McG-2-LETTER II.

LETTER II.

Dear Sir:--In commenting on the union movement, of which you are the acknowledged leader, I do not wish to appear hypercritical; but I conceive that the most minute circumstances affecting the character of such a movement must be all matter of importance. As I intimated in my former letter, I am eager, as all my brethren are, to take an active part in promoting the union of Christians, and if I were living in Cincinnati I would most certainly attend the meetings of your Association. But you use some strange language in the preamble to your constitution, and in the article prescribing the terms of membership, which leaves me in doubt whether I would be permitted to take part in your counsels. The preamble describes the persons effecting the organization as "We, Evangelical Christians of Cincinnati and vicinity;" and the constitution declares that "all Evangelical Christians subscribing this preamble and constitution, and contributing annually to the funds of this Association, shall constitute its membership." Now, the term evangelical means according to the gospel. If this is the sense in which you use it, I cannot see why you use it at all in the connection you do; for certainly every one who is a Christian at all is a Christian according to the gospel. Have you any unevangelical Christians in Cincinnati? Men who are Christians, but not according to the gospel. What is it that constitutes a Christian but belief in and obedience to the gospel? Why not, then, just simply say, "We, Christians of Cincinnati and vicinity;" and that "all Christians subscribing, etc., shall be members of this Association?" Is it not enough for a man to be a Christian, or must lie be something more than a Christian, in order to associate with you? Surely, Bishop, you have either multiplied words without counsel here, or you are giving to the term evangelical some sinister meaning which will let in some Christians and exclude others. If you are really in earnest about the union of Christians, for the Lord’s sake, and for the sake of consistency, open your doors wide enough to let all Christians co-operate with you. If you start out on a sectarian platform, your entire work, be it ever so successful, will be but another phase of sectarianism.

There is another point in which your movement appears to me radically defective, and somewhat inconsistent. Your associates acknowledge that division is sinful, yet, instead of removing the sin from among themselves by actually uniting with one another, they form an Association which seems rather designed to influence others than yourselves. If all the thieves in Cincinnati were to hold a convention, and after resolving that it is a sin to retain stolen goods, should proceed to organize a society to promote the return of stolen goods by thieves in general, yet disperse without restoring what they themselves had stolen, the honest portion of the community would not much admire either their consistency or their sincerity. I am afraid that their admiration will not be much more excited in favor of the reverend members of your Association, unless you speedily change your policy. When you unitedly declare that the division existing among you is a sin, and attended by "manifold evils" besides, the plain people of your city expect you to manifest some repentance, and to bring forth fruit meet for repentance by immediate reformation. It will not do to hold meetings, and publish books and tracts to induce Christians in general to unite, unless you set the example by uniting among yourselves. An actual union among you would effect more for the cause of union abroad than everything you can do and say while you practice contrary to what you teach. This mistake in the character of your movement has led to several others. Starting out to unite in one common brotherhood, the adherents of all the creeds and books of discipline, now divided into the parties of Christendom, you have begun by manufacturing another creed, framing another constitution, and organizing under it another party. It is true your creed is a short one, containing only five articles, but it differs from the Word of God, it differs from all other creeds, and it is as human as any other. Your constitution is also brief, containing but seven articles; but one of these provides for amendments at any annual meeting, so that there is no limit to its growth. Your Association, formed under this creed and constitution, is as yet a small party, and perhaps may as yet have caused no strife; but if there are members in your churches who oppose this entire movement, then there are two parties at once formed in every church, and this Association stands out as another sect among the sects.

Creed-making is necessarily disparaging to the Word of God, and nearly all creeds, including your new one, make known this disparagement in express terms. Your very first article speaks as follows: "We do cordially believe the Holy Scriptures to be given by inspiration of God, possessed of supreme authority, and the only infallible and sufficient rule of faith and practice." This I cordially believe, too, because the Scriptures declare it in almost these very words; but you do damage to this truth by making another rule of faith and practice for your Association, while each of you adheres to the separate rules of faith and practice adopted by your twelve distinct denominations. Here you have among you at least thirteen rules, all differing from one another, and differing no less from the Scriptures. Why have a fallible rule of your own making, when God has given you one that is infallible? Why have an insufficient rule, when you acknowledge that the Scriptures are sufficient? With your lips you honor the Word of God, but by your works you do it the grossest dishonor. You will never get Christians to unite, until you inspire them with strong enough faith in the Word of God to make them willing to unite on that alone.

I imagine that the cause of your falling into these mistakes is not a want of sincerity in your avowed purpose, but a want of familiarity with Scripture teaching upon this subject. I make this remark not to disparage your attainments in the Word of God; for it is but natural that men who have been hitherto under the necessity of apologizing to the Catholic and the skeptical world for existing divisions, and sometimes, perhaps, defending them as innocent, should not be very familiar with those passages, which condemn them, and which point out a better way. Did it ever occur to you, dear sir, that the New Testament itself contains a platform for Christian union, formally made out to our hand, complete and perfect? I suppose not; as you certainly would I have searched for it, instead of undertaking to construct one yourself. It will give me pleasure to direct your attention to this platform in another letter, and to point out to you its perfect adaptation to the object which your Association professes to have in view. And lost you should think me presumptuous in such an undertaking, permit me to remind you again that the association for the union of Christians to which I belong has been in existence much longer than yours, and that its members have devoted especial attention to the investigation of this subject.

Yours, for the sake of union,

J. W. MCGARVEY.