Again, what natural substances can more fitly represent the carnal concupiscences of the natural man, their inflammatory tendency, the direful falsehood, which, like thick smoke, arises therefrom, darkening the very day, and the excruciating torment occasioned by their activity, both in this world and that which is to come, than the bituminous minerals of sulphur and pitch? Hence they are mentioned in the Word in this sense; as where the Lord by the inspired prophet is describing the judgment which a perverted church brings down upon itself, or a state of mind confirmed by the love and practice of evil and falsehood, in selfish lusts and fantasies, and the direful results, he says, "It is the day of the Lord's vengeance, and the year of recompenses for the controversy of Zion. And the streams thereof shall be turned into pitch, and the dust thereof into brimstone, and the land thereof shall become burning pitch. It shall not be quenched night nor day; the smoke thereof shall go up forever" (Isa. xxxiv. 8-10). Hell itself and its ceaseless punishments, with the burning, soul-tormenting lusts of self and the world,—the ever-active agents of all distress and misery, both as they exist in the spiritual world and in the disorderly minds of men on earth,—are called "a lake of fire burning with brimstone" or sulphur (Rev. xix. 20; xxi. 8). And the Psalmist, speaking of the dreadful anguish which such evil concupiscences and their fantasies certainly induce upon men when they are indulged and confirmed, says, "Upon the wicked He shall rain snares, fire and brimstone, and a horrible tempest: this shall be the portion of their cup" (Psalm xi. 6).13

133

Again, salt, we know, is a compound, in certain given proportions,

133 "I am at a loss to conceive the reason why they are to be considered grievously in error who suppose our Saviour to be threatening the wicked, not with corporeal and sensible fire, but with mental pains and tortures. This was formerly the opinion of grave and eminent men among the Christian fathers, of whom Dion. Petarius makes mention in his Dogmat. Theolog., tom. iii., p. 103. And not a few of the moderns also, who are wholly removed from all suspicion of pernicious errors, firmly maintain the same doctrine. As our Saviour frequently compares the joys of heaven to a feast, I do not see why it is to be considered dangerous to the divine truth to suppose that He also spoke figuratively of the punishments of hell, and in order to demonstrate more vividly and clearly the dreadful sufferings which the wicked will have to undergo, borrowed an image from the most exquisite torments inflicted

upon human malefactors. For my own part, I conceive no greater injury is done to the Christian religion by supposing the fire with which the rich glutton is tormented, to be figurative, than by regarding the feast, at which Lazarus is said to be present along with Abraham, as an image and emblem of supreme felicity."-Dr. I. L. Mosheim's Note to Cudworth's Int. Sys., vol. iii., p. 367.

"If I understand your letter, your imagination is haunted with the idea of literal flames, and hell is created, not as including all moral evils, but as a great fire. The spir itual interpretation of Scripture has so far made its way among all classes of Christians in this part of the country (U. S. A.), that I do not know an individual who believes in the literal fire as the punishment of the condemned."-Dr. Channing's Letter to a Friend, dated Boston, Nov. 1841; Memoirs, p. 468.

of an acid and an alkali which have an affinity for each other. In a good sense salt corresponds to the affection of combining truth with goodness, faith with charity, knowledge with practice. This desire, when incorporated in the mind and diffused through the life, preserves them from the corruption of sin. The prophet Elijah, therefore, under a representative dispensation, when miracles were permitted, is said to have cast salt into the spring of the waters of Jericho, because the waters were unwholesome and the ground was unfruitful, saying, "Thus saith the Lord, I have healed these waters; there shall not be from thence any more death or barren land" (2 Kings ii. 21), to teach us most significantly that the waters-the doctrines of eternal truth-can impart no permanently renovating virtues to refresh the soul, and render man fruitful in good works, unless man coöperates with the divine Bestower, by uniting therewith the interior spiritual affections and holy desires which embody themselves in goodness of life, and impart a heavenly quality to every word and action.

