326 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



tial to the highest good of man, and which could be eternally approxi- 

 mated, but which never could be conceived by man without its dis- 

 closure in the life and death of our Lord. 



In regard to the supernatural, the New Theology doubts or denies 

 it in the economies of Nature and of grace. It believes in the inspira- 

 tion of all scriptural and other truth, in the authenticated phenomena 

 called miracles, in the regeneration of corrupted human nature by 

 the power of the Holy Spirit, and in the active and efficient superin- 

 tendence of divine providence ; but it maintains that the divine imma- 

 nence in the world is sufficient to account for the minutest and the 

 mightiest phenomena which have occurred, or which can take place, 

 and that to assume special divine interferences or the interposition of 

 new agencies in the communication of the Divine Will, in the govern- 

 ment of the material or moral world, in the recovery of man from 

 wickedness to righteousness, presumes the " sober second thought " on 

 the part of God that his original executions were defective, and needed 

 amendment or reformation ; that he is partial, and favors with advan- 

 tages one age or one class more than another, and that he is change- 

 able and unreliable. All natural wants, physical and spiritual, are in- 

 dicative of the divine disposition to help, and are assurances of suitable 

 supplies — material for the body and immaterial for the mind — which, 

 according to all human experience, never ignore nor supersede a natural 

 law or function ; and it is doubtful if any supernatural helps could be 

 recognized or appreciated; so that it is not improbable that all that is 

 called supernatural is of misconception, superstition, or credulity. And, 

 if there be no necessity for it, or if that which is so called can be ac- 

 counted for or accomplished by natural means, its exercise would be a 

 useless display of energy, while, if necessary, it shows that the provis- 

 ions of Nature are inadequate to its necessities and thereby reproach 

 their author ; and if it intervenes to assist, or retard, or counteract, it 

 must be a supersedence of the supernatural by the supernatural — a 

 kingdom divided against itself and self -destructive ; for is not Nature, 

 in its being and in its processes, a divine arrangement and incapable of 

 any modification or rearrangement except by a greater than Nature ? 

 And to the affirmation that all the divine creations and phenomena are 

 necessarily supernatural, it may be asked : How can there be a super- 

 natural without a natural to exceed? and if supernatural, how can 

 they be superseded unless by a greater than the supernatural ? and 

 would it not be useless to introduce the supernatural unless it could 

 exceed a process of Nature or equal an act of creation ? 



But who knows what Nature is capable of ? or if it has ever been 

 superseded ? or that any of the operations called supernatural are more 

 than natural ? As mankind advances in intelligence, the supernatural 

 retires, like barbarism before civilization ; and yet, the prevalent be- 

 lief of Christians is, that there is a supernatural, spiritual agency in 

 the world which enlightens the mind and transforms the heart of 



