The Literature and Union Committees of our Churches of Christ in Australia have co-operated to present this reminder of its current relevance and importance.

      Principal E. L. Williams mentions the OCCASION of the document's first appearance and Principal A. L. Haddon presents a SUMMARY of the famous 13 propositions contained in it.

      Following this we present the 1958 Federal Conference address of C. H. J. Wright B.A., RESTORATION--DEEPER LEVELS as a MEDITATION on the theme of the document.

      As a minister in a Seceder branch of the Presbyterian Church Thomas Campbell was grieved about the divisions among Seceders. In 1806 he made representations to the Seceders in Scotland on behalf of his group in Northern Ireland. When ill-health forced him to leave the family behind and travel to the United States of America he found an appointment with the Seceder Church in Western Pennsylvania. These were days of sectarian exclusiveness and rivalry, and a strong emphasis on creedal interpretations. Campbell's liberal spirit in inviting to the Lord's Supper members of other Presbyterian groups and the development of ideas different from some held in the Presbyterian tradition of his day led to differences and controversy. Limitations on both sides led to separation from the jurisdiction of the Presbyterian Church. Campbell continued to preach, and many gathered to hear his messages in which he pleaded for liberality and Christian union based on the Bible alone.

      It was decided to form the Christian Association of Washington to stimulate Presbyterians and others on the question of creeds, which were believed to be divisive, and to aid the cause of Christian union. On September 7, 1809, Campbell presented his famous "Declaration and Address" to members of this Association. This statement, which serves somewhat as the human charter of Churches of Christ, was endorsed and printed."

      Principal A. L. Haddon in a publication entitled "Union in Truth", comments on the DECLARATION AND ADDRESS. With his kind permission we reprint the following.

Foundation Principles.

      Campbell makes four important basic assertions by way of introduction:

      1. Each person should think and act for himself in religious matters, guided by the Word of God.

      2. Every Christian question should be settled by appeal to the Scriptures. The Divine Word, not human interpretations of it, is binding equally upon all.

      3. Division and party spirit destroy the Church and hinder its mission. To restore the unity, peace and purity of the Church is the greatest need of the age.

      4. The desired unity can be found nowhere but in Christ and His simple Word. "Our desires for ourselves and our brethren would be that, rejecting human opinions and the inventions of men as of any authority, we might forever cease from further contentions about such things . . . taking the Divine Word alone for our rule, the Holy Spirit for our teacher and guide, and Christ alone for our salvation."

Unhappy Divisions.

      It is urged that disunity is an offence against the love which is the foundation principle of the Christian religion. Schism makes unreal the Fatherhood of God. It breaks congregations into pieces, fosters a wrong spirit, and deprives Christians of ministry and ordinances if they happen to live at a distance from others of their own denomination. All who love the Lord Jesus should determine to conform to the model and adopt the practice of the primitive Church as described in the New Testament. This is the only way to regain the lost Christian unity, purity and prosperity.

Unity in Essentials.

      Encouragement is found in the fact that it is only in non-essentials that Christians are divided. With regard to the essential things n! Christ there is unity. ( . . . "It is, to us, a pleasing consideration that all the Churches of Christ which mutually acknowledge each other as such, are not only one in the great doctrine of faith and holiness, but are also materially agreed as to the positive ordinances of the Gospel institution; so that our differences at most, are about the things in which the kingdom of God does not consist, that is, in matters of private opinion or human invention.")

      Denominational rivalries must give way before the "desire to unite in bonds of entire Christian unity, Christ alone being the Head, the centre, His word the rule, and implicit belief of and manifest conformity to it in all things, the terms."

Inspiring Active Fellowship.

      "This effort toward a permanent Scriptural unity among the Churches upon the basis of universally acknowledged and self-evident truths must have the happiest tendency to enlighten and conciliate." Such statements as these make it clear that Campbell's thinking was neither narrowly Protestant nor Roman Catholic, but truly catholic. He urged the ministry of his day to lead in this movement toward a united Church and to seek opportunities for fraternal association, united prayer, and mutual understanding.

      The "Declaration" next offers thirteen propositions which contain what has been called Campbell's platform for unity. He himself considered that he was merely opening up the matter for discussion. Here, reworded and abbreviated are his proposals:

One Church.

