I want to read to you some key-words of this new theology which is making its way among all churches. It is' not an organized movement. No one appears to know whence it springs. Indeed, it is spoken of as being one of those pulsations of the "cosmic mind" which moves over the people at intervals and proclaims some great truth. Now, you will be astonished at the fundamental truth of this new movement, and the great number of people who are accepting it as the "theology of experience." Its fundamental principle is the recognition of the identity between human nature and the divine nature.
In proof of it, I submit the following passages:
"Whence springs the deep-seated hostility of so man, of the representatives of labor to the churches? It can only be from the fact that organized religion has, in the immediate past, lost sight of its own fundamental, the divineness of man." (Rev. R. J. Campbell, in Hibbert Journal, April, 1907, p. 487.)
"When the man with a burdened conscience comes to us for relief, let us tell him that we all bear the burden together, and that until he becomes a Christ all the love in the universe will come to his help and share his struggle. His burden is ours, the burden of the Christ incarnate for the redemption of the world." (Ibid, p. 493.)
"The starting point in the New Theology is belief in the immanence of God, and the essential oneness of God and man. * * * We believe man to be a revelation of God, and the universe one means to the self-manifestation of God. * * * * We believe that there is no real distinction between humanity and the Deity.
"Our being is the same as God's, although our consciousness of it is limited. * * * The new theology holds that human nature should be interpreted in terms of its own highest nature, therefore it reverences Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ was divine, 'but so are we.' * * * Every man is a potential Christ, or rather a manifestation of the eternal Christ. * * * The new theology * * * is the gospel of the humanity of God and the divinity of man." (Campbell, London Daily Mail, quoted in Current Literature, April, 1907.)
"I shall continue to feel compelled to believe that the power which produced Jesus must be at least equal to Jesus, so Jesus becomes my gateway to the innermost of God. When I look at him I say to myself, God is that, and if I can only get down to the truth about myself I shall find that I am too. * * * In him (Jesus) the humanity was divinity and divinity humanity. * * * But you make him only a man! No, reader, I do not. I make him the only man, and there is a difference. We have only seen perfect manhood once, and that was the manhood of Jesus. The rest of us have got to get there. * * * We have to get rid of the dualism which will insist on putting humanity and Deity into two separate categories.
"Unitarians used to declare that Jesus was man, not God." Trinitarianism maintained that he was God and man; the older Christian thought as well as the youngest regards him as God in man—God manifest in the flesh. But here emerges a great point of difference between the new theology on the one hand and traditional orthodoxy on the other. The latter would restrict the description 'God manifest in the flesh' to Jesus alone; the new theology would extend it in a lesser degree to all humanity, and would maintain that in the end it will be as true of every individual soul as it ever was of Jesus. Indeed, it is this belief that gives value and significance to the earthly mission of Jesus—he came to show us what we potentially are." (The New Theology, Campbell, pp. 82, 83.)
There is much more to the same effect, which I now pass.
I am now going to read to you from a higher authority than Mr. Campbell—from a man of science, a man whose intellectual powers sway the religious thought of many thousands in Great Britain, the thoughts of many more people than Mr. Campbell sways. I refer to Sir Oliver Lodge, who says in the Hibbert Journal, one of the foremost publications in the world on the subject of theology and philosophy, with reference to the divinity of Jesus, and the identity of the divine and human nature:
"The conception of the Godhead formed by some divine philosophers and mystics has quite rightly been so immeasurably vast, though still assuredly utterly inadequate and necessarily beneath reality, that the notion of a God revealed in human form—born, suffering, tormented, killed—has been utterly incredible. 'A crucified prophet, yes; but a crucified God! I shudder at the blasphemy,' is a known quotation which I cannot now verify; yet that apparent blasphemy is the soul of Christianity. It calls upon us to recognize and worship a crucified, an executed God. * * * The world is full of men. What the world wants is a God. Behold the God! (referring of course, to Jesus,) 'The divinity of Jesus' is the truth which now requires to be re-perceived, to be illuminated afresh by new knowledge, to be cleansed and revivified by the wholesome flood of skepticism which has poured over it; it can be freed now from all trace of groveling superstition, and can be recognized freely and enthusiastically; the divinity of Jesus, (Mark you—'the divinity of Jesus') and of all other noble and saintly souls, in so far as they too have been inflamed by a spark of Divinity—in so far as they too can be recognized as manifestations of the Divine." (Hibbert Journal for April, 1906, pp. 654-5.)
That is the doctrine, gentlemen, that is sweeping the earth, "the divinity of Jesus," and the divinity of "all other noble and saintly souls"—the kinship of men and God. That is "Mormonism," and it was proclaimed by the great prophet of the nineteenth century, half a century before these modern minds were awakened to its grandeur and to its uplifting power. I rejoice to see it running in the earth to be glorified, for in it I recognize the very root principle of all religion and out of it grow all the relations that link us with all that is pure, uplifting and divine.
Now, do not misunderstand me. There is much nonsense in this "New Theology;" but this root principle of it is true, and it is in accord with the principles that Joseph Smith proclaimed years ago. The doctrine of the immanence of God in the world, by which we mean the universe and the divinity of man, instead of its having its origin some fifteen or twenty years ago, and now finding expression in the beautiful diction of Mr. Campbell and Sir Oliver Lodge and others, it was taught by the Prophet Joseph Smith, at least over seventy years ago. Concerning the immanence of God, he taught the following in 1832: He first represents that the spirit of Christ is "in all and through all things, the light of truth; which truth shineth." Then he adds:
"This is the light of Christ. As also he is in the sun, and the light of the sun, and the power thereof by which it was made. As also he is in the moon, and is the light of the moon, and the power thereof by which it was made. As also the light of the stars, and the power thereof by which they were made. And the earth also, and the power thereof, even the earth upon which you stand. And the light which now shineth, which giveth you light, is through him who enlighteneth your eyes, which is the same light that quickeneth your understandings; which light proceedeth forth from the presence of God to fill the immensity of space. The light which is in all things; which giveth life to all things; which is the law by which all things are governed; even the power of God who sitteth upon his throne, who is in the bosom of eternity, who is in the midst of all things."
The prophet further declared, in 1833, that "the elements are eternal, and spirit and element inseparably connected receive a fullness of joy. The elements are the tabernacle of God; yea, man is the tabernacle of God, even temples."