UNIVERSALISM IN AMERICA.
"Christianity is recognized as a democratic element, profitable for
all conditions of men, as the Declaration of Independence and our
Constitution are the palladium of our civil and religious
rights."--DR. J. W. FRANCIS, author of "Old New York."
Universalism in America took its rise with the Republic. The coming of
John Murray to our shores, and the proclamation of the gospel of
universal grace, was but a little time previous to the issuing of the
Declaration of Independence by the American colonies. These colonies
had come to the full and bold utterance with which the Declaration
opens: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are
created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain
inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the
pursuit of happiness." Through ages of light and of darkness this
sacred truth had had but little growth or power in the human mind. But
it was there, and was not to die there. It lived through all the
world's change, commotion, and revolution, and the set time had now
come when it should have a clearer and stronger expression and
demonstration than our old or new worlds had yet known. This
declaration of our fathers signified the inestimable value of man--of
every man--to himself, his fellow man, and his God. It asserts the
doctrine of human equality, not that all men have the same
intellectual or moral capacities, or should possess an equal amount of
property, or be invested with the same political privileges; but the
religious doctrine that all are of "one blood," children of one
Father, protected by one Providence, made to aid, to bless and build
each other up in truth, justice, and righteousness henceforth while
the world stands. It signifies human equality and human rights in
their broadest and most rational sense. As wrote Alexander Hamilton:
"All men have one common origin, they participate in a common nature,
and consequently have one common right. No reason can be assigned why
one man should exercise any pre-eminence among his fellow creatures,
unless they have voluntarily vested him with it." It was this
conviction, based on a principle, that carried our fathers through the
Revolution, and gave to us that Constitution which was afterwards the
work of their hands.
The object of this Constitution is explicitly declared, "To form a
more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity,
provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and
secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity." This
signified not the growth and strengthening of a sentiment that would
justify the building up of one class upon the subjugation of another.
We have a statement of the whole truth in the emphatic language of Mr.
Bancroft, as he speaks of the intent of the framers of the Declaration
on which our Constitution is based. "The Declaration, avoiding
specious and vague generalities, grounds itself with anxious care upon
the past, and reconciles right and fact. The assertion of right was
made for the entire world of mankind, and all coming generations,
without any exceptions whatever; for the proposition which admits of
exceptions can never be self-evident. And as it was put forth in the
name of the ascendant people of that time, it was sure to make the
circuit of the world, passing everywhere through the despotic
countries of Europe; and the astonished nations, as they read that all
men are created equal, started out of their lethargy, like those who
have been exiles from childhood, when they suddenly hear the dimly
remembered accents of their mother tongue."[8]
It was meet and right that when this great word went forth to awaken
the nations to a new realization, there should be heard at the same
time in our land the trumpet notes of that gospel which proclaims the
unbinding of the heavy burdens of humanity, liberty to the captives,
and the opening of the prison to them that are bound. As Dr. Benjamin
Rush, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence (and a
believer in Christian Universalism), in a letter to Rev. Mr.
Winchester, alluding to Rev. John Wesley, writes: "His writings will
ere long revive in support of our doctrine--for if Christ died for
all, as Mr. Wesley always taught, it will soon appear as a necessary
consequence that all shall be saved.... At present we wish liberty to
the whole world. The next touch of the celestial magnet upon the human
heart will direct it into wishes for the salvation of all mankind."
This new political life, upon which our nation entered, signified the
equality, true sonship, brotherhood, capability, and earthly
destination of man. It meant democracy, not the democracy of numbers
merely, nor of political parties struggling for supremacy and the
spoils of the victors, but a democracy having in view a common
good--the greatest good of all. It means intelligence, thrift,
education, and religion for the masses; it means this for one people,
means it for all nations of mankind. Precisely this is signified by
the re-affirmation on these western shores of that gospel anciently
proclaimed to the Athenians by the Christian apostle: "God, that made
the world ... hath made of one blood all nations of men, for to dwell
on all the face of the earth, ... as certain also of your own poets
have said, For we are also his offspring."[9] A common humanity, a
common interest and destiny, are declared.
