1 10 26 https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/e9f1bfbc5923037b84ff299db68bbcd9.pdf?Expires=1773878400&Signature=mM5tw3PP%7Eoah2IX8JEuOCIO8IX-pWK9BTqxeQ4GI8zP3L42%7EMhCe%7EFTwFFOvQiF4m8-zKed7rIuG1gJdhkXULwB5AREJo3vLFLqwaXOlwTRn4ciTZgHlcr2wswBKJNk%7EwguUEKSQj2nz-UwI2EvcvxqVhj9TaVUwosmFxGCln4XVGVgvSeyXAjekNiax-8x6hxcZb%7EsJgBrU98rz7%7EO3OAwmawEr3dCuF3Uw9mP7Y9GjW0z6-og3E9qbSq-tAxQWO05ZUaO37AAvlKG7yRxeLMeWsyn0NnEnXUQ7Xv4kQwJbPRDuDtXeMo1xOsUB82BYXv%7EUfBk0b65LyS1GwtT60g__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM 7ff4330cfcf62a358da6f682118bbb08 PDF Text Text UNIVERSAL RELIGION. A SERMON, DELIVERED IN THE UNITARIAN CHAPEL, PRESTON, FEBRUARY 20th, 1876. BY F. W. WALTERS. PUBLISHED BY REQUEST. PRESTON: THE GUARDIAN PRINTING WORKS, FISHERGATE. 1876. ��UNIVERSAL RELIGION A SERMON, DELIVERED IN THE UNITARIAN CHAPEL, PRESTON, FEBRUARY 20th, 1876. BY F. W. WALTERS. PUBLISHED BY REQUEST. PRESTON: THE GUARDIAN PRINTING WORKS, FISHERGATE. 1876. �I am indebted for most of the quotations in this Sermon to a Lecture by a member of the “Free Religious Association” of America. The Lecture is not published in England, and I have therefore complied with the request of a venerable member of my Congregation to publish a Sermon which he believes will serve the cause of religious truth. added some passages omitted in the delivery. I have �UNIVERSAL RELIGION. “Other sheep I have, which are not of this fold.”—John x., 16. Nothing more deeply impresses us with the sense of the essential unity of Man than the universality of the religious consciousness. However profoundly men differ from one another in other respects, you almost invariably find that, under one form or another, they possess some ideas answering to the words, Religion, God, Duty, and Immortality. It was once considered essential to Christian faith to denounce all other religions of the world as false, as great delusions invented by wicked men under temptation from the Devil. Through all history, it was supposed, the Spirit of truth had been confined to one narrow channel, and all beyond had been given up to falsehood. The Old and New Testaments were the only inspired scriptures; Judaism and Christianity were the only true religions. But of late years we have learnt better. We have come to look upon the whole development of human life as the gradual unfolding of One Divine Spirit; we have learnt that there can be no monopoly of God, but that to every age and nation there have come higher Voices, whose message is enshrined in old traditions and ancient books. When I call myself a Christian, I do not deny the validity of other forms of the religious consciousness ; but I merely express the genesis of my religious faith,—namely, that it can be traced along that line of spiritual movement inaugurated by Jesus of Nazareth. When I call myself an Englishman, I merely state my ancestry and nation­ ality ; I do not cut myself off from the Brotherhood of men throughout the world. Christianity, as we desire to understand it, is One Family in a great Community of Religions ; and we shall better understand and appreciate our own faith when we see in it one form of a religious Consciousness common to the whole race of men. Missionaries have told us so many tales of the idolatries of the ignorant and vulgar classes, among whom they chiefly labour, that it �I is very difficult to realise the spiritual elements of the great Religions of the East. Who would like a foreigner to judge of Christianity by the materialistic worship of the Church of Rome, or the irrational and immoral doctrines of Mr. Moody? Judging Christianity by such samples, would not the foreigner return home to say that Christianity was either the Worship of Bread and Wine, or else Belief in a cruel Deity who could only be appeased by Human Sacrifice ? Just as Christianity has spiritual elements which are frequently hidden beneath gross outward forms, so every ethnic religion is nobler than the superstitious forms of worship into which it is frequently degraded. An Englishman in India was one day watching the sacred images carried in pomp to be cast into the Ganges ; and he said to a venerable Brahman standing near, “Behold your gods ; made with hands ; thrown into a river 1” “ What are they, sir ?” replied the Brahman, “ Only dolls 1 That is well enough for the ignorant, but not for the wise.’’ Then he went on to quote from an ancient Hindu Scripture “ The world lay in darkness, as asleep. Then He who exists for Himself, the most High, the Almighty, manifested Himself and dispelled the gloom. He whose nature is beyond our reach, whose being escapes our senses, who is invisible and eternal,—He, the all-pervading Spirit, whom the mind cannot grasp,—even He shone forth.” Indeed, it would not be difficult to prove that all the great Religions of the world involve the doctrine of the Unity of God. Just as behind the Christian Unity of Persons there is held to be One Primal Divine Nature, so the philosophers of India have always pro­ claimed an Essential U nity behind the multitudinous deities worshipped by the common people. Rammohun Roy said,—“ If Christians affirm God to be One, though in three Persons, they ought in conscience to refrain from accusing Hindus of Polytheism ; for every Hindu, we daily observe, confesses the Unity of the Godhead, even while making it consist of millions of substances assuming offices according to the various forms of Divine Providence.” In thus speaking of the Unity of God, we must always remember that we do not use the word in the vulgar arithmetical sense. It would be as reasonable to speak of God as a Thousand or a Million as to say He is One in this sense. An Infinite Being must include within His nature all numbers, not only Unity but likewise Multiplicity. In the highest region of thought we lose sight of number and quantity, and deal only with being and quality. - I confess, I see much greater breadth of religious thought in �5 the Eastern theology, which teaches that God has repeatedly become incarnate, and may be worshipped under a thousand different forms, than in that Western faith which monopolises God to one man, and. admits only a triune expression of the Divine nature. When we speak of the Unity of God, we use the word in the sense of Consistency and. Order, as opposed to Contradiction and Caprice. The more we know of the Universe, the more we are assured it is governed by unchanging Law; and the more we know of History, the more are we assured that Freedom and Will are within the sphere of an over-rulingProvidence. And these conceptions of Law and Providence guide our minds to the sublime generalisation of the unity of God. The most ancient collection of Hindu hymns, the Rig Veda, says, “They call God Indra, Mithra, Varuna, Agni; that which is One the wise call in divers manners.” A later Hindu poem, the Bhagavat Gita, speaks of God as “the Supreme Universal Spirit, the Eternal Person, divine, before all gods, omnipresent, Creator and Lord of all that exists, God of gods, Lord of the Universe.” Amid the polytheistic mythology of Greece and Rome, the faith of the Unity of God was held by such theists as Socrates and Cicero, we are told that Xenophanes, casting his eyes upward to the heavens, declared, “ The One is Godand that he taught that “ there is One Supreme God among beings divine and human . . He governs all things by power of reason.” Listen to the sublime Theism of the “ heathen” Plutarch:—• “ There are not different gods for different nations. As there is one and the same sun, moon, sky, earth, sea, for all men, though they call them by different names ; so the One Spirit which governs the universe, the Universal Providence, receives among different nations different names.” And again,—“We say to God, ‘Thou art:’ giving Him thus His true name, the name which belongs alone to Him. For what truly is ? That which is Eternal, which has never had beginning by birth, never will have end by death,—that to which time brings no change. It would be wrong to say of Him who is, that he was or will be, for these words express changes and vicissitudes. But God is : He is, not after the fashion of things measured by time, but in an im­ movable and unchanging Eternity. By a single Now He fills the For-ever. For Deity is not many, but that which is, must be One.” And yet we have been accustomed to regard Plutarch as a benighted heathen' �6 And still further. We often speak of Christianity as the religion which is specially distinguished by the doctrine of the Fatherhood of God. Listen to this Hindu hymn, written 1,500 years before Christ:— May our Father, Heaven, be favourable to us. May that Eternal One protect us evermore. We have no other friend, no other Father. The Father of Heaven, who is the Father of men.” Horace calls God “Father and Guardian of the human race.” Senecawrites,—“He, the glorious Parent, tries the good man and prepares him for Himself.” Listen to the confident faith of Epictetus, and tell me whether Jesus ever spoke a more comforting doctrine :—“ If what philosophers say of the kinship between God and man be true, why should not a man call himself a citizen of the universe ? why not a son of God ? Shall not having God for our Maker, Father, and Guardian free us from griefs and alarms ? No human being is an orphan ; there is a Father who incessantly cares for all.” All religions likewise teach that union with God is to be attained through the moral being. The history of Religion is the history of the attempt to bring God and the Soul into atonement, to reach harmony between the Infinite and Finite, the Universal and Individual, the Social and Personal, the Spiritual and Natural. So intense is the longing to see this union realised between the Ideal and the Real, that most religions have crystallised around some Model Man, the Type of Perfection, in whom the Human and Divine were one, who was the great example to which all men must seek to rise. But that which Theology declares was miraculously realised in a unique Person, Spiritual Religion seeks to realise by natural development in humanity. Humanity is the ever­ living Christ, who is to be perfected through suffering, strengthened by temptation, glorified by death, and at last made one with God. This union of God and man is to be attained through the moral life. All great Religions proclaim Salvation by life and Atonement through obedience. “ If thou wilt enter into life, keep the command­ ments”—that is the doctrine of every great religious teacher. “ This is nay religion,” said a Siamese nobleman to a Christian missionary, “ to be so little tied to the world that I can leave it without regret; to keep my heart sound ; to live doing no injustice to any, but deeds of compassion to all.” Here is a passage from a Hindu Scripture :— “ God is most pleased with him who does good to others, who never utters calumny or falsehood, who never covets another’s wife or �7 another’s goods, who does not smite or kill, who desires always the ■welfare of all creatures and of his own soul, whose pure heart taketh no pleasure in the imperfections of love and hatred. The man who conforms to the duties enjoined in the Scripture is he who best worships God : there is no other way.” We have been told that Moses gave the Ten Commandments by special inspiration ; yet Buddhism has these five moral rules :—“ Thou, shalt not kill. Thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt not commit adultery, nor any impurity. Thou shalt not lie. Thou shalt not intoxicate thyself with drink.” Cicero, likewise, has this noble commendation of the moral law:— “ The true law is everywhere spread abroad, it is constant, eternal. It calls us to duty by its commandments; it turns us away from wrong­ doing by its prohibitions. We can take nothing from it, change nothing, abrogate nothing. Neither the Senate nor the People have the right to free us from it. It is not one thing at Rome, another thing at Athens; one thing to-day, to morrow another. But, eternal and immutable, the same law embraces all times and all nations. There is one Being who can teach it and impose it upon all: that is God.” “ God is just,” says Plato, “ and there is nothing that resembles Him more than the just man.” We admire the words of Jesus,—“Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfectyet Zeno used almost the same words,—“ Men ought to seek after perfec­ tion, for God is perfect.” We speak of the Golden Rule of Jesus; yet Confucius said,—“ What you do not wish. done to yourself, do not do to others.” Thales, the first Greek philosopher, taught,—“ That which thou blamest in another do not thyself to thy neighbour.” Let me read to you two passages describing the Good Man. The first is from Epictetus.—“ The good man must fence himself with virtuous shame. He must purify his soul. He must know that he is a messenger sent from God to men to teach them of good and evil. He must tell them the truth without fear. He must consult the Divinity, and attempt nothing without God. He will needs be smitten, yet he must love those who smite him, as being the Father, the Brother of all. When he rebukes he will do it as a Father, as a Brother, as the minister of the Father of all. He must have such patience as to seem insensible and like a stone to the vulgar. Instead of arms and guards, conscience will be his strength. For he knows that he has watched and toiled for mankind, that he has slept pure and waked purer, and that he has �8 regulated all his thoughts as the minister of Heaven.” The second passage is from Marcus Aurelius.—“ The good man is as a priest and minister of the gods; devoted to that Divinity which hath its dwelling within him; by virtue of which the man is incontaminable by any pleasure, invulnerable to every grief, inviolable to every injury, insensible to every malice ; a fighter in the noblest fight, dyed deep with justice, accepting with all his soul that which the Providence of the Universe appoints him. He remembers also that every rational being is his kinsman, and that to care for all men is in accordance with the nature of man.” Still further, we find the doctrine of Immortality, in different forms, to be universal as the religious consciousness. Christian theologians frequently teach us that apart from the resurrection of the body of Jesus there is no proof of the immortality of the soul. Paul, in his Rabbinical arguments about the resurrection, in the 15th chap­ ter of 1st Corinthians, tells us that, apart from the resuscitation of the wounded flesh and blood of Jesus, all religious faith and all hope of immortality are destroyed ; that we are of all men most miserable, and that our best wisdom is to live a sensual life,—“ Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die.” I believe that many persons who have gained a rational religious faith still find great difficulty in yielding up belief in the miracle of the resurrection of Jesus, because it has always been, associated in their minds with the doctrine of the immortality of the soul. Such Christians, who can only believe a spiritual doctrine on the ground of a physical wonder, might learn a lesson from the “ heathen” Socrates. Listen to the words which Plato reports him to have spoken on the day of his death.—“ Can the soul, then, which is invisible, and which goes to another place like itself, excellent, pure, and invisible, to the presence of a good and wise God (whither, if God will, my soul must shortly go), can this soul of ours, I ask, being such and of such a nature, when separated from the body, be immediately dispersed and destroyed ? Far from it! The soul departs to that which resembles itself, the invisible, the divine, immortal, and wise. And on its arrival there it is its lot to be happy, free from error, ignor­ ance, fears, wild passions, and all the other evils to which human nature is subject.” And again, after elaborate arguments, he says,—“ To affirm posi­ tively, indeed, that these things are exactly as I have described them, does not become a man of sense. That, however, this, or something �9 of the kind, takes place with respect to our souls and their habitations, —since the soul is certainly immortal,—this appears to me most fitting to be believed, and worthy the hazard of one who trusts in its reality ; for the hazard is noble and the hope is great.” Plutarch has this noble utterance Those who have lived in justice and piety fear nothing after death. They look for a divine felicity. As they who run a race are not crowned till they have con­ quered, so good men believe that the reward of virtue is not given them till after death. Eager to flee away from the body and from the world to a glorious and blessed abode, they free their thoughts as much as in them lies from the things that perish. Not by lamentations and mournful chants ought we to celebrate the funeral of the good man, but by hymns ; for, in ceasing to be numbered with mortals, he enters upon the heritage of a diviner life.” Cicero has this expression of spiritual faith “ Although you do not see the soul of man, as you do not see God ; yet, as from His works you acknowledge 'Him, so from memory, from invention, from all the beauty of virtue, do thou acknowledge the divine nature of the soul. It cannot be destroyed.” To travel still further back into antiquity,—in the Egyptian “ Book of the Dead,” mitten 2,000 years before Christ, appear the following passages The Soul lives after he dies. Every god rejoices with fife ; the Soul rejoices with life as they rejoice. Let the Soul go ; he passes from the gate, he sees his Father God ; he makes a way in the darkness to his Father ; he is His beloved ; he has come to see his Father ; he has pierced the heart of the Evil Spirit to do the tilings of his Father God; he is the son beloved of his Father. He has come a prepared spirit. He moves as the never-resting gods in the heavens. The Soul says :—‘Hail, Creator, self-created! do not turn away, I am one of thy types on earth. I join myself with the noble spirits of the wise in Hades. 0 ye lords of truth, I have brought you truth; I have not privily done evil against any man ; I have not been idle ; I have not made any to weep ; I have not murdered ; I have not defrauded ; I have not com­ mitted adultery: I am pure, I am pure!’ Let the Soul go; he is without sin, without crime; he lives upon truth; he has made his delight in doing what men say and the gods wish ; he has given food to the hungry, drink to the thirsty, clothes to the naked ; his mouth is pure, his hands are pure, his heart goes to its place in the balance complete. The Father of the spirit has examined and proved him. He �has found that the departed fought on earth the battle of the good gods, as his Father, the Lord of the invisible world, had com­ manded him. 0 God, the protector of him who has brought his cry to Thee, he is Thine, let him have no harm; let him be as one of Thy flying servants. Thou art he, he is Thou ! Make it well with him in the world of spirits.” In the Hindu Vedas we are told that the God of the dead waits, “ Enthroned in immortal light to welcome the good into His kingdom of joy, into the homes He has gone to prepare for themreminding us of the words ascribed to Jesus,—“ In my Father’s house are many mansions. I go to prepare a place for you.” By means of the U nion of God and Man through the moral being, Universal Religion teaches the ultimate good of all creatures. Thus the doctrine of Immortality is a Blessed Gospel of the final triumph of Goodness and Truth. It is the hideous dream of Theology that Sin and Suffering are to be perpetuated for ever in a dreadful Hell. The Gospel of Development has for ever destroyed that blasphemous dogma, and opened up to our minds the transcendent possibilities of the future. Popular Christianity represents Jesus ascending to the right hand of God, and gathering his redeemed in crowds around his throne; while he leaves the great majority of men for ever lost in hopeless misery. In this respect the Saviour of Buddhism far sur­ passes the Saviour of Christianity, for he registers a solemn vow “ to manifest himself to every creature in the universe, and never to arrive at Buddha-hood till all are delivered from sin into divine rest, receiving answers to their prayers.” I make no apology for bringing these numerous extracts to you this morning. The discovery of them has greatly refreshed my own mind. There are “ other sheep,” not of the Christian fold. In the Father’s house there are “ many mansions,” room for all the great family of mankind. Now we begin to see a deeper meaning in the words of the creed,—“I believe in the holy Catholic (universal) Church.” The spiritual Communion to which we belong is larger, both in Time and Space, than we supposed ; we find its members in every age and every nation. We must give up the fond hope, which many have cherished, that some day the world will become Christian. Believe me, the Religion of the Future will be grander than the Faith held by any one race ; it will be a Religion based upon that deep Religious Consciousness common to all men. �11 We are told that in Japan a very remarkable movement is taking place. The educated people of that island have given up the popular doctrines of Buddhism, but find themselves at the same time unable to accept the Christianity taught by Protestant and Roman Catholic Missionaries. A Manchester paper, the other day, gave the following curious information with regard to this religious movement in Japan. —“A vernacular paper, anxious for a sure foothold somewhere, is quite unable to close with the Gospel of the missionaries. In the first place, its pride is hurt by the airs of superiority which some of the Missionaries assume. They are not content with proclaiming the principles of Christianity ; they must also give those among whom they are labouring to understand that they regard Asiatics as ‘ barbarous and ignorant? But still more fatal to their success are the demands which they make upon the faith of the people whom they seek to instruct. The miracles of the Bible are, according to this writer, the great obstacle to the spread of Christianity in Japan and in the East generally. ‘ To teach Asiatics such things,’ he says, ‘ who have been for many generations steeped in then’ own superstitions, only tends to make them cling all the closer to their own beliefs, and, far from attracting them to it, only drives them further away from Christianity, for we have a mass of traditions of supernatural deeds in our own mythology? He has heard of the Unitarians—a sect ‘ disliked by all the others ;’ and, if all he has been told about them be true, he has ‘ little doubt that there are many Japanese of the middle class’ who would embrace the religion they teach.” Now, such facts as these should make us exceedingly thankful that we profess a form of Christianity which is in perfect sympathy with spiritual religion throughout the world. “ There is diversity of operation, but the same Spirit.” Though we may still think it well to retain the distinctive name of Christian, yet we are able to look beyond the bounds of our fold, and realise our union to those “ other sheep” who are likewise being guided by the same Divine Providence. The Moslem proverb says,—“ The leaves of God’s book are the religious persuasions.” There are pages in that book which we have learnt by heart, there are others we have scarcely looked into ; but all the pages are sacred, all are the utterances of that great Religious Sentiment which lies beneath our outward differences, all are the expressions of that universal Soul that reveals itself in a thousand forms. As the intercourse of different races becomes more frequent �12 and intimate, there will arise a deeper sympathy between different worsliippers ; the sense of the oneness of Human Nature will lead to a higher conception of the Unity of God ; and the two great doctrines of Universal Religion -will be,—that One is our Father, and that All Men are Brethren. Then shall be fulfilled the intuition of Jesus, expressed in the words,—“The hour cometh when ye shall neither in this mountain nor yet at Jerusalem worship the Father. The hour cometh and now is when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth for the Father seeketh such to worship Him. God is a Spirit; and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth.” TOULMIN, PRINTER, THE GUARDIAN WORKS, PRESTON. ��� Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Victorian Blogging Description An account of the resource A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library &amp; Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Conway Hall Library & Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Conway Hall Ethical Society Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. 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Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available The Guardian Printing Works Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1876 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context CT4 Subject The topic of the resource Unitarianism Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (Universal religion. A sermon, delivered in the Unitarian Chapel, Preston, February 20th, 1876), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Language A language of the resource English Conway Tracts Unitarianism https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/e7ba4efd0290c5b0c63060b47b8e3379.pdf?Expires=1773878400&Signature=i-tqGrEKHSwPRlx627bftl%7EEoYlA9ta62j-9SSSPGGtzPqHbdeMwlLb-V8kGXqV8C7TB0SPNnZkUrtJFx4TvbnF5%7EGPBSI4u3UepITRrnKhv0svuJQ0WFWxiympNJqJ4g2dqpcomY%7EVHUp4mN4N2fpVkrPHf2J-31bcCFOfmyYJ-ZZ56hrOV7qimxsQiIdED6Uc4V1SnV5EkMYNTlrvFAEBCqOtZCoflky38vgLNkN6BhatrtyAbwSFikjE1vQLlcztVx-qC-Un%7EuTribe8o0XVzdUpIKxoWVE-ALBXkpUhdn%7EnY%7ElR-EyiTaC0klpbpzAyfnalij7005vlFspczCA__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM 932b5aea481fae51c78919ade92a5c45 PDF Text Text RE-OPENING SERVICES OF THE Unitarian Chapel and Schools, Preston, 7th MAY, 1882, CONDUCTED BY Of South Peace Chapel, Finsbury, London. HYMN I. All are architects of Fate, Working in these walls of Time; Some with massive deed and great, Some with ornaments of rhyme. Nothing useless is or low, Each thing in its place is best; And what seems but idle show, Strengthens and supports the rest. For the structure that we raise Time is with materials fdled ; Our to-days and yesterdays Are the blocks with which we build. Build to-day then strong and sure, With a firm and ample base ; And ascending and secure Shall to-morrow find its place. Longfellow. Reading. HYMN II. Go mark the rill, the new-born, Trickling from mossy bed ; The heatli-clad hill just streaking With a bright emerald thread. Can’st thou her course foreshadow,— What rocks o’crleap or rend, How far in swell of ocean Her freshening billows send ? E’en so a truth e’er springeth In silence, where it will, Springs out of sight, and floweth. At first a lonely rill. But by and by streams meet it, From sympathetic hearts, Thousands together swelling Their chant of many parts. . From Keble. �MEDITATION. HYMN III. Be true to every inmost thought; Be as thy thought, thy speech • What thou hast not by suffering bought, Presume thou not to teach. Woe, woe to him, on safety bent, Who creeps to age from youth Failing to grasp his life’s intent, Because he fears the truth. Show forth Thy light 1 If conscience gleam, Cherish the rising glow : The smallest spark may shed its beam O’er thousand hearts below. Guard thou the fact! Though clouds of night Down on Thy watch tower stoop; Though Thou should’st see Thine hearts’ delight Borne from Thee by their swoop. Face thou the wind 1 Though safer seem In shelter to abide ; We were not made to sit and dream ; The true must first be tried. Discourse.—“Individual & Species.” OFFERTORY. HYMN IIII. There’s a strife we all must wage, From life’s entrance to its close; Blest the bold who dare engage, Woe for him who seeks repose. Honoured they who firmly stand, While the conflict presses round ; God’s own banner in their hand, In his service faithful found. What our foes ? each thought impure ; Passions fierce that tear the soul; Every ill that we can cure; Every crime we can control. Every suffering which our hand Can -with soothing care assuage ; Every evil of our land ; Every error of our age, BtTLFINCH. Benediction. �EVENING SERVICE. HYMN I. Fair lilies of Jerusalem, Ye wear the same array As when imperial Judah’s stem Maintained its regal sway ; By sacred Jordan’s desert tide As bright ye blossom on As when your simple charms outvied The pride of Solomon. Ye flourished when the captive band, By prophets warned in vain, Were led to far Euphrates’ strand From Jordan’s pleasant plain ; In hostile lands to weep and dream Of things that still were free, And sigh to see your golden gleam, Sweet flowers of Galilee 1 Ye have survived Judea’s throne, Her temple’s overthrow, And seen proud Salem sitting ’lone, A widow in her woe : But, lilies of Jerusalem, Through every change ye shine ; Your golden urns, unfading gem The fields of Palestine I Strickland. Meditation. HYMN II. Thanks, ever thanks, for all this common life Can give of rest and joy amidst its strife ; For earth and trees and sea and clouds and springs ; For work, and all the lessons that it brings. For Pisgah gleams of ever fairer truth, Which ever ripening still renews our youth ; For fellowship with uoble souls and wise, Whose hearts beat time to music of the skies. For each achievement human toil can reach ; For all that patriots win, and poets teach ; For the old light that gleams on history’s page, For the new hope that shines on each new age. May we to these our lights be ever true, Find hope and strength and joy for ever new, To heavenly visions still obedient prove, The Eternal Law, writ by the Almighty Love 1 F, M. White. �Reading. ANTHEM. Up, sad heart! a Friend is near thee. Love greets thee, and on thy joyless way joy is thy companion. Through love shall my heart rise pure, an offering to the great Heart. Sing then, as thou journeyest, and abide evermore beneath the protecting shade of love. Kassim-ol-Enwar. Discourse.—“The Wounded Christ.’" OFFERTORY. HYMN III. Do not crouch to-day, and worship The old Past whose life is tied; Hush your voice to tender reverence, Crowned he lies, but cold and dead ? For the Present reigns our monarch, With an added weight of hours ; Honour her, for she is mighty ! Honour her, for she is ours ! See the shadows of his heroes Girt about her cloudy throne, Every day her ranks are strengthened By great hearts to him unknown ; Noble things the great Past promised, Holy dreams both strange and new ; But the Present shall fulfil them, What he promised, she shall do. She inherits all his treasures, She is heir to all his fame, And the light that lightens round her Is the lustre of his name; She is wise with all his wisdom, Living, on bis grave she stands, On her brow she wears his laurels, And his harvest in her hands. Coward ! Can she reign and conquer If we thus her glory dim ? Let us fight for her as nobly As our fathers fought for him ! God, who crowns the dying ages, Bids her rule, and us obey ; Bids xis cast our lives before her ; Bids u.s serve the Great,to-day. Adelaide Proctor. Benediction. Printed at the Chronicle Office, 21, Cannon Street, Preston. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Victorian Blogging Description An account of the resource A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library &amp; Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Conway Hall Library & Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Conway Hall Ethical Society Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Pamphlet Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Re-opening services of the Unitarian Chapel and Schools, Preston Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Unitarian Chapel and Schools, Preston Description An account of the resource Place of publication: London Collation: 4 p. ; 21 cm. Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1882 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context G5704 Subject The topic of the resource Unitarianism Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /><br /><span>This work (Re-opening services of the Unitarian Chapel and Schools, Preston), identified by </span><span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk">Humanist Library and Archives</a></span><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Language A language of the resource English Church Services Conway Tracts Moncure Conway Unitarianism https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/7d29e4989a89892290f9ff380be6a764.pdf?Expires=1773878400&Signature=mB0gXJwsGUcYVYhHtmaQ0TK0%7EdF39u2hRi%7EW13cdKdmjG1c3NLQtPE8KEEdHwRr1cUQOD2DQ3Z2pW9gRUX3s8yDSbaJYiyP5lLYMhe5o-H1c2X4QXKQurCcNAHrCAV9koQULAm7FdtHV0Rqosh82f6D%7EuDDkc2DPFNA0wynovLn7m4vvaq55OTbK4097gcf3zdcfVU3tpXpLH9szvqQ5W%7Ea7RKaZ-uZ6XimHeUn8k05sJ0Y-Ld3sRGumRtLLsPFoiTqloi7to52q%7EHy23XhlPvE6rQLh%7EB7xki4iB0Tcdh58elxSCbOioOkDEUZs8qdIC3OP4osPe4to7FVHYNDH9g__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM 8c8ed8b3a91f845f62aefadc716f707d PDF Text Text ^niianan JfHlotosjnp axxb LETTER TO REV. HENRY W. BELLOWS, D.D. BY REV. EDWARD C. TOWNE, PASTOR OF THE UNITARIAN PARISH, MEDFORD, MASS. CAMBRIDGE: PRESS OF JOHN WILSON AND SONS. 1866. ��Bmianan anb Citato. Rev. Henry W. Bellows, D.D. My Dear Sir, — I have a most serious purpose in address­ ing you. You have within a short time received into vour hands the chief control of a considerable part of the denomina­ tional affairs of Unitarianism. As the projector and chief manager of the National Unitarian Conference last year, and as head of the Council which represents that Conference, you so far stand at the head of the denomination. I say so far, because I am by no means ready to admit that your National Conference really represents Unitarianism. I think it may appear that it-represents little more than a. moment in which the Unitarian body, in its exceeding good nature, waited upon your thought, without intending to commit itself to your po­ sition. But for the moment you occupy a position of high control. You have become the chief editor of the only Uni­ tarian Review, “ The Christian Examiner.” You control indirectly the New-York Unitarian paper, and to some extent the provincial organs of the denomination. By means of the National Convention, which yielded a well-meant assent to your vigorous and plausible dictation, you have for the time stamped your ecclesiastical policy upon much of the action and utterance of Unitarianism. I desire to protest against * this policy. I wish to demand for Unitarianism the contin­ uance of liberty. Ecclesiasticism and dogmatism seem to me intruders upon a fellowship which is meant to be as broad as �4 UNITARIAN FELLOWSHIP AND LIBERTY the providential opportunity of the time, and as free as the most enlightened consciences require. I protest against unbrotherly exclusion and the reign of conservative dictation. I wish to make it understood, that your course in the National Unitarian Convention is resisted in the name of Christianity itself, as seriously in violation of the fundamental principles of Christian faith and covenant. I do not arraign you on account of your opinions, which I assume to be your conscientious con­ victions ; but on account of your unbrotherly resolution to make these opinions the rule of Christian communion, against the earnest and deeply conscientious appeal of men and brethren providentially associated with you, or directed to you for sym­ pathy and communion. ' The principle on which I plant myself was recognized and emphatically avowed in the paper presented by you to the Committee charged with calling our first National Unitarian Convention. It was in these words : — “ That the corner-stone of the Unitarian body, as distin­ guished from other ecclesiastical bodies, must continue to be liberty of thought, and that the denomination could unite only on a platform broad enough to sustain the whole brother­ hood who claimed the name and faith ; that it would be im­ possible to run any line through the Unitarian body, or the faith of the body, which would not leave equal worth, ability, sincerity, and practical Christianity, on either side of it; nor could we cut off any portion of the body, or any school of it, without cutting off something vital, significant, and precious. It should therefore be settled, now and for ever, that, without making light of opinions, or pretending indifference or neu­ trality in respect to them, and allowing and inviting discussion of doctrines and policies and tendencies, the Unitarian or Lib­ eral Christian body is the rightful home of all ministers of good Christian character who claim, on grounds satisfactory to themselves^ the Christian name and faith, and desire to co­ operate and hold fellowship with each other ; that no excision, or denial of Christian standing, or refusal of fellowship, is to �UNITARIAN FELLOWSHIP AND LIBERTY. 5 be encouraged in either direction, whether towards those lean­ ing towards the old creeds, but claiming our name and fellow­ ship, or those leaning towards Rationalism.” (From “ The Christian Register” of Feb. 4, 1865, with the Italics as there printed.) In the more formal address to the churches of our body, the Committee, of which you were chairman, earnestly called at­ tention to the emancipation characteristic of our time, and to the duty, laid upon us as a body, of opening wide our doors to the new believers of this new time, whether they should come from the old churches, or from the mass of inquirers outside of all church connection. I quote again the terms of your own statement: — “ That crust of ecclesiastical and theological usage, so long thickening with undisturbed possession of the surface, and which we could not puncture, has been broken up, as the ice is broken by the spring freshet. Men’s minds and hearts are emancipated, at least for this noble hour, from the dominion of mere usage. There is a longing for new light, a hospitality toward truth, a willingness to hear and do and accept new things, with a courage, faith, and aptitude for large and gen» erous enterprises. “ Is there not an immense floating body of intelligence, de­ tached from all ecclesiastical relations, to which we owe the urgent and speedy presentation of our Christian views, and the shelter of our Christian communion? And is there not certain to be, the moment the thoughts of the country turn from the war, a still larger number of dissatisfied, inquiring, earnest, yet courageous and independent minds, to whom no existing organization of Christians offers the same welcome as ours, and whose wants can by no other be so well supplied ? Moreover, are not all the popular sects agitated from within by the very questions which fifty years ago disturbed our hearts, and gave birth to our denomination ? ” These earnest avowals, with much more to the same purport circulated through private channels, led to the belief that the �6 UNITARIAN FELLOWSHIP AND LIBERTY! National Unitarian Convention would proclaim an unqualified Christian Brotherhood, without dogmatic or sectarian charac­ ter, and invite the union in Christian fellowship of as many as desired to meet on this platform. You, who proposed the Con­ vention, and had chief charge of preparing for it, authorized the expectation that the Unitarian body would cordially recog­ nize outcast hunger for truth and communion, and would make a home for whatever ministers of good Christian character the providence of “this critical hour” might send to our doors. To those of us who felt that churches of evangelical faith, on the one side, might perceive the Christian character of fellow­ ship without dogmatic tests of any kind, and accept union on the ground of Christian life and character, under the sole bond of brotherly love; and that, on the other side, truly Christian societies, of Universalist .antecedents, or of independent posi­ tion, oi' organized outside of recognized lines of communion, in the name of “ spiritualism,” or of “ reform,” would wel­ come the order of a free communion, and eagerly avail them­ selves of a cultivated fellowship, — there sprang up a sublime hope that we were to have in Unitarianism a communion wholly Christian, in which the transcendent verities of our blessed faith would be no more postponed to the beggarly elements of dogmatic conceit and sectarian prejudice. Yet the very opposite of this was accomplished, and largely by your interference and dictation. To substantiate this charge, I must pass in review some important facts, chiefly of the action of the National Unitarian Convention. Upon the presentation by yourself, on the second day of that Convention, of the report of a Committee of twelve on the or­ ganization of a Conference, a discussion immediately arose. That report introduced the phrases, “ God and the kingdom of his Son” and “ the Lord Jesus Christ.” The object of in­ troducing these phrases was to recognize so much of dogma as the Italicized words contain, and to compel the indirect admission of this by those who cannot conscientiously accept the LoRD-ship of Jesus. The “ comparative contempt” of �UNITARIAN FELLOWSHIP AND LIBERTY. 7 denying to the carpenter of Nazareth the character of Divine Lord and Saviour, you had determined to deal with in the old spirit of ecclesiastical coercion. This you avowed toward the close of the Convention, in that significant speech in which you became for a Tew unfortunate moments the sport of an ex­ citable temperament, while arrogating to yourself the right to “ control the spirit of the age.” I give you credit for having, in the words of the report, “ felt called upon to apologize for what he feared may have appeared to have been unkind remarks on his part.” But Ionone the less, find a veritable admission of significant fact in the following statement from your excited address. I 'giveithe words of the report, pub­ lished in the “ Christian Register.” They give less than the force of your whole language^— “ He desired the sympathy and affection of both sides ; but, if he had to choose between the two, he frankly avowed that he would rather go with OrthodogEwiji any form in which it could be stated, than with those who would put Jesus Christ into comparative contempt. We have made a constitution for the purpose of holding the latter to it; and, if the issue is made, we shall gain ten firm^good Christians for every one we lose.” This avowal, after the discussion upon the admission into the preamble of the constitution of the Conference, of the * « phrases “ kingdom of his Son” and “ Lord Jesus Christ,” amounted to a confession that those phrases were introduced for the purpose of coercing a part of the body, and at the risk of driving it away. It is credibly reported that Dr. Hedge proposed in the Committee to pmit the term “ Lord,” but was overruled by a portion of the Committee of twelve, who insisted on this fragment of dogma, -and threatened to break fraternal ties if the Convention should proceed to do the will of God without first saying “ Lord, Lord,” to Jesus. I think I am warranted in saying, particularly, that Rev. Dr. Eliot, of St. Louis, was one of those who threatened the rupture^of our fel­ lowship, if there were not at least a remnant of conservative �8 UNITARIAN FELLOWSHIP AND LIBERTY. dogma in its platform. I mention the name of Dr. Eliot with great respect. He is one of the best of men when he makes his face warm and lovely. But when he makes his face hard and cold, because others will not bow to his intolerant opin­ ion ; when he threatens to break fellowship, if a majority should not be persuaded to follow his lead, — in that, he is just as bad as if he were not Dr. Eliot and a border saint. If there could be any doubt that there was an intention, on the part of conservative leaders of our body, to hold their radi­ cal brethren in last year’s Convention to their position, or to break up the fellowship, it would be removed by the following statement made by Dr. Osgood, your conservative friend and associate in New York. I quote from a “ Sunday-evening Lesson, reported by a Phonographer,” and printed in the “ Christian Inquirer” of Dec. 7, 1865 : — “ At the National Convention, held in this city last winter, [spring?] the preamble to the constitution used the words, ‘ Our Lord Jesus Christ.’ Certain worthy persons of radical views quarrelled with the words; . . . but the Convention accepted them, and our denomination have believed in the idea of our Lord Jesus Christ, and maintained the faith, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, and every tongue confess him to be Lord, to the glory of God the Father. . . . Had our Convention refused to call Jesus Christ Lord, in a sacred and peculiar sense, it would have broken up the assem- » bly on the spot, and those of our clergy who hold the highest positions, and are held in the greatest regard, would have left the place. They believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and the Son of Man, the brightness of the divine glory, and the express image of the Divine Person.” I return now to the discussion which followed the intro­ duction by you of the preamble and constitution which you had in committee purposely framed, to hold the radicals to a conservative confession of faith. Rev. David A. Wasson — minister elect of the Twenty-eighth Congregational Society of Boston, but still pastor of the First Unitarian Church of �UNITARIAN FELLOWSHIP AND LIBERTY. 