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THE BODY IN GENERAL
by Edward Craig Mitchell
 We take the human body as the model, because it is the highest among external forms. The human spirit is a spiritual organism, formed of spiritual substance, and existing on the spiritual plane of life. And, to bring the spirit of man into contact with the physical world, and with the material plane of Hfe, the spirit must be encompassed with a material body, formed of material substance, and thus adapted to life on the material plane. Thus the physical body is an image of the spirit, formed for the external uses of the spirit. And, being the external form of the spirit, the body corresponds to the spirit, in all its parts and conditions. And so, in common conversation, we speak of the body and its parts and conditions, to express our thoughts about the corresponding mental parts and states; as, for instance, we speak of our hearts, when we mean to express something about our affections, to which our bodily hearts correspond ; and as we speak of a man's eyes, when we refer to his intelligence and his mental sight.
And, because of such correspondence, we find the same method of speech in the letter of the Scriptures. When our Lord, speaking of the holy supper, said to His disciples, "Take, eat; this is My body;" (Matt, xxvi. 26), He did not teach that the bread was actually changed into His body, by a miracle, but He referred to the bread as in correspondence with His Divine Goodness, His Love, which is, to, the spirit of man, what the bread is to man's material body, the sustainer of life. And when Jesus "spake of the temple of His body," (John ii. 21), He referred, spiritually, to the Divine Truth, which serves as a temple, in which dwells the Divine Love ; and to His Humanity, which was a temple in which dwelt His Divinity;
THE BODY IN CONTRAST WITH THE SPIRIT, OR SOUL.
The body, set in contrast with the spirit, means the physical man,, as distinguished from the spiritual part of man; and it represents the natural mind, as contrasted with the spiritual mind. In Isa. x. 18, it is said that fire should consume the "fruitful field, both soul and body ;" i. e., evil shall destroy the mind of an unregenerate man, as to both his spiritual mind and his natural mind. And when Jesus said, "Fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul; but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body, in hell," (Matt. x. 28.) He spoke of mental conditions ; and He warned men not to be discouraged in the work of regeneration, by the loss of such things as they loved in their natural minds, but which were not essential to their spiritual life and growth; but to beware of evils, which kill the spirituality of a man.
THE OUTWARD PARTS.
The general division of the body is into three parts, the head, the trunk, and the extremities. These three parts represent, the three discrete degrees of human life, celestial, spiritual and natural ; i. e., the things of inmost love, the things of truth, and the things of obedience to the Divine rules of conduct. The head is the supreme part, being the highest part of the body, and containing the -brain, as the seat of intelligence, and which directs the body. And hence the head represents the highest principle in the mind of man, the inmost element of life, the celestial principle, which is supreme and profound love to the Lord, and love for the Divine Goodness.
The trunk, or body without the head and limbs, being of great importance because of its vital organs, represents, comparatively, the spiritual degree of life, characterized by love to the neighbor, which is the goodness of truth, as distinguished from celestial goodness, which is the goodness of love. The limbs, or extremities, being less vital, and further removed from the centre of bodily life, represent the natural degree of human life, the lowest, or outward degree.
In a general way, the three parts, the head, the trunk, and the extremities, represent the life of the three heavens, the celestial, the spiritual and the natural. In this general division, the neck would be considered as a part of the trunk.
THE HEAD.
In the Scriptures, the head is often mentioned, both literally and figuratively. In the image seen by Daniel, in vision, the head was of fine. gold, the breast of silver, and the feet of iron, representing the discrete degrees of human life. (Dan. ii. 32, 33.) In Israel, the oldest representative of a family was called the head of the family, or head of the tribe, to represent the leading principle in the mind, the ruling love. (Num. i. 4.) And when any great blessing, or any severe affliction, came upon a man, it was said to come upon his head. (Deut. xxxiii. 16; Josh. ii. 19.) Priests and kings, when inducted into office, were anointed on the head, because the head represents the inmost life, which should be opened to the Lord, so that the man can serve the Lord in heart. Kings were crowned upon the head ; and so David sings to the Lord, and of the good man, "Thou settest a crown of pure gold on his head." (Ps. xxi. 3;) And gold is the celestial metal, representing love to the Lord. Speaking of the unregenerate character of the evil man, it is said, in Isa. i. 5, 6, "the whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint. From the sole of the foot unto the head, there is no soundness." When the regenerating man triumphs over the evil tendencies of his own natural- mind, he exclaims, with David, "Now shall mine head be lifted up above mine enemies." (Ps. xxvii. 6.) That the doctrine of the Divine Humanity of the Lord is the primary doctrine of the Christian Church, is meant by the words in Psalm cxviii. 22, "The stone which the builders refused is become the head of the corner." , "The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man hath not where to lay his head" (Matt. viii. 20), means that, in ah unregenerate world, the cunning and sensuous affections of the natural mind, and their common thoughts, are gladly received by men; but there is no openness of mind to receive the Divine principles.
THE PARTS OF THE HEAD: THE FACE.
The head has its parts, namely, the face, the crown of the head, the back of the head, the ears, and the hair. The feelings and thoughts of the mind express themselves especially in the face; and hence it is said that "The face is the index of the mind." And so the face represents the interior principles of the mind. And we look into a man's face, in order to understand his meaning. The sphere of a man, the influence which flows out from his character, flows especially from his face. And hence we discourse in the expressions of our faces. And the more intellig^t, and more spiritual-minded, men become, the more manhood'their faces express. A man expresses aversion, disagreement, by averting his face, and turning his back to another person ; and such action represents turning away his interior affections, because the other person is repulsive. And a man expresses humility by bowing low with his head, with his face near the earth ; and extreme humility is expressed by falling flat on the face, on the ground; as was done in Israel, when in the presence of God,' or of an angel, or of a kiijg, or other person high in authority. "And Joseph was the governor over the land. . . . and Joseph's brethren came, and bowed down themselves before him, with their faces to the earth." (Gen. xlii. 6.)
Jehovah instructed Moses to have the priests bless the people of Israel in these words : "Jehovah bless thee, and keep thee: Jehovah make His face to shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee : Jehovah lift up His countenance upon thee, and give thee peace." (Numb. vi. 24-26.) The face of Jehovah represents the Divine Love, which is the highest or inmost principle of the Divine character. "The face of Jehovah is against them that do evil" (Ps. xxxiv. 16), meaning that evil is against, or opposed to, the Divine Love. Speaking of the evil Israelites, the Lord said, "They have turned unto Me the back, and not the face" (Jer. xxxii. 33) ; that is, they are worshipping God in mere externals- and forms, but not in heart. The prophets, in vision, saw several composite beasts, each with several different faces ; thus representing the interior principles which governed men, in the various states of life thus symbolized.
THE CROWN OF THE HEAD.
The "crown of the head," or top of the head, represents wisdom, which is from love to the Lord, which love opens the man's interior mind to wisdom. Jacob, blessing his children, said of Joseph, "The blessings of thy father . . . shall be ... on the crown of the head of him that was separate from his brethren." (Gen. xlix. 26.) "In all Israel, there was none to be so much praised as Absalom, for his beauty; from the sole of his foot, even to the crown of his head, there was no blemish in him." (II Sam. xiv. 25.) The physical beauty of Absalom represents the beauty and perfection of the literal sense of the Divine Word, which is perfect from outmost to inmost.
THE BACK OF THE HEAD.
The back of the head, or occiput, represents the affectional part of the mind, as distinguished from the front head, or cerebrum, which especially represents the intellectual mind.
THE EARS.
The ears, with which we hear, represent obedience to the Divine laws which we hear. A man hears for the sake of making practical use of that which he hears. We recognize this principle, when we say to a child to whom we have given an unheeded command, "Did you hear me?" Jehovah said to Israel, "Give ear, O my people, to My law; incline your ears to the words of My mouth." (Ps. Ixxviii. i.) Those who know the truth, but do not obey it, are thus addressed : "Hear now this, O foolish people, afid without understanding; which have eyes, and see not: which have ears and hear not; . . . this people hath a revolting and a rebellious heart." (Jer. v. 21, 23:)
THE HAIR.
The hair is the most external part of the body," growing on the external skin ; and, therefore, it represents the natural principle, the ultimate, or extremity of the mind, such, for instance, as would be occupied with the merely literal sense of the Scriptures. Samson's strength was said to be in his long hair, thus representing the power of the letter of the Divine Word, when obeyed in its fulness. "Even the very hairs of your head are all numbered" (Luke xii. 7), means that all the particulars of our natural life, mentally and physically, are provided and protected by the Divine Providence.
PARTS OF THE FACE: THE FOREHEAD.
The face is divided into forehead, eyes, nose, lips, cheeks, jaws and chin. The forehead, as the highest part of the face, when considered relatively, as a part of the face, represents the highest principle in the mind, the love. In a regenerate man, this is love to the Lord ; but in an evil man it is love of self, which then ursurps the place. of regenerate love. In the Apocalypse, it is said that "the servants of our God" were "sealed" "in their foreheads" (Rev. vii. 3.) ; and that they had the "Father's name written in their foreheads" (Rev. xiv. i) ; by which is meant that they received the Divine Love into their spirit, and loved the Lord, in return. But of the evil it is said that they "have not the seal of God in their foreheads" (Rev. ix. 4), but, instead, they had received in their foreheads "the mark of the beast," which represented infernal life. (Rev. xiii. 16; xiv. 9.)
THE EYES.
The eyes, with which we see objects, correspond to our understanding, or intellect, with which we see principles, mentally. "The statutes of Jehovah are right, rejoicing the heart; the commandment of Jehovah is pure, enlightening the eyes." (Ps. xix. 8.) "Open Thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of Thy law'" (Ps. cxix: 18.) Such opening is of the spiritual eyes, the understanding. "The light of the body is the eye: if, therefore, thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light. But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If, therefore, the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness." (Matt. vi. 22, 23.) Genuine truth enlightens a man; but when a man abuses his understanding, by favoring evil, his whole mind becomes spiritually darkened with falsities.
In the Scriptures, frequent mention is made of persons "lifting up their eyes," to observe things, by which is represented an effort to elevate the understanding, that it may see on a higher plane.
THE NOSE.
The nose is the organ by which we exercise the sense of smell. And this sense is very important, for, by means of it, we discover the quality of what we smell. Wild animals depend upon their sense of smell, to a very great extent. Thus they discover the fitness of anything for their use, recognizing their propet" food, and distinguishing their friends from their enemies. The nose also' performs a service to the lungs, in respiration. Thus the nose performs a twofold use. In regard to the sense of smell, the nose represents the perception of quality, the recognition of spiritual character. Odors apply especially to the affections; And the perception of the quality of a thing, is a perception of goodness, which is a service to the man's will and its affections. But the use of the nose in breathing corresponds to the perception of truth, and its reception : and this is a service to the understanding, or intellect. As odors proceed from the spheres of living things, the sense of smell represents the perception of the spheres of others, which are formed from their ruling-loves, and from which, therefore, their states of mind may be recognized.
The nose is often spoken of by the word nostrils, as the interior parts of the nose. It is said, "And Jehovah God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul." (Gen. ii. 7.) To form man from dust is to form the external man, the natural mind, into a regenerate manhood; and to breathe into his nostrils the breath of life, [or lives,] is to fill him with the life of love and of faith : and then the whole man is made a living soul, a regenerated man, in externals as well as in internals, in conduct as well as in principles. It is said of unregenerate men, "Noses have they, but they smell not," (Ps. cxv. 6.), that is they have the capacity to perceive the quality of goodness, and of evil, but they have closed this faculty, in themselves, by evil, falsity and sin.
THE LIPS.
The lips perform several important uses; and in these different activities, they have various representative meanings. In eating and drinking, the lips represent mental apprehension, the ability to take hold of, and to receive, good and true principles, in order that these may be prepared for mental digestion in the rational thought. In speaking, the lips represent the thought from which a man "speaks, and also the doctrine according to which he speaks. In demonstrating our love, the lips represent natural affection. The Lord said of the good man, "Iniquity was not foilnd in his lips. He walked with Me in peace and equity." (Mai. ii. 6.) "Keep thy tongue frdm evil, and thy lips from speaking guile. Depart from evil, and do good." (Ps. xxxiv. 13, 14.) In a bad sense, the lips represent the external thought, only, and the outward action without any corresponding inward principles; as when Jehovah said, of the Israelites, "This people draw near Me, with their mouth, and with their lips do honor Me, but have removed their heart far from Me." (Isa. xxix. 13.) "With flattering lips, and with a double heart, do they speak." (Ps. xii. 2.)
THE CHEEKS.
The cheeks, which aid in the preparation of food, represent the perception and understanding of interior truth, and thus the preparation of truth for the use of the interior mind. The right cheek represents the perception of goodness, and the left cheek represents the understanding of truth. And, with these facts known, we can understand the meaning of the words of our Lord, "Ye have heard that it hath been said. An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth; but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other, also." (Matt. v. 39.) It is clear that this command is meant to be figurative, and not literal ; for the act of turning the other cheek would be regarded as a taunt, and would probably induce further violence. The point of the text is that a good man will not resist evil with evil, but will meet evil with goodness, so that no more evil shall be done. To smite you on the right cheek, is to make an effort to injure your perception of truth and your affection for truth. And if anyone does this, from an evil motive, you can guard your mind against the evil spirit of retaliation. You can turn to him the other cheek, the left cheek, which represents your understanding of the truth. Without fear you can allow the evil man to work against both your perception of truth and your understanding of truth, as long as you do not allow him to drag you down to his low level of anger; because the Lord will protect your spiritual life. "He shall give His angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways." (Ps. xci. ii.) The word "cheek" is often used, in modern conversation, as a slang word, meaning self-assurance, impudence, which comes from over-confidence in one's own knowledge and perception.
