HKB
all men are created equal, started out of their lethargy, like those who have been exiles from childhood, when they suddenly hear the dimly remembered accents of their mother tongue."[8]
It was meet and right that when this great word went forth to awaken the nations to a new realization, there should be heard at the same time in our land the trumpet notes of that gospel which proclaims the unbinding of the heavy burdens of humanity, liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound. As Dr. Benjamin Rush, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence (and a believer in Christian Universalism), in a letter to Rev. Mr. Winchester, alluding to Rev. John Wesley, writes: "His writings will ere long revive in support of our doctrine--for if Christ died for all, as Mr. Wesley always taught, it will soon appear as a necessary consequence that all shall be saved.... At present we wish liberty to the whole world. The next touch of the celestial magnet upon the human heart will direct it into wishes for the salvation of all mankind."
This new political life, upon which our nation entered, signified the equality, true sonship, brotherhood, capability, and earthly destination of man. It meant democracy, not the democracy of numbers merely, nor of political parties struggling for supremacy and the spoils of the victors, but a democracy having in view a common good--the greatest good of all. It means intelligence, thrift, education, and religion for the masses; it means this for one people, means it for all nations of mankind. Precisely this is signified by the re-affirmation on these western shores of that gospel anciently proclaimed to the Athenians by the Christian apostle: "God, that made the world ... hath made of one blood all nations of men, for to dwell on all the face of the earth, ... as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring."[9] A common humanity, a common interest and destiny, are declared.
It is a common humanity with which Christ is in sympathy; which makes him who would be highest in the Divine estimation the servant of all; which recognizes the Golden Rule, directs the strong to bear the infirmities of the weak, and men everywhere to be helpers one of another, because their interests are not antagonistic, when the laws that govern their nature are clearly understood. They have unity:
"What binds one, binds all, Love of things true and right."
Men have, too, a common interest under the Divine guardianship. Wherever there is a man, there is a being in whose soul God has implanted aspirations after himself, a propensity to religion, a feeling after him which may be misled by superstition, or overlaid by ignorance, or elevated by knowledge into purest piety, but which is yet there. Wherever he exists the Sovereign Power holds him in discipline, demands an account from him at his tribunal of impartial justice, and will not permit him to go out of his hands. To whatever heights he ascends, God still encompasses him; into whatever depths he may fall, he is still held by the guardian beneficent power.
One destiny, also, is affirmed of this great body of humanity; a blessing instituted in the beginning, including all families, kindreds, nations. No divine favoritism towards one over another do we see. The law and the prophets point towards this universal grace of God to man. Israel and the Gentile world shall alike share it. The apocalyptic vision opens it up to the eye of faith. "And every creature which is in heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, heard I, saying, Blessing, and honor, and glory, and power, be unto him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb, for ever and ever."[10] What is this but the fact, and the ultimate completeness and glory of the unity of the race? One Father, Brotherhood, Saviour, Homage, Destiny.