£1 
 
 Unitarian free (Elntrrlr, 
 
 DARWEN. 
 
 A Congregation of free men and 
 women, under the leadership of a 
 free teacher, for the cultivation of 
 free and reverent thought upon all 
 matters pertaining to Religion. 
 
 Its mission is to proclaim liberty in 
 opinions and ceremonies ; to inculcate 
 trust in God's all-perfect love ; and 
 to promote fellowship amongst men 
 of all ranks, races, and religions. 
 
 The fundamental idea of the 
 Church is the " Fatherhood of God 
 and the brotherhood of man." To 
 realize this relationship in life is the 
 sum of duty. 
 
 " He hath showed thee, O man, 
 what is good ; and what doth the 
 Lord require of thee, but to do justly 
 and to love mercy, and to walk 
 humbly with thy God."
 
 t/c
 
 REASONS 
 WHY I AM A UNITARIAN.
 
 LONDON : 
 
 PRINTED BY WOODFALL AND KINDER, 
 
 MILFORD LANE, STRAND, W.C.
 
 REASONS 
 
 WHY I AM A UNITARIAN. 
 
 A SEEIES OF LETTERS TO A FRIEND. 
 
 JOHN E. BEAED, D.D. 
 
 &I)trtJ lE&ttion, rrtuafiJ. 
 
 This Truth, more beautiful than all beside — 
 
 That He whose name is Love, and from whose heart, 
 
 As from a living and immortal root, 
 
 The whole fair universe hath budded forth, 
 
 Hath granted us the high and holy right 
 
 To call Him Father. So all things speak 
 
 God's Fatherhood and the Brotherhood of man. 
 
 LONDON : 
 BRITISH AND FOREIGN UNITARIAN ASSOCIATION, 
 
 ITS, STRAND, W.C. 
 1872.
 
 13- 
 
 IV IE MACKIE, ESQ., 
 
 TlIir.D TIME 
 
 MAYOR OP MANCHESTER. 
 
 Ms Dear Sir, 
 
 The manliness with which you avow, the earnestness with 
 which you support, and the fidelity with which you exemplify the 
 simple, sublime, and most salutary religion of Jesus, the Light and 
 Saviour of the world, must be my apology for inscribing your name 
 on this inconsiderable page. Bear with me if, in addition, I thus 
 publicly acknowledge the generous aid with which you have encouraged 
 my humble endeavours to make the press a channel for extending 
 the benign influence of Unitarianism — equally dear to us both. 
 
 I remain, my dear Sir, with high respect and kind regards, 
 
 Your Pastor and Friend, 
 
 JOHN 11. BEARD. 
 
 2, Camp Terrace, near Manchester, 
 December lith, 1859.
 
 TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 LETTER I. 
 
 Introductory. — The duty of free enquiry in religion, especially on 
 the part of the young ; the proper state of mind. Pp. 1-3. 
 
 LETTER II. 
 
 What Unitarianism is. — Divers views with substantial agreement 
 among Unitarians, — all are Unitarians who, taking Jesus Christ as their 
 religious guide, own, worship, and serve his God and Father. A state- 
 ment by Dr. Ghanning of what Unitarianism is. Pp. 4-17. 
 
 LETTER III. 
 
 I am a Unitarian because Unitarianism is — 1st, Intelligible ; 2nd, 
 Real; 3rd, Reasonable. Pp. 17-31. 
 
 LETTER IV. 
 
 I am a Unitarian eecause Unitarianism is — 4th, True ; 5th, Posi- 
 tive, Permanent, and Universal ; 6th, Favourable to Freedom ; 7th, Pro- 
 gressive ; 8th, Scriptural. Pp. 32-41. 
 
 LETTER V. 
 
 I am a Unitarian because Unitarianism is — 9th, Salutary ; 10th, 
 Practical; 11th, Conducive to Piety; 12th, Honourable to the Saviour. 
 Pp. 41-52. 
 
 LETTER VI. 
 
 I am a Unitarian because Unitarianism is — 13th, Destructive of 
 Sin ; 1 1th, Promotive of Holiness. Pp. 53-57.
 
 Vlll TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 LETTER VII. 
 
 I am a Unitarian bkcause Unitarianism — 15th, Guards against 
 Polytheism and Pantheism. Pp. 57-60. 
 
 LETTER VIII. 
 
 I am a Unitarian because Unitarianism is — 16th, Unsectarian. 
 Pp. 61-80. 
 
 LETTER IX. 
 
 I am a Unitarian because Unitarianism is— 17th, the Nucleus of 
 the one Universal Church. Pp. 81-85. 
 
 LETTER X. 
 
 I am a Unitarian because Unitarianism is — 18th, Sufficient. 
 Pp. S5-87. 
 
 LETTER XL 
 
 I am a Unitarian because Unitarianism is- — 19th, Important. 
 Pp. 88-89. 
 
 LETTER XII. 
 
 I am a Unitarian because Unitarianism, being the most ancient 
 form of Christianity, connects itself immediately with Christ. Pp. 
 89-104. 
 
 List of Works Illustrative and Confirmatory of Unitarianism. 
 Pp. 105-108.
 
 P It E F A C K. 
 
 The present time is especially favourable for a wise and 
 earnest effort to offer a purer form of Christianity to the large, 
 various, and important class which we call The People. Never 
 before, within my experience— an experience extending over 
 more than the third of a century — has there been any approach 
 to the same freedom from the taint of infidelity, the same 
 sense of moral and spiritual want, the same earnest desire of 
 religious light, the same earnestness of inquiry " Who will 
 show us any good?" or the same degree of preparation in 
 mental culture and general enlightenment. By no means, 
 indeed, are these desirable qualities, either in themselves or 
 in the extent of their general prevalence, all that the friends 
 of the simple Gospel could wish. They arc, however, every 
 day growing and extending, while already, they suffice to open 
 the ear of multitudes, who hitherto have remained deaf, to a* 
 religious revival in which reason and Scripture are to be 
 honoured, rather than passion. In consequence, opportunities 
 of exercising their proper religious influence are offered to
 
 X PREFACE. 
 
 Unitarian ministers throughout the land, and especially in our 
 large city populations. If these opportunities are wisely pro- 
 fited hy, a large reward may be expected from the hand of the 
 heavenly Father. The needful wisdom involves, it is sub- 
 mitted, two things — first, a going-forth to the people; and 
 second, an offer of the Gospel, and nothing but the Gospel, 
 both positively and distinctively. There must be a. going-forth. 
 Pulpit ministrations no longer suffice. The Christian minister 
 must become a missionary. Like his professed Master, he 
 must "go about doing good." In going forth into social life, 
 he may act in various ways for the improvement of his fellow- 
 men ; but he must not fail to preach to them " the unsearch- 
 able riches of Christ." In order that those riches may be 
 clearly seen, intelligently apprehended, and duly valued, they 
 must be set forth distinctively. But this positive and distinc- 
 tive teaching can have little effect, unless it proceed from a 
 heart deeply sensible of its value, and be emphatically directed 
 so as to promote the great aim of the Gospel in the renewal 
 as well as enrichment of the life. No propagandism can be 
 truly Christian, or perform a Christian work, which springs 
 not from " the life of God in the soul of man," and aims net 
 to form individuals anew after the image of the Saviour. 
 Nothing short of this deserves the name of Christian endea- 
 vour ; nothing short of this can be expected to secure the 
 cooperation of God's Spirit, and to receive the Divine blessing. 
 No mere change of opinion is the change which Gcd designs,
 
 
 PREFACE. XI 
 
 and wiiich Christ came to effect It is with the heart that 
 man believeth unto righteousness, while it is with the tongue 
 that confession is made unto salvation. (Rom. x. 10.) True 
 religious reform ends, if it docs not begin, with the affections. 
 In his affections is every man"-, life. Until the affections are 
 filled with the spirit of Christ, the work of religion is at the 
 best in only rudimental and preparatory stages. One of these 
 stages is connected with the rectification of theological falsities. 
 The process .is highly important. " Acquaint now thyself 
 with God, and be at peace," says Eliphaz, in the Book of Job 
 (xxii. 21) : and certain it is, that the good of which he speaks 
 cannot come to any one until he is led by the Son to the 
 Father (John xiv. 6), for in the God and Father of Jesus 
 alone is to be found absolute love combined with absolute 
 wisdom and power. A clear utterance then must there be, 
 as for the truth of God, so against human corruptions. The 
 religion of the Bible must be substituted for the theologies of 
 the Church. Where the attempt is made by that living tongue 
 which is inspired by a soul living in the Divine truth, of 
 which Christ is to us the reservoir and the source, good must 
 ensue — good invaluable as well as large and various. 
 
 Happy the men who are called by Divine Providence to 
 achieve so good a result. Such men are found in the Unita- 
 rian body. The number of such men is daily increasing ; yet 
 the work increases more rapidly. < Need is there to pray ti.e 
 Lord of the harvest to send more labourers into his harvest.
 
 Xll PEEFACE. 
 
 The need is great and urgent. Thousands are without Christ, 
 if ljot without God ; thousands live scarcely more than a mere 
 worldly life ; thousands vegetate in religious ignorance and 
 unconcern ; thousands sink daily deeper and deeper in sin ; 
 thousands perish in vice ; — again, other thousands are all but 
 ready to renounce popular forms of Christianity, or pine and 
 groan under the burdens they impose ; — to all of whom Unita- 
 riauism could minister beneficially, and might minister accept- 
 ably, if only heralds of the grace of God appeared in sufficient 
 number, and instinct with the right spirit. May the Giver of 
 every good and perfect gift pour out a full effusion of the 
 spirit of his Son on our Unitarian churches, and make them 
 each a fountain whence the waters of life shall flow forth on 
 their respective neighbourhoods in copious and refreshing 
 streams ! A hope to contribute somewhat toward so desirable 
 a result, has animated the writer in publishing the following 
 pages, which he now solemnly commends to the blessing of 
 the God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ.
 
 WHY AM I A UNITARIAN:' 
 
 LETTER I.— INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 My Dear Edward, — The surprise that you express at my 
 beiug a Unitarian is not altogether without a reason. You 
 have been brought up in the orthodox system, — you have been 
 taught to avoid free discussion, — you have been led to believe 
 that your eternal safety depends on your holding the orthodox 
 opinions, — you have been imbued with the feeling that Unita- 
 rianism is the high road to perdition, and that Unitarians arc 
 little if anything else than deists, and so you have come to 
 look with pity, if not dislike, on Unitarians, and to wonder how- 
 it is that I can be a Unitarian. To one of your ingenuous 
 nature the feeling must, I am sure, be painful, and I can well 
 understand how you came to write }'our letter inquiring, Why 
 I am a Unitarian ? The question deserves an answer, if only 
 because it seems to imply a disposition on your part to look a 
 little into the grounds and reasons of Unitarianism. Such a 
 disposition I cordially approve. It is your duty to examine 
 the ground on which you stand, and that you cannot do honestly 
 and fully unless you examine the ground on which I stand. 
 Our relationship has shown you the existence of a form of 
 Christianity in which much of what you consider fundamental 
 is disowned, and disowned by persons whom you esteem and 
 respect, and who, you have reason to think, are not without 
 means of forming a sound judgment, — whose lives are at least 
 as good as their neighbours', and whose disinterestedness you 
 cannot call into question. 
 
 n
 
 2 WHY AM I A UNITARIAN .' 
 
 In such circumstances you act naturally in asking me 
 a reason of the hope that is in me, only I beg of you, do 
 not shrink from giving an attentive ear to what I shall lay 
 before you. Religion is too serious a matter to be dealt 
 with slightly. As you will have to answer for the result 
 to God, and will assuredly feel the consequences of the result 
 throughout the whole of your existence, so ought you to be 
 very careful every step you take, and when, as now, you have 
 once begun, take all possible pains to proceed wisely. But 
 as in all investigations, so especially in this, wisdom demands 
 thoroughness, you had better not begin if you doubt your 
 strength to persevere. You will not infer from these words 
 that I am about to trouble you at length in this matter, 
 important though it is. Excellent works exist already, in the 
 pages of which you may study, in all their details, the ques- 
 tions at issue between Trinitarians and Unitarians. A list of 
 some of these I will append to my letters. My object is 
 simply to lay before you, in a concise form, some general 
 reasons which, serving as an answer to your question, " Why 
 are you a Unitarian ? " may at least prove to you that I have 
 not, to use your own words, " left the good old paths "without 
 cause. Had those paths appeared to me good, I should have 
 continued to walk therein. Did they now appear to me good, 
 I would instantly return to them. If I have turned aside 
 from them, it is because the hand of Providence has led me to 
 " a more excellent way." Where God calls me I dare not refuse 
 to go. Where God bids me stay I must remain. Not lightly 
 have I acted in espousing Unitarianism. Young though you 
 are, you know enough of my history to be aware that I have 
 enjoyed advantages for the study of religious matters. I have 
 arrived at a time of life when the judgment has some maturity, 
 and when the outlook into eternity may well make a man cau-
 
 LETTER I. 
 
 tious, reverent, and anxious to be right. Had my temporal 
 interests been with me paramount, I should not be where I am. 
 I do not pretend to be free from occasions of error, but at least 
 I have striven to know the truth. For during a great portion 
 of my life, not a j r ear has passed but I have reviewed the foun- 
 dations on which I stand, nor does a day now pass without 
 witnessing some effort on my part to learn more clearly and 
 more fully what is the mind and will of God. If, under these 
 circumstances, I have failed, I trust for acceptance to the 
 mercy of the Heavenly Father, assured that what he requires 
 is not so much that his children should absolutely see as he 
 sees, but that they should try to make his views of eternal 
 realities theirs. In this assurance I can conscientiously ask 
 you to follow me in the considerations I am about to submit to 
 your notice. May God make and keep you honest, sincere, 
 earnest, — desirous to know, willing to receive, and ready to 
 profess the truth which, in his Providence, he may set before 
 your mind ! Only do not commit the gross mistake of thinking 
 that any truth can become your truth by adoption. Aid you 
 may derive from other men, but truth can become yours only 
 by careful inquiry and meditation on your own part, and for 
 your own instruction. Nor can religious truth be obtained 
 by any mere intellectual process. If you would know God, 
 you must worship, love, and serve God. If you w r ould know 
 Christ, you must sit reverently at his feet, and, like him, go 
 about doing good. If you would possess God's Spirit, you 
 must not only pray for it, but be careful to cherish it within you 
 and manifest it around you. An hour of childlike obedience to 
 your Heavenly Father will do more to open } r our eyes than a 
 year's reading in books of divinity. 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 Joh-n E. Beajrd. 
 
 13 2
 
 4 WHY AM I A UNITARIAN .' 
 
 LETTER II.— WHAT IS UNITARIANISM? 
 
 My Dear Edward, — I cannot tell you why I am a Unita- 
 rian, unless you know what Unitarianism is. On this point 
 you must allow me to say that your knowledge is both erro- 
 neous and defective. Your views are not, indeed, so grossly 
 false as the veiws entertained by many. To much of what 
 you have heard you have not given credit. Your general in- 
 telligence has, in a measure, preserved you from misjudgmente, 
 and the fairness of your mind and the simplicity of your cha- 
 racter have made you at least hope better things than have 
 come to your ears. The dark hues borne by some statements 
 have produced in you the opposite to their intended effect, and 
 put you on making a formal inquiry as to my reasons for 
 being a Unitarian. Yet are you not free from misapprehen- 
 sions, and will therefore, I hope, give heed to what I have to 
 say on this preliminary question. 
 
 The question divides itself into two branches— first, What is 
 Unitarianism as held by me ? and, What is Unitarianism as 
 held by others? Regard to exact truth induces me to put the 
 matter thus. I do not wish to pledge any one to the views I 
 entertain, but equally I cannot undertake to espouse or defend 
 the views which others entertain, unless they agree with my 
 own. The distinction implies diversity, and some diversity 
 doubtless exists. The diversity for the most part regards two 
 things, — first, the methods of proof ; second, the results. The 
 methods of proof vary in this, that some Unitarians give pro- 
 minence to internal evidences, others to external, while some, 
 again, combine the two, holding that the two are consistent 
 views. For instance, — here is one Unitarian minister who 
 dwells mostly on the essential truth and beauty of the life of 
 Christ, and holds that life to be, under God, the source of life
 
 LETTER II. 5 
 
 to every believer. Here is another, who dwells mostly on the 
 words of Christ, as truth attested by the miracles which he 
 wrought, and the recorded effects of the Gospel when preached 
 to the world. A third, however, regards the words of Christ 
 as one manifestation of his divine life, and the miracles as 
 another, and finds a third in the beneficial working of the 
 Gospel in society. Following different paths, all three are 
 led to acknowledge in Christ divine wisdom and divine power, 
 and so to receive him as God's ambassador and representative. 
 This result, however, is not unattended with diversity, for here 
 is one person who preferably calls Christ" a teacher sent from 
 God," and there another, to whom he appears as in the truest 
 &nd deepest sense, " the Saviour of the world." Nevertheless, 
 the former maintains, as strenuously as the latter, that his 
 trust is in God, and not in man. So, in relation to the person 
 of Christ, diversities prevail. One class of Unitarians, in- 
 fluenced by scriptural statements in which they see disclosures 
 respecting his nature, hold that Christ existed before he was 
 born of Mary, and in a personal form was God's instrument 
 in the creation of the world. In this class there are persons 
 who ascribe to Christ some share in the divine essence, and 
 accordingly apply to him the epithet God in a secondary sense. 
 Another class, equally influenced by scriptural statements, in 
 which they see disclosures respecting his nature, hold that 
 Christ had no existence before he was born of Mary, and was 
 simply a human teacher, who, with God's ever present aid, 
 lived a holy life, and died in the discharge of his duty. These 
 two diversities, wide apart as they seem to stand, have a point 
 ■of union in the divine element which both acknowledge in 
 Christ. A third class, not less influenced by Scripture, but 
 taking as their guide, not so much the letter as the spirit of 
 the Bible, not so much particular epithets as its general tenor,
 
 6 WHY AM I A UNITARIAN? 
 
 and proceeding on the principle that its aim is not to teach 
 metaphysics, nor to disclose and define modes and orders of 
 being, but to reveal spiritual realities, to make fatherly will 
 known to man, to plant God's own spirit in man's mind, so as 
 to win man's heart to God, and make man himself one with God 
 in act as well as thought, have been led to find in the scriptural 
 Chi'ist the true and full manifestation of God in Jesus of 
 Nazareth, the Son of God, who, in virtue of his perfect 
 obedience to his Heavenly Father, was raised into most 
 intimate and ceaseless communion with that Father, and so 
 received from him the fountain of life, the plenitude of the 
 Divine Spirit, in virtue of which he spoke God's words, and 
 accomplished God's will. This third view connects itself 
 with the two preceding ones in the recognition of the divine 
 in Christ, while it sees in that divine element something 
 acquired by, and so truly inherent in Christ, and that some- 
 thing as nothing less than God's own given Spirit. Yet here 
 a limit is acknowledged, for the view owns the proper 
 humanity of Christ, and bo adds that Christ pessessed the 
 Spirit of God as largely and as fully as that Spirit could be 
 possessed by a perfect man. If I mention a fourth class, I 
 shall probably exhaust the subject, and give the view taken by 
 the greater number. It is this— God was in Christ recon- 
 ciling himself to the world, and, in consequence, Christ is 
 the Saviour of the world. Those who belong to this class are 
 content with what to them are facts, without speculating about 
 the exact nature of those facts. Religion, they think, is for 
 living rather than for thinking. The Bible they hold to be 
 the book of life, and not a book for disputation. God, in 
 their belief, makes his character known by various means, 
 and supereminently by and in Jesus Christ, in order to teach 
 men the way to himself, rather than to decide questions of
 
 LETTER II. 7 
 
 dark import and doubtful issue. Content with humbly striving 
 to know, to do, and to bear God's will under the light and aid 
 given by Christ, they are not bent on penetrating into sacred 
 things which they consider unrevealed, but think that to love 
 and serve God and man after the manner and in the power 
 of Christ, is the true and sure way to God here and hereafter. 
 The practical character of this fourth class presents the point 
 at which they are one with the other classes, for all Uni- 
 tarians hold that the essence of the Gospel is Christ-like 
 love. 
 
 In this grand acknowledgment they are, of necessity, 
 united, because they are united in the acknowledgment of 
 two other fundamental verities, namely that " there is one 
 God, and none other but he " (Mark xii. 32), who is verily the 
 Father of his intelligent creatures, and that the Gospel, from 
 first to last, is a manifestation of that love. As there is but 
 one God the Father, so are they agreed that " the Son of 
 God" is not " God the Son." And as "the Father sent the 
 Son to be the Saviour of the world," so is the Son the gift, 
 and not the cause, of the Father's love. Consequently, 
 salvation is properly of grace and not of purchase, and re- 
 demption is unprompted and unconditioned rescue, and not the 
 satisfaction either of God himself or God's law. Yet is this 
 not to be understood as if sin were tolerated by the Heavenly 
 Father. A wise and good earthly father is, even from his 
 wisdom and goodness, unable to endure disobedience ; and the 
 Heavenly Father, who is absolutely good, must by all possible 
 means ensure the triumph and prevalence of goodness. Sin, 
 in consequence, must be destroyed ; — but the sinner may be 
 saved, "even though as by fire." In a word, God, as the 
 universal Father, aims at universal good, and so makes his 
 dealings corrective, remedial, and restorative. It is not that
 
 8 WHY AM I A UNITARIAN ' 
 
 he punishes the less, but that he punishes with effect, and he 
 punishes with that effect which a father cannot, as a father, 
 help entertaining, cherishing, and pursuing. But an Almighty 
 Father must succeed in the ends he proposes to himself, else 
 he is not Almighty. The partial prevalence of evil in the 
 final issue, not only robs God of his paternal character, but, 
 if it does not dethrone the deity, places another divinity by his 
 side, almost as powerful as, if not more powerful than, himself. 
 If this is true, then, the time will never come when Christ 
 shall have subdued all things to himself, and God be all in all 
 (1 Cor. xv. 24, seq.). The unity of God, the essential good- 
 ness of God, the consequent brotherhood of man, a real and 
 effectual salvation through Christ, the Son of man and the Son 
 of God — these are the grand truths in which consists the unity 
 of the Unitarian Church. Here is " the one faith, one hope, 
 one God and Father of all, who is above all, and one Lord Jesus 
 Christ, who is Lord of all" (Acts x. 30), in the acknowledg- 
 ment of whom, through " the one spirit " of God in Christ, 
 Unitarians are " one spiritual body built upon the foundation 
 of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the 
 chief corner stone " (1 Cor. viii. 6, seq. ; Ephes. ii. 20 ; iv. 3), 
 which is " the Church of the living God, the pillar and ground 
 of the truth " (1 Tim. iii. 10), the rather because admitting 
 diversities of gifts, but the same spirit ; differences of ad- 
 ministrations, but the same Lord ; diversities of operations, 
 but the same God working all in all (1 Cor. xii. 4, seq.); we 
 endeavour to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace 
 (Ephes. iv. 3), and not in the rigours and strifes of an un- 
 attainable and undesirable identity of opinion (Rom. xiv.). 
 Here, too, is the link by which my own view becomes one with 
 the view of the Unitarian Church in general, only I leave to 
 every one the right which I enjoy and exercise myself of pro-
 
 LETTER If. 9 
 
 fessing his faith in words of his own choosing. The statements 
 I have made will show you that, in general, the diversities 
 existing among Unitarians regard little else than the form. 
 I helievc that the following propositions would be generally 
 acknowledged by them as comprising the fundamentals 
 of the Gospel : — 
 
 1. There is one God, the Father, and none other but he. 
 
 2. There is one Lord Jesus Christ, who came, divinely 
 empowered, to lead men to duty and to God. 
 
 3. There is one Spirit of God, comforting and sauctifying 
 all Christ's faithful disciples. 
 
 4. There is one true Church, comprising all, of every deno- 
 mination, who live holily in Christ Jesus. 
 
 5. There is one bond of Christian unity, the bond of peace, 
 and therefore the bond of mutual toleration. 
 
 0. There is one final abode for the spirits of just men made 
 perfect, the home of the Heavenly Father. 
 
 These six points, reduced to their simplest elements, present 
 a fatherly God, and a brotherly Lord, as the essential articles 
 of Unitarian Christianity. At least in this ultimate form you 
 may be assured you have the one universal faith of Unitarian- 
 ism. The God who made the world reveals himself through 
 Jesus, in order to destroy evil, and bring all men in holiness 
 and true happiness to himself. Such is my faith and hope, 
 and such is the faith and hope of every Unitarian. More than 
 this some Unitarians may profess; with less than this I do 
 not see how any one can take the Unitarian name. Here, 
 however, I desire to be cautious ; for I wish not to judge my 
 brother. " Let every man be fully persuaded in his own 
 mind " (Rom. xiv. 5) ; for whatsoever is not of such persua- 
 sion is sin (23). 
 