THE JAWS AND THE CHIN.
The jaws and the chin, as they co-operate with the cheeks, also represent the perception and understanding of truth, but generally in the natural mind. In a bad sense, where the natural mind is perverted, and led into error by evil influences, it is said that there is "a bridle in the jaws of the people, causing them to err." (Isa. xxx. 28.)
THE NECK.
The neck, considered as a separate part, situated between the head and the trunk, and carrying the nerves from the brain to the general body, represents the communication between the celestial principle of love, represented by the head, and the spiritual principle of truth, represented by the trunk. And this communication is by influx, which is the flowing-in of the more interior life into the less interior life, as our affections flow into our thoughts, and give them force and vitality. And this influx conjoins the two elements of life, and enables them to receive greater life from the Lord. And when men are unreceptive of Divine influences, and self-willed, they are called "stiff-necked." When men are spiritually enslaved by evils and falsities, they are said to have a yoke around their neck, and to be driven by their captors. And if a man arouses himself, and throws off such influence, he is said to break the yoke of his oppressors. And when the man is able to put down his own evils, and has broken the influx of evil into his mind, he acknowledges the Lord's help: "Thou hast subdued under me those that rose up against me. Thou hast given me the necks of mine enemies.'' (Ps. xviii. 39, 40.)
THE TRUNK.
The trunk is divided into the shoulders, the breast, the back, and the loins, etc.
THE SHOULDERS.
The shoulders, the arms, and the hands are the principal means by which a man exerts his physical power, and so they represent power. The shoulders represent the general and principal power. In an ancient fable, a cartman, finding one of his cart-wheels stuck fast in mud, prayed to Jupiter to help him. And Jupiter replied, "Put your own shoulder to the wheel." And, doing so, the man succeeded in his effort. And he learned the great lesson that we are to expect the help of God to come to us in sustaining us in our own exertions, the putting forth of our own power. When we take upon ourselves any new work, requiring effort, we say that we have shouldered it, or taken it upon our own shoulders.
The shoulder, especially the right shoulder, representing the power of love, was much used in the flesh offerings, in Israel, and was given to the priests, as their portion. Jacob, in speaking of his sons, said of Issachar, "Issachar is a strong ass, crouching down between two burdens. And he saw that rest was good, and the land, that it was pleasant; and bowed his shoulder to bear, and became a servant unto tribute." (Gen. xlix. 14, 15,)- Issachar thus represents the natural mind, working amid the continued burdens of external life. When Joseph, representing the internal mind, was exalted, Jehovah said, "I removed his shoulder from the burden." (Ps. Ixxxi. 6.) In spiritual things there is greater freedom.
Speaking of the coming of the Lord, Jesus Christ, to bring the power of the Divine Love to men, by means of a fuller revelation of Divine Truth, it was said, prophetically, "Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given : and the government shall be upon His shoulder." (Isa. ix. 6.) The Divine Humanity should carry the burden of man's regeneration. And it was said of the selfish Scribes and Pharisees, who would not exert themselves, but who threw their burdens upon others : "They bind heavy burdens, and grievous to be borne, and lay them on men's shoulders ; but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers." (Matt, xxiii. 4.)
THE BREAST.
The breast, or bosom, represents charity, or love to the neighbor, spiritual love, which exhibits itself in a good and useful life. Among the Israelites, when violence was done to a man's sense of charity between men, he smote upon his own breast, as a representative action. In John's apocalyptic vision, "seven angels came out of the temple, .... clothed in pure and white linen, and having their breasts girded with golden girdles." (Rev. xv. 6.) And the golden love to the Lord fitly rests upon the breast, as representing love to the neighbor ; for he who loves the Lord, loves the neighbor, as the Lord's child. To show that men receive, in character, that which they give, in practical life, Jesus said, "Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom." (Luke vi. 38.)
THE BACK.
The breast, being in front, represents superior things, which are interior things; but the back represents inferior things, which are exterior ; the things of the natural mind. In a good sense, the back represents practical good in the daily life, in outward action. Moses was permitted to see the back of Jehovah, but not His face. (Ex. xxxiii. 18, '23.) The back of Jehovah represents the externals of the Divine Word and of the Church, the letter of the Word, and the forms of worship. These are all that the merely natural mind of man can comprehend. When the back is treated of, as separated from the breast, etc., it represents the merely external mind, apart from the spiritual mind. In this sense, the Lord said of evil men, "They have turned unto Me the back, and not the face." ( Jer. xxxii. 33.) Men do this when they use the forms of worship, without love of good principles. To turn the back to another, in opposition, is to reject the other person, and to express disagreement and antagonism. And a similar meaning is, expressed by casting a thing behind our back, throwing it away. In another sense, for a soldier in combat to turn the back, and to run away, expresses fear, and a rejection of duty.
THE LOINS, ETC.
The loins, including the reproductive organs, represent conjugial love, in which, spiritually, love and wisdom are conjoined, by mutual affection. God said to Jacob, "Be fruitful, and multiply ; a nation and a company of nations shall be of thee, and kings shall come out of thy loins." (Gen. xxxy. 11.) By this is meant that the regenerating man shall bring forth the elements of good character, regenerate love and wisdom; and that, then, many forms of goodness and of truth, shall be brought forth in the mind, by the marriage of goodness and truth. Jesus said, "Let your loins be girded about, and your lights burning." (Luke xii. 35.) And a man does these things, spiritually, when he keeps his love well instructed, and held within orderly limits ; and when he always keeps before his thought the truths and doctrines of the Lord's Word, to enlighten him.
PARTS OF THE EXTREMITIES.
The extremities, or limbs, are divided into two general classes, the upper and the lower extremities. When these are mentioned in contrast, the upper extremities represent the interior part of the mind, and the lower extremities represent the exterior mind, the natural mind. The upper extremities include the arms, the hands and the fingers. All of these represent power, because they are the means by which human power is generally exerted. But, as the shoulder represents the general and concentrated power of the man's mind, so, as the arms and the fingers are extended further outward, they represent the power, or ability, of the mind, as it is exerted further in externals, or ultimates. Taking the shoulders to represent the power of the will, the arms will represent the power of the understanding ; and the hands the power of action ; and the fingers the power exerted in the details of action. And the ten fingers represent all the details of action, in which our ability is exerted.
ARMS.
The arm of Jehovah signifies the Divine Power. In a special sense, the arm of Jehovah is the Divine Humanity, assumed in uhimates, or externals, in Jesus Christ. And the power of the Divine Humanity is represented by the great strength of Samson. In the Scriptures, the power of God is often ascribed to His arm. "Thou hast scattered Thine enemies with Thy strong arm Thou hast a mighty arm : strong is Thy hand, and high is Thy right hand." (Ps. Ixxxix. 10, 13.) "Be Thou their arm every morning; our salvation also in the time of trouble." (Isa. xxxiii. 2). Referring to the Divine Providence, it is said, "The eternal God is thy refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms : and He shall thrust out the enemy from before thee." (Deut. xxxiii. 27.) Often, speaking of men, we express our thoughts as to their power, their influence, and their force of character, by speaking of their "strong arms." With our loved ones, our arms express the power of our affections. When men make mechanical means of protecting themselves in personal encounter, such contrivances are called "arms," as swords, fire-arms etc., because they add to the power of our arms. And a person thus protected is said to be "armed." When the power of evil persons is overcome, it is said, in the Psalms, (xxxvii. 17.) "The arms of the wicked shall be broken : but Jehovah upholdeth the righteous."
HANDS.
What a man does, in practical life, is called "the work of his hands," embodying his efforts ; as "That Jehovah, thy God, may bless thee, in all the work of thine hand:" (Deut. xiv. 29,); meaning that the Lord will sustain us in our efforts to do good. When we have a matter under our control, we say we have it "in hand," or that we "have our hands on it." And when we lose anything, or lose control of it, we say "it has gone from our hand."
The hand, representing power or ability, represents authority also. When Pharaoh gave Joseph the management of the affairs of Egypt, it is said that "he left all that he had in Joseph's hand." (Gen. xxxix. 6.) With his hand a rnan signs his name, and thus exerts and pledges his power. So, when men make an agreement, they shake hands over it ; and each is said to "give his hand to it," thus pledging himself in the matter. In this sense, the joining of hands signifies agreement, and also communication between the two persons, as, for instance, occurs in the marriage service. So, a man takes a legal oath by lifting up his hand, as a pledge of his truthfulness, and of his proper use of his power.
In a practical sense, a man's hands represent his daily life. "Who shall ascend into the hill of Jehovah or who shall stand in His holy place? He that hath clean hands and a pure heart." (Ps. xxiv. 3, 4.) When a man wishes to avoid responsibility for any action of which he does not approve, he says, "I Wash my hands of this thing." And, in Bible times, in such cases, men washed their hands, literally. For instance, in Israel, when the dead body of a person was found in a field, and it was not known who killed the person, the elders of the nearest city had to kill a heifer ; "and all the elders of that city shall wash their hands over the heifer; .... and they shall answer and say. Our hands have not shed this blood, neither have our eyes seen' it." (Deut. xxi. 6, 7.) Pilate sought to induce the multitude to release Jesus ; but "when Pilate saw that he could prevail nothing, but that rather a tumult was made, he took water, and washed his hands before the multitude, saying, I am innocent of the blood of this just person.'' (Matt, xxvii. 24.)
In some cases, things which have not hands are said to use their hands ; as, for instance, "Ye shall go out with joy, and be led forth with peace ; the mountains and the hills shall break forth before you into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands." (Isa. Iv. 12.) To clap the hands is to express gladness. That the trees clap their hands represents a state of joy, in which all things that we know of the Divine Truth unite their influence, and exert their power, in our regeneration.
As the hands carry out what the will desires and the understanding plans, a man's activity takes its character from his heart. "Every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit." (Matt. vii. 17.) In a very evil condition in Israel, it was said by the prophet, Micah, (vii. 2, 3.) "There is none upright : . . . that they may do evil with both hands, earnestly, the prince asketh, and the judge, for a reward.'' To do evil with both hands, is to do it with power from both sides of the mind, the will and the understanding. The man who does evil intentionally brings destruction upon his own mind; or, as the Bible expresses it, "The wicked is snared in the work of his own hands." (Ps. ix. 16.) "Their land also is full of idols ; they worship the work of their own hands, that which their own fingers have made." (Isa. ii. 8.)
When a man trusts in himself, he says, "My power, and the might of mine hand, hath gotten me this wealth." (Deut. viii. 17.) But, in such case, the man's hand represents the perverted power of selflove, such as Jesus referred to, when He said, "If thy right hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee; for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell." (Matt. v. 30.) When a man sees that any evil love has entered his will, he should recognize the fact that it is absolutely necessary to dislodge such love, and to cast it out of his will, promptly and with determination. This is practical regeneration, which is the death of old and evil states of mind, and a new birth, into new and good principles. The hand of Jehovah represents the Divine Power. When Jehovah was especially leading a prophet, in his official action, it is said that the hand of Jehovah was on the prophet; as in Ezekiel, "The Word of Jehovah came expressly unto Ezekiel, the priest, . . . in the land of the Chaldeans, by the river Chebar; and the hand of Jehovah was there upon him." (Ezek. i. 3.) The hand of the Lord means, also, the Divine Providence, which His hand dispenses. The providence of the Lord often acts by means of guardian angels. "He shall give His angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways. They shall bear thee up in their hands, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone." (Ps. xci. II, 12.)
The Lord blessed men, by laying hands on the recipients of His mercy; and thus the laying-on of hands signifies communicating power to men. Jesus went about, laying His hands on the sick, the lame, the blind, the weak, and even the dead, and thus healing them. And men were healed when they touched the person of Jesus, when they strongly desired help, and believed in the Lord's power to help them. "They came into the land of Gennesaret. And when the men of that place had knowledge of Him [Jesus,] they sent out into all that country, round about, and brought unto Him all that were diseased ; and besought Him that they might only touch the hem of His garment; and as many as touched were made perfectly whole." (Matt. xiv. 34-6.) This touching the Lord represents the effort of the sinner to come into contact with the life of the Lord, in practical conduct, in the things with which the hands are engaged.
And the power of the Lord's hand represents, also, the power of the letter of the Divine Word, in its thorough and prompt application to all the diseased spiritual states of men. We extend our arms and hands towards the Lord, in supplicating help, thus representing our desire that our power, our ability, shall be filled with life from our Lord, so that we may work in His strength, that is, in the strength of goodness, truth and righteousness. Priests are ordained by the laying-on of hands, to represent the communication of power from the Lord to the candidate, through the ordaining bishop, who acts officially and representatively, in the name of the Lord.
THE FINGERS.
The finger of God represents the power of God, operating in the particulars of human life. When Moses and Aaron did miracles in Egypt, at the command of Jehovah, "the magicians [of Egypt] said unto Pharaoh, This is the finger of God." (Exod. viii. 19.) And the Psalmist says to Jehovah, "When I consider Thy heavens, the work of Thy fingers, etc." (Ps. viii. 3.) And Jesus said, "If I, with the finger of God cast out devils, no doubt the kingdom of God is come upon you." (Luke xi. 20). In a good sense, the fingers of a man represent his practical power, abihty, activity, in the details of good daily life ; but, in case of an evil man, his fingers are perverted to bad uses, and they represent the power of his selfishness, in practising evil, falsity and sin. When a person interferes with the business of another, it is said that the former has "put his fingers into the matter."
THE LOWER EXTREMITIES.