      1. "The Church of Christ upon earth is essentially, intentionally, and constitutionally one; consisting of all those in every place that profess their faith in Christ and obedience to Him in all things according to the Scriptures, and that

manifest the same by their tempers and conduct, and of none else; as none else can be truly and properly called Christians."

Without Schism.

      2. The One Body manifests its life in numerous separate congregations. These ought all to acknowledge one another in the spirit of Christ and, avoiding schism, show a united front to the world.

Truth Unites.

      3. Nothing should be considered binding upon Christians or be made a condition of church membership that is not "expressly taught and enjoined in the Word of God." Nothing is essential to the life of the Church which has not the authority of Christ or His apostles in express terms or by approved precedent.

Dividing the Word.

      4. Old and New Testaments together make the perfect revelation of the Divine Will and in this respect cannot be separated. But it is the New Testament that indicates the worship, discipline and government of the Christian Church and the duties of its members.

In Opinions, Liberty.

      5. When the Scriptures give no clear guidance, no man should bind his views on others. "Nothing ought to be received into the faith or worship of the Church, or be made a term of communion among Christians, that is not as old as the New Testament."

      6. Similarly, deductions from and interpretations of Scripture, while helpful as such, must not be made essential or become tests of loyalty.

      7. Creeds are useful in summarising truth and excluding error, but should never be made terms of Christian communion.

Church Membership.

      8. Complete knowledge of Christian truth is not required of those becoming Church members. What is needed is knowledge of our need, of the sufficiency of Christ, and a disposition to obey Him in all things as these become known to us through His Word.

Mutual Recognition.

      9. All Christians should recognise one another as such and manifest love as brethren. All are equally "children of the same family and Father, temples of the same Spirit, members of the same body . . . objects of the same Divine love. 'Whom God hath thus joined together no man should dare to put asunder.'"

Evils of Division.

      10. Division among Christians is antichristian. "It destroys the visible unity of the body of Christ, as if he were divided against himself, excluding and excommunicating a part of himself." It is anti-scriptural, a direct violation of Christ's command. It is anti-natural engendering hate and opposition amongst those who should love one another as Christ has loved them.

Causes of Division.

      11. Division is, caused, in some instances, by partial neglect of the Will of God. In other cases it results from exalting human opinions into Christian essentials.

Achieving Unity.

      12. All that is necessary to the perfection and purity of the Church is that it be composed only of those who have professed faith in Christ and obedience to Him in all things according to the Scriptures and who express this allegiance by their lives; that ministers, duly and Scripturally qualified, teach only the articles of faith and holiness expressly revealed in the Word of God and in all their ministrations keep close to the Divine commands, without any additions of human opinion.

Human Expedients.

      13. Where the Scriptures do not state the method of obeying Divine commands there should be freedom in introducing and changing the human expedients necessary for such obedience.

      In the preface of his translation of the book of Acts "The Young Church in Action", J. B. Phillips writes "It is impossible to spend several months in close study of the remarkable short book conventionally known as the Acts of The Apostles, without being profoundly stirred, and, to be honest, disturbed. Here we are seeing the Church in its first youth, valiant and unspoiled, a body of ordinary men joined in an unconquerable fellowship never seen on this earth." In a dramatic sentence Dr. Phillips ends, "we in the modern church unquestionably lost something."

      Then, if we have lost something the sooner we return to the New Testament to find it, the better.

      That was the conviction that gripped the early leaders of the Restoration Movement. They believed that the churches had lost something of the original simplicity and power of the faith and practice of the early church. So they set out to restore primitive Christianity. They saw clearly what many are beginning to see today, that before the unity of the church can be achieved, there must be a rebirth of the church, best attained by returning again to the sources of spiritual power and insights as found in the New Testament. But this doctrine of Restoration has been the cause of controversy among us. Some assumed that there was a perfect pattern in the New Testament for the modern church, and interpreted restoration literally and legalistically. Others failed to find any such uniformity of pattern, but found instead wide variations in the life and practices of the churches, varying as much or more from each other than many of the denominations differ today. The unity of the early church, they believed, was not dependent on uniformity so much as upon a common acceptance of the authority of Christ and the leadership and guidance of the Holy Spirit.

      Since the movement arose in the atmosphere of theological contention and bitterness, it is natural that great emphasis should have been placed upon a doctrinal return to New Testament practices. For some, that became a matter of dotting the "i's" and crossing the, "t's" while the deep spiritual qualities of the early Christian Movement were neglected--the mightier matters which made it dynamic and held it together in unity. Let it be recognised that doctrinal restoration did turn the movement to a fresh study of the Word of God and released it from many shackles forged in the heat of ancient controversies in which, consequently, it did not become involved. It gave our movement freedom and room in which to grow.

