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Abram Herbert Lewis - Spiritual Sabbathism

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BIBLICAL SABBATHISM 79<br />

sential that we escape all literalism in striving to<br />

comprehend their meaning. That they have a<br />

meaning, profound and lasting, is a religious belief.<br />

To know what that meaning Is, spiritually and not<br />

literally, spiritually and not magically, is in some<br />

sense our entire task in this book. God does not<br />

literally live In days—he Inhablteth eternity. He<br />

is not conditioned by evening and morning—for<br />

the darkness and the light are both alike to him.<br />

He does not literally work—the worlds were framed<br />

by his word. He does not literally rest— "my<br />

Father worketh hitherto and I work." All these<br />

things are parables, and It is for us to know them<br />

spiritually—not literally and not magically. If we<br />

attempt the task of literal<br />

or magical reconciliation<br />

between things which are spiritually true, we shall<br />

get as a result "oppositions of science falsely so<br />

called."<br />

Scripture throws light on scripture. Gen. I, 2,<br />

shows us God alone with his work; we see spirit<br />

giving form to matter. But Proverbs viil shows us<br />

"Wisdom" there in the beginning. Before the earth<br />

was, she was. When he marked out the foundations<br />

of things, there she was by him, as a master workman.<br />

And when we consider that to the spiritual thought<br />

of the Old Testament wisdom Is righteousness, is<br />

duty, the picture becomes even more vivid. God's

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