The lower extremities are divided into the thighs, the knees, the calves, the shins, the ankles, and the feet. When the upper and lower extremities are set in contrast, the upper extremities represent interior and superior things, and the lower extremities represent exterior and inferior things. But, when each group is considered by itself, its members assume towards each other a three-fold relation, of inmost, interior and exterior.
THE THIGHS.
The thighs, like the loins, and so forth, represent conjugial love, which is a regenerate love, whose origin is in the union of love and wisdom. Hence pure conjugial love exists with those alone who are regenerating, and in the measure and degree of their regeneration. Thus the basis of conjugial love is love to the Lord. And, in conjugial love, the love to the Lord arouses, in each person, a love of the other. Because the thighs represent conjugial love, and because the hand represents power, ability, so, in ancient times, when a man made an oath, for the benefit of another person, he put his hand under the thigh of the other person, as a ceremony binding him to keep his oath. When Abraham was about to die, it is said that "Abraham said unto his oldest servant of his house, that ruled over all that he had, Put, I pray thee, thy hand under my thigh ; and I will make thee swear by Jehovah, the God of the heaven and the God of the earth, that thou shalt not take a wife unto my son of the daughters of the Canaanites, among whom I dwell ; but that thou shalt go unto my country, and to my kindred, and take a wife unto my son, Isaac." (Gen. xxiv. 2-4.) In the highest spiritual sense, these words refer to the Humanity of the Lord, when that humanity was to be made Divine.
The indwelling Father taught the natural man of Jesus Christ to seek conjunction with the Divine Goodness, in all things, and not 'with any affection which is not in, conjunction with the Divine Goodness. And in a lower degree, as applied to all men, the same words teach the regenerating man not to allow himself to cherish any affection which is not consistent with the Divine principles.
"And Jacob was left alone ; and there wrestled a man with him, until the breaking of the day. And when he [the man] saw that he prevailed not against him [Jacob] he touched the hollow of his [Jacob's] thigh; and the hollow of Jacob's thigh was out of joint, as he wrestled with him." (Gen. xxxii. 24, 25.) Here, Jacob, as the natural man, represented a state of mind in which the spiritual truth, as an angel, cannot prevail over the man, because the man is not confirmed in a good life, and so the truth cannot be conjoined with goodness, therein, for the mind is not in right order, but is spiritually out of joint.
The prayer of the Psalmist, "Gird Thy sword upon Thy thigh, O Most Mighty, with Thy glory and Thy majesty," (Ps. xlv. 3) is a petition to the Lord, in His Divine Love, to help us with His practical truth, which shall combat against our natural tendencies to evil, and against all false thoughts.
In the opposite sense, the thigh represents the perversion and adulteration of genuine love ; as in the peculiar trial of one suspected of conjugial infidelity. (Isa. xlvii. 1-3.) The thighs represent interior things, celestial and spiritual ; and the legs below the knees, including the shank, or shin, the calf, the ankle and the foot, represent exterior things, natural things. But the shin and calf represent the interior part of the natural mind and life ; and the foot represents the exterior part. In Psalm cxlvii. 10, it is said of Jehovah, "He taketh not pleasure in the legs of a man ;" which means that the merely natural mind and life of a man-, unregenerated, being evil, can not be in conjunction with the Lord.
THE KNEES.
The knee is between the thigh and the calf, communicating between them. Thus the knee is, to the leg, what the neck is to the body, a means of communication. And so the knee, like the neck, represents the communication, or influx, of the interior things into exterior things. Ezekiel had a vision of a stream of water issuing from the temple of Jehovah, and increasing in depth and volume. At first it was up' to the ankles, and then to the knees, and then to the loins ; and finally it became a river, "waters to swim in." (Ezek. xlvii.) These things represent the influx of truth into a man's mind, from the Lord. At first, the truth reaches the man's natural mind, and covers the things of his practical conduct, represented by his feet. But, later, the truth reaches his rational mind, in which an inward and spiritual light penetrates the mind, and sets natural truths in order. When the water reaches to the loins, the man has become spiritual-minded. And when the truth becomes a grand river, in which a man swims, it has taught the man to become celestial.
Kneeling is the proper attitude for a man in prayer because it is a position of humility, in which the lower legs, representing the natural mind, are prostrated ; and because resting on the knees represents resting mentally upon the influx of spiritual heat and light mto the natural mind. And so, in the call to prayer, we say, "Come, let us worship and bow down ; let us kneel before Jehovah, our Maker." (Ps. xcv. 6.) Jehovah said, "Unto Me everv knee shall bow;'' (Isa. xlv. 23.) ; i. e., every regenerating mind looks to the Lord, and humbles itself before its Lord, to receive an influx of spiritual life, in love and wisdom.
THE FEET.
The feet, and also the ankles, represent the natural mind, in its exteriors, the practical walk of life, the conduct. When Jesus washed the feet of His disciples, "Peter saith unto Him, Thou shalt never wash my feet. Jesus answered him. If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with Me. Simon Peter saith unto Him, Lord, not my feet, only, but also my hands and my head. Jesus saith to him. He that is washed needeth not, save to wash his feet, but is clean every whit." (John xiii. 8-10.) Our Lord washes our feet, spiritually, when He cleanses our natural mind and life, by means of His truth, which is spiritual water. And when our hearts and intellects are washed, and are filled with goodness and truth, we have need to keep our conduct clean and pure, and according to the commandments of our Lord ; and then we shall be clean, both inwardly and outwardly.
"I thought on my ways, and turned my feet to Thy testimonies. I made haste, and delayed not to keep Thy commandments ... I have refrained my feet from every evil way, that I might keep Thy Word.'' (Ps. cxix. 59, ibi.) "Return unto thy rest, O my soul ; for Jehovah hath dealt bountifully with thee. For Thou hast delivered my soul from death, mine eyes from tears, and my feet from falling." (Ps. cxvi. 7, 8.) "O bless our God, ye people, and make the voice of His praise to be heard : who holdeth our soul in life, and suffereth not our feet to be moved." (Ps. Ixvi. 8, 9.) And when we come into the life of the church, through the gates of doctrine, we shall sing, "I was glad when they said unto me, Let us go into the house of Jehovah. Our feet shall stand within thy gates, O Jerusalem." (Ps. cxxii. 2.)
THE FEET OF THE LORD.
The feet of the Lord represent the Divine Power in ultimates, brought down to men in the Divine Humanity, in Jesus Christ ; and also in the letter of the Divine Word. Those who know of the natural humanity of Jesus, and yet who do not see His Divine Humanity, may be said, representatively, to see the feet of God, and no more. The feet of the written Divine Word are the things of its literal sense, on which its higher meanings stand. "And I saw another mighty angel come down from heaven, clothed with a cloud : and a rain-bow was upon his head, and his face was as it were the sun, and his feet as pillars of fire. And he had in his hand a little book, open, And he set his right foot on the sea, and his left foot on the earth." (Rev. X. I, 2.) This angel represents the Lord, coming in His Divine Word, in its internal sense and in its letter. The literal sense is represented by the angel's feet, which were as pillars of fire, bright with the truth, and warm with the love, which shone from within.
Comparatively, the feet represent life in the first heaven, the lowest heaven, the ultimate or natural heaven.
In a bad sense, the feet represent an evil life, from an evil condition of the natural mind. "Behold, Jehovah's hand is not shortened, that it cannot save-; neither His ear heavy, that it cannot hear; but your iniquities have separated "between you and 3'our God, and your sins have hid His face from you . . . None calleth for justice, nor any pleadeth for truth. Their feet run to evil.'' (Isa. lix. I, 2, 7.) Practical evils of life were referred to, when Jesus said, "If thy foot offend thee, cut it off." (Mk. ix. 45.) And we are not to mix our higher and better things with our lowest things of the natural senses, in their disorderly forms. This is what Jesus taught representatively, when He said, "Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again, and rend you." (Matt. vii. 6.)
THE SOLES OF THE FEET, AND THE HEELS.
The soles of the feet, and the heels, represent the lowest part of the natural mind, the corporeal life of the senses. As to the Lord, the soles of the feet and the Reels represent the external humanity of Jesus, as a man. And, in regard to the Divine Word, the soles of the feet and the heels represent the mere letter of the Scriptures. In Psalm xli. 9, it is said, "Mine own familiar friend, in whom I trusted, which did eat of my bread, hath lifted up his heel against me." In the highest spiritual sense, the words apply to the Lord, in His Humanity, and to the treatment which He received from the Jews, who had the Divine Word, and who could have received goodness and truth from the Word. But they used the mere letter of the Scriptures to confirm themselves in false and perverted doctrines, by which they rejected and denied the Divine Humanity of the Lord, and rejected the spirit of the Divine Word. And thus they corrupted all good, and falsified all truth, in their own minds and lives. And thus, representatively, the Jew "lifted up his heel" against the Lord. The Jew's low, corporeal, sensual mind denied and rejected everything spiritual and Divine. This evil spirit of self-love, in the Jews, was the serpent spoken of in the first prophecy of the Lord's coming into the natural world, as in Genesis iii. 15, in which "Jehovah God said unto the serpent, I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between her seed and thy seed ; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.'' Men became sensuous, and unwilling to believe anything not clear to their natural senses ; and hence they became evil, in self-love. And this sensuous evil was represented by the serpent, a low, crawling animal. In the highest sense, the seed of the woman was the humanity of the Lord, born into the natural world. And the Divine Humanity bruised the head of the serpent, when the Lord destroyed the evil principle of sensuous self-love, in men who were willing to be regenerated. But the serpent bruised the heel of the assumed humanity of the Lord, when the sensuous self-love of men rejected and crucified the external body of the humanity, which was the lowest part of the humanity, or representatively, its heel. It is said, in Genesis xlix. 17 : "Dan shall be a serpent by the way, an adder in the path, that biteth the horse-heels, so that his rider shall fall backward ;" referring to the danger of sensuous reasonings, which may injure the rational and spiritual faculties, in man, by attacking the heels, the corporeal and sensuous nature, and setting this in disorder.
THE SKIN.
The skin of the body, being on the outside, represents the external part of man's mind and life, as in contrast with the vital organs, which are hidden within the body. Because of their representative meaning, skins of animals were used as the outside cover of the tabernacle, in Israel. John, the Baptist, who represented the Lord as the Divine Word, "was clothed with camel's hair, and with a girdle of a skin about his loins," (Mk. i, 6) thus representing the letter of the Divine Word, as the outward clothing of the inward and spiritual meaning.
THE INWARD PARTS. THE BRAIN.
The brain is the organ of the mind ; and hence it corresponds to the mind. The human mind consists of the will and the understanding. The will is the seat of man's loves, with their affections ; and the understanding, or intellect, is the seat of his thoughts. And the human brain consists of two parts, the cerebellum and the cerebrum. The cerebellum, in the occiput, or back-head, is. the special organ of the will; and the cerebrum, in the front of the head, and in the crown, is the special organ of the understanding. The brain is the first formation of man, in his beginnings. As organization begins at the centre, and works out, so the brain is the centre of man's life, the inmost part: and all the rest of the body is built up through the brain, as the beginning. And, as all things in the man depend upon the will and the understanding, so, physically, all things in man's body depend upon his brain. The brain is the centre and beginning of the nervous system; and, from the brain, the nerves are distributed through the body.
Our voluntary muscles, by which we act consciously, are under the control of the cerebrum, or intellectual mind ; and our involuntary muscles, which operate without our conscious effort, are controlled by the cerebellum. And so, in the mind, our intellectual thoughts are results of our conscious mental efforts; but our profound loves operate without our conscious exertion.
The mind acts upon the brain, and in and by the brain. And the brain acts upon the senses, and thus upon the muscles. Fibres from both the cerebrum and the cerebellum pass out from the brain, and entwine themselves together ; and, thus connected, they pass through the whole body, so that, inwardly, both the understanding and the will may act upon all parts of the man.
Man lives in both worlds, the spiritual and the natural ; in the spiritual world as to his spirit, and in the material world as to his external body. And thus man is the connecting link between the two worlds. The great importance of the brain is indicated in its conspicuous position in the body ; and in its careful protection by the hard skull ; and in its large size, it is noticeable that, in man, the brain is of greater proportional size than in any beast. And it is so in regard to his mental ability.
In common conversation, the head is often mentioned to mean the brain, as when it is said that a certain man has "a good head," or that a shrewd man has "a long head.'' And similar expressions occur in the Scriptures, as, for instance when Daniel said, "the visions of my head troubled me." (Dan. iv. lo, and vii. 15.)
THE NERVES.
The nerves, as continuations of the brain, the seat of sensation, represent truths, because by truths we have a sense of things, mentally.
THE MOUTH.
The mouth prepares the crude food for use in the body ; and, in this, its action corresponds to the preparation of crude mental food, principles of goodness and truth, for practical use in the mind and life, by thought. In speaking, the mouth represents the thought from which we speak, and also the doctrines, or formulated precepts, according to which we speak, and with which we teach. The mouth expresses such things as the heart loves and the intellect believes. "Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speiketh." (Matt, xii. 34.) Concerning the Scriptures Jehovah said, through Joshua, "This Book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth : but thou shalt meditate therein, day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein : for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success." (Joshua i, 8.) The Divine law should not be lost from a man's interior mind, nor from his every-day practical rules and doctrines of life ; because all spiritual development, and all permanent natural good, come to man in his observance of the Divine
commandments.
The mouth of the Lord represents the Divine Truth, which is revealed in the Divine teachings. "Man shall not live by bread, alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God." (Matt. iv. 4.) The expression, "The mouth of Jehovah hath spoken," is often used in the Scriptures.
