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UNITARIANISM:
ITS ORIGIN AND HISTORY.
A Course of Sixteen Lectures
DELIVERED IN
CHANNING HALL, BOSTON,
1888-89.
BOSTON:
AMERICAN UNITARIAN ASSOCIATION.
1890.
Copyright, 1889,
BY AMERICAN UNITARIAN ASSOCIATION.
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PREFACE.
THE
HE full and discriminating Introduction which
Mr. Spaulding furnishes, renders anything more
than a brief Preface superfluous. When these lec-
tures were delivered in the winter of 1888-89 they
were held by many to be of unique value, furnish-
ing in a concise, popular, and yet trustworthy form
information which could otherwise be gathered only
by the comparison of many authors and the read-
ing of many books. With this opinion the Di-
rectors of the Association agree. They put these
papers in a book form, that they may interest and
profit, not only the limited audience which heard
them in Channing Hall, but a wide circle of read-
ers, both within our borders and outside them, who
may desire to know how Unitarianism came to be,
and what has been the course of its history and
influence in the Christian centuries.
G. R.
INTRODUCTION.
THE
HE Channing Hall Lectures were established in
1886 in the new Unitarian building in Bos-
ton, by the Unitarian Sunday-School Society. They
were designed to furnish instruction to Sunday-school
teachers and others, not only in the methods of re-
ligious teaching, but also in the subject-matter of
such instruction. In pursuance of this general plan,
it was arranged in the fall of 1888 to have a course
of sixteen lectures delivered upon the Origin and
History of Unitarianism. Those lectures, substantially
as they were then given, are published in the present
volume. Two of the lecturers appear twice in the
series. Rev. Joseph H. Allen, after delivering the
opening lecture on Christian Doctrine in the First
Five Centuries, kindly consented to take the place
of Rev. Dr. F. H. Hedge, the state of whose health
would not allow him to prepare the lecture which he
had hoped to give upon the Contact of American
Unitarianism and German Thought. The third lec-
ture of the course was an extemporaneous talk by
Rev. Edward H. Hall, the accomplished author of
vi
INTRODUCTION.
a volume upon
Orthodoxy and Heresy in the
Christian Church." Mr. Hall being prevented from
supplying a written paper for the present volume,
Rev. Dr. Andrew P. Peabody furnished the valuable
lecture upon Christianity from the Fifth to the Fif
teenth Century.
The general purpose of these lectures may be
briefly stated. They were intended to give to those
who might attend the course a sense of the worth of
Unitarianism as a faith which has deep historic roots,
and from the beginning has had great allies.
((
The early lectures are devoted to the historic as-
pects of Unitarianism. Mr. Allen has shown conclu-
sively, we think, that in the first Christian centuries
the theology of the church was not Trinitarian. He
dissipates, indeed, the fancy that modern liberal
Christianity is in any doctrinal sense the revival of
primitive Christianity; but he makes it equally clear
that there are moral and spiritual affinities which
are deeper and stronger than any doctrinal ties.
No dogma of the church, however, as Dr. Peabody
clearly shows, has any claim to be designated as quod
semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus. In point of
fact this very phrase was first used not by adherents,
but by opponents, of what is usually spoken of as
the Orthodox faith. Dr. Peabody's lucid exposition
of the history of ten centuries of Christian doc-
trine sets more than one favorite dogma of the so-
called "defenders of the faith" in a light so repell-
1 See pages 36 and 37.
!
INTRODUCTION.
vii
ing that almost any heresy appears attractive by the
side of the orthodoxy of such dark ages. The Catho-
lic theology, of which the doctrines of Luther and his
co-workers were supposed to be a reformation, Mr.
Beach rightly declares to have been much nearer the
Unitarian standard than was the Reformed doctrine
itself. Yet in ways they knew not of the Reformers
were fostering, in the very soil of Lutheranism and
Calvinism, the growth of two of the leading ideas of
Unitarianism, the belief in reason as the highest
tribunal of appeal, and the belief in the supreme
worth of character. Mr. Beach's story of Unitarianism
in Transylvania, and Mr. Herford's account of the
same faith in England, show Channing to have had
forerunners and co-laborers in other lands than our
own. With Mr. Allen's second lecture begins the
history of the last sixty years of American Unita-
rianism, admirably supplemented by Dr. Peabody's
sketch of those New England Unitarians who lived too
early to be affected by contact with German thought.
The intervening paper, contributed by Rev. Dr.
George E. Ellis, is an interesting account of those
relations between the Church and Parish in Massa-
chusetts Usage and Law out of which came, in so
many instances, the schism whereby the Orthodox
church-members were separated from the majority
of the members of the parish, who in turn formed a
new and "liberal" church fellowship. Dr. Briggs's
sketch of Channing, and Mr. Stewart's lecture on
Parker are admirably fitted to introduce the reader
mak
viii
INTRODUCTION.
to the valuable memoirs that have been written of
these two great leaders of liberal thought in the
United States; while Mr. Tiffany's account of the
New England Renaissance sets forth in lively colors
that picturesquely noble movement known as Tran-
scendentalism, one of the strongest currents that
reinforced the on-flowing faith of the soul in its own.
competency and in its nearness to the divine life.
With the suggestive paper on Unitarianism and Mod-
ern Literature, a series of five lectures is entered
upon in which not alone the best literature of our
modern world, but its Biblical criticism, its scientific
thought, its ethical ideals, and its deepest philosophy
are shown by able thinkers and lucid writers to be
en rapport with what is best and most enduring in
the Unitarian faith of to-day. To mention the fact
that the lectures just referred to were contributed
by Rev. F. B. Hornbrooke, Rev. James De Nor-
mandie, Rev. T. R. Slicer, Rev. George Batchelor,
and Prof. C. C. Everett is to assure the reader that
a rare intellectual treat is therein offered him. In
the closing lecture, Mr. Reynolds points out the new
departures which Unitarianism is now making in
strengthening the bonds of union among its adhe-
rents, in awakening a sense of denominational respon-
sibility, and in entering upon a career of greater use-
fulness as a helper of the moral and religious life
of the world.
A
-
The reader of this book, whether he be merely a
student of Unitarianism or a member of its household
T
INTRODUCTION.
ix
of faith, will hardly lay the volume down without a
profound feeling of gratitude to the Society that
planned these Channing Hall Lectures, to the men
who delivered them, and to the Association that has
published them.
BOSTON, December, 1889.
H. G. S.
CONTENTS.
LECTURE I.
EARLY CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE.
BY REV. JOSEPH HENRY ALLEN.
•
Perspective of five centuries
Organic growth
Primitive Christianity misunderstood
Ancient thought and modern terms
Scientific and religious attitude of study
Composite historic photograph .
Ancient inward and modern outward revolution .
Central thought of Christianity from Paul to Leo
Discussions in third and fourth centuries
•
Trinitarian treatise by the schismatic Novatian
Level stretch of two centuries.
Overthrow of the national Messianic idea
Crisis of a revolution in Christian doctrine
Justin's discussion of the subject
First statement of the Logos-doctrine
Germ of Trinitarian doctrine.
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Definition of the Logos, or Word
Three classes of thinkers, Gnostics, Confessors, Fathers
Belief essential to salvation
Cause of this error not merely speculative.
Two streams of theology
•
The practical side developed in the Western Church
Crises of speculative interest in the Eastern Church
Germ of the Trinity in Athenagoras
Reason personified as the Word, or Son of God
Unintelligible controversies about persons and attributes
Variance caused by ambiguity.
Steps of development
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xii
CONTENTS.
Pendulum swings toward Alexandrian mysticism
Sabellianism and its opponents
Hypostatical independence
Council at Nicæa
Homo-ousian and Homoi-ousian debate
•
Arian controversy in four councils
Heresy of Apollinaris
Nestorian opinions
Heresy of Eutyches
Pope Leo's formula of faith
Outward troubles lead to union in creed
•
A symbol of faith needed
Augustine's consoling work
Broad result of doctrinal evolution
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Two causes of the Dark Ages
Demoralization of Rome
•
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LECTURE II.
CENTURY.
BY REV. ANDREW P. PEABODY, D.D.
Christianity made a State religion
Sins of the early Church Fathers
Asceticism exalted above truth
•
•
The new religion imperilled by its supporters
Two seed-plots for Christianity
Monasticism a necessity
•
Good influence of anchorites
Pure religion from the cloister, not the throne
Service to art, agriculture, and humanity
Conservatories and seminaries of literature
Scholasticism
Preservation of the Scriptures
Roman law the other cradle of Christianity
Influence of ecclesiastical symbolism
Power of the mustard-seed.
CHRISTIANITY FROM THE FIFTH TO THE FIFTEENTH
·
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Growth of liberty, philanthropy, chivalry, benevolence
Culmination of local dissensions in the Athanasian Creed
Homo-ousian debate.
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CONTENTS.
xiii
The procession of the Holy Ghost
Spanish revolt against the Creed
Metaphysical discussion of the Trinity
Predestination virtually set aside
A dogmatic test widely misunderstood
•
Double predestination preached by Gottschalk
John Scotus teaches that evil is a process of good
Doctrine of Original Sin embraced by the Latin Church
Abelard's opposition . .
Conditional Predestination taught by Duns Scotus
Vicarious Atonement established as a dogma.
Anselm's theory in conflict with one more liberal
Arian heresy
•
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Paulician, or Gnostic, belief in Dualism.
The Cathari ascetics
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Supremacy of the Bible maintained by Peter de Bruys
Pure morality preached by the Henricians.
Rise of the Waldenses
Wiclif as a Reformer
Church and Scripture
Maintenance of the clergy
Opposition to mendicant fraternities
Posthumous martyrdom
Wesley as the founder of a sect
Wiclif's translation of the Bible
LECTURE III.
•
UNITARIANISM AND THE REFORMATION.
BY REV. SETH C. Beach.
Meaning of Unitarianism
Protest against Total Depravity and Predestination
A horrible decree
Belief in Human Nature and Free Will
Luther's rejection of these liberal ideas.
His opponents nearer the Unitarian standard
•
Liberal debt to Luther
Theoretical and practical Salvation by Faith
Lutheranism a theological reaction from Augustinianism
Adherence to the Trinity as heavenly
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CONTENTS.
Justification an inward process
Courage involved in belief in Character
Unwitting advocacy of the reliability of Reason
Luther's theology progressive and retrogressive .
Human Will a factor in the Work of Grace
•
A cloud of Unitarian heresy noted by Melancthon
Liberalism of Zwingli
Description of childhood's purity
The Fall of Man.
Zwingli's recognition of universal righteousness
Warrant of a larger hope in the divine mercy
Views of Calvin and other Swiss reformers
Differences as to Predestination
Rationalism in Zwingli and Socinus
Calvin's authority
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Reactionary logic against the drift of the Reformation
His moral sternness a help to rational faith and character
Arbitrary predestination advocated
Martyrdom of Bolsec
Predestination rejected by a second martyr
Protest and career of Servetus
Modern progress in Geneva
Servetus second to Jesus in the army of martyrs
Blandrata, the Italian Liberal
•
The government's liberal decree.
Supremacy among the upper classes
David's doctrines, imprisonment, and death
Two centuries of trial followed by triumph
Churches of the Reformation.
•
The first Unitarian society
Socinian a term of contempt.
The uncle, Lælius Socinus
The nephew, Faustus Socinus
Unitarian ascendency in Poland.
Catholic persecution of the younger Socinus
Unitarianism nearly extinguished in Poland
Exiles in Holland, Germany, and Transylvania .
Good work of Francis David.
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CONTENTS.
XV
}
UNITARIANISM IN ENGLAND.
•
LECTURE IV.
BY REV. BROOKE HERFORD.
Early churches and earlier advocates
Continental and English pioneers
Primitive English Unitarianism difficult to trace
Unitarians confounded with Anabaptists
Suffering for Unitarian ideas.
The death of Joan Boucher
Martyrs petty and great
Last burnings for heresy
Undercurrent of Puritan thought
John Biddle's service
Cromwell's belief in religious liberty
Three great minds
Broad Church view held in the closet
Spiritual lethargy and new life
Era of toleration, dissent, and chapel-building
English Presbyterians free from binding creeds
Natural and inevitable results
•
Joseph Priestley's startling position
Two kindred movements
•
Liberality of the General Baptists
Lindsey's emergence from the Established Church
The Feathers' Tavern Petition
Essex Street Chapel founded.
Connection with Unitarian churches in America
•
King's Chapel
Priestley's sojourn in the United States
Early conquest anticipated
Obstacles and discouragements
Controversy and social prestige
Two causes of a new movement.
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Tuckerman's visit and missionary influence
Liberal movements in Lancashire
The Christian Brethren
•
Three theological schools
Helpfulness of lay-preachers
Home prosperity and foreign sympathy
•
Liverpool Controversy, "thirteen against three "
Pew-rents and free seats
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xvi
CONTENTS.
LECTURE V.
THE CONTACT OF AMERICAN UNITARIANISM AND
GERMAN THOUGHT.
BY REV. JOSEPH HENRY ALLEN.
Distinctive Unitarianism not found in German theology
Reminiscences of personal interest
A special crisis
Norton's conservatism and Brownson's change
Controversy not over miracles but over the new order of thought.
Vast and unmanageable topic
Three great departments .
Speculative theology
Critical theology
Prominence of Schleiermacher
His first strong impression
Study of Deistical writers leads to Transcendentalism
Its ideas and terms distasteful to Norton
•
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Effect on American ideas
Three leaders of thought influenced
Miracles widely discarded
Theodore Parker's attitude
Furness's view of miracles
Need of a philosophical method
Three methods of Biblical interpretation
Theological tone caught from Germany
Influence over four noted ministers
•
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Sears as a reflection of Olshausen
Small influence of Strauss
+
The Tübingen School.
The name German no longer a reproach.
Alternative of dry-rot or a launch into wider waters
The more excellent way of Furness, Hedge, and Clarke
The pivotal appeal to the religious life
Scepticism caused by science, not theology
Debt to German thought for survival of religious life
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CONTENTS.
xvii
H
LECTURE VI.
THE CHURCH AND THE PARISH IN MASSACHUSETTS.
Usage and Law.
BY REV. GEORGE E. ELLIS, D.D.
Two grave questions
Why did not the Papal Church reform itself?
Its power and opportunity
Its past service and perfect system
Reformers before the Reformation
The question answered
Corporate sanctity vitiated by falsity and greed
Real cause of Protestantism.
Vital corruption and lack of will
Worthy cause of sectarian discord
Varying influences unified in the ancient Church
Second serious consideration.
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Reforming party unmindful of inevitable consequences
The Bible conducive to piety, not to doctrinal unity
Purely historic interest in an old quarrel .
Loss of supposed rights
Root of the difficulty in ancient Christian history
Two classes of Christians in the New Testament
Signification of the word mass
Pledged disciples essential to Christian continuity
Original distinction between Church and Congregation
Romanist extreme
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Equality of clergy with laity in Congregational fold
Priestly dictation in the Roman Church
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Sacraments and covenants indispensable to corporate life
Special prerogatives of communicants
Historic sympathy with defeated party
Primitive jurisdiction of the General Court
Ecclesiastical conditions in land-grants
Opportunities for petty parish feuds
Ministers and parishioners in first townships
Usages and statutes leading to complications
Independent rights of each company of believers
Congregationalism not identical with any creed
Colonial regulations
Different methods in different places
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xviii
CONTENTS.
Franchise restricted to church-members
Four confusing enactments by the General Court
Maintenance of pastors involving right of choice
Harmony not at first disturbed
Restrictive laws of 1641
Choice of ministers regulated
Antagonistic provisions
Ecclesiastical councils mischievous
Actual connection of Church with Parish
Natural privileges of communicants
Church and Parish defined
Abundant occasions for friction
Doctrinal changes underlying legal decisions
Defection from Calvinism
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Deepening causes of dissension .
Sacramental rights of non-professors .
Life-tenure of pastors a cause of trouble
Withdrawal of disaffected members
Natural indignation
Trespass upon vested rights
Parallel cases
Two Dedham pastorates preceding the lawsuit
Dissension as to the settlement of a new minister
The wording of the Letters Missive
Parish property.
Remonstrance by majority of church-members
Suit against the dissenting deacon
The one question recognized by the judges
No rights of churches separate from parishes
This decision a shock to multitudes
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Adjustment of old privileges to new times
Protestantism startled by the results of its own principles
Tendency of the law to subordinate the Church
Religion supported by non-communicants
Differing judgments
Growing disability of the Church
The Dedham seceders.
Control of ecclesiastical property
How the Church lost its prestige
Character of covenant members
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CONTENTS.
xix
}
LECTURE VII.
EARLY NEW ENGLAND UNITARIANS.
BY REV. ANDREW P. PEABODY, D.D.
General silence in regard to the Trinity
Great change in the Eighteenth Century
Influence of thinkers not nominally Unitarian
Anti-Trinitarianism of two ancient creeds
II. Charles Chauncy, of First Church
III. Jonathan Mayhew, of West Church
Limitation of the subject to biographical sketches
I. Ebenezer Gay, of Hingham
Three clerical brethren
Professional culture
Independence and eloquence
Patriotism
Opposition to English missionary society
Steadfastness in death.
Portrait.
•
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IV. Jeremy Belknap, of Federal Street Church
V. James Freeman, of King's Chapel
No open dissent in Connecticut
Three leaders
I. John Sherman, of Mansfield
Change of opinions
Unitarians in the Holland Land Company
Earliest printed defence of Unitarianism
II. Abiel Abbot, of Coventry
III. Luther Willson, of Brooklyn
Choice fruits of the vineyard
·
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LECTURE VIII.
Acknowledged leader and ideal theologian
Reminiscences of his pulpit eloquence
Preordained for his work.
Love of freedom hereditary
CHANNING.
BY REV. GEORGE W. BRIGGS, D.D.
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CONTENTS.
Continuous religious experience
Early ministry
Inevitable protest for liberty
Congregational schism
Domination of certain great truths
Moral perfection of God
Mission of Jesus
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One forever-burning light
Dignity of human nature .
All minds in one family
Enrapturing faith
Naturalness of redemption
Truths and Bibles
Nourisher of noble souls
Anti-slavery sentiments
Higher expectations of truth
Other characteristics
Inspiring scenery of Narragansett Bay
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TRANSCENDENTALISM: THE NEW ENGLAND
LECTURE IX.
•
The Puritan pioneers
Current and eddy
The questioning habit
Retarding effect of isolation.
Attempt to found a theocracy
Giants of aspiring thought
Commonplace level
Liberalism creeping in
A quarry for Unitarian polemics
•
RENAISSANCE.
BY REV. FRANCIS TIFFANY.
Enlarged subject
Second birth of Europe
Double discovery of inner and outer world
Protest of conservatism and selfishness
Champions of the old and new
A word for the retrogressive party
Sublime sentiments and opaque understanding
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CONTENTS.
xxi
Noble charities and wide thoughts
Stagnation
Paralyzing influence of trade
Philistines
Children of Light
Confidence of spirit in itself
Characteristic features of the Transcendental movement
•
Reverence toward foreign thinkers
A Mont Blanc of thought
Scholars crossing the ocean
The movement not merely imitative
Spontaneity and freshness
Intellectual, æsthetic, and spiritual ferment .
A stimulating address
Antagonistic effect.
Relation to supernaturalism
External authority and inward recognition
Illustrations from art
No single theological issue
Far-reaching question
Priceless service.
•
Two great nurses
Habits of study
•
THEODORE PARKER.
BY REV. Samuel Barrett Stewart.
Early Unitarianism outgrown
The symbol remains a constant .
Parker not included within a denominational cordon
Representative of an influx of new thought
Inheritance of life
LECTURE X.
Boyhood and early manhood
Professional preparation
Analysis of the human spirit
Special characteristics.
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Not the originator of the new thought
His theology the outgrowth of himself
Four significant questions to be answered
Searching problems
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xxii
CONTENTS.
An awakening sermon.
Abstract of the five parts of his great book.
I. Religious consciousness in varying forms
II. Inspiration not phenomenal but continual
III. Christianity not the Absolute Religion
Traditions and accretions
IV. Bible as literature
V. Church-history
Obvious heresy
Defects and prophetic grandeur
Public effect.
•
Helpfulness of thought
Greatness of heart
New aspect of old ideas
A living deity in nature and man
Irrepressible satire.
Onslaught upon impiety
Practical theism
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Estimate of Jesus and his religion
Assurance of future life
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Non-reliance upon external testimony
Belief in immanent providence
Pursuit of truth.
Crusade for freedom
Inspiration to fresh study
Broader Unitarianism the result
Effect upon pulpit oratory
Parochial tranquillity disturbed
Martyrdom
Not a poet or philosopher
Death "without the sight"
Burial-place
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LECTURE XI.
UNITARIANISM AND MODERN LITERATURE.
Two methods of treatment
Serious difficulties
American literature and Unitarianism
BY REV. FRANCIS HORNBROOKE.
One great name .
Fiction in the early part of the Nineteenth Century
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Later works
Historians
Five great orators
Poets and essayists.
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Literary excellence
American poetry united with liberal theology
Remarkable hymns
Value of the inquiry
Changed literary conditions
Second part of the subject
Unitarianism in literature .
Three difficulties
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Individuality of utterance.
What Unitarianism stands for
These ideas in literature
Emerson and Holmes
Liberal tenets in poetry
The Quaker Poet
Robert Browning
Lewis Morris
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Underlying thoughts
Liberalism in fiction
Religious novels
The past a cause for rejoicing
•
LECTURE XII.
Parable of chaff and wheat
Value of detecting errors.
Ungracious aspect of criticism
Nothing to fear for truth
All things subject to the laws of thought
How the Bible is to be understood
The Dutch School
Law of historic research
Use of reason in interpretation
Inspiration inferior to virtue
Important part of criticism
Controversial period
Something deeper than textual criticism
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UNITARIANISM AND MODERN BIBLICAL CRITICISM.
BY REV. JAMES DE NORMANDIE.
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xxiv
CONTENTS.
Legendary element in the Scriptures
First results of German inquiry
Influence of natural science
Development Theory
Scientific separated from spiritual truth
Geology and Genesis
Comparative Theology
Sympathy of Religions
Oriental and Christian ritualism
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Distinguishing privilege
Value of critical study
Effect on missionary work
Another important question .
Chronology of sacred books
Difficulties increasing with exact criticism
New hypotheses
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Limitation of the subject
Definitions of Theology and Science
Two questions
Three possible answers
The universe necessarily true
Answers of Unitarianism and Science
Changes in science .
Honor among scientists
A noteworthy declaration.
Devout confessions of scientists
One exception
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LECTURE XIII.
BY REV. THOMAS R. SLICER.
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Confidence in the world's orderliness
Claims, duties, and characteristics of Unitarianism
Thought and life more than opinions
First point of contact
Principles affirmed but beliefs not stereotyped
UNITARIANISM AND MODERN SCIENTIFIC THOUGHT.
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The universal spirit
Loyalty to divine will and moral character
Man's adjustment to the universe
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CONTENTS.
XXV
World not evolved from moral consciousness
Present attitude of science
Scientific methods not hampered by Unitarians
Mutual misapprehensions by religionists and scientists
•
True sphere of materialism and metaphysics
Religion confirmed by science
Fundamental hypothesis of religion
Devout belief not gainsaid by scientific facts.
Agnostic theories unsupported
Analogy of God's will to man's.
Human and divine thought
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The Development Theory leading to the doctrine of Evolution
Will and thought coetaneous
Two great principles in modern science
Conservation of Energy
Correlation of Forces
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Vital force no exception
Relation of these twin principles to supernaturalism
The soul dwelling in an enlarged universe
Working hypotheses in science and theology
Reasoning beyond facts
Tendency towards belief in Evolution.
Not universally accepted
Relation to progress
Modest affirmations of science
Man not accounted for
The past of humanity a prophecy of its future
Perfect correspondence indicative of a perfect life.
Moral and spiritual experiments
Discontent with secondary causes
LECTURE XIV.
THE LAW OF RIGHTEOUSNESS.
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BY REV. George Batchelor.
One way of treatment adopted
Motive-power in ethical life
Morals a better word than Ethics
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Equipment of Unitarians for spiritual enterprise
Personal illustration of the harmony of devout science with broad religion. 310
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xxvi
CONTENTS.
Righteousness better than either
Relation of right-wis-ness to expediency
Practical illustrations
Higher advances in the same direction
Exceptions to the law of trustiness
Manhood leading to gentlemanliness
Unitarian belief in the genuineness of human goodness
False conventional ideal
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Incomparable examples of integrity and culture
Moral and educational soil of human nature
Patriotic devotion
Only a few models for imitation
Virtue enhanced by belief in immortality
The need, the deed, and the man
Two differing motives of action
Ethics and Religion equally honorable
Highest Utilitarianism shallow
Growth of virtue from within
Noblest conduct dependent upon religion
Seeming exceptions
Winning ideals heaven-born
Right feeling based upon right thinking
Deterioration of moral ideals when divorced from religious faith
Belief in immortality leading to humanity
Disproportionately generous fruits of our denominational faith
External inducements to virtue
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Beneficent results of total culture
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LECTURE XV.
BY REV. CHARLES CARROLL EVERETT, D.D.
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This union of subjects not meaningless
Some philosophy belonging to every one
Unitarianism the simplest philosophy of religion
Two great antagonists
Different meanings of Agnosticism
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THE RELATION OF UNITARIANISM TO PHILOSOPHY.
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CONTENTS.
xxvii
ì
Akin to Scepticism.
Change of name but not of front
Spencer's Agnosticism
Varying use of the term Unknowable
Material illustrations
Significance of terms
Unknowability of the Absolute .
Paradoxical position: the Agnostic is the Gnostic
Philosophical Agnosticism impossible
Disguised materialism
Commendable but doubtful simplicity
Materialistic questions hard to answer
Spiritualistic questions equally perplexing
Problem of Consciousness
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Helplessness of the materialistic argument
Superior brightness of the Unitarian faith
Contrast with the elder Orthodoxy
Integrity and sanity of human nature
Reason a God-given instrument
The heart repressed by narrow systems
Intellectual and spiritual freedom
Wholeness of the world
Continuity of divine power
Spiritualistic philosophy represented by Unitarianism
Manifested in opposing systems
Background of the universe.
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Problem of Evil.
Dualism sunk in profounder knowledge
Nature's tendency not capricious
Lower suffering exaggerated.
Witness of personal judgment
Assumptions and conclusions
Ideal philosophy
Vast difference between matter and sentience
Development arising from self-assertion
Controlling power of love
This result the outcome of a spiritual source
Nature animated by controlling mind.
Man bound to the universe by closer than intellectual ties
New aspect of inexorable law in human consciousness
Spiritual presence veiled in nature.
Something above spirit and matter
Transcendent freedom of spirit
Loftiest moral force
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xxviii
CONTENTS.
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ECCLESIASTICAL AND DENOMINATIONAL
TENDENCIES.
•
LECTURE XVI.
BY REV. GRINDALL Reynolds,
Stint of our religious body
Co-existence of church activity with religious liberty.
Individual and congregational freedom achieved
Impression made by early Unitarian leaders
Milder creeds
Fear of organization
Growth of Unitarianism in spite of itself
Definition of terms
No definite church polity
Absence of creed
•
What we are leaving behind
Former plainness of worship
Dogmatic training distrusted
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One question which the fathers needed not to consider
Richer tendency
Ancient meeting-houses and modern chapels
Fine edifices demanded
Ecclesiastical festivals
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Ritualism the inevitable reaction
Juvenile instruction formerly neglected
Change in this respect
Wider church hospitality
First efforts to reach outsiders
Three ecclesiastical tendencies summarized
Sectarianism not originally intended or favored
Tendency toward external coherence
Denominational gatherings
Past achievements and divided plans
Superficial differences and fundamental agreements
Spiritual union no excuse for inactivity
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Truth, Freedom, and Usefulness
Chief problem of to-day.
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UNITARIANISM:
ITS ORIGIN AND HISTORY.
ORIGIN AND HISTORY OF UNITARIANISM.
▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬
EARLY CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE.
BY J. H. ALLEN.
ર
THE
HE process which proved such a thorny and tangled
one, of casting the early Christian doctrine in shape
to give the type of the world's best life for a thousand years,
may be reckoned to have taken about five centuries before
it was finished. A little more strictly, we may set the two
boundaries of that process at the middle of the First Cen-
tury, when Saint Paul set seriously about the task of interpret-
ing the Messianic office of Jesus, and a little past the middle
of the Fifth, when Leo the Great, of Rome, had laid strong
and deep the foundations of the ecclesiastical structure that
was to be. This large perspective ought to make our first
step, in trying to understand as we may the nature of the
slow growth of opinion that was meanwhile taking place.
This wide way of looking at it does not serve to the scholar
quite the uses of the elaborate study which he has been used
to spending upon that period, — or, more likely, upon some
detached fragment of it. But it is well to look upon the
growth of opinion as an organic growth; and that means, to
see it first as a whole, before dissecting it to find the shape.
and uses of its several parts. That study is oftenest made too
purely analytical and erudite. Think of the learning, for ex-
ample, literally microscopic, that has been spent in inter-
I
2
EARLY CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE.
preting a single group of texts, the New Testament Epistles
or the Fathers of the Second Century, wholly detached from
the soil they grew out of or the life they grew into ! Think of
that eager, anxious, controversial motive which made a great
scholar like John Henry Newman stake his faith on the right
reading of the documents of the Fourth Century, — doctrinally
speaking, the stormiest and most passionate of all! Primi-
tive Christianity has been identified not with the pulse of that
strong, brave, spiritual life which went forth upon the world in
those early centuries in a purifying and invigorating though
turbulent stream, but with the opinions, necessarily transitory
and crude, in which a credulous, ignorant, and excited time
of revolution tried to express its sense of the one transcendent
fact of its moral history, to interpret to the understanding.
what its own eyes had seen and its own hands had handled
of the Word of Life. Each later student of that astonishing
phenomenon, launched as he probably was upon the swelling
flood of modern controversy, was naturally anxious to claim
those opinions as his own; and in this temper our Christian
scholars of the Nineteenth Century have tried to identify
themselves with the mind of the First, and to make good
their claim of finding their own belief identical with "primi-
tive Christianity."
If we would escape the fallacies and confusions that have
grown out of the one phrase last quoted, we must first of all
clear our mind completely of all such controversial motive.
For example, it was a pardonable thing on the part of Uni-
tarian critics half a century ago, but would be most unwise in
us, to look for modern Unitarianism, or anything like it, in the
early beliefs of Christendom. Negatively, indeed, we should
be quite right; for, truly, we must look long and late into the
history of doctrine, before finding anything like the Trinita-
EARLY CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE.
3
1
rian creed of modern Orthodoxy. But our modern terms do
not hit the ancient thought. Thus, to say (as in the title of
an ingenious doctrinal tract) that "the Apostle Peter was a
Unitarian" can only mean that the apostle was
as he cer-
tainly was quite innocent of any such notion as that sym-
bolized in the modern Trinity. But we should doubtless
be very much astonished if we could see just what his thought
really was about the kingdom of God that was immediately to
appear, and compare it with our own way of thinking about
the kingdom of God we are looking for. We may strip away
the errors and accretions that came about in the course of
centuries; and we may find, indeed, a human heart that
beats very much like ours, but a line of thought almost as
hard for us to follow as if it were written in Chinese.
In the task before us, then, we shall not once try to identify
our own doctrine with that held by anybody at any point in
that early age, excepting only so far as the holders of it
appear to us to read correctly their own experience, or to
deal frankly and intelligently with the religious phenomena
of the time they lived in. We may call this, if we will, a
scientific" attitude or temper in the study of opinion. But,
in fact, that expresses it very imperfectly: the scientific tem-
per is only one element in what we need; and, standing alone,
is quite as misleading as a non-scientific or controversial tem-
per, — perhaps more so. For, whatever else we do, we must
deal with religious matters religiously, that is, sympathetically;
and even the polemic temper is not half so far away from that
as the non-religious or agnostic. We must be as frankly ready
to accept a fact in the religious life, however strange and even
repugnant it looks to us, as to discern an error or a truth in
religious thought. We will see with the eyes of the early
Christians if we can, and think with their minds as well as we
-
4
EARLY CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE.
can; but at least we ought to find in our own hearts something
of the life they lived, and then put it to our thought in as
much clearer language as we can.
And for this, instead of studying with the help of learned
commentary that vast library of what we call by courtesy
"the Christian Fathers," with a view to manipulate their
scattered and floating hints into intelligible shape, it is quite
possible that we may get a clearer notion of what we really
want, if we follow somewhat swiftly that great current of
religious life, and watch the bold navigators in that flood,
or the trusting multitude that confided in their skill, with
the motive not at all of taking sides with one as against an-
other, but simply of seeing what is the point they all want
to make, and how they are working towards it. In the
period I have named, I roughly reckon (after the New Tes-
tament times) about fifty names of Christian writers,¹ some
of them very voluminous, with whose lives, writings, and
opinions the student of such things ought to be fairly well
acquainted, in order to make that rapid review of any value.
We must rely, in good part, on the broad impression taken
from them all, a sort of composite photograph I may call
it; though it may be necessary to point out a few individual
features, in order to make it clear that we are looking at the
human likeness of a period at all.
Now I have noticed that when an artist sets about to draw
a portrait, he wants first of all a clear thin outline that just
hints the likeness, and guides himself by that while he works.
out the different features in due prominence and proportion.
1 Migne's "Patrologia" contains the writings of something more than
two hundred and sixty Christian authors of the period in question,
from whose names a select list of fifty may easily be made out by the
student. To this should be added a list of from twenty to thirty Pagan
writers.
EARLY CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE.
5
Something like this is necessary, if we would take in at once
so broad a view as that covered by four or five centuries. The
general fact before us is a revolution of human opinion with
which there is nothing whatever to compare, except that revo-
lution of scientific opinion which has come about in the four
or five centuries since the modern era of thought had fairly
set in. But the radical difference of the two cases is here:
that the modern revolution deals mainly with men's views of
the universe and the laws of life seen from the outside; the
revolution we are dealing with dealt mainly with men's view
of their own relation to the Divine government and the law of
the spiritual life as felt inwardly. Moreover, it went along
with that most stupendous of all political and social revolu-
tions, the complete dissolution of the fabric of ancient society,
religion, morals, and empire, and the coming-on of the great
wave of barbarian conquest, which changed the very raw
material of the populations Christianity had to work on. We
see the whole thing falsely, unless we see it in its bearings
with that most memorable convulsion of all that have ever
happened in human affairs.
I have mentioned the names of two men, Paul and Leo,
possibly the greatest, and certainly the most significant of the
long series, as standing at the beginning and the end of the
four centuries' process of development. The process was one
that, as we must remember, transformed the Christian doc-
trine from the prized possession of a little Palestinian sect to
a great shaping spiritual force, of energy enough to dictate
and control the lines on which a new civilization, of vastly
greater might and splendor than the old, was slowly taking
form and substance. What we wish to understand is, how
the "formative type," as a naturalist
might perhaps call it -was growing and changing under such
the central thought
6
EARLY CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE.
influences as I have hinted at. For that is really what we
mean when we speak of the development of early Christian
doctrine.
We have to do, as you will remember, with a period of
some four hundred years, from the middle of the First Cen-
tury to past the middle of the Fifth. Looking along that line,
from our particular point of view, our eye is first caught by
two groups, one about the middle of the Third Century, and
one about the middle of the Fourth. Is first caught, I say;
for the eager discussion going on in these two groups, respec-
tively, represents to us the Sabellian and the Arian controver-
sies, the first, touching the nature and office of Christ, that
are likely to have any definite meaning to modern ears. It
will be convenient, therefore, in our wide perspective, if we let
our eye rest a moment on these two cardinal points, and fix
the date of them distinctly in our mind.
The earlier of these two dates, again, is interesting to us,
from our point of view, in two ways: first, it is exactly at the
middle of the line of development we are considering; and
secondly, it is marked not only by that controversy, the earli-
est that has weight in the modern history of doctrine, but also
by the earliest formal treatise on the Christian trinity. This is
not, it is true, quite the trinity of the later creeds, though it
speaks of Jesus for the first time, I believe, distinctly-as
66
a god;" and it was not written by Sabellius, an Alexandrian
Greek, but by Novatian, a Roman schismatic, a Puritan of ill
health and (as he was charged) of "wolfish" temper, a man
whose impracticable and eccentric opposition to the church
authorities reminds us strongly of Roger Williams, and who,
like that vexer of the Pilgrim church, entangled himself in an
interminable snarl of controversy touching the right and wrong
of baptism and the true conditions of church membership.
EARLY CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE.
7
So we find that in the middle of the Third Century, more
than half a century before Constantine, under the very stress
of the martyr-age, or at least in a short breathing-space of rest
from persecution, active and acrimonious controversy is going
on, that touches both the central doctrine and the visible or-
ganization of the Church. We are already two centuries away
from Paul; and in this long interval we have not, at first view,
caught sight of anything that specially arrested us as a land-
mark of Christian doctrine. At least, the names scattered
along that line are the names not of men who handled sharp
weapons in the strife of opinion, but of Apostolical Fathers, -
writers for edification merely; Apologists, - defenders of the
faith against alien enemies; Fathers, commentators, philo-
sophical lecturers, and so on, who did a busy preparatory
work, but who do not stand in especially sharp relief as the
expounders of controverted doctrine. And so those two cen-
turies are a comparatively level stretch, of little account to us
until we look a little more sharply, and then we see that they
are intersected by a line which, in truth, marks the most clearly
defined and significant boundary in the whole development of
Christian theology.
This cross-line cuts the course of our history at a point just
a century after the beginnings of the Church of the Apostles
at Jerusalem; and it marks, really, the starting-place of the
rapid development of Christian doctrine, as such, contrasted
with those first efforts, which we find in the Epistles of Paul,
to draw the line between Judaism and Christianity. Clearly,
throughout the New Testament, the leading idea is that Jesus
was the Messiah of the Jews, in however spiritual fashion this
office might be interpreted; and so long as the Jewish nation
existed, however feeble a remnant it might appear, the deliv-
erance and glory of the chosen people under its Divine Leader
8
EARLY CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE.
would remain the central point of faith, at any rate with a large
proportion of the disciples. Indeed, in the time of the apos-
tles, it is not quite clear that in the average Christian mind the
Messianic hope was altered essentially from its early Jewish
meaning, except that it was definitely fixed upon Jesus of
Nazareth, and that its fulfilment was to be in a second com-
ing, visibly, in the clouds of heaven, in the lifetime of the gen-
eration that had seen and heard the Master. It is common
to say that that hope was extinguished in the tragical over-
throw of Jerusalem under Titus. But it would be more
correct to put the date sixty-five years later, when a Mes-
sianic pretender or enthusiast, calling himself Son of the Star
of Jacob (Bar-Cochab), having reigned three years as Messi-
anic prince in Jerusalem, was suppressed, and the Jewish na-
tion was bloodily extinguished under Hadrian, in 135. Up
to that date, it seems quite certain that there was a sect of
Palestinian Christians who looked distinctly to see a restora-
tion of the "kingdom unto Israel" under the risen and tri-
umphant Messiah. After that date, this hope was definitely
blotted out, and the independent growth of Christian doc-
trine, as distinct from a more or less altered and spiritualized
Judaism, may be said to have begun.
The year 135 is to be taken, then, as the crisis of the revo-
lution which established Christian doctrine as an independent
force in shaping the religious opinions of mankind. The
moment is so well defined, and the narrative which relates
it is so explicit and precise, that one might almost think
it a myth, half-consciously created (as such things are) to
tell the intellectual event in the terms of personal adventure.
On the contrary, the story has every appearance of being
plain matter of fact; and it is told by one of the most calm,
plain, and thoughtful of all writers of that time, I mean
EARLY CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE.
9
Justin the Apologist, who died as a martyr somewhere about
thirty years later. The dialogue is a long one, but I will just
indicate here the cardinal point on which it turns.
Soon after that great catastrophe of the Jewish people,
Justin an educated Greek, now a zealous Christian of the
philosophic type coming to be common meets an elderly
Jew, Trypho, a teacher and man of mark among his people,
who (we may suppose) has been cast into a great despon-
dency by that hopeless overthrow. Such, at least, we may
imagine to be the motive of his patient listening; though, in
truth, the part he holds in this dialogue is curt, captious, and
dry. But to put it a little more dramatically: "Alas!" he
says, or seems to say, "where can we now look for the fulfil-
ment of that divine hope, that promise of God to his people?"
The younger man takes up the topic, and enters with him at
great length into the true interpretation of that prophecy it
is, he urges, a spiritual fulfilment of that hope, not a literal or
carnal one, which has been meant from the first. And so,
having prepared the way, he enters with frank enthusiasm
upon that doctrine of the eternal Word of God-such as
Philo had expounded it in Alexandria a hundred years be-
fore, and such as we find it in the Gospel of John - which,
he insists, is the very Spirit that was in Christ. The lan-
guage in which he states this is so important to my present
purpose that I must give it, as nearly as I can, in Justin's
own words:
Before all created things God begat from himself a certain
mighty Word ("might of the Word," dúvapuus λoyiký), which is
also called Holy Spirit, or Glory of the Lord, sometimes Son,
sometimes Wisdom, sometimes Angel, sometimes God, and
sometimes Lord, or Word. And [not] so it is with us: for
>>
1 The word "not is found in the Greek, but is omitted in the ver
sions as unintelligible.
ΙΟ
EARLY CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE.
when we utter any word, we beget that word not by a cutting-off
[or act of separation], such that the Reason in us is thereby
diminished, but rather like one flame kindled from another, while
the first remains no less [than it was before]. - Chap. 61.
This, with what follows, is probably the first attempt at a
formal statement of the Logos-doctrine as a cardinal point
in Christian theology; the Proem to the Fourth Gospel
(whether written a little before or a little after) being an elo-
quent and noble religious expression of the same general
thought. What is important for us to note is that, with this
deep religious and philosophic idea, - suggested in this new
application (apparently) by the final extinction of the Messi-
anic hope, the first stage of Christian doctrine passes away;
the decisive second step is taken, that makes Christianity a
new and independent force in the world of thought the
second step, as we may rightly say, since Justin's doctrine of
the Word completes and follows out Paul's doctrine of the
Spirit, which was the first.
We seem here to have found the germ, out of which came
the rapid and astonishing growth of Christian doctrine in the
three centuries succeeding. During all this formative period,
we find that the chief task of interpretation, and the motive of
every later Christological controversy, turned not at all upon
the points familiar to us in the New Testament and in the so-
called Apostolical Fathers: the simple acceptance of Jesus as
a Saviour from sin; repentance, regeneration, and the rest;
but upon the question, In what sense are we to understand
the cardinal fact, the advent of the Divine Life among men
in the person of Jesus? That the disciples were deeply per-
suaded of such an advent, as witnessed in their own experi-
ence and in what they knew of the world about them, we may
accept without any cavil. The faith was real: the task of
:
EARLY CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE.
11
reason was to bring the theory of it within range and harmony
of their general way of thinking, which was far enough
away from ours. The first attempts were, as we have seen
already, a little vacillating and crude. We must try, however,
to see how the doctrine looked to them, not merely the shape
it grew to afterwards. We find, for example, no hint of a for-
mal Trinity; no distinction, even, of which they were con-
scious, between Son and Spirit. Thus the most definite
statement we get from Justin's "Apology," written some fifteen
years later, is this, - defending the Christians from the charge
of impiety: "We worship and adore both Him [God], and
the Son who came forth from him and taught us these things,
and the host of other Angels who follow and are made like
him, and the prophetic Spirit." A few years later we find
these words of another Apologist (Athenagoras), who attempts.
to make the doctrine more explicit: "The Son [is] in the
Father, and the Father in the Son, by oneness and power of
the Spirit. Mind and Reason (Logos) of the Father [is] the
Son of God" (chap. 10).
So far, the thought we have to deal with is simply religious ;
that is, it is an attempt to make plain to the understanding
and put into intelligible speech a real experience, which the
believer is first conscious of in his own religious life. For
there are times when any of us who are capable of such emo-
tions feel as if sharers of a Life higher than our own, and as if
our thoughts were suggested to us by a Wisdom greater than
our own. By the easiest turn of phrase, we call that prompt-
ing voice the Word of God. The Word so spoken in us is the
voice of the Spirit; and the revelation of it through some no-
bler life we easily think of as the Word of the Most High
"made flesh." With us, indeed, the terms are apt to be sym-
bolic and vague, — if, indeed, we do not prefer other terms
▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬
12
EARLY CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE.
to express the same thing; but with those who received it
then there were two things that made them take it in a much
more literal way than we are apt to do. One was a habit
of mind which made what we should call an abstract idea a
real" objective" thing to them: thus Day or Night, Life or
Death, by a sort of natural poetry, seem to such minds more
an actual person or power than a mere impression on the senses
or a mere fact of life. The other was a law of the language in
which they thought, which carried the same thing farther out,
and made the thing a person: the term "Logos" in Greek is
masculine, not neuter, as Word or Reason would be in Eng-
lish; and it was clearly much harder for them than for us to
think of it as a mere abstract quality. Thus, in the sentence
I have just quoted, it was the most natural thing in the world
for Athenagoras to say that the Mind (vous) or Reason.
(Móyos) of God is his Son. I do not suppose that this way of
looking at it can ever be made easy and natural to us as it was
to them. But we constantly meet it in early Christian theol-
ogy, --which we may, if we will, call vividly imaginative in-
stead of coldly rational, and we shall very soon see how
important it is in the understanding of doctrinal controversy.
Meanwhile, as we have to remember, there are three classes
of interpreters, all calling themselves Christian, each very dif
ferent from both the others. Nay, in these early times of
unchecked speculation about a very momentous fact in human
history, we find a formal list of more than forty different
heresies," or fashions of free interpretation, before the
creeds were fixed. Those who were intellectually fascinated
by the theory, and attempted- often wildly and crudely
enough — to work it out in systems of metaphysical phi-
losophy, we call Gnostics. Those who simply laid it to
heart as a gospel of life, and tried to live faithfully up to
(C
M
EARLY CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE.
13
it, we call Confessors. Those who tried to interpret it into
a coherent system of opinion, and to make it the basis of
an organized and regulated religious life, were the Fathers,
the teachers, the theologians of the Christian Church. The
first of these classes ran fast into all manner of differences and
extravagances, and in not much more than half a century had
almost wholly disappeared. From the second class came the
multitude of Martyrs, humble and unknown, most of them,
who fill the record of three Christian centuries with glory and
with pity. The third class have exhibited, too often, the pas-
sions of mere subtile and angry disputants that have grown
out of their almost incredible notion of belief in doctrine as
essential to salvation; but it is they who have also given
the dignity, the intellectual strength, and the enduring vigor
to the organic life of Christendom. The history of Chris-
tian doctrine is given in the lives of a few of these men.
But now that great and mischievous fallacy,- belief in ||
doctrine essential to salvation, which has brought so much
calamity, guilt, and shame upon the Christian ages, — how
ever did it come about? It will not do to let it go with
mere reprobation and abhorrence. We must see, if we can,
how it was possible for some of the noblest and most en-
lightened of men to hold that opinion in good faith, and
to open the way (as Saint Augustine did) to grievous crimes
against humanity, even if they did not walk in that way
themselves. And, in trying to answer this question, we shall
hit upon the double current of motive, which it will be neces-
sary to follow, to get any right understanding of what the
history of Christian doctrine really is.
I do not think so shocking a belief as that, with all the
horrible consequences it led to, would ever have come to
pass, if the Christian doctrine had been held as a mere
14
EARLY CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE.
intellectual opinion. It was something very different from
that. The Word was not made flesh, the Son of God did
not dwell visibly among men, above all, a being higher than
all the angels did not submit to the sorrows of humanity and
the ignominy of a cruel death, merely to teach a theory of
speculative knowledge, which we might compare to our mod-
ern science about the sun and stars! The whole thing meant
deliverance from some impending calamity which was threat-
ening all human society and the soul of every man. At
the bottom of all religious feeling, nay, as a background to
their joy of pardon and assurance of salvation, lay a deep
sense of terror and gloom. Just what men feared we cannot
always tell.
Perhaps it was a great horror and dread of
hell, which it certainly was in many men's apprehension of a
future life is always deeply colored by their experience of
this. But it is not necessary to suppose it was so in all, or
always. At any rate, we can look back and see what a doom
-the destruction of a whole order of society, complicated
with miseries and terrors like a French Revolution spread out
over three whole centuries, with a mystery of iniquity before.
which the conscience stands aghast was in fact slowly
coming on, overwhelming and resistless; and it is impossible
not to think that the tone of their feeling may have been a
sort of foreboding of that almost infinite disaster. At the
bottom of their religious conviction, at all events, and a mo-
tive of their deepest gratitude, was the sense that the Christian
gospel was the way of rescue from some overwhelming doom.
The Lord's people were safe, how or why they knew not,
safe under a Divine Leader and Deliverer, while the world
outside were cut off "in eternal ruin¹ from the presence of
the Lord." It was not for them to dispute the terms of
1 αἰώνιος ὄλεθρος.
EARLY CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE.
15
safety; and these, they no doubt thought, implied at least as
scrupulous homage, at least as accurate an observance of every
form and title of reverence, as that demanded by the Roman
emperor and his court. I do not go into their possible or
probable theory about it, but only suggest this by way of
illustrating what was evidently their state of mind.
With this motive, we need not be surprised that it became
the keenest point of conscience with them, and the strictest
condition they exacted of one another, to hold right doctrine
concerning the true rank and majesty of their unseen Sov-
ereign, and to vie with one another who should carry their
homage to the most exalted pitch. I say that all these
motives are to be found: I do not say what was always the
theoretical ground of them. Their theology ran in two
streams, not one, following this double line of religious
motive: on their part, by what discipline or organization,
by what rites and obligations, by what spiritual exercises of
contrition, penitence, worship, or human duty, should they
assure themselves of the Christian salvation; on the Lord's
part, how should they rightly esteem and how most fitly honor
the Author of the great deliverance?
In a broad way we may say that the former, the practical
side, was taken up rather by the Western Church: the chief
crisis it came to was in the work and life of Saint Augustine,
about the year 400, which, beginning in a passion of remorse
and a deep sense of native sin, went on to an absolute sur-
render of will and self to God, as its consummate work was
that wonderful ecclesiastical structure, built up under Cyprian
and Ambrose, confirmed by Leo the Great, and standing in
vigor almost unimpaired down to our day. Of this, the more
social, human, political task of the Christian Church of the
first five centuries, with its more earnest and profound devel-
16
EARLY CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE.
opment of moral doctrine, I shall have little to say, though it
is the historic fact best of all worth keeping clear in mind.
For my immediate purpose, I must keep to the line of
speculative development, which is found chiefly in the Eastern
Church, and which wrought out within these five centuries the
great historic creeds of Christendom. The chief crises of
interest are at or near the middle of the Third Century, the
middle of the Fourth, and the middle of the Fifth. These
are the dates of the Sabellian controversy, the Arian con-
troversy (at its height), and the controversy respecting the
Double Nature of Christ, which was brought to a term at
the Council of Chalcedon, last of the Four Great Councils,
in 451.
From the point of view I have taken, a very brief
review, I hope, will make these main points of the doctrinal
development sufficiently clear and intelligible for the purpose
we have just now in mind, and perhaps make the completer
study of this period a little easier.
I must now go back to the point I had come to before,
the doctrine of the WORD, which came in early in the Second
Century to fill the void left by the perishing of the Messianic
hope. Let us here recall the words of Athenagoras, repeating
with a little more precision those of Justin; namely, that “the
Mind and Reason of the Father is the Son of God;" or, as
we are free to read it, "The Son of God is the Mind and
Reason of the Father." I have said something of the state
of mind which made such a definition more natural and
reasonable then than it would seem now. It has, in fact,
to do with a system of philosophy (known as "Realism")
held unconsciously, and prevailing from antiquity down to
nearly six hundred years ago, but which has been blotted
almost out of our memory and imagination by the analytic
science of modern times. I wish to have as little to do as
EARLY CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE.
17
I can with that line of pure speculation; but we cannot
understand in the least what the creators of the Christian
doctrine meant, or thought they meant, unless we make a
little effort that way. The words just quoted "the Son
of God is the Mind and Reason of the Father
are the
germ of the Christian Trinity. If we were to use such words
now, we should at once be understood to use them figura-
tively. Athenagoras uses them literally, that is, as far as
any symbolic language can be literal. And so we must under-
stand them, too, in as literal a sense as they will bear.
Mind or Reason, we say, is an attribute of God. Now the
Son of God, we also say, is certainly a person, not an attribute.
But the early dogmatists did not see the difficulty as we do.
To them, it is clear, it was perfectly easy to think of Mind or
Reason as having an individual, almost we might say a per-
sonal, existence, not of course independent of the Father,
but "in the bosom of the Father." This fiction of speech, as
we should call it, is what theologians call to hypostatize the
Logos, that is, to regard the Divine attribute as if it were a
living person, a real thing. This is, in fact, what is meant by
the true mystical doctrine of the pre-existence of Christ,
not that he existed (as the Arians say) as a conscious individ-
ual Person before the world was; but that the Divine Word
which "became flesh" in him was from eternity a quality of
the Divine Nature, the same thing (so to speak) with the self-
conscious intelligence of the Eternal. But this quality, or
attribute, was so strongly individualized in the habit of mind
I speak of, that there was not the least difficulty, or objection,
in conceiving that it took in the most literal sense the place of
a human soul in Jesus, and made him the Son of God exactly
as Athenagoras declares that Mind or Reason is the Son of
God. We, as I just said, have left wholly behind the habit of
A
2
18
EARLY CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE.
mind which makes such a conception possible to us; but to
the early Christians it was evidently quite easy and natural,
and we must see it so if we would understand anything of their
doctrine.
I shall not take up here the story of those long, weary,
unintelligible, and often scandalous disputes known as the
Controversies of the period we are now looking forward to.
I wish, just now, only to point out the difficulty or ambiguity
of language which they turned on. For all the parties to these
controversies contended, with equal zeal, that they were both
orthodox in their belief, and the true interpreters of the Chris-
tian formula which all accepted alike. The difficulty lay in
the nature of the thing to be expressed, and the language in
which it was expressed. The hard, pious, and rather narrow
Novatian, indeed, is content to say, bluntly, that "it would be
an offence to deny that God the Father can beget a Son who
is also a God," and lets it go at that. But those of a more
metaphysical turn must needs look a little closer; and then
they found there were two elements in the conception, instead
of one; and whichever we give weight to, the other presently
goes out of sight. We are agreed (we will suppose) to say
that the Word of God that is, the divine wisdom, reason, or
thought is the Son of God; and that the Son of God, in
the flesh, was Jesus Christ. Now, when we say the Divine
Reason, are we really speaking of an Attribute or quality of
the Godhead, or are we speaking of a Person? If the first,
then we are speaking of what is necessarily eternal, as God
himself is eternal; for God cannot even be thought of without
his Wisdom, his Reason, or his Word, which is strictly, there-
fore, co-eternal with him. But again, we are agreed in call-
ing that Word his Son: his Eternal Son, therefore? This
might be, and in our modern way of thinking would be, a
EARLY CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE.
19
pure figure of speech, as we have seen; but it was far from
being such with these ardent Realists, who saw in it, on the
contrary, the most positive and objectively real of existences.
And so at once the subtile question confronted them, in a
sense that could not possibly occur to us: How can a son be
co-eternal with his father? The very word "sonship" implies
an act and a beginning: Christ, as Son, must then be, if ever
so little, lower than the Father, and later in order of time,
that is, not literally eternal.
Such, as nearly as we can see it, was the equivocation, or
ambiguity, which set the believing Christians at endless vari-
ance, —each (as I have said before) being convinced that his
own belief was essential to salvation. Those more mystically
inclined would dwell rather on the Eternal Word and its iden-
tity in essence with God himself; those more rationally in-
clined would draw the line where I have marked, and, in
defending their position, would insist on a wider separation
of Christ from God than the general conscience of Christians
would bear. And so the story of the controversies of those
three succeeding centuries is the story of the slow swing, as
of a pendulum, first to one and then to the other of these
two interpretations, till, as I said, its point of rest was deter-
mined, on authority then held good, at Chalcedon,¹ in the
year 451.
is
With this hint for our guide, I will now go rapidly along the
line of those obscure and acrimonious disputes, in such a way
as to show, I hope, that they were not mere accidents of big-
otry and passion, but were steps in a natural process of
development, stroke and counterstroke, thought balancing
against thought, such as all history shows must be, where
Q
1 Chalcedon is to us a mere geographical expression, of no particu-
It was, in fact, a small suburb of Constantinople.
lar account.
20
EARLY CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE.
any great revolution of opinion is going on. The passion and
violence involved in it are neither more nor less disgraceful,
neither more nor less surprising, perhaps rather less, than
the passion and violence called out by the labor-battle of
to-day; certainly, on a higher intellectual level.
M
Naturally enough, the first great swing of the pendulum was
towards the more mystical and speculative view. What we
call the School of Alexandria, with its two great teachers,
Clement and Origen, spent its main strength (along with other
and most important services of criticism, interpretation, and
moral instruction) in developing, with all its bearings human
and divine, the doctrine of the Divine Word, making it effect-
ually the central doctrine of the Christian life. Even in the
lifetime of that mighty teacher and commentator, Origen, the
doctrine had been run out into a pious mysticism by Sabel-
lius, who taught that the Christian Trinity - Father, Son, and
Spirit is purely a trinity of Attributes, just as light and heat
are one with the splendor and power of the sun. This was to
merge Christ in God, and either wholly lose sight of the his-
toric Jesus, or else leave him a man like ourselves, only illumi-
nated by the Light that shines upon all alike. This is the
Sabellian heresy, condemned at Alexandria, and its author
excommunicated, in 261.
"The chief adversary of Sabellius," we are told, "opposed
him so earnestly as almost to fall into the opposite error of
a hypostatical independence of the Father and the Son."
Now, to explain the strange term "hypostatical indepen-
dence," we most conveniently take the account given by a
great and famous theologian, Gregory of Nyssa, a hundred
years later, who tells us that hypostasis corresponds to the
individual as nature to the race or species: thus we say the
"nature" of a man, but the "hypostasis " of John or Paul.
EARLY CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE.
21
This error, then, of making Christ an individual wholly dis-
tinct from the Father, which was "almost" committed by the
opponent of Sabellius, was quite fallen into, unawares, some
sixty years afterwards, by Arius, a presbyter of Alexandria, who
in like manner assailed his bishop, Alexander, as a Sabellian.
The matter was more important now, as it was just when Con-
stantine the Great had come to be sovereign of the Roman
world; and the stress of debate grew so violent that, for
reasons of State, Constantine - who had just (324) declared
the empire Christian — resolved that it must be decided by a
representative Council gathered from all Christendom. And
so was summoned the first "Ecumenical" or World Council,
which met at Nicæa, some forty miles from Constantinople,
in 325.
Fortunately for Alexander, he had a keen and vigorous
defender in a young deacon of his church, Athanasius,
who for nearly fifty years bore himself intrepidly and not
unworthily as the champion of the contested faith. The story
of his life is very dramatic, and wins genuine homage from us
all, whatever we think of his temper or his opinions. But I
can stop to tell only the point or two bearing directly on our
subject. Arius was defeated in the Council, if not convinced;
and, to guard against his error, the Nicene Creed (then
adopted) carefully states that the Son is "of one substance "
(homo-ousian, or con-substantial) with the Father. The Arians,
or semi-Arians, who were long in great favor at the Imperial
court, — would compromise only so far as to say that the Son
is of "like substance" (homoi-ousian) with the Father. And
the degree of separateness, or independence, which they thus
asserted, was held by the more orthodox to be a most danger-
ous concession to the decaying Paganism, as if, in fact, it
made Christ an inferior divinity, a Son of God in the same
da
22
EARLY CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE.
sense as the Roman pantheon made Hercules à son of Jove.
Under that stigmaan illogical and monstrous compromise.
between a devout mysticism and a sober rationality— Arianism
has labored to this day.
The Arian Controversy, which lasted for some forty years
with great heat and violence, is not only the chief and most
dramatic event of this Fourth Century, but is the only one
of these great ecclesiastical campaigns which is well fastened
upon modern memory. It was not, however, at all conclu-
sive of the matter in debate, but only opened the way to
further refinements and further quarrel, lasting till past the
middle of the Fifth, and was then only settled by authority,
not reason, for in reason the battle goes on till now. Suc-
cessive points of this debate came up to be determined by
successive Councils, — the four (which it may be convenient
to sum up here) held equally in authority in the Eastern and
in the Western Church being those of Nicea (325), Constan-
tinople (381), Ephesus (431), and Chalcedon (451). I will
recite, as briefly as possible, the doctrinal decisions made in
the latter three.
The heresy of Apollinaris, condemned at Constantinople,
was that Christ had, properly, no human personality; the
Logos being his soul, and his body being specially created
of celestial substance. The same Council condemned the
heresy of Macedonius, which denied personality to the Holy
Ghost: thus was made complete the formal doctrine of the
Trinity, the Nicene Creed being expanded accordingly.
The heresy of Nestorius (Patriarch of Constantinople), con-
demned at Ephesus, was that Jesus was not essentially Divine
in his own person, but was made so by the "indwelling" Word
of God. Hence Nestorius refused to the Virgin Mary the title
(beginning to be ascribed to her) "Mother of God."
M
EARLY CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE.
23
The heresy of Eutyches (a pious and mystical monk, a
great fanatic), condemned at Chalcedon, was that the divine
nature in Christ wholly absorbs the human, leaving it inop-
erative. The formula by which the faith was here defined
was dictated by Leo the Great, bishop of Rome. Its essential
declaration is as follows:
We confess and with one accord teach one and the same Son,
our Lord Jesus Christ, perfect in his divinity, perfect in his hu-
manity, truly God and truly man, consisting of a reasonable soul
and body; of one substance with the Father according to his
godhead, and of one substance with us according to his man-
hood; in all things like to us, sin only excepted; who is
to be acknowledged one and the same Christ, the Son, the Lord,
the only-begotten, in two natures, without mixture, change, divi-
sion, or separation; the difference of natures not being cancelled
by their union, but rather the property of each nature being pre-
served and running together into one person (πрóσwτоv) and one
substance (vóσтaσw), so that he is not divided or separated into
two persons, but the only Son, God, the Word, our Lord Jesus
Christ, one and the same Person.
•
Into this prodigious definition came to be evolved the sim-
ple proposition of Justin we started with, by a process that is
seen to be strictly natural and inevitable, as soon as we take
into view the ambiguity that lurked in the simple proposition.
itself, and the condition of mind to which it was addressed.
Not that the controversy stopped here. Under the form of
disputes concerning "a single nature" and "a single will,"
it continued still for a century or two to vex and divide the
Eastern Church: in fact, the "one-will" heresy continued in
the little sect of Maronites down to the time of the Crusades,
possibly down to our day. But the decision of Chalcedon is
the last that has any interest for us. It was, as I just said,
dictated in almost its exact terms by Leo the Great, of Rome,
24
EARLY CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE.
called also "First of the Popes." It was the same year with
the great invasion of the Huns in western Europe. Under
the terrors of the barbarian flood that poured in successive
waves, each bringing the final overthrow more certain and
more near, it was fit that the moral strength of Christendom
should not be wasted in that war of words; and so the voice
of Rome, still strongest and most formidable of all, was heard,
bidding the vain conflict to cease, and the Christian nations
to unite in one formula of faith. And-whatever the abstract
veracity of its terms. it is well that it was so; well for the
world, and well for us.
de
What was wanted was a symbol, or type, under which the
spiritual force educated and trained by four Christian centuries
could rally, to organize and maintain an Authority that would
serve as some sort of guide and defence in the awful three
centuries' convulsion that was already seen to be impending.
Thirty years before, Saint Augustine, looking out upon the
storm-clouds that were gathering, - having already given the
strength of his life to show that true liberty must be had not
by the wayward will of man, but by absolute surrender to the
awful sovereignty of God, had proclaimed that the refuge of
souls may be found not in any city of earthly foundation, but
in the CITY OF GOD, eternal in the heavens. He meant it
(writing as he did when the Gothic invasion was yet fresh and
that of the Vandals was just about to burst) to show that men's
strength is only in a Power that is spiritual and unseen. But
his words were generous and brave, and they closed in a strain
that is musical in its serenity and sweetness. And as the great
conflict with barbarism went on, and as it was found that, after
all, the race and states of men did not wholly perish, those
words were taken more and more to heart, and had their
weight in giving men good hope and courage for the future.
3
EARLY CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE.
25
1
It is well then to see how this great moral force, that had
been growing up side by side, though almost out of hearing
of that passionate theological debate, at length accepted its
result as the symbol of its own faith. GOD WITH MAN is
the meaning which it conveyed to them; and so it made the
long development of the early Christian doctrine no mere
barren conflict in the dark (as an observer had once said of
it at Nicæa), but the prelude to an organization that saved
Christianity itself to the modern world, and held in itself
all the moral forces of civilization for the coming thousand
years.
1
CHRISTIANITY FROM THE FIFTH TO THE
FIFTEENTH CENTURY.
BY ANDREW P. PEABODY.
THE
HE period covered by this Lecture comprehends what
are commonly called the Dark Ages, rightly so
called, -shrouded in a darkness historically inevitable, yet
immeasurably to be preferred to the light of the immediately
preceding centuries, and fraught with light-producing agen-
cies for the centuries to come.
For this darkness there were two concurrent causes. In
the first place, Roman civilization was suicidal in its very
nature. It culminated in a prodigality which exhausted the
plunder of the vast empire, and in a moral degradation and
depravity no less fatal to genius, art, intellect, and liberal cul-
ture than to individual and social well-being.
Christianity would have anticipated the gathering shadows
by her purer light, had not that light been for the time well-
nigh extinguished; but we must name for the second cause
of the Dark Ages the adoption of Christianity as the State
religion. There can be no better commentary on the words
of Christ, "My kingdom is not of this world,” than is fur-
nished in the history of the Church whenever and wherever
it has been organically incorporated with the State. I will
not except even the English Church, which has owed to its
political relations its periods of declension and of overshad-
owing worldliness, and to the nomination of bishops by the
prime minister the appointment of sundry prelates who have
( W
TO THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY.
27
shone, if at all, not in the beauty of holiness; while it was
indebted to Methodism for its awakening from what seemed
a death-slumber, and has at the present moment for its most
efficient ministers men who would gladly draw a sharp divid-
ing line between "the things which are Cæsar's" and "the
things that are God's."
There is less a marked difference than a broad contrast
between the sanctity of eminent Christians under the ban of
the empire and the traditional sainthood of those under its
patronage or protection. Of the former there is hardly one.
for whose name the term "saint" does not seem the appropri-
ate prefix; of the latter, there are few for whom it would now
be claimed, were it not already given. Jerome was mean,
tricky, truculent, quarrelsome, and entirely oblivious of the
axiom, as true in ethics as in geometry, that a straight line is
the shortest distance between two points. Augustine, while
profoundly and bitterly penitent for the sins of his youth, was
by no means free from the then besetting sins of the episco-
pate. Basil and Gregory of Nyssa deemed it their duty to
lie most atrociously in the interest of the Church, and in the
case of Gregory, Archdeacon Farrar, who ascribes to him no
less than three forged letters containing such deliberate false-
hoods as in a Christian of earlier time or of our own would
admit of no possible excuse, credits them to "the innocence
of his heart, combined with imperfect moral views." Cer-
tainly he had "not so learned Christ." Most of the ordina-
tions and episcopal consecrations that have left a record in
history were effected or attended by force or fraud. Chrysos-
tom, by far the best man of his time, was compelled to receive
what was miscalled consecration at the hands of Theophilus of
Alexandria, as vile a wretch as ever lived, who performed this
office under threat, in case he declined it, of a criminal charge
28
CHRISTIANITY FROM THE FIFTH
of which his life would have been the forfeit. Augustine was
ordained by brute force against his will. Strange indeed it is,
that the superstitious people of that day believed, and still
more strangely is it maintained by credulous prelatists now, that
spiritual grace was actually transmitted by violent hands laid
on reluctant heads; and yet if the validity of such ordinations
be not admitted, the entire fabric of unbroken apostolic suc-
cession, at best precarious and without adequate support, falls
to the ground, stultified and annulled.
Meanwhile asceticism was held in higher esteem than truth,
integrity, or mercy; men were taught to regard filth and squal-
idness as of supreme religious value; and there were among
the foremost ministers at the chief altars of Christendom men
whom what we now term common decency would not tolerate
in the outermost courts of the sanctuary.
None of these things appear strange when we remember
that the first imperial "nursing father" of the Church was a
man who postponed baptism till he was close under the
shadow of death, that he might, without peril to his soul, heap
up the fuller measure of sin to be washed away. Under such
baleful influences all that remained for Christianity was to “fall
into the ground and die," in the only sense in which that
which is God-born can die. But the seed of the Kingdom
had life in death. It "took root downward," and deep root
too, before it began to "bear fruit upward," or even to pierce.
the hardened soil under which it lay.
There were two seed-plots which proffered a specially con-
genial soil for the germination of Christianity. One of these.
was the monastic institution. Of this, as of any other institu-
tion, the worst that can now be said is that it is obsolete; for
whatever survives its usefulness lives on as an obstruction and
a nuisance. But monasticism, though even then not without
1
TO THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY.
29
gross excesses and abuses, was an early necessity of the Church.
There were places and conditions in which it was impossible to
be with the world without being wholly of the world, to walk
with man without ceasing to walk with God. All the ways of
common life were so blocked up by compliances offensive to
an enlightened conscience, that it was hard for a disciple of
the new faith to buy or sell, to command or serve, to hold
military or civil office, to sail or travel, to mingle in promis-
cuous society or to accept the hospitality of kindred or friends.
For one determined to be consistently a Christian, the only
alternative often was retreat or martyrdom.
Nor did one lose the opportunity of faithful Christian work
by forsaking the haunts of men. There were many recluses.
whose eminent piety drew disciples into the deserts, caves,
and mountain-clefts, to seek counsel and comfort; and not a
few hermits and cenobites reappeared at intervals, as preachers
of divine truth, always with a prestige of sanctity which made
their word a power. Then, too, there is in sincere devotion a
diffusive and penetrating efficacy, felt even when not recog
nized. It is as utterly impossible to suppress the radiance and
to veil the outshining of a saintly spirit as it is to smother fire
with linen garments. The pure light of the life eternal, once
kindled in a recipient soul, may, like the stars of heaven, be
a guiding light, though seen only from afar. To thousands
whose outward vision never rested on one of these holy men,
their multitude, their concurrent testimony, the report of their
self-denial, vigils, and prayers, the mere existence of this cloud
of witnesses in near and constant view of an open heaven,
fixed an else wavering faith, confirmed an else flickering hope,
and maintained in the arduous duties and frequent sacrifices
of the Christian profession a strenuousness of purpose which
might else have succumbed to incessant trial or temptation.
30
CHRISTIANITY FROM THE FIFTH
Nor was monasticism less a necessity after Christianity had
mounted the throne of the Cæsars, and was thus rapidly laps-
ing into a baptized semi-paganism. It was even more diffi-
cult to lead a Christian life in the Church triumphant than it
had been in the Church militant. Ritual conformity then
became a substitute for duty, and penance was the sufficient
remedy for sin. Some of the emperors, both of the culminat-
ing eastern and of the fast declining western empire, were just,
honorable, God-fearing men, and now and then an empress.
left a record of purity, beneficence, and care for things sacred;
but when the thrones were not filled, the courts were crowded,
with brutality and profligacy; and example, which, while it tar-
dily creeps up, runs rapidly down the social scale, paralleled
and multiplied patrician vices among all sorts and conditions
of men.
There was very little that even Christian eloquence
could accomplish. The great preachers were admired and
applauded to-day, and imprisoned or banished to-morrow;
and we cannot learn that they had any influence in stemming
the swelling current of corruption and turpitude. Still less
could a fervently devout man in private life make himself felt
as a power for good, where there was hardly anything that
he could do or enjoy without being or seeming in complicity
with evil. The cloisters were, therefore, peopled by the most
saintly men that bore the Christian name. Almost all the
fathers and ecclesiastics of whom history gives a good report
were monks or hermits at the outset, entered the active service
of the Church with the utmost reluctance, and in nearly every
instance lost in the outside world much of the simplicity and
integrity of soul which they had brought from the cloister.
The monasteries retained whatever of generous culture in
the useful arts and in letters had survived the subversion of
the Roman Empire. To be sure, there sprang up about the
TO THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY.
31
1
Byzantine court and in the provincial capitals a barbaric splen-
dor, such as in the East has always surrounded royalty and
official rank; but the frequency of wide-spread famine and
pestilence indicates the decay among people at large of the
practical knowledge and skill, which had in earlier time in-
sured prosperous industry and had set limits to inevitable
calamity. Nor yet was there any lack of such military science
as related to the equipment and movement of forces, to siege
and strategy. But agriculture and all its subsidiary arts found
refuge in the purlieus of the monasteries. Their soil was well
tilled, and their crops seldom failed. Their tenants, too,
learned how to live and thrive, and every large monastery
thus became a centre of civilization for a surrounding popula-
tion in an ever increasing circle. In every work of propa-
gandism, also, monks were the pioneers, and exercised.
on previously pagan soil a humanizing influence far be-
yond the capacity of conquerors, magistrates, or the secular
clergy.
They also kept in existence such of the remains of ancient
literature as have not perished beyond the hope of restoration,
and perhaps an equal service they not improbably de-
stroyed much of it which would have made the world no
richer, had it been spared. The monasteries gradually became
seminaries, and were long the only seminaries, of learning.
The novitiates destined for the cloister received, of course,
from their seniors such instruction as would fit them to re-
place their preceptors; and in the absence of all other means
of education, boys in training for civil or military functions.
were placed under their tuition. But for them, writing would
have been a lost art; for there were several centuries during
which kings could not write their own names, and the (so-
called) coats-of-arms in which some of us take pride, if indeed
dan,
32
CHRISTIANITY FROM THE FIFTH
they are rightfully ours, indicate that we had ancestors who
used these grotesque devices in lieu of the signatures of which
they were incapable. Scholasticism had its birth in the mo-
nasteries, and all the older universities sprang from them.
They were, at the same time, the almshouses and hospitals
to whose shelter and ministries need was always a sufficient
claim ;
and the great charities of these latter days are but the
natural outgrowth of the humane and philanthropic spirit
cherished in these homes of mercy.
Here too, and only here, were preserved the Scriptures,
and here were transmitted, from century to century, the
ability to read them, a not wholly inadequate, though im-
perfect comprehension of their contents, and no little of
their redeeming and sanctifying efficiency.
The other "procreant cradle" of Christianity to which I
referred is the Roman law as codified by Justinian, - the
most truly Christian legislator that the world has yet seen.
Without his code it is hard to say what Christendom might
not have become. In the whole Roman world the tendency
had been toward the unsettling of domestic life and the
destruction of all that can make home sacred. In exclusively
Christian circles there had grown up a better feeling and
habit, and the earlier Christian emperors had somewhat lim-
ited the license of divorce, and taken some cognizance of
the rights of wives and children as to their property and
earnings. But Justinian nearly completed the work which
they had begun. The marriage covenant received under his
auspices the most stringent legal sanction, and could be dis-
solved by no means so easily as now in the greater part of
Christendom. Little was wanting, and that little was soon
supplied by the canon law, to make marriage absolutely in-
dissoluble except by the one crime which in its very nature
TO THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY.
33
disowns and annuls it. Nor has there been in countries
whose legislation has been founded on the Roman law any
room for or need of the demands that under the English
common law are perpetually made for the protection of the
rights of women. It is impossible to overestimate the worth
of these legal safeguards for domestic purity during ages of
violence and misrule; and it reflects great honor on the
hierarchies of both the Eastern and the Western Church that
they employed in this behalf the enormous power of ecclesi-
astical inhibitions and penalties, that at no other point of dis-
cipline were they so nearly inflexible, and that the instances in
which they were constrained by force or induced by bribery
or intrigue to sanction with reference to marriage or divorce
aught that was not in full accordance with the words and spirit
of the Gospel were so few as to have been marked historical
epochs.
During the Dark Ages the secular clergy were in part re-
cruited from the monasteries; but, when not so, they were
in general of a much lower order of intelligence and char-
acter than the monks. Few of them were capable of giving
positive religious instruction, and such as was given related
oftener to the mythology in which the saints were heroes, and
virtually demigods, than to the contents of Christianity or its
records. Still, reverence and worship, even when most igno-
rant, have a hallowing power; religious symbolism is of im-
mense didactic value to minds of slender capacity or imperfect
training; and the mere sense of things unseen, though it be
utterly indefinite and vague, has a restraining and elevating
influence. It was not, then, without substantial and cumu-
lative moral benefit that the Church service retained and in-
creased its outward splendor while there was but little sense
of its meaning, and gave to Christianity a stronger hold on
3
34
CHRISTIANITY FROM THE FIFTH
the imagination and the affections than it could gain on the
rude and unnurtured intellect.
Then, too, there is an untold wealth of significance in the
parable of the mustard-seed. In the minutest particle of
Christian principle or sentiment there is a marvellous germi-
nating power; the shoot that springs from it grows rapidly
into an overshadowing tree, and not only so, but as with the
banyan-tree, its branches drop into the loosened soil and take
root, so that a forest may grow from a single seed. Thus
during the period when art, literature, and intellectual life
seemed paralyzed, and there were hardly as many illustrious
men as there were centuries, domestic slavery ceased; kind feel-
ing for suffering humanity, at first confined to the monaste-
ries, was diffused through communities and nations; chivalry,
with its keen sense of honor and its reverence for woman,
came into being; large funds were contributed for the re-
demption of captives from Mahometan lands; the savageness
of war was mitigated, its prisoners spared, and often gener-
ously treated; and the world that emerged from the darkened
centuries was rich in elements of hope and promise which
gave no visible tokens when the shadows fell.
As regards Christian doctrine there were, during the earlier
part of the period under review, ecclesiastics who were inter-
ested in maintaining the controversies bequeathed to them
from previous times, and there were councils, no longer œcu-
menical, generally local and embracing representatives of but
a small portion of the Eastern or the Western Church, which
issued dogmatic decisions no less than mandates as to disci-
pline and church government. The Athanasian creed (so-
called), which cannot be traced farther back than the Seventh
Century, may be regarded as marking the close of the Arian
controversy, and is, so far as I know, the earliest expression.
TO THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY.
35
of an absolutely co-equal Trinity, though from the time of the
Council of Nicæa the Western Church had been constantly
gravitating in that direction. The Nicene creed had received.
the assent of many (so-called) semi-Arians, as it taught the
derived and therefore subordinate nature of Christ. For a
long time the chief point of controversy between orthodoxy
and heresy had related to the single Greek letter (i) in the
creed, the Homo-ousians, or orthodox Christians, maintaining
that the Son is of the same substance with the Father; the
Homoi-ousians, or semi-Arians, holding that he is of like sub-
stance, a distinction in which it is hard to trace a difference.
し
​(C
There still remained the controversy concerning what is
termed the procession, or the constant proceeding or flowing.
forth of the third person of the Trinity,
an idea which in any
form it is difficult to reconcile with distinct personality; for
though a person may proceed from another person, the con-
tinuous proceeding of one person from another is conceiva-
ble only to a mind that has been fed on theological subtilties.
Proceeding from the Father" was the phrase in the Nicene
creed, though the words " and the Son" were added in a
forged copy shortly after the adjournment of the Council.
The original form is still in use in the Greek Church. In the
Western Church usage varied; the Roman court gave am-
biguous utterance so long as the Popes retained any hope of
reuniting entire Christendom under their pastorate; and the
words" and the Son " did not come into universal and unques-
tioned use before the Ninth or Tenth Century.
The principal revolt against the Athanasian creed when once
established was in Spain, in the Eighth Century. The supreme
deity of Christ, and such phrases as "the mother of God"
and "the suffering God," were found to be insuperable obsta-
cles in the attempt to convert Mahometans. This experience
36
CHRISTIANITY FROM THE FIFTH
gave rise to a theory termed "adoptionism," according to which
Christ, the Son of God in essence as to his divine nature,
became so as to his human nature by adoption, so that his
humanity and his human relations were genuine and real. This
dogma had a brief currency in the West, and found some dis-
ciples in the East; but it was condemned by a council, and
its principal champion, the Spanish bishop Felix, was impris
oned in Rome till he signed a recantation, which, on his
return to Spain, he retracted, seeking refuge for his heresy in
one of the provinces under Moslem sway.
