Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Discourse volume 1.djvu/364

Rh up, whose words and works help us to form and develope the idea of a complete religious man. But he lived for himself; died for himself; worked out his own salvation, and we must do the same, for one man cannot live for another more than he can eat or sleep for him. It is no personal Christ, but the Spirit of Wisdom, Holiness, Love, that creates the well-being of men; a life at one with God. The divine incarnation is in all mankind.

The aim it proposes is a complete union of Man with God, till every action, thought, wish, feeling, is in perfect harmony with the divine will. The “Christianity” it rests in is not the point Man goes through in his progress, as the Rationalist, not the point God goes through in his development, as the Supernaturalist maintains; but Absolute Religion, the point where Man's will and God's will are one and the same. Its Source is absolute, its Aim absolute, its Method absolute. It lays down no creed; asks no symbol; reverences exclusively no time nor place, and therefore can use all time and every place. It reckons forms useful to such as they help; one man may commune with God through the bread and the wine, emblems of the body that was broke, and the blood that was shed, in the cause of truth; another may hold communion through the moss and the violet, the mountain, the ocean, or the Scripture of suns, which God has writ in the sky; it does not make the means the end; it prizes the signification more than the sign. It knows nothing of that puerile distinction between Reason and Revelation; never finds the alleged contradiction between Good Sense and Religion. Its Temple is all space; its Shrine the good heart; its Creed all truth; its Ritual works of love and utility; its Profession of faith a manly life, works without, faith within, love of God and man. It bids man do duty, and take what comes of it, grief or gladness. In every desert it opens fountains of living water; gives balm for every wound, a pillow in all tempests, tranquillity in each distress. It does good for goodness' sake; asks no pardon for its sins, but gladly serves out the time. It is meek and reverent of truth, but scorns all falsehood, though upheld by the ancient and honourable of the earth. It bows to no idols, of wood or flesh, of gold or parchment, or spoken wind; neither Mammon, neither the Church,