CHAPTER IX.

THE REAL AND THE APPARENT.

WE are told, in the Holy Word, that God is angry, and that He is Love; that He is wrathful, and kind; revengeful, and merciful; provokable, and unchangeable; that He repents, and repents not; that He loved Jacob, and hated Esau, and that He is no respecter of persons; but maketh His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth His rain upon the just and the unjust; that He curses people, and punishes them; and that He is kind unto the unthankful and the evil, and that His tender mercies are over all His works; that He forms the light, and creates darkness; makes peace, and creates evil. He says, "Is there evil in the city, and I have not done it?" thus plainly indicating that He does all the evil in the city. And to complete the apparently decided fatality of all things, the foreknowledge of God has been understood by some to pre-order and fix fast everything that occurs, whether of thought, feeling, or action; and to sustain this view, we are often cited to the Epistle to the Romans: "Whom He did foreknow, He also did predestinate.” "Whom He did pre

destinate, them He also called: and whom He called,

them He also justified: and whom He justified, them He also glorified." "Therefore hath He mercy on whom He will have mercy; and whom He will He hardeneth;" that He "maketh one vessel to honor and another to dishonor."

Men have two ways of receiving ideas-by appearances, and by realities. And a glance at the Key of First Principles, will very soon decide which of the above characters of God must be the real, and which the apparent. And as the Principles which constitute this Key are Eternal Axioms, which all Christians must admit, they would throw much light upon all the doctrines of the Word, by distinguishing between the apparent and the real, if men would receive and use them. For there is a common consent and agreement, among all Christians, to the truth of the first general view of the doctrines of the Scriptures, which teaches that there is an Infinite and Eternal Being who created all things; that the Bible is His revealed Word; that in Him is a Trinity, called Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; that He made all things good; that man fell into depravity, and imparted his sinful nature to his offspring; that, to save the fallen world, God was manifest in the flesh, and thereby opened up a way of salvation; that, in order to be saved, man must be regenerated by the Spirit of God; that, after death, we rise and go into the spiritual world, and there are judged, and are happy if regenerated, and unhappy if unregenerated. These great leading doctrines God, in His Holy Word, simply and clearly teaches: and, as here stated, they are indisputably true to the very letter, and the Christian world generally acknowledge them as here expressed. And yet those very people are divided into hundreds of different sects, and are at great variance

upon the character and quality of these doctrines. They know them alike by outward terms, but not by essential principles. Thus they disagree as to what each doctrine. is in itself, and are wavering in mystery, between the apparent and the real. But, by the Key of First Principles, as expressed in Chapter I, light may be thrown upon all the doctrines, the apparent may be distinguished from the real, and all may be brought together in harmony, and the watchmen see eye to eye.

Now, all things have their appearances and their realities. There is truth as it appears, and truth as it is; the literal sense of the Word as it appears, and that sense as it is; nature as it appears, and nature as it is; God as He appears, in His Word and works, and God as He is. And even the appearances are various, depending altogether upon the states of the observers.

Nature and its laws do not appear to the scholar as they do to the savage. The same forms of things fall upon the eyes of both, but they suggest very different ideas. The savage sees them only by the light of the sun; the scholar has the additional light of science. All persons, at first, look at nature as it appears. But, as their minds are educated, they lose thought of the appearance and see things more as they are, rising, as they progress, from the surface view to scientific laws.

And as with God's works, so with His Word; here too is the apparent and the real. When wicked men first turn their thoughts seriously toward moral and religious things, they see in the Word only the low appearances of God's character. Each man sees Him according to his state; the angry man as angry; the froward, as froward; the upright man as upright; the pure in heart, as pure. Thus He seems to come, all things to all men."

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Now it is much better that man should believe the apparently hard things that are written of God than not believe anything. When Galileo presented the solar system to men, the world, as to astronomy, was in the shade of appearance, believing that the sun daily revolved around the earth. But this was much better than no thought on the subject. It was far above what any animal could think. And though only an appearance, yet it was truth to those who could see no higher. And, as such minds are developed by science, they will see through the appearance to the reality. And so of spiritual things. We must first have them by appearances. Men are of all qualities, from infernal to heavenly. And God's Holy Word, in its Infinity, is adapted to all, from the highest to the lowest. In it, God comes to men with a disposition and passions apparently like their own; and of every shade of character, from the most furious and wrathful to the most gentle and merciful. And without so coming He could not reach all minds. For the elements of one mind cannot flow into another by outward instructions, without a medium or language for ideas adapted to their states. That medium, for the lowest and most vile people, is the "terror of the Law" in the literal and appar

ent sense.

Now it is much better that the Lord should appear to a very wicked, perverse, and ignorant people as an almighty, wrathful, vengeance-taking God, than as allmerciful and forgiving. For, as they are taught from infancy to fear this terrible Being, this character has a powerful influence over their conduct, in restraining them from vice. Such an apparent idea of God can reach and influence them when a real one could not be seen, and would not be feared if it could be seen. And all the

scripture which so represents God is mercifully given for the use and benefit of all such barbarous and cruel minds. The world has had its ages of such benighted ignorance and tyranny. And it has its nations now, to whom such teachings are a blessing.

And, in the ages of great sin and ignorance, even a lake of fire and brimstone, apparently prepared by the Lord to torment wicked souls in forever, has been a blessing, just so far as it has restrained from sin, held evils in check, and caused men to keep the commandments. And with a people in a state of blind superstition, and fear of an awful unknown Power, this dreadful doctrine would have that influence, when nothing else would do it. And now, when we see the real, spiritual truth of this doctrine, and find that that burning lake is no fiction, but a dreadful reality, coming not from God, but from the transgression of His laws, and located in our own souls, if we are evil, and that it will torment us with the fires of hatred, revenge, jealousy, and ill will forever, unless removed by repentance and a good life; I say, when we see this, the same Holy Scripture may bless us also, and save our souls.

Thus we see that the Infinite Word of God is suited to all ages of the world and to all peoples: not only to the patriarchs, the Israelites, and the first Christians, but also to those of the New Jerusalem, the glorious light of which is now dawning upon the world; and if we apply it to our hearts and lives, it will lead our souls into the paradise of God.

But, it is asked, Is not this using deception, by making God to appear what He is not? When those scripures are properly considered, there will be seen nothing false in their expressions. It is not a falsity that the sun appears to revolve round the earth, or the grass to look