III.
THE FIRST FRUITS OF SPIRITUAL LIFE.
And God said, Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together in one place, and let the dry land appear; and it was so. And God called the dry land Earth: and the gathering together of the waters called He Seas; and God saw that it was good. And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself upon the earth: and it was so. And the earth bought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself after his kind; and God saw that it was good. And the evening and the morning were the third day.—Gen. I: 9-13.
For our natural education we look to parents and teachers, for our spiritual education we go to the Lord. Instruction concerning natural things we draw from text books supplied by human learning, but spiritual instruction is obtained only from that book of Divine revelation which we are accustomed to call the Bible. It is a mistake to look for religion in a work purely scientific which has been wrought out by natural observation and deduction; but it is an error much more serious to seek for natural learning in a volume that has been revealed by the Lord for spiritual purposes alone. In the one case we simply go for information to an incompetent authority, but in the other we are belittling the Word of God in ascribing to it a character no higher than that which is possessed by the words of men. If the Bible has any purpose at all it is one that is spiritual. If it has an educational mission of any kind, it is one that is religious. If it is the Word of God, we are to look for this spiritual element in all its parts—in every chapter, verse and line.
The purpose of the Lord in inspiring the first chapter of Genesis was to give an account of the general principles according to which the regeneration of the human mind proceeds. By regeneration we mean that new birth of the soul which is its development from a merely natural, into a lofty spiritual condition that gradual putting away of its selfishness and worldliness which gives it a higher, nobler and purer nature in accordance with the ideals set up by our Lord. The Scripture treats of this, in some manner, in all its parts. Where the lesson is not obvious on the surface it lies concealed within the narrative; and thus the letter becomes a parable of higher truth.
Upon this principle the first chapter of Genesis also is found to treat concerning spiritual things. It matters not that the surface appearance may be otherwise, a close analysis reveals that fact. Under the similitude of earth's creation is unfolded the progressive order in which the development of the spiritual nature of each of us all goes on—the successive steps by which we proceed forward to the realization of our highest possibilities. The biblical account of the creation is then a parable of the regeneration of the human mind and heart. It is written according to the universal method of Divine narrative, that is to say, by the law of correspondence or sacred symbolism. These things were dwelt upon at length in the preceding discourses of this series: here we can do little more than allude to them.
I will repeat also in very brief form the significance of the narrative as thus far considered. I do this both for the information of those who were not present on the two previous evenings, and for the sake of keeping up the connection of ideas with those who were.
The earth is a symbol of the human mind. It is so used by the Lord, both here and elsewhere, because of the beautiful correspondence between the earth as the germinating receptacle of seed and the mind as the fertile soil wherein the truths of God are sown. The earth brings forth vegetation of every kind, which proceeds from the first tender signs of life to blade, stalk, leaf, tree, flower and fruit. In like manner, the mind, having received and nurtured the seeds of spiritual knowledge, brings them forth. Its mental germinations are first of the memory, then of reflection, then of reason, then of love, until the full fruits of a rich spiritual life are brought to maturity.
The Sacred Scripture makes use of this symbol in all its parts. When the Psalmist exclaims to the Lord, "All the earth shall worship thee, and shall sing unto thee,": it is meant that all the minds shall so worship and sing. When he says that "the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord," he means that the minds of his people shall be filled with that knowledge. And so our Lord, in teaching that regeneration, or the development of the mind on spiritual lines, is a gradual work, calls the mind of man the earth "which bringeth forth fruit; first the blade, then the ear, then the full corn in the ear."
The symbol as used in Genesis is the same. The creation of the earth is a parable of the regeneration of the mind. At first—so the narrative reads—the earth is a mere voidness and emptiness, and darkness is on the face of the deep; that is, the mind of man, before regeneration begins, is formless and void as to genuine goodness and truth, and the darkness of ignorance in reference to spiritual things rests upon its deeps.
As the great feature of the first day of creation was the fiat of God—"Let there be light!" so the main feature of the first stage of regeneration is the dispersion of the mind's ignorance and its obtainment of somewhat of light. The first dawn of light would consist, perhaps, only of an acknowledgment of the Lord and of the superior nature of spiritual things as compared with those which are merely natural. As without light earth could not have progressed into a condition where vegetation were possible, so without an acknowledgment of the Lord and of the superiority of heavenly things to worldly—without some light upon spiritual subjects, there can be no growth of the higher mind, no developments into nobler life, no flowers of the soul, no fruits of a religious spirit.
