#6 Communicating Goodness throughout

Jan Bruegel the Elder -- Garden of Eden

Pryr-1.1-18] It is the Goodness of God that breaks forth into a Desire to communicate Good, and it was the sole Cause of the Beginning of Creation., which is stated right at the start of Genesis:



And God saw every thing that he had made, and behold, it was very good. Gen.1.


Hence it follows, that for all Eternity, God can have no Thought, or Intent towards the Creature, but to communicate Good; that idea that He, the Creator is Good and that his Creation and Creature are the same: beneficient, kind and virtuous. So it stands to figure, that God made the Creature for this sole End: to receive Goodness and its like.











So now that we understand the amiable Nature of God; i.e. that he the Good, a unchangeable, overflowing Fountain of Good, and that He is the Love itself, giving nothing but Gifts of Love, to every Thing that He has made and requiring nothing of all his Creatures, but that in return share the Spirit and Fruits of that Love.






Think about this. How sweet this Contemplation of the Height and Depth of the Riches of Divine Love! What Attraction must it draw every thoughtful Man, to return Love for Love ? What Charms has that Religion, which discovers to us our Existence in, Relation to, and Dependence upon this Ocean of Divine Love!







View every Part of our Redemption, from Adam’s first Sin, to the Resurrection of the Dead, and you will find nothing but successive Mysteries of that first Love, which God created both the Angels and Men. For all the Mysteries of the Gospel are just so many Proofs of God’s desire to make his Love triumphant, by removing Sin and Disorder from all Nature and Creature in that first Paradise.





[Pryr-1.1-19] But unfortunately, this does not last, for consider the Nature of Adam’s Fall, We have seen that it consisted of no arbitrary Punishment inflicted on him by a Wrath raised in God, but was only such a State of Misery, that his own Action brought upon him just like a child who puts their hand too close to the fire and gets it burned.




And so let us now see what happened to this Creature’s Soul, or more distinctly, how it differed from what it was before his Fall, in its heavenly State, to what it had become.




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Saturday, 15 August 2015 : Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary (Second Reading)

#5 Alchemy and the Law of Nature

[Pryr-1.1-16 or pg 24] From this short, yet plain and true Account of this Matter, we are delivered from a Load of Difficulties that have been raised about the Fall of Man, and  Original Sin. It has been a great Question for all Christians, How could the Goodness of God so punish such a  small and single an Act of Disobedience in Adam, with so great a Punishment as Eternal Sin?

Well to be honest,  that Question has little to do with God, but more with logic and sense because Adam's Punishment was just a  miserable Change that came upon him: he was transformed from an Angelic Nature to a Bestial One.

So of course, another, and the greatest Question of all, is What kind of Divine would do this to him Adam & then to all his Posterity?  But here, it may be said, that this Question is equally ridiculous because There is no Imputation {assignment}  of the Sin of Adam to his Posterity, never once is that mentioned in the Holy Bible, and so there is no Foundation for a Dispute.

How absurd would it be to say, that God imputes the Nature of Adam for all of his Posterity? That would mean that God is damning Adam (us) for all Mankind.  Nonsense.

Instead, would not the children of Adam have the same Nature  (Physical Makeup, Structure and Looks) of Adam because of their  natural Birth and that they came from a Man so that they too should be one?   That logic is no different than that a “leopard cannot change his spots” (from Jeremiah 13:23) because  the leopard cannot be anything but a leopard.  Nor can a horse be something other than itself, can it?   And since now that Adam was on their level, how could his children be anything other their makers, ordinary human mortals.

Gustav Klimt, Portrait of Adele Blauer-Bloch i

 Instead therefore about the former Question, which is quite beside the Matter, it really should have been asked ,  How it  would it be consistent  that Adam could  generate Children of a Nature and Kind that would be quite superior to himself?   Can man beget a cat?  Or a leopard?  Or could it be vice verse? There is no historical, nor logical precedent for that matter, that shows either are possible within the Laws of Nature.

