“Pray I for these… that they all may be one.”
John 17:20,21
“For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body: so also is Christ. For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body…”
1 Cor. 12:12
“I’m first a Christian, next a Catholic, then a Calvinist, fourth a Paedo-baptist, and fifth a Presbyterian. I cannot reverse this order.”
John ‘Rabbi’ Duncan
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Subsections
Pressing Urgency of Church Unity
Principles of Union & Separation about Impurities of Worship
Against Separatism
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Order of Contents
Articles 14+
Books 4
Quotes 8+
Latin 2
Historical 2
Legitimate Toleration in a Church 1
Lesser of Two Evils 1
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Articles
1500’s
Musculus, Wolfgang – Common Places of the Christian Religion (1560; London, 1563), ‘Church’
Of the unity of the Church 262.a
That the unity of the Church does not consist in ceremonies 264.a
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1600’s
Arminius, Jacob – ‘On Composing the Disagreements among Christians’ in Works, vol. 1, Orations
Burroughs, Jeremiah – ch. 9, ‘Rules to know in what things we are to bear with our brethren’ in Irenicum [a Peace Token], to the Lovers of Truth & Peace, Heart-Divisions Opened in the Causes & Evils of Them: with Cautions that we may not be Hurt by Them, & Endeavors to Heal Them (1646; London, 1653), pp. 54-71
Burroughs was an English, congregationalist puritan.
Baxter, Richard
“Exhortation to Church Union where Fundamentally Faithful Churches already Agree” in Christian Concord, or the Agreement of the Associated Pastors & Churches of Worcestershire, with Richard Baxter’s Explication & Defence of it, & his Exhortation to Unity (London: A.M., 1653), pp. 95-106 & 119-20
Direction 57, ‘Yet let not any here cheat you by overdoing, nor mere names and titles of unity deceive you instead of the thing itself…’ in The Cure of Church Divisions… (London, 1670), pt. 1, pp. 270-71
Bunyan, John – ‘An Exhortation to Peace & Unity’ in Works 2.742-55
Bunyan, an English puritan, though he held to believer’s baptism, precisely due to his views of seeking church union with paedobaptists, holding infant baptism to be something indifferent, is best categorized as an evangelical independent. For more on his principles of church unity, see ‘On John Bunyan’.
Le Blanc de Beaulieu, Louis – ‘Whether from the proposed Reformed and Lutheran union, union with the Roman Church follows’ in Theological Theses Published at Various Times in the Academy of Sedan 3rd ed. tr. by AI by Colloquia Scholastica (1675; London, 1683), pp. 950-57 Latin
Le Blanc (1614-1675) was a French reformed professor of theology at Sedan.
Le Blanc argues for union where possible with the Lutherans but not with the Roman Church.
“V. To make this clear, it must be observed that for the Reformed to seek peace and unity with other Protestants, it suffices if, after weighing and accurately judging everything according to God’s word, it appears that the remaining controversies between them are not such as to undermine the foundations of the Christian religion and true piety toward God. Thus, they can tolerate each other and recognize each other as brothers in Christ.
VI. This was the basis of the concord established a few years ago at Kassel between the theologians of Marburg and Rinteln. After both sides clearly and distinctly explained their doctrines and views to each other, and saw to what extent they agreed and what real differences remained, it was mutually acknowledged in good faith that what remained was not so significant as to prevent them from maintaining Christian and religious communion. Thus, they agreed on
mutual tolerance and decided not to attack or insult each other but to maintain their own views until God revealed the truth to all while still communicating when the occasion arose, which has since been the practice.
