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Show AlNlTAMAN'SERilON Preached Yesterday in Salt Lake Theater by Rev. David Utter was Enjoyed by A LARGE CONGREGATION OF People who Were Deeply Interested in What the Eloquent Preacher had to Say on Christianity. The Rev. David Utter preached an eloquent sermon in the theatre yester-1 day, taking for his subject "Tho Essentials Essen-tials of Christianity from a Unitarian Standpoint." He said: First of all, Christianity is a religion and not a philosophy, or a system of ethics like that of Aristotle or Plato or Herbert Spencer. In the life and death of Jesus of Nazareth Christianity took its rise, and Christianity really was the living on of his faith after his earthly work was done. This was the real resurrection. res-urrection. J There was no doctrine of trinity , then. There was a doctrine of atonement, atone-ment, and there soou arose a doctrine of tho incarnation of the divine spirit, and a doctrine of a revelation from (iod, but so fur as can now be known, Jesus preached none of these things unless un-less it bo the atonement in the form' that men should be reconciled to the divine law, and lead the divine and holy ho-ly life. But that vast and intricate system of doctrines, dogmas, theological, religious reli-gious nud ethical, which we will find dusty and mouldy with time in the creeds of our modern Christian churches, all tb at, as we believe, grew up after the primative days of the Christian religion, all was added during dur-ing tho supremacy of latin Christianity- Just think, for illustration, of the words, the very words in which the work of Christ is descrioed in those creeds, latin to the core every one of them, revelation, incarnation, reconciliation, recon-ciliation, meditation, justification, salvation. sal-vation. But we are told today that we must believe in divine revelation, in the in-cornation in-cornation nud the resurrection. Well, let us see what these words mean, and what she faith is that we are expected to receive, and what is reasonable In tho case. That God should reveal himself to men, when we state the question in geueral terms, Is altogether reasonable But did he ever hide himsolf? Was ho not from the creation of tho world clearly seen, being made maulfest in the visible creation, as Paul says in the Roman letter. But once for all, in the person of Jesus, did he perfectly reveal himself? If I may use the words in my own sense, I cau truly say that I think (iod was very perfectly revenled in J;sus Christ, in his life and in his teachings and in his death. But was this revelation accomplished once for a'l, and only once on this planet in all its history? Hero 1 must lake the broader view. I cannot limit God's good providence in the wav of teaching and uplifting men to the revelation reve-lation or work of any one age or time. Take now, these four words together, that represent the church dogmas as to tho work of Christ, revelation, incarnation, incarna-tion, mediation mid reconciliatijn. When we get the kernels out of these Latin husks we find that they refer to the mission of Jesus Christ. He came to reveal God to humanity, that is the kernel of the word revelation. revela-tion. Ho showed us deity in a human life, which was yet a divine and pcrleet life. Showing the divinity was the revelation living so divine a life was tho incarnation. He ws thus a mediator, standing midway between man and God, bridging bridg-ing over the gulf, as I have heard it expressed, ex-pressed, between deity and humanity; that was the mediation. Reconciliation refers to the accomplishment accom-plishment of this work, the atoning, the bringing together tho divine and human. hu-man. In each of these doctrines there is a spiritual truth, or rather, perhaps, we should say in all there is tho one great truth that man is a religious being, that he fuels within him this spiritual nature, na-ture, this divine reason, "the light that lightcth every man that cometh into the world, call it what you will, something that makes him feel akiu to that mighty force, instinct with intelligence, intelli-gence, warm with love, which set the stars in order in the heavens, ordained the form of the crystaline snowllake, paints the petals of the blossoms on all hillsides of earth, and makes the whole universe one. trom tins center where we stand to the unimaginable circumference. circum-ference. The divinity in humanity, that is the incarnation, the perception of it, that is God's revelation. Our idea of what is natural has enlarged en-larged till it includes all that is, and no room is left for I he supernatural. No matter how it originated, Christianity is the best religion in the world, the purest and truest, and it has produced the best fruits in every way. |