The fittest preparation, preceding a discussion of this subject, is a careful, prayerful reading of the intercessory prayer of Jesus, found in the seventeenth chapter of John.

      The two prominent aims of the current Reformation have been, first, the conversion of sinners, and, second, the restoration of the lost unity of the

S. M. MARTIN.

church, or Christian union, and the latter is necessary in order to the accomplishment of the first. "That they all may be one, that the world may believe that thou hast sent me" (John 17:21).

      Our message has been both to the world and to the churches. We say to the sinner, "You are wrong;" and to the members of sectarian churches, "You are not wholly right, and your deficiencies are responsible for the unfortunate divisions amongst the professed followers of Christ."

      If union is right, division is wrong. The church was one in the beginning, and each congregation of Christians was like every other congregation in all the essentials of faith and practice.

      But differences arose which grew to such proportions as to produce divisions and alienations, based upon disagreements. And this disintegration continued until there were eightscores of warring sects, contending more against each other than for "the faith once for all delivered unto the saints." Soldiers of Christ were engaged more in civil strife than in the conquest of the world. Each man was suspicious of the soundness of his brother, and cocksure of the unsoundness of all outside the narrow limits of his own peculiar sect. And, strange as it may seem, out of this division grew an admiration of it, and doughty warriors justified it all!

      With supreme desire to carry out the great commission of "discipling all the nations," and hindered and saddened by the bitterness engendered through division, just a hundred years ago Thomas Campbell wrote and promulgated the now famous "Declaration and Address," thus inaugurating the current Reformation, which, in a century, has grown to the enormous proportions of eleven thousand congregations and over twelve hundred thousand members.

      That union might supplant division, and Christian sects return to oneness in Christ, we have the paradox of a new sect, which is unsectarian, non-sectarian and antisectarian!

      In our efforts for union we have had to attack the causes of division, and, although we are the avowed champions of peace, we have appeared to many to be the most warlike of all Christians. But "things are not what they seem." In contending for the "one Lord," we have had to depose the Roman Pontiff and all lesser popes. In fighting for the "one faith," we have inveighed mightily against human creeds. And in our advocacy of Scriptural rites and forms, we have been forced to affirm believers' immersion, weekly communion and the congregational form of church government. In our fighting we may not always have been as considerate of the enemy as was the Quaker who, discovering a robber in his house, said gently, "Friend, thee would better move. I am going to shoot right where thee stands." This thoughtlessness upon our part has often caused us to wound our friends, the enemy!

      One of the greatest obstacles to union has been the complacent satisfaction of each sect with itself, glorying in its past achievements and unwilling to share them with any who would not at the same time share their denominational insignia and environment, as if Luther were the exclusive inheritance [510] of Lutherans, Calvin and Knox of Presbyterians, Wesley of Methodists, and the Campbells of the Disciples of Christ. Are not these mighty men of God the common property of Christendom? Alas! that one should be of Paul and another of Cephas and not all for Christ alone.

      Whatever justifiable causes for division may have existed in the first place, these causes have, for the most part, or altogether, disappeared amongst Protestants.

      I do not question the fact that most noble souls, protesting against the evils of traditional systems, and longing for purer, nobler expressions of the faith than the tyranny and bigotry of those forms permitted, actually saved Christendom by destroying a unity which was maintained by authority, wholly assumed. Division and freedom were better than unity and slavery. But union is not incompatible with liberty--the liberty which could once divide, can now unite, with sufficient incentive.

      This Reformation pleads for Christian union, because, first, the Bible teaches it. "There shall be one fold and one shepherd" (John 10:16). Second, Jesus prayed for it in the seventeenth chapter of John. Third, Paul condemned division in the church of Corinth: "Now I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak the same things, and that there be no divisions among you; but that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment. Now this I say, that every one of you saith, I am of Paul; or I of Apollos; or I of Cephas; and I of Christ. Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? or were ye baptized in the name of Paul?" (1 Cor. 1:10, 12, 13). "For ye are yet carnal: for whereas there is among you envying and strife and divisions, are ye not carnal and walk as men? For while one saith, I am of Paul; and another, I am of Apollos; are ye not carnal? Who then is Paul, and who is Apollos, but ministers by whom ye believed, even as the Lord gave to every man? I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase. So then neither is he that planteth anything, neither he that watereth; but God that giveth the increase. For we are laborers together with God; ye are God's husbandry, ye are God's building" (1 Cor. 3:3-7, 9). Fourth, in order to convert the world we must unite the church. "This Reformation proposes simply a return in letter and in spirit, in principle and in practice, to the original basis of doctrine and fellowship." Our motto has been, "Where the Scriptures speak, we speak; where the Scriptures are silent, we are silent." "We have no desire for a mere organic union any further or faster than a supreme love for Christ leads us to unity of spirit."

