Part 2

"If there be some weaker one, Give me strength to help him on. If a blinder soul there be, Let me guide him nearer Thee."

I desire to encourage all to aim at conscious identification with Spirit, and to bear witness by the peace it brings into their lives.

"That to believe these things are so, This firm faith never to forego, Despite of all which seems at strife With blessing, all with curses rife, That this is blessing, this is life."

The Collect, Epistle, and Gospel for the eighth Sunday after Trinity help the attainment of this mental attitude. The Epistle touches upon a question of importance to those who are learning the glorious truth of the Immanence of God. Do not let concentration upon your oneness with Infinite Spirit Immanent hinder your consciousness of Infinite Spirit Transcendent—that is, external to you. The Lord Jesus, knowing that the human mind can only cognize in terms of human experience, gave us the name "Father" to help us mentally to personify Infinite Spirit Transcendent—that is, external to us. The Lord Jesus was intensely conscious of the Immanence of God, He called it "the Father in Him," but He also prayed definitely to the Father outside Him. St. Paul suggests that when we pray to undifferentiated Spirit, who is God outside us, we should use the familar [Transcriber’s note: familiar?] affectionate title "Abba." The Lord Jesus is only recorded to have used this title once, at the moment of His deepest agony, and it is in suffering, physical or mental, that you most want it. It is a declaration of your estimate of God, and therefore important, because the ability of Divine Love to help and soothe you is conditioned by your appreciation of Him and your mental attitude of receptivity towards Himself. So in those times of deepest darkness, when He seems most absent, it is well to address Him by the tenderest name, and say, Abba, Father. "Abba, Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from Me."

Let us consider the Collect. How it redeems our Liturgy from its leaven of Augustinianism! How it silences the obscurantists who accuse believers in universal restitution of going beyond the Church’s teaching! Is this collect an authoritative formula of the Church, or is it not? "O God, whose never-failing Providence ordereth all things both in Heaven and on earth." In other words, a man’s conscious mind may wrongly "devise his way," but "the Lord will direct his steps." Saturate your mind with that thought. Speak to the universal Spirit outside you and individualize Him. Say, "Abba, Father, whose never-failing providence ordereth all things both in Heaven and on earth, though my heart may be ’devising my way’ wrongly and tortuously, I know Thou wilt ’direct my steps’ into Thy purpose." In that attitude of mind you know that God will be in whatever happens to you. This gives you a great freedom in worshipping Infinite Spirit. You feel yourself emancipated from all traditional conceptions, and you feel in yourself the aspiration of Faber when he wrote:

"Oh, for freedom, for freedom in worshipping God, For the mountain-top feeling of generous souls, For the health, for the air, of the hearts deep and broad, Where grace, not in rills, but in cataracts rolls!"

It is well to face the principle underlying these words of the collect: Abba, Father, "ordereth all things both in Heaven and on earth." Then, as His will is man’s sanctification, the logical conclusion is an absolute ultimate universalism.

The absurdity of the paradox that man by wrongly "devising his way" can ultimately defeat the predestined purpose of Infinite Originating Mind is self-evident. Sophocles and Plato taught that omnipotent purpose governed the apparently accidental phenomena of life, and the writer of the book of Proverbs says plainly: "A man’s heart may devise his way," but "the Lord will direct his steps." That is the inspired statement of the problem. Milton thought the problem insoluble, and describes the fallen angels exercising their minds on "fixed fate, free will, fore-knowledge absolute," and being "in wandering mazes lost," I really think it only needs common sense. Infinite Mind expresses Himself in individual human life-centres that He may realize His own qualities and have millions of separate entities to love and, after education, to love Him. Is it conceivable that He would so overdo His creative work as to produce beings with a superior will to Himself capable of resisting Him through the endless ages, and putting His purpose to complete confusion? Is it not obvious that He would only give them enough will to train them? The will of man, such as it is, has its clearly-defined sphere. It is with his will he "deviseth his way," and that "devising his way" is the test of his life; but he can no more escape the ultimate purpose of Abba, Father, than a material substance on this planet can escape the law of gravitation. Obviously we have volition, we have the power to "devise our way." This must be so for two reasons. First, Originating Spirit desires to realize His highest qualities in man. Therefore, man must have liberty to withhold his co-operation or he would be only an automaton. Mechanical moral qualities would not be moral any more than your watch is moral. To receive and to distribute the nature of the Divine mind, not mechanism, but mental acquiescence is necessary. "The heavens declare the glory of God," but they do it mechanically, not morally. The solar system is a perfect work of mechanical creation, but the planet cannot leave its appointed orbit. Man can. If man obeyed God, only as a planet revolves in its orbit, he would "declare the glory of God," but he would not be a man; that is, he would not be a mental centre in which the Originating Mind could realize Itself. Then, again, without being free to disobey, we could never become moral beings. The antagonistic pressure of non-moral inclinations challenges our highest self, and as we make, within our limited sphere, correct choice between alternatives presented, we are built up Godward or the reverse. But inasmuch as Infinite Spirit and His vehicles are elementally inseverable, and "Abba, Father, ordereth all things," though wrong choice, and the selection of lower standards, will occasion pain and unrest, and delay the evolution of the Eternal purpose, and grieve the Spirit within us. Creative Spirit is Omnipotent, to defeat Him is impossible. He will ultimately, in ways of His own, "direct man’s steps" without turning him into an automaton. When once you perceive that man in his inmost nature is the product of the Divine Mind, imaging forth an image of Itself, you are certain that no negation can finally frustrate the evolution of the Divine principle which is the inmost centre in us all. It must ultimately blend with the ocean of uncreated life whence it came, and whither from all Eternity it is predestined to return, for Infinite Mind has declared of His human children, "Ye shall be perfect." Of course, we must ourselves "open out the way." In that obligation lies the function of our Will and our responsibility for using the Keys of our own Kingdom of Heaven within.