And as the great feature of the second day of creation was the development of the firmament of heaven, and the division of the waters which were under the firmament from those which were above; so the essential feature of the second state of the progress of the regenerating person is the opening of the firmament of the mind—its higher realm—its spiritual degree or faculty, whereby it is able to know, think and converse intelligently about spiritual things. The firmament of the narrative was called heaven; the mind's firmament is the region where heavenly thoughts prevail. Waters we found to be symbols of truths. The Divine truth presents itself in the beginning of this narrative in two symbolic aspects—as light and as water. Light symbolizes truth as illuminating the mind; water symbolizes truth as bedewing, fertilizing and refreshing the mind. The waters under the firmament of heaven are truths concerning spiritual things as they are held by the natural mind, beneath the arena of spiritual comprehension, heard perhaps, remembered as forms of words or unheeded expressions, scripture sentences even, carefully stored away in the memory, but under, not elevated into the firmament or heaven of the mind's spiritual degree. The waters above the firmament are the same truths elevated into spiritual apprehension—lifted up into that region of the mind which discerns spiritual things. It is there that the distinction between what is natural and what is spiritual begins to be seen. It is there that the division of the waters takes place.
The first state of regeneration, therefore, as symbolized by the first day of creation, is light let in upon the mind as to the superiority of spiritual knowledge and life over natural; the second is the opening of the spiritual mind, or of the faculty which discerns things spiritually.
Clearly, so long as one refuses to recognize at all the beauty of spiritual knowledge or life, he cannot enter upon the regeneration. When he does this he can make no further progress until his power of understanding spiritual truth is developed. For then first he is able to see the distinction between his spiritual mind or nature and his natural, between love of self and the world and love of God and man, between essential evil and essential good. Well settled preliminaries are necessary to progress. So soon as one can make these distinctions, and not before, he is ready to proceed further.
Let us now pass on to a consideration of the third state or stage of regeneration as set forth in the sacred symbols of the narrative.
"And God said, Let the waters be gathered together in one place and let the dry land appear." The allusion here is not to the waters above the firmament, but to those beneath. Waters, as we have seen, signify divine truth. The waters under the firmament we have found to signify those truths as mere forms, expressions or remembered texts, not spiritually realized or understood.
It is easy for one to have a knowledge of what he does not understand. The blind man may know that there is such a thing as light, because he has often heard it spoken of. So many have spoken of it within his hearing that he even believes in its existence. But what does he understand or realize concerning it when he has never seen it? So, a child may be taught that there is a God. Perhaps he firmly believes it because he has been so often told so. But what does he comprehend concerning the infinite existence of God—his love, mercy, wisdom, majesty? What realization has he of the marvelous ways of God in the creation and preservation of all things, of his wondrous influence as a potential presence in the soul? And what can he really grasp concerning these things until his mind is developed into such a faculty of spiritual thought as enables him to realize something of the nature of God? Until then God is little more to him than a name. The child's first theological lesson is a knoivledge of God, but the spiritual minded adult's matured idea is a comprehension of the truth. But knowledge usually precedes understanding, and is, therefore, good so far as it goes. Knowledge of spiritual things, however, is only of the natural mind. Realization of them is of the spiritual mind. Knowledge is only of the memory; understanding is a far higher faculty.
The waters under the heaven, then, symbolize the knowledge concerning God, heaven and eternal life, concerning goodness and love and the sacredness of spiritual things which we gain as knowledge merely. All the information concerning these things we gain in childhood is of this character. They are not realizations, they are not really things comprehended. They are believed only because our parents or teachers tell us so. And the same holds good with all truth of a religious character that we learn in after life, just so far as it has not entered the spiritual understanding.
But these waters are said to be gathered by the Lord into one place. This is an expression, in symbolic form, of the truth that what we learn of spiritual things is first gathered together in the memory. Leaving out of consideration the physical organs, the brain and its various parts, through which the intellect primarily operates, the mind itself has many organs. One of these, and perhaps, the lowest of these, is the memory. It is the one place into which all mental impressions are first gathered.
