The life and writings of Theodore Parker

Front matter

LIFE AND WRITINGS

THEODORE PARKER.

THEODORE PARKER.

Contents

CHAP. PAGE

I. CHILDHOOD AND EARLY YOUTH ... ... 5

- II. RELIGIOUS EDUCATION ... ... ... 15

Chapter II. Eeligious Education

Religion of the Parker family — Unitarianism — Its advantages — Parker's final rupture with Calvinism — Timidities and darings — What he did at the University — Old Paul — Condition of religious progress— What tradition and criticism said of the Bible— History of Dogmas — Religions compared — Miracles — Essential Christianity — Parish of West Roxbury.

We must turn back in order to give some account of the principles and religious development of Theodore Parker.

His parents, we have said, were pious Unitarians. Their Unitarianism was not narrow or dogmatic. From all that is known of Parker's childhood it appears that dogma, properly so called, held very little place in the reading and the conversations of the family. The cold and practical character of the father, the thoughtful and sentimental disposition of the mother, equally contributed to keep at a distance from the domestic horizon what is either purely theoretical or stereotyped. The Bible was read; public worship was frequented; but alike in that sacred book and in the weekly services, what was sought for was what went to the heart, what enlightened the conscience, what spake to the soul of God. The rest was of small consequence. Admirably counselled and directed in regard to morals, the young Theodore was pretty much left to himself in the matter of religious doctrine ; but his youthful reflection soon turned to that domain which

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called forth a desire for knowledge surpassing every other. It followed that his religious beliefs were formed step by step with his general culture, and not without receiving an unavoidable influence from surrounding traditions, although he never saw in them a yoke to which he must of necessity bend his neck. " My head," he has somewhere said, " is not more natural to my body than my religion is to my soul." As soon as he began to think he felt an unutterable horror at the idea of everlasting punishment, which he had seen set forth in an old catechism, and it was a delightful relief to him when he learnt that there were excellent Christians w T ho did not believe in the doctrine. He listened with rapture to what his mother said to him of the beauteous character of Jesus. His loved companions, the flowers and the stars, soon told him the impressive tale of the glory of God. He was specially struck with a feeling of Grod's infinitude, and he ever experienced an intense joy in the thought of that omnipresence and that boundless activity, which pervade all things, and reveal themselves to the religious mind in every part of the universe. As he approached manhood, his ideas touching the Bible, its inspiration, its miracles, had as yet nothing very definite, and did not rise above the ordinary level of the Unitarian beliefs, in the bosom of which he had been brought up.

This Unitarian education was an immense privilege for the young man. Prom how many prejudices and narrownesses w r as he thereby preserved! Unitarianism aspires to give man a religion at once enlightened and favourable to morality, in agreement with the institutions, the liberties, and the new w^ants of modern society. By its worship, its ethics, its general tone, it is connected with the great church of the Beformation ; but while, like it, founding its doctrines on the Bible, it interprets the sacred writings so as to eliminate from the body of its re-

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ligious instruction the old irrational and contradictory dogmas. Nothing in Unitarianism opposed, on the contrary everything favoured, social and political progress. It spread around its steps a beneficent atmosphere of progressive liberalism and religious toleration. It had no favour for that austere and monkish devotion, endurable perhaps in the bosom of populations which do not hold productive labour in honour; but it firmly maintained the grand principles of Christian morality, which are meant to guide and ennoble a life of labour, and to call forth and cherish the domestic and social virtues. Accordingly in its ranks were recruited the most courageous and influential patrons of great public ameliorations and philanthropic institutions. "Whilst, for instance, on the question of slavery, the orthodoxy of the South of the Union, and, in great part, that of the Worth, became more and more the humble servants of the selfish interests pledged to the maintenance of that horrible institution ; whilst, in a superstitious adoration of the letter of the Bible, forgetting that if the letter of the Gospel utters no formal word against slavery, its spirit condemns the vile practice peremptorily, they did not blush to put the barbarous system under the protection of the sacred books ; — it was specially in the bosom of Unitarianism that the abolitionist ferment arose, which, though long despised, is now the first power in the Union. This Unitarian Church, large and progressive, liberal and earnest, saw its adherents every day increase in number in New England, and there, when it did not supplant other Churches, it kept alive a permanent centre of liberalism and reform, which radiated over the religious world. Thus indirectly Unitarianism has exercised very great influence on religion in America, and it would be a great error to take the official number of its adherents for

