Volume Ii Part 1 (1/2)

Speeches, Addresses, and Occasional Sermons.

Volume 2.

by Theodore Parker.

A SERMON OF THE SPIRITUAL CONDITION OF BOSTON.--PREACHED AT THE MELODEON, ON SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 1849.

MATTHEW VIII. 20.

By their fruits ye shall know them.

Last Sunday I said something of the moral condition of Boston; to-day I ask your attention to a Sermon of the Spiritual Condition of Boston. I use the word spiritual in its narrower sense, and speak of the condition of this town in respect to piety. A little while since, in a sermon of piety, I tried to show that love of G.o.d lay at the foundation of all manly excellence, and was the condition of all n.o.ble, manly development; that love of truth, love of justice, love of love, were respectively the condition of intellectual, moral, and affectional development, and that they were also respectively the intellectual, moral, and affectional forms of piety; that the love of G.o.d as the Infinite Father, the totality of truth, justice, and love was the general condition of the total development of man's spiritual powers. But I showed, that sometimes this piety, intellectual, moral, affectional or total, did not arrive at self-consciousness; the man only unconsciously loving the Infinite in one or all these modes, and in such cases the man was a loser by frustrating his piety, and allowing it to stop in the truncated form of unconsciousness.

Now what is in you will appear out of you; if piety be there in any of these forms, in either mode, it will come out; if not there, its fruits cannot appear. You may reason forward or backward: if you know piety exists, you may foretell its appearance; if you find fruits thereof, you may reason back and be sure of its existence. Piety is love of G.o.d as G.o.d, and as we only love what we are like, and in that degree, so it is also a likeness to G.o.d. Now it is a general doctrine in Christendom that divinity must manifest itself; and, in a.s.suming the highest form of manifestation known to us, divinity becomes humanity. However, that doctrine is commonly taught in the specific and not generic form, and is enforced by an historical and concrete example, but not by way of a universal thesis. It appears thus: The Christ was G.o.d; as such He must manifest himself; the form of manifestation was that of a complete and perfect man. I reject the concrete example, but accept the universal doctrine on which the special dogma of the Trinity is erected. From that I deduce this as a general rule: If you follow the law of your nature, and are simple and true to that, as much of G.o.dhead as there is in you, so much of manhood will come out of you, and, as much of manhood comes out of you, so much of G.o.dhead was there within you; as much subjective divinity, so much objective humanity.

Such being the case, the demands you can make on a man for manliness must depend for their answer on the amount of piety on deposit in his character; so it becomes important to know the condition of this town in respect of piety, for if this be not right in the above sense, nothing else is right; or, to speak more clerically, ”Unless the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain,” and unless piety be developed or a-developing in men, it is vain for the minister to sit up late of a Sat.u.r.day night to concoct his sermon, and to rise up early of a Sunday morning to preach the same; he fights but as one that beateth the air, and spends his strength for that which is nought. They are in the right, therefore, who first of all things demand piety: so let us see what signs or proof we have, and of what amount of piety in Boston.

To determine this, we must have some test by which to judge of the quality, distinguis.h.i.+ng piety from impiety, and some standard whereby to measure the quant.i.ty thereof; for though you may know what piety is in you, I what is in me, and G.o.d what is in both and in all the rest of us, it is plain that we can only judge of the existence of piety in other men, and measure its quant.i.ty by an outward manifestation thereof, in some form which shall serve at once as a trial test and a standard measure.

Now, then, as I mentioned in that former sermon, it is on various sides alleged that there are two outward manifestations of piety, a good deal unlike: each is claimed by some men as the exclusive trial test and standard measure. Let me say a word of each.

I. Some contend for what I call the conventional standard; that is, the manifestation of piety by means of certain prescribed forms. Of these forms there are three modes or degrees: namely, first, the form of bodily attendance on public wors.h.i.+p; second, the belief in certain doctrines, not barely because they are proven true, or known without proof, but because they are taught with authority; and third, a pa.s.sive acquiescence in certain forms and ceremonies, or an active performance thereof.

