Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker volume 3.djvu/188

Rh dition and future development, let us look at some of the chief ideas therein—that is, at some of the great theological doctrines of Christendom itself. To do this I will treat of Christendom as a whole, looking only at the great bulk of Christians, and neglecting. certain small and exceptional bodies who reject more or less of those ideas, and whose power is only infinitesimal. For I do not care to inquire after the fate of each single bucketful of water ladled out to moisten a lady's rose-bush, but to learn the general direction and current of the great stream of influence which comes from these institutions.

Dissolving away all accidental matter, I will look only at some substantive ideas which are qualitatively common to all Christendom after making the exceptions above referred to. I omit also many excellent doctrines which the Christian has in common with the other world-sects, and some peculiar to itself, and ask your attention to the five great false ideas of this theology which are embodied in the Ecclesiastical Institutions of Christendom.

I. .—The ecclesiastical idea of God represents him as deficient in all the great essentials of Deity except eternal self-existence. He is imperfect in power, in wisdom, in justice, in benevolence, and in holiness—fidelity to Himself. 1. Imperfect in power.—He cannot accomplish His purpose; the devil, His perpetual enemy, routs Him in every great battle, and at last will fill an immense hell with the damned, the pick and flower of all the world, who stream thither in vast crowds, overflowing the broad way to destruction, while the narrow road which leads the elect to salvation is thinly dotted "with here and there a traveller."

2. Imperfect in wisdom.—He does not know how His own contrivance will work until set a-going; and then its wheels do not run in human history as in the divine head. Thus the "Fall" of Adam is as much a surprise to God as to man; only the serpent understood it beforehand. The wickedness of the human race, both before and after the "flood," is an astonishment to God, who repented that He had made man, the work proving so defective and even pernicious. God learns by experiments, whereof many turn out failures; so He must destroy His work and try