70 the Soul and Body of Man.-Sect. 2. and Spiritual. Parallel between the terraqueous ESSAY. V Parallel between Geome- Globe, including its Atmosphere, ESSAY. II.—Parallel between Ame- rica, North and South, Natural ESSAY III.-Parallel between Mexico ESSAY VI-Parallel between Che- mistry, Natural and Spiritual. ESSAY VII. An analogic Commen- tary, on the Prophecies of the 1260 "He that hath ears to hear, let him hear." "For nothing is secret that shall not be manifest: neither any thing hid, that ESSAY I.-SECTION II. ON the resemblance or correspondence, by Analogy or Proportion, between the natural or terraqueous World, and the moral or human World; viz. the Soul and Body of Man. "He that soweth the good seed is the Son of man; the field is the world; the good seed are the children of the kingdom; but the tares are the children of the wicked one; the enemy that sowed them is the devil."-MATT. xiii. 2. "That on the good ground are they, which in an honest and good heart, having heard the word, keep it, and bring forth fruit with patience."-LUKE Viii. 3. "He that hath ears to hear, let him hear."-MATT. 4. "I am the true Vine, and my Father is the Husband- IT appears to be no small proof of an universal Prefatory. analogy between the spiritual, moral, and natural worlds, that we are not able to express our thoughts to each other, upon any intellectual or moral subject, with sufficient clear B ness, except only by the help of similitudes, and metaphors, borrowed from the operations of nature in the visible creation. To allow, then, that there is a striking, evident, and satisfactory similitude between natural and spiritual things, (which we certainly do when we use the former to illustrate and typify the latter, as much as when we show a portrait to illustrate our description of an unknown person;) to allow this, and yet to suppose that the CREATOR has not ordained this admirable arrangement for some great moral and spiritual purpose; but that it is, as it were, accidental, and without any such regular predetermination, is strange, and even wonderful ! All language is neither more nor less than a mysterious picture of our ideas; and our ideas are intellectual pictures, which have been painted or engraven on the mind very gradually from infancy, by the operation of natural, external objects; viz. "As far as the east is from the west, (that is to say, natural distance,) so far hath he removed our transgressions from us," (that is to say, spiritual distance ;) so that all language, more or less, is a proof and confession, though not generally considered so, of the universal analogy between matter and spirit.* Yet when we speak of enlightening * The use of the above text, and its analogy, is not select, but casual, having opened upon it, by accident, in search of the mind by the knowledge of truth, we certainly, though often without consciousness, refer to the effects of the sun, or of a candle upon the natural eyes. But it is God only, who can say effectually, both in spiritual and natural things, "let there be light."—Genesis. Hence, a blind man is much slower to form any distinct ideas, and to reason with accuracy, or to express his ideas, (such as they are,) with clearness, than a man who sees, because one grand channel of information and illustration from without is cut off. If he be also deaf, his obscurity of mind, and poverty of expression will proportionally increase; and if he be also dumb, he will be, from necessity, stupid and irrational in effect, (though not in the fountain, which has never been opened,) both in respect to the reception and digestion of natural images from without, and the transmission of them from within, like the honey bee. This is mental opacity or opaqueness, total darkness, and therefore, as the light of truth informs us: "If a man walk inthe night he stumbleth, because there is no light in him." Hence it is certain from revelation, reason, nature, and constant experience, that the external creation is a great and mysterious MIR a scriptural illustration; yet the east is the type of religion, or the rising sun; and the west is the emblem of the sunset of infidelity, viz. the greatest moral distance. |