literal acceptation of this quotation implies malice, withholding from man the opportunity to reform, lest he should become better; but this is not our God, and so contrary to Love and Wisdom, we must accept it only as the pagan opinions of those re-writing the inspired word. The true interpretation of this scripture is its spiritual sense. Beginning in person instead of Principle, to explain God, we express him after the manner of man, the nature of personal sense and on the basis of error instead of Truth, drawing all our conclusions from a material, instead of a spiritual standpoint, hence the discord, theoretically and practically, that follows the belief of intelligent matter. “Behold, the man is become as one of us.” Error and not the Truth of being, said that; man is not God, therefore he did not become as one of “Us.” Intelligence is not in matter, therefore it is not personal sense; Spirit in matter would make God mortal man, and Intelligence and Life, person instead of Principle, and body instead of Soul. That this error be not reckoned Truth, or as one of “Us,” and claim the prerogative of Intelligence, God said, let all that produces sickness, sin, and death, “till the ground;” i. e., be understood as proceeding from a material, and not a spiritual basis, and therefore an error that returns to dust, primitive nothingness. Let material things be understood forever, as apart from the spiritual; think not to blend matter and Spirit, for this is not the science of being, and will result in discord and death. From the sweat of the brow to derive Life or happiness, started with Adam, error; it was from the “tree of knowledge,” so unlike the harmony and immortality of man created by Spirit. Lay not up
