Spiritual rebirth

“ We become regenerate, and thus fulfil the destiny for which we were born, by learning the truths He gives us in his Word and by living in their light. We become spiritual minded by coming into their spirit. ”

“ 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. ”

“ But it is indispensable to the soul's purification and complete development—indispensable to the unfolding of the highest and noblest life, or to the final victory of the spiritual over the natural man—inseparable from and indispensable to our regeneration. ”

“ Spiritual development germinates not from seed sown in the soil of earthly hopes; but when these decay, Soul propagates anew the higher joys of Spirit, that have no taint of earth. Each successive stage of experience unfolds new views of divine goodness and power. ”

“ 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? ”

“ 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. ”

“ Rough lads from the upland farms, shop-boys, mill-hands, strained forward, listening, thirsting, responding to every word.
Redemption—Salvation— the deliverance of the soul from itself—thither all religion comes at last, whether for the ranter or the philosopher. To the enriching of that conception, to the gradual hewing it out in historical shape, have gone the noblest poetry, the purest passion, the intensest spiritual vision of the highest races, since the human mind began to work. ”

“ Then shall the soul come forth with new strength; then shall the spirit arise with power, and the spiritual life within us shall begin its great eternal reign. And when the spirit begins its reign, the outer world takes upon itself the peace, the wholeness, the harmony and the perfection of the beautiful life within. Adversity disappears; wrongs give place to the purity of the life divine; imperfections are lost in the dimness of the past, and the richness that we find in the pastures green of realms sublime, is reproduced in personal existence. ”

“ Give attention, first, to the liberation and inspiration of man's spiritual nature. Next, illuminate the darkened human intellect, heal the souls of men, and emancipate their minds from age-old fears. And then, in accordance with your mortal wisdom, minister to the physical well-being and material comfort of your brothers in the flesh. Live the ideal religious life for the inspiration and edification of all your universe. ”

“ They believe the new birth to be that thorough change of heart which takes place when a man, wrought upon by divine truth and grace, forsakes his sins, or turns from his former life of worldliness and indifference toward God and the Saviour, and is drawn into fellowship with the Holy Spirit, and, thus quickened into new spiritual vitality, consecrates himself to a life of active goodness and piety. ”

“ He is a member of a new order; he is "heavenly," a creation "not made with hands," but wrought out of the substance of the spiritual world, and furnished with the inherent capacity of eternal duration, so that "mortality is swallowed up of life." ”

“ It is good that regeneration should progress in an orderly way. It is good to gain the knowledges, facts or truths with regard to the Lord, a spiritual world, a spiritual life and other spiritual things, so as to store them away in the memory. ”

“ Therefore, one who renounces this world must firmly believe that we ought in mind to pass even now through the Spirit into another age, and there to have our conversation and pleasure and enjoyment of spiritual good things, and to be born of the Spirit in the inner man, as the Lord said, He that believeth in Me, hath passed from death unto life. ”

“ When a divine spiritual illumination becomes manifest in the world of humanity, when divine instruction and guidance appear, then enlightenment follows, a new spirit is realized within, a new power descends, and a new life is given. ”

“ And when those who have followed Him in the regeneration, enter the spiritual world and come more fully into their life's love, they will receive in greater fullness than ever before the delights of that love. ”

“ It is a medium of those divine and heavenly influences, the reception of which is spiritual regeneration and eternal life. It is true, it comes to us clothed in words formed from the appearances of the external world. ”

“ But for him that conquered passion, and knew the truth, there was existence without the pain of desire, life without end, freedom from rebirth. The spirit of the sage becomes one with the Eternal; man becomes God. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It must be a process by which there is a constant progressive elevation from the natural to the spiritual; and, as far as possible, from the spiritual to the celestial. On this theme we are furnished with a world of new light in the revelations of the New Church. We there learn that the necessity of regeneration is not grounded solely in the fact, that man, as a fallen being, needs to have restored, by a new birth, the spiritual life which he lost by his apostasy. ”

