Each Sunday at church we corporately confess our belief in the holy catholic church by reciting The Apostles' Creed. Is that just an abstraction, or does my belief in a holy catholic (little c) church "have legs"? Food for thought as I read Richard Baxter on Christian unity in The Reformed Pastor. I continue to be inspired by this book! I'd add that "reformed" in the title refers to practice not doctrine. John Wesley, no Calvinist, recommended Baxter's book to his travelling preachers, and Methodist missionary Francis Asbury considered it 'a prize' when he came across it on his travels. The 'Prince of Preachers' Charles Spurgeon used to have his wife read it to him in the evenings.
Baxter warns his readers about the danger of doctrinal and ecclesiastical controversy descending into mere factionalism, something I've thought of recently while reading several blogs where folks from different theological camps go at each other in tones more appropriate for a college football rivalry. Keep in mind that Baxter was writing at a time of raging controversy too, and not many years removed from a time when Protestants and Catholics were routinely throwing each other into the Tower, or worse. Yet, he wrote:
We are sadly guilty of undervaluing the unity and peace of the whole Church. Though I scarcely meet with any one who will not speak of unity and peace, or, at least, that will expressly speak against it, yet is it not common to meet with those who are studious to promote it; but too commonly do we find men averse to it, and jealous of it, if not themselves the instruments of division. The Papists have so long abused the name of the catholic Church, that, in opposition to them, many either put it out of their creeds, or only retain the name while they understand not, or consider not the nature of the thing; or think it is enough to believe that there is such a body, though they behave not themselves as members of it. If the Papists will idolize the Church, shall we therefore deny it, disregard it, or divide it? It is a great and a common sin throughout the Christian world, to take up religion in a way of faction; and instead of a love and tender care of the universal Church, to confine that love and respect to a party.
Of the multitude that say they are of the catholic Church, it is rare to meet with men of a catholic spirit. Men have not a universal consideration of, and respect to, the whole Church, but look upon their party as if it were the whole. If there be some called Lutherans, some Calvinists, some subordinate divisions among these, and so of other parties among us, most of them will pray hard for the prosperity of their party, and rejoice and give thanks when it goes well with them; but if any other party suffer, they little regard it, as if it were no loss at all to the Church. If it be the smallest parcel that possesseth not many nations, no, nor cities on earth, they are ready to carry it, as if they were the whole Church, and as if it went well with the Church when it goes well with them. We cry down the Pope as Antichrist, for including the Church in the Romish pale, and no doubt but it is abominable schism: but, alas! how many do imitate them too far, while they reprove them! And as the Papists foist the word Roman into their creed, and turn the catholic Church into the Roman Catholic church, as if there were no other catholics, and the Church were of no larger extent, so is it with many others as to their several parties. Some will have it to be the Lutheran catholic church, and some the Reformed catholic church; some the Anabaptist catholic church, and so of some others. And if they differ not among themselves, they are little troubled at differing from others, though it be from almost all the Christian world. The peace of their party they take for the peace of the Church. No wonder, therefore, if they carry it no further.
How rare is it to meet with a man that smarteth or bleedeth with the Church's wounds, or sensibly taketh them to heart as his own, or that ever had solicitous thoughts of a cure! No; but almost every party thinks that the happiness of the rest consisteth in turning to them; and because they be not of their mind, they cry, Down with them! and are glad to hear of their fall, as thinking that is the way to the Church's rising, that is, their own. How few are there who understand the true state of controversies between the several parties; or that ever well discerned how many of them are but verbal, and how many are real!*
Baxter continues on for several pages, then closes with an admonition to simplicity and six practical suggestions to further unity and peace:
We may talk of peace, indeed, as long as we live, but we shall never obtain it but by returning to the apostolical simplicity. The Papists' faith is too big for all men to agree upon, or even all their own, if they enforced it not with arguments drawn from the fire, the halter, and the strappado. And many Anti-papists do too much imitate them in the tedious length of their subscribed confessions, and the novelty of their impositions, when they go furthest from them in the quality of the things imposed. When we once return to the ancient simplicity of faith, then, and not till then, shall we return to the ancient love and peace. I would therefore recommend to all my brethren, as the most necessary thing to the Church's peace, that they unite in necessary truths, and bear with one another in things that may be borne with; and do not make a larger creed, and more necessaries, than God hath done. To this end, let me entreat you to attend to the following things:
(1) Lay not too great a stress upon controverted opinions, which have godly men, and, especially, whole churches, on both sides.
(2) Lay not too great a stress on those controversies that are ultimately resolvable into philosophical uncertainties, as are some unprofitable controversies about freewill, the manner of the Spirit's operations and the Divine decrees.
(3) Lay not too great a stress on those controversies that are merely verbal, and which if they were anatomized, would appear to be no more. Of this sort are far more (I speak it confidently upon certain knowledge) that make a great noise in the world, and tear the Church, than almost any of the eager contenders that ever I spoke with do seem to discern, or are like to believe.
(4) Lay not too much stress on any point of faith which was disowned by or unknown to the whole Church of Christ, in any age, since the Scriptures were delivered to us.
(5) Much less should you lay great stress on those of which any of the more pure or judicious ages were wholly ignorant.
(6) And least of all should you lay much stress on any point which no one age since the apostles did ever receive, but all commonly held the contrary.*
*Baxter, The Reformed Pastor, Banner of Truth Trust (1974)
No comments:
Post a Comment