freedom and individuality. It has no established creed or symbol. Its friends thinks each for himself and differ much from each other, so that my book, after all, will give you my mind rather than the dogmas of a sect." Thus Unitarianism had become creedless; it was no longer distinguished by definite views; it was a name given to that body of Christians which subscribed to no creed or symbol.

was in fact punished, that no repentance would restore to the palsied drunkard his wasted health or to the reckless spenthrift lis squandered inheritance; nay, that the father's repentance would not replace the child in the position from which the father's crime had degraded him; and these thoughts made the great problem of sin and reconciliation far less simple and easy than it had been to the shallower observers of the earlier school: the mere recognition of the Yet Unitarians of all shades of opinion, greatness of the problem led to the rejection from Priestley to Channing, had agreed in of the shallow methods by which Priestley assigning a high degree of authority to Scripand his fellows had attempted to solve it. ture, and in accepting the Scriptural miraIn fact, in reading Channing's writings, we cles as true and real. They had agreed in are continually tempted to wonder what it recognising, in some shape or other, the auis that separates him from us. Of the per- thority of Jesus Christ. Their views on this son of Jesus Christ he speaks at least in most momentous point of all theology varied his practical and devotional writings-in indeed from the High Arianism which reterms of reverence and love not distinguish-garded Jesus as Divine, but not co-eternal or able from those in which the Saviour is ad- co-equal with the Father, to the humanitadressed by his earnest worshippers every-rian view, according to which the Saviour where. Repeatedly he declares that Jesus was mere man, though raised above other is no mere man; nay, he does, not hesitate to speak of him as the Redeemer. We do not say that his views on the great subject of Atonement were such as would have been accepted by the Church either of ancient or modern times; we rather wish to point out the great gulf there is between the hard Materialism of Priestley and the religious thoughtfulness of Channing.

men; but all agreed that his words were to be received as of authority in the Church. Before Channing's death, these few remnants of fixed belief received a violent shock. As time went on, and the western shores of the Atlantic began to feel the wave of modern thought and modern criticism which had received its first impulse from the theological blasts of Germany, The truth is, that the body which was there arose men who were for shaking off still called by the name "Unitarian" was all authority whatever in matters of reliceasing, in the third decade of this century, gion; who were not content with a system to be distinctively anti-Trinitarian; many which, while it stripped away many of its at that time would have joined with Chan- most characteristic mysteries from the ning in saying "I am little of an Unita- Christian faith, still maintained the reality rian." They had ceased to be distinguish- of revelation and prophecy and miracle; ed by the maintenance of certain dogmas; who found it, in a word, just as difficult to their characteristic was rather the absence accept the faith of Channing as the faith of of dogma; "religious liberty," "free in- Athanasius. The leading spirit of this new quiry," "progress," had become the watch-school, a very small body at first, was a words of the Unitarian party. This is espe- young Massachusetts minister named Theocially true of Channing, a representative dore Parker. in this respect of the hereditary toleration of Rhode Island. Everywhere he shrinks from maintaining a doctrine, still more from enforcing it upon another. There is hardly a sermon in which he does not remind his hearers that he speaks with no authority, that they are as competent to decide on the truth of this or that proposition as he himself. He says writing to Baron De Gerando, "What is here called Unitarianism -a very inadequate name - is characterized by nothing more than by the spirit of

This remarkable man was born in 1810, near Lexington, in Massachusetts: his father was a farmer, a Unitarian, though descended from the old Puritan colonists of the district; and Theodore's early years were spent in the ordinary labours of the farm and the woodland. But a thirst for knowledge seems to have been inbred in him; from his boyhood he was an eager reader of every book that fell in his way. In order to have more time for study, he became an usher in a private school at Boston, paying out of his scanty stipend a labourer to perform his own share of the work on his father's farm; so careful was he not to desert his duty in following his inclination.

