Man's incarnation, key to life eternal

Book I Man's Incarnation

MAN'S INCARNATION

KEY TO LIFE ETERNAL

BOOK I

MAN'S ELEMENTS. ATTRIBUTES. AND RELIGION; THE BOOK. OR CANONICAL. AND THE BOOKLESS. OR ILLITERATE. RE- LIGIONS; SUMMARIES OF THE BOOKS OF THE ENG- LISH BIBLE; THE STORY OF THE OLD TESTA- MENT PART. AND THE PROPHETICALLY DECLARED SINS OF THE PEOPLE REPRESENTED IN THE OLD TESTAMENT PART OF THE ENGLISH BIBLE -

BY

PUBLISHED BY

THE McKENNAN PUBLISHING COMPANY BLOOMINGTON. ILLINOIS

UBBARYofCONKSRESS

COPY 3.

Copyright 190^

By FRANK B. McKENNAN, LL.B.

Bloomington, Illinois

Preface

In presenting this work, we are not unmindful of the great depth, extent, and importance of our subject, and that some of the best students and brightest intellectual minds of the ages have devotedly studied and extensively written of the humanity and divinity of man; but we have been encouraged to study independently, and are emboldened to write, by the prayerful statement of the greatest of teachers, to the effect, that the things we have been studying and are writing about have been hid from the wise and revealed unto babes. And we know that, in view of the great number and unbounded extent of the writings of a similiar nature extant, our effort will not be appreciated unless we have something new, interesting, and instructive to offer to thinking men and women.

Notwithstanding all that has been spoken and written, we come with a new message full of thot and spiritual food to gladden the bewildered hearts of humanity, removing the mystery that has surrounded carnate man in his relations to infinity and the rest of the creative world, simplifying and showing the application of the strange and mysterious history and teaching of the English Bible, and harmonizing the religions and religious teaching and religious practice of mankind in all parts and in all ages of the world.

The thots and conclusions presented in these writings have been gathered from the known physical, mentaL moral, and spiritual composition of man, and the civil and religious experiences, revelations, interpretations, and reasonings of and to mankind, as preserved and presented in the emblems and the sacred and secular writings of the past and present ages, together with our own intuitive and acquired knowledge of things, and our own experiences and observations in, and of, life.

In our careful study of the English Bible and a limited study of the other sacred and secular records and writings, as translated by qualified students and scholars, we have found that, treated liberally, what upon the surface appears to be vulgar and incongruous is, in the main in spirit at least, homogenous, and that the religions and religious teachings and practices of the world interweave into a consistent, harmonious whole, working out a divine plan for man.

Rightly understood and interpreted, in its narratives, of the creations, including man and woman ; of the garden of Eden, with its provisions for the sustenance of life; of the disobedience of man, and the wickedness of the world ; of the flood, and the Ark for the righteous ; of a peculiar people; of Egypt and Pharaoh; of the bondage of Israel in Egypt, and a Moses and an Aaron ; of the passage of the Red sea, and the destruction of Pharaoh and his hosts; of the wilderness and the wonderings of Israel therein; of the passage of the Jordan, and the conquested settlement of the promised land ; and of the internal and external, pubHc and private, tribe and national, civil and religious life of the Israelitish people, with their relations to and intercourse with the nations by whom they were surrounded and with whom they cam.e in contact ;

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In its prophecies of the coming of a Messiah, a New Dispensation, in "the Christ," and a universal Church of Jews and Gentiles;

In its narratives, of the coming, nativity, and ministry of Jesus, and his disciples and apostles; of the origin, conquests, and amplitude of the Church in the New Dispensation; and of the Revelations, the EngHsh Bible teaches, both symbolically and literally, the source, constitution, and purpose of man, with his relations to Divinity, and the rest of the created world, distinguishing man's life and intelligence from the rest of the creatures, and pointing out the way of and to Life Eternal.

