"Behold Israel after the flesh: are not they which eat of the sacrifices partakers of the alter altar?"I Cor 10:18 Behold Israel after the flesh: are not they which eat of the sacrifices partakers of the altar?

I think we all can see the possibility of a spiritual life of christianity apart from the ritualism and creed. The most perfect creed of human working is inadequate to represent the divine side of religion:-- namely, christianity. Truth cannot be fixed in symbol; but the humble heart may discern some great truth before its full orbed significance has broken upon the world, because truth is spirit and life; it is perpetual, renovating; it is expression.

The Scriptures have drawn a very strong line of demarkationCorrected:demarcation between the Israel of the flesh and the Israel of the spirit. -- God's Israel. In the old Testament we read "Cursed is he that maketh flesh"Jer 17:5 ¶Thus saith the Lord; Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the Lord. -- and in the new Testament "The children of the flesh are not the children of God."Rom 9:8 That is, They which are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God: but the children of the promise are counted for the seed. "Now, therefore, there is no condemnation to them that walk not after the flesh, but after the spirit."Rom 8:1 There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. To behold the Israel of the flesh is to trace the material history of scholastic theology. It has origin in the human opinions and beliefs; starting from the mortal thought, from the brains of man instead of from the immortal mind and the Infinite truth and love, which are spirit. Having this origin, it must largely partake of the human character. It has passion, and it has phases of change and mortality. Thus we find through sympathetic error there may be changes wrought in a man's religion; one belief moving upon another belief.

If it excites the organ of veneration it moves his lips to prayer and verses; sweep the opposite chords of feeling and he profanes and blasphemes.Editorial Note: Mary Baker Eddy wrote on this topic in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures: "To love one's neighbor as one's self, is a divine idea; but this idea can never be seen, felt, nor understood through the physical senses. Excite the organ of veneration or religious faith, and the individual manifests profound adoration. Excite the opposite development, and he blasphemes. These effects, however, do not proceed from Christianity, nor are they spiritual phenomena, for both arise from mortal belief."Mary Baker Eddy, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures88:18To love one’s neighbor as one’s self, is a divine idea;
 but this idea can never be seen, felt, nor understood
 through the physical senses. Excite the organ of ven‐
88:21eration or religious faith, and the individual manifests
 profound adoration. Excite the opposite development,
 and he blasphemes. These effects, however, do not pro‐
88:24ceed from Christianity, nor are they spiritual phenomena,
 for both arise from mortal belief. Here is the importance of making this distinction between the Israel of the spirit and the Israel of the flesh, that we shall not drop into the sense of fervor that is not excited through the spirit, but may become of circumstances transient, having left no trace upon the real character. Such a religion is touched with the arrogance of wealth and pride of power and self love.

It has deluged the earth in blood, in controversy over the efficacy on or validity of the blood of Christ.

Catholic persecuted Protestant; Protestant has persecuted the Puritan and the Puritan has opened fire upon the next advancing ranks. But behold the Israel of the flesh and they that eat of the alter altar of sacrifice are partakers of the alter altar.

Now come we to the sins apart from a personal recognition through the varying senses that we may have of the divine truth and love to the immaculate life of our Lord after a the peaceful

we are the established reign of Christianity marked alone by the Israel after the spirit. But the few utterances of the meek, but mighty Nazarene, that might have covered half a dozen pages, demolished all the pagan systems of pride, power and passion of then unthroned enthroned. His kingdom yet lives. He reigns the monarch of monarchs today, the sovereign of sovereignties. The earth without the palace of or a court, rank or emolument to reward his followers. He established a Kingdom that knows no end; the spiritual reign of Christ in the hearts of men.

Oh who today that loves the monarch as a christian loves Christ? Who would give his life for one of the Roman monarchs? And are there not many that would go to the sacrifice, or would go to the stake, for the love of the christian.

