Spiritual law

“ We have no trials for sickness before the tribunal of divine Spirit, there Man is adjudged innocent of transgressing physical laws, because there is no spiritual statute relating thereto. Spiritual law is our only code; Life, Truth, and Love our government. ”

“ The ultimate, final authority in all matters of religion is the individual conscience, the inner light, that law written in the hearts of all men, aided and assisted by all the light of the present day, which includes all the light of the past that has come down to us, both in the Bible and from all other courses, history, science and the record of human experiences generally interpreted and applied by human reason. ”

“ I do not see how we can disparage the same law in the spiritual sphere, in virtue of which all spiritual beings are drawn to their own place, the heavenly-minded rising to the heights above, and the contrary sort sinking to the depths beneath. ”

“ If all else in our experience is governed by law, why should we believe that the spiritual part of life stands alone and is not affected by spiritual service? There is from analogy every reason to suppose, that those who are not prayed for suffer spiritual loss on that account. ”

“ The Epoch of the Exile: B.C. 586-536.. The period of the Restoration, from B.C. 536.. The Right Ethical and Spiritual Use of the Bible. We have here the simple, homely, prudential aspects of virtue, which have always been particularly powerful on certain ages and classes. These laws of life that work for our health and wealth loom, however, into mystic and sacred forms, as of the laws heavenly and eternal, whose "seat is the bosom of God." The Law thus mystic and sacred is seen to be both the law of nature and the law of the human soul. ”

“ There is no order, no organization; it cannot be reduced to a system, it is uncertainty. That is the difference between the two spiritual systems—yes, this is the higher order of spiritualism, to be led, governed and control [l] ed by law, and that, too, the law of heaven that governs and controls the Gods and the angels. There is no being in heaven that could endure there, that could abide the heavens unless he is sanctified, purified and glorified by law, and lives by law. But take the other party, and it is without law. ”

“ The main evidence of the Revelation to us consists in its harmony with the voice of the spiritual faculty within us; and the claim which it asserts to have come through teachers endowed with supernatural power is so far corroborative evidence as it falls in with the essential character of the Moral Law. That eternal law claims supremacy over the physical world and actually asserts it in the freedom of the human will ”

“ A little consideration of what takes place around us every day would show us, that a higher law than that of our will regulates events; that our painful labors are unnecessary, and fruitless; that only in our easy, simple, spontaneous action are we strong, and by contenting ourselves with obedience we become divine. Belief and love, — a believing love will relieve us of a vast load of care. ”

“ So the moral objective of every law is the same, viz., to bring out and develop the spiritual in man. To accomplish this great end it is necessary that the evil principles of a carnal, or fleshly nature, should be restrained by the penal sanctions of law, and the principles of man's higher nature brought out by its motives of good. Such being the nature of principles, and the facts of law, Paul says, “We know that the law is spiritual.” ”

“ And, on the other hand, the one object of this new spiritual agency, this life-giving Spirit, is to infuse the power of moral obedience, which the law could not give, into men's lives, 'that the requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk after the Spirit.' In this place, however, St. ”

“ Which, then, are we to accept as legitimate, and capable of producing the highest human good? We cannot obey both physiology and Spirit; for one is opposed to the other, and insists upon supremacy in the affections. It is impossible to work from two standpoints. If we attempt it, we shall presently “cleave to the one and despise the other.” Mind's control over the body must supersede the so-called laws of matter. Obedience to material law prevents full obedience to spiritual law, — the law that overcomes material conditions, and puts matter under the feet of Mind. ”

“ The true way of progress is to move up from fear and law to love and freedom, and from outward rules to the discovery of a central Light of God, a Heavenly Image, in the deeps of {286} one's own spirit—"real knowledge comes when the Day Star rises in the heart." [63] We pass from "notions" and "words" to an inward power and a bubbling joy. He calls the period of law and letter a "baby-stage," "when we see truth as blear-eyed beholders." Legal religion compared with the religion of the Spirit is "like a spark struck from flint at midnight" compared with the sun ”

“ Just to this, that the universe of mind, as the universe of matter, is governed by unwritten laws of God; that the child cannot blow soap-bubbles or think his flitting thoughts otherwise than in obedience to divine laws; that all safety, progress, and success in life come of obedience to law, to the laws of mental, moral, or physical science, or of that spiritual science which the Bible unfolds ”

“ And thirdly, this Revelation has not merely taken the form of a message or a series of messages, but has culminated in the appearance of a person who has always satisfied and still satisfies the conception formed by our spiritual faculty of a human representation of the divine law. Our Lord's life is that law translated into human action, and all the more because human faculties had not first framed the conception which He then came to fulfil, but He exhibited the ideal, and our conception rose as it were to correspond to it. ”

“ Laws of nature are laws of Spirit; but mortals
commonly recognize as law that which hides the power of
183:21 Spirit. Divine Mind rightly demands man's entire obe-
dience, affection, and strength. No reservation is made
for any lesser loyalty. Obedience to Truth gives man
183:24 power and strength. Submission to error superinduces
loss of power.
Belief and understanding
Truth casts out all evils and materialistic methods
183:27 with the actual spiritual law, - the law which gives
sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, voice
to the dumb, feet to the lame. ”

“ If God has made a supernatural revelation, we are bound by the natural law to believe it; and if he has instituted a church to represent the spiritual, or concreted the spiritual in a visible organism, with plenary authority to teach his word to all men and nations, and to declare and apply his law in the government of human affairs, we are bound to accept and obey her the moment the fact is brought sufficiently to our knowledge. ”

