Unitarianism in America: A History of its Origin and Development

by George Willis Cooke

That the breach was inevitable seems to be the verdict of history; and yet it is not difficult to see to-day how it might have been avoided. The Unitarians were dealt with in such a manner that they could not continue the old connection without great discomfort and loss of self-respect. They were forced to organize for self-protection, and yet they did so reluctantly and with much misgiving. They would have preferred to remain as members of the united Congregational body, but the theological temper of the time made this impossible. It would not be just to say that there was actual persecution, but there could not be unity where there was not community of thought and faith.

When the division in the Congregational churches came, one hundred and twenty-five churches allied themselves with the Unitarians,--one hundred in Massachusetts, a score in other parts of New England, and a half-dozen west of the Hudson River. These churches numbered among them, however, many of the oldest and the strongest, including about twenty of the first twenty-five organized in Massachusetts, and among them Plymouth (organized in Scrooby), Salem, Dorchester, Boston, Watertown, Roxbury, Hingham, Concord, and Quincy. The ten Congregational churches in Boston, with the exception of the Old South, allied themselves with the Unitarians. Other first churches to take this action were those of Portsmouth, Kennebunk, and Portland.

Outside New England a beginning was made almost as soon as the Unitarian name came into recognition. At Charleston, S.C., the Congregational church, which had been very liberal, was divided in 1816 as the result of the preaching of Rev. Anthony Forster. He was led to read the works of Dr. Priestley, and became a Unitarian in consequence. Owing to ill-health, he was soon obliged to resign; and Rev. Samuel Gilman was installed in 1819. Rev. Robert Little, an English Unitarian, took up his residence in Washington in 1819, and began to preach there; and a church was organized in 1821. While chaplain of the House of Representatives, in 1821-22, Jared Sparks preached to this society fortnightly, and in the House Chamber on the alternate Sunday. When he went to Charleston, in 1819, to assist in the installation of Mr. Gilman, he preached to a very large congregation in the state-house in Raleigh; and the next year he spoke to large congregations in Virginia.[[21]] More than a decade earlier there were individual Unitarians in Kentucky.[[22]] On his journey to the ordination of Jared Sparks, Dr. Channing preached in a New York parlor; and on his return he occupied the lecture-hall of the Medical School. The result was the First Congregational Church (All Souls'), organized in 1819, which was followed by the Church of the Messiah in 1825. In fact, many of the more intelligent and thoughtful persons everywhere were inclined to accept a liberal interpretation of Christianity.

Although the Congregational body was divided into two distinct denominations, there were three organizations, formed prior to that event, which have remained intact to this day. In these societies Orthodox and Unitarian continue to unite as Congregationalists, and the sectarian lines are not recognized. The first of these organizations is the Massachusetts Congregational Charitable Society, which was formed early in the eighteenth century for the purpose of securing "support to the widows and children of deceased congregational ministers." The second is the Massachusetts Convention of Congregational Ministers, also formed early in the eighteenth century, although its records begin only with the year 1748. It was formed for consultation, advice, and counsel, to aid orphans and widows of ministers, and to secure the general promotion of the interests of religion. The convention sermon has been one of the recognized institutions of Massachusetts, and since the beginning of the Unitarian controversy it has been preached alternately by ministers of the two denominations. The Society for Propagating the Gospel among the Indians and Others in North America was formed in 1787. The members, officers, and missionaries of this society have been of both denominations; and the work accomplished has been carried on in a spirit of amity and good-will. These societies indicate that co-operation may be secured without theological unity, and it is possible that they may become the basis in the future of a closer sympathy and fellowship between the severed Congregational churches.

Final Separation of State and Church.

