Our Unitarian GospelSavage, Minot J. (Minot Judson)
Religion
Our Unitarian Gospel
Savage, Minot J. (Minot Judson)
Sermons; Unitarianism
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 he claimed to be one himself, and that the claim was recognized.
So far, however, as any authentic record with which we are familiar
goes, Jesus himself was a Unitarian. All the disciples were Unitarians.
Paul was a Unitarian. The New Testament is a Unitarian book from
beginning to end. The finest critics of the world will tell you that
there is no trace of any other teaching there. And so, for the first
three hundred years of the history of the Church, Unitarianism was its
prevailing doctrine.
I have no very good memory for names. So I have brought here a little
leaflet which contains some that I wish to speak of. Among the Church
Fathers, Clement, Polycarp, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Origen, and
Lactantius, all of them in their writings make it perfectly clear and
unquestioned that the belief of the Church, the majority belief for the
first three centuries, was Unitarian. Of course, the process of thought
here and there was going on which finally culminated in the doctrine of
the Trinity. That is, people were beginning more and more to exalt, as
they supposed, the character, the office, the mission of Jesus; coming
more and more to believe that he was something other than a man, that
he was above and beyond humanity.
But one other among the Fathers, Justin Martyr, one of the best known
of all, takes care to point out explicitly his belief. I will read you
just two or three words from it. He says: "There is a Lord of the Lord
Jesus, being his Father and God, and the Cause of his existence."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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