05-14-2007, 08:48 AM
We have discussed many things lately. I thought I would step back and try to see what an original American Unitarian had to say on many of the subjects which have been discussed. I found answers in some of Rev. Parker's sermons. I would like to share these with you for they help to define the American Unitarian Tradition.
1. Concerning the Conscience:
"Certain things are naturally right, just, or fair; that is they have the approbation of the moral faculty within us, when it acts soberly. This happens as we declare that certain things are true because they correspond to the intellectual faculty when it acts soberly. Thus it is right to give each man his jus due....."
"The conscience tells us what is right, the intellect what is true. The absolute right is the natural ideal rule of conduct for mankind. The private conscience is to declare it for John and Jane; the public conscience, the aggregate moral sense of all, is to declare it for Massachusetts, America, England, the human race."
"By their moral nature all mankind are amenable, primarily each to his own conscience, and secondarily to his ideal rule of conduct, to justice, the natural law of God; for the function of conscience is to make the constitution of the universe into the common law and daily practice of all mankind, to make the universal law of God the private law of John and Jane, of Massachusetts, America, England, of all mankind."
2. Concerning Right and Wrong:
"But as man is finite........ it is plain he may err in two ways. First, he may fail to know the right, through lack of moral perception, or, second, he may fail to do the right he knows, through lack of moral will and power to perform the right. This two-fold failure happens to each man that was, is, or will be, and in all our relations in life. There never has been, or there never will be, a man who does not sometimes make both these mistakes, now failing to see the right, and then failing to do the right he has seen."
"John and Jane will now and then make mistakes individually in their small sphere, American and England nationally in their large domain, and mankind humanly, will thus err in its mundane sweep and compass. All commit errors; indeed, the history of the individual, the nation, the race, is that of progress by experiment, wherein many experiments fail."
"Men make mistakes in their speculative attempt to learn the absolute right, the ideal rule of conduct; and also in their practical experiments, the endeavor to learn the concrete right, the most profitable way of making the ideal rule of conduct the actual fact of daily life."
"God has made us so that our progress is by experiment, but likewise so that we advance, even by means of the experiment which fails, for that shows us the wrong which we are to shun, and indicates to us where we are to look for the right we should do...."
3. Concerning the ministry:
"I would have religious instruction there ......... I would not take a minister with mere book religion, but a man with piety of heart and life; not a priest who thinks man is a little weak devil by nature, and God a great strong devil by will; but a man who knows the Infinite God by heart, and has the humanity, the self-respect, and the divinity of Love."
"To preach the religion of fear, which makes man a worm, is bad enough in a meeting house, full of rich men, who can afford to sleep. But the theology of damnation is still worse when preached in a jail, for the poor wretch there has no shelter to screen him from the hail of eternal torment which the minister pours down on him from the windows of inverted hell. The gospel of love would not be wasted anywhere; in a jail it would be the good physician among the sick....."
4. Concerning Evil:
"For me, I believe that all evil is transient, a thing that belongs to the process of development, not to the nature of man, or the higher forms of social life toward which he is advancing. If God be absolutely good, then only good things are everlasting. This general opinion, which comes from my religion as well as my philosophy, affects my special opinion of the history and design of poverty."
"As I look on the diseases incidental to childhood, things that mankind live through and outgrow; which painful as they are, do not make up the greatest part of the entire life of mankind."
"If it shall be said that I cannot know this, that I have not a clear intellectual perception of the providential design there of, or the means of its removal, still I believe it, and if I have not the knowledge which comes of philosophy, I still have faith, the result of instinctive trust in God."
5. Concerning Promoting Religion:
"Something also may be done to promote religion amongst the poor, at least something to make it practicable for a poor man to come to church on Sunday, with his fellow-creatures who are not miserable -- and to hear the best things that the ablest men in the Church have to offer....."
