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SPEECHES, ADDRESSES,
AND
OCCASIONAL SERMONS,
BY
THEODORE PARKER,
MINISTER OF THE TWENTY-EIGHTH CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH IN BOSTON.
IN THREE VOLUMES.
VOL. I.
BOSTON:
HORACE B. FULLER,
(SUCCESSOR TO WALKER, FULLER, AND COMPANY,)
245, WASHINGTON STREET.
1867.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1855, by
THEODORE PARKER,
in the Clerk's Office of the District Court
of the District of Massachusetts.
TO
FRANCIS JACKSON,
THE FOE 'GAINST EVERY FORM OF WRONG,
THE FRIEND OF JUSTICE,
WHOSE WIDE HUMANITY CONTENDS
FOR WOMAN'S NATURAL AND UNALIENABLE RIGHT; AGAINST
HIS NATION'S CRUELTY PROTECTS THE SLAVE;
IN THE CRIMINAL BEHOLDS A BROTHER TO BE REFORMED;
GOES TO MEN FALLEN AMONG THIEVES,--
WHOM PRIESTS AND LEVITES SACRAMENTALLY PASS BY,--
AND SEEKS TO SOOTHE AND HEAL AND BLESS THEM THAT ARE
READY TO PERISH:
WITH ADMIRATION FOR HIS UNSURPASSED INTEGRITY,
HIS COURAGE WHICH NOTHING SCARES,
AND HIS TRUE RELIGION
THAT WOULD BRING PEACE ON EARTH AND GOOD-WILL TO MAN,
THESE VOLUMES
ARE THANKFULLY DEDICATED
BY HIS MINISTER AND FRIEND,
THEODORE PARKER.
PREFACE.
I have collected in these volumes several Speeches, Addresses and
occasional Sermons, which I have delivered at various times during the
last seven years. Most of them were prepared for some special emergency:
only two papers, that on "The Relation of Jesus to his Age and the
Ages," and that on "Immortal Life," were written without reference to
some such emergency. All of them have been printed before, excepting the
sermon "Of General Taylor," and the address on "The American Scholar;"
some have been several times reprinted. I do not know that they are
worthy of republication in this permanent form, but the leading ideas of
these volumes are very dear to me, and are sure to live as long as the
human race shall continue. So I have published a small edition, hoping
that the truths which I know are contained in these pages will do a
service long after the writer, and the occasion of their utterance, have
passed off and been forgot. I offer them to whom they may concern.
THEODORE PARKER.
AUGUST 24, 1851.
CONTENTS OF VOLUME I.
I.
THE RELATION OF JESUS TO HIS AGE AND THE AGES.--A
Sermon preached at the Thursday Lecture, in Boston,
December 26, 1844 PAGE 1
II.
THE TRUE IDEA OF A CHRISTIAN CHURCH.--A Discourse
at the Installation of Theodore Parker as Minister of the
Twenty-Eighth Congregational Church in Boston, on Sunday,
January 4, 1846 23
III.
A SERMON OF WAR.--Preached at the Melodeon, on Sunday,
June 7, 1846 63
IV.
A SPEECH DELIVERED AT THE ANTI-WAR MEETING IN
FANUEIL HALL, February 4, 1847 113
V.
A SERMON OF THE MEXICAN WAR.--Preached at the
Melodeon, on Sunday, June 25, 1848 127
VI.
A SERMON OF THE PERISHING CLASSES IN BOSTON.--Preached
at the Melodeon on Sunday, August 30, 1846 185
VII.
A SERMON OF MERCHANTS.--Preached at the Melodeon,
on Sunday, November 22, 1846 227
VIII.
A SERMON OF THE DANGEROUS CLASSES IN SOCIETY.--Preached
at the Melodeon, on Sunday, January 31, 1847 279
IX.
A SERMON OF POVERTY.--Preached at the Melodeon, on
Sunday, January 14, 1849 333
X.
A SERMON OF THE MORAL CONDITION OF BOSTON.--Preached
at the Melodeon, on Sunday, February 11, 1849 364
I.
THE RELATION OF JESUS TO HIS AGE AND THE AGES.--A SERMON PREACHED AT THE
THURSDAY LECTURE, IN BOSTON, DECEMBER 26, 1844.
JOHN VII. 48.
"Have any of the Rulers, or of the Pharisees, believed on
him?"
In all the world there is nothing so remarkable as a great man; nothing
so rare; nothing which so well repays study. Human nature is loyal at
its heart, and is, always and everywhere, looking for this its true
earthly sovereign. We sometimes say that our institutions, here in
America, do not require great men; that we get along better without than
with such. But let a real, great man light on our quarter of the planet;
let us understand him, and straightway these democratic hearts of ours
burn with admiration and with love. We wave in his words, like corn in
the harvest wind. We should rejoice to obey him, for he would speak what
we need to hear. Men are always half expecting such a man. But when he
comes, the real, great man that God has been preparing,--men are
disappointed; they do not recognize him. He does not enter the city
through the gates which expectants had crowded. He is a fresh fact,
brand new; not exactly like any former fact. Therefore men do not
recognize nor acknowledge him. His language is strange, and his form
unusual. He looks revolutionary, and pulls down ancient walls to build
his own temple, or, at least, splits old rocks asunder, and quarries
anew fresh granite and marble.