From the beginning the liberal movement had been more or less intimately associated with that for the promotion of religious freedom and the separation of state and church. Many of the states withdrew religion from state control on the adoption of the Federal Constitution. In New England this was done in the first years of the century. Connecticut came to this result after an exciting agitation in 1818. Massachusetts was more tenacious of the old ways; but in 1811 its legislative body passed a "religious freedom act," that secured individuals from taxation for the support of churches with which they were not connected. The constitutional convention of 1820 proposed a bill of rights that aimed to secure religious freedom, but it was defeated by large majorities. It was only when church property was given by the courts to the parish in preference to the church, and when the "standing order" churches had been repeatedly foiled in their efforts to retain the old prerogatives, that a majority could be secured for religious freedom. In November, 1833, the legislature submitted to the people a revision of the bill of rights, which provided for the separation of state and church, and the voluntary support of churches. A majority was secured for this amendment, and it became the law in 1834. Massachusetts was the last of all the states to arrive at this result, and a far greater effort was required to bring it about than elsewhere. The support of the churches was now purely voluntary, the state no longer lending its aid to tax person and property for their maintenance.

Thus it came about that Massachusetts adopted the principle and method of Roger Williams after two centuries. For the first time she came to the full recognition of her own democratic ideals, and to the practical acceptance of the individualism for which she had contended from the beginning. She had fought stubbornly and zealously for the faith she prized above all other things, but by the logic of events and the greatness of the principle of liberty she was conquered. The minister and the meeting-house were by her so dearly loved that she could not endure the thought of having them shorn of any of their power and influence; but for the sake of their true life she at last found it wise and just to leave all the people free to worship God in their own way, without coercion and without restraint.

Although the liberal ministers and churches led the way in securing religious freedom, yet they were socially and intellectually conservative. Radical changes they would not accept, and they moved away from the old beliefs with great caution. The charge that they were timid was undoubtedly true, though there is no evidence that they attempted to conceal their real beliefs. Evangelical enthusiasm was not congenial to them, and they rejected fanaticism in every form. They had a deep, serious, and spiritual faith, that was intellectual without being rationalistic, marked by strong common sense, and vigorous with moral integrity. They permitted a wide latitude of opinion, and yet they were thoroughly Christian in their convictions. Most of them saw in the miracles of the New Testament the only positive evidence of the truth of Christianity, which was to them an external and supernatural revelation. They were quite willing to follow Andrews Norton, however, who was the chief defender of the miraculous, in his free criticism of the Old Testament and the birth-stories in the Gospels.

The liberal ministers fostered an intellectual and literary expression of religion, and yet their chief characteristic was their spirituality. They aimed at ethical insight and moral integrity in their influence upon men and women, and at cultivating purity of life and an inward probity. In large degree they developed the spirit of philanthropy and a fine regard for the rights and the welfare of others. They were not sectarian or zealous for bringing others to the acceptance of their own beliefs; but they were generous in behalf of all public interests, faithful to all civic duties, and known for their private generosity and faithful Christian living. Under the leadership of Dr. Channing the Catholic Christians, as they preferred to call themselves, cultivated a spirituality that was devout without being ritualistic, sincere without being fanatical. The churches around them, to a large degree, kept zealously to the externals of religion, and accepted physical evidences of the truthfulness of Christianity; but Channing sought for what is deeper and more permanent. His preference of rationality to the testimony of miracles, spiritual insight to external evidences, devoutness of life to the rites of the church, characterized him as a great religious leader, and developed for the Catholic Christians a new type of Christianity. Whatever Channing's limitations as a thinker and a reformer, he was a man of prophetic insight and lofty spiritual vision. In other ages he would have been canonized as a saint or called the beatific doctor; but in Boston he was a heretic and a reformer, who sought to lead men into a faith that is ethical, sincere, and humanitarian. He prized Christianity for what it is in itself, for its inwardness, its fidelity to human nature, and its ethical integrity. His mind was always open to truth, he was always young for liberty, and his soul dwelt in the serene atmosphere of a pure and lofty faith.

[[1]] Josiah Quincy, History of Harvard University, I. 230, Chapter XII; Christian Examiner, VII. 64; XXX. 70.