      From earliest beginnings there has been a burning desire to restore the New Testament pattern of the Church in all its details. No one has ever had a greater zeal to be right than we have had.

      We have sought to be right as to the proper form of administering Christian baptism. I believe we are right, and today the scholarship of the world seems overwhelmingly to agree. But what deep spiritual values are manifest in our communion coming from our correct practice of baptism, which other communions do not possess? Have we, who have been correctly baptised gained deeper insight into the meaning of the ordinance than others, and been more profoundly committed in loyalty and devotion to our Lord and Saviour in whose name we have been baptised?

      Take the matter of Christian unity. Surely today, when in all Christian churches hearts are aflame with a passion for the unity of the church, we have been proved right in our insistence on the necessity of Christian unity. But what reaction has this universal passion for unity had upon members of the Restoration Movement? Are we

notorious for our eagerness to cross denominational barriers and give to and receive from our brethren in other communions? Are we less denominational in spirit, less sectarian in attitude, more united amongst ourselves, giving a sincere practical demonstration that our programme for union really works? Or are we sure that we are so right about all things that we can be smug in this rightness and wait for other communions to join us? Everyone knows that members of Churches of Christ possess strong convictions. No one with any depth of character would want to belong to a people who didn't. But one of those strong convictions is that we are compelled to seek unity. Barton Stone said "The unity of Christians is my polar star." Christian unity is not merely the hobby of a few enthusiasts who have a bent that way. For this purpose we were born. We have been talking about a united Church for 150 years, but although unions have taken place between other Christian communions, we have never taken part in any union.

      In our eagerness to restore the doctrines and practice of the New Testament Church, have we overlooked what is perhaps the most important aspect of all? Have we wrongly assumed that if the structure is properly built, if a church has the right doctrine and practice, it must, of necessity nurture the best kind of Christianity?

      Can we honestly say that the churches whose organisation, doctrine and ordinances most closely resemble those of the New Testament Church, as we interpret them,

      have also succeeded in restoring the life and spirit of the early church?

      Surely, in our better moments, restoration has meant more to us than an all too mechanical restoration of the minutiæ of doctrinal forms and patterns, important though they be. Restoration is a resounding call to a veritable rebirth of the Church--to restore the Spirit of that early church that could shake the foundations of the building where they prayed, that could turn a city upside down for Christ with its preaching, that tore down age-old walls of division by its fellowship, that caused the selfless selling of all goods that the hungry could be fed, that could send Christians to a martyr's death with heads up and singing hearts.

      Let us examine some of the facts of the exhilarating life of the New Testament Church that we may understand better what the restoration of New Testament Christianity would mean for us today. Let us look briefly at the unity of the New Testament Church, its fellowship and its faith.

Unity.

      The New Testament makes plain that it is the nature of the Church to be One, and that the vocation of the Church is to manifest God's Will for one-ness until sundered men are one in Him. "There is one body, and one Spirit . . . one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of us all," wrote Paul (Eph. 4:4-6). Jesus prayed for His church "that they all may be one, as Thou Father, art in Me, and I in Thee, that they also may be one in us, that the world may believe that Thou hast sent Me." The New Testament contains no programme for uniting a divided church, nor regulations for the relation of denominations to each other. Such things did not exist and were not even contemplated. The New Testament Church was a united church. That is not to idealise the early church. It was not free from disputes and quarrels. The party spirit appeared at Corinth, and Paul cried out in pain, "Is Christ divided?" He repudiated with horror the grouping of the Church in sections under the names of individual leaders. What is beyond question is the insistence in the New Testament upon unity as an essential work of the Church, "The Church of Christ upon earth," said Thomas Campbell, "is essentially, intentionally and constitutionally one."

      If an Australian were travelling abroad and he were asked, "What is your nationality?", unless he were

hopelessly provincial in his outlook, he would not answer "I am a Queenslander"--or "I am a Tasmanian", or "I am a Victorian"--he would answer "I am an Australian." His identity as a member of the whole nation is more important than his specific location within the nation.

      It is equally strange when one is asked what his religious faith is, for him to answer, "I am a Presbyterian" or "I am a Methodist" or "I am a Baptist". The correct answer would be "I am a Christian."