"If, as some men still believe, it be a manly calling and a noble to preach Christianity, then to preach it to men who stand in the worst and most dangerous positions in society; to take the highest truths of human consciousness, the loftiest philosophy, the noblest piety, and bring them down into the daily life of poor man, rude man, men obscure, unfriendly, ready to perish; surely this is the noblest part of that calling, and demands the noblest gifts, the fairest and the largest culture, and the loftiest powers."
"It is no hard thing to reason with reasoning men, and to be intelligible to the intelligent; to talk acceptably and even movingly to scholars and men well read, is no hard thing, if you are yourself well read and a scholar. But to be intellectual to the ignorant, to reason with men who reason not, to speak acceptably and movingly with such men, to inspire them with wisdom, with goodness, and with piety -- that is the task only for some men of rare genius who stride over the great gulf betwixt the thrones of creative power, and humble positions of men ignorant, poor, and forgot! Yet such men there are, and here is their work."
6. Concerning Want and Suffering:
"Want is not an absolutely needful thing, but very needful for the present distress, to teach us industry, economy, thrift, and its creative arts. There is nature -- the whole material world -- waiting to serve. "What would you have thereof?" says God, "Pay for it and take it, as you will; only pay as you go!" There are hands to work, heads to think; strong hands, hard heads. God is an economist; He economizes suffering; there is never too much of it in the world for the purpose it is to serve, though it often falls where it should not fall. It is here to teach us industry, thrift, justice; It will be here no more when we have learned its lesson. Want is here on sufferance; misery on sufferance; and mankind can eject them if we will. Poverty, like all evils, is amenable to suppression."
7. Concerning my tombstone:
"I would have it written on my tombstone; "This man had but little wit, and less fame, yet he helped remove the causes of poverty, making men better off and better"; rather by far than this: "Here lies a great man; he had a great place in the world, and great power, and great fame, and made nothing of it, leaving the world no better for his stay therein, and no man better off."
8. Concerning the Great Work to be done:
"The great work is to be done by the general advance of mankind. God has general remedies in abundance, but few specific. Something will be done by diffusing throughout the community principles and habits of economy, industry, temperance; by diffusing ideas of justice, sentiments of brotherly love, sentiments and ideas of religion. I hope everything from that -- the noiseless and steady progress of Christianity."
9. Concerning the little that we can do:
"It is only a little that any of us can do -- for anything. Still we do a little; we can each do by helping toward raising the general tone of society: first, by each man raising himself; by industry, economy, charity, justice, piety; by noble life. So doing, we raise the moral temperature of the whole world, and just in proportion thereto. Next, by helping those who come in our way; nay, by going out of our way to help man. In each of these modes, it is our duty to work. To a certain extent each man is his brother's keeper. Of the powers we possess we are but trustees under Providence, to use them for the benefit of man, and render continually an account of our stewardship to God. Each man can do a little directly to help convince the world of its wrong, a little in the way of temporizing charity, a little in the way of remedial justice; so doing, he works with God, and God works with him."
10. Concerning mans relationship to God:
"Now man was made to be free, to govern himself, to be his own master, to have no cause stand between him and God, which shall curtail his birthright of freedom. He is never in his proper element until he attains this condition of freedom; of self-government."
"Of course, while we are children, not having reached the age of discretion, we must be under the authority of our parents and guardians, teachers, and friends. This is a natural relationship. There is no slavery in it; no degradation."
"The parents, exercising rightful authority over their children, do not represent human caprice, but divine wisdom and love. They assume the direction of the child's action, not to do themselves a service, but to benefit him."
"The Father restrains his child, that the child may have more freedom, not less. Here the relationship is not of force and suffering, but of love on both sides; of ability, which loves to help, and necessity, which loves to be directed. The child that is nurtured by its parent gains more than the parent does."
"So is it the duty of the wise, the good, the holy, to teach, direct, restrain the foolish, the wicked, the ungodly. If a man is wiser, better, and holier than I am, it is my duty, my privilege, my exaltation to obey him. For Him to direct man in wisdom and love, not for His sake but for my own, is for me to be free. He may gain nothing by this, but I gain much."