With the revival of learning, which may be said to have
begun in the Ninth Century, the scholastic philosophy and
theology had birth and nourishment in many of the mon-
asteries and in semi-monastic schools founded under the
auspices of Charlemagne. The Trinity was thenceforward a
favorite subject of metaphysical discussion and philosophical
definition. There were scholastic divines who incurred, and
not unjustly, the charge of tritheism; there were others, who,
like Abelard, were virtually Unitarians, seeing in the three per-
sons of the Trinity only three aspects of the one God, — in
the Father omnipotence, in the Son omniscience, in the Holy
Spirit perfect love.
As for predestination, during the early portion of the time
covered by this lecture, while Augustine himself was lauded to
the skies, his doctrine, without being formally disowned, was
virtually set aside, and that, not so much in the interest of man's
free agency and capacity of a right moral choice, as in the
unwillingness to cast doubt on the universality of the redemp-
tive power of the Church through its sacraments. It is worthy
of notice that the test of strict orthodoxy propounded by
Vincent of Lerins, and in our time often quoted in behalf of
the severer types of dogmatic belief, quod semper, quod ubique,
TO THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY.
37
quod ab omnibus, "what has been believed always, everywhere,
by all," was shaped in special antagonism to the Augustinian.
theology.
In the time of Charlemagne theologians recommenced the
careful study of Augustine's writings, and one of the earliest
results of this study was the discovery of a deficiency in his
system. This was announced by the monk Gottschalk, who
maintained, with a logic that cannot be disputed, that the
predestination of a certain portion of the human race to salva-
tion implies a like eternal decree for the damnation of the resi-
due of the race. He deemed the preaching of this double
predestination so sacred a work, that he procured ordination
in an uncanonical method, and began a course of mission-
ary propagandism. He was in 849 condemned by a council,
and compelled by a well-nigh fatal flagellation to throw his
writings into the fire; but he refused to recant, and on his
death-bed rejected the offer of restoration to the communion
of the Church, considering all that had befallen him as fore-
ordained for his salvation. He had some defenders and fol-
lowers; and Hincmar, who had been the most active in pro-
curing his condemnation, engaged John Scotus (surnamed
Erigena, or Ireland-born) to write in refutation of his doctrine.
This service John Scotus performed in a way very unsatisfac-
tory to his employer, and with a philosophy which anticipated
the positivism and pantheism of our own time. He wrote:
"We cannot speak literally of prescience and predestination,
inasmuch as with God there is no distinction of time; nor can
we in any proper sense ascribe to him consciousness or knowl-
edge. For him there is no evil. He is the cause only of
good. Evil comes from one's isolating himself from God. It
carries in itself its own punishment, if hidden in this life made
manifest in the life to come. In the last analysis evil is a stage
38
CHRISTIANITY FROM THE FIFTH
of development which leads to good, and the ultimate term of
development is necessarily the return of all to God;" that is,
reabsorption into the divine essence. In 859 a council con-
demned the heresy of John Scotus, and proclaimed Gott-
schalk's double predestination as eternal truth.
S
As regards original sin, while the Greek Church showed no
tendency toward Augustinianism, the Latin Church from the
Fifth to the Eleventh Century acquiesced in the transmission of
sin, and of its penalty except as specially remitted, from Adam
to his entire posterity. Among the earliest opponents of this
dogma was Abelard, near the beginning of the Twelfth Century.
He maintained that sin is in its very essence a voluntary act,
and that children and persons incapable of free choice cannot
in the sight of God be chargeable with sin or susceptible of
punishment. Human nature he regarded as in no wise vitiated
by Adam's sin. Like the early Alexandrian fathers, he ex-
pressed profound admiration for the virtue and piety of the
Pagan sages, as contrasted with the vices of a portion of the
monks and clergy of his own time. He evidently had no
doubt that the characters of those non-Christian worthies
placed them in a salvable condition; but if any maintained.
that faith in Christ is necessary to salvation, he challenges
those who think so to prove that these men did not believe in
Christ, as revealed in the Old Testament, or in the Sibylline
oracles which he evidently supposed to be genuine and of
great antiquity. His doctrine met with little acceptance, and
was duly condemned by one of the frequent local councils that
guarded the purity of church dogmas.
From his time for several generations the Augustinian doc-
trine maintained its hold. The next serious attack upon it was
by Duns Scotus, in the Fourteenth Century. According to
him, Adam's original righteousness was due, not to his nature,
TO THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY.
39
but to special gifts and graces with which he was supernatu-
rally endowed. These he forfeited in his fall, and, of course,
could not transmit them to his posterity, whose nature is what
his was in its essence, inclined to evil, but not bad in itself,
and capable of free choice, and thus of virtue and goodness.
Man, according to him, cannot be regenerated without the
grace of God; but he can by his own free choice put his
moral nature into a condition in which he may be sure of
God's regenerating grace, which is conferred only on those
who of their own will seek it and in a certain sense deserve
it.
Predestination is thus conditional, contingent on the
divine foresight as to the use which man will make of his own
free agency.
As to the doctrine of vicarious atonement or satisfaction,
I find no proof of its having been established as an essen-
tial dogma till it was elaborated, in nearly its present form,
by Anselm, the Archbishop of Canterbury, in the Eleventh.
Century. He first attempted to demonstrate, and did demon-
strate to the satisfaction of his readers generally, that there
was an intrinsic necessity for the payment of an infinite equiva-
lent for the infinite punishment incurred by those predestined
to redemption, that it would be weakness in God and a
sacrifice of his own glory to forgive man without the suffering
in his stead of one whose co-equal divinity with the Father
could alone make the price equal to the claim of justice.
Augustine had taught the dogma of expiation by the death of
Christ, but said that it was not intrinsically necessary, that
omnipotent wisdom might have provided other ways of re-
demption. It had been generally maintained that Christ paid
a ransom for man; but the more common opinion was that
he paid it to Satan, to whom men had virtually sold them-
selves. This was the opinion of men no less eminent than
40
CHRISTIANITY FROM THE FIFTH
Saint Bernard and Peter Lombard; though Peter Lombard
and some other of the scholastic divines laid great stress
on the sanctifying influence of the death of Christ on the soul
of man.
ment.
Abelard openly impugned Anselm's theory of the atone-
He asked: If God was angry for the sin committed
in the tasting of a single apple, must he not have been in-
finitely angry with the human race for the murder of Jesus
Christ? He maintained that the justification of man by the
death of Christ consists in Christ's kindling by this sublime
act of love a kindred love in the human heart,
a love capa-
ble, not only of triumphing over the power of sin, but of in-
vesting the redeemed with the holy liberty of the children
of God, and enabling them to fulfil the divine law under the
impulse, no longer of fear, but of love.
As to (so-called) heretics in the period under our present
consideration, the Arians, in the Sixth Century, were still in
the ascendency among the Goths, Vandals, and Burgundians,
and the kings of these nations were not slow in following the
example set them by orthodox emperors and magistrates, in
persecuting the adherents of the Nicene creed, demolishing
their churches, sending their bishops into exile, and employ-
ing various modes of torture and mutilation on those who
clung resolutely to their faith. In the Seventh Century Arian-
ism prevailed extensively in Lombardy. In subsequent cen-
turies, under its own name, it has left slight traces of itself
in the history of the Church.
In the Eastern Church the most powerful heretical sect was
that of the Paulicians,¹ whose creed was a revived and inten-
1 This sect probably had its origin as early as the Fourth Century,
and is said to have been founded by a widow in Samosata, named
Calinica, from one of whose sons, Paul, the sect derived its name.
1
TO THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY.
4I
sified Gnosticism, of the Marcionite type. They carried the
Persian dualism to the last extreme, regarding the external
world and the human body as created, and the Old Testa-
ment as inspired, by the semi-omnipotent principle of evil,
from whose dominion it was Christ's mission to rescue the
souls of men. They were most numerous in Bulgaria, whence
they spread all over the Eastern empire. They were sup-
pressed, so far as vigorous measures of persecution could
suppress them, by Alexis Comnenus, in the Eleventh Century;
but it is said that there are still some remnants of the sect,
its name unchanged, in the region of the Balkan Mountains.
They were succeeded by the Bogomites,¹ whose dualism was
less entire, but in its details somewhat more absurd, than that
of the Paulicians.
In the Western Church the Cathari,² dualists like the Pauli-
cians, rigidly ascetic, chargeable with no immorality of pre-
cept or practice, numbered many disciples in the Eleventh,
Twelfth, and Thirteenth Centuries, and were severely perse-
cuted by the Inquisition, which was established, in part, with
a view to their extermination. Little is heard of them after
the Fourteenth Century.
Early in the Twelfth Century, Peter de Bruys, in the South
of France, was the founder of a sect called from him Petro-
brussians. Their distinguishing feature was the rejection of
the authority of the Church and the Fathers as to whatever
cannot be proved from the Scriptures. Their founder was
said to have been a disciple of Abelard, and, like him, to have
1 A name said to have been derived from the Bulgarian words Bog
Milui, "God, have mercy," - a favorite and wonted form of invocation
among the members of the sect.
2 Cathari, that is, pure, - a name assumed by the members of this
sect to denote their ethical aim and profession, and at the same time
to mark their separation from a church that had become impure.
42
CHRISTIANITY FROM THE FIFTH
из
disclaimed the dogma of vicarious atonement. He protested,
not only against the details of the established ritual, but
against all forms of public worship, and especially condemned
prayers and offerings for the dead, maintaining that the con-
duct of a man in this world alone can determine his destiny in
the world to come. About the same time, the Henricians,
the disciples of a French monk named Henry, without the
extreme notions of the Petrobrussians, were earnest propagan-
dists of Christian morality, and of a simple faith in the sacred
records independently of church tradition and patristical au-
thority. Peter de Bruys was burned at the stake, and Henry
was immured in a dungeon. They left few nominal disciples;
but it cannot be supposed that their influence perished,
though it may not be distinctly traced.
Later in the same century the Waldenses had their origin.
Waldo, to whom they owe their name, desirous of knowing
something of what he heard in an unknown tongue in the
public service of the Church (for the Latin was no longer
understood in France, even by the greater part of the clergy),
employed two priests to translate for him into the then vernac-
ular Gallic dialect several books of the Bible and sundry edi-
fying passages from the Christian Fathers. Unwilling to hide
what he found precious for his own soul, he devoted himself
to reading and preaching the Gospel wherever he could obtain
hearers, and succeeded in procuring at his own cost several
willing and earnest coadjutors. He did not mean at first
to create a rupture with the Church; but the Archbishop of
Lyons took the alarm, and issued an imperative mandate, for-
bidding the laity to bear any part in the reading and inter-
pretation of the Scriptures. Waldo and his associates ap-
pealed to the Pope, and were then formally excluded from the
communion of the Church, and exposed to every form of un-
TO THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY.
43
relenting persecution. They grew under this harsh discipline,
and were purged and refined by suffering. They have main-
tained through all these centuries a record of single-hearted
piety, pre-eminent moral excellence, and immovable faith in
Christ and his Gospel. No longer tolerated in the great
religious centres, they gravitated toward the mountain-regions
of Dauphiguy and Piedmont, where they still have numerous
churches, and hold in various small communities the control-
ling influence; while they now have also flourishing congre-
gations in the larger Italian cities.
Of the principal precursors of the Protestant Reformation,
Wiclif¹ alone wrought his life-work before the close of the
Fourteenth Century. He deserved the name of a reformer
even more than Luther. The disinterestedness of the motives
with which Luther commenced his attack on the papal hier-
archy is at least questionable; Wiclif undertook to expose the
errors and follies of a church from which he was deriving great
and increasing honor and emolument. Luther was as bigot-
edly attached to his own rashly formed and incoherent creed
as ever was an honest Roman Catholic to that of Athanasius;
Wiclif seems to have considered sanctity of life as the sole test
of Christian character. Luther, though he verbally admitted,
practically denied the sufficiency of the Scriptures, excluding
from Christian fellowship those who, appealing to Scripture
alone, dissented from him in matters of secondary importance;
Wiclif professed distinctly and without limitation the funda-
mental principles of Protestantism, the sufficiency of the
Scriptures, and the right of private judgment as to their
interpretation.
""
The following paragraphs relating to Wiclif are copied from an
article on Wiclif which I wrote for the " American Monthly Review
of September, 1832. On making a fresh study of Wiclif's life, I have
found no reason for changing what I then wrote.
44
CHRISTIANITY FROM THE FIFTH
Not only did Wiclif recommend and facilitate scriptural re-
search; he took the lead in it, and in the midst of a dark and
corrupt age he drew from the Bible a comparatively pure sys-
tem of faith. He revived the almost forgotten doctrine of a
righteous retribution, and maintained that " in the presence of
his Judge each man must stand or fall by his own personal
doings, not by those of his confessor, or of his mass-priest, or
of any other spiritual agent." While he considered images as
"the books of unlearned men," and admitted their lawfulness,
he deemed the use of them unsafe and tending to idolatry.
He censured it as folly to ask any intercession except that
of Jesus Christ. Auricular confession and papal indulgences
he utterly denounced. He scrupled not to pronounce the
Pope Antichrist. The doctrine of transubstantiation he
disclaimed, though he does not seem to have receded farther
from it than Luther did.
With these enlightened views of Christian doctrine he united
the utmost diligence and punctuality in the discharge of duty.
He did not regard himself as absolved by the position which
he assumed as a reformer from the proper work of a Christian
minister. He thought that the clergy ought to be supported,
not by ecclesiastical endowments, but by voluntary contribu-
tions, and was ready to apply to them Saint Paul's precept
with reference to the laity, "that if any would not work, neither
should he eat." In Lutterworth, of which he was rector, tra-
dition represents him as having regularly devoted a portion of
each morning to the relief of the necessitous, the consolation
of the afflicted, and the discharge of every pious office by the
bedside of sickness and death. More than three hundred of
his parish sermons are preserved. They are plain, practical
expositions of Scripture, and exhortations to the duties of com-
mon life. At the same time, while discharging thus indefati-
TO THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY.
45
gably all the appropriate functions of a parish priest, he was
issuing those attacks upon papal usurpation and corruption,
which made the pontiff tremble on his throne, and stirred up
the ire of his menial prelates throughout Christendom. He
deemed himself an instrument in the hand of Providence,
and that assurance made him strong. He was the inflexible
enemy of the mendicant friars, and never failed to inveigh
against their rapacity. He was at one time, when worn down
by incessant labor and by the anxiety attendant on a recent
prosecution before the ecclesiastical authorities, seized with a
dangerous illness. While he was apparently on the verge of
the grave, a deputation of the exulting mendicants was sent to
urge him to confess his sins against them and to recant his
denunciation of them. He listened in silence to a long ex-
hortation addressed as to a dying man whose soul's salva-
tion depended on his answer. When it was concluded, he
ordered his servants to raise him on his pillows, and, fixing
his eyes on his unwelcome visitors, he said calmly and firmly,
“I shall not die, but live, to declare again the evil deeds of
the friars."
It is matter of surprise that a man thus intrepid and so far
in advance of his age should have died upon his bed. His
escape from martyrdom can be accounted for only by the
fact, that at different times he gained the confidence of the
king, the respect of Parliament, and the protection of John of
Gaunt, the most powerful man among the nobility, by his op-
position to the temporal sovereignty and the pecuniary exac-
tions of the Roman See. He, however, underwent a kind of
posthumous martyrdom; for forty-eight years after his death
something supposed to be his remains was disinterred, burned,
and then cast into a neighboring brook. "The brook," says
Fuller, "did convey his ashes into Avon; Avon into Severn;
46
CHRISTIANITY FROM THE FIFTH
Severn into the narrow seas; they into the main ocean; and
thus the ashes of Wiclif are the emblem of his doctrine, which
now is dispersed all the world over.”
Wiclif's course, as virtually the founder of a sect, resembles
that adopted in the last century by Wesley. They both were
regularly ordained and fully qualified priests in the Established
Church; they both authorized, employed, and superintended.
an unordained, unlicensed, imperfectly educated itinerant min-
istry. There can hardly be a doubt that Wesley took the idea
of such a ministry from the "poor priests" through whom
Wiclif organized an extensive, efficient, and enduring mission-
ary enterprise in the interest of pure religion. Wiclif was the
foe of ecclesiastical establishments, and denied the divine
right of episcopacy. He would have favored the remodelling
of the English Church on the basis of independent congre.
gationalism. He therefore regarded his missionaries as vir-
tually ordained of God, and as ministers of the true church of
Christ, though not so recognized by the existing ecclesiastical
organism.
Wiclif's most important work was his translation of the
Bible, which he in dying left still incomplete, and which was
finished four years after his death by Purvey, his successor at
Lutterworth. The version was made directly from the Vul-
gate, and it does not appear that, though he had been Profes-
sor of Divinity at Oxford, he understood either Greek or
Hebrew. His translation of the Beatitudes will serve as a
specimen at once of his version and of the English of the
Fourteenth Century: -
"Blessid be pore men in spirit: for the kyngdom of hevenes
is herun. Blessid ben mylde men: for they schulen weelde the
erthe. Blessid ben thei that mournen: for thei schal be coum-
Blessid be thei that hungren and thirsten rightwisnesse :
fortid.
TO THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY.
47
1
'
¦
|
!
I
for thei schal be fulfilled. Blessid ben merciful men: for thei
schal gete mercy. Blessid ben thei that ben of clene herte : for
thei schulen se god. Blessid ben pesible men: for they schulen
be clepid goddis children. Blessid ben thei that suffren perse-
cucioun for rightwisnesse: for the kyngdom of hevenes is hern.
Ye schul be blessid whanne men schul curse you, and schul pur-
sue you, and schul seye al yvel agens you liynge for me."
S
UNITARIANISM AND THE REFORMATION.
BY SETH C. BEACH,
2
sons.
N its restricted sense Unitarianism means belief in the per-
sonal unity of God instead of in a community of divine per-
Evidences of this belief more or less outspoken in the
period of the Reformation are not wholly wanting; but consid-
ering that, in the second Protestant generation, the doctrine of
one supreme divine person was burned at the stake in the
body of Michael Servetus, it must be allowed that primarily
the Reformation was not a Unitarian movement. In its larger
meaning Unitarianism has been an advance along all the lines
of religious thought. Among the articles of Unitarian faith so
understood, besides the doctrine of one supreme divine person,
may be enumerated belief in human nature, in moral freedom,
in human reason, in character as of more worth than ritual or
creed, in the equal justice not to say mercy of God, in the
unreality of a devil, not to say of evil, and in the ultimate sal-
vation, or evolution into something better, of all souls. With-
out being in any sense the first article of the faith, either in
the historical order as having been the starting-point, or in
the logical order as underlying the whole system, or in the
order of importance as being with us the doctrine of doc-
trines, it has happened in spite of a thousand protests that
belief in God's personal unity has given its name to the entire
confession.
The movement first called Socinian, then Arminian, and
finally Unitarian, began as a protest of the "natural man"
I
}
7
1
UNITARIANISM AND THE REFORMATION.
49
against two particularly hateful doctrines of Calvinism, that of
total depravity and that of predestination. The doctrine of
total depravity is perhaps the most revolting article ever for-
mulated in the name of faith. It confused the natural distinc-
tion between good and evil, right and wrong. It denied the
name of goodness to the kindly instincts, generous impulses,
and high-minded endeavors which even in the savage it could
not wholly ignore. These things in the natural man, because
in the natural man, were sin. They came from a corrupt
heart. In the sight of God they had not the smallest moral
worth.
Predestination was, as even Calvin declared, a "horrible
decree." It was impious language, but Sir Walter Scott says
"satire exquisitely severe," which Burns puts into the mouth
of a Calvinistic saint who says in a supposed act of worship,
"Wha as it pleases best thysel'
Sends ane to heaven and ten to hell
A' for thy glory;
And not for onie guid or ill
They 've done afore thee."
"Not for onie guid or ill they 've done afore thee" indicates
the vice of the doctrine of predestination. It is the assumed
arbitrariness of the divine decrees. Things follow one an-
other in accordance with conditions, not in contravention of
conditions. No one to whom a belief in a providential gov-
ernment of the world is a source of comfort, objects to the doc-
trine that God has foreordained whatsoever shall come to pass.
What one asks is not to be wholly ignored in the process ;
that God shall not simply impose upon us a condition and
destiny, but work through us to the given result; that the God
who works in us shall not be a mere butt or toy of the God
who rules over us. A predestination which sends "ane to
4
50
UNITARIANISM AND THE REFORMATION.
heaven and ten to hell" regardless of any merits and con-
ditions, simply effaces the individual.
The revolt against these two doctrines of Calvinistic the-
ology was distinct and outspoken before any popular dissent
from the Trinity had been formulated. In the order of their
coming a belief in human nature, in its moral and spiritual
possibilities, and a belief in what is not very happily named
"free will," that is, in man's power in shaping his con-
ditions and destiny, are the first articles of the Unitarian
confession.
What quarters were given to these two articles in the char-
acteristic theology of the Reformation every one knows. The
denial of both in the squarest terms, and the assertion of the
most unequivocal doctrine of total depravity and of predesti-
nation were the first fruits of Luther's theological activity. It
is common to date the era of the Reformation from the post-
ing of Luther's theses against indulgences, in 1517. His first
thesis, his first challenge to the Catholic theologians, had
appeared a year earlier. It is there we find the matter of
theological difference which was at the bottom of his discon-
tent. It is there he formulated the platform upon which he
fought his great battle. He says, "A man who has no part in
the grace of God cannot keep the commandments of God, or
prepare himself either wholly or in part to receive grace; he
rests of necessity under sin.' The answer to this is that such
a man, a man that had no part in the grace of God, never
existed; but that clearly was not the doctrine which Luther
held. In a second series of theses, also before the battle over
indulgences, the father of Reformation theology thus lays.
down the law: "It is true that man, who is a corrupt tree,
can will or do nought but evil. . . . The excellent, infallible,
1 D'Aubigné, i. 230.
""
1
I
I
$
UNITARIANISM AND THE REFORMATION.
51
:
|
and sole preparation for grace is the eternal election and
predestination of God." 1
112
The theology of which this was supposed to be a reforma-
tion is much nearer the Unitarian standard. Doctor Eck,
the Catholic champion, against whom at this stage Luther was
pitted, justly replied, "Your doctrine converts a man into a
stone or log incapable of any reaction. . . . By denying that
man has any natural ability you contradict all experience.
The scholarly Erasmus, a Catholic champion against whom,
ten years later in this controversy, Luther was arrayed, met
the reformer of theology with an argument drawn from his
favorite oracle. It is written, "Choose ye this day whom ye
will serve." "It would be ridiculous," says Erasmus,
say to any one, Choose, when it was not in his power." This
is precisely what a Unitarian would say. That is, the Catholic
position was much nearer the present Unitarian standpoint,
in what we may call its native state, than it was after it had
been "reformed.”
66 'to
Upon the doctrine of human nature and of man's moral
agency the received Catholic theology had made great pro-
gress during the one thousand years that had elapsed since
the days of Augustine. The doctrine which Luther was again
launching upon the world was a reversion to the doctrine of
Augustine. Neander says that Luther "set out from the
Augustinian scheme," and that "if the relation of God and
man were such as it was represented by Luther and the other
reformers, we must go beyond Augustine." Upon these doc-
trines then, whatever it may have been in other respects, the
Reformation, instead of an advance, was a theological reac-
tion, which carried back the fifteenth century to the fifth.
8 Ib. iii. 323.
1 D'Aubigné, i. 240.
4 Neander: Dogmas, 666.
2 Ib. ii. 49.
5 Ib. 668.
52
UNITARIANISM AND THE REFORMATION.
With reference to the doctrine of the Trinity, Luther re-
mained a Catholic. He accepted the received Athanasian
definition exactly as it stood in the ancient creeds of the
Church. If Unitarianism, in its more restricted sense as the
doctrine of one only divine person, owes to Luther any direct
furtherance, it is not in any qualification of the statement of
the Trinity, but in a disposition to leave the definition of the
doctrine in entire abeyance. "It is a heavenly thing," he
says, "which the world cannot understand. Therefore have
I taught that you ought to ground even doctrine not on
reason or comparison, but on the words given in Scripture.
The schools have devised many distinctions, dreams, and fan-
cies, by which they have tried to set forth the Trinity, and
have thus become fools.” 1 There would never have been a
"Unitarian Controversy " if all who have followed Luther in
the Protestant dispensation had exercised this forbearance and
discretion. How much of forbearance and discretion Luther
himself would have exercised if in his day the Trinity had be-
come a matter of controversy, our knowledge of what he usu-
ally was in controversy puts in doubt. It may be said of
Luther that he accepted the Trinity in whole and in part, in
substance and definition, but he accepted it by an effort of
will, with that touch of misgiving out of which in the space of
three centuries Unitarians were made.
M
Unitarianism owes to Luther a more considerable debt, an
immeasurable debt, for his contribution toward what perhaps.
we would all agree is faith in a good God possibly excepted -
the most precious article of its confession, the supreme worth
of character both as the way of salvation and as its substance.
It may seem strange that a man who laid at the foundation
of his theology the doctrine of salvation by faith, meaning
1 Unitarianism in its Actual Condition, p. 228.
UNITARIANISM AND THE REFORMATION.
53
[
by faith, belief in the saving merits of Christ, should by that
very doctrine have helped to the conviction that whatever the
merits of Christ, one must save himself by his own life and
deeds. What help to an enlightened faith is given by a man
who, as Luther did, puts ecclesiastical ceremonies and the Ten
Commandments on the same plane of religious significance or
insignificance, and says that though "they may, it is true, pro-
duce a Fabricius, a Regulus, and other men perfectly up-
right in the eyes of the world," yet without faith in Christ
"they deserve as little to be called righteousness as the fruit
of the medlar to be called a fig"?¹ What better is it for
me to look for salvation to the merits of somebody else, be it
Christ, than to go into the market and buy it from the Pope?
Theoretically the doctrine of salvation by faith in the merits
of Christ, which is what to Luther the phrase meant, is not
a whit more moral than the doctrine of salvation by buying
papal indulgences.
Practically, however, the difference was very great. Though
salvation was wholly by faith and not at all by works, yet works,
it was held, were the sure fruit of faith. Keeping the Ten Com-
mandments had nothing to do with your salvation, but your
salvation would have and must have to do with keeping the
Commandments. This laid, not a value but a stress upon
morals which made such faithful stewards as the Puritans, and
which after them has led Unitarians to feel that what the
Psalmist calls" a clean heart and a right spirit" are the best
possible preparations for either life or death.
The doctrine of justification by faith worked toward this
result in another way. Faith is an experience, a part of the
inner man.
The purchase of an indulgence is wholly an out-
ward transaction, except as it involves one's hopes or fears.
1 D'Aubigné, i. 225.
54
UNITARIANISM AND THE REFORMATION.
When the business of salvation was shifted from a booth in
the public street to the silences of one's own soul, and made
to depend upon something in its inmost condition, an entirely
new point of departure had been gained.¹ What it is in the
inner condition in which salvation consists or on which it de-
pends, may be open to debate, but the discussion is upon the
right ground. Luther was very far from holding the doctrine
that what one is, in spirit and purpose, is of more conse-
quence to his soul than what he believes; the doctrine he
held was directly and squarely opposite, but the two were in
the same sphere, washed by the same sea, and if he had not
made the right harbor, a better anchorage could be found by
a longer voyage.
If belief in the supreme worth of character is with us — except
that God is good — the most precious article of faith, another
has perhaps done us the greater service. It has given us the
courage to dare to believe in character. We owe the courage
of this belief to the conviction that we can trust our intelli-
gence, may and indeed must believe what is reasonable. Be-
lief in the essential rectitude of human reason went with faith
in human nature, was indeed a part of that faith. That reason
could deal at first hand with matters of faith was not claimed
by our Unitarian fathers. In theory they accepted the suprem-
acy of a written text, but in practice they often went beyond.
and sometimes against their text. Indeed, the protest against
the doctrines of total depravity and predestination was a re-
volt of the reason in the face of the text of Paul. Though
not yet formulated as an article of faith, reason was even then
accepted in practice as the highest tribunal of human appeal.
No article in the whole Unitarian confession would have
His
been rejected by Luther with more contempt and scorn.
1 J. H. Allen: Christian History, Third Period, p. 131.
UNITARIANISM AND THE REFORMATION.
55
belief in the corruption of human nature was too complete to
leave man any soundness or health in his understanding. He
makes short work of confidence in what he would have called
"the flesh." "In a word," says one of his theses, "nature
And yet
possesses neither a pure reason nor a good will.” ¹
no one since Paul had done so much as Luther was destined
to do to quicken and confirm the faith in the purity of that
reason which he despised. He made his contribution to the
cause of a growing rationalism, not by his theory but by his
example. He turned his reason to the poor business of put-
ting reason down, but even that was a tremendous service.
He had the intellectual courage to trust his reason to throw
off entirely the authority of popes, councils, and church.
Nothing that he could say in a thesis or a treatise of the in-
sufficiency of the human reason could counteract the conta-
gion of such grand self-sufficiency as this. That Luther would
have claimed for his reason something more than he allowed
to the natural human faculty, that for himself he assumed a
reason enlightened by grace, made it possible for him to dis-
credit the general understanding while exercising his own; but
the distinction set up was invisible, and one which the world
could not be expected to respect. Luther's splendid use of
reason, sanctified or not, has been to the world as a city set
on a hill.
Of Luther's relation to the beliefs which in distinction are
called Unitarian, it may be said that he would have hated
every article of the confession, which is not strange consid-
ering that he was cradled and nursed in the Fifteenth Century.
It may further be said that with reference to the doctrines of
predestination and total depravity he carried back the standard
of enlightenment a thousand years, though happily it has not
1 D'Aubigné, i. 242.
-
56
UNITARIANISM AND THE REFORMATION.
taken a thousand years to something more than recover the
ground. Toward the conviction that character, the state of the
inner man, is the supreme thing, his doctrine of justification
by faith was a great step; and toward rationalism, the convic-
tion that reason must at last decide, his example was an incal-
culable help. Add to this that he stirred the pool of thought,
and you have most of what can be credited as Luther's contri-
bution toward the working out of the Unitarian confession.
Melancthon, though a better scholar, a keener intellect, and
a finer nature than Luther, was his confessed disciple.
"Lu-
ther alone can decide," was his characteristic saying. Yet he
neither repeated his master like a parrot nor followed him as
a slave. His most important divergence from Luther was
upon the doctrine of predestination. He returned very nearly
to the then current Catholic position, and recognized the hu-
man will as a factor in the work of grace. He explained salva-
tion as a result of the joint activity of God and man. This
was a vast amelioration of the arbitrary over-riding of the crea-
ture, which made the doctrine of predestination so intolerable.
Like Luther, Melancthon accepted the doctrine of the
Trinity, but apparently with a shade more of misgiving. A
memorable sentence deserves to be quoted as indicating not
only his own feeling but also the undercurrent of his age.
"You know," he writes to a friend, "that in reference to the
Trinity I have always feared that these things would again
break out. Good God! what disturbances will be raised in
the next age whether the Logos and the Holy Spirit are
hypostases. I abide by those words of Holy Writ which
direct to pray to Christ, and attribute to him divine honors;
but I do not feel compelled to examine more accurately the
assertions respecting hypostases.' A denunciation in the
1 Neander: Dogmas, p. 651.
1
UNITARIANISM AND THE REFORMATION.
57
Augsburg Confession, drawn by Melancthon, shows that an
outbreak against the Trinity was even then not wholly an
imaginary peril. Among those whom the confession con-
demns are "the Samosatians old and new, who, when they
earnestly contend that there is but one person, do craftily and
wickedly trifle, after the manner of rhetoricians, about the
Word and Holy Ghost that they be not distinct persons,
but that the Word signifieth a vocal word, and the Spirit a
motion created in things." It is evident that the Unitarian
heresy was already a well-defined fact, a little cloud like a
man's hand. It is further evident that though Melancthon had
a philosopher's repugnance to use the term hypostasis (person)
in speaking of the Word and Spirit, it was not a word over
which he stumbled when there was a call to speak. When
we add that in his mature age he applauded the burning of
Servetus for denying the doctrine of the Trinity, Melancthon's
relation to Unitarian heresies is perhaps sufficiently defined.
Among the three or four greatest names of the Reforma-
tion, the man with whom a Unitarian will find most points
of contact and sympathy is Zwingli, the Zurich Reformer. It
is however upon other articles of his confession, and not upon
that which has given him his name, that a Unitarian will find
in Zwingli a kindred intelligence. Zwingli accepted the
Trinity, apparently without any of the misgivings which we
have seen in Luther and Melancthon. Upon most if not
all other articles of the Unitarian confession Zwingli made
an advance which was remarkable for his age.
Upon the doctrine of human nature his view was entirely
modern and rational. He seems to have known as little of
the doctrine of total depravity as if Luther had not been
his contemporary and Calvin his successor.
How far away
from Zwingli was such a conception of man, and especially
58
UNITARIANISM AND THE REFORMATION.
of the child, let a few sentences show. The human mind
is like a garden, which if not cultivated is soon overgrown
with weeds. From youth up, therefore, it must be trained
and cultivated. . . . Many busy themselves in hanging their
likeness everywhere, that their names may be made famous
and their families illustrious, while they neglect and despise
at once God's image and their own. Satan desires to
nestle in the hearts of the young, and to defile these as yet
pure vessels.” 1
One sees that this is not Calvinism. "Though
often loud in praise of Luther, Calvin," says one of his biog-
raphers, "seldom speaks well of Zwingli." Calvin must have
looked upon Zwingli as wanting the first element of theological
capacity.
Zwingli accepted the tradition of a fall of man; but as he
understood the atonement, that event had neutralized the fall.
He says, "If the question be put, Did Christ restore the
whole human family or only the church of believers? I an-
swer, Christ brought by his salvation as much good into the
world as Adam by his sinning brought evil; or Adam infected
the whole mass with original sin, consequently Christ has re-
stored the whole mass." It follows that the child starts to-
day morally exactly where the first man started. An inheri-
tance of evil had descended from the first man, but according
to Zwingli it is not sin. Original Sin, so called, he says, is
not in a proper, but only in a metaphorical sense, a crime;
it is only a moral weakness. So Neander summarizes his
doctrine.
Consistently with this view of human nature, Zwingli heartily
recognized good wherever found, in Gentile or Jew, Pagan
or Christian. "Religion," he said, "has not been confined
within the boundaries of Palestine, since God did not alone
1 Christoffel: Life of Zwingli.
UNITARIANISM AND THE REFORMATION.
59
1
create Palestine; he created the whole world. . . I venture
even to call that divine which is borrowed from the heathen, in
so far as it is holy, tends to piety, and is undeniably true."
He made bold to say that Plato had drunk from the "heav-
enly spring," that Seneca was a "holy man," that Pindar
"throws light upon our Gospels," and that part of his heavenly
hope was, along with Peter and Paul, to meet "Socrates,
Aristides, Numa, Cato, and the Scipios." A generation has
not passed since he would have been counted an advanced
Unitarian who had said as much. It is a narrow circle, a
mere fringe of orthodox Christendom, in which to-day such
opinions would be, not approved, but even tolerated. What a
man then was Zwingli, who, more than three hundred and fifty
years ago, without doubt, hesitation, or reserve, spoke of the
heathen not as heathen, but as men, in the manner of the
most enlightened of our time !
•
That the divine mercy will be equal to human need, and
that the Father's welcome will yet be rewarded by the re-
turn of the last Prodigal, is a faith which has given name
to another denomination, the Universalist; but to-day it is
not less a part of the current Unitarian confession. It is
curious to see how close Zwingli came to this large hope while
respecting to the uttermost the text which says, "He that be-
lieveth not shall be damned." "Reference is only made," he
said, "to those who have heard and yet have not believed.
Of the others we cannot judge. . . . Whoever has heard the
doctrines of faith proclaimed and yet continues and dies in
unbelief, him we can perhaps count among the lost." There
is meaning in that "perhaps." It indicates a degree of re-
luctance to damn an unbeliever which is incompatible with the
full enjoyment of Christian orthodoxy. It indicates that while
1 Christoffel.
60
UNITARIANISM AND THE REFORMATION.
Zwingli was not prepared to speak with the confidence of a
modern Universalist, he was not without his hope that the door
would be kept open till every sheep had returned to the fold.
This is better than if he had made up in dogmatism for what
at that time he lacked in light.
1
Upon the doctrine of predestination Zwingli held essentially
the same view as Luther and Calvin. If we say that Luther's
doctrine of predestination was a theological reaction, a return.
to Augustine, we must say the same of Zwingli's. Neander's
remark is this: "Zwingli expressly declared that predestina-
tion extended even to Adam's sin. It is therefore erroneous
that the harshest and most logical form of this doctrine was
derived from Calvin." It might have been supposed that
Zwingli's unadulterated predestinarianism would have im-
parted to his memory, at least to Calvin, an acceptable fra-
grance. Strange to say, Calvin's keen sense detected, in
Zwingli's doctrine, an unsavory element. And it may be
added that Zwingli's disciples found Calvin's doctrine equally
offensive. After Zwingli's death a warm controversy broke
out between his colleagues, the pastors of Zurich, and the
father of Calvinism then reigning at Geneva. It would seem
that if Zwingli and Calvin stated their doctrine of predesti-
nation in the same words, it did not feel like the same doc-
trine. Every one knows that the practical effect of a doctrine
depends even less upon its statement than upon the way it is
held, the emphasis laid upon it, or the scheme of faith of
which it makes a part. It is plain that the doctrine of predes-
tination loses most of its horror when, as Zwingli was able to
do, you eliminate total depravity, neutralize original sin, and
reduce, "He that believeth not shall be damned,” to a mere
'perhaps," which does not exclude a hope. This was one of
¹ Dogmas, 668.
،،
UNITARIANISM AND THE REFORMATION. - 61
the points which Zwingli's disciples made in their controversy
with Calvin. They said, "According to the sentiments of the
apostles, God wills the happiness of all mankind." That is
predestination, but it is not an insufferable doctrine.
Of Zwingli's doctrine of predestination Neander remarks,
"There is an approach in it to pantheism." Now, the nearer
you come to pantheism, the more you free your doctrine of
predestination, if you have one, of mere outward, arbitrary
domination, which was so offensive to Burns, and others of his
generation. Pantheism is the doctrine of an overruling, who
is also an indwelling, God. Of this kind of predestinarianism
there is a good deal to-day, both in Unitarian pulpits and
pews.
Zwingli also differed much from Luther, more from Calvin,
in the place which the doctrine of predestination held in his
teaching. Calvin, it is truly said, "regarded it almost as the
basis and foundation of religion;" Zwingli taught his full doc-
trine, yet with a certain reserve: "But let these things," he
says, "be stated with moderation, and only seldom; for only
a few can attain such heights of spiritual insight." Doubtless
we shall do well to exercise that caution still.
"two
were
How far Zwingli had gone in the admission of reason to the
field of faith, we have seen. Lecky says there were
theologians" in the period of the Reformation who "
accustomed to form their notions of truth and goodness by the
decisions of their own reasoned conscience and, disregarding all
the interpretations of tradition, to mould and adapt their creed
to their ideal. These theologians were Socinus and Zuinglius,
who may be regarded as the representatives of Rationalism in
the first period of Protestantism."2 Lecky says "Socinus and
1 Dyer: Life of Calvin, New York, p. 233.
2 Lecky Rationalism, i. 369.
62
UNITARIANISM AND THE REFORMATION.
Zuinglius," an order which fails to suggest that Zwingli had
finished his career when the elder Socinus was a child in the
nursery, a boy of the age of six. Zwingli fell by the sword in
a Catholic assault upon Zurich, in 1531; and with just appre-
ciation it has been said, "the career of this most interesting of
the Reformers was thus brought to an abrupt close." 1
In 1541, ten years after the fall of Zwingli, and within five of
the death of Luther, Calvin, after an exile of three years, was
recalled to Geneva for a second term of power. During the
next twenty-three years, until his death, if Calvin had worn a
crown his authority could hardly have been more absolute.
With this ascendency of Calvin began a new chapter in the
history of the Reformation; Geneva became its centre, and
Calvin its head.
In Melancthon, in his later years, it is possible to discover
very
distinct marks of a weakening of the stern and rigid dog-
matism in which the Reformation began. The pupil of Luther
was perceptibly loosening the yoke of his master and giving
the theological current of the Reformation movement in the
direction of a milder and more rational faith. In Zwingli this
tendency had gone so far that he seems almost to belong to
another age.
Calvin set himself to stem this rising tide. He
flung himself against the stream, and, so far as concerns the
main current, reversed the flow. In other words, the great
intellectual achievement of Calvin was to lead a theological
reaction. He returned to the standpoint of Luther, which was
also the standpoint of Augustine. Calvinism in its doctrinal
purity is, with the difference perhaps of a more rigid logic, the
master-stroke of the Fifth Century.
Not much in the way of direct contribution toward anything
that has ever gone by the name Unitarian can be expected
1 Hall: Orthodoxy and Heresy, p. 170.
UNITARIANISM AND THE REFORMATION.
63
from Calvin. As in the case of Luther, his use of reason even
in the cause of unreason tended to Rationalism; and his stren-
uous insistence upon righteousness not as the substance, it is
true, nor as the means, but as the fruit and sign, of salvation,
did more than the fifteen centuries since Christ Luther in-
cluded to lift the moral element to that transcendent place
in religion which is its due. It would be ungrateful to a great
benefactor not to recognize Calvin's contribution toward the
most important and precious conviction in any religious con-
fession. Spite of the formal logic of his creed, even to Calvin
himself character was more than doctrine. Vigilant as was
his inquisition into matters of faith, his inquisition into matters
of conduct was more searching and relentless still. Stern as
was his rule against heresy, his methods with the loose and
immoral were more summary. He could be indulgent, even
paternal, toward a quiet, circumspect misbeliever like Socinus ;
but no sinner, however quiet and circumspect, was safe in the
indulgence of his little private vice. There can be no doubt
that Calvin's stern discipline had the effect, and that he
intended it to have the effect, to put questions of character
above questions of creed in the conception of religion.
The development of other elements of the Unitarian Con-
fession during Calvin's ascendency came not so much through
him as in spite of him. The revolt of human nature against
mere arbitrary predestination, against a God who, to take Cal-
vin's words, "in saving some and condemning others has no
regard to their merits," found champions in Bolsec and Cas-
tellio both able and respectable.
Bolsec was a physician by profession, and, until he meddled
with theology, a man of standing and reputation. If he had
confined his activities to the practice of medicine, we have rea-
son to believe that he would have been permitted to enjoy his
Ma
64
UNITARIANISM AND THE REFORMATION.
i
religious opinions undisturbed. On the contrary, he ventured to
dissent from the doctrine of predestination, at first, it would
appear, with great moderation and in the privacy of friends.
He was summoned before Calvin and privately admonished.
For a repetition of the offence he was called before the con-
sistory and publicly rebuked. The indiscreet layman ventured
upon a more open transgression. At a week-day service for
which a large congregation had assembled, one of Calvin's col-
leagues and disciples had stated the doctrine of predestination
in what seemed to Bolsec extremely offensive terms. The fiery
layman made bold to controvert the preacher both with in-
vective and argument. At that inopportune moment Calvin
entered the church, and quietly seating himself listened to the
rebellious heretic. Bolsec done, Calvin took the floor. Bol-
sec was finally taken from the church in the custody of an
officer, and after a protracted imprisonment, in which for some.
time it was a question of life or death, was expelled from the
city.¹
M
Castellio, a man of rare accomplishments, had been placed
by Calvin at the head of the schools of Geneva. On account
of too much freedom in the criticism of the Scriptures he
incurred the displeasure of Calvin, and on account of an equal
freedom in the criticism of the clergy he was condemned and
sent into banishment. He obtained a professorship at Basel.
At this apparently safe distance he opened a controversy with
Calvin upon the doctrine of predestination. Not only the
churches of Basel and Geneva, but also of Bern and Zurich,
were distracted by the hot dispute. The scale turned in favor
of Calvin. Castellio wrote a book against predestination, the
publication of which Calvin had enough influence at Basel to
have forbidden under penalty of death. The victory of Calvin
Dyer: Life of Calvin.
1
UNITARIANISM AND THE REFORMATION.
65
was fatal to Castellio, who died in disgrace and poverty. "I
learn, to the great shame of our age," said Montaigne, " that
under our view two persons distinguished for learning have
died of starvation.": As one of these he mentions Castellio.
The doctrine of predestination had triumphed, but the triumph
had in it the seeds of coming defeat.
2
Unitarianism proper, belief in the personal unity of God,
found confessors in Servetus, and in Lælius and Faustus So-
cinus.8 Servetus was a Spaniard by birth, of the same age as
Calvin, born indeed the same year, 1509. He studied at the
university of Saragossa, accompanied the confessor of Charles.
V. to Germany, and, deserting both the confessor and his
creed, appeared at the age of twenty-one in Basel as a disciple
of the Reformers, a disciple considerably more advanced
than his masters. "You obtrude yourself upon me," Eco-
lampadius wrote him, "as if I had nothing else to do than to an-
swer your questions. You do not admit that it was the Son
of God who was to come as man, but that it was the man who
came that was the Son of God." A year later, at the age of
twenty-two, Servetus printed a book entitled "Errors of the
Trinity," which was sufficiently creditable to draw from Me-
lancthon the statement, "I read Servetus much, though I am
well aware of the fanatical nature of the man.'
-
•
•
&
The sale of the book was summarily forbidden by the Basel
magistrates. A year later the youthful theologian attempted
a restatement of his views in a series of "Dialogues concerning
the Trinity." The result of this second venture was the sud-
den disappearance of Servetus not only from Basel but also for
1 Audin: Life of Calvin, p. 420.
2 Early Sources of English Unitarianism, Bonet to Maury, p. 81.
3 Ibid., p. 178.
4 Willis: Servetus and Calvin, p. 45.
5
66
UNITARIANISM AND THE REFORMATION.
the space of twenty years from the knowledge of mankind.
Two years later a brilliant young Spaniard by the name of
Villeneuve, no longer known as Servetus, presented himself at
the university of Paris as a student of mathematics and phys-
ics. He subsequently entered the college of physicians at the
same university for the study of medicine. In due time he
became assistant to the professor of anatomy, who makes
mention of him as "a man distinguished in every species.
of learning, and scarcely second to any in the doctrine of
Galen." 1
A species of learning in which unhappily Servetus was too
proficient, upon which he gave lectures at the university with
too much success, for which he fell under the censure of the
faculty and the parliament, was astrology. Active, learned,
and original, let it be confessed that Servetus had not exactly
a sober intellect.
Invited to Vienne, near Lyons, as physician to the arch-
bishop of that see, “M. Villeneuve " spent twelve years of
honorable life in the quiet and successful practice of his pro-
fession. Meanwhile he opened a theological correspondence.
with Calvin, then at the head of Protestantism. Thirty letters.
of Servetus are extant, not always written in the manner in
which Calvin was accustomed to be addressed. The manu-
script of a book entitled "The Restoration of Christianity"
was also forwarded to Calvin for examination. With this
material in hand Calvin was able to discover the identity of
his correspondent with the famous or infamous author of
"Errors of the Trinity." Calvin communicated his discovery
to the Catholic authorities at Lyons, and set the detectives of
the Inquisition on the hunt. Servetus, no longer “M. Ville-
neuve," was arrested and thrown into prison, from which,
1 Willis.
UNITARIANISM AND THE REFORMATION.
67
however, by the indulgence of his jailer, he was permitted to
escape. Attempting to reach Italy, the fugitive entered Ge-
neva, stayed a day too long, was recognized and thrown into
prison, from which no friendly jailer permitted his escape.
After a trial of thrilling interest, lasting more than seven
weeks, for an offence committed in another territory, for
an offence for which at Geneva banishment was the highest
penalty known to the law, Servetus was condemned to be
burned at the stake, and the sentence was executed. Strange
to say, a Unitarian was safer from that day. "It may be
said," says Hallam, "that the tolerant spirit rose out of the
ashes of Servetus.'
""
The reign of Calvin may be said to have continued at
Geneva a century and a half. In 1706 the clergy were ex-
cused from their old engagement to teach and preach the
creed. In 1817, the era of our own Unitarian controversy,
it was forbidden at Geneva to preach "in a disputative style,
on the doctrines of the Trinity, the imputation of Adam's sin,
and predestination." In 1847 "the old Protestant Church.
of Geneva was abolished, and an almost creedless church
established.' Castellio and Servetus were avenged.
1
By common consent, Jesus holds the first place among the
martyrs of history. Judged by the test of fruitfulness, it can
hardly be doubted that the second place belongs to Servetus.
The seed which Jesus watered with his blood dropped upon
inhospitable soil at Jerusalem; in the hot-bed of Jewish tra-
dition it met the fate of seed scattered among thorns; trans-
planted to Asia Minor, Macedonia, and Rome, it took root
and ripened to a harvest. Something very similar happened
in the case of Servetus. The seed fertilized by the ashes of the
1 Christian Examiner, xv. 151; xxvi. 320.
2 Encyclopædia Britannica, Art. "Geneva."
W
68
UNITARIANISM AND THE REFORMATION.
शुभ
great martyr came to a late harvest, it is true, even at Geneva ;
but under the heel of Calvin for more than a century, like a
trampled vine, its promise was slow in coming. It found its
good ground in two countries where the heel of Calvin, if it
touched, rested with less weight. What Asia Minor, Macedo-
nia, and Rome had been to the gospel of Christ, that in kind, if
not in degree, Poland and Transylvania were to the doctrine
of Servetus.
In 1556, three years after the martyrdom of Servetus, Gior-
gio Blandrata, an Italian physician, the third physician we
have met in this history,— driven out of Italy for his opinions,
settled at Geneva and entered into relations with the church.
of Italian Protestants there established.¹ At the time of his
arrival he claimed to be and probably was in substantial agree-
ment with Calvin. It is one of the signs we have of continued
vitality in the ashes of Servetus, that at the end of two years
Blandrata found Geneva an uncomfortable residence, and went
forth to win for himself the distinction of "founder of Unita-
rianism in Poland and Transylvania." In both countries, but
especially in Poland, the doctrine of the Trinity had already.
been openly challenged; but with the arrival of Blandrata in
1558, the spirit of Unitarian dissent entered upon a career of
marked activity and success. Discussions were held, nobles
and scholars espoused the cause, synods were assembled to
settle the controversy with such success as synods are wont to
have, and in 1565, after seven years of active fermentation, a
division of Polish Protestants took place by that process with
which the world is familiar, Protestants who chose to con-
sider themselves orthodox excluding Protestants whom it
suited the majority to consider heretics.
B
1 Chambers's Encyclopædia, Art. "Blandrata." Encyclopædia Bri-
tannica, Art. "Socinus."
UNITARIANISM AND THE REFORMATION.
69
This date, 1565, ought to be memorable in our annals,
as it marks the establishment of the first Unitarian Church
since the disappearance of Apostolic and the breaking up of
Arian Christendom. Ten years later Faustus Socinus took
up his residence in Poland, and under his leadership Polish
Unitarianism achieved what it is not too much to call a
brilliant history. Poland, at that date, was not the prostrate
province which it is to-day; in the age when Germany was
giving us Luther, Poland was the country that gave the world
Copernicus.
The name of Socinus is of great importance in the history
of Unitarianism. For three hundred years the word "So-
cinian" has been a term of contempt in Christendom. The
word has perhaps ceased to be a symbol of hate, but not of
contempt, when Carlyle speaks of Harriet Martineau as writing
him "saw-dustish, Socinian, didactic little notes," of "her
brother James, a Socinian preacher of due quality," and of
“Socinian Preachers" who "proclaim Benevolence to all the
four winds, and have Truth engraved on their watch-seals." 2
As this is perhaps the most respectful reference to Soci-
nus in literature for three centuries, it becomes interesting
to know what the man, or men, did to make the name so
infamous.
3
There were two Italians of the name, uncle and nephew,
both illustrious in the annals of heresy. Lælius, the elder, was
a man of independent fortune, apparently of attractive per-
son, amiable spirit, and gentle manners, too much of a free-
thinker to live in Italy,- - who travelled through nearly every
country in Europe, lived on terms of affectionate intercourse
1 Reminiscences of Jane Welch Carlyle.
2
Essays, "Characteristics."
3 Early Sources of English Unitarianism: Bonet-Maury, pp. 179–198.
70
UNITARIANISM AND THE REFORMATION.
(C
with Melancthon, was my dear Lælius" to Calvin, even while
raising questions concerning the resurrection of the body, sal-
vation, and, to Calvin perhaps his most tender point, predesti-
nation. There is a tradition that in his youth Socinus had
belonged to a club of free-thinkers in Italy, who, among their
other heresies, rejected the Trinity; but no misgivings con-
cerning this cardinal doctrine have been discovered in the
writings of Socinus earlier than 1554, that is, the year fol-
lowing the martyrdom of Servetus, at which time he is known
to have uttered what are called "incautious remarks" upon
the Trinity, and to have given more decided expression to
his doubts in his correspondence. This is another evidence
that Servetus did not suffer in vain. The heresy of Socinus
was of that mild kind which enabled him a year later at
Zurich to subscribe to an orthodox confession, not, how-
ever, without the right reserved of further investigation. He
died at Zurich, in 1562, at the age of thirty-seven, respected
and beloved. His significance in the history of thought
comes from the happy circumstance that he bequeathed his
manuscripts to his more aggressive and more distinguished
nephew.¹
Like his uncle, Faustus Socinus was a native of Siena, in
Italy. At the age of seventeen he fell heir to a fortune which
placed him in independent circumstances. At the age of
twenty he was suspected of Lutheranism. In 1562, at the
death of his uncle, he was residing at Geneva, and was en-
rolled as a member of the Italian Church. He was then a
young man of twenty-three, and so little the man he afterward
became, that, inheriting the ample fortunes of his uncle, he
conformed to the Catholic Church, and returned to Italy to
enjoy his possessions. After a residence of twelve years as
1 Encyclopædia Britannica, Art. "Socinus."
UNITARIANISM AND THE REFORMATION.
71
man of the world at the court of Florence, he retired to Basel,
turned theologian, systematized the heresies of his predeces-
sors, — especially the fruitful suggestions of his uncle, whom he
ever gratefully acknowledged as master,
and worked out a
scheme of rationalized, if from the modern standpoint not always
reasonable, faith which for more than two hundred years was
familiarly known by his name. He denied the Trinity, the
deity of Christ, the personality of the Devil, the native and
total depravity of man, the vicarious atonement, and the
eternity of punishment. His theory was that Christ was a man
divinely commissioned, who had no existence before he was
conceived by the virgin Mary; that human sin was the imita-
tion of Adam's sin, and that human salvation was the imitation
and adoption of Christ's virtue; that the Bible was to be inter-
preted by human reason, and that its metaphors were not to
be taken literally. "He anticipated modern philanthropists
by insisting upon" the unlawfulness, not only of war, but of
the taking of human life under any circumstances; and “the
candid spirit and the freedom from passion with which he
writes in an intemperate age" is acknowledged to his praise.
In 1579, being then at the age of forty, and having a name
known throughout Europe, Socinus took up his residence in
Poland, and from that date until his death in 1604, a period
of twenty-five years, was the able and recognized head of
Polish Unitarianism.
1
He left a vigorous and flourishing church. "The noble
and the opulent, the learned and the eloquent, crowded to his
standard." A Unitarian college was established at Racow, the
headquarters of the church, in 1600. A printing-press was
also set up, and kept busy in publishing books and tracts for
the propagation of Unitarian or Socinian principles. Every
1 Chambers's Encyclopædia, Art. "Socinus."
72
UNITARIANISM AND THE REFORMATION.
member of the church contributed to a fund from which were
paid the salaries of ministers, the expenses of “colleges,” the
support of widows, orphans, and aged ministers, the printing
of books, and the maintaining of missionaries. During the
century of its existence the Polish Unitarian Church, popularly
known as the "leper church," was a church perhaps the
most efficiently organized that Unitarianism has ever had.
Under the Sigismunds I. and II., the most enlightened princes.
then upon any European throne, Poland enjoyed complete
religious toleration, the first to attain that distinction in.
Christendom. As has happened elsewhere when Unitarians
have stood upon an equality, the Unitarians of Poland by their
energy and intelligence attained an ascendency out of all pro-
portion to their numbers. They succeeded, we are told, "in
obtaining possession of all those honors in the State which
were the reward of eloquence, art, or learning."
But Poland was a Catholic country, and the Unitarian
Church experienced the vicissitudes which were to have been
anticipated. In 1598, at the instigation of the Jesuits, a mob
attacked the house of Socinus, dragged him from a sick-bed
through the streets, and threatened him with death.
He was
rescued; but his papers had been destroyed, and among them
the manuscript of a book which he regarded as his most im-
portant work.
He lived in retirement at the house of a friend
for six years, and died by disease and not by violence, one is
glad to know, in 1604.
For another generation the Unitarian Church maintained
itself under increasing difficulties. In 1638 two reckless stu-
dents of the college at Racow demolished a crucifix at the en-
trance of the city. The authorities of the college disavowed
the offence, but the populace demanded vengeance; and the
1 The Unitarian, November, 1887. Art. “Unitarianism in Poland.”
1
UNITARIANISM AND THE REFORMATION.
73
Diet of Warsaw decreed the banishment of the professors, the
destruction of the college and printing-press, and the closing
of the Socinian churches. Twenty years later, under complete
Catholic ascendency, a decree passed the Diet of Warsaw ex-
pelling all Socinians from the country. Strange to say, the
date of this barbarous edict, 1658, happens to have fallen
upon the centennial year of the arrival of Blandrata, the
apostle of Polish Unitarianism. In 1661 the decree was exe-
cuted with a rigor which has been compared to that which
attended the expulsion of the Jews from Spain. The pro-
fession of Socinian opinions, or the harboring of a Socinian,
was made an offence punishable with death. In spite of this
penalty, and the rigor with which it was executed, confessors
of the faith still lingered in the country, maintaining a regular
ministry, educating their pastors at Leyden in Holland, and
holding their services in private houses, in fields, and in for-
ests. At the partition of Poland they were included by Russia
and Austria among other Dissidents, since which time, I find
it said, "they have been permitted to enjoy their religious
opinions ;
"'1 but I do not find it said whether at this date
any remnants of the once vigorous Polish Unitarian Church
survive.
The exiled Unitarians found refuge in England, Holland,
Germany, and especially among their co-religionists of Tran-
sylvania. The planting of Unitarianism in Transylvania fol-
lowed its planting in Poland by only a half-dozen years, and
was the work of the same apostle. John Sigismund, heir to
the throne of Transylvania, passed his youth in exile at the
Polish court. In 1556 he returned to his kingdom, and
enjoyed a brief but enlightened reign of fourteen years. It
66
1 Dictionary of Christian Churches and Sects. Marsden. Art.
Unitarianism."
74 UNITARIANISM AND THE REFORMATION.
1
was during this period that Unitarianism took root in Hun-
gary. In 1563, Blandrata, the founder of Polish Unitarian-
ism, not less eager in the propagation of his faith than in the
practice of his profession, was invited to Transylvania as
court physician.
The most fruitful achievement of this eccentric apostle was
the conversion of Francis David, one of the most able, most
noble, and most eloquent of Transylvanian Protestants, who
in his intellectual progress passed from Lutheranism through
Calvinism to Unitarianism, and to whom the Unitarians of
Hungary point with just pride as the real founder of their
church. Francis David, a native Transylvanian of Saxon
ancestry, was born in 1510, seven years before the outbreak
of the Reformation, and educated at Wittenberg under Luther
and Melancthon at the high tide of their career. Returning
to Transylvania, he threw himself zealously and effectively into.
the cause of the Lutheran Reformation in that country, with
such distinction that he was made bishop of the Lutheran
church. In the controversy between Lutherans and Calvin-
ists concerning the Lord's Supper, David took the more
rational view of the Calvinists, that no outward miracle takes
place in the bread and wine. In 1564 he was made bishop
of the Calvinistic church, as he had been of the Lutheran. At
the synod which chose David to the Calvinistic bishopric, the
king was represented by his favorite, Blandrata, and the two
religious innovators were drawn to each other. Two years
later, by the influence of Blandrata, David was appointed
chaplain to the king, and was preaching to the court that
"he who divides Christ into two, man and not man but
1 Unitarianism in Hungary (in the Unitarian for November and De-
cember, 1886; February, March, May, October, and November, 1887).
George Boros.
UNITARIANISM AND THE REFORMATION.
75
God, he is a deceiver;" commonly self-deceived, it ought
also to have been said.
Unitarian opinions were in the ascendant at the court, and
spread rapidly among the nobility and gentry of the kingdom.
A decree passed the diet and was approved by the king, grant-
ing toleration in the broadest terms: "The preachers shall be
allowed to preach the gospel each according to his under-
standing;" the people "shall be allowed to keep the preach-
ers who please them. On account of religion shall no man
be misused." This decree is memorable. Its date is 1568.
It made Transylvania the second country in which religious
freedom was established by law, and it made the Unitarian
Church of Transylvania possible. Its anniversary was cele-
brated in 1868 with great enthusiasm by the Unitarians of
Hungary, as marking the completion of three hundred years
of their history.
Excluded from the Calvinistic synod and having organized
a synod of their own, Francis David was made the first bishop
of the Unitarian Church. The two years that followed were a
kind of golden age for Unitarianism in Transylvania. Twelve
great schools, or gymnasia, and in nearly every congregation
an elementary school, were founded, and it is broadly stated
by an Hungarian writer that "there remained scarcely a trace
of Catholicism, and Calvinism had withered before having
taken root." There seems abundant evidence that for a few
years Unitarianism was among the aristocratic and educated
classes the prevailing confession. Three years after the edict
of religious equality the enlightened prince of Transylvania
died suddenly at the age of thirty-one. His Catholic suc-
cessor confirmed the Unitarians in the exercise of their re-
ligion, but forbade the propagation of their opinions. The
Unitarianism of this period, while rejecting the deity of Christ,
76
UNITARIANISM AND THE REFORMATION.
had continued reverently to pay him adoration not unlike the
adoration of Mary among Catholics. In this practice, Ser-
vetus, Socinus, Blandrata, and at first Francis David, were at
one. But the rationalistic temper of David soon threw off
this Catholic tradition. A fatal breach occurred between the
two great champions of Transylvanian Unitarianism over this
issue, and at the instigation of Blandrata, David was thrown
into prison, where, already broken in health, after a few months
of languishing he died in 1579.
The two centuries that followed, though always succeeding
in maintaining their right to a legal existence, was a period of
great trial to the Unitarians of Transylvania. Blandrata, to
whom after Francis David more than to any one else they
owed their existence, deserted them in his old age and con-
formed to the Catholic Church. Their darkest hour was in
1716, when, under Austrian rule, their printing-press was sup-
pressed, their publications forbidden, their cathedral taken
from them by force, and their churches and schools through-
out the country turned to Catholic uses. Under the heel
of this rigorous despotism the devoted church lay for three
quarters of a century, until the accession of the liberal Em-
peror Joseph II. in 1780. This enlightened monarch forbade
the seizure of their churches, indemnified them for the loss
of their cathedral, placed them in offices of trust and power,
and authorized the printing of their confession and the publi-
cation of their books. The same liberal policy was continued
by his successors. Under Francis I. the four established
religions, Catholic, Lutheran, Calvinist, and Unitarian, were
again placed upon an equality; in 1792 a wealthy Transyl-
vanian nobleman, dying childless, left his entire property, a
large fortune, to the Unitarian Church; in 1837 another Hun-
garian magnate did the same. Under these changed condi-
UNITARIANISM AND THE REFORMATION.
77
tions the Unitarian Church began to rehabilitate itself. In
1845 its membership was reckoned at 45,000; in 1887 the
number of registered Unitarians in Transylvania and Hungary
was 57,516, with a gain from the preceding year of 918. The
number of congregations was 108.¹
Of the organized movements dating from the time of the
Reformation, the Unitarian church of Poland, after a century
of struggle, was completely wrecked; the church of Geneva,
founded by Calvin, having first become essentially creedless,
as has also the church of Zwingli at Zurich, has, as happens
with all creedless churches, been for more than half a century
prevailingly Unitarian; and the brave church of Francis David
in Transylvania, planted originally upon a Unitarian confes-
sion, after the fiery ordeals of three centuries still maintains a
vigorous existence.
1 Unitarianism in its Actual Condition, Transylvania, pp. 296–315.
Unitarian Review, August, 1885. Bixby. Unitarian Year-Book, 1888.
UNITARIANISM IN ENGLAND.
BY BROOKE HERFORD.
THE
HE establishment of distinct Unitarian churches in Eng-
land dates back to 1774, when Theophilus Lindsey left
the Church of England and went up to London to start the
first avowedly Unitarian place of worship in the country. But
that was not the beginning of Unitarianism. Centuries before
this, Unitarianism began in England as an individual opinion,
had first its martyr-age, then a period when it was a great
ferment of controversy, and finally the distinct development
of it which stands to-day in our English Unitarian body.
The names of some of the Unitarian martyrs on the con-
tinent of Europe are comparatively well known, — Servetus,
burned by Calvin; Valentine Gentilis the Italian; and other
isolated students here and there, who had been stirred up by
the Reformation spirit to read the Bible for themselves, and
who could not stop where Luther and Calvin stopped. But
even before these men's names were known in England,
there were English men and women who were reading the
New Testament in the same plain, straightforward way, and
who could only find there the old simple teaching, of One
Almighty God, and Jesus Christ as a great holy teacher, but
not God.
""
It is not easy to trace this earlier Unitarianism. The name
"Unitarian was not then known. On the Continent we
recognize them by the popular charge that they were turn-
UNITARIANISM IN ENGLAND.
79
ing Jews,
modern Jews in disguise, that being the ideal
created by their opposition to the doctrine of the Trinity.
In England all sorts of heretics were put in the one great
category of "Anabaptists." That was the great hateful name
which was the watchword of contempt and persecution ;
and it not only included those who were for adult baptism,
or re-baptism, but any who were unsound about the Mass, or
who rejected those ideas of Christ's deity on which the Mass
was founded. The old historian, Stowe (1525-1605), tells us
how a number of these Anabaptists came over to England
from Holland about 1535 to escape from persecution; but
the persecuting laws had just been revived in England, and
they were soon taken off to prison and then — sometimes
three or four at once they "bore their fagots," as the
phrase was, and were brent" at St. Paul's Cross. We have
a glimpse of their opinions in the enumeration of heresies for
which such things were done, among which the following
are named: (1) The denial of the Trinity; (2) That Jesus
Christ was only a man, but not the true God; (3) That
the only benefit men receive from Christ consists in their
being brought to the true fellowship of God, — just an antici-
pation of the "moral influence" theory which was held by
Unitarians long before it became one of the doctrines of the
New Orthodoxy. These were poor unknown foreigners, how-
ever, and little notice was taken of them or of their sufferings;
but it made more noise when, in 1550, Joan Boucher, a lady
of Kent, and one of the ladies of the Court, was charged with
heresy, some opinion contrary to the Incarnation it seems
to have been. She had been an earnest student of the Bible,
and was one of those who had welcomed Tyndale's forbidden
translation of the New Testament into English, doing all she
could to spread it, and even taking copies to Court, tied, like
(6
▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬
80
UNITARIANISM IN ENGLAND.
smuggled goods, under the voluminous skirts of the period.
So well known was she at Court, that the young king, Edward
VI., refused at first to sign the warrant for her execution, and
only did it at last on Archbishop Cranmer's urging. A brave,
fearless woman she was, speaking right up in court, remind-
ing her judges that they had already had to change from Cath-
olics to Protestants, and that in the end they would have to
come to this for which they were condemning her when they
should have read the Scriptures and come to understand them.
And in Smithfield, when the priest standing by the pile of fag-
ots tried to convert her, she told him to let her alone and go
home and read his Bible. And so she died the death.
But flames could not extinguish the truth, or put into the
New Testament anything but the old simple truth, Christ at
great holy teacher, but not God! The story of all that strug-
gling time through the Catholic reaction under Queen Mary,
and on into the Protestant revival under Elizabeth — is dotted
J
▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬
with the names of Unitarian martyrs. “Arians” they now be-
gan to be called, reviving the well-known name of the Fourth
Century. Even when the other Protestants were themselves
being persecuted by Mary, they still had no mercy for these
heretics who went a little further in their Protestantism; and
when Philpot, Archdeacon of Winchester, was in prison for
Protestantism, he became so angry with one of his fellow-
prisoners on this account, that he spat upon him! The
man's offence was that he had argued that God was no other-
wise in Christ than in other men; and the story comes to us
in a quaint old pamphlet which is extant, called "An Apology
of Jhon Philpot: written for spittynge on an Arian; with an
invective against the Arians, the veri naturall children of
Antichrist."
So, even under Protestant Elizabeth this was the one
UNITARIANISM IN ENGLAND.
81
heresy that could not be tolerated. In 1579 W. Hamont,
a plough-wright, and in 1583 John Lewis went the same fiery
road for the same heresy; but the public feeling was begin-
ning to be sick of this kind of thing, and in a few years it
ceased; but be it remembered that the last two burnings
for heresy in England Bartholomew Leggatt and Edward
Wightman, burned in 1611, only nine years before the sailing
of the "
Mayflower
were for Unitarianism.
Now came a new period in the development of liberal
thought. Unitarianism, which had hitherto, in England, been
the heresy of a few isolated and daring thinkers, became a
strong undercurrent of thought, running through the whole of
the Seventeenth Century. It was a century of great individu-
ality in religion. Puritanism was working in the nation, set-
ting men looking earnestly into religious questions. Into this
ferment of thought came the Latin treatises and catechisms of
the Socinians, the Unitarians of Poland. Poland was still in
its glory, and the centre of Polish Unitarianism at Racow was
the centre of a widespread propagandism. These Polish Unita-
rian books came to England, found their way among scholars,
were read at the universities, and began to influence great
numbers of thinkers. The church synods of London and
York forbade the importation and sale of such books. But
they still came in. One man, especially, is associated with
this Unitarian controversy of the Commonwealth time, John
Biddle. He was a reputable clergyman educated at Oxford,
and with him Unitarianism was not an undercurrent. He
openly espoused it, wrote tracts in favor of it, even organized
a little church in London, really on the basis of the simple
worship of one God. A pertinacious controversialist, too, he
was. He was prosecuted, he was imprisoned. His books
were ordered to be burned by the common hangman,
nay, so
""
———
6
82
UNITARIANISM IN ENGLAND.
bitter was the feeling aroused by him, that his opponents pro-
cured from Parliament a new law against heresy and blas-
phemy which would have put Biddle himself, as well as his
books, into the hands of the hangman. But then Cromwell
stepped in. Cromwell was not a Unitarian, but he was almost
the only leader of the time who thoroughly understood and
prized religious liberty; and with his strong hand he kept the
persecuting Act from being put in force. He let Biddle live
quietly in the country, and when the feeling against him was
too strong, sent him away into a sort of friendly exile in the
Scilly Isles. Eventually, on Cromwell's death, he was again.
thrown into a prison a prison so loathsome that disease
soon carried him off; but the work that he had done, and
the books he had introduced, did not die. In the time of the
Long Parliament it was being openly preached here and there
that "Christ was a prophet and did miracles, but not God."
And Dr. Owen, the great champion of Congregational ortho-
doxy, complained in 1655 that "there is not a city, a town,
scarce a village in England, where some of this poison is not
poured forth." It is curious, indeed, to recall some of the
names of those who came to hold Unitarian opinions, though
there was no Unitarian "body." John Milton, John Locke,
and Sir Isaac Newton, three of the greatest minds of the cen-
tury, were all really Unitarians, so far as rejecting the doctrine.
of the Trinity went. More curious still is it to remember
that William Penn, the Quaker, had come to the same conclu-
sion, and his tract "The Sandy Foundation Shaken" is simply
an able argument against the Trinity. It all led to nothing,
however. It was a sort of Broad-Church view, held in the
study and the closet. No church was founded on it. All the
churches continued bound to the old creeds and articles. Still
the old services went on, and the broad stream of the old Cal-
UNITARIANISM IN ENGLAND.
83
vinism swept forward. And when at last the era of toleration
came, with the final overthrow of the Stuarts in 1688, a sort of
religious lassitude succeeded to the feverish strain of conflict
and persecution of the Seventeenth Century; so that, with the
beginning of the Eighteenth Century, there came about the
deadest time that the English churches have ever known.
It was in the still water of this dead time of the Eighteenth
Century that we find the beginning of the organic move-
ment out of which grew the present Unitarian churches of
England.
Figure to yourselves the state of things. What is called
the "
era of toleration " began immediately after the overthrow
of the Stuarts in 1688. The sects were now at liberty to go
quietly on in their own way. On the one hand there was the
great established Episcopal Church, at a pretty low ebb in
religious life, for its most earnest life had gone out of it on
that "black Bartholomew's Day, 1662," when the two thou-
sand Puritan clergy were ejected. On the other hand were
these Puritans, "Dissenters" they began now to be called,
-divided into three great sects, Baptists, Independents, and
English Presbyterians. Now, these were all free. They could
build churches, and they did. From 1693 to 1720 was the
great "chapel"-building time. Chapels" was all they ven-
tured to call their meeting-houses, for fear of rousing up the
old persecuting passion of the established and dominant Epis-
copacy; and the name clings to them to this day, so that the
Dissenting bodies commonly talk of "going to chapel," while
'going to church" means attending the Church of England.
But now, in this great development of chapel-building by
these three denominations, a curious thing took place, which
unexpectedly affected their after history. That curious thing
was, that while the Baptists and Independents (or Congre-
((
84
UNITARIANISM IN ENGLAND.
gationalists) tied down all these new chapels to perpetual
orthodox uses by rigid doctrinal trust-deeds, like that at
Andover, for instance, the English Presbyterians left theirs
free. It seems strange that they should do so; for the Pres-
byterians had begun by being the narrowest sect of the Puri-
tans, and the Scotch Presbyterians always remained so. But
the English Presbyterians had very little to do with the Scotch
ones, and through all the changes and sufferings they had had
to go through they had become broadened; and so it came to
pass that now, when they were building their churches or chap-
els up and down the country, they left them free. Let it be
clearly understood that they were not Unitarians. They were
steady-going orthodox folk, Calvinists, even, most of them.
They had not even any idea that their descendants would ever
become Unitarians; but they did not want to tie them. They
had themselves felt the evil of creeds, and they would have
none of them, and so they left their churches free.
Mark what followed. The English Presbyterians, thus left
free, began to grow more liberal. It was natural they should ;
for they had no exact lines to keep, no creeds or articles to be
periodically brought out and compared with what they might
be preaching. So their minds, free, began gradually to work
in a more liberal direction. From the first, the old rigid Cal-
vinism began to melt away. Then they went on to thoughts
of God which led to their saying very little about the Trinity.
A general reverence for Christ took the place of the old dis-
tinct belief in his deity. First, they gave up preaching the
orthodox doctrines, and then they gave up believing them.
They opened the communion to all; they no longer insisted
on the old professions of "church-membership," but counted
all who worshipped with them "the church." Thus things
were going on all through the middle of the last century. Of
App
UNITARIANISM IN ENGLAND.
85
course it was not the same everywhere; some still held the
old views, while many began to be spoken of in the ministers'
meetings as Arians, and a few—regarded as far-going radicals
— talked flat Socinianism. There were differences, too, among
the people. Some saw the liberal drift with dismay. "Sir,"
said Mr. Crook, one of the old conservative hearers, to
Rev. Mr. Haynes, minister of the Presbyterian chapel in Shef-
field, Sir, I like the old doctrines." "So do I, Mr. Crook,"
replied the minister; "the older, the better, sir. Mine is as
old as the Apostles." In truth, these English Presbyterians,
having no creeds to take their bearings by, but only the Bible,
were almost unconsciously feeling their way back toward the
simple Christianity of the New Testament.
(6
There was one man among them, however, who could not
feel his way unconsciously. Dr. Joseph Priestley was too open-
eyed to go in any direction without knowing it. He was one
of the leading scientists of his time, a restless investigator,
and at the same time an earnest religious thinker and student,
just as eager to make out the truth about religion as to inves-
tigate the properties of oxygen or electricity. So he investi-
gated Christianity, studied the creeds of the churches, came
to the conclusion that they were a long way from the Chris-
tianity of Christ, and gradually came to be a thoroughgoing
Unitarian. When he came to this conclusion he did not hide
it; he proclaimed it and preached it. It startled the old
steady-going Presbyterian churches; they were hardly ready
for it. The older men held up their hands in horror; the timid
advised caution. But Priestley went right on; proclaimed that
the Trinity, the deity of Christ, and the substitutionary sacrifice.
of Christ were corruptions, and declared Unitarianism the
original doctrine of Christianity. Gradually he forced our old
Presbyterian churches to hear and to think; and the upshot
M
86
UNITARIANISM IN ENGLAND.
of it was, that at length he aroused a large part of the body to
the consciousness that they were really Unitarians. They still
did not take the name; they disliked sect-names altogether.
It had always been their pride that Presbyterians did not con-
dition their fellowship by any creed, and they did not like
being identified specially with this new Unitarian doctrine
any more than they had liked being tied fast to Calvinism;
but the logic of facts was too strong for them. The fact was,
that these new thoughts of God's simple unity, and of Christ's
inspired humanity, and their altogether more reasonable way
of looking at religion, these thoughts were of more impor-
tance to the world just then than the mere process of liberty
by which they had come to them. And so, though they
mostly continued to call themselves English Presbyterians, or
simply Presbyterians, all the world began to call them Unita-
rians; and more and more the Baptists and Independents, or
Congregationalists, who had formerly fellowshipped and worked
with them, drew apart, and left them, as they are to-day, in the
reluctant isolation of a separate Unitarian body.
Two other movements of thought of a somewhat similar
kind increased and strengthened this development of a sepa-
rate Unitarian body, one among the General Baptists, the
other in the great Episcopal Church itself.
The Baptists in England had always been divided into the
"Particular" Baptists, holding the old Calvinistic doctrine of
particular salvation, or the election of particular individuals, and
the "General" Baptists, that is, those who believed that salva-
tion was a general thing, open to all who would repent. The
Particular Baptists have always been tolerably rigid Calvinists,
-though of late they have not been rigid enough for their
great leader, Mr. Spurgeon, who bewails certain growing ten-
dencies to liberalism. But the General Baptists had that one
i
UNITARIANISM IN ENGLAND.
87
germ of liberalism in them from the beginning, — hope for all,
not merely for the elect, and that germ grew, until, about
the time when the Presbyterians found that they had practi-
cally drifted into Unitarianism a large part of the old Gen-
eral Baptist body found out the same thing. So there came a
split in the old General Baptist Assembly; the main body
standing for Liberalism, the orthodox minority seceding (about
the year 1770) and forming the New Connection of General
Baptists. The Unitarian General Baptists have continued.
their separate organization, and their churches hold to their
old distinctive rite of adult baptism by immersion; but in
other respects they are part of the Unitarian connection, being
included in the English Unitarian "Year-Book," and gener-
ally acting with us in conferences and associations.
A still more interesting movement, however, was that in the
Established Church. It brought us only one man, but that
man did a great deal to reconcile our churches to the Unita-
rian name, and make them appreciate the value of that which
it stood for. Indeed, the name of Theophilus Lindsey must
always stand with that of Dr. Joseph Priestley as practically the
co-founders of our liberal church. Lindsey was an Episcopal
clergyman, a modest, quiet country parson in a little York-
shire vicarage, a gentle, refined man, but with a mind and
a conscience. He was one of those who were helping a great
Broad-Church movement in the Church of England in the last
century. Latitudinarians" they were called in those days;
but they went every bit as far as Dean Stanley and the
Broad Churchmen of our time; there were numbers of things
in the Prayer-book and Creeds and Articles which they could
not believe, in any plain natural meaning; and so strongly
did they feel this, that a movement sprang up for getting Par-
liament to relax the terms of subscription to the Church Arti-
(C
CO
88
UNITARIANISM IN ENGLAND.
cles. Lindsey was one of the movers in this, and they held a
meeting in London at the Feathers' Tavern, and drew up a
petition to Parliament. That Feathers' Tavern Petition was
a famous matter a century ago. But the result was that Par-
liament not only would not do anything, but refused by three
to one even to let the petition be presented! People said,
"What will the petitioners do now?" They did nothing;
simply stopped in the Church; said they must go on trying to
widen the Church,— but stayed in. All but one man. Alone
of them all, Theophilus Lindsey saw his duty and did it; he
saw that there was no real chance of any widening, and that it
would not do for him to go on repeating prayers and creeds
about the Trinity which he no more really believed than his
friend Dr. Priestley did; so he sent in his resignation to the
bishop. It was dreadfully hard. Everything was against
him. The bishop wrote him a long, kind letter, urging him
to stay in the Church. His brother liberals protested against
his deserting them. His wife's rich Episcopalian friends
stormed, his poor parishioners pleaded and wept, but all in
vain. In December, 1773, he gave up his vicarage and went
up to London with just twenty pounds in his pocket (and that
got only by selling his furniture and books) to start a Unita-
rian church. It is not easy to realize in these days what that
meant. There was not an avowed Unitarian church in all
England, though there were many that were generally known
in their neighborhoods as holding that position. The thing
was illegal. To deny the Trinity was still a crime punishable
by law, though the law had for a long time not been enforced.