"My mouth is enlarged over mine enemies, because I rejoice in Thy salvation," (I Sam. ii. i) ; i. e. true principles and doctrines are increased in the mind of the regenerating man. "Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man, but that which cometh out of the mouth, this defileth a man." (Matt. xv. 11.) A man does not become evil from the thoughts which pass through his natural mind, but from the set intentions, motives and purposes which form in his heart, and which come out in his thought and speech.
THE TONGUE.
The tongue, standing at the gate-way to both the lungs and the stomach, aids both of these ; and it helps in the speech, also. Thus the tongue has several functions and uses. In aiding the speech, and in serving the lungs, the tongue represents the truth, and the doctrines of truth which we receive into our thought, and speak with our tongue. In as far as it helps in the nourishment of the body, the tongue corresponds to the love of knowing and understanding truth, and of being wise. As the tongue, with its acute sense of taste, tests the quality of the foods taken into the mouth, it represents the natural mind's perception of the quality of such things as are offered to the mind as goodness and truth. The proper appetite of the tongue for the good things tasted represents our desire to know the truths of wisdom.
The tongue also represents our confession and acknowledgment of truth, which take place in the thought, and thence in the speech, with the tongue. The tongue thus corresponds to the intellectual part of the man, as to his thoughts, his principles and his doctrines, which he holds in his thought. There is an influx of man's thoughts into his tongue, in speaking; and thus a man is able to articulate words appropriate to express his thoughts. If the man is regenerate, this influx is inwardly from heaven, into the man's thoughts, and thence into his tongue. A close observer may often recognize the fact that, while he is silently reading, or writing, and much interested, his tongue is slightly moving, as if in the effort to speak the words read or written. This is from the sympathy and the correspondence between the thought and the tongue, because the tongue is a means of expressing the thought.
Among the wonderful things which the disciples of Jesus were to do, was the promise, "They shall speak with new tongues;" (Mk. xvi. 17) by which is meant spiritually, that they should think from new doctrines, the truths of a new church. "And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people;" (Rev. xiv. 6) that is, to all who would receive the new truths in heart, understanding and life; that is, to all who, from religion, were in the love of goodness and truth. The release of regenerating men from the bonds of ignorance and error, is representatively expressed thus ; "The tongue of the stammerers shall be ready to speak plainly." (Isa. xxxii. 4.) And the Lord's loving providence, rescuing men from the perils of temptation, is thus expressed ; "Thou shalt keep them secretly in a pavilion from the strife of tongues." (Ps. xxxi. 20.) The strife of tongues is the clashing of the evil man's false reasoning against the Lord's truth.
But evil men both think and speak against good and true principles. "Thy tongue deviseth mischief, like a sharp razor, working deceitfully. Thou lovest evil more than good, and lying, rather than to speak righteousness. Thou lovest all devouring words, O deceitful tongue." (Ps. lii. 2-4.) "They set their mouth against the heavens, and their tongue walketh through the earth;" (Ps. Ixxiii. 9) i. e., they falsify both spiritual and natural things. To draw out, or thrust out, the tongue, expresses contempt and derision.
Spiritually, the evil men express contempt and derision against the teachings of the Lord. Gnawing, or biting, the tongue, expresses a state of distress, which represents violent antagonism towards doctrines spoken. "And the fifth angel poured out his vial upon the seat of the beast ; and his kingdom was full of darkness ; and they gnawed their tongues, for pain." (Rev. xvi. 10.)
The tongue of Jehovah is the Divine Truth of tht Lord, taught in His Divine Word, spiritually in the inward meaning, and naturally in the literal sense.
THE TEETH.
The teeth first take hold of food, and, like a mill, grind the food, and prepare it for digestion. And. in the mind, the external mind takes hold of all things of goodness and truth which come before the senses, and, by natural reasoning, prepares them for temporary acceptance, and for consideration. Thus the teeth correspond to the natural senses and to natural reasoning, the activities of the natural understanding.
In the Israelitish dispensation, which was representative, there was a law of retaliation against an evil doer, inflicting upon the man an injury similar to that which he had induced upon another person, "life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot." (Exod. xxi. 23, 24.) Spiritually, he who intentionally does an injury to the mind and life of another, thereby does a similar injury to his own mind and life. When the regenerating man sees that he is protected from mental enemies, by the Lord, he exclaims, "Thou hast smitten all mine enemies upon the cheek-bone ; Thou hast broken the teeth of the ungodly." (Ps. iii. 7.)
"Gnashing of teeth" represents the clashing of sensuous falsities against each other, in the mind of an evil man, and also against the truth proclaimed by good men. "The wicked plotteth against the just, and gnasheth upon him with his teeth." (Ps. xxxvii. 12.) "Cast ye the unprofitable servant into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth." (Matt. XXV. 30.) For all evil and falsity induce sorrow, suffering and contention.
THE THROAT.
After food has been taken by the teeth, and prepared for digestion, it passes down the throat, by swallowing. In this, the inward throat represents the perception, understanding and acceptance of truth, as mental food. A man in temptation, when he finds it difficult to perceive the quality of doctrines ofifered to him, or to accept these things, representatively says, "I am weary of my crying : my throat is dried." (Ps. Ixix. 3.) When evil influences mentally choke a man, and thus assault his spiritual life, by preventing him from breathing the trrith, or from accepting good and true things taught to him, he is in the condition of the victim represented in the parable of the unmerciful servant, who "laid hands on him, and took him by the throat." (Matt, xviii. 28.) It is said of the evil, "Their throat is an open sepulchre." (Ps. V. 9.) Interiorly, they are infernal in character, spiritually dead in evil. And everything which they take unto themselves becomes of the same character, dead in evil.
THE HEART.
In its way, the heart governs the whole body, by means of the arteries and veins, which pass from the heart through all the body, terminating in the skin. In the body, all things tend to the production of good blood, which the heart forms from all the many substances sent to it by the different organs. And so all things which come into the mind of man must go through the ordeal of the will, which, from all things, forms the circulating life of the mind. The lungs join in this work.
The physical heart corresponds to the will, the seat of man's love. Of all the correspondences and symbols of the Bible, or of common conversation, none is better and more generally known and acknowledged than that of the heart, representing man's will, with its loves and its affections. In many cases, in the Scriptures, when the word "heart" is used, the will ismeant, even in the literal sense. And in all cases, the will is meant in the spiritual meaning. "And God gave Solomon wisdom and understanding exceeding much, and largeness of heart." (I Kings iv. 29.) "A good man, out of the good treasure of the heart, bringeth forth good things, and an evil man, out of the evil treasure, bringeth forth evil things." (Matt. xii. 35-)
In the Bible, there often occurs the expression, "setting the heart" on something, meaning fixing the purpose of the will. Moses said, "Set your hearts unto all the words which I testify among you this day.'' (Deut. xxxii. 46.) In many cases, a person is represented as having "said in his heart" certain things, that is, purposed them, in his will. "Esau said in his heart, ... I will slay my brother, Jacob." (Gen. xxvii. 41.) "The wicked said in his heart, I shall not be moved." (Ps. x. 6.) 'Speaking of a man's strong desire, the purpose of his will, it is said, "Thou hast given him his heart's desire, and hast not withholden the request of his lips." (Ps. xxi. 2.) "Daniel purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself." (Dan. i. 8.)
Thus the mental heart, or will, is man's inmost life. If the man is regenerating, his heart is filled with love of all goodness. But, if he is unregenerate, his heart is filled with the love of evil. What a man does "in his heart," and from his heart, he does willingly, and in freedom. When he loves goodness and truth, in and from his heart, he loves them from the Lord, for the Lord is then pres'ent in the man's heart, or will; for to receive good principles from the Lord, is to receive the Lord, who is within all good. And if a man rejects good principles from his heart, he rejects the Lord, also. And such a man loves evil and falsity and sin, and hates goodness, and truth and righteousness. "A stubborn and rebellious generation ; a generation that set not their heart aright, and whose spirit was not steadfast with God." (Ps. Ixxviii. 8.) "These men have set up their idols in their heart." (Ezek. xiv. 3.)
"A whole heart" is often mentioned, to mean not only that the heart will be fully occupied with the matter, and unreservedly, but also that the heart, itself, is whole, spiritually, that is, sound, and not divided. To love, or to act, with the "whole heart," is to love unreservedly, in a heart made whole by union with the Lord, in regeneration. And this is done by and in a full submission of the heart, the will, to the Lord ; that is, to the Divine principles. "Blessed are they that keep His testimonies : that seek Him with the whole heart." (Ps. cxix. 2.) "Ye shall seek Me, and find, when ye shall search for Me with all your heart." (Jer. xxix. 13.) Li contrast with a "whole heart," an insincere will is called a "double heart," that is, a heart practicing duplicity, and whose outward appearance is Opposite to its inward . character. "With flattering lips, and with a double heart do they speak." (Ps. xii. 2.) "Enlarging the heart" is regenerating it, by opening it to the spiritual degree, in which larger and grander loves are cherished in the heart. "I will run the way of Thy commandments, when Thou shalt enlarge my heart." (Ps. cxix. 32.)
HARD HEARTS.
Much is said of "hard hearts," meaning those which are hardened by self-love, and which reject and refuse the softening effects of regeneration. "All the house of Israel are impudent and hard-hearted." (Ezek. iiii 7.) After His resurrection, Jesus "appeared unto the eleven [apostles,] as they sat at meat, and upbraided them with their unbelief, and liardness of heart, because they believed not them which had seen Him, after He was risen." (Mk. xvi. 14.)
The evil, unregenerate state of the heart, the will, is called an "uncirctuncised heart" one not cleansed of its natural impurities. "And Jehovah, thy God, will circumcise thine heart, and the heart of thy seed, to love Jehovah, thy God, will all thine heart, and with all thy soul, that thou mayest live." (Deut. xxx. 6.) To come out of evil states, a man needs to undergo a "change of heart," which is regeneration, a new birth of the will, into a higher quality of love and of life. "Now, therefore, put away the strange gods which are among you, and incline your heart unto Jehovah, God of Israel." (Josh. xxiv. 23.) "Cast away from you all your transgressions, . . . and make you a new heart and a new spirit : for why will ye die, O house of Israel?" (Ezek. xviii. 31.)
In order that the human heart, or will, may be turned from evil to goodness, it must be broken, as to its evil. As long as a man loves evil, he fixes his heart upon evil, and he persuades himself that what the church calls evil, is good ; for he sees everything from the standpoint of self-love, which induces spiritual darkness. "Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness." (Isa. v. 20.) And some influence must break the force of the evil, in the man's heart. And, as he loves evil, to break its force in his heart, is to break his heart, because it is to break the ruling-loveand purpose of his heart. But, to the degree in which his old and selfish heart is broken, he can receive a new heart, in the love of goodness, truth and righteousness.
A broken heart is in a state of temptation between the old evil and the new good. "Jehovah is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart ; and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit." (Ps. xxxiv. i8.) "He healeth the broken in heart, and bindeth up their wounds." (Ps. cxlvii. 3.) But the merely naturalminded and selfish man, who cares nothing for spiritual principles, but fixes his love upon worldly tilings, calls himself broken-hearted, when his cherished' worldly desires and plans fail, and when he cannot have all that he wants. "My sighs are many, and my heart is faint." (Lam. i. 22.)
When a man is in a state of remorse over doing wrong, his heart is said to "smite" him. "David's heart smote him, because he had cut off Saul's skirt.'' (I Sam. xxiv. 5.) In order to arouse men to the need of repentance and reformation, for regeneration, the Lord provides that they shall be taught the truths of the Divine Word ; and that these truths shall attract the attention of men, so that they may use these truths in self-examination, in "searching their hearts," to discover their natural character. "Search me, O God, and know my heart : try me, and know my thoughts: and see if there be any wicked way in me ; and lead me in the way everlasting." (Ps. cxxxix. 23,-24') As a result of searching the heart, and of repentance and amendment of life, the man is led to a new quality of love. "After those days, saith Jehovah,'- 1 will put My law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts."
The heart, or will, is often named to represent courage; or, if a weak heart, a lack of courage. "He also that is valiant, whose heart is as the heart of a lion." (II Sam. xvii. 10.) "Though an host should encamp against me, m)' heart shall not fear . . . Wait on Jehovah : be of good courage, and He shall strengthen thine heart." (Ps. xxvii. 3, 14.)
To be "glad of heart" is to be happy in the will, from the presence of' goodness and truth. "Thou hast put gladness in my heart, more than in the time that their corn and their wine increased." (Ps. iv. 7.) "The statutes of Jehovah are right, rejoicing the heart." (Ps. xix. 8.) In saying that men give willingly, the Bible speaks of giving "with the heart." And where the will, the strong purpose and desire, go with a gift, it is sincere and earnest. "Jehovah spake unto Moses, saying. Speak to the children of Israel, that they bring Me an offering : of every man that giveth it willingl)' with his heart ye shall take My offering." (Exod. xxv. 2.) "Whosoever is of a willing heart, let him bring it, an offering of Jehovah . . . And they came, every one whose heart stirred him up, and everyone whom his spirit made willing, and they brought Jehovah's offering." (Ex. xxxv. 5, 21.)
AN UNDERSTANDING HEART.
The heart is often spoken of as the foundation of regenerate intelligence ; for, where the will is fixed upon good principles, the truth finds a ready and hearty welcome. Solomon prayed to Jehovah, "Give Thy servant an understanding heart, to judge Thy people, that I may discern between good and bad." (I Kings iii. 9.) And Jehovah replied, "I have given thee a wise and understanding heart." (I Kings iii. 12.) "So teach us to number our days, that we may appl}' our hearts unto wisdom." (Ps. xc. 12.) On the opposite side of life, when men are evil, they are slow to receive spiritual intelligence. Jesus said to some of His disciples, "O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken." (Luke xxiv. 25.) "The fool hath said in his heart There is no God." (Ps. xiv. i.) Spiritual intelligence depends upon the state of the heart, the will, towards goodness.
