THE WEEKLY DISCOURSE;
CONTAINING
SPIRITUAL
SERMANS
BY THE GUIDES OF
Mrs. Cora L. V. Richmond
Each week Cora's trance sermons would consist of four parts;
THE INVOCATION, THE DISCOURSE, THE POEM and THE BENEDICTION.
The audience would chose the subject for the impromtu Poem, which
for this, the first sermon in the book of progressive weekly sermons was,
'The
Life Of Thomas Paine'.
|
"....Christ wisdom, this awakening of the nature from
within, this love of humanity
is not
limited to those who know the name of Christ, or who are termed Christians....."
Generation
and Regeneration
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DELIVERED BEFORE THE FIRST SOCIETY OF SPIRITUALISTS OF CHICAGO
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SUNDAY, March 7, 1886
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INVOCATION.
Infinite God, Thou Ruler and Guide of every living soul; Thou source
of all life and light; Thou Ineffable Wisdom; Thou Divine and Perfect Love;
Thou All-wise Benefactor; Thou Parent; unto Thee Thy children would turn
forever with praises; placing upon the altar of Thy love all offerings
and thanksgivings; bringing there the tributes of their lives; the most
hallowed as aspirations of their minds, the most devoted offerings of the
soul; they would praise Thee for the visible universe, for the glad sunshine
of this golden day, for the promise of springtime, on earth, freighted
with the prophecy of thousands of blooming flowers, for all the promise
of fruitage and golden grain that the earth holds in the silent prophecy
of the years. They praise Thee more for the gifts of the mind, for its
promises yet unfulfilled, for its prophecies unattained; for what knowledge
is already sown in the human mind and shall be gathered in the graciousness
of the future harvests of time. They praise Thee more for the aspirations
of the soul, for that life which hath no seed time and no harvest; but
is in Eternity, in the unquenchable light of Immortality, bringing into
the midst of the glamour of time and sense the wonderful attributes of
eternity, and shaping human destinies, that are freighted with the cares
and sorrows of material life, unto the thought of spirits and angels, and
they praise Thee that this diviner life, this more hallowed being, this
loftier and nobler existence is dreamed of by man, and known within the
souls of all, that more and more it pervades their daily existence, expresses
itself in human life and makes manifest its divine possessions in all human
existence. May every day and hour yield more and more its expression of
the soul's divinity, until the earth shall become really the Kingdom of
Heaven, and until human life there shall be Thy dwelling place on earth.
Amen.
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DISCOURSE.
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As in Adam all men die, so in Christ all men are made alive. "Except
a man be born again he can in no ways enter the Kingdom of Heaven." These
and other similar sayings have introduced into theology the term "regeneration"
in contradistinction to the word generation, or physical being. Science
ignores regeneration and only deals with the part of man that is Adamic.
This Adam is the generic word for the "man of earth," but the "Kadmon Adam,"
spoken of the Kabala, was the divine man, the "man of God," and therefore
must have referred to the regenerated man. This "Kadmon Adam" is that which
belonged to the general schools of the Kabala, and is in reality the generic
name for Christ. The Buddhas of the East, the Saviors and Messiahs of all
nations, as well as the Christian Savior are literally interpreted as belonging
to this term, "the man of God," "the life of God," the expression of God
in man.
There are many people, ignorant both of these cabalistic terms and of
the religious nature of man, who say: "but if a man is born right the first
time he has no need of being born again." This is simply foolish; the second
birth referred to qualities and conditions of unfoldment that can not be
expressed in the birth of the physical man, and do not refer to a point
of time, nor to any succession of years, but to states and conditions.
This physical man is of the earth earthy, and the Adam of the old testament
is the typical expression of the race of man born of the earth. This Adamic
generation is the expression of physical life, it is the taking upon of
the physical form, the in-breathing into this of the breath of life, and,
of course, in this Adam all men do die.
Theology will have it that it is because of the sin of Adam, or because
of transgression that death is introduced. But the very term generation
means death, it means that which has birth must have decay, that which
has generic life must generically cease to be. It simply means that the
portion of humanity, which is like Adam, which is made of dust, which contains
every chemical property of the earth, which epitomizes, if you please,
the chemical expression of organic, generic, life, nevertheless must die.
