History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology Part 30

[259] _Religious Aspects of the Age._ Preface, p. 3.

[260] Bellows, in _Religious Aspects of the Age_, pp. 109-111.

[261] Mayo, in _Religious Aspects of the Age_, pp. 68, 69.

[262] Bellows, in _Religious Aspects of the Age_, pp. 102, 103.

[263] Frothingham, Ibid. pp. 121-126.

[264] _Religious Aspects of the Age_, pp. 131-132.

[265] American Unitarianism is numerically decreasing. The most favorable estimate of its membership (Schem, _Ecclesiastical Year-Book_, p. 78), is thirty thousand. From Dr. Sprague's _Annals of the American Unitarian Pulpit_, pp. xx.-xxi., we derive the following statistical account of its present strength:

There are in the United States about 263 Societies, of which Ma.s.sachusetts has 164, and the city of Boston 21; Maine has 16, New Hampshire 15, Vermont 3, Rhode Island 3, Connecticut 2, New York 13, New Jersey 1, Pennsylvania 5, Maryland 2, Ohio 5, Illinois 11, Wisconsin 2, and Missouri, Kentucky, Minnesota, South Carolina, Louisiana, California, and the District of Columbia, each one. There are about 345 ministers. There are two theological schools, one at Cambridge, founded 1816; the other at Meadville, Pa.; first opened in 1844, and incorporated in 1846. The Periodicals are, The Christian Examiner, tri-monthly, Boston; The Monthly Religious Magazine and Independent Journal, Boston; The Sunday School Gazette, semi-monthly, Boston; The Christian Register, weekly, Boston; and the Christian Inquirer, weekly, New York. The missionary and charitable societies are, the American Unitarian a.s.sociation, founded in 1825, and incorporated in 1847; the Unitarian a.s.sociation of the State of New York; Annual Conference of Western Unitarian Churches; the Sunday School Society, inst.i.tuted in 1827, and reorganized in 1854; the Society for promoting Christian Knowledge, Piety, and Charity, incorporated in 1805; the Ma.s.sachusetts Evangelical Missionary Society, inst.i.tuted in 1807; the Society for Promoting Theological Education, organized in 1816, and incorporated in 1831; the Society for the Relief of Aged and Dest.i.tute Clergymen, formed in 1848, and incorporated in 1850; the Ministerial Conference; the a.s.sociation of Ministers at large in New England, formed in 1850; the Benevolent Fraternity of Churches of Boston, organized in 1834, and incorporated in 1839; the Children's Mission to the Children of the Dest.i.tute, Boston, 1849; the Young Men's Christian Union, Boston, organized in 1851, and incorporated in 1852; the Boston Port Society, incorporated in 1829; and the Seamen's Aid Society of Boston, formed in 1832.

[266] Williamson, _Exposition and Defense of Universalism_, pp. 11-13.

[267] Skinner, _Universalism Ill.u.s.trated and Defended_, pp. 51-56.

[268] Appleton's _American Cyclopaedia_, Art. _Universalists_.

[269] Williamson, _Exposition and Defense of Universalism_, pp. 140-155.

[270] Brittan, _Universalism as an Idea_, pp. 12, 13. We get the following statistics concerning the present condition of the Universalists as a denomination from their Register of 1862: 23 State Conventions; 87 Local a.s.sociations; 1,279 Societies and 998 Churches; 724 Preachers; 8 Academies; 3 Colleges; 17 Periodicals. St. Lawrence University, N. Y., has a Library of 5,000 vols; and Tuft's College, Ma.s.s., which opened in 1854, one of 10,000 volumes. The Unitarians excel the Universalists in humanitarian efforts, but the latter surpa.s.s the former in periodical literature.

CHAPTER XXIV.

THE UNITED STATES CONTINUED: THEODORE PARKER AND HIS SCHOOL.

The early Unitarian Church of America was ardent in its attachment to the doctrine of miracles. An article which appeared in the _Christian Examiner_ less than forty years ago, provoked great opposition because of its severe strictures on this branch of Christian evidence. The writer held that miracles, even if proved to have occurred, can establish nothing in favor of a religion which has not already stood the test of experience; and that the doctrines of Christianity must first be determined reasonable before we are compelled to believe that miracles were wrought in attestation of them. The elder school of Unitarians denounced his statements as open infidelity. A violent controversy ensued, but no schism took place. Theodore Parker stood at the head of the radical movement, and afterward labored unremittingly to disseminate his theological opinions. In him American Rationalism finds its complete personification. He represents the application of German infidelity to the Unitarianism of New England.

