The Cloud upon the Sanctuary — Karl von Eckartshausen

Man is begotten in evil, in the love of himself and of the things of this world. Love of himself! Self interest! Self gratification! Such are the substantial properties of evil. The good is in the love of God and your neighbour, in knowing no other love but the love of mankind, no interest but that affecting every man, and no other pleasure but that of the wellbeing of all.

It is by such sentiments that the spirit of the children of God is distinguished from the spirit of the children of this world.

To change the spirit of this world into the spirit of the children of God is to be regenerated, and it means to despoil the old man, and to re-clothe the new.

But no person can be re-born if he does not know and put in practice the following principle—that of truth becoming the object for our doing or not doing; therefore, he who desires to be re-born ought first to know what belongs to re- birth. He ought to understand, meditate, and reflect on all this. Afterwards he should act according to his knowledge, and the result will be a new life.

Now, as it is first necessary to know, and to be instructed in all that appertains to re-birth, a doctor, or an instructor is required, and if we know one, faith in him is also necessary, because of what use is an instructor if his pupil have no faith in him?

Hence, the commencement of re-birth is faith in Revelation.

The disciple should begin by believing that the Lord, the Son, is the Wisdom of God, that He is, from all Eternity from God, and that He came into the world to bring happiness to humanity. He should believe that the Lord has full power in heaven and on earth, and that all faith and love, all the true and the good, come from Him alone; that He is the Mediator, the Saviour, and Governor of men.

When this most exalting faith has taken rootin us, we shall think often of the Saviour, and these thoughts turned towards Him develop, and by His grace reacting in us, the seven closed and spiritual powers are opened.

The way to happiness. —Do you wish, man and brother, to acquire the highest happiness possible? Search for truth, wisdom, and love. But you will not find truth, wisdom, and love, save in the unity of the Lord J esus Christ, the Anointed of God.

Seek, then, J esus Christ with all your strength, search Him from the fulness of your heart.

The beginning of His Ascension is the knowledge of His absence, and from the recognition of this knowledge is the desire for increased power to seek Him, which desire is the beginning of faith.

Faith gives confidence, but faith has also its order of progress. First comes historic faith, then moral, then divine, and finally living faith. The progression is as follows: Historical faith when we learn to believe the history of J esus of Nazareth, and through this simple historical faith in the existence of J esus, will evolve moral faith, whose development consists in the acquirement of virtue by its search and practice, so that we see and find real pleasure in all that is taught by this Man; we find that His simple doctrine is full of wisdom and His teaching full of love; that His intentions towards humanity are straight and true, and that He willingly suffered death for the sake of justice. Thus, faith in His Person will be followed by faith in His Divinity.

This same J esus Christ tells us now that He is Son of God, and He emphasizes His words by instructing His disciples in the sacred mysteries of nature and religion.

Here natural and reasonable faith changes into divine faith, and we begin to believe that he was God made man. From this faith it results that we hold as true all that we do not yet understand, but which He tells us to believe. Through this faith in the Divinity of J esus, and by that entire surrender to Him, and the faithful attention to His directions, is at last produced that living faith, by which we find within ourselves and true through our own experience, all that hitherto we have until now believed in merely with the confidence of a child; and this living faith proved by experience is the highest grade of all.

When our hearts, through living faith, have received J esus Christ into them, then this Light of the World is born within us as in a humble stable.

Everything in us is impure, surrounded by the spider-webs of vanity, covered with the mud of sensuality.

Our will is the Ox that is under the yoke of its passions. Our reason is the Ass who is bound through the obstinacy of its opinions, its prejudices, its follies.

In this miserable and ruined hut, the home of all the animal passions, can J esus Christ be born in us through faith.

The simplicity of our souls, is as the shepherds who brought their first offerings, until at last the three principal powers of our royal dignity, our reason, our will, and our activity? prostrate themselves before Him and offer Him the gifts of truth, wisdom, and love.

Little by little, the stable of our hearts changes itself into an exterior Temple, where J esus Christ teaches, but this Temple is still full of Scribes and Pharisees.

Those who sell, Dives and the money changers, are still to be found, and these should be driven out, and the Temple changed into a House of Prayer.