processes taking place within the inner life of the regenerated. In Jesus Christ we behold the antitype of the one and only Redeemer of the world, as a whole, and of every separate individual. Every object or person we see in the world is nothing but a symbol of existing ideas; every event taking place in external life is the outcome of invisibly acting forces. The historical correctness of the occurrences described in the Bible may be questioned, but what they describe are facts known to those who have experienced them themselves. The truth of the religion of Christ does not depend on the verification of external historical events; its truth must be verified for everyone by and in himself. True Christianity is based neither upon a knowledge of cosmology nor upon history, but upon love.

"The innermost ground in man is Christ; but not according to man's human nature, but according to His, the divine quality in His celestial essence, which He has regenerated. The second ground is the soul, i. e., eternal nature, wherein Christ (the light) becomes revealed; and the third ground is the external man, out of the limus of the earth with the stars and the four elements. In the first ground is the active life of divine love; in the second is the natural fire-life of the created soul, wherein God is called a fiery God; and in the third is the creation of all the qualities wherein Adam stood in the temperature, and which was objectified in the fall." (Grace, iv. 37.)

"Christ' means a penetrator; the act of taking away the power of the wrath; the illumination of the darkness by light; the transmutation (in the soul of man), by which the gladness of love rules over the lust

Christ in his aspect as a creature is the center of this our throne, wherefrom issues all life; for in that center is the Holy Trinity; and not only in that center, but also in all angelic thrones, and also in the holy soul of man. Thus the body of Christ (the created image), the man Christ, became seated in the midst of this throne; i.e., in his own principle; sitting there at the right hand of God. The right hand of God is His love, that extinguishes the wrath; ie., the innermost root of the strong power of the father, wherein is His omnipotence." (Three Principles, xxvi. 110.)

of the fire in its wrathful aspect; the superiority of light over darkness." (Signature, vii. 32.)

To "love Christ" means simply to love the divine light of wisdom and truth, and is practiced by being obedient to divine law.*

CHAPTER XIII.

REGENERATION.

"Verily, verily, I say unto thee: except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God."-JOHN iii. 3.

"Art thou a master of Israel, and knowest not of those things?"— JOHN iii. 10.

"Whoever will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me."-LUKE ix. 23.

No man can attain spiritual self-knowledge without being spiritual, because it is not intellectual man that knows the Spirit, but the divine Spirit that attains selfknowledge in man.

"Christ said, 'Unless you become like children, you will not see the kingdom of God.' And again He says (John iii.), 'Unless a person is born of the water and Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God; for that which is born from the flesh is flesh, and what is born from the Spirit is spirit.' It is clearly shown in the Bible that the carnal natural man does not conceive of the Spirit of God. That Spirit is to him a foolishness, and he cannot comprehend it."

"It is self-evident, and requires no further proof, that we are all made up of flesh and blood, and that we are

"Why does the soul torment herself and strive in her own power and will, thus augmenting her torture? The more anxious she is, the greater will be her pain, and she acquires no rest. A dying plant does not begin to sprout and obtain sap by its own power, and likewise the soul cannot by her own power attain the kingdom of God. She ought to do nothing but abandon her own selfish will, then the evil qualities become weak, and her will returns to the one from which she came in the beginning. Here God will send His supreme love to meet her; that love which has been revealed in humanity, in Jesus Christ." (Illumined Soul, 46.)

mortal. Nevertheless, we are taught that we are temples of the Holy Spirit who dwells in us. We are also taught that Christ must take a form in us, and that He will give us His flesh as our nutriment and His blood for us to drink. He says that he who does not eat the flesh of the Son of Man will have no eternal life. Therefore we ought to seriously consider what kind of a man is within our own self similar to God and capable of becoming divine." (Regeneration. i.)

"For that which is made of mortal flesh will again return to earth.* In it dwells the vanity of this world. It is desirous for that which is not of God, and it cannot be said to be a temple of the Holy Spirit. Much less can there take place a spiritual regeneration of this terrestrial flesh, because it dies and becomes dissolved, and is a dwelling for sins. But the true Christian is born out of Christ, and that which is regenerated is a temple of the Holy Spirit dwelling in us." (Regeneration, i.)