II. The other I call the natural standard; that is, the manifestation of piety in the natural form of morality in its various degrees and modes of action.

It is plain, that the amount of piety in a man or a town, will appear very different when tested by one or the other of these standards. It may be that very little water runs through the wooden trough which feeds the saw-mill at Niagara, and yet a good deal, blue and bounding, may leap over the rock, adown its natural channel. In a matter of this importance, when taking account of a stock so precious as piety, it is but fair to try it by both standards.

Let us begin with the conventional standard, and examine piety by its manifestation in the ecclesiastical forms. Here is a difficulty at the outset, in determining upon the measure, for there is no one and general ecclesiastical standard, common to all parties of Christians, from the Catholic to the Quaker; each measures by its own standard, but denies the correctness of all the others. It is as if a foot were declared the unit of long measure, and then the actual foot of the chief justice of a State, were taken as the rule by which to correct all measurements; then the foot would vary as you went from North Carolina to South, and, in any one State, would vary with the health of the judge. However, to do what can be done with a measure thus uncertain, it is plain, that, estimated by any ecclesiastical standard, the amount of piety is small.

There is, as men often say, ”A general decline of piety;” that is a common complaint, recorded and registered. But what makes the matter worse to the ecclesiastical philosopher, and more appalling to the complainers, is this: it is a decline of long standing. The disease which is thus lamented is said to be acute, but is proved to be chronic also; only it would seem, from the lamentations of some modern Jeremiahs, that the decline went on with accelerated velocity, and, the more chronic the disease was, the acuter it also became.

Tried by this standard, things seem discouraging. To get a clearer view, let us look a little beyond our own borders, at first, and then come nearer home. The Catholic church complains of a general defection. The majority of the Christian church confesses that the Protestant Reformation was not a revival of religion, not a ”Great awakening,” but a great falling to sleep; the faith of Luther and Calvin was a great decline of religion--a decline of piety in the ecclesiastical form; that modern philosophy, the physics of Galileo and Newton, the metaphysics of Descartes and of Kant, mark another decline of religion--a decline of piety in the philosophical form; that all the modern democracy of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, marks a yet further decline of religion--a decline of piety in the political form; that all the modern secular societies, for removing the evils of men and their sins, mark a yet fourth decline of religion--a decline of piety in the philanthropic form. Certainly, when measured by the mediaeval standard of Catholicism, these mark four great declensions of piety, for, in all four, the old principle of subordination to an external and personal authority is set aside.

All over Europe this decline is still going on; ecclesiastical establishments are breaking down; other establishments are a-building up. Pius the Ninth seems likely to fulfil his own prophecy, and be the last of the Popes; I mean the last with temporal power. There is a great schism in the north of Europe; the Germans will be Catholics, but no longer Roman. The old forms of piety, such as service in Latin, the withholding of the Bible from the people, compulsory confession, the ungrateful celibacy of a reluctant priesthood--all these are protested against. It is of no avail that the holy coat of Jesus, at Treves, works greater miracles than the apostolical napkins and ap.r.o.ns; of no avail that the Virgin Mary appeared on the nineteenth of September, 1846, to two shepherd-children, at La Salette, in France. What are such things to Ronge and Wessenberg? Neither the miraculous coat, nor the miraculous mother, avails aught against this untoward generation, charm they never so wisely. The decline of piety goes on. By the new Const.i.tution of France, all forms of religion are equal; the Catholic and the Protestant, the Mahometan and the Jew, are equally sheltered under the broad s.h.i.+eld of the law. Even Spain, the fortress walled and moated about, whither the spirit of the middle ages retired and shut herself up long since, womanning her walls with unmanly priests and kings, with unfeminine queens and nuns--even Spain fails with the general failure.