VII. This was also the principle by which Paul attempted to reconcile believers of his time who contended among themselves over the observance of legal rites. He wanted those better instructed in Christian liberty, who had learned from the gospel that Mosaic ceremonies were abolished by Christ, to tolerate and bear with those still scrupulous about this matter and thought themselves bound to keep Mosaic ceremonies. He instructed them to admit such weak-in-faith individuals to their communion and not trouble their consciences by urging them to renounce their beliefs. This is reflected in Paul’s words to the Romans, “Accept the one whose faith is weak, without quarreling over disputable matters” (Romans 14:1), and to the Philippians, “If on some point you think differently, that too God will make clear to you. Only let us live up to what we have already attained” (Philippians 3:15-16).”
London Ministers – ‘An Argument of Union, taken from the true Interest of those Dissenters in England who profess and call themselves Protestants’ 43 pp. in A Collection of Cases & other Discourses lately written to recover Dissenters to the communion of the Church of England by some Divines of the City of London (London, 1685), vol. 2
These were non-conformist ministers, in some respects, that were also non-separating from the Church of England.
Flavel, John – ‘Gospel Unity Recommended to the Churches of Christ’ in Works 3.592-608
Flavel was an English, non-conforming presbyterian minister.
Henry, Matthew – ‘A Brief Inquiry into the True Nature of Schism: or, A Persuasive to Christian Love & Charity’ in Miscellaneous Works 2.850-60
Henry was was an English, non-conforming presbyterian minister.
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1700’s
Turretin, Jean-Alphonse – A Discourse concerning Fundamental Articles in Religion, in which a Method is laid down for the more effectual uniting of Protestants and promoting a more general toleration amongst them… (1720) See also the whole book.
6. Communion cannot be maintained with those differing in fundamentals
7. Church communion ought to be had among those not differing in fundamentals
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9. A difference not fundamental with Lutherans (on the Supper, Christ’s Person and Predestination)
10. Advices to promote this agreement
Scriptures
Testimonies from Church History
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1800’s
Smyth, Thomas – An Ecclesiastical Catechism of the Presbyterian Church… (NY: 1843), ch. 1
section IV, ‘Of the Church catholic’
section VIII, ‘Of the Duty of Different Churches’
Smyth was a Southern presbyterian minister in Charleston, SC.
Buchanan, James – ‘Sectarian Exclusiveness’ 16 pp. On the “Tracts for the Times” (1843), p. 44 ff. In the context of the mid-1800’s Oxford Tractarian Movement
Buchanan was a professor in the Free Church of Scotland.
Candlish, Robert – ‘The Importance of Adhering to Sound Scriptural Standards, & Aiming at Union on that Basis’ (1843), p. 124, 11 pp. from the larger work by various authors, Commemoration of the Bicentenary of the Westminster Assembly of Divines: held at Edinburgh, 1843, Containing the Addresses and Conversations Buy 158 pp.
Candlish was a leading minister in the Free Church of Scotland.
Miller, Samuel – ‘Church Attachment & Sectarianism’ 6 pp. from The Presbyterian Magazine (Jan., 1854)
Miller was the second professor at old Princeton Seminary.
“It is indeed, not only a misfortune, but a sin, that the Church of Christ which ought to be one in name, and in profession, as well as in fact, is divided into so many different denominations,” Miller rightly states. Let us not be sectarians and forget that we are part of the One Body of Christ on earth. This is a very balanced treatment.
Baird, Samuel J. – ‘On Harmonizing Differences Among Christians’ ed. Andrew Myers from Baird, The Church of Christ: Its Constitution & Order (1864), sections 272-74
Baird was a Northern presbyterian minister.
Hodge, Charles – ‘The Reunion of the Old & New-School Presbyterian Churches’ (1867) 37 pp.
Hodge was a professor at old Princeton Seminary.
Dabney, Robert – ‘What is Christian Union?’ from the Central Presbyterian, May 11 & 18 (1870)
Dabney was a Southern presbyterian professor.
Foster, James Mitchell – ‘The Unity of the Church’ in The Reformed Presbyterian & Covenanter (Sept. 1879), pp. 285-87
Foster was a Reformed Presbyterian minister in Ohio.