11. Concerning Honest Souls:
"Honest souls engaged in a good work, fired with a great idea, sometimes forget the settled decorum speech, commonly observed in forum and pulpit, and call sin sin."
12. Concerning freedom for the soul:
"But freedom for the soul to act right, think right, feel right, you cannot inherit, that you must win for yourself. Yet it is offered you at no great price. You may take it who will."
"It is the birthright of you and me and each of us; if we keep its conditions it is ours. Yet it is only to be had by the religious man -- the man true to the nature God gave him. Without His spirit in your heart you have no freedom. Resist His law, revealed in nature, in the scripture of the Bible, in your own soul; resist it by sin, you are a slave, you must be a slave."
13. Concerning our conception of God:
"It seems to me that an idea of God as the Infinite is given to us in our nature itself. But men create a more definite conception of God in their own image."
"Thus a rude savage man, who has learned only the presence of power in nature, conceives God mainly as a force, and speaks of Him as a God of power. Such though not without beautiful exceptions is the character ascribed to Jehovah in the Old Testament."
"A man who has grown up to read the older Testament of God revealed in the beauty of the Universe, and to feel the goodness of God therein set forth sees Him not as force only, or in chief, but as Love. He worships in love the God of goodness and of peace. Such is the prevalent character ascribed to God in the New Testament, except the Book of Revelations."
"He is the "God of Love and Peace"; "Our Father': "kind to the unthankful and the unmerciful." In one word, God is Love. He loves us all, Jew and Gentile, bond and free. All are his children, each of priceless value in His sight."
"He is spirit, to be worshiped in spirit and in truth!
"No man is to be master, for the Christ is our teacher. We are to fear no man, for God is our Father."
"These precepts are undeniably the precepts of Christianity. His law writ on the soul of man, established in the nature of things; true after all experience, and true before all experience. The man of real insight into spiritual things sees and knows them to be true."
These are the words of Theodore Parker. They have been extracted from some of his sermons. They speak to us today and give us much to think about. I hope you will agree.
I hope Rev Parker will be satisfied with the way I have used his words.
Submitted with Love,
Rev. Dorris
1. Concerning the Conscience:
"Certain things are naturally right, just, or fair; that is they have the approbation of the moral faculty within us, when it acts soberly. This happens as we declare that certain things are true because they correspond to the intellectual faculty when it acts soberly. Thus it is right to give each man his jus due....."
"The conscience tells us what is right, the intellect what is true. The absolute right is the natural ideal rule of conduct for mankind. The private conscience is to declare it for John and Jane; the public conscience, the aggregate moral sense of all, is to declare it for Massachusetts, America, England, the human race."
"By their moral nature all mankind are amenable, primarily each to his own conscience, and secondarily to his ideal rule of conduct, to justice, the natural law of God; for the function of conscience is to make the constitution of the universe into the common law and daily practice of all mankind, to make the universal law of God the private law of John and Jane, of Massachusetts, America, England, of all mankind."
2. Concerning Right and Wrong:
"But as man is finite........ it is plain he may err in two ways. First, he may fail to know the right, through lack of moral perception, or, second, he may fail to do the right he knows, through lack of moral will and power to perform the right. This two-fold failure happens to each man that was, is, or will be, and in all our relations in life. There never has been, or there never will be, a man who does not sometimes make both these mistakes, now failing to see the right, and then failing to do the right he has seen."
"John and Jane will now and then make mistakes individually in their small sphere, American and England nationally in their large domain, and mankind humanly, will thus err in its mundane sweep and compass. All commit errors; indeed, the history of the individual, the nation, the race, is that of progress by experiment, wherein many experiments fail."
"Men make mistakes in their speculative attempt to learn the absolute right, the ideal rule of conduct; and also in their practical experiments, the endeavor to learn the concrete right, the most profitable way of making the ideal rule of conduct the actual fact of daily life."
"God has made us so that our progress is by experiment, but likewise so that we advance, even by means of the experiment which fails, for that shows us the wrong which we are to shun, and indicates to us where we are to look for the right we should do...."