In the Scriptures, when a man is described as being much disturbed by any occurrence, it is said that he "took it to heart ;" that is, that it affected his will, his love, his purpose. Jonadab said to David, "Let not my lord the king take the thing to his heart, to think that all the king's sons are dead : for Ammon only is dead." (II Sam. xiii. 33.) "Thou didst not lay these things to thy heart, neither didst remember the lattei end of it." (Isa. xlvii. 7.)
Sometimes the word "heart" is used to mean the external will, in the natural man. It is said of the Philistines, "And it came to pass, when their hearts were merry, that they said. Call for Samson, that he may make us sport." (Judges xvi. 25.) "Comfort thine heart with a morsel of bread, and afterward go thy way . . . Tarry all night, and let thine heart be merry ... As they were making their hearts merry, behold, the men of the city, certain sons of Belial, beset the house round about." (Judges xix. 5, 6, 22.)
The heart of the Lord is the Divine Love. Jehovah said, of the house of Jehovah which Solomon built, "Mine eyes and My heart shall be there perpetually." (I Kings ix. 3.) The house of the Lord represents the Church, in which the Divine Truth and the Divine Love dwell perpetually. "Turn, O backsliding children, saith Jehovah . . . And I will give you pastors according to My heart, who shall feed you with knowledge and understanding." (Jer. iii. 14, 15.)
THE LUNGS.
The lungs correspond to the understanding, the intellect. And the action of the lungs in breathing, corresponds to the action of the understanding, in thinking. As the lungs operate in the body, so the understanding operates in the mind. The work of the lungs, in breathing, is to separate impurities from the blood, and thus to refine and cleanse the blood ; and to return the good blood to the heart, and to send away the impurities, throwing them into the surrounding atmosphere, in the exhaling breath. As the blood is purified by the oxygen in the lungs, so the affections of the will are examined and purged of their impurities, by a constant and searching examination by the enlightened understanding, which knows the Divine Truth. The cellular substance of the lungs consists of the bronchias continued down to the most minute parts, or follicles, which receive the air, in respiration. And these parts correspond to the thoughts of the mind. And their expansion and contraction, together with the motion of the heart, and also their own motions, correspond to the changes of thought, influenced by the action of the will.
Thus the breathing of the lungs corresponds to the life of the truth, which is the life of faith, in man's mind. The lungs serve all the actions of the body, and give life to the muscles, and to the organs of sense. The breathing of the body is according to the state of thought in the mind. We have both internal respiration, which is that of the spirit, corresponding to spiritual thought, and also external respiration, which is that of the body, corresponding to natural thought. During profound thought, the breathing is quiet, but in excited states of natural thought the breathing is strong, labored and rapid. In speaking, and especially in singing, the cells of the lungs vary in their forms, motions and relations, according to the tone expressed; and according to the quality and quantity of the voice used; that is, according to the changes in expressing the dififerent states of thought and of affection. And the lungs undergo these changes because they are the external organs by which the mind is able to expressits states. The breathing of the body is sustained by the breathing of the spirit, for the internal spiritual life sustains the external natural Hfe and its forms.
It was said of the first man, "Jehovah God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life [lives], and man became a living soul." (Gen. ii. 7.) To breathe into man "the breath of lives'' is to give him the life of love, in his will, and the life of faith, in his understanding. And that he then became "a living soul," means that he was given celestial life, which brought even his natural mind into conjunction with his internal mind, and thus into genuine life. "Let everything that hath breath praise Jehovah;" (Ps. cl. 6), that is, everything that has spiritual life comes into conjunction with the Lord. After Llis resurrection, Jesus appeared to His Disciples ; and "He breathed on them and saith unto them. Receive ye the Holy Spirit." (John XX. 22.) Jesus opened the minds of His disciples, and thus enabled them to perceive the Divine Truth, and to receive the life of the Truth. The Holy Spirit is the Divine Wisdom, which teaches men, and enlightens their minds. And the Lord breathed on His disciples, because such an action was symbolic of imparting to men an influx of Divine help.
The heart controls the body by the blood-vessels, and the lungs control the body by the respiration. The union of the body with the spirit, in man, is effected by means of the motions of the heart and of the lungs; and when those motions cease, the spirit separates from the body. And so, in the mind, the operation of the will, and that of the understanding, unite the natural mind and the spiritual mind : and when the will and the understanding cease to operate, in goodness and truth, the man dies, spiritually, in evil, falsity and sin.
THE INFANT MAN.
In the conscious life of the man, both the heart and the lungs must be opened and active. In the embryo man, the lungs are closed, and so there is no conscious sense. The infant man comes into his conscious life, when his lungs are opened, and he breathes; for then the heart sends its blood into the lungs. And, in the mind, there is spiritual life, when the loves of the will inflow into the understanding, and set up life, there. Physically, the motion of life is from the voluntary principle of the will, which acts through the heart; and the sense of life is from the intellectual principle, the understanding, which acts from the lungs.
What the heart and the lungs are in the body, such are the will and the understanding in the mind. And for this reason it is said in the Scriptures, that a man shall love the Lord "with all his heart, and with all his soul;" that is, with all his will and with all his understanding. And Jehovah said to Israel, "Cast away from you all your transgressions, whereby ye have transgressed, and make you a new heart, and a new spirit; for why will ye die, O house of Israel?" (Ezek. xviii. 31.) The new heart is a new state of the will, a renewed, regenerate will, filled with regenerate loves; and its new spirit is a renewed understanding.
The heart and the lungs are in close contact, in their joint dwelling, in the chest, or breast. The heart is in the midst of the lungs. The heart has not only its own cardiac motions, but also a pulmonary motion, due to the respiration of the lungs. The heart corresponds to the life of the celestial heaven, the kingdom of love ; and the lungs correspond to the life of the spiritual heaven, the kingdom of truth. The influx of the celestial kingdom into the spiritual kingdom, that is, of love into faith, corresponds to the influx of the heart into the lungs. The pulsations of the heart operate in sympathy with the breathing of the lungs. And so the action of the affections co-operates with the action of the thoughts.
In the spiritual body, and thus in the spiritual world, the movements of men's hearts are according to their states of love, in the will : and the movements of their lungs are according to the states of their understanding. And, for this reason, evil persons, there, cannot dwell with good men, because the evil can not breathe in the atmosphere of heaven, which is adapted to goodness and truth. And so, in the spiritual world, the quality of a man's faith is known by his breathing, and the quality of his love is known by the beating of his heart ; because these externals are controlled by the internal life.
THE STOMACH.
In the individual man the stomach corresponds to the memory; for, as the foods taken into the body pass into the stomach, and are there examined, tested and prepared for use, or rejected if unfit for use, so the things taken into the mind pass into the memory, and are there held, until they can be tested, and accepted or rejected. We take into our memory many thoughts and feelings which are not true or good, in the form in which we take them, at first. Even if we love goodness and truth, we are often mistaken, at first, as to the character of the things which come to us. And we may have some selfish or worldly motive connected with such things. And such motives must be separated and rejected, while the good remains. As we grow older, and more experienced, we find that we have much to unlearn, in both our feelings and our thoughts. Feelings and thoughts which we once cherished, and even with pride in them, we now see to be wrong. The rational thought takes hold of the things of our memory, and sifts them, examines and tests them, and separates the acceptable things from those which must be rejected. Hunger, which is especially felt in the stomach, corresponds to our longing for knowledge, for practical use. Our appetite for food, when kept in right order, corresponds to our desire for goodness and truth, that they may enter into our life.
In the aggregate man, composed of all mankind, the stomach corresponds to "the world of spirits," the world of recently-departed spirits, the intermediate state, the first condition into which men enter, after physical death, and in which they remain for a time, until their character is developed and brought into its permanent condition, when they are sent to their permanent home. In the stomach, all the food is broken up into its chemical elements, and carried along to its destination, in its appropriate place in the body. Such elements as can be assimilated to the body, and used in its work, are retained in the body; and such elements as cannot be assimilated are rejected. And a parallel process occurs on the mental plane. Men die, on earth, and pass into the spiritual world. At first, they go into "the world of spirits," which is as the stomach, the first common receptacle. There each man is examined and tested, and each is carried, along to his
place, according to his fixed character. Those persons who are of such quality of character that they can find a congenial place in any part of any of the heavens,
are led thereto : and they become parts of the aggregate man of the hurrian race in heaven. But those persons who prefer evil and falsity, and who cannot find any congenial home in any part of the heavens, find their way out of the world of spirits, into some part of the hells, which is like themselves in character. These are as the food which cannot be assimilated, and must be rejected from the body.
In our eating and drinking, while almost all that we take passes into the stomach, yet there are some things which do not go as far as the stomach, but they are taken up by the mouth, and are carried into the veins, and exhaled into the brain ; or they pass into the lymphatic vessels, and are thence absorbed into the tissues of the body. And in a similar way, spiritually, most of those persons who pass into the spiritual world, from the earth, remain for a time in the world of spirits, before they pass into their permanent homes. But there are a few who are better prepared for spiritual life, who pass very quickly into the different grades of heaven, and some a little later.
THE INTESTINES.
The intestines are the lowest parts of the digestive apparatus, both as to their position, and as to their use. And hence they correspond to the ultimates, or externals, of the mind, on the lower plane of life. The intestines continue the work of the stomach in the digestion of food. The food is then mixed with several fluids from different organs of the body, and is thus brought into condition for use. The higher and better elements of the food are taken first, and the grosser things finally. Processes which cannot be completed in the stomach are effected in the intestines, in which all that may be used in the body is drawn from the mass of tiseless things, which are to be rejected. And a similar process goes on in the mind of man, through the discipline of life, which turns the thought to higher and better views and purposes.
And, in the larger man of mankind, those who have much to throw off, before they can be led into heaven, are subjected to further tests and discipline, until all the good that is in them, however contaminated by external evils which may be separated, shall be developed and cleansed, so that the man finally may be led into some degree of heavenly life. There are many persons whose hereditary natural tendencies have been very sensuous, or who, themselves, have fallen into sensuous evils, early in life, and who find it very difficult to elevate their natural minds above such sensuous things. But such is the providential mercy of our Lord, that every one who has any fundamental good in his heart, shall be led to heaven, finally, although it may be through a long course of severe discipline, in the world of spirits. And the processes undergone by the food in the intestines correspond to this discipline of sensuous persons, which is greater according to the degree in which evil was formerly indulged. Those who undergo severe trials of discipline are said to be "vastated;" that is, the evils in them are laid waste, and separated from their minds. The man who eats things improper for food, often suffers in consequence of his disorder. But the healthy body retains its health by orderly habits. And so he who indulges in any evil, falsity or sin, must pay the penalty, in himself, in the greater difficulty of regeneration, even when he seeks regeneration, and works for it.
Of evil men it is said, "Their inward part is very wickedness." (Ps. v. 9.) But the good man prays to the Lord, "Thou desirest truth in the inward parts, and in the hidden part Thou shalt make me to know wisdom." (Ps. li. 6.)
THE LIVER, SPLEEN, KIDNEYS, ETC.
The liver, spleen, kidneys or reins, pancreas, and other viscera, are parts of the digestive system, whose office is to purify the blood, and to save all things of the food which can be made to serve the uses of the body. These viscera correspond to the mental powers which, in the rational thought, examine, correct and purify all things which come into the mind as thoughts and feelings. The ancient Hebrews regarded the viscera, especially the kidneys, as the seat of knowledge, joy, pain, pleasure, and so forth. Ancient nations professed to be able to foretell natural events by the condition, color and so forth, of the liver of an animal recently killed. In Ezekiel xxi. 21, 22, it is said, "The king of Babylon stood at the parting of the way, at the head of the two ways, to use divination: he made, his arrows bright, he consulted with images, he looked into the liver. At his right hand was the divination for Jerusalem." In Leviticus, in the instructions as to the sacrifices, minute directions were given as to what should be done with the liver and the kidneys, and other viscera. The kidneys, and the fat about them, were to be burned, in the offering to the Lord, in acknowledgment that love and faith are in man from the Lord. For the fat, as oil, corresponds to the good of love ; and the kidneys correspond to the truths of faith, interior truths, which explore, examine, correct and purify the things which come into the mind. The special work of the kidneys is to purify the serum of the blood, while the heart purifies the body of the blood, itself. Hence the kidneys relate to the intellectual part of the mind, and the heart to the affectional part. And for this reason the heart and the kidneys are often mentioned together. "Let the wickedness of the wicked come to an end ; but establish the just: for the righteous God trieth the hearts and reins" [kidneys]. (Ps. vii. 9.) The Lord sees and knows the state of every man's heart, and of his intellect, and He constantly teaches and warns men, as to goodness and evil, and truth and falsity. Speaking of the discipline which the Divine Providence brings to the regenerating man, to purify his affections and thoughts, and to correct his ways, Jeremiah says, "He hath turned aside my ways, and pulled me in pieces . . . He hath caused the arrows of His quiver to enter into my reins . . . It is of Jehovah's mercies that we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not . . . Let us search and try our ways, and turn again to Jehovah." (Lam. iii. II, 13, 22, 40.)
THE BLOOD.
