William Ellery Channing Quote

Why is it that we are so busy with the future? It is not our province; and is there not a criminal interference with Him to whom it belongs, in our feverish, anxious attempts to dispose of it, and in filling it up with shadows of good and evil shaped by our own wild imaginations? 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?

William Ellery Channing

Why is it that we are so busy with the future? It is not our province; and is there not a criminal interference with Him to whom it belongs, in our feverish, anxious attempts to dispose of it, and in filling it up with shadows of good and evil shaped by our own wild imaginations? 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?

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About William Ellery Channing

William Ellery Channing (April 7, 1780 – October 2, 1842) 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. His espousal of the developing philosophy and theology of Unitarianism was displayed 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.