We have found, that the subject matter of the English Bible covers three distinct dispensations of man in the world; that the first ended in the destruction of the created world by a flood, with Noah, the righteous man, as a connecting link reaching into the second; that the second ended in the rejection of Israel, with Jesus, the perfect Man, as the connecting link, reaching into the third and present;

That the first dispensation was creating and developing ing, the second law giving and ceremonial, and the third and present is the Christian, or Christ bearing and developing ;

And that the biblical story, of these three dispensations, portrays the physical, intellectual, moral, and spiritual elements of man ; illustrates man's physical and intellectual endowments, and his moral and spiritual attributes ; and demonstrates the working relations of the human and divine sides of man's life in the developments of a spiritual personality and its birth out of the body, as illustrated in the birth, life, ministry, and death of Jesus, and the

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birth of his spiritual personaHty out of his physical body.

We have learned that man is the incarnation of a divine element, emanating from God, with physical functions suited to serve its purpose in the environments of the world without personal contact or exposure; that the purpose of thus incarnating divine elements, as represented in intellectual and soulful man, was and is that, thru the human and spiritual agencies combined in man, a spiritual personality may be developed and born out of the body, called second birth, for the Eternal Kingdom of God;

That the material world, in all its creations, emanations, agencies, and environments, serves nature in the production, maintenance, and reproduction of human temples and vehicles for the indwelling, and the development of divine elements to personalities — sons of God ; that the human personality is the son of nature, and the spiritual personality is the son of God; that nature is exhausted in the production, maintenance, and reproduction of the physical man, and that personal infinity commences with the production of the spiritual personality.

Our object in this work is to reproduce here, in convenient form for reference, the evidences w^e have found sustaining these our conclusions in relation to the religions and religious teachings in the different parts and the different ages of the world, including the English Bible, and proving our theory of the humanity and divinity of man, and the purpose of the created world and carnate man in the Eternal Plan of God.

We know that the religious sea, upon which we have launched and set sail, in its borders is full of islands of

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belief and faith, some above the surface, and many more submerged with irregular ragged outlines, obstructing the passage and besetting the way of would be mariners. And if it be that we have passed these religious shoals and can signal and guide some belated souls out into the deep blue sea of God, to enjoy the peace of mind and fortitude belonging to the children of God, we shall feel that our effort has not been in vain.

The extent of the necessary subject matter for this work, as taken from the English Bible and elsewhere and in an abridged form reproduced, with the necessary definitions, explanations, applications, and comments, would make a very large, expensive and inconvenient volume of more than a thousand pages ; therefore, we have divided and will publish it in four small convenient volumes of about two hundred and fifty pages each.

In this division of the subject matter, we have been careful to have each volume complete and valuable in itself without regard to what may follow or precede it.

The first volume treats of Ivlan's elements, attributes, and religion, and the book and bookless religions, giving a summary of each book of the English Bible, and the story of the Old Testament, with the prophetically declared sins of the people represented.

The second volume gives the prophetic judgment against the people, and the prophecies concerning the coming of a Messiah, a New Dispensation, and a Universal Church, as contained in the Old Testament; and the story of the New Testament, concerning Jesus, his ministry, his disciples and apostles, and the Church; and the Revelations.

The third volume is a sort of Glossary, explaining

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the meaning and application of the names, words, and phrases used in the bibhcal writings, as they apply to the world and man, the here and the hereafter.

And the fourth volume treats of our subject directly, covering the first three volumes.

Author.