the full measure of its actual progress. By little and

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little a large number of Universalist churches, also Baptist and Presbyterian, received the leaven of Unitarian liberalism, and were gradually transformed. Preachers of high merit, such as Henry "Ware and the illustrious Channing, accelerated the pacific movement, and, especially the second, compensated the defects of TJnitarianism by the diffusive warmth of their heart and character. We have used the word defects : and, in truth, by the side of the excellent philanthropic spirit which distinguished the American Unitarians, there were serious shortcomings, which could not fail to become more manifest as its influence grew. Theologically their Unitarianism was richer in good intentions than in results. Many enlightened men who felt the want of a simple practical religion, and could no longer tolerate the yoke of the old orthodoxy, breathed at their ease in that softer and freer atmosphere. It may be a question whether religion, in becoming more gentle, did not part with some of its robustness. A certain dryness, an illogical and utilitarian rationalism, occasioned regret for the irrational, but nevertheless imposing and impressive, dogmas of traditional orthodoxy. Deism, with its blights and frosts, showed its head in many quarters. Mysticism, that element inseparable from all living religion, and perfectly legitimate so long as, confining itself to the sphere of sentiment, it does not pretend to tyrannize over reason and conscience — found itself reduced in Unitarianism to the condition of an angel whose wings had been dipt. Philosophy and Biblical criticism it wholly lacked, as did the whole of Anglo-Saxon Protestantism of that period. The sensualism of Locke reigned in the theological school of both " Old England " and New. As this system reduced the human soul to a state of complete passiveness, as logically it issues in either materialism or scepticism, and yet does not disown the interior voices of the soul, which loudly call for beliefs,

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duties, and hopes, its partisans commonly took refuge in the idea of an external and miraculous revelation, which imposed itself on man with the arbitrariness of absolute authority. Thus Unitarianism, so liberal in matters of dogma, remained riveted to the supernatural point of view and to the ancient ideas concerning the miraculous origin and authority of the Bible. It was as skilful as orthodoxy in bending, at its pleasure, the texts of Scripture which ill accorded with its particular doctrines, and if some evil genius had resolved that the Athanasian creed should be in the Bible, its theologians would certainly have undertaken to prove that the document did not teach the Trinity. Such, with its advantages and disadvantages, was the theological position whose most eminent representatives Parker was to find at Cambridge. In addition, he obtained an opportunity of closely studying the old Calvinistic orthodoxy, which was still the faith of the majority, and which, owing to immigration from Europe, especially of English blood, every day received considerable reinforcements, which amply compensated its losses. In his childhood and around his father's house, he had become acquainted with honourable supporters of the ancient faith of the Pilgrim Fathers. During his sojourn in the capacity of tutor at Boston, he had assiduously attended the orthodox preachings of Lyman Beecher, then in all the brilliancy of his talent. " One year of that preaching," he said, " was enough to put an end in me to all the influence which the Calvinistic theology might exercise over my mind." The dark sides of that doctrine, which sets forth God as arbitrarily predestinating some individuals to salvation and the immense majority of the human race to eternal damnation, were always deeply offensive to him. Nevertheless, he did not himself yet suspect the consequences of the resolution he had formed to seek religious truth in complete independ-

2 *

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ence. In becoming, under Dr Francis, acquainted with Grerman literature and theology, he had been surprised, and even shocked, at the liberty of thought and speech which in Biblical matters prevailed in those unknown regions, and which contrasted so forcibly with the profound, scrupulous, and easily superstitious respect which, like all the Protestant American Churches, the Unitarian Church professed for the Bible and the whole of its contents. "When he began to read Eichhorn's " Introduction to the Old Testament," he fell on his knees and besought God to keep him from being misled in his search after truth, by the reasonings of unbelievers. We possess a summary of the religious opinions he then entertained, addressed by himself to one of his nephews, Columbus Greene.

