he will soon find himself exchanging shadows for substances, dreams for realities, the dead forms of an external faithfor the living realities of heaven.
SECTION SIXTH.
Common opinions in regard to nature—Such opinions lead to dangerous conclusions—The natural world an effect from spiritual causes—Quotation from E. S.—Cause and effect—The existence of the natural world a consequence of the divine love—Exists that heaven may be formed—Quotations from E. S.—Natural world must continue to exist in order that heaven may be continually increased.
The natural world with every thing that appertains to it is an effect from causes existing in the spiritual world, while those causes themselves owe all their power and energy to him who is the source of all power and all life.
That the natural world at first derived its existence from a Creator possessed of infinite power and wisdom, is a truth so generally acknowledged as to render it unnecessary to
say any thing in confirmation of it. In general terms this truth is acknowledged, by all those who profess a belief in a divine Being. That the natural world had a cause and that that cause was either the mediate or the immediate exercise of the divine energy, is therefore a question on which there is no controversy.
But the proposition which I wish to bring before the mind of the reader, is; that the natural world has now a cause;—not only a primary cause, which, in other words, is the final end for which it exists, and which originates in the divine love, but that it has also an efficient or instrumental cause, and that this cause exists from the divine wisdom.
A common opinion has been that the Almighty Creator, at some remote period, by a direct and immediate effort of almighty power, caused the natural world suddenly to spring into existence out of nothing. It has been supposed