There are two classes of great men. Now and then some arise whom all
acknowledge to be great, soon as they appear. Such men have what is true
in relation to the wants and expectations of to-day. They say, what many
men wished but had not words for; they translate into thought what, as a
dim sentiment, lay a burning in many a heart, but could not get entirely
written out into consciousness. These men find a welcome. Nobody
misunderstands them. The world follows at their chariot-wheels, and
flings up its cap and shouts its huzzas,--for the world is loyal, and
follows its king when it sees and knows him. The good part of the world
follows the highest man it comprehends; the bad, whoever serves its
turn.
But there is another class of men so great, that all cannot see their
greatness. They are in advance of men's conjectures, higher than their
dreams; too good to be actual, think some. Therefore, say many, there
must be some mistake; this man is not so great as he seems; nay, he is
no great man at all, but an impostor. These men have what is true not
merely in relation to the wants and expectations of men here and to-day;
but what is true in relation to the Universe, to Eternity, to God. They
do not speak what you and I have been trying to say, and cannot; but
what we shall one day years hence, wish to say, after we have improved
and grown up to man's estate.
Now it seems to me, the men of this latter class, when they come, can
never meet the approbation of the censors and guides of public opinion.
Such as wished for a new great man had a superstition of the last one in
their minds. They expected the new to be just like the old, but he is
altogether unlike. Nature is rich, but not rich enough to waste any
thing. So there are never two great men very strongly similar. Nay, this
new great man, perhaps, begins by destroying much that the old one built
up with tears and prayers. He shows, at first, the limitations and
defects of the former great man; calls in question his authority. He
refuses all masters; bows not to tradition; and with seeming
irreverence, laughs in the face of the popular idols. How will the
"respectable men," the men of a few good rules and those derived from
their fathers "the best of men and the wisest,"--how will they regard
this new great man? They will see nothing remarkable in him except that
he is fluent and superficial, dangerous and revolutionary. He disturbs
their notions of order; he shows that the institutions of society are
not perfect; that their imperfections are not of granite or marble, but
only of words written on soft wax, which may be erased and others
written thereon anew. He shows that such imperfect institutions are less
than one great man. The guides and censors of public opinion will not
honor such a man, they will hate him. Why not? Some others not half so
well bred, nor well furnished with precedents, welcome the new great
man; welcome his ideas; welcome his person. They say, "Behold a
Prophet."
* * * * *
When Jesus, the son of Mary, a poor woman, wife of Joseph the carpenter,
in the little town of Nazareth, when he "began to be about thirty years
old," and began also to open his mouth in the synagogues and the
highways, nobody thought him a great man at all, as it seems. "Who are
you?" said the guardians of public opinion. He found men expecting a
great man. This, it seems, was the common opinion, that a great man was
to arise, and save the Church, and save the State. They looked back to
Moses, a divine man of antiquity, whose great life had passed into the
world, and to whom men had done honor, in various ways; amongst others,
by telling all sorts of wonders he wrought, and declaring that none
could be so great again; none get so near to God. They looked back also
to the prophets, a long line of divine men, so they reckoned, but less
than the awful Moses; his stature was far above the nation, who hid
themselves in his shadow. Now the well-instructed children of Abraham
thought the next great man must be only a copy of the last, repeat his
ideas, and work in the old fashion. Sick men like to be healed by the
medicine which helped them the last time; at least, by the customary
drugs which are popular.
In Judea, there were then parties of men, distinctly marked. There were
the Conservatives,--they represented the church, tradition,
ecclesiastical or theocratical authority. They adhered to the words of
the old books, the forms of the old rites, the tradition of the elders.
"Nobody but a Jew can be saved," said they; "he only by circumcision,
and the keeping of the old formal law; God likes that, He accepts
nothing else." These were the Pharisees, with their servants the
Scribes. Of this class were the Priests and the Levites in the main, the
National party, the Native-Hebrew party of that time. They had
tradition, Moses and the prophets; they believed in tradition, Moses and
the prophets, at least in public; what they believed in private God
knew, and so did they. I know nothing of that.
Then there was the indifferent party; the Sadducees, the State. They had
wealth, and they believed in it, both in public and private too. They
had a more generous and extensive cultivation than the Pharisees. They
had intercourse with foreigners, and understood the writers of Ionia and
Athens which the Pharisee held in abhorrence. These were sleek
respectable men, who, in part, disbelieved the Jewish theology. It is no
very great merit to disbelieve even in the devil, unless you have a
positive faith in God to take up your affections. The Sadducee believed
neither in angel nor resurrection--not at all in the immortality of the
soul. He believed in the state, in the laws, the constables, the prisons
and the axe. In religious matters, it seems the Pharisee had a positive
belief, only it was a positive belief in a great mistake. In religious
matters the Sadducee had no positive belief at all; not even in an
error: at least, some think so. His distinctive affirmation was but a
denial. He believed what he saw with his eyes, touched with his fingers,
tasted with his tongue. He never saw, felt, nor tasted immortal life; he
had no belief therein. There was once a heathen Sadducee who said, "My
right arm is my God!"
