Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker volume 3.djvu/192

Rh In the ecclesiastical conception of God there is a deep back-ground of evil. Now and then the mysterious cloud is miraculously lifted and lets men see the mountain summits of anger, vengeance, jealousy, and hate, and imagine the whole chain of malignity, Andes and Himalayas of wrath, hid underneath the veil. There is not a book in the Bible which justifies the inference that God loves his children who die in wickedness, or that His hell is for the welfare of its melancholy inmates, only for the vengeance of their Creator.

Out of this dark mass of evil in Himself He created the devil—absolutely evil—and hell; both to last for ever, each a finality. The devil is also a child of God, but not acknowledged—turned-off, an out-lying member of the Divine family, the Ishmael of the universe, his hand against God, God's against him. But after this mass of evil is subtracted and embodied in the devil, it is plain that evil still preponderates in the theological conception of God: for He does not bring the human race to a close, but still goes on creating new children of wrath, bowed down with the "sin" of "Adam's fall," before their birth doomed to eternal wretchedness. He might pardon, but He will not; stop creation, but He keeps the world going on, spawning whole shoals of people wherewith to fatten in hell! He might at least annihilate the damned; but even that were too merciful for His vindictive wrath; they must writhe in their agony for ever and ever!

Yet, though evil so far preponderates in the ecclesiastical idea of God, as shown in His conduct, some humane mercy is also ascribed to Him, with corresponding acts. He wishes to save a few brands from the burning of the world, to give some other men glimpses of a prospect of escape from ruin. So He prepares a scheme of "redemption" for a few—exceptions to the ruin of the rest.

IV. Of the false idea of inspiration. God communicated certain doctrines to various men, doctrines of revelation. They were not found out by the normal action of the various human faculties—intellectual, moral, affectional, and religious—for then they would be of human origin, and, like other opinions, amenable to mankind; but they were miraculously given by God himself to men in an ab-