Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Discourse volume 1.djvu/74

Rh without regard to its Author. The religious man obeys the same law, but regards it as the will of God. One rests in the law, the other only in its Author.

Now in all forms of Religion there must be a common element which is the same thing in each man; not a similar thing, but just the same thing, different only in degree, not in kind, and in its direction towards one or many objects, in both of which particulars it is influenced in some measure by external circumstances. Then since men exist under most various conditions, and in widely different degrees of civilization, it is plain that the religious consciousness must appear under various forms, accompanied with various doctrines, as to the number and nature of its Objects, the Deities; with various rites, forms, and ceremonies, as it means to appease, propitiate, and serve these Objects; with various organizations, designed to accomplish the purposes which it is supposed to demand; and, in short, with apparently various and even opposite effects upon life and character. As all men are at bottom the same, but as no two nations or ages are exactly alike in character, circumstances, or development, so, therefore, though the religious element be the same in all, we must expect to find that its manifestations are never exactly alike in any two ages or nations, though they give the same name to their form of worship. If we look still more minutely, we see that no two men are exactly alike in character, circumstances, and development, and therefore that no two men can exhibit their Religion in just the same way, though they kneel at the same altar, and pronounce the same creed. From the difference between men, it follows that there must be as many different subjective conceptions of God, and forms of Religion, as there are men and women who think about God, and apply their thoughts and feelings to life. Hence, though the religious faculty be always the same in all, the Doctrines of Religion, or theology; the Forms of Religion, or mode of worship; and the Practice of Religion, which is Morality, cannot be the same thing in any two men, though one mother bore them, and they were educated in the same way. The conception we form of God; our notion about