Law of the Spirit of Life

“ We do not realize the true function of the three lower principles of our nature, viz.: Vital Spirit, etheric body, and outward form; the function of which is to give concentration to the current of spiritual life flowing from the Eternal Spirit, and thus enable the undifferentiated Life to differentiate itself into Individual Consciousness, which will be able to specialize the action of the Law into higher manifestations than it can produce without the co-operation of Personality. ”

“ Can we honestly say that young people reared in them are likely to acquire this temper of heaven? Yet we have been given the secret, the law of spiritual life; and psychologists would agree that it represents too the most favourable of conditions for a full psychic life, the state in which we have access to all our sources of power. ”

“ For,—and this is the substance of my belief,—my will, absolutely by itself, and without the intervention of any instrument that might weaken its expression, shall act in a perfectly congenial sphere,—reason upon reason, spirit upon spirit;—in a sphere to which nevertheless it does not give the law of life, activity, and progress, but which has that law in itself;—therefore, upon self-active reason. But self-active reason is will. The law of the super-sensual world must, therefore, be a Will:—A Will which operates purely as will; ”

“ But so surely as we believe the laws of the spiritual life to have been revealed to us, so, not less, surely, though without the same sanctity, have been revealed the laws by which body, mind, and moral nature flourish or decay. ”

“ The heart and will are intensely determined to do wrong, while the conscience is unyielding and uncompromising, and utters its denunciations, and thunders its warnings. And what a dreadful destiny awaits that soul, in whom this conflict and collision between the dictates of conscience, and the desires of the heart, is to be eternal! for whom, through all eternity, the holy law of God, which was ordained to life peace and joy, shall be found to be unto death and woe immeasurable! ”

“ All the distinctly religious interests and forces, reverence of Deity, repentance before God, gratitude, faith, love, hope, spiritual joy, aspiration, desire of immortality and endless blessedness, thus brought into concurrent action with the Christianly enlightened natural conscience, bring an immensely advantageous condition for the actualization of the ethical life. ”

“ This one clearly recognised Life now becomes thoroughly established in the Religious Man, reposing upon itself, sufficient for itself, and blessed in itself;—dwelling there with unspeakable Love; with inconceivable rapture bathing his whole being in the original fountain of all Life, and flowing forth with him, and inseparable from him, in one eternal stream. What the Moral Man calls Duty and Law,—what is this to him? The most spiritual bloom of Life,—his element in which alone he can breathe. ”

“ These are their religious principles:—That the soul of man is immortal, and that God of His goodness has designed that it should be happy; and that He has, therefore, appointed rewards for good and virtuous actions, and punishments for vice, to be distributed after this life. ”

“ It forbids spiritual wickedness, heart-murder, and heart-adultery. It commands spiritual service, requires the heart, obliges us to worship God in the spirit. It is a spiritual law, for it is given by God, who is a Spirit and the Father of spirits; it is given to man, whose principal part is spiritual; the soul is the best part, and the leading part of the man, and therefore the law to the man must needs be a law to the soul. ”

“ Such is the holy will, and the perfect heart, which fallen man must obtain in order to be fit for heaven. To this complexion must he come at last. And now we ask: Can the law generate all this excellence within the human soul? ”

“ Again teaching us that love is the vital and pervading principle of the whole of the inspired Word. And if such be the revealed law of life for men on earth, must it not also be the law of life for those in heaven? ”

“ We would not ask thee to change thy law, the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever, but pray that ourselves may accord our dispositions to thine own infinite excellence, and order the outgoings and incomings of our heart in such wisdom that our lives shall continually be in accordance with thy life, and that thy will shall be the law of our spirits, and thy love prevail for ever in our hearts. ”

“ But I shall direct my discourse to those who hope for the enjoyment of eternal life with God by means of the soul or mind, whether they choose to call it a spiritual substance, an intelligent spirit, holy and blessed, or a living soul, or the heavenly and indestructible offspring of a divine and incorporeal nature, or by whatever name they designate the spiritual nature of man. And they are rightly persuaded that those who live well shall be blessed, and the unrighteous shall all suffer everlasting punishments. ”

“ Thus then, seen in the light of this our result, the human tasks that we sketched in our ethical discussion find their place in the objective world. Now, and in fact for the first time, we can see what we were really trying to accomplish through our ideal. We were trying in a practical way to realize what we now perceive to be the fullness of the life of God. So that the one highest activity, in which all human activities were to join, is known to us now as the progressive realization by men of the eternal life of an Infinite Spirit. ”

“ As reasonable men, I have appealed to you: what is your decision? What does reason, what does conscience, what does self-interest say? You would not be listless if I were to speak to you of your property, your health, your reputation, but now I speak to you of your souls—your precious, immortal souls—your own, your greatest good—a good that you are in danger of losing—the good whose loss is overwhelming and irretrievable. They are in your hands for life or for death. ”

“ It expresses our duty, in accordance with the requirements of universal order, to subordinate the gratification of any part of our being to that of the whole of our being, to forego the good of any portion of our life in deference to that of all our life, to renounce any happiness of the individual which conflicts with the welfare of the race, to hold the spiritual atom in absolute abeyance to the spiritual universe, to sink self in God. If a man believe in no future life, is he thereby absolved from the moral law? ”

“ To these Selves, from their definition as moral beings, expressive of really distinct elements of the Absolute Will, I have assigned a nature which forbids us to conceive their lives as limited by any definite temporal boundaries. In this sense, while distinctly and deliberately declining to define the concrete nature, or contents, or temporal relations, of any individual immortal life, I have declared that what tradition has called eternal life positively belongs to the moral individual. ”