There was likewise a party of Come-outers. They despaired of the State
and the Church too, and turned off into the wilderness, "where the wild
asses quench their thirst," building up their organizations free, as
they hoped, from all ancient tyrannies. The Bible says nothing directly
of these men in its canonical books. It is a curious omission; but two
Jews, each acquainted with foreign writers, Josephus and Philo, give an
account of these. These were the Essenes, an ascetic sect, hostile to
marriage, at least, many of them, who lived in a sort of association by
themselves, and had all things in common.
The Pharisees and the Sadducees had no great living and ruling ideas;
none I mean which represented man, his hopes, wishes, affections, his
aspirations and power of progress. That is no very rare case, perhaps,
you will say, for a party in the Church or the State to have no such
ideas, but they had not even a plausible substitute for such ideas. They
seemed to have no faith in man, in his divine nature, his power of
improvement. The Essenes had ideas; had a positive belief; had faith in
man, but it was weakened in a great measure by their machinery. They,
like the Pharisee and the Sadducee, were imprisoned in their
organization, and probably saw no good out of their own party lines.
It is a plain thing that no one of these three parties would accept,
acknowledge, or even perceive the greatness of Jesus of Nazareth. His
ideas were not their notions. He was not the man they were looking for;
not at all the Messiah, the anointed one of God, which they wanted. The
Sadducee expected no new great man unless it was a Roman quaestor, or
procurator; the Pharisees looked for a Pharisee stricter than Gamaliel;
the Essenes for an Ascetic. It is so now. Some seem to think that if
Jesus were to come back to the earth, he would preach Unitarian
sermons, from a text out of the Bible, and prove his divine mission and
the everlasting truths, the truths of necessity that he taught, in the
Unitarian way, by telling of the miracles he wrought eighteen hundred
years ago; that he would prove the immortality of the soul by the fact
of his own corporeal resurrection. Others seem to think that he would
deliver homilies of a severer character; would rate men roundly about
total depravity, and tell of unconditional election, salvation without
works, and imputed righteousness, and talk of hell till the women and
children fainted, and the knees of men smote together for trembling.
Perhaps both would be mistaken.
So it was then. All these three classes of men, imprisoned in their
prejudices and superstitions, were hostile. The Pharisees said, "We know
that God spake unto Moses; but as for this fellow, we know not whence he
is. He blasphemeth Moses and the prophets; yea, he hath a devil, and is
mad, why hear him?" The Sadducees complained that "he stirred up the
people;" so he did. The Essenes, no doubt, would have it that he was "a
gluttonous man and a wine-bibber, a friend of publicans and sinners."
Tried by these three standards, the judgment was true; what could he do
to please these three parties? Nothing! nothing that he would do. So
they hated him; all hated him, and sought to destroy him. The cause is
plain. He was so deep they could not see his profoundness; too high for
their comprehension; too far before them for their sympathy. He was not
the great man of the day. He found all organizations against him; Church
and State. Even John the Baptist, a real prophet, but not the prophet,
doubted if Jesus was the one to be followed. If Jesus had spoken for the
Pharisees, they would have accepted his speech and the speaker too. Had
he favored the Sadducees, he had been a great man in their camp, and
Herod would gladly have poured wine for the eloquent Galilean, and have
satisfied the carpenter's son with purple and fine linen. Had he praised
the Essenes, uttering their Shibboleth, they also would have paid him
his price, have made him the head of their association perhaps, at
least, have honored him in their way. He spoke for none of these. Why
should they honor or even tolerate him? It were strange had they done
so. Was it through any fault or deficiency of Jesus, that these men
refused him? quite the reverse. The rain falls and the sun shines on the
evil and the good; the work of infinite power, wisdom and goodness is
before all men, revealing the invisible things, yet the fool hath said,
ay, said in his heart, "There is no God!"
Jesus spoke not for the prejudices of such, and therefore they rejected
him. But as he spoke truths for man, truths from God, truths adapted to
man's condition there, to man's condition everywhere and always, when
the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the Essenes went away, their lips curling
with scorn; when they gnashed on one another with their teeth, there
were noble men and humble women, who had long awaited the consolation of
Israel, and they heard him, heard him gladly. Yes, they left all to
follow him. Him! no, it was not him they followed; it was God in him
they obeyed, the God of truth, the God of love.
There were men not counted in the organized sects; men weary of
absurdities; thirsting for the truth; sick, they knew not why nor of
what, yet none the less sick, and waiting for the angel who should heal
them, though by troubled waters and remedies unknown. These men had not
the prejudices of a straightly organized and narrow sect. Perhaps they
had not its knowledge, or its good manners. They were "unlearned and
ignorant men," those early followers of Christ. Nay, Jesus himself had
no extraordinary culture, as the world judges of such things. His
townsmen wondered, on a famous occasion, how he had learned to read. He
knew little of theologies, it would seem; the better for him, perhaps.
No doubt the better for us that he insisted on none. He knew they were
not religion. The men of Galilee did not need theology. The youngest
scribe in the humblest theological school at Jerusalem, if such a thing
were in those days, could have furnished theology enough to believe in
a life-time. They did need religion; they did see it as Jesus unfolded
its loveliness; they did welcome it when they saw; welcome it in their
hearts.
