The first suggestion of this process of separation is contained in the promise that the deliverance of the race should come through "the Seed of the Woman", for in contradistinction to this "Seed" there is the seed of the Serpent; "I will put enmity between thy seed and her seed". Again we see the process of selection coming out in the preference given to the offering of Abel over that of Cain, and again the selection is repeated in the intimation that Seth took the place of Abel, while it is to be remarked that the New Testament genealogy traces the ancestry of Jesus to Seth; so that the line of Seth is clearly indicated as carrying on the selection originally made in favour of Abel. In this line we find Noah who, with his family, was alone exempted from the universal overthrow of the Deluge; and many centuries later we find one man, Abraham, selected by means of a special covenant to be the progenitor of a chosen race from which in process of time the Messiah, the Promised Seed of the Woman, was to be born.
Now was there in these things any arbitrary selection? After due consideration, we shall find that there was not and that they arose out of the perfectly natural operation of mental laws working on the higher levels of Individualism, and the indications of this operation are given in the story of Cain and Abel. Abel was a keeper of sheep and Cain was a tiller of the earth, and if the reader will bear in mind what I said regarding the symbolic character of Bible personages and the metaphorical use of words, the meaning of the story will become clear.
Now we all know that the first spring of action in any chain of cause and effect which we set going starts with some emotion, some manner of feeling, and not with a mere argument. Argument, a reasoning process, may cause us to change the standpoint of our feeling and to conceive that as desirable which at first we did not consider so; but at the end it is the recognition of a desire which is the one and only spring of action. It is, therefore, the feelings and desires that give the true key to our life, and not mere logical statements; and so if the feelings and desires are going in the right direction, we may be very sure that the logic will not be wrong in its conclusions, even though it may be blundering in its method. Take care of the heart, and the head will take care of itself.
This, then, is the meaning of the story of Cain and Abel. If we realise that the Universal Mind, as the All-pervading undistributed Creative Power, must be subjective mind, we shall see that it can only respond in accordance with the Law of subjective mind; that is to say, its relation to the individual mind must always be in exact correspondence to what the individual mind conceives of it. This is unequivocally stated in a passage which is twice repeated in Scripture: "With the pure Thou wilt show Thyself pure; and with the froward Thou wilt show Thyself froward" (Psalm 18:26 and 2 Sam. 22:27) [The New International Version reads: "To the pure you show yourself pure, but to the crooked you show yourself shrewd" — Ed], where the context makes it clear that these words are addressed to the Divine Being.
If, therefore, we grasp this Law of Correspondence, we shall see that the only conception of the Divine Mind which will really vivify our souls with living and life-giving power is to realise it not merely as a tremendous force to be mapped out intellectually according to its successive stages of sequence — though it is this also — but above all things as the Universal Heart with which our own must beat in sympathetic vibration if we would attain the true development of that power the possession of which constitutes "the glorious liberty of the sons of God" [Rom. 8:21 — Ed.].
In all our operations we must always remember that the Creative Power is a process of feeling and not of reasoning. Reasoning analyses and dissects; feeling evolves and builds up. The relation between them is that reasoning explains how it is that feeling has this power; and the more plainly we see why it should be so, the more completely we are delivered from those negative feelings which act destructively by the same law by which affirmative feelings work constructively.
The first requisite, therefore, for drawing to ourselves that creative action of the Universal Spirit, which alone can set us free from the bondage of Limitation, is to call up its response on the side of feeling; and unless this is done first, no amount of argument, mere intellectuality, can have the desired effect, and this is what is symbolically represented in the statement that God accepted Abel's offering and rejected Cain's. It is the veiled statement of the truth that the action of the intellect alone, however powerful, is not sufficient to move the Creative Power. This does not in the least mean that the intellectual process is hurtful in itself or unacceptable before God, but it must come in its proper order as joining with feeling instead of taking its place. When a mere cold ratiocination is substituted for hearty warmth of volition, then Abel is symbolically slain by Cain.
Now this brings us to the point which we may call the "Severance of the Way". When we realise the Unity of the I AM — the identity, that is, of the Self-recognising Principle in the Universal and in the Individual — we may form three conceptions of it: one according to which the Universal I AM is reduced to a mere unconscious force, which the individual mind can manipulate without any sort of responsibility; another, the converse of this, in which Volition remains entirely on the side of the Universal Mind, and the individual becomes a mere automaton; and the third, in which each phase of Mind is the reciprocal of the other, and consequently the inceptive action may commence on either side.
