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had to be tempted of the devil and to be assailed by wild beasts in the desert, (Mark i. 13.) before "He could enter into His glory," so all have to pass through a desert, and a state of winter, which is analogous to a desert, before we can receive "the crown of life." But to fall in the desert, or to remain in that spiritual state denoted by winter, is to incur spiritual death and to take up our abode in the "land of darkness, of trouble, and of anguish, whence come the young and the old lion, the viper, and the fiery flying serpent;" (Isaiah xxx. 6.)-where evils and falsities of every kind prevail. How different is this land from that whose skies are never darkened, whose clouds drop fatness, whose hills are covered with flocks, whose plains are adorned with golden harvests, and where each can sit under his vine or his fig tree, and none shall make him afraid!

Nature is a theatre representative of the Lord's Kingdom in the spiritual world. "The invisible things of God (says the Apostle) from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made." Not only are the things of heaven represented to us, but the sad states and dismal objects of hell are also portrayed to our senses in the world of nature. The wolf and the lamb, the owl and the dove, the nettle and the rose, winter and summer, night and day, are not correlatives, but opposites, which read us mighty lessons when seen from the science of correspondences, and especially when understood as mentioned in the Scriptures. Nature has still to be studied and viewed from a higher point than our sciences have hitherto contemplated. We are still grovelling in the dust as to the high uses which the study of nature should aim to realise and accomplish.

Night is to day what winter is to the year. The four states of the day denoted by morning, noon, evening, and night, are analogies to the four seasons of the year-spring, summer, autumn, and winter. Spring is the morning of the year, summer its noon, autumn its evening, and winter its night. But in heaven it is declared that there is " no night;" (Rev. xxi. 25.) there, says Milton, is

"Grateful twilight;

Night doth not there assume a darker veil."

And we may rest assured, that as there is "no night in heaven," so there is no winter. These are representative of mental states of darkness, cold, and barrenness, which are opposed to the light, the warmth, and the fruitfulness of heavenly states, and, therefore, can have no place in heaven.

The spring of the year is emblematic of that state in which, under the Lord's guidance, man enters upon the childhood of his second birth;

hence the spring of the day is called the "womb of the morning," (Psalm cx. 3) to denote the nascent states of regeneration in the new birth, when "the day of the Lord's power" is acknowledged, and "the beauties of holiness" begin to appear. In this state, the germs of heavenly intelligence and wisdom begin to grow and expand. The "first-fruits, being green ears of corn dried by the fire," (Lev. ii. 14) and the firstlings of the flock, were to be offered to the Lord in worship as emblems of this spring state of heavenly innocence and good in the human soul.

The summer is representative of that state when the affection of truth glows with ardour, and when everything intellectual is, in consequence, more fully developed and expanded;—when faith is not only enlightened by truth, but actuated by love. This spiritual summer is splendid and glorious in proportion as the "sun of righteousness" rises to a higher and a higher altitude in the mind. When the prophet says, "The harvest is past and the summer is ended, and we are not saved,” (Jer. viii. 20) the true meaning can only be seen from the spiritual sense. For our salvation is irrespective of earthly summers and harvests, but by no means of spiritual harvests and summers. For the harvest and summer denote the means of love and truth in all fulness, provided by Him who, in His Divine Humanity, is the "Lord of the harvest" by which man can be saved,-by which he can "reap life everlasting." This harvest and the light and warmth of this summer are abundantly provided for us in the Holy Word, and in the church, especially in the Lord's New Church; and if we refuse to become laborers in this harvest, it must needs pass away, or rather, we shall pass away from it, and shall not be saved. This is the ground of the prophet's lamentation.

The autumn is an emblem of that state when the fruits of heavenly wisdom and love come to maturity and perfection, and are seen in the conduct and the life. The feast of harvest represented, in the Jewish dispensation, this joyful and happy state of the regenerate mind and of the church.

But the winter corresponds to the unregenerate and sinful state of man, and also to states of temptation through which, as we have seen, man must pass in order to be prepared for heaven. Hence, as in nature the winter is made subservient to a fuller and more vigorous, development and manifestation of vegetable and animal life in the spring, summer, and autumn; so the winter, in a spiritual sense, is made subservient to a more vigorous growth in the spring, summer, and autumn states of the fruits of righteousness, and of the blessings of salvation; and also as a means by which the enjoyment of those states

can be enhanced. And inasmuch as these alternations and vicissitudes denoted by the four times of the day and the four seasons of the year are as necessary for the growth and maturity of all spiritual states of goodness and truth, as for the growth and perfection of all things in nature, it is therefore said that " while the earth remaineth, or (more literally translated) during all the days of the earth, seed-time and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night, shall not cease," (Gen. viii. 22) to denote that in the process of regeneration these alternations and vicissitudes of states are indispensable to the growth of things spiritual and heavenly in the mind.

