The Local Universe Sons of God

35:2.1The Mel­chiz­e­deks are the first or­der of di­vine Sons to ap­proach suf­fi­ciently near the lower crea­ture life to be able to func­tion di­rectly in the min­istry of mor­tal up­lift, to serve the evo­lu­tion­ary races with­out the ne­ces­sity of in­car­na­tion. These Sons are nat­u­rally at the mid-point of the great per­son­al­ity de­scent, by ori­gin be­ing just about mid­way be­tween the high­est Di­vin­ity and the low­est crea­ture life of will en­dow­ment. They thus be­come the nat­u­ral in­ter­me­di­aries be­tween the higher and di­vine lev­els of liv­ing ex­is­tence and the lower, even the ma­te­rial, forms of life on the evo­lu­tion­ary worlds. The se­raphic or­ders, the an­gels, de­light to work with the Mel­chiz­e­deks; in fact, all forms of in­tel­li­gent life find in these Sons un­der­stand­ing friends, sym­pa­thetic teach­ers, and wise coun­selors.

35:2.2The Mel­chiz­e­deks are a self-gov­ern­ing or­der. With this unique group we en­counter the first at­tempt at self-de­ter­mi­na­tion on the part of lo­cal uni­verse be­ings and ob­serve the high­est type of true self-gov­ern­ment. These Sons or­ga­nize their own ma­chin­ery for their group and home-planet ad­min­is­tra­tion, as well as that for the six as­so­ci­ated spheres and their trib­u­tary worlds. And it should be re­corded that they have never abused their pre­rog­a­tives; not once through­out all the super­uni­verse of Or­von­ton have these Mel­chiz­e­dek Sons ever be­trayed their trust. They are the hope of ev­ery uni­verse group which as­pires to self-gov­ern­ment; they are the pat­tern and the teach­ers of self-gov­ern­ment to all the spheres of Neb­a­don. All or­ders of in­tel­li­gent be­ings, su­pe­ri­ors from above and sub­or­di­nates from be­low, are whole­hearted in their praise of the gov­ern­ment of the Mel­chiz­e­deks.

35:2.3The Mel­chiz­e­dek or­der of son­ship oc­cu­pies the po­si­tion, and as­sumes the re­spon­si­bil­ity, of the el­dest son in a large fam­ily. Most of their work is reg­u­lar and some­what rou­tine, but much of it is vol­un­tary and al­to­gether self-im­posed. A ma­jor­ity of the spe­cial as­sem­blies which, from time to time, con­vene on Sal­ving­ton are called on mo­tion of the Mel­chiz­e­deks. On their own ini­tia­tive these Sons pa­trol their na­tive uni­verse. They main­tain an au­ton­o­mous or­ga­ni­za­tion de­voted to uni­verse in­tel­li­gence, mak­ing pe­ri­od­i­cal re­ports to the Cre­ator Son in­de­pen­dent of all in­for­ma­tion com­ing up to uni­verse head­quar­ters through the reg­u­lar agen­cies con­cerned with the rou­tine ad­min­is­tra­tion of the realm. They are by na­ture un­prej­u­diced ob­servers; they have the full con­fi­dence of all classes of in­tel­li­gent be­ings.

35:2.4The Mel­chiz­e­deks func­tion as mo­bile and ad­vi­sory re­view courts of the realms; these uni­verse Sons go in small groups to the worlds to serve as ad­vi­sory com­mis­sions, to take de­po­si­tions, to re­ceive sug­ges­tions, and to act as coun­selors, thus help­ing to com­pose the ma­jor dif­fi­cul­ties and set­tle the se­ri­ous dif­fer­ences which arise from time to time in the af­fairs of the evo­lu­tion­ary do­mains.

35:2.5These el­dest Sons of a uni­verse are the chief aids of the Bright and Morn­ing Star in car­ry­ing out the man­dates of the Cre­ator Son. When a Mel­chiz­e­dek goes to a re­mote world in the name of Ga­briel, he may, for the pur­poses of that par­tic­u­lar mis­sion, be dep­u­tized in the name of the sender and in that event will ap­pear on the planet of as­sign­ment with the full au­thor­ity of the Bright and Morn­ing Star. Es­pe­cially is this true on those spheres where a higher Son has not yet ap­peared in the like­ness of the crea­tures of the realm.

35:2.6When a Cre­ator Son en­ters upon the be­stowal ca­reer on an evo­lu­tion­ary world, he goes alone; but when one of his Par­a­dise broth­ers, an Avo­nal Son, en­ters upon a be­stowal, he is ac­com­pa­nied by the Mel­chiz­e­dek sup­port­ers, twelve in num­ber, who so ef­fi­ciently con­tribute to the suc­cess of the be­stowal mis­sion. They also sup­port the Par­a­dise Avo­nals on mag­is­te­rial mis­sions to the in­hab­ited worlds, and in these as­sign­ments the Mel­chiz­e­deks are vis­i­ble to mor­tal eyes if the Avo­nal Son is also thus man­i­fest.

35:2.7There is no phase of plan­e­tary spir­i­tual need to which they do not min­is­ter. They are the teach­ers who so of­ten win whole worlds of ad­vanced life to the fi­nal and full rec­og­ni­tion of the Cre­ator Son and his Par­a­dise Fa­ther.

35:2.8The Mel­chiz­e­deks are well-nigh per­fect in wis­dom, but they are not in­fal­li­ble in judg­ment. When de­tached and alone on plan­e­tary mis­sions, they have some­times erred in mi­nor mat­ters, that is, they have elected to do cer­tain things which their super­vi­sors did not sub­se­quently ap­prove. Such an er­ror of judg­ment tem­porar­ily dis­qual­i­fies a Mel­chiz­e­dek un­til he goes to Sal­ving­ton and, in au­di­ence with the Cre­ator Son, re­ceives that in­struc­tion which ef­fec­tu­ally purges him of the dishar­mony which caused dis­agree­ment with his fel­lows; and then, fol­low­ing the cor­rec­tional rest, re­in­state­ment to ser­vice en­sues on the third day. But these mi­nor mis­adap­ta­tions in Mel­chiz­e­dek func­tion have rarely oc­curred in Neb­a­don.

35:2.9These Sons are not an in­creas­ing or­der; their num­ber is sta­tion­ary, al­though vary­ing in each lo­cal uni­verse. The num­ber of Mel­chiz­e­deks of rec­ord on their head­quar­ters planet in Neb­a­don is up­ward of ten mil­lion.