Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Discourse volume 1.djvu/372

326 be employed as the maxims of geometry, and no more to be called in question. Amongst these are the following: Man under the light of nature is not capable of discovering the moral and religious truth needed for his moral and religious welfare; there must be, a personal and miraculous mediator between each man and God; a life of blameless obedience to the law of Man's nature will not render us acceptable to God, and insure our well-being in the next life; we need a superhuman being to bear our sins, through whom alone we are saved; Jesus of Nazareth is that superhuman, and miraculous, and sin-reconciling mediator; the doctrine he taught is Revealed Rehgion, which differs essentially from Natural Religion; an external and contingent miracle is the only proof of an eternal and necessary truth in Morals or Religion; God formerly transcended the laws of Nature and made a miraculous revelation of some truth; he does not now inspire men as formerly. Each of these aphorisms is a gratuitous assumption, which has never been proved, and of course all the theological deductions made from the aphorisms, or resting on these two main assumptions, are without any real foundation. Theologians have assumed their facts, and then reasoned as if the fact were established, but the conclusion was an inference from a baseless assumption. Thus it accounts for nothing, “We only become certain of the immortality of the soul from the fact of Christ’s resurrection,” says Theology. Here are two assumptions: first, the fact of that resurrection; second, that it proves our immortality. If we ask proof of the first point, it is not easy to come by; of the second, it is not shown. The theological method is false; for it does not prove its facts historically, or verify its conclusions philosophically. The Hindoo theory says, the earth rests on the back of an Elephant, the Elephant on a Tortoise. But what does the Tortoise rest upon? The great Turtle of popular theology rests on—an assumption. Who taught us the infallible divinity of the Bible, or the Churches? “Why, we always thought so. We inherited the opinion, as land, from our fathers, to have and to hold, for our use and behoof, for ourselves, and our heirs for ever. Would you have a better title? We are regularly ‘seized’ of the doctrine; it came, with the divine right of kings, from our fathers, who by the grace of God,