Of course like the modern day anti-realists (or nihilists) Medieval magicians will tell you though, that there are no laws of nature and that by understanding the secret of "alchemy",* & then armed with their Philosopher's  Stone they could create a silk purse from a sow's ear and unveil all the other “hidden” secrets of the Universe with  their "tincture" or powder such as transforming base metals to precious ones like gold.

Alas, history has not proved that either, though went further and believed that an elixir of life “elixir vitae” could be derived from it, and so once again man would not need God but could be immortal upon himself.

That rather interesting idea brings us to the Rebellion of the Angels who thought that they too could oust God from his Throne and run the Heavens without him. Well that did not work and neither did the alchemical arts, though man has tried throughout various centuries and all over the plant for such a “Fountain of Youth”.

Instead  the only Question that can be asked with relation to God is why did not Adam listen?  Not why could Adam not generate children of a nature and kind that was quite superior to himself for plainly that is false.  The reason is  why sin is found in all the sons of Adam, because Adam was of earthly flesh and blood and cannot bring forth a holy angel out of himself,  any more than a magician can create gold from nothing: if one is part of nature, then one must operate within its Laws & Boundaries.

Only God himself can do otherwise, for How could it be anyway else?

And so it can be truly written and said that all the laborious volumes on God's assigning Adam's sin to his posterity ought to be considered as it truly is: nothing more than waste paper.


========================
See  Appeal to all that Doubt, also by Rev Law for a further discussion of this topic.  The good man wrote a lot, what else do you do when there is no tv to whittle it away?  Read and write.  Now we twitter.

*The original purpose of alchemy was the creation of gold from dross i.e. the famous saying of making silk from a sow's ear is based upon that.  The picture of Adele Blauer-Bloch is shown because Klimt used a lot of gold dust for it, as she was rich and wanted to show her vanity and wealth.  Obviously it was a pricey piece to paint.

#4 Burnt Fingers

[Pryer 1.14]  Let me be honest here.  If your father, and I'm sure yours did, tell you not to put your finger on a hot burner or through a fire, and then you did, would you blame your father for telling you and so putting the idea into your head or do you blame yourself for testing his advice and seeing indeed what would happen?

So too, Adam  who operated contrary to the Will of God merely for the  Sake of some new-fancy operated from his own voluntary Act, decided to test what God has told him knowing fulling well that the punishment would be the lost of his heavenly life; did so anyways, somewhat like a rogue child that gives you the finger and figures that he will get away with it because you do not have the heart to really take him to task.

[Pryer 1.15]  ] Well, that is a simple, but clear Representation of the Case, how Matters stood

Pietro della Vecchia, St Dominic and the Devil c. 1630
 at the Indianapolis Museum of Art

betwixt God and our first Father, when by his own Act and Deed he extinguished that Angelical & Divine Life, in which God had created him.

Adam had no more Hurt, no more Evil done to Him, at his Fall, than the very Nature of his own Action brought along with it upon himself. He lusted after the Sensibility of that Good and Evil, that Beasts of this World have,

Léonard Gaultier, engraving of Christ heals the 2 Blind Men,
c. 1576  @Natl Gallery of Art, Washington DC

He was told, that it could not be had without the Loss of his heavenly Life;  because such Loss was as necessarily implied in the Nature of the Thing itself, as  Blindness is implied in the Extinction of the Eyes.

However, he ventured to make the Trial, and chose to eat of That, which could and did open this Sensibility of earthly Good and Evil in him.

No sooner did this happen & this Sensibility was opened in him, but he found that it lead to Subjection and Slavery to all outward Nature, to Heat and Cold, to Pains and Sickness, to Horror of Mind and disturbed Passions, to Misery and Fears of Death or  in other Words, he found that it was an Extinction of that Divine, angelical Nature, that he previously had.

 Therefore, to charge Adam's now miserable State, as a Punishment inflicted upon him by the severe Wrath of an incensed God, is just as Absurd as to say that when Man washes his face with Carbolic Acid, that the Darkness and Blindness results from God's wrath against him.

