Jesus Writes About God and His Personality

April 7, 1919
Received by James Padgett
Washington, D.C.

I am here, Jesus.

Let me write a few lines. I see that you were much interested in what the preacher (Dr. Swain) said tonight about God and His personality, and that you gave him several questions, which he could not answer. This must be expected, for to men is not given ordinarily a true conception of God, or who or what He is, and only by the development of their souls by the Divine Love can they obtain any conception of His being. As their souls thus develop, they become a part of His Divinity, and their soul perceptions become opened up to a realization of who God is, to a small degree at least, and then they know that He is something more than an all enveloping energy, supplemented by a purposeful will.

The preacher has not these soul perceptions and cannot conceive of God, the Soul, but can only express to you the truthfulness of the evidences of God's existence, such as the energy that he spoke of.

As you know, this energy is His Spirit, although the preacher has not the exact conception of what this Spirit is or how it operates. He confuses the soul and spirit, and makes the mere instrument by or with which God expresses His energy to be the real true substance of God, the Soul. He is right when he says that he cannot go back of this energy to find God, for his soul perceptions have not yet been awakened to a cognition of that from which the energy proceeds, or which is the very source from which flows all the manifestations that, to his mind, constitute God.

He is like the theologians and philosophers, who believe that these manifestations and energies and forces are the only God, the only personal God; and he may be shocked to hear that his teachings amount to only this. But it is true, and to him there is no more personal God than to the others, with this exception; that he attempts to believe that in some manner and in some way connected with this energy, there is a Will which has in it a purpose of love or kindness or fatherly care; but the real personal God, with his Great Soul of Love which is being always bestowed upon the individual man, he does not conceive of or make his own.

God is Soul, and only Soul, which has in it all the attributes of Love and wisdom and thought for the welfare of His creatures. He is a thinking and seeing God, and all the energies of His Soul are used to make men better and happier. As is the natural father of the man a personal father, so is the Great Soul of God, a Personal Father to all His children; and men when they have the development of their souls in the Divine Love will know that God is personal - something more than an all enveloping energy or force or mere manifestation of His existence.

The preacher says, in substance, that God is everywhere, and His presence may be realized by all who are willing to receive that manifestation, and that whether they are or not willing, that presence exists just the same. This is pantheism, toned down a little by his beliefs in a more personal God, but still pantheism, and wholly wrong and violative of God's being.

The source of things can never be the things themselves, although the things as they flow from the source have some of the qualities of the source itself, and so these manifestations of God's existence, while they are of His qualities, yet they are not equivalent of His presence or the source from which they flow. God is not everywhere, but in His Heavens, and all these expressions of His powers and will and energies are merely evidences that there is a source from which they all come, and they are not that source itself.

And again, the preacher said that God created the body of man and not the spirit, as he calls it, meaning the soul, so that the body is a creation by itself and cannot contain in it the spirit or the spirit body, but that this spirit is outside of the human body and is, in a general way, a part of one Great Spirit that is universal and everywhere and that, therefore, all men, no matter what their conditions may be in the earth life or in the eternity part of life, are brothers, and God is the Father of them all.

Well in this the preacher is mistaken, for every man has his own individual spirit and soul, and on the state or condition of that soul depends the happiness or misery of the man; and he is merely the brother of other men because he is a creature of God and made in his image, and not because he is a part of the universal spirit, which the preacher believes permeates everything and exists everywhere. And God is the Father, because these children are His creatures, the objects of His creation, and individualized, each working out his own destiny. As we have told you, some of these children will always remain the merely created children, while others will partake of His Divine Love and become a part of His divinity and inhabitants of the Celestial Spheres.

The preacher has many things to learn, and as he believes in the search for the truth, if he will let the Divine Love flow into his heart and transform his soul into the very essence and substance of the Father's divinity, he will be able to learn many things spiritual as well as of things material are governed by law, and unless the soul gets into a condition that enables it to see and realize the higher truths of the spirit world, it can never obtain knowledge of things spiritual, and one of the objects of such knowledge is God.

Well, I have written enough and will stop. With my love, I will say good night.

Your brother and friend,
Jesus

St. Luke Writes on the Erroneous Teachings of the New Thought Movement

March 9, 1919
Received by James Padgett
Washington, D.C.

St. Luke.

Let me write a few lines tonight as you are in better condition, and I am able to make a rapport with you and deliver my message.

I was with you today at a meeting of the New Thought people and saw the impression made upon you by the speaker in his efforts to show that God is within man, and that only the opening up of the soul or mind of man to the development of that God is all that is necessary to bring that man into a perfect at-onement with the truths of God's Will.

Well, I have to say that this speaker, when he comes to a realization of himself in the spirit world, will find that God is not in him or in anything that he may have possessed in his earth life; and that his development of the kingdom within him, as he termed it, was a mere delusion and a snare to the progress of his soul in its career through the earth life, as well as through the Heavens or spirit world.

He is mistaken when he announces that the Kingdom of Heaven is within him, or that he has that within him which can, by its development, lead to the condition of the perfect man, in the sense that he spoke of. He is following a false way, and all the efforts that he may make will not lead him into the paths that end in the perfect man that partakes of the Father's Divinity.

He is also mistaken when he asserts that God is everywhere - in the flowers and in the thoughts of men and in the heart - for God does not find his habitation in any of these things, and men do not live and move and have their being in Him. He is a distinct and individual entity and is not spread over all His universe, as the preacher proclaimed, and can only be found by the longings of the soul followed by a development of that soul in His Love. No, God is in His Heavens, and man can reach Him only by the persistent longings of that soul for the inflowing of His Love.

These things that the preacher declared were the presence of God are only the expressions of His being, and they do not declare His presence in any other sense than as the evidence of His existence - in His habitation, from which these expressions flow and make known to man His presence, as these things reflect it.

I am sorry that this speaker has not more knowledge of the true God, and of His seat of habitation, for then he would realize that these things upon which he places so much belief as being the very God, Himself, are but the expressions that flow from Him.

Man has within him that which has in itself wonderful possibilities - I mean the soul. And it may, by the observance of the way that transforms it into a Divine Angel, become Divine itself, or it may only by the slow process of renunciation become merely the perfect man with his natural love in a pure state, which was the condition of the first parents. If men will listen to the call to their souls, they will realize this possibility and receive this Divinity, and with it, immortality; but without this transformation they never can become other or greater than the perfect man.

I know that men teach that there is implanted within the souls of all men, that which is capable of being developed into an existence like unto God, that man needs only this development in order to become a God, and that there is nothing else necessary to make a human soul a part of the Soul of God. But in this teaching men are mistaken and will find themselves, at the stage of their highest development, nothing more than the perfect man.

Man has within him only that with which he was created and can of himself add not one thing that will change him from this condition of his creation. It is true that he can by a right course of thinking and living renounce those things that have tainted his soul and alienated it from the Father and made it sinful and disobedient; but when this is done, he is still only the perfect man, and nothing of the Divine is in him.

Jesus was the perfect man and, as such, was an exemplar of what all men will ultimately become; and if Jesus had never become more than the perfect man, he would not now be an inhabitant of the Celestial Heavens and the beloved Son of the Father. Yet he became more than the perfect man, and it was only after he attained to this condition of excellence, that he could say, "I and my Father are one," for it was then only that he possessed the Divine Love to that degree which made him at-one with the Father.

