Page Line Sec. I. been discovered that evil, as manifested illusion, will temporarily hide from us the permanent good, until this good is understood and acknowledged to be spiritual, tangible, the only reality. Could a God of even the human standard of morality have made this material evil world of rampant injustice, or could such a hellish wilderness of tangled dreams form part of an original perfect conception? Read Mr. William Watson's arraignment of the Powers of Europe at the time of the Armenian massacres, and then think:Yea, if ye could not, though ye would, lift hand " Ye halting leaders-to abridge Hell's reign. If such your plight, most hapless ye of men! : Haeckel truly writes: "If the one God is really the absolutely good perfect Being they proclaim, then the world which He has created must also be perfect." An organic world so imperfect and full of sorrow as exists on this earth He could not possibly have contrived. Now God is the greatest friend and guide that a man can have, "a very present help" in every kind of trouble. Poor, deluded humanity! What a terrible penalty it pays for ignorance of God. How fatally it is deceived. 5 10 15 20 Good." Moreover it [goodness] needeth not to enter into the soul, for "For so the whole round earth is every way (Tennyson). The material world is fortunately not a fact. It is only a series of illusory false beliefs about the real world which is here around us 30 3: if we could only perceive it and be conscious only of perfection, 44 * Birmingham Lecture, October 25th, 1910. "The world constructed with the impressions of our senses is a summary translation, and necessarily a far from faithful one, of the real world which we know not" ("The Evolution of Forces," p. 11. Dr. G. Le Bon). 42 Sec. I. Page Line 34 18 "Theism . . . recognises an Omnipresent Energy, which is none other than the living God. The presence of God is the one allpervading fact of life, from which there is no escape (John Fiske). Consequently, the love, the life, the beauty, 5 the joy, the wisdom, "radiant realities of God's creation," in fact, all the good of which we, unfortunately, only get indications in this so-called material world, is real, made by God. "Lo, this only have I found, that God hath made man upright; but they have sought out many inventions" (Eccles. 7, ver. 29). The man that 10 God made is perfect, sinless, and eternal. Paul said: "Neither death, nor life . . . nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God" (Romans 8, ver. 38, 39). He 534 knew well enough that the real man was "in Christ," and 42 26 15 never could be separated from God, divine Love. "The earth is full of the goodness of the Lord" (Ps. 33, ver. 5). This is spoken of 239 20 the permanent and perfect, spiritual earth. 5 88 25 Matter while held in its place by ignorance and fulse belief, merely 100 24 hides from us the real spiritual earth, with all its spiritual beauty 176 9, 21 2) and goodness, so that we get a limited, material sense of it, instead of seeing it as it really is. How fortunate it is that we get even gleams of reality, intuitional, significant, timely foreshadowings of the truth. 98 21 84 3 28 56 "O world as God has made it! All is beauty; and knowing this 247 2 is love, and love is duty"† (Robert Browning). 30 35 Sir Oliver Lodge says: "Everything sufficiently valuable, be it beauty, artistic achievement, knowledge, unselfish affection, may be thought of as enduring henceforth and for ever . . as part of the eternal Being of God." "And all that is at all, Lasts ever, past recall; Earth changes, but thy soul and God stand sure (Robert Browning). EVOLUTION OF OUR SENSE OF GOD. Every human institution, therefore, religion itself, so far as man can affect it is exposed to inevitable decay. Accordingly, a religion which is not waiting for a revival is waiting only till it be swept away. Christianity has always reformed itself, and will to the end of time continue to reform itself, by going back to the words and to the life of 40 Christ" (Max Müller). 