yet so many sinners and so many who are ignorant of God? Does he then even after he "died" represent not only Christians, but also sinners and idolaters? If not, then have not all those whom he is supposed to represent " died?" Will it be said that the death which the Gentiles are supposed to have "died" was simply such that they have, since the commencement of the Christian dispensation, been more free from the laws of "Moses" than they were before that commencement? Were then they, as the Jews, ever under those laws of his which have been abrogated or superseded? Will it be urged that the meaning of the word "died" as applied to "Lazarus" is analogous to that of the word "dead" as applied to the prodigal son who was said to have been "dead?" It should not be forgotten that Christ says in his own words that "Lazarus" "died," while in respect to that death of that prodigal son Christ relates simply what the son's "father said." But to show beyond even a plausible contradiction that if both those deaths were figurative they could not be analogous to each other, it is sufficient to say that if the prodigal son's father, in saying that that son had been "dead," meant not that he had previously supposed that he had departed from the present life, then he must have meant that he had been "dead in trespasses and sins," while "Lazarus" must have been "dead in trespasses and sins" before "his sores" had been "licked," or at least before the time when he is said to have "died," and not after that time. If then it could be proved that both those deaths were figurative, it would follow that they were so far from being analogous to each other that the one would be the opposite of the other, since that of the prodigal son would be a death in sin, while that of "Lazarus" would be a death to sin.

4. If "the angels" who "carried" "Lazarus" "into" that in which he was not before he "died," represent Christian instructors of those whom he is supposed to represent, and are not such "angels" as Christ, in Luke xx, 36, more than intimates cannot "die," then from the fact that those "angels" did not perform their service to "Lazarus" till he had "died," it follows that those whom he is supposed to represent "died," or, as it is supposed, became Christian without Christian instruction! In order to avoid this absurdity, will it be said that "the dogs" which "licked his sores" also represent Christian instructors? But Christ would not represent such instructors by "dogs," nor would he represent them as having simply come "and licked" "sores," since this character would not accord with the imparting of superior religious instruction. Is it not also absurd to suppose that Christ would call Christian instructors both "dogs" and "angels ?" It might as well

be supposed that he could have called "Lazarus" both "Lazarus " and John.

5. If "Abraham's bosom" represents the Christian Church, or the Christian dispensation, then is that interpretation of those words more consistent with the considering, according to Luke i, 73, of Abraham" of the words "father Abraham" as the literal name of a certain one of the ancient patriarchs, than the considering of "Abraham's bosom " as representing a place of happiness after death is consistent with that interpretation of "Abraham" as that literal proper name? Is the former case a less joining of the figurative with the literal than the latter? Does it not follow from this that a caution should be cherished lest what may at one time be condemned may at another be embraced and approved? Besides this, how can the supposition that. the Gentiles have been "carried" "into" the Christian Church be harmonized with the fact that millions of them have not yet "died" to idolatry, and with the fact that those millions are no more in the Christian Church nor more under the Christian dispensation than are Jews? Will it be said that "Abraham's bosom" represents the spiritual and internal blessings of religion? Is this a less joining of the figurative with the literal than that of the supposition just condemned? Did "Lazarus" feel no religious blessings till he "was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom?" Could he have "died" to idolatry or to sin without such blessings? The fact then that he must have had religious blessings and feelings before he "was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom," proves that " Abraham's bosom" does not represent religion as enjoyed on the earth.

6. If the fact that "the rich man" died" represents the termination of the Jewish dispensation, then does not the word "died" mean one thing in reference "to the rich man" and an altogether different thing in reference to "Lazarus?" If when the Jews and the Gentiles, whom "Lazarus" is supposed to represent, "died," they ceased to be Jews and Gentiles, and became Christians, why did not the Jews whom "the rich man" is supposed to represent also cease to be Jews and also become Christians when they "died?" Does the death which transforms the former class from being Jews and Gentiles into Christians, so far from transforming the latter class from being Jews into Christians, leave them Jews, and make them the unchangeable opposites of Christians? Can then the interpretation which involves this absurdity be with propriety recommended as incomparably better than the considering of the deaths of "the rich man" and "Lazarus" as departures from the present life? Is it not a striking exemplification of the fact that the course of error is indeed a zigzag one?

ART. VIL-PARKERISM.

1. A Discourse of Matters pertaining to Religion. By THEODORE PARKER. Boston: Little & Brown. 1842.

2. A Critical and Historical Introduction to the Canonical Scriptures of the Old Testament, from the German of WILHELM MARTIN LEBEUCHT DEWETTE. Translated and enlarged by THEODORE PARKER. Boston: Little & Brown. 1843. 3. Sermons of Theism, Atheism, and Popular Theology. By THEODORE PARKER. Boston Little, Brown, & Co.

1853.

4. Speeches, Addresses, and Occasional Sermons. By THEODORE PARKER. Boston: Crosby & Nichols. 1852.

MAGNIFICENT are the promises that Parkerism makes to the world. No other system of religion, true or false, has ever had such a trumpet blown before it. Polytheism promised little, Judaism much, Christianity more; the truth in them was smothered under errors and falsehoods; at best it was only relative truth; but here is "absolute religion, absolute morality." Here at last is truth itself, the pure white light unrefracted by the prisms of dogma, creed, tradition.

