Page:New Christianity.pdf/66

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
51

number of revelations ought to be peculiarly "divine," to use a common, but exceptionable term. And as man is a physical, an intellectual, and a moral being, so, in like manner, this revelation ought to have a physical, and intellectual, and a moral career and aspect, corresponding to Jewism, first and second Christianity; and as man is the only progressive being, so we find that progress is confined to one religion; all other religions are stationary, like the brute creation. The first Christianity came out of Jewism—the second Christianity will come out of the first, at the same time borrowing from all that surrounds it. And as these other religions are stationary, so all the nations that adopt them are stagnant. But were the Greeks and Romans stationary? No; they had the revelation of science, and were the recipients of Jewism, prepared by Nature to carry on the second great movement. The scientific Greeks elaborated the doctrines of Old Christianity; the moral Romans established it; hence, the Roman church is the mother of Old Christianity. But there is another stage of Christianity to come; and in searching for the place of its first establishment, we must follow the movement. The last great national movement is Protestantism. Hence, it is from Protestantism we expect the next great establishment to proceed. But there is (not a movement, but) a pause or resistance at the close of Protestantism, which is infidelity. This is a total abnegation or resistance to the old faith. But as this is the negative, or female principle, it never can have collective or political power. Its power is entirely moral. It is, however, the end of the old movement, and out of it the new faith or new movement proceeds. That new faith is God and Nature in unity—religion and science in perfect harmony;—Nature, the female god of the Atheist, imbued with life and intelligence by the male God of the Believer, and the illiberal and exclusive God of the old Believer liberalized and disarmed of his errors by the universal mother, all-bountiful Nature. Thus, old faith and old infidelity correct the follies of each other, and the two combined bring forth the new religion of "Christianity made perfect." They cannot act apart. God cannot act without Nature, nor Nature without God. It is not good for man or woman to be alone; they must each have an helpmate,

Catholicism.—St. Simon says, that the Catholic clergy were Christian until the era of the reformation. This, however, must be understood with very large qualifications. There never has been a Christian clergy in the world, nor