9 Cincinnati — first gave utterance to our protest. His tone was extremely temperate. His words were, without excep' tion, the calm and kind expression of a brother’s conviction. He only asked that they might be considered. He declared that he had no wish to stand out against the judgment of the majority, but only to state his view and the ground of it. The constitution reported did not seem to him to meet the want of the times, and he only wished to suggest such modifi­ cation as would accord with the' spirit and aims of our liberal communion. The chief ground of Mr. Wasson’s protest was simple, and it was not unchristian. He said that the word “ Lord,” applied to Jesus, commonly signified more than we any of us wished to express. It was generally used of Jesus as a supposed Person of God,. Almost all Christians meant God when they used the phrase, “ Lord Jesus Christ.” There­ fore we should not use it. He ftdcepted the providential lead­ ership of Jesus, but he could ndTascribe’To him supernatural lordship. He could not accent1 a "Lord who was not God. And he would not use the termj^Son of God ” in such a way as to imply that Jesus had himself an Exclusive sonship. Mr. C. C. Burleigh followed Mr...Wasson, and made a remark which stirred the indignation of the Convention, — so at least Dr. Osgood says in the “ Sunday Lesson,” from which I quoted above. It was to the effect- that Paul used the Greek word kurios as a ^erm of address merely, equivalent to our Mr. Mr. Burleigh was by no means altogether in the right. It was incorrect to say, that New-Testament authority could not be abundantly found for the use of “Lord” to designate Jesus as supernatural Messiah; a® when allusion is made to the apostolic expectation of “ the doming of our Lord Jesus Christ,” “ with the voice of the archangel and with the trump of God,” “ in flaming fire, taking Vengeance.” It would have been much more to the purpose if Mr. Burleigh had pointed out the fact, that the supernatural Lordship of Jesus stands in w the New Testament as part of the Jewish-Christian conception of Jesus as supernatural Deliverer, in that immediate age, of 2 �10 UNITARIAN FELLOWSHIP AND LIBERTY. a chosen Jew-Christian people; and that it falls with the fall of this conception. But what Mr. Burleigh actually said, though to little purpose and with decided disregard of the prejudices of his audience, was said innocently and in good faith, and produced a shock only because Jesus is shielded as an idol, an “express image” of God, in even the Unita­ rian mind. I truly regretted that Mr. Burleigh did not make a more scholarly criticism, and express himself with more con­ sideration for the sensibilities of brethren who cannot yet give up the “express image” for the pure Spirit; but, when Dr. Lothrop excitedly “ called the speaker to order,” amid the indignant applause of a portion of the Convention, under the pretext that Mr. Burleigh “ represented no church,” the exhi­ bition of holy passion was as unworthy as it was needless. The subsequent allusion, by a radical Unitarian layman, to Mr. Burleigh, when he said that “ he was opposed to uniting with rag, tag, and bobtail,” no doubt revealed an important side of the Unitarian mind, — its traditional distaste for religion with­ out refinement. It expressed the moral limitation, as “ Lord Jesus Christ” expressed the dogmatic limitation, of the faith which resented the appearance on its platform of a representa­ tive of that vast outside communion, the Holy Church of Humanity. I think I felt as much distaste- as any for the idiosyncrasies of Mr. Burleigh, and sincerely deplored his awkward thrust; but I am bound to say that it was by his disguised Christhood that the Unitarian Convention was tested, and found somewhat wanting. The spirit of Mr. Burleigh is pure and sincere ; he has borne a true Christ-character through many years of earnest going about to do good ; he has lived a spotless life, and pursued, in his way, a noble career. If he has not dined with the Pharisees, in fine raiment, with washen hands, and “represented a church” with unctious dignity on many re­ spectable occasions, he has at least borne the burden and heat of the great day of conflict with wrong, and represented the ideal Christ — Christ-character — under the cross of thank­ �UNITARIAN FELLOWSHIP AND LIBERTY. 11 less toil and heavy reproach. That Christ was smitten by cruel hands when offended prejudice clamorously supported Dr. Lothrop in calling Mr. Burleigh to order. So far, more­ over, as Mr. Burleigh was not at one with the clean and comely delegates of regular Unitarianism, he was all the more significant as a delegate from the unrecognized mass which genuine Christianity especially commissions us to gather in. In rejecting him in this aspect, because he represented no church, but only outcast hunger for truth and communion, our aristocracy of culture spurned the democracy of Christ with a contempt infinitely more deplorable than the “ comparative contempt” into which the^Lord Jesus” was put by Mr. Burleigh. It was with these feelings that I attempted to speak almost immediately after Mr. Burleigh. Dr. James F. Clarke had made a motion to so amend as to style our conference, “ of Unitarian and Independent churches,” instead of Ij4 Unitarian ” simply. To this you had said that Dr. ^larke’s proposition was not in order in this Convention, — not because that statement was at all true in fact, but because you dictatorially assumed to decide that the Convention should not enter upon the “ broad-church” question. Dr. Clarke had submitted to your dictation, and withdrawn his motion. At this moment I took the floor. Im­ mediately Hon. T. D. Eliot, who sat at the left of the President, rose, and moved that speeches on the adoption of the constitu­ tion be limited to five minutes. Mr. Eliot seemed to consider this a question of privilege, entitling him to disregard the fact that I was on the floor before him. I appealed against this to the President, — Mr. Eliot,$ meanwhile, taking his seat, and leaving me the sole occupant of the floor. The President stated at once that Mr. Eliot’s motion was not in order; there being a question before the Convention, and Mr. Eliot’s motion not being in amendment of this question. Then I was certain­ ly entitled to be heard under the rule in force when I rose, that speeches should be limited to fifteen minutes. But this was not allowed. Hon. Mr. Eliot moved, without rising, to lay the sub­ �12 UNITARIAN FELLOWSHIP AND LIBERTY. ject before the Convention on the table. The motion was put, and carried. Hon. Mr. Eliot further moved to limit speeches to five minutes. This was put, and carried. Then the subject of previous discussion was taken from the table. Through all this deliberate disorder, I had stood in my place, where I had risen, and addressed the President, before Mr. Eliot rose. My claim to the floor was so manifest, — Hon. Mr. Eliot had so deliberately snubbed me, — that I had no occasion to vociferate my protest. The demand which I made, and the question of order which I raised, when Mr. Eliot rose, was too plainly conceded, yet too deliberately disregarded, to make it worth while to clamor for my rights. I allowed myself to be wronged, so long as it was manifestly done, rather than raise my voice in a tone which might suggest an excited temper. The floor was finally given me, — Gov. Andrew said, “The gentleman on my left has the floor,” — not because I opened my lips to repeat my demand, but because the floor had been mine all along. It was thus determined, by th© conservative managers on the platform, that there should be no real freedom of discussion. The morning session had barely begun. Neither Mr. Wasson nor Mr. Burleigh had spoken fifteen minutes. The day was before us. For at least some hours, there might have been dis­ cussion unlimited by any rule. A rule of fifteen minutes was in force. It was, furthermore, made incumbent upon speakers to mount a very high platform, — enough in itself to deter many. Yet it was thought necessary to further limit discussion by a five-minutes’ rule. Under that rule alone was I allowed to speak. I said that I regretted that Dr. Clarke had withdrawn his amendment. I did not stigmatize, as it deserved, that arbitrary statement of yours, that Dr. Clarke’s amendment was not in order. I had not time to deal calmly with these restraints upon the free action of the Convention, and I was resolved not to incur even the appearance of an unfraternal word. I protested, in general terms, against a sectarian organization, and against insisting on the Lordship of Jesus. I said, that, whatever our �UNITARIAN FELLOWSHIP AND LIBERTY. 13 opinion may be of the nature of Jesus, he should be to us an example of service. Our chief duty was not to profess a Lord Jesus with our lips, but to imitate the friend and servant of man in our lives. Jesus especially presented himself to us as a servant of the spiritually needy. Therefore we .might well omit the recognition of his Lordship, lay aside our sectarian­ ism, and constitute ourselves servants of the spiritually needy, inside or outside of recognized communions. It would be wrong for us to organize on a merely Unitarian basis. There were Universalists around us wishing to escape the bondage of sect, and Spiritualists desiring the advantage of our culture. There might be Liberal Orthodox churches, willing to enter a communion based solely on liberty and brotherly love. Could we not declare our doors open on both sides ? Could we not make room to hold in good fellowship every shade of conscien­ tious opinion, so that even the most conservative might unite in our associations and our Conference of churches, without the appearance of surrendering their peculiar opinions? Above all, could we not realize at once and fully- the peculiar spirit of a pure Christianity,; and Welcome to our. generous fellowship the representatives of that ne^gi faith, now so active in the world? Could we not receive any minister of any society organized upon Christian aims,jand desiring our fellowship? Had we not a Christianity able to save all that wished to share its life? Most surely, we .’"could trust the power of our faith. It needed no hedging in by any preamble or constitution. We could, and we must, make our brotherhood as broad as sin­ cere love of the truth and hone® love of the brethren. It was to express such sentiments as these that I was allowed five minutes on the platform of the National Unitarian Con­ vention. I. I was followed by Rev. Mr. Ames, of Albany. He was a member of the Committee of twelve to prepare the constitu­ tion of the Conference. He wa&junderstood to be among the most liberal. But he took ground for the moment with secta­ rianism. His argument was twofold. In the first place, he �u UNITARIAN FELLOWSHIP AND LIBERTY* considered this Convention a squad-drill only. Therefore the work of establishing a broad fold might be postponed I In the second place, he was not in favor of letting in organiza­ tions which would provoke the coming in of Christ, with a whip of small cords, to clear the temple. This argument was cer­ tainly a serious mistake. After the articles of constitution had been adopted, Mr. Ames himself moved to add, “ Nothing in this constitution shall be construed to exclude from representa­ tion in this body any church which chooses to co-operate with us in Christian work.” This was rejected, on grounds which Mr. Ames himself helped to enforce, — that the Unitarian was a select body, and that we had as yet no call to open our doors to the houseless faith of the unwashen world. Following this, at the afternoon session, Mr. Ames brought up the subject a second time, and said that — “ He was filled with sadness because the Convention was not disposed to act on a broader basis. Ministers who were to make their mark in the community a few years hence were not to be found now in the communion of the Unitarian Church. The fountain of the Christian life was not in our keeping. Let us not obstruct the stream. He wanted to enlarge the stream by opening connection with new springs. He had left the Free-Will Baptists to find more congenial fellowship among Unitarians ; but, if Unitarians were to be as great ^tick­ lers for their name as Free-Will Baptists, it was time for a new movement.” Why did not Mr. Ames take this ground when the articles of constitution were under consideration? Undoubtedly he was sincere in supposing, that when the denomination, as such, was organized, it would throw open its doors. He discovered his mistake too late. Following Mr. Ames was a motion to insert “ Free Chris­ tian ” in place of “ Unitarian.” Dr. Osgood objected that we came here as Unitarians. He preferred the name “ BroadChurch Unitarians.” Dr. Osgood has indeed a very liberal spirit; but it is well known that he uses “ broad ” in a purely �UNITARIAN FELLOWSHIP AND LIBERTY. 15 ecclesiastical and sectarian sense. He it was1 whd most de­ voutly thanked God, that the Convention was not as these fol­ lowers of “ naturalism ” [an undisguised allusion to Rev. O. B. Frothingham] or <s vague deism” [such as Mr. Wasson], or as that Burleigh, with “ his offensive word,” “ whose appearance was offensive to nearly all, and who received such summary rebuke, from a gentleman usually supposed to favor a moderate degree of radicalism, as to be considered extinct, and not worth minding.” When Dr. Clarke expressed his desire to move an amendment to secure ^littlereal breadth, and did move it, subject to decision as to its being in order, and you rose to reply before Dr. Clarke had finished, Dr. Osgood rose in a front pew with his eye on you, already on your feet, and shook his head to you with great solemnity, that you should say NO to Dr. Clarke. He was by no means prepared for a Free Christian communion. In harmony with Dr. Osgood’s objection was the brief speech of a layman, who would not consent to relinquish the name Unitarian,’and regretted the proposal to substitute Free Chris­ tian. He said, that, if this Convention did not recognize the Lord Jesus and adopt a Unitarian basis, the laymen would hold a convention by themselves. Mr. E. S. Mills, the radical layman from Brooklyn, whom Dr. Osgood alludes to above, made an impassioned address. He said that “ he preferred to go with Mr. Low,2 and have a creed rather than abandon the 1 See a card from Dr. Osgood, in the New-York Evening Post,” April, 1865. 2 Mr. A. A. Low, of Rev. A. P. Putnam’s Society, Brooklyn, had attempted to procure the passage of a resolution requiring the members of the Convention to give their assent, as a condition of sitting in the Convention, to five articles of belief, including belief in “ one Lord Jesus Christ our Saviour, the So® of God, and his specially appointed mes­ senger and representative to our race, gifted with supernatural powers, approved of God by miracles and signs and wonders, which God did by him.” Mr. Low attempted to move his resolution in amendment of a motion to appoint a committee on rules of order and business, having first made a speech on his resolution. He was called to order, and silenced for the time. At a later hour, his resolution was received, �16 UNITARIAN FELLOWSHIP AND LIBERTY. name Unftarian. He was opposed to uniting with rag, tag, and bobtail.” This last seemed to hit the nail on the head for a portion of the Convention. Dr. Osgood has twice referred to this most unhappy fling, with great satisfaction, — once in his card in the “ Evening Post,” quoted above; and again in the “ Sunday Lesson, reported by a phonographer.” In the former, he said that Mr. Burleigh “ received such summary rebuke, from a gentleman usually supposed to favor a moderate degree of radicalism, as to be considered extinct, and not worth mind­ ing.” In the latter, he said, The man was put down with most expressive silence [?], and his sharpest rebuke came from one of the foremost representatives of our radical wing.” It would be possible to suppose (that Dr. Osgood did not have in mind the choice phrase quoted above ; but it happens that Mr. Mills did not utter a word on this head beyond what I have quoted, —that “ he was opposed to uniting with rag, tag, and bobtail.” That was the “ sharp and summary rebuke” which met the case for those who put themselves forward as, in par­ ticular, defenders of the Unitarian faith. “ Lord, Lord,” and “ No rag, tag, and bobtail,” were the words which conservative control brought out most emphatically in a convention which was to have “ something of the importance of one of the old Church Councils.” Hardly an hour had been occupied in discussion, when Hon. Mr. Eliot moved the previous question / The article under consideration was the only one which involved the principle in dispute. The question of adopting it was one to be dealt with calmly and deliberately. Full discussion was demanded on every ground. But the managers on the plat­ form had resolved otherwise. To all appearance, Hon. Mr. Eliot was their mouth-piece. Jj deeply respect this gentleman. He is a good man and a stanch patriot. True and vigilant, he and laid on the table.; from whickit was passed, near the close of the Convention, to the charge of the council established by the Conference. This high-handed attempt to outrage liberty of faith was very gently dealt with. �HnTTARIAN FELLOWSHIP AND LIBERTY. • 17 has done himself great honor in Congress. He is a kindly parishioner and a generous friend. I repeat that I deeply respect this gentleman. But I am confident that he did not adequately appreciate the position of things when he intro­ duced the previous question into a conference whose law is liberty,—the conference of brethren upon the high themes of Christian inquiry. At one other crisis in the Convention, discussion was closed by resort to the previous question. It was in the afternoon of this second day, when Mr. Ames had attempted to secure, at least, an appearance of opening our doors to those outside of our sect. Rev. A. P. Putnam obtained the floor,' and deliberately attempted to violate the order of the Convention. He1‘did not wish to speak upon the question before the houses^ but entered upon a speech on the propriety of adopting the creed offered by Mr. Low. I rose to inquire if this was in order, and was sustained by the chair. Mr. Putnam then attempted to introduce Mr. Low’s creed, as an amendment to theh'quqstion before the house. I objected to this, as not in order; and was sustained by the chair. Mr. Low’s creed had been laid on the table, and could be taken up only by the vote of the house. Upon this, Mr. Putnam, though perfectly await that several persons had tried in vain to obtain the floor, moved the previous question. I appealed to him to withdraw it for a single moment. He refused; and that discussion was closed. In effect, there was almost no real discussion upon the measures adopted by the Convention. These measures "were resolved on by a few persons, chief among whom was yourself; and they were put through by dictation and the repression of free protest. The part acted by yourself in the Convention demands special notice. I am not disposed criticise your course in connection with the arrangements made before the Convention. I cheerfully concede very much to human infirmity. But when you chose, and kept, your seat on the elevated platform, a little to the right, and not a little to the front, of the chair, where you could always rise between his eye and the Conven3 �18 UNITARIAN FELLOWSHIP AND^IBEBTm tion, and there conducted yourself as if the Convention had nothing to do but bow its assent to your proposals, you be­ came open to criticism. I have already recited how Dr. Clarke presented an amendment to article first of the constitution, to insert “ and Independent,” so as to read, “ National Confer­ ence of Unitarian and Independent Churches,” — expressing his willingness to withdraw it, if not in order; and how you rose and said, with the assistance of a nod from Dr. Osgood, that Dr. Clarke’s amendment was not in order in this Conven­ tion. You explained that this amendment was not a proper question for the Convention to consider, but would be proper to be considered by a future convention, when the “broad­ church ” basis would be proposed. Dr. Clarke had no occa­ sion to offer his amendment with submission ; much less had he the smallest occasion to heed your interference as to the or­ der of the Convention. I do not forget your announcement that the Convention could not unite in any thing but what the Com­ mittee had presented ; but there was no reason why this decision of yours should have prevented consideration, by the Conven­ tion, of Dr. Clarke’s proposition. In withdrawing it, as he did, at your dictation, Dr. Clarke committed a mistake which he had much occasion to regret. In every light your interference was unfit. It was not your business to tell the Convention what it might do. Nothing was more fit than that the Convention should consider and adopt Dr. Clarke’s amendment. Very few of our churches call themselves Unitarian. “ First Con­ gregational ” is the designation of your own church. Some of our ministers have never ceased jealously to guard their independence. Your friend, Dr. Bartol, who stands at the head of our fellowship in Boston, is one of these. He refuses to take the sectarian designation “ Unitarian,” and did not enter the Unitarian Convention, unless as a guest. He is excluded by the title of the conference. To include him, the title proposed by Dr. Clarke- must be adopted. ’ For myself, I think the name “ Unitarian ” should be cherished. Its suggestion of union and unity is profound and enduring. It is �UNITARIAN FELLOWSHIP AND LIBERTY. 19 a name honorably borne. It signifies, in the religious world, culture, character, and progress. It can be made to signify reason, freedom, and fellowship. I like the name. But I would use it in such a way as to clear-it of all dogmatic and sectarian taint. I would have Unitarians, in name and con­ nection, who yet hold so much of Trinitarian dogma as is not inconsistent with liberal union. And from this conservative extreme I would go on to include all who desire, as regular ministers and representatives of religious societies, to share our fellowship, whether they teach after our method or not. I can see no reason for refusing the advantages of our associa­ tions and conference, on principle, to ministers of Universalist, or Spiritualist, or independent 'Special methods. Individual cases must be decided on their merits, according to all the circumstances ; but the principle of no restriction upon fellow­ ship should be adopted as the Unitarian principle. It will work no dangerous revolution. Only those will come to us wrho have some affinity with us'i Even the fastidious need not be alarmed. If we go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in, there will be no more than we can assimilate sufficiently for Christian union. Why, then, did you so dictatorially use your position and influence to prevent the Convention from entering upon the question of a genuine Christian Brotherhood? Was it because a handful of conservative divines did not dare to accept the tendencies of liberalism? Did you speak so positively as to what the Convention could unite on, not because you knew the majority to be with you, but because you were cognizant, not to say conscious, of thg determination of a small minority to break fraternal union, unless the Contention should vote to hold the radicals to a fragment of sectarian dogma? Thanks to the revelations of your own outbreak, and to Dr. Osgood’s frank recital, we can answer this question. You 'were conscious of a determination to hold the radicals to your standard. You were cognizant of a determination to break fraternal union, if the Convention should adopt an undogmatic and perfectly free �20 UNITARIAN FELLOWSHIP AND LIBERTY. fellowship. You knew that Dr. Eliot was resolved upon seceding from the National Conference, if the views of the majority should not suit him ; and that others would bear him company, and rupture our union. Your reason for prophesy­ ing so positively, in the instance of Dr. Clarke’s amendment,and in further instances, is but too plain. Immediately after the adoption of the articles of constitution, Mr. Ames moved to add, “Nothing in this constitution shall be construed to exclude from representation in this body any church which chooses to co-operate with us in Christian work.” To this you said, that “ the result of the adoption of that article would be to swamp the boat;” that you “had found the attachment to the Unitarian name such, that it would be dangerous to adopt such a provision.” This sounded very strangely. You did not argue the case at all. You made the merest announcement that any but a strict sectarian construc­ tion would be fatal. We understand now what you meant, and can see how nearly we approached destruction. To all appearance, the article would have passed, but for a strange word from Dr. Eliot. Several amendments had been agreed to, none of them hostile to the article. The last was to insert “or society,” when the article, with previous amendments, would have stood : — “ Nothing in this constitution shall be construed to exclude from representation in this body any Christian church or society, claiming Christian fellowship with us, which chooses to co-operate with us in Christian work, and which shall make known its wishes by letter addressed to the President of this association.” On account of what did Dr. Eliot take the platform to oppose the adoption of this article? He professed to fear the effect of the last amendment, which let in “ societies ” which might not be “ churches.” The article, without that, he was not understood to oppose. But that made it dangerous. Why? Because the Mormons had organized in St. Louis under the title of “ Mormon Christian Society” ! I This vision d t �UNITARIAN FELLOWSHIP AND LIBERTY. 21 of “ Mormon rag, tag, and bobtail” settled the matter. A motion to lay the article on the table prevailed at once. The Holy Unitarian Church was barred and bolted against “ any Christian church or society claiming Christian fellowship with us,” — because of the Mormons! It was by this word that Dr. Eliot checked the Convention just as it was declaring for a guarded liberality. The question of articles being disposed of according to the programme, the question of adopting the preamble came before the Convention. A motion was made to lay it on the table. To this you said at once, and without argument, that, “ if the preamble should be laid on the table, the whole con­ stitution would fail. It would then seem as if the Unitarians had no coherence, no status, and no future.” It was difficult to understand what lay behind these words in your mind. Why should you so persistently forebode disaster to the whole communion, if the Convention should venture to depart from your plan? It was easy^c^understand that you might think such departure a grave mistake, destined to do serious mischief; but why should you be so sure of ruin to the whole cause? It was because you had determined to say “Lord, Lord,” in the preamble, or suffer no doing the will of the Father in the constitution. Everii a constitution strictly secta­ rian, and to be construed so as to exclude every church or society not of the sect, did not content you. It was very strange ; but it is explained^ now that we know what had passed behind the scenes. The preamble, constitution, and by-laws were at length adopted. Rev. Mr. Ames came forward again, as has been stated already, and proposed a declaration of our desire for general Christian fellowship, ancL|i Committee of Correspond­ ence with whoever might wish,'to address us. This was not * very “ dangerous ; ” but Mr. Ames spoke, with a good deal of sadness and with some plainness, altogether with a good deal of effect, upon the narrow basis adopted by the Conference. A motion to lay his measure on the table was lost. Rev. �22 UNITARIAN FELLOWSHIP AND LIBERTY. Robert Collyer declined to serve on the Committee on Corre­ spondence, as named in the measure. He said that he had voted against the constitution, regarding it as a creed. He wished he could consider the Convention as free and broad as the Western Conference, in which they did not act on the policy of repression of opinion, but gave each and all a free utterance. It was after these demonstrations that you rose, and uttered words which you thought it necessary to apologize for at the close of the Convention. You announced that you had serious objection to bodies of men claiming to be the peculiar champions of liberty ; you declaimed against radicals as “ spindling up into a peculiarity ; ” you confessed that you belonged to the class that proposed to control, rather than accept, the spirit of the age ; you spurned all taunts about the disgrace of the Convention; you were of the conservatives, and meant, with hand and with foot, to defend what you con­ sidered eternal truth; you would “ rather go with orthodoxy in any form in which it ?c©uld be stated, than with those who put Jesus Christ into comparative contempt; ” you had “ made a constitution for the purpose of holding the latter to it,” and expected to gain, by any issue that might be made, tenfold any possible loss. It was in these terms that you gave unbridled utterance to that side of your thought which liberty cannot trust. I have given your own words for the most part. They are significant words. Religion mourns at the altar of freedom, that such words should be spoken. The spirit of truth is grieved by the purpose which these words express. Reason points with just scorn to the contradiction between these words and the words in which a true liberality had been insisted on just before the Convention met. Good faith turns with deep shame from the contrast between that promise and this performance. Was it for this betrayal that you called the Unitarian body to meet you in convention? Was it to thus run the ship ashore that you took the helm ? That you have con­ trived to do this, and meant to do this at the moment in which you secured the triumph of conservatism in the organization of �UmTARIAN FELLOWSHIP AND LIBERTY. 23 the “ National Conference,” will appear more fully from a brief examination of the condition and action of our body within recent years, in comparison with the condition and action proposed by you in the articles and by-laws of the National Conference. The “American Unitarian Association” was founded in 1824, and incorporated in 1847. This body has a broad and national character. Any person may be a member by the payment annually of one dollar; a life-member, by the pay­ ment of thirty dollars. It is represented by members in all sections of the country. It is located, as to its office and organization, in Boston, the only chief centre of American interests around which UnitarianfSm has gathered in force, and the natural Holy City of our faith for the whole land. By the constitution of the body, as it stands amended since 1862, its Board of Officers consists of nineteen persons, four of whom are representatives of distant sections of the country, — the Middle States, the South-east, the'South-west, and the North­ west ; while fifteen represent the greaf ,camp * of our forces in and around the city of Bostonjl These fifteen constitute the working portion of the Board; the other four, the portion whose special duty is advice in regard to the distant fields which they represent. The working force of the body is convened at least once a month. It is admirably divided into special committees on different portions of our work; an arrangement which secures the largest amount of careful atten­ tion to every detail, and intelligent, united action of the whole Board. The Board includes a Secretary and an Assistant Secretary, — the former, one of our ministers; the latter, a layman. The present Secretary, while standing on the right wing of our theological position, Represents most satisfactorily the genial liberality of Unitarianism. This Secretary is em-, ployed, on an adequate salary, to devote his whole time to the general superintendence of the affairs of the Board. The Assistant Secretary, trained to the business by some years of service, — a young layman, and a liberal of the most catholic �24 UNITARIAN FELLOWSHIP AND LIBERTY! sympathies, — devotes himself entirely to the office business of the Association headquarters. It would not be possible to improve the position and facilities for thus enjoyed by our body. Occupying a great entrenched camp, within the limits of which we find a great university, and a city renowned as a centre of liberal culture, Unitarianism commands the whole country as no other religious movement of our time can, with facilities for obtaining information, for arousing interest, for taking wise counsel, and for undertaking every sort of which cannot be surpassed. It has been under a quite special providence that this admirable organization has crowned the development of Unitarianism. In comparison with this, what is your National Conference, with that “Council” at the head of which you stand? It is an exclusive body. No minister can belong to it who is not a settled pastor. Only two laymen can be sent to it with the pastor of each church. Societies like those of Dr. Bartol and Dr. Furness, Dr. Ellis and Dr. Robbins, not only are not mem­ bers of the National Conference, but cannot be. This body expressly refused, under your guidance, to constitute itself an open and broad fellowship; it organized itself of the mem­ bers present in the New-York Convention; it made no pro­ vision for the admission of new members; it voted down a motion that its constitution should not be construed to exclude Christian churches and societies desiring fellowship with us. The creed of Mr. Low, which he attempted to have made a condition of taking the places to which we had come in good faith, was referred to the Council, as if for future adoption to drive away the large number who will not submit to be “ held to ” conservative dogma. It is difficult to see how liberal principles could be more distinctly set aside. The scheme of representation by official delegates is an intrusion of ecclesiasticism. Instead of calling all our minis­ ters, and all our laymen, who have taken enough interest in the work to contribute to it, you call official delegates, many of whom represent the highest respectability of their several �VmTARIAN FELLOWSHIP AND LIBERTY. 25 societies, rather than the young life and earnest spirit of the denomination. A parish is often bound to send as an official delegate a member whose claims are merely personal. In our body, work should be intrusted to the workers. It was of im­ mense advantage to you, that so many venerable laymen were before you when you said that your scheme must be accepted, or the denomination be ruined. You doubtless felt that these laymen, though conservative, were yet liberal, and would yield to fair argument, if discussion were permitted. You secured your end by preventing discussion. The large body of lay delegates, who knew you and did not know our younger workers, confided in your word, and gave you assistance which many of them must regret. No IfKch thing would be possible in the Association. Its meetings include all who choose to be members, and the field is open to every suggestion or scheme which any individual may wish to urge upon the body. And in the “ Council ” established by the Constitution of the National Conference, the defect tof your plan is yet more * apparent. It contains, including its Secretary, eleven persons. Six of these are of Boston and its vicinity; one represents the North-west, two the South-west and two New York. Its * centre is New York, where it has no working force. Of its force in and near Boston, four are on the Executive Board of the American Unitarian Association, and give their work there. This really leaves little of the Council for any work, except yourself and the Secretary of the Council, Rev. E. E. Hale. How far you and he can undertake to look after our denominational affairs, with the other charges which you and he have beyond almost all our pastors, I need not inquire. I only remark, that, evidently, no reason for having your Coun­ cil, in addition to the Executive’ Board of the American Unitarian Association, can be tfound, unless it be that the latter body needs your superintendence. This reason your articles and by-laws confess. Y@fu.have made it the business of the National Conference to give advice. It is declared “ a purely advisory body.” It “ confines itself to recommending 4 �26 UNITARIAN FELLOWSHIP AND LIBERTY. to the existing organizations of the Unitarian body such under­ takings and methods as it judges to be in the heart of the Unitarian denomination.” This advice, however, is to origi­ nate with the Council. “ The Council shall have for its duty, to keep itself accurately informed .... to the end that the Conference may know what the wants and the wishes of the churches are, somewhat more particularly than it is possible to learn in the necessary hurry of the Annual Meeting.” It is not difficult to comprehend this. When you belonged to the committee for calling the New-York Convention, you read to it a statement of your views, which was adopted as that of the committee. You or Mr. Hale must take a similar course now. The Council will authorize your plans. You will secure the assent of the Conference to them. You will then issue them in the annual address provided for by one of your by-laws; adding to them, according to the same by-law, “ such advice and encouragement as it [the Council] may deem appropri­ ate.” It is absurd to represent your scheme as one for getting 'work done. It secures but one thing, in addition to the griev­ ous outrage upon liberty already considered ; and that thing is, unlimited opportunity on your part to oversee and advise the denominational affairs of Unitarianism. You are made a sort of Unitarian Holy Father, to whom our brother Hale is Secre­ tary for the provincial region of Boston and its vicinity. It is clear throughout, that the Unitarian Association repre­ sents the work and the life of our body. The proposition for the New-York Convention was made by you in a special meeting of the American Unitarian Association. In that meet­ ing there was abundant evidence of vigor and life, apart from your somewhat wild appeal for organization. * In particular, Mr. James P. Walker presented resolutions which aimed directly at work, and did not aim at “ holding” either wing to the dogmas of the other. These resolutions were amended * “ Let every church appoint two delegates; and let these all meet, at some central point, four times a year! ” �mtTAHIAN FELLOWSHIP AND LIBERTY. 27 on the motion of Mr. Henry P. Kidder, one of the Vice-Pres­ idents of the American Unitarian Association; and, by their passage, the work of raising one hundred thousand dollars was initiated.. This work was successfully prose­ cuted by the Executive Board of the American Unitarian Association, and was nearly completed before the National Conference came into existence. In its inception, so far as the churches of our body knew, the New-York Convention was called by, and was therefore in the charge of, the American Unitarian Association. It was-understood to be a convention of the people, on the principle of representation, for the pur­ pose of free conference. Had it been conducted as such, and the result intrusted to the Asgcreiation which called it, the occasion would have been memorable in the history of our body. It was when you forgot that we already had a most admirable organization for work, under proper and adequate control, and introduced your scheme for a new and quite unnecessary organization, that .the Convention was turned from its legitimate business to serve your individual aims, and the aims of a narrow conservatism. If it be true that the American Unitarian Association needs the special supervision of yourself and Brother Hale and that you cannot contribute all your energy and wisdom in the capacity of members, rather than bishops, of our body, — you were, no doubt, right in turning the National Convention into a strict organization * on which to erect your high seat of superior information and supreme control. But if the Association, after forty years, is a competent national representative of Unitarianism, you were quite wrong in forcing upon the National Convention your scheme of a National Conference. An Autumnal Convention had been, until 1864, a distinctive feature of the Unitarian movement for more than twenty years. The Convention of 1863, held at Springfield, Mass., was a great success. It was spoken of jin * the <8‘ Monthly-Journal ” report as marking a decided advance of our body. The desire for a convention the following year was disappointed “ through �28 UNITARIAN FELLOWSHIP AND LIBERTY. the failure of the committee whose duty it was to attend to it.” A writer in the “ Christian Register” has recently attempted a version of these facts. He refers to the Autumnal Conven­ tions as “ dreary powwows,” which no city or town would receive, and for which no committee would %be responsible. He asserts that they broke down, and that the Association called its December special meeting in place of them. He declares that these conventions met “ to do nothing, not even to resolve any thing, but simply contemplate the question whether sin were not virtue undeveloped ; or whether it were better to have four children or five in a Sunday-school class, without coming to a decision.” I should not notice this state­ ment but for the fact, that it is a specimen of the advice which a chief representative of your scheme in Boston has to give,— one out of the many wild absurdities into which he has fallen in the haste and crudeness of his labors in your cause. The fact in regard to our Autumnal Conventions is correctly stated in the reports of the “Monthly Journal.” The last but one, that at Brooklyn, was “ remarkably successful.” The Spring­ field Convention was “ much the largest on record.” As free conferences of brethren on high themes of faith and fellow­ ship, these Autumnal Conventions had proved of the greatest interest and value. It is undoubtedly true that radical spirit and life came out in them more and more ; while conservative re-action did not meet with favor. This may have made them “ dreary powwows” to the brethren who particularly rejoice in conservatism, though I think the true conservative spirit among us has more and more welcomed cordial conference with radical brethren. The need and use of such confer- ' ence, both to promote the inward life of our liberal body, and to maintain before the world a proper attitude of broad and open fellowship, cannot be too earnestly insisted on. The struggle of all our tendencies is absolutely necessary to the full health and vigorous growth of our communion. The reign of a fraternal spirit over this struggle is to be the realization of a Christianity of brotherhood at whose altars believers of every �UNITARIAN FELLOWSHIP AND LIBERTY. 29 name will meet in the firm union of assured liberty. How far you contemplated closing the arena of the Autumnal Con­ vention, and destroying our platform of free conference and fellowship, I need not inquire. I point to the record of that day on which you succeeded in stifling discussion, and in . * degrading our fellowship, to justify my confident declaration, that Unitarian fellowship and liberty refuse to accept the “ National Conference ” in place of the Autumnal Convention. That which Unitarianism demands in this great day of new liberty and union is the vigorous action of her national organ­ ization, the American Unitarian Association, and the cus­ tomary assembling of her Autumnal Conventions, on the broadest -principle offraternity^. It is to be recognized, that every effort in religion made in good faith is so far good, and worthy of fraternal recognition, even if its method may be quite erroneous in the judgment of cultivated intelligence. The appeal to prejudice is intellectually and spiritually base. All the movements of the time argnunder one providence, and are to be recognized for their good, that the unfolding of their better spirit may be secured. The conception of a Christ who will come in with the whip to clear the temple is essentially Pharisaic. There is no good sense of the name of Christ which does not require us to give a brother’s hand to every man who is honestly desirous of brotherly love. The day must soon come when liberal^ fellowship will exclude none because of their thought, not even those whose thought runs in the channel of extreme denial. To stand together as brothers and bear one another’s burdens, having no high thoughts, no hard feelings, and no cherished aversions, is the aim under which men of all names, in and out of now-recog­ nized communion, will pursue the search for truth, and the labor for good, as under a new great banner of liberty and union. The spirit of the age you may propose to control, but in vain. That spirit mocks your endeavor. The time is all alive with the energy of awakened humanity. Churches can­ not resist it, except to be broken as under a millstone. Secta­ �30 UNITARIAN FELLOWSHIP AND^IBERTY. rianism has no more chance than any other relic of barbarism. Dogmatism is dead and buried. It is useless to put on white garments, and attempt to play the angel of resurrection. The tomb of darkness is that light in which darkness ceases to exist. A great light of trust fills the world in^which we have our lot. Even the infidel so called has profound faith. He dashes your clean platters, or your unclean, to the ground ; but he takes in his hands bread of truth with that same noble hunger of soul which has marked the heroism of apostle and martyr in all ages. Fraternity does not hesitate to commune, if occasion arise, with men of unwashen hands who go pluck­ ing the raw ears of truth, in disregard of pious prejudice, in the common fields of humanity. Fraternity! The unrecog­ nized benediction of the Father is on many a fold which’ our piety cannot name without contempt. We are “ members one of another,” whether we are conscious or not of the blessed fact. Brotherhood is the decree of a power which we cannot resist. We are in the chain-gang of the Holy Spirit, driven by mighty Providence on one way of truth and good. Let us awake to the fact. In our work, and in our conference, let us grant the largest liberty and secure the broadest union. So shall we vindicate Unitarian fellowship and liberty. In the haste and temper with which you conducted to its mournful close the New-York Convention, you forgot to pro­ vide, as your own constitution and by-laws required, for the second meeting this year of the National Conference. No doubt you felt with yourself that you could attend to every thing of that kind. You forgot that you had given your Conference a constitution, and that you had taken office under this. This constitution reserves to the Conference itself to fix the time and place of successive meetings, and merely intrusts the Council with issuing the call ordered by itself. As I have said, the Conference neglected to take action. It did not even intrust the matter to its Council. This may be an absurd state of things; no doubt it is. But here are facts, and they mean nothing less than this, — the National Conference adjourned * �UNITARIAN FELLOWSHIP AND LIBERTY. 