Section 3

The Unpardonable Sin. — Existence of the unpar- donable sin is difference between man and brute. Appreciation of this by human beings is the matter of greatest concern in the whole world.
A matter of such momentous and stupendous signi- fication is to be assumed as no mystery, but as being ordered to be self-proving and self-explaining, and
UNDERSTANDING OF HYPOSTASES. 29
this is found to be pre-eminently and irrefutably the case. Nothing is uncertain ; nothing is lacking.
Argument. — God and Heaven being identical, ab- sence of God is necessarily absence of Heaven. God is absent in the dual man by reason of non-occupancy of him by the Holy Ghost. The location of the king- dom of Heaven being within a man, and Heaven and the presence of God being accepted to be one and the same thing, it follows that he who has not the Holy Ghost as part of his composition is necessarily not of Heaven.
Unpardonable sin associates in no mind with any other idea than that of a something which excludes from Heaven. What excludes is here understood. It is left with men to enter or stay out, — /.^., to permit or correct a state of unpardonable sin, — i.e, to be their own Heaven- or Hell-makers. The difference between a man and a brute lies simply and alone with the capa- bility possessed by the former to receive occupancy by the Holy Ghost ; no man being a man without this capability. A man may refuse such occupancy and live a life of fourscore years, a composition simply of self and matter ; his nature and being allied in every sense with creeping and crawling things. He may, on the contrary, enlarge and dedicate himself as a temple which throws its doors widely open, and he is entered and becomes filled with the Holy Ghost, and thus sub- serves material to immaterial ; ego to God. He be- comes God, inasmuch as God becomes him. He is in Heaven by reason of the oneness of this with what he has become. To refuse occupancy by the God, to deny him coming to his own, is doing nothing differ-
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30 SFIRITUS SANCTUS.
ent from denying or putting away what almost every- body seems so anxious to obtain.
Hell is simply Heaven negated. It is inexpressible prescience and mercy on the part of the Creator of law that this wonderful thing is the case. Beasts, it is inferred, are not made to need or to enjoy place on the soulistic plane any more than the inviting and mighty hill-sides are designed to prove of delectation to fishes. But to man co-occupancy and the glory of both Heaven and earth are given. With him is a capa- bility to climb, to attain, to enjoy. Here is nothing at all mysterious, nothing that belongs exclusively with any future state of environment or condition. The association is with Now; with every present hour, every present moment. To put away the godly and spiritual until one finds a new kingdom through the outlet of a grave is to come never to anything but what a beast is thought to come to ; it is to be as en- tirely lacking in conception of Heaven as it is to be enlarging understanding of Hell.
Yet what a wonderful, wonderful, wonderful God, Hell existing in relation with mortals simply as a thing of contrast ! a multitude, a great multitude, deeming flames pleasant. So swine enjoy a trough.
Argument covering the Universal. — Celestial, or dematerialized, body is entirely one with terrestrial, or materialized, body. God, the unseeable, is one with God, the seeable.
Matter as tangible and as intangible, God as see- able and as unseeable, are self-proving and self-explain- ing existences. The One is in all. The All is in one :
UNDERSTANDING OF HYPOSTASES. 31
this to the enlightened Rosicrucian, be he Christian or heathen. The process of exclusion lies strictly with analysis: it is to find out what a thing is by finding out what it is not. The term Hypostases is simply a sound if inner meaning remain undiscovered.
Finding out where God is and how he is, and finding out where Matter is and how it is, and what man's relations are with God and what with Matter, this is covering the full circle of Rosicrucian illumination. The circle of an Illuminate is not, however, the begin- ning of a mark which, in its perfected state, is to con- stitute the circle: higher rests upon lower, attenuated upon dense, soulistic upon earthy; the road to a mountain's top is by means of footsteps begun at its base. Rosicrucianism, having discovered that every- thing is explainable to him who keeps himself in the way of explanation, will accept nothing or have nothing but what, like his sun-gold, shall pass current through the tests of the metallurgist. " There are phenomena," says the Rosicrucian, "and these are beheld every- where, and under all kinds of form and manner. Is phenomenon one with effect ? Is an effect a thing in itself? What is an effect or phenomenon? If an effect is not a thing in itself, it arises out of something back of it. What is the something?"
None save the simple — otherwise the peculiarly en- dowed and highly favored, especially as this doubting nineteenth century is concerned — come to conceptions residing with Induction, save as the genuine Rosicru- cian finds himself afforded such rich and beautiful pos- sessions j that is, being influenced through things which are as steps leading to the Spiritus Sanctus. A first
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SFIRITUS SANCn/S,
step to a Rosicrucian is his first experience in analysis. A first lesson to an illiterate man is, not unlikely, his first sight of a phosphorescent hand moving through darkness independently of apparent agency.
