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Presented by the Author

THE CALL TO UNITY

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THE CALL TO UNITY
THE BEDELL LECTURES FOR 1919
DELIVERED AT KENYON COLLEGE
MAY 24th and 25th, 1920

BY

WILLIAM T. IVf ANNING, S.T.D., D.C.L.
Rector of Trinity Church, New York

Il5eto gork
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1920
AV rights reeervetl,

OOPTBiaHT, 1920, _s.
By the MAOMILIjAN COMPANY +-
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Set up and electrotyped. Published, December, 1920 '^
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4

V
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^

TO
WILLIAM PORCHER DuBOSE
WHO
BY HIS LIFE
NOT LESS THAN BY HIS TEACHING
HELPED MANY TO KNOW
JESUS CHRIST
AS
THE WAY, THE TRUTH AND THE LIFE

PREFACE
These lectures, delivered some months ago, were put
in form for publication before the recent meeting of
the Lambeth Conference. That gathering of the
Bishops of the Anglican Church has issued a Declara
tion on Reunion which will challenge the attention
of Christians everywhere, and will give new Impetus
to the movement towards unity.
To the author of these lectures It Is reassuring to
find that what had been written is wholly in accord
with this latest pronouncement by those entitled to
speak for the Anglican Communion. Especially It Is
interesting to find that the suggestion, in the fourth
lecture, as to mutual acceptance of added authoriza
tion for the work of the Ministry, Is definitely put
forth in the Lambeth Declaration.
Among the volumes consulted in connection with
these lectures there are two to which I feel under spe
cial obligation. One of these Is The Church and
Religious Unity, by the Revd. Herbert Kelly, a
masterly and most truly helpful discussion of the
subject from the Catholic point of view; the other is
Pathways to Christian Unity, by six distinguished Free
Church writers, a volume so earnest in Its plea for
unity, and so Christian In its spirit, that it is a refresh
ment to one's faith and hope to read it.

CONTENTS
chapter page
I The Call to Unity  i
II The Present Outlook foe Unity  27
III The Approach to Unity  57
IV The Call to the Anglican Communion ... 83

" As being baptized we are all on either side brothers
and sisters in Christ, we are all at bottom members of the
universal Church. In this great garden of God let us shake
hands with one another over the confessional hedges, and
let us break them down so as to be able to embrace one
another altogether. . . . Let us examine, compare and in
vestigate the matter together, and we shall discover the
precious pearl of religious peace and Church unity, and
then join our hands and forces in cleansing and cultivati".g
the garden of the Lord, which is overgrown with weeds."
John J. I. Von Dollinger.
The Church is divinely organized and constituted Unity
— a unity within which by free interrelation and interaction
different points of view, impressions, emphases, perspectives,
and so theories, doctrines, systems, etc., may correct, sup
plement, and complete one another and bring all to the essen
tial and sufficient unity that not only belongs to them but
can come only through their all-sided contributions.
Incidentally we may say of Sects in Christianity that their
evil is expressed in the word itself: they are organized and
isolated differences and diversities. Their partial and em
phasized good is withdrawn from communication to and
influence upon others; their deficiencies, ignorances or er
rors are removed from supplementing or correction by others.
They are destructive of that Oneness in Christ which is the
essence and definition of Christianity, which is ours in spite
of our differences, and within which our differences would
quickly melt down into not merely pardonable, or permissible,
but even contributory and completive diversities.
William Porcher DuBose.

THE CALL TO UNITY

THE CALL TO UNITY
The whole world to-day Is moved by the thought of
fellowship. It is not surprising therefore that we feel
more than ever the Incongruity of our lack of fellow
ship in the Christian Church. The desire for fellow
ship among Christians has in fact reached a new point
of progress. It has ceased to be merely a pious aspira
tion, and has become a world wide movement. Never
since the divisions In the Church of Christ took place
has the need of reunion been felt as It Is now. And
this necessity is being forced home upon us from many
sides. Hard facts are driving us to see the evils, and
the perils of our present situation.
The outbreak of the world war burned into our souls
the weakness of a divided Christianity. We saw that,
as a power to preserve peace among men, the Church
did not seriously count. Its voice was not heard speak
ing unitedly and clearly for those principles of justice
and righteousness upon which alone peace can rest. Its
infiuence in the hour of the world's crisis was negli-
I

2 THE CALL TO UNITY
gible. And the whole course of events since has served
to make this inadequacy clearer to us. Whatever ex
planation, or defense, or palliation there may be for
them, it Is plain that our divisions are a disaster to the
cause of Christ. Before the present unprecedented
need of the world, the Christian Church stands with
her life enfeebled, her witness weakened, her message
in large measure discredited by her own differences and
dissensions. Christian Unity is no mere ecclesiastical problem.
It is the greatest, and the most far reaching of all pres
ent day questions. It lies back of, and holds the key to,
all our other problems, national and International, so
cial, political and economic. As men face the tremen
dous responsibilities and tasks of this new time, they are
feeling the need of support and guidance. They know
that if there is to be a new order it must be filled with a
new spirit. They are looking for moral and spiritual
strength and help. But they are not looking, with con
fidence, to the Church for this. A disunited Church
cannot call forth the faith of men, nor give the message
of Christ to the world. Its own Inconsistency, and self-
contradiction are too evident. How can the world
learn the Gospel of fellowship from an organization
which Is at variance with itself? What power is there
in an appeal for a united world issued by a divided
Church? What force is there in a plea for brother
hood by those who fall to give evidence of brotherli-

THE CALL TO UNITY 3
ness? Such an appeal suggests at once the retort:
" Physician, heal thyself."
The Christian Church Is commissioned to show the
world the true meaning of human brotherhood. It
is for this that the Church Is set here among men.
It is to preach and to be, the truest realization of fel
lowship ever seen on this earth; a fellowship which
transcends all bounds of nation, or race, or color; a fel
lowship blessed, made holy and complete, in oneness
with Jesus Christ. This fellowship was to be the proof
of the Church's Divine mission and of the power of
Him in Whose Name she speaks. While the Church
fails to furnish this proof, can we wonder if the world
listens to her message with doubt and uncertainty ?
The Church should be the inspiration and guiding
force of the present movements for social advance.
Changes far greater than any of us realize are taking
place. We have entered into a new era. Vast prob
lems are pressing for solution. The truer order of
cooperation, fellowship, brotherhood is to be estab
lished. In all this the Church should be not a spec
tator, nor a mere sympathetic influence, but the great
guiding power. The one true hope for the world is
that these movements shall be actuated by the spirit,
and the principles, of Christ. There should now be a
world-wide call from the Church for a redeemed social
order, in which the spirit and law of Christ shall rule,
for the bringing of Christian principles Into the whole

4 THE CALL TO UNITY
fabric of modern civilization ; for the Christianization
of every department of life. Who but the Church
can Issue such a call? What other power but that
of religion is able to bring the spirit of brotherhood
into human relationships and " to make justice and love
the controlling motive in all social conditions " ? But
her own divided state makes It impossible for the
Church to give such a call with effect. " Doth a foun
tain send forth at the same place sweet water and
bitter?" Can a Church which is divided by the
spirit of sect liberate men's hearts from the spirit
of class and of caste? Can a Church which main
tains barriers of religious antagonism and division
be the herald of cooperation, and of the common life?
Can a Church in which men are separated into com
petitive and rival groups preach effectively the so
cial message of the Gospel? In his interesting essay
on " Christianity and the Working Classes," Mr.
Arthur Henderson very pointedly asks " Is Christi
anity, as we have it represented to-day, split up as it
is into almost innumerable denominational churches,
capable of dealing adequately with the growing forces
of reaction?" and he adds: "However much Chris
tians may console themselves that a Church divided Into
numerous sects is justified and, as many think, a source
of strength, the multitude is slow to believe in a Chris
tianity so divided." ^
^ Christianity and the Working Classes, pp. 125, 126.

THE CALL TO UNITY 5
Of the practical waste, the squandering of energy,
time and resources, occasioned by our divisions It is
scarcely necessary to speak. We see the evidences of
this on every hand. It is obvious that the energies
which, as Christians, we devote to controversy and
conflict with each other should be concentrated on the
one great purpose for which the Church exists. But
the overlapping, the duplication of effort, the compe
tition and rivalry among Christians are worse than
mere waste of power, serious as this is. They are a
spectacle which lessens the faith of men, which brings
religion into disrepute, and which does daily hurt to
the cause of Christ. Men generally are not hostile
to religion, but the message of Christ seems to them
confused and uncertain. Amid the controversies of
the churches they cannot hear the great central mes
sage of the Church. The fact which they see clearly
is that, however the divisions may be accounted for,
they conflict with the Church's own teaching, and
contradict her own fundamental principles. They
know that whatever else the Church of Christ stands
for it must, if it truly represents Him, stand for har
mony, not for discord, for peace, not for dissension,
for fellowship, brotherhood and love. A divided
Church is giving us a non-believing world.
Here In the United States, In the life of our own
country, the practical results of the disunity among
Christians are only too apparent. One of its most

6 THE CALL TO UNITY
serious results is the complete divorce of religion from
our system of public education. This land in which
we live Is a Christian land. It was the distinct in
tention of its founders that it should be such. As
Bishop Gailor reminds us, in his Bedell Lectures, this
nation " was founded by Christian men with the de
liberate purpose of extending the influence of the
Christian religion," and the Supreme Court of the
United States has specifically declared that the Chris
tian Religion is part of the common law of our coun
try.^ It was George Washington who said " Reason
and experience both forbid us to expect that national
morality can prevail in exclusion of religious prin
ciple." ..." To the distinguished character of pa
triot it should be our highest glory to add the more
distinguished character of Christian." And yet we
cannot teach the children in our public schools even
the bare rudiments of the Christian religion. The re
ligious divisions among us forbid our doing so.
The whole fabric of democracy is based on belief
in God. Everything is staked on the right judgment
and moral principle of the people. Education alone
does not give moral principle. A trained intellect has
no necessary connection with right conduct. There
is no other basis for moral conduct except religion.
The distinction between right and wrong disappears,
or becomes a mere convention, if we cease to recog-
^ The Christian Church and Education, p. 48.

THE CALL TO UNITY 7
nize God and His law. Biit as to this upon which the
character of our people, and the life of our country
depend, our schools are compelled to keep silence.
Children are Influenced more by what we do than
by what we say. And between our provision for them
in regard to education and our provision for them in
regard to religion they see a contrast which cannot
fail to impress them. They see their education care
fully provided for by the State, and religion carefully
excluded. With their companions, on six days in each
week, they enter the door of the one schoolhouse; on
the other day they go in separated groups, if they go at
all, to differing, and rival, religious teachers. As to
education they see visible unity ; as to religion they see
visible dissension and disunity. A member of the
Board of Education of the city of New York was re
ported recently as saying, " We fully understand that
a system of education from which God and religion are
excluded provides only for a civilization which must
crumble to pieces." And it Is the divisions among
Christians which are compelling us to maintain such a
system. It was no religious partisan, but the late Thomas
H. Huxley, who wrote, " I have always been strongly
in favor of secular education, in the sense of edu
cation without theology; but I confess I have been
no less seriously perplexed to know by what practical
measures the religious feeling, which is the essential

8 THE CALL TO UNITY
basis of right conduct, was to be kept up, in the pres
ent utterly chaotic state of opinion upon these mat
ters, without the use of the Bible."
We are not willing even to entertain the thought
that America may cease to be a Christian nation.
But the facts are such as may well give us grave con
cern. Human society does not remain Christian of
its own inherent impulse, without pains or effort.
Christian faith and principle do not persist of their
own momentum. Fruits do not continue without
roots. The United States Census of 191 6 shows two
hundred and two different religious denominations.
But in our population of more than one hundred
million people less than forty-two million acknowledge
connection with any kind of religion. Trustworthy
statistics show that an actually incredible number of
the young people of our land are growing up without
definite religious teaching of any sort. A volume,
just published, by Charles Otis Gill and Gifford
Pinchot, gives the results of a careful Investigation
of conditions in the rural districts of the State of
Ohio. This report reveals a decline, both religiously
and morally, which is startling, and the situation is
shown to be worst In that portion of the State where
the American stock predominates and the foreign
born population is small.
" In this area," the authors say, " after more than
a hundred years of the work of the Churches, the re-

THE CALL TO UNITY 9
ligious, social, and economic welfare of the people Is
going down. Although the Churches have been here
for more than a century, no normal type of organized
religion is really flourishing, while the only kind
which, during the past fifteen years, has been gaining
ground — the cult of the Holy Rollers — is scarcely
better than that of a dervish. The Churches have
failed, and are failing, to dispel Ignorance and super
stition, to prevent the Increase of vice, the spread of
disease, and the general moral and spiritual decadence
of the people. Imbeciles, feeble-minded, and delin
quents are numerous, politics is corrupt, the selling of
votes is common, petty crimes abound, the schools have
been badly managed and poorly attended. Cases of
rape, assault, and robbery are of almost weekly occur
rence 'within five minutes' walk of one of the county
seats, while in another county political control is held
by a self-confessed criminal." ^
There is no reason to suppose that conditions in
Ohio are exceptionally bad. On the contrary, this
State was selected as the field for investigation be
cause It is central and representative, its country dis
tricts contain great numbers of churches, the average
for the State Is in fact one church for every two hun
dred and eighty persons. Its religious life includes all
the stronger denominations, and has been established
for a century. In the eighteen counties investigated
1 Six Thousand Churches, Macmillan and Co.

10 THE CALL TO UNITY
there are, in two hundred and eight rural townships,
fifteen hundred and forty-two churches, divided among
seventeen different denominations. It is not the fail
ure of Protestantism that we see here, nor the failure
of Catholicism. It is the failure of both. It is the
inadequacy and ineffectiveness of a divided Chris
tianity. What is the picture of the Christian religion
which is presented week by week to our people in what
is called the "religious page" of our daily papers?
In that exhibit of rival religious agencies, varying in
their teaching from Roman Catholicism at one end of
the list to Spiritism, Christian Science and New
Thought at the other, does the average American see
a sight to inspire him with faith in the Gospel of
Christ? Could anything be more confusing to the
minds, or less assuring to the faith of men, than the
spectacle there offered to them? And yet this Babel
of discordant voices is a photographic representation
of what we venture to call " our common Christi
anity." The plain man may be forgiven if he can see
in it little that is either " common " or Christian. It
is a picture which casts doubt and discredit on Christ
and His Gospel. If Christ cannot bring His own fol
lowers together in fellowship and brotherhood, how
can men believe in His power? If Christians are un
able to agree among thanselves as to the essential
truth of the Gospel is it surprising if the world is un-

THE CALL TO UNITY II
convinced, or if men conclude that all questions of be
lief are unimportant?
Even within the household of the various Commun
ions the effect of our present divided state Is deeply
felt. The faith of the "whole body of Christians is
weakened and Impaired by It. Great numbers of
those who were brought up in these different faiths are
adrift, without clear religious belief, or definite con
viction. Many of those whose parents were earnest
Christians, and whose family names have long been
on the records of the Church, are to be found in the
ranks of the apparently indifferent. In the battle
against the evil that is in the world, against the anti-
Christian forces at work in the intellectual world,
against the spirit of pure paganism now manifesting
itself In our literature, in our art. In the present
standards, or lack of standards, in much of our social
life, we need the testimony and the power of a united
Christianity. Our divisions are giving the forces of
evil and unbelief a terrible advantage.
But if our disunity weakens and stultifies the work
of the Church here in our own land, where we are
familiar with the disputes, and know something of
their history, what shall be said of its effect in the
Mission fields, in the work of world-evangelization?
The question is one which answers itself. Here the
inconsistency of our divided state, and the harm

12 THE CALL TO UNITY
wrought by It, come out into full view. Why should
those who know nothing of the Gospel listen to us
until we can agree among ourselves as to what is its
essential message? What success would the first mis
sionaries, the Apostles themselves, have had if they
had gone out from Jerusalem disagreeing as to the
common Faith, refusing to hold communion with each
other, carrying rival and conflicting messages In the
Name of the one Christ? From every quarter of the
globe, the devoted men and women who are giving
their lives as missionaries send back to us the same testi
mony. They tell us that if Christ is to be made known
to the heathen world the divisions among Christians
must cease, that they are the greatest of all hin
drances, a practically insuperable obstacle, to the
carrying out of our Lord's command to " make di
sciples of all the nations."
The Bishop of Dornakal, the only native of India
in the Anglican Episcopate, gives us a vivid picture of
the situation. Stating that there are one hundred
million people in India beyond the reach of any ex
isting missionary agency, and deploring the waste of
effort caused by unnecessary multiplication of missions
in the same district, the Bishop declared a few weeks
ago that if there could be a union of spiritual forces
this would soon result in doubling the number of
Christians in India. In his address as reported, the
Bishop said : " Another evil of the present state of

THE CALL TO UNITY 1 3
things was the confusion created In the minds of non-
Christian Indians. Again and again he had been asked
by educated Indians to explain our differences. Again
and again he had tried to tell them we are all one, but
always he was conscious that they saw two churches
within one hundred yards. In the large towns when a
Hindoo became a Christian there was a real competition
between the various bodies of Christians to convince
him that theirs was the one true representation of
Christianity. Converts had told him that they were
happy enough after their conversion until their baptism,
but as this drew near the quarrels amongst Christian
ministers as each sought to obtain them almost made
them draw back. . . . There are many Indians who
would have Christ but will have nothing to do with
Christianity that has come from the West, because
of the bitterness and rivalry it has brought with it."
The thought of unity may well be in our minds.
The disastrous consequences of our divisions are all too
clear. The most hopeful feature of the existing sit
uation Is that earnest Christians everywhere are realiz
ing its hopelessness. We see the Christian Church
disqualified for her task of world-service, unable to
speak with a corporate voice, without power to meet
the deep needs, and the magnificent opportunities
which now confront her. We see the waste of power
and resources, the over-churching and the under-
churching, the jealousies and unholy rivalries which

14 THE CALL TO UNITY
result from the present state of things. We see the
faith of men lessened, their minds confused as to the
message of the Gospel, the Church's own spiritual life
weakened and impoverished, her vision of the truth
narrowed and restricted.
We see all this, and more, as the practical result
of the dissensions and divisions within the Christian
family. But unanswerable as the argument for re
union is from the practical side this is not the only,
nor the chief, ground of its appeal to us. For all be
lieving Christians there is a call to unity higher, and
more sacred, than this.
It is not sufficient for us to base the appeal for
unity only on the lower grounds of expediency, or of
economy, or of more effective ministration. We fall
far short of the truth and of its full claim upon us if
we rest the case here. Our desire for unity has a
deeper source, our hope for it a surer foundation than
our own wisdom and judgment, our sense of loss
through our divisions, or our feeling that unity would
be practically advantageous. Unity is not merely
some plan, or scheme, or vision of ours. The call to
unity is from Christ Himself, and therefore it comes
with compelling power to all Christians, Catholic and
Protestant alike. This is the fact which we all need
to have more clearly before us. And this fact is now
being recognized with new clearness by Christians of all
names. In a most helpful and noteworthy volume en-

THE CALL TO UNITY 1 5
titled Pathways to Christian Unity, six distinguished
and representative ministers of the English Free
Churches, unite in the following statement : " A more
careful reading of the Gospels has made it clear that
our present divisions are contrary to the mind of
Christ, and that unity is implicit in the very Idea of
the Church. As Christ formed it, the Church was
one, even as the Gospel Is one, and God is one. A
thorough-going examination of the Acts and the Epis
tles has left it beyond doubt that in the Apostolic
Church, amid considerable diversity of type and polity,
unity was regarded as an essential note, a unity spir
itual first but also visible and effective." ..." We
are not dealing then with a question of convenience
merely, with a utilitarian arrangement, to save over
lapping and wasteful rivalry. We are concerned with
something deeper; the more adequate expression of
the spiritual reality; the fulfilment of the divine pur
pose. The Apostles and members of the early Church
rightly apprehended the mind of Christ in this matter.
The New Testament and all its writers bear a con
sistent witness to the unity of the Church. Diligence
was exercised in keeping the unity of the Spirit in the
bond of peace, and great pains were taken to prevent
division." ..." This exposition of the teaching and
practice of New Testament times has for us far more
than an academic interest. The mind of Christ is
regulative; His will is commanding. If we believe

1 6 THE CALL TO UNITY
that our Lord meant us to be all in a visible fellow
ship, we dare not rest in our state of disunion. The
rallying point for united Christendom is common
loyalty to the leadership of our Lord." ^ Careful and
open minded study of the New Testament will, as
these writers say, make clear to any of us that it is
Christ's will that His Church shall be one.
It is from Christ Himself that the call comes to us.
In His last prayer on earth for His disciples, re
corded in the seventeenth chapter of St. John's Gospel,
the petition " that they all may be one " is four times
repeated. It is often urged that in this prayer our
Lord had in mind the inner unity of the Spirit which
should bind His disciples together, and beyond ques
tion this is true. But it is clear also that He had in
mind a unity of the Spirit which was to be visibly
manifested. The oneness of His followers is to be
the evidence to the world of His Divine power and
mission. He prays not for a unity which is invisible
but for a unity which men shall see and which shall
bring them to belief in Him. His prayer to the Fa
ther for His disciples is " that they also may be one in
Us; that the world may believe that Thou hast sent
Me." And the acts of Christ are in accord with His
prayer. He not only prays. He also provides, that
the spiritual unity of His disciples shall have visible
expression. He forms a society into which all His
1 Pp. 22, 25, 26. Macmillan and Co.

THE CALL TO UNITY 1 7
followers are to be gathered, and this society He calls
His Church. This society which our Lord Himself
forms is both inward and outward, both spiritual and
visible. It is a Kingdom of the Spirit, a Kingdom
" within you," but It has also tangible existence and
embodiment. Our Lord chooses and trains its first
officers, appoints its visible observances, the sacraments
of Baptism and the Lord's Supper which are to be
continued forever, and promises to be with It " always,
even unto the end of the world." This was the
Church of the New Testament as all the first disciples
knew it, and were gathered into it. The New Testa
ment knows nothing of " churches," except as local
parts of the one Church founded by Christ Himself.
Saint Paul leaves us in no doubt as to what this fact
of the one Church, the one Spirit manifested in one
Body, the visible fellowship of all believers in Christ
means to him.
We think of St. Paul, rightly, as the great Apostle
of Christian liberty, but he is equally, and even more
distinctively, the Apostle of Christian unity. To St.
Paul this fact of the Church is of the very essence of
the Gospel. In the Church he sees, as Indeed do all
the New Testament writers, the actual carrying into
effect, the practical realization of that which Christ
came into this world to do.
The Church is the means which God has appointed
for bringing to Himself all mankind, in the fellowship

1 8 THE CALL TO UNITY
of His dear Son. It is the Church which gives the
Gospel actuality and meaning. As St. Paul sees and
understands them Christ and His Church cannot be
separated. On the way to Damascus, the persecutor
of the Church, he has heard the voice saying " Saul,
Saul, why persecutest thou Mef " To St. Paul the
Church is not something apart from, or additional to
the Gospel, a voluntary association of those who be
lieve formed for convenience or effectiveness in work.
The Church is an integral part of the Gospel, insep
arable from it, and necessary to its life. Without it
the Gospel would itself be incomplete and unintelligi
ble. The Church is Jesus Christ Himself still alive,
still present, still manifested in the fellowship of those
who believe in Him and are joined to Him by the
Spirit. As St. Paul contemplates this truth, and lives
it, the wonder of it increases, the depth of Its meaning
grows upon him. He can find no language sufficient,
no terms strong enough, to give it expression. His
words burn and glow as we read them. He adds
phrase to phrase, and figure to figure, in the effort to
make clear its revelation of God's goodness and love.
His great desire Is to make all men see " what is the
exceeding greatness of His power to us who believe,
according to the working of His mighty power, which
He wrought in Christ when He raised Him from the
dead and set Him at His own right hand in heavenly
places, far above all principality, and power, and

THE CALL TO UNITY I9
might, and dominion, and every name that is named,
not only in this world, but also in that which is
to come; and hath put all things under His feet,
and gave Him to be the Head over all things to the
Church, which is His body, the fulness of Him that
filleth all in all." ^
The Church, St. Paul tells us, is the body of the
living Christ. Christ and His Church are not two,
they are one. The Church can only be one, because
It Is the body of the one Christ. It is the living fel
lowship of all who share Christ's life, all who by the
Spirit are made one with Him. It Is the unity of all
who are His, both in this world and in Paradise.
There can no more be two Churches than there can be
two Christs. Christians may fail to recognize, or may
deny, their fellowship In Christ, but It still exists, and
In this lies the deep wrong of division. This is the
basic, fundamental truth which St. Paul sees and de
clares with such power. The Gospel means not only
that which took place at Bethlehem, and that which
was done on Calvary, it means the embodiment and
manifestation of the risen and ascended Christ in the
visible fellowship of His followers, in whom, by the
power of the Holy Ghost He continues His life and
work in this world. The very proof of the Gospel is
its power to bind men and women of every sort to
gether in a new life of fellowship with Christ and with
1 Ephesians i, 19-23.

