Murmuring, and with him fled the shades of night.’”
This language belongs to the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, when the sectaries of that period universally held that the pope was Antichrist, and the Catholic Church his kingdom. It might be heard from the mouth of a ranter in Exeter Hall, or, in days gone by, in the Broadway Tabernacle, or come from the pen of the vaticinating Dr. Cummings, and not excite surprise; but we submit that such language is unworthy of the cause which Dr. Knox so ably advocates, and is in discord with the whole tenor of his article, which, we gladly acknowledge, breathes throughout a more candid and a better spirit.
THE SIXTH REASON FOR UNITY.
“This is found,” he says, “in that element of efficiency that lies in economy.” This is an important element, but we have already encroached beyond our limits, and
must hasten to our close. The article proceeds to show that there is a “rapidly-increasing unity of faith, affection, and aim” among evangelical Christians, and details the grounds for the hope of a “prospective unity of organization,” explaining “the causes at work to produce it.”
ACCORDING TO DR. KNOX, THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH ONCE EXISTED.
“Furthermore,” he continues, “the church has once been in the perfect unity we are advocating. The members ‘continued steadfast in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship, in breaking of bread, and in prayers’ (Acts, ii. 42). The unity, according to this record, began in theological doctrine, but extended to outward organization (fellowship), to visible sacraments (breaking of bread), and forms of worship (prayers). This was what Christ had just before prayed for a making perfect in one; a unity, interior and exterior, spiritual and organic.”
In another passage he describes the discordant elements of Protestantism, and draws, without knowing it, the portrait of the actual Catholic Church, and contrasts her perfect unity with the divisions of the Protestant sects. Here it is:
“In the primitive church, when Christ would have the body constituted with diversity—not all head, or hands, or feet; not all hearing, seeing, or smelling, but a body with many members, and each member its own function—he yet did not think it necessary this diversity should be sectarian in order to be Christian. He did not give some to be Episcopalians—high, and low, and ritualistic; some to be Congregationalists—associated, and consociated, and independent; some to be Methodists—Protestant, Primitive, and Episcopal; some to be Baptists—open and close; some to be Presbyterians—old and new, Cumberland and Covenanter, Associate Reformed and Presbyterian Reformed, and others perhaps unreformed, to say nothing of Burgher and anti-Burgher, Secession, and Relief. Here was variety—a very
millennium of it, such as it was. It was a variety, however, that finds no place in the New Testament, and no mention in Christ’s catalogue of particulars. This was his list of bestowments that Paul enumerates, when he ‘gave some to be apostles, and some prophets, and some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ.’ Having these, the body was thought to be well furnished without the modern inventions above specified. Here was variety and here was efficiency. ‘Many members, but one body.’ ‘Diversities of gifts, but one spirit.’ ‘Differences of administration, but the same Lord.’ ‘Diversities of operations, but the same God, which worketh all in all.’ Read the whole twelfth chapter of 1st Corinthians, and the fourth of Ephesians, and see how amply diversified is the church of God: all the more beautiful and useful for the reason Paul here declares, that God has so constructed it that there should be ‘no schism in the body.’ The variety and beauty lie in the varied members and their varied functions; not, as our sectarian conservatives would have it, in there being different organic bodies with features facing all ways, hands striking one against another, feet moving off in independent directions, and lips uttering the whole alphabet of shibboleths.”