31 indefinitely. You can call together another convention; but you cannot recover your organization. In this state of the case, you have no choice but to leave the matter in the hands of the May meeting of the Association to call such a convention as it shall deem suitable to call. You and Mr. Hale have, as I am aware, looked after our affairs recently in a way that shows your intention to do a great deal more than execute the expressed will of the National Conference. You seem to constitute a Unitarian papacy, at least a liberal “ Society of Jesus,” to which the end justifies the means. Do you comprehend that this is the appearance? Do you intend to pursue an arbitrary course in these matters, in the belief that your individual yvill, is precious to our body ? I might hope that you do, knowing that you would thus soonest bring on the utter downfall of your cause ; but I am animated by the most sincere desire that you should enjoy the general confidence and fill a large place in the conduct of our affairs: therefore I most earnestly Jiope that you will recede altogether from your present position of spiritual dictator, and leave the republic of liberalism to its legitimate Board of control. We meet in our proper forum of deliberation and decision, in May, on the consecrated ground of Unitarianism, where Channing and Theodore Parker illustrated the resources and breadth of our body. On that ground we have room for work, and room for thought. The new life, which isisiting v * us more and more, inevitably enlarges and invigorates the policy of our organization. To trust that life, and to find in a wise and bold policy adequate expression for it, is the duty of all of us in this eventful hourvj It will be a misfortune to be deeply regretted if any of our conservative leaders refuse to go with the tide of our affairs, for fear of, a flood of radicalism. But of one thing these leaders may be sure, — they cannot run our good ship ashore. The spirit which sways the world blows off shore in America, and the tide rises faster than that re­ action can overtake it, creeping backwards against this hurri­ cane of inspiration. Even the old Catholic ark, and the huge �32 UNITARIAN FELLOWSHIP AND LIBERTY. Episcopal frigate, and all the Orthodox merchantmen, are driven out to sea. If not literally the “ Pilot of the Galilean lake,” at least the spirit of a regenerated Christianity is at every helm ; and we must usail the sea alone with God,” be it with, or be it without, the traditional figure-head of accred­ ited Christian craft. Concern about the Lordship of Jesus need not oppress your mind. If there is on board an image, a dumb and helpless object of faith, which cannot take care of itself in the storm under which we are driving on, there is no hope for it, unless it be to fling it down into the hold to be saved andforgotten. You cannot expect men in the passion of great faith to hold by that which has no hold for itself. If this Lordship of the peasant rabbi of Galilee has a firm and cen­ tral hold in our life of faith, and can stand, men will hold by it. But if it be a mere figure-head, to which pious sentiment clings, but which has no deep and sure hold upon the spirit and life of humanity, the next hour may bring the wave which will break such hold as it has, and sink it for ever beneath the troubled sea. There are many, you know it well, whose hearts will not fail, though they see old opinion and custom swept from every deck, and only faith in right, with erect and unbroken faith in God to hold by, between them and the unfathomable deep. Indeed, is not the sea in the hollo'W of his hand? The evident providence of the hour demands the pure trust of absolute fraternity. Exclusive fellowship, and re-action against progress, are in high violation of the will of God in the spirit of our age. In the not inscrutable provi­ dence of the hour, that “ National Conference ” by which you attempted to “ control the spirit of the age,” and turn back the course of liberal progress, lies where it was built, a helpless hulk, the scorn of wind and tide. The launch was forgotten. The penalty of hot haste to do wrong was laid on in the very moment of transgression. So let it be. Sincerely and fraternally, for liberty and union, E. C. T. Medford, Mass., April 27, 1866. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Victorian Blogging Description An account of the resource A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library &amp; Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Conway Hall Library & Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Conway Hall Ethical Society Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Pamphlet Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Unitarian fellowship and liberty: a letter to Rev. Henry Bellows Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Towne, Edward Cornelius Description An account of the resource Place of Publication: Cambridge, Mass. Collation: 32 p. ; 22 cm. Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. A letter to Rev. Henry W. Bellows, D.D. by Rev. Edward C. Towne, pastor of the Unitarian Parish, Medford, Mass. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available John Wilson and Sons Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1886 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context G5262 Subject The topic of the resource Unitarianism Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (Unitarian fellowship and liberty), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Language A language of the resource English Conway Tracts Unitarianism https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/ea9d6f86c44aae9d508a184caccc965f.pdf?Expires=1773878400&Signature=KQ9oon1y%7E8QNMDpb1jLQyXn7iw%7EDsr21cLo%7E1Ewgg4-tDqOsbpKkrLKbOOXRizjIz%7Ew7Atv8gWfTeF8FmZaulY6unWaW-V4Plyk4cOWE1QPz4-Hnr9Lv3NRdw2ZJ0-OB3gyxhopzKcdAGoOcRl8TCChOwoyTlDvxtQHy2qiPuHqjCnK53SdIn2SuenA-psPugPhBW1eI5vsp-4Q97hacBBC5GD49%7E8t2V2RHm6nZ12xah4-sf4MleUGDvqBOk6%7E7Qd7sdYsKYlnmuR3GWju9QNsGcfZE1XFMX7KSDvnXn%7EsOie-WzcfkIyaL8EgWd1cdND6%7EgaiOtYUe2NNb3twseQ__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM 8005d60a4de08662ace0bd263212eb13 PDF Text Text A CROYDON EPISODE. ROBERT RODOLPH SUFFIELD. MAT BE HAD OF Mr. WARREN, Bookseller, 131 High Street, Croydon. a.d. 1876. �LONDON: FEINTED BY C. W. REYNELL, LITTLE PULTENEY STREET, BAYMARKET. �A CROYDON EPISODE. ------ »— T may be interesting to you if I recount the origin of the Religious Society whose fifth anniversary we celebrate to-day. You will be surprised when I tell you that Croydon occurred to me as the possible scene of my future life whilst I was still a Roman Catholic ecclesiastic. I did not know a single individual in this locality, with the exception of the lately-deceased Congregationalist Minister, the Rev. Joseph Whiting. When I was in office at Woodchester, in Gloucestershire, he was Minister at Stroud. We became acquainted in consequence of his expressing a desire to confer with me on religious matters in presence of a young lady who had some idea of embracing the Roman Catholic faith. In 1862, in the guest-room of the Dominican Priory at Woodchester, the conference took place, and lasted three hours ; it was conducted on both sides with the most perfect temper, fairness, and courtesy. Those who remember Mr. Whiting will easily under­ stand that the violation of such virtues will not have disfigured his side of the controversy. At that time the Roman Catholic doctrine of Infallibility was the twofold Infallibility of the Bible and of the Church. Papal Supremacy was held, but Papal Infallibility was not an article of Faith, except so far as it might be supposed to flow out of the two other dogmas. I �6 A Croydon Episode, We took Bible Infallibility as the basis of agree­ ment and argument. I thought, and still think, that I had the best of the argument; anyhow, so thought the young lady, for the conference decided her to embrace the Roman Catholic faith. Given Bible Infallibility, and take for granted that Jesus Christ founded a dogmatic sect and that it exists, it would be less difficult to prove the Papal than the Anglican or the Evangelical to be that sect. Seven years passed by. During that period eccle­ siastical duties had removed me from Gloucestershire and carried me over many parts of England. The great controversy regarding Infallibility arose within the Roman Catholic Church—the controversy which has shaken the German Church to its centre and lost to it its most illustrious defenders. Many minds became anxious, some determined not to investigate or think, others were by circumstances almost reluctantly compelled to investigate and think. I was amongst the latter class: doubts arose, these were again earnestly banished amidst unceasing work in missions, in preaching, and in the confessional. The doubts kept forcing themselves before my mind. In accordance with the sad teaching of ecclesiastical theology, I regarded these doubts, not as the noble utterances of the intelligence, but as temptations to be suppressed. I tried to remove them by reading, by occupation, by prayer. A confessor told me that my position was too prominent, that it fostered pride, and hence came these temptations. It often happens that those accused of pride, are in fact but the victims of dis­ appointment. What so sad as to give your mind and energy to a service, and to begin to suspect that the service is an illusion. However, I asked to withdraw from all public �A Croydon Episode. 7 offices, and I withdrew to a country village, during two years, only leaving it when the calls of duty or of friendship rendered absence imperative. I was sickened by the spectacle of religion deforming itself into a scheming Papal faction, headed in England by a diplomatic and ambitious convert, in Rome by a Pope who knew nothing, and by a Cardinal who believed nothing—if the testimony of intimates can be trusted. Amidst peasants, and country scenes, and village children, I strove to forget the present, and to fortify my faith by the theologies of the past. Many a long evening have I sat in my garden at Bosworth, when the nightingale’s song was the only voice to be heard, and prayed that I might die ere the illusion had utterly passed away. During that time I happened to have been at Arundel Castle. It was perhaps the autumn of 1868, on my way home to Leicestershire, a gentleman entered the carriage at Red Hill. I did not recognise him at first, but he reminded me of our interview at Woodchester—it was Mr. Whiting. We did not discuss theology : theology had become my enemy. It was a beautiful autumn eyening; the valley of Caterham and the pleasant white houses about looked beautiful and cheering. Mr Whiting got out at Croydon, telling me he had come to live there. I remember wishing that I had never been bound to impossible creeds, but could be free from the galling yoke of a human authoritative belief, and able to mingle as a man amongst my fellow men and not as a priest amongst subjects. It is one of the singular coincidences of life, that in the year 1870, when I distinctly apprehended that as soon as the time of deliberation arranged with my confessor had terminated, I should probably be compelled to say to myself that the faith had no �8 A Croydon Episode. basis, I happened to see in a Unitarian paper a notice that a Free Christian Church might be desirable in Croydon. The thought flashed through my mind how pleasant it would be if there happened to be in such a place a few earnest unfettered minds, who would like to combine for worship and edifica­ tion, if it were only in the parlour of one’s house. That same year Mr. Martineau came to Bosworth to confer with me. On the 9th of August, 1870, I left my quiet country home and went to Birmingham. With the exception of superiors at a distance, no one knew when I left, for I loved the villagers and they loved me, and I did not wish to give or to receive the pain of parting ; so I walked through the quiet straggling village on foot, passed the old church and the little Roman Catholic school, listened for a moment to the children’s morning hymn to our Lady, and left the past for ever behind—the stately, not unpoetic past 1 and it ranged itself amidst the grand mythologies of the days of old; like the statue of a goddess on the niche of a colonnade, you admire it and you leave it behind. The road leads through the images of gods and of heroes to the temple of the Universal. When-Mr. Martineau came to visit me, I told him that there could be to me no half-way house; that either the Roman Catholic Church was a religion or a mythology; if it were proved to me to be a mytho­ logy, it was because the Bible was mythological and all orthodox Christianity mythological. I saw only two alternatives, the Religion of Rome; or the Religion of Nature, of the Soul, of the Universe— either a Religion denouncing all, or a Religion embracing all. If the Roman Catholic Church is not the special Church of God, then, the whole of humanity, must be my Church; either does Revela­ tion speak through the Roman Catholic Church, �A Croydon Episode. g or it speaks through all Religions, all Souls, all Nature. At length I arose from the limited into the univer­ sal. To a stranger, it might have seemed like passing from a great Church into a very small Sect. A great Church may hold what is narrow and transitory, a mere handful of men may hold what is all-embracing. In former times, all knowledge of external things was based on theory or on magic. Lord Bacon arose, and taught that it must be based solely on experimental knowledge; he did not pretend to have acquired the knowledge, but he affirmed the true principle—the principle is a universal one—but it is called the Baconian, and for long it was only held by a few—by a small school of thought. Three hundred years have past, and that school of thought has con­ quered the whole domain of science; we apply similar principles to religion. Like Jesus Christ, we appeal to the soul and to nature; we are a small school of thought, we bear the apparent limitation of a name; of a name representing at once a history and a principle, but that principle is a universal one, and in three hundred years and less, will doubtless have possessed the whole domain of religion. A time will come—you help to prepare the time—when men will say, not “ God is in the Church,” but “ all nature is full of God.” A time dawns, you invoke its horizon, when all dogmatic Churches will have passed away, and ranged themselves in the stately mausoleum of the past. When there will be juster views of God, and of man in relation to God; when society will feel the change in all its departments from state government to domestic service; when every wrong will be righting, every mischief removing, every mistake correcting, every sorrow alleviating. When there will be the worship of the absolute perfection, allegiance �IO A Croydon Episode. to eternal law, loving fidelity to all humanity, the development of the power of mind; then, in the human hierarchy, we shall behold the true ascension —saint, lover, hero, thinker. Then the sense ofthe divine, the infinite, and the immortal, born of reverence, trust, affection, deep in the ineradicable qualities of our being, will create a faith and a feeling of divine truth, not faint in its glow, not damped by misgiving, not dimmed by doubt, or tainted by selfishness. Then the intuition of God will be natural; the perception of His laws intellectually certain. Such a religion will be “broad as humanity, frank as truth, stern as justice, loving as Christ.” Only a few as yet adopt openly and religiously the extreme of our pro­ tests, but I venture to say that Croydon is nobler, purer, braver, more loving, more Christian to-day; because the glow of humanity’s glorious future is shining on the brows of a few. Through the friendly offices of Mr. Martineau I was made personally known to a very small handful of Liberal thinkers in this neighbourhood. Two gentlemen came over to Manchester to invite me to this place. They found me in the midst of a com­ mittee of gentlemen offering to me the beautiful Upper Brook-street Church. I felt myself not ready for work in a great city, and accepted the invitation to a very small beginning in a locality which seemed to me more like retirement than publicity. The foundation and outline of my religious position were clear to me; the details were not filled in. Every­ thing around me seemed strange and new. I felt like a boy beginning amongst men. A few of us met for our first religious service on October 2,1870, in the Nonconformist Chapel, London-road, lent to us for a couple of months. It was the day observed by Roman Catholics as “ Rosary Sunday.” On Sun­ �A Croydon Episode. 11 day, December 11, 1870, we assembled for the first time in this building. The purchase of the ground on which it stands was only completed on June 12 of the present year, when we celebrated the occasion by a numerous, distinguished, but private, social gathering. We commenced with about eight adhe­ rents—three or four soon seceded from our infant cause, though continuing personal friends up to the present moment; they would have continued with us if we had adopted a line of action which never for a moment approved itself to our intelligence or our aspirations. Though we have lost nineteen by death, we have gradually grown into a congregation, into a testimony, into an influence, more than local. As a congregation we are entirely independent, but we find ourselves in sympathy of opinion and funda­ mental principle with many congregations which, in our own country and in various parts of Europe and America, under the name of Unitarian, Free Chris­ tian, Liberal Christian, Liberal Protestant, Theistic, and other titles, proclaim the supremacy of reason and conscience, and yet maintain themselves in the line of historic religious development. We are in religious sympathy with all who anywhere trust in God; we are in moral sympathy with all who anywhere strive to learn and to realise in act the moral laws existing behind the visible; we are in human sympathy with all men everywhere; we are in spiritual sympathy with all Nature, for all Nature is full of God, though Nature is not God, but the garment of God. Although we possess our congregational govern­ ment, committee, and officers, our classes for the young, our library, our means for intelligent discus­ sion and kindly intercourse, we, in accordance with our principle of individualism in collective humanity, throw ourselves into the general human and civic life in matters charitable, political, recreative, literary, �12 A Croydon Episode. educational, local, national. In all these interests we find ourselves continually meeting, not necessarily to agree with one another as a clique having small sectional sympathies, but cordially and heartily entering as individuals into the general interests. Humanity is our church, and wherever we find men we find the members of our church. This religious society is'like a spiritual sub-committee to help on the general religious and moral interests of the great fraternity of humanity. As a religious society, in this town, we are only five years old; but our sympathies have been sought and imparted here and there widely over the country in many places. We have been asked to assist in the government of the associations which concern themselves with the interests of all those liberal churches which seek sympathy, help, or encouragement. We have specially helped to found a society in London, wherein all the sections of liberal religious thought find a social bond. Such facts as these prove that our religious position is not one of isolation and eccentricity, but in harmony with the higher religious thought of our country. I say “ we” when I speak not merely of what you have directly conducted and presided over, but as regarding what has fallen to my lot to do; for such has been accom­ plished in consequence of your co-operation and sympathy. I am almost ashamed to own to the extent of the injury received into the life of a sincere and consistent Roman Catholic. Actual faults in the ordinary sense of the word may be very few; he may obtain any amount of patience, gentleness, purity, sub*mission, passive resistance, and power of endurance. But the power of self-help out of prescribed limits is perceptibly crippled. The Roman Catholic system is unceasingly occupied with seeking consolation and imparting it. Affectionate sympathy is encouraged �A Croydon Episode. I3 till it becomes at once a weakness and a necessity. Jesus the Man of Sorrows, Christ the Consoler, the Mater Dolorosa, and the Virgin Mother are fit symbols of a system which promotes tenderness and depreciates self-reliance. The more that a Roman Catholic realises his religion, so much the more does the conception of life become dreary; it is a vale of tears; the sweet sunshine cannot be trusted; the loveliness of the landscape is a delusion; the con­ science has only two offices, i.e., to obey and to repress. Thus I was almost of necessity compelled to supple­ ment myself with your corporate action. As Froth­ ingham in another place says, the Old Faith came as a comforter, our New Faith comes as an inspirer, with industry, philosophy, art, literature, with all the regenerating thoughts of humanity, with all the vigour and vitality of the creative ; the old songs of Faith have to be sung with the accompaniment of all human interests; our New Faith dreads inaction, lassitude, melancholy; it brings a brighter view of life and of man, a higher conception of God, a nobler ideal of the future, as progress out of imperfectness. The Roman Catholic Church presents to the votary Jesus stripped and scourged, weeping, downcast, and con­ templative ; our New Faith presents Jesus as the friend and companion of men and of sinners, the manly, out­ spoken reformer, the earnest enthusiast in the cause of humanity, the foe of cant and of hypocrisy, the unmasker of shams, the hero who could stand alone and do battle for the true, the righteous, and the just. The Old Faith wailed out its litanies of servile suppli­ cation; the New Faith, brave, cheerful, thoughtful, hopeful of the future because it remembers the past, likes senfimeni in poetry, but in religion above all things intelligence and reality. The Old Faith ap­ pealed to prophecy, to miracles, to authoritative books and authoritative churches; the New Faith. �14 A Croydon Episode. appeals to the prophetic instincts of the human soul, to the miracle of the universe, to every noble and righteous utterance which the human reason or human conscience has ever recognised as religious, inspiring, and good. The New Faith has not to defend itself against history, science, and philosophy, they are its natural allies. The New Faith has not to condemn humanity, for it is the expression of humanity in its highest, most thoughtful, and noblest mood. The New Faith does not go about cautiously and girt with a panoply of defence ; it can afford to lay aside its armour, to throw its weapons down, to go forth with upright confidence, and consort peace­ fully with thoughtful people, feeling secure in the honest sympathy of all intelligent, sincere, earnest, and liberal men. The Old Faith had creeds received upon authority; the New Faith goes forth with con­ victions profound, because they have been forged in the fiery furnace of the heart, and approved by the science, by the reason, by the conscience, by the intuitions of mankind. Accustomed as I had been to the simple-hearted, straightforward honesty of the Old English Roman Catholics, accustomed as I had been to admire similar characteristics amongst Unitarians, nothing shocked me so much at the very beginning of my new life, and since, as the discovery that such honesty was not deemed by all a virtue, but rather a reproach. I found in London and elsewhere fathers disbelieving the popular mythology, and yet rearing their children to its practice. I found here and there persons profes­ sing our religious opinions, yet too indolent, or too cowardly, or too inconstant to testify to them. I had no sooner left the Roman Catholic Church because I could not accept its creeds (they had disappeared in the quicksands on which rested their foundations), but I was solicited to embrace the very same creeds �A Croydon Episode. 15 and liturgy in the Church of England; and, to my amazement and indignation, the very persons who urged upon me that unrighteous suggestion did not accept those creeds and litanies in any ordinary use of language, but only by ’some quibble of speech such as I had always spurned when to a slighter degree (according to popular rumour) permitted by the Jesuits. I realised more than ever the necessity of above all things, sincerity. If I reject hell as an impiety, I cannot belong to a Church which declares that persons who disbelieve the Trinity and the Incarnation must go into hell’s everlasting fires. Veracity is essential to true piety; veracity is founded on faith in man. You tell a man the truth when yon can trust him with it, and are not afraid. As Pro­ fessor Clifford says, it is not English to tell a man a lie, or to suggest a lie by your silence or by your actions because you are afraid he is not prepared for the truth, because you do not quite know what he will do when he knows it, because perhaps after all this lie is a better thing for him than the truth would be. Surely this craven crookedness should be the object of our detestation. Yet do I often hear it whis­ pered that it would be dangerous to divulge certain truths to the masses. I know the thing is untrue ; but in a certain sense, after a fashion, it may be made to be considered true; anyhow it is picturesque, con­ soling, and useful for children, for women, for common people. “ Crooked ways are none the less crooked because they are meant to deceive a great many. If a thing is true, let us all believe it: rich and poor— men, women, and children. If a thing is untrue, let us all disbelieve it: rich and poor—men, women, and children. Truth is a thing to be shouted from the house-tops, not to be whispered after dinner, over rose-water, when the ladies are gone away.” Life must first of all be made straight and true; falsehood �16 A Croydon Episode. can never be necessary to morality or to true piety. <l It cannot be true of our neighbours, or of their children, that to keep them from becoming scoundrels they must believe a lie, or make, pretence to believe it.” The sense of right and wrong—piety to God and piety to man—such truths are too real to need the doubtful help of insincerities and of mystification. Thus, whatever errors we unhappily make, we will at least be truthful, and not mystify away that human trust without which society would be an impossibility, business a fraud, the family a cabal—each individual man, woman, and child a hypocrite or an imbecile. EBINTED BY 0. W. BEYNELL, LITTLE PULTENEY STBEET, HAYMARKET. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Victorian Blogging Description An account of the resource A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library &amp; Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Conway Hall Library & Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Conway Hall Ethical Society Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Pamphlet Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource A Croydon episode Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Suffield, Robert Rodolph Description An account of the resource Place of publication: [Croydon?] Collation: 16 p. ; 18 cm. Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Printed by C.W. Reynell Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1876 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context CT6 G4864 Subject The topic of the resource Unitarianism Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (A Croydon episode), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Language A language of the resource English Conway Tracts Unitarianism https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/e6b2e3078146e8b637722ea9d2db1471.pdf?Expires=1773878400&Signature=T7qfQXjeYMswo%7EubFoE3g4q4RiAh6-ckB7yZihnVf04KzA0uaMnIT9avIgq0ykDSzVBObab3PNLJNyoWI2nIMYpTwB44A-qkSCxcA6P5iaMFDP4BL9-cO6CbZkLXikfNud0ULwtknlz9u6azHYDIHikga3CeaHF%7ELhf0fSsiZCQxdMQEgT3v7vuhmVo0jGPYicHUIgyHf0SL5oTL4BiJYrBU3Bv4nqvl5cU4%7EJZYoqhNK-UWBC6ucOCRjmdon68Nxb8db8849SpQYT6q1AjOmiI3KUb6kYnIlkC-oyDvf3hnF%7E8Jvedrlr-dp6Ij%7EbFWmKrhi3yIRmQe9sEFfiDokQ__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM ded326e615bd5359732d359f79cbeb32 PDF Text Text “®hp I became a llnifarxan,” BY R. RODOLPH SUFFIELD. THIRD THOUSAND. �252 < l> ®lvn $ becanw a Stmtanan: A DISCOURSE BY THE REV. R. RODOLPH SUFFIELD, Of Reading, Berks; DELIVERED IN THE UNITARIAN CHAPEL, KENDAL, On AUGUST 2ist, 1881, And Published at the request of the Congregation. §Unl)al: Printed by Bateman and Hewitson, StrAmongate. Price Twopence. �liM irillirt I t �“ WHY I BECAME A UNITARIAN.” ■“ The hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and truth ; for such doth the Father seek to be his worshippers. God is a spirit, and they that worship him must worship in spirit and truth. ” Johniv., 23, 24. H Y I became a Unitarian ?” I will endeavour to reply to that question, as well as I can, in a single discourse. By the word Unitarian I designate a Theist in the line of the Hebrew and Christian tradition. There are Evangelical Theists, Roman Catholic Theists, Mahomedan Theists; there are Theists of various Sects, Religions, and Schools of Thought; there are Poly-theists, Trinitarian Theists, Christian Theists. Speaking accurately and philosophically, I am a Cosmic-Theist. I am a Theist — i.e. I believe that there is Divine Thought pervading and guiding the universe—that Divine Thought we call Theos—God. I adore God, I revere God, I trust in God, the Supreme Power of the Universe; I hope in God, the Supreme Beneficence; I trustfully hold filial spiritual communion with God, the paternal, fostering soul of the universe. Thus I am a Theist. I am a Cosmic Theist. The word cosmic is the adjective of the Greek word cosmos, which means the totality—the universal whole as a progressive unity. The word implies an orderly progression ; a combined, continuous unity — always growing, always one. Unity betwixt the past and the present. Unity under one thought, one law. Unity and growth —• �6 Why I became a Unitarian. oneness and development in the past, the present, and the future. I am a Cosmic Theist. I adore God, the soul of this ever developing cosmos, the fostering spirit of this one ever growing totality to which we belong. Thus my religion is as universal as the universe. But to descend from the universe to this little planet, and to the race of man, the richest in endow­ ments upon this earth. I believe in the unity of mankind—that all men, everywhere, are sons of God; i.e. are in spiritual com­ munion with God, loved by God, cared for by God, and to be for ever cared for by God and loved by Him. Thus I believe in the unity between God and man. I believe in the unity between man and man. A unity, no sect, or church, or priesthood, or oppression, or anathema can destroy. I believe in the unity between God and nature—the unity between nature and man. I believe in the unity of all religions and sects and nationalities, for all are embraced in the bosom of universal humanity. I believe in the unity existing between the past and the present and the future—collectively and individually. Thus I believe in the one-ness, the unity of effects throughout the entire duration of each individual life, in this and in every future life; in the unity of action; the unity of cause and effect; that our actions, whether evil or good, foolish or wise, must ever, as part of the whole, necessarily effect our future. Thus I believe in the the unity of the law of retribution. Seeing everywhere the unity of the divine plans, the unity of the divine thought, I believe in the future development of this same unity of plan. I can see God in His effects, in his mode of work­ ing, in the unity of his thought; but I cannot define, or explain, or understand God’s nature, essence, or mode of being. �Why I became a Unitarian. 7 When I was a Roman Catholic I accepted, upon the authority of the Church, the creeds explaining God, and declaring that besides the Paternal Spirit, there are two other Gods, one called Jesus Christ, and the other called the Holy Ghost. When, during the years 1868, 1869, and 1870, there arose the grave deliberation within the Roman Catholic Church as to where the infallible power exists—whether in the episcopate dispersed or collected —whether in all the faithful, or whether only in the Bishops combined with the Pope, or whether in the Pope alone—I gradually and reluctantly arrived at the conviction that infallibility does not exist anywhere amongst men. That all knowledge grows. That religious knowledge—that the knowledge of God’s laws, like all other knowledge, grows—that growth greatly dependent upon our earnestness in the pursuit of knowledge. That to make a creed and fix it as an unmovable law to bind successive generations of teachers and re­ ligionists, is a violation of the spiritual law of our being. That liberty in religion is as essential as liberty in science and in art—that it must grow like the flowers, with light, and warmth, and space. Thus, as a Cosmic Theist, I perceived that I must worship God in isolation, unless I could find worship­ pers who accept liberty and growth as essential con­ ditions of their union and co-operation. The infallibility of the Bible was as clearly a fiction as the infallibility of the Pope. The books of the Bible are valuable because they record not stagnation but growth—growth through many changing forms of error interwoven with all portions of that book. To pervert the Bible into an immovable creed, would be to subvert truth and the nature of things. To pervert any great teacher into a final and infallible �8 Why I became a Unitarian. teacher, would be to insult his memory—and from having been a blessed helper to degrade him into a perpetual obstructor. I could be the loving and faithful disciple of Christ and of St. Paul in the spiritual truths they taught and illustrated, but not in the mistakes which they inherited or transmitted as men. With such convictions, where could I find places of worship based on principles essentially true, and sure to contain numerous sympathetic souls? All the churches and sects, whether Roman, Anglican, Presbyterian, Wesleyan, Evangelical—not to name other smaller sects—impose upon their teachers condi­ tions essentially opposed to the Divine law of growth. They require of them an interior reception of state­ ments as to religions and morals; nay, also as to the origin of the world and of man, and command them to harmonise their teachings and devotions to state­ ments in many ways erroneous. The people who attend such ministrations are in many cases formally committed to the profession of antiquated and some­ times injurious errors. When not formally committed, they are substantially committed by acquiescence under teachers bound, not only to the maintenance of errors, but a groundwork of faith essentially false, opposed to God’s conspicuous plan in the order of nature. When Milton had at length abandoned the popular religious views of his countrymen, he found no place of worship wherein he could honestly adore God, and feeling how odious is hypocrisy, above all things in religious matters, he worshipped in his own house. Must such be my alternative? Happily for myself not so. After Milton’s death, chapels were founded at various times and places, wherein no conditions, no form of creed, was imposed on minister or con­ gregation. The trust deeds of those chapels declared �Why I became a Unitarian. 9 them to exist “ for the worship of God; ” and some­ times the clause was added—“ for the use of Protestant dissenters.” No book, no creed, no teacher, no man being superadded to neutralise and violate the law of development, of growth. They could develope or deteriorate, they could progress, they could retrogade, they could perish. It was the law of nature, and therefore divine in essential principles. The congre­ gations worshipping in these unfettered chapels, passed through many phases. The most noticeable fact is that about 300 of them, whilst commencing as orthodox Trinitarian, gradually rose into Arianism, then semi-Arianism, then Socinianism, then Unitarianism. Thus I found existing in my country some 300 congregations, still quite un­ fettered, both as to minister and people; but at the present time holding, in different phases, the Unitarian Theology. Amongst them there were, I perceived, various opinions as to the person and office of Christ, as to the supernatural or natural position of Christ, of Christianity, of the Bible; but I found them for the most part loyally and gratefully pursuing the central truth of their origin and co-operation, as worshippers of God, free to follow their reason, their consciences, and the holy law of Cosmic growth. Therein I re­ cognised little groups of worshippers amongst whom I could find a religious home. My philosophic opinions as to cosmic growth, cosmic unity, cosmic law, cosmic Theism, might be only held by a few of those worshippers here and there, but I perceived that my own philosophic con­ victions harmonised with the essential principles on which those religious societies were founded. But negation of error is a supremely important feature of truth, and I perceived that those religious societies, though free in origin and in existence, and as unfettered by creed now as ever—yet, for the time �io Why I became a Unitarian. being, were composed of worshippers whose negations were my own—and in consequence of the theology generally flourishing among them, and therefore guiding the free election of their minister, they were popularly called “ Unitarian Chapels,” and their ministers, “ Unitarian Ministers.” I perceived that whilst the word “ Unitarian,” by popular parlance common to them all, covered many shades of divergence, yet there were negations of great import­ ance beneficially and powerfully proclaimed by them all—the very promulgation by them of those negations of necessity emphasized great and universal truths. Their denial of the justice of the imposition of creeds on others, and on our successors, made them the brave defenders of mental liberty. But even that great fundamental principle would not have justified me conscientiously or made me feel peacefully happy in sharing their worship, unless adequately sympathising with their negations—and their negations were my own. They denied the deity of Christ, they denied the personality of the Holy Ghost, and therefore they denied the Trinity. They denied the dogma of universal human corruption, of damnation in an eternal hell, of priestly castes, of priestly absolution, of sacramental efficacy. They denied the popular dogma of atonement by Christ’s blood, and the scheme of redemption based upon that figment. Thus, their very negations constituted them the only consistent maintainers of the paternal char­ acter of God, and the fraternal equality of man. Their negation of creeds, as essential to God’s favour, constituted them the special maintainers of the uni­ versal truth, that righteousness is the true test, that good men exist in all religions, that whilst opinions must vary in consequence of the various degrees of mental growth and knowledge, sincerity to erroneous convictions can exist in the most opposing sects—a �Why I became a Unitarian. II truly humane negation, and consequent truth; for persons guided by it, proclaim not merely tolerance toward those holding error, but perfect liberty, nay honour to them when sincere and otherwise good. Lastly, though I saw many Unitarians according to the Bible and to Christ a position I deemed exaggerated and erroneous, yet even with them I perceived an essen­ tial bond of unity and agreement, inasmuch as they always claimed for conscience and reason the mental and moral supremacy over life and action. So I was not forced to suffer the spiritual disadvantages of religious isolation, for I could honestly and happily find amongst Unitarian worshippers a religious home, and the benefits of religious sympathy, and the consolations of collective religious worship. And during eleven years I have never regretted my choice. Religious fellowship is always a blessing to oneself, but it is moreover a benefit to others, to be enabled to invite their attention to communities of worshippers wherein the most philosophic and independent thinker can co-operate without an hypocrisy and without an equivocation—to chapels wherein children are taught moral and sacred lessons, but always in harmony with the highest attained truth—to chapels wherein the various epochs of life and of its close, are sanctified by acts of devotion not founded on the mythological or interwoven with the superstitious. Let not susceptible and timid souls apprehend in a position so dignified and philosophic, a painful sever­ ance from all the hallowed associations and memories of the past. We believe in the evolution of religion, not in the destruction of its substance. The Unitarian Chapel is in the venerable line of the Christian tradi­ tion, and the halo of ancient pieties surround it. Whilst appreciating the Sacred Books of other religions, we always read at our religious services from �12 Why I became a Unitarian. the Sacred Books, Jewish and Christian, whence our higher faith has been evolved. If we reject the patristic dogma of the Trinity, let it be remembered that the word Trinity nowhere exists in the Bible. That the only passage in the New Testament wherein it was taught (i John v. 7) has been ignomiously cast out of the revised version as a deliberate fraud. If we reject the personality of the Holy Ghost, and declare that the “ Holy Spirit ” is an operation not a person, let it be remembered that the orthodox dogma is nowhere affirmed in our Sacred Books. If we reject the dogma of the deity of Christ, we therein follow Christ, his Apostles, and his mother, the declarations of his friends and of his enemies. Christ said, “ To sit on my right hand and on my left is not mine to give11 come not to do my own will but the will of him that sent me,— I do nothing of myself; ” “ Of that day knoweth no man, nor the angels, neither the son, but my Father only “The Father is greater than I;” “ I go to my God, and your God; ” “ Remove from me this cup, never­ theless not what I will but what Thou wilt; ” “ My doctrine is not mine, but His that sent me; ” “I seek not my own glory, but I honour my Father.” He was a baby, suckled and nursed, he was a little boy, was obedient to his parents, was taught and was scolded by them. He was tempted, he prayed to God, gave thanks to God, resigned himself to God, was obedient to God. He taught his disciples to pray to God, not even naming him. At the approach of death he exclaimed, “ My God, my God why hast thou forsaken me.” He would not even allow himself to be called “ good,” declaring that epithet to befit only God. His mother speaks of herself and Joseph her husband as his parents, his father and his mother. The revised version has, in obedience to ancient MSS., substituted “Father” for “Joseph,” thus emphasizing �Why I became a Unitarian. 