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BIBLE TALK.

Sermon.

SCEJBCT — ORIGIN OF EVIL. BERIES No. 62. Genesis in. 5. - i EnDtoasUPHic Rkport or Bible Talk tst ) MS WOBTHINOTOS AT THE TEMIIji! OF j Trtjth.—Scxdat. 21bt Jaxcary, 1894. ! It is believed that Moacs is the author of j Genesis. Though a. Jew by birth, through I s> strange chain of circumstances he had j been adopted by the daughter of the King ; oi Egypt, aud was educated with a view of j eventually comiug to the throne oi that j most powerful kingdom. Master ot the learning that irvy ut. the ' b.vvis of the first civilisation in the world, the estimate of later ages has placed him, n\ intelligence and mental penetration, far ahead of the teachers whom lie ia auoposed to have received the -rudiments ot an education in politics and philosophy. It ia a fact in history that he became dissatisfied with v.hat had been taught, and in riper years rejected all human systems of government, discarded ail the theories of philosophy, and threw aside all the speculations regarding the origin, character, and destiny of the human race as presented by the Egyptian mythology, and has given to the world a theory, if not a history, of it 3 Origin different from alt others, and it ia no small wonder that the Mosaic cosmogony has not only been r-ccepted by the people he organised into a nation, but followed by all the nations calling themselves Christians. True—it is yanousiy interpreted, but all who accept it, do so on the basis that its author "was mentally illumined, and had perceptions of the truth of being, unknown to his contemporaries. The most striking thought of the account of the history of man is the dnal nature in constitution, essence, powers and character, which are not only different—but in many respects opposite, or contrary, as shown in the ideal or spiritual man, and his representative, mortal. The government which he instituted, the religious rights he established, the ceremonies which he initiated—even the substance and outline of his famous tabernacle —were all designed to lead up to the perfect and immortal spiritual man with Edenic surroundings. Thua-Josua interpreted them aud accredited Moses with a/deep insight, and fore-knowledge, of the outcome- of all things. In accounting for the unhappy conditions oi the. human race, ho gave the world a narrative which has never been satisfactorily explained. If we can conceive that Mo3es knew that, human maa was not the real mac, that this earth was not real substance—that what the eye sees, is bub the appearance of existence. Thai time is not—and eternity alone is. ' That mankind had then, as now, accepted add adopted the apparent as the real.—We may have a hint of the difficulty he must have encountered ia his attempt to set forth his understanding. Bat (few readers, however, see his attempted solution of his difficulties, in the use by him of expressions requiring esoteric or spiritual interpretations. In Moses* day no one was ready for such a revelation, and folly alono would or could use the words of Paul or John centuries later, when they affirmed an invisible man, and environment ill comparison with which the visible things are symbols only, ephemeral aud transitory. At this date in our time thousands know that the materialman and world are mere representatives, and see through them the real. The lost man, lost heaven and earth axe returning to our re-opened vision. The dream of mixed good and evil is ending. away before the mcoming light of Good and Truth. To Moses the problem was how to express the fact of illusion in ■uoh a way as to make his words partially acceptable to the falsa belief of reality in evil. J History witnesses that he accomplished his task, and the narrative, with all its seeming inconsistencies, is now the accepted truth of being in the belief -of millions. Is illusion a possibility ? Can man be righteous pure and immortal ? Can it be that his world is perfect, good and eternal, and that a delirium dream delusion has usurped his consciousness? WUlhe ever awake and know his mistake ? That the flesh is not himself; that he never grew- into sin ; was never sick and never died. Is delusion a possibility, and if possible, how did it become so ?