Our Unitarian Gospel

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
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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