13 the relationship. All the language and actions directed to Jesus and adopted by him, harmonize with his position as the human born Messiah, never with the possibility of his being God. The conduct of his mother, brothers, disciples, and female friends after his death, do not bear a trace of any notion entertained that their deceased relative and friend was God. The first utterances of disciples proclaiming the new religion emphatically speak of Jesus as a “ man approved of God.” Let anyone read the speeches of St. Stephen, at his martyrdom, of St. Peter, at the first Pentecost, of St. Paul, at Athens, and judge whether it is credible that those men believed in the Deity of Christ, in atonement from hell by his blood, in the patristic and Evangelical scheme of redemption. Christ is spoken of as having been criminally “ murdered.” If that “ murder ” had not been committed, would mankind have been lost in hell ? During the last 100 years, Unitarian scholars have been proving that the few stray passages adduced to suggest the Deity of Christ, disappear as evidential: some are spurious, some are mistranslations, some are perverted by punctuation, some have words changed or interpolated, some are merely Judaic expressions suitable to the Messiah, or Platonic expressions applied by the contemporaneous Jew Philo to any great man. Thus Dr. Doddridge declared that the text on which he rested the Deity of Christ, and which kept him from embracing the Uni­ tarian Theology, was Rev. i, 11, wherein the expres­ sion, “ I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last,” is applied to Christ In the revised version, the text drops out as spurious, it is only to be found in passages wherein God the Father is spoken of. In 1 Tim. iv. 8, “ God,” as applied to Christ, becomes “ he who was manifested in the flesh.” Acts xx, 28, “ Church of God ” becomes, in marginal reading, “ Church of the Lord.” Jude 4, 11 Denying the only Lord God,” be- �14 Why I became a Unitarian. comes “Denying our only Master.” Jude 29, “To the only wise God our Saviour,” becomes “To the only God our Saviour, through Jesus Christ be glory.” Similarly such passages as Rom. ix. 5, Phil. ii. 6, lose in the revised version any evidential bearing upon the Deity of Christ. Unitarian scholarship has triumphed almost all along the line, and in a few more years, it will be found that the much abused Unitarian Theologians are correct in the matters not yet con­ ceded. Already the word “ atonement ” drops out of the New Testament in its revision; and the passages alluding to the shedding of Christ’s blood assume now an aspect not calculated to maintain the popular dogma. Three hundred years ago it was thought shocking, when Luther denied to St. Paul the authorship of the Epistle to the Hebrews, and attributed it to Apollos. Now no scholar of note attributes that epistle to the Apostle; and most critics urge that “St. John’s Gospel” was written, not by an Apostle, but as late as a.d. 135-150, probably by John of Ephesus. If Christ’s body had been (as some Unitarians in common with our orthodox brethren suppose) mir­ aculously raised from the tomb and lifted up to heaven, it would no more prove his Deity, than when similar incidents were attributed to Elias and others; but it is deserving of notice that the revised version suggests that the very portions of the Gospel narrating Christ’s ascension are spurious, are interpolations. However, let us turn from technical controversies to the ever unfolding teaching of the universe and of humanity. Let us realise the great precepts of Christ, “ the love of God and the love of man; ” let us realise his thought that “ our neighbour ” is not merely our countryman or co-religionist, but our brother, man everywhere, whether Roman Catholic or Atheist, Moslem or Zulu, Buddhist or Evangelical, Unitarian or Brahmin, Agnostic or Jew. “Be good and do �Why I became a Unitarian. 15 good; ” “ advance human knowledge; ” “ promote human liberty; ” “ foster human happiness.” Such great human principles I found in the front among the Unitarian free churches, and after eleven years I can still cordially repeat the expression I uttered regarding them when first I sought amidst their friendly fellowship the privileges of religious worship: — After long and deep thought, study, prayer, and counsel, I decided that it would be impossible for me honestly to continue to act as a priest. The infallibility of the Pope, and, of the Scriptures, alike, I question, and the dogmas resting solely on either of those authorities, I am not able on that account to admit. It is my desire to unite with others, and to assist them in the worship of God, and in the practice of the two-fold precepts of charity, unfettered by adhesion on either side, to anything, beyond those great fundamental principles as presented to us by Jesus Christ. Having understood that those who are commonly called Unitarians, Free Christians, or Christian Theists, thus agree in the liberty inspired by self-diffidence, humility, and charity, to carry on the worship of God, without sectarian requirements or sectarian opposition ; that they possess a simple but not vulgar worship, a high standard of virtue, intelligence, and integrity; and these after the Christian type, moulded by the Christian traditions, and edified by the sacred Scriptures ; holding the spirit taught by Jesus Christ, and the great thoughts by virtue of which he built up the ruins of the moral world ; and yet not enforcing the reception of complicated dogmas as a necessity, or accounting their rejection a crime : a communion of Christian worshippers, bound loosely together, and yet by the force of great principles enabled quietly to maintain their position, to exercise an influence elevating and not unimportant, and to present religion under an aspect which thoughtful men can accept without latent scepticism, and earnest men without the aberrations of superstition, or the abjectness of mental servi­ tude to another—such approved itself to my judgment, and commended itself to my sympathy. With those religionists possessing no creed but God and Liberty, Benevolence and Progress, you can think and learn and be mentally free, and yet enjoy the �16 Why I became a Unitarian. blessings of religious communion with your fellowmen. Then religion will be a joy and not an anathema, an inspiration, not a bond. It will stimulate to all forms of human knowledge, to all the beneficence of human progress. It will enable you to realize that law is a growth, that right and wrong exist in the nature of things—that there is one supreme virtue—the effort to promote happiness ; one supreme sin—selfishness. Let the mythologies go—we will serve them no more—we will rise out of sectarian creeds into humanity, and only be anxious during this short life to love and to serve others, and to strive to make them wiser and happier. —Amen. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Victorian Blogging Description An account of the resource A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library &amp; Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Conway Hall Library & Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Conway Hall Ethical Society Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Pamphlet Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Why I became a Unitarian: a discourse ... delivered in the Unitarian Chapel, Kendal, on August 21st, 1881 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Suffield, Robert Rodolph Description An account of the resource Place of publication: Kendal Collation: 16 p. ; 18 cm. Notes: "Published at the request of the Congregation". [Title page]. Part of Morris Misc. Tracts 4. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Bateman and Hewitson Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1893 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context G4866 Subject The topic of the resource Unitarianism Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (</span>Why I became a Unitarian: a discourse ... delivered in the Unitarian Chapel, Kendal, on August 21st, 1881<span>), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Language A language of the resource English Unitarianism https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/ff67356072660d863e0ae6b8c72ccb6d.pdf?Expires=1773878400&Signature=KF4HMh1lRL0ho6C%7E7mhnTdoKJi5CbC5d1fbp%7EMySk%7EeM3kVVUCLB4OmUn5DVM2ANDgkd%7EnImciML%7EM5t-mw7UIilQCE4h-akACgLCdSnsgXybb0PxSumEabtCTYngXeaAmplRCGpkPWmfOKj1Xn8%7ENblWFtzX18fhTn2PS59mwF7FNEBHB0UqY1PiSed9WBHhTSBm6AhZGfM5OhCaYzrLPJKOhcJ7LfSrvr5HQwAio4bhJqvpq%7E9RFUYCcLqA98GEkVvN55mrT2gpkyKI1PnWq4ZmntmhaiLKsEJBLnW%7EWAgL7-coEpEzz6sFk0w0BKsd5SZSX9bGdYk9OhrsxU9GQ__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM 41bb539df3694305f08d7bef68b64250 PDF Text Text How and Why lam a Unitarian. A LECTURE BY J. FREDERICK SMITH, Minister of the 1 1 u Elder Yard Chapel, Chesterfield, (Late of the Baptist Chapel, George-Street, Hull,') Delivered in the Bowlalley-Lane Chapel, Hull, On Sunday Evening, April 12th, 1874. ..... '. ------- J-------- , I HULL: Sold by J. S. Harrison, Bookseller, 48, Eowgate ; And at the Chapel Vestry. CHESTERFIELD : Sold by J. Toplis, “ Courier” Office, High-Street. 1874 Jj’rice Sixpence. I �J �How and Why I am a Unitarian. A question very analogous to that we have to consider to-night is, How and Why am I a Christian ? The two questions are alike in several respects. It is exceedingly rare that any number of thoughtful persons agree in their definition of what Christianity is. The name Christian is an old historic name of very wide and very various signifi­ cance. It can be borne by religious people of very dis­ similar, or even of opposite,' theological and moral ten­ dencies. It follows from the compass of the name Christian, that men call themselves Christians for reasons as various as the senses in which they appropriate the name. Those amongst them who are not charitably dis­ posed, deny to the larger number of their would-be brothers the right to use the distinction. The charitable con­ fess amongst themselves that no definition of Christianity, t and no classification of the only valid reasons for professing •it ought to be attempted. Our reasons for being Christians are very personal as well as our definition of what con­ stitutes a Christian. It is not surprising, therefore, to find that not a few minds prefer greatly to answer the question, How and Why am I a Christian ? not directly and ex­ plicitly, but indirectly and implicitly. They prefer not to define Christianity or to formulate the reasons of their ad­ �4 herence to it: a reply to the question more congenial to their ideas and feelings would be found by an examination of some of the living elements of Christianity and of their own spiritual necessities. They would thus avoid much un­ profitable and repulsive historical and dogmatic discussion, while at the same time they would probably come much nearer the real heart and true import of the question. The question proposed by my lecture, How and Why I am a Unitarian ? appears to me to be in precisely the same case. We most of us know many senses in which we are not Unitarians. Some people are Unitarians because the Bible they think teaches Unitarianism : but certainly I should be a Unitarian if the Bible had been an earlier edition of Calvin’s Institutes. Some people are Unitarians because they hold that the doctrine of the Divine Unity is the doctrine of the standing or falling church ; yet I am of those who were I a Manichean or Zoroastrian on this head, should still class myself with the bearers of the Unitarian name. Like the word Christian, it is a historic name with no precise dogmatic import, but on the contrary of a wide popular meaning, including amongst its bearers men of very unlike, often of opposite, feelings and views on very im­ portant topics. I will ask you, therefore, to permit me to deal indirectly and implicitly with the question before us rather than by the method of strict definition and formal proof. This method will, I believe, enable us to come upon what are to many amongst us the really valid reasons for belonging to churches which are commonly described as Unitarian. The substance of the answer to the question before us which I have to return to-night is this : As a religious man I stand in great need of certain assistance from religious association ; this assistance is refused by the churches which are founded upon authority, but is at least to some extent �5 supplied by the Unitarian or Free Churches which acknow­ ledge no higher authority than the individual reason and conscience. A man’s religion is that which he most sacredly loves and seeks: his profoundest desires, his best and most in­ vincible tendencies, the deepest springs of his best feelings, constitute his religion. Now, some amongst us cannot overcome, and dare not now attempt to overcome, the deep desire to come into the right relation and attitude towards all that is not ourselves—God, Man, Nature ; to use and cultivate fully all that is ourselves—the powers' of our nature ; and to fulfil the duties that arise from our consti­ tution and our relation to things beyond ourselves. The religious association that will help us to attain this attitude towards what is without and to use and perfect what is within, is an association that feeds and sustains our religious life : it will be our church, even if it renders but imperfect help.' On the other hand, the association that throws itself in the way of our deep longing in these respects comes into collision with our religion, retards and hinders what we count the highest and holiest attainment. Let me explain a little more fully the nature of this deep religious necessity. Our acquaintance with Nature is at present com­ paratively slight; but it is sufficient to call forth admira­ tion, wonder, and gladness, mingled with fear and reserve. Our attitude towards her must be one of reverent enquiry ; at present we cannot look upon all her ways with satis­ faction. At times we could almost worship her, but not infrequently we are tempted to curse her. Now and here she is a loving mother to her children ; but then and there she is a cruel step-mother. We know her at present as a being half-divine and half-demonic. Our attitude towards her is a mixture of confidence and dread, while we wait to �6 know more. The church that condemns this attitude by authority, in some form or other, not showing us why we ought to abandon it, cannot help us. We know that we must respect Nature and study her assiduously ; and we ask for aid to maintain, in the face of strong temptation to the contrary, this attitude of respect and enquiry, until fuller knowledge may exhaust the revelation and sanction a new at-titude. Our knowledge of 'Man shares the imperfection of our knowledge of Nature. Great questions upon which ancient churches had formal and final dogmas have of late been re­ opened, and many of them answered anew, and in the very teeth of the received authoritative answers. I refer to such enquiries as those into the origin of man, the unity of man­ kind, the mental, moral, and religious endowments of the various races of mankind, the history of religious and of moral ideas. The attitude we feel bound to take up in re­ ference to Man with such questions as these still open, is one of profound interest mingled with reserve and eager enquiry. Not only shall we feel unable to attach any value to an authoritative dictum as to man’s history and nature, but we shall feel compelled to reject any one-sided theory which will not consider all the facts known, and any final dogma which will not acknowledge that we are at present but just commencing an acquaintance with the facts. How could a church assist us in one of the profoundest instincts of our hearts—to study mankind, if she opposed that study, either by laying down a theory which rendered it un­ necessary, or by condemning some of the established con­ clusions of science? Just as our present knowledge of Nature and of Man is deficient, so our faith in God waits for completion and greater strength. At present our faith is sufficient to produce adoration and trust, but it stands in great need of accessions , �7 both to its fulness and vigour. Our theology is our most precious treasure, but its jewels are yet uncut and its gold is u,ncoined. We feel rich in possession of it, and would die rather than resign it, yet we cannot define it. ' Our attitude towards God is that of profound reverence and trust, which does not preclude but rather commands earnest enquiry. How could that church assist us religiously that requires the acceptance of final views of the nature and character of God ? Let us now turn for a moment to those duties that arise from the possession of personal endowments and the relation we sustain to God and Nature and each other. Xhey give rise to great religious necessities which the true church ought to satisfy to some degree. As men we are endowed with powers of thought and feeling, and the means of using them for ourselves and others have been put within our reach. These are all talents that must be employed and not left to lie idle. If we take the intellect, we may observe that one of the deepest rooted and most ineradicable sins of our nature is love of ease, which shows itself especially in our dislike of hard and continuous thinking. Another sin is often associated with this of intellectual idleness: it is the sin of indulging ourselves in pleasant theories and beliefs: a fatal facility in acquiring and tenacity in holding notions that make u's happy, with the corresponding slowness to receive any idea that is unpleasant. These two sins together are the evil genius of the intellect: they are the fruitful source of moral and mental ruin in innumerable cases. And the man who is at all alive to the strength of the temptation that will assail him from this quarter earnestly seeks help from those who are stronger and more faithful to the God who gave them reason than he himself is. He seeks a church that will drive him to think when thought is �8 wearisome and when it leads to painful results. His church must be no bulwark of authority for the faint­ hearted who are afraid of thought, no retreat for the weary who are tired of thought, and least of all a. castle of in­ dolence for the idle who will not think. The culture of our emotions is not of less importance than the culture of our intellects. Our emotions branch off into several directions. They are directed towards our fellow creatures who can appreciate and return them, towards objects of beauty and grandeur, or towards what is right and noble in conduct. Now, whether they take the form of affection, or conscience, or taste, they are in all cases great endowments capable of wide and fruitful cul­ ture. All three forms are essential parts of our nature, neither of them can remain in neglect without serious in­ jury to our character and manhood. Whenever one of them has been allowed to usurp the place of the rest, individuals, and society have greatly suffered. Conscience must not frown down the love of beauty; the love of beauty must not proceed to sacrifice the sanctity and chastity of affec­ tion ; nor may affection disregard the rights of conscience and pleasures of taste. They are all instincts and powers which the reverent man will fear to slight; they all deliver a revelation of higher things when their language is under­ stood ; their development is the growth of the individual and the wealth of society. But it is hard to keep the balance between such closely allied powers quite true ; and here, as everywhere, the root-evil of idleness bears poisonous fruit. Who will help us to train and cultivate our emotions with wisdom and due care ? The church that will recognise some of them only, that will condemn others, and destroy the harmony between them by over-estimating more, is not the church we need. Within ourselves there is enough of this unwisdom : we seek those who will help us to get rid of it. �9 ' These powers of intellect and feeling have been put v into the hands of creatures who can use them for their own and other’s good. We have endowments, and we must apply them. This application of them is attended with great difficulty. It is a difficult matter to know what is good for ourselves and others ; and when we know, it is difficult to do. All about us we see men pursuing wrong courses of action. Much of the benevolent conduct of men * is weak, twisted, whimsical; it lacks rationality and thorough usefulness. Still more is our conduct when directed to our own interests devoid of reasonableness and adaptation : we are ignorant of what we really want; we are led by impulse or by custom : our manners and habits, our pursuits add occupations, our acquaintance and friends, are largely deter­ mined by accident and whim. We call aloud to the wise and strong for help to assist us in attaining right, rational, and noble conduct. Our church must be composed of souls that have at least some help to render in this our need. We now turn from a brief review of some of the necessities which a church must satisfy to some extent if it can be a church to us, to enquire which of the churches around us meets our wants. Now, there is one vital dis­ tinction which will divide the whole of the churches around us into two separate classes, and leave us free to disregard i the well nigh innumerable minor distinctions amongst them. This distinction is that of authority or private judgment ; and it gives us two groups of churches ; on the one hand, the Roman Catholic and Orthodox Protestant Churches, and, on the other, the Undogmatic Free Churches. Roman Catholic and Orthodox Protestants are alike in this, that they fall back as their last resource upon some authority outside the individual reason and conscience, either upon a church or a book. The Undogrqatic Free Churches, whether called Unitarian,, Free Christian, Theistic, or by no name at �IO all, agree in this, that higher than any authority without is the living, personal judge within. Neglecting the less fundamental differences that distinguish them, this common characteristic of Rome and the Reformed Churches justifies us in classifying them all together so far as regards the requirements we put upon our church. All these churches of authority at some stage or other obstruct enquiry and growth by the introduction of some authoritative and final doctrine or model : here it may be a creed, there a book ; here a canonised saint, there a re­ ligious founder; but the difference of form makes no essential difference in the reality: an authoritative dogma limits enquiry, and an authoritative life limits personal and social development. The holiest necessity of our nature is to enquire in all directions until our intellect is satisfied ; to cultivate and train all our faculties and emotions without restraint until they find their true rest in perfection and full activity ; and to pursue any course of conduct whatsoever that our reason and conscience may command. But these churches meet us at some critical point of our intellectual enquiries with dogmas and theories which have ultimately no other claim to be received than the supposed infallibility of their propouriders. So far from assisting us to maintain perfect loyalty to reason and intelligence, and aiding us to overcome thebesetting sins of idleness and selfish wilfulness in thinking, they either forbid the exercise of the intellect upon all subjects, or they concede its unavoidable demands suspiciously and grudgingly. Not less do they impose restraints upon the full and free development of human nature. Their ideal of humanity was conceived in an un­ cultivated and decrepid age : it lacks essential elements of a full, rounded manhood ; many excresences and deformities cling to it. Their ideal of society is equally imperfect, their kingdom of heaven becoming every age less adapted for re- �II velation upon the earth. Through all history the social and political instincts of the best citizen have met with ob­ structiveness rather than assistance from these churches. They have assiduously cultivated some of the virtues of the good citizen, such as submission to authority, content­ ment under suffering, but upon other and still more essential virtues, such as independence, resistance to injustice, love of enquiry, they have put their bann. And some of the vices that have weakened society, such as improvidence, uncharitableness, untruthfulness, have been sometimes in­ directly fostered at others. openly sanctioned as divine. This authoritative and final model of manhood and society is commonly imposed by these churches either as the in­ fallible teaching or the perfect model of life granted to men at the commencement of our era. Having an ideal of man and society that descends from the remote past when both men and society were in important respects unlike what they now are,, it can hardly be expected of these churches that they should be able either to wisely direct or morally strengthen the conduct of the individual-^vho is seeking counsel and support. They do not really know what in our day is the one thing need­ ful ; nor if they knew would their theory of human nature permit them to supply the real strength and motive that are required. The lives that have been formed, and the conduct that has been directed by them, have not been of ' the type that we can to-day pronounce exemplary. The lives of priests and ecclesiastics may be taken as indicative of the real nature and tendency of ecclesiastical character and aims. These lives are devoted enough, but the devo­ tion is to wrong objects, and is not distinguished for its sanity and fair, strong manliness. The course of conduct and prevailing characteristics of the chosen saints of all these churches have been deformed more or less by inhuman �12 other-worldliness, and want of clear intellectual sanity and vigour. The lives of St. Augustine, St. Francis of Assisi, Luther, Calvin, John Wesley, cannot be considered as model and complete lives by those who know how great Heathen have lived and what Shakespeare and Goethe have taught. They are the lives of saints protesting against nature rather than conforming to her highest requirements. The work they accomplished needed to be done, but their fitness to do it rendered them unfit to become models of human character. Their time was out of joint, and they were born to set it right: but their ability to do this made them more unfit than a Hamlet to represent human nature generally. Without doubt in a sick and despairing age, their course of conduct and character had great charms for the hopeless; yet we have more and stronger faith than to believe that the wants of a diseased period of human life are the normal wants of mankind, or that the regimen of sick men should be adopted as the law of their lives by those who are whole. Memento mori is for some few a needful sermon, but the greater and more general need of men is to hear the admonition, Memento vivere ! An enquirer for a church who brings with him such demands as we have been considering, will not, therefore, find his church in this first class of authoritative com­ munities. He will find that they have determined for him another attitude towards nature, man, and God, than that which he holds to be the only true and reverent one ; that they have laid their bann upon conduct and pursuits which are to him essential parts of his religion ; that they present i commands for his obedience and examples for his imitation which he must deem to lack authority, and to be either useless or injurious. Turning his face from Catholicism and Orthodox Protestantism, he will come to the few Free Undogmatic Churches that are around him, with the hope �13 of finding there help amidst his struggles after a higher life. Not that amongst the millions who belong nominally to these churches of authority, there are not thousands who are seeking just what he seeks : this he is happy to believe, and thankful to know personally some of them. It is the legitimate and prevailing tendency and influence of the churches only which he must pronounce opposed tawhat he thinks is best and holiest. The Undogmatic Free Churches to which we now turn, have this characteristic in common, that they acknowledge no external authority as entitled to command the opinions or the conduct of others. They propose to no one any final and unalterable views of nature, man, and God; they set up no absolute 'ideal of manhood, which all men every­ where, and in all ages, are tp acknowledge as divine. They do not map out with unalterable lines the course of any man’s pilgrimage to heaven. They know nothing of eternal plans and schemes of salvation. They rather hold that the beginning of salvation and holiness is in the individual’s 'practical recognition of the responsibility that is laid upon him to think for himself, to shape his own con­ duct, and to cultivate any power God has given him. On this point they all speak with fervour and give no uncertain sound ; but on the great mass of philosophical and theolo­ gical dogmas their opinion is divided and uncertain. They urge upon men by precept and personal influence that their holiest duty is to think, and to think earnestly and man­ fully ; to make the best use they can of any faculty they possess, training it to its highest perfection ; and to live a life as far removed from an ignoble and selfish worldliness as from the pursuit of irrational and useless projects. On minor points these churches differ greatly amongst themselves. They have no common name. They are called Unitarian, Free'Christian, Theistic; and some of �14 them have no name at all. In most cases the name is not a dogmatic description, but merely a .convenient and customary appellation.. This, I take it, is the case with the name Unitarian. Our chapels are called Unitarian Chapels, and our ministers Unitarian Ministers, not be­ cause we care particularly whether Trinitarian arithmetic is correct or incorrect. We found our separation from ortho­ dox Christianity upon a principle and not upon a dogma, that principle being independence of external authority. Again, these churches have no organisation which unites them into one ecclesiastical body. They are the most purely congregational of all congregational churches. There is not even a common association that unites them all. This leaves each separate congregation absolutely free to pursue its own line of thought, and to develope its own type of character, and follow its own tendencies to action. They differ in still more important respects. The position which they assign to the Bible amongst books, and to Jesus Christ amongst men, are very various. While they agree in ascribing superiority to the Bible and to Jesus only to the extent to which their reason is convinced, the measure of this superiority is of a very varying scale. Some would rank the Bible above all literatures, while others put but a low value upon some of its books, and would not place any of them highest in human literature. So, too, with respect to Jesus. His character and work are very variously estimated. To not a few He is a son of God as no other man has been, while there are others who consider Him as but one amongst other greatest religious leaders. ' Not less undogmatic are these churches with respect to theology proper, or the doctrine of God. They have no formulated statement of their faith on this great article. Each enquirer is left free to form his own ideas of God. �i5 If his tendencies are towards a pure theism, he will find fellow believers ; if he shrinks from ascribing human attri­ butes to the Infinite, he will find that he is by no means alone. And whether his religious associates agree with him in his theology or not, they will urge him to be true to his own light and proclivities. Based upon this great principle of free unfettered en­ quiry, these churches also leave their members free to cul­ tivate their own powers as they deem wise, and to put forth their energies in whatever direction and to whatever pur­ pose they think useful. The influences of these free societies may feed the springs of character and activity, but they do not force the streams to flow in any prescribed channels. Special ecclesiastical work is not cut out for their members as the only or chief work of God. They do not recognise the distinction between the church and the con­ gregation, and they dare not call any human avocation or pursuit unholy and profane. They wish to enable men to do with all the might of religious fervour whatsoever their hands find to do. All days are holy days, all work is worship, all earnest effort is prayer and praise, every service of our kind is a consecrated ministry, every legiti­ mate act of nature is an act of grace. Thus members of these congregations are left as free'to act for themselves as to think for themselves; they may form their own ideal of manhood as well as their own theology; they may choose any spot on God’s earth as their field of labour, and cul­ tivate it with what means and in what manner they think best. Their religious associates do not command them what to do, but simply to do what they do well. Based upon this great principle of individual freedom and responsibility, and possessing this practical breadth and divergency of ideas and aims, these churches appear to me to present religious association in a form which may �be made really and truly helpful. A small number of souls possessed with the deep religious desire to stand right with God, nature, their fellow creatures, and themselves, will not be hindered by the constitution of such free associations ; and the one religious bond that binds them together supplies the positive force which will make them mutually helpful. The mere fact of association upon such a basis gives im­ mense strength to each member of it. The moment I know that those with whom I meet are possessed with the same sacred open-minded desire as myself to stand right with themselves and God, my own desire has acquired a vast accession of strength and support. The connexion with a society of men who are seeking the good and the true sus­ tains us amidst the temptations of life. And these societies not only admit but seek out earnest and fearless preachers of whatever truth has been laid upon their hearts as genuine and of worth. If a man has anything to say, and can say it plainly, he will be not only patiently but gladly heard. Thus the simple but powerful elements of all* helpful association are. to be found in these churches : they have the sympathy of the like-minded and the animating and enlightening word of the speaker. These elements were the only essential conditions of that little church in Galilee, of another later at Mecca, and of one earlier than either on the banks of the Ganges. While the churches of Buddha, Jesus, and Mohammed, were simple associations of like-minded men with a speaker at their head, they were living sources of strength and inspiration to their members ; when they had hardened into ecclesiastical organisations, they became the source of bondage and weakness. Their simplicity was their strength. So is it with these Free Congregations. They have no organisation beyond the simplest arrangement for securing a chapel and the few services connected with it. The whole influence for good. �17 of the association is to come from the simple source of personal communion and alliance ‘in devotional acts and holy desires, and the exhortation of a brother man. It seems to me that these societies contain constitu­ tionally neither too much nor too little to render the assis­ tance which we have seen to be requisite. Of course I know well that many of them fall miserably short of what they ought to be. Some of them are untrue to the name they bear and the very principles upon which they are founded. But the fault lies in the particular exceptions themselves, not in the principles upon which they were established ; and the generality of them are, I believe, in fact, as well as in name, vehicles of vast moral and religious assistance to those who are connected with them. And, what is of great importance, these churches are so constituted, that they are capable of adaptation to new needs and of indefinite improvement. They can be made whatever the members who compose them desire to make them. Everything about them is flexi­ ble and expansive. Their past history has been one of steady but continuous change and progress. They have gone on to find out gradually the depth and compass of their great fundamental principle of personal freedom and responsi­ bility ; they have gone on gradually to widen their con­ ceptions of man’s true attitude towards the great facts and mysteries around him ; they have gone on gradually to learn that in conduct sanctity is allied to sanity, that human righteousness is a sweet and noble reasonableness, that one mission of. the Messiah was to cast out the legions of * irrational and whimsical demons that twisted the minds and perplexed the imaginations of religious people. Here or nowhere, it appears to me, we have the • lost church restored. In the middle ages men fabled that God’s church had been lost-—sunk into the depths of the sea, vanished from the worldly eye within the gloom �i8 of impenetrable forests. The spiritual ear could indeed be surprised by the long lost sounds of holy hymns and chants coming up from mid ocean or stealing from the depths of holy woods ; but to the outward worldly eye, the sacred edifice was lost. Personally, I must confess, that that fable has long been truth to me. The outward church of God has been lost. But for the inward ear of the spiritual man there is still audible here and there, far away from ecclesias­ tical splendour and carnality, the sweet, tones of bell and organ and choir, telling us that still the house of God is with us, that wherever two or three are gathered together in His name, He is in the midst of them to bless them. Only He cannot be with any of us unless we are true to ourselves and the light He has given us! KIRK, PRINTER, CHAPEL-LANE, HULL. ��� Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Victorian Blogging Description An account of the resource A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library &amp; Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Conway Hall Library & Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Conway Hall Ethical Society Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Pamphlet Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource How and why I am a Unitarian: a lecture Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Smith, J. Frederick Description An account of the resource Place of publication: [s.l.] Collation: 16 p. ; 22 cm. Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Inscription on front page: With J.F.S.s kind regards. Delivered in the Bowlalley Lane Chapel, Hull, on Sunday evening, April 12th, 1874. Printed by Kirk, Hull. Bookseller's J.S. Harrison Hull; J. Toplis, Chesterfield. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available [s.n.] Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1904 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context G5373 Subject The topic of the resource Unitarianism Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (How and why I am a Unitarian: a lecture), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Language A language of the resource English Conway Tracts Unitarianism https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/59d1209798f7ab759a215fb755aa0c52.pdf?Expires=1773878400&Signature=hCISD92jYMQpjmMbvjnkkYgTB7faSMJZbwAyPm6aWJZugg-waBKbO24GOqviHQZxWD3QWl96g9%7EySZ6qvpD-owj7WrOSWhtQ-279cWEA5bMqg-Z-tG%7EltIlG4DeV2BZATbAeC2P3nXaEvU%7ECkpXL2HyTGt1yNICtt9uHESeZHfJavMSHaKm2AIGbCy64k7o15O8QokNyhoXvWoFXtWvsjzaC790l4d%7E9ALrRdwP56rR2ubM7J5CY6qSjjE3wu5F-l8tAtXcpqha9MDfYUJzSfVeyVh98ERsVK7tm7EuP-ZSos1k2ocfwAI8NZyn2Zs5UIFy9OPEhBPS8nLRo2oX86w__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM 4f8e731fd57a923fc98610d0c0e2bdec PDF Text Text THE VOCATION OF UNITARIAN CHRISTIANS. ♦, A SERMON «■ PREACHED BEFORE THE atth $nnxgn ffiniimmx ^zzatrattxm, AT THE ANNUAL MEETING IN ESSEX-STREET CHAPEL, STRAND, JUNE 7, 1876. SK; •'*' ' ' 0 J1’1 ' ' - ‘ BY THOMAS ELFORD POYNTING, . OF MONTON. PUBLISHED AT THE REQUEST OF THE COMMITTEE. LONDON: UNITARIAN ASSOCIATION ROOMS, 37, Norfolk Street, Strand. 