to close it at the Council of Nice. The
divine work of the Universal Church is not to be tossed aside
as mere ecclesiasticism, that a few Christians at this late day
may build it all over again. The Eastern Greek Church and
the Western Latin Church have existed and still exist by the
grace of God, as well as the modern Protestant Church or the
latest Christian meeting that is called a church. Nor can we
belittle their connection with the question as sentimental,
academic, chimerical, or in any sense foreign to us. I do
not refer merely to the few Greek congregations among us,
on our eastern and western shores. Politically we are in the
same boat with at least eight million Roman Catholic fellow-
citizens ; and sooner or later we may have to unite with them
against the combined terrors of mutiny and shipwreck ; in
plainer words, against sectarianism and infidelity. As fast as
that great spiritual organization under the plastic force of its
new American environment sheds its Romanism and becomes
simply American, national, and patriotic, will it prove an im
mense gain to our common Christianity as well as a safeguard
to our common country. Already it is practically with us on
the great moral questions of the day, bringing its rank and
file as a compact fighting mass into the battle with social vice
and sin. It is true, the Filioque in the Nicene Creed and the
dogma of papal infallibility are present barriers to unity. But
it is also true that reforming influences are at work, for which
due allowance must be made. It remains to be seen whether
existing obstacles may not be reduced to a dead letter or dis
appear in the unifying process. Moreover, it is a duty to
make the terms of fraternity broad enough to embrace even
those who erect barriers against it. Theoretically at least, if
not as yet practically, the Greek and Latin communions must
be included with the Anglican and American in any scheme
of true church unity.

The Claim of the Reformed Churches. 79
The Claim of the Reformed Churches.
At the same time we must not wholly exclude from such a
scheme the less historic churches which date from the
Reformation, or even the denominations which have followed
in their train. Protestantism, for all its faults, cannot be reck
oned a sheer mistake and failure. No less than Catholicism,
it has the reason of its existence in divine providence and its
warrant in a divine success. For four centuries it has been
making a history of its own. The Congregationalist, Baptist,
and Methodist communions, though detached from the his
toric church, have largely restored the primitive Christianity.
The Lutheran and Reformed churches claim to have renewed
the historic church, not to have destroyed it, retaining its
creeds and portions of its ritual. The Church of Scotland,
as by law established, declared it had been " reformed from
popery, not by prelates, but by presbyters as the only suc
cessors left by Christ and his apostles in the Church ; " and
to-day it has its own Catholic revival of ritual, as distinct
from Oxford as from Rome, and by no means what is vulgarly
termed among us " aping the Episcopalians." Now, even the
straitest Protestant Episcopal churchman, who looks upon
such bodies around him as pseudo-ecclesiastical or quasi-
ecclesiastical sects having no right to the name of churches,
must recognize among them certain ecclesiastical institutions,
or ecclesiastical theories, or ecclesiastical aspirations, tending
toward his own ecclesiastical system, together with acknowl
edged Christian methods and benefits which might well be
legitimated and included within his own system. He would
not deny their value merely as training-schools. Nor can he
any longer, in this country at least, claim a monopoly of the
culture and taste which once made the Anglican church a
social caste in little sympathy with surrounding Christianity.
Among liturgical denominations the prayer-book itself is
ceasing to act as a social distinction. Other less cultured
denominations may still hold doctrines of the church and

8o The Four Articles of Church Unity.
sacraments which are hindrances to unity. But the most
independent of Independents are not beyond the reach of
churchly influences and unifying impulses. Many of the
Baptists favor open communion ; and some Unitarians would
object less to the Nicene Creed than Greek Churchmen. In
the long future, the extreme left wing of Protestantism as well
as the extreme right wing of Catholicism may yet react toward
the center. Neither should be cast outside the pale of Chris
tian fraternity. In a word, if we would deal with all the facts,
we must somehow prospectively, if not immediately, include
both the historic churches, and the reformed churches, the
oldest denominations and the latest sects, as alike within the
scope of a true church unity.
The Need of a Practical Consensus.
The other practical principle is, that the true Church unity
must be based upon the actual consensus of all existing
churches in doctrine, ritual, and polity. With their ideal con
sensus we can have but little to do. In what doctrines or
articles of faith they ought to be consentient ; what dogmas
should be rejected, or retained, or modified in order to make
them rightly consentient, is largely a matter of pure specula
tion. Many of us could not agree as to the terms of such an
ideal agreement. If some of us should frame such an agree
ment, satisfactory to ourselves, others would not assent to it.
In the end we might only be adding one more sect to the
medley, and so make confusion worse confounded. Church
unity cannot thus be built up on the ruins of all existing
churches.^ Nor have we any more to do with a future consensus of the
churches, to be reached in the progress of learning and
^ This maybe the peril of the " Brotherhood of Christian Unity" and any
like associations which ignore all existing churches for the sake of some meagre
consensus of Christianity with other religions or some common Christian faith
which contains only the minimum of Christian truth and is too vague and ideal
to be made an organic bond of true Church unity.

The Lambeth Proposals. 8i
liberty. In what doctrines they will be consentient ultimately
in coming generations, or what dogmas will have been lost or
gained in the Church of the millennium, is sheer beyond our
ken. Some of us may doubt if such a perfect agreement
will ever come ; and any of us who hope for it could not now
project it without the gift of prophecy, as well as the under
standing of all mysteries. Church unity cannot be built after
any prophetic model let down from heaven, ready made and
complete, like the New Jerusalem in the Apocalypse.^
It is only with the actual, the existing, consensus of the
churches that we can deal. Not the things which should be
believed among us ; nor yet the things which will be believed
among us; but " the things which are most surely believed
among us," as St. Luke expresses it — this is the practical
question. To this practical question the catholic thought of
the age is already addressing itself; and it has at length
found voice and audience.
The Lambeth Proposals.
It has become the rare honor and privilege of one of the
smallest denominations — small in numbers but large in an
intelligent survey of the situation — to lead all the rest in this
great movement, and even to be followed by the mother
Church of England. The Bishops of the Protestant Episco
pal Church, from their high point of view, have undertaken
to " set forth in order a declaration of the things which are
most surely believed among us." In other words they have
formulated an actual consensus of the churches as the basis
of their unity ; an existing creed, ritual, and polity in which
they are already more or less consentient, and not some new
or imaginary creed, ritual, and polity in which they cannot
^ In this direction seem to tend those advocates of the Roman Catholic Church,
or of the Protestant Episcopal Church, or of any other denominational church,
who hope to realize church unity exclusively in their own organization at some
remote millennium by destroying or supplanting or converting all the other
churches and denominations of the country.
6

82 The Foitr Articles of Church Unity.
become consentient without utterly abandoning their respec
tive standards or destroying their identity in some ruthless
process of unification.
This practical quality of the Episcopal declaration is one
of its chief merits. In its very nature it is a unifying mani
festo. It exhibits to the world the great things in which
Christian bodies can agree, and exalts them above the small
things in which they differ. Each of the four articles, the
Scriptures, the Creeds, the Sacraments, the Episcopate, will
be found to serve this purpose as successively stated.' The
Holy Scriptures are already accepted as the rule of faith by
all Christian denominations between the extremes of Roman
ism and Protestantism, however varied may be their interpre
tation of those Scriptures. The Nicene Creed is the sufficient
statement of the Christian faith, though it be supplemented
with denominational symbols, such as the Augsburg Confes
sion, the Heidelberg Catechism, the Anglican Articles of
Religion, the Westminster Confession of Faith, or the latest
American product of creed making. The two sacraments of
Christ are administered with His appointed words and ele
ments in all communions, the simplest as well as the most
ritualistic, not less by the Baptist who insists upon immersion
than by the Romanist who withholds the cup from the laity.
The Historic Episcopate is everywhere adaptable to Congre
gationalists, Presbyterians, and Episcopalians of every type,
^ The four articles, as proposed at Chicago, and amended by the Lambeth
Conference, are as follows :
First. The Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testament as containing all
things necessary to salvation and as being the rule and ultimate standard of
faith. Second. The Apostles' Creed as the Baptismal symbol ; and the Nicene Creed
as the sufficient statement of the Christian Faith.
Third. The two Sacraments ordained by Christ Himself — Baptism and the
Supper of the Lord — ministered with unfailing use of Christ's words of institu
tion, and of the elements ordained by Him.
Fourth. The Historic Episcopate, locally adapted in the methods of its ad
ministration to the varying needs of the nations and peoples called of God into
the unity of His Church.

Catholicity of the Historic Episcopate. 83
as well to those without as to those within the pale of that
Episcopate. In a word, if the Christian denominations of
this land were in search of a canon, creed, ritual, and polity,
which should express their consensus as against their dis
sensus, the essentials in which they agree as distinguished
from the non-essentials in which they differ, they would
find them in the four Principles of the Chicago Declaration.
Catholicity of the Four Articles.
Another great merit of that Declaration is its absolute
catholicity. There is no denominationalism whatever in its
terms. Although it emanates from one of the denominations,
it proposes nothing peculiar to that denomination; not the
Prayer Book, not the Articles of Religion, not even the
Ordinal in its details. On the contrary the things which it
proposes are also possessed or shared by other denominations.
The Holy Scriptures are the common heritage of Christen
dom, Greek, and Latin as well as Anglican, American as well
as European. The ecumenical creeds are professed by the
Greek, Roman, Lutheran, Reformed, and Presbyterian com
munions, as well as by the Protestant Episcopal communion.
The Sacraments of our Lord are scrupulously observed by
many if not all other Christian bodies than those which
follow the use of the English Liturgy. The historic Episco
pate is a universal institution common to Eastern and Western
Christendom, and not confined to the American House of
Bishops. As this last point may not be as obvious as the
other three points, and yet is pivotal to the whole discussion,
it is important here to give it special attention.
Catholicity of the Historic Episcopate.
The Historic Episcopate would remain in this country if
the organization known as "The Protestant Episcopal
Church " did not exist. It would still be represented to us
by the Russian Greek and Roman Catholic Churches; encum-

84 The Four Articles of Church Unity.
bered, it is true, with various dogmas, but with dogmas no
better, or no worse, than theories which encumber it in other
communions and act as hindrances to unity. Indeed, it is
quite conceivable that Roman bishops in some new reforma
tion, more justly conservative than ours, may yet offer the
episcopate to their Protestant brethren with some stronger
motives than any that now appear in the tender of it from
another quarter. In that event the whole ecclesiastical situa
tion would be changed. The great Lutheran communion
would be found more closely allied to the Roman than to the
Anglican Episcopate. The Reformed bodies, Dutch, French,
and German, might more naturally return to the historic
primacy of Rome than to the local primacy of Canterbury.
All Protestants, in fact, might then unite in recognizing a de
facto headship of Western Christendom. And thus the
Mother of Churches could grow as rapidly by conversion as
she has been growing by emigration. Stranger things have
happened. Be all this, however, as it may, treat it as a mere
quixotic fancy, the fact remains, that the Protestant Episcopal
Church has no exclusive property in the Episcopate, but only
shares it, and shares it very largely, with other and greater
historic churches in America as well as Europe.
It should also be remembered that at one time in the his
tory of that church it was nearly on a par with other
American denominations as to the episcopate now deemed so
essential to its very being. For more than one hundred
years, during the whole colonial period, the so-called " Epis
copal churches " scattered along the Atlantic coast were
practically without the Episcopate and even without episcopal
visitations. Successive generations of communicants grew
up unconfirmed, and the clergy had little more than the
distant oversight of the Bishop of London. It is well known
that the popular dread of an Episcopal establishment was one
of the causes of the American Revolution. After the rupture
with the mother country it became still more doubtful
whether the Episcopate could be procured from the Church

Catholicity of the Historic Episcopate. 85
of England. In the emergency there was even some thought
of applying for the foreign orders of Sweden. But the patri
archal Bishop White declared that in such circumstances " a
scrupulous adherence to episcopacy would be sacrificing the
substance to the ceremony," ' and lest the essentials of
preaching and worship should utterly lapse he sketched a
provisional polity with presbyterial ordination, and other
features thoroughly Presbyterian. When at length the Epis
copate was conferred by the English Bishops it simply
supervened upon that provisional presbyterian organization
as it might now supervene upon any other Presbyterian body;
and it is still, in thought at least, as separable from the one
as it is in fact separate from the other.
It should further be observed, that the college of Bishops
has logically (I do not say formally) separated the episcopate
from the communion over which they preside, by proposing
it to other communions, at the same time nobly disclaiming
any wish to absorb other communions, and declaring their
readiness to forego the modes of worship and discipline
peculiar to their own communion, and to co-operate with
other communions on the basis of a common faith and order,
in discountenancing schism and healing the wounds of the
body of Christ. In distinct terms, " as Bishops in the Church
of God," ^ they have invited their fellow-Christians to meet
them on the outside common ground of membership by
baptism in the Holy Catholic Church, and there find further
agreement in the four articles of unity. Suppose, for argu
ment's sake, that the Presbyterian Church should adopt these
articles, and at length select presbyters to be consecrated as
bishops. Would the Episcopal college then bring forward
^ "The Case of the Episcopal Churches in the United States Considered," p.
19. By the Rev. Dr. William White, afterward Bishop of Pennsylvania.
2 The Declaration does not seem to have proceeded from " the House of
Bishops" as a component part of the Protestant Episcopal Church, limited by its
constitution and laws, but from the Bishops in Council at Chicago and in Con
ference at Lambeth.

86 The Four Articles of Church Unity.
the new requirement of an oath of " conformity and obedience
to the doctrine, discipline, and worship of the Protestant
Episcopal Church in the United States?" Would they
amend their own terms by adding to the Holy Scriptures the
church canons ; to the Nicene Creed, the Articles of Religion ;
to the Sacraments of our Lord, the Book of Common Prayer ;
and to the Historic Episcopate, the entire ordinal of Bishops,
Priests, and Deacons ? Would they thus endeavor, in the
face of their Declaration, to absorb other communions or
impose upon them the laws, traditions, and usages of their
own communion? In that case suppose the Moravian, or
Swedish,' or Old Catholic Episcopate to have been elsewhere
obtained, would they not gladly recognize and welcome it?
In order to make this point still clearer let us recur to the
" case of the Episcopal churches" at the close of the Revolu
tion. Their situation as to the question before us was ana
logous to that of presbyterial churches at the present time.
They had assumed a thoroughly presbyterial polity, though
as yet without Bishops. It is true, they had also the Prayer-
book ; and the English bishops would not confer the Episco
pal character until assured that the Prayer-Book would be
retained in its integrity. But that is not now made a condi
tion of the conferment. The Prayer-Book is not even named
in the terms proposed at Chicago or at Lambeth. There is
nothing on the face of those terms to forbid the Presbyterian
church, as it stands to-day, from acquiring the episcopate, if
so minded. Nor would it thereby go over in a body to the
Protestant Episcopal Church. On the contrary, the revered
Bishop of Western New York, if correctly reported,^ has dis
tinctly said : " We have proposed a course which, if carried

' Lutheran clergymen have said that the proposed procurement of the Historic
Episcopate from the Church of Sweden would have the effect of modifying the
exclusive claims of the Protestant Episcopal Church among sister Protestant
Churches. ^ Sermon of Bishop Coxe at Buffalo, in New York Tribune, March 22, 189I.

Adaptability of the Historic Episcopate. 87
out by any of the greater denominations of Christians, would
compel us to join them."
Adaptability of the Historic Episcopate.
I may now add, that some learned canonists, if I under
stand them, are already advocating an extension of the
American Episcopate to other denominations, as proposed by
the late Dr. Muhlenberg of blessed memory, and as illustrated
recently by the extension of the Roman episcopate over
Uniate Greek congregations in this country, notwithstanding
their married priests, trine immersion, presbyterial confirma
tion, and other tenets not held by Romanists, but held by
Episcopalians, Baptists, and Presbyterians. The Lambeth
Conference itself, if I read aright, has generously opened the
way for a similar extension of the Anglican episcopate to
other Christian communions abroad and at home, " without
insisting upon the formularies which are the special heritage
of the Church of England," and even with " large freedom of
variation on secondary points of doctrine, worship, and dis
cipline." * Both the Chicago and the Lambeth declarations
also seem to distinguish the historic episcopate from its Greek,
Roman, and Anglican varieties, by providing that it is to be
" locally adapted in the methods of its administration to the
varying needs of the nations and peoples called of God into
the unity of His Church." This local adaptation has been
begun in one of our denominations ; but it will not be com
plete until it extends to all of them, or at least includes the
Christian institutions, doctrines, and usages of the whole
American people, and so becomes still more American and
less Anglican, as well as less Roman. Then, and not till then,
will there be a truly American variety of the historic episco
pate. The object of making these distinctions, I need scarcely
say, is not to raise debatable questions, some of which are too
1 Lambeth Conferences of 1888, p. 337.

88 The Four Articles of Church Utity.
difficult and delicate for me to handle, or perhaps even to
suggest. I am simply aiming to emphasize the fact that the
historic episcopate, like the other three articles, is only part
of a common heritage, and more or less adaptable to all
denominations with their respective standards and usages.
In theory at least, it is as adaptable to the Presbyterian
Church with its Confession of Faith, and Directory of Worship,
as to the Protestant Episcopal Church with its Articles and
Prayer-Book. In point of fact, however, such adaptation is
not imminent and may not soon befall. Presbyterians as yet
value the liturgy more than the episcopate, and could more
easily accept the Articles and the Prayer-Book than the
Ordinal. But should the day ever happily come when the
high contracting parties would be ready for corporate reunion,
we may assume that they would have wisdom and grace
enough to adjust all canonical questions of ordination and
jurisdiction in a spirit of Christian love and harmony.
Unifying Power of the Historic Episcopate.
The next point to be considered is the fitness of the four
articles to serve as a basis of church unity. The fitness of
the first three articles for such a purpose is scarcely in ques
tion. The chief reformed churches, at least, can estimate the
scriptures, the creeds, and the sacraments as capital points of
agreement and means of unification. But the unifying power
of the historic episcopate is not yet so highly appreciated. Be
it observed, the intrinsic value of that Christian institution is
not now before us. As to what special grace or authority or
advantage it conveys, opinions differ among those who view it
from the inside, as well as among those who view it from the
outside ; and good churchmen may be found on both sides of
the pale. Waiving the discussion of such opinions, not as
unimportant by any means, but as not relevant to the present
question, we are here only to estimate its external value as a
unifying bond among the denominations. Never before has it
been so presented. The simple fact that it has been so pre-

Unifying Power of the Historic Episcopate. 89
sented, marks an epoch, it may be a silent revolution, in the
history of the church. Too often hitherto has it appeared in a
polemic light as a bone of contention, an occasion of dissent
and schism, and even a barrier to Christian intercourse between
families, nations, and races. Now at length, as never before
in three centuries, we are invited to behold it in an irenic
light as an organic link of connection, a basis of reunion, and
a magnetic centre of harmony. I can give but the heads of
so pleasing an argument.
In the first place, it is the de facto government of three-
fourths, if not of four-fifths, of Christendom. Reason about its
dejure claims as we may, an immense majority of our fellow-
Christians throughout the world, and nearly one-sixth of our
fellow-citizens in this country, are tenaciously attached to it, and
not at all likely to be detached from it ; and these plain facts of
the ecclesiastical situation must be dealt with in any scheme of
comprehension which aims to be at once practical and complete.
Otherwise, everything like church unity is simply out of the
question. There can be no reunion of Christendom without
the historic episcopate.
In the second place, it bases church unity upon church
polity, not upon systematic theology. Until polity has been
shaken loose from such theology we can never have organic
unity. Exact theological agreement as a basis of church
unity is already a failure. Denominations founded upon such
agreement have been going to pieces all around us. Such
agreement never has existed; not even in the Apostolic
church, which allowed doctrinal differences without the un
christian results of schism and sectarianism. Such agree
ment never can exist, so long as human nature is diverse in
its temperaments and many related truths are paradoxical in
our logic. Such agreement never ought to exist, for the sake
of Christian doctrine itself Better far that two schools of
theology should fairly contend in the same church than rush
apart into two hostile sects. Never fear for our common
orthodoxy, while special orthodoxies take care of themselves

90 The Four Articles of Church Unity.
in the march of knowledge and under the laws of thought.
Such agreement has not even been attempted by the strongest
churches. No Calvinism has been so high and no Arminian
ism so low as the Calvinism and Arminianism nourished side
by side within the ample church of England. The brief ex
periment to hold together that church on the theological basis
of the Westminster Confession issued in disastrous failure.
All history shows that church unity must rest upon an insti
tution, not upon doctrines ; and upon an institution ample
enough and elastic enough to include all doctrines, even
variant doctrines concerning itself. Such an institution is that
episcopate, which not only embraces the national varieties of
Catholicism, but shows a capacity for embracing the doctrinal
diversities of Protestantism in the bonds of a reunited Chris
tendom. In the third place, it is comprehensive of all forms of polity
as well as schools of doctrine. In its structure it involves in
due organic relation the congregational, the presbyterial, and
the episcopal elements of church government. The two
former may exist apart from the latter; but not the latter apart
from the two former. Episcopacy includes the other elements
as the greater includes the less, and is upheld by them as the
higher is upheld by the lower. Hence Congregationalism as
a basis of church unity would on principle be inorganic, if
not disorganizing. Presbyterianism, though organic and
organizing, is separate and largely unhistoric, and so far as
historic, has become too dogmatic and polemic. Episcopali
anism also, when independent and unhistoric, becomes sec
tarian and schismatical, losing its unifying force. But historic
episcopacy has ever included, while it surmounted, both the
congregational and the presbyterial spheres of the church
organism, and as locally adapted to the civil and religious
institutions of this country, will neither sacrifice the liberties
of the congregation, nor the rights of presbytery. Orthodoxy
and liberty can dwell together in presbytery only under the
mild sway of the historic episcopate.

Unifying Power of the Historic Episcopate. 91
In the fourth place, it is tolerant of all types of churchman-
ship as well as forms of polity and schools of doctrine. It
neither enjoins, nor forbids, a doctrine of apostolical succes
sion. Presented as a historic institution apart from any theory
of its origin and claims, it allows all such theories without
repressing any of them. Not the prelatic theory, not the
presbyterian theory, not the rationalistic theory, not the
ritualistic theory, alone can claim exclusive property in it
without rendering it partisan and sectarian. Were any one
of these theories made a basis of church unity, the church
itself would be torn asunder, and its different schools of
churchmanship fly apart as mere wrangling sects. The fact,
however, that they are found loyally uniting in adherence
to an institution which they estimate from so many diverse
points of view — this fact proves its capacity to combine
the Congregationalists and Presbyterians, still beyond its
reach, with those like-minded churchmen already within
its bounds. And unless different rules are applied to can
didates and incufnbents, it may be accepted in the interest
of church unity, as it is maintained, on a presbyterian no less
than a prelatic theory of its origin and merits. It will never
be endangered by churchmen who have had presbyterian
training ; nor can it fully accomplish its mission in this coun
try without the sort of ecclesiastical backbone which they
furnish. The historic episcopate cannot do without the his
toric presbyterate.
In the fifth place, its exclusion of non-episcopal ministries,
though otherwise deemed opprobrious, gives it in fact a unify
ing quality. By recognizing such ministries it could not
help true church unity, but would really hinder and frustrate
it. It would only make new schisms in trying to' heal old
ones. It would at once loosen and scatter the various schools
of divinity, polity, and churchmanship which it now holds
together in bonds as tenacious as they are elastic. I state the
fact without explaining it : Differences which have elsewhere
issued in sectarianism, are somehow restrained like balanced

92 The Four Articles of Church Unity.
forces, or blended like discordant notes in a higher harmony.
Episcopalians, Presbyterians, and Congregationalists in their
relations as denominationalists are in a chronic state of antag
onism and irritation ; but the very same Christians, or others
like them, in their relations as churchmen, holding to the
unity of the visible church, simply lose all their sectarian
rancor, without losing their distinctive beliefs. Denomina
tional variety is thus visibly made consistent with church
unity. It is not a matter of speculation. We have before us
all the while the object-lesson of a unifying episcopate.
In the sixth place, it is the source and guarantee of the
other three terms of church unity. Historically, the Sacra
ments, the Creeds, and the Sacred Canon emanated from the
primitive episcopacy, howsoever that episcopate may have been
connected with the apostles. Historically, they afterward
continued in connection with episcopacy, though encrusted
with error and superstition during the middle ages until the
Reformation. Historically, ever since they have been more
persistently maintained in Episcopal churches than in other
Reformed churches. They may sometimes be found apart
from episcopacy, but not episcopacy apart from them. To
render them consistent and complete episcopacy is needed,
and as connected with them it imparts strength and concord
to them all. At once sustaining them and sustained by them,
it is the very keystone of church unity.
In the last place, it is only through the historic episcopate
that the primitive church unity can be restored. All parties
seem agreed that the congregational, presbyterial, and epis
copal elements of polity coexisted normally in the undivided
church of the apostles. All must admit that they are now
in an abnormal, dismembered state, where they are not
more or less obliterated by an exclusive Congregationalism,
or Presbyterianism, or Episcopalianism. In order to recover
the lost organic unity of these elements, we must retrace the
steps by which it was first found. According to the learned
Bishop Lightfoot the primitive bishops gradually became

Unification by Confederation. 93
centers of unity, and guardians of faith among the scattered
congregations and presbyteries of the early church. In like
manner the Congregationalist, Presbyterian, and Episcopalian
denominations of our day can only recover true organic unity
by returning by the same steps to that episcopate as it first
arose in the apostles' time. Already one of those denomina
tions has illustrated in its history this primitive evolution ;
having existed first in the embryonic stage of Congregation
alism, as a cluster of detached parishes; thence, emerging
into Presbyterianism, with its conventions of clerical and lay
delegates ; and at length acquiring the full ecclesiastical char
acter in the Anglican episcopate. And other denominations,
as yet congregational or presbyterial, are advancing, with
various rates of progress and degrees of approximation,
toward the same distant but inevitable goal of the whole
organic development of American Christianity. If we are
ever to have the one United Church of the United States, it
would seem destined to find its flower and crown in the his
toric episcopate.
At this point comes into view the next important question :
the mode of approaching church unity on the basis of the
four articles of the Chicago-Lambeth declaration. Two
methods, or schemes, have been proposed: confederation and
consolidation. Without opposing either of them, I shall
advocate organic reunion and growth as the more natural and
hopeful process. Let us briefly compare them.
Unification by Confederation.
According to the first of the three methods, as advocated
by a Presbyterian divine,' the different denominations would
meet by deputies in a general convention, and formally adopt
the Lambeth proposals as articles of confederation, while

' Rev. Prof. Charles A. Briggs, D. D., of Union Theological Seminary, New
York.

94 The Four Articles of Church Unity.
retaining in all other respects their respective standards of
doctrine, polity, and worship, except so far as they might
require modification and adaptation. Such federal councils
of a single denomination have already been held by the
Anglican body in the Pan-Anglican conference; by the
Reformed body in the Pan-Presbyterian Conference ; and by
the Congregationalists and Methodists in their World's Con
ventions. Similar conferences may yet be held by the
Lutheran churches, and perhaps by some of the Baptist
denominations. " If these denominational conferences," says
the learned Professor, " should accept the four propositions
of the Lambeth Conference ; or if accepting them, they
should make some additional proposals ; if the Presbyterian
General Conference should propose to accept the historic
episcopate, provided that a presbyterial organization of the
church should also be adopted and the two systems be
brought into harmony; and if the Congregational General
Conference should propose to accept the historic episcopate,
provided that the right of the Christian people, and the inde
pendence of the local church were guarded within certain
definite areas ; if we could have a general council of the
Christian churches of America, on the basis of the four propo
sitions of the House of Bishops, with any reasonable addi
tions or modifications that might be proposed ; church unity
would, in my opinion, essentially be won." '
The advantages of this attractive scheme are apparent at
the first glance. It proceeds upon the representative and
federal principles with which we have become familiar in the
history of our political unification ; and it harmonizes with the
genius of our religious institutions, especially in congregation
alist and presbyterian communions. It would reduce the
number of sects by compacting them closely in family groups
or clusters, according to their hereditary and doctrinal affini
ties. It would satisfy the denominational spirit by according
^ The Churchman, June 21, 1890.

Unification by Consolidation. 95
to it an equal voice and vote in council, whatever may be the
numbers or wealth or intelligence represented. It would
offer at length the moving spectacle of great denominational
leaders, meeting together not for conflict, nor for recrimina
tion, as in former times, but to adjust the ancient disputes of
Christendom in a spirit of love and harmony. And it is not
unlikely that it may hereafter play some important part in the
unifying process.
The difficulties of the scheme soon appear on closer view.
It would substitute the artificial processes of federation and
legislation for those of spontaneous growth and culture in the
formation of public opinion and in social action. It presup
poses radical changes in some denominations, and in others
an immense increase of the ecclesiastical spirit. The Roman
Catholics, of course, would not send deputies to such a coun
cil. The Baptists and Congregationalists could not, without
abandoning their own principles ; nor might their loose
aggregation of churches be held by the decisions of such a
council. The Methodists, with their sense of a denomina
tional mission and lack of churchly feeling, are not yet ready
for such a council. It would be practically restricted to the
Reformed and Presbyterian churches, and the Protestant
Episcopal Church, supposing the latter to appear in the con
ference. And then, should the first three Lambeth articles be
adopted, the fourth would soon bristle with the delicate ques
tions of episcopal ordination and jurisdiction, for which the
whole Presbyterian body at least is not yet prepared. The
result would not be ecclesiastical unity, but a mere league,
made offensive and defensive by the reassertion of Presbytery
against Prelacy on the one side, and against Papacy on the
other. Unification by Consolidation.
According to the second method of unification, proposed
by an Episcopal clergyman,' a single denomination would
1 The Rev. W. R. Huntington, D.D., Rector of Grace Church, New York.

96 The Four Articles of Church Unity.
become the nucleus around which others would be crystal
lized, and at length consolidated in one ecclesiastical system,
while yet retaining their admirable variety in doctrine, ritual,
culture, and life. As the Protestant Episcopal Church alone
possesses the four Lambeth conditions of agreement, it is
natural to take it as such a rallying center, and hope to
merge other Christian bodies into corporate union with it.
The old-fashioned view seems to have been, that it is poten
tially the national church, destined, as it stands to-day, with
its canons, liturgy, articles, and orders, to dissolve and recom-
pose the other one hundred and forty-two denominations
around it, and transform them into Protestant Episcopalian
churchmen by the sheer force of propagandism. Such a view
would demand the faith and zeal of a Hildebrand. The later
and larger view seems to be that, by incorporating the four
principles in the existing constitution of the church as the
only ecclesiastical requirements, other denominations accept
ing those requirements might be included within its pale,
substantially as they now are, with an allowed diversity in
their methods of worship and work. " Every one of the de
nominations," says the eloquent advocate of this view, " has
its own hallowed memories, its own roll of martyrs, its own
cherished manner of worship, its own long-tried methods of
missionary work. The theory of consolidation supposes not
only their permitted but their constitutionally guarded con
tinuance." '
No true lover of church unity could let mere traditional
prejudice or sectarian jealousy mar this noble ideal of charity
and harmony. If any one of the denominations is thus des
tined to become like Aaron's rod that swallowed up the rods
of the magicians, this were better than that the serpent brood
of sects and schisms should go on multiplying. Nor could
any one of them better achieve such a consolidation than that
one which stands among them, not only as the very flower of
^ " The Peace of the Church,' ' p. 42.

Unification by Consolidation. 97
English civilization, but as the highest type of organized
Christianity ; which combines in its polity congregational,
presbyterial, and episcopal elements that have elsewhere be
come separate and disjointed ; which conserves in its liturgy
the choicest formularies of the reformed as well as the historic
churches ; and of which, as an intermediary between Protes
tantism and Catholicism and in touch with both, it has been
strikingly said,' it was like one of those precious chemicals
capable of fusing substances otherwise unassociable. No
wonder that even the Jesuit De Maistre was forced to admit
its wonderful future, like Balaam blessing the distant tents of
Israel which he had been fain to curse. No wonder that non-
episcopal divines, as well as far-seeing bishops, are beginning
to recognize " the majestic mission of the Anglican Church
and of her daughter in America." Whatever other great and
powerful denominations may yet wheel into the line of his-
<-oric Christianity, the Protestant Episcopal Church must ever
lead them in the march toward ultimate unity.
The difficulties of consolidation are more in the process
than in the result, more in the way of approach than in the
end attained. Though its aim be catholic, its point of de
parture would be denominational. Though in theory tolerant
of other communions, it would in practice absorb them.
However self-sacrificing in its spirit, it would look to them
like zealous proselytism and ecclesiastical aggrandizement.
While projecting before them an attractive goal of unity amid
variety, it would seem to invite them thither only through the
successive stages of concession, submission, absorption, ex
tinction. In their view it would be somewhat like gaining
the boon of immortality at the loss of personal identity.
Here and there some detached Congregationalist society, ripe
for the change, might melt away into the greater absorbing
body. But compact national churches would not so easily
1 De Maistre, as quoted by Bishop Coxe in a paper read at the Chicago Con
gress on Organic Unity.
7

98 The Four Articles of Church Unity.
surrender their corporate life. The Methodists would need
to undo much of their history before they could return to the
church whence they went out. The Lutheran and Reformed
bodies, Dutch and German, never having gone out of the Angli
can Church, could not very well be asked to return. The great
Presbyterian communion, ever since it was driven out, has
set up rival claims which it would not lower without at least
a salute. And the greater Roman Catholic communion would
simply reverse the invitation and bid us all come back to the
mother church. Moreover, should the invitation be heeded,
the little consolidating body, with all its conservative vigor,
would soon be resisting the intrusion of so much foreign and
uncongenial material, or find it not very easy of assimilation.
At least one school of churchmen would view it suspiciously
as a Trojan horse of masked sectarianism. Should the con
solidating process become rapid and complete, the smaller
absorbing body would soon be itself absorbed by the larger
entering bodies; the transforming nucleus would be itself
transformed by alien ideas and usages ; at the rallying center
would spring up repellent as well as attracting influences, and
in the end Episcopacy would be obliged to reassert itself
against denominationalism as well as against Romanism.
Unification by Organic Growth.
Between these extreme methods there is a third mode of
unification, which I have ventured to call the process of
organic reunion and growth. It would seek to combine the
good in the other two methods without the evil. In distinc
tion from the first, it would be an organic process of growth
rather than an artificial act of legislation ; and in distinction
from the second, it would be an organic reunion of ecclesiast
ical elements in different Christian bodies, rather than a crude
absorption by one Christian body of all the rest ; a knitting
together of the congregational, presbyterial, and episcopal
polities wherever found, rather than a welding of the existing
medley of churches. Its rallying center would be in the

Unification by Organic Growth. 99
midst of the denominations, not aside in any one of them.
Its crystallizing nucleus would simply be the four Lambeth
articles of unity as detached from the Episcopal Church, no
less than from the Roman Church, or from the Reformed
churches, or from any other churches which may possess or
acquire some or all of them. Especially would it find such
a nucleus or germ in that catholic episcopate, which, if con
fined to the Protestant Episcopal Church, would itself become
denominational and sectarian ; but if extended over the other
denominations, would recombine their congregational, pres
byterial, and episcopal institutions not merely in one ideal
polity, but as restored parts of the one undivided Apostolic
Church. In a word, while confederation would arrange the
denominations in a mere artificial mosaic, and consolidation
would compact them as a crude conglomerate, organic re
union would develop them as an organism into the one body
of Christ. Organic Reunion of Presbytery and Episcopacy.
Take, for illustration, the Presbyterian and Episcopal
Churches,' now engaged in hopeful negotiation on the basis
of the Lambeth proposals. Were these two bodies at once
either confederated or consolidated, it would be an incon-
^ The Presbyterian Church is more closely allied to the Protesant Episcopal
Church, both historically and doctrinally, than any other Christian body in the
country. Its standards, as framed by the Westminster Assembly, were once
legally established in the Church of England, as they are now maintained by the
established Church of Scotland, with the Sovereign as a communicant in both
churches. The two communions hold substantially the same doctrine of the
ministry and sacraments, the one attaching the doctrine to presbytery and the
other attaching it to episcopacy ; and in other matters of polity and worship there
has long been a growing assimilation and agreement.
The General Assembly of 1890 met the advances of the General Convention
by passing without dissent the following resolution.
" The Assembly approves in general the spirit and position of the Committee
on Church Unity in its correspondence with the representatives of the Protestant
Episcopal Church, and desires a continuance of these negotiations with reference
to a union on the basis of the four propositions of the House of Bishops, in order

loo The Four Articles of Church Unity.
ceivable catastrophe to both of them. It is not so inconceiv
able, however, that they should be brought together at points
where they are in touch and admit of connection. Already
they have such points of contact and agreement in three of
the Lambeth articles ; in the Scriptures, the Creeds, and the
Sacraments. It only remains to attach them in the Episco
pate. And that attachment might be begun by means of
concurrent ordinations, on the principle advocated by a
learned and accomplished bishop of St. Andrews (the late
Dr. Charles Wordsworth ') for the reconciliation of Presby-

that all questions at issue may be discussed in a temper of Christian charity and
brotherly affection, with a view to their full and final solution."
The last General Assembly at Washington continued its Special Committee on
Church Unity, Rev. Dr. Joseph T. Smith and Rev. Prof Francis Brown, and
approved their report of progress, which contained this recommendation :
" The Assembly hereby recommends the holding of conventions, according to
the terms proposed by the Episcopal Commission for the promotion of Christian
unity. It also enjoins upon the members of the church represented in the Assem
bly, prayer, both in public and in private, for the realization of this unity."
' " The proposition of Bishop Wordsworth, made through a committee of the
last Lambeth Conference, was substantially this; that the full ministerial stand
ing of clergymen Presbyterially ordained be now recognized, provided that here
after all their ordinations should be by bishops. . . This proposition was
not accepted by the Conference, and probably for two good reasons, if for no
other : because it was not prepared to act so suddenly in so serious a matter, and
also because, being only a Conference, it had no authority so to act. But it
should also be said, that ten out of the twelve members of the committee voted
for it, and that the Archbishop of Canterbury expressed his ' very full and hearty
sympathy with it.' Altogether it is no doubt a very special expedient ; but it is
the only one so far proposed with any promise of likelihood in it. God grant
that some way out of the dilemma may be found with honor to Him and to all ! "
Address on Church Unity by the Right Rev. Boyd Vincent, S. T. D. , Assistant
Bishop of Southern Ohio.
The suggestion above made differs from this proposition in two respects : In
the Episcopalian view, the authorization would not be universal and indiscrimin
ate, but gradual, as special cases arise ; and in the Presbyterian view, the ques
tion of valid ordination would not be raised but left untouched in the sphere of
private judgment, as at present. Many Episcopalians and Presbyterians already
hold the principles involved in a concurrent ordination. Why not act upon those
principles formally as well as practically, and in a frank and generous spirit ?