" Cambridge, April 2, 1834.

" You inquire about my belief. I believe in the Bible. Does that satisfy you ? No, you will say; all Christians profess to do the same, and how different they are.

" To commence, then : I believe there is one God, who has existed from all eternity, with whom the past, present, and future are alike present ; that He is almighty, good, and merciful, will reward the good and punish the wicked, both in this life and the next. This punishment may be eternal ; * of course, I believe that neither the rewards nor punishments of a future state are corporal. Bodily pleasures soon satiate, and may God preserve us from a worse punishment than one's own conscience !

" I believe the books of the Old and New Testament to have been written by men inspired of God for certain purposes, but I do not think them inspired at all times. I believe that Christ was the Son of God, conceived and born in a miraculous manner, that he came to preach a better religion by which men may be saved.

" This religion, as I think, allows men the very highest happiness in this life and promises eternal felicity in another world. I do not think our sins will be forgiven because Christ died. I cannot conceive why they should be, although many good and great men have thought so. I believe God knows all that we shall do, but does not cause us to do anything."

* In this confession of faith, evidently inspired by a fear of wounding, Parker by the possibility of eternal punishment means such as would ensue from a voluntiry and eternal continuance in sin.

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In this exposition of his beliefs, the doctrines of orthodoxy are softened down, or reduced to their minimum, if they are not completely eliminated. The Trinity is represented only by the miraculous birth of Jesus. The inspiration of the Bible is not uninterrupted, consequently it is not absolute ; whence it follows that conscience must decide what portions of it cannot pretend to that prerogative. The dictatorial authority of the Bible is then virtually set aside. The reader will also have noticed the utilitarian and optimist tone of this creed. This is a feature that Parker owed to the whole of his education, to his own frank and robust nature ; he will preserve the quality, but he will also ennoble it by a most elevated spiritualism. We must now follow the transformations that his faith underwent in proportion as the field of his studies enlarged.

At the university, as at Boston and "Watertown, he was the most indefatigable of workers. His industry went to such an extent that at the end of some months he had got in advance of the greater number even of his teachers. He excelled in the exercises of discussion, but did not yet promise to be the brilliant orator he afterwards became : — a fact not at all surprising. Preaching as an academical exercise, before an imaginary auditory, is, for the Protestant student in theology, what the Messe blanche * with the host unconsecrated, is for the young Catholic Levite. Parker was a great orator the moment when preaching became with him a conflict, a battle without quarter. The sarcastic side of his character freely showed itself in his youthful exercises. One day, when

* Messe blanche (literally White Mass) is an exercise in saying or performing Mass by which the candidate for the Catholic priesthood is taught the due and formal discharge of his duty, when in orders. The essential difference is that in the White Mass the wafer is taken without receiving the divinizing and transmuting power of consecration. T.

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the not very reverent appellation Old Paul escaped from his lips, as he spoke of the Apostle to the Gentiles, he replied to the professor, who rebuked the offender ; " Yes, sir, you are right, I should have said 6 the gentleman of Tarsus.' "

