John Frederick Smith

“ Such thinkers were attracted by one or more of the dominant and pervading principles or tendencies of his extraordinary mind. For he felt, if he did not adequately expound, the harmony of the universe, the fundamental unity of being and thought, of knowledge and will, of the divine and the human ”

“ To not a few modern Unitarian leaders the bond which connects them with a specifically Unitarian organization is the spirit and tendency of the larger movement for which it happens to provide freer play than the orthodox churches, while they repudiate the imputation of belonging to a dogmatic sect. Modern Unitarians have also, both in Europe and America, emphatically and successfully resisted the inclination of some of their number to lay down, though in the most general terms, a creed of Unitarianism. ”

“ Swedenborg's theosophic system is most briefly and comprehensively presented in his Divine Love and Divine Wisdom. The point of view from which God must be regarded is that of His being the Divine Man. His esse is infinite love; His manifestation, form, or body is infinite wisdom. Divine love is the self-subsisting life of the universe. From God emanates a divine sphere, which appears in the spiritual world as a sun, and from this spiritual sun again proceeds the sun of the natural world. ”

“ Swedenborgianism.—Swedenborgianism, as professed by Swedenborg's followers, is based on the belief of Swedenborg's claims to have witnessed the last judgment, or the second advent of the Lord, with the inauguration of the New Church through the new system of doctrine promulgated by him and derived from the Scriptures, into the true sense of which he was the first to be introduced. The doctrines of the New Church are those of the internal sense of the word as revealed to Swedenborg, who received them into his understanding and published them through the press and not as a preacher. ”

“ UNITARIANISM.⁠The term Unitarianism in its widest sense includes certain lines of the great religious and theo logical movement or revolution of the Reformation in the 16th century, when this is regarded as the commencement of the process of the humanization of theology and ethics on the basis of the autonomy of the human mind. ”

“ In 1825 the American Unitarian Association was formed, mainly for the diffusion of Unitarian literature and the support of poor congregations. At that time the Unitarian churches numbered about 1 22. Twenty years later they were some 280, while now they are about 370. The theological colleges of the body are the Divinity School of Harvard University, which is, like Manchester New College, undenominational, and the Theological School of Meadville. As in England so in America the theology of Unitarians has passed through marked changes, which have been attended by conflicts more or less acute. ”

“ Toland is generally classed with the deists, but at the time when he wrote his first book, Christianity not Mysterious, he was decidedly opposed to deism, nor does Leland deal with that work as an exposition of deistical views. The design of the work was to show, by an appeal mainly to the tribunal of Scripture, that there are no facts or doctrines of the "gospel," or "the Scriptures," or "Christian revelation" which, when revealed, are not perfectly plain, intelligible, and reasonable, being neither contrary to reason nor incomprehensible to it. ”

“ Some of the New Church day schools are amongst the largest and most efficient in the kingdom. From the same report it appears that the New Church has societies or institutions in most British colonies as well as in the principal countries of Europe. The report of the General Convention of the New Jerusalem in the United States, 1885, gives the names of 116 societies in America, with nearly the same number of ordinary ministers. In Italy, Sweden, and Prussia there is a Swedenborg mission sustained by help from England and America. ”

“ For a marked feature of the late history of the Unitarian churches is the growing tendency they exhibit of working out to their logical results some of the wider principles of the Reformation to which they ultimately owe their origin, rather than the design of formulating and propagating systems of theology. ”

“ The main reason for continued separation from the larger liberal churches, whether Established or Dissenting, earnestly urged by many Unitarians of this class, is the use in those churches of theological formularies which modern theology regards as of historic interest only. The number of congregations in England and Wales generally described as Unitarian is about 300, nearly half of which date from between 1662 and 1750, and nearly all of which have undogmatic trust-deeds. ”

“ The title and the philosophical principles of Toland's book were singularly akin to those of Locke's famous work, The Reasonableness of Christianity, published the year before; and Locke's opponents seized the opportunity of fathering upon the philosopher the doctrines of his more heterodox and less guarded disciple. Thus Toland's work became the occasion of the celebrated controversy between Stillingfleet and Locke, in which Locke takes pains to show the difference between his position and Toland's. ”

“ Neither by geometrical, nor physical, nor metaphysical principles had he succeeded in reaching and grasping the infinite and the spiritual, or in elucidating their relation to man and man's organism, though he had caught glimpses of facts and methods which he thought only required confirmation and development. ”

“ Poland, Transylvania, England, and America are the only countries in which Unitarian congregations have existed in any numbers or for any length of time. Elsewhere, either the law of the land has rendered their existence impossible, or they have been unnecessary in consequence of the substantial adoption by the existing churches of their principles and doctrines. ”

“ An effort in 1865 to bring the right and left wings of the body into a closer confederation with a more pronounced profession of Christianity led to the formation of a Free Religious Association on the broad basis of the love of truth and goodness. ”

“ One consequence of the greater substantial agreement of the present theology of the larger number of the Unitarian churches with the scientific theology of the century is that not a few representatives of these churches disclaim the name Unitarian as one tending to perpetuate divisions which have really no right to continued existence. ”

“ Swedeuborg claimed also to have learnt by his admission into the spiritual world the true states of men in the next life, the scenery and occupations of heaven and hell, the true doctrine of Providence, the origin of evil, the sanctity and perpetuity of marriage, and to have been a witness of the “last judgment,” or the second coming of the Lord, which took place in the year 1757. ”

“ Who can refuse to see in Toland the man of wide reading and of clear intellect, and the earnest inquirer, although, as em bittered by persecutions, with every fresh book he dipped his pen in a more biting acid? ”

“ The work undoubtedly aimed a blow at some of the dogmas of later Christian times, but it claimed to be " a vindication of God's revealed will against the most unjust imputations" which occasioned "so many deists and atheists." ”