The Household of God
Volume 1
The early history of mankind
- Chapter 35 -
THE ANIMAL'S SERMON OF REPENTANCE (July 27th, 1840)
Now let us turn to the school] of the hyena and to our fourteen pupils and find out how far these people have during this short time advanced in the improvement of their minds in this extraordinary educational establishment
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Behold and pay attention, and Jet no one have his ears plugged up and his eyes shut, but listen to another powerful word from the jaws of the hyena, also from a tiger, a lion, a wolf and a bear. For men are full of falsehood, and not one of them can tell another something that is true. Experience has often shown you how wrong the scholars are, how all their false doctrines are supplanted by others, which often are even worse than the ones they have replaced. Therefore, it is also for you not unnecessary to hear reliable words from the sphere of honest nature full of power and write them into your hearts in order to see how true, just and faithful your holy, eternal Father is.
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For lo, when the allotted period of time had successfully run its course, the hyena once more faced the frightened group full of anger, in order to render their minds through fear all the more receptive, and, allowed by Me, spoke with a loosened tongue from its wide open jaws, as follows:
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"Rise from death! This is the will of the great, almighty God and Lord of all His countless creatures! The short time has passed quickly, days and nights have in fast succession alternated over your weak existence. At the time you were led by me, the hyena, through the mighty will of the supreme God, you saw the full moon illuminating the steep paths of the wild heights to the cave inhabited by me and my children and which we willingly left to you to rest in the fresh coolness of the earth. Now you again see the moon and how it has once more become large and full, whereas earlier it had lost its light completely and had in succession become a child, a youth and now once more like a man full of power and majesty
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"What the moon shows you constantly within short periods of time to teach you wisely, you shall one day faithfully imitate in your lives. Your worldly light shall, and must, wane like the light of the moon to enable you, after complete surrender of your former worldly light, - which is your proud intellect - to absorb a new light from the high heavens, which is true love without self-interest and out of it the grace of the great, holy God.
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"Look, just as I am now speaking to you thanks to gracious permission from above, every thing can become capable of speaking to you. If you remain stubborn and tyrannical in your heart, then cast yourselves down before us, remember this speech and think how deep beneath us you stand, and how high above us the children of God.
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"For tell me, which animal have you ever seen dominant the other? Which animal have you seen appropriate something? Which animal have you seen ever rob another? Or have you ever seen us murder each other or lie and cheat or practice fornication just for the satisfaction of lust?
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"Tell me, when have you seen us commit an act which would have been completely against our nature.
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"Should not the animals have learnt from you the beneficial use of their powers? But as you see, we ravenous beasts must show and teach you gentleness and the wise earnest of life. Oh, shame on you, you lords of the world, when a gnat, buzzing around my ears has more wisdom than you and the whole city of Enoch and its ten cities. For, although its life is limited to hardly a few days and its action does not leave a visible trace, it has even in its short life done endlessly more than you since the time of Cain with all your building of cities and tormenting your brothers; for the gnat fulfilled the ruling will of God and gratefully enjoyed its so short existence But you men, who are meant to live forever, could forget your own worth and above all the boundless worth of the eternal, holy God's supremely holy love within your spirit.
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"We lifeless beings gratefully enjoy our mute, short life, and you living men can and pleasure in licking the dirt of death with a greedy tongue!
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"Oh, you great, holy God, why did you not rather create just hyenas, tigers, lions, wolves and bears which at all times do Your holy will? And You should never have thought of creating even one man who could forget not only Your supremely holy will, but even You Yourself!
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"Look here, you handsome, smooth men and see my forbidding, shaggy, miserable appearance. Does it not look as if it were enveloped in the night of God's curse, but yours in the highest blessing of eternal love?
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"But how is it that under the cover of death gratitude is hastening to meet the Creator, whereas under your blessed skin there is only derision, mockery, contempt and, finally, even total forgetfulness?
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What is the reason why you have made yourselves through your disobedience the scum of hell, whilst my kind in servitude to the might of God has many millennia prior to you walked over the earth, yet under the hard pressure of its ferocity has never ungratefully stepped out of the order assigned it by God
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"Oh remember these words of a ravenous beast and rise to the dignity of even being called created beings and see whether you may one day succeed in being called humans. And bear in mind how high above you the children of God will still rank and see that you can, and shall, become at least similar to them, if not quite like them. - My speech is now ended, but stay and listen to yet another kind of beast. Amen."
