UNITARIANISM.

THROUGH the lack of having made themselves familiar with the matter,

there is a common and, I think, a widespread impression among people

generally that Unitarianism is a new-fangled notion, a modern fad, a

belief held only by a few, who are one side of the main currents of

religious life and advance.

Even if it were new, even if it were confined to the modern world, this

would not necessarily be anything against it. The Copernican theory of

the universe is new, is modern. So are most of the great discoveries

that characterize and glorify the present age.

But in the case of Unitarianism this cannot be said. It is not new: it

is very old. And, before I come to discuss and outline a few of its

great principles, it seems to me well that we should get in our minds a

background of historic thought, that we may see a little what are the

sources and origins of this Unitarianism, and may understand why it is

that there is a new and modern birth of it in the modern world.

All races start very far away from any Monotheistic or Unitarian

belief. The Hebrews are no exception to that rule. The early part of

the Bible shows very plain traces of the fact that the Jews were

polytheists and nature-worshippers. If I should translate literally the

first verse of the Bible, it would read in this way: In the beginning

the Strong Ones created the heavens and the earth. "The word that we

have translated God is in the plural; and I have already given you its

meaning. This is only a survival, a trace, of that primeval belief

which the Jews shared with all the rest of the world."

From this polytheistic position the people took a step forward to a

state of mind which Professor Max Muller calls henotheism; that is,

they believed in the real existence of many gods, but that they were

under allegiance to only one, their national Deity, and that him only

they must serve.

I suppose this state of thought was maintained throughout the larger

part of the history of the Hebrew nation. You will find traces

constantly, in the early part of the Old Testament, at any rate, of the

belief of the people in the other gods, and their constant tendency to

fall away to the worship of these other gods. But by and by all this

was outgrown, and left behind; and the Hebrew people came to occupy a

position of monotheism, spiritual monotheism, that is, they were

passionate Unitarians, so far as the meaning of that word is concerned.

Though, of course, I would not have you understand that many, perhaps

most, of the principles which are held today under the name of

Unitarian were known to them at that time, or would have been accepted,

had they been known.

In the sense, however, of believing in the oneness of God, they were

Unitarians.

Now, when Christianity comes into the world, what shall we say? It is

the assumption on the part of most of the old- time churches that Jesus

made it perfectly plain to his disciples that he was a divine being,

that he claimed to be one himself, and that the claim was recognized.

So far, however, as any authentic record with which we are familiar

goes, Jesus himself was a Unitarian. All the disciples were Unitarians.

Paul was a Unitarian. The New Testament is a Unitarian book from

beginning to end. The finest critics of the world will tell you that

there is no trace of any other teaching there. And so, for the first

three hundred years of the history of the Church, Unitarianism was its

prevailing doctrine.

I have no very good memory for names. So I have brought here a little

leaflet which contains some that I wish to speak of. Among the Church

Fathers, Clement, Polycarp, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Origen, and

Lactantius, all of them in their writings make it perfectly clear and

unquestioned that the belief of the Church, the majority belief for the

first three centuries, was Unitarian. Of course, the process of thought

here and there was going on which finally culminated in the doctrine of

the Trinity. That is, people were beginning more and more to exalt, as

they supposed, the character, the office, the mission of Jesus; coming

more and more to believe that he was something other than a man, that

he was above and beyond humanity.

But one other among the Fathers, Justin Martyr, one of the best known

of all, takes care to point out explicitly his belief. I will read you

just two or three words from it. He says: "There is a Lord of the Lord

Jesus, being his Father and God, and the Cause of his existence."

This belief, then, was universal, practically universal, throughout the

first three centuries. But the process of growth was going on which

finally culminated in the controversy which was settled by the Council

of Nicaea, held in the early part of the fourth century; that is, the

year 325. The leaders of this controversy, as you know, were Arius, on

the Unitarian side, and Athanasius, fighting hard for the doctrine then

new in the Church, of the Trinity.

The majority of the bishops and leading men of the Church at that time

were on the side of Arius; but at last the Emperor Constantine settled

the dispute. Now you know that the sceptre of a despotic emperor may

not reason, may not think; but it is weightier than either reason or

thought in the settlement of a controversy like this at such a period

in the history of the world. So Constantine settled the controversy in

favor of the Trinitarians; and henceforth you need not wonder that

Unitarianism did not grow, for it was mercilessly repressed and crushed

out for the next thousand years.

Unitarianism, however, is not alone in this. Let me call your attention

to a fact of immense significance in this matter. All this time the

study of science and philosophy, that dared to think beyond the limits

of the Church's doctrine, were crushed out. There was no free

philosophy, there was no free study of science, there was no free

anything for a thousand years. The secular armed forces of Europe, with

penalties of imprisonment, of the rack, of the fagot, of torture of

every kind, were enlisted against anything like liberty of thinking.

So you need not wonder, then, that there was neither any science nor

any Unitarianism to be heard of until the Renaissance. What was the

Renaissance? It was the rising again of human liberty, the possibility

once more of man's freedom to think and study. Though the armed forces

of Europe were for a long time against it, the rising tide could not be

entirely rolled back, and so it gained on human thought and human life

more and more. And out of this the Renaissance came, the new birth of

science, on the one hand, and on the other, issuing in the

Reformation's assertion of the right of thought and of private judgment

in matters of religion; and along with this latter the rebirth of

Unitarianism, its reappearance again as a force in the history of the

world.

