The doc

trine of re

rational.

tion ascribes to him. But those high powers involved the gift of free-will. Man, like the Creator, could determine for himself what course of moral action he would pursue. In the exercise of this freedom, with holiness and sin alike possible to him, he was tempted into the choice of the lat ter. Thus he forsook the God in whose image he was made, and sank down to the level of superstition where Parker finds him. And hence it follows, that the first great need of man is not progress in his present state, but redemption from it. The demption whole scheme of a revelation from God, with the purpose of an atonement and restoration, is seen to be rational. Our faith in the goodness of God leads us to expect that he will interpose for the recovery of his children. And that remedial work must have on it the seal of his own divine name and authority, and must be in the hands of a Mediator who is not subject to human limitations. The blind cannot lead the blind. None but a Saviour who has never fallen, and whose nature is such that he cannot be tempted of evil, may hope to avail for us in this sore exigency.

Parker not

simply a theist.

I have now sketched the main features of Parker's theism; and have indicated, in brief, the line of refutation to which he is exposed, assuming him to be only a theist, and the leader he has been supposed to be. It may appear, however, as we go on, that this assumption is unfounded, or at least that it but partially states the case; that there was in him, not a conclusion, perhaps, but a tendency towards a conclusion, which forbids us to assign him the place of leadership, and requires that he be set down as the follower of a school of

theorists long known in the history of religious speculation. Had I been told that Parker was a pantheist, before studying him with a view to the settlement of the matter, I should have been strongly inclined to deny the charge; and I still deny it, after carefully reading his works, if the meaning be that he had finally and openly declared himself to that effect. But that the imputation is altogether false, if only the drift and tone of his thinking be meant, no thorough student of him, I am sure, will undertake to maintain.

Let us therefore, in the third place, see if Was Parker there be any sufficient ground for bringing Theodore Parker within the limits of a treatise

a pantheist?

on pantheistic thinking.

It

Here it is important to revert, for a moment, to the position taken in the introduction to these lectures. was there maintained that there can be but two sources

A re-statement of the alternative of unbelief.

of philosophical infidelity; that all free thought has its logical ultimate in pantheism or positivism in pantheism when the a-priori or transcendental method of thinking is rigidly adhered to, in positivism when the a-posteriori or empirical method is strictly followed. Any other forms of infidelity are but half-way houses between Christianity and one or the other of these two. The human mind having let go its hold upon God, and not recovering that hold in Christ, gravitates steadily towards Spinoza or Comte. Christ, if I may so speak, stands as it were at the apex of the triangle of religious thought; and whomsoever faith in Christ does not uphold at that point, the same settles steadily downward

through the process of speculation, till he reaches the base line; the original bent of his mind having meanwhile, according as it is transcendental or empirical, carried him aside on that line either to the angle occupied by Spinoza, or to that occupied by Comte. Any intermediate positions, such as deism, theism, scepticism, rationalism, naturalism, are but points in the process, where he is held in suspense for a longer or shorter time.

could not be

a positiv

ist.

This statement is, if I mistake not, confirmed by the drift of Parker's speculations. Having cast off the authority of Christ, he did not escape the Parker fatal spell which draws all minds downward, either in the direction of pantheism or positivism; not in the direction of positivism in his case, as we shall soon see. The bent of his genius was not empirical, but transcendental. He found the germs of the absolute religion, not in the philosophy of the senses, but in that of consciousness. Had he lived to the present time, when the intuitional philosophy is at a low ebb and the sensational is coming in like a flood, he would logically stand with the retiring rather than the advancing host.

Pantheism taken for

may be mis

positivism.

There is one subject on which we need to discriminate with care, or we shall often confound the pantheist with the positivist: it is the subject of development in nature. They both speak of this, sometimes in nearly the same words; but if we consider we shall see that with one it is a development downward, and with the other a development upward. Pantheism is thus made to appear as a kind of a-priori positivism, and positivism as a-posteriori pantheism. According to the pantheist there is an efflux of the divine

essence ever farther and farther down, constituting nature, both the conscious and the unconscious. The positivist admits no such divine essence, much less any manifestations of it under natural forms; but, on the contrary, holds that all the reality we can know is centred in nature, and is constantly ascending towards consciousness by the action of inherent forces. We might think that even Emerson is a positivist, when he says that the plants grope ever upward towards consciousness; but he is not, for he clsewhere teaches that it is the going forth of the eternally conscious "soul," ever downward from the higher to the lower forms, that makes nature. The development of nature, however variously expressed, is the divine mind taking its own outgoings back into itself.

Parker not

Thus, rather than in the atheistic sense, are we to understand Parker when he seems to use the language of positivism or materialism. "I have been into man with my scalpel in my hand, and my microscope, and there is no soul. Man is bones, blood, bowels, and brain. Mind is matter. Do you doubt this? Here is Arnoldi's perfect map of the brain: there is no soul there; notha material ing but nerves." He puts these words into the mouth of an imagined teacher of materialism, and so far from accepting the doctrine they embody, he utters his strong abhorrence of it. It is true that he often speaks kindly of atheists, especially while contrasting them with orthodox Christians, for whom he has no patience; yet he does not leave us to infer from this that he has any sympathy with atheism. "The Christian world," says he, "has something to learn, at this day, even from the athe

ist.

1 Sermons of Theism, p. 19.

free

ist; for he asks entire freedom for human nature,

dom to think, freedom to will, freedom to love, freedom to worship if he will, not to worship if he will not. And if the Christian world had granted this freedom, then there would have been no atheism. If theology had not severed itself from science, science would have adorned the church with its magnificent beauty. Even the protests against Christianity' are oftenest made by men full of the religious spirit. Many of the unbelievers' of this age are eminent for their religion; atheists are often made such by circumstances. M. Comte must have a

new Su

1

Denies the

of atheism.

preme, - Nouveau Grand Etre, and recommends daily prayers to his composite and progressive deity." What Parker here says of the duty of the Christian church to admit atheists into its fellowship, my present purpose does not require me to notice; but in denying, as he does, the possibility of atheism, he shows that possibility he is not a disciple of any a-posteriori system of philosophy or religion. No one could speak more earnestly, or more feelingly and indignantly, than he, against speculative atheism. It is in a strain of tearful remonstrance almost, that he exclaims, "Take away my consciousness of God; let me believe there is no infinite God; no infinite Mind which thought the world into existence, and which thinks it into continuance; no infinite Conscience which everlastingly enacts the eternal laws of the universe, no infinite Affection which loves the world, — then I should be sadder than Egyptian night. Yes, I should die in uncontrollable anguish and despair." 2 Our author had been accused of atheism, by some of those who undertook 2 Ibid., pp. 29, 30.

1 Sermons of Theism, Introduction, pp. 70, 72.