Rebirth

“ Thus we see that the terms "creation," and "to create," have, in Scripture phraseology, a spiritual meaning. This renewal of the heart, this cleansing of the spirit, this becoming a new man, was termed by our Lord, the rebirth or what is the same, regeneration. We have been created or born naturally; we are to be created or born spiritually. Until this second or spiritual birth takes place no man has fulfilled his destiny. We have been created natural beings to live on the earth, we are to be created spiritual beings to live there unto the Lord. ”

“ The striving for rebirth might be assumed to have adopted these expressions or symbols on account of the concrete way in which the human mind knows birth to take place. The tendency for concrete expression of abstract notions causes the desire for another existence to appear, first as a rebirth fantasy and then as a return to the mother's body. ”

“ Only three noteworthy theories have been offered as solutions to the riddle of existence and in order that the reader may be able to make the important choice between them, we will state briefly what they are and give some of the arguments which lead us to advocate the doctrine of Rebirth as the method which favors soul-growth and the ultimate attainment of perfection, thus offering the best solution to the problem of life. ”

“ In the rapid review we are now about to make of the religion and philosophy of the past, we shall find that, under many and divers names and veils, the doctrine of Rebirths has been taught from the farthest antiquity right up to the present time. ”

“ Thus does regeneration become a work of orderly progress and successive growth. Guided by the Lord, it is brought forward under his never ceasing energies. It is begun in chaos and ends in the glorious likeness of Divinity. This, and manifold more, the parable of the Creation sets forth, in its beautiful symbols, concerning the beginnings of the soul, its progress through the stages of its advancing career, the nature of each successive state, and the quality of its celestial outcomes. ”

“ What those years have done for the regeneration of the soul will appear, now that its inmost state is translucent, no longer concealed by the expediencies learned of intellectual prudence. When the second childhood is true and genial, the work of regeneration approaches its consummation; and the light of heaven is reflected from silver hairs, as if one stood nearer to Paradise, and caught reflections of the resurrection glories. ”

“ In our present state, what idea can we form of the condition of the soul, and the mode of its subsistence, when dislodged from the body? Nay, what idea can we form of the natural body developing into the spiritual, and all its rudimental powers unfolding in their perfection? Or, to speak more accurately and more scripturally, what idea can we form of the resurrection body, awaking from its long sleep in the dust, re-organized and re-invested—with new beauties, perhaps new organs, new senses, new faculties, all glorious in immortality? ”

“ At this instant, by that divine miracle of resurrection she began to live anew—to live not her old life alone, but a life that was larger and fuller than the one which had been hers. She began to live anew in herself as well as in the sky and in humanity and in the songs of birds; and in this ecstasy of recovered life, she felt her soul to be of one substance, not only with God and the stars, but with the flower and the child in the street as well. ”

“ As we had occasion to see in our last lecture, the fifth day of creation represented that stage of regeneration where, under the influence of a deep faith in the Lord and an earnest love for Him, the beginnings of a truly spiritual life are made. The earth was said to bring forth the living soul as a symbol of the mind making, in a spiritual sense, its first living efforts. In other words, the soul became, in a strict sense, truly living for the first time. ”

“ The imagery is distinct and majestic; the prophecy, such as poets love to dwell upon, the Regeneration of Mankind—and that regeneration reflecting back splendour on the foregone time, from which it inherits so much of intellectual wealth, and memory of past virtuous deeds, as must render the possession of happiness and peace of tenfold value. ”

“ When I am trodden quite out, quite, quite out every vestige gone, then I am here risen, and setting my foot on another world risen, accomplishing a resurrection risen, not born again, but risen, body the same as before, new beyond knowledge of newness, alive beyond life proud beyond inkling or furthest conception of pride living where life was never yet dreamed of, nor hinted at here, in the other world, still terrestrial myself, the same as before, yet unaccountably new. ”