Only he is at-one with the Father that realizes that he is possessed of the very nature and Essence of the Father, and there is only one way in which this can be obtained, and that is by the inflowing into the soul of the Divine Love. Jesus could not say to the multitude that they were at-one with him and with the Father, for they had only the natural love and had not experienced the transformation of their souls; and such sayings as this were addressed only to his disciples, or to those among his hearers that had received this Love.

The speaker spoke of the New Birth, but had no conception of what it meant and, like many other teachers in and out of the churches, believes that a mere condition of the purification of the natural love constitutes this New Birth, and that that is all Jesus meant when he taught the necessity of being Born Again. There is only one way in which this New Birth can be brought about, and that you already know.

As to the moral truths taught by the Master, such as are referred to in the Sermon on the Mount, undoubtedly they will, if observed in the heart, bring about a regeneration of the soul that will lead men to the glory of the perfect man and make him at-one with the laws of his creation. This condition is devoutly to be wished for and sought after by all men, and when they attain to this condition they will experience the beatitudes that are mentioned in the sermon; but this is only the state of the perfect man and nothing of the Divine enters into their condition.

"New Thought," as it is called, has in it something that is an improvement on orthodoxy, and men will be the better if they will embrace some of its teachings. The great stumbling blocks of the Trinity, and the vicarious atonement and the blood would be moved from the worship of men, and they would then rely on the moral truths in the development of their souls for salvation, and would not rest supinely in the belief of the efficacy of the vicarious atonement. But some other things that it teaches are all wrong, and its followers will find when they come to the spirit world that there is a God to be worshipped, and that man has not within him that God to be developed by his own thoughts and deeds.

I know that according to the orthodox teachings too little is thought of the natural goodness of man, and too much emphasis placed in his innate depravity, and that nothing in man is worthy of the release from the sin and disobedience in which he is now living; and that of himself he can do nothing to bring about his purification and restoration to his original condition of the perfect man. This is wrong, for very largely upon man's efforts depends his redemption; "and as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he." He is naturally good, and his present condition was brought about by his permitting his soul to be contaminated with sin, and to become again good he needs only to pursue that way that will remove sin and its consequences from his soul.

Man created sin, and he will have to remove sin, and the process will be slow, but ultimately it will be accomplished, and by the efforts of man himself. He will be helped by spirits who are God's ministering angels in these efforts, but upon him depends the removal of that which he created and imposed. And here let me say, that unless man wills it, he will forever remain in sin, and God will not, contrary to man's desires, make him a pure and undefiled being; and man's belief, unaccompanied by striving and seeking, will not be sufficient to bring about this remedy.

The speaker is a good man, and has experienced to a large degree the workings of his own will upon the conditions of his soul, and knows that his own efforts have caused him to renounce many things that tended to defile him and cause doubt, and in this condition realizes much happiness, and thinks that he is of himself sufficient to attain to that which will bring him into a perfect unison with the God that he thinks is within him. In this he is deceiving himself, for what he thinks is God is only an unusual condition of soul development in its natural love, that gives him a happiness which causes him to believe that God must be in and a part of him.

As you have been told, the happiness of the purified soul is beyond all conception of humans, and the nearer a man approaches to that condition of purification of his soul, the greater becomes his happiness, and the belief that God must in some way be in that happiness and form a part of it, when the fact is that this happiness is only that which was bestowed upon man in the beginning. As the soul becomes purer and relieved from the defilement of sin, man becomes what he was in the beginning and has regained only that which by nature is his. He does not receive any part of the Divine, nor does the Father bestow upon him anything that was not his at the creation, and he must realize that by the removal of sin, his soul becomes more and more in harmony with the will of God, and less and less in harmony with his own perverted will.

Let "New Thought" progress until men may realize that they are at-one with themselves, their created selves, but let it not teach them that what they experience as a removal of sin from their own souls by their own efforts and thoughts, is evidence of a development of any supposed God within them, for it is not true; but is merely the development of their own natural created selves, freed from that which defiled and made them unnatural.

The speaker said that the Kingdom of Heaven is within all men, and needs only for men to realize that fact, and declare its truth, and that then they will become pure and like unto God, and find themselves in the presence of God, and see Him face to face. Well, in this he is all wrong, for the Kingdom of Heaven or Celestial Kingdom is not within men, though it may be, and neither is God in their souls and capable of being seen face to face. These men - who teach purification of their natural love and a superior state resulting from that purification and nothing more - will never see God, and they will always remain in the mere image in which they were created, a merely purified man made in the image of God, and nothing more. The Father will then be the same unseen Creator as he is now, and men will worship Him in faith only, for their soul perceptions, which are the only eyes of the soul that can see God, will not exist, and to them God will still remain the unseen and unknowable being that exists today in the knowledge and belief of men.

Well, I have written enough for tonight, but saw that you were somewhat interested in the teachings of the day, and thought it best that I should write you as to the truth of the subject of which he discoursed and evidently believed.

With my love to you, and the hope that our messages may now continue without interruption, I will say, good night.

Your brother in Christ,
Luke

St. Stephen Writes on the Meaning of the Divine Nature

November 13, 1918
Received by James Padgett
Washington, D.C.

I am here, St. Stephen.

Let me write a few words tonight as I am one of the spirits whom your wife wrote of last night would come tonight with the desire to write.

My subject is: "What is the meaning of the Divine Nature which the soul of man partakes of, upon the transformation of that soul by the inflowing and possession of the Divine Love?"

This, as you may perceive, will be somewhat difficult to explain and, principally, because men have no very definite conception of what is comprehended by the term "Divine." They, of course, associate this word with God, and to them God is a being whose nature and qualities are above their finite conceptions and, as a result of their thoughts, is that which is over and above everything that is called or supposed to be understood as natural. To some, God is a being of personality, and to others, a kind of nebulous existence included in and composing all the various manifestations which are transcendently above what they conceive to be the merely natural or human.

I will not attempt to discuss who or what God is, except as to one of His qualities or attributes, and that the greatest - for you must know that all the qualities of God are not of equal greatness or degree of importance in the workings of His essence of substance. All, of course, partake of His Divine Being, but, as you might say, there is a difference in the workings and scope of their operations.

You have been told that the Divine is that which has in it, to a sufficient degree, the very Substance and Essence of God, Himself; and this is true, for Divinity belongs to God alone and can be possessed by others, spirits or mortals, only when He has transfused into or bestowed upon the souls of men a portion of this Divinity, and to the extent thereof made them a part of Himself.

There is nothing in all His universe that is Divine or partakes of the Divine except that which is of the soul, for all else is of the material, and this even when it has the form or appearance of the spiritual. And even the soul, as created, is not Divine and cannot become such, until it is transformed into the Divine by the transfusion into it of that which, in its very substance, is Divine.

Many souls in the spirit world, although pure and in exact harmony with their created condition, are not Divine and never will become such, and this only because these souls will not desire and seek to become Divine in the only way provided by the Father.

It is a mistake for men to believe that because God has created this or that object or thing, it is necessarily Divine, for His creations are no more a part of Himself than are the creations of men a part of themselves; and thus you will see that in all God's creation, there is nothing Divine except what has been privileged by His grace to partake of His Divinity. And, hence, the stars and worlds and trees and animals and rocks and man himself, as created, are not Divine.

Men have claimed that in man there is a spark of the Divine - a part as they say of the "Oversoul," and that it needs only the proper development to make the soul of man wholly Divine. And this theory is based upon the idea that this development can be accomplished by the exercise of the mind or the moral qualities guided by the conscience, which they assert is of itself Divine; especially when dominated by reason, which has been so often worshiped by philosophers and others (to whom the mind is supreme) as Divine. And they have attempted to differentiate man and the lower animals and attributed to the former the qualities of Divinity, because he is endowed with reason and the lower animals are not and have substituted degrees in the order and objects of creation in the place of differentiation between the Divine and non-Divine.