It is the physical Adam that must perish; in this alone is that which is
called transgression; that physically for the time being, the Adamic form
seems to absorb and eclipse, in some instances almost apparently obliterate,
the spiritual man or the Kadmon Adam. The power of generation belongs to
the organism of the dust, is a portion of the organic structure of the
visible universe, is that which the Infinite in the divine mechanism of
the physical universe has placed at the command of the superior man.
The moment you have thought; the moment you have an idea that is beyond
the body, that is beyond the five senses, the moment you can think of anything
besides food and the vision of the body, and the bare sensations of physical
life, that moment the superior man becomes manifest. Whether this is in
the child, or man or woman does not matter; whether it is in one year of
time or another does not matter; "regeneration" is not a portion of the
physical economy, does not belong to any of the laws of physiological existence;
is something separate from the generic life, and while the generic life,
specifically and individually can have no existence without the superior
man, the generic life of the whole race of Adam has existence because of
the general laws of the universe, the specific law which places that general
law in possession of the individual human life is beyond physical creation
and is in the realm of spiritual, the realm of the origin of things, but
the generation of life seems to occupy much of the attention of physical
scientists, those who denominate themselves proficient in sociology, or
in what we term a misnomer "social science," would view the subject of
man's entire existence from the stand point of generation merely, would
suppose that all moral and mental infirmities have their origin and remedy
in the Adamic man, in the physical man, and would teach that the laws of
anatomy, physiology, and hygiene when properly understood would enable
the human race to overcome the imperfections of the physical, mental and
moral being. In other words, they mistake the correct physical existence
for the regenerated spiritual state. They are placing the effect previous
to the cause, are endeavoring to deal with propositions inversely from
the order of their actual existence. The regeneration of the human family,
whether it be in the direction of physical well being, whether it be in
the direction of modifying those seemingly hereditary tendencies to crime
and disease that are in the world, must all begin in the spiritual part
of man. And this regeneration is that which makes man aware of possessing
a spiritual being, something more than the clod, and of having a nature
which being divine can pervade and renovate the physical system which is
not divine.
The body is a perfect mechanism in its organic structure; but to be
perfectly attuned, and for every human being to be a perfect illustration
of the perfection of that mechanism, there must be perfect spiritual consciousness
in and through the human organism.
The Adamic man tastes the death of the physical body because the Adamic
man is not regenerated. The fear of death came into the world at the time
when humanity was in its infancy, when the expressions of human life were
material, when birth was the beginning, and death the ending of all; and
this age is not so far in advance of that primitive time; a new race of
infants seems to have come into existence in the ultra materialists of
the present time, who take pains to convince you that human birth is the
beginning and human death the ending of all that constitutes man's life.
Of course, races repeat themselves, and the expressions of them, even under
other names, wear the same appearances, and have the same origin.
The physical infancy of the race which grows out of the fear of death
and the idea of birth and death including all the life of man, is precisely
the same as that limited range of scientific thought which makes the same
proposition today.
But in every age there have been regenerated lives, there have been
those who perceive something beyond the senses, who admit something beyond
the dust, who have evidence of that which is within, and who, through this
regenerating power, express in their human lives not only the control over
physical imperfections of tastes and appetites, but have control, in mind
and spirit, over vast numbers of people. The Messiah is the perfect Kadmon
man, the Ideal man on earth, the typical Son of God. The materialist, the
Adam of the present generation, is the typical transgressor--ofcourse we
mean nothing personal in this, we mean that the man, limited to the contemplation
of the sences, is limited in his moral range and faculties; we mean the
man illumed by the Christ spirit is the ideal of the world, whether in
the form of the Christ of Christendom or in the ideals of the philosophers,
still the nature is precisely the same.
It is the recognition of that divine godliness that constitutes the
only hope of the world. The purely physical man, the man contemplating
humanity and its infirmities from the standpoint of the senses, declares
that there can be no regeneration or reform of the earth excepting from
perfect physical conditions. The purely spiritual man, the Christ man,
declares that there can be no regeneration of humanity excepting from within,
and these two systems, in some veiled form or other, have existed in all
ages, have taken possession of all classes of minds, have been the themes
of controversy between the scientist, the philosopher and the theologian
in every age. You are not living for the first time in an age of doubt
and materialism, though you may imagine it. It is not left to the nineteenth
century to professedly "discover" that there is nothing in spiritual truth.
