his words-in all cases, applies the language of the Old Testament to himself in its proper and legitimate meaning; was he never mistaken in this matter, or have the passages of the Old Testament many meanings?

26. Do you think that a belief in the miraculous inspiration of all or any of the writers of the Old Testament or New Testament; that a belief in all or any of the miracles therein mentioned; that a belief in the miraculous birth, life, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus; that a belief in his miraculous, universal, and infallible inspiration, is essential to a perfect Christian character, to salvation and acceptance with God, or even to participation in the Christian name? and if so, what doctrine of morality or religion really and necessarily rests, in whole or in part, on such a belief?

27. Do you believe that the two ordinances,-Baptism and the Lord's Supper,-are, in themselves, essential, necessary, and of primary importance as ends, valuable for their own sakes, or that they are but helps and means for the formation of the Christian character, and therefore valuable only so far as they help to form that character?

28. Do you think it wrong or unchristian in another, to abandon and expose what he deems a popular error, or to embrace and proclaim an unpopular truth; do you count yourselves, theoretically, to have attained all religious and theological truth, and to have retained no error in your own creed, so that it is wholly unnecessary for you, on the one hand, to re-examine your own opinions, or, on the other, to search further for light and truth, or do you think yourselves competent, without such search, or such examination, to pronounce a man an infidel, and no Christian, solely because he believes many things in theology which you reject, and rejects some things which you believe?

Gentlemen, you have yourselves constrained me to write this letter. I write to you in this open way, for I wish that the public may understand your opinions as well as my own. I beg you will give your serious attention to the above questions, and return me a public answer, not circuitously, but in a straightforward, manly way, and at your earliest convenience. I have, at various times, as

distinctly as possible, set forth my own views, and as you have publicly placed yourselves in a hostile attitude to me; as some of you have done all in their power to disown me, and as they have done this, partly, on account of my alleged heresies; it is but due to yourselves to open the Gospel according to the Boston Association, give the public an opportunity to take the length and breadth of your standard of Unitarian orthodoxy, and tell us all what you really think on the points above-mentioned. Then you and I shall know in what we differ; there will be a clear field before us, and if we are doomed to contend, we shall not fight in the dark. I have invited your learned attention to matters on which it is supposed that you have inquired and made up your minds, and that you are entirely agreed among yourselves, and yet that you differ most widely from me. I have not, however, touched the great philosophical questions which lie at the bottom of all theology, because I do not understand that you have yourselves raised these questions, or consciously and distinctly joined issue upon them with me. Gentlemen, you are men of leisure, and I am busied with numerous cares; you are safe in your multitude of council, while I have comparatively none to advise with. But notwithstanding these advantages, so eminently on your side, I have not feared to descend into the arena, and looking only for the truth, to write you this letter. I shall pause, impatient for your reply; and, with hearty wishes for your continued prosperity, your increased usefulness, and growth alike in all Christian virtues, and every manly grace, I remain, gentlemen,

Your obedient servant,

WEST ROXBURY, March 20th, 1845.

THEODORE PARKER.

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; to re-examine what I had left behind me, and recast my plans for what of life might yet remain.

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 this,-that

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. Thereyour resolution was bottomed on a great idea. 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.

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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,