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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 regarding his physical formation, but also as
regarding 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
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