THE UNITED STATES: THE UNITARIAN CHURCH--THE UNIVERSALISTS.
The aspect of novelty in the religious and theological history of the
United States, is unparalleled in the history of any European nation,
and is traceable in part to the peculiarities of our political origin
and career. The founders of our government were wise students of the
philosophy of history, and it was their opinion that many of the
misfortunes which had befallen the countries of the Old World, were
produced by the improper association of temporal and spiritual
authority. They therefore made provision for the permanent separation of
Church and State. Their design, however, was accomplished only by
degrees. Previous to the Revolution, but two States, Rhode Island and
Pennsylvania, permitted religious toleration. It was declared in
Maryland in 1776, and in 1786-89 was carried out in Virginia. The
general government took the matter in hand in 1791; and, in that year,
an amendment to the Constitution of the United States was adopted, which
prohibited Congress in future from "passing any law establishing
religion, or prohibiting its free exercise."[232]
It would seem that our forefathers were almost gifted with prophetic
vision when they incorporated this statute with those other laws, which
have contributed so much to our prosperity. It would not have been in
harmony with their spirit, if, while constituting an independent
government, they had made the Church dependent.
The principle of the union of church and state presupposes a greater
degree of social purity than has existed in any nation. Moreover, the
Church is thereby led to assume an authority to which she has no claim
and which Christ never intended her to possess. Milton, whose clear and
practical views of civil and ecclesiastical relations were only equaled
by his lofty poetic conceptions of man's moral nature and history, says:
"When the church, without temporal support, is able to do her great
works upon the enforced obedience of man, it argues a divinity about
her. But when she thinks to credit and better her spiritual efficacy,
and to win herself respect and dread by strutting in the false vizard of
worldly authority, it is evident that God is not there, but that her
apostolic virtue is departed from her, and has left her key-cold; which
she perceiving, as in a decayed nature, seeks to the outward
fermentations and chafings of worldly help and external flourishes, to
fetch, if it be possible, some motion into her extreme parts, or to
hatch a counterfeit life with the crafty and artificial heat of
jurisdiction. But it is observable that so long as the church, in true
imitation of Christ, can be content to ride upon an ass, carrying
herself and her government along in a mean and simple guise, she may be
as she is a Lion of the tribe of Judah; and in her humility all men,
with loud hosannas, will confess her greatness. But when, despising the
mighty operation of the Spirit by the weak things of this world, she
thinks to make herself bigger and more considerable, by using the way of
civil force and jurisdiction, as she sits upon this Lion she changes
into an ass, and instead of hosannas, every man pelts her with stones
and dirt."[233]
The peculiarities which have characterized the history of the American
church are well defined, and of the greatest value in all estimates of
the theological status of the popular mind. They are grouped by
Professor Smith in the following concise terms: "_First._ It is not the
history of the conversion of a new people, but of the transplantation of
old races, already Christianized, to a new theatre, comparatively
untrammeled by institutions and traditions. _Second._ Independence of
the civil power. _Third._ The voluntary principle applied to the support
of religious institutions. _Fourth._ Moral and ecclesiastical, but not
civil power, the means of retaining the members of any communion.
_Fifth._ Development of the Christian system in its practical and moral
aspects, rather than in its theoretical and theological. _Sixth._
Stricter discipline in the churches than is practicable where church and
state are one. _Seventh._ Increase of the churches, to a considerable
extent, through _revivals_ of religion, rather than by the natural
growth of the children in an establishment. _Eighth._ Excessive
multiplication of sects; and divisions on questions of moral
reform."[234]
When we consider the intimate relations between France and this country
during the first stage of our national existence, it becomes a matter of
surprise that French infidelity did not acquire greater influence over
our people. It was not wholly without power, and the first twenty-five
years of our history witnessed greater religious disasters than have
appeared at any subsequent time. Still it may be said with truth that
skeptical tendencies have never gained a permanent position in the
United States, though our immunity from their sway has not been the
result of indifference toward the great movements of Europe. The
American has never been a cold observer of the hemisphere from which his
forefathers came. We appropriate the treasures of the Old World, and
love to call them our own. We are as proud of the martyrology and
literature of England as if Latimer and Ridley had died for their faith
on Boston Common, or Shakspeare and Milton had lived on the banks of the
Hudson. The early legislation of our government having left the
individual conscience to the exercise of its own convictions, each
citizen has been more interested in whatever religious opinions might
appear from European sources.
What then has been the reception in America of that system of skepticism
which has produced ravages on the Continent, and now forbodes evil in
our English mother-land? Is Rationalism likely to run its destructive
cycle in the United States? Has the American church no antidote for the
great theological errors of the present age?
The denomination most intimately associated with Rationalistic
tendencies is the Unitarian Church. Boston is its centre, and New
England the principal sphere of its existence.
The Venerable Stoddard, of Northampton, Massachusetts, became convinced
that the custom of excluding unregenerate persons from the sacrament of
the Lord's Supper was sinful; and in 1708 published a sermon declaring
his views on that subject. He held that the participation of
unregenerate people in the communion was highly beneficial to them; and
that it was in fact a means by which they might become regenerated. He
defended his belief so zealously that he soon had the pleasure of seeing
many followers gathering about him. The doctrine was termed the Half-Way
Covenant System, and was adopted in the church at Northampton. Jonathan
Edwards succeeded Stoddard, who was his grandfather; and, a few years
after the great revival in which the former took an active part, he
adopted the opinion that the Half-Way Covenant was injurious. Edwards
refused to practice it, and in his _Treatise on the Qualifications for
Full Communion_, he declared the necessity of regeneration. He was
accordingly dismissed from his church.