"The life of the flesh is in the blood ... It is the life of all flesh; the blood of it is for the life thereof." (Lev. xvii. 11, 14.) "The blood is the life." (Deut. xii. 23.) The life of man is in his will, represented by his heart. And so the blood in his heart corresponds to the good in his will, the love and its affections. But this good, or love, is different, in different men. In the celestial man, it is love to the Lord, which is the ruling-love in the celestial heaven. But, in the spiritual man, it is love to the neighbor, which is the characteristic love in the spiritual heaven. And spiritual good is the good of truth, that is, it is that quality of goodness which is produced in the mind and life, when a man obeys a truth because it is a truth, and the Lord's truth. And, as truth is the central principle of the spiritual man, so, to him, blood represents the good of truth, and so it is often said to represent truth. As the Israelitish dispensation represented the spiritual degree of human life, so, in the ceremonials of Israel, blood generally represented truth. In case of other words, in order to understand why the same thing represents different qualities, in different circumstances, we must remember the distinctive differences between the three discrete degrees, celestial, spiritual and natural.
All things in the body of a man are formed by means of the fibres from the brain, and the bloodvessels from the heart. The circulation of the blood in the body is constant, because, the will and its loves are always active. The circulatory system of arteries corresponds to the system of truths in the mind, in which is held the good of love in the will, as blood is held in the arteries. An artery containing blood is alive and active, corresponding to a truth in which there is good, that is, which is loved and practised. But a truth held in the memory, in form, only, and without good in it, is like an artery without blood, dry and inactive. The heat of the blood is from the warmth of the spirit. And when the spirit leaves its natural body, that body becomes cold. And the heat of the body at different times depends on the state of the mind, with its loves. When the love is aroused, and interested, the body is filled with warmth, vigor and energy. Tlie spiritual world of the mind flows into the natural world of the body. The blood is the corporeal soul, or form of life, in which the corporeal life, the most external life, resides. And in this it represents the spiritual life.
In the highest sense, the celestial meaning, the blood is the Lord's love for the human race. But, on the lower plane of the spiritual life, the blood corresponds to the Divine Truth, because the truth is the circulating medium of life, in the mind, as the blood is in the body. "The blood of the Lamb," (Rev. xii. 11,) by which regenerate men were enabled to overcome the devil, was the Divine Truth, from the Divine Humanity of the Lord, in which is the Divine Love. And the blood of the Lord, in the holy supper, means the Divine Truth, carrying within it the Divine Love. This Divine Truth, carrying the Divine Love, is the blood of Jesus Christ, in which He washes men from their sins, when they enable. Him to do so, by loving Him, believing in Him, and obeying His commandments. This Divine Truth is called the "blood of the covenant," because a covenant is a coming together of God and man. "And I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse; and He that sat upon him was called Faithful and True. . . . And He was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood : and His name is called The Word Of God." (Rev. xix. 11, 13.) Jesus here represented the Divine Word, in its letter, containing the Divine Trtith in its spirit, and thus filled with Divine life.
BLOOD IN ISRAELITISH CEREMONIALS.
In the minute instructions given to Israel, as to the ceremonials, much was said about blood, and the use of it. Blood was regarded as holy, and not to be used carelessly, and not to be left exposed. In regard to the sacrifices, it was said to Moses, "Thou shalt take of the blood of the bullock, and put it upon the horns of the altar, with thy finger, and pour all the blood beside the bottom of the altar." (Ex. xxix. 12.) And in regard to fowls, "and the blood thereof shall be wrung out at the side of the altar." (Lev. i. 15.) "And whatsoever man there be of the children of Israel, or of the strangers that sojourn among you, which hunteth and catcheth any beast or fowl that may be eaten; he shall even pour out the blood thereof, and cover it with dust." (Levit. xvii. 13.) Thus the people of Israel were kept in remembrance of the fact that the blood was regarded as holy, and that the Divine rules in regard to blood were to be strictly obeyed. Because the blood was regarded as holy, it was used to sprinkle upon the altar, and on the priests, and so forth. "And the priest shall dip his finger in the blood, and sprinkle it seven times before Jehovah, before the veil." (Lev. iv. 17.)
As blood was regarded as precious, and as the life, very much was said to Israel, as to shedding man's blood. The law given by Jehovah through Moses, began, early in the career of the Israelites, to place before the people a powerful and serious warning; "At the hand of every man's brother will I require the life of man. Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed." (Gen. ix. 5, 6,) In the spiritual sense, to kill is to destroy the spiritual life, that is, to destroy a man's goodness and truth, by leading him into evil, falsity and sin. And this a man seeks to do, when he hates his fellow-man. And so the indulgence of hatred is spiritually called "shedding blood," for, if unrestrained by principle or by policy, hatred would lead to murder. The law of legal retaliation, shedding the blood of the murderer, is the external form of the inward law of character, that he who seeks to injure another, from hatred, must necessarily injure his own life, spiritually.
And, as the Israelites were a very natural-minded and sensuous, carnal people, who had not the biightest perception, or understanding, of spiritual principles, they needed to be governed by the hard external form of the law, which was on their plane of life. "Ye shall not pollute the land wherein ye are, for blood, it defileth the land : and the land cannot be cleansed of the blood that is shed therein, but by the blood of him that shed it. (Numb. xxxv. 33.) But when Christianity opened men's eyes to spiritual principles, the harsh laws for Israel were not carried over into the Christian dispensation.
The Israelites were forbidden to eat blood because the blood, in which is the life, was regarded as holy, while the Israelites were very unholy and impure in their natural mind and life ; and for them to eat blood represented profaning holy things.
REPRESENTATIVES.
With the Israelites, who were external men, no genuine or spiritual church could be formed; and so, in order to keep them in some kind of connection with the heavens, the Lord formed with them a representative dispensation ; not a true church, but an external representative of a church, in which the ceremonials should represent the principles and activities of a spiritual church. In this representative dispensation, blood was regarded as a cleansing medium, by which men could be saved from natural death, as a penalty for disobedience to some of the external laws. But the blood merely represented the Divine Truth, carrying Divine Love, which can save the spiritual life of every man who will love, understand and obey the Divine laws. And so, in the Christian dispensation, truth was, and is, the cleansing medium ; not blood, but the truth which the blood represents. Jesus said, "Now ye are clean, through the Word which I have spoken upto you." (John xv. 3.) And the Word is the Divine Truth. Jesus said to the Jews, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink His blood, ye have no life in you. Whoso eateth My flesh, and drinketh My blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up, at the last day." (John vi. 53, 54.) The Jews had no idea of the meaning of Jesus' words. They thought of physical eating and drinking. But Jesus spoke in correspondential and symbolic language. He referred to spiritual eating and drinking, in which our minds. receive and use goodness and truth. His flesh represented the Divine Goodness, and His blood symbolized the Divine Truth, which men receive in regeneration.
And all the rituals and ceremonials of the old Jewish dispensation were also symbolic of spiritual things. Take as an example, the pass-over among the Israelites. "And Jehovah spake unto Moses and Aaron, in the land of Egypt, saying, . . . Speak ye unto all the congregation of Israel,' saying. In the tenth day of this month, they shall take to them every man a lamb, . . . And ye shall keep it up until the fourteenth day of the same month ; and the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it, in the evening. And they, shall take of the blood, and strike it on the two side-posts, and on the upper door-post, of the houses wherein they shall eat it. And thus shall ye eat it; with your loins girded, your shoes on your feet, and your staff in your hand : and ye shall eat it in haste : it is Jehovah's pass-over. For I will pass through the land of Egypt this night, and will smite all the first-born of the land of Egypt. . . . And the blood shall be to you for a token, upon the houses where ye are: and when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and the plague shall not be upon you, to destroy you, when I smite the land df Egypt. And this day shall be unto you for a memorial ; and ye shall keep it a feast to Jehovah, throughout your generations." (Lev. xii. i, 3, 6, 7, 11, 14.) This pass-over represents the process of regeneration, in the individual man ; and also in the aggregate church. A man is in servitude in Egypt, spiritually, when he is mentally bound down by natural-minded and sensuous ideas, and without intelligent knowledge of spiritual principles. But the Lord leads a man out of this bondage, by instruction in truth, by means of which whatever is good and innocent, in a man's mind, may be led out of the general ignorant and sensuous condition: And then the man's evils can be condemned, and rejected in order that his spiritual life may be saved. The blood is the truth. And the lamb is the .state of innocence, which can be rescued from the natural states of sensuous evils. Putting the blood upon the door-posts represents bringing the spiritual truth down to the natural plane, so that it applies to the daily life. Spiritually, the whole scene is in the mind of man.
PHYSICAL AND SPIRITUAL WITH RESPECT TO BLOOD
When a man vitiates his blood, physically, his natural life is in danger. This physical condition represents and symbolizes the mental condition in which a man loves, and confirms in himself, evil and false principles, which do violence to Divine Good and Divine Truth, in the mind of the man. And so, to do violence to the life of another, and to shed his blood, represent evil in the mind, doing violence to charity, or love of the neighbor. When men come into evil states, in which they care nothing for goodness, and when evil prevails in the community, such a state is represented, symbolically, by the words, "Their land shall be soaked with blood." (Isaiah xxxiv. 7.) In this case, blood is used in an opposite sense, as corrupted, and its character changed to the opposite. For blood is corrupted when it is shed upon the ground, in the unlawful killing of men. In this sense, it is said, "Jehovah will abhor the bloody and deceitful man." (Ps. v. 6.) "Bloody and deceitful men shall not live out half their days." (Ps. Iv. 23.) Evil and false minds cannot enter into the higher and greater states of human life. "Their sorrows shall be multiplied that seek after another God ; their drink-offerings of blood will I not offer, nor take up their names into my lips. Jehovah is the portion of mine inheritance and my cup." (Ps. xvi. 4, 5.) "Your hands are defiled with blood, and your fingers with iniquity; your lips have spoken lies, your tongue hath muttered perverseness ... to shed, innocent blood: their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity: wasting and destruction are in their paths." (Isa. lix. 3, 7.) Men's "hands are defiled with blood," symbolically, when they are in the practice of evil. And they "shed innocent blood," when they condemn and despise the high and holy principles of regenerate life.
But, in a good sense, to wash one's robe, and make it white, in the blood of the Lamb, is to cleanse the mind and the life from the false principles of evil, by means of the truths of the Divine Word, impurities in the blood, which corrupt the body, are like the impure afFections which enter into a man's mind, and gradually corrupt all that is good in him, and induce spiritual death. In "The Apocalypse Explained," in the last volume, in a treatise on Divine Wisdom (Section x. No. 6), it is said, "The human blood, in its inmost principles, is spiritual, and in its outermost principles is corporeal; wherefore they who are spiritual nourish it [the blood] from such things in nature as correspond to things spiritual; but they who are merely natural, nourish it [the blood] from such things in nature as correspond to it [their blood in its state] ; hence the dissimilitude of their loves ; for the blood corresponds to the love." In "The Divine Love and Wisdom," No. 420, it is said, "That the blood in the lungs purifies and nourishes itself correspondingly to the affections of the mind, is not yet known [on earth], but it is very well known in the spiritual world ; for the angels in heaven are delighted with such odors, only, as correspond to the love of their wisdom; whereas the spirits in hell are delighted with those odors, only, which correspond to some love in opposition to wisdom. That men in the world impregnate their blood with similar things, according to correspondence with the affections of their love, follows as a consequence: for what a man's spirit loves, his blood craves, and attracts in respiration." Physical conditions afford an external basis for the operation of corresponding mental states.
THE BONES.
The bones are the ultimates, or last things of the human body, the outmost, the lowest parts, and hence the least receptive of life. They are hard, and formed mostly of earthy matter. They form a frame-work, on which the body is built, and by which the soft parts are upheld and kept in place. Each bone is of use as a fulcrum, or base, on which one or more muscles can rest and act.
Bones correspond to external truths, natural, corporeal truths, as facts in fixed forms, on which all higher truths may rest, for support. These corporeal truths, or facts, are not spiritual, but they are very important, and very useful, as a natural basis; as the hard skeleton is useful in holding the body in proper form, and in allowing the organs of the body to be kept in use.
For instance, you know the fact that you are a human being, a spiritual being, with spiritual life. You know that you will pass into the spiritual world; and that you will take your place, there, according to your character. You know there is a God, and a heaven for regenerate men. But you know, also, that you are now in the material world, which is a real and permanent part of the universe, always needed as the nursery of human beings. You know that you form your actual character, while you are in this material world, provided . that you remain in this world long enough to mature your character. And you know that this material world, and all its phenomena and experiences, are given to you in order that you may here be taught how to live, and trained in the right way of life. These things are facts. They form a frame-work of literal truth, on which you can rest your higherthoughts and affections. And if you did not know of these facts, you would be without a basis and support for your spiritual thoughts. You would be like a human body of flesh without any bony skeleton to give support.
In the body, life is in the soft parts, and the bones have the least life of any part of the body. And so a man who is in mental condition to be represented by a bone, would be merely a natural-minded man, knowing, perhaps, many physical facts, but having no glimpse of the spiritual phases of human life ; living the life of an intellectual animal, and utterly unappreciative of the whole grand world of spiritual manhood. As the natural man is born into the fallacies of the senses, so man's proprium, or selfhood, is represented by a bone, almost without life. And, in the unregenerate state, even the man's external truths are linked with falsities of thought and fallacies of appearances. By disease, parts of the flesh may be ossified, or turned to bone, by the deposit of earthy matter in excess. And this condition soon induces the death of the body. And there is a parallel process in the mind of the unregenerate man, by which such things as he has held as truths of faith, having life, may by earthly mindedness, degenerate into mere forms and ceremonies, in which is no truly human life.
MEN OF BONE.