We have the heretics of yesterday, and today find christian martyrs. We have that mistaken sense of the Israel of the flesh that poured human blood in torrents -- first, in the war of words, and then settling questions of slight import at the stake or at the scaffold. We have that Israel of the flesh surrounding us today. And as the distinction was made between the sheep and the goats in the parableMatt 25:32 And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats: Matt 25:33 And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left. , when the goats were found in sheep's clothing. Yet the word went "Depart from me, I know ye not."Matt 25:41 Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels:

There is a demand upon the christianity of this hour to spiritualize, to be materialized, to leave out the essence of thought that would involve faith in the fragmentary sense of the right dogma and doctrine, rather than come to the fixed sense or the efficacy of Christ's blood.

And what is this blood of Christ? The blood of the spirit. It is not after the Israel of the flesh. It is not the blood of the flesh. It speaks better things. What is it? It is the life of the spirit. It is the vitalizing principle of all christianity that says "as for me I will serve the Lord though I leave the ranks and the castes of my fellowbeings, yet I have the life of the presence with me; a principle that I must work out, and since there is but the mortal basis of the Israel of the flesh, I must take the immortal basis to work through this conscious sin and sense up to the Throne; the internal existence and immortal immortality of man apart from all that belongs to earth.

And there is today the appeal above all appeals to this hour when Christ has come in our midst; and we have not need to commemorate him in symbol or sacrifice, for lo! He is here with us and with us always,"Matt 28:20 Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen. and he that hath seen me hath seen the Father"John 14:9 Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Shew us the Father? said Jesus.

The great exponent of the Israel of the spirit, the christianity of the spirit, the love of Christ, the love of the spirit, and he said "Behold me in thy works." When he said to the sick or palsied "Rise and walk", it was not alone as the ideal man that presented this; but it was the spirit of God that did it. Hence they that saw that work saw the Father.

"He and the Father worketh, and that the Father hath worked hitherto and I work",John 5:17 ¶But Jesus answered them, My Father worketh hitherto, and I work. said he, "I and my Father are one."John 10:30 I and my Father are one.

When the poor and sorrowing, and unfortunate sinner knelt and washed the feet with tears and he wiped them awayLuke 7:38 And stood at his feet behind him weeping, and began to wash his feet with tears, and did wipe them with the hairs of her head, and kissed his feet, and anointed them with the ointment. , in the sense not alone of the spirit of charity and love, but of the destruction of error through the Divine influences of the truth that he taught; truth that he lived. When he did those gracious works to prove himself of the Father and working with him -- for he beheld him -- beheld the Father -- the work of the spirit and the Israel of God.

It is well for us that we leave our sins, for that which is incomprehensible to the means of light within our grasp, of developing our being, and remember that the essential blessedness of christianity is the revelation it has given us through Christ of the power of God, and man's possibilities in his highest earthly developments. It has brought home the encouragement to your hearts, "The work that I do ye shall do."John 14:12 Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father. There must be the unveiling of his presence; there must be the a revivifying and vitalizing christianity of the spirit that shall so orbit the flesh that it hath power not only to forgive sins and heal sicknesses, but link man to his Maker. To so open the understanding of his being that he shall see himself inseparable from God. Because there is but one God; and God is mind and God is all power and all presence. Hence what clouds that sense, the Israel of the flesh and other entertained and educational beliefs, have separated us only from this sense of God's power and presence. Let us then come into his presence and bow down before him with the nearness that we have not had before, since we realize that he is not absent and that we need not commemorate his absence when his presence is with us; and that we can take the cup of salvation and call upon the Lord in the presence of his people when we behold in the flesh, mastering sin, sickness and death and the Israel of the spirit, that we take the name of Israel, because he had struggled with the man and he has conquered. Let us find ourselves where the love of God has given us the diviner privileges of our being. Where we can come to his alter altar with confidence and offer the sacrifice that is not of Izabold, the blood of the lambs and of bullocks; but of a contrite heart and humble. Where we will not be as the apostle has charged, the Israel after the flesh, that partakes of the alter altar and eats the sacrifice, -- when the alterCorrected:altar was wood and stone and the sacrifice was the blood, not flesh, of animals. And we would partake of that animal since that we would propitiate Deity with such an offering; and if we offered from a basis of these alters altars of matter, we are offering from the animal propensities -- from pride and love of wealth and from envy -- often that has is simulated in the Jewish religion and the rights rites of this hour; offering unto the Lord a sacrifice that puts us into the very element of the alter altar -- cold and insensate and freezes up the vitalizing currents of christianity, and we fall into the river of spiritual death and stagnation until we reach the haven of Christ's love, the work of the spirit, the sense of God's present power working through man, and then it comes like the midnight sun that gladdens the Polar sea and bursts upon our vision with the redemption of man, his adoption spiritually, and the power of God which is proceeding from this Divine reflection of the man and his Maker, man in the image and likeness of God.

