Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker volume 3.djvu/275

262 diating it, while others reject its theory though they follow it more or less in practice. This I call the philosophical method.

So far as they are ecclesiastical, all theologians follow the ecclesiastical method; it is instantial with them. So far as they are philosophical, all scientific men follow the philosophical method; it is instantial with them. Let me say that when some ecclesiastical men study philosophy, they abandon the ecclesiastical method; hence men like Dr Whewell in England, and others, have attained great eminence in science, and done large service therein.

1. Let me say a word of the ecclesiastical method. This consists of an assumption and a deduction. Men assume that certain words spoken or written, are a direct, miraculous, and infallible communication from God, and therefore are of ultimate authority, for all time, in all matters of religion and theology. To these men must subordinate their intellectual, moral, affectional, and religious faculties. That is the assumption.

2. From these words certain doctrines are deduced, and enforced on men as the miraculous and infallible commands of God which must be accepted in spite of the instinctive or reflective action of man's mind, conscience, heart, and soul. These are called doctrines of "revealed religion," and men must believe them, howsoever unreasonable, immoral, unlovely, and irreligious. That is the deduction.

The Christian sects differ on many other things, but they all agree in assuming this miraculous and infallible communication from God as the ultimate authority, and in deducing thence all their doctrines; so however unlike their conclusions, all agree in their assumption and deduction. There is diversity of doctrines, but unity of method. The Catholic finds that communication in the Bible, in ecclesiastical tradition, and in the decisions of the Roman church—expressed by the infallible general council, and enforced by the infallible Pope—which three are the ultimate authority of the Catholic, all summed up and represented, however, by the infallible Pope. The Protestant finds that communication only in the Bible, which is the ultimate authority of Protestantism, and is to