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Theodore Parker. Discourse of Theology
Discourse of Theology
Table of Contents
The Relation of Jesus to his Age and the Ages
On Immortal Life
A SERMON ON IMMORTAL LIFE
The True Idea of a Christian Church
THE TRUE IDEA OF A CHRISTIAN CHURCH
Some Thoughts on the most Christian Use of the Sunday
SOME THOUGHTS ON THE MOST CHRISTIAN USE OF THE SUNDAY
Of Old Age
A SERMON OF OLD AGE
Of the Function of a Teacher of Religion in these Times
A DISCOURSE OF THE FUNCTION OF A TEACHER OF RELIGION IN THESE TIMES
Of the Delights of Piety
ON THE DELIGHTS OF PIETY
Of the Relation between the Ecclesiastical Institutions and the Religious Consciousness of the American People
A False and True Revival of Religion
A FALSE AND TRUE REVIVAL OF RELIGION
The Revival of Religion which we need
THE REVIVAL OF RELIGION WHICH WE NEED
False and True Theology
FALSE AND TRUE THEOLOGY
Excesses of the Revival — Theodore Parker's Case
EXCESSES OF THE REVIVAL—
Beauty in the World of Matter, considered as a Revelation of God
BEAUTY IN THE WORLD OF MATTER,
PREFATORY LETTER
SERMON
What Religion may do for a Man
WHAT RELIGION MAY DO FOR A MAN
Farewell Letter to the Members of the Twenty-eighth Congregational Society in Boston
FAREWELL LETTER,
Отрывок из книги
Theodore Parker
Published by Good Press, 2021
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Yet the next life must be a state of retribution. Thither we carry nothing but ourselves, our naked selves. Our fortune we leave behind us; our honours and rank return to such as gave; even our reputation, the good or ill men thought we were, clings to us no more. We go thither without our staff or scrip ; nothing but the man we are. Yet that man is the result of all life's daily work; it is the one thing which we have brought to pass. I cannot believe men who have voluntarily lived mean, little, vulgar, and selfish lives, will go out of this and into that, great, noble, generous, good, and holy. Can the practical saint and the practical hypocrite enter on the same course of being together? I know the sufferings of bad men here, the wrong they do their nature, and what comes of that wrong. I think that suffering is the best part of sin, the medicine to heal it with. What men suffer here from their wrong-doing is its natural consequence; but all that suffering is a mercy, designed to make them better. Everything in this world is adapted to promote the welfare of God's creatures. Must it not be so in the next? How many men seem wicked from our point of view, who are not so from their own; how many become infamous through no fault of theirs; the victims of circumstances, born into crime, of low and corrupt parents, whom former circumstances made corrupt! Such men cannot be sinners before God. Here they suffer from the tyranny of appetites they never were taught to subdue; they have not the joy of a cultivated mind. The children of the wild Indian are capable of the same cultivation as children here; yet they are savages. Is it always to be so? Is God to be partial in granting the favours of another life? I cannot believe it. I doubt not that many a soul rises up from the dungeon and the gallows, yes, from dens of infamy amongst men, clean and beautiful before God. Christ, says the Gospel, assured the penitent thief of sharing heaven with him—and that day. Many seem inferior to me, who in God's sight must be far before me; men who now see too low to learn of me here, may be too high to teach me there.
I know that when father and mother both forsake me, in the extremity of my sin, I know my God loves on. Oh yes, ye sons of men, Indian and Greek, ye are right to trust your God. Do priests and their churches say No!—bid them go and be silent for ever. No grain of dust gets lost from off this dusty globe ; and shall God lose a man from off this sphere of souls ? Believe it not. I know that suffering follows sin, lasting long as the sin. I thank God it is so ; that God's own angel stands there to warn back the erring Balaams, wandering towards woe. But God, who sends the rain, the dew, the sun, on me as on a better man, will, at last, I doubt it not, make us all pure, all just, all good, and so, at last, all happy. This follows from the nature of God himself, for the All-good must wish the welfare of His child: the All-wise know how to achieve that welfare ; the All-powerful bring it to pass. Tell me He wishes not the eternal welfare of all men, then I say, That is not the God of the universe. I own not that as God. Nay, I tell you it is not God you speak of, but some heathen fancy, smoking up from your unhuman heart. I would ask the worst of mothers, Did you forsake your child because he went astray, and mocked your word? "Oh no," she says; "he was but a child, he knew no better, and I led him right, corrected him for his good, not mine!" Are we not all children before God; the wisest, oldest, wickedest, God's child! I am sure He will never forsake me, how wicked soever I become. I know that He is love; love, too, that never fails. I expect to suffer for each conscious, wilful wrong; I wish, I hope, I long to suffer for it. I am wronged if I do not; what I do not outgrow, live over and forget here, I hope to expiate there. I fear a sin; not to outgrow a sin.
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