"THE New Testament . . . is the record of the experiences and recollections, the outlook and point of view, of the generation, and the immediate successors of the generation, among whom Christ came. Its value as such, is two-fold: it confronts us, in the first place, indirectly, but really, with Jesus Himself, of whose life, teaching, death, resurrection, and continued activity through the Spirit in the Church it is so striking, and on the whole so unselfconscious, an expression and outcome; and it is in the second place, just because of the position which the Church itself originally gave to it, a standard and norm of all subsequent Christian developments. If there is a sense in which 'so-called New Testament Christianity is the Christianity of the rattle and feeding bottle,' there is also a sense in which by their congruity, not indeed with the letter, but with the spirit of the New Testament, all later developments of Christianity need to be constantly tested and judged."¹

      So writes Mr. Rawlinson, and I find the same sentiments issuing from a different quarter. "The Bible gives me all the great principles of religion, all the spiritual truths that I need. I find there supreme religious inspiration. I hold that the Christian faith must be built upon the teaching of the Bible, [9] that its development can be rightly fostered only by a fuller and truer understanding of Holy Scripture. The purity of Christian worship, belief and conduct is endangered whenever men add religious ideas and practices, for which, when we thoughtfully examine the Bible, we cannot claim Christ's authority or approval. Are we in doubt as to some particular aspect of Christian dogma? Our final court of appeal is the New Testament. Can we justify some particular kind of worship and allied teaching? We must find out whether it is consonant with the mind of Christ."²

      It is in the spirit of these two utterances that the following essays are offered as a contribution towards the solution of the problem of Christian unity. Too often those who have pleaded for "New Testament Christianity," have pleaded for the "feeding-bottle type." The New Testament has been regarded as a law-book, written specially to provide us with details of worship, belief and conduct. To-day the New Testament has come to be in very truth a new book, more valuable than ever, because freed from artificial theories about its origin. The days of textual theology are gone. The historic method of interpretation has come to stay. The New Testament, like the Church, is freed from the dogma of indefectibility; but this does not mean that it loses its supreme place as the norm by which to test all future Christianity. This it will never lose. But it does mean that the New Testament is seen in its proper relation--historically--to the [10] Church; and that in effecting Christian Unity we must make our appeal; to Scripture, history and reason. The Church, which the Scriptures themselves tell us is "the pillar and ground of the truth," must have her rightful place. She is an organism, and development must be possible in all ages; but such development will always need to be brought to the norm of the New Testament. Along these lines I have tried to approach the subjects dealt with in the following pages.

      Again, I have tried to be real and to accept the situation as it is. We can, I believe, do no good by avoiding difficulties--by ignoring the differences in doctrine and practice which now divide us. The only possible way of arriving at any solution seems to me to be by study, discussion, and conference. On the one hand we have the great Catholic Churches and on the other the numerous Protestant Churches. The attitude which the former have sometimes adopted--and which Rome still adopts--of refusing to discuss, and regarding themselves as in everything right, and Protestants in everything wrong, creates at once an impasse, and today this attitude is no longer tenable. On the other hand the attitude common a few generations ago in many Protestant Churches, and still to be met with to-day, that the whole of Catholic Christianity has fundamentally gone astray from the Gospel, is equally untenable. Someone has blundered. All the truth is not in one camp, but all may have some truth to contribute to the final solution. It is impossible to regard the Church Times or the British Weekly as being infallible. Unity will not [11] come without a real struggle--we shall all have something to relinquish as well as something to contribute. The thing is to be filled with such a passion for unity that we shall be able to sink our prejudices, which is a very different thing from betraying our principles.

      Taking the New Testament as a norm in the sense already explained, and Church History as a guide, I have attempted to discuss some of the most vital problems connected with the larger problem of Unity.

[EOCU 9-12]