I recently got a loan of a book that I have seen referenced in a number of works by SSPX and Sedevacantists, Christ’s Church by G. Van Noort. Commenting on the lack of true unity among Protestants (in spite of their bogus claim to only disagree on “minor” issues), he noted:
Unity of doctrine is again quite
obviously missing in Protestantism considered as a totality. In fact unity of
doctrine can not be found even in the individual Protestant churches:
each of them, at least the large Protestant bodies, has always been split by
internal divisions—divisions and subdivisions which have increased with time.
There is nothing strange in this fact, seeing that the fundamental principle of
Protestantism—private judgement—is a principle which by its very nature
militates against unity. (G. Van Noort, Dogmatic Theology, Volume II:
Christ’s Church [trans. John J. Castelot; Cork: The Mercier Press Limited,
1961], 182)
In the footnote for the above, Van Noort
continued:
This fact is not
gainsaid, but emphasized by the modern Protestant ecumenical movement.
Protestants themselves have grown weary of the fracturing process induced by
the very principles of the Reformers and are hungry to restore Christian unity.
While viewing the ecumenical movement sympathetically one must not confuse the
external unity achieved by federating churches or by practical cooperation
between various sects with the internal, organic unity we are here discussing.
Such confusion evidently existed in the mind of the journalist who naively
captioned his article un the United Church of South India (a merger of Anglican,
Methodist, Presbyterian, Congregational, and Reformed Churches in 1947): Lesson
in Unity, (Life, Dec. 26, 1955, pp. 148-153). Actually this kind of
unity has threatened to cause a crisis in the Anglican Church. Ronald Knox long
ago envisioned the possibility of this type of Christian unity in a witty,
devastating essay entitled: “Reunion All Round.” It showed how one might hope
to unite in the Church of England “all Mahometans, Jews, Buddhists, Brahmins,
Papists and Atheists” (Essays in Satire [1930] pp. 47-77). To achieve
such unity all one has to do is eviscerate Christianity.