God creates everything well. All things are arranged by him in true order and with reference to what is yet to come. It is true of the physical universe and it is true of man as a material and mental being. Equally true is it of man as a spiritual being. Creation in all of its developments proceeds by orderly stages. Learning precedes understanding; memory precedes comprehension. The child, for instance, learns his figures and his multiplication table and various rules of arithmetic at first as mere things of the memory. It is only afterwards as he comes to make application of them to matters of practical import that he realizes the use and beauty of them, and understands why they were so given. First stored up in the memory as mere dead matters of knowledge, then they are elevated out of his memory and into the rationality as useful things of life. "Twice two is four" is a very queer and stupid piece of information as it falls first upon the ears of the youthful mind. But let him go to the shop and find out that the two sticks of candy he has bought at two cents apiece make four cents that he has to pay the shopkeeper, and quite a new light breaks in on his mind as to the meaning and value of that, to him, most mystic phrase. And as he grows up and enters into the business of life, and sees the wonderful uses of arithmetic in all their every day aspects and gets, almost without reflection, to see the reasons of its rules and combinations, arithmetic rises out of the memory into the understanding.
And in learning music, we are first taught, and we store up in the memory, all knowledges with regard to musical facts, terms and tones. We learn about the lines and spaces, the notes and staves, the tones and semi-tones, and a hundred other things, as dry as dry can be to the young mind, and they are all stored away in the memory. But when these are brought into practical application, and their uses are clearly seen, and it is realized so that nothing can be plainer, that there can be no making of music without these as the necessary elements; and when we sing beautiful songs and play delightful mslodies by means of our knowledge of them, why then that knowledge has advanced into understanding, realization, joy of soul, by its practical adaptation to the uses for which it was designed. It may remain mere dry knowledge, and with many learners it does, but with those who come into full comprehension of its adaptability to the making of real music, by the practical application of its principles, it has been elevated out of the memory and into the understanding.
These may seem small matters to the thoughtless mind, but they are not. They are illustrations of a most important principle. Knowledge is one thing, understanding what we know is quite another. Knowledge is an exceedingly good thing as a stepping stone to understanding—a necessary thing indeed; but alone and by itself, and without its proper increment, its value is infinitely diminished.
But the importance of the principle and of these very homely illustrations of it lies in the fact that it is precisely so with all things of spiritual import. Stowing away in the memory outward statements of religious doctrine however true, formulas of faith, or scripture texts however well learned, is one thing. But to gain a true idea of them; to lift them out of the memory into spiritual understanding and realization; thus to see their beauty and feel their rationality, to hold them as the delight of the soul to have them sweeten the life, to bring their influences into practical bearing on every work and duty, to love the Lord and the neighbor with them, to rise into heaven by their means; why—this is quite another thing. But we must get knowledge before we can get understanding. We must store up what we learn in the memory before we can take it out and transfer it into ideas of use and beauty. It is on precisely the same principle that food must be gathered together in one place, the stomach, before it can be put to its proper use. There its life-giving essences are separated and preparations for their distribution made. Then they go forth through their proper channels to the making of blood, flesh, bone, muscle, nerve or brain, and contribute each moment to the constant re-creation of man's physical system. The memory is the store-house of the soul. Reflection gathers from it its food for thought. Reason selects from its treasures the best elements for the development of mind. Wisdom looks down into its treasury of facts and weaves from them a heavenly life.
So the waters under the heaven gathered together into one place are the knowledges of spiritual and Divine things which become stored in the memory. This storing of the mind is of the providence of the Lord. It is in the direct line of his way of doing things. He desires that the memory shall be so filled for the soul's future use. If the man is himself opposed to the study of spiritual things, he is providentially led amid such circumstances and surroundings, as, unconsciously to himself, secure in some degree, the desired end.
It is said, "Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear." Here the natural thought at once reverts to the idea of a separation effected between the oceans and continents of earth. It is as though, whereas, all before was one vast sheet of circling water, the Lord now said, "Let the dry land arise above the waves." But the spiritual thought goes forth on different lines. A dry tree would be a dead tree. A perfectly dry physical human body would be a lifeless mummy. In the language of sacred symbolism that is called dry which is devoid of spiritual life. As earth or land signifies the mind, the dry land is the mind without spiritual life. When, therefore, in this parable of the creation, that is, of man's regeneration, the Lord exclaims, "Let the dry land appear," it is as though He had said, "Let now the regenerating man see how dry—how spiritually dead and lifeless is the land of his mind. Let its dryness appear to him."