During this Reformation period there are many names of light and power,

among them being Servetus, whom Calvin burned because he was a

Unitarian; Laelius and Faustus Socinus, Bernardino Ochino, Blandrata,

and Francis David; and, more noted in some ways than any of them,

Giordano Bruno, the man who represents the dawn of the modern world

more significantly than any other man of his age, not entirely a

Unitarian, but fighting a battle out of which Unitarianism sprung,

freedom of thought, the right of private judgment, the scientific study

of the universe, the attempt, unhampered by the Church's dogma or

power, to understand the world in which we live.

As a result of this Renaissance, what happened? Let me run over very

rapidly the condition of things in Europe at the present time, with

some glances back, that you may see that Unitarianism has played just

as large a part as you could expect it to play, larger and grander than

you could expect it, considering the conditions.

In Hungary, one of the few countries where freedom of thought in

religion has been permitted, there has been a grand organization of the

Unitarian Church for more than three hundred years, not only churches,

but a Unitarianism that has controlled colleges and universities and

directed the growth of learning.

Let us look to the North. In Sweden and Norway it is still a crime to

organize a church that teaches that Jesus is not God. So we may expect

to find no Unitarian churches there; though there are many and noble

Unitarian men, thinkers and teachers. Come to Germany. There are no

organized Unitarian churches under that name here; but there is a

condition of things that is encouraging for us to note. There is a

union of the Protestant organizations, in which the liberals, or

Unitarians, are free, and have their part without any question as to

their doctrine.

There are hundreds and thousands of Unitarians in South Germany. In the

city of Bremen I called on a clergyman who had translated one of my

books, and found out from him the condition of things there. The

cathedral of Bremen has half a dozen different preachers attached to

it. Some of them are orthodox, and some are Unitarian, all perfectly

free; living happily together in this way, and the people at liberty to

come and listen to which one of them they choose. This is not an

uncommon thing in Germany. That is the condition of things, then,

there.

In Holland there are no Unitarian churches, no churches going by that

name; but there are thousands of Unitarians particularly among the

educated and leading men, and one university, that of Leyden, entirely

in control of the liberal religious leaders of the country.

When you come to France, which you know is dominantly Catholic, you

still find a large body of Protestants; but one wing of their great

organization is virtually if not out and out Unitarian. And a few of

the most noted preachers of the modern time in France have been

Unitarians. I have had correspondence with men there which showed that

they were perfectly in sympathy with our aims, our purposes, our work.

In Transylvania and Poland there were large numbers of Unitarian

churches which were afterwards crushed out.

You find, then, all over Europe, all over civilization, just as much

Unitarianism as you would expect to find, when you consider the

questions as to whether the law permits it and as to whether the people

are educated and free.

I should like, not for the sake of boasting, but simply that you may

see that you are in good company, to mention the names of some of those

who are foremost in our thought. Take Mazzini, the great leader of

Italy; take Castelar, one of the greatest men in modern Spain; take

Kossuth, the flaming patriot of Hungary, all Unitarian men.

Now let us come a step nearer home: let us consider England, and note

that just the moment free thought was allowed, you find Unitarianism

springing into existence. Milton was a Unitarian; Locke, one of the

greatest of English philosophers, a Unitarian; Dr. Lardner, one of its

most famous theological scholars, a Unitarian; Sir Isaac Newton, one of

the few names that belong to the highest order of those which have made

the earth glorious, a Unitarian.

And, then, when we come to later England, we find another great

scientist, comparatively modern, Dr. Priestley, who, coming to this

country after he had made the discovery of oxygen which made him famous

for all time, established the first Unitarian church in our neighbor

city of Philadelphia.

The first Unitarian church which took that name in the modern world was

organized in London by Dr. Theophilus Lindsey in 1774; and its

establishment coincides with the great outburst of freedom that

distinguished the close of the eighteenth century.

You must not look for Unitarians where there is no liberty; for it is a

cardinal principle of their thought and their life.

Soon after the London movement, the first Unitarian church in this

country was organized, or rather the first Unitarian church came into

existence. It was the old King's Chapel of Boston, an Anglican church,

which came out and took the name Unitarian.

There is a very bright saying in connection with this old church, which

I will pause long enough to repeat, because there is a principle in it

as well as a great deal of wit. They kept there the old English church

service, except that it was purged, according to their point of view,

from all Trinitarian belief. It is said that Dr. Bellows, who was

attending a service there some years ago, had with him an English

gentleman as a visitor. This man picked up the service, looked it over,

and, turning to Dr. Bellows, with a sarcastic look on his face, said,

"Ah I see that you have here the Church of England service watered."

Whereupon Dr. Bellows, with his power of ready wit, replied, No, my

dear sir, not watered, washed. King's Chapel, then, was the first

Unitarian church in this country. But the number grew rapidly, and in a

few years perhaps half, or more than half, of the old historic Puritan

and Pilgrim churches in New England had become Unitarian, including in

that number the old First Church of Plymouth.

Now, before I go on to discuss the principles underlying our movement,

I wish to call your attention to a few more names; and I trust you will

pardon me for this. There is no desire for vain-glory in the

enumeration. I simply wish that people should know, what only a few do

know, who have been Unitarians in the past, and what great names,

leading authoritative names in the world's literature and science and

art, find here their place.

Among the Fathers of the Revolution, all the Adamses, Dr. Franklin,

Thomas Jefferson, and many another were avowed Unitarians. And, when we

come to modern times, it is worth your noting that all our great poets

in this country, Bryant, Longfellow, Whittier, Holmes, Lowell, and in

this city Stedman, are Unitarian names.