We have in the old a faith that MelancthonEditorial Note: Philipp Melanchthon (1497-1560), was, along with Martin Luther, a major theologian of the Protestant Reformation. toned down from the radicalism of Luther that is acceptable to ourselves, when we remember he founded it upon repetendsCorrected:repentence; a faith that starts from sin-forgiven can be sin destroyed; and then it hath a basis in good works, and then is it power in God, and why? Because we have lost our material sense of truth and are no longer Israel after the flesh. We have the of the spirit and are engrafted into the true vine of which our Father is the husbandmanJohn 15:1 I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman. .

Then the works that he hath done as our great humbler lie within the possibilities of our own attempts and if we work, God will work with us, since his promises are sure and he hath given an Israel in accordance. That is sure: "But all them are not Israel who are off of Israel."

We must make a line of distinction between the religion of the flesh and the religion of the spirit. I have seen the father of the most tender child withdraw his love, because of the child's disobedience, but not that the withdrawal was the heart, but that the child should see his offence. If God hides his face from us it is only that we may look into our hearts and see the cloud that has come between us and our Maker; and seeing it we shall be able to lift up our hearts from the grovellingCorrected:groveling sins of life in the flesh, and the blood of the flesh purifying from sin, to the grand and glorious consecration of the love of God that has said, "Come unto me, I am the fount, come unto me and I will give you rest."Matt 11:28 ¶Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Drink of this fountain of life freelyRev 21:6 And he said unto me, It is done. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely. , and if we drink, we shall find it a well of water springing up into everlasting lifeJohn 4:14 But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life. . It will bring out the results of the truth and the health, morals, our spiritual growth, and lift us into the realm of the real where spirit is omnipotent and matter without a single claim.

This is the Kingdom of God that Jesus established on earth. And what is this Kingdom? It is not a place or locality. It is a state of mind, and it may be with us this moment. It is not afar off, only as we shut ourselves out from the reign of Christ's christianity and lead where they allow it to be lead -- in the channels of the flesh.

In offering of material sacrifice, in forgetting that life, in fulfilling them all; and in remembering that the offerings that we bring should be acceptable in His right, because they have the odor of Divinity; they are a pure and uplifted purpose to live as God has bidden us, apart from the flesh and in daily communion with the spirit. And in this blessed communion we shall find strength and shall find the omnipotent arm an ever-present help in every time of trouble. There will never be a moment in our life when there will not be to our understanding the efficacy in the blood of Christ, the life, the spirit, the sweet power and presence of all good, of all love of all truth, and they shall take the things of God and show them unto the creature, and we shall know the truth, and the truth shall make us freeJohn 8:32 And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. .