Now it is this reciprocal action that the Bible all along puts before us as the true Way. From the centre of his own smaller circle of perception the individual is free to make any selection that he will, and if he acts from a clear recognition of the true relations of things, the first use he will make of this power will be to guard himself against any possible misuse of it by recognising that his own circle revolves within the greater circle of that Whole of which he is an infinitesimal part; and therefore he will always seek to conform his individual action to the movement of the Universal Spirit.
His sense of the Wholeness of that Universal Life which finds Individual centre in himself, and his consciousness of his identity with it, will lead him to see that there must be, above his own individual view of things derived from a merely partial knowledge, a higher and more far-seeing Wisdom which, because it is the Life-in-itself, cannot be in any way adverse to him; and he will therefore seek to maintain such a mental attitude as will draw towards himself the response of the Universal Mind as a Power of unfailing Guidance, Provision, and Protection. But to do this means the curbing of that self-will which is guided only by the narrow perception of expediency derived from past experiences; in other words, it requires us to act from trust in the Universal Mind, thus investing it with a Personal character, rather than from calculations based on our own objective view, which is necessarily limited to secondary causes. In a word, we must learn to walk by faith and not by sight.
And at last when we reach the point where we see that the Universal Mind, which is also the Universal LAW, cannot have a retrospective vindictive character any more than any of the Laws of nature which emanate from it, we see that the true sacrifice is the willingness to give up smaller personal aims for the purpose of bringing into concrete manifestation those great principles of universal harmony which are the foundations of the Kingdom of God; and when we reach this point, we see the philosophical reasons why the maintenance of this attitude of the individual towards the Universal Mind is the one and only basis on which the individuality can expand or, indeed, continue to exist at all.
It is in correspondence with these three stages that the Bible first puts before us the patriarchal and Levitical sacrifices, next explains these as symbols of the Great Sacrifice of the Suffering Messiah, and finally tells us that God does not require the death of any victim and that the true offering is that of the heart and the will; and so the Psalms sum up the whole matter by saying, "Sacrifice and burnt-offering thou wouldest not" [Ps. 40:6 — Ed.], and instead of these, "Lo, I come to do Thy will, O my God; yea, Thy Law is within my heart" [Ps. 40:8 — Ed.].
This continual progress is the result of the natural law of the relation between himself and the Universal Mind when he does not invert its action, and because it works with the same unchangeableness as all other Natural Laws, it constitutes an Everlasting Covenant which can no more be broken than those astronomical laws which keep the planets in their orbits, the smallest infraction of which would destroy the entire cosmic system; and it is for this reason that we find in the Bible such frequent allusions to the Laws of Nature as typical of the certainty of the relation between God and His people. "Gather My saints [separated ones] together unto Me; those that have made a covenant with Me by sacrifice" (Psalm 50:5); the two principles of Sacrifice and Covenant rightly understood will always be found to go hand in hand.
The idea of Guidance and Protection which is thus set forth recurs throughout the Bible under the emblem of the Shepherd and the Sheep, and it is in a peculiar manner appropriated to "the People of the I AM": "From thence is the Shepherd, the Stone of Israel" (Gen. 49:24); "Give ear, O Shepherd of Israel, Thou that leadest Joseph like a flock" (Psalm 80:1); "The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want" (Psalm 23:1); "I am the Good Shepherd"; and similarly in many other passages. If, then, this conception of the Shepherd and the Sheep represents the mental attitude of "Israel", we may reasonably expect it to be precisely opposite to all that is symbolically meant by "Egypt". If "Israel" takes for its Stone of Foundation the principle of Guidance by the Supreme Power, then "Egypt" must base itself on the contrary principle of making its own choice without any guidance — that is to say, determined self-will. And hence we find it written that "every Shepherd is an abomination to the Egyptian" (Gen. 46:34).
