J. A. Wylie - History of Protestantism

J. A. Wylie's History of Protestantism is an esoteric document for this reason: he treats Protestantism as it were a 'school' which alights here, now there, stronger in one era than in another, but everywhere it appears, the school that is, its effect is all out of scale with its numbers or seeming worldly influence.

Protestant is a term that means 'one who confesses and bears witness to the Word of God.' In this inherent meaning of the term you can see that Protestants existed from the beginning of the Christian era.

Wylie's History of Protestantism is also unique for its style. It would probably be called romantic in style by a critic, but it's really more unique than that. It is full of metaphor and bracing scenery and heroism, yes, but it is a style completely free from constraints of the world or the devil. The substance in this sense is the style as well. Wylie sees clearly (faith hath a piercing eye) and describes things with no thought of being artificially 'unbiased' or anything similar. He's writing like a man who doesn't care what any critics will think. He knows God's own, with the Holy Spirit, will see and understand what he is presenting.

It's a unique book also because it is a complete history of Christianity (up through the Reformation) while focusing, as mentioned before, on Protestantism. I.e. focusing on the Word of God and the 'school' that it is and creates wherever it appears and focusing on the individuals and cultures it quickens wherever it appears.

Did I mention it's 2,112 pages? And that would be large pages. Yet on a scale of one to ten of page-turning readability it is a ten. This is a two thousand page book one can actually read complete, with the necessary dedication of time and effort of course, but it's not trudging type reading. The ISBN is: 0-923309-80-2. The latest published edition is by Hartland Publications and is in 4 vols.

It fills the spot of a universal, on-the-mark, inspired history of Christianity, just as Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion fills the spot of inspired, on-the-mark work of theology, and Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress fills the spot of universal, inspired work of imaginative Christian literature; and then of course the Word of God itself, the pure and whole traditional text Authorized, King James, Version being the obvious fourth work, the foundation, to give one a rather complete, four-work Christian library. I'd add the Fourth Way by Ouspensky, and Thomas Boston's Human Nature in its Fourfold State, and Petrus Dathenus' Pearl of Christian Comfort, and Herman Witsius' Economy of the Covenants Between God and Man, and Meredith G. Kline's God, Heaven and Har Magedon, and Louis Berkhof's Manual of Christian Doctrine to make a basic ten.

I can't praise this Wylie book enough. Just start on page one and see how it gives you the history of this age that has been successfully buried by all worldly forces and motivations. It's an unveiling type history, written by a historian both mainstream and competent, yet also inspired and of real faith and understanding.

The Work and the Faith meet in Spiritual Warfare

Sometimes I get a rush of a realization that warfare will be met with at death, and even prior. The real spiritual warfare that culminates in glorification. The forces of darkness are there. I got this feeling today not just thinking of the violence of suicide bombings and assassination of a political leader, but of thinking about how that political leader herself had no defense against such forces. She died, or let's say she is in recurrence with no connection to the Saviour or to the Triune God and His Kingdom.

Reading the Bible

There is something about reading and getting parts-in-relation-to-the-whole understanding of the Bible that is difficult to capture; and difficult to do.

I.e. difficult to put into a formula.

Here's a problem as I see it (even though I'm actually just throwing down rambling thoughts): zeal is a key to getting understanding of the Bible. A zealous approach. The zeal, or super-effort, is the part of your effort you dedicate to God, like a part of your crop, and God rewards you more for it. But the problem can be this: the Bible is so big that it's difficult to see how you can apply zeal to it. If you start to approach all 1,189 chapters in some unique way you immediately get shut down by the scale of the effort. It's not practical. It's not practical to keep up a zealous effort that will take that long. (Or, maybe it isn't? Just do it?)

Also, the Bible seems to defeat approaches that involve 'outlining', or reading outlines maybe. Maybe it doesn't defeat ME doing the outlining work. It certainly does defeat when you try to take shortcuts by relying on other people's outlines and notes though. Maybe that is it. The Holy Spirit wants you to do your own work. In this sense there is no waste of time involved regarding 'reinventing the wheel.' With the Bible it is good and needed to reinvent the wheel. For each individual.

Of course the work the Bible does in regeneration (the Spirit works through the Word usually) gets done pretty much initially, in first readings and so on. And of course basic, completed complete readings get it all into, in ways you don't know even as you are doing it.

But when one looks to consciously devise a project or effort to really get full understanding, or, become 'mighty in the Word', it is difficult.

Maybe prayer really IS the key. Asking God (the Triune God, but maybe the Holy Spirit as Illuminator specifically) for understanding of His Word. Deep, complete understanding.

Then approaching the text in a meditative state. A third state of consciousness. Having higher energy in you when you engage the Word of God enabling there to be more communicated and understood.

That still leave the sheer scale problem. The massive number of pages and chapters and books. Which means there is no getting around the virtue and necessity of the complete reading effort. Maybe not always done in the same way, but complete nevertheless.

What have I concluded?

1. An approach with zeal is needed.

2. Doing your own work regarding outlining and notes and so forth.

3. Prayer for understanding is key.

4. Being in the third state of consciousness, and having previously accumulated higher energy in you to use while engaging the text.

5. Complete readings, maybe not always having to be done in the same way, is the foundation.

I'll add two more after reading this:

6. Memorizing, and keeping a commonplace book on the Bible.

7. Doing what the Bible guides one to do. This develops understanding in terms of Knowledge + Being = Understanding.

The three renunciations

Look at this section of the Cassian books.

Wikipedia has a good overview article on John Cassian, with this surprising (to me) little revelation:

His works are excerpted in the Philokalia (Greek for "Love of the Beautiful"), the Eastern Orthodox compendium on mystical Christian prayer.

