THE CHRISTIAN MESSENGER AND REFORMER.

No. 4. JUNE 1837. VOL. 1.

FOUNDATION OF CHRISTIAN UNION.

(From Christianity Restored).

"I pray - for those who shall believe on me through their teaching, that all may be one, that as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, they also may be one in us, that the world may believe that thou hast sent me, and that thou gavest me the glory, which I have given them, that they may be one, as we are one; I in them, and thou in me, that their union may be perfected: and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and that thou lovest them as thou lovest me."

THUS Messiah prayed; and well might he pray thus, seeing he was wise enough to teach, that "If a kingdom be torn by factions, that kingdom cannot subsist. And if a family be torn by factions, that family cannot subsist. By civil dissensions, any kingdom may be desolated; and no city or family, where such dissensions are, can subsist."

If this be true - and true it is; if Jesus be the Messiah - in what moral desolation is the kingdom of Jesus Christ! - Was there at any time, or is there now, in all the earth, a kingdom more convulsed by internal broils and dissensions, than what is commonly called the church of Jesus Christ! Should any one think it lawful to paganize both the Greek and Latin churches - to eject one hundred millions of members of the Greek and Roman communions, from the visible and invisible precincts of the Christian family or kingdom of Jesus Christ; and regard the Protestant faith and people, as the only true faith and the only true citizens of the kingdom of Jesus; - what then shall we say of them, contemplated as the visible kingdom, over which Jesus presides as prophet, priest, and king! Of forty millions of Protestants, shall we constitute the visible kingdom of the Prince of Peace? Be it so, for the sake of argument; and what then? The Christian army is forty millions strong. But how do they muster? Under forty ensigns? Under forty antagonist leaders? - Would to God there were but forty! In the Geneva detachment alone, there is almost that number of petty chiefs. My soul sickens at the details.

Take the English branch of the Protestant faith, - I mean England and the United States, and all the islands where the English Bible is read; and how many broils, dissensions, and anathemas, may we compute? I will not attempt to name the antagonizing creeds, feuds, and parties, that are in eternal war, under the banners of the Prince of Peace. And yet they talk of love and charity, and of the conversion of the Jews, the Turks, and Pagans!!!

Shall we turn from the picture, lay down our pen, and languish in despair? No! For Jesus has said, "Happy the peace makers, for they shall be called Sons of God." But who can make peace, when all the elements are at war? Who so enthusiastic, as to fancy that he can stP (Rose’s retyped copy of no. 4 ends here).

 

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