THE NEW THEOLOGY. 33t 



and leads its subjects to reverence it that they may enjoy its benefits 

 and escape its condemnations forever. So that eternal punishment is 

 adapted to awaken pleasure and gratitude rather than shame and hor- 

 ror, and needs no sentimental theodicy of human contrivance to justify 

 it or to reconcile it with divine or human nature. 



The New Theology does not claim to make men better Christians, 

 for it teaches that the divinest character is formed by striving after 

 the best, and that no intellectual belief or formal creed can improve 

 moral nature ; but it aims to give clearer and more rational ideas of God 

 and his will and ways, and to present Christianity in a more attract- 

 ive form and with an enlarged scope to its province. It contemplates 

 the divine Creator and preserver with reference to his moral creation 

 chiefly in the light of a loving Father, immanent in all the works of 

 his hand, directing and supporting in every motion, and controlling all 

 forces and agencies so that they shall be in harmony with his law and 

 work together for good. It defines Christianity as that which is wor- 

 thy of God and becoming to man, and accepts as Christian teaching 

 and life everything from every source which accords with and pro- 

 motes godliness. It recognizes and adores Christ as the manifestation 

 of every conceivable attribute and desirable quality contained in the 

 infinite Godhead, and as the only sufficient and perfect Saviour of man- 

 kind ; and it holds that faith which seeks to be possessed of the mind 

 of Christ regenerates the heart and makes the life Christ-like, and se- 

 cures salvation to mankind by the divine or Christ-like possessions it 

 imparts. It acknowledges as acceptable worship to the true God the 

 sincere devotion that is paid to any god, and insists that this is con- 

 formable to sound reason and sacred Scripture ; for no two devotees 

 of pagan altar or Christian shrine conceive the same God, so that there 

 must be as many gods as men ; and certainly any creed that does not 

 include sincere idolatry and fetichism as acceptable forms of worship 

 to him who is high over all, blessed for evermore, is less tolerant than 

 Brahmanism, which teaches that they who have not discovered the 

 highest God may worship lower gods, and also than the Supreme 

 Vedic God who three thousand years ago declared, " Even those who 

 worship idols worship me." 



It maintains that the Christian religion appertains to the whole life, 

 and defines it as the purpose to do God's will in everything, or " to do 

 with our might and as unto the Lord whatsoever our hands find to do," 

 It makes the threading of a needle as sacred as a sacrament. It seeks 

 to do as God would do in eating and drinking, in buying and selling, 

 in speaking and thinking, in work and play, in personal indulgences, 

 and in administering to the needy. Everything to do is a religious 

 duty and an opening to diviner capability and enjoyment, and any- 

 thing done that is not intended to please God or to achieve the high- 

 est good is irreligious or infidel. 