Still, Theophilus Lindsey went right on. He hired an old
auction-room in a little street off the Strand (Essex Street),
and the room was fitted up for worship; but he had hard work
to get it licensed for preaching, and for months an emissary
UNITARIANISM IN ENGLAND.
89
of the government attended to report what was said and
done.
This was the first avowed Unitarian church in England, and
this was its founder. It is an instructive history. For see:
Lindsey's Broad-Church friends had prophesied that if he left
the Church, his usefulness would be gone, and that he would
do more to advance the truth by remaining in, like the rest of
them. Time showed which was right. Of all those Broad
Churchmen who petitioned for the Church to be widened, the
only one who made any mark on the religious thought of the
time was Theophilus Lindsey, who went out. The rest are
forgotten. Their whole movement died away. On the
other hand, Lindsey in that little auction-room succeeded
beyond any one's expectation. Essex-Street Chapel became
a notable place; to it gathered numbers of the leading lib-
erals of the time, barristers, scientists, members of Parliament;
and for nearly a century it remained the leading Unitarian
church of London.
That was in 1774. I think it was from 1785 to 1800 that
some of the American Congregational churches began to oc-
cupy a distinctly Unitarian position, about a quarter of a cen-
tury later than the movement among the Presbyterians in
England. The real connection between the two is this: not
that the English Unitarianism was in any sense the cause of
American Unitarianism, but that the open movement in Eng-
land helped the open development of the movement in Amer-
ica. In the preface to the King's Chapel Prayer-book (1785)
we find that Dr. Freeman in making that revision of the
"Book of Common Prayer" acknowledges the assistance he
had obtained from the similar revision just eleven years before
by Theophilus Lindsey. The fact is, however, that among
thoughtful men in America a similar process of liberalizing to
90
UNITARIANISM IN ENGLAND.
that in England had also been for a long time going on.
This process was helped by Dr. Priestley's coming to America.
It was in 1794 that, virtually driven out of England by the
intolerance which had burned his home in Birmingham and
which dogged his steps in London, he came to New York on
his way to settle in Pennsylvania. He was received with the
greatest honor. A company of New York citizens wanted to
keep him there, promising to form a church for him if he
would remain; and again in Philadelphia friends procured a
wide hearing for his lectures on religion; and these things
must have helped to bring out "into the open" the growing
Liberalism which was already seething in Boston and the New
England Congregational churches. So that, though it was in
1785 that Dr. Freeman, in Boston, altered the old Prayer Book
so as to leave out everything Trinitarian, and so planted the
first clear landmark of Unitarianism in America, it was not
till 1800, and after, that the new departure became a marked
and definite thing. In fact, it may be said that Unitarianism
in England was about a quarter of a century before Unita-
rianism in America. Since that time, however, its develop-
ment has been very much the same in each country. There,
as here, the earlier Unitarians felt it was so clear that Unitari-
anism is the Christianity of Christ, that they thought a few
generations would convert the country. There, as here, the
actual path has been full of difficulties and discouragements,
and the actual number of our churches is about the same
in each country, some three hundred and sixty-five or
three hundred and seventy, large and small, all told. There,
as here, any direct work and church building has been crip-
pled by a morbid dread of sectarianism; we have been
afraid of working alone for religion, even when that has been
the only way for us to work at all: and men who would
UNITARIANISM IN ENGLAND.
91
only give fifty dollars for their own church have often given five
hundred dollars to Methodists or Episcopalians to show that
they are not illiberal. Abroad too, as in America, we have
been cramped in our own life by the attitude of controversy,
which for long was a necessity forced upon us. So our work
has been halting and clumsy, and hardly ever have we yet
brought our full power to work upon the religious life of our
time. In England, too, Unitarians have labored under diffi-
culties, unknown here, from the tremendous social prestige
and attraction of the great "established" Episcopal Church.
As the last half-century has also seen a great revival of re-
ligious earnestness in the Episcopal body, it gradually drew
away from us many of the great county families which had
held by the "Old Dissent" as a sort of tradition, and who
would never leave it as long as it was under any of the old
persecuting disabilities. Still, the Unitarian churches have
gone forward, to some extent in numbers, to a still more strik-
ing extent in spirit and active religious life. If they have lost
somewhat among the wealthy and cultivated classes, they have
gained far more among the people; and now, almost every-
where in England one of their strongest elements is the
thoughtful, intelligent artisan-life which has gathered to them.
during the past forty years.
Two influences combined, half a century ago, to set the life
of our churches in this new direction. One was the visit of
Dr. Tuckerman to England in 1835. His preaching, and the
story of his own ministry-at-large in Boston, interested our Eng-
lish churches very deeply. He awoke our people in the large
city churches to a new concern for the sad, ignorant, perishing
masses around them. Within two or three years of his visit
similar ministries-at-large - "Domestic Missions" they are
called in England were started in London, Manchester,
92
UNITARIANISM IN ENGLAND.
Liverpool, Birmingham, Leeds, Bristol, and several other
places. This was done not as a sectarian movement, nor
with any idea of increasing our churches or their attendance.
Indeed, the Unitarian name was put almost absolutely in the
background. They were to be pure agencies for helping and
doing good, without a thought of any sectarian gain. It was
about as noble a kind of sectarian self-abnegation as has
ever been seen. But perhaps on that very account its benefit
reacted all the more upon the doers. It put into our strong-
est city churches a new interest in doing good, and with that
came new life, more interest in religion every way. Then,
about the same time, other influences were at work. Richard
Wright and several others of an earnest missionary spirit had
been going up and down the country preaching Unitarianism
to the common people with an eagerness which some of the
old Presbyterian families regarded as fanatical and vulgar, but
which roused up a great deal of wholesome controversy, and
started a few new churches of quite different calibre among
our artisan populations; not mission congregations, but reg-
ular churches of plain, homespun people, often holding to-
gether and keeping up a Sunday-school without any minister.
All this brought home to our churches a new sense of
there being whole classes, especially in the manufacturing
districts, whom Orthodoxy was failing to hold, who were the
strength of secularistic and anti-religious movements, and who
might be won to Unitarianism; but for whom Unitarianism
had hitherto done almost nothing.
Concurrently with this awakening of an interest in the
religious needs of the people, our churches were brought into
contact with several very interesting religious movements right
among the people themselves. Right in the heart of the
woollen manufacturing villages of Lancashire it was found that
UNITARIANISM IN ENGLAND.
93
there was a group of half a dozen little churches,
outers from one of the Methodist bodies, who, entirely by
their own reading of the Bible, had found their way to Unita-
rianism without knowing that there were any Unitarians, and
who, moreover, still retained their old fervent Methodist ways.
Great was their delight at finding out at last that there had
been for generations a strong body of churches, standing for
the same views, and heartily disposed to fellowship with them.
And so these congregations, calling themselves "Unitarian
Methodists," came right in with us. Then a little later (about
another
1844) came another of these popular movements
secession from Methodism - under the lead of the once well-
Add
come-
known Joseph Barker. A number of the groups of his sym-
pathizers, almost all plain laboring men, formed themselves
into little churches under the name of "Christian Brethren."
At first they would not identify themselves with Unitarians,
declining any sect-name, and many of them being strongly set
against any professional ministry. But they gradually found
themselves more and more in sympathy with us, and at last,
when their leader Joseph Barker swung clear away from reli-
gion, they mostly, instead of following him, drew more closely
to their Unitarian neighbors, and within a few years were
heartily united with us as part of the general denomination.
Another event which drew attention to Unitarianism among
a different class was what was called the "Liverpool Contro-
versy." In 1839, thirteen of the Episcopal clergy of Liverpool
announced a course of public lectures against Unitarianism.
The Unitarian ministers of Liverpool had been, for some few
years past, James Martineau, John Hamilton Thom, and Henry
Giles, afterwards well known as a public lecturer in America.
Their ministry had been entirely the opposite of controversial,
and indeed they none of them liked the name "Unitarian.”
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UNITARIANISM IN ENGLAND.
M
But such a public attack could not be left unnoticed, and they
accordingly invited the public to hear the other side, and gave
a corresponding series of lectures in Paradise-Street Chapel,
the precursor of the later Hope-Street Church. This discus-
sion—“the thirteen against three," as it was called — excited
very wide attention among thoughtful people, and led many to
embrace Unitarianism; while the collected volume, “Unita-
rianism Defended," has been ever since one of the standard
works on the Unitarian side, and derives special and perma-
nent interest from its containing some of the earliest published
writings of Dr. Martineau, so long the leading mind of our
church in England.
The usual method of support in the English Unitarian
Church is by pew-rents. The American plan of owning pews
is practically unknown in England. In some of our churches
the pew-rent is put at a very small sum (perhaps from half a
dollar to two dollars a sitting), so as not to prevent any one
however poor, from belonging to the congregation on terms
of equal membership; and then those members able to afford
more assess themselves for yearly subscriptions in addition.
Of late years a good many of our congregations, nearly one
tenth of the total number, have adopted the "open church
system," leaving the seats entirely free and unappropriated,
and asking for no fixed or pledged subscriptions, but simply
having an offertory at each service, — in some cases in closed
bags, so that no one knows what any one else gives, in other
cases in envelopes.
1
The ministry of all these churches, apart from those who
come over from other denominations, is drawn from three
sources, three Theological Schools.
1 First introduced among our churches in 1864, in the Strangeways
Unitarian Free Church, Manchester.
UNITARIANISM IN ENGLAND.
95
First, and chief, for a century past, has been "Manchester
New College," just removed¹ from its quarters in London to
Oxford; at its head Dr. Martineau, with a group of noble
scholars around him, Dr. James Drummond, Prof. J. Estlin
Carpenter, and others. It is a school of free, untrammelled
theological study, often impugned by some of the more zeal-
ous Unitarians as not sufficiently concentrating its force on
providing ministers for the Unitarian churches, but still really
giving us our strongest and most scholarly ministers.
Secondly, is the "Unitarian Home Missionary Board"
(about analogous to the "Meadville Theological School "),
designed to afford a ministerial and theological training to
men who have not been able to take a college course.
There is, besides, an old Theological College at Carmarthen,
in Wales, a relic of the old Presbyterian days, before the devel-
opment of Unitarianism. It is mainly in the hands of Unita-
rian trustees, but is managed on a broad catholic plan, so
as to include both Orthodox and Unitarian professors and
students, both of whom teach and study side by side in entire.
friendship.
One point in relation to the ministry that may be of in-
terest, is that the missionary work of the regular ministry is
supplemented in England, to an extent quite unknown among
our American churches, by the help of lay-preachers. At
quite a number of our new and mission churches the services
are conducted usually by laymen, one or other of the neigh-
boring ministers giving perhaps some occasional services.
that way most of our District Missionary Associations (or
"Conferences") cover a great deal more ground, and keep
up the services with much greater regularity than would be
possible with churches entirely dependent upon ministers.
In
1 October, 1889,- henceforth named "Manchester College, Oxford.”
96
UNITARIANISM IN ENGLAND.
Such is the history, and such are some of the most interest-
ing features, in the growth of Unitarianism in England. Its
progress is slow, but steady. Its thought is leavening other
churches more and more, and meanwhile its own churches
are gradually increasing in numbers, and are generally better
supported and better attended than they were fifty years
ago. Nearly half of them have been rebuilt within that period,
and all are brighter, more beautiful homes of worship than
they used to be. And, alike in their closer association with
the old Unitarian churches of Transylvania and with the
newer churches of America, and in strengthening union and
extending activities among themselves, they are more living
than ever before, and find around them an ever widening
opportunity.
+
THE CONTACT OF AMERICAN UNITARIANISM
AND GERMAN THOUGHT.
BY J. H. ALLEN.
IN
N order to bring the vast topic of German Theology in any
intelligible way within the limits of my hour, I must con-
fine myself to the very narrowest interpretation of the words in
which my subject is announced. And these must be under-
stood to mean, not how Unitarianism is to be found in Ger-
man theology" from the time of Schleiermacher;" for it is not
there at all at least in name. The German theologians,
for reasons which I need not explain, are generally bound by
Lutheran or other State traditions and conditions; and, while it
may often be said of the best of them that their way of think-
ing is quite in harmony with ours, their form of doctrine is
wholly different. I shall not, therefore, trouble myself or you
about that; but take what is the only serviceable rendering of
the words of my title, namely: How, when, and where has the
course of Unitarianism in America been affected by contact
with German theology from the time of Schleiermacher?
This brings me, again, to a very precise date, which I
must take for my starting-point. That date I shall take, for
reasons of convenience, at just fifty years ago. And, as there
is a personal equation in all these things, which more or less
warps our judgment of them, perhaps you will pardon me the
impropriety of a word to explain what those reasons of con-
venience are. I was at that time a student in college, among
circumstances that led me to take an eager interest in the
7
98
AMERICAN UNITARIANISM
discussions then going on, and to look forward with eager hope
to the part I might possibly be afterwards called to take in
them. I was in the dear and serious household of my mother's
brother, Henry Ware, Jr., who affectionately encouraged such.
early hopes in his kindly but taciturn way. I had listened
with a vague but exhilarating delight to Mr. Emerson's Divin-
ity School Address, given that summer, which had, as you
know, shocked some, while it had charmed others, as the
first clear word of "another gospel, which yet was not another."
So that I was already prepared, when a year later the battle of
the books began, to follow its changing fortunes with a degree.
of personal feeling as to the issues involved which has not
been in the least diminished to this day. In short, to speak
with still greater precision, the exact crisis that brought to the
front the bearing of German theology upon American Unitari-
anism was the publication, in 1839, of Professor Andrews
Norton's Divinity School Address on "The Latest Form of
Infidelity."
Here, perhaps, I ought to add a further word of explana-
tion. First as to myself; for by nurture and habit I clung
strongly to the more conservative side in the debate that
followed. I have always considered that Professor Norton
had the better of his opponents in scholarship and logic; till
the age of twenty-five I intended, or expected, that my place
would be on that side; and if I have altered from this po-
sition since, it has been not so much due (as I think) to the
course of that discussion as to a passage of argument with
that rude logician, Orestes A. Brownson, during the crisis.
of the notable change by which he became a Catholic. Next
as to others; for the real point at issue in that debate has
been often misunderstood, as if it had been the question of
admitting the supernatural or miraculous in Christianity.
C
AND GERMAN THOUGHT.
99
On the contrary, in one of his letters addressed to Professor
Norton, Mr. George Ripley says: "For my own part, I can-
not avoid the conclusion that the miracles related in the
Gospels were actually wrought by Jesus;" and in a pam-
phlet of the same date, understood to have been written by
Theodore Parker, he says, “I believe that Jesus, like other
religious teachers, wrought miracles." And, as neither of
these men has been accused of Jesuistry or moral cowardice,
it appears that the question at issue was not as to their
opinions, which at that time were in the main conventional
and customary, but as to a new and unfamiliar order of
thought, which was seen to be powerfully affecting the prin-
ciples and foundations of men's religious belief. What this
new order of thought was, and what has been its effect among
us during this past half-century, it will be my duty to make as
clear as I can within the limits allowed me.
That influence, whatever it was, we ascribe in a vague and
general way to German theology, especially "from the time of
Schleiermacher." But German theology of that period that
—
is, of the last ninety years — is (as I said) a very vast and
unmanageable topic; and I must therefore narrow my field
still further, by pointing out three great departments into which
it may be roughly divided.
First is that which especially dates from Schleiermacher
himself, though it also has to do with those famous philo-
sophical schools which appear to have had absolute control
in the higher thought of Germany down to about forty
years ago, chiefly the school of Hegel. It was these that
gave the great intellectual impulse, and that appeared to
open up an entirely new interpretation of religious thought
and the religious life, and hence created that fresh enthu
siasm among some of our younger men half a century or more
I
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AMERICAN UNITARIANISM
ago, which we call Transcendentalism, and Professor Norton
called "the latest form of Infidelity." This (as I just
said) did not so much affect men's particular opinions as
their whole way of looking at the subject of Religion. We
may call it, if you please, the German Speculative Theology.
Second, and producing its effect more gradually, is a
movement which started still farther back, largely from the
impulse given by the German poet and critic Lessing. I
may describe it in a general way by saying that its effect
has been to take the Bible out of that sanctuary where it
was regarded as a holy thing by itself, never to be judged,
but only to be explained and then accepted reveringly by
the human mind, to take it, I say, from that sanctuary, to
class it among our other literary treasures, and to interpret
it just as we do other books of history, of legend or tradition,
of moral exhortation, or of religious poetry. I say nothing for
or against this result, which I suppose that we are all at this
day fully agreed to accept. I only say that to bring it about
took something like a century of controversy, often very angry
and bitter; and that during this time there was evolved a mass
of erudition, argument, exposition, speculation, literally un-
speakable in its dimensions, which makes the field of German
Critical Theology. And it is the diligent cultivation of this
field among our own best scholars including Professor
Noyes, Dr. Hedge, Theodore Parker, and James Freeman
Clarke, against the strong protest of the elder school repre-
sented by Professor Norton that has brought about the
most marked changes in the body of opinion known as Amer-
ican Unitarianism.
Ang
Third, we must reckon a field with which I have nothing
whatever to do here, although in some ways it is perhaps the
most important of all. For German theology, in its large
AND GERMAN THOUGHT.
1ΟΙ
sense, has been one of the greatest and most remarkable
educating influences of the last half-century to a very large.
class of minds. Every topic suggested in both the lines of
discussion I have described has been taken up, and with infi-
nite painstaking, erudition, and patience followed out to the
last slender filament of inference or investigation on which
it was possible to string an opinion or a guess. It would be
mere pedantry to cite the names of the innumerable laborers
in that wide field; and any attempt to explore it would
only lead us away from the strict and narrow line we have
to follow. That portion of the field we may call the German
Theology of Erudition. With it, as I have said, I have for the
present nothing to do.
¹
I must now go back, and explain the prominence which has
been given in my topic to the name of Schleiermacher.
Frederick Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher was born in 1768,
and died in 1834, at the age of sixty-six. He was a man of
the very finest religious genius, a preacher of extraordinary fer-
vor and wealth of thought, of a moral nature singularly cling-
ing, sympathetic, and emotional, a scholar of vast erudition
even for a German, a student of great and indefatigable in-
dustry, and a teacher, or intimate adviser, of personal weight
and influence almost unparalleled. Professor Philip Schaff
calls him, without qualification, "the greatest divine of the
Nineteenth Century." To understand the ground of his un-
exampled and unique influence upon the religious thought of
his day, we should take into account that very early in life he
saw clearly these two things: first, that the doctrinal system
built up during the Reformation had completely gone to seed,
and existed only as a lifeless and sterile form, at least in
1 Tholuck and Neander are perhaps the names which will be most
widely and gratefully recognized.
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AMERICAN UNITARIANISM
<<
Germany and among the educated classes, where his work
was, as we see in the life of Lessing, and must perish unless
a new soul could be breathed into it; and second, that the
idea, the method, the discipline, embodied in the Christian
Church and known to the Christian conscience, must form
the type, the model, the condition, under which such new re-
ligious life could be had, and this, if it must be, indepen-
dent of all doctrinal forms whatever. To show the intensity
of his conviction on this point, I copy here his own words:
Religion was the mother's bosom,¹ in whose sacred warmth
and darkness my young life was nourished and prepared for
the world which lay before me all unknown; and she still re-
mained with me, when God and immortality vanished before
my doubting eyes." This, I say, is his characteristic testi-
mony to the reality of the religious life, wholly independent
of all doctrinal forms whatever. And we must take it as our
starting-point, in estimating both the peculiar nature of his in-
fluence upon the mind of his time, and the peculiar dread of
that influence which we find among those who, like Profes-
sor Norton, honestly held that very clearly defined opinions.
were essential to any hold at all upon the Christian faith. To
such minds that language sounded merely vague, dėlusive, and
sophistical.
The date of the first strong impression made by Schleier-
macher upon the mind of his time was the year 1799, when
he published a series of eloquent pamphlet "Discourses" on
Religion, addressed to "the cultivated among its despisers.”
As to this date we have to bear in mind that it was just at the
coming in of the tide of reaction that followed the extravagant
anti-religious fury of the French Revolution, and set so strong
towards conservatism in politics and religion: so that he was
1 Germ. Schoos, "womb."
Mad
P
AND GERMAN THOUGHT.
103
doing in Germany a like task to that attempted just then by
Chateaubriand in France. But we must look back of that
date, to see how this religious reaction took just the shape it
did in his mind. The father of Schleiermacher was a good
old-fashioned Calvinistic preacher, chaplain to a regiment;
and for convenience in some of his wanderings, he put the
boy at school among the Moravian Brethren. These made
the most pious of religious communities. In spiritual descent
their tradition came down from Bohemian exiles, who carried
into their retreat the same religious ardor that had flamed with
such obstinate fury in the Hussite wars; but in them, or in
their followers, it was tempered to a sweet, somewhat austere,
and most nobly self-sacrificing piety. It was the placid faith
of a company of Moravian missionaries in a storm at sea that
had touched John Wesley more profoundly than ever before
with the reality and power of a religious life. And this ob-
scure community was "the mother's bosom, warm and dark,”
which nourished the germs of that young life given to its
charge.
The later experience of university life, and the deliberate
study of the Deistical writers (then making a good deal of
noise), which he undertook against his father's earnest pro-
test, did not, as we have seen, extinguish the deep sense that
religion in the soul was the most profound and blessed of real-
ities; while they did convince him that it must be interpreted
to the educated mind in a way very different from the old
doctrinal scheme, a way in which the form of expression
should be, avowedly, not the adequate statement of a fact of
human knowledge, but the symbol, or image (Vorstellung),
of that which far transcends all human knowledge. Hence
he chose such phrases as seemed to minds like Professor
Norton's a mere playing fast and loose with sacred things,
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AMERICAN UNITARIANISM
1
2
sophistry or conscious self-deception, "veil-weaving "¹ about
one's real opinions, so as to hide their true meaning from
others' eyes. Thus, departing from the common language of
theology, Schleiermacher speaks not of “God the Creator and
Moral Governor" (which are the terms insisted on by Mar-
tineau and English thinkers generally), but rather of "the
Divine Life" and our ،،
communion with the Living God,
sharp distinction," he says, "is to be drawn between the Living
God and a personal God," - not of "a Future Life of Judg-
ment," in the terms familiar to most Christians, but rather of
the "Eternal Life," or deathlessness of the spiritual principle
in man, and of its blending in the Hereafter with the Univer-
sal Life, in language that implied, or seemed to imply, that its
conscious identity would be lost. In short, his whole sys-
tem of doctrine (Glaubenslehre) which is developed at great.
length and very elaborately - appears to be built on the inter-
preting not of any written word, but of the actual experience
of the religious life. Its data are purely the facts of Christian
consciousness; and, as a countryman of his has said of him, it
was "quite uncertain whether Schleiermacher believed or not
in revelation, miracle, the divinity of Christ, the Trinity, the
personality of God, or the immortality of the soul. In his
theological phrases he would avoid all that could distinctly
mean this or that." In his exposition of faith he starts with
this one point of fact: I am a Christian; this I am by nature
and inheritance. By introspection and analysis, not by study
of the letter of the gospel, he will then determine what that
fact implies; what is the meaning of incarnation, atonement,
resurrection, in the terms of religious experience; and this
a
1 Schleiermacher (as Professor Norton reminds us) is a German
word signifying "veil-maker."
2 Compare Martineau's Study of Religion, ii. 355-360.
AND GERMAN THOUGHT.
105
shall be his Christian creed. Of course, all sharp bounds of
doctrine disappear; and this simplicity of method, carried out
with the wonderful wealth and fervor of his exposition, makes
him the great master of liberal theology, by whatever name
his disciples may be called.
But it is not my business here to expound Schleiermacher's
method or doctrinal system, however briefly; only to show
how the order of thought I have been trying to describe came
into effect on New England Unitarianism at that particular
time, why it fascinated some while it alarmed or offended
others, and in what ways it has modified the character of it
ever since.
This order of thought was (as I have already hinted) fur-
ther strengthened by those schools of German philosophy so
powerful in the first half of this century, which came to be
eagerly studied among us about fifty years ago. I have noth-
ing whatever to do with them here as systems of opinion. I
only speak of them because they shared the same obloquy
with the new theology from those who imperfectly understood
them; and because they have strongly affected the current
of opinion since, more strongly than most of us are apt to
think. Not directly; for few cared to study them, or could
possibly understand them if they did. But those few have in
a very special sense been the teachers of our generation, and
have influenced even the popular way of thinking among us
more than we are often aware. James Freeman Clarke, for
example, was strongly attracted by these philosophies and by
the theology founded upon them. Then there are two well-
known works of two very accomplished students in this direc-
tion: "Reason in Religion" by Dr. Hedge, to whom German
came to be almost a second mother-tongue during his school-
days passed in Germany, and who had as much to do as any-
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AMERICAN UNITARIANISM
body in naturalizing the new order of thought among us; and
"The Science of Thought," by Professor Everett, which is un-
derstood to be a product of the philosophy of Hegel, that
philosophy held in especial dread and abhorrence by sober
thinkers among us half a century ago. Just in proportion to
the seriousness and the religiousness of their way of thinking
have the men of a younger generation been influenced by
such books as these.
But the philosophy I speak of has had another effect
among us, more direct and more intelligible. Fifty years ago,
as I have shown, Unitarians were substantially all agreed in
accepting Christianity as a special and supernatural revelation,
in the common sense of those terms. I have quoted both
George Ripley and Theodore Parker, in their controversy with
Professor Norton, as professing, with the utmost apparent
simplicity, their own belief in the Christian miracles. At
this day, on the contrary, not only (with very rare exceptions)
those who are regarded as leaders of thought among us
such as Martineau in England and Hedge in America —
have quietly dropped or openly discarded the argument from
miracles; but Broad Churchmen in England, like Bishop
Colenso, who never forfeited his bishopric, like Charles
Voysey and Stopford Brooke (before the secession of these
latter), have done the same; Matthew Arnold, openly a
member of the Church of England, says without rebuke that
"miracles do not happen." The way for this remarkable
change of opinion among men in general has no doubt been
opened by scientific habits of thinking; but as a change in
religious opinion, the way for it had to be prepared by
philosophy. Schleiermacher, as usual, speaks both ways:
"Insulate any natural fact," he says, "and it becomes a
miracle; repeat any miracle, and it becomes a natural fact.”
AND GERMAN THOUGHT.
107
}
And, for a time, the religious scruple is pacified by such a
compromise.
Clear and honest thinking, however, demands something
more than this tampering with words. It demands, first, a
fixed habit of mind in harmony with the best opinion or
knowledge of the day: this we call "a philosophical method"
in our thought; and second, a careful study, with the best
helps of modern learning, of the documents and evidences of
our faith this we call "a scientific criticism" in our theology.
I have just spoken of the great change that has come to pass
in the opinions of the thinking world, in the common under-
standing of the Bible history. I have now a few words to
say of the way in which this change has been helped among
ourselves by the study of German critical theology.
:
To go into the subject properly, I ought to show how there
have grown up in Germany, more or less directly as the fruit
of different philosophical schools, a great variety of interpre-
tations, or ways of interpreting the Bible records, most of
them more or less rationalistic; and how these may be divided
into three main groups: the non-miraculous, pure and simple,
represented by the name of Paulus; the mythical or poetic,
represented by Strauss; and the historical or scientific, of
which the best exponent is the school of Baur. Now the story
of these groups is extremely interesting and instructive, but I
have not time to give it here; and besides, my subject seems
to make it more proper for me to illustrate it by examples
taken among our own students and theologians, instead of
those that come to us across the water in a foreign tongue.
Strictly speaking, there has been no scholarly investigation
of this field among ourselves. The best that any of our stu-
1 It is given in "Christian History in its Three Great Periods."
iii. 227-238.
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AMERICAN UNITARIANISM
dents have done has been to study according to their ability,
and appropriate as far as they thought good, the learning
which has been poured forth in unstinted measure from the
German press. German has for this half-century been the
favorite, I may say the indispensable, language in which to
follow up any of these lines of investigation. And whether
our own writers have borrowed their opinions out and out, or
whether they have thought them out for themselves under
the atmospheric pressure of that great world of learning and
speculation, the result is one: the general, even the popular,
way of looking at the subject, with or without knowing it, has
taken its tone from Germany.
The earliest signs of this influence among us were an essay
on "The Messianic Prophecies," by Mr. (afterward Professor)
George R. Noyes, in 1834; critical "Lectures on the Old
Testament," by Professor Palfrey, published in 1840; and a
"Note on the Old Testament," by Professor Norton, in 1844.
These, however, though expressing the extreme of radical
opinion in their day, were addressed only to scholars, and
hardly reached the general mind; then, too, they did not
directly touch the Christian records, and so excited little or
no particular alarm. The first book I remember, showing
clear traces of German influence upon critical opinion, less
by its argument than by the fact of its publication,
a tale called "Theodore, or the Skeptic's Conversion," trans-
lated by James Freeman Clarke from the learned and famous
theologian, De Wette. Theodore is an ingenuous young theo-
logian, beginning to be troubled with doubts of the super-
natural, a sort of Robert Elsmere of that period, whose
spiritual struggles are mild, indeed, compared with those of
a later day, and who easily finds comfort in such pious com-
promises as those we have seen in Schleiermacher. There
was
}
AND GERMAN THOUGHT.
109
could not have been a gentler or kindlier introduction among
us of the line of thought which controversy was to make so
familiar afterwards. De Wette was one of the earliest, one
of the most devout and pure-minded, as well as most copi-
ous and learned, of the new school of commentators; and his
writings, though long left behind by the rushing current of
speculative exegesis, did perhaps more than any others to
instruct the students of that generation.
It is natural to speak next of the work of Theodore Parker,
whose chief task of erudition was to translate and expound,
from his immense range of reading, De Wette's commentary
on the Old Testament. He had already, in his South Boston
sermon on "The Transient and Permanent in Christianity"
(1841), cast these topics of learned discussion into the waters
of popular controversy; and his name, more than any other,
came to be the watchword of the change of opinion that
was slowly coming to pass upon the popular mind: a change
which was strikingly shown three years ago this month, when
the American Unitarian Association published a large volume
of Theodore Parker's writings, including that very discourse,
under the editorship of James Freeman Clarke.
-
Two other Unitarian scholars, especially revered and be-
loved among us, have shown in different ways and more
obscurely something of the German influence in their com-
mentaries upon the Gospel, — Dr. William Henry Furness and
Mr. Edmund Hamilton Sears. "Jesus and his Biographers,"
which is the completest and best statement of Dr. Furness's
exposition, recognizes with extreme gratitude and respect hist
obligation to his instructor, Professor Norton; but its charac-
teristic view that the miracles, taken in their most literal
sense, were the natural acts of such a soul as Jesus — not only
was a great shock to the received opinion, but no one can read
ΙΙΟ
AMERICAN UNITARIANISM
the rationalistic commentary of Paulus without seeing how
the two differ in their method only by a hair's-breadth, and
how (consciously or not) the one has caught the manner and
spirit of the other whom apparently he means to contradict.
They have the same matter-of-fact way of taking the detail of
narrative and of giving it a "natural" explanation, each in his
own fashion. Allow for the thick, clumsy, dingy, ill-printed
German volumes, and set beside them the fair, clean, trim,
compact pages of the American press, compare the scho-
lastic method of the German erudite, who chiefly rejoices and
expands in the dry light of criticism, with the religious beauty
and tenderness that mark the later exposition, and you have
in the one, in many a familiar passage, only a transfigured
likeness of the other. Mr. Sears's "Heart of Christ," I should
say on the other hand, with perhaps a little less confidence,
reflects, in the great sweetness and spiritual beauty of its ex-
position, the tone of Olshausen, that most devout and mystical
of learned commentators, whose orthodoxy of belief seems
purely a phase of his sentimental piety, and whose spirit is
wonderfully winning as you begin to read him, whether or not
you are long content with his intellectual view. Mr. Sears's
refined and beautiful intelligence was the gracious channel
through which that vein of influence flowed in, to the delight
and comfort of many a kindred mind.
I do not know of any theologian among us who has ac-
cepted seriously Strauss's mythical theory of interpreting
the gospel narrative. It was taken up by Theodore Parker,
while it was yet new, in the "Christian Examiner," in an ad-
mirable exposition and confutation; and I do not remember
any discussion of it as a living issue among us since. In
brief, it would make the supernatural parts of the Gospels a
sort of allegory or philosophical poem, founded on ideas cur-
AND GERMAN THOUGHT.
III
rent in Jewish tradition, and embodying in symbols certain
facts and phases of the higher life of man. Especially such
transcendental facts of the Gospel narrative as the Incarna-
tion, the Temptation, the Transfiguration, the Resurrection
and Ascension, are expounded frankly as "myths," that
is, philosophical ideas, or facts of the religious life, put in
the form of narrative of real events, which are regarded as
purely symbolic or allegorical. It is understood to be the
product of what is called the school of Hegel “of the Left”
in philosophy; and, if one wishes to see how that general
line of symbolic interpretation is carried out through the
field of fact and dogma, he might be advised, instead of
studying the words of Strauss himself (which are foreign in
tone, and more or less repellent to us), to find it in the writ-
ings of Drs. Hedge and Everett before cited, especially the
former.
M
Of far greater importance at this day than the schools of
criticism yet spoken of is what is known as the “Tübingen
School," established and still largely controlled by the mas-
sive learning and masterly mind of Ferdinand Christian Baur.
I have myself several times given public exposition of the
method of this school and the results it seems to lead to, and
shall say nothing of it now, except that it has been most fully,
most intelligently, and best set forth before our public by that
graceful scholar, that widely read theologian, that accom-
plished man of letters, Octavius Brooks Frothingham, a
man who inherits the elegant and fastidious refinement of
our elder New England scholarship, and has added to it an
intellectual breadth, a moral courage, and a mental vigor,
which put him conspicuously in the front rank of a younger
school of theologians.
I have now, as time allowed me, passed in review the in-
II2
AMERICAN UNITARIANISM.
fluences, both religious and dogmatic, or intellectual, which
have come upon American Unitarianism during the last fifty
years, while I have been a close and interested spectator in
the field. There is one other thing which seems to me nec-
essary, in order to make this survey complete. I have said
already what were the dismay and repugnance with which
that influence was first seen to be coming on.
To quote
from Professor Norton's address on the Latest Form of In-
fidelity: "In Germany the theology of which I speak has
allied itself with atheism, with pantheism, and with other
irreligious speculations, that have appeared in those meta-
physical systems from which the God of Christianity is ex-
cluded." Some of you may no doubt remember when the
very name German was a sort of reproach, and any suspi-
cion of that line of speculation was a stigma from which it was
not easy for the young theologian to get absolved. Yet you
have also lived to see one who as a young theologian most
eagerly and with warmest sympathy followed that line of spec-
ulation, come nearer perhaps than any other man of education
among us to the common thought and heart; for, when I
recall those early influences, I seem to find the popular
embodiment of them all in James Freeman Clarke.
Again, it seems to me clear that the life of religious thought
which has come down to us survives not in spite of, but in
virtue of, those influences I have attempted to describe. I
do not mean that the opinions of the present day are in better
harmony with the true religious life than those which prevailed
fifty years ago. I do not think they are. At any rate, it is
not for us to disparage that body of opinion which stayed the
religious life of Channing, Tuckerman, and Henry Ware.
What I do mean is, that to have shut down the gates against
an intellectual tide so genuine and strong as was then setting
AND GERMAN THOUGHT.
113
in, would have been to turn what till then had been an open
channel into a little land-locked creek, and to shut us out
effectually from the large intellectual currents of our age. The
alternative in that case would have been to strand in dry-rot,
or to effect a breach by violence into the wider waters.
There were those then who were willing to do either, Nor-
ton the one thing, Parker the other thing. But all of us, I
think, are now agreed that the more excellent way was that
taken by the younger scholars of that day, - Furness, Hedge,
and Clarke being conspicuous in the group,
who set them-
selves to deepen the channel and keep it open, and won
for us who follow them the free navigation of the sea.
And this service of theirs turned, as you will have seen,
upon the same point which Schleiermacher made the pivot
of his first appeal to the German people: I mean his assertion
that the religious life with all there is in it of beauty and
joy, of comfort, aspiration, strength, and hope — is its own
evidence and its own exceeding great reward; and that, while
it is not without intellectual foundation of its own, it is yet
independent of all form of speculative opinion.
It was
(humanly speaking) of infinite importance for us at that time.
that this conviction should be well established. Doubtless
it has had the ill effect of making some men loose, reckless
perhaps, about holding firmly any clear conviction at all
about anything. But it has had the good effect, with very
many more in whom opinion was wavering, to hold them
still within the blessed circle of Christian fellowship, till
character should be ripened, principle braced, and the men-
tal tone invigorated. Thus it has quickened and refreshed
the springs of spiritual life in the veins of our religious or-
ganization itself.
M
Besides, as we must remember, the opinions then most
8
114
AMERICAN UNITARIANISM
dreaded opinions touching the supernatural and miracu-
lous in the ministry of Jesus were not opinions invented.
by theologians, however radical. On the contrary, the most
radical of theologians used every art of forced interpretation,
of evasion, and of intellectual compromise, to escape the
pressure of those opinions. If the old doctrinal view of the
Incarnation, the Atonement, the Resurrection, and the mirac-
ulous works of Jesus has in any mind been weakened, dis-
solved, or washed away, it has been not by the theology
which first exhausted every shift to save it, but by the sci-
ence which in a pitiless flood beat and encroached upon it,
in spite of those poor makeshifts. Within these fifty years
many of us have had thrust upon us, again and again, first-
hand testimony from believers of facts as distinctly miracu-
lous as anything in the New Testament, facts which one
or two hundred years ago would just as distinctly have re-
ceived that interpretation; yet we know perfectly well
that such testimony, however vouched, would not stand an
hour in any civilized court of justice, and so we quietly lay
it by, whatever be our private opinion of its validity. It is
just so with our treatment of the miracles of the New Tes-
tament. Thousands among us receive them with the same
faith, comfort, and reverence as of old. But not one of us
thinks of defining the line of Christian fellowship by the
acceptance of them; not one of us would stake a single
point of his own religious faith upon them; not one of us
appeals to them as argument for the spiritual truth, but at
most as what that "truth as it is in Jesus" may help us to
accept.
—
-
This change in the general intelligence has come about,
reluctantly and with infinite protest, during the entire sci-
entific revolution of the last two centuries. It has not
AND GERMAN THOUGHT.
115
been frankly accepted, among those calling themselves
Christians, till comparatively late in the fifty years' period
we have been looking back upon. But
But it had to reach not
our scientific opinions merely, but our religious opinions.
If the religious life survives among us in spite of it, this
result is due, in no small part, to the influence upon our
elder Unitarianism of German theology from the time of
Schleiermacher.
*
THE CHURCH
AND
THE PARISH IN MASSACHUSETTS.
USAGE AND LAW.1
BY GEORGE E. ELLIS.
A
MONG the suggestions and reflections which oppressively
crowd the thoughts of a diligent and well-furnished stu-
dent of Christian history, especially that of the last four cen-
turies, there are two of the gravest import. The first comes
in the form of this question: Why was it that at the period of
that distracting convulsion in the political and religious affairs
of Europe called the Reformation, why was it that the
Roman Catholic Church did not in itself, by itself, and for
itself, institute a thorough and searching process of purifica-
tion, renovation, and even of reconstruction? It seems as
if, within the limits of practical possibilities, it might have
done so.
In so doing it might have won reverence, glory,
and gratitude from its noblest members, and have silenced and
discomfited its enemies. What deplorable strifes, woes, and
tragedies might then have been averted from our common
humanity!
That church stood for and claimed to be representative
on the earth of the kingdom of God, a divinely constituted
1 This Address was delivered at the Commemoration of the 250th
Anniversary of the Gathering of the First Church in Dedham, Massa-
chusetts, on Nov. 19, 1888, and repeated in the present Course during
the season of 1888-89.
CHURCH AND PARISH IN MASSACHUSETTS. 117
society, with truth, virtue, and piety for its foundation pillars,
with justice and righteousness for the methods and the ends
of its rule. That church, as yet unshattered in its august
fabric, seemed to present the only opportunity and agency
there had as yet been in history must we say, also, the only
one there ever will be? for uniting a family of Christian
nations, the most advanced and steadily progressive states and
kingdoms of the civilized world, into one Christian common-
wealth, ruled in all their highest concerns by an inspired super-
earthly authority.
That church then, always, and now, had and has some of
the noblest and most awing elements and principles for hold-
ing the love, reverence, and obedience of all classes of men
and women. Its claim and purpose of unity and universality
gave it grandeur and dignity. Its marvellous organization
rivals in earthly gradation and order the rankings of a solar
or planetary system. It improved with aptitude and skill its
grand opportunity to substitute a unifying spiritual sway over
the fragments of a wrecked political empire. By conciliation
and thraldom, by temporizing arts and mediating interventions,
it established a more than feudal rule over royal vassals. It
made itself needful and powerful in the balancings of political
strategies. It had ingenuity in intrigue, and for provoking
wars, campaigns, and insurrections, from which it gathered in
the spoils. It was for centuries the only mediator and arbiter
in all diplomatic intricacies. Its intervention, invited or ob-
truded, decided the smallest and the largest issues. What
splendid service that church had wrought in rekindling civili-
zation in Europe; in restoring, preserving, and extending all
learning; in turning quarries of stone into cathedrals of ma-
jestic sublimity and beauty; in spreading upon the radiant
canvas the whole Bible and all sacred history, with saints and
1
A
118
THE CHURCH AND THE PARISH
U #
heroes, men and women, in truth and in fond legends, in rich-
est tints and pigments. What a galaxy of starry witnesses,
servants, and disciples makes up the church calendar of saint-
hood, of orders, fraternities, and sisterhoods, of scholars, of
statesmen, of the wise and valiant, of lonely missionaries in
all their heroisms! These were the mighty and splendid pos-
sessions and achievements of that church, fitting it to guide
and consecrate the civilization of the world.
Why, then, did not that august and potent hierarchy, in the
crisis of peril to its sway and unity, assume the faithful work
of its own purification and renovation, repudiating and casting
out of it all that made it hateful and false and insufferable
among men? It had had solemn remonstrances and warnings
from wise, sagacious, and holy men within its as yet unbroken
fold. "Reformers before the Reformation" is the familiar
and honorable designation of a role of faithful disciples, but
stern censors, within its yet unsundered fellowship, — men,
some of whom the church has since beatified, — who pleaded
in vain for self-renewal and purification from its enormities
and scandals.
The answer to our question, which includes the most of the
grounds and reasons why the church could not avert the
assault and rupture and humiliation of the Reformation, is
expressed in the sentence that it had become entangled,
diseased, and corrupted by the things of this world. It was
vitiated through and through by an element of falsity. There
was not left in it the soundness and energy of wholesome,
recuperative life. It had lost its corporate sanctity. It had
entered into leagues, and bargains, and plottings, and rivalries
with states and princes, espousing their strifes, introducing
astute churchmen into their cabinet councils, and guiding
their military campaigns. It put to service, for ends of
f
IN MASSACHUSETTS.
119
worldly ambition, all the trickeries of artifice, policy, intrigue,
and double-dealing with an ingenuity which perplexed and
baffled the most cunning diplomacy. Its greed and grasping
for land had made it the largest territorial proprietor and tem-
poral potentate in all Europe. Internally it was riven with
dissensions, with popes and antipopes contesting for the
sovereignty. Simony, nepotism, sensual vices, and every
form of unrighteousness and crime made popes, cardinals,
and ecclesiastics of every grade the subjects of scandal and
reprobation. Marriage being forbidden to the clergy, free
concubinage was the consequence. Fraudulent and fabulous
pretensions underlay the very foundations of the papacy, and
grovelling and childish superstitions were the most potent
elements of its sway over its docile and credulous disciples.
All these fatal and condemnatory verdicts against the
church came from accusers and revelations within its own
fold, from the "Reformers before the Reformation," before a
single word had been uttered or a single line had been written
by an avowed Protestant. It suits the modern champions of
the Roman Church to ascribe the convulsion of the Reforma-
tion in our mother England to the resentment of Henry VIII.
of the refusal of successive popes to sanction his divorce from
his lawful wife. As if the lustful passion of one man, monarch
though he was, could have kindled Europe into revolt from
the papacy. But moral and religious scruples against a sanc-
tion of divorce were the least of the motives which wrought
with the pontiffs. Their entanglements with imperial and
royal policies and rivalries were the obstructions.
hardly assign moral scruples to the pontiffs of that era, when
we have seen their successor, this very year, granting to a
ducal applicant permission to commit the sin of incest, for
a money consideration.
We can
120
THE CHURCH AND THE PARISH
The alternative is open for those who choose to decide,
either that the church lacked the will and the resolution for .
its own purification, or that corruption in its very organism
and vitals would have made the process fatal to its life. But
this internal reform failing, the consequences were division
within, assault and protest from without, and an irreconcilable
rupture.
The able and eminent French bishop, Bossuet, thought he
had exposed a fatal and irremediable error in Protestantism,
more than a century after it had been showing its fruits, by
setting forth with vigorous raillery its "variations." Protes-
tantism was the parent of Discord. Its divisions and sub-
divisions into fragmentary sects, with their contentions, were
a scandal upon religion, bringing it into contempt. By somet
Protestants these variations have been lamented and con-
demned as just occasions of reproach. Others, wise and
serious observers, even in view of all the discord and conten-
tions of sects, have been reconciled to them as the results of
sincere and earnest apprehensions of the manifold elements
of truth.
At first view it might seem remarkable that the old church
should have apparently been so wholly free of sectarian divi-
sions; but on a keener study of the matter we are brought to
recognize the sagacious policy of that church in contrast with
the scattering tendency of Protestantism. However rigid
may be the rule of doctrine and discipline in a church main-
taining strict unity, there will always appear from time to
time, in its fold, men and women of strong individuality of
opinion, temperament, impulse, or zeal, emphasizing some
single virtue, habit of life, rule of observance, method of devo-
tion, or type of piety. These would break off into sects under
Protestantism. But the Roman Church, with an adroit and
IN MASSACHUSETTS.
121
wise balancing of indulgence and restraint of freedom and au-
thority, allowed all these threatening individualisms to spend.
their energy and zeal in organizing orders, fraternities, sister-
hoods, with their rules, statutes, occupations, preferred devo-
tions, and special garb, all held, however, to the root of
unity. They were like little rills, rising and swelling from
distant and independent springs and hidden fountains, but
quietly led on in their channels to the one full stream. But
in Protestantism every eccentricity and individuality in active
and restless minds has produced a fissure and a fracture, split-
ting off into a sect.
This leads us to recognize the second of those gravest
reflections derived from the study of our Christian history of
the last four centuries, and which will bring us nearer to our
special theme. It is a profound impression of the entire lack
of apprehension and consciousness in the whole reforming
party, of the consequences to themselves and to all who
should follow them, of their repudiation of a long vested
authority in religion, and of their utter lack of any adequate
substitute for it. It was as when part of the company on a
well-furnished but imperilled ship desert it for the open sea,
leaving behind them compass and charts, pilot and com-
mander. Little did those Reformers realize the infinite dis-
tractions which were to follow, to vex them with discord and
strife, with endless alienations and divisions, and the bitter-
ness and iniquity of mutual persecutions. Long wonted to
the restraints and guidance and forced adhesions of authority,
they knew not how to use freedom for common ends of
harmony. Every single step in the inevitable series of pro-
gressive stages of development, expansion, enlargement, and
liberalization under Protestantism, which ought to have been
looked for as the most natural and reasonable consequences
122
THE CHURCH AND THE PARISH
of parting from authority, has come even upon the most intel-
ligent and rightly intentioned men as a shock or surprise,
exciting amazement and horror, and prompting them, when it
was possible and feasible, to call in force, penalties, punish-
ments, and the terrors of the law for suppression or ven-
geance. The series of controversies, variances, and quarrels,
with or without the interference of legal processes through
which the history of Protestantism leads us, alike in the
councils of nations and in the feuds of little villages, far
exceeds in length and in sadness of retrospect the revolu-
tions, convulsions, and catastrophes which make up civil and
political history. Protestantism has no finality.
In leaving the ship of the church for the open sea, the
Reformers took with them the Bible. Precious beyond all
expression or estimate is that sacred volume. Above the
church on earth, with its hierarchy, better than the tubes and
lenses of the astronomer with which he pierces to the secrets
of the upper world, is that revealer and witness of things
divine. That volume serves with inexhaustible and ever-
opening wealth the uses of piety and edification for men.
But it is of no more use for preventing or reconciling the
doctrinal diversities or contentions of its devoutest readers
within the field of opinion and discipline than would be an
unabridged dictionary. It furnishes indeed the material and
provocation, the catchwords and symbols of all the sectarian
divisions, the controversies and contentions of centuries in
the history of religion.
It is with one of these, a trivial or a serious one, as you
may regard it, in the infinitely varied series of such successive
developments, that I am now to deal. This then fair village
was the scene and the occasion in which a legal tribunal was
called upon for judgment concerning one of these (shall I
IN MASSACHUSETTS.
123
call them?) developments and results of Protestantism.
Many years ago I had come to the resolve after much
thought, time, and labor, privately and through the press,
given to such subjects — that I would never again concern
myself with, or speak, write, or publish anything connected
with our old religious controversies. It is difficult to reach the
hard-pan through those bogs and underlying quicksands. It
is doubtful if there is any bottom to those soundings. So,
when I was invited to the slight service which I am now to
undertake, my first prompting was gently to release myself.
But on reflection, the quality, the kindness, and the courtesy
of the invitation, coming from two representative parties,
gave to it an urgency for me. Nor was I long in reminding
myself—indeed, the thought was spontaneous-that time
and change and charity had so calmed and chastened the
once embittered feelings of a sharp conflict, that its ashes.
might be analyzed without rekindling the fire. Not a word
nor a moment would I give to the rehearsal of the alienation
between townsmen, families, neighbors, and life-long friends
attendant and consequent upon the variance. I have read
the documents about it, but they have an ill flavor and odor in
them which I will not cast upon this pleasant autumn air.
All those once inflamed grievances are now as absent from
the living in these scenes as they are stilled in the passionless
dust of those sleeping in the village burial-ground.
Our subject has interest for us simply as putting before us
a chapter or incident in the history and religious usages and
legislation of Massachusetts. A judicial decision reached
here established a legal precedent for all like cases that did or
might arise in a period of strong excitement among the old
Congregational societies of the State. The question which
was opened was: What were the respective rights and privi-
124
THE CHURCH AND THE PARISH
leges, as derived alike from history and traditional usage, and
from constitutional and statute provisions, of two associated
bodies in one of our old religious societies: the one, the mem-
bers and the proprietors in a corporate parish, compelled by
legal enactments to support a public teacher of religion and
morality; the other, an unincorporated, voluntary, and self-
constituted fellowship within the parish, of men and women
united by a covenant of their own appproval, as a church for
maintaining and enjoying Christian ordinances? The two
parties here could not dispose their difference by concession
or compromise, and as questions of property were concerned
the interposition of the judiciary was inevitable. The decision
was a shock and a surprise to the discomfited party. It was
received as depriving the members of a church in covenant
of a supposed inherited and established right. That is the
point of view from which I approach my subject.
Let me ask you to withdraw your thoughts for a few
moments from the local bearings of this subject, to which we
will return with its special interests, and to engage them on
its far wider, comprehensive relations. It was not at all
strange that a church here in the wilderness, in the Seven-
teenth Century, in the line of the generations of Christian
discipleship, should regard itself in its relations to a local
parish as a privileged body, with distinct and important rights.
We shall have to look far back into Christian antiquity, even
to the first promulgation of the religion, to find a full explana-
tion and reasons for a special church prerogative. This is
most vitally concerned with the continuity and the transmis-
sion of the religion of Jesus Christ. All through the cen-
turies of its course we may trace the existence, the presence,
and the relations to each other of two distinct classes of
persons, who gave it degrees of their attention and interest,
IN MASSACHUSETTS.
125
and put themselves into quite different attitudes of disciple-
ship and duty towards it.
We should have to begin with the Gospel narratives. We
there read of selected, attached, and avowed followers and
intimate attendants on Jesus, who shared his privacy and
were favored by his confidence; and we read also of another
class, chance and irregular listeners to his teaching, called
"the multitude," or "the people," pausing near him from
curiosity or momentary prompting. We trace the presence
of the same two parties with the same relations to each other
in the subsequent ministry of the Apostles. In synagogues
and market-places were ready and curious listeners to preach-
ing and exhortation; and in private houses, apartments, and
upper chambers were groups of avowed and earnest adherents,
with Christian convictions, faith, and mutual discipline. The
distinction was soon drawn, or rather, drew itself, between
covenanted and uncovenanted disciples, between those who
"gladly heard the word" and nothing further, and those who
were known to each other as pledged, committed to constancy
in intercourse and observance. Then came in what we know
as covenants, ordinances, sacraments, recognized by these
pledged disciples as methods for their mutual recognition, and
the basis of their fellowship, their reliance on each other for
sympathy, steadfastness, and support. For this inner fellow-
ship were reserved confidences and privileges.
(6
The term mass," as attached to the most august and
solemn of the rites of the Church of Rome, carries in its
definition the whole breadth and depth of the distinction
drawn between companies and attendants on Christian teach-
ing and exhortation, and the covenanted fellowship of disciples.
The word "mass" is from missa or dimissa; pronounced by
the officiating minister it was a signal for the uninitiated to
126
THE CHURCH AND THE PARISH
depart, that the inner fellowship might engage in a privileged
and reserved service.
Among the mountain heaps of Christian literature there
may be
though I do not recall any such a strong argu-
mentative essay which might deal very ably with this theme ;
namely, that the survival and continuity in living presence of
the Christian religion were vitally dependent from the very
earliest age upon a pledged and covenanted body of avowed
and constant disciples. Would anything be known or extant
beyond a mere historical tradition of an instituted Christian
religion had it not been for this original and perpetuated
covenant body of pledged disciples, as distinct from a random
series of assemblies, congregations, listeners to preaching and
exhortation?
If we were to follow up this subject it would lead to a
clear, emphatic statement of the immeasurable influence which
covenants, observances, communion rites, and sacraments have
had in perpetuating Christianity. The old peripatetic phi-
losophers were well named, travelling, wandering teachers.
They had hearers, after a sort disciples. But they had no
covenants, no sacraments. They founded schools, but not
churches. Some of the old pagan religions had their “mys-
teries," but the only quality in them was mystery. The dis-
tinction between Christian churches and congregations was
no after device. It was original from the first, drawn between
listeners to, hearers of preaching, and those who charged
themselves with assumed and avowed obligations by covenant.
This distinction has reached its extremnest - it may be its un-
natural and objectionable division in the Church of Rome.
In view of what we shall, by and by, have to recognize as
the limited and subordinate relation into which the legal deci-
sion put our Congregational churches in their connection with
J
IN MASSACHUSETTS.
127
parishes, we may well take note of the complete inversion of
the relation of the two parties among the members of the
Roman Church, with which the laws of our State do not inter-
fere. In that church, now so strongly established by Irish
immigration into this old Puritan heritage, the existence of
two parties, representing the church and the congregation,
presents itself substantially as the distinction between the
priesthood and the laity. In this respect the Roman disci-
pline is in complete antagonism with the rule established by
the decision of our Supreme Court.
In the Congregational fold the ministers were the servants,
at best the equals, of the members of their flock; not their
masters, or in anything their superiors. In all that concerned
instituted religion, providing edifices and appliances for public
worship, the collection and use of money, the choice and ordi-
nation of religious teachers, the establishment of a platform
of faith and discipline, and the recognition of sister churches,
the laity, the brethren, either took the initiative or had a joint
participation in all affairs. Titles to land and edifices were
vested in lay trustees.
Observe how all this is wholly reversed in the usages of
the Roman Church here. The priests constitute a fellowship
as close and reticent, and as free from legal visitation and
oversight, as are our secret fraternities, to which in all other
respects but its own the church is so inimical. The laity
know of their conferences, methods, and purposes only so far
as the priests choose to disclose them. The creed, the things
to be believed in summary and detail, is imposed authorita-
tively. The construction and application of it are made by
the priesthood. Docile obedience to discipline is the prime
condition of discipleship. All ceremonies, rites, and observ-
ances are of exaction. The laity have no choice in the selec-
128
THE CHURCH AND THE PARISH
tion or institution of their pastors or teachers. The parish
is made up and bounded for them. The laity contribute all
the funds and resources, but have no voice in the allotment
or disposal of them, and no treasury report of amount or use
is ever returned to them.
You pay your money, but you do not take your choice.
Churches, colleges, schools, parsonages, seminaries, hospitals,
and cemeteries spring forth like magic all around us, revealing
to us only the energetic activity of the priesthood and their
marvellous success in gathering money. All this property of
every kind is vested in the bishop of a diocese, and passes by
an open will to his successor. The church may become the
largest landholder in our country. Here, in the priesthood,
then, we have the church, infinitely transcending in functions.
and authority the covenanted fellowship among the Puritans.
And where, meanwhile, is what answers to the congregation
among them? It is composed of a consenting and docile
flock, responsive to priestly counsels and requisitions, rever-
ently kneeling before the altar, receiving the fragment of the
holy wafer, and passing the ordeal of the confessional as the
condition of a saving shrift in the solemn parting hour of
life.
Certainly, in the old, once dominant, but now shattered.
church, the distinction which I have historically traced be-
tween church and congregation has reached a most radical
and dividing result. Going back to our own original Puritan
usage seems like a return to primal simplicity. I have had in
view merely to indicate that in some way, or by some method,
through the succession of Christian generations, there has pre-
vailed something answering to a distinction between church
and congregation, marked by covenants and sacramental sym-
bols, for those who, so to speak, avowed discipleship and
IN MASSACHUSETTS.
129
made themselves responsible for maintaining Christian observ-
ances, while they were associated more or less intimately or
dependently with chance assemblies of so-called "hearers of
the Word." The inference has been intimated that the living
perpetuity and discipleship of the Christian religion has been
secured, as otherwise it would not have been, by the conti-
nuity of this pledged and covenanted body with sacramental
symbols. There have been, as there are to-day, associations
and assemblies on Sundays and other days for instruction,
worship, sympathetic and ethical culture, and benevolent ac-
tivity, which do not call themselves churches, but which are
more or less under Christian baptism. They dispense with
pledges and sacramental observances. Some of these have
ceased after trial. It remains to be proved whether any such
experiment can attain to Christian continuity.
My aim has been so far to lead on to the question which
our Puritan ancestry asked, and in their way answered,
whether the church which had done such service was not
entitled to some privilege and prerogative? That was the
real issue involved in the controversy with which we have to
deal.
Before I proceed further, and in view of what is to follow,
I must here frankly avow that I feel a measure of sympathy
on the side of those who were deeply aggrieved, as under a
sense of wrong, by the practical workings and effects of the
decision of the Supreme Court in the case that is to come
before us. After considerable study and reading of subjects
of intensified strife and contention, making up so largely what
is called Christian history, I have learned the value of candor,
of constraint upon the indulgence of preferences and preju-
dices on my own side, and of large allowances for the lights
and shades of all party conflicts. The decision of the court
9
130
THE CHURCH AND THE PARISH
bore heavily and grievously upon religious relations and
beliefs, associations and fellowships, which had become most
dear and sacred to many devout hearts.
But let me explain that the personal sympathy to which I
refer is not from preference or approval of the doctrinal ten-
ets of either party, nor from any better temper or conduct
of either party in the strife which followed. I would define
it rather as an historic sympathy arising from a full view of
facts, usages, traditions, and recognized methods with which
the legal decision seemed to deal roughly.
Let me repeat, the matter for adjudication concerned the
respective prerogatives, privileges, and legal rights of parishes
and of churches composed of some of their members gathered
in the old Congregational societies in this State. The original
General Court of the colony claimed the right of jurisdiction
over the whole territory and the inhabitants within the bounds
of the charter. It soon began to grant parcels of land within
the wilderness, with valleys and meadows, to companies of
petitioners for settlement.
With a healthful dread of allowing bodies and groups of
strolling, straggling adventurers such as within our own
century penetrated our western frontiers to plant in lawless-
ness and disorder, the court in all cases made it a primary
and requisite condition of its grants, that each company
should have with them, and should maintain, a competent
minister of the gospel. This and other municipal provisions
constituted our old towns parishes. The internal history of
these early parishes offers matter of interest, including two
very different classes of occasions and subjects, the one of
gracious and edifying tenor, the other of variances, feuds, and
quarrels. The one class presents us with noble and elevating
themes, showing the origin and transmitted influence of prin-
-
8
1
IN MASSACHUSETTS.
131
ciples and habits in religion, morality, and education, in the
training of men and women and households in domestic fidel-
ity and purity, in neighborly virtues, and in all that secures
prosperity and good government, which has made Massa-
chusetts the most privileged heritage on the earth. The min-
isters and the ministers' wives were the guardian angels of
these wilderness settlements.
But while all this excellent work of training and influence
went on, one who is curious in such things may trace through
parish and church records a series of petty strifes and vexa-
tions, sometimes sharp alienations, even on matters which
look to us as of very trivial interest. In isolated, torpid, and
humdrum scenes of laborious life, little things loom largely.
Each parish had one or several of the following excitements
to stir it: The choice for life-long settlement of a new minis-
ter, and the apportionment of his salary in beef, pork, corn,
wood, and silver; the site for the rebuilding of the meeting-
house; the seating of the people in it according to social
rank; changes in the mode of conducting public service;
whether the Scriptures should be read with comments or with-
out them; the deaconing of a psalm or hymn, line by line,
when the people could not afford psalm-books; the exchange
of one psalm-book for another; the use of a pitch-pipe in
starting a tune; the introduction of instruments, viol or or-
gan; the placing of singers, male and female, together; the
piques and discords of choirs, and the innovations in warming
the house. These and how many more occasions were there
for parish feuds, before there were yet separation and division
by sects.
We must now take another step in dealing with our sub-
ject. I have spoken of each of our early townships as being
a parish for the compulsory support of public worship and
132
THE CHURCH AND THE PARISH
instruction, and of an internal body or fellowship of men
and women covenanted together and constituting a church
in each parish for the observance of ordinances. What
were the relations between these bodies, on which in 1818
a judicial decision was found necessary?
It was in preparation for meeting this question that I began
with a brief historical reference to a distinction drawn, from
the first preaching of the gospel, between those who listened
to it and those who were covenanted in discipleship to it. It
was in full recognition of that distinction that congregations
and church fellowships were from the first gathered in Massa-
chusetts. The matter, simple at first, became complicated.
Usages, allowed or tolerated, methods, asserted claims and
rights well-nigh having the force of common law, and then a
succession of legal statutes, frequently changed and coming.
into direct conflict with each other, had brought in the ele-
ments of confusion.
The theory and practice of Congregationalism, by which
the churches of Massachusetts were planted, as distinguished
from Episcopacy or Presbyterianism, was the full and perfect
right, under the New Testament pattern, for each company
of convenient size covenanted together to choose, institute,
and ordain all officers, pastors, teachers, ruling elders, and
deacons needed by them in a congregation or church for
teaching and ordinances.
It has been often claimed that Congregationalism was
organically and vitally identified with a certain system of
doctrines in a formulated creed. The only ground for that
claim is that, in the revival and restoration of the New Testa-
ment Congregationalism by the Puritans, a certain formulated
creed and system of doctrines were then prevailingly accepted.
But that was no organic element of Congregationalism, which
IN MASSACHUSETTS.
133
may consist with different doctrinal beliefs and usages. De-
mocracy is distinguished from monarchy and aristocracy in
government. But democracy is not identified with one special
platform of principles or with a set of political usages and
opinions. We shall have to refer farther on to the elements
which came in to complicate the main issue in the contest,
from the changes of doctrinal opinions and beliefs where there
had once been substantial agreement.
We must briefly review the methods, usages, and legal
enactments which, from the first settlement of this colony,
disposed of the relations between the two parts of a parish,
the congregation and the covenanted inner fellowship, the
church.
We are at once reminded of the lack of uniformity, the
variety of method adopted in this matter at different times
and in different places. Sometimes a covenanted body, the
church, was the original nucleus around which gathered a
congregation, and the proportion of numbers in the member-
ship of each was constantly changing. Sometimes a church
was formed within a previously assembled congregation that
had maintained worship. Governor Winthrop, the Deputy
Governor, "and many others, men and women," formed at
Charlestown, July 30, 1630, the First Church of Boston.
They had then no minister or other officers, which they
elected and instituted a month afterwards. They called the
body which they thus formed "a Congregation or Church."
They signed a very simple and tender covenant without any
doctrinal articles, which continues in use unchanged to-day.
In other cases, as for example in this First Parish of Dedham,
there had been worship under a tree and in a rude meeting-
house by a congregation, within which was afterwards gathered
a church.
134
THE CHURCH AND THE PARISH
When the famous order of the court was passed, May
18, 1631, restricting the civil franchise to church members,
the whole matter seemed to be decisively disposed of. For if
church members were to have exclusive authority in all civil
affairs, they might well exercise their prerogative over con-
gregations in parishes. It seems to me that the tenacity with
which church bodies afterwards asserted their rights in the
initiative choice and institution of ministers is to be referred
to this original exclusive enjoyment of the franchise. This
restriction upon citizenship was stoutly clung to till the royal
order of Charles II., in 1665, positively insisted upon the en-
largement of civil rights. Even then the sturdy court rather
circumvented than complied with the order, by requiring that
any man seeking a citizen's rights and not a church member
should present such a certificate of character and orthodoxy,
as well as property, as might have secured his admission
to a church, if he had chosen to seek it. It was
It was not
strange, therefore, that when church members were deprived
of their exclusive civil rights they should infer that, as the
king had not interfered with their church affairs, they could
retain in entail their own precedency in the choice of their
ministers.
There were, however, four orders passed by the General
Court within a space of ten years (1636-1646), by which
confusion was introduced in the relations between inhabitants
of a town and the churches in them. In the exercise of its
authority by the court, first came in a provision that proved
fatal to harmony and an element of injustice. This furnished
a rightful and effective plea by which parishioners, not church
members, could claim to have a voice in the choice of their
ministers. The first of these orders was a requisition, in 1636,
applying to a single town (Newbury), that as the church mem-
IN MASSACHUSETTS.
135
bers in it could not bear all the expenses they had incurred
in building a meeting-house and for their minister, the cost
should be assessed, pro rata, upon all the inhabitants of the
town. The second court order, 1638, made that same ex-
action for the support of churches and ministers applicable to
all the towns; the hint being dropped to reluctant persons
that they might avail themselves of religious ministrations if
they chose to do so.
The third of those orders (1643) provided that the churches
should be written to, to enforce upon their members their
duty of voting in civil affairs, when for any reason they failed
to exercise it. The fourth order (1646) imposed upon every
inhabitant of a town the obligation to attend on public wor-
ship under a penalty of five shillings fine for each occasion of
absence. The penalty in England for the offence at that time
was only sixpence.
Obvious enough it is, and reasonable enough it appears to
us, that the court in these exactions — unwittingly, it doubtless
was provided the grounds and the materials for the strife
which subsequently arose between parishes and churches as
to the management of their joint affairs. The time was to
come when churches would protest: "We will not have a
pastor set over us whom we have not ourselves chosen and
put in office;" and when members of the parish would
plead: “If you compel us, it may be against our will, to
maintain and listen to a minister, we ought to have the
privilege of selecting him."
We can understand how, under the circumstances of
changing times and opinions, harmony might first exist in the
relations between parishes and churches, and then how that
harmony would be disturbed. A continuance of a general ac-
cord in doctrinal belief would be one condition; another would
136
THE CHURCH AND THE PARISH
be the preponderance in a parish of the number of those who
were under the church covenant. Where the church embraced
nearly the whole or a large majority of the male members of
a parish, any variance between the two bodies in the selec-
tion of a minister would be ineffective if it showed itself. We
must remember that the range of choice of ministers in our
early years was limited.
The following enactments are found under the head of
Ecclesiastical Laws, in 1641: The inhabitants of any town,
"who are orthodox in judgement and not scandalous in life,"
not as yet "in a church way," receive full liberty to enter
into such in an orderly and Christian way, after having noti-
fied neighboring magistrates and churches of their intention,
and receiving approbation. Each church so formed was free
to exercise all Christian ordinances, to elect and ordain all
officers, "able, pious, and orthodox, "- and to admit, dis-
cipline, and expel members on due cause, "according to the
Word;" support of and attendance on all occasions of public
worship are required under a penalty, and habitations for and
maintenance of ministers are to be provided for by a town
tax. To make sure of its intent in this matter, the court in
1668 declared that the church to which it had assigned such
powers was to be understood as meaning only members in full
communion, and the minister chosen by them should be such
to the whole town. Any one not a church member, who pre-
sumed either to take part in or to dispute the choice, should
be proceeded against under civil process. This law, it will be
observed for further reference, made the minister thus chosen
both the religious teacher of the whole town and the pastor
of the church.
Restiveness and dissatisfaction soon
legal disposal of some delicate matters.
prevailed under this
So we find a Prov-
IN MASSACHUSETTS.
137
ince law, thirty years later, vested the choice of a minister in
the inhabitants of the town at large, with the singular proviso
that if a town neglected for six months to choose a minister,
Thus the
then the court should provide and settle one.
church was cut off with a salvo securing to it "all its privi-
leges and freedom in worship, church order, and discipline."
The next change in the law made a concurrent choice of
parish and church requisite. Finally, another law enjoined
that the church should initiate the choice, and if the town did
not concur, then the church should call a council of three or
five neighbor churches, whose decision should dispose of the
variance for either party. I know of no case in which this
reference to a council was used. The Legislature next gave
the right of choice to the parish, independently of the church.
This not working well, the church was allowed a concur-
rent vote, and the next year was reinstated in its exclusive
privilege of electing the minister. A statute of 1754, pro-
ceeding on the fact that churches, as not being corporate
bodies politic, could not hold property in succession, con-
stituted deacons trustees of all church and parish property.
Our State constitution and statutes gave the right of elect-
ing a minister to the parish from which he derived his
support.
There certainly was occasion enough in these frequent and
radical changes in the legal interference with the relations of
parishes and churches for provoking variance and strife. But
there came in another complication in the case. The law
rested in the provision that each town should have and main-
tain "a public teacher of morality and religion." But it was
contended that while such a minister might serve the use of
a parish at large, he could not, as a matter of course, be con-
stituted by the parish the pastor of the church to officiate in
138
THE CHURCH AND THE PARISH
ordinances. This sacred official character could not be given
to him by vote of the town, for the earliest law had made
covenanted members in communion the electors and ordainers
of their pastors. So prescription and usage had come to re-
quire that ordination to a pastorate should be the solemn act
of the church as such, calling in the presence and approbation
of a council of sister churches.
The court was responsible also for all trouble from this
source. In its natural desire to secure harmonious, sisterly,
and even unity of methods and discipline among the churches,
to prevent their becoming eccentric and antagonistic individu-
alities, the court had prompted and approved the making of
a platform of constitution and discipline with rules for neigh-
boring churches, represented by pastors and delegates, to
gather in councils to recognize the initiation of a new church
body, the institution of a new pastorate, and to mediate and
give advice where there was variance. So far as these coun-
cils confined themselves to friendly, advisory, and unassuming
offices they might serve excellent uses. But the moment
they assumed authority they struck at the very foundation
of Congregationalism, the full, complete independency of
each Christian fellowship. Even laymen in the congregation
might, and often did, ordain their ministers and other officers.
True, these laymen represented a covenanted body, not the
mere parish. But the parish had no need of a council except
as matter of courtesy. Still, this call and intervention of a
council came by usage to be regarded as an ecclesiastical
ratification and solemnity, which added to the teaching of
morality and religion the quality of an ordained pastor of a
church.
We have now to inform ourselves, as fully as the materials
in our hands will admit, as to the actual connection and rela-
IN MASSACHUSETTS.
139
tions between a parish and a church formed or existing within
it, when the matter came up for judicial decision. We have
seen that these relations had been regulated and disposed
both by legal orders and by usages. The law had been fre-
quently changed. The usages were traditional, embracing
alike claims of right, reason, and courtesy.
I am prompted by historic candor, as I have said, to admit
a strong basis for the claims of prerogative and privilege set
up by the church in the choice of a pastor. The claims were
by inheritance. We have traced the origin of them in the
first Christian age. There had been no break in the succes-
sion, in the assertion, or the allowance of them down to the
date with which we are concerned. A fellowship of cove-
nanted disciples, when brought into connection with those
not pledged as they were, assumed special responsibilities.
A church was the voluntary, spontaneous, earnest agency
for upholding pious and sacred usages in a community. It
charged itself with solemn and momentous obligations. By
many offices and observances, by occasions of fasting, renew-
als of its covenant, mutual reawakenings of its membership,
and the quickening of zeal and labors, it constantly sought
to reanimate and edify itself, and to be the medium of many
benefits to a community. Well, therefore, might a church.
hold itself distinguished in privilege as to Christian institu-
tions above the wholly unpledged members of a congregation
or town parish, a proportion of whom might be indifferent,
chance attendants on preaching when they liked it, and often
grudging their compulsory support of it. Thus stood the case
at the crisis which we are reaching.
In the parishes and churches to which the legal decision,
as a precedent, was applicable, the relations stood as follows:
The church had become an imperium in imperio, and the
140
THE CHURCH AND THE PARISH
nate.
issue came to be raised whether it was supreme or subordi-
The parish was a body politic, with consequent rights
and obligations. It was compelled by a public proprietary
tax to support a minister of religion for the inhabitants. The
church was a self-constituted, self-perpetuating body, of both.
sexes, of minors and adults. It might have members who
were not proprietors, not taxable in the parish. It might
include servants transiently in the families. New-comers
moving in from other towns, who were church members there,
might commune by sufferance, though by usage expected to
present a letter transferring relations. The church, not being
incorporate, as was the parish, could not hold or transmit
property in perpetuity. Its individual members had no trans-
fer rights as pew-holders or sharers in a fund. The church
used the parish or the congregation as, so to speak, a feeder
from which to add to its own membership. It was wholly for
the members of the church, for the time being, to decide on
the terms and conditions for the admission of new members.
These were an assent to a covenant, a confession of faith, and
a profession of religious experience. These terms as con-
cerning doctrinal beliefs might be free or rigid; they might
from time to time be changed, reduced, relaxed. There
might be devout and earnest men and women in a parish
who were ready and even desirous to partake of church
ordinances. If their consciences or convictions withheld
them from assenting to certain doctrines or terms of the
covenant, they could not become church members. If the
number and weight of character of such persons induced
the pastor and covenanted members to make the formulas
of admission unobjectionable to them, they gladly availed of
the privilege.
We come now to the most delicate matter of our subject.
IN MASSACHUSETTS.
14I
From our historical review, thus far, we have seen how
abundant were the occasions and materials for friction, for
variance and contention in the relations between parishes and
churches as regulated by law and usage. The choice and
institution of a new minister might draw heavily upon them
when there were preferences and partialities between different.
candidates. It was at the discretion of a candidate to keep
aloof if he could see that there was to be contention about
him. All that we have been concerned with thus far has
related to a period in our church history when the congre-
gational body had all been in substantial accord with the
Puritan, Calvinistic, orthodox system of doctrinal faith under
which all our early churches were gathered and covenanted.
But radical and very serious changes, modifications, and
softenings of doctrinal belief had now come into the churches
and furnished the occasion of division, acrimony, and strife.
And here it is to be distinctly and emphatically noted that,
though underlying and prompting the litigation to be referred
to were doctrinal differences between the parties to it, the
court did not and could not deal with the case with the
slightest reference to or recognition of them. They were
wholly waived and unnoticed. Not a plea nor an argument
upon the right or the wrong, the truth or the error, the
legality or the illegality of religious opinions or beliefs came
into the case.
I repeat, the issue turned upon the legal rights- whatever
might have been the developments of historic-traditional
usage and prescription - which a body of covenanted church
members, connected with a parish, had in the call and insti-
tution of a minister, and in the control and disposal of parish
and church property, such as the parsonage, ministerial lands,
funds, plate, etc.
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THE CHURCH AND THE PARISH
No reference whatever was made to the mode in which this
church was constituted, the terms of its covenant, the method
of admission to it of new members from the congregation, or
matters of creed or doctrine. It was even admitted in the
issue opened between parish and church, in the case before
us, that it was not raised with any reference to matters of
doctrinal belief. Yet none the less the prime occasion of the
discord and dissension which then prevailed in the old Con-
gregational churches of the State, and which made litigation
and a judicial decision seemingly inevitable, was furnished in
the changes and variances of doctrinal belief which had come
to announce themselves and to find recognition alike among
ministers, church members, and parishioners.
These changes had come in gradually, quietly, and for a
time unchallenged. They were at first undefined and not
sharply asserted. But they proved, as they advanced, to be
radical, threatening, and burdened with matter of discord and
strife. We define the issue sharply enough by saying, in the
phrases of the time, that it was an alarming "defection" in
the churches from their original basis of Calvinism or ortho-
doxy, and a "decline" into a relaxed and vague form of so-
called Liberalism. It is true such a process had been long
advancing, and that the full recognition of its results could
not but be attended with amazement, grief, alienation, and
contention.
We have seen what materials and occasions for variance
there were between congregations and churches, as their
relations were disposed by laws and usages, while as yet
there were no questions opened in the communities which
they represented in matters of doctrine. But when most
serious and radical changes in doctrinal belief presented
themselves for assertion and recognition, a wholly new
IN MASSACHUSETTS.
143
element of strife came in, with interminglings of passion and
bitterness.
|
As I have intimated, ministers, church members, and
parishioners were found to be divided and classified under
the two parties, the old and the new, the orthodox and the
liberal. By friendliness, neighborly regards, and tolerance,
peace was for a while continued in many parishes. As there
were known to be, in the congregations, men and women
who were ready and desirous to share in church ordinances,
but who shrank from the public relation of their religious
experience or from the acceptance of the rigid doctrinal
confession, if the minister and the church consented these
terms might be relaxed by changing the matter of the cove-
nant. If such change were resisted by the minister and a
majority of the church, those of the congregation thus
excluded from the ordinances would have their grievance.
To this cause we must attribute jealousies and unfriendly
relations between members of the congregation and the
church in some parishes at that time.
As ministers then had a life tenure of office, the election
of a new minister was the occasion of calling out and inten-
sifying differences which had been repressed. In cases, of
which there were many, including the strongest old parishes.
in the State, in which minister, congregation, and church had
shared in the relaxing of the original orthodox standard, the
transition of the pastorate was peaceful. Such was the case
in the First Church of Boston in its passage from Calvinism
to Liberalism. There is not a word or a trace on its records.
of any shock or variance in the choice of its successive minis-
ters in accordance with the views of those whom they were
to serve. In the contemporary church and congregation of
Charlestown, in the ferment of the controversy, the majority
144
THE CHURCH AND THE PARISH
I
of the legal proprietors preferred the old standards. So the
minority withdrew and instituted a new church and society.
In Cambridge the majority of the parish took the liberal side
in the choice of the minister, while the majority of the church
dissented and set up another organization.
The pastor of the First Church in Dedham had resigned
to assume the presidency of a college, and in 1818 a successor
was to be chosen. It appears that the changes in doctrinal
opinion and belief, which had been working for many years in
the Congregational societies of the State, had manifested
themselves here. Under the pastorate of the minister pre-
ceding him who had now retired, and who, in the phrase of
the time, was classed among the so-called “ moderate," there
had been modifications in the covenant and terms of admis-
sion to the church, under which many persons who had
shrunk from accepting the previous terms had come into
communion. Among these was that honored patriot states-
man, Senator Fisher Ames. The succeeding pastor, now
retiring, had been regarded, by some at least of the parish, as
of the same "moderate" views and temper on points then so
sharply contested. But it proved as time went on that his
convictions and preferences and sympathies were with the old
beliefs. There was likely then to be a variance in preference
in the choice of a new pastor. Cambridge and Andover were
the sources for the supply of candidates.