#3.6 The Kabbalah and Justice

Justice and the Kabbalah regarding the Spirit of Prayer

Posted on October 25, 2014by In My Anguish

The Tree of Life, commonly called the Kabbalah, associates Mercy with Judgement, as  they are opposite each other : Mercy is the 4th sefirot and Geburah or Judgement is 5.  These are two of the divine attributes of Yahweh.

The Hebrew Alpha-bet reads right to left, and so does the tree.   The left side where  Judgement (Geburah) resides is Feminine, while the Right is Active and Masculine (Chesed #4).  This means that even numbers are active while uneven numbers are unstable and passive – like the atom they receive instructions.

Then there is the Middle Pillar or the spine of tree,.  If one reads up  Malkuth #10 to #1 Kether, as you ascend the tree,  you must be one of the Kingdom i.e. a believer.  Nothing happens without that first step towards God.  From there, you need solid foundation (yesod) in His teachings and ways. Tipareth the central sefirot, typically translated as Beauty, is not physical beauty, but a total equilibrium, absolute balance between the left and right arms of the Tree.

As we continue on with the Spirit of Prayer, keep in the mind the picture of the Tree and how Law describes the fall.  It is  an intertwining of God himself and his teaching, esoteric philosophy, Jewish mysticism and Christian religious reflecting on the Four divine attributes of Malkuth, Yesod, Tipareth and Kether that together help man balance himself between illusion and the real (mind).  They are the Golden Mean man should be striving towards in this life.

The word Justice, shows up on the tree typically as HOD or splendor.  It too is often misunderstood as the splendor of God’s bounty, but the noun splendor in English means “the exercise of authority in vindication of right by assigning  reward or punishment,”

It came from the Old  French ” justise” and probably was imported during the Norman conquest.  The Old Fr. word  itself is from the Latin . justitia “righteousness, equity,” and from the idea justus “upright, just” (see the word just (adj.)). The O. Fr. word had widespread senses, including”uprightness, equity, vindication of right, court of justice, judge.  How that relates to HOD or Splendour is very Talmudic:  the Glory of the Law of God or Natural Law. 

When Justice was first used  in English c.1200 it was just as a title for a judicial officer, or judicial administrator or as positive law and while that seems that there are no heavenly implications, one must remember the biblicial and esoteric statute "as above, so below" so that the positive law was supposed to reflect Natural Law and not be a perversion of it.

Mercian was a language spoken in the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Mercia (roughly the Midlands of England). Together with  Northumbrian, it was one of the two Anglian dialects of Britain before the Norman Conquest and the Kingdom of Mercia at its greatest extent (7th to 9th centuries) is shown in green, with the original core area (6th century) given a darker tint.

In the Mercian hymns by Geoffrey Hill,  the Latin word justitia is glossed into Old English  as   rehtwisnisse or right witness -- hence we "swear" with our right hand on the Bible that we are telling the truth or damning our immortal soul if we are lying.  Of course in polygot society that does have problems as Moslems are allowed to lie if it will further the cause of Islam.

Latin does not carry over per se, the Greek idea, that Justice is blind but adds a nuance that Justice is “weighty” referring back to the Egyptian idea of Ma’at’s weighing a man’s heart at death to see how far it had fallen from the original ideal.

English does do a lovely job of marrying the two ideas into a new whole.

Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper

#3.5M What does Justice mean literally

 Justice is the rendering to every one that which is his due.  This meaning, definitely picks up on the "rightwitnisse" of Old English or doing the "right thing" and echoes the many laws and duties of Leviticus (namely Lev. 18-21, the law regarding sexual & secular relations).

Justice is distinguished from equity (the idea of what is fair and impartial),   as it refers to merely doing what positive (government or man made societal) law demands, while the  equity is about doing of what is fair and right despite the societal decrees.

Easton’s 1897 Bible Dictionary

  Probably the best example of this is, again Leviticus, "In business dealings do not favor the rich over the poor, but be fair to all.  Do not cheat.  Measure accurately weights and volumes according to a standard value.) (Lev xx: 36)  and "Do not harbour a hatred or resentment for any of your relatives".

