Trinitarian views of man’s connections with God injurious to Christian
perfection, inasmuch as they throw the minds which receive them out of
harmony with the realities of God, and must therefore undergo future
correction and re-adjustment, still our strongest objection to the
Trinitarian scheme is the fundamental one that it is based upon
principles of exclusiveness, upon the indispensable conditions of a
narrow and technical creed, and that thus it is the parent and fomenter
of all those dissensions and practical evils in religion which these
times witness and deplore. How many has orthodoxy persecuted into a
hatred for the very name of religion? In how many minds has it darkened,
or mixed up with the most incongruous associations, the beautiful image
of Christ, destroying its healing and persuasive power? O! why should it
be, except for this Trinitarian scheme of an Exclusive Salvation, that
Religion should be directing her whole energies to the support of
creeds, instead of going about doing good, and with her heavenly spirit
entering into conflict with the moral evils that afflict society, and
degrade man, and rebel against God? Why is it, that instead of this, we
have a distinct class of sufferings, that go under the name of religious
evils? Why is it that we are here holding controversy with our
fellow-Christians, instead of uniting our spirit and our strength to
work the works of Christ? We wage not this controversy for the purpose
of aiding a sect; but we wage it, to do what we can to expose and put
down universally the sectarian spirit. The great evils of society, the
crying wrongs of Man, are mainly owing to this diversion of Religion
from spiritual and practical objects to the strife of tongues and
Salvation by creeds. What is the Religion of this country doing?
Contending for creeds. What ought it to be doing? Spreading the spirit
of the life of Christ through the hearts of men and the institutions of
society. How long are these things to be? How long are the spiritual
influences of this country to be all consumed in striving with heresies
instead of striving with sins; leaving untouched the bad heart of
society, whilst wrangling for a metaphysical faith? Look to the
religious apparatus of this country. Look to the number of pulpits that
should send forth the spiritual influences of righteousness and peace;
and the number of men that should move through society apostles of the
beneficence of Christ.
Suppose all this strength directed to practical and spiritual objects,
and could the things that are, remain as they are, if the religious
forces of the country, instead of being exclusive, doctrinal,
controversial, were full of the love of Jesus, and sought simply to
establish the kingdom of Heaven upon Earth! Could Religion excite the
angry passions that she does, if her aims were spiritual and not
doctrinal? Could Religion be divorced as she is from practical life, and
confined to a class kept under powerful stimulants, and called the
“religious public,” if her aims were spiritual and not doctrinal? Could
Religion leave the people neglected and without education, practical
Heathens, while she is settling her creeds, if her aims were spiritual
and not doctrinal? Could Religion have left unpurified the streams and
sources of public morality, if her aims were spiritual and not
doctrinal? Could she have suffered War still to disgrace the world, and
not long since have extinguished the Earthborn passion by the Heavenly
spirit and the moral instrument, if the direction of her energies had
been spiritual and not controversial? Could she have shown so little
interest in the great mass of the people? Could she have abandoned them
to ignorance and grinding oppressions and not raised her omnipotent
voice on their behalf? Could she have so separated herself from the real
business of life and left the moralities of intercourse unsanctified
whilst she remained unsympathizing and cloistered? Every friend to
practical religion has an interest in destroying this exclusive
Theology, which turns away from the works of love to the war of creeds.
If then we preach Unitarianism, it is that we may win men’s hearts to
the one Spirit who pervades all things, and harmonizes all things, and
sends all blessings, and sanctifies all thoughts, all duties, and all
times. If we preach the man Christ Jesus, the word made flesh, it is
that we too may sanctify our nature, and make it a temple for the living
God, and grow up into him in all things who is our head, even Christ. If
we preach Salvation, not by creeds, but by the spirit of Christ in us,
the hope of glory, it is that our fitness for Heaven may commence on
Earth; that we may live now as those who when they have slept the brief
sleep of death shall awake in the presence of Christ and God, and find
themselves in that Heaven wherein dwelleth righteousness. And if we
preach not indiscriminate happiness and indiscriminate tortures in
futurity, but the just retributions of God, it is that we may redeem the
time, remembering that each moment lost throws us back on the heavenly
way, that there is an infinite perfection before us, providing work for
our infinite capacities through an immortal life; that God is faithful
and inflexible in his retributions; that no virtue shall be without its
reward, no sin without its woe; that we shall be judged according to our
works, and reap what we have sown.