If I were a poet as some are born, and skilled to paint with words what
shall stand out as real, to live before the eye, and then dwell in the
affectionate memory for ever, I would tell of the audience which heard
the Sermon on the mount, which listened to the parables, the rebukes,
the beautiful beatitudes. They were plain men, and humble women; many of
them foolish like you and me; some of them sinners. But they all had
hearts; had souls, all of them--hearts made to love, souls expectant of
truth. When he spoke, some said, no doubt, "That is a new thing, that
The true worshipper shall worship in spirit and in truth, as well here
as in Jerusalem, now as well as any time; that also is a hard saying,
Love your enemies; forgive them, though seventy times seven they smite
and offend you; that notion that the law and the prophets are contained,
all that is essentially religious thereof, in one precept, Love men as
yourself, and God with all your might. This differs a good deal from the
Pharisaic orthodoxy of the synagogue. That is a bold thing, presumptuous
and revolutionary to say, I am greater than the temple, wiser than
Solomon, a better symbol of God than both." But there was something
deeper than Jewish orthodoxy in their hearts; something that Jewish
orthodoxy could not satisfy, and what was yet more troublesome to
ecclesiastical guides, something that Jewish orthodoxy could not keep
down, nor even cover up. Sinners were converted at his reproof. They
felt he rebuked whom he loved. Yet his pictures of sin and sinners too,
were any thing but flattering. There was small comfort in them. Still it
was not the publicans and harlots who laid their hands on the place
where their hearts should be, saying, "You hurt our feelings," and "we
can't bear you!" Nay, they pondered his words, repenting in tears. He
showed them their sin; its cause, its consequence, its cure. To them he
came as a Saviour, and they said, "Thou art well-come," those penitent
Magdalens weeping at his feet.
It would be curious could we know the mingled emotions that swayed the
crowd which rolled up around Jesus, following him, as the tides obey the
moon, wherever he went; curious to see how faces looked doubtful at
first as he began to speak at Tabor or Gennesareth, Capernaum or
Gischala, then how the countenance of some lowered and grew black with
thunder suppressed but cherished, while the face of others shone as a
branch of stars seen through some disparted cloud in a night of fitful
storms, a moment seen and then withdrawn. It were curious to see how
gradually many discordant feelings, passion, prejudice and pride were
hushed before the tide of melodious religion he poured out around him,
baptizing anew saint and sinner, and old and young, into one brotherhood
of a common soul, into one immortal service of the universal God; to see
how this young Hebrew maid, deep-hearted, sensitive, enthusiastic,
self-renouncing, intuitive of heavenly truth, rich as a young vine, with
clustering affections just purpling into ripeness,--how she seized,
first and all at once, the fair ideal, and with generous bosom
confidingly embraced it too; how that old man, gray-bearded, with
baldness on his head, full of precepts and precedents, the lore of his
fathers, the experience of a hard life, logical, slow, calculating,
distrustful, remembering much and fearing much, but hoping little,
confiding only in the fixed, his reverence for the old deepening as he
himself became of less use,--to see how he received the glad
inspirations of the joiner's son, and wondering felt his youth steal
slowly back upon his heart, reviving aspirations, long ago forgot, and
then the crimson tide of early hope come gushing, tingling on through
every limb; to see how the young man halting between principle and
passion, not yet petrified into worldliness, but struggling, uncertain,
half reluctant, with those two serpents, Custom and Desire, that
beautifully twined about his arms and breast and neck, their wormy
folds, concealing underneath their burnished scales the dragon's awful
strength, the viper's poison fang, the poor youth caressing their snaky
crests, and toying with their tongues of flame--to see how he slowly,
reluctantly, amid great questionings of heart, drank in the words of
truth, and then, obedient to the angel in his heart, shook off, as ropes
of sand, that hideous coil and trod the serpents underneath his feet.
All this, it were curious, ay, instructive too, could we but see.
They heard him with welcome various as their life. The old men said, "It
is Moses or Elias; it is Jeremiah, one of the old prophets arisen from
the dead, for God makes none such, now-a-days, in the sterile dotage of
mankind." The young men and maidens doubtless it was that said, "This is
the Christ; the desire of the nations; the hope of the world, the great
new prophet; the Son of David; the Son of Man; yes, the Son of God. He
shall be our king." Human nature is loyal, and follows its king soon as
it knows him. Poor lost sheep! the children of men look always for their
guide, though so often they look in vain.
How he spoke, words deep and piercing; rebukes for the wicked, doubly
rebuking, because felt to have come out from a great, deep, loving
heart. His first word was, perhaps, "Repent," but with the assurance
that the kingdom of God was here and now, within reach of all. How his
doctrines, those great truths of nature, commended themselves to the
heart of each, of all simple-souled men looking for the truth! He spoke
out of his experience; of course into theirs. He spoke great doctrines,
truths vast as the soul, eternal as God, winged with beauty from the
loveliness of his own life. Had he spoken for the Jews alone, his words
had perished with that people; for that time barely, the echo of his
name had died away in his native hamlet; for the Pharisees, the
Sadducees, the Essence, you and I had heard of him but as a Rabbi; nay,
had never been blest by him at all. Words for a nation, an age, a sect,
are of use in their place, yet they soon come to nought. But as he spoke
for eternity, his truths ride on the wings of time; as he spoke for man,
they are welcome, beautiful and blessing, wherever man is found, and so
must be till man and time shall cease.
