The Collected Works of Theodore Parker/Volume 03/Discourse 11
FALSE AND TRUE THEOLOGY.
A SERMON DELIVERED AT MUSIC HALL, BOSTON, ON SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 1858.
But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.—Matt. xv. 9.
I ask your attention to some thoughts on the ecclesiastical and the philosophical methods of studying theology.
The religious is the strongest of all our spiritual faculties. This is shown not only by the wide spread and long duration of particular forms of religion, like Buddhism, Christianity, Mahometanism, embracing different nations, and even races, or by the monuments which these have left in all peopled space and all civilized time ; but also by the ease with which it puts down the great passions of the body, and still more by the power which it has to overmaster the mind, the conscience, and the affections of man, and to subdue the great interests of civilization. If this mighty faculty be directed according to its nature, it works the highest welfare and secures the most rapid progress, the most elevated civilization to the individual, the nation, and to mankind; but if it be misdirected against its nature, it hinders the progressive development of man's faculties, and leads to the most terrible ruin of the individual and the nation. It will help man, or else hinder him, and that with a force proportionate to the vast power of the faculty itself.
We all live by eating and drinking; the normal appetite inclines mankind as a whole to the proper articles of food and drink suited to the climate and the stage of civilization; but the appetite may be perverted and misdirect the individual, so that he eats and drinks things not fit for him, or uses them in excessive quantity, and is poisoned by what should feed him. Look about you at the terrible examples of each form of error,—gluttons who have "eaten their own heads off," thinking no more than the swine they feed upon and resemble; drunkards who have drowned themselves in the Red Sea of their own debauchery, the Pharaohs of intemperance, their nobler faculties strangled long before their flesh is cold I The religious faculty—call it soul—may err as much as the appetite for food, and the mistake produce consequences not less hideous on the individual and the nation. A church may poison the soul with foul doctrines as easily as a grog shop may poison the body with foul drink.
The animals are all unprogressive in their character; but little room is left them for individual will or reflection. Their action is almost all spontaneous, instinctive, compulsory of their organization, not free of their individual personality. Hence they are tools of a power which works through them, rather than agents acting on their own account. So they do not err in choice of food or drink, or mode of conduct. If an individual does so, no tribe of animals ever makes that mistake. They grow no wiser by experiment, they suffer from none, for they try none. But God has made man—within certain and somewhat narrow limits—his own master. We are progressive, and must make experiments in the art of life. Instinct is the sole and perfect guide for the beast, representing not his thought, but God's thought for him. But man is partly ruled by instinct, which is God's thought, and partly must he rule himself by his own personal reflective will. After he gets beyond the wildness of his primitive state, the reflective action is much more than the instinctive. He makes great errors in his experiments. Individuals do so. John is a drunkard; Lewis and Margaret are dandies; both come to nothing, one but a cup of drink, the others a bundle of fine clothes. Nations likewise do so: the Swedes are a people of drunkards; the Greeks and Romans were debased by the vices of their civilization, and barbarous, half-naked men tore these effeminate dandies limb from limb. Similar mistakes are made by individuals and by nations in the development of the religious faculty, and the consequences are worse than even drunkenness: thereof history furnishes terrible examples, on a small scale by individuals, or on a great scale by nations—Abraham sacrificing his only son, Spain butchering her subjects by the hundred thousand, because they could not believe what was unbelievable.
In mankind's religious development, as in yours and mine, three things are indispensable, namely—emotions, religious feelings, which come directly from the spontaneous action of this religious faculty itself; ideas, which come from the reflective action of the intellect; and actions, which come from the will, influenced by emotions and ideas.