On account of this signification of salt in a good sense, it was an indispensable law to Israel, that with all the offerings presented to Jehovah, salt should be offered (Lev. ii. 13); and the spiritual ground of this law is recognized in the Gospel, where, in manifest reference to the heavenly union of truth and affection in the mind, signified by salt, we are thus divinely instructed and exhorted by our blessed Lord, "Every one shall be salted with fire, and every sacrifice shall be salted with salt. Salt is good: but if the salt have lost his saltness, wherewith will ye season it? Have salt in yourselves, and have peace one with another" (Mark ix. 49, 56). But, in the opposite sense, salt denotes an unholy commixture of truth with evil, which is profanation, and the awful effect of this deplorable state is condemnation. Thus, Lot's wife became a pillar of salt, because she looked behind her and separated knowledge from duty (Gen. xix. 26); hence we have the solemn warning, "Remember Lot's wife" (Luke xvii. 32). We read also of certain cities which were given up to salt, or devoted to desolation; and to the same purport it is said, in reference to the want of this conjoining affection, "[The Lord] turneth a fruitful land into barrenness (or salt), for the wickedness of them that dwell therein" (Psalm cvii. 34).14

134 "Salt, in the original Hebrew, is ex- | to salt a certain sacred property."-Forster's pressed by a term denoting incorruptibility | Pinkerton's Coll., vol. ix., p. 281.

and perpetuity."—A. C. 2455.

The Orientals express a vacant counte

"Most of the Asiatic nations have affixed nance by saying, “there is no salt in it."

CHAPTER XVI.

CORRESPONDENCE OF THE SUN, MOON, AND STARS; THE IDOLATROUS WOR SHIP OF THEM, AND ITS EXTENSIVE PREVALENCE AND INFLUENCE.

HOSE sublime objects of creative energy in the material universe,

THOS

the sun, the moon, and the stars, are constantly employed in the Word of God to signify the grand universals of life and salvation. For instance, the sun, in relation to the regenerate man, corresponds to the Lord Himself, "the Sun of righteousness," and thus also to the love of God and our neighbor, for this love is derived from his essential life, and is spoken of as the fountain of every celestial beatitude; as in Malachi, "Unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings" (iv. 2). But in relation to the unregenerate man, the sun corresponds to the evil love of self and the world, which, "when it is up," or risen, that is, permitted to be active, and increases concupiscence, instead of ministering blessings, is described as "scorching" the good seed of truth, so that under the baneful influence it "withers away" (Matt. xiii. 6), and as causing the heaven-descended manna to vanish (Ex. xvi. 21). The sun is spoken of in the same sense in the Psalms, where it is said, "The Lord is thy keeper: the Lord is thy shade upon thy right hand. The sun shall not smite thee by day" (exxi. 5, 6); signifying that the Lord can alone protect us from the destructive influence of self-love and its burning passions.'

135

135 "The worship of the sun, by the Egyp- | moment, under the image of the moon, who tians, by the Phoenicians, and Philistines, borrows her light from the sun, and is perwas the worship of one invisible God, sym-petually changing her appearance. This bolized by the visible source of created light and life." They afterwards worshipped Baal, or Seth, as the sun-god. "Thus symbols became idols."-Bunsen's Keys of St. Peter, pp. 38, 39.

"The Egyptians represented the Supreme Being and his divine attributes-his immensity and omnipotence, his fecundity and infinite perfection-under the symbol of the sun; and they represented Nature, or matter, which is altogether dependent on that Supreme Being, and diversified every

mode of representation was undoubtedly the primary cause of idolatry and superstition; men growing by degrees forgetful of the Supreme Being, and confining their attention to that glorious luminary, the sun, as the immediate cause of what they beheld, instead of considering it as the material representa. tive of its spiritual source, the invisible Producer of all visible objects."-Nat. Del., vol. i., p. 792.

A very remarkable book was published in Dublin, in 1862, entitled Primeval Symbols, or

