An infinite number of such examples could yet be cited, but enough have been given to show how the animal world lays aside its ferocity in proportion as man returns to his primitive state of innocence. This is quite in accordance with our idea of the millennium: The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid, and the calf, and the young lion, and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them.
If, then, sanctity brings man back to his true relations to the Deity, and restores him to his primitive relations with nature, let us work our way back to Eden by our purity, fasts, vigils, and prayers.
CATHOLICITY AND PANTHEISM.
NO. XI.
RELATIONS BETWEEN THE SUBLIMATIVE MOMENT AND SUBSTANTIAL CREATION.
It will be the aim of this article to point out some consequences which result from the essence and properties of the supernatural term, considered respectively to the term of substantial creation. They go to establish the absolute supremacy of the supernatural term over substantial creation. We shall give them in as many propositions.
1st. In the general plan of the cosmos, the supernatural term in itself and in its application, forming that part of the cosmos which may be called the supernatural order, takes precedence of substantial creation, or the natural order.
This proposition is easily proven. The greater the intensity of perfection in a being, the nobler is the being; or, in other words, the greater amount of being a thing contains or exhibits, the higher is the place which it occupies in the ordinate location and harmony of the cosmos. The principle is too evident to need any proof, and we assume it as granted. Now, we have shown that the supernatural term in itself and in its application is by far more perfect than substantial creation; because it is a higher and more perfect similitude of Christ and of the Trinity; because it is the complement and the perfection of nature, and enables it to be joined with the Theanthropos, and through him to be ushered into the society of the three divine persons, communicating with their life, and thus arriving at the palingenesiacal state. Consequently, the supernatural in the cosmic plan must take precedence of substantial creation, and in the intention and design of the creator must precede nature.
2d. The supernatural is the end of substantial creation, and third end of the exterior action of the infinite.