Aristotle was one of the first to posit that was what just by Society was not necessarily just by nature,  and that there was a natural justice that gave the same force to both that existed beyond "what people's thinking was on this or that".  Aristotle felt that positive law should as closely approximate natural law as possible.

Historically, at least in America, that was true.  Political Correctness though, has changed many of these ideas as well as meanings, and in doing so has tilted the US jurisprudence system more towards what is "historically fair" & the "righting social injustices" & away from  personal  responsibility.  This has happened  as we as a nation have become more bent towards the rectifying the past,  instead of looking forward to the future & ensuring that these errors are not repeated by correcting the societal (positive) laws that allowed it.

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The tag 3.5 means that this is till part of the 3 series, but after the earlier parts. M means meaning.  This is done for those who want to read everything in order as well as those who just want to read Law -- if you ignore the subchapters x.1 etc.  you will stay on Law's tract without getting my research and discussion.

#3.1Q - Questioning the idea of Wrath between God and Adam

Spirit of Prayer , Questioning the Wrath

Posted on January 22, 2011by In My Anguish

Previously,  Law questions whether God was being wrathful or vengeful  to Adam & Eve because he broke the “Law”.  It's an interesting thought and perhaps a pun, as Genesis is part of the Jewish Torah (the Book of Law), that does indeed set various laws for His people to follow.  Among them are dietary, marital, societal and criminal laws with according punishments; all which He feels would help them lead good and proper lives.

The first of these laws,  is Genesis 2:1-3 where God blesses the 7th Day,  or  he investing the seventh day with the quality of highest value and  giving to those who observe it great advantage.  In short, God  stamped the Sabbath with the seal of Divine approbation; and so “set it apart,” as distinct from the other six days, for sacred purposes.   Our duet, for whatever reason, seems to have had no problem with this one.

No, it was the second rule, "⁵ The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. ¹⁶ And the Lord God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; ¹⁷ but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die” which interesting was given to Adam right before Eve was created that the dynamic duo seemed to have some trouble accepting though the idea of death wish does enter the mind.  After such an admonition, the question arises, Would you have eaten it?

Frankly, I would have been scared, but Eve tricked by the snake falls for the dupe and does but God in His kindness does not "kill them" outrightly.  Instead he gives them a mortal life so that eventually they will die.

This though is often portrayed, by Hollywood and innumerous others,  portrays God as wrathful towards Adam and Eve.  They also put much more emphasis on Eve giving Adam, apple much more than Rev. Law is here.

In John Huston's  epic, "The Bible..in the Beginning" God is shown very clearly as angry and mean about the whole thing.  Unfortunately this movie is not on Youtube,  but it still can be found on Netflix for those with accounts and there maybe other sites if you search.

Still, the basic idea of most of these movies is that God is mad, God is angry and the lightning comes down from the heavens and chases them out of Paradise. That isn't quite what did happen and while there might have been "lightning" it was in the form of two circling seraphim with lighting bolts to stop them from re-entering.

Reverend  Law takes this and shows very clearly that there is no anger by God  with Adam, and God also  clearly puts the blame on Adam and not Eve; instead there is great disappointment with a mournful God asking his boy, Why would you listen to her and not me?  Why didn't you trust me?

That is a  far cry from the feminist propaganda of God hating Eve and blaming her for the fall.  Here it is more logical -- why would you listen to someone other than me for advice?    We won't be hearing that kind of pointed questioning under we get to Proverbs as for a while there is more concern about the Adam's family's existence in the new world than the questioning of whose lead you are blindly following.

So with Law taking a different tacit here, and saying that while the positing the ideas of of Justice and Severity in the Mosaic sense, since there is now a Saviour (coming centuries afterwards,) that original view is wrong and untrue. But to be honest, isn’t that just revisionist thinking?

 Does the actual texts, not the Midrash (the Jewish exegesis of the Torah) imply that, or is Reverend Law (1686 - 1761) making a very educated leap ahead based on his admiration of German mystic  Jakob Boehme?

