a grand spectacle...

Ezra Stiles Gannett was an excellent evangelist for the new AUA and an early officer. It was said by a contemporary that if they had had 50 Gannetts Unitarianism would have swept the country. At the same time, he was often nearly crippled with insecurity about his gifts (replacing William Ellery Channing will do that to a preacher...)

In this sermon, Gannett presents a very central, and very positive, view of what Unitarianism is about-life.

"I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly." John x:x

The doctrine of " Life," though it has not received from Christian men the attention to which from its place in the Gospel it is entitled, is really the heart of the Gospel, the innermost of what may justly be styled the doctrines of grace. " I am come," said Jesus, " that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly." How could he have described the design of his mission in plainer words? Abundance of life, — growth, force, satisfaction, — all that enters into our idea of a vigorous vitality,—this is the ultimate purpose of the Divine economy in Christ.

What a grand spectacle is a true life, — severe in its rectitude, sublime in its purpose, beneficent in its action; a life devoted to God, though spent among men; a life sincere and therefore fresh, laborious and therefore useful, above low aims and mean arts; wise in its faith, generous in its ardor, sweet in its spirit, devout in its aspiration! How do the honors and praises and pleasures of the world fade into dimness before the splendor of a righteousness like this! What a depth of Divine philosophy was there in that saying, commonplace as it may seem to us who have heard it read from our childhood, " A man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth "!...

Now I say that the truth which distinguishes our religious body is that of which our text is the concise yet sufficient expression ; which other portions of the Church, indeed, have not always failed to recognize as a part of the gospel, — how could they, when it was so plain ? — but which they have treated with comparative neglect. It is our office to rescue it from such neglect. I claim for it priority and sovereignty...

Our whole life, outward and inward, may be " hidden with Christ in God," because it shall all — all, from meanest toil to holiest prayer — be that living sacrifice, of which Christ is both the author and the type...

Oh for the men who shall preach " Christ the life of the world," with a zeal ready to cry out, Woe is me, if I preach not the living gospel! O God! raise thou up another Wesley, another Luther, another Paul, with the gospel of life in their hearts and on their tongues, to send it through the land, across the sea, around the earth! O Christ! inspire thou another John with thine own temper, that his words, like those of thine apostle, may be full of persuasion, declaring that " God so loved us, that He sent His only begotten Sou into the world, that we might live through him."

"That we might live through him." Bear these words in your remembrance, believer, wherever you go: they shall be your defence and your solace. Repeat them in the ears of your fellow-men: the weary heart of society will listen and rejoice. Pronounce them where sin gathers its votaries, and the dead shall start into life. Inscribe them on the tomb, and our burial- places shall be known as the gateways of immortality."

Blessings