The second division comprises laws and institutions which provide for
human needs and conditions according to exigencies of time and place.
These are accidental, of no essential importance and should never have
been made the cause and source of human contention. For example during the
time of His Holiness Moses—Upon him be peace! —according to the exigencies
of that period, divorce was permissible. During the cycle of His Holiness
Christ inasmuch as divorce was not in conformity with the time and
conditions His Holiness Jesus Christ abrogated it. In the cycle of Moses
plurality of wives was permissible but during the time of His Holiness
Christ the exigency which had sanctioned it did not exist, therefore it
was forbidden. His Holiness Moses lived in the wilderness and desert of
Sinai; therefore his ordinances and commandments were in conformity with
those conditions. The penalty for theft was to cut off a man’s hand. An
ordinance of this kind was in keeping with desert life but not compatible
with conditions of the present day. Such ordinances therefore constitute
the second or non-essential division of the divine religions and are not
of importance for they deal with human transactions which are ever
changing according to the requirements of time and place. Therefore the
intrinsic foundations of the divine religions are one. As this is true,
why should hostility and strife exist among them? Why should this hatred
and warfare, ferocity and bloodshed continue? Is this allowable and
justified? God forbid!
RELIGION RENEWED
Creation is the expression of motion. Motion is life. A moving object is a
living object whereas that which is motionless and inert is as dead. All
created forms are progressive in their planes or kingdoms of existence
under the stimulus of the power or spirit of life. The universal energy is
dynamic. Nothing is stationary in the material world of outer phenomena or
in the inner world of intellect and consciousness.
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