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 horror, 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 attractive 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 worthy of God and becoming to man, and accepts as Christian teaching and life everything from every source which accords with and promotes 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 mankind; 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 secures 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 conformable 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 anything done that is not intended to please God or to achieve the highest good is irreligious or infidel.
