But if ye had known what this meaneth I will have mercy and not sacrifice ye would not have condemned the guiltlessMatt 12:7 But if ye had known what this meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice, ye would not have condemned the guiltless.
A large proportion of the sin that is committed is the result of ignorance The great teacher of Metaphysics said to his persecutors ye know not what ye doLuke 23:34 ¶Then said Jesus, Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do. And they parted his raiment, and cast lots. You know not the sad consequences to your self of wronging another The ignorance referredAs Written:refered to in the Biblical passage selected for our subject was no lack of human knowledge no deficiency of what the five personal senses take in no want of classical lore garnered from the garrulous page the mystic poets or profound philosophers It was not the absence of the artisanAs Written:artizan or the scholarly attainmentsAs Written:attaiments Mathematicians musicians professors of chemistry astronomy Geology and natural history even those to whom that saying was addressed had ye known what this meaneth I will have mercy and not sacrifice
The origin of sacrifices we must leave in the silence with which history surrounds it
All will allow that the Eucharist and deprecatory views of sacrifice adhere to mortals As an historical question the origin of sacrifice is insolubleAs Written:unsoluble and the higher view of its expiatory character dependent as it is on its typical nature appears but gradually in scripture Christianity is not profession but proof It is the demonstration of health of body and health of mind brought out by understanding God the Principle of all being and by understanding God as Life Truth and Love which are Principle and not a person and by understanding Principle to be a trinity in unity the three in one impossible to a person but natural and possible to the Principle that embraces all and is therefore the many in one.
But just how Truth or Love restores health reclaims the prodigal destroys error and hate must be left to the decisionsAs Written:decissions of Christian Science or Metaphysics which treat of, and alone can define the nature of Deity. Science must be understood to be demonstrated hence it follows that we never can assimilate to the divine nature or Principle of being until we understand it and learn how the application of this Principle or Truth and Love casts out error and heals the sick This one great question knocks at the door of history it cannot forever be shut out of synagoguesAs Written:synnagagues nor prevented the practical proofs of self evident Truth. The great question determining and encompassing all fact resolves itself into this inquiry what is God? A person or a Principle? But if God is a person influenced by a petition or prayer and loves you more for the asking, He is not unchangingAs Written:unchang And this Truth this Life and this Love yea this Principle that is God must be understood to be demonstrated brought out in our lives and when understood we shall know what this meaneth I will have mercy and not sacrifice and cannot know until [] we understand God as a Principle instead of believe in God as a person The history of religion shows that the error of believing in God as a person and relying on a person to pardon sin called for a sacrifice and if we had known what this meaneth that I will will have mercy and not sacrifice in other words that understanding the Principle of all good inevitably brought out the demonstration of goodness whereas believing in God as a man could go on in sin and no demonstration follow his belief Believe God to be a person who required a sacrifice to appease His wrath brought out the false justification of wrath and the supposed exercise in another person called man hence the origin in mortal belief of sacrifice and the bad moral and physical effects of this error There is a requirementAs Written:requirment of justice which in itself is the exercise of mercy This requirement is the penalty attached to sin namely that sin shall destroy itself through suffering
To pardon sin is to perpetuate it The felon that gets a pardon from the governor is not one whit a better man for his escape from suffering the penalty of a broken law. But if the felon had understood what this meaneth if he had understood the Principle that is Love he would not have required pardon if we understand God we shall bring God out in our life and God as Truth will restore harmony to life give health and destroy error God being Truth it will be found God that this God or Truth understood will destroy error of necessity Thus we may be rid of that hoary and bar berous element of religionsAs Written:religons that requires a sacrifice the good and just Jesus to suffer for the evil and unjust The Pagan opinion that a poor little pig must squeal with pain or a lovely lamb lick the hand that sheds his blood