This celebrated advocate of temperance and freedom was prompted by a deep and unselfish love of his race. He was descended from a soldier of the Revolutionary army, and inherited that indomitable will, strong patriotic impulses, and native talents, which had characterized his ancestry for several generations. His mental qualities were of a lofty type. He was a linguist who, in correctness of speech and facility of acquisition, had few equals on this side of the Atlantic. His eloquence was stirring and popular, while his pen was facile and fruitful.

Commencing to preach in West Roxbury, Ma.s.sachusetts, the unusual character of his pulpit ministrations attracted public attention. On being invited to Boston, he a.s.sumed the pastoral relation over a newly-formed church, the Twenty-Eighth Congregational Society. In addition to his sermons, he lectured in all parts of the Northern States, and found time to write regularly for periodicals, compose original works, and make translations of German authors with whom his own theological opinions were in sympathy.

Though often in feeble health, he seldom allowed physical languor to intermit his work. When threatened with consumption he was induced to spend some time at Santa Cruz, whence he sailed for Italy. He died at Florence in the spring of 1860, not having completed his fiftieth year, and after a pastorate of only fourteen years at the Melodeon. He had often expressed a desire in earlier life that, like Goethe and Channing, he might not be deterred from labor by the prospect of immediate death.

Shortly before his decease he addressed to his congregation in Boston a lengthy letter containing his experience as a minister. He now lies in the little cemetery outside the walls of Florence; his tombstone, at his own request, simply recording his name and the dates of his birth and death. He bequeathed his library, containing over thirteen thousand volumes, to the Free Library of Boston.

Our chief concern is with Mr. Parker as a theologian. He was a stranger to moderation in every form. Having conceived certain skeptical views, he knew no terms strong enough to condemn the whole evangelical scheme.

His chief defects of style are abruptness and occasional vulgarity, which no man more regretted than their author in his calmer hours. But there can be no apology for his dealing with serious subjects in that vein of sarcasm which reminds us of the grossness of the coa.r.s.er brood of infidels. An English critic, noticing this defect, says: "His vigor of style was deformed by a power of sarcasm, which often invested the most sacred subjects with caricature and vulgarity; a boundless malignity against supposed errors.... He equals Paine in vulgarity and Voltaire in sarcasm."[271]

Parker felt that a bold course must be taken or orthodoxy could not be made to yield its position. His biographer informs us that when he was less than seven years of age "he fell out with the doctrines of eternal d.a.m.nation and a wrathful G.o.d."[272] In later life, when striving to find the sources of what he considered the evils of the popular theology, he fixed upon two common idols: "the Bible, which is only a record of men's words and works; and Jesus of Nazareth, a man who only lived divinely some centuries ago. The popular religion is wrong in that it tells man he is an outcast, that he is but a spurious issue of the devil, must not pray in his own name, is only sure of one thing--and that is d.a.m.nation.

Man is declared to be immortal, but it is such immortality as proves a curse instead of a blessing. In fact this whole orthodox theology rests on a lie."[273]

His positive faith is comprehended in his own term, "the Absolute Religion." G.o.d has created man with an intuitive religious element, the strongest and deepest in human nature, indestructible, and existing everywhere. Its legitimate action is to produce reverence, and ascends into trust, hope, and love, or descends into doubt, fear, and hate.

Religion is not confined to one age, or people, or sect. It is the same thing in each man, "not a similar thing--but the same thing." Three forms of religion have existed, and each in turn has ruled the mind,--Fetichism, Polytheism, and Monotheism. The first can be distinctly traced in the mythical stories of Genesis, the second in pagan nations, and the third in these later times. Now, it is a very small matter in which one of these forms man has worshiped or may still worship. If he worship at all, he adores the true G.o.d, "the only G.o.d, whether he call on Brahma, Jehovah, Pan, or Lord, or by no name at all.... Many a swarthy Indian, who bowed to wood and stone; many a grim-faced Calmuck, who worships the great G.o.d of storms; many a Grecian peasant, who did homage to Phoebus-Apollo when the sun rose or went down; yes, many a savage, his hand smeared all over with human sacrifice, shall come from the east and the west, and sit down in the kingdom of G.o.d, with Moses and Zoroaster, with Socrates and Jesus,--while men who called daily on the only living G.o.d, who paid their tribute and bowed at the name of Christ, shall be cast out because they did no more."[274]

