William Ellery Channing Quotes
To do God's will as fast as it is made known to us, to inquire hourly -- I had almost said each moment -- what He requires of us, and to leave ourselves, our friends, and every interest at His control, with a cheerful trust that the path which He marks out leads to our perfection and to Himself, -- this is at once our duty and happiness; and why will we not walk in the plain, simple way?.
Channing, William H. Memoir of William Ellery Channing: With Extracts from His Correspondence and Manuscripts. Vol. 2, Crosby and Nichols, 1848, p. 138.
William Ellery Channing was the foremost Unitarian preacher in the United States in the early nineteenth century and, along with Andrews Norton (1786–1853), one of Unitarianism's leading theologians. Channing was known for his articulate and impassioned sermons and public speeches, and as a prominent thinker in the liberal theology of the day. His religion and thought were among the chief influences on the New England Transcendentalists although he never countenanced their views, which he saw as extreme. He espoused, especially in his "Baltimore Sermon" of May 5, 1819, given at the ordination of the theologian and educator Jared Sparks (1789–1866) as the first minister of the newly organized First Independent Church of Baltimore, the principles and tenets of the developing philosophy and theology of Unitarianism, leading to the organization in 1825 of the first Unitarian denomination in America (American Unitarian Association) and the later developments and mergers between Unitarians and Universalists, resulting finally in the Unitarian Universalist Association of America in 1961.