In the middle ages, in the sixteenth century, Faustus and Socinian declared
a system of philosophy that recognized not the divine man in Christ, but
merely a more perfect human being, not regeneration through spirit but
through physical and material philosophy.
Such was the controversy in the different schools of thought in Germany
that in one direction it branched off into metaphysics, and in the other
into the reformation. There have been schools of thought even in the first
years of Christendom, as the Arians who did not recognize the Divine in
Christ, but only that he was a most efficient teacher, and endeavored to
place his teachings in the catalogue of philosophy or human science.
In other periods of the world's history there have been materialistic
philosophers, like those existing in the time of Plato, who endeavored
to overthrow the teachings of Plato and Socrates concerning immortality,
by the external and superficial systems of thought, of those ages. So it
has not been left to the enlightened nineteenth century to discover materialism,
but it is a remnant of barbaric ages, and we can return the compliment,
when they say that religion is the result of the ages of superstition,
we can say that materialism is but the remnant of barbarism.
Spiritual regeneration is the hope of the world; the ideals of all the
philosophies that have survived the touches of time. The philosophies purely
material have sunk into obscurity. The philosophies purely spiritual have
continually arisen on the horizon of human thought. Platonism has survived
when the material systems of Greece and Rome have perished and the thought
of those who taught the diviner truths of Christianity have been retained
in human minds and in human history, when all the material subterfuges
and glamour of the middle ages have passed out of sight. Our idea concerning
this regenerating influence of the Christ man, the "Son of God," is the
typical spiritual human being, the ideal man, the perfect attainment, the
complete victory and conquest over the physical life, over the Adamic life
by the Christ spirit.
That this is not accomplished by philosophy or science is evident from
the fact that while philosophy and science may mitigate and modify many
of the physical conditions of man, they do not as philosophy or science
make men better.
There seems to be, between the intellect and the spirit of man, a perpetual
conflict, as there is between the spirit and his body. The intellect of
man is only a little more than refined Adam; it is not the quickened spirit
of Christ. The intellect of man may teach him to commit burglary skillfully;
instead of attacking a man upon the highway, as was the custom with ancient
highwaymen--but pardon us, we do not mean to be personal, but in a modified
sense we consider that the intellectual philosophies of the day are the
intellectual highwaymen of the world--they assault the spiritual nature
of man, challenge it for its treasures, and rob it of that which it has
given to the world, then declare that it was always the possession of the
philosophers.
Or, we might compare them somewhat to very skillful burglars; the house
of God is open, it faces the eastern sky of immortality, and the soul living
within is always ready to admit the searcher after truth, the Christ man,
the God man are there, in the dwelling place of the spirit, but the intellectual
burglar is afraid to walk in at the door of inspiration and intuition,
he is upon the roof or at the window, trying to go from "effect to cause,"
from the "known to the unknown," endeavoring to discover a secret passage,
or some other way by which he can enter this house, where he knows the
treasures of the soul are found, take possession of them and claim them
as the property of material science, declaring that they were never in
the world before. It is a skillful plan, but these sons of Mercury will
never get beyond the outside walls of the House of God by material methods.
The knowledge of spiritual things must come from within, and he who would
discover
them, must enter by the only open doorway, the doorway of Inspiration illumined
from the soul. The regenerator is there, is within every human spirit,
and that Regenerator acting upon each individual life, produces the awakening
that is termed the "second birth;" while it may be true as many scientific
and material minds declare that the supposed "regeneration" in many lives
in Christendom, this awakening which is termed the "second birth" in Christian
theology, the "conversion" which even in your own city at this moment many
individuals think they are experiencing, may be in many instances the result
of excitement, of the superficial stimulus of the magnetism of the speaker,
or of something that appeals to human fear or human ignorance.