20 THE CALL TO UNITY
each other. The Apostle will hear of nothing which
obscures this, or weakens it, or conflicts with it. In
the striking words of a well known New Testament
scholar " the great struggle of his life was not to claim
permission for Gentiles to form Gentile churches side
by side with the Jewish Churches but to preserve the
completest inter-communion between Jewish and Gen
tile believers in Christ. It was the refusal of Jews
to eat with Gentiles — a refusal which must have ne
cessitated separate eucharists — which he denounced
as fundamentally unchristian, when even St. Peter
and St. Barnabas for a moment lent it their sanction."
" St. Paul's whole career was shaped by his convic
tion and determination that comprehension and unity
were and should be essential notes of the Christian
Church. Not far an instant could he allow the posi
tion that the city of Antioch might contain two bodies
of baptized persons, agreeing in their Christian faith,
recipients of the same Holy Ghost, and yet separated
from communion with one another in the breaking of
bread. Two bodies and one spirit was a thought un
thinkable to him. ' There is neither Jew nor Greek,'
he cries to the Galatians, to whom he has repeated
the story of that crisis, ' there Is neither Jew nor
Greek, there is neither bondman nor freeman, there
is no male and female ; for ye are all one — one man
— in Christ Jesus.' " ^
1 The Vision of Unity, by J. Armitage Robinson, pp. 17, 18.

THE CALL TO UNITY 21
No one has ever urged the call to unity and its
claim upon all Christians with such power, and pas
sion, as St. Paul does. If the great Apostle were now
here with us in the flesh there is no question as to
what his counsel would be to us.
In the confusion and weakness of our disunity his
words come to us to-day as a ringing challenge. " I
hear that there be divisions among you." " Is Christ
divided? " " Mark them which cause divisions." " I
beseech you brethren by the name of our Lord Jesus
Christ, that ye all speak the same thing, and that there
be no divisions among you." " For as the body is
one and hath many members, but all the members of
the body, many though they be, are one body, so also
is the Christ : for by one Spirit have we all been bap
tized Into one body."
The facts as to our present condition, and the plain
New Testament teaching as to the Church would
seem to leave us without apology or defense for the
continuance of our divisions. We must win back
all of us the vision of the Church of Christ as St.
Paul sees It and shows it to us, the Church Divinely
founded to be the pillar and ground of the truth, the
dispenser of heavenly grace, the Body and the Bride
of Christ. It is this New Testament, Divinely given
ideal of the Church which is needed to draw us all
together, and fill us with longing for the full realiza
tion, and manifestation, of our fellowship in the one

22 THE CALL TO UNITY
Lord. It is not enough for us to go on faithfully
and passively in our separated Communions. As
Christians we have no right to acquiesce in conditions
as they are. It is time for all of us to realize that,
while we owe a proper loyalty to our own Com
munions, our supreme loyalty is due to the one
Church, the Body of Christ, into which we are bap
tized, and of which we are all members. Our sep
arations and divisions have led many of us to a poor
and inadequate view of the Church. They have led
some of us even to suspicion and depreciation of it, as
though loyalty to the Church might In some way come
between us and Christ. There is a demand in some
quarters for a Christianity without the Church.
Nothing could be more out of harmony with the teach
ing of St. Paul, and of the whole New Testament.
The one Church has been too much hidden from us
by " the churches." The Free Church writers of the
book Pathways to Christian Unity, already quoted,
say, " It is small wonder that the vision of the One,
Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church is obscured.
Amid our preoccupations with sectional interests, and
our emphasis on denominational differences, we can
not be surprised that among a great body of church
men the idea of the Church no longer kindles imagina
tion, nor evokes warm affection." ..." The removal
of our denominational walls would increase the ranges

THE CALL TO UNITY 23
of our vision, and bring into clearer focus the one
Church of Christ in all its majesty and glory."
There may be those who can regard the present di
vided state of the Church with indifference. There
may even be those who prefer that things should re
main as they are, who fear the power that a United
Church might exercise in the world. And for that
fear there may be good ground. A Church united
in the Spirit of Christ would exercise a power such as
that which the Gospel showed in the first days. It is
quite true that a " half pagan civilization has less to
fear from a divided and distracted church." ^
But to all who believe in Christ as the Redeemer
and Lord of human life, the one and only Saviour of
the world, the present situation is an intolerable one.
It is Christ's will that Is thwarted, it is Christ's
power that is circumscribed, it is Christ's promises
that are discredited, by the present condition of His
Church. Our divisions are not only waste, and loss,
and weakness; they are sin.
Men do not listen to the Gospel because we are
withholding from them the chief evidence of its
power. They do not see the evidence which our
Lord Himself said would convince them, and on which
St. Paul so Insistently dwells, the one body of be-
1 See essay on " Reunion and the War " in Towards Reunion,
P- 341-

24 THE CALL TO UNITY
lievers, linked together in visible and holy fellowship
by the power of the one Spirit. Evangelization, Wit
ness, Redemption from sin, Fellowship with God in
Christ, these are the things for which the Church
exists in this world, and these are all being hindered
and defeated by the Church's divisions. Our disunity
is sin, and it is sin in which we are all of us involved.
We are all guilty of the sin of schism. " We are all
more or less schismatic. If not wilfully, then by mis
fortune, or by the fault of others, we are divided from
one another in the Body of Christ." ^ The time has
come for repentance in which we must all share. This
is a day for great searchings of heart, but it is our
own hearts that we must search and not our neigh
bors'. We need not inquire too diligently into the
causes of the divisions, nor seek to apportion the
blame for them. The question before us is not how
did the divisions begin, but how may they be brought
to an end. In most quarrels there are faults on both
sides, and so it has been with the quarrels among
Christians. The question now is not as to the origin
of schism, but as to the longer continuance of it.
What is out attitude, and the attitude of our respective
Communions towards this question?
Is our personal pride, or our corporate self-satis
faction, hindering the coming of unity, and postpon
ing the day when the power of Christ can be revealed ?
1 Unity and Schism, by T. A. Lacey, p. 150.

THE CALL TO UNITY 2$
How much Is our attitude governed by prejudice, by
dislike of change, by unwillingness to look on the
things of others, by the temper of schism In our own
souls? How truly do we long for the unity of
Christ's Church, and how ready are we to make sacri
fices of our preferences and prejudices for It? These
are serious questions for all of us to answer, and
they are questions from which none of us can escape.
The day has passed in which self-sufficient aloof
ness, or exclusiveness, or indifference could be ex
cused. No such attitude on the part of any of us is
now justifiable. Each Christian Communion is called
upon to acknowledge its share In the sin of making
schism, or of helping to perpetuate It. There is no
Church on earth. Catholic or Protestant, which is not
a sharer in this sin. There is not a Church which has
done all that it should have done to prevent it, or to
bring it to an end. It is the profound, and devout,
Roman Catholic, Moehler, who declares that Catholics
and Protestants " must stretch a friendly hand to one
another and exclaim, in the consciousness of a com
mon guilt, we all have erred — it is the Church only
which cannot err; we all have sinned — the Church
only is spotless on earth"; and he adds, "This open
confession of guilt on both sides will be followed by
the festival of reconciliation." ^ We are called to re
pent, and repentance. If It be real. Includes full pur-
''¦La Symbolique, tome ii, pp. 33, 34-

26 THE CALL TO UNITY
pose of amendment, and active effort to repair the
wrong. It is time now for a great resolve, by Chris
tians of all names, that the present situation shall not
continue, that through the promised help of God the
Spirit, present with us now as in the first days, the
way shall be found for the healing of our divisions,
and for the manifestation to the world of our fellow
ship in Jesus Christ.

II
THE PRESENT OUTLOOK FOR UNITY
There are few, to-day, who will defend the di
visions among Christians. Not often do we hear the
argument, once common enough, that competition Is
needful for religion, and that sectarianism is ordained
of God. It is now generally recognized that the di
visions among us are a sin in themselves and a source
of untold injury to the cause of Christ. But there
are still many who doubt whether the Ideal of unity
can be realized. The obstacles in the way of its real
ization are indeed great. From the human point of
view we may admit that they seem Insuperable. But
this is not a question to be considered merely from
the human point of view. It is Jesus Christ Who
calls us to unity, and with Him the impossible Is pos
sible. The difficulty of bringing men and women into
fellowship with each other in Christ is no greater now
than it was when the Gospel was first preached. That
which God the Spirit was able to accomplish in hu
man lives in the first age He is equally able to accom
plish in this later one. The reunion of the Church in
this twentieth century would be not one whit more
27

28 THE CALL TO UNITY
wonderful, or surprising, than was the appearance of
the Church in the first century. The difficulties to
day are, in fact, far less than those which St. Paul
faced when he proclaimed the Gospel of visible fel
lowship in the one Christ. " What a strange medley
it was, that Corinthian Church of his ! Jew and Gen
tile, master and slave, cultured and unwashed, were
welded into the closest unity by their baptism into this
new society. History could produce nothing like it.
Slaves had suddenly found themselves on a spiritual
level with their owners; emancipated women had be
gun to prophesy in the common assembly, to the scan
dal of old-fashioned disciplinarians ; there was a babel
of tongues as each individual claimed priority for the
exercise of his spiritual gift. How could such a con
glomerate hold together ? Only, St. Paul said, as they
recognized an organic life which duly related part with
part, only as they were dominated by the truth of the
one Body. . . . The body is Christ. That Is the true
unity. It unites all classes, and all nationalities. It
finds a place for everyone, and keeps everyone in his
place. It destroys not Individuals, but individualism.
It transmutes self-assertion into self-devotion. It
counts charity, that is the spirit of membership, above
all other spiritual gifts. It creates an efficiency and
generates a force which transcends all efforts of all
individuals, and which in the end will be irresistible.
It presents a living Christ to the world — a living and

TiHE PRESENT OUTLOOK FOR UNITY 29
growing Christ, embodied in the lives of His mem
bers, gathering up In one all the Individuals of hu
manity Into the ultimate unity of God's One Man.
And so it offers a new philosophy of human life, and
with it a new human hope, as certain of fulfilment as
is the purpose of God." ^ As we consider the prac
tical possibility of unity, and the steps necessary for
its achievement, we must keep In mind the fact that
unity is far from meaning uniformity. A mechanical
uniformity would be as untrue to the New Testament
Ideal of the Church as Is an individualistic disunity.
The one would be as far from the true unity of the
Spirit as the other Is. The one would be as spiritually
sterile as the other is spiritually disintegrating. The
method of a unity maintained by authority from with
out has already been tried on a great scale, and our
present disunity is the reaction from it. Uniformity
in the details of faith and worship there neither can
be, nor should be, in the Church. God has created
men with widely differing temperaments, gifts, and
spiritual capacities. Our gifts and capacities are not
to be repressed, they are all to be developed and ful
filled in fellowship with Christ. A true unity must
provide for great diversity of spiritual apprehension,
experience and expression. Unity requires uniform
ity only in the things which are essential to common
ij. Armitage Robinson, D.D. The Vision of Unity, pp. 9, 10.
Longmans, Green and Company.

30 THE CALL TO UNITY
faith and life in Christ. Unity means a oneness in
the essential things so real that we shall dare to differ
freely in lesser matters, as men and women do who
live in real fellowship, without their differences caus
ing, or even suggesting, separation and division. We
do not need separated and rival sects to give room for
proper freedom. If complete agreement in matters of
faith were a prerequisite for unity we might indeed
despair, but unity imposes no such condition. While
it Is obvious that those who are to live and work to
gether in Christ must have a common faith in Him,
it is certain that unity cannot be based only on agree
ment upon questions of doctrine. We need to recog
nize more clearly that it is not so much agreement
which produces unity as it is unity and fellowship which
produce agreement. It is the Spirit which maketh men
to be of one mind in an house. Our Lord Himself
acted upon this principle. He based the unity of His
followers on a foundation far deeper than mere intel
lectual agreement. He did not formulate a creed. He
founded a Household, a Church, in which all were to
become sharers of His life. It was the living of their
common life in Him which was to keep them in the
unity of the common faith. It was in the fellowship
of the one household that they were to grow together
in knowledge of the truth. Right apprehension of
truth is important, and necessary. But unity lies
more fundamentally in our sharing the life that is in

TIHE PRESENT OUTLOOK FOR UNITY 3 1'
Christ than in our apprehension, or explanation, of it.
And this fundamental unity of life given, and shared,
is already ours. What is needed is that this shall be
realized and made manifest.
While it is true that the difficulties to be overcome
are beyond estimate, the present outlook for unity is
full of encouragement. Within the past few decades
an astonishing change has taken place. A short time
ago few Christians were seriously concerned about
unity. Now the desire for it is manifested in all parts
of the Church, and in every quarter of the world. A
new spirit of fellowship is showing itself. Prejudices
are breaking down. Misconceptions are being re
moved. Mutual respect is taking the place of suspicion
and misunderstanding. Scholarship Is at work and
under its impartial searchlight some of the old difficul
ties wear a changed aspect. There is a new freedom,
a new Interchange of thought, a new readiness to com
pare ideas, and to consider opposing views, among
scholars and leaders, in all Communions. Roman
Catholics and Protestants, Anglicans and Noncon
formists are found sympathetically and open-mlndedly
studying each other's religious life and teaching. The
old, bitter style of controversy has almost disappeared.
Of this changed situation, as It appears in England,
Canon Goudge says, " If any member of our own
body preached about Nonconformists in the style of
Dr. South, or wrote about them in the style of the

32 THE CALL TO UNITY
poet Crabbe, we should soon make him understand
how deeply we were shocked by his words. It is rare
indeed to hear from one of our own pulpits an unkind
word about those separated from us, and we may
hope that the same is widely true of Nonconformist
pulpits. Moreover, the old aloofness is giving way.
We ourselves no longer affect to regard Nonconform
ity as negligible, either at home or abroad; the work
done by Nonconformists for our common Master is
far too great and too successful for that. There is
much personal friendliness especially among the min
isters of the different Communions, much mutual ap
preciation, a far greater humility and desire to learn
one from another." ^
Christians to-day are realizing that the things which
unite them are greater than the things which separate
them. They are asking why the separations should
continue. This spirit is especially strong among the
younger people who will soon be the leaders in the
various Communions. From the Student Christian
Movement of England comes this declaration: "We
feel that the divisions of the church in our country
are no longer tolerable, because they obscure that
unity in Christ which we know to be more real than
our differences. We ask for instant and courageous
action. We want to serve a church which stands as
one in fearless love of truth." And this utterance Is
^ The Catholic Party and the Nonconformists, p. 4.

THE PRESENT OUTLOOK FOR UNITY 33
not exceptional. It is typical of the new spirit and
attitude. This spirit was already at work before the
war. But the experiences of the war have greatly
accentuated and strengthened it. The war brought
about on an unprecedented scale, contact between
Chaplains of all kinds and men of all faiths. The
comradeship In a great cause, the fellowship in a world
emergency, revealed them to each other as brothers in
spirit, whatever their religious names. They saw that
true Christian character, was the product not of any
one of the different Religious Communions, but of all
of them. And If they were disposed to regard this as
the acid test, there is the highest of all authority for
such a judgment. " By their fruits ye shall know
them." An Army Chaplain of the Church of Eng
land writes, " Remove a man from the aura of fem
ininity which surrounded his ministry; compel him to
think in a secular medium; pitch him into a world
where rations have an inordinate value ; compel him to
become independent of externals in the spiritual life;
surround him with pals who want no phrases but the
naked truth ; give him God the Spirit for his Teacher,
and the Gospel for his tool; and it is not surprising
If in these surroundings his style changes, his needs
simplify, he develops new affinities, and jettisons a
certain amount of lumber out of his theological valise."
..." It Is one thing to accept the presence of the
Roman Chapel in your parish as part of your normal

34 THE CALL TO UNITY
experience ; and another to see the soldiers of an Irish
regiment laboriously erecting two wooden altars in the
camp, at a safe distance from one another, lest the
Church of Rome should suffer contagion from the
Church of England. It Is one thing to acquiesce in
the lack of sacramental fellowship with the Noncon
formist minister over the way, between whom and
you there is a series of border raids and minor sheep-
stealing operations ; and another thing when you know
him as a friend — when you have shared your experi
ence of Christ with him, and worked by his side in
the presence of wounds and death." ^
Some of the approaches to unity at " the Front "
may have been such as trained theologians could not
approve. But we may remember that the forward
rushes of the " inexperienced " American troops,
though disapproved, no doubt rightly, by the military
experts, helped greatly to shorten the war.
Out of all this fellowship in a common crisis has
come an increased sense, if not of the sinfulness, at
any rate of the needlessness and futility of the divi
sions among Christians. The soldier at least sees the
folly of trying to fight the Devil with divided forces.
Those who have passed through these experiences will
be less than ever content with a divided Christianity.
Great as was the crime of its originators, the war
1 The Rev. T. Guy Rogers, Essay on " Reunion and the War "
in Toivards Reunion, Macmillan and Co.

THE PRESENT OUTLOOK FOR UNITY 35
has made powerfully for the unity of the world. It
has also worked mightily towards the unity of the
Church. Looking at the Christian world as a whole, we see
most important developments in process, and con-
spicious among them Is the changed situation of the
ancient Churches of the East. These great Churches,
which In our western provincialism we have too little
considered, are now coming into a new relation of
fellowship with the world, and with the Church at
large. For centuries content to live apart, with little
desire for contact with the rest of Christendom, they
are now stirred with a new spirit and are manifesting
a strong desire for unity. Speaking to us from the
home and cradle of our religion, out of a Christian
life which antedates that of any of the Churches of
the West, these Eastern Christians have a great part
to play in the life of the United Church, and in the
work of bringing together Its sundered portions.
Their unquestioned antiquity, their steadfastness in
the Faith, which none dispute, their experiences of suf
fering and martyrdom, their deep Insight into spiritual
truth, all give unique value to the testimony which they
bring to us. They have a special witness to bear as
to the essentials of an evangelical, historic, catholic,
Christianity. Even out of the present chaos in Rus
sia the message comes that the Church of that land is
finding new life in the day of her visitation. Bishop

36 THE CALL TO UNITY
Bury, who has just been among us, and whose work
as Bishop of the Anglican Churches In Central and
Northern Europe has given him unusual opportuni
ties for knowledge of the situation, predicts that the
Russian Church will come out of her fierce ordeal
purified, spiritually strengthened, and with new names
added to the roll of her martyrs and confessors. One
of the most trusted religious leaders of our own land,
and of Protestant Christianity the world over, a lay
man, whose position of leadership has kept him in
close relation with Russian affairs, makes the state
ment that " the Russian Orthodox Church is the one
institution in Russia out of which the cement has not
fallen." " It should," he says, " be the work of Prot
estants not to plant their own communions there, but
in any way possible to aid the Russian Church to do
its work. It will be the great power in the recovery
and restoration of the Russian people." The emer
gence of the Eastern portion of Christendom into the
affairs of the Christian world is already showing its
effects in practical ways. It is compelling people to
see the problem of unity in its true perspective. It is
obliging all to recognize that Christians cannot be
classified simply as Roman Catholics on the one hand
or Protestants on the other. It is making plain to
the wayfaring man the fact that the title Catholic
cannot, with fidelity to history, or to fact, be claimed
as the exclusive property of those in communion with

THE PRESENT OUTLOOK FOR UNITY 37
the see of Rome. In this great Communion of the
East, with Its hundred and fifty millions of Christians,
we see a Christianity which has lived largely apart from
our controversies, which Is deeply Evangelical, but not
Protestant, which is undeniably Catholic, but in no
sense Roman, which Is as clear and emphatic in its
rejection of the claims of the Papacy as It is in its
witness to the Catholic Faith. The relations between
the Eastern and Anglican Churches have long been
most friendly in character. There is indeed nothing
which need hold them apart. Their relations have
been still further strengthened by recent events, and
the time seems now to have come for full inter-com
munion and fellowship between these Communions.
The deputation representing the World Conference
Commission of the Episcopal Church which visited the
Churches of the East in 19 19 declares, in its report,
that these Churches now seem ready for definite steps
towards unity. This report says, " A desire for con
tact with Western Christianity is beginning to find
frequent expression throughout the East. Their theo
logical students are being encouraged to go to England
and America for part of their education. An inter
change of lectureships on Church history and doctrine
is being seriously considered in many places. Many
progressive reforms are being inaugurated wherein
contact with the more active form of western Church
life will exercise a stimulating influence. A fresh

38 THE CALL TO UNITY
missionary determination is overtaking the Eastern
Churches as they look forward to such an era of polit
ical peace and religious freedom as they have not en
joyed for centuries. It is along such lines as these
that the pragmatic West can help the more conserva
tive East. In many particulars it can be truly said
that the West lacks what the East has, and the East
lacks what the West has. Only in union can the ful
ness of truth and beauty be found."
At present the chief barrier to progress in the direc
tion of world wide unity is the position taken by the
Roman Catholic Church. The official position of
this Communion In regard to unity seems still to be
that which, years ago, in connection with a famous
discussion, a representative organ declared it to
be " The Church apostolic, undivided, and universal
stands alone among all other religious communities,
with everything to bestow, nothing to receive ; her call
whether to individuals or communities, is a summons
not to treat, but to surrender. She sits as judge in
her own controversy, the only plea she admits is a
confiteor, the only prayer she listens to a miserere."
We may have confidence, however, that this will
not always be the attitude of the Roman Catholic
Church. A far different spirit is found in the utter
ances of many of her wise pontiffs, in the lives of her
great saints, and in the negotiations in which she has at
times engaged with those not of her own fold. Her

THE PRESENT OUTLOOK FOR UNITY 39
system is in fact far more flexible than It appears to
be, and she has shown remarkable power of adapta
tion to changed conditions. The growth of a world
wide spirit of fellowship, and Christian democracy,
will affect Rome as it is affecting all of us. Some new
Hildebrand will come to the Papacy who will see the
vision of unity as St. Paul did, and will find the true
spiritual power of his high office by voluntarily laying
aside whatever hinders the Roman Communion from
Catholic fellowship with the Church of Christ as a
whole. As to the possibility of approach between the
Roman Catholic Church and those Communions which
seem furthest removed from her, no less interesting a
witness than Professor Harnack says, " If one objects
to it that at this time no one can Imagine how and
under what forms Catholicism and Protestantism can
ever draw near one another, it is to be remembered
that three hundred years ago no one could have con
ceived beforehand how Lutheranism and Calvinism
could have been fused together. And yet we have to
day, the Evangelical Union, and thousands know
themselves as Evangelical Christians without any sus
picion of that opposition which once bade Lutherans
and Calvinlsts contend more bitterly than Lutherans
and Catholics." ^ It should go without saying, in this
day, that no countenance should be given to the old
1 See quotation in Passing Protestantism by Newman Smyth.
p- 193-

40 THE CALL TO UNITY
bitterness against Rome, and that no right-minded
Christian can desire anything but what is best for this
great Communion, and for her work among men.
We must all recognize the spiritual excellences of
the Roman Catholic Church; her fearless witness to
the supernatural and sacramental truth of the Chris
tian religion; her power to produce saints and spir
itual heroes; her appeal to the poetic, and the aesthetic,
in the human soul ; the devotion with which she reaches
and ministers to all classes of men, the unlettered as
well as the learned. We see, and we rejoice to see,
the zeal and loyalty which she arouses in her people;
their living faith and readiness to make sacrifices for
their religion; their recognition of the binding duty
of worship; the sacredness in which they hold the
marriage bond. All this, and more, we see and we
thank God for it. These spiritual fruits are a
strength to the whole Church of Christ, and, in spite
of our divisions, they are the common possession of
all of us, for " whether one member suffer, all the
members suffer with It, or one member be honored,
all the members rejoice with It." ^
But we shall not make progress towards unity by
ignoring, or glossing over, real difficulties. As Chris
tians, we owe it to ourselves, to each other, and to
Christ Our Lord, to bear clear witness to the truth as
we have learned it In Him, and unity reached by any
1 1 Corinthians xii, 26.

