Christian Unity (the book) - The Maranatha Community

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persons of different denominations come together in the Lamb ‘and have oneheart, nothing can keep them from being agreed.’In the 17 th and 18 th Centuries reason became elevated to an almost divineposition among many philosophers. This trend was seen in Protestantism,where logic was expected to rule theology as it ruled Mathematics andScience. While there could be agreement that the doctrine of the Trinity couldnot be explained mathematically (though failure to do so led to the founding ofa Unitarian movement under Theophilus Lindsey and Joseph Priestly), therewas no such agreement in other areas of theology, especially not in the case ofthe doctrine of election. The hyper-Calvinists, like John Gill, pressed the logic ofthe sovereignty of God to a supra-lapsarian 93 position and gave no room at allto human endeavour in one’s justification before God. The Arminians held thatwas reasonable to hold to free will and man’s cooperation with God in workingout one’s salvation.By the 18 th Century, distinctive doctrines (especially those smacking of‘enthusiasm’) were regarded with suspicion, and it might have been thoughtthat the age was ripe for the broadness of a Latitudinarian 94 church to give riseto some movement towards unity and harmony. But hopes of visible unitycame to nothing. Churchmen and Dissenters actually talked about steps tounity. Rouse and Neill point out that two of the leading churchmen of theGeorgian church, Joseph Butler (1692-1752) and Thomas Secker (1693-1768)had both, though Anglicans, received their theological education in Dissentingacademies. Philip Doddridge (1702-1751), a leader of the Independents, hadimbibed much of the irenical spirit of Richard Baxter and initiated discussionswith Churchmen. Secker wrote to Doddridge that there were manyChurchmen, indeed, all the bishops, in his opinion, who wanted union withDissenters, yet he could add, ‘But still I see not the least prospect of it.’93The sub-lapsarian maintains that God devised His scheme of redemption after the ‘lapse’or fall of Adam, when He elected some to salvation and left others to run their course.The supra-lapsarian maintains that all this was ordained by God from the foundation of theworld, and that therefore the eternal destiny of each person was settled before the ‘lapse’ orfall of Adam.94Latitudinarian. Any of the 17 th Century Anglican clerics whose beliefs and practices wereviewed by conservatives as unorthodox or, at best, heterodox. After first being applied to theCambridge Platonists, the term was later used to categorize churchmen who depended uponreason rather than argument from tradition to establish the moral certainty of Christiandoctrines. Limiting that doctrine to what had to be accepted, they allowed for latitude onother teachings. The Latitudinarians thus became the precursors of the similar BroadChurch movement in the 19 th Century Church of England.Page 121
Isaac Watts (1647-1748), the pioneer hymn-writer, welcomed Presbyterianand Baptist Dissenters to have communion in his Congregational(Independent) church.On the Continent, in 1711, Dr Ernst Jablonski, a Moravian bishop, supportedthe plan of the King of Prussia, Frederic I, to unite Lutherans and Reformed inhis domains by introducing bishops to the churches by means of the Englishepiscopate. The deaths soon afterwards of those involved, the King, JohnSharpe, who was Archbishop of York, and Queen Anne, resulted in the failureof the project.William Wake, Archbishop of Canterbury (1657-1737), fostered hopes ofsome sort of union with the Anglican Church and even lived in Paris for a whileas English chaplain. In the Sorbonne there were theologians who respondedpositively to Wake, especially Dr Louis Ellies Dupin; Wake was ready to acceptthat the doctrine of transubstantiation need not hinder intercommunionbetween the two Churches.But it would be true to say that the Catholic branches of the Church, Romanand Orthodox, were seen by most Protestants of Britain in the 18 th Century tobe defective or even apostate, and there was not serious consideration ofunity with them. The Toleration Act of 1689 gave freedom of worship to allDissenters except Roman Catholics and Unitarians. In view of James II’sacceptance of Catholicism, this was understandable. The rejection of Unitarianviews indicates that the doctrine of the Trinity was a uniting factor at thattime, and the rejection of Roman Catholicism owed as much to politicalinterests as to theology.This period also saw a great expansion of European commercial and colonialinterests overseas. Accompanying this expansion were Catholic and Protestantmessengers. Converts were sought and, in some cases, made in large numbersamong the native populations in South America, Africa and Asia.The Catholic Church had been busy making converts, especially in LatinAmerica and the Far East, without any rival Christian presence to deal with,from the 16 th Century, but Protestant colonial expansion gathered momentumfrom the middle of the 18 th Century. The American colony of Georgia wasfounded in 1732 as a refuge for debtors from English prisons, but it wasintended also as a counterforce to the presence of Spanish colonists to itsPage 122
Page 11 and 12:
Can Christian Unity be expressed ac
Page 13 and 14:
‘In the Trinity the three are one
Page 15 and 16:
Protestants, equally, have to be ab
Page 17 and 18:
When John Wesley said that Christia
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(Geneva) Agreed Statement was issue
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While organised Christian endeavour
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Christian Unity consist?’ We shal
Page 25 and 26:
CHAPTER 1CHRISTIAN UNITY IN THE EAR
Page 27 and 28:
Almost all the heresies in the Earl
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interpreted as being against the la
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was raised by the Novatian schism.
