 We continue today from chapter 25. Justice returned to love. The Holy Spirit can use all that you give to Him for your salvation. But He cannot use what you withhold, for He cannot take it from you without your willingness. For if He did, you would believe He rested it from you against your will. And so you would not learn it is your will to be without it. You need not give it to Him wholly willingly, for if you could you had no need of Him. But this He needs that you prefer He take it than that you keep it for yourself alone and recognize that what brings loss to no one you would not know. This much is necessary to add to the idea no one can lose for you to gain. And nothing more. Here is the only principle salvation needs. Or is it necessary that your faith in it be strong, unswerving, and without attack from all beliefs opposed to it? You have no fixed allegiance. But remember salvation is not needed by the saved. You are not called upon to do what one divided still against himself would find impossible. Have little faith that wisdom could be found in such a state of mind. But be you thankful that only little faith is asked of you. What but a little faith remains to those who still believe in sin? What could they know of heaven and the justice of the saved? There is a kind of justice in salvation of which the world knows nothing. To the world, justice and vengeance are the same, for sinners see justice only as their punishment. Perhaps sustained by someone else, but not escaped. The laws of sin demand a victim. Who it may be makes little difference. But death must be the cost and must be paid. This is not justice but insanity. Yet how could justice be defined without insanity where love means hate and death is seen as victory and triumph over eternity and timelessness and life? You who do not know of justice still can ask and learn the answer. Justice looks on all in the same way. It is not just that one should lack for what another has. For that is vengeance in whatever form it takes. Justice demands no sacrifice for any sacrifice is made that sin may be preserved and kept. It is a payment offered for the cost of sin but not the total cost. The rest is taken from another to be laid beside your little payment to quote a tone for all that you would keep and not give up. So is the victim seen as partly you with someone else by far the greater part. And in the total cost, the greater is the less is yours. And justice, being blind, is satisfied by being paid. It matters not by whom. Can this be justice? God knows not of this. But justice does he know and knows it well. For he is wholly fair to everyone. Vengeance is alien to God's mind because he knows of justice. To be just is to be fair and not be vengeful. Fairness and vengeance are impossible. For each one contradicts the other and denies that it is real. It is impossible for you to share the Holy Spirit's justice with a mind that can conceive a specialness at all. Yet how could he be just if he condemns the sinner for the crimes he did not do but thinks he did? And where would justice be if he demanded of the ones obsessed with the idea of punishment that they lay it aside, unaided, and perceive it is not true? It is extremely hard for those who still believe sin meaningful to understand the Holy Spirit's justice. They must believe he shares their own confusion and cannot avoid the vengeance that their own belief in justice must entail. And so they fear the Holy Spirit and perceive the, quote, wrath of God in him. Nor can they trust him not to strike them dead with lightning bolts torn from the, quote, fires of heaven by God's own angry hand. They do believe that heaven is hell and are afraid of love. And deep suspicion and the chill of fear comes over them when they are told that they have never sinned. Their world depends on sin stability and they perceive the, quote, threat of what God knows as justice to be more destructive to themselves and to their world than vengeance, which they understand in love. So do they think the loss of a sin occurs and flee the Holy Spirit as if he were a messenger from hell sent from above in treachery and guile to work God's vengeance on them in the guise of a deliverer and friend? What could he be to them except a devil dressed to deceive within an angel's cloak? And what escape has he for them except a door to hell that seems to look like heaven's gate? Yet justice cannot punish those who ask for punishment but have a judge who knows they are wholly innocent in truth. In justice he is bound to set them free and give them all the honor they deserve and have denied themselves because they are not fair and cannot understand that they are innocent. Love is not understandable to sinners because they think that justice is split off from love and stands for something else and thus his love perceived as weak and vengeance strong, for love has lost when judgment has left his side and is too weak to save from punishment. But vengeance without love has gained in strength by being separate and apart from love. And what but vengeance now can help and save while love stands feebly by with helpless hands bereft of justice and vitality and powerless to save? What can love ask of you who could think that all of this is true? Could he in justice and in love believe in your confusion you have much to give? You are not asked to trust him far. No more than what you see he offers you and what you recognize you could not give yourself. In God's own justice does he recognize all you deserve but understands as well that you cannot accept it for yourself. It is his special function to hold out to you the gifts the innocent deserve and everyone that you accept brings joy to him as well as you. He knows that heaven is richer made by each one you accept and God rejoices as his son receives what loving justice knows to be his due. For love and justice are not different because they are the same. Does mercy stand at God's right hand and gives the Son of God the power to forgive himself of sin? To him who merits everything how can it be that anything be kept from him? For that would be injustice and unfair indeed to all the holiness that is in him. However much he recognize it not. God knows of no injustice. He would not allow his son be judged by those who seek his death and could not see his worth at all. What honest witnesses could they call forth to speak on his behalf and who would come to plead for him and not against his life? No justice would be given him by you. Yet God ensured that justice would be done unto the Son he loves and would protect from all unfairness you might seek to offer believing vengeance is his proper due. As specialness cares not who pays the cost of sin so it be paid, the Holy Spirit heeds not who looks on instance at last provided it is seen and recognized. For just one witness is enough if he sees truly. Simple justice asks no more. Of each one does the Holy Spirit ask if he will be that one so justice may be returned to love and there be satisfied. Each special function he allots is but for this. That each one learn that love and justice are not separate and both are strengthened by their union with each other. Without love is justice prejudiced and weak and love without justice is impossible. For love is fair and cannot chasten without cause. What cause can be to warrant an attack upon the innocent? In justice then does love correct mistakes but not in vengeance for that would be unjust to innocence. You can be perfect witness to the power of love and justice if you understand it is impossible the Son