Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker volume 3.djvu/134

Rh and Roman Church, or as Jesus thundered and lightened against the vain pretensions of the ancient Pharisees. Who shall dare bind the spirit of man and say, "Thus far shalt thou, reason, but no farther, and here shall thy proud thoughts be stayed?" The smallest priest! But who can stay the movement of those orbs in the spiritual heaven? Only He, who in the constitution of our spirit, gave us that great charter which secures unbounded freedom of thought. A spoiled child, a little wayward-minded girl, idiotic even, may command a thousand adult persons, if they be but slaves! What if they are men?

Once the hierarchy of philosophers sought to shut men in the midland seas, between the two Hercules' Pillars of Aristotle and Ptolemy; none must sail forth with venturous keel into the wide ocean, seeking for scientific truth; man must only paddle about the shores, where the masters had named all the headlands and marked out the way. What honour do we pay to men who broke the spell that bound the race? Once kings forbid all thought and speech about the state, the subject must not doubt, but only answer and obey. Where will such tyrants go? Let future Cromwells say. In theology, such men are forbid to think, to doubt, to reason, and inquire. "Search the Scripture "is made to mean, accept it as an idol. So we see men chained by the neck to some post of authority, their heads also tied down to their feet, for ever hobbling, round and round, picking some trampled grass on the closely nibbled spot, yet counting their limping stumble as the divine march of the heavenly host, and the clanking of their chains as the music of the spheres, most grateful unto God. Now and then some minister comes down and moves off the human cattle, and ties them out to feed on some other bit of well-trod land, while all before us reaches out the heavenly pasture, for which we long, and faint, and die.

It is an amazing spectacle! Modern science has shown that the theological astronomy, geology, and geography are mixed with whims, which overlay their facts; that the theological history is false in its chief particulars, relating to the origin and development of mankind; that its meta-physics are often absurd; its chief premises false; that the whole tree is of gradual growth; and still men have