“ No theme of earth could be more so. All our earthly benefits, and no small part of our spiritual privileges and hopes are wrapped up in it. Religion cannot prosper, if Law is not potential—if the minds of the people are to be perpetually agitated, distracted and tormented, by confusion, fear and uncertainty!
I have stated these great principles, and made these general remarks upon the subject presented in our texts, on account of some recent teachings which have been put forth as religious—put forth in religious publications, by ministers of the gospel. ”

“ These institutions concur to proclaim the {72} great law of the spiritual world, that the heavenly grace which reforms the soul operates constantly in conjunction with second causes and ordinary means. In an accommodated, yet legitimate sense of the words, it may be affirmed of every such cause, that the "powers that be are of God;" there is no power but of his ordaining; and "whosoever resisteth (or would supersede) the power, resisteth the ordinance of God." ”

“ Social laws can be respected in the letter but not in the spirit, whereas spiritual laws must be accepted by the individual heart and practiced by the individual will in order to produce any useful result. ”

“ The formula of that law when applied to human relations, yields the specific moral commandments, but these commandments can never express the full content, can never convey the far off spiritual meanings of the supreme law itself. ”

“ So they would be like the heavens and the earth, and the laws thereof; like heat, gravitation, electricity, what not—always here, always working, always asserting themselves—with this difference, that when the physical laws of the heavens and the earth, which began in time, in time have perished, the spiritual laws of God’s kingdom, of Christ’s moral government of moral beings, shall endure for ever and for ever, eternal as that God whose essence they reflect. ”

“ The Law had said, ‘Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength;’ and could men have lived by law, ‘which is the strength of sin,’ verily righteousness and life would have been by that law. ”

“ Then these said, 'Rua talked sense in those days.' I saw there were two laws in the world—one, God's, the other, man's; the law that came from the Spirit, and the law that comes from man's mind. But it is God's law that should direct man. ”

“ We should let the Spirit of the Lord rule, and the law of God abide in our hearts. If we have the law of God dwelling in us, and if we practise righteousness and live by correct principles, we may have it, and will increase in light and in power with the heavens and with all good men. We should cherish that law, let it abide in us, govern and control us in all we do and say. Let us square our ideas, feelings, and spirits to it, and bear in mind that this is what preserves us and connects us together in the strait and narrow way that leads unto life eternal. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Is there, or is there not, a regular law, that is, a constant mode of operation, by which the religious wants are supplied, as by a regular law the body's wants are met? Now, animated by the natural trust, or faith, which is the spontaneous action of the religious Element, we should say: Yes, it must be so. God takes care of the sparrow's body; can he neglect Man's Soul? ”

“ I will write my laws on their hearts;—hence the prayer, Lord have mercy upon us and write all these thy laws on our hearts we beseech thee? The first law wrote on the heart is the moral law; this is sent home to shew us our sin and danger, to point out our state, and make us feel our guilt. By the law is the knowledge of sin; I had not known it but for the law; under this tuition we are, till Jesus proclaims liberty from its curse and bondage, then we are at liberty to serve him as sons and not as slaves, in imputed righteousness, in the spirit of holiness and in filial fear. ”

“ Those duties, which are of moral and natural obligation, are to take place even of those divine laws which are positive and ritual, much more of those impositions of men, and traditions of the elders, which make God's law stricter than he has made it. ”

“ The conception of an all-wise, all-good, and all-powerful personal Creator, in whose nature the eternal law is based, not being clear to their minds, so neither was the conception of sin, as the infringement of that law. The law of physical necessity took the place of the eternal moral law: that which man did he did by virtue of the physical constituents out of which he was composed. ”

“ The rules of conduct which right reason manifests to us, and conscience, the voice of God, commands us to follow, constitute the natural law, which is a participation in human reason of the eternal law of God, willing that right order should be observed, forbidding it to be disturbed. ”

“ Since the realm of Cause has failed to give us foothold, we must fall back upon the realm of Law—social, moral, and mental law, and not merely physical. Religion consists, not in answering certain questions, but in making men of a certain quality. ”

“ In the meantime, the non-believer, who looks for no supernatural aids, lays himself out to discover and conform to all the laws which regulate natural life--physical, mental, moral; all the laws of God, in fact, excepting those of the spiritual life which the believer appropriates as his peculiar inheritance. ”

“ I allude to the entire law of God, to all that the Lord our God has revealed, whether it pertains to the building of tabernacles or to the building of temples, or to faith, repentance, baptism, or the laying on of hands, or to the matrimonial relations, or to any doctrine or principle which relates to the salvation and glory of man.
I say as one, that I have no fellowship for that man who will permit any person, over whom he has any rightful control, to ridicule the law, or any portion of the law, of God. ”

“ II. After God had made all other creatures, He created man, male and female, with reasonable and immortal souls, endued with knowledge, righteousness, and true holiness, after His own image; having the law of God written in their hearts, and power to fulfil it: and yet under a possibility of transgressing, being left to the liberty of their own will, which was subject unto change. Beside this law written in their hearts, they received a command, not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil ”

“ We know it a great deal better than we practise it. A revelation from heaven that simply told me my duty would be surplusage. ‘If there had been a law that could have given life, righteousness had been by the law.’ We want a life, not a law, and the love of Christ brings the life to us. ”

“ Meaning.—The Positive Divine Law is the law added by God to the Natural Law, in order to direct the actions of man to his supernatural End, to assist him to a better observance of the Natural Law, and to perfect that which is wanting in human law. ”