Reunion of Presbytery and Episcopacy. loi
terians and Episcopalians in the Church of Scotland. In
such ordinations candidates would be presented to the bishop,
with the concurrence of the presbytery, by priests who have
had formerly Presbyterian ordination, or perhaps by Presby
terian ministers who have had formerly Episcopal ordination.
The transaction might be kept within the rubric as well as the
book, or at least within the Lambeth proposals, and would
involve a practical sanction of all conceivable interests and
claims, with no possibility of doubt or controversy. Both
parties would have acted upon their respective theories of the
Christian ministry, without conceding anything to each other,
and without reflecting upon one another. The most extreme
Episcopalian, from his point of view, would have fully legiti
mated a ministry which on other grounds he was prepared to
appreciate and welcome ; and the most extreme Presbyterian,
from his point of view, would have only gained enlarged
authority for a ministry which he believed to be already valid
and regular. As in a marriage of rival houses, former causes
of warfare would disappear, and the contracting parties hence
forth would have common aims and interests.
Nor would there be anything disingenuous or very novel
in a concurrent ordination thus understood to represent Pres
byterians and Episcopalians. Episcopalians see something
like it whenever a postulant brings with him the commenda
tion of twelve of his former co-presbyters. Presbyterians see
something like it, whenever an Episcopal minister after due
examination receives the authority of presbytery. Both Pres
byterians and Episcopalians see something like it, whenever
High and Low Church bishops and presbyters unite in con
ferring holy orders. What would be the essential difference,
either in intention or in effect, between coordination in this
last case and in the case before described ?
The difficulty would not be in the rite of ordination so
much as in the sphere of jurisdiction. And there it might
not prove insuperable, if met cautiously and by degrees. The
connection might first be made where there would be least

I02 The Four Articles of Church Unity.
embarrassment. On foreign mission fields, surely such ordi
nations ought not to bring any conflict of presbyterial and
episcopal jurisdiction. On home mission fields there are as
yet no vested rights and interests to prevent an arranged coin
cidence of jurisdiction. In the public service of the Army
and Navy, and in purely academic positions, the coincidence
would seem to be already practicable. There would be no
more danger of free lances then than now in this free coun
try. Moreover coordination would make re-ordination easy
and reputable, when desirable. Gradually, as such examples
became familiar and contagious, the parishes and presbyteries
within a synod or diocese would come under bishops of their
own choice through their own action. At length, by such a
reunion of presbytery and episcopacy in all denominations,
the very core of Protestantism would be unified on a church
basis, and could bring its crude remainder under potent
church influences. The chief ecclesiastical bodies in the land,
all the historic Reformed churches, would stand compacted
as a solid phalanx against sectarianism on the one side and
infidelity on the other.
Ideal Fulfilment of Church Unity.
In order to complete this ideal sketch, let us now imagine
the Lambeth articles of unity to have been thus adopted by
the chief Christian bodies between the extremes of Protes
tantism and Catholicism. In that event, the historic episco
pate would have been extended over all congregational,
presbyterial, and episcopal denominations ; but those very
names would have lost their sectarian meaning, and serve
only to indicate organic members and functions in the ec
clesiastical body. The Apostolic and Nicene Creeds would
have been accepted, the one as a symbol of church member
ship, and the other as a sufficient statement of the Christian
faith ; but while some communions, according to their origin,
might still train under the polemic standards of Augsburg,
Heidelberg, Geneva, and Westminster, other communions

Slow Growth of Church Unity. 103
might be content to display such standards as mere antique
trophies in the castle of orthodoxy. The two sacraments of
our Lord would be everywhere ministered with His appointed
words and elements ; but if in such ministration some par
ishes might still keep the Prayer-Book intact with its Protest
ant and Catholic formularies compacted as a finished product
of liturgic lore and skill, yet other parishes might choose only
its Protestant formularies, the Exhortations, Confessions,
Prayers, Thanksgivings, Lessons, and Commandments de
rived from the Lord's Day Service of the Reformers, popular
in style, and tending to spirituality in worship ; while still
other parishes might prefer the Catholic formularies. Matins
and Evensong, Litany, Holy Communion, with their Versi-
cles, Kyries, and Glorias, serving as an Englished Breviary
and Missal, choral in structure, and admitting of the highest
artistic embellishment when freed from their Protestant accre
tions.' In a word, the four articles would have become rally
ing centers for all our chief denominational varieties of doc
trine and ritual, and served to reconcile a just Protestantism
with a true Catholicism in one reunited Church of the United
States. Meanwhile, too, let us hope, the great Roman
Church, no longer antagonistic, already possessed of the es
sential principles of unity — the Scriptures, the Creeds, the
two Sacraments, and the Episcopate — and being modified by
American influences, would be ready to connect her old
Catholicism with our new Catholicism, under the mild prim
acy of her Chief Pastor, in defense of a common faith, a com
mon country, and a common civilization.
Slow Growth of Church Unity.
The approach to Church unity must be slow, and the way
may be long and difficult. Not in one generation, perhaps
not in several generations, can it be effected; not by spas
modic efforts, hostile to all religious life and growth ; not by
^ See Essay VIII, in this volume.

I04 The Four Articles of Church Unity.
sporadic conversions, always personal in their significance,
sometimes dubious, never unifying ; not by coalitions with
sectarian fragments, tending only to denominational aggran
disement and encumbering the ecclesiastical body with un
digested material. No : Church unity can only be attained
by a steady growth of Church principles in all denominations,
by a generous recognition of Church institutions wherever
found. Congregational and Presbyterial as well as Episcopal ;
and by a noble comprehension of such principles and institu
tions, together with their respective adherents, within one
large and tolerant Church system. Confederation may play
its part in some stages of the organic process ; not decreeing
unity by treaty or statute, but ratifying its spontaneous
achievements ; and consolidation may appear at the goal of
the process; not as merging different denominations in the
Episcopal Church, or in the Presbyterian Church, or in the
Roman Church, but only as merging all churches and de
nominations in the one American Catholic Church.
The outlook for Church unity at the present time may not
seem very hopeful. If we confine our attention to passing
occurrences it will appear quite discouraging. Religious
controversy has broken out afresh in some of the Churches,
while yet they were devising means of agreement. Even
the words of peace from Chicago and Lambeth, having since
been surcharged with partisan meaning and distorted by sec
tarian misapprehension, have become like rallying standards
hidden in the smoke of battle. But let us not judge by
superficial and local signs. Great religious movements must
be measured by the march of generations through centuries,
not by current events of the day and the hour. If we will
take into view the historic past together with the present, we
shall see that the entire Protestant body, for more than a
hundred years, has been steadily recoiling from the extreme
sectarianism into which it was driven by the impulses of the Re
formation, and that returning Church unity is made inevitable
by the logic of tendencies, if not yet by the logic of events.

Decline of the Denominational Spirit. 105
Logical Tendencies to Church Unity.
First among such logical tendencies is the decline of the
polemic spirit. Despite some present appearances this is not
a polemic age. Theological controversy is not now, as it
once was, the most serious pursuit of life, when men crossed
swords over a dogmatic distinction and consigned heretical
writers with their books to the flames. Theological contro
versy is no longer the wordy combat that it was among the
divines of the last generation, when rival schools flew apart
as hostile churches. Nothing is now more censured and
deprecated than such controversy. Bishops, Presbyteries,
and Councils are slow in bringing erring brethren to book,
although the questions are as vital as incarnation, probation,
and inspiration. When the Church trial does come, the call
to orthodoxy is blended with cries for liberty and peace. This
is not the polemic, but the irenic period in the history of
doctrine. The age of division is gone ; that of reunion has
come. Christian divines, meeting in conferences, alliances,
congresses, are trying to see how much they agree rather than
how much they differ. And the spirit of fraternity which is
abroad among them will be satisfied with nothing short of
true unity. Decline of the Denominational Spirit.
Another of the logical tendencies toward church unity is
the decline of the denominational spirit. This has largely
ceased to be a mere sectarian spirit. The denominations do
indeed continue among us, with their denominational titles
and emblems conspicuously paraded, especially on anniver
sary occasions and in convivial moments. But some of them
have lost their raison d'etre by being translated to the New
World, where their Dutch, German, French, and Scotch dia
lects are no longer spoken, and their political environment
has become wholly American. Others have lost their secta
rian bitterness with the dying out of the polemic feuds which

io6 The Four Articles of Church Unity.
made them Lutheran, Calvinistic, and Wesleyan, and through
the social intercourse of their adherents. All of them have
departed from their primitive standards and usages, and now
linger as little more than mere anachronisms. There is not
one of them that would be recognized by their respective
founders and fathers, the Puritan, the Covenanter, the Meth
odist of a century ago. Now, the moment any system begins
to be thus false to its own historic life and traditions, that
moment it begins to die and its self-laudation is but a sign of
its decadence. Already it is becoming unpopular, not to say
unchristian, to assert bald denominationalism against church
unity ; and the disappearance of denominationalism is the
disappearance of the last obstacle to church unity.
Revival of the Ecclesiastical Spirit.
With the decline of the polemic and denominational spirit
has come a wonderful rise and growth of the ecclesiastical
spirit. Throughout the Christian world there is a great
revival of churchly ideas and catholic usages. Beginning
fifty years ago in the school of Keble and Pusey, it has passed
from the Church of England into the Church of Scotland.
Even in that stronghold of Presbyterian worship, St. Giles'
Church, at Edinburgh, the visitor to-day will find all the cor
rect appliances of high ritual ; an altar clothed in the color of
the church season; lessons read from an eagle-lectern; creed
and psalter musically rendered ; a sermon on some Tractarian
theme ; and mayhap the very collect to which Jennie Geddes
so forcibly responded. Our own churches are feeling a like
reaction. The Puritan of our time loves to call his meeting
house a church ; keeps Christmas and Good Friday as well
as Thanksgiving and Fast Day ; and sometimes forgets the
local in the historic church. If he becomes a Unitarian, he
has churchly tastes and affinities. The Hollander is restor
ing his antique liturgy. The Lutheran is looking after his
lost episcopate. The Methodist is listening to a learned min
istry with liturgical aids to devotion. The Presbyterian is

Popular Tendencies to Church Unity. 107
reclaiming his version of the Prayer-book and pondering the
advantages of episcopacy. The churchly Episcopalian is
going to confession and early mass and looking forward to
the archbishopric. Many Protestants would like to have
brotherhoods and sisterhoods, and can heartily join our
Roman Catholic friends in praising SS. Augustine, Aquinas,
and Bernard, and even the Holy Father himself in his present
American policy. There is not a Christian denomination in
the land which is not becoming more or less consciously
ecclesiastical in its aims and tendencies. And the growth of
the ecclesiastical spirit simply means the growth of church
unity. Popular Tendencies to Church Unity.
Besides logical tendencies to Church unity among Chris
tian scholars and thinkers, we may discern certain more pop
ular tendencies, none the less potent, because unconscious,
and even illogical. Unlike their educated leaders the Chris
tian masses are moving toward unity, not by the slow steps
of reasoning, but with the swiftness of intuition and the force
of passion. Sometimes they may seem to be unreasonable
and blind in their impatience of all existing restraints and
obstacles. Paradoxical as it may sound, they are even now
ready for the Lambeth proposals without knowing it, and
while repudiating each one of them. Do they not cling
to the Holy Scriptures as the only rule of faith, while seiz
ing those Scriptures as if handed down out of Heaven and
utterly ignoring the historic Church through which alone
they have acquired them ? Do they not confess the Christian
facts and truths set forth in the Apostolic and Nicene Creeds,
while refusing either to say or sing those creeds, and treating
them as mere ritualistic forms? Do they not receive the two
Sacraments of Christ with His own instituting words and
emblems, while rejecting the solemn and tender liturgy which
has preserved those Sacraments amid the prayers and praises
of saints and martyrs in all ages? Do they not call upon
Congregationalists, Presbyterians, and Episcopalians to have

io8 The Four Articles of Church Unity.
done with their trivial disputes and come together like Chris
tians in one church, while still sneering at an all-unifying
episcopate as but the dream of a few sentimental ecclesiastics ?
In a word, although casting aside the words " one Catholic
and Apostolic Church " as rags of popery, yet are they not
in heart and hope ever yearning after what is meant by the
words "one Catholic and Apostolic Church"? Some day
these verbal disguises by which they are hidden from one
another and kept apart will melt away like mists in the sunrise.
The Coming Campaign of Education.
It has been well said that we are entering " a campaign of
education." In the most elementary sense, we all need infor
mation, — clergymen as well as laymen, Presbyterians as well
as Congregationalists, Episcopalians as well as Presbyterians,
Catholics as well as Protestants. All churches and denomi
nations need to become better acquainted with one another:
Therefore, it is with a wise forethought that the Lambeth
Conference " recommends as of great importance, in tending
to bring about reunion, the dissemination of information " not
only " respecting the standards of doctrine and the formularies
in use in the Anglican Church, but, on the other hand, re
specting the authoritative standards of doctrine, worship, and
government adopted by the other bodies of Christians into
which the English-speaking races are divided." The former
part of this Recommendation has already found its fulfillment
in a " Church Unity Society," which cannot be too highly
praised or too vigorously pressed forward in its high mission.
The latter part of the Recommendation might find fulfillment
in a less formal association or circle, freed from any suspicion
of denominational propagandism by being composed of rep
resentatives of the three polities. Congregational and Presby
terial as well as Episcopal, and aiming to give to the public
only the results of special research and studious conference.
But more even than information do we need that spirit of
prayer out of which alone can be born a true unity. Such a

The Coming Campaign of Education. 109
spirit will dispose us to minimize our differences and magnify
our agreements. Such a spirit will melt away our prejudices
and jealousies. The need of such a spirit has been recognized
by the highest Presbyterian authority, and the highest Epis
copal authority has already voiced it for us in words which
express the desire of all Christian hearts : —
"O God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, our only
Saviour, the Prince of Peace ; give us grace seriously to lay
to heart the great danger we are in by our unhappy divisions.
Take away all hatred and prejudice, and whatsoever else may
hinder us from godly union and concord, that as there is but
one Body and one Spirit, and one hope of our calling, one
Lord, one Faith, one Baptism, one God and Father of us all :
so we may henceforth be all of one heart and of one soul,
united in one holy bond of Truth and Peace, of Faith and
Charity, and may with one mind and one mouth glorify Thee,
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen."

IV.
DENOMINATIONAL VIEWS OF THE
QUADRILATERAL.

IV.
DENOMINATIONAL VIEWS OF THE QUADRILATERAL.
The foregoing essay has been made the subject of a
symposium of various clergymen, under the title of " Many
Voices Concerning the Historic Episcopate." These voices,
when heard apart, make pleasant melody and at times even
their discords seem to blend in a higher harmony. The con
tributors to the symposium are agreed in lamenting our
unhappy divisions, in recognizing unity as normal in the body
of Christ, and in looking and longing for its fulfillment. It is
only when the question of method is raised that the disagree
ment begins.
I must be content with a general acknowledgment once for
all, of the many complimentary remarks upon the essay, and
proceed at once, if I may without presumption, to estimate the
valuable opinions brought together, in their bearing upon the
problem of Church Unity. This will be no easy task, since
the variety of these opinions is confusing and the aim of their
authors is not always apparent. They will naturally group
themselves for our purpose, according to the three church
polities which they severally represent, as Congregational,
Presbyterial, and Episcopal.
Congregational Opinions.
At the head of the Congregational group is the admirable
introduction of Dr. Bradford.' The way to the question is
1 The Rev. Amory H. Bradford, D.D., Montclair, N. J., Editor of " Christian
Literature and the Review of the Churches" : —
" The Chicago-Lambeth propositions are not understood by other denomina-
8 113

1 1 4 Views of the Quadrilateral.
here opened by emphasizing the need for church unity as seen
in the unchristian rivalries of the denominations, in the piteous
appeals for missionary and humanitarian effort, and in the
comparatively trivial differences which separate our churches.
When looking for the remedy. Dr. Bradford has the sagacity,
candor, and charity to see that the Lambeth proposals are not
to be put aside as measures of mere church aggrandizement or
denominational propagandism, but maybe considered, especi
ally the fourth article, as affording a practical if not acceptable
basis of unification. His objection that they might produce a
mere formal unity without the fullness of spiritual concord,
though true in itself, is an objection which must ever inhere in
all our schemes of church unity and is not peculiar to the
scheme now under consideration. Such concord did not exist
even in the golden age of the undivided Apostolic Church.
The new verbal distinction, which Dr. Bradford sanctions,
between the Kingdom and the Church of Christ, if it means
more than the old distinction between the invisible and visible
church, does not seem to me quite scriptural and may prove
misleading when pushed to its issues. Instead of forcing a
breach between the teachings of our Saviour and those of His
Apostles on this subject I would rather combine them as
consistent, complemental, and inseparable. If the distinction
be pressed it will be found that the divine ideal of the Church
is depicted in more sacred terms than the Kingdom. The
Church is the very " body of Christ " and "brideof the Lamb,"
while the Kingdom scarcely suggests such unity, life and
love. In fact, the Kingdom of Christ would have been a
mere abstraction without His Church, and His Church was

tions. We are not convinced that union is possible by means of them, but we
gladly recognize that they are issued in the most catholic and fraternal spirit, and
we can see clearly that the prominence which they give to the Historic Episcopate
is not because it distinguishes the Episcopal Church, but because in the opinion
of the Bishops it belongs to the universal Church of Christ. These propositions
are worthy of a more careful consideration than they have yet received from the
various denominations of Christians in Great Britain and America."

Congregational Opinions. 1 1 5
simply His organized Kingdom, — organized in part by Him
self and then more fully by the Apostles under His teaching
and guidance. That first organization, whether it be viewed
as authoritative or simply as exemplary, has confessedly,
like Holy Scripture itself, been more or less corrupted and
perverted. For example, it involved Congregational, Pres
byterial, and Episcopal elements which now exist as dis
membered and conflicting denominations ; and the practical
question before us is whether they may not be organically
re-combined by means of the Historic Episcopate.
Dr. Beach,^ with his fervent enthusiasm and spiritual in
sight, discerns these three elemental polities as germs of unity,
existing potentially in our Protestant Christianity; empha
sizes the futility of mere sentimental schemes of unity, and
voices prophetically the deep-seated yearning of the age amid
all its discords, for catholicity as well as truth and freedom.
It is encouraging to hear so stirring a call to unity out of the
heart of New England culture.
While I might not fully agree with Mr. Cooley ^ in looking
forward to a united church as in prophetic vision or in look
ing backward to it with a mere antiquarian interest, yet I can
cordially concur in his thoughtful and practical view, that of
the three factors of organized Christianity, Episcopacy rather
1 The Rev. David N. Beach, D.D., Cambridge, Mass. :—
" I am confident that the intensity of the yearning after unity throughout large
sections of Christendom, is very much minimized by many persons who write
upon the subject. . . The new education, the new science, the new phil
osophy, the new grasp of our age on essentials and on reality, carry this soul's
cry with them as an inevitable intellectual corollary."
2 The Rev. William Forbes Cooley, Stanley, N. J. : —
" Why, in the face of the historic examples of the Church of the Ante-Nicene
period, the Mediaeval Church and the more recent phenomenal advance of the
Methodist Episcopal Church, should we shut our eyes to the fact that in periods
of outward exigency, when great work is to be done and great secular foes are to
be fought, rather than problems of faith to be solved or liberty to be won, the
Episcopate, be its origin what it may, has by its victories and its services to the
Church vindicated its claim to divine sanction ? ' '

1 1 6 Views of the Quadrilateral.
than Presbytery or Congregationalism is the chief need of
the church of to-day. But the lesson of history, as I read
it, is against the obliteration or inversion of any one of these
ecclesiastical elements, and a true Puritanism may consist
with all of them, when they are freed from mere false ecclesi
asticism. Dr. Stimson' puts himself genially in sympathy with the
growing spirit of church unity. Perhaps he overlooks the
fact that the three " prophets of the movement " may not be
so much opposed as complemental to one another in the
methods of unification which they respectively advocated —
the " confederation " of Prof. Briggs and the " consolidation "
of Dr. Huntington being simply different stages in the same
social process of organic reunion and growth which I have
advocated. His admission that the Lambeth articles are
clarifying the views of some exclusive bodies of Christians
is as just as it is frank; but it is to be hoped that he will not
be content to remain as a mere sympathetic spectator of the
discussions going on in such bodies, but find in Congre
gational bodies also the need and motive for church unity
rather than for mere sentimental fellowship.
In the present movement the laity are in advance of the
clergy, partly because they do not share the clerical sensitive
ness as to the vexed question of orders and also because they
are in more practical contact with the evils of sectarianism.
For this reason the brief letter of Mr. Seward^ is most signifi-
1 The Rev. Henry A. Stimson, D.D. , Tabernacle Church, New York: —
" The Lambeth Articles, whatever ultimate end they may serve in bringing
about Christian unity, are accomplishing one good in enabling all Christians to
clarify and adjust their own views of Christian truth and in helping some bodies
of Christians who are to-day exceptionally exclusive, to get a new light upon
their attitude toward their fellows."
^ Theodore F. Seward Esq. , President of the Brotherhood of Christian Unity ;
" When the question of an actual union of Christian denominations is con
sidered, and a system is sought which will, in the course of time, change a
divided Christendom into a united Christendom, it appears to me that Dr. Shields'
position is impregnable."

Congregational Opinions. 1 1 7
cant and hopeful as coming from an acknowledged leader of
the Christian people who already foresees in church unity
the fulfillment of his own zealous labors for the brotherhood
of Christian unity.
Amid these cheering voices President Gates ^ raises the
startling query. Is church unity a good thing in itself? A
good thing! Is it a good thing that the body of Christ
should appear dismembered ? Is it a good thing that the
household of faith should be divided against itself? Is it a
good thing that the invisible community of saints should
make itself visible only in sects and schisms, with rivalries
and conflicts ? Would the healing of such schisms and the
removal of such conflicts be a mere " trivial step," an " unim
portant matter," a " thing for ecclesiastics to play with "? Is
there " no divine necessity " of manifesting to the world that
oneness of believers in Christ which He likened to His one
ness with the Father, and for which He prayed as affording
demonstrative proof of His whole earthly mission ? Church
unity is set before us in the Scriptures not merely as a good
end in itself, but as one of the highest ends of Christian hope
and effort. Instead of being an incident or expedient, it is pre
sented as an expressed attribute of the church itself, which is
essential to its own normal perfection, and without which it
must remain as a family broken by feuds or a body distracted
with deliriums. If the church had no mission, such unity
would be a good thing ; and when its mission is fulfilled, it
will be the most beautiful and glorious thing in the spiritual
universe, even the realized ideal of Pentecost, the marriage sup
per of the Lamb and the nuptials of the new earth and heaven.

' President George A. Gates, D.D., Iowa College, Grinnell, Iowa: —
" If the Church is an end in itself, we can get on quite comfortably as we are.
Vv'hether we have one denomination or a thousand is of little consequence, so
long as each one is contented in its own work, and satisfied to build itself up in
its own way. But it ought to be impossible to consider church unity as an end.
That is a matter interesting enough for us as ecclesiastics to work or play with,
but no divine necessity seems to be about it."

1 1 8 Views of the Quadrilateral.
When President Gates .speaks of the main argument of the
essay his words of praise are so cordial and generous that I
regret the more any difference of view, and hope it may, after
all, be more verbal than real. As to the practical value of
church unity, he will find that it has been referred to, wher
ever the connection required it, as a remedy for the immense
waste, loss, and conflict in our denominational charities "and
missions, for the evils of sectarianism and infidelity, and for
the social anarchy of our times. In other writings, also, I
have more fully shown that without organic unity the church
can never accomplish its mission as the teacher, conservator,
and regenerator of human society.'
It is quite probable that some sincere Christians are not
merely inappreciative of church unity, but do not really want
it upon any terms. They seem to be still under the influence
of anti-church prejudices, inherited from ancestral conflicts
with a false ecclesiasticism in the Old World. Anything like
a union of denominations in one church system would, in their
view, breed such ecclesiasticism in some of its lowest forms.
Apparently, there is nothing they dread so much as ecclesias
tical politics. It is pleasant to find that Dr. Ward, if taken
seriously, does not share such scruples. He proposes to dis
miss " ideals " and seize the question as an ecclesiastical poli
tician. He tells us that " it is not a moral or religious ques
tion particularly," but " one of practical ecclesiastical politics ; "
not even an "academical question," but a problem of "eccle
siastical statesmanship." And he has given an example. On
behalf of some future Congregational Council he has formu
lated a new Quadrilateral, in lieu of the four articles known
as the Scriptures, the Creeds, the Sacraments, and the His
toric Episcopate. He has not, indeed, devised any new sacred
canon, any new catholic creed, any new divine sacrament, any
new historic ministry. He has only framed four new abstract
propositions to take the place of canon, creed, ritual, and polity,
^ See last Essay in this volume.

Congregational Opinions. 119
as bonds of church unity, and thus supersede the effete wisdom
of the Christian ages, as well as the idealistic dreams of sur
rounding Christendom, by one stroke oi the pen of ecclesiasti
cal diplomacy.
I will not say of these propositions what their author has
said of the overtures from Chicago and Lambeth, that " they
are hardly worth discussing." I will only say that there is no
need to discuss them or even to state them. They are the
pleasantries of an ecclesiasticism which can view the question
of church unity as neither a moral question nor a religious
question, and only as an ecclesiastical question in a political
sense. It is still possible, however, to view it as a moral and reli
gious question. There are those who can view it as a Chris
tian question, even the highest Christian question of our time.
And to such idealists it is beginning to appear as a very prac
tical question, — I had almost said, as a question of practical
politics in the literal sense. Distant as the reunion of Chris
tendom may be in Greece and Rome, the Greeks and Romans
themselves are at our own door, especially the Romans.
Hopeless as it might seem to marshal the Salvation Army
within the Quadrilateral, there are some Christian bodies
almost inside without as yet perceiving it. The historic
churches of the Reformation already possess the canon, the
creeds, and the sacraments, and are in various stages of reac
tion toward the Historic Episcopate. Other less ecclesiastical
denominations, we may hope, will better appreciate these exist
ing bonds of church unity as they become familiar with them
or grow more ecclesiastical in the best sense of the word. In
deed, a few Congregationalists, as well as Presbyterians and
Episcopalians, are actually studying the Lambeth proposals
and find them intrinsically worthy of consideration, as worthy
of consideration as if they had emanated from the Congrega
tional Council or from the Presbyterian Assembly.
Should other denominations act upon Dr. Ward's sugges-

1 20 Views of the Quadrilateral.
lion,' it is quite certain that the Baptist, Congregationalist, and
Methodist Churches could not construct any platform of
church unity, strictly so called, which would be more catholic,
practical, and hopeful than the Quadrilateral, while the
Lutheran, Reformed, and Presbyterian Churches could not
adopt any other without largely ignoring their own standards
and history, which already contain at least the first three of
its articles.
Unless I do Dr. Strong^ injustice he has fallen into an error
common to many who have yet to examine this question care
fully. True church unity does not require concession or
compromise, but only mutual toleration and fellowship ; and
the peculiar value of the Historic Episcopate is, that it affords
scope as well as basis for such unity. It includes both of the
two views of churchmanship which Dr. Strong attributes to
it; but it excludes neither of them, and could not exclude
either of them without destroying itself. If evangelistic
Christians will not tolerate and fellowship with ritualistic
Christians in the same church system, as they did in the un
divided Church of the Apostles, then there maybe an end of
church unity so far as they are concerned, but the blame of
1 The Rev. William Hayes Ward, D.D., Editor of the Independent, New
York :—
" The Episcopalians have offered their ultimatum, and the reception it has
received proves that there is no hope in it as a basis of union. Now let Baptists
offer theirs, Presbyterians theirs, Methodists theirs, Lutherans theirs, and let us
see whether Episcopalians will be any more ready to accept these than other
bodies have been to accept theirs.''
2 The Rev. Josiah Strong, D.D., Secretary of the Evangelical Alliance,
New York : —
" Evidently the position of Congregationalists and Baptists is diametrically
opposed to that of those who deem the Historic Episcopate essential to the
validity of clerical orders and of church organization. There can be no possi
bility of compromise between them. The only alternative to conflict is uncon
ditional surrender ; and Baptists and Congregationalists could not surrender so
vital a point without deeming themselves disloyal to the truth, which is true also
of all non-Episcopal churches."

Congregational Opinions. 121
schism will not rest upon their ritualistic fellow-Christians.
Baptists and Congregationalists are not asked necessarily to
concede immersion and autonomy, nor should they ask their
Episcopal brethren to concede the Episcopate as now defined,
but be ready to practice tolerance and fraternity with them in
the household of faith.
When we pass to the Baptist representatives in the Congre
gational group we expect to meet difficulties which are doc
trinal and ritual in their nature as well as ecclesiastical. And
yet the voices which greet us are in the tone of perfect unity.
Dr. Boardman^ is of so generous and catholic a spirit that one
wishes to agree with every word that he writes. And, indeed,
the disagreements arise mainly from a mere difference in the
point of view. It is not material whether we speak of a
" reunion" or of a " unification " of Christendom, if only we
perceive that the various communions of the one Apostolic
Church, notwithstanding their internal heresies and wrangles,
did not excommunicate, unchurch, and disfellowship one
another after the fashion of our times, but remained in com
pact unity until the great schism between the Eastern and
Western churches and the greater schisms at the Reforma
tion. Nor can we very well apply our Lord's far-reaching,
prophetic prayer to the few trivial disputes among His Apostles
and Disciples. If we will only keep ever before us the Pen
tecostal ideal of church unity we may gladly rejoice with Dr.
Boardman in his vivid picture of a membership of denomina
tions, as well as individuals, in the visible body of Christ.
The claims of true unity are also faithfully expressed by
^'The Rev. George Dana Boardman, D.D., Philadelphia: —
"I have ventured to substitute the word "unification" for the word "reunion."
For I am not aware that Christendom has ever been united in such a way as to
make a reunion desirable. The sad fact seems to be that the Church of the
primitive period, instead of having been, as we so often fondly imagine, a concord
of brothers, was largely a. discord of wranglers. * * * Like every other
thing of life, it began in infantile imperfection, but subject to the blessed law of
growth and perfection. Ideals, always excepting the one perfect Man, are ever
before us, never behind us. "

12 2 Views of the Quadrilateral.
Dr. Tyler' in his scriptural and spiritual letter. I think, how
ever, that the Christian unity of our churches, though far
from being perfect, is already sufficient for the work of church
unity; and it will decline rather than increase, if allowed to
remain as a vague sentiment without some organic expres- '
sion. If it be true that St. Paul bases Christian unity or spir
itual oneness upon Christ alone, yet he also gives us a lively
picture of church unity, in that structure which is built upon
the Apostles and Prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the
chief corner stone. Some of us begin to think its unfinished
walls and arches may yet find their keystone in the Historic
Episcopate. The " Church of the Disciples," which Dr. Tyler
represents, faithful to its liberal spirit, has proposed the Primi
tive Faith, the Primitive Sacraments, and the Primitive Life
as essentials of Christian unit}'^; and for their purpose they
are excellent ; but for the purpose of church unity strictly so
called, they lack organic force, and ignore the ages of Chris
tian experience and providential training through which the
church has passed since it was instituted by Christ and His
Apostles. On the whole, the Congregationalist utterances are very
favorable in their bearing upon Christian unity as requisite to
church unity. Since no church unity can be real and lasting
which is not thoroughly animated with Christian unity or
spiritual oneness, all agencies and associations which practi
cally promote such spiritual oneness ought only to be en
couraged and fostered. But it is scarcely conceivable that
historic churches should now find it their duty to wait for
the Young Men's Christian Association, the King's Daughters,
and the societies of Christian Endeavor to start them upon a
long career through the successive stages of church coopera-
1 The Rev. B. B. Tyler, D.D. (Disciples of Christ), New York:—
" Instead of saying that the unity for which Christ prayed 'rests upon an
institution, not upon doctrines ' (p. 90), why not say that it rests upon a person ?
'Other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Christ Jesus. ' And
St. Paul was discussing this very subject when he made that statement."

Presbyterian Opinions. 123
tion, church federation, and church unity.' The end may be
more directly sought by massing together those churches of
the Reformation which represent the conservative forces of
historic Christianity, in the hope of acting favorably upon a
false ecclesiasticism on the one side as well as upon a crude
evangelism on the other.
Presbyterian Opinions.
The Presbyterian voices in this symposium are too few to
be fully representative. One of them, however, is clear and
strong, and comes from a quarter of the field where the need
and practicability of church unity are most apparent. Dr.
Reid,^ of the American Presbyterian Mission in China, faith
fully represents the old Presbyterian doctrine of the " Catholic
Visible Church," and vindicates the Episcopal proposals as
not only generous in their spirit, but adapted to Presbyterian
principles and having a unifying quality throughout Christen
dom. On a first reading of the able and valuable argument of Dr.
Waters,^ of the Reformed Church, I thought his judgment
1 The Rev. Lyman Abbott, D.D., Brooklyn, N. Y. :—
" I do not hope much from debates about Church union and conventions to
promote it ; but I hope very much from such movements as the Young Men's
Christian Association, the King's Daughters, the Societies of Christian Endeavor,
and from frequent meeting together in Christian and philanthropic gatherings.
Out of these will grow gradually that unity of faith which is the indispensable
pre-requisite to Church cooperation, and out of Church cooperation Church
federation, and out of Church federation Church unity."
^ The Rev. Gilbert Reid, American Presbyterian Mission, China : —
" Because the Historic Episcopate is made one of the points of the basis, this
does not mean that the Episcopal Church of America or the Church of England,
with all their canons, rites, ritual and personal preferences, is made the basis. It
is a fair offer of Church union, not of swallowing up or being swallowed."
3 The Rev. David Waters, D.D., Reformed Dutch Church, Newark, N. J. :—
" Summing up the whole matter and setting aside any objections which may be
made to the adequacy of the doctrinal basis as something which might be over
come, it is to my mind perfectly clear that no general union of the churches can
be formed on the basis of the proposals of the Lambeth Conference with the
statement regarding the Historic Episcopate as one of the fundamental articles of
the basis of union."

124 Views of the Quadrilateral.
adverse to the feasibility of the Lambeth articles. But, after
examining it more carefully, it seems susceptible of a different
construction. While he deems the Apostolic and Nicene
creeds insufficient as a statement of the Reformed doctrines,
he still admits them to be sufficient as a statement of the
common Christian faith of a united church in which different
denominations might hold supplementary doctrines not incon
sistent with those catholic creeds. The only serious objec
tion which he raises has reference to a particular view of the
Historic Episcopate, which is not required by that expression
itself, which many Episcopalians as well as Presbyterians
repudiate, and which need not, therefore, act as a barrier to
the combination of Presbytery and Episcopacy in a united
church. In distinction from Congregationalism, the genius of Pres
byterianism is more favorable to church unity than to church
federation, which is at best but a half-way measure and often
impracticable. The unification of the Presbyterian and Epis
copal Churches would scarcely any more interfere with vested
interests and existing institutions than federation, and would
much more strengthen the cause of church unity than a
league of smaller, younger denominations, which offer less re
sistance to the unifying process simply because they are weak
in historic and ecclesiastical character. Moreover, we have
been trying confederation for a hundred years in Bible,
Mission, and Sunday-school unions, and have found it as in
adequate as it proved to be in our political history. It is to
be hoped that we are now entering a peaceful era of constitu
tional union and normal growth.
Episcopal Opinions.
The few Episcopal contributors represent nearly all the
forms of Episcopacy which are concerned in the question.
It would have been a great advantage had Dr. Crooks' been
^ Rev. George K. Crooks, D.D., Professor in Drew Theological Seminary: —
*' The feeling which is uppermost in my mind when I think of the proposal, is

Episcopal Opinions. 125
able to write more fully as an exponent of Methodist Episco
pacy. In his brief note, I think, he falls into the common
misapprehension of attributing to the Historic Episcopate a
theory of the ministry and sacraments which it does not ex
clusively require, and he is, therefore, in danger of present
ing the Methodist Episcopalian as really more obstructive to
church unity than the Protestant Episcopalian.
I shall not be able to do justice to the thoughtful, generous,
and catholic-hearted paper of Dr. Huntington.' Any remain
ing differences, as he states them, are quite trivial. He is un
questionably right in claiming that the Protestant Episcopal
Church now holds the banner oi" unity in the midst of our
divided American Christianity, and is entitled to the leader
ship by virtue of its English origin, ancestral connections, and
full ecclesiastical type. But it would need to undergo great
constitutional changes before it could incorporate with itself
such vigorous historic bodies as the Lutheran, Reformed,
and Presbyterian Churches, and it might by such changes
depreciate its own churchly character. Nor are those
churches likely to surrender their corporate life in an abrupt
consolidation, without further organic growth of the latent
ecclesiastical qualities which they traditionally possess and
are steadily developing. It will be wise to treat them as pro
fessed churches, not as mere individual Christians. The

that the Historic Episcopate is Apostolic Succession disguised. The disguise
imposes on the unsuspecting, and is used as a means of making what would be
otherwise offensive, acceptable."
1 The Rev. Wm. R. Huntington, D.D., Rector of Grace Church, New
York :—
[I cannot resist quoting the following remark as tending to justify the title of
this work.]
" If Dr. Shields had done nothing more than coin his felicitous phrase, " The
United Church of the United States," he would have put the whole country in
his debt. A telling cry is more than half the battle, and commonly the cry tells
just in proportion to the distinctness with which it describes the object sought.
To a far greater extent than is commonly supposed, the endurance of our national
life hinges on our achievement of church unity. . May he live to be a
bishop in the United Church of the United States."

126 Views of the Quadrilateral.
Lutheran Church will probably procure the Swedish Episco
pate. The Reformed and Presbyterian Churches may be more
ripe for the American Episcopate than is now imagined.
There is nothing to repel them in consolidation, whether near
or far off, as Dr. Huntington depicts it and would allure them
toward it. He has said Nolo episcopari more than once, but in
the ideal " United Church of the United States " he is already
Primate by acclamation.
I need not say that the contribution of Dr. Satterlee^ shares
the same attractive qualities. His appreciative and discrimi
nating analysis of the argument of the essay gives to it new
force and clearness which its author had not perceived. In
particular, I would emphasize, in his own language, his view
of organic growth as a method of unification on the basis of
the Lambeth articles : " It is divine and not human ; it is
natural and not artificial; it is living and not mechanical ; it
centralizes itself not in any one Christian body but in all of
them. Though men may not create it, they can develop it
by recognizing and yielding themselves up to this force of
spiritual gravitation."
No voice could be more welcome in this Christian circle
than one from the Church which is, in a sense, the mother
of us all. Dr. Synnott,'' in his excellent letter, has impres-

1 The Rev. H. Y. Satterlee, D.D., Calvary Church, New York:—
" The four Chicago-Lambeth articles present an ideal toward which every
Christian body can work. If it be a true ideal then it is the duty of each to
propagate its influence ; if it be false in any respect then it is the duty of each to
show exactly where it is false and how it ought to be modified, for to even the
intelligent Christian observer the present divided state of Christendom is the
crowning evil of the times."
^ The Rev. Joseph J. Synnott, D.D. (Roman Catholic), Seton Hall College : —
"The present movement, defective as it is in its fundamental conception, may,
we hope, be turned to good. It recognizes the need of union ; it admits the
absolute necessity of organization in church matters; nay, it concedes the institu
tion of the Church as a visible, social, organic body ; it looks upon the Episcopate
as the only means of achieving unity. It is on the right road : Let it go a step
further, and it will see in the Church of Rome not only the Historic Episcopate,
but also the Historic Primacy, the formal element and bond of union and strength."

Episcopal Opinions. 127
sively set forth that aspect of solid unity presented by an
episcopate claiming for its primate a succession from St. Peter
as the vicar of Christ. The early Protestants could appre
ciate this appeal better than we do now. Melanchthon would
have been content to remain under the Papacy had the lib
erty of evangelical preaching been allowed. Calvin, in the
most pathetic terms, resented the charge of Cardinal Sadolet
that the Reformers were breaking up the unity of the Church.
And since that great rupture passed into history a more
Christian spirit has been growing in spite of the bitter con
troversies which it engendered. When Pius the Ninth, in
1868, by an encyclical letter, affectionately invited all Protest
ants to return to the Roman communion, the Presbyterian
General Assembly returned a courteous response, maintain
ing that they were not out of the communion of the Catholic
Church, since they accepted the doctrinal decisions of the
first six CEcumenical Councils, especially those of Nice,
Ephesus, Chalcedon, and Constantinople, and only rejected
certain later innovations. At the present moment also there
is among intelligent Protestants an increasing respect for the
consistent conservatism of the ancient church amid the
abounding unbelief and license of the times.
As to the question before us, one main difficulty is that, while
the Roman Catholic Church maintains a formal unity within its
own pale, it does not exert a unifying potency throughout
the rest of the Christian world. Until it has made peace with
the oldest church in Christendom, the Orthodox Greek
Church, its claim to catholic unity will be challenged ; and
while the newspapers are filled with reports of its own intes
tine conflicts even Protestant dissensions d(^ not seem so
scandalous. The clever picture which Dr. Synnott draws of
denominational bishops, like so many trees, plants, and shrubs
tied to stakes of the same size and kind, might be matched
by another in which a divided episcopate and intelligent
laity would appear attached to the Papacy by no less pre
carious ties. Thoughtful observers, without the least disre-

128 Views of the Quadrilateral.
spect, believe that in this democratic country the Catholic
Church is itself undergoing an internal reformation, of which
it is not yet fully conscious, and by which it is to be brougnt
into closer agreement with a like reformation which Protest
ants have already achieved. Should such hidden grounds of
reunion ever appear it might not be difficult for communions
of European origin to recognize a certain "Historic Prim
acy" of the Roman See in relation to a truly American
Catholic Church.
The movement for Church Unity has been rapid and full
of surprises. The ecclesiastical situation has changed, one
might almost say, from month to month, and from week to
week. In less than a decade, since the American Bishops
lifted the standard of unity among the Christian denomina
tions, there has been a growing interest in the question,
which is not confined to our own country, but extends to all
the English-speaking races. Nor can this interest be regarded
as sensational and transient, much less as a dream of vision
ary reformers or a stock theme of the religious newspapers.
It reveals a spontaneous movement of the whole Christian
body. Thoughtful observers can see in it the impulse of
great historic causes and reactionary tendencies which have
been gathering force for at least a century, and which are
making the unification of the American churches an inevit
able and chief Christian problem of our age and country.
Let the evidences of progress first have our attention.
Chief among such evidences should be placed the clearness
with which church unity is becoming distinguished from
Christian unity or from the spiritual oneness of all true
Christians. This distinction is of primary importance. Valu
able as thespiritualunity of Christian bodies must be deemed,
it is still invisible, distorted, and largely sentimental and
inoperative ; while church unity would be visible, organic,
potent, affording in its ideal fulfillment the only perfect ex
pression of spiritual unity. Hitherto, this important distinc-

The Ecclesiastical Situation. 129
tion has been overlooked by those who did not appreciate
church unity; and even those who theoretically appreciated
it seemed to have practically adjourned it to the millennium,
on the specious plea that Christians are not yet good enough
to be united in one catholic church, thus making an excuse
out of their own sin or trying to be too pious for the situation.
It is certain that church unity will never befall us as a sort of
blessed accident, or miraculous Pentecost, without any effort
on our part. All true Christians are at least good enough to
begin the work of church unification. A beginning must be
made some time ; and such a beginning the recent discussion
has actually made, by calling attention to the duty and privi
lege, as well as need, of combining the legitimate denomina
tions on a purely ecclesiastical basis, without suppressing
their dogmatic differences and liturgical usages. Not merely
individual ministers, but several Christian bodies, the Congre
gational and the Presbyterian, have already declared them
selves in favor of some such corporate unity or church unity
as the goal of Christian unity.
It is a further evidence of progress, consequent upon the
advance just mentioned, that the Quadrilateral is beginning
to be appreciated in its strictly ecclesiastical qualities, as
affording the bases and bonds of the desired church unity.
At first, neither churchmen nor denominationalists seemed
clearly to understand why the canon, creeds, sacraments,
and episcopate should be named as the only ecclesiastical
requisites. By the one party it was thought that the omission
of the Prayer Book, Articles, and Anglican Ordinal would
imperil the integrity of the Church ; and by the other party,
that the acceptance of the Historic Episcopate would subvert
the doctrine and polity of all the non-episcopal denomina
tions. Both failed to see that the four articles simply secure
to them what they both need without the least sacrifice of
churchly feeling or denominational consistency, viz., a com
mon rule of faith, a catholic creed, valid sacraments, and a
9

1 30 Views of the Quadrilateral.
legitimate ministry. If a Christian body has all these four
essentials, it is in good church standing ; if it lacks any of
them, its church claims are more or less defective. And the
recent discussion has put to test these criteria. By leading to
a comparison of the various denominational standards with
the Quadrilateral, it has revealed their respective degrees of
churchliness, and has shown that their church unification
must be approached along the lines which it has projected.
As yet, indeed, only a few advanced thinkers have discussed
it in this light ; but at least one large body, the Presbyterian
Church, has formally approved the first three of the articles
of church unity, and has been engaged in friendly conference
with the Episcopal commissioners as to the fourth article.'
Still another step in advance is the discovery of the catho
lic spirit and unifying value of the Quadrilateral. For along
time, non-episcopal divines viewed it askance, as a mere stroke
of denominational propagandism, and some episcopal divines
treated it as a dubious measure of church aggrandizement.
Neither side seemed to perceive that the first three articles
were already possessed by other reformed churches besides
the Protestant Episcopal Church, and that the fourth article
was not the exclusive property of that church, since the Mora
vian or Swedish or old Catholic Episcopate is theoretically as
available as the Anglo-American Episcopate for the purpose
of church unity, as well as for any other spiritual benefit to
be conveyed. Both parties, in fact, were infusing into the
four tenets their own denominational significance with more
or less interested motives. But the recent discussion has
changed the point of view. It has lifted the Quadrilateral
out of these narrow misapprehensions, and planted it where
it belongs, in the midst of the denominations, as the rallying
standard of a united church. And although but few recruits
have openly espoused it, yet it has at least been favorably
^ Report of Assembly's Special Committee on Church Unity, 1893.