Of his two major works it would seem his Conferences would be the most interesting.

A mark for the mind to fasten onto...

This is from here. It's the last sentence of chapter 5 on that page. The subject is the need for a mark to strive for. Glorifying God in thought, word, and deed, for instance. Or thinking from the Work rather than from life. Work aim in that sense:

For the mind, which has no fixed point to which it may return, and on which it may chiefly fasten, is sure to rove about from hour to hour and minute to minute in all sorts of wandering thoughts, and from those things which come to it from outside, to be constantly changed into that state which first offers itself to it.

Here is the larger contents page.

(From this page originally sent by Paul via email...)

Just enter the realm...

Just enter the realm. (via getting that self-remembering, non-identifying wheel rolling in the right direction). Nothing else to be done. Parzival is a good guide. What else is there to do but to hit the trackless forest and expect conflict prior to reaching new worlds (worlds interpenetrate worlds).

A #5 Man is more of a 'be' state. Or 'being' state. This is where you are, this is what you are.

You can see depicted in those stories knights who seem to sit down somewhere and waste. Don't do that. They are also wounded from battles that didn't go well for them... You do have to be good with the sword and shield...

Bringing cosmos to this...

Let's be honest (ok, I'll just speak for myself because not everybody is the same regarding what I'm about to say), again, let's be honest these Work blogs die out pretty quickly. They are too problematic. Real Work effort has to be private, methinks, otherwise you're just putting down attitude in the posts and comments, i.e. no matter what you're saying about things you still look kind of OK and cool in it all. (I'm speaking for myself.)

A good use of a blog for effort is something like this. Because it is just simple recording of something done on a daily basis; a no nonsense record of actually doing and keeping up with real, simple aims. (My aims there can get more interesting as the year progresses, but for now those seem good. I don't think more than five is going to be practical though, but eventually I'll finish Tom Jones and have room for another...)

OK, forget what I said above. A new year approaches, and one can either do something in a dedicated manner or one can go day to day doing the same desultory, go-nowhere things. (By the way, '$/contained' just means for me all necessary worldly tasks and activities.)

I don't want S. or P. to stop their Work blogs. But just remember that an effort needs to be a contained cosmos to gather force within itself; and it needs to have a beginning, middle, and end.

Things get easier

Things get easier to see. Hey, we live in a world that is visible and invisible. When you die you go into the invisible. In the flesh you are in the visible. It sucks because of the fall. I'm going to try to find a Scripture reference to the visible, invisible aspect of the world.

Col 1:16 For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him:

That's a good one.

Rather than the usual straining to perceive the 'other realm', which exists, we can accomplish the same goal by simply recognizing the fact of it and then operating with that understanding. I mean, not straining to do what the flesh can't do, yet still doing what our spirit can accomplish. Grow in understanding and perception of the invisible.

Rom 1:20 For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead;

Heb 11:3 Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.

To walk in the above understanding, simply, is different from straining to perceive and do what the flesh is incapable of perceiving and doing. Walk after the Spirit; i.e. after the Word of God. In understanding.

Knight of the Inner Order

Written as a comment by the owner of another Work site (Parzival, linked in the righthand margin) -

Parzival is the Knight who is walking within these symbolic realms. He knows that a car door is a portal between states and worlds. To the Knight of the Inner Order, this is all Real. The exterior world of objects (christmas tree lights, telephone boxes, doors & windows, unmade roads, blankets & bedding, horses & sheep, rolling mists, children in poverty, ice, watches and seasons), is a living non-verbal language of glyphs incised in the consciousness of the Wandering Knight: Opening of the Eyes = Renewal of the Oath of Service. We open our eyes each morning, blearily adjusting to the light of dawn. Mostly we are buried in the comfort of sleep but the Knight should know the meaning of the event and renew the Oath. Or as the great Johnny Cash sang it, "I'm just a poor wayfaring stranger travelling through this land below." Never forget it.

Failed event

Dishes had finished washing in the dishwasher, and I thought, there is a common event, putting them away, so I got up to put them away meaning to make it an event to be awake in, and I completely forgot myself as I left the room for the kitchen. Didn't remember myself all during the time I spent putting the dishes away. See? It's not easy. Or, it's not automatic. I mean, my effort was not there, but sleep is powerful, identification is powerful, so when you are in a state of self-remembering and it seems easy, remember that it is actually unusual.

An email from me

My tone on this fourth way blog will be as if strangers unknown to me are reading it:

http://0140190112.blogspot.com/

I'm going to link Simon's and Paul's too. Why not see it as serious. I wrote that a strand of lights went out on a tree last evening as a prelude to writing about a Work effort. Oh, no! Symbolism. I don't want lights going out in me...

So I've got a hook to start me off. Look for events to be awake in for the duration. Even it it's a very common, short event. On virtue of this is it gets you away from the ease of putting off efforts because "you've got things to do" or, you're not "geared up" for it, or whatever. If you've got things to do, those are your events.

It's not the same as hardcore duration self-remembering, though, admittedly. The most strange experiences I've had with self-remembering was as the result of hardcore, depth and duration. So I'm not saying this this event approach is all-defining of anything... - C.

ps- I forgot I also use the word 'event' for one of the four types of self-remembering: rote, backlash, surprising/difficult event, and schedule. But that's alright, I still think I have to use it.

Simon's Work blog: http://simonworkthoughts.blogspot.com/

Paul's Work blog: http://parzivals.blogspot.com/

I'm a Christian, and the Fourth Way is my school of active, progressive sanctification

I did one event Friday evening, Dec. 14. It's a start. By 'event' that is my new shorthand for a self-remembering effort with aim, or in the midst of a complete event.