To sum up, the two great principles of Unitarianism are these:—
I. Spiritual allegiance to Christ as the image of God. “Whom we preach,
warning every man, and teaching every man in all wisdom; that we may
present every man perfect in Christ Jesus.”
II. Spiritual liberty from ought besides; Creeds, Traditions, Rituals,
or Priests. “False brethren, unawares brought in, who came in privily to
spy out our liberty which we have in Christ Jesus, that they might bring
us into bondage: to whom we gave place by subjection, no, not for an
hour; that the truth of the gospel might continue with you.”
APPENDIX.
---------------------
NOTE 1, page 14.
“The free and unprejudiced mind dwells with delight on the image of the
universal church or convocation of Christ, as it would naturally have
grown ‘into the fulness of the body’ of its glorious founder * * * *
“And what (let me earnestly and solemnly ask) has hitherto turned this
view into a mocking dream,—a dream that deludes by images which are the
very reverse of the sad realities which surround us? ORTHODOXY;—the
notion that the eternal happiness or misery of individuals is intimately
connected with the acceptance or rejection of a most obscure system of
metaphysics; a system perplexing in the extreme to those who are best
acquainted with its former technical, now obsolete language, and
perfectly unintelligible to the rest of the Christian world: a system
which, to say the least, _seems_ to contradict the simplest and most
primitive notions of the human mind concerning the unity, the justice,
and the goodness of the Supreme Being; a system which, if it be
contained in the Scriptures, has been laid under so thick and
impenetrable a veil, that thousands who have sought to discover it, with
the most eager desire of finding it, whose happiness in this world would
have been greatly increased by that discovery, and who, at all events,
would have escaped much misery had they been able to attest it, even on
the grounds of probability sufficient to acquit themselves before their
own conscience, have been compelled, by truth, to confess their want of
success. Yet Orthodoxy declares this very system identical with
Christianity—with that Gospel which was ‘preached to the poor,’ and
‘revealed unto babes;’ such a system, we are told, is that faith which,
‘_except every one keep whole and undefiled, without doubt he shall
perish everlastingly_.’”—_Heresy and Orthodoxy, by Rev. J. Blanco
White._
NOTE 2, page 18.
“What do divines understand by _Christian Truth_? The answer, at first,
appears obvious. ‘Christian truth (it will be said) is what Christ and
his apostles knew and taught concerning Salvation under the Gospel.’
Thus far we find no difficulty; but (let me ask, again) where does this
exist as an object _external_ to our minds? The answer appears no less
obvious than the former: ‘In the Bible.’ Still I must ask, Is the
MATERIAL Bible the Christian truth about which Christians dispute? No:
it will be readily said not the MATERIAL Bible, but the SENSE of the
Bible. Now (I beg to know) is the SENSE of the Bible an object
_external_ to our minds? Does any _Sense_ of the Bible, accessible to
man, exist anywhere but in the mind of each man who receives it from the
words he reads? The Divine mind certainly knows in what sense those
words were used; but as we cannot compare our mental impressions with
that model and original of all truth, it is clear that by the SENSE of
the Bible we must mean our own sense of its meaning. When therefore any
man declares his intention to defend _Christian truth_, he only
expresses his determination to defend his _own notions_, as produced by
the words of the Bible. No other _Christian truth_ exists for us in our
present state.”—_Heresy and Orthodoxy._
NOTE 3, page 22.
“If different men in carefully and conscientiously examining the
Scriptures, should arrive at different conclusions, even on points of
the last importance, we trust that God, who alone knows what every man
is capable of, will be merciful to him that is in error. We trust that
He will pardon the Unitarian, if he be in error, because he has fallen
into it from the dread of becoming an idolater—of giving that glory to
another which he conceives to be due to God alone. If the worshipper of
Jesus Christ be in error, we trust that God will pardon his mistake,
because he has fallen into it from the dread of disobeying what he
conceives to be revealed concerning the nature of the Son, or commanded
concerning the honor to be given him. Both are actuated by the same
principle—the fear of God; and though that principle impels them into
different roads, it is our hope and belief, that if they add to their
faith _charity_, they will meet in Heaven.”—_Watson._
“We should learn to be cautious, lest we _charge God foolishly_, by
ascribing that to him, or the Nature he has given us, which is owing
wholly to our own abuse of it. Men may speak of the degeneracy and
corruption of the world, according to the experience they have had of
it; but human nature, considered as the divine workmanship, should,
methinks, be treated as sacred: for _in the image of God made he
man_.”—_Bishop Butler._
NOTE 4, page 24.