Then the leading historians, Bancroft, Motley, Prescott, Sparks,

Palfrey, Parkman, and John Fiske, are Unitarians. Educators, like

Horace Mann, like the last seven presidents of Harvard University,

Unitarians. Great scientists, like Agassiz, Peirce, Bowditch, Professor

Draper, Unitarians. Statesmen and public men, like Webster, Calhoun,

the Adamses, the Hoars, Curtis. Two of our great chief justices,

Marshall and Parsons. Supreme Court Judges, Story and Miller. Literary

men, like Whipple, Hawthorne, Ripley, and Bayard Taylor; and eminent

women, such as Margaret Fuller, Lydia Maria Child, Lucretia Mott, Helen

Hunt Jackson, Mrs. Mary A. Livermore, and Mrs. Julia Ward Howe.

I mention these, that you may know the kind of men, ethical,

scientific, judicial, political, literary, who have been distinguished,

as we think from our point of view, by being followers of this grand

faith of ours.

And now I wish you to note again, what I hinted at a moment ago, that

it is not an accident that Unitarianism should spring into being in the

modern world coincidently with the great movements of liberty in France

and England, and the outburst that culminated in our own Revolution and

the establishment here of a State without a king as well as of a church

without a bishop.

Wherever you have liberty and education, there you have the raw

materials out of which to make the free, forward looker in religious

thought and life.

Now what are the three principles out of which Unitarianism is born?

First, I have already intimated it, but I wish to emphasize it again

for a moment with an addition, Liberty. Humanity at last had come to a

time in its history when it had asserted its right to be free; not only

to cast off fetters that hampered the body, not only to dethrone the

despots that made liberty impossible in the State, but to think in the

realm of religion, to believe it more honorable to God to think than to

cringe and be afraid in his presence.

Second, coincident with the birth of Unitarianism is an enlargement and

a reassertion of the conscience of mankind. A demand for justice. Just

think for a moment, and take it home to your hearts, that up to the

time when this free religious life was born, according to the teaching

of all the old creeds, justice and right had been one thing here among

men and another thing enthroned in the heavens. The idea has always

been that might made right, that God, because he was God, had a right

to do anything, though it controverted and contradicted all the ideas

of human righteousness; and that we still must bow in the dust, and

accept it as true.

If I could be absolutely sure that God had done something which

contradicted my conscience, I should say that probably my conscience

was wrong. I should wait at any rate, and try to find out. But, when I

find that the condition of things is simply this, that certain

fallible, unjust, uneducated, barbaric people have said that God has

done certain things, then it is another matter. I have no direct word

from God: I have only the report of men whose authority I have no

adequate reason to accept.

At any rate, the world came to the point where it demanded that

goodness on earth should be goodness up in heaven, too; that God should

at least be as just and fair as we expect men to be. And that, if you

will think it out a little carefully, is enough to revolutionize the

theology of the world; for the picture of the character of God as

contained in the old theologies is even horribly unjust, as judged by

any human standard.

In the third place, Unitarianism sprang out of a new elevation of love

and tenderness. As men became more and more civilized, they became more

tender-hearted; and they found it impossible to believe that the Father

in, heaven should not be as kind and loving as the best father on

earth.

And here, again, if you think it out, you will find that this is enough

to compel a revolution of all the old theological ideas of the world.

Just as soon, then, as the civilized modern world became free, there

was a new expansion of the sense of the right to think; there was a new

expansion of conscience, the insistent demand for justice; there was a

new expansion of tenderness and love; and out of these, characterized

by these, having these in one sense for its very soul and body, came

Unitarianism.

Now another point. It is commonly assumed by those who have not studied

the matter that, because Unitarians have no printed and published

creed, they are all abroad in their thinking. They take this for

granted; and so it is assumed by people who speak to me on the subject.

They think that there must be just as many views of things as there are

individuals.

If there are any persons here having this idea, perhaps I shall

astonish them by the statement I am going to make. After more than

twenty years of experience as a Unitarian minister, I have come to the

conviction that there is not a body of Christians in the world to-day,

not Catholic or Presbyterian or Methodist or Congregational or any

other, that is so united in its purposes, not only, but in its beliefs,

as these very Unitarians.

And the fact is perfectly natural. Take the scientific men of the

world. They do not expect a policeman after them if they do not hold

certain scientific opinions. There is no authority to try them for

heresy or to turn them out of your society unless they hold certain

scientific ideas. They have no sense of compulsion except to find and

accept that which they discover to be true. The one aim of science is

the truth. There is no motive for anything else.

And truth being one, mark you, and they being free to seek for it, and

all of them caring simply for that, they naturally come together,

inevitably come together. So that, without any external power or

orthodox compulsion, the scientific men of the world are substantially

at one as to all the great principles. They discuss minor matters; but,

when they discuss, they are simply hunting for a deeper truth, not

trying to conquer each other.

Now Unitarians are precisely in this position. The only thing any of us

desire is the truth. We are perfectly free to seek for the truth; and,

the truth being one, we naturally tend towards it, and, tending towards

it, we come together. So there is, as I said, greater unanimity of

opinion in regard to the great essential points among Unitarians than

among any other body in Christendom.

Now, as briefly as I can, I want to analyze what I regard as the

fundamental principles of Unitarianism. I am not going to give you a

creed, I am not going to give you my creed: I am going to give you the

great fundamental principles which characterize and distinguish

Unitarians.

First, liberty, freedom of the individual to think, think as he will or

think as he must; but not liberty for the sake of itself. Liberty for

the sake of finding the truth; for we believe that people will be more

likely to find the truth if they are free to search for it than they

will if they are threatened or frightened, or if they are compelled to

come to certain preordained conclusions that have been settled for

them. Freedom, then, for the sake of finding the truth.

