A Blind and careless interpretation of the Mosaic law has too long been permitted apparently to fasten the curse of a wrong sense of heredity upon mankind. For centuries have the innocent and the inoffensive been needlessly burdened by the unresisted thought of unmerited condemnation with its attendant suffering.
The human mind, "sitting in darkness" of its own evolving, has read, studied, and taught the Second Commandment as setting forth an unalterable edict by which in all cases and under all circumstances, the sins of the human parents were intended to be visited upon their hapless progeny, even unto the third and fourth generation of the luckless ones. Mankind, by a process of false reasoning utterly devoid of spiritual light, has gradually mesmerized itself by constant iteration into a need for merciless insistence upon this one point of the transmission of inherited tendencies and peculiarities. Mortals have ignored the most important and only explanatory clause of this commandment, until it is well-nigh forgotten. Through desuetude it has been practically rendered null and void. Yet the Law-giver plainly specified all that should come under the ban when he named "them that hate me [Divine Love]."
To the ordinarily intelligent thinker, the statement is clear that the visitation of evil shall extend only to them that hate. For the message follows quickly that "mercy" shall be shown "unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments." Then why rest in apathy under the belief in a doom that was never ours? Why not turn from error and break the spell by its simple antidote, beginning to love?
What is love?
Ceasing to hate.
What is mercy?
Literally, it means reward, for it is derived from the Latin word merco,—"to gain, to buy, to merit." Justice wedded to mercy gives mankind its reward, nothing more nor less; not meting to one mortal what another mortal sows, either for good or for evil, but giving each one to eat of the fruit of one's own doings. A corporeal personality, reflecting but a faint sense of the power of Love to annihilate error, conceives of God as humanly inclined to gloss over an offence against goodness and mildly punish instead of eradicating the sin. But the governing Principle of Being is unalterable in its action. "Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." "Sow to yourselves in righteousness, reap in mercy; break up your fallow ground: for it is time to seek the Lord, till he come and rain righteousness upon you. Ye have plowed wickedness, ye have reaped iniquity; ye have eaten the fruit of lies: because thou didst trust in thy way, in the multitude of thy mighty men."
Every promise in the Bible has a condition for its fulfilment, either plainly stated or implied. In the eighteenth chapter of Ezekiel this phase of the moral code is fully expounded and the meaning of Moses made clear.
To apprehend the Scriptures clearly from the literal standpoint is one of the first steps towards grasping their higher spiritual signification. Dr. Smith, in the preface to his valuable Bible Dictionary, tells us that these books to be rightly understood, require a literal, an historical, and a spiritual interpretation of the Word. Having faithfully studied the Second Commandment from the first of these three standpoints, and gained its exact literal sense, we are surely, according to this widely recognized authority, privileged to carry the investigation further and educe, if possible, its metaphysical meaning.
Scriptural texts show a varied use of the words "father," "children," and "generation." In Smith's Bible Dictionary we find a wide range of meaning for the term father.
"I. Male parent. II. Any male ancestor, as Father Abraham. III. Any man in the position of a father, as Joseph to Pharaoh. IV. The inventor or teacher of an art was called its father and the father of those who practised it. 'Jubal ... was the father of all such as handle the harp and organ' and 'Jabal, ... the father of such as dwell in tents.' (Genesis, 4:20, 21.) V. The builder or founder of a city. VI. Any one who makes a thing, or produces it, or tells a story, or recites a poem, is called the father of such a thing or poem."
The Bible speaks of the Children of Light, and of disobedience, implying an impersonal sense of parentage, not after the flesh, but of mental conditions, the seed sown in thought and deed bringing forth "after his kind." Our Master said, "Wisdom is justified of her children."
Dr. Smith says, "The word child also means a person noted for certain qualities, as children of the world,—selfish; children of light,—having religion; child of song,— a good singer.
"Among the Israelites a child at twelve was called the son of the law.
"Son denotes a mental or moral resemblance. (Judges, 19:22)
"Also, the term son is used in Scriptural language to imply almost any kind of descent or succession, as ben kesheth, son of a bow, i.e., an arrow."
The Standard Dictionary explains Father as "the origin or cause of anything."
Also child, as the "Result, product, or effect of anything."
To generate, according to the same authority means "To produce."
