350. Some indeed who have ascribed certain visible things to nature are to be excused for a twofold reason. First, they know nothing of the Sun of heaven, where the Lord is, and of influx therefrom, nor anything of the spiritual world and its state, nay rather, nothing of its presence with man. They could only think of the spiritual as a purer natural, and thus of angels as being in the ether or the stars; also of the devil as man's evil, or if actually existing, as being either in the air, or in the abyss; and of men's souls after death as being in the midst of the earth, or in some abstract somewhere till the day of judgment; and of other similar delusions brought about by ignorance concerning the spiritual world and its Sun. The second reason for excusing them is that they could not understand the method by which the Divine produced all those things that appear on earth, good and evil alike; afraid to confirm themselves in the idea, lest they should ascribe evil things also to God, and form a material idea concerning Him, and make God and nature one, and thus confound them. These are two reasons for excusing those who have believed that nature produces things visible by power implanted in her by creation. But those who have become atheists, through confirmations in favour of nature, ought not to be excused, because they could have confirmed themselves in favour of the Divine. Ignorance certainly excuses, but does not remove a falsity which has been confirmed, for this kind of falsity unites with evil, and so with hell. Consequently, those who have confirmed themselves in favour of nature so far as to separate the Divine from her, reckon nothing as sin, because every sin is against the Divine which they have separated and thus rejected; and they who in spirit reckon nothing as sin, when they become spirits after death, confined to hell, rush headlong into crime according to the lusts, to which they have given free rein.