Favorable Signs. 131
discussed in a symposium of ministers representing all the
leading denominations, both Catholic and Protestant.'
The advantage of this new departure and approach to
church unity may not appear at once to all minds. It may
even cost some Protestant Episcopal churchmen an effort to
admit that the Quadrilateral is not bounded by the four sides
of their own denomination ; that no single denomination can
now claim to be the national church, not even the Roman,
which is the largest catholic Church in the country ; and that
other Protestant denominations may yet acquire full and unim
peachable church standing. The great Lutheran Church, for
example, has the historic episcopate of Northern Europe
within reach, and is even now considering the advantage of
acquiring it.^ Equipped with that advantage, it might offer
to some other churchmen a prestige older than the Reformed
Church of England, a confession less Calvinistic than the
Thirty-nine Articles, and a Liturgy more Tractarian than the
Prayer Book. I have no fear of being here misunderstood.
Personally, as I have elsewhere stated, I might gladly hope
that the chief church of our English civilization should dis
solve, recast, and absorb all the other one hundred and forty
denominations of continental as well as British origin. Al
ready it is nobly leading them toward unity, and in the
church of the future may give more than it will receive. But
there is a right and a wrong way of putting things. There
is an imperial churchmanship which would embrace all
communions within one united church of the United States ;
and there is another sort which would pursue catholicity
only by the methods of a denominational policy. Christian
bodies, in their intercourse, are keenly sensitive to anything
that looks like propagandism and proselytism. They will
1 The Question of Unity. Many Voices Concerning Dr. Shields' Book,
" The Historic Episcopate," and His Response to the Many Voices. Chris.
Lit. Pub. Society.
2 The Episcopate for the Lutheran Church in America. Second edition. By
the Rev. J. Kohler, D. D.

132 Views of the Quadrilateral.
not be attracted to the exclusive ground of the Protestant
Episcopal Church, as a basis of unity ; but they might be
attracted to the broader, common ground of an American
catholic Church. Such a common ground is afforded them
in the Quadrilateral, and by opening it to the public view as
an undenominational platform, the late discussion has brought
a distinct gain to the logic and the policy of the movement
for church unity.
This survey would not be complete without including two
other features of the situation which are not so favorable.
They should be frankly stated and carefully considered.
One of them is the recent symposium of bishops and minis
ters, in a New York journal.' It must be granted that this
discussion has wounded some friends of church unity and
touched a clerical sensitiveness more to be respected than
resented. But it must also be granted that these untoward
effects are due not so much to the bishops as to their critics ;
that they have been greatly aggravated by the denominational
papers; and that they may soon pass away. At best, the
question of pulpit exchange is a side issue of trivial interest ;
one which ought not to be raised until the more important
points of the Quadrilateral have been settled, and one which
could not be raised at all if they are wisely settled. Least
of all should it have been raised while they were under con
sideration. Its interjection into the pending negotiation
between the Episcopal and Presbyterian communions has had
all the effect of an apple of discord thrown by an unfriendly
hand. Moreover, the question itself, as proposed in the
symposium, is simply preposterous. Does anybody favor
indiscriminate pulpit exchanges? Could the bishops have
given any other direct answer? Half the critics would them
selves have given the same answer as that by which they
were offended. Presbyteries, at least, are no more ready

^ " A Barrier to Church Unity : Can it be Removed ? " N. Y. Independent,
March 8, 1894.

Unfavorable Signs. 133
than bishops to admit heretical teachers and unauthorized
evangelists to preach and administer the sacraments, whatever
individual pastors and rectors may sometimes do. The line
of authority, regularity and decorum must be drawn some
where. As a matter of fact, Congregationalists draw it at one
point ; Presbyterians at another ; and the bishops have shown
where Episcopalians draw it. Instead of erecting " a barrier
to church unity," they have simply indicated a boundary of
church unity; and, as marked out by the Quadrilateral, it
will be found to be a boundary ample enough to include
Congregationalists and Presbyterians, as well as Episcopalians,
within the fold of a united church.
The other unfavorable sign in the ecclesiastical horizon is
the appearance of rival schemes of mere vague Christian unity,
which if not designed to take the place of church unity, are
suited to raise a mist of confusion and perplexity around it.
Of these the most remarkable is the so-called Quadrilateral
of the Congregational Association of New Jersey. If this
declaration had proceeded from any other denominational
source. Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian, or Episcopalian, I
would still say of it that it seems to me utterly wanting in
historic Christianity, ecclesiastical quality and organic force.
Instead of the four church tenets of canon, creed, sacrament,
and ministry, it offers four misty propositions which may
mean almost anything or nothing, and which could not hold
together any two churches or denominations for a single hour.
Its noble professions of charity and fraternity toward other
denominations are in themselves praiseworthy, and may in
crease the spirit of Christian unity; but on their present
unstable basis they cannot promote church unity, except in
an indirect and remote way. Indeed, it does not pretend to
be a scheme of church unity. The only scheme deserving
to be so called is that which has emanated from Chicago and
Lambeth. No other is in the field. No other has even been
suggested. And notwithstanding all the misapprehension
and perversion to which it has been exposed, it remains

134 Views of the Quadrilateral.
unshaken and unimpaired, and in the future seems likely to
become a standard by which to measure and guide the various
Christian denominations in their educational advancement
toward a truly American Catholic Church.
The present situation suggests two practical reflections.
The first is, that the denominational controversies of the
hour are not irreconcilable with catholic unity. The very
same differences in respect to the Scriptures, the creeds, the
sacraments and the episcopate exist among churchmen, which
have been developed among denominationalists. There is
not an opinion on these points advanced by the various non-
episcopal divines who are discussing them in denominational
journals, which has not been also avowed by as many clergy
men now in Holy Orders and of unquestioned standing. This
does not mean that Church Unity is " an iridescent dream."
It means simply that all American churchmen, in an ideal
Catholic Church, might still differ among themselves as other
Christians do now.
The other reflection is, that the differences between denomi
nationalists and churchmen are largely confined to clergymen
or ministers, especially those already committed as leaders.
Learned rectors and eloquent pastors, in one symposium after
another, have so infused their own various partisan meanings
into the four terms of unity, that now the terms themselves
are obscured and lost from view. But the great Christian
heart of the people still beats true to them. The Holy
Scriptures are still the basis of all Christian denominations :
the Apostles' and Nicene Creeds still express their essential
faith; the two sacraments are still ministered among them
with unfailing use of Christ's words of institution ; and the
Flistoric Episcopate is still adaptable to the Episcopalians,
Presbyterians and Congregationalists beyond, as well as
within, its pale. In a word, the Christian masses despite
their wrangling leaders, are still in heart and hope one
American Catholic Church.

V.

THE QUADRILATERAL STANDARD
AMONG THE DENOMINATIONS.

V.
THE QUADRILATERAL STANDARD AMONG THE
DENOMINA TIONS.
Our review of the ecclesiastical situation has led us to the
general conclusion that the Quadrilateral is likely to become
a standard by which to measure and guide the various Chris
tian denominations in their educational progress toward an
American Catholic Church. It affords the only favorable
outlook for Church Unity. If we take our position in any
existing church, hoping to see it absorb into itself all the
other hundred and fifty denominations, everything like
Church Unity will seem as far off and nebulous as the millen
nium. But if we take our position in the midst of the denom
inations, hoping to rally them around the Quadrilateral as an
undenominational standard, they will appear in various stages
of unification as they severally approximate the requirements
of that standard. Let us try this latter point of view.
It will help the survey to arrange the chief Christian de
nominations in fancy on either side of the standard, according
as they possess all the four Lambeth articles or only one or
two of them. By such an arrangement the right wing will
include the great historic Churches, the Greek, the Latin, the
Anglican, the Scandinavian, which need more or less church
reformation before they can be thoroughly reunited ; while
the left wing will embrace those reformed churches and de
nominations which largely require a work of church restora
tion in order to be unified on a Church basis. Dismissing the
former for the present, we confine our view to the Protestant
bodies in our country which have yet to be brought back into
full connection and harmony with historic Christianity.
These bodies will naturally fall into three groups, according
137

138 The Quadrilateral Standard.
to their ecclesiastial structure : the congregational, the pres
byterial, and the episcopal. As to each of them, a general
remark may here be in place. The congregational polity, so
long as it asserts the absolute independence of the local church,
could not, of course, come within the scope of the Lambeth
articles, since it would accept neither canon, nor creed, nor
ritual, nor ministry as imposed by any external church author
ity. It could only enter a loose confederation of churches,
somewhat like our former union of states, with reserved rights
of secession and self-control. But a Congregationalism which
liberally adds the principle of church fellowship to that of
autonomy might adopt the Quadrilateral as embracing only
the common duties and interests of all Christian churches,
without interfering with their interior self-government. In
like manner the presbyterial polity, if held to be inconsistent
with every form of episcopacy, could only adopt the first
three Lambeth articles, and maintain the historic presbyterate
in place of the fourth article. But a presbyterianism which
consistently applies its doctrine of presbyterial oversight, as
well as of Church Unity, might find its own complement in the
fourth article and at the same time recover all the elements of
catholicity. The episcopal polity, also, cannot come up to
the full measure of the standard, if wanting in any of the
first three articles or holding the fourth in a partisan or sec
tarian sense. Only that episcopalianism which will tolerate
ritualists as well as evangelists and evangelists as well as ritu
alists, can deal with the problem of Church Unity.
It will be seen that the three polities vary somewhat in
their capacity or readiness for unification, each having its own
special difficulty or facility. Congregationalism, though want
ing in all four articles, would leave each congregation free to
act for itself in reference to them. Presbyterianism, though
binding each congregation in a compact organization, would
only need to have that organization completed in the fourth
article. And Episcopalianism, though in some of its forms
needing legitimation or completion, in one of its forms already

Congregational Denominations. 139
offers the model and germ of a complete Church Unity. At
the same time, it will be found that these inherent difficulties
or facilities are greatly complicated with others more adven
titious and extraneous, such as the prejudices, dogmatic,
national and social, which have been acquired in this country.
Congregationalism is Unitarian and Baptist as well as Ortho
dox in doctrine. Presbyterianism is German, Dutch, French
and English as well as Scotch in origin. And Episcopalian
ism is evangelistical as well as liturgical in worship. All this
will more strikingly appear as we proceed to compare the
leading denominations in the order of their approach toward
the Quadrilateral, and toward that denomination which most
fully illustrates it, the Protestant Episcopal Church.
Congregational Denominations.
At the extreme left of the standard are the Unitarian
Congregationalists who would probably now repudiate it, if
made binding in any such sense as would preclude their
own views of canon, creed, sacrament and ministry. The
only hope is that, like other denominations, they have
reached an extreme from which there may yet be some
conservative recoil toward a more normal type of Chris
tianity. This hope is favored by their English blood, their
Puritan training, their liturgical culture and their churchly
affinities. It is even rendered plausible by the large agree
ment between them and the so-called broad Churchmen of
Old and New England. We have had object-lessons, not in
King's chapel only, but in the Church Congress, if not in the
episcopate. In the event of such a reaction our Unitarian
brethren would be in a position to draw after them certain
religious bodies still less ecclesiastical or Christian than
themselves, such as the Friends, the Jews and other Theists,
who as yet are quite beyond the scope of the Quadrilateral.
Indeed, from this point of view, the Parliament of Religions
and the Brotherhood of Christian Unity, in which Unitarians
have taken an active part, might be reckoned as unconscious
first steps toward the distant goal of Church Unity.

140 The Qtiadrilateral Standard.
In the next position are the Orthodox Congregationalists,
who, while much nearer to the standard, have been held
back from it through long centuries of separation, insulation
and consequent narrowness. What was, at first, a calamity
in the old world and then a necessity in this new world has
been perpetuated as a normal condition, even a permanent
form of polity; and although enjoying to the full all and
more than all the religious freedom for which their fore
fathers contended, they seem to have inherited a morbid
terror of ecclesiasticism, which is now their chief obstacle to
unity. Over against this obstacle, however, must be placed
not only their Puritan breeding, their broad scholarship and
their growing historic sense and catholic spirit, but also
their practical adherence to the canon, their substantial
agreement with the creeds, their formal observance of the
sacraments and their ready susceptibility to the episcopate
without loss of denominational pride. These germs of
Church life among them only await development. In fact,
they have already been largely developed on their own soil.
It has been said that a New England diocese is Congrega
tionalism tinctured with episcopacy. The ease with which
any Congregationalist society, if so minded, could pass into
such a diocese, would be impossible for a Presbyterian parish ;
and it is quite conceivable that some absorption or consoli
dation, on the terms of the Quadrilateral, like that which Dr.
Huntington advocates, might become spontaneous and general
without agitating the Congregational body at large. But it
would be unwise to place among the signs of such a move
ment the so-called Quadrilateral of the New Jersey Congre
gationalists, since it is covertly based upon vague anti-Church
principles.' That manifesto can only be viewed as a prepara
tory expression of Christian fellowship or as a crude sugges-
^ " A Declaration by the Congregational Association of New Jersey." It pro
poses, *' the Bible for creed ; Discipleship of Christ for rule of life ; the Church
for instrument of service ; and liberty of conscience in the interpretation of the
Bible and administration of the Church." — The New York Independent, June 28,
1S94.

Congregational Denominations. 141
tion which, by its failure, may make clearer the need of true
Church Unity.
In the same group are the Baptist Congregationalists, dif
fering by a stricter independency, but sharing some of the
same churchward tendencies. Their chief difficulty lies in a
view of the third article, which isolates them from the rest of
Christendom, and seems to build around them a barrier to
anything like unity. They might accept the canon, the
creed, and even the episcopate, but they could not commune
with any but immersed believers. On the other hand, it
cannot be said that this strict adherence to a divine rite is in
itself without ecclesiastical value as a potential germ of
church life. Nor might it be quite impossible for them to
develop it in a larger church system on their own principle
of local autonomy. The Prayer Book not only allows immer
sion as well as sprinkling, but offers a form of " Baptism to
such as are of riper years and able to answer for themselves;"
and the sight of Baptist and Paedo-Baptist congregations
under the same episcopate would be scarcely any more
incongruous than that of certain other ritualistic and anti-
ritualistic parishes. What is asked of our Baptist brethren
is not concession, but tolerance and fellowship. And such a
spirit is growing among them. The expressions of Christian
fraternity which come from them are very encouraging in view
of the acknowledged difficulties of their position ; and a few
efforts to unite among themselves such as those of the
" Christian " and " Free Baptists " ^ and Disciples of Christ^
on a Bible basis, though without historic creed or ministry,
may be viewed as first steps toward some more organic
unity. The whole Congregational group of denominations, it will
be seen, is as yet in the preparatory stage of church restora
tion, being largely wanting in ecclesiastical elements and/
1 Quadrennial Cohvention, Haverhill, Mass., Oct. 15.
2 General Convention of Disciples of Christ, at Richmond, Va., Oct. 25.

142 The Quadrilateral Standard.
hindered by anti-ecclesiastical prejudices. But its most intel
ligent and influential bodies are already turning churchward.
The International Council of 1891 " unanimously expressed
a hope for the federation of Christian bodies," ' and the last
National Council "recommended the affiliation of other Con
gregational churches upon the basis of the common evangeli
cal faith and a substantial Congregational polity."' Such a
denominational unity, with the growth of the church spirit,
may hereafter become ready for church unity.
Presbyterial Denominations.
As we pass to the presbyterial group, we shall find that the
preparatory work is not so much one of church restoration as
of church completion, the development and fulfillment of
already existing ecclesiastical elements. First in this group,
in close alliance with the Congregationalists, but much nearer
to the standard of the Quadrilateral, are the Calvinistic Pres
byterians, adhering to the Westminster Confession. The
practical impediments among them to unity are their inflexi
ble Scotch and Scotch-Irish temperament, their polemic
spirit, their inherited dread of liturgical worship, and their
embittered recollections of a persecuting prelacy in the old
world. Many of them are still echoing the war-cries of the
Covenant, while themselves extemporizing new episcopates,
making Prayer Books and building cathedral-like houses of
worship. But, offsetting such impediments, there is a strong
infusion of English and Huguenot blood in their Covenanter
stock, a growing tolerance in their virile orthodoxy, and a
reviving catholicity in their intense ecclesiasticism. More
over, their own standards already maintain at least three of
the Lambeth articles. Their Confession formally defines the
canonical books of Scripture. Their Directory prescribes the
Apostles' Creed and the valid conditions of the two sacra
ments. And their Form of Government recognizes the offices
^ The Congregationalist, Oct. 25.

Presbyterial Denominations. 143
of bishop, presbyter and deacon as Scriptural and divine.
These standards, too, have hidden historic affinities with those
of the English Church and its American scion. The Articles
of Religion were but the original skeleton of the Westminster
Confession. The Ordinal does not claim a higher doctrine
of the apostolic ministry than was lodged in the Scottish
presbyterate. The Daily and Communion Offices are largely
Calvinistic in purport and structure, as well as in traceable
origin. In a word, the entire Prayer-book, as amended by
the Presbyterian divines of 1661, is so much like the present
book of the Protestant Episcopal Church that, if now living,
they would be more at home in that church than in any other
American communion. It is true that these historic bonds
are obscured or ignored and forgotten, but they are none the
less enduring and vital. The plain fact is, that the Presby
terian General Assembly is the only Christian body that has
met the Episcopal commissioners in a churchly spirit; and
the untoward pause to which they have come may simply
mean that each has something to give as well as to receive in
any negotiation or alliance.
In the same Calvinistic group, but a little nearer to the
standard, are the Reformed Presbyterians, Dutch and German,
adhering to the Confession of Dort and the Heidelberg cate
chism. They seem to be hindered from unity largely by their
conservative habit, their denominational pride, and their long
vested property rights and interests. Hitherto they have de
clined proposed alliances with Presbyterian churches which
have adopted their own Heidelberg symbol; and the Dutch
and German wings of the denomination have not yet been
able even to federate, although their standards are identical.
At the same time — some counteracting influences have arisen
from their commingling with other races, creeds, and cultures.
Their Calvinism, though of the highest type, is mild and
pacific. They possess the first three Lambeth articles more
perfectly than other Presbyterians, with the same structural
aptitude for the fourth article. Their liturgy also connects

144 The Quadrilateral Standard.
them aesthetically as well as historically with the Prayer-book.
And it is not unlikely that strong ancestral and social ties are
drawing them toward the Episcopal Church in New York
rather than toward bodies which are really more congruous
with them in doctrine and polity. It will be remembered that
the House of Nassau gave freedom to the Kirk of Scotland,
but cast its lot in the Church of England.
Nearest in the Presbyterial group to the standard, are the
Lutherans, adhering to the Augsburg Confession. As this
great cluster of churches becomes more Americanized, it may
take a leading part in the problem of Church Unity. Its
genial type of piety, its ritualistic tendencies, its growing cul
ture and direct connection with German erudition will be
reckoned by many as promising features. In some respects
it is the most conservative Church of the Reformation. Its
standards set forth most fully the first three Lambeth articles,
and it already has the historic episcopate in abeyance or with
in reach. The Swedish' succession is less questioned than
the Anglican ; and if it has not always claimed apostolicity
dogmatically, yet it has not taken polemic ground against it,
like the Reformed Episcopalians in this country. Its valid
ity is at least a puzzle to the canonists. The Lutheran ritual
also has liturgical affinities with the English and American
Prayer-book. The offices of Baptism, Matrimony, and Burial
are largely indebted to the formularies of Melanchthon and
Bucer, while the Evangelical Mass is not only higher in doc
trine but purer in structure than the Communion Office, which
has certain Calvinistic accretions more popular than artistic
in their aim. The church of the saintly Muhlenberg is begin
ning to feel the general impulse, and has met the Chicago
Declaration in a thoroughly appreciative spirit. Indeed, the

' " If anything outside the domain of pure mathematics may be said to be
capable of demonstration. Dr. Nicholson [of Leamington, England,] has
demonstrated the reality of the Swedish Succession." Presiding Bishop
Williams, of Connecticut, as quoted by Rev. J. B. Remensnyder, D. D.

Episcopal Denominations. 145
movement of its leading divines for recovering its lost episco
pate is a distinct ecclesiastical advance toward unity.
While the various presbyterial denominations are thus found
to be in different stages of nearness to full church standing,
they are also moving together in a mass toward the same
result. The great Pan-Presbyterian councils in Europe and
America are born of the Presbyterian instinct for " one Cath
olic, visible church;" and the last General Assembly has
formally proposed for adoption apian of federation, to include
at least seven presbyterial denominations or reformed
churches under one " Federal Council" or " Ecclesiastical
Assembly, for the glory of God and the greater unity and
advancement of the church." ' Such a Presbyterian church
unity, involving ecclesiastical elements and animated with an
ecclesiastical spirit, would only need to acquire the historic
episcopate as the next and last step to Catholic unity.
Episcopal Denominations.
When we come to the episcopal group, the outlook is more
confused and perplexing, for the reason that the work to be
done is that of legitimating ecclesiastical elements which lack
mere form rather than substance. The Methodist Episco
palians, for example, have substantially the first three Lam
beth articles, with a new episcopacy developed out of the
Anglican presbyterate. Their inherited dislike of formalism,
their evangelistic fervor, their want of churchly taste, and
their immense denominational spirit hold them back from the
Quadrilateral standard with a recoil which is not yet spent.
Nevertheless, historic causes, though hidden, are potent.
Methodism at first was an Oxford movement, no less than
Tractarianism ; and it may yet react from its extremes.
Many of the causes which once justified its rise in England
scarcely remain in this country, and the need of it as a pio
neer denomination decreases with the spread of civilization
^ Minutes of General Assembly, 1894.

146 The Qtiadrilatei^al Standard.
and the growth of Christian culture. Some ecclesiastical
influences are already permeating it in the large cities. The
time may come when such dormant germs as the Wesleyan
Prayer Book and Articles shall be evoked into life, and
Methodist Episcopacy return into connection with historic
Christianity. The Reformed Episcopalians are a somewhat similar off
shoot from the Anglo-American episcopate. They have at
tempted to erect that episcopate upon partisan, if not sectarian
ground, in the interest of one-sided views of the ministry and
sacraments. Their dogmatic opposition to apostolical succes
sion and baptismal regeneration may promote a pure type of
evangelical piety among themselves and bring them into
sympathy with other Protestant denominations ; but it neces
sarily puts them in a polemic attitude toward Catholic unity.
The next bad thing that could happen would be another
seceding episcopate in pronounced sympathy with Roman
error and with a hostile front toward all the reformed
churches. And after that the very worst thing that could
happen would be some authoritative definition in the interest
of either of these Church parties. That would rend the his
toric episcopate itself asunder, and end the dream of Church
Unity for our time. No General Convention or Lambeth
Conference is likely to undo its work in this manner.
The Protestant Episcopalians alone in this group fulfill the
standard. Their Prayer-Book and Articles prescribe the
canon, creeds, and sacraments, while their Ordinal enjoins the
historic episcopate. In the movement toward unity, they are
still somewhat impeded by their early British antecedents,
their elaborate liturgy, their fashionable associations, and
some occasional infelicity in their Church claims. Although,
during the first two hundred years of their nominal existence
on this continent, nearly twice as long as the whole apostolic
period, they were practically without the episcopate, without
the three orders in their ministry, even without confirmation
in their membership, yet they now must make these things

Episcopal Denominations. 147
the conditions of any church standing or privilege and treat
other great national churches around them as if they were
mere sectaries and dissenters who had assisted at the execu
tion of Charles the Martyr. Gladly we hasten to add that
such impediments are fast disappearing. With the decline
of international hatred this Church is coming to the front
in our Anglo-American civilization. Its liturgy has been
made flexible by revision and thrown open to evangelistic
influences. It is becoming distinguished by missionary and
popular efforts as well as fashionable attractions. And
after having been long deemed a mere narrow Christian
caste, it has suddenly sent forth a call to unity the most
catholic and fraternal that has been heard since the Reforma
tion, if not since the day of Pentecost. It is not the Roman
Church, nor yet the Anglican, nor even any reformed church,
but the Protestant Episcopal Church, which is now leading
the grand movement for the reunion of Christendom.
The entire group of episcopal denominations, though so
near the standard, is not yet rallied around it. At their
origin, however, there was intercourse between them and
some effort for unity. The elder Muhlenberg knelt with
White in Lambeth Palace to receive ordination for Lutheran
parishes in Colonial Virginia. After the Revolution, Bishop
White himself favored union with the Methodists as well as
the Lutherans. The Moravians are already in touch with the
Lutherans through the Augsburg Confession, and with the
Methodists through the pietism imparted by Zinzendorf to
Wesley, and have been formally recognized by the highest
authorities as possessing the historic episcopate.' Such fila
ments as yet may seem to be slight, but the beginnings of all
organic life are faint and feeble.
If we would compare the groups of denominations as to
1 " Presiding Bishop Smith, of Kentucky, proposed an organic union between
the Methodist Episcopal and Protestant Episcopal Churches, through the medium
of the Moravian Episcopate, which both Churches acknowledge." The Right
Rev. Paul de Schweinitz, D. D. (Moravian). — Century Magazine, 18S7.

148 The Qziadrilateral Standard.
their numerical strength, we shall find that the number of
their ministers, congregations, and communicants might be
roughly estimated by the following figures : — '
Ministers. Congregaiions. Convmunitants.
Congregational, . . . 39,000 62,000 5,000,000
Episcopal,  46,000 70,000 11,000,000
Presbyterial, .... 24,000 32,000 3,000,000
It will be seen that the ecclesiastical denominations. Epis
copal and Presbyterial, outnumber the Congregational nearly
two to one ; and when we remember that in the Congrega
tional group are included many evanescent sects, without
historic or ecclesiastical life, while in the Episcopal group is
included that most historic ecclesiastical body in the world,
the Roman Catholic Church, — the outlook for Church Unity
from a purely ecclesiastical point of view will not seem so
discouraging as at first sight might be inferred from the
divided state of our American Christianity.
The results of our survey are now before us. It has become
apparent that the work of Church Unity must consist in
restoring ecclesiastical elements to congregational denomina
tions, in completing ecclesiastical elements in presbyterial
denominations, and in recovering or legitimating such ele
ments in episcopal denominations. If these views be correct,
it would seem to follow that the educational process may
most hopefully begin in the most churchly denominations and
thence react with cumulative power upon the least churchly,
until all have regained the four conditions of unity. Such a
massing or fusing of the chief ecclesiastical bodies, or historic
churches, would also exert a tremendous conservative in
fluence, as much needed in our whole civilization as in our
Christianity. Could the Lutheran, Reformed, and Presby
terian Churches, by gaining the historic episcopate, become
annexed or consolidated with the Protestant Episcopal Church
within the limits of the Quadrilateral they would stand
1 Taken in round numbers from Dr. Caroll's ' ' Religous Forces of the United
States."

Episcopal Denominations. 149
together, like the impregnable square at Waterloo, against all
the assaults of surrounding infidelity, irreligion, and vice.
It has been well said that anomalies are incident to a state
of transition. They appear in social movements as well as
in organic processes. The independent colonies before they
became the United States were a sort of political hydra or
many-headed body politic. We may have to endure such
anomalies during the transition to a united church. In fact
we already have them, in clusters of legitimate bishops claim
ing the same jurisdiction, such as a Roman Catholic and a
Protestant Episcopal bishop of New York. Imagine also in
that city a Moravian, a Lutheran, and a Presbyterian Bishop,
all having the true historic episcopate, and Church Unity
would look like a monstrous spectre. Yet the very appear
ance of such anomalies would hasten their decline. As fast
as the grounds and bonds of true unity came into distinct
consciousness, the rival episcopates would become consoli
dated in one official personage or in some true hierarchical,
system. Besides, these inconsistencies are not yet upon
us as matters of practical concern, and may even be pre
vented by rapid unifying processes, some of which are
already conceivable. Adjacent congregations, by their own
fellowship, might pass at once under the same bishop ; pres
byterial bodies might unite with episcopal in electing the same
bishop; and episcopal colleges might readjust diocesan and
provincial boundaries. Some passing events may show that
the visionary future of church unity is not all a region of
chimeras. The most practical question now emerging relates to the
method of promoting an understanding and adoption of the
Quadrilateral standard of church unity by the Christian
denominations. Two methods may be pursued ; the one de
nominational, the other undenominational. The former would
identify the Four Articles with the denomination which pos
sesses them most fully and make the work of extending that

150 The Quadrilateral Standard.
denomination throughout our American Christianity equiva
lent to the work of Church Unity.
Church Unity Societies.
This is the method adopted by the Church Unity Societies
of the Protestant Episcopal Church. It has some obvious
advantages. At first sight, indeed, it would seem to be the
most natural, if not the only method to be pursued. The
denomination which alone professes the Quadrilateral stand
ard might claim to be primarily and especially fitted to rally
around it other denominations or individual Christians who
do not as yet profess it. Moreover, as a mere manifesto or
abstract declaration it would lack that social force and
propagandist zeal which it would gain as attached to a com
pact denominational organization, moving like a Roman
legion or with the effect of a strategic wedge, among the less
disciplined sects around it. It may be added, that the Prot
estant Episcopal Church, besides already having the prestige
of the Lambeth articles, has also some accessional attractions
arising from its place in English history and its increasing
adaptability to our own American civilization, as well as its
organic affinities with both Catholicism and Protestantism. If
that church can be so expanded and popularized as to gather
within its pale all other denominations with their various
standards of doctrine, polity, and worship so far as not in
consistent with the Lambeth Articles, — I for one would bid
it God speed. I would throw no obstacle before the chariot-
wheel of such a church triumphant. The obstacles in the
way are not wholly external. They inhere in that denomina
tion itself rather than in the Quadrilateral standard which it
now bears to the front. Let me state them frankly and in
the most friendly spirit.
At the outset. Church Unity Societies encounter a popular
suspicion of denominational proselytism seemingly inconsist
ent with their own avowed aim. This suspicion may be and
often is wholly unreasonable, but it exists and must be dealt

Church Unity Societies. 151
with by all who approach the question. It even finds some
color in a few forward churchmen who are always antagoniz
ing the other churches and denominations around them, and
giving the impression that church unity means confessing
the sin of dissent and conforming to the Protestant Episcopal
Church. Whether their contention be true or not, it is not
wise to say it under the olive branch. It savors more of
a battle than of truce and peace. It is true, many other
churchmen have the true conciliatory spirit and catholic
feeling; yet they honestly believe that the way to the goal lies
through the national predominance of their own church ; and
it is not easy for the unthinking observer to distinguish even
such church unity from mere church aggrandizement. These
difficulties, it must be granted, are largely sentimental, and may
wear away in the progress of opinion and the lapse of time.
They are already disappearing from generous minds. " Of
course," says the Presbyterian Dr. DeWitt, " the Episcopal
Church hopes to ' capture ' American Christianity. Nor do
I think it an unworthy ambition for them to cherish. They
are convinced that they possess an element of primitive
Christianity in the grace of orders conferred through the
historic Episcopate, which we should find highly valuable ;
and their desire to communicate it we ought not to confound
with arrogance. No doubt some of them are arrogant, but
some of us can match them."
A more inherent difficulty lies in the exclusive claim which
must be put forth by Church Unity Societies. They belong
to a denomination which denies the church standing of other
denominations, and even largely ignores any church-like ele
ments which they possess. The legitimacy of such a claim
is not here in dispute. The fact only of its existence at
present concerns us, and it is a stumbling block in our path.
There can be no misunderstanding a churchman who intelli
gently believes that other Christian bodies are badly organ
ized, pseudo-ecclesiastical types, which he would rather see
exterminated than preserved and perfected toward a purer.

152 The Quadrilateral Standard.
fuller type of church life. He may be right, on the principle
of the survival of the fittest, could that principle be applied.
But right or wrong, it is a great infelicity in his position as
an advocate of church unity among such Christian bodies.
It looks to them as if he only wished to build up church
unity on the ruins of other churches by undermining them,
dissolving them, and absorbing them as individual Christians,
or as congregations, into his own organization. Even if this
must be the final issue, to openly avow it and proceed toward
it is a repellant and mistaken policy. Enlightened churchmen
may, indeed, and often do, nobly disclaim such aims and
methods, but the difficulty still inheres in the very bearing of
their church toward other Christian denominations professing
and calling themselves churches. It has been brought into
public view by the recent Bishops' Symposium, and has
caused a temporary arrest to the whole movement.
Another difficulty arises from the ecclesiastical parties of
which Church Unity Societies must be composed. They hold
esoterically such variant views of the Quadrilateral itself as
m.ake it more or less repugnant to the other denominations
to which they proffer it. There is no need to discuss these
views, but only to state them in order to see their embarrass
ing effect. Easily enough, a high churchman attaches the
dogma of apostolic succession to the historic episcopate,
makes the sacraments depend upon a sacerdotal theory of
the ministry, accepts the creeds as all but inspired symbols and
subordinates the Scriptures to a form of ecclesiastical infalli-
bilism. Such opinions are favored by some expressions in the
Prayer-book and by the tenor of modern Anglican teaching.
Perhaps they are considered as sound by a majority of the
American clergy. But sound or unsound, if infused into the
Quadrilateral, they simply destroy it as a basis of unity with
other Protestant denominations. They do not even allow
as much standing room as is already allowed the low and
broad church parties, and if pressed to their due issue would
make church unity as impossible inside as outside the pale.

Church Unity Societies. 153
Generously as liberal churchmen may repudiate such partizan-
ship and insist upon the breadth and freedom of the new
platform, yet behind them may still be discerned a more
dominant school who would narrow its limits or abolish it
altogether. The result is that the Quadrilateral has become
surcharged with the most extreme interpretations, attracting
or repelling the surrounding denominations as one church
party or the other expounds its terms of unity. While such
misrepresentation of it continues among its own adherents, it
can only appear to others as a scandal, or as a paradox.
It should be added that Church Unity Societies are encum
bered in their efforts by certain purely denominational tenets,
which are less acceptable than the Four Articles. They hold
to the Quadrilateral as already imbedded in their Prayer-
book and Ordinal, in connection with doctrines, rites and
canons peculiar to the Protestant Episcopal Church in distinc
tion from other denominations. It is true, that it is separ
able in thought from these church standards ; but it is not yet
so separated in fact, or in the popular mind. It is true, also,
that it has been proposed to separate it in form, as a new
constitutional provision for including other Christian bodies
within the pale of the Church, and guaranteeing to them their
own special doctrines and usages, so far as not inconsistent
with the Four Terms of Unity. But this portentous policy
has not yet been fully discussed and adopted; and were it
adopted it is not certain that some other Christian bodies,
especially those of continental origin, would care at once to
merge their power and prestige in the Anglo-American
episcopate. Moreover, have not the bishops themselves
expressly disclaimed any wish to absorb other communions ?
For the present, at least, whatever the future may have in
store for us, Protestant Episcopalians are somewhat embar
rassed by their own church standards in the movement for
Catholic Unity, on the basis of the Lambeth articles.'

^ " It is true as well of the Protestant Episcopal Church, as of all the churches,
that nothing in her which is really catholic is inconsistent with organic Christian

154 The Quadrilateral Standard.
Having thus frankly stated these difficulties, I may now
the more freely add that I do not think them insuperable, or
even so grave as to prevent a great and good work from
being done by those who can subordinate denominational ad
vancement to catholic unity, or even by some who are fain to
make the one identical with the other ; nor would I disparage
the great good which has already been done in spite of these
difficulties by large-minded churchmen in the cause of unity.
Dr. McConnell becomes conscious of them only to rise
superior to them, when he says : " In this process of rebuild
ing [the Church of the future], what shall become of us ?
Dare we venture to throw our jewels into the crucible and
trust them to the fires ? If they are pure metal we may,
otherwise we may not. I for one am so thoroughly assured
of the intrinsic excellence of the things we value, our Orders,
our Liturgy, our religious traditions, that I am willing to
trust them to the regenerating fires ! " '¦
My object in this discussion has been simply to open the
way for considering another wholly undenominational agency
which is free from the difficulties mentioned, whatever other
difficulties may attend it, and which at the same time would
not antagonize the Church Unity Society, but only supple
ment and complement its effort by moving from a different
point of departure, over a different quarter of the field,
toward the same general result.
Catholic Unity Leagues.
A Catholic Unity League or Circle (the name is not essen
tial) would embrace representatives of the leading Christian
denominations or church polities, congregational and presby
terial, as well as episcopal, voluntarily associated on the basis
of the Quadrilateral with the view of promoting its better
Unity ; but that everything which is inconsistent with that unity is essentially
sectarian," — "The Stumbling Block," Rev. Wm. Chauncy Langdon, D. D.,
Christian Literature , January, 1894.
^ Address to Church Unity Society of Pennsylvania, by Rev. S. D. McCon
nell, D.D.

