Unitarians believe in salvation as a purely human act, involving only human powers, the results of which are effective in changing the character of a man's life here in this world. A salvation which aims to bring about a change in the sentence which a (supreme judge" has already pronounced against the soul of a man, a salvation which seeks to save one from terrible penalties inflicted for eternity beyond the tomb, does not appeal to Unitarians as being helpful or in accord with the ,facts. They reject the idea that sin is purely or primarily an offense against God. Sin is moral and not theological in its nature. They cannot see how there is any sin in a man's disbelieving any or all the doctrines em bodied in the church creeds. It may be in defensible to refuse to belong to a church and to participate in the great sacraments, but they decline to regard this as a violation of the moral law. According ,to their idea sin is wrong more or less deliberately committed by one person against another. Any word or thought or sentiment or deed which in any way works against moral and spiritual well-being, that is sin. From this it follows that the first and only step which a person can take toward salvation is not merely to strive to right the wrong but to so change himself and his plan of life that he will henceforth do right and desire and plan only to do right. Consequently Unitarians cannot think of salvation as a means of escaping the consequences of sin. A man must accept the consequences of his words, of his thoughts, of his deeds. From this there is no possible escape and ought not to be. A man enters the path of salvation ,only when he refuses to do or think or speak evil. And this every man, in a greater or less degree, is capable of doing. Unitarians reject the preva lent belief that man is unable to save himself, and so must needs plead his helplessness be fore a great supernatural saviour. They hold that by a continual struggle to master tempta tions and provocations from within and with out a man can, and in no other way can he, become a saved man. In their judgment salva tion is seldom a completed act. Few if any are wholly saved. The degree of salvation which a person enjoys is the measure of his triumph over injustice, greed, hatred and the thousand and one evils which beset a man in the world. In so far as ritual acts or belief in supernatural influence spur a man to righteous endeavor such play a part in his salvation. There is, so Unitarians believe, the power of salvation with in every person. Every effort which a person makes toward rightness of life is this saving power in operation. The purpose of salvation, as Unitarians conceive it, is not to secure a place in a heaven beyond, but to secure an ever increasing measure of heaven-likeness here.
What Unitarians believe concerning the future can easily be inferred from this. The idea of a city" above and a (bottom less pit" below is dismissed by them as with out warrant of fact; it has not even symbolic value. They have a (great hope" of future ex istence, but they stop short of expressing any definite knowledge concerning the what or the where of such existence. They hold as a hope, with some it is quite a positive belief, that the future can be nothing other than a continuance of this life. Unitarians generally feel quite sure that whatever happens after death, the soul that has lived its years on earth in sin will not, as a reward for certain theological beliefs, enter into a state of perfect bliss and holiness, neither will such a soul because of lack of such beliefs enter into a pit or state of horror and despair from which there is no es cape. There is no great gulf of difference separating the future frpm the present. The soul passes on with all the character it has won on earth unchanged. The idea of a soul being sentenced eternally to happiness or misery is rejected by Unitarians as being utterly unjust. Death does not determine the soul's character for all eternity. Death is not doom. If the soul lives on it is the belief of Unitarians that its continued existence must be amid conditions which allow of unceasing progress toward perfection or constant deterioration, as each soul shall elect. In the life that is to be as
well as in the life that now is the soul must reap what it sows. An eminent Unitarian scholar well expresses the general Unitarian attitude in these words: °The doctrine of im mortality is one in which Unitarians do not take a very acute interest. Their respect for human nature— their conviction as to the im perativeness of the moral law, their profound faith in the goodness of the earthly life as a part of the goodness of all life rightly under stood — all these combine to fix their attention rather on this life than on the life after death.
The manner of compiling the existing canon of the Bible coupled with the fact that the men engaged in the task did not know more than the scholars of to-day makes it impossible for Unitarians to accept the belief that this book is God's inspired and infallible Word. The fact that there are in other religions scriptures believed to be inspired by deity and infallible takes from the idea that the Bible is a sacred book whatever distinction and au thority such an idea is supposed to possess. Unitarians, however, hold the Bible in high esteem. They treasure it as one of the great; perhaps the greatest of the religious books of the world. And though they concede that it speaks with authority on some matters it is only the authority of the man who sees clearly and speaks accurately. So an utterance which has authority in the Bible would have no less au thority if found in any other hook. Nor is a thing true or more true because it is in the Bible. Whether in the Bible or out of it a thing is true only to the degree that it squares with knowledge and experience. To Unitari ans the Bible is an inspiration, never a finality. It is read from Unitarian pulpits partly from custom, but most of all because it contains many passages of surpassing ethical beauty and inspiration, and usually only such passages are read. They use it in their Sunday schools be cause it deals with the history of a great peo ple, and largely because it discloses the sources and character of many religious, political, ritualistic and ethical ideas which have shaped and directed Christian civilization. But Uni tarians never lose sight of the fact that the Bible is distinctly a Hebrew rather than a Christian production. But that fact does not detract from nor add to its ethical and spiritual excellencies. From these excellencies Uni tarians will continue to draw ethical and spiritual encouragement and illumination.
The Church according to the Unitarian understanding of things is a purely human institution. With all due respect to its tradi tions and appreciative of the good it has helped man to achieve, and wholly mindful of what in the way of spiritual comfort and strength it has been and is to many, Unitarians cannot ignore what seem so plainly to them to be the facts that the Church within Christianity is comprised of a series of churches each main taining a separate existence by the imposition of fairly definite rules of exclusion. The idea that some one Church is the one and only true church does not seem to be warranted. Nor does the idea that there is somewhere within, behind, above existing churches a sort of true, mystic church of the Spirit, which will some day be established, appeal to them as having any force of truth. The Church is simply an organization of 'man's religious interests. The institution, no matter what its traditions and claims and forms, can have no authority above that which proceeds naturally from the intel lectual and spiritual attainments of the persons composing it. Like every other institution it has a right to require that those seeking ad mission shall go through certain forms and pass a satisfactory examination on matters of belief, but to offer eternal rewards or pro nounce eternal doom is wholly beyond its right and power. To belong to a church cannot secure any one a privileged position after death. The Church is a saving and righteous force in a community when and only to the extent that its members are living examples of purest and noblest character.