Second, God. The deep-down conviction that wisdom, power, love, that

is, God, is at the heart of the universe. Third, that God is not only

wisdom and power and love, but that he is the universal Father, not

merely the Father of the elect, not merely the Father of Christians,

not merely the Father of civilized people, but the Father of all men,

equally, lovingly, tenderly the Father of all men.

In the next place, being the Father of all men, he would naturally wish

to have them find the truth. So we believe in revelation. Not in

revelation confined to one book or one epoch in the history of the

world, though we do not deny the revelation contained in them. We

believe that all truth, through whatever medium it comes to the world,

is in so far a revelation of our Father; and it is infallible

revelation when it is demonstrably true, and not otherwise.

The next step, then: in the words of Lucretia Mott, we believe that

truth should be taken for authority, and not authority for truth. The

only authority in the world is the truth. The only thing to which

intellectually a free Unitarian can afford to bow is ascertained and

demonstrated truth. We believe, then, in revelation.

In the next place, we believe in incarnation. Not in the complete

incarnation of God in one man, in one country, in one age, in the

history of the world. We believe in the incarnation of God

progressively in humanity. All that is true, all that is beautiful, all

that is good, is so much of God incarnate in his children, and reaching

ever forth and forward to higher blossoming and grander fruitage. The

difference between Jesus and other men, as we hold it, is not a

difference in kind: it is a difference in degree. So he is the son of

our Father, our elder brother, our friend, our leader, our helper, our

inspiration.

The next principle of Unitarianism is that character is salvation. We

do not even say that character is a condition of salvation. Character

is salvation. A man who is right, who is in perfect accord with the law

and life of God, is safe, in this world, in all worlds, in this year,

in all future time.

And, then, lastly, we believe in the eternal and universal hope. We

believe that God, just because he is God, is under the highest

conceivable obligation, not to me only, but to himself, to see to it

that every being whom he has created shall sometime, somewhere, in the

long run, find that gift of life a blessing, and not a curse.

We believe in retribution, universal, quick, unescapable; for we

believe that this is mercy, and that through this is to come salvation.

These, then, are the main principles, as I understand them, of

Unitarianism.

There is one point more now that I must touch on. When I was

considering the question of giving this series of sermons, one of my

best friends raised the question as to whether I had better put the

word Unitarian? into the title. He was afraid that it might prejudice

people who did not like the name, and keep them from listening to what

I had to say. This is a common feeling on the part of Unitarians. I was

trained as a boy, and through all my youth and early manhood in the

ministry, to look with aversion, suspicion, on Unitarianism, and to

hate the name. But to-day, after more than twenty years of experience

in the Unitarian ministry, I have come to the conviction, which I wish

to suggest to you, that it is the most magnificent name in the

religious history of the world; and I, for one, wish to hoist it as my

flag, to inscribe it on my banner, not because I care for a name, but

because of that which it covers and comprehends.

Now, not in the slightest degree in the way of prejudice against other

names or to find fault with them, let me note a few of them, and then

compare Unitarianism with them. Take the word "Anglican," for example,

the name of the Church of England. What does it mean? Of course, you

know it is simply a geographical name. It defines nothing as to the

Church's government or belief or anything else. There is the word

"Episcopal," which simply means a church that is governed by bishops;

that is all. Take the word "Presbyterian," from a Greek word which

means an elder, a church governed by its old men or its elders. No

special significance about that. Then "Baptist," signifying that the

people who wear that name believe that baptism always means immersion,

indicating no other doctrine by which that body is known, or its method

of government. "Congregational," no doctrine significance there. It

simply means a church whose power is lodged in the congregation. It is

democratic in its methods of government. "Methodist,", applied to the

members of a particular church because they were considered over-exact

or methodical in their ways. There is no governmental significance

there. The name Catholic? or Universal? is chiefly significant from the

fact that the claim implied by it is not true. Now let us look for a

moment at the word Unitarian, and see whether it has a right to be

placed not only on a level with these, but infinitely above and beyond

them in the richness, in the wonder of its meaning. Let me lead you to

a consideration of it. I want you to note that unity? is the one word

of more significance than any other in the history of man; and that it

is growing in its depth, its comprehensiveness. What have we

discovered? We have discovered in this modern world, only a few years

ago, that this which we see, the earth, the stars, and all the wonders

of the heavens, is one, a universe. Not only that. We have discovered

the unity of force. There are not, as primitive man supposed, a

thousand different powers in the universe, antagonistic and fighting

with each other. We have learned to know that there is just one force

in the universe. That light, heat, electricity, magnetism, all these

marvellous and diverse varieties of forces, are one force, and can be

at the will and skill of man converted into each other.

Next, we have learned that there is one law in the universe. Should we

not be Unitarians? Should we not believe in the unity of God, when we

can see, as far as the telescope can reach on the one hand and the

microscope on the other, one eternal, changeless Order?

Another point. We have learned the unity of substance. We know how

Comte, the famous French scientist, advised his followers not to

attempt to find out anything about the fixed stars, because, he said,

such knowledge was forever beyond the reach of man. How long had Comte

been dead before we discovered the spectroscope? And now we know all

about the fixed stars. We know that the stuff we step on in the street

this morning as we go home from church is the same stuff of which the

sun is made, the same stuff as that which flamed a few years ago as a

comet, the same stuff as that which shines in Sirius, in suns so many

miles away that it takes millions of years for their light to reach us.

One stuff, one substance, throughout the universe; and this poor old,

tear-wet earth of ours is a planet shining in the heavens as much as

any of them, of the same glorious material of which they are made.

