Part 8 (1/2)

December 9th. In the spiritual world the subtle influences which form and transform the soul are Heredity and Environment. And here especially, where all is invisible, where much that we feel to be real is yet so ill-defined, it becomes of vital practical moment to clarify the atmosphere as far as possible with conceptions borrowed from the natural life. Natural Law, p. 256.

December 10th. These lower correspondences are in their nature unfitted for an Eternal Life. Even if they were perfect in their relation to their Environment, they would still not be Eternal. However opposed, apparently, to the scientific definition of Eternal Life, it is yet true that perfect correspondence with Environment is not Eternal Life. . . .

An Eternal Life demands an Eternal Environment. Natural Law, p. 245.

December 11th. On what does the Christian argument for Immortality really rest? It stands upon the pedestal on which the theologian rests the whole of historical Christianity--the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. Natural Law, p. 234.

December 12th. The soul which has no correspondence with the spiritual environment is spiritually dead. It may be that it never possessed . . .

the spiritual ear, or a heart which throbbed in response to the love of G.o.d. If so, having never lived, it cannot be said to have died. But not to have these correspondences is to be in the state of Death. To the spiritual world, to the Divine Environment, it is dead--as a stone which has never lived is dead to the environment of the organic world. Natural Law, p. 177.

December 13th. The humanity of what is called ”sudden conversion” has never been insisted on as it deserves. . . . While growth is a slow and gradual process, the change from Death to Life, alike in the natural and spiritual spheres, is the work of the moment. Whatever the conscious hour of the second birth may be--in the case of an adult it is probably defined by the first real victory over sin--it is certain that on biological principles the real turning-point is literally a moment.

Natural Law, p. 184.

December 14th. Christ says we must hate life. Now, this does not apply to all life. It is ”life in this world” that is to be hated. For life in this world implies conformity to this world. It may not mean pursuing worldly pleasures, or mixing with worldly sets; but a subtler thing than that--a silent deference to worldly opinion; an almost unconscious lowering of religious tone to the level of the worldly-religious world around; a subdued resistance to the soul's delicate promptings to greater consecration, out of deference to ”breadth” or fear of ridicule. These, and such things, are what Christ tells us we must hate. For these things are of the very essence of worldliness. ”If any man love the world,” even in this sense, ”the love of the Father is not in him.” Natural Law, p.

197.

December 15th. To correspond with the G.o.d of Science, the Eternal Unknowable, would be everlasting existence; to correspond with ”the true G.o.d and Jesus Christ,” is Eternal Life. The quality of the Eternal Life alone makes the heaven; mere everlastingness might be no boon. Even the brief span of the temporal life is too long for those who spend its years in sorrow. Natural Law, p. 220.

December 16th. The relation between the spiritual man and his Environment is, in theological language, a filial relation. With the new Spirit, the filial correspondence, he knows the Father--and this is Life Eternal.

This is not only the real relation, but the only possible relation: ”Neither knoweth any man the Father save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal Him.” And this on purely natural grounds. Natural Law, p. 229.

December 17th. Communion with G.o.d--can it be demonstrated in terms of Science that this is a correspondence which will never break? We do not appeal to Science for such a testimony. We have asked for its conception of an Eternal Life; and we have received for answer that Eternal Life would consist in a correspondence which should never cease, with an Environment which should never pa.s.s away. And yet what would Science demand of a perfect correspondence that is not met by this, THE KNOWING OF G.o.d? There is no other correspondence which could satisfy one at least of the conditions. Not one could be named which would not bear on the face of it the mark and pledge of its mortality. But this, to know G.o.d, stands alone. Natural Law, p. 220.

December 18th. The misgiving which will creep sometimes over the brightest faith has already received its expression and its rebuke: ”Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?”

Shall these ”changes in the physical state of the environment” which threaten death to the natural man, destroy the spiritual? Shall death, or life, or angels, or princ.i.p.alities, or powers, arrest or tamper with his eternal correspondences? ”Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor princ.i.p.alities, nor powers, 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 G.o.d, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Rom. viii, 35-39. Natural Law, p. 230.

December 19th. ”We find that man, or the spiritual man, is equipped with two sets of correspondences.” One set possesses the quality of everlastingness, the other is temporal. But unless these are separated by some means the temporal will continue to impair and hinder the eternal.

The final preparation, therefore, for the inheriting of Eternal Life must consist in the abandonment of the non-eternal elements. These must be unloosed and dissociated from the higher elements. And this is effected by a closing catastrophe--Death. Natural Law, p. 248.

December 20th. Heredity and Environment are the master-influences of the organic world. These have made all of us what we are. These forces are still ceaselessly playing upon all our lives. And he who truly understands these influences; he who has decided how much to allow to each; he who can regulate new forces as they arise, or adjust them to the old, so directing them as at one moment to make them cooperate, at another to counter act one another, understands the rationale of personal development. Natural Law, p. 255.

December 21st. It is the Law of Influence that WE BECOME LIKE THOSE WHOM WE HABITUALLY ADMIRE. Through all the range of literature, of history, and biography this law presides. Men are all mosaics of other men. There was a savour of David about Jonathan and a savour of Jonathan about David. Jean Valjean, in the masterpiece of Victor Hugo, is Bishop Bienvenu risen from the dead. Metempsychosis is a fact. The Changed Life, p. 31.

December 22d. Can we shut our eyes to the fact that the religious opinions of mankind are in a state of flux? And when we regard the uncertainty of current beliefs, the war of creeds, the havoc of inevitable as well as of idle doubt, the reluctant abandonment of early faith by those who would cherish it longer if they could, is it not plain that the one thing thinking men are waiting for is the introduction of Law among the Phenomena of the Spiritual World? When that comes we shall offer to such men a truly scientific theology. And the Reign of Law will transform the whole Spiritual World as it has already transformed the Natural World. Natural Law, Preface, p. ix.

December 23d. We have Truth in Nature as it came from G.o.d. And it has to be read with the same unbia.s.sed mind, the same open eye, the same faith, and the same reverence as all other Revelation. All that is found there, whatever its place in Theology, whatever its orthodoxy or heterodoxy, whatever its narrowness or its breadth, we are bound to accept as Doctrine from which on the lines of Science there is no escape. Natural Law, Preface, p. xi.