Catholic Unity Leagues. 155
understanding and general adoption. These objects it might
seek by studious conference and friendly discussion, by at
tracting other like-minded inquirers and leading them to form
affiliated leagues or circles, by embodying consentient re
sults in carefully written papers, and at length by taking pub
lic measures, through the periodical press or by a special
organ of publication, to develop, express, and organize the
growing church unity feeling which pervades in various de
grees all the Christian denominations. Some grave objec
tions to such an agency at once start into view. It will be
said that it would appear somewhat vague in its aims ; it
would combine the most heterogeneous opinions, traditions
and tastes ; it would hold its members together by the mere
threads of brotherly feeling, intellectual enjoyment and spir
itual recreation ; it might even seem to compromise their
existing relations to denominational pulpits, chairs and editor
ships, from which they must officially speak on other occa
sions ; and should it find solid ground of agreement in the
Four Articles, it might then lack, as a mere voluntary associa
tion, the organic force and propagandist zeal needed to give it
full practical effect. So far as these objections are inherent
in the scheme and peculiar to it, let us at once admit them
and proceed to consider some advantages which may out
weigh them.
From the start an advantage is gained by the undenomina
tional point of departure taken by such a Catholic League.
There can be no .suspicion or fear of sinister or secondary
aims in a circle which welcomes all denominations to equal
rights and powers within the ample limits of the Quadrilateral.
In fact it presents the only alternative to some purely denomi
national effort like that of the Church Unity Society. The
members of other churches could not consistently and freely
combine with that Society in promoting the Lambeth stand
ard until it is planted somewhere outside of the Protestant
Episcopal Church. Even if other churches should adopt
that standard, or anything like it, there would still be room

156 The Quadrilateral Standard.
and reason enough for some more catholic circle in which their
representatives might meet unembarrassed and free to con
verge their common aims toward the one desired result.
After all that can be done in awakening Christian brother
hood, in securing denominational federation, in expanding a
historic church, there will still remain a more extensive sphere
of thought and action where these same parties might com
plete their several efforts and bring them to harmonious issue
and full effect. In other words. Brotherhoods of Christian
Unity, Schemes of Congregational or Presbyterial or Episco
pal Federation, Church Extension Societies, need not be in
consistent with, but only preparatory and auxiliary to, a
League for the promotion of the Catholic Unity of Chris
tendom. Another advantage of such a league is the varied composi
tion of its membership. It would include all the parties
interested in the problem of church unity and bring them
together under circumstances favorable to the frankest and
fullest comparison of views. It is a common remark, that the
churches need to become better acquainted before they can
even intelligently consider the question of unity. They are
separated, not merely by known doctrinal differences, but by
barriers of inherited prejudice, popular ignorance and denomi
national jealousy, which melt away in social intercourse and
free discussion. Even their doctrinal differences under such
influences will appear in a true light, not necessarily as
diminished or even modified, but as real convictions and for
midable difficulties, which must be honestly and carefully
considered in seeking a just agreement. The Pedobaptist,
who may have thought the question of immersion trivial, will
learn to respect it in a Baptist who presents it with learning,
logic, candor, and courtesy. The Congregationalist, who may
have eschewed all creeds as mere ecclesiastical figments, will
more truly estimate them in a churchman who exposes their
essential truths as common to our Christianity no less than to
that of Nicaea. The Episcopalian, who may have regarded

Catholic Unity Leagues. 157
Presbyterian sacraments as wholly invalid and ineffective, as
well as irregular, may be surprised to find them animated by
the doctrine of his own ritual. And all these parties, who
might otherwise have been indifferent or estranged, will see
themselves drawing more closely together, should they find
that they could accept at least the first three Lambeth articles
without any sacrifice of principle, of consistency, or of dignity.
There would be a special advantage in bringing together in
such circles representatives of the three polities, congrega
tional and presbyterial as well as episcopal. The crucial
point in the whole inquiry is the Fourth Article, and since
the historic episcopate, when divested of all dogmas and
theories concerning it, presents itself simply as a question of
church polity, it is of prime importance that such dogmas and
theories should sink out of view while we are considering its
claims and merits as a Christian institution. Let this be done,
and the problem of unity becomes at once simplified and dis
engaged from everything adventitious. The advocates of
the three polities will appear as the only parties properly
concerned in the question; and their conferences in these
new and direct relations may soon reveal existing bonds of
organic unity, where otherwise would have been heard only
the wrangle of ritualist and evangelist, dogmatist, and ration
alist, each claiming the episcopate as his own property. The
purest Congregationalist would see that the self government
of the local church might be guarded even while admitting
presbytery and episcopacy into the outer sphere of associated
and consociated churches. The staunchest Presbyterian
would find that the parity of the ministry need not be sacri
ficed by choosing a permanent moderator, like the primitive
bishop, to exercise the episcopal functions of presbytery.
The highest Episcopalian would discover, not only that he
already has much practical presbyterianism and Congrega
tionalism in his own system, but also that new forms of
episcopacy are emerging in the congregational and presby
terial bodies around him. In a word, the representatives of

158 The Qtiadrilateral Standard.
all three polities, becoming thus conscious of organic bonds
rather than of mere sentimental professions or doctrinal com
promises, would be ready to accept the Fourth Article as the
most unifying point in the Quadrilateral, and realize in their
own circle a miniature, if not an embryo of true church unity.
Besides these advantages such a circle would afford the
only educational agency adapted to the present state of opin
ion. As we have seen, the denominations and churches are
not yet ready for the Quadrilateral, but only in various stages
of approach toward it under reactionary influences and educa
tional processes ; and no existing agency or organization can
fully express those influences and rightly guide those pro
cesses. A Church Unity Society largely expresses denomi
national views and only affords the teaching of a propaganda.
A conference of ecclesiastical commissioners, like that between
the Presbyterian and Episcopal Churches, could not exceed
the binding instructions which had been received, and would
in its very nature and tendency be more conservative, if not
obstructive, than progressive. But a voluntary group of in
quirers, freed from everything sectarian or official, would also
be free not only to study the Four Articles in relation to their
respective denominations, but to give the results of their studies
to the Christian public in the manner most likely to be effec
tive and practical. All denominations would have before
their eyes a visible embodiment of the Lambeth ideal of
unity in a band or league of loyal Congregationalists, Presby
terians and Episcopalians, loving denominationalism not less,
but only Church Unity more. There might even be thus
formed a model or nucleus around which other bands or
leagues or like agencies could gather, developing, expressing
and organizing the growing ecclesiastical tendencies of our
American Christianity. At length, by such means, it is con
ceivable, the Church Unity Society might see its own aim
accomplished differently, and the inter-ecclesiastical commis
sion would only meet to ratify a unity which had already
been spontaneously achieved. As Dr. Langdon profoundly

Studies in the Quadrilateral. 159
remarks, " Great discoveries in thought and great revolutions
in religious truth, as little as in the realms of geography and
physics, are made not by official and responsible committees
duly appointed by authority and formally charged with that
duty ; but by or through irresponsible enthusiasts who repre
sent no one, it may be, but the Divine Spirit by whom alone
they hold themselves impelled."
Let it be added that the Lambeth Conference itself has
recognized the propriety as well as the advantage of such an
educational agency. It has virtually planted the Quadrilat
eral standard outside of the Church of England and the
Protestant Episcopal Church, among the Christian denomina
tions, by recommending them to study it in connection with
" the authoritative standards of doctrine, worship, and govern
ment adopted by the different bodies of Christians into which
the English speaking races are divided." We may therefore
repeat with emphasis the statement that a Catholic League
would be not only concurrent with all general efforts for
Christian Unity but complemental to the special effort for
Church Unity. On the one hand it would include Congrega
tionalists and Presbyterians who elsewhere may be laboring
for congregational and presbyterial federation ; and on the
other hand, Episcopalians who elsewhere may be laboring for
the expansion of the Episcopal Church. It might even in
clude Lutherans who are seeking to recover the Swedish
episcopate, and Old Catholics who would aim to reform the
Roman episcopate, should such advocates of Church Unity
arise. In a word, it would rally typical representatives of all
the Christian denominations around the Lambeth standard
in a supreme effort to combine them, at least ideally and at
length actually, in one United Church of the United States.
Studies in the Quadrilateral.
The studies of such a circle will be many and sometimes
perplexing. Frequent conferences maybe needed in order to
settle even preliminary questions referring to the Quadrila-

i6o The Quadrilateral Standard.
teral, before it can be intelligently and cordially accepted as
a tentative basis of agreement.
At the threshold will arise some general questions as to
the church unity in view ; its nature, value and feasibility.
Distinctions will be drawn between the kingdom of God as
proclaimed by our Lord in the Gospels, and the church of
Christ as instituted and described by his Apostles in their
Acts and Epistles ; between this church of the Apostles as
established in their own time and the church of history as
succeeding it through the Christian centuries ; between the
visible church of to-day as a human organization and the in
visible church of all time as a divine organism. Against the
opposite views resulting from these distinctions, it may be
urged that the distinctions themselves are unwarrantable, fal
lacious and misleading ; that the gospels and epistles are in
separable, either being useless without the other; that the
apostolic church was simply the organized kingdom of Christ ;
that the historic church is distinctively a providential, not
a merely Satanic development of the apostolic church ; and
that the church visible is necessarily but the embodiment and
expression of the church invisible, being divine as well as
human. Between the extreme views, a safe intermediate
2;round may be found in the Quadrilateral as affording the
:onditions of one Catholic and Apostolic Church.
More special difficulties will be raised as to each Article.
From the Holy Scriptures, as the first rallying point, the ways
will be seen parting, on the one side through the successive
stages of biblical infallibilism, ecclesiastical infallibilism, papal
infallibilism, and on the other side through the consecutive
stages of critical rationalism, exegetical rationalism, dogmatic
rationalism.' Amid all this divergence the limiting way-mark
will be the acceptance of the Bible as a "common rule of faith
containing all things necessary to salvation."
As to the Second Article it will be objected that the Nicene
^ See the author's "Philosophia Ultima," vol. ii, pp. 372-391.

Studies in the Quadrilateral. i6i
Creed is antiquated in its origin, metaphysical in its terms, and
incomplete in its statement of doctrines. It will be replied
that it is antiquated as eternal truth is antiquated, and guards
against errors as active in our age as in the first age of the
church ; that it is metaphysical as all divinity is metaphysical,
and no more recondite than the first chapter of St. John ; that
if it does not include some special dogmas of the Reformation,
yet neither does it exclude them, but contains them germin-
ally and allows them so far as they are supplemental and con
sistent. The essential point is that it is the only " statement
of the Christian faith " that the whole church has ever put forth
and maintained, and therefore is " sufficient " for the purpose
of unity as serving to connect the whole church of the past
with the whole church of the present.
As to the Third Article more serious difficulties will emerge
into view. On doctrinal grounds the Baptist will object to
the church membership of infants; on lexical grounds to any
mode of baptism but immersion ; and on ecclesiastical grounds
to communion with any Christians but those who have
been immersed. The Pedobaptist can only reply that the
membership of infants is made complete by their own confes
sion of faith when they have reached years of discretion ; that
immersion is legitimate as well as sprinkling; and that even
a local Baptist communion might be maintained provisionally
in a large church system. In like manner, the circle will
seem divided by ritualistic and evangelistic views of the Holy
Supper, as celebrated at an altar or a table, and by the new
questions of the temperance chalice, individual cups and
other details of the ministration. But in spite of accumulat
ing difficulties in regard to both sacraments all will be able
to unite in the requirement of an " unfailing use of the very
words and elements appointed by Christ himself"
The Fourth Article will remain as the crucial point around
which all other difficulties become intensified. Evangelical
and rationalistic theories of the ministry will stand contrasted
with sacerdotal and hierarchical theories. Congregationalism,

1 62 The Quadrilateral Standard.
Presbyterianism, and Episcopalianism will assert their respec
tive claims. How these questions will adjust themselves has
been shown in a former essay and also may appear in the
next essay. The emphatic point is, that the historic episco
pate is to be accepted not as a theory of the ministry but as
including all such theories ; not as the Roman papacy or
as the Anglican prelacy, but as the one catholic ministry,
" locally adapted " to the Congregationalist, Presbyterian, and
Episcopalian denominations of our own American Christi
anity. The connection of the four articles may also be found
important. The first as joined to the second article makes
the catholic creeds accordant with the Holy Scriptures. The
second as joined to the third makes the Apostles' Creed the
baptismal symbol or confession of faith, and the Nicene Creed
the eucharistic confession of the communion of saints. The
third as joined to the fourth secures the validity of the sacra
ments by a legitimate ministry. And the fourth article as
connected with the other three articles secures the mainten
ance of sound doctrine and holy living in the church.
Even the order of the four articles might be made signifi
cant and advantageous. They are stated, not in a doctrinal
but in a practical order, not according to historical but logical
sequence. If it be true, doctrinally or historically, that in
the age of the apostles the ministry gave forth the gospel
sacraments, the sacraments led to the formation of the catho
lic creeds, and the creeds were at length followed by the
completed canon of Scripture ; yet practically and logically,
in the present state of opinion, the Scriptures must first be
accepted as the rule of faith, and then the creeds as the suffi
cient statement of Scriptural doctrine, and then the sacraments
as conveying the benefits expressed in the creeds, and at length
the episcopate as the complement of the congregational and
presbyterial elements of polity. The denominations now
must retrace the steps of the early church and recover in an
inverse order its bonds of unity. Already it is apparent that

The League of Catholic Unity. 163
they can accept the first three articles long before the last.
While then the four points may be considered with advan
tage separately and in any order, yet the best order in which
to approach, study, and accept them is the order in which
they have been presented.
If now we seek for a full yet concise expression of the
principles of such a league as has been described there would
result some formula of concord like the following : —
The League of Catholic Unity.
We, whose names are subscribed, devoutly seeking the
Divine guidance and blessing, hereby associate ourselves as a
League for the promotion of the Catholic Unity of Christen
dom. Without detaching ourselves from the Christian denomina
tions to which we severally belong, or intending to compro
mise our relations thereto, or seeking to interfere with other
efforts for Christian unity, we accept, as worthy of the most
thoughtful consideration, the four principles of Church Unity
proposed by the bishops of the Protestant Episcopal Church
at Chicago, in 1886, and amended by the Lambeth Confer
ence of 1888, as follows : —
" I. The Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments,
as containing all things necessary to salvation, and as being
the rule and ultimate standard of faith.
" II. The Apostles' Creed, as the baptismal symbol, and the
Nicene Creed, as the sufficient statement of the Christian
faith. " III. The two sacraments ordained by Christ himself.
Baptism and the Supper of the Lord, ministered with unfail
ing use of Christ's words of institution, and of the elements
ordained by Him.
" IV. The historic episcopate, locally adapted in the methods
of its administration to the varying needs of the nations and
peoples called of God into the unity of His church."
We believe that upon the basis of these four principles as

164 The Quadrilateral Standard.
articles of agreement, the unification of the Christian denom
inations of this country may proceed cautiously and steadily,
without any radical alteration of their existing standards of
doctrine, polity, and worship, and with only such concessions
as they might reasonably make in a spirit of brotherly love
and harmony, for the sake of unity and for the furtherance of
all the great ends of the Church of Christ on earth. This
will appear the more closely each of these articles is exam
ined. The Holy Scriptures are already our accepted rule of faith,
however we may differ among ourselves concerning the mode
of their inspiration and interpretation.
The Apostles' and Nicene Creeds, being in accordance with
the Holy Scriptures, do already express the catholic belief
and doctrine, without precluding the more particular confes
sions, to which we are severally attached, such as the Augs
burg Confession, the Heidelberg Catechism, the Thirty-nine
Articles, the Westminster Confession, and other symbols or
formularies not inconsistent with these two catholic creeds.
The Sacraments of Baptism and the Lord's Supper, as insti
tuted by Christ himself and administered with his own
appointed words and elements, are already recognized among
us as the badges and media of church membership and com
munion, although we do not yet agree as to particular modes
of their administration or special qualifications for their recep
tion, or even theories of their efficacy.
The Historic Episcopate in various forms already prevails
extensively throughout the Christian world ; and as con
nected with the Scriptures, the Creeds, and the Sacraments,
it would secure a legitimate catholic ministry to all Christian
denominations, and might become a bond of organic unity
among them, by completing their congregational, or presby
terial, or episcopal systems, and at length recombining them
normally in one Catholic Apostolic Church.
In order to promote a better understanding of these articles,
we recommend, as proposed by the Lambeth Conference,

The League of Catholic Unity. 165
that they be carefully studied in connection with " the author
itative standards of doctrine, worship, and government adopted
by the different bodies of Christians, into which the English-
speaking races are divided ; " and we reverently and lovingly
invoke the countenance and aid of the Bishops of the Protes
tant Episcopal Church, and of all other catholic bishops and
Christian ministers of every name, who may join this League
or any like associations for studious, prayerful and brotherly
conference with a view to the unification of Christendom.
May our united prayers be so blended with the prevalent
intercession of our ascended Lord, that we shall all become
one in Him, for the glory of His eternal Father, for the good
of His Church, and for the redemption of the world.

VI.
THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE AND THE
THREE CHURCH POLITIES.

VI.
THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE AND THE THREE CHURCH
POLITIES.
The chief Christian denominations may be grouped in three
classes according to their structural principles : the congrega
tional, as including the Baptist, Congregational and Unitarian
Churches; the presbyterial, as including the Presbyterian, the
Reformed (Dutch and German) and the Lutheran Churches ;
the episcopal, as including the Moravian, Methodist, Protes
tant Episcopal, Reformed Episcopal, and Roman Catholic
Churches. As nearly all these bodies both in law and in
courtesy are entitled churches, the question of their consolida
tion as united Churches, or their comprehension in one united
Church, may be termed in general, the question of Church
Unity. And the problem is to find a bond or system under
which they may all be embraced in their integrity, or with as
little sacrifice as possible of their several views of doctrine,
polity and worship. Preliminary Principles.
In approaching this great question we need to remind our
selves of one or two premises from which to reason. The
first is our common Christianity. We already agree in those
essential tenets which distinguish the Christian religion from
other religions and warrant us to call ourselves Christians.
Between our Roman Catholic brethren at the extreme right
and our Unitarian friends at the extreme left, the other
denominations stand together around the great central facts
and truths of Christianity. This Christian unity, as a matter
of fact, now pervades all Christian bodies in so far as they are
truly Christian, and becomes expressed in more or less Chris-
169

170 The Historic Episcopate.
tian union whenever they associate for great Christian ends.
But Church union or Church unity, in addition to our common
Christianity ; the association of Christian bodies by means of
the same ecclesiastical principles in one ecclesiastical system
— this is yet to be attained. Does the historic episcopate
afford the bond or link of such Church unity ?
A second premise is the legitimacy of the Christian denomi
nations. They have won their right to be. They have a clear
providential warrant for their existence. Congregationalism,
Presbyterianism, Episcopalianism may stand severally for great
ecclesiastical principles or institutions, which are taught if not
delineated in Holy Scripture, which appeared together in the
apostolic Church, which were reaffirmed separately at the
Reformation, which since then have been maintained through
fierce struggles in the Old World, and in the New World have
at length found free scope and full development. Such prin
ciples are not to be risked lightly in any scheme of Church
unity. They cannot be ignored or over-ridden. They should
at least be weighed carefully and estimated. At the same
time, these same principles, it must be granted, are often
pushed to sinful extremes and have become an occasion of
immense evils. They have been made to exalt the sect above
the Church and to dismember the body of Christ. They have
torn its organization limb from limb. They certainly do not
cohere now, as once in the church of the Apostles. And the
question is, whether through the historic episcopate they might
not be restored to their pristine normal relationship, become
legitimated and recombined and ever kept in harmonious
action ?
A third premise is the subordination of denominationalism
to Church unity. Not the extinction of denominations, or, at
least, not the extinction of any ecclesiastical principles which
they may contain, but their incorporation in the Church as
legitimate parts of its organism. Let there be the greatest
freedom and variety as to modes of worship and lesser doc
trines, but all within the same ecclesiastical system. Let

Preliminary Principles. 171
existing denominations still continue, but only with the hope
of becoming more congruous and cooperative as living mem
bers of one body. If we cannot come to the question in this
spirit, we shall only waste time in discussing it. If we begin
by preferring mere denominationalism to Church unity we
shall simply end by inviting one another into some congrega
tional, or presbyterial, or episcopal millennium, or else fall back
upon some sentimental invisible unity which only glorified
saints and angels might reahze. The invisible Church or
Church of the Future is not within our reach. We have to do
with the visible Church of the present. Taking its various
denominations as we find them, let us study their actual con
sensus of doctrines, their organic affinities, their points of
vital contact, their complemental relations, their growing
similarities. Let us ask if Baptist and Pedobaptist congrega
tions, Lutheran and Reformed presbyteries, Methodist and
Protestant Episcopal bishops might not combine, not indeed
at once in one Church organization, but at least in the same
general Church system, the congregation concurring with the
presbytery and the presbytery with the bishop as to all matters
outside their several spheres. In a word, let us see if through
and within the historic episcopate the chief Christian denomina
tions might not find comprehension without compromise, con
cord without concession, unity without uniformity, oneness
amid variety.
But what is the historic episcopate ? It may mean very
much or very little, according to its definition ; and its defini
tion will be full or meager, according to our point of view.
At present we can only view it in its external relations, as a
Christian institution appearing among other Christian institu
tions and organizations. I do not here pretend to define it
per se as an ecclesiastical dogma ; much less to give an inside
view of its powers and effects upon those who devoutly
receive it. I will aim at little more than a verbal definition
of the phrase itself
Christianity is historic. It has had organic life and growth

172 The Historic Episcopate.
from the beginning. It was more than mere sentiment or
doctrine. It was a church as well as a gospel. It has ever
been visibly organized, with fixed institutions persisting from
age to age until the present time. Among those institutions
is the historic episcopate. Thus viewed it may be defined
negatively and then more positively.
The Scriptural Episcopate.
In the first place, the historic episcopate is distinguishable
from the scriptural episcopate. It may or may not have been
enjoined in the Scriptures. On this point all are not agreed,
but all must admit the historical fact that sooner or later the
Episcopal institution did exist in the church and ever since
has been accepted by an overwhelming majority of Christians
in all ages and countries. As to the mode of its origin we
have the high authority of the late learned Bishop of Durham,
Dr. Lightfoot. In his commentary on the Epistle to the
Philippians he maintains that the episcopate was formed out
of the presbyterate as the need for central unity became felt
among the scattered congregations and presbyteries which
the apostles had planted. And this is the very need which is
now felt by the very same parties, by the congregational,
presbyterial, and episcopal denominations of this country.
The Apostolic Episcopate.
In the second place, the historic episcopate is distinguish
able from the apostolic episcopate. Whether the apostles as
such had any official successors is in dispute ; but no one can
deny that they were actually followed in course of time by
bishops presiding over presbyteries and congregations. The
learned prelate before cited traced the growth of this episco
pate historically as a rational process, the bishops at first be
coming centers of unity, and at length claiming succession
from the apostles as guardians of faith and order. In the
same way ministers now refer to church founders for their
authority and doctrine ; and however we may theorize about

Modern New-made Episcopacy. 173
it, the fact of some apostolic succession is as certain as the
fact of transmitted power in any regular ministry, presby
terial as well as episcopal. Indeed, some of the fathers,
Irenseus, Clement of Alexandria and St. Jerome, found this
succession in both presbyters and bishops, and it was only by
degrees that the apostolate was claimed for the bishops alone.
The Modern New-made Episcopate.
In the third place, the historic episcopate is distinguishable
from the modern new-made forms of episcopacy. Whatever
else these may be, they are not historical. The Reformed
Episcopalians can claim to have a non-apostolic episcopate;
the Methodist Episcopalians may claim to have an evan
gelical episcopate ; the Irvingite Episcopalians, or Apostolic
Catholics, lay claim to a miracle working episcopate ; but
none of these parties could claim to have the historic episco
pate. In fact, they have already disclaimed or renounced it.
For this reason, were there no other, the Reformed Episcopal
Church cannot become the conciliator in our unhappy divi
sions. It has taken dogmatic ground openly against historic
episcopacy, if not against all Catholic Christianity. It may
have some other good and high mission, but its mission is
not to promote church unity. In such unity the claims of
episcopal as well as other churches must be duly satisfied,
and ritualistic as well as evangelistic views of the ministry
must be at least tolerated.
By urging these distinctions I do not mean to prejudge the
scriptural, or the apostolic, or even the Reformed episcopate.
The things distinguished, though separable in thought, are not
always separate in belief On the contrary, the great major
ity adhering to the historic episcopate believe it to be both
scriptural and apostolic, having the didactic force of inspira
tion and the special grace of a divine institution. Other ad
herents, however, think that it arose providentially out of
the wants of the early Church, in accordance with apostolic
example and Scripture doctrine, but with no exclusive legiti-

174 The Historic Episcopate.
macy. Still others, waiving the authority both of the Scrip
tures and of the Apostles, find their warrant for it in its mere
expediency or fitness to the existing circumstances of the
Christian religion. All these views are found consistent with
loyal attachment to the institution itself, and their concur
rence in upholding it may show at once its breadth and its
stability. Comprehensiveness of the Historic Episcopate.
As we pass to a positive definition or description we shall
see still more clearly how comprehensive is this great Chris
tian institution. Not only did its original structure involve
congregational and presbyterial elements, synagogues and
elders as well as bishops, but its historic growth has per
vaded the whole Christian world. As instituted at first by
our Lord himself in the work of the apostles, they exempli
fied it in their acts and epistles, while planting and training
the first parishes and presbyteries. Thenceforward, it ex
tended over the entire Church through the centuries before
the Council of Nice. After the great schism it was continued
in both the eastern and western sections of Christendom un
til the Reformation. At the present day on its Catholic side,
as maintained in the Old World, it embraces the ecclesiastical
principles of the Greek, Roman, and the Anglican Churches,
while on its Protestant side as developed in the New World,
it has also embraced the ecclesiastical principles of the Lu
theran, the Reformed, the Presbyterian, the Methodist, the
Congregational, the Baptist Churches. It has embraced them
actually, even if not consciously or avowedly. Without sac
rificing the episcopal principle, it has incorporated the presby
terial principle in diocesan conventions and standing commit
tees and the congregational principle in free parishes and
vestries. As good Congregationalism and as sound Presby
terianism can be found inside the American Episcopate as
outside of it. And could our various congregational and
presbyterial denominations now come together under the

Its Alleged Hierarchism. 175
same stringent yet elastic bond, through bishops of their own
choice, with their creeds and usages untouched, they would do
no violence to their respective missions in this new age and
country. They would simply retrace the steps by which
unity was reached in the New Testament Church, when the
first congregations and presbyteries became united under
bishops after the apostles had ceased from their labors.
No other church system is at once so large and cohesive.
Not the congregational, because of its localizing tendency and
inorganic state ; not the presbyterial, because of its brittle
structure and lack of centralizing force; not the episcopal
alone, without the congregational and presbyterial institutions,
with which it must ever be in living connection. The three
elements as fitly joined in one organism make an ideal unity ;
and it is a unity which might become actual. At the center
of our divided and distracted Christianity we have before our
eyes the spectacle of Episcopalians, Presbyterians, and Con
gregationalists, in all but the name, loyally held together by
this Historic Episcopate in the catholic faith of Christendom.
Its Alleged Hierarchism.
But here we are met by two grave objections. It is alleged
that this historic episcopate has ever tended to hierarchy, as
seen conspicuously in that Roman papacy and Anglican
prelacy from which we have escaped only through grievous
wars and persecutions. Undoubtedly such scruples would
have had force in Europe some generations ago. Whatever
good ends the abnormal swa}'' of the Latin episcopate may
have served providentially in the mediaeval civilization, its
greater evils could only be cured by the Reformation. Such
evils however, do not menace us now in this free land. Nor
can we imagine a prelatic peerage among its free churches.
A congestion of church power in bishops is about the last
danger that we have to fear. The whole drift of our times is
the other way, and with terrific momentum toward the wildest
license in Church and State. We have to face the anarchy
of the nineteenth century, not the hierarchy of the Middle

176 The Historic Episcopate.
Ages. Good Christian people, I sometimes fancy, can be
frightened by the mere word hierarchy, and seem often to
cherish an inherited dread of it, which religious demagogues
may but too easily inflame in thoughtless moments. And
this, too, while the Pope himself is but a prisoner in the Vati
can and the church of Archbishop Laud seems to be on the
verge of disestablishment. Its Alleged Sacerdotalism.
It is further charged that this historic episcopate has bred
sacerdotalism in the ministry.* The candid Bishop Lightfoot
has replied that the priesthood of believers only becomes ex
pressed through the priesthood of ministers, who faithfully
represent the people to God as well as God to the people, in
divine service. Without pursuing the question, however, it
is enough here to say that it is misplaced in a discussion
which bears upon the terms of Church Unity rather than
upon the truth or falsity of special doctrines. You need
not agree with ritualists while making common cause with
them against sectarianism, infidelity and vice ; nor approve,
because you tolerate them as differing brethren in the house
hold of faith. If I read aright, some ritualists as well as
revivalists, were allowed in the one Church of the Apostles,
neither of them without good advice. That episcopacy has
no invariable connection with sacerdotalism is shown in its
evangelical pulpits and plain services as well as by Moravian
spirituality and Methodist fervor. That it is not exclusively
committed to any partisan view of the ministry and sacra
ments is but a proof of its unifying capacity and organizing
power. Moreover, at a time when great foes of our common
faith are mustering before us, we need a leadership which can
marshal into battle both the extreme right and left wings of
the Church militant.

' This popular hindrance to Church unity has been judiciously treated by the
Rev. G. Woolsey Hodge, of Philadelphia, in a tract entitled " Sacerdotalism and
Sacramentarianism. ' '

Studies in the Historic Epnscopate. 177
In justice let it be added, that neither hierarchical nor sacer
dotal claims have been put before us as terms of Church
unity. Not the Roman papacy nor the Anglican prelacy, but
simply the historic episcopate as adapted to American Christi
anity ; not the priestly view of the sacraments, but simply the
sacramental words and acts themselves, whatever theories
may be held as to their meaning and efficacy. The truth is,
the Fourth Article of the Quadrilateral is being subjected to
a double misrepresentation. On the one hand many are
surcharging it with doctrines which it does not require, and
on the other hand many are discharging it of doctrines which
it does not exclude. But as the mists clear away we may
hope to see the Historic Episcopate standing out in full view
simply as a primitive and catholic institution, in which Con
gregationalists and Presbyterians as well as Episcopalians can
find a broad, yet firm basis of ecclesiastical unity. That it
is possible thus to treat it may appear in the following pro
gramme of studies, which has been used by some representa
tives of the three polities in their conferences on the subject.
Studies in the Historic Episcopate.
1.
Christianity began historically as a church no less than as
a gospel ; with institutions as well as with doctrines ; having
an organization to secure the ministry of the Word and Sac
raments. And in some organized form it has ever since con
tinued for nearly twenty centuries.
The lover of church unity must recognize the fact of this
historic continuity, whatever he may think of its origin and
value. n.
The historic continuity of the church may be considered in
three forms : —
First, as Congregational ; the continuance of a Christian
people from the Apostles' time.

178 The Historic Epnscopate.
Second, as Presbyterial; the continuance of a Christian
ministry of the Word and Sacraments.
Third, as Episcopal ; the continuance of Bishops as well as
Presbyters in the Christian ministry.
The lover of church unity may personally hold any one of
these three views of historic continuity, but not any one of
them to the exclusion of the others.
The historic episcopate alone includes all three views, with
out excluding any one of them ; and therefore affords the
only practicable basis of church unity.
III.
This historic episcopate may be estimated variously : —
First ; That it simply secures the advantages of order,
regularity, and good government in Christian society.
Second ; That it secures a divine authority in the ministry
of the Word and the Sacraments, without which other min
istries are merely human and unauthorized.
Third ; That it conveys a supernatural grace, without which
the Word and Sacraments fail of their due and full effect.
The lover of church unity, instead of discussing these esti
mates, accepts the historic episcopate simply as a fact, having
his own doctrine or theory of its value. Its practical fitness
as a basis of unity appears in the variety of such theories and
doctrines among its loyal adherents. IV.
In view of these principles the general problem of Church
unity may be distributed into several special inquiries : —
(i) The Relation of Congregationalism (Orthodox, Unita
rian, Baptist) to the Historic Episcopate.
(2) The Relation of Presbyterianism (Lutheran, Reformed,
Presbyterian) to the Historic Episcopate.
(3) The Relation of Episcopalianism (Methodist, Reformed,
Protestant) to the Historic Episcopate.
(4) The Relation of Special Episcopates (Greek, Roman,
Anglican) to the Historic Episcopate.

VII.
THE HISTORIC PRESBYTERATE AND
THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE.

VII.
THE HISTORIC PRESBYTERATE AND THE HISTORIC
EPISCOPA TE.
It has become plain that the historic episcopate is the piv
otal question in the debate upon church unity. The three
other points proposed by the House of Bishops have raised
but little discussion. Indeed, they scarcely need to be dis
cussed ; at least, not in the Protestant Episcopal Church, nor
in the Presbyterian Church. These two bodies, without
changing their standards or forfeiting their autonomy, could
to-day, if so minded, unite in confessing the Holy Scriptures,
the Nicene Creed and the two Sacraments as an actual con
sensus, setting forth the great things in which they agree in
distinction from the small things in which they differ. But
under such a league the historic episcopate would still be
viewed as a remaining barrier between them rather than a
ground or link of organic affinity. As to that matter no con
sensus has yet been defined, and it may even be thought that
none exists.
It cannot be denied that some effects of the Chicago declar
ation appear discouraging. Amid many expressions of Chris
tian feeling it has brought the old denominational lines more
sharply into view and provoked, in some quarters, a fresh
outburst of the sectarian spirit. The responding churches
have simply re-asserted their respective positions and for the
moment seem farther apart than ever. But such strange
manifestations of division on the face of a deep-seated popular
movement toward church unity can only be regarded as de
ceptive and transient. Look beneath them at the facts. For
a whole generation the Young Men's Christian Association
has been undermining denominationalism throughout the
i8i

1 82 The Historic Presbyterate.
land. Great revivals have been breaking down the barriers
between the churches and fusing them into practical oneness.
Liturgical forms of prayer and praise have been fostering their
common faith and worship. The Evangelical Alliance, the
American Congress of Churches, the Washington Conference,
have successively brought together their leaders on national
platforms for consultation and cooperation. Nearly every
historic church has been seeking closer relations with its
neighbors. At length one of them proposes four terms of
unity, only to be assailed at once on all sides. Why such a
volley at a flag of truce ? Why such a recoil in mid progress ?
Surely it is worth while to look deeper into the subject.
Appeal to both Episcopalians and Presbyterians.
In offering some thoughts upon church unity, addressed at
once to Episcopalians and to Presbyterians,' I beg to disclaim
any sense of special vocation or mission. Nothing could be
more absurd or more thankless than a self-appointed media
tion. Whoever breaks from the ranks on either side can only
risk a cross-fire from both sides. He may also be charged
with ignorance as well as rashness. Nevertheless, it is a
Christian duty to study this great problem in a catholic spirit ;
and if any one reaches conclusions which bethinks important
and timely he can respectfully tender them, and let them pass
for what they are worth. He will at least have bestowed his
mite in a cause which all should have at heart. In such a
spirit I would submit a view of the fourth term of unity which
I have not seen anywhere clearly stated or fully discussed.
It is briefly this : —
The historic episcopate, as neither enjoining nor forbidding any
doctrine of apostolic succession.
It will be seen that I use that happily chosen phrase, " the
historic episcopate," in its literal meaning. It gives no hint
' The first part of this paper appeared simultaneously in The New York Evan
gelist and The Churchman.

Apostolical Succession. 183
of any doctrine of apostolical succession. Yet many such
doctrines are known to exist. Old-fashioned Presbyterians
hold to an apostolic succession in the presbyterate, though
attaching to it but little value. Episcopalians of all schools,
except such as deny it outright, find it in the episcopate, but
rate it variously in a scale somewhere between zero and in
finity. According to some, the doctrine is not set forth in
the Scriptures, nor even in the Prayer-book, but is simply an
inferential tenet or incidental fruit of church growth in history.
According to others, the apostolate which has been trans
mitted was not a divine institution, but a mere ecclesiastical
office, securing the advantages of good government. Accord
ing to others, only the apostolic functions of oversight and
discipline have been transmitted. According to others, with
these functions have been continuously illustrated simply the
true apostolic doctrine, character, and spirit. According to
others, over and above such gifts, a divine authority has been
committed by our Lord himself through his apostles to their
successors, rendering all other ministries illegitimate, irregu
lar, and dubious. According to others, a special supernatural
grace inheres in the apostolic episcopate, without which the
word and sacraments cannot become means of salvation.
And so on, until we reach the climax in the learned Dodwell,
who wrote a treatise to prove that immortality itself, not being
natural to man, is a supernatural gift in baptism, which only
the bishops as successors of the apostles can confer.
Now all these various doctrines do indeed touch upon vital
interests. It cannot be a matter of indifference which of them
is true. It may be important, it is important, for every one to
decide which is true for him and which he will maintain to
the end. But this is not the question here before us; nor is
it the burning question of the hour. The present problem is
to find a basis of church unity broad enough and firm enough
for existing church organizations. And you will certainly
narrow and weaken that basis by either selecting for it or
rejecting from it any of the doctrines mentioned. As an

184 The Historic Presbyterate.
Episcopalian, you will commit your own church to a mere
party and vainly ask other churches to unite with it on a
ground where it is not itself united, and perhaps never can
be. As a Presbyterian you will forego all claims of your
own church to true catholicity and leave no ground on which
to unite with other Catholic Churches. In either case you
will not help forward the cause of church unity. Glance for
a moment at some of the injurious effects of such partisanship
on both sides. Apostolical Succession not Enjoined.
On the one hand it would only be hurtful to enjoin a doc
trine of apostolical succession. Dear to you as such a doc
trine may be, and fundamental as it may seem, you could not
make it a term of unity in the existing state of opinion. By
taking such ground you would at once assail the liberal and
evangelical portion of the Protestant Episcopal Church, and
repel all the other Protestant Churches around you, together
with all the ecclesiastical elements which they contain. You
would repel the Evangelical Lutheran Church, that bulwark
of the Reformation, with its six thousand ministers, its high
ritual, its rich erudition, its conservative traditions and catho
lic affinities. You would repel the Presbyterian Church, that
backbone of American orthodoxy, with its twelve thousand
ministers, its historic presbyterate, its solid learning, its ear
nest spirituality, organizing skill and potent ecclesiasticism.
You would repel the Methodist Episcopal Church, that
pioneer of American Christianity, with its forty thousand
ministers, its dormant prayer book and Articles, its scriptural
simplicity, apostoHc zeal and pentecostal fervor. In a word,
you would repel nine-tenths of our ecclesiastical Protestantism
and be left with a mere formal catholicity.
Apostolical Succession not Forbidden.
On the other hand however, it would be as hurtful, if not
more hurtful, to forbid a doctrine of apostolical succession.