“ Such is, and such ought to be, the cycle and succession of existence. Such is the cycle and revolution of the material world.
It is the same with the spiritual cycles of the Prophets—that is to say, the day of the appearance of the Holy Manifestations is the spiritual springtime; it is the divine splendor; it is the heavenly bounty, the breeze of life, the rising of the Sun of Reality. Spirits are quickened; hearts are refreshed and invigorated; souls become good; existence is set in motion; human realities are gladdened, and grow and develop in good qualities and perfections. ”

“ We fight not for ourselves but for growth—growth that goes on for ever. To-morrow, whether we live or die, growth will conquer through us. That is the law of the spirit for ever more. To grow according to the will of God! To grow out of these cracks and crannies, out of these shadows and darknesses, into greatness and the light! ”

“ It carries us not in the currents of temporal things, but it points to those of true eternal interest. Our allotted destiny is the regeneration of the soul. We were born to that end; we are to live in the light of that thought; we are to pass on with all preparations made. And will God set us down to an imperfect lesson in geology when the eternal welfare of the soul is at stake? ”

“ For all things depend on this; all joys, all delights, all happiness, all that is worth existing for, through the ages of eternity, depend on this,—our regeneration. For regeneration is the being brought into heavenly order ”

“ How noble, how sacred, how wonderful is life! A few years, comparably brief as moments, on the mortal plane of existence, to be followed by an endless Eternity, spent in gleaning wisdom and happiness from the rich fields of infinite progression. ”

“ And the immortals to his spirit gave
⁠Their deeper knowledge and their scorn of death.
So evermore with energy and joy,
⁠He followed Truth:
Still for the message and the vision sought,
Still to the temple of her worship brought
⁠The imagination of unaging youth,
And in its largeness ever viewing life,
⁠Perceived its goal
To be beyond the bounds of space or time. ”

“ REGENERATION, a new birth; that work of the Holy Spirit by which we experience a change of heart. It is expressed in Scripture by being born again, John iii, 7; born from above; being quickened, Eph. ii, 1; by Christ being formed in the heart, Gal. iv, 19; by our partaking of the divine nature, 2 Peter i, 4. The efficient cause of regeneration is the divine Spirit. That man is not the author of it, is evident from John i, 12, 13 ”

“ Finish, then, thy new creation;
pure and spotless let us be.
Let us see thy great salvation
perfectly restored in thee;
changed from glory into glory,
till in heaven we take our place,
till we cast our crowns before thee,
lost in wonder, love, and praise.
This work was published before January 1, 1928, and is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago. ”

“ Progress — growth and expansion — 'through the increasing ages' is what the soul is capable of and hankers after ; and to stop short of the everlasting is virtually to renounce the eternal God. Here the precept of the wise and the holy, the outcome of profound spiritual experience, corroborates the hopes and the longings of our own souls. ”

“ Weep not for your dead children so, Death the renewal is of life. The dead, dry seed lies hid from view, To burst forth to new glorious bloom; The former beauty to resume, The ancient harvest to renew. O earth! in thy soft bosom keep, And quicken with new warmth this clay, This sacred frame to rest we lay. It smiles in thy embrace to sleep. 'Twas once the immortal spirit's cell. ”

“ And it was in that aspect mainly that the earliest preachers dealt with it. Then, as reflection and the guidance of God's good Spirit led them to understand more and more of the treasure which lay in the fact, it came to be to them, next, a pattern, and a pledge, and a prophecy of their own resurrection. The doctrine of man's immortality and the future life was evolved from it, and was felt to be implied in it. And then it came to be, thirdly and lastly, a symbol or figure of the spiritual resurrection and newness of life into which all they were born who participated in His death. ”

“ In the eternity of the past, upon the personalization of the Infinite Spirit the divine personality cycle becomes perfect and complete. The God of Action is existent, and the vast stage of space is set for the stupendous drama of creation—the universal adventure—the divine panorama of the eternal ages. ”

