t reasonably infer the
opposing falsehood to be the assertion of separateness, the assertion
that God and man are not one? The idea of separateness is precisely the
principle on which the world has proceeded from that day to this--the
assumption that God and man are not one in being, and that the matter is
of a different essence from spirit. In other words, the principle that
finds favour with the intellectuality of the present age is that of
duality--the idea of two powers and two substances opposite in kind,
and, therefore, repugnant to each other, permeating all things, and so
leaving no wholeness anywhere.

The entire object of the Bible is to combat the idea, of two opposing
forces in the world. The good news is said to be that of
"reconciliation" (2 Cor. v. 18), where also we are told that "all things
are from God," hence leaving no room for any other power or any other
substance; and the great falsehood, which it is the purpose of the Good
News to expose, is everywhere in the Bible proclaimed to be the
suggestion of duality, which is some other mode of Life, that is not the
One Life, but something separate from it--an idea which it is impossible
to state distinctly without involving a contradiction in terms.
Everywhere the Bible exposes the fiction of the duality of separation as
the great lie, but nowhere in so emphatic and concentrated a manner as
in that wonderful passage of Revelations where it is figured in the
mysterious Number of the Beast. "He that hath understanding let him
count the number of the Beast ... and his number is six hundred and sixty
and six" (Rev. xiii, 18, R.V.). Let me point out the great principle
expressed in this mysterious number. It has other more particular
applications, but this one general principle underlies them all.

It is an established maxim that every unity contains in itself a
trinity, just as the individual man consists of body, soul, and spirit.
If we would perfectly understand anything, we must be able to comprehend
it in its threefold nature; therefore in symbolic numeration the
multiplying of the unit by three implies the completeness of that for
which the unit stands; and, again, the threefold repetition of a number
represents its extension to infinity. Now mark what results if we apply
these representative methods of numerical expression to the principles
of Oneness and of separateness respectively. Oneness is Unity, and
1 x 3 = 3, which, intensified to its highest