THE PRESENT OUTLOOK FOR UNITY 4I
other method than this could result only In disappoint
ment. There are elements In the Roman Catholic system
to which the rest of Christendom can never assent.
The present claims of the Papacy cannot be reconciled
either with the history, or with the spirit, of the Chris
tian Religion. Unity will not come by way of sub
mission, or absorption of others into any one of the
existing Communions. It will come by concord, not
by conquest; by mutual and equal fellowship, not by
" unconditional surrender." Properly constituted au
thority there must of course be in the Church, but the
day of autocracy has gone, whether in temporal or
spiritual affairs, and its spirit Is foreign to Christ's
Religion. It Is, In fact, Christianity itself which by
its Gospel of liberty and human brotherhood has de
stroyed this principle of government. The Papacy,
and also the monarchical idea of the Episcopate in so
far as this has obtained in the Anglican Communion,
or elsewhere, must be modified and brought into full
accord with that spirit of freedom and brotherhood
which is alone reconcilable with the Gospel, and which
the Gospel has itself produced.
Not only will the way to unity be opened, but all
the excellences which the Roman Catholic Church
possesses will be strengthened, her spiritual power will
be incalculably Increased, when she relieves herself
of her present encumbrances. We must believe that,

42 THE CALL TO UNITY
in time, this change will take place. Already the de
mand is heard within the Roman Church for " a consti
tutionalized Papacy." For the present it is repressed,
but it will be heard again, and in time it will pre
vail. The laity of this Communion will exercise larger
power, and the influence within It of the Roman Cath
olic Church of the United States seems certain to in
crease. No one can say what form the constitution
of the United Church will take. Who shall say that
there may not prove to be in it a place for " a con
stitutionalized Papacy " ? This is by no means be
yond the limits of possibility, and it is a thought which
is already flnding expression. With a largeness of
view which all of us may well emulate the Free Church
authors of Pathways to Christian Unity say " some
how the Church has to solve the question which is
also plaguing the political world : how to combine cen
tral authority with local freedom and representation
with true leadership. That leads us to make the dar
ing suggestion that the whole Church needs to embrace
in one comprehensive system the different types of
Church Government which have been historically de
veloped: Papacy, Episcopacy, Presbyterianism and
Congregationalism. This might be found to be other
than a wild dream if it was recognized that here was
really a place for honorable compromise, which could
be secured by the delimitation of authority, by agree
ment as to what things ought to be bound and what

THE PRESENT OUTLOOK FOR UNITY 413
ought to be left free, and especially by discovering the
real nature of Christian authority to consist In the
persuasion of love, and to rest upon the enthusiasm
of loyalty, instead of borrowing the notions of
coercion and the oath of absolute obedience upon
which the secular State and military discipline rely.
Indeed this may prove to be something much better
than compromise — a real experiment in combining
principles hitherto supposed to be contradictory.
Episcopacy, for instance, which the Free Churches
are sometimes asked to swallow as a comparatively
harmless concession to Catholic prejudice, or a pru
dent insurance against possible, but unproved, defects
In their ministry, might 'come to be accepted with
genuine enthusiasm If it were rightly presented as
signifying the mystical Communion with the Church
of the past, which is the Church now triumphant in
heaven ; as conveying recognition by the whole Church
now militant on earth; as a valuable means of main
taining personal fellowship between the local and the
central officers of the Church. This, however, would
require an Episcopate not only in the historic succes
sion and in unbroken Communion, but also democrat
ically elected and truly representative." ^
Among the Protestant Communions in all parts of
the world the desire for unity is expressing itself with
increasing force. The differences between the Prot-
iPp. 193, 194-

44 THE CALL TO UNITY
estant Churches have, in fact, in large measure ceased
to exist. The burning questions upon which the sep
arations took place have many of them burned them
selves out. The differences which remain are most of
them as to matters acknowledged not to be vital to the
Christian Faith. The divisions have outlived their
causes, and it is felt widely that there is not sufficient
reason for their continuance. The impulse towards
closer fellowship among the Protestant Communions
has been much strengthened by great interdenomina
tional agencies and movements such as the Y. M.
C. A., the Y. W. C. A., and the Student Christian
Movement. In this country the " Federal Council of the
Churches of Christ in America," which includes rep
resentatives of thirty different denominations, is doing
much to draw these Communions nearer to each other,
to unite them in combined action and expression so far
as this is possible, and to promote among them the
spirit of Christian fellowship. While " Federation "
does not in itself accomplish unity, and cannot be ac
cepted as a substitute for it, the contact and coopera
tion which it brings about tend strongly in this direc
tion. The movement towards unity in the Protestant
world is, however, going far beyond desires or ten
dencies. In a number of cases definite steps have been

THE PRESENT OUTLOOK FOR UNITY 45
taken, bodies closely akin to each other have become
united, and others are preparing for like action.
The three most important Lutheran Churches in the
United States, heretofore sharply divided, have come
together as the United Lutheran Church of America.
Hopeful negotiations are in progress between the
Church of Scotland and the United Free Church in
that country. The Congregational, Methodist, and
Presb)^erian Churches in Canada are considering the
possibility of uniting and the same Churches in Aus
tralia are making similar efforts. In England a
movement is under way to bring together the Free
Churches under the title of " The United Free Church
of England."
In May, 1918, most important action was taken by
the General Assembly of the " Presbyterian Church
in the United States of America." An invitation was
extended to the Evangelical Communions of this coun
try to participate in a meeting " for the purpose of
formulating a plan of organic union," and, in Decem
ber of that year, a preliminary " Interchurch Confer
ence on Organic Union " was held. At this meeting
an Ad Interim Committee was appointed with instruc
tions to invite the Evangelical Communions of the
United States to send representatives to an " Inter
denominational Council on Organic Union." In
February, 1920, a meeting of the proposed Council

46 THE CALL TO UNITY
assembled, with representatives of eighteen Com
munions attending. A plan of organic union was
adopted which Is to be submitted to the governing
bodies of the several Communions, and when six of
them have signified their assent the Council will con
vene and the plan will go into effect. The plan
adopted provides that each Communion shall have
" autonomy in purely denominational affairs " re
serving the right to retain Its credal statements, its
form of government in the conduct of its own work,
and its particular mode of worship, but the Com^
munions unite in a common declaration of faith, and
the Council is to " harmonize and unify the work of
the United Churches " and to bring about, so far as
may be possible, consolidation of their rehgious work
both at home and abroad. This is the most important
and promising action yet taken toward uniting the
Protestant Communions. The plan contains the sig
nificant statement that " in taking this step, we look
forward with confident hope to that complete unity
toward which we believe the Spirit of God is lead
ing us." In connection with this movement full
consolidation has been effected between the Welsh
Presbyterian Church and the Presb)rterian Church
in the United States of America and plans are now
In hand which there Is good reason to hope will
bring into union shortly the United Presbyteries, the
Reformed Church, the Presb)^erian Church South and

THE PRESENT OUTLOOK FOR UNITY 47
the Presbyterian Church North. The fear is some
times expressed that such unions of kindred Churches
may tend to strengthen them in their present position
and so prove a hindrance Instead of an advance to
wards the full realization of unity. There seems,
however, to be little ground for this fear. The fact
seems to be that fellowship begets the desire for still
further fellowship, and that every local movement,
every effort to bring together related groups of
Churches, gives added momentum to the movement for
unity and hastens the day when our Lord's prayer
shall find its full answer. More and more as these
consolidations take place the spirit of unity will grow,
the conviction will increase that unity is possible, it
will be felt that we cannot stop short on the road,
that the way must be found to bring together all who
are in Christ In the visible fellowship of his Church.
In China the " Nanking Church Council " has been
formed including in Its membership six Communions,
with a central executive committee, in order to avoid
overlapping and rivalry. From India the report
comes that important proposals have been formulated
for corporate reunion between the Anglican Church
in India, the Mar Thoma Syrian Christians, and the
South India United Church, which incliides Presby
terians and Congregationalists of both English and
American missions. This proposal is of the deepest
interest, undertaking as it does to bring into fellow-

48 THE CALL TO UNITY
ship representatives of the Anglican Church, the Free
Protestant Churches and the Eastern Church. It is
the unbroken tradition of the Mar Thoma Syrian
Church that it was founded by the Apostle Saint
Thomas in the year of our Lord 52. This proposal
is based on the Lambeth Quadrilateral, including ac
ceptance of " the historic Episcopate, locally adapted."
While no church has done all that It should have
done for the sake of unity there has been in the
Anglican Communion a deep desire and longing for it
ever since the divisions took place. Many are the
scholars and saintly leaders of her fold who have given
their prayers and labors In its behalf. Names come to
mind at once like those of Andrewes, Hooker, Taylor,
John Hales, Neale, Muhlenberg, Pusey, and, in more
recent time, John Wordsworth, William P. DuBose,
W. J. Birkbeck and W. R. Huntington. Although
she has fallen short, like others, and at times
her course has not been consistent with this, it may
be said with justice of the Anglican Church that the
longing for unity is one of the deepest notes of her
life. Misunderstood often, and, not unnaturally,
from opposite sides, she has held steadfastly the dif
ficult middle position in which she was put, and has
persisted In the hope that she might be allowed to
serve in the work of reconciliation. Of earlier efforts
and movements this is not the place to speak. We
are considering here the present outlook for unity and.

THE PRESENT OUTLOOK FOR UNITY 49
In this connection, the declaration by the Anglican
Church known as the Lambeth Quadrilateral holds
epoch-making place.
This pronouncement, which originated In the Amer
ican Episcopal Church, was issued first by the House
of Bishops at the General Convention, in Chicago, in
1886, and was adopted, with slight modifications, by
the Lambeth Conference in 1888. In 1899 Dr. Wil
liam R. Huntington, from whom came the first sug
gestion of the Quadrilateral, wrote of it, " Whether
that eirenicon be indeed the vain shadow which some
have been hasty to pronounce it, men can better judge
after its terms shall have been honestly lived up to In
the house of its friends. Fifty years will be a short
time for the test." Only about twenty years have
passed since those words were written but the value
of this Declaration has been abundantly proved. Its
results are to-day plainly evident. At this time move
ments towards unity based on the Lambeth Quadri
lateral are under consideration in India, in Africa, in
Australia, in England and in the United States.
At the General Convention of the Protestant Epis
copal Church held In Cincinnati, in 1910, a movement
was inaugurated to bring about a World Conference
on Faith and Order to be participated in by all Chris- ¦
tian Communions, throughout the world both Cath
olic and Protestant which confess our Lord Jesus
Christ as God and Saviour. In spite of the great diffi-

50 THE CALL TO UNITY
cultles arising from the war the work of preparation
for this gathering has steadily proceeded. Almost all
the great Communions of the world, including the
Eastern and Anglican Churches have identified them
selves with the movement and the assembling of the
Conference at no distant day, seems now to be an
assured fact. An important preliminary Conference
for the furtherance of this undertaking is shortly to be
held at Geneva. In England the preparatory work
for the World Conference has brought forth two re
markable Interim Reports signed jointly by leading
representatives of the Free Churches and of the Church
of England. The second of these reports, which
marks notable advance in the movement towards
unity, contains the following statement:
" It is the purpose of our Lord that believers in
Him should be one visible society, and this unity is
essential to the purpose of Christ for His Church
and for its effective witness and work in the world.
The conflict among Christian nations has brought
home to us with a greater poignancy the disastrous
results of the divisions which prevail among Chris
tians, Inasmuch as they have hindered that growth of
mutual understanding which it should be the function
•of the Church to foster, and because a Church which
is itself divided cannot speak effectively to a divided
worid." " The visible unity of believers which answers to

THE PRESENT OUTLOOK FOR UNITY 5 1
our Lord's purpose must have its source and sanc
tion, not in any human arrangements, but In the will
of the One Father, manifested in the Son, and ef
fected through the operation of the Spirit ; and it must
express and maintain the fellowship of His people
with one another in Him. Thus the visible unity of
the Body of Christ is not adequately expressed in the
cooperation of the Christian Churches for moral in
fluence and social service, though such cooperation
might with great advantage be carried much further
than it is at present; it could only be fully realized
through community of worship, faith, and order, in
cluding common participation In the Lord's Supper.
This would be quite compatible with a rich diversity
in life and worship."
A few years ago no such words as these could have
been jointly written, and put forth, by leading theolo
gians of the Church of England and of the Non-
Conformist Churches.
Whatever the visible results of the proposed World
Conference may be, or even if through some now un
foreseen difficulties it should fail to meet, the effort
to bring it about has been of incalculable value. The
preparation for it has been perhaps as important as
the Conference itself. This work carried on during
a period of ten years has been a world wide campaign
in the cause of Unity. It has kept the thought of
unity before the minds of Christians evetywhere.

'52 THE CALL TO UNITY
It has emphasized the fact that the United Church
must Include all the vital truth for which both Prot
estantism and Catholicism stand. It has held in view
the fact that the only basis possible for unity among
Christians is belief in Our Lord Jesus Christ as God
and Saviour.
It has helped to make clear to all the fact that
unity is to be reached, not by cutting away, but by
building up, not by disregard of truth, but by fuller
apprehension of it. It has stood for the fact that
every group of Christians holds truth which it has
received from God, and has its special contribution
to make, which is needed in the full life of the visible
Church. It has promoted in all directions that hu
man fellowship and personal contact which is so im
portant a factor in reaching mutual understanding.
It has helped to create the atmosphere in which alone
unity can come to pass. Above all else it has in
creased the number of Christians, of all names, who
are praying in union with Our Lord's own prayer
" that they all may be one." In his Bedell Lectures
on " A National Church," in 1898, Dr. Huntington
wrote, " It is certainly among things conceivable —
who shall say that it is not ? — that God in His provi
dence may be preparing the way for a General Coun
cil of Christendom that shall be truly such." It is
this which is the aim of the World Conference. And
surely it is cause for thankfulness that such a gather-

THE PRESENT OUTLOOK FOR UNITY 53
ing can now be seriously contemplated; that we have
reached the time when it seems possible to hold that
" gracious interview of friends so long divided " for
which good John Hales prayed three hundred years
ago ; that after centuries of estrangement Christians are
now preparing to meet together not for controversy
but for conference; not to see how much they differ,
but to see how much they are at one; to face the
differences honestly, but in the spirit of love and
brotherhood, with the desire, and prayer, that Our
Lord's will for the visible unity of His Church may be
fulfilled. It is hoped that the Roman Catholic Church
may yet find It possible, in some way to participate.
If It shall be God's will for this great Conference to
assemble, representing all, or almost all, the Christian
Communions of the world, who shall say what may
be possible in such a gathering, who shall estimate its
effect upon the imaginations and the hearts of men,
who shall measure Its moral and spiritual power, or
predict what the results following from it may be ?
At the last General Convention, held in Detroit, in
1919, a Proposal was presented providing for ap
proach towards unity between the Protestant Epis
copal Church and the Congregational Church, and a
Commission was appointed to confer officially upon
this subject with a like Commission appointed by the
National Council of Congregational Churches. This
proposal which has come to be known as the " Con-

54 THE CALL TO UNITY
cordat," was the result of informal conferences p!re-
viously held between representatives of the Congre
gational and Protestant Episcopal Churches. It sug
gests a mutual agreement and arrangement under
which, without casting doubt or reflection upon the
reality or efficacy of their present ministry. Congre
gational ministers may apply for ordination to the
office of the Priesthood by a Bishop of the Protestant
Episcopal Church. It Is agreed that a minister thus
applying for ordination must do so with the consent
of his own ecclesiastical authorities and of his con
gregation, that he shall satisfy the Bishop that he
holds the historic faith of the Church, as contained in
the Apostles and Nicene Creeds, that he shall then be
confirmed, that he shall be ordained Deacon and Priest,
and that thereafter in ministering the Sacraments of
Baptism and the Lord's Supper he shall use a pre
scribed form which, while it shall be the minimum,
shall include all that can be rightly regarded as essen
tial. The minister thus ordained is then to continue
his ministrations In his own religious organization
but is to remain under the guidance and discipline of
the Bishop and is to meet the Bishop, at such times
as may be arranged, " for Communion, and for coun
sel and cooperation."
This proposal is recognized by both sides to be im
perfect, and only an interim measure. It is not looked
upon as an arrangement which could be permanently

THE PRESENT OUTLOOK FOR UNITY 55
satisfactory. It is not a comprehensive scheme of
unity but is suggested only as " a practical approach
toward eventual union by the establishment of inter
communion in particular instances." If carried into
effect, however, it may prove to be an important
step in the direction of reunion. Whether the results
arrived at by the further official conferences, now
taking place, will receive the approval of the govern
ing bodies of the two Communions, remains to be
seen. However this may be all must recognize, and
pay honor to, the nobility of purpose, the breadth of
mind, and the truly Christian spirit shown by the
eminent Congregationalists who, at no small risk of
misunderstanding on the part of some of their own
brethren, have indicated their readiness, under care
fully prescribed conditions, to receive Episcopal ordi
nation to the priesthood, and to make such great con
cessions for the sake of unity. Such a spirit shown
by leading ministers of a great Protestant Communion
Is an example, and a challenge to all of us. It gives
new hope and promise to the outlook for unity. And
this is only one of a number of definite proposals now
under consideration in various parts of the world
for approach towards unity on the basis of the Chi
cago Lambeth Quadrilateral.
The plan suggested by the Bishop of London for
approach between the Church of England and the
Wesleyan Methodist Church, and that suggested by

56 THE CALL TO UNITY
the Bishop of Zanzibar as a basis for the union of
the Churches in East Africa are, in principle, the same
as the proposed Concordat between the Congrega
tional and Episcopal Churches in the United States.
There are some who see danger in these efforts to
wards unity, and no doubt there are risks involved in
them. But there are risks also in our present situa
tion. There is grave danger to the Faith of Christ
in the continuance of our present divisions. It is
these which are paralyzing the Church and producing
apostasy and unbelief among men. But, whatever the
attitude of individuals, or particular Communions, to
wards it, the approach towards unity is taking place.
We can be in no doubt as to this. The signs of it
are unmistakable. God the Spirit is moving over
the chaos of our divisions. On all sides, and in quar
ters where this might least have been expected, men
are seeing the vision of fellowship and brotherhood.
If we will, we may have our part in bringing it to
pass. But whether we do our part, or not, its com
ing will not tarry. For the vision is from Christ
Himself. And because it Is from Him, it will be ful
filled.

Ill
THE APPROACH TO UNITY
The call to unity is clear. The outlook for it is
more hopeful than at any time since the visible unity of
the Church was lost. In many directions movement
towards reunion is taking place. But there are incal
culable difficulties yet to be met and overcome. There
are still those who believe that divisions among Chris
tians are to be acquiesced in as unavoidable; there are
those who hold that we cannot have freedom in the
Church without sectarianism, and there are those who
believe in unity, but are opposed to any measures
which might help to bring It into effect. And the
great divide between Protestantism and Catholicism
is yet to be crossed. How are we to continue the
present advance? What are the next steps to be
taken? What are the principles which must guide us
in our further progress? The first requisite for fur
ther advance towards unity is that the desire for it
shall be far more keenly felt among Christian people
generally. It is not enough for this desire to be felt
by the leaders. The unity of the Church cannot be
accomplished by arrangement among Bishops, Moder-
57

58 THE CALL TO UNITY
ators and General Secretaries. If the leaders of the
various Communions should to-morrow reach agree
ment this would be ineffective if it had not behind it
the conscience and conviction of the great mass of
Christian people. The leaders cannot, in fact, move
far in advance of those whom they are to lead in this
matter. Until there is a sincere and general desire
for unity schemes for its promotion will meet with
only limited success. Our great effort must be to
propagate the desire for unity. The war has taught
us the power of propaganda both for good and for
evil. We need now a wisely and vigorously conducted
propaganda for the peace and unity of the Church.
The longing for unity must be aroused until, wherever
Christians assemble, prayer for its restoration will be
offered up. If Christians everywhere, at their Masses
and at their Prayer Meetings, wherever they assemble
In Christ's Name, were earnestly praying for unity,
the day of its coming would not be long deferred.
Only through prayer can we find grace so to sur
render our wills that the Holy Spirit of Unity can
accomplish His work in and through us. It should
now be the constant prayer of all of us, both in pub
lic and In private, that God will put into our hearts
the spirit of fellowship, that He will show us clearly
what is His will, and that He will give His guidance
especially to those placed in positions of responsibility
and leadership.

THE APPROACH TO UNITY 59
But if we are intelligently to desire, and pray for,
unity we must have clearly before us what its mean
ing is, and what it involves. There is great need to
day for clear thinking about unity. People of a prac
tical, business-like, type of mind often ask, somewhat
impatiently, why there should be all this talk about
unity. If we want unity all that we have to do, ac
cording to their view, is to forget our differences, and
get together, and the thing is done. This attitude,
strongly as it may commend itself to the man in the
street, or the man on the train, does not, however, argue
deep thought, or close acquaintance with the problem.
It is usually the position of those to whom all ques
tions of Christian doctrine seem equally meaningless
and unimportant. We are to agree on everything in
general because no one longer believes an}d:hing In par
ticular. But this is not the path by which Christian
unity is to be reached. In the first place we must not
dismiss " talk " as a thing wholly without value in
this, or in any other cause. How would the progress
thus far made towards unity have been accomplished
without " talk " ? Those who are called to the work
of the Ministry should, it would seem, be the last to
undervalue this instrumentality. Much reason as
there may be for the Scriptural reference to " the fool
ishness of preaching" the Gospel has nevertheless
been propagated by human speech.
What we need is far more talk, of the right kind.

6o THE CALL TO UNITY
if the cause of unity is to be advanced. And, fur
ther, it must be recognized that the problem of unity
involves the deepest and most sacred convictions of
men's souls. These are not to be waved aside by an
impatient gesture. The wounds of a thousand years
cannot be healed over night. We shall not make true
approach towards unity by ignoring or slurring over
the difficulties. It is quite true that we must not
dwell unnecessarily on these, and that we must em
phasize our agreements. But there are differences
which are deep and real, which are felt by earnest
Christians to be vital, and which must be honestly
faced and dealt with. If in some way, unity could
be brought about without facing these difficulties It
would be unreal, and would have neither power nor
permanence. One of the chief obstacles to progress
has been the fear that the advocates of unity were
going to sacrifice, or compromise, principles. We
must make it clear that this is not what is desired or
purposed. It is for this reason that thought about
unity must not be confined to conferences of leaders,
but must be much more general among Christian peo
ple. We may be quite sure, as Bishop Hall says, that
the cause of unity is to be promoted " by hearty loy
alty to actual and present obligations, not by self-
willed eccentricity." " If we are failing in known
or plain duties, neglecting privileges, and despising
discipline, how can we expect to win others to an

THE APPROACH TO UNITY 6l
ordered and united Christian life?"^ We must set
ourselves earnestly and intelligently to understand our
own position as Christians, whatever this may be.
We must ask if there is real justification for the con
tinued separation of our respective Communions, from
the rest of the Christian Church and, if so, what this
is. The only thing which can justify any of us in con
tinued separation is that we are holding for others,
as well as for ourselves, some truth, or principle, es
sential to the Gospel, and to the life of the United
Church, which would be lost or jeopardized, if we
should at once unite with other Christians. But we
must be sure that this principle which we are holding
in trust is an essential one, and that our present enter
ing into union with others would actually involve its
loss or compromise. We must discriminate between
our principles and our preferences, or our prejudices.
And we know how easy it is for the best, and wisest,
of us to confuse the one of these with the other.
Differences there are which are matters of principle,
but we must not rest helpless even before these. We
must ask if these opposing principles are actually ir
reconcilable. We must ask whether these apparently
contrary positions may not after all both of them be
essential, and whether there is not some still higher
truth in the light of which they can be reconciled. It
1 Lenten Pastoral, 1911.