As Browning expresses it so grandly in "Paracelsus":

"There is an inmost centre in us all, Where truth abides in fulness; and around, Wall upon wall, the gross flesh hems it in. ... TO KNOW Rather consists in opening out a way Whence the imprisoned splendour may escape, Than in effecting entry for a light Supposed to be without."

Those who use the Keys of their Kingdom of Heaven know, and "open out the way." And for those who don’t know, though they blunder terribly and suffer in the blundering, the Immanent Spirit "directs their steps." Do you say this implies fatalism, submission to impersonal destiny destructive of independence and self-reliance? The Gospel negatives the suggestion, and demonstrates that this "ordering all things" is not the despotic overrule of an irresistible law, but the immanent influence of an omnipotent Providence ceaselessly suggesting to the Soul of man. The Lord Jesus said: "I can do nothing of Myself, the Father in Me doeth the works." Was that fatalism? No, the Lord Jesus was consciously working out the thoughts, the ideas of the Immanent Spirit, and the Epistle says; "The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit that we are the children of God; and if children, then heirs, heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ." "Joint-heirs with Christ," that is, that the same spirit that was in perfection in the Christ is germinally in us, and though we may not yet be conscious of it, we are co-partners in the same splendid inheritance. Again, the prevalence of evil is to some a stumbling-block. They say God is all, and all is God, and God is Love, resistless, resourceful, perfect. He "ordereth all things both in Heaven and on earth," why, then, this discord between the heart that "deviseth the way" and the Lord who "directeth the steps"? why all this misunderstanding? Have we not learnt the answer? It is an interesting study in human psychology to note how thoughtful men will stumble over the answer. I am always repeating the axiom: Even God cannot make anything except by means of the process through which it becomes what it is. He is making moral beings. He can only make moral beings by means of the process through which a moral being becomes what he is, and that is, by having the opportunity of being non-moral. Therefore Infinite Spirit, who can never make a mistake, is responsible for the conditions under which what we call evil becomes possible, because by those conditions alone can men become moral beings, and these conditions underlie the three functioning centres in the complex mechanism of human beings.

That is the inner meaning of that metaphor about gathering grapes from thorns and figs from thistles in the Gospel. The thorn and the thistle, the grape and the fig, do not signify separate types of men. If so, the force of the metaphor would fail, and Necessitarian Calvinism would be established.

The thorn and the thistle are obeying God’s own law of heredity and affinity by producing only thorns and thistles; they would violate the law of their being if they produced grapes and figs. It is an allegory of our separate selves, of that complex nature which differentiates us from the immanence of God as subconscious mind in the vegetable and the animal. Each man is the soil in which the "soul-man" and the "body-man" produce thorn and thistle, and the "spirit-man" produces grape and fig. The opposing functioning centres in the same individual strive for the mastery, and from this very striving emerges the perfected life of the Child of God, and that is where the possibility of what we call evil comes in. Our own limited minds teach us that God’s thought-forms, imaged forth from the womb of Infinite Mind, could never attain Self-consciousness unless associated with matter in some definite form. That association with matter involved body with its "thorn and thistle" tendencies, which tendencies are the training-ground of the individual, and this training will be complete when the "spirit-man," through the "soul-man," controls the "body-man," and he can say with Paul: "I keep under my body and bring it into subjection."

As vehicles of spirit we have the capacity of living by a definite effort and purpose the higher life, the fruit-bearing life, and, as we live it, we weaken and starve the thorn-bearing life. "We are debtors," says the Apostle, we, who have received the Keys of our own Kingdom of Heaven within—"we are debtors not to live after the flesh."

