VII.
THE REST OF GOD.
Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. And God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it; because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made.—Gen. ii: 1-3.
The subject of the Sabbath or seventh day has received a large amount of discussion and attention. It has usually, however, been rather from a natural than a spiritual point of view. Those who imagine that external observances contain, in themselves, a large amount of religion, and that salvation depends in a great measure on our faithful adherence to outward forms as such, would naturally be much exercised over questions of this nature. If their future destiny really depends on whether they are sprinkled or immersed in baptism, on whether the ecclesiastic who administers it is in direct line of authority from the apostles or no, or on whether their worship to God is offered up on Saturday or Sunday, certainly it is most important to determine, in these matters, which is right and which is wrong.
But there are those who believe, with all their hearts, in that most significant declaration of Christ, "God is a spirit, and they who worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth." It is the spirit and the truth with which one worships, not the day or the form, which is of real significance. Forms, of course, have their value or they would not be given. But that value can only be estimated by a full understanding of the spiritual purpose for which they were ordained. In ignorance of this we necessarily mistake the outward form for the inward reality, and we necessarily lay great stress on the correctness of the minor details of the form, to the great neglect of that spirit and purpose for which alone it was given. Let us apply this idea to the question of the Sabbath.
The Sabbath was instituted—so it is stated in Exodus—in commemoration of the fact that "in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day. Wherefore," it is added, "The Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it."
Now science has proved as conclusively as it is possible for science to prove anything, that the world, so far from having been made in six days, was many hundred thousand years in formation. And another truth has become equally well established, to wit, that many of the stars of heaven were created at a period inconceivably more ancient than that of the creation of the earth. Why, there are stars whose light has taken millions of years to reach this planet. They must, therefore, have been created millions of years before the earth.
Thus when the Scripture says that "the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them," as the result of six days work on the part of God; when, indeed, it allows six days for the creation of the earth, but only one for the myriad stars of heaven, it presents a problem which the undeniable deductions of science positively contradict. It is, certainly, an unpleasant predicament for the intelligent mind which fervently loves the Word of God, and yet cannot close its eyes to proven facts.
There is a way in which an attempt has been made to avoid the difficulty. It is said that the Hebrew word which is here translated day may mean not only a period of twenty-four hours, but also an indefinite cycle of time; and that therefore we have a perfect right to accept that usage of the term which will vindicate the consistency and justify the scientific accuracy of the Bible. That the original Hebrew term may under certain circumstances bear such a construction is, perhaps, true. But we are confronted with the fact that the Lord, in giving the ten commandments, expressly says that we are to keep each seventh day holy because that in six days He made the heavens and the earth and all that in them is, and rested on the seventh day. So if the Hebrew word for day in its relation to creation means an indefinite period of many thousands of years, it forces us to the inference that we are to keep every period of thousands of years each as our Sabbath. This is a conclusion so palpably contrary to the Lord's meaning that the very statement of it contains its own refutation.
Far be it from us to endeavor to cast ridicule or discredit on the holy Word of God. On the contrary my only desire is to elevate it from the absurd position in which it is placed by a baldly literal interpretation, to one which consistency can endorse and rationality can grasp. It is unquestionably true that the development of the earth into a world fit for the habitation of man was about in the order indicated in the first chapter of Genesis. And it is a noteworthy fact that it should be so, considering that when this book was written the science of geology was unknown. But it is still more true that this chapter was never designed as an account of the literal creation of the heavens, the earth, or the heavenly hosts. It is an allegory or parable. It is written in the Divine style which is always symbolic. It was composed, by inspiration, at a time when men were nearer the original sources of language as it came to them freshly from God, and when, therefore, the Divine language was better understood than now. It is enough for us to be satisfied that the expressions are correctly used as symbols. So far as they agree with science, well. So far as they do not, it is of no consequence in respect to the Lord's purpose in giving the narrative, provided only the symbolism is divinely correct, and the spiritual lesson conveyed within it divinely true. This question of the true day of Sabbath we will find to be rationally solved, as we come to understand the spiritual meaning of the words in which allusion is made to the seventh day of creation. Indeed the whole Sabbath question rests upon these very words.