 I must not pass from the present point without expressly 
 directing your attention to an important fact. The view which
 
 10 AVHT AM I A UNITAIUAN? 
 
 I have given as constituting Unitarianism is a view which 
 Unitarians have not made, but found. In other words, this is 
 their view of the Gospel. My religion comes from God. As 
 I receive it from no brother man, so I have not devised it 
 myself. To me religion is, from first to last, a revelation. By 
 revelation God has made himself known to me. By revelation 
 God has made Christ known to me. By revelation God speaks 
 to me in my daily life. The Gospel is emphatically the revela- 
 tion of God to man through the Son of man. All divine 
 truth is from above, being from " the Father of lights," "from 
 whom cometh down every good and perfect gift." Man can 
 no more invent religion than he can make good evil or evil 
 good. Religion is grounded on the eternal laws of spiritual 
 reality, of which God is the centre and the source. Religion 
 is consequently God's will made known to man. Nay, rather 
 it is God himself made known to man ; it is the spirit of the 
 Everlasting Father disclosed to our human spirits, that in the 
 light we may find power and peace. That divine reality, 
 variously set forth and richly communicated, also evidencing 
 itself even as the light of day, or the comfort of home, I find 
 concentrated in the Gospel, whose focal point is Christ. In 
 consequence, the Gospel is my religion. That is, the view 
 which, under God's providence, I have been led to take of the 
 Gospel is my religion. That view is essentially a Unitarian 
 view, for it owns but one God, who makes himself known 
 through Jesus Christ. Unitarianism, then, is to me no man- 
 made system. Were it so, I would discard it from this hour. 
 It is no tradition handed down from ancient creed-makers. 
 In such a reed I could not place ray trust. It is no aggregate 
 of human opinions, but a divinely-given blessing, attesting its 
 divinity by its correspondence with all I am, all I know, and 
 all I want. 
 
 In this statement I have properly confined myself to the
 
 LETTER II. 11 
 
 central ideas of Unitarianism, because I wished to show it to you 
 in its simplest form. It may however, be desirable to develope 
 these primitive truths in one or two ways. And first, the idea 
 of God. In every form of religion the idea of God contains 
 the entire religion itself. So the whole of true religion, or 
 religion in its highest form, is contained in its idea of God. 
 When, then, God is said to be one, it is also said that properly 
 there is no other God. Thus you see that the religion of the 
 Bible is a monotheism. In being a monotheism, that religion 
 takes its station at the head of all the highest forms of religion 
 in the world, and corresponds with the best thought of the 
 greatest philosophers on the subject. It further carries us 
 back to the most ancient ideas of civilized nations, for behind 
 all polytheistic forms of religion, at least as they are now, 
 there lies the grand recognition of one God, the infinite source 
 of all things and all beings. You thus see that in its central 
 truth, the Bible contains the religion of civilization, and so, in 
 regard to numbers as well as dignity, stands at the head of the 
 religions of the world. A truth thus acknowledged, belongs to 
 the great heritage of the human mind. As such, its sources 
 must be co-eval and co-extensive with human culture. Where 
 can such a source be found unless in the Deity himself ? Here 
 the God who made the human race is its instructor, and reli- 
 gion is the one great revelation. The channel through which 
 that revelation was made must partake of the universality of 
 its source. That channel is the universe of mind and matter, 
 or God unveiling himself in the creatures he has made. In 
 other words, God's Spirit stamps an image of itself on man's 
 spirit through the impressive action of the sun, moon, and 
 stars, the interchanges of day and night, the recurrence of the 
 seasons, nor least, the varied discipline and genial influences of 
 human society, especially the home. 
 
 The religious impressions thus produced, find utterance,
 
 12 WHY AM I A UNITARIAN? 
 
 under God's inspiration, from the lips of eminent sages, whose 
 words, gathered and treasured up, are communicated by the 
 father to the son, and so pass from generation to generation. In 
 the course of time they take form and pressure in certain ex- 
 ternal signs. It may be in a grand hieroglyph. It may be in a 
 series of symbolic paintings. It may be in svmbolic sculptures. 
 It may be in symbolic edifices. At length an Abraham, a Moses, 
 a David, is born, and by their prophetic tongue, and the cun- 
 ning of their interpreting band, they take a written shape, and 
 so become the first great prolific germs of a religion with written 
 records. Hence the Bible. No sooner is the essence of 
 religion consigned to the custody of writing than a new and 
 brighter era begins. The Decalogue, written by God's Spirit 
 with the fingers of Moses, became the corner-stone of Hebrew- 
 ism, and Hebrewism is the parent of Christianity. Thus, in 
 addition to other channels of communication, God now speaks 
 with his children through the great thoughts and gread deeds 
 of his prophets, and so prepares the way for the final revelation 
 of himself, in Jesus Christ his Son. Here, again, begins a 
 new, fuller, and more varied, as well as brighter and more 
 benign, series of self-disclosures on the part of God, which, 
 continued under the direct influence of his Spirit, passes from 
 age to age, through apostles, martyrs, confessors, and holy 
 men and women, down to the present hour. 
 
 You thus see that revelation is of two kinds — first, special ; 
 and second, general. It is special in degree in all the great 
 servants of God. It is general in all who resemble those 
 servants in loving obedience, though the resemblance be 
 even small. God never left, and never leaves, himself with- 
 out a witness. You also see that the Bible is the great record 
 of God's dealings with men in their religious relations to him 
 and to one another. 
 
 You may also learn that Jesus stands midway between the
 
 LETTER II. L8 
 
 old civilization and the new, being the point toward which all 
 previous influences tended, and the point from which all after 
 influences flowed. It may be added that, as he is, under God, 
 the fountain Head, whence all now comes, so is he the great 
 ocean whither they all flow, and where they will find their 
 fulness and their rest. Of the manner in which that rest will 
 be secured, the revelation of God as the Father of human-kind, 
 and especially as the Father of Jesus, tells us all we can 
 either know or need. It tells us first, as we are told in the 
 New Testament, that Jesus, as God's Son, made obedience to 
 God the spring of his glory, and the source of his influence. 
 Looking toward God, Jesus was a learner and a worshipper. 
 Looking toward man, Jesus communicates of the light and 
 power he so receives. Whatever Jesus did, he did all in 
 obedience to the will of God. Whatever Jesus imparts, he 
 imparts all as the medium of God's grace to man. 
 
 These facts stand out clear and prominent in the pages of 
 the Bible. They are, also, deeply stamped on the history of 
 the last eighteen centuries. Moreover, they are consonant 
 with the experience of every true Christian disciple. 
 
 This being so, all other matters are of minor importance. 
 We may or we may not be able — we may be more or less 
 unable — to explain the manner in which God bestows light and 
 salvation on men through his Son. The question of, How? 
 always difficult, is specially difficult in religion. In religion, 
 indeed, the inquiry baffles our most searching endeavours, 
 Yet — such is man's folly — we turn away from the great 
 facts or certainties of the gospel, to questions touching the 
 things which God has left hidden, and even go so far in our 
 infatuation as to make our own opinions on these points the 
 touchstone of orthodoxy and the shibboleth of salvation. 
 Nevertheless the thoughtful few are beginning to open their
 
 14 WHY AM I A UNITARIAN? 
 
 eyes. Having studied the history of the Church, they see 
 that, like all mere human notions, the opinions that councils, 
 synods, and conferences have sanctioned as divine truths, have 
 changed from the first, and are changing still ; so that no 
 two ages, scarcely any two authorities, have agreed, or do 
 precisely agree, respecting original sin, the trinity, the 
 atonement. At the utmost, the fancied agreement is in the 
 letter. The moment you attempt to translate the letter into 
 thought, or to set it forth in the shape of any known reality, 
 you call forth dissent, and that dissent is as various as the 
 minds occupied with the subject. 
 
 It is characteristic of Unitarianism to make little of these 
 variations of human opinion, which are'no more than the reflex 
 images of individual peculiarities of temperament, desire, 
 speculation, or aim ; which are the offspring of tendencies of 
 thought, or schools of philosophy ; which are sparks from the 
 anvil of constructors of logical systems of theology. Failing 
 to behold the light of divine truth in these traditions of men, 
 Unitarianism renounces them, and fixes its gaze, in reverence 
 and love, on the eternal and unfading truth of the one God the 
 Father, and the one Lord Jesus Christ, and the one gift of 
 grace made by the Father through the Son, attested and made 
 operative by the Spirit. This, at least, is what I do, and 
 this would I advise you to do. 
 
 Thus far, in my own words, have I told you what Unita- 
 rianism is. I have given you my view of Unitarianism. 
 That you may not think it is peculiar, I will transcribe a few 
 sentences from Dr. Channing ; and this I do the more willingly 
 because I hope these words, from that gifted man's pen, will 
 lead you to a careful study of his valuable writings.
 
 LETTER IT. I.") 
 
 A BRIEF STATEMENT OF CNITARIANISM BY DR. CHAHNIHO. 
 
 " Unitarianisrn amounts to this — That there is one God, 
 even the Father, and that Jesus Christ is not that one God, 
 but his son and messenger, who derived all his powers and 
 glories from the Universal Parent, and who came into the 
 world not to claim supreme homage for himself, but to carry 
 up the soul to his Father as the only Divine Person, the only 
 ultimate object of religious worship. To us this doctrine seems 
 to have descended from the throne of God, and to invite and 
 attract us thither. To us it seems to come from the Scriptures, 
 with a voice loud as the sound of many waters, and as articulate 
 and clear as if Jesus, in a bodily form, were pronouncing it 
 in our ears. That we desire to propagate this doctrine we do 
 not deny. It is a treasure which we wish not to confine to 
 ourselves, which we dare not lock up in our own breasts. We 
 regard it as given to us for others, as well as for ourselves. 
 We should rejoice to spread it through this great city (New 
 York), to carry it into every dwelling, and to send it far and 
 wide to the remotest settlements of our country. We regard 
 it as the highest, most important, most efficient truth, and 
 therefore demanding a firm testimony, and earnest efforts to 
 make it known. We hold, indeed, nothing to be essential to 
 salvation but the simple and supreme dedication of the mind, 
 heart, and life to God and to his will. This inward and prac- 
 tical devotedness to the Supreme Being, we are assured is 
 attained, and accepted, uuder all the forms of Christianity. 
 We believe, however, that it is favoured by that truth which 
 we maintain as by no other system of faith. We regard 
 Unitarianism as peculiarly the friend of inward, living, practical 
 religion. For this we value it; for this we would spread it;
 
 16 WHY AM I A UNITARIAN . 
 
 and we desire none to embrace it but such as shall seek and 
 derive from it this celestial influence. 
 
 " We prize and would spread our views, because we believe 
 that they reveal God to us in greater glory, and bring us nearer 
 to him than any other. We are conscious of a deep want, 
 which the creation cannot supply — the want of a perfect being, 
 on whom the strength of our love may be centred, and of an 
 Almighty Father, in whom our weaknesses, imperfections, and 
 sorrows may find resource — and such a Being and Father 
 Unitarian Christianity sets before us ; for this we prize it above 
 all price. We can part with every other good. We can endure 
 the darkening of life's fairest prospects. But this bright con- 
 soling doctrine of one God, even the Father, is dearer than 
 life, and we cannot let it go. Through this faith, everything 
 grows brighter to our view. Born of such a Father, we esteem 
 our existence an inestimable gift. We meet everywhere our 
 Father, and his presence is as a sun shining on our path. 
 We see him in his works, and hear his praise rising from 
 every spot which we tread. We feel him near in our solitudes, 
 and sometimes enjoy communion with him more tender than 
 human friendships. We see him in our duties, and perform 
 them more gladly, because they are the best tribute we can 
 offer to our Heavenly Benefactor. Even the consciousness of 
 sin, mournful as it is, does not subvert our peace ; for, in the 
 mercy of God, as manifest in Jesus Christ, we can see an in- 
 exhaustible fountain of strength, purity, and pardon for all who' 
 in filial reliance, seek these heavenly gifts. Through this 
 faith, we are conscious of a new benevolence springing up to 
 our fellow-creatures, purer and more enlarged than natural 
 affection. Towards all mankind, we see a rich and free love 
 flowing from the Common Parent, and, touched by his love, we 
 are the friends of all. We compassionate the most guilty, and
 
 LETTER III. ] 7 
 
 would win thorn back to God. Through this faith, we receive 
 the happiness of an ever enlarging hope. There is no good too 
 vast for us to anticipate for the universe or for ourselves from 
 such a Father as we believe in. We hope from him what we 
 deem his greatest gift, even the gift of his own Spirit, and the 
 happiness of advancing for ever in truth and virtue, in power 
 and love, in union of mind with the Father and the Son." 
 
 Yours truU , 
 
 John E. Beard. 
 
 LETTER III.— REASONS WHY I AM A UNITARIAN. 
 
 I AM A UNITARIAN BECAUSE, 1ST, UNITARIANISM IS INTELLIGIBLE : 2ND, 
 BECAUSE IT IS A REALITY; 3llL>, BECAUSE IT IS REASONABLE. 
 
 My Dear Edward, — I am glad you have carefully perused 
 my former communications. I thank you for the frank state- 
 ment of the difficulties that the study of them has suggested to 
 your mind. Yes ; it is only the faintest outline that I sent you. 
 What could you expect? " All your religion ?" No ; all our 
 religion could not be compressed into a folio volume, much 
 less a letter. The ethics of Unitarianism — Unitarianism in 
 its multiform practicable developments and applications — can, 
 in these communications, receive no more than a passing 
 notice or two. Do not expect impossibilities. A few leading 
 points will be touched on in what I shall further write to you. 
 As, however, you seem to have formed but an imperfect 
 notion of the import and bearing of Avhat I have said, I shall 
 put the same ideas in somewhat different phraseology, and in 
 so doing briefly mark the relations in which Unitarianism 
 stands to other forms of religion. You are so unused to any 
 
 c
 
 18 WHY AM I A UNITARIAN? 
 
 statements of religieus doctrine, except what are called 
 "evangelical," that it is no wonder you think my exposition 
 somewhat scanty. Ere you have finished the reading of what 
 is to come, you will, I am confident, acknowledge that the 
 ideas which it contains are very prolific, and the system they 
 form very rich. As little am I surprised that you find the 
 notice I have taken of the Holy Spirit insufficient. With 
 me the Holy Spirit is God in Christ and the Christian Church. 
 Now, since God, as Jesus declares, is Spirit, and since God is 
 holy, and since, also, God is ever moving in the hearts of holy 
 men, to mention God is in some sense to designate the Holy 
 Spirit, or Spirit of God, However, the specific Christian 
 application of the term will not pass unnoticed. Only, do not 
 expect a systematic treatise on divinity, when I undertake 
 nothing more than a few popular sketches, designed to give 
 you some general acquaintance with the views I hold and the 
 ground on which I stand. I shall divide what I have to 
 advance under a numher of heads termed reasons. These it 
 is which make me a Unitarian. Here I am held fast bound 
 by necessity. Pressed upon by these considerations, I can 
 do no other than be a Unitarian. And being a Unitarian, I 
 should not think myself an honest man, much less a faith- 
 ful disciple of the Great Apostle of truth, did I not avow my 
 Unitarianism, and do what in me lies for its propagation. 
 God be praised that you have resolved to give due heed to the 
 great questions that are to pass in review. 
 
 First, then, a few words of further explanation. Unitarian- 
 ism is that view of the Gospel which owns one God, the Father 
 of all, who sent his Son to be the Saviour of the world, and 
 gives his Spirit to inspire, guide, and comfort the true members 
 of his Son's Church. Three objects are here presented to our 
 reverent attention. 1st. The Father, who is the only living
 
 LETTER III. 19 
 
 and true God, and as such the source of all the benefits of the 
 Gospel. 2nd. The Son, who, as the Son, derives from the 
 Father whatever he bestows on the world. And, 3rd. The 
 Holy Spirit, or the Spirit of God— that is, God in and 
 through Christ continuing and completing, in the various 
 ministries of the Church, the gracious work " foreordained 
 from the foundation of tho world," carried forward in every 
 land on the earth's surface by suitable ministrations, specially 
 declared and promoted by Moses and the prophets, and fully 
 showed forth and proclaimed in the life, teachings, death, and 
 resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. Considered in relation to 
 the origin, design, tendency, and result of the Gospel, these 
 three objects are one, for, from first to last, the Gospel is 
 simply the gift of God's grace, designed for the salvation of the 
 world. This unity of operation implicates a unity of source. 
 That source is the one God, who communicates himself to the 
 world through his Son and through his Spirit. Indeed, a 
 fourfold operation is indicated in sacred Scripture, for God 
 appears there (1) as the Creator and (2) as the Sanctifier of 
 his intelligent creatures ; and in order to be their Sanctifier, he 
 pours forth on all reverent hearts, and specially on the fol- 
 lowers of Christ, the blessed influences of (3) his Holy Spirit 
 and concentrating all needful light, love, and power in (4) his 
 Son, lifts him to his own right hand, and makes him the 
 dispenser of spiritual life to the world. This view, which is 
 the view given in the Bible, acknowledges the one God, tho 
 Father, of (out of) whom are all things, and one Lord Jesus 
 Christ, by (through) whom are all things, undone Holy Spirit, 
 who cleanses and hallows the children of God. Tho view, 
 you will observe, is simply and exclusively religious. In 
 other words, it deals with spiritual powers from first to last, 
 Beginning with God the Creator, the primal and the eternal 
 
 c 2
 
 20 WHY AM I A UNITARIAN ? 
 
 spiritual power, it sets him forth as working for the spiritual 
 instruction and elevation of mankind by spiritual agencies, 
 which spiritual agencies are the outpouring of his own divine 
 Spirit, first in Christ, and then through Christ, on all who 
 believe in Christ, that through Christ and Christ's Church he 
 may communicate himself to the beings whom for that very 
 purpose he made in his own image ; and having accomplished 
 the grand result, be all in all. Indeed, the Bible is the great 
 repository of spiritual forces. In it religion is ever spirit and 
 life, or spiritual life. The truth which it unfolds, the wisdom 
 which it fosters, the salvation of which it is the record and 
 one of the principal channels, are all great religious or spiritual 
 powers and blessings. Of notions it knows nothing. Opinions 
 it never enjoins. Speculation is wholly foreign to its spirit. 
 With essences and modes of being it never deals. The 
 phraseology of the schools and the decisions of the creeds are 
 mere human additions to the Bible, — foreign accretions sprung 
 from Greek arguing, and Latin systematizing, and monkish 
 narrowness. They are human attempts to fathom the un- 
 fathomable, to define the undefinable, to map out the infinite. 
 The grand religious generalities of the Bible they contract to 
 the small dimensions of theological metaphysics, and harden 
 them into the petrifications of human opinions. If Uni- 
 tarianism did no more than offer a practical and living protest 
 to a scholastical theology, it would do enough to justify its 
 existence, and claim at least my respect. But while it says 
 " No " to men's traditions, it says " Yes " to God's revelations, 
 and the substance of those revelations is the one God, who 
 made heaven and earth, and who governs and blesses his great 
 human family by placing his Spirit in all who seek and love 
 his truth, and by giving that Spirit, beyond all measure and 
 comparison, to Christ, that through him he may feed all who
 
 LETTER III. 21 
 
 hunger, refresh all who are thirsty, forgive the penitent, 
 redeem the sinful, recall the wandering, and so reconcile all 
 men to himself. 
 
 Such is Unitarianism. Such, at least, is a faint outline of 
 the view of the spirit and tenor of the biblical religion as con- 
 veyed to my mind by a not superficial study of the sacred 
 Scriptures. That view I denominate Unitarianism, because 
 at its centre stands the unity of God — the one God of the 
 Bible, the Cod of the patriarchs, the God of Moses, the God 
 of the prophets, the God, and as the God, so the Father, of 
 the Lord Jesus Christ. 
 
 Regarding these facts in respect to the religion of the world, 
 we see that the Gospel is monotheism with a paternal Deity, 
 in opposition to polytheism, and Unitarianism in opposition to 
 Trinitarianism — that is, the acknowledgment of one God in 
 one person, or one God, properly so called, in contrast with 
 one God in three persons, or one God, improperly so called. 
 Trinitarianism, indeed, pretends to be monotheistic ; but it 
 cannot be monotheistic without losing its own character, or 
 incurring the danger of being tritheistic. As a matter of fact, 
 it tends towards monotheism in cultivated minds and religious 
 natures, and it tends towards tritheism in popular apprehen- 
 sion, and in popular forms of worship. Uuitarianism, on the 
 contrary, is, and can be, nothing else than monotheistic. It 
 is, indeed, Christian monotheism, in all due severity, in con- 
 tradistinction to Ecclesiastical tripersonalism, which ever 
 borders on tritheism. 
 
 With these explanations, I proceed to assign some reasons 
 why I am a Unitarian instead of a Trinitarian Christian. 
 
 I. lama Unitarian because Unitarianism is intelligible. 
 Unitarianism makes two statements — God is one ; Christ is a 
 human being, idled with God's spirit. First — God is one.
 
 22 WHY AM I A UNITARIAN ? 
 
 That is, God is one being, one mind, one spirit. This state- 
 ment is intelligible. I learn what it means by looking within, 
 for I myself am one being, one mind, one spirit. This one 
 spirit who, as such, is intelligent, is also paternal. I know 
 what a paternal spirit is, for I myself am a paternal spirit. 
 Accordingly, my own inner sense is to me an image of God. 
 I have no need to go for instruction to the schools. God, in 
 revealing himself as one, and as a Father, bids me look on my 
 own soul, and see there a miniature of himself. This is teach- 
 ing alike easy and simple — so easy and so simple that it may 
 be apprehended by babes in understanding; at the same time 
 it is so deep and so sublime that it cannot be, as it never has 
 been, surpassed by the highest thoughts of the best philosophy. 
 Of Trinitarianism, on the contrary, no definition has ever been 
 given which, if intelligible, did not savour of heresy or 
 polytheism. God is three and one. One what? — One God. 
 Three what ? — Three Gods ? But three Gods is polytheism, 
 and unless three and one can be the same, must be discarded. 
 Supposing, then, that it is indispensable to preserve the unity, 
 wherein shall we place the trinity ? Is it a triplicity ? A 
 threefold God is a phrase without meaning, simply because a 
 threefold human mind does not exist. You say that it is a tri- 
 personality. What do you mean by the term ? A person is an 
 individual intelligence, as Peter, James, and John. God, then, 
 is one being in whom are three other beings, and so God is at 
 once four beings, or four intelligences. This you will not allow ; 
 and if you did allow it, I could not apprehend it. You reply 
 that person is taken in a peculiar sense. Tell me what the sense 
 is which you attach to person? You cannot? Say person 
 denotes character. Then God is one being with three charac- 
 ters. What the meaning of this statement may be in regard to 
 God I know not, but such a statement in regard to a man would
 
 LETTER III. 23 
 
 destroy the moral unity of liiin of whom it was asserted, and so 
 bring him into disrepute. If you give preference to a term of 
 darker import, and say that the persons are " somewhats," you 
 must not be surprised if you are told, that you try to explain 
 what is dark by what is darker. In these exigencies, a refugehas 
 been sought in the term distinction — " God is one with three- 
 distinctions." The refuge gives no shelter, for it reduces the 
 three persons to three distinctions, and so, making the Father 
 a distinction, the Son a distinction, the Holy Ghost a distinc- 
 tion, undeifies the Deity, without presenting an intelligible 
 idea. Indeed, to declare that a being is, in any sense, pro- 
 perly three and one, is to make a statement which conveys no 
 meaning to my mind, because it takes that being out of the 
 class of known existences, and makes him sui generis — that 
 is, the sole of his kind. Of a being, however, who is sole of 
 his kind no man can know anything. Such a being is an 
 anomaly in the universe ; an inexplicable enigma, of whom 
 anything may be said, because nothing can be known. " Un- 
 derstandestthou what thoureadest?"is a question which Philip 
 put to the eunuch. Understandest thou what thoubelievest? 
 is a question which may be put to the Trinitarian. And until 
 he can put his belief in an intelligible shape, how can he 
 comply with the apostolic injunction — " In understanding be 
 men." In vain does he rejoin, "It is a mystery," for he 
 cannot characterize any doctrine, the terms of which and the 
 import of which are hidden from his eyes. Of a thing of 
 which you are ignorant, all you can say is, " I do not know." 
 But knowledge is the special privilege, and so the great cha- 
 racteristic, of the Christian. The Christian knows God, for 
 he knows himself, the child of God, and he knows Christ, 
 the image of God. That knowledge, which the Saviour 
 himself described as involving eternal life, includes not the
 
 24 WHY AM I A UNITARIAN ? 
 
 faintest outline of tripersonality. The mind of man is one 
 — simply one : the mind of Christ is one — simply one. These 
 are the Scriptural inirrors of the mind of God, and so God 
 is one — simply one. 
 
