6323, 8200.) "The power of truth from good is so exceeding great, that if man were inspired by divine truth from the Lord he would have the strength of Samson." ("Arcana Celestia,', 10182.)

In the Kabalistic scheme of emanation, called the Ten Sephiroth, or universal outflowing divine principles, which correspond to something in man, the fourth is love, and has as a corresponding name of God, El, meaning the Strong God, the Mighty One. The fifth, which is justice or faith, has, as a correspondname of God, Eloah, the Almighty. The two together make the Elohim, the creative potencies mentioned in the first chapter of Genesis as forming the world. The fifth Sephira or emanation is also called strength, and the fourth greatness, because love enlarges the sphere of our life and our sympathies, while a man is little in proportion as he is selfish. Faith was also called by the Kabalists the right hand of God, and love the left hand. This gives us a sublime view of the power of faith, as it is a manifestation of the divine nature in man, and explains the words of Jesus, "Have the faith of God." (Mark xi. 22.) The author of the Epistle to the Hebrews asserts that God created the worlds (Eons) by faith. (Heb. xi. 3.) As the Logos, it is the creative potency in man.

As to the faith of which Jesus speaks, let it be observed, that a seed signifies a spiritual truth, a living idea. The seed of the woman, that is, the truths of wisdom, the Divine Sophia, shall bruise the serpent's head, the serpent signifying the principle of sense, the Nephesh, with its illusions and fallacies. For, as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the son of man (or the soul) be lifted up," and it must be done on the cross, which represents the union of the intellect with the love or feeling.

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The proper ground of faith is the divine promise. But what is meant by this? There is often a deep spiritual philosophy concealed beneath the external envelope of a name or word, as has been taught in the "Cratylus " of Plato, which is a dialogue

on the rectitude of names. The name of a thing expresses its inward essence and true nature and quality. The word "promise" is from the Latin promissum, and means a thing sent beforehand, and in this sense answers to the Greek word. It is, as it were, the pre-existent idea of a certain good announced beforehand, and which waits to be recognized and appropriated by faith, and then it becomes an actuality or a thing possessed. The divine promises are based on the inseparable and immutable connection of certain things with each other, as substance and form, cause and effect. There are some things that God has so joined together that they can never be put asunder. If we have one, we must have the other. There are certain mental conditions of such a nature, and so indissolubly associated, that if I have the one, I must and surely will have the other. This may be illustrated by the fixed laws of geometry. If we make a triangle, the value of all the angles is just two right angles, neither more nor less. If we make a triangle with lines composing it of any length, and we are asked, What is the sum of its angles? we can always say, with absolute certainty, two right angles. This we knew beforehand, for it is based upon the immutable truth and reality of things. Now the promises of God are the announcement of certain eternal truths, and their divinity consists in their truth, and not in the book where they are found. They are divinely and unalterably true wherever they are found, whether in the Vedas, the Bible, the Koran, or the Almanack, or by whomsoever announced. This is forcibly asserted by Paul when he says that the promises of God are Yea and Amen (from the Hebrew Amuna, truth), in Christ Jesus, unto the glory of God by us (2 Cor. i. 20); that is, they are the announcement of certain eternal truths, like the affirmation that, if you make a triangle, you have, and must have from the essential nature of things, two right angles, and this result is given beforehand, so that you need not stop to count or measure the angles. The intuitive perception of these eternal truths is faith. If we are governed

by the body and the senses, or walk after the flesh, as Paul would say, we shall be sick and die. Our existence will be a dying life and living death. But, if we are governed by the spirit, and believe the spirit and disbelieve the body and the senses, we shall live, and greatly live. This, in a word, is faith.

Jesus affirms that, if we ask, we receive, not that we shall sometime receive. This is eternally true, and faith is the recognition of its truth. For asking, where it is the expression of desire, is receiving; for the desire is the incipiency of that which is its object, and in proportion as we believe, we have. The two things go together, so that every one who asks, receives, and the statement of this eternal law of the necessary conjunction of the two things is what is meant by the word promise or the sending beforehand of a thing. The promise is the expression of the idea of the good we seek. To add to this the element of feeling, makes it a living and conscious reality. Hence Jesus says,—and in his words there is the promise of God, or the announcement of an immutable truth in the heavens above and the earth beneath," Whatsoever things ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive, and ye shall have.” (Mark xi. 24.) For we have, and mentally appropriate and possess a thing, in proportion as we believe. We cannot have, unless we believe we have. These go together like substance and form, cause and effect, thought and existence. We cannot have the one without the other, and if we have the one, we must of necessity have the other.

Again, Jesus says, "Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, he will give you." (John xvi. 23.) God gave to Jesus the name that is above every name, that at the mention of this mysterious name every knee should bow, of things in the heavens, and the earth, and under the earth. It is the name, as the Chaldean Oracles say, which rushes through the infinite worlds. Now this name is that which expresses the Christ, the crown and summit of manifested being. That name is in us, and represents our inmest spirit, the Son of God, and

the Christ within. To ask in the name of Christ, is to ask from this summit of our being. This is in the quality of the Christ, and asking here is praying for that which we know to be his desire and necessary impulse to impart, and what he would ask, and does in that sense ask, the Father to give. Our inmost spirit is the Son of God in us, and the Father always hears the Son. The desire of the Christ to bless and impart good, real and not apparent good merely, may be represented by a musical note or sound. Our asking from the Christ realm of our being, is a note in harmony with it, and the two blend together in one sound, and as such it reaches the all-hearing ear of the listening God, the supreme and eternal Goodness.

APPENDIX.

THE PRAYER OF FAITH THAT SAVES THE SICK, OR THE HEALING POWER OF SPIRITUAL TRUTH.

Ir is a principle taught in the spiritual philosophy of all ages and countries that prayer is the most intense form of the action, or influence, of one mind upon another. All genuine prayer is a union of intellect and feeling, and this makes it a living spiritual force. It is thought vivified by love, and directed toward its object. As the will is the primal force in man, and is but the intensifying and focalization of desire, the highest effort of will naturally takes the form of silent invocation. It spontaneously seeks to gain a higher level, a mightier strength to lean upon, and union with a Life that can lift us from our own and rescue us from the weakness of an isolated individuality. It is confirmed and perfected by faith, which, as both Plato and Jesus teach, is an operative spiritual cause; and the will, combined with faith, goes forth more in the form of affirmation than that of supplication. As Jesus-who is himself the way, and the truth, and the life-affirms that whatsoever we ask the Father in his name, or in the quality of the Christ, the supreme Wisdom, the Father will give us ; and as our own spirit is the Christ in us, and is one with him, we use the following formula as expressing the highest activity of the will, faith, and imagination, in an act of benediction, or the communication of good and truth to others, and as a vehicle through which God's "saving health "--which is the interior meaning of the name Jesus-may be imparted to the souls of

men.

The apostles declare that it was by the saving virtue of