Dagg on the duty of pursuing peace and unity
Timmy Brister posts an excerpt from the Baptist theologian, John Leadley Dagg. In his Manual of Church Order, Dagg’s final point was: “It is our duty to promote the spiritual unity of the universal church, by the exercise of brotherly love to all who bear the image of Christ.”
Dagg explains:
We yield everything which is not required by the word of God; but in what this word requires, we have no compromise to make. We rejoice to see, in many who do not take our views of divine truth, bright evidence of love to Christ and his cause. We love them for Christ’s sake; and we expect to unite with them in his praise through eternal ages. We are one with them in spirit, though we cannot conform to their usages in any particular in which they deviate from the Bible. The more abundantly we love them, the more carefully we strive to walk before them in strict obedience to the commands of our common Lord. And if they sometimes misunderstand our motives, and misjudge our actions, it is our consolation that our divine Master approves; and that they also will approve, when we shall hereafter meet them in his presence.
John L. Dagg, Manual of Church Order (Harrisonburg, VA: Gano Books, 1990; originally published 1858), 303-04.
