CHURCH REUNION.

Press, Volume LVII, Issue 17315, 29 November 1921, Page 9

CHURCH REUNION.

THE CONGREGATIONAL VIEW. BISHOP'S APPEAL. (from our own correspondent.) LONDON, October 7. Reference has been made in several quarters lately to the reunion of the Christian Churches. It is evident that not a great deal of progress towards this end has been made sinoe the Lambeth Conference issued its proposals more than a year ago Leading a deputation from the Church of England to i he Congregational Union Assembly at Bristol yesterday, the Bishop of Bristol made an appeal for reunion. The appeal, he said, did not mean absorption, but a joining tof ether in due idea of fellowship—a igher union. The chairman of tho Union (the Rev. A. J, Viner), in his address on "The Congregational Witness for Liberty in the Sphere of Religion," said, with reference to the Lambeth Conference proposal for reunion on the basis of one of the ancient creeds, that Conaegationalista used the creeds as helps in tho temple of truth rather than as infallible masters in the household of faith. Although advocates of liberty, they were not antithetic to authority in religion. They knew that th«> principles of liberty and authority were inherent in human nature, and must appear in ajl human institutions. They distinguished between the authority of religion.as suoh and the authority of men in the sphere of religion. Ihe greatest and most consistent of all the Churches that represented authority in religion . was the Roman Catholic Church. He spoke of it with the greatest respect,, but when a discovery m nature or history was established by all the laws of evidence as beyond dispute, it was the word, of the Church, not the laws of evidence. that settled the question. It caused Congregationalism great pain that, in the sacred name of religion, reason and conscience should be suspect, and that their very right of free exercise should be denied. When ilhey were' invited to I become members of a fellowship based on authority they way was not clear. With, them the test of religion was not the acceptance of a creed, out the production of a Christian character.' Liberty required them to believe that the final test of any Church was in tho kind of men and women that it grew. w Conciliation of Both Sides. . When they contrasted the enthusiasm aroused last year, said the Bishop of Bristol, by the sense of new fellowship and .new; hope among what was spoken ana "written jo-day, they must feel.some element,-of disappointment. • There was suspicion on both sides and inertia. There had been a good deal of misunderstanding with regard to the Lambeth appeal.. It had been thought to,be a specially constructed scheme of reunion. It was nothing of the sort. It represented the broad j basis on which they might start to consider their differences, and, if possible, I by the grace of God to reconcile them. There must be some means of combination, and they could not have that without conciliation on both sides, They must allow for some difference in the interpretation of the creeds. The Church of England required" acceptance of the creeds, though no two men might have the same interpretation of them. In the same way the Congregational Church did not admit people into communion without some profession of faith. Ev*ry dogma they enunciated was a weed. Principles were largely relative to tile sphere of thoir operation; they were comparatively few that were absolute. One Thing at a Time. Bishop Welfdon, in, 'speaking of the same question at Nottingham, said that many friends of Christian reunion had seen with keen disappointment the Iftpfe J of time sinoe the Lambeth Conference without any apparent result in an approach to inter-communion among tne I Ciiurohes. "So far as lam aware," he proceeded, "there has been during a year and a quarter no official' statement as to the negotiations or the negotiators or the results they have obtained or the difficulties which they have found. If there have been conferences, who have been the representatives of the Church and the Free Churches, how often have they met. how long have thej sat together at each meeting, and how far have they« advanced, if they have advanced at all, towards a conclusion? To wait until all the Churches come to an is to postpone the day of reunion or inter-communion to the Greek Kalends. One thing at a time is the only hopeful procedure. - An understanding or an agreement with tha Reformed Churches of Great Britain' is the essential preliminary to any larger reunion such as all Christians murt desire in the distant future."