1876. �*** The British and Foreign Unitarian Association, in accordance with its First Rule, gives publicity to works calculated “ to promote Unitarian Christianity by the diffusion of Biblical, theological, and literary knowledge, on topics connected with it,” but does not hold itself responsible for every statement, opinion, or expression of the writers. �THE VOCATION OF UNITARIAN CHRISTIANS. Ephesians iv. 1: “ I [therefore the prisoner of the Lord] beseech you that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called.” We meet together to-day with one common purpose in our hearts—that of promoting religion—promoting it in the form in which it commends itself to us in greatest loveliness and power, that of Unitarian Christianity. By uniting for this common purpose we show that we recognize in Unitarian Christianity something which is common to us all. We are not united only as men who agree to differ, hut much more as men who can afford to differ, because they feel how largely they agree. And then it is not we alone who are here to-day that have much in com­ mon : though we are not authorized to make the Associa­ tion meeting here representative of our whole religious community, we cannot forget that there is that community, and that what is common to us is common to a large body of Unitarian Christians with us, and that thoughts which may quicken our hearts to-day may awaken a responsive throb through our whole Unitarian people. And let it not be taken as a narrowness of spirit that I now confine my vision within the field of Unitarian Christianity. We have all of us sympathies extending a 2 �4 far beyond the limits of that field, acknowledging every man that “ feareth God and worketh righteousness ” as a fellow-member in the same great universal Church; but to­ day we meet as Unitarian Christians, and so it is to us as Unitarian Christians that I am called to speak. My work, I take it, is if possible to reach and interpret our common religious consciousness ; for in that common consciousness must be revealed our common vocation ; what its deepest convictions, reverences, aspirations, call us to do; what the extent of our sympathy with each other will enable us to co-operate in doing. Of course, in this endeavour to reach and interpret our common religious consciousness, I can only fall back upon myself, and try to find and express what I feel to be the deepest things in ■which I have experienced communion with brother Unitarian Christians. I feel assured, then, that though I find myself differing from them, now upon this, and now upon that point of theological belief, there is also a large common element of belief and life in which I and they are heartily one. I feel that the very word, “ body,” by which we usually name our religious commu­ nity, is suggestive of its organic unity. We are a body consisting of members greatly differing indeed from one another, as hand differs from foot, as eye from ear, and yet animated by one common life, fed by one common blood; and so our common Unitarian Christianity is not some­ thing crystallized into one hard, fixed form for evermore. It is the Life of this body, the life of a growing organism, ever changing by orderly development; and therefore to attempt to define it for ever by what it is or has been at any particular stage of its growth, is like attempting to define the life of the man for all his days by what it has been at any particular epoch—to make, for example, �5 the mental life of the child, with its childish thoughts and feelings, the measure for the mental life of youth, or that of the youth the measure for the man. God’s truth is indeed one, but our knowledge of it “ grows from more to more.” We shall understand the organic unity and deve­ lopment of our body by looking at the history of one of its members. Take, then, a congregation, now Unitarian, descended in unbroken succession from Puritan forefathers. We look back and see that congregation at its secession and settlement Calvinistic after the the type of Baxter. By and by, perhaps, we find it passing through something like an Arminian phase, more after the type of Doddridge. Then we find the influence of men like Clarke and Whiston inducing a change to Arianism. Dr. Priestley and his school lead the congregation by and by to Unitarianism of one school; and then, later on, men like Channing, John James Tayler, and Martineau, aid in a gradual development towards Unitarianism of another school. Attempts have been made from time to time through all this evolution to fix and crystallize the life in the type of one particular epoch; but the strength of the life itself, following its own law of development, has always made the effort vain. And so it happens that though we to-day have doctrines, we have no true dogmas; i.e. no doctrines decreed—ieZoyp.t.va —by any authority to bind us down, to arrest or impede our growth. We have not had, because we would not have, any General Council to mark off a catholic orthodox faith— to be held—from heterodox opinions, to be rejected. We have permitted no Westminster Assembly and no Convo­ cation with Parliament to draw up for us a Westminster Confession or Thirty-nine Articles to be believed for ever­ more. I could not then, if 1 would, this evening, estimate the common element in our Unitarian Christianity by �6 pointing to any authoritative standard, and so telling you what it is by defining what it ought to be: for no such standard exists. Unitarian Christianity is a living thing, and if we would know it, we must study it in its life. Nor will it do to appeal to etymology to discover what the words “Unitarian Christianity” must mean. Etymology may teach us what words once meant, what according to their derivation they ought to mean; but to find what they do mean, you must learn by observation what are the thoughts which they actually cover in the minds of those who use them in the “living present.” The words Unita­ rian Christianity have undoubtedly extended their meaning beyond the old etymological sense of “Unitarian,” and beyond what Christendom at large considers the true sense of “ Christianity,” and now signify in common parlance among us the whole religious life and opinions of the people who call themselves Unitarian Christians, and are nearly synonymous with “Liberal Christianity.” I appeal then to no external authority. I appeal simply to your own consciousness, and ask, what do you feel to be common to yourselves and fellow-Unitarians in the Unitarian Chris­ tianity which you hold and desire to promote ? At the same time I gratefully own that our living Uni­ tarian Christianity has its roots in the past, with which it must preserve an organic connection to be healthy and true. There is a religious consciousness broader than ours running through the life of our Unitarian forefathers, through the long life of Christendom, through the life re­ corded in the Scriptures, through the life of humanity; and we must compare what is common in our conscious­ ness with what is common in that larger consciousness. Returning to ourselves, there are several elements which are, I think, unquestionably common to us. There is, first, �7 our religious life itself, considered in its simplest form; second, our claim to mental freedom; third, our reverence for Jesus Christ; fourth, our endeavour after a.spiritual and rational theology; fifth, our Antitrinitarianism or Unitarianism proper. Now I notice these separately for the convenience of treatment, though I know of course that they do not exist as separate elements. They run into one another, and are blended in our minds into one living whole. First of all, there can be no question that among sincere Unitarian Christians there is a universal consensus in holding, or aspiring to hold, religion, in its simple essence of a life of love for goodness, opening into love for God and love for man. I say love for goodness, because it seems to me there is often at least a rudimentary stage of religion, in which, like a precious flower in the bud, it has not yet developed into the expanded blossom of love to God and love to man. There is a stage when the mind has only awakened to moral consciousness, has become sensible of a highei’ and lower within itself, and of an obligation to surrender itself to the higher and suppress the lower, whilst it sees, per­ haps, the manifestation of this self-surrender to the higher in the character of the dear mother, or the Christ, or other venerated persons. Its religion is then simply a vague love of goodness within and without, as yet not clearly discerning the elements of which full goodness is composed. By and by, as knowledge enlarges, these are disclosed, and the love of goodness opens into the love for the perfect goodness in God, and the love which seeks to promote the goodness as well as the happiness of man. Now, though the religion after which we aspire is the developed form, we must be patient if we find minds, that sympathize with us in many things, still in the rudimentary stage. Many �8 in the present day, through some defect of nature, some perversity of education, or the blighting influence of some false philosophy, seem, as in the case of John Stuart Mill, to have the development of religion arrested, at least on the side of the love to God. But I would not deny the name of religion even to this rudimentary stage, and I think it is not for us Unitarians to quench the smoking flax by casting any word of scorn upon it, but to believe rather that it contains the elements which may by and by be fanned into the noblest, fullest flame. We all, then, have the rudimentary form, and without losing that, we have, or seek to have, the developed form of love to God and love to man into which it grows. In our prayers on the Sunday, which are, I hope, some expression of our life in the week, the soul flows forth in adoring, wondering, self-dedicating love to the Bather Spirit. It seeks to break loose from the entanglements of earth and sense, and deli­ ver itself up to live for a season in His immediate presence, to forget its own littleness in His greatness, its deformities in His beauty, its sin in His righteousness, its sorrows in His love, its short life below in the hope of sharing His eternity above. In these our prayers the soul flows out also in love to man, and so, in longing for those human virtues which can alone promote man’s welfare, and which coming from love make it, as Paul has said, the fulfilling of the law. That human love flows out too in yearning to have all the burdens of sin and woe lifted from human hearts, to see the light of the knowledge of God lighting up the dark places of the earth, to see the dawn of the heavenly kingdom brighten year by year. In all this, and in seeking the life which flows from it, we are perfectly one. Hext to this common element of simple essential religion, �9 I may perhaps put our claim to mental liberty. This, I take it, is an element perfectly common to all Unitarian Christians. And it is in our view invested also with a religious character; for our claim to mental liberty is, if I understand it, only a claim to be free from the usurped authority of man in order to give ourselves to the rightful authority of God. Our claim to liberty of mind is, I think, always, consciously or unconsciously, accompanied by a claim to trust the mind, which is a claim to trust God who speaks through the mind. For I think we generally recog­ nize Reason and Conscience, the oracles of the mind, as oracles through which God directly or indirectly speaks within us; and so in breaking from all the dogmatic bonds of men, we are only like the child who breaks from the arms of strangers to run and throw itself into the arms of the mother. Our assertion of the right of liberty is no self-assertion. We ask not to think as we will, but as God wills—not as we please, but as God pleases. Believing the ultimate laws of our reason, as well as those of our con­ science, to be the guidance of the great hand of God, in giving up all self-will and prejudice to be led by them we are giving ourselves in a truly religious spirit to Him, to “ walk with Him as dear children.” This same spirit of freedom and trust of mind carries us necessarily on to rever­ ence for science, and for all the knowledge which trusted reason and conscience have brought us. Since God leads our souls, the ever-widening truths in this His universe to which He is leading us are also His revelations, and bring us nearer to Him by disclosing the secrets of His thought and the methods of His action. We are assuredly one in our claim to mental liberty. 3rdly. We are one in deep, tender reverence for him whose name we bear, the great Master, Jesus Christ. For­ �10 give me if I speak of this common element in this wide and indefinite way. I wish to stand this evening on the firm ground of our agreements, and you know that it is in connection with our reverence for Christ that our greatest disagreements appear. It must he so. There is a field of critical and philosophical thought surrounding the person and life of Christ, on which, claiming to use our liberty and trust to our own souls, we can scarcely fail to differ. Accordingly, we do differ in our critical estimate of the re­ corded facts of the Master’s life ; we differ in the philo­ sophy by which we interpret these facts, by which we conceive of his nature, and assign him his place in God’s providential thought and the world’s history. Yet, amid all our diversities, there is certainly among all who claim to be Unitarian Christians a common reverence for Christ; a reverence for him as the spiritual rock from which has historically flowed the fountain which has become the stream of our Christian life; a reverence for him as the impersonation of our religion in its universal aspect of love for Goodness, love for God, and love for Man. I would go further, and say that Christ is to many of us an impersonation of our religion also in its reverence and claim for liberty, and in all that reverence for science and intellectual development which flows therefrom. For Jesus seems to us, breaking away in that his age of mental slavery from the bonds of tradition in which he was brought up, and trusting himself to the simple universal teachings of God—Jesus seems to us the noblest hero of mental liberty that the world’s history presents. But whether all Uni­ tarians agree with this or not, they will agree that they escape from the region of “ dry abstract truths without a way to the human heart,” in which Mr. Gladstone seems to imagine that we always dwell, by seeing the universal �11 part of their religion reflected in a person, the revered, beloved person of Jesus Christ. Thus their religion be­ comes living, warm, human. Their conceptions of goodness, God, man, become tinted with colours from his life and character. Goodness is that which they see embodied in him; God is loved as seen imaged in him; man is honoured and seen to be worthy of their love because man’s nature is revealed in him. It is by living in him and with him, loving goodness, God and man with him, that they learn to live. It is by dying with him in his death, surrendering ourselves as living sacrifices to the Father, that they receive the atonement, the reconciliation to God. Such reverence as this is, I think, truly common. I know that many among us cannot be satisfied with this. They want all to go with them into the critical and philosophical theories which they hold regarding Christ; and I speak of no par­ ticular school among us; I speak of all schools alike. It is, I have no doubt, a cause of sorrow with all of us that we cannot take our fellow-worshippers with us into what seems to us the larger, holier truth. And yet, dear brethren, it is a great thing to be one, as we are, in our reverence for this “ author and finisher of our faith.” We do all in this reverence practically call him Lord, Master; we do all sit together at his feet as loving disciples; we do all confess his authority over us; for what is that authority but the authority of our own religion impersonated in him, the authority of our own souls, which find them­ selves reflected in him? All parties among us profess to regard with reverence the spirit of the teachings of Dr. Channing. Now that whole spirit seems to me embodied in one significant passage in his discourse on Love to Christ: “ What is it that constitutes Christ’s claim to love and respect? What is it that is to be loved in Christ? �12 \ Why are we to hold Christ dear? I answer, there is but one ground for virtuous affection in the universe, but one object worthy of cherished and enduring love in heaven or on earth, and that is moral goodness. I know no exception to this principle. I can conceive of no being who can have any claim to affection but what rests on his character, meaning by this the spirit and principle which constitute his mind and from which he acts.” Let us take to our souls this great thought of Channing, and whatever we may think of the imperfection of our brother’s theories, let us be content for him to share with us our Master’s name, if only he shares with us some of the disciple’s reverence. Let us be content to say with the Apostle, “ Grace be with all those who love the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity.” A fourth element of Unitarian Christianity common to us all is the endeavour after a spiritual and rational, or, as it has been called, scientific theology. This head will be thought by some to be included under the head of mental liberty. But as many may not immediately see how the endeavour after a spiritual and rational theology follows from the exercise of our liberty, I have thought better to give it an especial consideration. I would say, then, that this endeavour after a spiritual and rational theology follows both from our religion and our liberty. Birst, our religion needs a theology to feed it, then our liberty requires that such theology should be spiritual and rational, by which I mean a theology brought, by the exercise upon it of our mental liberty, into accordance with the spiritual judgments of our conscience and the rational judgments of our reason. First, our religion needs a theology. The life of religion will ever need to be fed by the food of thought regarding things divine. That life can no more exist without that thought, than the �13 life of this bodily frame can exist without material food. To speak contemptuously of theology because it is not religion, is like speaking contemptuously of bread because it is not the life of which it is the staff. We must there­ fore have a theology with our religion; but then, secondly, in accordance with our first principle of claim to mental freedom in order to trust the oracles within, we must have that theology spiritual and rational. Yet, in forming this theology, whilst we are guided by the same common prin­ ciples of inquiry, we naturally come to very various con­ clusions of doctrine. This is not wonderful if we consider to what errors we are liable in interpreting the voices of conscience and reason; how apt we are to mistake our own prejudices for their decisions; and what different amounts of knowledge we bring to them as data for their judgments. And yet, great as are our differences, I sus­ pect that there is on the whole more substantial agreement among us than would be found in any other religious body; and I believe this agreement will become larger and larger as sound education advances. I believe all this because we begin with the same great principle of free thought, W'hich really means carrying our beliefs for arbitration to the same tribunals of the soul. Our experience, then, not­ withstanding our divergences, coincides with our instinct, and encourages us to go on in the path of free and reverent thought, assured that it is the right path, and that if we press boldly forward we shall only go from truth to truth, from light to light. Yes, we must go on; and we shall make our theology more spiritual and more rational as we turn the light of God within us on the ways of His provi­ dence in the past, on the laws in which He works in uni­ verse and in soul in the present. Yes, we must go on; and �14 science and philosophy and scholarship shall be tributaries to the stream of our theology—a theology which shall feed our piety by ever larger revelations of the grandeur and loveliness of God, and shall feed our philanthropy by ever larger disclosures of possibilities for man. We must go on, fearless in our trust in truth. We must go on with Science ; and if now she seems to be for a season shutting up the mind in the prison-house, and binding it with the chains of materialism, we must still only try to understand more deeply her meaning, and by and by we shall find her changing into the delivering angel, coming with a great light to open the prison doors and make the chains fall off. We must go on with Philosophy; and if now, leading the mind up her mountain heights, she seems to have brought it into the region of cloud, where it is blinded with the mists of the unknowableness or the im­ personality of God, we must still cling to her and ask her to go forward, and by and by she will lead us above the mists into God’s open light, and beneath His clear, ever­ lasting heavens again. The fifth element common to all Unitarian Christians is their protest against Trinitarian error, that is, their Antitrinitarianism, or Unitarianism proper. Of course this is a part of our spiritual and rational theology; but it is our spiritual and rational theology in its belligerent— its polemic—attitude. If there were no Trinitarian errors in Christendom around us, we should never dream of an Antitrinitarian attitude or Antitrinitarian name. We are like colonists who have had to build their city in pre­ sence of hostile forces. But for these, they might have arranged it simply in accordance with their own needs and their own conceptions of symmetry and beauty. But �15 Low they have been obliged to build upon the heights, and surround their city with a wall strengthened by many a tower and mounted with many a threatening gun. We, but for the presence of the great host of Trinitarian errors, might have built our city of theology, placed the palaces and all the pleasant places of its noblest thoughts as we needed or desired them for ourselves; but now we have been obliged to erect our wall and towers, and point our guns of Unitarian protest against these errors. And our •whole city of theological belief has been called after our Unitarian, that is, Antitrinitarian, fortifications, much as many an English city, like Chester and Manchester, anciently received its name—as Castra—from the bulwarks that partly or wholly surrounded it. It is certainly a mis­ fortune that our faith should be named from its least per­ manent and least essential characteristic. For as we find many a city named once after its fortifications, now, in these days of peace, with its ramparts levelled and even all traces of them lost, so let us hope it may be hereafter with our Antitrinitarian protest. Trinitarianism may pass away, and then we shall build our theology for our own internal needs and not for external protest, and there will be no more reason for calling ourselves Unitarians, that is, Antitrinitarians, than for calling ourselves Anti-Gnostics or Anti-Ebionites, or Anti- any other dead and forgotten sect. That time, however, has not yet come. Our protest we must still continue to make ; and if we cannot change our name, we must continue boldly to wear it; only taking care, however, that as long as it is the name for our reli­ gious community, and as long as we have no other name to cover the whole religious life and opinions of that com­ munity, we jealously watch that it does not stand for any­ 1 �16 thing less than this—that it does not narrow our souls down to the narrowness of its proper signification, and make us think of our religion as only sectarian and polemic. There are good and noble Unitarians who re­ joice in being fighters. Their place is on the wall and by the guns, and their delight is in the shout of war. Well, they are fine fellows and valuable helpers. We could not do without them. But still we must not let them make Unitarian Christianity mean only our Antitrinitarian for­ tifications, ignoring the great city itself of positive doc­ trines and life that lies behind. In thinking of ourselves as Unitarians, we must not think of ourselves as soldiers only of the walls, but as citizens also of the great city of our theology. And now if I have, however inadequately, yet to some extent truly, interpreted our common Unitarian conscious­ ness—if these things, simple religion, claim to mental liberty reverence for Christ, endeavour after a spiritual and rational theology, Unitarian protest against Trinitarian errors, are the things which lie nearest to our hearts, the things in which we are one body in Christ, things which will bear judging, too, by the universal consciousness—then, I think, I have shown the revelation of a very great and very solemn voca­ tion. These things make our vocation. They are God’s indications in our souls of what He is calling us in common to do. He is calling us in drawing these common breath­ ings of a holy music from our souls. These, rising, make one grand Unitarian anthem, which, if we can but hear and interpret, will make us a people knit together by a grand sympathy in a grand faith, standing shoulder to shoulder in a grand and glorious work. Brethren, it is plain that we are called to live and give a religion seeing itself in Christ, and also associated with �17 liberty, which means associated with knowledge; a religion which shall be the fulness of all the deepest reverence of the soul with all the freest, largest, truest thought of the mind. Ours is the work, suggested by the poet, to “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.” Ours is the work to live such a religion and give it to the world—to live it first, or we cannot give it. We seek to commend the lamp of our theology to the masses. It is of little use for us to display the framework, and show how reasonable and simple and yet beautiful it is. We must show men a bright flame of religion burning in it. Our vocation in general may be summed up in one word— it is to combine religion with freedom, that is with a free theology. It is, then, to show the world, what others besides Mr. Gladstone seem to doubt, that there can be religion with freedom; that there can be a Church with an earnest religious life—our Church now, and therefore a grand Catholic Church hereafter—founded, not on dogmas or traditions, but on common affections and common trusts in the oracles in the human soul. Ah ! can we come up to this vocation ? Can we walk worthy of it ? It is not easy to come up to it; we must not flatter ourselves that we have come up to it. Sometimes we are very near it, but we oft fall back again. To unite liberty and religion, to lay the foundations of the Catholic Church, of the City of God, not in the perishable materials of common dogmas, but in the eternal precious stones of common spiritual trusts,—this, as you know, is one of the hardest things in the world; for either religion is apt to shackle liberty, or liberty to blight religion. In no other church B �18 as yet has it been, possible to harmonize the two. And we have undertaken the difficult task. Ah! shall the result only be to show that the task must be sorrowfully given up as impracticable still ? It is difficult to hold religion and yet not give up liberty. The result of liberty, as we have seen, is difference of theological opinion, and this difference it is hard for the religious mind to bear. When my brother, dwelling with me in the same religious home, claiming to be of the same household of faith, wear­ ing, and perhaps I may think dishonouring, the same family name, nourished too by the mother’s milk of the same religious life,—when he turns round upon me and denies as baneful error what I revere as precious truth, denounces as poisonous superstition what I feel to be the very daily bread of my life,—he hurts me, and must hurt me because he throws slight on things with which my reverence is deeply interwoven. He tends to take away from me and from others what seems to me most needful to the religious life. And so I know, on the other hand, that if I deny what my brother holds dear and sacred, I cause similar pain to him. Now, brethren, the question for us is, Can we learn loyally and patiently to bear this pain without losing our religious earnestness, on the one hand, or letting that pain repel us from our brother or make us seek to check his liberty, on the other ? Here is the difficulty which ever opposes the strength of our organization. It is here that comes in the, fatal disso­ ciating force that tends to make our body a mere rope of sand. Ah! can we watch and overcome this repellant force ? We can do so only by a great-souled loyalty to our principles, only by a wise and manful government of ourselves. When our brother exercises his liberty accord­ ing to his right, can we abstain from pleading our pain as �19 a bar to that liberty, as a cause for his silence ? Can we so master our pain as that it shall not become a dissocia­ ting force to separate between our brother and ourselves— make us eager to thrust him from our religious home or deny him the use of the family name? If we cannot come up to this loyalty, if we cannot exercise this govern­ ment of self, then we cannot come up to our vocation. Our theory of combining liberty with religion is but a fine theory still; we do our part to. show that in practice it remains a hopeless thing. We shall be helped to bear the pain of difference by keeping in mind that if God does mean us to be free, free to believe that which to our own minds appears to be the truth, then even to believe amiss, if we have come to believe by exercising faithful inquiry, cannot be regarded by Him with any moral disapproval. And surely what God does not blame, we have no right to shrink from as if it were a sin. And if God looks upon our varieties of belief with all-patient eye, we may be sure that He cannot think any one form of belief, however correct, to be all essential to our religious life. Experience tells us that this is true ; for though the religious life is nourished by theological belief, as the bodily life is nourished by food, happily vitality may be supported by very different foods; and as no land with its particular material diet can boast that it alone nourishes strong and beautiful bodies, so no church, no sect, no school with its particular theo­ logical diet, can boast that it alone nourishes strong and beautiful souls. There is no doubt that souls which have a noble theology to live from enjoy a great advantage, yet somehow it happens that the advantage is not always used; and there are those who are like the three children in the story of Daniel, and draw more nourishment for �20 their strength and. beauty from a theology as of poor pulse and water, than others draw from one which is like the king’s rich meat. Again, we may help ourselves to bear this pain of differ­ ence from our opinion by just looking at our opinion and asking what there is in it that should make us, as it were, fall down and worship it as if it were infallible and divine. Let each of us imagine the body of our theological opinions written down on a private scroll which we carry in our bosom. ISTow let each one take out the scroll and read it over, and ask himself if he can honestly say that every one of the opinions there written down has been come to in the sincere desire to find the very truth. Can he honestly affirm that he has gone with each opinion right into the inner court of judgment, and submitted it to the judges, Conscience and Beason, there ? Ah ! must he not confess, on the contrary, how often, rather, he has allowed himself to be detained by the crowd of his own prejudices, inclinations and passions in the outer court, and has allowed his opinion to be the mere echo of the voices of that meaner crowd 1 Or even if any one can feel sure that he has gone with any opinion to the ultimate judges of truth and right, can he also feel sure that he provided himself with all the knowledge he could gain in order to form the case to lay before the judges for their judgment ? When the decision to be formed was a critical one, has he gone to criticism ? or when it was a philoso­ phical one, has he gone to philosophy ? or if a scientific one, has he gone to science for the information needed ? Can he say that he has not often judged of the truth of an opinion, not by evidence for or against it, but by a bias suggested by its supposed practical tendency ? I do not know, brethren, how it may be with you, but for myself I �21 could not dare to be sure that with any single opinion tlaat I hold I had -been thus perfectly truthful. Let .each of us look on this scroll of his opinions, and ask himself if this is what he can venture to hold up as if it were a sacred standard of unquestionable truth, if this is what he dares to call the truth, condemning his brother as a dangerous heretic because he differs from it. And observe, brethren, I am saying this again to no school among us in particular, but to all schools alike; for this self-delusion that our opinion, however formed, is the truth, belongs to all schools—alas 1 to all human nature. We see then this difficulty of really so holding religion as not to give up liberty. Can we try more to overcome it and come up to our vocation, which sets us to make the union of the two ? But now, once more, if it is difficult to hold religion without giving up liberty, it is still more difficult to hold liberty and yet in no way give up religion. This is our vocation still. Let us remember our conception of religion. It is holy .emotion working out holy life. Religion, ob­ serve, is emotion at its source. It is love, and surely love is .emotion—-love for goodness, love for God, love for man. Now it is .clear that this emotion, this love, must be fed by some belief regarding its objects. He, for example, who does .not believe in goodness cannot love goodness. He who does not believe in fGod, and in His lovableness too, cannot love God. .Now it is fhe result of freedom— that ;is, pf free thought—to interfere very much with the beliefs ;by which the religious emotions need to be fed, and .so to make religion difficult, or even to dry.it up alto­ gether. The beliefs by which our religion is nourished have been compared this .evening to bread, the bread of c �22 life. Let us take the other familiar figure and compare them to water—the water of life. Consider the theolo­ gical beliefs belonging to different churches as springs flowing at different levels, some down on the very plain, some higher up on mountain sides, and some among the very mountain heights. Now it is the result of free thought to detach and turn away the mind from all the springs of lower and more popular religious beliefs, leaving none possible to their use but very high ones, flowing from the mountain heights where Conscience and Reason reign. Go into many of the churches around us, where evangelists of the type of Mr. Moody, or Ritualists or Romanists of other types, appeal to multitudes and seem to awaken tides of religious emotion, and ask how it is all done. You will find that the secret is, that the preachers lead their hearers to thoughts, to springs of theological belief, on a low level. The people can more easily get to them, and do get to them and drink freely, and go away, I have no doubt, refreshed and strengthened to live a better life. A preacher with us, were he the mightiest prophet, has no such advan­ tage. He addresses men who have left these lower springs, who look upon them with aversion as turbid and poisoned waters. He must point Unitarian hearers to the only springs their free thought has left them, far up among the mountain heights. He must point them to such truths as the eternal beauty and sanctity of goodness, the Fatherhood and eternal goodness and immanence of God, the divine childhood as well as human brotherhood of man, the reve­ lation of our true nature and life, and relation to God and hope of immortality in Jesus Christ. And these he very high; and simple as it seems to apprehend them, it is very, very difficult to reach them so as to believe them with all �23 the heart and soul. It is difficult intellectually, and it is difficult morally. It is difficult intellectually. The thoughts which our theology presents, if simple thoughts, are still great thoughts, thoughts which cannot be realized without some mental effort. The mind must give itself up to them —will, understanding, imagination—in order to grasp them •, and multitudes come to their religion in an indolent frame of mind, as to a subject that needs no thought. Alas 1 no mind, as long as it abandons itself to this indo­ lent mood, will ever climb to the springs of our Unitarian belief. There are many who, through the exercise of their free thought, get far away above the springs of the popular faith, and yet fail to reach the higher springs, and very much, I cannot help thinking, because they will not exert the mental effort and perseverance necessary to climb to them. When in their newly-found liberty they first break away from the popular superstitions, they seem to go on joyously for a time, mounting higher and higher in the freer air. But by and by they get into the region of mists, the mists of doubt, and their zeal for truth begins to slacken. They seem to lose all power of pushing forward, and, as if doomed by some fatality, they go round and round in that same region of mist, never emerging above it. We may be assured that the exercise of free thought will always leave some of these dwellers in the mist among us. These will be generally somewhat dead and cold themselves, through the absence of any intensity of religious conviction, and so they will be like icebergs, chilling the whole moral air around them. Ah! my friends, who of us does not feel how depressing it is to live in a church with those who have no strength of religious conviction, and how their apathy makes us almost ashamed to have any intensity of religious conviction ourselves ! �24 For these dwellers in the mist, and for all of us, there needs the exercise of a greater intellectual bravery and faithfulness in religion. But, alas! there is the still greater moral difficulty in getting up to the lofty springs of our faith. Even those of us who never seem to doubt, still do not drink habitually from the higher springs, just because they are too high morally for us to reach. Religion is Love; and we shall not love, not deliver ourselves to our love, as long as we are not prepared to do what that love demands. The rich man in the Gospel would have given himself to his love for Jesus, to follow with Peter, James and John, but that love demanded a sacrifice too great for him to make, and he went sorrowful away. Now there is this difficulty in the way of our giving ourselves up to believe our theology with all our hearts, that the high love to which it appeals requires self-sacrifice which we are not often prepared to make. Ah! there lies our greatest difficulty. Our theology is as yet too high for our moral strength; we do not, and we cannot, without more heroism, come up to it. Now I do not wish to indulge in any morbid self-depreciation, but I wish also to discourage any unwarranted self-satisfac­ tion. There is, no doubt, much religious life among us; but if we can be satisfied with this, we must have a very inade­ quate conception of the ideal which our theology presents. Let us put away for ever those foolish pleas by which we try to hide from ourselves a poverty and coldness in our religious life of which we are truly conscious. Let us no longer say, Oh, we have abundant religious life, only through our taste and culture we are an undemonstrative people, and do not show it. My friends, I look into my own heart, and see how hollow such excuses are. Ah! do I not know by my own experience that there is a deficiency �25 in the religious life simply because of the great difficulty in coming up to the high springs of faith? Do 1 not know too surely that my heart is stubbornly hard and dry? Do I not know that I do not, except in rarest moments, get up to my belief in God, and experience that love of God of which the Master speaks, “ with all the heart, with all the soul, with all the mind, and with all the strength”? And do I not know that it is because the thought of God which my theology presents is too high for me; it does not touch me, because I do not strain towards it; I do not surrender myself to it, alas! because the weight of earthly sin and habit keeps me back? Ah! how can I delight to go up and believe in God, think of Him in all His perfect goodness, allow that thought to fill my soul, unless I am prepared to surrender myself to the Eternal Goodness, to be and to do what it demands ? And so, again, with regard to that love for my neigh­ bour as myself, that enthusiasm of humanity which I see in Jesus. Do I not know how little I really feel it, and simply because the belief in man, and what I can do for him, and the kingdom of God I can help to bring in, is too high for me, I cannot through my selfishness come up to it ? Do I not know that if I really go up to it, giving myself up to this Christ-like love for man, I must be pre­ pared to go forth and sacrifice time and ease and inclina­ tion and means to carry it out; and my dull nature replies, “I cannot do it,” and I dare not go and drink of the water which might inspire me to do what I am not prepared to do? Brethren, am I alone in this sorrowful experience? Do not many hearts respond to the confession that our reli­ gious life has not yet come up to our theology, and that we have not yet overcome the great difficulty of holding �26 religion in union with liberty? Can we resolve to make a greater effort to come up to our vocation? We must, if we are ever to become that power in the world of which we dream. We have found a grand and glorious theology up among the eternal heights. But when we go forth to com­ mend that theology to the world, and assure them how pure and good its waters are, men’s hearts virtually say to us, “ Yes, your theology seems very reasonable, very beau­ tiful, but how about your religion? Do these springs which you say are so pure and wholesome, then, feed your souls with a religious life larger and deeper than is felt among churches fed by lower and impurer streams? Let us look into your churches. How does your theology work? You profess, for example, to hold the thought of God as a Father lovely with all holiness and goodness and fatherly compassion. You remove from His face, as you say, all the clouds of unrighteous wrath with which ortho­ dox error has darkened it. Well, then, does your thought of God in all its loftiness and purity act upon you and awaken in you a warmer, deeper, devouter love than is felt by your orthodox fellow-christians ? “You profess to honour Christ, not, with Christendom in general, because he is God as well as man, but because he is the highest example of moral loveliness which history presents. Does, then, that moral loveliness in Christ awaken in your souls a love greater or more operative on the moral life than the love excited towards him by what you call an idolatrous mistake? “ Once more, you profess to love man, not as Christians in general love him, but simply as a brother and as a child of God. You yearn over the ignorant and the sinful, not as seeing them lying under a dreadful doom to eternal woe, but. simply as lying in degradation and moral ruin, far from �27' pod and tlieir own true life, and you would raise them and restore them to themselves and God. Again, does this thought of man really kindle in your hearts the enthusiasm of humanity? Does it really make you take upon you the sins and sorrows of your fellow-men, and bear them as your own? Does that love send you out in missions and other instrumentalities to fight more zealously than others against the great evils of society—ignorance, drunkenness, pauperism, vice and crime? Is your church life—being inspired by such lofty truths—more ardent than that of others ? United by such grand common hopes, aspirations, emotions, do you feel bound to one another, hallowed, as it were, to one another?” Ah! what shall we say to ques­ tions like these? Simply that they make us feel how much we have to do to walk worthy of our calling; they make us feel that we have not already attained, are not already perfect, but must still follow after, counting not ourselves to have apprehended, but, “ forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forth unto those things which are before,” must “press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling—calling of God in Christ Jesus.” Amen. C. Green & Son, Printers, 178, Strand. �W- :’!S fit <«i :> .1 ■ • W1 ’ - r. "t /! ■rk :■■'• k< wfa&i- • ■■; fl rtf •f fk»- .•«;,>;>J <'■ f > J ifej * ' ’ '< •;;.n ;o u ffta t-i ’ < <&*•' < ■ '■ WL L |{J 1 >gi‘f ;;-uI- r vv . Men ■■; . .; 7 <•• ,rl sit J lejfifu; ieii ' . !'•■■ -J) '>3;; et7 ,:,it Ifti'i Ufl ;’i ■ ■<' '•rQ# ■!; tijQ ‘h> filth X >»> r i fdX.ni!. rt .Hu'* jjifl ; J§J •iff ' .: ' - iiSlHI '.volh ■ rtb’iit / a»j,ifiih' ';■ '■ fiOiiHI 8^1 f ■ 11 ; brntif a 0f[- J auntfA ■ > ’W;p >>: voa n.f i ,- 's h ,‘Klf b v k> -bf!/L ;i*i !■ .'■'..'if er 'rsofit ■ iS'Uf II wot| % ' r, ArfO j . U (V ■ ‘ • Jy, -voj r.y � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Victorian Blogging Description An account of the resource A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library &amp; Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Conway Hall Library & Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Conway Hall Ethical Society Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Pamphlet Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The vocation of Unitarian Christians, a sermon preached before the British and Foreign Unitarian Association at the annual meeting in Essex-Street Chapel, Strand, June 7, 1876 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Poynting, Thomas Elford Description An account of the resource Place of publication: London Collation: 27 p. ; 18 cm. Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Printed by C. Green and Son, Strand; published at the request of the Committee. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Unitarian Association Rooms Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1876 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context G5354 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (The vocation of Unitarian Christians, a sermon preached before the British and Foreign Unitarian Association at the annual meeting in Essex-Street Chapel, Strand, June 7, 1876), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Language A language of the resource English Subject The topic of the resource Unitarianism Conway Tracts Unitarianism https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/585a3f9f871094c6b44b5774ff7a7232.pdf?Expires=1773878400&Signature=CkcvnT1QCrVqQ9Uxvo5%7EZfFafY9qHqKRJdL8aPgdZwYyQCM3zQKBaDUfFRHEhdYlzM1alH3NShmShTYrvv3aQNEIisG8zjbT2o%7E4QzAWyZ9n%7EwceNAS6kgVjYvgiJGxkN0oEmk6kKvNphDwObWtIPuQkS-eV94fprmkkiZZ0h0sdnonEP42OD875IEQs9uvDR85Hjvat6OmCPGyCkKGqyltzPhmuiq%7EiCYd8G9g7nMScXkYstHYFlgoLlhRpGLkCDqdeFXmeComrw0Sv9hHJ%7EEJE0edCfnn3W6GxotEdFk3Xsgjlv%7E1pCcbWhz9urgYZK1GulN3-GWEL9Ij3HYRE-g__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM 78e735b4b9db706b95bac08b36bcc1ff PDF Text Text I I ' ■< i I ■ AND ITS RELATION TO THE SCIENTIFIC AND RELIGIOUS WANTS OF MAN.” A SERMON DELIVERED AT TIIE PENNSYLVANIA YEARLY MEETING PROGRESSIVE FRIENDS IN THE YEAR 1858. OF By THEODORE PARKER. J Honor, then, to the manly simplicity of Theodore Parker. || Perish who may among the Scribes and Pharisees,—“orthodox || liars for God,”—he at least, “ has delivered his soul.”—Professor Martineau. d / I To guaranteed Subscribers of One Shilling per quarter and upwards, these Sermons will be supplied at the rate of 1UI. each, single copies dd., post freed^cl. ^luitrnlanb: PRINTED BY B. WILLIAMS, “TIMES” OFFICE, 129, HIGH STREET- �BRIDGE STREET, SUNDERLAND. The following course of Lectures will be delivered in the above place of worship, on the undernamed Sunday Evenings ;—1876. April 2nd.—Rev. JAMES MACDONALD.—■“ Religion and the Bible.” April 9th.—Rev. JAMES MACDONALD. — “ Modern Literature in Relation to the Bible.” (By request). April 16th.—Rev. JAMES MACDONALD.—“ Paul at Athens. ” April 23rd.—Rev. JAMES MACDONALD.—“ Religious Life and Sectarian Stagnation.” April 30th.—GEORGE LUCAS, Esq.—“ Wasted Life-a Lesson drawn from the Tinies we live in.” May 7th.—Rev. JAMES MACDONALD.—“ Christ and the Pharisees.” May 14th.—Rev. JAMES MACDONALD.—“ The Basis of Religious Belief.” May 21st.—GEORGE LUCAS, Esq.—“True Nobility— Words of Encouragement for the struggling and the tempted.” May 28th.—Rev. JAMES MACDONALD. —“ Heathen Prophets—Confucius.” June 4th.—Rev. JAMES MACDONALD.—Professor Huxley—“ On the Physical Basis of Life.” June Uth.—Rev. JAMES MACDONALD.—Mazzini— “ His Life and Labours.” June 18th.—Rev. JAMES MACDONALD.—“Mr. Ruskin and his Creed.” June 25th.—Rev. JAMES MACDONALD.—“ The Spirit of the Gospel.” ALL SEATS FREE. The offertory at the close of each service. MORNING SERVICE at a Quarter to Eleven. EVENING SERVICE at Half-past Six. Strangers are requested to enter and take any seat that may be vacant. �THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONCEPTION OF GOD, AND ITS RELATION TO THE SCIENTIFIC AND RELIGIOUS WANTS OF MAN. BY TH EODORE PARKER The great and Dreadful God.—Daniel ix. 4. Our Father which art in heaven.