Apostolical Succession. 185
Weak and untenable as such doctrine may be, deemed by
you, it runs through all historic Christianity, and should you
exclude it from your basis of unity you would thereby ex
clude the great Catholic churches of Christendom. You
would exclude them not merely as European but as Ameri
can organizations to which we are bound by common aims
and interests. You would exclude the Roman Catholic
Church, the mother of churches, the church of scholars and
saints such as Augustine and Aquinas and Bernard and Fene-
lon ; the church of all races, ranks and classes, which already
gives signs of becoming American as well as Roman, and the
only church fitted by its hold upon the working masses to
grapple with that labor problem before which our Protestant
Christianity stands baffled to-day. You would exclude also
the Protestant Episcopal Church, the beautiful daughter of a
beautiful mother, claiming a lineage of apostles, saints and
martyrs, the church which still hails from the home of our
Anglo-Saxon Christianity, from altars at which Knox and
Bucer ministered, from cloisters in which our Westminster
standards were born, and from colleges out of which came
our Whitefield and Wesley with tongues of flame ; the church
which daily offers Lutheran, Reformed and Presbyterian
prayers in its liturgy, and the one church which now seeks to
win back the wrangling sisterhood of churches home again.
In a word you would exclude five-sixths of Christendom, and
be left with a mere sectarian Protestantism.
Moreover, through such partisanship your rallying-point
of unity would actually become a starting point of fresh divi
sions. You would drive whole groups of Christians and
churches around new sectarian centers. Those, on the one
side, who begin to value the Episcopate as a custodian of the
Prayer-book, a complement of presbytery, and a guarantee of
regularity, would seek such advantages in Reformed Episco
pacy or in Methodist Episcopacy, or in a liturgical Presbyte
rianism. Those, on the other side, who have learned to prize
the historic Christianity which gathered the canonical Scrip-

1 86 The Histo7'ic Presbyterate.
tures, set forth the ecumenical creeds and framed the orthodox
system of doctrine, would find it within that Roman Catholic
episcopate which still spurns at all our parvenu churchman
ship, with claims everywhere unchallenged. At the same
time those larger Christ-like souls, who can take both sides
of Christendom into view, would lose all hope of any true
Catholicity and matured Christianity. It is because the
Protestant Episcopal Church stands between these extremes,
at once protesting against Roman error and maintaining
Catholic truth, that to many she seems called of God to this
very crisis, and they would not see her yield an inch of hard
won ground on either side by presenting a mere partisan
Episcopate in place of one truly historic because both
Catholic and Protestant.
Practical Union by Ignoring the Question.
We have thus seen that it would only hurt the cause of
church unity to press the question of apostolic succession.
Add now, that it would greatly help that cause and harm no
other interest, to leave the whole question open. At least, to
leave it open between Presbyterians and Episcopalians. As
to that question, they could agree to differ for the sake of
closer oneness in essentials. In the historic episcopate, as
freed from that question, they could retain severally their own
view of the ministry and sacraments, and at the same time
find a large consensus for organic reunion throughout Christ
endom. The Catholic Episcopalian could still find in it what
he finds in it now, a ministration of that apostolate which he
believes to have been perpetuated in the Greek, Latin, and
Anglican Churches alone, and the catholic Presbyterian could
again find in it what he found in it once, a complement of that
presbyterate which he believes to have been continued in the
Lutheran, Reformed, and Presbyterian Churches, as well as
in the whole Church before the Reformation. In all this
there would be nothing strange or incongruous. Such a
union of the Episcopal and Presbyterial orders has prevailed

Gradual Union. 187
throughout the universal Church from the apostles' time.
Such a union of Presbyterians with Episcopalians formerly
obtained in the Church of England. Such a union of Episco
palians with Presbyterians has lately been proposed for the
Church of Scotland. And something like such a union may
be found to-day in the Protestant Episcopal Church in the
United States. Only Gradual Union Practicable.
Here let it be emphasized that there is no thought of one
communion absorbing another. Surely nobody is foolish
enough to dream of any immediate fusion of Christian de
nominations into some newly-organized body bursting forth,
like the flower of a night, as the " American Catholic Church."
Nor would the mere melody of that grand title ever soothe
them into oneness. The glorious ideal if reached at all, must
be approached step by step, with prayers and tears, through
many trials, it may be, and after much mistake and failure.
Doubtless existing church organizations will long continue
with their standards intact and their autonomy undisturbed.
Organic unity could only supervene upon them, or slowly
supersede them, as discussions give rise to conferences, and
conferences issue in leagues, and leagues ripen into more vital
relations. In this process the two Churches before us might
lead the way through the four stages proposed. The Holy
Scriptures could be recognized at once as their common foun
dation. The Nicene Creed could be accepted as equally con
sistent with the Articles of Religion and the Confession of
Faith. The sacraments of Baptism and the Lord's Supper
would be found doctrinally the same in the Prayer-book and
the Directory. And the Ordinal and the Form of Govern
ment might have some practical agreement, enough at least
for a good beginning.
Meanwhile it is of the utmost importance that the question
of Church unity should be kept distinct from other and lesser

1 88 The Historic Presbyterate.
questions. It does not turn upon denominational tenets or
party claims. Neither Presbyterians nor Episcopalians, neither
evangelical nor ritualistic Churchmen may dictate its terms.
If Christian sects and factions cannot sink their differences
and find some common ground of mutual tolerance in the
same Church or within the same Church system, there is an
end to everything like organic oneness as distinguished from
mere sentimental fellowship.
Accordingly, the proposed terms of Church unity are so
stated as to exclude most thoroughly all denominational tenets
and partisan opinions. Even the denominational tenets of
the Protestant Episcopal Church are largely ignored, as well
as the ecclesiastical parties within its pale. The Holy Bible
is insisted on, but not the Prayer Book ; the Nicene Creed,
but not the Thirty-nine Articles ; the two sacraments, but
neither the evangelical nor the ritualistic view of their
efficacy ; the historic episcopate, but neither the high nor
the low theory of its prerogative. In like manner, the Presby
terian Church in acceding to such terms could not insist upon
its own Directory for Worship and Confession of Faith, nor
dictate any special views of ritual and polity. The two
bodies, while adhering to the same Scriptures, creeds, sac
raments and ministry, would still have a wide margin for their
denominational forms of doctrine and worship.
These distinctions apply with special force to the last of the
four conditions. The historic episcopate if defined in any
particular sense by Church authority, would cease at once to
afford a ground or bond of unity. Its own supporters would
rush apart into schism. According to the definition made,
the ministry and sacraments would either be declared void of
all that they meant to the High Church party, or charged with
a meaning wholly repudiated by the Broad Church party.
And among the denominations of the Church at large, such a
doctrinal definition would be still more divisive, repelling them
toward the extremes of Protestanism and Romanism. It is

Pulpit Exchanges. 189
but a truism to say that the right and left wings of Christen
dom could never be conjoined in an episcopate which should
take sides dogmatically with either against the other.
Pulpit Exchanges.
If this be a correct view, it is not easy to see how true
church unity would be promoted by interchanges of pulpit
services between episcopal and non-episcopal ministers.
Sooner or later such interchanges could not but involve a
divisive definition of the Christian ministry itself For a time,
indeed, they might serve some, good ends. Superficial obser
vers might rejoice in them as signs of Christian fellowship
and clerical amity. In some worshiping assemblies they
might lead to effusive manifestations of fraternal feeling, and
on charity platforms to more or less practical co-operation.
But at length a breach would be opened which had been
concealed, and harsh recoil would follow the hasty union.
When the black-gowned preacher in the pulpit stood con
trasted with the white-robed priest at the altar, a difference
would become visible to their respective adherents in the
pews — a difference as absurd as irritating, should it be known
that the priest meant to recognize the validity of the preacher's
ministration, while the preacher claimed to have the presby
terial" functions from which he was debarred. Each party
would be put in a false position. The visiting minister would
publicly take the place of a layman, and his low church
brother would be forced to appear against him in the Abso
lution or the Communion, though both held substantially the
same views of the clerical office and the Holy Supper. Is it
not to be feared that a few such object lessons might put an
end to every hope of church unity in the pulpit as well as at
the altar ?
Let it be observed that we are now looking at this question
from the standpoint of church unity alone. I am not here
maintaining the truth or falsity of any doctrine of the Chris
tian ministry, nor asking others to take high or low church

190 The Historic Presbyterate.
ground as to its powers. Indeed, it is not upon such ground
merely that intelligent Episcopahans may be supposed to
withhold recognition from learned divines of unimpeached
orthodoxy and piety. It is because they know that the recog
nition would draw after it a train of other questions involving
at length the unity of their whole church. And they value
such unity more than any chance fraternization or mere vision
ary fellowship. In other words, the historic episcopate holds
them together in the essential faith, notwithstanding their
diverse views of the ministry and sacraments, and in spite of
their leanings toward either extreme. Now, in like manner,
it might draw together other denominations with which it has
more or less affinity. On a larger scale in the Christian world
it might embrace the same schools and parties which are now
found within its pale. Its expansive, unifying power is no
mere theory, but an exemplary fact. All this power, how
ever, it would lose were it dragged aside to any partisan
ground, high or low, evangelical or sacerdotal. By recogniz
ing faithful ministers or preachers not episcopally ordained,
no doubt it would meet many noble Christian impulses and
please some sections of Protestantism, but it would alienate
the rest of Christendom, as well as rend its own body asunder.
Whatever else it might retain, it would forfeit its potential
capacity for collecting and combining the scattered ecclesias
tical elements of our divided American Christianity. For
such reasons it is quite conceivable that a true lover of church
unity might deprecate the proposed interchanges, not as
undesirable in themselves, but as likely to do more harm than
good to the cause which he had at heart. He might think a
lasting peace better than any hollow truce, and be disposed
to shun mere sentimental compacts for the sake of more
intelligent agreements.'

1 Another view of this question has been clearly and forcibly presented by
Prof John DeWitt, of Princeton Theological Seminary, in a letter to the Rev.
Dr. S. D. McConnell, published by the Church Unity Society of Philadelphia.

Presbyterian Orders. 191
Unity is a plant of slow growth. It cannot be forced. It
will require time and thought and study, as well as prayer
and effort. The present race of clergymen may have to pass
away. Another generation may need to be educated to a
higher point of view. In future ordinations which cast no
seeming reflection upon a former ministry, or which may
involve some more practical legitimation of Presbyterian
ministrations, a degree of essential unity may be reached
before which the freest interchange of pulpit services would
sink into insignificance. Presbyterian Orders.
What is true of pulpit exchanges is true of the whole
question of Presbyterian orders ? Important as that question
may be, it is as yet irrelevant and premature. As a matter
of personal duty, it might have much significance, for a
Presbyterian minister seeking admission to Holy Orders in
the Episcopal Church; but as a question of ecclesiastical
policy between the Presbyterian and Episcopal Churches, it
is the very last one to be raised in any formal conference or
negotiation. Were the two churches already agreed on the
Lambeth basis in accepting the historic episcopate as a bond
of re-union or unification, the question would then be both
timely and hopeful, and might almost settle itself with but
little discussion. Only in view of such an event is it worth
while to consider it, and only in that view do I now propose
briefly to present it.
It should be observed, at the outset, that the question has
become a very simple one as transferred from the old to the
new world, amid the changed circumstances of the two
churches in this country. It is no longer complicated with
the political institutions which made both Episcopacy and
Presbytery monarchical and aristocratic in their associations.
It is no longer complicated with the needs of a State religion,
which made the church of England Episcopalian, and the
church of Scotland Presbyterian, before the union of the two

192 The Historic Presbyterate.
kingdoms. It is no longer complicated with the racial influences
which through successive generations made Presbytery dis
tinctively Scottish and Episcopacy as distinctively AngHcan.
It is not even complicated with the difficulties which beset it
during the colonial period of our own history, when Presby
terians, in common with Puritans, opposed the intrusion, not
of the episcopate itself, but of its civil establishment over the
colonies with all the evils of British taxation and patronage.
" We hope in God," wrote the Legislature of Massachusetts
to their London agent, " such an establishment will never take
place in America, and we desire you would strenuously
oppose it." " We would by no means have it understood,"
gravely declared the Synods of New York and Philadelphia,
" that we would endeavor to prevent an American bishop, or
archbishop, or patriarch, or whatever else they might see fit
to send, provided other denominations could be safe from
their severity and encroachments." ' The Episcopal churches
themselves joined in opposing the project. The Virginia
clergy, with only eight exceptions out of a hundred, resisted
it; and the House of Burgesses unanimously thanked the
protesters " for the wise and well-timed opposition they had
made to the pernicious project of a few clergymen for intro
ducing an American bishop." ^ After the Revolution, when
all danger of any State religion was gone, the episcopate,
pure and simple, was procured, and the Protestant Episcopal
Church took its place among sister churches without opposi
tion or even criticism. "As far as the Presbyterian Church
is concerned," says Dr. Hodge, "we should be sorry that it
should lie under the imputation of having resisted the reason
able wishes of another denomination to the enjoyment of
their own ecclesiastical system." The whole question of
Presbyterian orders has thus become divested of foreign
issues : and it is a mistake to be ever injecting into it
' Dr. Hodge's Constitutional History of the Presbyterian Church, p. 372.
' Dr. Hawks' Ecclesiastical History of the United States, Vol. i, p. 1 27.

Presbyterian Orders. 193
the old feuds of Cavalier and Covenanter, Churchman and
Dissenter, Whig and Tory, after a century of friendly inter
course. It should also be borne in mind that both churches hold
substantially the same theory of holy orders, the one attach
ing it to presbytery and the other to episcopacy. Practically
at least, Presbyterians, no less than Episcopalians, maintain
the Christian ministry as a divine institution, conveying divine
authority and apostolical doctrine and piety, all in fact that is
transmissible from the apostles, by means of regular ordina
tions in a succession presbyterial rather than merely prelatical.
" So far as apostolical succession can be verified," says Dr.
Alexander, "the Presbyterian Church in the United States
possesses it, as really and fully as the Church of England.
In making this assertion we assume as proved already, that a
superior order in the ministry to that of presbyters is not
essential to the being of the church, but that from the begin
ning presbyters have exercised the highest powers now belong
ing to the ministry. If so, it is through them that the apos
tolic succession must be traced, and we accordingly maintain
that our orders may be just as surely traced in this way up to
apostolic times as those of any other church through bishops.
The denial of this fact has, for the most part, been con
nected with the false assumption that the ministry of our
church has been derived from that of Geneva, and depends
for its validity upon the authority of Calvin ; whereas we trace
our orders, through the original Presbytery of Philadelphia,
to the mother-church of Scotland, which is well-known to
have been reformed with the concurrence and assistance of
men regularly ordained in the Church of Rome. The princi
pal admixture of this Scottish element, in our earliest
presbyteries, was with New England Puritans, among whom
only two examples of lay-ordination are believed to have
occurred, and whose ecclesiastical system was originally
founded by regularly ordained priests of the Anglican establish-
13

194 The Historic Presbyterate.
ment." ' The point to be emphasized in this reasoning is, that
it clearly puts the question before us as not so much a differ
ence in doctrine as in polity, and almost reduces it to a matter
of ecclesiastical policy.
Even as to this mere ecclesiastical question, it is well to
remember that both sides have long since made admissions
and advances by which they have met midway and all but
exchanged positions. On the one hand, the highest Episcopal
authorities have repeatedly recognized the validity of Presby
terian orders. During the first century after the Reformation,
as it is well known, foreign divines such as Bucer, Laski, and
Peter Martyr, who had only presbyterial ordination, were
admitted to benefices in the Church of England, and on the
invitation of Cranmer assisted in framing the articles and
liturgy. Knox also officiated in Enghsh parishes and himself
wrote the " Black Rubric " against transubstantiation in the
Communion office. It is useless to argue that the orders of
such men were not recognized. They were legalized by Act of
Parliament (Eliz., 1571), and the Primate, Archbishop Grindal,
applied the act, not to Roman priests only, but to Presbyterian
clergymen, as for example, in the typical case of Morrison,
described in his licensure as " called to the ministry by the
imposition of hands according to the laudable form and rite of
the Reformed Church of Scotland. And since the congrega
tion of the county of Lothian is conformable to the orthodox
faith and sincere religion now received in the realm of England,
we, therefore, approving and ratifying the form of your ordi
nation and preferment, grant you a hcense and faculty in such
orders by you taken. You may and have power to celebrate
the divine offices, to minister the sacraments, etc."^ Travers
pleaded the same statute successfully in maintenance of Dutch

1 " Primitive Church Offices," p. 177. By Prof. J. Addison Alexander, Prince
ton Theological Seminary.
2" History of Presbyterians in England," p. 132. Rev. J. H. Drysdale,
London.

Presbyterian Orders. 195
as well as Scotch Presbyterian ordination. The greatest
names in the English Church might be cited to the same
effect. "There may be sometimes," said the judicious
Hooker, " very good and sufficient reason to allow ordination
made without a bishop."' It was admitted by Bishop Hall,
of the divine right school, that many such ministers were
in holy orders without exceptions against the lawfulness
of their calling. "The peerless prelate," Andrews, declared
that a man must be blind who does not see churches standing
without episcopacy. " I love not herein," said the devout
Bishop Cosin " to be more wise or harder than our own
church is, which has never publicly condemned and pro
nounced the ordination of the other Reformed Churches to
be void." ^ Such authorities and precedents were openly plead
by the Presbyterian clergy at the Restoration, in their protest
against re-ordination : " When," said they, " a canon amongst
those called the Apostles', deposeth those that re-ordain and
that are re-ordained ; when it is a thing that both Papists and
Protestants condemn ; and when not only the former bishops
of England that were more moderate, were against it, but even
the most fervent adversaries of the Presbyterian way, such as
Bishop Bancroft himself, how strange must it needs seem to the
reformed churches, to the whole Christian world, and to future
generations, that so many able, faithful ministers should be laid
by as broken vessels, because they dare not be re-ordained."^
It was only by the triumph of the high prelatic party in the
Act of Uniformity that Presbyterian orders were for the first
time made unlawful and Presbyterianism itself thenceforth
extinguished in the Church of England. But though
extinguished there, it re-appeared on this side of the Atlantic
with undiminished vigor, after our Revolution, when the
patriot-bishop White, dismissing the resort to a Swedish
1 Ecclesiastical Polity, B. vii, chap. xlv.
^ Anglo-Catholic Library, Vol. iv, p. 403.
5 Documents relating to Act of Uniformity, p. 186.

196 The Historic Presbyterate.
episcopate as ludicrous, and contenting himself with a general
approbation of the English episcopate, if it could be had, pro
ceeded to give the Protestant Episcopal Church that presby
terial constitution which it now has in common with the
Presbyterian Church and in distinction from the mother
Church of England.
Candid churchmen of the strictest school, admit all these
facts, and while favoring no abatement of existing canons,
generously allow good standing to other churchmen, who
view the episcopate as a development or complement of the
presbyterate. " That it is not competent for one in Holy
Orders to hold and affirm such views," says the Bishop of
New York, " can only be alleged by one who is grossly
ignorant, whether of the history of the Church of England or
of our own, or deliberately determined to misrepresent both." ^
With the same comprehensive view the Bishop of Western
New York, in a public letter with which he has honored the
writer, almost identifies English Presbyterianism with Ameri
can Episcopacy on the basis of the Lambeth proposals:
" With entire consistency therefore the Presbyterian position
might be thus stated in answer to our proposals, viz.: ' We
affirm (i) that no bishop has a right to ordain a presbyter
without the consent of presbytery and the conjoint imposition
of their hands; and (2) that the concurrence of presbyters and
laymen in synodical sessions and consistories is requisite to
the rightful exercise of episcopal government,' — which is our
doctrine confirmed by the teaching of St. Cyprian, and as we
suppose the teaching of Holy Scripture itself"^ There has
thus been a catena of Episcopal authorities from the beginning
favoring in some form or degree the claims of presbytery.
On the other hand, it is well also to remember that the

' Third Triennial Charge to the Convention by the Right Rev. Henry Cod-
man Potter, D. D., LL.D.
2 "Second Letter to the Rev. Dr. Shields," from the Right Rev. A. C. Coxe,.
LL. D.

Presbyterian Orders. 197
highest Presbyterian authorities have often recognized the
legitimacy and even desirableness of a pure Episcopacy. The
reformers, with scarcely an exception, not only held such an
episcopacy to be scriptural, but lamented the political cir
cumstances which prevented them from reforming and con
tinuing the existing historic episcopate. Calvin, in delineat
ing the primitive Church, says that " in each city the presbyters
selected one of their number to whom they gave the special
title of bishop, lest, as usually happens, from equality dis
sension should arise.'" And so far from thinking it necessary
in reforming the Church to destroy even the Roman epis
copate, he grows indignant at the thought, if it could only be
freed from papal corruptions and restored to primitive purity :
" Let them show us such a hierarchy that therein bishops should
so preside as not refusing subjection to Christ, but from Him
as their only Head should be derived and to Him should be
related ; in which their brotherly fellowship with one another
should be so disposed that by no other bond than that of His
truth they should be allied ; then verily I must allow that
there is no anathema of which they would not be worthy, if
any such should be, who would not reverently and with con
summate obedience yield them recognition."^ In the Reformed
Kirk, from the time of Knox, for the first hundred years, there
was a species of episcopacy or superintendency, and the Confes
sion, in distinct terms, long required the induction of Church
of England clergymen, if sound in doctrine, without re-ordi
nation. The English Presbyterians, from Cartwright to Baxter,
did not so much oppose episcopacy as the hierarchical corrup
tions with which it had become overlaid, especially the suppres
sion of the powers of presbytery. Their views were fairly set
forth in Archbishop Ussher's famous Reduction of Episcopacy
unto the form of Synodical government in the Ancient Church.^
1 Institutes, Book IV, Chap. 4.
^ De Necessitate ReformandEe Ecclesise, Edinburgh Trans., Vol. I, p. 217.
^ Ussher's Model of Church Government, Documents, p. 22.

198 The Historic Presbyterate.
At the Restoration in 166 1 the English Presbyterian clergy,
many of whom had sat in the Westminster Assembly, them
selves proposed this pure episcopacy, in the following terms :
"Although upon just reason we do dissent from that ec
clesiastical hierarchy or prelacy, disclaimed in the Covenant,
as it was stated and exercised in these kingdoms, yet we do
not nor ever did renounce the true ancient primitive episco
pacy or presidency as it was balanced and managed by a due
commixtion of presbyters therewith, as a fit means to avoid
corruptions, partiality, tyranny and other evils which may be
incident to the administration of one single person.' " It is
interesting to notice, among the reasons which they give for
such episcopacy are those which now animate the American
Bishops in their proposals ; " First. We have reason to be
lieve that no other terms will be so generally agreed on, and
it is no way injurious to episcopal power. Second. It being
agreeable to Scripture and the primitive government, is
likeliest to be the way of a more universal concord, if ever the
Churches on earth arrive at such a blessing." ^ This is more
than a coincidence. There is even something prophetic, as
well as pathetic, in the voice which thus comes to us across
the centuries at this juncture : —
"And here we leave it to the notice and observation of
posterity, how little the English bishops had to say against
the form of primitive episcopacy contained in Archbishop
Ussher's Reduction, in the day when they rather choose the
increase of our divisions, the silencing of many hundred faith
ful ministers, the scattering of the flocks, the affiicting of so
many thousand godly Christians, than the accepting of this
primitive episcopacy ; which was the expedient which those
called Presbyterians offered, never once speaking for the cause
of presbytery."'
Why recall this sad argument? Surely not to fight the
^ Documents relating to Act of Uniformity, p. 15.
^ Documents, p. 50. ^ Documents, p. 82.

illutiial Recognition. 1 99
battle over again. Not to renew the plea of presbytery or
the claim of prelacy; but simply to show how much common
ground Episcopalians and Presbyterians have gained since
they parted company two hundred years ago, and how little
ground of difference would remain were the Lambeth basis
adopted. In fact, even that remaining ground disappears
between them. By their own mutual concessions and ap
proaches they are already virtually committed to the Quadri
lateral. The mere logical battle for church unity is won. It
may be long before it is followed by the logic of events.
Doubtless, the wretched wrangle will go on among us for
some time to come, like the guerrilla warfare of men who
know not that a treaty of peace has been signed ; but it can
not go on forever. The issue is only a question of time.
In a word, were the Presbyterian and Episcopal Churches
now formally, as they are historically and doctrinally, agreed
upon the Lambeth basis, the vexed question of orders would
at once sink between them into a mere provisional matter, to
be treated as an anomaly or exception incident to the practi
cal process of unification. In view of such an event several
modes of settling the question present themselves. We need
not stop to consider it as it figures in the popular caricature
of twelve thousand Presbyterian ministers going straightway
to the Bishops for re-ordination. Instead of looking for so
catastrophic a millennium, let us approach the problem more
quietly, with caution and circumspection. It may be found
that within the Quadrilateral, as affording mutually accepted
bounds of church unity, ecclesiastical correspondence between
the two communions might begin and proceed through three
stages: Mutual recognition; hypothetical ordination; and
concurrent ordination and jurisdiction.
Mutual Recognition.
The Episcopal recognition or authorization of Presbyterian
ministers, as it may become desirable and practicable within
the prescribed church limits, would be no novel measure. To

200 The Historic Presbyterate.
say nothing of ancient precedents and analogies, it was long
practiced, as we have seen, in the early churches of England
and Scotland. In 1661 it was definitely proposed by Arch
bishop Leighton of Glascow, for the comprehension of Pres
byterians with Episcopalians in the Scottish church when
prelacy was enforced by Charles II ; but the rancor of the
times showed it no favor, and the saintly prelate retired from
his see, it is said, to die broken-hearted at the failure of his
scheme. Quite recently the proposition has been renewed
for the comprehension of Episcopalians with Presbyterians in
the existing church establishment, by the late Bishop Words
worth of St. Andrews, who advocated it at the last Lambeth
Conference. His suggestion was to recognize the full stand
ing of Presbyterian ministers on condition that bishops and
presbyters be united in all future ordinations. Assuming
Episcopal ordination to be a rule within the Anglican com
munion alone, which casts no reflection upon other ministries,
the Bishop says : " A rule if applied without exception, may
defeat its own end. Accordingly it has been felt by the
greatest divines whom God has ever raised up within His
church, such as St. Augustine and Hooker, that the rule of
ordination, if it were enforced without suspension or relaxa
tion in all circumstances, so far from tending to maintain
unity, must serve to render unity impossible." The proposi
tion is understood to have been carefully considered by the
Committee of the Conference and even attracted the com
mendation of the Primate himself It has also been favorably
noticed by several bishops and learned clergymen on this side
of the water.
The question, as it may emerge between the two corres
ponding churches in our own country, is happily free from
the embarrassment of a state religion and from some social
influences which are of a divisive tendency. Its settlement
is favored by their new political condition and their more
homogeneous structure and culture. But unfortunately, at
the present time, it is held in suspense by the arrest put upon

Mutual Recognition. 201

"i^

the deliberations of the Episcopal and Presbyterian Com
missions on church unity by the last General Assembly.
Friendly discussion would seem to have been shut off at the
point where alone it might begin. To stipulate, in any eccle
siastical sense, for " the doctrine of mutual recognition and
reciprocity " as a condition precedent to even entertaining the
Episcopal proposals is simply meeting large concessions with
a demand for larger, and begging the very question in dis
pute. It remains to be proved whether on the basis of the
historic episcopate, as properly understood, the fullest mutual
recognition and reciprocity might not be found as feasible as
it is desirable. The commissioners were feeling their way
toward such results, however distant as yet, and had made
good progress when their brotherly conferences were inter
rupted. The leaders on both sides take this view of their
commission. Dr. Joseph T. Smith tells us that the two
" Committees were required in express terms to proceed on
' the basis of a common faith and order.' They were to in
quire, first of all, as to their agreements, and ascertain how
far and in what particulars they were at one. Their differ
ences were to be held in abeyance until the preliminary ques
tion was settled, whether there was any such 'common faith and
order ' as would furnish a basis for closer relations." ' Bishop
Coxe also says emphatically : " I should never have con
sented to be one of the commission for brotherly conference
with a like committee of the General Assembly, had I not
supposed that mutual acquaintance and the eradication of
long estrangements and feuds which have been the bane of
our intercourse for centuries would naturally promote impor
tant results. . . . To reach the terminus ad quern by making
it the starting point, instead of the goal, appears to me a
hysteron proteron, illogical and involving impossibilities."^
What makes the momentary breach the more unfortunate is
1 The New York Evanglist, May lo, 1894.
2 Letter to Rev. Dr. Shields, in the Churchman, September 29, 1894,

202 The Historic Presbyterate.
the fact that it was not caused by any real change of opinion
in the two churches, much less in the two committees, but
by outside parties forcing into the negotiation a wild issue
with which it had nothing whatever to do, that of an indis
criminate exchange of pulpits with all denominations, good,
bad, and indifferent. It is not probable that two great eccle
siastical bodies, so intelligent and self-respecting, will allow a
misunderstanding brought about by such influences, to con
tinue after the mists which have obscured the situation have
passed away.
Without speculating as to the future course of opinion in
this matter, I can only state in a word or two the general
argument for mutual recognition as attainable on the Lam
beth basis. As Presbyterians have always recognized the
validity of Episcopal orders, it is natural that they should
desire it to be mutual for the sake of both parties. It would
seem that among non-episcopal denominations a discrimina
tion might be made in favor of a church which historically
and doctrinally is already in so full accord with the Episcopal
Church, especially in regard to the ministry and sacraments
and other ecclesiastical questions. It should be remembered
that Presbyterian ordination was made unlawful only by the
civil authority of a state-religion ; that it has never been pro
nounced invalid by any purely ecclesiastical authority, though
always deemed irregular ; and that its validity in mitigating
circumstances has often been recognized by the most illus
trious prelates and divines of every school of churchmanship.
Add to this, that the acceptance of the Lambeth articles even
provisionally, would remove traditional prejudices and former
causes of difference. Finally, it would be an act of magnani
mous reparation for a great public wrong, which some histo
rians have likened to a second St. Bartholemew, and all have
lamented as a calamity, to restore relations of ecclesiastical
comity in this land and age of greater light and freedom
and at this distance from the scene of the original conflict.
A generous admirer of the Episcopal Church, who was

Mutual Recognition. 203
not less a thoroughgoing Presbyterian, the late Dr. Van
dyke, has said : " If the Episcopal Church could come back
to the spirit and practice of her earlier and in this respect her
better days, and acknowledge non-episcopal ordination as
valid, though in her judgment irregular, this would put us
upon an equal footing. Zealous Episcopalians will probably
resent the bare suggestion of such a concession on their part.
Some, like Dr. Blunt, will look upon it as a renewed attempt
of foreign Protestantism to bring them down to the same
abject level. But vehement protests, though they express
the sincere conviction and desire of individuals, are not
always the prophecies of what great bodies of people will do.
Extreme opinions are never the most stable. Stranger
changes than the one suggested have swept over even the
Episcopal Church."^ While it has proved true that 'this
suggestion has been resented by some Episcopalians, yet
many others are now showing themselves ready not, indeed,
to formally recognize the validity of Presbyterian ordination,
but to secure all the substantial advantages of such a recog
nition so far as it can be done consistently with rubrics,
canons, precedents and usages. And in seeking this result
there need be no sweeping changes of a revolutionary na
ture, but only the successive steps of an orderly progress.
This at least is the conservative view of the Bishop of Long
Island, who is known to have been the author of the Chicago
Declaration and may decisively speak of the motives and
hopes which animated it. After noticing favorably the
Episcopal and Presbyterian Conference at Baltimore, he says,^
" On the other hand, I cannot but think it was wise in the
House of Clerical and Lay Deputies not to consent, under
existing circumstances, to the incorporation into our organic
law of the principles which we have set forth as the basis of
1 " The Church, Her Ministry and Sacraments," p. 159. By Rev. Henry J.
Vandyke, D. D.
2 Annual Address to the Clergy. By the Right Rev. A. N. Littlejohn, LL.D.

204 The Historic Presbyterate.
any possible unification of the sundered Communions of
Christendom. Had such incorporation been authorized, the
whole body of our canons would have required immediate
adjustment to it. For one, I believe this would be too radical
a step to take in view of the very slight favor that has, as yet,
been shown by other bodies toward the very liberal overtures
we have already made. What we have done has answered
the very important purpose of exciting widespread and
earnest discussion of the whole subject. This is all that can
be safely or wisely done at this time. In one way or another
the discussion will go on, now that it has been begun, until it
shall produce some practical fruit."
The first practical step in an orderly progress has already
been taken by the appointment of an Ecclesiastical Commis
sion, representing the learning, wisdom, and piety of the two
churches. Should its conferences be continued, it could lay
the foundations on both sides of a connecting arch destined
to find its keystone in the episcopate. It might even span
the gulf with an airy outline or temporary framework of pro
visional agreements and arrangements in the building process
of unity. One of these might be a sanctioned interchange of
sermons between Episcopal and Presbyterian preachers of the
two communions, understood to be agreed in accepting the
four Lambeth conditions of good church standing. This
would put the vexed matter of pulpit exchange, otherwise
quite insignificant, on a basis of ecclesiastical principles, and
would protect it from the evils of an indiscriminate and un
authorized practice.' By such a step neither party would or
could have conceded anything whatever. The ministry of the

^ The guarded proposal of the Presbyterian Committee was in the following
terms : — " We recognize the right and duty of each Church to protect its pulpits
from the intrusion of all unauthorized or self-appointed preachers of the Word,
and to take such measures as shall best secure the teaching of sound doctrine.
Also this custom, if established between us, should not be in unregulated liberty,
but under such rules and limitations as the episcopal authority of both bodies
may agree upon.'' — Dr. Joseph T. Smith, in The Evangelist, May lo, 1894.

Hypothetical Ordination. 205
Word is separable from that of the sacraments, as may be seen
in the Presbyterian licentiate and the Episcopalian deacon,
neither of whom has the latter function. Were it proposed to
take a step farther in the mutual recognition, the path would
become thorny with perplexities. At the start would appear
the obvious inconvenience that Presbyterian ministers are no
more fitted to officiate in liturgical offices without the training
of the diaconate than an Episcopal clergyman to conduct ex
tempore services without long familiarity with spontaneous
worship. Against this difficulty it might justly be urged,
that the third Lambeth article does not require the use of the
Prayer-book, at least not as a condition of church comity, and
Episcopal and Presbyterian ministers might unite in other
Reformed liturgies or directories which ensure the unfail
ing use of the validating words and elements appointed by
our Lord. Even then, however, it would still be objected,
that the fourth Lambeth article, as connected with the third
article, would seem to make the efficacy or validity of such
ministrations depend upon Episcopal as distinguished from
Presbyterial ordination, and the conflicting claims of the two
kinds of ordination would need to be somehow reconciled. It
has been proposed to meet this last crucial point by the de
vice known as hypothetical ordination.
Hypothetical Ordination.
This device seems to have been first proposed at the Revo
lution under William of Nassau, when the latitudinarian
Bishops Tillotson, Stillingfleet and Tennison united with
Doctors Baxter, Calamy and Bates in an effort for the com
prehension of the ejected Presbyterian clergy in the re-estab
lished Church of England. The office for ordaining " Priests,
i. e.. Presbyters " ' was to be amended by the addition of the
words, — "If they shall not have been already ordained. By

^ These titles were to be made equivalent, as in Laud's Scottish Prayer-book
" Presbyter" was everywhere substituted for " Priest."

2o6 The Historic Presbyterate.
which the church, as she retains her opinion and practice,
which make a Bishop necessary to the giving of orders when
he can be had ; so she does likewise leave all such persons as
have been ordained by Presbyters only, the freedom of their
own thoughts concerning their former ordinations." ' It was
expressly provided that this measure must not become a pre
cedent and that its operation would cease after a given date.
The Ordinal was still further to be amended by converting
the imperative form, " Receive ye the Holy Ghost," into the
precatory form of an invocation of the Holy Spirit, according
to primitive as distinguished from papal usage. The Letters
of Orders granted to such persons would also disclaim
any intention of condemning their former ordinations or of
determining either their validity or their invalidity. It was
the opinion of Calamy that upon these terms at least two-
thirds of the Presbyterian ministers would have returned into
the establishment. There had been some reaction in their
favor against the rigors of the Act of Uniformity. The Cal
vinistic King William naturally viewed the inclusion of such
Protestants to be as consequent upon his coming to the
throne as the exclusion of the Romanists. But he had per
mitted the downfall of Episcopacy in Scotland, where the
Presbyterians were having their turn at ejecting the prela-
tists. Moreover, the scheme was weighed down with other
more radical amendments. The result was that the attempted
compromise was a failure, and the Act of Uniformity gave
place to the Act of Toleration as the only substantial advan
tage then attainable.
Different as the circumstances of the parties are in this
country and in this age, yet the idea of a conditional ordina
tion, analogous to conditional baptism, has been broached in
recent discussions by some earnest inquirers into the grounds
and conditions of church unity.^ It has even been gener-
1 Procter's History of Prayer-book, p. 15S.
^ Address of the Bishop of Western Texas, Right Rev. James S. Johnston, D.D.

Hypothetical Ordination. 207
ously proposed to insert it in a conspicuous rubric as a stand
ing welcome to other ministries, to show that the Quadrilat
eral has been issued in good faith and in the earnest hope of
its adoption. Perhaps, however, as to the Presbyterian
Church at least, it is too soon to discuss the wisdom of an
expedient which presupposes a degree of intelligent agree
ment that has not yet been reached. If the measure would
meet the scruples of some Episcopalians who take a strict
view of episcopal ordination, yet it might not so readily meet
the scruples of some Presbyterians who take a like view of
presbyterial ordination and would not care to have a slur or
shadow openly cast upon their former ministry. Presbyte
rians who doubt of their former ministry, or take a low view
of it, would not scruple at unconditional re-ordination, but
even prefer it as affording proof of their church loyalty, their
good fellowship with high churchmen, and their desire to
receive the full benefit of holy orders. Moreover, anything
that is good in the proposed rubric for hypothetical ordination
seems to have been already provided in the American Ordinal
by the alternative form " Take thou authority," as contrasted
with the earher form, " Receive ye the Holy Ghost." If the
new form merely expresses the outward call of the church,
while the earlier expresses also the inward call of the Spirit,
a Presbyterian minister so re-ordained might think he was
simply gaining new ecclesiastical authority and larger province
for a ministry to which he had already been called of God in
his former ordination. Unless he held high sacramentarian
views of the rite itself, the mere repetition of the ceremony
might not violate his convictions nor be inconsistent with
some usages and precedents.
All this, however, is somewhat aside from the real question
before us. It applies merely to the case of a Presbyterian
clergyman seeking holy orders in the Episcopal Church, and
would have importance only for those who expect that com
munion somehow to absorb other communions, in spite of
the disclaimer of the bishops. It does not apply to the rela-

2o8 The Historic Presbyterate.
tions of the two communions. As yet there is no such oper
and candid understanding between them as would justify or
both sides the episcopal ordination or even authorization of
Presbyterian ministers. The difficulty remains, to find some
more mutual recognition not only in ordination, but also ir
jurisdiction. To meet that difficulty a method has been pro
posed on page 99 which may now be more fully considered.
Concurrent Ordination.
The principles involved in concurrent ordination are not
new in the history of the two communions. The Church of
England from the beginning has associated presbyters with
bishops in giving presbyterial orders, and the American
Church has admitted them to a participation to some extent
in the Episcopal jurisdiction. In like manner the Presbyte
rian Church, during its early days in Scotland and through
the Westminster divines in the Savoy Conference, may be
said to have committed itself to a pure episcopacy, as both
scriptural and apostolical, and might now find in it a wise
stable administration of the episcopal functions of presbytery.
These mutual principles historically underlie and logically
connect the two churches. The only novelty proposed is
that they should now be formally professed and openly acted
upon ; in other words, that both authorities should visibly
concur in future ordinations, when a coincident jurisdiction is
found feasible without destroying or impairing the normal
relations of Episcopacy and Presbytery, as already existing
or illustrated in both communions. How this might be at
tempted has been explained with some detail in the previous
essay. If this suggestion have no other merit, it may at least serve
to confront the parties with the real difficulties of the situa
tion. These are serious enough, but not so amusing as
represented by some critics who have imagined a Presby
terian minister armed with a sort of" double ordination " and
turned loose as a knight-errant of church unity. That might

Concurrent Ordination. 209
not be possible under existing relations, since he would have
to renounce his former allegiance, if he could not retain
it, or else sink into mere individual insignificance. But it
should be borne in mind that here, as throughout the whole
argument, we are still proceeding on the assumption that
the Lambeth conditions of church standing and comity have
been accepted and are to be adopted and acted upon as far
and as fast as possible. In that view the suggested concur
rence of authorities is to be regarded as a mere transitional
expedient in the unifying process. It would provide for a
gradual coincidence of jurisdiction wherever possible, as
on mission fields and in the army and navy,^ — leaving
meanwhile existing Presbyterian clergymen, in cases requir
ing it, to be episcopally licensed, as in the early Church of
England, or to receive a purely ecclesiastical ordination like
that proposed in 1689 and apparently adopted in the Ameri
can Ordinal.^ Against such a scheme it is easy enough to
magnify and multiply difficulties, constitutional and canonical,
on both sides, — in a word to show how not to do the thing
proposed. The present writer is trying to show how to do
it ; and if any one will show a more excellent way he will be
the first to welcome it.
What are the alternative methods ? One of them would be
to use the Quadrilateral as a solvent for breaking up and ab
sorbing the Presbyterian Church, but that would be contrary
1 A highly esteemed Army Chaplain writes me, that whenever he invites the
visiting Bishop to the Chapel at his post, he is only recognized by being publicly
thanked for his courtesy. "Concurrent ordination" he says, "would relieve the
situation." ^ If this dormant provision was inserted by Bishop White with a purpose, it
may yet be found available ; and new meaning might appear in Archbishop Brara-
hall's form of licensure to a Scotch Presbyter, — " not destroying his former
orders, nor determining their validity or invalidity, but only supplying what the
canons of the English Church require and providing that occasion of schism be
removed, and the faithful assured that they may not doubt of his ordination, or
be averse to his presbyterial acts as invalid. ' ' — Anglo-Catholic Library, Vol. I,
p. xxxvii. 14

2IO The Historic Presbyterate.
to its own professions. Another would be to let it stand as
a bond of theoretical and sentimental fellowship between the
two communions ; but such a bond could not last long unless
some more organic filaments were woven into it. Still another
method would be to wait until the Presbyterian Church by
its own development shall have secured the historic episco
pate in some other quarter. That course will doubtless be
taken very naturally by the Lutheran Church, and its ac
quisition of the Swedish episcopate, besides perfecting its
own church order, will be an immense logical gain to the
Lambeth standard by freeing it from Anglican and Protestant
Episcopal implications in the popular mind and thus demon
strating that the proposed terms of church unity are cath
olic and undenominational, as well as practicable. Yet even
then two such rival episcopates could only secure church
likeness, or church union, not church unity. The problem
of jurisdiction would still remain unsolved and only more
complicated. Surely, when Presbyterians begin to appreciate
the historic episcopate for its unifying qualities, they would
want nothing foreign or sectarian in it, but rather gladly wel
come what Dr. Huntington fittingly terms "the episcopate
of the race which gave us our language and at least a good
fraction of our law."
It may still be objected that the Chicago Declaration pre
sents the historic episcopate as one of the " inherent parts of
a sacred deposit of Christian faith and order committed by
Christ and his Apostles to the Church," which would be
compromised or surrendered in any concordat with the Pres
byterian ministry. ' Some Episcopalians have detached this
qualifying preamble from the terms themselves, and do not
find it in the Prayer-book. Nor does it necessarily inhere in
the Fourth Article as it has been held historically and doc
trinally throughout the universal church. In fact, it has not

' "The Historical Position of the Episcopal Church." By Rev. Prof Francis
G. Hall, Western Theological Seminary, Chicago.

