ty, spiritual
ignorance,--in short, of puerility and superstition involved in a large
part of the appeals, the preaching, the cant terms, the popular dogmas,
the current conversation of Christendom,--are discouraging evidences how
backward is the religious thought of our day, as compared with its
general thought; how little harmony there is between our schools and our
churches, our thinkers and our religious guides, our political and
national institutions and our popular theology. It is not
Christianity--the rational, thorough, all-embracing Gospel of
Christ,--which throws its blessed sanctities over and around our whole
humanity,--which owns and consecrates our whole nature and our whole
life--which is thus taught. It is a system which is narrower than
Judaism, and compared with which Romanism is a princely and magnificent
theology. I say advisedly, that if Protestantism endorses the vulgar
notions of a God-cursed world,--a fallen race,--a commercial
atonement,--a doomed and hell-devoted humanity,--a mysterious
conversion,--a Church which is a sort of a life-boat hanging round a
wreck that may carry off a few women and selfishly-affrighted men,
leaving the bolder, braver, larger portion to go down with the ship; if
this be the sum and substance of religion,--if these notions be the
grounds of the late religious excitement and the doctrines which gave
it power,[243]--then it is not so true to human nature, its wants and
woes, its various and manifold tastes, talents, and faculties, as the
old Catholic system,--and that, instead of trembling at the growth and
prospects of Romanism in this country, we should more reasonably rejoice
in its triumphs, as the worthier occupant of the confidence and
affection of the people. But this narrow system, with all its arrogant
claims to be the only Evangelical faith, is not Protestantism; or,
rather, is not mere Protestantism."[244]

But the indeterminateness of Unitarian theology does not warrant us in
passing over its tenets, as stated by writers held in good repute in
that Church. It would be unfair, however, to claim that these are
doctrines to which each must inflexibly adhere. The Unitarians neither
exact nor desire conformity to authority; in fact they have no
authority. Reason is left to place its own construction upon the truths
of revelation. What, then, is the general Unitarian sentiment on those
subjects whose essential importance is acknowledged by all Evangelical
Church