Nineteenth-century people are not very simple people; they certainly are not peculiarly nor specially endowed soulistically ; they have come, however, to an intelligence that needs to have reasons associated with faith ; and if reasons are not in place of foundation, edifice is found of little signification.
First, as to God and his hypostases. Here illustra- tion that a fool may read as he runs. Here sight at a glance of the Universal. Here analysis of greatest seen lying with least. Matter is least.
Discovery and understanding of God are after the manner of discovery and understanding of Matter; discoveries, the two, equally self-verifying and irre- futable. Rosicrucianism starts, as do men at large, with the infantile idea that God is known just as directly and as unmistakably as is Matter. Here is beginning of his way. A very little later it is found out that phenomena are mistaken for what were deemed things themselves; more than this, that, as matter is concerned, this is an essence which no human may possibly take hold of or see ; that in itself it is "without form, and void." This knowledge re- quired not the perception of an illuminatus ; it was come to by alchemy in its laboratory. Taking up, for example, a human body, chemistry found this to be easily resolvable into water, and this water, in turn, even more easily resolvable into gases. Thus, it was speedily recognized that true body, or matter, is a some-
UNDERSTANDING OF HYPOSTASES.
33
thing the most unlike possible tt) that which is mis- taken for it. Is it necessary to add anything? Matter shows itself to a sense as it is of concern to the sense. It is not at all to the tongue what it is to the nostril, nor is it to the ear what it is to the sight. Matter is, yet is not at all, its phenomena. It is, as chemistry exhibits and demonstrates, an invisible noumenon. It is visible phenomena, however, in the shape of men's bodies, of land and houses, of sky and water. Matter being invisible in and of itself, confusion at once dis- appears as to difference between bodies terrestrial and bodies celestial. Celestial is change of phenomenon as to environment; it is certainly to be apprehended as not at all less real because of lack as to form that is see- able, or tasteable, or smellable, or touchable. Matter is the correlative ; it is the unseen ether ; it is earth's carpet of grass ; it is heaven's dome of sky ; it is the picture hanging against the wall ; it is the wood blazing upon the hearth ; it is of the pig grunting in the pen ;
it is of the orator preaching in the pulpit. What is
it? Known through its manifestations. A celestial body approaches evidently nearer the real than does the terrestrial body.
The God also is evident alone as phenomena. God is Superior and Director. Matter is seen to have its changes under undeviating and absolute direc- tion. Seasons are found ordered in requirement to harmony. Water runs downward in form of streams until needed to run upward in form of moist- ure. Forests moulder not, but change into coal- mines, that the needs of a thousand years be supplied. The microscopic insect finds limbs as well ordered to
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purpose as does the ponderous elephant. The spheres roll in an eternal harmony, coming never into collision. Immensity, immeasurable, incomprehensible, unthink- able, is phenomenon of Designer.
Has a Rosicrucian eyes that will pierce the an- tipodes ? Has he ears that can hear the rush of world by world as movement and rush are eternal in space? He has, as he discovers, what he needs. Matter is a certainty to him. God is a certainty to him. Having come to understanding that the day concerns the day; that matter, as it is to the purposes of the day in which he finds himself, will hold together when nailed or sewed ; that it will harden or soften ; that it is to be made light or heavy, white or black, cumbersome or endurable; having discovered that it is with phenomena alone that he possesses means of contact, he at once gives over associations which he understands belong not to to-day. To come to these associations he bides the time and tides of nature, comprehending fully that time and tide are forever, and that invisible is in turn visible.
Settled into tranquillity by entirely satisfactory rec- ognition of noumenon through phenomena, an end is reached where instrument becomes negative and pre- pared for use. Analysis has shown the Rosicrucian what he is ; more than this, what he can become as to his Ego. If, out of his understanding, he put office before self, he learns directly of the God as the God comes to live in and to make use of him.
The law of relation of God with men is found to be little different to the law of relation of matter with men. Ego may environ itself with fatness ; it may move
UNDERSTANDING OF HYPOSTASES, 35
about in leanness ; its environment may be wholly matter ; it may be a temple and a carrier about of Holy Ghost. Ego is an Independent : it may select or follow where and how it will ; it may spend and be spent with the brutes ; it may ally itself with and find itself ^ companion of the God.
Synopsis. — Man is not a simple single being, but consists of a possible conjunction of parts, which parts are the sole common constituents of the world. These things, or parts, are : i. A selfhood, which is the meaning of his individuality. 2. Matter, which is one with his body. 3. God, which is one with his soul. Cultivation of Ego, or selfhood, grows the personal. Cultivation of matter grows body. Cultivation of God grows soul. Man is of earth earthy or of heaven heavenly, according to which of the associate hypos- tases he cultivates.
36 SPIRITUS SANCTUS.
CONCERNING MATTER OR BODY.
What shows itself not one thing or another to the process of Exclusion, that is nothing.
