In 17S7 King's Chapel in Boston, originally an Episcopal church, the first established in New England, modified the ritual of the Church by the excision of the more orthodox and Trini tarian phrases, and ordained James Freeman (q.v.) as minister of the first avowedly Uni tarian church in America. In 1805, when Henry Ware (q.v.), known to he a decided liberal. was appointed professor of divinity at Harvard Col lege, the lines were drawn between the orthodox and Unitarian parties in the New England churches. In 1819 William Ellery' Charming, minister of the Federal Street Church in Boston, preached at Baltimore a sermon which became famous as the Unitarian Declaration of Inde pendence, and within a year nearly one hundred and fifty Congregational churches in New Eng land had declared their adhesion to Channing's position. (See CIIANNING, WILLIAM ELLERY. ) In 1825 representatives of these churches united in establishing the American Unitarian Asso ciation, and began organic progress as a united religious body. The National Conference was formed in II:465, and the International Council of Unitarian and other Liberal Religious Thinkers and Workers in 1900.
The briefest definitions of the Unitarian faith are such as these: "Christianity as Christ preached and lived it—not faith in Jesus, but the faith of Jesus:" or "the affirmation of the present life of God in the soul of man:" o• "the two great commandments applied:" or "the affirmation of the humanity of God and the divinity of man." Unitarianism is not so much a system of opinions as a habit of mind and a principle of conduct. Unitarians ask no one to sign a creed. because they believe that dogmas are not essential to religious life. What seems to them essential is not a transient form of opin ion, but a method of truth-seeking and the prac tice of righteousness. Unitarians believe in the unity to be discerned in all natural laws and processes; they hold that religion is natural, that faith is a matter not of tradition, but of personal insight, and that the true way to learn of the doctrines is by obeying the will of God.
Unitarians believe in one God, the Father, not in a Trinity of persons in the Godhead. They believe that Jesus is a son of God, not that he is God the son; they recognize him as the great teacher of spiritual truth and the example of the noble life, but they do not accept him as God, the equal of the Heavenly Father. They do not believe in worshiping Christ. but in fol lowing him, and they discover no need of a mediator between God and man. Unitarians be lieve in the Holy Spirit, not as the third person in the Godhead, but as the name for God's spiritual influence in the hearts of men. They
consider all men God's children, not merely His creatures, and therefore they declare the dig nity, not the depravity, of human nature. The doctrines of the fall of man and of sacrificial atonement, have, therefore. for Unitarians no reality or significance. Unitarians believe that the Bible contains the Word of God, not that every word it contains is God's word; they use the Bible as an oracle of the spiritual life to touch the ,conscience and to draw the soul to God. They hold that salvation is won, not through miraculous substitution, hut through the energies of a good life: they hold that fruitful ness is the test of religious vitality. To them heaven and hell are not places of bliss and misery, but states or conditions of the soul; each man making for himself his own heaven or hell and carrying it with him wherever lie goes. Unitarians find an adequate basis for religious organization in purpose to do good and to be good.
There are in the United States about 460 Uni tarian churches, with 554 ministers. In Great Britain and Ireland there are about 400 churches; in Hungary. 125; and the movement is represented by churches and individuals in every civilized land. In Great Britain and America these churches are purely congregational in government. In Hungary a modified epis copacy prevails. As is to he expected from the content of the Unitarian habit of mind, its energies have been expended not in the iipbuild ing of a denomination or of ecclesiastical in stitutions, but in philanthropy, literature, and public-spirited service. In England we find in connection with this movement during the last century many eminent scientists, scholars, and leaders among women. In America, while the Unitarian churches have never contained more than one two-hundredth part of the population. yet the members of these churches have been conspicuous out of all proportion to their num ber in public life.
The chief working organizations of the Uni tarians are the American Unitarian Association, Boston. Mass.: the British and Foreign Uni tarian Association, London: the Consistory of the Hungarian Churches. Klausenburg. Hungary: the Japan Unitarian Association, Tokio, Japan: the Icelandic Unitarian Association, Winnipeg, Manitoba, etc. In general alliance with these bodies are the Protestantenrer•cin of Germany, the Protestor/ten/toad of Holland. the Brahmo soma] of India, and organizations of the liberal Protestants in France, Switzerland, and Scan dinavia.