3. Concerning the ministry:
"I would have religious instruction there ......... I would not take a minister with mere book religion, but a man with piety of heart and life; not a priest who thinks man is a little weak devil by nature, and God a great strong devil by will; but a man who knows the Infinite God by heart, and has the humanity, the self-respect, and the divinity of Love."
"To preach the religion of fear, which makes man a worm, is bad enough in a meeting house, full of rich men, who can afford to sleep. But the theology of damnation is still worse when preached in a jail, for the poor wretch there has no shelter to screen him from the hail of eternal torment which the minister pours down on him from the windows of inverted hell. The gospel of love would not be wasted anywhere; in a jail it would be the good physician among the sick....."
4. Concerning Evil:
"For me, I believe that all evil is transient, a thing that belongs to the process of development, not to the nature of man, or the higher forms of social life toward which he is advancing. If God be absolutely good, then only good things are everlasting. This general opinion, which comes from my religion as well as my philosophy, affects my special opinion of the history and design of poverty."
"As I look on the diseases incidental to childhood, things that mankind live through and outgrow; which painful as they are, do not make up the greatest part of the entire life of mankind."
"If it shall be said that I cannot know this, that I have not a clear intellectual perception of the providential design there of, or the means of its removal, still I believe it, and if I have not the knowledge which comes of philosophy, I still have faith, the result of instinctive trust in God."
5. Concerning Promoting Religion:
"Something also may be done to promote religion amongst the poor, at least something to make it practicable for a poor man to come to church on Sunday, with his fellow-creatures who are not miserable -- and to hear the best things that the ablest men in the Church have to offer....."
"If, as some men still believe, it be a manly calling and a noble to preach Christianity, then to preach it to men who stand in the worst and most dangerous positions in society; to take the highest truths of human consciousness, the loftiest philosophy, the noblest piety, and bring them down into the daily life of poor man, rude man, men obscure, unfriendly, ready to perish; surely this is the noblest part of that calling, and demands the noblest gifts, the fairest and the largest culture, and the loftiest powers."
"It is no hard thing to reason with reasoning men, and to be intelligible to the intelligent; to talk acceptably and even movingly to scholars and men well read, is no hard thing, if you are yourself well read and a scholar. But to be intellectual to the ignorant, to reason with men who reason not, to speak acceptably and movingly with such men, to inspire them with wisdom, with goodness, and with piety -- that is the task only for some men of rare genius who stride over the great gulf betwixt the thrones of creative power, and humble positions of men ignorant, poor, and forgot! Yet such men there are, and here is their work."
6. Concerning Want and Suffering:
"Want is not an absolutely needful thing, but very needful for the present distress, to teach us industry, economy, thrift, and its creative arts. There is nature -- the whole material world -- waiting to serve. "What would you have thereof?" says God, "Pay for it and take it, as you will; only pay as you go!" There are hands to work, heads to think; strong hands, hard heads. God is an economist; He economizes suffering; there is never too much of it in the world for the purpose it is to serve, though it often falls where it should not fall. It is here to teach us industry, thrift, justice; It will be here no more when we have learned its lesson. Want is here on sufferance; misery on sufferance; and mankind can eject them if we will. Poverty, like all evils, is amenable to suppression."
7. Concerning my tombstone:
"I would have it written on my tombstone; "This man had but little wit, and less fame, yet he helped remove the causes of poverty, making men better off and better"; rather by far than this: "Here lies a great man; he had a great place in the world, and great power, and great fame, and made nothing of it, leaving the world no better for his stay therein, and no man better off."
8. Concerning the Great Work to be done:
"The great work is to be done by the general advance of mankind. God has general remedies in abundance, but few specific. Something will be done by diffusing throughout the community principles and habits of economy, industry, temperance; by diffusing ideas of justice, sentiments of brotherly love, sentiments and ideas of religion. I hope everything from that -- the noiseless and steady progress of Christianity."