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And behold, when the hyena had ended its impressive speech, a huge, ferocious tiger came leaping towards the intimidated group, looked at them with great earnestness and, swinging its tail, then turned to the speaker and leader, stared at him for a while and, finally, opened wide its deadly jaws and spoke, as follows:
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"Sihin! That shall be your name, that is, this name shall tell you that you are a son of the earthly heaven, which is a heaven of the animals. They have a soul out of the fire of the sun, and this soul is speaking to your soul, which is a soul out of God given to you, greatly shaming you before me and all the bloodthirsty beasts of the forests and the scrub, for it had forgotten the great Giver, whilst our souls have not ever dared to overstep His order, although we are endowed with the same five senses you have and we possess a memory and desire and distinguish earth, water, fire and air, wet and dry. We also distinguish day and night, high and low, steep and level, warm and cold and possess very keen sight from which even a corrupt spirit cannot hide, but trembles in deadly fear since he recognizes before him an inexorable, strong and courageous judge, come to perform on him the initial uncovering and to tear up his palace of filth and drink his impure blood so that the hallowed mountains may not be defiled.
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"All of you have seen with your own eyes what happened to the army of Tatahar not far from here Do you think that the camels and donkeys have protected you from our fury? Oh no, if you think this you are very wrong! God bade us spare you, and there was not a single one among us that would not have promptly obeyed the will of the almighty Creator.
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"But you men, who not only have the five most noble senses, but in addition an immortal soul] with a divine spirit in it, you were able to forget God and completely ignore this most holy name and will!
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"Oh you miserable kind, you infamous human beings, you veritable monsters of decay of the wide earth! Tell me what you are or what you want to be since you have lost God, the Holy One, your most loving Creator through Whom alone you are and exist, like everything else? He Who out of His supreme love also gave you complete freedom in order to one day draw you scum from hell ever closer to His loving fatherly heart. And for this He, the most loving holy Father, is being cursed and forgotten! - Oh You great God, do preserve my strength, which tends to desert me at the sight of these monsters, so that I may fulfill Your holy will!
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"See the grass! It praises God, for in its muteness it knows God, but you in your living freedom do not know a thing about Him! Yes, look at these mountains, the stones, the water, look at us, how everything you perceive with your eyes, ears and other senses extols, honors and praises God. And all the heavens are full of His great mercy, of His glory and His boundless honor! And what are you filled with that you could so completely have lost sight of Him and lose Him from your hearts?
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"In short, my words have come to an end! I could not possibly look at you any longer and curb my justified angel. So I leave you now after the will of the Most High and, finally, just add this: If eternal Love will free you from our gentle claws - gentle compared with your hands which are still reeking of the blood of your brothers - and set you up as a people on the earth, you shall remember what a fierce tiger - with bloodthirstiness burning in his eyes, yet like a lamb compared with you - has here told and shown you, as willed by God.
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"If your heart has become dumb against the so loud voice of God, you have to learn from nature! Amen."
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And as the tiger had thus ended his powerful and effective speech, it was the turn of the lion which, too, came suddenly leaping out front a thicket where it had been lurking and positioned itself firmly before the already less apprehensive Sihin, opened its jaws wide and began to speak, saying: "Listen and see, you lords of the earth who want to be deaf and blind, you powerful kings, rulers and lords of the world in your gnat like weakness! What do you think would be the first duty of a free being that can use its God-given powers at will, that is not, and cannot be, restrained by anything from thinking in the light of the great, almighty Creator's love?
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"You stare at me like a shattered boulder and know less than a rotting tree trunk Would it not be the first duty to fulfill the will of the One Who gave you, as also me, life - an immortal life to you and a mortal one to me -- and willingly fulfill this will in order to thereby regain the lost grace which your great disobedience had forfeited?
