Page:A Cloud of Independent Witnesses.djvu/89

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TESTIMONY OF REV, H. B. BROWNING. 83

might make happy from Himself. Hence the ultimate Divine purpose in creation, is the formation of a heaven out of the human race. Thus earth rightly regarded is the seminary of heaven — the scene in which man begins to exist, and in which he may develop an angelic character to fit him for the higher uses and the more exalted felicities of the eternal world." (pp. 245, 246.)

DISCRETE DEGREES IN CREATION. "There are three discrete degrees of substance — viz.: the Divine, the Spiritual, and the Natural; the substance of God himself, the substance of the souls of men and of the spiritual world, and the substance of the natural universe and of all things therein. In the order of creation, the natural was discreted from the spiritual, and the spiritual from the Divine. The Divine can act upon or into the spiritual; and the spiritual can act upon or into the natural; but by no process of transmutation or refinement can the natural become the spiritual, or the spiritual become the Divine. By this doctrine of discrete degrees of substance we avoid the fundamental error of Pantheism, while adopting the great truth which it so imperfectly expresses. The Creator is not confounded with the creation, for the substance of the universe is not continuous from God. Yet God is truly the original and

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