Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Sermons Prayers volume 2.djvu/19

Rh before you can have any special love for any particular truth whatsoever; for in all intellectual affairs the universal is the logical condition of the special.

Love of truth in general is the intellectual part of piety. We see at once that this lies at the basis of all intellectual excellence,—at love of truth in art, in science, in law, in common life. Without it you may love the convenience of truth in its various forms, useful or beautiful; but that is quite different from loving truth itself. You often find men who love the uses of truth, but not truth; they wish to have truth on their side, but not to be on the side of truth. When it does not serve their special and selfish turn, they are offended, and Peter breaks out with his "I know not the man," and "the wisest, brightest" proves also the "meanest of mankind."

The Conscience contemplates God as manifested in right, in justice; for right or justice is the universal category of moral cognition. To love God with the conscience is to love him as manifested in right and justice; is to love right or justice, not for its convenience, its specific uses, but for itself, because it is absolutely beautiful and lovely to the conscience. In changeable things we read the unchanging and eternal right, which is the absolute object of conscience.

To love right is a great moral excellence; but it is plain you must have a universal love of universal right before you can have any special love of a particular right; for, in all moral affairs, the universal is the logical condition of the special.

The love of right is the moral part of piety. This lies at the basis of all moral excellence whatever. Without this you may love right for its uses; but if only so, it is not right you love, but only the convenience it may bring to you in your selfish schemes. None was so ready to draw the sword for Jesus, or look after the money spent upon him, as the disciple who straightway denied and betrayed him. Many wish right on their side, who take small heed to be on the side of right. You shall find men enough who seem to love right in general, because they clamour for a specific, particular right; but ere long it becomes plain they only love some limited or even personal conve-