Our Unitarian Gospel

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Our Unitarian Gospel

The Project Gutenberg EBook of Our Unitarian Gospel, by Minot Savage This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
Title: Our Unitarian Gospel
Author: Minot Savage
Release Date: June 13, 2006 [EBook #18578]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OUR UNITARIAN GOSPEL ***

Produced by Edmund Dejowski

OUR UNITARIAN GOSPEL B M. J. SAVAGE "The good news of the blessed God" BOSTON GEO. II. Ews, 141 FRANKLIN STREET 1898.
Dedication TO THOSE WHO BELIEVE THAT THE MESSAGE OF GOD TO HIS CHILDREN MUST BE ONE OF LIFE AND HOPE INSTEAD OF A THEOLOGY WHICH TEACHES DEATH AND DESPAIR.
NOTE. The sermons which make up this volume were spoken in the Church of the Messiah during the season of 1897-98. They are printed as delivered, not as literature, but for the sake of preaching to a larger congregation than can be reached on Sunday morning.

CONTENTS.
UNITARIANISM "WHAT DO YOU IN PLACE OF WHAT YOU TAKE AWAY?" ARE THERE ANY CREEDS WHICH IT IS WICKED FOR US TO QUESTION? WHY HAVE UNITARIANS NO CREED? THE REAL SIGNIFICANCE OF THE PRESENT RELIGIOUS DISCUSSION DOUBT AND FAITH - BOTH IS LIFE A PROBATION ENDED BY DEATH? SIN AND ATONEMENT PRAYER, AND COMMUNION WITH GOD THE WORSHIP OF GOD MORALITY NATURAL, NOT STATUTORY REWARD AND PUNISHMENT THINGS WHICH DOUBT CANNOT DESTROY EVOLUTION LOSES NOTHING OF VALUE TO MAN WHY ARE NOT ALL EDUCATED PEOPLE UNITARIANS? WHERE IS THE EVANGELICAL CHURCH?

UNITARIANISM.
THROUGH the lack of having made themselves familiar with the matter, there is a common and, I think, a widespread impression among people generally that Unitarianism is a new-fangled notion, a modern fad, a belief held only by a few, who are one side of the main currents of religious life and advance.
Even if it were new, even if it were confined to the modern world, this would not necessarily be anything against it. The Copernican theory of the universe is new, is modern. So are most of the great discoveries that characterize and glorify the present age.
But in the case of Unitarianism this cannot be said. It is not new: it is very old. And, before I come to discuss and outline a few of its great principles, it seems to me well that we should get in our minds a background of historic thought, that we may see a little what are the sources and origins of this Unitarianism, and may understand why it is that there is a new and modern birth of it in the modern world.
All races start very far away from any Monotheistic or Unitarian belief. The Hebrews are no exception to that rule. The early part of the Bible shows very plain traces of the fact that the Jews were polytheists and nature-worshippers. If I should translate literally the first verse of the Bible, it would read in this way: In the beginning the Strong Ones created the heavens and the earth. "The word that we have translated God is in the plural; and I have already given you its meaning. This is only a survival, a trace, of that primeval belief which the Jews shared with all the rest of the world."
From this polytheistic position the people took a step forward to a state of mind which Professor Max Muller calls henotheism; that is, they believed in the real existence of many gods, but that they were under allegiance to only one, their national Deity, and that him only they must serve.
I suppose this state of thought was maintained throughout the larger part of the history of the Hebrew nation. You will find traces constantly, in the early part of the Old Testament, at any rate, of the belief of the people in the other gods, and their constant tendency to fall away to the worship of these other gods. But by and by all this was outgrown, and left behind; and the Hebrew people came to occupy a position of monotheism, spiritual monotheism, that is, they were passionate Unitarians, so far as the meaning of that word is concerned. Though, of course, I would not have you understand that many, perhaps most, of the principles which are held today under the name of Unitarian were known to them at that time, or would have been accepted, had they been known.
In the sense, however, of believing in the oneness of God, they were Unitarians.
Now, when Christianity comes into the world, what shall we say? It is the assumption on the part of most of the old- time churches that Jesus made it perfectly plain to his disciples that he was a divine being, that