Page:A Compendium of the Theological Writings of Emanuel Swedenborg.djvu/114

18 and since nature derives its origin from that sun, it also is dead. Creation itself cannot in any wise be ascribed to the sun of the natural world, but all to the sun of the spiritual world, because the sun of the natural world is wholly dead; but the sun of the spiritual world is alive, being the first proceeding of the Divine love and the Divine wisdom; and what is dead does not act from itself, but is acted on. Therefore to ascribe to it anything of creation would be like ascribing the work of the artificer to the instrument with which the hand of the artificer operates. . . . The actuality of the sun of the natural world is not from itself, but from the living power proceeding from the sun of the spiritual world. If therefore the living power of the latter sun were withdrawn or taken away the former sun would perish. Hence it is that the worship of the sun is the lowest of all kinds of worship of a God; for it is as dead as the sun itself. And therefore in the Word it is called an abomination. (D. L. W. n. 157.)

The spiritual world and the natural world are similar, with the only difference that each and everything in the spiritual world is spiritual, and each and everything in the natural world is natural.

These two worlds being alike, therefore in both there are atmospheres, waters, and earths, which are the generals by and from which each and everything exists with infinite variety.

The atmospheres, which are called ethers and air, in the spiritual and natural worlds are alike, only that those in the spiritual world are spiritual and those in the natural world are natural. The former are spiritual because they exist from the sun which is the first proceeding of the Divine love and Divine wisdom of the Lord; and from Him they receive within them Divine fire, which is love, and Divine light, which is wisdom, and convey these two to the heavens, where the angels dwell, and cause the presence of that sun in the greatest and least things there. The spiritual atmospheres are discrete substances, or most minute forms, originating from the sun. And as they severally receive the sun, hence its fire—being divided into so many substances or forms, and as it were covered or enclosed in them, and tempered by these coverings—becomes heat, proportioned finally to the love of the angels in heaven and of spirits under heaven. The same may be said of the light of the sun. The natural atmospheres are similar to the spiritual atmospheres, in being also discrete substances of very minute form, originating from the sun of the natural world. Which sun also they each of them