It is a common humanity with which Christ is in sympathy; which makes
him who would be highest in the Divine estimation the servant of all;
which recognizes the Golden Rule, directs the strong to bear the
infirmities of the weak, and men everywhere to be helpers one of
another, because their interests are not antagonistic, when the laws
that govern their nature are clearly understood. They have unity:
"What binds one, binds all,
Love of things true and right."
Men have, too, a common interest under the Divine guardianship.
Wherever there is a man, there is a being in whose soul God has
implanted aspirations after himself, a propensity to religion, a
feeling after him which may be misled by superstition, or overlaid by
ignorance, or elevated by knowledge into purest piety, but which is
yet there. Wherever he exists the Sovereign Power holds him in
discipline, demands an account from him at his tribunal of impartial
justice, and will not permit him to go out of his hands. To whatever
heights he ascends, God still encompasses him; into whatever depths he
may fall, he is still held by the guardian beneficent power.
One destiny, also, is affirmed of this great body of humanity; a
blessing instituted in the beginning, including all families,
kindreds, nations. No divine favoritism towards one over another do we
see. The law and the prophets point towards this universal grace of
God to man. Israel and the Gentile world shall alike share it. The
apocalyptic vision opens it up to the eye of faith. "And every
creature which is in heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth,
and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, heard I, saying,
Blessing, and honor, and glory, and power, be unto him that sitteth
upon the throne, and unto the Lamb, for ever and ever."[10] What is
this but the fact, and the ultimate completeness and glory of the
unity of the race? One Father, Brotherhood, Saviour, Homage, Destiny.
Other theologies had made distinctions and endless separations in
representing mankind; had denied, as they still deny, this fraternal
relationship, this positive family connection; had represented God
rather as an arbitrary sovereign than loving Father, and the Divine
government a wilful monarchy instead of a just and merciful
dispensation under which each soul is of equal value, and the good of
one is the good of all. Unbelief has said, as in the language of
Spinoza: "The right extends as far as the force of the natural right
or law, _jus et institutum naturæ_ is nothing more than the rules of
the nature of each individual." The divisions and contentions, classes
and castes, the impositions, frauds, and oppressions which have more
or less marked the social relations of mankind, all come of this
pernicious error growing out of the unchecked selfishness of the human
heart. Christian Universalism forever contradicts this error. It
affirms that the great body of humanity is one, and that it is death
to sunder it. "If one member suffer, all the members suffer with it;
if one rejoice, all rejoice together; for the body is not one member,
but many."[11] In the affirmation of the Gospel, religious bigotry and
exclusiveness find a constant reproof; undue boasting, arrogance, and
pride are hushed by this grand conviction that "One is our Father who
is in heaven, and all we are brethren." The broadest philanthropy is
awakened everywhere in man. The world becomes the one great field of
effort for the enlightenment, relief, upraising, and perfecting of
humanity. In the strong and noble words of another: "Universalism and
the Revolution began to rise together. They were rocked together in
the same stormy days, in the cradle of American liberty.[12] The
banner of Universalism is love. Let that banner be lifted up. It shall
symbol yet the true idea of the Declaration of Independence, 'All men
are created equal.' I look forward to the time when our flag shall
wave in unsullied glory, not over smoking ruins, at the mast-head of
our battle-ships, on bloody fields, from the parapets of our forts,
merely; but the stars and stripes and the white banner together,
floating over slaves redeemed, sinners converted, evil statutes
abolished, the people united, and the North and the South one."[13]
[8] Bancroft's History of the United States, vol. viii.
[9] Acts, xvii. 24, 28.
[10] Rev. v. 18.
[11] 1 Cor. xii. 14, 26.
[12] When Rev. John Murray first preached in Faneuil Hall, Nov. 26,
1773, he discoursed from this appropriate text: "If the Son therefore
shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed."--John, viii. 36.
[13] Rev. T. Whittemore, D. D. Speech at Faneuil Hall Festival, 1858.