Afterwards he kept a private school in that the young minister had not been fairly Watertown, all the time working with the fierce energy which was characteristic of himan energy which wore him out before his time-to qualify himself to pass the examinations at Harvard University. When he finished his University course, at twenty-four, he could read ten languages; at his death he is said to have been more or less acquainted with twenty. Few histories of the pursuit of knowledge under difficulties are more striking than that of Theodore Parker.

In 1837 he was appointed minister of the Unitarian Church at West Roxbury, near Boston. Here, in a quiet village, among friendly people, with plenty of leisure for thought and study, he soon found himself drifting away from Unitarian orthodoxy. A great change had come over theological study since the days when Channing was a student; the Wolfenübttel Fragments, the writings of Eichhorn, Paulus, De Wette (whose Introduction to the Old Testament Parker translated, with some additions), D. F. Strauss, and other leaders of the modern German school of Biblical criticism, found their way into America, where they were eagerly studied by the few who understood German, and were interested in the progress of theology: by none more eagerly than by Parker; and he at least was not a man to suppress the thought that was in him. He says of himself:

"As fast as I found a new truth I preached it. At length, in 1841, I preached a discourse of the Transient and Permanent in Christianity. A great outcry was raised against the sermon and its author. Unbeliever, infidel, atheist, were the titles bestowed

A venerable minister

treated, invited him to lecture in Boston. consequence of that resolution, he deliver. ed five lectures, which form the main part of the "Discourse of Matters Pertaining to Religion," published in 1842. In 1843 he visited Europe, whence, after a year's travel, he returned to Boston, with his health, which had been greatly impaired by the overwork of years, much strengthened. On the 16th of February, 1845, he entered on the ministry of the Twenty-eighth Congregational Society of Boston, which he served with unwearied energy for fourteen years. In 1859, his excessive labours - he had given lectures in almost every town of the Union, in addition to his usual ministrations in Boston - brought on bleeding from the lungs; he visited the West Indies and Europe without receiving any permanent benefit: on the 10th of May, 1860, at Florence, he rested from his labours, labours to which even those who think them ill-directed must award the praise of having been earnest and sincere.

-

He was not full fifty years old at the time of his death. In those fifty years he had drawn round him a body of men like-minded, and given a very powerful impulse to religious thought in America; and he had taken a principal share in organizing a strong anti-slavery party in Boston, to which the vigorous resistance which pro-slavery measures have always of late years met with in the North is in a great degree due; and in the midst of all his labours, ministerial and political, he had accumulated an extraordinary store of multifarious learning. But the name of Theodore Parker is best known in England in connection with a certain theological teaching called "Theism." Of this system we must attempt to give a short account; and a short account is less unjust to Mr. Parker than it would be to most other theological teachers, inasmuch as his principles are few and simple. His numerous works relating to theology are but The old spirit of Puritanism was not ex- variations-sometimes without much var tinct even in the Unitarian body. No Uni-ety-on a few simple phrases. The leadtarian bookseller would put his name to the ing thoughts to which he continually recurs printed sermon, which at last appeared un- are in the main such as these: der the auspices of the Swedenborgians: its author became a Pariah; many of his former friends refused to touch his hand or speak to him in the street; and of the Unitarian ministers, only six would allow him to enter their pulpits: the cry was, "This young man must be silenced." He was not silenced, however; a few men, who thought

on me by my brothers in the Christian ministry called on the Attorney-General to prosecute, the Grand Jury to indict, and the Judge to sentence me to three years' confinement in the state prison for blas phemy."

"Experience as a Minister," in Welss, ii. 466.

