Character

How shall a person know when he is guided by this wisdom? I will give you a sign so that you cannot be deceived. Man of himself is a servant acted upon and governed by two powers superior to himself. These two powers you may call God and the devil, good and bad, or science and error. Now as the bodies of men are a machine to be acted upon by one of these two powers, through the servant, these bodies are like a vineyard under the guidance of the steward or master, who is responsible to his lord. So when the lord of the vineyard calls the steward to an account, if his acts do not harmonize with the agreement made with his lord and master, then the steward is turned out and another takes his place. I will now state the agreement between the steward and his lord. Whatever a person agrees; to is binding on the steward and if you as a steward of your own vineyard or body agree that the laws are right and just, then if you do anything contained in the law according to your agreement, you; must be punished by this same law, if not by the law of the land. For one is sanctioned by God and the other by man. And wisdom: does not change but rewards everyone according to his agreement.

Now man had better look over his contract and see where he stands in regard to himself, as he is answerable to himself, for his happiness or misery is in obeying or disobeying his contract. Now suppose we name over some of the articles contained in the agreement and see if we are guilty. I will call them over and you may say under the knowledge of your agreement whether or not you agreed to them as real existing things, which were bad or ought to be dealt with according to law. I will begin with the first article in the agreement. Have you not agreed that it is right for you to respect your parents as you would have them respect you?

You answer, Yes. Then this is one of the agreements entered into by you and your master. Now this is binding on you, for it was your own free will, so just what punishment the law has attached to breaking that contract is your punishment. This is in the agreement and there is no escape, for everyone must give an account to his lord of his stewardship. So that whatever you have acknowledged as wrong or have given your sanction to as just and right, you are subject to.

You have acknowledged that to steal is wrong and to punish a person for stealing is right. This is the law of man and you have given it your sanction as right, so you have helped bind burdens on the people that you cannot remove. The wisdom of man is not able to remove this burden, so men are under these laws and the obeying of them makes one character and the disobeying of them the other. So the world is in a quarrel to see which party shall rule. Ignorance finds fault, though it does not wish to correct anything, but is willing everything should remain just as God made it. The other character wants to change everything and establish its own standard. In this way the science of wisdom finds no foothold in either of these two characters. Jesus called them Scribes and Pharisees. Each of these two characters often produce a phenomenon through a third person, as for instance, when Joseph was sold to the Ishmaelites. According to wisdom it was necessary that such a mind as Joseph's should go into Egyptian darkness to lead the people to a higher knowledge of a truth. Ignorance never would have carried such an act into execution, neither would error. For error is never guided by wisdom; therefore it must come from a higher power than either ignorance or error. It was wisdom acting through error and error not knowing it. As the light was in the darkness and the darkness comprehended it not. So wisdom acting through error brought about a scientific benefit to mankind, but the world knew it not scientifically and attributed it to some unknown law or wisdom of God and they gave the power to an unknown God as they always do.

Paul said to the Athenians when he saw a monument or error with this inscription, TO THE UNKNOWN GOD, Whom you ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you. This God was science or wisdom for the word science was not used then, so that any truth that was governed by wisdom or science was a miracle, for it could not be understood by the two characters, ignorance and error. These two with the third character made up the trinity. Ignorance is the weight or matter, error is the velocity or mind and wisdom is the direction or intelligence. Each one is necessary for an effect and neither can act alone.

 Wisdom must act on mind and mind on matter. As weight and velocity make mechanical power, so mind and matter make spiritual power governed by a wisdom superior to both. This last element, wisdom, is not known in the natural world except as a mystery or unknown God. Error has always been looking for this power as it is called but when it comes it is not known. For everything that is known scientifically is not taken into account. So that the very God that ignorance ignorantly worships is near them even in their mouths and they know it not. As Jesus said to the Scribes and Pharisees, You draw near unto me, that is, this truth, with your mouth, but your hearts or knowledge are far from me or the truth, and you worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men. The wisdom that acted upon Jesus was the Christ and when Jesus spoke of it he called it God. This was where all the mystery lay. The people thought that Jesus had a power, for science was not known so science was the god they ignorantly worshipped. When they asked him where he got this power or how he cured diseases, he said if they would tell him where John got his power of baptism, he would tell them how he I cured disease; this they could not do, so they stopped his explanation. So I say to all who wish to know how I cure disease, if they, ask, tempting me as they did Jesus, I answer, Tell me how Jesus cured and I will tell you how I cure, for I answer everyone according to his sincerity as Jesus did.  

PPQ 

November 1860