These ideas are the middle term, between emotions and actions; they, reach forward and create deeds, they reach backward and cause emotions, which create new deeds. The sum of ideas in religious matters is. what men call theology—thoughts about God, about man, and about the relation between God and man. Now as true religion is piety, the love of God, and morality, the keeping of his laws; so a true theology is the science whereof religion is the practice—theology the intellectual part, as piety is the emotional part, and morality the practical part. A true theology helps both piety and morality; a false theology hinders each. Now the character of the theological ideas which men attain to and believe in, will depend mainly on the method in which they seek for theologic truth; a false method will ultimately lead to a false theology and its consequences; and a true method will ultimately lead to a true theology and its consequences; the road from Boston to Salem will never carry the travellers to Roxbury, though so much nearer at hand. As the theology which is accepted has such an immense influence on the individual, the community, the nation, or the race which accepts it, you see how important it is to have a right method in theology. It is not the highest end of life to attain wealth, honour, power, fame, but to build up a religious character, noble in kind, great in quantity; to be a complete man, with a whole, sound body, developed normally, with a whole, sound spirit, normally developed in its intellectual, its moral, its affectional, and its religious part. To a nation, I think there is no one thing which so much hinders its development as a false theology; for that chains the spirit and then drives it to an unnatural and a false church, an unnatural and false state, community, family, and so on ; and there is no one thing which so much helps a nation to a masterly development as a true theology, which sets the spirit free, and then leads it to found a natural and true church, a natural and true state, community, family, and so on. This being so, it is of the utmost importance to you and me that the nation should have this true method in theology, for that is to the general activity of the people what the constitution is to its political activity, what his tools are to the blacksmith, farmer, spinner, or weaver.
As the theology determines the action of the religious faculty, and as that is the strongest faculty, in man, you see at once what wide, deep, and controlling force theological ideas have on the entire concerns of men. Let me give an example. About a hundred and twenty or a hundred and thirty years ago, the Methodist sect began in England. At first it was to the British church what the Protestant Reformation was to the Roman—an awakening to new religious life, and putting that into new practical forms. It began with George Whitfield, the greatest ecclesiastical orator, and John Wesley, the greatest ecclesiastical organizer and statesman, that Christendom had seen for a thousand years. By this power to persuade and this power to organize men, did these two persons give it such a start that now the sect is some twelve millions strong, has wide influence in Great Britain and America, and has done much service in controlling the vices of passion, and in keeping the humblest, poorest, and least cared for part of the population from falling still lower down. But this sect, with its many millions, has never produced a great man, a great discoverer, organizer, administrator, philosopher, poet, or historian. It had one respectable scholar, Adam Clarke, who amassed considerable learning, though he used it without originality or good judgment. He died in 1832, and since then no Methodist has had a European reputation. I do not know of an American Methodist, more than American Catholic, who is eminent for anything but devotion for his church. Yet there is talent enough born into the Methodist church; it affects powerfully the poorest and least educated class of men in the Northern States, who furnish able men for its preachers. When the Methodist synod met in Boston a few years ago we were astonished to see such a collection of superior heads; they would average better than any American legislature I have seen. Everybody knows what zeal, what industry, what self-denial there are in the sect. Yet little comes of all this talent, because the theology and the discipline of the sect crush all free individuality of mind, conscience, heart, and soul. Just in proportion as a man becomes thoroughly a Methodist, he ceases to be an individual man with a free mind, a free conscience, free affections, and freedom of soul; instead thereof he becomes a vulgar fraction of his sect, one twelve-millionth part of the Methodist church. Not many years since a Methodist preacher said, "We preach religion without philosophy, and that is the secret of our success." He meant that they proclaimed doctrines which must be believed without appeal to reason, and commanded deeds to be done without regard to conscience: The consequence is that men with large reason and conscience either will not enter the Methodist church at all, or if they do, they thence presently come out, or stay only to have their minds pinched to the narrowest compass, and their conscience stifled stone dead.
There is one method which has been adopted by all the Christian sects in their theological investigations. Some, like the Methodists and Catholics, and most of the Trinitarians, adhere to it with all their might; others, like the English church, the Unitarians, the Universalists, and the Lutherans, care less for it, and break away in practice from what they all profess in theory. I call this the ecclesiastical method.
There is another method adopted by philosophical men in their scientific investigations in these days, but rejected by all the great sects; some earnestly and violently repu diating it, while others reject its theory though they follow it more or less in practice. This I call the philosophical method.
So far as they are ecclesiastical, all theologians follow the ecclesiastical method; it is instantial with them. So far as they are philosophical, all scientific men follow the philosophical method; it is instantial with them. Let me say that when some ecclesiastical men study philosophy, they abandon the ecclesiastical method; hence men like Dr Whewell in England, and others, have attained great eminence in science, and done large service therein.
