The divine Love corrects and governs man. Men may pardon, but this
divine Principle alone reforms the sinner. God is not separate from the
wisdom He bestows. The talents He gives we must improve. Calling on Him
to forgive our work, badly done or left undone, implies the vain
supposition that we have nothing to do but to ask pardon, and that
afterwards we shall be free to repeat the offence.
To cause suffering, as the result of sin, is the means of destroying sin.
Every supposed pleasure in sin will furnish more than its equivalent of
pain, until belief in material life and sin is destroyed. To reach
heaven, the harmony of Being, we must understand the divine Principle of
Being.
“God is Love.” More than this we cannot ask; higher we cannot look;
farther we cannot go. To suppose that God forgives or punishes sin,
according as His mercy is sought or unsought, is to misunderstand Love
and make prayer the safety-valve for wrong-doing.
Jesus uncovered and rebuked sin before He cast it out. Of a sick woman
He said that Satan had bound her; and to Peter He said, “Thou art an
offense unto me.” He came teaching and showing men how to destroy sin,
sickness, and death. He said of the fruitless tree, “It is hewn down.”
It is believed by many that a certain magistrate, who lived in the time
of Jesus, left this record: “His rebuke is fearful.” The strong language
of our Master confirms this description.
The only civil sentence which He had for error was, “Get thee behind Me,
Satan.” Still stronger evidence that Jesus’ reproof was pointed and
pungent is in His own words–showing the necessity for such forcible
utterance, when He cast out devils and healed the sick and sinful. The
relinquishment of error deprives material sense of its false claims.
Audible prayer is impressive; it gives momentary solemnity and elevation
to thought; but does it produce any lasting benefit? Looking deeply into
these things, we find that “a zeal . . . not according to knowledge,”
gives occasion for reaction unfavorable to spiritual growth, sober
resolve, and wholesome perception of God’s requirements. The motives for
verbal prayer may embrace too much love of applause to induce or
encourage Christian sentiment.
Physical sensation, not Soul, produces material ecstasy, and emotions.
If spiritual sense always guided men at such times, there would grow out
of those ecstatic moments a higher experience and a better life, with
more devout self-abnegation, and purity. A self-satisfied ventilation of
fervent sentiments never makes a Christian. God is not influenced by
man. The “divine ear” is not an auditoria! nerve. It is the all-
hearing and all-knowing Mind, to whom each want of man is always known,
and by whom it will be supplied.
The danger from audible prayer is, that it may lead us into temptation.
By it we may become involuntary hypocrites, uttering desires which are
not real, and consoling ourselves in the midst of sin, with the
recollection that we have prayed over it –or mean to ask forgiveness at
some later day. Hypocrisy is fatal to religion.
A wordy prayer may afford a quiet sense of self-justification, though it
makes the sinner a hypocrite. We never need despair of an honest heart,
but there is little hope for those who only come spasmodically face to
face with their wickedness, and then seek to hide it. Their prayers are
indexes which do not correspond with their character. They hold secret
fellowship with sin; and such externals are spoken of by Jesus as “like
unto whited sepulchres . . . full of all uncleanness.”
If a man, though apparently fervent and prayerful, is impure, and
therefore insincere, what must be the comment upon him? If he had
reached the loftiness of his prayer, there would be no occasion for such
comment. If we feel the aspiration, humility, gratitude, and love which
our words express–this God accepts; and it is wise not to try to deceive
our. selves or others, for “there is nothing covered that shall not be
revealed.” Professions and audible prayers are like charity in one
respect –they “cover a multitude of sins.” Praying for humility, with