Unitarianism in America: A History of its Origin and DevelopmentCooke, George Willis
History
Unitarianism in America: A History of its Origin and Development
Cooke, George Willis
Unitarianism -- United States
Another leader was Dr. Samuel West, of Dartmouth, now New Bedford, where he
was settled in 1760, and where he preached for more than forty years.[27]
He rejected the doctrines of fore-ordination, election, total depravity,
and the Trinity. In preaching the election sermon of 1776, he took the
ground of an undisguised rationalism. "A revelation," he said, "pretending
to be from God, that contradicts any part of natural laws ought immediately
to be rejected as imposture; for the deity cannot make a law contrary to
the law of nature without acting contrary to himself,--a thing in the
strictest sense impossible, for that which implies contradiction is not an
object of Divine Power." The cardinal idea of West's; position, as of that
of most of the liberal men of his time, was stated by him in one sentence,
when he said, "To preach Christ is to preach the whole system of divinity,
as it consists of both natural and revealed religion."[28]
In 1751 Rev. Thomas Barnard, of Newbury, was dismissed from his parish
because he was regarded as unconverted by the revivalistic portion of his
congregation; and in 1755 he was settled over the First Church in Salem. He
was an Arminian, and at the same time an Arian of the school of Samuel
Clarke. His son Thomas was settled over the North Church of Salem in 1773,
which church was organized especially for him by his admirers in the First
Church. He followed in the theological opinions of his father, but probably
became somewhat more pronounced in his Arian views, so that, after his
death, Dr. Channing called him a Unitarian. It is not surprising that the
younger Barnard should have been liberal in his opinions and spirit, when
we find his theological instructor, Rev. Samuel Williams, at his
ordination, saying to him in the sermon preached on that occasion, "Be of
no sect or party but that of good men, and to all such (whatever their
differences among themselves) let your heart be opened." On another similar
occasion Mr. Williams said that it had always been his advice to examine
with caution and modesty, "but with the greatest freedom all religious
matters."[29] It was said of the younger Barnard that he believed "the
final salvation of no man depended upon the belief or disbelief of those
speculative opinions about which men, equally learned and pious, differ."
When it was said to him by one of his parishioners, "Dr. Barnard, I never
heard you preach a sermon upon the Trinity," the reply was, "And you never
will."[30]
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