—Matthew Vi. 9. IN the Religion of civilized men there are three things :—Piety —the love of God, the Sentimental part; Morality—obedience to God’s natural laws, the Practical part; and Theology—Thoughts about God and Man and their relation, the Intellectual part. The Theology will have great influence on the Piety and the Morality, a true Theology helping the normal developement of Religion, which a false Theology hinders. There are two methods of creating a Theology,—a scheme of doctrines about God and Man, and the relation between them, viz. : the Ecclesiastical and the Philosophical. The various sects which make up the Christian Church pursue the Ecclesiastical method. They take the Bible for a miraculous and infallible revelation from God—in all matters containing the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth—and thence derive their doctrines, Catholic, Protestant, Trinitarian, Unitarian, Damnationist. or Salvationist. Of course they follow that method in forming the Ecclesiastical Conception of God, in which the Christian sects mainly agree. They take the whole of the Bible, from Genesis to the Fourth Gospel, as God’s miraculous affidavit; they gather together all which it says about God, and from that make up the Ecclesiastical Conception as a finality. The Biblical sayings are taken for God’s deposition as to the facts of his nature, character, plan, modes of operation —God’s word, his last word; they are a finality—all the evidence in the case , nothing is to be added thereto, and naught taken thence away. Accordingly the statement of a writer in the half-savage age of a ferocious people is just as valuable, true, and obligatory for all time as that of a refined, enlightened, and religious man in a civilized age and nation ; for they are all equally God’s testimony in the case, his miraculous deposition ; God puts himself on his voir dire, and it is of no consequence �THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONCEPTION OF GOD. which justice of revelation records the affidavit of the Divine Deponent. The deposition is alike perfect and complete, whetheffl attested by an anonymous and half-civilized. Hebrew {filibuster, or by a refined and religious Christian philosopher. The state­ ment that God ate veal at Abraham’s, or that he sought to kill Moses in a tavern, is just as true and important as this, that “God is love.” It is said in the Old Testament that the Lord is a “ consuming fire;” he is “ angry with the wicked everyday,” and keeps his anger for ever ; that he hates Esau ; that lie gives cruel commands, like that in the thirteenth chapter of Deuteronomy, forbidding all religious progress /that lie orders the butchery of millions of innocent men, including women and children ; that he comes back from the destruction of Edom red with blood, as described in the sixty-third chapter of Isaiah. In the New Testament he is called Father ; it is said that he is Love, that he goes out and meets the returning prodigal a great way off, and welcomes him with large rejoicing. Now, say the Churches, all these statements are true, and the Christian believer must accept them all. Deason is not to sift and cross-examine the Biblical testimony, rejecting this as false and including that as true ; for the whole of this evidence and each part of it is God’s affidavit, and does not require a crossexamining, sifting, amending. We are not to reconcile it to us but us to it; and if it conflict with reason and conscience, we shall give them up. All the Bible, says this theory, is the in­ spired Word of God, and one part is just as much inspired as another, for there'are no degrees of inspiration therein; each statement by itself is perfect, and the whole complete. The test of inspiration is not in man; it is not Truth for things reasonable, nor justice for things moral, nor Love for things affectional. The test is wholly outside of man; it is a miracle—that is, the report of a miracle ; and so what contradicts the universal human conscience is to be accepted just as readily as what agrees with the moral instinct and reflection of all human kind. In the third century Tertullian, a hot-headed African bishop, said, “ I believe, because it is impossible that is, the thing cannot be, and therefore I believe it is ! It has been a maxim in ecclesiastical theology ever since ; without it both Transubstantiation and the Trinity would fall to the ground, with many a doctrine more. I think Lord Bacon was an unbeliever in the popular ecclesiastical doctrines of his time ; he would derive, all science from the observation of nature and reflection thereon ; but he left this maxim to have Eminent Domain in Theology! It was enough for him to break utterly with the Philosophy of the Schools ; he would not also quarrel against the Theology of the Churches : thereby he lost his scientific character, but kept his ecclesiastical reputation. �TttE ecclesiastical Conception of gob. 3 Joshua, the sou of Nun, was a Hebrew fillibuster, with a HKlfcivilized troop of ferocious men following him ; he conquered ■ country, butchered tlie men, women, and children; and he gives us such a picture of God as you might expect from a IPequot Indian in the days of our fathers. It is taught in the Churches that Joshua’s statement about God is just as trust­ worthy as the sublime words in the New Testament, ascribed to John or Jesus, and far more valuable than the deepest intuitions, and the grandest generalizations, of the most cultivated, best educated, and most religious of men to-day ! The Christian Churches do not derive their conception of God from the World of Observation about us or the World' of Consciousness within us, but from the “Book of llevelation,” as they call that collection from the works of some hundred writers, mostly anonymous, and all from remote ages; and they tell us that the teachings of Joshua are of as much value as the teachings of Jesus himself, far more than those of Fenelon or Channing. Now from such facts, and by such a method, the Christian sects have formed their notion of God, which is common to the Greek, the Latin, and the Teutonic Churches ; only a few sects have departed therefrom, and as they are but insignificant in numbers, and haveliacl scarcely any influence in forming the ecclesiastical conception of God, so I shall omit all reference to them and their opinions. To-day I shall not speak of the ecclesiastical Arithmetic of God, only of the Ethics thereof; not of God according to the category of number—the quantitative distribution of Deity into personalities ; only of the character of God by the category of substance—the qualitative kind of Deity, for that is still the same, whether conceived of in one person, in three, or in three million, just as the qualitative force of an army of three hundred thousand soldiers is still the same, whether you count it as one corps or as three. Look beneath the mere words of theology, at the things which they mean, and you find in general that the ecclesiastical conception of God does not include Infinite Perfection. It embraces all the true and good things from the most religious and enlightened writers of the Bible, but it also contains all the ill and false things which were uttered by the most rude and ferocious ; one is counted just as true and valuable as the other. Accordingly God is really represented as a limited being, exceedingly imperfect, having all the contradictions which you find between Genesis and the Fourth Gospel; he is not infinite in any one attribute. I know the theological language predicates infinite perfection, but the theological facts affirm exceeding imperfection. Look at .this in several details. �4 THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONCEPTION OE GOD. 1. God is not represented as Omnipresent. When the theologian says, “ God is everywhere,” he does not mean that God is everywhere always, as he is anywhere sometimes ; not that he is at this minute present in this meeting-house, and in the air which my hand clasps, as he was in the Hebrew Holy of Holies when Solomon ended his inaguration prayer, as he always is in some place called the Heaven of Heavens. There are degrees of the Divine Presence ; he is more there and less here. Some spots he occupies by his essence, others only potentially. He was creationally present with all his personal essence at the making of the world, but only providentially present with his instrumental power, not his personal essence, at the governing of the world. Thus the Queen of England, by her power, is present in all Great Britain and the British posessions, while by her person she occupies only a single apartment of the Palace of St. James in London, sitting in only one chair at a time. So it is taught that God must inter­ vene miraculously to do his work : must come into a place where he was not before, and which he will vacate soon. So the actual, personal, essential and complete presence of God is the very rarest exception in all places save Heaven. He is instantial only in Heaven, exceptional everywhere else. He is not universally immanent, residing in all matter, all spirit, at every time, working according to law, by a constant mode of operation and in all the powers of matter and man, which are derived from him and are not possible without him ; but he comes in occasionally and works by miracle. He is a non­ resident God, who is present in a certain place vicariously, by attorney, and only on great occasions comes there in his proper person. That is the ecclesiastical notion of Omnipresence. 2. He is not All-Powerful, except in the ideal Heaven which he permanently occupies by his complete and personal presence. On earth he is restricted by Man, who thwarts his plans every day and grieves his heart, and still more by the Devil, who continually thwarts his Creator. I know the ecclesiastical doctrine says that God is omnipotent, but ecclesiastical history represents him as trying to make the Hebrews an obedient people, and never effecting it; as continually worrying over that little fraction of mankind, “rising up early and speaking” to them, but the crooked would not be made straight. Nay, he is unable to keep the Christian Church without spot or wrinkle for a single generation, charm he never so wisely ; but Paul fell out with such as were apostles before him, and the seamless ecclesiastical coat is roughly rent in twain betwixt the two ! 3. He is not All-Wise. He does not know his own creation will work. He finished the world, and found that his one man, �THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONCEPTION OF GOD. 5 ■Stalling alone, did not prosper; it was necessary to make a woman, to help him; she was an afterthought. Her first step ruins the man she was meant to serve ; and God is surprised at the disobedience. He must alter things to meet this unexpected emergency ; he grows wiser and wiser by continual experiment. 4. He is not All-Righteous. He does great wrong to the Egyptians, for he hardens Pharaoh’s heart, so that he may have an excuse for putting the king and people to death. He does injustice to the Canaanites, whom he butchers by Joshua; he provides a punishment altogether disproportionate to the offences of men, and will make them softer for ever for the sin committed by their mythological ancestor, six thousand years before you and I were born ; he creates souls by the million, only to make them perish everlastingly. In the whole course of human history, you cannot find a tyrant, murderer, kidnapper, who is so unjust as God is, represented by the ecclesiastical theology. 5. He is not All-Loving. Of the people before Christ, he loved none but Jews; he gave no other any revelation, aud without that, they must perish everlastingly ! Since Jesus he loves none but Christians, and will save no more ; the present heathen are to die the second death; and of Christians he loves none but Church-members. Nay, the Catholics will have it that he hates everybody out of the Roman Church, while the stricter Protestants retaliate this favor upon the Catholics themselves. Nay, they deny salvation to all Unitarians and Universalists, to the one because they declare that the man Jesus was not God the Creator; and to the other because they say that God the Father is not bad enough to damn any man for ever and ever. You remember that scarcely was Dr. Channing cold in his coffin, before orthodox newspapers rung with the intelligence that he was doubtless then suffering the pangs of eternal damnation, because he had “ denied the Lord that bought him.” You know the damnation pronounced on old Dr. Ballou, simply because he said men were brethren, and the God of earth and heaven is too good-hearted to create anybody for the purpose of crunching him into hell for ever and ever. According to some strict sectarians, God loves none but the elect—an exceedingly small number. It has been the doctrine of the Christian Church for fifteen or sixteen hundred years that God will reject from heaven all babies newly-born who die without baptism ; the sprinkling of infants was designed to save these little ones, who, as Jesus thought, needed no salva­ tion, but were already of the kingdom of heaven. Accordingly, to save the souls of children ready to perish without ecclesiastical baptism, the Catholic Church mercifully allows doctors, nurses, mid-wives, servants, anybody, to baptize a child newly born, �6 THE .ECCLESIASTICAL CONCEPTION OF GOD. by throwing water in its face, in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and that saves the little thing. But the doctrine of infant damnation follows logically from the first principles of the ecclesiastictl theology. “ He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved, and he^believcth not shall be damned !” 6. He is not All-Holy, perfectly faithful to himself. He is capricious and variable ; men can wheedle him into their favor­ ite plans ; now by penitence or a certain belief, they can induce God to remove the consequence of their wicked deeds ; and the effects of a long life of wickedness will at once be miraculously wiped clean off from the man’s character ; he will take the blackest of sinners and wash him white in the blood of the Lamb, and “ in five minutes he shall be made as good a Christ­ ian as he could become by fifty years of the most perfect piety and morality.” Since God is thus changeable, men think they can alter his plan by their words, can induce him to send rain when they want it, or to “ stay the bottles of heaven ” at their request, to check disease, to curse a bad man, or to pervert and confound the intellect of a thinking man. Hence comes the strange phenomenon which you sometimes see of a nation assembling in the churches, and asking God to crush to the ground another people at war with them ; two years ago you saw Englishmen bending their knees in the name of Christ, to ask God to blast the Russians at Sebastopol, and the Russians bending their knees and in the same name asking God to sink fdie British ships in the depths of the Black Sea! Put all these things together—God is not represented as a perfect Creating Cause, who makes all things right at first; nor a perfect Preserving Providence, who administers all things well, and will bring all out right at last. Even his essential presence is only an exception in the world, here for a moment, and then long withdrawn. According to the ecclesiastical con­ ception, God transcends man in power and wisdom, but is immensely inferior to the average of men in justice and benevolence ; nay, in hate and malignity he transcends the very worst man that the very worst man could conceive of in his heart. I. Now, this idea of God is not adequate to the purposes o Science. To explain the World of Matter, the naturalist wants a sufficient power which is always there, acting by a constant mode of operation ; not irregular, vanishing, acting by fits and starts ; but continuous, certain, reliable ; an intelligent power which acts by law, not caprice and miracle. No other God is adequate Cause of the Universe, or of its action for a single hour. �THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONCEPTION OF GOD. 7 But tlie Christian Church knows no such God, for all the Biblical depositions concerning him, all the pretended affidavits whence it has made its conception of God, came from men who had no thought of a general law of matter or of mind, and no notion of a God who acted by a constant mode of operation, and who was the indwelling Cause and Providence of all things that are. Just so far as any scientific thinker departs from that limited idea of God, who comes and goes and works by miracle, so far does he depart from the ecclesiastical theology of Christendom. The actual facts of the Universe are not reconcilable with what the ecclesiastical theology teaches about God. This has become apparent, step by step, in the last three centuries. « Galileo reported the facts of astronomic nature just as they were. The Roman Church must silence her philosopher, or else revolutionize her notion of God. Had not she God’s own affidavit that he stopped the sun and moon a whole day, to give Joshua time for butchery of men, women and children 1 would she allow a philosopher to contradict her with nothing but the Universe on his side ? He must swear the earth stands still. “ And yet it does move though !” Geologists relate the .facts of the universe as they find them in the crust of the earth. The Churches complain that these facts are inconsistent with the story in Genesis. “ We have,” say they, “ God’s deposition that he made the Universe in six ■ days, rested on the seventh, and was refreshed 1 What is the testimony of the rocks and the stars, to the anonymous record on parchment, or the printed English Bible ?” So the geologist ,-also has a bad name in the Churches, many equivocate, and some lie. For the history of the heavens and earth, theologians would rely on the word of a man whose name even they know nothing ; of, and reject the testimony of the Universe itself, where the footprints of the Creator are yet so plain and deeply set. Zoologists find evidence, as they think, that the human race has had several distinct centres of origination ; that men were created in many places : and a great outcry is at once raised. Such facts are inconsistent with the ecclesiastical idea of God ! So, to learn the structure of the heavens, the earth, or of man­ kind ; you must not go to the heavens, the earth, or man­ kind ; you must go to the book of Genesis, and if the facts of the Universe contradict the anonymous record therein, then you must break with the Universe and agree with the minister, for the actual testimony of things is worth nothing in com­ parison with the words of a Hebrew "writer whom nobody knows ! �8 THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONCEPTION OF GOD. The great obstacle to the advancement of science, nay, to the diffusion of knowledge, is not the poverty of mankind, not the lack of industry, talent, genius amongst men of science; but it is the ecclesiastical conception of God. Not a step can be taken in astrogoly, geology, zoology, but it separates a man from that notion. The ecclesiastical conception of God being thus utterly inadequate to the purposes of science, philosophic men turn off from the theology of Christendom; and some, it is said, become atheists. Look at the scientific men of England, France, and Germany, for proof of this. In America there is no considerable class of scientific and learned men, who stand close together, write books for each other, and so make a little public of their own ; so here the scientific man does not stand in a little green-house of philosophy as in Europe, where he is sheltered from public opinion, lives freely, and expands his flowers in an atmospsere congenial to his natural growth, but he is exposed to all the rude blasts of the press, the parlor, and the meeting-house ; so is he more cautious than his congeners and equivalents in Europe, and does not commonly tell what he thinks ; nay, sometimes tells what he does not think, lest he should lose his public reputation amongst bigoted men ! To this there are some very honorable exceptions ; scientific men who do not count it a part of their business to prop up a popular error, but who know society has a right to demand that they tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. But if you will take the hundred foremost men of science in all Christendom who are not ministers, I do not think that ten of them have any belief in the common ecclesiastical conception of God. Some have better —nay, a true idea of God, but dare not divulge it; and some, alas I seem to have no notion at all. Accordingly, men of science turn from theology; soon become atheists, and all lose much from lack of a satisfactory idea of God. You all know what clerical complaints are made of the infidelity and atheism of scientific men. Three hundred years ago the Church suspected doctors, and invented this proverb:—As many doctors, so many atheists ; ” because the doctors knew facts irreconcilable with the ecclesiastical theology. I think the chargo of atheism grossly unjust, when it is brought against the great body of scientific men; but where it is true, it ought to be remembered that in the last two hundred and fifty years the Christian Church has had no idea of God adequate to the purposes of science, and fit for a philosopher to accept; and if it be so, will you blame the philosopher for rejecting what would only disturb his processes ? The cause of the philosopher’s atheism often lies at the Church’s door, and not in the scholar’s study. II. But this ecclesiastical conception of God is as inadequate �THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONCEPTION OF GOD. C 9' In religious conociousness we all want a God whom we can absolutely rely upon; who is always at hand, not merely separate and one side from the World of Matter or the World of Man. We want a deity who acts now, and is the Infinite God, who desires the best of possible things for each man, who knows the best of possible things, and has will and power to bring about the best of possible things, and that for all persons. We want a God all powerful, all-wise, all-just, all-loving, all-faithful; a perfect Creator; a perfect Provider, who will be just to each of his children. I put it to each one of you—thoughtfulest or least thinking—is there one of you who will be content with a God who does not come up to your highest conception of power, wisdom, justice, love and holiness 1 Not one of you will be content to rely on less ! You must falsify your nature before you can do it. But according to the ecclesiastical conception, God is the most capricious, unjust, unreliable of all possible beings. Look at this old and venerable doctrine of eternal damnation, believed by all the Christian sects, save the Universalists, Unitarians, and Spiritualists—not yet a sect— who make at the most some four or five millions out of the two hundred and fifty or sixty millions of Christendom. This is the doctrine:—God is angry with mankind, and will burn the greater part of them in hell, for ever and ever. Why is his wrath so hot against us ? ” 1. The Jews are God’s ancient covenant people; with them • he made a bargain, sworn to on both sides : it was for a good and sufficient consideration, value received by each party; he commanded them to observe the Mosaic form of religion for ever; if any prophet shall come, working never so many miracles, and teach them a different conception of God, they must put him to death, and all his followers, with their wives, their children, and their cattle. (Deut. xiii.) But now all these “ chosen people ” are to be damned for ever because they do not believe the theology of Paul and Jesus, whom the divine law commands the Jews to slay with the edge of the sword for teaching that theology. So God commands the Jews to kill every man among them who shall teach the Christian doctrine, and yet will damn them for not believing it. 2. The Heathen also are to be damned because they have no faith in Christ, no belief in the popular theology of the Catholic or Protestant sects. But that theology is unreasonable, and thoughtful, unprejudiced men cannot believe it; besides that, the greater part of the Heathens never heard of such. Eoctrines, or of Christ; still God will damn them, millions by millions, to eternal torment, because they have not believed to the purposes of Religion, as of Science. �10 THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONCEPTION OF GOD. what was never preached to them, what they never heard they must believe. Three hundred years ago Spanish J esuits preached the doctrine of eternal damnation to the heathen at Japan, who asked of the missionaries, “ Is it possible that God will damn men for ever?” “Certainly, without doubt,” was the reply. “ And if a man dies who has not heard of these things before, will God damn him for ever ?” “Yes,” was the answer. The whole multitude fell on their faces and wept bitterly and long, and would not believe it. Do you blame them for casting those priests from the island, and saying, “Let the salt sea separate us from the Christian world for ever.” 3. Then the Christians themselves are not certain of their salvation, The Catholics are the majority, and they say God will damn all the Protestants ; the Protestants say the same of the Catholics. The ecclesiastical idea of God in both represents him as ready enough to damn either ; and if the first principle of the Catholic Church be true, no Protestant can be saved | and if the first principle of the Protestant Church be true, then every Catholic is sure of damnation and nought besides. See how the Protestants dispose of one another. (1.) All “ unconverted ” and positively wicked men are to be damned; God has no love for them, only hate. (2.) All “ unconverted ” men, not positively wicked ; they have no salvation in them ; they may be the most pious men in the world, the most moral men, but their own religion cannot save them. They must have “ faith ”—that is belief in the ecclesiastical theology—and be Church members ; that is, they must believe as Dr. Banaby believes, and be voted into some little company called a Church, at the Old South or the New Noith, or some other conventicle. (3.) New-born babies not baptized must be shut out from the kingdom of heaven, if not included in the kingdom of hell; such has been the doctrine of the Christian Church from the time of Justin Martyr, who I think first broached it seventeen hundred years ago, and it follows with unavoidable logic from the ecclesiastical notion of God and the ecclesiastical method of salvation. So Jesus must have made a great mistake when he took babies in his arms, and blessed them, and said, “Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of heaven—he ought to have said, “Suffer baptized children to come unto me,” &c. Now what confidence can you have in such a God, so unjust, so unloving, so cruel, and so malignant ? I just now said that God is represented as transcending men in hate and malignity. Look at the matter carefully, narrowing the thing down to the smallest point. Suppose there are now a thousand million �theTEcclesiastical conception of god. 11 persons on the earth, and that only one shall be damned; and suppose that some day a hundred years hence, all the nine hundred and ninety-nine millions, nine hundred and ninety-nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety-nine of us are gathered in the kingdom of heaven, enjoying all the blessedness that Divine love can bestow on the vast faculties of man, still further en­ hanced by the first taste of immortal life; suppose that Intelligence is brought to all and each of us that one man is miserable, languishing in eternal fire, to be there, for ever; suppose we are told that a globe of sand, big as this earth hangs there before his comprehensive eye, and once in a thousand years a single atom is loosened and falls off, and he shall suffer the cruellest torment till, grain by grain, millennium after mil­ lennium, that whole globe is consumed and passed away! and yet then he shall be no nearer the end of his agony than when he first felt the smart. Suppose we are told it was the worst man of all the earth, that it was a murderer, a violator of virgins, a pirate, a kidnapper, a traitorous wretch, who, in the name of Democracy, sought to establish a despotism in America, to' crush out the fairest hopes of political freedom which the sun ever shone upon : or even it was an ecclesiastical hypocrite, with an atheistic heart, believing in no God, and loving no man, who, for the sake of power and ambition, sought to make men tremble at the ugly phantom of a wrathful Deity, and laid his unclean hands on the soul of a man, and macle that a source of terrible agony to mankind.!- -When you are told that this man is plunged into hell for all time; is there a man who would not cry out against the hideous wrong, and scornheaven offered by such a Deity? No ! there is no murderer, no pirate, no violator of virgins, no New England kidnapper, no betrayer of his nation, no ecclesiastical hypocrite even, who would not reject it with scorn, and revolt against the injustice. But the ecclesias­ tical doctrine represents God as thus damning not one man, but millions of millions of men, the great majority of mankind, nine hundred and ninety-nine out of every thousand, and those, too, often the best, certainly the wisest and most loving and pious men ! Do you wonder, then, that thoughtful men, moral men. Affectionate men, and religious men turn off with scorn from tins'conception of God ? I wonder not at all. The fact that the majority have not done so only shows how immensly powerful is this great religious instinct, which God meant should be Queen within us. Let me do no injustice. I admit the many excellent qualities Ascribed to God in the popular theology ; but remember this, that as much as the noblest words of the New Testament add to the conception of God in the worst parts of the Old Testa- �12 THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONCEPTION OF GOD. ment, just so much also do the savage notions from Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, from the baser Psalms, and the Prophets, take away from the Father who is m Heaven, the Spirit who is to be worshipped in spirit and in truth ! In. this “ alligation alternate ” one chapter of the Old Testament can adulterate and spoil all the blessed oracles of the New. Jesus is set off against Joshua; the whole of the Fourth Gospel, the Sermon on the Mount, and many a blessed Parable, is nullified by a scrap from some ancient Jew who thought God was a consuming fire ! The form of Religion demanded of men, in accordance with the ecclesiastical conception of God, certainly has many good things, but it is not natural Piety for its emotional part, the aboriginal love of God ; nor natural Theology for its intellectual part, the natural Idea of God : nor natural Moraltv for its practical part, the normal use of every human faculty ; but it is just the opposite of these; it has a sentiment against nature, thought against nature, practice against nature. In place of Love to God, with trust and hope, the most joyous of all emotions possible to man, it puts Fear of God, with doubt, and dread, and despair, the most miserable of all emotions; and in place of love to men, to all men, according as they need and we are able, it puts love only for your own little household of faith, and hate for all who cannot accept your opinions ; for out of the ecclesiastical conception of God comes not only the superstitition which darkens man’s face, clouds his mind, obscures his conscience, and brutalizes his heart, but also the persecution which reddens his hand with a brother’s blood. The same spirit is in Boston to-day that in the middle ages was in Italy and Spain. Why does not it burn men now, as once it did in Italy, in Spain, and in Oxford ? It only lacks the power; the wish and will are still the same. It lacks the axe and faggot, not the malignant will to smite and burn. Once it had the headsman at its command, who smote and silenced men ; now it can only pray, not kill. Such being the Ecclesiastical Conception of God, such the Ecclesiastical Religion, I do not wonder it has so small good influence on mankind. Men of science, not clerical, turn off from such a God, and such a form of Religion. They are less wise and less happy; their science is die, more imperfect, because they do not know the Infinite God of the Universe, the Absolute Religion. With reverence for a great mind, do I turn the grand studious pages of La Place and Von Humboldt, but not without mourning the absence of that religious knowledge of God, and that intimate trust in Him, which else would have planted their scientific garden with still grander beauty. I do not wonder that men of politics turn off from ecclesiastical �THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONCEPTION OF GOD. 13 religion, and are not warned from wickedness by its admonition, nor guided to justice and philanthropy by its counsels. Look at the politicians of America, England, France, all Christendom and can you show me a single man of them in a high place who believes in the ecclesiastical conception of God, and in public ever dares appeal to the religious nature of man, and there expect to find justification of a great thought or a noble plan ? No ! when such politicians evoke the religious spirit, it is only to make men believe that it is a religious duty to obey any tyrant who seeks to plunder a nation, to silence the Press of France, to crush out the life from prostrate Italy and Spain, to send Americans kidnapping in Pennsylvania or New Eng­ land. The great men of science have broke with the ecclesiastical notion of God ; men of great moral sense will have nothing to do with a Deity so unjust; while the affectional and religious men, whose “ primal virtues shine aloft as stars,” whose deeds are “ charities that heal, and soothe, and bless ” the weary sons of men, they turn off with disgust from the ecclesiastical God, whose chief qualities are self-esteem, vanity, and destructive­ ness. One of the most enlightened writers of the New Testa­ ment says, “God is love.” “Yes,” says the ecclesiastical theologian, “ but he is also a CONSUMING FIEE; he gives all his love to the Christians who have faith in Christ, and turns all his wrath against the non-Christians who have no faith in Christ. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; he that believeth not shall be damned.” If a man accepts this notion of God, he can never be certain of his own welfare hereafter; he may hope, he cannot be sure, for salvation does not depend on a faithful use of talents or opportunities ; but on right belief and right ritual. And when neither the intuitive nor the reflective faculties afford and test, who knows if his belief is right ? The Jews are to be rejected for their faith in Moses and the Prophets. The Fourth Gospel makes Jesus say that.all before him “were thieves and robbers —I think he never said it. Paul repudiated Peter, if not also James and John; he was a dissembler, and they only “ seemed to be somewhatwhile the author of the book of Revelation thrusts Paul out of heaven, consigning him to the synagogue of Satan. Now if Paul and Peter and James and John did not know what faith in Christ meant, and could not agree to live in the same Church, and sit in the same heaven, can you and I be sure of admittance there ? While the ecclesiastical conception of God is thus inadequate to a thoughtful man’s religion, we are yet told that we must never reform this notion ! There is a manifest progress in the conception of God in the Biblical books ; but in the Christian Church we are told that there must be no further step; we �14 THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONCEPTION OE GOD. must stop with Joshua. “Fear hath torment, ’’says that anonymous, deep-heartecl religious writer of the New Testament, seventeen hundred years ago; but “ perfect love casts out fear.” We are told we must not cast it out, but must have a notion of God, which we must fear ! Shame on us ! Mankind has made a mistake. We took a false step at the beginning. The dream which a half-savage Jew had of God we take for God’s affidavit of his own character. We do not look on the World of Matter and Mind, to gather thence a natural idea of God, only at the statements of certain men who wrote seventeen hundred or three thousand years ago, men who did well enough for their time, not ours. All round us lie the evidences against the ecclesiastical con­ ception of God, within us are they yet more distinct. The great mistake of the Christian Church is its conception of God. Once it was the best the nations could either form or accept. To-day it is not worth while to try to receive it. It is inadequate for Science, either the philosophy of matter or man, explaining neither the condition, the history, nor yet the origin of one or the other. It is unfit for Religion; for Piety, its sentimental part—Theology, its intellectual part—Morality, its practical part. I cannot love an imperfect God, I cannot serve an im­ perfect God with perfect morality. There will be no great and sufficient revival of religion till this conception be corrected. Atheism is no relief ; indifference cannot afford any comfort; and belief makes the matter worse. The Churches complain of the atheism of Science; their false notion of God made it atheistic. You and I mourn at the wickedness of men in power; is there anything in the ecclesiastical religion to scare a tyrant or a traitor ? In high American office mean men live low and wicked lives, abusing the people’s trust, and then at last, when the instincts of lust, of passion, and of ambition fail them, they whine out a few penitent words to a priest, on their death-beds, with their last breath making investment for their future reputation on earth, and also in the Christian Church ! For this mouthful of wind do they pass for better Christians than a whole life of eighty years of phil­ anthropy gave Franklin the reputation for. Thus selfish and deceitful men are counted for saints by the Christian clergy, while the' magnificent integrity of Franklin and Washington never gave them a high place in any Christian Church ! You weep at the poverty of life in the American Church—thirty thousand ministers with right of visitation and search on all mankind, and no more to show for it! A revival of religion going on over the whole land—and a revival of the slave trade at the same time, and neither hindering the other ! You mourn �THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONCEPTION OF GOD. 15 at the poverty of life in the Churches of America, but the Church of Christendom is no better—nay, I think the Church in the Free States of America is its better part; the Christian Church abroad strikes hands with every tyrant, it treads down mankind, nor will it be ever checked, while it has such a false conception of God. Under us is the Earth, every particle of it immanent with God; over us are the Heavens, where every star sparkles with Deity; within us are the Heavens and the Earth of human Consciousness, a grander revelation of Deity in yet higher form. These are all of them a two-fold testimony against the Ecclesiastical Conception of God. Not one of them has a whisper of testimony in favor of atheism ; all are crowded with evidence of the Infinite God,—First Good, First Perfect, and First Fair, Father and Mother to you and me, to all that were, that are, that shall be, leading us to life everlasting. �■ to am (MH ..<<< V ?■ .«f n wl i'c, ' ■ Mt ‘ r| \K 1.! f ■ '. ■ •> «ifl ■■ . fl ■! <«f i i!-fe : « 'UgUM^ '♦»■ M* ■ • ?< ^Br:'.' * ‘•■fl ci, ki •<•> .i .. ' OH t*. ■•»-.'<».‘Krj J-! .' W >«: V jrf) '4 jBil .•;' r < <■ -.>,Ji *” . •■ '• . i * '* -•1 jiM ■ '.h ■ptf- '•••■' I--' 7 .. a ■ - jK >jU.J • ■’V" ' w ' ■«".) ' IM ">! *'■ ' ■■'• f‘.t ftfVl. :.tj iu n.H • ■i’a/'.'; ■; ■ JMfT. ..?. r / /., ■■-<=-.« ’Mi , ■ wT a i ■'■ ■ 1 . j.,. 1 i • tw »>.. dr* * < ,;> • • ».!'' Hr.; «#••!• a »t ’ 'WKtf' 'i;' t ; * V. s ,t "■' ' -•*'■#,. ‘ ■•.•>:/' «' j. * ijjr ■ -,‘!t i i i> ■, 'ERf ' ’ *1’ • ; ~ ' id i W ■ /.M .■* gft ii7 < n? ‘/if �IS HELD EVERY SUNDAY AFTERNOON, in the Chapel, FROM HALF-PAST TWO TO HALF-PAST THREE. THE CLASS IS OPEN TO THE PUBLIC. WEEK EVENING CLASSES as usual on the Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. JUBILEE LECTURE, British and Foreign Unitarian Association. On SUNDAY EVENING, April 2nd, Rev. JAS. MACDONALD will Lecture in the Workmen’s Hall, Monkwearmouth, Subject RELIGION AND THE BIBLE.” Service "will Commence at Half-past Six. There will be no service in the Bridge Street Chapel in the Evening of the above-named day. On SUNDAY, April the 9th, Special Collections will be made in the Unitarian Chapel in behalf of the Sunderland Infirmary. THE SUNDERLAND UNITARIAN PULPIT LECTURES on Sale at the Book Stall :■— Discipleship with Christ. By the Rev. Janies Macdonald. do. Do. Ideal Religion. do. Do. Comparative Religion. do. Do. British Workman. Part 1. Do. do. British Workman. Part 2. The Progressive Development of the Conception of God in the Books of the Bible. By Theodore Parker. ... -/I ... ... ... -/I -/I -/I -/I ... -/2 �1 he following valuable Books illustrative of Christian Unitarianism may be purchased from the book stall at the chapel door before or after the Sunday services, or from the Bev. JAMES MACDONALD, Elmwood Street:— Published Channing’s Complete AVorks............................ Channing’s Perfect Life.................................... Bible and Popular Theology. Dr. V. Smith.., Memoir of the Rev. Theophilus Lindsey, M. A. Priestley’s History of the Corruptions of 1 Christianity .................................... j Unitarian Hand-book Rev. R. Spears........... John Milton’s Last Thoughts on the Trinity First Principles in Religion. Rev. J. P. Hopps Parker’s Matters Pertaining to Religion ... Spirit and AVord of Christ. Dr. V. Smith ... Childhood of the World. By E. Clodd, F.R.A.S. The Church of the First Three Centuries. ) By Dr. Lamson ..................................... J The Childhood of Religions. By E. Clodd, ) F.R.A.S. ... “. ... .................. J Literature and Dogma—Arnold ................... God and the Bible Do.......................... 3/6 3/6 3/6 5/o „ ~JI^) _/6 1/1/2/— —]/- Offered, at. . .. 2/2/6 2/2/6 '■ K, 6/~ 9/9/- ., .. 1/-/6 -/9 -/8 1/9 1/lOd. 2/- ■ .. .. 7/6 7/6 .. 4/2 The following Lectures may also be obtained at the book stall : Sympathy of Religions. By T. AV. Higginson................ A Study of Religion. By F. E. Abbot............................ Sin against God. By Professor Newman ................... The Origin of the Devil. - By Dr. Zerffi.......................... Erasmus—His influence on the Reformation. By Elley . Finch............................................................. ... ... Is Jesus God1 Rev. R. R. Suffield ................... Light for Bible Readers. Rev. J. P. Hopps................... Popular Doctrines that obscure the views which the New Testament gives of God. By Rev. AV. Gaskell, M.A. A Lecture on Rationalism. By Rev. Charles Aroysey A Lecture on the Bible. By Rev. Charles A'oysey ... The Living God. By Rev. E. M. Geldart ................... Truths for the Times. By F. E. Abbot ................... -/2 ~/2 -/2 -/3 _/3 -/3 —/2 -/I -/6 -/6 -/3 -/3 Hie Lnitarian Herald (weekly) price Id., and the Christian 1 reeman (monthly) price 1-J-d., are also on sale at the stall. N.B.—These works are offered to the public at a slight sacrifice to the committee, and the object is exclusively for the encouragement of religious truth and. inquiry. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Victorian Blogging Description An account of the resource A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library &amp; Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Conway Hall Library & Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Conway Hall Ethical Society Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Pamphlet Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The ecclesiastical conception of God, and its relation to the scientific and religious wants of man: a sermon delivered at the Pennsylvania yearly meeting of Progressive Friends in the year 1858 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Parker, Theodore Description An account of the resource Place of publication: Sunderland Collation: [2],35, [2] p. ; 22 cm. Notes: From the Sunderland Unitarian Pulpit, No. IV, 2nd Quarter, 1876. Inscription on front flyleaf: M.D. Conway Esq with Mr Jm. Macdonald's compliments. A list of lectures delivered at the Unitarian Chapel, Sunderland listed on title page verso and unnumbered end pages. From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available B. Williams, printers Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource [1876] Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context G5356 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (The ecclesiastical conception of God, and its relation to the scientific and religious wants of man: a sermon delivered at the Pennsylvania yearly meeting of Progressive Friends in the year 1858), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Language A language of the resource English Subject The topic of the resource God Sermons Unitarianism Conway Tracts God Science and Religion https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/f79a20d89070a0aad83bbaffe0fb347a.pdf?Expires=1773878400&Signature=c3B1SsIZn0ruyZZQyFH2fmct0QRaCfUqjq2XSF%7EekvVx5x8HGRQ7aikHCQVpp7yZJ4sqs2aPYqGMQF53GwZ-uSeNqbd3bB9qom6HRcEuNo4x1nFytRNdeIHseWD3-jVZY1TEsceBNE-bXqS4I2XJqW7hpoYCsihCSVEHo17iBdqd4384HphCA7tLw05cNWHz8H3QIuB5UmUrnhYXRApgna9XxTeEtrbRAVsy9tjnFoDEWZ6I-x5aNxcdD8QU%7ECBgSi9RX6JqyhyypOwR9jzfqnv%7EmNbZKjX3vNZPiKhMgx-PyETqcIqQj1yrKHCFtIKB6AYrzWoYEQWGXnJ5iC2wHw__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM 73340133eb796699a67ffba0f04b3571 PDF Text Text 1st QUARTER, 1876. TWO-FENCE, A SERMON DELIVERED AT THE PENNSYLVANIA YEARLY MEETING OF PROGRESSIVE FRIENDS IN THE YEAR 1858. 