Ten Points Concerning the Deep, Yet Simple Truth Concerning the Source of Sin and Evil In the World and In Man Himself -- and the Need for the Redemption and Re-creation of Both, According to the Laws and Principles of Nature and God's Creative Ways !! First -- that the place of this world is the very place, or region, which belonged to Lucifer, and his angels. Second -- that everything that we see in this world - all its elements, the stars, the firmament, etc. - are nothing else but the invisible things of the fallen world, made visible in a new and lower state of existence. Third -- that before the rebellion of the angels there was nothing but God, and heaven, and heavenly beings. Light, love, joy, and glory, with all the wonders thereof, were the only things seen and felt by the angels. Darkness and fire, with every quality thereof, were absolutely unknown to the angels; they had no more suspicion of them, than of the possibility of sickness, pains, heat, and cold. All they aimed at, was at being higher in the glories, powers, and light, of that heaven in which they lived. But their turning to their own strength to effect this, was their whole turning from God, and a falling into nature without God, which was the first discovery of darkness, wrath, fire, pain, and torment. Forth -- hence it appears, that darkness is the ground of the substance, or materiality of nature; fire is its life; and light is its glorious transmutation into the kingdom of heaven - and spirit is the opener of all its wonders. All that can be conceived is either God,, nature, or creature. God is the Holy Trinity without, or before nature; but nature is the manifestation of the Holy Trinity in a triune life of fire, light, and spirit. Fifth -- Here we see the plain and true original of all evil, without any perplexity, or imputation upon God. One - that evil is nothing else but the wrath, fire, and darkness of nature broken off from God. Two - that the punishment, the pain, or the hell of sin, is no designedly prepared, or arbitrary penalty inflicted by God, but rather is the natural and necessary state of the creature that leaves or turns from God. Sixth -- that the will of the creature is the only opener of all evil or good in the creature. The will stands between God and nature, and must in all its workings unite either with God, or nature. The will totally resigned and given up to God is one spirit with God, and God dwells in it -- the will turned from God is taken prisoner in the wrath, fire, and darkness of nature. Seventh -- Here we see how and why a creature can lose and die to all its happiness and perfection, and, from a beauteous angel, become a deformed devil. It is because nature has no beauty, happiness, or perfection, but solely from the manifestation or birth of the Holy Trinity in it. God manifested in nature is the only blessing, happiness, and perfection of nature. Therefore, the creature that, in the working of its will is turned from God, must have as great a change brought forth in it as that of heaven into hell - forced to live, but to have no life other than that of its own gnawing worm left to itself. Eighth -- Hence we see the deep ground, and absolute necessity of the Christian redemption by a birth from above of the Light and Spirit of God, demonstrated in the most absolute degree of certainty. It is because all nature is in itself nothing but an hungry wrathful fire of life - a tormenting darkness - unless the Light and Spirit of God kindles it into a Kingdom of Heaven. Therefore, in and of itself, the fallen soul can have no possible relief or redemption. It must be to all eternity a hungry, dark, fiery, tormenting spirit of life - unless the Light, or Son, and Spirit of God, be born again in it. Hence also it follows that - in all the possibility of things - there is and can be but one happiness and one misery. The one misery is nature and creature left to itself; the one happiness is the life, Light, and Spirit of God, manifested in nature and creature. This is the true meaning of those words of our Lord, "There is but one that is good, and that is God." Ninth -- Hence it is also seen, that there is and can be but one true religion for the fallen soul, and that is the dying to self, to nature and creature; and a turning with all the will, desire, and delight of the soul to God. Sacrifices, oblations, prayers, praises, rites, and ceremonies, without this are but as sounding brass, and tinkling cymbals. Nay, zeal, constancy, warmth, and fervor in the performance of these religious practices is not the matter -- Nature and self-love can do all this. These religious practices are then only parts of true religion when they mean nothing and seek nothing, but to keep up a continual dying to self and all worldly things - and turn all the will, desire, and delight of the soul to God alone. Tenth -- there is and can be only one salvation for the fallen soul, and that is heaven opened again in the soul by the birth of such a life, Light, and