God is wholly Divine and every part and attribute of Him is Divine, and while they are parts of the whole, yet they may be separated in their workings and bestowals; and the man or soul that is the recipient of the bestowal of one of these qualities or attributes is not necessarily the recipient of the others.

Omnipotence and omniscience are those attributes of God's Divinity which He never bestows upon the souls of men or spirits, and as to them He is the exclusive possessor, although in all His attributes there are powers and knowledge, and they accompany the bestowal of all attributes of which they are parts; and one of these Divine attributes may be bestowed upon man, and yet man not become Deity. There is and can be only one God, although He may give of His Essence and very Substance, so that a man can become as He is in that Essence and Substance, to the extent that it is bestowed.

As regards man and his salvation and happiness, the greatest of God's qualities or attributes is His Divine Love, which is the only one that can bring the souls of men into a oneness and nature with the Father, and which has in it the quality of immortality. This Love has a transforming power and can make that which is of a quality foreign to and different from itself of the same essence as itself; and, more than this, can eliminate from that thing those constituents which naturally and necessarily are its components, without injuring or destroying the thing itself.

Well we must stop here. I will finish later.

I am St. Stephen

**********

Helen confirms that St. Stephen wrote on the meaning of the Divine Nature.

I am here, your own true and loving Helen.

Well dear, you have had a very interesting letter tonight upon a very vital and important subject, and I am sorry that the writer could not finish his message, but the rapport became very weak and he was compelled to stop. He will come again soon and finish as he is very anxious to do so. It was Stephen who wrote and he is a most beautiful spirit possessing this Love to a degree that I cannot conceive of, and a most glorious spirit in his appearance.

I am glad that you were in such good condition and I hope that you will continue to improve so that more of the messages may be delivered to you every other night. There are so many messages to be written.

Your own true and loving,
Helen

Jesus Writes About the Great Abundance of Divine Love Inflowing Into James Padgett's Soul

January 6, 1918
Received by James Padgett
Washington, D.C.

I am here, Jesus.

Well my brother, I am glad to tell you that your communion with the Father tonight has been responded to. His Love has inflowed into your soul in great abundance. His Holy Spirit has been bringing the Love in wonderful abundance and your soul is now filled with it, and the influence of this Great Love is working in your soul, and you realize its presence.

If you will meditate and long for and pray to the Father as you have tonight, your soul will soon be so filled with this Love, that you will receive the knowledge that you have a near at-onement with Him, and you will be conscious of the possession of a part of His Divinity of which we have written you.

The Pentecostal Shower will come to you as it did to my disciples in the days that followed my departing from them; and I will be with you also just as I was with them and power and Essence Divine will be bestowed upon you so that you will be able to display the marvelous presence of this Love just as they were able.

So you must pray and long, and your experience tonight has given you some foretaste of what will come to you. There is nothing in all the world that can take the place of this Love in its power to draw you near to - and make you in at-onement with - the Father. All beliefs and faiths in any and every other thing will not suffice. Sacrifice and sorrow on account of sin and vicarious sufferings and mediators will not work the transformation, because it is solely a conjunction between this Divine Love and your soul that is capable of bringing you into this relationship to the Father, and the resultant consciousness that you have partaken of and possess, to some extent, His Divine Nature in Love.

Now you are in condition that makes my rapport with you complete, and I have that possession of your brain that enables me to write as I may desire, and I know that I could convey a message to you tonight in a most satisfactory way; but I will not do so, for I think it best to permit the rapport to become a little more intense, and thus enable me to write a long message without the probability of tiring you; for as you know these messages of deep truths, such as the ones on the "Soul" and "God," necessarily cause me to draw very intensely on your brain power.

But soon now, I will come and commence to deliver my messages and continue to do so if our rapport can be maintained. And it can be, if you will only meditate and pray as you have done tonight. I have been with you very much today, entering into your thoughts and endeavoring to influence the longings of your soul. I was with you at the spiritualist's meeting and sometime I will write you in reference to the claims of the speaker and the real facts as to how much of what she said was inspired, or as she claims, was spoken through her by a controlling spirit.

I now want you to think more than ever of the importance of your work and of the necessity for you putting all your energies and desires into the work. No one can conceive of what it means and, above all, you must realize its great importance and the place that you occupy in carrying it to a successful issue. I will be with you very often and I know that you will feel my presence and influence and, as you do, turn all your thoughts to the Father's Love and let all your longings go to Him.

Tonight, I will not write more, but will soon write as I have said. Have faith and know that you have been selected to do the work, and that upon you rests the responsibility that is upon no other man. With my love and the Father's blessings, I will say good night.

Your brother and friend,
Jesus

Elias, Known as Elijah of the Old Testament, Writes an Encouraging Note for Mr. Padgett to Not Doubt the Work of Receiving the Truths

February 7, 1917
Received by James Padgett
Washington, D.C.

I am here, Elias.

I want also to encourage you in the belief that you have the great work to do, and that you must not falter or delay the coming of the messages, for if you will only think for a moment, you will realize that there is no other way in which these truths can at this time be conveyed to mankind.

You must not doubt, or cause yourself to hesitate for a moment to believe that the work has been imposed upon you as one not fitted to receive these truths. I know that sometime it is hard for you to believe that you have been selected to do this great work or that you are fitted to receive these great spiritual truths that are to be given to the world, but you must not let such thoughts linger in your mind, for it is a fact that you have been selected to do the work, and you must not shirk it, for if you do, mankind may remain a long time in ignorance of what the truth is, and the way in which it can take on the Essence of the Father, and become His true children, and partakers of His nature, so that the very Essence and Divinity of the Father may become a part of the people.

The work must be done by you and you must not doubt, but have a firm conviction of its truth and try your best to receive the messages. I merely wanted to say this much, as I am much interested in the work. Yes, there are a great number present, and you have around you a wonderful spiritual influence, which should cause you to believe that these spirits are present trying to help you.

I was Elijah of the Old Testament, and I actually lived and was a prophet among the Jews, and was not John the Baptist, nor was he a reincarnation of me as some of earth teachers claim. John was himself alone. He was in the flesh only once and was not a reincarnation of me or any one else.

I will not write more now, so good night.

Your brother in Christ
Elias

Jesus Writes on How the Soul of a Mortal Receives the Divine Love

November 10, 1916
Received by James Padgett
Washington, D.C.

I am here, Jesus.

I come tonight to tell you that you are in a better condition than you were last night and, in fact, have been for some nights past. I desire to write you a message on the question of: "How the soul of a mortal receives the Divine Love, and what its effect is, even though subsequently his mind may indulge in those beliefs that may tend to prevent the growth of the soul - what is a lost soul?"

As you know, the inflowing of this Love is caused by its bestowal by the Holy Spirit in response to sincere prayer and longings. I mean prayer and longings for the Love Itself, and not prayers in general,for the material benefits that men more often and more naturally, as they believe, ask for and desire. The prayers of mortals for these things that may tend to make them successful and happy in their natural love are answered also, if it be best that they should be, but these are not the prayers that bring the Divine Love or cause the Holy Spirit to work with men.