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"Have you ever done that, or are you doing it maybe now? Oh no, you have never as yet recognized God; and one is not indebted to something one does not know - that is your base comfort. But I must speak to you about it and ask you how it is possible to forget Him of Whom each day and night should have forcefully reminded you, and Whose great majesty the rising sun, the moon and the bright stars openly proclaim
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"Look, I am a strong, cruel inhabitant of this wild region full of dead stones and thorny scrub. With effort, and owing to my nature necessarily also in a cruel manner, I have to seek a pitiful nourishment and take gratefully what God's judgments only scantily offer me after having suffered a raging hunger for days on end. Therefore, I tell you: If in my great need anyone would come to my aid with even a few drops of water to quench my burning thirst, thus refreshing my parched tongue, I would gratefully follow him like a guardian angel, share my last morsel with him and die for love of my benefactor!
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"But you men -- not only that you beat, torture and kill the brothers working for you - are even ungrateful towards God, curse His blessings, His grace and turn His great love into the serpents most poisonous dirt
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"O Lamech, Lamech! You wanted to set the forests on fire in order to destroy us who only obeyed the will of the great God! But what shall we do to you who forgot God, murdered your brothers and wanted to blame us for the murder before the Just One?
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"Look, we do not seek revenge although his plans are well known to us; only you ungrateful humans want to take revenge on the innocent. Therefore, you shall learn from me to be grateful and obedient to God. Only then may you leave this place and become that for which God's supreme love has destined you. Amen."
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And behold, when the lion had ended his speech, also the wolf came sneaking along and began to preach to this already awakened group, earnestly admonishing them of their duty of obedience and mutual love to God and all His created beings, saying:
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"Look here at me, a feared, ravenous wolf, standing before your eyes, ears and fearful hearts, called and awakened by the great merciful love of the almighty, holy God - Who is an eternal power full of the highest, most perfect life out of and within Him, invisible to all beings who have become unholy in His grace, since He is the Most Holy - to show you His will which you have in such an infamous fratricidal manner forgotten in your selfishness, self-love, tyranny and, as a result, with contempt for everything that might have reminded you of the existence of the great God and His inviolable holiness.
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Therefore, eternal Love awakened for your great humiliation and shame especially us, the most despised and feared beasts, to preach to YOU, above all, obedience in meekness and humility and, besides, to show you blind men through our actions, and now also through the words from our loosened tongues, energetically and impressively, the will of God for you men, who are meant to be, and to become, immortal.
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"And this holy will consisting in all power and might, all wisdom and strength, life everlasting and the most blissful and wonderful freedom, in which it will consist forever, is this: All of you are absolutely equal before God, thus, brothers and sisters; so let no one ever dream of any superiority over the others. For no strength, beauty, youth, age, virtue, wisdom or whatever else give you the right of superiority, but with all these points you shall, lovingly resigned to the will of God, come to each other's aid and help the less gifted and diligent, so that you may have the opportunity to practice the divine virtue of eternal love implanted in you by the so exceedingly good Creator. For only out of the purest and greatest love God's almighty holiness has allowed itself to be moved to create out of Itself you bad, ungrateful men, who could forget honor, love and God, and then create for your sake also a great number of beings of countless species which were meant to serve you in every imaginable way.
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"However, you threefold blind and super deaf people do not perceive any of this which would always have benefited you, but your infamous, confused and wanton sensuality and carnal love has obscured everything for you and thus thrown you into the jaws of just and deserved death.
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Therefore, bear in mind what you are meant to be, and could be, and what you now are: Nothing but miserable larvae and serpents' puppets of hell.
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"Change your ways, restrain your desires, wash yourselves with love and become similar to each other in humility, in obedience and in the orderly upbringing of your children. Let be harlotry, beget your children within God's blessing and be true fathers and mothers to them in the love and grace of God. Teach them first of all to obey your wise love and find therein the great love, the holy will and thus also the inestimable grace of God. Only then will you recognize that it is not we bad beasts, but the love of God that has graciously spoken such holy words to you through our loosened tongues.
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"And once you become as you have now been taught by the love of the eternal, holy Creator, you will find that not only animals, as you are now experiencing, but all creation will speak to you, Then death will vanish from your heart, and with alive eyes and wide open ears you will perceive clearly the depths of the divine wonders. Do ponder over what a wolf has here preached to you in a truly miraculous way and reflect in your dimmed hearts on how all things are easily possible to the eternal love and holiness of God. Then you will perceive within yourselves even much stranger things thanks to the grace of God! Amen."