Spirit as is born in angels. For Adam was created to possess that heaven from which the angels fell; but nothing can enter into heaven but the angelic life, which is born of heaven. The loss of this angelic life was the fall of Adam, or that death which he died on the day he did eat of the earthly fruit. Therefore, the regeneration or new birth of his first angelic life is the one only salvation of the fallen soul. Ask not therefore, whether we are saved by faith, or by works, for we are saved by neither of them. Faith and works are at first only preparatory to the new birth; afterwards they are the true genuine fruits and effects of it. However, the new birth, a life from heaven, the new creature called Christ in us, is the one only salvation of the fallen soul. Nothing can enter into heaven but this life which is born of, and comes from heaven. These points must needs open in one a new way of thinking about religion, and show the deep and solid ground of the absolute necessity of the Christian redemption, and incline one to be a willing hearer of that which follows. What I would here, and through every point that we speak of observe is this: (1) that the Christian religion is the one only true religion of nature, deeply and necessarily founded in the nature of things; (2) that its doctrines are not founded in an arbitrary appointment of God, but rather have their natural and necessary reason; (3) why they cannot be otherwise, as has here been shown in the one great point of regeneration, which is the whole of man's salvation, and the one only thing intended by all revelation, from the fall of man to the end of the world. Now the true ground of the one true religion or nature cannot be known or seen into, but by going back to the beginning of things and showing how they came into their present state. We must find out why and how religion came to be necessary, and on what its necessity is founded. Now this cannot be done unless we find out what sin, evil, death, and darkness, are in themselves; and how they came into nature and creature. For this alone can show us, what religion is true, is natural, is necessary, and alone sufficient to remove all evil, sin, and disorder out of the creation. For this reason, we began with the grounds and reasons of the creation of this world, showing how it came to be as it is. This could not be done, but by going so far back as the fall of angels. For it was their revolting from God, that brought wrath, fire, thickness, darkness, and death, into nature and creature -- and so gave occasion to this new creation, and to its being in such a state, and of such a nature, as it is. For who does not see that this first deadness, thickness, wrath, fire, and darkness - caused by the angels' sin - are the very materials out of which this world is made? For are not the fire, air, water, earth, rocks and stones of this world - the rage of heat and cold, the succession of day and night, the wrath of storms and tempests, an undeniable and daily proof of all this? Now when we thus see what sin, evil, death, and darkness are in nature, and how they came into it, then we see also how and what they are, and how they came into the creature - because the creature has its forms and being in and out of nature. They came into nature, or rose up in it, by nature's being broken off from God, and so losing the Light and Spirit of God which made it to be a kingdom of heaven. We see also that, when this disordered nature was to be taken out of its fallen state by a new creation, in order to do this, the Spirit of God moved or entered again into the darkness of the waters, and the Light of God was called into it. A plain proof that the malady of nature was nothing else but its loss of the Light and Spirit of God working in it. This shows us also that the fallen creature is to be restored, or put into a way of recovery, in one and the same way as fallen nature - viz., by the Spirit, and Light of God entering into it again and bringing forth a new birth or creation in Christ Jesus. Just as the Spirit and Light entering into the chaos created or turned the angels' ruined kingdom into a paradise on earth. God help him who can see no light or truth here! To those who lay claim to a religion of nature and reason, I join with all my heart. No other religion can be right, but that which has its foundation in nature. For the God of nature can require nothing of his creatures but what the state of their nature calls them to. Nature is his great law that speaks his whole will, both in heaven and on earth. To obey nature is to obey the God of nature, to please him, and to live to him in the highest perfection. God indeed has many after-laws; but it is after his creatures have fallen from nature, and lost its perfection. All these after-laws have no other end or intention, but to repair nature, and bring men back to their first natural state of perfection. Please CLICK HERE to download a FREE eBook containing the "Collected Works of William Law".