Lexington weekly intelligencer. (Lexington, Mo.) 1871-1887, 1886-04-24

brethren are doing the same) the Protestant
clergy of our city. We each give full out
line of the sermons Of the day before, and
discuss such questions as appertain to Chris
tian work in our community. do not have
ID go back far to find q day when this thing
was impossible. What means the voice of
the literature of the whole Protestant world!
What Is the meaning of the Evangelical AL
liances, made up of the learning and piety Of
Of all Christian civilization? 1t is an Attiancs
now, the days may come, and believe they
will, when it will be that no longer but AN
organic union and unity. What meant your
American Church Congress- What means
The one that is to be in England, one Of whose
questions is the unity of Protestant Christen.
dom and how 10 accomplish it! They all
mean an irresistible tendency in the direction
of the chimera shaping itself more than 4
ago in the brain of the trenzied
Swede of Bethany. DIR. Hodge may talk of
- the volunteered offices Of some seifau ho-
riZed Church Congress-" and they may be all
that, but whether or no they are the undenia-
BILE evidence OF an onward movement gather
ing strength and breadth and sweep. Day by
day 1t has gathered and will, till like It nigh
ty. broad breasted stream, awful in ii> ma
Jesty, it will bear away all opposition to the
tunereal limbo OF dead creeds. and lift up the
Body of Christ. made one, into the full -p!eii,
dor of n perfect day. If we have contributed
but little to the production OF this 'ers
marked tendency of our age, yet we reJpice.
for this as the differenLial feature OF our mis-
sion.
ON WHAT GROUNDS.
o. The union of Christians being absolutely
to the conversion of the world. the
union on anv one of the existing creeds pOssi-
ble? Could such basis be formed from all the
creeds, one broad enough to hold all believers? ?
In the very nature OF the case they decided
not. No purely speculative scheme could be-
come the ground of universal agreement.
article of DIR. A. A. Hodge already referred
TO we find words that supply reason, and
the reason the Campbells had, DIR. Hodge
seems to think that the distracted state of
is prOvidentIal and Intentional,
so that out of these discords might come pro-
foundest harmOnies to the church. BIT they
are discords as he confesses. Ii would have
been simple thing, he says, to find homo
geneOuS society OF the undifferentiated family
Of Adam numerically multiplied. But for
Of years, God. he says. has been
up that family into multitude OF
varieties mot simply numerical muitiplica-
tiOn.) passing all enumeration. In Arctic,
tOrrid and temparate zones; on mountains,
coasts, continents and islands; in end
lessly drawn out SUGGESTIONS Of ages, under
the influence Of every possible variety OF in
in every stage of civilization, and
tiOrs. then all possible complications of per-
sonal idOsyncracy and personal environment.
God has been drawing human nature through
endless notifications. All these varieties en-
ter into and contribute to the marvellous
riches of the Christian church, for her mem
bers are redeemed out of every kindred and
tongue aud people and nation" And all these
are further combined into all the endless
yarities of ecclesiastical organization, mon
archical, arstOcratic, republican and demo-
cratic, which the ingenuity of man, assisted
by all complications of theological controver-
sy and of social and political life has been able
to invent. Then these differences are theo.
logical devices and inventions of human in
genuity assisted by the complications OF the
illogical controversy, and are these never to
cease, never to be swept away? Does the
good God mean that we shall be forever en-
velOped in this gloom and perpleXity of un-
intelhglble dOgmas and church politics which
plunges, year by year, multiplied thousands
in seas of death, and sunless gults of doubt:
Has God provided no common ground Of
union, sufficient for even these end less varie-
ties? Does not God say, that they must be
one, and has he given no basis for the one
ness? We think he has, but not any possible
creed in the current meaning of the term.
They declared that because of the endles:
variety the personal ldiOSyncrasies; the mul-
tipled diversities of natural gifts; the in
Vulnerable forms of culture and environment
theology. any formulation of opinion. any
statement, the mere product of logical ant
mental processes, was simply Impossible
For these reasons ThOs. Campbell laid This
down rs Il central statement III The matter il
hand, worthy to be written IN letters lastins
as eternity upon the lite OF the race. 1t mean
liberty, it means manhood. NO infereatid
truths ought to hare any place in tile church'
cOnfsssions." This utterance, brief and sim
pie as it is, bears in its heart the hope and thu
deliverance of ChristendOm; it is the death
kntll of creed and the tyranny of creed
mo inferential truths ought to have an,
place in the church's confession.'' Thi
one sentence, had he never written another
ought 10 make his name rs durable rs tn
| everlasting years.
