Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Discourse volume 1.djvu/213

166 dents, and utters magnificent beatitudes of Piety and Humanity.

But he does not appear to have been conscious of the Infinite Perfection of God, for though he calls Him our Father, and insists on Absolute Love for God, which certainly seems to imply a Feeling of his Perfection, yet he considers God so imperfect as to damn the majority of men to eternal torment. Beside God he places a Devil absolutely evil, the adversary of God and enemy of man. Hell is eternal, and the wide road thereto is travelled well.

He claimed to be the Messiah spoken of by the writers of the Old Testament, John the Baptist, preparing the way for him, was equal to the greatest of men, but the least in the Kingdom of Heaven was greater than John. Men must believe that he is the Messiah, and confess him before men, or suffer future torment; in the day of judgment the cities which rejected his claim would fare worse than Sodom and Gomorrah, while men who believed and followed him would have immense power and glory. A great crisis, or revolution, is soon to take place, and the Son of Man is to establish the Kingdom of Heaven; the time is near but yet still uncertain; he himself knows not the day and hour. But he is already highly exalted, greater than the Sabbath and the Temple, all things are given to him by the Father, whom he alone knows, and by whom alone he is directly known.

In this new state of things all temporal and material cares were to cease, so he bids men not lay up treasures on earth, but only in Heaven; to take no thought for life, what they should eat, or drink, or wherewithal be clad; for if they seek first the Kingdom of God and its righteousness all these things will be added, and they be fed like the wild birds, and clothed as the lilies are. If God care for grass and sparrows so will he much more for them, and give good things to such as ask him. If brought to trial before magistrates for attempting to establish this Kingdom, they must take no thought for defence, for it