Chapter V - Prayer and Atonement
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midst; but until they saw it triumph over the grave
midst; but until they saw it triumph over the grave
the disciples were not able to admit and demonstrate
so fully its Principle. Thomas, beholding the idea of
it in Jesus, (after his supposed death) was forced to
acknowledge how entire was the proof. From all the
disciples had seen and suffered, they became more spir-
itual, therefore could better understand what the Master
had taught them. This, therefore, was the resurrec-
tion, for it raised them from the blindness of a belief
in God to the understanding of Him, "Whom to know
aright was Life." They needed this, for soon their dear
Master that had just risen to their comprehension would
rise again, higher in the spiritual scale of being, and so
much beyond them in reward for all his faithfulness,
he would disappear to their more material thoughts,
and Biblical history would name it the ascension. An-
cient prophets who wrought before Jesus, foretold his
coming, and the reception the world of sense would
give Truth; also there is a connection inseparable be-
tween their experiences, and those of every Christian
who perceives the idea and accepts the understanding
of God. Jesus, born of a virgin mother, was more of a
miracle to that age, than to this; for even the naturalist
is now furnishing reports of embryology in some species
wholly without the male element. The Bethlehem
babe was the nearest approximation since the record
in Genesis to the science of being, in which Spirit
makes man; for man born of woman, was the usual
advent of mortal man, and this material belief was
what entered Mary's spiritual conception of Jesus,
which accounts for the struggles of Gethsemane, but it
made him the mediator between God and mortal man;
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this lack of entire science in the advent of Jesus, pro-
this lack of entire science in the advent of Jesus, pro-
duced its discord, and met its fate in death. Had his
origin and birth, however, been wholly apart from mor-
tal belief, Jesus would not have been recognized by
mortal man; and "he was the light that was to lighten
every man that cometh into the world;" therefore he
must be the mediator, or interpreter of Truth to error
that destroyed error and rebuked personal sense with
the Principle of being.
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Jesus never ransomed man, by paying the debt sin
Jesus never ransomed man, by paying the debt sin
incurs; whosoever sins must suffer. This Christian
martyr suffered for the Truth, that destroyed error, and
while it blessed the whole world, was that for which it
hated him; even the sinner must learn Truth, by the
things he suffers. Love is no compromise with sin, and
pays no debt of its contracting; but it can and does
point out the way to escape from it and reach the har-
mony and science of being. The blood of that righteous
man shed by sinners, was a crime that affords no ground
for further sin or a belief of its pardon, it was an injus-
tice to humanity that the best man should be sacrificed
by the worst men. Jesus taught the way of escape
from sin, but that all that sinneth shall die, in other
words, that sin must be destroyed. Wisdom pun-
ishes, instead of pardons, sin. The terrible effect of
our false views regarding the atonement, is to make a
sinner less fearful to sin, believing a tear or a prayer
will secure its pardon; this heightens hypocrisy and
suffocates conscience. The time is not far distant when
our theological views of atonement will undergo as radi-
cal a change as those have already done regarding a
bottomless pit, burning with fire and brimstone, and the