■ There must be a cause for it; for it is the nature of illusion to--seem-to- be real, and *hence it demands the cause that produced iv • But, when we remember that illusions have no cause—is they are nothings—and it does not need a cause to produce nothings we stop. Yet illusion hides reality, and the false mind of illusion demands a reason for its abilit\'to hide troth. Apart from dreams whose phenomena are variously explained—there are no illusions which the human iniud will" admit to be facts— except those produced by eating some herb . or fruit, or decoction of;some tree or shrub. Moses was familiar with the wide spread belief of the Egyptian mind in the fabled powers of the lotus aud familiar with the effect of Indian hemp or hasheesh. . And in his statement of the mode by which, or the through which; *mah* became iv his consciousness and sense other than himself, he has recourse, to that alone, which could convey a hint of the possibility of such an event. Even learned men coeval with the Jewish cosmogonisfc accepted the fable of the lotus eaters, and believed that he who ats of its fruit or leaves would lose all memory of his past, and begin anew his conscious life. They knew the effects of, the hasheesh drug, knew it" would produce a vision which for a time would hide the realities from its victi_, una itffi.hiim. into scenes of ecstacy, surround him 'with sights and sounds of unspeakable beauty, which would end in other seemjLnga of darkness, horror and ■ despair. ' "^ Moses, whose clear vision revealed to bim the unity of infinite intelligeaee and powers used the beliefs about aim, i.e., Egyptian tradition aud custom, and the knowledge his' people possessed of the effects of herbs and fruitß from trees—to convey the thought of the ilrusdry character of the material man and world. To assert that man as ho now knows him•elf, and the world in which he so con- j fidently believes, are unrealities—the illu- j ■ions of a tiros, would sound like folly. But to present the thought that the All Father had created a tree, which like the lotus stood in the midst of the garden with latent tower to produce a bewildering dream or elusion ia man should he eat of, it does not. ahock the human sense, -because it is I familiar with trees and shrubs of a like character. >*The great minds of ancient and modern tim_ accept it as a possibility and believe it as a fact. If poppies, Indian hemp, and lotus trees are facts, says mortal mind, why may not the tree of knowledge of good ana evil give the key to this mystery. The supposed state of' knowledge of good and evil in which Adam found himself after eating the fruit, Moses pictures ts the result of such act the delirium, illusion, vision or dream called human appearances is the effect of the drus, after eating, the ■world is changed into disordered conditions of mind and environment into beliefs, as frequently seen by us as effects of opium and other drugs. The religious minds of the past, while accepting Moses* story as a matter of fact— have not discerned that eating the fruit of a tree could not change the constitution or essence of being, and have failed to see that Moses states as plainly as he dare the absolute unreality of eviL Hence it is plain that Moses, with far. reaching wisdom, portrays man, human-life and the world as it appears to sense, as the* tenuis of eating of a tree whose properties were to mix perception of trath or the real, and induce a belief iv a false and disordered world a* the reality of being. No other fnode was available. His thought is—that the cause of evil is analogous to the cause of intoxication in the drunkard—delirium in a fever —dream in sleep—visions from nitrous-oxide, or the ecstatic and afterward appalling nightmare of the opium smoker. illusion is the seeming to be real of that which is untrue, and he who has caught the illurainating truth revealed by Jesus Christ Knows that a sinful man and his material world are not entities, realities of Divine creation. Only in the foil belief in the realities of tense can too question of the origin of evil

