In an essay on “Rules of Walking in Fellowship,” John Owen claimed that “Union is the main aim and most proper fruit of love ; neither is there any thing or duty of the saints in the gospel pressed with more earnestness and vehemency of exhortation than this.”
For Owen, unity has a triple character:
first, Purely spiritual, by the participation of the same Spirit of grace ; communication in the same Christ, one head to all. This we have with all the saints in the world, in what condition soever they be ; yea, with those that are departed, sitting down in the kingdom of heaven, with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Secondly, Ecclesiastical or church communion, in the participation of ordinances, according to the order of the gospel. This is a fruit and branch of the former; opposed to schism, divisions, rents, evil surmisings, self-practices, cause less differences in judgment in spiritual things concerning the kingdom of Christ, with whatsoever else goeth off from closeness of affection, oneness of mind, consent in judgment to the form of wholesome words, conformity of practice to the rule; and this is that which in the churches, and among them, is so earnestly pressed, commanded, desired, as the glory of Christ, the honour of the gospel, the joy and crown of the saints. Thirdly, Civil unity, or an agreement in things of this life, not contending with them, nor about them, every one seeking the welfare of each other. Striving is unseemly for brethren; why should they contend about the world who shall jointly judge the world?
What Owen lists under “ecclesiastical or church communion” and “participation in ordinances” is stressed by Cotton Mather in this remarkable statement:
let the Table of the Lord have no Rails about it, that shall hinder a Godly Independent, and Presbyterian, and Episcopalian, and Anti-pedobaptist, and Lutheran, from sitting down together there. . . . A Church that shall banish the Children of God from His Holy Table, and shall exclude from its Communion those that shall be Saved, meerly for such Things as are Consistent with the Maxims of Piety, does not exhibit The Kingdom of God, unto the World, as a Church ought to do. Churches that will keep up Instruments of Separation, which will keep out those that have the Evident Marks and Claims of them that are One with Christ upon them, are in Reality but Combinations of Men, who under Pretence of Religion, are pursuing some carnal Interests. . . . I hope, I have said enough to disengage you from all Schismatical Combinations, and Intimate the Catholic Spirit, which I would have to be exercised, in the whole Progress of your Ministry.
These and many other testimonies indicate that the catholic spirit has never been lacking in Protestant.
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