The Century Dictionary defines father as "Any real or apparent generating cause or source." Child is given as "Anything regarded as the offspring or product of something which is specified; product; result." Generation has for one meaning "A bringing forth or out ... production, especially by some natural process or causation, as the generation of sounds."
Now the law of generation, or the action of the generating principle as we see it constantly manifested, is that "the seed shall bring forth after its kind." Shakespeare expressed the metaphysical sense of generation when he wrote, "Thy wish was father, Harry, to that thought."
Carrying out our argument along this line of thought, an angry word or a blow, might reasonably be called the son or child of ungoverned temper. We all know how one angry thought or word leads to another, as it is commonly expressed, if temper is not controlled or annihilated by Love. The climax comes in a quarrel. Anger born of anger, generating after its kind "unto the third and fourth generation" of wrathfulness, culminates in disaster; leading on to final self-destruction. Is not this the generation that is cursed? Is not this the visitation upon the offspring, even unto the third and fourth "of them that hate me,"—hate Love?
Sir Walter Scott has plaintively sung,—
Oh what a tangled web we weave,
When first we practise to deceive!
Does he not plainly infer that the web of ever-multiplying error is the child, while deception is its first parent or father?
Our Master called the Pharisees a "generation of vipers." Even the most literal interpreter of Scripture could not assume that these men wore the physical appearance of a breed of reptiles called viper. What, then, did the Master mean? Was he not clearly defining the mental product of a viperine condition of thought? Did he not see in the mentality of the Pharisee sensuality wedded to hypocrisy generating venom, which spread its noxious germs till men's minds were poisoned against himself as the exponent of Truth? He knew such mental conditions to be a "cursed generation," even as Moses beheld them. He had to give the warning, that it might become known that such parentage could bring forth no blessing to any mortal who harbored similar errors, but could only multiply the sin of hatred and its curse for all who failed to arrest the mental inoculation, all who made malice and deceit a reality to themselves by indulging therein, thus fostering this venomous brood of errors.
We need to recognize the desire of the human heart as the parent of the act. We need to remember that the wrong thought indulged and not cast out and destroyed, must generate "after his kind." As the counterfeit presentment of the real and true of Good's creating it is under the necessity to increase and multiply to mortal sense, in order to maintain the sham appearance of being also real and true. But it can only bring forth the inevitable result of its own condition. The motive must culminate in its own product, the "child" of its own conception. If this "child" be "conceived in sin and brought forth in iniquity," —in other words, if the resulting consequent of word or deed, is the product of evil-thinking instead of right-thinking, error instead of righteousness, most surely "the iniquity of the fathers," or primary motives, will be visited "upon the children," or resulting consequent, even "unto the third and fourth generation," not of finite personalities, but of thoughts and deeds. Moses and Ezekiel, both equally inspired of Wisdom, recognized not only this universal law that like produces like, but knew that every unrighteous conception must suffer until it is self-destroyed or yields to the Law of Love.
Yet mortal mind or the misconception of materiality cannot be self-condemned as sinner or sufferer any longer than it continues to cling to unrighteousness. Let it turn from its error, become filled with righteousness, or right-thinking, and then it will conceive and bring forth the fruits of Love instead of hate, and the blessing of God will rest upon this true generation. The curse or sin will be dissipated with the cessation of sin. Mrs. Eddy says in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," p. 523, "The dreamer and dream are one." Then the sinner and the sin must be one. It is at once the punished and the punisher. So long as a mortal clings to iniquity, he clings to its penalties and punishment. The moment he lets go of his mistaken sense of God and man he frees himself from the results of this ignorance or sin. The process is all mental, though the manifestation may appear to be physical The moment he is willing to cease hating spirituality, to cease sowing to the flesh or clinging to the false belief of heredity after the flesh, he can begin to enter into conscious possession of the true heritage and its fruits, "incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away." He soon intelligently knows, and if in earnest and faithful can eventually demonstrate that he is an heir of God,— Good,—and joint heir with Christ as inheritor of the kingdom of Good.
"He that overcometh shall inherit all things; and I will be his God, and he shall be my son."
"But ye" that overcome, "are a chosen generation; ... that ye should show forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvelous light."
"Verily I say unto you, that this generation [italics are ours] shall not pass, till all these things be done."
When the fields were white with harvest, and the laborers
were few,
Heard I thus a voice within me: "Here is work for thee to
do;
Come thou up and help the reapers, I will show thee now the
way.
Come and help them bear the burden, and the toiling of the
day."