Then, again, we have discovered the unity of life. From the little tiny

globule of protoplasm up to the brain of Shakspere, one life throbbing

and thrilling with the same divinity which is at the heart of the

world.

We have discovered not only the unity of life, we have discovered the

unity of man. Not a hundred different origins, different kinds of

creatures, different-natured beings, but one blood to dwell in every

country on the face of the earth: the unity of man.

We have discovered the unity of ethics, of righteousness, of right and

wrong, one right, one wrong. A million applications, but one goal

towards which all those who hunger and thirst after righteousness are

striving.

One religion: for underneath all the diversity of creeds and religions,

barbaric, semi-civilized, civilized, enlightened, we find man, the one

child of God, hunting for the clearest light he can command, after the

one Father, that is, the one eternal, universal search of the religious

life of the race.

Religion then one; one unifying purpose; every step that the world

takes in its progress leading it towards liberty, towards light,

towards truth, towards righteousness, towards peace. One goal, then,

for the progress of man.

And, then, one destiny. Some day, every soul, no matter how belated,

shall arrive; some day, somewhere, every soul, however sin stained,

shall arrive; every soul, however small, however distorted, however

hindered, shall arrive. One destiny. Not that we are to be just alike;

only that some time we are to unfold all that is possible in us, and

stand, full statured, perfect, complete, in the presence of our Father.

Do I not well, then, to say that Unity, Unitarianism, is a magnificent

name, a name to be flung out to the breeze as our banner under which we

will fight for God and man; a name beside which all others pale into

insignificance; a name that sums up the secret, the centre, the hope,

the outcome of the universe? Greatest name in the religious history of

man, it coincides with that magnificent hope so grandly uttered by

Tennyson, "One God, one law, one element, And one far-off divine event,

To which the whole creation moves."

"WHAT DO YOU GIVE IN PLACE OF WHAT YOU TAKE AWAY?"

MY theme is the answer to the question, What do you give in place of

what you take away? For my text I have chosen two significant passages

of Scripture. One is from the seventh chapter of Hebrews, the

nineteenth verse; and it sets forth, as I look at it, the drift and

outcome of the process of which we are a part, the bringing in of a

better hope. Then from the eleventh chapter of Hebrews, the thirty-

ninth and fortieth verses, expressing the relation in which we stand to

those who have looked for God and his work in the past: And these all,

having obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise;

God having provided some better thing for us, that they without us

should not be made perfect.

What do you give in place of that which you take away? This is a

question which is proposed to Unitarians over and over and over again.

It is looked upon as an unanswerable criticism. We are supposed to be

people who tear down, but do not build; people who take away the dear

hopes and traditional faiths of the past, and leave the world desolate,

without God, without hope.

Not only is this urged against us, from the other side, but there are a

great many Unitarians, possibly, who have not thought themselves out

with enough clearness to know the relation between the present

conditions of human thought and the past; and sometimes even they may

look back with a regretful longing towards something which they have

outgrown, and left behind.

I propose this morning to answer this question, just as simply, as

frankly, as I can; to treat it with all reverence, with all

seriousness, and try to make clear what it is that the world has lost

as the result of the advances of modern knowledge, and what, if

anything, it has gained.

But while I stand here, on the threshold of my theme, and before I

enter upon its somewhat fuller discussion, I wish to urge upon you two

or three considerations.

It is assumed, by the people who ask this question, that, if we do take

away anything, we are under obligation straightway to put something in

its place. I wish you to consider carefully as to whether this position

is sound. Suppose, for example, that I should discover that some belief

that has been held in the past is not well founded, not true. Must I

say nothing about it because, possibly, I may not have discovered just

what is true?

To illustrate what I mean: Prince Alphonso of Castile used to say, as

he studied the Ptolemaic theory of the universe, that, if he had been

present at creation, he could have suggested a good many very important

improvements. In other words, he was keen enough to see that the

Ptolemaic theory of the universe was not a good working theory. Must he

keep still about that because, forsooth, he was not able to establish

another theory of the universe in its place?

Do you not see that the criticism, the testing of positions which are

held, are the primary steps in the direction of finding some larger and

grander truth, provided these positions are not adequate and do not

hold?

The Rev. Dr. George A. Gordon, of the historic Old South Church in

Boston, told us, in an address which he gave in Brooklyn the other day,

that Calvinism was dead; that it was even necessary to clear the face

of the earth of it, in order to save our faith in God. At the same time

Dr. Gordon said frankly that he had no other as complete and finished

system to put in place of it. Was he justified in telling the truth

about Calvinism because he has not a ready-made scheme to substitute

for it?

I wish you to note that I do not concede for an instant that I must not

tell the truth about anything that I perceive because I have not a

ready-made theory of some kind to put in the place of that which is

taken away. It is my business to tell what seems to me true in all

reverence, seriousness, earnestness and love, and trust the

consequences to God.

In the next place, another consideration. I have been talking as though

I conceded that Unitarians, or that I myself, sometimes take away

things, beliefs. Now I wish to ask you who it is that takes away

beliefs. Has Unitarianism ever taken away any faith or hope or trust

from the world? Has anybody ever done it?

If we pit ourselves against one of God's eternal truths, is that truth

going to suffer? Rather shall we not beat ourselves to pieces against

God's adamant? If a thing is true, nobody is going to take it away from

the world; for nobody has the power to uproot or destroy a divine

truth.

Who is it, then, that takes these beliefs away? Is it not just this?