62 THE CALL TO UNITY
Is this irenic task to which Christian scholars and
theologians of all names are now called.
We must not only understand our own position as
Christians, and the reasons, if there are any, for our
continued separation, we must get clearly before our
minds what the unity of the Christian Church means.
If there is still doubt, or misgiving, or apathy in re
gard to Christian unity, this arises largely from lack
of a true conception of it. Our need now is not so
much impassioned appeals for unity, as clear exposi
tions of its meaning.
There is among all Christians a true inward unity
of the Spirit. Baptized into Christ, and joined to
Him by faith, we are members one of another as we
are sharers of His life. We are all members of the
Church which is His Body. This Is the fundamental
fact. It is this fact of our actual, existing, oneness
in Christ which gives possibility, and hope, of unity
in its full realization, and it is this which makes our
divisions so unnatural. It is the fact of our brother
hood which makes schism a sin. We cannot empha
size too strongly the reality of this inner unity of the
Spirit which now binds all Christians together. But
obviously this Inner, invisible, unity alone is not suffi
cient. It does not fulfill our own ideal of a com
plete unity. It does not fulfill our Lord's desire for
the fellowship of His disciples, as this is declared to
us in the New Testament. And it does not give the

THE APPROACH TO UNITY 63
needed witness of Christ's power to an unbelieving
world. We cannot be satisfied, and the world will
not be convinced, by a merely invisible unity. In this
world soul must have a body, spirit must have out
ward manifestation. If our unity of the Spirit were
all that it should be it would necessarily express itself
in visible fellowship ; so long as it fails to do this It is
imperfect and incomplete. Manifestly our unity is
not what it should be while Christians do not meet
together at the Table of the Lord.
It Is feared by some, however, that the visible unity
of the Church might be too much a matter of mere
outward organization. This is a fear to be heeded,
and a danger, if it exists, to be sedulously guarded
against. A unity of mere external organization would
be no unity at all. It would be a body without a soul,
lifeless and useless for the work of the Spirit. But
there is no reason why organization should be over
emphasized In the United Church. The primary ob
ject of unity is not the strengthening of organization,
but the deepening and enlarging of spiritual life. Its
great purpose Is that, coming into fellowship with
one another, we may come also into fuller fellowship
with Christ, and may manifest Him more truly to
the world. But our inner unity in Christ must be
exhibited in a fellowship which men can see. What
is needed is such outward organization, and only such,
as will give expression to the inward fact, and make

64 THE CALL TO UNITY
the Church the effective organ, and witness, of the
Living Christ. No mere system of federation can
meet this need or can take the place of unity. Unity
is the fellowship, in soul and deed, of those who are
one. Federation is the joint action of those who are
still divided. Cooperation in good works to the ut
most possible extent among separated Communions
is admirable and most helpful. But, as Christians,
we are called not to acquiesce in divisions, we are
called to end them. We want not a " gentlemen's
agreement " among those who continue in separation
but the unity of those who belong to one family, and
dwell in one household. The unity which we seek
is not something which we can make. It Is some
thing which God gives. It is from above, not from
below. It is the life of the one Spirit knitting us
together in the one Body. Let us remember that we
are not called upon to create the unity of the Church.
Ours is the humbler task of ceasing to obstruct and
obscure it. We are called upon to manifest the unity
which already exists. We are called not to create a
Church in which Christians may become united, but
to restore the broken unity of the Church created by
Christ Himself in which we are inwardly and spirit
ually one. We are called to let the world see the
unity which is already ours in Christ.
Unity is necessary for the Church's witness, that

THE APPROACH TO UNITY 65
men may see in her the evidence of Christ's continued
presence with us.
Unity is necessary for the Church's work, that she
may be the effective organ of Christ's power able to
act and speak in His Name, and to overcome the evil
in the world.
Unity is necessary for the fullness of the Church's
message. A divided Church can neither apprehend,
nor teach, the full truth of Christ. Denominational-
ism is necessarily one-sided. It makes for dispropor
tion, narrowness of view, over-emphasis on some ele
ments of truth and neglect of other elements.
Unity is necessary for the fullness of life in the
Church. The development of special spiritual types
in separated groups Is a loss to all. The contact of
all types in the one household is needed for interest
and stimulus, for mutual education and discipline,
for the enrichment and full realization of Christian
character. Each group of Christians needs to share
the spiritual experience, and the special spiritual gifts
of each other group. Only in unity and fellowship
can we learn the full meaning of our Christian
heritage. Great ranges of new power in Christ will
open to all of us in the life of the United Church.
We want unity not only for the sake of strength,
or of peace, but for the sake of life, life for ourselves
and for others. We want unity not only that our

66 THE CALL TO UNITY
fellow Christians may bring us spiritual treasures
which we have not, but also that we and they together
may more truly enter into those which we have. Our
lack of communion with each other obstructs and
hinders our communion with Christ.
We want unity so that all of us may receive more
fully the grace and life that are in Him. We want it
in order that Christ Himself may be accepted, that
His glory may be revealed, that His Kingdom may
be established among men.
If, however, we are to make true approach towards
unity, there are certain essential principles by which
we must be guided. We must be guided in the first
place by the principle of Christian loyalty. In loy
alty to Christ we may not, even for the sake of unity,
surrender, nor compromise the truth of the Gospel.
The Gospel is from above. It is not a human phi
losophy. It is a message received from God. We
must be true to it. We must " keep that which is
committed to our trust." In the Church of God, we
are not in the position of mere seekers after truth,
we are seekers after deeper knowledge of the truth
clearly revealed in Christ. Our faith rests not on
subjective opinions and impressions, but on the reali
ties of a Divine revelation, on actual, definite, historic
facts. Jesus Christ lived, died, rose, ascended and
lives still with us in His Church. We cannot change
or modify these facts. They happened, or they did

THE APPROACH TO UNITY 67
not happen. They are true, or they are not true.
And if they are not true our " faith is vain," as St.
Paul tells us.^
The Christian Religion is what Christ makes it, not
what any of us think, or feel, about it. Approach
towards tuiity will be made not by disregard of Chris
tian truth, but by fuller and deeper apprehension of
it. As believers in Christ we cannot take the posi
tion that creed and doctrine are unimportant. Doc
trine is only a definite statement of that which is be
lieved to be true. Truth, which is the voice of God,
is not unimportant in religion. A religion only of
sentiment or feeling could not satisfy us. Religion
must speak to the need of the whole man, mind, heart
and spirit. The Christian Religion does so speak.
Jesus Christ is " the Life," to be lived, but He Is
also the Truth to be believed. Religion without
doctrine would be religion without a knowledge of
Christ. Some quite unessential results of theo
logical speculation have been taught as doctrines.
Other doctrines are the soul and substance of the Gos
pel. It is true that a belief in right doctrine alone is
not sufficient. A man may believe all the articles of
the Christian Faith and not be in any real sense a Chris
tian. It Is quite true that we need to be more sim
ple in our faith. But this does not mean that we can
discard doctrine. For a Christian, religion means
II Cor. XV, 14.

68 THE CALL TO UNITY
personal faith in, and relationship with the living
Christ. But if we are to be in relationship with
Christ we must know Who He is, what is His present
power, how we may have fellowship with Him, and
these are all questions of doctrine. The answer to
these questions is our creed.
The foundation of approach towards unity is our
common belief in Christ as God and Saviour. This
is the faith which unites us not only with Christians
throughout the world to-day, but with all the Church
of the past, which is now the Church in Paradise.
This is the only basis upon which it would be possible
for Christians to unite. " Other foundation can no
man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ."
No Christian Communion could give up that which it
believes to be essential to the revelation received in
Christ, nor could it desire any other Communion to
do this. In the phrase of the Archbishop of York,
as expanded by the Bishop of Bombay, unity will
come " not by compromise for the sake of peace, or
of success, but by comprehension for the sake of truth,
and of life." We do not want " a reduced Christian
ity." We shall all be richer, not poorer, in faith, in
the life of the United Church. The question Is not
what is each Communion willing to surrender, but
what has each Communion to contribute that Is true,
and vital, and from God.
It is becoming clear to us that our affirmations of

THE APPROACH TO UNITY 69
faith are more important than our negations, and it is
these which will lead us towards unity. We at last
see clearly, and in this lies the great present hope of
progress, that each separated group of Christians
holds gifts of truth and life which it may not sur
render, but which are needed for the life and fullness
of the whole Church. We do not wish to see any
Communion compromise its convictions, or " disown
its past." The United Church will be more than a
return to the faith of the first days. The spiritual
struggles of these later times have had their meaning
also. The United Church will contain all the revela
tion given in Christ, all the great Catholic heritage
of the Church of the first centuries, but It will con
tain also all the spiritual fruit, all the rich product,
of the Christian faith and experience of the genera
tions since, including that which has been developed
through the stress, and trial, and discipline of our
divisions. We must be guided by the principle of Christian
loyalty, but also, and equally, in our approach towards
unity, we must be guided by the principle of Christian
liberty. In loyalty to Christ we may not demand,
as a condition of unity with our fellow Christians,
anything that is not actually essential to Christian
faith and life. If we demand acceptance of that which
is not essential, if we require that which Christ Him
self would not require for fellowship in His Church,

70 THE CALL TO UNITY
then, whether consciously or unconsciously, we are
placing obstacles in the way of His work in this world.
We are opposing the will of Christ that His follow
ers may be visibly one; we are making it harder for
the world to believe that God has sent Him. It is
now time for " each Church to judge for itself, as it
would be judged by its Lord, whether it so holds its
own position as to prevent any other part of the
Church from communion with the whole Church."
Proper freedom for all in the Christian life, oppor
tunity for full spiritual realization and expression,
liberty in its highest meaning, in voluntary obedience
to God's law, this is itself a principle of the Gospel
which must be sacredly guarded. As we approach to
wards unity we need more reverent thought, clearer
knowledge, deeper insight into Christian truth, that
we may see it in right proportion, that we may do jus
tice to the views of those who differ from us, that we
may distinguish between principles and preferences,
between the essential and the non-essential. People
imagine too often that by unity Is meant uniformity
in all sorts of details of faith or worship which are
no part of the essence of our religion, but matters only
of opinion, taste, or preference. Unity does not
mean that we are to be deprived of our lawful Chris
tian liberty in these matters, nor that other Christians
are to be deprived of theirs. It does not involve our
conforming precisely to their pattern, nor their con-

THE APPROACH TO UNITY 7I
forming precisely to ours. The Anglican and Free
Church signers of the English " Interim Report " say
truly that " the visible unity of the Body of Christ
is not adequately expressed in the cooperation of the
Christian Churches for moral influence and social
service," and can " only be fully realized through com
munity of worship, faith, and order, including common
participation in the Lord's Supper," but they add with
equal truth, " this would be quite compatible with a
rich diversity in life and worship."
It would not be Inconsistent with unity if the differ
ent groups of Christians should continue their present
organizations, with entire control of their own affairs,
with all their special usages and methods, provided
that these usages are in accord with the principles of
the common Faith, and recognizing that, in these un
essential matters, a like freedom must be allowed to
all others. Why should not the various groups so
carry on their work for Christ, not as opposed, and
separated. Communions, but as mutually helpful, and
fully recognized parts of the one great Church? Why
should not each group have all the independence which
it now has, not only as to administration, and meth
ods of practical work, but as to ritual, as to forms
of worship, as to devotional expression, as to em
phasis on particular aspects of doctrine or spiritual
life, provided only that this shall all be in accord with
the accepted common standard as to essentials ? Why

^2 THE CALL TO UNITY
should not each group continue to have this freedom,
with the still greater freedom added of full, unhin
dered access to, and fellowship with all other groups?
There is no Protestant principle against this. There
is certainly no Catholic principle against it. The
Catholic rule is " unity in things essential, liberty in
things non-essential, charity in all." This is in ac
cord, and nothing less free is in accord, with every
principle of Christ's religion.
All Christians could then continue to be identified
with the group to which they felt drawn by tradition,
association, or temperament, the varied customs, the
special spiritual excellences of each would be pre
served and continued for the enrichment of the life of
the whole Church, but schism would be at an end,
extremes would be balanced and tempered, all would
feel a new power through their fellowship in the one
visible Church. The thing essential for Christian
unity is not oneness in details of worship, or in
methods of administration, but such fellowship In
faith and order as shall make possible full Inter
communion without doubt or question in the minds
of any. The Bishop of London, in his proposal
for unity with the Wesleyan Methodist Church, says
" The Methodist Church would continue its class
meetings, and its Conferences," it " would retain its
Connection, and Its order in the reunited Church " and
would " go on with its habits and Its practices undis-

THE APPROACH TO UNITY 73
turbed." In his proposal for unity among the various
Communions in East Africa the Bishop of Zanzibar
says " Non-Episcopal bodies accepting Episcopacy
would remain in full exercise of their own constitu
tions, working parallel with the present Episcopal
churches." It is fellowship at the Table of the Lord
which is the essential matter. This is the true realiza
tion, the indispensable requisite, the sign and seal of
unity. Without this, unity among Christians cannot
be truly manifested. The Sacraments of Baptism and
the Lord's Supper are of Divine appointment, and are
therefore essential. They were instituted, and com
manded to be continued, by our Lord Jesus Christ
Himself. But the particular form of service to be
used when these Sacraments are administered is not
essential, except in so far as this is necessary to en
sure their ministration in accordance with our Lord's
institution of them. This secured, the form of serv
ice may be long or short, simple or ornate, liturgical
or non-liturgical with equal loyalty to essential prin
ciple. The Lambeth Quadrilateral specifies, as to the
method of administering these Sacraments, only that
they shall be " ministered with unfailing use of Christ's
words of institution, and the elements ordained by
Him." In the administration of Baptism the use of the sign
of the Cross is not essential, nor is the provision of
Sponsors, nor the method of using the water whether

74 THE CALL TO UNITY
by Immersion or by pouring. In the administration
of the Lord's Supper the use of vestments is not es
sential, nor is the form or arrangement of the Church
building, nor the manner in which the congregation
receives the Sacrament. In these and all such non
essential matters we must be willing to allow full free
dom to all. We must require no more as a condition
of fellowship than is actually essential. If we would
be Catholic, and Christian, we must be true not only
to the principle of loyalty, but also to the principle
of liberty. We may feel, and with good reason, the
importance and spiritual value of an orderly and beau
tiful ceremonial of worship. But worship just as
real may be offered in the tent of a traveling evangelist
as in the noblest cathedral. It is true that the Liturgy
comes to us with the authority and weight of most
sacred use and association. Those of us who have
inherited it, and who know Its power could never
forego its use. But we should not be justified in
requiring this of others. We have no right to insist
either that all Christians shall worship with a book,
or that all shall worship without one. Eastern Chris
tians are accustomed to pray standing up. There is
no reason why they should be compelled to kneel, nor
why Anglicans or others, should be prevented from
doing so. The dress worn by the minister at Divine
service is not an essential matter. The use of special
vestments may appear to us highly proper, and may

THE APPROACH TO UNITY 75
have many advantages, but it is not a matter of Di
vine prescription as to which we may demand uniform
ity. Scholars tells us in fact that special vestments
did not come into general use until about the seventh
century. Before that time the clergy wore the ordi
nary dress of the day both in church and out of it.
And the use of a distinctive dress by the clergy did
not, as some may imagine, originate with Rome.
The custom originated in the Eastern and Galilean
Churches and was disapproved by Rome. A pope of
the fifth century wrote to certain Gallican Bishops
who were guilty of these innovations, much as a Pres
byterian of the old school might write to-day, " We
should be distinguished from the people by our learning',
not by our clothes."
The dress of the minister in the service of the Church
has its value and importance, as thirteen hundred years
of usage may attest, but it is not essential that the ser
mon should be preached either in a surplice, or in a
black gown, and the Holy Communion may be validly
celebrated in alb and chasuble, in a military uniform,
or In any other garb. The Lambeth Articles say not
one word about ritual. The Book of Common Prayer
says that " the particular forms of Divine Worship,
and the Rites and Ceremonies appointed to be used
therein " are " things in their own nature indifferent,
and alterable, and so acknowledged." This does not
mean that we are to have no law as to the form of

76 THE CALL TO UNITY
worship, or that the members of a particular Com
munion are not bound by such prescription as to wor
ship and ritual as may be made by their own duly con
stituted authorities. They are manifestly under obli
gation to abide by such provisions. It does mean that
no existing Communion should wish, or would have
the right, to impose its own customs upon other Chris
tians, or to demand conformity in these matters as a
condition of fellowship.
There is complete intercommunion and unity between
the Episcopal Church in the United States and the
Episcopal Church in Australia or Canada or else
where, but these Churches are under the direction
of no central organization, or authority. Each is en
tirely independent of the other in its administration,
each has in many respects, and is free further to de
velop, its own customs and usages, in harmony with
the common standard of Faith. Their Bishops meet
together in conference at Lambeth once in ten years,
but attendance at this gathering is voluntary, and the
conference possesses no governmental authority or
function. It is true that each of these Churches uses
the Book of Common Prayer, and this is a strong
bond. But this is not essential to their unity. The
Episcopal Church in the United States changes, or re
vises, the Prayer Book as it sees fit, without consulta
tion with its sister Churches, and would be free even

THE APPROACH TO' UNITY '^'J
to dispense with the use of this noble book of worship
if it should ever wish to do so.
It would be a great step on the way to unity if
Christians would now recognize that in non-essential
matters there must be liberty in all parts of the Church,
with full room for the free working of the Spirit.
Why should it be difficult for us to live side by side
in the same Church with groups of Christians who in
these matters are more primitive, or less primitive,
more given to simplicity, or more given to demonstra
tion, than we are ourselves?
The question which the world Is now asking is not
as to any minor or secondary matter, but as to whether
Christianity Is from above, as to whether Jesus Christ
still lives among us, as to whether there is truth and
hope and life eternal In the Gospel. It is this ques
tion which must be answered with the full power of
a united testimony.
What is needed now is a United Church so faithful
to the Gospel, so free, so filled with the spirit of love
and fellowship that in it the presence and glory of
Christ shall be made manifest.
The third principle which must guide us in our
approach towards unity is the principle of ecumeni
city. We must have always In mind the ultimate
Ideal, the only full and sufficient goal, the reunion of
the whole Church of Christ throughout all the world.

78 THE CALL TO UNITY
Nothing lower, or less, than this can satisfy us; for
nothing less will fulfill the prayer of Jesus Christ.
We must be true, always, to this final purpose. All
that we undertake in the cause of unity must be in
conformity with this, and must be tested by it. Par
tial and local movements towards unity are to be en
couraged, and promoted, to the fullest possible extent.
But we must do nothing, for the sake of local and
temporary gain, which conflicts with the ultimate aim,
or which would lessen our power to help towards its
attainment. We shall not be malting progress if, in
our efforts to close one breach, we tear others wider
open. It is plain, for example, that the Anglican
Church would not be serving the cause of reunion if,
for the sake of much to be desired closer approach to
the Protestant Communions, she were to let go that
which she holds in common with the Catholic Com
munions of both the East and the West. In all Com
munions we must hold fast to those central principles
upon which alone Christians throughout the world can
be united. We must keep the full vision of unity be
fore us. But we must not wait for the vision to real
ize itself. God does not so teach us to do our work
for Him.
There are some who are so eager for unity that
they seem ready to cast all questions of faith to the
winds. A Church so united would have lost the se
cret of its life and would have no power to help and

THE APPROACH TO UNITY 79
save the world. There are others who are so fearful
that the Faith may be compromised that they are op
posed to action of any sort. Unity, they seem to feel,
is to be desired, and prayed for, but nothing is to be
done to bring it about. Its accomplishment is to be
left wholly to God. Each of these positions is, at
bottom, a faithless one. We must pray, but we must
act also. If faith without works is dead, prayer with
out corresponding action is equally so.
The blessing Is promised to those who make peace,
not to those who wait for peace to come to pass of
Itself. We must believe and go forward. More than
ever before we must recognize that true inner unity
which already exists between ourselves and our fellow
Christians of every name. Catholic and Protestant.
We must recognize more fully that we are all brethren
in Christ. We must not only accept but seek oppor
tunities to express this fellowship, publicly and pri
vately, in every way that is possible under existing
conditions. This attitude and spirit shown by all of
us would carry us far. It would soften our preju
dices, enlarge our hearts, widen our outlook, and pro
duce the atmosphere In which the Spirit of Peace can
do His holy work.
If, as some feel, there are dangers in too close ap
proach to our fellow Christians, it is certain that there
are dangers in remaining apart from them. If a true
theology is essential for the full realization of unity.

8o THE CALL TO UNITY
human fellowship may have much to do with its be
ginnings. At Camp Upton, where it was my privilege
to serve for eleven months, the Chaplains, both Cath
olic and Protestant, met together each Wednesday
morning to discuss plans for their common work. As
the opening prayer was offered at those meetings all
felt that God the Spirit was with us. No one was
asked, or desired, to compromise his convictions. We
knew that there were differences of faith among us,
but we knew, still more deeply, that we were brethren
in Christ, and found that we could both feel and work
as such. The surest antidote for religious prejudice
is human contact. The Gospel stands unalterably for
truth, but its first principle is love. \Vhether it be
called Catholic, or Protestant, there is something wrong
with any theology which sees danger in personal con
tact, or which tends to separate men from their fellows.
We Christians, of all names, must emphasize the
fact of our brotherhood. We belong to one another
in the bond which joins us to Christ. The things
which unite us are indeed greater than the things which
divide us. By virtue of our Baptism we are all mem
bers of the one Church, which is Christ's Body. It
was the great Von Dollinger, in his Lectures on the
Reunion of the Churches, who wrote : —
" As being baptized we are all on either side broth
ers and sisters, we are all at bottom members of the
Universal Church. In this great garden of God let

THE APPROACH TO UNITY 8 1
US shake hands with one another over the confessional
hedges, and let us break them down so as to be able to
embrace one another altogether."
What we all need is closer fellowship with Christ.
This is the path which will lead us to unity. It is
unity which is needed to bring us the full blessing and
power of our life in Christ, but it is closeness to
Christ which is needed, above all else, to bring us to
unity. It is lack of holiness in the lives of Christians
which is the chief obstacle to the unity of the Church.
If all of us were truly converted to Christ the way to
unity would speedily be opened. If we are to have
Christian unity we must be real Christians. The
great effort in all Communions must be to raise the
level of faith and life nearer to that which Christ
would have it. The Church everywhere must make
higher demand upon her people. She must ask higher
things spiritually from all of us, clergy and people
alike. In conjunction with the call to unity there
must go out a call for more simple faith In Christ.
It is this which will bring us nearer to each other.
We are one in the life that is in Christ, and more
deeply than we recognize, we are one also in faith.
We believe in one Lord Jesus Christ, " God of God,
Light of Light, Very God of Very God." Presby
terians, Roman Catholics, Methodists, Eastern Ortho
dox, Baptists, Congregationalists, Anglicans, we are
all one in this. And the Christian religion is bdief

82 THE CALL TO UNITY
In, and fellowship with, Christ our Lord. Other mat
ters are important, but this is the all important matter.
This is the rock on which all our faith rests. From
this follows all else that we believe. With this in
common it must be possible for us to find the way to
full fellowship. We must emphasize, and hold con
stantly in view, the things in which we are at one.
" The Christian Church is one family, and Christians
are brothers. It is a fact, not an aspiration. All
Christians are brothers." ^ The cry which all of us.
Christians of every name, need to hear to-day is " Sirs,
ye are brethren."
1 Unity and Schism, by T. A. Lacey, p. 158.

