Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Discourse volume 1.djvu/350

Rh logically annihilates the difference between good and evil, denying the ultimate value of a manly life. It takes out of the pale of humanity its fairest sons, prophets, saints, apostles, Moses, Jesus, Paul, and makes their character miraculous, not manly. It tears off the crown of royalty from Man, makes Jesus a God; does not tell us we are born sons of God, as much as Jesus, and may stand as close to God. It does not tell of God now, near at hand, but a long while ago. It makes the Bible a tyrant of the soul. It is our master in all departments of thought. Science must lay his kingly head in the dust; Reason veil her majestic countenance; Conscience bow him to the earth; Affection keep silence when the priest uplifts the Bible. Man is subordinate to the apocryphal, ambiguous, imperfect, and often erroneous Scripture of the Word; the Word itself, as it comes straightway from the fountain of Truth, through Reason, Conscience, Affection, and the Soul, he must not have. It takes the Bible for God's statute-book; combines old Hebrew notions into a code of ethics; takes figures for fact; settles questions in Morals and Religion by texts of Scripture! It can justify anything out of the Bible. It wars to the knife against gaiety of heart; condemns amusement as sinful; sneers at Common Sense; spits upon Reason, calling it “carnal;” appeals to low and selfish aims—to Fear, the most selfish and base of all passions. Fear of hell is the bloody knout with which it scourges reluctant flesh across the finite world, and whips him smarting into Heaven at last. It does not know that goodness is its own recompense, and vice its own torture, that judgment takes place daily, and God's laws execute themselves. Shall I be bribed to goodness by hope of Heaven; or driven by fear of hell? It makes men do nothing from the love of what is good, beautiful, and true. It asks, Shall a man love goodness as a picture, for itself? Its divine life is but a good bargain. It makes a day of judgment; heaven and hell to begin after death, while goodness is Heaven, and vice Hell, now and for ever.

It makes Religion unnatural to men, and of course hostile; Christianity alien to the soul. It paves Hell with children's bones; has a personal Devil in the world, to harry the land, and lure or compel men to eternal woe. Its God is diabolical. It puts an Intercessor between God