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A Book Review Eagles’ Wings to the Higher Places --Hannah Hurnard, Author of Hinds’ Feet on high Places Awaking the Sleeping Samson In Hannah Hurnard’s (Spiritual Delilah's) more widely circulated books the simple plan of salvation through Jesus Christ is systematically undermined. Amidst Hannah’s hazy symbolism and flowery language many a negligent Christian has dropped his guard while being lullabied into great depths of heresy. Like Delilah of old, Hannah skillfully pares away truth and ultimately the very power of the Cross of Jesus. Hopefully, the teachings found in Eagle's Wings should open the drowsiest eyes. Therefore, we have reluctantly included this citation as part of our book review so that any doubting Christian can easily discover Hannah’s growing apostasy. Here, Hannah’s spirit of deception will blossom to the full. I have emphasized some sections in red so that the reader can quickly locate her more odious teachings. (Jim Thorpe)
Eagles’ Wings to the Higher Places --Hannah Hurnard, Author of Hinds’ Feet on high Places Hannah explains that this book is part thee of her Hinds’ Feet, Mountains of Spice, and Eagles Wings, trilogy. page 83 Chapter 8 "Very, very early next morning, while it was yet dark, Aletheia left her room and looked up at the dark mountain slopes towards the peaks silhouetted dimly against the faint eastern light. Then she began running up the mountainside, just as her mother, Grace-and-Glory had done along the slopes of the High Places on her "hinds' feet." Now her daughter found that she too had developed the legs and hooves of the mountain gazelles, and could leap and bound from rock to rock and over the snowy slopes as lightly and swiftly as they could. Just as she leapt towards the last rocky crag, a crimson glow outlined it as the shining orb of the sun appeared. At the next moment she was standing on the topmost peak, a tiny speck against the dawn-lit sky. Then she caught her breath. For there, from the summit of those High Places which from Mountain Top 84 City had looked so far distant and unattainable, she saw towering into the heavens, as though belonging to another world altogether, a range of mountain peaks more dazzlingly white and glorious than anything she had conceived of before. Ranges of yet Higher Places of Truth and Goodness in the Nature of God, Who is the Eternal Will to Goodness only. Aletheia stood there and looked, panting from her eager longing to rush up the mountainside, and her heart was sick almost unto death with the longing that filled it for that yet higher world shining in the dawn light far, far above. Then once again, just as when a Little child, she lifted her arms and cried yearningly, "Lord, turn them into wings, eagle’s wings on which on which to fly to the higher places. But instead, a cold, thick mist descended on the Peak and mountain 'range on which she was standing enveloped her in a veil or cold shroud so that soon she could see nothing at all, not even the steep, slippery track up which she had bounded to the summit. She found herself alone in the mist and cold of a bitter, sunless mountain peak. Everything was blotted out around her, and there was not a sound of any kind human, bird, or beast. She was alone and in the dark. Suddenly, she understood. "This is what will happen to me if I accept the invitation to sit on that rock pinnacle seat high above others but with my back to the High 85 Places. O my Lord, rescue me. Lead me not into temptation but deliver me from evil." There was a crashing peal of thunder, a blinding flash of lightning which ripped the veil of mist asunder from top to bottom, and Aletheia found that once again she was standing on the edge of the Abyss of Love. Before her lay the mighty cross, stretched out from end to end of the great canyon. Only now as she gazed at it she saw something which she had not seen when she had looked upon it for the first time and found her whole life transformed by the vision. This time she saw that the foot of that stupendous cross rested in a manger in a little stable. In the stable were a few sheep with their lambs beside them. An ox was chewing straw at one end of the rude shelter, a donkey was tethered beside the door, and among the rafters roosted a little folk of pigeons. In the manger itself was a little human baby, a tiny "Son of Man" lying amongst the birds and beasts which sheltered in the stable. Just as she perceived this, a rooster on the roof of the stable uttered a loud and long-drawn-out crow, calling through the darkness of the night the glad news that daybreak was not far distant. At the sound of the cockcrow the little baby in the manger stirred, wakened, and uttered a feeble little cry. At that the pigeons began a soft and gentle crooning which lulled him off to sleep again. 