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Sermons of theism, atheism, and the popular theology
Sermons of theism atheism and the popular theology Author:Theodore Parker Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: III. OF THE POPULAR THEOLOGY OF CHRISTENDOM, REGARDED AS A THEORY OF THE UNIVERSE. On the last two Sundays I spoke of Atheism. First of Atheism as Philosop... more »hy, — a theory of the universe ; and next of atheism as Ethics — a principle of practical life. To-day I ask your attention to a sermon of the Popular Theology of Christendom, regarded as Philosophy, a theory of the universe; and next Sunday I hope to speak of it as Ethics, a principle of practice. From the beginning of human history there has been a progressive development of all the higher faculties of man ; of the religious powers, which connect man with God, as well as of the other faculties, which connect man with the material universe and men with one another. There has been a progress in Piety, in Morality, and in the Theories of these two. Of course, then, there has been a progress in the visible results of this development of the religious faculties. The progress appears in the rise, decline, and disappearance of various forms of religion. Each of these has been necessary to the welfare of the human race ; for at one timeit represented the highest religious development of the persons who embraced that form of religion. Sometimes it was a sect; sometimes a nation ; sometimes a great assemblage of nations: but in each case the form of religion which the people accepted represented the highest development of the religious faculties of those people at that time. As the science of a nation represents its intellectual development, so the form of religion shows how far men have got on in their piety and morality. But as each form of religion, when it is once established, is a thing which is fixed and does not change, and as the religious faculties are not fixed, but go on with increasing power from age to age, so it h...« less