SOME ACCOUNT OF MY MINISTRY.

TWO SERMONS

PREACHED BEFORE THE TWENTY-EIGHTH CONGREGATIONAL SOCIETY IN BOSTON, ON THE 14TH AND 21ST OF NOVEMBER, 1852, ON LEAVING THEIR OLD AND ENTERING A NEW PLACE OF WORSHIP.

SERMON I.

"I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God." ACTS xx. 27.

On the 22nd of January, 1845, at a meeting of gentlemen in Boston, which some of you very well remember, it was "Resolved, that the Rev. Theodore Parker shall have a chance to be heard in Boston."

That resolution has been abundantly backed up by action; and I have had "a chance to be heard." And this is not all: I have had a long and patient, a most faithful and abundant hearing. No man in the last eight years in New-England has had so much. I mean to say, no minister in New-England has done so much preaching, and had so much hearing. This is the result of your resolution, and your attempts to make your thought a thing.

As this seems likely to be the last time I shall stand within these walls, it is not improper that I should give some little account of my stewardship whilst here; and therefore you will pardon me if I speak considerably of myself,a subject which has been before you a long time, very much in your eye, and I think also very much in your heart.

I must, in advance, ask your indulgence for the character of this sermon. I have but just returned from an expedition to Ohio, to lecture and to preach; whither I went weary and not well, and whence I have returned still

more weary and no better. It is scarcely more than twenty-four hours since I came back, and accordingly but a brief time has been allowed me for the composition of this sermon. For its manner and its matter, its substance and its form, therefore, I must ask your indulgence.

When I spoke to you for the first time on that dark, rainy Sunday, on the 16th of February, 1845, I had recently returned from Europe. I had enjoyed a whole year of leisure: it was the first and last I have ever had. I had employed that time in studying the people and institutions of Western Europe; their social, academical, political, and ecclesiastical institutions. And that leisure gave me an opportunity to pause, and review my scheme of philosophy and theology; to compare my own system with that of eminent men, as well living as dead, in all parts of Europe, and see how the scheme would fit the wants of Christendom, Protestant and Catholic. It was a very fortunate thing that at the age of three and thirty I was enabled to pause, and study myself anew ; amine what I had left behind me, and recast my plans for what of life might yet remain.

:

to re-ex

You remember, when you first asked me to come here and preach, I doubted and hesitated, and at first said, No; for I distrusted my own ability to make my idea welcome at that time to any large body of men. In the country I had a small parish, very dear to me still, wherein I knew every man, woman, and child, and was well known to them I knew the thoughts of such as had the habit of thinking. Some of them accepted my conclusions because they had entertained ideas like them before I did, perhaps before I was born. Others tolerated the doctrine because they liked the man, and the doctrine seemed part of him, and, if they took my ideas at all, took them for my sake. You, who knew little of me, must hear the doctrine before you could know the man; and, as you would know the doctrine only as I had power to set it forth in speech, I doubted if I should make it welcome. I had no doubt of the truth of my idea; none of its ultimate triumph. I felt certain that one day it would be "a flame in all men's hearts." I doubted only of its immediate success in my hands.

Some of you had not a very clear notion of my programme of principles. Most of you knew this,-that a

strong effort was making to exclude me from the pulpits of New-England; not on account of any charge brought against my character, but simply on account of the ideas which I presented; ideas which, as I claimed, were bottomed on the nature of man and the nature of God: my opponents claimed that they were not bottomed on the Bible. You thought that my doctrine was not fairly and scientifically met; that an attempt was making, not to put it down by reason, but to howl it down by force of ecclesiastical shouting; and that was true. And so you passed a resolve that Mr Parker should have "a chance to be heard in Boston," because he had not a chance to be heard anywhere else, in a pulpit, except in the little village of West Roxbury.

It was a great principle, certainly, which was at stake; the great Protestant principle of free individuality of thought in matters of religion. And that, with most of you, was stronger than a belief in my peculiar opinions; far stronger than any personal fondness for me. fore your resolution was bottomed on a great idea.

There

My scheme of theology may be briefly told. There are three great doctrines in it, relating to the idea of God, the idea of man, and of the connection or relation between God and man.