                                          Christ driving the Traders from the Temple - El Greco

The thought intrigues me, and I realize so much of Genesis (absolutely one of the best books in the OT) is now wrapped with Hollywood mythology, it is hard to separate the two and remember the actual words, so let's see what it says and whether close reading supports Law's view:

Genesis 2

2:5 Now no shrub of the field had yet grown on the earth, and no plant of the field had yet sprouted, for the Lord God had not caused it to rain , and there was no man to cultivate the ground. 2:6 Natural Springs though would well up from the earth and water the whole surface of the ground. 

2:7 So the Lord God formed the man from the soil of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.

2:8 [and] The Lord God planted an orchard in the east, in Eden; and there he placed the man he had formed. 2:9 And He made all kinds of trees grow from the soil, every tree that was pleasing to look at and good for food. (Now the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil were in the middle of the orchard.) … 

2:15 The Lord God took the man and placed him in the orchard in Eden to care for it and to maintain it. 2:16 Then the Lord God commanded the man, “You may freely eat fruit from every tree of the orchard, 2:17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will surely die.”…

3:4 But the serpent said to the woman, “Surely you will not die, 3:5 for God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will open and you will be like divine beings who know good and evil.”

3:6 When the woman saw that the tree produced fruit that was good for food, was attractive to the eye, and was desirable for making one wise, she took some of its fruit and ate it. She also gave some of it to her husband who was with her, and he ate it. 3:7 Then the eyes of both of them opened, and they knew they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.

3:14 The Lord God said to the serpent,“Because you have done this, cursed are you above all the wild beasts and all the living creatures of the field! On your belly you will crawl and dust you will eat all the days of your life.

3:15 And I will put hostility between you and the woman and between your offspring and her offspring; her offspring will attack your head,and you will attack her offspring’s heel.”

3:16 To the woman he said,“I will greatly increase your labour pains; with pain you will give birth to children. You will want to control your husband, but he will dominate you.”

3:17 To Adam he said, “Because you obeyed your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you not to do, ‘You must not eat from it,’ so cursed is the ground thanks to you; and in painful toil you will eat from it all the days of your life.3:18 It will produce thorns and thistles for you,but you will eat the grain of the field.

3:19 By the sweat of your brow you will eat food until you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you will return.”

3:20 The man named his wife Eve, because she was the mother of all the living. 3:21 The Lord God made garments from skin for Adam and his wife, and clothed them.

3:22 And the Lord God said, “Now that the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil, he must not be allowed to stretch out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.”

3:23 So the Lord God expelled him from the orchard in Eden to cultivate the ground from which he had been taken.3:24 When he drove the man out, he placed on the eastern side of the orchard in Eden angelic sentries who used the flame of a whirling sword to guard the way to the tree of life.

We can see that Reverend Law is right:   God curses the snake but not his children.  He  warns them of the new life that is to come, that it will be hard & full of travails,  and to show that he is not bitter or wrathful, God himself fashions the first clothes to protect them against the elements as they make their way into the world beyond Eden.

#3 Spirit of Prayer - God's warning to Adam

William Law and the Spirit of Prayer...
[Pryr-1.1-11] "Therefore, my Son, be content with thy angelical Nature, be content, as an Angel in Paradise, to eat Angels’ Food, and to rule over this mixed, imperfect, and perishing World, without partaking of its corruptible, impure, and perishing Nature.

Lust not to know how the Animals feel the Evil and Good which this Life affords them; for if Thou couldst feel what they feel, Thou would have to be one of them and since Thou canst not have their Sensibility, unless Thou hast their Nature: thou canst not at the same time be an Angel and an earthly Animal.

If the bestial Life is raised up in Thee, at that  same Instant the heavenly Birth of thy Nature must die within.

English: Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil עברית: חטא עץ הדעת - ד"ר לידיה קוזניצקי (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Therefore turn away thy Lust and Imagination from a Tree of Knowledge as  that can only help Thee to gain  Knowledge of  Good and Evil, that belongs to the Animals of this mundane World. 

The bestial Nature can receive Good or Evil from the Stars and Elements;  but they have no Power,  over that Life which proceeds from those element.

