CHRISTIAN REUNION

Hokitika Guardian, 17 April 1920, Page 4

CHRISTIAN REUNION

WHY DR JOWETT WILL PREACH IN DURHAM CATHEDRAL.

(13,y Bishop Welldon in “Daily Mail.”) Dr Jewett’s sermon in Durham Cathedral on Sunday, February 15, will not he an unprecedented event. During the war, and after it, many Nonconformist ministers have officiated and some have preached, in cathedrals and churches. Two diocesan bishops have preached in Nonconformist chapels. If all such charitable inter-com-munion is illegal, its illegality might be and ought to be proved. But the eyes of the Churchmen turn more and more not to rules and rubrics, which are often necessarily antiquated, but to episcopal authority. I wish the episcopate of the Church in England had declared long ago a policy in regatd to such inter-communion as is possible between Churchmen and Nonconformists. I should willingly conform to such a declaration of policy. A cathedral, of course, enjoys an independence, which does not belong to parish churches. No action taken in a cathedral can justify the clergy in resisting the lawful control of the bishops over Churches.

But the Bishop of Durham does not disapprove the invitation given to Dr Jowett; he has promised to be present and to pronounce the blessing at tlio service at which Dr Jowett will be the preacher.

It is passing strange that some few extreme High Church clergymen wh,o have long been living in disobedience to their own bishops should take it upon themselves to censure me for obey ing mine.

The time, I think, cries aloud for Christian reunion on intercommunion, Many people fear that Christianity is losing ground in the national life. Beyond all doubt there is a danger of the nations of Europe lapsing not only from Christian faith but also from then, that all Christians, or at least all Christians of the reformed Churches should close up their ranks.

The spirit which has drawn the Churches in Scotland together must draw the Churches in England together too. The sympathy created by war affords an opportunity which, if it is lost now, may never recur.

Already the desire for inter-commun-ion shows signs of fading away. For me and for many others it is “now oi never.” If nothing is done now, we may all he dead before it is possible to do anything. That is the reason for an action which will, I think, he gratefully welcomed by Nonconformists and will not, I hope, offend those Churchmen who realise the paramount duty of making Christianity once more the supreme influence in the affairs of the nation.

There are .indeed, two spirits in the Church of- England. Between them the choice must he made. There is the spirit of exclusiveness which would in the end “unchurch,” as the phrase goes, the Nonconformists; would treat them as heretics and aliens; would exclude their ministers from all participation in the offices of the Church; would refuse the Holy Communion (as happened but the other day) to a young Nonconformist who desired to receive it beforo going to tile battle in which he laid down iiiis life for his country, and would leave the Church of England all but isoateld between the Churches which she refuses to recognise and the Churches which refuse to recognise her.

There is another, and I think a higher. spirit. It is the spirit which is wiling to make a real sacrifice for Christian reunion. Such a spirit looks not so much to differences as to agreements. It regards the Nonconformists ns brothers in Christ; it acknowledges the blessing which God has granted to their ministries and sacraments; it desires, as much as is possible under due authority, to promote common worship with them both in private and in public; and it discerns, as the far-off goal, the crcatin of one great evangelical Reformed Catholic Church which will he truly national because it will be truly Christian. Can it be difficult to say which of these two spirits is the more akin to “he mind of Him who said, “By this shall all men know that ye are My disciples, if vo have love one to another”?