But we must not judge of his real dispositions by this momentary outburst, which was connected with a growing dislike he had for mere conventionalisms. There is a manner of citing Paul the aged (Phil. 9) which denotes a profound and therefore respectful study of the writings of the first of Church Reformers, more than complimentary invocations in honour of the canonized Saint. We readily grow familiar with grandeurs which we examine minutely and much ; and Parker examined everything much, and ever more minutely. He read the Fathers, enjoyed the best literature of the Mystics, made himself acquainted with the history of dogmas and the ancient religions, gathered around him the best German expositors, and eager always to widen the circle of his studies, and seeing the universe enlarge as he knew it more and more, hesucceeded in carrying on, side by side with the study of theology, the study of half a score of languages dead and living. His health again suffered from the excess of labour he imposed on himself. Sometimes a cherished hand (the reader will guess to whom it belonged) sent to him from Watertown entreaties (which in such a case are sweet commands) that he would not compromise his future by undue efforts. For a few days obedience was the result, but his passion for knowledge and for clear insight, what may be termed Yankee go-aheadness, resumed the mastery. However, while thus exploring history and the universe, he acquired a vast amount of knowledge.

Your horizon cannot widen without elevating your ideal. It would be easy to show that all the principal religious ascents of the human race have coincided with a notable enlargement of the intellectual horizon. The most elevated Greek philosophy came into existence after events had brought the Greeks into contact with the East. The Judaism of the times which preceded Christ was formed, not under the dictation but in the midst, and at the impulse more or less direct, of Persian and Greek influences. Christianity comes forth at the moment when the ancient world, till then split up into nationalities indifferent if not hostile to each other, acquires a knowledge of itself, and when national partialities began to disappear in a community of subjection and endurance under the yoke of Rorae. The Reformation had for its mother the new spirit, full of independence and hardihood, which antiquity had laid open, great discoveries, acquaintance with the world increased more than threefold, breathed into modern Europe. And in our own days, when geographical, scientific, and industrial discoveries are changing the face of society, we witness a fresh evolution of the imperishable Christian idea. The reason of these coincidences is simple. Religious progress is accomplished only by means of a certain enfeeblement of the forces of tradition. As long as it speaks alone, tradition stamps on all its lessons the seal of the eternal and the universal, the appearance of the absolute ; hence its religious potency, for the seal of the absolute is an attestation of divinity. Xothing then more surely damages its authority than to discover that what was thought a reality is but an appearance. I am very far from thinking that the study of languages and religions, the fine investigations of astronomy and geology, the modern researches of historical and Biblical history, must detach us from the Gospel, and make us desire a religion absolutely new. On the contrary, 1 hold that if anything pleads in favour of the religion of Jesus, it is that it remains intact and uninjured, at least as to its essential principles, while facts,

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ideas, minds, and institutions change all around it. But in view of all that is now known of the world and its history, I say that all the old theology is destined to be reformed, all the old methods of presenting and defending the divinity of the Gospel are convicted of impotence, all the old dogmas are threatened with death, and that those only are the intelligent friends of Christianity who, discerning the signs of the times, labour, according to their strength, to bring it into harmony with the spirit of its Founder and with the imperative needs of modern culture.

Such nearly was the course which the thoughts of Parker followed in the degree in which human and divine * things unfolded themselves to his mind enamoured of truth. We have stated that American TJnitarianism, far in advance of other Churches in relation to dogmas properly so called, yet moved on the same level as they in regard to an external and miraculous revelation, imposing its authority on reason and conscience, and contained exclusively in the Bible. It was by interpretations now very legitimate, now very arbitrary, that it nattered itself to put to silence the protests of the moral sense and of enlightened intelligence. Indeed, Biblical criticism, already completely emancipated in Germany, was still in its infancy among the Unitarians of America. Parker, who read the Germans, soon felt himself restrained by the theories of his professors, who still dealt with the Bible as a uniform and invariable whole, without giving due heed to the circumstances which had presided over the drawing-up, the revisal, and the putting together, of the books of which it at present consists.

