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."