But first permit me for the last time to revert to the explanations which have been so thoroughly set forth in the six previous discourses of this series. We have learned that the narrative is an allegory of the regeneration of the human mind. The heaven and the earth were found to be symbols of the two minds of man, or if you prefer the expression, the two regions of his mind, its heavenly and its earthly, or in other words, its spiritual and its natural. Creation symbolizes the regeneration, that is the rebirth, or new creation of the spiritual nature. A day, in the spiritual sense, means a state. The six days of creation represent the six progressive states or stages of regeneration, from the mind's darkness and voidness as to spiritual things, in its original condition, to the state of perfect peace of mind and rest of heart which is the final result of its labors and struggles against all that is natural, earthly and low.
When our Lord says that the kingdom of God, or, as He elsewhere uses the expression, the kingdom of heaven, is within us, we can but conclude, that heaven, as a symbol, refers to the spiritual mind or nature of man. When we read in the Gospel of John, "He that is of the earth is earthly and speaketh earthly things," we cannot fail to observe that the earth is used as a type of the earthly or natural mind. When the Psalmist says, "Create in me a clean heart O God, and renew a right spirit within me," we know that he refers to the creation, that is, the regeneration, of the soul. When he declares, "A day in thy courts is better than a thousand," we are sure that he refers to a state of heart worship, and not to a literal twenty-four hours in the temple. Thus we know that these expressions, heaven, earth, creation, day, as well as all the others, are used in spiritual senses, in other portions of the Word of God. So when we come to this narrative of creation as an allegory of regeneration, we have but to apply them according to the manner in which they are plainly used to indicate spiritual ideas in other portions of Scripture, and the first chapter of Genesis is translated into its true spiritual meaning. Thus the Word of God is lifted from the mire of mere sensuous discussion, out of the region of literal confusion and inconsistency, into the clear, heavenly atmosphere of spiritual wisdom.
I return to these primary postulates again and again with reason. To those to whom truths of this nature are new, it must be "line upon line and precept upon precept." It is only by constant reiteration that the idea becomes indelibly engraven on the mind. Let us now revert to our text.
Thus the heavens and the earth were finished and all the hosts of them. What does this mean in the light of all we have thus far learned? Simply that the spiritual mind and the natural mind, together with all the knowledges of spiritual things which appertain to them are now, at last, in the highest sense, regenerated. You will not forget that the heaven is the spiritual mind, the earth the natural mind, and the stars spiritual knowledges. Then as the creation signifies the regeneration, the finishing of creation refers to the completion of the work of regeneration. The mind has been slowly coming to this point all through that series of states and experiences which were described, in symbolic forms of expression, by the various things brought into being during the six days of creation. Each new thing created was, in this higher meaning, descriptive of some added principle, newer thought, freshly developed capacity, holier affection, diviner love, brought forth on the field of the mind.
And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made. As all allusions here are spiritual, the work of God is his work of recreating or regenerating the human mind. When that is complete his work is ended. But we must here avoid the idea of work which pertains to the labors of man. It is not a wrestling with a perverse human understanding and heart. It is not toil and strife and strained exertion. The Lord's energies proceed in quietness. They go forth after the gentle manner of sunbeams, and they develop minds with the noiseless methods by which plants grow and buds expand and fruits ripen. Whatever of unrest there is, whatever of wrestle and toil and strife, is on the man's part.
While regeneration is progressing there is more or less inward opposition to the hoped-for change. The earthly nature rebels against spiritual views of things, spiritual methods of action, the government of the nature by the spiritual law of right and wrong. The regenerative influences of the Lord are often, as it were, swept back. The good and the bad enter into a struggle for the mastery. Or, it would be better to say, the bad struggles to prevent the good from assuming the control. All who have ever sought to do the right in the face of a temptation to do the wrong, know the nature of those contests which occur on the arena of the mind. All who have held mistaken views of things, and have afterwards come into the light of truth, know of the mental combats by which they are released from the one and gain conviction of the other.
Suppose a new truth is presented which conflicts with long cherished opinions. The earthly nature opposes it; the higher urges its acceptance. The natural mind bristles with opposition; the spiritual seeks to show its rationality. It is almost like a debate between different persons. The pros and cons are urged with force and effect on either side. Any one will observe this who will but take the trouble to think. Doing so, he cannot but conclude that the mind has two lines of thought—one spiritual, the other natural; one false, the other true; two impulses—one for the good, the other for the bad; one toward heaven, the other toward the world; two minds, as it were—the one for the contemplation of spiritual themes, for the understanding of spiritual truths, for the love and practice of a spiritual life, the other for the pursuit of worldly affairs, for the acquirement of worldly knowledge and for the delights which inhere in a worldly life. When one begins to strive for the higher way, these two elements come into conflict. On the mind's plane of thought and reason, they argue and debate. On the plane of affection, they enter into combat. On the plane of outward action, they come into mutual disagreement. In the conflict thus induced, at times the one prevails, at times the other; now it is the spiritual mind which gains the ascendency, and again it is the natural which wins the day.
