Hold firmly that our faith is identical with that of the ancients. In necessary things, unity in doubtful things, liberty in all things, charity. He wants you to recognize the UNITY of the body of Christ. God cares nothing about our manmade divisions and groups and is not interested in our self-righteous, hair-splitting, and religious, man-made formulas and organizations. The only way it is possible to have one mind is to have the mind of God derived from the unity of the Spirit of God, a unity which comes only when believers find the will of God and give themselves unselfishly and unstintingly to its fulfillment. Those who disrupt the body of Christ and split its unity into schisms are quite excluded from the hope of salvation, so long as they remain in dissidence of this kind. Unity without the gospel is a worthless unity it is the very unity of hell. It is only in the details of execution that it fails. This method of sanctification, nevertheless, is in the true direction. 13.Ĭharacter is a unity, and all the virtues must advance together to make the perfect man. The process goes on, and Nature slowly appears to us as one great unity, until the borders of the Spiritual World are reached.
The Reign of Law has gradually crept into every department of Nature, transforming knowledge everywhere into Science. This unity must be sought and found in morning prayer. The entire day receives order and discipline when it acquires unity. A unified Church is the only offering we dare present to the coming Christ, for in it alone will He find room to dwell.įor human beings self-worship is the worst sin, for God it is the epitome of His righteousness. We must have unity, not at all costs, but at all risks. The World will go limping until Christ's prayer that all may be one is answered. The unity of Christendom is not a luxury, but a necessity. They can have this love for each other even at those moments when they do not like each other as you love yourself even when you do not like yourself.
It is a deep unity, maintained by the will and deliberately strengthened by habit reinforced by the grace which both partners ask, and receive from God. Love as distinct from "being in love" is not merely a feeling.
The great unity which true science seeks is found only by beginning with our knowledge of God, and coming down from Him along the stream of causation to every fact and event that affects us.īy faithfulness we are collected and wound up into unity within ourselves, whereas we had been scattered abroad in multiplicity. One hundred religious persons knit into a unity by careful organizations do not constitute a church any more than eleven dead men make a football team. He, our divine Redeemer, becomes to us the new sphere of harmony and unity with God and His law, with His life and His holiness. All other plans for promoting the unity of the Church have failed.īy faith we are taken into Christ, made at once safe from holy wrath against sin, and kept safe from all perils and penalties. This is the one and only way to bring disciples permanently together. To a true child of God, the invisible bond that unites all believers to Christ is far more tender, and lasting, and precious and, as we come to recognize and realize that we are all dwelling in one sphere of life in Him, we learn to look on every believer as our brother, in a sense that is infinitely higher than all human relationships.
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