Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker volume 3.djvu/208

Rh America hold back the tide of improvement. While the Christian sects have been building up this dark theology of unreason, there has been a great growth of philosophy and religion. See what a forest of science and literature has sprung up outside of the churches, and in spite of the mildew of their breath.

All over Christendom thoughtful men have broken with the ecclesiastical traditions. They find there is no such, imperfect and dreadful God! no such totally depraved man as the Church pretends; no such antagonism between the Divine and human nature; no such miraculous revelation, or vicarious salvation; that there is no infallible church, nor infallible Bible; no Trinity, no incarnation, no eternal hell, no miracle; that the history of man's religious development is no more mysterious than the history of his agriculture or astronomy: nay, that all the great steps are forward and upward, this ghastly theology itself one of the manifold experiments of humanity, in our triumphant march—a stumble, but forward. Some of these are philosophers—men of science, of metaphysics—who have profoundly studied the world of matter and of man, and become familiar with human history. Some are philanthropists; they labour for the oppressed and perishing; take the part of the laity against the priesthood; of the people against the tyrant; of woman against man, who holds her down by force; of the slave against his master; of him that suffers wrong against whoso does the wrong. They seek to spread knowledge, industry, temperance, riches, health, beauty, and long life, and purity, and every human virtue amongst all men. They would promote peace between nations, and found society on cooperative industry, not on mutual selfish antagonism.

All these men have broken with the Ecclesiastical Institutions, Catholic and Protestant. They ask not its heaven, nor tremble at its hell. There is a great body of thinking men in America and England, who have outgrown the mediaeval theology; they are not "in a fit state to receive the good news, the glad tidings of salvation," for they have been accustomed "to form notions and have opinions" of their own. Over these the church has lost its ancient power. Some of them wander away into speculative athe-