of God could merit vengeance. You need not perceive in every circumstance that this is true nor need you look to your experience within the world which is but shadows of all that is really happening within yourself. The understanding that you need comes not of you but from a larger self so great and holy that he could not doubt his innocence. Your special function is a call to him that he may smile on you whose sinlessness he shares. His understanding will be yours and so the Holy Spirit's special function has been fulfilled. God's Son has found a witness unto his sinlessness and not his sins. How little need you give the Holy Spirit that simple justice may be given you. Without impartiality there is no justice. How can specialness be just? Judge not because you cannot not because you are a miserable sinner too. How can the special really understand that justice is the same for everyone? To take from one to give another must be an injustice to them both since they are equal in the Holy Spirit's sight. Their father gave the same inheritance to both who would have more or less is not aware that he has everything. He is no judge of what must be in others do because he thinks he is deprived and so he must be envious and try to take away from whom he judges. He is not impartial and cannot fairly see in others' rights because his own have been obscured to him. You have the right to all the universe to perfect peace complete deliverance from all effects of sin and to the life eternal joyous and complete in every way as God appointed for his Holy Son. This is the only justice heaven knows and all the Holy Spirit brings to earth. Your special function shows you nothing else but perfect justice can prevail for you and you are safe from vengeance in all forms. The world deceives but it cannot replace God's justice with a version of its own for only love is just and can perceive what justice must accord the Son of God. Let love decide and never fear that you in your unfairness will deprive yourself of what God's justice has allotted you. And from the workbook, lesson 198, only my condemnation injures me. Injury is impossible and yet illusion makes illusion. If you can condemn, you can be injured for you have believed that you can injure and the right you have established for yourself can be now used against you till you lay it down as valueless, unwanted and unreal. Then does illusion cease to have effects and those that seem to have will be undone. Then are you free for freedom is your gift and you can now receive the gift you gave. Condemn and you are made a prisoner for give and you are freed. Such is the law that rules perception. It is not a law that knowledge understands for freedom is a part of knowledge. To condemn is thus impossible in truth. What seems to be its influence and its effects have not occurred at all. Yet must we deal with them a wow as if they had. Illusion makes illusion except one. Forgiveness is illusion that is answer to the rest. Forgiveness sweeps all other dreams away and though it is itself a dream it breathes no others. All illusions save this one must multiply a thousand fold. But this is where illusions end. Forgiveness is the end of dreams because it is a dream of waking. It is not itself the truth yet does it point to where the truth must be and gives direction with the certainty of God himself. It is a dream in which the Son of God awakens to his self and to his father knowing they are one. Forgiveness is the only road that leads out of disaster past all suffering finally away from death. How could there be another way when this one is the plan of God himself? And why would you oppose it, quarrel with it, seek to find a thousand ways in which it must be wrong, but thousand other possibilities? Is it not wiser to be glad you hold the answer to your problems in your hand? Is it not more intelligent to think and thank the one who gave salvation and accept his gift with gratitude? And is it not a kindness to yourself to hear his voice and learn the simple lessons he would teach instead of trying to dismiss his words and substitute your own in place of his? His words will work. His words will save. His words contain all hope, all blessing and all joy that ever can be found upon this earth. His words are born in God and come to you with heaven's love upon them. Those who hear his words have heard the song of heaven, for these are the words in which all merge as one at last. And as this one will fade away, the word of God will come to take its place, for it will be remembered and then loved. This world has many seeming separate haunts where mercy has no meaning, and attack appears as justified. Yet all are one, a place where death is offered to God's son and to his father. You may think they have accepted, but if you will look again upon the place where you beheld their blood, you will perceive a miracle instead. How foolish to believe that they could die. How foolish to believe you can attack. How mad to think you could be condemned and that the Holy Son of God can die. The stillness of yourself remains unmoved, untouched by thoughts like these and unaware of any condemnation which could need forgiveness. Dreams of any kind are strange and alien to the truth. And what but truth could have a thought which builds a bridge to it that brings illusions to the other side. Today we practice letting freedom come to make its home with you. The truth bestows these words upon your mind that you may find the key to light and let the darkness end. Only my condemnation injures me. Only my own forgiveness sets me free. Do not forget today that there can be no form of suffering that fails to hide an unforgiving thought. Nor can there be a form of pain forgiveness cannot heal. Except the one illusion which proclaims there is no condemnation in God's son and heaven is remembered instantly. The world forgotten, all its weird beliefs forgotten with it as the face of Christ appears unveiled at last in this one dream. This is the gift the Holy Spirit holds for you from God your Father. Let today be celebrated both on earth and in your holy home as well. Be kind to both as you forgive the trespasses you thought them guilty of and see your innocence shining upon you from the face of Christ. Now is there silence all around the world. Now is there stillness where before there was a frantic rush of thoughts that made no sense. Now is there tranquil light across the face of earth made quiet in a dreamless sleep. And now the word of God alone remains upon it. Only that can be perceived an instant longer than our symbols done and everything you ever thought you made completely vanished from the mind that God forever knows to be his holy son. There is no condemnation in him. He is perfect in holiness. He needs no thoughts of mercy. Who could give him gifts when everything is his? And who could dream of offering forgiveness to the son of sinlessness itself so like to him whose son he is that to behold the son is to perceive no more and only know the Father? End this vision of the son so brief that not an instant stands between the single sight and timelessness itself. You see the vision of yourself and then you disappear forever into God. Today we come still nearer to the end of everything that yet would stand between this vision and our sight. And we are glad that we have come this far and recognize that he who brought us here will not forsake us now. For he would give to us the gift that God has given us through him today. Now is the time for your deliverance. The time has come. The time has come today. Amen.