190 



CIVIL HISTORY OF VERMONT.. 



Part II. 



UNITARIAN CHURCHES. 



CHRISTIAN CHURCHES 



church discipline and worship, Congre- 

 gationalists — maintaining tiiat each par- 

 ticular church has authority from Christ 

 for exercising government and enjoying 

 all the ordinances of worship within it- 

 self, and that the only terms of admission 

 to Christian privileges consist in the ac- 

 knowledgment of the great Protestant 

 principle — the Bible is the religion of 

 Protestants. 



They also maintain tlie authority and 

 ohligation of the two Christian rites. Bap- 

 tism and the Lord's Supper — the former 

 to be administered to believers and their 

 children ; the latter open to all who pro- 

 fess " repentance toward God and faith 

 toward our Lord Jesus Christ." 



Receiving the scriptures of the Old 

 and New Testament, as containing au- 

 thentic records of the dispensations of God 

 and of his revelations to men, and thus 

 regarding the Bible as the only summary 

 of religion, they do not profess to com- 

 prise their sentiments in any system of 

 articles to be imposed on their several 

 churches, but offer the hand of Christian 

 friendship to every one who believes that 

 "Jesus is the Christ," "the Son of the 

 living God," " whom the Father sancti- 

 fied and sent into the world." Unitarians 

 receive Christianity as a divine system 

 originating in the love of God, and hav- 

 ing for its object the salvation of men. 

 They believe that Jesus Christ, who came 

 to reveal it, is, in his offices and example, 

 fully entitled to implicit faith, obedience, 

 love and imitation ; and that he lived and 

 died, not to make God merciful but to 

 ehow that he is so. They regard man as 

 free and accountable, and able, through 

 the grace of God, to obey the requirements 

 of the gospel and conibrm to the condi- 

 tions of salvation. That to obey is to be 

 happy, while disobedience will be follow- 

 ed by a righteous retribution as declared 

 in Gods holy word. And that while man 

 lias all motive and encouragement to du- 

 ty, every thing is the gift of God, — the 

 blessings of this life and the hope of im- 

 mortality. 



Unitarians, — though "ready always to 

 give an answer to every man that askcth 

 a reason of the hope that is in them" — 

 insist that "the liberty wherewith Christ 

 hath made us free," gives to all his fol- 

 lowers the right of free inquiry and private 

 judgment. That no individual or body 

 of Christians arc authorized to make their 

 opinions the standard of belief; or sub- 

 scription to their particular creed the sole 

 condition of communion ; but that there 

 is " one Master Christ" and that the rule 

 and motto of his followers should be, 

 " liberty, holiness, love." 



Christian Church, Woodstock. 



Section VII. 

 Christian* Churches in Vermont. 



BY ELDER JASPER HAZEN. 



This class of christians arose, as a de- 

 nomination, nearly simultaneously in three 

 different sections of the United States, the 

 southern, the northern, and the western, 

 but remained for some time without any 

 knowledge of each other. 



In 1793, James O'Kelley, in company 

 with several other preachers and about 

 lOOU members, separated from the Metho- 

 dist society in Virginia and North Caro- 

 lina, and eventually associated together 

 as Christians. They have since spread 

 through different portions of the southern 

 states and number many thousands in 

 their communion. 



The first church at the north was gath- 

 ered at Lyndon, Vermont, in September, 

 1801, through the instrumentality of Dr. 

 Abner Jones, then a practising physician 

 in that town. lie had previously been 

 connected with the Calvinist Baptist 

 church, from which he separated in the 

 year 1794, accompanying his separation 

 with the following declaration : " I em- 

 brace the Bible as an all-sufficient rule of 

 faith and practice. I reject all articles 

 and confessions of faith except the Bible. 

 I reject all denominational names as ap- 

 plied to the disciples of Christ, except that 

 of Christian." This declaration he main- 

 tained until his death, which occurred at 



* This namo as here applied is often pronounced 

 Christ-ian, not on account of ignorance or disrespect, 

 but merely to distingiiisli this class of Christians from 

 Christians of other denorainationa. 