Part i— Part ii- Part III- ( 9 (10

(11 (12

Index To Contents

PAGE

Man's Elements and Religion 1

-The Book or Canonical Religions 15

-A Summary of the Books of the Old Testament 23

Genesis 24

Exodus 25

Leviticus 26

Numbers 26

Deuteronomy 26

Joshua 27

Judges 27

Ruth 27

I and II Samuel 28

I and II Kings 28

I and II Chronicles 28

Ezra 29

Nehemiah 30

Esther 31

Job 31

Psalms 32

Proverbs 33

Ecclesiastes 33

Solomon's Song 34

Isaiah 34

Jeremiah 36

Lamentations 37

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(23 (24; (25

(26; (27; (28; (29;

( 2; ( 3; ( 4-

( 7:

( 8;

(lo;

PAGE

Ezekiel 38

Daniel 40

Hosea 41

Joel 42

Amos 42

Obediah 43

Jonah 43

Micah 43

Nahum 44

Habakkuk 44

Zephaniah 45

Haggai 45

Zachariah 46

Malachi 47

-A Summary of the books of the New Testament 49

Matthew 49

Mark 50

Luke 51

John 52

The Acts 53

Romans 54

First Corinthians 55

Second Corinthians 56

Galatians 56

Ephesians 56

Philippians 57

Colossians 57

I Thessalonians 58

II Thessalonians 58

I Timothy 58

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(16 (17 (18 (19 (20

( 8 ( 9 (10

Part vi —

PAGE

II Timothy 59

Titus 59

Philemon 59

Hebrews 60

James 61

I Peter 61

II Peter 61

I John 62

II John 62

III John 63

Jude 64

Revelations 64

The Story of the Old Testament Scriptures 69

Adam to Noah 74

Noah to the call of Abram 76

Abram and Abraham to Isaac 82

Isaac to Jacob 93

Jacob to the call of Moses 98

Moses to Joshua 118

Joshua to the Judges 153

Judges to the First King, Saul 164

King Saul to Israel's Assyrian Captivity. . 180 From Israel's Assyrian Captivity to the end 230

The Prophetically Declared Sins 241

Hosea 241

Isaiah 244

Micah 248

Jeremiah 249

Ezekiel 262

Malachi 264

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PARTI

MAN'S ELEMENTS AND RELIGION

Man is distinguished physically, mentally, morally, and spiritually from all other creatures of the world. It is said that man was created or made in the image of the Creator; that he is next lower than the angels; and that, of created things, he is the nearest the Infinite. In the historical order of the creation, man is placed last, as the finishing product and the capital of the world pyramid. In body he is the highest in quality ; in composition, he is the most complex and complete; in environment, his is the most extensive; in physical capacity and mental endowment, he is without a comparison; and in reasoning power and spiritual attributes, he stands absolutely alone in the world.

Most creatures have in common, at least to a certain degree, intelligence, activity, passivity, and combativity; but man is the only creature that thinks, reasons, invents, meditates, reflects, philosophizes, and believes. These exclusive faculties peculiar to man alone must have been given to him for some higher and more noble purpose than merely to control and rule the rest of the world.

Man had need of his special sense, activity, passivity, environments, and intelligence, for the perception, control, and development of the outer physical world and its utilization in the care, protection, and nourishment of his physical body; but there must have been a higher and more noble purpose in endowing him with the special sense and intelligence, and the exclusive powers for thinking, reflecting, reasoning, meditating, inventing, philosophizing, and believing. He is the only creature that possesses a dual nature of humane and divine elements — a carnal, or worldly, side and a soulful, or spiritual, side.

It is man alone that looks beyond the finite and perceives an Infinite ; that yearns for something which neither sense or reason can or will supply; that feels a strange impulse from within calling for something that does not come and go — for something which is and remains forever; that feels a dependence — ^the need of one upon whom he can lean and rest, and with whom he can feel at home in this strange world of incarnation.

It is thru man's special intellectual faculties and exclusive spiritual powers that he perceives an Infinite, reasons about God and a future life, and believes — nay, knows — ^there is a God and a future life.

It is thru man's special intellectual faculties and exclusive spiritual powers, when harmoniously developed and attuned, that the rays of divine light shines and enables him to look upon things spiritual; that enables him to look inward upon himself and upward to something not himself, and see and understand something of the mystery called life, and the divine purpose in this strange and mysterious incarnation.