45 99 20 6 When mortal so-called man was a mere brute beast he had no God; he did not even understand what good was, and probably ate his children if he could get at them. This stage of ignorance is alluded to in the second verse of the first chapter of Genesis as darkness." This first chapter can be looked upon as a symbolic description 37 36 of the real or spiritual world, referred to by John in chap. 1, ver. 3, of his Gospel, when he said, "All things were made by him." The "The Idea of God." "The Guardian Angel." "Chips from a German Workshop," Preface. Page Line Sec. I. of how the second chapter of Genesis gives the old Jewish idea material world started, commencing at the sixth verse. The first chapter may also be taken as a description of the false belief 10 in the evolution of the material, or so-called man from materiality or absolute ignorance and bestiality, up to the knowledge of God and dematerialisation. By this term is meant the entire disappearance both of the material body and so-called mind, spoken of by Paul as the carnal body and the carnal mind, 15 which constitute what is called the material man, and is enmity Rom. 8:7 against God," or good. The former, the material body, was dematerialised by the great Way-Shower, the man Christ Jesus, in the silent precincts of the tomb, and the latter was dematerialised at what is called his ascension, this being the disappearance of the 20 material form of the man Jesus of Nazareth to the limited human senses of those who failed to be able to perceive his more perfect form. The spiritual body, his real self, the son of God, imperceptible to the five limited senses, always existed in the real, spiritual world, heaven, which, in fact, is here around us, only we see it falsely. 25 Sooner or later, we all have to get rid of our so-called human mind and body. "Even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body" (Rom. 8, ver. 23). 37 20 186 11 37 19 The experience of Jesus the Master-metaphysician understood, will bring a repetition of his attainments, including all his miracles, 30 but without the accompanying crucifixion or tomb, which were the incidental outcome of general ignorant and malicious opposition. The deep significance of the Master's life, of his words, and of his works, is only just beginning to dawn upon a world waiting in expectation for its release from the overwhelming burdens, which 3: to so many make life now the hell that we were falsely taught we might find to be awaiting us only in the future. "I have laboriously and freshly examined every single passage in the New Testament bearing upon the subject of God's Will, and I have also examined freshly every single passage in the New Testament bearing upon suffering and affliction. I fail to find one which warrants the belief that sickness and death are the will of God, sent directly by His hand upon us. If sickness and suffering are according to the will of God, then every physician is a lawbreaker, every trained nurse is defying the will of God, every hospital is a house of rebellion instead of a house of mercy. All the conditions which increase suffering and breed sickness are therefore fulfilments of the will of God, and sanitation is blasphemy. This tradition quickly reasons itself out into impossibility (Rev. Charles Cuthbert Hall). The Religion of One God.- Thou shalt have no other gods before me" (Ex. 20, ver. 3). When the primeval savage prayed to one of his gods, for instance to his club lying over the exit from his dwelling-place, he got on better than the man,next door who did not, because it was his best idea of God, and he had greater confidence when fighting, thinking that he was helped by some other power than himself. It has been * "Does God Send Trouble?" 40 Sec. I. Page Line 40 35 truly said: "Man makes God in his own image." Xenophanes said 218 24 The idea of God gradually evolved, until we come to the "jealous 47 14 5 God" of the Hebrews.* This race, strong-thinking, strong-headed, Ex. 20:5 and determined, looked upon Jehovah as a supernatural being, who 219 19 not only told them to slay their enemies, but actually slew them himself, and required sacrifices of innocent animals-such sacrifices, taken literally, being very little better than human sacrifices to the heathen's idea of God, called Moloch, Baal, etc. "The Lord said unto Moses, Take all the heads of the people, and hang them up before the Lord against the sun, that the fierce anger of the Lord may be turned away from Israel. . . . And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Vex the Midianites and smite 13 them: For they vex you with their wiles" (Num. 25, ver. 4, 16, 17, 18). "The Lord met him [Moses], and sought to kill him " (Ex. 4, ver. 24). 'Saul . . . enquired not of the Lord: therefore he slew him (I. Chron. 10, ver. 13, 14). "Er, the firstborn of Judah, was evil 2 in the sight of the Lord; and he slew him" (I. Chron. 