Sermon. j

i-i-cseiit itself. We have had lessons enough to lead us to suspect that things may not be what they seem, a suspicion which is grow- , ing into positive conviction, that time and scn&e are unrealities. The last thing we learn is the unreality of matter —when we do catch the over- | whelming perception, all questions as to the origin of r.othi.ig—How man fell from his high estate? orTrho was the author of sin, sickness and death ? are answered. Evil j ' as an entity will leave our vision, and the ] da.rkuC3« of the human mind will be seen to lie ia the belief that unrealities are truth. The questions theology ask, are the result of a complete misunderstanding of .Moses ••' thought. The whole scene in which the perfect, sinless and immortal man hi Eden ; becomes earn*l, material and mortal, is effected by eating the fruit of. a tree. Hera an effect is pourtrayed not only with a causa wholly inadequate, but of such a natr.re that no mode of explanation will or can reveal any conceivable relation as existing between the cause and its effect. The serpent declares by the eating of the tree " Your eyes shall be opened and ye shall ba be as gods knowing good and evil."The only change hinted at is ihe change in the mind of man. it ia implied that the infancy of man was a state of seeing only —not grown or evolved to perception, a blindness —"your eyes shall be opened." The gaining of knowledge is the beginning of wisdom, and here is the first step, or "opening cf the eyes" of the mind toward wisdom, the step which leads to the tree of life, the atonement, all things in the garden of Eden must be first seen, next perceived or seen through, and then understood before known. Hence there must be a beginning to the gaining of knowledge which leads to and is lost in wisdom. Adam is innocent or totally ignorant before he eats of this tree. It results in some knowledge which is both good and evil—good as far as it goes, evil in that it does not go far enough —is a partial truth, not the whole. The knowledge is limited ; it must continually increase. Its limit or the not-yet-truth is the only evil, ignorance-limit is the only evil and total igorance the only innocence. " Knowledge of good and evil." First knowledge, then wisdom. Seeing, perceiving, understanding, then knowing. Evil walks side by side with good up to the point of understanding, then the possessor of knowledge Las grown to the limit of understanding, aud evil is outgrown, left behind. ■ Evil is but a limit attendant on the process of manifestation; when completed there is no evil. As in Jesus, the wisdom consciousness. Moses taught not that God punished man for disobedience and changed him from purity into sin and shame, but that man, evolving from innocent ignorance, into and through the succeeding stages of growth to wisdom, entered the sense conditions by eating of the fruit or tree, and took his first step toward wisdom by mixing his ignorant innocence with a partial or limited knowledge that included a belief in evil. The beginning of the illusion of sense distorted vision, reversed perception, false reasoning, and negative thoughts. An inverted false sense of all things is the result (a3 the allegory of Moßes would teach), the drugged delirium and illusion of human life. The gap between the two is the darkness of evil full of dream-land illusion. Moses used the only figures possible to illustrate it. The nature of illusion is to seem real, and hence while unevolved we seek to account for all the details of illusion as if they were real. God was unchanged through our eating the fruit. ' Man was sot made carnal by eating the fruit. The earth, was nob cursed nor Eden destroyed. Man was not banished; sin, sickness and death were not created and thrust in upon us. Bur. ignorant illusion said chey were all elements of the new constitution. The delirium of fever, the illusion oPtaream, the iusistence of sense holds us in bondage to beliefs in them. God is immutable ! Man is his offspring ! Heaven aud earth are spiritual creation ! Eden is perfect harmony 1 And man must prove it. Eternity is the mode of existence, and these— Were, are, always will be. They were never changed or lost. The carnal man, fleshly generation, sinful thoughts, base and sordid passions, a material world, events appearing and disappearing. These are not realities ; they are the illusions of ignorance hiding the'eternal verities. v Do not hope to reconcile the, real with the apparent, to the extent of accepting the one for the other. The theology which assumes ciii to be real, and would give it a place in a world of divine creation vmst for-ever-be at fault. .-*:■: The only God known in the illusion of ignorance is the spirit of ignorance, and you will look for love, goodness, and imj mortality in vain, while you believe phan- \ boms are realities. The God of this world is unjust, cruel, and malicious. Why not open our eyes aud see he is no God, but a part of tho illusion. To attempt to deal with deceptions and reduce them bo law and order, is to waste one's time. '■ The real spiritual man knows God as Substance, Love, Life, Truth ; and law as their manifestation." He has no theory of the origin of evil or .no-thing, our Lord said it was a liar, no-thing from the beginning. Evil is the sense of'wrong, and ends whenever we gain enough knowledge to see that fact. It cuts no cord of moral responsibility. Those who pursue evil believe in it and accumulate *' wrath against the day of wrath." The dream, and the mortal, who is acting as part of the dream, are the result of a capacity to dream, which capacity is neither the one or the other, the dream or the dreamer, but 13 possessed by spiritual man and is the medium of his manifestation. [Advt.]

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Permanent link to this item

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/CHP18940310.2.4

Bibliographic details

Press, Volume LI, Issue 8789, 10 March 1894, Page 2

Word Count
2,467

BIBLE TALK. Press, Volume LI, Issue 8789, 10 March 1894, Page 2

BIBLE TALK. Press, Volume LI, Issue 8789, 10 March 1894, Page 2