The only God whom our thoughts can rest on and our hearts can
cling to, and our consciences can recognize is the God whose image
dwells in our own souls. The grand ideas of Power, Reason, Wisdom, Love,
Rectitude, Holiness, Blessedness, that is, of all God's attributes, come
from within, from the action of our own spiritual nature. Many indeed
think that they learn God from marks of design and skill in the outward
world; but our ideas of design and skill, of a determining cause, of an
end or purpose, are derived from consciousness, from our own souls. Thus
the soul is the spring of our knowledge of God."[241]
The creed of the Unitarians must be studied as one would take soundings
at sea. The measurement of one place is no guarantee of the depth in
another. What was believed twenty years ago, may not be endorsed by the
leaders of to-day. One writer of their fold says: "Unitarianism is
loose, vague, general, indeterminate in its elements and
formularies."[242] When George Putnam installed Mr. Fosdick over the
Hollis Street Church, he said with commendable candor, "There is no
other Christian body of which it is so impossible to tell where it
begins and where it ends.
Pages:
844
845
846
847
848
849
850
851
852
853
854
855
856
857
858
859
860
861
862
863
864
865
866
867
868