Unitarianism · Chapter 3New England
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As in the Old Country, so in the colonies of North America, a great evangelical revival took place towards the middle of the eighteenth century. John Wesley the Arminian, and George Whitefield the Calvinist, were the great apostles of this movement, and the latter especially was very influential in America. The English revivalists were not alone, however; among the most powerful leaders in the colonies was Jonathan Edwards, whose name ranks very high in the records of religious philosophy in the States. Despite preliminary obstacles this preacher of the most stern and unflinching determinism produced a quite extraordinary effect at last. As usually happens, his dogmas were more easily repeated by others than his reasoning; violent excitement ran through the colonies, and it was this that gave a decisive turn to the liberalism which ultimately developed into a very memorable phase of Unitarianism. The preceding steps may be briefly indicated.
A familiar epigram preserves the acid truth that the Puritan emigrants who left England in the seventeenth century went to North America in order to worship God in their own way, and to compel everyone else to do the same. Religious liberty was certainly not understood by them as it is understood to-day. The sufferings of the Baptists and Quakers, for example, make a sad chapter of New England history. About the middle of the century, Roger Williams (1599-1683), having ventilated opinions contrary to the general Calvinism, was driven out of Salem, where he had ministered to a grateful church. His pleas for a real religious freedom were in vain, and he was forced to wander from the colonial settlements and find a precarious home among the Indians. After much privation, he succeeded in establishing a new colony at Rhode Island, where a more liberal atmosphere prevailed.
It does not appear that Williams had much influence in the general world of religious thought, but two things at least were favourable to the modification of orthodoxy. On the one hand there was inevitably a looser system of supervision in a new country, and the pressure of penal law could not be exerted so effectually as in England. On the other hand the organization of worship and teaching, though intended to be strict and complete, an intention fairly successful in practice, was actually founded upon broad principles. Each township maintained its 'parish church,' but this, originally of a Low Church or 'Presbyterian' type, was usually accommodated as years went on to a Congregational model. These churches were looked upon as centres of religious culture for the respective communities by whose regular contributions they were supported and endowed. The 'covenants' by which the members bound themselves were often expressed in terms quite simple, and even touching; the colonists were in the main faithful to the parting injunction of the famous Pastor John Robinson, who sped the 'Pilgrim Fathers' on their way with the assurance that the Lord had 'more light and truth to break forth from His Holy Word.' Occasionally, it is expressly declared by the covenanting members that theirs is an attitude of devout expectation of religious growth.
As would naturally be expected, the conditions of the earlier generations in the colonies were not in favour of a deeply studious ministry; the leaders were more frequently men of shrewd and practical piety than profound scholars. As things became more settled, and especially after the Toleration Act had secured a more assured state of feeling at home, the minds of men were set at liberty in a greater degree. Locke's works were carried across the sea, and Dr. Clarke's Arianizing writings soon followed. Apparently, the first stir of any importance was produced by the scandal of the punishment of Thomas Emlyn, the Irish clergyman who has been previously referred to. Emlyn's writings received a great advertisement, and although he managed, like Clarke, to avoid further legal difficulties by publishing a statement of his adherence to a 'Scriptural Trinity,' his defection from the orthodox dogma was clear enough and his arguments against that dogma remained. Another case which was notorious in those days was that of William Whiston (1667-1752), the well-known translator of the works of Josephus, who was dismissed from his professorship at Cambridge in 1710 for Arianism. A prolific writer and a shrewd debater, Whiston played no small part in the general leavening of opinion.
But probably the most direct of the literary influences in this direction came from the pen of Dr. John Taylor (1694-1761), one of the most able and learned of the Presbyterian divines. His treatises on Original Sin (1740) and the Atonement (1751) dealt with subjects of the profoundest importance in relation to the usual Trinitarian scheme of doctrine. Preferring, for his own part, to be known by no sectarian name but to be reckoned among 'Christians only,' Taylor was recognized far and wide as a writer extremely 'dangerous' to the ordinary type of belief. When the American revivalists were at their height, there were many quiet and staid New England ministers who found in Taylor a welcome ally against the extravagances which they witnessed and deplored. The more logical the Calvinist was, the more vivid in depicting the horrors of predestined damnation, the more vigorous these men became in denouncing such a doctrine. Perhaps the growing sense of individual liberty and personal rights had much to do with the reaction. A theory based upon the postulate of an absolute and unconditioned sovereignty divine did not accord with the growing democratic temper. Preachers began to insist, and hearers to agree, that, whatever 'salvation' is, it must be reasonable if reasonable creatures are to enjoy its benefits. Here also, as among the English latitude-men, the conviction grew that the essentials of a Christian belief must be few and simple and these such as plain men could understand and discuss; and here, as among the sober Dissenters at home, men looked askance on unintelligent outbursts of emotion.