Does it not mean that men have discovered that what they supposed to be

true is not true, and it is the old belief that passes away in the

presence of a larger and clearer light? Is not that the process?

When Magellan, for instance, demonstrated that this planet of ours was

round by circumnavigating it, the ship returning to the port from which

it started, did he take away the old flat earth, fixed and anchored,

immovable, around which the sun moved? Why, there was no old, flat and

anchored, stationary earth to take away. There never had been. All

Magellan did was to demonstrate a new, higher, grander truth. He took

away a misconception from the minds of ignorant and uneducated people,

and helped put one of God's grand, luminous truths in the place of it.

That is all he did.

It is modern intelligence, increasing knowledge, larger, clearer light

that takes away old beliefs. But, if these old beliefs are not true, it

simply means that we are discovering what is true; that is, having a

clearer view and vision of God's ways and methods of governing the

world.

I wish you to note, then, in this second place, that Unitarianism does

not take away anything.

One third consideration: Suppose we did. Suppose we took away belief in

the existence of God. Suppose we took away belief in man as a soul,

leaving him simply an animal. Suppose we took away faith in continued

existence after death. Suppose we had the power to sweep all of these

grand beliefs out of the human mind. Then what?

If I had my choice, I would do it gladly, with tearful gratitude,

rather than keep the old beliefs of the last two thousand years.

The late Henry Ward Beecher, in a review article published not long

before his death, said frankly this which I am saying now, and which I

had said a good many times before Mr. Beecher's article was written,

that no belief at all is infinitely, unspeakably better than those

horrible beliefs which have dominated and darkened the world.

I would rather believe in no God than in a bad God, such as he has been

painted. And, if I had my choice of the future, what would it be? I

have, I trust, just over there, father, mother, two brothers,

numberless dear ones; and I hope to see them with a hope dearer than

any other which I cherish. But, if I were standing on the threshold of

heaven itself, and these loved ones were beckoning me to come in, and I

had the choice between an eternity of felicity in their presence and

eternal sleep, I would take the sleep rather than take this endless joy

at the cost of the unceasing and unrelieved torment of the meanest soul

that ever lived. And I would have no great respect for any man who

would not. I would not care to purchase my joy at the price of endless

pangs, the ascending smoke of torment, the wail going up to the sweet

heavens forever and ever and ever.

So, even if it were a choice between no belief at all and the old

beliefs, the darkness would be light to me; and I would embrace it with

joy rather than take the selfish felicity of those men who estimate it

as a part of their future occupation to be leaning over the battlements

of heaven and witnessing the torture of the damned. This, though

sounding so terrible to us now, is good old Christian doctrine, which

has often been avowed. Thank God we are outgrowing it.

These, then, for preliminary considerations.

Now let me raise the question as to what has been taken away. You

remember I said that I have taken nothing away, Unitarianism has taken

nothing away. But the advance of modern knowledge, the larger, clearer

revelation of God, has taken away no end of things. What are they?

Let me make two very brief statements right here. I am in the position,

this morning, of appearing to repeat myself; that is, I must go over a

good many points that I have made from this platform before. But please

understand that it is not on account of lapse of memory on my part. I

am doing it with a distinct end in view, which can only be attained by

these steps.

In the next place, my treatment has so much ground to cover that what I

say will appear somewhat in the nature of a catalogue; but I see no

other way in which to make the definite statement I wish to lay before

you. I am going to catalogue, first, a lot of the things that modern

knowledge has taken away. Then I am going to tell you some of the

things that modern knowledge is putting in place of what it has

removed.

In the first place, the old universe is taken away; that is, that

little tiny play-house affair, not so large as our solar system, which

in the first chapters of Genesis God is reported to have made as a

carpenter working from outside makes a house, inside of six days. That

little universe, that is, the story of creation as told in the early

chapters of Genesis, is absolutely gone. I shall tell you pretty soon

what has taken the place of it.

Secondly, the God of the Old Testament, the God of most of the creeds

has been taken away, that God who was jealous, who was partial, who was

angry; who built a little world, and called it good, and then inside of

a few days saw it slip out of his control into the hands of the devil,

either because he could not help it or did not wish to; who watched

this world develop for a little while, and then, because it did not go

as he wanted it to, had to drown it, and start over again; the God who

in the Old Testament told the people that slavery was right, provided

they did not enslave the members of their own nation, but only those

outside of it; the God who indorsed polygamy, telling a man that he was

at liberty to have just as many wives as he wanted and could obtain,

and that he was free to dispose of them by simply giving them a little

notice and telling them to quit; the God who indorsed hypocrisy and

lying on the part of his people; the God who sent a little light on one

little people along one edge of the Mediterranean, and left all the

rest of the world in darkness; the God who is to damn all of these

people who were left in darkness because they did not know that of

which they never had any chance to hear; the God who is to cast all his

enemies into the pit, trampling them down, as Edwards pictures so

horribly to us, in his hate for ever and ever. This God has been taken

away.

In the third place, the story of Eden, the creation of man and then

immediately the fall of man and the resulting doctrine of total

depravity, this has been taken away. That man was made in the image of

God, and then, inside of a few days, fell into the hands of the Power

of Evil, and that since that day he has been the legitimate subject

here on this earth of the prince of this world, that is, the devil, and

that is taught both in the Old Testament and in the New, that man is

this kind of a being, this is forever gone. There is no rational,

intelligent, free belief in it left.

Then the old theory of the Bible has been taken away, that theory which

makes it a book without error or flaw, and makes us under the highest

obligation to receive all its teachings as the veritable word of God,

whether they seem to us hideous, blasphemous, immoral, degrading, or

not. This is gone.