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ArianismArianism was the most impor
Page 35 and 36:
the Person of Christ. This was the
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Nicaea (325 AD), which asserted, ag
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He wrote:‘The ancient doctrines o
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agreement into the terms and ethics
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authority of the local bishop; Cypr
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Protestants. He was born in Tagaste
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guide the affairs of men: the Papac
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The distinction between laity and c
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ule. Christians were allowed to be
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fallen corruption and mortality but
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During the 1917 Communist Revolutio
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his repentance and restoration. The
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just before death, they might recei
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In both the East and the West heres
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The Waldensians were so named after
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CHAPTER 4THE SECOND GREAT SPLIT: WE
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Far more serious criticisms of the
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and the sacraments. He was tried by
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and his discovering that the Script
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denominational allegiances: confess
Page 75 and 76: aptism and substituting for it bapt
Page 77 and 78: Vincent de Lérins’ threefold bas
Page 79 and 80: Charles de Guise, Cardinal of Lorra
Page 81 and 82: CHAPTER 5QUOTATIONS ON THE THEME OF
Page 83 and 84: Dr Charles Malik - 20 th Century:
Page 85 and 86: Nicholas Zernov - 20 th Century:‘
Page 87 and 88: The restoration of the universal Ch
Page 89 and 90: Timothy Ware - 20 th Century:‘It
Page 91 and 92: Basilea Schlink - 20 th Century:‘
Page 93 and 94: Cardinal Basil Hume - 20 th Century
Page 95 and 96: Keith A Fournier - 20 th Century:
Page 97 and 98: concept of a contract between a rul
Page 99 and 100: harmoniously ordered society of pea
Page 101 and 102: interesting to note that the disput
Page 103 and 104: • In the Eucharist, Komensky main
Page 105 and 106: The Conference opened with much pom
Page 107 and 108: a growing unity among Christians at
Page 109 and 110: We cannot leave the 17 th Century w
Page 111 and 112: CHAPTER 7CHRISTIAN UNITY AND THE EV
Page 113 and 114: In Dr Woodward’s account of the r
Page 115 and 116: for Whitefield’s work in America,
Page 117 and 118: the West, the North and the South.
Page 119 and 120: ‘John Wesley, displeased at not b
Page 121 and 122: formally, though it may have helped
Page 123 and 124: In view of all this, Charles Wesley
Page 125: Some of the refugees were persuaded
Page 129 and 130: CHAPTER 8VISIONS OF CHRISTIAN UNITY
Page 131 and 132: hymns and Eastern orthodox spiritua
Page 133 and 134: eplied with a series of Eirenicons
Page 135 and 136: positively wrote on grace and love
Page 137 and 138: hand that pours out sorrow’ and t
Page 139 and 140: He died in England in 1853 an ‘ec
Page 141 and 142: assembly, without much hesitation r
Page 143 and 144: ‘Loving all whom Christ loves bec
Page 145 and 146: says, the Broad Church was ‘a moo
Page 147 and 148: far greater part for the laity in t
Page 149 and 150: ehind some of the criticism of the
Page 151 and 152: came together with the clear purpos
Page 153 and 154: In subsequent missionary conference
Page 155 and 156: university formed by a federation o
Page 157 and 158: credo-baptists to accept the provis
Page 159 and 160: Horton Davies 137 points out in his
Page 161 and 162: However, since New Delhi, the WCC s
Page 163 and 164: (b) The Church of Christ in China (
Page 165 and 166: the Scriptures as the supreme autho
Page 167 and 168: In 1970 a similar scheme to that of
Page 169 and 170: indulgences, were all confirmed str
Page 171 and 172: however, at a lower level, manifest
Page 173 and 174: In her study of the Evolution of th
Page 175 and 176: Even within the Reformed Protestant
Page 177 and 178:
the publisher’s foreword to Gee
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and so I have some golden opportuni
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CHAPTER 10 THESE BRIDGES CAN’T BE
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‘Only he - only Christ - was able
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c) Justification by Faith and Works
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However, in the Credo of the People
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f) Purgatory‘Purgatory’ is a na
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The Catechism of the Catholic Churc
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who love and trust the Lord Jesus C
Page 195 and 196:
However, there is a growing awarene
Page 197 and 198:
encouraged to receive a blessing al
Page 199 and 200:
c) Traduction Œcumenique de la Bib
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witness. There is one such Sisterho
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Practically all para-church groups
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s) Missions and CampaignsMissions a
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My Protestant friends say to me tha
Page 209 and 210:
Most Christians, in all three tradi
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of God may be complete, equipped fo
Page 213 and 214:
CHAPTER 12NOW WHAT?This book began
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c) For some Protestants ecumenism m
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The church at Corinth was full of C
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) It has become clear that, realist
Page 221 and 222:
Christians who believe a Catholic d
Page 223 and 224:
There are three confessions that ha
Page 225 and 226:
‘The solution to the ecumenical i
Page 227 and 228:
k) Christ has left us an example -
Page 229 and 230:
day’, the Niceno-Constantinopolit
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APPENDIX 2FOUR BIBLICAL TEXTS ON TH
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of the common good, and when one’
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eaten, as idols did not exist anywa
Page 237 and 238:
14. That to continue in any known s
Page 239 and 240:
What all three traditions have in c
Page 241 and 242:
Calvin held that the Gospel of Jesu
Page 243 and 244:
Relations between Protestantism, Ca
Page 245 and 246:
Brandreth, Henry, R T, The Oecumeni
Page 247 and 248:
Hopko, Thomas, All the Fullness of
Page 249 and 250:
Rupp, E G and Drewery, Benjamin, Ma
Page 251 and 252:
INDEXAAct of Uniformity, 114aggiorn
Page 253 and 254:
Frame, John M, 91, 187Francis of As
Page 255 and 256:
Richardson, Paul, 239Roman Catholic
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