 I said, also, that Christ is a human being (Luke iv. 22 ; 
 John i. 45 ; vi. 42) filled with God's spirit (John iii. 34). 
 Like the first, the second elementinUnitarianismisintelligible. 
 The reason is, that you and I are human beings, and being 
 human beings, we know what is meant, when it is said, that 
 Jesus was a human being. Here there is no cloud, no 
 obscurity, no question. The moment, however, that you 
 introduce speculative elements, you find yourself in mist, fog, 
 or thick and palpable darkness. Jesus was a man, Trinita- 
 rianism declares, and yet denies that he was the Son of 
 Joseph. If he was the son of Mary only, then he was born 
 out of the ordinary manner, and so was a being sui generis, or 
 a being standing by himself. In vain are we reminded that 
 Adam had no human father. The cases are not parallel, for 
 neither had he a human mother. Besides, Adam was the first 
 of his race, and every first must come directly from God. 
 When the type is once given by the Deity, the Deity uniformly 
 confines himself to the type. But in Jesus the type is 
 departed from, and wholly deserted. To him alone a human 
 father is denied. He consequently stands alone, the only one 
 who, being called a man, had no man for his father. Such a 
 being is not a man, whatever he may be called, or all the 
 ^rounds of our knowledge are uncertain and unreliable. 
 
 Speculation, denying Joseph to be the father of Jesus, goes 
 further, and declares that Christ existed before he came into 
 this world, not as all things and all beings existed, namely, in 
 God's eternal thought and purpose, but in his own proper 
 person. If so, then Christ was a pre-existent spirit, embodied
 
 LETTEK III. 25 
 
 in a Human form. Who knows what that means ? No one — 
 the statement is unintelligible — words, mere words, words 
 without the shadow of an idea, for of such a being we have 
 neither, in our thought, nor in our experience, the faintest 
 counterpart, or the most rudimentary germ. 
 
 Without pursuing speculation into its darker recesses, turn 
 to the Scripture, where you find Christ described as having 
 the spirit of God without measure. The corresponding truth 
 is, that we have the spirit of God with measure (John iii. 
 34). Having the spirit of God ourselves, we can understand 
 what is meant when it is said, that Christ had the spirit of 
 God. The distinction, too, which the Bible makes between 
 Christ and Christians is clear, for it is a matter of degree, 
 great though the difference is (John xvii. 11). What we 
 have in part, Christ has in the whole. Christ possessed all 
 of God's spirit which God could give to a human being made 
 perfect, and which a human being made perfect could receive. 
 Christ, then, does not stand alone, is not a unique being, is 
 not sundered from the race he came to save ; but since he 
 brings help to man, he shares their nature, and so sympa- 
 thizes with their weaknesses, and bears their sorrows ; yet, 
 standing at their head, raises them, by the attraction of his 
 own vital forces, upwards to himself (Heb. ii. 9,* seq.; vii. 
 20; John xii. -32). On our part, we are able to enter into 
 the sufferings which a brother underwent on our behalf. We 
 know what Christ suffered when he was hungry, when he was 
 thirsty, when he wept, when he wrestled with temptation ; 
 when he was buffeted, mocked, and derided ; when, in his 
 last agony, he discerned, with his closing eyes, his bereft and 
 
 * For the correct translation of this passage, and many other mis- 
 translations in the authorized version, see "A Revised English Bili'.c, 
 the Want of the Church;" hy J. R. Beard. Sirapkin, Marshall, and 
 Co., London.
 
 26 WHY AM I A UNITARIAN ? 
 
 woe-stricken mother. All these griefs we can understand and 
 appreciate, if Christ was truly and properly man ; but make 
 him God, make him a spirit descended from a higher sphere, 
 detained here but a few years, and shortly about to return to 
 his own home oreverlasting peace and bliss, and you confound 
 all my ideas ; act strongly on my imagination you may, but in 
 the same degree you bewilder my intelligence, and compel me 
 to revive questions forced by speculation out of the simple 
 hearts of primitive believers, as to whether Christ suffered in 
 reality or in appearance, how the impassible God could have 
 suffered at all, and how a celestial spirit, who, as celestial, 
 must have been'rich even on earth in holiest affections, sub- 
 limest thoughts, and brightest anticipations, could have suf- 
 fered eclipse from the petty and transient clouds of earthly 
 humiliation. Unworthy of divine or celestial love, is the 
 supposition that it could have been darkened, much less 
 quenched, by diabolical wiles, or sacerdotal rage, or even the 
 deep shades of the valley of death. 
 
 2. I am a Unitarian because Unitarianism is a reality. The 
 real is known from the unreal by its correspondence with the 
 realities of our own being — the realities of our own experience. 
 How do you distinguish a genuine coin from an adulterated 
 one ? By its look, its ring, its weight. You look at the 
 sovereign, you ring it, you weigh it, and so ascertain that it is 
 sterling gold. How do you distinguish true love from feigned 
 love ? By applying to it the test of your own sound affection, 
 and by the test of experience. Here you have no difficulty. 
 Did you ever mistake a false cry of pain, of joy, for a true 
 one ? The very sound of the voice betrays all counterfeit 
 sentiments. In the same way you distinguish spiritual realities 
 from spiritual unrealities. Take the Athanasian creed into 
 your hands, read it, study it — is that a spiritual reality?
 
 LETTEK III. 27 
 
 Does it correspond to anything in your own thought, your own 
 spirit? You do not even know what it means. Then take it 
 and try to live upon it — do you find in it the bread of life ? 
 You cannot even make it a part of your spiritual nature ; no 
 deeper than the memory will it go. It is a heap of the husks 
 of human speculation, and not the manna which God gives 
 from heaven to he the life of the world. On the contrary, 
 Unitarianism is reality. Real is the idea of the one God ; 
 real is the idea of God the Father ; real is the idea of Jesus 
 of Nazareth, the sou of Joseph and Mary ; real is the idea of 
 Christ the Son of God; real is the idea of God's spirit 
 dwelling in all good men, and dwelling superabundantly in 
 the great Head of human kind. The life of Christ, which in 
 one sense, is a summary of the Gospel, as it is the substance 
 of Unitarianism, is a grand cluster of spiritual realities. Eeal 
 is his birth ; real his domestic training ; real his communion 
 with God ; real his preparation for his public work, and his 
 call to that work ; real the temptation he underwent when on 
 the point of entering thereon ; real the hardships he endured ; 
 real his hunger, his thirst, his weariness ; real that agony in 
 the garden ; real those throes of the cross. So, too, real was 
 his celestial light, and real his divine power ; real every word 
 he spake as taught of God, and real every deed he did in 
 putting forth the divine power that was in him. Equally real 
 is the influence he now exercises in the souls and the lives of 
 the faithful, real the blessings he bestows, real the transforma- 
 tions he effects, real the joy he inspires, and real the immortal 
 life he gives. All these things are real ; we know them to be 
 real ; they are as real as our daily food, as our purest affections, 
 as our nobler life. Indeed, they are the reality of realities — 
 the life-blood, the strength, the vigour, the happiness of our 
 souls. Pre-eminently is Unitarianism a religion of reality.
 
 28 WHY AM I A UNITARIAN '? 
 
 So far as it is true to itself, it is as real as God, as real as 
 Christ, as real as human life, as real as moral power, as real 
 as home, as real as a father's example and a mother's love. 
 Knowingly and consciously it takes to itself nothing but what 
 is real ; and the unreal, or that of which it doubts the reality, 
 it leaves on one side, assured that only what is real can be of 
 God, who, in the highest sense, is the Great Eeality. 
 
 How dissimilar — to give one instance — the doctrine of the 
 two natures in Christ. From Christ that doctrine takes all 
 reality, leaving him neither God nor man. What reality can 
 you recognize in a being who, though finite, is yet infinite? 
 who, though limited to a point on the earth's surface, yet fills 
 the universe ; who is partially ignorant, yet fully wise ; who is 
 and is not absolutely good ; who cannot die, yet dies ; who is 
 at once hungry and full ; who thirsts, but is not thirsty ; who 
 weeps, while possessed of "joy unspeakable and full of glory?" 
 Stripping Christ of all reality, the doctrine robs him of all 
 power, at least over human hearts, and were it really believed 
 and acted on, would make the living Sou of the living God 
 once more a corpse, and consign him to a sepulchre more hard 
 to burst open than that of Joseph of Arimathea. 
 
 3. I am a Unitarian because Unitarianism is reasonable. 
 By this statement I do not mean that Unitarianism merely 
 conforms to the rules of logical thought; still less that it 
 recognizes in reasoning the organ of religious discovery ; still 
 less again, that it makes its light the measure of divine truth. 
 What I mean is, that the truth of which it consists is in 
 harmony with the great laws and tendencies of human life. 
 If God made man in his own image, then man's image must 
 more or less correspond to the divine mind. If Christ is 
 emphatically the image of God, then Christ is the portrait of 
 the supreme reason. It follows that all that comes from God
 
 LETTER III. 29 
 
 is an 'outflow of reason, that is of truth. As such, it is as 
 germane and suitable to man's mind as the sunshine, the raiu, 
 the air, and the dew to the grain, the shoot, the ear, the flower, 
 the fruit. Hence, to be reasonable is to be divine. And 
 hence Christ is divine, because reason perfected in a man. 
 Christianity, therefore, is reason, and in one sense reason is 
 Christianity. And hence, too, every human mind is Christian 
 in proportion as it is reasonable. The unreasonable is un- 
 christian. That which contradicts reason contradicts Chris- 
 tianity. If God is one, one also is God's plan of action. If 
 the Gospel is from God, the Gospel is divine reason made 
 easy for man. To suppose that divine' truth can set reason at 
 nought, is to suppose that God traverses his own paths aud 
 contradicts his own purposes. It is true that I may take that 
 for unreason, which is the highest reason. But then the 
 lesson to give me is not to prostrate my intelligence, but to 
 clear my sight and elevate my point of view. It is the pure 
 in heart that see God. Equally certain is it that many see only 
 the cloud, without discerning the light that shines at its back. 
 Bid me wait, and meanwhile worship and serve, but do not 
 threaten me with woe because I declare that to be dark which 
 is dark to me. The very fact that Christ came supposes that 
 I need aid. But equally does it suppose that I am able to 
 receive aid ; and if I am able to receive aid, I am able to 
 know what aid is. It is into a genial bosom that the soil 
 receives the seed, and so the seed germinates and grows. 
 Between the seed and the soil there is a pre-established 
 harmony. A similar harmony exists between truth and the 
 human mind. Intended the one for the other, the two bear a 
 divine correspondence and suitability. The correspondence 
 lies in the essence of the two. The recognition of that 
 correspondence on our part is spontaneous and inevitable.
 
 30 WHY AM I A UNITARIAN ? ' 
 
 The suitability is felt and acknowledged the moment the two 
 come into vital contact. Here, as everywhere in God's world, 
 like seeks and owns its like. As is light to the eye, so is 
 truth to the mind. As is the ear to sound, so is the soul to 
 reason. Accordingly, the unreasonable is darkuess, is discord. 
 Indeed, unreasonableness is a nonentity relatively to God. 
 It comes not from him ; it tends not to bim ; it works not his 
 work. Like darkness, it is a privation ; like discord, it is a 
 contrariety. And privation and contrariety are weakness and 
 death in the soul. 
 
 Oh ! wonderful is it that it should still be necessary to 
 declare that the Gospel is one with man's deepest instincts, 
 purest affections, highest thoughts, and noblest aims ; and 
 painful is it to feel it necessary to add, that whatever runs 
 contrary to these divine currents in our souls is not from above, 
 but from below. Tbe necessity arises from the fact, that pro- 
 fessors of the Gospel still throw the shield of divine authority 
 before the dark and confused images of their own troubled 
 fancies and diseased speculations. Is Unitarianism free from 
 this error? By no means do I assert that my view or your 
 view of truth contains nothing contrary to truth, or tbat any 
 man's truth contains all God's truth. .But this 1 may declare, 
 that, as a general principle, Unitarianism recognizes the laws 
 of reason as the laws of God. This recognition pervades 
 Unitarianism. Keligion itself is only the highest reason. 
 Truth in reason is truth in religion. He that is nearest to 
 reason is nearest to God, and so has the best and purest reli- 
 gion. Surely, in any issue, reason is perferable to unreason. 
 If so, why not in religion ? Religion is a universal power, and 
 should be a universal presence in man's soul. But if the leaven 
 is to leaven the whole lump, the leaven must conform to the 
 nature and laws of the lump. Never would our food give
 
 LETTER III. 31 
 
 strength and joy were it not, in its nature, capable of entering 
 into combination with every particle of our frame. When 
 Jesus termed himself the " bread of life," he declared that the 
 truth he brought from God was made for the human soul. 
 Unitarianism takes Jesus at his word, and owns as divine 
 manna that which looks like a gift from the heavenly Father, 
 and tastes sweet and wholesome, like all other divine nutri- 
 ment. Other fruits grown in Paradise there may be, for which, 
 at present, we have no relish, but, if such there are, they will 
 in some way declare, in time, their celestial origin, and so 
 bring their welcome with them. 
 
 Meanwhile, the certain is preferable to the uncertain, and 
 our loyalty to God forbids us to own anything but what bears 
 God's image and inscription. It is but in part that we know 
 God's illimitable truth. But this we know, that where our 
 ignorance begins our tongue must be silent, and that to strain 
 belief is only to make our words untrue and our minds 
 unnatural and unsound. It is, indeed, often a duty to trust 
 where we cannot trace, and worship God in the darkness of the 
 holy of holies; but we dare not call darkness light; nor dare 
 we own as divine that which wears the impress of the human. 
 And so often has what men call mystery been made to veil, 
 and so to recommend absurdity, that we think it our duty to 
 be on our guard when required to accept a doctrine though, 
 or because, it is mysterious. Certainly, in the Scripture, the 
 Gospel is offered as light, God is described as " light, and in 
 him is no darkness at all," while of Christ it is said, " In him 
 was light, and the light was the life of the world " (John i. 4). 
 May that light and that life become yours. Such, my dear 
 Edward, is the earnest prayer of 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 John R Beard.
 
 WHY AM I A UNITARIAN : 
 
 LETTER IV.— REASONS WHY I AM A UNITARIAN. 
 {Continued.) 
 
 I AM A UNITARIAN BECAUSE, 4TH, UNITARIANISM IS TRUE ; 5TH, POSITIVE, 
 PERMANENT, AND UNIVERSAL ; 6TH, FAVOURABLE TO FREEDOM ; 7tH, 
 PROGRESSIVE J 8TH, SCRIPTURAL. 
 
 4. lam a Unitarian because Unitarianism is true. All 
 reality is truth. The fact is consecrated in one of the under- 
 lying thoughts of the Biblical religion, The Biblical name 
 for truth and reality is the same word. The Bible identifies 
 truth and reality. With a regard to fact, which would be the 
 highest philosophy were it not the simplest, yet deepest 
 religious insight, the Bible making reality and truth the same, 
 makes them both firm, stable, certain, and trustworthy. The 
 word Amen is, in its root, the Biblical word for truth, reality, 
 steadfastness, and reliability ; and so the Bible itself is the 
 great Amen to the religious yearnings of the human heart. 
 God's truth in man's soul is a foundation of eternal adamant. 
 God's religion is no mere matter of opinion. Opinion is a 
 Latin word, and so of mere human origin, and has nothing to 
 do with true religion. True religion, having God for its 
 source, and man's soul for its earthly abode, is like the ever- 
 lasting hills for stability and grandeur, and can no more totter 
 or sink than the sun can fall or become extinct. And so faith 
 in God's religion is " the anchor of the soul, sure and stead- 
 fast," cast within the harbour of God's own eternal repose. 
 He that is one with the Christ of God, is one. with the life 
 which has neither beginning nor end, is one with the love 
 which is the essence of God, is one with the truth which is 
 God himself; for God is truth absolute, since he is the Father 
 of lights, with whom there is no variableness, neither shadow 
 of turning (James i. 17).
 
 LETTER JV. 33 
 
 It is- true, and can never be anything else but true, that 
 " there is one God, and there is none other but he; " that the 
 one God is the Father of all men, and specially the Father 
 of Christ; that Jesus lived at Nazareth and died on Calvary; 
 that he taught the truth that he had heard from God ; that 
 the truth he taught is the life of the world, and that every 
 heart that has the sources of its life in Christ, becomes like 
 Christ, " holy, harmless, and undefined," and so is strong for 
 every godlike work, and rich in spiritual peace and joy. 
 These things are true. They; are true because they are God's 
 realities. They are known to be true to all to whom they 
 are practically known — known to be true as certainly and as 
 fully as our instinctive impulses are known to be true, as our 
 highest law is known to be true, as moral obligations are 
 known to be true. The man who lives as Christ lived, knows 
 that he lives the true life of a man, as assuredly as he knows 
 that the love of home is true love, and a life of benevolence 
 the true life. Truth is only the correspondence of man's 
 thought and man's act with God's realities, so that a human 
 life, full of God's realities, is a simple utterance of God's 
 truth. Indeed, the service of the one only God in his Son 
 Jesus Christ, is the practical possession of the truth. And 
 what is this but Unitarianism ? In idea, at least, Unitarian- 
 ism is a human embodiment of the spirit of the God and 
 Father of the Lord Jesus Christ, and so is the truth. We 
 have only to be what Unitarianism would make us, in order 
 to know the truth by unmistakable signs and tokens, and in 
 the knowledge to become wise, holy, and blessed. 
 
 5. I am a Unitarian because Unitarianism. is positive, per- 
 manent, and universal. Unitarianism has indeed a negative 
 side. A negative side is an indispensable element in all true 
 religion. Truth must protest against error. Holiness must 
 
 D
 
 34 WHY. AM I A UNITARIAN ? 
 
 protest against sin. Light must expel darkness. Abraham's 
 migration was a protest. Moses came laden with a protest. 
 The burthen of each of the prophets was almost all protest. 
 Jesus, the last of the series, uttered the strongest and loudest 
 protest. Like Unitarianism, his was a reformatory work. 
 He laboured to carry the mind of his nation back to the 
 grand thought of the one God, revealed in the opening words 
 of Genesis, and expanded and made practical in the Deca- 
 logue. In his spirit all his true apostles have laboured, from 
 Paul down to Luther, and from Luther down to Priestley and 
 Charming. To protest against error is an essential element 
 in all progressive endeavours. You cannot get men right 
 unless you show them where they are wrong. The mere 
 enunciation of general principles is only shooting arrows into 
 the air. You must weed and drain your field before you sow 
 your crop. This is the first duty of Unitarianism — a duty as 
 yet performed only on a narrow stage. If not more em- 
 phatic, certainly more general and in a more noticeable form, 
 must it, like Protestantism, say " No ! " to all the falsities 
 which have invaded the kingdom of God and usurped his 
 throne in the heart of od's subjects. But Unitarianism 
 denies only to affirm. As did Christ, it cleanses the temple, 
 but leaves the temple itself standing, and standing in its own 
 primitive grandeur and stability. Trinitarianism divested of 
 its characteristics, becomes the Gospel. The unclothing now 
 rapidly proceeding, is every day bringing the system nearer 
 to the simple beauty of God's own truth. But then the 
 change denotes the human origin of the opinions in which its 
 distinctiveness consists. Whereas, Unitarianism is now what 
 it ever was, and what it ever will and must be. Fundamen- 
 tally the same is the truth of one God the Father, and one 
 Lord Jesus Christ, now as when it was proclaimed by the
 
 LETTER IV, 36 
 
 Apostles and by their Master himself. "As it was in the 
 beginning, is now, and ever shall he, world without end," 
 though forming part of the Trinitarian liturgy, is true only 
 of the simple elements of the Unitarian faith. 
 
 An ancient father of the Church proposed Catholicity as 
 the test and measure of Christian truth. " That is true," 
 said he, and his voice prevailed, " that is true which has been 
 believed always, everywhere, and by all." I accept the rule, 
 and ask. what form of orthodoxy can endure its application ? 
 Every part of orthodoxy is a variable quantity. Not one 
 doctrine is there but has grown, flourished, and decayed. 
 Not one doctrine is there which, if owned by me, has not 
 been disowned by you. It is only of the ultimate and sim- 
 plest form of Christianity that the epithet Catholic can be 
 truly employed. Unitarianism alone possesses the attribute 
 of universality. From the days of Christ down to the days 
 of Luther, and from the days of Luther down to the 
 present hour, all, at all times, and in all places, have owned 
 one God, the Father, and one Lord Jesus Christ, nor will 
 the day ever come when any disciple will cease to make 
 that confession. Add to the confession men may, but in 
 adding to it they only signify their credence and attest its 
 Catholicity. 
 
 0. / am a Unitarian became Unitarianism is favourable to 
 freedom. " "Where the Spirit of the Lord is there is liberty."' 
 Liberty is the first attribute of religion as existing in the 
 human soul. Without freedom, religiou bus no life. As you 
 must breathe before you can live, so you must be free before 
 you can be religious. What is religion but the free act of the 
 will of man adopting as its own the will of God ? What is 
 religion but the free act of the soul bathing itself in the ocean 
 of the divine life? The mind must be free if its movements 
 
 i) 2
 
 36 WHY AM I A UNITARIAN? 
 
 are to be natural. The mind must be free if its acceptance of 
 divine truth is to be real and efficacious. A manacled hand 
 cannot work with due effect. A bandaged leg can do no 
 better than limp. A body in chains is powerless. God made 
 the mind free, and free must the mind remain if it is to do 
 God's work and answer God's purposes. But is that mind 
 free which is burdened with lengthy creeds and cumbrous 
 catechisms? Is that mind free whose conclusions are pre- 
 scribed beforehand ? Is that mind free on which Trinitarianism 
 is enforced by the threat of eternal perdition ? To talk of 
 freedom in such cases is a mockery. The high priests, when 
 they had nailed Christ to the cross, bade him come down that 
 they might believe. What else do you do, if you say I am 
 free to inquire, but can be safe only if I end by agreeing with 
 yourself? Scarcely less are you to blame if, to protect your 
 own opinions, you raise against me a hue-and-cry. Popular 
 clamour is guilty of the death of Christ. Those who wage war 
 against free thinkers, with prejudice as achief weaponof offence, 
 have no claim to the honourable title of friends of religious 
 liberty. Yet are not these the arms with which an attempt has 
 been made to hunt Unitarianism down ? The noble stag still 
 stands at bay, and so stands because its limbs are all free, and 
 they are all free because they have been duly exercised in God's 
 air and God's sunshine, and on the green hills of God's nutri- 
 tious truths. Yes, Unitarianism is free. As far as anything 
 human can be perfect, Unitarianism is perfectly free. It is 
 free to think, to inquire, to learn, to speak, to act. It is free 
 to be and remain what it is. It is free to go whithersoever 
 it is called of God. It is free to use all its faculties, to culti- 
 vate all its capabilities, to seek truth in every part of God's 
 universe, and to receive into its substance all the light which 
 God may offer. In consequence, it makes free men, and free
 
 LETTEB IV. 37 
 
 men are ever strong men, and strong men cannot fail to do 
 some work for God. 
 
 7. I am a Unitarian because Unitarianism is progressive. 
 Liberty is a guarantee of progress. Without progress there is 
 no life. The religious life is in its nature progressive. Growth 
 is as essential to the Christian as it is to the plant. The 
 highest natures grow most ; and true religion is, of all powers, 
 most favourable to growth. This growth is true growth. It 
 is growth in God's own realities. Even in his knowledge of 
 God and Christ does the Christian grow. The idea of both 
 becomes to him grander, brighter, deeper, more impressive. 
 But the idea itself he never abandons. The one Father and 
 the one Brother are constant quantities, however they may open 
 out and shine forth in his soul. Such expansions the Christian 
 earnestly desires. They are the appropriate rewards of loving 
 service. Illimitable, too, are they, for their developments and 
 applications partake of their own infinitude. Wherever they 
 go, the true disciple is not only prepared hut delighted to 
 follow. Knowing that God's truth is inexhaustible, ho looks for 
 constantly new disclosures; and, when they come, he welcomes 
 them as God's most precious gifts. Such is the spirit of Uni- 
 tarianism. In its essence it is progressive. It acknowledges 
 that " the man of Goi " cannot and dare not stand still. It 
 sets limits neither to inquiry nor to the results of inquiry. 
 Content to leave itself in the hands of God, it asks only for 
 truth. Goethe passed from earth with the words, " Light ! 
 more light!" on his lips. The same is the request made to his 
 Heavenly Father by the Unitarian, whether living or dying. 
 