9. Concerning the little that we can do:
"It is only a little that any of us can do -- for anything. Still we do a little; we can each do by helping toward raising the general tone of society: first, by each man raising himself; by industry, economy, charity, justice, piety; by noble life. So doing, we raise the moral temperature of the whole world, and just in proportion thereto. Next, by helping those who come in our way; nay, by going out of our way to help man. In each of these modes, it is our duty to work. To a certain extent each man is his brother's keeper. Of the powers we possess we are but trustees under Providence, to use them for the benefit of man, and render continually an account of our stewardship to God. Each man can do a little directly to help convince the world of its wrong, a little in the way of temporizing charity, a little in the way of remedial justice; so doing, he works with God, and God works with him."
10. Concerning mans relationship to God:
"Now man was made to be free, to govern himself, to be his own master, to have no cause stand between him and God, which shall curtail his birthright of freedom. He is never in his proper element until he attains this condition of freedom; of self-government."
"Of course, while we are children, not having reached the age of discretion, we must be under the authority of our parents and guardians, teachers, and friends. This is a natural relationship. There is no slavery in it; no degradation."
"The parents, exercising rightful authority over their children, do not represent human caprice, but divine wisdom and love. They assume the direction of the child's action, not to do themselves a service, but to benefit him."
"The Father restrains his child, that the child may have more freedom, not less. Here the relationship is not of force and suffering, but of love on both sides; of ability, which loves to help, and necessity, which loves to be directed. The child that is nurtured by its parent gains more than the parent does."
"So is it the duty of the wise, the good, the holy, to teach, direct, restrain the foolish, the wicked, the ungodly. If a man is wiser, better, and holier than I am, it is my duty, my privilege, my exaltation to obey him. For Him to direct man in wisdom and love, not for His sake but for my own, is for me to be free. He may gain nothing by this, but I gain much."
11. Concerning Honest Souls:
"Honest souls engaged in a good work, fired with a great idea, sometimes forget the settled decorum speech, commonly observed in forum and pulpit, and call sin sin."
12. Concerning freedom for the soul:
"But freedom for the soul to act right, think right, feel right, you cannot inherit, that you must win for yourself. Yet it is offered you at no great price. You may take it who will."
"It is the birthright of you and me and each of us; if we keep its conditions it is ours. Yet it is only to be had by the religious man -- the man true to the nature God gave him. Without His spirit in your heart you have no freedom. Resist His law, revealed in nature, in the scripture of the Bible, in your own soul; resist it by sin, you are a slave, you must be a slave."
13. Concerning our conception of God:
"It seems to me that an idea of God as the Infinite is given to us in our nature itself. But men create a more definite conception of God in their own image."
"Thus a rude savage man, who has learned only the presence of power in nature, conceives God mainly as a force, and speaks of Him as a God of power. Such though not without beautiful exceptions is the character ascribed to Jehovah in the Old Testament."
"A man who has grown up to read the older Testament of God revealed in the beauty of the Universe, and to feel the goodness of God therein set forth sees Him not as force only, or in chief, but as Love. He worships in love the God of goodness and of peace. Such is the prevalent character ascribed to God in the New Testament, except the Book of Revelations."
"He is the "God of Love and Peace"; "Our Father': "kind to the unthankful and the unmerciful." In one word, God is Love. He loves us all, Jew and Gentile, bond and free. All are his children, each of priceless value in His sight."
"He is spirit, to be worshiped in spirit and in truth!
"No man is to be master, for the Christ is our teacher. We are to fear no man, for God is our Father."
"These precepts are undeniably the precepts of Christianity. His law writ on the soul of man, established in the nature of things; true after all experience, and true before all experience. The man of real insight into spiritual things sees and knows them to be true."
These are the words of Theodore Parker. They have been extracted from some of his sermons. They speak to us today and give us much to think about. I hope you will agree.
I hope Rev Parker will be satisfied with the way I have used his words.
Submitted with Love,
Rev. Dorris