If we look at man as he actually exists in the world, we find one vast institution of the highest consideration in human affairs; this is religion, coeval and coextensive with the human race. Whence comes it? The foolish answer to this question may be read in Lucretius and elsewhere, that fear made the gods; that hypocritical priests and knavish kings invented a religion to help them in governing the common herd of men. As

the soul of man; wherever these are, there is inspiration from God. Inspiration is the action of the Highest within the soul, the Divine Presence imparting light. And this inspiration is limited to no sect, age, or nation; it is wide as the world and common as God. We are not born in the dotage and decay of the world; the "most ancient heavens are fresh and strong" now as ever: everywhere God is present still, as every man knows who has truly prayed to Him; and as God is always the same, his modes of action are always the same; He does not break the laws which He has established in nature.

well might it be said that the custom of eat-eousness, and love are the spirit of God in ing was the cunning device of primeval butchers and bakers. The wise answer is, that religion comes from a principle deepseated in our mystic frame, and belongs to the unchanging realities of life; that there is in us a spiritual nature, which must needs be satisfied with heavenly food even as our bodily wants with earthly food. We trace the working of this religious element both in the history of the world at large, and in the individual soul. And this religious conHousness must needs have some object; the sense of dependence implies something on which to rely. This object is God; the knowledge of God's existence is an intimation of reason; it depends not on reaFrom man God requires pure spiritual soning, but on reason; it comes to man as worship; He requires us to keep the law naturally as the consciousness of his own He has written in our hearts; to be good, existence. But the conception which we to do good; to love men, to love God. The can form of God must, from the nature of temple of this religion is a pure heart, its things, fall far short of the reality; the sacrifice a Divine life. The end it proposes finite can form no adequate conception of is, to re-unite the man with God, till he thinks the infinite; for all the conceptions of the God's thought, which is Truth; feels God's human mind are limited by time and space, feeling, which is Love; wills God's will, while the Deity knows not bounds; our hu- which is eternal right; thus finding God in man personality gives a false modification the sense wherein He is not far from every to all our conceptions of the infinite. Hence, one of us; becoming one with Him, and so while the idea of God is constant, the same partaking the Divine Nature. Religion deeverywhere and in all men, the popular con- mands no particular actions, forms, or modes ception of God is of the most various and of thought. The man's ploughing is holy evanescent character, and is not the same in as his prayer; his daily bread as the smoke any two ages or men. "Absolute religion "of his sacrifice; his work-day and his sabis always the same; men's thoughts about religion change from race to race, and from age to age; there is but one religion, though many theologies. The true outward form of religion, that which shows itself in act, is morality; but man has devised many forms out of his own restless ingenuity. Hence, as we have various forms of theology, so we have various forms of worship. The three great historical forms of religion are Fetichism, Polytheism, and Monotheism.

Monotheism, the highest form of religion, is the worship of one supreme God, the Father of all. It annihilates all distinction of tribes and nations; it tends to abolish war and slavery, for it makes all men brothers. It gives to all alike the guidance of the Holy Spirit of God. God is distinct from nature, the ground and cause of all things. True spiritual religion teaches us that in God "we live and move and have our being." Inspiration then is no miracle, but a regular mode of God's action on conscious spirit, as gravitation is a mode of his action on unconscious matter. The Word is very nigh to every man, even in his heart, and by this Word he is to try all things submitted to him. Wisdom, right

bath are alike God's days. He does not sacrifice reason to religion, nor religion to reason; brother and sister, they dwell together in love.

Now it is clear that this "absolute religion" (as Mr. Parker is fond of calling it) dispenses with revelation, except such as is made directly to the soul of each man, altogether. There is no space left for the authoritative proclamation of good tidings from God; for all the knowledge of God, all the inspiration, of which man is capable, he may attain by cultivating and developing the faculties which God has given him; "miraculous or other revelations" can no more render him" religious than fragments of sermons and leaves of the Bible can make a lamb religious when mixed and eaten with its daily food."* The only question that can arise about revelation is, whether it coincides or not with "absolute religion;" if it does, it is simple superfluous; if it does not, it is injurious. Hence we are not surprised when Mr. Parker comes to

