Christian Union

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     The best way to secure unity in faith and uniformity in practice, so far as unity and uniformity are desirable, is to bring all who profess faith in Christ to the diligent and unprejudiced study of the Word of God. Let them "continue steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine," and adhere faithfully to "the form of sound words," and they will "all speak the same things, and be perfectly joined together in one mind and in one judgment." We say, "so far as unity and uniformity are desirable," because they are only desirable within certain limits. It was not intended that all should receive the same measure of wisdom, or see with the same eyes; nor was it meant to compel all minds to run in the same grooves, or all lips speak in the same stereotyped language--repeating parrot-like, the set phrases which it has pleased others to stamp with orthodoxy. In grace, as in nature, every one has individual wants and capacities that are peculiarly his own. The best food for one is not the best food always for another. The stores of revelation have that abundant and various supply that every one may find what his soul most needs: and he should be at liberty to receive it without being forced to live according to the prescription of some system of spiritual dietetics which it may have pleased some doctors of divinity to establish for everybody, simply because it happened to suit them. All the essential truths of salvation can readily be learned from the Scriptures themselves. Where there are no prepossessions established by previous theological training, there is little difficulty in reaching harmonious conclusions as to all that involves the salvation of the sinner and the character and destiny of the Christian. But, as the truths of Christianity relate to the unseen, the infinite and eternal, there is much implied or but partially expressed in the Scriptures that is not completely revealed; and we must either cease to think on these portions of revelation, or thinking, must indulge in thought that is more or less speculative, metaphysical and uncertain. Here is just where diversity may and must be allowed, as there is no method of arriving at satisfactory results but by perfectly free and unembarrassed discussion. --Isaac Errett (1872).