 8. I am a Unitarian because Unitarianism is Scriptural. 
 The fact is involved in much of what I have previously 
 advanced. The fact cannot be denied even by Trinitarians. 
 The doctrine of one God, the Father, and one Lord Jesus
 
 38 WHY AM I A UNITARIAN ? 
 
 Christ, is admitted by all Christians as scriptural and true, as 
 far as they go. Additions are indeed made, but their value 
 may be estimated by the fact, that they are as various as the 
 generations of men, the climates of the earth ; as various as the 
 philosophies, the Churches, almost the individuals from whom 
 they come, and whose image they bear. However, they unite 
 to declare the essence of Unitarianism scriptural. " Insuffi- 
 cient," not " false," is what they say of it. They thus concede 
 the scripturality of our fundamental doctrines. Whatever 
 else a disciple of Christ may be, he must be a Unitarian. 
 Declare, if you will, that Unitarianism is only milk for babes, 
 still by your own statement, it is milk. Who will deny that 
 the Scripture proclaims one God the Father, and one Lord 
 Jesus Christ ? Who hesitates to make these scriptural 
 verities articles of his faith ? Who will assert that they are 
 not at the centre of his religious life ? Is it not made a 
 reproach to Unitarianism that its assumed distinction of God's 
 oneness is no distinction at all ? Does not the Trinitarian 
 assert that he too is a Unitarian ? Is it not maintained that 
 the unity of God is the common property of Christendom? 
 If so, then, by the doctrine of Trinitarians, it is only in its 
 negatives that Unitarianism is wrong. The denial of the 
 Trinity— the denial of the Trinity of the authorised statements 
 of the notion, that is, the denial of the Trinity of the creeds, 
 especially of the Athanasian creed — the creed sanctioned alike 
 by age and numbers — that makes the distinction between a 
 Trinitarian and a Unitarian. Consequently, every one is a 
 Unitarian who stands on this side the dividing line : and, verily, 
 Unitarian in spirit and tendency are all who renounce the 
 established formularies. What a proof of the direction in 
 which the visible Church is going, for out of the Catholic 
 pale, believers in the pseudo-Athanasian form are very few !
 
 LETTER IV. 39 
 
 Doubtless, the Protestant Churches of England are fast 
 Unitarianising. The fact is a tacit confession of the Unitarian 
 character of the Bible — of all Unitarian manuals the best. 
 And in the issue which still remains as between attenuated 
 forms of the Trinity and the simple and stable truth of One 
 God the Father, and one Lord Jesus Christ, the sole point is, 
 are Trinitarians justified in their additions ? This they have 
 to show. It is their duty to adduce the proofs; our duty limits 
 itself to the examination of the evidence. The evidence has 
 been weighed in the balance and found wanting. Not by 
 Unitarians only have your proof-texts been judged insufficient. 
 Insufficient have they been pronouueed by yourselves. Not 
 one text is there, from the beginning of Genesis to the end of 
 the Apocalypse, but has been abandoned by some Trinitarian 
 critic. One after the other, every fort and every citadel has 
 been surrendered. The argument stands thus : — You admit 
 our position and surrender your own ; you acknowledge 
 the unity and confess the unscripturality of the Trinity. 
 Accordingly, the more thoughtful and fair-minded of those 
 who write on the Trinitarian side have now taken their stand 
 on interpretations of the doctrine which hardly differ from 
 Unitarianism, or which are so obscure as to convey little, if 
 any, meaning. 
 
 Without a question, monotheism is the doctrine of the Bihle. 
 Without a question, Christianity stands at the head of mono- 
 theistic religion. The Bible makes it equally clear that there 
 is a strong tendency in less cultivated minds to fall away from 
 monotheism, more or less. Not less clear is it that God, in his 
 care of the Hebrew Church, wrought in every possible way to 
 withstand that tendency. It is not too much to say that mono- 
 theism is dear to God. No wonder, for the slightest departure 
 from monotheism is departure from God. And what is de-
 
 40 WHY AM I A UNITARIAN ? 
 
 parture from God, but the first step to either polytheism or 
 pantheism. If you will not have the God of the Bible for your 
 God, you run the risk of denying God altogether or of con- 
 founding the Creator with the works of his hands. A danger 
 so imminent, yet so fearful, should make every one anxious 
 to cleave to biblical simplicity. And the existence of the danger 
 creates a strong presumption against any modified form of 
 monotheism in the Christian Church. A similar presumption 
 arises against the scripturality of any such modification. If 
 God took such pains first to lead Israel to the acknowledgment 
 of his sole Deity, and afterwards to keep him faithful to the 
 grand truth, it is not easy to believe that he gave any autho- 
 rity by which his essential oneness might be qualified by any 
 threeness whatever. Nor can it be pretended that a qualifica- 
 tion of the kind is expressly taught in the New Testament. 
 
 At the best, Trinitarianism is but an inference, and no 
 inference can be properly entitled a revelation. Indeed, the 
 untenableness of the inference has been admitted, nay, avowed, 
 and loudly declared, by Trinitarians no less learned than pious, 
 who, failing to discover the Trinity in the Bible, have looked 
 for its origin and its support in the Church. But if the Bible is 
 not Trinitarian, then is it Unitarian. What else, indeed, can 
 it be, when Jesus expressly declares his Father to be the only 
 true God (John xvii. 3); and when, at the moment that he 
 was about to enter into eternal life, he said, " I ascend to my 
 Father and your Father, to my God and your God" (John xx. 
 17). So, then, Christ had a God, that God was his Father;, 
 the God and Father of Christ was the God and Father of his 
 disciples. Equally was He the only true God. If the God 
 and Father of Christ was the God and Father of Christ's dis- 
 ciples, then must He not be so for ever, and ought He not to be 
 your God and Father? As Jesus declared his Father to be
 
 LETTER V. 1 1 
 
 his God, so I avouch him to be my God, and as his Father 
 was the only true God to Jesus, so the only true God shall 
 He be to me. Accordingly, I am a Unitarian because Unita- 
 riauism is scriptural. 
 
 When you have carefully considered these things, you shall 
 again hear from 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 John E. Beard. 
 
 LETTER V.— REASONS WHY I AM A UNITARIAN. 
 (Continued.) 
 
 I AM A UNITARIAN BECAUSE UNITARIANISM IS— 9tH, SALUTARY ; 10TH, 
 PRACTICAL ; llTH, CONDUCIVE TO PIE'JT ; 12TH, HONOURABLE TO 
 THE SAVIOUR. 
 
 My Dear Edward, — 9. I am a Unitarian because Uni- 
 tarianism is salutary. Salutary it must be if, as I have 
 shown, it is intelligible, real, true, liberal, and scriptural. 
 Intelligible ideas are ideas which, corresponding to the nature, 
 laws, and wants of the mind, the mind can appropriate and 
 convert into its own substance, and so live thereon, as the 
 hart on the green pastures of the river-side. Spiritual 
 realities are the staff of man's spiritual life. Truth is the 
 " feast of fat things" which God has provided for those who 
 love him. Liberty is to our higher life what the breezes, and 
 the sun-light, and movement are to the cedars of Lebanon. 
 
 Scriptural knowledge is the sap of the soul. And so all 
 who have eaten the bread which God's own hand supplies 
 know that it is salutary as it is sweet. That bread, divine 
 in its origin, is, on that account, adapted to the wants of our
 
 49 WHX AM I A UNITARIAN ? 
 
 souls. The hand that made our frame supplies it with suitable 
 nutriment. The nutriment thus supplied, is supplied to every 
 part, to every faculty of our nature — and so it supports and 
 strengthens the whole man. It is a peculiarity of Uuitarianism 
 that it leaves no natural aptitude unfed. In understanding, it 
 would make its disciples men, while it would keep them babes 
 in simplicity. The wisdom of the serpent it combines with the 
 harmlessness of the dove. It teaches men to think, while it 
 trains them to worship. It enriches the imagination , and forms 
 and refines the taste. By severe discipline, it makes the intel- 
 lect robust, and gives comprehensiveness to the mind, by the 
 discursive and far-reaching views it unfolds of God and God's 
 universe, of Christ and Christ's religion, and of man's hope 
 and destiny. It is men that Uuitarianism desires and ends 
 to make — men not contracted to any ecclesiastical model, but as 
 conceived in the Divine mind, and intended in the Divine pur- 
 pose. Every part of man, every possibility in man, it aims to 
 call out, expand, develope, and ennoble ; and that with such 
 due regard to measure and proportion as to make man perfect 
 and complete as a whole — well ordered, well balanced, and so, 
 no less beautiful than healthy and strong. For the body no 
 less than the mind does it require, and, so far as it has oppor- 
 tunity, supply, suitable discipline, assured that ouly in a 
 sound frame can there dwell a sound religion. 
 
 In its great practical tendencies, Uuitarianism is pre- 
 eminently salutary. With it religion is an affair not for the 
 cloister, the school, the Church, — but the world. The world, 
 as it exists around us, is its exercise-ground, its arena, its 
 battle-field. It lives and works under God's own sunshine, 
 in God's own light, amid God's own creatures. It goes with 
 the husbandman abroad over the fields. It abides in his 
 study with the man of letters. It follows the tradesman to his
 
 LETTER V. 43 
 
 counter, aud is the bosom companion of the merchant on the 
 exchange. In the nursery it fills and moves the mother's 
 heart, while it visits the prisoner in his cell, and consoles the 
 captive in his dungeon. This I mean is the spirit, tho aim, 
 the tendency of Unitariauism. Nothing that is human does 
 it consider excluded from the circle of its concern. Religion 
 with it is, like its source, all pervading. It is religious to 
 teach the ignorant child to read, no less than to redeem the 
 slaves of sense and sin. Most salutary must such a religion 
 be. Most salutary Unitariauism is wherever it is allowed to 
 exercise its proper influence and produce its natural effects. 
 
 If Unitariauism is salutary, it is so far at least Christian, 
 for Christ came to bring salvation. Salvation in the scriptural 
 sense sums up the blessings of the Gospel in one word. But 
 what is salvation ? In the orthodox churches salvation is 
 often escape from hell, escape from the wrath of God, escape 
 from punishment. In reality, salvation is not a negative, but 
 a positive good. Regarded commonly as a negative good, it 
 is regarded also as an arbitrary gift — something put into a 
 man, instead of something brought out of a man ; something 
 bestowed by God, not wrought out under God ; something, in 
 consequence, superinduced on the individual, therefore, some- 
 thing supernatural ; as such, also, something mysterious, 
 something standing apart from the inner man, and so com- 
 patible with evil dispositions, bad temper, unkindness at home, 
 and sharp dealing abroad. The radical vices of the popular 
 system are mainly two— first, it makes too little of human 
 agency; second, it makes that agency to consist in the recep- 
 tion of a creed. If you accept evangelical orthodoxy, you are 
 saved ; if you refuse it, you are damned. All other considera- 
 tions are sunk in this alternative. The opinion of a priest, a. 
 sect, a petty church, opens or closes the gates of heaven. On
 
 44 WHY AM I A UNITARIAN ? 
 
 your assent to your neighbour's doctrine depends your eternal 
 condition. What is this but papal infallibility in a Protestant 
 shape ? What is this but a supercession of the Scripture, and 
 a usurpation of the judicial functions of the Omniscient? It 
 is, moreover, a gross perversion of Scriptural truth. The faith 
 which the Scripture requires is not assent, but trust ; no mere 
 act of the intellect, but a state, a movement of the heart. In 
 a word, it is that confidingness in God and Christ which makes 
 them its all. Faith, in consequence, is natural, deeply and 
 strongly natural. It is the yearning of the heart toward God. 
 It is the prayer of the heart for God's presence. It is a 
 struggling toward the light. It is the outstretched hand of 
 the drowning man. It is, " Lord, save or I perish." For at 
 its root is a deep, vivid, and painful sense of want — a want 
 like that of the hungry and thirsty when they are near fainting 
 on the desert. This is the Scriptural faith. While it is 
 spiritual need and spiritual desire on our part, it is, in regard 
 to God, a simple acknowledgment of his all-sufficiency. Of 
 the debates and decisions of the schools it knows nothing. All 
 it knows is, that the fountain of life is there— fresh, full, over- 
 flowing — that is all it knows, and in that knowledge it is led 
 to obtain all it wants, 
 
 Christian salvation, you thus see, is a spiritual good — a 
 blessing suited to man's nature, and salutary to man's nature. 
 It is, moreover, a good which impregnates the whole man, and 
 so transforms and ennobles him. Of that great and most 
 blessed change faith is the sap, and faith is active sympathy 
 with Christ. By that sympathy we are ingrafted into the ever 
 living vine, and receiving into our spirits its generous and en- 
 riching juices, live the divine life, and produce enduring fruit. 
 
 Most salutary must the Gospel be, for its object is to trans- 
 fuse the life of Christ into the life of every individual man .
 
 LETTER V. 45 
 
 Christian salvation, in its full and proper sense, is a character 
 moulded after the image of Christ. 
 
 It is the teaching of the fourth Gospel, that the intelligence 
 ivhich made the world was given to Christ. Here, too, Christ 
 stands in the line, as well as at the head, of human kind. 
 Reason is a part of our great human heritage. God's light 
 shines in man's soul. In the soul of ordinary men the light 
 is small and dim. In the soul of Christ the light was fullest 
 and most brilliant. On that account Christ is the Son of 
 God, while we are each only a son. But his supremacy is 
 designed for our elevation. God in Christ illumines and 
 saves the human race. Thus Christ is the light of the world. 
 But spiritual light is spiritual power. The sun quickens, 
 renews, and heautifies, as well as illumines. Inconsequence, 
 the Gospel is " the power of God unto salvation," and "Christ 
 is our righteousness, sanctification, and redemption." This 
 he is not by imputation, but by God's grace and our own act. 
 The latter is as necessary as the former. Even God cannot 
 give unless man is willing to receive. It is ours to appro- 
 priate the spiritual food which God supplies; nor can we 
 incorporate that food with our spirits unless we first gain an 
 appetite from work, and by work set in movement all the vital 
 activities of our souls. Christ, then, is God's own appointed 
 channel of communication with his human children. As God, 
 through the material sun, sends down choice blessings on man, 
 so, through the Sun of Righteousness, does God give his own 
 blessed Spirit to all who love and desire to serve him. Hence 
 religion is a series of divine benefactions, and worship a stream 
 of sunlike gratitude, and obedience an outflow of fdial love. 
 Hence, too, virtue is the ripened harvest of the soul — the rich 
 crop of full-grown wheat; the total product and outcome of 
 human life, enriched through Christ with the life of God.
 
 46 WHY AM I A UNITARIAN ? 
 
 Considered, too, as God's intelligence in a human being, 
 Christ is, relatively to us, absolute spiritual truth and perfec- 
 tion. If so, the Gospel is God's word to man — the highest 
 word God has yet spoken — the highest word man is capable of 
 receiving. Of any possible manifestation of God in other ages 
 and in other worlds we know nothing, and so should say 
 nothing. Enough that Christ is all we want, and far more than 
 we can as yet accept. The nearer now we get to Christ, the 
 less shall we be disposed to speculate, and the more shall we be 
 content to worship in that true lowliness of mind which lifts 
 the soul to God, and which Christ made the sole condition, as 
 of his own favour, so of God's infinite grace. This oneness of 
 Christ with God's supreme intelligence makes his Church into 
 the great spiritual community, every member of which shares 
 the blessed life of reverent, thankful, and obedient love. Thus 
 God in Christ gives his own spirit to his children, and moulds 
 them into his own likeness. The divine life interpenetrates the 
 life of man, bestowing on the life of man somewhat of its own 
 power and majest}". Christian salvation, then, is not a name, 
 nor a form, but a reality. It is no theological theorem, nor 
 any legal scheme, nor any arbitrary device, but the transfusion 
 of God's own goodness into the human soul. HV :ice Christian 
 salvation is a new creation Therein God finishes and con- 
 summates the good work he began when he breathed into man 
 the breath of life. Consequently, human life, from its first 
 issue to its return to its source, is simply a stream of God's 
 love and power. The world's history is one great theatre of 
 God's action, and one grand display of God's perfect will. 
 
 You will not, my dear Edward, deny that the views here 
 presented are salutary. I think you will acknowledge them to 
 be also desirable. Not less surely are they intelligible. I 
 cannot but hope they will prove acceptable to you. But then,
 
 LETTER V. 47 
 
 observe, they proceed from me, and I am a Unitarian. The 
 fact would be, with many, a discommendation — are you 
 superior to the silly prejudice'? Any way I am a Unitarian, 
 because Unitarianism is salutary. 
 
 10. I am a Unitarian because Unitarianism is practical. Of 
 all great personages, who so practical as Jesus Christ? "He 
 went about doing good," is the whole of his history in one 
 brief sentence. Like God's, his beneficence was a continual 
 efflux. As the sun rises on the seventh day no less than the 
 first, so Jesus spared not to do good on the Sabbath-day. 
 What more practical than the spirit of that fine declaration, 
 " the Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sab- 
 bath." Jesus is the great utilitarian. Only use with him 
 always meant the highest use. In this mould has the spirit of 
 Unitarianism been cast. With us, all outer things are of 
 value as they minister to the inner man. With us, all outer 
 things minister to the inner man, if imbued with a religious 
 spirit. In the true kingdom of God the lowliest service is 
 divine service. The door-keeper who owns and feels the 
 presence of God in his temple, is nearer God than the high- 
 priest who offer none but a material sacrifice. A pure heart 
 makes the hands pure. A noble self-sacrifice ennobles the 
 humblest office. Religion is not a form — not a ritual, not a 
 creed, but a spirit and a power working within and shining 
 without. In consequence, religion may live and breathe in the 
 kitchen, the nursery, the counting-house, the senate. Hence 
 is it that Unitarians take part in all great social movements, 
 exercising an influence far greater than their numbers, position, 
 or wealth. Hence, too, is it that they pay special regard to 
 education, not only in their own families, but in mechanics' 
 and other popular institutions. Hence, also, their well-known 
 attachment to civil as well as religious liberty. Nor can it be
 
 48 WHY AM T A UNITARIAN ? 
 
 denied that the practical character of their religion conduces 
 no little to their success in trade and commerce. The Uni- 
 tarian mind is pre-eminently practical. Here lies its danger 
 as well as its worth. Disregarding the form that it may get 
 to the substance, it may miss the substance without retaining 
 the form. Yet, .in general, the substance is secured. Uni- 
 tarianism loves the activities and struggles of the living, 
 breathing world. It loves the air and the sunshine, the breeze 
 and the upland. It shrinks not from the mountain steep, nor 
 stops till it has reached its goal. Hence a brave as well as 
 robust spirit. Hence, vigour, progress, success. How dif- 
 ferent the intellect that is " cabined, cribbed, and co fined " 
 by a narrow creed ; that finds religion chiefly in the bended 
 knee, the serious countenance, and the mortified heart ; that, 
 fearing to go wrong, can hardly go right : that, dreading 
 heresy, misses the portal to truth, and intent mainly on 
 avoiding the way of death, has no energy left for walking in 
 the path of life. 
 
 11. lam a Unitarian because Unitarianism is conducive to 
 piety. What I have just said will show you that by piety I 
 do not mean monkish asceticism. True Christian piety 
 is a manly virtue. He who was called the Son of Man, 
 because he united in his life all manly excellencies, was pious 
 as it becomes you and me to be pious. The piety of Jesus 
 has two chief characters — it was devout, it was obedient 
 Devout obedience sums up the sublime life of Christ. He 
 worshipped and he obeyed his Father. Worship and work 
 constitute true piety. If Christ is our example, we must 
 combine worship with work. By worship we must prepare for 
 work, and in work we must prepare for worship. 
 
 It cannot be denied that to adore and to obey, make up the 
 whole course of Christ's public life. Did you ever reflect on
 
 LETTER v. Ill 
 
 these, facts': 1 Did you ever ask yourself what they say 
 regarding the position of Christ in the scale of heing? Did 
 you ever see how beautifully they illustrate the sonship of 
 Christ? Surely that is not Almighty God that is prostrate in 
 prayer there on that Palestinian hill. Surely those groans 
 that come from the garden of Gethsemane are not the voice of 
 God. In truth they are a son's entreaties to a father. The 
 face of Christ is towards the Infinite One. His lips move, his 
 heart heaves, and the Father of all sends clown his spirit to 
 commune with the Son of his love. Truly filial the act; truly 
 paternal the gift. The very word piety denotes the tender 
 respect of a son towards a father. Herein is Jesus super- 
 eminently great. Never son worshipped as he worshipped, 
 and, therefore, never did a son obey as he obeyed. His 
 obedience was the natural fruit of his worship. How entire, 
 how unreserved, how unconditional that obedience. The 
 reason is, that that obedience was piety in act, as that worship 
 was piety in emotion. 
 
 You will observe, that this perfect piety springs wholly 
 from the relation that subsisted between God and Christ. 
 The relation was, on God's side paternal, on Christ's side 
 filial. Perfect piety, then, is the piety which arises when the 
 fatherhood of God and the sonship of man is fully realised. 
 Where, then, among Christ's disciples, may we expect to find 
 most true piety ? Where, except in the Church whose dis- 
 tinctive quality is the recognition of the one God, even the 
 Father, and the one Son, even Jesus, the son of Joseph and 
 Mary ? Depart from this Scriptural simplicity, and you at 
 once find yourself in a tangled wood, where darkness and 
 perplexity baffle your attempts to see, and disturbing your 
 heart, make its movements unnatural and painful. What! 
 God worship God ! The man in Christ worship the God in 
 
 E
 
 50 WHY AM 1 A UNITARIAN? 
 
 Christ! "When Christ oheyecl God, he obeyed himself! 
 His submission to his Father's will was really submission to 
 his own ! that is — no submission at all ! And so Christ had 
 no higher law to obey ! no infinite perfection to arise to ! 
 He was in himself the all in all — and yet he worshipped and 
 obeyed! and yet, he said- — "Not my will but thine be 
 done !" Has Brahmin ism any contradictions more palpable 
 and absurd? 
 
 But now, pass from these fond delusions, and ask yourself 
 what can be so conducive to piety as faith in an Omnipotent 
 Father. Does not that one word Father say everything ? 
 Is it not an assurance to us each of wisdom, love, authority 
 on the part of God? and consideration, compassion, tender- 
 ness, long-suffering as well ? On the part of man, what so 
 fitting to call forth gratitude, love, reverence, trust ? And 
 are not these the very elements of which religious obedience is 
 made ? If faith in the Father of Jesus does not create in 
 men work as well as worship, and so produce true piety, true 
 piety is an impossibility. As a Unitarian. I know that I 
 ought to be pre-eminently pious, and it is because I wish to 
 attain so great a blessing that I cleave to my Unitarianism. 
 Of shortcomings I am vividly conscious, but I am assured that 
 the worst step I could take, in order to fill up the measure of 
 my duty, would be to pass into a circle of religious influences 
 far inferior to the one in which I am. 
 
 12. I am a Unitarian because Unitarianism is honourable 
 to the Saviour. The influence on the Church of the feudalism 
 of the middle ages, identified honour with position. Who so 
 honourable as the king in the state, and the Pope in the 
 church ? Accordingly, to honour Christ was to place him on 
 the throne of his Father. Now, it is beginning to be acknow- 
 ledged that true honour consists in noble service. He is the
 
 LETTER V. 51 
 
 most honourable being who does most good with least self-con- 
 sideration. Herein lies the honour even of God, who, 
 without any self-regardingness, pours forth the full and con- 
 stant streams of his love. Under God, whose goodness so 
 ample as that of Christ, and whose goodness so disinterested? 
 Christ, indeed, has an honour all peculiar to himself, for, 
 though rich in the benignities and powers of his own soul, He 
 renounced all that he might live a life of poverty for the good 
 of man (2 Cor. viii. 9 ; comp. vi. 10). Possessed of the 
 unqualified freedom of a mind which lives in God, he submitted 
 to the lot of a slave that he might redeem men from slavery and 
 death (Philip, ii. 6). And in that godlike work, what sympa- 
 thies, and as what sympathies, so what sufferings, were his ! 
 
