Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 607
Delivered on Sunday Morning, January 1, 1865
“Endea voring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.” Ephesians 4:3.
YOU will remember that for several years I have received my morning’s text for the first Sunday in the year from an esteemed Brother, a clergyman of the Church of England. This year he very kindly sends me this verse, which I hope will be useful to us all, reminding us of our former faults and of our present duty in the matter of “endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.” The Pope has lately been most lustily cursing us all. According to his nature, of course, must be his utterances. We could not expect a blessing where no blessing abides. And if we get a curse we only receive a polluted stream from a polluted fountain. It is an old saying that England never prospers so well as when the Pope curses her. I hope to see a year of great prosperity this year!
Let the poor deluded priest curse as long as he will, our God shall turn it into a blessing. In former days, when some of the Churches of Christ began to shake off the yoke of Popedom from their necks, the plea urged against reformation was the necessity of maintaining unity. “You must bear with this ceremony and that dogma no matter how antichristian and unholy, you must bear with it, ‘endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.’ ” So spoke the old serpent in those early days. “The Church is one, woe unto those who shall create schism! It may be true that Mary is set up in the place of Christ, that images are worshipped, sticks and rotten rags adored and pardons bought and sold for crimes of every kind. It may be that the so-called church has become an abomination and a nuisance upon the face of the earth, but still, ‘endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace,’ you must lie down, restrain the testimony of the Spirit of God within you, keep His Truth under a bushel and let the lie prevail.”
This was the grand sophistry of the church of Rome. When, however, she could not seduce men by talking of love and union, she took upon herself to use her natural tone of voice and cursed right and left right heartily—and so let her curse till she expires! Brethren, there was no reason in the argument of the Papist! If you will look at the text for a moment, you will see the text bids us endeavor to keep the unity of the Spirit—but it does not tell us to endeavor to maintain the unity of evil, the unity of superstition—or the unity of spiritual tyranny! The unity of error, of false doctrine, of priestcraft may have in it the spirit of Satan—we do not doubt that—but that it is the unity of the Spirit of God we do utterly deny!
The unity of evil we are to break down by every weapon which our hands can grasp—the unity of the Spirit which we are to maintain and foster is quite another thing. Remember that we are forbidden to do evil that good may come. And it is evil to restrain the witness of the Spirit of God within us! To conceal any Truth of God which we have learned by revelation of God is evil! To hold back from testifying for God’s Truth and Word—against the sin and folly of man’s inventions—would be sin of the blackest hue. We dare not commit the sin of quenching the Holy Spirit even though it were with the view of promoting unity!
The unity of the Spirit never requires any sinful support—that is maintained not by suppressing the Truth of God, but by publishing it abroad. The unity of the Spirit has for its pillars, among other things, the witnessing of spiritually enlightened saints to the one faith which God has revealed in His Word. That is quite another unity which would gag our mouths and turn us all into dumb driven cattle to be fed or slaughtered at the will of priestly masters. Dr. McNeil has, very properly, said that a man can scarcely be an earnest Christian in the recent day without being a controversialist. We are sent forth today as sheep in the midst of wolves—can there be agreement? We are kindled as lamps in the midst of darkness—can there be concord?
Has not Christ Himself said, “Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword”? You understand how all this is the truest method of endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit, for Christ, the
Man of War, is Jesus the Peacemaker. But in order to the creation of lasting, spiritual peace, the phalanx of evil must be broken and the unity of darkness dashed to shivers. I pray God evermore to preserve us from a unity in which Truth shall be considered valueless! In which principle gives place to policy! In which the noble and masculine virtues which adorn the Christian hero are to be supplemented by an effeminate affectation of charity! May the Lord deliver us from indifference to His Word and will! This only creates the cold unity of masses of ice frozen into an iceberg chilling the air for miles around—the unity of the dead as they sleep in their graves, contending for nothing—because they have neither part nor lot in all that belongs to living men.