      We sometimes hear another described in these terms "He is of the Baptist faith" or "He was brought up a Presbyterian." Such statements are basically incorrect! There is no Baptist faith--no Lutheran faith or Methodist faith. There is only Christian faith.

      The unity of the Church is a fact of supreme importance. By nature, the Church is One. "There is one body, one Spirit, one Lord, one faith, one baptism."

      What shall we say then of the "The Scandal of our Divisions" in the Church today? Somewhere along the line, the Church has failed to understand her own nature. The disunity wrought in the world by sin has been allowed to creep into the Church and leave its mark there. When the Church divides at any place, it is the result of sin, either on the part of those who leave it or those who thrust them out, or both. Christ cannot be divided, nor can His Body, the Church, remain divided save at the cost of weakness and failure. And any who are advocating new rends in the Body of Christ, are, whether they realise it or not, seeking to assassinate Christ. If they do not realise this they can only be prayed for, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."

      The purity of the Church of Christ is to be secured by clearing up the blood stream, not by severing its members one from another. No person or movement, therefore, which seeks to rend Christ's members one from another should be followed or encouraged, no matter whatever else their spiritual excellencies may be. A deliberately schismatic person, the central drive of whose work is to separate Christians one from another, is either deluded or bad. In either case, he is not to be, followed.

      The church is already one, made so by the creative act of God. So far as unity is God's endowment of His church it is ours already. So far as it is our response to His will we sadly lack it.

      The urgency of this is seen most clearly in the light of God's purpose and plan for the Church as revealed in the New Testament. With all our talk about unity, I doubt whether we have taken seriously enough the unity of the Church as seriously as it appears in Paul's letter to the Ephesians. "It is God's purpose," Paul declares, "to gather into one, to sum up all things in Christ, things in heaven and things on earth, through the Church, which is His Body, and of which He is Head". The Church is "the society which God has constituted to be the pattern of true human unity and the seat of the power which alone could produce unity."

      The world is in dire straits at this hour. If Christ is the hope of the world, and the hope is that unity may be brought to the world, the Church by its own united nature must prove to the world that Christ can produce the unity required. "That they all may be one", Christ prayed, "that the world may believe " But the world looks at the churches and sees the followers of Christ divided. How can it believe the message of the Church? What can be more hopeless and desperate than the scandal of our divisions? But we go about the world hardly caring that we inherit this sin from our forefathers. The consciousness of it should haunt us like a nightmare. How can the Church, the Body of Christ, fulfil its mission if it is divided and broken?

      During the war the services of Sir Frederick Banting, Canadian-born discoverer of insulin, were

required in London. A special plane chartered to bring him to London, but it never reached its destination. The plane crashed in Newfoundland, and the navigator and wireless operator were killed, and the pilot, and Sir Frederick Banting injured, the latter fatally. The pilot afterwards told that, as they lay in the wreckage of the plane, Banting kept asking him to take down what he would dictate to him, but because of injuries, the pilot could not write a single word. He felt the world was being robbed of priceless scientific information because his body could not perform the task it was being called upon to do.

      Is the Church, the Body of Christ fit for the task it is called upon to do today?

      Division and disunity is not the first sin of the Church. Division is only the consequence of its unfaithfulness and spiritual impoverishment. Christian unity can only be meaningful if it springs from the renewal of the individual churches. This goes for the individual as well as for the churches, for the preachers and teachers as well as for each congregation. If we do not want to be renewed in our Christian life we had better give up all our searching for unity. If we lose all sense of repentance, if we cease to pray for a new outpouring of God's Spirit, all our theological and organisational efforts will be vain.

      That surely is our deeper meaning when we speak of restoration as the path to unity--the recapture of the spiritual power of the early Church. "Let every Christian," says Barton Stone, "begin the work of union in himself."

Fellowship.

      Consider then the fellowship of the New Testament Church.

      Harold E. Fey paints this picture of the early Church: "Once a church which possessed no paid ministry, no priesthood, no cathedrals or church buildings, no endowments, no salaried bishops and secretaries, and no publicity except the lies told by its enemies, held a disintegrated world together and laid the basis of a new civilisation. Its power was not its own. What it had was a gift.