Progress is footsteps as the age emerges from the worst features of sacrifice into the understanding even in part of Love we shall find as Jesus said that upon this commandment hangs all the law and the prophets namely Thou shalt have but one God Love thy neighbor as thyself But one God is the very basis of Christian Science whereby we have no material master. Then the body cannot master mind the senses material cannot govern man but Spirit will be found to govern matter and Soul to furnish all sense and this sense to be joy and never sorrow Truth and never error Life and never death
As we near the boundary of Science wherein Soul instead of sense furnishes the conclusions of man and the explanation of God we shall improve our sense of sacrifice and gain the true definition and and reach exercise of mercy
The only sacrifice we shall then retain will be no longer be a demand on others but a requirement of one's self in obedience to the command take the cross and follow me it will be a forgetfulness of self and this is science self abnegation is indispensable to science and why because the first chord the keynote of Christian Science is put being into the hands of Principle instead of person and this Principle or God demonstrated by what is good only and by works rather than words. Evil was no evidence to Jesus of a man! error no witness for Truth, death no stepping stone to Life Unless we are getting rid of death sin, sickness and error of every sort we are not nearing that Principle of being taught by Jesus and learningAs Written:learnig the demonstration of Life, holiness, and immortality ? If we are learning of God instead of man our way to harmony and heaven we shall bring out God in demonstration in proof of this, but if we are following the guidance of man-made theories we shall vibrate as a pendulum between Spirit and matter between the pure and impure the perfect and imperfect the mortal and immortal the right and the wrong until the force of error conquers its own power and becomes too big an error to keep on Then the vibration ceases and the error drops into oblivion its native nothingness But what is it that finishes the scene what has carried on the process of the destruction of sin, of sickness and death? There are but two statements for one Cause and effect and but one cause The law of Truth and the error of error destroy error either suffering or Science destroys error and it is science for sin to suffer I for one prefer that to understand the Principle of being better than to venture on sin to dare to do unto others what we would not they should do to us and if we have advanced thus far in science sin will disappear in our demonstration of Life but if we are too ignorant of the Principle that brings out harmony, that moral sense that is a moral law to life and will not obey this law our moral or spiritual sense too blunt to discern it for this sin of ignorance we shall suffer but shall suffer less than knowing the right to pursueAs Written:persue the wrong Our eyes must be opened sometime to the science of our course or we shall never gain the demonstration of bliss and immortality Science or suffering alone opens the eyes Because we abide not by the rule of Christian Science to bring out the Principle of harmony and heaven in our lives we call ourselfAs Written:ourself miserable, sick, and a sinner then die in belief to live by the rule of science at last before we can be rid of sickness of sin or death We must work our passage to harmony the Paradise of Spirit We cannot shirk the task we have had no atonement that renders this needless and forgives [*]Editorial Note: A vertical line is drawn through the following text.us our debts unless we forgive our debtors. We must do right or we cannot reap the reward of right, if we do wrong we shall suffer for that wrong, this is God's law and Jesus never annulledAs Written:annuled the law although the good do suffer because of the evil The theory creed or doctrine teaching that sin is forgiven by a personal God instead of destroyed by suffering or refrained from through science is a dangerous one and covers the volcano of error only to consume with pent up fires and burst forth in eruptions [*]Editorial Note: Vertical line ends. belching its sulphurous odors or hints of HadesAs Written:Haides from church, from state, from civil religious and social sources, until we are tempted to think, that being hath no science that all is chance and original chaos that the biggestAs Written:bigest villain is the prince of this world and an honest man is not the work of God
Let us be patient, God governs to day and tomorrow. This troubled dream is not the reality of Life but tis well to see evil as evil instead of good if we see it at all. If not doing as well as we know how the waking from this dream will not come, the dream will continue and grow troubled, bring more disquiet and [*]Editorial Note: A vertical line is drawn through the following text.unhappiness until from the force of self love we at length relinquish all error and especially the silly scheme of doing wrong and thinking to come out right Sin sickness and death we must fight with the fact found out in science that these are conditions of mind latent thoughts that to personal sense, appear on the body but which conditions Mind only and not matter can control and render void. [*]Editorial Note: Vertical line ends.