As the prayers of the sincere, earnest soul ascend to the Father, that soul becomes opened up to the inflowing of this Love, and the soul's perceptions enlarge and come more in rapport with the conditions or influence that always accompanies the presence of this Love and, consequently, its entrance into the soul becomes easier and its reception more perceptible to the soul sense. The more earnest the prayer and sincere the longings, the sooner faith comes and with this faith, the realization that the Divine Love is permeating the soul.

When once the Divine Love finds a lodgment in the soul, it, to the extent that it receives the Love, becomes as it were a changed substance, partaking of the Essence of the Love; and as water may become colored by an ingredient foreign to itself, and which changes not only its appearance but its qualities, so this Divine Love changes the appearance and qualities of the soul, and this change of qualities continues ever thereafter. The natural qualities of the soul and the Essence of the Love become one and united and the soul is made altogether different in its constituency from what it was before the inflowing of the Love, but this only to the extent of the Love received. As this Love increases in quantity, the change and transformation becomes correspondingly greater, until at last the transformation may and will become so great, that the whole soul becomes a thing of this Divine Essence, and partakes of its very Nature and Substance, a being of Divinity.

When once this Love enters and truly possesses the soul and works the change mentioned, It, the Love, never leaves nor disassociates Itself from the soul - its character of Divine Essence never changes to that of the mere natural love, and so far as It is present, sin and error have no existence, because it is just as impossible for this Essence and sin and error to occupy the same parts of the soul at the same time as it is for two material objects to occupy the same space at the same time, as your philosophers say. Divinity never gives place to that which is not of the Divine. Man is working towards the attainment of the Divine, when he pursues the way provided for obtaining the Divine Nature, and as he advances and obtains a portion of this Divine, no matter how small, he can never retrace his steps to the extent of ridding himself of this transforming Essence, and again become without its presence.

But this does not mean that a man may not lose the consciousness of the existence of this Essence within his soul, for he frequently does. The indulgence of his carnal appetites and evil desires will place him in the condition that he may cease to have a consciousness of the existence of the Divine Love in his soul, and to himself, he will be as if he had never had any experience of the change that I speak of.

And while this Love can never be eradicated by the evils that man may indulge in or by the mental beliefs that he may acquire, yet the progress of this Love in his soul may be checked and become stagnant, as if the Love were not, and sin and error may appear to be the only dominant elements of his life and being. But yet, when once possessed, the Love cannot be crowded out of his soul by sin and error, no matter, how deep and intense they may be. I know that this may seem strange and impossible to man's intellectual thinking, and that it is not in accordance with what has been attributed to me as teaching that a soul may be lost, nevertheless, a soul that has once received this Divine Essence cannot be lost, though its want of realization of the presence of this Love and its awakening from its dormant condition caused by sin and error and its misdirected beliefs may delay its manifestation of life and existence for a long time, and much suffering and darkness may have to be endured by the soul that is in such condition. And I must not be understood by this, as meaning that a soul cannot be lost, for it can, and many have been and will be, and many will realize the fact when too late.

Now, what is a lost soul? Not one that a man may actually lose in the sense of being deprived of it,  separated from it actually, or even as regards his consciousness of not having a soul, for while, at times, he may believe that he has lost his soul in the sense of not having any, yet he is mistaken, for the soul, which is the man, can never be separated from himself, and as long as he lives in the physical body or in the spiritual body, his soul will be with him. And yet he may have a soul, consciously or not, and at the same time have lost it. This may seem a paradox to the mortal intellect or to the intellect of spirit, but it is true.

Then what is a lost soul? When God gave to man a soul, that soul was made in the image but not in the Substance of its Maker, and at the same time there was bestowed on him the privilege of having that soul become of the Substance of the Father, and to an extent, Divine, and entitled to and capable of living in the Celestial Kingdom of the Father, where everything is of the Divine Essence and Nature. When the first parents by their act of disobedience forfeited that privilege their souls lost the possibility of becoming of the Divine Nature and at-one with the Father in His Kingdom, and they thereby lost not the natural soul, which was a part of their creation, but the soul having the possibility of obtaining the Essence of Divinity and Immortality as the Father has Immortality.

As I have said, heretofore, with my coming this great privilege was restored to mankind, and the lost soul became again the object of man's recovery, and now he has that privilege as did the first parents before the fall; but also men may lose it as did they. As with them their souls were lost until they received into it the Divine Essence of the Father, so with men now, their souls are lost until and unless they receive this Divine Essence therein. As the first parents by their disobedience and refusal, forfeited their privilege of having their souls become a living, Divine Substance, so now, men by their disobedience and refusal will forfeit their privilege to save their souls from separation from the Divine Unity with the Father. The lost soul is as real as the verities of the Father's immutable laws, and only by the operation of the Divine Love can the soul lost, become the soul found.

Men may believe and teach that within them is a part of the Divine that will cause their souls to progress and develop until it reaches the condition of Divinity that will make it a part of the Divinity of the Father. But in this they are all wrong, for, while man was the highest creation of God, and the most perfect, and made in his image, yet in man is no part of the Divine, and having no part of the Divine, it is wholly impossible for him to progress to the possession of the Divine. He, of himself, no matter what his development may be, can never become greater or more perfect or of a higher nature, than he was at his creation.

The Divine comes from above and when once planted in a man's soul, there can be no limit to its expansion and development, even in the Celestial Heavens. Let all men seek this Love and there will be no lost souls; but, alas, many will not do so, and the Spiritual Heavens will be filled with lost souls not having the Divine Essence of the Father.

I have written enough for tonight, and I am pleased at the way in which you received my message. Continue to pray to the Father for more and more of His Divine Love, and your prayers will be answered, and you will realize with the certainty of conscious possession of the Divine Essence, that your soul is not lost and never will be. So with my love and blessings, I will say good night and God bless you.

Your brother and friend,
Jesus

John Writes About the Truth of "In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God, etc."

September 17, 1916
Received by James Padgett
Washington, D.C.

I am here, St. John, Apostle of Jesus.

I want to say only a few words in reference to what the man said to you about my gospel or rather the gospel attributed to me. His reference to the opening words of the Gospel that, "In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God, etc.," is without any force, to prove that Jesus is God, or one of the Godhead, for it was never written by me or at my dictation and does not state a truth.

The "word" in the sense referred to in that Gospel can mean only God, for He, and He alone, was in the beginning and made everything that was made. As we have often told you, Jesus was the son of a father and mother - the same as you are a son of your father and mother - and was not begotten by the Holy Ghost in the sense ascribed to his birth in the account thereof.

He was born of the Holy Spirit as his soul opened up to the inflowing of the Divine Love and was the first of mankind to receive this Divine Love and the Father's Essence of Divinity and, hence, was the first fruits of the rebestowal of this Love and, as a consequence, was the first fitted to declare the truths of the Father and show the way. As his soul became filled with this Love, and he grew in wisdom and knowledge of the truths of the Father, it may be said that he was sent by the Father to declare the truths and explain the way to the Celestial Heavens and the at-onement with the Father.

Undoubtedly, this Love commenced to flow into his soul soon after his birth, because he was selected to declare the truths of the rebestowal of the Divine Love, and the knowledge of that mission came to him as he grew in love and wisdom. Hence, he was without sin, though apparently only a boy - natural as other boys in his human instincts and feelings. But he was the son of man - Joseph and Mary - and also a son of God, as all men are, with the addition that he was an heir to the Celestial Kingdom.