The parish here voting as legal proprietors, including of
course both those who were and those who were not members
of the church, by a majority of two thirds representing four
fifths of the taxable property of the town held by law to the
support of the ministry-made choice of a Cambridge candi-
date. The communicants meeting separately, after the par-
ishioners, dissented from the choice. It was doubted and
IN MASSACHUSETTS.
145
disputed at the time whether the dissentients were a majority
or a minority of the actual membership of the church. The
numbers on either side — subject afterwards to readjustment
seemed to stand, of male members, fourteen in favor of
the candidate and eighteen in opposition.
After the intensity of the variance was passed, a majority
of the church members appear to have retained their con-
nection with the parish and the new minister. But as the
dissentients in the church claimed to be a majority, the letter-
missive, summoning neighbor or sister churches, by pastors
and delegates, to gather in a council after the prevailing
usage of Congregationalism - for the ordination of the pastor-
elect, could not go forth in the name of the "First Church of
Dedham."
So the invitation went forth from the "First Parish of
Dedham." Of course the dissentients urged that a minister
thus instituted to office filled merely the legal requisition of
CC
a preacher of morality and religion," and was not thereby
ordained as pastor of the church. The church, therefore, a
month afterwards called a council of its own, which did little
more than pronounce the proceedings of the parish council
irregular, express sympathy with the aggrieved, and advise
moderation.
In the litigation which followed between the parties, for the
sake of defining the legal question, the point was yielded that
the dissent of the church was the expression of the majority
of its members. There were at the time three deacons in
office. One of these soon died; of the others, the junior
remained with the parish; the senior one, who by law was the
trustee of the parish and church property, of considerable
value, withdrew, carrying his vouchers with him. Of this
property it is to be said, as of similar funds in other towns,
IO
146
THE CHURCH AND THE PARISH
(C
that it had long been gathering from various sources and
donors, gifts from the town and individuals,-parsonage, lands,
wood-lots, money, and church vessels. This deacon with the
disaffected portion of the church claiming, as before said, to
be a majority, and therefore entitled to hold the property,
instituted a new fellowship and society and settled over them
a pastor. This new pastor gives on his records, as remon-
strating" against the recent ordination of the minister of the
First Parish, the names of ninety-five persons, constituting, as
he says, a majority of the church. Of these names twenty-
four are of men and seventy-one are of women. The first
name is that of the pastor, whose resignation of the First
Church and removal to another State, preceding the division,
might seem to have released him from further responsibility
in the case. How many of these names, men and women,
were legal members of the parish it might be difficult to
decide. Still, the allowance before the court was that they
constituted the majority of the church.
The portion of the church remaining with the parish
removed the deacon who had withdrawn from it, and chose
two new deacons, in whose name a suit was instituted against
the retiring deacon for the recovery of the parish and church.
property from his trusteeship.
It is interesting to note with what strict precision of rule
and method the court, amid the intense excitement of the
time a more than local one-rigidly confined itself to the
single point for adjudication. Not only, as has been said,
were the underlying elements of contention wholly out of
view, but there was reserve on other matters. The question
was not adverted to of the doubtful elements of majority or
minority between the parties, nor were the sources of the
property in contest, as derived from persons in or out of the
p
IN MASSACHUSETTS.
147
church, referred to. The question recognized by the court
was simply this: whether the claimants had been lawfully
appointed deacons of the First Church; that is, whether
the body which had appointed them was by law the First
Church.
The decision of the court was as follows: -
"When the majority of the members of a Congregational
church separate from the majority of the parish, the members
who remain, although a minority, constitute the church in such
parish, and retain the rights and property belonging thereto."
This legal decision would have been regarded as a mo-
mentous one had it applied only to the single case then in
hearing. But it was the establishment of a precedent which
would dispose of all like cases then to be expected to present
themselves in the troubles of the time between parishes and
the churches gathered within them. So far as it averted
further litigation and induced a recourse to other methods of
disposing of those like cases, it might be welcomed. The full
purport of the decision was that the law did not recognize a
church independently of its connection with the parish in
which it was gathered, from which it might sever itself and
carry property with it. Even the withdrawal of all the
members of the church from the parish would leave free
opportunity for a new church fellowship to be formed within
the parish, which would accede to all the rights and property
of the body that had retired.
Such was the disposal of a contested issue which was made
by the supreme legal tribunal of the State. Doubtless, as to
lawyers all things are possible, there were lawyers then, and
there may be lawyers now, who would dispute the decision.
Those of us who are not lawyers would at least, as I myself
certainly should, be diffident about any questioning or discuss-
148
THE CHURCH AND THE PARISH
ing of it.
But none the less the decision caused a shock
to the feelings and convictions of thousands in this com-
munity, of the most painful and exasperating character.
Even were I to offer to you as I shall not extended
relations and quotations from the documents of the time,
I should fail to reproduce in you the sentiments and pas-
sions, the dismay and the indignation roused in multitudes
then living.¹
After the brief historic reference which I have made to the
traditions, usages, and statutes concerning the privileges and
prerogatives of covenanted church bodies as connected with
miscellaneous congregations, I need not attempt to account
for the indignation and the deep sense of grievance and
wrong excited among those who fondly clung to the old ways
of piety here. I understand it, I appreciate it. Historically,
as I have said, I sympathize with it. The sting of that legal
decision was sharp and deep. Had it then come to this,
that the old churches of the fathers of the Puritan colony, the
covenanted bodies, the elect religious fellowship, the pledged
disciples of faith and piety, were the mere tenants on suffer-
ance of the meeting-houses, the appanages of parishes, de-
pendent upon them for roof and shelter, and upon the
ministrations of teachers that might be set over them as
pastors perhaps by unconverted tax-payers in the towns?
There was no disguising the fact that the decision availed
1 I quote but a single one from the many impassioned outbursts from
those who felt outraged by the decision of the court. It was made by
Rev. Dr. Enoch Pond, afterwards of the Theological Seminary of Ban-
gor: "We call the proceeding by the hard name of plunder. And we
call upon the courts of Massachusetts to revoke these unrighteous de-
cisions, and put the Congregational churches of the State upon their
original and proper basis (Half Century of the Unitarian Contro-
versy, p. 415).
IN MASSACHUSETTS.
149
to the countenance of the liberal or innovating party in
the churches.
But more than this, the decision, rightfully or not, was
believed by very many sincere and earnest persons to be a
grievous trespass upon vested rights sanctioned by usage,
allowance, and law in the churches. It may be that we may
find help towards an appreciation of the sense of wrong felt
in this matter of religious interest by the aggrieved party by
illustrating it, not from parallel, but from similar cases by the
decision of the law in secular affairs.
Soon after the recuperation following the Revolutionary
War the Legislature of this State gave an exclusive, favorable,
and perpetual charter to an incorporated company for what
was then regarded as a stupendous enterprise. It was the
building of the first bridge over the Charles, between Boston
and Charlestown. It proved a safe and vastly profitable
investment. Faithful trustees and guardians of the property
of others, the sacred securities of widows and children, com-
mitted to it their funds, purchasing the stock at a high pre-
mium, relying upon a pledged legal covenant.
Some years
afterwards, constraining reasons of business and convenience
induced the Legislature to violate its own covenant and to
charter a rival parallel bridge. Dismay and indignation for
the old proprietors naturally followed. The case ran through
all our courts, and the Supreme Court of the nation gave
validity to the trespass.
A similar case presented itself of complaints of outrage of
vested rights when the Legislature, by its charter of the
Eastern Railroad, struck at the value of the property invested
by a previous charter in the Salem Turnpike. These are
secular affairs. But we know well what intenser wraths may
stir in heavenly spirits about sacred things. Tante ne ire?
150
THE CHURCH AND THE PARISH
The difficulty of adjusting vested rights and institutions to
changes of opinion in religion has been met in every age of
developing civilization and knowledge. It is the province of
a special department of civil law. Antiquated designations
of trust funds have to be readjusted. The old Jewish syna-
gogues and the Roman basilicas, with or without law, became
Christian churches. At the Reformation, millions of acres of
land, cathedrals, churches, universities, schools, and uncounted
sums of endowed benevolences, the monuments of Roman
Catholic piety, were made over by Parliament to Protestant-
ism. Hoards of wealth, yielding its proceeds to the English.
Church, were originally consecrated for the saying of masses
for the repose of departed souls. What a disquieted and
· restless place that purgatory must have been conceived to be,
when such wealth and intercession were needed to bring
peace to its inmates!
Calvin found no qualms of conscience in preaching in the
old Roman Cathedral at Geneva, and I have myself attended
upon Unitarian ministrations there. But Protestantism, as I
said at the start, has always been amazed and shocked by
developments natural and inevitable from its own first princi-
ples. And so the law took away from our old churches the
privileges which it had once granted to them.
We need pursue our subject no further than to take note of
the fact that the law, as law, may have led the way to what
has become the most marked characteristic of our time in the
order and conduct of our religious institutions. The legal
decision, without any such intent, but none the less effec-
tively, did tend to discredit the old historic relation between
a covenanted sacramental body and the congregation within
which it was gathered. The law seemed to intimate this:
You must keep the teaching of religion and morality in a
IN MASSACHUSETTS.
151
parish distinct, as the prior and paramount object, from the
concerns of an inner fellowship for some special observances
of its own.
Has not this had the effect of throwing into the shadow
the church bodies in our old congregations? Certain it is
that in no one of those congregations, however closely it
might abide by the old standards of faith, would the church.
for one moment think of inducting a minister without having
made sure first of the approval of the society. Nor is this
all. We have in these days of ours, here and around us, be-
come wonted to a state of things which may be regarded,
from one point of view, as a recognition of the noblest
religious liberalism, independently of all bonds of creed and
covenant.
Among us especially, here and now, and largely elsewhere,
religious institutions, methods, and benevolences are sus-
tained yes, I will say it most generously and heartily
sustained by those who are not committed by any personal
pledge, creed, or covenant; even by many whose modesty
or conscience would lead them to shrink from assuming the
Christian name. Still they may have read or heard the words,
"Ye are my disciples, if ye do the things which I have com-
manded you."
Political, military, and religious conflicts constitute in his-
tory the larger and the most exciting portion of its records.
While they are passing they engage one class of feelings and
passions. The review of them by wise and calm reflection
is more favorable to sober judgment. Our minds are capa-
ble, if we will so train them, of a degree of impartiality. In
reviewing the local though intense dissension which we have
sought calmly to apprehend, of course we cannot look for
harmony and accord of opinion.
152
THE CHURCH AND THE PARISH
Yet a reasonable candor may prompt the friends and sym-
pathizers with the party aggrieved by the legal decision to
allow for the practical embarrassments with which it had to
deal. The real root of the difficulty was this: the church
had failed to draw in or to retain, as it once did, the majority
of the legal members of a parish. Indeed, in many cases
the membership of the church was but a small minority of
the parish. Certain feelings, prepossessions, prejudices, un-
sympathetic and even repelling, had made a connection with
it unattractive to considerable numbers of persons. The com-
municants too were disproportionately women, who were not
voters in business affairs.
As we have seen, the seceders from this parish were sev-
enty-one women and twenty-four men. Had women voted,
there might have been direct antagonism with their husbands.
Under the circumstances, constituted as a church was, it
could hardly have been expected that even if all its members
were of one mind the parish would yield to them the choice
of a minister. If in this or in any other society the church
had embraced a majority of the legal members of the parish,
there would have been no occasion for an appeal to the law;
it would then have been for dissatisfied communicant and
non-communicant members to withdraw, as in some cases
they did.
But why could not a church seceding by a positive major-
ity of its members carry with it church property? The reason
for denying that, as of right, seems to have been that that
property was of a very miscellaneous character, not admitting
of discrimination in its parts. It might have been long accu-
mulating from the town treasury, from individuals, and joint
contributors. It had always been identified with and used in
common by the local central place of worship for the parish.
IN MASSACHUSETTS.
153
The funeral bier and pall, the meeting-house, the parsonage,
the ministerial lands, charity funds, the baptismal font and
other sacred vessels, had been held and transmitted through
that parish, and must through it go down to the succession.
The church members might have the benefit of it, but could
not transfer it.
I have sought with candor and impartially to do justice to
that feeling of amazement and protest which followed the
adjudication subordinating an old Congregational church to a
parish. The same spirit of candor requires that a word be
said on the side of those who approved the decision as under
the circumstances of the time right and reasonable.
It was
judged by them as not just that the affairs and the funds of
a parish should be controlled by a self-constituted body of
church members, few or many, formed within it. There are
many evidences in our records that in several old parishes a
grudge or jealousy was long perpetuated from the restriction
of the civil franchise to church members. The relative num-
bers of the communicants had been steadily decreasing in
many parishes. To have retained its power the church
should have retained its weight of influence. In some cases
it did not. Had there been in a church a steady, strengthen-
ing growth in numbers and in the character of its members
to secure the respect and confidence of a community, there
would have been no lack of deference to it.
It would be safe to say, historically, that the church mem-
bers in a town were generally the more exemplary and esti-
mable of its people. But all were not such; and the free,
inquisitorial spirit of our community was critical in such mat-
ters. Meanwhile it was undeniable that equally estimable
and exemplary persons in a parish could not or would not.
pass the ordeal of admission to a church. The issue, in the
5
***
154 CHURCH AND PARISH IN MASSACHUSETTS.
it was
view of such persons, then became a plain one;
whether the owning of a covenant and the partaking of an
ordinance should secure in a parish the same exclusive right
which it once had in citizenship. Subsequent legislation has
put it fully within the power of corporate covenanted religious
bodies to hold their funds securely.
1
1
EARLY NEW ENGLAND UNITARIANS.
BY ANDREW P. PEABODY.
IT
ll
T is hard to trace the early history of Unitarianism in New
England. The name was seldom used, yet not omitted
with any view to concealment; for we have abundant proof
that the ministers to whom it belonged preached what they
believed clearly and fully, and it is in great part to still extant
passages from and accounts of their sermons that we are in-
debted for our knowledge of their opinions. But a marvellous
change had taken place in the last century, at the beginning
of which the denial of the Trinity would have seemed no better
than blasphemy; while at its close nearly all the clergy of
Boston and its vicinity and many others in Massachusetts
were known to dissent from the ancestral creed, to have
ceased to use Trinitarian doxologies, and to preach what was
then known as Arianism, regarding Jesus Christ as the great-/
est and oldest of created beings, but in no proper sense as
God. At the same time, so little stress was laid on the Trinity
by its professed believers that, with two or three exceptions,
these Arians remained in full church fellowship with those of
the orthodox faith. In the territory now within the limits of
Boston there were, a century ago, but two professedly Trinita-
rian ministers, one of them being Dr. Thacher, of the liberal
Brattle Square Church, while Dr. Eckley, of the Old South
Church, was known to entertain doubts as to the deity of
Christ.
156
EARLY NEW ENGLAND UNITARIANS.
This state of things is to be accounted for in large part by
the intimacy with England, English scholarship, and English
thought, which was closer in Boston than anywhere else in
America. I doubt whether the professed English Unitarians
had much influence here; for, though men of eminent piety,
ability, and learning, and politically on the side of the colonies
in their conflict with the crown, they were, with the exception
of Dr. Price, of a type of theological belief which has found.
little favor here, and has long been obsolete on its native soil.
They were materialists, and regarded the literal resurrection
of the body as a condition antecedent to the renewed and
eternal life of the soul. But a tidal wave of liberal thought
had swept over the English Church and overflowed into the
quarters of the orthodox dissenters. Samuel Clarke, the great-
est divine of his age, had given publication to opinions adverse
to the deity of Christ, and had even drafted such amendments
of the Prayer Book as might be consistent with his non-
Trinitarian belief, and he had many sympathizers among the
higher ranks and the more learned members of the clerical
body in his own church; while Doddridge and Watts, with-
out disclaiming the term "Trinity," professed opinions under
that head which are not in accordance with its ordinary
meaning.
This tendency in the English Church was cherished by two
of its creeds, the Apostles' Creed being simply Unitarian,
while the Nicene Creed is expressly anti-Trinitarian, making
Christ a derived and thus, of necessity, a subordinate being, -
God of God, or (more literally translated) from (that is, de-
rived from) God: the only distinction between the Nicene
fathers and the Arians having been that the latter believed
Christ to have been created by God, while the former main-
tained that he was derived from God, — a distinction mani-
EARLY NEW ENGLAND UNITARIANS.
157
festly without a difference, though in the early time rivers of
polemic ink and of martyr-blood were shed on account of it.
The English Church prescribes, indeed, the use, thirteen times.
in the year, of the Athanasian Creed, which is Trinitarian,
which was designed to correct the errors of the Nicene Creed,
and in which, with a logical consistency worthy of all admira-
tion, the English churchman calls down upon himself eternal
perdition for belief in the Nicene Creed, which he has just
repeated in the same act of worship.
It is little that a single lecture can do towards covering the
field assigned to me; and while I should be glad, had I time,
to speak of the growing definiteness of opinion and utterance,
of the condition of the churches and the community under
the more liberal dispensation of the Gospel, and of the quality
of the preaching in liberal pulpits, I shall confine myself chiefly
to biographical sketches of the principal Unitarian ministers
who flourished before the marked historical epoch of Chan-
ning's Baltimore sermon.
The earliest place in the record belongs to Ebenezer Gay,
minister of the First Church in Hingham, who died in 1787,1
in the ninety-second year of his age, and in the sixty-ninth
year of his sole pastorate, on a Sunday morning, arrested by a
sudden death-stroke while preparing for the usual pulpit-ser-
vice, the longest sole pastorate of which we have any
knowledge. His mind retained unimpaired vigor to the last ;
and on his eighty-fifth birthday he preached a sermon, entitled
"The Old Man's Calendar," which passed through several
editions, was reprinted in England, was also translated into
Dutch, and published in Holland. An edition of it must have
been printed as late as my boyhood; for I well remember a
fresh-looking copy which I read to my mother, as among the
then new acquisitions of our church library. I doubt whether
158
EARLY NEW ENGLAND UNITARIANS.
the century produced a better sermon, and it was but one of
his very many printed sermons; for he was called upon on all
the various public occasions on which superior ability is wont
to be sought. He had a gift more prized in his time than
now, that of a punster in the choice and treatment of his
texts. Thus, in a sermon at the ordination of a Mr. Carpen-
ter, he took for his text Zechariah's "man with a measuring
line in his hand." Again, in preaching at the ordination of
Joseph Green, he said: "We trust that he will be a Joseph
unto his brethren whom he is to feed with the bread of life;
and then, referring to Jacob's benediction on Joseph, he
added, "The Lord make him a fruitful bough, even a fruitful
bough by a well, and always green and flourishing in the
courts of our God." At the time of the Revolution, suspected
of lukewarmness to the popular cause, and called upon by a
committee appointed to disarm the Tories, who asked what
arms he had in his house, he took them into his study and
showed them a large Bible, saying, "There, my friends, are
my arms, and I trust they will always suffice for me." He
outlived any temporary disaffection, if there was any, on polit-
ical grounds, and left a precious memory as a man of rare
gifts and graces, sanctity of life and power of usefulness. The
elder President Adams enumerated him with several other
ministers in that neighborhood as having been well known as
Unitarians in the middle of the last century. But that there
was no ban upon him on that account would appear from his
life-long intimacy with Dr. Appleton of Cambridge, well
known as a moderate Calvinist. Indeed, Drs. Gay, Chauncy,
and Appleton, nearly coevals, were virtually as brothers, and
the three performed the principal parts in the ordination of
Dr. Howard, of the West Church in Boston, who was settled
as a Unitarian.
Ada be
""
EARLY NEW ENGLAND UNITARIANS.
159
In his own profession, as a writer, as a man of profound
and varied learning, and as mighty in the Scriptures, Charles
Chauncy, minister of the First Church in Boston, had in his
time no equal. Though in the pulpit he was handicapped by
a puny frame and a feeble voice, his services were claimed
on all occasions of importance, and his printed sermons are
reckoned by the score. It is related of him that in his youth,
disgusted by noisy fanatics, he besought God never to make
him an orator. His prayer was granted; yet with the weight
of his words there was a discriminating emphasis which satis-
fied the understanding, together with a not infrequent intensity
of earnestness which powerfully moved the sensibility of his
hearers. He was a man of quick temper and strong impulses,
yet of such perfect self-control that in a life of seldom inter-
mitted controversy he was remarkable for uniform candor,
meekness, forbearance, and courtesy in the treatment of his
antagonists. He was an ardent patriot. In the Revolution
he had so firm confidence in the justice of his country's cause
that he was wont to say that, if the people of the land did not
win the day by human might, a host of angels would be sent
from heaven to fight for them.
But he denounced in unspar-
ing terms, and from an early period in his ministry, those
fraudulent devices of baseless paper currency, enforced legal
tender, and the like, which have disgraced civilization from
the declining days of the Roman Commonwealth down to our
own Civil War. As early as 1747 he preached an election
sermon, which on this very ground gave such offence to the
General Court that the question whether it should be printed
by legislative resolve was earnestly debated. His reply, when
he was informed of this discussion, was characteristic: "It
shall be printed, whether the General Court print it or not;
and do you say from me that, if I wanted to initiate and in-
160
EARLY NEW ENGLAND UNITARIANS.
M
struct a person into all kinds of iniquity and double-dealing, I
would send him to our General Court."
Dr. Chauncy was not only of the most liberal school of
theology as to the Divine nature, he published several
works in which he maintained the ultimate salvation of all
men; and though in this he stood alone, so far as we know,
among the New England clergy, he was so admired for his
commanding ability, and so venerated for the beauty of
holiness in his life, that he seems never to have been alien-
ated from the cordial friendship and fellowship of those from
whom he differed most widely. He died in 1787, after a
ministry of sixty years, for the first twenty-two of which he
was the colleague of Rev. Thomas Foxcroft, and for the
last nine years was aided by Rev. Dr. John Clarke as junior
pastor.
Jonathan Mayhew, of the West Church in Boston, was
fifteen years younger than Dr. Chauncy, but died twenty-
one years before him. He was the only one among the
liberal clergy of his time who was not, outwardly at least,
in full fellowship with his brethren, and in all probability it
was due to his personal peculiarities rather than to his belief
that he was an exception. I cannot find that in his opinions
he was more latitudinarian than Dr. Gay, and he was less so
than Dr. Chauncy. But, while singularly amiable, sweet, and
lovely in character and in private intercourse, he seemed at
born belligerent. Whatever he believed he presented in its
antagonistic aspects. He had no tolerance even for honest
error, still less for shams; and while, as I think, he had
truth always on his side, his exposition of it was often better
adapted to exasperate and imbitter than to persuade or con-
vince. This tendency, so widely at variance with his genuine.
kindliness of heart, was due, no doubt, in great part, to his
EARLY NEW ENGLAND UNITARIANS.
161
ancestry and training. He belonged to a kingly race, to
a family pre-eminently masterful, accustomed to rule, and
unaccustomed to contradiction and antagonism. His great-
great-grandfather was proprietor and governor of Martha's
Vineyard and the adjacent islands, and, while exercising a
benignantly absolute sway in temporal matters, because after
the death of his son, who was a minister and missionary, he
could obtain no successor in his place, commenced preach-
ing himself, at seventy years of age, and often made a jour-
ney of twenty miles on foot to officiate at some remote Indian
settlement. His son, grandson, and great-grandson, all min-
isters by education and profession, were missionaries to the
Indians of Martha's Vineyard and pastors of such few white
families as were on the island; and, though with no other
authority than that of the greatest of servants, they were, of
necessity, virtually autocrats, and held a royal priesthood, in
which they were foremost in toil and self-sacrifice, and su-
preme in the allegiance and devotion of those whose souls
they held in charge. Jonathan Mayhew's father was the most
gifted of the series of missionaries, and, in the opinion of such
men as Drs. Gay and Chauncy, would, if in as conspicuous a
sphere, have won a reputation in no wise inferior to that of
his son.
He is said to have fitted his son for college, so that
the son had had none of that contact and conflict with the out-
side world which might have tempered his ardor, quelled his
self-assertion, and smoothed and rounded his statements of
unacceptable beliefs and opinions. He must have exhibited
something of this uncompromising plainness of utterance in
his novitiate; for on the day appointed for his ordination
only two of the invited council made their appearance, and
they declined to perform the service, advising the summoning
of another council. This was done; and of fifteen ministers
II
162
EARLY NEW ENGLAND UNITARIANS.
invited, not one of them from Boston, eleven were present,
and among them was Dr. Appleton of Cambridge, who un-
doubtedly had become acquainted with young Mayhew while
he was in college, and prized him, in spite of his heterodoxy,
for his sterling worth. Many of those who kept aloof from
Mayhew at the outset subsequently became his warm friends,
and were in professional, no less than personal, fellowship with
him. But he never joined the Boston Association. It was,
and, I believe, still is the custom for newly settled ministers
to ask for admission to membership, and as there is no record
of his application having been made and refused, the proba-
bility is that he omitted asking rather than incur the risk of
a refusal. He, therefore, took no part in the Thursday lec-
tures, but established a Wednesday lecture of his own, which
drew large audiences from other churches. There probably
lingered in his church some feeling adverse to the Boston
Association, as Mayhew's successor, Dr. Howard, postponed
application for membership for twenty-two years, and until the
Association took the unprecedented step of appointing a com-
mittee to inquire of him whether he was willing to join them.
When the frieze of Sanders Theatre, at Cambridge, was to
be graced with busts of distinguished orators, Dr. Palfrey, than
whom no man was better fitted to be an impartial judge in such
matters, urged very strongly the claim of Mayhew to the place
assigned to Daniel Webster. I believe that he was in the
right. I have no doubt that Mayhew was the most eloquent
man of his time, and more efficient as an orator than Webster
ever had the opportunity of being. During the nineteen years
of his ministry he was by far the most conspicuous pulpit.
orator in Boston. Hearing him was deemed not a mere Sun-
day duty, but a privilege of the highest order, awakening,
inspiring, uplifting, edifying. His printed sermons have noth-
EARLY NEW ENGLAND UNITARIANS.
163
ing of the stilted formalism not uncommon in the last century.
They are still live sermons, with nothing obsolete except what
ought to be obsolete in sermons a century old, namely, that
which makes every really good sermon fit for its own place
and time; for the sermons which retain, after a century, all
the life that they ever had are such as, whatever their other
merits, lacked life at the outset.
But Mayhew's claim to enduring remembrance as an orator
rests not solely on theological, though I will not say, not on
religious, grounds. Patriotism was with him, as with the
Hebrew prophets, an altar-fire, and its cause a sanctuary ser-
vice. No one of his coevals had so deep an insight, so keen
a foresight as he, as to the wrongs and needs, the rights
and destiny, of these then British provinces. He voiced the
earliest outcry of an oppressed people, and hailed the first
faint dawn of freedom. He was in constant intercourse and
correspondence with Otis, Bowdoin, the Adamses, and their
coadjutors. His profession, so far from being a hindrance to
him in the public service, only multiplied his opportunities
and enhanced his influence as a leader and a guide in resist-
ance to the usurpations of the home-government, and in the
initial measures towards emancipation from it; and we have
ample evidence that his counsel in public affairs was most
prized by the wisest and best men.
The same vivid sense of right and justice which deter-
mined his political action led him into a controversy, which
might have passed into oblivion were it not for a memorial
of it of which I shall presently speak. The English Society
for Propagating the Gospel in Foreign Parts, chartered by
William III. in 1701, manifestly designed and endowed for
missionary purposes, both for subsidizing the ministry in
English settlements destitute of gospel privileges and for
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EARLY NEW ENGLAND UNITARIANS.
evangelizing the Indians, and recognized as so intended in
sermons in its behalf by such men as Bishops Butler and
Beveridge, had spent its annual income chiefly in establish-
ing and maintaining Episcopal churches in places by no
means destitute of the means of grace, such as Boston, Cam-
bridge, Salem, Newbury, Portsmouth, Bristol, New London,
and had repeatedly taken advantage of the disaffection of
two or three members of a congregation to plant such
churches where they were neither needed nor wanted. In-
deed, there are still existing considerable church-funds de-
rived from property of this society that remained in the
country after the Revolution. So much had been incident-
ally said and written as to this mode of proceeding as to
call forth a plausible pamphlet in defence of the society from
one of its missionaries, Rev. East Apthorp, who had at Cam-
bridge a congregation of ten or twelve families close under
the shadow of the college and the parish church, and who
was said to be bishop expectant, if not designated, of all
North America. Mayhew replied to this paper in a pamphlet
of nearly two hundred pages, intensely strong, wise, but with-
out the meekness of wisdom, trenchant, sarcastic, stinging,
speaking the truth, but certainly not in love, not with grace
seasoned with salt, but all salt and no grace. He was an-
swered by Dr. Caner of King's Chapel and Dr. Johnson of
Connecticut, and also in some scurrilous doggerel, with a
copious prose commentary, by a person who misnames him-
self "a gentleman of Rhode Island Colony." Mayhew re-
butted the assault by the Episcopal divines in a reply of
marvellous keenness and not unrighteous severity. Mean-
while, on the other side of the Atlantic the quarrel had been
taken up by Archbishop Secker, who writes with no little
power of sophistical argument, and at the same time very
EARLY NEW ENGLAND UNITARIANS.
165
superciliously. In his lordly way he calls Mayhew "the poor
man." To this pamphlet Mayhew's reply is scathing and
withering. In the course of it he says: "I am indeed, even
literally, a poor man,' as this gentleman calls me, I suppose,
in another sense, and in that respect I have been publicly
upbraided by some of the very decent writers against the
Observations; nor has even the honest, irreproachable
memory of my father wholly escaped their insults." And
then, alluding to the mole-paths by which Secker's enemies.
reproached him with having wriggled into place and grov-
elled into lordly rank, he adds: "I had much rather be the
poor son of a good man who spent a long life in the humble
and laborious, though apostolical, employment of preaching
the unsearchable riches of Christ to poor Indians, and one,
as I suppose, now at rest from his labors with the spirits of
just men made perfect, than even the rich son and heir of
one who had, by temporizing in religion and tampering with
politics, by flattering the great and prostituting his conscience,
made his way to a bishopric,—how large a bag soever he had
carried with him through a life of idleness and pride, of in-
trigue and luxury, or left behind him at death, the black
period of all his greatness and glory." This answer, unan-
swered and unanswerable, was printed in 1764.
Dr. Mayhew died in 1766. When he was at the point of
death, Dr. Cooper, himself a Calvinist, asked him if he re-
tained the opinions that he had taught. He replied firmly
and earnestly, though with difficulty of utterance, “I hold fast
my integrity, and it shall not depart from me." It is worthy
of note that the first prayer ever offered at a funeral in Boston,
except by Episcopal ministers, was offered by Dr. Chauncy
at Dr. Mayhew's funeral, our fathers having dreaded even the
appearance of praying for the dead.
6
166
EARLY NEW ENGLAND UNITARIANS.
On receiving the news of Mayhew's death, Thomas Hollis,
the third of the name among the benefactors of Harvard Col-
lege, who already possessed a likeness of Mayhew, procured
an engraving of him, in the best style of the time, with May-
hew's two pens crossed over the Archbishop's mitre, the pens
expanding at the feather end into ripened wheat-stalks, and
girt with a laurel wreath enclosing the legend, "I am indeed
a poor man," with the inscription beneath the whole: "Jona-
than Mayhew, D.D., pastor of the West Church in Boston,
an asserter of the civil and religious liberties of his country
and mankind, who, overplied by public energies, died of a
nervous fever, July vii., MDCCLXVI., aged XXXXV." Of
this engraving I have a copy that was the property of Edward
Wigglesworth, the second of the name, and the second Hollis
Professor of Divinity in Harvard College, which I suppose to
have been a gift-copy from Hollis to the incumbent of the
professorship bearing the family name, and founded by his
great-uncle.
4
Passing over several honored names which I have not time
to mention, I come to Jeremy Belknap, the first Congregational
minister of the Federal, now Arlington Street Church, which
till 1787 had been a Presbyterian church. He was settled for
nearly twenty years in Dover, New Hampshire, and while there
published the first of his three volumes of the "History of New
Hampshire," which, in point of comprehensiveness, thorough-
ness, and accuracy, left nothing to be desired, and half a
century ago still retained its place as second to no historical
work that had appeared on this side of the Atlantic. He left
Dover on account of the utter inadequacy of his salary. In
Boston he had the reputation of a sound preacher, a scholar
of large and varied attainments, and a model man as to all the
graces of the Christian character. He was a pioneer in the
Man
EARLY NEW ENGLAND UNITARIANS.
167
(C
anti-slavery cause, in 1788 drew up a successful petition to
the Massachusetts legislature for the abolition of the slave-
trade, which in this State had survived the existence of do-
mestic slavery, labored for the same cause in Providence in
connection with Moses Brown of happy memory, and was
elected an honorary member of the Society for Abolishing
the Slave-trade in Rhode Island. His sense of the Divine
goodness recoiled from the dogma of eternal punishment, and
he inclined to the belief that the resurrection of those unfit
for heaven would be to what he called a mortal life," to
be terminated by a second death." His memory has the
double association, on the one hand, of his warm and elo-
quent defence of the congregation of King's Chapel in ordain-
ing James Freeman, and, on the other hand, of his friendly
agency in procuring for the Charlestown church the services
of Dr. Morse, for many years the chief leader of all assaults
on liberal theology. Dr. Belknap performed a signal service.
in the compilation of a book of Psalms and Hymns for public
worship, free from any recognition of the Trinity or of the
supreme deity of Christ, a book which remained in use in
his own and in many other churches till it was superseded by
Greenwood's collection. It was used in my church at Ports-
mouth when I was first settled, and contained not a few sacred
lyrics which I have been sorry to miss in later hymnals. Dr.
Belknap died in 1798, at the age of fifty-four.
The only remaining Massachusetts minister whom my limits.
will permit me to commemorate is James Freeman, whose
name lingers in so recent, loving, and reverend remembrance
that, were it not for the unique position which he held, it
might seem superfluous to dwell upon his history. But
while he was surrounded by Unitarian ministers, they were
pastors of churches that had not so far committed themselves
Ma
168
EARLY NEW ENGLAND UNITARIANS.
that they might not have settled pastors of a different type,
while he was the first man who, as a publicly avowed Unita-
rian, was pastor of a church declared by its own corporate ac-
tion to be a Unitarian church. For several years the people
of the Old South Church, while their house of worship was
occupied by the British troops, and afterward while it re-
mained unrepaired, worshipped in King's Chapel alternately
with the chapel congregation, the service of the Prayer Book
being read once every Sunday. Mr. Freeman commenced his
services as reader, and when in 1782 the Old South congrega-
tion returned to their own church, he was invited to become
minister of the Chapel. He was permitted at the outset to
make some changes in the English liturgy, and the more read-
ily because there were portions of it which, as no longer British
subjects, the American ministers of the English Church were
compelled to omit or modify. He became convinced that
the Trinity was not a Christian or a Scriptural truth; and after
hearing a series of discourses from him on Christian doctrine,
a majority embracing three-fourths of his congregation voted
to adopt a modified liturgy conformed to their altered belief
and that of their minister-elect. He, in vain of course, sought
episcopal ordination; and at length, in 1787, the congrega-
tion took the ground sanctioned by the Cambridge Platform,
that the greater right of election includes the lesser right of
ordination, and the wardens were accordingly authorized to
induct Mr. Freeman into the ministerial office, which he filled
as sole pastor for twenty-two years, remaining senior pastor
till his death, in 1835. He and his classmate, Bentley of
Salem, though not materialists, were probably in closer sym-
pathy with the English Unitarians than the men of whom I
have already given sketches. They were not Arians. Dr.
Freeman would probably have been in accordance with the
1
EARLY NEW ENGLAND UNITARIANS.
169
more recent Unitarians who see in Christ all of the Divine A
that can be made human. As a preacher and a pastor he
held as high and as dear a place as a Christian minister ever
held; and while in his infirm old age his voice was no longer
heard in public, his home at Newton was a Mecca for saintly
pilgrimage. Of those who knew him, no one lives who does
not deem having known him a subject for fervent gratitude;
for with all the cardinal virtues of a mature Christian charac-
ter he united those tender, delicate hues and tints of spiritual
beauty which make goodness supremely lovely and shed on
lengthened years the dawning light of heaven.
In Connecticut there was, during the last century, in the
Congregational churches no open dissent from the estab-
lished standard of orthodoxy, though there may have been
in the very numerous Episcopal churches a wider latitude
of opinion. In the early part of the present century there
were three cases of trial for heresy, which may properly be
regarded as historical, both on account of the extensive pub-
licity given to them and on account of the signal merit of
the persons accused.
The earliest of these cases was that of John Sherman, a
grandson of the eminent patriot and statesman, Roger Sher-
man, it may be, inheriting from him the spirit of protest;
for there has recently come to light and will soon be issued
from the press a correspondence between Roger Sherman,
then a deacon of the New Haven church, and Dr. Hopkins
of Newport, in which Sherman impugns the stern, repulsive,
and now obsolete type of Calvinism which, under the name
of Hopkinsianism, was rife in the New England churches.
John Sherman, a graduate of Yale College, was settled in the
First Church of Mansfield, Connnecticut, in 1797. Before his
ordination he drew up a rigidly Calvinistic confession of
170
EARLY NEW ENGLAND UNITARIANS.
fria
faith, and insisted on its being signed by all the members
of the church. At any early period of his ministry, however,
before he began to doubt the truth of that confession, he
recommended and obtained from his church a vote, "That
our creed is only a manifestation of the general sentiment
of the church, and not a test of communion in church privi-
leges; but that we will hold Christian fellowship with all,
whatever may be their particular theological opinions, who
afford, by a life and conversation according to the gospel, a
comfortable evidence that they are the friends of Christ." It
may seem strange, but it is by no means a solitary case, that
Mr. Sherman's first doubts as to the Trinity were awakened
by Dr. Watts's treatise on the "Glory of Christ," in which he
develops what used to be called "the indwelling scheme,"
and which, if published now, would be regarded as a Unita-
rian work, maintaining, as it does, that the divinity of Christ
consists in the full indwelling of God in what else were
Christ's pure humanity. Mr. Sherman subsequently became
acquainted with professedly Unitarian English writers, was
led by them to make a thorough and careful examination of
the Scriptures, and came to the conclusion that they teach
the unity of God and do not teach the Trinity. His minis-
try had up to that time been in the highest degree success-
ful, and he was greatly beloved by his people. When they
were informed of his change of opinions, a single deacon was
the only man who was disposed to make complaint of him.
In all probability his hearers recognized in his statement of
belief the very impressions which, ignorant of controversy,
they had derived from their own reading of the Bible; for
where these questions have not been raised, it is only a very
simple theology and Christology that the devout mind of
average intelligence finds in the Gospels. But the clerical
EARLY NEW ENGLAND UNITARIANS.
171
Association to which Mr. Sherman belonged took the alarm.
They proposed to convene the clergy and laity of the
churches in the county, in Consociation, as a court for the
trial of Mr. Sherman, a court of that kind having been
authorized by the Saybrook platform, yet having never been
regularly organized, nor even recognized as existing in any
previous instance. The Association, finding that the Mans-
field church as a body would take no action towards the trial
of their minister, voted as a clerical body to suspend their
ministerial connection with him. He then asked for a dis-
mission; and a mutual council, friendly to him, advised the
dissolution of his pastorate, with the expression of strong
esteem and confidence, and a cordial recommendation to
such churches as should see fit to receive him, at the same
time declining to pass judgment on his opinions. The
action of the Association had meanwhile increased the num-
ber of disaffected church members to ten; but the society
as a body and a majority of the church adhered to him,
expressed their undiminished regard for him, and mani-
fested their attachment to him by a handsome pecuniary
donation, and by other presents to him and his family. Not
only so, but in less than two months after the meeting of
the council, the society and the church passed votes inviting
him to return and settle again as their minister.
He, meanwhile, was forming new relations. He went to
Oldenbarneveldt, or what is more commonly called Trenton
Village, in New York, and there became the first minister
of the oldest Unitarian society in that State.
The village
was founded and named by Colonel Mappa, who came to
this country as agent of the Holland Land Company, and
Adrian Van der Kemp, a Dutch clergyman and refugee, who
was said to have been one of the most learned men living,
172
EARLY NEW ENGLAND UNITARIANS.
and as such was made Doctor of Laws by Harvard College,
though I doubt whether he ever set foot in New England.
The elder Mr. Huidekoper must have been there at that
time. He came to America as Colonel Mappa's clerk,
and was
an inmate in his family till he went to Phila-
delphia, whence he removed to Meadville, still in the
service of that same Holland Land Company. These men
were earnest and devout Unitarians, and they gathered
about them a congregation of superior intelligence and
worth, and attracted to the village many visitors of emi-
nence, and not a few permanent residents of like spirit with
themselves. There remain on the spot no members of either
family; but the Van der Kemp house is now the parsonage.
Mr. Sherman was installed there in 1806; but his ministry
was not of long duration. He removed to Trenton Falls,
established an academy there, and enjoyed great popularity
as a teacher. He built the oldest part of the hotel at the
Falls, where he died in 1828. The house passed into the
hands of his son-in-law, Mr. Moore, whose fine taste, large
culture, musical genius, and gentlemanly manners merged
the quality of an innkeeper in that of a courteous and gen-
erous host, and whose recent death must have saddened
very many who have enjoyed his hospitable attention and
kindness.
Mr. Sherman, about the time of his leaving Mansfield,
published a volume the first few words of whose long title
are "One God in One Person only," the earliest formal
defence of Unitarianism that was ever issued from the New
England press. I have examined it with care, and find it
indicative of profound thought, of a depth and accuracy of
critical scholarship level with the best scholarship of its
time, and of the directness and boldness of expression befit-
EARLY NEW ENGLAND UNITARIANS.
173
ting one who feels the obligation of explicitness and honesty
in dealing with sacred themes.
Abiel Abbot, a native of Wilton, New Hampshire, a graduate
of Harvard College, and at one time a tutor, was ordained pas-
tor of the church in Coventry, Connecticut, in 1795. He was
a member of the council that dismissed and recommended
Mr. Sherman, and was led to review his theological opinions
by his interest in Mr. Sherman's case. In 1809 his preach-
ing in accordance with his altered views on controverted
subjects began to occasion uneasiness in his church, which,
in 1811, by vote of a majority, applied to the Association of
ministers in Tolland County to organize the Consociation
of the county, for which authority was claimed as a tribu-
nal of last resort. Mr. Abbot and the society denied the
jurisdiction of this body, which by vote declared the minis-
terial relation of Mr. Abbot dissolved, and revoked the
commission which they certainly had not given him and
therefore could not recall by which he was authorized to
preach the Gospel and administer its ordinances. Rev. Dr.
Osgood, of Medford, strongly orthodox, yet as strongly lib-
eral, advised Mr. Abbot to continue his ministration as if
there had been no adverse movement, telling him that he
had no more reason to tremble at the anathema of the Con-
sociation of Tolland County than at a bull of the Roman
pontiff. The majority of his society were of the same mind.
But at his request, and on his part for the sake of peace,
they joined with him in summoning a mutual council, which
in accordance with his own judgment advised the dissolution
of his pastorate, at the same time cordially recommending him
to the churches.
Dr. Abbot, on removing from Connecticut, became princi-
pal of Dummer Academy, and subsequently returned to his
EARLY NEW ENGLAND UNITARIANS.
į
174
native place. In 1827 he was installed as pastor of the First
Church in Peterborough, New Hampshire, where he remained in
active duty for twelve years, and as senior pastor for nine years
longer. A few years after his resignation he took up his resi-
dence with his grandson, Rev. Samuel Abbot Smith of Arling-
ton, and retained his full powers of mind till his death in 1859,
at the age of ninety-four. In his pastorate at Peterborough
he did more than all other men had done before him in the
cause of education, in the improvement of the schools, in the
establishment of school, church, and ministerial libraries, and
in the diffusion of intelligence, not only in his own town, but
in that whole district of New Hampshire. In these labors
Rev. Dr. Leonard, the Unitarian minister of Dublin, was his
efficient coadjutor. Dr. Abbot was a man of scholarly tastes
and habits, enjoyed the reading of the classics till the last
week of his life, and hardly ever passed a day without read-
ing a portion of the New Testament in Greek, or without dis-
covering some new shade of meaning here and there that had
escaped his previous notice. He was a man of the Beatitudes,
so pure, so gentle, so full of love to God and man, that there
seemed nothing of him but the earthly tabernacle that was not
ready for heaven years and years before he went to heaven.
Rev. Dr. Sprague, the historian of the American pulpit, was
the first child that he baptized, was afterward his pupil, and
held him in such affectionate regard that for many years, and
until the autumn before his death, he never let a year pass
without visiting him. Though Dr. Sprague was a Calvinist of
the old school, I am sure that, if he had made a catalogue of
modern saints, Dr. Abbot would have headed the list.
The third case to which I referred is that of Rev. Luther
Willson, father of Rev. Mr. Willson of Salem. He was settled
in Brooklyn, Connecticut, in 1813, as colleague pastor with Rev.
1
EARLY NEW ENGLAND UNITARIANS.
175
Dr. Josiah Whitney, a moderate Calvinist. In 1816, Mr. Will-
son having formed and uttered from the pulpit theological
opinions other than those of his senior, Dr. Whitney called a
church-meeting for conference on the subject, which was dis-
cussed anew at an adjourned meeting at which a majority of
the church, thirteen out of the twenty-three present, voted
that "the Trinity is an essential or fundamental doctrine."
At a subsequent meeting Mr. Willson agreed with his church
to call a mutual council, to give fit advice under their peculiar
circumstances. The council, all men of approved orthodoxy,
say in their result that neither the church nor the society con-
siders Mr. Willson as having forfeited his ministerial character
by his change of opinions, nor does the church or the society
desire his removal from office. They therefore recommend
mutual charity, and the concession to one another of the lib-
erty which each claims for himself. The church immediately
declared by vote of the majority their approbation of this re-
sult. But outside influences were continually at work. Five
brethren of the church were induced to apply, not to the
Association to which Mr. Willson and his senior belonged,
which had been formed by secession from the rigidly Hop-
kinsian members who were the major part of the clergy of
the county, but to the original Association, who were asked,
with delegates from their several churches, to sit in Consocia-
tion, or as a court of judicature. Mr. Willson denied the ju-
risdiction of this body, which, however, declared his pastoral
office in the churches in its connection and fellowship to be
ended. The society refused to regard the action of the Con-
sociation as valid, and were ready to sustain Mr. Willson; but
he, with a view to pacification, proposed the calling of a mu-
tual council, with the understanding that his dismission should
be recommended. The council sanctioned his dismission,
176 EARLY NEW ENGLAND UNITARIANS.
with expressions of sympathy, approval, and confidence. The
church subsequently excommunicated Mr. Willson and several
of the members who had been his supporters. A minority of
the society, with a majority of the church, seceded with the
senior pastor, leaving the old church edifice and organization,
with all legal rights thereto appertaining, to the First Church.
in Brooklyn, which, long the only Unitarian church in Con-
necticut, enjoyed for many years the ministry of Rev. Samuel
J. May, and which, after a season of depression, yet never of
discouragement, now gives promise of renewed and vigorous
life.
Mr. Willson, on leaving Brooklyn, thought of abandoning
his profession; but after spending some time in Boston, ast
Dr. Channing's guest for a week, and in intimate intercourse
with other ministers of like faith with himself, he was induced
to remain in the ministry, and in 1819 he accepted an invi-
tation to the pastorate of the church in Petersham, which
after fifteen years he resigned on account of impaired health.
Having had in early life much and successful experience as a
teacher, he took the schools of Petersham under his special
charge, and is still lovingly remembered there by all who knew
him, and by none more lovingly than by those who, as pupils
in the public schools, had in their childhood the benefit of his
double pastorate. Of what manner of spirit he was, may be
known from the fact that at one time Dr. Tuckerman corre-
sponded with him with a view to his becoming associated with
himself in the Ministry-at-Large. He died in 1864, leaving
the spotless record of a life passed in simplicity and godly sin-
cerity, and in the close and constant following of his Saviour.
Of the men whom I have commemorated, the first four
died before I was born. The last two are the only ones
whom I knew, and them not intimately. I wish that I had
EARLY NEW ENGLAND UNITARIANS.
177
time to speak of the ministers with whom I had a nearer
acquaintance, who were advanced in years when I was young.
But I have far exceeded the normal lecture-hour.
Permit me to say in closing: Circumstances have placed
me in intimate relations with many ministers and Christian
men and women of all our leading denominations, and I am
fully convinced that there is among the various portions of
the Church a much more nearly equable distribution of God's
choicest gifts and of the richest fruits of the Spirit than bigoted
sectarians are willing to admit. I have in no quarter of the
Church failed to find many whom I could both admire and
love. Yet, were I to select special models as Christians and
ministers, I should not need to look beyond the pale of those
ministers of our faith whom I learned to love and honor in
my youth, and whose memory is among the blessed and price-
less privileges of my old age.
12
CHANNING.
BY GEORGE W. BRIGGS.
DR.
R. Channing was the acknowledged leader of the Unita-
rian communion when it became a separate Christian
body, and his name is still the foremost in the American liberal
church. He died more than forty-six years ago; but though
dead he is speaking still through the myriad copies of his
works so widely circulated both here and abroad, often finding
their way into other communions than his own, and carrying
forward the work to which he gave his life. Indeed, the
loving portraitures of his character, and the splendid tributes
to his influence in elaborate discourses and glowing eulogies,
both in England and America, on the hundredth anniversary
of his birth, almost seemed actually to make him live again,
once more to speak with his former persuasiveness and power.
I have been accustomed to think of him as in many respects
an ideal man. An ideal theologian he certainly was, neither
the maker nor the servant of any system of opinions, ignoring
all fetters for himself, imposing none upon others, entirely
consecrating himself to a constant search after higher truth.
One closely allied to him in blood termed him an ideal Ameri-
can. And truly among the statesmen and patriots who laid
the foundations of the Republic, or have nobly served it, I
think of no one who was more inspired by that great hope for
humanity, and that reverence for its sacred rights which are
the basis of the nation, or more fully possessed by the spirit of
liberty which is the breath of its life.
CHANNING.
179
I must be pardoned for a personal reference. It would be
absolute ingratitude if I did not speak of Dr. Channing with
loving reverence. In my youth he was at the summit of his
fame, and I owed to him the priceless benefit of new views of
truth, new thoughts that came as Heaven-sent helpers amid
perplexity and doubt. When another's word has helped and
saved us, we understand why the woman poured the costly
ointment upon the Master's feet. At one period two preach-
ers were of more help to me than any, or all, beside. One
was Dr. Dewey, who made the pulpit truly a throne. The
other was Dr. Channing. It was the writings of Dr. Channing
that helped me, rather than his pulpit services. I saw him
only three times in the pulpit, once when he preached at
the dedication of the church in Newport, Rhode Island, once
when he gave the charge at an ordination in Northampton,
and once when he simply read a hymn. The charm of his
voice, the sweetness and fervor of his manner, the simplicity
and grandeur of his thought, made both the sermon and the
charge inspirations. And in this line of the hymn, -
'Blessings abound where'er he reigns,"
the way in which he uttered the word "abound" seemed to
open to thought all the blessed results of the reign of Christ
in all the Christian centuries. Perplexed, driven to the verge
of unbelief by the only creed known to me in childhood, the
words of Dr. Channing came like sunshine after tempests,
flooding all things with light and beauty, revealing a new
heaven and a new earth. It is hard for men to-day to realize
the fascination of his earlier publications to those who were
then groping their way out of the old New England creed,
hungering and thirsting after a rational faith. No tale of
fiction was more absorbing. How well I remember one
CC
ISO
CHANNING.
early friend who pored over their pages far into the night,
as well as in his days of leisure, with continual joy. He
was the type of many beside. How little a truly inspired
speaker may know of the minds he wakens, the hearts he
subdues or calms, the souls he saves! Will not those to
whom he has opened the book of life at some time come
to him with blessing and praise, as the spirits in heaven
are pictured coming to him who opened the book with the
seven seals?
Dr. Channing was preordained by his parentage, by his
early training, by all the circumstances of his life, for the work
he was called to do. The man was fitted for the hour. All
hereditary influences were auspicious. His father was a suc-
cessful lawyer. Though he died in middle life, he had already
attained distinction in his profession, and was at the time of
his death not only the Attorney-General for the State, but also
the United States District Attorney for Rhode Island. He had
graces of character as well as high mental gifts, and although
firmly attached to the Congregational Church was liberal in
thought. The mother of Dr. Channing was the daughter of
William Ellery, one of the signers of the Declaration of Inde-
pendence from Rhode Island. She is described as a woman
of rare excellence, inheriting her father's energy, an embodi-
ment of devoted generosity and strict conscientiousness, of
determined straightforwardness and cordial love, making her
by the divine right of character an inspirer and guide.
The circumstances attending Dr. Channing's early days
were auspicious also. Born in the midst of the Revolution,
he grew up in the atmosphere of freedom, and heard in his
boyhood the earnest discussions of the noble patriots of that
time, and of the many eminent men who came to his father's
house. The spirit of Roger Williams, the founder of Rhode
M
CHANNINGCHAN
181
.
Į
Island, demanding "soul-liberty," ruled the State; so that the
love of freedom was infused into his blood.
Then, too, his whole experience was a religious experience.
Even in childhood he was called "the little minister," and in
college he made his decisive choice of the ministry as his pro-
fession. After he left college he went to Richmond, Virginia,
for a year and a half as a tutor. Living there among men who
had very different tendencies of opinion, he was impelled to
a thorough study of Christian evidences and Christian truths,
which confirmed his faith, and led him to consecrate himself
in the most solemn way to the service of God. That solemn
act of self-consecration was but the unfolding and flowering
of the seed planted in his heart in his earliest life. While at
Richmond, by his intense devotion to study remaining at
his desk far into the night — he laid the foundation of the ill
health of his whole after life; so that thereafter, to borrow
Dr. Bellows's felicitous expression, he had only enough of
physical frame "to anchor his body to the earth." At first,
his religious experience did not seem to bring religious joy.
He had some ascetic ideas respecting physical culture, and
tried to harden himself for difficult duties in the future. No
saint in the calendar ever questioned himself more rigidly, or
imposed upon himself stricter rules of self-discipline. But the
religious joy soon came, and he lived in that sunshine of the
spirit until the end. When asked in his latest days what is
the pleasantest period of life, he answered, "About sixty-two."
Truly his path was like the "shining light, that shineth more
and more unto the perfect day."
When he came back from the South, he devoted himself
anew to theological studies, reading much, but as the records
of his life imply, giving himself more to writing and to thought.
in his desire to concentrate his mind upon the great spiritual
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CHANNING.
truths, and to make them realities to his soul. In his twenty-
third year he began to preach, at once attracting attention by
the earnestness and fervor of his discourse and the purity of
his thought. Almost at once he had the opportunity to be-
come the minister either of the Brattle Square Society or of
the Federal Street Parish, since removed to Arlington Street.
Not deeming his health sufficient for the duties of the larger
society, he chose the Federal Street Parish, then the smaller.
But it could not remain small when he became its minister,
and six years after his settlement his church was taken down
and a larger building erected in its place in order to make
room for the many who came to hear him.
He constantly
gained a widening influence through all the earlier years of
his ministry, attracting the most intellectual by the grandeur
of his thought and the charm of his speech, winning the most
religiously disposed by his religious fervor. And therefore both
his position and his course were predetermined when the
changes in thought, which had been silently going forward for a
long period in the Congregational churches in the eastern part
of Massachusetts, became more pronounced, and the adherents.
of the older theology withdrew from ministerial intercourse
with their more liberal brethren.
Trained in the air of liberty, he could not fail to protest
with the utmost vigor against the system of exclusion then
adopted, as he did in the paper entitled "The System of
Exclusion and Denunciation in Religion Considered," pub-
lished in 1815. So, too, it was natural that at the ordination
of Mr. Sparks in Baltimore, in 1819, he should avail himself of
such a conspicuous opportunity to give a distinct statement
of the opinions generally held by his liberal brethren, — their
mode of interpreting the Scriptures, their views concerning
God and Christ, their idea of the nature of his mission and
CHANNING.
183
mediation. More than any one thing else, perhaps, that dis-
course brought matters to a crisis. Instantly the fires of con-
troversy began to blaze. But controversy was entirely alien to
Dr. Channing's nature, and he had comparatively little to do
himself with that warfare. It was Andover on the one side
guilty herself of broaching one little heresy of hope to-day
and the elder Dr. Ware, as the principal disputant, on the other.
One article was prepared by Dr. Channing for the "Christian
Disciple," a magazine established two years before, in which he
combated the objections to Unitarian Christianity; but then,
and in all later years, he principally devoted himself to unfold-
ing its positive excellences. Nevertheless, though so seldom
a combatant in their behalf, his character and his distinction
as a preacher gave him the leadership among his brethren.
Indeed, he thus became a leader, as by a divine election, before
there was any recognized company of men to follow him. For
the way in which the liberal-ministers of that time became
in any sense a separate Christian body was unique in religious
annals. They did not withdraw from their former religious
fellowship. Their old associates withdrew from them, refusing
all professional intercourse, thus turning them out of doors,
and compelling them to form a separate organization, or else
to have no religious brotherhood. It has been said that when
all the rest of the State of Massachusetts had been made into
separate townships, there was one small portion of its territory
that had been left out, not organized into a distinct commu-
nity. So the liberal churches and ministers were left out
some seventy years ago; and they were very slow in uniting
themselves together. It was not until 1820 that the minis-
ters formed the Berry Street Conference for discussion among
themselves alone, the association now called the Ministerial
Conference, meeting on the last Wednesday in May in Chan-
184
CHANNING.
į
ning Hall. The Unitarian Association, embracing laymen as
well as clergymen, was not formed until 1825. The liberal
churches had had a bitter experience of exclusion and denun-
ciation for opinion's sake. They were alive to the perils that
might attend associations, so forcibly presented in an article
by Dr. Channing, published in 1829, and it required years to
convince them that they could really form themselves into a
denomination without some danger to their individual liberty.
Perhaps the fear of that peril is not absolutely banished even
now.
Perhaps I have lingered too long among these introductory
thoughts. The truer design of this paper is to present some
statement of the opinions held by the liberal parishes when
they were cut off from their old religious fellowship, and
Dr. Channing may be taken as their exponent. We have
often heard in later years of Channing Unitarianism. What
I was that? Channing formulated no theological system, pre-
sented no creed. He would have been false to himself if he
had attempted it. But there were certain great truths that
dominated, and always inspired him, glowing before his mind
in hours of thought, recognized more or less directly when-
ever he wrote or spoke. If we give to them the name of
Channing Unitarianism, — Channing Unitarianism was a beau-
tiful faith, nourishing many whom we remember as noble,
saintly souls, bringing forth abundant fruits of righteousness.
Glance at these inspiring truths. One central faith with
Channing was the faith in the moral perfection of God. I
am not sure that we might not call it his commanding
thought, though it is not the one which is most frequently
connected with his name. In his Baltimore sermon, and in
the paper entitled "The Moral Argument against Calvinism,"
he vindicates the right of man to judge concerning the Crea-
n
CHANNING.
185
tor, contending that God himself has made it a duty by giving
us a moral faculty, and that if we decline to do it we violate a
primary law of our nature. "If God is incomprehensible,"
he says, "he is not therefore unintelligible, and we may form
distinct ideas concerning him, and can reason from those
ideas as justly as from any others." And so it was that he
took this idea of the moral perfection of God, and brought the
old New England faith before it for judgment. Tried by that
standard, the doctrine of depravity, either in its older form,
asserting that man has an utterly corrupt nature at birth, or as
modified, affirming that he comes into life under such circum-
stances as make it certain that he will become altogether sinful,
was an impeachment of the divine character. So too was the
terrible dogma that God of his sovereign will elected a certain
portion of the race to be saved from the else universal doom,
leaving the rest in a guilt that he himself had made inevitable.
Such dogmas made God infinitely unjust, a being to whom
man could owe no allegiance. The moral perfection of God,
the idea of the divine fatherhood, were vital truths, before
whose brightness the dogmas of the old theology fled away,
as the earth and heavens were pictured as fleeing from the
face of him that sat upon the great white throne, till there
was found no place for them. In Channing's view unjust and
unworthy ideas of God were the great spring of corruption in
religion. In one place he says, "The great controversies in
the Church may be resolved into one question: Is God per-
fectly good?" In his view the justice of God was the exact
adaptation of spiritual discipline to the moral condition of
every soul, and was thus only one phase of his mercy seeking
to work out the highest good for his every child. How ear-
nestly he pleaded against all dishonorable ideas of God! He
cries, "We cling to the divine perfections. Leave us a God
186
CHANNING.
2.
worthy of our love and trust, in whom our moral sentiments
may find delight, in whom our weaknesses and sorrows may
find a refuge.” It was such a God that he learned to worship
when he roamed along the beach of his native island in his
youth, and whom he adored with ever deepening love to his
latest day.
Another commanding idea with Dr. Channing was his con-
ception of the great purpose of Christianity. In respect to
the nature of Jesus, and the effect of his mission in procuring
the remission of human sin, his views were never clearly de-
fined to others, or as I think to himself. Writing concerning
the ideas of Unitarians in a letter to a friend in 1815, he said
that a majority believed that Jesus was more than man, and
that he literally came from heaven on his mission to the
world. In the Baltimore sermon in 1819, speaking of Jesus,
and the influences of his death in procuring forgiveness, he
said that many Unitarians, evidently including himself, "think
that the Scriptures ascribe the remission of sins to Christ's
death with an emphasis so peculiar, that we ought to consider
this event as having a special influence in removing punish-
ment, though the Scriptures may not reveal the way in which
it contributes to that end." I do not know that he ever modi-
fied his views upon these points, or made any statement that
was more distinct.
Land
M
But one thought respecting Jesus was like a forever burning
light, - the idea that he came to free men from sin, and to lift
humanity to its divinest possibilities of life. He delighted to
present Christianity in that aspect, as the ministry to raise.
men in the scale of spiritual being. No man had a pro-
founder reverence, or a tenderer love for Jesus. Still to
preach Christ, in his view, was not continually to dwell upon
his person, but to unfold his religion, to diffuse his spirit,
CHANNING.
187
the
and thus to promote the great aim of Jesus himself,
perfection of human character. The sermon at the ordina-
tion of Rev. Mr. Motte, in 1830, was entirely devoted to this
theme. In the sermon at the ordination of Dr. Farley in
Providence, in 1828, unfolding the sublime idea of likeness
to God as the aim and end of religion, the purpose of life,
the same truth was presented in a bolder form.
He re-
garded Jesus as the great emancipator, who came to set
free all our affections, faculties, and energies, to give perfect.
liberty, perfect development, to human nature.
If we may
borrow the illustration of a brilliant living preacher, as the
sun pours its light upon the earth to call forth myriad forms
of life into all their possibilities of beauty, so he thought
Jesus, the light of the world, shines upon the soul to inspire
and perfect its every germ of spiritual greatness, its every
God-given power.
}
But there was yet another idea which is more frequently
associated with the name of Dr. Channing, the doctrine of
the dignity of human nature. That thought indeed seemed.
to come to him as by a revelation in his early youth. One
day when he was in college, while he was reading passages
in a book that asserted man's capacity for a disinterested
affection, for perfect self-devotion, the truth of the greatness
of the human soul suddenly burst upon his mind, to be
thenceforth, in the words adopted by his biographer, "the
fountain light of all his day, the master light of all his see-
ing." The place and the hour of that revelation seemed to
him forever sacred. He found confirmations of this doctrine
of disinterestedness in the teachings of Dr. Hopkins, that
theological champion, so stern in his theology, but so benig-
nant at heart. For what was the startling declaration linked
with his name, that the proof of fitness to be saved is to be
そ
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CHANNING.
willing to be damned for the glory of God, but a repulsive
expression of the sublime idea of absolute self-devotion?
When the prodigal came back renouncing every right and
privilege of a son, condemning himself to a servant's place,
he proved his fitness to receive the forgiving kiss.
It was a moment of inspiration when Dr. Channing made
that splendid assertion of his conception of the dignity of
human nature in the words, "I regard all minds as of one
fainily." The words were simplicity itself, but the thought
was sublime. If all minds are of one family, or, as he else-
where says, 66
essentially of one origin, one nature, kindled
from one divine flame, tending to one centre, to one happi-
ness," then the old word that God made man in his own image
asserts at once the simplest and the greatest truth, and the
relation between God and man is truly that of father and child.
Then the family in heaven and earth is one. Dr. Channing
termed this the greatest of truths. It was a root idea with him,
which budded and blossomed into the beautiful theological
conceptions, the fair and sweet philanthropies, the splendid
hopes for humanity on earth, and for souls hereafter, which
found in him an expression and an advocate. It is interesting
to see how modern researches are bringing indirect yet real
confirmations of this inspiring thought. Channing proved it.
to himself by the thought that truth, which is the food and
inspiration of the mind, is the same everywhere; a truth of
mathematics, for example, being the same in all worlds, to
man and God. Science is proving that the same substances
exist in the sun and stars as in the earth. The same elements
exist, one law reigns, in the boundless realms of matter. Is
not the inference legitimate that one law also reigns in the
infinite realm of spirit? Science, which sometimes seems to
unsettle faith, is indirectly supporting its most ravishing con-
CHANNING.
189
ception, that the same truths exist in all spiritual spheres, tʊ
be the law and the life of all souls, to unite them into one
family and brotherhood.
It is hard to tear one's self away from the consideration
of such an enrapturing faith, and the inspiring thoughts
which it suggests. If all minds are of one family, kindled
by one flame, then there are no impassable gulfs to separate
me from the grandest souls. Then there is nothing in Jesus
himself of which we have not the possibility. and the germ.
Then if we should ascribe to Jesus only a human nature, we
should not derogate from his spiritual greatness, or deny his
divinity. Only a human nature? A true son of man is a
son of God; and the true son of God must be the son of
man. It is not strange that men were so impressed by the
way in which Dr. Channing uttered the words, "The human
soul." For that phrase, often so thoughtlessly spoken, al-
ways brought to him a vision of the infinite possibility of a
diviner life, and all his faith, and aspiration, and hope, and
joy, were in the tones of his voice when the words fell from
his lips.
Another favorite idea with Dr. Channing must be distinctly
named, although it has already been implied in what I have
said. He regarded religion as natural to man. In his view
all the great principles of human nature were its germs, and
the great expressions of religious truths were the developments
of the ideas that were wrought into the very structure of our
being, if we may speak so, written upon the soul itself by the
finger of God. In his Newport sermon he combated the as-
sertion that religion was a human contrivance, and worship an
unnatural service. And how well I remember the tone in
which he said, "You tell me, my sceptical friend, that religion
is the contrivance of the priest. How came the priest into
190
CHANNING.
being?" How many thoughts are suggested by this concep-
tion of religion as natural to man, and of its truths as the clear
unfolding of ideas originally stamped upon his nature. There-
fore how natural it is that we should find so many of the same
truths in widely different faiths, sublime moral precepts out-
side of Christendom, in the words of philosophers and sages.
Nobler, purer souls will discern the same truths, as those who
climb the mountain heights will have the same prospects
opening upon their sight. Therefore also the declarations of
revealed religion, as we term it, the higher religious teachings
coming from the lips of the inspired souls, prophets, apostles,
Jesus himself, — all this is the natural religion in the divinest
sense of the words. For what did Jesus do but tell the truths
that came to the sight of a true son of man as he looked into
the divinest things? There never were truer words than these
of Emerson :
"Out of the heart of nature rolled
The burdens of the Bible old."
These great declarations of truth are not made sacred be-
cause they are recorded in Bibles. They make Bibles sacred.
They are not true because Jesus uttered them. Jesus uttered
them because they are eternally true, their own witness and
proof to the living, inmost heart of man. The burdens of the
Bible are the record of the visions of the soul as it soars, in-
spirations that give it wings for a loftier flight.
I must leave this line of thought. Let no one confound my
inferences from some of his favorite ideas with the views of
Channing himself. But did I not rightly say that the central
thoughts in all his teachings-the idea of the moral perfec-
tion of God, of the great purpose of Christianity as the uplift-
ing of the human soul, of the dignity of human nature, of
religion as natural to man-made Channing Unitarianism a
:
CHANNING.
191
beautiful faith? What noble souls it nourished. I recall
them, commanding preachers, differing from each other ast
one star differeth from another star in glory, yet each one
a light in his own time and place; distinguished laymen,
leaders in life, often the rulers, always the safeguard of the
State. Time would fail me to name them, as time failed the
writer to the Hebrews to name the heroes of faith. And what
fruits of righteousness that form of Unitarianism produced!
What noble philanthropies it inspired! I turn to Channing
himself as its illustration. During all the later years of his life
he was not so much a preacher as a philanthropist. Possessed
by the thought of the greatness of the human soul as literally
the child of God, he longed to free men from every hindrance
to their noblest life. When no longer able often to speak in
the pulpit, he pleaded for the poor, for the elevation of the
laboring classes, for education, for temperance, and repeated
with deeper fervor his early denunciations of war.
Dr. Channing could not forget the slave. The wrongs of
the bondman were burned into his heart, when he actually
looked upon slavery for a short period in his youth. Earnest
abolitionists at first denounced him because he seemed so slow
to identify himself with their work. The harshness and sever-
ity of the antislavery leaders jarred upon his gentle nature.
But one incident of that period gives a striking illustration of
his magnanimity and greatness. Samuel J. May, that incar-
nation of love, went to him in 1834 to plead for the cause of
the slave. Forgetting everything but his cause, he cried, “Is
it becoming in you to complain because we speak in such an
inferior way against what you acknowledge to be an awful in-
justice, when you, perhaps more than any other man, might
have raised a voice of remonstrance that would have been
heard through the length and breadth of the land? Why, sir,
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CHANNING.
have you not spoken before?" Suddenly it then occurred to
him to whom he was giving this rebuke, the man whom he
revered more than any beside, and in trembling expectation
he waited for his reply. At length the painful silence was
broken by the meek answer, "Brother May, I acknowledge
the justice of your reproof: I have been silent too long."
I know not which of these men seems nobler as I read the
story of that interview.
From the hour of that conversation Dr. Channing never
was silent concerning the antislavery cause until his tongue
was silent forever. He could not speak after the manner of
Garrison. I detract nothing from Garrison's fame. This
generation has honored itself in honoring him. Fifty years.
after a rope was put upon his neck in Boston, and men were
almost ready to murder him in their madness, his statue was
erected to give true dignity to one of the city's princeliest
streets. Garrison spoke like him who came crying in the wil-
derness. Channing seemed to me to speak in the tone of the
Christ. But the Christ was as fearless as John. Channing
was as heroic as he was benignant and gentle. His fearless-
ness was proved at the memorable meeting in Faneuil Hall in
1837, which was called at his suggestion to condemn the mur-
der of Lovejoy, the antislavery editor in Alton, Illinois, who
was shot while defending his office against a mob. It was the
meeting in which Attorney-General Austin expressed the feel-
ing of many by asking, "Did not Lovejoy die as the fool
dieth?" and Wendell Phillips, then comparatively unknown,
but never forgotten afterwards, leaped upon the platform to
denounce that recreant question with the burning eloquence
enkindled by his righteous wrath. Dr. Channing's last public
word was an address on the anniversary of West India Emanci-
pation, given at Lenox, Massachusetts, on the 1st of August,
CHANNING.
193
1842. Only two months later he died. Did he not go up into
heaven with a true preparation to hear the welcome, “As you
have done it to the least of these my brethren, you have done
it unto me "?
I have omitted until now to name one thing that was as
truly characteristic of Dr. Channing as anything in his life.
He clung to his distinctive views of truth with steadfast, most
loving faith. But still more earnestly, if that was possible, he
clung to the hope, the faith, that there were still higher views,
for which every free mind should be always striving. His
spirit was pictured in the words of Paul, "This one thing I do;
forgetting the things that are behind, and reaching forth to
those that are before, I press toward the goal." Channing
Unitarianism could never degenerate into "Unitarian Ortho-
doxy" in his hands. He protested against that in a letter to
Martineau in 1841, writing that he had felt for years that old
Unitarianism must undergo important modifications, or devel-
opments. John Robinson in Leyden could not have given
the charge to the Pilgrim company with deeper earnestness,
never to forget that there was more light yet to break from
God's Word, than Channing would have given it to any who
were ready to follow him. In his charge to Mr. Dwight, at
Northampton, he said: “Do not feel as if Christianity had
spoken its last word. It is the characteristic of divine truth
that it is infinitely fruitful." One noble sentence in the pre-
face to the volume of his "Miscellanies," published in 1830,
must never be forgotten. Referring to the attacks made upon
his works, he wrote that he had declined to answer them, not
from contempt of his opponents, but because he believed that
he should do himself and others more good by seeking higher
and wider views, than by defending what he had already
offered. "I feared," he said, "that my mind might become
13
194
CHANNING.
1
stationary by lingering around my own writings." That one
sentence, written when bitter and biting censures were heaped
upon himself, and the truths held dearer than himself, made
him immortal. What higher truths must be revealed to a soul
like his in the eternal heavens!
Of course there are many things that should be said of Dr.
Channing which have not been alluded to thus far.
No man
was more possessed by the true spirit of patriotism. His
name has a place in literature. His style was unlabored, for
he only aimed to utter himself plainly, and to be true. His
sermons had great literary merit. His few papers of a more
strictly literary character attracted wide attention. In the
article upon Napoleon, while doing justice to military genius,
he discrowned that daring usurper, tearing away the veil that
concealed his moral deformities. For what was that free-
booter upon the land but the real brother of the freebooter
upon the sea? The other principal literary papers contributed
to the "Christian Examiner " were the articles upon Milton and
Fenélon. But the purpose of the present paper was to speak
of him as an exponent of Unitarianism, and therefore other
aspects of his life have been put aside. How earnestly I hope
that even this incomplete representation of him may bring
some features of his character as distinctly before the mind
as his portraits picture the features of his face.
I add one word more. Dr. Channing was a child of my
own native State. I delight to think of him as one of her
children, because her scenery and her history helped to make
him what he became. He loved his native island, that gem
upon the bosom of the Narragansett Bay. In the sermon that
I heard at Newport he referred to the beautiful scenery around
his birthplace, and spoke of the beach, so "dear to him in
the sunshine, still more attractive in the storm." "No spot
CHANNING.
195
on earth," he said, "has helped to form me so much as that
beach." The world of fashion visits it in summer days, hear-
ing nothing, it may be, save the thunder of the waves. As
Channing walked over it angels spoke to him. And then the
spirit of Roger Williams, the apostle of soul liberty, rested upon
this equally heroic soul, making him always devoted to, and in
his own words, "always young for liberty." Rhode Island?
Her territory is but a dot on the map of our mighty empire,
but if her scenery and history could inspire such a noble soul,
her name will always be dear to the lovers of truth, of human-
ity, and of liberty.
TRANSCENDENTALISM:
THE NEW ENGLAND RENAISSANCE.
BY FRANCIS TIFFANY.
THE
HE subject given me for my brief hour in this course of
lectures reads simply "Transcendentalism."
I pro-
pose to enlarge the title into "Transcendentalism; or, The
New England Renaissance." The especial designation, Re-
naissance, or Re-birth, I would emphasize from the outset,
as starting in the mind a distinct class of conceptions, with-
out the aid of which the New England movement cannot be
treated with due sense of historical continuity.
This term, "The Renaissance,” the New or the Second
Birth of the world, — is one we are all familiar with nowadays.
In its broadest, its only scientifically historical sense, it de-
notes what Symonds, who has written the history of the move-
ment in Italy, summarizes as "the whole transition from the
conceptions of the Middle Ages to the conceptions of the
Modern World." Its two grand achievements were, as Miche-
let puts it," the discovery of the world and the discovery of
man." High-sounding terms these, "the discovery of the
world and the discovery of man;
but in how vast a sense
are they literally true! Go back in imagination to the Mid-
dle Ages, and ask yourselves, Did man then know, did he so
much as dream of, this majestic universe which has finally be-
come revealed to the modern mind? Question, again, man's
actual knowledge in those days of the character and scope
of his own indwelling powers. Did he so much as dream of
""
THE NEW ENGLAND RENAISSANCE.
197
the triumphs reason was to achieve, of the intellectual systems
thought was to build, of the world of beauty art and literature
were to create, of the order and stability law was to inaugu-
rate, of the conquests of disease and misery medicine was to
usher in, of the richness, variety, and charm all these were to
impart to human life? No: as such potential miracle-worker
he never suspected himself. He would have thought you were
talking of wizards or demons, and have shrunk back in horror.
Thus, in a thousand higher aspects of his being, man had not
yet been discovered by himself.
And how was brought to pass this double discovery of the
inner and the outer world? In the one only possible way,
of the foremost intellects and characters of Europe beginning
to trust in and use their natural powers, thus finding out ex-
perimentally alike what these powers were made for, what they
could hope to achieve, and to what marvels of marvels they
were externally related. The compass, first heard of in 1302,
gave the world later on the discovery of America, the round-
ing of the Cape of Good Hope, the circumnavigation of the
globe. The telescope enabled Copernicus and Galileo to
prove the revolution of the earth and the true theory of the
planetary system. Printing began its marvellous career, and
made accessible to thousands the works of the mighty spirits
of Greece and Rome. Gunpowder revolutionized the art of
war. Men of genius in sculpture and painting revealed the
grace and glory of the human form. To France, to Germany,
to Holland, to England, the movement spread, to break out
in original shapes in Shakespeares and Bacons, in Erasmuses,
in Luthers, in Descartes, in Spinozas. Was not all this in
truth, then, what Michelet so accurately calls it, "the discov-
ery of man and the discovery of the world"? Did it not
inaugurate a new human consciousness, and bring to the lips.
198
TRANSCENDENTALISM:
the ecstatic cry: "What a piece of work is a man! How
noble in reason! how infinite in faculties! in form and mov-
ing, how express and admirable! in action, how like an angel!
in apprehension, how like a god!" How Transcendental, by
the way, this last quotation sounds!
Meantime, however, while all this was going forward, there
was another and a vastly larger class of people, who looked
on with anything but eyes of favor. Nor is it to be wondered
at. The smug citizen, who has been accustomed all his days
to walk on level ground and with his head up in the air, no
wonder he has a vindictive word to say of the impious physi-
cist, who makes his brain spin by telling him that, in the
course of the next twelve hours, he will be where he will have
to stand with his feet turned up to the bottom of a globe and
his head hanging down into a frightful abyss. The Mediter-
ranean sailor, with a love in every port, whom Columbus drags
off to cross the boundless ocean; the routine student, who is
contemptuously told to learn to think for himself, when he
naturally supposed that others had done all that for him; the
comfortable priest, whose whole needful stock in trade had
been a string of beads and the mumbling of a few unin-
telligible Latin prayers; the splendid prelate, with stipends
and dignities entirely dependent on the continued ignorance
and superstition of the masses; nay, too, the earnest, self-
consecrated, saintly man, the Saint Bernard perhaps, who
does not care an iota whether the world is round or square,
beautiful or ugly, learned or ignorant, so that it can only be
saved from the leprosy of sin, and who feels that all possible
hope of salvation is supernaturally bound up in the dogmas
of the Church,—why should not from all of these break forth
a fierce and infuriated protest against. the advancing move-
ment? "This blasphemous prying into what God meant to
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THE NEW ENGLAND RENAISSANCE.
199
keep secret must be put down." So the infuriated Francis-
Mobs, papal anathemas, inquisi-
cans cried to Roger Bacon.
tions, were in the very air.
We are now getting on to ground upon which it behooves
us to tread very carefnlly, in order to be at once apprecia-
tive and just. These two great classes of the human race,
which we now see confronted face to face, and glaring at one
another with angry eyes, persist in every age, the cham-
pions of the new, the champions of the old; the believers
in the future and the believers in the past; the men who trust
in reason and think all things possible to it, and the men who
distrust it, dread it, in certain fields abhor it. Each party has
something to say for itself which it is well to heed. And so,
first, a word for this latter party.
Not unlikely, quite a number of persons here present, ad-
dicted to pedestrianism, and yet short of stature, may in
the White Mountains, say have noticed a certain tendency
on the part of men six feet in their stockings to exaggerate
the statement of the number of miles that may be reeled off
per hour with positive comfort and without calling a halt.
Laboriously accompanying one of these nine-league booters
through a long day's march, does not the man of shorter
stride and scantier breath feel, toward the contemplative
hour of nightfall, irresistibly impelled to raise the question,
"Is not my six-foot friend somewhat exposed to the danger
of becoming the victim of what philosophers call his own
subjectivity'? Does he not, in fine, take a somewhat too
transcendental view of average legs, a view too much lifted
into the realm of the absolute and unconditioned, and freed
from all impertinences of time and space?" Now here is
a simple reactionary feeling, which, duly extended from mere
pedicular to intellectual and moral considerations, will serve
An
K
200
TRANSCENDENTALISM:
to interpret vast conservative and even retrograde movements
in human history.
