Mark well this testimony, that while the Spirit of God is everywhere, so, also, is that Spirit light, and there is no darkness, save to those vailed in humanity. When spirit is free from mortality; is accepted of God, and clothed upon with immortality; as spirit, it partakes of His own nature, and will, henceforth, dwell forever in eternal light.
Now what the Sun is to this earth and its inhabitants, so also we believe it to be to the inhabitants of all the other planets belonging to its system; all of which worlds it controls, even as it does this. And here the mind goes out in the contemplation of the hypothesis, that all those other suns, standing far out in sidereal regions—each governing and controlling its own system of planets, or worlds—are also heavens for created intelligences inhabiting such planets. God is Infinite, as well as Omnipresent. Infinite in wisdom, and in His creative power.
"Who can set bounds to the Almighty?"
Therefore Suns, and consequently heavens, may be numbered by millions, and their surrounding worlds by billions; yet all created, governed, and controlled by the infinite wisdom and power of the great Architect of the Universe. Such hypothesis is wonderful for finite minds to contemplate, yet not more so than the fact of the existence of our own solar system.
That the Sun shall endure forever, no rational mind can doubt. God's own word assures this, and that His throne shall endure as long as the Sun. Should He quench the fires of the Sun, and yet make no other provision for light and heat, all would be blackness, darkness, and desolation, and no animated life could exist on this earth, or surrounding worlds.
Having assumed the hypothesis that that which we denominate the Sun is a volume of photospheric-ethereal, or SPIRIT-FIRE; that it is the source of all that we can comprehend of light and heat; we have also stated our belief that it is an attribute of the Eternal One—possibly an agency of creative power—we believe we shall be able to make this plain to every reflecting mind, in our further contemplations of the revelations which God has made of himself, as we find them recorded in the Bible. These revelations are plain, and we believe the time in the history of our world has come, when we should more fully comprehend them—even the nature of His manifestations, and thus comprehend more our own relations to Him, and by this means be enabled to "come to a knowledge of His truth," and more fully realize His prescience, day by day. That this has not been more fully comprehended heretofore, must seem a mystery to every reflecting mind.
Now what are these revelations? Let us examine.
We learn from Bible History, that "God created man in His own image, and after His own likeness." "In the image of God created He him; male and female, created He them." Thus, in creation, man is spoken of in the plural. "And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul." Now "the first Adam was made a living soul, and the second Adam a quickening spirit." The terms soul and spirit are held as synonymous; both having reference to our immortal nature, and, as this immortal nature emanated from God our Creator, and is of His own eternal attribute, it can never die; hence, it must exist through all eternity.
Job asks, "To whom hast Thou uttered words? whose spirit came from Thee?" and in Ecclesiastes it is declared, "The spirit shall return to God who gave it." St. John, the revelator, tells us that "God is a spirit: and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth." While St. Paul says, "His spirit beareth witness with our spirits, that we are the children of God."