There is no dryer task in life than that of pouring the waters of mere knowledge, of mere memorized facts, into the sandy plains of the memory. Every schoolboy knows that. It is only as he understands or usefully applies what he learns that it becomes interesting to him. Now the man, we assume, has been all his life, consciously or unconsciously gathering the dead knowledges of religious instruction into his memory. If he is a student of religious things he may fancy that this constitutes him a religious man. But it does not. If he is a worldly man he may fancy that the ideas of morality he has, and a vague belief in God and a future state, make him all right. He also is mistaken. The land of his memory, albeit it is of moral and spiritual truths, is as dry as his spiritual nature is lifeless. But now that he has leached the proper state for further advance, the Lord desires he should know how dry and lifeless these knowledges he has gained are. So he says in the parable, "Let the dry land appear!" "Let it appear to you how dry and lifeless the land of the memory in itself considered is"
"And God called the dry land earth." The names of things in Scripture are always indicative of their quality. This expression is, in the peculiar form of ancient sacred symbolism, simply a statement that the earth or land of the mind is at this period of regeneration still spiritually dry and barren. When it is said God calls a thing so, it means that in the view of the Lord so and so it is.
"And the gathering together of the waters called He seas." This is so stated because as the sea is an aggregation of many streams of water, the memory is an aggregation of many streams of knowledge. Therefore, as the gathering together of the waters means the collecting of truths in the memory, seas are used throughout the Scripture to signify the memory as the first great receptacle of spiritual knowledges in their various degrees and kinds.
"And God saw that it was good," : Everything in its order and degree is good in the sight of God. It is good that the law of order should be followed. 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. That is it is good, if it leads on to the higher life for which only they are useful.
"And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, and the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself upon the earth." Here we have the similitude which tells of the mind actually yielding its first fruits of spiritual life. The object of all religious knowledge is religious life. It is utterly useless to know of the higher things of the Lord and not to love them. Indeed all knowledge is worthless unless it is applied to use. But to know God and not to attempt to do his will, to know what the life of love is and to live in an utterly selfish manner, to understand the nature of heaven and to live by merely worldly rules is a miserable squandering of the gifts of God. Unless at least a genuine effort is made to bring that knowledge forth into every day life, the gaining of it will prove to be a matter of very little consequence. The faculty of knowledge has been conferred upon us in order that we may put to its highest use the knowledge that we gain. When, therefore, dawning light breaks in upon us as to the greater value of that which is spiritual, and the higher mind is so opened that we can make clear distinctions between what is spiritual and what is natural in knowledge, thought, love or life, then we are to live in the light we have gained. This beginning to live it is the third stage of regeneration.
At the outset our efforts will be feeble and their results small. They will be more like those first efforts of young eaglets to fly, which consist in trying their wings only to see what they can do, than like the flights of conscious strength they make when fearlessly soaring above the mountain tops. The idea that we can come into full spiritual strength and life in a single moment by a miraculous exercise of the grace of God, though widely entertained, is contradicted by all that our Lord has ever taught. In his parabolic method of speaking, it is always first the blade, then the ear, then the full corn in the ear; it is first the seed, smallest of all seeds, then the herb, then the tree. These illustrations of his are designed to teach the direct truth of progressive regenerative growth. One might as well undertake to ascend a mountain without taking the necessary series of upward successive steps, or from a child to become an adult by an instantaneous effort, as to become regenerated without passing through, and slowly through, the proper successive stages of progress. So none may feel discouragement because they do not come into all truth at once, or lose their many evils, sins and faults at once, or gain the perfect love for God and man at once.
There is very little real good in our first upward efforts very little of the Lord in them. In whatever of good we seem to do we, in heart, take the credit to ourselves. Thus there is little genuine humility in our religion. It is the easiest thing in the world to imagine we are humble when, really, we are proud. People are sometimes proud of their humility.
As a matter of truth the Lord alone regenerates us. It is He only who infuses the good into our desires, thoughts or acts. Our part is simply to yield to those influences. Then under their impulse we, in the freedom with which we are endowed, endeavor to avoid what is wrong in purpose, thought or deed. But, in our first beginnings to fly, like the young birds, we come to the ground very often. We do it especially in this, that we deem whatever of spiritual progress we make to be so made in our own strength. In this position of mind the Lord gets but little of the credit. We may, indeed, say that it is the Lord's influence, aid and strength; but we do not feel it, do not realize his presence as in the effort, do not from our real hearts so acknowledge it. We imagine we acknowledge things sometimes when we really do not. And one of the most common perversities of human nature is for a man to think he believes a certain thing, when underneath and behind his thought, concealed from his own immediate view, is a huge distrust of the very truth that he thinks he thinks.
