Is man’s spiritual sonship a personal gift to man, or is it the reality of his being, in divine Science? Man’s knowledge of this grand verity gives him power to dem- [5] onstrate his divine Principle, which in turn is requisite in order to understand his sonship, or unity with God, good. A personal requirement of blind obedience to the law of being, would tend to obscure the order of Science, unless that requirement should express the claims [10] of the divine Principle. Infinite Principle and infinite Spirit must be one. What avail, then, to quarrel over what is the person of Spirit,—if we recognize infinitude as personality,—for who can tell what is the form of infinity? When we understand man’s true birthright, that [15] he is “born, not ... of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God,” we shall understand that man is the offspring of Spirit, and not of the flesh; recognize him through spiritual, and not material laws; and regard him as spiritual, and not material. His sonship, referred [20] to in the text, is his spiritual relation to Deity: it is not, then, a personal gift, but is the order of divine Science. The apostle urges upon our acceptance this great fact: “But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God.” Mortals will lose their sense [25] of mortality—disease, sickness, sin, and death—in the proportion that they gain the sense of man’s spirit- ual preexistence as God’s child; as the offspring of good, and not of God’s opposite,—evil, or a fallen man. [30] John the Baptist had a clear discernment of divine Science: being born not of the human will or flesh, he [Page 182.] antedated his own existence, began spiritually instead [1] of materially to reckon himself logically; hence the im- possibility of putting him to death, only in belief, through violent means or material methods. “As many as received him;” that is, as many as per- ceive man’s actual existence in and of his divine Princi- [5] ple, receive the Truth of existence; and these have no other God, no other Mind, no other origin; therefore, in time they lose their false sense of existence, and find their adoption with the Father; to wit, the redemption [10] of the body. Through divine Science man gains the power to become the son of God, to recognize his perfect and eternal estate.