First, of the idea of God. I have taught the infinite perfection of God; that in God there are united all conceivable perfections, the perfection of being, which is self-existence; the perfection of power, almightiness; the perfection of wisdom, all-knowingness; the perfection of conscience, all-righteousness; the perfection of the affections, all-lovingness; and the perfection of soul, all-holiness;-that He is perfect cause of all that He creates, making everything from a perfect motive, of perfect material, for a perfect purpose, as a perfect means;-that He is perfect providence also, and has arranged all things in His creation so that no ultimate and absolute evil shall befall anything which He has made ;-that, in the material world, all is order without freedom, for a perfect end; and in the human world, the contingent forces of human freedom are perfectly known by God at the moment of creation, and so balanced together that they shall work out a perfect blessedness for each and for all His children.

That is my idea of God, and it is the foundation of all my preaching. It is the one idea in which I differ from the antichristian sects, and from every Christian sect. I know of no Christian or antichristian sect which really believes in the infinite God. If the infinity of God appears in their synthetic definition of Deity, it is straightway brought to nothing in their analytic description of the divine character, and their historic account of His works and purposes.

Then, of the idea of man. I have taught that God gave mankind powers perfectly adapted to the purpose of God; that the body of man was just what God meant it to be; had nothing redundant, to be cut off sacramentally; was not deficient in anything, to be sacramentally agglutinated thereunto;-and that the spirit of man was exactly such a spirit as the good God meant to make; redundant in nothing, deficient in nothing; requiring no sacramental amputation of an old faculty, no sacramental imputation of a new faculty from another tree;-that the mind and conscience and heart and soul were exactly adequate to the function that God meant for them all; that they found their appropriate objects of satisfaction in the universe; and as there was food for the body,-all nature ready to serve it on due condition,-so there was satisfaction for the spirit, truth and beauty for the intellect, justice for the conscience; human beings-lover and maid, husband and wife, kith and kin, friend and friend, parent and child-for the affections; and God for the soul;-that man can as naturally find satisfaction for his soul, which hungers after the infinite God, as for his heart, which hungers for a human friend, or for his mouth, which hungers for daily bread ;—that mankind no more needs to receive a miraculous revelation of things pertaining to religion than of things pertaining to housekeeping, agriculture, or manufactures; for God made the religious faculty as adequate to its function as the practical faculties for theirs.

In the development of man's faculties, I have taught that there has been a great progress of mankind,-outwardly shown in the increased power over nature, in the increase of comfort, art, science, literature; and this progress is just as obvious in religion as in agriculture or in housekeeping. The progress in man's idea of God is as

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remarkable as the progress in building ships; for, indeed, the difference between the popular conception of a jealous and angry God, who said His first word in the Old Testament, and His last word in the New Testament, and who will never speak again "till the last day," and then only damn to everlasting ruin the bulk of mankind,-the difference between that conception and the idea of the infinite God is as great as the difference between the "dug-out" of a Sandwich Islander and a California clipper, that takes all the airs of heaven in its broad arms, and skims over the waters with the speed of wind. I see no limit to this general power of progressive development in man; none to man's power of religious development. The progress did not begin with Moses, nor end with Jesus. Neither of these great benefactors was a finality in benefaction. This power of growth, which belongs to human nature, is only definite in the historical forms already produced, but quite indefinite and boundless in its capabilities of future expansion.

In the human faculties, this is the order of rank: I have put the body and all its powers at the bottom of the scale; and then, of the spiritual powers, I put the intellect the lowest of all; conscience came next higher; the affections higher yet; and highest of all, I have put the religious faculty. Hence I have always taught that the religious faculty was the natural ruler in all this commonwealth of man; yet I would not have it a tyrant, to deprive the mind or the conscience or the affections of their natural rights. But the importance of religion, and its commanding power in every relation of life, that is what I have continually preached; and some of you will remember that the first sermon I addressed to you was on this theme, the absolute necessity of religion for safely conducting the life of the individual and the life of the State. I dwelt on both of these points,-religion for the individual, and religion for the State. You know very well I did not begin too soon. Yet I did not then foresee that it would soon be denied in America, in Boston, that there was any law of God higher than an Act of Congress.

Woman I have always regarded as the equal of man,more nicely speaking, the equivalent of man; superior in some things, inferior in some other; inferior in the lower qualities, in bulk of body and bulk of brain; superior in