“But, if ORTHODOXY cannot be the principle of union among _Christians_,
upon what are men to agree in order to belong to the CONVOCATION, or
people of Christ? I believe that the Apostle Paul has said enough to
answer this question. When by using the word _anathema_, he rejects from
his spiritual society even an angel from Heaven, were it possible that
such a being should “preach another gospel,” he lays down the only
principle, without which there can be no communion among Christians.
Unhappily the word GOSPEL, like the word FAITH, is constantly understood
as expressing a certain number of dogmatical articles. Owing to this
perversion of the original meaning, these very passages of Paul are
conceived to support the long-established notion that Orthodoxy is the
only condition of Christian communion; and want of it, a sufficient
cause for _anathema_. I have, however, already proved, that Orthodoxy,
without a supreme judge of religious opinions, is a phantom; and since
it is demonstrable that no such judge has been appointed, it clearly
follows that the Apostle Paul, by the name of _Gospel_, could not mean a
string of dogmatic assertions. It is necessary, therefore, to ascend to
the original signification of the word Gospel, if we are not to
misunderstand the reason of the anathema pronounced by Paul. Let such as
wish to rise above the clouds of theological prejudice, remember that
the whole mystery of godliness is described by the expression ‘glad
tidings.’ _Sad_, not glad tidings, indeed, would have been the Apostles’
preaching, if they had announced a salvation depending on _Orthodoxy_,
for (as I have said before) it would have been a salvation depending on
chance. But salvation promised on condition of a change of mind from the
love of sin to the love of God (which is _repentance_); on a surrender
of the individual will to the will of God, according to the view of that
divine will which is obtained by trust in Christ’s example and teaching,
which is _faith_; a pardon of sins independent of harassing religious
practices, sacrifices, and ascetic privations—these were ‘glad tidings
of great joy,’ indeed, to all who, caring for their souls, felt
bewildered between atheism and superstition.”—_Heresy and Orthodoxy._
NOTE 5, page 27.
“Men want an object of worship like themselves, and the great secret of
idolatry lies in this propensity. A God, clothed in our form, and
feeling our wants and sorrows, speaks to our weak nature more strongly,
than a Father in Heaven, a pure spirit, invisible and unapproachable,
save by the reflecting and purified mind. We think, too, that the
peculiar offices ascribed to Jesus by the popular theology, make him the
most attractive person in the Godhead. The Father is the depositary of
the justice, the vindicator of the rights, the avenger of the laws of
the Divinity. On the other hand, the Son, the brightness of the divine
mercy, stands between the incensed Deity and guilty humanity, exposes
his meek head to the storms, and his compassionate breast to the sword
of the divine justice, bears our whole load of punishment, and purchases
with his blood every blessing which descends from Heaven. Need we state
the effect of these representations, especially on common minds, for
whom Christianity was chiefly designed, and whom it seeks to bring to
the Father as the loveliest being? We do believe, that the worship of a
bleeding, suffering God, tends strongly to absorb the mind, and to draw
it from other objects, just as the human tenderness of the Virgin Mary
has given her so conspicuous a place in the devotions of the Church of
Rome. We believe, too, that this worship, though attractive, is not most
fitted to spiritualize the mind, that it awakens human transports,
rather than that deep veneration of the moral perfections of God, which
is the essence of piety.