Concurrent Ordination. 211
even been adopted by the great Pan-Anglican Council of Bish
ops, whose amended version of the Quadrilateral must now
be accepted by all parties. They attach no qualification to
it, but simply offer it as the basis of a " United Church to
include the chief Christian Communions," and recommend
brotherly conference with their representatives, " in order to
consider what steps can be taken either toward corporate
re-union or toward such relations as may prepare the way for
fuller organic unity hereafter ;" ' — which seems to be the very
policy here advocated. Even if it be held that the Chicago
preamble was implied or involved in the action of the Angli
can Bishops, it would still remain true that their claim of
trusteeship is unhappily repudiated by an immense majority
of historic episcopates throughout the Christian world, to
say nothing of churchmen like Dr. Harwood, who hold that
episcopacy is not a divine, but an ecclesiastical institution.^
This would be an Episcopalian answer to the objection be
fore us.
There is, however, a more positive and satisfactory answer
from the Presbyterian side. We may unhesitatingly and
gladly yield the chief place to our American Bishops as cus
todians of the primitive faith and order, and still maintain that
the proposed re-union would involve no compromise or sur
render of their trust. In the first place, the Presbyterian
Church also claims to be part of that " Catholic Visible
Church unto which Christ hath given the ministry, oracles
and ordinances of God," * and has preserved its sacred trust
by means of a presbyterial succession from the Apostles,
which is as certain and unquestionable as any merely pre
latic succession in Christendom, for the simple reason that
it underlies and shares all such succession until the Reform-
' Lambeth Conferences, 1888, " Resolutions Formally Adopted," p. 280.
2 " The Historic Episcopate and Apostolic Succession." By Rev. Edwin
Harwood, D. D., New Haven.
3 Confession of Faith, Chap. XXV.

212 The Historic Presbyterate.
ation, and since then has been maintained with scrupulous
regularity in both the Scottish and American presbyteries.
But let that pass for what it is worth in this argument.^ In
the second place, the trusteeship of our honored Bishops,
even in the highest possible estimate of it, could not be
imperiled but would only be confirmed and secured by the
loyal return of a free presbytery into normal relations with a
pure episcopacy on their own proffered terms of unity. The
result would simply be a gradual enlargement of episcopal
jurisdiction without any sacrifice of presbyterial integrity, and
a practical mergence of interests rendering any assertion of
rival claims and rights both useless and distasteful. The
time would have come to let bygones be bygones and gen
erously end the old family quarrel in a true apostolic love-
feast. Episcopalians and Presbyterians, forgetting their " end
less genealogies and contentions," would have met together
on the Lambeth basis, like good Christians and good church
men, determined to get the full benefit of both episcopal and
presbyterial ordination, as no longer to be practiced separate
ly, but henceforth to be re-combined in a United Church.
The circumstances of the two communions in this new
world are highly favorable for their organic reunion. After
dominating one another by turns in the old world, they are
now upon an equal footing before the law and in the view of
surrounding denominations. They have become assimilated
in their constitution. They are theoretically one in ecclesias
tical doctrine. Already they have a proposed basis of ecclesi
astical intercommunion. They are drawn together by early

1 It will be remembered that when the Archbishop of Canterbury in 1S50 de
clared that there were not two bishops on the bench or one clergyman in fifty
who would deny the validity of the Presbyterian orders, solely on account of
wanting the imposition of episcopal hands, the learned Dr. Goode in his "Vindi
cation," produced a long chain of authorities, including the most eminent
prelates and divines, all maintaining that bishops and presbyters were of the
same divine order, and must therefore be included in the same apostolic succes
sion, however much they may differ in ecclesiastical office and dignity.

Concurrent Ordination. 213
affinities and by the Christian spirit of the age. Their union
would be a mutual benefit, would strengthen historic Chris
tianity amid our unhistoric civilization, would combine the
two most ecclesiastical denominations against sectarianism,
and would lead the American churches toward catholic unity.
They seem charged with the fate of Protestant Christendom.
Let us now suppose, for the sake of illustration, a con
currence of Presbyterian and Episcopalian authorities to
have been effected in the future ordination of candidates for
mission fields, either with or without a joint imposition of
hands, any priests present with the bishop, having had formerly
Presbyterian ordination or being themselves Presbyterian
ministers who have had formerly Episcopal ordination. Under
some such agreement the utmost claims of both churches
would be practically recognized and satisfied and all require
ments merged in one common sanction. A missionary thus
ordained would go forth with double authority, into a wider field,
for a fuller service, and everywhere represent a united Church
at least to heathenism abroad if not to infidelity at home.
Even re-ordination under such a system could not be offensive
to those who deny any sacramental grace in the mere rite
itself, but might rather be approved by a sound Christian feel
ing for the sake of the great ends in view. Meanwhile the
two communions, though still distinct, would be touching at
other vital points. On the one side, as such concurrent or
dinations became frequent, bishops and rectors, without losing
consistency or regularity, could yield to Presbyterian minis
trations a practical recognition, far more genuine and complete
than any for which some are now pleading. On the other
side, as such relations grew closer, by means of an elective
episcopate presbyteries might be made coincident with
deaneries, synods with dioceses, and assemblies with con
ventions in one national system. And so at length both
communions might find it a good and comely thing to join
forces and fall into line with the great Catholic Church of the
past and of the future.

214 The Historic Presbyterate.
The Hope of Reunion.
The Bible is full of ideals no more feasible than this. In
estimating them, we dare not belittle those divine powers and
promises which are stronger than any human reasoning and
before which all human passions and prejudices melt away
like morning mists. That fraternal impulse which is now
abroad in the churches, vague though it seems, if kindled by
the Holy Spirit, may yet sweep all our polemics aside. Per
haps ministers as a body do not want church unity, but the
Christian masses do want it, and would have it on any just
terms that can be devised. Should the terms proposed be
found feasible they might not share the sensitiveness of the
clerical mind on points of coordination or re-ordination as
raised against unity. Nor need we fear that sacred trusts, en
dowed interests and revered traditions are to be roughly
overridden in the unifying process. Providence in bringing
about great social changes often gently smooths the way,
until foes are glad to meet as friends and welcome as a bless
ing what they had dreaded as a calamity. The Old and New
School Presbyterians of the past generation once seemed
farther apart than the Presbyterian and Episcopalian Church
men of to-day.
The Church of Christ, like the kingdom of nature, is yet to
be strong in its unity as well as rich in its variety. Its full
glory can never come until different denominations shall
appear in the same ecclesiastical system, showing forth their
essential harmony amid trivial diversity. That denomination
alism, or ecclesiasticism, which fancies that it has no need of
any larger and fuller organization, is but a vain hallucination
of the members dreaming among themselves that they can
do without one another in the Body of Christ. Not until
their sleeping catholicity awakes ; not until their mere senti
mental oneness becomes organic; not until their invisible unity
makes itself everywhere visible, will the living Church stand
forth, " fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and terrible as an
army with banners."

VIII.
THE HISTORIC LITURGY AND THE
HISTORIC CHURCHES.

VIII.
THE HISTORIC LITURGY AND THE HISTORIC
CHURCHES.
In a previous part of this volume attention has been drawn
to the unifying influence of the English liturgy among the
Christian denominations, as seen in their growing observance
of the Christian year, their increasing taste for liturgical
worship, and their occasional use of such forms as the Lord's
Prayer, the Creeds, the Commandments, the Psalter, and the
ancient Canticles. It is proposed now to show this more
fully and clearly by analyzing the Prayer-book into its con
stituent elements and exhibiting them as historically connected
with our oldest Churches and as still adapted to their various
denominational modes of worship.
To effect this analysis we need only take the standard edi
tion of the Church of England, and rearrange its offices in
more normal relations on liturgical principles, that is to say,
with a careful reference to their original structure, design, and
use ; making only such editorial changes in the rubrics as
will render the reconstructed services coherent and intelligi
ble. The result is the reappearance of two distinct sets of
devotional offices, the one Catholic and the other Protestant.
Applying the term Catholic to those offices and parts of
offices which date before the Reformation, and the term
Protestant to those which came after that epoch, the editor has
endeavored to trace them both to the original formularies
from which they were severally compiled and to disentangle
them from their present combination in the Prayer-book,
restoring the Catholic forms to their primitive integrity and
purity, and retaining the Protestant forms in their unmixed
state as they first appeared in their original simplicity. Diffi-
217

2i8 The Historic Liturgy.
cult as this task may seem at first sight, it becomes easy
enough to a student of the Prayer-book, who approaches it
with no other aim than the one here proposed. Those who
have been long accustomed to that compilation in its present
state may look upon it as fixed and final, or as susceptible
merely of greater flexibility and enrichment, and would
scarcely think of anything so seemingly radical as the re
construction of a compilation which has lasted three hundred
years. This might occur only to one who can go back of
vested rights and prescriptive usages and study the sources
of the book afresh, without constraint or prejudice, yet with
that reverential feeling which these venerable forms are fitted
to inspire.
It is only necessary to take such a position in order to see
how incongruous are the two classes of forms which have be
come mixed together in the Prayer-book. Their diversity will
at once appear in their separate origin and use, and it will require
no great amount of critical skill to detect it in their very form
and structure ; the Catholic portions having been designed for a
monastic and choral ritual as sung by priest and choir in the
Latin tongue, whilst the Protestant portions were composed
in English, and plainly adapted to a service that is didactic
and popular, to be said by minister and people. This will
appear as we proceed in a careful analysis of the several
offices. Composition of the Daily Offices.
" The Order for Daily Morning and Evening Prayer," when
traced to its sources, will be found to have been simply a modi
fied translation of the Catholic ritual for matins and vespers
with a Protestant preface and supplement. The preface
includes the Sentences, the Exhortation, the General Con
fession and the Absolution or Remission of Sins ; and the
supplement comprises the Prayers for Rulers, for the Clergy,
and for All Conditions of Men, with the General Thanksgiv
ing. Take away the Protestant additions and there will remain
the Lord's Prayer, the Versicles, Daily Psalter, Canticles,

Composition of the Daily Offices. 2 1 9
Creed, and two Daily Collects ; forms well adapted to the
musical rendering which they received in the old ritual, and
together making a devotional office complete in itself without
the preface or supplement. It is so presented in this essay,
precisely as it appeared in King Edward's first Prayer-book
of 1549, and with the same descriptive title. The Order of
Matins and EveJtsong Throughout the Year.
Returning now to the Protestant portions of the office, we
meet with a set of forms which are of entirely different origin
and structure. The prefatory part which was not prefixed
to the English Matins and Evensong until the revision in
1552, was then taken, both as to form and purport, from Cal
vinistic liturgies where it served as a penitential introduction
to divine service on the Lord's Day ; the Sentences inciting to
repentance, the Exhortation explaining the duties of public
worship, and the General Confession and Absolution taking
the place of the discarded confessional. The supplement also
was a gradual accretion, not fully incorporated in the daily
office until the last revision in 1661, and at first consisted of
special prayers for occasional use, wholly unlike the ancient
versicular petitions for king, ministers and people; the Gen
eral Thanksgiving having been added to meet a felt want in
Protestant worship. Even the Old and New Testament Les
sons, now found in the body of the office, were originally
ordered to be read to the people in English, the one after
Matins and the other after Vespers, several years before those
Latin services were rendered in the mother tongue. Bringing
together these various Protestant forms and re-arranging
them in the order in which they were first used and are still
used in other Reformed Churches, we have that didactic and
homiletic office which appears in this essay under the
original title. The Order for Divine Service on the Lord's Day.
The Litany, being an English revision of the Catholic
original, to be sung as well as said, is fitly attached to the
old ritual for use on certain holy days; but its following
miscellany of Special Prayers and Thanksgivings which have

2 20 The Historic Liturgy.
accumulated since the reign of Elizabeth, owing to their
Protestant date and form, are more appropriately classed
with the Reformed Sunday service above described. It
will be found that the Daily Office, with the exception of the
Canticles, Creed and Collects, has been derived from the
Scriptures, in Scripture language, and is simply a devotional
expression of the great essential truths common to Catholic
and Protestant Christianity ; whilst the Sunday service is
substantially that now practiced by all the Protestant churches
in the land, and sets forth in a liturgical form their essential
unity in worship amid diversity in doctrine and polity.
Composition of the Communion Office.
" The Order for the Administration of the Lord's Supper,
or Holy Communion," when analyzed in like manner, is
found to contain the Catholic ritual of the Mass with Protest
ant ante-communion and post-communion forms incorporated
in it, very much as similar additions were made to the Daily
office. The Catholic portion embraces The Lord's Prayer,
Lesser Litany, The Collect for Purity, The Collect, Epistle and
Gospel for the Day, The Nicene Creed, The Offertory,
Versicles, Prefaces, Ter Sanctus, Prayer of Consecration, The
Lord's Prayer, Thanksgiving, Gloria in Excelsis, Benediction.
Re-arranging these beautiful forms strictly in their original
order, and restoring one or two others. The Introit and
Agnus Dei, as they appear translated in King Edward's first
Prayer-book, we have a communion office which is complete
in itself without the Protestant additions, and wonderfully
adapted to the most artistic as well as to the plainest modes
of celebration. As presented in a separate form in this
essay, it is entitled The Order for the Celebration of the
Holy Commmiion.
The remaining Protestant portion of the office, except The
Ten Commandments, originally formed a separate English
communion service for the laity, following the Latin Mass
as performed by the clergy, and consisting of forms in which

Composition of the Communion Office. 221
the general communicant might participate as distinguished
from the celebrant. It was issued at least a year before the
Prayer-book, with the title " The Order of the Communion,"
and when incorporated in that book, still appeared under the
double title, "The Supper of the Lord and Holy Communion."
It embraces ante-communion services remarkably fitted to
induce in expecting communicants the becoming graces of
knowledge, charity, penitence, assurance, and humility. The
Exhortation instructs them in the meaning and use of the
sacrament. The Invitation encourages them to come at peace
with God and their neighbors. The Confession expresses
their deep and pungent conviction. The Absolution prayer
fully assures them of pardon. The Comfortable Words
inspire them with faith and hope ; and the Prayer of Humble
Access, mingles all these feelings in trustful lowliness. The
brief post-communion services have a like fitness to worthy
communicants ; the Sentences of Scripture, reminding them
of consequent privileges and duties; the Thanksgivings,
declaring their renewed self-consecration and grateful faith ;
the Hymn or Doxology, their joyful praise ; and the Benedic
tion, their dismissal with the Divine approval. Detaching
now all these Protestant forms from their present connections,
and re-combining them in the exact order in which they
were first used, with one or two forms added to complete the
office, we have a communion service substantially the same
as that known in the Reformed churches, by the title here
prefixed to it, The Order for the Administration of the Lord's
Supper. It will be seen that the result of the whole analysis is, the
re-appearance of two distinct formularies, each almost com
plete in itself, the one designed for a ritualistic celebration of
the sacrament by the priest and choir, and the other for its
actual administration to the people. The two might be used
consecutively without any repetition or confusion ; or the
former might be used without the latter, especially on festival
occasions ; or the latter might be used without the former, by

222 The Historic Liturgy.
simply adding a consecrating prayer before administering the
elements. As the Prayer of Consecration, though founded
upon the Catholic ritual, is essentially Protestant in its whole
structure and purport, it has been inserted in both formularies.
The same is still more true of the Prayer for the Church
Militant, which in its Catholic form belonged to the canon or
fixed portion of the Mass (where undoubtedly it has its true
place), but in its Protestant form has by long usage become
practically dissevered from the Sacrament, and has, therefore,
been inserted in the Lord's-day service as well as in the
Communion office.
As to the Commandments, it should be observed that they
are not to be found in any Catholic sacramentary, but were
borrowed from Calvinistic liturgies in 1552, and apparently
put in place of the Lesser Litany, a commandment before
each Kyrie {Lord have inercy) with additional responsive peti
tions of Protestant tenor. They have therefore been restored
to the Lord's Day service, where they follow the Old Testa
ment Lesson as a summary of the Law ; and could the Beati
tudes in like manner follow the New Testament Lesson as a
summary of the Gospel, as has been sometimes proposed, it
would be a very appropriate amendment. The editor con
siders himself limited to formulas which have been at different
times authorized and actually used in the Prayer-book, and
only in this instance has departed from his rule.
The Kyries, thus freed from the Decalogue, have been
retained in their original connection, as they appear in King
Edward's first Prayer-book, and the Gloria in Excelsis has
also been restored to its true position at the beginning of the
office, in accordance with the Lutheran office and with all good
liturgical usage. "The Collects, Epistles, and Gospels to be
used on the Sundays and Holydays throughout the year,"
though some of them are of Protestant date, belong to the
Ordinary or variable portion of the Mass, and have been
ommitted as not essential to the purpose of this essay.
It will now be seen that the Communion office, as thus re-

Composition of the Baptismal Offices. 223
duced to its component parts, exhibits the essentially Chris
tian substance of the Catholic ritual with a Protestant form
of administration, and expresses liturgically that commu
nion of saints at the table of their common Lord and Master,
which is actually experienced in all true churches of Christ,
amid all their varied doctrines and usages.
Composition of the Baptismal Offices.
The analysis of the Baptismal offices, though as easily
made as that of the previous offices, will bring into view the
Catholic rite of church initiation with sharper Protestant
definitions of doctrine, and would require more or less modi
fication in order to adapt it to the belief and practice of some
churches and denominations in this country.
" The Ministration of Public Baptism of Infants " is com
posed of a few Catholic forms interwoven with Protestant
Exhortations, Addresses, Prayers, and Thanksgivings, de
signed to inculcate upon both adults and children the duties
and privileges of church membership. If freed from expres
sions which are supposed to countenance some invariable
moral renovation in the action, and made to admit parents
for sponsors, as now allowed in both the Anglican and some
American churches, it would not be inconsistent with the
teaching of leading denominations, Lutheran, Reformed, Pres
byterian, Congregational, and Methodist.
" The Ministration of Baptism to such as are of Riper
Years," after similar modifications, would express the views
of Baptist congregations which require a pubhc personal
profession of faith as a condition precedent to this sacra
ment, and thus in fact fulfil one design of the office, as
originally framed to meet the case of those who from disbe
lief neglect, or any cause had not been baptized in infancy.
The Catechism, designed for the instruction of baptized
children and other candidates for the communion, corresponds
to similar forms in nearly all the Protestant churches, and is

224 The Historic Liturgy.
in full accord with them, though less dogmatic and scholastic
in style and more meagre in its teaching.
" The Order of Confirmation or Laying on of Hands upon
those that are Baptized and come to Years of Discretion," as
it stands, implies the Episcopal polity of the Latin and Angli
can Churches, as was shown by the disuse of the rite in the
colonial Episcopal churches during the century when they
were without resident bishops. But if freed from that impli
cation, it would agree with the practice of the Greek and
Lutheran churches and after slight modification would express
liturgically the views of Presbyterian churches which hold to
parochial in distinction from diocesan episcopacy, and indeed
of all churches which have any mode of publicly admitting
baptized persons to the Lord's table and full communion.
Of the Baptismal offices in general it may now be remarked
that if, as is often alleged, they are charged with doctrinal
views not held by most American churches, yet such views
are not essentially involved in their liturgical structure and
literary expression, as is proved by the existence not only of
diverse interpretations, but of different versions based upon
different sacramental theories.
Composition of the Occasional Offices.
The remaining offices, as usually distinguished from " The
Book of Common Prayer and Administration of the Sacra
ments," maybe included under the added clause of the title,
"and other rites and ceremonies of the Church," and will be
found to have only an occasional use and importance at the
points of contact between Christianity and social life.
" The Form of Solemnization of Matrimony " contains the
Catholic rite amended with Protestant addresses and prayers,
and freed from all sacramental ceremonies except that of a
discretionary administration of the Holy Communion. Some
indelicate expressions in the introductory address, though
just in themselves, were happily dropt from the Protestant

Composition of the Occasional Offices. 225
Episcopal version; but one or two others inculcating the
Scriptural view of marriage have been wisely retained at the
recent revision.
"The Order for the Visitation of the Sick," is also largely
of Catholic origin, with the exception of the Protestant Form
of Absolution, the Special and Commendatory Prayers, and
the Benediction; and it would need but slight modification in
order to be used by any American minister, either as a model
or as a form, in ministering sick-room consolations.
"The Order for the Burial of the Dead," retains portions
of the Catholic ritual interwoven with the Protestant Lesson
and Psalms, Words of Committal, Consolatory Prayers and
Benediction, — the whole making an office justly celebrated
for its fitness and beauty in all the English-speaking races.
Indeed, the Occasional offices as a class have already won
their way to common use in churches which have no liturgi
cal forms, and in others have superseded forms felt to be less
expressive and appropriate. Add to these offices the Daily
Prayers which are largely used by laymen and ministers, the
Proper or Festival services which are at least warranted by
the popular recognition of such days as Christmas and Easter,
and there will remain only the Communion and Baptismal
offices as needing to be modified in accordance with denomi
national views.
We have now sufficiently analyzed the English Prayer-book
to test its claims to general acceptance as an American liturgy
by such of our churches or congregations as are inclined to
formulize their worship. If it is desired to express liturgic
ally the ordinary devotions of a Christian assembly, the meet
commemoration of the chief Christian events and doctrines,
and the due administration of the Christian rites and cere
monies, there is no collection of forms to be compared with
that which for three centuries has proclaimed the devout
heart of the English speaking races of Christendom.
In the more general use of this historic liturgy by the
historic Churches in our country, there may be a feeling of
IS

226 The Historic Liturgy.
inheritance and ownership in many of its forms as well as an
appreciation of their intrinsic fitness and beauty. The catholic
portions having been reformed from the Roman Breviary and
Missal by the reformers themselves, Luther, Calvin and Bucer
as well as Cranmer, may be regarded as a common heritage
of all the Churches. The Protestant portions may be re
claimed by the Lutheran Church through the formularies of
Melanchthon and Bucer ; by the Reformed Church, through
the liturgies of Calvin, Pollanus, and John a Lasco ; by the
Presbyterian Church, through the emendations of the whole
work by the Westminster divines in the Savoy Conference ;
and by the Protestant Episcopal Church, through their own
version, containing not only the original contributions of the
English compilers but some Presbyterian emendations which
were rejected or neglected at the Savoy Conference in 1661.
In order that the differences between the Catholic and
Protestant forms may appear to the eye, some examples have
been appended, in which the Catholic portions are exhibited
in antique type and the Protestant portions in modern type ;
the marginal notes giving the date, origin, authorship, and
affinity of all the particulars which each office contains.
For more specific references and authorities the reader is
referred to the historical and critical treatise, appended to the
Author's edition of "The Book of Common Prayer, as
amended by the Presbyterian Divines in the Royal Commis
sion of 1661."

Catholic Formularies. 227

XTbe ©rber for /iDatins anb Bpensong tbrougbout
tbe l^ear.
THE LORD'S PRAYER.
\The Priest shall begin with a loud voice the Lord's Prayer, called the Pater
A^oster\
©ur ffatber, wbicb att (n beaven, Iballowe!) be tbg mame. EbB
fting&om come. O^bg will be &one in eartb, as it is in beaven.
(Bive us tbis &as out Oailg brea&. Bnb forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive tbem tbat trespass against us, anO lea& us not
into temptation; JSut Oeliver us from evil: 3for tbine is tbe fting=
&om, Vac power, an& tbe glorB, JFor ever anO ever, amen.^
Then likewise shall the Priest say,
© XorO, open tbou our lips.
Answer. auD our moutb sball sbew fortb tbg praise.^
Priest. © ©oO, mafte speeD to save us.
Answer. © SLorS, mahe baste to help us.^
Here all standing up, the Priest shall say,
©Ions be to tbe Jfatber, anb to tbe Son : an& to tbe Ibolg ©bost ;
Answer. Ss It was in tbe beginning, is now, anb ever sball be :
woria witbout enb. amen.*
Priest, ©raise ge tbe Xor&,=
Answer. The Lord's Name be praised.^
Tlien shall he said or sung this Psalm following : except on Easter Day, upon
which another Anthem is appointed ; and on the Nineteenth Day of every
Month it is not to be read here, but in the ordinary course of the Psalms.
VENITE, EXULTEMUS DOiVIINO.'
© come, let us sing unto tbe 3Lorb : let us beartilB rejoice in tbe
strengtb of our salvation.

1 The Lord's Prayer. Latin Usage, A. D. 1200. Said secretly, until 1st Book
of Edward VI ; thereafter, with " a loud voice."
2 Ps. li : 15. Latin Usage, A. D. 600.
' Ps. Ixx : I. Saxon Usage, A. D. 800.
* Council of Nicsea, A. D. 325. Greek and Latin Usage.
^ Ps. English Usage, A. D. 1549.
« Bp. Laud's Prayer-Book, A. D. 1637. English Usage, A. D. 1661.
' Ps. xcv. Ancient Latin Usage.

2 28 The Historic Liturgy.
Then shall follow the Psalms in order as they are appointed. ^ And at the end
of cTjery Psalm throughout the Year, and likewise at the end of Benedicite,
Benedictus, Magnificat, and Nunc dimittis, shall be repeated,
©lorg be to tbe aFatber, an& to tbe Son : anb to tbe Ibolg ©bost ;
Answer, as it was lu tbe beginning, is now, anb ever sball be :
worlb witbout enb. amen.^
Then shall be read distinctly with an audible voice the First Lesson, taken out
of the Old Testament, as is appointed in the Calendar, except there be proper
Lessons assigned for that day. ' And after that, shall be said or sung, in
English, the Hymn called Te Deum Laudamus, daily throughout the Year,
TE DEUM LAUDAMUS,*
Me praise tbee, © ©ob : we acftnowlebge tbee to be tbe Xorb,
* -K- ******* -X- *
Or this Canticle.
BENEDICITE, OMNIA OPERA. =
© all ise IKIlorfts of tbe XorO, bless ge tbe Xorb : praise bim, anb
magnify bim for ever.
* * * -:t * * * * X * *
Then shall be read in like manner the Second Lesson, taken out of the New
Testament. ^ And after that, the Hytnn following.
BENEDICTUS. 7
:Slesseb be tbe 3Lor& ©ob of fsrael: for be batb visiteb, an&
redeemed bis people ;

Or this Psalm.
JUBILATE DEO.«
© be jogful in tbe Xorb, all ge lands : serve tbe Xord witb glad=
ness, and come before bis presence witb a song.

1 English Usage, A. D. 1549. ^ Enghsh Usage, A. D. 1549.
¦¦' English Usage, A. D. 1549.
* Augustine (?) Ambrose (?) Hilary, A. D. 355. Ancient Latin and
English Usage.
5 " Song of the Three Children," Dan. , Chap, iii and Ps. cxlviii. Jewish,
Greek, Latin, and English Usage.
« English Usage, A. D. 1549.
'St. Luke i, 68. "Song of the Prophet Zacharias." Latin and English
Usage. » Ps. c, English Usage, A. D. 1552.

Catholic Formularies. 229
Then shall be sung or said the Apostles' Creed by the Priest and the people,
standing : ^
H believe in ©od tbe jfatber aimlgbtg, /Ibafter of beaven and
eartb :
and in Jesus Cbrist bis onlg Son our Xord, Mbo was conceived
bg tbe Ibolg ©bost, S5orn of tbe IDirgin /Iftarg, Suffered under
Ipontius ipilate, Mas crucified, dead, and buried, 1be descended
into bell ; tbe third dag be rose again from tbe dead, Ibe ascended
into beaven, and sittetb on tbe right band of ©od tbe ffatber
aimigbtg ; ffrom tbence be sball come to judge tbe quicft and tbe
dead. IF believe in tbe Ibolg ©bost ; tTbe bolg Gatbolicf? Cburcb ; tCbe
Communion of Saints ; c:be forgiveness of sins ; Ube IResurrection
of tbe bodg, and tbe life everlasting, amen.^
And after that, these Prayers following, all devoutly kneeling.
Xlbe Xord be witb gou.
Answer, and Witb tbg spirit.*
Priest. Xet US prag.
Xord, bave mercg upon us.
Cbrist, bave mercg upon us,
Xord, bave mercg upon us.*
Then the Priest standing up, shall say,
© Xord, sbew tbg mercg upon us.
Answer, and grant us tbg salvation.''
Priest. © Xord, save tbe taueen."
Answer, and mercifullg bear us wbcn we call upon tbee,'
Priest. Endue tbg Ministers witb righteousness.
Answer, and malse tbg cbosen people jogful,'
Priest. © Xord, save tbg people.
Answer, and bless tbine inheritance."
Priest, ©ive peace in our time, ® Xord,
^ English Usage, A. D. 1549; By the Priest alone.
2 Roman Origin. RulEnus, A. D. 250.
s Apostolic Origin, Catholic Usage.
* Lesser Litany. Greek Origin, Latin Usage.
5 Ps. Ixxxv. 7. ^ " The State : " P. E. Prayer-book.
' Ps. XX. 9. ' Ps. cxxxii. 9. » Ps. xxviii. 9.

230 The Historic Liturgy.
Answer. JBccause tbere is none otber tbat figbtetb for us, but
onlgtbou, © ©od."
Priest. © ©od, malie clean our hearts witbin us.^
Answer, and take not tbg Ibolg Spirit from us.

Then shall follow three Collects ; the first of the Day, which shall be the same
that is appointed at the Communion ; the second for Peace ; the third for
Grace to live well.^
THE SECOND COLLECT, FOR PEACE.
© ©Od, Wbo art tbe autbor of peace and lover of concord, in
knowledge of wbom standetb our eternal life, whose service is per=
feet freedom; defend us tbg bumble servants in all assaults of our
enemies ; tbat we, surelg trusting in tbg defence, mag not fear tbe
power of ang adversaries; tbrougb tbe migbtof Jesus Cbrist our
Xord. amen.* THE THIRD COLLECT, FOR GRACE.
© Xord, our beavenlg ffatber, aimigbtg and everlasting ©od,
wbo bastsafclg brougbt us to tbe beginning of tbis dag ; ©efend us
in tbe same witb tbg migbtg power; and grant tbat tbis dag we
fall into no sin, neither run into ang ftind of danger ; but tbat all
our doings mag be ordered bg tbg governance, to do alwags tbat is
rigbteous in tbg slgbt ; tbrougb Jesus Cbrist our Xord.^ amen.

A PRAYER OF ST. CHRYSOSTOM.
aimigbtg ©od, wbo bast given us grace at tbis time witb one ac=
cord to mafte our common supplications unto tbee ; and dost prom»
ise, tbat when two or tbrec are gathered together in tbg IRame
tbou wilt grant tbeir requests; ffulfil now, © Xord, tbe desires and
petitions of tbg servants, as mag be most expedient for tbem;
granting us in tbis world knowledge of tbg trutb, and in tbe
world to come life everlasting, amen.
1 Latin Origin. English Usage, A. D. 1549.
2 Ps. U: 10, II.
5 Ancient Origin. Latin and English Usage.
* Sacrementary of Gelasius, A. D. 494. English Usage, A. D. 1549.
5 Sacrementary of Gregory, A. D. 590. Ancient Usage, A. D. 590.

Catholic Formularies. 231
[ The Order for Evensong is like that for Matins with different Canticles and in
place of the Collect for Grace to live Well the following :'\
THE THIRD COLLECT, FOR AID AGAINST ALL PERILS.
Xigbten our datftness, we beseech tbee, © Xord ; and bg tbg
great mercg defend us from all perils and dangers of tbis nigbt ; for
tbe love of tbg onlg Son, our Saviour, Jesus Cbrist, amen.^
XTbe grace of our Xord Jesus Cbrist, and tbe love of ©od, and
tbe fellowship of tbe Ibolg ©bost be witb us all evermore, amen.^

^ Sacramentary of Gelasius, A. D. 494. Ancient Usage.
' From 2 Cor. xiii. Apostolic. Greek Usage. English, l66l.

232 The Historic Liturgy.

Ube Xitans.
A General Supplication, to be sung or said after Morning Prayer upon Sundays,
Wednesdays, and Fridays, and at other times when it shall be appointed.
© ©od tbe JFatber, of beaven: bave mercg upon us miserable
sinners.^ O God the Father, of heaven : have mercy upon us miserable
sinners. ^
© ©Od tbe Son, TRedeemer of tbe world : bave mercg upon us
miserable sinners. ^
O God the Son, Redeemer of the world : have mercy upon us
miserable sinners.*
© ©od tbe Ibolg ©bost, proceeding from the Father and the Son :
bave mercg upon us miserable sinners. =
O God the Holy Ghost, proceeding from the Father and the
Son : have mercy upon us miserable sinners. °
® bolg, blessed, and glorious ITrinitg, three Persons and one ©Od :
bave mercg upon us miserable sinners. '
© bolg, blessed, and glorious Xlrinitg, three persons and one
©od : bave mercg upon us miserable sinners."
ISemember not, Xord, our offences, nor tbe offences of our fore=
fathers ; neither tafte tbou vengeance of our sins : spare us, good
Xord, spare tbg people, wbom tbou bast redeemed witb tbg most
precious blood, and be not angrg witb us for ever."
Spare us, good Xord,^"
3From all evil and mischief ; from sin, from tbe crafts and assaults
of tbe devil ; from tbg wratb, and from everlasting damnation, ^ ^
Good Xord, deliver us.
^ Greek Origin, Latin Usage. Cranmer, A. D, 1544.
2 The Repetition an English Usage, A. D. 1544.
5 Greek Origin. Latin Usage. Cranmer, A. D. 1544.
•" English Usage, A. D. 1544. ^ Greek Origin. Cranmer, A. D. 1544.
8 Enghsh Usage, A. D. 1544.
'Greek Origin. Latin Usage. Cranmer, A. D. 1544.
' English Usage, A. D. 1544.
" Latin Origin. English Usage, A. D. 1544.
1° Latin Origin and Usage. Cranmer, 1544.
1^ Ladn Origin. Bucer, A. D., 1543. Cranmer, A. D. 1544.

Catholic Formularies. 233
From all blindness of heart ; from pride, valn»glorg and bgpoc»
rlsg ; from envg, batred, and malice, and all uncbaritableness,'
Good Xord, deliver us,
ffrom fornication and all otber deadlg sin ; and from all the de
ceits of the world, the flesh, and the devil, ^
Good Xord, deliver us.
Jfrom lightning and tempest ; from plague, pestilence, and fa
mine ; from battle and murder, and from sudden death,*
Good Xord, deliver us.
From all sedition, privy conspiracy, and rebellion ; from all false
doctrine, heresy, and schism ; from hardness of heart, and con
tempt of thy Word and Commandment,*
Good Xord, deliver us.
ffig tbe mgsterg of tbg bolg Uncarnatlon ; bg tbg bolg IRativltg
and Circumcision; bg tbg aSaptism, pasting and Temptation,^
Good Xord, deliver us.
By thine Agony and bloody Sweat ; bg tbg Cross and IPassion ;
bg tbg precious Death and Burial ; bg tbg glorious IResurrection
and ascension; and bg tbe coming of tbe Ibolg ©bost,*
Good Xord, deliver us.
In all time of our tribulation ; in all time of our wealth ; in tbe
hour of death, and in tbe dag of judgement,'
Good Xord, deliver us.
¦ffille sinners do beseech tbee to bear us, O Lord God ; and tbat it
mag please tbee to rule and govern tbg bolg Cburcb universal in
the right way ; *
me beseech tbee to bear us, good Lord.
That it may please thee to illuminate all Bishops, Priests and
Deacons with true knowledge and understanding of thy Word ;
' Latin Origin. Cranmer, A. D. 1544.
^ Latin Origin. Cranmer, A. D. 1544.
" Bucer, A. D. 1543. Cranmer, 1544. Latin: a subitanea et improvisa morte.
* Bucer, A. D. 1543. Cranmer A. D. 1544.
" Latin Origin. Bucer, A. D. 1543.
^ Latin Origin. Bucer, A. D. 1543.
' Latin Origin. Bucer, A. D. 1543.
" Latin Origin. Cranmer and Bucer.

2 34 The Historic Liturgy.
and that both by their preaching and living they may set it forth
and show it accordingly ; ^
"CCle beseech tbee to bear us, good Xord.
That it may please thee to bless the Magistrates, giving them grace
to execute justice, and to maintain truth ; ^
IMe beseecb tbee to bear us, good Xord,
That it may please thee to give to all nations unity, peace, and
concord ; *
IKle beseecb tbee to bear us; good Xord,
That it may please thee to give us an heart to love and dread
thee, and diligently to live after thy commandments ; *
¦OTe beseecb tbee to bear us, good Xord.
That it may please thee to give to all thy people increase of
grace to hear meekly thy Word, and to receive it with pure affec
tion, and to bring forth the fruits of the Spirit ; *
THUe beseecb tbee to bear us, good Xord,
That it may please thee to bring into the way of truth all such as
have erred, and are deceived ; °
Me beseecb tbee to bear us, good Xord.
That it may please thee to strengthen such as do stand : and to
comfort and help the weak-hearted ; and to raise up them that
fall ; and finally to beat down Satan under our feet ; '
•Me beseecb tbee to bear us, good Xord.
That it may please thee to succour, help, and comfort, all that
are in danger, necessity, and tribulation ; *
¦Me beseecb tbee to bear us, good Xord.
That it may please thee to preserve all that travel by land or by
water, all women labouring of child, all sick persons, and young
children ; and to shew thy pity upon all prisoners and captives ; ''
"Me beseecb tbee to bear us, good Xord.
' Bucer and Cranmer, A. D. 1544. ^ Bucer, A. D. 1543.
' English Version. Bucer, A. D. 1543. * Cranmer, A. D. 1544.
'• Bucer, Cranmer, A. D. 1544.
^ Bucer, A. D. 1543. Cranmer, A. D. 1544.
' Bucer, A. D. 1543. « Bucer, A. D. 1543.
' Bucer, A. D. 1543, and Cranmer, A. D. 1544.

Catholic Formularies. 235
That it may please thee to defend, and provide for, the fatherless
children, and widows, and all that are desolate and oppressed ; '
•Me beseecb tbee to bear us, good Xord.
That it may please thee to have mercy upon all men ; ^
"Me beseecb tbee to beat us, good Xord.
That it may please thee to forgive our enemies, persecutors, and
slanderers, and to turn their hearts ; *
"Me beseecb tbee to bear us, good Xord,
O^bat it mag please tbee to give and preserve to our use tbe kindly
fruits of tbe eartb, so as in due time we may enjoy them ; *
"Me beseecb tbee to bear us, good Xord,
That it may please thee to give us true repentance ; to forgive
US all our sins, negligences, and ignorances ; and to endue us with
the grace of thy Holy Spirit to amend our lives according to thy
holy Word ; =
"Me beseecb tbee to bear us, good Xord.
Son of ©od : we beseecb tbee to bear us.
Son of ©od : we beseecb tbee to bear us.
© Xamb of ©od : tbat taftest awag tbe sins of tbe world ;
©rant us tbg peace.
© Xamb of ©od : tbat taltest awag tbe sins of tbe world ;
Ibave mercg upon us.
© Cbrist, bear us.
© Cbrist, bear us.
Xord, bave mercg upon us.
Xord, bave mercg upon us.
Cbrist, bave mercg upon us,
Cbrist, bave mercg upon us,
Xord, bave mercg upon us,
Xord, bave mercg upon us.*
Priest. © Xord, deal not witb us after our sins.
Answer. IFleitber reward us after our iniquities.
Xet us prag,
© ©od, merciful ffatber, tbat despisest not tbe sigbing of a cons
trite heart, nor tbe desire of sucb as be sorrowful ; Mercifullg as=
^ Bucer, A. D. 1543 and Cranmer, A. D. 1544. ^ Bucer, A. D. 1543.
* Bucer, A. D. 1543. - Latin Origin. Cranmer, A. D. 1544.
" Latin Origin. Cranmer, A. D. 1544.
* Lesser Litany. Latin Origin. Bucer, A. D. 1543.

236 The Histo7'ic Liturgy.
sist our pragers tbat we mafte before tbee in all our troubles and
adversities, whensoever tbeg oppress us ; and graciouslg bear us,
tbat tbose evils, which tbe craft and subtiltg of tbe devil or man
worftetb against us, be brougbt to nougbt; and bg tbe providence
of tbg goodness tbeg mag be dispersed ; tbat we tbg servants, bea
ing hurt bg no persecutions, mag evermore give tbanfts unto tbee
in tbg Ibolg Cburcb ; tbrougb Jesus Cbrist our Xord,'
© Xord, arise, help us, and deliver us for tbg Bame's safte.
© ©od, we bave beard witb our cars, and our fatbers bave dea
dared unto us, tbe noble works tbat tbou didst in tbeir dags, and
In tbe old time before tbem.
© Xord, arise, bclp us, and deliver us for tbine honour,
©lorg be to tbe ffatber, and to tbe Son : and to tbe Ibolg ©bost ;
Answer, as it was in tbe beginning, is now, and ever sball be :
world witbout end, amen.
3From our enemies defend us, © Cbrist,
©raciouslg looft upon our afflictions,
IPltlfullg behold tbe sorrows of our hearts,
Mercifullg forgive tbe sins of tbg people.
afavourablg witb mercg bear our pragers.
® Son of David, bave mercg upon us,
JBotb now and ever voucbsafe to bear us, © Cbrist,
©raciouslg bear us, © Cbrist ; graciouslg bear us, © Xord Cbrist,
Priest. © Xord, let tbg mcrcg be shewed upon us ;
Answer. %& we do put our trust In tbee,^
Xet us prag.
"Me bumblg beseecb tbee, © jFatber, mercifullg to looft upon our
infirmities ; and for tbe glorg of tbg IRame turn from us all tbose
evils tbat we most rlgbteouslg bave deserved ; and grant, tbat In
all our troubles we mag put our whole trust and confidence In tbg
mercg, and evermore serve tbee in boliness and pureness of living,
to tbg bonour and glorg ; tbrougb our onlg Mediator and advocate,
Jesus Cbrist our Xord. amen,* 2 Cor. xiii.
tibe grace of our Xord Jesus Cbrist, and the love of ©od, and
tbe fellowship of tbe Ibolg ©bost, be witb us all evermore.
amen.*

^ Modem Usage. Bucer, 1543. ^ Ancient Origin. Cranmer, A. D., 1554.
' Enghsh Usage. A. D., 1549. °' English Usage. Since R. Elizabeth.