This was the germ of American Unitarianism. Stoddard's adherents clung
to their loose view of communion, while the friends of Edwards, being
more spiritual, and many of them the fruits of the Whitefieldian
revival, sustained the orthodox construction with energy. The Half-Way
Covenant in due time called a party into existence, which "avoided all
solicitude concerning their own spiritual condition or that of others;
were repugnant to the revival spirit; must have a system of doctrines
which could contain nothing to alarm the fears or disturb the repose of
the members of the party. The doctrines of apostasy, dependence on grace
for salvation, necessity of atonement, and special influence of the Holy
Spirit, were all thought to be alarming doctrines. They were therefore
laid aside silently and without controversy. Men were suffered to forget
that the Son of God, and the Spirit, have anything to do with man's
salvation."[235]
King's Chapel, Boston, was the first Episcopal church of New England.
Its rector leaving with the British troops upon their evacuation of the
town, Rev. James Freeman was chosen in April, 1783, to occupy the
vacant position. The services of the church were conducted after the
Episcopal form, the Book of Common Prayer being still used. Mr.
Freeman's views underwent a change, and he delivered a course of
doctrinal sermons in which he indicated decided Unitarian proclivities.
Accordingly he introduced a revised liturgy, corresponding with Dr.
Samuel Clarke's _Revision of the Liturgy of the Church of England_, from
which the doctrines of the Trinity and of the divinity of Christ were
excluded. The congregation addressed a letter to Bishop Provost, of New
York, in which inquiry was made, "whether ordination of Rev. Mr. Freeman
can be obtained on terms agreeable to him and to the proprietors of this
church." The bishop proposed to refer the question to the next general
convention. But the congregation, disliking such hesitation, determined
to ordain their rector themselves. Accordingly, on November 18th, 1787,
the senior warden laid his hand on Mr. Freeman's head, and pronounced
the declaration of ordination. The people responded "Amen;" and thus was
effected the first ordination of a Unitarian minister in the United
States.[236]
Wide circulation had already been given to Emlyn's _Inquiry into the
Scripture Account of Jesus Christ_, which, in 1756, had been republished
in Boston from the English edition. Before the close of the century the
doctrines peculiar to Unitarianism became widely disseminated in that
city and in other portions of the State. Belsham issued in London, 1812,
his _Memoir of Lindsey_, which contained startling disclosures of the
doings of the Unitarians in America. Belsham's informants were leading
Unitarians of Boston, among whom was Dr. Freeman, whose letters covered
a period of sixteen years, from 1796 to 1812. He communicated all the
secret movements, growth, and dimensions of the party. Only a few copies
of Belsham's work came to America, and they were hidden, lest any of the
orthodox might see them. Finally, Dr. Morse obtained one, and soon
published a pamphlet revealing its astounding contents. It now came to
light, for the first time, that Unitarianism was a strong party; that
every Congregational church in Boston, except the Park Street and Old
South, had become Unitarian; and that there were seventy-five churches
in other parts of New England which had adopted the same views. The
Unitarians were now compelled to come out of their hiding-place, and the
orthodox watched their movements with intense interest.
The zeal of the adherents of Unitarianism, however, did not diminish by
exposure, and a very important event occurred, which indicated that
their labors were successful. Dr. Ware, an avowed anti-Trinitarian, was
chosen to the professorship of theology in Harvard College, in place of
the deceased Dr. Tappan. The appointment created a profound excitement
among the orthodox clergy, who were indignant at the procedure. But
remonstrance was useless. Unitarianism was triumphantly domiciled at
Cambridge, and many who designed preaching its tenets became attendants
upon the lectures of Professors Ware and Andrews Norton. As a probable
consequence of the great change in Harvard, the Andover Theological
Seminary was established,[237]--an institution which, from its origin to
the present time, has shed a beneficent lustre upon the entire country.
Its students have never ceased to be ornaments to the American pulpit,
while some of the number, proving themselves worthy successors of Carey,
Marshman, Coke, and Ward, have labored in heathen lands with apostolic
zeal.
The celebrated controversy between Drs. Channing and Worcester,
occasioned by a pamphlet which appeared in Boston in 1815, under the
title of _American Unitarianism_, led to the withdrawal of the
Unitarians from the orthodox, and their formation into a distinct
organization. Pursuing an aggressive policy, they organized
congregations in various parts of New England, and in the cities of
Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, and Charleston. This was the heroic
age of the Unitarian church of America.
Channing became immediately the leader of the new sect. He represents
the best type of Unitarianism. Pure in life, ardent in his attachments,
and heroic in spirit, he was well adapted to advance the cause which he
had espoused. He had no taste for controversy, but the circumstances
connected with the prevalent theology made such a deep impression on his
mind that he felt it his duty to aid in the revival of what he deemed a
more liberal faith. Not indorsing the extreme Unitarianism of Priestley
and Belsham, he took a middle ground between it and New England
Calvinism. He was attentively heard in his church at Boston, and was
listened to by large audiences wherever he preached or lectured.
His writings embrace a variety of topics, the chief of which, apart from
religious themes proper, are slavery, temperance, education, and war.
Within a few years his views have attracted increased attention in
Europe. In France, MM. Laboulaye, de Rémusat, and Renan have discussed
them at length. Of his mental transitions, an admiring writer says:
"From Kant's doctrine of the reason he derived deeper reverence for the
essential powers of man; by Schelling's intimations of the Divine Life,
everywhere manifested, he was made more devoutly conscious of the
universal agency of God; and he was especially delighted with the heroic
stoicism of Fichte and his assertion of the grandeur of the human will.