3 By THEODORE PARKER. g H Kg 5c TO THE READER. Of four sermons delivered by Theodore Parker before the Pennsylvania Progressive Friends in the year 1858, this is the first. The remaining three, treat of the “Ecclesiastical Conception of God,'’ the “ Philosophical Idea of God,” and the “Souls Normal Delight in the Infinite God.” These will be reprinted during the year. It will be seen therefore, that one leading idea is common to the four discourses. The object in reproducing them is to serve the cause of religious truth. JAMES MACDONALD, Elmwood Street. gj Cp g g 3 To guaranteed Subscribers of One Shilling per quarter and upwards, these Sermons will be supplied at the rate of l\d. each, single copies 2d., post free 2^d. ~ g 3 i ------------------------------------------- 3 & B. WILLIAMS, “TIMES” STEAM AND HYDRAULIC PRINTING WORKS, 129, HIGH STREET. �TcT1 W TXT * WVV W 'dXj? vw ewws iX^X? sJwA» vw iXi^fe VtfV BRIDGE STREET, vOv iXnXf vL'® tfSlt vw>t SUNDERLAND. The following course of Lectures will be delivered in the above place of worship, on the undernamed Sunday Evenings ;—1876, January 2nd.—Bev. JAMES MACDONALD.—“Man’s Duties Pertaining to Beligion.” January 9th.—Rev. JAMES MACDONALD. — “ Modern Literature in Relation to the Bible.” January 16th.—GEORGE LUCAS, Esq.—“ The Everlasting Gospel.” JanuarY 23rd.—Rev. JAMES MACDONALD. — “ The Kingdom of Heaven and its Conditions of Entrance.” January 30th.—Rev. JAMES MACDONALD. — “The Utility of Biblical Criticism.” February 6th.—Rev. JAMES MACDONALD.—“The Logic of Christian Orthodoxy.” February 13th.—Rev. H. AV. PERRIS (of Warrington).— “ Modern Life Theories, and their bearing on Religious Philosophy.” February 20th.—Rev. JAS. MACDONALD.—“The Tempta­ tion of Jesus in the Wilderness.” February 27th.—Mr. JAMES WATSON.—“ Christ, the Son of Man.” March 5th.—Rev. JAMES MACDONALD.—“ ReligiouS Life and Individual Indifference.” March 12th.—Rev. JAMES MACDONALD.—“ Prophets— Ancient and Modern.” March 19th.—Rev. JAMES MACDONALD.—“ Immortality and Religion.” March 26th.—Rev. JAMES MACDONALD.—“The Christ of the Gospel, not the Christ of so-called Christian Orthodoxy.” ALL SEATS FREE. The offertory at the close of each service. MORNING SERVICE at a Quarter to Eleven. EVENING SERVICE at Half-past Six. Strangers are requested to enter and take any seat that may be vacant. �THE PROGRESSIVE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CONCEPTION OF GOD IN THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE. A SERMON BY THEODORE PARKER. In the human race nothing is ever still; the stream of humanity rolls continually forward, change following change ; nation succeeds to nation, theology to theology, thought to thought. Taken as a whole, this change is a Progress, an ascent from the lower and ruder to the higher and more comprehensive. Individuals die, special families pass off, nations go under; and a whole race, like the American Indians, may perish, and their very blood be dried up from the ground; yet still mankind survives, and all the material or spiritual good achieved by any race, nation, family, individual, reverts at last to mankind, who not only has eminent domain over the earth, but is likewise heir at history of Moses, of the Heraclides, of Egypt, and of the American Indians. So of much that slips out from the decaying hand of the individual or the race, nothing is ever lost to humanity ; much is out­ grown, nought wasted. The milk-teeth of the baby are as necessary as the meat-teeth, the biters and the grinders of the adult man. Little Ikie Newton had a top and hoop ; spin­ ning and trundling were as needful to the boy as mathematical rules of calculation to the great and world-renowned Sir Isaac. The Progress of Mankind is continuous and onward, as much subject to a natural law of development as our growth from babyhood to adult life. You see this change and progress in all departments of human activity, in Religion and Theology, as distinct as in spinning and weaving. Theological ideas are instruments for making character, as carpenters’ tools for making houses, Take the long sweep of four thousand years that history runs over, and the improvement in theological ideas is as remarkable as the change in carpenters’ tools. You see this progress especially in the Conception of God, and in the Worship that is paid to him conformable to that conception. �2 THE PROGRESSIVE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CONCEPTION. I * Sere the change is continuous, and the progress is full of encouragement for the future. What unlikeness in the conceptions of God which Christian men have to day ! The notion of God set forth in certain churches differs from yours and mine more than Moloch differs from Jehovah. Certainly the God which some ministers scare their congregations withal, is to me only a Devil—a Devil who has no existence, and never appears out of the theological graveyard, where this ghost of buried superstitions 11 walksfrom time to time to frighten men into the momentary panic of a revival. The Bible has become the Sacred-Book of all Christendom. It is not only valued for its worth, which is certainly very great, ' but still more for its fancied authority—because it is thought to be a Revelation made directly and miraculously by God, to certain men whom he inspired with the doctrine it contains. Now, God must know himself, and that perfectly, and if he -make a revelation thereof, he must portray himself exactly as he is. So it is maintained in all Christendom, that to learn the character of God, you are not to go to the World of ■ Matter, or to the World of Man, but only to Revelation, which mirrors back to you his exact image and likeness; giving you God, the whole of God, and nothing but God. Accordingly, it is said that the conception of God is the same in all parts of the Bible, howsoever old or new, without variableness or shadow of turning. But when you come to look at the Bible itself, and study it part by part, and then put the results of your study into a whole, you find a remarkable difference in regard to the chararter of God himself, that depends on the general civili­ zation and enlightenment of the times and the writers : the further you go back,, the ruder all things become. Take the whole of Greek literature, from Homer, eleven hundred years before Christ, to Anna Commena, eleven hundred years after him, and there is a great change in the poetic representa­ tions of God. The same thing happens in the books of the Bible. They extend over twelve or thirteen hundred years; it may be, perhaps, fourteen hundred. Perhaps Genesis is the oldest book, and the Fourth Gospel the newest. What a difference between the God in Genesis and that in the Fourth Gospel! Can any thoughtful man conceive that these two conflicting and'various notions of God could ever have come from the same source ? Let any of you read through the book of Genesis and then the Fourth Gospel, and you will be astonished at the diversity, nay, the hostility even, between the God in the old book and the new one. Then, and at some subsequent time, look at the various books between the two, �OF GOD IN THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE. 3 .and you see what different notions of the Divine Being there are in this “ infallible miraculous revelation of God.” Let us look at this great matter in some details, and to see just what the facts are, and make the whole matter as clear as noonday light, divide the Bible into its three great parts, the Old Testament, the Apocrypha, and the New Testament. In the Old Testament, Genesis may perhaps have been written in its present form, about a thousand years before Christ, though some scholars put it a few hundreds of years nearer our own time; at any rate it seems to have been compiled from .ancient documents, some of them perhaps existing thirteen or fourteen hundred years before the birth of Christ, though others are clearly later. The book of Daniel, a spurious work, was evidently written between 170 and 160 years before Christ. In the Apocrypha, the book of Eccelsiasticus is perhaps the oldest work, and seems to have been written about 180 years before the birth of Jesus. The latest book is The Wisdom of Solomon, of uncertain date. In the New Testament, Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians is the oldest, and was perhaps written 58 or 60 years after Christ; the Fourth Gospel, I think, is the last, and was written, perhaps, 120 or 140 years after Christ. There are seventy books in the canonical and apocryphal Bible. With the exception of four­ teen prophets, Ezra, Nehemiah, David, and Asaph, the two authors of some thirty or forty, perhaps fifty of the Psalms, we know the name of ho writer of the nine-and-thirty books of the Old Testament. Of the Apocrypha we know the name of the writer of the book of Ecclesiasticus, of him no more; of others not even that. In the New Testament it seems clear that Paul wrote the Epistle to the Galatians, that to the Romans, and the two to the Corinthians ; but I doubt if we are certain who wrote any other of its twenty-seven books ! Here, then, out -of seventy biblical books, containing the writings of more than one hundred authors, we know the names of fourteen Hebrew prophets, two Psalmists, two other writers in the Old Testament, one in the Apocrypha, one in the New Testament—twenty men. This fact that we know so little of the authorship of the biblical books is fatal to their authority as a standard of faith, but it does not in the smallest degree affect their value as religious documents, or as signs of the times when they were written. I don’t care who made the vane on the steeple, if it tell which way the wind blows —That is all I want : I don’t know who reared these handsome flowers ; it matters not; their beauty and fragrance tell their own story. We know the time the documents came from, and they are monuments of the various ages, though we know not who made or put them together. Now, look at the conception of God in the first and last of �4 THE PROGRESSIVE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CONCEPTION these three divisions. Of course in the brevity of a morning s * sermon I can only select the most remarkable and charac­ teristic things. I shall begin with the oldest part of the Old Testament, and end with the latest part of the New. 1. At first sight it seems the Hebrews believed in many gods, and no effort of the wisestand best men could keep the nation from falling back to idolatry for centuries. It was not until after the Babylonian Captivity which began in 586 B.C., and ended about eighty years later that the Israelites re­ nounced their idolatry; then contact with monothestic and civilised people corrected this vice. At first, in the Bible, Jehovah appears as one God amongst others, and seems to have his council of gods about him. Next he is the special god of the descendants of Jacob, and called the God of Israel. By and by he is represented as stronger than any of the other gods; he can beat them in battle, though sometimes he gets worsted. Finally, he is the only God, and has regard for all nations, though he still takes special care of the Hebrews, who are his chosen people. The book of Job, I think, is the only one in the Old Testament which makes it appear that God cares for all men alike, and this seems to be the only book in the Old Testament which was not written by a Jew. I think it is one of the latest books in that collection. Now see what character is ascribed to God in the earliest documents of the Bible. The first five books of Moses are the oldest; they contain the most rude and unspiritual ideas of God. He is represented as a very limited and imperfect being. He makes the world in six days, part by part, one thing at a time, as a mechanic does his work. He makes man out of dust, in “ his own image and likeness,” breathes into him, and he becomes a living soul. God looks on the world when he has finished it, and is pleased with his work, “ and behold it was very good.” But he is tired with his week’s work, rests on the seventh day, and “ was refreshed,” The next week he looks at his work, to see how it goes on, and he finds that he must mend it a little. All animals rejoice in their mates, but thoughtful Adam wanders lone ; he must have his Eve. So God puts him into a deep sleep, takes one of his ribs, makes a woman of it, and the next morning there is a help meet for him. But the new man and woman behave rather badly. God comes down and walks in the garden in the cool of the day, calls Adam and Eve, inquires into their behaviour, chides them for their misconduct, and. in consequence of their wrong deed he is very angry with all things, and curses the serpent, curses Eve, curses Adam, and even the ground. The man and woman have tasted of the Tree of Knowledge, and. he turns them out of the garden of Eden lest they should also �OF GOD IN THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE. 5 eat of the Tree of Life, and thereby live for ever. By and by God repents that he made man, and “ it grieved him at his heart,” they behave so badly; so in his wrath he sweeps off all mankind, except eight persons ; but after the flood is over Noah offers a burnt offering, and God smells the sweet savour and is pacified, and says he will not again curse the ground, and he will never destroy the human race a second time. To know what happens he must go from place to place ; thus he understands that the people are building a tower, and comes near enough to look at it, and, not liking the undertak­ ing, he says, “ Go to now, let us go down and confound their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech ” he scatters them abroad, and they cannot build the tower, which was to reach up to heaven. Afterwards he hears bad news from Sodom and Gomorrah, that “ their sin is grievous.” He does not quite credit the tidings, and says, £> 1 will go down now, and see whether they have done altogether accord­ ing to the cry of it, which is come unto me, and if not I will know.” He talks with Abraham, who pleads for sparing the wicked city, beats Abraham in argument, and “ as soon as he had left communing with Abraham,” ££ the Lord wenthis way.” . God appears to man visibly—to Adam, Noah, Abraham, Jacob, and to Moses. ■ He talks with all those persons in the most familiar- way, in the Hebrew tongue : “ the Lord talked r” to Moses, face to face, as a man speaketh with his brother.” He makes a bargain -with Abraham, then with Jacob and his children. It is solemnly ratified, for good and sufficient con­ consideration on both sides. It is for value received : God con­ veys a great quantity of land to Abraham and his posterity, and guarantees the title; they are to circumcise all their male children eight days after birth; that is the jocular tenure by which they hold Palestine. God swears that he will keep his covenant, and though sometimes sorely tempted to break it, he yet adheres to the oath: “ And though he promise to his loss, He makes the promise good.” ». He dines with Abraham, coming in unexpected one day. Abraham kills a calf, “ tender and good.” Sarah makes cakes of fine meal, extemporaneously baked on the hearth. Butter and milk are set forth, and God, with two attendants, makes his dinner. . While Moses was travelling from Midian to Egypt, the Lord met him at a tavern, and “ sought to kill him,” but Moses’s wife circumcised her son before God’s eyes—so God let the “ bloody husband ” go. He is partial, hates the heathen, takes good care of the Jews, not because they deserve it, but because he will not break his covenant. He is jealous ; he writes it with his own �6 TTiE-ItIocSeSsTvE dSvELOPMTNT OF THE CONCEPTION finger in the ten commandments : “ I, the Lord thy God' ani a jealous God and again, “ Jehovah, his name is jealous.” He is vain also, and longs for the admiration of the heathen, and. is dissuaded by Moses from destroying the Israelites when, they had provoked him, lest the Egyptians should hear of it,, and his fame should suffer. Look at this account of one of God’s transactions in Numb, xiv. : “And the Lord says unto Moses, how long will, this people provoke me ? And how long will it be ere they believe me, for all the signs which I have showed amongthem ? I will smite them with the pestilence, and disinherit them, and will make of thee a greater nation, and mightier than they.” And Moses replied : “ Then the Egyptians shall hear of it, and they will tell it to the inhabitants of the land ; they will say, “ Because the Lord was not able to bring the people into the land which he sware unto them, therefore hehath slain them in the wilderness “ Pardon, I beseech thee, the iniquity of this people 1” So, lest the Gentiles should think him weak, Jehovah lets the Hebrews off for a time, and instead of destroying millions of men at once, he spread their ruin over several years. “ In this wilderness they shall be consumed, and there they shall die.” He is capricious, revengeful, exceedingly ill-tempered ; hehas fierce wrath and cruelty; he is angry even with the Hebrews, and one day says to Moses, “ Take all the heads of the people (that is the leading men, the citizens of eminentgravity), and hang them up before the Lord against the sun.” Once God is angry with the people who murmur against Moses, and says to him, “ Get you up from among this con­ gregation, that I may consume them as in a moment!” Moses. is more merciful than his God; he must appease this Deity whois “a consuming fire.” So he tells Aaron, “ Take a censer, and put fire therein from off the altar, and put on incense, and go quickly unto the congregation, and make an atonement for them; for there is wrath gone out from the Lord; the plague is begun !” Aaron does so. and the plagueis stayed, though not till the fury of the Lord had killed, four­ teen thousand and seven hundred men ! (Numb. xvi. 41—50.) God hates some of the nations with relentless wrath; Abra­ ham interferes, pleading for Sodom and Gomorrah, Afoses for the Israelites, but nobody cares for the rest of the people or burns incense for them, so God says, “ I will utterly put out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven.” All the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Hivites, the Perizzites, the Girgashites, the Amorites, and the Jebusites are to be rooted out —seven nations, each of which was more numerous than the Hebrews : “Thou shalt smite them, and utterly destroy them; thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor show mercy unto �< OF GOD IN THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE. ' them,” saith the Lord. The Canaanites and the Moabites were kindred of the Hebrews, of the same ethnologic tribe, but they could not enter into the congregation of the Lord unto the tenth generation ! This God—powerful, terrible, partial, jealous, often illtempered, wrathful, cruel, bloody—is to be worshipped with sacrifice, the blood of bulls and goats, with costly spectacles by the priesthood, who sacrifice to him in a special place, at particular times ; and God gives the most minute directions ‘how all this shall be done, but he is not to be served in any other way, at any other place. Such seems to have been the conception of God with the leading minds of the Hebrews at the beginning of their national existence, or at the later day when the early books were deceitfully compiled. Now see how much they outgrew it a later day. The highest Old Testament idea of God you find in the Proverbs and the later Psalms, which were written only four or - five hundred years after the promulgation of these extraordi­ nary documents which I have just quoted. In these God is represented as all-wise, and always present everywhere. You all remember that exquisite Psalm, the cxxxixth, “ Whither shall I go from thy spirit 1 or whither shall I flee from thy presence ?” There God is unchangeable; his eyes are in every •place, beholding the evil and the good; no thought can be withheld from him. What grand and beautiful conceptions of God are there in Psalms ciii., civ., cvii. ! So in almost the whole of the admirable collection, which is the prayer book of Christendom to-day, and will be till some man with greater poetic genius, united with the tenderest piety, such as poets seldom feel, shall come, and, in the language of earth, sing the songs of the Infinite God. There is a great change also in the manner of worship. At first it was a mere external act—offering sacrifice, a bull, a goat, a lamb ; nay, God commands Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, and the father is about to comply, but the Deity changes his own mind, and prevents the killing of the boy. Listen to this from Psalm li., and see what a change there is : “Have mercy upon me, 0 God, according to thy loving-kindness, according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies, blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. Create in me a clean heart, O God ; and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from thy presence ; and take not thy Holy Spirit from me. For thou desirest not sacrifice; else would I give it: thou delightest not in burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and a contrite spirit, 0 God, thou wilt not despise.” ’ kN ' , - ’ . , .> I ' G J �8 THE PROGRESSIVE DEVELOEMENT OF THE CONCEPTION Look at this from Hosea : “ I desire mercy and not sacri­ fice ; and the knowledge of God more than burnt-offering.” Or this of Micah : “ What doth the Lord require of thee but to do justly and love mercy, and walk humbly with thy God T What a progress for the early times! But even to the last book of the Old Testament there is the same wrath of God. The world has seen no such cursing as that of the Jews in the name of Jehovah. Take the cixth Psalm, and I will defy the hardest of you to wish worse and crueller things than the author imprecates against his enemies :—“ Set thou a wicked man over him ; and let Satan stand at his right hand. When he shall be judged, let him be condemned : and let his prayer become sin. Let his days be few; and let another take his place. Let his children be fatherless and his wife a widow. Let his children be continually vagabonds, and beg : let them seek their bread also out of their desolate places. Let the extortioner catch all that he hath ; and let the stranger spoil his labour. Let there be none to extend mercy unto him ; neither let there be any to favour his fatherless children. Let his posterity be cut off, ; and in the generation following let their name be blotted out. Let the iniquity of his fathers be remembered with the Lord ; and let not the sin of his mother be blotted out. Let them be before the Lord continually, that he may cut off the memory of them from the earth.................... As he clothed himself with cursing like as with a garment, so let it come into his bowels like water, and like oil into his bones.”—vs. 6-15, 18. I quote these because they are seldom read, while the devout and holy portions of the Psalms are familiar to all men. In Bibles which have laid on the pulpit for fifty years, and those read in private from generation to generation, the best parts are worn out with continuous use, while the evil passages are still fresh and new. I think no Old Testament Jew ever got beyond this : “ Was not Esau Jacob’s brother ? saith the Lord : yet I loved Jacob and hated Esau,” (Mai. i. 2, 3.) A Psalmist speaks of God as pursuing his enemies with wrath “ like a mighty man that shouteth by reason of wine.” The Lord God of Israel says to his people, “ I myself will fight against you with an out­ stretched hand, and a strong arm, even in anger, and in fury, and in great wrath.” “I have set my face against this city for evil and not for good.” If they do not repent, his “ fury will go forth like fire, and burn that none can quench it;” and “ this house shall become a desolation.” Here is a terrible picture of the Hebrew God, sketched by the hand of a great master some time after the Babylonian Captivity. There had been a great battle between the Edo­ mites and the Hebrews 1 God comes back as a conqueror, the �OF GOD IN THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE. ' .9' ' people see him, and the following dialogue takes place :— People: —Who is this that cometh from Edom ? .' ' .' ■ icK, ’ Vf..-. .’■< ' z< - I i ■ ,’ • , ■ ,. • x ■ ; ; In scarlet garments from Bozrah ? This that is glorious in his apparel, u Proud in the greatness of his strength ? Jehovah :—I that proclaim deliverance, And am mighty to save. People : —Wherefore is thine apparel red, And thy garments like those of one that treadeth the wine vat ? Jehovah'.—I have trodden the wine-vat alone, And of the nations there was none with me. , ■ And I trod them in mine anger, ' , . . X And I trampled them in my fury, So that their life-blood was sprinkled upon my garments, And I have stained all my apparel. For the day of vengeance was in my heart— , ’' I trod down the nations in my anger; I crushed them in my fury, And spilled their blood upon the ground. * “ Home-keeping youths have ever homely wits,” says the proverb; it is not less true of nations than of men. The religious but idolatrous Jews met a monotheistic people in their captivity in Babylon, and came back with better ideas. Yet much of the old theological evil lingered still. Ezra,, • Nehemiah, and the author of the book of Daniel, devout men, intensely bigoted, knew only “ the great and dreadful God;” that is the name the last of them calls Jehovah. But from the first five books of the Old Testament to the Proverbs and later Psalms there is great progress. II. You come to the N ew Testament, and here you do not find much literary excellence in the writers. Wild flowers of exquisite beauty spring up around the feet of Jesus ; only in the Revelation do you find anything which indicates a large talent for literature, neither the nature which is born in the man of genius, nor the art which comes from exquisite cul­ ture. The Fourth Gospel was writ, apparently, by some Alexandrian Greek, a man of nice philosophic culture and fancy. Paul had great power of deductive logic. A grand poetic imagination appears in that remarkable book, the Apocalypse. But, taken as a whole, in respect to literary -art, the New Testament is greatly inferior to the best parts - of the Apocrypha and Old Testament. It compares with Job, the Psalms, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ecclesiasticus, and the Wisdom of Solomon, as the works of the early Quakers compare with Hooker, Taylor, Herbert, Cudworth, and Milton; and yet, spite of the lack of culture, literary art, and poetic ■ .genius in the New Testament, as in Fox, Nayler, Penn, and other early Quakers, there is a spirit not to be found in the well-born and learned writers who went before. *Dr. Noyes’s Translation. -'7 ;M|L ' . '-tB 7,^ V �TO THE PROGRESSIVE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CONCEPTION I. In the New Testament, look first at the conception which Jesus has of God. I shall take it only from the first three Gospels. In that, according to Matthew, I think we have his early notion of God. He calls him Father. The same word is now and then applied to God in the Old Testament, but there I think it means only Father to the Jews, not to other nations. But it seems that some of the Greeks and Jews in Jesus’s own time applied it to him, as if he were the father of all men. As Jesus makes the Lord’s Prayer out of the litanies which were current in his time, so he uses the common name for the Deity in the common sense. With him God alone is good, and our Father which is in heaven is perfect. “ He maketh + his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.” He pities and forgives the penitent, as in that remarkable story of the Prodigal Son. With what tender love does Jesus say, “There is joy in heaven over one sin­ ner that repenteth more than over ninety and nine just persons who need no repentance.” Such noble thoughts come out in that time as “ shines a good deed in a naughty world.” But what becomes of the impenitent wicked ? God has no love for them; they shall go into everlasting punishment. So, alongside of God there is a Devil, and to the left hand of heaven there is a dreadful, fiery, endless hell, whither a broad way leads down, anJ the wide gates stand ever open, and many there be who go in thereat. At first Jesus limited his teachings to the Jews ; he would not take the children’s bread and give it unto the dogs ; he -declared that not a jot ox jbittle of the Mosaic ceremonial law should ever fail; he told his disciples to keep all that the Scribes and Pharisees commanded, because they sat in Moses seat. But by-and-by he nobly breaks ■with Judaism, violates the ritual law, puts his new wine jinto new bottles. With admirable depth of intuitive sight he sums up religion in one word, Love—Love to God with all the heart, and to one’s neighbour as himself. Fear of God seldom appears in the words of Jesus. Fear is the religion of the Old Testa­ ment. Mercy is better than sacrifice. Men go up to heaven for righteousness and philanthropy, and no question is asked about creed or form. Other men go down to hell for ungod­ liness ; and no straining at a gnat would ever save him who would swallow down a whole camel of iniquity. Human literature cannot show a dearer example of tenderness to a penitent wicked man than you see in the story of the Prodigal son, which yet the first Evangelist rejected, and two others left without mention. All nationality disappears before Jesus. His model man is a Samaritan. We hear that word commonly used and do not understand that the Jews hated a Samaritan as the old �OF GOD IN THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE. 11 /^rew^England Federalists hated a Jacobin, as the British used ■ I to hate a Frenchman, or as a Southern slaveholder hates a black Republican to-day. Depend upon it, it created as much ■ A' sensation amongst men who heard it when Jesus told this story of the Good Samaritan, as it would in Virginia to have some -!?'a . one represent a Negro as superior to all the “first families of the State, on account of some great charity that he had done. ■ ' -■? I do not find that Jesus altered the common idea of God L V which he found. He was too intent on practical righteousness |■■to attend to that. Besides, he was cut off when about thirty years of age; had he lived longer, it may be that he would have reformed the popular notion of God ; for there are some things in the words that drop like honey from his lips which Eg to me indicate a religious feeling far beyond his thought. HL? 2. In the writings of Paul I find more speculation about God than with Jesus ; for Paul was mainly a theological man, as Jesus was mainly a pious and philanthropic man. Jesus could start a great religious movement; Paul could make a Bfe., ; theology out of his hints, and found a sect.- But the most 11 important characteristic of Paul’s idea of God is this : God’s wrath was against all ungodliness in Jew or Gentile, and he - , was as accessible to Gentile as to Jew. Nationality vanishes ; * all men are one in Christ Jesus; God is God to all, to punish . ' the wicked and to reward the righteous who have faith in Christ ; the Jews are as wickedas the rest of mankind, and are to be equally saved by faith in Christ, and by that alone. . •; _ Paul’s Christ is not the Jesus of History, but a mythological . being he conjured up from his own fancy. He says that the invisible God is clearly made known to the visible material I ' -5. world, and conscience announces God’s law to the Gentiles as effectually as revelation declares it to the Jews. That is a great improvement on the Old Testament idea of God, as pre­ sented even in the Psalms. 3. In the Fourth Gospel and the First Epistle attributed to < ' / <' John—both incorrectly attributed to him—the idea of God goes higher than elsewhere in the New Testament. God is mainly love. He dwells iD the souls of men who love each 'other and love him, and is to be worshipped in spirit and in truth, not only in Jerusalem, .phut anywhere and everywhere ’V ' Perfect love casteth out fear. This God has an only-begotten Son, to whom he has given the Spirit without measure, put all things under his hand > ■ . he who believes on the Son shall have everlasting lite, but he who does not believe on the Son shall not see life. Christ’s . commandment is that they love one another, and to those God will give another Comforter, the Spirit of Truth, who shall abide with believers for ever; nay, Christ will manifest him­ self to them. j. �12 THE PROGRESSIVE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CONCEPTION^ But this God has created a Devil, who will send all un­ believers into endless torment. Thus ends the last book of the New Testament. What a change from Genesis to the Fourth Gospel 1 What a difference between the God who eats veal and fresh bread with Abraham, and commands him to make a burnt-offering of his own son, who conveys all Palestine on such a jocular tenure, and the God whom no man hath seen at any time; who is Spirit, and has to be worshipped in spirit and in truth ; who is love, and who dwells with all loving and believing souls I There are I know not how many hundred years be­ tween the two—what a series of revolutions ! what vast pro­ gress of mankind had filled up that brief period of time. But the idea of God which you gather from the Bible is ' quite unsatisfactory to a thoughtful and deeply religious man to-day. In the Old Testament there is no God who loves the . Gentiles ; he made the world for the Jews ; all others are only servants—means, not ends. This being so, the Hebrew thought himself the only favourite of God ; his patriotism became immense contempt for all other nations—was a part of his religion. In the New Testament, the God whom even Jesus sets before mankind has no love for the wicked ; there is no Providence forthem ; at the last judgment he sends them all to hell, bottomless, endless, without hope • their fire dieth not, their worm is not quenched ; no Lazarus from Abraham’s bosom will ever give Dives a single drop of water to cool his tongue, tormented in that flame. Jesus tells of God, also of the Devil ; of heaven with its eternal blessedness awaiting every righteous man, and of the eternal torment not less open and waiting for every one who dies impenitent. Paul narrows still more this love of God towards men ; it includes only such as have faith in Christ; no man is to be saved who does not , believe in Paul’s idea of Christ, The author of the Apocalypse constricts it still further yet; he would cast out Paul from heaven ; Paul is called a “ liar,” “ of the Synagogue of Satan,” and other similar names. The Fourth Gospel limits salvation to such as believe the author’s theory of Christ, that he was a God, and the only-begotten Son of God, an idea which none of the three Evangelists, nor Paul, nor James, nor Simon Peter, seems ever to have entertained. I think that Jesus never held such a doctrine as what Paul and the writer of the Fourth Gospel makes indispensable to salvation. To the Jews every Gentile seemed an outcast from God’s providence. To the early followers of Jesus all unbelievers were also outcasts ; “ he that believeth and is baptised shall be saved, but he that believeth not shall be damned.” I find no adequate reason for thinking Jesus ever spoke these words, found only in the doubtful addition to the second canonical �OF GOD IN THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE. It yt, I" ■ 13 Gospel. Yet there seems evidence enough to show that Jesus himself really taught that ghastly doctrine, that a great wickedness unrepented entailed eternal damnation on an immortal soul. Paul says human love never fails ; he suffers long and is kind, and yet both he and the man whom he half worshipped teach that God has no love for the wicked man who dies in his impenitence; endless misery is his only destination. Neither in the Old Testament nor in the New do you find the God of infinite perfection, infinite power, wisdom, justice, love ; it is always a limited God, a Deity with imperfect wisdom, justice, love; God with a Devil beside him, the created fiend getting the victory over his Creator! The Bible doesnot know that infinite God, who is immanent in the world of Matter and Man, and also lives in these flowers, in yonder stars, in every drop of blood in our veins; who works every­ where by law, a constant mode of operation of natural power in Matter and in Man. It is never the dear God who is re­ sponsible for the welfare of all and each, a Father so tender that he loves the wickedest of men as no mortal mother can love her only child. Does this surprise you ? When mankind was a child, he thought as a child, and understood as a child ; when he becomes a man he will put away childish things. How full of encouragement is the fact of such a growth in man’s conception of God, and his mode of serving him ! In the beginning of Hebrew history, great power, great selfesteem, and great destructiveness are the chief qualities that men ascribe to god. Abraham would serve him by sacrificing Isaac; Joshua, a great Hebrew filibuster, by the butchery of whole nations of men, sparing the cattle, which he might keep as property, but not the women and children. This was counted as service of God, and imputed to such marauders for righteous­ ness. In the notion of God set forth in the Fourth Gospel and the First Epistle ascribed to John, it is love which preponde­ rates, and by love only are men to serve God. With Jesus it is only goodness which admits men to the kingdom of heaven, and there is no question asked as to nation, creed, or form ; but this sweet benediction is pronounced : “ Inasmuch as you did it unto the least of these my brethren, ye did it unto me ;” “ Come ye blessed, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world !” Shall you and I stop where the New Testament did ? We cannot, if we would, and it is impious to try. What if Moses had been content with the Egyptian chaos of a deity, “ where every clove of garlic was.a god ;” what if Jesus had never broke with the narrow bonds of Judaism ; what if Paul had been content with “such as were Apostles before him/’ and had stuek at new moons, circumcision, and other abominations which neither he nor his fathers were able to bear; where would have been L| .-jjB . < - ,> �14 THE PROGRESSIVE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CONCEPTIolw, OF GOD IN THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE. the Christian Church, and where the progress of mankind ? No, we shall not stop I It would be contrary to the spirit of Moses, and still more contrary to the spirit of Jesus to attempt to arrest the theological and religious progress of mankind. God in Genesis represents the conception of the babyhood of humanity. Manhood demands a different conception. All round us lies the world of Matter, this vast world above us and about us and beneath ; it proclaims the God of Nature ; flower speaking unto flower; star quiring unto star ; a God who is resident therein, his law never broken. In us is a World of Consciousness, and as that mirror is made clearer by civili­ zation, I look down, and behold the Natural Idea of God, infinite Cause and Providence, Father and Mother to all that are. Into our reverent souls God will come as the morning light into the bosom of the opening rose. Just in proportion as we are faithful, we shall be inspired therewith, and shall frame “ conceptions equal to the soul’s desires,” and then in our practice keep those “ heights which the soul is competent to win.” ���Tuesday, February 22nd.—Rev. JAMES MACDONALD.— “ Unitarianism ; or the Gospel as Christ Taught it.’’ Monday, February 28th.—Rev. JAMES MACDONALD.— “Unitarian Christianity in Relation to the Bible and Science.” Tuesday, March 7th.—GEO. LUCAS, Esq.—“ The Authority of Scripture—What it is not—What it is.” Tuesday, March 14th.—Rev. JAMES MACDONALD.—“The Bible an Inspired, but not an Infallible Book.” Tuesday, March 21st.—GEO. LUCAS, Esq.—“ Scripture Inter­ pretation—The False Method—The True Method.” Tuesday, March 28th. — Rev. JAMES MACDONALD — “Religion—The Dogmatic System—The Rational Con­ ception.” Tuesday, April 4th.—GEO. LUCAS, Esq.—“Do we find the Doctrine of the Trinity, or the Deity of Jesus taught in the Book of Acts, if we do—where ? If not—why not” An Open Conference will be held at the close of each of these Lectures, to which inquirers after religious truth are invited. The Chair will be taken each evening at 8 o’clock. February, 14th, ANNUAL CONGREGATIONAL TEA MEETING. On Tuesday Evening, February 15th, the Rev. FT. W. Perris (of Warrington) will Lecture, subject:— £< JOHN STUART MILL—A Study of Character,” A Beliglous & Sooial Improvement Glass IS HELD EVERY SUNDAY AFTERNOON, in the Chapel, FROM HALF-PAST TWO TO HALF-PAST THREE. THE CLASS IS OPEN TO THE PUBLIC. WEEK EVENING CLASSES as usual on the Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. �The following valuable Books illustrative of Christian Unitarianism may be purchased from the book stall at the chapel door before or after the Sunday services, or from the Rev. JAMES MACDONALD, Elmwood Street:— Published at. Offered, at. 3/6 3/6 3/6 5/2/6 ... 2/2/2/2/1/- -/6 1/1/2/— V- .... -.. -,. .... .,■ • -,. -/6 -/9 -/8 1/9 1/lOd. Channing’s Complete Works ............................ Channing’s Perfect Life.................................... Bible and Popular Theology. Dr. V. Smith ., Memoir of the Rev. Theophilus Lindsey, M.A. Priestley’s History of the Corruptions of 1 Christianity .................................... J Unitarian Hand-book. Rev. R. Spears........... John Milton’s Last Thoughts on the Trinity First Principles in Religion. Rev. J. P. Hopps Parker’s Matters Pertaining to Religion Spirit and Word of Christ. Dr. V. Smith ... Childhood of the World. By E. Clodd, F.R.A.S. The Church of the First Three Centuries. ) By Dr. Lamson ..................................... J The Childhood of Religions. By E. Clodd, ) F.R.A.S...................................................... f The following Lectures may also be obtained at the book stall: Sympathy of Religions. By T. W. Higginson............... A Study of Religion. By F. E. Abbot............................ Sin against God. By Professor Newman ................... Birth and Growth of Myth. By E. Clodd, F.R.A S. ... Dreams and Ghosts. By Dr. Zerffi.......................... ... The Origin of the Devil. By Dr. Zerffi.......................... The Vedas and Zendavesta. By Dr. Zerffi................. Erasmus—His influence on the Reformation. By Elley Finch............................................................................. Discipleship with Christ. By Rev. J. Macdonald. ... Ideal Religion. Do. do. ... British Workman. Part I. Do. do. ... Do. Part II. Do. do. ... Comparative Religion. By Rev. J. Macdonald .......... Is Jesus God? Rev. R. R. Suffield ........................... Light for Bible Readers. Rev. J. P. Hopps................... Popular Doctrines that obscure the views which the New Testament gives of God. By Rev. W. Gaskell, M. A. -/2 -/2 -/2 -/3 -/3 -/3 -/3 ~/3 -/I -/I -/I -/I -/I ~/3 -/2 -/I The Unitarian Herald (weekly) price Id., and the Christian Freeman (monthly) price l|d., are also on sale at the stall. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Victorian Blogging Description An account of the resource A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library &amp; Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Conway Hall Library & Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Conway Hall Ethical Society Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Pamphlet Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The progressive development of the conception of God in the books of the Bible: a sermon delivered at the Pennsylvania yearly meeting of Progressive Friends in the year 1858 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Parker, Theodore Description An account of the resource Place of publication: Sunderland Collation: [2],14, [2] p. ; 21 cm. Notes: From the Scottish Unitarian Pulpit, No. III., 1st quarter, 1858. This is the first of four lectures delivered by Parker before the Pennsylvania Progressive Friends. A list of lectures at the Unitarian Chapel, Sunderland listed on preliminary and unnumbered last pages. From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available B. Williams, printers Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1876 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context G5355 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (The progressive development of the conception of God in the books of the Bible: a sermon delivered at the Pennsylvania yearly meeting of Progressive Friends in the year 1858), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Language A language of the resource English Subject The topic of the resource Bible Sermons Unitarianism Bible Conway Tracts Sermons https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/53c40a1a857b0b32dc515b3fe7239cfb.pdf?Expires=1773878400&Signature=lD4PMs5rtHXl0zaG84XKcQc2bLrIA8MH2mEVnmRJCxUUIThABorbCsHczwS1me%7EgK4eXvT5ZLSB%7EC1YS0RcLmNx20s7GV9GNSHIgXsmJfJdWAXcbI78gzDv5M%7EdlKBuaK0s7Z52I0q7DDzmFsRSXRytnV70kx1X7SxmfhPLwPVyC0afqqlgzkZJev%7Ef-fTbVCmMo0R7JAmqbUb%7ENyGsy5FOg1N6jl%7E9OMu%7ER2kvJcDUizba4IL5dsBp%7EU5SlvYg-sVbhIVsHdRPKEe3QYglHeeJcFy6j21z0EAncgP2n5aRkpaT0jvQkNaiuvIKjfWsLXv5OjT6qOqtBKTXCc9zUVA__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM 7aa044a7db482df87cba22cb1217a07d PDF Text Text 1»iWbWS '*** *!'