Article May 20, 1922 Issue

Progress of Spiritual Thought

JOHN P. MELLORS

The spiritual advance made by Abram after he left his father's home in Ur of the Chaldees was a great step from the confused mental atmosphere of many gods into the purer, clearer spiritual atmosphere of assured trust and confidence in the one God, and this God the living, guiding Principle,—ruling, beneficent divine Mind. By coming out definitely, firmly, completely, for his strong convictions, Abram not only became the father of the faithful, but received the great blessing of the inheritance of the land of promise, Canaan. By his adherence to one God in the land of promise he proved the verity of the now familiar dictum, "One on God's side is a majority;" and the further blessing of becoming a great nation was assured to him.

The living and demonstrating of the law, "The Lord our God is one Lord," in the course of time produced the Mosaic law in the form of the moral code or Decalogue, whose first tenet is a reiteration of this same truth: "Thou shalt have no other gods before me." In the books of Moses great emphasis is placed on the oneness of Deity. In Deuteronomy, for example, we read, "Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord." The victory of this truth over their enemies' belief in "gods many and lords many" established the nation of Israel in the land of promise; and in proportion as they, as a nation, lived and demonstrated this truth they were successful. When they forgot it and went after many gods, they became no better than their enemies, and fell victims to oppression and tyranny; but, as they again remembered and were true to the nation's faith in one God, peace, prosperity, and progress were restored to them.

The enormity of Israel's offense in the eyes of Samuel the prophet, when the people asked for a king to lead them, was that their gaze would thereby be averted from this fundamental truth to the mere physical prowess of a mortal. A clearer light, however, was beginning to manifest itself, which would counteract and nullify the power of this step of claiming a king. That all-power belongs to God was dawning on the people. Thus, David said: "Thine, O Lord, is the greatness, and the power, and the glory, and the victory, and the majesty: for all that is in the heaven and in the earth is thine; thine is the kingdom, O Lord, and thou art exalted as head above all;" and this realization of the omnipotence of God raised the kingdom of Israel to the first place among the nations of the earth. Solomon's failure to teach this truth to his sons caused the division of the kingdom; and the rapidity of the decline of the two nations was in proportion to their forgetfulness of the truth which had made them great. Their decline was in proportion to their ignorance of the living faith of Abraham in the oneness of Deity, and of the singular and buoyant faith of David in the all-power of God.

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