Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker volume 3.djvu/189

176 again, not always succeeding the second or third time—nor even in the end.

3. Imperfect in justice.—He often violates the moral sense which He has put into human nature, is deceitful and intensely cruel: witness the command to Abraham for sacrificing Isaac, to Moses to butcher the Canaanites; witness the triumph of the "Lamb" in the book of Revelation, with his oriental army of two hundred million cavalry, destroying a third part of the human race in one quarter of the world, and the rest of his military servants in the western quarter, in one campaign making a spot of blood on the ground two hundred miles in its shortest diameter and thirty-six inches deep. All this is represented, not as an incident in the historical development of man, or as instrumental to some advantage for any one, but only as a voluntary purpose in the consciousness of God, an end in itself—the calculated achievement of His spontaneous providence.

4. Imperfect in His benevolence.—For while He loves some He hates more, and continually creates men foredoomed to eternal damnation. He is a jealous God, and gives "salvation" in the stingiest way. Nay, voluntarily and on purpose, He created the devil, who is now a being absolutely evil. Of course He created him out of the absolute evil which was in Himself—there could be no other source for this material, for God's nature is a terminality of beginning as well as His purpose a finality of endings from an evil motive, for an evil purpose, and as an appropriate means thereunto. The devil is not merely a mistake and a failure, but an intended marplot of the universe, a premeditated contradiction. This fly in the ointment of the apothecary does no good in heaven, earth, or hell, and is devised and intended for no good, helping neither any benevolent purpose of God, nor the development of man.

5. Imperfect in His holiness.—He does not keep the integrity of His consciousness, but wilfully violates His own better feelings. Thus He miraculously hardens Pharaoh's heart, bewildering his counsels; sends an evil spirit to Saul, and stealthily excites David to number the people of Israel that He might take vengeance upon them, thus deceiving with inspiration!