IV
THE CALL TO THE ANGLICAN COMMUNION
Christian Unity is the greatest of all questions now
before the Church, and the world. It goes to the
root of human life, and underlies all the other prob
lems with which we have to deal. If Christianity
does not bring the spirit of fellowship into the rela
tionships and affairs of men, what other power is
there to do this? The call to unity is from Christ
Himself, and therefore it comes with compelling force
to all Christians, Catholic and Protestant. In our ap
proach towards unity we must be true to the principle
of Christian loyalty, and true, equally, to the principle
of Christian liberty. Unity will be reached not by
the path of elimination but by the path of inclusion;
not by disregard of principle or conviction, but by
recognition of the whole truth seen, and witnessed to,
by opposing sides. The United Church must have
place in It for " all that is vital and vitalizing." The
only right, and the only possible, line of approach to
wards unity is that of fullest welcome to whatever is
in accord with the principles of the Gospel and Is
of proved value in Christian life and experience.
83

84 THE CALL TO UNITY
In the providence of God, and by His ordering of
the events of history, not by choice, or virtue of
Its own, the Anglican Communion has a unique op
portunity to further the advance of unity along
this path. The Anglican Church is called now to
realize, as never before, how great, how truly God-
given is its opportunity to serve the cause of reunion.
Anghcanism, we know well, has sins and shortcomings
enough to acknowledge and repent. By its coldness,
at times when the currents of its spiritual life ran
low, it has discouraged enthusiasm, it has failed to
sympathize with new movements, it has been respon
sible, in part, for divisions which might have been
avoided. By its too great emphasis on uniformity,
its formality and fear of novelty, it has repressed too
much the spirit of individual enterprise, and the more
emotional side of religious life. By its connection
with the State, a connection not begun at the Reforma
tion, but existing through its identification with the
English race from its earliest beginnings, the life and
work of the Church of England have been in these later
days hampered and hindered. All this and more we
must acknowledge, but nevertheless the Anglican Com
munion has had its own great part to play in the life
of the Christian Church, and it seems now to have a
mission to fulfill for which it has been providentially
prepared. The Anglican Church has stood both for
the Catholic Faith and for the spirit of progress, for

the call to the ANGLICAN COMMUNION 85
the principle of authority and the principle of free
dom; for the full recognition of both the supernatural
and the natural; for the reality of Revelation and for
the rights of reason. She has developed the temper
of soberness, steadfastness, and wide tolerance. The
characteristic notes of her life may be said to be sanity,
charity and love of truth. She has shown her power
to produce true saints, great leaders in social reform,
sons and daughters whose names are among the great
est in history. One of her most distinctive contribu
tions has been her work in the field of scholarship. It
was one of her wisest sons, the late Bishop Creighton,
who described her as, " the Church of sound learn
ing." So impartial a witness as Mr. Lecky says:
" Looking at the Church of England from the intel
lectual side, it is plain how large a proportion of the
best Intellect of the country is contented, not only to
live within It, but to take an active part in its minis
trations. There is hardly a branch of serious Eng
lish literature in which Anglican clergy are not con
spicuous. There is nothing in a false and supersti
tious creed incompatible with som-e forms of litera
ture (as, for example, poetical genius and beauty of
style). But in the Church of England literary
achievement Is certainly not limited to these forms.
In the fields of physical science, in the fields of moral
philosophy, metaphysics, social, and even political phi
losophy, and perhaps still more in the fields of history.

86 THE CALL TO UNITY
its clergy have won places in the foremost rank . . .
marked not only by profound learning, but, to an
eminent degree, by judgment, criticism, impartiality,
a desire for Truth, a skill in separating the proved
from the false, or the merely probable. There is no
other Church which has shown Itself so capable of
attracting and retaining the services of men of general
learning, criticism and ability."
Through the long centuries of her life, dating back
to the days before there was a united nation in Brit
ain, the influence of the Church of England has been
incalculable in producing that type of character which
has given the English-speaking peoples their present
place in the life of the world, and their great respon
sibility for its future.
The Anglican Church has never for a moment
thought of herself as the whole Church of Christ.
Her highest claim has been that, in spite of her many
insufficiencies, she is a true part of the Church. She
has believed that she was holding certain essential
principles to which she must bear faithful witness, as
belonging to the fullness of the Gospel, and as neces
sary to the life of that United Church, the thought of
which has been always in her mind. But while stead
fastly witnessing to these principles she has based
upon them no exclusive claims for herself, and has
passed no judgment upon those whose principles dif
fered from her own.

THE CALL TO THE ANGLICAN COMMUNION 87
It has long been recognized that the Anglican
Church has peculiar opportunity to be a reconciling
influence in Christendom. The words of the Roman
Catholic layman of France, de Malstre, have been
often quoted. " If ever," he said, " and everything
invites to it, there should be a movement towards re
union among the Christian bpdies It seems likely that
the Church of England should be the one to give It
impulse. Presbyterianism, as its French nature ren
dered probable, went to extremes. Between us and
those who practice a worship which we think wanting
In form and substance there is too wide an interval;
we cannot understand one another. But the English
Church, which touches us with the one hand, touches
with the other those with whom we have no point of
contact. She is like one of those chemical re-agents
which unite elements incapable, in their own nature,
of reunion."
These words point to a truth the full meaning of
which is only now becoming clear. We |iave been
disposed to think, somewhat complacently, of the
Anglican Church as adhering closely to primitive Faith
and Order, and holding the middle ground upon which
extremes on either hand would some day have to meet.
But it is time for us to realize that unity will never
come, and should never come, by any mere path of
compromise, and that the mission of the Anglican
Communion is one vastly greater, much more difficult,

88 THE CALL TO UNITY
far more noble than this. Christendom stands di
vided into two great groups, Catholic and Protestant.
What we need now to see, and what Christians are at
last beginning to see, is that the central, pivotal prin
ciples witnessed to and emphasized by these two great
separated groups are not as fundamentally opposed
one to another as they have been assumed to be.
We are coming to see that at any rate in their
beginnings the divisions among Christians which have
lasted for centuries, and which have worked such
untold harm to the cause of Christ, were due more
to human passion and prejudice, to controversial bit
terness, to the intolerant spirit of the time in which
they took place, than to any actually irreconcilable
differences between the opposed positions.
If this is the fact it throws a most hopeful light
along the path towards unity. And study of the ques
tions at issue shows that this is the fact. The divi
sions have been due in most cases not to essential in
compatibility in the different principles, but rather to
a kind of intellectual pride which has refused to allow
place for any apprehension of the truth but its own,
assuming that its own apprehension had taken in the
whole of the truth. It is the simple fact that if there
had been a reasonable spirit, a temper of conciliation,
a desire on both sides to see the truth without preju
dice, the divisions between Catholics and Protestants
need never have taken place. There was nothing In

THE CALL TO THE ANGLICAN COMMUNION 89
the contending principles which necessitated this. It
was not that one of these principles was true and that
the other was false. Each principle was in essence
equally true, and each was needed for the balance and
completeness of the other. This cannot of course be
said of all the differences in detail, nor of all the issues
and questions which have since developed. Division
has developed further difference, and separateness has
borne its unwholesome fruit. But if it can now be
seen, and acknowledged, that there was no real neces
sity for division in the beginning, that the questions at
issue did not require this, that the main principles
held by both sides are true and necessary, this at least
points the way towards reconciliation, it opens a real
door of hope, it establishes a foundation upon which
a true unity may be brought about.
What are the fundamental ideas and principles for
which the words Catholic and Protestant respectively
stood, and for which they still stand? The funda
mental question at issue between the Catholic and
Protestant positions is not confined to the sphere of reli
gion. It is one which runs through the whole of life.
It is the question of the relation of the individual to
society as to the whole of which he is a part. It is
this question which Is at the root of all our human
problems, social, political, industrial, economic or
philosophic. It Is only natural that this question
should have its place in the life of the Church. The

90 THE CALL TO UNITY
word Catholic means literally that which is " accord
ing to the whole." It connotes not only the universal
but the corporate, that which relates to the wholeness
and the oneness of life. Essentially the word Cath
olic stands for authority, unity, universality, for the
social and corporate expression of Christian truth and
life, for emphasis on the Divine claims and the Divine
side of religion. And this principle for which the
word Catholic stands is true, and essential to Chris
tian faith and life. The word Protestant means lit
erally " witnessing." It connotes personal witness to
truth, individually experienced. Essentially the word
Protestant stands for personal freedom, for individual
responsibility, for the direct access of the human soul
to God, for the dignity and sacredness of the spirit of
man, for emphasis on individual development and on
the human side of religion. And this principle for
which the word Protestant stands is also true, and es
sential to Christian faith and life. Not only is each
of these great principles true but each is of the very
life of the Gospel. Each had its place in the begin
ning, has its place now, and must have its place for
ever in the life of the Church. Each is a part of the
faith once for all delivered to the saints. St. Paul
stood for each of these principles with equal clearness
and fullness. He is claimed as confidently, and as
rightly, by the champions of the Protestant principle
as he is by the champions of the Catholic principle.

THE CALL TO THE ANGLICAN COMMUNION 9I
Each principle is liable to exaggeration and undue
emphasis, and each has indeed often been exaggerated
and unduly emphasized. Each principle needs the
other to correct and supplement it. Neither principle
has in fact been exclusively the possession of either
group. All along each group has, in greater or less
degree, recognized the truth emphasized by the other.
What we need now in our approach towards unity
is not some compromise upon a middle ground be
tween the fundamental principle of Protestantism and
the fundamental principle of Catholicism, but full rec
ognition by each group of the truth, the importance,
the indispensability of the principle for which the
other stands.
It Is here that the Anglican Communion has to-day
its great opportunity. The position which the Angli
can Church holds is not a mere via media, a middle
path of compromise cautiously taken to escape ex
tremes. The Anglican Church does not hold some
nondescript position midway between the opposed
Catholic and Protestant principles. She touches each
of these on either hand, as de Malstre expressed
it, because she recognizes and finds place for both the
Catholic principle and the Protestant principle vvithin
her own life. She shows in actual fact that these two
principles are not mutually exclusive and contradictory.
She Is both Catholic and Protestant.
The Anglican Communion includes these two posi-

92 THE CALL TO UNITY
tions within her fold as no other Communion on earth
does. She is the one Communion in the world in which
those who represent the Catholic position, and those
who represent the Protestant position, now live and
work together, in fellowship and unity. It is this
which gives her the special mission to which she is
called. Her mission is to lead towards unity by show
ing, still more clearly than she has yet done, that
these apparently opposed principles are not incom
patible but that each finds larger and fuller life by
association with the other. It may be that until we
are ready for reunion it is best for each group of
Christians to continue its present limiting denomina
tional name, if only as a reminder of its condition of
separation and exile from the full life of the Catholic
Church. If, however, the Protestant Episcopal
Church should wish to change its name the most
strictly accurate, the most truly significant and the
most historically correct designation for it would be,
as Dr. Miel told us, the "Catholic Protestant" or
the " Protestant Catholic " Church. The Anglican
Church claims no credit for the fact that this is her
position. She did not take it of her own wisdom, nor
of her own ordering. She has not fully realized its
meaning, nor the high mission which it gives her.
She has in large degree accepted this position as of
necessity, under compulsion, and has regarded it often
as a burden grievous to be borne. Involving her In

THE CALL TO THE ANGLICAN COMMUNION 93
weakness and self-contradiction. Some of her chil
dren, on each of the opposing sides, have cried out
against it, a few have even fled from her fold in fear
of it, or In failure to understand it. But she is now
called to see the trUe meaning of her opportunity and
to put it to full use in the cause of unity. We have
been in the habit of lamenting the break between the
English and the Roman Churches, at the time of the
Reformation. Evil, however, as were some of the
circumstances, and some of the consequences, of this
estrangement between sister Churches we can see,
more clearly than our forefathers did, that it was of
providential ordering. Like Joseph, banished into
Egypt, we can now see the Divine purpose in this, and
can say, as he did on his reunion with his brethren,
" God meant it unto good." As a result of her life
history, and of the experience through which she has
passed, the Anglican Church has been prepared for
the work of reconciliation, she is able not only to under
stand but, still more important, to feel, in some meas
ure, the religious value and significance, of the truths
emphasized, respectively, by Eastern Orthodox, Roman
Catholic and Protestant Christianity.
The chief differences of belief which separate Cath
olics from Protestants are those which relate to the
nature of the Church, the Sacraments and the Minis
try. These questions are indeed of great moment.
None of us could wish that they should be lightly re-

94 THE CALL TO UNITY
garded, or that their importance should be under
estimated. Even for the sake of unity the truth in
volved in these questions could not be sacrificed.
These are not external questions. They touch the
very life of the Gospel. The different views are held
by the two great sections of Christendom with deepest
and most serious conviction. But recognizing the
seriousness of the questions, are the differences of be
lief about them, such as must permanently separate
Christians from one another ? Are the different views
fundamentally opposed, and irreconcilable, or is it
true that, in these vital matters each side is contending
for something that is indispensable; that each side is
in the main right in what it affirms, and wrong chiefly
in what it denies; that the way to unity is not by re
jection of either belief, but by acceptance and recogni
tion of each as part, and a necessary part, of the higher
truth which includes them both? If this Is the fact
then no doubt the Kingdom of God is not far from
us. If we can see that we are not divided by funda
mental principle, we may hope that other difficulties,
serious though these may be, can in time be overcome.
Catholics and Protestants appear to hold widely dif
fering views as to the Church. But is the difference
here so great as appears on the surface? Every
Christian, of whatever name, in his heart thinks of
the Church as differing from any other organization
on earth, as having some supernatural character, as

THE CALL TO THE ANGLICAN COMMUNION 95
speaking and witnessing and ministering in the name
of God. Every Christian regards the Church as some
thing more than a social club or an educational agency.
The Catholic feels and stresses the Divine character
of the Church. He stands for the principle of au
thority, of continuity, of order, for the importance
and necessity of corporate faith and life. He em
phasizes the fact that fellowship in the Church is nec
essary to spiritual life and development. The Prot
estant, on the other hand, feels and stresses the im
portance and Divine character of the individual soul.
He stands for the principle of liberty, of spontaneity,
of full individual expression. He stands for the
fact that spiritual development is possible only
through personal faith and individual experience.
But there is nothing in these two principles that is in
compatible. So far from being mutually exclusive or
destructive they are vitally necessary to each other.
Every thoughtful Protestant and every thoughtful
Catholic does in fact hold both principles in some de
gree. All must agree that corporate religion and in
dividual religion are equally necessary, and that only
in the corporate life of the Church can the individual
Christian find his full life and development. With
all their differences all Catholics and almost all Prot
estants in their fundamental conception of the Church
are at one. They believe alike that the Church is
Christ's Body and that it includes all who share the

96 THE CALL TO UNITY
life that is received from Him. They believe alike
that the Church is a Divine institution. In the words
of an eminent representative of the Congregational
Church, " Every Christian, in his soul, be he rational
ist or sacramentarian, evangelical or sacerdotalist,
Protestant or Catholic, cherishes a supernatural idea
of the Church, looks upon it as the Bride of Christ,
the supreme object of His love, the Body of Christ,
the very incorporation of His Spirit, the Heavenly
City, the New Jerusalem, the Communion of Saints." ^
Between those who together hold such a conception of
the Church as this surely no impassable gulf is fixed!
In our discussions of Christian Unity it is of the
utmost importance to take the questions for considera
tion in their proper order. If we and our brethren of
the Nonconformist Churches should begin by discuss
ing the Ministry and the question of a valid ordi
nation, we should probably halt there indefinitely.
One of the chief hindrances to progress has been that
this question, important as it is, has been considered
out of its due relation to the deeper question of the
meaning and nature of the Christian Church. If we
find ourselves fundamentally at one in our conception
of the Church, we can then approach subsidiary ques
tions with far more hope of agreement. As Canon
Goudge well puts it, " We should begin with the
^ Revd. Raymond Calkins, in Approaches Towards Church
Unity, by Newman Smyth and Williston Walker, p. 85.

THE CALL TO THE ANGLICAN COMMUNION 97
Church, and that brotherhood, one with another,
which our common membership bestows. The his
torical problems as to the origin and character of the
Christian ministry are a Serbonian bog, out of which
we should keep as long as possible. Let anybody
read, in any order which he prefers. Dr. Gore's The
Church and the Ministry, Dr. Lindsay's The Church
and the Ministry in the Early Centuries, and Mr.
Lowrie's The Church and its Organisation, to take
but three books out of very many, and then endeavor
to balance the arguments, and put down the conclu
sions which have clearly emerged. ... It Is highly
important to keep the question of the ministry in its
place. Broadly speaking, the Church does not so
much depend upon the ministry as the ministry upon
the Church. The Church is not the Church because
it has a ' valid ministry ' ; rather the ministry is valid
because It is the ministry of the Church." ^
With regard to the Ministry, the Protestant em
phasizes those elements of the office which are dis
tinctive of the prophet, the Catholic emphasizes those
elements of the office which are distinctive of the
priest. It must be admitted that Catholics have been
suspicious of the liberty of prophesying, and that Prot
estants have been prejudiced against the idea of the
priesthood. But why should it be so? Why should
either of these ideas of the Ministry be regarded as
1 Th^ CaihoUc Party and the Nonconformists, p. 10.

98 THE CALL TO UNITY
denying or excluding the other? Catholic and Prot
estant, in fact, do recognize, in some measure, the ne
cessity of both priest and prophet. The Christian Re
ligion calls for the exercise of each of these func
tions of the Ministry. The exercise of each function
is demanded by the facts and needs of human life.
What we need, and must have, in the Ministry of the
Church is not priest or prophet, but priest and prophet,
with full recognition of the place and need of each.
Our Lord Jesus Christ Himself Is the perfect exam
ple of both. It is sometimes said that according to
the Catholic theory the minister receives his authority
from above, while according to the Protestant theory
he receives his authority from below. But this is not
a statement which does full justice to the respective
positions. The difference of view is not as to whether
the authority and power of the minister come from
above or from below, but rather as to the means by
which these are conveyed and assured and as to how
the ministerial commission shall be outwardly authen
ticated. Whether the prophetic, or the priestly, as
pect of the Ministry is emphasized; whether it is
held that the power to exercise its functions is con
veyed and assured through an outward and visible
ministerial succession, or whether it is held that it is
given without this outward means and assurance, each
side holds equally that both the call to the Ministry,

THE CALL TO THE ANGLICAN COMMUNION 99
and the power to exercise it, are from God. Catholic
and Protestant alike believe that the Ministry speaks,
and ministers, with authority from above. According
to each view the primary qualification for the work
of the Ministry is the call of God the Spirit, and the
power which He alone can bestow. The Protestant,
it is true, stresses the fact that the minister exercises
his functions as representing, and on behalf of, the
people. But a true Catholic doctrine holds firmly the
representative character of the priesthood, and teaches
that the priest's office exists only by virtue of that
priesthood of all believers, of which It is the organ.
Dr. R. C. Moberly says : " The Christian Ministry Is
not a substituted intermediary — still less an atoning
mediator — between God and lay people; but it is
rather the representative and organ of the whole body.
In the exercise of prerogatives and powers which be
long to the body as a whole." ^ As Bishop Gore ex
presses it, quoting, in part, Canon Liddon, " The dif
ference between clergy and laity is not a difference In
kind, but In function." ^
The Catholic emphasizes the necessity of a regular
form of appointment and commission to the Ministry,
he believes In the principle of continuity and succes
sion as the sign of power given from above and the
^Ministerial Priesthood, p. 242.
2 The Church and the 'Ministry, p. 84.

lOO THE CALL TO UNITY
means through which this is outwardly assured, and
holds that Episcopal ordination is essential for the ex
ercise of the priestly office.
The Protestant emphasizes the necessity of the in
ward and spiritual gift proved by manifestation of
the fruits of the Spirit in life and work and holds
that the form by which the Commission is given is
not essential. But wide as are the differences between
these two positions it is not impossible for them to
dwell together in unity. Christians holding these dif
ferent views can dwell in fellowship in the one house
hold and they do, in fact, so dwell in the Anglican
Communion. It is fuller realization of the sacramental
truth of the Church itself as the Body of Christ which
will bring us to fuller and deeper views of the Church's
Ministry. Strongly, and rightly, as we may believe in the
necessity of a regular outward form of appointment
to the Ministry, and in the principle of ministerial
succession, we must all of us be willing to leave place
for the free working of the Spirit of God. Recog
nizing to the full that God works in His Church, as
elsewhere, normally according to a regular order, we
must also recognize, with equal fullness, that God
has power to work outside His established order.
And in this matter of the Ministry we must recognize
that God has, in fact, chosen so to work. We must
acknowledge, and rejoice in, the presence and power

THE CALL TO THE ANGLICAN COMMUNION lOI
of the Spirit wherever, and by whatever means, it may
be manifested. That it is necessary for those called
to the Ministry to receive the power of the Spirit for
their work all agree. Practically all Christians rec
ognize the necessity for some regular form of ordi
nation, and by almost all this is given by the laying
of hands.
The point to be made clear is this. The Ministry of
each Christian denomination must be recognized as a
true ministry. Its spiritual reality, and efficacy, are
proved by its power to bring men to Christ. But it is
in each case the Ministry of a particular Communion,
holding the commission only of that Communion, and
not of the whole Church. All may recognize that for
the exercise of the Ministry in the whole Church it is
necessary to have the commission of the whole Church.
And the commission which has by far the largest sanc
tion, and use, is that given through the historic Episco
pate. This was the commission of the whole Church in
the past. It is the one accepted by much the larger part
of Christendom at the present time. It is manifest
that this must be the commission for the exercise of
the Ministry of the whole Church In the future.
What Is now needed Is that the Non-Episcopal Minis
tries shall be recognized to be true Ministries, ac
cepted and used by the Spirit for the work of Christ
and that, on the other hand, these Ministries shall accept
the Episcopate as giving them the commission requisite

I02 THE CALL TO UNITY
for ministry in the Church Universal. And wider
scholarship seems at last to be opening the way for this.
A scholar of the Anglican Church, so representative
of the Catholic school as the Revd. C. H. Turner
writes an essay of which a representative Congrega-
tionalist scholar, the Revd. Alfred E. Garvie, Princi
pal of New College, Hampstead, says that it " must
have brought relief to others, as to myself, who care
for the lessening of the difficulties in the way of Chris
tian reunion. As here presented the Apostolic Suc
cession does not appear an insuperable obstacle." Dr.
Garvie adds : " To give to the bishops the place they
have hitherto held in respect of the ordination of min
isters, so long as, in accordance with ancient practice,
other presbyters are associated with them, would be
simply to preserve the continuity in the Christian
Church which anyone with a proper historic sense
would desire. This, however, must not be held to in
volve any theory of the exclusive validity of episcopal
ordination." ^ And the Anglican and Free Church
authors of that remarkable statement already referred
to, the " Second Interim Report," say, " The first fact
which we agree to acknowledge is that the position of
Episcopacy in the greater part of Christendom, as the
recognized organ of the unity and continuity of the
Church, is such that the members of the Episcopal
Churches ought not to be expected to abandon it in
^ See essay by the Revd. A. E. Garvie in Towards Reunion.

THE CALL TO THE ANGLICAN' COMMUNION IO3
assenting to any basis of reunion." These representa
tive scholars go on to submit for consideration, as
what seem to them " necessary conditions of any pos
sibility of reunion " that " continuity with the his
toric Episcopate should be effectively preserved " ;
that " the Episcopate should reassume a constitutional
form . . . such as was the primitive ideal and prac
tice " and such as it has " in many Episcopal Com
munions to-day " ; that " acceptance of the fact of
Episcopacy, and not any theory as to its character
should be all that is asked for," which, they hold
" may be the more easily taken for granted as the ac
ceptance of any such theory is not now required of
the ministers of the Church of England." And they
add, " Within such a recovered unity we should agree
in claiming that the legitimate freedom of prophetic
ministry should be carefully preserved, and In antici
pating that many customs and institutions which have
been developed in separate communities may be pre
served within the larger unity of which they have come
to form a part."
The whole of this report, which may be found
in the appendix to this volume, shows striking ad
vance towards mutual understanding and a most gen
erous spirit and earnest desire for unity on the part
of its Free Church signers. It may be that the way to
reunion would be made easier if those who have re
ceived their orders through the historic Episcopate

I04 THE CALL TO UNITY
should on their part express willingness to receive from
the authorities of the Non-Episcopal Communions such
added and special authorization as they might desire
to give. This would of course not be reordination.
This term suggests repudiation of, or reflection upon,
the Ministry previously exercised and It should there
fore not be used on either side. So undoubted an
advocate of the Catholic view of the Ministry as the
Bishop of Zanzibar has suggested this course. In pre
senting his plan for the union of the Churches In East
Africa he " assured the Conference that if the Non-
Episcopal bodies would accept some such proposals
as these, and consent to some Episcopal consecration
and ordination so as to enable them to minister, by
invitation, in Episcopal Churches, he for his part
would gladly come before any of their congregations
and accept any form of popular recognition. He
could not move from his own position, or allow doubt
to be cast upon his ministerial authority received by
ordination and consecration. But if the Church's
forms were held to be weak on the side of popular
recognition he would not refuse whatever the other
bodies thought to be necessary to make his ministry
among them acceptable. This he could do in good
faith, since our Lord Jesus Christ, who desires a
United Church, knows the thoughts and motives of
our hearts." ^
^ See Appendix, p. 143.

