The Hidden Power, and Other Papers upon Mental ScienceTroward, T. (Thomas)
Religion
The Hidden Power, and Other Papers upon Mental Science
Troward, T. (Thomas)
New Thought
The antagonism of the two principles of Unity and separation had first
been openly manifested on the occasion when Jesus made the memorable
declaration, "I and my Father are one." The Jews took up stones to stone
him. Then said Jesus unto them, "Many good works have I shown you from
my Father; for which of those works do ye stone Me?" The Jews replied,
"For a good work we stone thee not; but for blasphemy; and because that
thou, being a man, makest thyself God." Jesus said, "Is it not written
in your law, I said ye are gods? If He called them gods, unto whom the
Word of God came (and the Scriptures cannot be broken), say ye of him,
whom the Father hath sanctified, and sent into the world, thou
blasphemest; because I said, I am the Son of God?" Here we have the
first open passage of arms between the two opposing principles which led
to the scene of Calvary as the final testimony of Jesus to the principle
of Unity. He died because he maintained the Truth; that he was one with
the Father. That was the substantive charge on which he was executed.
"Art thou the son of the Blessed?" he was asked by the priestly
tribunal; and the answer came clear and unequivocal, "I am." Then said
the Council, "He hath spoken blasphemy, what further need have we of
witnesses?" And they all condemned him to be worthy of death.
Jesus did not enter into a palpably useless argument with judges whose
minds were so rooted in the idea of dualism as to be impervious to any
other conception; but with a mixed multitude, who were not officially
committed to a system, the case was different. Among them there might
be some still open to conviction, and the appeal was, therefore, made to
a passage in the Psalms with which they were all familiar, pointing out
that the very persons to whom the Divine word was addressed were styled
"gods" by the Divine Speaker Himself. The incontrovertibleness of the
fact was emphasised by the stress laid upon it as "Scripture which
cannot be broken;" and the meaning to be assigned to the statement was
rendered clear by the argument which Jesus deduced from it. He says in
effect, "You would stone me as a blasphemer for saying of myself what
your own Scriptures say concerning each of you." The claim of unity with
"the Father," he urges, was no unique one, but one which the Scripture,
rightly understood, entitled every one of his hearers to make for
himself.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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