British capitalists buy up her convents and nunneries, to turn them into woollen mills. Monks and nuns forget their beads in some new handicraft; sister Mary, who sat still in the house, is now also busy with serving, careful, indeed, about more things than formerly, but not c.u.mbered nor troubled as before. Meditative Rachels, and Hannahs, long unblest, who sat in solitude, have now become like practical Dorcas, making garments for the poor; the Bank is become more important than the Inquisition. The order of St. Francis d'a.s.sisi, of St. Benedict, even of St. Dominic himself, is giving way before the new order of Arkwright, Watt, and Fulton,--the order of the spinning jenny and the power-loom.

It is no longer books on the miraculous conception, or meditations on the five wounds of the Saviour, or commentaries on the song of songs which is Solomon's, that get printed there: but fiery novels of Eugene Sue, and George Sand; and so extremes meet.

Protestant establishments share the same peril. A new sect of Protestants rises up in Germany, who dissent as much from the letter and spirit of Protestantism, as the Protestants from Catholicism; men that will not believe the infallibility of the Bible, the doctrine of the Trinity, the depravity of man, the eternity of future punishment, nor justification by faith--a justification before G.o.d, for mere belief before men. The new spirit gets possession of new men, who cannot be written down, nor even howled down. Excommunication or abuse does no good on such men as Bauer, Strauss, and Schwegler; and it answers none of their questions. It seems pretty clear, that in all the north of Germany, within twenty years, there will be entire freedom of wors.h.i.+p, for all sects, Protestant and Catholic.

In England, Protestantism has done its work less faithfully than in Germany. The Protestant spirit of England came here two hundred years ago, so that new and Protestant England is on the west of the ocean; in England, an established church lies there still, an iceberg in the national garden. But even there, the decline of the ecclesiastical form of piety is apparent: the new bishops must not sit in the House of Lords, till the old ones die out, for the number of lords spiritual must not increase, though the temporal may; the new attempt, at Oxford and elsewhere, to restore the Middle Ages, will not prosper. Bring back all the old rites and forms into Leeds and Manchester; teach men the theology of Thomas Aquinas, or of St. Bernard; bid them adore the uplifted wafer, as the very G.o.d, men who toil all day with iron mills, who ride in steam-drawn coaches, and talk by lightning in a whisper, from the Irk to the Thames,--they will not consent to the philosophy or the theology of the Middle Ages, nor be satisfied with the old forms of piety, which, though too elevated for their fathers in the time of Elizabeth, are yet too low for them, at least too antiquated. Dissenters have got into the House of Commons; the test-act is repealed, and a man can be a captain in the army, or a postmaster in a village, without first taking the Lord's Supper, after the fas.h.i.+on of the Church of England. Some men demand the abandonment of t.i.thes, the entire separation of Church and State, the return to ”The voluntary principle”

in religion. ”The battering ram which levelled old Sarum,” and other boroughs as corrupt, now beats on the church, and the ”Church is in danger.” Men complain of the decline of piety in England. An intelligent and very serious writer, not long ago, lamenting this decline, in proof thereof, relates, that formerly men began their last wills, ”In the name of G.o.d, Amen;” and headed bills of lading with, ”s.h.i.+pped in good order, by the grace of G.o.d;” that indictments for capital crimes charged the culprit with committing felony, ”At the instigation of the devil,” and now, he complains, these forms have gone out of use.

