_P._ Can you, then, bear an announcement still more startling than any I
have yet made?
_I._ I really know not; I will try; let us have it.
_P._ Well, then, I call it a Fourth Great Divine Epiphany or
Manifestation; or what you will perhaps better understand as one of the
developments characterizing the beginning of a Fourth Great Divine
Dispensation. What is to come of it, you will be able to judge as well
as I when you understand its nature.
_I._ What! so great an event heralded by so questionable an
instrumentality as the rapping and table tipping spirits?
_P._ Be calm, and at the same time be humble. Remember that it is not
unusual for God to employ the foolish things of this world to confound
the wise, and that when He comes to visit His people, He almost always
comes in disguises, and sometimes even "as a thief in the night."
Besides the spirits of which you speak are only the rough but very
useful pioneers to open a highway through which the King is coming with
innumerable hosts of angels, who, indeed, are already near you, though
you see them not. It is, indeed, an hour of temptation that has come
upon all the world; but be watchful and true, prayerful and faithful,
and fear not.
_I._ Please tell us then, if you can, something of the nature and
objects of this new Divine Epiphany which you announce; and as you say
it is a _Fourth_, please tell us, in brief, what were the preceding
_Three_, the times of their occurrence, and how they are all
distinguished from each other.
_P._ The _First_ appealed only to the affections and the inner sense of
the soul, and was the Dispensation of the most ancient Church, when God
walked with man in the midst of the garden of his own interior delights,
and when "Enoch walked with God and was not, for God took him." But as
this sense of the indwelling presence of God was little more than a mere
_emotion_, for which, in that period of humanity's childhood, there was
no adequate, rational, and directive intelligence, men, in process of
time, began to mistake _every_ delight as being divine and holy;
thus they justified themselves in their _evil_ delights, or in the
gratification of their lusts and passions, considering even these as all
divine. [The "sons of God" marrying the "daughters of men."--_Gen._
vi. 2-4.] And as they possessed no adequate reasoning faculty to which
appeals might be made for the correction of these tendencies, and thus
no ground of reformation, the race gradually grew to such a towering
height of wickedness that it had to be almost entirely destroyed. The
_Second_ age or Dispensation, commencing with Noah, was distinctively
characterized by the more special manifestation of God in outward types
and shadows, in the _adyta_ of temples and other consecrated places and
things, from which, as representative seats of the Divine Presence, and
through inspired men, were issued _laws_ to which terrible penalties
were annexed, as is exemplified by the law issued from Mount Sinai.
The evil passions of men were thus put under restraint, and a rational
faculty of discriminating between right and wrong--that is to say, a
_Conscience_--was at the same time developed. But the sophistical use
of these types and shadows (of which all ancient mythology is an
outgrowth), and the accompanying perversion of the general conscience
of mankind, gradually generated _Idolatry_ and _Magic_ with all their
complicated evils, against which the Jewish Church, though belonging to
the same general Dispensation, was specially instituted to react.
Furthermore, as the mere restraints of penal law necessarily imply the
existence in man of latent evils upon which the restraint is imposed, it
is manifest that such a dispensation alone could not bring human nature
to a state of perfection; and so a _Third_ was instituted, in which _God
was manifested in the flesh_. That is to say, He became incarnate in
one man who was so constituted as to embody in himself the qualitative
totality of Human Nature, that through this one Man as the Head of the
Body of which other men were the subordinate organs, He might become
united with all others--so that by the spontaneous movings of the living
Christ within, and thus in perfect freedom, they might live the divine
life in their very fleshly nature, previously the source of all sinful
lusts, but now, together with the inner man, wholly regenerated and
made anew. Here, then, is a _Trinity_ of Divine manifestations, to
the corresponding triune degrees of the nature of man--the inner or
affectional degree, the intermediate, rational, or conscience degree,
and the external, or sensuous degree.
But while this was all that was necessary as a ground for the perfect
union of man with God, in the graduated triune degrees here mentioned,
and thus all that was necessary for his personal salvation in a sphere
of being beyond and above the earthy, it was _not_ all that was
necessary to perfect his relations to the great and mysterious realm of
forms, materials, and forces which constitute the theater of his earthly
struggles; nor was it quite all that was necessary to project and carry
into execution the plan of that true and divine structure, order and
government of human society which might be appropriately termed "the
kingdom of heaven upon earth; wherefore you have now, according to a
divine promise frequently repeated in the New Testament, a _Fourth_
Great Divine Manifestation, which proves to be a manifestation of God in
_universal science_.
