Our Unitarian GospelSavage, Minot J. (Minot Judson)
Religion
Our Unitarian Gospel
Savage, Minot J. (Minot Judson)
Sermons; Unitarianism
During this Reformation period there are many names of light and power,
among them being Servetus, whom Calvin burned because he was a
Unitarian; Laelius and Faustus Socinus, Bernardino Ochino, Blandrata,
and Francis David; and, more noted in some ways than any of them,
Giordano Bruno, the man who represents the dawn of the modern world
more significantly than any other man of his age, not entirely a
Unitarian, but fighting a battle out of which Unitarianism sprung,
freedom of thought, the right of private judgment, the scientific study
of the universe, the attempt, unhampered by the Church's dogma or
power, to understand the world in which we live.
As a result of this Renaissance, what happened? Let me run over very
rapidly the condition of things in Europe at the present time, with
some glances back, that you may see that Unitarianism has played just
as large a part as you could expect it to play, larger and grander than
you could expect it, considering the conditions.
In Hungary, one of the few countries where freedom of thought in
religion has been permitted, there has been a grand organization of the
Unitarian Church for more than three hundred years, not only churches,
but a Unitarianism that has controlled colleges and universities and
directed the growth of learning.
Let us look to the North. In Sweden and Norway it is still a crime to
organize a church that teaches that Jesus is not God. So we may expect
to find no Unitarian churches there; though there are many and noble
Unitarian men, thinkers and teachers. Come to Germany. There are no
organized Unitarian churches under that name here; but there is a
condition of things that is encouraging for us to note. There is a
union of the Protestant organizations, in which the liberals, or
Unitarians, are free, and have their part without any question as to
their doctrine.
There are hundreds and thousands of Unitarians in South Germany. In the
city of Bremen I called on a clergyman who had translated one of my
books, and found out from him the condition of things there. The
cathedral of Bremen has half a dozen different preachers attached to
it. Some of them are orthodox, and some are Unitarian, all perfectly
free; living happily together in this way, and the people at liberty to
come and listen to which one of them they choose. This is not an
uncommon thing in Germany. That is the condition of things, then,
there.
In Holland there are no Unitarian churches, no churches going by that
name; but there are thousands of Unitarians particularly among the
educated and leading men, and one university, that of Leyden, entirely
in control of the liberal religious leaders of the country.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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