He looked not back, as the Pharisee, save for illustrations and
examples. He looked forward for his direction. He looked around for his
work. There it lay, the harvest plenteous, the laborers few. It is
always so. He looked not to men for his idea, his word to speak; as
little for their applause. He looked in to God, for guidance, wisdom,
strength, and as water in the wilderness, at the stroke of Moses, in the
Hebrew legend, so inspiration came at his call, a mighty stream of truth
for the nation, faint, feeble, afraid, and wandering for the promised
land; drink for the thirsty, and cleansing for the unclean.
But he met opposition; O, yes, enough of it. How could it be otherwise?
It must be so. The very soul of peace, he brought a sword. His word was
a consuming fire. The Pharisees wanted to be applauded, commended; to
have their sect, their plans, their traditions praised and flattered.
His word to them was, "Repent;" of them, to the people, "Such
righteousness admits no man to the kingdom of heaven; they are a
deceitful prophecy, blind guides, hypocrites; not sons of Abraham, but
children of the devil." They could not bear him; no wonder at it. He was
the aggressor; had carried the war into the very heart of their system.
They turned out of their company a man whose blindness he healed,
because he confessed that fact. They made a law that all who believed on
him, should also be cast out. Well they might hate him, those old
Pharisees. His existence was their reproach; his preaching their trial;
his life with its outward goodness, his piety within, was their
condemnation. The man was their ruin, and they knew it. The cunning can
see their own danger, but it is only men wise in mind, or men simple of
heart, that can see their real, permanent safety and defence; never the
cunning, neither then, neither now.
Jesus looked to God for his truth, his great doctrines not his own,
private, personal, depending on his idiosyncracies, and therefore only
subjectively true,--but God's, universal, everlasting, the absolute
religion. I do not know that he did not teach some errors also, along
with it. I care not if he did. It is by his truths that I know him, the
absolute religion he taught and lived; by his highest sentiments that
he is to be appreciated. He had faith in God and obeyed God; hence his
inspiration, great, in proportion to the greater endowment, moral and
religious, which God gave him, great likewise in proportion to his
perfect obedience. He had faith in man none the less. Who ever yet had
faith in God that had none in man? I know not. Surely no inspired
prophet. As Jesus had faith in man, so he spoke to men. Never yet, in
the wide world, did a prophet arise, appealing with a noble heart and a
noble life to the soul of goodness in man, but that soul answered to the
call. It was so most eminently with Jesus. The Scribes and Pharisees
could not understand by what authority he taught. Poor Pharisees! how
could they? His phylacteries were no broader than those of another man;
nay, perhaps he had no phylacteries at all, nor even a broad-bordered
garment. Men did not salute him in the market-place, sandals in hand,
with their "Rabbi! Rabbi!" Could such men understand by what authority
he taught? no more than they dared answer his questions. They that knew
him, felt he had authority quite other than that claimed by the Scribes;
the authority of true words, the authority of a noble life; yes, the
authority which God gives a great moral and religious man. God delegates
authority to men just in proportion to their power of truth, and their
power of goodness; to their being and their life. So God spoke in
Jesus, as he taught the perfect religion, anticipated, developed, but
never yet transcended.
* * * * *
This then was the relation of Jesus to his age: the sectarians cursed
him; cursed him by their gods; rejected him, abused him, persecuted him;
sought his life. Yes, they condemned him in the name of God. All evil
says the proverb, begins in that name; much continues to claim it. The
religionists, the sects, the sectarian leaders rejected him, condemned
and slew him at the last, hanging his body on a tree. Poor priests of
the people, they hoped thereby to stifle that awful soul! they only
stilled the body; that soul spoke with a thousand tongues. So in the
times of old when the Saturnian day began to dawn, it might be fabled
that the old Titanic race, lovers of darkness and haters of the light,
essayed to bar the rising morning from the world, and so heaped Pelion
upon Ossa, and Olympus on Pelion; but first the day sent up his crimson
flush upon the cloud, and then his saffron tinge, and next the sun came
peering o'er the loftiest height, magnificently fair--and down the
mountain's slanting ridge poured the intolerable day; meanwhile those
triple hills, laboriously piled, came toppling, tumbling down, with
lumbering crush, and underneath their ruin hid the helpless giants'
grave. So was it with men who sat in Moses' seat. But this people, that
"knew not the Law," and were counted therefore accursed, they welcomed
Jesus as they never welcomed the Pharisee, the Sadducee or the Scribe.
Ay, hence were their tears. The hierarchical fire burnt not so bright
contrasted with the sun. That people had a Simon Peter, a James, and a
John, men not free from faults no doubt, the record shows it, but with
hearts in their bosoms, which could be kindled, and then could light
other hearts. Better still, there were Marthas and Marys among that
people who "knew not the law" and were cursed. They were the mothers of
many a church.
