If, then, we have nothing to give but our love and worship, why not take up the position of grateful and expectant receivers? It simplifies matters and relieves us of a great deal of worry, and moreover it is undoubtedly scriptural. The reason we don't do so is because we don't believe in the free giving, and consequently we cannot adopt a mental attitude of receiving, and so the Spirit cannot make the gift.
"The things I possess I got with my money, and my money I got by work". Of course you did. God doesn't put dollar bills or banknotes into your cash box by a conjuring trick. God makes things generically, whether it be iron or brains, and then we have to use them. But the iron or brains, or whatever else it may be, ultimately proceeds from the All-creating Spirit; and the more clearly we see this, the easier we shall find it to go direct to the Spirit for all we want.
Then we shall find circumstances open out and our abilities increase, and this without putting any undue strain upon ourselves, but on the contrary with a great sense of restfulness.
And the secret is this: we are not bearing the burden ourselves. We are not trying to force things on the external plane by our objective powers, nor yet on the subjective plane by trying to compel the Spirit; therefore, though diligent in our calling, we are at rest. And the foundation of this rest is that we believe in a Divine Promise, and the Promise is in the nature of the Divine Being.
The reason why this is made the starting-point of faith is that we start with an undoubted fact: the Universe exists. Then a little consideration will show us that it must have had its origin in the Thought of the Universal Spirit before its manifestation in time and space, so that here we start with another self-evident fact; and these two obvious and incontrovertible facts supply us with premises from which to reason; so that knowing our premises to be true, we know that our conclusion must be true also, if we only reason correctly from the premises. This is the logic of it.
Then the reasoning proceeds as follows: in the beginning there were no antecedent conditions, and the whole creation came out of the desire of the Spirit for Self-expression. By the nature of the case, the conception of the existence of any antecedent conditions is impossible; and so we see that creation from within (as distinguished from construction from without) has the entire absence of pre-determining and limiting conditions as its distinguishing characteristic.
Then our thought, inspired by the promise, is, so to say, reflected back into the Mind of the Universal Spirit in direct relation to ourselves and thus becomes part and parcel of the Self-realisation of the Spirit in connection with ourselves personally, thus bringing about a working of the creative Law of Reciprocity from the standpoint of our own individuality; and because the activity thus called forth is that of the Original Creative Energy, the First Cause itself, it is as unhampered by antecedent conditions as was the original cosmic creation itself.
I have gone more fully into this subject in my Creative Process in the Individual, but I hope I have now said sufficient to make the general principle clear and to show that the Bible promises are nothing else than the statement of the essential creativeness of the All-originating Spirit when operating in reciprocity with the individual mind. If we believe in the power of Affirmation, then trust in the Divine promise is the strongest affirmation we can make. And if we believe in the power of Denials, then such a simple trust is also the strongest denial we can make for, being absolute confidence, it constitutes an emphatic denial of any power, whether in the visible or the invisible, to prevent the fulfilment of the promise.
The fact that the statement of any truth has been reduced to its simplest terms does not imply that it cannot stand the test of investigation; all that it implies is that it has been put into the best shape for immediate use alike for those who are able, and for those who are unable, to investigate the underlying principle. We press the button and the electric bell rings, whether we are trained electricians or not; but the fact that the bell rings for those who know nothing about electricity does not hinder the investigator from learning why it rings. On the other hand, the greatest electrician does not have to go through the whole theory of the working of the current when he rings at the door of your house, which would be inconvenient to say the least of it; and still less does he have to solve the ultimate problem of what electricity actually is in itself, for he knows no more about that than anybody else.
And so in the end he has to come back to the same simple faith in electricity as the man who does not know the difference between the positive and negative poles of a battery. His greater knowledge ought to extend his faith in electricity, because he knows it can do much greater things than ringing a bell; and in like manner any clearer insight we may gain into the modus operandi [method of operation Ed.] of the Divine promises should increase our trust in them, while at the same time it leaves us on just the same level with the most ignorant as to what the Divine Spirit actually is in itself.
We all alike have to come back to the standpoint of a simple faith in the vitalising working of the energising power, whether God or electricity, and therefore the Bible simplifies matters by bidding us take this ultimate position as our starting-point, and not say, "I am confident because I know the law", but "I am confident because I know in whom I have believed".
And the point is this: laws are statements of the relations of certain things to certain other things under certain conditions. Given the same things and the same conditions, the same laws will come into play because the same relation has been established between the things; but this is exactly the sphere which excludes the idea of original creation.
It is the sphere of science, of analysis, of measurement; it is the proper domain of all merely constructive work; but that is just what original creation is not. Original creation is not troubled about antecedent conditions; it creates new conditions, and by so doing establishes new relations and therefore new laws; and since the declared purpose of the Bible is to bring us into a new order, in which all that is meant by "the Fall" shall be obliterated, this is nothing else than a New Creation, which indeed the Bible calls it.
Therefore our knowledge of particular laws, whether mental or material, is of no avail for this purpose, and we have to come back to the stand-point of simple faith.
