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‘For as we have many members in one body, and all members have not the same office: so we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another.’
Rom_12:4-5
Under these circumstances, how was the unity of the Church to be maintained?
It must not be supposed that the freedom of the Gentile Christians was won at no cost to the Church. If it was a blessing to the Gentiles to be freed from the bondage of legalism, it was a calamity to be cut off from those who had not only inherited a far higher standard of righteousness, but who were also by language and mode of thought best able to understand the teaching of the Prophets and Apostles, nay, even of the Lord Jesus Himself. The Christian Church will receive a fuller blessing when it is reinvigorated with Jewish faith and Jewish spiritual insight and Jewish power of devotion. ‘If the casting away of’ the Jews ‘was the reconciling of the world, what shall the receiving of them be but life from the dead?’
I. Is not the problem with which the primitive Church was confronted almost the same as the problem which confronts us English Christians in this twentieth century? As the Church in those days was torn asunder by the differences between Jews and Gentiles, so to-day it is torn asunder by the differences between Anglicans on the one hand and many Nonconformist bodies on the other. In the case of some of those who are separated from us there are, it may be, differences of so fundamental a character as for the present, at all events, to preclude the possibility of any sort of union; but in the case of the great majority, that which separates us is not fundamental difference in the essentials of the faith, but merely differences as to Church order—difference of opinion not so much as to the facts of God’s grace, but rather as to the best methods of putting it into the possession of mankind. Now we Anglicans, like the Jewish Christians, have inherited a great tradition, a liturgy and a form of Church government, which, though we freely acknowledge that in some respects they are imperfect and need reformation, as a whole we feel to be good and not lightly to be given up. We rightly reverence our liturgy, consecrated as it is to us by a thousand associations; we rightly value the historic episcopate and the organisation which provides that none shall take upon himself the cure of souls unless he be duly called and sent. But we must be careful that we do not claim for these good things more than is their due. The utmost that we can claim for those things which are perhaps the greatest bar to unity—I mean the historic episcopate, the threefold order of the ministry, and the liturgy—is that the germ of them was in existence at a time when the last of the Apostles had not yet passed away.
II. The things which I have mentioned are good, and the sweeping away of them would be a terrible calamity, but I also believe that we have no more right to refuse to recognise as members of the Body of Christ those who have rejected them than the Jewish Christians had the right to say to their Gentile brethren, ‘Except ye be circumcised after the manner of Moses, ye cannot be saved.’ Let us not think of ourselves more highly than we ought to think; but let us think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith. For as we have many members in one body, and all members have not the same office; so we, being many, Anglicans and Nonconformists, whether Romanist or Protestant, are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another.
III. A call to unity.—Men cannot be made by Act of Parliament, or by any other means, lightly to give up all that they have inherited from the past. The most drastic legislation will not effect the unity of the churches, nor convert one single sect. God grant, then, that it may seem good to us, as I believe it seems good to the Holy Ghost Himself, that on the one hand we English Churchmen should loyally and unreservedly acknowledge those who love the Lord Jesus Christ as true members of the Catholic Church, that ‘blessed company of all faithful people,’ and that on the other hand those who have been separated from us should recognise that we are not necessarily less sincere than they because in the minor matters of religion—the great matter, that which is of supreme importance, is the communion with God through our Lord Jesus Christ—we cannot see altogether eye to eye with them. If we will but respect each other’s position, the way will be paved for that perfect fellowship and unity to which we believe the Church must ultimately attain.
IV. Let us humbly determine that by God’s grace we will endeavour to promote the unity of Christians.—Let no political exigency, no prospect of some party advantage, make us deviate from the example of the Lord Jesus Christ. Had He stooped to think of political expediency, had He trimmed and mutilated His Gospel to suit Pharisees on the one hand or Sadducees on the other, the nations of the world would still walk in darkness. Let us cease from bitter memories and from angry recriminations. Let us not think of ourselves or of the particular branch of the Church to which we belong more highly than we ought to think. What is each Church, each individual, apart from the rest, but a ‘broken arc’? Only when the broken arcs are welded together into a ‘perfect round’ will there shine upon the earth the full brightness of heaven.
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Rev. Canon Kennett.