Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Discourse volume 1.djvu/349

302 move—men who ask pay for goodness. It has a deep reverence for God; and counts religion a reality; insists on a right heart. It watches over sin with a jealous eye. Coming from a principle so deep as reverence for God; believes it has all of truth in the lids of the Bible; confiding in the intercession and atonement of Christ; setting before the righteous the certainty of God's aid if they are faithful, to assure their perseverance, and promising all the rewards of heaven, it makes men strong, very strong. We see its influence, good and bad, on some of the fathers of New England, in their self-denial, their penitence, their austere devotion, the unconquerable daring, the religious awe which marked those iron men.

If it have great merits, it has great faults, which come from its peculiar doctrine, while its merits have a deeper source. It makes God dark and awful; a judge not a protector; a king not a Father; jealous, selfish, vindictive. He is the Draco of the Universe; the Author of Sin, but its unforgiving avenger. Man must hate the picture it makes of God. He is the Jehovah of the book of Numbers, more cruel than Odin or Baal. He punishes sin—though its Author—for his own glory, not for Man's benefit and correction. All the lovely traits of divine character it bestows upon the Son; he is mild and beautiful as God is awful and morose. Men rush from the Father; they flee to the Son. Its religion is Fear of God, not love of him, for Man cannot love what is not lovely.

This system degrades Man. It deprives him of freedom. It makes him not only the dwarf of himself—for the actual man is but the dwarf of the ideal and possible man—but a being hapless and ill-born; the veriest worm that crawls the globe. To take a step toward Heaven he must deny his nature, and crucify himself. He is born totally depraved, and laden besides with the sins of Adam. He can do nothing to recover from these sins; the righteousness of Christ is the only ground of the sinner's justification; this righteousness is received through “faith,” which is “the gift of God,” and so “salvation is wholly of grace.” The salvation of Man is wrought for him, not by him. It