Ne-w Comiection General Baptists. See Baptists.
New Connection Methodists. See Kii,- iiAiiiTES ; Wesleyan Methodist New Connection. See also article Methodism iu vol. vi, especialh' p. 156 (3).
New Creation, a term denoting the theory of a restoration of the physical universe as the final abode of glorified humanity.
I. Argument for the Doctrine. — Predictions of a great and universal renovation are, in a more or less direct form, an almost invariable feature of Biblical Eschatolo- gy. Such was the tone of prophecy before Christ's first
NEW CREATION
NEW CREATION
advent, such that of the apostolic writings, and such that of our Lord's own words as recorded in the Gospels and the Apocalypse. This may be shortly indicated by the words of an ancient prophecy, " ISehold, I create new heavens and a new earth ; and the former shall not be remembered, nor come into mind" (Isa. Ixv, 17 ; corap. Ixvi, 22) ; those of an apostolical ejiistle, " The heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat; the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up. . . . Never- theless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteous- ness" (2 Pet. iii, 10-13) ; and those of the great Chris- tian prophecy, '• I saw a new heaven and a new earth ; for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away. . . . And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new" (Rev. xxi, 1, 5).
That these predictions of a new creation are figura- tive is an easy explanation, and it may be in some slight degree corroborated by the fact that the kingdom of Christ is a re-creation of human nature in his own per- son by his incarnation, and of the souls of mankind by their regeneration in holy baptism. Such an explana- tion, however, reaches but a little way towards drawing out the meaning of the predictions in question, for even if they include that which it refers to (as is not likely from the analogy of our Lord's own prophetic language), they yet undoubtedly look beyond it, and point unmis- takably to a new creation, not of souls, but of the ma- terial earth, its surrounding " Heaven" or heavens, and the works as well as the beings which it contains.
The chief difticulty in the way of belief in such a ren- ovation is probably that which arises from the accom- panying prediction of a preceding destruction. Look- ing on the changes which are wrought on the surface of the earth, or which have been wrought during the historic ages, we observe that the whole sum of them, after all the ordinary and all the convulsive operations of the phj-sical forces which affect them, falls far short of anything approaching the magnitude of so stupendous a change as that which would be made by a destructive catastrophe, such as is predicted. The terrific opera- tion of tire on the body of the sun is now, however, well known to scientific observers, as well as the vast and most rapid changes which it effects. There is no dif- ficulty in believing that such changes may be effected on the body of the earth, when we observe enormous craters to be almost instantly created on that of the sun — so enormous that many planets as large as the earth might be engulfed in them, and so intensely heated that the very granite would melt in the midst of them.
A more formidable objection is one drawn from the moral aspect of such a destruction. Allowing that it is reasonable to set aside the physical difficulty as being confuted by scientific kno-\vledge not less than by a priori reasonings as to Almighty Power, is it consistent with our ideas of God's attributes that the magnificent works of man — works of architecture, engineering, art, and skill — works that betoken the use of God's own gifts of intellect, and the progress of humanity in the devel- opment of those powers and the application of those materials with which the Creator has provided it — that these should be utterly destroyed'? Can there be no consecration of man's handiwork by which it may be symbolically renovated? Must the verj' foundations of the eartli and all that rests upon them be utterly broken up before the palace of the New Creation can be erected? Would not such a destruction, we are almost tempted to saj^, be a kind of waste, and contrary' to the first principles on which God's providence is ever work- ing?
No doubt such objections as these, and many more such, will arise in thoughtful minds; and no doubt they will be accompanied bj- a wish to understand the state- ments of the Bible in some easier way; to adopt a met- aphorical meaning, for example, such as would take the new creation of heaven and earth to be a moral regen-
eration, and the passing away of the old creation as the cessation of sin. But St. Peter appears to have been in- spired to meet such objections with a plain contradic- tion beforehand; for when he is about to speak of the destruction of the earth and the heavens in a manner that quite shuts out the idea of his words being intended to be metaphorical, he prefaces the awful statement by predicting that in the last days there will come scoff'ers, arguing that, from the apparent firmness and permanence of all things for so many ages, there is no probability of their future actual destruction. The apostle therefore warns us off from such objections, and leaves us little rational ground for supposing a metaphor to have been intended by the words "new heaven and new earth." Perhaps we maj' be better reconciled to a literal sense of these words if we take into account a few considera- tions respecting the power and authority of the Creator and his probable purpose in organizing a new creation.