The combat goes on between these two elements of the nature, all along the path of the regeneration. Indeed, without it regeneration were impossible. When we gain some light concerning the higher life, the very opposition to it of the lower nature shows us what we are. When we learn the true character of unselfishness, the opposition of the natural mind to its high behests reveals the selfishness to which we cling. Until we know ourselves we cannot rise. Until we know wherein we are wrong we cannot go right. Now all the decisions of the natural man—his ends, thoughts and acts, come from the lower mind. But all that is spiritual, in will, thought or deed, is the influence of the Lord flowing into the spiritual mind, and moving it to assert its supremacy. So while this struggle goes on, God's work goes on. But when, at last, the natural mind yields, and is brought into obedience to, and harmony with, the higher nature, then there is no more opposition, no more debate, no more combat; the Lord's influences press unresisted in with the happy consent of the entire mind. While the former state is called the work of God, this is termed the rest of God. Therefore it is said, "On the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made."
So God's rest is also man's rest. When man attains this state, he doubts no more concerning spiritual truth; he hesitates no more as to the path of good. His rationality concerning spiritual things becomes so quickened and so strengthened, that they act as intuitions on the mind. His sensitiveness to evil, or to the very shadow or breath of wrong, becomes so exquisite and delicate, that it is shrunk from with the spontaneous energy with which one would snatch his hand from contact with a scorpion. Indeed, he comes into a condition wherein he loves truth and good, and that of a spiritual kind, for their own sakes, so well, that they come to him with all the force of things that cannot be questioned. He would as soon question the sun in the radiance of his shining, the light as it lit before his very eyes the path of his going, the warmth whose genial glow filled every pleasurable sense with joy, as to question God, truth or goodness as they become realized things to the love of the soul, the light of the understanding, and the experience of his life.
Do you know that there is such a thing as certainty in respect to things your bodily eyes have never seen? If you do not, you have missed the enjoyment of the most exquisite sense with which the Creator has endowed the soul. But you do, if you will only step down from, and out of, your sense of self-sufficiency, and consent to believe what you know. Can the poet's sensibility detect a flaw in the rhythmic measure of a line, the artist's eye descry the untrue in the drawing of a picture, the musician's ear discover the slightest deviation from exact harmony in a band of a hundred pieces, and this by the intuition of a moment, and the spiritual nature have no instant intuitions of its own—no ear for the true, no sense for the good, that is as undeviating as the lines of light? But, you say, the intuition of the poet, the artist, or the musician comes by cultivation. And is it true that God has made our natural faculties so wondrously sensitive to cultivation, and left our spiritual faculties, do what we may, dulled and blunted, and inoblivious to the very things for the cultivation of which they were designed? Believe it not. When you do not detect by instantaneous intuition the false sound of error if it strikes upon the ear, nor grasp in its very utterance the truth of God, it is because your spiritual ear is unattuned to the harmonies of heaven; when you do not sense the instant presence of evil in its lightest breath across the heart, and know the voice of good by its very sphere of sweetness to the soul, it is because your sensibility to the influenes of the one eternal loving One are dull and apathetic. There is a state of mind where error is as easily recognized as the baleful shadow of the night, and truth as easily seen as the light in its summer shining; where evil is as sensitively recognized as the cold of the polar zone, and good as exquisitely percieved as the sweet, soft airs of a perfect spring. To cultivate this is the object of regeneration. No excellence in the whole realm of existence is obtained without cultivation. Full regeneration, the seventh day of the new creation, is the perfection of the spiritual nature. Truth is then a perception, good an intuition. We work no more to find them; we labor no more to obtain them: they are ours by right of the manhood established within: they are ours as heirs of God.
Here, and in this state, there is perfect rest of mind. This is not rest in the sense of no more learning, or aspiring, or doing. It is rest from inward opposition or doubt. Indeed, the field of truth, especially on spiritual lines, is so broad and deep, and high, that the mind can never cease to earn. Rest. in this spiritual sense, is absence of worry. Rest in the sense of inertness is utterly abhorrent to the true manhood of man. And there is peace for the heart. There is no more enticement to sin. No doubts of right or wrong arise at any given point. The perfect way is as patent as the broad avenues, which none may mistake, to the natural feet of man. We have learned to know the Lord and to love Him, and the breath of his celestial presence permeates with the sphere of love all things of life. Nothing can disturb us; nothing molest. The magic wand of perfect trust in his overshadowing love in all life's comings and goings, brushes away the annoyances of life at every step and state.