He was not God, and even up to this time has never seen God, as the orthodox believe, and as Moses and some of the Old Bible characters are said to have seen God. But with his soul perceptions he has seen God, and so have many others of us who are inhabitants of the Celestial Heavens, and that sight is just as real to us as is the sight to you of any of your fellow mortals. It is impossible to explain this to you so that you may fully comprehend its meaning, but this seeing God by our soul perceptions is a thing of reality and brings with it increased happiness and knowledge of immortality.

Jesus is not God, but he is the most highly developed spirit in all the Heavens and is nearest to God in Love and knowledge of truth.

So I say, the Word is God and Jesus is His son, and you may become His son in the same sense, as an heir to the Divine Essence of the Father, and an Angel of His Kingdom. As Jesus has written you, all men are His sons, but with a different inheritance, yet, one that is provided by the Father. Let not these doctrines of the teachers of what are called Bible truths trouble you, and listen and believe only what may be written you by us.

I will not write more tonight as it is late and in closing will say that you have our love and prayers.

I am your brother in Christ,
John

Luke Writes About Truth of the Development of the Soul in its Natural Love Wherein the New Birth is Never Experienced

February 3, 1916
Received by James Padgett
Washington, D.C.

I am here, Luke.

I come tonight to say a few words concerning the great truth of the development of the soul in its natural love wherein the New Birth is never experienced.

I know that men think that this natural love has in it a part of the Divinity of the Father's nature, and that as they develop in the way of purifying it and ridding it of those things which tend to impair its harmony, they will realize that there exists in their souls this Divinity of which we have written. But this is not true, for this natural love partakes only of those elements which the Father implanted in it at the time of man's creation, and in none of these elements is any of the qualities of the Divine Nature.

It is difficult to explain just the distinction between the Divine Love coming from the Father, and the natural love also coming from Him, and yet, not having any of the Divine Nature or qualities; but it is a fact. The natural love may become so purified that it may come into perfect harmony with the Laws governing its condition and composition, and yet, fall far short of having in it any of the Divine Love. And so, as we have explained to you, the soul may obtain this Divine Love and thereby become a part of the Father's Divinity.

I will now try to explain how the natural love of man may be developed, so that his soul may come into harmony with the Law of Love - the natural love - and make him a very happy, pure and contented being.

In the first place, I wish to say that there is no such thing in the world as original sin or evil, and that God did not create them or permit them to exist, except as He permits man to use his own will without limitation; and I mean by this that He does not say that a man, in the exercise of this will, shall do this or do that; and as respects this will, man is untrammeled. But He does say, and His Laws are inexorable in this particular, that  man, when in the exercise of the great power of free will, causes that will to come into conflict with the will of God, or to violate His Laws, he, man, must suffer the consequences.

This may be illustrated by your natural laws declaring the freedom of the press. Man may publish whatsoever he pleases, and so long as he does not thereby violate the rights of others, or of decency, he may make his publications without fear of the law; but when, in the exercise of this freedom of speech, as you call it, he violates the law, then he must suffer the consequences of this violation.

So it is with the mortal who, in the exercise of his free will, violates the Will of the Father, or the Laws limiting its exercise by the mortal. He must suffer the consequences, and the results of this violation are sin and evil created and in no other way. And surprising as it may sound to you, man is the creator of sin and evil, and not God, who is only good.

Then the question arises, "How can sin and evil be eradicated from the world?" And every thoughtful man will have the same answer and, that is, by men ceasing to violate the will of God, or His Laws, which restrict the exercise of the wills of mortals to that which, in its right exercise, will not produce sin or evil. In other words, when men by the wrong use of their wills bring about in-harmony, they can by the right use of their wills not disturb that harmony, which when it exists, leaves no room for the presence of sin and error.

So you see, the one thing necessary in order for men to become happy and free from everything that defiles them, or causes unhappiness or discord to exist, is to develop their souls in this natural love, until this love comes into perfect unison with the Laws that control it and, thus, may be applied the oft quoted expression that "Love is the fulfilling of the Law," but this means love in its purest and most perfect state.

Now how can this development of the natural love be accomplished by men?

The mind, while a powerful helper in this regard, is not of itself sufficient to bring about this great desideratum. It is true that with every mortal there is a constant warfare between the appetites and lusts of the flesh, and his higher desires; and, hence, it is said that these appetites and desires are sinful, and the cause of evil and the in-harmony that exists in the lives of mortals. But this statement is not altogether true, for as man was made with spiritual aspirations and desires, so also was he made with appetites and desires of the flesh, and the latter of themselves are not evils.

The failure to make the distinction between the fact that these appetites and desires of the flesh are not evil, and the fact that only the perversion of them brings evil, is the great stumbling block that stands in the way of man's developing this natural love in the manner that I have indicated. These, what are sometimes called the animal appetites and desires, may be exercised in such a way as to be in perfect harmony with the Laws that control them, and in such exercise not interfere with or prevent the development of this natural love to perfection.

But man, in the free exercise of his will, has in his wanderings gone beyond the limitations which the Law of Harmony has placed upon him, added to and increased and distorted the appetites and desires of the flesh which were originally bestowed upon him and, hence, has himself created those things that are not in harmony with the creation of himself.

So you see, man is a creator as well as a creature. As the latter, he cannot alter or change any of the effects of his creation; but as the former, he can alter and change and even abolish the effects of his own creation, for as the creator, (he) is greater than the things that he created - although these things of his own creation have held him in bondage and unhappiness, to a more or less extent, ever since he became their creator. The strength of this apparent paradox is that the creator, man, has for all these long centuries believed it and submitted to his creations and still does so.

So what is the remedy?

Simply this: man must awaken to the fact that he is greater than his creatures; that they are subject to his will, and that whenever, by their existence and workings, they bring discord and unhappiness, and cause his will to be exercised in opposition to the Will of the Father, then they must be destroyed and never be permitted to come into existence again. Let men become the masters of their creatures, and obedient to the great Will of their Creator, and they will realize that sin and error and unhappiness will disappear, and their natural love will come into harmony with the Laws of its creation, and earth will indeed become a Heaven, and the brotherhood of man established on earth.

If men will only think and - thinking - believe that all sin and error and the resulting unhappiness and sorrow in the world are children of their own creation, and not the children of God, and that in the economy of His universe, He leaves the control and management and even the existence of these children to the will of their parents; they will understand why evil exists, why wars and hatred and misery continue on earth to blight the lives and happiness of mortals; and why, as some say, and especially the so-called Christians, God permits all these things to exist and flourish and apparently contradict the great truth - that He is good and the fountainhead of all goodness.

The universe and the inhabitants thereof and the greatest production of His power - man - were all created by God; but sin and error and their awful followings are the creatures of man. The Laws of His universe work in harmony, and all is good; and even the apparent in-harmony, which man has created, does not affect that great harmony, but is confined in its workings to man, himself. Only man is apparently in in-harmony, and that is caused by man, himself.

Suppose, for a moment, that man's will was working in accord with that of the Father; can you imagine that there would be any of these creatures of man's perverted will in existence? Would there be any evil or hatred or disease or suffering known to the consciousness of man? I tell you, no.

Now I say man, their creator, must destroy these inharmonious creatures. Man must kill and bury deep and forever these children of the perverted exercise of his will, and until then, sin and error and all their concomitants will continue to live and flourish and torment their creator.

And I say here with all emphasis and with a full realization of the great significance and responsibility in the sight of God, which I assume in saying it, that man can destroy these bastard creatures of his will so perverted and discordant. His natural love, if permitted to assert its God-given powers and functions, is sufficient to bring his will in accord with that of the Father and turn his thoughts away from these children of his, and to make him conscious of purity and truth. The dead desires and dead appetites will bury their dead children, and man will come into his own again.