86 Aletheia saw a great and glorious angel who beckoned to her and said, "You who love the Truth, come and kneel here and see and understand. So Aletheia knelt in wondering awe on the rough, stony floor and looked at the little "Son of Man," wrapped deep in the straw of the bed made for him. The angel said, "Here lies the little 'Son of Man,' born to represent the whole Race of Fallen Mankind on the great cross of their self-created sufferings. But he is also 'the Son of God' because he represents the first Glorious and Ideal Mankind made in God's image and likeness as was the first Man Adam who is the Son of God (Luke 3:38). This lost Ideal, from which Mankind fell so long ago, will be revealed once again to all who have eyes to see and hearts willing to respond and return to that perfect and glorious Ideal Way of Life. "But here, too, in this little stable you see the birds and beasts who were created by the same Heavenly Father Creator as Was Man himself. The ox and ass and 'he gentle, harmless, and innocent living creatures still live according to the ideal, Garden-of-Eden way of life. They hurt no other creatures and eat only the food ordained by God to be the nourishment of all living creatures--from the vegetable and plant Kingdom. The meek and defenseless sheep, lambs, doves, and pigeons use no force in order to defend themselves. "See, the little 'Son of Man is born amongst them in87 order to show that He represents all the birds, beasts, and other living creatures--not just the fallen sons of men. His manger cradle is on the cross created by Mankind's sins to show that whatsoever men do to each other they do to Him too; and whatever they do to the other living creatures--the birds, beasts, insects, and creeping things they also do to Him. For He is the Divine Love and Life of God immanent in every living creature in the One Great Body of Creation. Now look Aletheia, lover of the Truth. Look and behold the Truth." So saying the angel pointed away from the foot of the cross where the stable and manger were; and Aletheia, as her eyes followed his pointing finger, uttered a cry of horror and anguish and began to tremble from head to foot. For now she saw that the Body stretched upon and nailed to the cross of suffering and woe was not just the Body of fallen human beings, but was also composed of birds, beasts, and other living creatures. All of them, too, were living cells in one Body of diverse forms and functions. She saw that the sufferings experienced by the human cells in that great, groaning Body of Creation were rooted in those which they were continually inflicting upon each other and other living creatures. They exercised a terrible kind of dominion and misused their power most cruelly. They actually devoured myriads of the living cells around them in the88 way that cancerous growths do in the physical bodies of their victims. She saw that Mankind's abuse of power over the other living cells or creatures was causing the whole groaning Creation to suffer from a frightful disease. It was literally eating away the life of the Body and causing continual death, from which the body would certainly perish unless healing and deliverance took place. Continuous, desolate cries of fear, groans, and screams of pain from the tortured Body on the cross came from myriads of living creatures being whipped and beaten, driven and herded to slaughter houses, and dragged over floors swimming with the blood of the victims preceding them. She heard the most pitiful sounds from the hapless poultry in tiny cages in countless "battery houses" all over the civilized Christian world. She saw living poultry suspended by their feet, heads downwards, carried on endless conveyor belts to rows of seats where boys and girls, fresh from school and splashed from head to foot with spurting blood, cut the throats of the living souls dangling before them. Loud, cheerful music blared forth unceasingly to cover over the woeful sounds, distract from the brutal sight, and deaden the thoughts and feelings of the young slaughterers. She saw human beings, once shining glorious in "the 'image and likeness of God" doing this instead of exercising 89 a dominion of love over all that He had created; and helping their little brothers and sisters, the beasts and birds, to perform their own special functions in the glorious Body of Creation. She saw fishing ships patrolling the seas, turning the waves red with the blood of harpooned creatures, and huge nets gathering in loads of hapless, living creatures destined to be killed and devoured by the human cells in the Body by means of their superior skill and strength. She saw innocent, help less baby seals clubbed to death before the eyes of the mother seals, so that human women and mothers by the thousands may walk about in sealskin coats. She saw the vivisection laboratories in countless medical institutions where unspeakable experiments were continually being carried out on hapless living souls so that human beings might obtain relief from their own sufferings at the expense of the tortured bodies of their