1. Let me say a word of the ecclesiastical method. This consists of an assumption and a deduction. Men assume that certain words spoken or written, are a direct, miraculous, and infallible communication from God, and therefore are of ultimate authority, for all time, in all matters of religion and theology. To these men must subordinate their intellectual, moral, affectional, and religious faculties. That is the assumption.
2. From these words certain doctrines are deduced, and enforced on men as the miraculous and infallible commands of God which must be accepted in spite of the instinctive or reflective action of man's mind, conscience, heart, and soul. These are called doctrines of "revealed religion," and men must believe them, howsoever unreasonable, immoral, unlovely, and irreligious. That is the deduction.
The Christian sects differ on many other things, but they all agree in assuming this miraculous and infallible communication from God as the ultimate authority, and in deducing thence all their doctrines; so however unlike their conclusions, all agree in their assumption and deduction. There is diversity of doctrines, but unity of method. The Catholic finds that communication in the Bible, in ecclesiastical tradition, and in the decisions of the Roman church—expressed by the infallible general council, and enforced by the infallible Pope—which three are the ultimate authority of the Catholic, all summed up and represented, however, by the infallible Pope. The Protestant finds that communication only in the Bible, which is the ultimate authority of Protestantism, and is to him what the Pope is to the Catholic. Some Protestant sects reject the Apocrypha as no part of the miraculous communication; some individual Protestants reject certain doubtful books of the Old Testament or the New; but all the little Protestant sects, Trinitarian, Unitarian, Nullitarian, and the three great Christian sects, the Greek, the Roman, and the Teutonic churches, agree in the assumption and in the deduction. By the same method the Roman gets his infallible Pope, and the Teuton his infallible Bible, the Trinitarian his trinity, the Unitarian his unity, the Damnationalist his eternal torment, and the Salvationist the redemption of all men.
Now the Christian sects do not prove that the words they take as ultimate authority in matters of religion, are a divine, miraculous, and infallible communication from God; they do not prove this from facts of observation in the world without, or facts of consciousness within. That fact is assumed. In the' whole compass of theological literature there is no proof of the fact; there is no evidence which would lead an impartial jury to think for a moment that there was the shadow of a proof. There is no direct evidence adequate to prove it : there is no personal evidence—the testimony of known men, carefully collected together and tested; and there is no circumstantial evidence—the testimony of known things. It is assumption, and no more. It is thought wicked to doubt what none has ever proved, and what never can be proved.
From this assumption the theologians deduce certain doctrines, and read them as mysteries, revelations, commandments, resting on God, things which must not be questioned. If you reject them you are to be damned for ever.
Look at some of the most remarkable of these ecclesiastical doctrines thus deduced. I shall not take great religious or theological truths, such as the existence of God, the immorality of man, his dependence on God and accountability to Him; for these are facts of consciousness which are common to all forms of religion, in the enlightened, the civilized, the half-civilized, the barbarous, and even the savage state, and all of these have been demonstrated, it seems to me, till the argument for each can be analyzed into propositions, each of which is self-evident, and requires no proof. Whatever the theologians may say, none of these four great truths rest at all on the theological method for their support. I shall take seven dogmas, which are certainly no part of natural religion, and are claimed to be very important; parts of the miraculous revelation. Here they are:—
1. The existence of the devil, a personal being, totally and absolutely evil, with immense power, which he uses to thwart God and ruin men.
2. The total depravity of man: the first man was created good, but fell from his innocence, and "In Adam's fall we sinned all,"—so that we are totally depraved, and the human race has turned out just as God meant it should not turn out.
3. The wrath of God : He is in a state of continual indignation against this totally depraved mankind, and is "angry with the wicked every day."
4. The eternal torment of the immortal soul: the wrathful God has prepared an everlasting hell, where the absolutely evil devil will act as his lieutenant-governor and torment sinful mankind, the immense majority of the human race, for ever.
5. The incarnation of God: God is one and yet three—the Father, who is eternally the Father; the only begot- ten Son, who is eternally the Son; and the Holy Ghost, who proceeds eternally from the Father and the Son. By God the Holy Ghost, God the Father—who is also God the Son and God the Holy Ghost—overshadowed Mary, the spouse of Joseph, and she bore God the Son, who was successively God a baby, God a boy, God a youth, and God a man, eating, drinking, dying, was sacrificed, raised again, and ascended to heaven, and all the time was still God.