Christianity, with Parker, is not the absolute religion, because a better may be developed. The great difference between it and other religions is: _first_, in the point whence it sets out, other religions starting from something external and limited, but Christianity from the spirit of G.o.d in the soul of man speaking through reason, conscience, and the religious sentiment; _second_, it is not a system but a method of religion and life; and, _third_, its eminently practical nature. The Deity adored by many people is a pure fabrication, for superst.i.tion projects its own divinity, which of course will be after its own impure mould. Men call the phantom G.o.d, Moloch, or Jehovah, and then attempt to please the capricious being whom they have conjured up. The true idea of G.o.d is his infinite presence in each point of s.p.a.ce; this immanence in matter is the basis of his influence; this imposition of a law is the measure of G.o.d's relation to matter; and the action of the law is therefore mechanical, not voluntary or self-conscious.

The Bible, according to the same method of argumentation, is as much a human book as the _Principia_ of Newton. Some things in it are true, but no reasonable man can accept others. It is full of contradictions; "there are poems which men take as histories; prophecies which have not been and never will be fulfilled; stories of miracles that never happened; stories which make G.o.d a man of war, cruel, rapacious, revengeful, hateful, and not to be trusted. We find amatory songs, selfish proverbs, skeptical discourses, and the most awful imprecations human fancy ever clothed in speech." The minds of the writers of the Old Testament were not decided in favor of the exclusive existence of Jehovah, and all the early books betray more of a polytheistic belief than we find in the prophets. The legendary and mythical writings of the Hebrews prove unmistakably that man was first created in the lowest savage life; that his religion was the rudest worship of nature; and that his morality was that of the cannibal. All the civilized races have risen through various forms of developing faith before reaching refinement and true religion. We do not know who are the writers of most of the Scriptural books. Their records are at variance with science. The account of Jehovah's determination that the carca.s.ses of Israel should fall in the wilderness because of disobedience, is a "savage story of some oriental who attributed a blood-thirsty character to his G.o.d, and made a deity in his own image, and it is a striking remnant of barbarism that has pa.s.sed away, not dest.i.tute of dramatic interest; not without its melancholy moral."[275]

The prophets are claimed to have written nothing in general above the reach of human faculties. The whole of the Old Testament is only a phantom of superst.i.tion to scare us in our sleep.[276] The statements of the evangelists have a very low degree of historical credibility.

Miracles are not impossible, because G.o.d is omnipotent; but our main difficulty is, that we cannot believe the accounts descriptive of them.

The testimony and not the miracle is at fault. Inspiration is not at all peculiar to the Scriptures. All nations have had their inspiration; this is a natural result of the perfection of G.o.d, for he does not change; and the laws of mind are like himself, unchangeable. Inspiration, being similar to vision, must be everywhere the same thing in kind however much it differs in degree. The quant.i.ty of our inspiration depends upon the use we make of our faculties. He who has the most wisdom, goodness, religion, and truth is the most inspired. This inspiration reveals itself in various forms, modified by country, character, education, peculiarity. Minos and Moses were inspired to make laws; David, Pindar, Plato, John the Baptist, Gerson, Luther, Boehme, Fenelon, and Fox were all inspired men. The sacraments of the Church were never designed to be permanent. In ill.u.s.tration of them, Parker sacrilegiously quotes,

"Behold the child, by nature's kindly law, Pleased with a rattle, tickled with a straw; Some livelier plaything gives his youth delight, A little louder, but as empty quite."

The Christian Church is held to be a purely human mechanism, and the great defect of Protestantism is its limit of the power of private inspiration. G.o.d still inspires men as much as ever, and is immanent in spirit as in s.p.a.ce. This doctrine, which is Spiritualism, "relies on no church, tradition, or Scripture, as the last grand and infallible rule; it counts these things teachers, if they teach, not masters; helps, if they help us, not authorities. It relies on the Divine presence in the soul of man; the eternal word of G.o.d, which is truth, as it speaks through the faculties he has given. It believes G.o.d is near the soul as matter to the sense; thinks the canon of revelation not yet closed, nor G.o.d exhausted. It sees him in Nature's perfect work; hears him in all true Scripture, Jewish or Phoenician; stoops at the same fountain with Moses and Jesus, and is filled with living water. It calls G.o.d, Father, not King; Christ, brother, not Redeemer; Religion, nature. It loves and trusts, but does not fear. It sees in Jesus a man living manlike, highly gifted, and living with blameless and beautiful fidelity to G.o.d, stepping thousands of years before the race of man; the profoundest religious genius G.o.d has raised up; whose words and works help us to form and develop the native idea of a complete religious man. But he lived for himself; died for himself; worked out his own salvation, and we must do the same, for one man cannot live for another more than he can eat or sleep for him. It is not the personal Christ but the spirit of Wisdom, Holiness, Love that creates the well-being of man; a life at one with G.o.d. The divine incarnation is in all mankind."[277]