No one needs the pulpit to tell them what is the life "not after the flesh." Every purposeful encouragement of the Divine nature within, every clinging to principle in time of temptation, every masterful conquest over bodily desires by forcing the mind away from sense impressions into recollection of the Divinity within, every quenching of anger by a kind and gentle word, ministers to the fruit-bearing life and withers the thorn.

In one word, the higher life is the continuous conscious blending of the human mind with the Infinite Mind. Remember conscious mind is part of the "soul-man," and our ability to gain dominion over the physical body develops as we use our will to blend our thought-power with the Infinite Mind, for the "spirit-man" influences the "body-man," through the channel of the "soul-man," which is the seat of mind.

Begin it by suffering the indwelling Spirit to realize itself as love.

The Master taught us that to manifest love is to live not as an isolated unit but in terms of the larger life of humanity. When He was asked, "What shall I do to inherit eternal life?" He replied with the parable of the Good Samaritan. Manifest love to theological and political opponents, and unlovable people generally, and the thorn and thistle within you will have a poor chance of life.

When you express love you are functioning from Spirit. Then "soul-man" and "body-man" must obey. "Soul-man" must help for will is part of "soul-man." Watch yourself. Keep the tongue from evil and the lips that they speak no guile. Never allow yourself to repeat that which will prejudice your hearer against another. Don’t repeat a scandal. It causes an evil thought-atmosphere to prevail; it thwarts the God within; it grieves the Spirit more fatally than breaches of the moral law.

This, then, is the message of to-day. Use your will to keep your mental faculties in conscious realization of your true relation to Infinite Mind, as one of His vehicles, and you will not grieve the Spirit. Know that God is the Spirit within you, and never forget that He is also Abba, Father, outside you. Abba, Father, longs for us far more than we long for Him. Around us always are the everlasting arms. He knows our imperfections and weaknesses of character far better than we know those of our own children, and our Lord said: "If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more shall your Heavenly Father give good gifts to them that ask Him?"

*"Out of the Everywhere into Here."*

"Of His own will He brought us forth by the Word, wherefore receive with meekness the inborn Word."—ST. JAMES i. 18, 21 (R.V.).

Though I have repeatedly spoken on the words of the Epistle for the fourth Sunday after Easter, I simply cannot pass them by now. They illuminate conspicuously the thesis that we were "thought-forms" in the womb of Infinite Mind before we were "body-forms" in this terrestrial school, and they affirm the closeness of our intimacy with Infinite Mind and the obviousness of our life’s duty. Grant the axiom that the power of Infinite Mind to realize in us, and express through us, and externalize love in the circumstances of our life, is strictly conditioned by our appreciation of what Infinite Mind is in Itself, then the more familiar, the more reverently tender, our estimate of Originating Spirit, the more will It be able to manifest in our lives.

St. James in the words I have quoted has suggested to us a conception of Infinite Creative Mind so exalted, so metaphysical, and yet so personal, that, if by spiritual consciousness we can grasp it, we possess the highest possible estimate of the All-Conscious Life-Principle whence we came. St. James says: "He brought us forth with the Word," "He willed us forth from Himself by the Logos." In the Greek there is, of course, no personal pronoun, and, indeed, it is a paradox to put the masculine personal pronoun before this Greek word, _apekúêsen_, a word used, and only used, for the birth of a child from its mother; it has no other meaning. Imagine the motherly tenderness of this metaphor. Can it be used by accident? Does it not suggest the words: "Can a woman forget her sucking child that she should not have compassion upon the son of her womb?" Can Infinite Mind forget the individual life-centre which has come forth from its creative thought-womb? You say this is emotion, this is sentiment. Quite so; that is exactly what is needed; our relations to Originating Mind are too formal, too cold, too perfunctory, too theological.

The Mother-Soul, _apekúêsen_, "brought us forth," "bore us," body-formed us, that by separation we might come to know our Parentage as we could never have known it if we had remained in the womb of Creative Mind, just as between human child and mother there can be no conscious cognizing intercourse till they are separated.

I pray that I may realize how profoundly this inspired metaphor of St. James reaches into the deep things of God. It proves that the irrevocability of Divine Immanence in man is not the product of human speculation, but an authoritative revelation. As the child in the womb receives the nature of the mother, and is born into the world bearing that nature, part of the mother, a repetition of the mother, so have we come into this world with a Divine nature within us, which is our real self, our eternal humanity. It is true for us, when it is not yet true to us, that we are the offspring of the Infinite Parent-Spirit by a process more intimate than anything implied by the word "creation."