Yet notwithstanding the small amount of spiritual life which is to be found in these first efforts at living out so much of the truth of God as we have begun to profess, this third state of regeneration is a most valuable experience. The swimmer would never have learned to swim unless he had made his first floundering exertions. Milton would never have penned his immortal poem if he had not made his first poor attempt at writing verse. And the fact that he might have deemed his first efforts at versification very exquisite when they were quite the contrary, does not in the least detract from their value as beginnings. The Lord never despises beginnings. But He puts them at their true worth, and values them only as beginnings.
Therefore, in this account of creation as a parable of regeneration, what the mind brings forth is still expressed under the similitude of what the earth brings forth. This third stage of regeneration is described by the springing forth of vegetation, first, in its lower forms of grass, then in the higher forms of the herb yielding seed, and at last in the highest form of the fruit tree yielding fruit. Thus you will observe that on the third day of creation the earth brings forth something that has life. The lesson of the similitude is that in the third stage of regeneration the mind develops somewhat of spiritual life. Let us see this in the proper order of the words of the parable.
"And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, and the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself upon the earth." The earth is the mind. The grass or low growth of vegetation which it brings forth symbolizes the first germinations of really spiritual endeavor, put forth by the mind. The herb yielding seed is a higher form of vegetation. It refers, naturally, to the various grains, such as wheat, barley, or rye, whose seed is a nutritious food for man. But spiritually it is a higher spiritual endeavor which produces something true and good. The fruit tree yielding fruit represents a still higher endeavor which bears the fruits of a yet more spiritual life. The idea is still enforced in the parable that even first endeavors at spiritual things have their degrees of effort, weak, stronger, stronger yet, good, better, better still, as life goes on.
It is said, "Whose seed is in itself upon the earth," in allusion to the natural fact of the tree producing fruit in which is seed and from whence new trees spring forth to the production of still other fruit, again producing seed, and thus, as it were, in a circle perpetually. The spiritual truth this represents is, that what is spiritual tends to produce continually newer forms of spiritual thought and life and this in endless succession forever.
"And God saw that it was good." Yes, God sees that this also is good; good again, however, for its time and season; good as a stepping stone to the better. For that which is yet more spiritual must, in its due order, come.
Vegetable life, it must be remembered, is after all and at its best, the lowest form of life. When we say of a man that "He does not really live, he only vegetates," we use a proverbial form of expression that conveys no very high opinion of the man. There are three orders of natural life, the vegetable, the animal and man. They are each excellent in their order and degree. But man alone has rationality and speech. Beasts have instinct only. Vegetation, no conscious existence at all. But vegetation, when the three are symbolically compared, typifies only the first and lower germinations of spiritual endeavor and life, upon which the higher principles when they come into development will, as it were, feed.
Our spiritual life, such as it is, in this third stage of regeneration, is not a conscious spiritual life. We make endeavors, we live in a more orderly manner, we break fewer commandments, but we have no conscious life of the Lord in mind or heart. The highest type of spiritual man realizes the Divine presence in the soul; he feels that he lives from it; he basks it in its sunlight. Just what this means we will see further on in our consideration of the parable of creation. But he who is only beginning this better life feels his efforts as his own. He may indeed with his lips acknowledge the Lord in them, but he has no inward realization of what that means, no consciousness of the Divine presence. It is right that it should be so. Beginnings are only beginnings, and the Lord sees that it is good; good, however, in its degree, no further.
So in this stage of regeneration the earth is only yielding its first fruits, not its best. On this plane of life, though good as compared with the old voidness and darkness, we are, spiritually speaking, only vegetating after all. We have had our evening of darker state and we stand in the morning of one better than the last. The evening and the morning are indeed the third day, but if we turn not back the revolving wheel of our re-creation there are four more yet to come. All in its time and order. Although we are but vegetating there is no cause for discouragement. We cannot go higher unless we stand on what is lower and take our upward step from thence; and everything, however imperfect as being comparatively low, is good as a standing place from whence to mount to things above.
And so we come to this point and the work still goes on. We stand among the sheaves of our garnered grain; we taste the rich fruits of a better life than once we had even dreamed of; but we look earnestly forward, lovingly higher, and wonder what better things the Lord has yet in store for us, in states of regenerative experience of which we have dim visions but have not reached as yet.
And so we see how beautifully the parable of the creation, when viewed in its inward meaning, sets forth the regeneration of the human soul. In the very consideration of its symbols, and in the explanations and illustrations which necessarily connect themselves therewith, we are developing the true philosophy of the spiritual new birth, and are learning to place that most interesting subject on its true basis. We are gaining, not human opinions which may or may not be true, but the absolute inwardness of revelations, which, because they are divine, are truth itself.
