302 ROSICRUCIANCOSMO-CONCEPTION
Hitherto, you have seen Those who led you, but there
are Leaders of varying grades of splendor, higher than They,
Whom you have not seen, Who guided your every tottering
step in the evolution of consciousness.
Exalted above all these glorious Beings stands the
invisible God Who has created the heaven, and the earth
upon which you dwell. He has willed to give you dominion
over all this land, that you may be fruitful and multiply in it.
This invisible God only must you worship, but you must
worship Him in Spirit and in Truth, and not make any
graven ima ge of Him, nor use any likeness to picture Him t o
yourselves, because He is everywhere present, and is beyond
any comparison or similitude.
If you follow His precepts, He will bless you abundantly
in all good. If you stray from His ways, evil will follow. The
choice is yours. You are free;but you must endure the
consequences of your own actions.
The education of man proceeds by four great steps.
First, he is worked upon from without unconsciously. Then
he is placed under the Rulership of Divine Messengers and
Kings whom he sees, and whose commands he must obey.
Next he is taught to revere the commands of a God whom he
does not see. Finally, he learns to rise above the commands;
to become a law unto himself; and, by conquering himself of
his own free will, to live in harmony with the Order of
Nature, which is the Law of God.
Fourfold also are the steps by which man climbs upward
to God.
First, through fear, he worships the God whom he
begins to sense, sacrificing to propitiate Him, as do the
fetish-worshipers.
Next, he learns to look to God as theGiver of all things,