Tradition said, "The Bible is one, it is God's revelation to humankind, it is a supernatural book which, from its first to its last line, is God's word." Criticism had a reply to make. Firstly, even were it so, in order that the

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Eible which people now read may be an infallible book, the translations of it must be infallible, and the scholars who read it in the original tongues must be of one mind, instead of being divided and undecided, as to the meaning of many an important passage. Then we must possess this miraculous text in its primitive integrity, without the shadow of a variation, whereas the variations known to exist in the manuscripts are counted by myriads. But — and this deserves special attention — tradition seems to have forgotten that, in the Christian economy, the Bible is neither a primitive fact nor a simple fact, defying analysis. The Bible as now in our hands is composed of two distinct parts, the Old Testament (or Covenant) and the Xew ; the former, the regulative source of the Jewish religion ; the latter, the primeval record of Christianity in its earliest years. But the first is made up of 39 books, which came into existence at different dates extending over many centuries; the second consists of 27 books, which, agreeing in their principal aim, differ as to their age and authorship. T\Tho put together the elements which form this collection or that ? The question remains unanswerable in regard to the Old Testament, which was not rigorously closed when Jesus came into the world. Our ignorance is not much less in regard to the New, the canon of which was not precisely determined until the fifth century, and then only after many variations, after certain writings which it now contains had been long rejected or unknown, and certain others, now excluded from the canon, had long been in possession of an authority equal to that of the canonical books. On what miraculous inspiration did the formers of the canon rely in making their selection? They were liable to error no less than we. How then can you maintain the infallibility of a volume compiled by fallible men ?

Something might be said if an attentive examination

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of the canonical books justified what they did. By no means is it so. The traditional canon ascribes to Moses five books evidently composed of documents diverse alike in date and spirit, the last of which tells of his death. To the prophet Isaiah prophecies are ascribed which must be divided into two distinct groups, separated the one from the other by an interval of at least 150 years. To King David are ascribed a number of psalms, a majority, if not a great majority, of which are long posterior to their alleged author. To Daniel, who is thought to have lived at the time of the Babylonish Captivity, is ascribed a series of oracles manifestly drawn up under Antiochus Epiphanes. In a similar way, our actual New Testament attributes to the Apostle Paul what is called the Epistle to the Hebrews, which he cannot have written ; and to the Apostle Peter, a second epistle, which supposes that, when it was written, the whole of the first Christian generation was dead, 2 Pet. iii. 3—9. These are the most salient facts which criticism has brought to light, and demonstrated so positively that the most fastidious of those who have seriously occupied themselves with the subject, have been compelled to yield to the evidence. If now we pass on to the contents of the books, we find ourselves unable to regard as a continual divine revelation those narratives or those instructions in which it is easy to point out so many astronomical, physical, and historical errors ; accounts which contradict each other ; miracles decidedly impossible even in the judgment of those who are inclined to believe in miracles ; and whose legendary and mythical character forces itself on the assent of every unprejudiced mind ; besides those gross ideas of God represented as an imperfect, wrathful, vindictive, and arbitrary being. Moreover, is it fancied that the Bible from one end to another contains one and the same doctrine ? This is what the Unitarians still think, and thence springs

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their way of wresting the Scripture. On this point they have nothing to impute to other Christian sects, all of which exercise their ingenuity in forcing the Bible to speak in the language of their own peculiar dogmas. But with the attentive observer this unity of Biblical doctrine is an illusion. To confine ourselves to the New Testament, the doctrine of the three first Gospels is one, that of the fourth is another; Paul's teachings differ from those of James and those of the Apocalypse. No longer then think of imposing on Christians the doctrine of the Bible, for it has several forms.

The sacred enclosure being thus pierced at more points than one, the advancing waves of criticism soon flooded the whole. The history of Church dogmas will not less powerfully contribute to detach the young theologian from the dogmatic tradition of the past. It has done so in Germany, and with the hand of a master. If the Unitarian finds in the results ampler confirmations of the impeachments made by his denomination against the Trinity, original sin, vicarious redemption ; if he sees that he has been completely in the right in declaring that Christianity in itself is altogether independent of these dogmas ; that it lived before them, and, in consequence, will live after them ; he ought also to acknowledge that the Church of his choice has, not more than others, escaped from the illusion that Christian antiquity was exactly what he is, and he ought to admit that it is vain to desire, at any cost, to take for his model a primitive Church which had its share of grave errors and defects. True Christianity, that which really corresponds to the intentions and the spirit of the master, is a-head, and not in the rear of men of our days. Finally, the comparative study of forms of religion, mythologies, nations, languages, has aroused in the mind of the thinker a question which must altogether renew theology. Christianity, however