And where should we find this knowledge except in the Universal Mind, of which the cosmic system is the visible manifestation? If, as it appears to me, this mind is primarily subconscious, then, by the general law of relation between subjective and objective mind, it could reproduce its inherent knowledge of all cosmic facts in any individual mind that had systematically trained itself into sympathy with the Universal Mind in that particular direction. But such training is impossible unless the individual mind first recognises the Universal Mind as an Intelligence capable of giving the highest instruction, and to which, therefore, the individual mind is bound to look for guidance.
We must carefully avoid the mistake of supposing that subconsciousness means unconsciousness. That idea is clearly negatived by the fact of hypnotism. Whatever unconsciousness there may be is on the part of the objective mind, which is unconscious of the action of the subjective mind. But a careful study of the subject shows that the subjective mind, so far from knowing less than the objective mind, knows infinitely more; and if this be true of the individual subjective mind, how much more must it be true of the Universal Subjective Mind, of which all individual consciousness is a particular mode of manifestation.
For these reasons, the only people who could build such a monument as a Great Pyramid must be those who realised the principles of Divine Guidance or the Power which is set forth under the emblem of the Shepherd and the Sheep; and therefore we can see how it is that tradition associates the building of the Pyramid with a Shepherd Power.
And so we find that the central fact to which the Great Pyramid leads up is the coming of "the Good Shepherd"; and Jesus explains the reason for this title in the fact that "the Good Shepherd giveth his life for the Sheep". That is what distinguishes him from the hireling who is not a true shepherd; so that here we find ourselves back again at the idea of Sacrifice, only now it is not the Sheep that are sacrificed but the Shepherd. Could anything be plainer? The sacrifice is not an offering of blood to a sanguinary Deity, but it is the Chief Shepherd sacrificing himself to the necessities of the case.
And what are the necessities of the case? The student of Mental Science should see here the grandest application of the Law of Suggestion in a supreme act of self-devotion logically proceeding from the knowledge of the fundamental truths regarding Subjective and Objective Mind. Jesus stands before us as the Grand Master of Mental Science. It is written that "he knew what was in man" [John 2:25 — Ed.], and in his mission we have the practical fruits of that knowledge.
The Great Sacrifice is also the Great Suggestion. If we realise that the Creative Power of our Thought is the root from which all our experiences, whether subjective or objective, arise, we shall see that everything depends on the nature of the suggestions which give colour to our Thought. If from our consciousness of guilt they are suggestions of retribution, then, in accordance with the predominating tone of our Thought, we shall externalise the evil that we fear; and if we carry this terrible suggestion with us through the gate of death into that other life which is purely subjective, then assuredly it will work itself out in our realisations, and so we must continue to suffer until we believe that we have paid the uttermost farthing. This is not a judicial sentence, but the inexorable working of Natural Law. But if we can find a counter-suggestion of such paramount magnitude as to obliterate all sense of liability to punishment, then, by the same Law, our fears are removed; and whether in the body or out of the body, we rejoice in the sense of pardon and reconciliation to our Father which is in heaven.
Now we can well imagine that one who has attained the supreme knowledge of all Laws, and as a consequence has developed the powers which the knowledge must necessarily carry with it, would find in the conveying of such an incalculably valuable suggestion to the race an object worthy of his exalted capacities. For such a one, ordinary ambitions would have no meaning; he has already left them far behind. But if he elects to devote himself to this great work, he must count the cost, for nothing short of delivering himself to death can accomplish it. The Master said, "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends" [John 15:13 — Ed.], and if the Law of Suggestion was to be employed in such a way as to appeal to the whole race, it could only be by so deeply impressing them with the realisation of the Divine Love that all fear should be forever cast out; therefore the suggestion must be that of a Love which nothing can exceed, and so it must consist in him who undertakes the mission giving himself to Voluntary Death.
For herein is the difference between the crucifixion of Jesus and those thousands of other crucifixions which disgraced the annals of Rome: it was entirely voluntary. This also places it above all other acts of heroism. Many have died for the sake of others, but to them death was a necessity, and their devotion consisted in accepting it when and how they did. But with Jesus the case was entirely different. He was beyond the necessity of death, and no man could take his life from him. He himself had power to lay it down and to take it up again (John 10:17), but he was under no compulsion to do so; therefore his yielding himself to a death of excruciating agony was the master-stroke of Love and the supreme practical application of Mental Science.