“We are told, also, that Christ is a more interesting object, that his
love and mercy are more felt, when he is viewed as the Supreme God, who
left his glory to take humanity and to suffer for men. That Trinitarians
are strongly moved by this representation, we do not mean to deny; but
we think their emotions altogether founded on a misapprehension of their
own doctrines. They talk of the second person of the Trinity’s leaving
his glory and his Father’s bosom to visit and save the world. But this
second person being the unchangeable and infinite God, was evidently
incapable of parting with the least degree of his perfection and
felicity. At the moment of his taking flesh, he was as intimately
present with his Father as before, and equally with his Father filled
heaven, and earth, and immensity. This Trinitarians acknowledge; and
still they profess to be touched and overwhelmed by the amazing
humiliation of this immutable being! But not only does their doctrine,
when fully explained, reduce Christ’s humiliation to a fiction, it
almost wholly destroys the impressions with which his cross ought to be
viewed. According to their doctrine, Christ was, comparatively, no
sufferer at all. It is true his human mind suffered; but this, they tell
us, was an infinitely small part of Jesus, bearing no more proportion to
his whole nature, than a single hair of our heads to the whole body, or
than a drop to the ocean. The divine mind of Christ, that which was more
properly himself, was infinitely happy, at the very moment of the
suffering of his humanity; whilst hanging on the cross, he was the
happiest being in the universe, as happy as the infinite Father; so that
his pains, compared with his felicity, were nothing. This Trinitarians
do, and must acknowledge. It follows necessarily from the immutableness
of the divine nature, which they ascribe to Christ; so that their system
justly viewed, robs his death of interest, weakens our sympathy with his
sufferings, and is, of all others, most unfavourable to a love of
Christ, founded on a sense of his sacrifices for mankind. We esteem our
own views to be vastly more affecting. It is our belief, that Christ’s
humiliation was real and entire, that the whole Saviour and not a part
of him suffered, that his crucifixion was a scene of deep and unmixed
agony. As we stand round his cross, our minds are not distracted, nor
our sensibility weakened by contemplating him as composed of incongruous
and infinitely differing minds, and as having a balance of infinite
felicity. We recognize in the dying Jesus but one mind. This, we think,
renders his sufferings, and his patience, and love, in bearing them;
incomparably more impressive and affecting, than the system we
oppose.”—_Channing._
NOTE 6, Page 29.
“We believe, too, that this system is unfavourable to the character. It
naturally leads men to think that Christ came to change God’s mind,
rather than their own; that the highest object of his mission was to
avert punishment rather than to communicate holiness; and that a large
part of religion consists in disparaging good works and human virtue,
for the purpose of magnifying the value of Christ’s vicarious
sufferings. In this way, a sense of the infinite importance and
indispensable necessity of personal improvement is weakened, and high
sounding praises of Christ’s cross seem often to be substituted for
obedience to his precepts. For ourselves, we have not so learned Jesus.
Whilst we gratefully acknowledge that he came to rescue us from
punishment, we believe that he was sent on a still nobler errand,
namely, to deliver us from sin itself, and to form us to a sublime and
heavenly virtue. We regard him as a Saviour, chiefly as he is the light,
physician, and guide of the dark, diseased, and wandering mind. No
influence in the universe seems to us so glorious as that over the
character; and no redemption so worthy of thankfulness as the
restoration of the soul to purity. Without this, pardon, if it were
possible, would be of little value. Why pluck the sinner from hell, if a
hell be left to burn in his own breast? Why raise him to heaven, if he
remain a stranger to its sanctity and love? With these impressions, we
are accustomed to value the gospel chiefly as it abounds in effectual
aids, motives, excitements to a generous and divine virtue. In this
virtue, as in a common centre, we see all its doctrines, precepts,
promises meet; and we believe that faith in this religion is of no
worth, and contributes nothing to salvation, any further than as it uses
these doctrines, precepts, promises, and the whole life, character,
sufferings and triumphs of Jesus, as the means of purifying the mind, of
changing it into the likeness of his celestial excellence.”—_Channing._
NOTE 7, page 37.
“I can direct you to nothing in Christ more important than his tried,
and victorious, and perfect goodness. Others may love Christ for his
mysterious attributes; I love him for the rectitude of his soul and
life. I love him for that benevolence which went through Judea,
instructing the ignorant, healing the sick, giving sight to the blind. I
love him for that universal charity which comprehended the despised
publican, the hated Samaritan, the benighted heathen, and sought to
bring a world to God and to happiness. I love him for that gentle, mild,
forbearing spirit, which no insult, outrage, injury, could overpower;
and which desired as earnestly the repentance and happiness of its foes
as the happiness of its friends. I love him for the spirit of
magnanimity, constancy, and fearless rectitude with which, amid peril
and opposition, he devoted himself to the work which God gave him to do.