99 66
We can easily see, then, why a whole range of such sublime
sentiments as that "Truth is its own evidence, Beauty its
own witness," "Virtue its own reward," should commend
themselves very rapturously to a class of highly spiritual
minds, and seem very perplexing and irritating to a denser
and opaquer. "Oh, yes; only give us a picture," these last
poor fellows pathetically cry, "in which, as in the earliest hu-
man efforts at art, it was plainly written over every animal
in the landscape, 'This is a cow,' or 'This is a horse,' and
then we will freely admit that a cow or a horse is its own in-
trinsic evidence." Now, for one, I cannot but feel a certain
tender and loving sympathy with this particular mental con-
dition. The first awkward, fumbling attempts of the human
reason, like the first awkward and fumbling attempts at art,
produce rather indiscriminate results. We all perfectly recall
the bygone school-days, in which, after four times adding up
a column of figures, and getting four entirely distinct answers,
we felt a not unnatural uncertainty as to which one of the
four might be in strictest accordance with immutable truth.
But there was one infallible authority we regarded with as
awful reverence as do devout Catholics the symbol of Saint
Peter, the Key to the arithmetic. One glance at this, and
we could proudly say of the correct answer, "This is the
cow," "This is the horse," and rejoice that truth now shone
in its own light and had become its own intrinsic evidence.
But we are seemingly keeping too long away from New
England, unless possibly it be on the principle that "the
longest way round is often the shortest way home."
The New England colonies were settled by a class of men
and women who were a salient illustration of one aspect of
THE NEW ENGLAND RENAISSANCE.
201
the grand uprising of the Renaissance, considered from the
point of view of the "whole transition from the conceptions.
of the Middle Ages to the conceptions of the modern world."
In flagrant defiance of the doctrine of the long-assumed
divine rights of kings, here was a class of men on the high
road to the discovery that kings had a "lith" in their necks.
In many directions, their faith in the powers of human reason
was emphatically pronounced. That men had abundant
capacity for founding States, and that a town-meeting of
ministers, lawyers, traders, and farmers was as august a body
as a House of Parliament, of this they rapidly became en-
tirely convinced. In other directions, however, these self-
same men were an equally salient instance of a distinct
retrogression from the on-setting tide of the Renaissance,
a band of reactionary protesters against what they regarded
as its inherent vice.
set
Every river has its current and its eddy, and so flows two
ways at once. Look at its current, and you say it flows north.
Look at its eddy, and you say, "No: south." Like flint had
the Puritans of England - spite of a few exceptions
their faces against the joyous, the poetical, the beautiful, the
scientific, the speculative and critical aspects of the Renais-
sance. They would have put a very different estimate on
Shakespeare and "all his works" than do you and I, and
would have thought his chances in the world to come far more
promising if Mr. Ignatius Donelly should only succeed in
proving himself to be in the right.
Settled down on the hard soil of New England, with
Indians to fight, forests to fell, communities to found,
churches to build, forced more or less to become jack-at-all
trades, in farming, trading, legislation, law, medicine, and,
erelong, even divinity, a literally unexampled growth took
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TRANSCENDENTALISM:
place in practical confidence in the power of reason to deal
with all kinds of emergencies. The Yankee habit of asking
questions, and of always replying by asking another ques-
tion, now made rapid headway. But at one point all this
inquisitiveness, all this desire of learning something new,
stopped short. The same man who would question with the
most radical audacity the whole political tradition of past
history would recoil in horror at the idea of questioning
either the physical ability or the devout willingness of a
foreordained whale to swallow Jonah. Here the mental
arrest was absolute, here the paralysis of human reason
entire.
Time will not serve me to enlarge on the logical conse-
quences of a mental attitude like this, so radical and defiant
in one direction, so conservative and submissive in another.
You can readily see that it meant two distinct tribunals of
judgment, — the tribunal of free reason, the tribunal of the
written Scripture. Neither, further, will time serve me to
dwell as I would much like to on the retarding effect
exercised on the development of many sides of the New
England mind by the almost utter isolation in which it so
long found itself, cut off, as it was, from the great circulat-
ing currents of European life, from its refinements, its
science, its art, its philosophy, its literature, and shut up
to a monotonous diet of politics and technical theology.
Enough that all this necessitated a very narrow and starved
mental condition, and left whole sides of human nature un-
solaced and uninspired by any stimulating environment.
Now, unfortunately for any long-continued success in the
establishment of a rigid and inflexible theocracy in New
England, the very worst book in the world had been chosen
to found it on, the Bible. Strive as you may to overlay
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THE NEW ENGLAND RENAISSANCE.
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it and load it down with a whole Etna of burnt-out dog-
matic slag, scoriæ, and ashes, the Titans within are ever
rending the mountain flanks and pouring out their indomi-
table insurgent hearts in fresh streams of fiery lava. And
so New England had its perpetual, even though sporadic,
witnesses to the inextinguishable hunger and thirst of the
spirit after a fresh, spontaneous, originally creative, eye-to-eye,
soul to-soul, religious life of its own. The first Transcenden-
talist in New England, Emerson was always fond of saying,
was Jonathan Edwards. "A grim, cast-iron specimen of the
breed!" you will be tempted to say. Not at all. There are
beautiful passages in his so generally lurid and terrific ser-
mons, which I would agree could I only make a private
arrangement with Emerson's publishers to insert in his
Essays, and which would be read by his most ardent devotees
without a suspicion that they had not flowed straight out of
the mind and heart of the Concord seer. Of course Jona-
than Edwards would have put in his proviso. "Yes, this
glorious power to see God eye to eye, 'to glorify him and
enjoy him forever,' is all true. God is his own divine wit-
ness, his own clear interpreter, but to the elect alone.” Of
the Quakers, too, the same might have been said, and in an
even broader sense. Their doctrine of the Inner Light, of
the Spirit that judges all things, even the deep things of
God, what was this but a still bolder assertion of the
indwelling power of the soul to rise above book, priest,
formulated creed, and cry to the Eternal, "In thy Light I
see light!"
Spite, however, of these not infrequent incursions of a freer
and more subjective spirit, among which I would certainly
rank certain aspects of the personal-experience doctrine of
Methodism, under the lead of its fiery apostle, Whitefield, -
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TRANSCENDENTALISM:
it will have to be confessed, I feel sure, that the tendency
alike of thought and emotion in New England set steadily on
towards a lower, a more literal, a more prosaic and common-
place level. For Calvinism in full eruption we must all feel, I
think, the same half-sublime, half-terrific sense of glory and
dread with which we look on Vesuvius or Ætna in fiery out-
break. For Calvinism, its craters dead, and its flanks one
desert of monstrously contorted rocks and dreary, barren
ashes, we must equally feel as we do when toiling up the
sun-scorched heights of an extinct volcano of to-day. Such
Calvinism in due time became, a literal burnt-out volcano.
Indeed, it would historically look as though the very capacity
for deep and strong emotion had been annihilated in the New
England heart, so long, so monotonously, and so remorselessly
had the soil been religiously overcropped, so frightfully had
it been seared and baked by revival fires. It must be suf-
fered to lie fallow a generation or two, to recover heart.
This, thousands
Parishes began
Man shall not live by volcanoes alone.
on thousands were now beginning to feel.
negatively to express their sense of fatigue by seeking relief
in not settling" men of strong doctrine." Life had grown to
be far more comfortable. Material wealth had witnessed a
great increase. A smug, unheroic, average-citizen tempera-
ment had been generated. The sensation philosophy of John
Locke had won a numerous following. Reason — that is to
say, reason within reasonable limits had gained increased
respect. Arminianism began to creep in, and gradually to
work on towards Unitarianism. And never, perhaps,
Rev. O. B. Frothingham so clearly points out in his invalu-
able" History of Transcendentalism," a book I would earnestly
commend to your reading as the only full and adequate
account of this important movement, never, perhaps, had
as
THE NEW ENGLAND RENAISSANCE.
205
what I have ventured to call reason within reasonable
limits" so admirable a quarry to disport itself with as was
now furnished to Unitarian polemics in the dried and desic-
cated mummy of Calvinism.
For a time "reason within reasonable limits" held high
carnival. Now came the days of its young espousals. So
delightful was the sense of the privilege of exercising reason
on what had hitherto been forbidden fruit, such a fresh and
unwonted sensation did it communicate, that no wonder it
drew so many able men to embrace the profession of the
ministry. The moral argument against Calvinism, what
a glory in heroically calling (and it was heroism then) right,
right, and cruelty, cruelty, and tyranny, tyranny, in their
own intrinsic nature! The contradictions and absurdities
of the received doctrine of the Trinity, what a fine intel-
lectual invigoration in subjecting these to the canons of a
rational logic! Then, too, the rehabilitation of a pure and
good life, the loyal championship of it as above all creeds
and professions, the stripping off from the dethroned and
beggared heir of God the "rags of filthy righteousness," and
throwing over his shoulders the royal purple, who shall tell
what a discovery of a new world, of a new man, this was to
thousands! Perpetual honor to the early leaders of this
movement, the Worcesters, Channings, Nortons, Noyeses,
Deweys, Greenwoods, Ephraim Peabodys, and a host of
others. Without the solid foundations of sanity, character,
and piety they laid, the more ebullient movement that was
to succeed would have run great dangers of eventuating in
license and excess.
G
Ste
As time went by, however, the original impulse of Unita-;
rianism began to lose its first vitality. You cannot call a new
thing new forever. There is a first cry of "Land! land!
""
ม
206
TRANSCENDENTALISM:
which not even a Columbus can raise a second time. People
became accustomed to the exercise of "reason within reason-
able limits," and to feel the stirrings of a call to "fresh hills
and pastures new,” that is, a limited number did. As for
the bulk of the body, it began to manifest a strong disposition.
to settle down in a traditional way. Channing, with his high-
wrought prophetic sense of the new glory that was to break
forth, expressed the keenest disappointment over this state
of arrested development, and declared he felt less and less
interest in Unitarianism. "Reason within reasonable limits
had grown highly respectable; its adherents were the pros-
perous and honored; it had its scholars, whose conclusions.
were to be insisted on as impregnable and final; it had
established noble charities and entered energetically on the
work of a more rational education and of wiser and better
institutions for the pauper, the felon, the insane,— what more
could reasonably be asked of it? Why could it not be suf-
fered to enjoy its laurels?
2)
Ah, friends, laurels wither, when long since plucked from
the living tree. As a momentary symbol, and while green and
glistening, how beautiful! when dry, sere, and rattling, what
´a mockery! Unitarianism had always carried with it one
serious limitation and drawback. It had the note of provin-
cialism; it was cut off from the grand circulating currents of
the world's larger life; it lacked alike the prophetic sense of
its own fuller mission and the spiritual imagination to build its
inspiring ideal. It was abandoned to no infinite principle.
It was to be the leaven of Orthodoxy, its work accomplished
when it had taught Orthodoxy to make the same kind of bread
with itself. This bread had come to be a certain regulation
loaf, with whose size, weight, and easy digestibility the ma-
jority were entirely satisfied. Its Channing, whom it never
THE NEW ENGLAND RENAISSANCE.
207
half comprehended, and in many ways hampered and dis-
tressed, was to it the utmost limit of the horizon, if not a
suspicious degree beyond. Its look was turned backwards.
And so it began to ossify. Angry recriminations were now
to be heard against any proposal of innovation; and while
no hands were more munificent in subscriptions for building
the tombs of its past prophets, none were handier with a
brick or an egg for the reception of new prophets. The
mercantile influence, the mercantile standard of spiritual val-
ues, was paralyzing it. I beg everybody's pardon, but one
more generation of the like, and Unitarianism would have
degenerated into a simple gospel for the Philistines. Tran-
scendentalism, we now see clearly enough, saved it, by breath-
ing into it the spirit of a newer and larger life.
Who are the Philistines?
peace to the shade of Matthew
Arnold after all his effort to define them! They are an
eminently respectable body of half-vitalized men and women,
good fathers, good mothers, good citizens, exposed to the
perpetual danger of perishing of dry rot through the prosaic,
commonplace, and utterly unimaginative character of their
constitutional temperament and actual environment.
Woe
to the world that does not possess solid masses of them;
and woe equally to themselves, if, for their own best good,
their Canaan is not every now and then invaded, conquered,
and reconstructed by the children of light !
Who, again, are the children of light? They are the mo
bile, impressionable, and impassioned temperaments of every
age; the diviners of the signs of the oncoming future; the
cordial welcomers of every promise of a fuller, richer, more
spiritually imaginative life; the believers in the things eye
hath not yet seen nor ear heard. And such were the early
leaders of Transcendentalism in New England. I need but to
208
TRANSCENDENTALISM:
enumerate such names as those of Emerson, Alcott, Margaret
Fuller, Elizabeth Peabody, Mrs. Ripley, Dr. Hedge, Dr. Fur-
ness, George Ripley, Dwight, Cranch, Caleb Stetson, Clarke,
Bartol, almost all Unitarians by nurture. Faithful to the
best that had come down to them from their inheritance in
the past, they yet turned eager, anticipating eyes towards a
diviner future, and from their heart of hearts prayed the
prayer,
W
"Let knowledge grow from more to more,
But more of reverence in us dwell;
That mind and soul, according well,
May make one music as before,
But vaster."
Now we have already taken notice of certain signs in the
past of what Emerson recognized as having the note of gen-
uine Transcendentalism, - the confidence, namely, of the
spirit in itself. But it was only in a very restricted way
that this confidence of the spirit in itself held true. The
Quakers, with their emphasized doctrine of the function of
the Inner Light, made the nearest approach to it. These
Quakers as a body were, however, spite of a few very beautiful
exceptions, a narrow, ignorant, and fanatical class of men and
women, who most unhappily thought that the more com-
pletely they cut themselves off from nature, literature, beauty,
art, science, and philosophy, the brighter would be the shining
of the Inner Light. Indeed, in the Quaker horror of such
profanities as music and dancing there could hardly have
sprung up among them, and been told of one of their
prophets and one of their prophetesses, such a myth as that
which records the story of how, on witnessing together the
exquisite aerial evolutions of the Viennese danseuse, Ellsler,
as she came down tiptoe, with "a station like the herald
C
ป
THE NEW ENGLAND RENAISSANCE.
209
Mercury, new lighted on a heaven-kissing hill," Mr. Emerson
bent over with effusion to Miss Fuller, and exclaimed, "Mar-
garet, this is poetry!" while she, in turn, breathlessly ejacu-
lated, “Ralph, it is religion !"
This, of course, is simple travesty. And yet what an ill
historical student would he be, who did not reckon alike
with the travesties and with the broadest comic caricatures
of any period he studies, seeing how, under exaggerated
and laughable aspects, these are so many illustrations of the
popular feeling of the day! What is really hit at, in this
especial one I have cited, is the entirely novel and unre-
stricted ranges of experience on which, in contrast with the
sober earlier New England habit of mind, the Transcenden-
talists began to insist as sources of light and inspiration. In
point of fact, we are here directly led to what must be empha-
sized as the most characteristic feature of the Transcendental
Movement in New England; namely, that it took its rise
among a class of men and women at once highly impression-
able and broadly cultivated. Their Bible had to be a very
large one, and with very little line of distinction between its
canonical and apocryphal books.
Now, for all the clearly enunciated belief of the votaries
of the new movement in their own eyes and ears, just as
significant a fact was it that they believed equally in the eyes
and ears of a vast range of other authoritative teachers. Their
attitude was quite as much docile and reverential as it was
self-assertive. Communications were beginning to be re-
established between isolated, provincial New England and
the grand circulating currents of European literature, art, phi-
losophy, and science. Through the writings of Coleridge-
especially that epoch-making book of his, the "Biographia
Literaria"-aspiring young minds in New England were
–
14
210
TRANSCENDENTALISM:
beginning to get hints, and more or less satisfying outlines,
of a grand order of thinking, inaugurated in Germany by men
of the stamp of Kant, Fichte, and Schelling. Such shorter
pamphlets of Fichte as "The Vocation of the Scholar" and
"The Destination of Man" rang like the battle-call of the
bugle in their ears. The volcanic mind of Carlyle had, more-
over, broken out in full eruption; and in the lurid clouds of
fuliginous smoke with which he seemed to fill the whole
canopy, clouds lighted up with the fiery glare of the crater
burning in his own breast, — sensitive spirits seemed to read
once more the revelation of a world sublime and awful as
that of Calvinism, but with its symbols plucked out of the
fiery heart of the Nineteenth Century instead of out of the
heart of the Middle Ages.
Carlyle professed to have made an Alpine, a Himalayan
discovery. A new mind had come into the world, an original
creation fresh from the hand of God, a mind towering to
the zenith, continental in the base of its foundations, its flanks
all glorious with forests and gorges and fertile valleys, teeming
with corn and wine. This Mont Blanc, this Mount Everest, he
named by the name of Goethe, and cried to the world, "Lo!
the man who has experienced everything, suffered everything,
closed in Jacob wrestle with everything, only to triumph at
last in clear, loving, utterly reconciled Olympian serenity over
them all!" There was in those days a note in the voice of
Carlyle as of some Titanic Promethean sufferer, long riveted
to the bleak rocks of Caucasus, to whom has at last come the
glorious prophecy of deliverance; and mightily it stirred the
hearts of others.
Still not alone in the way of indirect importation through.
the medium of the English intellect were the influences com-
ing in that were to throw the more susceptible minds of New
THE NEW ENGLAND RENAISSANCE.
211
England into ferment. Aspiring young scholars, like George
Bancroft, were beginning to cross the ocean to learn the
tongue of Germany, and to come into direct contact with its
masters in theology, philosophy, and historical criticism. It
may seem out of place to name Mr. Bancroft as a force in the
development of the Transcendental movement; but such a
force he indirectly was through the broader style of thinking,
the more ideal philosophy, and the fresher and more vital
views of the right interpretation of history he brought back
with him from Germany. But along with him went, in a boy
of thirteen, to be placed at school there, a boy who had got
ready for college at so irrationally early an age that his father
was at his wits' ends to know what to do with him till he
should be old enough to enter, one who was destined to
exert a still more direct and profound influence on the New
England movement. I speak, of course, of Dr. Frederic H.
Hedge. There, on its native soil, he laid the foundations of
that thorough and idiomatic acquaintance with the German
language which, later in life, when he came to be settled as a
minister in what is now Arlington, Massachusetts, enabled him
to deal at first hand, and as one
(C to the manner born," with
the treasures of German criticism, philosophy, and literature.
Still another example in the same way I might instance in Mr.
John S. Dwight, who, crossing the ocean and coming under
the spell of Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven, did such invaluable
work through a long lifetime in helping on the grand march
of the Musical Renaissance, from the day of "Old Hundred"
and “Coronation" to the day of the Saint Matthew Passion
Music and of the Fifth and Seventh Symphonies.
A most serious mistake, however, would it be to regard
the Transcendental movement as a simple importation from
abroad, a servile imitation of English, French, or German
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TRANSCENDENTALISM:
ideas. It was at the last remove from this, and was full of the
sap of a spontaneity and freshness all its own. Vasari's old
story, of how one sight of a gloriously sculptured Greek sar-
cophagus in the Campo Santo of Pisa so wrought on the sus-
ceptible soul of Niccolà Pisano that, from the hour, all Italian
sculpture was revolutionized, was simply repeated on New
England soil. Nine tenths of the early Transcendentalists
rubbed but lightly against Plato, Plotinus, Saadi, Firdusi,
Kant, Fichte, Goethe, Schleiermacher, Schelling; but it was.
fructifying pollen they bore away from the contact, and by
it their own minds were vitally impregnated. And so it was
a genuine Columbus cry of, "The New World! the New
World! even though later voyagers were to discover that it
was raised only over San Salvador, and not over the whole new
continent. For better or worse, then, I repeat it, Mr. Alcott
had got hold of Plotinus, Margaret Fuller of Plato and the
Greek legends, Dr. Hedge of Kant and Fichte, Emerson of
the Hindu and Persian mystics, Mr. Dwight of Goethe and
Beethoven, Mr. Ripley of Schleiermacher and later on, of the
works of great French socialistic leaders, Theodore Parker
of De Wette, James Freeman Clarke and others of the ethics
of Jouffroy and the writings of Cousin. From all alike came
the cry, "O brave new world that hath such spirits in it!
Simply impossible was it that such men should not begin to
see visions and dream dreams of a new and better order of
things, some of them confining themselves to trying to knead
the new leaven into the old lump; others demanding, as in
the Brook Farm experiment, the outright inauguration of a
new social era.
M
""
It will be the pleasant task of other lecturers to speak to
you in detail of the bearing on Unitarianism of the va-
rious special directions into which the new movement soon
THE NEW ENGLAND RENAISSANCE.
213
branched, and on their domain I must not trespass. Enough
for me, if I can make vivid to you the essential spirit and in-
evitable trend of New England Transcendentalism. First and
foremost, it can only be rightly conceived as an intellectual,
æsthetic, and spiritual ferment, not a strictly reasoned doctrine.
It was a Renaissance of conscious, living faith in the power
of reason, in the reality of spiritual insight, in the privilege,
beauty, and glory of life. Perhaps, when Emerson described
it as the "
very Saturnalia of faith," he touched the centre
alike in the characteristics of its ecstasy and of its excesses.
To understand its full significance, therefore, it is absolutely
necessary that we summon clearly before the imagination alike
what it reacted against in the past and what it sprang eagerly
forward to greet in the future. And the readiest and most
picturesque way to do this is to call to our aid the presence of
two powerful personalities, the Achilles and the Hector of
the war of two distinct intellectual civilizations that had now
joined in the issue of battle. They must unhesitatingly be
Ralph Waldo Emerson and Prof. Andrews Norton.
When, in the summer of 1838, Mr. Emerson gave before
the Cambridge Divinity School that marvellous address whose
perennial beauty and perfume are as entrancing to-day as
though exhaled from a fresh-plucked rose or lily, it wrought on
a limited class of highly susceptible minds with a sensation
only to be paralleled with that of an escape from the crowds,
heat, and dust of the stifling city to the scent of the pines and
balsams of the forest, or to the stimulating iodine and bound-
less horizon of the sea-shore. "Behold, new heavens and a
new earth!" was their literally ecstatic cry. It had given.
them back, they said, nature, life, Jesus, God. Here was
one, they declared, who saw these ineffable presences and
shining ones with his own eyes, interpreted them from his
214
TRANSCENDENTALISM:
own heart, and adored them in the sanctity of his own
conscience.
Far differently, however, did this address act on the minds
of others, notably on that of their most stalwart champion,
Prof. Andrews Norton. To him Emerson's utterance stood
for a wild, visionary, and utterly reckless assault on the very
foundations of religious faith. Peremptorily did he chal-
lenge and deny its every premise. "Nothing is left," he
declared, "that can be called Christianity, if its miraculous.
character be denied. Its essence is gone: its evidence is
E annihilated. There can be no intuition, no direct per-
ception of the truth of Christianity, no metaphysical certainty.
No proof of his [Christ's] divine commission could be
afforded but through miraculous displays of God's power."
Now, of Prof. Andrews Norton no competent man will
ever speak but in terms of the highest intellectual and moral
respect. His piety, moreover, was of a deep, tender, and
inward stamp, as is witnessed by some of his hymns, so up-
lifting to the devout heart. But here, nevertheless, he stood;
and this was his philosophy, or reasoned account of his
ground of faith. It was the old Lockian doctrine. Man gets
all his ideas through the medium of the senses. These bear
witness to the reality of the Now and Here. There must,
then, be a direct outward sensation from another realm to
introduce into the world trustworthy confidence in a com-
missioned revealer of the Elsewhere. A miracle is such out-
ward sensation. The suspension or outright infraction of the
order of nature is a sense-impression introduced from another
realm. The teacher who can do what no other man can,
turn water into wine, rebuke the tempest, raise the dead,
has hereby produced his credentials from on high, and to
him must all hearken.
P
THE NEW ENGLAND RENAISSANCE.
215
I do not raise this issue here as a preliminary towards a
discussion of the question of miracles, but simply in the way
of the elucidation of my own subject, that of Transcen-
dentalism, whose essential root-principle is here involved.
A conversion by miracle? Why, it is a profanation of the
soul! It is outright denial of the whole foundation of religion
in the reason, heart, conscience, spiritual yearning of men.
Such was Emerson's high-wrought and passionate feeling on
the subject, and it was, I think, — in its broad implications,
the fundamental issue of Transcendentalism.
Ah! this whole question of external authority and inward
recognition, how infinitely wider a one is it than men suspect!
What endless practical issues does it raise in life! How often
I used to meditate its full import in the picture-galleries of
Europe, where, in a fresh shape, it was forced on my atten-
tion! There hanging on the walls are the masterpieces of
Raphael, Titian, Correggio, Rembrandt, Rubens, along with
no end of inferior works. What shall the poor, unaided mind
do, turned loose in such a labyrinth? What assurance that
the soul shall not "dilate with the wrong emotion" before
an inferior work mistaken for a superior, before a Palma
Giovane mistaken for a Titian? Ah! is there not a com-
missioned and duly authenticated Baedeker, guide-book, phi-
losopher, and friend? Open his pages, and lo! before every
picture marked with one star you can feel peacefully assured
that you are in the presence of something great, and before
every one marked with two stars of something superlative.
No fear then of abandoning yourself to an unjustifiable.
emotion. Yes; and duly subordinated to the spirit, it is an
admirable contrivance for saving time and for reserving one's
vitality for what is presumably excellent. And yet — and yet
- it must never be forgotten what inherent evils there are
216
TRANSCENDENTALISM:
in having one's work thus done beforehand for him. The
pictures one finds out for himself through vital elective-
affinity, those are the ones that make the fructifying im-
pression. Only look at those poor mortals in the gallery who
have yielded themselves unconditionally to the courses of the
stars. What a lack-lustre in their eyes! What a barren
conventionality in their tones!
Sometimes, indeed, this absolute subjection to accredited
authority works utterly paralyzing results. There is, for ex-
ample, in the Accademia of Venice, a picture by Carpaccio,
about which Ruskin fulminates in his Mount Sinai way,
fulminates in substance, for I quote him from memory, and
confess to far less proficiency in the use of thunder and light-
ning than he "Whoever places himself before this picture
will be judged by it forever. If he does not see at a glance
that here painting reaches its highest culminating apex, let
him lay it down as adamantine truth that he is by nature
totally destitute of any and every capacity for ever hoping to
cherish one true feeling for art." I have given only feebly
what is expressed by Ruskin himself with all the vigor of the
damnatory clauses of the Athanasian Creed. Well, we know
how the Athanasian Creed has always worked on the free
development of private sentiment in the Church. Now for
the way in which its imitation works on the free development
of genuine feeling for beauty. Here come along the gallery,
for example, four or five sweet, peach-bloom, demure-looking
English girls, each with her Ruskin devoutly in her hands.
They have manifestly read their Athanasius; for Dies ira, dies
illa,—
"The Day of Wrath, that Dreadful Day,"
is visibly written on every face. And no wonder! "To be
or not to be" in the glorious kingdom of beauty is now the
THE NEW ENGLAND RENAISSANCE.
217
question; and there hangs the painting, and over it the flam-
ing sentence of the infallible Judge. They take their seats
in awful silence, and hardly dare to lift their eyes. Do they
really like the picture? It is hard to tell; for under such stu-
pendous conditions the fledgling maiden mind does not work
spontaneously. Anyhow, like it they must, or else, "without
doubt, perish everlastingly." And so they think they do, and
go away so relieved.
"Oh, you dear, sweet, silly girls!" I was often impelled to
cry over such a group, "it is all right that you should be
under authority, but why not under the authority of some one
who has an inkling at least of the law of the natural develop-
ment of the human mind? Why, instead of this annihilating
Ruskin, should you not have some sensible father, uncle, or
elder brother, who would merely turn you loose here, and say:
'Now girls, fearlessly and honestly, try for yourselves what you
really enjoy and what you do not enjoy; no matter whether
it be only the simplest face or the simplest figure, so long as
it is your own genuine impression. From one genuine im-
pression you may go on to another, and another, and still
another; and who knows at what height you may arrive at
last in your enjoyment of the beauty, pathos, and sublimity of
these masterpieces? But this simple travesty of education,
why, it is falsifying, it is paralyzing your natural capacities
from the very start.'"
And now, in conclusion, let me say that I do not know of
any better way of illustrating what seems to me the root-idea
of New England Transcendentalism than through just this
picture-gallery experience of my own in Europe. It is an
illustration which gives to the discussion the real breadth I
would like to impart to it. In truth, it was no simple theo-
logical issue these eager men and women were debating in
1
218
TRANSCENDENTALISM:
the question of miracles or in the question of any external
authority like that insisted on for the Bible. Many of them
had no objection to the admission of miracles, so long as they
were not made tests of truth. It was a far wider reaching
question, and one that affects our attitude to all that is beauti-
ful, noble, and divine in life,—namely, that of the competency
of mind to spontaneously recognize it. At this point Trans-
cendentalism took resolute and final stand.
With your
own eyes must you see. If color-blind, then in vain for you
arches the prismatic glory of the rainbow, even though Iris
herself should glide down to assure you it is beautiful. Now,
in what way this differs from the absolute imperative of the
Beatitudes of the Sermon on the Mount I confess myself con-
stitutionally incapable of perceiving. But it was the crowning.
glory of the Transcendentalists that they made this principle
co-terminous with the universe, prophetically anticipating in
the spirit those later material revelations of the spectroscope,
which proclaim how precisely the same elements that are
burning and shining in our own little planet are burning and
shining in Sirius and the Sun. What! shall we ban and bar
a rose because it originated in Persia, or a lotus because it
first floated on the bosom of the Nile ? was their instinctive
thought. Why, then, ban and bar any beautiful flower of the
spirit, because first unfolding its petals and breathing forth
its perfume in a Hindu, Parsee, or Sufi garden of the Soul?
Theirs as Transcendentalists to justify their name by simply
transcending all those arbitrary boundaries of creed, race, na-
tionality, local self-conceit, which narrow, harden, and poison
the human mind, till it becomes constitutionally incapable of
truly knowing and loving Him of whom, through whom, and
to whom are all things, to whom be glory forever. And so, in
this direction, the service of Transcendentalism to the future
THE NEW ENGLAND RENAISSANCE.
219
development of Unitarianism was priceless; and for one, I
most heartily concur in the words with which Rev. Joseph
Henry Allen sums up his own conviction on the subject.
"Transcendentalism," he says, "melted quite thoroughly the
crust that was beginning to form on the somewhat chilly
current of liberal theology. Indeed, it is the great felicity
of free religious thought in this country, in its later unfolding,
that it had its birth in a sentiment so poetic, so generous, so
devout, so open to all the humanities as well as to the widest
sympathies of philosophy and the higher literature."
Am I not right, then, in characterizing Transcendentalism
as the New England Renaissance ?
•
!
THEODORE PARKER.
BY SAMUEL BARRETT STEWART.
IT
now a
T is allowable to felicitate ourselves, I think, upon the
fact that Unitarianism is now a symbol for many con-
victions of religion of whose virtue and sanity its earlier
exponents were profoundly ignorant, or if not ignorant, scep-
tical; that it has at length agreed to many things that in years.
past it fiercely combated. How the family has multiplied,
by birth, by adoption, by incorporation! The hardy pio-
neering little anti-Trinitarian colony of old is to-day like a
republic, comprising as it were a multitude of separate States,
as to its manifold speculative and theological discriminations,
but held closely, fraternally together by a governing unit of
tendency and purpose.
Best of all, the symbol remains a constant. Like the greater
name Christian, that at first stood for a single fact, the name
Unitarian now stands for an order of religious thought that
unfolds and unfolds, a movement of thought that grows more
critical and philosophic, at the same time it becomes more
sympathetic, more inclusive, and more constructive. Narrow
and constrained were the lines of thought as our Unitarian
fathers projected them. How broad, free, and sweeping they
are beginning to look! What variety of philosophy and criti-,
cism they now include! What range of scholarship, what
reformers, what defenders, what idealists, what builders and
organizers, what saints we have, and what martyrs !
THEODORE PARKER.
221
#
It would be an indelicate presumption on our part to draw
a denominational cordon around the free and lofty soul of
Emerson. It would be equally so to draw it around the
names of Parker and many of his dear friends and followers
in liberty, did we restrict Unitarianism rigidly to its past or
even its present definitions, to many of which they objected,
and in consequence of which they either withdrew from or
were left out of its household economies. Happily, however,
"that great new star, a beauty and a mystery, that once rose
in the winter nights and hung over Boston," has been a
"perennial inspiration" not only to those who looked up
then, but to those who now follow its luminous track. Hap-
pily, also, the daring and prophetic voice of Parker, to which
men once listened breathlessly, and yet almost shrank from,
echoing down the decades, has lost its harsher accents. Hap-
pily, also, the power of thought and the subtler power of the
Time-Spirit have been so influential with us all that to-day we
find ourselves sitting easily and sympathetically in the com-
panionship of the great and noble dead. It is as if nothing
had happened. In the essentials, in the profounder things,
we have come to close understanding.
}
Theodore Parker is the popular representative of an influx.
of new thought into Unitarianism, and of a new impulse
and energy imparted to its ethical gospel. The first large
period of Unitarianism closed with Channing, and up to Par-
ker's time its business was mainly to affirm anti-Orthodox or
anti-Calvinistic teachings. These were found in new readings.
of the Testament, and especially in a nobler and truer con-
ception of human nature and of the relations of man to God.
All the earlier efforts to show the errors and cruelties of Ortho-
doxy, and to set forth the promises of the better faith, had
been magnificently summarized by Channing, the moral gran-
222
THEODORE PARKER.
deur of whose affirmations had advanced Unitarianism, intel-
lectually at least, to a bold and commanding position. Nor
was Unitarianism all the while strictly polemical; it was
philanthropic also; and in nothing was Channing more
sublime in expression, and a more permanent authority,
than in his great discourses upon social morals, upon labor,
culture, education, and, in general, upon intellectual and
political freedom. What indebtedness Parker felt to this
great man he has repeatedly expressed in his journals and
correspondence, and especially in his sermon upon Chan-
ning's life and services.¹
It was during these times, when Transcendentalism was
leavening the New England mind, when the German phi-
losophies and the varieties of Biblical criticism were getting
in vogue, and in our Liberal schools men were at work upon
the task of elucidating the history and traditions of Chris-
tianity, that there appeared among us a prodigy of learn-
ing, a rugged, warm-souled, eloquent preacher of piety and
righteousness, ruthless of popular Christian traditions, a terror
to the church and clergy alike, - Theodore Parker. He had
sprung up in a little village rich in traditions of virtue and
patriotism, himself full of the natural juices of the soil, out-
wardly shaped by physical toils, and in intellectual and moral
fibre a firm, unbending, luxuriant, and (to use his own favorite.
adjective) "handsome" oak. A voracious, unsated plant, he
had absorbed not only the wealth of his own surroundings,
the knowledge of men and Nature and books, but the intel-
lectual wealth of the living world and of ages past. It is
almost impossible to dissociate him from the earth he loved
and in which he everywhere felt the presence of law and
1 Found in Dr. Clarke's Selections from his Writings, published by
the American Unitarian Association.
THEODORE PARKER.
223
1
love and beauty.
More than most great men he seems of
original derivation, a first-born son of the soil, like one of
Deucalion's ready-made men out of the rocks, full-breasted,
full-fed throughout with such noble instincts and passions as
befit a lusty warrior to carry him through the battles of the
world. If ever in any man's clay divine fire raged, it raged
in his. And yet the smell of the earth was upon his gar-
ments; he was intensely human.
-
Parker was nourished equally at the breasts of Puritanism
and of Patriotism; but whatever patriotic loves, whatever con-
science may have reposed in his ancestry, whatever intellect
or religious affection, they but feebly explain his tremendous
mental energy, the moral tenacity and firmness of his life-
purpose, his great humanity, and the tenderness of religious
sentiment generated in his strong manly nature by a spiritual
chemistry that is the despair of knowledge. A man of inspira-
tions, mental and moral, he indeed was, so little was there in
his constitution of the traditional, so little of the conven-
tional, so much, on the contrary, of the extraordinary. From
very youth he was spurred and driven by an insatiate passion
for knowledge. No plodding farm-life should bemire his quick,
aspiring intellect! Long before the famous advice, he had
"hitched his wagon to a star," and was driving on a celestial
highway at white heat.
But if a man of inspirations, where one with such capacity
for work, with such burdening sense of the necessity of it and
such passion for it? Such work as Harvard College required
of a man in those days he could despatch in a single year.
Three hundred and twenty solid books were an easy year's
work for his country-trained vigor. His resolutions were to
respect six hours sleep, seven if possible, eight better still;
but at no time was he capable of checking at the safe and
224
THEODORE parker.
ร
į
appointed moment the momentum of a fearfully speeding
brain. Nothing short of compassing the very globe, of com-
prehending the whole organic and historic development of
mankind, would satisfy his inordinate ambition. His mother-
tongue was not enough; he must know all languages, spoken,
unspoken, accessible, inaccessible, the better to accomplish his
purpose; the wonderfullest thing of all being the proficiency
which he attained as a linguist, despite the isolation of New
England and the scarcity of facilities.
Let us keep a few dates in mind. Parker was born in
Lexington in 1810; was a farmer's boy at farmer's work until
his twentieth birthday, when he entered Harvard College.
Meantime he had taught a few winter schools and had read
immensely. What was required of college work was easily
done in a year; he left without a diploma: the degree of
A.M. was conferred upon him some years later. The year
following (1831) he instructed in a private school in Boston,
the next two taught a school of his own in Watertown. Before
he was twenty-four he entered the Divinity School nearly a
year in advance. After graduation he "candidated" all the
way from Cape Cod to the Connecticut River; projected
an endless amount of work; followed up his reading and study
with unintermitted zeal; and very naturally defeated the inten-
tion to restore his impaired health. In June, 1837, he was
ordained at West Roxbury, when he was not quite twenty-
seven years old.
The ten years of preparation for professional life, which was
naturally determined upon in his own mind as the ministry,
differ in no respect from later years in two things at least ;
namely, an unappeased ambition for the service of God and
humanity, and an almost superhuman degree of toil in that
service. And if in his early life he had poverty of means to
THEODORE PARKER.
225
contend with, the greater poverty under which it would seem
that he chafed was the poverty of the days and the hours and
the very moments.
Many things explain how it was that his thoughts and con-
victions grew into an armed host that was soon to spread anx-
iety and alarm in the quiet places of the churches of America
and through the strongholds of human slavery. Parker's favor-
ite analysis of the human spirit - he made it the framework
of all his preaching-was into four primary faculties, the in-
tellectual, the moral, the affectional, and the religious.
"Love
of truth is the piety of the intellect. Love of justice is the
moral part of piety. Love is the piety of the affections. The
soul has its own functions; God is the object of it." I speak
of this here, however, only to remark upon the large quantity of
each and all these faculties that this man contained in himself.
I have already intimated what was his intellectual piety, his
love of truth and hot pursuit of it, and what huge masses of
knowledge he had heaped up and now held in reserve to feed
and sustain him in the effort to arouse the ethical and spiritual
life of his countrymen. Of his moral passion and his strong
piety toward God and toward man I can only say that to know
it one must read the almost tragic story of his swiftly moving life,
the confessions of his correspondence and the truer confes-
sions of his solitude, go through the history of his heroic
leadership in the great conflict for human rights, feel the fervor
and the motive of his daily sermons; one must linger over
the little volume of "Prayers," the meditations of a tender soul
breathing the Infinite Father's love and compassion, reveal-
ing the deeps of human love and pain, all the sources of
gratitude, all the objects of duty; one must learn how firmly
held were his moral standards, and how loyally too, through strife
and scorn and hatred; must learn the tenderness and fidelity
w
15
226
THEODORE PARKER.
of his friendships, and the buoyancy of his courageous heart, -
to know how completely what he called the primary functions.
of the soul had possession of his capacious bosom.
Many special characteristics served him. Whatever he felt
to be truth and duty he held to with an iron grip. Fear was
something of which there was no trace in his blood. To re-
treat would have been as impossible for him as for Mars to
turn back in his orbit. Then he had spontaneous command
of all his resources; knowledge more than he needed;
method, a natural, easy, telling method for work and for
discourse; a prodigious memory, a memory that could hold
five hundred lines after a single reading; tact of living, na-
tive quality; sentiment, all kinds and degrees of it; logic and
skill in argument; invective, wit, satire, humor, persuasion,
all these were at his instant beck and call. Beyond most
men God had endowed him with language, and his natural
expression he had cultivated after the best models of popular
address; so that though lacking the graces of oratory, plain
people and cultivated alike were enchanted by his speech.
Few men have ever spoken to the masses with so much eru-
dition and refinement of expression, so great copiousness of
thought and illustration, at the same time so unaffectedly, so
directly, so tersely, with so much simplicity, warmth, and
affection.
It seems necessary to say these things in order that we may
appreciate the sweeping force and contagion of interest with
which the new notions of religion and of Christianity which
he promulgated invaded New England and, indeed, America.
It must not be supposed, however, that Parker was the origi-
nator of the new thought, or that he was the only worker in
the field. A greater voice than his, a still, magnetic voice of
Nature and of Life, the voice of Emerson, was already prophe-
THEODORE parker.
227
sying the same things in laconic and original phrase. What
message Parker had to deliver was but the freight of Tran-
scendentalism which had for a long time been afloat as a kind
of phantom-ship to the eyes of New England church-going
people. There were, moreover, inquiring Unitarians who
had taken the risk to "reason beyond the limits of reason,"
whom Parker would seize by the hand and give courage for
the leap. Contemporary with him were many brilliant and
devoted men who in their own more reserved ways were
at work on the same problems into which Parker had thrust
the plough, and was furrowing with less sympathetic, less ten-
tative, but more positive and, as it seemed to most persons,
most audacious methods, - men, some of whom we now call
venerable, and who receive our love and homage for schol-
arship and eloquence and for their heroism in moral causes,
and for their contributions to the permanent literature of
Liberal Christianity. And the fact that there were some per-
sons determined that "Theodore Parker should have a chance
to be heard," shows that there were elements of thought
already in the popular mind that needed only an organizing
and a crystallizing touch to become vital.
Parker wrote, "As for my theology, it has grown out of me
as naturally as my arm has grown out of my body." A natural
growth it was, no doubt; but it was a growth cultivated by a
self-informing and originally working mind bent upon practical
ends and applications. For little as we find to distinguish hist
earlier theological sense from that of the current Unitarianism
in which he was reared and under whose tuition he received
his first lessons, his mind was too receptive, too daring and
inquisitive, to abide long the partial conquests that Unita-
rianism had made. His Divinity School studies, his early
contributions to the "Christian Examiner" and the "Dial,"
G
228
THEODORE PARKER.
A
and his studies of Biblical criticism at West Roxbury, show
whither the tide was setting. Even before his settlement he
had proposed to answer some significant questions; for ex-
ample: What is the extent of known supernatural revelation
made to man? What is the foundation of the authority of
Jesus Christ? Is Christianity to be a universal religion?
What is the foundation of religion in man, the design of
miracles, and so forth?
1
These were very different questions from those which Uni-
tarians had been usually asking. They concerned much more
searching problems, not the accidental characteristics of Chris-
tian doctrine, but the traditional conceptions of Christianity;
they concerned Christianity as a form of the Absolute Reli-
gion; in fact, the sources and practical meanings of Religion
itself. In part they were philosophical, in part historical, in part
critical; in the end they were to be made intensely practical,
Vand, as a whole, to produce widespread and heated discussion.
The first expression that gave him great publicity, and
brought on the unhappy controversy with his Unitarian breth-
ren, was the South Boston Sermon on "the Transient and
the Permanent in Christianity" (May 19, 1841). No better
subject could have been chosen, no better title, to express
what was to be the trend of his whole ministry of religious
reconstruction; for his essential motive, as he subsequently
stated it, was "to recall men from the transient form to the
eternal substance, from outward and false belief to real inward
life; from partial theology and its idols of human device to
universal religion and its living, Infinite God; from the tem-
ples of human folly and sin which every day crumble and fall,
to the inner sanctuary of the heart, where the still small voice
will never cease to speak." 'Looking at the word of Jesus,
at real Christianity," he says, "at the pure religion he taught,
(C
THEODORE PARKER.
229
nothing appears more fixed and certain; but looking at the
history of what men call Christianity, nothing seems more
uncertain and perishable." And this is what he unfolds,
showing how form and dogma are but the accident and not
the substance of Christianity, with what false idolatry the Bible.
is contemplated, how shifting men's notions have been of the
origin and nature of it and of the nature and authority of
Christ, and how Christianity is made to rest on the personal
authority of the teachings of Jesus, and not on their immu-
table truth. Turning the picture, he shows the original word
of Jesus, divested of historical accretions, "as a very simple.
thing, very simple; as absolute pure morality, absolute pure
religion, the love of man and the love of God." Only could
men and society be once rooted and grounded in these
axiomatic, these intuitive, these universal truths, oh, how soon
(was the purport of his faith) might we hope for their eman-
cipation from the slaveries of vice and superstition!
At that time we should have listened, as we should to-day,
spellbound, the utterance was so fluent and exhilarating, with
such promise of new piety and new ethics. The sermon
had its peccadilloes of expression; Parker was always apt to
tease the sense of propriety in those against whom he was
contending, by putting in incongruous juxtaposition things
which they were wont to separate as sacred and profane. But
all his irreverences, as people thought them, were but the spon-
taneities of a man who spoke his mind in homely and familiar
terms, untempered by fine-spun, apologetic, or carefully con-
sidered phrase. The sentiment of the sermon was refreshing
as a morning shower. But Orthodoxy raised the cry, “Infidel!
Atheist!" and even Unitarians were disturbed lest the young
enthusiast, for whose learning and eloquence and earnestness
they had such admiration, and in whose career they were
}
230
THEODORE PARKER.
reposing the largest hopes, was tumbling the truths of Christian-
ity, along with its errors, all together into a general wreck.
This sermon will always be marked as perhaps an uncon-
scious introduction to a great life-work. It had its effect.
And yet he had only "thrown out" a few things. It remained
to expand and to fortify himself. The opportunity was af-
forded by a course of lectures which were almost immediately
asked for by his Boston friends. These lectures were given
in the winter of 1841-42, and were published the following
spring as the "Discourse of Religion." Into them he threw his
best thought and scholarship, and all the fervor of his soul.
He had not taken his stand carelessly; he had had four years
experience as a minister, and in study was sure of his ground.
Moreover, the discussion of the sermon had stirred him, and
he was tremendously in earnest. A few months before he
had written in his journal, "I intend in the coming year to let
out all the force of Transcendentalism that is in me. Come
what may come, I will let off the truth as fast as it comes.'
And in the same vein, we may say, "let it off" he did, "just
level to the people's ear."
I think I shall not mistake the purpose of this lecture in giving
the briefest possible abstract of this celebrated discourse. It
has five parts, and considers the "religious element and its man-
ifestations," "inspiration," "Christianity," "the Bible," and
"the Church." His starting-point is the spontaneously active
religious consciousness as a primary element of man's constitu-
tion. This implies the existence of God, or an idea of God,
on which we depend, as certainly as the senses imply the exist-
ence of a physical world; the universality of worship, experi-
ence, and the analysis of man's nature all pointing to it. The
sentiment is universal; it transcends will and understanding ;
it is an intuition.
??
THEODORE PARKER.
231
But the conception of God (the distinction between the
idea of God and the conception of God is not made very
plain) varies with the developing reason of mankind, so that
we have fetichism, polytheism, pantheism, dualism, mono-
theism as historical phenomena of religion, and expressing it
more or less completely. In other words, the consciousness
of religion has taken a great variety of intellectual forms, wear-
ing them as garments, casting off the old and putting on
new, manifold errors, superstitions, and fanaticisms included
in them; itself, however, the germ, absolutely good and pure,
quick and vital, having been the secret of these unfoldings.
This germ is the absolute religion; and it has often expressed
itself most beautifully, in all historical religions, in the noblest
and divinest individual characters.
As for the personality of God, our conception must neces-
sarily be that of finite personality, personality limited by human
imperfections; and we must separate the substantial from the
phenomenal; then we shall contemplate God as Spirit, Being,
Cause, Knowledge, Love. As such, God dwells in Nature and
in man; law and beauty in the outward world, truth and
love in the mind of man, being his perpetual manifestations.
Nor is he transiently active, as in alleged miracles, but imma-
nent and constant. Inspiration, therefore, is not phenomenal
and special, but natural and universal, and depends upon the
"quantity of our being and the quality of our obedience."
Thus he approaches Christianity. The main question is,
Is Christianity the Absolute Religion? By eliminating tran-
sient dogmas from historical Christianity, he finds the perma-
nent truth, that is, pure Christianity, or the Absolute Religion.
If we take the current historical conceptions of the words of
Jesus for Christianity, it is very far from being Absolute Re-
ligion; these conceptions are merely forms of it. But if we
Nje
232
THEODORE PARKER.
mean by Christianity the simple truth as Jesus taught and
lived it, it is absolute morality, absolute piety.
It remains to inquire into the historical forms of religion,
especially the Christianity of tradition and accretion. This is
a matter of testimony. An examination of the Gospels yields
imperfect and conflicting representations of Jesus; and testi-
mony to the miracles upon which the authority of his message.
has been supposed to rest is defective. Still, it is easy to find
the essential word of Jesus, a word that responds to the uni-
versal consciousness of religion, and is inherent in all historical
religions. It is plain, also, that Jesus is the purest manifesta-
tion of divine thought and of religious life in man, and as such
the Gospels, in the light of reason and human sympathy, un-
mistakably represent him.
The concluding chapters have to do with the natural devel-
opment of the Bible as a literature, disarming Orthodoxy
of its infallible letter and text; also, with the speculative
errors of Catholicism and Protestantism, closing with admoni-
tions, to Unitarians especially, to advance a step farther and
plant themselves on more stable ground.
Little as we should be disturbed now by the doctrine in the
main, it did mean a complete overthrow of the traditional be-
liefs of the popular church. It was the signal for a revolu-
tion, and was too much even for Unitarians of that day; and
it is not strange that matters turned as they did, and that
Parker was left to fight out his battle comparatively alone.
The heresy was obvious. He had denied the conventional
belief in a supernatural revelation, in a mediatorial Christ, and
in a miraculous attestation of Christianity. He had brought
discredit upon the literal truth of the Gospel record. "If this
teaching is to prevail," men said, "it is all over with tradi-
tional Christianity."
THEODORE parker.
233
}
1
Undoubtedly it was a defect of the "Discourse" that it did
some injustice to the values of many historical doctrines and
institutions of Christianity that had been worked out of the
profoundest religious experience and the highest sense of utility,
-thoughts, sentiments, and ceremonials that had been wings.
and feet to the original gospel. Sublime and tender, also, ast
were its delineations of the character and spirit of Jesus, and
of the ineffable beauty and the permanence of his teachings,
almost no one was prepared to see swept away the old and
trusted vehicles that had transported him, so faithfully and so
punctually, from station to station of the developing life of
Christendom. From this point of view the "Discourse" was
desolating. But, on the other hand, it was a prophetic an-
ticipation and announcement of a greater, a calmer, a juster
thought that was soon to come and take possession of us,
and which, happily, we see has been rapidly coming. Hence-
forth there were new thoughts of religion abroad. Parker
had furnished New England with material for years and years
of every-day discussion,- with Theism and the Absolute Re-
ligion, with universal inspiration, the human origin and trans-
mission of the Bible, the natural and human Jesus, immortality
its own witness, and with piety without sacraments.
Here were
great facts for examination; great truths to which men were
to find their way with much difficulty and pain; great truths
to be absorbed. Few were prepared to listen to them, much
less to receive them; few had courage to utter them. Only
the young Parker, with Luther-like independence, frankness,
fulness of knowledge, positiveness of conviction, and power
and grace of speech, could do it; only the young Parker,
whose blood was aroused by a moral passion for the revival
of that sincerity and nobility of religious life in the people-
in the nation, let us say—which he believed that the ex-
234
THEODORE PARKER.
cesses of ecclesiasticism, the painful theologies of the day,
the blindness of the world to the imperishable truths of the
original Christianity, and the timidity of the clergy were
making impossible.
>
The "Discourse of Religion" is the only formal exposition
of his theology.
It was made when he was little more than
thirty years old, and remained the unmodified, dogmatic
groundwork of his whole ministry.
The enthusiasm with which this revolutionary and stimu-
lating version of the real gospel of Christianity was received
on the one hand, and the bitter denunciations of it on the
other, together with his own desire to give it the widest pos-
sible publicity, soon brought him out of his secluded little
country parish into this great centre of thought and life.
Parker was made, as has been repeatedly said, for great
(C uses; " his large intellect was stanchly built to carry on
commerce with great principles, with great duties, and with
great men,
to deal with moral and social reformation in
its largest aspects. The little West Roxbury meeting-house
furnished but a toy pulpit for a giant preacher. The only
pulpit commensurate with his magnitude was the platform of
the Melodeon and the greater platform of Music Hall. No
church could contain him; already he was outside the church;
already his message seemed to be less a message to be given
through the church than to the church itself, a greater mes-
sage also of righteousness to the nation which the church was
refusing to deliver.
Indeed, from the study of the "Discourse of Religion"
and, in fact, of all the sermons of Parker, one cannot help
feeling how he was proceeding to help men to see the needed
and always overlooked complement to traditional religion.
The habit of mankind is to refer the revealing consciousness
THEODORE PARKER.
235
of God to the past; to look upon the creation as a thing of
yesterday and not of the eternal to-day; and to feel that the
only authoritative manifestations of truth and piety are those
with which its traditions have familiarized it. To him the
Christian world seemed to be everywhere and always looking
backward, absorbed in the preservation of its creeds born of a
less enlightened reason, and in the perpetuation of symbols
once poetic but now prosaic, and devoid of beauty and
utility; to him the church seemed to be a close, airless, tomb-
like sanctuary of memories, instead of a living organism throb-
bing with the heart-beats of a quick and healthy conscience,
and directed in its activities by the cry of human despair and
need. With his great warm heart intent upon the highest
service, he was impatient with what he saw of the tithing of
mint, anise, and cumin, and the forgetting of the weightier
matters of love and righteousness. It was this habit he set
himself to combat. His desire was to gain a recognition of
the fact that the essential condition of the vitality of religion
and of its usefulness is in the immediateness and the constancy
of the manifestations of the Indwelling Spirit. Indeed, so
powerfully was he exercised by the feeling that if men would
but obey the voice of the living God in the conscience and in
the affections, the end of religion would be answered, that, if
he was sometimes driven to the extreme of scarcely crediting
traditional and institutional religion with its real values, it was
because the denial of it was made a condition of the popular
theology. This faith was with him not only a fundamental con-
viction, but a moving force with which his whole being was
agitated. Through this great and energizing conviction alone
had he any hope for a living piety among men.
The doctrine was not new, but somehow it had never made
that kindling impression which he felt that it ought to make,
236
THEODORe parker.
and which he happily caused it to make. For there was
something in his elucidation of it and in the emphasis that he
laid upon it, in his perpetual reiteration of it, in the dogmatic,
positive, easily understood terms in which he put it, that gave
an entirely new aspect to the old ideas of revelation and of
inspiration with which people were laboring on in such igno-
rance, and with such pitifully anxious and timid minds.
Parker's God was a living God in Nature and in man. So
real, so poetic was his sense of God in Nature that it was
almost as if he were pantheistic. And yet everything that
might imply this was but the extravagance of his worshipful
sense of the Law, the Beauty, the Economies, and Providences
of the natural world. His love of Nature was intense. So
infinite was Nature, so sublime, so creative, so good, that he
surrendered himself to it in the ecstasy of adoration. Greater
yet was his adoration of the conscience. Conscience was a
word constantly upon his lips, perhaps the oftenest repeated
of his potent words. It was with sternest command that he
bade men bow down before the absolute moral law of their
being. Conscience was very God.
Now, to such a man it is no wonder that the inanities of
speculative Christianity, the thoughtless reverence of ancient
form and phrase, and the indirectness or the silence of the
church as to the consuming sins of society, were an unpardon-
able offence. Scarcely could he restrain the withering satire
that involuntarily sprang to his lips.
Moreover, it was in these things that he discovered the
sources of a widespread impiety, both intellectual and prac-
tical. The denial of God, in a speculative sense, was as
common then as it is now, as it is always, howsoever we may
phrase it. And it was not very long before he found the
occasion for a course of sermons on Atheism as Theory and
((
Theodore pARKER.
237
Atheism as Ethics," and on "Theism as Theory and Theism J
as Ethics." As was his wont, he treats the subjects somewhat
diffusely and spontaneously; they were levelled, as were all his
addresses and writings of whatsoever sort, to the comprehen-
sion of the masses. The reader must not look for the acumen
that he finds in modern discussions of the speculative part of
these questions; but in practical meanings they have tremen-
dous force and strength.
The scheme of God as perfect cause, as perfect providence.
working in the world of matter, in the world of life and being,
in the world of humanity in its vast historical developments,
in the experience of the individual, this is the scheme of
speculative theism. Then the scheme of practical theism is
that the idea of God leads to the absolute love of him, to
trust in him, to real joy and tranquillity and rest in him, these
expanding the soul in well-proportioned parts for perfect
beauty and piety. The sacrament of piety supplements the
sanctions of the conscience. These together constitute the
Absolute Religion which issues in obedience to physical,
domestic, and social law whereby man has a perfect body,
home becomes pure and woman elevated; whereby temper-
ance and chastity prevail, and men deal justly one with an-
other, and poverty and slavery and vice cease, and man grows
truly worshipful.
This, I repeat, was a scheme of theoretical and practical
theism which, filled out and clothed upon with his wealth of
the knowledge of Nature and of man, vitalized with his moral
vigor and made eloquent with his warm human feeling, con-
stitutes one of the most powerful appeals to the popular heart
for pure worship and pure conduct, to be found in the annals
of the American pulpit.
But after all has been said, so far as Christianity is con-
238
THEODORE PARKER.
cerned, as the analysis of the “Discourse " plainly showed us,
Parker did not expound the Absolute Religion at the expense
of anything vital and essential in the ministry of the Founder
of Christianity. Precious, indeed, did he hold the one sacred
and idolized name of the Christian world. Only for the con-
fused and confusing conception of Jesus that has been trans-
mitted by speculative Christianity, he substituted the plain,
honest, natural, tangible notion of his humanity. Unitarian-
ism had not then escaped the dust of the speculative work-
shop, and the mediatorial office of Jesus was still felt to be
in some sense necessary to the perfect adjustment of man's
spiritual relations to his Maker. To abolish the office alto-
gether required that the real nature and service of Jesus
should be set forth in distinct and unmistakable terms. Who
has ever done it more tenderly, more impressively? Who has
ever drawn the portrait of the great Friend of Mankind in
truer lines and in purer color? Who, rather, has called us
away, as he has done, from the false and exaggerated drawings.
of speculative Christianity, to know and enjoy the original, so
fathomless in its practical and spiritual meanings? Indeed,
the service which he rendered in making the humanity of
Jesus distinguished cannot be overestimated, inasmuch as his
was one of the first reverent and effective efforts to rescue the
ethical and spiritual utilities of his mission from the obscurity
into which they were thrown by the mediatorial and sacrificial
scheme of popular Christianity.
But time warns us to hasten on to another topic. There is
a sense in which Parker contributed immensely to the vitality
¿
of the doctrine of immortality. There was no belief in which
he was more impregnable than in his belief in the immortal
life. He held the future life within the compass, as it were,
of mathematical certainties. With him it was something that
THEODORE PARKER.
239
admitted of no doubt or question. "Let me be sure of two
things," he said, "first, of thine Infinite Perfection, O Father in
Heaven, then of my own immortality, and I am safe. I fear
nothing. I am not a transient bubble on the sea of time;
I shall outlast the Everlasting Hills." The very certainty, the
very absoluteness of his faith in the immortal life is almost
startling. For it is not merely a hope; it is not a yearning;
it is knowledge itself. As Mr. J. H. Allen has finely said,
“With most men the best part of their religion is far from
being that which lies in the clear, glaring light of conscious-
ness, or what they could give the best account of to them-
selves. The twilight atmosphere of mystery in which our
lives are wrapped - from clear light shading off imperceptibly
to obscurity and gloom-is the sphere where most of our
pious thoughts and emotions lie. In Theodore Parker it was
almost as if this shadowy sphere did not exist. . . . He knew
he was immortal. Any demand of proof was an impertinence.
Any offer of historical evidence was an affront to his living
faith."
And now it must be added how great a gain it was to the
faith and piety of many that he did thus point out, absolutely
and dogmatically it may be, a more unfailing source of assur-
ance than the authority of historical revelation; namely, the
universal consciousness of spiritual and immortal relations.
To the unspiritual it might seem a less certain assurance
than some historical and miraculous testimony; neverthe-
less, it must eventually have been a revelation to them of
the unfathomable deeps and mysteries of their own being.
And it was in this sense that to those who were sceptical
of the supernatural evidences of the doctrine, the assurances
of the Absolute Religion were of untold strength and
comfort.
240
THEODORE PARKER.
Ľ
{
And it was not only of immortality that there was in his
mind a practical certainty. There was the same practical
certainty of the personal and immediate providence of God.
Speculation never disturbed his practical sense of things. So
human, so affectionate was his sense of God, that he must cry
out "O Thou who art our Father and our Mother!"
Parker loved books, loved philosophy, theology, all sciences,
indeed; loved the pursuit of truth for its own sake. But a
mightier love swayed him, the love of piety and righteousness
in mankind; and ere his feet were planted upon the platform
which afterward became the tribunal where the morals and
motives of people and statesmen alike were brought to solemn
judgment, his whole soul became absorbed in the eradication
of the one great iniquity that from the beginning had been
preying upon the vitals of the nation. In that holy crusade to
break the chains of the slave his was a tireless voice to lead the
brave, to shame the cowardly, and to outwit the politic. And
it was by virtue of his power as a bold and uncompromising
social reformer, that he gave new ethical impulse not only
to the dull conscience of the people as a political body, but
also to its ecclesiastical conscience. For somehow men
began to see that there was a higher law than the traditional
Christianity that had so long permitted or found excuse for a
great crime against humanity. And thus the emancipation of
the slave began to mean with us something more than eman-
cipation from a form of human and political injustice; it
began to mean an emancipation of the living conscience
from the bondage of the ethics of a supposed supernatural
revelation; the emancipation, also, of the saving, living Jesus
of humanity from the vague inoperative notion of the mys-
tical Christ.
There is no time, were it my purpose, to linger over the
A
THEODORE PARKER.
241
sublime service of Parker to the cause of humanity and jus-
tice. His large sympathies soon exhausted his strength. All
men were to him brothers, the poor, the ignorant, the suffer-
ing; they came close to his heart. He remembered their
cause in all his daily prayer and discourse. The service of
the great and good and gifted, that also he remembered.
No opportune moment did he miss to declare to his fellow-
citizens the service of their country's historic leaders,
Franklin, Washington, Jefferson, Adams, Webster, Quincy;
to instruct them in their virtues and to warn them of their
follies. And if in his delineations of character and in his
estimate of men's service, while he was tenderly eulogistic, he
was stern and implacable, his motive was one of patriotism,
and of fidelity to honor and sincerity. God had not made.
him to prophesy smooth things; he had made him to
prophesy righteousness and truth.
In passing, we must also remember that Parker rendered
no inconsiderable service in stimulating, to say the least, the
desire among scholars to engage in the study of the common
origins and characteristics of the historical religions in which
many of our own clergymen have distinguished themselves.
Though he did little of this kind of work in any formal way,
it was one of his cherished but forbidden ambitions to do so;
the whole range of it came under his belief in the common
ethical and religious consciousness of mankind. There is no
doubt, I imagine, that he was a great support and inspiration
to his dear and life-long friend and defender, James Freeman
Clarke, in his noble contribution to literature on the "Com-
parative Study of Religions." I suspect, also, that Samuel
Johnson's
"Oriental Religions" had some of the rootlets of
its inspiration in this great preacher's exposition of the
Absolute Religion. Then it must be added that he was one
P
16
242
THEODORE PARKER.
of the powerful, though distant, contributing causes of the
Free Religious movement, whose ground is the Absolute
Religion.
And through all these sources we see how our New Eng-
land Unitarianism has been stimulated to larger and healthier
life. Whatever may have been the heart-breakings over the
conflicts between Theism and Christianity, or the Absolute.
Religion and Christianity, or Free Religion and Christianity,
concerning the meanings of Christianity, and all the minor
themes of miracle and historical testimony, over this and that
method of criticism, unagreed as we still are, and shall always
be, and ought always to be, if we have any desire of life and
growth, there has been a manifest greatening of thought and
broadening of fellowship.
are
Nor must we omit to mention the infusion of tonic into our
pulpit expression, for which Parker must be in a measure
credited. Most is due to Emerson, without doubt; but
much is certainly due to Parker. The "Ten Sermons"
fresh as a handful of flowers gathered from meadows and hill-
sides; the west wind blows through them; the song of the
birds lingers in them. There is nothing in his sermons scho-
lastic, bookish, dry-as-dust. There could be no sleep where
Parker was. Every sentence is succulent. There is vivacity,
health, and an optimistic glow in every paragraph. Nor is
there any shrinking from plain truth plainly spoken. If the
truth offend, there is hope. Such plainness often cuts to the
quick; and only those, I think, who drew near to the heart
of this noble and heroic man knew that there was no malice
in him.
Parker's influence among the Liberal churches around him
was, in many instances, temporarily disastrous to their tran-
quillity. His fearlessness and sincerity were contagious. Young
THEODORE PARKER.
243
ministers caught new life; people in the pews caught it;
and there were many breaches, personal and social, long in
healing. These, however, were but unavoidable incidents
attending the breaking up of the hard crust of traditionalism
for the entrance of air and light, and for the germination of
healthier fruit.
Parker was in some sense a martyr; and his martyrdom
was followed by many lesser, and yet not less painful, martyr-
doms. Through the influence of that sincere, outspoken,
uncompromising, but scattered company of independent men,
whose hearts and souls beat responsive to the moral enthu-
siasm of his voice, who refused to be tied to any creed or
form, or to bow to any idols of wealth or society, there has
come at last a kindlier tolerance, a warmer fellowship, and a
more energetic effort to reach the world with a rational and
comforting faith.
Parker was neither a poet nor a philosopher in the strictest
sense. Deep answereth not unto deep as in his great con-
temporary, Emerson. He was a worker in the solid things of
practical duty. He was, moreover, infinitely less a destroyer
than a builder. If he drove the plough deep in, he turned
up the soil in richer condition for the sower.
Parker was spared the awful spectacle of the long physical
struggle which he foresaw, and into which his burning sense.
of justice helped to plunge the nation. Nor did he witness
the morning sun-burst of freedom over all the land, and the
quick awakening of the greater and healthier energies of the
American people. Neither was he permitted to enjoy the
broader theological sense, the higher criticism, the growing
sympathy of religions, and the larger recognition of the valid-
ity of the eternal truths underlying all forms of faith for
human salvation, which prevail more and more with the
FORTNITESİ
244
THEODORE PARKER.
+
growth of knowledge and the closer intercourse of the peoples.
of the earth.
At the meridian of his manly powers he sank down in a
foreign land, overworked and exhausted, but still clinging
to the life he loved for the sake of its divine tasks, and
rests surrounded by the tombs of many illustrious souls of
the Reformation, to whom he was kindred in spirit and
in work.
UNITARIANISM AND MODERN LITERATURE.
BY FRANCIS B. HORNBROOKE.
UN
NITARIANISM and Literature may be regarded in two
ways. We may either review the names of those con-
nected with the Unitarian movement who have won an honor-
able place in literature, or we may consider how much of the
religious thought and feeling, which finds glad welcome in our
Unitarian churches, also finds expression in modern literature.
By taking the first course, and by trying to designate those
Unitarians who deserve recognition in modern literature, one
soon finds that he has chosen a pleasant but at the same time
a most difficult task, pleasant because so many praiseworthy
names crowd upon the memory; and difficult, because in spite
of the utmost care it is almost impossible not to omit names
which may seem to others as worthy of remembrance as many
who have been mentioned. There is another and more
serious difficulty. Writers who deserve ample recognition for
the work they have done in theology, or in science, or in his-
torical research, often cannot be counted among those who
have added to the wealth of our literature. The line which
separates useful contribution from literary achievement is a
shadowy one; and to make a definition which will justify the
inclusion of one name and the exclusion of another is prac-
tically impossible. In matters of this kind much must be
allowed to the undefinable tastes of individual minds. Names
will be passed over by one which will seem to another to
246 UNITARIANISM AND MODERN LITERATURE.
deserve notice. If, therefore, in the roll of names which I
propose to call, some are not found, I trust the omission will
not be regarded as implying any judgment with regard to the
value of their work, but as my individual judgment that their
work is not literature; and I must leave it with the reader
to determine how far that judgment is correct. All that I
can claim is that I am not conscious of being guided by any
personal or theological considerations.
American literature and American Unitarianism began to-
gether. I doubt whether any religious movement was ever
richer in the adherence of men and women eminent in litera-
ture than American Unitarianism during the greater part of the
present century. Any account of American literature which
failed to notice those who were in implicit or avowed sympathy
with Unitarianism would not be worth the writing. This is
evident the moment we begin to recall their names and
achievements. At once there leaps to our lips the name of
Dr. Channing, before whose day no sermon written in New
England had any literary value, and owing to whose influ-
ence the modern sermon has been endowed with a grace
corresponding to the preciousness of the truth it contains;
then Emerson, for fifty years "the friend of all who would
live in the spirit," whose quickening thought, conveyed in
telling form, has made him the teacher of those who teach,
and to whom hardly a man or woman who has tried to utter
his or her thought is not more or less indebted.
The early part of our century was not rich in works of
fiction. But such as they are there is nothing worthy of men-
tion among them, with the exception of Cooper's novels, and
later of those of Mrs. Stowe, outside the works of Lydia Maria
Child and William Ware. For more than twenty years Mrs.
Child was the representative woman in our literature. It may
UNITARIANISM AND MOdern literATURE. 247
be that the attraction of her work has ceased, yet none the less
the fact remains that she did work which satisfied the mind
and heart of a generation of our people; and in our quickly
moving century to do that is to do a great deal. The works of
William Ware ("Zenobia" and "Aurelian ") bear the impress
of a master-hand, which will aid them in the struggle for a per-
manent place in literary history. The mention of Ware recalls
another Unitarian clergyman, Sylvester Judd, whose novel
Margaret" takes a high place, and of which James Russell
Lowell says, in his "Fable for Critics" :
(6
"T is enough that I look
On the author of 'Margaret,' the first Yankee book
With the soul of Down East in 't, and things farther East,
As far as the threshold of morning, at least,
Where awaits the fair dawn of the simple and true
Of the day that comes slowly to make all things new."
Later than these come the novels of Dr. Holmes, with their
suggestive studies of those phases of human experience best
known to the physician. Hawthorne had too little of the
social element in him to deeply interest him in public re-
ligious movements; but his sympathies were all in accord
with the Unitarian purpose. No one who has read “Marble
Faun" and "The Scarlet Letter" needs to be reminded of
the marvellous contributions he has made. Of living writers
of fiction no one has surpassed Edward Everett Hale in the
difficult task of making good short stories; while through
such novels as "In His Name," "Ten Times One is Ten,"
and "Our New Crusade," Dr. Hale has done so much to
promote general benevolence and to apply the ethical prin-
ciples of the New Testament to modern life, that his name has
become a household word throughout our land.
Among those who have aided in making history what it has
248 UNITARIANISM AND MODERN LITERATURE.
become in our time, a means of literary delight as well as an
instrument of instruction, have been not a few who own the
Unitarian influence and name. Parkman has thrown a flood
of light upon the dark pages of Canadian annals, and by his
spirit of loyalty to truth has done ample justice to the heroic
labors of the Jesuit missionary. Prescott has unfolded with
all the charm of romance the story of the conquest of Mexico
and Peru, and the golden time of Spanish history under
Ferdinand and Isabella and Philip II. Motley has portrayed
with a vigor that stirs the blood of the reader the long resist-
ance of the Dutch Republic to Spanish tyranny, and the early
days of the Netherlands after they had emerged with success
from the struggle for independence. Ticknor has told the
history of Spanish literature with such clearness and beauty
that the reader becomes as much interested in Lope de Vega
and Calderon as in the great ones of English literature.
Bancroft has endowed the history of his country with all the
dignity of an epic poem, and has recited the great events
of our national history with an eloquence seldom equalled
and never surpassed. Dr. John G. Palfrey has written the
history of New England so well that it will not need to be
done again.
The five great orators of New England are Winthrop,
Phillips, Webster, Everett, Sumner. Of these, Winthrop has
always been a faithful adherent of the church which made his
ancestors illustrious by driving them out of Old into New
England. Phillips was, during his lifetime, although con-
nected with Parker in the work of social reform and opposi-
tion to slavery, in sympathy with orthodox Congregationalism;
but Webster, Everett, and Sumner were in accord with Uni-
tarianism. For years Mr. Webster was a faithful attendant
upon the services at Brattle Street Church, and in the last
UNITARIANISM AND MODERN LITERATURE. 249
record of his religious faith there is no evidence that he had
modified his religious opinions. Edward Everett, who more
than any other New England orator, deserves a place in litera-
ture, and whose orations will always be read and enjoyed by
the lover of what is best in rhetorical art, was through his whole
life identified with the Unitarian body. So likewise was
Charles Sumner, whose speeches will always have the interest
which attaches to marvellous learning when it is inspired by
undying devotion to a noble cause.¹
Passing from orators, historians, novelists, let us now notice.
some adherents of Unitarianism who have added in other
ways to our literary inheritance. In criticism we have Henry
Giles, whose treatment of Shakespeare's characters is of the
highest order, and whose works deserve, even if they do not
obtain, a repeated reading. Here too we have Whipple, for
so long a time the most potent factor in the formation of
literary opinion. No finer specimens can be found in literary
criticism than in the prose volumes of James Russell Lowell;
and no more genial reports on the events and conditions of
the times than in the writings of George William Curtis. Dr.
Holmes has imparted to our literature a wit all his own in the
Autocrat, the Professor, and the Poet of the Breakfast Table.
There are also those who have imbued what they have done
with a literary character who might have won a high place in
pure literature. Among these is Dr. Furness, who has given so
1 Other noted men among the orators of our country might be named
as adherents of Unitarianism, -men like John Q. Adams and John C.
Calhoun; but perhaps we would better pass them by, since we are deal-
ing with literature; and the speeches of those whom we have named,
however valuable in other respects they may be, are not literature.
There are also those still living in full sympathy with Unitarian aims
and ideas who occupy an honorable place among the orators of the
country; but perhaps it is too soon to decide whether their speeches
will find a place in literature.
250 UNITARIANISM AND MODERN LITERATURE.
much of his life to the sweet task of aiding those who "would
see Jesus;" James Freeman Clarke, who sacrificed a career
in literature to the work of establishing Unitarian ideas and
principles; and Dr. Andrew P. Peabody.
It is the distinction of Dr. Hedge- "clarum et venerabile
nomen "
that in his youth he brought from Germany the
materials which have made our thought more profound; while
in later years he has clearly shown in his own person how
depth of thought may be wedded to masterly effectiveness of
style. In the case of all these, theology and literature have
become one. A religious body which on two continents can
give to the world such specimens of literary excellence, united
with the highest thought of the time, as are found in our day
in Hedge, Furness, Clarke, Peabody, and Martineau, has rea-
son for being somewhat proud of its place in literature.¹
In poetry it may be said in one word, that with the excep-
tion of Whittier and Poe, every poet in this country in the
highest rank is in accord with Unitarian ideas, a member of
the Unitarian body. Longfellow, whose perfect utterance of
the common thoughts and feelings of man makes him wel-
come everywhere; Bryant, with his heart open to Nature's
still, small voice; Lowell, who
M
"sees beneath the foulest faces lurking
One God-built shrine of reverence and love;"
Holmes, who with all the art and none of the malice of Pope
has for fifty years been saying the happiest things in the
1 It may be well here to name others who have added in various
ways to the literary life of America. Some of them may not be consid-
ered or may not consider themselves members of the Unitarian body,
but all of them, I think, are in sympathy with its spirit. They are
Jared Sparks, John Weiss, N. L. and O. B. Frothingham, Samuel John-
son, John S. Dwight, W. R. Alger, Bayard Taylor, T. W. Higginson,
C. P. Cranch, Charles T. Brooks, Jones Very, Samuel Longfellow,
Margaret Fuller.
UNITARIANISM AND MODERN LITERATURE. 251
all these are identified with Unitarian thought
happiest way,
and life.
It is said of Dr. Holmes that he has always wished to be the
author of a great hymn. It might be well to remind him that
great poets have seldom written great hymns. Still, I cannot
help thinking he has approached the desire of his heart in the
hymn,
"O Love divine, that stooped to share.”
But whether Dr. Holmes has obtained his wish or not, Unita-
rianism has not been lacking in those who have won universal
recognition for their hymns. The hymn of Sir John Bowring
beginning
"In the cross of Christ I glory,"
has struck the most vital chord of Christian feeling; Miss
Sarah F. Adams in the hymn "Nearer, my God, to thee," has
fitly voiced the universal aspiration of the heart of man after
God; while the Christmas hymns of E. H. Sears go round the
world on every Christmas day.
The first part of my task is finished. I have tried to recall
the writers who have been more or less identified with Unita-
rianism; to show what a force those allied with it are in our lit-
erature. But now it may be asked by some one, What is the
value of such an attempt? What use is there in recounting
vanished glories or achievements, which after all have no vital
relation to the actual mission of the church? I sympathize,
although I cannot altogether agree, with such an inquiry. It
is pernicious to recall memories of a glorious past if they are
regarded merely as reasons for boasting, instead of incitements
to doing something worth doing of our own in our own way.
It is useless to remain satisfied with what has been done, while
we fail to do the duty which lies at hand; and it will be idle
252 UNITARIANISM AND MODERN LITERATURE.
for us to imagine that there is some necessary connection
between Unitarianism and literary ability and achievement.
Unitarianism in England has not been connected with the
wonderful literary life that we have seen in New England.
How did it happen to be an attractive influence here? By the
fact that it was the only form of religious life in New England
at the time which gave free scope to the awakening intellect.
Other religious organizations were still fixed in the letter; still
bound down to provincial interpretations of narrow systems.
But men and women were beginning to see in a larger way
than before; their conceptions of religious truth were in the
process of transformation. The intellect revolted at the tra-
ditional theological thought, and at the forms of its manifes-
tation. Unitarianism offered the only refuge to those who
wanted a religious home, but were unwilling to purchase it
by the denial of their sincere convictions. It was this that
made it for years the church of those who have won a place
in American literature.
That state of things has well-nigh vanished. The man of
literature finds many religious homes, or is made at home in
the church in which he was born and nurtured. Creeds can
now be accepted "for substance of doctrine." Conditions of
fellowship are large and elastic. The doctrines that once
would have driven the literary man into the Unitarian fold are
so kept in the background, are so little insisted upon and so
broadly interpreted, that he does not care to make any protest.
We may regret the present condition of things. It may seem
at first sight as if this decline of relative literary predomi-
nance were a sign of failure in our denominational aim and
purpose. In fact, however, it is nothing of the kind. It is
the sign of a victory won. It indicates that a protest which
was once needed is now needed less, because it was made
UNITARIANISM AND MODERN LITERATURE. 253
modern literature.
so earnestly and so effectually. It means that the struggle
of Unitarianism, begun so bravely against such overwhelming
odds seventy years ago, has won larger religious freedom not
only for its own followers but also for those who know
nothing about it, who perhaps regard it with repugnance. It-
shows that then Unitarianism was in alliance with the powers
that contend for the enlightenment of the mind and the
freedom of the soul. We have a right to rejoice in the great
literary names that cluster around our earlier history; not,
however, because they belong to us, but rather because these
found in us the first who were ready to welcome the larger
thought and the clearer vision. That is our real ground for
honest pride, and of that we should ever strive to make
ourselves worthy.