It is in these special and exculsive endowments that we find that corrective element which makes man's life the most humane, comprehensive, and perfect; that eleinent which makes a life not for this world only but for a transfigured and eternal existence ; that element which has made this life rational and a religion possible, that element which is the deepest spring and the foundation of all rational individual life; and that element which, connecting man with God, firmly fixes the specific and permanent barrier between man and beast which never has been and never will be crossed from beneath.

During this life, the highest state possible is attained by purifying and refining the human vehicle for the largest posible indwelling and beneficent influence of the divine elements of our dual nature; but we permit the sensual pleasures derived from the world's environments to possess and dull our otherwise transcendent intellect to such an extent that, tho both seeing and hearing, we perceive not, neither do we understand the impulses emanating from our divine nature ; and, being consciously lost to our divinity and its beneficent influences, we live on, seemingly satisfied with our worldly existence not exempt from the envy, spite, and hate which humanity shares in the flesh with the beast.

It is true, this life has always been more or less a struggle and in late years in some respects a fighting life. The social, intellectual, and commercial contentions for supremacy in finance and commerce — the acquisition of wealth, empiric knowledge, social and political powers, and the fame of the world have developed man's temporal mental powers, and physical activities, together with the instinct of self-preservation, to such an extent that the other side of this life, which is the more important, has been neglected and in a large measure lost sight of, and has been allowed to He dormant, buried beneath the avalanche of this world's cares.

While man continues in this relative state of human development, he will continue to work for the wealth, power, and fame of this world until he can work no longer, and point with sensual pride and pleasure to what he and his ancestry have done or accomplished by warfare, valor, and hard work in founding a home, a family, a city, state or nation, and in the accumulation of wealth, and die without having preceived or understood the purpose of his life on earth — the divine object of his incarnation.

Knowing that this life is only for a time and will soon pass away ; that the company here with those we love will not last long as we must sooner or later in body at least return to the earth from whence it is said we originally came; that when we go from this life we must go alone and, as we can take nothing material with us, our family and loved ones, our wealth and earthly store, and all pass away or must be left; man dies without having realized that this world and this carnate life is but the preparatory department of the divine economy wherein it was intended, by the proper use of his special faculties and exclusive mental and spiritual powers, man should develope his soul — his spark or embryo of divine Life separated from God and incarnate — into a personality capable of individual existence independent of its carnate body, to live on, after the disintegration of its carnate body, as a personality in and for the Eternal Kingdom of God.

Manly vigor, silent endurance, public spirit, and private enterprise are important factors in the human side of the destiny man has to fulfil on earth; but he should not forget that there is as surely another side to this life — another purpose and destiny open to him in his journey across this span or this Hnk of life — another side to his nature to be harmoniously developed during this life : not the active, combative, and acquisitive alone; but the passive, meditative, reflective, and philosophical as well, that the rays of divine Light may shine from his soul within which will reveal the Infinite, and dispel from the mind the darkest clouds of intellectual night.

]\Ian has set apart but one day out of seven for meditation and the consideration of those greater things which pertain to God and a future life, and the many pass that day in mere church-going-routine, in ministering to the passions or sensual pleasures, or in thotless rest. But, no matter what may be his sensual pleasures, bodily comforts, material wealth, mental powers, or social and political fame, if intelligent man has his quiet, thotful moments, rare tho they be, when the old simple questions of htimanity returns to him in all their intensity and he is troubled from within with the ever recurring consciousness of a hereafter, and there is sent up from the depths of his inner being imperious questionings pertaining to God and the future Hfe. At these times of thot and meditation, man wants to know more certainly than he knows, what he is and why this mysterious life; what this life on earth is meant for and where it is he will go when this life ends; and what will be his state or condition hereafter.

