108 CHURCH UNITY 



advocate of union, and who should be the 

 man? 



The earliest apostle of Christian union 

 was George Calixtus. At the University 

 of Helmstadt, where he was professor, 

 1614-1656, he became imbued with the 

 Melanchthonian theology, and by his wide 

 travels in England, Holland, Italy, and 

 France, he formed a larger acquaintance 

 with other churches than was common with 

 either the Lutherans or Reformed of his 

 day. This brought him to a breadth of 

 view far in advance of his time. He was 

 an earnest Lutheran, always maintaining 

 that the Lutheran Church was the purest 

 of all. But he saw the transcendent im- 

 portance of those great doctrines on which 

 all Protestants were agreed, and he laid 

 down as a basis of Christian union the 

 New Testament as interpreted by the 

 Church of the first five centuries. He 

 contended that the points on which the 

 churches differed were unimportant by the 

 side of the fundamental points of Chris- 

 tian theology which they had inherited 

 in common from the purest ages of the faith. 

 The churches should work together in 

 peace and harmony, paving the way for a 