Catholic Formularies. 237

XCbe Supper of tbe 3LorC», Ibol? Communion
commonly caUeb tbe /IDass.
T^ie Table, at the Communion-time having a fair white linen cloth upon it, shall
stand in the Body of the Church, or in the Chancel, where Morning and
Evening Prayer are appointed to be said. And the Priest shall say the Lord's
Prayer, with the Collect following, the people kneeling.
©ur ffatber, wblcb art in beaven, fballowed be tbg IRame, c;bg
ftingdomcomc. tlbg will be done In eartb, as it is in beaven. ©ive
us tbis dag our dailg bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we
forgive tbem tbat trespass against us, and lead us not into temp*
tation ; :S3ut deliver us from evil, amen,
THE COLLECT.!
aimigbtg ©od, unto wbom all hearts be open, all desires ftnown,
and from wbom no secrets are bid ; Cleanse tbe thoughts of our
bearts bg tbe Inspiration of tbg Ibolg Spirit, tbat we mag per*
fectlg love tbee, and wortbllg magnifg tbg bolg IRame; tbrougb
Cbrist our Xord, amen.
Then shall be said or sung the Lntroit or Proper Psalm of the day, together with
the Gloria Patri.^
IF will wash mg bands in innocencg, © Xord : and so will 11 go to
tbine altar ;
tibat IF mag sbew tbe voice of tbanftsgiving : and tell of all tbg
wondrous worfts,
Xord, 11 bave loved tbe habitation of tbg bouse : and tbe place
where tbine bonour dwelletb.
After which shall be said or sung,
Xord, bave mercg upon us,''
Cbrist, bave mercg upon us.
Xord, bave mercg upon us.
And then shall be sung, all standing, Gloria in Excelsis.'^
©lorg be to ©od on high, and in eartb peace, good will towards
men, "Me praise tbee, we bless tbee, we worship tbee, we glorifg
tbee, we give tbanfts to tbee for tbg great glorg, © Xord ©od,
beavenlg Ifting, ©od tbe ffatber aimigbtg.
^ Ancient: English Usage, 1549.
2 Catholic and Lutheran usage : Anglican, 1549 : omitted by Cranmer, 1552.
" Primitive Hymn : CathoHc and Lutheran usage : transferred by Cranmer to
Post-Communion.

238 The Historic Liturgy.
© Xord, tbe onlg=begotten Son Jesus Cbrist; © Xord ©od,
Xamb of ©od. Son of tbe 3f atber, tbat taftest awag tbe sins of tbe
world, bave mercg upon us. tlbou tbat taftest awag tbe sins of
tbe world, bave mercg upon us, XTbou tbat taftest awag tbe sins
of tbe world, receive our prager, ^bou tbat sittest at tbe rlgbt
band of ©od tbe aFatber, bave mercg upon us,
if or tbou onlg art bolg ; tbou onlg art tbe Xord : tbou onlg, ©
Cbrist, with tbe Ibolg ©bost, art most bigb in tbe glorg of ©od tbe
JFatber, amen.
Then shall be said the Collect of the Day. And immediately after the Collect the
Priest shall read the Epistle. And the Epistle ended, then shall he read the
Gospel. Llere shall be said or sung,
©lorg be to tbee, ® Xord.'
And the Gospel ended, shall be sung or said the Creed following,''' the people still
standing, as before.
H believe In one ©od tbe father aimigbtg, Mafter of beaven and
eartb, and of all tbings visible and invisible :
and In one Xord Jesus Cbrist, tbe onlgsbegotten Son of ©od,
3Begotten of bis JFatber before all worlds, ©od of ©od, Xlgbt of
Xigbt, IDerg ©od of verg ©od, JBegotten, not made, JSeing of one
substance witb tbe JFatber ; JBg wbom all tbings were made : "Mho
for us men, and for our salvation came down from beaven, and
was incarnate bg the Ibolg ©bost of tbe Wirgin Marg, and was
made man, and was crucified also for us under ipontius ipilate.
Ibe suffered and was buried, and tbe third dag be rose again aca
cording to tbe Scriptures, and ascended into beaven, and sittetb
on tbe right band of tbe JFatber. and be sball come again witb
glorg to judge botb tbe qulcft and tbe dead : mbose ftingdom sball
bave no end.
and IF believe in tbe Ibolg ©bost, tibe Xord and ©iver of Xife,
Mho proceedetb from tbe JFatber and tbe Son, "Mbo witb tbe
JFatber and tbe Son together is worshipped and glorified, "Mbo
spafte bg tbe prophets, and IF believe one Catbolicft and aposs
tolicft Cburcb. IF acftnowledge one asaptlsm for tbe remission of
sins, and H looft for tbe IResurrection of tbe dead, and tbe life of
tbe world to come, amen.
Then the Minister shall declare unto the people what Holy-days, or Fasting-days,
are in the Week following to be observed, and then shall follow the Sermon.
1 Primitive Ascription : Catholic usage : omitted by Cranmer, 1552: Adopted
in American liturgy, 1789.
2 Ancient Eucharistic Confession : Alternative with the Apostles' Creed in
American liturgy.

Catholic Formidaries. 239
Then shall the Priest return to the Lord's Table, and begin the Offertory, saying
one or more of these Sentences following, as he thinketh most convenient in his
discretion.
Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good
works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven. St. Matth. v.
Lay not up for yourselves treasure upon the earth; where the
rust and moth doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and
steal ; but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven ; where neither
rust nor moth doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through
and steal. St. Matth. vi.
Whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, even so do
unto them ; for this is the Law and the Prophets. St. Matth. vii.
*********** While these Sentences are in reading, the Deacons, Church-wardens, or other fit
person appointed for that purpose, shall receive the Alms for the Poor, and
other devotions of the people.
And the Priest shall then place ttpon the Table so much Bread and Wine, as he
shall think sufficient. After which done, the Priest shall say,
Xlft up gour hearts.*
Answer. Me lift tbem up unto tbe Xord.
Priest. Xet US give tbanfts unto our Xord ©od.'
Answer. Ht is meet and right so to do.
Then shall the Priest turn to the Lord's Table, and say,
lit is verg meet, right, and our bounden dutg, tbat we should at
all times, and In all places, give tbanfts unto tbee, © Xord, Ibolg
JFatber, aimigbtg; Everlasting ©od,'
Here shall follow the Proper Preface, according to the time, if there be any speci
ally appointed; or else immediately shall follow,
^Therefore witb angels and archangels, and with all tbe com=
pang of beaven, we laud and magnifg tbg glorious IRame; evcr==
more praising tbee, and saging, Ibolg, bolg, bolg, Xord ©od of
hosts, beaven and eartb are full of tbg glorg : ©lorg be to tbee, ©
Xord most Ibigb. amen,' PROPER PREFACES. 2
Upon Christmas Day, and seven days after.
JBecause tbou didst give Jesus Cbrist tbine onlg Son to be born
' The Sursum Corda, Versicles and Tersanctus were in all ancient liturgies.
2 Catholic : except for Christmas day and Whit Sunday, 1849.

240 The Historic Liturgy.
as at this time for us ; wbo, bg tbe operation of tbe Ibolg ©bost,
was made verg man of tbe substance of tbe Dirgin Marg bis
mother ; and tbat witbout spot of sin, to mafte us clean from all
sin, Cberefore witb angels, etc,
upon Easter Day, and seven days after.
Sut cbieflg are we bound to praise tbee for tbe glorious IResur*
rection of tbg Son Jesus Cbrist our Xord ; for be is tbe verg
Ipascbal Xamb, wbicb was offered for us, and batb taften awag tbe
sin of tbe world ; wbo bg bis death batb destroged death, and bg
bis rising to life again batb restored to us everlasting life. a:ber6»
fore with angels, etc.
upon Ascension Day, and seven days after.
through tbg mostdearlg beloved Son Jesus ©brist our Xord:
wbo after bis most glorious IResurrection manifestlg appeared to
all bis apostles, and In tbeir slgbt ascended up into beaven to pre*
pare a place for us ; tbat wbere be is, tbitber we might also as«
cend, and reign witb bim in glorg. ZIberefore with angels, etc.
upon Whit Sunday, and six days after.
through Jesus Cbrist our Xord ; according to wbose most true
promise, tbe Ibolg ©bost came down as at tbis time from beaven
witb a sudden great sound, as it bad been a migbtg wind, in tbe
lifteness of fierg tongues, lighting upon tbe apostles, to teach
tbem, and to lead tbem to all trutb ; giving tbem botb tbe gift of
divers languages, and also boldness witb fervent seal constantlg
to preach tbe ©ospel unto all nations; wberebg we bave been
brougbt out of darftness and error into tbe clear light and true
ftnowledge of tbee, and of tbg Son Jesus Cbrist. ttberefore witb
angels, etc, upon the Feast of Trinity only.
"Mho art one ©od, one Xord; not one onlg person, but three
iPersons in one Substance. JFor tbat wbicb we believe of tbe glorg
of tbe JFatber, tbe same we believe of tbe Son, and of tbe Ibolg
©bost, witbout ang difference or inequalitg. tEberefore witb
angels, etc.
After each of which Prefaces shall immediately be sung or said,
therefore witb angels and archangels, and with all tbe
compang of beaven, we laud and magnifg tbg glorious IRame;
evermore praising tbee, and saging, Ibolg, bolg, bolg, Xord ©od
of hosts, beaven and eartb are full of tbg glorg ; ©lorg be to tbee^
© Xord most bigb. amen.

Catholic Formularies. 241
When the Priest standing before the Table, hath so ordered the Bread and Wine,
that he may with the more readiness and decency break the Bread before the
people, and take the Cup into his hands, he shall say the Prayer of Consecra
tion, as followeth. ^
Almighty God, our heavenly Father, who of thy tender mercy
didst give thine only Son Jesus Christ to suffer death upon the
Cross for our redemption ; who made there (by his one oblation
of himself once offered) a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, ob
lation, and satisfaction, for the sins of the whole world ; and did
institute, and in his holy Gospel command us to continue, a per
petual memory of that his precious death, until his coming again ;
Hear us, O merciful Father, we most humbly beseech thee ; and
grant that we receiving these thy creatures of bread and wine, ac
cording to thy Son our Saviour Jesus Christ's holy institution, in
remembrance of his death and passion, may be partakers of his
most blessed Body and Blood, who, in the same night that he was
betrayed, took Bread ; and, when he had given thanks, he brake
it, and gave it to his disciples, saying, Take, eat, this is my Body
which is given for you : Do this in remembrance of me. Like
wise after supper he took the Cup ; and when he had given
thanks, he gave it to them, saying, Drink ye all of this ; for this
is my Blood of the New Testament, which is shed for you and for
many for the remission of sins : Do this, as oft as ye shall drink it,
in remembrance of me. ^
¦Mberefore, © Xord and beavenlg JFatber, we, tbg bumble ser=
vants, do celebrate and mafte here before tbg Divine Majestg, witb
these tbg bolg gifts, tbe memorial tbg Son batb commanded us to
mafte; having in remembrance bis blessed passion and precious
death, bis migbtg resurrection and glorious ascension; and ren=
dertng unto tbee most beartg tbanfts for tbe Innumerable benefits
procured unto us bg tbe same, and we entirelg desire tbg
fatberlg goodness mercifullg to accept tbis our sacrifice of praise
and tbanftsgiving ; most bumblg beseeching tbee to grant, tbat bg
tbe merits and death of tbg Son Jesus Cbrist, and tbrougb faitb
in bis blood, we and all tbg \9\i0\z Cburcb mag obtain remission of
' In 1549, here followed the Prayer for the Church Militant (see p. 249, below),
as part of the Canon of Consecration. In 1552, it was placed by Cranmer in
the Ante-Communion, where it is still used.
2 Based upon the Canon by Cranmer : More Protestant than Catholic.
16

242 The Historic Litttrgy.
our sins, and all otber benefits of bis passion, and here we offer
and present unto tbee, © Xord, ourselves, our souls and bodies,
to be a reasonable, bolg, and livelg sacrifice unto tbee ; bumblg
beseeching tbee, tbat all we, wbo are partafters of this bolg Coms
munion, mag be fulfilled witb tbg grace and beavenlg benediction.
and altbougb we be unwortbg, tbrougb our manifold sins, to offer
unto tbee ang sacrifice, get we beseecb tbee to accept tbis our
bounden dutg and service ; not weighing our merits, but pardoning
our offences, tbrougb Jesus Cbrist our Xord ; bg wbom, and witb
wbom, in tbe unitg of tbe Ibolg ©bost, all bonour and glorg be unto
tbee, © JFatber aimigbtg, world witbout end. amen.'
TJie7i shall the Priest say the Loi-d 's Prayer, the people repeating after him every
Petition.
Then shall the Minister first receive the Communion in both kinds himself, ajid
then proceed to deliver the same to the Bishops, Priests, and Deacons, in like
manner (if any be present), and after that to the people also in order, into
their hands, all meekly kneeling. A}id, when he delivereth the Bread to any
one, he shall say,
"ZYiZ 3Bodg Of our Xord Jesus Cbrist, wblcb was given for tbee,
preserve tbg bodg and soul unto everlasting life,^
Take and eat this in remembrance that Christ died for thee, and
feed on him in thy heart by faith with thanksgiving.
And the Minister that delivereth the Cup to any one shall say,
Jibe :ffilood of our Xord Jesus Cbrist, wbicb was shed for tbee,
preserve tbg bodg and soul unto everlasting life.^
Drink this in remembrance that Christ's Blood was shed for
thee, and be thankful.
When all have communicated , the Minister shall return to the Lord' s Table, a7id
reverently place upon it what remaineth of the consecrated Elements, covering
the same with a fair linen cloth.
And after a Hymn has been sung shall be said this Thanksgiving.^
Almighty and everliving God, we most heartily thank thee, for
that thou dost vouchsafe to feed us, who have duly received these
holy mysteries, with the spiritual food of the most precious Body
and Blood of thy Son our Saviour Jesus Christ ; and dost assure
us thereby of thy favour and goodness towards us ; and that we
^ Amendment of Laud : More CathoUc tlian Protestant : adopted in Scottish
and American liturgies.
2 Catholic forms, with Protestant additions by Cranmer.
3 By Bucer and Cranmer, 155^.

Catholic Formularies. 243
are very members incorporate in the mystical body of thy Son, and
which is the blessed company of all faithful people ; and are also
heirs through hope of thy everlasting kingdom, by the merits of
the most precious death and passion of thy dear Son. And we
most humbly beseech thee, O heavenly Father, so to assist us with
thy grace, that we may continue in that holy fellowship, and do
all such good works as thou hast prepared for us to walk in ;
through Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom, with thee and the Holy
Ghost, be all honour and glory, world without end. Amen.
Then the Priest {or Bishop if he be present ) shall let them depart with this Blessing. *
The peace of God, which passeth all understanding, keep your
hearts and minds in the knowledge and love of God, and of his Son
Jesus Christ our Lord ; and the blessing of God Almighty, the
Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, be amongst you and remain
with you always. Amen. 1 By Bucer and Cranmer, 1552.

244 The Historic Liturgy.

THE ORDER FOR DIVINE SERVICE ON THE
LORD'S DAY.
At the beginning of Divine Service on the Lord's Day^ the Minister shall
read zaith a loud voice some one or more of these Sentences of the Scrip
tures that follow. And then he shall say that which is loritten after the
said Sentences.
When the wicked man turneth away from his wickedness that he
hath committed, and doeth that which is lawful and right, he shall
save his soul alive. Ezek. xviii. 27.
I acknowledge my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me.
Psal. li. 3.
Hide thy face from my sins, and blot out all mine iniquities.
Psat. li. 9.
The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit : a broken and a con
trite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise. Psal. li. 17.
Rend your heart, and not your garments, and turn unto the
Lord your God : for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger,
and of great kindness, and repenteth him of the evil. Joel.
ii. 13.
To the Lord our God belong mercies and forgivenesses, though
we have rebelled against him : neither have we obeyed the voice
of the Lord our God, to walk in his laws which he set before us.
Dan. ix. 9, 10.
O Lord, correct me, but with judgement ; not in thine anger,
lest thou bring me to nothing. Jer. x. 24. Psal. vi. i.
Repent ye; for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand. .SV.
Matth. iii. 2.
I will arise, and go to my father, and will say unto him. Father,
I have sinned against heaven, and before thee, and am no more
worthy to be called thy son. St. Luke xv. 18, 19.
Enter not into judgement with thy servant, O Lord ; for in thy
sight shall no man living be justified. Psal. cxliii. 2.
If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the

^ Calvinistic Usage : Genevan " Form of Common Prayers," printed by
Whitechurch , printer of the Prayer-book, June 3, 155°' Pollanus, 155°' English
Usage, A. D., 1552.

Protestant Formtdaries. 245
truth is not in us : hut, if we confess our sins, he is faithful and
just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteous
ness. I St. John i. 8, 9.
Dearly beloved brethren, the Scripture moveth us in sundry
places to acknowledge and confess our manifold sins and wicked
ness; and that we should not dissemble nor cloke them before the
face of Almighty God our heavenly Father ; but confess them with
an humble, lowly, penitent, and obedient heart ; to the end that
we may obtain forgiveness of the same, by his infinite goodness
and mercy. And although we ought at all times humbly to
acknowledge our sins before God ; yet ought we most chiefly so
to do, when we assemble and meet together to render thanks
for the great benefits that we have received at his hands, to set
forth his most worthy praise, to hear his most holy Word, and to
ask those things which are requisite and necessary, as well for the
body as the soul. Wherefore I pray and beseech you, as many as
are here present, to accompany me with a pure heart, and humble
voice, unto the throne of the heavenly grace, saying after me ; '
A General Confession"^ to be said of the whole Congregation after the Minister, all
kneeling.
Almighty and most merciful Father ; AVe have erred, and strayed
from thy ways like lost sheep. We have followed too much the
devices and desires of our own hearts. We have offended against
thy holy laws. We have left undone those things which we ought
to have done ; And we have done those things which we ought not
to have done ; And there is no health in us. But thou, O Lord,
have mercy upon us, miserable offenders. Spare thou them, O
God, which confess their faults. Restore thou them that are peni
tent ; According to thy promises declared unto mankind in Christ
^ Calvinistic Usage : Calvin's Strasburg Liturgy translated for Church of Refu
gees in Glastonbury Abbey, with a Brief Apology for this Liturgy by Valerandus
Pollanus, February 23, 1551. English Compilers, A. D., 1552.
2 Calvinistic Usage at Geneva, A. D., 1541, and Strasburg, A. D., 1538 ; at
Glastonbury, A. D., 1550 ; and in London, A. D., 1550, according to the " Form
of Church Service,'' modeled upon Calvin's Liturgy by John i Lasco with per
mission of Edward VI.

246 The Historic Liturgy.
Jesus our Lord. And grant, O most merciful Father, for his sake ;
That we may hereafter live a godly, righteous, and sober life, To
the glory of thy holy Name. Amen.'
The Absolution, ^ or Remission of sins, to be pronounced by the Minister alone,
standing; the people still kneeling.
Almighty God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who
desireth not the death of a sinner, but rather that he may turn
from his wickedness, and live ; and hath given power, and com
mandment, to his Ministers, to declare and pronounce to his people,
being penitent, the Absolution and Remission of their sins : He
pardoneth and absolveth all them that truly repent, and unfeignedly
believe his holy Gospel. Wherefore let us beseech him to grant us
true repentance, and his Holy Spirit, that those things may please
him, which we do at this present ; and that the rest of our life here
after may be pure, and holy ; so that at the last we may come to
his eternal joy; through Jesus Christ our Lord.* Amen.
Then the Afinister shall kneel, and say the Lord' s Prayer ; the people also kneel
ing, and repeating it with him.
Our Father, which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy Name. Thy
kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth. As it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses,
As we forgive them that trespass against us. And lead us not into
temptation ; But deliver us from evil : For thine is the kingdom.
The power, and the glory. For ever and ever. Amen.
[ Then shall be sung, all standing, a Psalm, as following~\.
PSALM CHI. Benedic, anima mea.
Praise the Lord, O my soul : and all that is within me praise his
holy Name.
Praise the Lord, O my soul : and forget not all his benefits ;
Who forgiveth all thy sin : and healeth all thine infirmities ;
^ Composed by Cranmer and other Compilers, 1552.
^Calvinistic Doctrine; Institutes, Bk. iv, Ch. i, §22; Bk. iii, Ch. iv, §14,.
A. D. 1536. Calvinistic Usage at Strasburg, 1538, Glastonbury and London, 1550-
* Compiled from a Form in Calvinistic Liturgy of John jl Lasco, by Cranmer
and Compilers.

Protestant Formularies. 247
Who saveth thy life from destruction : and crowneth thee with
mercy and loving-kindness ;
O praise the Lord, ye angels of his, ye that excel in strength :
ye that fulfil his commandment, and hearken unto the voice of his
words. O praise the Lord, all ye his hosts : ye servants of his that do
his pleasure.
O speak good of the Lord, all ye works of his, in all places of
his dominion : praise thou the Lord, O my soul.
Then shall be read a Lesson taken out of the Old Testament. After which
the Minister shall rehearse distinctly ail the TEN COMMAND
MENTS;'^ and the people kneeling shall, after every Commandme7it,
ask God mercy for their transgression thereof for the time past, and grace to
keep the same for the time to come, as followeth.
Minister. God spake these words, and said ; I am the Lord thy
God : Thou shalt have none other gods hut me.
People. Xord, bave mercg upon us, and incline our hearts to
keep this law. ^
Minister. Thou shalt not make to thyself any graven image,
nor the likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or in the
earth beneath, or in the water under the earth. Thou shalt not
bow down to them, nor worship them : for I the Lord thy God am
a jealous God, and visit the sins of the fathers upon the children,
unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me, and
shew mercy unto thousands in them that love me, and keep my
commandments. People. Xord, have mercg upon us, and incline our hearts to
keep this law.
Minister. Thou shalt not take the Name of the Lord thy God
in vain ; for the Lord will not hold him guiltless, that taketh his
Name in vain.
People. Xord, have mercg upon us, and incline our hearts to
keep this law.
Minister. Remember that thou keep holy the Sabbath-day.
Six days shalt thou labour, and do all that thou hast to do ; but
1 Calvinistic usage at Geneva, Strasburg, Glastonbury and London. Pollanus,
1551- 2 The Catholic Lesser Litany with Protestant additions, A. D. 1552.

248 The Historic Liturgy.
the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God. In it thou
shalt do no manner of work, thou, and thy son, and thy daughter,
thy man-servant, and thy maid-servant, thy cattle, and the stranger
that is within thy gates. For in six days the Lord made heaven and
earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day :
wherefore the Lord blessed the seventh day, and hallowed it.
People. Xord, bave mercg upon us, and incline our hearts to
keep this law.
Minister. Honour thy father and thy mother ; that thy days
may be long in the land, which the Lord thy God giveth thee.
People. Xord, have mercg upon us, and incline our hearts to
keep this law.
Minister. Thou shalt do no murder.
People. Xord, have mercg upon us, and incline our hearts to
keep this law.
Minister. Thou shalt not commit adultery.
People. Xord, have mercg upon us, and incline our hearts to
keep this law.
Minister. Thou shalt not steal.
People. Xord, bave mercg upon us, and incline our hearts to
keep this law.
Minister. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neigh
bour. People. Xord, bave mercg upon us, and incline our hearts to
keep this law.
Minister. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house, thou
shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife, nor his servant, nor his maid,
nor his ox, nor his ass, nor anything that is his.
People. Xord, have mercg upon us, and write all these thy laws
in our hearts, we beseech thee.'
Then shall be read a Lesson taken out of the New Testament. \_After which
the Minister shall pronounce the Eight Beatitudes or Blessings of the Gospel,
and the People standing shall, after every Blessing, declare the reason given
for the same as follo^veth'\. ^
And Jesus opened his mouth and taught his disciples, saying :
^ Summary Petition in Liturgy of Pollanus.
2 Proposed Prayer-book A. D. 1682. Presbyterian, Unitarian and Episcopal
suggestion.

Protestant Formularies. 249
Blessed are the poor in spirit :
People. For theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Minister. Blessed are they that mourn :
People. For they shall be comforted.
Minister. Blessed are the meek :
People. For they shall inherit the earth.
Minister. Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after
righteousness :
People. For they shall be filled.
Minister. Blessed are the merciful :
People. For they shall obtain mercy.
Minister. Blessed are the pure in heart :
People. For they shall see God.
Minister. Blessed are the peace-makers :
People. For they shall be called the children of God.
Minister. Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteous
ness' sake :
People. For theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
And then the Minister and People, still standing, shall say the Apostles' Creed.
I Believe in God the Father Almight)', 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 from the dead ; He ascended into
heaven, And sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty ;
From thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Ghost ; The Holy Catholic Church ; The
Communion of Saints ; The Forgiveness of sins ; The Resurrec
tion of the body ; And the Life everlasting. Amen.
Then, if the Holy Communion is to follow, shall the Minister say ;
Let us pray for the whole state of Christ's Church militant here
in earth. '
1 Knox's Book of Common Order. Amended according to Bucer's Censura,
A. D. 1552.

250 The Historic Liturgy.
Almighty and everliving God, who by thy holy Apostle hast
taught us to make prayers, and supplications, and to give thanks,
for all men ; We humbly beseech thee most mercifully to receive
these our prayers, which we offer unto thy Divine Majesty ; be
seeching thee to inspire continually the universal Church with the
spirit of truth, unity, and concord : And grant, that all they that
do confess thy holy Name may agree in the truth of thy holy
Word, and live in unity, and godly love. We beseech thee also
to save and defend all Christian Kings, Princes, and Governors ;
and especially thy Servant [our chief magistrate] ; And grant unto
all that are put in authority, that they may truly and indifferently
minister justice, to the punishment of wickedness and vice, and to
the maintenance of thy true religion, and virtue. Give grace, O
heavenly Father, to all Bishops and [Ministers], that they may
both by their life and doctrine set forth thy true and lively Word,
and rightly and duly administer thy holy sacraments : And to all
thy people give thy heavenly grace ; and especially to this congre
gation here present : that, with meek heart and due reverence,
they may hear, and receive thy holy Word ; truly serving thee in
holiness and righteousness all the days of their life. And we most
humbly beseech thee of thy goodness, O Lord, to comfort and
succour all them, who in this transitory life are in trouble, sorrow,
need, sickness, or any other adversity. And we also bless thy holy
Name for all thy servants departed this life in thy faith and fear ;
beseeching thee to give us grace so to follow their good examples,
that with them we may be partakers of thy heavenly kingdom :
Grant this, O Father, for Jesus Christ's sake, our only Mediator
and Advocate.' Amen.
Or else these Prayers following, together with any special Prayers or Thanks
givings upon several occasions which may be requisite and fitting.
A PRAYER FOR ALL CONDITIONS OF MEN. 2
O God, the Creator and Preserver of all mankind, we humbly
' Protestant emendation of Catholic Canon of the Mass by Cranmer, in 1st
Bk. of Edward.
2 Bishop Sanderson or Bishop Gunning, A. D. , 1661. Due to Presbyterian
Revision.

Protestant Formularies. 251
beseech thee for all sorts and conditions of men ; that thou would-
est be pleased to make thy ways known unto them, thy saving
health unto all nations. More especially we pray for the good es
tate of the Catholick Church ; that it may be so guided and gov
erned by thy good Spirit, that all who profess and call themselves
Christians may be led into the way of truth, and hold the faith in
unity of spirit, in the bond of peace, and in righteousness of life.
Finally, we commend to thy fatherly goodness all those, who are
any ways afflicted, or distressed, in mind, body, or estate ; [i?j--
pecially those for whom our prayers are desired^ that it may
please thee to comfort and relieve them, according to their sev
eral necessities, giving them patience under their sufferings, and
a happy issue out of all their afflictions. And this we beg for
Jesus Christ his sake. Amen.
A PRAYER FOR THE CHIEF MAGISTRATE AND ALL IN AU
THORITY, i
O Lord, our heavenly Father, high and mighty King of kings.
Lord of lords, the Blessed and only Potentate, who dost from thy
throne behold all the dwellers upon earth ; Most heartily we be
seech thee v.'ith thy favor to behold [thy chosen servant our Chief
Magistrate, his counsellors and all others in authority] ; and so
replenish them with the grace of thy Holy Spirit, that they may
always incline to thy will, and walk in thy way. Endue them
plenteously with heavenly gifts ; grant them in health, [peace, and
godliness] to rule ; and finally, after this life, to attain everlasting
joy and felicity ; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
A PRAYER FOR THE CLERGY AND PEOPLE. 2
aimigbtg and everlasting ©od, wbo alone worftest great marvels;
Send down upon our SSlsbops, [and other Ministers], and all Con=
gregations committed to tbeir charge, tbe bealtbful Spirit of tbg
grace ; and tbat tbeg mag trulg please tbee, pour upon tbem tbe
continual dew of tbg blessing, ©rant tbis © Xord, for tbe bonour
of our advocate and Mediator, Jesus Cbrist. amen.
1 Early Reformed. English usage till 1661.
2 Ancient Collect. Amended in 1641 and 1689."

252 The Historic Liturgy.
A GENERAL THANKSGIVING.'
Almighty God, Father of all mercies, we thine unworthy ser
vants do give thee most humble and hearty thanks for all thy good
ness and loving-kindness to us, and to all men ; \_particularly to
those who desire now to offer up their praises and thanksgivings for
thy late mercies vouchsafed unto them.'\ We bless thee for our
creation, preservation, and all the blessings of this life ; but above
all, for thine inestimable love in the redemption of the world by
our Lord Jesus Christ ; for the means of grace, and for the hope
of glory. And, we beseech thee, give us that due sense of all
thy mercies, that our hearts may be unfeignedly thankful, and that
we shew forth thy praise, not only with our lips, but in our lives ;
by giving up ourselves to thy service, and by walking before thee
in holiness and righteousness all our days ; through Jesus Christ
our Lord, to whom with thee and the Holy Ghost be all honour
and glory, world without end. Atnen.
A PRAYER THAT MAY BE SAID AFTER ANY OF THE FORMER.
aimigbtg ©od, wbo bast promised to bear tbe petitions of tbem
tbat asft in tbg Son's IRame; "Me beseecb tbee mercifullg to
incline tbine ears to us tbat bave made now out pragers and
supplications unto tbee ; and grant, tbat tbose tbings, wblcb we
bave fattbfullg asfted according to tbg will, mag effectuallg be
obtained, to tbe relief of our necessitg, and to tbe setting fortb of
tbg glorg ; tbrougb Jesus Cbrist our Xord,^ amen.
And after the Prayers shall follow a Hymn and the Sermon. And the Sermon
ended, then shall be said this Collect^, or some suitable Prayer, with the
Benediction.
Grant, we beseech thee, Almighty God, that the words, which
we have heard this day with our outward ears, may through thy
grace be so grafted inwardly in our hearts, that they may bring
forth in us the fruit of good living, to the honour and praise of
thy Name ; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

1 The Presbyterian Bishop Reynolds. A. D. 1661.
2 Ancient Collect. English Usage.
2 English Reformed, 1549.

Protestant Formularies. 253
The peace of God, which passeth all understanding, keep your
hearts and minds in the knowledge and love of God, and of his
Son Jesus Christ our Lord : And the Blessing of God Almighty,
the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, be amongst you, and
remain with you always. Amen.

2 54 The Historic Liturgy.

THE ORDER OF PREPARATION FOR THE LORD'S
SUPPER.
IVhen the Minister giveth warning for the celebration of the holy Commutiion
[which he shall always do upon the Sunday, or some Holy-day, i?nmediately
preceding), after the Sermon or Homily ended, he shall read this Exhortation
following. '
Dearly beloved, on — day next I propose, through God's as
sistance, to administer to all such as shall be religiously and de
voutly disposed the most comfortable Sacrament of the Body and
Blood of Christ ; to be by them received in remembrance of his
meritorious Cross and Passion ; whereby alone we obtain remis
sion of our sins, and are made partakers of the kingdom of heaven.
>l=* H< ^ ^ * * ^;|<
And because it is requisite, that no man should come to the holy
Communion, but with a full trust in God's mercy, and with a quiet
conscience ; therefore if there be any of you, who by this means
cannot quiet his own conscience herein, but requireth further com
fort or counsel, let him come to me, or to some other discreet and
learned Minister of God's Word, and open his grief; that by the
ministry of God's holy Word he may receive the benefit of abso
lution, together with ghostly counsel and advice, to the quieting
of his conscience, and avoiding of all scruple and doubtfulness. "
Or, in case he shall see the people negligent to come to the holy Communion, in
stead of the former, he shall use this Exhortation. *
Dearly beloved brethren, on  I intend, by God's grace,
to celebrate the Lord's Supper : unto which, in God's behalf, I
bid you all that are present ; and beseech you, for the Lord Jesus
Christ's sake, that ye will not refuse to come thereto, being so lov
ingly called and bidden by God himself.
^ ^jC ^jC ^> 5j^ ^ i^ J^ xi
1 Calvinistic Usage. From Cologne Liturgy or Hermann's Consultation, A.
D. 1543, "a quasi-Lutheran production of Melanchthon and Bucer." Inserted
in English "Order of Communion" in 1848; sent to Calvin for approval.
Knox's Book of Common Order.
2 Calvin's Institutes, Book III, Chapter iv, \ 14. Revisions of 1552 and i56l.
¦' Peter Martyr.

Protestant Formularies. 255
At the time of the celebration of the Communion the Minister may say this Ex
hortation. '
Dearly beloved in the Lord, ye that mind to come to the holy
Communion of the Body and Blood of our Saviour Christ, must
consider how Saint Paul exhorteth all persons diligently to try and
examine themselves, before they presume to eat of that Bread, and
drink of that Cup.
^^ '^ % '^ if % ^^
Then shall the Minister say to them that come to receive the holy Communion. ''
Ye that do truly and earnestly repent you of your sins, and are
in love and charity with your neighbours, and intend to lead a new
life, following the commandments of God, and walking from
henceforth in his holy ways ; Draw near with faith, and take this
holy Sacrament to your comfort ; and make your humble confes
sion to Almighty God, meekly kneeling upon your knees.
Then shall this general Confession be made, in the name of all those that are
minded to receive the holy Communion, by one of the Ministers. *
Almighty God, Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Maker of all
things. Judge of all men ; We acknowledge and bewail our mani
fold sins and wickedness, Which we, from time to time, most
grievously have committed, By thought, word, and deed. Against
thy Divine Majesty, Provoking most justly thy wrath and indigna
tion against us. We do earnestly repent, And are heartily sorry for
these our misdoings; The remembrance of them is grievous unto
us ; The burden of them is intolerable. Have mercy upon us,
Have mercy upon us, most merciful Father ; For thy Son our
Lord Jesus Christ's sake. Forgive us all that is past; And grant
that we may ever hereafter serve and please thee In newness of life.
To the honour and glory of thy Name ; Through Jesus Christ our
Lord. Amen.
Then shall the Minister {or the Bishop, being present^ pi'onounce this Absolution.*
Almighty God, our heavenly Father, who of his great mercy
1 Calvinistic. Composed by Peter Martyr. Suggested by Bucer and Knox.
Presbyterian Revision, 1661.
2 English order of Communion. Lutheran and Calvinistic.
* Calvinistic, Pollanus. English Reformed.
* Catholic. Protestant amended. Lutheran and Calvinistic.

256 The Historic Liturgy.
hath promised forgiveness of sins to all them that with hearty re
pentance and true faith turn unto him ; Have mercy upon you ;
pardon and deliver you from all your sins ; confirm and strengthen
you in all goodness ; and bring you to everlasting life ; through
Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Then shall the Minister say,'^
Hear what comfortable words our Saviour Christ saith unto all
that truly turn to him.
Come unto me all that travail and are heavy laden, and I will
refresh you. St. Matth. xi. 28.
So God loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son, to
the end that all that believe in him should not perish, but have
everlasting life. St. John iii. 16.
Hear also what Saint Paul saith.
This is a true saying, and worthy of all men to be received,
that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, i Tim. i. 15.
Hear also what Saint John saith.
If any man sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus
Christ the righteous ; and he is the propitiation for our sins, i St.
John ii. I.
Then shall the Minister say in the name of all them that shall receive the Com
munion this Prayer following. ^
We do not presume to come to this thy Table, O merciful Lord,
trusting in our own righteousness, but in thy manifold and great
mercies. We are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs
under thy Table. But thou art the same Lord, whose property is
always to have mercy : Grant us therefore, gracious Lord, so to
eat the flesh of thy dear Son Jesus Christ, and to drink his blood,
that our sinful bodies may be made clean by his body, and our
souls washed through his most precious blood, and that we may
evermore dwell in him, and he in us. Amen.
And then shall follow the Mijiistration.
1 Calvinistic usage at Geneva. Strasburg Liturgy.
2 Protestant. English Order of Communion. Bucer and Cranmer.

IX.

THE SOCIOLOGICAL QUESTION 01
CHURCH UNITY.

IX.
THE SOCIOLOGICAL QUESTION OF CHURCH UNITY.^
" How were Christians employed," said Voltaire, " whilst
the Saracens were ravaging the fairest portion of Christen
dom ? Disputing whether Christ had one will or two ! "
The sneer was shallow enough ; but it seems almost deserved
when we weigh the forgotten Monothelite controversy against
that Christian civilization which was in peril until after the
Crusades. Perhaps, too, we may find history repeating itself
in our own time.
The situation of the Christian denominations in modern
society is not unlike that of a wrangling army among invad
ing foes. It is not a petty quarrel before the onset, but a bitter
feud in mid-battle. The contending factions have become so
absorbed that they do not even see the hosts mustering
around them and the ranks closing in upon them. Worst of
all, they have neither organization nor leadership in their
hour of peril.
Meanwhile, too, may still be heard the old Voltairian sneer
with modern variations : " You Christians are disputing
whether the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father as well as
the Son, whilst multitudes have not even heard if there be a
Holy Ghost; whether any infants have been elected from

1 This essay appeared in the Century Magazine for 1890, as one of the series
of Present Day Papers issued under the supervision of a Sociological Group com
posed of the Right Rev. Henry C. Potter, Prof. Charles W. Shields, Rev. Dr.
Theodore T. Munger, Rev. Dr. Wm. Chauncy Langdon, Rev. Dr. Samuel W.
Dike, President Seth Low, Prof. Richard T. Ely, Right Rev. Hugh Miller
Thompson, Prof. Charles A. Briggs, Rev. Dr. Washington Gladden, Prof.
Francis G. Peabody, President William F. Slocum, Jr., The Hon. Edward J.
Phelps, Prof. William J. Sloane, and Charles Dudley Warner, Esq.
259

26o The Sociological Question.
) eternity, whilst myriads of infants are growing up in vice and
sin ; whether the heathen on the other side of the globe will
\ hereafter be saved, whilst the heathen at your own doors are
already lost. You are splitting hairs of theology, with society
• falling to pieces around you. If this be Christianity, we want
none of it. Settle your useless disputes and unite vigorously
in improving the world that now is, and then we will listen
to your promises of a better world to come."
The writer would be no alarmist in his view of the social
necessities for church unity. But surely, if social ills are fast
coming to a crisis, it is folly to ignore them ; and if organized
Christianity is their only perfect remedy, it is madness to
withhold that remedy. The Church would simply be a con
spicuous failure did not it thus become the light of the world
and the salt of the earth. To instruct and preserve society is
at least one design, if not the chief design, of the Christian
religion as organized in the Church. Whatever other great
purposes it may serve as a training-school of individuals for
heaven, it has also this high social mission here upon earth.
And with this social mission of Christianity we, in our collec
tive capacity, have mainly to do.
It should be remembered that our social troubles are not
wholly economic or political in their nature. The problems
of marriage, temperance, education, property, involve moral
elements. Even the so-called conflict between labor and
capital is no mere play of impersonal forces, but also a fierce
struggle of human passions and prejudices, and the actors in
it cannot be manipulated like so many chessmen in the game
of politics. In fact, our wisest statesmanship already stands
baffled before these problems. They have passed beyond the
control of parties, the machinery of legislation, and the de
vices of political economy. It is becoming plain that they
are not to be solved by divorce statutes, prohibitory amend
ments, conspiracy laws against strikes and boycotts ; much
less by improved police systems and new barricade tactics.
If solved at all, the solution must be largely moral and even

Early Christian Socialism. 261
religious, striking at the roots of social corruption in ignor
ance and vice ; imparting integrity to all classes ; binding to
gether laborer and capitalist in bonds of charity as well as
interest ; and ever nobly diffusing culture with wealth, virtue
with intelligence, religion with knowledge, Christianity with
civilization. From this high point of view the Christian religion has an
imperious claim upon the patriot and the statesman. Even
that citizen who does not accept it must recognize it as at
least part of our national life and a potent force in public
affairs. If he should choose to view it simply as a moraliz
ing agent, aside from all religious doctrines, it would still
have an immense political value. Compared with other
religions, it would afford the best political morality that the
world has ever known. As a matter of fact, however, we are
neither an infidel nor a heathen people. Our whole civiliza
tion is essentially Christian. Our institutions and laws have
their roots in Christian ethics. The very seat of our sover
eignty is in a Christian citizenship. The most unscrupulous
politician dare not defy the Christian sentiment of the nation.
The most philosophic statesman cannot afford to ignore it.
And the time may not be far off when the organization of the
Christian denominations against menacing social evils — in
other words, church unity — shall have become a social as well
as an ecclesiastical question, and a question belonging to the
domain of practical rather than mere sentimental politics.
This will be seen more clearly as we proceed to trace the
historical relations of socialism with Christianity to their
present critical stage in this country.
Early Christian Socialism.
Socialism originated in Christianity. It was born in the
golden age of the Church, on the day of Pentecost, when " the
multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one
soul ; neither said any of them that ought of the things which
he possessed was his own ; but they had all things common.