“ The nature and genesis of the soul, its awakening to a consciousness of responsibility, the steps which it first takes on its upward pathway, the experience of moral failure, its second awakening, which is to an appreciation that the universe is on its side, the part of Christ in promoting its awakening, the sense of spiritual companionship by which it is ever attended, the discipline of struggle, and the nurture and culture best fitted to promote its growth. ”

“ But this abandonment of unholy desire is not a final process, it is the beginning of a regenerative and transforming power which, patiently employed, leads man to the clear and cloudless heights of spiritual enlightenment. ”

“ They insisted that the Eternal Spirit, who had been educating the race from its birth, bringing all things up to better, and who had used now one symbol and now another to fit the growing spiritual perception of men, is a real Presence in the deeps of men's {45} consciousness, and is ceaselessly voicing Himself there as a living Word whom it is life to obey and death to disregard and slight. ”

“ And thus do we learn to regard immortality as the fulfilment of prayer. For since the spiritual progress of mankind is achieved and sustained by an increasing consciousness of the glory of God, men must worship as the manifested Divinity of God the embodiments of those spiritual qualities which represent the ideals of their own desire. ”

“ The leaves upon the trees, standing here and there like sentinels, rustled gently in the day’s abiding round, yet there arose out of its vigor as it were the meaning of a rebirth, the resurrection of man, the inspiration of soul—an ever-present God, whom the grind of time or the compensations of living alone reveal. ”

“ When we think of that which is spiritual, everything in life begins to ascend towards the higher spiritual states; that is, when our thinking of the spiritual is inspired with a deep soul desire to rise and live on the heights. ”

“ So our souls must be altered and changed from their present condition to another condition, and a divine nature, and be made new instead of old—that is, good and kind and faithful, instead of bitter and faithless, and being thus made fit, be restored to the heavenly kingdom. ”

“ 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. ”

“ When once the inward core of things has been grasped and the transforming experience has occurred, making a new man—freed, illuminated, sin-delivered, with "God the Life of the life and the Soul of the soul" [25] —the outward forms and the external things will fall into the right perspective and will receive their proper emphasis. ”

“ What we are to expect is an awakening of the soul; the rediscovery and rehabilitation of the genuine and indestructible religious instinct. Such a religious revival will be something very different from what we have known under that name. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Taking life’s standard from life itself, we cannot admit its decisive constituent to lie in tension alone.” [356] And it is the Mystical mood that helps to establish this equilibrium.—And finally, deep peace, an overflowing possession and attainment, and a noble joy, are immensely, irreplaceably powerful towards growth in personality and spiritual fruitfulness. ”

“ It is, besides this, growth in spiritual strength and power, in knowledge, in holiness, in all the elements and forces of the divine life, until we reach a point of perfectness and blessedness described by the term heaven. ”

“ Certainly the desire for the preservation or recovery of youth, the attainment of immortality, the ensuring of a good harvest or even the felt need of spiritual regeneration are sufficiently strong and recurrent motives of the human mind to justify their frequent appearance in symbolic form. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It should be viewed not merely as yet another spiritual revival in the ever-changing fortunes of mankind, not only as a further stage in a chain of progressive Revelations, nor even as the culmination of one of a series of recurrent prophetic cycles, but rather as marking the last and highest stage in the stupendous evolution of man’s collective life on this planet. ”

“ New hopes and aspirations as to the capabilities of human life, new and more spiritual aspects of nature, of art, of poetry, of history, made it impossible for those who felt these influences in all the freshness of their new life to look with the same eyes as their fathers on those questions above all others which related to the intellectual and spiritual faculties of the soul. ”

“ We believe that in regeneration a new life principle is begotten in the soul of man by the Holy Spirit, through the Word of Truth, producing a disposition to joyful obedience to Christ and to holy conduct in life. ”

“ 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 ”

“ Transform our spiritual habits that we may find ourselves able to fix our minds upon things above. Cleanse our hearts by the waters of regeneration, in order that our inclinations may be fixed upon the things that please Thee. Rekindle the fire of our affections, purify the light of our conscience. ”