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I am here, Thomas Payne.
When I died, I did not believe in Jesus as the son of God or as his messenger sent to show the world that the Father had bestowed upon it His Divine Love and immortality and the Way to obtain it. But now I believe to the fullest these truths and am a follower of Jesus and the possessor of the Divine Love.
How different would my condition now be if that erroneous and damning doctrine taught by the churches--that there is no redemption beyond the grave--were true. I never thought that there was any necessity for redemption either while on earth or after I should become a spirit, but thought that if there was a God, He would deal justly with me and bestow upon me happiness and enjoyment of the future life according to my idea of His love and mercy.
But I must tell you that I was mistaken in some particulars. God is Jove and He is merciful, but His love and mercy are exercized only in accordance with His fixed and unchangeable laws--laws that apply impartially to all men, and which in their operation make no exceptions. What a man sows so shall he reap is as true as that the sun shines for you on earth.
I found the truth of this great law in my own experience and I paid the penalties of my sins. Jesus could not do this for me and he never pretended that he could. But he could and does show the Way by which the operations of the laws which produce these penalties may be superceded by the operation of other laws which, as it were, remove the penalties from the individual spirit. This does not change the law but changes the condition of the spirit which invokes these penalties; and if men would only learn this Way, they would not remain in darkness and sin, because they believe and assert that God's laws never change. If they would only understand that while the laws do not change, yet the condition of the spirit which calls for the operation of these laws does change, and new laws are brought into operation.
I have not time tonight to more fully explain these principles, but should I in the future have the opportunity, I will be glad to do so.
Christ was and is the Way and the Truth and the Life.
I am in the first Celestial sphere and my name was Thomas Payne, the so called infidel. I believed in God, but only one God. Jesus was never God to me and is not now. And he does not claim to be God now.
So you see even the so called infidel could come into the truth and Love of the Father, even after he left the material plane and became an inhabitant of the spirit world.
So, my dear brother, I will say
Good night and God be with you,
THOMAS PAYNE.Vol. I, p. 381
