Platonic philosophy came in, there was a gradual, but rapid departure from the truth, until, after long and violent struggles, the Christian world settled down into the Athanasian Creed. It was undoubtedly by the permission of Divine Providence, but it was through the direct influence of the civil power, and the result of the most terrible persecutions. From that time until the sixteenth century, comparative darkness was over the face of the Christian world. But no sooner was the light of the Reformation kindled, than the Unitarian doctrine again appeared. Resisted alike by Catholic and Protestant, it was held at the peril of a man's life; yet many were found to profess it. In Geneva, Michael Servetus was burned to death, at the instigation and by the authority of Calvin, who thereby gave another proof that "the blood of the martyr is the seed of the Church," for Geneva is now one of the strongholds of the Unitarian faith. We might name many others, in Germany, in France, and in England, who bore a like testimony; for from that time to this our faith has never been without its martyrs and faithful confessors. Nor have we any reason to be ashamed of those who have borne our name. They have been comparatively few, for the doctrine has been unpopular and opposed by all the strength of the Christian world. But although until modern times they were few in number, they have been great in intellect, profound in learning, and eminent in piety. John Milton, England's great poet; Sir Isaac Newton, her greatest philosopher; John Locke, her profoundest metaphysician; Nathaniel Lardner, author of the most learned work on Christian evidences ever written,were all of them close students of the Scripture, and all of them believers in the Divine Unity as we receive it. Even We Dr. Isaac Watts, whose hymns are the music of every church, became in the last years of his life a Unitarian. If great names could support a cause, these would do it. might add to them many others of the living and the dead, equally good. But we do not rely on such arguments. We appeal to the Sacred Scriptures alone, to the glorious company of the Apostles and to Christ their living head. Yet surely we may be pardoned, when we hear our Church vilified and ourselves excluded from the Christian communion, if we remind our opponents that so many of the names of which Christendom is most proud are found in the Unitarian ranks. In the present day, we have every reason to be satisfied with the progress of our faith. It is extending itself far more rapidly than most persons are aware; not only by the growth of Unitarian societies, so called, but by the diffusion of Unitarian ideas everywhere. So far as they are true, we hope that they will continue to prevail more and more. If they are untrue, if they are a perversion of God's word, we hope that they may soon pass away. If we hold error, we do so ignorantly, for we honestly believe that we hold the truth as it is in Jesus. I will therefore close this sermon in the words, almost the dying words, of Dr. Watts, in his solemn address to the Deity. As sincere inquirers after Scriptural truth, we may adopt them as our own. "Dear and blessed God! hadst thou been pleased, in any one plain Scripture, to have informed me which of the different opinions about the Holy Trinity, among the contending parties of Christians, had been true, thou knowest with how much zeal, satisfaction, and joy, my unbiassed heart would have opened itself to receive and embrace the di vine discovery. Hadst thou told me plainly, in any single text, that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are three real distinct persons in thy Divine nature, I had never suffered myself to be bewildered in so many doubts, nor embarrassed with so many strong fears of assenting to the mere inventions of men, instead of Divine doctrine; but I should have humbly and immediately accepted thy words, so far as it was possible for me to understand them, as the only rule of my faith. Or hadst thou been pleased so to express and include this proposition in the several scattered parts of thy book, from whence my reason and conscience might with ease find out and with certainty infer this doctrine, I should have joyfully employed all my reasoning powers, with their utmost skill and activity, to have found out this inference, and ingrafted it into my soul." and "Thou hast taught me, Holy Father, by thy prophets, that the way of holiness in the times of the Gospel, or under the kingdom of the Messiah, shall be a highway, a plain easy path; so that the wayfaring man, or the stranger, "though a fool, shall not err therein.' And thou hast called the poor and the ignorant, the mean and the foolish things of this world, to the knowledge of thyself and thy Son, and taught them to receive and partake of the salvation which thou hast provided. But how can such weak creatures ever take in so strange, so difficult, and so abstruse a doctrine as this, in the explication and defence whereof multitudes of men, even men of learning and piety, have lost themselves in infinite subtilties of dispute, and endless mazes of darkness? And can this strange and perplexing notion of three real persons going to make up one true God be so necessary and so important a part of that Christian doctrine, which, in the Old Testament and the New, is rep resented as so plain and so easy, even to the meanest understandings?" Such were the last thoughts of a pious and learned man, after more than twenty years of examination of the Scriptures. They are full of instruction to us, and well calculated to confirm us in our present belief. If such a man as Dr. Watts was forced out of Trinitarianism by prayerful and conscientious study of the Bible, we, as Unitarians, have reason to thank God and take courage. |