THE CALL TO THE ANGLICAN COMMUNION IO5
In regard to worship the Catholic position is asso
ciated chiefly with the use of liturgical forms, classic
in themselves, hallowed by use and association, com
ing down, some of them, from the earliest ages of
the Christian Church. The Protestant position is as
sociated chiefly with nonliturgical methods, with the
free, unprescribed utterance of the spirit in prayer
and worship. But as urged in the preceding lecture,
why should this question of the method of worship
cause separation, or division among us? Neither of
these methods is contrary to the principles of the Gos
pel. Each has Its value, and Its place. Each may
well be used in the life of the Church. The differing
views as to forms of worship, use of ritual and, far
more important, as to the place and nature of the
Sacraments, rest back upon different philosophies of
the relation between matter and spirit. Philosophy
itself seems now to recognize the reality of both mat
ter and spirit, that spirit is the underlying reality upon
which matter depends, and that matter can be, and is,
the medium of the spiritual. Those who hold the
Sacramental principle, however, find their warrant for
it not in any human philosophy, but in the Christian
Gospel, which teaches us that all life is holy, and that
the body also is to have its place in the redemption.
This principle has its supreme and all sufficient exem
plification in the fact of the Incarnation, the fact, upon
which Christianity wholly rests, that God Himself

I06 THE CALL TO UNITY
was manifested to us in human form, that " the
Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us." In
this fact historic Christianity has found the Divine
authority for the Sacramental principle ; for the Sacra
ments as real channels of the Divine and spiritual;
and also for the offering of true spiritual worship
through liturgy and ritual. Although liturgical wor
ship has its own acknowledged dangers, its great value
and importance in the life of the Church are clear.
With striking open-mindedness the authors of Path
ways to Christian Unity say, " Christian worship, just
because it is the worship of the one true God through
His complete self -manifestation in our Lord, ought
never to be devoid of, nay rather should always be
conspicuous for, the reverence with which it Is ren
dered. It is not too much to say that in this matter
the average Free Church service of public worship falls
gravely short of the standard set by Catholic prac
tice . . . our Free Church worship too frequently
lacks in reverence, and tends to substitute other things
for the spirit of worship. An ornate liturgical service
may. be, and doubtless often is, irreverent, and there
is such a thing as a drilled reverence which is not wor
shipful. Nevertheless it is undeniably more difficult
to dissociate the spirit of reverence from a Catholic
office, or from the Anglican Liturgy, than from our
Free Church Services." ^
^ Page 114.

THE CALL TO THE ANGLICAN COMMUNION I07
As that true soldier of the Spirit, Donald Hankey,
expressed it : " We must be quite clear about the object
of an ordained priesthood and a uniform service.
The English Church always has its eye on the future
and on the possibility of a universal Church. Sup
posing such a Church to exist, it would be almost es
sential that Christians should be able in every part of
the world to take part in the great service of Catholic
fellowship, the service of Holy Communion. It Is a
beautiful idea that wherever a Christian should go in
all the world, and in whatever strange language his
brothers In Christ might be worshipping, he should
always be able to follow this one service, and find it
the same everywhere. After all, Holy Communion,
enshrining as it does the essence of our faith, is the
obvious basis of unity. And there seems to be no
good reason why as we all come to understand its
meaning more fully there should not in this one thing
be uniformity. Therefore, the English Church has
tried, as far as possible, to keep to the old form of
service In which, from very ancient times, the rite of
the breaking of bread and the drinking of the cup
has been set. Besides this, the set form of service
and the specially ordained ministry are a certain guar
antee that the meaning and beauty of the service will
not be lost. If it were to be celebrated anyhow, and
by anybody, there would be grave danger that false
interpretations might creep in, and important features

I08 THE CALL TO UNITY
allowed to drop out. In this matter we think that the
Church of England would not serve the cause of ulti
mate catholicity by sacrificing what seems to be beauti
ful and useful for the sake of an immediate unity
which would mean the impoverishment of the future.
Not by giving up what is beautiful and good but by
including more of what is beautiful and good, will the
Church of England substantiate Its claim to be Cath
olic." 1
The principle that the outward and visible has its
proper place in religion, as in all life, is indeed all but
universally accepted. But it must equally be recog
nized that as to the particular form in which worship
shall be offered, and as to the use of ritual, very wide
liberty must be conceded. Liturgical forms have
great value but it does not therefore follow that there
is no place in public worship for free prayer. Pre
cious as the Book of Common Prayer is to Anglicans,
noble as it is, both in spirit and in utterance, it is not
the only, nor the final, word in worship. It does not
meet and cover all the spiritual needs of men of all
kinds, on all occasions, and under all conditions. The
time has come for the Anglican Church to become less
rigid, far more truly Catholic, in her system of wor
ship. Without losing the dignity and order of her
stated services she must not only allow, she must en
courage greater variety and freedom of devotion. If
1 The Lord of All Good Life, pp. 124, 125.

THE CALL TO THE ANGLICAN COMMUNION IO9
precedent be required for this it can be found amply
in the great variety of ritual, and service books, in
earlier days in the Church of England. Catholicism
emphasizes the sacramental idea of worship; Protes
tantism emphasizes the inspirational idea of worship.
The thing needed for the life of the Church is that
each of these ideas shall have Its place and expression.
And yet this question of the method of worship has
occasioned division In the Body of Christ, and Chris
tians are to-day, more divided in feeling by it than
might be supposed.
The trouble is that these different types of worship
have in the main, dwelt apart from each other, in sep
arated denominations. It is this fact which makes
Christian people critical and suspicious of the method
with which they are not familiar. If each method had
place, and use, within the one Church the feeling that
they are opposed one to another would largely dis
appear. In the United Church the principle must be
not to repress but to combine and develop every
variety of religious expression which is In accord with
the Faith of Christ. It is this principle which the
Anglican Church is now called upon more fully to ex
emplify. With regard to the Sacraments, Catholics and Prot
estants will find their common ground by emphasis
upon the fact that the primary thing in these ordi
nances is not what we do, or feel, but what Christ

no THE CALL TO UNITY
does, and gives us, in and through them. A right
view of the Sacraments must depend upon, and have
as Its foundation, a full faith in the living Christ.
For all Christians, Catholics and Protestants, the es
sential, all important fact is that Christianity is the
living Christ Himself, showing us the truth, giving
us grace and life from above, and doing this normally,
and certainly, though we may not say exclusively,
through the Church and the Sacraments, which He
Himself instituted. Christ is infinitely greater than
any of our thoughts and feelings about Him. This
is the foundation fact. This is the rock on which the
whole life of the Church rests. Standing together in
this faith we may gladly allow each other wide di
versity of apprehension, and interpretation. In the
words of one whom his pupils, and many others,
think of as the most profound and Illuminating of
modern teachers of Christian truth, the late Dr. Du
Bose, " What we need in our Christianity is to take
God at His Word, to believe that what He says
to us Christ is. It is as much a part of Christianity
to know that Christ is in His Church, as It is to know
that God is in Christ. If we truly believed that the
Church is Christ's Body, the actual and sole organ and
instrument of His life and work upon earth; if we
truly knew that we are members of His body, par
takers of His life, and doers of all that He is in the
world to do; if Baptism were to our faith the death

THE CALL TO THE ANGLICAN COMMUNION III
and life of Christ, and the Bread and Wine were His
Body and Blood, instead of only signs of something
not there, how would the Gospel begin to manifest it
self as that which in itself it Is — as that which but
for us it would be — the Power of God unto salva
tion, because a Righteousness of God In us through
Faith. With all our mutual understandings and
agreements, there will always be certain differences
among us, because of certain inevitable liabilities and
dangers equally to be found on opposite sides of the
above truth of the Church. Some will always be
thinking that others are making too much of the out
ward and visible for the proper emphasis and opera
tion of the inward and spiritual. The others will be
equally sure that these are making too much of their
own subjective states and selves, and denying, or ig
noring, the objective divine presence and grace upon
which the internal state is and ought to be directly
conditioned. Are not these two opposite attitudes
both necessary and wholesome offsets, and does not
the truth and life of Christianity depend upon its abil
ity to meet, and compose such differences ? " ^
The crucial question in regard to unity is common
participation in the Sacrament of Christ's Body and
Blood. The Lord's Supper is the Sacrament of tmity.
1 " A Constructive Treatment of Christianity," by William
Porcher DuBose, The Constructive Quarterly, March, 1913,
p. 21.

112 THE CALL TO UNITY
It Is the center of the Church's life and worship, the
outward sign, and the means, of our fellowship with
Christ, and with one another in Him. There can be
no true realization of unity until those who are one in
Christ can express their fellowship outwardly and vis
ibly in the ordinance of His own appointment. It is
for this above all things that we long and pray, for
nothing less than this will restore the broken unity
of Christ's Church. It is here that the fellowship of
Christians must be visibly manifested.
Dr. Newman Smyth truly says: " While the Lord's
Supper is the very center and hearth of the whole
household of faith, around it have gathered the most
irreconcilable differences of the Churches. Reunion
therefore must go to the very core of the disunion.
So long as non-communion between Churches is vis
ible, real unity is invisible. And belief in the one
ness of the invisible Church does not atone for the
sinful estate of visible disunity. Agreements to work
together outside the churches leave Christ to be found
walking the streets among men, but not seen in the
midst of His own disciples. External federation in
working together, however desirable, may hide, but
does not atone for, not living together in the one fam
ily and Church of God. The visibility of the real
home life, — not of co-workers only in the same field
— that is the real tmity of the Church." ^
^Approaches Towards Church Unity, p. 56.

THE CALL TO THE ANGLICAN COMMUNION II3
But between those who hold the Protestant position
and those who hold the Catholic position there are
important differences of belief as to the meaning of this
Sacrament. Is it possible for those who by tempera
ment and conviction hold one of these positions to
kneel at the Lord's Supper in fellowship of faith, in
unity of mind and spirit with those who by tempera
ment and conviction hold the other position? In
spite of their deep differences of apprehension have
those who hold the Protestant and Catholic beliefs
enough in common to justify them in coming together
In this Sacrament to meet their common Lord ? Here
we must tread reverently for the place on which we
stand is holy ground. Because this is the holy of
holies, the very sanctuary of the Church's life, there
must here be no undue haste. Common participation
In this Sacrament is the achievement of unity, its
realization and full manifestation to the world. This
Is the prize for which we are striving. And because
it is the prize we must not claim it, until it has been
won. This does not say that baptized Christians of
other Communions may never be permitted under ex
isting conditions to receive the Sacrament of the
Lord's Supper at an Anglican Altar. Few would be
found to maintain this position in practice. But inter
communion between the divided Churches must wait
until the way is prepared and ready for it. Inter
communion is the end and climax of our progress to-

114 THE CALL TO UNITY
wards unity, not its beginning. Writing from the
point of view of a Congregationalist, Dr. Raymond
Calkins says : " A common communion, before we
have acquired the spirit of union or the spiritual per
ception of the total truth which makes us one, can
hardly hasten, but may seriously retard our progress." ^
As to the question, however, whether Protestants
and Catholics can find the way to common participation
in this Sacrament is not the answer suggested by the
actual situation which we have in the Anglican Church ?
Within her fold both the Protestant belief and the
Catholic belief are In large degree represented and
held. Yet all approach the Altar in simple dependence
upon Christ's word. All are able to use the great,
but sober words of the Prayer Book Office. All be
lieve that in this Sacrament grace is given, and that
faith is necessary for its right reception. All believe
that there the Bread which cometh down from Heaven
is received. All hold that there the one Sacrifice once
for all offered on Calvary is kept in remembrance and
shown forth before God and men. All believe that
there they are in the presence of the living Christ.
Why shall not the way be found for Christians of all
names to come together to this Sacrament in like
unity of simple faith?
In order that the Church may be reunited we must
have Catholicism larger, nobler, truer than any that
''¦Approaches Towards Church Unity, p. 82.

THE CALL TO THE ANGLICAN COMMUNION II5
has yet been attaitied; a Catholicism larger, not be
cause it has cut loose from the Gospel, but because it
has entered more deeply into the Gospel ; a Catholicism
which is in vital organic relation with the past, but
which includes also the spiritual contributions of this
age, and of every age since the first days. Those
who are most concerned for the integrity of the Faith
should most welcome such comprehension. It is in
such an atmosphere that the Truth will flourish and
find fullest expression. We must have no faithless
fear for the Gospel of Christ and His Church. In the
atmosphere of brotherliness, mutual sympathy, and
freedom we need not fear that truth will suffer. The
Catholicism which we now need must be loyal to the
Faith once for all revealed, but it must believe also in
progress as the very condition of its life, it must re
joice in the new as well as in the old; it must have
care for, and sympathy with, all that can bring strength
and cheer to the lives of men. It must not look
backward to a golden age in the past but must bring
all the treasures of the past to the service of the pres
ent and the future. It must be at once conservative
and progressive, careful to preserve the true founda
tions of spiritual life, and eager to build boldly and
nobly upon them. Those who catch its spirit must
have about them the air, not of repression and sub
jection, but of freedom and adventure, as those who,
living in the Father's household, enjoy the glorious

Il6 THE CALL TO UNITY
liberty of the children of God. Our lives in the
Church are not to be timid, and cautious, and con
strained but brave and enterprising and free for " God
hath not given us the spirit of fear, but of power, and
of love, and of a sound mind." ^
We must keep in mind the variety and freedom, the
life and vigor, the startling innovations, the fearless
grappling with new situations as well as the whole
hearted loyalty and faith in Christ which we see in
the picture of the Church shown to us in St. Paul's
Epistles. We do grave wrong to Jesus Christ if we allow our
selves to think of, or to present. His religion as a
backward looking religion. The cry " Back to
Christ " contains truth, but it is only a part of the
truth. Our watchword must be not merely " Back
to Christ " but " Forward with Christ, and into
Christ." And to the Anglican Communion is given an oppor
tunity without parallel to show what the full life of
the Catholic Church may be.
More than ever before we who are of her fold are
called to show that the essential principles to which
Protestantism bears witness, and the essential princi
ples to which Catholicism bears witness can dwell to
gether in the one Church of Christ. We must do now
fully and gladly that which we have been doing half
1 II Tim. i, 7.

THE CALL TO THE ANGLICAN COMMUNION II7
unwillingly and half fearfully. We must cultivate far
more the spirit of harmony and unity and mutual con
fidence in our own household. We must cease think
ing of the Catholic and Protestant elements within our
Communion as in essential conflict, as though one of
these is to overthrow and drive out the other.
We must recognize that each of these positions is
seeking to express truth native to the Gospel, that each
corresponds with deep facts in human life, that each
is needed for the fullness of the Kingdom of God.
Such an ideal makes great demands upon us. It
calls for largeness of mind and heart in both clergy
and people. It requires us indeed to " think magnif
icently." It means that the Anglican Church must be
far more dominated by the spirit of love and fellow
ship than it has ever yet been, but this is exactly what
is now needed, if the Anglican Church and the Church
as a whole is to be the effective organ of Christ's power
and presence in the world. Patience and forbearance
and open-mindedness are not virtues easy to combine
with deep conviction. But these are the fruits which
the discipline of our common life in the Church, the
family of Christ, is Intended to produce in us. As one
especially qualified to speak on this subject points out,
the trouble has been not that the Anglican Church in
cluded both the Catholic and Protestant principles, but
that she did not carry out this principle far enough.
" She followed each too feebly and inconsistently to get

Il8 THE CALL TO UNITY
Its best out of it and yet sufficientiy for to prevent her
getting the best out of its fellow." ^
If the Anglican Church will now follow out to their
full implications the principles embodied in her formu
laries she may play a great part in the reunion of
Christendom. Approach towards Rome at this time
is not possible. But reunion between the Anglican
and the Eastern Churches seems to be near at hand.
And there is to-day in the Protestant Churches an
eager, almost passionate, desire for unity. If Angli
can, Eastern and Protestant Christianity, or a large
part of it, could be brought together on a basis of true
Christian liberty, with loyalty to essential Catholic prin
ciple, this should in no way hinder reunion with the Ro
man Church, but on the contrary should greatly Increase
its likelihood. It seems probable that there will have to
be such developments before Rome will seriously con
sider reunion. And there rests upon the Anglican
Church a special obligation to strive for religious unity
in the English-speaking world. The great Protestant
Communions are, many of them, her own kith and kin.
She is bound to them by ties of history, of language,
and of blood. Some of them went out from her spirit
ual household, in part through her own fault and short
coming. Unity, like charity, may well begin at home.
As the ancient Church of the English race, identified
^ The Church and Religious Unity, by the Revd. Herbert
Kelly, p. 307.

THE CALL TO THE ANGLICAN COMMUNION II9
with all its past, what wonder if God is calling us first
to seek reconciliation with those who share with us a
common heritage, and who read the Bible in the Eng
lish tongue. The English-speaking peoples are ap
pointed to a great common mission. They are called
to stand and strive together, not for any selfish aims
or ambitions, but for the good of all mankind. So
far as human judgment can see, the peace and hope
of the world depend upon their close unity and fel
lowship. What greater thing could now be accom
plished as a step towards unity than the drawing into
fellowship of all English-speaking Christians? What
greater service could the Anglican Church render than
to lend her full strength to this task? If the English-
speaking Christians of the world, with the exception,
unavoidable for the present, of the Roman Catholics,
should become united this would, of itself, open the
door to a new coming among us of Jesus Christ, and
it would be an immeasurable advance towards that
unity of the whole Christian Church for which we
must pray and labor without ceasing.

APPENDIX
I. The Lambeth Quadrilateral.
2. Action of the General Convention of the Protestant
Episcopal Church initiating the movement for a World
Conference on Faith and Order.
3. Second Interim Report in connection with the proposed
World Conference on Faith and Order.
4. The Bishop of London's Proposals for Reunion be
tween the Church of England and the Wesleyan Metho
dist Church.
5. The Bishop of Zanzibar's Proposals for Reunion in East
Africa.
6. The Concordat. Proposals for an Approach towards
Unity prepared by members of the Protestant Episcopal
Church and of the Congregational Church in the United
States.
7. Plan of Union adopted by the American Council on
Organic Union of Churches of Christ. Philadelphia,
1920.
8. The Lambeth Declaration on the Reunion of Christen
dom. An Appeal to all Christian People.

THE LAMBETH QUADRILATERAL I
The Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments as
" containing all things necessary to salvation," and as be
ing the rule and ultimate standard of Faith.
II
The Apostles' Creed, as the Baptismal Symbol; and the
Nicene Creed, as the sufficient statement of the Christian
Faith. Ill
The two Sacraments ordained by Christ Himself, —
Baptism and the Supper of the Lord, — ministered with un
failing use of Christ's words of institution, and of the ele
ments ordained by Him. IV
The Historic Episcopate, locally adapted in the methods of
its administration to the varying needs of the nations and
peoples called of God into the unity of His Church.

ACTION OF THE GENERAL CONVENTION OF THE
PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH INITIAT
ING THE MOVEMENT FOR A WORLD CONFER
ENCE ON FAITH AND ORDER
Document No. I Published by the Joint Commission
At the General Convention of 1910 of the Protestant
Episcopal Church in the United States of America, held in
Cincinnati, the following report was presented to the House
of Clerical and Lay Deputies on October 19, 1910:
The Joint Committee to which was referred the following
resolution offered in the House of Deputies by the Rev.
W. T. Manning, D.D., of New York:
Resolved, The House of Bishops concurring. That a Joint
Committee, consisting of seven Bishops, seven Presbyters and
seven Laymen, be appointed to take under advisement the pro
motion by this Church of a Conference following the general
method of the World Missionary Conference, to be participated
in by representatives of all Christian bodies throughout the
world which accept our Lord Jesus Christ as God and Saviour,
for the consideration of questions pertaining to the Faith and
Order of the Church of Christ, and that said Committee, if it
deem such a Conference feasible, shall report to this Conven
tion;
have considered the same, and submit the following report,
and recommend the immediate consideration and passage of
the resolution appended to the report.
" Your Committee is of one mind. We believe that the
time has now arrived when representatives of the whole fam
ily of Christ, led by the Holy Spirit, may be willing to come
124

APPENDIX 125
together for the consideration of questions of Faith and Or
der. We believe, further, that all Christian Communions
are in accord with us in our desire to lay aside self-will, and
to put on the mind which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. We
would heed this call of the Spirit of God in all lowliness,
and with singleness of purpose. We would place ourselves
by the side of our fellow Christians, looking not only on
our own things, but also on the things of others, convinced
that our one hope of mutual understanding is in taking per
sonal counsel together in the spirit of love and forbearance.
It is our conviction that such a Conference for the purpose
of study and discussion, without power to legislate or to
adopt resolutions, is the next step toward unity.
"With grief for our aloofness in the past, and for other
faults of pride and self-sufficiency, which make for schism;
with loyalty to the truth as we see it, and with respect for
the convictions of those who differ from us; holding the be
lief that the beginnings of unity are to be found in the clear
statement and full consideration of those things in which
we differ, as well as of those things in which we are at one,
we respectfully submit the following resolution :
Whereas, There is to-day among all Christian people a
growing desire for the fulfillment of Our Lord's prayer that
all His disciples may be one; that the world may believe that
God has sent Him:
Resolved, The House of Bishops concurring, That a Joint
Commission be appointed to bring about a Conference for the
consideration of questions touching Faith and Order, and that
all Christian Communions throughout the world which confess
our Lord Jesus Christ as God and Saviour be asked to unite
with us in arranging for and conducting such a Conference.
The Commission shall consist of seven Bishops, appointed by
the Chairman of the House of Bishops, and seven Presbyters
and seven Laymen, appointed by the President of the House of
Deputies, and shall have power to add to its number and to fill
any vacancies occurring before the next General Convention:

126 APPENDIX
George W. Peterkin Charles N. Lathrop
Boyd Vincent William M. Clark
Thomas F. Gailor B. Talbot Rogers
William Lawrence Robert H. Gardiner
Charles P. Anderson George Wharton Pepper
Reginald H. Weller Burton Mansfield
Charles H. Brent Edward P. Bailey
William T. Manning Francs L. Stetson
Alexander Mann H. D. W. English
Beverly E. Warner W. A. Robinson
John E. Sulger Joint Committee."
On October 19, 1910, the above resolution was adopted
unanimously by both the House of Bishops and the House of
Clerical and Lay Deputies, and the Joint Commission ap
pointed. The members of the Commission are :
President: Rt. Rev. Charles P. Anderson, D.D., Bishop of
Chicago, 1612 Prairie Avenue, Chicago, Illinois.
Chairman of Executive Committee: Rev. William T. Man
ning, D.D., 27 West 2Sth Street, New York, N. Y.
Treasurer: George Zabriskie, D.C.L., 49 Wall Street, New
York, N. Y.
Secretary: Robert H. Gardiner, Gardiner, Maine.
Rt. Rev. Boyd Vincent, D.D., Bishop of Southern Ohio, 223
West 7th Street, Cincinnati, Ohio.
Rt. Rev. Thomas F. Gailor, D.D., Bishop of Tennessee, 346
Poplar Street, Memphis, Tennessee.
Rt. Rev. A. C. A. Hall, D.D., Bishop of Vermont, Burlington,
Vermont.
Rt. Rev. C. B. Brewster, D.D., Bishop of Connecticut, Hart
ford, Connecticut.
Rt. Rev. R. H. Weller, D.D., Bishop Coadjutor of Fond du
Lac, Fond du Lac, Wisconsin.
Rt. Rev. C. H. Brent, D.D., Bishop of the Philippine Islands,
253 Calle Nozaleda, Manila, Philippine Islands.
Rt. Rev. David H. Greer, D.D., Bishop of New York, Gramercy
Park, New York, N. Y.
Rt. Rev. P. M. Rhinelander, Bishop Coadjutor of Pennsylvania,
i2th and Walnut Streets, Philadelphia, Pa.