* * * * *
The character of Jesus has not changed; his doctrines are still the
same; but what a change in his relation to the age, nay to the ages. The
stone that the builders rejected is indeed become the head of the
corner, and its foundation too. He is worshipped as a God. That is the
rank assigned him by all but a fraction of the Christian world. It is no
wonder. Good men worship the best thing they know, and call it God. What
was taught to the mass of men, in those days, better than the character
of Christ? Should they rather worship the Grecian Jove, or the Jehovah
of the Jews? To me it seems the moral attainment of Jesus was above the
hierarchical conception of God, as taught at Athens, Rome, Jerusalem.
Jesus was the prince of peace, the king of truth, praying for his
enemies--"Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do!" The
Jehovah of the Old Testament, was awful and stern, a man of war, hating
the wicked. The sacerdotal conception of God at Rome and Athens was
lower yet. No wonder then, that men soon learned to honor Jesus as a
God, and then as God himself. Apostolical and other legends tell of his
divine birth, his wondrous power that healed the sick, palsied and
crippled, deaf and dumb and blind; created bread; turned water into
wine, and bid obedient devils come and go, a power that raised the dead.
They tell that nature felt with him, and at his death the strongly
sympathizing sun paused at high noon, and for three hours withheld the
day; that rocks were rent, and opening graves gave up their sainted
dead, who trod once more the streets of Zion, the first fruits of them
that slept; they tell too how disappointed Death gave back his prey, and
spirit-like, Jesus restored, in flesh and shape the same, passed through
the doors shut up, and in a bodily form was taken up to heaven before
the face of men! Believe men of these things as they will. To me they
are not truth and fact, but mythic symbols and poetry; the psalm of
praise with which the world's rude heart extols and magnifies its King.
It is for his truth and his life, his wisdom, goodness, piety, that he
is honored in my heart; yes, in the world's heart. It is for this that
in his name churches are built, and prayers are prayed; for this that
the best things we know, we honor with his name.
He is the greatest person of the ages; the proudest achievement of the
human race. He taught the absolute religion, love to God and man. That
God has yet greater men in store I doubt not; to say this is not to
detract from the majestic character of Christ, but to affirm the
omnipotence of God. When they come, the old contest will be renewed, the
living prophet stoned; the dead one worshipped. Be that as it may, there
are duties he teaches us far different from those most commonly taught.
He was the greatest fact in the whole history of man. Had he conformed
to what was told him of men; had he counselled only with flesh and
blood; he had been nothing but a poor Jew--the world had lost that rich
endowment of religious genius, that richest treasure of religious life,
the glad tidings of the one religion, absolute and true. What if he had
said, as others, "None can be greater than Moses, none so great?" He had
been a dwarf; the spirit of God had faded from his soul! But he
conferred with God, not men; took counsel of his hopes, not his fears.
Working for men, with men, by men, trusting in God, and pure as truth,
he was not scared at the little din of church or state, and trembled
not, though Pilate and Herod were made friends only to crucify him that
was a born King of the world. Methinks I hear that lofty spirit say to
you or me, poor brother, fear not, nor despair. The goodness actual in
me is possible for all. God is near thee now as then to me; rich as ever
in truth, as able to create, as willing to inspire. Daily and nightly He
showers down his infinitude of light. Open thine eyes to see, thy heart
to live. Lo, God is here.
II.
THE TRUE IDEA OF A CHRISTIAN CHURCH.--A DISCOURSE AT THE INSTALLATION OF
THEODORE PARKER AS MINISTER OF THE TWENTY-EIGHTH CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH
IN BOSTON, JANUARY 4, 1846.
For nearly a year we have assembled within these walls from week to
week,--I think not idly; I know you have not come for any trivial end.
You have recently made a formal organization of yourselves for religious
action. To-day, at your request, I enter regularly on a ministry in the
midst of you. What are we doing; what do we design to do? We are here to
establish a Christian church; and a Christian church, as I understand
it, is a body of men and women united together in a common desire of
religious excellence and with a common regard for Jesus of Nazareth,
regarding him as the noblest example of morality and religion,--as the
model, therefore, in this respect for us. Such a church may have many
rites, as our Catholic brothers, or but few rites, as our Protestant
brothers, or no rites at all, as our brothers, the Friends. It may be,
nevertheless, a Christian church; for the essential of substance, which
makes it a religious body, is the union for the purpose of cultivating
love to God and man; and the essential of form, which makes it a
Christian body, is the common regard for Jesus, considered as the
highest representative of God that we know. It is not the form, either
of ritual or of doctrine, but the spirit which constitutes a Christian
church. A staff may sustain an old man, or a young man may bear it in
his hands as a toy, but walking is walking, though the man have no staff
for ornament or support. A Christian spirit may exist under rituals and
doctrines the most diverse. It were hard to say a man is not a
Christian, because he believes in the doctrine of the Trinity, or the
Pope, while Jesus taught no such doctrine; foolish to say one is no
Christian because he denies the existence of a Devil, though Jesus
believed it. To make a man's Christian name depend on a belief of all
that is related by the numerous writers in the Bible, is as absurd as to
make that depend on a belief in all the words of Luther, or Calvin, or
St. Augustine. It is not for me to say a man is not theoretically a
Christian because he believes that Slavery is a Divine and Christian
institution; that War is grateful to God--saying, with the Old
Testament, that God himself "is a man of war," who teaches men to fight,
and curses such as refuse;--or because he believes that all men are
born totally depraved, and the greater part of them are to be damned
everlastingly by "a jealous God," who is "angry with the wicked every
day," and that the few are to be "saved" only because God unjustly
punished an innocent man for their sake. I will not say a man is not a
Christian though he believe all the melancholy things related of God in
some parts of the Old Testament, yet I know few doctrines so hostile to
real religion as these have proved themselves. In our day it has
strangely come to pass that a little sect, themselves hooted at and
called "Infidels" by the rest of Christendom, deny the name of Christian
to such as publicly reject the miracles of the Bible. Time will
doubtless correct this error. Fire is fire, and ashes ashes, say what we
may; each will work after its kind. Now if Christianity be the absolute
religion, it must allow all beliefs that are true, and it may exist and
be developed in connection with all forms consistent with the absolute
religion, and the degree thereof represented by Jesus.
