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MUST I YIELD?

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Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Apr 27, 1904

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 30, No. 17.

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MUST I YIELD?

By Editor

"Dollars Want Me" is the title of a new book by the editor of a New Thought journal. We have not read it. It is said to be the new road to opulence. It is said to explain just what mental attitude to hold in order to draw the Dollar. It is said that it will enable one to rise above the drudgery of enforced labor. The title conveys the impression that money is seeking to possess the individual; and the author seeks to teach the individual how he can so yield that he will be conducted into the pastures of opulence.
How striking is the similarity between this New Thought deception and the deception practised in Eden. The "god of this world" taught Adam and Eve how they could yield to Him, and in so yielding gain all, and become gods themselves. Satan wanted the souls of the race, and promised them great things. They yielded to him, lost all, and were forced to labor as they had not done before. Now comes the champion of the New Thought, seeking the same thing, making the same offer, and in addition holding out a remedy which "will enable you to rise above the drudgery of enforced labor." If the two propositions are not instigated by the same power, then the coincidence is a remarkable one. And the last deception holds out the promise of immunity from one of the results of the first, that is, labor. Only yield to the invitations of the New Thought, and all you desire to have you may have, all you desire to be you may be, even tho your desire, like that of Lucifer, be to be "like the Most High," and to take the great title, "I AM."
Does the New Thought promise all this? Let the answer be found in its own teaching. The author of the book above named says editorially in the journal Now:—
Man is conscious Mind. Conscious Mind is self determined; is the personal God. To-day man is conscious of himself, says, "I Am," but has not awakened to his power as a conscious manifestation of God—of the One, so he can say what he is. He is coming to that consciousness. All power lies potentially in the human ego. Man, as an individual, and a race, is limited only by his ignorance of his powers. As he thinks himself to be, that he is. To teach him to think of himself as potentially omnipotent, and to bring him into recognition of his possessions, is the object of Now.
If we were to italicise any of the above, it would be necessary to italicise all, so sweeping and all-including is the blasphemous assumption of human omnipotence. Man is made the "personal God," the "I AM," the "One," the possessor of "all power," "potentially omnipotent." But this is not all. He continues:—
Man is that which he thinks he is, because thought is power; and by this power, which is creative, man creates himself. . . Man is spirit, with all the possibilities of divinity, and may manifest these possibilities here and now.
It would seem that nothing but an intellect crazed by self-admiration and self-worship could make such assumptions as above quoted; and we find that it was that very thing that turned the head of Satan and brought discord and rebellion in heaven and brought sin into this world. "I will destroy thee, O covering cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire. Thine heart was lifted up because of thy beauty, thou hast corrupted thy wisdom by reason of thy brightness; I will cast thee to the ground, I will lay thee before kings, that they may behold thee," Eze. 28: 16, 17. God's rebuke to the king of Tyrus—symbol of Satan—can just as fittingly be applied to the exponents of the New Thought. "Thus saith the Lord God; because thine heart is lifted up, and thou hast said, I am a God, I sit in the seat of God, in the midst of the seas; yet thou art a man, and not God, tho thou set thine heart as the heart of God." Eze. 28: 2. One of the faults of that king was an inordinate desire for gold, treasure, and glory. The New Thought makes "the road to opulence," and the release from labor, one of its aims. How striking is the similarity throughout!
Now let us notice some of their "Affirmations," following each with a Scripture reference.
"As life I am perfect." "Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law; that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God." Rom. 3: 19. "They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no not one." Verse 12.
"Through faith in myself as a manifestation of the infinite life, I am health and happiness." Even Jesus declared: "I can of Mine own self do nothing." John 5: 30. To His followers He said: "Without Me ye can do nothing." John 15: 5. And Paul says: "I can do all things in Him that strengtheneth me." Phil. 4: 13. The New Thought does all of itself and through itself.
"I think of myself as the I AM, which is infinite." "And knowest not that thou art the wretched one and miserable and poor and blind and naked." Rev. 3: 17. "Yet thou art a man, and not God, tho thou set thine heart as the heart of God."
"I live the eternal life and partake of present immortality." "The King of kings and Lord of lords; who only hath immortality." 1 Tim. 6: 15, 16. "When this mortal shall have put on immortality." 1 Cor. 15: 54. That takes place at the resurrection of the just.
We might give many more of these bold and audacious assumptions, which are plainly refuted by the Word of God, but it is not necessary. Those given show the animus of the whole teaching, and brand it as the wicked thing it is. In the face of all this shall we yield to the deception, taste, and fall, as did our first parents? The New Thought teaching is as contrary to the Word and truth of God as was Satan's contradiction in Eden. It is based upon and propagates the same falsehood, the immortality of the soul. It seeks the same object, the exaltation of the creature above the Creator. Knowing this fact, how can we hope for any other reward than the reward of the fallen cherub if we accept and propagate the doctrine which struck discord in heaven and brought sin, sorrow, and suffering to the earth? Yield not to its vain philosophies, its wicked assumptions, its empty promises. The deception of the pit is in it, and its glowing promises are worse than Dead Sea fruit.