APPENDIX 127
Rev. Alexander Mann, D.D.,
233 Clarendon Street, Boston, Massachusetts.
Rev. Francis J. Hall, D.D.,
2731 Park Avenue, Chicago, Illinois.
Rev. B. Talbot Rogers, D.D.,
Fond du Lac, Wisconsin.
Rev. William M. Clark, D.D.,
1008 Park Avenue, Richmond, Virginia.
Rev. Edward L. Parsons,
2532 Durant Avenue, Berkeley, California.
Rev. Henry S. Nash, D.D.,
Phillips Place, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Rev. A. G. Mortimer, D.D.,
1625 Locust Street, Philadelphia, Pa.
Seth Low, LL.D.,
30 East 64th Street, New York, N. Y.
J. Pierpont Morgan, LL.D.,
23 Wall Street, New York, N. Y.
George Wharton Pepper, LL.D.,
Land Title and Trust Building, Philadelphia, Pa.
Samuel Mather,
Western Reserve Building, Cleveland, Ohio.
Francis Lynde Stetson,
IS Broad Street, New York, N. Y.
Edward P. Bailey,
2400 South Park Avenue, Chicago, Illinois.
George Zabriskie, D.C.L.,
49 Wall Street, New York, N. Y.
Robert H. Gardiner,
Gardiner, Maine.

SECOND INTERIM REPORT
of a Sub-Committee appointed by the Archbishops of Canter
bury and York's Committee and by Representatives of
the English Free Churches' Commissions, in connection
with the proposed World Conference on Faith and
Order.
A Movement has been initiated in America by the Protest
ant Episcopal Church, which has been widely taken up by
the Christian Churches in the United States, to prepare for
a world-wide conference on Faith and Order with the view
of promoting the visible unity of the Body of Christ on earth.
In response to an appeal from those who are cooperating in
America a committee was appointed by the Archbishops of
Canterbury and York and commissions by the Free Churches
to promote the same Movement in England.
This Joint Conference has already issued a First In
terim Report prepared by a Joint Sub-Committee, consisting
of : — ( I ) A Statement of agreement on matters of Faith ;
(2) A Statement of agreement on matters relating to Order;
(3) A Statement of differences in relation to matters of
Order which require further study and discussion.
In further pursuit of the main purpose the Sub-Committee
was re-appointed and enlarged. After mature and prolonged
consideration it is hereby issuing its Second Interim Report
under the direction of the Conference as a whole, but on
the understanding that the members of the Sub-committee
alone are to be held responsible for the substance of the
document. In issuing our Second Interim Report we desire to prevent
possible misconceptions regarding our intentions. We are
128

APPENDIX 129
engaged, not in formulating any basis of reunion for
Christendom, but in preparing for the consideration of such
a basis at the projected Conference on Faith and Order.
We are exploring the ground in order to discover the ways
of approach to the questions to be considered that seem most
promising and hopeful. In our first Report we were not at
tempting to draw up a creed for subscription, but desired to
affirm our agreement upon certain foundation truths as the
basis of a spiritual and rational creed and life for all man
kind in Christ Jesus the Lord. It was a matter of profound
gratitude to God that we found ourselves so far in agree
ment. No less grateful were we that even as regards mat
ters relating to Order we were able to hold certain common
convictions, though in regard to these we were forced to
recognize differences of interpretation. We felt deeply, how
ever, that we could not let the matter rest there ; but that we
must in conference seek to understand one another better,
in order to discover if even on the questions on which we
seemed to differ most we might not come nearer to one an
other. I. In all our discussions we were guided by two convic
tions from which we could not escape, and would not, even
if we could.
It is the purpose of our Lord that believers in Him should
be one visible society, and this unity is essential to the pur
pose of Christ for His Church and for its effective witness
and work in the world. The conflict among Christian na
tions has brought home to us with a greater poignancy the
disastrous results of the divisions which prevail among
Christians, inasmuch as they have hindered that growth of
mutual understanding which it should be the function of the
Church to foster, and because a Church which is itself di
vided cannot speak effectively to a divided world.
The visible unity of believers which answers to our Lord's
purpose must have its source and sanction, not in any human

130 APPENDIX
arrangements, but in the will of the One Father, manifested
in the Son, and effected through the operation of the Spirit ;
and it must express and maintain the fellowship of His
people with one another in Him. Thus the visible unity of
the Body of Christ is not adequately expressed in the co
operation of the Christian Churches for moral influence and
social service, though such cooperation might with great
advantage be carried much further than it is at present; it
could only be fully realized through community of worship,
faith and order, including common participation in the Lord's
Supper. This would be quite compatible with a rich diversity
in life and worship.
2. In suggesting the conditions under which this visible
unity might be realized we desire to set aside for the present
the abstract discussion of the origin of the Episcopate his
torically, or its authority doctrinally; and to secure for that
discussion when it comes, as it must come, at the Confer
ence, an atmosphere congenial not to controversy, but to
agreement. This can be done only by facing the actual situa
tion in order to discover if any practical proposals could be
made that would bring the Episcopal and Non-Episcopal
Communions nearer to one another. Further, the proposals
are offered not as a basis for immediate action, but for the
sympathetic and generous consideration of all the Churches.
The first fact which we agree to acknowledge is that the
position of Episcopacy in the greater part of Christendom as
the recognized organ of the unity and continuity of the
Church is such that the members of the Episcopal Churches
ought not to be expected to abandon it in assenting to any
basis of reunion.
The second fact which we agree to acknowledge is that
there are a number of Christian Churches not accepting the
Episcopal order which have been used by the Holy Spirit
in His work of enlightening the world, converting sinners.

APPENDIX 131
and perfecting saints. They came into being through re
action from grave abuses in the Church at the time of their
origin, and were led in response to fresh apprehensions of
divine truth to give expression to certain types of Christian
experience, aspiration and fellowship, and to secure rights
of the Christian people which had been neglected or
denied. In view of these two facts, if the visible unity so much
desired within the Church and so necessary for the testimony
and influence of the Church in the world is ever to be real
ized, it is imperative that the Episcopal and Non-Episcopal
Communions shall approach one another not by the method
of human compromise, but in correspondence with God's
own way of reconciling differences in Christ Jesus. What
we desire to see is not grudging concession, but a willing
acceptance for the common enrichment of the united Church
of the wealth distinctive of each.
Looking as frankly and as widely as possible at the whole
situation, we desire with a due sense of responsibility to sub
mit for the serious consideration of all the parts of a divided
Christendom what seem to us the necessary conditions of
any possibility of reunion:
I. That continuity with the historic Episcopate should be
effectively preserved.
2. That in order that the rights and responsibilities of
the whole Christian community in the government of the
Church may be adequately recognized, the Episcopate should
re-assume a constitutional form, both as regards the method
of the election of the bishop as by clergy and people, and
the method of government after election. It is perhaps
necessary that we should call to mind that such was the
primitive ideal and practice of Episcopacy and it so remains
in many Episcopal communions to-day.
3. That acceptance of the fact of Episcopacy and not any

132 APPENDIX
theory as to its character should be all that is asked for.
We think that this may be the more easily taken for granted
as the acceptance of any such theory is not now required
of ministers of the Church of England. It would no doubt
be necessary before any arrangement for corporate reunion
could be made to discuss the exact functions which it may be
agreed to recognize as belonging to the Episcopate, but we
think this can be left to the future.
The acceptance of Episcopacy on these terms should not
involve any Christian community in the necessity of dis
owning its past, but should enable all to maintain the con
tinuity of their witness and influence as heirs and trustees
of types of Christian thought, life and order, not only of
value to themselves but of value to the Church as a whole.
Accordingly we hope and desire that each of these Com
munions would bring its own distinctive contribution, not
only to the common life of the Church, but also to its meth
ods of organization, and that all that is true in the experience
and testimony of the uniting Communions would be con
served to the Church. Within such a recovered unity we
should agree in claiming that the legitimate freedom of pro
phetic ministry should be carefully preserved; and in antici
pating that many customs and institutions which have been
developed in separate communities may be preserved within
the larger unity of which they have come to form a part.
We have carefully avoided any discussion of the merits
of any polity, or any advocacy of one form in preference
to another. All we have attempted is to show how reunion
might be brought about, the conditions of the existing
Churches and the convictions held regarding these questions
by their members being what they are. As we are per
suaded that it is on these lines and these alone that the
subject can be approached with any prospect of any meas
ure of agreement, we do earnestly ask the members of the
Churches to which we belong to examine carefully our con-

APPENDIX 133
elusions and the facts on which they are based, and to give
them all the weight that they deserve.
In putting forward these proposals we do so because it
must be felt by all good-hearted Christians as an intolerable
burden to find themselves permanently separated in respect
of religious worship and communion from those in whose
characters and lives they recognize the surest evidences of
the indwelling Spirit; and because, as becomes increasingly
evident, it is only as a body, praying, taking counsel, and
acting together, that the Church can hope to appeal to men
as the Body of Christ, that is Christ's visible organ and in
strument in the world, in which the Spirit of brotherhood
and of love as wide as humanity finds effective expression.
(Signed) G. W. Bath: and Well: (Chairman).
E. Winton:
C. Oxon:
W. T. Davison.
A. E. Garvie.
H. L. Goudge.
J. Scott Lidgett.
W. B. Selbie.
J. H. Shakespeare.
Eugene Stock.
William Temple.
Tissington Tatlow (Hon. Sec.)
H. G. Wood.
March, 1918.

THE BISHOP OF LONDON'S PROPOSALS FOR RE
UNION BETWEEN THE CHURCH OF ENG
LAND AND THE WESLEYAN METHODIST
CHURCH An Extract from an Address by the Bishop of
London,^ February, 1919
Now my suggestion is this: that after a certain date —
we will call it the first of January, 1920, though we can
hardly expect so early a date — all Ordinations should be
so carried out by both Churches as would satisfy the members
of them both. You see, the point is this — at once, so to
speak, to " run a nick in," at once to get at a point after
which the schism shall cease. If you can get first of all a
date after which all ordinations will be considered valid by
both bodies, you have, however long it takes, arrived at a
point after which eventually and automatically the division
between the two bodies will cease.
Now, there would be no difficulty whatever from our
point of view in this because we have always had presbyters
to share with the Bishop the responsibility of ordination.
[1 This Address is one of two Addresses given by the Bishop
of London, the first in Kingsway Hall, the second in the Crypt
of St. Paul's Cathedral, February and March, 1919. They are
printed together under the title of The Necessity and Hope for
Christian Union and Problems of Re-Union, Wells Gardner,
Darton & Co. The proposals contained in the Address are the
result of two years' Conferences " of an informal character
with the Wesleyan Church.'' These Conferences were attended
by important members both of the Church of England and of
the Wesleyan Church.] 134

APPENDIX 135
This seemed to be a surprise to a body of Wesleyans whom
I happened to speak to about it. At St. Paul's Cathedral, at
ordinations, I always get as many as possible presbyters —
or priests, as they are called in our Church — to lay their
hands with me on the ordination candidates. Sometimes I
have half a dozen, or even a dozen. Therefore the condi
tion would be no difficulty to us, because it is our practice
already that with the Bishop there should be presbyters lay
ing their hands upon the candidates for ordination. But you
would have to make this change in your ordinations, and with
your presbyters there would be a Bishop. After all, when
you come to think of it, there is nothing whatever in such
a concession as that to upset any of your ideas. I am sure
it would not have upset Wesley at all. This, then, is the
first point, that there shall be, after a certain date, such
ordinations in both bodies as shall satisfy the ideas —
scruples, if you like — of members of both bodies.
Then, the idea is that the Wesleyan Church in the reunited
Church shall be conserved as an Order or Society or Con
nection, as it is: just as, if you will take an illustration,
though I hope not in exactly the same way, as the Jesuit
Order is part of and serves as an order in the Church of
Rome. The Methodist Church would continue its class meet
ings and its Conferences. Mind you, we always have to look
out for the enemy who will misrepresent us. The enemy
will say that the Methodist Church is going to be absorbed
into the Church of England; that is not at all what it is.
The Methodist Church would retain its Connection and its
order in the reunited Church, which is a very different story,
and go on with its habits and its practices undisturbed.
Of the Wesleyan presidents and superintendents, it is
suggested that six or more, as is thought advisable, shall be
ordained bishops, per saltum, as was proposed in the last
Lambeth Conference with regard to Presbyterian ministers
in Scotland. The object of this is partly to draw the two

136 APPENDIX
bodies together, partly that it might make it easier for
Wesleyan ministers who wished, in the manner I am about
to describe, voluntarily at once to be ordained. They might
prefer to be ordained by their Wesleyan bishops rather than
by bishops of the Church of England, though I hope very
much to have the pleasure and honor, if this proposed scheme
should come into effect, to be allowed myself to take part
in the ordination of the Wesleyan ministers, and not let the
ordination be confined to those who had become Wesleyan
bishops. The more we draw together the better.
Well, up to now, you understand there does not seem to be
any great objection or difficulty. But we come to the crux
of the matter when we come to what we must call the transi
tional period. This transitional period depends on the
longevity of the existing Wesleyan ministers. I hope they
will live a long time, therefore I will give them all, say, forty
years at any rate, from the appointed date. We have to
think out what would happen during the interval between the
date that we fixed and the time when shall have passed away
the last Wesleyan minister who does not wish at once, as
many will, to receive episcopal ordination, and therefore all
the privilegs of a priest in the reunited Church. Some may
not wish to do this and therefore we have to think out a
plan of how the partially reunited, but not fully reunited
Church, should work for those thirty or forty years. I do
not myself feel it is very difficult to invent such a plan. All
the Wesleyan ministers whom I have the honor of speaking
to agree that if they are to be allowed, say, to celebrate the
Holy Communion in St. Paul's Cathedral, or a parish church,
they must be ordained by the bishop at once. That is to
say, they feel quite clearly that our rules are such and our
custom is such that it would entirely break up our Church
if anything less were required. And a great many, you will
find, would like very much the privilege of being admitted
full priests and of celebrating in the old parish church, in

APPENDIX 137
perhaps the very place where they have been working, and
would rejoice in the opportunity of being ordained soon after
the date fixed without waiting for the full reunion, and would
claim the privilege, and I hope the joy, of being from our
point of view full priests in the reunited Church, with all the
rights and duties which that would entail.
Of course, if all were willing to do that, the matter is
simple because we have not got to wait so long for the re
united Church. The more who are ordained the quicker the
union comes. And just look at the way in which we should
supplement, help one another. I should simply love to go
round to the Wesleyan churches and preach the Gospel my
self, and should find a joy in putting myself side by side with
those whose zeal and fervency I have admired for years.
And you, my brothers, would find an added joy in celebrat
ing in some beautiful parish church a choral Eucharist.
We should both get deeper joy from this union.
Then what about those of the Wesleyan ministry who
did not wish to be ordained? I should hold that we must
draw up a standard of faith and doctrine upon which we
should both agree, on the basis of the Creeds. There is very
little difficulty about that with the Wesleyans. The Wes
leyan ministers who were not allowed to celebrate as priests
in the church on accepting this should be welcomed in our
pulpits. When we have drawn that up and arrived, on prin
ciple, at union, then I am for an exchange of pulpits. That
is very different from exchange of pulpits now. We should
welcome in such a reunited Church, and welcome gladly, as
preachers the Wesleyan ministers — even if they were not re-
ordained to celebrate the Communion — who would exercise'
their power of preaching.
You would say, "How would you expect. Bishop, the
Wesleyan minister, on the principle you laid down, to be
ordained and not seem to disregard or deny his orders ? "
By this suggested form of protestation, which has been ap-

138 APPENDIX
proved by some leading High Churchmen as well as by lead
ing Wesleyans:

Be it known to all men that the ordination of A B
to the office of deacon (or priest) by So-and-So, Lord-
Bishop of So-and-So, is not intended by either party
to express adverse judgment on the spiritual value of the
ministry previously exercised by him, but to provide for
the future that his ministrations shall have all the au
thority committed by God to men for that office such as
both parties may recognize without scruple.
You see that declaration frees the consciences both of
the Churchman and of the Wesleyan. It frees the con
science of the Wesleyan for he says : " Be it known unto
all men " that he is not denying the grace of the Orders
he has previously received. The very fact that this would
be the recognized form of protestation, used before the serv
ice or in the service, is the safeguard that I said was neces
sary for the Wesleyan minister. It makes it quite clear that
there is no denial on his part of the value of the Orders which
he had received previously.
Well, then we get to the rather more difficult question
of Confirmation. Many Wesleyans greatly desire Confirma
tion fully restored in their Church. Confirmation, I must
explain to those who do not realize it, is not looked upon
by us as only a form by which the young candidate re
news his baptismal vows. That is not really the force of
Confirmation in our opinion. Confirmation is the falling of
the Holy Spirit on the candidate, and constitutes a fresh gift
which he receives. He says, " I do this," " I do that," but
that is preliminary to the Confirmation, and therefore you
will quite understand that when we place Confirmation as a
condition of Communion, it is not merely that we are " fenc
ing the Table," but we believe that he does receive in Con-

APPENDIX 139
firmation fresh grace and strength to prepare him for the
great privilege that is coming in his first Communion.
When this body of representatives sent from the two
Churches really meets, they will have to thrash out this
question of the necessity of Confirmation. During those
thirty or forty years — and mind you, it will only be for
thirty or forty years — we shall have to decide this —
whether the full members of the Wesleyan Church, who have
passed all their tests, may be received at the Lord's Table
without confirmation, and whether we shall carry our Church
of England people with us, unless we say that he who comes
to the Communion in the parish church must be confirmed
first. That is just one of those points we shall have to de
cide, but do not tell me the whole thing is going to break
down over that. I am unsettled in my own mind about it.
It is one of those points about which I want to reserve my
judgment. It is the only point of real difficulty. I am
prepared to hear arguments on both sides. I am certain that
after invoking the Holy Spirit at some such Conference of
both bodies we shall arrive at a settlement on that issue.
Well, I leave it at that point, as I am only able to give
now this outline of the scheme. But if you ask what is to
be gained by it, I answer, one rent less in the seamless robe
of Christ. If we have mended that we shall save enormous
waste. When we put our heads together, when the bishops
of the Wesleyans and the bishops of the Church of England
look into their buildings together, we shall be able to close
this mission church of the Church of England or that mission
church of the Wesleyans if they find that they are really
competing with, and harming, one another. I hope some of
those four little chapels in Canada will be shut up — I hope
three will be, but at any rate we might close two. What
I believe more than anything is, after all the talk there has
been, a little action would stimulate the whole cause of
Reunion throughout the world, that when once two such

I40 APPENDIX
great and respected bodies are united we might approach
other bodies with the request — "Will you not join the re
united Church ? " The report on " Faith and Order " — I
have not time to quote it at length, but you will find it at
the end of Mr. Shakespeare's book — the interim report of
the sub-committee is the most hopeful report that you could
possibly imagine. And that report leads us to hope that if
two great bodies like our own really became one it would be
of tremendous importance to Reunion throughout the world.
I leave it thus. The necessity is a hard fact. The hope
you may call a dream. But if you do I will reply in the
words of the well known poem :
Dreamer of dreams ! We take the taunt with gladness,
Knowing that God, beyond the years we see.
Has wrought the dream that counts with you for madness
Into the texture of the world to be.

THE BISHOP OF ZANZIBAR'S PROPOSALS, 1918
The following account is given of a speech made at the
Conference by the Bishop of Zanzibar. See pp. 7 and 8 of
The Official Report of the Kikuyu Conference, ipi8 (C.M.S.
Book Room, Salisbury Square, London).
The speech followed immediately on the reading of the
" Proposals for an Alliance of Missionary Societies in
B.E.A." " The Chairman then invited Bishop Weston of Zanzibar,
who had so kindly accepted the invitation to come to the
Conference and take part in its gatherings, to address the
delegates. The Bishop was most cordially received, and
listened to with eager attention, as he placed before the
Conference his view of the controversy which had arisen,
and his present proposal for a united church as distinct from
the proposals for an alliance of missionary societies — then
before the Conference. In his address he set out his own
proposals as follows :
I. The acceptance of the fact of Christ's one Church, the
Brotherhood of all Christians, into which we all enter by
Baptism. 2. The acceptance of the Church's Book, the Holy Bible,
as God's Word.
3. The acceptance of the Church's Creeds, the expression
of the universal faith.
4. The acceptance of the fact that Episcopacy has always
existed, and is to-day in possession of the far greater part of
Christendom. 5. Episcopacy need not involve us in a monarchical, dio-
141

142 APPENDIX
cesan episcopate. Many Bishops may serve one local church.
The Bishops should be freely elected, and should rule with
the clergy and laity. Nor is it essential that we hold any
one view of episcopacy on the doctrinal side, provided the
fact of its existence, and continuance, be admitted.
6. Non-episcopal bodies accepting episcopacy would re
main in full exercise of their own constitutions, working
parallel with the present episcopal churches.
7. The acceptance of the principle of Sacramental Grace.
The Gospel Sacraments, so-called, to be used by all, and all
bodies to admit the liberty of Christians to those other rites,
that the Bishop himself calls Sacraments. He pointed out
that the laying-on of hands follows on Baptism.
8. The acceptance of the principle of the Church's Disci
pline and Absolution, each body to decide how the Absolution
be pronounced, whether before the whole people, or in pri
vate ; and how the preceding confession be made.
9. The acceptance of the principle of Corporate Worship,
each body using the form and matter of Baptism, and a valid
form of Consecration of the Sacrament of the Holy Com
munion. In the rest, both in administering Sacraments,
and in other times of worship, each body to be left en
tirely free.
" The Bishop assured the Conference that if the non-
episcopal bodies would accept some such proposals as these,
and consent to some Episcopal Consecration and ordination
so as to enable them to minister, by invitation, in episcopal
churches, he for his part would gladly come before any of
their congregations, and accept any form of popular recogni
tion. " He could not move from his own position, or allow doubt
to be cast upon his ministerial authority received by ordina
tion, and consecration. But if the Church's forms were held
to be weak on the side of popular recognition, he would not
refuse whatever the other bodies thought to be necessary

APPENDIX 143
to make his ministry among them acceptable. This he could
do in good faith, since our Lord Jesus Christ, who desires
a United Church, knows the thoughts and motives of our
hearts. " He laid great stress upon freedom in worship, and did
not hide from the Conference the wide tolerance it must
exercise, if it desired to include Zanzibar Diocese in its
scheme of reunion."

