Page:Scriptural Basis of Christian Unity.pdf/22

 than any religious body in the country." This is the criticism of those who insist that we must all use the missionary society of their own choice or direction.  The argument is that if we do not all use the same missionary, educational or benevolent machinery, we are a divided brotherhood.  Statements like this show that the one making them is unable to think of the church as other than an organization.  With him, the machinery of the church is identical with the church itself.

Partisanship with reference to a society may be as factional in spirit as the denominationalism we exist to condemn.

A fellow-Christian is not necessarily less loyal to my Lord because he elects to support some other society than the one in which I am interested. Nor is he a "heretic" thereby.

It is axiomatic in law that the power that can legislate has the right to alter or annul. If I had a voice in creating a society, I have a right to insist on its doing the things I want done, or refusing it support. If I had no voice in creating it, I most certainly am under no divine obligation to support it, unless it is a divine institution.

To what have we come, when free churches of Christ have notice marred upon them that they must support the society championed by a particular journal, or be called heretical! Are we ready to submit to such dictation without protest? Attempted coercion will only drive more away from the ranks of the organization demanding exclusive support. To charge well-informed, conscientious brethren with disloyalty to Christ, because they use their undoubted 22