Professor Goldwin Smith, in an article published within a year, treats

the belief, the continued holding to this old theory about the Bible,

under the head of Christianity's "Millstone." He writes from the point

of view of the old belief; but he says, if Christianity is going to be

saved, this millstone must be taken off from about its neck, and

allowed to sink into the sea.

If we hold that theory, what? Why, then, we must still believe that, in

order to help on the slaughter of his enemies on the part of a

barbarian general, God stopped the whole machinery of the universe for

hours until he got through with his killing. We must believe the

literal story of Jonah's being swallowed by the whale. We must believe

no end of incredibilities; and then, if we dare to read with our eyes

open, we must believe immoral things, cruel things, about men and about

God, things which our civilization would not endure, were it not for

the power of tradition, which hallows that which used to be believed in

the past.

This conception of the Bible, then, is gone.

Then, in the next place, the blood atonement is gone. What did that

mean to the world? It meant that the eternal Father either would not or

could not forgive and receive back to his heart his own erring,

mistaken, wandering children unless the only begotten Son of God was

slaughtered, and we, as the old awful hymn has it, were plunged beneath

this fountain of blood I Revolting, terrible, if you stop to think of

it for one reasoning moment, that God cannot forgive unless he takes

agony out of somebody equal to that from which he releases his own

children! That, though embodied still in all the creeds, has been taken

away. It is gone, like a long, hideous dream of darkness.

Belief in the devil has been taken away. What does that mean? It means

that Christendom has held and taught for nearly two thousand years that

God is not really King of the universe; that he holds only a divided

power, and that here thousands on thousands of years go by, and the

devil controls the destiny of this world, and ruins right and left

millions on millions of human souls, and that God either cannot help it

or does not wish to, one of the two. This belief is taken away.

And then, lastly, that which I have touched on by implication already,

the belief in endless punishment is taken away. Are you sorry? Does

anybody wish something put in the place of this? The belief that all

those except the elect, church members, those who have been through a

special process called conversion, these, including all the millions on

millions outside of Christendom and from the beginning until to-day,

have gone down to the flame that is never quenched, the worm that never

dies, to linger on in useless torture forever and ever? Simply a

monument of what is monstrously called the justice of God! This is

gone.

Now, friends, just ask yourselves, as you go home, as you think over

what I have said this morning, as to whether there is anything else

lost.

Is there anything of value taken away? Let me run over now in parallel

fashion another catalogue to place opposite this one, so that we may

see as to what has been our loss and as to whether there has been any

gain.

In the place of the little, petty universe of Hebrew dream, what have

we now? This magnificent revelation of the Copernican students; a

universe infinite in its reach and in its grandeur; a universe fit at

last to be the home of an infinite God; a universe grand enough to

clothe him and express him, to manifest and reveal him; a universe

boundless; a universe that has grown through the ages and is growing

still, and is to unfold more and more of the divine beauty and glory

forevermore. Is there any loss in this exchange?

Now as to God. I have pictured to you, in very bald outline, some of

the conceptions of God that have been held in the past. What is our God

to-day? The heart, the life, the soul, of this infinite universe;

justice that means justice; power that means power; love that surpasses

all our imagination of love; a God who is eternal goodness; who from

the beginning has folded his child man to his heart, whispering all of

truth that he could understand, breathing into him all of life that he

could contain, inspiring him with all love and tenderness that he could

appreciate or employ, and so, in this way, leading him and guiding him

through the ages, year by year and century by century, still to

something better and finer and higher; a God, not off somewhere in the

heavens, to whom we must send a messenger; not a God separated from us

by some great gulf that we must bridge by some supposed atonement; a

God nearer to us than our breath; a God who hears the whisper of our

want, who understands the dawning wish or aspiration before it takes

form or shape; a God who loves us better than we love ourselves or love

those who are dearest to us; a God who knows better what we need than

we know ourselves, and is more ready to give us than fathers are to

give good gifts to their children. Is there any loss here?

In the third place, the new man that has come into modern thought. Not

the broken fragments of a perfect Adam; not a man so crippled

intellectually that, as they have been telling us for centuries, it was

impossible for him to find the truth, or to know it when he did find

it; not a being so depraved, morally, that he never desires any good,

and never loves anything which is sweet and fine; a being totally

depraved, a being who, as one passage in the Old Testament tells us, is

so corrupt his very prayer is a sin; conceived, born, in evil, and all

his thoughts tainted, and drifting towards that which is wicked. Not

this kind of a man. A man who has been on the planet hundreds of

thousands of years, who has been learning by experience, who has been

animal, who has been cruel, but who at every step has been trying to

find the light, has been becoming a little truer and better; a being

who has evolved all that is sweetest and finest in the history of the

world; who has made no end of mistakes, who has committed no end of

crimes, but who has learned through these processes, and at last has

given us some specimens of what is possible by way of development in

Abraham and Moses and Elijah and David and Isaiah, and a long line of

prophets and seers of the Old Testament time; not perfect, but

magnificent types of actual men; who has developed in other nations

such men as Gautama, the heroes and teachers of China, like Confucius;

then Aristotle, Plato, Socrates; the noble men of Rome; who has given

us in the modern world the great poets, the great discoverers, the

great philanthropists; those devoted to the highest, sweetest things;

musicians and artists; who has given us Shakspere, who has given us,

crowning them all, as I believe, by the moral beauty and grandeur of

his love, the Nazarene, Jesus, our elder brother, Son of God, and

helper of his fellow-man; this humanity that has never fallen; that has

been climbing up from the beginning, and not sinking down. Is there any

loss here?