Still, in the exacted lives of Christians, in the most perfect type
of those human beings who have experienced the awakening power of true
religion in their lives there is nothing that can be compared either to
ignorance, fear or superstition. Regeneration is knowledge; it is the knowledge
of the presence of the life of God in the universe, it is the recognition
of the spiritual nature of the guidance of the universe; it is as though
one who had been blind before were made to see; it is as though one had
been deaf and now could hear the music of earth and sky. If you have not
experienced it, you do not know what it is. If you have awakened to the
understanding of the meaning of what the speaker is saying, like that mysterious
and all potent power of love, the love of the mother for the child, sacrificing
everything, bestowing everything, doing everything, this all-controlling,
all-potent power moves her life--if you have experienced that love toward
any human being, you can understand what the mother feels, or like the
love that those feel whose lives are inter-blended in the sacred tie of
marriage; if ennobling, perfect and true, it is the recognition in each
life of all that is exalted and perfect; it is self-forgetfulness, it is
the bestowing of all; it is that awakening that makes even the forms in
nature, and every being in the universe seem more joyous and more beautiful.
For this sentiment, lovers have been known to scale prison walls, to escape
from dungeon cells to traverse sea and land through fire and flame and
the hardships of battle, to encounter all the vicissitudes and perils of
human life for the sake of the loved one. In a diviner sense, in a more
perfect and complete awakening, regeneration is the love of humanity, is
the Christ birth that recognizes in all human beings not merely the physical
man and woman that are subjects of pride, and hatred, and scorning, and
selfishness, not merely the humanity that has been preying upon one another,
but the divine humanity within each one, of whom there is the spark of
infinite and immortal love.
This Christ wisdom, this awakening of the nature from within, this love
of humanity is not limited to those who know the name of Christ, or who
are termed Christians; many who supposed themselves to be infidels, have
nevertheless experienced this regeneration; they love humanity with a profound
and absolute love; through self-forgetfulness they know that humanity unfolds
the highest and most divine possibilities, and they work in all their lives
and in all their expressions for the welfare of humanity.
This regeneration does not come in any name, it is not enfolded in any
form of peculiar thought, but it is the possession of all, either latent
or already expressed; measurably unfolded in some, the whole human family
reveals with very few exceptions some glimmering of its birth. But when
the floodtides are loosened, when the frosts and ice of materialism and
doubt are melted away, when the consciousness of truth and love takes possession
of the human mind, it is as though the whole nature had been renewed; the
death in Adam no longer exists, the physical body is no longer a curse
but a blessing, and physical disease can no longer terrify, but can be
overcome by the blessed light of knowledge and of love, and all forms of
human hatred and human pride and the warfare of individuals and nations
melt and fade away before this regenerating power. The starvation of the
body is impossible because the spirit is fed from within, and food is abundant
because men love one another, and see to it that all are provided for.
There can be no poverty in this kingdom of the spirit when humanity is
regenerated.
The individual life possessing this higher birth can make a whole community
more joyous, and every household more glad. A community or society of men
thus regenerated can make the world an Eden, and the whole human family
growing towards this regeneration can make the "Kingdom of Heaven" on earth
which saviour and prophet, seer and poet have predicted. Nor is this an
impossible ideal, nor is it an expression of mere sentiment or religious
fancy, it is the absolute growth and testimony of the whole world. The
whole human society of today is nearer to the Kadmon Adam, the Christ man,
than a thousand years ago; and there are many lives in your midst now,
perhaps too many to be even noticeable, who aim at the highest expression
of good will toward their fellow men. Your own hearts are quickened by
impulses that were only known to the highest sages and philosophers of
olden time; your lives are daily becoming more and more noble by the impelling
force of this life from within, that will have growth, and will express
itself, and grow toward the Christ who is ever waiting for you.