      "The gift was given to it in meetings of little groups who assembled before dawn in houses on back streets and in caves under Rome. Those who gathered there heard sermons only infrequently, when men like Paul the sailmaker came their way. But whenever they met they broke bread with gladness and singleness of heart and shared the cup of their covenant with Christ. What did that church have that we do not have today?"

      They had a sustaining fellowship for one thing--a loving concern for each other that was a tremendous source of strength. Here you have Saul of Tarsus, haughty Pharisee, Hebrew of the Hebrews, who took care that everyone should know it, sharing his deepest intimacies with poor illiterate slaves from Greek slums--barbarians he once would have called them, Scythians, miserable outsiders--yet now miraculously his brothers. Only one thing explains it--the love of Christ. Behind the fellowship that burned and glowed in the early Church there lay a direct individual experience of Jesus Christ. It is when you have experienced the constraining love of Jesus in the secret place of personal devotion that the love of the brethren comes mightily into its own. If there is anything lacking in our fellowship with each other, it is because there is something lacking in our fellowship with Christ. "That they all many be one", Jesus prayed, "as Thou Father art in me and I in Thee!" It was a unity of love for which Jesus prayed--the unity of a personal relationship, which transcends all differences and joins men together in love.

      One early pagan saw Christians of differing nations, races and classes really sharing their lives, and he exclaimed to another "See how these Christians love one another." Can we restore the fellowship of the early Church? "By this all men will know that you are my

disciples, if you have love for one another." And by this shall men begin to know the One-ness of His Body.

Faith.

      Finally then, the Faith of the New Testament Church. For the early disciples faith was always faith in a person--the most intimate possible personal connection of love and trust and obedience with Jesus Christ. But in later years, faith became faith in a creed--it became the acceptance of certain doctrines. Instead of being a close personal relationship with Jesus, as it was in the thrilling throbbing days of the early Church, faith became the acceptance of an orthodox creed. The early leaders of our movement sought to restore faith's original meaning. "The Christian religion is faith in a person," said Alexander Campbell. "It is confidence in a Person, love of a Person, delight in a Person. It is not confidence in a doctrine, nor love of a party. Jesus Christ Is the object on which a Christian's faith, hope and love terminate."

      A renowned theologian of our day, Karl Barth, expresses much the same thing when he says "to have Christian faith means to live like a man faced by Jesus Christ." We must restore today the primitive meaning of New Testament faith.

      The greatest need of the Church today is the rediscovery of Christianity as a vital decisive relationship to a living Christ. I say that because when you read the story of the Christian Church, its great and glorious hours have come when men--perhaps after some period of utter deadness--have met Christ again travelling some new Emmaus Road, and have welcomed Him and given Him their love. Take the Church of the Reformation. Where did that great movement originate? Precisely where Luther himself said every true Christian must begin. "Begin" he said, "from the wounds of Christ."

      Take the Church of the Wesleyan Revival. Whence came the glow and strength and drive of that movement that set England ablaze for God. It's secret is found in Charles Wesley's hymn "Jesus, Lover of my soul . . . Thou O Christ art all I want; more than all in Thee I find: . . ." Or take the Restoration Movement. What was it that established the movement among the major Protestant Churches in America and 40 other countries around the world in less than 150 years? "No creed but Christ."

      No real and lasting renewal of the Church has ever taken place which has not been based on a new and comprehensive experience of Christ, the rediscovery that we have a living, eternally present Lord to set our hearts on fire, to love and to be loved by forever.

      All thought of the Church and divided Churches must lead back to Jesus Christ. The figure of a great wheel and its many spokes is as familiar as it is appropriate. While Christians stand on the circumference they are far from each other, estranged, or even hostile. As they come nearer to the Centre, Christ, they come nearer to each other. The way to unity is the way to the Centre.

      Alexander Paul was one of the most distinguished among disciple missionaries, who for 40 years gave unreservedly of his many talents for the redemption of China. He often told this story. He was on furlough in his native Ireland visiting his father when World War I broke out. As his father took him to the train to bid him farewell as he returned to China, British troops were also embarking for the front. Enthusiastic crowds were there to see the Tommies off. They kept shouting to the parting soldiers: "Give them hell! Give them hell!" The ageing father grasped the hand of his missionary son as he, too, embarked for China. He said, "Give them Jesus Christ, Alex. Give them Jesus Christ!"

      This thing above all others pray for our church in these tremendous days, "That in all things, He, Jesus Christ, may have the Pre-eminence."