THAT THEY MAY BE ONE

Evening Star, Issue 20328, 9 November 1929, Page 27

THAT THEY MAY BE ONE

Sermon preached by Canon Nevill, St. Paul’s Cathedral, Dunedin.

Next year the Anglican Church of the Christian world will meet in London for the great Pan-Anghcan Synod, which meets ©very ten years to discuss questions of world-wide importance to the Anglican Church. On# of the greatest and most important will be the question of reunion, between the churches. It is impossible for an outsider to surmise how the question will bo decided. The cross currents are so many, and human to in P er6 ,, wishes so various that it would bo rash indeed to prophesy. > W© are justified by. our Lord’s words to . pray for religious union, but whether that union is to be one of the spirit of Christ or a union of institutions is quite another thing. There are many people who have, a familiar acquaintance with the outside but not the inside of churches who cannot understand why all Christian churches do not unite in their tremendous work. They would understand uniformity, that impossible human ideal, hut they fail to grasp the .fact that there is an inner unity which is' greater than any institutional uniformity which will never come. . Among the greatest causes of division to-day there is one issue which is increasingly conspicuous, an issue which produces so many badly filled churches, which is not concerned so much with infidelity or belief, but which does touch people who are not professedly Christian. There is an increasing line of cleavage between those who are concerned with religion as an institution and religion as an idea of life, between, let us say, the church of authority and the church of the spirit. Those people to-day do not understand much or care much for doctrinal Christianity as it comes down to us out of the ages, hut they still care for and desire what the church of the spirit builds on, the indestructible consciousness ot a living and working God, and what they feel is, in the noble words of the Anglican liturgy “ the-blessed company of all faitmul people,” and they 'are guided unconsciously perhaps by the Divine promise that toe spirit of truth will eventually guide them all into all truth, whether of science or medicine, spiritual or •physical healing, or any'of those ways by which God reveals Himself to the human soul. And to this church of the spirit the testimony of the saints, the experience of holy souls, the evidence of the life of God as the soul of man—these are the precious things, not the validity or the authority of human institutions, however ancient. All though the history or the church the same tragedy and cleavage have existed. There are many devout souls "whose place is in the church as an institution, hut whose hearts dwell in the church of the spirit. The message of Jesus was rejected by the religious leaders of his people, and . lie diea as a criminal instead of being welcomed as a Messiah. St. Paul tried to make the Christian message universal, and was regarded ,by the Apostles as a dangerous heretic.. When St. Francis of Assisi gave himself to God, counting poverty a privilege and sacrifice a joy, the revival of Christian life made by him was called an extravagant indiscretion. So there was little welcdme in the Anglican Church for the spiritual force of Wesley, and against his will he went outside the church. So, all through the history of Christianity, we see a larger fellowship than that of sect or creed. What is likely to be the outcome of the cleavage between conformity and freedom from credal boundaries. Fundamentalism, and Modernism, Tennessee and the spiritual life? The Church of the Spirit says that the church as an institution has taken many wrong roads, putting the communion of sects before the communion of saints. The. creeds of the churches are the best that the theologians of the ancient world could make with the light they then had" of the mystery of God and nian, but fixity in any creed is possible only to a closed mind; it is true it may give security, but only at the cost of any further movement. Yet slowly, sometimes unconsciously, but surely, the Holy Catholic Church of Christ is tending to unite lives divided so long and so stupidly and ignorantly by the competing religious institutions of Christendom. They work together even now, sometimes worship together with no sense of friction, because the old barriers are really becoming meaningless. Th© creeds, the confessions, the shibboleths for which four hundred years ago men shed each other’s blood, have proved to-day in the light of Christ’s teaching, never so clearly understood as to-day, to he shadows of truth, but not tjio truth itself. There is a greater church than all particular ones. Into this church all who partake the spirit of Christ are admitted, and no man can be excluded from it but by himself, by the death of goodness in his own heart. Frederick Robertson said: “ There is a church larger than our narrow hearts dare to hope for now. The open vision is manifested to all in any nation who fear God and work righteousness.” What is this common ideal, shared by so many, but the renewal of the hope which our Lord Himself uttered? Hound Him were the tests of conformity; within was the call of His Father. One of our old Cavalier poets, George Herbert, has put my thought into immortal verse.

Teach me, my God su’d King, In all things Thee to see; And what I do in any thing To do it as for Thee. A man that looks on glass, On it may stay his eye: Or, if he pleaseth, through it pass, And then the heaven espy. A servant with this clause Makes drudgery divine; Who sweeps a room, as for Thy laws, Makes that and the action fine. This is the famous stone That turneth all to gold; For that which God doth touch and own Cannot for less be told.