Sermons of Theism, Atheism, and the Popular Theology

Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1856. Second Edition. Hard Cover. Good/No Jacket. Second edition. Minor loss from corners, board edges and spine faded, endpapers lightly foxed, blue pencil name and date on front endpaper. 1856 Hard Cover. lxxv, [1], 365 pp. 8vo. A collection of writings on the institutions of Christian religion, and specifically the differences between atheism and theism, by the "American Unitarian theologian, pastor, scholar, and social reformer who was active in the antislavery movement. Theologically, he repudiated much traditional Christian dogma, putting in its place an intuitive knowledge of God derived from man’s experience of nature and insight into his own mind. Parker resembled Ralph Waldo Emerson and other New England Transcendentalists in his emphasis on intuition but differed in the way he tempered his romanticism with rationalist and scientific interest... He elaborated his views in lectures published as A Discourse of Matters Pertaining to Religion. Opposition to his liberalism increased, and he soon resigned his pastorate. His supporters founded the 28th Congregational Society of Boston and installed him as minister. Parker worked for prison reform, temperance, women’s education, and other such causes. He made impassioned speeches against slavery, helped fugitive slaves to escape, and wrote an abolitionist tract, A Letter to the People of the United States Touching the Matter of Slavery (1848). He also served on the secret committee [the Secret Six] that aided the abolitionist John Brown." - Britannica