THE LEVEL PLAN FOR CHURCH UNION (1910) [ILLUSTRATED EDITION] (Kindle Edition)

THE LEVEL PLAN FOR CHURCH UNION (1910) [ILLUSTRATED EDITION] (Kindle Edition)
By William Montgomery Brown

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Review & Description

The level plan for church union (1910).

WITHIN each of the national Churches which compose the Anglican Communion there is a large and influential school which makes much of what is characterized as the prophetic office of the Christian priesthood, and would close the doors of pulpits against all who have not received ordination to the Ministry by a representative of the Historic Episcopate.

This school, which contains many of the most saintly, earnest and learned among our Ministers and People, is, I believe, quite right in the importance which it attaches to the prophetic office. The world is to be saved very largely by "the foolishness of preaching;" not prosaic teaching, but prophetic preaching.

I am in complete sympathy with this school in its contention so far as it relates to the existence and importance of the prophetic mission. Indeed, I am inclined to go beyond it, by insisting that no one, not even a Greek, Roman or Anglican Bishop, should remain in the Christian ministry unless he feels in his heart that he has for the world at least some one message, especially his own; so that, like St. Paul, he can say of it, my gospel;" and "woe is me if I preach not this gospel."

The idea that the Christian faith was once for all delivered to the Saints in a crystallized form, and that it is the office of a Minister of the Gospel simply to propagate it, by teaching it as it has been formulated by an ecumenical council, or interpreted in the writings of some ancient Father or Doctor does not commend itself to me. A Christian minister does not fulfill his duty by a restatement of the doctrines of, say, St. Thomas Aquinas. He must, indeed, be a teacher and defender of the great essentials of the old, the primitive, the Catholic faith; but he must also be a living voice through which God, if He does not make new revelations, at least interprets His old revelations with reference to the newer developments of His providence.

The level plan for church union (1910).

WITHIN each of the national Churches which compose the Anglican Communion there is a large and influential school which makes much of what is characterized as the prophetic office of the Christian priesthood, and would close the doors of pulpits against all who have not received ordination to the Ministry by a representative of the Historic Episcopate.

This school, which contains many of the most saintly, earnest and learned among our Ministers and People, is, I believe, quite right in the importance which it attaches to the prophetic office. The world is to be saved very largely by "the foolishness of preaching;" not prosaic teaching, but prophetic preaching.

I am in complete sympathy with this school in its contention so far as it relates to the existence and importance of the prophetic mission. Indeed, I am inclined to go beyond it, by insisting that no one, not even a Greek, Roman or Anglican Bishop, should remain in the Christian ministry unless he feels in his heart that he has for the world at least some one message, especially his own; so that, like St. Paul, he can say of it, my gospel;" and "woe is me if I preach not this gospel."

The idea that the Christian faith was once for all delivered to the Saints in a crystallized form, and that it is the office of a Minister of the Gospel simply to propagate it, by teaching it as it has been formulated by an ecumenical council, or interpreted in the writings of some ancient Father or Doctor does not commend itself to me. A Christian minister does not fulfill his duty by a restatement of the doctrines of, say, St. Thomas Aquinas. He must, indeed, be a teacher and defender of the great essentials of the old, the primitive, the Catholic faith; but he must also be a living voice through which God, if He does not make new revelations, at least interprets His old revelations with reference to the newer developments of His providence.

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