Page:The Doctrines of the New Church Briefly Explained.djvu/83

Rh chief glory, and are, indeed, essential to his humanity, rendered possible his lapse into a state of spiritual disorder, degradation and woe. Nay, with beings so endowed, such lapse was not only possible but highly probable—a result almost certain to follow from such gifts. However that may be, it cannot be denied that such spiritual lapse did occur. In the course of many generations the race became completely immersed in selfishness and sin. They lost all knowledge of the true and only God, of the laws and capabilities of their own souls; and consequently lost sight of the way that leads to that exalted and blissful state for which they were designed. From a state of mutual love, they fell into one of mutual hostility. They turned the light that was originally in them into darkness—God's love into hatred—just as the henbane and fox-glove convert the sun's light and heat and the sweet dews of the morning into malignant poisons. God's life in men thus became changed into its opposite—into the life of hell. The race became supremely selfish; their souls filled with all base passions and malignant feelings. And in this state they passed into the spiritual world, then as now taking their own characters or ruling loves along with them. Of course they were separated from the denizens of heaven through the operation of the great law of spiritual affinity—the law that forever tends