Church unity.
We speak in these dark days of unity in Christ, of brotherly love, of the communion of saints. But what do we see when we look around at the multitude of them that believe? We see some forty or fifty denominations of Christians, all keeping apart from one another, not willing to meet together, to pray together, or to receive the Holy Communion together. These different bodies are constantly at different degrees of strife with each other; sometimes waging actual war one against another, at others engaged in bitter controversies, and carrying on a strife of tongues and pens. Even among those who belong to the same religious body what differences of opinion, what unbrotherly denunciations, what schisms, what party movements, are constantly breaking out! And yet we look with complacency upon this broken surface of Christendom, and make no great effort to correct it. Perhaps, if we can get a glimpse of true unity in Christ as it was seen for a while in the Church of Jerusalem, we shall be put to shame, and strive after something better.
IN THE CHURCH OF JERUSALEM, THEN, THE WHOLE MULTITUDE OF BELIEVERS WERE OF ONE HEART AND SOUL. Rich and poor, learned and simple, Pharisees and Sadducees, Levites and Jews, were so united in Christ that all other distinctions were lost. Selfishness was gone, for each loved his brother as himself. What each man had he held it not as his own, but as a steward of Christ for the good of all. The love of money was swallowed up in the love of Christ. The ordinary worldly life seemed to have melted into the life of faith and godliness. Their wants were spiritual, their occupations were spiritual, their joys were spiritual. In this happy state, in this clear atmosphere of love, the great truths of the gospel shone out with marvelous brightness; the resurrection of Christ especially stood out in the lineaments of a distinct reality; and there was a rich glow of grace over the whole Church, The whole body received the apostles' doctrine, submitted to their rule, committed everything to their ordering. It were difficult to say whether the apostolic authority in the Church derived more of its vigor from the appointment of Christ, or from the love and reverence of the people. The two forces were concentred on the heads of the twelve, and gave them an invincible rower. Such was Church unity in those golden days. This is not the place to consider the causes which have broken to shivers that frame of heavenly beauty. But it may be a not unfitting opportunity to entreat all who may read these lines to dwell upon the beauty of the scene hero depicted by St, Luke, to contrast it with the miserable aspect of our schisms and party divisions, and to make every effort in their own sphere to forward unity and godly love, to put aside all stumbling-blocks and hindrances to Christian harmony, and to labor after that oneness of heart and soul which ought to result from fellowship in the redeeming love of Jesus Christ, and from having one and the same hope of sharing the resurrection of life through the resurrection of Jesus from the dead.
HOMILIES BY W. CLARKSON