Warfield, B.B. – ‘True Church Unity: What It Is’ in The Homiletic Review, vol. 20, no. 6 (Dec., 1890), pp. 483-89
Warfield was a professor at old Princeton Seminary.
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2000’s
Fentiman, Travis – 4. “White Towers & Unifying Christ’s Church” in “Editor’s Extended Introduction” in English Puritans, A Refutation of the Errors of Separatists (1604; RBO, 2025), pp. 160-89
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Books
1800’s
M’Crie, Thomas
Statement of the Difference… Particularly on the Power of Civil Magistrates Respecting Religion, National Reformation, National Churches & National Covenants (1807; Edinburgh: C.F. Lyon, 1871)
This book details out M’Crie’s understanding of unity in the church’s constitution. The General Associate Synod having changed their constitution, M’Crie and others left in order to constitute a new presbytery upon the old, unchanged constitution.
The Unity of the Church: Her Divisions & their Removal, Two Discourses Buy (Edinburgh: Blackwood, 1821) 174 pp. no ToC
This is the go-to classic and best work on Church unity available. M’Crie looks to and waits upon the Lord to fulfill His scriptural promises that His church should be one. We are to depend upon God pouring out His Spirit in bringing men to fuller light and convictions of scriptural truth upon which to unite, rather than retreating from the scriptural truth brought to light by previous generations.
Miller, Samuel – Letters to Presbyterians, on the Present Crisis in the Presbyterian Church in the United States (Philadelphia: Finley, 1833) 340 pp. ToC
Hodge was a professor at old Princeton Seminary.
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1900’s
McNeill, John T. – Unitive Protestantism: a Study in our Religious Resources (Abingdon: 1930) 345 pp. ToC
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Quotes
Order of
Calvin
London Presbyterians
Caryl
Presbyterians & Independents
Baxter
Duncan
Westcott
Machen
McNeill
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1500’s
John Calvin
in John T. McNeill, ch. 1. “The Ecumenical Idea & Efforts to Realize it, 1517-1618” in eds. Ruth Rouse & Stephen C. Neill, A History of the Ecumenical Movement: 1517-1948 (Philadelphia, 1967), p. 49
“It concerns not our Church alone, but all Christianity, that all to whom the Lord has entrusted any charge in his Church should agree in true concord; we must therefore purposefully and carefully cherish association and friendship with all ministers of Christ… As for me, as far as in me lies, I shall always labor to this end.”
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1600’s
London (Presbyterian) Provincial Assembly
A Vindication of the Presbyterial Government (London, 1650), p. 119
“We abhor an over rigid urging of uniformity in circumstantial things. And are far from the cruelty of that giant who laid upon a bed all he took; and those who were too long, he cut them even with his bed; and such as were too short, he stretched out to the length of it. God has not made all men of a length, nor height. Men’s parts, gifts, graces differ; and if there should be no forbearance in matters of inferior alloy, all the world would be perpetually quarrelling.”
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Joseph Caryl
The Moderator: Endeavoring a Full Composure & Quiet Settlement of those many Differences both in Doctrine & Discipline, which have so long disturbed the peace and welfare of this commonwealth (London: Bellamy, 1652), ch. 3, p. 24
“By ‘unity’ we mean the concurrence of men’s judgments, affections and actions about the same thing in one and the same way, and for the same end.
By ‘forbearance’ we mean the refraining from uncharitable and unkindly affections and behaviors towards another in some things, although there be some difference between us and him in judgement and in the way of acting about these things.”
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Leading English & Presbyterian Ministers
The Grand Debate between the most reverend Bishops & the Presbyterian Divines appointed by His Sacred Majesty as Commissioners for the Review & Alteration of the Book of Common Prayer... (London, 1661), ‘The Papers’, p. 64
“…to persuade you of the evil of laying the Church’s unity upon unnecessary things…”
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Richard Baxter
Christian Concord, or the Agreement of the Associated Pastors & Churches of Worcestershire, with Richard Baxter’s Explication & Defence of it, & his Exhortation to Unity (London: A.M., 1653), ‘Objections Answered’
“…you should so contrive it rather, that other Churches may in season be bettered.”