Do not mistake us, it is due to you to say, that everything you can
do in the physical world that will carry forward the perfection of humanity,
you should do. Whatever sanitary measures, whatever laws of physical science
you find valuable and beneficial, whatever will add to the material uplifting
and comfort of humanity, you can not avoid doing, if you are seeking for
the welfare of man; but the regeneration of man will not be through that
method. Regeneration has already begun when you seek to uplift humanity
in any direction. Therefore, the seeking of this power is that which when
carried forward still further will constitute the true, genuine and perfect
redemption of man. For it has been stated, and this in some way disturbs
you, that it is only through "faith" and through "grace" that man can be
redeemed; if those who are theologians wish and prefer to use these terms,
can we find fault with the words that they use, when they mean the same
thing? Is not "Grace," the sufficiency of God's love? Is not faith, trust
in the infinite love and guidance? It can not matter by what name you call
that redeeming and renovating power, provided it be love and truth.
Many who have passed through the meshes and labyrinths of theology,
and found the external creed insufficient to satisfy, may perhaps have
missed the food that others found, may have been too external in their
seeking. You must not blame religion because theology has not fed you.
If you had possessed religion, theology could not have hurt you; not having
had it you could not expect theology to furnish it. Those who have escaped
from the churches, considering themselves free from bondage, have many
of them plunged into the greater bondage of the senses and of the material
intellect, and have concluded to adopt no knowledge that will compromise
or commit them to any belief in religion, yet surely they are in greater
bondage than before, for if you think theological terms can make or unmake
religion you are very much mistaken.
If you think that religion is limited to theology, you are also mistaken.
The theologian standing within the pale of the church may see no other
redeeming power, no other redeeming grace, no other method for mankind
excepting through his interpreted plan of salvation. We do not blame him
for this; if it is his way of understanding it, we have not the slightest
objection. But we who are outside of the pale of the theological dogma
or creed which he believes, know very well that however much sunshine he
may have in his dwelling, he has not all the sunshine that there is; however
much of God and His truth may abide there, God and His truth fill the whole
universe, through other names and other terms that may be divine as well
as the ones he is accustomed to use. We wage no war with any man's language,
but what we mean we endeavor to express in our own language, and explain
adequately what we mean.
The regenerating power we refer to is a power that is open to individual
human lives, and is not in the keeping of any system of theology. The power
that we mean is that which works upon the individual heart within or without
the pale of the Christian church as it is termed, and expresses itself
in the God-like life, in noble deeds, in exalted self-abnegation, in charity,
in loving kindness, and in the truth that shows the regenerating power
of the love that is within.
Spiritual growth is the only regeneration, and this is fed from the
unseen fountains of the soul up springing from within the human spirit.
As it has its sources and its well-springs beyond time and sense, and birth
and death, you can not find them in the cradle, you may look in vain to
discover them in the grave, you can not find their origin in the infancy
of the physical man, nor yet in the gray hairs of the venerable sire, you
can only find them within that realm, that alike precedes birth, and succeeds
death; has its fountains in the great sources of things, and feeds from
those unseen springs, the river of your daily life, the spiritual growth
of your daily being.
Yes, the work of regeneration is here and now. As the quickened germs
within the earth are silently making preparations to come forth, as the
heralding airs of springtime are all alive with preparations for the birth
of new buds and blossomings held in the ancient heart of mother earth for
thousands of ages, held safe and sure, and secure, those germs of these
very buds and blossoms that are about to be, so within the atmosphere of
earth, beyond the death of the race of Adam, of the physical man that is
rapidly passing away, of the physical age that has now a limit put upon
its life, of the physical mind that will soon cease to be; beyond these
the regenerated race of the world is preparing to come forth.
You perceive in all forms of human thought the trembling of new buds,
and new blossomings appear, new fruitage upon old vines, new growth upon
the orchards, new fields of grain that shall ripen before man's vision.
The world is preparing for the Christ birth; is making ready for the Kadmon
Adam; is in its unfoldment to be divine, more perfect and more beautiful;
is in fact to recognize the law of the spirit, instead of the law of the
dust; the law of Christ, instead of the law of Adam; the law of love, instead
of edict of hatred and death, as hatred is death; and everything that pertains
to warfare and striving belong to the Adamic man, so the Christ love, that
redeeming power, that regenerating life, that transcendent vision of existence,
is even now making itself manifest, not alone in individual lives, but
in the whole race of mankind, that is looking forward toward the grand
transfiguration of the race, the uplifting from doubt and fear, and pain,
and the bondage of death, to the life that shall make real the Kingdom
of Heaven on earth.
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POEM
