Читать книгу Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors - James Freeman Clarke - Страница 24

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And besides all this, says the supernaturalist, we have continued and constant evidences, in all history and in all human experience, of the existence of this supernatural element. Only a small minority of mankind have ever doubted it; and those are men so immersed in physical science, or so hampered by some logical manacles, or so steeped in purely worldly affairs, as to be incapable of seeing the supernatural facts which are recurrent evermore. Christianity itself has been an uninterrupted series of supernatural events. The physical miracles of Christ are nothing to the spiritual miracles which Christianity is always working. Bad men are made good, weak men strong, cowardly men brave, ignorant and foolish men wise, by a supernatural influence given in answer to prayer, poured down into hearts and minds which open themselves to receive it. The conversion of a bad man by the power of Christianity is a miracle. The power of faith, hope, love, which every Christian has experienced, coming into him, not through any operation of his nature, but simply poured into his soul from some higher sphere—this makes all argument unnecessary to one who has had ever so little Christian experience.

This is the substance of Orthodox supernaturalism; and this seems to me to be its truth, separated from its errors.

The naturalism of the present time we conceive to be partly directed against a false supernaturalism, and partly to be a mistake arising from a too exclusive attention to the order of the universe, as expressed in law.