There are differential bounds between the Israel after the fleashCorrected:flesh and the Israel after the spirit. Note the Trinity in our sense of personality and see how it partakes of the Israel after the flesh. Three persons in one God. To the spiritual sense there are three statements of one God, and those are given in the Scripture, "God is love"I John 4:8 He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love. I John 4:16 And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him. , "I am the resurrection and the life"John 11:25 Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: , "I am the way, the truth and the life"John 14:6 Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me. . Here is a Trinity in Unity, not partaking of our personal sense of the Deity, but of the essential character of the wise and holy, that which is within the grasp of human beings to apprehend in part and assimulateCorrected:assimilate in their life and to find the open way, the truth in the light that will come down from Heaven that we may understand it, and in the presence of God in the Divine sense of all power and all presence we are clad with omnipotence. It is the great ShekinaEditorial Note: Shekinah is the English spelling of a Hebrew word meaning "dwelling" or "settling." In the Old Testament, Shekinah refers to the specific "dwelling" or "settling down" of the presence of God in a specific location such as the "holy of holies" in the Jerusalem Temple. that rests with its rays of glory upon the alter altar that is the holy of holies to man's heart. It is the sanctuary of the spirit where there is nothing that can make afraid; where there is no fear, for love hath cast out fearI John 4:18 There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love. , where there is a power, and that has God delegated to man and it is his communion with him, not through bread or wine; but through that truth which is the bread that comes down from Heaven whereof if a man eat he shall not dieJohn 6:50 This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and not die. , "He that believed my sayings shall not see death,"John 6:47 Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me hath everlasting life. said Jesus.

These considerations move me to a sense of saying to my dear friends, we stand today at the threshold of the grave. There is at this hour a presence of Divine influence that seems like one tidal wave ready to sweep over and deluge the earth with its holy power. It comes to the heart in the silence of its consecration to that which is good and spiritual. And turning away from the material sense of life, truth and love, substance, the intelligence, to the one life, which is God, the great truth and love that hath wrought salvation from sin, sickness and death and brought it into the grasp of our own human possibilities.

Let us then not give back the power that has declared itself, however small; the instance may seem only as miracles because it is found more divinely natural. Let us not give back those holy influences, in their expression to our understanding, that the Israel of the spirit, are endowed with God to heal and to uplift the race. He has declared it. He has said, "Heaven and earth may pass away but my word shall not pass away."Matt 24:35 Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away. Mark 13:31 Heaven and earth shall pass away: but my words shall not pass away. Luke 21:33 Heaven and earth shall pass away: but my words shall not pass away. And they have not. Today they stand the bulwarks of human freedom and the cement of society the hope of the race. And he has plainly declared the power of those that follow him in the new Testament of his blood. The definition of blood that has not in itself intelligence to propitiate a Deity; but that blood of Christ, is the spirit of truth that is self propitiatory, self suffering, exalting, uplifting; and he that is exercised thereby is wise and safe in that hand of God.

We have a sense of forgiveness through a personal God that rests upon the basis of the Israel of the flesh, and appear to the person instead of divine love: A sense that prayer is our key note to the ear of God, that touches it with a sense of tone that is not known before. But Oh! when we realize there is deep down in our hearts the echo of his love, and that it has come to us through forgiveness? Yes, but is a sin outgrown is but forgotten and is forgiveness possible to God when the sin remains? God destroys sin. Truth destroys error. Love annihilates hate. Life is of death. Every quality of the Deity destroys the opposite quality in material man. And that understood is the forgiveness of sins that rests upon the basis of divine science. We should remember that before the blood of Christ, the blood that flowed from the veins of Jesus, ever flowed, there were patriarchs and prophets that had been cleansed by the blood of Christ; and that blood was, as I say, not the offering of the flesh, but the offering of the spirit. And we saw the human and divine, for instance, of the cross where Jesus propitiated sin through the life spirit -- the demonstration he gave to the world of the life eternal, not temporal, and the impossibility of destroying the life that is good. That was the blood of Christ. That was the essential spirit of christianity.

Now the cup of sorrow that he drank, was it not that sin to us should must be sorrow? Since he made the way for man. His life work was not for his own instruction but for ours, and for our example. It was for us that he wrought out the way and drank of the cup. And may we all drink of it in the sense of sorrow for sin. He suffered, not for own sin, but the sin of others. But I thank God that sin brings with it inevitable suffering, so that it shall destroy sin. If sin were pardoned without suffering, the same quality of that that had wrought out sin being left, it is the seedling that shall again germinate.

Oh! that we might turn to our spiritual Israel and find that germ of forgiveness that is springing into freedom of our being, and that it shall some day burst forth into its upward tendencies and divine life.