The action of a Christian church seems to be twofold: first on its own
members, and then, through their means, on others out of its pale. Let a
word be said of each in its order. If I were to ask you why you came
here to-day; why you have often come to this house hitherto?--the
serious amongst you would say: That we might become better; more manly;
upright before God and downright before men; that we might be
Christians, men good and pious after the fashion Jesus spoke of. The
first design of such a church then is to help ourselves become
Christians. Now the substance of Christianity is Piety--Love to God, and
Goodness--Love to men. It is a religion, the germs whereof are born in
your heart, appearing in your earliest childhood; which are developed
just in proportion as you become a man, and are indeed the standard
measure of your life. As the primeval rock lies at the bottom of the sea
and appears at the top of the loftiest mountains, so in a finished
character religion underlies all and crowns all. Christianity, to be
perfect and entire, demands a complete manliness; the development of the
whole man, mind, conscience, heart and soul. It aims not to destroy the
sacred peculiarities of individual character. It cherishes and develops
them in their perfection, leaving Paul to be Paul, not Peter, and John
to be John, not Jude nor James. We are born different, into a world
where unlike things are gathered together, that there may be a special
work for each. Christianity respects this diversity in men, aiming not
to undo but further God's will; not fashioning all men after one
pattern, to think alike, act alike, be alike, even look alike. It is
something far other than Christianity which demands that. A Christian
church then should put no fetters on the man; it should have unity of
purpose, but with the most entire freedom for the individual. When you
sacrifice the man to the mass in church or state, church or state
becomes an offence, a stumbling-block in the way of progress, and must
end or mend. The greater the variety of individualities in church or
state, the better is it, so long as all are really manly, humane and
accordant. A church must needs be partial, not catholic, where all men
think alike, narrow and little. Your church-organ, to have compass and
volume, must have pipes of various sound, and the skilful artist
destroys none, but tunes them all to harmony; if otherwise, he does not
understand his work. In becoming Christians let us not cease to be men;
nay, we cannot be Christians unless we are men first. It were
unchristian to love Christianity better than the truth, or Christ better
than man.
But Christianity is not only the absolute religion; it has also the
ideal-man. In Jesus of Nazareth it gives us, in a certain sense, the
model of religious excellence. It is a great thing to have the perfect
idea of religion; to have also that idea made real, satisfactory to the
wants of any age, were a yet further greatness. A Christian church
should aim to have its members Christians as Jesus was the Christ; sons
of man as he was; sons of God as much as he. To be that it is not
needful to observe all the forms he complied with, only such forms as
help you; not needful to have all the thoughts that he had, only such
thoughts as are true. If Jesus were ever mistaken, as the Evangelists
make it appear, then it is a part of Christianity to avoid his mistakes
as well as to accept his truths. It is the part of a Christian church to
teach men so; to stop at no man's limitations; to prize no word so high
as truth; no man so dear as God. Jesus came not to fetter men, but free
them.
Jesus is a model-man in this respect: that he stands in a true relation
to men, that of forgiveness for their ill-treatment, service for their
needs, trust in their nature, and constant love towards them,--towards
even the wicked and hypocritical; in a true relation to God, that of
entire obedience to Him, of perfect trust in Him, of love towards Him
with the whole mind, heart and soul; and love of God is also love of
truth, goodness, usefulness, love of Love itself. Obedience to God and
trust in God is obedience to these things, and trust in them. If Jesus
had loved any opinion better than truth, then had he lost that relation
to God, and so far ceased to be inspired by Him; had he allowed any
partial feeling to overcome the spirit of universal love, then also he
had sundered himself from God, and been at discord, not in harmony with
the Infinite.
If Jesus be the model-man, then should a Christian church teach its
members to hold the same relation to God that Christ held; to be one
with Him; incarnations of God, as much and as far as Jesus was one with
God, and an incarnation thereof, a manifestation of God in the flesh.
It is Christian to receive all the truths of the Bible; all the truths
that are not in the Bible just as much. It is Christian also to reject
all the errors that come to us from without the Bible or from within the
Bible. The Christian man, or the Christian church, is to stop at no
man's limitation; at the limit of no book. God is not dead, nor even
asleep, but awake and alive as ever of old; He inspires men now no less
than beforetime; is ready to fill your mind, heart and soul with truth,
love, life, as to fill Moses and Jesus, and that on the same terms; for
inspiration comes by universal laws, and not by partial exceptions. Each
point of spirit, as each atom of space, is still bathed in the tides of
Deity. But all good men, all Christian men, all inspired men will be no
more alike than all wicked men. It is the same light which is blue in
the sky and golden in the sun. "All nature's difference makes all
nature's peace."
