Mysticism and its Results | Page 3

of the mysteries of nature are unfolded, but they are a secret to the world at large. To those Christians in the earlier days of the church, who had attained its highest instruction, and after the "Ite, missa est" had dismissed the rest of the congregation, remained to participate in the "pure offering" (or "clean oblation") prophesied by Malachi[4] to be thereafter offered in every place to Him whose name thenceforth should be great among the Gentiles--to them "it was given to know the mysteries of God:"[5] not to understand things incomprehensible. That would be a contradiction in terms: a thing impossible. How can a person comprehend that which passeth all understanding? But it may be said, there are things which are incomprehensible. Not so. They may be a secret to us while, in this school-house, the earth, the {14} pedagogue Necessity is teaching us only the rudiments of the laws of God as developed in nature or in mind; but, when the scintilla divinitatis, hidden in these "earthen vessels,"[6] shall have been set free, and (while "the dust returns to the earth as it was") rises unto Him that breathed into us that "spiritus" or "breath of life"--when we shall hereafter have been "newly born" into a spiritual state of higher existence--then may we hope that what is secret to us now, may become a mystery or revealed secret to us hereafter. It is not all of life to terminate our existence on this earth. This is but the school-house in the commencement of eternity. These mysteries, now secrets to us, are created and maintained by the fixed laws of Him "who is without variableness or shadow of turning." The revelations thereof belong to a higher kingdom, which "flesh and blood can not inherit," yet in which every soul "shall be made alive."[7] Then shall these secrets be unfolded in proportion to the cultivation of the mind and talents here: for the unchangeable laws of God have placed all matter in constant and regular mutation; and whether of matter or of mind, all is governed by a certain law of progress, compelling us to attain excellence and strength only by constant endeavors to surmount difficulties: and it is thus alone we can, by severe study and deep meditation, in investigating these laws of mutation and progress in things physical and {15} moral, bring the mind, even in this life, to a nearer approximation to, and capability of, appreciating the wonderful truths we must hereafter learn. As in all other laws of God, the cultivation of our talents must then carry its proportionate reward hereafter.[8]
Let us then examine into the uses and abuses of secrecy in past history, and at the present day--but more particularly will these be manifested by "MYSTICISM;" by which is meant, the revelation of learning, social, religious, and political, the teaching of which has been, and is, preserved secret from the world, by societies, associations, and confraternities.[9]
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CHAPTER II.
The Distinction between the Early Elohistic and Jehovahstic Ages of Primeval Patriarchal Times.--The Secrecy of Original Worship on Mountain Tops.--The Collation and Reconciliation of the patriarchal Traditions brought together by Moses.--The Commencement of the Jehovahstic Age.--The Origin of Mythology.--The Magi; their Organization and Modes of Worship.--The Deification of Nimrod, and the Source of Political Power at its Beginning.--The Secret Writings they adopted.--The Dead Invokers.--The Mysteries of Egypt, Greece, and Rome.
In a critical study of the books of Moses two eras seem to be discernible. The earlier, the Elohistic, when God was only known by the name, "Elohim." The latter, the "Jehovahstic," beginning at a later period.[10]
Though not altogether germain to our subject, may we here be permitted to inquire--par parenthese--whether this simple rule does not furnish to us the means of reconciliation of apparent contradictions?
All instruction originally was traditional alone. The patriarch was priest and teacher, as well as ruler of his tribe. Each handed down to his successor the {17} traditions he had received from his ancestors orally. As tribes became nomadic, or else sought permanently new settlements and homes, traditions in course of time necessarily became variant. Moses seems honestly to have collated these traditions, and has, no doubt, given them in their respective versions as he received them from Jethro, his father-in-law, and from the patriarchal instruction among the elders of his people in Egypt. Thus we can recognize those in which the name Elohim is used as being of much earlier date than the same tradition differently told, where the word Jehovah indicates the name of Deity. For instance, we find in one place[11] the command of God to Noah to take the beasts and fowls, &c., into the ark by sevens. But again, in the same chapter,[12] we find them taken only by pairs. Are these not variant traditions of