 It is only the very good that can feel the terribleness of 
 the very bad. It is only a soul strung to the harmonics of 
 heaven that duly feels the jar and discord of the passions of 
 earth. The pure and intense love of Christ made him keenly 
 alive to the hatreds and strifes of men. Accordingly, the Scrip- 
 ture describes the Saviour as bearing our woes (Matt. viii. 17 ; 
 comp. Horn. xv. 1 ; Gal. vi. 2). The statement does not mean 
 merely that he bore them away, though doubtless bear them 
 away he did. But he effected that most desirable end by 
 enduring the pains which we endure. Such was his rich, deep, 
 and intensely strung sympathy that his soul vibrated to every 
 pang felt by those who were around him. Though young, you, 
 my friend, are not a stranger to this noble fellow-feeling. As 
 you have rejoiced with your mother in her joy, so you have 
 wept with her in her grief. But the great and exquisitely 
 tender heart of Christ shared in all our human sorrows with a 
 poignancy and a depth of which you and I have but the faintest 
 notion. Witness his groans and tears at the grave of Lazarus. 
 "They were undue," declares the unbeliever. Alas! that
 
 52 WHY AM 1 A UNITARIAN ? 
 
 common-place men will make themselves the standard of human 
 kind. Sadder still, to know that they will own no greatness 
 that stands above their pigmy height. In the rich and delicate 
 sensibilities of his moral nature, Jesus has prevailing claims 
 on our love, but that love arises into the most honouring 
 reverence when he is seen consecrating all to the service of 
 his kind. Benevolence so pui'e and generous is not only peer- 
 less, but very precious and very potent. The balm of such 
 sympathy heals and cherishes, restores and strengthens, 
 giving a fresh energy, and calling forth ardent gratitude. 
 What honour greater than that of him who so forgets himself 
 in his love for others ? What suffering so costly as the suffer- 
 ing endured by that unsheltered and unoffending head on the 
 cross, when the oaths of the Roman soldier, the hootings of 
 the Jewish rabble, the taunts and the scoffs of the priests, 
 rose up and struck his ear, and when his eye could see alone 
 of all his friends a woe-begone woman or two, and a solitary 
 disciple. The agony he then underwent at such guilt, such 
 weakness, such degradation, far exceeded his bodily pains, 
 racking, and tearing, and destroying though they were, and 
 constituted the price which, of his own accord, he paid for us 
 and for our redemption ; yea, for the redemption of the very 
 men who were imbruing their hands in his innocent blood 
 (1 Tim. ii. 6). Here is true honour gained by God's own Son, 
 and here are claims which call forth from our heart the most 
 fervent acknowledgments. Honour Christ all do and must 
 who can any way feel his worth — honour him beyond, immea- 
 surably beyond, the highest of earthly excellence. That honour 
 I cherish, and resolved I am not to allow the honour to be 
 dimmed by any philosophic refinements or theological 
 profundities. Yours truly, 
 
 John R. Beard.
 
 LETTER VI. 53 
 
 LETTER VI.— REASONS WHY I AM A UNITARIAN. 
 {Continued.) 
 
 I AM A UNITARIAN BECAUS3 UNITARIANISM IS, l^TH, DESTRUCTIVE OF SIN ; 
 
 14th, promotive of HOLINESS. 
 
 Mr Dear Edward,— 13. I am a Unitarian, because Unita- 
 rianism is Destructive of Sin. — The common theology removes 
 the punishment of sin, or leaves the sinner to suffer for ever 
 The last is a wretched issue, especially when the fate awaits the 
 great majority of God's so-called children. The former is a 
 delusion. The penalty of sin is never removed until the sin 
 is renounced, and not renounced only, hut replaced hy holiness ; 
 and holiness is not a gift hut an acquirement. These are facts 
 in God's government of the world. They are laws of Divine 
 providence. They are declarations of the will of God, and so 
 demand attention from all men, especially those who assume 
 to teach others. Recognising the behests of the supreme will, 
 Unitarianism aims at nothing short of destroying sin. Know- 
 ing that sin and well-being are as incompatible as disease and 
 comfort, it makes the removal of sin its great work. Causes 
 rather than consequences it regards, assured that the stream 
 will be sweet if the fountain is pure. 
 
 Wise in its purpose and aim, Unitarianism is wise also in its 
 means. No magical efficacy does it expect from without. For 
 no sudden transformation does it labour. Ecstasies it fears 
 rather than invites. In its judgment, the religion of the pas- 
 sions is as short-lived as Jonah's gourd. Owning, and grate- 
 fully employing, God's aid, it teaches the art of self-cure. Not 
 content with saying be strong, it shows the way how to become 
 strong. Following God's analogies, it extends a hand to the 
 ■down-fallen, supplies a crutch to the infirm, smooths the way
 
 54 WHY AM I A UNITARIAN? 
 
 before the stumbling, furnishes babes with milk, and prepares 
 meat for full-grown men. At the same time, it distinctly and 
 emphatically declares — " Work out your own salvation, for the 
 very reason that God worketh in you and with you." How 
 does the broken leg become stout? First by medical skill and 
 care, then by gentle exercise, and then by vigorous movements. 
 In the same manner are the weak in the faith to be lifted up, 
 that, by voluntary effort in God's vineyard, they may acquire 
 strength, and health, and joy. 
 
 But the Gospel renews as well as heals. In order to cleanse 
 the soul, it pours into it a fresh and limpid stream. In order 
 to quicken its dormant energies, it bestows on it the elements 
 of higher life. Such is the function of Christ. Christ 
 destroys sin by infusing into the sinner his own energies. 
 Thus light expels darkness when day dawns, and a joyous 
 countenance makes every other face glad. A medieval super- 
 stition cured old age by filling its veins with young blood. 
 The superstition veils a divine truth. If you would arrest 
 moral decay, magnetise the spirit with new forces. The surest 
 way to drive out a prejudice is to call forth a sympathy. 
 You hate me ? I will do you good, and so make you love me. 
 Thus Christ himself is still ever overcoming our evil with his 
 good. This is the spirit and this the power that removes 
 mountains of sin, and that Christian community is nearest 
 and dearest to Christ in which Christ's enkindling, reviving, 
 and elevating efficacy is most felt, cherished, and exercised. 
 That, in this particular, Unitarians are all that they might 
 be, and all that they ought to be, I dare not affirm. But 
 their principles it is which I now expound ; nor is it a bad 
 omen that they are not too proud to confess their actual 
 deficiencies. I must add, that from them comes a large 
 portion of the genial influence which is now purifying society
 
 I.ETTEIt VI. DO 
 
 by thp streams of a considerate, sympathising, and uplifting 
 benevolence. 
 
 Id. lama Unitarian because Unitarianism is promotive of 
 holiness. The pecularity of Unitarianism is not so much 
 that it brings man into immediate communion with God, as 
 that the God with whom it brings man into communion is the 
 one only God whose essence is paternal wisdom, authority, 
 and love. Such relation shuts out all intermediaries save 
 the Son of God, who, as having the spirit of God without 
 measure, is God's sole ambassador and representative. Accord- 
 ingly, it disallows sacerdotalism of every kind. When sacer- 
 dotalism disappears, all ritual service becomes impossible. 
 Consequently, conscience is left alone with its own supreme 
 paternal Source and Governor. Perfect religious freedom 
 ensues as a direct and inevitable consequence. The spirit of 
 man worships before the footstool of the one absolutely per- 
 fect Parent. In that Parent's will is man's law ; from that 
 Parent's hand he receives all good, and the sanctions to his 
 virtues proceed from the same all-wise, all-powerful, and 
 tenderly -loving Source. If God is holy, and if man is capable 
 of holiness, holy such a worshipper must become, at least in 
 the final issue ; for the free worship of infinite parental good- 
 ness is simply the love of that goodness ; and love invariably 
 begets its like. Of no small moment is the concentration of 
 spiritual forces here secured. But those forces of the human 
 spirit are concentrated on The One Absolute Good. Still 
 more, The One Absolute Good is adored and served by the 
 worshipper as in the highest sense his Father. On the throne 
 of the universe, then, he finds infallible wisdom for his 
 guidance, inexhaustible goodness for his support, and bound- 
 less pity for his solace; while his fear and his hope are sus- 
 tained and made perfect in their working, by an omnipotence
 
 56 WHY AM I A UNITARIAN ? 
 
 that can overwhelm, and a love that can redeem and save. 
 Thus, the soul of each Unitarian is the centre toward which 
 all the powers of heaven gravitate, and in which they 
 meet, bringing with them all the light, succour, and 
 sanction which the Father of the universe holds in his 
 hands. Lest such splendour should prove overpowering, 
 a human medium is interposed, who, on the one side presents 
 the Father's glory in a tempered form, and on the other 
 bestows sympathy and encouragement for his fellow-aspirants. 
 Thus the Son is at once God's image and man's brotherly 
 helper. The whole combines in light, power, example, and 
 rescue, to make the perfect man in Christ. If religion has 
 any force, here is that force at its maximum. What labour 
 too great to gain the love of the " Father Almighty?" What 
 spiritual attraction so strong as that Father's tenderness 
 radiating from the face of his son Jesus Christ ? What an 
 overpowering consideration that the unutterable bliss of a 
 Father's presence and the inconceivable woe of banishment 
 therefrom, depend on my being or not being in sympathy with 
 Christ. Now I feel that 1 have indeed to bear my own burden, 
 while I also feel that infinite powers are at my side — shielding 
 me, strengthening me, fighting forme. The fact is strikingly 
 exemplified in the celestial messenger that brought succour 
 and solace from the Father to the Son, when in his fearful 
 agony he all but said, " Remove this cup from me " (Luke 
 xxii. 42). Thus religion, without losing the august counte- 
 nance and the sublime port of her celestial origin, enters our 
 home, takes her seat at the hearth, and speaks to us in the 
 touching and prevailing tone of parental authority. Becoming 
 the chief of our domestic sanctities, she hallows and blesses 
 our hearts individually, and transmutes our home into a 
 miniature of heaven. Confessedly, home is the nursery and
 
 LETTER Vll. o7 
 
 the* abode of moral power and grace, and the form of religion 
 which is most parental must be most productive of holiness. 
 In its root-idea, Unitarianism fulfils the command which 
 underlies not the Mosaic religion only, but religion itself — 
 " Be ye holy, for I am holy." 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 John R. Beard. 
 
 LETTER VII.— REASONS WHY I AM A UNITARIAN. 
 {Continued.) 
 
 My Dear Edward, — 15. lam a Unitarian because Uni- 
 tarianism guards against polytheism on the one side, and 
 ■pantheism on the other. Polytheism, the doctrine which owns 
 many gods, distributes the Divine, while pantheism, or all 
 God, dissolves it into thin and impalpable air. One of the 
 greatest services done to human kind by the Bible is the pre- 
 servation of God as the Creator and Father of men. This it 
 has done by its vigorous assertion of the one living God whose 
 will is the fountain of universal life and happiness. The 
 assertion is made notin any abstract form, but — far better— by 
 the ceaseless presentation of the Creator, Father, Governor, 
 and Saviour of men on the stage of visible existence. In 
 some sense God is the sole agent of the Bible. From him 
 come all things ; in him all things consist ; by him all things 
 are guided ; to him all things tend. His life is the life of the 
 universe ; his will is the source of law; his word is the light 
 of the world. Independent of creation, he yet fills creation.
 
 58 WHY AM I A UNITARIAN? 
 
 Above all, he is not the less in all. Self-subsistent, be is the 
 fountain of being. Equally is he iu the stream of being — 
 tbe force and the hue of every drop. 
 
 Such a view of God satisfies our human thought, and so 
 sustains itself. In sustaining itself it negatives its opposites, 
 and its opposites are polytheism and pautheism. Polytheism 
 it makes impossible, by fixing the human mind on tbe one 
 creative will. Pantheism it makes impossible, by confining 
 the human mind to tbe one intelligent centre. That will is 
 so rigidly one as to refuse to be multiplied. That centre is 
 so intensely concentrated as to refuse to be diffused. Happy 
 result! for polytheism ever tends to pantheism, and pantheism 
 is nothing better than a luminous mist. 
 
 Here Unitarianism works powerfully on the side of the 
 Bible. It sternly guards the one will against any usurpation. 
 It sternly keeps tbe one centre against any dissipation. Its 
 one God is really one, if only because be is a father. A 
 father cannot, as a father, be more than one, nor can a father 
 be a nebulous mass. 
 
 On the contrary, Trrnitarianism ever tends to polytheism, 
 with no small risk to end iu pantheism. It ever tends to 
 polytheism. There is but one branch of the entire Church in 
 which Trinitarianism is what it was, retaining all the qualities 
 of its fully developed form. That form is Pi,oman Catholicism. 
 Here, then, we may see Trinitarianism as in its perfect condi- 
 tion, so in its natural fruits. Accordingly here are " gods 
 many, and lords many, : ' not less than in the heathenism 
 described by Paul. Besides the greater gods, the Roman 
 pantheon is crowded with demi-gods, heroes, local gods, gods 
 of nations, gods of individuals. To the long-recognised 
 number of tbe greater gods, another has, in process of time, 
 been added ; and, as in ancient clays Zeus dethroned Chronos,
 
 LETTER VII. 59 
 
 so bow Mary eclipses the three persons of the Trinity. Even 
 in Protestant Trinitarianism a somewhat similar result is 
 observed, for now the Father is practically supreme, and now 
 the Son, while the Holy Ghost finds little beyond a nominal 
 recognition. 
 
 Facts such as these can little satisfy the logical demands of 
 philosophical speculation. Accordingly, in Germany, Trini- 
 tarianism has begotten pantheism, while pantheism adopts the 
 nomenclature of Trinitarianism. What, in the mouths of 
 Hegel and Strauss, is the Trinity hut the passage of the sub- 
 ject into the object'.' The Father is the Infinite which, 
 through the Holy Ghost, becomes the Son ; while, reversely, 
 the Sou, through the Holy Ghost, returns into the Father. 
 Thus life is transition. Thus the universe is change. Thus 
 all is everything and everything is all. Sad to think that 
 speculation, encouraged and aided by ecclesiastical falsities, 
 should have resolved the grand biblical reality of one God into 
 such aerial films. 
 
 Yet to an issue so direful tends every departure from the 
 strict monotheism of the Bible. The statement is vouched 
 for by the history of the Church. Not content with Scriptu- 
 ral simplicity, Greek speculators, aided by the slender forms 
 of divinity to which they had from their cradles been used, 
 and under the influence of which they could and did ascribe 
 divinity to the slightest manifestation of what seemed to them 
 divine, soon saw, in the perfections of Jesus, reason enough 
 to give him the name of God, which they gave to so many in- 
 ferior objects. The result was aided by exaggerated love and 
 blind reverence. Then poetry came to throw its hues and 
 images about the new divinity. By and by logic intervened, 
 and, on its hard anvil, gave consistency and form to the divine 
 birth. The deification of Christ potentially contained the
 
 60 WHY AM I A UNITARIAN ? 
 
 Atbanasian Trinity. The first step down the steep declivity 
 of theological speculation was set, and thenceforward descent 
 was unavoidable, nor could it be stopped until the bottom was 
 reached. Yet even in the vale there was a depth so deep as 
 to require centuries to fathom ; nor has the lowest point been 
 got to even'by the Marian idolatry of the present hour, for 
 why should not the Pope, who can place a divinity on the 
 ecclesiastical Olympus, assure there a seat for himself? 
 
 Very jealous for the one God, the Father, ought all 
 disciples of Christ to be. Oh that Unitarians understood 
 the duty to which they are called. Let them feel the dignity 
 of their work. Let them be faithful and vigilant watchmen 
 on the walls of Zion. Neither without nor within the holy 
 city let them tolerate any deviation from the truth of truths, 
 the central fact of the universe, the one thought of the Bible, 
 the sap and the life of every true human mind — namely, 
 " There is one God, and none other but he." The moment 
 that light is dimmed, darkness and corruption may enter the 
 soul, bringing weakness and death in their train. 
 
 You, my young friend, I heartily congratulate, in that you 
 are turning your mind to the great questions involved in the 
 issue under consideration. The result I will not anticipate, 
 for, though I hesitate not to express strongly what I feel 
 strongly, I have no desire to exert any personal influence on 
 your decision. May that decision be the work of God's Spirit 
 in your soul. 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 John R. Beard.
 
 LETTER VIII. 61 
 
 LETTER VIIL— REASONS WHY I AM A UNITARIAN. 
 
 (Continued.) 
 
 My Dear Edward, —The reasons set forth in the fore- 
 going pages have made me a Unitarian. Indeed, T might 
 select two or three of them — for instance, the intelligibility, 
 reality, reasonableness, and Scriptnralness of Unitarianism — 
 as the influences which compel me to be a Unitarian. In 
 this selection I should give prominence to the Scripturalness 
 of Unitarianism. The Bible has been the study of my life. 
 I am fully satisfied that the Bible is a Unitarian book. I 
 have no doubt whatever, but the fullest assurance, that the 
 mind of the Spirit of God, as declared in the sacred Scriptures, 
 is unreservedly, fully, and clearly in agreement with the 
 substance of what is termed Unitarianism. The Bible sets 
 forth one God and one Lord. The one God it styles the 
 Father, to the exclusion of all other beings. The one Loi'd it 
 identifies with Jesus of Nazareth — himself one even as God 
 is one. Further, the Bible teaches that God is love, and 
 that the love of God is offered to man in the one Lord, who, 
 in consequence, is the Saviour of the world. This, I say, is 
 the one faith of the Bible ; and this, as the one faith of the 
 Bible, is the basis of Christian fellowship. This one faith is 
 not a theology, but a revelation ; not a conclusion wrought out 
 by my own mind, but a disclosure made by God's Spirit. It 
 is something which has come into me from the Source of 
 light, and so has come out of the deepest places of my spirit. 
 My part, however, has been not creation, but recognition and 
 appropriation. The truth is God's ; I do but see what he 
 shows me, and the eye by which I see his truth he made 
 capable of sight. Were Unitarianism with me a mere theore-
 
 62 WHY AM I A UNITARIAN? 
 
 tical deduction, or a system of d'vinity constructed by myself, 
 I would not retain it for an hour. No religion would it be to 
 me ; no guidance, no power, no life, o support could I expect 
 from it. Made by man, it would deserve and share the fate 
 of all things human, and probably be discarded by myself 
 before I reached my grave. 
 
 You are, tben, I must take leave to say, wrong in repre- 
 senting me as placing my reliance on " an earthly foundation." 
 Equally are you wrong, and not a little inconsistent, in inti- 
 mating, that I am "too earnest to be tolerant." "Tolerant," 
 indeed, I cannot be, for it is not my part to bear with you in 
 your views as with something wrong. Differ from me you 
 do, but not more than I differ from you ; and, as I lay claim 
 to no infallibility, so I have no right to impute certain and 
 positive error to you. You intrepret the Scriptures in one 
 way. I interpret them in another way. Differing in the 
 result, we may be one in heart, and so ought to be one in 
 charity ; and one in heart we are, if we both love the truth, 
 and do our best to come to the knowledge of the truth. To 
 me, indeed, my interpretation is the right one. I can see 
 only with my own eyes, and inasmuch as I bave taken what 
 appear to me the best means of gaining spiritual sight, and 
 am not aware of any warping or darkening influence, at least 
 of a marked character, I feel confident of having been led by 
 God's spirit into God's truth. Nevertheless, I cannot identify 
 my sight with actual realities, though to me those realities 
 are contained in that sight. I say to me, wishing to mark the 
 difference I acknowledge betweeu truth as it is in the mind of 
 God, and as it is in my mind. In this acknowledgment is 
 the true ground for charity. And here I am met by a con- 
 sideration which has no small influence in making me a 
 Unitarian; for, needful as charity is to the genuine Christian
 
 LETTER VIII. 63 
 
 life, I look for it in vain among the popular sects, where, 
 indeed, even-handed justice, at least towards those who 
 believe less than themselves, is, alas ! very rare. 
 
 1G. I ma a Unitarian because Unitarianism it unsectarian. 
 "Think and let think" is its motto. This true Christian 
 principle it could not recognise, did it hold that salvation was 
 by any form of opinion. Were salvation by any form of 
 opinion, then, to me it must of course he my form of .opinion 
 And if I held that the acceptance of Unitarianism was indis- 
 pensable to save you from perdition, I could not tolerate your 
 ruinous error. At any rate, I ought to spare no effort which 
 had the'slightest chance of rescuing you, and those whom 
 you might influence, from everlasting death. Hence would 
 arise a zeal too burning to be charitable. Such is the zeal of 
 most of our popular Churches, and such emphatically is the 
 zeal of the Papacy. Very needful, therefore, is a zeal more 
 according to knowledge. That zeal, having its foundation 
 in a knowledge of the Bible, makes a sense of want, and not 
 a string of theological conclusions, the condition of acceptance 
 with God. That sense of want, inherent, in a greater or less 
 degree, in all earnest natures, is specially fostered in the soul 
 by the Spirit of God in Christ, and so abounds most where 
 not a creed, but a sympathy, is made the bond of union 
 between the soul and its Maker. This recognition I find in 
 the Unitarian community, and in consequence I am glad to be 
 one of its members. That sympathy may exist in two forms. 
 It may be in a measure an unconscious sympathy. So was it 
 probably in the case of the woman who washed Christ's feet 
 with her tears, and wiped them with the hairs of her head. It 
 may also be a conscious sympathy, as probably it was in Mary, 
 and perhaps in Martha. When conscious it not only feels a 
 want, but distinctly knows where to find a supply. The want
 
 04 WHY AM I A UNITARIAN? 
 
 springs from a sight of infinite goodness. In the same pure 
 and bottomless fountain is the supply found. In other words, 
 the Father's love, as imaged in the Son's, is at once the 
 occasion of the felt want and the source of its satisfaction. 
 Here is a recognition — a conscious and. practical recognition 
 of God and Christ — all-sufficient for the great purposes of the 
 religious life ; for it is no vague recognition, as of Divine 
 power ; nor is it a blind recognition, as if a mere sentiment ; 
 but a knowledge of God in Christ, as the refuge and the 
 safety of the soul. Such knowledge is what the Gospel 
 describes and demands. The knowledge has two sides: — rela- 
 tively to the theologies of the schools it knows nothing, and 
 so is simply negative and excluding ; relatively to the religion 
 of Jesus, it meaus to be all that Jesus teaches, that it may 
 obtain all that Jesus gives. And thus in its substance it is 
 Unitarian, while beyond that substance it is not Trinitarian. 
 Such knowledge is theological, inasmuch as (and no farther 
 than) it includes an intelligent recognition of God and his 
 Son. Such knowledge is religious, inasmuch as it is, under 
 Divine influence, a birth into the higher, the divine life. 
 Here is the true knowledge of the way of salvation — a know- 
 ledge which is accompanied by full assurance of faith, for if 
 anything knows itself without mistake, it is moral goodness 
 and power. Yet, with all the certainty attending this divinely- 
 produced consciousness, there is no exclusiveness, but rather 
 a belief that, as the ways of Infinitude are infinitely various, 
 so God, dealing this way with me, may deal in another way 
 with you ; for the Saviour himself taught that the Spirit of 
 God, in the regeneration of the soul, works as diversely, nay, 
 as mysteriously, as the winds of heaven, which come no one 
 knows whence, and go no one knows whither, producing 
 effects which no one can explain (John hi. 8). This divinely
 
 LETTER VIII. G5 
 
 authorised latitude of thought guarantees a corresponding 
 largeness of heart which makes intolerance impossible. 
 Where but in the Unitarian communion shall I look to find 
 such latitude and such largeness ? All my brother ministers 
 may not agree in the view I have given of the cause of that 
 latitude and largeness, but all to a man would, I am sure, 
 subscribe to my teaching, that it is the duty of every Christian, 
 and so of every Unitarian, not to condemn any truth-seeker 
 under the pain of being condemned himself. 
 
 It is, however, a simple and undeniable fact that Unita- 
 rians are unsectarian. So unsectarian are they that some 
 foolishly, almost superstitiously, fear sectarianism. I have 
 known the fear close their lips, paralyse their hands, empty 
 their places of worship, and famish their institutions. The 
 fear is liable to periodical gusts. Ever and anon, within the 
 last half-century, it has broken forth, and producing a desert, 
 called it peace. All manner of guises does it assume, to all 
 manner of subleties does it resort, in order to make the 
 Christian disciple believe that he should not proclaim the 
 truth that is in him, but sit and wait till some other truth 
 comes — as if God's way to God's truth lay not in active and 
 devoted fidelity to the light of the present hour. Or, if the 
 fear allows the disciple to move and work at all, it plants a 
 hedge around him, and says, " Hitherto, but no further." 
 Associate with your fellow disciple you may, for your own 
 individual benefit and solace, provided always the contact be 
 not too close; but if you and others combine for the purpose 
 of bearing the torch of Divine truth into the dark places of the 
 land, take no designation, have no^banner, own no rallying- 
 point, lest you should sink from a Church into a sect, and 
 compromise the future. Compromise the future ! What can 
 such a phrase mean in the Unitarian Church? By endow - 
 
 F
 
 66 WHY AM I A UNITARIAN? 
 
 ments you may try to fasten your opinions on posterity ; but 
 where, so much as among Unitarians, are endowments disliked 
 and avoided ? By stereotyping a creed, and fencing it round 
 with blessings, cursings, privileges, and disqualifications, you 
 may even do something to cramp and counteract tbe mind of 
 the coming generation ; but these arts are objects of aversion 
 and attack, not of commendation, among Unitarians. Equally 
 however may you injure your sons, and your sons' sons, by 
 concealing the truth that is in you ; by a timid, wavering, 
 subservient, and worldly spirit ; by any and everthing that 
 conduces to indifference, mental torpor, ignorance, and moral 
 infirmity ; but never, and in no way, by out-speaking and plain 
 speaking — by a manly avowal of your convictions — by an open 
 and honest propagandism ; for thereby you will not only 
 strengthen your own nature, and cherish self-respect, but gain 
 the esteem of all sincere and earnest men : and, by promoting 
 healthful mental and moral activities, and at least endeavour- 
 ing to advance truth and promote the Gospel, aid in giving 
 birth to robuster minds, and nobler aims, and loftier and purer 
 religious apprehensions. He who hides his own light does 
 his best to keep his successor in darkness. Among the best of 
 benefactors are those who, after due preparation, let their 
 light shine before men, and even become as a city set on a 
 hill, provided always that they so speak as that, in and through 
 their efforts, men may glorify God. 
 