For the purpose of understanding the process of the spiritual regeneration of man it is useless to cling to a merely historical belief in a Christ supposed to have died for the purpose of paying our debts to an angry God, but it is necessary to eat of the flesh and drink of the blood of the living Christ within ourselves; that is to say that we must allow our soul to become filled with the divine substantiality of the body of Christ, and experience the paradisiacal power of Christ therein.

"To produce a true Christian it is not sufficient to be satisfied with a merely historical or scientific belief in a Son of God who is said to have once lived upon the earth. It is not that we are to be rewarded by some external God attributing righteousness to us on account of our confessing such a belief, but the recognition of divine truth must be born within us and received by us in a child-like manner. As the flesh is bound to die, so the life and the will of our sinful nature must die,

* That which is of the earth and must return to it is not merely the visible physical body, but also the carnal mind and the astral man with his earthly desires. There is nothing immortal in man, except that which is divine in him, and millions of men and women die with. out having attained a self-knowledge of this their own immortal self.

and we must become like a child that knows nothing, but clings (instinctively) to the mother who gave it birth. And thus the will of the Christian must die to its own self-willing and self-assertion, and become like a child in Christ. Then, if the will and desire of the soul is directed only to its source, there will arise from the Spirit of Christ a new will and obedience in divine justice, out of the death of the self-will, and not the sinful will." (Regeneration.)

To form a correct conception of the regeneration of man, and of what kind of a being it is which is to be brought to life in us, we must learn to know what is eternity and time, light and darkness, good and evil, and especially the origin and the generation of man. We shall then find that man is of a threefold aspect. In one aspect he dwells continually in heaven, and is a member of the body of Christ; in another aspect he is subject to the powers of darkness, and in his third aspect he is made of mortal flesh. Nevertheless there are not three men in one human being, but he is only one.

It is nowhere stated that God is a temple of man, and that we can enter into Him with our human selfhood, however refined that selfhood may be. The spiritual regeneration of man is brought about by the divine power of God entering and becoming self-conscious in man, so that his whole being becomes filled with God as the darkness becomes filled with light.

"We behold the eternal world with its stars, and the four elements wherein man and all creatures live. This is not God, and is not called 'God.' God dwells therein, but the essence of the external world does not comprehend Him. Likewise the light shines into the darkness, and the darkness comprehendeth it not."

"God dwells in the world and fills everything; nevertheless He possesses nothing. The light dwells within the darkness, but does not own it; day dwells in night and night in the day, time in eternity and eternity in time; and so it is with man. He is himself time, and lives within it according to his external aspect, and likewise the external world is existing in time; but the inner man is eternity, and spiritual time and world, such as is created in light according to the love of God, and in darkness according to His wrath. His spirit lives in

that principle which is manifest in him, either in darkness or in the light. Each of these dwells within itself; neither possesses the other; but if one enters within the other and desires to possess the other, then will the other lose its supremacy and power. If the light becomes manifest in the darkness, then the darkness ceases to be darkness; and if the darkness arises within the light, then the light and its power will be extinguished.

"The eternal darkness of the soul is the kingdom of hell; the eternal light in the soul is her heaven. Man, therefore, is created of, and lives in three worlds. One is the world of eternal darkness that arises from the center of nature-eternal nature-wherein is born the fire as the eternal torment; the other world is the world of eternal light, wherein resides happiness and the Spirit of God. It is in this world of light wherein the Spirit of Christ assumes human substantiality. The third world wherein man lives, and from which he was generated, is the external visible world, with its four elements, and the visible stars." (Regeneration, i.)

Now the question may be asked, "By what means can man effect the process of his spiritual regeneration?" The answer is, that man, not being a god, can accomplish nothing whatever of that kind by his own will or power, and that it can only be accomplished by the unmerited grace of the god in him. No one can give unto himself anything which he does not possess ; neither can any man attract unto himself by an exercise of his will the sunshine. All that man can do is to employ the powers which he has received from God for the purpose that there may be no impediment created by his self-will which might prevent the action of the Holy Spirit within his own soul. To accomplish this he must rise by the aid of the divine Spirit within himself above the inferior elements within his own nature, and thus surrender his whole self-will to God, an act which is expressed in the original meaning of the word "prayer.

*In the German language the word Gebet (prayer) originates from geben (to give), and means, therefore, a gift or sacrifice to God. It does not imply the offering of selfish petitions or the asking for per