Understanding this fact is all that can save man from the continued dream of sense that hides the joy of Soul and cut short this dream both here and hereafter
But if ye had known what this meaneth I will have mercy and not sacrifice ye would not have condemned the guiltless. Justice is the true demand of mercy and we should only help those who help themselves [] justice condemns sin while mercy points out the escape from sin but unless justice joins hands with it, mercy is a mistake a word without the spirit of the word and a deed that is uncharitable The history of religion is replete with examples proving the sad results of believing God a person and that this person pardons sin If God pardons criminals while yet the motive and malice lie latent to reenact the crime [?] their blood would be upon His hands according to scripture
The belief that one man's sufferings can atone for and cancel another man's sins is an educated error Again The belief that God who cannot sin is capable of suffering is an injustice in thought that leads to unjust action Error of thought leads to error of action and error of action to death
The divine law said the soul that sinneth shall die that death came by sin etc and human law copies this code in the death penality But divine law never said the unsining should die but that God delivers the righteous from out his afflictions The error of expiatory suffering is a relic of mortal mind as old as Adam in heathen lands it calls for bullock and lamb to lay upon the altar of their god while religious Civilization demands pardon for a criminal, or a sinner directly from God when God knows he deserves to be punishedAs Written:punshed, making the Divine less just than human tribunals that punish sin as a measure reformatory
The criminal who is pardoned by our governor has not because of his release lost his malice aforethought but must suffer for sin because sin is error that produces discord The wisest of judicial codes concludes it dangerous to let the criminalAs Written:crimnal escape punishment and where did the precedent for our criminal laws originate is human law in bold defiance of, and contrary to the law of God? No! human justice is planted on the basis of God's law if justice engenders a law and wisdom formulates that law it that law corresponds with God's government
Let us be Christian Scientists and let the law of God be explained understood and vindicated by reason and revelation Wisdom and Love and not according to man made doctrines or the edict of [?] schools While we render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's let us render unto God those things that are like God That Justice and judgement are the habitations of His throne and He will by no means clear the guilty are the words of sacred writ But if ye had known what this meaneth I will have mercy and not sacrificeAs Written:sacrific ye would not have condemned the guiltless
The injustice in thought of vicarious sacrifice brings out its results in action If we wrong God in theory we shall wrong our fellow beings in practice
Does Wisdom pardon the foul murderer reeking in sin trembling with the cowardice of crime and push him straight into glory
What a premium such views set upon the gallows What man of common judgement would not prefer going to heaven than working hard on earth having little else but poverty and poor wages here when by committingAs Written:commiting a crime and by a priest sending a petitionAs Written:petion above he can receive full absolution and be at peace a new heart given him at once the old heart disappearing in a moment and without a hint of what it has done. Ah! friends we do not get to heaven so easy as that we must work our passage did you never find that to master one temptation was something of a job and remember it is not in the power of God because it is not in the wisdom of God to do our work for us Love is not so blind as to cherish sin by preventing its suffering both here and hereafter until through suffering sin is self destroyed Ecclesiastical Theology would have God do more and do less for man than science reveals Do more in bearing the burdens of sin that justly belong to the sinner or sin to bear and do less for man when he is sick and knows not how to do better for himself than he is doing To pardon sin perpetuates it unless that sin has condemned itself to death and then it needs no pardon but pleads guilty and hastens to its own destruction Then goes up heaven's paeanAs Written:pean the joy that echoes along the bright aisles of Soul and sounds the winged words above around about "the prodigal has returned he is tired of husks and straw!Luke 15:17 And when he came to himself, he said, How many hired servants of my father’s have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger! When joy with flying feet points to his Father's house th true Principle of being God as a Principle may be seen and understood but the person of God can neither be seen nor understood for it has no intelligence of its own it is an infinite idea that points to its Principle even God whence to gain the nature and character of this idea for no where else can it be gained We can never be correct with regard to the Person of God until we know something of the Principle the Life Truth and Love that produced it mind forms the body gives ing outline character and expression to that body. The Principle that produces the idea alone can acquaint us with that idea, what it is, and why it is. Progress is footsteps not a leap in the dark. The ages are slowly emerging from barbarism the belief of propitiatoryAs Written:propiatory sacrifice receives its only support from paganism The good and just Jesus ought not to have suffered any sooner than Peter and Paul But being in advance of them the error of the age leveled its blows at the biggest Truth not because of justice but injustice did our brave Master meet the inevitable fate of speaking and living in advance of public sentiment Jesus was the name of Mary's son Christ is God The meaning of Jesus' sacrifice had a higher and holier sense than the shedding of blood its true import was more than a wooden cross It was a daily cross up the hill of science whereby he destroyed the cross and won the crown It was not in his earthly death but his earthly life that his earthly sacrifice was highest for it was not through error but Truth that he wrought out and solved the great problem of Life without death How have they parted his garment of Truth and for this righteous raiment cast lots God had naught to do with the martyrdomAs Written:martydom of Jesus
We should no longer support by any possible admission the pagan opinion that ion that a lovely lamb licking the hand that sheds his blood must suffer or a poor little pig squeal in pain to popitiate the heathen's god too send a potatoAs Written:potatoe crop now this would be [?] squeUnclear or illegiblesque [?] profantUnclear or illegibleprofant and silly among civilization, but is sensible and devoutAs Written:devoute to the BrahminAs Written:Bramin
The exercise of mercy is to obey the requirements of justice
As we near the boundary of science Soul and not sense will explain Truth and our sense of sacrifice will be justice, and mercy met in embrace [*]Editorial Note: Vertical lines are drawn through the remaining text.It is Science that we all should the sacrifice that we make and should be willingnot the one we require to be made for us The cross we take up will be our sacrifice and a meek and contrite heart the offering