 Let every man and every age do the work that lies before 
 them, and that asks their attention, and then they may safely 
 leave the future to take care for itself. Sufficient for the day 
 is the work thereof. But no man has a right to even speculate 
 about the future who does not do his best for the present ; and 
 the best for the present is, always and in all things, andbyno 
 means least in religion a simple, open, straightforward, and
 
 LETTER VIII. G7 
 
 vigorous declaration and maintenance of what seems to each 
 one the truth. That truth may not be pure truth; certainly 
 it will not be God's whole truth — enough that it is your truth ; 
 as your truth it demands your allegiance, and your allegiance, 
 neither to your own truth nor to God's truth, can you show, 
 unless by unreservedly contributing such light as you have to 
 the common stock, and promoting, as far as you can, both by 
 principle and example, free, full, and fair discussion ; which is 
 God's own appointed way to mental and moral life, health, 
 strength, and continual growth. In regard to literary pursuits, 
 who will question these statements? In collegiate studies, 
 those who honour and exemplify them in their conduct, are 
 classed with the great friends of their race. What, then ! are 
 these most beneficial and laudable endeavours to be suspected, 
 feared, and disallowed, when the question is the proclamation 
 of God's everlasting Gospel ? Methinks I should like to see 
 the righteous warmth with which Paul or John would sweep 
 away such cobwebs, had an attempt been made to impede their 
 free and manly steps as they went out to preach the Gospel to 
 the world. And would that God's Spirit were now poured out 
 on our Churches, in a fire so intense as to burn up all the fears 
 and refinements by which its movements are hindered and its 
 efficiency crippled. As a community of Christians, we are 
 bound to promote the kingdom of God upon the earth ; and 
 the most efficient method to foster Church-life within our own 
 borders, is to promote the Christian life beyond them. For this 
 purpose, we must, as honest men, speak forth the word that is 
 in us. That word is Unitarianisin. Utter the word : if it is 
 now dwarfed by want of utterance, it will, when outspoken, 
 grow. Utter the word : if it is a word of man, it will perish, 
 as it ought to do ; but if it is a word of God, it will do God's 
 work, and in doing God's work, bring back into our sanctuaries 
 
 f 2
 
 WHY AM I A UNITARIAN? 
 
 things for their enrichment and adornment more precious thad 
 gold, and more lovely than rubies. 
 
 No, Edward, you need he under no apprehension of being 
 sectarianised by approaching the Unitarians of England. Nor 
 does the fear say much for your manliness ; or if your manli- 
 ness is right, can your knowledge be what it ought to be? 
 Why, what is this bugbear ? Innocent enough is the word 
 sect. A sect is but a segment, that is, a part of some whole. 
 Christianity was at the first a sect, and, as Unitarianism is 
 now, " a sect everywhere spoken against." As the founder of 
 that sect, Jesus was a sectarian ; as its promoters, sectarians 
 were all the apostles. Of all sectarians, Paul, Peter, and 
 John were the greatest. That, however, which they espoused 
 as a sect, they espoused so earnestly, that from a sect it grew 
 to be a Church, and being the Church of one city, one country, 
 it is going forward to be the Church of the world. How ? 
 By self-disregarding effort. The great souls of men, too full 
 of the Spirit of the Father and of the Son to stop to draw 
 hair-breadth distinctions, when thousands and tens of thousands 
 were perishing for hunger, poured out their priceless treasures 
 on social deserts, which straightway blossomed and bore fruit. 
 Did those great souls wait for new light, when the old which 
 they had was in their eyes so precious and so needed? Did 
 they speculate about the future, or acknowledge the overpower- 
 ing claims of the present ? Did they trouble themselves about 
 their position, and debate about their name? They were ab- 
 sorbed by higher considerations, and going out to work, even 
 as they were, they received the Divine blessing in new light 
 and fresh power. Labour for God resolves many a knotty 
 point, and what it does not resolve, it brushes away, or leaves 
 where it is, as too unworthy for serious notice — certainly, too 
 inconsiderable to retard or embarrass the activities of service
 
 LETTER VlIT. C9 
 
 which God demands, and in which is the fountain of the true 
 Christian life. Yet were those servants of God all of one 
 mind, — of one name? Ulfdas, the Unitarian missionary, and 
 Athanasius, the Trinitarian theologian, Vincent Saint Paul, 
 urged by his Catholic love, and Tuckerman, impelled by his 
 Unitarian benevolence, went out and preached the Gospel in 
 God's highways, making many, very many hearts, no less glad 
 than pure. They each worked in the line of direction in 
 which they were called of God. There they worked, unde- 
 terred by any fond fear of being sectarian, and as little solicitous 
 about their designation. Their perfect love cast out, or kept 
 out, all small fears and all fine-drawn distinctions. This 
 workman men called Arian, and that workman they called 
 Trinitarian ; this Catholic and that Protestant. No matter ; 
 without caring to disown the names, they meant to be Chris- 
 tians, and certainly were resolved to do a Christian work. 
 Doing that work, they were kept by God in the genuine Chris- 
 tian spirit, and so were preserved from the unclean spirit of 
 sectarianism. For, my dear friend, sectarianism lies not in 
 the doctrine, still less in the labour, but in the motive and the 
 aim. He that works for himself or his party, exclusively or 
 mainly, is a sectarian, wherever he is, and however he is called. 
 He that means to do God's work, and makes that work his 
 desire and his object, is not a sectarian, but a servant of God, 
 wherever he is, and however he is called. Trinitarian or Uni- 
 tarian, Protestant or Catholic, no matter which or what, all 
 serve Christ who sincerely strive to promote the cause of 
 Christ, though, instead of calling themselves Christian, they 
 bear the designation of the several communities with which 
 they are connected. Equally may they be at work for them- 
 selves at the very time they bear and profess the name of 
 Christ alone. Among the factions in the Church at Corinth,
 
 70 WHY AM I A UNITARIAN? 
 
 there was one whose adherents said, — "We are Christ's," and 
 employed the honourable name so as to dishonour and disown 
 its sacred interests. Our religious name is, indeed, scarcely 
 more a matter of choice to ourselves than the name we receive 
 at our birth. We come to our names as we come to our social 
 positions. Diversity of operations in the Church necessitates 
 diversity of names. The moment a dozen men associate to- 
 gether for a religious object, they are sure to receive a name 
 from others, if they do not give themselves a name. That name 
 to be descriptive must be distinctive, and it cannot be distinc- 
 tive without becoming exclusive, and in becoming exclusive it 
 may prove offensive. What then ? The offence is not inten- 
 tional ; the service must be rendered, and so the indispensable 
 conditions of the service must be accepted. If, to avoid the 
 appearance of sectarianism, you shun all names, you will bring 
 on yourself some name of reproach, or at least men will say 
 you are ashamed of your opinions. If, under the same con- 
 sideration, you try to discover or invent a name which is 
 neither distinctive nor descriptive, you will do little else than 
 raise a laugh at your own expense— well if you are not also 
 charged with indifferentism or craven-hearteduess. 
 
 If, in order to stand on the broadest possible basis, my 
 associates and myself take the name of Christians, we lay 
 ourselves open to the imputation of denying the Christianity 
 of others, while our neighbours will probably punish what they 
 think our presumption, by turning our name into a nickname; 
 thus the numerous body of Unitarians in the United States 
 who call themselves Christians are denominated Christ-ians by 
 the world around them. In their'auxiety to avoid a sectarian 
 basis, other Unitarians have called themselves " Liberal 
 Christians," and so gave their opponents occasion to charge 
 them with narrowness and presumption, as if they thought
 
 LETTER VIII. 71 
 
 themselves either the only ''Liberal Christians," or "Liberal 
 Christians " par excellence. The position is not improved if 
 " Bible Christian," or " Free Church," is taken as your 
 designation. Indeed, all this pother about names is very 
 small. The name you bear may not be the best possible ; but, 
 since it is yours, however you came by it, let it answer its pur- 
 pose, and, by honourable work, make it honourable. 
 
 From these remarks you will see that I have no sympathy 
 with your objection to the name of Unitarian. Though not 
 fond of any name but that of Christ, I shall retain the one I 
 bear, at least until you or some one else provide me with a 
 better. Meanwhile, I do the best I can with the name I have, 
 if only because that is the sole way to any improvement. " If 
 I were nearer to your views that I am, I should feel little 
 disposed to take so obnoxious a name." These words are 
 unworthy of you. Do you wish to re-enact the part of 
 Nicodemus ? The fear of men has more to do with your dis- 
 like than the love of truth. Discourage the temper that thinks 
 to profit by the light, without bearing the penalty of its open 
 avowal. Better remain where -you are, than bring near our 
 camp a coward's heart. The name Unitarian is a good name. 
 It is descriptive. It has a definite meaning. It is recognised. 
 Nay, it is authoritative — as far as authority is possible in the 
 case. Any way it is too late to change it. As it is too late to 
 change it, what but idle talk can come of objections made 
 thereto ? I will place under your eyes a few facts which will 
 illustrate these statements. 
 
 From the words of Tertullian, quoted hereafter, words 
 which were uttered in the second century, when the growing-up 
 in the bosom of Christianity of Trinitarian notions called forth 
 opposition thereto from the greater body of believers, we learn * 
 
 * Tert. Adv. Prax. Cap. 3.
 
 72 WHY AM I A UNITARIAN ? 
 
 that, in the collisions which ensued, the watchword of the 
 majority was unitas (oneness), and the watchword of the 
 minority was trinitas (trinity). From this word unitas Unit- 
 arian is naturally and regularly formed. Thus, a Unitarian 
 is one who asserts God's unity or oneness, declaring him to be 
 one being, strictly and properly, that is, one being in one 
 person, in opposition to the then new and aggressive doctrine 
 of the Trinity, by which its advocates, hence called Trinit- 
 arians, meant one God in three persons. I have intimated 
 that the name Unitarian may be readily formed from the 
 word unitas, which was the characteristic doctrine of the 
 primitive disciples in general. That the name Unitarian was 
 borne by them, history does not show. It is, however, probable 
 that this designation was given to the Unitarians by their 
 assailants. From their assailants came other names con- 
 nected with them in the earliest ages. These were either 
 names formed from the names of eminent. Unitarians, or they 
 were names which contained a gross misrepresentation of views 
 which they held. To such appellations they could give no 
 countenance. Nor, indeed, do they appear to have taken any 
 name but such as was common to believers in Christ during 
 some centuries. In the first ages they hardly did so, for, being 
 then the majority, they would naturally continue to think and 
 speak of themselves as Christians, and that denomination 
 served for all practical purposes. And when the views they 
 entertained were assailed by Tertullian and other innovators, 
 and attempts were made to fasten on them names which either 
 misrepresented their ideas, or made them followers of some 
 distinguished teacher among themselves, they wisely refused 
 to adopt the appellations, if only lest they should thereby 
 compromise the position they took, namely, that they were, 
 as from the first they had been, the great body of Christian 
 disciples.
 
 LETTER VIII. 73 
 
 The reason, however, which may have made them refuse 
 the inventions of their opponents — namely, that they might 
 so serve God's truth, now in our altered condition, in which 
 we have not to retain, hut to recall and restore that truth, 
 demands of us such an explicit, open, and manly profession of 
 our faith as can consist only with our taking, bearing, and 
 honouring a denomination which at once declares our doctrine, 
 and marks how it is distinguished from the false theology of 
 the Church. Such a denomination presents itself in the term 
 Unitarian, which, as we have already seen, is the historical 
 and appropriate opposite to the term Trinitarian. Born of 
 the controversy forced on the Church by heathen and specu- 
 lative theologies, the name Unitarian must be retained until 
 its rival Trinitarian has received its death-blow ; when we 
 may fall back into the primeval unity, and worship the God 
 and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ in the simplicity of 
 loving and reverent hearts. 
 
 Another name is distinctly connected in history with the 
 early Unitarians, which is too descriptive of their characteristic 
 doctrine to be passed unnoticed. They are called in Tertullian, 
 Monarchists, from the Greek monos " alone." This designation 
 that writer gives them because, as he states, they maintained 
 the Christiau monarchy, that is, the government of one only 
 God, the Father, in contradistinction to the government of 
 more Gods than one, which they saw in the Trinity. The 
 name is little else than the Latin term Unitarian in a Greek 
 form. Whether the name originated with the primitive Unita- 
 rians or not, it is not easy to say, though I incline to the 
 affirmative, but this is certain — namely, that if by the mon- 
 archy we understand the supremacy of the Father, then it 
 may be taken as descriptive of the view held by the Christian 
 Church in general during three hundred years after the birth
 
 74 WHY AM I A UNITARIAN ? 
 
 of Christ ; nor indeed would it be difficult to show that most 
 of the distinguished advocates of the Trinity have in all ages 
 admitted such a supremacy in the Father as may be ascribed 
 to the source or fountain of the Godhead. Here is another 
 undesigned testimony to Unitarianism, nor can that testimony 
 cease to be borne so long as the God of Jesus is termed his 
 Father in the New Testament. 
 
 The contrast and conflict called out in the second century, 
 by the intrusion into the Church of Trinitarian tendencies of 
 thought, came forth in a more distinctive and conscious form 
 in the early days of the Lutheran Reformation, when wor- 
 shippers of the one God, even the Father, who in Poland 
 called themselves the Polish Brethren, expressly adopted in 
 Hungary the name of Unitarians. This name appears in the 
 title of a work which they put forth in Latin, containing an 
 authoritative exposition of their faith. I translate the title as 
 exactly as I can : — " A Summary of Universal Christian 
 Theology, according to the Unitarians, composed and published 
 for the use of Students of Divinity. Clausenberg, 1787." In 
 the preface we are informed that the work contains, in Parts 
 I. and II., " a general view of the religion or doctrine of the 
 Unitarians, drawn from the fountains of Sacred Scripture 
 themselves ;" in Part III., " the rules and sanctions of an 
 upright and pious course of Christian life, or Christian ethics, 
 common to all who are Christians ; and, in Part IV., " a pic- 
 ture of the Christian Church, with the connected topics." The 
 " conclusion" of the summary is so excellent, as well as so 
 characteristic of Unitarianism, that I cannot deny myself the 
 pleasure of giving a translation of it : — " Christian reader and 
 censor, this is and was the view and the theology of the Uni- 
 tarians concerning the articles of the Christian religion ; in 
 and from which you may see that they refuse rashly to decide
 
 LETTEB VIII. 75 
 
 the not necessary matters — sucli as do not tend to promote the 
 Divine glory, nor conduce to the edification of themselves or 
 their neighbours ; you may also learn that they do not curiously 
 search into those mysteries which are not revealed to men ; 
 that they avoid unfruitful speculations (Tim. i. 4) ; that they 
 do not unnecessarily trouble their fellow-Christians with things 
 indifferent, and external ceremonies, introduced by the Church; 
 that they hold that those who differ from them, though they 
 may be wrong in their opinions, are to be tolerated in mutual 
 love, and to be commended to the mercy of God (2 Tim. ii. 
 24, 25, 20) ; and that they devote all their energies to this 
 object — namely, to obtain and promote salutary truth, truth 
 which it is the interest of all to be acquainted with, and which 
 leads to solid piety, the salvation of individual men and women, 
 and to universal peace and concord (Tit. iii. 8 ; Heb. xii. 14 ; 
 Ephes. iv. 3 ; Phil. iii. 15, 16); therefore, actuated by fraternal 
 love, do you not admit all kinds of accusations, calumnies, 
 and detractions against them, or readily lend an ear to the words 
 of those whose interest it is that the espousers of the Uni- 
 tarian religion should be ill spoken of ; rather, if you think 
 Unitarians err, instruct them in a spirit of gentleness, for 
 they are ready to yield to those who show a more excellent 
 way, and to divine truth, which is to them more precious than 
 any other thing." 
 
 If an apology for the use and retention of the name Uni- 
 tarian were wanting, it would be supplied in these admirable 
 words. Ashamed of myself should 1 be were I ashamed of 
 the spirit which breathes here ; and if this is Unitarianism, 
 may I be as true to the reality as I hope to be to its designa- 
 tion. What, however, chiefly commends both, is, that both 
 have been honoured in the lives of thousands who are not 
 unworthy of being described as " the salt of the earth." In
 
 76 WHY AM T A UNITARIAN? 
 
 making this statement I come upon another of your derogatory 
 remarks: — "After all, Unitarians have been but second-rate 
 men." What Unitarians were in the early Church — what 
 they were, what they thought, and what they did then and in 
 the middle ages, neither you nor I can describe in particulars, 
 if only because their antagonists not only did their worst to 
 exterminate them by fraud and force, especially under the 
 aid of the secular arm, but succeeded only too thoroughly in 
 burning and destroying their writings, and almost all the 
 monuments of their history. Even in England it is only 
 within the last few years that the persecution which formerly 
 wasted Unitarians with exile, fines, imprisonment, and the 
 stake, has ceased its barbarous rage. " Second-rate men," 
 say you ? You pronounce their eulogy — for a eulogy, a high 
 eulogy it is, to hold a second place amid the devastations to 
 which Unitarians have been subjected, from the fourth century 
 down to recent days. There is, however, a merit which places 
 them among the great ones of the earth, and makes them dear 
 in the sight of God : — a merit to which most professors are 
 not a little blind. The persecutions through which Unitarians 
 have passed, give them a glorious position among the confessors 
 and martyrs of the Christian Church. All who, in any age — 
 all, whatever their peculiar doctrines — who spoke out the 
 truth that was in them, undeterred by rude ignorance or brutal 
 force, are in the best sense of the term sons of God, and 
 benefactors of their kind. These are the glory and the lights 
 of the Church. They asserted the true dignity of the human 
 mind, and the immeasurable worth of the Gospel ; they main, 
 tained man's responsbility to the sole Lord of conscience ; 
 they vindicated the freedom, as of individuals, so of the Churchy 
 it was owing to their manly and righteous free-thinking that 
 soundness and vigour survived in Christendom; else the cor-
 
 LETTER VIII. 77 
 
 rupj-ion would have been universal, and from corruption rotten- 
 ness would have been engendered, to have its consummation in 
 moral darkness and death. Even if those whom the predo- 
 minant party branded as heretics were wrong in logic, certainly 
 they were right in spirit and purpose. In truth, however, 
 they had, I believe, the better cause, as well as the nobler 
 soul. Unless I have misread the lessons of ecclesiastical his- 
 tory, the heretics are the great men of the Church — not merely 
 its spiritual heroas, but its lights ; and so deep is this convic- 
 tion, that my sympathies and my admiration are all but inva- 
 riably with the losers rather than the winners in the great and 
 ever-recurring combat of the spirit of truth against the spirit 
 of error. 
 
 I am no Arian, but I think more highly of Arius than of 
 his successful opponent Athanasius ; toward Pelagianism my 
 views do incline, but I respect the name of the old confessor 
 of Brittany (whatever country that was), not because he was 
 right, but because he was ill-used. The struggling Luther 
 would possess my heart had he failed in his grand enterprise, 
 while all the grandeur of Leo X. is insufficient to reconcile 
 me to the abominations of his court and the falsities of his 
 religion. Mental ability is indeed a " good gift," but little to 
 be respected is power, unless when employed on the side of God 
 and humanity. The skill of Calvin as a Biblical commentator 
 only makes his compassing the death of Servetus a greater 
 crime ; for it goes far to exclude the extenuating plea of 
 ignorance, and was of little real worth if it did not enable him 
 to surmount the ruthless spirit of his age, as it was surmounted 
 by other men of the day, scarcely less able than the Genevese 
 Reformer, and more imbued with the Spirit of Christ. It is 
 the possession of that Spirit which should conciliate the esteem 
 of Christ's disciples, even as it is that on which rests the favour
 
 78 WHY AM I A UNITARIAN ? 
 
 of God, and from which comes the good of society. Can this 
 be questioned, when it is manifest that not the favourites, but 
 the victims of the world are its principal benefactors, albeit 
 their names are cast out as vile? Were not the apostles 
 counted as the offscouring of all things? Was not Christ 
 crucified for blasphemy and treason ? And what judgment 
 did the venerable and beloved sufferer pronounce in this 
 issue ? — " Woe unto you when all men speak well of you ! " 
 " Blessed are the persecuted !" All God's highest servants 
 spoken of in the Bible, are men of small mark, if judged by 
 ordinary human measures, and equally were they all traduced, 
 overborne, or put to death. Who so brilliant in ability and 
 position as David and Solomon ? and who more degraded ? 
 Who so humble in rank and estate as " the prophets," in whom 
 God placed his Spirit? and who so evilly entreated? Surely 
 you cannot have studied the Bible with due care and earnest- 
 ness, else how could you have missed one of its greatest 
 lessons, to the effect that God works out his sovereign will by 
 instruments that are of small account in the eyes of men. 
 The death of Christ sums up and shows forth God's method 
 of salvation in social as well as religious life. It is only by 
 the cross that men can be lifted out of the dust. 
 
 The spirit of the cross lives in the Unitarians of the present 
 hour. They are not, indeed, all they ought to be. I am not 
 blind to our shortcomings. On suitable occasions, I have not 
 failed to set them forth, with the blame they seemed to deserve. 
 The rather may I be now pardoned if I declare that the body 
 contains a class of men of whom history will on'e day say, that, 
 in a period of transition, they moved with their age, while they 
 carried with them, as Israel of old, the ark which symbolised 
 at once the truth and the presence of God ; that in an adverse 
 state of the public mind, they proclaimed what they believed
 
 LETTER VIIT. 79 
 
 to be the everlasting Gospel, in patience and hope preparing 
 brighter days for their successors ; and that in order that they 
 might be faithful to the work they had received at the hands 
 of Providence, they struggled on, with very narrow means, in 
 the midst of opulent or substantial circles, and gained respect 
 and esteem from good and intelligent men of all denomina- 
 tions, notwithstanding the intense prejudice against their faith 
 prevalent in the popular mind. This class of men bear the 
 name of Unitarian ministers. May the class, whatever im- 
 provement they may make, never forfeit one jot of their 
 mental culture, nor lose aught of their sterling integrity ! 
 
 I have shown you that the name Unitarian is distinctive, 
 and as such appropriate. I have shown you that it was 
 deliberately adopted by the Unitarian Church of Transylvania, 
 which may be described as the mother of British and Trans- 
 atlantic Unitarians. . It is, moreover, a fact that the designa- 
 tion has been formally taken by individuals and bodies, among 
 both the British and the Transatlantic Unitarians of mark, 
 sufficient to give influence, if not authority, to 'their act. 
 Another fact important in the matter is, that Unitarian has 
 become the acknowledged designation of our communion, 
 having all but entirely superseded " Socinian," to which we 
 objected, because it denoted us as disciples of a fellow-man, 
 Socinus, and having displaced "Presbyterian," which has 
 hardly even an historical reason for its employment. At a 
 time when things are quietly settling down into a general 
 acquiescence in the name Unitarian, you, especially as you 
 are not within our pale, come somewhat too late with your 
 objections, and practically will have to decide either not to 
 take Unitarianism at all, or to take it with the appendage of a 
 received and suitable designation. How entirely this is the 
 sole practical alternative, appears from the fact that the word
 
 80 wiry am i a unitarian? 
 