2, ver. 3). The idea of God gradually evolved until we see in Psalm 51, ver. 17, that God required, not the sacrifice of innocent animals, but the sacrifice of "a broken and a contrite heart." A still higher concept is the later prophets' idea of God, exemplified in the follow23 ing words: "I desired mercy, and not sacrifice; and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings " (Hosea 6, ver. 6). Later on we reach the modern theological idea of God, impossible 47 for any logical person to understand who has thought deeply on the subject. Conscious matter must imply Pantheism, and 30 it is the false conception of God that makes men Christians only in name, spiritual only in empty theory, whilst material in daily practice. A merciless god, who allowed a majority to be eternally punished, who permitted the inhuman torture of his beloved Son, 220 who created beings capable of sin, who permitted cruelties incon35 ceivable, was the necessary outcome of an ignorance that was as extraordinary (when we really think logically) as it was universal. Believing man to be the victim of his Maker, eternally punished" for the sins of a few tired years," no wonder God was more feared than loved. No wonder so-called Christians made their religious beliefs 220 a source of fiendish cruelties towards those who differed from their 319 conception of such a devilish god. In the light of the teachings 40 *The Hebrew names descriptive of God have been called "lenses through which to see the character of God." They are El, Eloah, Elah, Elohim, Jehovah-Elohim, Gelyon, El Shaddai, Jehovah-Jireh, Jehovah-Nissi, Jehovah-Raphai (The Lord our 15 Healer), Jehovah-Shammah, Jehovah-Shalom, Jehovah-Rohi, Adon, Adonai, Yah, and Yahveh or Jehovah. The Hebrew language had many words of various meanings which, when the Scriptures were first translated into Greek, about 300 B.C.-the Septuagint-were translated "theos," which means either the true God or a false god, and "kurios," which means either heavenly or earthly lord or master. 29 2 4 35 Page Line Sec. I. 138 19 of Jesus, the true understanding of which is now spreading all over the world, we find that this idea of god is little better than that of a magnified human conception of man, and that not even of a noble man. "After nineteen centuries of propagandism, Christianity is now compelled to apologise for Christendom" (Prof. R. D. 5 Hitchcock). 283 18 221 34 29 20 See Note F on page 138 20 283 38 488 4 153 569. 39 182 35 476 13 155 27 291 12 40 29 241 488 9 491 19 487 41 154 20 46 13 357 1 The Definition of God. "Let not him who seeks the Father cease until he find Him; and having found Him, let him be amazed; and being amazed he shall reign, and reigning shall rest" (Sayings of Jesus, discovered in Egypt in 1904). 10 As people's idea of God has become more spiritual, so has their sense of Deity become better. The ideas of primitive Christianity are again elevating mankind. We learn the essence of all goodness, and reach the true, because scientific, concept of this that Jesus demonstrated-the God who is All-in-all, the God who is good and 15 infinite, leaving no room for anything else; not a personal tyrant, but Love itself, Life itself, Truth itself, one infinite Mind. This Mind is the cause of all love, all life, and all truth, and is "reflected in the intelligent, compound idea," man, made in the image or likeness of God, "showing forth the infinite divine Principle" of good, Life, Truth, and Love, called God. Synonymous terms for Mind as God are: Spirit, the essence of all holiness; Soul, the foundation of all wisdom and knowledge; all substance (real and permanent substance, not our false sense of substance); intelligence, the Principle of all Science, and, consequently, the first and only cause, and the only reality. The remnant shall return, even the remnant of Jacob [the English-speaking races. See Appendix I.], unto the mighty God" (Is. 10, ver. 21). This great turning-point of the recognition of the omnipotence and omnipresence of good has now been reached. "All that really exists is in and of God." "For I am God, and there is none else" (Is. 45, ver. 22). God, being All-in-all, is not a separate person, He is the only Person. Archdeacon Wilberforce writes: "Beautiful and consoling as is Is. 66:13 Isaiah's conception of God as Universal Mother [As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you'], it is still Deistic, it still leaves the Infinite Intelligence as a Person, which He is not." God is the only Person, the one and only Ego. If our mind models become less spiritual we deteriorate morally, Speak to Him, thou, for He hears, and spirit with spirit can meet, *Mystic Immanence." p. 75. (Tennyson). Mr. Frederick Dixon calls attention to the fact that the Greek words "epignosis to them," translated in the epistles both of Peter and Paul as "knowledge of God." should be translated "full or exact knowledge of God," as opposed to the word "gnosis," meaning "ordinary knowledge." 'Epignosis" is also used in Rom. 10, ver. 2, and Col. 1, ver. 9. 20 25 30 33 40 |