Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Discourse volume 1.djvu/141

94 to be good, to do good; to love men, to love God. It may use forms, prayers, dogmas, ceremonies, priests, temples, sabbaths, festivals, and fasts; yes, sacrifices if it will, as means, not ends; symbols of a sentiment, not substitutes for it. Its substance is Love of God; its Piety the form, Morality the Love of men; its temple a pure heart; its sacrifice a divine life. The end it proposes is, to reunite the man with God, till he thinks God's thought, which is Truth; feels God's feeling, which is Love, wills God's will, which is the eternal Right; thus finding God in the sense wherein he is not far from any one of us; becoming one with Him, and so partaking the divine nature. The means to this high end are an extinction of all in man that opposes God's law; a perfect obedience to Him as he speaks in Reason, Conscience, Affection. It leads through active obedience to an absolute trust, a perfect love; to the complete harmony of the finite man with the infinite God, and man's will coalesces in that of Him who is All in All. Then Faith and Knowledge are the same thing, Reason and Revelation do not conflict, Desire and Duty go hand in hand, and strew man's path with flowers. Desire has become dutiful, and Duty desirable. The divine spirit incarnates itself in the man. The riddle of the world is solved. Perfect love casts out fear. Then Religion demands no particular actions, forms, or modes of thought. The man's ploughing is holy as his prayer; his daily bread as the smoke of his sacrifice; his home sacred as his temple; his work-day and his sabbath are alike God's day. His priest is the holy spirit within him; Faith and Works his communion of both kinds. He does not sacrifice Reason to Relig i on, nor Religion to Reason. Brother and Sister, they dwell together in love. A life harmonious and beautiful, conducted by Righteousness, filled full with Truth and enchanted by Love to men and God,—this is the service he pays to the Father of All. Belief does not take the place of Life. Capricious austerity atones for no duty left undone. He loves Religion as a bride, for her own sake, not for what she brings. He lies low in the hand of God. The breath of the Father is on him.

If Joy comes to this man, he rejoices in its rosy light. His Wealth, his Wisdom, his Power, is not for himself alone, but for all God's children. Nothing is his which a