Warfield on Division
Warfield on Division
Warfield on Separation:
Observing the stir ofdivision caused by the entrance of unbelief in African Anglicanism, Warfieldwrites:
It maysound well to bewail the reproduction in the foreign field of the "unhappydivisions" by which the Church at home is rent, But the only thing clearabout this complaint is the multitude of unhappy assumptions on which it isbased. Every division (like every war) is of course "unhappy" whenconsidered with reference to those who are in the wrong in it. But equallyevery division (like every iArar) is "happy" when looked at withreference to those who maintain the right by it,--who by it, let us say forexample, preserve for themselves and for the world in which they are placed asthe seed of the Kingdom, that purity of faith and life, from which alone theKingdom of God can be propagated. Where the seed is not pure, what shall theharvest be? Obviously the only justifiable way in which our unhappydivisions" can be healed is by the abandonment of their error on the partof those whose error necessitates them. To attempt to heal them by abandoningthe truth to which their existence is the outstanding- witness, or to mitigatethem by ceasing to insist upon this truth, or to cover them up by thesuppression of at least all corporate testimony to it in some sort of anamalgam of truth and error, involves the fearful guilt of unfaithfulness to theGospel with which we have been put in charge, as the one saving force in theworld.
The"unhappy divisions" by which Reformed Protestants for example areseparated from their brethren of other communions are just the external marksand therefore the public witnesses of the purity of the Gospel in which theytrust and for the preservation and propagation of which in the world they existas organized communities. Their brethren in other communions--the existence ofwhich bears witness to other convictions--they have no difficulty in heartilyrecognizing as Christian brethren, though in error,--oftentimes no doubt seriousand in itself considered deadly error; and they have no difficulty in heartilycooperating with than in the whole. range of Christian work, so long as therebytheir own particular testimony to the purer Gospel which in God's providence theyhave been enabled to preserve, is neither abandoned, nor truncated, nordiluted, nor obscured. These "divisions" mean to them just theGospel; the Gospel that has been maintained by them in this its purity onlythrough struggle and strife, tears, and yes, blood, during two thousand yearsof Christian history. They cannot undo this history; nor can they in theselatter days cast lightly off from them the heritage of divine truth of whichthrough this history they have come to be the guardians in the world, Thisheritage they must preserve at all costs; and at all costs they must transmitit pure and whole to those, whether at home or abroad, to whom it is given tothem to convey the Gospel. They owe the heathen the Gospel; the Gospel in itsentirety and in its purity; not a diluted Gospel, nor a truncated Gospel, nor adistorted Gospel, as if a diluted, or a truncated, or a distorted Gospel weregood enough for heathen.
From "Kikuyu, ClericalVeracity And Miracles