In America, in New England, in Boston, when measured by that standard, the same decline of piety is apparent. It is often said that our material condition is better than our moral; that in advance of our spiritual condition. There is a common clerical complaint of a certain thinness in the churches; men do not give their bodily attendance, as once they did; they are ready enough to attend lectures, two or three in a week, no matter how scientific and abstract, or how little connected with their daily work, yet they cannot come to the church without teasing beforehand, nor keep awake while there. It is said the minister is not respected as formerly. True, a man of power is respected, heard, sought, and followed, but it is for his power, for his words of grace and truth, not for his place in a pulpit; he may have more influence as a man, but less as a clergyman. Ministers lament a prevalent disbelief of their venerable doctrines; that there is a concealed skepticism in regard to them, often not concealed. This, also, is a well-founded complaint; the well-known dogmas of theology were never in worse repute; there was never so large a portion of the community in New England who were doubtful of the Trinity, of eternal d.a.m.nation, of total depravity, of the atonement, of the G.o.dhead of Jesus, of the miracles of the New Testament, and of the truth of every word of the Bible. A complaint is made, that the rites and forms which are sometimes called ”the ordinances of religion,” are neglected; that few men join the church, and though the old hedge is broken down before the altar, yet the number of communicants diminishes, and it is no longer able-headed men, the leaders of society, who come; that the ordinances seem haggard and ghastly to young men, who cannot feed their hungry souls on such a thin pittance of spiritual aliment as these afford; that the children are not baptized. These things are so; so in Europe, Catholic and Protestant; so in America, so in Boston. Notwithstanding the well-founded complaint that our modern churches are too costly for the times, we do not build temples which bear so high a proportion to our wealth as the early churches of Boston; the attendance at meeting does not increase as the population; the ministers are not prominent, as in the days of Wilson, of Cotton, and of Norton; their education is not now in the same proportion to the general culture of the times. Harvard College, dedicated to ”Christ and the Church,” designed at first chiefly for the education of the clergy, graduates few ministers; theological literature no longer overawes all other. The number of church members was never so small in proportion to the voters as now; the number of Protestant births never so much exceeded the number of Protestant baptisms. Young men of superior ability and superior education have little affection for the ministry; take little interest in the welfare of the church. Nay, youths descended from a wealthy family seldom look that way. It is poor men's sons, men of obscure family, who fill the pulpits; often, likewise, men of slender ability, eked out with an education proportionately scant. The most active members of the churches are similar in position, ability, and culture. These are undeniable facts.

They are not peculiar to New England. You find them wherever the voluntary principle is resorted to. In England, in Catholic countries, you find the old historic names in the Established Church; there is no lack of aristocratic blood in clerical veins; but there and everywhere the church seems falling astern of all other craft which can keep the sea.

Since these things are so, men who have only the conventional standard wherewith to measure the amount of piety, only that test to prove its existence by, think we are rapidly going to decay; that the tabernacle is fallen down, and no man rises to set it up. They complain that Zion is in distress; theological newspapers lament that there are no revivals to report; that ”The Lord has withheld His arm,” and does not ”pour out His Spirit upon the churches.” Ghastly meetings are held by men with sincere and n.o.ble heart, but saddened face; speeches are made which seem a groan of linked wailings long drawn out. Men mourn at the infidelity of the times, at the coldness of some, at the deadness of others. All the sects complain of this, yet each loves to attribute the deadness of the rival sects to their special theology; it is Unitarianism which is choking the Unitarians, say their foes, and the Unitarians know how to retort after the same fas.h.i.+on. The less enlightened put the blame of this misfortune on the good G.o.d who has somehow ”withheld His hand,” or omitted to ”pour out His Spirit,”--the people peris.h.i.+ng for want of the open vision. Others put the blame on mankind; some on ”poor human nature,” which is not what might have been expected, not perceiving that if the fault be there it is not for us to remedy, and if G.o.d made man a bramble-bush, that no wailing will make him bear figs. Yet others refer this condition to the use made of human nature, which certainly is a more philosophical way of looking at the matter.

Now there is one sect which has done great service in former days, which is, I think, still doing something to enlighten and liberalize the land, and, I trust, will yet do more, more even than it consciously intends.

The name of Unitarian is deservedly dear to many of us, who yet will not be shackled by any denominational fetters. This sect has always been remarkable for a certain gentlemanly reserve about all that pertained to the inward part of religion; other faults it might have, but it did not incur the reproach of excessive enthusiasm, or a spirituality too sublimated and transcendental for daily use. This sect has long been a speckled bird among the denominations, each of which has pecked at her, or at least cawed with most unmelodious croak against this new-fledged sect. It was said the Unitarians had ”denied the Lord that bought them;”