The sun, as the centre of attraction to the planetary worlds and the proximate source of heat, light, life, and fruitfulness to this natural world, is the representative emblem of the Lord Himself as to his divine love; for this principle is the centre of all vitality in the church and the mind. In the winter season all creation mourns, as it were, the sun's apparent absence; many animals become torpid, and the vegetable kingdom withers apparently; but on the return of spring, and the more direct rays of the sun, the kingdoms of nature are all warmed into new life, and renewed into activity by his vivifying and genial influences, and universal nature rejoices at the sun's apparent approach. In all this we may trace and confirm the beautiful correspondence of the sun. The moon, dependent upon the earth, but shining with a borrowed lustre derived from the sun, and whose reflected glories dissipate the darkness of so many of our nights, is, in a good sense, a striking figure of a true faith in the Lord and his Word; for faith derives all its effulgence and life from love, and dissipates all the doubt and darkness which so often prevail in the night of trial and temptation. Hence, in the sublime promise of a perpetual state of that heavenly joy and delight which flow from the love of God, and faith in his Word, the Evangelical Prophet exclaims in rapture, “Thy sun shall no more go down, neither shall thy moon withdraw itself" (Isa. lx. 20). It is from the principles and perceptions of the same love and faith that we are led with heartfelt sincerity to worship and serve the Lord, as being goodness itself, and truth itself; and to ascribe to the outflowing energies of his Holy Spirit all works of benevolence and use, by whatever agents they are made manifest. Then, in the language of correspondence, we are said to "Praise Him for the precious fruits brought forth by the sun, and for the precious things put forth by the moon" (Deut. xxxiii. 44).

The stars which bespangle the skies with their innumerable coruscations, and emit rays of light into the atmosphere, are emblematical,

the Analogy of Creation and New Creation, by W.Featherstone H, Barrister-at-law, in which it is attempted to be shown that the seven days of creation have the most wonderful and striking analogy to the Lord Jesus Christ and his work of redemption, and to the several stages in which man follows Him in the regeneration, "or new creation." One cannot perceive that the writer has ever read the works of Swedenborg; yet, amid great confusion and uncertainty, and without any guide to direct him, he has yet hit upon many ideas which are true and confirmatory

of the truth of the science of correspondences, and which are valuable as proceeding from an independent mind. For instance, in his introduction, he says: "How all our knowledge arises from the study of the works and the Word of the Great Creator, and consists in the perception of the various relations (taking the Word in its widest signification) which his works bear to Himself; and these works are full of analogies within analogies, or, in the language of the Son of Israel, ‘all the things are made double one against another.'"-p. 3.

in a good sense, of the knowledges of goodness and truth, which irradiate the mental firmament with rays of spiritual intelligence. When, therefore, a desecrated and benighted state of the church is treated of, the sun is represented as darkened and "shrouded in sackcloth of hair," to denote the utter extinction of love and charity; the moon is spoken of as "turned to blood," to signify that all genuine faith is darkened and corrupted; and the stars are said to "fall from heaven, even as a fig-tree casteth her untimely figs, when she is shaken of a mighty wind," to represent the awful apostasy from truth, when the revealed knowledges of heavenly things are hurled to the earth, and made subservient to the vilest purposes (Joel ii. 10; Matt. xxiv. 29; Acts ii. 20; Rev. vi. 12, 13). On the other hand, when the strength and glory of the church are treated of, she is represented as a wonder seen in heaven," a woman clothed with the sun" (Rev. xii. 1),—encircled by a protecting sphere of divine love; as having "the moon under her feet,"-supported by a pure, holy, and firm faith; and upon her head " a diadem of twelve stars,"-crowned with the inextinguishable splendors of spiritual knowledge or intelligence.

The communications of divine truths from the Lord were made, in ancient times, not only by inspired speeches, but also by the perceptions which were excited into activity by visions or dreams. These were all representatives, from which the prophets taught the people the divine will and promises, and recorded them as the very Word of God. Joseph was favored with a prophetic dream of this kind, when he saw the sun, the moon, and the eleven stars, in appearance make obeisance before him. This can only, in the mere letter, apply to the single historical fact of Joseph, his brethren, and his parents in Egypt; but, in the internal or spiritual sense, by Joseph is signified the Lord Jesus Christ, and also, in regard to man, he signifies divine truth from the Lord in heaven and the church, or in the spiritual man; but the sun and the moon signify here natural goodness and truth, or goodness and truth in the natural mind; father and brethren signify and include the Jewish religion; while the eleven stars signify all the knowledges thereof. Bowing, or obeisance, denotes adoration, accompanied with the acknowledgment that all the rites and ceremonies of that religion had, in their internal character, a special relation to the Lord Jesus Christ in his divinely glorified humanity, our heavenly Joseph, the source of all goodness and truth and knowledge. It is He who sustains his church in Egypt, and supplies abundance of corn in states of spiritual famine; but claims to be acknowledged as Lord of all.