The Complete Works of Brann, the Iconoclast — Volume 01Brann, William Cowper
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The Complete Works of Brann, the Iconoclast — Volume 01
Brann, William Cowper
Brann, William Cowper, 1855-1898; Essays; Reformers
Let me briefly sketch such a church as I would like to be a
member of--such as I imagine millions of others who are
not, will never be members of existent communions, would
worship in with pleasure. Its chief "essential" should be
belief in God--not the God of the Jews, Mohammedans or
Christians, but the God of everything, animate and
inanimate in the whole broad universe; the God of Justice
and Wisdom, Truth and Love; the God seen in the face of
every noble woman and honest man, heard in every truth,
felt in every holy aspiration. Everyone believing in the
existence of such a God--and I doubt if any do not--should
be eligible for membership, no matter what their theories
regarding his personality, plans and powers. Truth should
be sought assiduously, and welcomed wherever
found. We should not attempt to make it fit a preconceived
theory, but to make the theory conform to it. Science
should be the handmaid of the church, philosophy its
helpful brother; but its ecumenical council, its court of last
resort, should be the religious instinct inherent in man--that
perception so fine, so subtle, that all attempts to weave it
into words to clothe it so that the eye may perceive and the
reason handle it, have signally failed; which logic has
hammered at with all her ballistae and battering-rams for
thirty centuries or more in vain; which, above all things else,
binds the human race in one great brotherhood, has
supplied the missing links in every cult, bridged its laches,
surmounted its incongruities, comprised its inexpugnable
fortress upon which the high flood-tide of worldly wisdom
beats in vain.
Its body doctrine should be Love of God, Charity for man,
Truth, Honor, Purity. In these are comprised "the whole
Hebrew Decalogue, with Solon's and Lycurgus'
Constitutions, Justinian's Pandects, the Code Napoleon and
all codes, catechisms, divinities, moralities whatsoever, that
man has hitherto devised (and enforced with altar-fire and
gallows-ropes) for his social guidance." They embrace all
that is blessed and beautiful, gracious and great in every
sect, science and philosophy known to man. These are
"points of doctrine" upon which there can be no dissension;
Buddhist and Mohammedan, Jew and Gentile, Catholic and
Calvinist, philosopher and "free-thinker," will all approve.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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