Jesus said that this poor sinning
publican, who smote upon his breast, and said, "God be merciful to me a
sinner," was the one that God looked upon with favor, not the Pharisee,
who thanked God that he was not as the other people were. And, if there
is any class in the New Testament that Jesus scathes and withers with
the hot lightning of his scorn and his wrath, it is these infallible
people, who are perfectly right in their ideas, and who look with
contempt upon people who are outside of the pale of their own inherited
infallible creeds and opinions.
We believe, then, that the people who are free to study the splendors
of God in the universe, in human history, in human life, and free to
accept all new and higher and finer ideas, are more likely to find God,
and come into sympathetic and tender relations with him, than those who
are bound to opinions by the supposed fixed and revealed truths of the
past.
We reject, then, these old-time creeds for another reason, for the sake
of man. A long vista of thought and illustration stretches out before
me as I pronounce these words; but I can only touch upon a point here
or there.
One of the most disastrous things that have happened in the history of
the past and it has happened over and over again is this blocking and
hindering of human advance, until by and by the tide, the growing
current, becomes too strong to be held back any more; and it has swept
away all barriers and devastated society, politically, socially,
religiously, morally, and in every other way.
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