I love him for the wise and enlightened zeal with which he espoused the
true, the spiritual interests of mankind, and through which he lived and
died to redeem them from every sin, to frame them after his own God-like
virtue. I love him, I have said, for his moral excellence; I know
nothing else to love. I know nothing so glorious in the Creator or his
creatures. This is the greatest gift which God bestows, the greatest to
be derived from his Son. You see why I call you to cherish the love of
Christ. This love I do not recommend as a luxury of feeling, as an
exstasy bringing immediate and overflowing joy. I view it in a nobler
light; I call you to love Jesus, that you may bring yourselves into
contact and communion with perfect virtue, and may become what you love.
I know no sincere, enduring good, but the moral excellence that shines
forth in Jesus Christ. Your health, your outward comforts and
distinctions, are poor, mean, contemptible, compared with this; and to
prefer them to this is self-debasement, self-destruction. May this great
truth penetrate our souls; and may we bear witness in our common lives,
and especially in trial, in sore temptation, that nothing is so dear to
us as the virtue of Christ! * * *
“Thus Jesus lived with men; with the consciousness of unutterable
majesty he joined a lowliness, gentleness, humanity, and sympathy, which
have no example in human history. I ask you to contemplate this
wonderful union. In proportion to the superiority of Jesus to all around
him was the intimacy, the brotherly love, with which he bound himself to
them. I maintain, that this is a character wholly remote from human
conception. To imagine it to be the production of imposture or
enthusiasm, shows a strange unsoundness of mind. I contemplate it with a
veneration second only to the profound awe with which I look up to God.
It bears no mark of human invention. It was real. It belonged to, and it
manifested, the beloved Son of God.
“But I have not done. May I ask your attention a few moments more? We
have not yet reached the depth of Christ’s character. We have not
touched the great principle on which his wonderful sympathy was founded,
and which endeared him to his office of universal Saviour. Do you ask
what this deep principle was? I answer, it was his conviction of the
greatness of the human soul. He saw in man the impress and image of the
Divinity, and therefore thirsted for his redemption; and took the
tenderest interest in him, whatever might be the rank, character, or
condition in which he was found. This spiritual view of man pervades and
distinguishes the teaching of Christ. Jesus looked on men with an eye
which pierced beneath the material frame. The body vanished before him.
The trappings of the rich, the rags of the poor, were nothing to him. He
looked through them, as though they did not exist, to the soul; and
there, amidst clouds of ignorance and plague-spots of sin, he recognized
a spiritual and immortal nature, and the germs of power and perfection
which might be unfolded for ever. In the most fallen and depraved man,
he saw a being who might become an angel of light. Still more, he felt
that there was nothing in himself to which men might not ascend. His own
lofty consciousness did not sever him from the multitude; for he saw, in
his own greatness, the model of what men might become. So deeply was he
thus impressed, that again and again, in speaking of his future glories,
he announced that in these his true followers were to share. They were
to sit on his throne, and partake of his beneficent power. Here I pause;
and I know not, indeed, what can be added to heighten the wonder,
reverence, and love which are due to Jesus. When I consider him not only
as possessed with the consciousness of an unexampled and unbounded
majesty, but as recognizing a kindred nature in all human beings, and
living and dying to raise them to an anticipation of his divine glories;
and when I see him, under these views, allying himself to men by the
tenderest ties, embracing them with a spirit of humanity, which no
insult, injury, or pain could for a moment repel or overpower, I am
filled with wonder, as well as reverence and love. I feel that this
character is not of human invention, that it was not assumed through
fraud, or struck out by enthusiasm; for it is infinitely above their
reach. When I add this character of Jesus to the other evidences of his
religion, it gives to what before seemed so strong a new and vast
accession of strength; I feel as if I could not be deceived. The Gospels
must be true; they were drawn from a living original; they were founded
on reality. The character of Christ is not fiction; he was what he
claimed to be, and what his followers attested. Nor is this all. Jesus
not only _was_, he is still, the Son of God,—the Saviour of the world.
He exists now; he has entered that Heaven to which he always looked
forward on earth. There he lives and reigns. With a clear, calm faith, I
see him in that state of glory; and I confidently expect, at no distant
period, to see him face to face. We have, indeed, no absent friend whom
we shall so surely meet. Let us then, by imitations of his virtues, and
obedience to his word, prepare ourselves to join him in those pure
mansions where he is surrounding himself with the good and pure of our
race, and will communicate to them for ever his own spirit, power, and
joy.”—_Channing._
NOTE 8, Page 38.