Our Unitarian Gospel Part 1

Our Unitarian Gospel.

by Minot Savage.

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-wors.h.i.+ppers. 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.ds, 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 G.o.ds, and their constant tendency to fall away to the wors.h.i.+p of these other G.o.ds. 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 pa.s.sionate 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 G.o.d, they were Unitarians.

Now, when Christianity comes into the world, what shall we say? It is the a.s.sumption 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 G.o.d, 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 f.a.got, 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 a.s.sertion 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 G.o.d. So we may expect to find no Unitarian churches there; though there are many and n.o.ble 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 Aga.s.siz, Peirce, Bowditch, Professor Draper, Unitarians. Statesmen and public men, like Webster, Calhoun, the Adamses, the h.o.a.rs, 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 a.s.serted 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 G.o.d to think than to cringe and be afraid in his presence.

Second, coincident with the birth of Unitarianism is an enlargement and a rea.s.sertion 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 G.o.d, because he was G.o.d, 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d has done certain things, then it is another matter. I have no direct word from G.o.d: 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d 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 a.s.sumed 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 a.s.sumed by people who speak to me on the subject.