Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Discourse volume 1.djvu/22

Rh never so poor and irrational in all beside. Thus then, for religion's own sake, we ask for an intellectual faith; and for all the dearest interests of the soul, we ask that that intellectual faith shall ratify the spiritual part of our religion. Hitherto, with the exception of a few philosophers, men have commonly sought and found in their traditional creeds the means of attaining such spirituality as they desired, and have been content to give up reason for it's sake. Every religion, perhaps, has enabled some of its votaries to attain to a real intercourse with God, and, like the churches of Latin and Copt, Greek and Maronite, clustered around the Holy Sepulchre, each opens into the true sanctuary, which not one of them all can claim as its own, or monopolize for itself. But for us, in our time, it has come to pass that there is no entrance possible into the fane, save through the vestibule of a creed which shall preserve inviolate all the rights of the intellect and the moral instincts. When we have found this way to the Holy Place, we may press forward with God's saints of every age and creed, even into the innermost shrine of a conscious communion with Him. When we have arrived there, even the way we came will become indifferent.

Such then, in brief, is the Theology expounded in these volumes. Parker never claimed for it, and none will claim for him, that it is a perfect system, absolutely true and complete in all its parts. Such things are not for man, and the sooner we dismiss the pretenders to them the better. It will still be the best and wisest of existing theologies if it afford us a chart of the great ocean of thought, to be more and more fully filled up by explorers for ages to come, and yet sufficient now to enable us to steer our barks to the haven. We believe that there are signs enough within the churches, and without them, to justify the anticipation that such a theology will do a noble work; that those who have abandoned all existing creeds in despair, will be able here to find a reasonable and a welcome faith; and that it will legitimatize to their own minds the aspirations of thousands more, who are yet within the pale of traditionalism, but daily find that it is the which is their bread of life; and that all beyond is a difficulty and a stumblingblock. Reville says well, “Pour nous aussi, au moment où les edifices et les traditions séculaires menacent de s'écrouler, quand on se demande avec anxiété