      There is a difference between a union and a mixture. Oil and water may be mixed; they do not unite. The so-called "union meetings" are merely mixtures, and, like oil and water, soon return to their former constituency. If such unions are good for a time, why not for all time? If they are unions at all, why do they not remain united?

      The preaching of a pure gospel will produce Christians. If wheat only is put into the soil, the harvest will be wheat only. The word of God is the seed of the kingdom, and if that only is sown in the heart, we shall have Christians only.

      We must have a basis of union. That basis must omit no essential thing, and it must contain no non-essential thing. If an essential is omitted, it will not be Christian, and if a non-essential is included, it will prevent union.

      The united church must be non-sectarian. Christ alone must be the head. The head rules the body. If all sects were to unite with, or be swallowed up, by one great sect, that would be sectarian union, instead of Christian union, unless it be conceded that that particular sect was the true bride of Christ, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing. The Disciples of Christ are often accused of trying to bring about Christian union after the similitude of "the lion and the lamb," but this is a sore misapprehension. We only ask people to come to us as far as we now occupy the only tenable ground of union, and in the language of Alexander Campbell, "we take the Bible, the whole Bible, and nothing but the Bible, as the foundation of all Christian union and communion. Those who do not like [511] this will please show us a more excellent way."

      I recently made the statement before the Southern California Christian Ministers' Association in Los Angeles, that I was willing to sell all our church property and devote the proceeds to missionary and charitable enterprises, and join the Methodists, Baptists, Presbyterians, Congregationalists, etc., if they will simply call their churches "Churches of Christ," or "Christian Churches," practice the immersion of penitent believers only, and allow each congregation to attend to its own local affairs, and spread the Lord's table every Sunday for all who want to partake of it that often. Thus we would disappear to reappear a much enlarged body, and with infinite might for the evangelization of the world.

      The united church must have a non-sectarian creed. Christendom can never be united upon any of the creeds which have been formulated by men, and used as the rallying standards of the very divisions which union is to destroy. As long as we support human creeds there will be parties in the church. Nothing is Christian union but a union of Christians in faith and fellowship on the word of God--the Bible--"the creed that needs no revision." It is the unsectarian, non-sectarian basis for the union of all Christians.

      Listen to these words from John Wesley on the subject of Christian union. He says: "Brethren, I am distressed. I know not what to do. I see what I might have done once. I might have said, peremptorily and expressly, 'Here I am: I and my Bible. I will not, I dare not, vary from this Book, either in great things or small. I have no power to dispense with one jot or tittle of what is contained therein. I am determined to be a Bible Christian, not almost, but altogether. Who will meet on this ground? Join me on this, or not at all."--Wesley's "Sermons," Vol. II., p. 439.

      If John Wesley had only had this vision, and felt this way a few years sooner, he, and not the Campbells, would have been the founder of the movement for the restoration of primitive, apostolic, Bible Christianity, and I would that it had been so.

      The union church must have a Bible name. The seventeen kinds of Methodists might all unite on the name "Methodist." The thirteen kinds of Baptists might unite on the name "Baptist." The twenty-two kinds of Lutherans might unite on the name "Lutheran." The twelve kinds of Presbyterians might unite on the name "Presbyterian." But, where and what is the name for all of these, and scores of others, when all are united in one great church or body? Albert Barnes asks, "Should not, and will not, all these divisions yet be merged into the high and holy name 'Christian'?" Henry Ward Beecher says, "Let me speak the language of heaven and call you simply Christians." A. J. Gordon says, "It was not by accident and as a term of derision that the first believers received their name; but the disciples were divinely called Christians first at Antioch (Acts 11:26). This was the name preordained for them, that honorable name by which ye are called."

      We must join each other on common grounds, in love of Christ, and that will be Christian union. We shall then be Christians, neither more nor less--Christians in faith and in purpose, Christians individually and collectively, Christians plus nothing, minus nothing, divided by nothing! Clothed with all that is Christian and stripped of all that is unchristian.

      In the language of Isaac Errett, "we call upon all the people of God in the various sects to come out from them, and unite in the faith and practice taught in the New Testament."

      Hold on to all that is good and Scriptural for which you now stand, yielding only the unscriptural and non-essential things, which things now divide us, and heartily accept any and all the Scriptural things which you may not have already accepted, and we may then serve God in the one body, one Spirit, one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in all" (Eph. 4:4-6).

[CCR 510-512]