Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker volume 3.djvu/170

Rh Now to any man who thinks, this is a matter of the very utmost importance; to one who does not think, it is of no consequence at all. But if a man thinks, earnest and deep, this conclusion is the most vital. When I am satisfied on this point, then I can enjoy the world of matter and the world of man, and I can apply the human means which are in my power to the human end which I wish to bring to pass. I have then no doubt of the final result, no fear of that; I am concerned about to-day and tomorrow, about my doing my duty and my brother doing his; I am not at all concerned about eternity, and about God doing God's duty.

I confess I wonder that every man who lives does not have this confidence and enjoy it; it seems so natural, and is so instinctive also, and it squares so completely with the very highest science which man attains to ; and then as you think about it, why, the infinite perfection of God springs into your eye at once, — so that I wonder that any man who thinks at all does not come to this conclusion, that God is infinitely perfect, perfect Cause and perfect Providence, and made all and superintends all from a perfect motive, for a perfect purpose, and as a perfect means, and will ultimately bless everything that He has created. And yet, natural as this is, instinctively as we get at it, philosophical as it certainly is, there is no sect of Christians or un-Christians which has laid this down as its great corner-stone. There is not, as I have said before, a single sect of men in this whole globe of land which declares consistently the infinite perfection of God ; even the Unitarians, in their "creed" recently promulgated, though they say they believe the absolute perfection of God, yet do not understand what it means, and do not venture to say that no man shall be everlastingly damned; they wish it may be so, they dare not think it surely is so. That of course implies that they wish what God is not good enough to wish; and of course implies that they are better in their wishes than God in His wishes, and accordingly, that they are nearer to infinite perfection than God himself. And yet the Unitarians have less of this than any other sect in Christendom. You go into any other church,—I will except in a large measure the Universalist