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A Second Admonition to Mr. Edward Bagshaw… (London, 1671), sect. 33, p. 88
“To invite all sound and sober Christians, by what names soever called, to receive each other to communion in the same churches. 2. And where that (which is first desireable) cannot be attained, to bear with each other in their distinct assemblies, and to manage them all in Christian love.”
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Robert Fleming Sr.
The Church Wounded & Rent by a Spirit of Division (1681), §4, p. 30
“6. Whatever sad differences be oft amongst these [Christians], which both their darkness of mind and contrariety of natural dispositions may influence, yet does not still that blessed unity of the Spirit stand fixed and sure, by which the whole race of the saints are united in a new and spiritual nature in these sweet and sensible communications of the Spirit, and do all meet in one blessed center, yea so near an intercourse of souls and sympathy does result thence (however the sad prevalence of corruption may for some time darken the same) as no union and concord like this is in all the societies of the earth, and may be such a witness to the truth of Christianity, as to silence even the greatest atheist.”
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1800’s
John ‘Rabbi’ Duncan
“Seas and continents separate in space, but the church of Christ is one in Him.”
“The Plymouth Brethren assert there should be no sects, because there is no visible church; nevertheless, they add one.”
“It would be well for Christendom if all the members of Christ’s catholic church would endeavor to preserve the unity of the Spirit, and think oftener of the many and major points in which they agree than the few and minor ones in which they differ.”
“When we all reach yonder country, we shall wonder what foolish bairns [children] we have been.”
“That is a fine saying of Sack of Bonn [Germany] in his history of the Scottish Church: ‘In Scotland there are no sects, only parties.’ That is a fine testimony from a foreigner.”
“I rejoice in being a member of a Free Church [of Scotland], but I rejoice still more in being a member of the catholic church of the Lord Jesus.”
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B.F. Westcott
Lessons from Work, pp. 84–85
“The student of Christian doctrine, because he strives after exactness of phrase, because he is conscious of the inadequacy of any one human formula to exhaust the truth, will be filled with sympathy for every genuine endeavour towards the embodiment of right opinion.
Partial views attract and exist in virtue of the fragment of truth—be it great or small—which they include; and it is the work of the theologian to seize this no less than to detect the first spring of error.
It is easier and, in one sense, it is more impressive to make a peremptory and exclusive statement, and to refuse to allow any place beside it to divergent expositions; but this show of clearness and power is dearly purchased at the cost of the ennobling conviction that the whole truth is far greater than our individual minds.
He who believes that every judgement on the highest matters different from his own is simply a heresy must have a mean idea of the faith; and while the qualifications, the reserve, the lingering sympathies of the real student make him in many cases a poor controversialist, it may be said that a mere controversialist cannot be a real theologian.”
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1900’s
J. Gresham Machen
Christianity & Liberalism, p. 50
“It is often said that the divided condition of Christendom is an evil, and so it is. But the evil consists in the existence of the errors which cause the divisions and not at all in the recognition of those errors when once they exist.”
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John T. McNeill
in eds. Ruth Rouse & Stephen C. Neill, A History of the Ecumenical Movement: 1517-1948 (Philadelphia, 1967), ch. 1. “The Ecumenical Idea & Efforts to Realize it, 1517-1618”, p. 27 McNeill was an editor of Calvin’s Institutes.