But for his greatest pleasure and best discipline he was now indebted to
Wordsworth, whom he esteemed next to Shakspeare, and whose '_Excursion_'
came to him like a revelation. With Wordsworth's mingled piety and
heroism, humanity and earnest aspiration, with his all-vivifying
imagination, recognizing greatness under lowliest disguises, and
spreading sweet sanctions around every charity of social life, and with
his longings to see reverence, loyalty, courtesy, and contentment
established on the earth, he most closely sympathized. From this time he
began to engage more actively in political and philanthropic
movements."[238]
Channing believed that orthodoxy was incalculably mischievous in its
estimate of Deity and of human depravity. "God, we are told," says he,
"must not be limited; nor are his rights to be restrained by any rights
in his creatures. These are made to minister to their Maker's glory, not
to glorify themselves. They wholly depend on him, and have no power
which they can call their own. His sovereignty, awful and omnipotent, is
not to be kept in check, or turned from its purposes, by any claims of
his subjects. Man's place is the dust. The entire prostration of his
faculties is the true homage he is to offer to God. He is not to exalt
his reason or his sense of right against the decrees of the Almighty.
He has but one lesson to learn, that he is nothing, that God is All in
All. Such is the common language of theology."[239]
Against these views he asserts man's free agency and moral dignity. His
creed is the greatness of Human Nature; such greatness as is seen in the
"intellectual energy which discerns absolute, universal truth in the
idea of God, in freedom of will and moral power, in disinterestedness
and self-sacrifice, in the boundlessness of love, in aspirations after
perfection, in desires and affections which time and space cannot
confine, and the world cannot fill. The soul, viewed in these lights,
should fill us with awe. It is an immortal germ, which may be said to
contain now within itself what endless ages are to unfold. It is truly
an image of the infinity of God, and no words can do justice to its
grandeur."[240] Instead of looking without for a basis of religion, we
must commence at home, within ourselves. "We must start in religion from
our own souls, for in them is the fountain of all divine truth. An
outward revelation is only possible and intelligible on the ground of
conceptions and principles previously furnished by the soul. Here is our
primitive teacher and light. Let us not disparage it. There are, indeed,
philosophical schools of the present day, which tell us that we are to
start in all our speculations from the Absolute, the Infinite. But we
rise to these conceptions from the contemplation of our own nature; and
even if it were not so, of what avail would be the notion of an
Absolute, Infinite existence, an Uncaused Unity, if stripped of all
those intellectual and moral attributes which we learn only from our
own souls? What but a vague shadow, a sounding name, is the metaphysical
Deity, the substance without modes, the being without properties, the
naked Unity which performs such a part in some of our philosophical
systems. The only God whom our thoughts can rest on and our hearts can
cling to, and our consciences can recognize is the God whose image
dwells in our own souls. The grand ideas of Power, Reason, Wisdom, Love,
Rectitude, Holiness, Blessedness, that is, of all God's attributes, come
from within, from the action of our own spiritual nature. Many indeed
think that they learn God from marks of design and skill in the outward
world; but our ideas of design and skill, of a determining cause, of an
end or purpose, are derived from consciousness, from our own souls. Thus
the soul is the spring of our knowledge of God."[241]
The creed of the Unitarians must be studied as one would take soundings
at sea. The measurement of one place is no guarantee of the depth in
another. What was believed twenty years ago, may not be endorsed by the
leaders of to-day. One writer of their fold says: "Unitarianism is
loose, vague, general, indeterminate in its elements and
formularies."[242] When George Putnam installed Mr. Fosdick over the
Hollis Street Church, he said with commendable candor, "There is no
other Christian body of which it is so impossible to tell where it
begins and where it ends. We have no recognized principles by which any
man who chooses to be a Christian disciple, and desires to be numbered
with us, whatever he believes or denies, can be excluded."
But Unitarianism has ever remained true to a few points. One of them is
antagonism to orthodoxy. It was an old cry of the German skeptics,
"Away with orthodoxy. It fetters us to forms and creeds, makes us blind
devotees to system, converts us into bigots, and dwarfs reason into an
invisible pigmy." Yet we frequently meet with language of similar import
in the present day. If we did not know its authorship we could easily
tell the ecclesiastical fountain whence it flows. "The implications of
false and shallow reasoning," says an American Unitarian divine,
"partial observation, intellectual grouping, moral obliquity, spiritual
ignorance,--in short, of puerility and superstition involved in a large
part of the appeals, the preaching, the cant terms, the popular dogmas,
the current conversation of Christendom,--are discouraging evidences how
backward is the religious thought of our day, as compared with its
general thought; how little harmony there is between our schools and our
churches, our thinkers and our religious guides, our political and
national institutions and our popular theology. It is not
Christianity--the rational, thorough, all-embracing Gospel of
Christ,--which throws its blessed sanctities over and around our whole
humanity,--which owns and consecrates our whole nature and our whole
life--which is thus taught. It is a system which is narrower than
Judaism, and compared with which Romanism is a princely and magnificent
theology. I say advisedly, that if Protestantism endorses the vulgar
notions of a God-cursed world,--a fallen race,--a commercial
atonement,--a doomed and hell-devoted humanity,--a mysterious
conversion,--a Church which is a sort of a life-boat hanging round a
wreck that may carry off a few women and selfishly-affrighted men,
leaving the bolder, braver, larger portion to go down with the ship; if
this be the sum and substance of religion,--if these notions be the
grounds of the late religious excitement and the doctrines which gave
it power,[243]--then it is not so true to human nature, its wants and
woes, its various and manifold tastes, talents, and faculties, as the
old Catholic system,--and that, instead of trembling at the growth and
prospects of Romanism in this country, we should more reasonably rejoice
in its triumphs, as the worthier occupant of the confidence and
affection of the people. But this narrow system, with all its arrogant
claims to be the only Evangelical faith, is not Protestantism; or,
rather, is not mere Protestantism."[244]
But the indeterminateness of Unitarian theology does not warrant us in
passing over its tenets, as stated by writers held in good repute in
that Church. It would be unfair, however, to claim that these are
doctrines to which each must inflexibly adhere. The Unitarians neither
exact nor desire conformity to authority; in fact they have no
authority. Reason is left to place its own construction upon the truths
of revelation. What, then, is the general Unitarian sentiment on those
subjects whose essential importance is acknowledged by all Evangelical
Churches?
