Excerpt from The Message of the Disciples for the Union of the Church, Including Their Origin and History The author of the Analysis of the Declaration and Address observes (page 43) that the princi ple of liberty, the right to grow with the growth of truth, needs perpetual emphasis and incessant utterance. There should be a clear distinction between what is truth on the one hand and the conception and implementation of it on the other, but truth itself, divine and revealed truth, is not progressive in character, subject to the thinking of uninspired men of a later day. Holy men of God Spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit. Jesus told the apostles that the Holy Spirit should guide them into all truth; that is, all revealed truth. The great body of natural truth apart from revelation is subject to the ex plorations of mankind, but not so revealed truth. The author of the definitive sections of this book, Historical Documents Advocating Christian Union, does represent, in life and in experience, the liberal interpretation of the Restoration move ment, even sometimes to the point of higher criticism and modernism. Such an attempt at union that mitigates the force of divine revela tion in seeking for amity among men makes too much concession. Yet on the whole, this writer prefers to present this book, whatever the lean ings of a later writer may personally have been, as originally designed. Whatever Observances he may have will be said later in separate works. There cannot be any doubt of the great writ ing ability of Isaac Errett and J. H. Garrison. But they were later commentators upon the great principles of the big four, Thomas Campbell, Alexander Campbell, Walter Scott and Barton Warren Stone; and they do not belong in the same category of creative thought as these men. Other writers, closer to that day when the big four lived, such as Moses E. Lard and Benjamin Franklin could as well have been quoted. Yet it must be admitted that others made not quite the same point of an historical analysis of the re storing oi the gospel plan of salvation by Scott, the Declaration and Address by Thomas Camp bell, the Sermon ou the Law by Alexander Camp bell and the Last Will and Testament of the Springfield Presbytery by Stone. Therefore, the objective of such an historical analysis on the part of Isaac Errett and i.h. Garrison fits itself more admirably into the purpose of the book not that these latter stand on a par with the others in the creativity of the movement. They have subscribed themselves as servants of the larger purpose of the big four. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.