Instead my Son, be content with Angels’ Bread; and in doing so, do not unlock that bestial life and fall into the pit of Slavery for Life.  Once you are   Stripped of thy angelical Garment, you  will have to hide your  Body  in all its Glory, for you will become more naked than any Beast that crawls upon Earth, and you will  be forced to seek refuge from those very Beasts as you will find your skin softer than theirs and will need  a Covering to protect you from them and the elements around you.  Also , you will have to  hide yourself from the Sight of thine own Eyes as you will find yourself repulsive and ugly. 

Soon after that, you will become a  shameful, fearful, sickly, wanting, suffering, Creature and suffer the same speedy Death as does the Dust of the Earth, and the poor Beasts of Burden, because now you are their Brethren."

[Pryr-1.1-12] This Paraphrase I leave to the Reflection of the Reader, and proceed to show,that 

[Pryr-1.1-13] Thirdly, that the Misery, Distress, and the sorrowful Condition, which Adam  brought upon Himself by his Transgression and so onto all of his Posterity,  was not because of the severe vindictive Wrath in God, who called  for Justice to  rectify His impugned  [challenged] Sovereignty and so inflicted pains and Punishments suitable to the offence of his just Indignation.

NO!  It is evident that Adam had nothing  but Overflowing of Love and Goodness from his Heavenly Father and that his Lameness, Blindness and Wretched Sufferings were from nothing but his own voluntary Acts brought upon himself by himself when he did not take the Goodly advice.

#2 Sailing the Glassy Sea

Pryr-1.1-9] "Now Adam,  I will open your eyes to a great Mystery. The heavenly Materiality of the Angels' Kingdom before their Revolt was a glassy Sea, a Mirror of beauteous Forms, Figures, Virtues, Powers, Colors, and Sounds, which were perpetually springing up, appearing and changing in an infinite Variety, to the Manifestation of the Wonders of the Divine Nature, and to the Joy of all the Angelical Kingdom.

This heavenly Materiality had its Fruits and Vegetables, more real than any that grow in Time, but different from the Grossness of the Fruits of this World, as the heavenly Body of an Angel is different from the Body of the grossest Beast upon Earth.


In this angelical Kingdom, there was just one Element (which after the Fall was divided into in four Parts) and that was a fruitful Mother of Wonders, continually bringing forth new Forms and Figures of Life; not Animals, Beasts, or Insects, but beautiful Figures: ideal Forms of the endless Divisibility, and Degrees of Life, which only broke forth as delightful Wonders of the Depth of the Riches of the Divine Nature, and to tune the Voices of Angels with Songs of Praise to the infinite Source of Life.

So Adam, while an endless Variety both of the Animal and Vegetable Life could have sprung up then but now because they are the divided into Parts cannot; No animal Life can rise from solely from the Stars, Air, or Water, but instead need the Remains of that one Element, that I imbued Life with.


This, my Son, is the Source and Original of all that infinite Variety, and Degrees of Life, both of Animals and Vegetables, in this World. This is because all outward Nature, has fallen from Heaven.


[Pryr-1.1-10] "In Heaven, all Births and Growths, all Figures and spiritual Forms of Life, though infinite in Variety, are still a heavenly Kind, and have only so many Manifestations of the Goodness, Wisdom, Beauty, and Riches of the Divine Nature.

But now in this new modeled Chaos, where the Disorders  raised by Lucifer are not wholly removed, and where Evil and Good stand together in Strife, until the last purifying Fire appears, here every Kind and Degree of Life, like the World from whence it springs, is a Mixture of Good and Evil in its Birth and which is what you cannot tell.

.

#1 Chapter 1, Preparations.

Chapter 1, Treating Some Matters that are preparatory to the Treatise

The greatest part of mankind, well actually of those who are Christians, may be said to be well asleep in a fantastical dream. Instead of being aware of their Heavenly Father, and the great gifts he has given them, they live a life devoted to the interests and enjoyments of this world, spent and wasted in the slavery of earthly desires, whittling away their time and energy in vain and worthless pursuits and this may be truly called a dream; for it has all the shortness, vanity, and delusion of a dream as when they wake up they will find that they have nothing for their effort.