And again, for this additional reason, tha
| they are the rather devisive, heretica aui
| schismatc, as clearly and positively atteste
| by the Whole history of the church. We Sc
| ligIOus ideas. At our beginning, ther
was an organized effort to set aside an,
| overthrow their power. You remember
such of you as have read the Campbell an
Rice debate, and there has been no subse
quent one that approXimaJes its greatnes
and power, you remember the intense heat o
that part OF it that deals with the creed ques
ton. Whatever may have been the relativ
merits OF the dlsputants, the drift and ten
dency, since the debate, noW clearly vindi
Gates the proposition of Mr.. Campball, tha
| they are heretlcal and schismatical, aud ans
vindicates his wisdom and provision. Th
| waning of the creed power. the decadence c
| their authority, their relegation to the shelve
burdened with dead issues,iS but a recent re
| assertion of the position Of Mr.. Campbell tft
years agone. That the creed power as broker
| is simply undeniable. Nor do we here sto
to inquire how much we have contributed to
| ward the introduction of this decadence, bl
only to indicate the fact of this tendency i
Christian thought. Some years ago Stua
Robinson, an able man said by those win
knew him best to be a man of fine spirit, bu
cOlOred by his environments and l Suppo.
partly by his personal idosyncracies, ,wrote
follows in regard to the persistency of OF
position in this matter: The very protest
against all creeds and symbols which forI
the peculiar distinction OF the Reform q
Campbellite Body is thus subversive of til
existence Of the visible church in IL fire.
spiritual commonwealth And in addtio
to our protests, he says this is also done, b
the refusal of the Body as such to set fort
authOritatively their doctrines and orde
The vessel that sails the seas refusing to sho
It's flag are presumed to be piratlcal.' Tn
| a human creed or its absence, '.subverts Il:
existence of the visible church" would hare
ly he accepted now. Protests against creeC
was our peculiar distinctiOn;" the world /,
day vindcates US. We never refused to sho
our flag. We declined to run up one wrOugl
by the ingenuity of man assisted by the con
| pllcatlOnS OF theological controversy: tn
was the head and front of our offending. W
did nail the Bible to our mast head, bat to d
this fifty years ago, was to be held pira
upon the high seas, deserving neither cou
tesy nor respect. Worthy only to be hunte
down by some one of the denominations
forms of a disrupted church with their part
san cOlOrs thrown to the wind, the symh,
| and evidence of ecclesiastical! authority. W
have lived TO see all this changed. An
probably Stuart Robinson were he livl
would also be glad with us that the chans
has come. DR.. Shields, Presbyterian,
the November number of Century for 1883,
An article on the united churches of the Unit,
states, has this to say IN regard to the que
: tion now before u.s. ''lf history teaches
anything plainly, it shows That the Il
| tempt to organize churches Oh Il
basis of mere dogmatic distinction
will always tend to schism, rath
tIans than they include, and sooner or lat
go to pieces IN some fresh diSsension, 81
: even more difficult would it be to come
together conflicting churches on such Il bi>i
lt Is certain that none of the leading Prote
tant confessions, not the Augsburg, not Il
. BelSic or Heidelburg; not the WeSlminste
not the Thirty Articles would now
generally accepted by the American churcae
| 1t is doubtful If any of the great Clthoi
| creedS, the Athanasian. the Nicene or e:t
the Apostles creed would afford !, plaif3r
broad enough to embrace all the denomin
: tons calling themselves Christians. At
| still less could they be marshaled toy .iher
any the new made creeds of our own tiu
. and country. Then speaking Of dDgG,il
| considerations hitherto, he uses TIL: Mpr!
: Even the PRESBYTERIAN churches i'll Tue
late general council could not reach 4 co
sensus of their own kindred standards. L;
Congregational churches, discarding the o
4rn a in f.. ,.,in