262 The Sociological Question.
Neither was there any among them that lacked ; for as many
as were possessors of lands or houses sold them, and brought
the prices of the things that were sold, and laid them down at
the apostles' feet ; and distribution was made unto every man
according as he had need." That brief brilliant dream of
social perfection has lingered ever since in the Christian con
sciousness as an ideal of prayer and effort. Countless attempts
have been made to realize it, many of them crude and gro
tesque, but some of them noble and hopeful. The monastic
communities of the early church, both Greek and Roman, the
great religious orders of the Middle Ages, the Benedictines,
the Dominicans, the Franciscans, with their various branches,
were only so many socialistic organizations based upon the
renunciation of property, marriage and citizenship. Com
munistic sects were born of the pentecostal zeal of the Refor
mation ; some of them, like the German Anabaptists and
English Fifth Monarchists, assailing both church and state
with revolutionary violence, whilst others, like the Shakers
and Harmonists, sought an asylum in the New World and
founded peaceful retreats of piety and virtue. Besides these
imported forms of Christian socialism we have had our own
indigenous growth, such as the Unitarian Association of Trans-
cendentalists at Brock Farm and the Orthodox Community
of Perfectionists at Oneida. And now, as mild types of the
same spirit, we have in some of our churches revived brother
hoods and sisterhoods with voluntary vows of poverty, celi
bacy and charity.
Not only has socialism prevailed within the Church, but its
offshoots have flourished like the wild olive beyond the pale,
if not as direct fruits of Christianity, yet as products of a
Christian civilization. The various eleemosynary institutions
for the relief of social ills — hospitals, asylums, reformatories,
penitentiaries — were once managed by the clergy alone, and
may all be traced back to the example and doctrine of that
divine Philanthropist who taught the parable of the Good
Samaritan and wrought miracles of healing upon the bodies

Early Christian Socialism. 263
as well as souls of men. The numerous friendly and benefi
ciary societies for mutual help in sickness and misfortune,
such as the Free Masons, the Odd Fellows, the Knights of
Pythias, etc., are only remote descendants of the Christian
guild, and often born of the Christian spirit, even when not
baptized with a Christian name. Propagandist orders, like
the Sons of Temperance and the Brethren of the White
Cross, aim directly at Christian virtues. Many of the modern
schemes of social regeneration have simply borrowed the
Christian ideas of liberty, equality, fraternity, charity. Saint-
Simon styled his socialistic treatise " New Christianity.'' It
is often claimed that industrial fraternities are doing the work
of a practical Christianity. To Christianity, indeed, the work
ing classes owe their enfranchisement and their organization.
The pagan world knew nothing of the dignity of free labor.
In no heathen land has the toiler ceased to be a slave, or a
serf, or a mere drudge and outcast. In Christian nations
alone, have associations of workingmen for their own im
provement and elevation, such as trades unions, and Knights
of Labor, become possible. Even the Anarchist owes to a
Christian State the free arm with which he is now blindly
striking back at the mother which nourished him.
It would be interesting to trace historically the process by
which such socialism has become alienated from the church
and even from Christianity itself, and to survey its existing
forms in different European countries, such as French com
munism, German social democracy, Russian nihilism, and
international anarchism. At present, however, we need only
take into view the amalgamated product as we find it in our
own country. No easy task will it be to sift the confused
materials of American socialism and trace their proper rela
tions to the Christianity coexisting with them. They involve
such a mixture of truth and error, right and wrong, good and
evil, that it is difficult even to state fairly both sides of the
question. At the same time, any overstatement or under
statement alike might prove misleading and hurtful. Trusting

264 The Sociological Question.
that the reader will judge the arguments as a whole rather
than in detached parts, I venture now to speak of the several
kinds and grades of socialism which confront the American
churches and with which they must soon come to an under
standing. Anti-Christian Socialism.
The first is a thoroughly antichristian socialism which is
loud and forward, but not formidable in numbers or influence.
It is found chiefly among the French, German, Russian,
PoHsh, and Hebrew refugees, known as " Internationalists,"
though it gains some strange recruits on our own soil. It
means revolution as it waves the black and red flags, which
have become so portentous emblems of violence and blood
shed. Avowedly, through all its organs, it aims to annihilate
the Christian institutions of the church, the state, and the
family, and to bring in pure anarchy, either as essential to the
freedom of the individual or as a condition precedent to
some reconstruction of society on industrial principles for
the good of the workingman. By whatever subtle reasonings
it vindicates to itself such ends, there can be no mistaking its
means and methods. These are not arguments or even
ballots, but the torch and the bomb as soon as they shall be
come practicable. Its incendiary journals plainly advocate
arson, pillage, assassination, and hail the discovery of dyna
mite as a timely boon to the anarchist. Through its chief
manifesto at Pittsburg it has declared that " the Church seeks to
make complete idiots out of the masses by leading them to fore
go the paradise on earth for a fictitious heaven; " has advised
workmen to the policy of " revolutionary conspiracy ; " and
has warned their oppressors that just before them are dawn
ing " the scarlet and sable colors of the Judgment Day."
At first sight it would seem that Christianity could make
no terms with such socialism, but must simply leave it in the
grasp of the outraged law as an enemy of civilization no less
than religion. Certainly men with arms in their hands are
not open to reason, and dynamite cannot be met with argu-

spurious Christian Socialism. 265
ment. Nor will the issue be doubtful should anarchism ever
rouse the great law-abiding mass of the people. But this is
not precisely the most Christian mood in which to watch the
struggle. Rather may such fanatics become the objects of
pity and sorrow than of hatred. It should not be forgotten
that the French anarchist and the Russian nihilist are the off
spring of corrupt hierarchies and despotic governments ; that
generations of wrong and outrage are rankling in their blood ;
and that these hereditary strains are not to be checked at
once even by an environment of free institutions. In their
view the policeman, the capitalist, the clergyman, are only old
oppressors in new guises. It is not necessary to persecute
them, but only to make their existence unreasonable. If the
churches cannot reach them with religious teaching and con
solation, they may hope at least to arrest the growth of such
madness in a free Christian land.
Spurious Christian Socialism.
There is, secondly, a spurious Christian socialism, which
falsely claims for itself religious doctrines and motives. It is
a more American product than anarchism, though a remark
able form of it has been imported among us in the writings
of the Russian Count Tolstoi. It expresses itself variously,
not only in communistic associations which plead a scriptural
warrant, but in labor fraternities which seek to indoctrinate
as well as to organize the working masses. Its assumption
is that Christ himself, as a workingman, founded industrial
socialism ; that he came to abolish poverty and other class
distinctions ; and that he now sides with the great labor
movement in all its aims and efforts. Consistently it speaks
of "Jesus the communistic Anarchist," sings hymns to " the
Carpenter Christ," and applies the parable of Lazarus and
Dives to the impoverished laborer and pampered capitalist.
The charge is sometimes made that this bastard form of
Christian socialism has been misbegotten of the church itself,

266 The Sociological Question.
through its own neglect and sin. Workingmen, it is said,
having been long treated as social outcasts by the respectable
denominations, have learned to discriminate between the
church as corrupted with wealth and worldliness and a plain
Christianity retained by them as it came from the hands of
its Author. Rashly seconding such views, the priest has left
the altar and the minister his pulpit to lead a new crusade
against the rich and preach another Gospel to the poor.
Some self-sacrificing clergymen, under vows of poverty, have
openly joined the ranks of the poor as a class to share their
hardships and espouse their cause ; whilst others from the
pulpit and the platform are eloquently denouncing our luxuri
ous, pewed churches as mere religious club-houses, and lay
ing at their doors all the want, crime, and wretchedness
which disgrace our civilization.
Such charges ought not to be lightly brought nor lightly
tossed aside. If they seem to have little applicability to the
rural districts, they can find only too much justification in our
large cities, where vast accumulations of wealth, through the
fashion and culture which wealth brings, tend to widen the
breach between the social extremes and render even their
religious intercourse uncongenial, if not impracticable. There
is danger of exaggeration on both sides. Without extenuat
ing the faults of wealthy congregations we should not forget
their costly missions and personal efforts in the slums and at
the frontiers. Without belittling the grievances of laboring
men, we must remember that they are not the only class
alienated from Christianity, but may be merely sharing in a
general worldliness which rages outside of the churches far
more fiercely than within them. After all that may be said
there will remain the plain duty of distinguishing the true
from a false Christian socialism. No one, high or low, rich
or poor, can be interested in having evangelical truths carica
tured and perverted.

Christian Doctrine of Social Distinctions. 267
Christian Doctrine of Social Distinctions.
As to the right Christian estimate of social distinctions, for
example, nothing will ever be gained by telling only half the
truth because the other half may be unpopular. It is simply
a degradation of Holy Scripture, well meant, but thoughtless
and mischievous, to dwell upon the incidents that our Saviour
was the son of a carpenter, that some of his apostles were
fishermen and his disciples taken largely from the common
people, and then throw his glorious doctrine into the opposite
scale as a mere makeweight for the want of social culture.
It is bartering with the world upon its own terms, and no
marvel if it be accepted as but the homage of envy. Besides,
it is not founded on facts. The authors of such writings as
the Gospels and Epistles could not have been wholly illiterate
and rude. The truth is, that many of the distinctions of
modern society did not exist among the ancient Hebrews.
The prejudice against manual labor was little known, and
avocations which are now simply respectable were then even
honorable, associated with rank and learning. Every well-
educated Jewish youth was taught some handicraft, and
would have been disgraced without it. If St. Paul plied his
trade of tent-making at Corinth, did he not show the culture
of a scholar among the philosophers of Athens, the breeding
of a gentleman at the court of Festus, and the patrician spirit
of a Roman citizen before the magistrates of Philippi ? Even
that Divine Son of a carpenter himself, as his human genealogy
shows, came of a lineage older than the Pharaohs or the
Caesars and purer than Castilian or Norman blood. At least
a few high-born women and honorable personages were among
his followers and stood by him when the crowd deserted him.
Though he was meek and lowly in heart, his life was ever
noble and gentle. A man of sorrows, yet at a wedding-feast
he converted water into another beverage with exhilarating
properties. A Saviour of harlots and lepers, yet in his per
fect wisdom he became an honored guest at the banquets of

268 The Sociological Question.
the rich and worldly, while the Pharisees sneered at him as a
gluttonous man and a wine-bibber. In the sorrowful moment
of parting from his disciples, with infinite graciousness he
took that cup which is the pledge of friendship the world
over and taught them how to drink it to his memory. All
through his insulted anguish, from the garden to the cross,
he bore himself with unspeakable dignity, forbearance, and
gentleness. At length Jewish austerity, Grecian culture, and
Roman valor alike did him homage. And ever since, among
his followers, the highest as well as the lowest ranks have been
represented — kings and queens, scholars and soldiers, artists,
poets, philosophers; not many wise, not many noble, but at
least enough to show that Christianity is of no class or con
dition, and may as little become a boast of ignorance and
vulgarity as a haughty claim of rank and culture.
Christian Doctrine of Poverty.
It is important also to discriminate sound Christian teach
ing as to the respective conditions of poverty and wealth.
On this point scarcely can the merest truisms be uttered
without danger of misapprehension. If there be sometimes a
clerical sycophancy which pays court to the rich as patrons
of religion, yet there is also a pulpit demagogism which
flatters the poor as favorites of Heaven. To neither abuse
do the Scriptures give the least countenance. The man with
a gold ring and goodly apparel is not to have the highest
place in the synagogue, nor yet are the needy masses to fol
low Christ merely for the loaves and fishes. On the one hand,
no virtue or grace is ever attributed to simple poverty itself.
Not the poor in this world, but the poor in spirit, the souls
consciously needing truth and goodness, shall inherit the
kingdom of heaven. Not mere physical penury, the being
cold and hungry and naked, is most to be pitied, but that dire
moral destitution which thinks itself rich when it is in need
of all spiritual knowledge and grace and virtue. On the
other hand, mere wealth is never stigmatized as a sin, or a

Christian Doctrine of Property. 269
crime. Not money itself, but the love of money, is the root
of all evil. Not riches in themselves, but the making haste
to get them and the setting the heart upon them, are to be
deprecated. Moreover, neither extreme poverty nor extreme
wealth is accounted favorable to piety and virtue. The poor,
amid their cares and sorrows, are tenderly entreated to take
no thought for food or raiment, but to trust in a heavenly
Father, who feeds the birds of the air and clothes the Hlies of
the field. The rich, amid their luxuries and pleasures, are
solemnly admonished that they may fall into temptation and
into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in
destruction and perdition. If the poor man, in his wretched
ness and despair, is sometimes tempted to curse God and die,
yet, the rich man in his glory and pride finds it proverbially
hard to enter into the kingdom of God.
Christian Doctrine of Property.
Most of all has it become needful at this time to distinguish
and re-assert the true Christian doctrine of property. We
seem fast nearing a crisis in the strife between labor and
capital. On the one side are the great national leagues of
tradesmen and workmen organizing universal strikes and
boycotts, and broaching the most revolutionary theories as to
the origin and distribution of wealth ; while on the other side
are the vast, overgrown fortunes, which represent no just
earnings of their owners, the oppressive corporations which
are pressing wages down to the point of starvation, and the
imperial monopolies which are controlling our elections and
legislatures. Between these two mustered forces the voice of
Divine wisdom speaks with no uncertain sound. For the
capitalist it has some timely lessons. It charges them that
are rich in this world that they be not high-minded nor trust
in uncertain riches, and warns them that by the passion for
money-getting some have erred from the faith and pierced
themselves through with many sorrows. It teaches the
millionaire that his wealth is not absolute property, but a

270 The Sociological Question.
sacred trust from the sovereign Creator for the good of his
fellow-creatures, and if that trust be neglected or perverted
the unfaithful steward shall lose even that which he seemeth
to have. It requires of masters or employers that they use
not their neighbor's services without just wages, nor let the
sun go down upon his hire unpaid, nor cause him to do any
work on the seventh day of rest. It denounces the usurer,
who has increased his substance by unjust gain, built his
house with unrighteousness, and filled his chambers with the
spoil of the poor. By prophet and evangelist it foretells that
Jehovah will be a swift witness against all that oppress the
hireling in his wages, and calls upon rich men to weep and
howl for the miseries that are to come upon them in the day
when the cries of laborers, whose hire is kept back by fraud
have entered into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth. For the
laborer also it has some needed counsels. It tells the work
ing masses what Christ himself told them, that he came to
preach the Gospel to the poor, not that he came to abolish
poverty, and urges them to seek first the kingdom of God,
and food and raiment and all good things shall be added to
them. It exhorts all that are in service or at labor that they
be faithful and diligent, treating their masters or employers as
brethren, not with eye-service as men-pleasers, but in single
ness of heart, fearing God, and having his blessing when they
suffer wrongfully. The vagabond and the idler are warned
that if any man will not work neither shall he eat, and that
he that neglects to provide for his own household is worse
than an infidel. The socialist agitator may learn that although
Jesus told the rich young ruler to sell all he had and give to
the poor, yet he did not tell either him or them that he was
depriving the poor of their rights. The communist will find
that the disciples at Pentecost did not deny the right of
property in lands or goods, but merely offered in charity that
which was their own freely to give or to withhold, and after
wards themselves became objects of the same charity in the
churches. To the anarchist in his blind mood of vengeance

Christian Doctrine of Property. 271
the learned pulpit, the artistic ritual, the cathedral spire, may
seem wasteful as the alabaster box with which Mary wor
shiped her Lord, but only another Judas could murmur that
all this might be sold for much and given to the poor.
Finally, for both laborer and capitalist there are those great
perennial lessons of Christian brotherhood, sympathy, for
bearance, charity, which alone can insure the moral concord
of capital and labor, and at length reconcile and unite the poor
and the rich as members of the one body of Christ and
inmates of the temple whose maker is God.
Without adding more instances of such Christian teaching,
we now have enough before us to show that the pseudo-
Christian socialism consists not so much of positive errors as
of partial truths, or truths forced out of their due proportions
and relations in the general system of social doctrine. As
the churches come in contact with such socialism — and some
contact if not conflict is inevitable — they will have the import
ant task of sifting truth from error, in order to throw them
selves heartily into sympathy with the toiling masses along
the line of their just grievances and sufferings. Of this en
lightened sympathy we have already had noble examples in
philanthropists, like Howard, Wilberforce, Raikes, Shaftes
bury, Peabody, who have cared for prisoners, slaves, outcast
women, homeless children, and houseless laborers; in zealous
evangelists, like Wesley and Whitefield, who have preached
to the neglected poor outside of the established churches ; as
well as in earnest churchmen, like Chalmers, Maurice, Kings-
ley, Toynbee, who have conducted industrial reforms not
inconsistent with their churchmanship. Of such sympathy,
too, we now have cheering expressions in church dignitaries
like Cardinal Gibbons, the House of Bishops and other cleri
cal assemblies, who are issuing timely counsels on the mutual
rights and duties of laborers and employers ; in faithful pas
tors and devoted laymen, who are maintaining chapels, schools,
reading-rooms for employees in their hours of rest and recre
ation ; and above all, in that intelligent body of Christian

272 The Sociological Question.
workingmen who have not thought it necessary to break
away from their respective churches because they have joined
labor organizations in efforts to relieve and elevate their fel
low-laborers. Non-Christian Socialism.
We come lastly to a non-Christian socialism, which is secu
lar in its spirit and wholly economic in its aims. It is some
times said that the mass of European socialists are secularists
or atheists, whose religion consists in worshiping man as God
and making our earth their only Heaven. The leaders of
the socialistic labor party are monists or materialists. With
out bringing such charges against our new nationalistic
socialism, we may say that it has at least a lack of Christian
elements, and consequently that such moral elements as it
retains are somewhat perverted or defective. At the same
time we shall find that it has no sympathy with anarchical or
revolutionary socialism, since it expects to see society reformed
and transformed peacefully and gradually by means of public
opinion, and through existing modes of political action at the
polls and in the legislature. Its spirit may best be shown by
two popular treatises which are now selling by the hundred
thousand copies.
The work of Mr. Henry George, entitled " Progress and
Poverty," is written in so clear a style, depicts so boldly the
wrongs and sufferings of laboring people, and is so full of
humane sentiments and pathetic appeals in their behalf, that
it would be much pleasanter to dwell upon its truths, than
upon its errors. It is to be hoped that the latter will not
neutralize the former. As we have left far behind us the
age when obnoxious books were ordered to be burned by the
hangman, every fair-minded citizen must approve a recent
judicial decision legalizing the circulation of this volume.
But many will not adopt one of the opinions upon which that
decision was based, that there can be no immoral tendency in
a work which teaches that it would be morally right for
the people to seize all landed estates without paying anythino-

Non-Christian Socialism: 273
for them or for the cost of maintaining them. Had Mr.
George presented his scheme of nationalizing land or confis
cating rent simply as an economic measure, to be effected
with due regard to acquired rights and existing interests, it
would have been at least debatable, and perhaps something
might have been said in favor of it. But, unhappily, he has
mixed with it ethical teachings which the Christian conscience
cannot accept, and suggested popular movements which
might prove as revolutionary as the general land-robbery of
the dark ages.
In that pleasant social romance styled " Looking Back
ward," Mr. Edward Bellamy has brought Utopia as near to
us as the next century, and thrown over it a color of proba
bility by tracing its growth out of our own industrial system
through the process of nationalizing railways, telegraphs,
manufactures, all forms of business and modes of life. As
we turn the fascinating pages there rises before us the image
of our national government as a vast complex automaton,
marshaling its millions of puppet-like citizens through their
countless pursuits, under self-executing laws, with all the
order and grace of the most faultless mechanism. But on
looking a little more closely, we are ready to smile as grimly
as the genial Dr. Leete himself when we find that somehow
our old human depravity has disappeared in the process.
Men have been made virtuous and happy by act of Congress ;
and the preacher of the twentieth century is informing his
myriad hearers through the telephone that " the ten Com
mandments have become well-nigh obsolete," and with them
all the crimes and miseries of former ages.
Of the political socialism represented by both of these
works it should be said gladly, that its bearing towards
Christianity is not unfriendly, though too silent and inappre
ciative. Mr. George, while he is wiser than some clerical re
cruits who are citing chapter and verse for his bad ethics, is
always reverent in his few religious allusions. Mr. Bellamy
even claims his perfect commonwealth to be a Christian ideal,
18

274 The Sociological Question.
but depicts it as having been achieved under the natural laws
of social progress, through mere industrial and political
expedients, not only without miraculous or providential
agencies, but without the moral and religious means of social
regeneration. These grave defects of nationalism are begin
ning to be felt in minds having no religious or sectarian bias.
Mr. Frederic Harrison draws from the London strikes the
lesson that "industry must be moralized by education, by
morality, by religion — not recast by the State." Prince
Bismarck, as the leader of political socialism in Germany,
has been endeavoring to effect an alliance with Catholic
socialism in favor of his scheme of national insurance for
the laboring classes. As yet such measures have not become
practical or practicable in our own politics. But it is safe to
say that the genius of a Christian people will never allow its
Christianity to be wholly divorced from its social reforms.
And the emerging problem now is how to effect this cooper
ation consistently with our traditional theory of an absolute
separation of church and state.
Church and State Socialism.
On the first view it would seem that our state-socialism and
church-socialism, if such terms may be used, might come to
a cordial understanding, at least as to their common aims,
and largely as to their methods of attaining them. Since the
church includes while it transcends the state in its scope,
their spheres become coincident in respect to the whole phy
sical and moral improvement of society. Such improvement,
from the most religious point of view, is good as far as it
goes ; comes first in the order of nature, of opportunity, and
of urgency; and is only part of the Christian conception of a
more general improvement, embracing the spiritual with the
material interests of humanity. In this common sphere have
gradually arisen many practical questions in which all philan
thropic citizens, both in and out of the churches, are interested,
such as the relief of the poor and unemployed, the sanitary

Church and State Socialism. 275
safety of their dwellings and workshops, the security of their
Sundays, holidays, and daily hours of rest from labor ; the
rescue of young children from premature toil and vicious
training; their education, physical, intellectual, moral, and in
dustrial ; the repression of the social vices of licentiousness,
intemperance, gambling, and vagrancy ; reform of the primary
meeting, the caucus, the ballot, and suppression of bribery in
elections and legislatures ; civil service reforms ; scientific
legislation on social questions. As to all these and many
other like objects the religious and the political socialist are
already substantially agreed ; but as to the best methods of
reaching these objects they do not proceed far together before
they begin to diverge along opposite lines of action. The
Christian socialist of the old-fashioned school looks upon the
State as a wholly worldly institution ; limits its educational
functions to such schools as may qualify the citizen for voting ;
cares little even for the Bible as obligatory in such schools ;
would not legislate beyond the public conscience on moral
questions ; and, in a word, would reserve for the churches all
the higher education and humane effort, as likely to be
spurious if not surcharged with evangelical doctrines and mo
tives. On the other hand, the Christian socialist of the new
nationalistic school looks upon the State as itself an edu
cational and moral agency; claims for it the right to give
the people the highest schools that they may desire for in
dustrial and even professional training ; advocates prohibitory
laws against social vices ; would nationalize all industries as
fast as they become monopolistic; and in the end would
render the government as humane and even Christian as the
churches can make it. Fortunately, these differences as yet
are more theoretical than practical, and the church-socialist
and state-socialist may find large common ground where they
can work together without collision or conflict.
It is important, however, to clear this common ground of
some popular fallacies which are found in many forms of
socialism of the non-Christian or secular type. Some of

276 The Sociological Question.
these fallacies have been inherited or imported from Euro
pean states of society, but others are due to crude notions in
economic science or to an abuse of our democratic institu
tions. They should be clearly and fearlessly exposed, in
order to distinguish social grievances which are slight and
imaginary from those which are real and urgent and the only
proper object of a true Christian philanthropy.
The Masses and the Classes.
One very common fallacy is the false issue of the " masses
against the classes." The phrase has more rhyme than
reason. In one view the masses simply compose the classes.
Even the so-called working masses have the class element in
their trades unions, and express it in the very title of their
" Noble Order of the Knights of Labor." Their most intelli
gent champions, such as Hendrik Ibsen and Powderly, have
urged that they may oppose a genuine aristocracy of charac
ter and moral worth to the old aristocracies of birth, of wealth,
and of learning. The more of such a class spirit we can get
the better will it be for all classes. The fact would seem to
be that our socialistic friends often use the word " class "
when they mean " caste." In aristocratic countries, like
England and Germany, where classes have long since hard
ened into castes with impassable barriers between them, the
most radical socialism might have a plea and a mission ; but
not in a democratic country like ours, where the prizes of life
are open to all classes, the lowest as well as the highest.
With no law of primogeniture to keep wealth and power in
the same families, every other generation is likely to be at the
bottom of the wheel of fortune. Our millionaires with few
exceptions, were laboring men, who did not inherit but made
their money ; and their menacing accumulations will soon
become divided and squandered among their descendants, or
perpetuated only in great beneficiary bequests; the ambition
to found a college or library having taken the place of the
old ambition to found a family and gain a title. In our poli-

Capitalistic Laboring Classes. 277
tics, too, laboring men become the idols and rulers of the
people, whilst trained statesmen take second places in their
cabinets. One of our Presidents was a rail-splitter, another a
tailor, another a boatman ; and bootblacks, shoemakers, and
blacksmiths have become potent in our highest legislatures.
Our science and literature, also, are largely recruited from the
ranks of toil, or pursued by men who can work with their
brains only because their kindred before them have worked
with their hands. Even in the most conspicuous circles of
fashion the children or grand-children of workingmen are
seen gracefully entertaining aristocratic visitors from the Old
World, whilst descendants of our colonial gentry may be
found living in poverty and obscurity. Good breeding thus
becomes diffused with the wealth which fostered it, and work
men and tradesmen inherit the instincts of gentlemen. How
absurd to talk of class tyranny in such a state of society ?
How futile any war against such classes. And how dismal
would life be without them ? Let us not confound political
equality with social equality. We have abolished castes with
all hereditary powers and privileges, but we can never abolish
those classes which are rooted in the original diversities of
human nature. Nor would any of us be quite ready for a
socialism that should march through society cutting off every
man's head that is an inch higher than his neighbor's.
Capitalistic Laboring Classes.
Another fallacy is the false division of society into only the
two classes, " the laborers and the capitalists." The classifica
tion, as often made, is crude, and easily becomes vague and
misleading. There is no capitalistic class as opposed to a
laboring class. Not only are the laborer and the capitalist
always changing places through the vicissitudes of trade, but
they are everywhere combined in the same persons and in
the same classes. Many laborers are also capitalists. The
workman who toils by the day saves out of his earnings
enough capital to be invested in a homestead. The artisan,

278 The Sociological Question.
the engineer, the inventor, whose toil is even congenial, have
a capital in their skill which may yield them larger returns
than the salaries paid in the learned professions. The trades
man, the merchant, whose toil is almost luxurious, retire with
the fortune of a millionaire. In like manner many capitalists
are also laborers. The farmer whose capital is in land and
implements, works harder and longer than many a mechanic.
The lawyer, the doctor, the clergyman, whose capital is in
knowledge, often die of sheer exhaustion as brain-workers.
The manufacturer or the railway king, whose capital is in
machinery or bonds, is sometimes more overworked than any
of his employees or dependents. In fact, with the exception
of a few idlers at both extremes of the social scale, the great
mass of the American people, whether as capitalists or as
laborers, are, in one way or another, working for their living.
It is, therefore, scarcely possible to take sides either with
labor or with capital. Every citizen is interested in their just
cohesion, and in any so-called conflict between them might be
found fighting against himself as well as against his neighbor.
Derangement of Social Classes.
By far the most serious fallacy now current is a false pre
dominance claimed for the laboring class over all other classes.
It is a predominance not justified by the importance of any
single class in the social system, and a predominance some
times asserted against the peace and order of whole communi
ties. We have seen the commerce of half a dozen Western
States deranged and the traffic of our large cities hindered for
days whilst a few workmen, at the call of one master work
man, were parleying with their employers for better terms of
employment. Such indifference or obliviousness to all other
social interests is intelligible and excusable enough in men
who for the time are absorbed in their own sufferings and
intent only on getting their rights. But it makes a different
impression in the formal manifesto and calm treatise. Accord
ing to its platform the Socialistic Labor Party would exalt the

Derangeinent of Social Classes. 279
manual laborer as the sole producer and owner of all existing
wealth, and hope for some complete inversion or depression
of the social classes in his behalf. Mr. Bellamy, in his ideal
republic, would force all classes alike through long apprentice
ships of manual toil before they can even be admitted to the
higher forms of mental labor. This is trying to make the
pyramid of society revolve from its apex to its base. Its
material interests must ever remain subordinate to its moral
and spiritual interests. A legislative rule of the laboring
class, if established, could not be long maintained without
Christian knowledge and virtue. Nor are we ready in this
country to have any class dominant : not the wealthy class ;
not the learned class ; not even the clerical class ; still less
that laboring class, least fitted for leadership in all the higher
spheres of civilization, such as education, science, art, and
religion. Having thus touched upon some of the socialistic fallacies
of the day, we can now make them throw into stronger relief
the real wrongs and sufferings of our laboring people. These
will still assert themselves after all the abatements that have
been made. Whilst it may be true, as we have seen, that the
avenues to wealth and power are open to the lowest ranks,
yet it is also true that only one person in sixty millions can
become president; very few will win any of the other prizes
for which so many are contending; and the great mass must
remain hewers of wood and drawers of water as effectually
as if they were serfs and bondmen, and therefore as truly the
objects of Christian kindness and care. Whilst it may be
true that capital and labor are not antagonistic, yet labor is
not now getting its full share of their joint product, owing
to changed industrial conditions. Although spiritual inter
ests are ever superior, yet material wants are still fundamen
tal and first to be satisfied. American laborers, too, acquire
more luxurious tastes than the European, and share more
largely the average intelligence of the community. Becom
ing keen-sighted as to their interests, they are raising prob-

28o The Sociological Question.
lems of which political economists had not dreamed, and
forcing issues which our statecraft knows not how to meet.
Let us remember that the brain-worker and the hand-worker
are fellow-laborers and members of the same body politic.
To make them also members of the same body of Christ has
become the most difficult and momentous task ever laid upon
the American churches.
Social Need of Church Unity.
If we now survey the social phenomena which the whole
discussion has brought before us, we shall find our introduc
tory statement more than justified. Within the limits of the
same political system known as the United States we behold
a confused mass of social organizations, detached from one
another and from the government which overshadows and
protects them. In the midst of them appears a great cluster
of churches and denominations, differing endlessly in doctrine,
polity, and worship, held apart by hereditary feuds, and in
flamed with sectarian jealousy and pride. Around these
Christian bodies, like a beleaguering army intrenched upon
the very ground once belonging to them as their natural
domain, are countless other social bodies without a Christian
name or even a Christian spirit. To the right are the secular
ized charities for the poor, the blind, the deaf, the maimed,
the fallen, and the outcast, on whom Christ lavished his
miracles of love and power, and whom he bequeathed to the
tender care of his followers through all time. To the left are
the unchurched fraternities making a religion of masonry,
fellowship, insurance, or practicing the Christian virtues of
brotherhood, temperance, charity, under heathen names and
with pagan rites. In front are the mustering hosts of insur
gent labor no longer asking Christian charity but demanding
natural justice, gaining recruits from the Christian ministry
itself, and already threatening revolution, violence, and
anarchy. At the rear are the retreating bands of rational
ism, materialism, agnosticism, infidelity, turning Christian lib-

The Church a Great Social Teacher. 281
erty into license and recoiling with random fire upon the ranks
which they have deserted. Meanwhile the churches them
selves, although thus out-flanked on each side, desperately
assailed in front and treacherously weakened in the rear, still
stand asunder, without union, without discipline, without en
thusiasm against their common foes. Add to all this that
just now, at the very height of these encompassing perils,
they are engaged in fresh disputes over their respective creeds
and forms, and we have the actual situation of the Christian
denominations in American society at the present time.
Upon this situation I remark in general that mere Christian
unity, the so-called unity of the invisible church, does not
meet the social exigency of the churches. The simple fact
that they are all Christian sects, composed largely of true
Christians loyal to Christ, means no more to the point than
that they are like so many wrangling masses of patriots before
a disciplined army of invaders and traitors. The invisible
unity of the denominations must become visible, potent, and
aggressive. They can never rout their common foes by sally
ing among them single-handed or in scattered bands. They
can never cope with the social perils around them until they
have some outward agreement, some concentrated leadership,
some concerted action ; in a word, some organic unity.
The Church a Great Social Teacher.
In the first place, without organic unity the Church cannot
fulfil its mission as the great moral teacher of society. If it
is to become the light of the world, it must illuminate the
social relations and duties of men as members of the family
and of the State no less than of the Church itself But in
order thus to instruct the multitudes still outside the denomi
nations, mere denominational teaching is not needed. Such
teaching, in fact, has proved a hindrance and a failure. The
missionary abroad sends back to us word that he cannot
preach a sectarian gospel to the heathen ; and the missionary
at home tells us the same tale. The untaught masses think

282 The Sociological Question.
they do not want a sectarian Christianity, and they are right.
How can the denominations teach them Christian brother
hood when they do not themselves treat one another as
brethren ? How can they teach Christian spirituality when
they are scrambling together for worldly place and power ?
How can they teach the plainest Christian doctrines and
duties when they are ever visibly subordinating them to sec
tarian dogmas and sectarian aggrandizement? If each of the
fifty sects could accomplish its aim and plant an endowed
church in every frontier village and in every city mission,
what a babel of religious teaching they would make, and how
the objects of such teaching would laugh them to scorn. Yet
something like this is passing before their eyes. Moreover,
at a time when the wildest notions are abroad in respect to
the social problems of the day, it becomes imperative that the
denominations as one Church should utter forth one accord
ant voice in the name of their common Head and Lord.
The Church the Conservator of Society.
In the second place, without organic unity the Church
cannot perform its whole duty as the conservator of society.
That it may act as the salt of the earth it must purge the
divine institutions of the family and state as well as the church
itself, from the corrupting influences and revolutionary assaults
to which they are now exposed. But in thus concentrating
its purifying agencies upon the social masses mere denomi
national evangelism will not alone suffice. It does not reach
the physical and moral degradation which prevent them from
even appreciating spiritual truths and influences. To attempt
first to indoctrinate them, or even to evangelize them, is to
begin at the end. They feel that they do not want church or
gospel so much as fire, food, raiment, and shelter ; and they
cannot get the former until they have the latter. If the
American Evangelical Alliance should accomplish its noble
work, and by systematic visitation gather back all the scat
tered sheep of Christ into their proper folds, it will not have

The Church the Social Regenerator. 283
touched directly a single one of the social problems now
pressing for solution. Not the mere indoctrination of the
toiling masses, were it possible, is first and most needed ; not
alone their evangelization as now attempted ; but their moral-
ization, the practical application of Christian ethics among
them, as Christ himself practiced them, in care for their bodies
as well as their souls, in eleemosynary, sanitary, and educa
tional reforms. And for such works of charity how wasteful,
as well as absurd, are denominational divisions and sectarian
efforts. It seems but a truism to say that in order to preserve
the family in safe dwellings and pure homes among all classes,
in order to preserve the State by means of honest politics at
the polls and in legislatures, in order to preserve the Church
itself amid the manifold perils which now menace it, — the de
nominations cannot act apart, but if possible must act together
as one united Church.
The Church the Social Regenerator.
In the third place, without organic unity the Church can
not accomplish its destiny as the regenerator of society. Be
ing itself a new social organism with new organizing forces,
it must yet include and transform the organisms of the family
and the State, as but smaller spheres within its own grander
sphere, which is as wide as humanity itself. But in approach
ing this promised ideal a mere cooperation or confederation
of denominations falls far short of the mark. Such a league
may be a first step, but it cannot be the last. It would not
exhibit the Church to the world as in itself a regenerate soci
ety, and it would not embrace surrounding society in its re
generative influence. It would be a cluster of class churches,
not one church of all classes. It would still subordinate
church unity to mere denominationalism, not denomination
alism to true church unity. And it would soon prove to have
been a mere makeshift of worldly expediency rather than the
perfect bond of Christian charity. Like the Confederate
States, which could not exist long either before or after the
United States, such confederate churches could only suggest

284 The Sociological Question.
and require some more perfect union of denominations as one
catholic Church. Church Unity Becoming Practicable.
In the fourth place, such a true church unity is becoming
intelligible and practicable in American society. While the
Christian denominations, as they appear in the Old World,
still exist as established churches and dissenting bodies in
capable of unification, the same denominations as transferred
to the New World, and brought under democratic influences,
have been sifted together for a hundred years and assimilated
until now they differ less in things than in names. Such dif
ferences are fast disappearing from public view. The long
lost ideal of one catholic Church is seizing the popular mind
like a passion and melting away all prejudices before it. Al
ready it is emerging from the Utopian stage in which great
social movements often first appear to the generation origina
ting them. It may have been Utopian to look for a dogmatic
agreement of different denominations, or even for a dogmatic
agreement in any one denomination. This never existed in
the church of the apostles, and could only exist in the church
of the millennium, if it ever exist at all. But it is no longer
Utopian to look for an ecclesiastical unity which shall embrace
dogmatic differences and allow them due scope and action.
Such a unity once prevailed. In the New Testament church
there were no Episcopalian, Presbyterian, and Congrega
tionalist denominations, but only congregational, presbyterial,
and episcopal principles and institutions as duly combined in
one organization. That Catholic and Apostolic Church might
now return if our congregations would associate in free pres
byteries, our presbyteries commit their episcopal functions to
bishops, and our bishops become conjoined in the same
historic succession, whatever views might be held as to the
need or value of that succession. The most extreme degrees
of churchmanship, as well as the most varied forms of de
nominationalism, would be retained and satisfied in such an
ecclesiastical system. If this be Utopian, then is Christianity

Urgent Need of Church Unity. 285
itself Utopian. Can that unity be impracticable in religious
society which has already become actual in political society ?
We have lived to see the most diverse climates, north, south,
east, and west; the most diverse races, European, African,
American, Asiatic ; the most diverse institutions, social, civil,
political, religious; the most varied nationalities, English,
French, German, with the most embittered factions, all merged
in the United States ; and are we never to see the so-called
Christian denominations combining as united churches in one
American Catholic Church ?
Finally, a true church unity is becoming urgent, if not im
minent. That we are on the eve of great social changes is a
growing feeling. Our democratic institutions are passing un
der a strain such as they have never before known. Accor
ding to historical analogy, one sign of revolution is the very
blindness and recklessness of those who should be the first to
perceive and avert it. Among the polemic divines now mus
tering to fight their battles over again this appeal for unity
may sound like a shepherd's flute amid the din of arms. But
communities, like individuals, are sometimes driven by their
very passions and interests into the paths of truth and
righteousness. The pressure of surrounding perils may soon
hasten the tardy impulses of Christian duty. The churches
may yet be melted together in the furnace of affliction. When
the events so often threatened begin to happen ; when our
railways and telegraphs have been paralyzed by national
strikes ; when workmen and soldiers are fighting or fraterniz
ing in the streets of our cities ; when our hoarded capital is
outvoted by leagued labor; when our servile legislatures are
discussing the very measures first broached in the Assembly
of the French Revolution; when science and literature and
art are at the mercy of ignorance and rudeness, and virtue and
piety have been scared back to our homes and altars — then,
at least, will it have become plain that the problems of
American society, if solved at all, can only be solved by one
United Church of the United States.

YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

3 9002 08837 9889

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