Our Unitarian Gospel

by Minot J. Savage

So I say the writer is not quite consistent, for he falls back at the end on the old theory, and he lets us gain a glimpse behind the scenes, just enough to see that there are cases, special cases, where the popular theory does not hold; but he still seems to assume that, in a general way, we are to accept it as correct, and as explaining the facts of human life.

The Jews acted on this theory in their political history. Their prophets, their great teachers, asserted over and over again that, if they were true to their God, if they were faithful in their obedience to the law, if they lived out all these highest and finest ideals of ceremonial as well as heart righteousness, that they would be mighty as a nation, that their enemies would be put under their feet, that they would have political success and power; and yet their increasing insistence on this ceremonial and interior righteousness of thought and life was found to be no adequate defence against the Roman legions. Political success did not come to them. In spite of all their obedience, they were swept out of existence as a nation.

Now do we find any difference in teaching in the New Testament? We do; and we do not. The teaching of the New Testament is not consistent in this matter. If Jesus be correctly reported, his own teaching is not quite consistent on this subject. Let me give you one or two illustrations, that you may see what I mean. John tells us that a certain man, who had been born blind, was brought to Jesus to be cured; and the people stood about, and said to Jesus, "Who is it, this man himself or his parents, that sinned, so that he was born blind?" You see it does not occur to them that there is any natural cause for a man's being blind, apart from some sin on the part of somebody. Who is it, then, his father or mother, or he himself, that has sinned, that is the cause of it? Jesus says, "Neither this man nor his parents have sinned," and you think at first that you are going to get an adequate explanation; but he straightway adds that the man was blind in order that the works of God might be manifest in him; which we cannot accept to-day as quite an adequate explanation.

Then take the case of the man who was lying at the pool of Bethesda, and was reported as cured. Jesus meets him, after a good deal of question and criticism on the part of the Jews, and says, "Now you have been healed, see to it that you sin no more, lest a worse thing come to you," seeming to imply again that sin might be punished by lameness, by affliction of this kind or that.

So it seems to me that we do not get, even in the New Testament, entirely free from this old conception. Indeed, there are the verses which I read as a part of our lesson from the fifth chapter of Matthew, one of which for a clear or more spiritual insight I have quoted as a part of my text, "Blessed are they that do hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled" with what? Filled with righteousness; not filled with health, external prosperity, many children, friends, political position, honor. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall what? See God. "Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. Blessed are they that are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."

You see these beatitudes strike down to the eternal principle of natural, necessary causation and result, just as does the last verse which I have quoted from Galatians, "Be not deceived; God is not mocked; for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap," not something else, that. Here is a clear and explicit annunciation of the eternal, universal law of cause and effect, of the idea that those things which happen are not arbitrary infliction, but natural and necessary result.

Let us, then, consider this matter for a little as we look over the face of human life as it is manifested to us at the present time. I suppose hardly a week passes that, either by letter or in conversation, I do not come face to face with this same old problem, showing that only partially and here and there have men and women even to-day come to comprehend the real method after which this universe of ours is governed. For example, let me give you a few illustrations.

I have a friend in Boston, one of the noblest men I ever knew, sweet, gentle, true: he came to me one day, and said: "Mr. Savage, I have tried all my life to be an honest man. I do not own an ill-gotten dollar. I have tried to be kind and helpful to people in need, in trouble; and yet," and then it began to dawn on him that he was not on a very logical track, for he smiled, "and yet I have not got on very well in the world; I have not made a great deal of money; I have not been specially prosperous in business." And the implication was that here, next door or in another street, was a man who had a good many ill-gotten dollars, and who had not been generous or kindly or humane or tender, but who had prospered and become rich, as he had not. And he raised this as a serious objection against the justice of the government of the world.

I have had mothers; I presume a thousand times, say to me: "I have tried to take the best possible care of my child. I loved my child, I watched over it night and day, I have money enough to give it a good education, I could train it into fitness for life; and yet my child is taken away." Here is somebody else who has not the means to educate her child, perhaps whose character and intelligence are a good deal below the average level. Her child is spared, spared for what? Spared for a career for which it will be entirely unfitted; and the question is, Why does God do such things, why is the universe governed in this fashion?

And I have had persons say to me: "I have been ill all my life, I have suffered no end of pain and trouble: I wonder why? What have I done that I must be burdened and afflicted after this fashion?" So these questions are coming up perpetually, showing that underlying the ordinary surface of our common daily life is still this theory that God arbitrarily governs the world, and rewards people for being good with health and with money and with children and with all sorts of prosperity. There is no end of talk in regard to judgments, as they are called. I remember when I was living in the West I take this as an illustration as good as any a neighboring small city was badly devastated by fire. All the ministers around me in my city began to preach about it as a judgment of God for the supposed wickedness of this city. One peculiar thing about this particular judgment, which I noticed as reported in the papers, was that the last thing which the fire burned was a church; and it left standing next door, and untouched, a liquor saloon. It seemed to me a very peculiar kind of divine judgment, if that is what it really was.