There is one great difference though between it and a real dream and that is when a night dream is over, nothing is lost but fictions and fantasy, pleasant reveries to think and muse, but when the dream of life is over, ended by death itself, all of eternity is lost as well.

Now there is no misery in this world, but this blindness and insensibility of Man to his state, and what is worse, Man so willingly, nay obstinately plunges himself into the midst of it. And so from that delusion, that whittling away of idle time, everything that has the nature of evil and distress takes its rise from that.

Do you think that man realizes, that he comes into this world on no other errand, but to rise out of the vanity of his time into the riches of all eternity? For poor and miserable as this life is, through & within it , we all have free access to all that is great, and good, and better yet, within us, yes our very selves, we carry the key to all the treasures that heaven has to offer.

Do you think that mankind realizes this — that instead of starving in the midst of plenty, groaning under infirmities, worrying about trivial nonsense, instead we have the very remedy in our own hand? Or do they realise that all our troubles would be solved by the greatness of the Spirit of Prayer that was given to them at their very conception that they ignore?

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William Adolphe Bouguereau

The SOUL Carried to Heaven by William-Adolphe Bouguereau  (November 30, 1825 – August 19, 1905).  Bourgereau was a traditionalist academe painter, whose realistic genre paintings and mythological themes were in reality modern interpretations of Classical subjects.  He emphasized beauty of an idealized female form, as shown right.  

But it was his almost photo-realistic style that made him popular with the rich patrons of Paris & he became quite famous before being eclipsed by the rising tide of the Impressionists.

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Gustave Dore

No, for we are Strangers to Heaven, and live and exist without God in the World, because we are void of that Spirit of Prayer, which alone can, unite us with Him and open Heaven and the Kingdom of God within us.

Instead, we look to distant shores, new cuisines, and things of the passing time.

We remain strangers to heaven and do not tap that very seed that our Father set in the finest soil, in the very best of climates, and then blessed with all that sun, and air, and rain that he could give, so He would be sure of its growth to perfection.

For the sun does not meet the springing bud with as much certainty, as God, the source of all goodness, communicates  to the soul within.

From Gustave Dore's lithographs to the bible. They can all be found here. Born Paul-Gustave Doré (born January 6, 1832, Strasbourg,France—died January 23, 1883, Paris), he was French printmaker, & one of the most prolific and successful book illustrators of the late 19th century. His exuberant and bizarre fantasy created vast dreamlike scenes widely emulated by Romantic academicians including his large folio Bible (1866), and the Inferno of Dante (1861). He also painted many large compositions of a religious or historical character and had some success as a sculptor; but it was his illustrations where his true vivacity and genius live.

For God, is neither absent nor distant from our troubles, but He is more present in our souls, than we are, because while we are wasting our time gossiping and idylling about, and doing nothing but spinning yarns of what may come, all the while ignoring the call for the spirit of prayer, which alone can open up Heaven as well as the Kingdom of God within and for us and so in turn, cease our commiserations and turmoil, He

#1.0 Title Spirit of Prayer

The Spirit of Prayer

or

The Soul Rising out of the 

Vanity of Time

into the 

Riches of Eternity

In TWO PARTS

by William Law, M.A.

The Fourth Edition
Revised and Corrected by the Author 1758 

originally reformatted and annotated In My Anguish

January in the year of our of Lord, 2011

  Some Matters preparatory to the Spirit of Prayer by William Law.

The torments of the damned in hell (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The original format is here on Christian Classics but it is of the 1749 version. Recently I got a hold of the revision by Reverend Law  in 1758.  That made me decide to update my adaptation of the book here on Blogspot,  where I  originally started my work, instead of continuing it on WordPress, where I moved the blog, in 2012.

Part of my reasoning for return, was  to the surprising lack of interest in the piece.  Over the two years that I have been WordPress I have noticed a distinct difference in the reading viewership of the two sites with Google being superior, at least for a religious audience.  Frankly, that surprised me.

