Only we will not promise to
believe all of it to-morrow; we will not say that we will never learn
anything new; we will not make it a test of fellowship; we will admit
not only to our meeting-house, but to our church organization, if they
wish to come, people who do not believe all the articles of the creed
that we shall write. Perhaps we will admit people who do not believe
any of it; for our conception of a church is not the old conception.
What was that? That it was a sort of ark in which the saved were taken,
to be carried over the stormy sea of this life and into the haven of
eternal felicity beyond. As opposed to that, our conception of the
church is that it is a school, it is a place where souls are to be
trained, to be educated; and so we would as soon refuse to admit an
ignorant pupil to a school as to refuse to admit a person on account of
his belief to our church. We welcome all who wish to come and learn;
and if, after they have studied with us for a year, they do not then
accept all the points which some of us believe, and hold to be very
important, we do not turn them out even on that account.
Unitarians, then, do have a creed, only it is not fixed, it is not
final, and it is not the condition of religious fellowship.
Now I wish to give you some of the reasons, as they lie in my mind, for
the attitude which we hold in regard to this matter.
I do not believe in having a fixed and final statement of belief which
we are not at liberty to criticise or question or change.
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