THE CONCORDAT. PROPOSALS FOR AN AP
PROACH TOWARDS UNITY
Prepared by Members of the Protestant Episcopal
Church and of the Congregational Church
in the United States, March, 1919
The undersigned, members of the Protestant Episcopal
Church and of Congregational Churches, without any official
sanction and purely on our private initiative, have conferred
with each other, partly by correspondence and partly by
meeting, with a view to discover a method by which a prac
tical approach towards making clear and evident the visible
unity of believers in our Lord according to His will, might
be made. For there can be no question that such is our
Lord's will. The Church itself in the midst of its divisions,
bears convincing witness to it. " There is one Body and
one Spirit, one Lord, one Faith, one Baptism." There has
never been, there can never be, more than one Body or one
Baptism. On this we are agreed. There is one fellow
ship of the Baptized, made one by grace, and in every case by
the self-same grace. And the unity given and symbolized by
Baptism is in its very nature visible.
We are agreed that it is our Lord's purpose that believers
in Him should be one visible society. Into such a society,
which we recognize as the Holy Catholic Church, they are
initiated by Baptism; whereby they are admitted to fellow
ship with Him and with one another. The unity which is
essential to His Church's effective witness and work in the
world must express and maintain this fellowship. It cannot
be fully realized without community of worship, faith; and
order, including common participation in the Lord's Supper.
144

APPENDIX 145
Such unity would be compatible with a rich diversity in life
and worship.
We have not discussed the origin of the episcopate his
torically or its authority doctrinally ; but we agree to acknowl
edge that the recognized position of the episcopate in the
greater part of Christendom as the normal nucleus of the
Church's ministry and as the organ of the unity and con
tinuity of the Church is such that the members of the epis
copal Churches ought not to be expected to abandon it in as
senting to any basis of reunion.
We also agree to acknowledge that Christian Churches
not accepting the episcopal order have been used by the
Holy Spirit in His work of enlightening the world, con
verting sinners, and perfecting saints. They came into be
ing through reactions from grave abuses in the Church
at the time of their origin, and were led in response to fresh
apprehensions of divine truth to give expression to certain
necessary and permanent types of Christian experience, as
piration and fellowship, and to secure rights of Christian
people which had been neglected or denied.
No Christian community is involved in the necessity of
disowning its past; but it should bring its own distinctive
contribution not only to the common life of the Church, but
also to its methods of organization. Many customs and
institutions which have been developed in separate com
munities may be preserved within the larger unity. What
we desire to see is not grudging concession, but a willing
acceptance of the treasures of each for the common en
richment of the united Church.
To give full effect to these principles in relation to the
Churches to which we respectively belong requires some
form of corporate union between them. We greatly de
sire such corporate union. We also are conscious of the
difficulties in the way of bringing it about, including the
necessity for corporate action, even with complete good-

146 APPENDIX
will on both sides. In this situation we believe that a prac
tical approach toward eventual union may be made by the
establishment of intercommunion in particular instances.
It is evident to us that corporate union between bodies whose
members have become so related will thereby be facilitated.
Mutual understanding and sympathy will strongly reinforce
the desire to be united in a common faith and order, and will
make clearer how the respective contributions of each com
munity can best be made available to all.
We recognize as a fact, without discussing whether it is
based upon sound foundations, that in the Episcopal Churches
an apprehension exists that if episcopally-conferred orders
were added to the authority which non-episcopal ministers
have received from their own communions, such orders
might not be received and used in all cases in the sense or
with the intention with which they are conferred. Upon
this point there ought to be no room for doubt. The sense
or intention in which any particular order of the ministry
is conferred or accepted is the sense or intention in which
it is held in the Universal Church. In conferring or in
accepting such ordination neither the bishop ordaining nor
the minister ordained should be understood to impugn thereby
the efficacy of the minister's previous ministry.
The like principle applies to the ministration of sacra
ments. The minister acts not merely as the representative
of the particular congregation then present, but in a larger
sense he represents the Church Universal; and his intention
and meaning should be our Lord's intention and meaning as
delivered to and held by the Catholic Church. To this end
such sacramental matter and form should be used as shall
exhibit the intention of the Church.
When communion has been established between the or
daining bishop of the Episcopal Church and the ordained
minister of another communion, appropriate measures ought
to be devised to maintain it by participating in the sacra-

APPENDIX 147
ment of the Lord's Supper and by mutual counsel and co
operation. We are not unmindful that occasions may arise when it
might become necessary to take cognizance of supposed error
of faith or of conduct, and suitable provisions ought to be
made for such cases.
In view of the limitations imposed by the law and practice
of the Episcopal Church upon its bishops with regard to or
dination, and the necessity of obtaining the approval of the
General Convention of the Episcopal Church to the pro
ject we have devised, a form of canonical sanction has been
prepared which is appended as a schedule to this statement.
We who are members of the Episcopal Church are prepared
to recommend its enactment. We who are members of Con
gregational Churches regard it as a wise basis upon which
in the interests of Church unity, and without sacrifice on
either side, the supplementary ordination herein contemplated
might be accepted.
It is our conviction that such procedure as we here out
line is in accordance, as far as it goes, with our Lord's pur
poses for His Church; and our fond hope is that it would
contribute to heal the Church's divisions. In the mission
field it might prove of great value in uniting the work.
In small communities it might put an end to the familiar
scandal of more churches than the spiritual needs of the peo
ple require. In the army and navy, chaplains so ordained
could minister acceptably to the adherents of Christian bod
ies who feel compunctions about the regularity of a non-
episcopal ministry. In all places an example of a practical
approach to Christian unity, with the recognition of diversi
ties in organization and in worship, would be held up before
the world. The will to unity would be strengthened, preju
dices would be weakened, and the way would become open in
the light of experience to bring about a more complete or
ganic unity of Christian Churches.

148 APPENDIX
While this plan is the result of conference in which mem
bers of only one denomination of non-episcopal Churches
have taken part, it is comprehensive enough to include in its
scope ministers of all other non-episcopal communions; and
we earnestly invite their sympathetic consideration and con
currence. New York, March 12, 1919.
Boyd Vincent, Bishop of Southern Ohio.
Philip M. Rhinelander, Bishop of Pennsylvania.
Wm. Cabell Brown, Bishop of Virginia.
Hughell Fosbroke, Dean of the Gen. Theol. Seminary.
William T. Manning, Rector of Trinity Church, New York.
Charles L. Slattery, Rector of Grace Church, New York.
Howard B. St. .George, Professor in Nashotah Seminary.
Francis Lynde Stetson.
Robert H. Gardiner.
George Zabriskie, Chancellor of the Diocese of New York.
Hon. Sec, 23 Gramercy Park, New York.
WilHam H. Day, Moderator of Congregational National
Council.
Hubert C. Herring, Sec. of National Council.
Charles F. Carter, Chairman of Ex. Committee of Na
tional Council.
Williston Walker, of the Commission on Organization.
Herbert S. Smith, of Commission on Unity.
WilHam E. Barton, of Commission on Organization.
Nehemiah Boynton, Ex. Moderator of National Council.
Raymond Calkins, Chairman of Congregational Commis
sion on Unity.
Arthur F. Pratt, Sec. of Commission on Unity.
WilHam T. McElveen, of Commission on Unity.
Newman Smyth, of Commission on Unity. Hon. Sec, 54
Trumbull Street, New Haven, Conn.

APPENDIX 149
Schedule
form of proposed canon
§ I. In case any minister who has not received episcopal
ordination shall desire to be ordained by a Bishop of this
Church to the Diaconate and to the Priesthood without giv
ing up or denying his membership or his ministry in the
Communion to which he belongs, the Bishop of the Diocese
or Missionary District in which he lives, with the advice
and consent of the Standing Committee or the Council of
Advice, may confirm and ordain him.
§ II. The minister desiring to be so ordained shall sat
isfy the Bishop that he has resided in the United States at
least one year; that he has been duly baptized with water in
the name of the Trinity; that he holds the historic faith of
the Church as contained in the Apostles' Creed and the
Nicene Creed; that there is no sufficient objection on grounds
physical, mental, moral or spiritual; and that the ecclesi
astical authority to which he is subject in the Communion
to which he belongs consents to such ordination.
§ III. At the time of his ordination the person to be
ordained shall subscribe and make in the presence of the
Bishop a declaration that he believes the Holy Scriptures
of the Old and New Testaments to be the Word of God
and to contain all things necessary to salvation; that in the
ministration of Baptism he will unfailingly baptize with
water in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the
Holy Ghost; and (if he is being ordained to the Priesthood)
that in the celebration of the Holy Communion he will in
variably use the elements of bread and wine, and will in
clude in the service the words and acts of our Lord in the
institution of the Sacrament, the Lord's Prayer, and (un
less one of these Creeds has been used in the service imme
diately preceding the celebration of the Holy Communion)

150 APPENDIX
the Apostles' or the Nicene Creed as the symbol of the faith
of the Holy Cathohc Church; that when thereto invited
by the Bishop of this Church having jurisdiction in the
place where he lives, he will (unless unavoidably prevented)
meet with such Bishop for Communion and for counsel and
cooperation; and that he will hold himself answerable to
the Bishop of this Church having jurisdiction in the place
where he lives, or, if there be no such Bishop, to the Pre
siding Bishop of this Church, in case he be called in question
with respect to error of faith or of conduct.
§ IV. In case a person so ordained be charged with
error of faith or of conduct he shall have reasonable notice
of the charge and reasonable opportunity to be heard, and
the procedure shall be similar to the procedure in the case
of a clergyman of this Church charged with the like of
fense. The sentence shall always be pronounced by the
Bishop and shall be such as a clergyman of this Church
would be liable to. It shall be certified to the ecclesiastical
authority to which the defendant is responsible in any other
Communion. If he shall have been tried before a tribunal of
the Communion in which he has exercised his ministry, the
judgment of such tribunal proceeding in the due exercise of
its jurisdiction shall be taken as conclusive evidence of facts
thereby adjudged.
§ V. A minister so ordained may officiate in a Diocese
or Missionary District of this Church when licensed by the
ecclesiastical authority thereof, but he shall not become the
Rector or a minister of any parish or congregation of this
Church until he shall have subscribed and made to the Ordi
nary a declaration in writing whereby he shall solemnly en
gage to conform to the doctrine, discipline and worship of
this Church. Upon his making such declaration and being
duly elected Rector or minister of a parish or congrega
tion of this Church, and complying with the canons of this
Church and of the Diocese or Missionary District in that

AiPPENDIX 151
behalf, he shall become for all purposes a Minister of this
Church. Resolutions Adopted by the General Convention
Whereas, at sundry times in past years, and especially
in 1853, in 1880, and in 1886, this General Convention, and
the House of Bishops thereof, did set forth certain declara
tions relating to the Unity of the Church and the steps which,
under God, might be taken to lead to such Unity;
And whereas, there have now been laid before General
Convention certain " Proposals for an Approach towards
Unity," to which are attached the signatures of distinguished
members of Congregational Churches and of this Church,
which proposals ask for the enactment of appropriate legis
lation whereby a Bishop may be authorized to confer the or
ders of the Diaconate and the Priesthood upon Ministers
who have not received Episcopal ordination, under certain
conditions therein enumerated;
And whereas, these Proposals afford a hopeful basis for
negotiations looking toward that end.
Be it Resolved, the House of Bishops concurring:
I. That the General Convention recognizes with pro
found gratitude to Almighty God the earnest desire of these
representative members of Congregational Churches and of
this Church to find a way by which the first step towards
eventual Church unity may be taken, and especially the
irenic attitude of those who are not in communion with this
Church, but who have indicated their desire to enter into
certain relations with it for the furtherance of that unity
for which we together pray.
II. That as a step toward the accomplishment of so
great a purpose, this Church hereby declares its willing
ness to initiate action which may make possible the ordina
tion as Deacons and as Priests of Ministers in other Chris
tian bodies who accept the Holy Scriptures as the revealed

152 APPENDIX
Word of God, the Nicene Creed as the sufficient statement
of the Christian Faith, and the Sacraments of Baptism and
the Supper of the Lord, under conditions which are stated
in the aforementioned Proposals for an Approach toward
Unity, whenever evidence shall be laid by any such appli
cant Minister before the Bishop of this Church having juris
diction in the place in which such Minister resides of his
acceptance of the principles set forth in those Proposals.
We, however, direct the Joint Commission to be consti
tuted that in proposing such legislation the following points
shall be carefully considered:
(a) That the Congregation, if any, in which such Min
ister officiates shall declare through its accustomed rep
resentatives its desire for such ordination on behalf of its
Minister and its purpose to receive in future the ministra
tions and the sacraments of one who shall have been ordained
to the Priesthood by a Bishop.
(6) That every Minister so ordained shall, in celebrating
Holy Communion, invariably incorporate in a Prayer of
Consecration the Words of Our Lord in instituting that
Sacrament, and also a suitable Oblation and Invocation of
the Holy Spirit.
(c) That he shall in no case administer the Holy Com
munion to an unbaptized person. And this Church will hope
fully anticipate the use of the Apostolic practice of Con
firmation. III. That a Joint Commission of five Bishops, five Pres
byters, and five Laymen be appointed to continue confer
ence with the Congregational Signatories to the said " Pro
posals," and to report to the next General Convention.

PLAN OF UNION ADOPTED BY THE AMERICAN
COUNCIL ON ORGANIC UNION OF
CHURCHES OF CHRIST
Held in Witherspoon Hall, Philadelphia, Pa.
February 3-6, 1920
This Council instructs the Ad Interim Committee to pre
sent the Plan to the supreme governing or advisory bodies
of the several communions in such manner as the Committee
shall devise and at its discretion to such other evangelical
denominations as may not here be represented.
William H. Roberts, President, Witherspoon Build
ing, Philadelphia, Pa.
Rufus W. Miller, Secretary, 15th and Race Streets,
Philadelphia, Pa.
Preamble :
Whereas : We desire to share, as a common heritage, the
faith of the Christian Church, which has, from time to time,
found expression in great historic statements; and
Whereas : We all share belief in God our Father ; in Jesus
Christ, His only Son, our Saviour; in the Holy Spirit, our
Guide and Comforter ; in the Holy Catholic Church, through
which God's eternal purpose of salvation is to be proclaimed
and the Kingdom of God is to be realized on earth; in the
Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments as containing
God's revealed will, and in the life eternal; and
Whereas: Having the same spirit and owning the same
Lord, we none the less recognize diversity of gifts and min
istrations for whose exercise due freedom must always be
afforded in forms of worship and in modes of operation :
IS3

154 APPENDIX
Plan: Now, we the Churches hereto assenting as hereinafter
provided in Article VI do hereby agree to associate ourselves
in a visible body to be known as the " United Churches of
Christ in America," for the furtherance of the redemptive
work of Christ in the world. This body shall exercise in
behalf of the constituent Churches the functions delegated
to it by this instrument, or by subsequent action of the con
stituent Churches, which shall retain the full freedom at
present enjoyed by them in all matters not so delegated.
Accordingly, the Churches hereto assenting and hereafter
thus associated in such visible body do mutually covenant and
agree as follows :
I. Autonomy in purely denominational affairs.
In the interest of the freedom of each and of the coopera
tion of all, each constituent Church reserves the right to re
tain its credal statements, its form of government in the
conduct of its own affairs, and its particular mode of wor
ship: In taking this step, we look forward with confident hope to
that complete unity toward which we believe the Spirit of
God is leading us. Once we shall have cooperated whole
heartedly, in such visible body, in the holy activities of the
work of the Church, we are persuaded that our differences
will be minimized and our union become more vital and ef
fectual. II. The Council. (How Constituted.)
The United Churches of Christ in America shall act
through a Council and through such Executive and Judicial
Commissions, or Administrative Boards, working ad interim,
as such Council may from time to time appoint and ordain.
The Council shall convene as provided for in Article VI
and every second year thereafter. It may also be convened

APPENDIX 155
at any time in such manner as its own rules may prescribe.
The Council shall be a representative body.
Each constituent Church shall be entitled to representation
therein by an equal number of ministers and of lay mem
bers. The basis of representation shall be: two ministers and
two lay members for the first one hundred thousand or
fraction thereof of its communicants ; and two ministers and
two lay members for each additional one hundred thou
sand or major fraction thereof.
III. The Council. (Its Working.)
The Council shall adopt and promulgate its own By-Laws
and rules of procedure and order. It shall define the func
tions of its own officers, prescribe the mode of their selec
tion and their compensation, if any. It shall provide for its
budget of expense by equitable apportionment of the same
among the constituent Churches through their supreme gov
erning or advisory bodies.
IV. Relation of Council and Constituent Churches.
The supreme governing or advisory bodies of the constit
uent Churches shall effectuate the decisions of the Council
by general or specific deliverance or other mandate when
ever it may be required by the law of a particular state,
or the charter of a particular Board, or other ecclesiastical
corporation; but, except as limited by this Plan, shall con
tinue the exercise of their several powers and functions as
the same exist under the denominational constitution.
The Council shall give full faith and credit to the authen
ticated acts and records of the several governing or advisory
bodies of the constituent Churches.
V. Specific Functions of the Council.
In order to prevent overlapping, friction, competition or

156 APPENDIX
waste in the work of the existing denominational boards or
administrative agencies, and to further the efficiency of that
degree of cooperation which they have already achieved
in their work at home and abroad :
(a) The Council shall harmonize and unify the work of
the United Churches.
(b) It shall direct such consolidation of their missionary
activities as well as of particular Churches in over-churched
areas as is consonant with the law of the land or of the par
ticular denomination affected. Such consolidation may be
progressively achieved, as by the uniting of the boards or
Churches of any two or more constituent denominations, or
may be accelerated, delayed, or dispensed with, as the in
terests of the Kingdom of God may require.
(c) If and when any two or more constituent Churches,
by their supreme governing or advisory bodies, submit to
the Council for its arbitrament any matter of mutual concern,
not hereby already covered, the Council shall consider and
pass upon such matter so submitted.
(d) The Council shall undertake inspirational and educa
tional leadership of such sort and measure as may be proper,
under the powers delegated to it by the constituent Churches
in the fields of Evangelism, Social Service, Religious Educa
tion, and the like.
VI. The assent of each constituent Church to this Plan
shall be certified from its supreme governing or advisory
body by the appropriate officers thereof to the Chairman of
the Ad Interim Committee, which shall have power upon a
two-thirds vote to convene the Council as soon as the as
sent of at least six denominations shall have been so certified.
VII. Amendments.
This plan of organic union shall be subject to amendment
only by the constituent Churches, but the Council may over
ture to such bodies any amendment which shall have origin-

APPENDIX 157
ated in said Council and shall have been adopted by a three-
fourths vote.
Note: The Churches represented in the Council were the
Armenian, Baptist, The Christian Church, Christian Union
of United States, Congregational, Disciples, Evangelical
Synod of North America, Friends (two branches), Methodist
(Primitive), Methodist Episcopal, Moravian, Presbyterian
Church in United States of America, Protestant Episcopal,
Reformed Episcopal, Reformed Church in the United States,
United Presbyterian, Welsh Presbyterian.
" The attention of the constituent Churches is called to the
fact that the assent called for by Article VI of the Plan
should be secured in conformity with the constitution of each
constituent Church.

DECLARATION ON THE REUNION OF
CHRISTENDOM
Issued by the Archbishops and Bishops of the Angli
can Communion Assembled in Conference at
Lambeth Palace, August, 1920
An appeal to all christian people
We, Archbishops, Bishops, Metropolitans, and other
Bishops of the Holy Catholic Church in full communion
with the Church of England, in Conference assembled, real
izing the responsibility which rests upon us at this time,
and sensible of the sympathy and the prayers of many, both
within and without our own Communion, make this appeal to
all Christian people.
We acknowledge all those who believe in our Lord Jesus
Christ, and have been baptized into the name of the Holy
Trinity, as sharing with us membership in the universal
Church of Christ which is His Body. We believe that the
Holy Spirit has called us in a very solemn and special man
ner to associate ourselves in penitence and prayer with all
those who deplore the divisions of Christian people, and are
inspired by the vision and hope of a visible unity of the
whole Church.
I. We believe that God wills fellowship. By God's own
act this fellowship was made in and through Jesus Christ,
and its life is in His Spirit. We believe that it is God's
purpose to manifest this fellowship, so far as this world is
concerned, in an outward, visible, and united society, holding
one faith, having its own recognized officers, using God-
158

APPENDIX 159
given means of grace, and inspiring all its members to the
world-wide service of the Kingdom of God. This is what
we mean by the Catholic Church.
II. This united fellowship is not visible in the world to
day. On the one hand there are other ancient episcopal
Communions in East and West, to whom ours is bound by
many ties of common faith and tradition. On the other
hand there are the great non-episcopal Communions, stand
ing for rich elements of truth, liberty, and life which might
otherwise have been obscured or neglected. With them we
are closely linked by many affinities, racial, historical, and
spiritual. We cherish the earnest hope that all these Com
munions, and our own, may be led by the Spirit into the
unity of the Faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God.
But in fact we are all organized in different groups, each
one keeping to itself gifts that rightly belong to the whole
fellowship, and tending to live its own life apart from the
rest. III. The causes of division lie deep in the past, and are
by no means simple or wholly blameworthy. Yet none can
doubt that self-will, ambition, and lack of charity among
Christians have been principal factors in the mingled process,
and that these, together with blindness to the sin of disunion,
are still mainly responsible for the breaches of Christendom.
We acknowledge this condition of broken fellowship to be
contrary to God's will, and we desire frankly to confess our
share in the guilt of thus crippling the Body of Christ and
hindering the activity of His Spirit.
IV. The times call us to a new outlook and new measures.
The Faith cannot be adequately apprehended and the battle
of the Kingdom cannot be worthily fought while the body is
divided, and is thus unable to grow up into the fullness of the
life of Christ. The time has come, we believe, for all the
separated groups of Christians to agree in forgetting the
things which are behind and reaching out towards the goal

l6o APPENDIX
of a reunited Catholic Church. The removal of the barriers
which have arisen between them will only be brought about
by a new comradeship of those whose faces are definitely set
this way.
The vision which rises before us is that of a Church, gen
uinely Catholic, loyal to all Truth, and gathering into its
fellowship all '' who profess and call themselves Christians,''
within whose visible unity all the treasures of faith and
order, bequeathed as a heritage by the past to the present,
shall be possessed in common, and made serviceable to the
whole Body of Christ. Within this unity Christian Com
munions now separated from one another would retain much
that has long been distinctive in their methods of worship
and service. It is through a rich diversity of life and devo
tion that the unity of the whole fellowship will be fulfilled.
V. This means an adventure of goodwill and stiU more of
faith, for nothing less is required than a new discovery of
the creative resources of God. To this adventure we are
convinced that God is now calling all the members of His
Church. VI. We believe that the visible unity of the Church will be
found to involve the whole-hearted acceptance of:
The Holy Scriptures, as the record of God's revelation of
Himself to man, and as being the rule and ultimate standard
of faith; and the Creed commonly called Nicene, as the suffi
cient statement of the Christian faith, and either it or the
Apostles' Creed as the Baptismal confession of belief:
The divinely instituted sacraments of Baptism and the
Holy Communion, as expressing for all the corporate life of
the whole fellowship in and with Christ:
A ministry acknowledged by every part of the Church as
possessing not only the inward call of the Spirit, but also the
commission of Christ and the authority of the whole body.
VII. May we not reasonably claim that the episcopate is

APPENDIX l6l
the one means of providing such a ministry? It is not that
we call in question for a moment the spiritual reality of the
ministries of those communions which do not possess the
episcopate. On the contrary we thankfully acknowledge that
these ministries have been manifestly blessed and owned by
the Holy Spirit as effective means of grace. But we submit
that considerations alike of history and of present experience
justify the claim which we make on behalf of the episcopate.
Moreover, we would urge that it is now and' will prove to be
in the future the best instrument for maintaining the unity
and continuity of the Church. But we greatly desire that
the office of a bishop should be everywhere exercised in a
representative and constitutional manner, and more truly
express all that ought to be involved for the life of the
Christian Family in the title of Father-in-God. Nay more,
we eagerly look forward to the day when through its ac
ceptance in a united Church we may all share in that grace
which is pledged to the members of the whole body in the
apostolic rite of the laying-on of hands, and in the joy and
fellowship of a Eucharist in which as one family we may
together, without any doubtfulness of mind, offer to the one
Lord our worship and service.
VIII. We believe that, for all, the truly equitable approach
to union is by the way of mutual deference to one another's
consciences. To this end, we who send forth this appeal
would say that if the authorities of other Communions should
so desire, we are persuaded that, terms of union having been
otherwise satisfactorily adjusted, bishops and clergy of our
communion would willingly accept from these authorities a
form of commission or recognition which would commend
our ministry to their congregations, as having its place in
the one family life. It is not in our power to know how far
this suggestion may be acceptable to those to whom we offer
it. We can only say that we offer it in all sincerity as a
token of our longing that all ministries of grace, theirs and

I 62 APPENDIX
ours, shall be available for the service of our Lord in a
united Church.
It is our hope that the same motive would lead ministers
who have not received it to accept a commission through
episcopal ordination, as obtaining for them a ministry
throughout the whole fellowship.
In so acting no one of us could possibly be taken to repu
diate his past ministry. God forbid that any man should
repudiate a past experience rich in spiritual blessings for
himself and others. Nor would any of us be dishonoring the
Holy Spirit of God, whose call led us all to our several minis
tries, and whose power enabled us to perform them. We
shall be publicly and formally seeking additional recognition
of a new call to wider service in a reunited Church, and im
ploring for ourselves God's grace and strength to fulfill the
same. IX. The spiritual leadership of the Catholic Church in
days to come, for which the world is manifestly waiting, de
pends upon the readiness with which each group is prepared
to make sacrifices for the sake of a common fellowship, a
common ministry, and a common service to the world.
We place this ideal first and foremost before ourselves
and our own people. We call upon them to make the effort
to meet the demands of a new age with a new outlook. To
all other Christian people whom our words may reach we
make the same appeal. We do not ask that any one Com
munion should consent to be absorbed in another. We do
ask that all should unite in a new and great endeavor to
recover and to manifest to the world the unity of the Body
of Christ for which He prayed.

PBINTBD IN TEB VSVIED STATES OV AUIEIOA

YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

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