The Collected Works of Theodore Parker/Volume 01/Book 5/Chapter 6
CHAPTER VI.
OF THE PARTY THAT ARE NEITHER CATHOLICS NOR PROTESTANTS.
This party has an Idea wider and deeper than that of the Catholic or Protestant, namely, that God still inspires men as much as ever; that he is immanent in spirit as in space. For the present purpose, and to avoid circumlocution, this doctrine may be called Spiritualism. This relies on no Church, Tradition, or Scripture, as the last ground and infallible rule; it counts these things teachers, if they teach, not masters; helps, if they help us, not authorities. It relies on the divine presence in the Nature of Man; the eternal Word of God, which is Truth, as it speaks through the faculties he has given. It believes God is near the soul, as matter to the sense; thinks the canon of revelation not yet closed, nor God exhausted. It sees him in Nature's perfect work; hears him in all true Scripture, Jewish or Phoenician; feels him in the aspiration of the heart; stoops at the same fountain with Moses and Jesus, and is filled with living water. It calls God Father and Mother, not King; Jesus brother, not Redeemer; Heaven home; Religion nature. It loves and trusts, but does not fear. It sees in Jesus a man living manlike, highly gifted, though not without errors, and living with earnest and beautiful fidelity to God, stepping thousands of years before the race of men; the profoundest religious genius God has raised up, whose words and works help us to form and develope the idea of a complete religious man. But he lived for himself; died for himself; worked out his own salvation, and we must do the same, for one man cannot live for another more than he can eat or sleep for him. It is no personal Christ, but the Spirit of Wisdom, Holiness, Love, that creates the well-being of men; a life at one with God. The divine incarnation is in all mankind.
The aim it proposes is a complete union of Man with God, till every action, thought, wish, feeling, is in perfect harmony with the divine will. The “Christianity” it rests in is not the point Man goes through in his progress, as the Rationalist, not the point God goes through in his development, as the Supernaturalist maintains; but Absolute Religion, the point where Man's will and God's will are one and the same. Its Source is absolute, its Aim absolute, its Method absolute. It lays down no creed; asks no symbol; reverences exclusively no time nor place, and therefore can use all time and every place. It reckons forms useful to such as they help; one man may commune with God through the bread and the wine, emblems of the body that was broke, and the blood that was shed, in the cause of truth; another may hold communion through the moss and the violet, the mountain, the ocean, or the Scripture of suns, which God has writ in the sky; it does not make the means the end; it prizes the signification more than the sign. It knows nothing of that puerile distinction between Reason and Revelation; never finds the alleged contradiction between Good Sense and Religion. Its Temple is all space; its Shrine the good heart; its Creed all truth; its Ritual works of love and utility; its Profession of faith a manly life, works without, faith within, love of God and man. It bids man do duty, and take what comes of it, grief or gladness. In every desert it opens fountains of living water; gives balm for every wound, a pillow in all tempests, tranquillity in each distress. It does good for goodness' sake; asks no pardon for its sins, but gladly serves out the time. It is meek and reverent of truth, but scorns all falsehood, though upheld by the ancient and honourable of the earth. It bows to no idols, of wood or flesh, of gold or parchment, or spoken wind; neither Mammon, neither the Church, nor the Bible, nor yet Jesus, but God only. It takes all helps it can get; counts no good word profane, though a heathen spoke it; no lie sacred, though the greatest prophet had said the word. Its redeemer is within; its salvation within; its heaven and its oracle of God. It falls back on perfect Religion; asks no more; is satisfied with no less. The personal Jesus is its encouragement, for he helps reveal the possible of man. Its watchword is, Be perfect as God. With its eye on the Infinite, it goes through the striving and the sleep of life; equal to duty, not above it; fearing not whether the ephemeral wind blow east or west. It has the strength of the Hero; the tranquil sweetness of the Saint. It makes each man his own priest; but accepts gladly him that speaks a holy word. Its prayer in words, in works, in feeling, in thought, is this, Thy will be done; its Church that of all holy souls, the Church of the first-born, called by whatever name.[1]
Let others judge the merits and defects of this scheme. It has never organized a Church; yet in all ages, from the earliest, men have, more or less freely, set forth its doctrines. We find these men among the despised and forsaken. The world was not ready to receive them. They have been stoned and spit upon in all the streets of the world. The “pious” have burned them as haters of God and man; the “wicked” called them bad names and let them go. They have served to flesh the swords of the Catholic Party, and feed the fires of the Protestant. But flame and steel will not consume them. The seed they have sown is quick in many a heart; their memory blessed by such as live divine. These were the men at whom the world opens wide the mouth and draws out the tongue and utters its impotent laugh; but they received the fire of God on their altar, and kept living its sacred flame. They go on the forlorn hope of the race; but Truth puts a wall of fire about them and holds the shield over their head in the day of trouble. The battle of Truth seems often lost, but is always won. Her enemies but erect the bloody scaffolding were the workmen of God go up and down, and with divine hands build wiser than they know. When the scaffolding falls the temple will appear.
- ↑ It is unnecessary to enlarge on this scheme, since so much has been said of it already. See Book I. ch. vii. § 3, and Book II. ch. viii., and Book III. ch. v. vi.