Speeches, Addresses, and Occasional Sermons, Volume 2 (of 3)Parker, Theodore
Religion
Speeches, Addresses, and Occasional Sermons, Volume 2 (of 3)
Parker, Theodore
Sermons, American; Unitarianism
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 God, 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 worship,
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 God, 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have got into the House of Commons; the test-act is repealed, and a man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 fashion of the Church of
England. Some men demand the abandonment of tithes, 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 God, Amen;" and headed bills of lading with, "Shipped in good order,
by the grace of God;" 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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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