Such is the faith avowed and enforced by Theodore Parker. It goes but little beyond a belief in G.o.d's existence and general partic.i.p.ation in human life. It is sometimes difficult to distinguish his views of Deity from Pantheism; but on more than one occasion he expressed his total dissent from the peculiarity of the Hegelian system. He holds that all we see about us and feel within us testifies of G.o.d. Neither speculative nor practical atheism can produce good in the world; we must believe in G.o.d's existence, else we have no power whatever to explain the harmony in nature, providence in individual and national life, existence and immortality of the soul, and the suffering to which we fall heir.[278]

But Theism clears up every difficulty, and sheds its light upon all departments of human life. This alone can overthrow the popular orthodox theology and enthrone the religion of the Absolute, or true Spiritualism in its stead.

It is a question of grave importance how far the skepticism of Unitarianism, Universalism, and Pantheism has been influential upon the American Church, and how great is the number of those who have become more or less tinctured with the Rationalism of the last five years'

importation. Parker claimed that the liberal or Rationalistic thinkers were largely on the increase; but he also informs us that the translation by himself of _De Wette's Introduction to the Old Testament_, not only proved a financial failure, but that it has had "no recognition nor welcome in America; that it has never had a friendly word said for it in any American journal."[279] Skepticism has been proclaimed princ.i.p.ally by public lectures, and, in this form, has made little pretension to logical, exegetical, or metaphysical power. Youths have manifested a decided taste for the works of Carlyle, Emerson, and Parker, while the _Phases of Faith_ is one of the most thumb-worn of all the volumes of our circulating libraries. Yet American Rationalism still lacks consistency and system.

The history of Rationalism proves that the evil is of slow and insidious growth. The young are most susceptible of its influence. The Sunday Schools of the various evangelical Churches are usually supplied with large libraries of religious books. But many works of pernicious tendency have been known to find a place upon shelves designed for better service.

A recent juvenile publication of skeptical character has probably been read by many children whose parents had taught them that all Scripture is given by inspiration of G.o.d.[280] This neat and attractive little volume is worthy of the disciples of Paulus and Semler. It is an advocate, under the most fascinating garb, of the very Rationalism which now threatens the American Church. The author claims that the patriarchal history is made up of little sc.r.a.ps of poetry; the fall of our first parents was their seeing a dark veil one day in their wandering, and they, in consequence thereof, went out of the pleasant place where they had been dwelling; the deluge was simply a metaphorical description of the increase of evil among men; the ark was only a mystical vessel typifying faith, truth, and other correctives of sorrow and sin; "there never was a single man Noah, who put all those creatures into a boat and saved himself;" no sacrifice appeared to Abraham when about to offer Isaac, but "his lifted arm seems to be seized as by the hand of an angel;" the crossing of the Red Sea by Israel, and the destruction of Pharaoh and his host, were the natural results of tide and storm; the bitter waters were sweetened by a friendly weed that grew close at hand; the speaking of Balaam's a.s.s was only the twirling of his long ears and loud braying; and the walls of Jericho fell merely by the natural force of loud, fearless, and honest speaking,--just as West India Slavery tumbled down by the agency of the n.o.ble voices that thundered, trumpet-like, in righteous indignation against it.