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superior to all other historical religions, is not by its miraculous origin so separated from them that they are to be contrasted with it purely as falsity with truth. The history of religions presents phenomena which may be called not equal but similar to the phenomena observable in the study of Christianity. Zoroaster, Mahomet, Buddha, are not judged when they are hastily put into the category of dupes or impostors. And when you are led to see that you may classify religions as you classify plants or rocks or animals ; when you discover the immanent law of that religious development of our race, which, on this domain as on others, has little by little risen from matter to mind, from the most puerile feticism to the sublimest conception of God, do you not find it surpassingly more reasonable to admit that not only Christianity and Judaism, but also the entire ascensional movement of man in search after God, is the imposing movement of the same inmost force, the ever-living and ever-acting impulse of religious growth ? In this point of view, J esus, the Son of the human race drawn upwards of God, has clearly and emphatically pronounced the word which conscience had before him whispered faintly and inarticulately, and by uttering it aloud he has made a similar utterance easy for all. Such were the doubts, the discoveries, the ideas which grew up in the soul of Theodore Parker during his sojourn in the university. Already, in concert with some friends, he prepared for The Scriptural Interpreter articles on the Old Testament in which you could discern the influence which German critics began to exercise over serious and independent minds. Thus, for example, these new lights demonstrated that the passage in Isaiah, lii. 13 — liii., was not a prediction of the person and death of J esus, but an ideal description of the just man, the servant of Jehovah, such as he was during the captivity in Babylonia. In general

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they made it clear that the prophecies in the Old Testament referred to Jesus, lacked all validity, considered as miraculous predictions. In the ranks of the old Unitarians this called forth a cry of surprise, which soon deepened into terror. They asked not, " Are these young men right or wrong?" but, " ^hat will become of us?" Vhat will be left if they go on in this way ? " Such appeals could not daunt those hardy investigators. However, Parker had not yet systematized his theological ideas. !Manv things remained with him in a chaotic state. For instance, as to the supernatural, he had not yet, as he tells us, the idea of God which he entertained later on, and which, once acquired, made a real miracle as impossible in his judgment as a triangular circle. Nevertheless from this time his belief in the Biblical miracles went on decreasing. Indeed the more he held the pages of the Bible over the torch of a free criticism, the more he became convinced that not a single miracle was so attested as to demand that men should subordinate their daily experience to its authority — an authority only such as could belong to a writer perhaps inexact, perhaps ill-informed, perhaps deluded by his own enthusiasm. Full of admiration for the heroicvirtues and the incomparable moral beauty of the Christ, he declared that to assign them to an extra-human birth and nature as their cause, was to take from them all their value. The miraculous birth of Jesus is doubtless contained in two of the Gospels. But the other two, as well as the rest of the New Testament, know nothing of it, and the Gospels themselves which report it contain other particulars by which it is contradicted. Then a grand idea took possession of Parker's mind ever more and more, namely, that of the absolute perfection of God, and this idea became with him a touchstone by which to try religious doctrines. Finally, plunging to the bottom of that

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tumultuous sea of opinions of all kinds which dash against and destroy each other, his judicious and practical spirit sought for the solid and permanent ground on which to cast anchor, and found it in this, that there is nothing better for any one, that there cannot be a more imperative obligation, than to obey the law of one's nature, that is, in the case of man, the law of our spiritual nature. To be good and to do good from faith in the Heavenly Father is the Christian sentiment properly so called; there is nothing superior to that either on earth or in heaven, and this is the ultimate foundation on which to build. Accordingly this was the basis which Parker deliberately chose. #