As Christ hath taught us when he said, _Unless ye be converted and
become as a Child, ye shall not come into the Kingdom of God_. That is,
that the Life turn itself again unto God out of whom it is proceeded,
and forsake all its own imaging and lust, and so come to the Divine
Vision again.
27
All disputation concerning God's Being or Essence or Will is performed
in the images of the senses or thoughts without God. For if any liveth
in God, and willeth with God, what needeth he dispute about God, who, or
what God is? That he disputeth about it is a sign that he hath never
felt it at all in his mind or senses, and it is not given to him that
God is in him, and willeth in him what he will. It is a certain sign
that he exalts his own meaning and image above others, and desireth
dominion.
28
Men should friendly confer together, and offer one another their gifts
and knowledge in love, and try things one with another, and hold that
which is best, and not so stand in their own opinion as if they could
not err. It lyeth in no man's person that men should suppose that the
Divine Understanding must come only from such and such. For the
Scripture says, _Try all things and hold that which is good_, 1 Thess.
v. 21.
29
The touchstone to true knowledge is first, the Corner-stone, Christ;
that men should see whether a thing enter out of love into love, or
whether alone purely the love of God be sought and desired; whether it
be done out of humility or pride; Secondly, whether it be according to
the Holy Scripture; Thirdly, is it according to the human heart and
soul, wherein the Book of the Life of God is incorporated, and may very
well be read by the Children of God? Here the true mind hath its
touchstone in itself, and can distinguish all things. If it be so that
the Holy Ghost dwell in the ground of the mind, that man hath touchstone
enough; that will lead him into all truth.
30
All strife concerning Christ's testaments cometh hence that men do not
understand that Heaven wherein Christ sitteth at the right hand of God.
They understand not that he is in this World, and that the World
standeth in Heaven, and Heaven in the World, and are in one another, as
Day and Night.
1 COR. ii. 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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