6. The atonement, the death of God : He was killed by wicked men, and rose again, taking away the sin of part of the totally depraved mankind, through the mitigation of God's wrath, so that a certain portion are destined to eternal happiness, while the rest must go down to eternal woe, prepared for the devil and his angels.
7. The salvation of men by belief: you must believe all these six doctrines, or else perish everlastingly. Now, there is no circumstantial, no personal evidence for the truth of any one of these seven monstrous doctrines. You find no devil on the face of the earth today, no footsteps of him in the "Old Red Sandstone," not a track of his step amid all the "Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation;" no detective police could ever find the faintest scent of this creature. Ask the minister, "How do you know there is such a devil?" and he answers, "It is a doctrine of the divine and miraculous revelation." Ask again, "How do you know the revelation is divine and miraculous, from God?" and if he be an honest man, and understand his profession as well as the street sweepers their business, he will say, "I do not know it, I only find it convenient to assume it. I have not a particle of evidence for it."
Then there is no circumstantial or personal evidence for the total depravity of man. Wise men you find, none wholly wise ; good men, none wholly good ; bad men also, but none totally bad. Take the human race in every age, wisdom prevails over folly, goodness over badness, virtue over vice ; even Lawrence, and Stone, it is thought, made more honest bargains than deceitful ones. South Carolina representatives in Congress are sober all the forenoon. Cruel masters are exceptional, even amongst slaveholders. Murderers are always in the minority; thieves and sturdy beggars likewise, and even liars. History records no fall of man, but rather an ascent, a continual increase in wisdom, justice, philanthropy, piety, and trust in God.
There is no evidence for the wrath of God, and an eternal hell; earthquakes, volcanoes, storm, pestilence, death, indicate no ugliness on God's part, no lack of love. In the world of time and space you cannot find a single fact of observation which indicates the wrath of God. Take any man, the worst or the best, who is not debauched by indulgence in the ecclesiastical theology, not poisoned by these odious doctrines, and in him you cannot find a fact of consciousness which indicates wrath on God's part. Nay, in the clear mirror of the human soul, wiped clean from the breath of that contagion, is God's infinite love reflected; the natural man looks there, and sees the dear Father and Mother of all mankind. Ask the minister how he knows of God's wrath and eternal torment; ask the council of ministers at North Woburn how they know that God will damn all babies unbaptized and dying newly born, and if you could beguile them into honest speech, they would tell you "It rests on the authority of some one who died many years ago; we do not know who said it, nor what authority he had for saying it."
So it is with each of these other doctrines—the incarnation of God in a miraculous baby, the death of God by crucifixion, the resurrection of the dead God; the atonement, God the Son appeasing God the Father, this one undivided third part of the Trinity appeasing the two other undivided third parts. There is nothing which can be called circumstantial or personal evidence for these things; they all rest on the said so of somebody who knew no better than we; who took his dreams of the night or his whimseys of the day, for the facts of the universe.
In the Catholic church you will be told of the miraculous immaculate conception of Mary, the mother of God, of the miracles of St Valentine, to whom this day is consecrated, of St Dennis, who had his head cut off, and walked home with it under his arm. All this rests on the same sort of evidence as these seven dogmas just named; on the "said so" of somebody who knew nothing about it. There is no more reason for believing the miraculous birth of Jesus, the "Son of God," than of Mary the "mother of God," or of Anna, the "mother of God's mother," "the grandmother of God;" the whole rests on nothing. The Catholic church says that you must believe in the infallible Pope, and do the works which the church commands, and you shall find life everlasting; else you shall find hell everlasting. There is as much reason for that as there is for the Protestant mode of salvation; there is none at all for either.
