|
|
September 23rd, 1916
Received by James Padgett
Washington D.C.
I am here, St. John.
I want to write tonight on a subject that is important,
and I hope that you will he able to receive my message, for I have
been waiting for some time to deliver it.
Well, I desire to discourse on the subject of: "What
is the destiny of the mortal who has not experienced the New Birth,
but who will progress to that condition which may be called the
perfect man?" As you know, there is a future for the mortal
who receives the New Birth, and a different one for him who has
only the complete and pure development of his natural love.
This latter condition does not depend upon the mortal
having in his soul the Divine Love or the Essence of the Father,
but merely upon the purification of the natural love, so that all
sin and error and inharmony form no part of his state of soul or
mental existence. This condition is not the result of a New Birth,
or of a change in the constituent elements of his soul, but merely
the elimination of those things therefrom, which were the results
and the necessary sequences of the defilement that followed the
fall.
Now as man lost by this fall the qualities which
made him the perfect creature of his Maker, it is only necessary
for him to regain what he lost by that fall in order to become the
perfect man once more; and in recovering this state of perfection
it is not required that he should seek, or actually add to the qualities
which he at first possessed, any new or additional qualities or
attributes, but only that he regain what he had been deprived of
by his disobedience; and when that is accomplished he will come
again in harmony with the laws of his creation, and have all the
potentialities and excellence that he originally possessed.
And now, what will that future be? And in order to
determine this question it is only necessary to understand what
his inherent condition or qualities were when he was the perfect
man of his Father's creation.
At that time he was possessed of those things of
which he is now the possessor, except that then they were all so
accurately adjusted that every sense and function of his body, as
well as every faculty of his soul and mind, were so in harmony with
the laws of his creation, that he was capable of doing the will
of the Father, and obeying every requirement that was imposed upon
him.
He was then, not only a perfect being as regarded
his physical formation, but also as regarded his mental and moral
qualities, which of course included all the emotions and appetites
and spiritual aspirations. But, as we have written you before, all
these faculties were subject to his will, and in a certain sense
his will was controlled by the exercise of these faculties.
His body was in the beginning made of matter, changeable
as it now is, but of a more ethereal kind, and not subject to decay
and disintegration in such a short time, as it now is, but yet,
subject to this decay; and man, as regards his physical being, necessarily
was compelled to die, and to have released his spirit body and his
soul from this physical vesture, and thereafter exist as pure spirit.
This was not the death that he died as a consequence of his disobedience,
but the death natural to him, by reason of the very nature of his
creation.
His soul and spirit body were not subject to death
in the sense of annihilation, but were given the qualities of continual
existence in a pure and perfect state, and the only difference that
the fall made as to these parts of his being, is that the purity
and harmony that were men's are now no longer parts of his soul
and spirit.
Whether immortality was a quality of that existence,
we spirits do not know, and therefore cannot assert, but as his
created soul and spirit body had a beginning - mere creatures of
the Father - it may be that they were intended to have an ending,
as individualized soul and spirit.
Of course, they were created from something, and
not from nothing, as some of your theologians say, and it is possible,
in the order of change, which seems to be the law in the spirit
world as well as in the mortal world, that this soul and spirit
may be resolved again into that something.
But as to this finality we do not have any knowledge,
because, so far as the observation of spirits in this world go,
no soul or spirit body - and I mean the body as a composite whole,
and not as to its constituent elements - has ever been resolved
into that something, or been deprived of its individualized existence.
Therefore I cannot say, that when man was created, it was intended
that, as man, he should not be immortal, or that he should be so.
But you will readily see, that after man shall have
accomplished the purification of his soul and become in mind and
spirit body, as it was intended he should be at the time of his
creation, he will be nothing more nor less than he was at that time,
and have no other or greater qualities, or freedom from limitations
and changes than he had before his fall. Of course he will have
no physical body, and here let me say that there is no fact or experience
known to the spirit world that justifies the assertion that man
on earth will ever be immune to physical death. I know that some
say, that in the far future men may make such progress in the development
of their natural love that their condition of inner purity will
be so great as to cause the physical bodies to become so etherialized
as to render them free from physical death. But that I cannot conceive
will ever happen, for men were made to become inhabitants of the
spiritual realms, and the short time they were decreed to live the
earth life was for the purpose only of giving the soul an individualized
existence.
Never was it intended that the physical form should
have an eternity of existence, no matter how pure, or, as they say,
etherealized it may become, for it was made of matter, of the earth,
earthy, while the soul was made of that which had its origin in
the spirit realm, and composed of spirit substance, so that it cannot
be conceived that in the beginning man was created for an immortal
earth existence.
I see that you are tired, and I will finish later.
I am glad that I could write tonight, and also that you are in such
good condition to receive my message.
So with my love and blessings and assurances that
you have every reason to keep up your courage and hope, I am
Your brother in Christ,
John
|
|