In the spiritual world, those who have lost almost all their intelligence, by sinking into sensuous life, sometimes appear as if formed of bone, with scarcely more human expression than a bone image of a man. Such are those who confirmed themselves in profaning heavenly and holy things, and making light of disobeying the commandments of the Lord. Such, too, are those who have studied material science, as a mass of literal facts, but who have not used natural facts for any good purpose, nor found in such facts any help towards understanding, loving and obeying spiritual principles ; who have not "looked through nature up to nature's God."
In the spiritual world, those who are represented by bones, are those of the lowest possible conditions of heavenly life, having little conscious life, but still being of use to others, by their knowledge of the external facts ,of life in the spiritual world. We might call such men the outside men of the natural heaven, not evil in character, but of a mind so external that its life is comparatively inactive and feeble.
It is plain to the natural thought, that the bony form, the skeleton, is an organized form, because we can see its parts and their relations. And if our spiritual eyes were opened, we could see, even more plainly, that the spirit of man is an organized form, having all its parts formed in order, with their various relations. And the spirit dwells in the spiritual body, which is an organized form, made of spiritual substance, and adapted to all the uses and activities of the spiritual world, in which human life is even more active than in the material world, as the mind is more active than the body. If the spirit is not an organized form, how can it act upon the material body, as it does? The body has no life, apart from the spirit within it.
In Exodus xii. 46, we read, concerning the pass-over, "In one house shall it be eaten; thou shalt not carry forth aught of the flesh abroad, out of the house; neither shall ye break a bone thereof." That a bone should not be broken is a representative condition, meaning that every literal truth, or fact, shall be kept whole, in full force, and not broken up, or destroyed, in the mind ; for, if broken, it would lose its influence. In order to be secure in our thought, we must be able absolutely to rely upon our facts, which are the ultimate basis, upholding thoughts. Where there is doubt as to facts in literal truth, there is uncertainty as to methods of action. Thus, to break a bone is, symbolically, to injure external truth, as, for instance, the letter of the Divine Word, in its precepts of life, as in the Ten Commandments, on which interior truths rest, and whose inward meaning is spiritual truth. If a man is uncertain whether the Decalogue was given to men by the Lord, he cannot accept it as of Divine authority. And if it is not Divine, but only the wisdomof Moses, then it has no absolute authority over men; and we may amend it, if we think we can improve on the work of Moses, who was only another man. But if the Decalogue is the Word of God, then it has absolute authority over us, and we may not change it, or disregard it, without spiritual injury to otirselves; or, figuratively speaking, without breaking a bone.
THE DEATH OF JESUS CHRIST.
And when we come to the history of Jesus Christ on earth, and to His death at the hands of evil men, we observe the symbolic and typical circumstances. In Israel, it was the custom to break the legs of criminals who were crucified. But when Jesus was crucified between two criminals, it is said in the Gospel, "Then came the soldiers, and brake the legs of the first, and of the other which was crucified with Him. But when they came to Jesus, and saw that He was dead already, they brake not His legs. . . . These things were done, that the Scripture should be fulfilled, A bone of Him shall not be broken." (John xix. 32, 33, 36.)
The Old Testament Scripture referred to is Psalm xxxiv. 19, 20 : "Many are the afflictions of the righteous : but Jehovah delivereth him out of them all. He keepeth all his bones: not one of them is broken." In the literal sense, these words apply to all righteous men, especially in a figurative way ; but, in their spiritual sense, they refer to the Lord, Jesus Christ, in His assumed humanity. And the command that the bones of the lamb eaten in the pass-over shall not be broken, refers to the Lord Jesus Christ, both typically and spiritually. The bones of the natural body of Jesus were not broken, to represent that nothing can destroy the unity of the Divine Truth, even in the letter of the Word, which is always true, representatively and correspondentially, even in those parts which do not state literal facts about material things. Primarily, the unity of truth is in its inmost sense, and, from that, in its lower phases of meaning.
When a man is regenerating, in spite of temptations, it is said, "As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you ; and ye shall be comforted in Jerusalem. And when ye see this, your heart shall rejoice, and your bones shall flourish like an herb : and the hand of Jehovah shall be known towards His servants." (Isa. Ixvi. 13, 14.) That his "bones shall flourish like an herb" means, spiritually, that, in his mind, literal truths shall grow and increase in life. And again, "Jehovah shall guide thee continually, and satisfy thy soul in drought, and make fat thy bones : and thou shalt be as a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters fail not." (Isa. Iviii. 11.) To make fat his bones, is to fill his truths with goodness, by leading the man to love and practise the truth. Again, "All my bones shall say, Jehovah, who is like unto Thee, which delivereth the poor from him that is too strong for him ; yea, the poor and the needy from him that spoileth him." (Ps. xxxv. 10.) That the bones acknowledge the saving power of Jehovah represents the literal truth confirming spiritual and Divine Truth, in the regenerating man, who is led into goodness and truth, in spite of temptations. As it seems, to the natural mind, that the Lord casts temptations upon men, such a man says, "Make me to hear joy and gladness ; that the bones which Thou hast broken, may rejoice." (Ps. li. 8.) And, spiritually, these "bones" represent the literal truths, which are broken, in the mind of the man who allows falsities to disturb such truths. And these "bones" rejoice when the falsities are dispelled, and the truths become clear, again. And then it is said symbolically, "God hath scattered the bones of him that encampeth against thee." (Ps. liii. 5.) The Lord redeems men from the influence of falsities, which are meant by bones, when used in a bad sense, as bones perverted to bad work. "My bones are vexed. My soul also is sore vexed." (Ps. vi. 2, 3.) In this case his mind is disturbed by both external and internal falsities. And where grievous temptations assault a man's mind, and cast doubts upon the truths which he has learned, he exclaims, "There is no soundness in my flesh, neither is there any rest in my bones, because of my sin." (Ps. xxxviii. 3.)
VISION OF DRY BONES.
In Ezekiel's vision of the dry bones revived, there is a revelation as to the states of the Church. "The hand of Jehovah was upon me, and carried me out, in the spirit of Jehovah, and set me down in the midst of the valley which was full of bones, and caused me to pass by them, round about : and behold, there were very many in the open valley ; and lo, they were very dry. . . . And he said unto me, Prophesy upon these bones, and say unto them, O ye dry bones, hear the Word of Jehovah. Thus saith the Lord Jehovih unto these bones : Behold, I will cause breath to enter into you, and ye shall live : and I will lay sinews upon you, and will bring up flesh upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and ye shall live; and ye shall know that I am Jehovah." (Ezek. xxxvii. i, 2, 4-6.) And after Ezekiel had prophesied to the dry bones, and his prophecy had been fulfilled before him, in vision, "the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood up upon their feet, an exceeding great army." (Verse lo.) "Then He said unto me, Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel : behold they say, Our bones are dried, and our hope is lost: we are cut off for our parts. Therefore prophesy and say unto them. Thus saith the Lord Jehovih; Behold, O My people, I will open your graves, and cause you to come up out of your graves, and bring you into the land of Israel." (Verses ii, 12.)
Every man, naturally, and of himself, is dead in evils and falsities and sins. The quality of his life is represented by a dry skeleton, separated from the living parts. But the Lord breathes upon such a man, spiritually, by bringing the Divine Truth to bear upon the man's mind. And thus, by degrees, the Lord builds up the whole man, in a renewed and regenerated manhood. The man then comes out of the mental grave of evil, falsity and sin, and enters into the new life of goodness, truth and righteousness. These things relate to "the whole house of Israel," in the sense that they refer to the aggregate man, the church, as well as to the individual man. When a church has lapsed into evil, and can no longer fulfil a good purpose among men, the Lord has provided a new church, which, by means of instruction and reformation, has come to regeneration, by the re-opening of men's minds to spiritual light and life.
In the symbolic account of the creation, in Genesis, it is said that God first created a man, and that afterwards he formed a woman, from a bone, one of the ribs of the man. Probably there are many simpleminded persons who believe that these statements are to be accepted as literal scientific facts. But, on the contrary, they are symbolic and representative of conditions in the minds and lives of men. The man's rib, being a bone, represents the things in man's mind having very little life, as the things of the senses, the things of the proprium, or self-hood, in its natural deadness as to spiritual life. If a man loves his own life, as his own, apart from the Lord ; and if the man regards his own life as full and perfect; he loves his self-hood; and this makes him selfish, self-centered, and self-conceited, looking to himself, and forgetting the Lord. And in order to elevate the man to a higher condition, and to save him from the deadening influence of self-love, the Lord created a woman. "And the rib which Jehovah God had taken from man, made He a woman, and brought her unto the man." (Gen. ii. 22.) This proprium, or love of self, which was evil in the man, was taken out of him, and formed into a woman, who was not merely a bone, but a complete human form, and who could love the man for his own character.
And the woman, in thus loving the man, would not exercise self-love, but love to another, who was her partner, and who, with her, would form one full and perfect manhood, walking together in regeneration. Thus her love for the man would be very different in its quality from that which it would have been, in the man's own mind, where it would have been love of himself. The woman may love the man in a way in which he can not properly love himself. And thus that love of himself, which, in him, is like a bone, a thing of very little life, is taken out of him, and is brought again to him, in the form of a lovely and loving woman, a wife, who is full of a higher and nobler life than a bone, and whom he can love for herself, and for her love of him. True marriage takes away selflove, and leads each partner to love the other. And thus each loves, and is loved, in a close union, without either one degenerating into self-love. And while selflove is evil, false and sinful, married love, when genuine and regenerate, is good, true and righteous. And in a right marriage there are the greatest opportunities for a high regeneration.
But all these things, although founded upon literal facts, are also symbolic of the conditions of men's minds in the spiritual marriage of regeneration, the marriage of good loves in the will, with true principles in the understanding, which is called the heavenly marriage, and which is constantly treated of in the internal sense of the Scriptures. In regeneration, selflove is rejected, and mutual love is established in the mind, and exemplified in the life.
THE MUSCLES.
The bones are moved by the muscles ; and the muscles are moved by fibres from the brain. The general muscular system represents the affections, which move truths to action, guided by the intelligence. And the operation of the muscles, in action, corresponds to the operation of the will, in the interior life.
CONDITIONS OF THE BODY.
As the body corresponds to the spirit, and is the outward form and organ by which the spirit acts in the physical world, so the conditions of the body represent the conditions 01 the spirit ; that is, of the mind. Some conditions are general, affecting the entire body, and others are particular, relating to parts of the body. In order to apply the terms of correspondences, we shall take a number of bodily conditions, and show their representative meanings.
LIVING AND DEAD.
There is one life, which is in the Lord ; and all created beings are merely forms, into which life from the Lord can flow, but so. adjusted that they may re-act under the Divine influence, and may thus display certain activities. A creature is living when it is in the reception of life from the Creator ; and it is dead when its form has lost the capacity to receive life. For life is not an independent gift, with any creature, but it depends upon the rrtpmentary and continued reception of life from the Lord. And the creature lives only as long as the inflow of life continues to fill the form. Natural life is the life of the body, in which the bodily parts are in use. But spiritual human life is the life of the spirit, in which the will and the understanding are in the reception of goodness and truth from the Lord. Spiritual love and wisdom constitute spiritual life; and so, to be alive, bodily, corresponds to the mental condition of receiving love and wisdom. When a man's mind is in good order, he is in the reception of heavenly life, and he is said to be "a living man." In the symbolic account of the creation of the material universe, it is said, "Jehovah God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of lives, and man became a living soul." (Gen. ii. 7.) The lives which were breathed into man were the life of love, flowing into his will, and the life of wisdom, flowing into his understanding. And these things of spirifual life made him a living soul, both spiritually, in the spiritual world, and naturally, in the material world.
But, when a man has rejected the love and the wisdom, the goodness and the truth, which are seeking to flow into him, from the Lord; and has filled his mind with evil and falsity, he is dead, spiritually, because he is not in the reception of life from the only Source of life. "Bless Jehovah, O my soul. . . . who redeemeth thy life from destruction." (Ps. ciii. 2, 4.) This the Lord does when He regenerates a man, and thus redeems the man from a former state of selfdestruction in evil, and gives him spiritual life. "The kingdom is Jehovah's : and He is the Governor among the nations. . . . All they that go down to the dust shall bow before Him: and none can keep alive his own soul." (Ps. xxii. 28, 29.) One of the disciples of Jesus "said unto Him, Lord, suffer me, first, to go and bury my father. But Jesus said unto him.
Follow Me; and let the dead bury the dead." (Matt, viii. 21, 22.) Literally it was important for the disciple to give his entire attention to the new truths and new conditions to which he had been converted. Others, who were still dead in sin, could bury the dead bodies. But, spiritually, the disciple recognized that his mental father, his self-hood, was dead, and that the Lord was Life, itself. But the disciple supposed that he would have to put away his evils by his own power. And the Lord taught him that he should drop his old selfhood, and have no more to do with it ; but that he was to take up a new life, and follow the Lord, by the new principles which the Lord had taught him, and would continue to teach him. And then his old, unregenerate self-hood would bury itself. Jesus said, "He that heareth My Word, and believeth on Him that sent Me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation, but is passed from death unto life. . . .
The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God : and they that hear shall live." (John v. 24, 25.) It is plain that the dead here mentioned are the spiritually dead, the unregenerate, whom the Lord will raise up into spiritual life, by regeneration. A man is said to be "dead to the world," and alive to heaven, when he gives up worldliness of mind, and becomes regenerate. He who enters into the life of goodness, dies out of the life of evil, because evil dies out of him. "And I heard a voice from heaven, saying untO' me. Write, Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord, from henceforth : Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labors; and their works do follow with them." (Rev. xiv. 13.) Those who die "in the Lord" are those who die out of evil, by regeneration. And they, having conquered their evil tendencies, "rest from their labors." "And their works do follow with them," because such works are the working-out of the good that is in them, from the Lord.