The analysis passed over is analysis after a general manner. To refine on such analysis observation is to advance to detail. Man not knowing himself knows to advantage nothing outside of himself. Matter, the subject of the present chapter, offers study of that part of the hypostases of a man understood as body. Ulti- mate of body being reached, induction discovers Ego. Ultimate of Ego reached, difference between man and brute is found to be with soul. Definition of difference between comprehension and apprehension is practically introductory of hypostases.
Knowledge is of two kinds : it is of Comprehension and of Apprehension. By the first is meant an ability to compare derived out of experiences. By the second is implied cognizance existing in the Something which needs no experiences for its fruition, — i.e., the soulis- tic light ; or, to express this in the language of that great and peculiar Rosicrucian, Jacob Behmen, the " Divine illumination." To demonstrate the possible existence of this duality in knowledge, illustration needs but to be made by reference to the double nervous system found related with man : the one, the cerebro- spinal, knows nothing but what it collects to itself from the outside; the other, the ganglionic, has its
COMPREHENSION AND APPREHENSION 37
meaning entirely within itself: it knows, and feels, and acts as well on the first as on the last day of its organ- ization.
Comprehension is in the use of what are known as the Senses ; it means learning attained by sight, touch, taste, hearing, and smell. There is no immediate knowledge of the world and of its associations ob- tainable otherwise than through the senses. It is to be added that senses, like knives, may be sharp or dull.
Apprehension is a means of knowledge possessed of limitless significance. It is of no connection with animal wants, — certainly of no connection with the five senses which pertain to requirements of organic life. If it be considered as a sense, that sense is a peculiarly special one, and has nothing to do with the functions and well-being of muscles, bones, and viscera. It must relate, if it relate with anything, as a medium of connection and association with the theistic.
Accepting, for a present purpose, that a man is indi- vidual,— that is, that he is a Self hood, related, with a great universe which revolves about him, and with which, compulsorily, he must live in accord, — he is to understand how inquiries are wisely made.
By the senses are meant media of communicatiofi. Hardness in stone is understood by touching such a body; sounds harsh or sweet are measurable in the un- dulations passing across the drum of the ear; sweet- ness and bitterness are contrasted in taste; odors, offensive or grateful, are distinguished through smell. An individuality lacking as to the senses, or possessed only of such as want in acuteness, shows as idiot or
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38 SPIRITUS SANCTUS.
sciolist. So, after a not unlike manner, he who is possessed of worthy senses, yet refuses to learn by touching, seeing, tasting, hearing, and smelling, this one, too, shows as idiot or sciolist ; difference between idiot, sciolist, and the worldly-wise being simply and wholly as to the extent to which a man has touched, looked, tasted, listened, and smelled.
Senses which pertain to a man as an animal have no relation with things external to the meaning of animal organism. Senses deal with things that are like them- selves: eyes look, they do not smell; nose smells, it does not look. The instruments of touch, taste, smell, sight, and hearing die and break up when that organ- ism of which they are a part dies and breaks up ; they are of earth, earthy. Look at and analyze as we may, there is found with the common senses of men nothing different from the tearing eye-tooth that secures to the carnivore its prey, or nothing dissimilar to the rough tongue that tears off the grass for the herbivore. An only distinction is as to refinement in ends: a lion, alike with a cow, and alike with a man, touches, tastes, looks, listens, and smells.
As senses pertaining to organism are concerned, no dissection, no analysis, no deductive reasoning can show difference between field-mice and men. Hawks have, indeed, advantage over humans in sharpness of sight ; buzzards smell where the man perceives nothing ; a horse pricks up his ear where silence oppresses the traveller. Difference as to quality of sense between brute and brute is in degree ; between man and brute it is the same.
But man eternally holds his head upward. He finds
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his way through the murkiest of clouds ; he scales the empyrean ; he hugs closely the breast of the God, — some men, not all men.
Means to ends are ever a necessity. The soulistic feeling is universal. It differs in acuteness, but it is everywhere that man is. Men may be found who are idiots soulistically ; a great multitude are sciolists ; a few, on the other hand, are demi-gods. Idiocy and sciolism differ as sense, and as the use of sense, are con- cerned, and nothing on the earth or in the heaven is to be taken hold of save by means of a sense. If the soulistic sentiment be admitted to exist, it follows that man is possessed of other than the organic senses. This accords scientifically with what the Bible teaches : **The brute looketh downward, the man upward." There is no sense common alike to humans and to brutes which will carry to any intercourse outside the domain of matter. What the soulistic sense is a Religious knows by reason of possession. The physio- logical anatomist does not know what it is by means of his art, but he is able to come to a knowledge, through the process of induction, that there is a some- thing related with the human composition that is capa- ble of dealing with and affirming of existence beyond the Noumenon and characteristics of Matter. As a correlative to his conclusion, it follows that man is a being having relation with a dual existence; conse- quently, that there are two conditions which he is bound to consider and to provide for.