The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1898-12-13

Liberal thought in matters pertain
ing to religion may be like "conserva-
tism'' in politics or affairs generally.
It may be in the one case SO verv
liberal as to destroy the fundamen-
tails of true religion and piety, as in
politics the conservatism may be so
broad as to amount to a positive ne
cation of what is right and necessary.
Some religionists are so very liberal
they would open wide the doors of the
Church to all manner of belief, n
cannot distinguish between the false
and the true. There is a right and a
wrong, but ordinarily the middle
ground is the safe and prope ground.
While it may be really obnoxious to
criticism to be so very liberal" it is
also equally offensive to be too ex-
treme. When we see a Boston Uni
tartan organ facilitating itself on the
spread of liberal thought" among the
Protestant churches, We are suspicious
as we are when the devil quotes scrip
ture," or infidelity or paganism talks
of Bible truth and the a Of life. Not
IHdt LII Unitarian i WIIhCo dAN Nc
ceitful like his Satanic majesty, or an
infdei in the manner of Bob Ingersoll,
but the rejoicing in liberal thought
may be to so broaden the doors that
moGern pagans or rejecters OF Christ
as Divine may be readily recognized
as orthodox and sound to the core. So
broad is liberal thought" that The
o-:+1, 1n0c ,r sr,n rionc r.
sees, that with evident satisfaction and
pleasure, it asks:
"Where are the men in any might
ened community who really believe
that any just and friendly neighbor
Is in danger of eternal doom for not
belonging to the right kind of church?
Where, indeed, ar> the women any
longer who lie az AXE nights praying
for the conversion Of good Unitarian
or Universalist husbands? The Uni
tartan leaven is the conviction that
the good life may doubtless be lived,
and is actually lived, apart from any
particular scheme of doctrine. This
heaven is all abroad in the world. The
essential teaching Of the Unitarian
churches has not concerned itself with
the metaphysical issue of the Trinity
or the new criticism of the Bible or
with the nature of Jesus
Christ is a good, wise, great man.,
sent on a special mission, as Moses and
other Biblical characters We're, but He
is purely, essentially man and not God.
That is Unitarianism as to the Saviour.
1t is no more Christian than any other
modern religion that denies the DiVinl-
ty of Jesus. The strange thing with
liberal thought is that it thinks what
Jesus never thought and says what the
Christ never said. He believed
and said that He was Divine. The Uni
tartan Solomon knows more than the
Master knew. Hear We Him. He said
He was equal with God. In the be-
ginning"-before worlds were made
was the Word, and the Word was
with God, and the Word was God. The
same was in the beginning with God
We would emphasize "was" God and
with" God. "All things were made by
Him"-"all things" not a part" were
made not by some other being, but b
Him." Listen: without Him was not
any thing made that was mad
Therefore the Jews sought the more
to kill Him, because He said
also that God was His Father, making
Himself equal with God" He ought
to die, because He made Himself the
Son of God" Il n My Father are
one that We may know and
believe thai the Father is in me, and
I in Him. "Who. being in the form
of God. thought it not robbery to be
.aoual with God" 'sFOr in Him dwell 4.
eth all the the fulness of the Godhead
bodily"