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