INSPIRATION AND THE SCRIPTURES. Channing and Dewey have held loftier
views of the Bible and its divine origin than their less devout
brethren. The latter has said that, "The matter is divine, the miracles
real, the promises glorious, the threatenings fearful; enough that all
is gloriously and fearfully true to the divine will, true to human
nature, true to its wants, anxieties, sorrows, sins, salvation, and
destinies; enough that the seal of a divine and miraculous communication
is set upon that holy Book."[245] But reverence for the Scriptures is
rapidly on the decline among the Unitarians,--the direct result of the
influence of the German and English Rationalists. They call all
believers in orthodox opinions, "Bibliolaters." They spurn the thought
of an infallible Bible. "No wonder," they say, "that the Bibliolaters
quail before the iconoclasm of Bishop Colenso, and, in their rage, call
aloud for his excision from the Church; for, if a single one of the
difficulties he accumulates can be proved a reality, the whole edifice
of their faith topples to its fall.... We believe that safety and sense
can alone be found in our theory, which regards Scripture as credible
though human, as inspired not in its form, but in its substance, of
various and, in many cases, of unknown authorship, and representing
different stages of culture. We cannot accept all its documents as of
co-ordinate authority; nor in every one of its statements can we
recognize a product of inspiration. We do not conceive ourselves bound,
therefore, to defend the geology of Moses, or to admire the conduct of
the Israelites in the extermination of the Canaanites; or to infuse a
recondite spiritual meaning into the amatory descriptions and appeals of
the Song of Solomon."[246]
GOD AND CHRIST. God is the Universal Father. It must be forgotten that
he is king; his paternal character alone must be borne in mind. He is a
God of one person, not of three, and the doctrine of the Trinity is
nowhere hinted at in the Bible, but is of Platonic origin. The Christian
Fathers did not contend that it was contained therein. The view of three
persons in one God is "self-contradictory, opposed to all right reason,
positively absurd."[247] Christ is inferior and subordinate to God. He
is God in the same sense as the angels, Moses, Samuel, the Kings and
Judges of Israel. They were gods in one respect,--the word of God was
spoken to them. Christ is the chief one "to whom the word of God
came."[248] In the New Testament, Christ is uniformly kept distinct from
the Father, and the attributes which he possessed, wisdom, knowledge,
and power, were endowments from God.
THE HOLY GHOST. The Holy Ghost is not a person, but is merely sent from
the Father, or proceeds from him. The apparent presence of the Holy
Ghost in Christ's farewell discourse is only a personification resulting
from the peculiar nature of the Greek language, and the necessity of its
syntax. Not being a person, the Holy Ghost cannot be God, and is,
therefore, not self-existent, underived, and unoriginated. Wherever it
is described as a person it is only the writer's striking form of
speech; it is solely personification, just as we often find the case
with the Law, Wisdom, Scripture, Sin, and Charity.[249]
HUMAN DEPRAVITY. The Unitarians have no place in their creed for man's
natural sinfulness. It is, they say, a doctrinal innovation, having been
propagated by Augustine in the fifth century. That God should create men
who are naturally sinners is inconsistent with his parental character.
"The doctrine is itself repulsive. The human mind revolts at it. If God
our Creator has implanted within us a natural sense of right and wrong,
that sense arraigns his character and conduct in creating us thus
corrupt."[250] There is no such thing, the Unitarians contend, as the
fall of man. Adam was what we are. "Had he not sinned," one of their
writers affirms, "our race would have continued perfect and happy
without the necessity for progress, or the need of any of those
educational and recuperative processes to which Providence has resorted.
_Let those who can believe this!_ Let those also who can, call the
unfallen Adam and Eve satisfactory patterns and types of our complete
humanity. Imagine a world of Adams and Eves, living in a garden, on
spontaneous fruits, ignorant of the distinction between good and evil,
and without any capacity of moral change or improvement! Can any amount
of credulity enable an enlightened and candid mind of the present day to
think this world originally made to be occupied by such a race; that
unfallen Adams and Eves could ever have developed its resources, or
their own powers, and capacities of moral and spiritual happiness? Can
any subtlety perceive a true distinction between their condition and
that of the innocent but feeble islanders of some few spots in the
Pacific?[251] Can any degree of superstition regard a state of unfallen
holiness, which allowed our first parents to succumb in the midst of
perfect bliss, and under God's own direct care and instructions, before
the first temptation, as superior to our present moral condition? If
Adam fell, the race rose by his fall; he fell up, and nothing happier
for our final fortunes ever occurred than when the innocents of the
garden learned their shame, and fled into the hardships and experiences
of a disciplinary and growing humanity.... The radical vice of the
popular way of thinking about moral evil lies in the supposition that
... a state of spotless innocency is better than a state of moral
exposure and moral struggle; and that all our humanity is not entitled
to use development and play, in its grand career of being. On the other
hand, the true theory of humanity presents us with a race brought into
this world for its education, starting with moral and intellectual
infancy, and liable to all the mistakes, weaknesses, and follies, which
an ungrown and inexperienced nature begets."[252] There is far more
virtue in the world than there is vice. We grossly mistake when we make
notoriously vicious characters the type of humanity at large. "Man by
nature, as born and brought into this world, is innocent, pure;
guiltless because sinless; fitted for just that religion which Christ
revealed to operate successfully and gloriously upon; not indeed holy,
but capable of becoming so."