While speaking of Mr. Frothingham's juvenile work, we do not forget that he has lately sounded the alarm of "Liberal Christianity" for those who have pa.s.sed the age of childhood. Many of his Unitarian brethren will hardly agree with his radical Rationalism. Belonging to the extreme Left Wing, he holds that it is the province of liberal Christians to slough off the absurd doctrines now prevalent,--"not to remould the age,--to recast it, to regenerate it, to cross it or struggle with it, but to penetrate its meaning, enter into its temper, sympathize with its hopes, blend with its endeavors. The life of the time appoints the creed of the time, and modifies the establishment of the time. The great mark of our generation is a deep faith in the soul's power to take care of itself, and a desire that it may exercise that power to the utmost. Away with fears! Away with despairs! Away with devils! Away with perdition! Away with doom! Protestantism has the poison in its heart. From our own liberal theology, the elements of unnaturalism, preternaturalism, supernaturalism, have disappeared almost as completely as they have from the systems of science. The grand achievement of Christianity was the emanc.i.p.ation of human nature from its terrible Jewish thraldom. Its revelation seems to have been, that men could judge for themselves what is right,--could please G.o.d by being true to themselves,--could find the blessed life by returning to the simplicity of little children,--and could bring in the kingdom of heaven by yielding to the solicitations of kindness. Man greater than the Sabbath; man greater than the temple; man greater than the priesthood or the law. The religion was a consecration of Nature; the abolishment of the old oppressive hierarchies, and a cordial invitation to the heart to make a religion for itself. Just so far as it was in the deepest and purest sense 'natural' religion,--just so far as it emanc.i.p.ated the moral forces of humanity,--was it quick and quickening.... Human nature, under liberty, will vindicate itself as a divine creation. The freer it is, the more harmonious, orderly, balanced, and beautiful it is.... Nature's seers, running their eye along the line of the moral law, catch vistas in the future brighter than those that now are fading from the Old Testament page; and Nature's prophets, putting their ear to the ground, hear the murmur of n.o.bler revelations than were ever given to the old oracles now moving their stiffened lips in death. Humanity's heresiarchs are lordlier than inhumanity's priests. The soul's image-breaking is diviner than the prelate's worship. Knowledge distances faith. Human solidity more than makes good the Catholic's Communion. The revelation of universal law makes the belief in miracle seem atheistical; and the irresistible grace of the spirit that lives, and moves, and discloses its being in humanity, sweeps past the dispensations of Catholic and Protestant Christendom, as the eagle distances the dove."[281]

We would not utter a syllable of needless alarm; but is it not time that the American Church take note of the efforts by which the Rationalists of every grade are striving to take away the cardinal truths of the Christian revelation? Their predecessors in Europe sought to make children ashamed of the old truths by casting sarcasm on the strong faith and evangelical piety of the forefathers. They then aimed to show that the Church and theology are altogether behind the age, and that science and art are advancing with a rapidity which must leave all dogmatism and authority far behind. They afterward examined the Scriptures by the light of Reason alone, and, by this idea, deluded mult.i.tudes of the young and inexperienced into the darkness and doubt which were never removed.

This last effort may be the next one to which American Rationalism will address itself. The Church in this country has partaken of the pride awakened by our unexampled national prosperity; and many of her n.o.blest sons had well-nigh come to the conclusion, before the outbreak of the late civil war, that she must inevitably prosper, simply because of the remarkable temporal blessings which G.o.d had lavishly given. But without faith nothing can be accomplished, and three decades may be sufficient to so change the whole aspect of our religious life that the Church may become thoroughly Rationalistic; her sanctuaries frequented, and her posts of honor occupied, by the worshipers of Reason. The fidelity of the past will not be able to meet the emergency of the present. The Church in the wilderness was not permitted to lay up manna in advance.

Our civilization is undergoing a complete revolution. The field is newly ploughed by the events of the last few years, and it becomes the Church to scatter the seeds of truth with an unsparing hand. If this land is to be blessed with pure faith, as in past years, a faith strong enough to repel every blow of Skepticism, to the Church, as an instrument, and not to our natural growth, shall be attributed this popular prosperity. If we would secure for future years an uncorrupted faith, the enaction of pure laws, the introduction of the Gospel into every social cla.s.s, an increased enthusiasm in missionary labors, the intense union of all parts of our country, and the united progress of piety and theological science, the duty of the present hour must be discharged.

FOOTNOTES:

[271] Farrar, _Critical History of Free Thought_, p. 324.

[272] Weiss, _Life and Correspondence of Theodore Parker_, vol. i., p.

30.

[273] _Discourse on Matters Pertaining to Religion_, pp. 5, 6.

[274] _Discourse on Matters Pertaining to Religion_, p. 111.

[275] _Discourse on Matters Pertaining to Religion_, pp. 333, 4.

[276] Ibid. p. 350.

[277] _Discourse on Matters Pertaining to Religion_, pp. 477, 478.