Chapter IV - Creation
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blessedness of the sons of God, is not communing with
blessedness of the sons of God, is not communing with
the body, but away from it with the impersonal Life,
Truth, and Love. Regarding the body as the seat of
Intelligence, Life, etc., is to hold one's self liable to be
annihilated; and believing God a person, robs Omnip-
otence, clothing it with vestments of mortality. If
Deity is personality, the forever "I am," or God with
us, is not Spirit, but matter, bounded by and narrowed
into six feet of stature. If God is a person he dwells
in a body, in which case matter and Spirit are God;
this is impossible, for Spirit and matter are opposites.
It is of little consequence what our educated views are
on this subject; it is morally impossible for Principle to
dwell in its idea; for Soul to inhabit a body; the un-
changing to dwell in change, and the undying with
death, or the Infinite with the finite, the perfect with
the imperfect; yea, for Spirit and matter to unite, and
Soul and personal sense to join hands. Soul cannot
exist both within and without the body, else matter is
gone, and all is found Principle and idea, in which case
personality disappears. There is a wider difference
between Spirit and matter than between light and
darkness, that surely are not mingled into one. We
know better than to say Deity is the shadow of matter,
but if matter is Substance, God is shadow, and shadow
never produced Substance; hence, matter must have
created itself. The body of Spirit is spiritual and not
material; but Principle, or Soul, cannot be compressed
into one of its ideas, into what it has made. If God is
in a body He is person, and not Principle, hence
man is not his likeness or reflection. Again, the dis-
cord that comes from the belief of Soul in body, and
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intelligent matter, at once proves this theory of being a
intelligent matter, at once proves this theory of being a
belief only, and error. Mortal man is a very unnat-
ural image and likeness of God, immortality. Turning
from the contemplation of Soul in matter, we shall not
call on drugs, laws of health, etc., for health or happi-
ness, but obtain these by losing sickness, sin and death;
in the science of being Soul meets all wants spiritu-
ally, giving not a stone for bread. "The flesh lusteth
against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh,"
hence the natural antagonism between Spirit and mat-
ter. St. Paul called the body of Soul a spiritual
body, and the flesh a "natural body"; or what is more
probable, some one else translated it thus, when he
longed to "lay off this body," i.e., to destroy this
belief, he must have thought it a very unnatural body,
as he gained life, that is God, Spirit; the personal man
and woman is neither "us" nor our local habitation.
Who is safe leaning on man, or the body, or finds suffi-
cient Life or Love in man to make him happy? we feel
this lack, and the great need of resting on something
higher. There is no lack in God, but we do not avail
ourself of Spirit, but of personality or matter. Joint
heirs with God are the partakers of an inheritance
where there is no division of estate; we are Spirit, but,
knowing this not, we go on to vainly suppose ourself
body, and not Soul. God is not a personality, and
Soul is not in body; the immortal is not within the
mortal, nor Life in death. This belief has hidden the
glorious Truth of man's being, and turned him away
from his original self-hood; hence the great need we
feel for something better, higher, and holier, than per-
sonal man. The material man depends for happiness