This is the rest of God. Not only is it so in the sense of his resting from the work of overcoming opposition to his entrances in the spirit, but in that of his absolute repose on mind and heart, as gently as the sunbeams rest on the summer earth. This state is described by our Lord himself in his words to his disciples, "Abide in me and I in you; as the branch cannot bear fruit of itself except it abide in the vine, no more can ye except ye abide in me."
Swedenborg has called this state the celestial state as distinguished from the spiritual. We may be spiritual men, but we have always then a higher life to labor for. Indeed from the very day that the firmament is created within, that is, from the time when the firmament of spiritual thought and purpose is formed above the earthly mind, be it in ever so small a degree, we begin to be spiritual. But in the celestial state there is no more regenerative work to labor over, because the work of regeneration is already accomplished. We are not, however, inactive. Rest does not mean idleness. Peace does not require us to sit with folded hands. We will not retire to caves, away from the companionship of man, to contemplate the glory of God. Indeed, the celestial man is the most enquiring, the most active, the most zealous, the most persevering of all. But he labors for good. He loves his neighbor as himself; but in the other world where he need not labor for his own food and raiment, he loves his neighbor better than himself. True, work he does. But that which he once called work is pleasure now. This is because his delight is in being useful; and all labor which has its end in use is no longer labor in the sense of toil, but is rest. So, with the celestial man, his rest is activity, his peace is energy, his work is pleasure, his love of use the very happiness of life, and his love of God the ceaseless affection of his heart for all that, light of truth and impulse of good, which flows from the Divine Being into his receptive nature.
Thus it is that God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made. As the seventh day represents the celestial state the state of rest and peace, when evil no longer tempts and the spirits of sin seduce no more, unquestionably it is blessed. Certainly it is sanctified or made holy. We must understand that no natural thing is holy in itself. It is sanctified by reason of the spiritual principle within. No one day, in itself considered, is more holy than another. It becomes so only by virtue of what it represents. It remains so only in consideration of the holy use to which, by virtue of that representation, it is put. There are six successive states or stages during which the work or struggle or combat of regeneration is performed. The seventh state is holy because combat has ceased and the man has surrendered himself to the Lord.
It was not, therefore, because the earth was literally created in six days, which it was not, and God rested on the seventh, that the Sabbath was instituted. The spiritual meaning of the seventh day of creation is carried over consistently into the Sabbath commandment. It is because the seventh day is the type and representation of a finished regenerate nature that the Sabbath was proclaimed. All memorial days are sacred because of that which they commemorate. As mere arbitrary holidays they would be valueless. But put a meaning into them and they become something. They are then ever recurring lessons. They are memorials of something worth remembering. The fourth of July commemorates the birth of liberty. Its observance keeps alive the virtue of patriotism on the altar of the national soul. Christmas recalls the birth of Christ. It directs vivid attention to the grandest event in the cycles of sacred history. The Sabbath, in its real and primal meaning, commemorates the doctrine of the rebirth of the soul its completed regeneration. But while the first mentioned were human institutions, the Sabbath was ordained by the Lord. It is, therefore sacred, and calls for a proper observance in a sense far higher than the others.
Men dispute over the natural day, as to which one should be recognized as the true Sabbath. It is a matter of little or no consequence. Whether it is the first day of the week, or the last or the middle one is of no moment, if for no other reason, because the week as a division of time is a human and not a divine institution. I mean by this, that the Lord, although He commanded us to keep each recurring seventh day, issued no ordinance setting forth the division of days into weeks, and instituting this day as the first and that as the last. There is no commandment which reads, "Remember the last day of the week to keep it holy," nor is there any precept which says, "Remember Saturday, Sunday or Friday, to keep it holy." There is no allusion, indeed, to the week in any way. It is simply said, "Six day shalt thou labor and do all thy work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath—that is the rest—of the Lord thy God." We are to keep one day in seven in commemoration of the grand celestial institution of a perfect regeneration for man. Any natural day will do so long as a seventh day is kept. But as its uses would be immeasurably decreased by every individual setting for himself a different day, it is palpably right for the common consent of the church to decide the question.