■ . '.< & L!- :^!''.i'"-r> ••’W IHJ 'ifta'•.=•.•• :;■:■•• .'.I'-' ■ .fll . ' vtt SUPREME COURT OF OHIO. DECEMBER TERM, 1808. William Wiswell William Greene, . i William Goodman, and Others. / ? ",^op \ -,■■■'■<>4j <: . U,- - ■ \#< ARGUMENT FOR THE PLAINTIFF. This action was brought to restrain the Trustees of the First Congregational Church of Cincinnati from selling its real estate (house of worship) and dividing the proceeds thereof in pursuance of certain resolutions alleged to have been adopted at a meeting of the corporators, April 11th, 1859. The Church was incorporated by a special act of the General Assembly, passed January 21st, 1830. (Local Laws, vol. 28, pp. 28, 29). Section first enacts that Elisha Brigham, William Greene, and three others, “ and their associates for the time being,” shall be a body corporate, with perpetual succession, etc. Section second authorizes the corporation to sue and be sued, plead and be impleaded, etc. Section third authorizes it to acquire any estate, real or personal, by purchase or devise, and to hold the same; but the net annual income of all such property, except the house of worship and the parsonage-house, shall not exceed four thousand dollars. “And provided, also, that all such / �[ 2 ] property, with the house of worship and parsonage-house, shall be considered as being held in trust, under the manage­ ment and at the disposal of said corporation, for the pur­ pose of promoting the interest of their church, defraying the expenses incident to their mode of worship, and main­ taining any institutions of charity or education that may be therewith connected: Provided, moreover, that when money or other property shall be given, granted, or be­ queathed, or devised to said corporation for any particular end or purpose, it shall be faithfully applied to such end or purpose.” Section fourth provides for the election of five trustees, annually, on the first Monday of April. Sec. 5. “All elections shall be by ballot, and deter­ mined by a majority of votes; each member of the corpo­ ration being entitled to one vote in this as in all other matters touching the interests of the corporation.” Sec. 6. “ That an owner of a single pew, in the house of worship, shall be entitled to all the privileges of mem­ bership.” Sec. 7. “ That extra meetings of the corporation may be called by the trustees, at any time, on their giving five days’ previous notice in any one of the newspapers of Cin­ cinnati.” Section eighth defines the powers of the trustees; but provides “that they shall make no by-law or pass any order for the imposition of any tax, or the sale of any property, on account of the corporation, unless by the consent of said corporation, expressed by a majority of the members present, legally assembled.” ': The other sections have no especial importance. On the 23d of March, 1830, Elisha Brigham conveyed •' to the Church, by its corporate name, for a valuable consid­ eration, the real estate now in- controversy, at the south­ west corner of Race and Fourth streets, Cincinnati. �[ 3 ] On the 19th of July, 1855, the Society adopted a preamhle,za constitution, and certain by-laws. (Printed Rec­ ord, pp. 22, 23.) Very few attendants at the Church omitted to sign these. Agreed Case, clause 12. (Printed Record, p. 15). The constitution, article second, declares: “In addition to those persons who are qualified to be members under the act of incorporation, all who sign these articles shall become members; but any person may withe­ draw from the society by filing a notice to that effect with the secretary.”, ,.j! > : .i . Article fourth declares “ the duty of the members and officers to co-operate together in promoting the objects of the society, as specified in the preamble, by a regular at­ tendance on its meetings ” and observance of the by-laws. On the 26th of February, 1859, thirteen^ members ad­ dressed a letter to the trustees (Printed Record, pp. 34, 35) requesting them “to call a meeting of the Society to consider the propriety of a change for another pastor.”.! The petitioners say, in this letter, that they differ “widely” from Rev. Mr* Conway, the pastor in office, with regard to his views of Christian truth, and believe that his influence over them, “ for good,” as a clergyman and a pastor, is at end.. . . i. < i -xh Thereupon, March 21st, the trustees called a meeting of the “pew-owners and pew-renters” only, for the 28th of March, “to consider the question of further retaining th$ services of Rev. Mr. Conway as pastor of the church.” .♦ (Printed Record, p. 25). ... ■■ ■ j At that meeting, March 28th, a-resolution was offered, by Mr. Greene, in these wordsr . •' -if., “ That it is desirable to retain Mr. Conway as pastor of this church, and that his services as such are acceptable.” Pending the discussion of which, a question arose as to the qualification for suffrage; whereupon the chairman, Mr. Hosea, decided that only “ pew-owners ” could vdte. (Printed Record, p. 29). t , * �[ 4 ] Mr. Goodman then moved that each “pew rented or sold ” should be entitled to one vote; which Mr. Kebler moved to amend by adding that no member should have more than one vote—which amendment was adopted by twenty-one to twelve. “ The vote was put to pew-owners only, by direction of the Chair, against the protest of Mr. Iioadly and others.” (Printed Record, pp. 29, 30). The question then recurred upon Mr. Goodman’s motion as thus amended, and it was lost (on two trials) by a tie ! vote. This question, also, by direction of the Chair, “under protest as before,” was put to the pew-owners only. (Printed Record, p. 30). The meeting, after some ineffectual discussion, adjourned until March 30th. At the adjourned meeting, Mr. Hoadly moved to amend Mr. Greene’s resolution by substituting what fol­ lows : “ Whereas, this Society is so divided in sentiment that the members can no longer work and worship together as one harmonious whole, “ Resolved, that--------- be a committee to draft a plan for a just division, and report the same to the annual meeting.” The substitute, after several preliminary votes, was adopted—Yeas, 27; Nays, 9. But, on each vote, the Chair allowed only “pew-owners” to be called, and Mr. Hoadly protested against the limitation. Four of the defendants, William Greene, George Car­ lisle, William Goodman, and Jeremy Peters, were appointed the committee to report a plan of division. (Printed Rec­ ord, pp. 31, 32). At the annual meeting, April 4th, the Committee “ re­ ported, verbally, that it would be advisable to dispose of the church-property, and, if legal, to divide the proceeds in the proportion of the interest of the pew-owners, the proceeds �[ 5 ] to be used for the purpose of establishing two churches, but doubts having arisen as to the legality of such a proceeding, they had decided to report their doubts and $sk instructions.” Whereupon the subject was re-commit­ ted to the same gentlemen, with authority to employ counsel and take legal advice. (Printed Record, pp. 32, 33). At the same meeting, and preliminary to a choice of trustees for the ensuing year, Mr. Greene moved that pew­ venters be authorized to vote upon all questions. “ Carried unanimously.” (Printed Record, p. 33). At an adjourned meeting, April 11th, these resolutions ' were adopted: 1. “That Messrs. Greene, Carlisle, Goodman, and Peters be appointed a committee with power to sell the Church real estate, at private sale or public auction, or to lease the same perpetually, at their discretion, and that the trustees convey the same by deed of general warranty when sold, or, if leased, that they execute the necessary lease.” 2 “That the trustees, after paying the debts of the church, transfer and hand over to a new board of trustees of a new religious society, to be formed by part of the members of this, such a proportionate part of the proceeds of said church-property as fairly may belong to such mem­ bers forming a new church, reckoning according to the valuation of the pews, including sums now standing to the credit of parties which are not represented by pews.” The vote upon these resolutions was submitted to the “ pew-owners ” only, and was carried in the affirmative. “A committee of two [Messrs. Anthony and Kebler] was then appointed,” says the record, “ to wait on the sev­ eral pew-owners, and obtain their directions, in writing, as to the corporation to which they desired their respective in­ terests to belong.” (Page 37). At another adjourned meeting, April 25th, the commit­ tee in reference to the real estate reported that they had, as yet, been unable either to sell or let the same; where- �[61 upon Mr. Force moved that they be required to advertise it for sale, at auction, on the 16th of May, unless previously sold or let by private contract, and at such terms as the committee might prescribe. ‘ \ ' v ■ 40’ , ' .i . ' t </ At this stage of proceedings, the plaintiff interposed—and the Court of Common Pleas enjoined the trustees then in office (Messrs. Greene, Goodman, Allen, Harrison, and Hoadly) as well as Messrs. Carlisle and Peters, together with the corporation by name, from selling the church­ property as proposed. : J Meanwhile, a number of the members had formed a sep" arate religious society, ^Church of the Redeemer,” and adopted a covenant as well as a constitution and certain by-laws for themselves. (Printed Record, pp. 20, 21, 22). These define the qualification of membership in the new society, provide for the election of its trustees, etc. ’ ■ I. - We insist that the resolutions of April llfh, 1859, were'toot adopted by the First Congregational Church in the mode required by the Sth section of its charter. The letter of February 26th requested the trustees to call a meeting of the “ Society ” to? consider the question of discharging Mr. Conway from his pastoral office; instead of which, the trustees called a meeting of the “ pew-oWners and pew-renters” only, and thus, by the terms of their notice, excluded all other members from participation or even attendance. At that meeting (March 28th) the chairman, Mr. Hosea, directed every question to be put to the “pew-owners” only, and thus excluded a portion of those (pew-renters) whom the trustees had summoned. It seems that the “pew-owners” present, thirty-two, were divided in opinion, equally, as to the right of “ pew- �[7 ] renters ’’ to vote; and by that equality of division, in which his own vote was counted, the mandate of the Chairman be­ came conclusive. - , ; L’ ,f We acknowledge that li pew-owners ” were members of the corporation: the 6th section of the charter so declares in express terms. But they were not the only members. The corporation was created, in presenti, by the first sec­ tion of the charter: “ That Elisha Brigham, William Greene, Nathaniel Guil­ ford, Jesse Smith, Christian Donaldson, and their associates for the time being, be and they are hereby created and declared a body corporate and politic, by the name of the First, Congregational Church of Cincinnati, and, as such, shall remain and have perpetual succession; subject, how­ ever, to such future regulations as the Legislature may think proper to make touching their matters of mere tem­ poral concernment.’’ . v....p,, When this charter was granted, January 21st, 1830, the First Congregational Church had no house of worship: it had none, as appears by. , the record, until after the deed from Elisha Brigham, March 23d, 1830, and until the pres­ ent building was erected and completed. There could be, of course, not a single pew-owner. But there was, never­ theless, a body corporate and politic—composed of Messrs. Brigham, Greene, Guilford, Smith, Donaldson, and “ thenassociates ” at that time. And this body corporate and politic,“ as such,” was to remain, and to have perpetual succession. It was to consist of all who, from time to time, should be associated, by the name of the First Congrega­ tional Church of Cincinnati, for public worship. (Milford and Chillicothe Turnpike Co. v. Brush, 10 Ohio Rep. 113, 114; Fire-Department of New-York v. Kip, 10 Wendell, 269; Lessee of Frost v. Frostburg Coal Co. 24 Howard, 278). i Jt was not merely a corporation in abeyance until a house of meeting had been erected; else how could it receive any title, as grantee, by the deed of Brigham? Nor will its corporate existence be determined, or impaired. �[ 8 1 by the destruction or sale of its church-edifice; else how can the resolutions of April 11th, 1859, be any thing less than an act of suicide ? And yet, as all must agree, the destruction of the church-building would extinguish, utterly, the title of the pew-owners. (Price v. Methodist Episcopal Church, 4 Ohio Rep. 541; Freligh v. Platt, 5 Cowen, 496; Voorhees v. Presbyterian Church of Amsterdam, 8 Barbour, 151, 152; Matter of the Reformed Dutch Church, 16 Barbour, 240, 241; Wheaton v. Gates, 18 New York Rep. 404, 405; Wentworth v. First Parish in Canton, 3 Pick. 346, 347. See, also, Pawson v. Scott, Sayer, 177, 178). The design of section sixth, in the charter, is only to confer upon a pew-owner the privileges (temporal) of mem­ bership, without his being a member in fact. It can have no other meaning consistent with legal principles. As to pew-renters, merely as such, they are not corpor­ ators. (Leslie v. Birnie, 2 Russell, 114.) The “associates” of the Church, as a religious society, are the persons who hold the corporate character by succession from those named, originally, in the charter. (Robertson v. Bullions, 1 Ker­ nan, 247, 248, 249, 250; Wyatt v. Benson, 23 Barbour, 327.) And it is for the Society to declare, in the form of a constitution or by-law, who shall, and who shall not, enjoy the right of suffrage. Or, if there be no express rule, the question must be determined by a reference to past usage. (The State v. Crowell, 4 IJalsted, 411.) But we have, in the present case, an express rule. The constitution adopted by the society, on the 19th of July, 1855, declares that “in addition to those persons who are qualified to be members under the act of incorporation pew-owners) all who sign these articles shall become members.” That leaves nothing to doubt or argument, and even precludes any question of usage. It is said that Messrs. Greene, Stetson, and Walker expressed the opinion, pri­ vately, at some time or other, that only pew-owners could �L 9 1 vote; but, with all respect to those gentlemen, their opinions, in this regard, are inadmissible. Opinions do not even tend to prove the usage in such cases. (Attor­ ney-General v. Drummond, 1 Drury & Warren, 353). That the exclusion of a number of members, and es­ pecially of a whole class, from voting upon any question where the consent of the corporation, as such, is requisite, will avoid the proceeding utterly, seems not to be dis­ putable. (Case of St. Mary’s Church, 7 S. & Rawle, 530; 1^.543). II. It is said, however, that on the 23d of May, 1859, the First Congregational Church adopted other resolutions to the same effect: “ Whereas, it is for the interest of this church that its property should be sold, and the proceeds distributed to the two bodies into which the membership is divided, if the same can legally be done, “ Resolved, that we consent to a sale of the real estate of the church upon the following terms: one-fourth cash, balance in one, two, and three years, with interest from the day of sale, payable annually, the deferred payments to be secured by mortgage on the premises, the proceeds to be equally divided between this Church and the Church of the Redeemer. * Resolved, that the trustees be instructed to enter their appearance in the Court of Common Pleas, in the suit brought by William Wiswell against them and others, and ask that Court to give judicial sanction to, and to direct the trusts of the charter to be carried out by, such sale and division.” These resolutions constitute no defence to the plaintiff’s action: they were not passed, or even proposed, until after the action had been commenced, and the injunction al­ lowed. Can the Court give them any “judicial sanction ? �[ 10 ] (JI. We answer (first) not in this form. The act of March 11th, 1853, “ to authorize religious societies to dis­ pose of real estate in certain cases,” Swan & Critchfield, vol. 1, p. 371, declares: ;•? Sec. 1. “That when any real estate shall have been, or may hereafter be, bequeathed [devised] purchased, do­ nated, or otherwise entrusted to any religious society in this State, or to any of the trustees or officers of any such society, for the use and benefit of any such society, or for any other purpose, and such society shall be desirous to sell, exchange, or incumber, by mortgage or otherwise, any such real estate, it shall be lawful for the Court of Common Pleas of the proper county, upon good cause shown, upon petition of any such society, or some person authorized by them, to make an order authorizing the sale or incum­ brance of any such real estate; and said Court may include, in such order, directions how the proceeds of such sale or incumbrance shall be appropriated or invested: provided such order shall, in no case, be inconsistent with the original terms upon which such real estate became in­ vested in or intrusted to such religious society.” A" Sec. 2. “ That where any religious society shall petition as provided for in the preceding section, all persons who may have a vested, contingent, or a reversionary interest in the real estate sought to be sold or incumbered, shall be made parties to said petition, and such parties shall be notified of such petition in the same manner as is or may be provided for in cases of petitions for partition of real estate: provided, that the provisions of this act shall not extend to any grounds used or occupied as burial-places for the dead.” The act to provide for the partition of real estate, passed Feb. 17th, 1831, section third, requires notice, by publica­ tion or personal service, for a term of forty days. (Swan & Critchfield, vol. 1, pp. 895, 896). There are four classes of persons to whom (as defend­ ants) the second section of the act passed March 11, 1853, �L 11 ] may -refer: 1. The heirs of Brigham. 2. Pew-owners and lessees. 3. Corporators as such. 4. Mortgagees and other incumbrancers. We need not inquire which of these, or whether all of them, should have been cited; for nobody was cited ; by the answer ot cross-petition, and no process ever issued. ♦ ■sm-' f It is not a case in which some of the pew-owners or cor­ porators dould, as defendants, represent the rest: the statute requires that “all ” of them (if any) shall be made parties. If it be alleged that the corporation could file a petition, ex parte,in this instance, as representingall the corporators (pew-owners included) and that the heirs of Brigham have no. reversionary estate, and; there are no incumbrancers, we answer that such a petition must be filed separately, and proceeded with, as far as possible, according to the terms of the statute. ' . t Aitiall events, inasmuch as they constitute no defence to ; the*original action of the plaintiff, and as they can not be the foundation of a counter-claim against him, except as one pew-owner in many, the resolutions of May 23d are wholly beside the present case. (Code, sec. 94. Hill v. Butler, 6 Ohio State Rep. 216, 217). • .i hm 2u;The resolutions never were adopted by the Trustees of the church. . » Th£ Trustees ould not sell the property without the con­ sent of. the corporators legally assembled; but that is in­ tended by the charter (section eighth) as a restraint upon, and not as a substitute for, their separate discretion. The minority of the Church can not be deprived of the right to have a (subject < of such’ importance considered by the trustees, in their distinctive capacity, as the guardians of its temporalities. (The People v. Steele, 2 Barb. S. C. Rep. 397, 398). • . Nor can the votes of the trustees, individually, given at a meeting of the corporators, and in that character, supply this defect. (Rex v. Mayor and Aidermen of Carlisle,! �[ 12 ] ' Strange, 385, 386. See, also, Commonwealth v. Cullen, 13 Penn. State Rep. 133). 3. The meeting of the corporation at which those reso­ lutions were passed (May 23d) had not been legally con­ vened. It was not a regular meeting, but was called by the trustees, as an “ extra ” meeting, in virtue of the seventh section of the charter. The usual rule is that such meet­ ings require notice to each corporator, personally, as well of the time and place as of the particular business to be considered. (Rex v. Langhorne, 6 Nev. & M. 203). We agree that personal notice, in this instance, was unneces­ sary—the charter having authorized “ extra ” meetings to be called by an advertisement in one newspaper. But the charter has not dispensed with the necessity of specifying, in such advertisement, what particular business is to be con­ sidered. (Rex v. Mayor of Doncaster, 1 Burrow, 738; Rex Faversham Fishermen’s Co. 8 Term Rep. 356). A general statement would suffice, perhaps, for the trans­ action of ordinary business, but not for the election of an officer, the imposition of a tax, the sale of lands, or (especially) the transfer of corporate property to some of the members. (Savings Bank of New Haven v. Davis, 8 Conn. Rep. 191,192). There is no presumption that all the members attended at such a meeting, nor that they understood (except as particularly stated in the notice) what business was to be transacted or proposed. (Wiggin v. Freewill Baptist Church in Lowell, 8 Metcalf, 312). The advertisement (Printed Record, p. 40) was in these words: i “ To the Members of the First Congregational Church of Cincinnati: “ You are hereby notified to attend an extra meeting of the Church, to be held on Monday evening, May 23d, 1859, �at 8 o’clock, at the church edifice, corner of Fourth and Race streets, for the purpose of considering the propriety of selling the real estate of the corporation, and for other purThe sufficiency of this may be determined by asking whether it contains a suggestion that the proceeds of the sale, if made, would be applied to other than the ordinary corporate uses. ' That was the essential part of the business’which actually transpired. Many corporators may have regarded it as a question of indifference whether the society retained the present church and premises, or sold them and purchased another lot, in some other neighborhood, for the purpose of building a larger house, or of building a smaller house and devoting a larger sum to the maintenance of the pastor, or to the endowment of such “institutions of charity or educa- > tion ” as the charter contemplates; and being indifferent, as between those alternatives, may not have cared to vote or attend. But the same corporators would have attended and voted (as we may well assume) if they had been warned that one-half the proceeds of sale, or anything like it, would be given to another religious society, and thus forever placed beyond their control. In the case of the Mayor and Aidermen of Carlisle, 1 Strange, 385, which was a mandamus to restore one Poulter to the office of capital citizen, it appeared that the corporation consisted of a mayor, aidermen, bailiffs, and capital citizens, together composing a common council and having the power of election, but that the power of amotion was in the mayor and aidermen only; that, on such a day, the common council was assembled, and Poulter,. being summoned, would not attend; whereupon, for a cause con­ fessedly legal, the mayor and aidermen made an order for his amotion. Pratt, C. J., said: “An aiderman, when he receives a summons to appear at the common council, considers with himself that they are a �[ H ] great many ©f them, and probably his single voice will not be wanted, and therefore he stays at home; but when he is summoned to meet withnthe mayor and other aidermen only, then, says he, there are but twelve of us in all, and therefore my voice and advice (which the others have a right to) may goda great way: besides, the powers lodged in us, as a court of mayor and aidermen, are of an higher nature than our other powers; and therefore, upon both aecounts> my presence may be necessary, and I will bo--sure to. be there. All this is natural enough, and is it then reason­ able the others should proceed to act as mayor and aider­ men only, when they come together in common council? * * * (It weighs nothing with me that the cause .of removal happened sitting that assembly; for they ought to have broke up, and summoned him again to appear before them in tiieit J distinct capacity.” mandamus awwrdedw WiituiU ; : 1 o.jnwn ulj \- In Wheaton y. Gates, 18' New York Rep. 395, 396; <a case parallel with this, and hereafter to be speciallymentioned, the Court observed' a wide distinction between the' sale of its lands, by a religious society, with intent tor em-; ploy the proceeds for some Corporate purpose^ and a sale in order to divide the proceeds among the corporators . “ The scheme of the trustees, conceding that the applica­ tion to the County Court was made by the authority! of the , board, was an entire one—to sell the church-lot, and-dis-1 pose of the proceeds in the manner stated in the petition and in the order; They did not ask to sell in order to pay the debts, and that the balance of the proceeds might remain in the treasury, subject to future appropriation for: the purposes of the society. Upon the statement in the petition, th©' debts amounted to only a small proportion of the value of the property; and if we look to the auction-sale which was actually made, it will be seen that there was a surplus of nearly $9,000 after providing for the mortgage of $2,700; and the remaining debts were trifling, not much exceeding the value of the personal property. It is not �represented, in the petition, that a sale was necessary for the payment of the debts, and the referee has found that such a necessity did riot in fact exist. The petition asked that this considerable surplus should?' be distributed among the pew-holders, and the Court so ordered. The general scope and object of the proceeding, it appears to me, was the division of the property of the society among the owners of pews. The- sale was sought for that purpose, and the pay­ ment of the debts was only incidental.” (Pages 402,403). The answer, in this case, dees riot pretend there is any necessity of a sale for the payment of * debts, nor for any other purpose than a division of the proceeds. ■.? ni> ,0'riiH'•:*« O-i 7O jusejodtr/jpihritfqoU o) TOWO'I on »«d orfT III. The resolutions'of'May 23d, as well as those’of April 11th, are illegal in assuming to direct an application ’ of the proceeds of Corporate’ properly to other than cor­ porate uses. i •.<" b,-'I VK>. jft.W ' The charter (section third) declares that all the property acquired by the corporation, including the house of worship and the parsonage-house, u shall be considered as held in trust, under the management and at the disposal of said corporation, for the purpose'-of promoting the interest of their church, defraying thf'expenses incident to their mode of worship, and maintaining any institutions of charity or edu­ cation that may be therewith connected” i u ;': The resolutions*of April 11th direct the trustees, after paying the ;debts Of the church, to “ transfer and hand over to 'aneurboard of trustees ofia new religious society, to be formed by part of the members of this, such a propor­ tionate part of the proceeds of said church-property as fairly may belong to such members forming a new church, reckon­ ing according to the valuation of the pews,” etc. v*aw * / Those of May 23d direct the proceeds “to be equallydivided between this Church and the Church'of the Re­ deemer.” And they ask the Court for judicial sanction, �[ 16 ] and that, “by such, sale and division” the “trusts of the charter ” may be rendered effectual. We answer that “ such sale and division ” will destroy the trusts of the charter; and, therefore, no Court can authorize, or even tolerate, the scheme. (Case of St. Mary’s Church, 7 S. & R. 558, 559; Milligan v. Mitchell, 3 M. & Craig, 83, 84). The term “ interest of their church ” in the charter (sec­ tion third) is explained and limited by the words which immediately follow it—“ defraying the expenses incident to their mode of worship, and maintaining any institutions of charity or education that may be therewith connected? Copulatio verborum indicat acceptationem in eodem sensu. (Broom’s Legal Maxims, 450, 451). The corporation has no power to hold, or even to acquire, lands or money for the support of any religious society except its own; and, a fortiori, can not devote to the sepa­ rate use of another society, religious or secular, the lands or the money, or any portion of them, acquired for its own use. A single corporator may object, and the assent of all the corporators would not legalize such an act. (Bagshaw v. Eastern Union Railway Co. 7 Hare, 114). Wheaton v. Gates, 18 New York Rep. 395,396, was the case of a Congregational Church which had fallen into dis­ order, and some members of which had constituted a new society, called a pastor, and separately organized them­ selves. The trustees of the old corporation agreed, by a vote of two-thirds, with the assent of the corporators, “almost unanimously,” after two re-considerations of the subject, to disband its membership, sell the church-propperty, and apply the proceeds, after payment of its debts, to the use of the several pew-owners. The County Court, under a statute similar to our own, had sanctioned this agreement, and it had been partially carried into effect. But some of the members brought an action to restrain the trustees from any further proceeding in that direction, and to have the entire agreement annulled. �[ 17 ] Per Curiam. “ The trustees had no authority to dis­ tribute the property of the society among its individual members, or any class of them. Their duty was to preserve and administer it in the promotion of the purposes for which the corporation was created. The Court could not, according to the statute, approve of a plan for any applica­ tion of the moneys arising upon a sale, except one which was considered to he for the interest of the society as an associa­ tion which was to continue. organised for the purposes of its creation. There is a sense in which it might promote the interests of the individuals composing this religious organ­ ization to dissolve their connection, and establish new rela­ tions ; but this is not what is meant by the statute. It was not in the power of the trustees, or a majority of the members of the society, or the County Court, or of all these authorities together, to abolish the corporation, or dissolve the society. If every individual having any in­ terest in the matter should concur, it might be done; because there would be no one to question the act. But while any number of the members desire to continue the connection, all the others can not, by their own act, dissolve it. Now, it is not possible that it could be considered to be for the interest of the society, in the legal and proper sense of that expression in the statute, to dissolve it, and distribute its property among its individual members.” (Pages 403, 404). The distribution attempted by the resolutions of April 11th, 1859, was to be “ according to the valuation of the pews,’’ and without any regard to the corporators at large. This would be clearly illegal; inasmuch as the owners of pews have no right, as owners, or part-owners, in the land, or in the church-edifice. (Wheaton v. Gates, 18 N. Y. Rep. 404, 405; Matter of the Reformed Dutch Church, 16 Barbour, 240, 241; Price v. Methodist Episcopal Church, 4 Ohio Rep. 540, 541). * The resolutions of May 23d, 1859, are quite as objec­ tionable. They propose a division of the proceeds, “equally,” 2 ‘ ' I �[ 18 1 between the members of the Church who remain and those who have seceded from it. That is only a gift of a part of the corporate property to a part of the members, and for their separate and individual use. Of what consequence can it be, in a legal point of view, that the seceding members intend to endow another church, even of the same persuasion ? That might, or might not, be for the interest of religion, but can not be for the inter­ est of the old corporation as such. It diminishes the property of the corporation, and disables the corporators who remain (by so much) to defray the expenses incident to their mode of worship, or to establish and maintain institutions of charity and education. As truly observed by the Court of Appeals, in Wheaton v. Gates, 18 N. Y. Rep. 404, there is no “legal and proper sense ” in which it can be for “the interest’’ of the First Congregational Church, as a corporation, to distribute the proceeds of this land, upon a sale, or any portion of the 7 proceeds, to the members of the Church as individuals, or as divided into two societies; and this whether the mem­ bers apply their respective shares to secular purposes, or, by applying the means thus obtained to the foundation and maintenance of a “ new ” religious society, relieve them­ selves from an expenditure otherwise unavoidable. The gentlemen who constitute the Church of the Iter deemer deny that they have seceded from the First Con­ gregational Church. IIow can it be otherwise ? We engage in no discussion whether the “views of Christian truth ” inculcated by Rev. Mr. Conway be, or be not, in accordance with those entertained by the found­ ers of the First Congregational Church. There is a way to ascertain that, but not in the present action, or upon the pleadings hitherto filed. By the discipline of such soci­ eties (Keyser v. Stansifer, 6 Ohio Rep. 365) a majority of the members decide all questions of faith and prac­ tice—as effectually as, in other religious organizations, �[19 ] they are decided by bishops, presbyters, and priests, or by convocations, synods, councils and conferences. The gentlemen who signed the letter of February 26 th, 1859, commenced by arraigning Mr. Conway before the proper tribunal; but instead of persevering in that course, and abiding the result, abandoned the Congregational Church and founded the Church of the Redeemer. It is not material to inquire what differences, if any, can be predicated of the “preamble ” in one and the “ coven­ ant” in the other. We take the seceders at their own word: that they differed “ widely ” from Rev. Mr. Conway “ in his views of Christian truth.” They refused, for that reason, to attend upon his ministry, and have organized “ a new religious society ” in which their own sentiments are to be inculcated. No man denies their right to do this; but, in doing it, they can not destroy the identity, nor impair the usefulness, of the Church which remains. (Trustees of the Presbyterian Congregation of Fairview v. Sturgeon, 9 Penn. State Rep. 321, 322; lb. 329, 330; Attorney General v. Hutton, Drury, 520, 521; Smith v. Smith, 3 DeSaussure, 557 ; lb. 582, 583, 584).> Nor is it material whether the seceders were a majority or a minority of the old organzation. They left it; and that is enough. (Baker v. Fales, 16 Mass. Rep. 503, 504 ; Den v. Bolton, 7 Halsted, 214, 215; Cammeyer v. Cor­ poration of the United German Lutheran Churches, 2 Sandf. Ch. Rep. 214). Where dissensions have arisen, and schism follows, al­ though it be decided, judicially, that there is no intelligible difference in doctrine or opinion, those who adhere to the old organization are,, entitled to its property in exclusion of all others. (Craigdallie v. Aikman, 2 Bligh, 529; Same Case, on former appeal, 1 Dow’s Pari. Cas. 15, 16 ; Foley v. Wontner, 2 Jac. & Walker, 247. See, also, Field v. Field, 9 Wendell, 394). It is said that the members of the Church of the Re- �[ 20 ] deemer are yet corporators in the First Congregational Church. Then they ask of the other corporators a right to use, separately^ one-half the corporate property, and to retain, at the same time, a proportionate interest in the residue. It must be so; or else they regard themselves as no longer connected with the old organization. Nor is it material whether a majority of those who re­ main have, or have not, consented to such an arrangement, although nothing of that sort appears. It would be none the less illegal, and any corporator has a right to object. (The State v. Steele, 2 Barb. 397, 398; Stebbins v. Jen­ nings, 10 Pick. 193, 194; Attorney-General v. Hutton, Drury, 507). It may be said that this separation was made necessary by reason of the personal objections which Mr. Conway had provoked against himself, involving questions somewhat more of a social than theological character. Whilst this was, perhaps, an element that entered into the programme of those who withdrew from the church, at the same time it is perfectly obvious that they did not subscribe to the theological doctrines taught by Mr. Conway as the pastor of the First Congregational Church, and that was the con­ trolling motive for the separation on their part. This is shown in several ways: 1st. The paper of the 26th of February, 1859, signed by thirteen of those who were dis­ satisfied (Printed Record, pp. 34, 35) is designed to effectuate his removal, for the sole reason of their “ widely differing from the Rev. Mr. Conway, our pastor, in his views of Christian truth” 2d. The attempt to depose Mr. Conway, without any other accusation against him. 3. The Covenant which they adopted when they formed the “ Church of the Redeemer.” (Printed Record, p. 20). We do not profess to enter into an examination of the the theological evidences at hand to prove that Mr. Conway taught the true doctrines of the Unitarian Church. A �[ 21 ] careful examination and consideration of these evidences, to be found in the printed works of such lights of the church as Dr. Chalmers, Clark, Bellows, Martineau, Fro­ thingham, Higginson, Longfellow, Furnace and others, have left us no room to doubt that Mr. Conway preached the Unitarianism of the First Congregational Church, and of those whose munificence founded it, and sustained it for so many years in its infancy, and remained its steadfast t friends in all its years of poverty and prosperity. If, then, they went off because they could not agree with the major­ ity who remained, on theological questions, they became seceders, and, by retiring, lost all the interest they may have had in the church-property, and the right to partici­ pate in the management of the affairs of the church, both secular and ecclesiastical. If the court will carefully consider the Covenant of the Church of the Redeemer and the other papers (to be found in the Printed Record) which were, from time to time, adopted by the First Congregational Church as declarations of religious principles, and Mr. Conway’s pastoral letter, to be found in the Printed Record, commen­ cing on page 26, they will be able to appreciate the theo­ logical difference to which we have referred. But as we have said elsewhere, we do not wish to enter upon this discussion. The error of the defendants consists in supposing that the corporators of the First Congregational Church have some right, as individuals, in its property, and, therefore, may disband it, or divide it, in order to obtain their re­ spective shares. They have no right except as corporators; and that must be enjoyed within the corporation, and ac­ cording to the charter, by-laws, and established usage. It can not be enjoyed as members of another religious so­ ciety, corporate or unincorporated, nor as individuals. (Methodist Episcopal Church v. Wood, 5 Ohio Rep. 287). �[ 22 ] Nor is it possible to suppose that two religious societies, with different constitutions and by-laws, each with a board of trustees and a pastor, can co-exist under one form of incorporation. That allegation was made in the same case (Methodist Episcopal Church v. Wood, 5 Ohio Rep. 287, 288) but was totally rejected. . ’ ! It is argued that a division of the corporate property would be for the spiritual welfare of all the members (as well those who remain as those who have seceded) and examples are cited in proof and illustration. That may be true; but, as yet, Courts of civil jurisprudence have not attained such heights of enquiry. But, whatever the advantage to corporators, temporal or spiritual, we must again specify a distinction between their interest and the interest of the First Congregational Church as a body politic and corporate. For the corporation is quite another thing, in law, than the mere aggregate of its members. (Society for the Illustration of Practical Know­ ledge v. Abbott, 2 Beavan, 567 ; Bligh v. Brent, 2 Y. & Collyer, 295). It is an artificial person, and has the fac­ ulty of using its own property and funds. The charter requires it to use them, in this instance, for particular pur­ poses, and under its immediate supervision : “ All such property, with the house of worship and the parsonage-house, shall be considered as held in trust, under THE MANAGEMENT AND AT THE DISPOSAL OF SAID CORPORATION, for the purpose of promoting the interest of their church, defraying the expenses incident to their mode of worship, and maintaining any institutions of charity or education that may be therewith connected.” (Sec. 3). How can the “ trust ” be fulfilled, as the Legislature com­ mands, after the First Congregational Church shall have transferred, irrevocably, to the Church of the Redeemer as well “ the disposal ” as “ the management ” of one-half its wealth ? And yet the Court is asked to “ sanction ” a sale of the house of worship, at public outcry, and with­ out any other necessity or cause, in order to accomplish a �[ 23 ] result so illegal. Baker v. Fales, 16 Mass. Rep. 496, 497, deserves to be read in this connection. Smith v. Swormstedt, 16 Howard, 288, contravenes no part of our argument. That was a case of trust for the benefit of individuals — “traveling, supernumerary, and worn-out preachers, and the widows and orphans of such preachers” — and not of trust for an object beside the interest of individuals. The property had been created by the efforts of the beneficiaries themselves, and was wholly subject to their disposition in General Conference assembled. They had agreed upon a plan of administra­ tion resulting from their own schism, and yet perfectly in accordance with the original design; to which plan, for the reasons we have just indicated, the Court gave its coun­ tenance. (16 How. 304, 305, 306). The error of the Circuit Court was in confounding such a case with one like the present. (5 McLean, 369, 370). Nor do we question the authority of Keyser v. Stansifer, 6 Ohio Rep. 363, in any particular. That was a bill exhibited by a trustee who, “in a course of discipline,” had been expelled from a Congregational society, “ Partic­ ular Baptists,” and other members who had seceded from it, charging the officers and members who remained with cer­ tain errors in religious faith and practice. “ This claim is not set up,” said Judge Lane, “ because the minority are excluded, but because it is asserted the majority have * deserted the principles under which the association was first organized.” (Page 365). The decision would be conclu­ sive in a similar suit by the members of the “ Church of the Redeemer” against the First Congregational Church and its adherents. Much has been said, by opposing counsel, as to the advice of Courts in other religious controversies ; but those controversies differed, all of them, in some essential partic- �lar, from the present one. We find no instance in America, nor in Great Britain, where judges have spoken with toler­ ance of selling a house of worship, “ at auction,” peremp­ torily, in order to relieve gentlemen who desire to establish a new church from the usual expense of such an enterprise. R. M. CORWINE. GEO. E. PUGH. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Victorian Blogging Description An account of the resource A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library &amp; Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Conway Hall Library & Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Conway Hall Ethical Society Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Pamphlet Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource William Wiswell v. William Greene, William Goodman, and Others. Argument for the plaintiff. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Ohio. Supreme Court Description An account of the resource Place of publication: Cincinatti Collation: 24 p. ; 21 cm. Notes: Plaintiff R.M. Corwine and Geo. E. Pugh. From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Hearing held December Term, 1862. "This action was brought to restrain the Trustees of the First Congregational Church of Cincinnati from selling its real estate... and dividing the proceeds". [Front page]. Compare 'William Wiswell against William Greene et al' in Conway Tracts 6. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available [s.n.] Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource [1862?] Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context G5265 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (William Wiswell v. William Greene, William Goodman, and Others. Argument for the plaintiff.), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Language A language of the resource English Subject The topic of the resource Trials Unitarianism Conway Tracts Court cases First Unitarian Church