THE ATONEMENT. The orthodox view of the atonement is denied by the
Unitarians. Sacrifices are of human origin, those of the Mosaic religion
being solely ritual, and symbolical acts of faith and worship. Christ's
death did not appease the wrath of God in any sense, nor is anything
said in the Scriptures concerning Christ's sufferings as causing or
exciting the grace or mercy of God. It is not stated that God is
reconciled to us, but we to him. Christ suffered as an example. A writer
already quoted says: "Especially were the anguish and patience of his
final sufferings and his awful death upon the cross appointed and
powerful means of affecting the mind of man."[253] Another author
affirms: "Christ saves us, so far as his sufferings and death are
concerned, through their moral influence and power upon man; the great
appeal which they make being not to God, but to the sinner's conscience
and heart; thus aiding in the great work of bringing him into
reconciliation with or reconciling him to his Father in heaven....
Reconciliation is accomplished by Christ; by all that he was and is; all
that he taught, did, and is doing; and by all that he suffered for our
sake. Not by one but by all of these are we saved."[254] Christ's
sacrifice was not made to God, for he did not need to be propitiated or
rendered merciful, but simply with reference to man alone,--for his
good; God's justice needed no pacification. "There can be no greater or
more blinding heresy than that which would teach that Christ's
sufferings, or any sufferings in behalf of virtue and human sins and
sorrows, are strictly substitutional, or literally vicarious. The old
theologies, perplexed and darkened with metaphysics and scholastic
logic--the fruit of academic pride and the love of ecclesiastical
dominion--labored to prove and to teach that Christ, in his short agony
upon the cross, really suffered the pains of sin and bore the actual sum
of all the anguish from remorse and guilt due to myriads of sinners,
through the ages of eternity.... Our sense of justice and goodness so
far as God himself is concerned, is vastly more shocked by the proper
penalties of sin being placed upon the innocent than had they been left
upon the guilty, where they belong.... The truth is, literal
substitution of moral penalties is a thing absolutely impossible!
Vicarious punishment, in its technical and theological sense, is
forbidden by the very laws of our nature and moral constitution."[255]
REGENERATION. This is a universal want, but it is entirely consistent
with the purity of human nature. The natural birth gives no moral
character; it is to be formed, and when formed, is called the "new
birth." This is all that Christ meant when he said to Nicodemus, "Except
a man be born again he cannot see the kingdom of God." Regeneration must
not, therefore, be considered a consequence of human depravity, but a
result of human purity. It is the development of that which is already
good within us.
FUTURE PUNISHMENT. The Unitarians of America have, for the most part,
adopted the Restitutional theories of Hartley and Priestley. Mr. Ballou
claims "the whole body of Unitarians as Universalists." Punishment may
be inflicted after death, but it will be temporary. "The punishments of
hell are disciplinarian, and do not forbid the hope of remission and
relief."[256]
The best method of determining the present spirit of Unitarianism is to
observe the reception which it gives to the Rationalism that has grown
up luxuriantly of late in England. The welcome has been most cordial. A
Unitarian clergyman has become the American editor of the _Essays and
Reviews_;[257] and hails the appearance of such a book as representing a
new and better era in modern theology. He holds that the real "life of
Anglican theology is now represented by such men as Powell and Williams
and Maurice and Jowett and Stanley;" that the Broad Church is the only
one which fully embodies true progress and conservatism; that
Rationalism is the only alternative of Romanism; and that, as a matter
of course, the former should be adopted. He expresses the hope that the
spirit of Rationalistic criticism, "which is now leavening the Church of
England, may find abundant entrance into all the churches of our land,"
and that the _Essays and Reviews_, "its genuine product, may contribute
somewhat thereto."[258]
The quarterly organ of the Unitarians, _The Christian Examiner_, has
passed an encomium on the same exponent of English Rationalism, in which
it manifests no tempered gladness at skepticism within the pale of the
church. It says, with undisguised satisfaction, that "either these seven
essayists must have been in very close and intimate confidential
relations as friends or fellow-students, and have held many precious
conferences together in which they were mutually each other's
confessors; or, there must be quite a large number of very able and very
heretical sinners in the Church of England, within easy hail of each
other, and so thick in some neighborhoods that it is the readiest thing
in the world to pick out a set of them who, 'without concert or
comparison,' will contribute all the parts of a _fresh and unhackneyed
system of opinion_."
One of the most direct and outspoken of all the organized attacks of
American Rationalism upon evangelical Christianity occurred at the first
public anniversary of the Young Men's Christian Union, of New York. Its
importance was due to the diversity of unevangelical bodies there
represented, and to the celebrity of several of the speakers.
Unitarianism, Swedenborgianism, and Universalism mingled in happy
fraternity. The speakers were Drs. Osgood, Bellows, Sawyer, and Chapin;
Rev. Messrs. Barrett, Peters, Mayo, Higginson, Miel, Blanchard, and
Frothingham; and Richard Warren and Horace Greeley, Esquires.
The Union seems to have been designed as a counterpoise to the large and
flourishing Young Men's Christian Association, which is comprised of
earnest and active members of all orthodox denominations. The platform
of the former may be determined from the following significant language:
"The Anniversary of the Young Men's Christian Union was the first
instance in which so many of the leading minds in the various branches
of the liberal and progressive portion of the Christian church have met
on one common platform, for the purpose of discussing the practical
bearings of that higher type of Christianity which refuses to be limited
by any dogma, or fettered by any creed."[259] One of the speakers, in
explaining the relations of the Union to the church, said: "We maintain,
then, that we are _in_ the church, _are_ the church--not a part of it,
but the whole church,--having _in_ us the heart and soul of orthodoxy
itself, the essence of all that gave life to its creed, the utmost
significance and vital force of what it taught and still teaches, in
what we conceive to be a stuttering and stammering way, in a cumbrous
and outworn language, with a circuitous and wearisome phraseology; but
meaning really what we mean, and doing for men essentially what we are
doing. All that we claim is a better statement of the old and changeless
truth, a disembarrassed account of the ever true and identical story....
