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November 2nd, 1915
Received by:James Padgett.
Washington D.C.
I am here, St. Matthew.
I have not written you for a long time, and I desire to say a few
words on matters pertaining to the soul and its relationship to
God and future life and immortality.
The soul is an image of the Great Soul of the Father, and partakes
of features like this Great Soul, except that it does not necessarily
have in it the Divine Love which makes the soul of a mortal or spirit
a partaker of Divinity. The soul may exist in man and spirit in
all receptive qualities and yet never have the Divine Essence to
fill it, which is necessary in order to make man or spirit a new
creature, that is the subject of the New Birth.
Only that mortal or spirit who has received this Divine Love of
the Father can be said to be Immortal, all others may live or they
may not. It has not yet been revealed to us whether the life or
existence of these spirits who have not the conscious knowledge
of Immortality will continue to live through all eternity but if
they do it will be because God so wills that they shall live. But
their existence will be subject to change and if such change should
take place, only God knows what its character will be. While on
the contrary, the soul that has acquired Immortality can never die,
its status as to a life through all eternity is fixed, and even
God himself cannot destroy that existence because it is the possessor
of that Divinity which makes God Immortal.
"The soul that sinneth, sinning
it shall die," means that the qualities which it is necessary
for it to obtain to make it a part of immortality can never come
to it, and hence as regards these qualities it is dying and dead.
The soul itself will live, for no spirit could possibly have an
existence without a soul, and when men attempt to teach that when
the spirit of life leaves the body the soul dies, such men do not
state a truth. The soul will live as long as the spirit existence
continues, and until the great change, should there be one, comes
to that spirit. So all men must believe that the soul which God
gave to man is just as much a part of man as is the spiritual or
physical body.
The soul is the highest part of man, and is the only part, that
in any way resembles the Great Father, who is not body or spirit-body
in form but is Soul, and the man's soul, as I have said, is an image
of that Great Soul. So you see, that when we speak of destroying
the soul it does not mean that the soul which belongs to every spirit
will be destroyed, but that the essence of the soul, or rather the
potentiality of that soul receiving the Divine Love and Nature of
the Father will be destroyed.
Of course, the soul can be starved and placed in a condition of
stagnation so that all its receptive powers will be, as it were,
dead, and only some great miracle or unusual ministration can awaken
it, but to say that the soul ever dies is erroneous. In saying this
I do not include the possibility of some great change in the spirit
or mortal by which such spirit may be destroyed, and in such case
the soul will cease to exist as an individualized soul or entity.
I do not know what would be the destiny of a soul in such event
and, hence, can't prophesy, but, unless there be such great change,
the soul will live, but not as an immortal soul possessing the Essence
of Divinity, unless it has experienced the New Birth.
God, the Great Oversoul, may not recall to Himself the soul of
any man in the sense of depriving that man of his soul, but His
relation to that soul will be merely that of Creator and created,
subject always to the Will of the Creator, whereas, the relationship
of God towards the soul that has received the New Birth and hence
the Divine Nature, is not only of a Creator and created, but also
that of a co-equal so far as this Great Quality of Immortality is
concerned. The soul of man then becomes self-existing and not depending
upon God for its continuance to exist.
This, I know, is a subject not easy for mortal mind to understand,
but when you shall have received the soul perceptions in addition
to your natural mind, it will not be so difficult to grasp the exact
meaning of my propositions.
I will not write more tonight.
I am your brother in Christ,
St. Matthew
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