In trying to present the second part of our subject, the
expression of Unitarianism in literature, several difficulties at
once appear. One difficulty lies in the fact that pure litera-]
ture, as a rule, has little to say about strictly religious themes
and the little it does say is often hinted at obliquely, so that
it is sometimes almost impossible to decide in any definite
way just how much or how little may be inferred from any
passage. Another difficulty rises out of the peculiar condition
of the religious thought of the time, in which much that
might be regarded as an utterance of Unitarian conviction
will be claimed by members of other religious bodies as no
less expressive of what they themselves believe. And still
a third difficulty rises out of the nature of the Unitarian
movement, which is not so much the means for diffusing
certain well-defined opinions, as it is a tendency toward the
creation of a free spirit, — a disposition to ask for reasons in
religion as well as in politics or in science. It is not so much
*
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mol
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Divi
ال
Th
We focus
254 UNITARIANISM AND MODERN LITERATURE.
}
a definition as a point of view. It is less a tangible fact than
an atmosphere which makes all things new. With the first of
these difficulties we can do nothing except to make the most
of the material we have, and to estimate what is less explicit
by what we may find fully avowed. In regard to the second
difficulty, namely, that many of the ideas which we associate
with Unitarianism may be also found among bodies that stand
in opposition to it, we have the right to urge that while in
Unitarianism these ideas are a matter of course, in other re-
ligious bodies they are the rare exceptions; that while in it
they are welcome, in them they are tolerated; in short, that
while in Unitarianism they are the effect of a growth from
within, in them they are the incident of a pressure from with-
out. Because Prof. John Stuart Blackie is a member of the
Church of Scotland, and writes, —
"O sancte Socrates ora pro nobis,
From silly flocks of petted lambs
And from a faith that largely damns,
Good saint, deliver us,"
it does not follow that that church adopts those words as the
expression of its inmost conviction. Nor because the same
writer declares,—
The errors of thy creatures praise thee, Lord,
Not they who err are damned,"
are we compelled to believe that the church of which he is a
member is prepared to preach the salvation of the heathen
who never heard the Gospel. Nearly all such utterances are
individual, and not, as in Unitarianism, representative. And
as for the third difficulty, while it may be less easy to state
particular propositions, in which all who call themselves Unita-
rians would be wholly agreed, there are lines of thought and
UNITARIANISM AND MOdern liteRATURE. 255
points of view in which they are as much in harmony as any
other religious body.
Unitarianism stands for the human element in religion. It
believes that the highest revelation of the divine can be found
only in the highest terms of the human. It sees in Jesus a
revelation of God, because in him it finds a revelation of the
religious nature of man. It does not manufacture any unscrip-
tural and mechanical device for bringing together imagined
opposites, like the divine and the human. It simply believes
Jesus when he says, "He that hath seen me hath seen the
Father." Unitarianism is also at one in its conviction that
what is essential in religion does not depend upon the acci-
dents of history. Instead of regarding the institutions and
statements in which Christianity has manifested itself as ne-
cessary to it, it regards them as the transient forms for the
embodiment of what the soul perceives as eternally true. It
believes that revelation is not the exclusive gift of one race,
or nation, or individual, however superior it may deem that
nation or that individual to all others. It finds the revelation
of God in the course of nature, and in the experiences of the
soul of man. It regards the revelation of God as independent
of accidents of time and place, and as present, inward, uni-
versal. And Unitarianism regards man not as a perverted,
but an incomplete being; and instead of seeing in his
stumblings, mistakes, and sins the result of a failure in the
past, it sees only the incidents of a struggle from what man
is towards the attainment of what he ought to become. It
believes man is learning through experience, and that the
experience he has is the experience through which he will
learn wisdom and acquire strength. To it the thought of a
God who punishes men for being imperfect, and with no view
to deliverance from their imperfection, is simply blasphemous.
256 UNITARIANISM AND MODERN LITERATURE.
It believes that rewards and penalties are not attached to
men, but grow out of what they are; in short, to use Dr.
Hedge's profound aphorism, that "character is destiny." It
sees the evil in man, it sees also the good; and it has an
abiding faith that every soul will at last, through the loving
though it may be hard discipline of God, be a redeemed soul.
It makes no distinction between here and there, between the
life that now is and the life to come. To it both are the
same; and in both alike it sees the same law for man to
learn, and the same love to trust.
These are some of the ideas which are implied in what
is called Unitarianism. Do these ideas find expression in
modern literature? It is somewhat singular that we find less
of these ideas in many of those who are identified with the
Unitarian organization than in those who have no connection
with it. Bryant wrote little, and that little was written in rela-
tion to the aspects of Nature; and in his religious poems he
has chosen to dwell upon the thoughts and feelings common
to all forms of religious aspiration and trust. Longfellow never
discusses religious problems. He deals with what is given in the
spirit of the artist. In "Christus" he uses in this way the ma-
terials furnished him by the Gospel narrative. In reading it one
would find it impossible to decide what the theological incli-
nation of the writer really was. Lowell's poems, and, indeed,
all his literary work for the most part, treat of subjects which
afford little or no opportunity for the expression of theological
ideas. Even in his Elegy on Dr. Channing there is nothing
which reveals his religious thought, as indeed it was not neces-
sary there should be. Perhaps the most distinctive expression
of our thought is found in the "Cathedral" in its whole spirit,
and especially in the passage where he declares his reverence
for every shrine "which guards piety;" and in the lines,-
1
UNITARIANISM AND MODERN LITERATURE. 257
"Each age must worship its own thought of God,
More or less earthy, clarifying still
With subsidence continuous of the dregs;
Nor saint nor sage could fix immutably
The fluent image of the unstable Best,
Still changing in their very hands that wrought:
To-day's eternal truth To-morrow proved
Frail as frost-landscapes on a window-pane.
Idle who hopes with prophets to be snatched
By virtue in their mantles left below;
Shall the soul live on other men's report,
Herself a pleasing fable of herself?"
In the poetry of Emerson there is nothing distinctive, but
there is compensation for this in his prose, which, despite
some criticism upon the "pale negation of Unitarianism,"
still preaches with "sweet reasonableness" the best of its
affirmations. No one, however, can read the works of Dr.
Holmes without being permeated with what is most character-
istic in Unitarian thought. It is probable that he has done
more to instil its views than any preacher ever had the power
to do. After reading him one might be easily surprised that
he had actually become a Unitarian without knowing it, as the
men of whom Swedenborg tells in his "True Christian Re-
ligion" found to their surprise that without knowing it they
had entered into the other world. As long as Dr. Holmes's
works are read, and read they will be so long as men and
women can enjoy wit,
can enjoy wit, — Unitarian ideas will not lack a
preacher.
The poets whom we have been considering might be con-
sidered as either voicing the shibboleth of their own sect, or
using the conventional terms of their own faith. It will there-
fore be well to inquire whether we find any expression of the
ideas for which Unitarianism stands among those who without
.....
17
258
UNITARIANISM AND MODERN LITERATURE.
any such bias simply utter the thought that possesses them.
As it would be impossible to bring before ourselves all that has
been written, or to cite the expressions of faith to be found
scattered through the voluminous literature of our time, I have
thought it best to see what there is that voices our thought in
a few of the leading contemporary poets.
It is only a few days since Whittier celebrated his eighty-
first birthday. Dr. Holmes and he alone remain to remind
the present generation of a period of poetic glory which in
all likelihood New England will not soon see again. He
stands apart from the fellow-poets of his own country in his
preference for subjects which touch moral action and spiritual
reflection. He has a deep interest in religious problems, and
turns to them again and again. It is in this devout and free
soul that we shall find in the clearest form some of the best
utterances of what is most precious to the Unitarian spirit.
That he is in close sympathy with the work, and a lover of the
life, of Dr. Channing, his poem gives ample proof, –
"In vain shall Rome her portals bar,
And shut from him her saintly prize,
Whom, in the world's great calendar,
All men shall canonize."
Whittier knows nothing of the distinctions which are so often
drawn by those who are wise above what is written, between
here and there, now and then. To him every moment of
existence is full of the Divine presence, and no place is with-
out the revelation of the Divine goodness. He is sure
He knows he
"that life and death
His mercy underlies."
"cannot drift
Beyond His love and care.”
11
UNITARIANISM AND MODERN LITERATURE. 259
He recognizes no moment when the mercy of God ceases
and his love fails. This assurance is to be found in many
of his poems, and it is clearly implied in the "Eternal
Goodness." It is, however, in the poem "The Cry of a
Lost Soul" that it finds distinctest utterance, A traveller
on the Amazon hears the mournful cry of a bird; the
guide crosses himself, whispers, "A lost soul!" and then
says:
"Saints strike him dumb! Our Holy Mother hath
No prayer for him who, sinning unto death,
Burns always in the furnace of God's wrath!'"
But the traveller, with a larger faith, declares: -
"Thou lovest all: thy erring child may be
Lost to himself, but never lost to thee.
"All souls are thine, the wings of morning bear
None from that Presence which is everywhere,
Nòr hell itself can hide, for thou art there.
"Wilt thou not make, Eternal Source and Goal,
In thy long years, life's broken circle whole,
And change to praise the cry of a lost soul?"
Our poet is at one with the faith that includes all, and which
sees in all men the same essential elements of faith and
aspiration and trust. In one of his best poems, the hymn
written for the dedication of Starr King's church at San
Francisco, he gives in a single line his ideal of the church:
(C
Thy church our broad humanity."
And in a poem read before the Quaker Alumni he thanks
God
And again,-
"for the faith which embraces the whole,
Of the creeds of the ages the life and the soul."
260 UNITARIANISM AND MODERN LITERATURE.
"For a sense of the Goodness revealed everywhere,
As sunshine impartial, and free as the air;
For a trust in humanity, Heathen or Jew,
And a hope for all darkness The Light shineth through."
In his thought of the doctrines of Christianity he seeks the
essential truth which they endeavor to reveal, or oftener still
he concerns himself with their purely practical aspect. In
"Trinitas" the great mystery is resolved in the experiences
of the day, and he learns to see
"The equal Father in rain and sun,
His Christ in the good to evil done,
His Voice in thy soul, and the Three are One.”
S
It is clear enough from this that the poet cares little or
nothing for the doctrine of the Trinity beyond the suggestion
it contains of the essential unity of the beneficence of Nature,
the service of the loving heart, and the soul's perception of
truth. Whittier finds the true thought of God neither in
theological systems nor in great institutions alone, but in the
unfoldings of the simple thought of tender and loving hearts.
In one poem, “The Minister's Daughter," the minister in his
morning sermon "had told of the primal fall, and how hence-
forth the wrath of God rested on each and all." But when in
the afternoon he walks out with his daughter, the little girl
whom he dearly loves, and tells her she ought to fear and love
God, she says:
"Oh, I fear him,
And I try to love him too;
But I wish he was good and gentle,
Kind and loving as you."
In these words, we are told, the minister discerned a revela-
tion of God better than he had ever seen in system or creed.
As Whittier finds the highest message of God in the experi-
ences of the heart, so is he able to find the revelation of God
3
UNITARIANISM AND MODERN LITERATURE. 261
in Christ, because in him he finds revealed what is best in
man:
66
So, to our mortal eyes subdued,
Flesh-veiled, but not concealed,
We know in thee the fatherhood
And heart of God revealed."
The faith of Whittier in Christ and in the truths of Chris-
tianity does not rest for its support upon outward circum-
stances or written record. It is independent of all these.
All the events of the history of Jesus are transformed by him
into experiences of the inward life. No outward circum-
stance is needed to make him more real. He cries:
"C
Oh, the outward hath gone, but in glory and power
The spirit surviveth the things of an hour;
Were my spirit but turned from the outward and dim,
It could gaze even now on the presence of Him."
To Whittier, the judgment of Heaven is neither arbitrary nor
incidental nor external; it is the result of what we have be-
come. The inward conviction of the real inclination of our
nature is the word of God within, accusing or excusing.
"The stern behest of duty,
The doom-book open thrown,
The heaven ye seek, the hell ye fear,
Are with yourselves alone."
If now we turn from the poets of our own land to those
of England we shall find in them, as in our own simple Quaker
poet, the same expression of much that is identical with the
spirit of Unitarianism. In Tennyson, whose faultless verse has
charmed the ears, and whose thoughts have brought comfort
to the hearts of so many English-speaking people for half a
century, we find that sympathy with freedom of thought in
religion for which Unitarianism largely stands. He has no
fear as he watches the transition through which religion is
262 UNITARIANISM AND MODERN LITERATURE.
passing. He sees in it rather the sign of a providential order.
To him there is more danger in having the life of the spirit
entombed, although in splendor, in some letter of a creed or
in some fossil of an institution :
"The old order changeth, yielding place to new,
And God fulfils himself in many ways,
Lest one good custom should corrupt the world."
He does not see in doubt an enemy to religion, but a ten-
dency towards the discovery of a larger and deeper truth.
Doubt of the form is the result of the conviction that there
is something for whose manifestation the form is seen to be
insufficient, -
"There lives more faith in honest doubt,
Believe me, than in half the creeds."
He has within the conviction of the Infinite Life, and that
causes him to regard all systems that seek to explain it as
partial and transient :
"Our little systems have their day;
They have their day and cease to be;
They are but broken lights of thee,
And thou, O Lord, art more than they."
He finds a revelation of God in what may be learned of the
smallest things. If he could know, all in all, the flower in the
crannied wall, he would know what God and man is. He
asks,
"The sun, the moon, the stars, the hills, and the plains,
Are not these, O soul, the vision of him who reigns?"
And as he finds the revelation of God in and through the
knowledge of Nature, so likewise does he find him revealed
in and through human nature. In his thought humanity and
deity are not seen sundered and opposed, but at one; and in
the human we learn to know the divine:
W
[
UNITARIANISM AND MODERN LITERATURE. 263
"Thou seemest human and divine,
The highest, holiest manhood thou."
Man's thought of what is due him is taken as a token of what
God will grant :
"Man thinks he was not made to die,
And thou hast made him, thou art just."
In spite of all the contradictions of time and sense he pro-
claims,
"One God, one law, one element,
And one far-off divine event,
To which the whole creation 'moves."
With Whittier, Tennyson places punishment in no outward or
arbitrary infliction, but in the formation of a character which
finds the penalty of its sin in what it is. In the “Vision of
Sin," the youth who has made himself the devotee of pleasure,
and who yields himself to all its seductions, becomes as a
natural consequence a miserable wreck of a man who has lost
all sense of the dignity and worth of existence :
"The crime of sense became the crime of malice."
At the close of the same poem a voice is heard crying, "Is
there any hope?"-
"To which an answer pealed from that high land,
But in a tongue no man could understand."
Here the final state of the sinful soul is left shrouded in mys-
tery. Elsewhere, however, he trusts, though faintly, the larger
hope, and cries, —
(C
Oh yet we trust that somehow good
Shall be the final goal of ill."
There is so much of the dramatic element in the poetry of
Robert Browning that it is unwise to lay too much stress upon
separate utterances, unless there is some good reason for be-
lieving that they are meant to express the personal conviction
of the poet. But if we may not always know what Browning
*
264 UNITARIANISM AND MODERN LITERATURE.
thinks by what appears in the utterances of his characters, we
may learn much from the use he makes of them. We can
see in the way in which God is revealed to different types
of character how much he thinks man's knowledge of God
depends upon what he is. Caliban, conscious only of brute
impulses, knows God only as a greater brute. The philosophy
of life is spoken by the Jewish sage, Rabbi Ben Ezra, while
the deepest word of Christian faith comes through the lips of
Saint John. In Browning, religion is independent of its his-
torical incidents. The whole argument of the Apostle John,
in "A Death in the Desert," is meant to establish as eternal
convictions of the soul what had seemed to others to rest
only upon the report of things seen and heard. And in "The
Ring and the Book," the Pope, who here evidently reveals
the mind of Browning, becomes aware of the danger of con-
founding religion with the report of its past manifestations,
and asks: -
"Whence need to bravely disbelieve report,
Through increased faith in things reports belie?
Correct the portrait by the living face,
Man's God by God's God in the mind of man?”
It is true that he feels that this will produce evil results in
some natures, who will only too readily take their lower
inclinations for the law of their being; but when the his-
torical witness to what is higher, and the visible institutions
which embody it, avail so little, to fall back upon the inward
and personal apprehension of religious truth may have a
providential value for those.
"too obtuse
Of ear thro' iteration of command
For catching quick the sense of the real cry."
To Browning, all modes by which truth is communicated are
useful, and all are temporal. In "A Death in the Desert "
UNITARIANISM AND MODERN LITERATURE. 265
he unfolds his thought of the purely transient value of all
usages and forms which seek to reveal the religious life.
"Since all things suffer change, save God the truth,
Man apprehends him newly at each stage ;
Whereat earth's ladder drops, its service done,
And nothing shall prove twice what once was proved."
The faith which once rested upon the report of a miracle
must now rest upon other supports. One who wrote a poem
such as "The Ring and the Book" to teach
"This lesson, that our human speech is naught,
Our human testimony false,"
could never rest any vital conviction of religion even upon
the best attested traditions. Again, in Browning the highest
revelation of God rests upon a revelation of what is best in
man. In "
Saul," the boy David longs to comfort Saul, and
believes that in his longing, which avails so little, there is im-
plicitly contained the promise of the help of God, which is
sufficient for everything: -
"Would I fain in my impotent yearning do all for this man,
And dare doubt he alone shall not help him, who yet alone can?"
In "Christmas Day," and again in “ A Death in the Desert,"
the same thought recurs. Man has love; God cannot lack
that, the lack of which would make him less than man.
"For the loving worm within its clod
Were diviner than a loveless God
Amid his worlds, I will dare to say."
In "Easter Day" we have Browning's vision of the judgment
of a soul that has preferred the things of this world to the life
which knows and loves God. The choice is confirmed, and
the punishment is but the necessary consequence of the
choice. But the judgment is remedial. The loss of what
266 UNITARIANISM AND MODERN LITERATURE.
seemed of no value compared with the glory of nature and
art is seen to involve the loss of everything, and the soul
cries out in its anguish,
"leave me not tied
To this despair, this corpse-like bride,
Only let me go on, go on,
Still hoping ever and anon
To reach one eve the 'Better Land.'"
Į
That hope to reach "one eve the Better Land" is with Brown-
ing more than a hope. He feels sure of the final destiny of
all. We are here indeed to make a choice, and that choice
decides much, but it does not decide everything, nor does it
decide forever. The Pope in "The Ring and the Book"
says of Guido, "Not one permissible impulse moves the
"1
man; but he also says:
"So may the truth be flashed out by one blow,
And Guido see one instant and be saved,
Else I avert my face, nor follow him
Into that sad, obscure, sequestered state
Where God unmakes but to remake the soul
He else first made in vain."
And again in "Apparent Failure," as he looks upon "the
three men who did most abhor their life in Paris yesterday,"
he says:
"My own hope is, a sun will pierce
The thickest cloud earth ever stretched;
That after Last returns the First,
Tho' a wide compass round be fetched;
That what began best can't end worst,
And what God blessed once prove accursed."
Little known as Lewis Morris is in this country, he is well
known in his own, where his longest poem, "Epic of Hades,”
published in 1877, has reached its twenty-second edition, and
the approval of the best critics. His other poems are “The
UNITARIANISM AND MODERN LITERATURE. 267
Ode of Life," "Gwen," "Songs of Two Worlds," "Songs
Unsung," "Gycia," and "Songs of Britain." More than any
other poet he dwells upon the problems of religious experi-
ence, and there is no one in whom the Unitarian will find
more reflection of his own thought. In one of his longer
poems, called "The Wanderer," he portrays the experience
of one who having tried all phases of life and forms of
religious belief, and craving absolute knowledge, is at last
convinced that he has not found what he sought because
it is not best that man should find it; and that
"Absolute truth revealed would serve to blind
The soul's bright eye, and sear with tongues of flame
The sinews of the mind."
In the same poem he speaks of the weakness of a faith that
finds the revelation of God depending on the letter of a
book:
"But if revealed he be, how to escape
The critic who dissects the sacred page
Till God's gift hangs on grammar, and the saint
Is weaker than the sage.”
In the poem, "The New Order," he views with somewhat
of sadness many things that appear on the surface of our mod-
ern thought; nevertheless, all this only inspires him with the
assurance that
"There shall rise from this confused sound of voices
A firmer faith than that our fathers knew,
A deep religion which alone rejoices
In worship of the Infinitely True.
Not built on rite or portent, but a finer
And purer reverence for a Lord diviner."
Our poet does not regard any external attestation to a truth
as conferring upon it any more value. To him religion is
proved by its power here and now to convince the honest
268 UNITARIANISM AND MODERN LITERATURE.
heart of its truth. In "Even-Song," speaking of Jesus, he
says:
66
Nay! he is our Teacher indeed; little boots it to-day to seek
To arraign with a labored learning the words that men heard him
speak,
Or to sneer at the wonders they saw him work, or believed they saw,
We who know that unbending sequence is only a phase of law.
No wonder which God might do, if it rested on witness of men,
Would turn to it our thoughts of to-day as it turned the multitudes'
then;
Nor proved would avail a whit, if the teaching itself was not pure,
Nor if it were pure as his, would make it one whit more sure.'
As religion does not with Lewis Morris rest on anything more
or less secure than the perception of the soul of its good-
ness and truth, so also revelation is not confined to one per-
son, nation, or race. While, as we have seen, confessing the
pre-eminent worth of the revelation in Jesus, and while
declaring in "Even-Song" that—
""Twixt his rule of a Higher Mercy and that which the Rabbi taught
Lies the gulf between glowing act and barren ashes of thought,”
and that " "no teacher of old was full of mercy as ours, or
pure,' " he at the same time maintains the universal revelation
of God:
"C
'Yet God is not silent. Indeed, not seldom from every page,
From the lisping story of eld to the seer with his noble rage,
All are fired by the spirit of God.
Each nation, each age has its laws whereto it shall stand or fall,
But built on a wider law which is under and over them all.
Nor doubt we that from Western wilds to the long-sealed isles of
Japan
There runs the unbroken realm of a law that is common to man."
As with Whittier, with Tennyson and Browning, punishment.
of sin or reward of good is seen by Lewis Morris to lie within,
in what we are, and
"We are ourselves our heaven and hell."
UNITARIANISM AND MODERN LITERATURE. 269
He is at one with them in his expression of the eternal hope.
To him evil is that it may cease. In the "Epic of Hades "
we have a vision of Tantalus in Tartarus, from whose lips the
longed-for waters ever flee; who is receiving in this way the
punishment of insatiable desire; and we hear him say,
"And yet there comes a healing purpose in my pain.”
At the close of the terrible description of the sufferings of
those whose guilt had incurred the heaviest doom, the poet
hears a voice saying: —
"There is an end
Of all things that thou seest; there is an end
Of wrong, and death, and hell."
I think no one can read these poets without seeing how
their spirit and tendency are in accord with the spirit and
tendency of what is best in Unitarianism.
If we now turn to works of fiction, we shall find little ex-
pression of any distinctive religious thought among the great
writers. They are artists, interested in the portrayal of what
is, rather than in statements of what ought to be. Thackeray
punctures the shams of our modern life in religion as in every-
thing else, and George Eliot impresses upon her readers the
unfailing consequence of the conditions in which we are
placed, and of the principles upon which we act. The novels
of George Macdonald have a more definite religious ten-
dency, and deal more than almost any other with the re-
ligious life. These emphasize life rather than creed, and the
spirit of some of them is found in that epitaph in "David
Elginbrod,"
"Here lie I, Martin Elginbrod,
Ha' mercy on my soul, Lord God,
As I would do were I Lord God
And ye were Martin Elginbrod.”
270 UNITARIANISM AND MODERN LITERATURE.
In so far as we have had religious novels they have tended
towards the spirit which Unitarianism seeks to cherish. "Love
and Theology," by Mrs. Celia Wooley, herself a Unitarian, is
imbued with that spirit. In "John Ward, Preacher," the pro-
test of the human heart against eternal punishment, and the
conception of a God whose nature makes it possible, is uttered
with unusual power.
'Robert Elsmere," by Mrs. Humphrey
Ward, brings before its readers in the most impressive way the
relation of religion to history, and has wakened in thousands
the inquiry whether a religion that has vital power must not
depend upon the insight of the spirit rather than upon the
uncertain results of historical criticism; upon present percep-
tion rather than upon the report of past happenings.¹ The
fact is, that modern literature, even when it is not in general
sympathy with Unitarianism, has much that helps it, and which
makes its work easier to accomplish. Modern literature, like
that of every age, has various tendencies, positivist, agnostic,
pessimistic. But there is no literature of great value which
represents what is regarded as the orthodox and traditional
systems of Christianity. This is a significant indication that
the hearts of this century are not possessed by them. Lit-
erature is the best expression of the ideas and feelings which
occupy the mind and heart of a generation. It was because
the thought of Aquinas ruled all the life of his time that Dante
wrote the "Divine Comedy," as it was because the ideas of
Protestantism were so prevailing that Milton wrote his "Para-
dise Lost." Such works are impossible in our day, because
My
1 We might include among those who in some way have uttered
some portion of our Unitarian thought and feeling, although in many
of their opinions they are far from being in accord with Unitarianism,
men like Carlyle, Froude, Robert Buchanan, Dean Stanley, Jowett,
Francis W. Newman.
UNITARIANISM AND Modern liteRATURE. 271
the beliefs out of which they grew have lost their attraction
and power.
Since Pollok's "Course of Time," in which God
is represented as one who
"C sees unmoved
The endless tears of vain repentance fall,"
no poet has sung the thoughts of the old confessions. The
creeds and systems remain, but the world's teachers have no
faith in them; its noblest writers no longer care to give them
utterance. A writer in a recent " Quarterly," who grows
frantic over [C
Robert Elsmere," proposes that books like it
should be banished from all Christian homes. That may be
done; but to shut out the literature of an age, the subtle
influences of poet and novelist and critic, is as impossible as
to shut out sunlight and air. To succeed in such an attempt
would mean intellectual death.
I rise from this review of Unitarianism and literature with
the belief that Unitarianism has good reason to rejoice in the
memories of its past history, in the consciousness of its har-
mony with the insight of gifted souls in the present, in its
sense of its mission to make that insight the common pos-
session of all, and in its assurance that the ideas and sen-
timents whose proclamation is its excuse for being, must
inevitably be interwoven with the best life of the world for
ages to come.
UNITARIANISM AND MODERN BIBLICAL
CRITICISM.
BY JAMES DE NORMANDIE.
A
FAMOUS critic, it is said, having gathered together all
the faults of an eminent poet offered them a present to
Apollo, who resolved to make him a suitable return for his
trouble. He set before him a sack of wheat, as it had been
thrashed out of the sheaf, and bid him pick out the chaff
from among the corn and lay it aside by itself. The critic
applied himself to the task with great industry and pleasure,
and after having made the due separation was presented by
Apollo with the chaff for his pains.
To many, criticism seems to be seeking only for the chaff,
as if one were passing by the merits of a work to fasten upon
its imperfections; and so it has to them an ungracious aspect.
But ungracious or not, it is to this that we owe every improve-
ment in manners, in morals, and in literature. Whether the
critics come to find pleasure in their work of detecting errors
or not, the profit is altogether ours. No error can be de-
tected and confirmed unless it brings out a truth; the
greater the magnitude of the error, the more helpful and
permanent the revelation of the truth. In our school-boy
compositions, how should we make any progress if it were not
for the criticism which marks our faults, and thereby shows us
the best way of expressing our thoughts. In manners, how
grateful are we in after years to those who, even through our
I
bad
UNITARIANISM AND BIBLICAL CRITICISM. 273
great mortification, cured us of awkwardness or of repulsive
habits. In morals, how often the possession of many admira-
ble qualities counts for nothing by reason of some one neg-
lected and overwhelming passion. The law is universal,
owe every advance to that criticism which, in seeking a higher
truth, has to point out, even with some rudeness and an ap-
parent pleasure, our faults.
we
The ungracious aspect of criticism is only deepened when
it is applied to the Scriptures. In all other literature we con-
fess its value, but here we have been afraid of its rude hand;
and not a few have secretly longed, if not feared, that every
Bible critic might share the fate of Uzzah, for touching this
ark of God. So many cherished associations, so many lofty
moments of devotion, so many of the deep experiences of life
are bound up with the words of psalmist, prophet, or apostle,
we have a strange misgiving that somehow or other criticism
is to deprive us of their gracious message, or to bar us from
sharing their spiritual experiences. Idle fears, and yet natural;
and great pain have they brought even to many of the most
reverent seekers after the truth of the Scriptures, who hesitated
lest the destruction of some traditional opinion might carry
with it the simple faith of some trusting heart. But we must
learn — and we are learning it—that what is really valuable and
divine in the past has "nothing to fear from the critic, whose
labors can only put its worth in a clearer light, and establish
its authority on a surer basis.'
""
It is this principle which has been generally accepted by
our body of the Christian Church, and which has made us
hospitable to the results of modern Biblical criticism. Indeed,
from the beginning, in this country, we have been committed
unreservedly to the method of scientific criticism upon the
Scriptures, even if we have not always followed it, or if some-
18
274
UNITARIANISM AND
times we have shrunk a little from its results. And we must
remember that here, as in every question which concerns
morals, we are not to be much concerned about results; for
if the principle is correct, the results may be left to themselves.
Now, the principle is that "all knowledge must conform to
scientific methods as a necessary condition of true knowledge.
Every opinion is the product of reason; and even if swayed,
biassed, or perverted by prejudice, reason is not discarded
nor overthrown, but only misapplied, and made to sanction
falsehood rather than truth. There is no difference in kind
between opinions concerning God and opinions concerning
the physical universe; they are both subject to the laws of
thought, and must conform to the general principles which
regulate the investigation of all truth." As all truth is one, so
if we say that even in the most literal sense God gave us the
Bible, or if we call it in the most evangelical sense the
Word of God,—from the same source surely came the faculty
of reason with which to study the Bible; so that its true
meaning is not to be measured by any traditional or precon-
ceived theories, but determined by the method of scientific
or reasonable research. Now this principle, I say, has been
declared in every conceivable form, and with great emphasis,
by our body from the beginning, and it really marks the
widest line of division between us and all others.
С،
How," says Dr. Channing, “is the real meaning of Scripture
to be understood? I answer, by reason. Of all books, perhaps
the Scriptures need most the use of reason for their just interpre-
tation." 1
"From a variety of possible interpretations we select
that which accords with the nature of the subject and the state
of the writer, with the connection of the passage, with the gen-
eral strain of Scripture, with the known character and will of
God, and with the obvious and acknowledged laws of nature.
1 Channing's Works (Eng. ed.), p. 225.
MODERN BIBLICAL CRITICISM.
275
:
We reason about the Bible precisely as civilians do about the
Constitution under which we live; who, you know, are accustomed
to limit one provision of that venerable instrument by others, and
to fix the precise import of its parts by inquiring into its general
spirit, into the intentions of the authors, and into the prevalent
feelings, impressions, and circumstances of the time when it was
framed."1 And again: "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." 2
p
Even the most ardent follower of the Dutch school
of Biblical criticism could ask no greater liberty for his
investigations.
Now, although Dr. Channing was probably not in the least
acquainted with the studies of the Scriptures then beginning
to acquire some critical value in Germany, it is worthy of note
that it was a few years before the last words I have quoted
from him were written, that De Wette, the pioneer of histori-
cal Biblical criticism, had begun the publication of those re-
markable works upon the Scriptures which have been followed
to our day without one receding step. Dr. Channing adopted
his conclusions out of the leadings of a liberal spirit; De
Wette his, from following the strict laws of historical and scien-
tific research.
D
The use of reason in the interpretation of the Bible, while it
was itself the suggestion of, also made necessary an entire
modification of, another doctrine before Biblical criticism
could have any important results, - I mean the doctrine of
inspiration. As long as theologians held that the Scriptures
were the literal words of God, and that no human element
was to be found in them, of course it was not only irrev-
erent or impious, it was impotent and absurd to offer any
2 Ibid., p. 278.
1 Channing's Works (Eng. ed.), p. 279.
www.
276
UNITARIANISM AND
criticism of them; as much so as to criticise the laws of the
physical universe, the flow of the tides, or the revolution of
the seasons. In the Seventeenth Century, when the Protestant
Church felt the necessity of some outward visible authority
for the masses, with which to oppose the infallibility of Ro-
manism, there grew up the doctrine of plenary inspiration,
that the writers of the Bible were not really human beings
acting with any self-consciousness, but passive instruments of
the Holy Spirit; so that even every word in the Bible was
dictated by the unerring Spirit of God, and every idea and
statement it in must be implicitly received as from the lips of
the Almighty himself. Of course this view has to-day no
acceptance among scholars, and yet its lingering influence ist
harmful to the last degree among multitudes. With us, how-
ever, there has been entire unanimity upon the principle of
inspiration, if not always a clear vision, or a ready acceptance
of its results.
Dr. Channing held that inspiration was a very secondary
thing, a quality inferior to simple virtue.
،،
Suppose," he says, "the greatest truths in the universe to
be revealed supernaturally to a being who should take no interest
in them, who should not see and feel their greatness, but should
repeat them mechanically, as they were put into his mouth by the
Deity. Such a man would be inspired, and would teach the
greatest verities, and yet he would be nothing, and would have
no claim to reverence.
And down to our day there seems to have been no deviation
from the general principle that inspiration is to be regarded
simply as a quickening of the mental faculties, a clearing of
the soul-vision; and though we call it "in one case a process
of nature, and in the other an operation of the Spirit, these
1 Channing's Works (Eng. ed.), p. 249.
MODERN BIBLICAL CRITICISM.
277
phrases do not alter the identity of the agent. Because the
effects are different, is it not therefore the same God?"
With the acceptance of these two principles, - the use of
reason, and the idea of inspiration as not different in kind
but in degree in the writers of the Scriptures, - Biblical
criticism began to play a most important part in the Uni-
tarian movement in this country. It was first used with
good effect in the Trinitarian controversy, and in combating
the evangelical dogmas; and those who are familiar with the
"Christian Examiner " thirty years ago, earlier and later, know
how scholarly and well this work was done. The whole Or-
thodox system of faith was thoroughly and constantly enfiladed
by a number of writers who were ever ready with the claims of
reason, and the best results of criticism on the inspiration of the
Scriptures; and although the criticism was generally a textual
criticism, it is somewhat questionable if, according to the re-
sults of that time, there has been any work done quite so well
since. The subjects of the articles and of the tracts of that day
show what a spirited and controversial period it was. What-
ever book or essay appeared in defence of the current dog-
mas of the church, met with an instant and able reply. So
well was the textual bearing of the Bible against the popular
form of expressing the Trinity employed, that many of its
defenders were glad to confess that it belonged rather to the
realm of metaphysics than of theology; and as a result of
that controversy, no less an authority than W. Robertson
Smith says in a recent work :
"You will not find in the Bible any exposition of the doctrine
of the Trinity, any definition of person and substance and essence,
and all the other terms of which the chapter about the Trinity in
every theological system is full.” 1
1 Smith: The Old Testament in the Jewish Church, p. II.
278
UNITARIANISM AND
Still, beyond textual criticism there was a somewhat timid
admission of any attempted criticism which went a little
deeper. When Professor Norton published his "Translation
of the Gospels," in which he says concerning Luke's narrative
of the birth of Jesus, "It is in a style rather poetical than his-
torical; with its real miracles the fictions of oral tradition
had probably become blended, and the individual by whom it
was committed to writing probably added what he regarded
as poetical embellishments," one of our ministers, in a lengthy
review of the work, remarked upon this passage:
P
"We may grant that there is nothing more reasonable than
such a supposition. But to define the limits of its application
involves a serious embarrassment. Once admit that there is a
legendary element mingled with the historical narratives of the
Gospels, and an issue is opened in which men of equal wisdom,
scholarship, and good judgment will array themselves as respec-
tively the champions of the legend or the history; and the claims of
the former will be pressed to the most serious consequences.” 1
The first results of German Biblical criticism were just being
wafted to our shores, startling even those who dared to inves-
tigate them, while being held up by the evangelical church as
the sure forerunner of atheism. Biblical criticism was just
entering upon the scientific method. De Wette and Paulus,
and Strauss and Schwegler were making their theories and
studies known. Many generalizations were too hasty; many
conjectures had to be modified or given up, many errors
rectified, but results if not final, were of great value. They
prepared the way for a rapidly increasing number of scholars,
to study the Scriptures just as Dr. Channing had said they
were to be studied. They brought to the work a strictly sci-
entific method of inquiry, and that was the essential thing.
1 Christian Examiner, July, 1855.
MODERN BIBLICAL CRITICISM.
279
Results might be modified, but the principles knew no retro-
gression. Theological or traditional prepossessions were being
thrown aside, to find out just what the Scriptures were, - their
character and purpose, and age and authors. One cannot
overlook those clergy who during these early years of our de-
nominational life stood out boldly for the claims of reason,
and met textual criticism with great skill against the popular
dogmas of the church. Channing, Dewey, Gannett, the Wares,
Ellis, Peabody, Walker, Noyes, are some of a list to be re-
membered with gratitude and even pride.
Thus far Biblical criticism was chiefly the keen scrutiny of the
texts of Scripture, and their use in destroying the authority of
some of the popular dogmas of the church; but it was about
taking a more important step, and fraught with more momen-
tous results. The study of the physical sciences was awakening
serious doubts in many minds about the cosmogony of the
Bible. I say physical science, because it is extremely unfor-
tunate that we have not been able to preserve a more careful
distinction in the use of terms; for science is simply what is
known upon any subject, and the scientific method is
simply the application of the reason to facts in any matter,
to establish knowledge, a method which we want to pursue
in every department; but for the neglect of the distinction
the studies into physical nature have appropriated the term
"science," and bitter was the conflict a generation ago, and
until very recent years, between science and theology, or sci-
ence and religion. Every declaration of the naturalist, or every
tentative hypothesis which he threw out as the result of his
investigations, was regarded as a direct attack upon the super-
natural revelation in the Bible. Those of us who recall the
reception by the theological world of a book so reverent and
according to the scientific triumphs and conclusions of our
M
280
UNITARIANISM AND
day so harmless as the "Essays and Reviews," and especially
its essay upon the "Mosaic Cosmogony," are brought by
memory into a warfare which seems to have belonged to
centuries past. The researches and conclusions of the
geologist, and the dawn of the Development theory, were big
with peril to popular conceptions of the Bible. I remember
that in the early years of my ministry I introduced into a ser-
mon this sentence: "That whatever the conclusions of the
naturalist might be in regard to the Development theory,
certainly in morals and in spiritual things it offered us the
great hope that if we had the endless past with its story of
slow growth, we have the endless future to encourage our
progress." It was a good while before I heard the last from
that remark; but I have lived to hear one of our oldest
ministers, who had been greatly troubled by my heresy, say
that "he regarded the Development theory as the most help-
ful thing for the world that had ever been suggested either
by science or by theology."
A dear good woman brought me some days after that ser-
mon one of those cards quite common at the time, and issued
to bring the theory into derision, on which by a series of al-
most imperceptible shadings of the lines the descent was traced
from man to monkey, and wanted to know what I thought of
that descent. I replied, I was not so much interested in the
descent as in the ascent. I recalled it some years later when
I read in "Nature" the story told about Huxley at one of the
meetings of the British Association for the Advancement of
Science. An English bishop closed a sarcastic speech against
the Darwinians by turning to Professor Huxley, their leading
representative, and saying, "Is the learned gentleman really
willing to have it go forth to the world that he believes him-
self to be descended from a monkey?" Professor Huxley
MODERN BIBLICAL CRITICISM.
281
said in his quiet manner, “It seems to me that the learned
bishop hardly appreciates our position and duty as men of
science. We are not here to inquire what we would prefer,
but what is true. The progress of science from the beginning
has been a conflict with old prejudices. The origin of man
is not a question of likes or dislikes, to be settled by consult-
ing the feelings, but it is a question of evidence, to be settled
by strict scientific investigation. But as the learned bishop is
curious to know my state of feelings upon the subject, I have
no hesitation in saying, that were it a matter of choice with
me (which clearly it is not), whether I should be descended
from a respectable monkey or from a bishop of the English
Church who can put his brains to no better use than to ridi-
cule science and misrepresent its cultivators, I should cer-
tainly choose the monkey."
Now, I am not here to accept in every detail the theory of
Development, there are some steps which Darwin himself
says are still wanting for its establishment as a great law in
the universe; but every addition to our knowledge in every
realm brings some corroborative evidence. The great point
is this, that the more it has influenced the criticism of the
Bible, the less are we of to-day troubled by it. So in re-
gard to geology. We have distanced that period of earnest
and fierce discussion, only a generation past, so far as almost
to have forgotten its issues, when we thought the foundations
of religion were irretrievably shaken and overthrown if the
cosmogony of the Bible were not literally accepted. Some
began to say there could be no conflict between religion and
science, or between theology and science. That was true,
because creation must be the work of God quite as surely as
the Bible; nevertheless, between current ideas of religion, or
widely accepted dogmas of theology, there was a real and
1
P
wy
282
UNITARIANISM AND
inevitable conflict of no doubtful result. Others began to say,
when brought face to face with the accepted results of the
naturalists, that the Bible was not intended to teach physical
science, but only to give us a spiritual revelation, to teach
us things man must ever be unable to learn for himself,.
among which things physical truths could not be reckoned.
This helped many over a shaky and crumbling bridge, but
they got safely over. It was a poor makeshift. If the
general theory of inspiration were still accepted, it would
be strange indeed if the Supreme Being, surely acquainted
with all scientific as well as all spiritual truth, and seeing with
omniscient vision all knowledge that man should finally attain,
were to make statements conflicting with that future knowl-
edge, and, accommodating himself to early ignorance, lend
himself for ages to the perpetuation of error. What might
not have been spared to the perplexing researches of natu-
ralists, beset by the animosities and persecutions of theolo-
gians, from the Ptolemaic system down to the sad end of
Hugh Miller, if only the Bible had taught the truths of physi-
cal science!
Still again, an attempt to harmonize the statements of the
Bible and the results of geology was made by trying to revive
something akin to that allegorical method which has been the
bane of all scriptural interpretation. When it was found that
geology carried the age of our world far back beyond any-
thing the cosmogony of the Bible could be tortured to equal,
it was said that the days of Genesis might be rendered as
periods, or æons, or that the whole was a poetical description.
of creation. But Biblical criticism, under the guidance of the
two principles we have steadily kept in view, made pretty
quick work of all such attempts to create a harmony where
there was only variance; for if a day were to mean a period,
MODERN BIBLICAL CRITICISM.
283
or æon, in Genesis, it could as well mean an æon wherever
it was found in the Bible. The fact was, and it had to be
recognized, that there was no attempt at any mystical, or alle-
gorical, or symbolical meaning. The description is simple,
and maintained throughout with whatever scientific accuracy
the age had, and modern scientific research was at liberty to
modify it as was necessary in the advance of knowledge.
At the same time that physical science was influencing Bib-
lical criticism there came another study of great importance,
and with results of which Biblical criticism had to take serious
account. I mean the study of comparative theology. As the
Greek liked to designate everything outside of his borders "bar-
barian,” and the Jew everything outside of his, "Gentile," so it
has been customary for us to divide the world into Christian
and Pagan. Christianity has generally been taught not as a
religion, but as the only religion. God had made a revelation.
through Israel that was not only higher and more universal
than any other, it was the only revelation he had made. He
had not only inspired the prophets and teachers of the Bible.
with diviner truth than others, but they were the only ones
he had inspired at all. Now, the study of comparative the-
ology has done more to modify this view, during the past
thirty years, than all the centuries before. The researches
of Max Müller, of Renan, of Rhys Davids, of Kuenen, of
Renouf, of Sayce, of Arnold, and others have swept away
the assumption that ours was the only religion, while other
peoples were only idolaters. It is not that they reveal to us
that Judaism is necessarily borrowed or developed from Ori-
ental religions; this idea of one nation borrowing its worship
from another may have been carried altogether too far.
Renouf says: "It may be confidently asserted that neither
Hebrews nor Greeks borrowed any of their ideas from Egypt.
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UNITARIANISM AND
Purely external resemblances may no doubt be discovered in
abundance, but evidence of the transmission of ideas will be
sought in vain.” 1
But what we have learned is, that throughout all lands and
peoples outside of Judaism - we find worship, and wor-
ship which has in it the elements of true religion. There are
prayers and hymns and sacrifices, and an acknowledgment
of the Supreme Being, and a sense of sin, and an idea of
providence, and a belief in a future existence. There are
Scriptures held to be as venerable, and as reverenced, and as
inspired among them, and as sacred as the most superstitious
have ever regarded our own; and there are passages as full
of true spirituality and piety, breathing the love of God and
of man,
so that one cannot say we have all of what is Holy
Scripture, or that theirs is not from the same source. No
matter how superior we may confess our own to be, after the
most impartial comparison (and I do believe it so to be), the
difference is not so great as to be of kind and not of degree.
The old Egyptian held his ritual for the dead to be quite
as venerable and sacred as the Ten Commandments were
to Israel, or the Beatitudes are to us. In that ritual we find
this passage:
"God is one in himself, sole, who produces all, the ancient
of heaven, the oldest of the earth, the lord of time, the author of
eternity. He is the causer of pleasure and light, maker of grass
for the cattle and of fruitful trees for man, causing the fish to live
in the river and the birds to fill the air, lying awake when all
men sleep, to seek out the good of his creatures. He listens to
the poor who is in distress, gentle of heart when one cries unto
him, deliverer of the timid man from the violent, judging the
poor, the poor and the oppressed." 2
1 Egypt, pp. 254–256.
2 English Positive Aspects of Unitarian Christianity, p. 156.
MODERN BIBLICAL CRITICISM.
285
If the Romanist thinks his vast sacerdotal system is unique,
he knows, if he is abreast of the studies of comparative the-
ology, that Buddhism long before had its bells and rosaries
and holy water, its shaven priests, its Virgin and Child, its
fasts and purgatory, its shrines and pilgrimages, its monasteries
and cathedrals, its Pope with a triple tiara on his head.
Now the results of these studies, accepted by all scholars,
have been of profound significance when applied to our own
Scriptures. Are we disappointed and envious to know that
others as well have found the elements of the true religion,
or have Scriptures they think come from the Eternal?
Or,
rather, have we gained a faith broader and grander as we
think of them also as having found God, or rather being found
of him? Are we the more earnestly stirred to find the supe-
rior merits of our own, out of that grand and universal law of
development and of inspiration, and to have fresh springs
of life unsealed within us as its greater spiritual purity lays
heavier responsibilities upon us? All missionary efforts have
thus far been carried on under the conviction that in other
lands there was no true religion; and for this reason all mis-
sionary efforts have been comparatively fruitless; that is, upon
the language or customs or morality or government or wor-
ship of the great world-religions they have left no perceptible
traces, nor will they until they are inspired by the truths
which lie beneath the researches of comparative theology.
We are brought now to a question of Biblical criticism of
no less importance than the others, which indeed inevitably
follows them, of which we are just at the beginning, but to
which the best scholarship looks for valuable results.
It has been the general consent of theologians, not only
that the first books of the Bible narrate the earliest incidents
of man and of creation, but also that they were the earliest
286
UNITARIANISM AND
written. "The laws of the Pentateuch, carefully written out by
Moses himself, and preserved from his time, were held to have
been the unvarying rule of faith and obedience before as after
the Exile." We have all been taught that the Jews divided
the Old Testament into the Law, or the Pentateuch, the
Prophets, and the Hagiographa, and that this was the rela-
tive order of their age, the Prophets coming before the
Hagiographa, and the Law before the Prophets.
But the keen scrutiny of scholarship has for a long time
found some difficulties here, natural as the order seems, and dif-
ficulties upon which for a long time no light seemed to dawn.
I am not about to enter upon the interesting criticism of the
different documents, especially the Jehovistic and the Elohis-
tic, by which, through a line of eminent scholars like De Wette,
and Vatke, and Reuss, and Graf, and Ewald, it has been sought
to fix the composition and age of the earlier books, but merely
to state even a later conclusion. If the Law was the oldest
portion of the Bible to have been written and received into the
canon, there were some difficulties, which grew only greater
as the examination grew more accurate according to the best
rules of historical criticism. Why, for example, if these books
were universally received and known as authoritative at this
early period, is it that none of the prophetical writers before
the Exile ever appeal to the finished system of the Penta-
teuch? Or, there is the institution of the Sabbath; and if
it was established at the end of the creative days, and for
the reason that Jehovah rested from his creative work, and
if this as a part of the Law was received as authoritative
from the beginning, why do we not find any trace whatsoever
of its observance? Not only do the Scriptures never speak
of its being kept before the time of Moses, but they are silent
about it from Moses to the end of David's reign, a period of
A
MODERN BIBLICAL CRITICISM.
287
four hundred and forty years. Is it strange that careful read-
ers have been greatly perplexed at these omissions?
Difficulties which were utterly inexplicable under the old
interpretations began to multiply as the historical criticism
became more exact; and at last, for a working hypothesis,
there came the explanation that perhaps the earliest in order
of the canon might not have been the earliest arranged, and
this seemed to throw a wonderful light upon many of the per-
plexities. Kuenen, whose investigations into the Pentateuch.
have been about the strongest thing in modern criticism, was
one of the first to give this theory a full discussion, and it
has had a hearty reception from many of the ablest scholars
of our day. We may not accept all the conclusions of the
Dutch school of theology, of which Kuenen is the acknowl-
edged head; but of his own deeply religious spirit, and of his
unquestioning, fervent acceptance of Christianity, there can be
no doubt. In one of his lectures he writes so finely:
out.
"It is not for less but for more Christianity that our age cries
The question only is, whether it will be able to take it to
itself, and find in it a power for life, unbroken yet. For those
who identify Christianity with the ecclesiastical form in which they
themselves profess it, this question can hardly be said to exist.
They expect the world to conform to them. They have no need
to be reassured or encouraged. But those too-and they are
many who have no such confidence may be none the less at
peace. The universalism of Christianity is the sheet-anchor of
their hope. A history of eighteen centuries bears mighty witness
to it; and the contents of its evidence, and the high significance
they possess, are brought into the clearest light by the comparison
with other religions." >> 1
But while the great value of Dr. Kuenen's studies in Biblical
criticism have been freely acknowledged by all scholars, it is
1 Hibbert Lectures, 18S2, p. 327.
288
UNITARIANISM AND
to another careful student that this last theory of the date and
composition of the Scriptures, to which we have referred, owes
its exhaustive and apparently unanswerable defence.
In his "History of Israel," Wellhausen, who I suppose is
acknowledged to be the chief of living biblical students, seems
to me not only to maintain, but to demonstrate, that the first
books of the Bible, known as the Pentateuch, or according to
a better classing the Hexateuch, are not remnants of the
literature of ancient Israel," preserved in their present form
from their departure from Egypt, or before they crossed the
border, but that they grew up little by little, by this great law
of development, from a Mosaic germ, and did not until the
time of the Captivity assume their present order, completeness,
and authority.
(6
As Champollion found the key and opened the door of
those strange writings of the Egyptians, so that we can enter
into their mysterious knowledge, it looks as if Wellhausen had
found the key to the chief perplexities which met the biblical
student. At all events, the best scholarship is looking with
great hospitality towards that theory. If it should not explain
everything, it has already thrown a bright light upon many
dark places. Robertson Smith no mean authority, and
himself fully accepting the hypothesis says that "almost
every younger scholar of mark is on that side."
It has been our privilege as a small body of the Christian
Church I might say our distinguishing privilege to ac-
cept from our earliest association a few great principles in
religion, which have made us hospitable towards, and fear-
less about, the results of Biblical criticism. It has often
been charged that these were adopted from a spirit of pride,
or intellectual sufficiency, or of scepticism and unbelief. But
they come from the force of truth; and other bodies are
M
M
MODERN BIBLICAL CRITICISM.
289
finding by that same leading that they must rest upon the
same principles.
Many think, and I fear even among us, that the need has
passed for these questions; that it is a waste of time to be
considering the authorship and canon of the Bible, while social
life is full of pressing dangers, and of troubled and despairing
hearts, and when the open talk is of multitudes drifting from
every anchorage of faith in spiritual realities. But it is to
assure us upon these very points that Biblical criticism has its
own place and value; for if the principles upon which we
have rested are safe, - the use of reason, the universality of
inspiration, and the law of progress in God's universe, then
these questions do touch the everlasting problems of a living
faith. They do touch the deepest problem of all, of the
ever-living, ever-present God. Errors, mistakes fall away;
but every supreme truth abides.
19
Mag
Q
Jenn
UNITARIANISM AND MODERN SCIENTIFIC
THOUGHT.
BY THOMAS R. SLICER.
Youth is ever taught by instances; manhood is taught by laws.
PROF. ASA GRAY.
THE
Τ
HE subject assigned to me in this course of Lectures
is the Relation of Unitarianism and Modern Scientific
Thought. The statement of the theme very properly lays a
restraint upon the lecturer; for I am required to furnish nei-
ther a theological argument nor a scientific demonstration.
Theology may be defined to be the statement, in terms of
the intellect, of the report which the universe makes to
the spiritual nature of man; it is the answer to the question,
How does the universe interpret itself to the human soul?
On the other hand, science may be defined as the statement,
in terms of the intellect, of the report which the universe
makes to the man concerning his place in the material world;
it is the answer to the question, How does the universe inter-
pret itself to the senses of man?
In comparing the theologic answer and the scientific answer
three results are possible: (1) Both answers may be false,
because men do not always understand what is said to them
by the universe. The universe cannot be false, and the man
may not be false; but there may be reasons why there is
not a clear distinction of the sounds. The answer is not
articulate and just. Results depend upon the material worked
;
UNITARIANISM AND MODERN THOUGHT.
291
in. (2) One answer may be true and the other may be
false, because the man may not be equally well developed
in his soul and in his senses: he may "be alive unto
his senses
God," or he may be "living after the flesh;
may be keener than his spirit. (3) Both answers may be
true. Even then the answer is not final. No soul is great
enough, nor any sense keen enough, to do more than get
an answer that will be provisionally or tentatively true;
the human mind is not yet perfectly developed, nor is the
universe finished. Man is growing, and the universe is in
process of creation. If we can get a good working-theory
of the universe, we have done all that science requires and
all that theology requires — when it is acquainted with the
human soul.
>>
These three conditions may be present, then, when the
man is spoken to by the universe, and makes his theological
and scientific interpretation: (1) Both answers may be false;
(2) One answer may be true and the other may be false;
(3) Both answers may be true.
But in all cases the respon-
sibility rests upon the interpreting man; the universe cannot be
arrayed against itself!
Unitarianism has an answer to the question, How is the
soul of man related to the universe? Modern scientific
thought has an answer to the question, What is man's place
in the material world? The task assigned to me is to com-
pare these two answers together, and to state whether they
agree, or whether they contradict one the other; with this
further thought implied, Has Unitarianism a good working-
theory for the spiritual being who is thus face to face with the
universe?
It is frequently said that all text-books of physical science
must be rewritten every ten years; the explorer must correct
292
his maps, and the discoveries of scientific enterprise must be
put on record.
No man of science would be considered loyal
to his task, who would refuse to accept any new scientific fact
the moment its truth was established. What would be thought
of the scientist who had made a discovery and refused to
make it known to the world; or what disgrace would be equal
to the treachery of the man of science who made a false report
of what the universe had said to him? All the great and faith-
ful labors of Charles Darwin would have been insufficient to
atone for the infidelity which would have been justly charged
upon him if he had hastened to print his hypothesis of the
origin of species," and had said nothing of the manuscript
of Wallace, which that naturalist had sent to Darwin from the
Southern Archipelago. Darwin was entitled to the discovery,
which he had made prior to the reception of the communica-
tion of Wallace; he had also reached his conclusions by
another path. But among scientific men, honor, honesty, fair-
ness, every consideration demanded perfect openness to the
light, and hospitality towards the truth from whatever direction
it might come, and at whatever cost. It is not simply a code
of honor, it is the very necessary temper of the truly scientific
mind; and these are the only terms on which it can do its
work, or be trusted with the secrets of the universe. Darwin's
statement is very forcible on this point: "In the course of my
life I have known but three cases of intentionally false state-
ments in science."
UNITARIANISM AND
(6
The spirit in which Darwin devoted himself to his task is
the essentially honest and sincere temper of one who feels sure
that the universe may be trusted: "I cannot employ my life
better than in adding a little to natural science. This I have
done to the best of my abilities, and critics may say what they
like, but they cannot destroy this conviction." Again he
MODERN SCIENTIFIC THOUGHT.
293
says: "I wish I could set less value on the bawble fame, either
present or posthumous, than I do, but I think not to an ex-
treme degree; yet, if I know myself, I would work just as
hard, though with less gusto, if I knew that my books would
be published forever anonymously."
a narrow,
I have quoted these few sentences from the vast literature
of the devout confessions of scientists, in order to point out
the spirit in which for the most part they approach their tasks.
There is, I know, now and then an exception,
self-seeking man, who like Lord Bacon regards the advance
of scientific knowledge as a means to an end, that end being
"the gathering of fruit," and "the good to men's estates."
But how far this temper is from the scientific temper of to-
day, may be gathered from the indignant protest of Professor
Huxley against Bacon's undue elevation to be called "the
originator of the inductive method in science." Of Bacon's
attempt to sum up the past of science, and indicate the path
which it must follow, Professor Huxley says:
"The attempt was just such a magnificent failure as might
have been expected from a man of great endowments, who was so
singularly devoid of scientific insight that he could not understand
the work already achieved by the true instaurators of physical
science; yet the majestic eloquence and the fervid vaticinations
of one who was conspicuous alike by the greatness of his rise
and the greatness of his fall, drew the attention of all the world to
'the new birth of Time.""
The application made is evident :
Nothing great in Science has ever been done by men who
lack the divine afflatus of the truth-seeker. The great steps in
its progress have been made, are made, and will be made, by
men who seek knowledge simply because they crave it." 1
(C
1 The Advance of Science in the Last Half Century.
Huxley, F.R.S.
T. H.
294
UNITARIANISM AND
Dr. William B. Carpenter, a representative Unitarian and a
distinguished scientific authority, was early impressed with the
following statement of moral honesty and confidence respect-
ing the order of the world:
"Just as sedulously as the trader in knowledge severs his own
peculiar science from all others, so does the lover of wisdom
strive to extend its dominion and restore its connection with
them. I say to restore, for the boundaries which divide the
sciences are but the work of abstraction. What the empiric
separates, the philosopher unites. He has early come into the
conviction that in the dominion of intellect, as in the world of
matter, everything is linked and commingled, and his eager long-
ing for universal harmony and agreement cannot be satisfied with
fragments. All his efforts are directed to the perfecting of his
knowledge; his noble impatience cannot be restrained until all
his conceptions have arranged themselves into one harmonious
whole, till he stands at the central point of arts and sciences, and
thence overlooks the whole extent of their dominion with a satis-
fied glance. New discoveries in the field of his activity, which
depress the trader in science, enrapture the philosopher. Per-
haps they fill a chasm which the growth of his ideas had rendered
more wide and unseemly; or they place the last stone, the only
one wanting to the structure of his ideas. But even should they
shiver it into ruins, should a new series of ideas, a new aspect of
Nature, a newly discovered law in the physical world, overthrow
the whole fabric of his knowledge, he has always loved truth
better than his system, and gladly will he exchange her old and
defective form for a new and fairer one." 1
Am I claiming too much for Unitarianism if I say, as I
understand it, it is pledged to this course in all its search for
truth? Unitarianism has no monopoly of truth, and does not
make any such claim. But it is bound to accept all truth so
soon as it is demonstrated to be truth; and it is bound to
Schiller's Lecture on Universal History, quoted in "Nature and
Man," Essays upon Natural Science, by the late William B. Carpen-
ter: edited, with a Memoir, by J. Estlin Carpenter.
MODERN SCIENTIFIC THOUGHT.
295
hold the judgment in suspense until the returns are all in, or
manifestly on the way. For this reason Unitarianism refuses
all formulated statements of belief, and is charged, in conse-
quence, with being vague and inconsistent. But it does not
care to refute the imputation. It is dealing with the very
substance of life and experience, and cannot be of much ser-
vice to those who know life only by its description, and have
no experience of religion at first hand. This attitude of Uni-
tarianism to truth is well expressed by Dr. Channing when
asked why he did not defend from attack certain views which
he had put forward confidently. He replied in substance that
he feared too earnestly to defend his views, lest he should be
too much taken up with their importance, and fail to go on
in further pursuit of the truth. This may be called a charac-
teristic deliverance of Unitarianism, as characteristic as the
saying of Jesus, "While ye have the light believe in the light,
that ye may be the children of light." The infidel, accord-
ing to this view, is not the man who does not believe this or
that proposition, but the man who is afraid to trust himself
confidently to the spirit of light and truth. Unitarianism.
does not take much interest in the oft-repeated questions,
"Will such a fact shake my faith?" Can the old faith
live with the new fact?" It stands with uncovered head at
the door of truth, waiting with eager reverence to enter, sure
that within those portals no harm can touch the child of
God: for if "God is light and in him is no darkness at all,"
then all truth which lifts the reason to the control of life must
be of God.
K
It is said that on one occasion the Count de Crillion re-
marked to M. d'Allenville, "If the universe and I professed
one opinion and M. Necker expressed a contrary one, I
1 See chapter on Channing, by Dr. Briggs, in this volume.
296
UNITARIANISM AND
Ī
should be at once convinced that the universe and I were
mistaken." M. Necker represents the infallible statute-book,
the ancient creed, the church council, and all other consulting
physicians, who must be taken into account before it can be
determined whether it is safe for the light of truth to have free
access to the human soul. Unitarianism keeps its system in
repair by living under the open heaven. It is more important
to keep the blood pure than to preserve the complexion.
Unitarianism is not a formulated statement of opinions, but a
method of thought and a style of living.
Having thus stated the claim of Unitarianism to open-
minded devotion to the truth for its own sake, and having
found in this candid temper the first point of contact between
it and modern scientific thought, we will now turn to the con-
sideration of the working-theory which each uses. Is this in
each case the same?
I have said that Unitarianism refuses to stereotype its be-
liefs; it refuses "to put up the shutters in order to imprison
the light already in." But does it believe nothing that it can
state? As I conceive the matter, Unitarianism has no difficulty
in affirming the principles on which it holds commerce with
the universe.
It affirms one life, One Life before all, above all, and
through all. It repeats confidently the great announcement
of Jesus, "God is a spirit." It discovers in man an appeal
to consciousness as the final test of all experience; and since
this consciousness has always been found looking beyond
itself, sometimes with fear, sometimes with hope, in the most
developed examples of humanity, with confidence which pro-
duces a literature forever after sacred to the religious sense of
man, Unitarianism has learned to think that these two con-
scious beings — God and man are conscious of each other;
MODERN SCIENTIFIC THOUGHT.
297
that there is communion between them; that the One Life
acts in both; that man is the child of God. It goes even
further, this daring faith of ours, and thinks that if the same
life is in both, and each is conscious of the other, then if God
is a spirit, man is also a spirit: thus it declares the essentially
spiritual nature of man. This is fundamental to all the life
and thought of Unitarianism.
2
3
But Unitarianism goes even further in its declaration of the
terms on which it holds commerce with the universe, it takes
an oath of loyalty to the will of God. It uses interchange-
ably the terms, Law, Will, Character, as applied to the Infinite
Spirit; for we believe that there is perfect accord between the
being of God and the will of God; in other words, the uni-
verse is administered in accord with the character of a perfect
Being. An evil universe cannot proceed from a Holy Source,
nor an imperfect world be formed by a Perfect Cause. We
find no difficulty in the adoption of the ancient words, "The
law of the Lord is perfect, the commandments of the Lord are
pure, the statutes of the Lord are right. the fear of the Lord is
clean, the judgments of the Lord are righteous altogether." So
the teachers of the religion we are considering are accustomed
to say that “in all worlds moral character must be the same;
that sin is the violation of the law of the universe; that retri-
bution is the vindication of the law of the universe; that to be
like God is the ideal of the children of God; that he only is
being saved whose character is being transformed, developed,
according to the laws of the spiritual life in a spiritual being;
that eternal life is not a remote condition, to be reached after
death, but a present experience, in which the man comes
into perfect accord with the conditions under which his being
reaches its best development.
What has been stated above has not in any instance taken
>>
298
UNITARIANISM AND
on the form of opinion or mere intellectual speculation; if I
have at all succeeded in stating the matter, the impression is,
that on these terms a spiritual being would adjust himself to
the universe, a universe of which an Infinite Spirit is the
Final Cause, Life, and Revealer.
Now, having stated what the Unitarian believer thinks the
universe says to the soul of man, it becomes next our duty
to consider what modern scientific thought declares that the
universe says to man concerning his place in it. It no longer
says how the universe ought to have been formed; it has no
scheme of creation to which it is pledged. Modern scientific
thought has deliberately turned away from those who thought
they could evolve the world out of their inner consciousness;
and modern scientific thought has even threatened, if it were
not left to work out its problem alone and undisturbed, to
turn the tables on the priests and philosophers, and to show
that so far from the world being evolved from our moral con-
sciousness, our moral consciousness was evolved from some-
thing else. This was such a terrible prospect, and threatened
such destruction to all the stock in trade of the unscientific
and dogmatic, that the inquiry has gone on unhindered, ex-
cept by an occasional "resolution," passed in some conven-
tion that had charge of the universe on the old terms.¹
I have referred to this matter because I desired to con-
gratulate you that this state of things has, for the most part,
gone by. It is an acute saying of Professor Huxley, “It is
the fate of scientific discoveries to begin as heresies and end
as superstitions!"
I think I may safely say that the devoted explorers of the
scientific field have not been much interrupted by the fears
1 At a meeting of a Synod at the South within the past year, it was
resolved “that God originally made man out of inorganic dust.
""
MODERN SCIENTIFIC THOUGHT.
299
or anxieties of Unitarians. It was pointed out by another
speaker in this course, Rev. James De Normandie, in "Unita-
rianism and Modern Biblical Criticism," that the modern
scientific method had been applied to the study of the Scrip-
tures with a result of the most important character, a result
no less than this, that the Bible has been restored to the
thinking men of this generation. He reminded you that the
same fears of the timid and obstinacy of the dogmatic accom-
panied the process that are now marking the application of the
scientific method of the study of the material universe, and
the consideration of the place of man in it. And, as was ex-
pected, this opposition led to misunderstanding and misrep-
resentation; the old defenders of the mechanical theory of
creation, with its enthroned Deity and infallible statute-books,
made haste to deny all the hypotheses of the scientists,
making the great mistake of not allowing the correcting agency
of time, which is sure to drop the superlative in the interest
of sober fact. On the other hand, the scientific inquirer,
exasperated by the misconstruction of his motives, made his
statements unnecessarily harsh; and he charged to the ac-
count of stupidity what was only want of knowledge.
denounced as fear what was for the most part reverence.
the man of science did one other thing which was most un-
fortunate, and went far to justify the fear of the man of the-
ology; he cast his conclusions in the language of the baldest
materialism; he became a grim prophet to whom no God had
spoken, and the ruthless iconoclast, who could not tolerate
the idol as a work of art which had ceased to mean anything
as an idol, since there was now no God.
He
But
From this materialist position the man of science has had
to recede, with what grace he has been able to assume; and
he now admits, with rare exception, that the whole question
300
UNITARIANISM AND
3
of theism and atheism belongs to the metaphysician rather
than to him. It really belongs to neither; it is the root-ques-
tion in all departments of thought, and it belongs to no class
of students, but to the human soul !
While it is undoubtedly true that we must not expect the
scientist to speak dogmatically, or with authority, on the sub-
jects which concern each religious man, yet if we can make
use of the conclusions of modern scientific thought to confirm
the position of the student of the soul's place in the sum of
things, we have the right to do so, and to derive what courage
we may from the comparison.
Unitarianism has for its fundamental hypothesis the state-
ment that all life is derived from one Life. We apply to that
one Life the highest name we know, and call it God.
God. The
fact is larger than the name, larger than all names, because
it is the all-enclosing and ultimate fact in the universe. Now,
what has modern scientific thought to say on this point?
In an earlier part of this lecture I have said that the time
has gone by when a man need be ashamed to begin his think-
ing with God; he may still say in his heart "There is no
God," if he desire to do so; or he may say anything which
his reason will allow to his imagination, or his conscience will
concede to his self-interest; but if he has been really troubled
at the thought of expressing the conviction that the whole
world of creation has a Cause sufficient for its origin, he may
now take courage in the thought that though there are some
who see no reason to believe it, there is no fact, as yet pro-
duced, that can be quoted by any competent man of science,
to shame the devout believer in his reverent utterance of the
name of God.
It is reported that the late Clerke Maxwell said, not long
before his death, that he had "carefully examined all the
MODERN SCIENTIFIC THOUGHT.
301
agnostic theories of the universe known to him, and they all
required a God to make them workable." This is given upon
the testimony of Prof. Asa Gray. Professor Gray goes on to
state the narrow limits to which the question is now reduced :
"It must be reasonable to all who have taken pains to under-
stand the matter, that the true issue as regards Design is not
between Darwinism and direct creationism, but between any
intention or intellectual cause, and no intention nor predicable
First Cause. It is really narrowed down to this; and on this
line all maintainers of the affirmative may present an unbroken
front. The holding of this line secures all; the weakening of it,
in the attempted defence of unessential and now untenable out-
posts, endangers all. . . . Experience proves that the hypothesis.
'no God' is possible, and some rest in it, but few, I think, on
scientific grounds."
The argument is often used, which consists in the inference
that as the human will certainly interferes with the action
of the forces related to it, it is fair to suppose that there is
a Will greater than ours which may also make its presence
known. The argument has some of the weakness which all
arguments from analogy must necessarily have; this, at least,
may be maintained, that the human will is conscious of
making changes in its direction, and the easiest explanation
of these changes is to refer them to a Force like its own, but
greater than itself. This is a matter of consciousness. The
ancient tradition places man in a scene of perfect peace and
absolute mastery. His commission is, “Have thou dominion."
Looking down, he finds an obedient host of forces ready to
do his bidding; it seems the natural consequence that he
should look up also, and say, "Thou hast beset me behind
and before, and laid Thy hand upon me." Nature finds its
limitation in man, and a part of its efficiency also in him
as a cause; man finds his moral limitation in that nature
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UNITARIANISM AND
higher than his own, and his efficiency is enhanced when
he regards this as First Cause, and takes his moral direction
from it.
To quote the words of Agassiz, justly called "one of the
most eminent naturalists of this or any age
")
:
"Taking Nature as exhibiting [thought] for my guide, it ap-
pears to me that while human thought is consecutive, Divine
thought is simultaneous, embracing at the same time and forever,
in the past, the present, and the future, the most diversified rela-
tions among hundreds of thousands of organized beings, each
of which may present complications again, which to study and
understand even imperfectly, as for instance man himself,
mankind has already spent thousands of years."
Ap
It may be objected that Professor Agassiz was not an Evolu-
tionist, after the school of Darwin; this is true, but two facts
must be borne in mind: (1) The quotation I have just
offered is made by Professor Gray, a pronounced Evolutionist;
(2) It was the Development Theory of Agassiz which made
the Darwinian hypothesis easy of belief by the disciples of
Agassiz.
In applying this quotation to the doctrine of the "Origin
of Species," Professor Gray adds his testimony, as always, to
creative design, thus:
"In thus conceiving the Divine Power in act as coetaneous
with the Divine Thought, and of both as far as may be apart
from the human element of time, our author may regard the
intervention of the Creator either as, humanly speaking, done
from all time, or else as doing through all time. In the ultimate
analysis we suppose that every philosophical theist must adopt
one or the other conception."
Two great principles in modern science have fixed in the
thought of this time this idea of the Life that includes all
lives and is the spring of all being. These two principles are
MODERN SCIENTIFIC THOUGHT.
303
the Conservation of Energy and the Correlation of Forces.
For the first of these, a good definition is given by Prof.
Clérke Maxwell :
"The total energy of any body or system of bodies is a quantity
which can neither be increased nor diminished by any mutual ac-
tion of these bodies, though it may be transformed into any one
of the forms of which energy is susceptible."
The popular putting of this principle is : Any energy once
present in the universe is always in the universe. In science,
this principle holds the same grip on the thinking of the
scientist that was once held upon the thought of a consistent
Calvinistic theologian by the doctrine of the Final Persever-
ance of the Saints. The companion principle to the Con-
servation of Energy is the Correlation of Forces, and is thus
described by Professor Le Conte: 1
"Until about forty years ago the different forces of Nature,
such as gravity, electricity, magnetism, light, heat, chemical
affinity, etc, were supposed to be entirely distinct. The realm
of Nature was divided up into numbers of distinct and inde-
pendent principalities, each subject to its own sovereign force,
and each ruled by its own petty laws. About that time it began
to be evident, and is now universally acknowledged, that all these
forces are but different forms of one universal and omnipresent
energy, and are transmutable into one another back and forth
without loss. This is the doctrine of Correlation of Forces and
Conservation of Energy, one of the greatest ideas of modern
times. . .
"But one force seemed to be an exception; life-force was still
believed to be a peculiar, mysterious principle or entity, standing
above other forces and subordinating them; not correlated with,
nor transmutable into, nor derivable from, other and lower forces,
and therefore in some sense supernatural. If this be true of
living forces, it must follow that living forms are wholly different
from other forms in their origin, underived.
1 Evolution, and its Relation to Religious Thought.
Word
•
Star
304
UNITARIANISM AND
"New forms of dead matter may be derived, but new living
forms, underived. But it was soon discovered that vital forces
were no exception. Vital forces were transmutable into and de-
rivable from physical and chemical forces. Sun-force on the
green leaves of plants is absorbed as light, to reappear as life.”
It can be readily seen that the moment these twin princi-
ples took possession of the field of modern scientific thought
the whole aspect of the universe was changed. The Energy
which was always present refused to give standing-room for
miracle in the sense of an intrusion of a foreign power, how-
ever benignant. Men trust the constant and distrust the in-
constant. It was not long, therefore, before the reign of law
took the place of the schemes of grace; and God, immanent,
constant, and perfect, took the place of the arbitrary Oriental
Sovereign who interfered for the benefit of those who were for-
tunate enough to get his ear or win his favor. The world
expanded beyond the proportions of the patriarchal tent, and
man was at home in the universe; for where the unfailing pres-
ence of the Eternal is, there the smallest atom and the most
exalted organism must meet his eye. At last it was true,
true for the first time in the history of human thought, "the
heaven of heavens cannot contain God." The very dust
became eloquent of his presence; nothing was any longer
<< common or unclean," for the divine Energy had made a
temple of his creation, and the devout student of the mys-
terious universe put aside his selfish supplications that he
might enter into the secret of the Eternal. The Divine
Unity invited him to share in conscious communion the
fellowship of God. The fine admission of John Stuart Mill
is here in point: "It would be absurd to assume that the
words we use exhaust the possibilities of being. There
may be modes of it innumerable, which are inaccessible
MODERN SCIENTIFIC THOUGHT.
305
to our faculties, and which consequently we are unable to
name.'
The Unitarian takes the enlarged universe as the home
of his soul, as well as the subject of his inquiry, and finds
his trust and love and hope expand to meet the larger
demand upon his experience of the religious nature of man.
The thought of the Divine Unity has added dignity to life.
It has put all Being within reach of each being. We
read the old text with a new sense of its importance,
"Beloved, now are we the children of God, and it doth
not yet appear what we shall be," but it must be something
wonderful, to be worthy of such a start in life!
The watchword of this new security, which modern scien-
tific thought has made familiar to all lips, is the word, Evolu-
tion. No word of our modern speech is more used, nor
with greater inaccuracy of application. It has been elevated
to the rank of an endowed Intelligence, and has shared with
its prime minister, Natural Selection, the attributes of Being.
But we must remember that even if evolution were a law,
which it is not, it would not be entitled to this personality
which is so constantly accorded to it. For law is not any-
thing whatever. It is only the way in which natural phe-
nomena report themselves; when these reports are found to
be always the same under the same circumstances, the
observer generalizes a law for the sake of convenience in
describing these recurring phenomena. But evolution is not
even a law; it is only a working hypothesis. For theology
is not the only science which depends for a start in its pro-
cesses upon a postulate or an hypothesis; so great an authority
as Professor Huxley says that physical science rests on verifia-
ble or uncontradicted hypotheses; and a great condition of
its progress has been the invention of verifiable hypotheses.
20
>>
306
UNITARIANISM AND
(6
Any one who is practically acquainted with scientific work is
aware that those who refuse to go beyond fact rarely ever get as
far as fact; and any one who has studied the history of science
knows that almost every step therein has been made by antici-
pating Nature; that is, by the invention of hypotheses which,
though verifiable, often had very little foundation to start with,
and, not infrequently, in spite of a long career of usefulness,
turned out to be wholly erroneous in the long run.
11 1
The very old theory of evolution is such a working hypoth-
esis. It is as old as the time of Aristotle, and it might long
ago have been where it stands to-day, but that for a thou-
sand years the human mind was imprisoned by the fear that
if it held too intimate an intercourse with matter, it would
lose its communion with spirit, to which matter was the un-
doubted enemy. Since the age of the scholastic narrowness,
evolution has been forging to the front through the crowd of
contending theories of the constitution of the universe; and
since Agassiz contributed his demonstration of the method
of development, as Professor Le Conte has pointed out,
"Scientific thought, like a rising tide which knows no ebb,
through five hundred years has tended towards evolution with
increasing pressure, but has been kept back by the one sup-
posed fact of the supernatural origin of species. Darwin
lifted the gate, and the in-rushing tide flooded the whole
domain of thought." But it did not follow that because it
flooded the whole domain of thought, all which floated in
on that tide was true. What happened may be described
in the words of Professor Gray':
"In saying that the doctrine of 'evolution of species' has
taken its place among scientific beliefs, I do not mean that it has
been accepted by all living naturalists, for there are some who
wholly reject it; nor that it is held with equal conviction and
1 Advance of Science in the Last Half Century. T. H. Huxley, F.R.S.
MODERN SCIENTIFIC THOUGHT.
307
in the same way by all who receive it, for some teach it dog-
matically, along with assumptions both scientific and philosoph-
ical, which are to us both unwarranted and unwelcome; more
accept it with various confidence, and in a tentative way, for its
purely scientific uses, and without any obvious reference to its
ultimate outcome; and some, looking to its probable prevalence,
are adjusting their beliefs in it to cherished beliefs of another
order. One thing is clear, — that the current is all running one
way, and seems unlikely to run dry; and that evolutionary doc-
trines are profoundly affecting all natural science.”
The Unitarian position is not committed to any detail of
this working-theory of evolution, but it finds itself helped
along its own lines of a firm conviction of the progress of
the race by the method of thought which evolution affords.
Unitarianism is pledged to progress along all lines; it looks
for a Revelation which takes the whole race for its audience,
all time for its duration, all themes for its subject, and all
worlds for its field. Says Professor Gray:
“When the naturalist is asked what and whence the origin of
man, he can only answer in the words of Quatrefage and Vir-
chow, 'We do not know at all.' We have traces of his existence
up to and even anterior to the later climatic changes in our tem-
perate zone; but he was there perfected man, and no trace of an
earlier form is known. The believer in a special creation is
entitled to the benefit of the negative evidence. A totally un-
known ancestry has the characteristics of nobility. The evolu-
tionist can give one assurance, as the wolf in the fable was
captious in his complaint that the lamb below had muddied the
brook he was drinking from, so those are mistaken who suppose
that the Simian race can have defiled the stream along which
evolution traces human descent. Sober evolutionists do not sup-
pose that man has descended from the monkeys. The stream
must have branched too early for that. The resemblances which
are the same in fact under any theory are supposed to denote
collateral relationship."
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UNITARIANISM AND
The sentimental objection to evolution is thus removed.
But it must be admitted that the difficulty of accounting for
man is not in the slightest degree reduced. The most that
can be said for this admission is that it puts the deed of
the property into the hands of an unquestioned family of
brethren, without fear of the intrusion of the cousins-german
to dispute the inheritance.
Unitarianism is pledged to the production of the highest
style of life. This life it seeks to produce not by blind
imitation, but by development from within; it is not startled
by being told that the human family is derived from a family
not human in its features at first, for if that hypothesis be
proved, as it seems likely to be, then the fact that we have
become so nearly human as we now are is a
sure word of
((
prophecy" to which we do well to take heed. Our golden
age is on ahead; we do not lament an Eden in which the
tree of life is guarded so sternly; we have "the knowledge
of good and evil," and we will yet find a way to eat of
the "tree of life." We even dare hope that we shall live
forever; and this, too, science has taught us to expect. I
am little disposed to indulge in arguments from analogy,
after the manner of that most overestimated book, "Natu-
ral Law in the Spiritual World;" yet analogy, which left to
itself is like a railroad track, - two parallel lines which never
meet, may still be used, if they can be made to meet in
that which travels on the track thus laid down. Well, mod-
ern scientific thought has pointed out to the hope of timid
man that Nature is wholly ignorant of the most dreadful
word in all our human speech: Nature does not know the
word "death." Birth, Nature the fruitful mother knows well,
and finds in it no fear. She fills the world with life. Her
fecundity knows no limit; for when she bears more children
MODERN SCIENTIFIC THOUGHT.