“That Christians are ‘all one in Christ Jesus’ [Gal. 3:28], is a principle never surrendered…”
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Latin Articles
1600’s
Voet, Gisbert
‘On Concord, Discord & Bursting, Divisive & Harsh Words’ in Select Theological Disputations, vol. 4 (Utrecht, 1667), 50. ‘A Syllabus of Questions on the Decalogue’, ‘On the 6th Commandment’, p. 799
Ecclesiastical Politics (Amsterdam: Waesberge, 1663), vol. 4, pt. 3, bk. 3, Of the Government of the Church with Respect to a State of Turbulence, Tract 3, Of Union and Joining With [Syncretismo] Separated Churches
Section 2, Of the Joining With [Syncretismo] or Union of the Separatist Churches
1. Of the Definition or Division, or Distinction of Union or Joining Together 585
2. Of the Mode and Means of Union 591
3. A Question of a General and a Principal Concern is Explicated: Is it Possible for an Ecclesiastical Joining Together to be Entered Into? 594
4. Particular Questions on Some Specific Joinings Together are Explicated 604
5. All the Notable Deliberations and Endeavors about the Joining Together, or Union, of Protestants and the Reformed with the Roman Church are Referenced and Noted 615
6. The Judgment of Grotius on Joining Together, and of the Invitation in Poland to a Colloquium on Joining Together 627
Appendix to the Tract on Toleration and Joining Together, Containing a Deliberation on the Mode and Conditions in which one ought to Receive [or Recover, Recipiendi] Members of the Communion of the Remonstrants, etc. 737
Section 3, Of Amnesty, Conciliation and Neutrality
1. Of Amnesty 748
2. Of Conciliation 755
3. Of Neutrality 767
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Historical
On the Post-Reformation
Articles
Walker, James – ch. 4, ‘The Doctrine of the Visible Church’ in Theology & Theologians of Scotland: Chiefly of the Seventeenth & Eighteenth Centuries (1888), pp. 95-126
This is an excellent survey of the doctrine of the unity of the church from 1600’s Scotland.
eds. Ruth Rouse & Stephen C. Neill, A History of the Ecumenical Movement: 1517-1948 (Philadelphia, 1967), pp. 73-167
John T. McNeill – 1. “The Ecumenical Idea & Efforts to Realize it, 1517-1618”, pp. 27-72 ToC
Martin Schmidt – 2. “Ecumenical Activity on the Continent of Europe in the Seventeenth & Eighteenth Centuries”, pp. 73-122 ToC
Norman Sykes – 3. “Ecumenical Movements in Great Britain in the Seventeenth & Eighteenth Centuries”, pp. 123-70 ToC
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On Legitimate Toleration in a Church
Quote
1600’s
James Durham
A Treatise Concerning Scandal (Naphtali Press, 1990), pt. 4, ch. 1, ‘How Heresy, Schism & Division Differ’
“1. That the [term] division which is intended here [in this chapter] is not every contest and alienation of mind, and difference of practice incident to men, but that which is proper to the church concerning church affairs, and so is to be distinguished from civil debates and contentions.
We would advert also that there may be church differences that fall not under the charge of scandal, as when in some things men of conscience are of different judgments, yet carry it without any offense or breach of charity, or when in some practices there is diversity with forbearance, as was in Polycarp’s days, and the time of Irenaeus (about Easter matters)…”
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On Choosing the Lesser of Two Natural Evils in Churches Uniting
Quote
1600’s
James Durham
Treatise Concerning Scandal, pp. 321–22
“Then there may and ought to be uniting [in church union] when the evils that follow division or schism, are greater and more hurtful to the Church, than the evils that may be supposed to follow on union. I speak not of ills of sin (for the least of these are never to be chosen), but of evils and inconveniences that may indeed be hurtful to the Church in themselves, and sinful in respect of some persons, yet are not so to all: Now, in such evils the lesser is to be chosen.”
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“Softness of heart in the sense of bygone sin would silence many things among us, that all disputings, writings and printings will not be able to do. Pray for this to the land, as the most effectual mean and way of curing our divisions, and of uniting us in the Lord. It joins Israel and Judah together, whose breach was much greater and of far longer continuance than ours.”
Alexander Shields
An Enquiry into Church-Communion, 1706
“That there should be no schism in the body…”
1 Cor. 12:25
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