We are told, for instance, that he was an infidel, his views being essentially those of Theodore Parker and William Ellery Channing. I doubt if he ever read very deeply in the writings of these men; but that he read portions of them and approved of some of their noblest and most characteristic utterances, is certain. What were the discourses of these two men which he must almost certainly have read if he read anything of theirs? He would almost certainly have read Parker's discourse on "The Transient and Permanent in Christianity," and that on "Immortal Life," and Channing's Baltimore address and his discourse on the Church. And these are just the sort of utterances which he would have read with approval as he found them in these discourses of Theodore Parker:
"Compare the simpleness of Christianity, as Christ sets it forth on the Mount, with what is sometimes taught and accepted in that honored name, and what a difference! One is of God, one is of man. There is something in Christianity which sects have not reached,—something that will not be won, we fear, by theological battles, or the quarrels of pious men; still we may rejoice that Christ is preached in any way. The Christianity of sects, of the pulpit, of society, is ephemeral,—a transitory fly. It will pass off and be forgot. Some new form will take its place, suited to the aspect of the changing times. Each will represent something of truth, but no one the whole. It seems the whole race of man is needed to do justice to the whole of truth, as 'the whole church to preach the whole gospel.' Truth is intrusted for the time to a perishable ark of human contrivance. Though often shipwrecked, she always comes safe to land, and is not changed by her mishap. That pure ideal religion which Jesus saw on the mount of his vision, and lived out in the lowly life of a Galilean peasant; which transforms his cross into an emblem of all that is holiest on earth; which makes sacred the ground he trod, and is dearest to the best of men, most true to what is truest in them,—cannot pass away. Let men improve never so far in civilization, or soar never so high on the wings of religion and love, they can never outgo the flight of truth and Christianity. It will always be above them. It is as if we were to fly towards a star, which becomes larger and more bright the nearer we approach, till we enter and are absorbed in its glory."—Theodore Parker: The Transient and Permanent in Christianity, p. 31.
"I would not slight this wondrous world. I love its day and night: its flowers and its fruits are dear to me. I would not willfully lose sight of a departing cloud. Every year opens new beauty in a star, or in a purple gentian fringed with loveliness. The laws, too, of matter seem more wonderful, the more I study them, in the whirling eddies of the dust, in the curious shells of former life buried by thousands in a grain of chalk, or in the shining diagrams of light above my head. Even the ugly becomes beautiful when truly seen. I see the jewel in the bunchy toad. The more I live, the more I love this lovely world,—feel more its Author in each little thing, in all that is great. But yet I feel my immortality the more. In childhood the consciousness of immortal life buds forth feeble, though full of promise. In the man it unfolds its fragrant petals, his most celestial flower, to mature its seed throughout eternity. The prospect of that everlasting life, the perfect justice yet to come, the infinite progress before us, cheer and comfort the heart. Sad and disappointed, full of self-reproach, we shall not be so forever. The light of heaven breaks upon the night of trial, sorrow, sin: the somber clouds which overhung the east, grown purple now, tell us the dawn of heaven is coming in. Our faces, gleamed on by that, smile in the new-born glow. We are beguiled of our sadness before we are aware. The certainty of this provokes us to patience, it forbids us to be slothfully sorrowful. It calls us to be up and doing. The thought that all will at last be right with the slave, the poor, the weak, and the wicked, inspires us with zeal to work for them here, and make it all right for them even now."—Theodore Parker: Immortality, pp. 23-24.
It is affirmed that Lincoln was an infidel, believing essentially the same as Theodore Parker: and he himself expressed such admiration for and accord with the utterances of Parker which he knew that the statement is partly true. These two quotations, from two of the most easily accessible of Parker's discourses, represent the kind of teaching which Lincoln assimilated from Theodore Parker and show us what kind of infidelity Lincoln learned from him.
When Lincoln turned to the most widely circulated of Channing's discourses, he read such utterances as these:
"We regard the Scriptures as the records of God's successive revelations to mankind, and particularly of the last and most perfect revelation of His will by Jesus Christ. Whatever doctrines seem to us to be clearly taught in the Scriptures, we receive without reserve or exception. We do not, however, attach equal importance to all the books in this collection.
"Our leading principle in interpreting Scripture is this, that the Bible is a book written for men, in the language of men, and that its meaning is to be sought in the same manner as that of other books. We believe that God, when He speaks to the human race, conforms, if we may so say, to the established rules of speaking and writing. How else would the Scriptures avail us more than if communicated in an unknown tongue?