“ But in all that pertains to the emotional, the devotional, and especially to the moral side of religion, we are far behind them. The animating spirit of life, under the predominating influence of the religious sentiment, was, as we have seen, a conscientious endeavor to live, in all ways, a life of purity, of virtue, and of implicit obedience to the highest dictates of truth, according to the understanding of truth which then prevailed. ”

“ I am not pleased with myself if I imbibe and cherish death and destruction; but let me cherish life and salvation, that that promotes the happiness of mankind, and life, peace, and tranquility within myself and all around me, and I shall have my own approval and the approval and blessing of the Lord whether he tells me so, in so many words, or not.
I am under obligation to take a course which will sustain life within myself and others, on rational principles, without any special manifestation from God. ”

“ The great need of the soul, then, is the need of this permanent principle, called righteousness, on which it may stand securely and restfully amid the tempest of earthly existence, no more bewildered, and whereon it may build the mansion of a beautiful, peaceful, and perfect life. ”

“ There comes, with this epoch-making experience, a sense of freedom not known before, a power of control over the body and its appetites, an illumination of the intellect, a new sensitiveness of conscience to the meaning of sin, an extraordinary expansion of the vision of the goal of life—which is a full-grown man in Christ,—and an apprehension of the gift of the Spirit sufficient for the achievement of that goal. ”

“ Are you ready to adopt the will of God as your rule of duty? You must do it, or you can never be a new creature. Heaven and hell turn on this pivot. Let God’s will govern; and holiness, heaven, peace in life, triumph in death, and joys, which eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived, are yours. Follow your own will, in opposition to that of God, and you shut yourself out from Heaven, cut yourself off from all holy affections, and poison the fountains of life in your soul. ”

“ Forget not— it is your personal faith in the exceedingly great and precious promises of God that ensures your becoming partakers of the divine nature. Thus by your faith and the spirit’s transformation, you become in reality the temples of God, and his spirit actually dwells within you. If, then, the spirit dwells within you, you are no longer bondslaves of the flesh but free and liberated sons of the spirit. The new law of the spirit endows you with. the liberty of self-mastery in place of the old law of the fear of self-bondage and the slavery of self-denial. ”

“ Onu.—Allowing the perfection of your moral scheme of religion and its fitness for the nature of man, I find it impossible to believe the primary doctrines on which this scheme is founded. You make the Divine Mind, the creator of infinite worlds, enter into the form of a man born of a virgin, you make the eternal and immortal God the victim of shameful punishment and suffering death on the cross, recovering His life after three days, and carrying His maimed and lacerated body into the heaven of heavens. ”

“ This power is our own individual property, and we shall be brought into judgment for the manner in which we use it, and for all our actions in the flesh. Thirty year's experience has taught me that every moment of my life must be holiness to the Lord, resulting from equity, justice, mercy, and uprightness in all my actions, which is the only course by which I can preserve the Spirit of the Almighty to myself. What is your experience? It is the same as my own. You cannot constantly be sinning a little and repenting, and retain the Spirit of the Lord as your constant companion. ”

“ This inward life and spiritual appreciation do not give any ground for relaxing the moral obligations of life. No fulfilling of the law by Christ, no vanishing of the outward and temporal, furnish any excuse to us for slacking a jot or tittle of anything which belongs to the inherent nature of moral goodness. ”

“ When we pass into the spirit world we shall possess a measure of this power. Here, we are continually troubled with ills and ailments of various kinds. In the spirit world we are free from all this and enjoy life, glory, and intelligence; and we have the Father to speak to us, Jesus to speak to us, and angels to speak to us, and we shall enjoy the society of the just and the pure who are in the spirit world until the resurrection. ”

“ I want to see that eternal principle of life dwelling within us which will exalt us eternally in the presence of our Father and God. If you wish to retain your present identity in the morn of the resurrection, you must so live that the principle of life will be within you as a well of water springing up unto eternal life. ”

“ The human souls that came forth from God, with God-given freedom of will, were restored to the orderly life into which they were created, free, as reason developed, to select, unbiassed by the intrusion of disorderly spiritual spheres, the paths of life in which they would move through the world. ”

“ Have you even brought your intellect to bear upon this first law of human life, and determined for yourself whether it is the case or not that man’s life, in order to be profitable, joyful, and abiding, must be lived in God? ”

“ The phrase "natural law in the spiritual world" means that the consequences following right and wrong are as inevitable and essential in the realm of spirit as in that of matter.
The progress of the soul is dependent on the realization that there is a moral quality in thoughts, emotions, choices; that the consequences following them grow out of them as flowers from seed, and that they determine not only the character but the happiness and welfare of the one exercising them. ”

“ Since all happiness flows from obeying, and all pain from violating, the LAWS OF OUR BEING, to know our own selves is to know these laws, and becomes the first step in the road of their obedience, which is life. ”

“ To build the individual spiritual sense, conscious of only health, holiness, and Heaven, on the foundations of an Eternal Mind, which is conscious of sickness, sin, and death, is a moral impossibility ”

“ Indeed, I must have the religion of principle; that of mere form has no life, no power; it throws out no attractions; it touches not the heart to excite its affections; it does not bring me into contact with a living Saviour; nor does it inspire me with a hope full of immortality. ”

“ Here, too, are ample provisions to meet all future wants—moral means to restore the wandering, to recover the spiritually faint, to refresh and fortify their souls to sustain the conflict with temptation, to inspire the heart with religious joy, to nourish that spiritual life which has dawned in their souls. ”

“ The power of the soul is no longer neglected but is saved for actual use in the realization of health, freedom and mastery throughout your entire being; thus you gain emancipation for every element in your being, and that is the salvation we seek. We are saved in the true sense of the term when the divine power of the soul reigns so completely throughout the mind and the body that all the ills of life are completely banished from mind and body. ”