 Unitarian is used by the dictionaries as the proper designation 
 of members of our Church. Several instances lie around me. 
 I confine myself to two. Dr Fleming, in the recently pub- 
 lished second edition of his instructive "Vocabulary of Philo- 
 sophy," uses (p. 542) these words : — "A Unitarian is a believer 
 in one God. It is the same in meaning as a monotheist. The 
 name is commonly opposed to Trinitarian, and is applied to 
 those who, accepting the Christian revelation, believe in God 
 as existing in one person, and acknowledge Jesus Christ as his 
 messenger to men." A fuller and better account is given by 
 Dr. Ogilvie in "The Imperial Dictionary" (1851) : — "The 
 Unitarians are a sect of religionists who confine the glory and 
 attribute of divinity (deity it should be) to the one only great 
 and supreme God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. The 
 Unitarians are opposed to the Trinitarians, or those who con- 
 ceive of one God in three persons, characters, or relations, each 
 of which they regard as the proper object of religious worship. 
 The Unitarian Christian believes the Father to be the only 
 true God, and Jesus, his messenger, to be the Christ. This 
 is the leading fundamental principle which constitutes the true 
 and complete definition of the term Unitarian, under which 
 are consequently included all those who, receiving the divine 
 authority or commission of Jesus Christ, believe him to be a 
 dependent creature, deriving his existence from the Father, 
 and, therefore, the fit object of all the veneration, submission, 
 and obedience which can be offered to a creature, but none of 
 religious worship, properly so called. Agreeing in this great 
 and leading principle, Unitarians differ in their opinions as to 
 the origin, nature, and diguity of Jesus Christ. One division 
 of them has received the name of Arians, auother that of 
 
 Sociuians." 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 John R. Beard.
 
 LETTER IX. s l 
 
 LETTER IX.— REASONS WHY I AM A UNITARIAN. 
 (Continued.) 
 
 My Dear Edward, — 17. I am a Unitarian because Unita- 
 riunism, being propitious to peace and union, is the nucleus of 
 the one universal Church. Orthodoxy has occasioned in the 
 universe three great gulfs : — 1, a gulf between the Creator and 
 the Creation ; Q, a gulf between the Father and his children ; 
 and, 3, a gulf between different portions of those children 
 These several gulfs, which make peace and union impossible, 
 Unitarianism fills up, uniting the sundered parts by the idea 
 of the one universal Father, who sends his Son to be the 
 Saviour of the whole world. 
 
 Orthodoxy is dualistic as well as trinitarian. With it matter 
 is something, if not independent of God, yet impenetrable to 
 God. Borrowing the old Greek idea of a certain primaeval 
 stuff, out of which God is fabled to have made the world, it 
 recognises in nature a sort of inferior divinity, and so is the 
 source of the scepticism which deifies human generalisations 
 under the name of laws. Accordingly, between God and 
 nature, there is, in the popular mind, alienation and repug- 
 nancy. Nature withstands God ; God tries to subdue nature. 
 The conflict, proceeding from the outward to the inward, goes 
 on in the human mind. Hence the natural is more or less the 
 sinful. Accordingly, the spirit of man is all but impervious 
 to the Spirit of God. Its movements, until impregnated with 
 overpowering grace, are low, sensual, and devilish— objects of 
 God's wrath and sources of man's woe. 
 
 This dualism reaches its height, and takes a personal form 
 in Satan, who, like God, has his kingdom and his ministers. 
 Between God and Satan there is perpetual war. The war 
 
 G
 
 82 WHY AM I A UNITARIAN ? 
 
 involves, on the part of God, the loss of the love and obedience 
 of all his human family,. A. remnant is rescued from the 
 dominion of sin and the devil by Christ. Satan, however, is 
 the master of the great bulk of human-kind, and will hold and 
 torture them for ever. Thus our race is broken and divided 
 into two masses — the smaller mass is God's, the larger mass 
 is the devil's. The sunderance extends from time throughout 
 eternity. 
 
 Here are the three gulfs of which I spoke : — the gulf 
 between the Creator and the creation, the gulf between the 
 Father and his children, the gulf between different portions 
 of those children. The fatal dualism, inherent in the substance 
 of things, is interminable. Until two are one, orthodoxy 
 cannot produce unity and peace in God's universe. 
 
 Here the special value of Unitarianism comes into view. 
 One God, the Creator and Father of all, has one abiding-place, 
 the universe, which is simply the manifestation of himself. In 
 that universe all forces are divine, all tendencies are divine, all 
 results are divine, when regarded in their origin, aim, and final 
 issue. The laws of nature, then, are God in action. Conse- 
 quently, whatever is natural is good. So did God pronounce 
 all the works of his hands good at his first great creative act. 
 Thus every natural function, affection, movement, and effort is 
 good. To eat is good. To sleep is good. To labour is good. 
 A mother's love is good. Good also is the youth's passion. 
 Marriage is good. I mean, that, in themselves considered, 
 these things are good. Other considerations intervene. If you 
 eat when you are full, you commit a sin, and are punished. 
 You have a moral nature as well as an animal one. The laws 
 of your moral nature carry with them their ow sanctions. 
 They icill be obeyed. Hence you are compelled to say, " I 
 ought,''''I must." Obedience to that necessity is good.
 
 LETTER IX. 83 
 
 Go'od.jhen, in its highest character, arises at (he point where 
 the claims of the animal and the claims of the moral nature 
 are blended and harmonised. Hence sin arises in their diver- 
 gence and opposition. Consequently, sin is disobedience to 
 your highest law. That law is conscience. Conscience is Go 
 working in man's soul. If, then, you obey conscience, .you 
 obey God, and so are at one not with yourself alone, but with 
 your Creator. If you disobey conscience, you disobey God, 
 and so are at variance with God and with yourself. Here 
 arises the only divergence possible in God's universe. Man's 
 will, as being free to choose, may rebel. Kebellion is sin, and 
 sin is death. But physical death is only passing into life. 
 Hence we may believe that, under the Government of an Om- 
 nipotent Father, moral death is not the final doom of any 
 intelligent creature. Meanwhile, all such creatures are God's 
 children; they wear his likeness ; they are fed by his hand; 
 they are watched over by his Providence ; they are led by his 
 Spirit ; they are redeemed by his Son. With diverse gifts, and 
 in diverse positions, they are all men, and all alike objects of 
 the same paternal care. They have one nature, one duty, one 
 destiny. The world, then, is a nursery; God's government is 
 patriarchal, and heaven is a home ; or rather, heaven is the 
 home for which earth is the school. The realisation of these 
 grand ideas is " the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace," 
 of which Paul speaks, and on which he so often dwells with 
 special delight. (Eph.ii. 14 ; iv. 3 ; Col.iii. 14 ; 1 Cor. xii. 12. ) 
 Of this universal union, the Son of God is the focal point. He 
 makes perfect and perpetual peace, not merely by uniting Jew 
 and Gentile, but by bringing man's will into complete ami 
 abiding harmony with God's, lie who, in virtue of his filial 
 piety, became the Son of God, raises every true follower into a 
 share of his own sonship, and so mak< a him one with God. 
 
 G 2
 
 84 WHY A}[ I A UNITARIAN ? 
 
 The final result is, that God is all in all. The Spirit of the 
 blessed Father beats in and actuates the spirit of every child. 
 (John xvii. 15, seq.) 
 
 Such is Unitarian Christianity in its highest and widest 
 reaches and issues. To Unitarianise society, is to bring about 
 universal peace in heaven and on earth. It is to fulfil, in the 
 deepest sense, the prayer taught by the Saviour, and whispered 
 even by infant lips — " Thy will be done on earth, as it is in 
 heaven.'' That prayer shows forth the deepest desire of 
 Christ's heart. To work for the realisation of that desire, is 
 surely the noblest employment of the powers we have received 
 in trust from our Heavenly Father. 
 
 And now you will see that Unitarianism is the true and 
 proper centre of the one Universal church. The fact admits 
 of several illustrations ; but here I confine myself to the train 
 of remark in which we have been engaged. Unitarianism is 
 the embodiment of the one true unity, since it is the recognition 
 of the one true God. This recognition has love for its essence 
 — the love of the infinite Father to his finite child, the love of 
 the finite child to his infinite Father. (Mark xii. 29 — 33.) 
 Owning the one Father, and the one Son, Unitarianism is 
 the nucleus of the one Church — consisting, and to consist, of 
 all who serve the Son and adore the Father. This gathering- 
 point — the loving service of God in Christ — is as simple as it 
 is true, and as attractive as it is simple. Already is it 
 acknowledged in the deep heart of Christendom. Daily 
 is the acknowledgment becoming more conscious and more 
 open. In order to its continued progression, disciples of 
 Christ have only to cast away adventitious and uncongenial 
 accretions ; while the humanity and comprehensiveness of its 
 spirit is making for it a way into unbelieving minds and heathen 
 lands, with a promise of universal diffusion. Of such a spirit,
 
 LETTER X. 85 
 
 orthodoxy is a poor and insufficient channel. Yet, since ev< □ 
 orthodoxy carries the Sacred Scriptures wherever it goes, and 
 contains the essence of Unitarianism shrouded in its own creeds, 
 so orthodoxy is unconsciously doing a Unitarian work, carrying 
 
 forward a Unitarian propagandist^ and promoting God's own 
 unchangeable and everlasting truth. 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 John T\. Beard. 
 
 LETTER X.— REASONS "WHY I AM A UKITARIAN. 
 
 (Continued.) 
 
 My Dear Edward, — 18. I am a Unitarian been use Unita- 
 rianism is sufficient. It is sufficient, I mean, for all the purposes 
 and all the issues of actual life. How, indeed, can it be otherwise? 
 What more can we have? What more can men want than a God 
 who is a Father, and a Saviour who is at once the Son of God 
 and a brother man ? If God is really your Father,, are you not 
 God's child? and, if you are God's child, what good thing can 
 you lack, whether for this world or for the world to come? And 
 when I say Father, I mean such a Father as is pictured in 
 Christ his son. Can Trinitarianism do more for you than 
 secure the mercy and love of omnipotence, or bring you nearer 
 to God than you may be in virtue of a vital union with Christ? 
 Clearly, the peculiar doctrines of Trinitarianism are so much 
 surplusage, for they cannot do more for you than can be done 
 for you by the God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ. 
 You say " I am a sinner " — was not Jesus sent to save sin- 
 ners, and of those who came to him did he send any away
 
 86 WHY AM I A UNITARIAN? 
 
 unforgiven and unblessed? You tell me,' " T labour and am 
 heavy laden," — then, why not listen to the gracious invitation 
 which Jesus continues to utter to such as you, " Come unto 
 me all ye who labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you 
 rest"? You write, "I am uneasy and distrest in thought of 
 the future," — did not Jesuscome "to deliver those who through 
 fear of death, were all their lifetime subject to bondage" ? 
 You continue, "I fear the last dread account," — then, in the 
 spirit of a disciple's love, give a cup of cold water to a disciple, 
 and verily you will not lose your reward. You argue, " I 
 cannot think that anything I can do will merit the divine 
 favour." Assuredly not ; but the humility of that assurance 
 is the very state of mind in view of which God will, of his 
 own- free and spontaneous benignity, bestow the grace which 
 he sent his Son to offer to the world. You declare that God 
 must punish sin ; and I reply that, while God punishes sin, he 
 is ever at work to renew and save the sinner. You are sure 
 that you cannot satisfy God's law; and I reply that God's law 
 is satisfied, when its purposes and end are secured in the 
 destruction of the evil power which causes its transgression, 
 and in the reformation of the heart of the transgressor. You 
 argue that you want an expiatory sacrifice, by which God may 
 be reconciled to you ; and I reply that the death of Christ is 
 God's propitiation, designed to win you over and reconcile you 
 to himself. I add, further, that your uneasiness, your fears, 
 your factitious wants, spring mainly from your ignorance and 
 infirmities. Oh ! if you only accepted, simply and gratefully 
 accepted, God's offered goodness and all-sufficient grace, if you 
 only believed in God as the Father of Jesus and as your Father; 
 if you only knew Christ as Christ is visibly set before your 
 eyes ; if you were only free from the darkening, distorting, 
 distracting influences of systems of false divinity; if you could
 
 i ETTEB X. 87 
 
 cjily realise your true position as God's own child, whom 
 he loves more thau we love an only son, and yearns after more 
 than we yearn after a long absent daughter, and pities more 
 than we pity our erring and wandering brethren, and e 
 seeks to rescue, to lift up, to purify, make holyand happy, more 
 than a Howard pitied the prisoner, or a Clarkson the slave — 
 then your unreal alarms would cease, your troubles would be 
 composed, your darkness would vanish, and you would be at 
 peace in the bosom of God, as the infant is at peace in the 
 bosom of her who gave it birth and loves it best. 
 
 " We are told, indeed, that our faith will not prove an 
 anchor in the last hour. But we have known those whose 
 departure it has brightened ; and our experience of its power 
 in trial and peril has proved it to be equal to all the wants of 
 human nature. We doubt not, to its sincere followers, death 
 will be a transition to the calm, pure, joyful mansions prepared 
 by Christ for his disciples. There we expect to meet the great 
 and good Deliverer. With the eye of faith we already see him 
 looking round with celestial love on all of every name who have 
 imbibed his Spirit. His Spirit, his loyal and entire devotion to 
 the will of his heavenly Father, his universal and unconquerable 
 benevolence, through which he freely gave from his pierced side 
 his blood, his life, for the salvation of the world — his divine 
 love, and not creeds, and names, and forms, will there be found 
 to attract his supreme regard. This spirit we trust to see in 
 multitudes of every sect and name : and we trust, too, that they 
 who now approach us will at that day recognise in the dreaded 
 Unitarian this only badge of Christ, and bid him welcome to 
 the joy of our common Lord." — Charming. 
 Yours truly, 
 
 John R. Beakd.
 
 88 WHY AM I A DN1TABIAN ? 
 
 LETTER XI.— REASONS WHY I AM A UNITARIAN. 
 (Continued). 
 
 My Dear Edward, — ID. I*am a Unitarian because I believe 
 
 that Unitarianism is important. Bow important Unitarianism 
 is in my judgment, I have no words fit to declare. To me 
 Unitarianism is the Gospel, and the Gospel is God's grace for 
 the extirpation of sin and the redemption of the world. 
 
 I regard the Gospel as the great panacea of human woes. 
 Nor is the good it bestows merely negative. The Gospel aims 
 to make every man perfect, and perfect even as Christ is 
 perfect. The design and tendency of the Gospel is to bring 
 peace on earth, good-will to men, in such a way and to such 
 an extent as that the issue may be glory to God in the highest 
 degree, and unto all eternity. In one word, the design and 
 tendency of the Gospel is to universalise the spirit, the power, 
 the blessedness of Christ, and so to make God all in all. 
 Nothing less than these majestic results is what the God, who 
 is the Father of all men, especially of those who believe in Ins 
 Son, and seek and foster his spirit, is at this very moment 
 desiring, and longing, and working to bring about. How poor 
 a word is " important " with which to characterise results so 
 grand, so comprehensive, so enduring. As fellow-workers 
 with God for these divine achievements, most willingly do I 
 recognise all sincere disciples of the common Master, to what- 
 ever denomination of Christians they may belong. Among 
 those true and devoted followers of Christ, are many who pro- 
 fess some form of Trinitarianism. Not in that form, but in 
 the religion which lies under that form, and which that form 
 is unable to suppress, do I recognise the fountain of their light 
 and power, while it is the firm and abiding faith of my heart
 
 i.i. ri in xi. 89 
 
 tjiat the same religious ei bich constitutes the sul Btance 
 
 of Unitarianism, is the very objecl which God approves and 
 loves in their spirits, and on which he sends down il 
 ing and enriching dews of his blessing. Nor can I for one 
 moment doubt that the great dosign and object of the heavi aly 
 Father is to Unitarianise, first, the Church, and then the world. 
 Already does the history of the past show to me, by unmis- 
 takable signs and proofs, that Unitarianism, in the shape, 
 first, of patriarchal monotheism, then of Mosaic monotheism, 
 and then of Christian monotheism, is the instrument designed 
 and employed of God for working out the highest good of his 
 intelligent creation. Monotheistic are all the principal reli- 
 gions of the past. Monotheistic are all the highest forms of 
 civilisation. Every form of existing civilisation is high just 
 in the degree in which it is monotheistic. Monotheistic arc 
 all the greatest civilising agents, operations, and tendencies 
 of the present day. England is great because it is so largely 
 monotheistic. Monotheistic is its best literature. Monothe- 
 istic are its noblest spirits, j The purest currents of its religion 
 are monotheistic. These monotheistic powers and tendencies, 
 are too, more or less Christian in spirit, and so form an element 
 in that unconscious Unitarianism which is the substratum of 
 the Church. 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 John R. Beard. 
 
 LETTER XII.— REASONS WHY I AM A UNITARIAN. 
 {Concluded. ) 
 
 My Dear Edward, — 20. lama Unitarian because Uni- 
 tarianism being the most ancient faith of Christendom, connects 
 its disciples immediately with Christ. If, as 1 have shown.
 
 90 WHY AM I A UNITARIAN ? 
 
 Unitarianism is the doctrine of the Bible, then Unitarianism 
 must have been the earliest form of the religion of Jesus. 
 That earliest form appears in the New Testament. Let us 
 come clown below the limits of the Scripture, and ascertain in 
 what form, Unitarian or Trinitarian, the religion of Jesus now 
 appears. I do not propose to descend later than the second 
 century, because I am concerned only with the most ancient 
 faith of Christendom, If we ascertain what was the doctrine 
 of the first two centuries, we thereby decide what was the most 
 ancient faith of Christendom. Let me further premise, that 
 the words reported as having been uttered by our Lord, when 
 on the point of ascending to his Heavenly Father, namel} r , — ■ 
 " Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them into the 
 name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit" (Matt. 
 xxviii. 10), and which contain a summary of the essential 
 points of Christian instruction and belief, form the connecting 
 link between the doctrine of the Apostolic Church, and the 
 doctrine of the post-Apostolic Church. In these words there 
 is a criterion enabling us to distinguish between Unitarianism 
 and Trinitarianism. The application of the criterion is made 
 clear by reference to usages which came in and obtained pre- 
 valence in later ages. These usages consisted in the addition 
 of certain terms, the object of which was to define metaphysi- 
 cally the nature ascribable to each of the three subjects — the 
 Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit — and then to determine the 
 relation which they severally bore the one to the other. In the 
 earliest times, no traces of such an attempt are discernible. 
 When first such an attempt makes its appearance, it is only 
 partially and dimly. Growing by degrees, the effort appears 
 in an advanced state in the creed put forth in the Council of 
 Nice, in the year a.d. 325. 
 
 Out of this form was gradually developed the full and pro-
 
 LETTEK XII. 'J I 
 
 per form of the doctrine of the Trinity, which finds embodi- 
 ment in the creed which is falsely ascribed to Athanasius, but 
 which seems to have come into existence not earlier than the 
 eighth century of our era. These facts exhibit Trinitarianiam 
 to you as a] growth, and not only as a growth, but a product of 
 the? Church. The product is the outcome of Pagan specula- 
 tion, dealing with the great spiritual ideas of the Gospel, so 
 as to harden and compress them into forms congenial with its 
 own logical and systematising tendencies and habits. Thus 
 God's Word, which is life, was petrified into man's notions, 
 which change and perish. Mark, I beg of you, what it is 
 which this philosophising spirit undertook to do. It under- 
 took to put on Scriptural terms, meanings which the Scripture 
 itself did not put on them. Thus it added to Scripture, and 
 it so added to Scripture as to make the import of Scripture 
 not only more definite, but more restricted. " Our sense," it 
 said, " is the only true sense." Thus an orthodoxy was fabri- 
 cated, expressly intended to expound and supplement Scriptu- 
 ral truth.JJ Men, fresh from the school of Plato,were not content 
 to accept the New Testament in all its divinelv-given simpli- 
 city, largeness, and comprehensiveness, nor would they accept 
 it at all, unless when dressed up in the phraseology with which 
 education had made them familiar. In a word, Christ was 
 attired in the raiment of speculative philosophies, and then 
 preached as the only true Christ. A fatal error was this, if 
 only because it forced on the religion of the Bible a spirit 
 totally different from its own, and so prepared the way for the 
 deadly corruptions of the Papacy. " Science, falsely so called,'' 
 found the religion of Jesus a sublime spiritual life, and left it a 
 corpse. Such ever is, and ever must be, the tendency of all 
 attempts on the part of speculative intellects to give systematic 
 forufand colour to the everlasting verities of the Bible, which
 
 92 WHY AM I A UNITARIAN ? 
 
 possess all the simple grandeur of the mind of Christ, are an 
 image of the mind of God, and so are wholly incapable of 
 improvement. When men attempt to recast God's truth in 
 the moulds of their own systems of what they call philosophy, 
 they unavoidably reduce the infinite to their own small 
 dimensions, and in the process press out its life and distort 
 its features. 
 
 Three principal steps in this downward progress are open 
 
 to your inspection in the book of Common Prayer. The first 
 
 is, what is termed the Apostles' Creed ; the second, the Nicene 
 
 Creed; the third, the Creed of Saint Athauasius. Here you 
 
 observe the evil growth in the main stages of its progress. 
 
 The creed bearing the name of the Apostles, was not composed 
 
 till long after the Apostles themselves were dead. Formed 
 
 piecemeal through a succession of years, it marks the first step 
 
 in the wrong direction — namely, the step which assumed that 
 
 the truth, spirit, and power which made the essence of the 
 
 Gospel, could be compressed and embodied in^a formulary of 
 
 combined doctrine and history. This incarceration of the 
 
 Christ of God, led to his petri6cation, as begun in the Nicene 
 
 Creed, and completed in the Athanasian. Before I pass on, 
 
 I must beg you to study the first form of Christian confession 
 
 with some attention. As being nearer to the "apostolic age, it 
 
 retains much of its simplicity and amplitude. You may, 
 
 indeed, graft Trinitarianism on it, but you cannot get Trini- 
 
 tarianism out of it. I shall set before you yet simpler images 
 
 of the faith of the first ages. 
 
 The command to baptize converts in the name'of the Father, 
 and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, ascribed by Matthew 
 to Jesus, was observed in the days of the Apostles by baptism 
 in the name of "Jesus Christ" (Acts vi. 38, 41), or in the 
 name of "the Lord Jesus Christ" (Acts viii. 16 ; xix. 5), on
 
 LETTER XII. 93 
 
 the simple confession, " I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son 
 of God" (Acts viii. 37). This fact, which we learn from the 
 Book of Acts, shows that no special importance was attached 
 to a trinal form, as must have been the case had a three-fold 
 gate been the sole entrance into the Church. However, the 
 requiring of a profession of faith in Christ, and the employ- 
 ment of some form in baptism, gave speculators an opportunity 
 for fabricating, multiplying, and enforcing creeds. Nexl in 
 antiquity to the simple acknowledgment of Jesus as the Christ 
 or the Son of God, was the profession of the Father, Son, and 
 Holy Spirit as the chief topics of Christian instruction. In 
 process of time other objects of belief were added, so as to 
 form a creed, and in corrupt days the principal of those 
 received metaphysical deiinition. Thus the primitive "faith, 
 passing through the alembic of speculation, was transmuted 
 from the pure gold of religion and history into the silver and 
 brass of scholastic determinations. 
 
 The earliest form of what is now called the Apostles' Creed, 
 in other words, the earliest confession of the primitive Church, 
 after the simple acknowledgment of the Lord Jesus Christ, 
 in which was implicitly contained all true Christianity, was 
 
 The Creed of the Church of Alexandria in Egypt. 
 "I believe in the only true God, the Father, the Almighty: 
 And in his only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord and 
 
 Saviour : 
 And in the Holy Spirit, the life-giver."* 
 
 I subjoin other forms of the same early period. 
 The Creed of the Roman Church. 
 "I believe in God Almighty: 
 And in Jesus Christ his Son, the only begotten, 
 
 * These creeds are given in their original state. Sjc Buusen's 
 "Christianity and Mankind," vol. vii. |
 
 91 WHY AM I A UNITAPJAN? 
 
 who was born of the Holy Spirit, and of Mary the 
 
 virgin, 
 who was crucified under Pontius Pilate and buried, 
 and on the third day rose from the dead, 
 ascended into heaven, and sat down on the right hand 
 
 of the Father ; 
 whence he comes to judge the living and the dead : 
 And in the Holy Spirit ; 
 the holy church ; 
 the resurrection of the flesh ; 
 the life everlasting." 
 
 The Oriental Creed. 
 " I believe in one God, the Father Almighty : 
 And in one Lord, Jesus Christ, his only Son, 
 
 who was born of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, 
 
 was crucified under Pontius Pilate, and buried, 
 
 the third day he rose from the dead, 
 
 ascended into heaven, 
 
 sits at the right hand of the Father, 
 
 thence he is about to come to judge the living and the 
 dead : 
 And in the Holy Spirit ; 
 
 the holy church ; 
 
 the remission of sins ; 
 
 the resurrection of the flesh." 
 Several other similar forms lie before me ;* but, as they are 
 little else than repetitions, I abstain from translating them. 
 In order that you may have before your eyes the additions 
 made by the council of Nice, I translate its creed from the 
 original Greek. 
 
