Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker volume 3.djvu/220

Rh nations of progressive friends marching out of Egypt to lands of promise ever new:—There is a God of infinite perfection,—perfectly powerful, wise, just, loving, and holy—the perfect cause and providence of all that is; He creates from a perfect motive, of perfect material, for a perfect purpose, as a perfect means; the absolute religion is the service of this God by the normal use, discipline, and development of every limb of the body, every faculty of the spirit, and all power which we possess. We may make a paradise of peaceful industry, and find an immortal Eden, too.

Friends and brethren! this day is a marked one in my life. Fourteen years ago, the 19th of May, 1841, I preached an Ordination Sermon in Boston—"A Discourse of the Transient and Permanent in Christianity," It was the first "Ordination Sermon" I ever preached; the first separate document I ever published with my own name. It cost me my reputation in the "Christian Church;" even the Unitarian ministers, who are themselves reckoned but the tail of heresy, denounced me as "no Christian," an " Infidel." They did what they could to effect my ruin —denied me all friendly intercourse, dropped me from committees of their liberal college, in public places refused my hand extended as before in friendly salutation; mocked at me in their solemn meetings; struck my name out of their Almanac,—the only Unitarian form of excommunication,—and in every journal, almost every pulpit, denounced the young man who thought the God who creates earth and heaven had never spoken miraculously in Hebrew words bidding Abraham kill his only son and burn him for a sacrifice, and that Jesus of Nazareth was not a finality in the historical development of mankind. Scarce a Protestant meeting-house in America, not a single theological newspaper, I think, but blew its trumpet with notes of alarm and denunciation. Behold! said they, behold a minister thinking for himself afresh on religion! actually thinking! and believing his thoughts! and telling his own convictions! He tells us God is not dead! that the Bible is not his last word; that he inspires men now as much as ever,—even more so. Surely this man is an "Infidel," a "Deist," nay, an "Atheist." Down with