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As the human mind is in its constitution spiritual, it often thinks from laws operative in the spiritual world, and consequently expresses its perceptions and feelings in the language of correspondences between things natural and spiritual. Thus it is common to talk of a benighted mind, to denote ignorance; of a cold heart, to signify the lack of warm friendship and love. But the Word of God uniformly speaks to us according to these emblems and correspondences; and we cannot come to the true meaning of the spirit of Truth until we thus spiritually discern, as the Apostle says, (1 Cor. ii. 14) what is revealed to us. This, then, is the reason why the Lord commands us to pray that our flight be not in the winter." When the Lord was betrayed, and when He was brought to His final temptations, it was winter, (John xviii. 18) to denote the entire consummation of the church, when nothing but self-love prevailed, signified by the "fire of coals," at which the servants and officers were standing; and at which also Peter was warming himself" when he denied the Lord. For all denial of the Lord comes from those impure affections which arise from the coal fire of inordinate self-love; whereas all acknowledgment and love of the Lord come from the heavenly warmth of the "sun of righteousness," as a living principle in the soul.

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The Sabbath day, on which also our flight should not take place, is extremely important to be known. We are aware of the merely literal idea which commentators in general attach to this injunction of the Lord, namely, that as the Sabbath was so holy in the Jewish church, they should pray that their flight from the siege of Jerusalem might not be on that day, lest they should be guilty of breaking the holy laws of the Sabbath. Such commentators, however, do not at the same time remember that the Lord Himself, as the Lord of the Sabbath, abrogated those ritual laws, in consequence of which He was so often accused by the Pharisees. No; such comments as these can never bring out the “spirit and life” of the Word. This injunction is as applicable to us as

to those to whom it was first addressed. The Word, like its Divine Author, is "the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever," and never loses its especial application to every individual member of the church. Besides, the Lord's injunction in the text was given to His disciplesto Christians, and not to the Jews-and therefore it could not be in the Jewish sense of the Sabbath that it should be understood.

The SABBATH DAY was the most holy institution of the Jewish church. Its observance was guarded by the strictest laws, the violation of which was followed by the severest penalties. The Sabbath was thus considered to be most holy on account of its high representative character. It signified the union of the Divine and Human natures in the Lord, hence it denoted, in the supreme sense, His glorification, and also His work of redemption when accomplished,-when, after His temptations and labours, He entered into His Sabbath of rest; it also signified the regeneration of man, and his consequent salvation, when he enters into his heavenly state of rest and peace which is involved in the term Sabbath. This institution, therefore, was most holy in its representative character, because it denoted the consummation of all the divine purposes of redemption and salvation.

But a merely external representative state of holiness, such as then existed among the Jews, when there was no internal vital principles of holiness in the heart and life,-when only the outside of the cup and the platter was clean, but the inside full of extortion and excess,-when the "whited sepulchre appeared beautiful without, but within full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness;" (Matt. xxiii. 27)—such a state of merely external holiness, especially when connected with the mention of winter, is here meant by the Sabbath day. Such was the state of the Scribes and Pharisees, who were mightily punctilious and sanctimonious in observing all the ritual laws of the Sabbath, but who in the sight of Him who knoweth what is in man, were "hypocrites and a generation of vipers."

Such also is the state of all professing Christians who assume a semblance or "form of godliness, but who have none of the life and power thereof," or who, like the church of Sardis, "have a name to live," but who, in the Lord's sight, "are spiritually dead." This is indeed a state even more dreadful than the winter state already described, since it is connected with hypocrisy and profanation.

Let us, then, most earnestly pray that our "flight be not in the winter, neither on the Sabbath day,”—that death, when it comes, may not find us taking our departure out of this world in these unregenerate and sinful states, so contrary to the holiness and happiness of heaven.

SCRUTATOR.

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THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.

THE Boyle Lectures for 1846 were delivered by the Rev. F. D. Maurice, Chaplain of Lincoln's Inn, and Professor of Divinity in King's College, London, and were published in the succeeding year. They consist of about 280 pages, and their object is to exhibit the Oriental systems of religion, and to shew "their relations to Christianity." This is an effort, probably, entirely new, and therefore peculiarly interesting in itself, as well as for the remarkable views developed by the lecturer in carrying out his design. It is a pleasing circumstance to see so original a thinker and so practical a moralist and philanthropist, occupying the influential position above described. It is one of the better signs of the times, that a man so placed can feel in freedom to speak out as he has done, in favour of the better features of the Eastern religions, and of the character of their all but innumerable professors; and then dedicate his book to the Bishop of London.

Mr. Maurice takes the leading ideas of the oriental systems, and assumes that, by degrees, the superstitions now seen in connexion with those leading ideas were gradually added. He traces the quality of the Mahometan religion, and its results, and shews it to be a religion of action, grounded in simple submission to God's absolute Will, particularly as indicated in the Mahometan's saying, under all the troubles by which he can possibly be assailed, "God is good!" He shews how and wherein it resembles the Jewish and Christian systems. Both demand of man submission to the will of God -the Jewish, as Governor of the earth, but the Christian, as the Governor also of heaven and the Church; and especially as the former of the character of obedient believers, and as ruling their minds in freedom from an infinitely benevolent motive, in ceaseless activity, in order to their eternal happiness. Hence he concludes, that if the missionary reasons with the Mahometan, he should proceed on this point of agreement between his religion and the Christian system, namely, implicit submission to the will of God, but,— as a Benevolent Ruler, rather than as the Arbitrary Sovereign of the Koran.

In tracing out the systems of Brahm and Buddha, he shews that these two names have a cognate, if not an identical meaning, namely-Light: that the professors of these religions giving them

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