It is the thought which determines the quality of the action, and not
_vice versa_, and since thought is free, it is at liberty to direct
itself to the highest principles, which thus spontaneously reproduce
themselves in the outward acts, so that both thoughts and actions are
brought into harmony with the great eternal laws and become one in
purpose with the Universal Mind. The man realises that he is no longer
bound by the consequences of his former deeds, done in the time of his
ignorance, in fact, that he never was bound by them except so far as he
himself gave them this power by false conceptions of the truth; and thus
recognising himself for what he really is--the expression of the
Infinite Spirit in individual personality--he finds that he is free,
that he is a "partaker of Divine nature," not losing his identity, but
becoming more and more fully himself with an ever-expanding perfection,
following out a line of evolution whose possibilities are inexhaustible.
But there is not in all men this knowledge. For the most part they still
look upon God as an individual Being external to themselves, and what
the more instructed man sees to be unity of mind and identity of nature
appear to the less advanced to be an external reconciliation between
opposing personalities. Hence the whole range of conceptions which may
be described as the Messianic Idea. This idea is not, as some seem to
suppose, a misconception of the truth of Being. On the contrary, when
rightly understood it will be found to imply the very widest grasp of
that truth; and it is from the platform of this supreme knowledge alone
that an idea so comprehensive in its adaptation to every class of mind
could have been evolved. It is the translation of the relations arising
from the deepest laws of Being into terms which can be realised even by
the most unlearned; a translation arranged with such consummate skill
that, as the mind grows in spirituality, every stage of advance is met
by a corresponding unfolding of the Divine meaning; while yet even the
crudest apprehension of the idea implied is sufficient to afford the
required basis for an entire renovation of the man's thoughts concerning
himself, giving him a standing ground from which to think of himself as
no longer bound by the law of retribution for past offences, but as free
to follow out the new law of Liberty as a child of God.
The man's conception of the _modus operandi_ of this emancipation may
take the form of the grossest anthropomorphism or the most childish
notions as to the satisfaction of the Divine justice by vicarious
substitution, but the working result will be the same. He has got what
satisfies him as a ground for thinking of himself in a perfectly new
light; and since the states of our subjective consciousness constitute
the realities of our life, to afford him a convincing ground for
_thinking_ himself free, is to make him free.
With increasing light he may find that his first explanation of the
_modus operandi_ was inadequate; but when he reaches this stage, further
investigation will show him that the great truth of his liberty rests
upon a firmer foundation than the conventional interpretation of
traditional dogmas, and that it has its roots in the great law of
Nature, which are never doubtful, and which can never be overturned. And
it is precisely because their whole action has its root in the
unchangeable laws of Mind that there exists a perpetual necessity for
presenting to men something which they can lay hold of as a sufficient
ground for that change of mental attitude, by which alone they can be
rescued from the fatal circle which is figured under the symbol of the
Old Serpent.
The hope and adumbration of such a new principle has formed the
substance of all religions in all ages, however misapprehended by the
ignorant worshippers; and, whatever our individual opinions may be as to
the historical facts of Christianity, we shall find that the great
figure of liberated and perfected humanity which forms its centre
fulfils this desire of all nations in that it sets forth their great
ideal of Divine power intervening to rescue man by becoming one with
him. This is the conception presented to us, whether we apprehend it in
the most literally material sense, or as the ideal presentation of the
deepest philosophic study of mental laws, or in whatever variety of ways
we may combine these two extremes. The ultimate idea impressed upon the
mind must always be the same: it is that there is a Divine warrant for
knowing ourselves to be the children of God and "partakers of the Divine
nature"; and when we thus realise that there is solid ground for
_believing_ ourselves free, by force of this very belief we _become_
free.
The proper outcome of the study of the laws of spirit which constitute
the inner side of things is not the gratification of a mere idle
curiosity, nor the acquisition of abnormal powers, but the attainment of
our spiritual liberty, without which no further progress is possible.
When we have reached this goal the old things have passed away and all
things have become new. The mystical seven days of the old creation have
been fulfilled, and the first day of the new week dawns upon us with its
resurrection to a new life, expressing on the highest plane that great
doctrine of the "octave" which the science of the ancient temples traced
through Nature, and which the science of the present day endorses,
though ignorant of its supreme significance.
When we have thus been made free by recognising our oneness with
Infinite Being, we have reached the termination of the old series of
sequences and have gained the starting-point of the new. The old
limitations are found never to have had any existence save in our own
misapprehension of the truth, and one by one they fall off as we advance
into