Spiritual knowledge

“ The same thing happens in the realm of spiritual light with respect to the sight of the soul, which is the understanding, and which this general and supernatural knowledge and light whereof we are speaking strikes so purely and simply. ”

“ If, however, an individual hath spiritual characteristics, and virtues that shine out, and his purpose in life be spiritual and his inclinations be directed toward God, and he also study other branches of knowledge—then we have light upon light:14 outer being luminous, his private character radiant, his heart sound, his thought elevated, his understanding swift, his rank noble. ”

“ We bow down to matter, and entertain finite thoughts of God, like the pagan idolater. We fear and obey what Idolatrous illusions. we consider a material body, more than we do a spiritual God. Modern knowledge, like the original Tree of Knowledge, multiplies our pains. ”

“ This is the wisdom and knowledge of God, which cleanse the understanding, and detach it from all accidents and fancies, and which clear it of the mist of ignorance. The soul is ever influenced by this desire of perfectly and clearly understanding the divine verities, and the more it loves the more it desires to penetrate them, and hence the third petition which it makes: "Let us enter into the heart of the thicket;" ”

“ Should some other Spirit be present, as is usual, the bewildered one may be instructed as to how to make a proper statement. Those who have made a study of the spiritual philosophy and phenomena possess some understanding of the process of communication between the two worlds, and though both their premises and conclusions may be faulty, such knowledge as they may have acquired will, when they exchange the physical for the spiritual, serve them well. ”

“ The word rendered “knowledge” is characteristic of these prison epistles, and always means “full knowledge,” the mature experience of the spiritual man. It is invariably [Pg 97] connected with God; it refers to the deep, growing, ripening consciousness which comes from personal fellowship with Him. Philosophy can only say “Know thyself,” but Scripture says, “Know God.” This is how wisdom and revelation become ours, and Christian history and experience testify abundantly to the simple yet remarkable fact of spiritual insight and moral understanding which are due solely to fellowship with God. ”

“ Then, since the order whereby the soul acquires knowledge is through forms and images of created things, and the natural way wherein it acquires this knowledge and wisdom is through the senses, it follows that, if God is to raise up the soul to supreme knowledge, and to do so with sweetness, He must begin to work from the lowest and extreme end of the senses of the soul, in order that He may gradually lead it, according to its own nature, to the other extreme of His spiritual wisdom, which belongs not to sense. ”

“ This happens occasionally to souls advanced, whom God favors in what they hear, or see, or understand — and sometimes without these or other means — with a certain profound knowledge, in which they feel or apprehend the greatness and majesty of God. ”

“ They long for some definite knowledge of the spiritual world, of the nature of heaven and hell, of the laws of the soul's higher life—a knowledge, in short, of that complete system of religious truth, of the very existence of which they are at present altogether ignorant. ”

“ The spiritual conflicts to which the knowledge of God gives rise in the inner life were the highest which the spirit knew and experienced in itself, and all other interests and knowledge were lightly esteemed. ”

“ Man can be raised therefore from natural knowledge into spiritual intelligence and on into celestial wisdom. From the two, intelligence and wisdom, he can look to the Lord, be conjoined with Him, and thereby live to eternity. ”

“ Second, the light of knowledge for the eyes of the understanding, in order to the enjoyment of spiritual life in a spiritual world. It is universally conceded that there are means provided in nature to meet man's physical wants and adaptations that manifest the wisdom that belongs to God ”

“ Spiritual understanding is the firmament that distinguishes between Truth and error, and the signification of the sun is Love. Remember that Divine Mind, not matter, creates all identities; and they are forms of thought, the ideas of Spirit, present to Mind only. ”

“ Spirit imparts the understanding which leads into all Truth. The Psalmist saith: “The Lord on high is Understanding. mightier than the noise of many waters, — yea, than the mighty waves of the sea.” Spiritual sight is the discernment of spiritual Good. Understanding is the line of demarcation between the real and unreal. It brings the things of Truth, Life, and Love into a demonstration, which gives the divine sense and spiritual signification of all things in Christian Science. ”

“ How, then, should we act on these facts? Plainly we must endeavor to draw in as much spiritual life as possible, and we must place our minds in any attitude which experience shows to be favorable to such indrawal. ”

“ I want the divine spirit to lead me deeply into all truths, for the knowledge and purity of God’s people’s minds and consciences, and to follow after righteousness in every sense—peace and joy as the happy consequence. ”

“ But from that Divine Love and Wisdom there proceed goodness and truth, which are spiritual heat and light: these flow from the Lord down into the heavens, and into the minds of angels there, and also into the minds of men on earth, giving light to the understanding and warmth to the heart. ”

“ When the spiritually minded dive deeply into the ocean of their meaning they bring to the surface the pearls of their inner significance. There is no greater pleasure than to study God’s Word with a spiritual mind.”
“The object of God’s teaching to man is that man may know himself in order to comprehend the greatness of God. ”

“ The spiritual idea of God coming to material beliefs, rebuking and destroying them, and bringing to light man's immortality; the mediator, or spiritual link in creation, which unites God and man in Divine Science; the idea of Truth; the loved of the Father; the idea of Principle, which overcomes the belief of sin, sickness, and death; the highest idea of God, reflected by man, of which the so-called material senses have taken cognizance. ”

“ What may the practical fruits for life have been, of such movingly happy conversions as those we heard of? With this question the really important part of our task opens, for you remember that we began all this empirical inquiry not merely to open a curious chapter in the natural history of human consciousness, but rather to attain a spiritual judgment as to the total value and positive meaning of all the religious trouble and happiness which we have seen. ”

