all-pervading life-animating the spiritual degree of substance, which is the indwelling and actuating principle of all material things." (pp. 246, 247.) A SPIRITUAL AND A NATURAL WORLD. "God is the Great First Cause of all things that exist. The spiritual world exists in the natural as a cause in its effect. The spiritual world is a world of mediate causes acting in the natural world, but deriving all its power from the great First Cause, from whom it originated and by whom it continually subsists. Matter itself, the ultimate created substance, is dead and inert; and all forces by which its inertia is overcome, and all the active properties which it seems to possess, have a spiritual origin. All natural objects exist from and are actuated by corresponding spiritual essences, to which they stand related as the body of a man to his soul. Hence all things in the animal, vegetable and mineral kingdoms of nature have their antitypes in the spiritual world, substantial spiritual entities corresponding in all particulars of organization with their material types." (p. 247.) ORIGIN OF THINGS NOXIOUS. "This doctrine of influx from the spiritual world accounts for the existence of inverted or disorderly creations in the material universe. None of the noxious things that exist on this earth were created by the Lord in the beginning, but they are all from hell. For, by the law of spiritual causation, the affections and thoughts of the inhabitants of the spiritual world give birth to corresponding spiritual creations, which form the objects and scenery round about them. It is through the operation of this beneficent law, that the members of each heavenly society are surrounded by the beautiful and useful objects (spiritual, of course) in the animal, vegetable, and mineral kingdoms, which are in harmony with their mental and moral states. But the same law of spiritual causation prevails equally in hell, where, consequently, the inhabitants of each infernal society see their falsities and evils projected into corresponding external objects, which are inver'sions of the orderly creations of the heavenly world. These spiritual inversions, flowing into the world of nature, become embodied in material substance and originate the various types of animals, vegetables, and minerals injurious to man." (p. 248.) DEATH AND RESURRECTION. "Man in this world is a dual being; consisting of a spiritual and immortal part-his soul; and of a natural and mortal part-his body. The soul is the real man, that for a while is tabernacled in the flesh. It is the soul which hears, sees, feels, thinks, desires, speaks, and acts. The body is no more than a marvelous material organism which lives from the soul, in which the soul dwells, and by which the soul remains in the natural world, and takes part in its concerns. “When man is said to die, it is only the body which really dies. The reason is, that the body is no longer suited to be a dwelling-place for the soul. The marvelous and mysterious links which previously united the soul to the body are broken. The soul takes its flight from the body; and as its life departs, the body dies. The body being dead, truly means that the soul has left it. Now that its life is gone, the body, subject to the wonderful processes of natural chemistry, will waste away, decompose and mingle with the dust. 'Ashes to ashes, dust to dust,' is, therefore, properly said when the body is placed in the grave. "But the real man, the soul, is not destroyed by quitting the body. It remains a living, thinking, loving, conscious being, and dwells in the spiritual world. If the man has been good, pious, and holy, if he has believed in the Lord Jesus Christ and has striven to keep his holy commandments, he will, like Lazarus, be carried by angels into Abraham's bosom;' that is, he will go to heaven. He will enter into and dwell in the heavenly mansions about which Jesus spake when He said: 'In my father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.' (John xiv: 2.) He will join the Church triumphant, the innumerable company of angels''the general assembly and Church of the first born which are written in heaven '-'the spirits of just men made perfect.' Heb. xii: 22, 23. "In that state of happiness the man is as truly a man as when he dwelt on earth. He is now a spiritual man, possessing a spiritual body, dwelling in the spiritual world. The soul, when separated from the material body, is in the human form. Hence when Moses appeared to Peter, James, and John, ministering to the Lord in the mount of transfiguration, although his material body—'the earthly house of this tabernacle'—was dissolved, having been buried ' in a valley in the land of Moab, over against Bethpeor' (Deut. xxiv: 6), more than fourteen hundred years before, yet Moses was still in the human form. By death man ceases not to be human. We may be sure that he possesses in the other life all that is essential to his existence as a man-memory, consciousness, intelligence, and affection, in a spiritual body adapted to the spiritual world. In the case of those who have been truly members of the Lord's Church, servants and disciples of the Saviour, there can be no question that their faculties are purified and exalted far beyond any perfection attainable on earth. Their capacity for joy is enlarged; the joys they experience are beyond all comparison higher and holier; and of the increase of their blessedness there shall be no end." (pp. 58-60.) THE JUDGMENT AFTER DEATH. "The judgment after death is not merely a judicial act by which every one is at once assigned his final abode, but it is a process of exploration and development by which the exteriors of the spirit are gradually brought into agreement with its interiors; by which the genuine internal character is brought forth to view; until the Lord's words are fully verified in each individual case: There is nothing covered that shall not be revealed; neither hid that shall not be known.' Luke xii: 2. The design of the judgment is thus to bring the externals of human character into exact conformity or correspondence with the inner life; to abolish all artificial, assumed, and merely apparent distinctions among men; and to establish on the basis of internal and spiritual realities the conditions under which they will thenceforth exist, and the associates with whom they will thenceforth consort. "The Lord is truly the God is 'the Judge of all.' Author of this judgment; |