On Scribd.com  that the whole pdf of the 1758 can be found ;  Christian Classics  has only the the first edition. I have noticed many differences and I do think that the '58 edition is the better one.  That means though, starting my work from scratch, but to be honest, my original work was a mix-up and hard to follow, but I doubt that was the reason for lack of viewership on WordPress.

What I have done is paraphrase,   Law's writings,  while still trying to keep the original capitalizations  as I think that they had some flavour to the piece,  but updating the spellings and grammar,  when they are so different from Modern English as to be either distracting or misleading.  When necessary I had added (in parentheses) meanings of archaic words.

In correcting, Rev. Law's grammar, that often entails, breaking up some of his very long Proustian passages as well explaining the  analogies, or modernizing them as the case may be so that they relevant.    Finally when Law refers to verses in the Bibles I have copied the whole verse into the text so that the reading is seamless,  and one does not have to check back and forth between the piece, and the Bible for references as modern audiences are not as conversant with the Bible as former ones were (remembering that reading implied a solid education).  This  latter update has been personally very helpful.  I have tried to use either the KJV or the ASV; sometimes I have used the modern NET Bible -- in all cases I have relied as far as possible on texts in the public domain.

When using the KJV because I know many find it difficult to read, I have put in the bridges that fill in the gaps look for this  [   ]  within the scripture here is an example.  As time and familiarity with KJV and other Bibles grow, you will find that the [] are like training wheels and no longer needed.

Nehemiah 13 King James Version (KJV)
13 On that day they read in the book of Moses [to] the audience of the people; and therein was found written, that the Ammonite and the Moabite should not come into the congregation of God ever; 2 Because they met not the children of Israel with bread and with water, but [instead] hired Balaam -- a pagan god -- against them, that he [our Lord] should curse [the Israelites] : [and so ]  our God turned the curse into a blessing.

Something about Law:

Samuel Johnson , the great British essayist, & John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, called William Law their spiritual father. He was a personal tutor, to Edward Gibbon, father of the great historian and writer of The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman His influence of many English thinkers and religious thought is profound and unfortunately, forgotten.

Both Johnson & Wesley, felt that Law was as integral to Protestant thought as Martin Luther, primarily because he outlined the Christian ethical ideal for human life,  and how to achieve it -- exhorting his audience to be steadfast in discipline & constant inprivate prayer. Where Rev. Wesley disagreed with his spiritual mentor, and it quite was strongly,  was in Law's using the Midrash* & his emphasis on the mystical experience of "knowing God".

While this idea of Christian mysticism had long been a facet of Eastern Orthodox prayer, and in the Lives of the Roman Catholic  Saints (St Joan of Arc was burnt at the stake for her "hearing voices" from God on how to save France; St Bernadete was considered too stupid to have actually had a visitation, etc.),  it was a very alien idea to the Protestant "no frills" literal-text ethic.

Mysticism though has a strong universal attraction for man, and it can be found throughout the world in various apparitions like Chinese Taoism, Modern day Kabbalists, Buddhism and Muslim Sufism, but for Wesley the "literal reading" (no metaphor, similes or symbols)  of the Good Book, had no place in their mindset, and Wesley heavily objected to this whole idea of Christian mysticism & the creation of a Personal Jesus.

Law though,  insisted that there much Bible precedence for it, like 2 Peter 1 v21's explanation of the historical role of prophecy: "For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but [by] holy men of God [who] spake as [though] they were moved by the Holy Ghost," [KJV] and thankfully  Rev. Jonathan Swift of Dublin and the poet, Alexander Pope, urged him in many meetings and much correspondence, on despite the Wesleyan outrage & thankfully Law listened to better heads and wrote on.

I hope you enjoy this adaptation, & that it  eases your questions, and comforts your worries, as we both grow stronger in Our Father.

============

The Midrash is commonly defined as the process of interpretation, where  the rabbis fill in "gaps" of understanding that are found in the Torah.   Today that is often done with the various "Commentaries" that are either separate or part of the Holy Bible itself.  In both cases, the Midrash and current commentary, they are a literature that seeks to ask the questions that if the  reader/listener could, ask the teacher (Rabbi/writer).