Sabbath means rest. Sabbath day is rest day. It means that as the seventh state of regeneration is complete rest from selfishness and worldliness, and a perfect surrender to the Lord, a regular recurring seventh day must be kept in memory of that fact. At that time we must rest, as much as possible, from worldly business, from worldly thoughts, from worldly schemes, in order that we may worship the Lord, reflect upon spiritual things, learn spiritual truths, and form resolutions of spiritual life. This is a rest from the world and self that helps us on toward heaven. The Sabbath was given for the spiritual benefit of man. Is it wicked then to break the Sabbath? It is not a question of sin. It is simply this: that they who do not keep the Sabbath for the purposes for which it was given will lose the spiritual benefits for which it was designed. Immersed, day in and day out, with no spiritual rest of mind, in business, in pleasure, in dissipation, in the thousand worldly things which draw our thoughts away from heaven, they will lose their way in the path of regeneration, and thus fail to reach the goal for which each and all were born.
But we approach the end of our task. That task has been to unfold the true meaning of this first chapter of Genesis. What have we found to be its value? Was it especially given to teach that God made the earth and the starry heavens? That is written all over the face of the holy Scriptures. It is inscribed in living light every where upon the face of the universe. Nay, its specific use is to teach us a lesson of lessons. It is one which the world heeds not, but from which he who will heed shall obtain blessings beyond the power of language to express.
The lesson is this: that man, in the order of his creation, is ushered upon the plane of earth in mental darkness and great voidness of soul. It is the design of the Lord that he shall be elevated from this condition, and that he shall be recreated into the Divine image and likeness. He has a part in this himself. The Lord gives the truth, but he must rationally receive it. The Lord presents the good, but he must voluntarily do it. The Lord sends love to his heart, but he must love it out to his fellow man. The Lord clothes his understanding with wisdom, but he must do his deeds of love with the wise insight that wisdom gives. The Lord operates for man's regeneration, but he must co-operate. If the Lord sends light to the chambers of his mind, he must throw open the windows of the soul that the light may flow in. If the Lord sends spiritual warmth, he must stand in the presence of his shining, and not lose its benefits by plunging into the fogs and shadows of self, where the benignant sun cannot reach.
So as man begins his career in darkness the Lord sends light. "Let there be light!" is the Divine fiat, and childhood is filled with schools and books and parental teachings to the dispersion of the shadows of life's beginnings. "Let there be a firmament in heaven!" and slowly the mind, prepared by the light of God, opens in its higher firmaments of heavenly thought, so that it may be capable of being filled with comprehensions of spiritual things. "Let there be first tender growths of herb and fruit!" and the spirit is clothed with the verdant germs of a better life, and the fruits of truer action are pendant on the bending boughs of its tree of life. "Let sun, moon and stars appear upon the firmament!" and love, faith and knowledge, spiritually realized, and rationally seen—the great lights of the heavenly mind, illumine its higher regions with thoughts, hopes and aspirations, and glorious glimpses of the higher life, which bathe the brightening world of the soul with joy. "Let the waters bring forth the living soul!" and from the great reservoirs of the mind, its waters of spiritual truth, start forth conceptions of God, heaven and eternal life, which make the soul a living, sentient thing, in a sense of which hitherto it has not dreamed. "Let the earth bring forth the living creature-cattle, beast and creeping thing!" and lo, the affections of the higher nature, of which these forms of living life are the symbols, become grandly alive toward God and man. "Let us make man in our image!" and the soul, now thoroughly transformed, becomes, in all its forms and full activities, in its very organism, in its every impulse, thought and act, an image of its Maker, the very and the only Man. "Let there be rest from creation's work, and the seventh day remain forever sanctified!" and the once weary soul is blessed, in this its high estate, with rest from evil, and peace in its completed state of love, while the holiness of God broods over all its walks and ways. Then supernal wisdom lights the human path of life, love in its manifestations of never ending beauty is the very life of its throbbing energies, truth lights the mind with never dying fires, and goodness crowns its little universe of action with joy and gladness.
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 is a lovely picture of the elevations of life to which we may dare aspire, a perfect delineation of the path we are divinely called to tread, a chart of life by which we may safely work our way, a glorious promise of our heavenly future if we are but true.
We may learn concerning science in the rock-ribbed earth, and trace the courses of the stars by the mathematics learned of man. But the Word of God is given that He may reveal Himself amid the weary ways of earth, build eternal hopes in the heart of fallen man, point the path to the higher life which reigns in heaven, and bathe the soul with the love and truth Divine. So only is the holy Scripture justified; so only our hearts made happy in its study; so only eternal life made sure through its leaves of wonderful light.