This method leads to monstrous evils. To assume that there was such a communication from God, to submit man's highest faculties to such outside authority, in the long run, always degrades these faculties, and leads men in God's name to despise the very highest gifts He ever gave to man. The odious doctrines thus deduced drive some men to utter irreligion, even to atheism. All the way from Greek Epicurus to German Feuerbach, it is the follies taught in the name of God that have driven men to atheism. But speculative atheism is always exceptional, rarer than murder. Multitudes of men believe these doctrines because they are taught in the name of religion—and what fear follows, what distrust of self and of man, what belittlement of all the intellectual powers! How such men turn off from fair normal life, and hope to serve God and win heaven by some unnatural trick! Go to a meeting of scientific men, who are discussing geology, physiology, what you will, and how patiently they look for facts, and examine and cross-examine every witness, to be sure they get at a real fact, not at a dream. Thence how carefully they induce the law of the facts ; what respect do they show for man's mind ; what fairness of investigation, what freedom from confinement to the old! Go to a meeting of ministers, discussing the science of religion, and what a difference! what sophistry in "investigation," what contempt for mind, what neglect of facts, what fear of inquiry! With them credulity is counted one of the greatest of virtues; belief without evidence or against evidence is a part of piety. To call for proof is to be a "sceptic," an "infidel." All questions must be settled by quoting texts, which represent not facts of the universe, but the opinion of some man, perhaps unknown, who died hundreds of years ago. Not only is it impossible to attain truth in this way, but this method of trying for it debases the mind, the conscience, the heart, and the soul of those who take the pains. Children who go apart to study their lessons, and come together to recite them, learn truth by this process, and strengthen their mind; but if they separate to dream, and assemble to tell their dreams, what good comes of it? Dreams for facts, stupidity for science. Alas, there are children of a larger growth! So much for the ecclesiastical method.
II. The philosophical method is just the opposite of this. It is quite simple; it rests on two assumptions. The first is the faithfulness of the human faculties, the senses for sensation, the spiritual powers for their spiritual function, intellectual, moral, affectional, and religious. The other assumption is the existence of this outward world, whereof the senses testify.
Then from facts of consciousness within, and facts of observation without, the theological inquirer seeks to learn the nature of God, of man, and the relation between the two, with the duties, rights, and destination of man, which come therefrom. By this method the inquirer takes the whole universe as the revelation of God. The world of matter presents the phenomena of God which are manifest to the senses of man, while the world of man presents him the other phenomena of God which are manifest to the mind, the conscience, the heart, and the soul. He would learn from all the history of mankind, and gather what previous ages had learned. The human race is many thousand years old ; all civilized nations have their religious books, the Bibles of the nations, writ by men of genius and piety ; none contains all truth, nor only truth, but each has some, for man is always religiously inclined, always looks for the true, the beautiful, the just, the good, and the holy; and God has not made these things hard to find, accessible to great men only, the inheritance of but a single people, a revelation only to learned men. The conscience of the child outtravels oft the conscience of the sire, and the wife intuitively knows more of God and religion than her philosophic husband ever dared to think. Each of the six great world-sects has taught much truth ; I think the Christian most of all; and besides that, it has the transcendant character of Jesus — a man of such noble courage, with such abhorrence of hypocrisy, such tender love for mankind, and piety so inward, blossoming out into the "strong and flame-like flower" of such morality! The Catholic church has much to teach ; every Protestant sect also a great deal. I just spoke of the Methodists, showing the evil which comes from their false method, and ecclesiastical discipline; they have a fervour of religious emotion, a zeal for the spiritual welfare of neglected white people, which makes them exceedingly useful.
The inquirer after religion and theology by the philosophical method will take the good which past ages have to teach. But man's nature is more than his history; so the chief source of theologic truth will be found in man himself, in the instinctive and reflective action of his faculties in their normal use and development. Men talk of inspiration, the contact of the human spirit with the infinite God, the incoming of Deity to our soul. I think it is a fact, not miraculous and exceptional, but normal and instantial; just so far as man uses his natural faculties in their natural way, the Divine power of the universe flows into him and acts by him, as vegetative force into these handsome plants. Faithful use of the faculties is the human condition of this Divine inspiration, and truth, beauty, justice, love, integrity, these are its tests. I know there are moments of ecstacy, which are to common hours what genius is to ordinary men, what spring is to the year, and in this precious flower-time of spiritual action much is done, nor would I ever neglect these handsome opportunities; I would take every flower which was offered to me then, but with cool, calm reason, in my soberest moments would examine it, and learn its value.