In his most natural state here, man believes he has a future which in some way depends upon the life in the flesh, but he does not know certainly how to prepare for it. He searches the history of the world, the writings of the prophets and diviners of old, and the teachings of priests, rabbis, preachers, theologians, and philosophers of all ages for the desired information; but he finds that every day new prophets arise and beseech him for his soul's sake to give ear to him for the way of Life; that every day new authorities announce themselves, and new theories are advanced; that the doctrines of yesterday are challenged by the fresh philosophies of today, and he knows the creeds of today will fall before the criticisms of tomorrow. He finds that his increase of knowledge from these alleged truths combine in his mind and make darkness ; and he rejects these theories one by one, and returns the great books to their shelves. The years pass, and the great problem of "The Way of Life" remains unsolved.

In his searches for the way of Life, the individual finds that he is not alone in his solicitations for a knowledge of present and future conditions; that some of the best intellectual talent and noble genius of this and other ages have been devoted to a search for and the study of the evidences in the solution of these momentous questions ; and that great minds have searched for and, so far as discovered, studied and written the civil and religious history of the world from the earliest known and conjectured beginnings down thru all the ages. He finds that some of these students and writers, most richly endowed with the choicest intellectual wealth and wisdom in their thought and work, have brought forth and developed some of the rarest gifts of the human mind and intellect ; that they have pondered deeply into nature's problems and found solution of many of them ; but, laboring in and with the material world, they have sought to materialize what they have learned of the spiritual; and unwilling to accept anything not apparent to the physical senses and supported by human reason, they have rejected what was invisible to the physical eye.

The knowledge of well ascertained, well classified, and well labeled facts has assumed very great proportions in this day and age, and imparts great intellectual power to those who can wield and use it. Our age is proud of this sort of knowledge, and the many are inclined to accept and believe it to be the only reliable kind of real knowledge, discrediting all claims to other sources of real knowledge of present and future conditions.

To these historical students and writers, this age is indebted for all the information it has of the civil and religious history of man and the world in the past ages. They have studied and written of the intellectual world and its historical development from the supposed first appearance of predicative and demonstrative roots with their combinations and differentiations leading up to the supposed beginnings of rational thought, and its supposed development from the lowest to the highest stages. They have studied and written of the material world— the formation and growth of the earth, the creations, formation and emanations in and upon the earth with their development and growth — from the supposed first appearance of living cells with their combinations and differentiations leading up to the supposed beginnings of organic life, and its supposed steady progress from the lowest to the highest stages.

These students and writers have searched out, studied, and interpreted for us many of the sacred emblems, and the civil and religious records and writings of the world in the past ages; thus, interpreting and preserving for this and all future ages much of the ancient historical and traditional religions, with the accredited revelations from God to man thru the seers, priests and prophets, from the earliest known beginnings down thru all the ages.

From these writings thus preserved to us, we learn that, in the earliest of the history extant, mankind was divided primarily, according to his country, language or religion, into three great families or nations which were known and styled, the Aryan, the Semitic, and the Turanian or Ural-Altaic; that religion as a divine influence among men underlaid and supported every relation of life and social institution, and a supernatural presidency was supposed to consecrate and keep together all the cardinal institutions of those early times such as the family, the tribe, the state, and the nation; that in those early ages religion, in its outward appearance as something outspoken, tangible, and definite which could be described and communicated to others when distinguished from religion as a silent power working in the heart of man, lay within a very small compass; that what constituted the outward framework of the religion of antiquity was a few words recognized as names of the Deity, a few epithets that had been raised from their material meaning to a higher and a more spiritual stage, a few words which, originally expressing bodily strength, brightness, or purity, came gradually to mean greatness, goodness and holiness, and some more or less technical terms expressive of such ideas as sacrifice, altar, prayer and possibly virtue and sin, body and spirit. The hearth was the first altar, the father the first elder, and the wife and children and slaves the first congregation. In those early ages, religion was dependent upon the more or less inadequate resources of language for its outward expression.

In the history of the world, wherever there has been found traces of human life there has been found traces of a religion, evidencing the fact that in all known ages of the world, no matter what the color of the skin, the extent of intellectual development, nor how far removed from the centers of human intellectual development and religious influences, man has been inherently capable of transcending the finite and perceiving an Infinite — a higher creative and controlling power — and believe in a future life the attainment of which in some way depended upon the character of the life in the flesh.