We have not separated ourselves from the brethren [orthodox]; we hold
them in our enclosure; we are always ready to receive them, to welcome
them. We are not expecting they will receive us, on account of their
providential position. We have an intellectual perception of what the
times demand and what the future is to be. We can see clearer than they.
We can see why they are wrong; they cannot see why we are right--but
they will presently.... The actual presence of God in the world, in all
his love and mercy, supplying our deficiencies, helping our
infirmities, consecrating and transforming matter, giving sanctity and
beauty to life--this is what the _renewing_ of the old faith offers to
humanity.
"The indistinct perception of this faith and the divine craving to see
it clearly, and bring it to the sight of others, has led to the
existence and organization of the Liberal churches, and indirectly to
the formation of the Young Men's Christian Union. Faith in man as the
child of God, his word and residence, authorizing the freest use of
thought, the profoundest respect for individual convictions, the firmest
confidence in progress and in the triumph of truth; inspiring good will,
humane affections, philanthropic activity, and personal holiness; faith
in God as the Father of man--man's universal Saviour and inspirer--man's
merit consists wholly in being his child and the pupil of his grace in
nature, life, the church, and the unseen world--these are the permanent
articles of Christian faith, which is not so much faith in Christ, as
Christ's faith."[260]
It is difficult to conceive how the most of the speakers at the
anniversary in question could have better served the interests of a bold
and unmitigated system of Rationalism. The great evil of the day is
declared to be dogmatism, against which every true friend of progress
must deal his most destructive blows. Liberal minds must break loose
from the fetters of authority, and give play to their own infallible
reason. The Protestant evangelical church is placed upon the same
footing with Romanism; both of which organizations unchurch all who do
not conform to their creed. "The truth is," says a speaker, "this
Protestant evangelical church is in the same chronic delusion as its
enemy, the Roman Catholic church; it can propose no plan of Christian
union which will include the Christians of the country. Its only idea of
union is the conspiracy of a few sects to take the kingdom of heaven by
violence; monopolize its honors in this world and the world to come; and
either compel the rest of mankind to come into its arrangement, or be
turned into everlasting perdition--a proceeding which the American
people, with due respect to the undeniable rights of this church, begs
leave respectfully to decline,--and further to intimate, that it is not
at all alarmed about the eternal consequences of a refusal to accede to
the pretensions of an ecclesiasticism that assumes to be God's
vicegerent to the United States of America."[261]
Great fault is found with the doctrines of the plenary inspiration of
the Scriptures, and the efficacy of Christ's blood for man's salvation.
God is in man; and man's moral instincts, intellectual mould, and
spiritual senses are infinitely wiser than we conceive them to be. They
are infallible in what they say of God, and are the best criteria of
truth. How much the world has been given up to the worship of the Bible!
"The Bibles will be left here to burn in the general conflagration with
the other temporary representations of the Word of God, which is the
eternal Reason, the foundation of our being." This Reason is the "elder
Scripture of God,--the soul, the inspired child of the heavenly and
eternal Father." The answer is given to the question, Why does orthodoxy
believe in the efficacy of Christ's blood to save the souls of men? "It
is because man distrusts his reason, and invents the infallible church,
and then the infallible Scriptures, to supply his necessity of
anchorage. He cannot think the God of the universe can be willing to
save such a miserable sinner, and he invents a God of the church, who
will. He does not believe anything men can do will entitle them to
heaven, or that human lives can make them acceptable in the sight of
God."[262]
From the preceding statements it will not be surprising to find some of
the speakers apologizing for outright infidelity. "Mr. President," says
one, "you, in the judgment of very many, are an infidel. The members of
this Christian association occupy what is regarded an infidel position.
And that very admirable constitution, which I have read to-day, if
presented at a council of churches, commonly reputed orthodox, would be
considered, doubtless, the platform of an infidel association....
Infidels, in all generations of the church, have been _progressive_ in
every direction; the believers in the present and the future; the people
who had confidence in the improvability of man, and the perennial
inspirations of God; the men and women who were persuaded that all the
spheres of wisdom and excellence were opened to human powers, and that
man was welcomed to all the treasure they contain.... They are a
thoughtful, earnest, hopeful people, bent on finding the truth, and
doing their duty."[263] Such infidels as these are claimed to have
blessed the world. All liberal minds ought to catch their spirit and
administer every possible blessing to struggling humanity. But there is
a species of narrow-minded infidelity which must be shunned; and it is
the only kind of which we need to forebode any evil. "The only
infidelity to be feared," says Mr. Frothingham, "the only real
infidelity which is a sin in the sight of God, is a disbelief in the
primary faculties of the human soul; disbelief in the capability of
man's reason to discriminate between truth and error in all departments
of knowledge, sacred or profane; disbelief in the heart's instinctive
power to distinguish good from evil; disallowance of the claims of
conscience to pass a verdict upon matters of right and wrong, whenever
and wherever brought up. They are the infidels who are untrue to the
light they have; who deny the plenary inspiration of that elder
Scripture written by the finger of God upon the human heart; who overlay
their reason with heaps of antiquated traditions; who bid their
conscience stand dumb before appalling iniquities in obedience to the
ill-read letter of an ancient record; who, in the interest of power,
wealth, worldliness, not seldom of unrighteousness and inhumanity, plead
for a Tract society, a Bible, or a church; who compass sea and land to
make a proselyte, and when he is made, are quite indifferent as to his
being a practical Christian; who collect vast sums of money annually for
the ostensible purpose of saving men's souls, practically to the effect
of keeping their souls in subjection and blindness. As I read the New
Testament, I find that Jesus charged infidelity upon none but such as
these; the people who made religion a cloak for pride, selfishness, and
cruelty; the conspicuously saintly people, who could spare an hour to
pray at a street corner, but had not a minute for a dying fellow-man
lying in his blood in a lonely pass. In the judgment of these, Jesus was
the prince of unbelievers. Punctilious adherence to the letter,