speak of Jesus Christ, of the Holy Scriptures, of the Catholic Church, to find him treating the whole subject as from a superior height. His views of the life of the Saviour are those of D. F. Strauss; he believes the Incarnate Son to have been simply a young Galilean teacher, about whose pure and holy life various supernatural legends have clustered in consequence of the eager wish of the disciples to exalt their Master. On points of Old Testament criticism he adopted the views of De Wette, capricious and improbable as they sometimes are, with little reserve or independence of judgment; his views on the New Testament are taken mostly from F. C. Baur. Christ founded no Church, nor were the sacraments intended to be perpetual. The Church which we find existing was formed by a gradual process, from natural causes, in the course of the first three or four centuries after Christ. In à word, neither the Lord Jesus, nor the Scriptures, nor the Church, have any authoritative teaching for man.

gave the name of THEISM, a name antithetic to Atheism alone, and comprehensive of every worshipper of God; a name not understood, like the elder Deism, to signify the exclusion of Christianity, but the inclusion of it in one great absolute religion."

We have honestly endeavoured to state fairly the central truths of Mr Parker's system; those who have read his works will know how much vehemence and exaggeration we have eliminated in making this analysis. We have given Mr. Parker's conclusions without his offensive expressions or his strange caricatures of the views of his opponents.

And when stated thus, without the corollaries which Mr. Parker's vehement and somewhat coarse nature added to them, there is little to which we can object; nay, does not every Christian heartily assent to every article of Mr. Parker's creed? Surethe "Theist," that there is one ever-presly every Christian admits, as heartily as ent God absolutely good; that all men, It is admitted, however, that the teaching has not come, have the "work of the law even those to whom the Gospel of Christ of Jesus did in fact coincide to a great ex-written in their hearts," conscience that tent with "absolute religion." Although beareth witness, and thoughts that accuse He taught that God is wroth with sin, that there is a or excuse; that the man does not die when "devil absolutely evil," and a Gehenna of fire for impurity - things he quits his failing house of clay; that God does indeed hear and answer the earnest which Mr. Parker cannot receive; although He" taught something which is ritual" prayers of his children here on earth. All Baptism, and the Supper of the Lord; yet Mr. Parker undertook to enlighten the this was written in the Bible long before the teaching, "Love man as yourself, love God above all," was true and spiritual; it world. The second article of this brief included, indeed, all practical holiness. creed has, we must admit, been too much When Jesus Christ sets forth the highest to the extent that Mr. Parker seems to supobscured in modern théology, though not aim for man, "Be ye perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect;" when He pose; but, on the whole, the creed of the

declares the eternal blessedness of such as

do the will of God; when He says that the Spirit of God shall be in them, revealing truth, He teaches pure or "absolute religion.

Such are the leading features of Theodore Parker's teaching. To use the words of Miss Cobbe,*

"This creed has few articles: an ever-present God, who is absolutely good; a moral law written in the consciousness of man; the immortality of the soul; the reality of spiritual prayer. This is the entire theology of Theodore Parker. It contains no doctrines of a Fall, an Incarnation, a Trinity, an Atonement, a devil, or a hell; no original sin, no imputed righteousness. Its morality is summed up in the two great commandments of the law, and its theory of reconciliation in the parable of the prodigal son. To this religion Parker

Preface to "Collected Works," p. xxi.

"Theist" is included in the creed of Chris

tian men throughout the world.

he denies, that Mr. Parker offends. The It is not in what he affirms, but in what great truths which have been held with one mind by the Church throughout the Atonement, are treated by him with scorn world the great facts of Sin, Incarnation, and contempt. His ideal Christian "asks no pardon for his sins; "* this is the cardinal difference between Mr. Parker's system and the theology of the universal Church; nay, we might go further, and say that this is the difference between Mr. Parker's view and the almost universal belief of all mankind. Everywhere the cry goes up to Heaven, "How shall a man be just with God?" Everywhere prayer and oblation, lustral waters

"Discourse," p. 317. Compare the highly characteristic and unpleasant passage in Weiss,

i. 152.