Unitarianism in America | Page 4

tendency to emphasize individual life and
thought, and its break with the traditions of the past, whether in
literature or in religion. The Reformation did not, however, bring the
principle of individuality to full maturity; and it retained many of the
old institutional methods, as well as a large degree of their social
motive. The Reformed churches were often as autocratic as the
Catholic Church had been, and as little inclined to approve of
individual departures from their creeds and disciplines; but the motive
of individualism they had adopted in theory, and could not wholly
depart from in practice. Their merit was that they had recognized and
made a place for the principle of individuality; and it proved to be a
developing social power, however much they might ignore or try to
suppress it.
[Sidenote: Reformation.]

In its earliest phases Protestantism magnified the importance of reason
in religious investigations, although it used an imperfect method in so
doing. All doctrines were subjected more or less faithfully to this test,
every rite was criticised and reinterpreted, and the Bible itself was
handled in the freest manner. The individualism of the movement
showed itself in Luther's doctrine of justification by faith, and his
confidence in the validity of personal insight into spiritual realities.
Most of all this tendency manifested itself in the assertion of the right
of every believer to read the Bible for himself, and to interpret it
according to his own needs. The vigorous assertion of the right to the
free interpretation of the Word of God, and to personal insight into
spiritual truth, led their followers much farther than the first reformers
had anticipated. Individualism showed itself in an endless diversity of
personal opinions, and in the creation of many little groups of believers,
who were drawn together by an interest in individual leaders or by a
common acceptance of hair-splitting interpretations of religious
truths.[3]
The Protestant Church inculcated the law of individual fidelity to God,
and declared that the highest obligation is that of personal faith and
purity. What separated the Catholic and the Protestant was not merely a
question of socialism as against individualism,[4] but it was also a
problem of outward or inward law, of environment or intuition as the
source of wholesome teaching, of ritualism or belief as the higher form
of religious expression. The Protestants held that belief is better than
ritual, faith than sacraments, inward authority than external force. They
insisted that the individual has a right to think his own thoughts and to
pray his own prayer, and that the revelation of the Supreme Good Will
is to all who inwardly bear God's image and to every one whose will is
a centre of new creative force in the world of conduct. They affirmed
that the individual is of more worth than the social organism, the soul
than the church, the motive than the conduct, the search for truth than
the truth attained.
These tendencies of Protestantism found expression in the rationalism
that appeared in England at the time of the Commonwealth, and
especially at the Restoration. All the men of broader temper proclaimed
the use of reason in the discussion of theological problems. In their
opinion the Bible was to be interpreted as other books are, while with

regard to doctrines there must be compromise and latitude. We find
such a theologian as Chillingworth recognizing "the free right of the
individual reason to interpret the Bible."[5] To such men as Milton,
Jeremy Taylor, and Locke the free spirit was essential, even though
they had not become rationalists in the modern philosophical sense.
They were slow to discard tradition, and they desired to establish the
validity of the Bible; but they would not accept any authority until it
had borne the test of as thorough an investigation as they could give it.
The methods of rationalism were not yet understood, but the rational
spirit had been accepted with a clear apprehension of its significance.
[Sidenote: Toleration.]
Toleration had two classes of advocates in the seventeenth century,--on
the one hand, the minor and persecuted sects, and, on the other, such of
the great leaders of religious opinion as Milton and Locke. The first
clear assertion of the modern idea of toleration was made by the
Anabaptists of Holland, who in 1611 put into their Confession of Faith
this declaration of the freedom of religion from all state regulation:
"The magistrate is not to meddle with religion, or matters of conscience,
nor compel men to this or that form of religion, because Christ is King,
and Lawgiver of the church and conscience." When the Baptists
appeared in England, they advocated this principle as the one which
ought to control in the relations of church and state. In 1614 there was
published in London a little tract,