Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Discourse volume 1.djvu/21

xxii like the elder Deism, to signify the exclusion of Christianity, but the inclusion of it in one great Absolute Religion.

Theism differs thus, on the one hand, from all such Atheistic, Pantheistic, or Deistic systems as either tell us that there is no God, or that He is an Impersonal Power, or that He is a Great First Cause removed from all reach of human prayers. All such systems as these, even such as admit the existence of God and assume the name of Religions, yet eliminate from religion that which is its vital element—the belief in a real intercourse of prayer and assistance, of repentance and forgiveness, of obedience and guidance, between man and God.

And Theism differs, on the other hand, from all such Christian creeds as profess to tell us of an ever present God, yet affirm all our certain knowledge of Him to be derived from the evidence of tradition concerning long past supernatural events. All such creeds, while admitting a spiritual intercourse between God and the soul, distort and trammel such intercourse by false and unnatural representations of our relation to Him, and by setting at variance the emotions of piety and the dictates of reason. Thus while the popular creed (albeit nourishing in its disciples the purest spirituality) opposes itself continually to their intellects and moral instincts, and Pantheism and Deism (albeit professedly meeting the claims of the intellect and moral instincts) exclude spirituality—the religion which Parker taught combines all that is noblest in both systems,—the spirituality which springs from belief in a real intercourse between God and the soul, and the intellectual and moral harmony of a creed confessedly founded on human consciousness.

In so far as it can be proved to do this, in so far does Parker's creed command our highest consideration, for it is precisely to the union of a Rational and a Spiritual faith that the hopes of men are directed now in a manner hitherto unknown. We have learned, at last, to recognize that the Intellect is a Divine gift, even as the Religious Feelings are Divine gifts, and that it is not only a senseless but an impious endeavour to sacrifice the one for the other. And, on the other hand, we have learned that a conscious communion between man and God is the essence of religion, and that any creed which excludes it,—be it never so philosophic in all beside,—is of less value than any creed which enables men to attain it,—be it