At no time in the past ages, as at the present time, has the human family been one in religious faith and practice, but every nation or people has had its own peculiar religion and in many instances the same people have had in different ages a different religion. Some of these religions have been founded upon or evidenced by a book, but many more have had no such voucher to offer in support of their peculiar religious faith and practice.

Anciently, as at the present time, the book religions were looked upon and considered more authentic, trustworthy, and by those adhering to them as the only divinely revealed religious teaching, and their followers formed a kind of religious aristocracy among the crowd of bookless or illiterate religionists, as at the present time. But the book religionists including those possessing even a sacred canon were comparatively few, and comparatively small has been the aristocracy of real book religions.

In the great drama which we call the religious history of the world, the Aryan and Semitic families of mankind have been the principal actors, and but two members of each of these famiHes can claim the possession of a sacred code. Among the Aryan nations, only the Hindus and the Persians; and among the Semitic families, only the Hebrews and Arabs have- religious codes. The Hindus gave rise to Brahmanism and Buddhism, and the Hebrews gave rise to Mosaism and Christianity. Zoroastrianism had its source in the same stratum which fed the deeper and broader streams of Vedic religion, and Mohammedanism springs, so far as its most vital doctrines are concerned, from the ancient fountain-head of the religion of Abraham or that of Mosaism, Mohammedanism is later than the Christian and Zoroastrianism is earlier than Buddhism.

Buddhism was an offspring of and a reaction against the Brahmanism of India, where after a time it withered away on the soil from which it sprang and, being transplanted from India to the Turanian nations in the center of the Asiatic continent, it took root and assumed its real importance. It thus appears, that Buddhism, an Aryan religion by birth, became the principal religion of the Turanian world.

Christianity, springing from Mosaism where it failed to fulfil its purpose as a reform of the ancient Jewish religion, being rejected by the Jews, did not develop its real nature until it had been transplanted from the Semitic to the Aryan soil — from the Jews to the Gentiles — where it assumed its world-wide importance. It appears thus that Christianity, at its birth a Semitic religion, became the principal religion of the Aryan world.

China is the only other nation that can claim a book religion as its own. China became almost at the same time the mother of two reUgions founded on sacred codes, — the reHgion of Confucius and that of Lao-tse.

With these eight rehgions, the library of the sacred books of the whole human family is complete, leaving the largest portion of mankind, including some of the most valiant champions in the religious and intellectual struggles of the world, without representation in this theological library.

Of those without canonical books, we have among the larger families or branches of the Aryans, the Greeks and Romans ; among the Teutonics, the Celtics, and Slavonics, and among the Semitics, the Babylonian, Phenicean, and Cathoginian families.

The two beds in which the streams of Aryan and Semitic thought have been rolling for centuries cover but a narrow tract of country compared with the vastness of our globe as we have seen, yet, we have the evidences that there has not been a nation or people without a religion — a knowledge of a supervising power — a God, and a future Life.

We learn, that along the shores of the ancient Nile are to be seen pyramids still standing, ruins of temples, and labyrinth, the walls of which are covered with hieroglyphic inscriptions of gods and goddesses; that if we follow the sacred streams to their distant sources we will find the whole continent of Africa full of interesting evidences of religion, vague hopes of a future life, and not altogether faded reminiscence of a Supreme God; that everywhere, upon the islands that rise in the oceans of the earth, whether among the dark Papuan, the yellowish Malay, the brown Polynesian races scattered on these islands, and even among the lowest of the low in the scale of humanity, there are if we will but listen, whisperings about divine beings and imaginings of a future life; that there are prayers and sacrifices which even in their most degraded and degrading form bear witness to that old and ineradicable faith, that everywhere there is a God to hear our prayers if we will but call upon him and to accept our offerings if they are offered as a token of a greater heart.