309
than she can maintain, she but touches them with her magic
wand and they are changed, but do not die. Nature knows
two words well, change and continuance! We think we
shall not die!
"Perfect cor-
There is a fine saying of Herbert Spencer:
respondence would be perfect life. Were there no changes
in the environment but such as the organism had adapted
changes to meet, and were it never to fail in the efficiency
with which it met them, there would be eternal existence
and eternal knowledge."
A moral being seeking the good of all other beings is
trying an experiment in perfect correspondence; such an
one hails all the serious teachers of ethics, modern and an-
cient, to his aid in the endeavor to live upon a line of con-
duct which will fit the demand the universe makes upon its
moral subjects.
A spiritual being seeking to know its spiritual environment.
is trying an experiment in perfect correspondence; such an
one calls to his aid all those who know the human soul, not
by description, but by a conscious experience, and he seeks
with these to enter into the communion with the Highest so
intimately that he shall not know where the will called human
ends, and the will which is Divine begins; we call this com-
munion; this is a synonym for eternal life.
But in all this we must not rest in second causes; that is
fatal at once to scientific thought and to all discovery upon
the part of the spiritual being who is seeking to find his rela-
tion to the universe. Most of the confusion which we have
suffered has come from want of true spiritual enterprise,
a timid content with second causes.
The Unitarian, of all believers, is best equipped and least
encumbered; he is committed to no past, except a past so
310
UNITARIANISM AND
remote that there are no records, only here and there a bold
handwriting made by the passing glacier on the imperishable
rock; he is committed to no theory of ethics, save that which
here and now will do honor to the perfect moral order of the
world; he is pledged to no system of philosophy, save that
which is indeed the love of wisdom. But one obligation is
laid upon this man of whom we speak; each hour of his life,
so little in its span, so tremendous in its vision, he shall re-
new his allegiance to the inviolable order of the universe,
a universe in which Cause and Effect are married together
beyond the possibility of divorce. Let him make his life over
to the keeping of this faith, that the universe cannot be arrayed
against itself.
N
Perhaps no better illustration can be given of ideal Unita-
rianism in conscious harmony with the scientific temper and
method than is to be seen in the life and work of the late
William B. Carpenter; and as I began this paper with the
quotation from Prof. Asa Gray, "Youth is ever taught by
instances, manhood is taught by laws," so I will now close it
with the words which Dr. Sadler uttered over the last rest-
ing-place of the mortal remains of the immortal seeker after
truth:
"At a time when religion and science have appeared too often
unhappily divided, it is hardly possible to overestimate the sig
nificance of their union in him, of his steadfast avowal of his own
faith, and his personal sympathy with and participation in Chris-
tian worship. It is hardly possible to overestimate the value of
the contributions from his pen on religious subjects. To none
of those who have given up all religious profession was a narrow
and unspiritual theology more repellent than to him. But in the
home of his childhood he breathed an atmosphere of religious
freedom and of religious feeling, and was led by precept and
example to think freely and earnestly on religious subjects; and
MODERN SCIENTIFIC THOUGHT.
311
the result was that his large intellectual culture did not repress
in him a most devotional spirit, but gave it a wider range, and
enabled it to soar up higher, foreshadowing, I trust, the way in
which
6
'That in us which thinks and that which feels
Shall everlastingly be reconciled,
And that which questioneth with that which kneels.'” 1
1 Nature and Man.
THE LAW OF RIGHTEOUSNESS.
""
BY GEORGE BATCHELOR.
THE
HERE are innumerable ways in which one might treat
the subject assigned to me. Out of them all, I select
that which seems to me most direct, practical, and easy of ap-
plication. That which concerns us most to know is the motive
power of the ethical life, and the way to get it under control.
Concerning this, the first thing which occurs to me to say
is, that the sooner we drop the word "ethics" from common
use, the sooner we shall be rid of one barrier between us
and the popular heart. Ethics is a cold, scholastic, bloodless
word, having little meaning except for scholars and for those
who admire scholarship. No word that ends in “ic” or
"ics
ever flashed into view on the crest of a wave of popular
feeling.¹ Morals is a better word, because it is better under-
stood. But it is not much better, because there is in it a
suggestion of outwardness. Morality, to the popular imagina-
tion, suggests a polish of the surface without any deep stirring
of the heart. Against this prejudice of the people it is useless
to strive. In part it is right, and is to be taken as a tradi-
tional protest against an ordering of the life which is merely
politic, conventional, and in motive selfish. There is many
a man who answers to all the definitions of morality, who is
hard, shallow, unloving, and unlovely; and the people are
right when they repel and condemn what they mean when
they speak of "mere morality."
1 Music may be an exception.
THE LAW OF RIGHTEOUSNESS.
313
But let it be remembered, always, that the morality for
which Unitarians have stood has never been this bloodless
ideal of correct behavior, but a more virile thing, which
deserves a better name. What that thing is it will be my
aim to set before you. The one word which has never been
spoiled, because it is alive with the hot blood of heroic forms
of human life, is "righteousness." A righteous man is wise
as to what is right. Righteousness is right-wis-ness, from
the ancient verb, to wit,-right-wisdom, right-knowing, ending
in right feeling and right acting. Ethics is the science of
morality; but righteousness is the divine wisdom incarnate.
Morals may be part of an external polish: righteousness can
be nothing less than the outward expression of the deep-
seated life. In our English language, this good word, from
its earliest days, gathered about itself associations of the
noblest kind. It easily connected itself with examples of
wisdom, and traditions of heroism. Right-knowing-ness makes
life massive, solid with virtues and motives which are of one
kind within and without.
Stag
Now, to reach some definite conclusion as to the way in
which this right-wisdom, or right-knowing-ness, is increased in
the life of man, let us take first some of the more common
and least regarded aids to the good life. Many of them have
little regard to motive. They are often mere tricks of expe-
diency, but they help to illustrate the principles which at last
must have application as the tests of motives and the guides
of life. You and I learn most quickly and practise with most
willingness the virtues which aid us in getting a living and
in the enjoyment of society. For this reason, business is a
teacher of morality of the first order. Mr. Atkinson has re-
cently stated a fact which illustrates. In business operations
employing about eight hundred millions of dollars, he com-
1
314
THE LAW OF RIGHTEOUSNESS.
putes the losses from faithless creditors at about one fourth
of one per cent. I once asked a seedsman, who scattered his
little boxes of garden seeds all over the Northwest, leaving
one at every little wayside grocery and provision store, whether
he did not find great difficulty in making collections from such
scattered and irresponsible agents. His reply, that he counted
on losses of only one half of one per cent, greatly surprised
me. Standing one day in the Hall of the Board of Trade in
Chicago, an enthusiastic broker of great experience said to
me, pointing at the howling mob who apparently were tearing
each other in pieces in the wheat-ring, "There is more honor
to the square foot on that floor than in any other spot in this
world." In a certain way he proved his point. On that floor
transactions, involving commonly thousands and often millions
of dollars, have on record no evidence but the turn of a finger
and a scratch in a note-book. Such transactions are often
disastrous, and sometimes ruinous, to one or the other party;
but, except in the rarest cases, the repudiation of a bargain
is unknown. Honor, trust, fidelity, pluck, patience, fortitude,
and uncommon honesty are the characteristic virtues of the
Board of Trade.
What is true of the Board of Trade is true everywhere
according to the measure of the necessity. Mutual service
and mutual confidence are the solid foundations of the busi-
ness of the world. Were these virtues not largely developed
in human society, modern commerce and modern civilization
would be impossible. Righteousness as right-knowing-ness
has advanced so far. It is preparing soon to make another
advance, and to say to the governments of the world, for
instance, that slavery and war must stop, because business
cannot afford the enormous waste of life and treasure which
is now robbing industry of more than half the products of its
THE LAW OF RIGHTEOUSNESS.
315
toil. When business gives the command to call a halt, the
kings of the world will take counsel together and will obey.
Business, I say, is a teacher of righteousness. But we must
not forget to make the needed comment that business may be
only a teacher of expediency. "Honesty is the best policy,"
is a business maxim which often reads the other way, "Policy
is the best honesty." That is to say, a man may be com-
mercially honest and morally a rogue. It does not always
follow that he who has the virtues of his craft or trade has
any other virtues, or that he practises them except when on
duty as a business man. A man may be scrupulously exact
in regard to a business transaction, and yet lie without a
scruple concerning any fact which has no commercial value.
I asked another broker concerning the social morals of these
members of the Board of Trade. He had been a member of
it twenty-three years. He said that they were subject to great
vicissitudes of fortune, and therefore were often very irregular
in their modes of life. A stroke of good luck was often
followed by a champagne supper and excessive expenditure;
and the temptation always is to resort to stimulants to keep
their nerves up to concert pitch. Three or four years were
about the limit of an average career. "Why," said he, "I
have seen men enough go through this Board to
So there I learned the good and the bad of it.
The law was
absolute trustiness as the condition of success.
The excep-
tion, much too common, was a reckless disregard of that
which alone makes success desirable. But, I reflected, the
needed lesson will be taught. The law will endure; the
exception will pass away. Business is competent to show
the folly of such physical waste from a commercial point of
view. The most efficient temperance work done to-day is
done by business, which begins to discriminate between its
make a city."
316
THE LAW OF RIGHTEOUSNESS.
agents who are sound in brain and nerve, and those who
are excitable and unsteady. By this reference to business I
wish to indicate one of the methods employed by Nature in
the process of evolution to educate man to right-wisdom, or
righteousness.
When business has finished its work in bringing out the
trusty qualities in a man, society steps in and undertakes to
complete the work by shaping the character of the gentleman.
business teaches one what he must do to be trusted; then
society teaches him certain decencies and graces which he
must honestly and faithfully observe, at whatever cost to
himself, in order to be accounted a gentleman. There is no
virtue which at one time or another has not been so culti-
vated, in order to furnish the accomplishments of the gentle-
man or the gentle-woman. The lady is simply "a perfect.
woman nobly planned."
Now right here Unitarianism has taken her stand, and has
always affirmed that the right-wis-ness, or right-knowing-ness,
of the business man is good, and that the gentle courtesy of
the business man become a gentleman is better; that the
great bulk of common honesty is real, and the most of the
virtue of the world is not conventional, but genuine. She
has seen the sham and detected the veneer. She has some-
times found beneath the methodical business life the greed of
the ravenous beast not yet fully tamed, and under the polish
of the conventional gentleman has sometimes detected the
morals of the savage and the brute. How false a conven-
tional ideal may become when used merely for the selfish
purposes of society, is shown by an anecdote which, true or
false in fact, is true to the life of a type of social development.
In a foreign divorce case, an injured husband summoned as a
witness a royal prince, whom he believed to have guilty knowl-
THE LAW OF RIGHTEOUSNESS.
317
edge of his wife's fatal defect. Now, the code of honor in
such a case has always bound a gentleman to protect the
reputation of a woman at any risk to himself. Of her charac-
ter he might be careless, but not of her reputation or her good
name. The royal prince took his oath, and, as his comrades.
said, "perjured himself like a gentleman."
Unitarianism has seen the evil thus masquerading under
the similitude of goodness. But she has not, therefore, de-
spaired of human nature. She has declared that the maxims,
habits, customs, laws, of the well-ordered outer life are illus-
trations of laws eternal and divine. She has insisted that the
law should be pondered and obeyed for its own glorious sake,
and that deep within the heart must be hid the principles of
integrity, out of which arise by native impulse all the strong
and beautiful forms of life. Hence it has happened that
she has furnished the world with incomparable examples of
business integrity and refined culture. Her merchants have
been filled with the spirit of right-knowing-ness. Her gen-
tlemen have been without fear and without reproach. Her
women have been angels of mercy and children of the
light.
Nature has many such praiseworthy ways of educating her
children. But it would take us too far from our main purpose
to follow her into all the homes and haunts of men and
women, and show how ceaselessly and how thoroughly she is
educating the race through the common necessities of exist-
ence to the exhibition of virtues of every kind. There is
no common task or most homely domestic necessity which
has not its appropriate virtue. Patience, steadiness, stead-
fastness, courage, fidelity, order, decency, thrift, fortitude, pub-
lic spirit, and the whole list of virtues manly and womanly,
grow as naturally out of the soil of social and domestic ne-
318
THE LAW OF RIGHTEOUSNESS.
Gymą
cessity as "the earth bringeth forth her bud, and as the
garden causeth the things that are sown in it to spring forth."
Nature, let me say Nature still, we shall reach a higher
thought soon, - Nature puts before a human creature a possi-
bility of a new relation or a higher relation or a nobler fulfil-
ment of an old one; and she says: "There is your opportu-
nity to get, to do, to be, the thing that for its goodness or its
pleasantness invites you. You can have what you want, do
what you like, and be what you please, If". That "If" is
the sign of a virtue. That "If" always stands for law, irrever-
sible and enduring. It fixes conditions. If you would have,
or do, or be, anything whatever, you must be, or you must do,
that which matches your intent. The word "ought" is the
sign of a relation of equality. The "If" means that you must
even up on your side, over against what you wish or what you
get. If you do not so even up by performance on your part,
you are in debt. You owe. You ought. Now Nature is con-
stantly giving us beyond our desert. She keeps us constantly
in debt. Now and then, in some vision, or dream, or ideal
or suggested opportunity, she shows us what kind of men and
women we should be if we paid our debts; and then she
leaves us to a noble chagrin, until we consent to pay in service
and in being what we can never return in kind.
V
Among the noblest of these natural suggestions of which
Unitarianism has always made much, is that related to the
august words, “Our Country." Above the range of business,
and with wider outlook than belongs to the simple gentleman,
the Country reveals a whole constellation of possible duties,
which have in them scarcely a suggestion of selfish advantage.
The Country wants service which can be rendered only by
loyal citizens, men and women of public spirit, - by lawgivers
who are magnanimous, by judges who are incorruptible, by
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319
statesmen of great ideals, by heroes who have heart's blood to
shed, and by women who will give their sons to die for the
national honor. All these, and many other excellent forms of
human character and service, the State demands, and must
have or perish. Constantly the State confers benefit and in-
creases our debt. Then she waits, offering meanwhile certain
duties which must be done, suggesting certain forms of char-
acter which befit her servants, and holding up to the view of
all the world the ideal service for which she invites competi-
tion. The Nation which needs and constantly wishes to have
an ideal character of any kind seldom waits long with dream
unfulfilled, whether she asks for hero or statesman, lawgiver
or leader of men. In this way the virtues are produced even
before men think of them and give them names. Nine tenths
of what we call religion is, in form, Hebrew patriotism ideal-
ized and carried out into wider relations. The source of that
which is noblest in American character is English love of
home and country, transplanted and transfigured. The ma-
chinery for the production of virtue is always ready and always
That the products it turns out are not always good
is due to the lack of an element which we are soon to con-
sider, the part that man consciously plays in the process of
helping on the moral progress of the world. The machine
must grind, and it grinds any grist. If it is not attended to, it
turns out swindlers and rogues as well as incorruptible mer-
chants and bankers. It turns out to-day the statesman and
to-morrow the demagogue, and over against the Christian it
exhibits the hypocrite. And this it does because the only
motive thus far suggested is that of utility. That is useful
which serves the purpose. Short cuts are often attempted.
The seeming is often easier than the doing, and it may appar-
ently serve the same purpose.
at work.
M
320
THE LAW OF RIGHTEOUSNESS.
Right here Unitarianism takes her stand, and with much
diversity of philosophic explanation has but one way of look-
ing at human life and duty. Whatever may serve for transient
expedients or may answer for a temporary purpose, nothing
is worthy of a man which does not come from within, out of
the human will and conscience. Outward necessities and su-
perficial adjustment of conduct to occasion may, indeed, reveal
the forms of duty, but can never supply the motive power of
a man intent upon living his life in all its moods and tenses.
Nature, through the utilities of life, does her work in frag-
ments. She brings nothing to completeness. She seems to
turn out enough for a sample, and then leaves it, as if to say,
"There, that is what I mean: take it or leave it.
But if you
want any more of that kind, you will have to make it." She
makes, for instance, one great statesman like Lincoln, or one
military hero like Sheridan, to serve one immediate purpose.
But she does not spend her time making more of them, unless
man takes a hand consciously in the process. When we see
that the virtues of the hero and statesman are lovely for their
own sake, noble adornments of the perfect life, then a new
order of things begins.
This new order begins by the association of another set of
human experiences with these ideas of utility which have been
developed in the frictions of social life. We cannot stop now
to consider by what a devious road man came to his outlook
on things eternal. But one thing is, to my mind, certain.
When man first began to regard himself as part of a larger
order of things, when he, for the first time, regarding himself
as the offspring of Deity, began to hope for a continuance of
being and an extension of opportunity, then morality "struck
in," and virtue took on a finer quality. Rightness of thought,
feeling, and conduct, was no longer limited to the exigency
THE LAW OF RIGHTEOUSNESS.
321
of the moment. It was no longer sufficient to ask, Does the
deed fit the need? But the deeper question asked itself,
Does the need itself fit the man? Is this an occasion worthy
of one who has before him a great career?
We are brought now to the distinction between the two
principal forms into which our thinking about right doing can
be cast, the only distinction of sufficient importance to
press now upon your attention. Do you think first and most
of the ends of moral action? Then you are a Utilitarian. Do
you think first and most of the quality of the act and the life
out of which it proceeds? Then you are a Transcendentalist.
That is, if you do right because that is the best way to win
money, or power, or friends, or happiness, or the favor of
God, or a future life, or heaven itself, you are a Utilitarian.
You may be a very good and lovely one, but you have not
yet in you the root of the whole matter, and will not easily
withstand temptation when on the right side there is no
money nor any friends, nor prizes of power, popularity, and
happiness. On the other side, you are a Transcendentalist
if you do right things because they are true, honorable, just,
pure, lovely, and gracious. You have the root of the matter
within you. Your leaf shall not wither, and whatever you
do shall prosper.
Now the great merit of Unitarianism has been that it has
given due heed to both the quality of the life and to the con-
sequences of action; and this it has done because it has, with
even balance, held in equal honor both ethics and religion,
blending them in that consummate compound, the wisdom
of rightness, right-knowing-ness, about life and its objects.
There is a danger just here which the most practical person
cannot afford to forget. All extremes are dangerous. Now
the Utilitarian is the one who prefers the useful to the useless.
21
322
THE LAW OF RIGHTEOUSNESS.
He who would make the most of his strength is especially
liable to the temptation to neglect the quality of his own life,
and to think of the useful ends to be attained. So long as
they are good, why is not all well with him? We will not
now speak of the low forms of moral conduct which may
result from making the consequences of action the test of
virtue; but we will strike right at the highest forms of pure
Utilitarianism, and assert that, if the sole end of action be
the attainment of something outside of yourself, then is your
virtue in just so far superficial and shallow. Do you not
see that it is all outside of yourself, both motive power and
object? Even the power you exert is drawn out of you,
not thrust out by abundance of inward strength. In this
fact is to be found an explanation of that frequent spec-
tacle, a man or woman great, really great and good for
some one noble exploit, and for all other things a disap-
pointment both to others and to one's self. The greatness
came out of an opportunity outside of the person,
and was
due to stirring motives which worked on the will through
external prizes set in view; it was due to a drawing which,
while it lasted, could take any common stuff of humanity,
and show it in the colors of heroism and righteousness.
This exhibition, with its after-story of failure, is often disap-
pointing; but really it is an object-lesson of value. It
shows what latent wealth is concealed in homely human
lives. Now the one thing which can make that common-
place life, with its one streak of gold, to be golden through-
out, is an inward law of conduct and an inward impulse to
goodness, which shall be as strong to push as any external
inducement can be to draw; and this is often shown in a
case which might be set over against the last example as a
companion picture. Some poor, unknown, wise man, with
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323
the right-wisdom in his heart, is forced into the bearing of
burdens and the taking of responsibilities; and he goes on
from the first with modest bearing and steady course, never
failing, never shrinking, never disappointing the desire of his
fellows, steadily growing in grace and power, and at last by
common consent is called great, although in fact he is only
one golden lump, well refined, extracted from the ore of our
common nature by the heat and power of the self-fed and
consuming fire of an inward purpose.
We see herein the reason why Unitarianism has been
forced, in the interest of righteousness itself, to protest
against all forms of moral teaching which set the motive for
action outside of the individual reason and conscience. All
virtue which takes its strength from the drawing power of
the prize offered must be unsteady and superficial, even
though the prize be the favor of God himself and the eter-
nal enjoyment of his heaven. The Preacher said, “Better is
it to have virtue and to have no children." Unitarianism
goes further, and says, “Better is it to have virtue and to
have no immortality than to be virtuous because the wages
of virtue are great."
We come now to that which I shall make short for your
patience' sake, but which I wish to leave in your mind as my
final and inclusive statement. As I read history and human
life, this interior, noble, self-compelling obedience to law, and
this upspringing gladness and content to make right-wisdom
the law of one's inner life and the shaper of one's outward
conduct, never did, never will, and never can reach its high-
est form when entirely and wholly divorced from what we
commonly mean by religious belief in its highest forms. I
do not mean some general uplooking and uplifting of the
will. I mean a definite and steady upreaching of the whole
T
324
THE LAW OF RIGHTEOUSNESS.
life towards moral being, not of this world, with some clearly
defined and definite expectation of an opportunity to exer-
cise the moral nature greater than this little life of ours
ever has given or ever can give. Martineau would have
been less great than he is, could he not have made his own
the naïve confession which he puts into the mouth of the
agnostic: "If once you allow yourself to think about the
origin and the end of things, you will have to believe in a
God and immortality." 1
I stop but one moment to meet the objection that some
of the noblest forms of ethical character are exhibited to-day
by men and women who have none of this faith. Take, if
you please, Matthew Arnold, with his famous formula, "A
Power not ourselves which makes for righteousness," and
George Eliot, with her still more famous and winning song,
"The Choir Invisible;" and of both of them I say, The
ideal they had they did not unfold. They took an ideal
which had been wrought into their lives by others, and
which they would have been powerless to create, and tried
to adapt it to agnostic forms of thinking, and had little suc-
cess in so doing. It is not always necessary that, in a given
case, a noble religious belief shall accompany a high moral
ideal; but before any man shall have attained to a high
moral ideal, some man must have preceded him with that
generous thought of human nature which always sees a chance
for it better than earth and time can give. The winning
ideal, once let loose in human thought, can live long out-
side its native air of heaven; but exiled too long, it must
pine away and die.
Truth is the basis of duty. Right thinking is the guide
of feeling, and furnishes the rule of conduct. Now it ought
1 Study of Religion, Preface, p. vii.
THE LAW OF RIGHTEOUSNESS.
325
not to be necessary to assert that duty is most nobly en-
throned, and is most loyally obeyed, where God has been
honored and man has been regarded as his offspring. But
it does happen to be necessary to assert that just now, be-
cause our Christian civilization has produced a choice hand-
ful of noble-hearted men and women who, for the moment,
do not connect in thought their enthusiasm for humanity
with the great thought which gave it birth. Prove that
through the ages no increasing purpose runs, and that man
will never have any knowledge of this universe beyond what
he can learn standing on the crust of this earth, or in flying
perchance a league above it among the clouds, prove
that, and not instantly, but soon, the thought concerning
the worth of human nature and its possibilities will begin
to shrink. Some things that now seem worth doing for the
poor, the sick, the wicked, will seem useless tasks and bur-
dens, to be cleared away by harsh measures, if necessary.
I believe that men never began to work for Man until,
latent or confessed, there began to stir within them the
thought that Man was immortal, and that no pains taken in
his behalf could be wholly fruitless. I do not believe that
any man ever began to take interest in the refuse and dregs
of human society, and to regard with compassion individuals
who were horrible to contemplate, until into his thought, and
from his thought into his imagination, and from his imagina-
tion into his sympathies, began to move the awakening sug-
gestion that this brute, this beast, this demoniac outcast, was
of kin to himself, and not only might have been a man,
but might yet be one. At least, there must have been pity
for one fallen from so high a place and so noble a fortune,
and some desire to get the dreadful remains out of sight and
decently cared for, a suggestion which does not haunt us
Jang
326
THE LAW OF RIGHTEOUSNESS.
when we see a cur that has missed his destiny, "a dog that
has had his day." As the imperious call of duty is not heard
in the higher ranges of the soul until the soul-awakening
truth is heard, so also the inspiring shout of freemen is
never heard, and never has been heard anywhere around
the girdle of the earth, until there has been proclaimed “the
liberty of the sons of God." After that has been heard,
liberty, fraternity, equality, may become the battle-cries of
those who disbelieve in God and deny the immortality of
man. But their inspiration is borrowed; or, rather it is the
natural expression of a nature which by the truth has been
set free.
It is for this reason that the benefactions and the training
in righteousness of our church have been marked by such
breadth of humanitarian zeal. Our church has taught us
that we are not merely to do our duty to all men: it has also
added the inspiring assurance that all men are worthy of our
best. We have been taught that, even when a man discharges
the most common obligations of the citizen, he is in a real
sense doing that which may reach to the farthest bounds of
the universe and the latest hour of time. Hence it follows
that, so greatly out of proportion to the numbers of her
children, our church has furnished the men and women who
have done the public work of statesmanship, reform, and
philanthropy.
When one is thinking of the external inducements to virtue,
the prizes that religion offers may be somewhat lightly set
aside on the ground that virtue that is paid for is not of the
right tincture. But when one is thinking of the motives to
the righteous life which spring up in profusion out of the great
revelations and companionships which religion opens to man,
he must be singularly blind to the causes and springs of action
THE LAW OF RIGHTEOUSNESS.
327
who can say that they can be left out of the account and man
still retain all the motives of the righteous life. That capital
If," of which I spoke as the sign of virtue in the lower stages
of the utilities, assumes majestic proportions when one thinks
of himself as in debt for a universe, in debt to an Eternal
Spirit for life, in debt for the gift of an immortal possibility.
If you would be worthy of your kin, if you would have, or be,
or do, what your kinship implies and requires of you, some
very lofty virtues are in order. These virtues may or may not
have commercial value. They may or may not assist us in
the pursuit of what men call happiness. But they are impera-
tive, nevertheless, on all who are moved by a sense of honor,
and who have attained to the right-wisdom. The imperious
sense of responsibility felt by all well-born creatures, the mys-
terious debt which oppresses the conscience of every man,
and is confessed in that primitive word I ought, gets its final
sanction only when one looks up with loving gratitude to the
Giver of every good and perfect gift, and says, “I ought, be-
cause to Thee I owe life, love, liberty, and the delights of all
my
conscious being." In other ways we get our philosophy
of ethics, in other ways we get our science of morals, in other
ways we learn how to order the external affairs of life; but for
the supplying of motives no way has been invented so fruitful
as the spirit of sonship, which is the essence of the noblest
form of religion that has yet appeared upon the earth. Out
of this flow reverence for that which is great and inimitable for
the beauty of its goodness; ambition to fill out somewhat the
outlines of the noble career suggested to immortal creatures;
hope that the dream of goodness is not a delusion, but a re-
flection of the solid realities of the eternal life of which we are
a part; and, above all, love for human creatures, not merely
because they are agreeable, but because they are our brothers
66
328
THE LAW OF RIGHTEOUSNESS.
by a tie which reaches above us all, and makes the distinctions
of human society to be trivial. Benevolence flows from this
in a stream which could never have been supplied by the (in
comparison) petty sentiments of personal friendship, family
affection, tribal partiality, the most magnanimous patriotism, or
cosmopolitan sympathy. These grow thin as they widen.
The Christlike spirit is intense in proportion to its breadth
and the volume of its increasing stream. Every part and pos-
sibility of the universe which comes within our reach or our
hope must be drawn upon, that the man of God may be thor-
oughly furnished for every good work; or, as Charles G.
Ames puts it, "we need not only ethical culture, but total
culture."
THE RELATION OF UNITARIANISM TO
PHILOSOPHY.
BY CHARLES CARROLL EVERETT.
THE
HE subject upon which I have been asked to speak
to you is the Relation of Unitarianism to Philosophy.
It is possible that to some this bringing together of Unita-
rianism and philosophy may seem artificial, if not meaning-
less. Unitarianism, it may be said, is not a philosophy. It
is the simplest form of religious faith. It is a belief in God
and in the soul's relation to him as Jesus taught them and
manifested them in his life. It is thus something which is
simple and clear, as free from the subtleties of metaphysics as
from the complications of ritualism. Certainly, if we mean by
philosophy a ponderous system of metaphysical speculation,
Unitarianism is not, and does not represent, a philosophy.
But philosophy, in itself considered, is something much sim-
pler than this. It is not so much a system as it is the idea
which takes form in a system. Every one of us is in a sense
a philosopher. I do not mean that each one of us has a
consciously held system of the universe, which he could state
and defend; but each one of us holds, consciously or un-
consciously, a certain view of the nature of the world and of
the meaning of life, according to which his own life is in a
great measure shaped. As I have intimated, we do not al-
ways know just what this theory or principle is. We might be
surprised if we should suddenly discover according to what
theory of life we are living. Many a man thinks that his faith
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THE RELATION OF
is spiritual, while the real faith according to which he lives,
and which by his life he proves to be what he really holds,
is materialistic. Many a man who thinks he is a materialist
may at heart be spiritual. The man who says, “Let us eat
and drink, for to-morrow we die," has his philosophy of life;
and when Paul cried, "For me to live is Christ, and to die is
gain," he had his philosophy. In each case this philosophy
might be expanded into a system. It has its assumptions.
that could be developed, illustrated, and defended; and the
relation of all the facts of the universe, so far as they are
known, to these assumptions could be set forth.
Unitarianism, in this sense at least, represents a philosophy.
This philosophy could be, and indeed has been, developed
with greater or less accuracy into various systems. The phi-
losophy of Unitarianism would be the simplest form of the
philosophy of religion. It would have to be differentiated
on the one side from systems that are not religious, and on
the other side from systems of religion which involve prin-
ciples that Unitarianism disowns. You see how large is the
task assigned to me, and will pardon me if I can hardly make
a beginning in its accomplishment.
While Unitarianism stands, for the most part, in the sim-
plicity of its faith, not troubling itself about the philosophical
assumptions upon which it logically rests, any more than the
tree cares for the roots which are hidden in the soil to which
they bind it, it is confronted by systems that are antagonistic.
to its own, which are elaborated into organic completeness,
and are defended by a subtle logic. The two forms of thought
with which, as a philosophy of religion, it finds itself most
directly confronted are agnosticism and materialism. As a
form of faith it is obviously opposed to agnosticism; as
a form of spiritual faith it is no less obviously opposed to
UNITARIANISM TO PHILOSOPHY.
331
materialism. There are also current, at the present day,
forms of philosophy which are neither agnostic, materialistic,
nor spiritualistic. The philosophy of Schopenhauer, for in-
stance, and the Philosophy of the Unconscious, put forth by
Von Hartmann, are of this sort. With such systems, however,
I conceive that Unitarianism does not very often come into
conflict. They are philosophies of the study, philosophies
of philosophers, or of those who fancy that they are such.
Agnosticism and materialism, on the other hand, in some
shape or other are in the air. They are met in more or
less complete form at every turn; and thus it is with them
that Unitarianism stands in the most direct relation.
I have used the word "agnosticism" as if it had a single
and definite meaning. In fact, the word varies in significance
with the persons by whom it is used, or to whom it is applied.
The word is simply a profession of ignorance, and ignorance.
may be of various sorts and degrees. In its popular use the
word has its literal etymological sense. It means that the
person who calls himself by this name, however wise he may
be in regard to other matters, in regard to spiritual things
knows nothing, and has no faith that soars where knowledge
cannot climb. It is a striking fact that this age, which extends
its investigations to the farthest star and to the most minute
atom, should to so large an extent, by the use of the word
'agnostic," proclaim its ignorance in regard to the highest
themes that can occupy the human thought. The word may
be, and sometimes is, used in humility. It expresses the awe
of the spirit in the presence of the heights and depths of
being. Sometimes it is used in a sense more definite than
its etymology would imply, and expresses denial. Its modest
meaning becomes transformed to pride, as it sweeps away
with a breath, as childish and outgrown, the faiths which have
(6
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THE RELATION OF
been the solace and the inspiration of so many of the noblest
lives. Sometimes it is used to express an utter bewilderment
in regard to the whole region of religious thought. It is not
strange that such bewilderment exists. The church itself is
rent by opposing sects, and thus presents no solid front to the
world. Outside the church, the air is full of criticism. Dis-
cussions that are aimed at the subversion of positive religious
faith stand forth in stately volumes, and find a free field in
our magazines. In the face of all this, we sometimes wonder
that there are not even more to give up the thing in despair,
and to say frankly, "I do not know." For the word, in this
use of it, is the utterance of despair, or perhaps more often
of an indolent indifference.
In the use of the word that we have been considering it
has nothing to distinguish it from the word so freely used in
the last generation, the word "sceptic." Scepticism etymo-
logically implies a little more activity of mind than the word
agnosticism. It implies a certain looking about. It suggests
a hope that at some time it may discover what is actually true.
Agnosticism, on the other hand, expresses the blankness of a
hopeless ignorance. Practically, however, the word "scepti-
cism" meant for the most part a fixed attitude of mind. The
sceptic too often forgot to look about; and thus the popular
agnosticism is simply scepticism under another name. Like
that, it is often, practically, a materialism that does not care
to avow itself as such.
Why is it that there is this change of name when there is
so little change of front? It is partly fashion. It is partly
because the world having grown more tolerant of doubt and
unbelief, it is convenient to drop a name that has been often
used as a term of reproach, or which at least has had a
bad odor. I think, however, the real reason that has given
UNITARIANISM TO PHILOSOPHY.
333
such currency to the word "agnostic
agnostic” is, that it has been felt
to have a certain philosophic dignity. Herbert Spencer has
been by many regarded as the chief of agnostics, and the word
agnosticism" has been felt, therefore, to represent in some
more or less definite, or more or less general way, his system.
We have therefore to glance at the so-called agnosticism of
Herbert Spencer.
I speak of Spencer's so-called agnosticism. I do not re-
member that he himself uses the term which Professor Huxley
claims, I believe, to have been the first to use with the signifi-
cation that we are considering. Herbert Spencer does, how-
ever, speak often of "The Unknowable." In his thought the
Unknowable fills the place that God fills in the thought of
theism. Since he speaks thus of the Absolute as the Unknow-
able, he might seem to be very properly classed among the
agnostics, if not indeed to be their foremost representative.
The term "unknowable," however, has many different as-
pects and shades of meaning. A thing may be regarded as
unknowable on account of its own nature, or, on the other
hand, on account of the inadequacy of the human faculties,
or on account of our own inadequate equipment or that of
the age to which we belong. It may be well to make these
distinctions clear by a few illustrations. Is the planet Mars
inhabited? This we do not and at present cannot know.
The thing is not unknowable in itself, any more than the fact
of the peopling of some island in the South Sea. We, how-
ever, who are dwellers in this world, have no means of discov-
ering whether Mars is inhabited or not. What is the precise
diameter of Mars? Some of us, perhaps many of us, are
agnostics on this point, not because the thing is unknowable or
unknown, but simply because we do not happen to know, and
have not at the moment at hand any authority that will deter-
(6
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THE RELATION OF
mine the thing for us. Compare with such questions as these
the questions, What is the extent of space? How many
millions of miles would measure its diameter? That you can-
not say. That no one can say. The difficulty is not, as
before, with our mental powers or our means of information.
We cannot tell because it is not to be told. Space cannot be
measured, because it is immeasurable. In this sense we may
say that the dimensions of space are unknowable.
Let us
take one or two examples of a different order.
How long
was the Chinese Wall in building? Here again we do not
know. We are agnostics because we have no means of infor-
mation. How long is eternity? This you cannot say, because
eternity has no measurable length. It is immeasurable.
When you claim that the world will always be ignorant as to
the habitability of Mars, you can defend your position by rea-
soning based upon the inherent limitation of telescopic power
and of our own mental equipment. So far as this is con-
cerned we are in hopeless ignorance. Our agnosticism in
regard to the dimensions of space and the length of eternity,
on the other hand, is based not upon the limitation of our
powers, but upon the nature of space and of time. It is
based, then, not upon our ignorance but upon our knowledge.
Space being what it is and what we know that it is, and time
being what it is and what we know that it is, we know that
each is immeasurable; that if they were measurable they would
cease to be what they are. When therefore we say that we
cannot tell the dimensions of space or the length of eternity,
it is our knowledge, not our ignorance, that speaks. What we
called at first agnosticism, it appears, was gnosticism.
When Herbert Spencer speaks of the Unknowable, does he
have reference to the imperfection of our faculties, or to the
nature of that of which he speaks? Certainly it is the latter.
UNITARIANISM TO PHILOSOPHY.
335
He shows, or he undertakes to show, that being what it is, the
Absolute is and must be unknowable.
If he maintains that from its very nature the Absolute is
unknowable, it must be because he assumes that he knows its
nature. Indeed, he continually speaks of the Unknowable as
manifesting itself. That must be a very helpless Absolute
that should be continually manifesting itself and never make.
itself in the slightest degree manifested. This is not the place
for an examination of the special position of Herbert Spencer.
That is a matter for the schools. I wish merely to make clear
that if he maintains that the Absolute from its nature is un-
knowable, it must be because he, so far, knows its nature. He
speaks, not as an agnostic, but as a gnostic.
You will notice that the position is a paradoxical one.
Spencer quotes Saint Augustine as occupying a position
like his own. Saint Augustine, however, put the thing in the
form of a paradox: Cognoscendo ignorari, et ignorando cog-
nosci, that is, our knowledge consists in the recognition of
our ignorance. What Saint Augustine puts rhetorically as a
paradox, Herbert Spencer puts dogmatically as a logical state-
ment. If we say, however, that the Absolute, being what we
know it to be, is not to be known, it is obvious that we con-
found knowledge and ignorance. Either we must do as the
fiery Saint Augustine did, fuse knowledge and ignorance to-
gether into a paradox and hurl the burning phrase at the lis-
tener, or we must speak more calmly, and say that we know
in part and only in part.
I have dwelt upon this to make it as clear as may be pos-
sible under the circumstances, that there is no agnosticism
which has a philosophical foundation, in the proper sense of
the words "agnosticism" and "philosophical." There is a
popular agnosticism which is not to be distinguished from
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THE RELATION OF
the old-fashioned scepticism, and there is the so-called philo-
sophical agnosticism, which is simply a form of gnosticism.
which denies the name.
If there be no such thing as a philosophical agnosticism,
the absolute, a priori barrier to thought does not exist, and
the thinker has only to determine, by actual experiment in the
use of his powers, what is the line that separates the known
from the unknown, the knowable from the unknowable. This
being so, we are not surprised that the foremost representative
of Herbert Spencer's teaching in America, Mr. John Fiske,
should take a step beyond his master, and in his admirable
little book entitled "The Idea of God" should insist that
we must assume the Absolute to be of the nature of spirit
rather than of matter.
I have already intimated that what calls itself "agnosti-
cism" is often a disguised materialism. Assuming that the
spiritual realities which religion accepts cannot be known to
exist, many put everything into materialistic formulæ, and
the result is practically the same as if the material were
everything. Materialism, indeed, or the tendency to this, is
not infrequent in these days in which investigation has no
limit, and thought no bound. This is not singular when we con-
sider that the great discoveries of the age have been in regard
to material things, that the lines of thought of the age run in
the direction of material relations. Even the investigations
and speculations in regard to human society and welfare con-
cern for the most part the material well-being of men. I de
not wish to do injustice to the other side of our modern life.
We cannot deny, however, that the emphasis has been of late.
rather upon the material than the spiritual.
Materialism has much to commend it, at least to crude and
superficial thought. It seems to make no demands upon
UNITARIANISM TO PHILOSOPHY.
337
faith. It does not stretch the thought beyond what is just
at hand. It might perhaps be a little confused if it were
asked what this matter is of which it talks so glibly. It
might have no answer ready if it were asked to prove the
existence even of this outer world. It might have to admit
that here also faith and vision are inextricably intertwined.
But these questions and difficulties do not trouble those who
claim to take what they see and what they can handle, and to
ask for nothing more.
On its side, materialism raises questions which the spiritu-
alist finds it difficult to answer. So far even as our own
spirits are concerned there are difficulties which might seem
at the first glance not easy to be removed. The materialist
points to what seems the absolute dependence of the body
upon the mind. In childhood the mind is weak and carti-
laginous like the body. In maturity it hardens into a firm
tissue. It is strong and tenacious. In old age, when the
body withers, the mind for the most part withers with it. If
the brain becomes inflamed, the mind partakes of its fire, and
raves and rages. A blow will take away consciousness; a
removal of the pressure of the bone will bring back con-
sciousness which takes up the story of life precisely where
the blow interrupted it. From all these things, and many
others of the same nature, it has seemed natural to many to
assume that consciousness is simply a function of the brain;
that, as one has said, the brain secretes thought as the liver
secretes bile.
If these facts occasion difficulty to the spiritualistic view of
life, there are difficulties also on the other side. Our con-
sciousness is at every moment of our lives one; it is never
divided. We hear sometimes, indeed, of a divided conscious-
ness. There are freaks in the mental experiences. There
22.
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THE RELATION OF
are insanities in which the mind feels itself invaded by some
foreign power, in which one seems to himself to be some one
quite other than himself; in which he is, as we phrase it,
"beside himself." But through all these changes the unity
of consciousness at every moment is undisturbed. If the
mind seems peopled by many personalities at once, the con-
sciousness always identifies itself with one of these. The
consciousness is at no moment dual or multiple. Look on
the other hand at the brain. This is made up of innumer-
able atoms which, if the assumptions of science are correct,
approach one another and recede from one another, but touch
one another never. Though so near each other they are
distinct, like the stars in heaven. These form themselves
into molecules, and the molecules group themselves into
cells, each of which has its special office. Where in all this
multiplicity does the unity of consciousness reside? It can-
not reside in one alone, for all are concerned in the work
of thought. It cannot reside in all together, for it would be
as multiple as they. Take a crowd, for example, that is ani-
mated by one thought and one purpose. Each member of
it adds intensity to the fervor of the rest and catches inten-
sity from their eagerness. We speak of a common thought
and a common consciousness. There is no common con-
sciousness. There is a multitude of consciousnesses. Each
man in the crowd has a consciousness of his own, and this
unity is never once disturbed. The brain is not one; it is
manifold. It is made up, as we have seen, of a crowd, an
innumerable crowd, of atoms and molecules and cells. What
relation has the unity of consciousness to these? I cannot
tell you. I know simply that it cannot be their product.
Materialism is thus unable to adapt itself to one of the most
common facts of experience, to the most fundamental fact of
UNITARIANISM TO PHILOSOPHY.
339
Here
human life, the fact of the unity of consciousness.
its formulæ fail. Just as its processes seem about to take
possession of the whole, to swallow up thought and feeling
as well as life, of a sudden its advance is checked. So the
helpless Andromeda stood bound to the rock, watching the
approach of the crawling monster that was to crush her
beauty in its ravenous jaws; and so was its terrible ap-
proach suddenly checked. The awful form with which her
defender confronted it had changed it to stone. The
material universe, in the face of the fact to which I have
referred, is seen to be simply the basis and the environment
of that spiritual life of which it cannot be the source. I
have just compared it to the terrible monster of the classic
story. The comparison is in place only when the superficial
theories of materialistic philosophers have distorted the ma-
terial forces into something foreign to their real nature, have
sought to make them invade the realm of spirit. In itself
the material universe is sometimes terrible indeed, but for the
most part helpful, and always beautiful. The sea is terrible
when its encroaching waves threaten to sweep away the frail
structures of man; but in its place it is man's helpful servant,
bringing to his door the products of far-off lands, and yield-
ing to him from its depths food that supports his life.
Unitarianism expresses a faith that shines out bright and
clear over against the mists of agnosticism and the black
clouds of materialism. It is a faith in spiritual realities by
which the material universe is to it transfigured. It repre-
sents thus a spiritualistic philosophy. Before considering this,
however, it may be well to place in contrast with Unitarianism
certain forms of spiritualistic philosophy with which it stands
in more or less sharp antagonism. I hardly know what to call
such forms of religious belief. In these days, when creeds are
drag mag
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so often taken "for substance of doctrine," and this substance
is so often the merest shadow, it is difficult to know what men
do, and what they do not, believe. My object, however, is not
polemical, and it will serve my purpose to place Unitarianism
in contrast with the unmistakable Orthodoxy of a former gen-
eration. What I shall call Unitarianism is unquestionably held
to-day by many who call their own belief by another name.
Unitarianism maintains the substantial integrity and sanity
of human nature. It recognizes imperfections and sins; but
what it sees is to it the imperfection of incompleteness, not
that of a ruin. This from a philosophical point of view is pro-
foundly significant. To maintain, for instance, the substantial
integrity and sanity of the human reason is to make philosophy
possible. It alone can make even religion possible in any
large and true meaning of the word. To deny the trustwor-
thiness of the human reason is to make philosophy and re-
ligion, in any large sense of these words, impossible. To deny
the trustworthiness of human reason, and to make this denial
one of the fundamental principles in a philosophy or a the-
ology, is to fall into the most absurd contradiction. A man who
has what we call "a crooked sight," sees all things crooked.
If you give him a mark to guide his sight, that will be seen by
him as awry as all things else. He can correct this by thought.
He can calculate his own personal equation. But if the men-
tal sight be crooked, if reason itself be awry, what correction
can be applied to that? How can even revelation help it?
How can it distinguish between a true and a false revelation?
And if it by chance accepts the true, how can it see this in its
real significance? In this respect the philosophy accepted by
Unitarianism stands in contrast alike with that of materialism
and of a typical Orthodoxy. This philosophy alone recog-
nizes the substantial sanity of man, the reliance that man may
UNITARIANISM TO PHILOSOPHY.
341
place upon his own instincts. He has, for instance, the pas-
sion to know. He instinctively trusts his thought. But if
materialism be true, then his knowledge is a delusion. If the
world has not an ideal content, if it be not the manifestation
of spirit, then Herbert Spencer is right, and it is wholly un-
knowable. Then the only use for thought is to make ourselves
as comfortable as we can; to seek to know, is like seeking to
square the circle. If the typical Orthodoxy is right, human
reason is a thing to be disowned and discredited. If, on the
other hand, the philosophy which is assumed by Unitarianism
and by kindred beliefs is true, if the world be the manifesta-
tion of spirit, and if man is in substantial harmony with his
surroundings, then he may trust his reason. Then the world.
is rightly assumed by him to be transparent to his thought,
and reason is rightly assumed by him to be his God-given in-
strument for learning the truth.
What is true of the intellect is also true of the heart. Ma-
terialism and the typical Orthodoxy unite in repressing the
tenderest longings and aspirations of the soul. Materialism
leaves no place for them; the typical Orthodoxy at once
stimulates and crushes them.
I repeat, the philosophy represented by Unitarianism in
contrast with that of materialism and of the typical Orthodoxy
recognizes and guards the sanity of human nature. It leaves
man free to develop what is most essential to his ideal nature.
The intellect and the affections have open to them the freest
and largest life.
What is true of human nature is also true of the world.
This also is assumed, by the philosophy which Unitarianism
represents, to possess a wholeness and a unity. Materialism,
having no place for the highest spiritual development, indi-
rectly represents the world as a beginning without complete-
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THE RELATION OF
A
ness. The most marked developments of the world are with-
out significance. To the typical Orthodoxy the world is a
ruin. It is at best an imperfect machine that needs continual
readjustment. The noblest and loftiest that appears upon it
is something foreign. To the philosophy represented by Uni-
tarianism and kindred beliefs the world is one. The divine
power is in it, not as an occasional manifestation but as a per-
sistent force. If what are called miracles be accepted, these
are no interruptions of its course, but are the manifestations
of some higher and persistent law. Jesus himself, the loftiest
appearance among men, is in the true sense of the word the
most typical of men. The light which was in him was the
true light, because it was the light that according to his degree
lighteth every man which cometh into the world.
Thus the philosophy of which we speak is that of a large
optimism. Materialism on the one side and the typical Or-
thodoxy on the other see the world practically or avowedly as
a failure. To the one it is a promise without fulfilment; to
the other it is avowedly a wreck. To the spiritualistic philoso-
phy which is represented by Unitarianism the world contains
much that is obscure, much that makes terrible demands upon
faith; yet it is one, it is sane, and through ways that are
not clearly understood it is working out a noble end. Its
promises are not in vain. Its beginnings are prophetic of a
corresponding completeness.
Let us now look, so far as our circumstances permit, at the
spiritualistic philosophy which is represented by Unitarianism
and kindred beliefs.
This philosophy takes form in many different and often
opposing systems. There are many ways by which the same
results have been reached, and he who strikes out upon any
one of these paths is very apt to maintain that it is the only
K
UNITARIANISM TO PHILOSOPHY.
343
one. Some of these attempts to find a basis for a spiritual phi-
losophy have been mistakes; yet for the most part it is safe to
say that each has called attention to some special form of the
universal truth which all were defending. Each has erred for
the most part in claiming for itself the sole right to be called
the defender of the faith. All taken together may give results
with a fulness that no one could reach alone. I shall not
trouble you with the details of opposing systems of spiritu-
alistic philosophy, but will simply call attention to certain
fundamental principles or aspects of this philosophy.
This philosophy assumes that not matter but spirit is the
basis and background of the universe; that spirit is not the
product of matter, but that matter is the manifestation of
spirit. If in matter there is, as has been said, "the promise
and potency" of life and of spirit, it is because there is work-
ing in and through the material world a spiritual power, which
is breathing into it and evolving out of it that which by itself
it would be powerless to produce.
The first appearance of animal life upon the world may well
excite our interest and wonder. In the earliest and lowest
forms of animal structure there may seem at the first glance
little to sharply discriminate them from the lifeless forms about
them. Yet when we look at it there is a vast difference, one
might almost say an infinite difference, between that which
is moved and that which moves; and, above all, between that
which is without feeling and that which feels. The lowest
form of sensation, however vague, however imperfectly taken
up into consciousness, marks a revolution the importance of
which is hardly to be conceived. When I spoke of a differ-
ence that might almost be called infinite, I may have seemed
to use the language of careless exaggeration; but with the
introduction of feeling we have, however indistinct it may
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at first appear, a division of the world into subject and object.
There is that which feels and that which is felt. Subject and
object, although they may be never so inseparably joined
together, yet stand in a relation of absolute antithesis to one
another. They are so directly opposed, that between the sense-
less stone and the sentient creature that crawls upon it there
is a difference that can hardly be over-estimated.
This lowest life, not only marvellous in itself, is marvel-
lous in that to which it forms the introduction. It is, as we
have seen, self-moved; it is self-centred. We are not sur-
prised to see the self-centred forms of life gain in power and
vastness. We watch with interest the development of the
animal world into shapes of beauty or ugliness, of strength
or cunning. We see each maintaining its own life and satis-
fying its own needs at the cost of whatever may oppose it.
We see strife and carnage, and hear the cries of rage and
suffering. But at once there is a revolution no less, perhaps
even greater, than that in which conscious life was manifested
upon the world. The principle of that was self-assertion; the
new principle is that of self-sacrifice. There is the presence of
a love that causes one living thing to forget itself, and to give
itself for another. As in some musical composition, amid
harsh, and it may be discordant tones, is heard a low, sweet
movement that at first is overpowered and checked, which by
degrees gains strength and fulness, until at last it dominates
the whole, and the harsher strains sink away and are lost,
such is the presence of love in the world. It first manifests
itself as almost alone in the midst of the rage and carnage of
the lower life. We find it in the lion's den, where the mother
lion watches over her young, which she would defend at the
cost of her own life. We find it among creatures, no matter
how fierce and untamable. Each new generation, as it enters
UNITARIANISM TO PHILOSOPHY.
345
upon the world in absolute helplessness, is watched over
and guarded at the cost of privation or of life. In the lower
forms of human life this presence of love may be hardly more
marked than in that of the brute; but it has obtained a footing
in the world of which it is one day, as we believe, to be the
master. As history has advanced, we have seen its power ex-
pand. In the loftiest souls selfishness has seemed swallowed up
in love. What was at first simply the devotion of the parent
to the young, which was forgotten as soon as the young needed
no further care, comes at last to know no difference of family
or race. Wherever suffering is, wherever there is human need,
it seeks to bring relief. We do not see as yet all things put
under it, but we see the beginning and the spread of a king-
dom, the slow yet sure advance of which is the prophecy, as
we can but believe, of a yet wider supremacy.
We see not
as yet all things put under it, but we see Jesus, in whom is
manifested the fulness of this power in its broadest sweep, in
its complete mastery of the life, and in its claim to possess
by right, and in the coming time in fact, the mastery of the
world.
The spiritualistic philosophy insists that in this outcome
of the world we have brought to light its deepest heart and
mystery. It claims that the fountain cannot rise higher than
its source; that the world that culminates in spirit must have
spirit as its source; that self-forgetting and self-sacrificing love.
cannot be the offspring of mere material relations, and of the
collision of the pitiless forces of Nature. It insists that spirit.
must have been born of spirit, and that love must have been
born of love.
As man looks out upon the world he finds everywhere
confirmation of this faith. The world about him, the ground
beneath his feet, the heaven that soars above, seem all, as he
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THE RELATION OF
looks closely at them, to be the manifestations of some vast,
informing, and controlling mind. Not only are the move-
ments of Nature in accordance with some principle of order,
so that each thing knows its place and moves along its allotted
path; all these elements co-operate. Each has its share in
bringing about the magnificent results which we have just
contemplated. From far back in the æons, when the solar
system was but a measureless, nebulous cloud, through the
ages in which this nebulous mass was whirled into solidity
and form, through the ages of fire, through the ages of slime,
through the ages of slowly organizing life, up to the highest
thought and the tenderest love, the elements were working
together to bring about this result. There seems to have been
a steady path from chaos to spirit. Men used to try to prove
the supremacy of man in the world by showing how all things
are useful to him. Things were explained in their reference
to him. The question what this or that was for, let us say
mosquitoes, or the wild beasts of the desert, meant, What
service do they perform for man? Now we see the su-
premacy of man in the fact that he is the organic head of the
world. He is the capstone without which all is incomplete ;
or rather he is the type in which all lower forms and relations
find themselves fulfilled. His appearance, and above all the
appearance of the highest ideal in human life, brings a unity
and a wholeness into Nature which it lacked before. It
makes of the order of Nature an intelligent order.
Not only does man in the presence of the universe feel
himself face to face with an intelligence kindred to his own,
although so infinitely vaster, and so inconceivable by his best
power of thought; he is conscious of even a closer bond
which unites him to the earth, whose latest child he is. In
the beauty of the world, in its sublimity, he feels himself in
"
UNITARIANISM TO PHILOSOPHY.
347
He re-
relation with something that is kindred to himself.
joices in the freedom of Nature as though it were his own
freedom. The flowers smile at him. The forests seem to
seek to open their heart to him. The glory of the heavens
awes him; and yet there is a gladness in the awe as though the
heaven itself were somehow akin to him. Even the laws of
the material universe, so stern, so inexorable, fill him, as he
contemplates them, with a solemn gladness.
In human life this inexorable law takes on a new aspect.
Man feels its presence in its most awful form when it presents
itself as duty. He who was so strong, so free, who felt him-
self the master of the world, finds himself in bondage. What
sacrifice of the dearest and most precious does not the law of
duty require? How does it break up what seemed the most
solid, and bow down that which was the loftiest, and tear asunder
those who seemed the most closely bound together! And yet
when one has fairly yielded himself to it, how does duty seem
as dear as before it seemed terrible. It is seen to be only the
stern form which love assumes when its claims are trampled
under foot; and when men have submitted their lives to it,
they find that it is still love in its loftiest manifestation.
"Stern lawgiver! yet thou dost wear
The Godhead's most benignant grace;
Nor know we anything so fair
As is the smile upon thy face:
Flowers laugh before thee on their beds,
And fragrance in thy footing treads;
Thou dost preserve the stars from wrong;
And the most ancient heavens through thee are fresh
and strong."
The world in the manifestation of beauty becomes trans-
parent to the spirit. The spiritual presence which is mani-
fested in it seems almost to break through its concealing veil.
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THE RELATION OF
In the presence of that law of duty which controls his life,
man feels himself in the very presence of that power which
rules the worlds.
All these things, as I have said, make us feel that there
must be a spiritual power which is manifested in and through
the universe in which we dwell. But it may be asked, "Is
not Spencer right? May there not be something which is
neither spirit nor matter, but which, manifesting itself through
both, is superior to both? May there not be something as
high above spirit as spirit is exalted above matter?" Of
course, we cannot exhaust in our thought the possibilities of
being. Not only, however, can we conceive of nothing higher
than spirit, we cannot conceive that there should be anything
higher than it. We can find no place for it in our thought.
Spirit is that which transcends itself. The stock or the stone,
whatever is not spiritual, is shut up within itself. Its own
self is closed to it. It does not even exist for itself. The
stock or the stone is a stock or a stone to us. For itself it
is nothing. Not only is it closed against itself, it is closed
against all things else. It is affected by the things about it.
The stone may be washed by the stream, or carried by the
ice; it may be hurled through the air, or moss and lichen
may cling to it; the sun may warm it, or the trees may bend
over it.
All these things, however, take place about it, but
do not take place for it. It is as when we sleep and friends
may come and go, the sun may shine or veil itself, the
most stupendous transaction may occur, the fortunes of our
life may be decided, as in Hawthorne's story of David Swan ;
but it is all nothing to us. Thus do the stock or the stone
sleep only; they have no waking and no dream. This is
not because they are material, but because they are not
spiritual.
UNITARIANISM TO PHILOSOPHY.
349
On the other hand, spirit transcends itself. Its own self is
open to it.
It stands as it were outside itself and contem-
plates itself. It exists not only for others, but for itself as
well. It appropriates all its acts. While it transcends itself,
its acts do not transcend it. It follows them with its sense of
ownership. Yet further does it transcend itself. We, each
standing in his own personality, have yet the freedom of the
universe. My spirit presses back by its thought not merely
to the time when I was not, but to the time when the world
was not. For me that nebulous mass out of which the worlds
were formed whirls into shape and order. For me the
world rolled a mighty globe of flame. I, standing here, take
into my thought the whole system of worlds of which ours
is a part. All this is because I partake, however imperfectly,
of a spiritual nature. We cannot conceive that anything not
spirit should have this freedom of itself and of all things,
should thus be open to itself, and should make all results of
its power its own. We cannot conceive this, simply because
all this constitutes the very essence of spirit. The tree mani-
fests itself to us; we manifest ourselves to ourselves. We can
define spirit in no other terms than that it is this completed
circle; therefore it is that we cannot conceive that such large-
ness of being could be attained by any form of being that is
not akin to spirit.
What is true of spirit in relation to this freedom and large-
ness is true of it also in its more inner and profound experi-
ence. We cannot conceive that there should be anything
loftier than love. Just as the extremes of consciousness and
unconsciousness exclude the possibility of conceiving of any
third that is akin to neither, so there are two forms of life, one
of which is the living for self, and the other is the living in and
for others as well as one's self. The beauty of this latter is
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THE RELATION OF
when the spirit, by its intelligence and its will, makes the self-
surrender indeed its own. This is simply a roundabout way
of speaking of love. We can conceive that there should be a
love more exalted than anything that is known in our experi-
ence, so that love should be transformed and transfigured; but
we cannot conceive that there should be anything so exalted
above that which we know as love, as to be in its nature wholly
foreign to this. We must then be forced to exclaim with
Browning, that
"the loving worm within its clod
Were diviner than a loveless God."
Although, in the farthest reaches of our thought, we cannot
conceive that there should be anything more exalted than
spirit in its loftiest attributes, it may be urged that the facts
of the world cannot be reconciled with the idea that it is the
manifestation of such a spiritual life. There is in the world
suffering; the possibility of suffering is coextensive with sen-
tient life. There is probably no single sentient existence
that wholly escapes suffering; while in the case of many
this suffering is terribly intensified. There is not only suf-
fering in the world, there is sin; there is not only love,
there is hate. Hate is often triumphant over love, unright-
eousness over righteousness. These are facts which no phi-
losophy can either explain or explain away. We might be
tempted to accept the ancient teaching of a dualism in Nature,
and ascribe the good creation to a power of goodness, and
that which appears evil to a power of evil. Further thought
and a more profound knowledge show that this is impossible.
Good and evil are so closely intertwined that it is impossible
to extricate the one from the other. They both spring from
the same root. The sweet and the bitter water flow often
from the same fountain. Moreover, if science is sure of any-
UNITARIANISM TO PHILOSOPHY.
351
thing, it is of the unity of the universe. It confirms the one
fundamental utterance of philosophy that all things are the
manifestation of the one. Further, there is no caprice in
Nature. This is another of the absolute propositions, we
might say axioms, of science. We may say further that there
is no indifference in Nature. In appearance, at least, she is
either the one thing or the other. How carefully she provides
for the gratification of the tastes, no less than the wants, of each
one of her children. How remorselessly she provides for the
destruction of each of them. We have then to face an appar-
ent contradiction which it is impossible for us wholly to solve.
We cannot, however, fail to recognize the fact that the great
movement of Nature has been towards a fuller and a larger
life, towards a tenderer and more widely embracing love. We
cannot deny that there is a power in the world that makes
for righteousness. Even the strife and suffering of the lower
world, as our modern science proves, have been the instru-
ments of working out this larger life. I cannot agree with
Miss Cobbe, that the strife and suffering of the lower world
press more heavily upon our thought when we find that, ac-
cording to the theory of natural selection, they are bound up
in the scheme of things. If they were merely accidents, there
would seem no possibility of explanation. They are not acci-
dents, they are instruments. The lower life is unconsciously,
through necessity, doing what the highest life would do freely
if the choice were given it.
It may be added also that it is the fashion at the present
day to exaggerate the suffering of the lower life of the world,
as it was in the former day to overlook it. The theory of
natural selection has also its merciful and beneficent aspect.
Its fundamental principle is the survival of the fittest. This
shows that whatever survives does so through a certain fitness
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THE RELATION OF
to its environment; that all existence, therefore, finds its
environment to a certain extent favorable. In the spiritual
world, we know how the highest moral attainments have been
victories. Of such triumph the figure of Jesus stands as the
central type. He was made perfect through suffering. In
him the extremes of anguish and spiritual beauty meet. In
him not only life, but the sorrowing life is glorified.
The extremes meet in every heart. You judge the world;
you condemn it as imperfect; it is cruel, heartless, aimless.
Who are you that judge? Are you a stranger from another
universe? Do you stand over against the world? No; you
are of the world. It is the power that made the world that
in you condemns the world. The discord then must be in
some sense apparent only. It is hard enough to reconcile
the existence of evil with faith in a supreme goodness. With-
out such faith, however, it is impossible to understand the
existence of love and of righteousness; and still more im-
possible to understand the stamp of divinity which love and
righteousness wear. Even when they are, in outward seem-
ing, crushed to earth, we reverence them still, while we scorn
the triumphant wrong. Even he who dishonors the moral
law in his life honors it in his thought. It shows itself
thus the representative of that power which is the ruler of
the earth.
Such, in imperfect presentation, is the relation of Unitarian-
ism to philosophy. It assumes the unity of Nature; it as-
sumes the sanity of the nature of the world and of the nature
of man. It puts its faith in the prophecies of Nature, and in
the most profound and tender instincts of the soul. It ac-
cepts the highest that it finds as the truest representative and
manifestation of the power on which the worlds depend. It
sees in Jesus the Son of God, because he is the truest Son
UNITARIANISM TO PHILOSOPHY.
353
of man. I confess that the philosophy which it and kindred
beliefs represent seems to me to be the ideal philosophy; for
as soon as we lose our faith in the integrity of the world
without and the sanity of the world within, in the trustworthi-
ness of human reason and of the fundamental instincts of the
heart, what possibility is left for any philosophy that is worthy
of the name?
23
ECCLESIASTICAL AND DENOMINATIONAL
TENDENCIES.
BY GRINDALL REYNOLDS.
THE
Τ
HE stint which has been appointed for our religious body
is this: How to preserve unimpaired the liberty of the
individual mind and conscience, and the absolute congrega-
tional freedom of the parish from outside dictation, and at the
same time to make such liberty of the individual and such
independence of the congregation consistent with a wide and
ever-enlarging usefulness; to suffer no chains to rest upon our
own souls; to seek to place none upon the souls of others ;
and yet to put into activity and to keep in activity methods
full of highest and broadest spiritual influence.
This surely is a hard problem and a difficult work for any
body of believers to undertake, a problem which in all past
religious history has not been satisfactorily solved. Who shall
say that this work has as yet with any completeness been
accomplished?
It may be asserted, I think, with truth that the first part of
the desired result has to a reasonable degree been attained
by us. That some contumely has been heaped upon opin-
ions held to be not only new and strange but pernicious, that
some brave explorers in the field of truth have found in
the way some thorns, nobody would deny, and few but
would regret whatever in the clearer light of to-day we know
to have been harsh and needless. But probably much of this
C
K
I
DENOMINATIONAL TENDENCIES.
355
was unavoidable. While human beings are limited, they are
likely, on account of this very limitation, to ascribe to their
own opinions, and even prejudices, an undue importance, if
not sacredness. Still, as compared with any other period of
Christian history, or with the experience of any other body
of Christian believers, we may say that we have attained to
liberty, liberty for the individual, liberty for the religious
society, and liberty for the whole body. Certainly, no coura-
geous soul, no soul worthy to be the goodly vessel into which
the new and higher spiritual truth shall be poured, has found
any greater obstacles, any fiercer lions in the path, than such
as are needful to keep heroism and faith in wholesome vigor.
What we say then of sixty years of our church and denomi-
national history is, that they have to a marvellous extent ac-
complished within our borders soul-liberty and congregational
freedom. To have achieved this in the lifetime of two
generations is not to have lived in vain.
M
But what of the second part of the desired result? Has
our religious body made such freedom as consistent as it
should be with an ever-enlarging and positive usefulness?
No one would say that. By our mere existence we have ac-
complished a great deal. The first Unitarians we may say
it without egotism - were a remarkable body of men. In
native capacity they were the equals of their opponents; in
intellectual training they had in their day few peers, and no
superiors. By the very fact that they were free, that they
dared to look all moral and spiritual problems in the face,
that at all risks they were ready, at the call of truth, to turn
their backs upon the old and time-honored, and to espouse
the new and despised, lifted them to the noblest moral and
intellectual stature. What Priestley, Channing, Ware, Dewey,
Parker, and the rest might have been, had they trodden in the
356
ECCLESIASTICAL AND
ancient ways, no one can tell; but taking upon them the heroic
attitude of dissent for conscience' sake, they became striking
figures, rising above the monotonous level of ordinary humanity.
Such persons could not live, think, speak, print, and act without
leaving a deep impression. The life of New England, in
every department, took some shape and hue from them.
What has imparted so striking a quality to the life and activ-
ity, the organization and legislation of Massachusetts during
the last half century as its philanthropic plans and enterprises?
And from whom have those plans and enterprises received
more glad sympathy and more constant support than from
those who cherished most deeply the conception of human
nature as innately noble? The creeds and especially the
preaching in other folds have gradually assumed a milder
type. What in doctrine is tenderest and most attractive has
come more and more into the foreground; what is cruel and
repulsive has not so much been cast out as permitted to fade
out. For a long time there has been much truth in the sor-
rowful admission of the English preacher travelling in this
country, that there was no sound Orthodox doctrine preached
even in the so-called Orthodox churches of New England.
It cannot be doubted that much of this change is due to the
thought and speech of the fathers of American Unitarianism.
In short, if useful work means exercising the necessary influ-
ence of cultivated and earnest souls, then in doctrine, in phi-
lanthropy, in literature, in the general life and opinion, our
religious body has in the last sixty years achieved much.
But very little of what it might have done. Had Channing
and his compeers believed in organization, had they felt the
duty not only to do good, but to communicate, there is no
measuring of the work which was within their power. Nothing
is more striking than the way the Unitarian body came into
1
į
DENOMINATIONAL TENDENCIES.
357
existence in New England, a hundred and fifty churches
strong. The old fable of Minerva springing forth from the
head of Jupiter full armed was a real fact in our modern life.
Methodism at its start was, in comparison, a feeble bantling.
It looks as though the liberal faith might have swept over
New England like a prairie fire. Instead of numbering fourt
hundred churches, it might have counted thousands under its
banner. But the early Unitarians feared organization. One
almost questions whether they desired to increase their num-
bers. They broke the chains of dogma; they stood free
souls,
and were satisfied.
C
The report of the past of our body may be stated thus: It
has achieved individual and congregational freedom. It has
exercised that incidental influence which large and free souls,
living and acting their true selves, could not help exercising;
but in the way of positive and organized work for the better-
ing of man's religious condition, it has until within a few years.
achieved but little, and has perhaps attempted to achieve less.
It has grown rather because it could not help it than because
it wished to grow.
Turn now to the present and the future. What at this
time are our ecclesiastical and denominational tendencies ?
What are they likely to be in the time to come? Before
we seek to answer these questions let us define what in this
discussion we mean by ecclesiastical and denominational
tendencies.
In churches like the Roman Catholic, Episcopalian, and
Presbyterian, which have a more or less centralized form of
government, when ecclesiastical tendencies are considered, at
once questions like these arise: What methods of organiza-
tion, what relations between minister and people, what ritual
forms, are imperative, and therefore necessary conditions of
358
ECCLESIASTICAL AND
lawful church existence?
But when the drift of the Unitarian
body is under consideration, no such questions are in order.
There is no controlling authority to shape its growth. It is
a collection of free churches, making their own organization,
calling their own minister, settling him after their own fashion,
determining what forms or lack of forms they will have, what
charities they will support, what contributions they will make
to the common weal. So when you look at the Unitarian
body you cannot so much as think of a definite church polity,
as you can when you regard more closely knit organizations.
Our question is therefore an entirely different one.
It is a
problem of free church-life. It is an effort to ascertain into
what ways of church government, into what forms of church
worship, into what modes of Christian activity, our indepen-
dent parishes, under the law of liberty, are insensibly growing.
In short, what is the tendency and drift of the church life of
congregations absolutely independent? For just as truly as in
the outward universe there is a tendency towards certain ends,
so is there in the spiritual universe.
The same general idea has to apply to our conception of
denominational tendencies. We have no creed to determine
what our churches shall believe. We have no central au-
thority to say to what synod, conference, or association our
churches shall belong. We have no statutes to appoint for
our churches common work to do. As in our internal life, so
in our external activity, we are free. All this is in the nature
of the case. A Unitarian church may or may not have a creed.
In any case, it is its own, and not another's. A Unitarian
church may be rich in good works outside its borders, or it
may keep in its own shell, and shut its gates and its heart
against all appeals. Of course there is a certain unwritten
agreement on the great spiritual themes, else we should fly
Đ
DENOMINATIONAL TENDENCIES.
359
apart like atoms having no bond of coherence. Of course
there is a real unity of faith and of aims, or we should die.
Still, as our ecclesiastical life is essentially free, so is our de-
nominational activity. It is the natural trend of all, under the
law of liberty, to definite purpose and action.
If now we consider a little what we are ecclesiastically
tending from, perhaps we shall more clearly perceive what
we are ecclesiastically tending toward. What we note first
is this: The first Unitarian churches, while they stood for
larger liberty of conscience, for a more rational interpreta-
tion of the Scriptures, for a more humane God and a diviner
humanity, preserved in their church life, even to a greater
degree than their theological opponents, Puritan simplicity.
Their meeting-houses were commodious, rarely comfortable,
still more rarely appealing to the sense of beauty or the sense
of mystery. Often they were painfully cold, bald, and un-
interesting. From the services was banished all richness of
form. No special days were permitted to gather around them
a wealth of sacred associations. Even the sermon, in its effort
to be free from sensationalism, was apt to be more correct
and thoughtful than stimulating. Any one whose memory of
church-going runs back of 1830 will testify to the existence
in Unitarian services of the quality, at any rate, of godly sim-
plicity. This is easily explicable. The early Unitarian churches
were largely the original local parishes. Witness the church
of the Pilgrims at Plymouth, the church of Winthrop and
John Wilson in Boston, the church of Higginson at Salem, the
church of Hooker and Shepard at Cambridge, the church of
Bulkeley at Concord, and a great number besides, scattered
up and down the Commonwealth. The attendants upon the
services were, to a great degree, the descendants of the men
and women who founded those churches. It is easy to
360
ECCLESIASTICAL AND
see why great ecclesiastical plainness went side by side with
intellectual enfranchisement; for it is always less difficult to
change our opinions than our habits.
Consider one other point, what we may call shyness of
dogmatic training. We had escaped the bondage of an iron
system of theology; we did not wish to put on ourselves
or our children any new chains. Not only did our churches
banish creeds: I question whether, in our homes or in our
Sunday-schools, we gave our children any fair knowledge of
the religious opinions for which we stood. I was the son of
a father who was a Unitarian twenty years before Channing
spoke at Jared Sparks's ordination at Baltimore; yet I never
had five minutes' or five seconds' explanation from his lips of
our Unitarian position.
One thing, however, our fathers escaped; and that was the
burning question of to-day,— how to bring church privileges
to those in narrow circumstances. For many years, in Massa-
chusetts, church rates took the form of taxation on property,
and continued to do so till a late day in country towns. This
of itself produced some parity between means and cost of
worship. Plainly, then, what we are tending from in our
church life is Puritan simplicity, and an almost morbid fear
of imposing upon others dogmatic chains.
It is equally clear that in our church life to-day we are
on the one hand tending toward greater richness, freedom,
and variety in all that concerns worship and religious ser-
vices; while on the other we are recognizing as never before
our duty to give to our own children, at least, a firmer grasp
upon the truth which is strength and joy to our souls. Our
"trend" is, I say, in the first place toward greater richness,
variety, and freedom in all that belongs to the public and
social expression of religious life and needs. How evident
DENOMINATIONAL TENDENCIES.
361
this is! Begin at externals, the church-building. A hun-
dred years ago in New England the old meeting-houses
had the venerableness which had gathered about them from
their association with noble men and women, and from the
heroic or pathetic town history with which they were indis-
solubly connected. But otherwise, what beauty had they to
be desired; what majesty or tenderness to lift up any soul?
Outwardly, they were for the most part rectangular struc-
tures, unbroken by any ornament, often unpainted, not so
shapely or elegant as a modern barn. Inside, you found
a square box, glaring white, except where time and use had
left their stains. By aisles and cross-aisles the floor was cut
up into many little square boxes, miniatures of the building
itself. No dim religious light shone through the dusty little
panes. No fires made the building warm; no cushions made
it comfortable. Even the relief of hymn-books and an organ
was denied. All was bare and homely.
All was bare and homely. This is no exaggera-
tion. The picture of the Concord meeting-house of the time.
of the Revolution has been preserved. It was a barn-like
building, square, apparently unpainted, absolutely unattractive,
with no churchly appearance, a good type, no doubt, of
hundreds of the same plain but useful family.
Compare this with the modern ideal of a church, certainly
in the Unitarian fold. The smallest hamlet that builds its
little chapel demands, if it does not always get, beauty which
shall at once tranquillize and stimulate. It would fain have
the very wood and stone say to the passer-by, "A place of
high thinking and lofty aspiring." Let me recall one fact
which tells more than volumes would how much Unitarians
have come to demand, even in the place of worship, some-
thing refining and uplifting. When the "Church Building
Loan Fund" was created, the first requisite seemed to be
¿
-
362
ECCLESIASTICAL AND
plans. Our Methodist brethren, with a rare generosity, gave
us permission to use their book of plans. But those plans
had been dictated by a necessary economy rather than by
any ideal conception of what a place of worship should be.
As a result, no Unitarian society has ever used one. Whether
this tendency to make church-buildings under all circum-
stances handsome and worshipful is always wise may admit
of debate; that it often stands in the way of church exten-
sion is certain; but the existence of the tendency cannot be
denied.
Pass to forms of worship and the keeping of times and
seasons. The Puritan was called into being when times and
seasons, forms and rituals, had come to exercise absolute
tyranny over the free soul. They had replaced largely in
church-life real soul experience, and were held to be sufficient
of themselves, without inward faith and holiness.
At any
rate this was what the Puritan believed, and against this
the Puritan rebelled. Days the most solemn, rites comely
and grand, were to him mere formalism, standing between his
unveiled soul and its God. Often he knew them to be used
to crush out thoughts and aspirations that could not speak
through the tongues of the past. I cannot doubt that his
protest was a wholesome one, that a new influx of the spirit
was what the time called for. Now, our Unitarian fathers
inherited to the full the Puritan's dislike of the old church
ways. It does not seem to me that I ever heard of Easter or
Christmas till I reached manhood. Fast Day we had, and it
was not a day of rioting. Thanksgiving was a great family
and religious festival. New Year's brought the children the
simple gifts which scanty means permitted. But Easter and
Christmas, where were they, what were they? Then the
Sunday service, mark its simplicity and uniformity! You
-
DENOMINATIONAL TENDENCIES.
363
might travel from Boston to New Orleans, the service was the
same. Well we remember the order, a hymn, “the long
prayer," a reading from the Bible, a hymn, the sermon, a
short prayer, a hymn, the benediction. The only innovation
permitted was a transfer of the last prayer into an invocation;
and that probably dates from a later day, when defection
from strict Puritan plainness had begun. Mark the change!
Easter and Christmas are observed among us almost as gener-
ally as with Catholics and Episcopalians. The improvements.
upon the order of service are absolutely bewildering. In each
separate pulpit one has to give careful study, to know when
the minister is to read alone, and when in response with the
people; where the anthems, the solos, and the organ are
to come in. Nor is this all a matter of individual or parish
caprice. Already the Association has prepared two forms
of services, and these have been supplemented by a dozen
more from private sources; and now a commission of fifteen
or twenty has been appointed to furnish a common form of
worship, and so to evoke order out of chaos.
All this reaction was sure to come. Special circumstances
and spiritual conditions made it necessary that our fathers
should rebel against a whole system, which was then inextri-
cably twined up with ecclesiastical formality and ecclesiastical
tyranny. But days and forms have their place in human
life to that both secular and spiritual experience testify.
The tendency, therefore, to find and keep what is good in
religious forms and seasons has come to stay. We have not
as yet discovered what best meets our wants; we shall not
probably find it easy to do so. There are many of us in
whom the Puritan blood and the Puritan taste are too strong
to feel anything to be so good as the old, plain simplicity.
Still, we have to note as one of our marked ecclesiastical
364
ECCLESIASTICAL AND
tendencies the disposition to give greater richness and variety
to worship.
We mark again, as a distinct tendency in our church life,
the disposition to give real instruction to our young people,
especially in the Sunday-school. As we have already hinted,
there was a time when our religious body was absolutely
unsound in its views about the education of its young
people. Its indisposition to proselyte reached monomania.
Often in the home and in the Sunday-school almost un-
broken silence was preserved on the great vital doctrines
of religion and Christianity. The attention was altogether
given to moral and spiritual instruction of a purely prac-
tical and personal character. Our youth grew up in entire
uncertainty of belief about God, Jesus, man, or the future
state. All the doubts and questionings about the Bible or
miracles were kept from them. The result was, on the one
hand, that many of our most earnest and devout young
people had their minds (doctrinally speaking) empty, swept
and garnished, ready for the first comer to enter in and
convert them to a faith not that of their fathers; while, on
the other hand, many, attacked by subtle and strange doubts,
made shipwreck of faith. I was myself educated in a Trini-
tarian Sunday-school; and it was a thorough education, too.
I was left in no doubt as to what was believed about the
Trinity, total depravity, the atonement, election, or eternal
damnation, or why these things were believed, or what texts
were supposed to confirm them. In short, I received a very
good theological education from fairly competent hands, for
which I have always been grateful, albeit I ever remained a
heretic. Coming from such a training to be a teacher in a
Unitarian Sunday-school, what surprised me was the absence.
of all education of this intellectual and theological sort. For
DENOMINATIONAL TENDENCIES.
365
lack of just such an intelligent training, whole families of chil-
dren- I had almost said whole flocks of families have been
led back to the traditional faith out of which the fathers had
emerged.
The tendency of our church life is now away from all this.
It is something to be thankful for. We are coming to see
that our children are rational beings; that it is safe to let
them look at things as they are, and to know why they are so.