Then let us see what kind of a Bible modern science and modern

discovery and modern scholarship and modern life have given us.

Our Bible is the sifted truth of the ages. There is not a passage in it

or a line for which we need apologize. There is nothing incredible in

it, except as it is incredibly sweet and good and true. It is the truth

that has come to men in all ages, no matter spoken by whose lips, no

matter written by what pen, no matter wrought out under what conditions

or in whatever civilization or under whatever sky.

All that is true and sweet and fine is a part of God's revelation of

himself to his children, and makes up our Bible, which is not all

written yet. Every new truth that shall be discovered in the future

will make a new line or a new paragraph or a new chapter. God has been

writing it on the rocks, in the stars, in the hearts, on the brains of

his children; and his hand does not slacken. He is not tired: he is

writing still. He will write to-morrow, and next year, and throughout

all the coming time. This is the Bible.

We believe, for example, that the saying of the old Egyptian, God shall

wipe away all tears from their eyes, is just as divine and sweet as

when said in the New Testament. We believe that the Golden Rule is just

as golden when uttered by Confucius hundreds of years before Jesus as

it was afterwards.

We believe that the saying about two commandments being the sum and

substance of the law was just as holy when Hillel spake them as when

Jesus uttered them after his time. All truth is divine, and part of

God's divine revelation to his children.

Here is our Bible, then. Now let me speak about Jesus, and see if our

thought is less precious than the old. In my old days, when I preached

in the orthodox church, Jesus was never half so dear, so helpful to me,

as he is now. If I thought of him at all, I was obliged to think of him

as somehow a second God, who stood between me and the first one, and

through whom I hoped deliverance from the law and the justice of the

first. I had to think of him as a part of a scheme that seemed to me

unjust and cruel, involving the torture of some and the loss of most of

the race. You cannot pick the old-time Jesus out of that scheme of

which he is a part. I could not love him then as I love him now. I

could not think of him as an example to follow; for how can one take

the Infinite for an example? How can one follow the absolutely Perfect

except afar off?

But now I think of Jesus and his cross as the most natural and at the

same time the divinest thing in the history of man. Nothing outside of

the regular divine order in it. Jesus reveals to me to-day the

humanness of God and the divineness of man. And he takes his place in

the long line of the world's redeemers, those who have wrought

atonement, how? Through faithfulness even unto death.

The way we work out the atonement of the world, that is, the

reconciliation of the world to God, is by being true to the vision of

the truth as it comes to us, no matter by the pathway of what

suffering, true as Jesus was true, true even when he thought his Father

had forsaken him.

Do you know, friends, I think that is the grandest thing in the world.

He verily believed that God had forsaken him; and yet he held fast to

his trust, to his truth, to his faithfulness, even when swooning away

into the unconsciousness of death.

There is faith, and there is faithfulness; and he shares this with

thousands of others. There are thousands of men who have suffered more

than Jesus did dying for his own truth; thousands of martyrs who, with

his name on their lips, have gone through greater torture than he did.

All these, whoever has been faithful, whoever has suffered for the

right, whoever has been true, has helped to work out the atonement, the

reconciliation, of the world with God, showing the beauty of truth and

bringing men into that admiration of it that helps them to come into

accord with the divine life.

Then one more point. Instead of the wail of the damned that is never,

through all eternity, for one moment hushed in silence, we place the

song of the redeemed, an eternal hope for every child born of the race.

We do not believe it is possible for a human soul ultimately to be

lost. Why? Because we believe in God. God either can save all souls or

he cannot. If he can and will not, then he is not God. If he would and

cannot, then he is not God. Let us reverently say it: he is under an

infinite obligation to his own self, to his own righteousness, to his

own truth, his own power, his own love, his own character, to see to it

that all souls, some time, are reconciled to him.

This does not mean a poor, cheap, an easy salvation. It means that

every broken law must have its consequences so long as it remains

broken. It means that in this world and through all worlds the law-

breaker is to be followed by the natural and necessary results of his

thoughts, of his words, of his deeds; but it means that in this

punishment the pain is a part of the divine love. For the love of God

makes it absolutely necessary that the object of that love shall be

delivered from sin and wrong, and brought into reconciliation with

himself; and the pain, the necessary results of wrongdoing, are a part

of the divine tenderness, a part of the divine faithfulness, a part of

the divine love. So we believe that through darkness or through light,

through joy or through sorrow, some time, somewhere, every child of God

shall be brought into his presence, ready to sing the song of peace and

joy and reconciled love.

Now, friends, I have gone over all the main points of the theology of

our question. I have told you what I think the results of modern study

have taken away. I have indicated to you what I believe is to come and

take the place of these things that are absolutely gone. Ask yourselves

seriously, if you are not one of us, is there a single one of these

things that modern investigation is threatening that you really care to

keep? If you could choose between the two systems and have your choice

settle the validity of them, would you not choose the second, and be

grateful to bid good-by to the first?

Remember, however, at the end let me say, as I did at the beginning,

that, if these things pass away and the other finer things come in

their places, Unitarianism is not to be charged by its enemies with

destroying the old, neither is it to take the credit on the part of its

friends for having created all the new. That distinguishes us as

Unitarians from any other form of faith is that we believe in the

living, loving, leading God of the modern world, and are ready gladly

to take the results of modern investigation, believing that they are

only a part of the revelation of the divine truth and the Father's

will.

We accept these things, stand for them, proclaim them; but we did not

create them. If anything is gone that you did not like, we did not take

it away. If anything is come that you do like, give God the glory; and

let us share with you the joy and praise.