The Bible has doubtless been a great blessing to our race, but it has also been a great curse; it has taught stupendous truths, but has also taught stupendous falsehoods, which have fallen like blight and mildew upon the nations, and Parkerism is the radiant seraph that comes to deliver American Christianity from this scourge. Christianity has doubtless done well for the world, perhaps has given the hitherto degenerate generations as much truth as they were prepared to receive; but real Christianity was buried with its Founder ages ago, and never rose again till now. What has been called Christianity is a mass of corruption, which has accumulated in the courts of the temple which Christ reared, and here is the Hercules who is to cleanse away the Augæan filth and make the place sweet for the fastidious nostril of modern progress. Here is the Joshua that is to lead the Church up out of this horrible wilderness where she has been wandering eighteen centuries, starving on the arid sands of creeds and dogmas, drinking at the Marahs of superstition, bitten by fiery serpent fanaticism, her very bones melting for dread of the Anakim of common sense and common conscience, and is to bring her to that goodly land in which her elect souls have always believed, where the very cliffs sweat honey. Christ, too, it must be owned, did much, very much for the world. But his authority, self-assumed or slavishly accepted by his follow

ers, has been an incubus on human advancement for ages; and now, as Protestantism delivers us from the tyranny of the Church," as Biblical criticism frees us from the thraldom of the Scriptures," so "philosophical spiritualism" is to deliver us from the "authority of Jesus."*

This manifesto might be deemed sufficiently lofty, but as we look more closely even these astonishing claims become if possible more astonishing. Here, we are told, for the first time reason has its full and just claims in a system of religion. Of course, then, all those minds in the Christian Church that know how to think, and are not afraid to think, may be found here. These are the only Christians who can look through microscopes and telescopes, grope among fossils and hieroglyphics, and yet preserve their religion. To yield up to these modest men all the reason and common sense of Christendom would seem tolerably liberal. We heard a speech at a recent denominational anniversary which generously allowed all the Christian sects a share in the great body of Christianity, but modestly assigned the little denomination to which the orator belonged a position "in the brain, and in the forehead of the brain;" but Parkerism claims brain and heart too! This only can lead men to the serene peace, the exalted joys of oneness with God. Yea it promises to lead man to a Pisgah on which we do not read that ever prophet or apostle stood, where he may be "so full of peace that prayer is needless." These are the elect, the chosen seed, the only lineal descendants of prophets and martyrs who in all ages have been torn in pieces for the truth; the only legitimate "heirs of the promises" to be found in universal Christendom!‡ Since all men of "piety and good sense" to-day look on the "popular theology" just as "cultivated minds" in the old civilization looked on the "popular mythology,"§ of course Parkerism is the only haven whither "piety and good sense" have fled. After all this we are prepared to hear that these gentlemen belong to the "forlorn hope of the race."||

And now we repeat with emphasis, magnificent is this manifesto. The race" will expect great deeds of these warriors of the forlorn hope. Great things might have been expected from Judaism, for this "spiritual philosophy" tells us it was the cream skimmed from heathenism; greater things were to be expected from Christianity, for it was the cream of Judaism; but here is a system which takes heathenism, Judaism, and Christianity all to its alembic, and distils from them all the precious drops of immortal ichor! High Discourse of Religion, p. 483. Ibid, p. 480.

† Ibid, p. 154.

§ Ibid, 131, note.

|| Ibid, p. 481.

spiritual attainments may be reasonably demanded of a Calvinist who professes assurance that he is one of the elect, of a Methodist who believes Christian perfection attainable in this life, and professes to be "groaning after it;" but what is to be expected of him who daily feeds on such manna as to loathe the "weakish matter" which forms the staple of the "good pious books "* on which the Christian world is fed, whose faith lays hold on attainments that render prayer needless? High credentials might reasonably be asked of him who came claiming to be the Son of God, and whom even Mr. Parker styles the "greatest of all the sons of men." What then are we to expect of him who can "drop a tear for the weakness" of Jesus of Nazareth?

And now let us look around a little after the fulfillment of these splendid promises. And first let us consider the freedom promised to reason. The Church, we are told, by hampering the minds of Biblical scholars with creeds and traditions, has prejudged all critical questions, making a frank, fair study of Scripture exegesis impossible. Criticism does not come to a page alleged to be written by Moses or Isaiah as it comes to a page alleged to be written by Cicero or Thucydides. In the latter case the page is read to see if it be authentic and genuine; in the former case the question is usually settled before the page is read. Hence Biblical criticism has languished in England, and cannot be said even to have had a being in America till Mr. Parker translated De Wette's "Introduction to the Old Testament Scriptures," with notes, appendixes, and excursus, bringing it down where American Christianity could reach it. But this system for the first time gives Biblical criticism the dignity of a real science; it gives the mind fair play; it comes unbiassed to the Scripture documents, sifts them critically, tests them historically, and arrives at a conclusion which may be relied on as the product of fair, free thought. So Strauss tells us that his chief and peculiar qualification for writing the life of Jesus is his entire freedom from certain religious and dogmatic prepossessions, a freedom to which he had early attained by " philosophic studies !”‡ De Wette, in the work above alluded to, states the case thus: "The Bible is to be considered as an historical phenomenon, in a scries with other such phenomena, and entirely subject to the laws of historical inquiry,"§ and Mr. Parker thus treats of popular Scripture exegesis in England and America:

"Hâvernik, and most of the English and American theologians with him, object to this method, (De Wette's,) and insist that the books of the Bible should Discourse of Religion, p. 481. † Ibid, 260. Leben Jesu, Vorrede. § Introduction to Old Testament Scripture, vol. i, p. 3.