What a glorious confidence ought to be inspired by this assurance! How it ought to alter our outlook upon life! The nature and perfections of God, as Omnipotent Love and Wisdom, are germinally within us, and are gradually advancing mankind, by an agency ultimately irresistible, to a more and ever more perfect condition. Based on this proposition of St. James, final restitution stands upon an impregnable foundation; the terrifying problem of evil, while it remains as an urgent motive for action, loses its power to perplex. As an Infinite Motherliness is the sole producing agent of all that is, and as all that is must have been in the thought-womb of Infinite Motherliness before coming into existence, the whole mystery of the dark side of life must be within the purpose of the eternal order, and there can be no independent rival to the Author of the Universe. Again, this amazing revelation of the Creative Motherliness should help us in realizing the oneness of humanity. It should stimulate us to generous strivings for better social conditions and more brotherly relations between man and man. It ought to make impossible the international jealousies which provoke taunts and defiances between European nations which ultimately issue in the misery and wickedness of war. Above all, it should impress upon us the dignity, the priceless dignity, of every individual human life, as drawn directly from the Originating Spirit.

I desire to apply this thought. I will take myself. I ask, "What am I?" Now, don’t imagine that you honour God by calling yourself a poor worm and a miserable sinner, whatever you may justly feel; it is gravely discourteous to the Supreme Source of your being. Say: "I am a human life, a personal spirit, body-formed into terrestrial birth. I recognize that I have a double consciousness, that two distinct planes of thought and initiative compose my life: the one is the natural or the animal man, the product of evolution through the operation of the Cosmic Mind; the other is the spiritual man, the essential inner nature, equipped with all the potentialities and the qualities of the Infinite Creative Mother-Soul. In the recognition of this duality lies the wisdom of life; in the reconciliation of these two planes of consciousness lies the battle of life; and in the supremacy of the higher plane of consciousness lies the victory of life. I recognize my limitations, and I regretfully acknowledge my many defeats."

Upon what does victory depend? It depends upon our use of our will-power in constraining our mental faculty to rise above the mere sense-impressions of our lower consciousness, and intensify upon the eternal fact of our oneness with the Infinite Life from which we have come forth as a child comes from its mother’s womb. St. James puts it perfectly clearly. He does not perplex us with theological casuistry or schemes of salvation; he just bids us use our Divine heredity. He says Infinite Mind has given birth to you by the Logos, the Word. Creative Motherliness has "brought you forth (_apekúêsen_) by the Logos," wherefore "receive with meekness the ’Logos Emphutos,’ the ’inborn Word,’ ’the hereditary Divine nature,’ which is able to save your souls." "With meekness"—that is, with receptivity. Mentally practise Divine self-realization, become conscious that the Logos, which is the mystic Christ, the image and nature of the Mother-God, is within you, "inborn." Be receptive to its promptings, acknowledge it, recognize it, realize it, appeal to it; put away purposely what St. James calls "all superfluity of naughtiness"—an expression which each must interpret for himself. Strengthen it by inhibiting wrong thoughts, by secret communion with it, and it will rapidly evolve, and as it grows it will externalize in the conditions of your life, it will become more and more a power in the affairs of your daily duty, it will build up your character, it will bring you into right relations with your fellow-men, and make you kind to others. As it awakens the nature of the Infinite Mother-Soul within you it will teach you what is God’s ideal of humanity—namely, that God’s true son is not one perfect man, though one perfect Man alone realized the ideal, but the whole multitudinous race of men, of which race God is the Father, the Mother, the Soul, the Glory, and the Eternity.

Now, how do I know this? How can I be certain of this? How do I know that the "Logos Emphutos," the inherited nature from the prolific Mother-Spirit, is within me and "able to save my soul"? I might have arrived at the knowledge by induction, as did Charles Kingsley when he said that logic required him to believe that there must have been, or will be, an Incarnation. I arrive at it by Revelation; the central figure of the Christian Revelation proves to me incontestably the fact.

This "Logos Emphutos," this inborn Word, this hereditary witness of the close and tender relationship between ourselves and Creative Motherliness, this "urge" of the Creative Mother-Soul, is a universal principle. It is not easy to define it; but what existence is to being, what the spoken word is to thought, what the lightning-flash is to electricity, that the Logos is to the Creative Mother-Soul—its expression, its activity, its self-utterance. The Logos is the quality of Originating Mind that forms, upholds, sustains all that is. "Without the Logos was not anything made that was made"; "in the Logos all things consist." "By the Logos," says St. Paul, "the heavens were made." The Logos is the one life in all, the cosmic mind in all—in the mineral, the crystal, the lower order of animal life, and above all, in its highest function, it is the dominating power in the soul of man, and in the angels and archangels of the higher spheres of light and life.