We can attain this relation to man and God only on condition that we are
free. If a church cannot allow freedom it were better not to allow
itself, but cease to be. Unity of purpose, with entire freedom for the
individual, should be the motto. It is only free men that can find the
truth, love the truth, live the truth. As much freedom as you shut out,
so much falsehood do you shut in. It is a poor thing to purchase unity
of church-action at the cost of individual freedom. The Catholic church
tried it, and you see what came thereof: science forsook it, calling it
a den of lies. Morality forsook it, as the mystery of iniquity, and
religion herself protested against it, as the mother of abominations.
The Protestant churches are trying the same thing, and see whither they
tend and what foes rise up against them,--Philosophy with its Bible of
nature, and Religion with its Bible of man, both the hand-writing of
God. The great problem of church and state is this: To produce unity of
action and yet leave individual freedom not disturbed; to balance into
harmonious proportions the mass and the man, the centripetal and
centrifugal powers, as, by God's wondrous, living mechanism, they are
balanced in the worlds above. In the state we have done this more wisely
than any nation heretofore. In the churches it remains yet to do. But
man is equal to all which God appoints for him. His desires are ever
proportionate to his duty and his destinies. The strong cry of the
nations for liberty, a craving as of hungry men for bread and water,
shows what liberty is worth, and what it is destined to do. Allow
freedom to think, and there will be truth; freedom to act, and we shall
have heroic works; freedom to live and be, and we shall have love to men
and love to God. The world's history proves that, and our own history.
Jesus, our model-man, was the freest the world ever saw!
Let it be remembered that every truth is of God, and will lead to good
and good only. Truth is the seed whereof welfare is the fruit; for every
grain thereof we plant some one shall reap a whole harvest of welfare. A
lie is "of the Devil," and must lead to want and woe and death, ending
at last in a storm where it rains tears and perhaps blood. Have freedom,
and you will sow new truth to reap its satisfaction; submit to thraldom,
and you sow lies to reap the death they bear. A Christian church should
be the home of the soul, where it enjoys the largest liberty of the sons
of God. If fettered elsewhere, here let us be free. Christ is the
liberator; he came not to drive slaves, but to set men free. The
churches of old did their greatest work, when there was most freedom in
those churches.
Here too should the spirit of devotion be encouraged; the soul of man
communing with his God in aspirations after purity and truth, in
resolutions for goodness, and piety, and a manly life. These are a
prayer. The fact that men freely hold truths in common, great truths and
universal; that unitedly they lift up their souls to God seeking
instruction of Him, this will prove the strongest bond between man and
man. It seems to me that the Protestant churches have not fully done
justice to the sentiment of worship; that in taking care of the head we
have forgotten the heart. To think truth is the worship of the head; to
do noble works of usefulness and charity the worship of the will; to
feel love and trust in man and God, is the glad worship of the heart. A
Christian church should be broad enough for all; should seek truth and
promote piety, that both together might toil in good works.
Here should be had the best instruction which can be commanded; the
freest, truest, and most manly voice; the mind most conversant with
truth; the eloquence of a heart that runs over with goodness, whose
faith is unfaltering in truth, justice, purity, and love; a faith in
God, whose charity is living love to men, even the sinful and the base.
Teaching is the breathing of one man's inspiration into another, a most
real thing amongst real men. In a church there should be instruction for
the young. God appoints the father and mother the natural teachers of
children; above all is it so in their religious culture. But there are
some who cannot, many who will not fulfil this trust. Hence it has been
found necessary for wise and good men to offer their instruction to
such. In this matter it is religion we need more than theology, and of
this it is not mere traditions and mythologies we are to teach, the
anile tales of a rude people in a dark age, things our pupils will do
well to forget soon as they are men, and which they will have small
reason to thank us for obscuring their minds withal; but it is the
great, everlasting truths of religion which should be taught, enforced
by examples of noble men, which tradition tells of, or the present age
affords, all this to be suited to the tender years of the child.
Christianity should be represented as human, as man's nature in its true
greatness; religion shown to be beautiful, a real duty corresponding to
man's deepest desire, that as religion affords the deepest satisfaction
to man, so it is man's most universal want. Christ should be shown to
men as he was, the manliest of men, the most divine because the most
human. Children should be taught to respect their nature; to consider it
as the noblest of all God's works; to know that perfect truth and
goodness are demanded of them, and by that only can they be worthy men;
taught to feel that God is present in Boston and to-day, as much as ever
in Jerusalem in the time of Jesus. They should be taught to abhor the
public sins of our times, but to love and imitate its great examples of
nobleness, and practical religion, which stand out amid the mob of
worldly pretenders in this day.
Then, too, if one of our members falls into unworthy ways, is it not the
duty of some one to speak with him, not as with authority to command,
but with affection to persuade? Did any one of you ever address an
erring brother on the folly of his ways with manly tenderness, and try
to charm him back, and find a cold repulse? If a man is in error he will
be grateful to one that tells him so; will learn most from men who make
him ashamed of his littleness of life. In this matter it seems many a
good man comes short of his duty.