“ But what are those huge, unmoving monuments of man's ambition, compared to this grandest of creation's mysteries, whose deep and thundering voice is repeating, day after day and night after night,—"forever and ever," and whose majestic motion, rushing onward, plunging downward, never pausing, never resting, is emblematic of the sublime march of Deity, from everlasting to everlasting,—from eternity to eternity? ”

“ His to-morrows are as seeds which shall germinate, bursting into beauty and potency of life, and no doubt shall shake his trust, no uncertainty rob him of repose. The Present is his, only in the immortal Present does he live, and it is as the eternal vault of blue above which looks down silently and calmly, yet radiant with purity and light, upon the upturned and tear-stained faces of the centuries. ”

“ Few—no such days as those seem now ever to be born. Sometimes we indeed gaze through the face into the heart of the sky, and for a moment feel that the ancient glory of the heavens has returned on our dream of life. ”

“ The soul, in the causal body, drinks of the river of Life, and from its sleep-giving draught forms the sheaths of the new incarnation, the new bodies that altogether blot out the memory of the past; it is, in very truth, a new-born babe who appears on earth. ”

“ Growth—development—the going on to perfection, are the laws of life; and more emphatically so as appertaining to the life of the human soul. That life, in all its high activities, burns still in the soul of your lost darling, and he will grow, in the world of angelic spirits to which our Father has removed him, up to the full stature of an angel, a glorified form of intelligence and wisdom. ”

“ Long ages have flown by since then, and ever in yet higher glory hath thy new creation grown, and thousands from out of pain and misery have, full of faith and longing, followed thee; roam with thee and the heavenly virgin in the realm of love, serve in the temple of heavenly Death, and are in eternity thine. ”

“ The seven days of creation were thus found to symbolize the seven stages of progress through which man passes in the regeneration. He is born merely natural and at first develops only his natural powers and mind. But it is also designed by his Creator that he shall become spiritual and develop his spiritual powers and mind. This development, always gradual and slow, is called in Scripture the regeneration.
At first, and before regeneration begins, we are in ignorance, or, at least, in non-acknowledgment of spiritual things. A little child knows nothing as to its spiritual nature. ”

“ The moist, crumbling soil beneath the man's body was opening itself—stirring, awakening, preparing, for the gigantic tasks of renewal, of re-creation, of conception and birth. An immense, powerful, impersonal life, the greatest Life of all, was going forward all about him. ”

“ The genesis of every soul lies back in the eternity past, beyond the horizon of our full comprehension, and what we call a beginning is as truly a consummation and an ending, just as mortal birth is at once the commencement of earth life and the termination of the stage of antemortal existence. ”

“ In the power of this risen self we stand with our faces upturned, with our whole life opened to God, and human effort, human growth, human hope, love, joy,--all are joined in the sense of Divine resurrection. ”

“ ETERNAL PROGRESS IN HEAVEN.
THAT change of mind and heart whereby a man is delivered from the bondage of selfish and worldly loves, and brought under the dominion of love to the Lord and the neighbor, is called regeneration. It is the soul's birth into a higher life, even the heavenly. ”

“ And thus you perish, from generation to generation. While all creation groans under its pollution; and sorrow and death, mourning and weeping, fill up the measure of the days of man. But O my soul, dwell no longer on this awful scene: let it suffice, to have discovered in some degree, what is lost. Let us turn our attention to what the Prophets have said should be restored. ”

“ Up to the rising stars I looked and cried,
‘There is no death! for year on year, re-born
I wake to larger life: to joy more great,
So many times have I been crucified,
So often seen the resurrection morn,
I go triumphant, though new Calvaries wait. ”

“ If you are spared till the time of old age, I trust you will be 'like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.' And if you should be removed in early life, you will be transplanted to that celestial paradise, where you will flourish in undecaying strength and glory for ever. ”

“ Go up like mist before the rising sun?
And in this single instance of our Lord
Arising from the grave, see all men rise,
And all men’s souls discovered in his soul,
Their quality and essence, strength made clear? ”