But then comes the question, "How is man to accomplish this great end, so devoutly to be wished for?"

Well, it is late now, and I will write upon this important feature of this development of his natural love in my next message. So with all my love I will say good night.

Your brother in Christ,
Luke

Jesus Writes About the Relationship of Man to the Creation of the World and the Origin of Life

January 15, 1916
Received by James Padgett
Washington, D.C.

I am here, Jesus.

I come tonight to tell you that you are in a very much better condition than you have been for some time, and your rapport with us is so very much greater, that I feel that I should write you a message upon an important subject which is vital to the salvation of man from the sins and errors of his life on earth, and I will write a portion of what I desire to write.

Well, I will first say that there are so many men and women on the earth, who believe, or assert that they believe, that through their own efforts they can develop those soul qualities which are necessary to bring them in accord with the Soul of the Father, that I find that the task of convincing these persons of the errors of their beliefs, or assumption of beliefs, will be a very great one. This task will not be confined to those who have given real and deep study to the mysteries of life, both on earth and thereafter, but also to a much greater number who have a kind of smattering of this supposed knowledge, which the wiser or more learned publish to the world as a result of their investigations.

It is more difficult to convince the ignorant, who think that they know the laws of being and the plan of the workings of God's universe, than to convince those who have given sincere thoughtful study to the same, because the latter, generally, as they progress in their investigations become convinced that the more they should know as a result of their investigations, the less they really know.

I do not know just what is the most important subject for comment tonight relating to these matters, for there are so many, all of which I must at some time instruct you about; but I will write tonight about "The relationship of man to the creation of the world and the origin of life."

Your Bible says: In the beginning God created the Heavens and the earth, etc., out of a void, and continued that creation until there was a perfect Heaven with all its glories, and a perfect earth with inhabitants of every kind - all perfect and made just as an all wise and all powerful God would create; and as a climax to all, man, who was so perfect that he was made in the image of his Creator.

Well, this story is just as good and satisfactory as any that has been conceived and written by man, and is just as worthy of belief, but as a fact it is not true, for there never was a time or period when there was a void in the universe or when there was chaos.

God never created anything out of nothing, but His creations, such as are perceived by and known to men, were merely the change in form or composition of what had already existed, and always will exist as elements, though there will undoubtedly be changes in form and appearance and in constituent elements in their relation to one another.

God was always existent - a Being without beginning, which idea the finite mind, I know cannot grasp, but it is true; and so also everything which is in the universe today always existed, though not in form and composition as they now are; and as they are - they will not continue to be, for change eternal is the law of His universe. I mean as to all things which may be spoken of as having a substance whether they be material or ethereal.

Of course, His Truths never change, and neither do the laws by which the harmony of the universe is preserved and continued perfect. Now, the earth on which you live did not always have an existence, as an earth, and neither did the firmament and the great galaxy of planets and stars, but they were not created out of nothing, and neither was there chaos, for in God's economy of being there is never any chaos, which if it should be, would mean the absence of the workings of His laws and harmony.

But the earth and the firmament were created - at one time they had no existence as such, and at a coming time they may cease to have such existence, and this creation was in an orderly way, according to design, with no element of chance entering into it; and such creation was not through what your wise men may call accretion or evolution - that is self-evolution - for every new or additional exponent of growth or manifestations of increase was the result of God's Laws, which He operated in the creation of the creature.

There is no such thing as self -evolution, or that development which arises from the unassisted growth of the thing developed, and this applies to all nature as well as to man. To grow, to become nearer perfection, implies the decay and disappearance of some elements which have performed their missions and work in the growth of the thing created, and never do the same elements continue in the development of that which the laws in their operations bring to greater and greater perfection.

But in all this work of creation, there are Laws of Disintegration and Apparent Retrogression operating, as well as Laws of Positive Construction and Advancement; and again, these former laws do not operate by chance, but by design just as do the latter class of laws. The All Creator knows when - for the purpose of bringing forth the perfect creature - be it man or animal or vegetable or mineral - the Laws of Decay and Retrogression as well as the Laws of Advancement and Increased Effectiveness shall operate, and He never makes a mistake in setting into operation these laws and never pronounces the result of His work, "Not good."

As has been said, a thousand years are as a day with God, and while for many long years it may appear to man, there are retrogression and delay in bringing to perfection a creature of the Creator's works, yet that apparent retrogression is not such a fact, but only a course or method adopted for bringing forth the higher or greater perfection. I know it is difficult to explain these workings of creation to the finite, earthy mind but you may grasp some conception of what I desire to make known.

Man, in his creation, was not the slow growth as were some of the other creations of God, but was from and at the beginning made perfect, with the exception of the qualities of Divinity and Immortality. He did not grow from a lower creature, as some of your scientists have proclaimed, by the slow process of evolution, and this a self-evolution resulting from inherent qualities which were developed by experience, but he was created the perfect man.

I will stop for the present.

Your brother and friend,
Jesus

Luke Writes Further On the Atonement, Part 2

January 4, 1916
Received by James Padgett
Washington, D.C.

I am here, St. Luke.

I wish to continue my discourse on the Atonement.

As I was saying unless a man gets into harmony with God in the natural love, which God bestowed upon him, and thereby becomes free from sin and error, there can be no redemption for him, and the death of Jesus and the shedding of his blood cannot cause that harmony.

Now what I have heretofore said relates exclusively to man and his salvation in respect to his condition of becoming perfect in this natural love, which all men have. But this is not the great atonement, which Jesus came to earth to teach men and the way in which it could be obtained and the effect of its attainment.

As has been told you, in the beginning God conferred upon our first parents not only the natural love but the potentiality of obtaining it by the observance of certain laws and obedience, the Divine Love of the Father, which - when obtained - would make a man a part of divinity itself; and while it would not make him a god, or the equal of the Father, yet it would give him a divinity that would cause him to receive the substance of God's Great Love and not remain the mere image and, as a consequence, man would become immortal.

God alone, is Immortal, and every part of Him is Immortal, and when men shall obtain in their souls that part of Him which is his Greatest Attribute - His Divine Love - they will also become Immortal and thereafter not subject to death.

The natural love, which was implanted in the souls of all mankind, is not a part of the Divine Love. It is not this love in a lesser degree even, but is a distinct and separate quality of love, and all men possess it; but in many persons, it has become contaminated by the sins that flow from the violation of God's Laws, so that the redemption, of which I have spoken, is necessary for man even as the possessor of this natural love only.

But the Divine Love of the Father is a Love that has in it and is wholly composed of the Divinity, which the Father possesses, and no man can ever become a part of that Divinity until he possesses this Great Love. I know it is said that man is divine because he was created in the image of God, but nothing which is a mere image is ever a part of the substance of which it is the image and cannot possibly have the qualities of that substance. Commonly speaking, the image may have the appearance and for the ordinary affairs of the mortal life may serve the purpose of the real until something that arises that demands the production of the real, and then the image will no longer serve the purpose.

Now in the case of the creation of man, he was made in the image of God in one particular only, and that in the matter of soul appearance. His physical or spiritual body was not in the image of God, for God has no such bodies, and only the soul of man is in the image of God, the Great Oversoul. And so long as man remains a mere image of the Father, he will never be more than the mere man that he was at the time of his creation, and the Substance of the Father will never become a part of him; and while the Substance is Divine, the image can never become Divine until it becomes transformed into the Substance.