The process of change was not very fast, and a good many who were sensible of change in their opinions were reluctant to accept new doctrinal designations. Arians they might be, but they preferred to be known as standing by a 'Scriptural Christianity.' For, whatever new books might be written, the Bible remained their chief study and their support in discussion. Keen, rational rather than mystical, yet deeply interested in moral progress and human elevation, these American divines were much of a mind with their English brethren whose path lay in the same direction. One of the most influential preachers was Charles Chauncey (1706-87); who for sixty years was minister at the 'First Church,' Boston. His theology was Arian and 'Universalist' (i.e. holding the doctrine of a final universal salvation); his Anti-Calvinism came out forcibly in his protests against the revivalist excesses. It is recorded of him that in his youth, disgusted by noisy fanatics, he prayed God never to make him an orator. His prayer was granted—and still he was a power!
With the rise of the new liberalism in the American colonies no name is more conspicuous than that of Jonathan Mayhew (1721-66), whose eloquence was of a more modern type than most of his day. He is credited with having deeply moved many who became leaders in turn, whether as ministers or laymen. After the interruption of normal development inevitable during the War of Independence, things moved more rapidly. The French Revolution evoked the warmest sympathy in the United States, and its effect on religion there was largely to increase a sense of the worth of man. 'Universalism,' the final restoration of all, became a conspicuous doctrine with some. The need for practical measures to uplift the general life here was a theme more to the mind of others. The distinctly 'Unitarian' trend was from the first associated with this eager attention to the higher culture. Harvard College, in the very heart of New England, rapidly developed into a fruitful source of the newer ideas, which were embodied in the lives of 'statesmen, merchants, physicians, lawyers, and teachers'; and thus the community, in all its more vigorous members, became charged with a fresh conception of life and religion.
In the first decade of the nineteenth century we begin to trace publications more or less distinctly Unitarian. One of these was the Monthly Anthology, the pioneer among American literary magazines. One of its two editors was the Rev. William Emerson, father of Ralph Waldo Emerson. As the divergence of ideas grew more distinct debate began to be fierce. The new magazine took a bold line, while many liberals were still hesitating. In 1808 the trouble came to the surface. Harvard was denounced by the orthodox party, in consequence of the appointment of a liberal minister, Henry Ware, to a professorship involving pastoral care of the students. An orthodox rival school was set up at Andover. A few years later a pamphlet appeared giving letters alleged to have been sent to England by Boston ministers reporting that a certain number were Unitarians. The name was unwelcome at the time, especially because it was associated with the 'humanitarianism' then becoming widely taught in England. The implicated ministers, being charged with cowardly evasion, replied with warmth; they were, in fact, mostly Arians, and thus their views really were different from the English type. Moreover, again in contrast with the English, they expressed strong dislike of controversy; all they asked was to be left alone to proclaim the 'Simple Christianity' in which they believed.
The upshot showed, however, that controversy was not to be avoided, and during twenty years from 1815 onwards it raged more or less severely. An epoch in this long and regrettable warfare was marked by a sermon preached at Baltimore in 1819. The preacher was one of the most famous men on the Unitarian roll, William Ellery Channing (1780-1842). Already eminent, he continued to hold a position unique in the religious life of New England; his saintly character and his noble if simple eloquence made him a leader in spite of himself. For a long time he had maintained a mediating position—all through his life he resolutely disclaimed sectarianism; but in 1819, after years of discussion, it was obvious that, for good or evil, the old dogma and the new spirit lay far apart. From that date liberals and conservatives in the old Congregational system of New England were divided, and 'Unitarian Christianity,' which was the subject of Channing's discourse, was a recognized type in the land. In 1825 the American Unitarian Association was founded. It was but a struggling society at first, not for lack of sympathy with its principle, but because many Unitarians, like Channing, so strongly disliked the notion of forming a new sect that they took little interest in methods of propagandism common to most religious bodies.