practical disbelief in the spirit--this is infidelity."[264]
The most important event in the history of the American Unitarian Church
was the National Convention which met in New York, April 5th, 1865, and
was presided over by Governor Andrew, of Massachusetts. Six hundred
ministers and laymen, representatives of one hundred and ninety
churches, were in attendance. The debates indicated wide diversity of
sentiment, but there was no open rupture. The sessions were pervaded by
a spirit of devoted loyalty to the civil government, liberality toward
all Christian bodies, and zeal in organizing educational and missionary
agencies throughout the country. An annual National Conference of
Unitarian Churches was appointed for the future. The Convention was
unable to arrive at a common system of belief. The following declaration
of faith was presented by A. A. Low, Esq.:
"_Whereas_, Associate and efficient action can only be expected of those
who agree in certain leading doctrinal statements or positions,
_Resolved_, That without intending any intolerance of individual
opinion, it is the right and duty of this convention to claim of all who
take part in its proceedings, an assent to the fundamental doctrines
hitherto held by the Unitarian body by reason of which it has acquired
its standing in the Christian world, and asserts it lineage in the
Christian Church; and, to this end, this convention declares as
essentially belonging to the Unitarian faith: 1st. Belief in the Holy
Scriptures as containing a revelation from God to man--and, as deduced
therefrom, 2d. Belief in one God, the Father; 3d. Belief in one Lord
Jesus Christ, our Saviour, the Son of God, and his specially appointed
Messenger and Representative to our race, gifted with supernatural
power, "approved of God by miracles and signs and wonders which God did
by him," and thus, by divine authority, commanding the devout and
reverential faith of all who claim the Christian name; 4th. Belief in
the Holy Ghost, the Comforter; 5th. Belief in the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the dead, and life everlasting."
These resolutions were at first laid on the table, but afterward
referred to a special committee. The refusal of the Convention to adopt
them indicates very clearly the unwillingness of a large portion of the
Unitarian clergy of the United States to occupy an evangelical
position.[265]
Closely allied to the Unitarians in spirit and in doctrine are the
Universalists, who date the beginning of their strength in the United
States from the arrival of the Rev. John Murray, in 1770. They unite
with the Unitarians in rejecting the triune character of God, and hold
that their view of the divine unity is as old as the giving of the law
on Sinai. The doctrine of the Trinity is nowhere stated in the
Scriptures, for God would then have given us a religion enveloped in
mystery, which procedure he has studiously avoided. The Trinitarian view
entertained by the orthodox is not only a self-contradiction, but would
be a violation of the harmony and order everywhere perceptible in
nature.[266]
Christ is next to God in excellence; he is "God manifest in the flesh;"
that is, God has given him more of his glory than any other creature has
enjoyed. Christ was simply sent by God to do a certain work, and served
only as a delegate when he spoke and acted as one having authority.[267]
The Holy Spirit exerts an influence upon the heart by purely natural
methods. The new birth is therefore merely the result of ordinary means
for human improvement.
The most important article of the Universalist creed is the final
salvation of all men. The goodness of God is infinite, and therefore he
will save all his rational creatures through Christ, his Son and
Ambassador. Man suffers in this world the natural consequences of his
wayward conduct; but when the penalty is once inflicted, there is no
need of vengeance. The chief end of suffering in the present life is
man's improvement and restoration to perfect happiness. Pain ordained
for its own sake, and perpetuated to all eternity, would be a proof of
infinite malignity. By virtue of God's benevolence, man's suffering has
a beneficent element, and must therefore be temporary and result in
good.[268] When Christ comes to raise the dead, he will relieve from
misery all the sons of men, give them a new life, and take them to
himself.[269]
The adherents of Universalism insist upon philanthropy and the
brotherhood of man. They hold that orthodox theology fosters harsh
notions of God's character, fills the mind with superstition, and is the
source of some of the most flagrant evils of the present age. "We
regret," says one of their writers, "that the acknowledged faith and
opinions have done no more to elevate the affections, and improve the
condition of man. They have utterly failed to correct the heart or the
life. They have disturbed his present peace, and darkened his prospects
for the future. Thousands of the young and innocent have been induced to
relinquish whatever is most beautiful in life--to give up all that
renders religion attractive and divine, for a miserable superstition,
which, like the Upas, fills the very atmosphere with death. I am
reminded that this dark theology, like a great idol, has been rolling
its ponderous car over the world for ages--I follow its desolating
track, by the wreck of noble minds--by the fearful wail of the lost
spirit, and the crushed hopes and affections of those I love! Oh! when I
look at this picture, drawn with the pencil of reality, in all its deep
shadows and startling colors, the brain is oppressed and the heart is
sick; and while I would stifle the inquiry, it finds an utterance:--In
the name of reason, of humanity and heaven, is there no hope for
man?"[270]
This declamatory lament over the theology of the evangelical Christian
church is a repetition of an old skeptical charge. It is the expression
of a spirit similar to that which animated the German Rationalists,
prompted the criticism of Colenso and of the _Essays and Reviews_, and
is now ready to welcome any effort that may promise a revolution of the
popular religious sentiment in Great Britain and the American Republic.
Orthodoxy is unhesitatingly pronounced a public curse. In reply, we
would request our skeptical opponents to remember the historical record
of their principles, as seen in the social convulsions of Germany, in
the immorality and revolutions of France, and in the religious
indifference and prostration of England in the eighteenth century. We
would remind them, further, that orthodox theology has here been in the
ascendant, and that in no land are public morals purer, the laws more
just, humanitarian enterprises better supported, material interests more
progressive, or education better fostered than in the United States. The
American Church laments that her faith has not been stronger and her
zeal more fervent, but her history, with all its dark pages of
hesitation and inefficiency, is the answer which she returns to the
accusations of her Rationalistic opponents. Meanwhile, she proposes to
continue her labor for human salvation, by the promulgation of her
present system of theology, nor will she consider her mission
accomplished until the gospel of Christ has been preached to every
creature.