Now if a man tries this philosophical method, he will come to a true theology, which shall be to the actual facts of God's nature, man's nature, and the relation between them, what astronomy is to the facts of the solar system. The science of theology will then be based on facts of observation and of consciousness ; not on mere words, which represented the dream of some deluded man, but on the facts of the universe, writ in matter without us and mind within. Then theology will be a progressive science, enlarging its scope of comprehension. Mere belief will pass into certain knowledge. Prom theology, as from astronomy, chemistry, medicine, miracles will disappear, and law take their place—the constant mode of operation of the natural powers which God gave to matter and to spirit. Those seven odious dogmas which I have just named will pass off. So the spectres of the night, made of tormenting dreams which disturbed the little girl who read stories of hobgoblins before she slept, are all gone when she opens her eyes, looks out of the window, and sees the apple trees unfold their fragrant, roseate beauty to some May mornings rising run! The idea of a capricious, changeable, and wrathful God, damning men by the hundred million, paving his wide hell with the skulls of babies not a span long, their parents racked above that fiery floor—all that will vanish, and instead thereof shall your soul be gladdened by the; perpetual presence of the Infinite Power, Wisdom, Justice, and Love, the Perfect God of the universe, who is present in all matter, in all spirit, acting everywhere by law, Per feet Cause and Perfect Providence, Father and Mother to you and me and all that are. No longer shall you dream that you are totally depraved, your nature hateful to God, you no lawful child of his, but mothered by the devil's dam, with no natural right to heaven, ruin your final fate. You shall account yourself the grandest work God has ever made, created from a perfect motive, the desire to bless, and for a perfect end, the highest welfare possible for you, and furnished with faculties which are a perfect means thereto. Then you shall not fear and crouch down, and skulk about the world like a rat in the daylight of a city street, ashamed of your nature, afraid of your instincts, emasculating your intellect, your affections, and your soul; but with upright walk shall you go about your daily life, knowing that you have duties to do, rights to enjoy, serving your God by the normal discipline, development, use, and enjoyment of every limb of the body, every faculty of the spirit, every power which you possess over matter and over man. What heed will you then take to do every manly duty for its own sake, making conscience supreme, and to bear any cross laid upon you which should be borne. If you mistake and overstep the natural law of right—as you will, especially in early life — mortified with shame you will turn back to the natural and better way. Religion will not be a regeneration, being born again, a change of nature, a cutting something native off or tying something foreign on; but a development of nature, what the blossom is to the bud, what growth to manhood or womanhood is to girl or boy. Conscious of immortality, living now the everlasting life, you will look forward to that future heaven, which instinct tells even the savage of, and which science demonstrates to enlightened and thoughtful man. You are sure of the Infinite God, you have a right to his providence, and you can trust Him in all that is to come. Fear of the devil and his noisy hell of absurd and wicked torment, you will leave to such as love the hideous thought, whom you would but cannot cure; and in its place the certainty of ultimate heaven will come to you as the sure gift of the Infinite Father, the Infinite Mother, who is Cause and Providence to all the world!
When such doctrines of God, man, and the relation between them, of man's duties, rights, and destination, are set forth and accepted, what a change will follow! Speculative atheism will be stark dead; no thoughtful man will look upon the world of matter, and deny the power, law, and mind, which are imminent therein; no thoughtful man will feel the world of spirit within him, but will also feel the consciousness of the Perfect God, and joyous turn to Him—for it is not the God of Nature that the speculative atheist would deny, but only the unreal God of theologic dreams, which science turns off from, while the Deity which all the world of matter and the world of spirit alike reveal, the scientific men draw near with love greatening continually as they know Him and approach.
What an effect will this natural theology have in making a real revival in natural religion! Conscious of such a nature in us, of such a God as Cause and Providence, of such duties, such rights, such a destination—what wealth of religious emotion will spring up within the human soul! what depth of piety, the love of God! what strength of morality, the keeping of his commands I What an influence will it have on the individual, to make him a great man, intellectual, moral, affectional, and religious; then on the family, the community, the state, the church, and the world! Then ministers and politicians will not seek to justify a well-known wrong by quoting texts from Bible, or Koran, or saint, none knows who; but out of the experience of mankind past and the consciousness of mankind present, and the actual inspiration of God now, shall both derive the unchanging higher law of truth, justice, love, and make these the statutes of mankind, till the constitution of the universe become the people's common law!