 * "Bibliothek der Symbole," &c. By Dr. A. Halm, Breslau, 1342.
 
 LETTEB XII. 95 
 
 The Nict ne ( 'reed. 
 
 " We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, maker of all 
 things, both seen and unseen : 
 
 And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of Clod himself, the 
 only begotten of the Father, that is, the essence of tin- 
 Father, God of God, light of light, true God of true 
 God, begotten, not made, of the same substance as the 
 Father, through whom were (or were made) all things, 
 both things in heaven and things in earth, who for us 
 men and for our salvation came down and was made 
 flesh and was made man, suffered and rose on the third 
 day, and. went up into the heavens, and is coming to 
 judge the living and the dead: 
 
 And in one Holy Spirit." 
 
 Even this form of doctrine is Unitarian. Observe that the 
 one God is declared to be the Father, and this one God, the 
 Father, is pronounced to be Almighty. The same is not said 
 of the Son. On the contrary, the Son is described as God of 
 (in the Greek it is out of) God, that is God begotten of the 
 Father. Accordingly, the Father is the source of the divinity 
 of the Son. If so, the Father alone is God supremely ; in 
 other words, the Father alone is God in the proper sense of 
 the term. 
 
 Observe, too, that whatever is said of the Son, he is not 
 declared to be either equal or one with the Father, but is 
 described as the instrument through whom all things were 
 made by the Father. Observe, again, that the Holy Spirit is 
 left, in all its scriptural bareness and simplicity, unqualified 
 and unsupplemented by ecclesiastical authority. Finally, 
 observe that the creed lavs clown nothing regarding the three
 
 90 WHY AM I A UNITARIAN ? 
 
 in their aggregate form. In other words, the Trinity is 
 passed over in silence. 
 
 Here, however, you have in a marked degree the unhappy- 
 propensity to dogmatical definitions, which is the source of the 
 rank corruptions of later days. Those ill-omened words, that 
 is, point to the source of that infatuation of the sacerdotal 
 and monkish mind which, resting on the assumption that 
 God's truth was heresy, unless accompanied with human de- 
 finitions and supplements, filled the Church with formulas of 
 man-made opinion, and either hid or superseded the simple 
 and sublime teachings of the sacred Scripture. 
 
 The first decided step toward a dogmatical and Trinitarian 
 definition of Christianity is marked by that loss of charity 
 which is the loss of the very spirit of the Gospel, and which, 
 in its subsequent excesses, employed fire and sword to assert 
 and defend Papal and Protestant orthodoxy. For to the 
 Nicene creed, as given above, there is added this anathematis- 
 ing clause — " The universal Church curses those who say that 
 there w r as a time when the Son was not, and that he was not 
 before he was born, and that he was (or was made) out of 
 things that were not, or assert that he was of a different 
 hypostasis or essence, or that he was created, changed, or 
 altered." This unbrotherly, not to say inhuman spirit, was 
 accompanied by a lying spirit, for it is emphatically false to 
 say that the decision of a majority of the Council of Nice was 
 a decision of the Church universal. 
 
 Before I leave the point, I beg you to compare the so-called 
 baptismal formula given in Matthew's Gospel, first, with the 
 Nicene Creed, and then with the earlier forms of doctrine, as 
 previously given, and you will need nothing else to show you 
 that, even down to the year a.d. 325, the Church had not re- 
 nounced the essential type of its own primitive Unitarianism,
 
 LETTER XII. 97 
 
 and that the more you go back to the apostolic age, the more 
 simple is the form in which its Unitarianism appears. 
 
 T will supply one or two additional illustrations of these 
 facts. How simply Unitarian is this very ancient 
 
 MORNING HYMN. 
 
 Every day will I bless thee, 
 And I will praise thy name for ever ; 
 Yea, for ever and ever. 
 Vouchsafe, Lord, to keep us this day, also, without sin. 
 
 Blessed be thou, Lord, the God of our fathers, 
 And praised and glorified be thy name, for evermore. 
 
 Nor less purely and emphatically Unitarian is this primitive 
 
 EVENING HYMN. 
 
 Ye, children, praise the Lord, 
 Praise the name of the Lord. 
 We praise thee, we hymn thee, we bless thee, 
 
 For thy great glory, 
 ( ) Lord and King, the Father of Christ — 
 
 The spotless Lamb, who takes away the sins of the world. 
 To thee belongs praise, 
 To thee belongs the song, 
 To thee, God and Father, belongs glory, 
 Through thy Son, in the all-holy Spirit, 
 To the ages of ages. 
 
 If now I subjoin a form of the thought uttered in the last 
 hymn, in which corruptions of later growth appear, you will 
 see another example of the downward tendency which reached 
 its lowest point in the pseudo-athanasian creed. 
 
 Glory in the highest to God, 
 And upon earth peace, among men good-will. 
 We laud thee, we bless thee, we worship thee ; 
 We thank thee for thy great glory, 
 Lord and heavenly King, God the Father Almighty, 
 - Lord, who art God.
 
 98 WHY AM I A UNITARIAN? 
 
 Lord, the only begotten Son, 
 Jesus Christ. 
 Lamb of God, 
 Son of the Father, 
 Who taJcest away the sins of the world, 
 
 P it y us ; 
 Who taJcest aivay the sins of the world, 
 
 Pity US, RECEIVE OUK PRAYER, 
 
 Thou who sittest on the right hand of the Father, 
 Pity us ; 
 For thou alone art holy ; 
 Thou art the only Lord ; 
 
 Jesus Christ ; 
 To the glory of God, the Father. 
 
 Even this corrupt hymn, as it shuts up all " to the glory of 
 God the Father," is essentially Unitarian. But it lets us see 
 one principal source whence Trinitarian corruptions flowed — 
 namely, the hymns of the ancient Church ; for the praises 
 and requests which were at first mere utterances to Christ of 
 reverent and grateful hearts, grew and hardened in time into 
 the full materialisms of the creeds, and thus the language of 
 love and devoutness passed into the logical determinations of 
 systematic divinity. The greater need is there that we should 
 now utter in our hymns of praise no word which can encou- 
 rage a departure from the strict and proper monotheism of 
 the Bible. 
 
 The documents hitherto adduced set before you the estab- 
 lished professions and worship of the Church. You see that 
 it was Unitarian. Unitarian was it to such an extent that 
 it did not cease to be so even in the Council of Nice. I have 
 space for only one additional testimony. Tertullian, the dis- 
 tinguished Latin Father, gives the following as a statement 
 of the general doctrine of the Church in his day: — 
 
 "There is only one rule of faith ; single, unchangeable, irre-
 
 letter xrr. 09 
 
 formable ; that which teaches belief in one sole God, the 
 Almighty maker of the world ; and his Son Jesus Christ, 
 born of the Virgin Mary, crucified under Pontius Pilate, risen 
 the third day from the dead, received into heaven, sitting now 
 at the right hand of the Father, about to come to judge the 
 living and the dead." 
 
 This, too, is simply a Unitarian creed, and this, according 
 to Tertullian, was the faith universal in the second century. 
 It is true that Tertullian somewhat draws out this statement, 
 in another part, when describing the universal faith ; hut in 
 that description he does not comprise a belief in the doctrine 
 of the Trinity. It is also true that, when writing against the 
 Unitarian Praxeas, he says that, " we believe this one sole 
 God under the dispensation which we call the economy," al- 
 luding to a rudimental form of Trinitarianism, which he did 
 much to introduce and establish ; but this ecomony he does 
 not describe as universally held, but claims it as the special 
 privilege of the better taught, who had received the light 
 from the Paraclete — a claim which sufficiently marks the 
 recentness of the doctrine, and exhibits it as a result not of 
 apostolic teaching, but of (alleged) special illumination. Ter- 
 tullian is among the earliest of those who have been too proud 
 of their literary and intellectual superiority to be satisfied 
 with the teachings of fishermen, headed by a tentmaker and a 
 carpenter. However, in complete agreement with his tacit, 
 indirect, and undesigned admission that his doctrine of the 
 ti'inal economy was not the doctrine of the universal church; 
 he makes the following statements : — 
 
 " The simple-minded, not to say the unintelligent and 
 doltish, which is always the greater part of believers, since 
 the rule of the faith transfers them from the many gods of 
 the (pagan) world to the one only true God, not understand- 
 
 B --3
 
 100 WHY AM I A UNITARIAN? 
 
 ing that he is indeed to be acknowledged as one, but one 
 together with his economy, are alarmed at the economy. The 
 number and division of the trinity they account a division of 
 the unity, though the unity, deriving the trinity from itself, 
 is not destroyed, but administered by it. In consequence, 
 they publicly maintain that two and three Gods are preached 
 by us, and presume that they are the worshippers of the one 
 God, as if the unity irrationally apprehended did not amount 
 to heresy, and as if the trinity rationally considered did not 
 constitute truth. The monarchy, say they, we hold, and the 
 word, even the Latins (though ignorant of Greek), yea, the 
 hand labourers, utter so emphatically, that one would think 
 they understood the monarchy as well as they pronounce it.* 
 But while the Latins study how to pronounce the monarchy, 
 even the Greeks are unwilling to understand the economy." f 
 This passage contains the following facts illustrative of the 
 condition of the church in the second century, in regard to 
 the respective doctrines of the unity and the trinity : — ■ 
 
 1. The persons spoken of are the greater part of the 
 disciples of Christ. These persons are comparatively of 
 humble position and little culture. 
 
 2. They have been led to renounce polytheism by considera- 
 tions which made them believers in the one only true God. 
 This, the one only true God, did not involve the trinity. 
 
 3. The trinity is offered to their acceptance. It is a 
 novelty. The trinity, in consequence, appears to the major 
 part of the disciples of Christ in the second ceutury as a 
 novelty. It follows that Unitarianism was to them anterior 
 to Trinitarianism. 
 
 * A sarcasm against tbe imperfect articulation of a Greek term by 
 persons of Latin blood in humble life, 
 f Tertulliani adversus Traxeam, cap. 3.
 
 LETTER XII. 101 
 
 , 4. When they have the Trinity before their eyes they be- 
 come alarmed at it, and immediately set themselves in active 
 opposition against tbe novelty, charging it with introducing 
 three Gods. 
 
 5. In order the more explicitly and effectually to maintain 
 their distinctive doctrine, they gave it a name, that name is 
 the monarchy. The defence of the monarchy is, with them, 
 the defence of the unity. On the other side, Tertullian puts 
 forward, in opposition, the economy. The defence of the 
 economy is the defence of the trinity. To the defence of the 
 two, not only against the greater part of the believers, but 
 against an eminent Unitarian, Praxeas, the learned, the rhe- 
 torical theologian, dedicates one entire work. Alarmed at the 
 tendency of similar efforts, the Unitarians are zealous for the 
 supremacy, nay the sole deity, of the one only true God. 
 
 6. With a view to gain his point, Tertullian utters re- 
 proaches on those against whom he writes. Scarcely are they 
 worthy of his well-burnished literary sword. The Latin dolts 
 want an elocution-master, and the Greek idiots are slow at a 
 syllogism. A plain proof of a bad cause is this contemptuous 
 abuse. However, evil is the servant of good, and falsity of 
 truth, and so Tertullian has let it out that of both the Greek 
 and the Latin Church, that is the Church at large, the greater 
 number were in his day Unitarians, earnest and zealous for 
 the grand central truth of the Bible. 
 
 7. From the description given of the Primitive Unitarians, 
 it is obvious that they formed the great body of the Church. 
 Now, the lower strata of society are the least given to change. 
 The fact is too well known to require illustration. It follows 
 from the fact, that the great body of the Church must have 
 been Unitarian for some two or three generations. But two 
 or three generations, reckoned from the time of Tertullian,
 
 102 WHY AM I A UNITARIAN? 
 
 (born in Carthage about 160 a.d.), take us back to the days of, 
 at least, the Apostle John. Tertullian's statements, then, 
 place us in the apostolic age. They farther show us the im- 
 mediate results of the apostolic preaching; and if — as no one 
 will deny — the apostles, in this momentous matter, taught as 
 they were taught of Christ, the statements of Tertullian set 
 before our eyes the effects of the teaching of Christ himself, 
 and so give us at least the substance of his instructions. 
 
 8. How completely the faith which Tertullian assails was 
 Unitarian may be further illustrated from the circumstance 
 that he reproaches it with being a Judaic monotheism, as in 
 these words — " It is a species of Judaism to believe in one 
 God, so as to refuse to add to him, first, the Son, and then 
 the Spirit." (Chapter xxxi.) Unhappily, the writings of 
 Praxeas, together with all Unitarian literature from his day 
 down to the Reformation, have been destroyed ; but if we 
 may imagine the reply that was given to Tertullian, it would 
 be one of which no believer in God's revealed truth need be 
 ashamed, whatever one may think of the spirit of an assailant 
 who strove to profit by the prejudice felt in social life against 
 the Jews, as having in their veins the blood of those whom 
 the Scripture describes as the murderers of Christ. Beyond 
 a question, the Mosaic religion is inferior to the Gospel, yet 
 was it great and good enough to produce the Gospel. And 
 if a thing is bad because Jewish, Jesus himself must be con- 
 demned or slightly valued. And surely it is a presumption 
 in favour of Unitarianism that it leans upon the Jewish 
 Church, the pillar of revealed truth for at least fifteen hundred 
 years ; and is by no means, as in Trinitarianism, in alliance 
 with pagan speculation, to correct which was, and is, one of 
 the great objects of the mission of Christ. 
 
 You have now seen reason to believe that Unitarianism was
 
 LETTER XII. L08 
 
 the earliest form of the religion of Jesus. If so, then it was 
 the religion of Jesus, for it was not only held by the primitive 
 disciples, hut taught by the heralds whom Jesus commis- 
 sioned, aud so presumably was the religion which they received 
 from his lips and his life. Thus, even the assailants of Uni- 
 tarianism as well as the liturgical services of the primitive 
 Church, take us back, and, as do the Scriptures, place us face 
 to face with the Son of God himself — the whole combining to 
 enable us to sit at the Great Teacher's feet and barn of him. 
 What more can be either done or desired? I say, then, that 
 Uuitariauism is the Gospel, because not only is it the earliest 
 form of the Gospel, but, being so, it conducts us into the 
 presence of Ilirn who was, is, aud ever will be, the Way, the 
 Truth, and the Life. 
 
 These, my dear Edward, are the principal reasons why I am 
 a Unitarian. I ask you to consider them, to consider them 
 severally and conjointly, to consider them with earnest prayer 
 to God for light and guidance. Should you be strengthened 
 in the inclination shown in your last letter, be entreated to con- 
 tinue your studies ; and, for that purpose, I subjoin the titles 
 of some works in which you may find assistance. If you feel 
 disposed to turn away from the matter, do not, I earnestly beg 
 you, declare finally against Unitarianism, until you have care- 
 fully studied the Sacred Scriptures, in order to learn what 
 God offers to teach you therein. Confident I am that the 
 central thought of the Bible is Unitarian. In saying this, I 
 do not mean that any merely intellectual assent comes up to 
 what the Bible requires. The religion of the Bible is given 
 of God to lead men to himself. The religion of the Bible, 
 therefore, requires and demands in every man a holy life, as 
 the outgrowth and fruit of a holy heart. You must be holy 
 in heart if you would be holy in life. Without^ holiness you
 
 104 WHY AM I A UNITARIAN? 
 
 cannot serve a holy God acceptably. True holiness comes 
 from God, the source of holiness. It is God's gift, conditional 
 on our earnest and persevering endeavours. Make it your 
 aim then to live a holy life. That aim should include worship 
 as well as work. You must ask if you would receive. You 
 must love religion if you would make it fully and permanently 
 your own. And as, from your own confession, you have in 
 your affections and in your conduct much that is contrary to 
 the spirit and the precepts of Christ, much that is condemned 
 by your own conscience, much that beclouds and confuses 
 your mind and troubles your heart, much that makes your 
 faith dim and weak, and sometimes almost shuts out God and 
 heaven from your apprehension, you must, my dear Edward — 
 yes, you must, ask God fervently and ceaselessly to give you 
 his Holy Spirit, that you may be truly born from above, and, 
 with a thorough renewal and sanctification of your inner life, 
 become as a little child in the hands of your heavenly Father, 
 who, when once } 7 ou have surrendered yourself wholly to his 
 influence, will make you not only pure, as Christ is pure, but 
 trustful, contented, calm, and gentle within, and without 
 useful — largely and increasingly useful — in promoting his own 
 wise and benignant plans for the improvement of society, and, 
 finally, for the salvation of the world. A better wish I cannot, 
 in conclusion, utter, than that you may be put into full posses- 
 sion of the light, which is the true life now, and life for ever- 
 more. 
 
 Yours, in faith, hope, and love. 
 
 John E. Beard. 
 
 Woodfall and Kinder, Printers, Milford Lane, Strand, London, W.C.
 
 ^Iclujiaus autr theological W&bxIw, 
 
 JOHN R BEARD, D-D. 
 
 THE HISTORICAL EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 UNASSAILABLE ; in answer to the Rev. Robert Taylor 
 
 and Mr. Richard Carlile. 8vo, 1826. 
 SERMONS DESIGNED TO BE USED IN FAMILIES. 
 
 Edited by John R. Beard. 8vo, Vol. I. 1829. 
 
 Second Edition, with suitable Prayers. 8vo, 1830. 
 
 A FAMILY PRAYER BOOK. 8vo, 1830. 
 
 SERMONS DESIGNED TO BE USED IN FAMILIES. 
 
 Reprinted in Boston, United States. 8vo, 1831. 
 SERMONS DESIGNED TO BE USED IN FAMILIES. 
 
 8vo, Vol. II. 1831. 
 THE RELIGION OF JESUS DEFENDED FROM THE 
 
 ASSAULTS OF OWENISM. 12mo, 1837. 
 
 A COLLECTION OF HYMNS FOR PUBLIC AND PRI- 
 VATE WORSHIP. By exclusively Unitarian Authors. 
 12mo, 1837. 
 
 VOICES OF THE CHURCH; in Reply to Dr. D. F. Strauss. 
 8vo, 1845. 
 
 UNITARIANISM EXHIBITED IN ITS ACTUAL CON- 
 DITION. 8vo, 1846. 
 
 HISTORICAL AND ARTISTIC ILLUSTRATIONS OF 
 THE TRINITY. 8vo, 1846. 
 
 THE PEOPLE'S DICTIONARY OF THE BIBLE, with 
 Maps and numerous Woodcuts. Several Editions. 2 Vols. 
 8vo, 1847. 
 
 The same, with additional Illustrations, &c, under the title of 
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD ILLUSTRATED BIBLICAL CY- 
 CLOPAEDIA. McPhun & Co., Glasgow. 1 Vol. tto, 
 1865.
 
 106 RELIGIOUS AND THEOLOGICAL WORKS, 
 
 A BIBLICAL BEADING BOOK, containing a Life oi 
 Christ, for Schools and Families. 12mo, 1848. 
 
 Second Edition. 1849. 
 
 A BIBLICAL ATLAS. 8vo, 1849. 
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE DIVINE IN CHRISTIAN- 
 ITY. 8vo, 1849. 
 
 A CRITICAL HISTORY OF RATIONALISM IN GER- 
 MANY, from the French of Bastenr A. Saintes. 8vo, 
 1849. 
 
 AN INTRODUCTION TO THE BOOKS OF THE OLD 
 AND NEW TESTAMENT, from the German of A. 
 Schumann. 8vo, 1849. 
 
 A BIBLICAL PRIMER, in the Words of Scripture. 12mo, 
 
 1850. 
 THE GROUNDS AND OBJECTS OF RELIGIOUS 
 
 KNOWLEDGE. 2 Vols. 8vo, 1856. 
 
 SABBATH LEISURE ; or, RELIGIOUS RECREATIONS. 
 
 In Prose and Verse. 8vo, 1857. 
 MAN'S ORIGIN, DUTY, AND DESTINY. 12mo, 1857. 
 A REVISED ENGLISH BIBLE : THE WANT OF THE 
 
 CHURCH, AND THE DEMAND OF THE AGE. 
 
 8vo, 1857. 
 THE CONFESSIONAL: A VIEW OF ROMANISM. 
 
 8vo, 1859. 
 
 REASONS WHY I AM A UNITARIAN. 8vo, 1860. 
 
 Third Edition, British and Foreign Unitarian Associa- 
 tion, price 2s. 6d., 1872. 
 
 HYMNS FOR THE PUBLIC SERVICES OF THE 
 
 CHURCH OF CHRIST. 12mo, price 3s., 1860. 
 24mo, price Is. 6d., 1862. 
 
 THE PROGRESS OF RELIGIOUS THOUGHT, AS 
 ILLUSTRATED IN THE PROTESTANT CHURCH 
 OF FRANCE. 8vo, price 5s., 1861. 
 
 THE CHRISTIAN YEAR: A SERVICE BOOK FOR 
 PUBLIC WORSHIP, compiled from the Bible. 8vo, 
 1861.
 
 BY JOHN R. BEARD, D.D. 107 
 
 A MANUAL OF RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION, from the 
 French of Dr. Reville. 8vo, 1862. 
 
 THE HANDBOOK OF FAMILY DEVOTION, from the 
 German of Heinrich Zschokke's " Stunden der Andacht " 
 (Devotional Meditations), the favourite Manual of the late 
 Prince Albert. 8vo, 1862. 
 
 THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF THEODORE PARKER, 
 from the French of Dr. Reville. 8vo, 1865. 
 
 CHRIST THE INTERPRETER OF SCRIPTURE, showing 
 how to read the Bible wisely and profitably, with a Pre- 
 liminary Essay on the Sources and Guarantees of the Gos- 
 pel History. 8vo, 1865. 
 
 DISCOURSES ON THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY, form- 
 ing A Memorial to the Memorial Hall. 8vo, 1866. 
 
 A MANUAL OF CHRISTIAN EVIDENCE, containing as 
 an Antidote to Current Materialistic Tendencies, particu- 
 larly as found in the Writings of Ernest Renan, an Out- 
 line of the Manifestation of God in the Bible, in Provi- 
 dence, in History, in the Universe, and in the Lord and 
 Saviour, Jesus Christ. 8vo, 1868. 
 
 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SATAN, with Illustrations. 
 Williams and Norgate, London; crown 8vo, in cloth, 
 7s. 6d.
 
 IStorhs in (general Sftter&toe, 
 
 JOHN R. BEA.RD, D.D. 
 
 THE VISITOR OF THE POOR, from the French of Baron 
 Degerando. 8vo, 1833. 
 
 AN ILLUSTRATED ITINERARY OF THE COUNTY 
 OF LANCASTER, by Cyrus Redding, Esq., and John 
 R. Beard. 4to, 1842. 
 
 *LATIN MADE EASY. Ninth Edition. 12mo, 3s. 6d,, 
 
 1848. 
 
 *A KEY TO LATIN MADE EASY. 12mo, Is. 6d., 1853. 
 
 THE PEOPLE'S BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY. 2 
 Vols. 12mo, 5s., 1851. 
 
 VOICES FROM CAPTIVITY. 8vo, 1852. 
 
 THE EVENING BOOK. 12mo, 1852. 
 
 THE LIFE OF TOUSSAINT L'OUVERTURE. 8vo, 1853. 
 
 CASSELL'S LESSONS in ENGLISH, 12mo, 3s. \ 
 
 latin, „ Sf.|jgS5S5 
 
 KEY TO, Is. 6d. ^ff ar 
 
 GREEK „ 4s./ 
 
 Several Editions. 
 
 *0 AS SELL'S LATIN DICTIONARY, in Two Parts :— 1, 
 Latin-English; 2. English-Latin. By J. R. Beard, D.D., 
 and Charles Beard, B.A. 8vo, 8s., 1854. 
 
 School Edition. 3s. 6d. 
 
 MANUALS FOB, THE SELF-TAUGHT: — 
 
 i. SELF-CULTURE; or, WHAT TO LEARN, HOW TO 
 LEARN, WHEN TO LEARN. 8vo, 5s., 1859. 
 
 2. THE RATIONAL PRIMER ; or, " HOW CAN I LEARN 
 
 TO READ ? " 8vo, 63., 1 860. 
 
 3. AN EASY INTRODUCTION TO THE ART OF 
 
 LETTER WRITING, comprising, together with a series 
 of Original Models, Instructions in English Grammar, and 
 Composition. 8vo, 6d., 1860. 
 
 Works marked thus * may still be procured through Messrs. Simpkin, Mar- 
 shall, and Co., or Messrs. Cassell, Tetter, and Galpin, London.
 
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