FOOTNOTES:
[232] Smith, _History of the Church of Christ in Chronological Tables_,
p. 74.
[233] _The Reason of Church Government against Prelacy._ Ch. II.
[234] _History of the Church of Christ, &c._, p. 74.
[235] Baird, _Religion in America_, pp. 547-562.
[236] _Unitarianism in its Actual Condition._ Edited by Rey. J. R.
Beard, D. D. pp. 1-4. London, 1846.
[237] Sprague, _Annals of the American Unitarian Pulpit_. _Historical
Introduction_, p. xii.
[238] Appleton's _American Cyclopædia_. Art. _Wm. Ellery Channing_. W.
L. Symonds, Esq., is the author of this biography.
[239] _Works_, _Introductory Remarks_, p. viii.
[240] Ibid. p. vi.
[241] _Works_, _Introductory Remarks_, pp. xviii-xix.
[242] Ellis, _Half Century of Unitarianism_, p. 34.
[243] These words refer to the great Revival in the winter of 1857-58.
[244] Bellows, _Restatements of Christian Doctrine_, p. 164-165.
[245] _Controversial Sermons_, No. 1.
[246] Orr, _Unitarianism in the Present Time_, pp. 54, 58, 59.
[247] Farley, _Unitarianism Defined_, p. 24.
[248] Farley, _Unitarianism Defined_, p. 26.
[249] Ibid. pp. 122, 123, 136.
[250] Ibid. pp. 156, 157.
[251] Will the Reverend author be kind enough to inform the public of
the name and exact locality of these innocent islanders?
[252] Bellows, _Restatements of Christian Doctrine_, pp. 228-230.
[253] _Works of H. Ware, jr._, vol. iv. p. 91.
[254] Farley, _Unitarianism Defined_, pp. 208-210.
[255] Bellows, _Restatements of Christian Doctrine_, pp. 306, 307.
[256] Orr, _Unitarianism in the Present Time_, p. 8.
[257] F. H. Hedge, D. D.
[258] _Essays and Reviews, Introduction to Boston Edition._
[259] _Religious Aspects of the Age._ Preface, p. 3.
[260] Bellows, in _Religious Aspects of the Age_, pp. 109-111.
[261] Mayo, in _Religious Aspects of the Age_, pp. 68, 69.
[262] Bellows, in _Religious Aspects of the Age_, pp. 102, 103.
[263] Frothingham, Ibid. pp. 121-126.
[264] _Religious Aspects of the Age_, pp. 131-132.
[265] American Unitarianism is numerically decreasing. The most
favorable estimate of its membership (Schem, _Ecclesiastical Year-Book_,
p. 78), is thirty thousand. From Dr. Sprague's _Annals of the American
Unitarian Pulpit_, pp. xx.-xxi., we derive the following statistical
account of its present strength:
There are in the United States about 263 Societies, of which
Massachusetts has 164, and the city of Boston 21; Maine has 16, New
Hampshire 15, Vermont 3, Rhode Island 3, Connecticut 2, New York 13, New
Jersey 1, Pennsylvania 5, Maryland 2, Ohio 5, Illinois 11, Wisconsin 2,
and Missouri, Kentucky, Minnesota, South Carolina, Louisiana,
California, and the District of Columbia, each one. There are about 345
ministers. There are two theological schools, one at Cambridge, founded
1816; the other at Meadville, Pa.; first opened in 1844, and
incorporated in 1846. The Periodicals are, The Christian Examiner,
tri-monthly, Boston; The Monthly Religious Magazine and Independent
Journal, Boston; The Sunday School Gazette, semi-monthly, Boston; The
Christian Register, weekly, Boston; and the Christian Inquirer, weekly,
New York. The missionary and charitable societies are, the American
Unitarian Association, founded in 1825, and incorporated in 1847; the
Unitarian Association of the State of New York; Annual Conference of
Western Unitarian Churches; the Sunday School Society, instituted in
1827, and reorganized in 1854; the Society for promoting Christian
Knowledge, Piety, and Charity, incorporated in 1805; the Massachusetts
Evangelical Missionary Society, instituted in 1807; the Society for
Promoting Theological Education, organized in 1816, and incorporated in
1831; the Society for the Relief of Aged and Destitute Clergymen, formed
in 1848, and incorporated in 1850; the Ministerial Conference; the
Association of Ministers at large in New England, formed in 1850; the
Benevolent Fraternity of Churches of Boston, organized in 1834, and
incorporated in 1839; the Children's Mission to the Children of the
Destitute, Boston, 1849; the Young Men's Christian Union, Boston,
organized in 1851, and incorporated in 1852; the Boston Port Society,
incorporated in 1829; and the Seamen's Aid Society of Boston, formed in
1832.
[266] Williamson, _Exposition and Defense of Universalism_, pp. 11-13.
[267] Skinner, _Universalism Illustrated and Defended_, pp. 51-56.
[268] Appleton's _American Cyclopædia_, Art. _Universalists_.
[269] Williamson, _Exposition and Defense of Universalism_, pp. 140-155.
[270] Brittan, _Universalism as an Idea_, pp. 12, 13. We get the
following statistics concerning the present condition of the
Universalists as a denomination from their Register of 1862: 23 State
Conventions; 87 Local Associations; 1,279 Societies and 998 Churches;
724 Preachers; 8 Academies; 3 Colleges; 17 Periodicals. St. Lawrence
University, N. Y., has a Library of 5,000 vols; and Tuft's College,
Mass., which opened in 1854, one of 10,000 volumes. The Unitarians excel
the Universalists in humanitarian efforts, but the latter surpass the
former in periodical literature.