"If God be infinitely wise, He cannot sport with the understandings of His creatures. A wise teacher discovers his wisdom in adapting himself to the capacities of his pupils, not in perplexing them with what is unintelligible, not in distressing them with apparent contradictions, not in filling them with a skeptical distrust of their own powers. An infinitely wise teacher, who knows the precise extent of our minds, and the best method of enlightening them, will surpass all other instructors in bringing down truth to our apprehension, and in showing its loveliness and harmony. We ought, indeed, to expect occasional obscurity in such a book as the Bible, which was written for past and future ages, as well as for the present. But God's wisdom is a pledge, that whatever is necessary for us, and necessary for salvation, is revealed too plainly to be mistaken, and too consistently to be questioned, by a sound and upright mind. It is not the mark of wisdom to use an unintelligible phraseology, to communicate what is above our capacities, to confuse and unsettle the intellect by appearances of contradiction. We honor our heavenly teacher too much to ascribe to Him such a revelation. A revelation is a gift of light. It cannot thicken our darkness, and multiply our perplexities.
"We believe, too, that God is just; but we never forget that His justice is the justice of a good being, dwelling in the same mind, and acting in harmony with perfect benevolence. By this attribute, we understand God's infinite regard to virtue or moral worth, expressed in a moral government; that is, in giving excellent and equitable laws, and in conferring such rewards and inflicting such punishments, as are best fitted to secure their observance. God's justice has for its end the highest virtue of the creation, and it punishes for this end alone, and thus it coincides with benevolence; for virtue and happiness, though not the same, are inseparably conjoined.
"God's justice, thus viewed, appears to us to be in perfect harmony with His mercy. According to the prevalent systems of theology, these attributes are so discordant and jarring, that to reconcile them is the hardest task, and the most wonderful achievement, of infinite wisdom. To us they seem to be intimate friends, always at peace, breathing the same spirit, and seeking the same end. By God's mercy, we understand not a blind, instinctive compassion, which forgives without reflection, and without regard to the interests of virtue. This, we acknowledge, would be incompatible with justice, and also with enlightened benevolence. God's mercy, as we understand it, desires strongly the happiness of the guilty, but only through their penitence."—W. E. Channing: Baltimore Discourse of 1819, Passim.
"Inward sanctity, pure love, disinterested attachment to God and man, obedience of heart and life, sincere excellence of character, this is the one thing needful, this the essential thing in religion; and all things else, ministers, churches, ordinances, places of worship, all are but means, helps, secondary influences, and utterly worthless when separated from this. To imagine that God regards any thing but this, that He looks at any thing but the heart, is to dishonor Him, to express a mournful insensibility to His pure character. Goodness, purity, virtue, this is the only distinction in God's sight. This is intrinsically, essentially, everlastingly, and by its own nature, lovely, beautiful, glorious, divine. It owes nothing to time, to circumstance to outward connections. It shines by its own light. It is the sun of the spiritual universe. It is God himself dwelling in the human soul. Can any man think lightly of it, because it has not grown up in a certain church, or exalt any church above it? My friends, one of the grandest truths of religion is the supreme importance of character, of virtue, of that divine spirit which shone out in Christ. The grand heresy is, to substitute any thing for this, whether creed, or form, or church."—W. E. Channing: Discourse on the Church, pp. 23-24.
If Lincoln was made an infidel or confirmed in his infidelity by his reading of William Ellery Channing, the foregoing is a reasonable sample of the quality of his infidelity: for these are not only characteristic utterances of Channing: they are among the utterances which Lincoln was most certain to have had thrust into his hand, and most likely to have read and to have approved.
The author of this work is not a Unitarian, and he is ready, on any proper occasion, to define to anyone who has a right to know, his own opinions in contradistinction from those of the Unitarian churches. But his loyalty to his own convictions lays upon him no obligation to be unfair to men who hold opinions other than his own. It is to be noted that it is Mr. Herndon, and not some bigoted exponent of orthodoxy, who calls Theodore Parker an infidel. The present writer holds no such opinion of Parker, nor yet of Channing. On the contrary, he is of opinion that their writings were beneficial to Abraham Lincoln, as helping him to define some of his own views constructively and reverently. While Beecher or Bushnell might have done it as well or better, it was not their books which Jesse Fell gave to Lincoln; and Lincoln used what he had. To say that Lincoln's views were like those of Parker or Channing is to affirm that Lincoln was not an infidel, but a Christian.
Was Lincoln, then, a Unitarian?