fellow living creatures in the Body of Creation. She saw uncounted millions of tables around the world where human beings sat down to eat different parts of the bodies of captive and slaughtered victims at least twice daily. They, the living cells, nourished them selves upon the copses of the slaughtered cells, like a monstrous creature literally killing and eating bits of its own body. 9O anguish and horror which the sight caused her--myriads of human beings actually celebrating the birth of the Babe in the stable manger at the foot of the cross, by sitting down with loud rejoicing to devour the forcibly fattened bodies of the lambs, poultry, and turkeys that He had come to rescue. Not realizing that what they did to those hapless creatures they were doing to Him, too, they formed His cross of anguish. They celebrated in the cruelest way possible the birth of the Lamb of God who bears and experiences the sins of the whole world and feels the wrongs which all the members of the One Body do to each other. Then she saw the battlefields and war-torn areas of the world where human beings, after devouring the corpses of their victims like wild beasts, then attacked and slaughter their own human brothers and sisters and In "Innocent little children with diabolical armaments invented in hell, like frightful human wild beasts. Yes, she saw the whole groaning Creation--fish, birds, creeping and swarming creatures, beasts, domesticated animals, and human beings--all torturing one another in terrible ways. They suffered indescribable agonies in wounds, accidents, frightful physical diseases, and woes and miseries of all kinds. She saw that all these sufferings are truly rooted in the willful breaking of the One Great Law of Love, which commands us to love and treat all living souls as ourselves, for what91 we do to them we truly do to ourselves in our bodies. Aletheia felt as though she herself were dying and being "born again as a new creature, rescued from the cross and raised UP in the resurrection Body. She felt herself rising heavenwards at the head of the cross where she face of the One who felt and experienced it all looked at her once again, and the voice of the infinite, suffering, Divine Love of God spoke, saying, "Whatever you do to one of the least of these my brethren in the One Body of Creation, YOU ARE DOING TO MEMatthew 25:40 "And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me."She knew that never again could she inflict suffering on any living creature, nor kill any creature, not even the "LEAST and smallest insect, nor ever again share in eating the corpses of Mankind's victims. Never again could she use or eat anything taken by force from the bodies of other "living souls," for what she did to the least or greatest of them, she would be doing to the Lord of the Body Himself. There was the face of the King of Love Himself-The Good Shepherd she had known as a little child, and now "The Lamb of God"--bearing the sufferings and forgiving the sins of the whole world against Himself. Once again His voice challenged her in tones of infinite love and longing: "Aletheia, behold the Truth! Believe t and obey it and live according to the glorious Law of Love. Love Me with all your heart, mind, soul, and92 strength. Love and treat every creature in the One Great Body of Creation as you want to be loved and treated yourself, for whatever you do to them you do to yourself and Me, also. Never again do to any creature what you would not want done to yourself. What you have now seen you must share with your human brothers and sisters so that they too may 'Know the Truth and the Truth will set them free,' both from inflicting suffering on the groaning Body of Creation and from experiencing suffering as a consequence themselves. ‘For the whole creation groaneth, waiting for the manifestation of the Sons of God (Rom. 8:22, 19). They are waiting for the restoration of Fallen Mankind to the Perfect Ideal from which they have fallen, so that once again they will exercise a Dominion of Perfect Love over the whole Creation." Then a swirling veil of mist was drawn over the whole scene, which vanished like a dream, in the bright morning sunlight which then spread around her. Aletheia went down the mountainside, knowing that she was not the same person who had ascended the slopes in the early dawn light. She had been baptized into a new understanding and now would live on a new and higher level of life, completely separated from all the cruel Customs of the world. As she reached the green slopes at the foot of those High Places of vision, she caught sight of the rocky pinnacle seat on which she had so recently been tempted to sit, with her back to the Higher Places and the new transforming Truth. She shuddered and then wept with joy and thankfulness at her deliverance. Then the challenge rang through her soul. "I have seen the Truth, and now I must witness to it."
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