When he said, "It is finished", he had accomplished a work which is aptly represented by The Cubical Stone which is The Figure of the New Jerusalem, of which it is written that "the length and the breadth and the height thereof are equal" (Rev. 21:16). For turn it which way you will, it still always serves its great purpose of impressing the suggestions of superlative Love which can be trusted to the uttermost. Even the crude conception of the Father's "justice" being satisfied by the sacrifice of "the Son", however faulty both as Law and as Theology, in no way misses the mark from the metaphysical standpoint of Suggestion; and those who have not yet got beyond this stage in their conception of the Divine Being receive the assurance of the Divine Love towards themselves as completely as those who are able to grasp most clearly the sequence of cause and effect really involved; and for these latter it resolves itself into the simple argument a fortiori [with still greater reason - Ed.] that if the Universal Spirit could thus inspire one to die for us who was already beyond the necessity of death, then It cannot be less loving in the bulk than It has shown Itself in the sample.
Let us, then, no longer doubt the fact of this Love but, realising it to the full, let us make the Cross of Christ not the mysterious end of an unintelligent religion, but the beginning of a bright, practical, and glorious New Life, taking for our starting-point the apostolic words, "there is now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus" [Rom. 8:1 — Ed.]. We have now consciously left all condemnation behind us, and we set forward on our New Life with the self-obvious maxim that "if God be for us, who can be against us?" [Rom. 8:31 — Ed] We may meet with opposition, but there is with us a Power and an Intelligence which no opposition can overcome, and so we become "more than conquerors through Him that loved us" (Rom. 8:37).
This is the nature of the Great Suggestion wrought out by Jesus; so that here again we find that the acceptance of the Great Sacrifice gives rise to the consciousness of a peculiarly close and endearing relation between the Individual and the Universal Mind, which may well be described as an Everlasting Covenant because it is founded not on any favouritism on the part of God, neither on any deeds of merit on the part of Man, but on the accurate working of Universal Law when realised in the higher manifestations of Individualism; and so it is truly written, "by his Knowledge shall My righteous servant justify many" [Is. 53:11 — Ed.]. Thus it is that Jesus completes the work of Moses in building up into a peculiar people, a chosen generation, "the People of the I AM" (1 Peter 2:9).
If we recognise in Abraham one whose deep realisation of the truth concerning the promised "Seed" had specially placed him in touch with the Universal Mind in that particular direction, we may naturally suppose a special illumination on this subject which would lead him to impress this idea upon his son Isaac as the foundation-fact of his life; and so from generation to generation, the supreme realisation to all his descendants would be that of their covenant relation to God. And besides the impression conveyed by personal teaching, the law of heredity would cause each member of this race to be born with a prenatal subjective consciousness of this great Suggestion, which would carry its effect into the building up of his life, quite independently of any objectively conscious knowledge of the subject. This involves intricate psychological problems which I cannot stop to discuss here, but all New Thought readers are sufficiently acquainted with the potency of "race-beliefs" to realise how powerful a factor this subjective transmission of a hereditary suggestion would be in forming "the people of the I AM".
And there is yet another aspect of this subject which is of peculiar interest to the British and American nations, into which, however, I shall not enter in this book; but it will be sufficient for me to say that when a suggestion has once been implanted by the Divine Mind, as the Bible tells us that God did to Abraham in the most emphatic manner, taking oath by His Own Being because He could swear by none greater (Heb. 6:13), that suggestion is bound to grow to the most magnificent fulfilment: "My word that goeth forth out of My mouth shall not return unto Me void, but shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereunto I sent it" (Isaiah 55:11).
For the reasons which I have now endeavoured to explain, the principle of "the Shepherd" is "the Stone of Israel"; it is that great ideal by which the nationality of the "People of the I AM" coheres, and it is, therefore, at once the Foundation Stone and the Crowning Stone of the whole edifice. To those who cannot realise the great universal truths which are summed up in the twofold ideal of Sacrifice and Covenant, it must always be the Stone of stumbling and the Rock of offence; but to "the People of the I AM", whether individually or collectively, it must forever be "the Stone of Israel" [Gen 49:24 — Ed.] and "the Rock of our Salvation" [e.g. Ps. 95:1 — Ed.]. To lay in Zion this Chief Corner Stone was the mission of Jesus Christ.