I just now spoke of the religious faculty as the strongest of all the human powers. When it works aright, what service will it render us! It is a mighty Amazon, reaching from the infinite ocean of God, far into the innermost continent of man, fed by the breath of that ocean which it tends unto. What tall mountains shall it drain ; what kingdoms water ; what mills and factories of human wealth shall it turn; what fleets laden with peaceful welfare shall it bear on its bosom; what cottages, palaces, villages, towns, and mighty cities, swarming with progressive, virtuous, happy men, shall be reflected in this great river of God, which mixes their image also with the stars of heaven all the night, its varicoloured glories all the day!
A false method in science gave man astrology, alchemy, magic; a true method gives him astronomy, chemistry, the medicative and beautifying arts, mills, factories, railroads, steam engines and telegraphs, ether. A false method in politics gave him a military despotism, slavery of the Asiatic millions, crushed underneath a tyrant's bloody foot; a true method gives him an industrial democracy, the marriage of liberty to law, filling the world with happy daughters and progressive sons. A true method in theology marries the religious instinct to philosophical reflection, and they will increase and multiply, replenishing the earth, and subduing it ; toil and thought shall dwell in the same household, and desire and duty go hand and hand therein.
My friends, almost thirteen years ago I came here at the request of some of you whom I see before me to-day. You asked me to preach a true method of theology, to teach the pure and absolute religion, calling no man my master, but looking to the great Master, who is also Father and Mother. It was a dark, rainy Sunday, the 16th of February, 1845. I knew I was coming to a "thirty years' war," should I live so long, and I had enlisted till the fight should be over: I did not know how terrible the contest must be; you knew it still less. You remember how the churches roared at us ; only here and there some one said, is Good may come out of it, as out of another Nazareth; let us wait and see. Let both grow together till the harvest; try not to pluck up these tares, lest you also disturb the wheat." Since on the 22nd of January, 1845, you voted the resolution that it was expedient that "Theodore Parker should have a chance to be heard in Boston," a great change has taken place in the theology of New England, of all the Northern States. I think the humble labours of this little society have not been in vain. It was a great opportunity which this wide hall offered, with its open doors. There are strangers who came to scoff but depart not without having learned to pray.
My main object has never been to make a system of theology, still less to form a sect, or draw a crowd; an ambitious Jesuit could better form a sect, any harlequin of the pulpit, who knew how to lay his hand on the religious instincts of men, could sooner draw a crowd. I have worked for a long time, in a long time. I have aimed to help men and women become what God meant we should be—noble men and women, whose prayer is the communion of their soul with God's soul, whose life is a daily service of Him, by the normal discipline, development, use, and enjoyment of every limb of the body, and every faculty of the spirit. Do I help you to this? If not, then leave me, let these handsome walls be silent, empty, desorted, lone, till some nobler one shall come who shall waken religion in your consciousness, as that great master [pointing to the statue of Beethoven] out of the common! air produced such music as enchants the world. Go you elsewhere, and find you bread from heaven in whatever desert it be rained down, and fill you with living water, no matter from what rock it flows forth, nor whose hand smites open the fountain's blessed way!
But if I so instruct your mind that it fills itself with A truth and beauty, if I do rouse your conscience till it see the higher law of God's unchanging right, and if I do confirm your will till that law becomes your daily guide to life, if I do touch your affections till you better love each other—the young man more purely the maiden, and she him with purer answering love, till wife and husband, parent and child, kinsfolk, friend, and acquaintance, are knit in more welcome ties, till a larger patriotism warm you with concern for the poor, the maimed, the outcast, the slave, the drunkard, the harlot, the thief, the murderer, till a larger philanthropy join you to all mankind—and if I stir the feelings infinite till your souls are informed with the living God and have an absolute trust in Him—if I help you to these grand ideas of God, of man, of the relation between them, of duty here, and right to heaven hereafter—then am I blessed in you, and you also are blessed in me, and after the years of strife shall have passed by, you and I, though all forgot, our very names perished, shall yet be a power in the nation to soothe, and heal, and bless, long after our immortal part shall have gone to those joys which the eye hath not seen, nor the I ear heard, nor the heart of man begun to comprehend.