Thursday, February 12, 2009

Unitarian a most pregnant word...

Yesterday, Sylvester Judd wrote in favor of "indoctrinating" our sabbath school children with the pure love of Christ. Today, the great Unity of God...

"But while love is chief, it is only one of our doctrines. There is the great and goodly doctrine of the Divine Unity. This primarily means that God is one, that he has no equal. The teacher will show the child how the Bible asserts, and nature in all its manifestations confirms, this doctrine. But the doctrine of the Divine Unity means much more than this ; it expresses other ideas besides the nature of God. Unity, Unitarianism, a most pregnant word, if you but consider its scope and amplitude...This word Unitarian is a glorious word, of a vast and most comprehensive scope. " Unite " is from the same primitive, and the famous word " Atonement" is descended from the same stock. Christ prays that we all may be one together with him, and with God,—unitarianized, atoned. God would gather all things together in one, unitarianize all things. This universal communion is in our minds when we speak of Unitarianism; and such a consummation is what we desire when we plead for the indoctrination of the children.

Unitarianism, as we define it, as we would have it taught, as it lies in the Bible, is no shallow thing, no half-way system, no cold dogma, no barren statement. It is life and spirit. It is like Christ, its great representative, unto us wisdom and sanctification and redemption. It rises, indeed, into the sublimest region of speculation ; but it stays not there, it condescends to our very feet, it grapples with the whole of our being, the full circle of time and eternity. There is the doctrine of the Fatherhood of God, taught, illustrated, beaming like the sun, all through Scripture. There is the doctrine of universal brotherhood,—rare, precious, august doctrine of Christianity. There is the doctrine of the dignity, the worth of human nature, upon which the churches round about, the preaching round about, a thousand influences round about, are perpetually crowding, but which is to be reasserted and defended, and inculcated over and over again ; a doctrine often declared and always implied in Scripture; implied in every law God has given, in every dispensation he has made ; implied alike in cursing and beatitude, alike in penalty and reward ; implied in the very fact of sin, in the possibilities of guilt, in all the heinousness of transgression, as well as in the beauty of holiness and the joys of virtue."

Blessings

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