If there are doubts about sacred things, which they are sure
to meet, then in the proper season they should understand
what these doubts are, upon what supposed foundations they
rest, and how they may be honestly answered. On the other
hand, we have convictions which are of inexpressible value to
Should we not "pre-empt" these young souls? Should
we leave error to take undisputed possession? The present
ecclesiastical tendency to give a better religious education
yes, theological education to the young is a sound and
rational tendency. It ought to be cherished. What is it but
fulfilling the simple duty of the parent to the child, the old to
the young,—doing the best we can for them? The wonder
is that we ever overlooked it.
us.
We might add a word in respect to the plain tendency of
our present church life toward larger church hospitality,
a most important tendency. For if anything should proffer
to the world an all-inclusive invitation, it is religion, and espe-
cially that form which calls itself liberal. In a certain sense,
church hospitality in Massachusetts is a need of late origin.
While worship was wholly or mainly supported by taxation, the
church was a home for all, not by charity, but by right,
home, too, which they were compelled by law to frequent.
How long this idea of the church as a home for all held sway
in cities I know not, but in the country towns it lingered a
a
366
ECCLESIASTICAL AND
great while. This, however, is certain: that in many churches
the idea was effectually banished half a century ago. I recall
perfectly, standing in the vestibule of a Boston church when I
was a young man. The building would hold six hundred;
the audience was less than sixty. Not only was no seat offered
me, but the sexton absolutely refused to give me or several
ladies near by a seat. This, no doubt, was an extreme case;
but it shows at what an early date the question, "How to
reach and feed all spiritually," came up, when a seat in the
church had ceased to be a common right and depended upon
the generosity or the selfishness of individual owners. And it
shows, too, why in England some of the most radical of the
dissenters object to the disestablishment of the Church.
In seeking to answer this question the Unitarians were
perhaps first in the field. The Benevolent Fraternity of
Churches in Boston came into being in the year 1834.¹
It was an honest effort to extend more widely moral and
religious privileges. It has accomplished a great deal. The
agitation of the free-pew system, dating back as far certainly
as the gathering of the Church of the Disciples in 1841, was
another effort to give a practical answer to the question, How
shall religion reach all? I do not think it can be fairly said
that we have made great progress in solving the problem of
church hospitality. Nor is it an easy problem to solve less
easy perhaps in a country so free as ours, where class feelings,
differences of culture and origin, assert themselves quite as
frankly as anywhere. At any rate there is no patent remedy,
applicable everywhere and to all cases. But the disposition
among us to look the duty of church hospitality in the face
is a wholesome tendency.
1 The next year following the legal disestablishment of religious.
bodies in Massachusetts.
DENOMINATIONAL TENDENCIES.
367
We see, then, that ecclesiastical life in our churches is
directed, first, toward greater richness and variety in wor-
ship; second, toward greater fulness and precision in re-
ligious instruction; and finally, toward a more inclusive
church hospitality.
We come now to our other question, What is our tendency
as a denomination? Let us begin again by considering the
conditions under which our religious body came into being.
One sentence expresses the nature of those conditions and
their actual influence. They were such as tended to foster
the extremest independency of our churches. Our fathers did
not intend to establish a separate religious body any more
than the liberal Orthodox intend to establish one to-day.
They resisted any disposition of that kind. What happened
was this: In a large number of our societies, independently,
by gradual and almost unperceived processes, Calvinism soft-
ened into Arminianism, and that into Unitarianism. When
these societies were rejected by the Calvinistic wing, they had
little organization. They were united by a common ostracism,
more than by anything else. They cohered by sympathy of
convictions. The tendency to independence growing out of
this mode of origin was greatly increased by a morbid fear
of ecclesiastical domination. Separation from old relations had
had in it many elements of bitterness. The iron had entered
the souls of our fathers, and there was a marked dread of any
organization, however free. It is a well-known fact that at
first Channing, Norton, and others looked with doubt, if not
disfavor, upon the forming of the American Unitarian Associ-
ation; and the first forty years of the history of that Associ-
ation were years of penury, of feeble moral support by the
body, and consequently of comparative inefficiency. When
the creation of the National Conference was discussed, many
368
ECCLESIASTÍCAL AND
of our older men seemed to fear that the road to ecclesiastical
despotism might lead that way. We may say then, emphati-
cally, that what our religious body is tending out of is an
exaggerated and fruitless independency.
To what is our body tending? To external coherence.
It has ceased to be like a handful of sand, which is free,
certainly, but which cannot be united for any common and
useful purpose but to fill a hole. Many things have been
working to make such coherence possible. The existence of
the Association, doing for forty years its modest work; the
Sunday-School Society, for a period nearly as long, calling
together a great body of earnest men and women; the various
ministerial bodies, bringing our ministers into intimate ac-
quaintance and friendship; our autumnal convention, pre-
cursor of the National Conference, — all these were developing
our denominational consciousness. Still, I question whether,
previous to 1865, threescore parishes ever in any one year
contributed to our missionary fund, or whether their contribu-
tions in any one year ever reached the scanty sum of seven
thousand dollars.
It was in that year, 1865, that our body, under the splendid
leadership of Dr. Bellows, had its second birth. The National
Conference, increasing steadily in interest and attendance, the
local conferences, its true children, meeting frequently all over
the country, have knit us together in a way unknown in the
past. Sometimes these gatherings are stigmatized as picnics.
We are asked, What good things have they done? All such
talk is mere foolishness. They have done a great deal that is
practical. But suppose they had not. They have changed
us from a mass of brilliant, perhaps, but incoherent atoms
into a living, throbbing, conscious, and growing organism;
and they have done this with little if any loss of individual
DENOMINATIONAL TENDENCIES.
369
or congregational freedom. What more in reason can we
ask?
To accomplish outward coherence, and that alone, might
indeed be paltry work. But who thinks we are stopping
there? Are we not advancing with steady step toward a
more complete inward and spiritual union? Yea, under the
guidance of perfect liberty, have we not already attained to
a more real harmony than usually falls to the lot of religious
bodies, more real, because it is a harınony that wears no
chains and is hemmed in by no walls? I am optimistic enough
to believe so. When our little body had made its protest
against harsh and unreasonable dogmas, when it stood a small
group of dissenters in a large world, and when unmoved it
had received the dread stamp "heretic," and had accepted a
denominational name which it never desired, naturally enough
there was a division as to future wishes and work. There
were, and there must have been, a large portion who felt that
we had achieved enough for one generation. Had we not
won from the cruel grasp of Calvinism a humane God, a
divine humanity, an honest salvation, and a hopeful eternity?
Was it not well to stop and possess the country before we
mnade farther advance, if indeed any farther advance was
desirable? On the other hand, was it not equally sure that
others would, forgetting the things behind, reach forward;
that the error overcome would seem to them small compared
with the error yet reigning; that the safety of possession
would be as nothing compared with the fierce joy of over-
coming? There is always a space between the advance
and rear-guard; and they are both essential to the welfare
of the army. So there were divisions in those days. Men
doubted one another. On both sides were spoken words
which both would regret to-day and gladly commit to ob-
Gja
24
370
ECCLESIASTICAL AND
livion. Still, to the impartial on-looker, the collision was
inevitable.
What we have learned to-day is not that there are no
differences; that would be like shutting our eyes and saying
there are no clouds. What we have learned is that the differ-
ences are on the surface, the agreements at the heart of truth.
Time will permit but one illustration, the nature and office
of Jesus. Upon what other subject can there be so much
divergence as upon this? But have we not advanced so far
that we are disposed to dogmatize with moderation concerning
much lesser lights? Why does Shakspeare tower up among
the poets like Mount Shasta among its foot-hills? Why is
Michael Angelo a colossus, while just as earnest seekers after
beauty and grandeur stand as pygmies under his shadow?
Was the cause heredity; was it education; or were these
men raised up by some deep law that we do not understand?
Who shall say? Jesus, was he the offspring of miracle, of
wonder whose profound law (for law there must have been)
we cannot fathom; was he the fruit of a long course of
natural selection, running back through Joseph and Mary
even to the sweet singer and greatest monarch of Israel; or
was he, as Mr. Savage terms him, "the consummate flower of
our common humanity"? On such questions men will differ;
but have we not all reached the point where with united voice
we can say "the great spiritual man of the ages, inspirer,
teacher, example, and friend;" and is not this coming into
genuine spiritual harmony, if not absolute intellectual agree-
ment? What is true of the question in regard to Jesus is
still more true of other vital religious questions. Under the
guidance of the law of perfect liberty as a denomination, we
are tending to a harmony at once rare and real,- rare be-
cause unforced, real because profound.
DENOMINATIONAL TENDENCIES.
371
But to pass from individualism to outward coherence,
and from outward coherence to spiritual union, however per-
fect, does that justify the existence of a religious body, and
fulfil all its duty? Certainly not. A denomination comes
into being because it has a clear vision of some portion
of the truth. It has not a monopoly of all the light that
has broken forth, certainly not of all the light that shall
break forth from God's word and God's world. I say that we
have a clearer vision of some portion of the truth. I should
be sorry were any bigoted enough to deny that other bodies
had their vision of the truth; and very saddening it would be
to believe that the truth is so bounded that our mortal eyes
or minds could take it all in. But when one has something
of real value, what duty does it bring with it? Suppose the
discoverer of ether, which has assuaged so many pains and
carried so many poor souls through fearful crises, had kept
his discovery to himself, or had carefully confined its benefits
within a narrow circle of favored ones; imagine an astrono-
mer discovering some new law of the universe, or a navigator
making some important geographical discovery, and remain-
ing silent, and letting the knowledge die with him, what
should we say of these men? What should we say of any
one who had found out in the world of body or mind
what would help or comfort or enlighten his fellow-creatures,
and should keep it as a private curiosity or a private luxury?
We should hardly find language sharp enough for our condem-
nation. Nor can a denomination be excused for inaction,
unless, indeed, you can prove that truth which concerns man's
relations to God, to the universe, to his fellow-men, and to
his permanent welfare, has less importance than a medical
remedy or an astronomical or geographical fact; or unless
you can show that truth is the one solitary gift of God, which
M
372
ECCLESIASTICAL AND
can propagate and diffuse itself, and dissipate all darkness,
and overcome all error without man's fidelity to help. But
both these ideas are in fact untenable. Nothing makes so
permanent an impression for good on mankind as higher
moral and religious truth; and every advance in the knowl-
edge and possession of such truth is largely dependent upon
the faithfulness of some man or some body of men. Take
out of modern history Christianity or the Reformation, and
would not human life everywhere feel the loss? Where would
Christianity have been if the apostles had gone to sleep?
How long might the Reformation have been postponed if
Martin Luther had contented himself with counting his beads
and reading his missal? I hold, then, that the denominational
tendency, which is so distinctly manifesting itself in these
latter days, to accept truth as a trust held for the benefit of
mankind, is eminently to be approved, and is one which is
carrying us up to the climax of denominational duty. We
may or may not have found out the best way to do good and
communicate; but if we keep clearly before us that we have
no moral option but to give to others what is a blessing to
ourselves, we shall ultimately learn to walk in the ways of a
wise fidelity.
The difference between our present ecclesiastical and de-
nominational tendencies and those of the past may be thus
defined: Whereas once we sought for truth and freedom, we
are now desiring truth, freedom, and usefulness. Our first
struggle was to enfranchise our own minds and souls; to put
away from us what looked to be superstitious, irrational, or
inhumane; to break every yoke of subjection to creeds how-
ever venerable, or to church authority however ancient, except
as such yokes were the veritable truth of God. That was
work which had to be done. We had to have our declara-
DENOMINATIONAL TENDENCIES.
373
tion of independence and our war of revolution, and in those
days there were wise statesmen and good soldiers. But the
chains are thrown off; the mental and spiritual independence
is achieved. No doubt problems of truth remain and always.
will remain to be solved. But the chief problem of to-day is
the problem of moral and spiritual usefulness, how we shall
make our own church life nourishing and instructive to young
and old; how we shall make our denominational life promote
the sway in the world of a reasonable, humane, devout Chris-
tianity, fruitful in righteous character and noble works.
INDEX.
ABBOT, ABIEL, 173, 174.
Abelard: liberalism, 36; on original sin,
38; atonement, 40, 42; disciples, 41. |
Absolute Religion, 228, 231-233, 237-
242.
Absolute, the, unknowable, 333-336.
Achilles, comparison, 213.
Adam: sin, 38, 40; and Christ, 58;
Geneva doctrine, 67; view of Soci-
nus, 71. (See Original Sin.)
Adams Family, and Mayhew, 163.
Adams, John: on Gay, 158; leader-
ship, 241.
Adams, John Quincy, 249.
Adams, Sarah Flower, hymn, 251.
Etna, illustration, 203, 204.
Agassiz, Louis, character and opinions,
302, 306.
|
Agnosticism: requiring deity, 300, 301;
confession, 324; defined and opposed,
331-337; mists, 339.
Agriculture, improved by convents, 31.
Alcott, A. Bronson, transcendentalism,
208, 212.
250; German study, 250; poetry, 250,
251, 256-261.
American Unitarian Association: pub-
lication of Parker's works, 109, 222;
organized, 184, 367; liturgies, 363.
American Unitarianism: contact with
German thought, 97-115; vast sub-
ject, 99; change, 112; great expo-
nent, 173. (See Channing, English,
Unitarianism.)
Ames, Charles Gordon, on culture, 328.
Ames, Fisher, 144.
Anselm, on the atonement, 39, 40.
Antichrist, 44.
Antislavery Movement, 191-193.
Apollinaris Heresy, 22.
Apollo, fable, 272.
Apologists, early, 7.
Alexandria: school, 20, 29; clergy, 21; | Apostles' Creed, liberality, 156,
fathers, 38.
Alger, William Rounseville, 250.
Allen, Joseph Henry: lectures, 1, 97;
Christian History, 54; on transcen- |
dentalism, 219; Parker, 239.
Allenville, M. d', anecdote, 295.
Alton Riot, 192.
Ambrose, influence, 15.
America, discovered, 197.
American Literature: connection with
liberal religion, 245-271; fiction, 246,
247; history, 247, 248; oratory, 248,
249; criticism, 249; essays, 249,
Anabaptists, confounded with Unita-
rians, 79.
Andover Theological School: creed,
84; candidates, 144; doctrinal con-
troversy, 183.
Andromeda, illustration, 339.
Apostolic Fathers: purpose, 7; doc-
trinal points, 10. (See Church.)
Apostolic Ministry, 125.
Appleton, Doctor, views, 158.
Apthorp, East, colonial mission, 164.
Aquinas, life and literature, 270.
Arianism: controversy, 6, 16, 34; la-
borious existence, 22; broken up, 69.
Arians doctrines, 17; aristocratic fa-
vor, defeat, 21; semi, 35; ascendency,
40; new name in England, 80, 85;
in Orthodox fellowship, 155; pecu-
liar belief, 156; two dissenters, 168.
376
INDEX.
Aristides, heavenly hope, 59.
Aristotle, evolutionist, 306.
Arius, 21.
Arlington Street Church, pastors, 166, Batchelor, George, lecture, 312.
182. (See Federal.)
Baur, School of Criticism, 107, III.
Arminianism, a liberal movement, 48, Beach, Seth Curtis, lecture, 48.
204, 367.
Beatitudes: a man of the, 174; impera-
tive, 218; sacred, 284.
Beauty, its own reward, 200.
Beethoven, influence, 212.
Arnold, Matthew: on miracles, 106;
Philistines, 207; researches, 283;
famous formula, 325.
Art Development, 197.
Asceticism: highly estimated, 28; once
essential, 29, 30.
Belknap, Jeremy: pastorate, 166; hymn-
book, 167.
Bellows, Henry W.: on Channing, 181;
leadership, 368.
Asia Minor, spread of Christianity, 67,
68.
Benevolent Fraternity of Churches, 366.
Bentley, William, pastorate, 168.
Bernard, Saint: opinions, 40; not in-
terested in science, 198.
Astronomy, ignorance of, 333, 334.
Athanasian Creed: forcibly established,
28; antiquity, 34; revolt against, 35;
devotees, 43; influence in England,
158 damnatory clauses, 216.
Athanasius, at Nicæa, 21.
Atheism Parker accused of, 229; prac-
tical and theoretical, 236, 237.
Athenagoras, on the logos, 11, 12, 16, 17.
Atkinson, on business morals, 313, 316.
Audin, on Calvin, 65.
Augustine: unexpected issue of his
teachings, 13, 15; sins, 27; City of
God, 24; lauded, 36; predestination,
36, 37; theology restudied and re-
jected, 37; original sin, 38; atone-
ment, 39; relation to Luther, 51, 60;
standpoint, 62; agnostic saying, 335.
Austin, Attorney-General, 192.
Austria: liberal rule, 73, 76; four re-
ligions, 76.
Bartholomew's Day, 83.
Bartol, Cyrus Augustus, 208.
Basil, falsehood, 31.
BACON, FRANCIS: outgrowth of the
Renaissance, 197; character, 293.
Bacon, Roger, 199.
Baltimore Sermon, 182, 184, 186, 360.
Bancroft, George: education and travel,
211; works, 248.
Baptism, heretical opinions about, 79.
Baptists: one of three sects, 83; creed-
bound, 84; adoption of Unitarian
theology, 86, 87.
Barker, Joseph, leadership, 93.
Berry Street Conference, established,
183.
Bible: indebtedness to convents, 32;
French translation, 42; sufficiency,
43; pure system of faith, 44; Wic-
lif's translation, 46; studied, 79;
taken from its
its sanctuary, 100;
changed estimate, 107; relation to
Protestantism, 122; Puritan use in
worship, 131; Gay's arms, 158; Uni-
tarian views, 182, 183; of different
nations, 190; more light, 193; tri-
bunal, 202; transcendentalism, 203;
a large, 209; external authority, 218;
idolatry, 229; Parker's view, 230,
232; transmission, 233; infallibility,
273; verbal inspiration, 276; restored
to thinking men, 299; rational view,
359; doubts suppressed, 364.
Biblical Criticism: free, 64; in vogue,
222; relation to Unitarianism, 272–
289; ungracious aspect, 273; scien-
tific research, 274, 275; Dutch school,
German investigations, 275; reason,
275, 277; inspiration questioned, 275–
277; textual criticism, 277, 279; ab-
sence of metaphysical theology, 277;
the fear of deeper criticism, start-
ling tidings from abroad, 278; af-
fected by physical science, 279-283;
doctrine of evolution, 280-282; geol-
INDEX.
377
ogy and creation, 282, 283; Chris- | Buchanan, Robert, liberalism, 270.
tianity compared with other religious Buddhist Ritual, 285.
systems, 283-285; God-given scrip- | Bulkeley, Peter, pastorate, 359.
tures, 285; order of the historic books, Burgundians, Arians, 40.
285-288; worth of the investigation, Burns, Robert, satire, 49, 61.
289; scientific method, 299.
Business Morals, 313–316.
Biddle, John, career, 81, 82.
Byzantine Court, 31.
Blackie, John Stuart, satire, 254.
Blandrata, Giorgio: in Poland, 73;
in Transylvania, 74; worshipping
Christ, 76.
Board of Trade, honor in, 313-316.
Bogomite Sect, 41.
Bohemia, religious exiles, 103.
Bolsec, Jerome Hermes, theology and
life, 63, 64.
Bonet, quoted, 65, 69.
Bossuet, on errors of Protestantism, 120.
Boston: early churches, 133, 143, 359;
two Trinitarian pastors, 155; orators,
162; mission to, 164; Parker's influ-
ence, 227, 228, 230, 234; a small
congregation, 366. (See separate
names of churches, such as King's
Chapel.)
Boston Association of Ministers, 162.
Boucher, Joan, burned, 79, So.
Bowdoin, James, relation to Mayhew,
163.
Bowring, Sir John, hymns, 251.
Brain, relation to life, 338.
Brattle Square Church: pastorate, 153,
182; Webster, 248.
Briggs, George Ware: lecture, 178; al-
lusion, 295.
Bristol, mission to, 164.
Broad Church: Quaker view, 82; opin-
ion of miracles, 106.
Brooke, Stopford, on miracles, 106.
Brook Farm, 212.
Brooklyn, Connecticut, church, 174,
176.
Brooks, Charles T., literary work, 250.
Browning, Robert, liberalism, 270.
Brownson, Orestes A., change of opin-
ions, 98.
Bruys, Peter de: sect, 41; death, 42.
Bryant, William Cullen, literary work,
250, 256.
CALHOUN, JOHN C., theology, 249.
Calvinism: two hateful doctrines, 49,
50; view of human nature and sin,
58; Francis David's position, 74;
broad stream, 82, 83; in different
churches, melting away, 84; inde-
pendence of English Presbyterian
churches, 86; New England basis,
142; Boston changes, 143; obsolete
type, 169; old school, 174; modern,
175; moral argument against, 184,
205; glory and dream, 204; sublime
and awful, 204, 210; contrary teach-
ings, 221; softened, 367; cruel grasp,
369. (See Orthodoxy.)
Calvinists modern ministers, 158, 165;
grip of one doctrine, 303.
Calvin, John horrible decree, 49; on
total depravity, 57; relation to Zwin-
gli, 58, 61; predestination, 60; Life,
61, 64, 65; no help to Unitarianism,
62, 63; relation to three opponents,
64-70, 78; Willis's characterization,
65, 66; reign, 67; church liberalized,
77; partial reformation, 78; church
property, 150.
Cambridge Platform, on ordination,
168.
Cambridge: church division, 144; San-
ders Theatre, 162; mission to, 164;
Divinity School, 213; churches, 359.
Caner's Answer, 164.
Carlyle, Thomas: wife, 69; volcanic,
210; literary work, 270.
Carmarthen Theological School, 95.
Carpaccio's Picture, 216, 217.
Carpenter, J. Estlin, 95, 294.
Carpenter's Ordination, text, 158.
Carpenter, William B., scientific tem-
per, 294, 310.
378
INDEX.
Castellio, life and work, 63–65.
Cathari, sect, 41.
Cato, heavenly hope, 59.
Cause and Effect, 310.
Chauncy, Charles: early liberalism,
158-160; relation to Mayhew, 161;
funeral prayer, 165.
Chalcedon Council, 16, 19, 22, 23.
Child, Lydia Maria, stories, 246.
Children, religiously taught, 364, 365.
(See Sunday-schools.)
Champollion's Discoveries, 288.
Change and Continuance, the great law, China: illustration, 3; wall, 334.
Christendom: war of words, 24; truth
outside, 190.
309.
Channing Hall, 183, 184.
Channing Unitarianism, 184, 185, 190-| Christian, a great name, 220.
193. (See Unitarianism.)
Christian Church: injurious connection
Channing, William Ellery: religious with state, 26; militant and trium-
life, 112, 181; famous sermon, 157, phant, 30; redemptive power, 36;
360; guest, 176; lecture, 178-195; membership not insisted upon, 84;
man, theologian, and leader, 178; per- relation to parish in Massachusetts,
sonal reminiscences of, 179, 180; pre- 116-154; franchise restricted, 134;
ordination, So; early days, 180, name and limits, 136; vital transmis-
181; religious experience and study, sion, 124-128; Parker's views, 230,
181; settlement, 182; liberal ser- 232; wedded to Bible, 273; small
mons, 182, 183; fires of controversy, Unitarian body, 288; political task,
183; exponent of the severed churches, 15, 16; separation from the world.
184; view of divine nature, 185;
essential to life, 128; privileged, 139.
Jesus, 186; burning light and thought, Christian Conscience: type, 102; data,
186, 187; estimate of human nature, 104; creed, 105.
187; root idea, 188; regard for the Christian Disciple, published, 183.
soul, 189; religion natural to man, Christian Doctrine: first stage, 1, 10;
189, 190; nourisher of noble minds, early, 1-25; rapid development, 7;
190, 191; philanthropy, 191–193 ; revolutionized, 8; second stage, 10;
steadfast faith, 193; patriotism, 194; intellectual opinions, 13, 14; double
native state, 194, 195; leadership, current, 13, 15; old views continued,
205; prophetic sense, 206; hampered, 34; Wiclif's enlightenment, 44; vital,
206, 207; close of period, relation to
364.
Parker, 221; moral questions, 222;
literary rank, 246; poetic elegy, 256;
loved by Holmes, 258; on the Scrip-
tures, 274, 275, 278; inspiration be-
low virtue, 276; textual criticism,
279; pursuit of truth, 295; heroism,
355; indifference to organization,
356, 367.
Christian Examiner: contributions by
Channing, 194; Parker, 227; anti-
Trinitarian scholarship, 277; criti-
cism, 278.
Chapels, era of, 83.
Character, superior worth, 54.
Charlemagne schools, 36; era, 37.
Charles II., 134.
Christian History: first five centuries,
1-25; fifth to fifteenth century, 26-
47; two seed-plots, 28; monasticism,
28-33; seeds scattered, 67; three
great periods, 107.
Christianity raw material, no geograph-
ical limitations, 5; nearly extin
guished, state religion, 26; life in
death, 28; procreant cradle, 32;
contents neglected, 33; mustard-seed,
34; supernatural element, 98; spe-
cial revelation, 106; transient and
permanent elements, 109, 228, 229;
Charles V., 65.
Charlestown first church, 133; pastor-
ate, 139; division, 143, 144; bridge,
149.
Chateaubriand, 103.
INDEX.
379
214; history and traditions, 222, 229;
new notions, 226; universal religion,
228; substance, 229; tottering, 230;
Parker's view, 230-232; relation to
the absolute religion, 231, 232; insti-
tutions unjustly censured, 233; real
gospel, 234; speculations, 236, 238;
higher law, 240; modern conflicts,
242; supposed omission, 272; the
only religion, 283; more needed, 287.
Christmas: not observed, 362; change,
363.
Christoffel's Biography of Zwingli, 58,
great purpose, 186; nothing left, | Cobbe, Frances Power, on suffering, 351.
Coherence, denominational, 368, 369.
Colenso, Bishop, on miracles, 106.
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 209.
Columbus: sailors, 198; allusion, 206;
cry, 212.
Commenus, Alexis, 41.
Comparative Study of Religions, 241.
Concord: church, 359; picture, 361.
Conferences, 95. (See National.)
Confessors, class of Christians, 13.
Congregational Churches: in England,
83-86; American, 89; disturbed,
123, 124; subordinated by legal de-
cisions, 126, 127; democratic posi-
tion of the minister, 127; land grants,
130; property, 131; usage in wor-
ship, 131; defection, 142; ordination,
145; original basis, 148; gradual
change, 182. (See Church.)
Congregationalism: name not doctrinal,
132, 133; blow at, 138; doctrinal
causes of trouble, 142; two parties,
143; changes, 144.
Connecticut: Congregational churches,
169; little dissent, 169-177; Episco-
pal churches, 169; pastors, 173-176.
Conscience, identical with God, 236.
Consciousness, phenomena of, 338.
Conservation of Energy, 303, 304.
Censociations, 171-175.
Constantine: era, 7; religious edict, 21;
baptism, 28.
Constantinople, 19, 21, 22.
Cooper, James Fenimore, novels, 246.
Cooper, Samuel, views, 165.
Copernicus, 69, 197.
Correlation of Forces, 303.
Correspondence, perfect, 309.
Cosmogony, 281-283.
59.
Christology of Gospels, 170.
Chrysostcm, 27.
Church and Parish: lecture, 116–154;
irreconcilable differences, ordinances,
124; needful distinction, 124-126;
Roman Catholic extreme, 126-128;
legal subordination of the church,
126, 127; decision of Supreme Court,
129, 147, 148; choice of pastors, 137-
141; imperium in imperio, 139;
property questions, 141, 152, 153;
parish regarded as a trespasser, 148,
150; church overshadowed, 151, 153;
separation influenced by character
of church-members, 153, 154; subse-
quent legislation, 154; means of sup-
port, 360; home, 365, 366. (See
Congregational Churches.)
Church Building Loan Fund, 361, 362.
Church Fathers: overstudied, 2, 4;
French translation, 42.
Church of the Disciples, 366.
Civilization, centred in monasteries, 31.
Clarke, James Freeman: scholarship,
100, 212; German leanings, 105;
story, 108; relation to Parker, 109,
222, 241; popular type, 112; better
way, 113; transcendentalism, 208;
literary rank, 250.
Clarke, John, pastorate, 160.
Clarke, Samuel, liberal ideas, 156.
Clement of Alexandria, 20.
Councils: ecumenical, 21; local, 34.
(See Nicaan, etc.)
Cousin's Writings, 212.
Coventry, Connecticut, 173.
Cranch, Christopher P.: transcenden-
talism, 208; literary work, 250.
Cranmer, Archbishop, 8o.
Clergy: vicious, 28; from convents, Creeds: of five centuries, 16; Luther's,
33; maintenance, 131.
43; strengthened, 170; substance of
380
INDEX.
doctrine, 252;
more tender, 356; | District Missionary Associations, 95.
Unitarian, 358. (See Athanasian.) | Divinity School, Parker's residence,
Crillion, Count de, 295, 296.
223, 227. (See Cambridge.)
Criticism scientific, 101; general, 272, | Doctrine, essential to salvation, 13.
273. (See Biblical.)
(See Christian.)
Cromwell, Oliver, liberality, 82.
Crook, anecdote, 85.
Crusades, 23.
Culture, new, 328.
Curtis, George William, literary work, Drummond, James, 95.
249.
Cyprian, influence, 15.
Dualism: ancient, 41; stage of religion,
231; in nature, 350.
Dublin Church, 174.
Dummer Academy, 173.
Duns Scotus, theories, 38.
DANTE, how influenced, 270.
33. (See Middle.)
Dark Ages: rightly named, 26; clergy, Dutch School of Criticism, 275, 287.
Dwight, John S.: ordination, 193;
transcendentalism, 208; German
study, 211, 212; literary work, 250.
Dyer's Life of Calvin, 61, 64.
Darwin, Charles: honesty of spirit,
292, 293; leadership, 306.
Darwinism story, 280; steps wanting,
281; real antagonism, 301; Agassiz's
position, 302.
D'Aubigné's History, 50, 53, 55.
Dauphigny Protestants, 43.
David, Francis: career, 72-77; church,77.
Davids, Rhys, researches, 283.
Decalogue, 53, 284.
Dedham early worship, 133; historic
First Church difficulties, 116; legal
victory, 122, 123; sympathy with de-
feated party, 129, 130; change of
pastor, 144; separation, 145; litiga-
tion, 145-149; deacon, 146.
(See
Church and Parish.)
Deistic Writings, 103.
De Normandie, James: lecture, 272;
allusion, 299.
Descartes, 197.
Development Theory, 280, 281. (See
Evolution.)
Doddridge, Philip, liberalism, 156.
Domestic Missions, 191, 192.
Donelly, Ignatius, on Shakespeare, 201.
Dover Church, 166.
Devil, personal, 71.
De Wette: scholarship, 108; on the
Old Testament, 109: writings, 212;
criticism, 275, 278, 286.
Dewey, Orville: usefulness, 179; leader,
205; textual criticism, 279; heroism,
355.
Dial, published, 227.
Dissenters, name first used, 83.
EASTER, 362, 363.
16;
Eastern Church: speculations,
councils, 22, 34; division, 23; mar-
riage rules, 33; peculiar theory, 36;
heretics, 40. (See Greck.)
Eastern Empire: splendor, 31; Arians,
41.
Ecclesiastes, Book of, texts, 323, 330.
Ecclesiastical Laws in Massachusetts,
136. (See Church.)
Eckley, Doctor, 155.
Eck, the Papal champion, 51.
Edwards, Jonathan, transcendentalism,
203.
Edward VI., tolerant spirit, 80.
Egypt: lotus, 218; Greek and Hebrew
ideas, 283, 284; key to records, 288.
Eliot, George: religious ideas, 269;
song, 324.
Elizabeth, Queen, Protestant revival,
So.
Ellery Family, 180.
Ellis, George E.: lecture, 116; Half
Century of Controversy, 148; textual
criticism, 279.
Ellsler, Fanny, anecdote, 208, 209.
Elohistic Documents, 286.
INDEX.
381
Elsewhere, the, 214.
Emerson, Ralph Waldo: famous ad-
dress, 98, 213-215; on Scriptures,
190; transcendentalism, 203, 208;
anecdote, 209; mysticism, 212; sat-
urnalia of faith, 213; compared to
Achilles, 213; visionary, 214; beyond
bounds, 221; magnetic voice, 226;
influence over Parker, 242; depth,
242; literary rank, 246; religious po-
etry, 257.
England: Socinian refugees, 73, 79;
fines for non-attendance at church,
135; Society for Propagating the
Gospel in Foreign Parts, 163, 164;
Renaissance, 197; transcendentalism,
210, 211; patriotism, 319.
English Baptists, 83-87.
English Church: political relations, 26,
27; Wiclif and Wesley, 46; a pow-
erful antagonist, 83; liberal move-
ment, 86, 87; amendments needed,
87; prestige, 91; denial of miracles,
106; liberal tendencies, 156, 157.
English Common Law, rights of women,
81; distinguished adherents, 82; a
great leader, 85-87; cramped by con-
troversy, 91; home missions, 91, 92;
famous discussion in lectures, 93, 94 i
ecclesiastical taxes, 94; educational
movements, lay preaching, 95; not
influential in America, 156; sympathy
of Bentley and Freeman, 168; recent
views, 169; writers, 170.
Environment, 309.
Ephesian Council, 22.
Episcopacy: not Congregationalism,
132; efforts in New England, 163-
165; organization, 357; festivals,
363.
Epistles, single texts overstudied, 2.
(See Paul.)
Erasmus
on predestination, 51; Re-
naissance, 197.
Erigena, 37.
Eternal Life, present, 297. (See Im-
mortality.)
33.
English Independents, freedom, 83.
English Literature: expressing liberal
religion, 261-271; poetry, 261–269;
fiction, 269-271. (See American and
Literature.)
|
English Methodists, becoming Unita-
rians, 93.
:
English Presbyterians one of three
great sects, 83; becoming Unitarians,
84-86, 89; old families, 92.
English Unitarianism: lecture, 78-96;
date and name, earliest facts obscure,
78; undercurrent of thought, 81; or-
ganic movement, 83; creedless soil,
84; evolution of other sects, 84, 85;
first church, 88, 89; relation to Amer-
ica, 89, 90, 156, 168; two influences,
91; Methodist societies, 92, 93; steady
growth, 96; aspects, 284.
English Unitarians: confounded with
other heretics, 79; woman martyr, 79,
80; persecuted by other Protestants,
So; last burnings for heresy, refugees,
Ethics: bloodless word, 312; culture,
328.
Eutychian Heresy, 23.
Everett, Charles Carroll: book, 106,
111; lecture, 329.
Everett, Edward, oratory, 248, 249.
Evolution: relation to religious thought,
303; scientific place, antiquity, 306;
working theory, 307; prophecy, sen-
timental objection, 308; moral meth-
ods, 316. (See Development.)
Evolutionists: Gray, 302; assurance,
307; monkeys, 307.
Ewald's Researches, 286.
FABRICIUS, 53.
Faith: necessary to salvation, 38; re-
lation to experience, 53.
Farley, Frederick Augustus, ordination,
187.
Farrar, Archdeacon, on Gregory, 27.
Fast Day, 362.
Feathers' Tavern Petition, 88.
Federal Street Church, 166, 182. (See
Arlington.)
Fénelon, life, 194.
382
INDEX.
Fetichism, 231.
Fichte: leadership, 210; influence, 212.
Final Perseverance of the Saints, 303.
First Church in Boston: formed, 133;
change, 143; pastorate, 159.
Fiske, John, works, 336.
Foxcroft, Thomas, pastorate, 160.
France heresy, 41; Latin not under-
stood, 42; Renaissance, 197; tran-
scendentalism, 211.
67; Italian Protestants, 68; property
transferred, 150. (See Calvin.)
Gentiles, 283.
Gentilis, Valentine, 78.
Gentleman and Gentlewoman, 316.
Geography, ignorance of, 333, 334.
Geology and Scripture, 281, 282.
German Language, indispensable, 108.
German Theology, contact with Ameri-
can thought, 97-115. (See Philos-
ophy.)
Franklin, Benjamin, 241.
Freedom, of church and individual, 354, Germany: Socinian refugees, 73; Re-
355.
Freeman, James: liturgy, 89, 90; ca-
reer, 167-169.
naissance, 197; new thought, 210;
American scholars, 211; philosophy,
222; Bible criticism, 275, 278.
Giles, Henry pastorate, 93; literary
service, 249.
Gnosticism and Gnostics, 12, 41.
God: personified attributes, 17-20; be-
getting another deity, 18; with man,
26; suffering, 35; Schleiermacher's
opinions, 104; excluded from cer-
tain metaphysical systems, 112; Chan-
ning's views, 185, 186; his own
witness, 203; creative mind, 210;
naturally known, 218; love, 225;
Parker's idea, personality, and na-
ture, 231; indwelling spirit, 235,
304; ever-living, 236, 289, 304; per-
fect cause, 237; motherhood, 240;
independence of revelation, 255;
knowledge of science, 282; great
problem, 289; light, 295; spirit, 296;
inspiring loyalty, 297; statute-books,
299; life, 300; not an Oriental sove-
reign, 304; unity, 305; will, 309;
effect on philanthropy, 324-326; un-
knowable, 333-335; Idea, 336; seen
in nature, 346, 347; loveliness, 350;
humanity, 359, 369; ignorance about,
364. (See Holy Spirit, Jesus Christ,
Life, Trinity.)
Goethe: relation to Carlyle, 210; in-
fluence, 212.
Free Religion, 242.
Free Will: essential to sin, 38; ele-
ment in salvation, 39; not well
named, 50; Roman Catholic view,
50, 51.
French Revolution: illustration, 14;
anti-religious fury, 102, 103.
Frothingham, Nathaniel L., literary
activity, 250.
Frothingham, Octavius Brooks: schol-
arship, 111; History of Transcenden-
talism, 204; literary rank, 250.
Froude, James Anthony, 270.
Fuller, Margaret: transcendentalism,
208; anecdote, 209; German study,
212; literary service, 250.
Fuller, on Wyclif, 45, 46.
Funeral, first prayer, 165.
Furness, William Henry: writings and
opinions, 109; better way, 113; tran-
scendentalism, 208; literary service,
249, 250.
GALILEO, 197.
Gannett, Ezra Stiles, textual criticism,
279.
Garrison, William Lloyd, fame, 192.
Gay, Ebenezer: career, 157, 158; allu-
sion, 160; relation to Mayhew, 161.
General Court, rebuked, 159, 160. (See
Massachusetts.)
Genesis, Book of, days, 282, 283.
Geneva: liberalized, 67, 77; made safer,
Golden Age, 308.
| Good Hope, Cape of, 197.
Goodness, no delusion, 327.
Gospels: facts explained, 109-111; for
disciples, 125; legends, 278.
INDEX.
383
Gothic Arians, 40.
Gottschalk's Heresy, 37, 38..
Graf's Researches, 286.
Gray, Asa: motto, 290, 310; on ag-
nosticism, 301; evolutionist, 302, 306,
307.
Greece mighty spirits, 197; Egyptian
ideas, 283, 284; barbarians, 283.
Greek Church: phrase in creed, 35;
view of original sin, 38. (See
Eastern.)
Greek Language: genders, 12; studied,
174.
Green, Joseph, ordination, 158.
Greenwood, Francis W. P., leadership,
205.
Gregory of Nyssa: theory, 20; lies, 27.
Guide-books, illustration, 215.
Gunpowder, invented, 197.
HALE, EDWARD EVERETT, stories,
247.
Hallam's History, 67.
Hall's Orthodoxy and Heresy, 62.
Hamont the Martyr, S1.
Harvard College: benefits, 166; Parker,
223, 224. (See Cambridge and Di-
vinity School.)
Hawthorne, Nathaniel: stories, 247;
David Swan, 348.
Haynes's Reply, 85.
Hebrews spiritual prophets, 163; he-
roes, 191; hymns, 251, 257, 258; in
Egypt, 283, 284; not the only re-
cipients of revelation, 283. (See
Jews.)
Hector, 213.
Hedge, Frederic Henry: scholarship,
100, 212; German study, 105, 106,
211; leadership, 106; work, 111;
better way, 113; transcendentalism,
208; literary service, 250; aphorism,
256.
Hegel School, 99, 106, 111.
Henricians and their Founder, 42.
Henry VIII. and the Reformation,
IIQ.
Heresies, forty, 12.
Herford, Brooke, lecture, 78.
Hexateuch, 288.
Hibbert's Lectures, 287.
Higginson, Francis, pastorate, 359.
Higginson, Thomas Wentworth, 250.
Hincmar, 37.
Hindus: mysticism, 212; flower of the
spirit, 218.
Hingham Church, 157. (See Gay.)
Holland Land Company, 171, 172.
Holland: Socinians, 73; refugees, 79;
American sermon, 157; Renaissance,
197.
Hollis, Thomas, generosity, 166.
Holmes, Oliver Wendell: stories, 247;
wit, 249; literary ability, 250; poetry,
257.
Holy Spirit: logos, 9; Pauline doc-
trine, 10; unity with the Son, 11;
personality, 22, 57; procession, 35;
Melancthon's view, 56. (See God,
Jesus.)
Homo-ousian Controversy, 21, 35.
Honesty and Policy, 315.
Honor, false ideas of, 316, 317.
Hooker, Thomas, pastorate, 359.
Hopkins, Samuel: views, 169; disin-
terestedness, 187.
Hornbrooke, Francis Bickford, lecture,
245.
Howard, Doctor: ordination, 158; re-
lation to Boston Association, 162.
Huidekoper, H. J., strong Unitarian,
172.
Human Nature: belief in, 50, 188;
Zwingli's view, 57, 58; exaltation,
189; fourfold analysis, 225; integrity,
340; sense of duty, 347; reliability,
352, 353.
Hungary: Unitarian root, 74-76; no-
bility, 76; congregations, 77.
Huns, 24.
Hussite Wars, 104.
Huxley, Thomas Henry: anecdote, 280,
281; on Bacon, 293; acute saying,
298; Advance of Science, 306.
Hypostasis, 20, 56, 57.
Hypotheses necessary for investiga-
tion, 306, 307; in agnosticism, 333.
384
INDEX.
IF, force of the word, 318.
Immortality: Schleiermacher's view,
104; its own witness, 233; sure, 239;
relation to philanthropy, 234-237;
Parker's belief, 238-240; ignorance
about, 364.
Independents, creed-bound, 83, 84.
Indian Evangelization, 161, 164, 165.
Infidelity, the real, 295.
Inquisition, persecutions, 41, 66.
Insanity and Sanity, 337-341.
Inspiration: Parker's view, 223, 230;
universal, 233; inferior to virtue, 276;
outside of the Hebrews, 284.
Italy: precursors of Protestantism, 43;
free-thinkers, 70; Renaissance, 196.
saying, 295; intensity, 328; loftiest
appearance, 342; fulness of power,
345; central type, 352; truest son of
man, 353; manhood, 364; flower, 370.
(See Logos, Messiah, Miracles, Trin-
ity.)
Jesuits, attacking Socinianism, 72.
Jews messianic hope, 7, 8; catastrophe,
9; hot-bed of tradition, 67, 111; ex-
pelled from Spain, 73; confounded
with Unitarians, 78, 79; synagogues,
150. (See Hebrews.)
John of Gaunt, 45.
John's Epistles, text, 305.
John's Gospel: logos, 9; proem, 10.
John the Evangelist: nature, 20; fear-
lessness, 192.
Johnson, Samuel
Oriental Religions,
241; literary service, 250.
Johnson's Answer, 164.
Jonah, story of, 202.
Jouffroy's Ethics, 212.
Jowett's Works, 270.
Judaism: distinguished from Christian-
ity, 7; worship, 284.
|
JEFFERSON, THOMAS, 241.
Jehovistic Documents, 286.
Jerome, bad character, 27.
Jerusalem, overthrown, 8.
Jesus Christ: nature and office, 6; dei-
fied, 6, 11; logos, 9; simply a saviour
from sin, 10; Son and Spirit, 11
double nature, 16; pre-existence, 17;
an inferior divinity, 21, 22; without
human personality, 22; absorbent of
divine nature, 23; divinity with man,
25; supreme deity denied, 35, 36;
adoption into godhead, 36; relation
to faith and salvation, 38; ransom,
coequal divinity, 39; relation to jus-
tification, 40; only intercessor, 44;
prayer to, 56; extent of salvation,
58, 59; greatest martyr, 67; Socinian
theory, 71; true rank, 78, 80; foun-
dation of the Mass, real benefit, 79;
Schleiermacher's theory, 104; mira-
cles as natural acts, 109; special facts,
109, 111, 114; true nature, 155-157;
full indwelling of God, 170; Unitarian
doctrine, 182, 183; Channing's view,
cruel death and its relation to sin,
186, 187; real authority, 214, 228;
conflicting reports, 232: Parker's
view, 233, 238; rescued from mys-
tery, 240; beloved, 255; in poetry,
LANCASHIRE Liberalism, 92, 93.
Latin Church, view of original sin, 38.
(See Roman, Western.)
Latin Language: not understood in
worship, 42; Unitarian treatise in, 81.
Latitudinarians, 87.
Laymen: preaching, 95; right to or-
dain, 138.
Lecky's History of Rationalism, 61.
261; revelation, 268; characteristic | Le Conte, on development, 303–306.
Judd, Sylvester, great story, 247.
Justification by Faith, experimental, 53.
Justin Martyr: doctrinal works, 8-10;
apologist, 9; logos, 16; unexpected
results, 23.
Justinian Code, 32.
KANT: leadership, 210; influence. 212.
King's Chapel: liturgy, 89, 168; rector,
164; freedom, 167.
King, Thomas Starr, church, 259.
Kuenen's Researches, 283, 287.
INDEX.
385
Luther inferior to Wiclif, 43; view of
transubstantiation, 44; predestina-
tion, 50, 51, 60; depravity, 50, 51;
reticence about the Trinity, 52, 56;
ceremonies and commands, salvation
by faith, 53; not a believer in the
doctrine of character, 54; rejecting
reason, 54, 55; yet aiding it, 55, 63;
disciples, 56, 57; relation to Zwingli,
58; Melancthon, 62; era, 69; Fran-
cis David, 74; partial reform, 78;
Renaissance, 197; heroism, 372.
Leggatt, Bartholomew, Unitarian mar-
tyr, 81.
Lenox Meeting, 192.
Leonard's Pastorate, 174.
Leo the Great power, 1, 15; boundary
line, 5; formula of faith, 23; first
among the popes, 24.
Leper Church, 72.
Lessing: impulse to theology, 100; life,
102.
Lewis, John, Unitarian martyr, 81.
Lexington, Parker family, 222, 224.
Liberal Christianity, permeating litera-
ture, 227. (See Unitarianism.)
Liberalism: vague form, 142; in Bos-
ton, 143.
Life one pervading, 296-300, 308, 309;
debt to Eternal Spirit, 327; first ap-
pearance, 343; lowest forms, 344.
Lincoln, Abraham, a model, 320.
Lindsey, Theophilus: church, 78, 89; Manchester New College, 95.
Mansfield Church, 169–172.
career, 87-89; liturgy, 89.
Literature: Unitarian authors, 245-253;
writers on religion, 253-271.
Liverpool Controversy, 93, 94.
Locke, John: theology, 82; philosophy,
204, 214.
Logos: early doctrine, 9-20; soul of
Christ, 22; Luther's view, 56. (See
Word.)
Lombard, Peter, doctrines, 40.
Lombardy Arians, 40.
London: Unitarian church, 78, 88, 89;
synods, 81; Dr. Priestley, 90; domes-
tic missions, 91.
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth, relig-
ion, 256.
:
MACDONALD, George, 269.
Macedonia, spread of Christianity, 67,
68.
| Man: spiritual nature, 297; made of
dust, 298; offspring of deity, 320;
inspired work for, 325; relation to
the universe, 346, 347. (See Human
Nature.)
Mappa, Colonel, 171, 172.
Maronites: heresy, 23; type, 41.
Marriage: protected by the Justinian
Code, 32, 33; of clergy, 119.
Martha's Vineyard, 161.
Martineau, Harriet, theology, 69.
Martineau, James: preaching, 69; de-
fence, 94; Oxford, 95; Study of Re-
ligion, 104; leadership, 106; literary
service, 250; greatness, 324.
Longfellow, Samuel, literary service, 250. Martyrs: class of believers, 13; Ser-
Long Parliament, 82.
vetus and Jesus, 67; English Unita-
rians, 79-81.
Lord's Supper, controversy, 74.
Love: among animals, 344, 345; solu-
tion, 345, 346; roundabout definitions,
350. (See God.)
Lovejoy Riot, 192.
Lowell, James Russell: criticism, 247,
249, 250; religion, 256.
Luke's Gospel, poetic element, 278.
Lutheranism Socinus, 70; F. David,
74; traditions, 97.
Mary, Queen, reign, 80.
Massachusetts: ecclesiastical laws, 123,
129, 136; Supreme Court, 129; Gen-
eral Court, 130; privileged heritage,
clergy, 131; townships, 132; theory
and practice, 132, 133; four orders
passed, 134, 135; choice of pastors,
137-141; legalized trespassers, 149,
150; fraudulent devices, 159; legis-
Macedonius' heresy, 22.
Mahometan Lands: captives, 34; re-
jection of the Trinity, 35, 36.
25
386
INDEX.
99, 106, 107; definition, 106; in New
Testament, 114; authority, 214, 215;
no test, 218; doubt suppressed, 364.
Missionaries, mistaken methods, 285.
lation, 356; oldest meeting-houses,
359; church-rates, 360; hospitality,
365; church disestablished, 366. (See
New England.)
Mass, significance of the name, 125, Monasticism: genial soil, 28-33; refuge
126. (See Roman Catholic.)
for useful arts, 31; scholarship, 31,
Materialism: disguised, 336-339; illus- 32; Bible, 32.
tration, 337; repressive, 341; failure,
342.
Monotheism, 231. (See God, Unitari-
anism.)
Matter, product of spirit, 343.
Maury, 65.
Montaigne, 65.
Maxwell, Clerke, 300, 301, 303.
Mayflower, era,
81.
Mayhew, Jonathan, career, 160-166.
May, Samuel J.: pastorate, 176; anti-
slavery sentiments, 191, 192.
Meadville Theological School, 95, 172.
Meeting-houses, description of earliest,
359, 361.
Melancthon: liberality, 56, 57, 62; re-
lation to Servetus, 70; Socinus, 70;
F. David, 74.
Messiah: office, 1; Jewish, 7; Son of
Star of Jacob, 8; hope extinguished,
10; perishing, 16; in prophecy, 108.
(See Jesus.)
on, 194.
Mind, as the logos, 11-13, 16-20.
Moore the Innkeeper, 172.
Morals, the word, 312.
Moravians, 103.
Minerva, fable, 357.
Ministerial Conference, 183.
Ministers election, 137-141; compul-
sory support, 140; a new one settled,
141; life-tenure, 143; quarrel over,
144, 145; Unitarian models, 177.
(See Clergy.)
Ministry at Large, 91.
Miracles believed by early radicals, 98,
Morris, Lewis, poetry, 266-269.
Morse, Jedediah, pastorate, 168.
Moses, books of, 285-287.
Motley, John Lothrop, histories, 248.
Motte, Mellish I., ordination, 187.
Müller, Max, researches, 283.
Music: growth, 211; word, 312; illus-
tration, 344.
|
Methodists: becoming Unitarians, 93;
personal experience, 203; earliest,
357; building-plans, 362. (See Eng-
lish.)
Michael Angelo, 370.
Michelet, on two worlds, 196, 197.
Middle Ages: ignorance, 196; change,
201; heart, 210. (See Dark.)
Migne's Patrologia, 4.
Mill, John Stuart, admissions, 304, 305. Necker, anecdote, 295, 296.
Miller, Hugh, death, 282.
Nestorian Heresy, 22.
Milton, John theology, 82, 270; essay Newbury: church tax, 134, 135; mis-
sion to, 164.
NAPOLEON BONAPARTE, essay on, 194.
National Conference, 367, 368.
Natural Law, in spiritual world, 308.
Natural Selection, 305.
Nature: love for, 236, 237; no death
in, 308, 309; education of her chil-
dren, 317, 318; few models, 320;
expression of mind, 345, 346; dual-
ity, 350, 351; indifferentism, 351;
unity and prophecy, 352.
Neander on Luther, 51, 56; Zwingli,
58, 60; fame, 101.
New England: Unitarianism, 105; schol-
arship, 111; one preacher of Uni-
versalism, 160; Hopkinsians, 169;
earliest defence of Unitarianism, 172;
creeds, 179, 180; transcendentalism,
196-219, 222; colonists, 200, 201;
hardy soil, 201; many-sided minds,
theocracy, 202; witnesses to religious
life, 203; dead Calvinism, 204; sober
habits, less provincial, 209; ferment,
INDEX.
387
influential scholars, 211: isolation, | Noyes, George R.: scholarship, 100;
on Hebrew prophecy, 108; leader-
ship, 205; textual criticism, 279.
Numa, heavenly hope, 59.
224; new notions in religion, 226;
phantom ship, 227; material for
years of thought, 233; sermons, 246;
history, 248; oratory, 248, 249; lit-
erary life, 252; poetry, 258; influence
of Unitarian heroes, 356; birth of ECOLAMPADIUS, letter, 65.
Unitarianism, as a prairie fire, 357; | Old Dissent, 91.
church-buildings, 361. (See Church
and Parish, Massachusetts.)
New Hampshire: History, 166; liberal
influences, 174.
Old South Church: Trinitarian, 155;
during the Revolution, 168.
Old Testament: Jesus revealed in, 38;
inspiration, 41; lectures by three
scholars, 108; De Wette, 109; great
sermon, 109; divisions, 286.
Olshausen, 110.
Opinions, organic growth, 1.
Ordinations, 27,
28.
Organization, neglected, 356, 357-
Oriental Religions, 241.
Origen, era, 20.
Original Sin: doctrine advocated and
opposed, 38, 39, 58; horror of
abated, 60.
Orthodoxy: liberal leaven, 206: con-
trary teachings, 221; fear of infidel-
ity, 229; disarmed, 232; Wendell
Phillips, 248; literature, 270; former
generation, 340; types, 340-342; un-
soundness, 356; Sunday-schools, 364;
liberal wing, 367. (See Calvinism,
Trinitarianism.)
New Haven, influential resident, 169.
New London, missionary to, 164.
Newman, Francis W., writings, 270.
Newman, John Henry, narrow faith, 2.
New Orthodoxy anticipated, 79.
Newport Hopkins, 169; Channing,
179, 180, 194; sermon, 189.
New Testament: leading idea, 7; plainly
read, 78; Tyndale's, 79; smuggled,
80; Unitarianism, 85; miracles, 113;
church pattern, 132; Abbot's study,
174; ethical principles, 247. (See
Bible, Miracles.)
Newton, Sir Isaac, theology, 82.
New Year's Gifts, 362.
New York State, first liberal society,
171.
Nicæan Council: decision, 21, 22; bar-
|
PALESTINE:
older PALESTINE: not the limit of Chris-
tianity, 5; sect, 8.
ren conflict in the dark, 25; era, 35.
Nicene Creed: adopted, 21; expanded,
22; on nature of Christ, 35; adherents
persecuted, 40; anti-Trinitarian, 156,
157. (See Athanasian, Creeds.)
Northampton, ordination, 179, 193.
Norton, Andrews: address, 98; letters
to, 99; representative of an older
school, 100; insistence, 102; dislike
of certain phrases, 103; on Schleier- |
macher, 104; controversy, 106; on
Old Testament, 108; relations to
Furness, 109; on infidelity, 112; ten-
dency, 113; leadership, 205; com-
pared to Hector, 213; conservatism,
214; on myths, 278; doubtful about
organization, 367.
Novatian character and works, 6; Parker, Theodore : on miracles, 99,
blunt opinion, 18.
106; scholarship, 100, 109; study of
Palfrey, John Gorham: lectures, 108;
estimate of Mayhew, 162; literary
service, 248.
Pantheism: ancient form, 37; ap-
proaches to, 61; allies, 112; stage of
religion, 231.
Parish and Church, 116–154. (See
Church.)
Osgood, of Medford, 173.
Otis, James, correspondence, 163.
Ought, the word, 327.
Owen, on Unitarian poison, 82.
388
INDEX.
Strauss, 110; tendency, 113; tran-
scendentalism, 212; career, 220-244;
unsectarianism, 221; popular repre-
sentative of new ideas, 221; an oak,
indebtedness to Channing, a disturb-
ing preacher, 222; birthplace, 222,
223; ancestry, man of inspirations,
223; passion for work, 223, 224; col-
lege and parish, 224; armed host of
thoughts, fourfold analysis of human
spirit, prayers, 225; friendships, 225,
226; courage, knowledge, method,
tact, sentiment, logic, satire, language,
oratory, 226; not an originator, 226,
227; removal to Boston, theology
magazine articles, 227; new ques-
tions, 228; the Absolute Religion,
228; famous sermon, 228-230; style,
229; chief book, 230-235, 238; signal
for revolution, 232; diverse effects,
233; qualities for leadership, 233,
234; country parish, 234; energizing
outlook, 235; nature and deity, 236;
on atheism and theism, 236, 237;
mission of Jesus, 238; personal con-
viction of future life, 238-240; in-
ward revelation, 239; love of truth,
240; anti-slavery, 240, 241; study of
historic religions, 241; free religion,
242; pulpit tonic, 242; stimulating in-
fluence, 242, 243; persecuted follow-
ers, solid labor, 243; premature end,
243, 244; relation to Phillips, 248;
heroism, 355.
Parkman, Francis, histories, 248.
Parsee Religion, 218.
Patriotism of Mayhew, 163; Channing,
178; a nursery, 223; wide outbreak,
318-320; Jewish, 319.
Paulician Heresy, 40, 41.
Pauline Epistles, dividing line, 7.
Paul the Apostle on messianic office,
I; boundary line, 5; era, 7; doctrine
of spirit, 10: nature, 20; precept,
44; predestination text, 54; reason,
55; heavenly hope, 59; charitable |
spirit, 193; "to live is Christ," 330.
Paulus representative name, 107; com-
mentary, 110; criticism, 278.
Peabody, Andrew Preston: lectures,
26, 155; literary service, 250; textual
criticism, 279.
Peabody, Elizabeth, transcendentalism,
208.
Peabody, Ephraim, leadership, 205.
Penn, William, theology, 82.
Pentateuch, date, 285-288. (See Moses.)
Persia: dualism, 41; mysticism, 212;
rose, 218.
Personal Equation, 340.
Personality of God, 231.
Peterborough Church, 174.
Petersham Church, 176.
Peter the Apostle: theology, 3; heav-
enly hope, 59; symbol, 200.
Petrobrussian Sect, 41, 42.
Pew-rents, 95.
Philanthropy, dependent on religion,
324-326.
Philistine Gospel, 207.
Phillips, Wendell: speech, 192, 193;
literary work, Orthodoxy, 248.
Philo, doctrine of, 9.
Philosophy: relation to Unitarianism,
329-353; a universal possession, 329,
330; various systems, 330; special
German systems, 331; agnosticism
not included, 335, 336; materialism
defective, 338, 339; spiritualistic phi-
losophy, 339-353; large optimism,
342; spirit the basis of the universe,
343, 344.
Philpot, Jhon, 8o.
Photographs, composite, 4.
Pictures labelled, 200; illustration,
215-218.
Piedmont Protestants, 42.
Pindar, and Zwingli, 59.
Pisano, Niccolà, sculptor, 212.
Plato tribute to, 59; transcendental-
ism, 212.
Plotinus, 212.
Plymouth Pilgrims and Church, 359.
Poe, Edgar Allan, writings, 250.
Poland: liberal religion, 68–77 passim;
influence in England, 81.
Pollok's Course of Time, 271.
Polytheism, 231.
INDEX.
389
•
Pond, Enoch, on the Dedham case,
148.
Portsmouth missionary, 164; hymn-
book, 168.
Positivism, ancient form, 37.
Prayers, by Parker, 225. (See Public QUAKERS, inner light, 203, 208.
Worship.)
Quatrefage, quoted, 307.
Quincy, Josiah, 241.
Predestination: doctrine virtually set
joyless, 201; simplicity, 359, 360;
rites and holidays, 362; conservative
blood, 363.
Purvey's Translation, 46.
aside, 36; logical result, 37, 38; con-
ditional, 39; horrible, 49; revolt RACOW SOCINIANS, 71, 72.
Reason.)
against, 50; Luther's belief, 50, 60; Rationalism, 61, 63. (See Philosophy,
|
Catholic view, 51; protest against
Paul, 54; views of Swiss reformers,
60; liberal form, 61; Genevan belief,
67.
Presbyterianism: English, 83; differ.
ent from Congregationalism, 132; in
Boston, 166; organization, 357.
Prescott, William Hickling, histories,
248.
Price, Richard, theology and politics,
156.
Priesthood, 189, 190.
Priestley, Joseph: clear sight, 85; lead-
ership, 87, 88; in America, 90; hero-
ism, 355.
Primitive Christianity: five centuries,
1; wrongly identified, 2; point of
view, 3.
Printing, 197.
Protestantism: principles, 43; no final-
ity, 122; result, 123; shocked at its
own teachings, 150; speculative er-
rors, 232; needing authority, 276.
Protestant Reformation: precursors,
43; head, 66.
Protestants, diversity, 120.
Providence, ordination sermon, 187.
Psalms of David: clean heart, 53; be-
setting God, 301.
Ptolemaic System, 282.
Public Worship: Puritan usage, 131;
fines for non-attendance, 135. (See
Prayers, Ritual.)
Puritanism national influence, 81; nar-
row, 84; old ways changed, 148; a
nourisher, 223.
Puritans faithful stewards, 53; clergy
ejected, 83; heritage, 127-129, 132;
Realism: philosophy, 17; theology, 19.
Reason: personified, 9-20 passim; re-
jected by Luther, 54, 55; supreme
tribunal, 202; reasonable limits, 204-
206; trustworthiness denied, 340.
Reformation: relation to Unitarianism,
48-77; not a Unitarian movement,
48; harsh side, 50, 51; advance and
retrogression, 51, 52; rational theo-
logians, 61; new chapter with Calvin,
62; doctrinal system running to seed,
101, 102; era, 116; success, 118;
earlier reformers, 118, 119; wrong
causes assigned, 119, 120; leaders
blind to the outcome, 121, 122; trans-
fer of church property, 150; great
souls, 244; possible postponement,
372.
Regulus, illustration, 53.
Religion: to be dealt with religiously,
3; not limited, 58, 59; mother's les-
son, 102; Parker's Discourse, 230-
238; made possible, 340.
Religious Life: swift current, 4; and
thought, 112, 113.
Renaissance in New England, 196-
219; re-birth, 196; double discovery,
196-198; in music, 211; living faith,
213; right term, 219.
Renan's Works, 283.
Renouf's Researches, 283.
Retribution, personal, 44.
Reuss's Researches, 285.
Revelation: not limited to one nation,
283; universal, 307. (See Bible.)
Revolutionary War: era, 149; anec-
dote of Gay, 158; Chauncy's ser-
390
INDEX.
vice, 159; Channing's birth, 180. | SAADI, transcendentalism, 212.
(See Mayhew, Patriotism.)
Sabbath, 286.
Reynolds, Grindall: lecture, 354; early Sabellian Controversy, 6, 16.
training, 360, 364.
Sabellius: work, 6; mysticism, 20;
opponent, 21.
Sacraments: value, 129; neglected, 151.
Sadler's Sermon, 310, 311.
Salem turnpike, 149, 150; mission to,
164; pastor, 168.
Rhode Island: "a gentleman from,"
164; slave-trade, 167; Channing's
early home, 95, 179, 180. (See
Newport.)
Righteousness: law of, 312-328; best
word, defined, 313; taught by business,
313-316; added grace, mostly real,
316; false code of honor, 316, 317;
mercantile integrity, 317; the power
of if, 318; wider reach, 318, 319; a
few great models, 320; end or qual-
ity of moral action, 321-323, 326,
327; temptations, 322; connection
with religion, 323-328.
Salvation: doctrine essential to, 13, 14;
and faith, 38; for non-Christians, 38;
relation to character, 53, 54; joint
result, 56.
Samosatians, condemned, 57.
Sanity, of the world within, 353. (See
Insanity.)
Ripley, George, and Wife, 99, 106, 208, Scepticism, like agnosticism, 332.
212.
Ritual: substitute for duty, 30; splen-
did, 33. (See Public Worship.)
Robert Elsmere, the novel, 108, 270, 271.
Robinson, John, earnestness, 193.
Roman Catholic Church: devotion to
creed, 43; pecuniary exactions, 45;
Luther's challenge, 50, 51; not spir-
itually purified, 116-120; no reform
from within, 116; claims, 116, 117;
breath, systematization, 117; errors,
118, 119; unity, 120; rites, 125; sep-
aration of church and people, 126,
127; clerical rule, 127, 128; monu-
ments of piety, 150; priestly com-
fort, 198; opposed to progress, 198,
199; symbol of Peter, 200; specula-
tive errors, 232; infallibility, 276;
likeness to Buddhism, 285; organi-
zation, 357; feast-days, 363.
Roman Empire: Gothic invasion, 24;
civilization, 26; subversion, 30; laws,
32, 33; fraudulent devices, 159;
mighty spirits, 197.
Rome, City of: courts, 15; pantheon,
22; potent voice, 24; ambiguous
silence, 35; Christianity in, 67, 68;
basilicas, 150.
Ruskin, John, on a great picture, 216,
217.
Savage, Minot Judson, on Jesus, 370.
Sayce's Researches, 283.
Schaff, Philip, 101.
Schelling: leadership, 210; transcen-
dentalism, 212.
Schiller's Lecture on History, 294.
Schleiermacher: era, 97, 115; influ-
ence, 99; career, 101, 102; first
strong impressions, 102; views, 103,
104; veil, 104; miracles, 106; com-
promises, 108; pivot of appeal, 113;
transcendentalism, 212.
Scholarship, in convents, 31, 32.
Scholasticism, 32, 36.
Schopenhauer's Philosophy, 331.
Schwegler, on Biblical criticism, 278.
Science: in theology, 3; teaching unity,
188; relation to Scripture, 279, 282;
progress, 281; text-books, 290, 291;
continually rewritten, 292, 293; two
great principles, 302-305; harmony
with religion, 310, 311.
Scientific Method, in Biblical study,
274, 279.
Scientific Thought: relation to Uni-
tarianism, 290-311; definition, 290;
answer, 290, 291; man's place in the
material world, 291; evolution of
moral consciousness, 298; sometimes
harsh, 299; material position as-
sumed and forsaken, 299, 300; con-
clusions, 300; new dignity in life,
INDEX.
391
security,
the watchword of
305; verifiable hypotheses, 305, 306;
origin of man, 307, 308; touching
immortality, 308; organism and en-
vironment, 309. (See Philosophy.)
Scientists strict honor, 292; sincerity,
292, 293; devout confessions, 293,
294; devoted explorers, 298, 299.
Scipios, the two, 59.
Scotch Presbyterians, separated from
English, 84.
Shepard, Thomas, pastorate, 359.
Sheridan, General, heroism, 320.
Sherman, John: liberal views, 169–173;
Scotus, Duns, 38.
Scotus, John: doctrine, 37; heresy,
38. (See Erigena.)
Sculpture, revolutionized, 212.
Sears, Edmund Hamilton: works and
views, 109; Heart of Christ, 110;
hymns, 251.
Spirit and matter, 343, 347-349; tran-
scends itself, 349; freedom, 349, 350.
(See Holy.)
Sprague's Annals, 174.
Secker, Archbishop, 164.
Spurgeon, Charles H., leadership, 86.
Sects, result of Protestantism, 120, 121. Stanley, Dean: use of liturgy, 87; lit-
Seneca, tribute to, 59.
Sensationalism, in pulpit, 259.
Servetus: burned, 48, 57, 70, 78; career,
65-69; high rank as a martyr, 67;
worshipping Christ, 76.
Shakespeare: relation to Renaissance,
197; transcendental sentence, 198;
Puritan estimate, 201; lectures, 249;
Mount Shasta, 370.
allusion, 175.
Sherman, Roger, correspondence, 169.
Sibylline Oracles, 38.
Sight, crooked, 340.
Sigismund, John, 73-75.
Sin salvation from, 186; Channing's
view, 187. (See Original.)
Slicer, Thomas Roberts, lecture, 290.
Smithfield Martyrs, So.
Smith, Samuel Abbot, pastorate, 174.
Smith, W. Robertson, on the Trinity,
277, 288.
Socinianism : movement begun, 48;
term of contempt, 69, 85; expelled
from Poland, 73; Latin treatises, S1.
Socinus, Lælius and Faustus, 61-65,
69-71, 76.
Socrates, heavenly hope, 59.
Son of God: among men, 14; theory
of Servetus, 65. (See Jesus.)
Sonship, implying subordination, 19.
Soul: respect for, 189; relation to uni-
verse, 291, 292.
Spain: theological revolt, 35, 36; Jews,
73. (See Servetus.)
Sparks, Jared: ordination, 182, 184;
literary service, 250; ordination, 360.
Spencer, Herbert: on correspondence,
309; agnosticism, 333-336; some-
thing higher, 348.
Spinoza, 197.
erary work, 270.
Stetson, Caleb, transcendentalism, 208.
Stewart, Samuel Barrett, lecture, 220.
Stowe, Harriet Beecher, novels, 246.
Stowe, the historian, 79, So.
Strangeways Church, free, 94.
Strauss: representative of thought, 107;
theory, 110, 111; criticism, 278.
Stuart Dynasty, overthrown, 83.
Subject and Object, 344.
Suffering universal, 350, 351; exag-
gerated, 351, 352.
Sufi Garden, 218.
Sumner, Charles, oratory, 248, 249.
Sunday-schools: without a pastor, 92;
lacking in knowledge, 360, 365, 366;
doctrines, 364, 365.
Sun, illustration, 20.
Swedenborg, quoted, 57.
Symbol, Unitarianism a, 220.
Symbolism of Language, 103, 104.
Symonds, on the Renaissance, 196.
TAYLOR, BAYARD, literary work, 250.
Temperance, encouraged by business
laws, 315, 316.
Tennyson, Alfred, religion in poetry,
208, 261, 263, 268.
392
INDEX.
Thacher, Peter, pastorate, 101.
Thackeray, William Makepeace, on
shams, 269.
Thanksgiving Day, 362.
Theism, 233, 236, 237.
Theology: conflicts, 242; defined, 290 ;
questions, 290, 291; not the only
science dependent on hypotheses, 305,
306.
Theophilus of Alexandria, character,
27, 28.
Tholuck, influence, 101.
Thom, John Hamilton, pastorate, 95.
Ticknor, George, literary work, 248.
Tiffany, Francis, lecture, 196.
Time Spirit, 221.
Titans, 203, 210.
Tories, in Revolution, 158.
Total Depravity: revolting doctrine,
49; Luther's view, 50; Zwingli's,
57; ameliorated, 60. (See Human
Nature, Sin.)
Town Meetings, 201.
Transcendentalism: called Infidelity,
100; in New England, 196-219; illus-
tration from mountain-climbing, 199; |
sublime sentences, 200; History, 204;
genuine notes, 208; travesty, 208,
209; characteristic feature, 209; im-
ported influences, 209, 210; foreign
travel and study, 210, 211; a native
growth, 211, 212; bearing on Unita-
rianism, 212, 213; connection with
miracles, 215; root idea illustrated,
217, 218; effect, 219; leaven, 222;
freight, 227; Parker's view, 230; un-
selfish, 321.
Transcendentalists: the pioneer, 203;
early leaders, 207, 208; relation to
ancient and modern thinkers, 212;
effect of Emerson's address, 213, 215;
crowning glory, 218.
Transubstantiation. 44.
Transylvania Unitarianism, 68, 73–77 ;
sympathy with England, 96.
Trenton Church, 171, 172.
Trinity not taught in early church, 2,
3, 11; first formal treatise, 6; germ
of the doctrine, 17; of attributes, 20;
formally stated, 22; coequal person-
alities, 35; three aspects of deity, 36;
later opposition, 50; Reformation
leaves the doctrine unchanged, 52;
Luther, 52, 56, 57; Melancthon, 56,
57; Augsburg Confession, acceptance
and denial, 57; Dialogues, 65; Er-
rors, 65, 66; challenged, 68; Genevan
views, 69; Italian rejection, 70; So-
cinianism, 71; opposition suggesting
Judaism, 79; Sandy Foundation
Shaken, 82; increasing silence about,
84; Lindsey's rejection, 88; Schleier-
macher's opinions, 104; change in
eighteenth century, 155; name
tained, 156; omitted from a hymn-
book, 167, unscriptural, 168; doubted
by Sherman, 170; voted essential,
175; absurdities, 205; anti-Trinita-
rian colony, 220; Whittier's poetry,
260; not Biblical, 277. (See God,
Jesus, Unitarianism.)
Tritheism, 36.
re-
Truth, its own reward, 200.
Tübingen School, 111.
Tuckerman, Joseph: în England, 91,
92; religious life, 112; correspond.
ence, 176.
Tyndale's Translation, 79.
UNCONSCIOUS, PHILOSOPHY OF THE,
331.
Unitarian Churches: thoughts gladly
welcomed, 245; denominational ten-
dencies, 354-373; individual and
congregational liberty, 334, 335; no
definite polity, 358; creedless, 358;
early organizations, 359; buildings,
359, 361, 362; teaching of children,
360, 364, 365, 367; taxation, 360;
ritual, 362-364; hospitality, 365, 366;
field of benevolence, 366. (See
Church, Congregationalism.)
Unitarian Home Missionary Board, 95.
Unitarianism : not found in early
Christendom, 2, 3; relation to Ref-
ormation, 48-77; restricted sense,
48, 65; larger meaning, name, 48;
INDEX.
393
confession, 50, 59; free-will, 50, 51;
Actual Condition, 52, 77; indebted-
ness to Luther, 52, 53; in character,
53; reasonable, 54; relation to Lu-
ther, 54-57; Zwingli, 59; theologi-
cally considered, 65; Early Sources, 65,
69; era in America, 67; Poland and
Transylvania, 68-77; aristocratic, 75;
in England, 78-96; way open in the
United States, 90; relation to Ger-
man thought, 97-115; hard to trace
in early New England, 155; old
creeds, 156, 157; earliest printed de-
fence, 172; objections answered, 183;
carnival of reason, 205; decline of
Channing's interest, 206; serious lim-
itation, 206, 207; relation of tran-
scendentalism, 212, 213, 219; Parker's
influence, 220-244; broadened, 220,
242; name not restricted, influx of
new thought, end of first period, 221;
polemical and philanthropic, 222;
dust of speculative workshop, 238;
relation to modern literature, 245–271;
coeval, 246; writers identified with,
251; connection with English move-
ment, fold of refuge, 252; age of
struggle, 253; expression in litera-
ture, 253, 256, 257; nature of the
movement, 253; ideas found in other
sects, 254; what it stands for, 255,
256; pale negations, 257; spirit, 258;
poetic harmony, 269; in modern
novels, 270, 271; harmony with great
writers, 270, 271; happifying memo-
ries, 271; relation to modern Biblical
criticism, 272-289; relation to mod-
ern scientific thought, 290-311; an-
swers to questions, 291; working
theory, 291; pledged to search for
truth, 294-296; beliefs not stereo-
typed, 296; loyalty to God's will,
297; word of the universe to the
human soul, 298; all life from one
Life, 300; finding an enlarged uni-
verse, 305; not committed to the
philosophy of evolution, 307; pledged
to highest style of life, 308; best
310; clear-sighted, 317; suggestions,
318-320; great merit, 321; recog-
nizing the supreme value of righteous-
ness, 323; relation to philosophy,
329-353; representing a philosophy,
standing for simple faith, 330; antag-
onism to certain forms of philosophy,
331; bright contrast to agnosticism,
339, 340; integrity of human nature,
340; wholeness and unity thereof,
341; relation to the world, 341, 342;
spiritualistic philosophy, 342. (See
American, Calvinism, God, Ortho-
doxy, Parker, Trinity.)
Unitarians: anciently not so called, 36;
martyrs, 78-81; generosity to other
sects, 91; causing trouble in Massa-
chusetts, 142; early in New England,
155-177; influenced by England, 156;
first public avowal, 168; recent views,
169; model Christians, 177; contro
versy over Parker, 228, 229; his ex-
hortation, 232; noted in literature,
245-270; novelists, 247; historians,
248; orators, 248; essayists, 249,
250; scholarship, 250; poets, 250,
251, 256-270; an honored list, 279;
standing for good behavior, 313; re-
markable body of men, 355; affecting
Orthodoxy, 356; dislike of forms,
362; no separation intended, 367;
reaction, 363; united by common os-
tracism, 367; independency lessened,
367, 368; external coherence, 368,
369; spiritual advance, 369; differ-
ences in unity, 370; duty of imparting
truth, 371, 372; future work, 373.
(See Socinians.)
United States: fraudulent devices, 159;
patriotism, 319, 320.
Universalism: part of Unitarianism,
48; Zwingli's view, 58-60; not for-
merly believed in New England,
Chauncy's position, 160; Channing's
words, 186.
Universe: wise source of, 297; filled
with infinite spirit, 298.
Unknowable, the, 333-335-
equipped and least encumbered, 309, | Usefulness, the present need, 372, 373.
394
INDEX.
Utilitarianism, 321-323.
Uzzah, fate of, 273.
Western Church: practical side, 15;
councils, 22, 34, 35; marriage pro-
tected, 33; peculiar adoptive theory,
36. (See Latin, Roman.)
West Roxbury Church, 224, 228, 234.
VANDALS, Arians, 40.
Van der Kemp, Adrian, refugee, 171, Whipple, Edwin P., literary work, 249.
Whitefield, George, fiery apostle, 203.
White Mountains, 199, 200.
Whitney, Josiah, colleague, 175.
Whittier, John Greenleaf, religion in
poetry, 250, 258-261, 263, 268.
Wiclif, John, life-work, 43-47.
Very, Jones, literary work, 250.
Vesuvius, in New England, 204.
Vicarious Atonement: doctrine late es- Wigglesworth, Edward, gift, 166.
Wightman, Edward, burned, 81.
tablished, 39; theories, 40.
Vincent of Lerins, test of Orthodoxy, 36. Will, one great, 301.
172.
Vasari's Story, 212.
Vatke's Researches, 285.
Venice, Accademia, 216.
Virchow's Writings, 307.
Virginia, Channing's residence, 181.
Virgin Mary mother of God, 23; allu-
sion, 71; worshipped, 76.
Virtue its own reward, 200; superior
to inspiration, 276; inducements to,
326, 327. (See Utilitarianism.)
Von Hartmann's Philosophy, 331.
Voysey, Charles, denial of miracles,
106.
Vulgate, English translation, 46.
WALDENSES, founder of the, 42.
Wales, Prince of, anecdote, 316, 317.
Walker, James, textual criticism, 279.
Wallace's Discovery, 292,
Ware, William, stories, 246, 247.
Washington, George, sermon on, 241.
Watts, Isaac, sermon, 170.
Webster, Daniel: bust, 162; Parker's
sermon, 241: oratory, 248.
Weiss, John, literary work, 250.
Wellhausen's History of Israel, 288.
Wesleyans, 46.
William III., charter, 163.
Williams, Roger : illustration, 6; spirit,
180, 181; colony, 195.
Willis, on Servetus and Calvin, 165,
166.
Willson, Luther, career, 174-176.
Wilson, John, pastorate, 359.
Wilton Church, 173.
Ward, Mrs. Humphrey, story, 270.
Ware, Henry religious life, 112; con-
troversy, 183; textual criticism, 279;
heroism, 355.
World: shape indifferent, 198; trans-
parent to spirit, 347, 348.
Ware, Henry, Junior: household, 98; Worlds, two discovered, in the Renais-
textual criticism, 279.
sance, 197, 198.
Worship Puritan usage, 131; barren,
362; changes, 363. (See Public,
Ritual.)
Wright, Richard, missionary spirit, 92.
Wesley, John, 103.
West Church, Boston: pastors, 158,
160-166.
Winthrop, John, church, 133, 359.
Winthrop, Robert C., literary work,
248.
Wisdom, personified, 9-13.
Wooley, Celia, literary work, 270.
Worcester, Noah, leadership, 205.
Word of God: logos-doctrine, 9-13;
made flesh, 14; importance of doctrine,
16-20; indwelling, 22; relation to
Holy Spirit, 57; Bible, 274, 275;
more light, 371.
YANKEE QUESTIONS, 202. (See New
England.)
ZWINGLI: views, 57-63; church, 77.

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