BIRTH AND DEATH.
The birth of the body represents the opening of the mind, in regeneration. And death, as the extinction of bodily life, represents the total spiritual destruction of the mind, by the rejection of all goodness and truth, and fixing the mind on evil and in sin. "Unto you is born, this day, in the city of David, a Savior, which is Christ, the Lord." (Lk. ii. 11.) And, spiritually, this Savior is born within us, if we are regenerate. And He is born "in the city of David," that is, in the doctrine of Divine Truth, received in our minds. And "as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that beheve on His name: which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." (John i. 12, 13.) To be "born of blood," is to have motives which do violence to charity, or the love of the neighbor ; and also to profane the Divine truths which teach charity. To be born "of the will of the flesh," is to be in the love of evil, derived from the love of self and of the world. To be born "of the will of man," is to be in the acceptance and persuasion of false principles. But to be "born of God" is to be regenerated, and born into the love of truth.
HEALTH AND SICKNESS.
To do its work, and to serve its purpose, properly, our physical body must be kept in good health. Bodily health corresponds to the health of the mind, which is spiritual health. And so, bodily sickness corresponds to spiritual sickness, in all varieties, from slight sickness to exhaustion and death, at one extreme, or to insanity, at the other. All these represent different forms of evil in the will, or of falsity in the understanding, or of sin in the conduct.
Conditions of the body depend largely on the states of the mind. It is not always the large and strong man who has the most courage, or the most physical power, or efficiency, or influence. Often, vitiated states of the mind injure the body; and, in restoring the mind, we restore the body, also. The body is the mind's natural instrument, to do the bidding of the spirit in the physical world. And so, intelhgent physicians, in treating existing conditions, pay considerable attention to the mental states of patients.
Before regeneration, we are all sick, in spiritual things, because we are born into disorderly inclinations of feeling and of thought, from accumulated hereditary tendencies. While Jesus was on the earth, a part of His work was to heal men of their various diseases. And it was a time when many and desperate diseases were quite common, for it was a time of desperate evil, falsity and sin, which disordered all things in men. But when men were willing to open their minds to the Lord, and to pay attention to His teachings, such men were brought into closer connection with the Lord, and with the heavens. And this condition in men's minds opened them to receive the life-giving influences of the Lord, on all planes of their life.
Many forms of sickness depended upon wrong mental states. And when these mental states were corrected by the Lord, and men's minds were released from such things, such men could have their disorderly bodily conditions, also, corrected and healed ; because their bodies were healed through their spirits. This can be seen to be the fact, from the opposite condition, when men were not willing to open their minds to the Lord. It is recorded in Matthew xiii. 58, "And He did not many mighty works, there, because of their unbelief." Men would not open their hearts and intellects to Him, to become receptive of life. When Jesus sent out His apostles. He said to them, "As ye go, preach, saying. The kingdom of Heaven is at hand. Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils." (Matt. x. 7, 8.)
STRENGTH AND WEAKNESS.
Strength is in right conditions, which put the person in a state to receive a fulness of life from the Lord. All strength originates in spiritual strength, which is in the Lord, and from the Lord, in men. Therefore bodily strength represents mental strength, strength of regenerate character, of goodness and truth. And weakness, feebleness, and so forth, correspond to mental states, in which the mind fails to receive fulness of life from the Lord, because evil and falsity obstruct the inflow of life. Weakness may be either in the absence of power, as in ignorance, or in the neglect of power, as in unused knowledge. "In Thee, O Jehovah, do I put my trust : let me never be put to confusion. ... Be Thou my strong habitation, whereuntoI may continually resort. I will go in the strength of the Lord Jehovih." (Ps. Ixxi. i, 3, 16.) "Strengthen ye the weak hands, and confirm the feeble knees. Say to them that are of a fearful heart. Be strong, fear not." (Isa. xxv. 3, 4.) "As the man is, so is his strength." (Judges viii. 21.) "Bless Jehovah, O ye angels,' that excel in strength; that do His commandments, barkening unto the voice of His Word." (Ps. ciii. 20.) "Jehovah is my light and my salvation ; whom shall I fear ? Jehovah is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?" (Ps. xxvii. i.)
ORDER AND DISORDER.
When the physical body is in right order, all its parts are in right condition, and in right relations with each other. And in this condition the body is most receptive of life; and it is in its greatest capacity to perform its uses ; and it is most responsive to the mind. And, in this condition, the body corresponds to the mind in its right order, and in its fulness of life. But, in the degree in which the body is in disorder, or dislocated, it is out of right relations and incapacitated for its uses. And in this condition it corresponds to a mind in a state of disorder, and unfit for its work. It is the constant effort of all good influences to maintain order in the body and in the mind. This orderly condition is referred to in Psalm xxxvii. 23, "The steps of a good man are ordered by Jehovah ;" not merely in the sense of commanded, but also in the higher sense that the good man's mental steps of progress are arranged in an orderly sequence, according to the Divine principles of life, and are kept in order by the Divine Providence. And so the good man prays, "Order my steps in Thy Word; and let not any iniquity have dominion over me." (Ps. cxix. 133.)
In these cases, the literal sense of the text speaks of the steps of the body, in walking. But such bodily steps are controlled by the corresponding steps, or activities, of the mind. And orderly conditions of the mind are represented by all references to the orderly arrangement of physical things. For instance, in regard to the burnt-offerings, in Israel: "And the sons of Aaron, the priest, shall put fire upon the altar, and lay the wood in order upon the fire: and the priests, Aaron's sons, shall lay the parts, the head and the fat, in order upon the wood." (Lev. i. 7, 8.) These things represent the orderly arrangement of our affections, in our states of worship.
Among the Israelites, when a man was in danger of death, he was told to "set his house in order." This warning referred not merely to putting his residence in proper order, but also to bringing his mind into proper order to meet the change. "In those days was Hezekiah sick unto death. And the prophet Isaiah, the Son of Amoz, came to him, and said unto him, Thus saith Jehovah, Set thine house in order ; for thou shalt die, and not live." (II Kings xx. i.)
A body in which some of the parts are dislocated, or "out of joint," represents a mind which is out of order, and its uses injured, by the presence of evil and falsity; for these produce disorder. In a fervent prayer, the Psalmist says, "I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint." (xxii. 14.) In the plain spiritual sense, this is an acknowledgment by the natural man that his mind is not in regenerate order. But in their profound spiritual meaning, the same words express the terrible desolation of mind which was felt by Jesus Christ, in His assumed humanity, in the extreme temptation of the crucifixion, when the world had set itself against him, and all the hells were combined in their efforts to destroy him, with floods of falsities, and with the falsifying of truths, by breaking up their proper order and right relations ; for truths remain true only when in their right order, and in their right relations.
WHOLE OR BROKEN.
When the body is whole, and complete, and in good order, it is in full life and activity. But if it is broken, wounded or maimed, it must, to the same extent, suffer injury and loss of power and usefulness. And so, while a whole body corresponds to a whole, unimpaired mind, a broken or maimed body represents a mind in an injured condition, from assaults of evil and falsity.
In the Scriptures, the word "whole" is used sometimes in the sense of unbroken, and sometimes meaning restored to right conditions, after illness. "And Jesus . . . came nigh unto the sea of Galilee; and went up into a mountain, and sat down there. And great multitudes came unto Him, having with them those that were lame, blind, dumb, maimed, and many others, and cast them down at Jesus' feet, and He healed them ; insomuch that the multuude wondered, when they saw the dumb to speak, the maimed to be whole, the lame to walk, and the blind to see : and they glorified'the God of Israel." (Matt. xv. 29-31.)
These bodily cures represent the mental and spiritual cures which our Lord works, in us, in the progress of regeneration.
WOUNDED.
A wounded condition of the body corresponds to a state of the mind, in which the affections are injured by false principles, which have assaulted the understanding, and have induced confusion of thought as to what is good and true. For instance, suppose you allow some one to influence your mind until you do not see truth clearly, and do not vigorously cherish goodness, but feel confused in thought. In this case, you have allowed the other person to wound your mind, and to threaten your spiritual life. We have a forcible picture of this condition in our Lord's parable of the Good Samaritan. "A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among thieves, which stripped him of his raiment, and wounded him, and departed, leaving him half dead." (Luke x. 30.)
This man, in his injured condition, represents a mind assaulted by false reasonings, until it is almost unable to maintain its spiritual life.
The evil state of the Jewish church is symbolically expressed concerning Jerusalem : "From the sole of the foot even unto the head, there is no soundness in it; but wounds and bruises and putrefying sores; they have not been closed, neither bound up, neither mollified with ointment." (Isa. i. 6.) The tempted man cries, "Why is my pain perpetual, and my wound incurable, which refuseth to be healed?" (Jer. xv. i8.)
All life, and all salvation, come to us from our Lord's life. "He healeth the broken in heart, and bindeth up their wounds." (Ps. cxlvii. 3.)
SANE AND INSANE.
While sanity and insanity are mental conditions, rather than bodily states, yet they are manifested in our natural and bodily life. And insanity is sometimes induced by physical conditions, as by injury to the brain, or by fever. The term "sane" means whole, sound, or well, and "insane" means unsound, not well. Spiritually, to be sane is to be regenerating, that is, to be in the knowledge of truth, and in the love of good, and in the practice of the Divine laws. And to be insane, spiritually, is to be in the love of evil, and in the belief of falsity, and in a life of sin. Therefore, everyone who is unregenerate is not spiritually sane ; and everyone who is fixed and confirmed in evil is positively insane, spiritually, whether he dwells in this world, or in the spiritual world. In the hells all the inmates are insane. At the time of the coming of Christ, the evil spirits of the hells had so much power in the minds of men on earth, that such evil spirits not only possessed men's minds, but also took possession of their bodies, or obsessed them. And cases are narrated in the gospels, in which Jesus cast out such spirits, and freed the men from their influence. In such cases, these men were, for the time, practically insane, and unable to control themselves. It is said of Jesus, "And they brought unto Him all sick people, that were taken with divers diseases and torments, and those that were possessed with devils, and those which were lunatic, and those that had the palsy ; and He healed them." (Matt. iv. 24.) All such cases of mental disturbance, lunacy, or insanity, represent the spiritual insanity which belongs to all evil.
AWAKE AND ASLEEP.
In our bodily career, we are conscious of ourselves, in a responsible way, during our waking hours, only. When we are asleep we become unconscious, and our responsible career is interrupted ; for even if we dream, we have no control over the disjointed proceedings during our sleep. And so the state of wakefulness, in bodily life, corresponds to a wide-awake condition of the mind ; and a state of sleep corresponds to a dull state of mind. A mind that is spiritually awake is one which is open to spiritual light, and intelligent in spiritual truths. But a mind which is asleep, spiritually, is one which is open to the natural life of the senses, but indifferent to spiritual principles and life. The merely natural and sensuous mind is never wide-awake to spiritual things, because it lives in the external, corporeal things of the natural plane of life.
In Matthew viii. 24-26, it is said, concerning Jesus, "And when He was entered into a ship. His disciples followed Him. And behold there arose a great tempest in the sea, insomuch that the ship was covered with the waves : but He was asleep. And His disciples came to Him and awoke Him, saying Lord, save us ; we perish. And He said unto them. Why are ye fearful. O ye of little faith? Then He arose, and rebuked the winds and the sea ; and there was a great calm." That the Lord was asleep, means, representatively, that men had allowed Divine truths to become dull, in their minds, by thinking from the things of the natural senses. And no man in such a condition is safe from the storms of evil and falsity, in his own natural mind, until he awakens his own perception and interest in Divine principles, and becomes appreciative of the Divine presence and power.
"Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of Jehovah: awake as in the ancient days, in the generations of old." (Isa. li. 9.) The Lord can thus awake, in a man's mind, when the man elevates his mind, and opens it to the Lord. And so men are called upon to awake to spiritual life. "Awake, awake ; put on thy strength, O Zion ; put on thy beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy city : for henceforth there shall no more come into thee the uncircumcised and the unclean." (Isa. lii. I.) These words clearly relate to a regenerating condition of men's minds, and thus to the spiritual growth of the church.
The individual man is said to awake, when he elevates his mind to spiritual things. "I laid me down and slept; I awaked; for Jehovah sustained me." (Ps. iii. 3.) "Except Jehovah build the house, they labor in vain that build it; except Jehovah keep the city the watchman waketh but in vain." (Ps. cxxvii. i.) These words refer to the providence of the Lord, which must dwell within all of man's activities. "Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust." (Isa. xxvi. 19.) To dwell in dust is to remain in the life of the senses.
SLEEP.
The regenerating man, when he puts his attention upon his natural duties, trusting to the Lord to sustain him in his work, symbolically says, "I will both lay me down in peace, and sleep : for Thou Jehovah, only, makest me to dwell in safety." (Ps. iv. 8.) Jesus spoke a parable about the tares which spoil the grain. "The kingdom of heaven is likened unto a man which sowed good seed in his field : but while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat." (Matt. xiii. 24, 25.) In the spiritual sense, men sleep when they busy themselves with the things of the senses, and in such way that they are not awake to the spiritual aspects of their life. And these lower conditions are full of temptations, because, in them, many falsities can be insinuated into the natural mind, even when the man has been instructed in truths. At the transfiguration of Jesus, Peter, John and James "were heavy with sleep : and when they were awake, they saw His glory." (Luke ix. 32.) In this naturalminded state, they did not recognize the spiritual aspects of the Lord's personality ; but they perceived the Lord in His glory, when He awoke their minds on the spiritual plane, and enabled them to see in spiritual light.
Author: Edward Craig Mitchell From Scripture Symbolism, 1904
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