Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Discourse volume 1.djvu/184

Rh things else; has a connection with God, who really guides, educates, and blesses the race, for he is transiently present therein. The doctrine of miraculous events, births, persons, deaths, and the like, this is the veil of Poetry drawn over the face of Fact. It has a truth not admitted by Naturalism. As only a few “thinking” men even in fancy can be satisfied without a connection with God, so Naturalism is always confined to a few reflective and cultivated persons; while the mass of men believe in the supernatural theory, at least, in the truth it covers up. Its truth is of great moment. Its vice is to make God transiently active in Man, not immanent in him; restrict the divine presence and action to times, places, and persons. It overlooks the fact that if religious truth be necessary for all, then it must either have been provided for and put in the reach of all, or else there is a fault in the divine plan. Then again, if God gives a natural supply for the lower wants, it is probable, to say the least, he will not neglect the higher. Now for the religious consciousness of Man, a knowledge of two great truths is indispensable: namely, a knowledge of the existence of the Infinite God, and of the duty we owe to Him, for a knowledge of these two is implied in all religious teaching and life. Now one of two things must be admitted, and a third is not possible: either Man can discover these two things by the light of Nature, or he cannot. If the latter be the case, then is he the most hopeless of all beings. Revelation of these truths is confined to a few; it is indispensably necessary to all. Accordingly the first hypothesis is generally admitted by the supernaturalists, in New England—though in spite of their philosophy—that these two things can be discovered by the light of Nature. Then if the two main points, the premises which involve the whole of Morals and Religion, lie within the reach of Man's natural powers, how is a miracle, or the tradition of a miracle, necessary to reveal the minor doctrines involved in the universal truth? Does not the faculty to discern the greater include the faculty to discern the less? What covers an acre will cover a yard. Where then is the use of the miraculous interposition?

Neither Naturalism nor Supernaturalism legitimates the fact of Man's religious consciousness. Both fail of satisfy-