How can there be unity among believers when they disagree over important teachings of the Scriptures?
God has made a unity. It is a spiritual unity. We should make it our business to preserve it. In the opening exhortation, after that most marvelous manifestation of divine grace contained in the earlier chapters of the epistle to the Ephesians, we are entreated by the prisoner of the Lord, to walk worthy of the calling with which we are called, with all humility and meekness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, being diligent to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace (Eph.3:1-3). Most “movements” are marked by the opposite of this. The discovery, perhaps, of fresh truth leads to exaltation and pride, impatience with error, a lack of bearing with one another, and a diligence in forming a new, man-made unity in the bonds of doctrine. Every such “unity” is a fresh division. Even the attempts to form a unity which will not shut out any of God’s saints have all failed, and, however sincere their purpose, they have all degenerated into another schism. A number of bodi
