“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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On the Pressing Urgency for Church Unity
On the Pressing Urgency of Church Unity
Here are classic quotes from Gillespie, Shields, and MacPherson, some the strictest and most principled men church history has graced us with, on the pressing for Church unity, giving up everything one can for it except the truth. Quotes on how to work for such unity are also given.
Articles
Buchanan, James – Sectarian Exclusiveness, 1843, p. 44, 16 pages, in the context of the mid-1800’s Oxford Tractarian Movement, from his On the “Tracts for the Times”
Candlish, Robert – The Importance of Adhering to Sound Scriptural Standards, and Aiming at Union on that Basis, 1843, p. 124, 11 pages, 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 pages
Dabney, Robert – What is Christian Union? from the Central Presbyterian, May 11 & 18, 1870
The principles upon which Christians churches should unite and remain separate.
Hodge, Charles – The Reunion of the Old and New-School Presbyterian Churches 1867 37 pp.
Miller, Samuel – Church Attachment and Sectarianism 6 pp. from The Presbyterian Magazine, Jan., 1854
“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.
Walker, James – The Doctrine of the Visible Church, 1888, starting on p. 95, 30 pages, this is chapter four from his Theology and Theologians of Scotland: chiefly of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, 236 pages
This is an excellent survey of the doctrine of the unity of the church from 1600’s Scotland
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Books
Hodge, Charles – Letters to Presbyterians, on the present crisis in the Presbyterian Church in the United States 1833 340 pp.
M’Crie, Thomas
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 and their Removal, two discourses Buy 1821 174 pp.
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.
Against Separatism
Quotes
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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“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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