“ Into his spiritual sight will come the Principles of the divine Life, and as he approaches them, their incomparable beauty and majestic symmetry will astonish his vision, and gladden his heart with a gladness hitherto unknown. ”

“ He finds this principle, as we have seen, in the Word of God, which is a divine reality, an eternal and self-existent activity, opening upward into all the resources of God, and at the same time forming the fundamental nature and ground-structure of the soul. ”

“ The good receive that Divine life, (for the Divine life, as before shown, is love and wisdom) into a mental organisation or form which is correspondent thereto; they receive that love or spiritual heat, and bring it forth again in the delicious fruits of good and benevolent actions; and they reflect that wisdom or spiritual light in the beautiful lights and colours of true, wise, and sparkling thoughts. ”

“ We are so accustomed to connect the spiritual with the ideal and invisible, that it will need time and thought and faith to realize how the physical and the sensible influence our spiritual life, and must be under the mastery and inspiration of God’s Spirit. ”

“ Then, know thou that the power of the Word of God is effective, both in the spirit and the body, and the influence of the spirit of god is predominant over the material as well as the essential and spiritual. ”

“ It is truly inspiring to note how emphatic is the concurrence of all the deepest and most circumspect contemporary Psychology, Epistemology, Ethics, and History and Philosophy of the Sciences and of Religion, in these general conclusions, which find, within the slow and many-sided growth and upbuilding of the spiritual personality, a true and necessary place and function for all the great and permanent capabilities, aspirations and energizings of the human soul. ”

“ Take the balance of the world from the Saints, and with all their learning—with all their vanity—with all their books, science, and education—and contrast it with the fountain of knowledge that God, angels, and the servants of God possess, and what are the world with all their boasted acquirements, when contrasted with these things? What do they understand about the principles by which man is to be exalted into the presence of God? ”

“ This direct influence of the spirit of God on the spirit of man, in conscience speaking to him of the moral law, through prophet and apostle declaring to us the great laws of spiritual life and the beauty of holiness,—this is what we call revelation. ”

“ The minds of the profoundest thinkers are sore perplexed as they contemplate the ocean of Thy knowledge, and the heaven of Thy wisdom, and the Luminary of Thy grace. How can he who is but a creation of Thy will claim to know what is with Thee, or to conceive Thy nature? ”

“ Be willing to believe that language, reason, spiritual insight, which is the reason elevated to the capacity of knowing God—be willing to believe that these have been gradual acquisitions to humanity, and the whole course of God’s Providence will at once stand out in a clearer, purer light. ”

“ So, the rich experiences of the religious consciousness seem to be resumed in these three outstanding types of spiritual awareness. The cosmic, ontological, or transcendent; finding God as the infinite Reality outside and beyond us. The personal, finding Him as the living and responsive object of our love, in immediate touch with us. The dynamic, finding Him as the power that dwells within or energizes us. These are not exclusive but complementary apprehensions, giving objectives to intellect feeling and will. ”

“ All exalted lives (spiritually) moving and living in similar planes of thought—born of their spiritual states—are attracted to each other in spirit life for the interchange of perceptions of Truth and bearing forward the work of illuminating such minds on Earth as are ready to receive along the lines of human progress and unfoldment, imparting “the things they are ready to know.” ”

“ By what means then can a man keep his spiritual perception in full activity? And is there any test by which a man may know whether his spiritual faculty is in contact with the source of all spiritual life and is deriving from that source the full flow of spiritual power? Revelation, if it tells us anything, ought to tell us this. ”

“ HE subject to which I invite your attention deeply concerns every one of us, both now and in the future; for the question is always being put, "What do the Scriptures teach concerning life in the Spiritual World?" and our lives here answer for us, day by day, what we understand their teaching to be. ”

“ In accordance with the popular point of view which, as I have said, is shared by great philosophers, a distinction is made between the spirit considered as will and the spirit regarded as intellect, or as consciousness, or as thought, or whatever term may be used to indicate the becoming aware of this spiritual activity. ”

“ It must be known, then, that, speaking broadly and in general terms, all these four apprehensions may be called visions of the soul; for we term the understanding of the soul also its sight. And since all these apprehensions are intelligible to the understanding, they are described, in a spiritual sense, as ‘visible.’ And thus the kinds of intelligence that are formed in the understanding may be called intellectual visions. ”

“ Our scientific interpretation of the ever-changing universe at last rests on ethical theistic faith, and the Christian revelation of divine love is responded to by the divine inspiration of God in Man, in the form of the spiritual Common Sense. ”

“ I exhort the brethren to seek unto the Lord for wisdom. If you cannot provide for your natural lives, how can you expect to have wisdom to obtain eternal lives? God has given you your existence—your body and spirit, and has blest you with ability, and thereby laid the foundation of all knowledge, wisdom, and understanding, and all glory and eternal lives. If you have not attained ability to provide for your natural wants, and for a wife and a few children, what have you to do with heavenly things? ”

“ This closing lecture, in which I am to deal with an aspect of spiritual life which we have everywhere in our discourse tacitly presupposed, but which now is to take its definitive place on our list of sources of religious insight, gives me my best opportunity to forestall useless misunderstandings by putting myself upon record as to the precise sense in which both the new source itself and everything else superhuman and supernatural to which religion has a rational right to appeal is, to my mind, a reality, and is a source or an object of human insight. ”

“ Further and detailed illustration of spiritual experience in itself, as a genuine and abiding human fact—a form of life—independent of the dogmatic interpretations put on it, will come up as we proceed. ”

“ This influence of individual subjects will be all the greater, of course, the nearer and more intimately they are united with the true centre of the universal spiritual life, the spirit of spirits, about which the universe gravitates, whether with or without the conscious will of the individual. ”