At man's creation, a plan was formed by which that image might become a thing of Substance, and there was given to man, the possessor of the image, the potentiality of obtaining the Substance; but man, through his disobedience or failure to comply with or follow out the requirements of the plan provided, forfeited this potentiality, which had been conferred upon him and thereby lost the possibility of having the image transformed into the Substance, which was absolutely necessary in order for him to ever become the possessor of any part of the Father's Divinity. And when men call themselves "divine," they assert that which is not true, but which, since the coming of Jesus to earth, may become true.

I will not recite what this disobedience of our first parents was, or in what way they lost the great potentiality of becoming Divine, but will only say that when, by their disobedience, they forfeited this potentiality, it was taken from them by God, and His decree - that in the day they should commit the act of disobedience they should surely die - was carried out and they died; not the material bodies died nor their spiritual bodies died, nor their souls, for men continued to live in their physical bodies for many years after the day of disobedience, and their spirit bodies and souls never died, for they still live. But what died and what the sentence passed upon them affected was the potentiality of receiving the Substance, which would make them Divine and Immortal. This potentiality was taken from them and never restored during the long centuries from the time of its death until the coming of Jesus.

That part of the Divine Nature, or that Divine attribute, which was the object of this potentiality and which would make man a part of the Divine Nature and immortal, was the Divine Love of the Father and nothing else; and if our first parents, through their obedience, had received this Divine Love, never would mortality as to the soul have existed on earth, and neither sin nor a want of atonement with the Father. But disobedience came and death of the possibility of becoming immortal ensued, and man remained mere man, only an image of the Father and nothing more.

No man in all the long ages that I have mentioned ever had anything more or greater in his nature than the natural love of which I have spoken; and even as to that, man so abused and defiled it, until at a time he became an outcast from the Father as to this Love. In other words he, man, buried it so deeply under his acts of sin and the violation of those Laws of God, which control this natural love, that he appeared to be forsaken by the Father even as a mere human being.

But in the history of what is called "God's chosen people," the Jews, it appears that time and time again these people became such aliens from God in this natural love, that men, possessed of this love in a purer state than were the common people, were used by the forces of the spirit world to call these people to a realization of their obligations to God arising out of the gift of the natural love. None of the prophets - neither Moses nor Elijah nor any of the others - was possessed of this Divine Love, but merely of the natural love in a purer state than were the people to whom they delivered their messages.

But in God's own time, and in accordance with His Mercy and Plan, He re-bestowed upon man this great potentiality of which I speak, so that men should again have the privilege of becoming at-one with Him. And to declare the re-bestowal of this Great Gift, Jesus was sent to earth in the form of man conceived and born as other men, but without sin.

It was at the time of Jesus' coming the Great Gift was re-bestowed upon both mortals and spirits of mortals then living in the spirit world, and they all, spirits and mortals, received the privilege of becoming at-one with the Father through the Plan of Salvation that He had revealed to Jesus, and which Jesus taught in his ministry during the short years of his earthly life, and which he is still teaching.

There is no other way in which man can become at-one with the Father - in which the image can be transformed into the Substance - than the Way that Jesus taught, but which seems not to have been understood by men after the church became a church of temporal power, and after the Bible or the writings of the apostles were emasculated and the thoughts and desires of men interpolated in the place of the gospel of peace and salvation. Yet there is in the Gospel of John one declaration of the true Plan of Salvation, though it is little understood and almost ignored in practical teachings and observances of the churches and their members, and that is: "Except a man be born again, he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God."

These words of the New Birth are the only words that declare the true doctrine of the atonement. No death of Jesus on the cross, no shedding of blood or washing away of sins by the blood, no paying of any debt and no believing in the name of the Lord, Jesus Christ, will bring men into atonement with the Father and make them partakers of his Divine Nature or fit them to become inhabitants of His Kingdom. Only the New Birth is efficacious for this purpose, and no other plan did Jesus ever teach and is not now teaching.

Then what is meant by the New Birth? Men in their understanding and interpretation of it differ, and it will do no good for me to recite these different interpretations or what the New Birth is not; but the important thing is, what it is. As I have said, the potentiality that was conferred upon our first parents was the privilege of obtaining the Divine Nature and immortality of the Father by becoming possessed of His Great attribute of Divinity - the Divine Love. And had our first parents by their obedience received the benefits of this great privilege, they would have been Born Again, as you and all other mortals and spirits, as well, may now be Born Again.

Then the New Birth is simply the effect of the flowing into the soul of a man of this Divine Love of the Father, and the disappearing of everything that tends to sin and error. As the Divine Love takes possession of the soul, sin and error disappear; it, the soul becomes of a quality like the Great Soul of the Father; and the Soul of the Father in its Quality of Love being Divine and Immortal. So when the soul of man becomes possessed of this Quality of Love, this soul becomes Divine also - and the soul is the man - and then the image becomes the Substance, the mortal becomes the Immortal and the soul of man, as to love and hope, becomes a part of the Father's Divinity.

Now to declare this Plan of Salvation and also the re-bestowal of the Great Gift of the potentiality of the soul, Jesus came to earth. This was his mission and none other. As readers of the Bible will remember, and it is a truth, when Jesus was baptized and anointed and, also on the Mount of Transfiguration, the voice of God, as it is written, declared that Jesus was His well beloved son and demanded of the people: "Hear ye him." Not to believe that he came to die on the cross, not to believe that his blood would bring about the atonement, not to believe in any vicarious atonement or that God in wrath demanded a sacrifice, but only "Hear ye him." And Jesus in all his teachings never taught one of these things, but only the New Birth as I have explained it. This is the only thing necessary to the atonement, and he is still teaching it.

He also taught moral truths affecting the conduct and relation of man to man, and man to God in his natural state, but none of these things or moral teachings were sufficient to bring about the Great Atonement. There is no doubt that the observance of many of these teachings of morality and of man's conduct towards God will have a tendency to lead men to seek the higher Love of the Father and help their souls to get in the condition that will make it easier for this Great Love to flow into them; but these moral teachings or prescribed conduct will not, of themselves, be sufficient to bring the New Birth and, hence, the atonement.

Now Jesus not only taught the necessity for the New Birth, but he also taught the Way in which it could be obtained, and that Way is just as simple and easily understood as the New Birth itself. He taught and is now teaching that through earnest prayer to the Father and faith, which makes all aspirations and soul longings things of real existence, and by the Holy Spirit which is the Father's Messenger of Love - or to carry his Divine Love - this Love will flow into the souls of men in response to such prayers; and by such faith men will realize its presence, and in this way, and this way only, men will receive the New Birth.

This is wholly an individual matter and without the personal, earnest prayer of the supplicant and faith that comes with the Love, a man cannot receive the New Birth. No ceremony of church, no laying on of hands or masses for the souls of the dead will be efficacious to make the man or spirit a new creature in God.

What I have written is the meaning of the atonement as taught by the Master, and as understood by all the redeemed of the Father, who are now living in His Celestial Heavens, and there is no other atonement possible.

I have written enough and hope I have made it plain to all men the true explanation of the atonement. We who are inhabitants of the Celestial Heavens know the truth of my explanation, both from personal experience and from the other fact, which no spirit in all the universe can deny, that only those who have received this Divine Love of the Father in their souls in sufficient abundance can or do inhabit the Celestial Heavens; all other spirits, no matter what their several beliefs may be, live in the lower spiritual spheres and cannot enter the Celestial Heavens, unless they seek for and obtain the New Birth that Jesus taught and is still teaching.

So my dear brother, without writing more, I will say good night.

