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