Seen in this light, faith in the promise is not a mere unreasoning belief, neither is it in opposition to law; but on the contrary, it is the most all-embracing conclusion to which reasoning can lead us and the channel through which the Supreme Law of the Universe the Law of the creative activity of the All-originating Spirit operates to make new conditions for the individual. It is not trying to make yourself believe what you know is not true, but it is the exercise of the highest reason based upon the knowledge of the highest truth.
The Divine promise and the individual faith are thus the correlatives of each other and together constitute a creative power to which we can assign no limits. When we begin to apprehend this connection of Cause and Effect, we see the force of the statements made by the Master: "All things are possible to him that believeth" [Mark 9:23 Ed.]; "Have faith in God and nothing shall be impossible unto you" [Matt. 17:20 Ed.]; and the like. If we attribute any authority whatever to his sayings, we are justified by them in affirming that there is no limit to the power of faith and that his declarations on this subject are not mere figures of speech, but statements of the special and individual working of the Creative Law of the Universe.
Viewed in this light, the Bible promises assume a practical aspect and a personal application, and we see what is meant by being Children of Promise. We are no longer under bondage to Law that is, to those laws of sequences which arise from the relations of existing things to one another but have risen into what the Bible tells us is the Perfect Law, the Law of Liberty; and so according to the symbolism of the two representative mothers, Hagar and Sarah, we are no longer children of the bond-woman but of the free (Gal. 4:31).
Only, to be "heirs according to promise" we must be descendants of Abraham. I am not prepared to say that the majority of readers of this book are not so literally, though they may not be aware of the fact; but that is another branch of the subject with which I deal elsewhere [See "Salvation is of the Jews" in The Dorι Lectures Ed].
Setting aside this historical question, let us here consider the question of spiritual principles. On this point the teaching of the Bible is very plain. It is that they are children of Abraham who are of the faith of Abraham; they are his seed according to promise that is, they are living by the same principle which is set forth as forming the groundwork of Abraham's life: "Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness" (Rom. 4:3).
Take the case of the poor artist who is the slave of the dealer and has to labour from morning to night to turn out scores of little pot-boilers by a more or less mechanical process. If he be a born artist, the fact will assert itself in spite of the conditions, and even the pot-boilers will have some degree of merit. But put the same man in more favourable circumstances where he is no longer restricted by trade requirements but is allowed to give full scope to his genius, then the artist in him rises up, he creates his own vision of nature, and masterpieces come from his brush.
This is because he is now working from enthusiasm and not from Compulsion. It is also because he is working with a sense of Restfulness; he is no longer obliged to turn out so many pot-boilers per week to meet the demands of the petty dealer but can take his own time and choose his own subject and treat it in his own way.
Then the business side of his work will be negotiated for him by the big dealer, the man who also is an artist in his own way and knows the difference between the productions of spontaneous feeling and mere mechanical dexterity, and who finds his own profit in helping the artist to maintain that freedom from anxiety and the sense of compulsion without which such high-class works as the big dealer's business depends on cannot be produced.
Now this is a parable. God is the big dealer, and his best work through man is done for love and not by compulsion; and the more we realise this, the better work we shall do. Am I irreverent in comparing God to some great picture-dealer of world-wide reputation and saying that he too gains his profits in the transaction? I think not; for Christ himself tells us of the master who looked to receive a profit out of his servants' work, and I have only clothed the old parable in modern garb and coloured it with a familiar colouring.
And we may carry the simile yet further. The great dealer knows how to place the masterpieces in which he deals, he is in touch with connoisseurs with whom the artist cannot come in contact; and if the artist had to attend to all this, what would become of his creative vision?
"How do you manage to paint such exquisite pictures?" it was once asked of Corot; and he replied "Je reve mon tableau, et plus tard je peindrai mon reve". There spoke the true artist: "I dream my picture, and afterwards I paint my dream". The true artist dreams with his eyes open, looking at nature, and it is because he thus sees the inner spirit of her beauty through its external veil of form that he can show others what they could nor see, unaided, for themselves. This is his function, and the large-minded dealer enables him to perform it by taking the business side of the matter in hand in a generous spirit combined with a shrewd knowledge of the market, and so leaves the painter to his proper work by seeing his vision of nature and interpreting it by his individual method of interpretation.
So with the Divine Healer. He knows the ropes, He has command of the market, and He will deal in a liberal spirit with all who place their work in His hands. Let us, then, do diligently, honestly, and cheerfully the work of today, not as serving a hard taskmaster, but in happy confidence, and day by day hand it over to the Loving Creating Spirit who will bring out connections we had never dreamt of, and open up fresh avenues for us where we saw no way. You are the artist, and God is your honest, appreciative, and powerful Dealer.
You throw the burden on whichever side you regard as taking the initiative in your personal creative series. If you take it, you make God a mere impersonal force, and ultimately you have nothing to depend on but your own unaided knowledge and power. If on the other hand you regard God as taking the initiative by an All-givingness peculiarly connected with yourself, then the action is reversed and you will find yourself backed up by the Infinite Love, Wisdom, and Power.
Of course there is a reason for these things, and I have endeavoured to suggest a few thoughts as to the reason; but the practical advice I give to each reader is: stop arguing about it. Try it, my boy; try it, my dear girl for the promise is: "Let him take hold of My strength that he may be at peace with Me, and he shall make peace with Me" (Isaiah 27:5).