This, then, is the Promise we have to look forward to at the present day, and though it might not be wise to speculate as to the precise time and manner of its fulfilment, there can be no doubt as to the nature of the general principles involved; and I trust the reader has at least learned from this book that principles unfold themselves with unfailing accuracy, though it depends on our Word, or mental attitude, in what way their unfoldment will affect us personally.

For such reasons as these, it appears to me, that the current objections to the doctrine of Atonement are entirely beside the mark.  They miss the whole point of the thing.  Punishment for Sin?  Of course there is punishment for sin so long as it is persisted in.  It is the natural working of the Law of Cause and Effect.  Forgiveness of sin?  Of course there is forgiveness of sin as soon as, through knowledge, we make a right use of the Law of our own Being.  It could not be otherwise.  It is the natural working of the Law of Cause and Effect.

“This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, saith the Lord, I will put my laws into their hearts, and in their minds will I write them; and their sins and iniquities will I remember no more” (Heb. x, 16); and similarly in Jer. xxxi, 32, from which the writer of the Epistles to the Hebrews quotes this.  “Now the Lord is the Spirit” (2 Cor. iii, 17, R.V.), i.e., the Originating Spirit of life, and therefore “my laws” means the inherent Law of the Originating Principle of Being, so that here we have a plain statement that the realization of the True Law of our Being ipso facto results in the cancelling of all our past errors.  When once we see the principle of it the whole sequence becomes perfectly plain.

There is nothing arbitrary in all this.  It results naturally from a New mode of Thought producing a New order of Consciousness; and it is written that “if any man be in Christ he is a new creature” or, as it says in the margin, “a new creation” (2 Cor. v, 17), and on the principle that “every Creation carries its own mathematics with it,” every such man has passed from the Law of Death into the Law of Life.  The full fruition may not yet be visible—­we must allow for the Law of Growth—­but the Principle is in him and has become the central, generating point of his consciousness, and is therefore bound, sooner or later, to develop into perfect manifestation by the Law of its own nature.  If the Principle be accepted it will work all the same, whether we accept it by simple trust in the written Word, or whether we analyze the grounds of our trust; just as an electric bell will ring when you press the button, whether you are an electrical engineer or not.  But there will be this difference, that if you are an electrical engineer you will see the principle implied in the ringing of the bell, and you will find in it the promise of infinite possibilities which it is open to you to develope; and in like manner,