Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker volume 3.djvu/141

128 facts given instinctively in the consciousness of all. How easy it is to show that an immortality of blessedness awaits the race and each individual thereof, wherefrom not even the wickedest of men shall ultimately be cut off. Surely the Infinite God must have made man so that humanity contains all the forces needful for the perfect realization of the ideal thereof.

The philosophic idea of man gathered up from common and notorious facts, how different ft is from the "poor human nature "we read of in theological books, and which so many ministers whine over in sermon and in prayer! Of the philosophic idea of the relation between God and man. This must correspond to the character of God himself. In the world of man as the world of matter He must be a perfect Cause to create, a perfect Providence to direct; must create and provide from a perfect motive—the desire to bless; for a perfect purpose—for blessedness as end; and furnish perfect means, adequate to achieve the end. On God's part it must be a relation of love—an infinite desire to bless, attended with infinite power to bless. God is capable of nothing else. Of all possible worlds He must have made the best. The evil passions which the Christian theology ascribe to God are impossible. He a "jealous God;" he a "consuming fire;" he have "wrath." and keep it "for ever!" he torment men for his own delight of vengeance; his Wisdom mock when their fear cometh! He say to a single child of humanity, "Depart from me, ye accursed, into everlastiug fire prepared for the Devil and his angels; I never knew you! "Even the meanest of mortal mothers meets her son, all stained with blood which cries out against him, and at the foot of the gallows folds the felon in her arms, with "My son I my son! would to God that I could die for thee!" And do you believe that the Cause and Providence of yonder stars and of these little flowers will doom to endless hell a child of His! Shame on the worse than heathen thought! A savage might easily make the monstrous error, attributing his own love of vengeance to his God; overburthened with veneration for antiquity, even the noblest men might repeat the mistake; and