Your brother in Christ,
Luke

William Stone Writes That He is Happy to See His Son's Wonderful Development in His Soul

November 4, 1915
Received by James Padgett
Washington, D.C.

I am here, Leslie's father:

I will write a few words, also, for I know my son will enjoy a short writing from me tonight. I have been with him a great deal, as you may think, and am so very much pleased to realize that he has made a wonderful development in his soul, and that he is nearer the Father's Divinity than he has ever been before. I will not tell him of our condition, for he must know that we are very happy, and one of the reasons for our happiness is the fact that he not only knows the way to this Love, but is striving to obtain it, or rather, to increase his possession of it, for he has much of it already, and he is conscious of that fact.

I was present a few nights ago when his mother wrote him, and I cannot tell him of the great happiness we all had - a happiness that no reunion on earth could ever have given.

I will come soon and write him a letter in reference to the war, for while my thoughts are given more to the great Truths that make Angels of men, yet I have been somewhat interested in the progress of the war, as my people, I mean my friends and citizens of England, are very much in the war, and many of them have paid the price of their patriotism and sacrifice and are now in the Spirit World. But this I will say now, that the spirits who have been closely watching the events of the war and its progress, and who have visited the directing minds of the various contending nations, and also the people of these nations, say that the end of the war will soon come and all the bloodshed that mortals expect will not take place.

I will not write more now, but will repeat what has been said to you both so often: "Watch yourselves and pray to the Father with all the longings of your souls."

With my love I will say, the Doctor's* father,

William Stone

*Dr. Leslie R. Stone

St. Andrew Writes That Where Divine Love is There Can Be No Sin or Unhappiness or Fear

September 17, 1915
Received by James Padgett
Washington, D.C.

I am here, St. Andrew. 

I came to tell you that where Love is, there can be no sin or unhappiness and fear is not.

We, who live in the Celestial Spheres, know this to be a fact, and with all the force and authority that knowledge gives, we declare this truth unto you tonight: the Love that casteth out all fear is the Divine Love of the Father, and when a spirit obtains that, there exists no such thing as fear and nothing that could create or permit fear to exist.

God wants the souls of men in love and not in fear, and the only way in which such end can be accomplished is for men to see and know Him as a God of Love only. No man can come to the Father except through this New Birth and faith in the Father's Love.

The performance of duty, good works and mere faith, while they will all help man in the development of his moral character and qualities, yet, they will not give him an entrance into the Celestial Heavens, which are the Heavens where Jesus rules and is the Prince, unless the spirit shall obtain this Divine Love which makes it a part of the Father's very essence of Divinity.

Many spirits are happy by reason of their having led good, moral lives on earth and because of a high development of their natural love, and realize that God is their Father, and watches over them and gives them many blessings; but this happiness is not that which comes with the possession of the Divine Love, and besides, the place of habitation of these spirits is limited and does not permit these spirits to have free access to all the spheres where God's goodness and care are manifested.

The spirits who have obtained this Divine Love have no limitation to the spheres in which they may progress, and are not restricted in their places of habitation or in the spheres in which they may live. And besides, the presence and glory of the Father are so much greater in these Celestial Spheres than in those where the mere natural love obtains.

I must not write more tonight for you are commencing to tire. So with all my love I will say,

Your brother in Christ,
St. Andrew

Shem, the Father of One of the Tribes of Israel, Writes That He is a Christian and Knows What the New Birth Means

September 16, 1915
Received by James Padgett
Washington, D.C.

I am here, Shem.

I am the father of one of the tribes of Israel, and I come to tell you that I am now a Christian and a follower of Jesus, the saviour of men. You may think it strange that I should write to you, but I am interested in the work which the Master is doing for mankind, and which you are to do in taking his messages and transmitting them to humanity.

I was a Jew of the earlier dispensation, and I lived before the destruction of Jerusalem and even before the great dispersion and captivity of my people. I died when the race was very young and when it had not formed its concrete ideas of God that afterwards became such a power in the economy of its government.

I am now an inhabitant of the Celestial Heavens and am working with the other Celestial Spirits to carry forward the great plans of God and of His son for the salvation of mankind.

I know what the New Birth means, and how necessary it is for men to become partakers of the Divine Love and Divinity of the Father. So you must see that only after that Great Gift was rebestowed on men were any of us who lived at a time long anterior to the birth of Jesus able to partake of those qualities which gave us immortality.

I will now stop and say goodnight.
Shem

Jesus Writes That He Does Not Approve of the Reference that His Blood Saves Men from Sin

September 12, 1915
Received by James Padgett
Washington, D.C.

I am here, Jesus.

I was with you tonight and saw that the Spirit was filling your heart with the Divine Love of the Father and that you realized its presence, and felt that even though the people who worshipped me in their ignorance, yet, they have this Love of the Father to a great degree.

I do not approve of their frequent reference to my blood as saving them from their sins and keeping them in the grace and favor of the Father, for as I have told you, my blood has nothing to do with the salvation of any soul - only the Divine Love of the Father saves a soul from sin and makes it one with the Father in His Love and divinity.

But, nevertheless, these people have this Love in their hearts, and while with their intellects they look upon me as God, yet, their souls are turning to God and, consequently, they receive the blessings of the Father's Love and are receiving to a large extent the development of their souls.

I am glad that you attend these meetings (The Church of the Holiness, Washington, D. C.), for in them is a wonderful presence of the Spirit and the Love of the Father, and while you may not be in sympathy with their doctrines as to who and what saves them from sin and unrighteousness, yet, the influence of the Spirit is so great that it helps your soul development.

I tried to influence the speakers to tell just what the conditions of their souls were, and what experience they had in receiving and enjoying the Divine Love; and many of them experience and have as a part of their religious possession just what they said they had.

It will be beneficial to you to attend this church, and get the benefit of the presence of the Holy Spirit, which is with them in their worship.

I was with you and tried to make you feel my presence, and I did, and you felt a little exaltation of your soul qualities and enjoyed the services, especially the singing and the prayers.

So while you must not be influenced by their doctrines as to my being God or to be worshipped, yet, if you will ignore this and only consider that their real worship is of God and that their souls are in unison with Him, you will find that these services will do you much good.

I am with you very much and am trying to get you relieved from the worries which come to you. I am also trying to help you get in that spiritual condition, which is necessary in order for you to take and continue my formal messages.

Yes, you are and I am glad that it is so. I want you to become a man so possessed of this Love and of faith, so strong that nothing that you may encounter will swerve you from your convictions and from your work. I see that you are anxious to continue this work and you will soon be able to do so.

Yes, I know that the Bible iterates and reiterates the statement that I am God, and that my blood saves from sin, and that I am a propitiation for mankind, but nevertheless, the Bible is all wrong, and these false doctrines must be corrected and men taught the true plan of salvation. I will be with you very often until we have commenced our work in the way that we desire to carry it forward. Let not anything that you may read in the Bible cause you to have a conception that may not agree with what I shall write. Let your mind be blank on these truths and wait until I shall disclose them to you, and believe me.

John never wrote these statements as contained in his epistles and gospel, and he will write to you denying that he did. The Bible contains many truths and many of my sayings but also, many statements that were never made by me or by the apostles, and my mission now is to correct all these errors. So you see we have much work ahead of us and we must commence it as soon as possible.

I am with you tonight to comfort and encourage you and help you to overcome not only your worries, and if you will only pray to the Father and believe, you will be successful in both particulars. I will not write more tonight as others are here to write, and I desire that they shall do so.

Your brother and friend,
Jesus