Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Slavery volume 5 .djvu/237



Sunday I spoke of trust in God, endeavouring to show that it involved an absolute confidence in the purposes of God, and an absolute confidence in the means thereunto, and consequently the practical use thereof.

There is a matter of very great consequence connected herewith, namely, this—the relation between a man's religion and his allegiance to the Church and the State. So this morning I ask your attention to a sermon of our Duty to the Laws of God, and our Obligation to the Statutes of Men. It is a theme I have often spoken of; and what I shall say this morning may be regarded as occasional, and supplementary to the much I have said, and printed, likewise, before.

In its primitive form, religion is a mere emotion; it is nothing but a sentiment, an instinctive feeling; at first vague, shadowy, dim. In its secondary stage it is also a thought; the emotion has travelled from the heart upwards to the head: it is an idea, an abstract idea, the object whereof transcends both time and space, and is not cognizable by any sense. But finally, in its ultimate form, it becomes likewise an act. Thus it spreads over all a man's life, inward and outward too; it goes up to the tallest heights of the philosopher's speculation, down to