Our Unitarian Gospel. Minot J. Savage
let me note a few of them, and then compare Unitarianism with them. Take the word "Anglican," for example, the name of the Church of England. What does it mean? Of course, you know it is simply a geographical name. It defines nothing as to the Church's government or belief or anything else. There is the word "Episcopal," which simply means a church that is governed by bishops; that is all. Take the word "Presbyterian," from a Greek word which means an elder, a church governed by its old men or its elders. No special significance about that. Then "Baptist," signifying that the people who wear that name believe that baptism always means immersion, indicating no other doctrine by which that body is known, or its method of government. "Congregational," no doctrine significance there. It simply means a church whose power is lodged in the congregation. It is democratic in its methods of government. "Methodist,", applied to the members of a particular church because they were considered over-exact or methodical in their ways. There is no governmental significance there. The name Catholic? or Universal? is chiefly significant from the fact that the claim implied by it is not true. Now let us look for a moment at the word Unitarian, and see whether it has a right to be placed not only on a level with these, but infinitely above and beyond them in the richness, in the wonder of its meaning. Let me lead you to a consideration of it. I want you to note that unity? is the one word of more significance than any other in the history of man; and that it is growing in its depth, its comprehensiveness. What have we discovered? We have discovered in this modern world, only a few years ago, that this which we see, the earth, the stars, and all the wonders of the heavens, is one, a universe. Not only that. We have discovered the unity of force. There are not, as primitive man supposed, a thousand different powers in the universe, antagonistic and fighting with each other. We have learned to know that there is just one force in the universe. That light, heat, electricity, magnetism, all these marvellous and diverse varieties of forces, are one force, and can be at the will and skill of man converted into each other.
Next, we have learned that there is one law in the universe. Should we not be Unitarians? Should we not believe in the unity of God, when we can see, as far as the telescope can reach on the one hand and the microscope on the other, one eternal, changeless Order?
Another point. We have learned the unity of substance. We know how Comte, the famous French scientist, advised his followers not to attempt to find out anything about the fixed stars, because, he said, such knowledge was forever beyond the reach of man. How long had Comte been dead before we discovered the spectroscope? And now we know all about the fixed stars. We know that the stuff we step on in the street this morning as we go home from church is the same stuff of which the sun is made, the same stuff as that which flamed a few years ago as a comet, the same stuff as that which shines in Sirius, in suns so many miles away that it takes millions of years for their light to reach us. One stuff, one substance, throughout the universe; and this poor old, tear-wet earth of ours is a planet shining in the heavens as much as any of them, of the same glorious material of which they are made.
Then, again, we have discovered the unity of life. From the little tiny globule of protoplasm up to the brain of Shakspere, one life throbbing and thrilling with the same divinity which is at the heart of the world.
We have discovered not only the unity of life, we have discovered the unity of man. Not a hundred different origins, different kinds of creatures, different-natured beings, but one blood to dwell in every country on the face of the earth: the unity of man.
We have discovered the unity of ethics, of righteousness, of right and wrong, one right, one wrong. A million applications, but one goal towards which all those who hunger and thirst after righteousness are striving.
One religion: for underneath all the diversity of creeds and religions, barbaric, semi-civilized, civilized, enlightened, we find man, the one child of God, hunting for the clearest light he can command, after the one Father, that is, the one eternal, universal search of the religious life of the race.
Religion then one; one unifying purpose; every step that the world takes in its progress leading it towards liberty, towards light, towards truth, towards righteousness, towards peace. One goal, then, for the progress of man.
And, then, one destiny. Some day, every soul, no matter how belated, shall arrive; some day, somewhere, every soul, however sin stained, shall arrive; every soul, however small, however distorted, however hindered, shall arrive. One destiny. Not that we are to be just alike; only that some time we are to unfold all that is possible in us, and stand, full statured, perfect, complete, in the presence of our Father.
Do I not well, then, to say that Unity, Unitarianism, is a magnificent name, a name to be flung out to the breeze as our banner under which we will fight for God and man; a name beside which all others pale into insignificance; a name that sums up the secret, the centre, the hope, the outcome of the universe? Greatest name in the religious history of man, it coincides with that magnificent hope so grandly uttered by Tennyson, "One God, one law, one element, And one far-off divine event, To which the whole creation moves."
"WHAT DO YOU GIVE IN PLACE OF WHAT YOU TAKE AWAY?"
MY theme is the answer to the question, What do you give in place of what you take away? For my text I have chosen two significant passages of Scripture. One is from the seventh chapter of Hebrews, the nineteenth verse; and it sets forth, as I look at it, the drift and outcome of the process of which we are a part, the bringing in of a better hope. Then from the eleventh chapter of Hebrews, the thirty- ninth and fortieth verses, expressing the relation in which we stand to those who have looked for God and his work in the past: And these all, having obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise; God having provided some better thing for us, that they without us should not be made perfect.
What do you give in place of that which you take away? This is a question which is proposed to Unitarians over and over and over again. It is looked upon as an unanswerable criticism. We are supposed to be people who tear down, but do not build; people who take away the dear hopes and traditional faiths of the past, and leave the world desolate, without God, without hope.
Not only is this urged against us, from the other side, but there are a great many Unitarians, possibly, who have not thought themselves out with enough clearness to know the relation between the present conditions of human thought and the past; and sometimes even they may look back with a regretful longing towards something which they have outgrown, and left behind.
I propose this morning to answer this question, just as simply, as frankly, as I can; to treat it with all reverence, with all seriousness, and try to make clear what it is that the world has lost as the result of the advances of modern knowledge, and what, if anything, it has gained.
But while I stand here, on the threshold of my theme, and before I enter upon its somewhat fuller discussion, I wish to urge upon you two or three considerations.
It is assumed, by the people who ask this question, that, if we do take away anything, we are under obligation straightway to put something in its place. I wish you to consider carefully as to whether this position is sound. Suppose, for example, that I should discover that some belief that has been held in the past is not well founded, not true. Must I say nothing about it because, possibly, I may not have discovered just what is true?
To illustrate what I mean: Prince Alphonso of Castile used to say, as he studied the Ptolemaic theory of the universe, that, if he had been present at creation, he could have suggested a good many very important improvements. In other words, he was keen enough to see that the Ptolemaic theory of the universe was not a good working theory. Must he keep still about that because, forsooth, he was not able to establish another theory of the universe in its place?
Do you not see that the criticism, the testing of positions which are held, are the primary steps in the direction of finding some larger and grander truth, provided these positions are not adequate and do not hold?
The Rev. Dr. George A. Gordon, of the historic Old South Church in Boston, told us, in an address which he gave in Brooklyn the other day, that Calvinism was dead; that it was even necessary to clear the face of the earth of it, in order to save our faith in God. At the same time Dr. Gordon said frankly that he had no other as complete and finished system to put in place