The Unitarian

From CONTROVERSIE ENDED (etc), 1673 by Henry Hedworth

.   .   I will present to the Reader a short account of those men's opinion   .  , who for distinction sake call themselves Unitarians, being so called in those places, where by the Laws of the Country they have equal Liberty of Religion with other men, (etc)

From letters by Thomas Jefferson

22 August 1813 to John Adams

"I have read Priestley's books over and over again ; and I rest on them . . . as the basis of my own faith."   (13:352)

5 June 1822 to Thomas Whittemore

� You ask my opinion on the items of doctrine in your catechism. I have never permitted myself to mediate a specified creed. These formulas have been the bane & ruin of the Christian church, its own fatal invention which thro� so many ages, made of Christendom a slaughterhouse, and at this day divides it into Casts of inextinguishable hatred to one another, witness the present inter-necine rage of all other sects against the Unitarian. The religions of antiquity had no particular formulas of creed. Those of the modern world none ; except those of the religionists calling themselves Christians, and even among these, the Quakers have none, and hence alone the harmony the quiet, the brotherly affections, the exemplary and unschismatising society of the Friends, and I hope the Unitarians will follow their happy example. �⁷

⁷ The Early Days of Thomas Whittemore, Boston, 1859, facsimile letter reproduced opp. p. 293.

22 July 1822 to Benjamin Waterhouse.

" I an not aware of the peculiar resistance to Unitarianism, which you ascribe to Pennsylvania. When I lived in Philadelphia there was a respectable congregation of that sect, with a meetinghouse and regular service which I attended, and in which Doctor Priestley officiated to numerous audiences. "   (15:391-2)

(References in parentheses given to The Writings of Thomas Jefferson,
ed. Lipscomb and Bergh, Washington 1903.)
THE RELIGION OF THOMAS JEFFERSON
by Henry Wilder Foote, 1947,
Boston : Beacon Press 1960.

8 December 1922 to James Smith (a theological writer, Ohio)

SIR,—I have to thank you for your pamphlets on the subject of Unitarianism, and to express my gratification with your efforts for the revival of primitive Christianity in your quarter. No historical fact is better established, than that the doctrine of one God, pure and uncompounded, was that of the early ages of Christianity ; and was among the efficacious doctrines which gave it triumph over the polytheism of the ancients, sickened with the absurdities of their own theology. Nor was the unity of the Supreme Being ousted from the Christian creed by the force of reason, but by the sword of civil government, wielded at the will of the fanatic Athanasius. The hocus-pocus phantasm of a God like another Cerberus, with one body and three heads, had its birth and growth in the blood of thousands and thousands of martyrs. And a strong proof of the solidity of the primitive faith, is its restoration, as soon as a nation arises which vindicates to itself the freedom of religious opinion, and its external divorce from the civil authority. The pure and simple unity of the Creator of the universe, is now all but ascendant in the Eastern States ; it is dawning in the West, and advancing towards the South ; and I confidently expect that the present generation will see Unitarianism become the general religion of the United States. The Eastern presses are giving us many excellent pieces on the subject, and Priestley's learned writings on it are, or should be, in every hand. In fact, the Athanasian paradox that one is three, and three but one, is so incomprehensible to the human mind, that no candid man can say he has any idea of it, and how can he believe what presents no idea ? He who thinks he does, only deceives himself. He proves, also, that man, once surrendering his reason, has no remaining guard against absurdities the most monstrous, and like a ship without rudder, is the sport of every wind. With such persons,gullibility which they call faith, takes the helm from the hand of reason, and the mind becomes a wreck.

I write with freedom, because while I claim a right to believe in one God, if so my reason tells me, I yield as freely to others that of believing in three. Both religions, I find, make honest men, and that is the only point society has any right to look to. Although this mutual freedom should produce mutual indulgence, yet I wish not to be brought in question before the public on this or any other subject, and I pray you to consider me as writing under that trust. I take no part in controversies, religious or political. At the age of eighty, tranquillity is the greatest good of life, and the strongest of our desires that of dying in the good will of all mankind. And with the assurance of all my good will to Unitarian and Trinitarian, to Whig and tory, accept for yourself that of my entire respect.

THE LIFE AND SELECTED WRITINGS OF THOMAS JEFFERSON
Ed. Adrienne Koch & William Peden
New York : Modern Library 1944, pp. 703-4.

8 January 1825 to Thomas Whittemore

� The population of my neighborhood is too slender, and is too much divided into other sects to maintain any one preacher well. I must therefore be contented to be a Unitarian by myself, although I know there are many around me who would become so, if once they could ear the questions fairly stated. �⁹

⁹ R. J. Honeywell, The Educational Work of Thomas Jefferson, Cambridge, 1931, p. 92.

( THE RELIGION OF THOMAS JEFFERSON )

From A BUDGET OF PARADOXES, 1872 by Augustus De Morgan

" The Unitarians in England have frequently contended that the method of proving the divinity of Jesus Christ from the the New Testament would equally prove the divinity of Moses. I have not fallen in the way of any orthodox answers specially directed at the repeated tracts written by Unitarians in proof of their assertion. If there be any, they should be more known ; if there be none, some should be written. Which ever side may be right, the treatment of this point would be indeed coming to close quarters. The heterodox assertion was first supported, it is said, by John Bidle or Biddle (1615-1662) of Magdalen College, Oxford, the earliest of the English Unitarian writers, previously known by a translation of part of Virgil and part of Juvenal.¹⁶ " (etc)

¹⁶ This was his Virgil's Bucolics and the two first Satyrs of Juvenal, 1634. [ Note by David Eugene Smith 1915. (WPT) ] Vol. I, pp. 238-9.

* * *

" The Useful Knowledge Society, starting on the principle of perfect neutrality in politics and religion, was obliged to keep strict watch against the entrance of all attempt even to look over the hedge. (etc)

It had been arranged that the head-words of Christian sects should be intrusted to members of the sects themselves, on the understanding that the articles should simply set forth the accounts which the sects themselves give of their own doctrines.   [..]   But the Unitarians were not allowed to come within the rule . . .     Under the head "Socinians"�a name repudiated by themselves�an opponent was allowed not merely to state their alleged doctrines in his own way, but to apply strong terms, such as "audacious unfairness," to some of their doings. The protests which were made against this invasion of the understanding produced, in due time, the article "Unitarian," written by one of that persuasion. We need not say that these errors have been amended in the English Cyclopædia : "   (etc)

Chicago, London : Open Court 1915,
Vol. II, pp. 293 and 294.

From OUR UNITARIAN HERITAGE, 1925 by Earl Morse Wilbur

. . this is to be the story of a progressive movement toward perfect freedom of thought and speech in religion, a freedom which has been won only in the face of odds sometimes overwhelming, . .

Boston : Beacon Press 1925, p. 5.

Please see also http://korzybski.org/rel/unitarian.html