_I._ But that "_Fourth_ Manifestation" (or "_second_ coming," as we are
in the habit of calling it), which was promised in the New Testament,
was to be attended with imposing phenomena, of which we have as yet seen
nothing. It was to be a coming of Christ "in the clouds of heaven, with
power and great glory," and the resurrection of the dead, the final
judgment, etc., were to occur at the same time?
_P._ Certainly; but you would not, of course, insist upon putting a
strictly literal interpretation upon this language, and thus turning
it into utter and senseless absurdity. The _real "heaven"_ is not that
boundary of your vision in upper space which you call the sky, but the
interior and living reality of things. The "_clouds_" that are meant
are not those sheets of condensed aqueous vapor which float above
your head, but the material coatings which have hitherto obscured
interior realities, and through which the Divine _Logos_, the "Sun of
Righteousness," is now breaking with a "power" which moves dead matter
without visible hands, and with a "great glory," or light, which reveals
a spiritual world within the natural. The "_Resurrection_" is not the
opening of the literal graves, and re-assembling of the identical flesh,
blood, and bones of dead men and nations which, during hundreds and
even thousands of years, have been combining and re-combining with the
universal elements; but it is the re-establishment of the long-suspended
relations of spirits with the earthly sphere of being, by which they
are enabled to freely manifest themselves again to their friends in the
earthly life, and often to receive great benefits in return; and if
you do not yet see, as accompanying and growing out of all this, the
beginning of an ordeal that is to try souls, institutions, creeds,
churches, and nations, as by fire, you had better wait awhile for a more
full exposition of the "_last judgment_." People should learn that the
kingdom of God comes not to _outward_ but to _inward_ observation, and
that as for the prophetic words which have been spoken on this subject,
"they are spirit, and they are life."
_I._ And what of the changed aspects of science that is to grow out of
this alleged peculiar Divine manifestation?
_P._ To answer that question fully would require volumes. Be content,
then, for the present, with the following brief words: Hitherto science
has been almost wholly materialistic in its tendencies, having nothing
to do with spiritual things, but ignoring and casting doubts upon them;
while _spiritual_ matters, on the other hand, have been regarded by the
Church wholly as matters of faith with which science has nothing to
do. But through these modern manifestations, God is providentially
furnishing to the world all the elements of a spiritual science which,
when established and recognized, will be the stand-point from which
all physical science will be viewed. It will then be more distinctly
known that all external and visible forms and motions originate from
invisible, spiritual, and ultimately divine causes; that between cause
and effect there is always a necessary and intimate _correspondence_;
and hence that the whole outer universe is but the symbol and sure
index of an invisible and _vastly more real_ universe within. From
this unitary basis of thought the different sciences as now correctly
understood may be co-related in harmonic order as One Grand Science, the
_known_ of which, by the rule of correspondence, will lead by easy clews
to the _unknown_. The true structure and government of human society
will be clearly hinted by the structure and laws of the universe,
and especially by that _microcosm_, or little universe, the human
organization. All the great stirring questions of the day, including the
questions of suffrage, woman's rights, the relations between labor and
capital, and the questions of general political reform, will be put into
the way of an easy and speedy solution; and mankind will be ushered into
the light of a brighter day, socially, politically, and religiously,
than has ever yet dawned upon the world.
_I._ My invisible friend, the wonderful nature of your communication
excites my curiosity to know your name ere we part. Will you have the
kindness to gratify me in this particular?
_P._ That I may not do. My name is of no consequence in any respect.
Besides, if I should give it, you might, unconsciously to yourself, be
influenced to attach to it the weight of a personal authority, which
is specially to be avoided in communications of this kind. There is
nothing to prevent deceiving spirits from assuming great names, and you
have no way of holding them responsible for their statements. With
thinkers--minds that are developed to a vigorous maturity--the truth
itself should be its only and sufficient authority. If what I have told
you appears intrinsically rational, logical, scientific, in harmony with
known facts, and appeals to your convictions with the force of truth,
accept it; if not, reject it; but I advise you not to reject it before
giving it a candid and careful examination. I may tell you more at some
future time, but for the present, farewell.