THE SCIENCE OF CORRESPONDENCES
ELUCIDATED

Edward Madeley

<< CHAPTER V >>

THAT THE SACRED WRITERS BEAR THE MOST AMPLE AND COGENT
TESTIMONY TO THE EXISTENCE OF A SPIRITUAL SENSE IN THE WORD OF GOD.

WE are now permitted to know and make trial of this great exegetical law. Since the first systematic promulgation of the heavenly doctrines of the New Church, in the middle of the last century, which include this rule of interpretation, and as if to confirm their truth and importance, science, in every branch of knowledge, has been permitted to be investigated with an ardor and success heretofore unknown. Ancient treasures of learning and remains of antiquity have by unwearied researches been brought to light, and labors, both mental and physical, have been expended upon them, unexampled in any former age. To open the prison-house of ignorance and superstition, the world has been explored, as it never was before, in search of all kinds of knowledge. A wide field of delightful investigation, perpetually expanding itself, is rendered accessible on every side, in which the prepared mind may disport and expatiate, and, by the sacred and sublime science of correspondence, every ascertained truth, every sci entific fact, and every degree of intelligence, may be made subservient to revealed wisdom and goodness, and to the indefinite advancement of mankind in virtue and in truth.

Natural and external objects can only exist as effects from prior causes, which are internal and spiritual, belonging to the spiritual world, though latent or concealed here. These objects receive their appropriate forms from the interior principles of angels, demons, and spirits, and of which they are the constant exponents ; and nothing exists within their minds but what, by an eternal and unchangeable law of the spiritual world, finds its constant and appropriate corresponding form without. This nature and constitution of the spiritworld is one source of the felicity of heaven, where all is beautiful and delightful because what is without exactly corresponds to what is within, and undergoes changes analogous to the changes of state ; and the same law also determines the phenomena of hell, where all without, like all within, is doleful and monstrous.

These principles and ideas in regard to the spirit-world lie at the very root of the sciences of correspondences. They illustrate and explain it. For the fixed objects of the natural world receive all their indefinite forms by a like correspondence with the spiritual world ; and according to the respective uses to which they are designed re spectively to contribute.

Even the representations of the Jewish dispensation were all, originally,"types and patterns" of heavenly realities. When the spiritual sight of Moses was opened, he received direct instruction from the Lord out of heaven concerning the tabernacle, the ark of the testimony, and all their contents and furniture ; and the Lord said unto him, " According to all that I show thee, after the pattern of the tabernacle, and the pattern of all the instruments thereof, even so shall ye make it" (Ex. xxv. 9). Then follows a particular description, and it is added, "And look that thou make them after the pattern which was shown thee in the mount " (ver. 40). The word translated pattern means also likeness or similitude (Deut. iv. 16-18).

" Not only all beasts, but also all things which are in the world, correspond, and according to correspondences represent and signify spiritual and celestial things, and in the supreme sense the divine things which are of the Lord. And hence it may be seen of what quality the ancient churches were, which were called representative churches, namely, that in singular their sacred rites were represented the things which are of the Lord and of his kingdom, thus which are of love and faith in Him. And that on such occasions heaven was conjoined with the man of the Church by such things ; for internal things were presented to view in heaven. The Word of the Lord was also given for that end, for in it all and singular things, even to the smallest iota, correspond and signify ; hence by the Word alone there is connection of heaven with man. That this is the case, is known to no one at this day ; wherefore the natural man, when he reads the Word, and inquires where the divine [essence or principle] lies concealed therein, and when he does not find it in the letter, by reason of the vulgar style, begins first to hold it in low estimation, and next to deny that it was dictated by the Divine [Being] Himself, and let down through heaven to man ; for he is ignorant that the Word is divine from the spiritual sense, which does not appear in the letter, but still is in the letter; and that that sense is presented to view in heaven, when man reads it reverently, and that the subject treated of in that sense is concerning the Lord and concerning his kingdom.

These divine things are what render the Word divine, and by [or through] which sanctity tlows in through heaven from the Lord, even into the literal sense, and into the very letter itself. But so long as man does not know what a spiritual principle is, neither can he know what the spiritual sense is, thus neither what correspondence is. And so long as man loves the world in preference to heaven, and himself in preference to the Lord, he is not willing to know those things, nor to apprehend them ; when yet all ancient intelligence wras hence derived, and hence also is angelic wisdom. The mystic arcana in the Word, which several divines have vainly busied themselves in exploring, only lie concealed therein." A. C. 9280. "Correspondence is the appearance of the internal in the external, and its representative therein." A. C. 5423.

" The spiritual [thus] acts in the natural, and forms it to a likeness of itself, that it may appear before the eyes, or before the world ; that [according to true order] the end may become the cause, and the cause become the effect, and thus that the end, by the cause, in the effect may exhibit itself visible and sensible ; this trine is given from creation ; the ultimate products which are in our world are various, as many as are the subjects in the three kingdoms of nature, the animal, the vegetable, and the mineral ; therefore, all products [both in heaven and upon earth] are correspondences. [Thus] correspondence is the manifestation of causes in their effects" (A. E. 1081 et seq.). It connects the infinitely varied and perfect works of creative skill and energy in the spiritual world with those of the natural world ; the inward mind with outward nature ; the innumerable faculties of the soul with the complicated yet harmonious forms of the body ; spiritual ideas with natural ; revelation with reason ; religion with philosophy; God with man ; and links the life which now is to the ages of eternity. It is to the Word of God what the laws of physical science are to the phenomena of the universe. Without any acquaintance whatever with scientific researches and deductions, a man may indeed live, and enjoy a considerable share of worldly pleasure ; but, destitute of a knowledge of these laws, what can he learn? Will the pebble or the fossil disclose to him its origin? Will light by its coruscations explain to him the mysteries of optical phenomena? Will the planets with out the demonstrations of astronomy reveal to him how they obey the electro-magnetic forces, and how their constant equilibrium is preserved? Or will the thunder-cloud and lightning-flash familiarize him with the nature of the imponderable agents light, heat, and electricity ? No. So, neither will the Word of God reveal to man the arcana of spiritual existence and mental activity, the knowledge of which is so essential to his eternal well-being and so earnestly to be desired, without some acquaintance with the divine style in which it is written, and the law by which it may be consistently and with certainty interpreted.

The science of correspondences also includes within it representatives, which have a chief relation to the existence and form of objects in a lower state, which correspond ; and significatives, which have more immediate relation to language and words. Thus the various organs of the body are representatives of the diversified faculties of the soul, through which they derive from God their innumerable forms and relations, their harmony, unity, and use, but when they act together they correspond ; or as all created objects are representatives of the living heavenly realities of which they are the material forms, so they all correspond in their active uses. And all expressions by which such things are described or spoken of in the Word, all the rituals of worship, and all discourse and actions described there, are significative, as Swedenborg most clearly shows, when he asserts that " between the things which are of the light of heaven, and those which are of the light of the world, there exist correspondences, and the correspondences which exist in those things which are of the light of the world, are representatives" (A. C. 3337). For between the light of heaven and the light of the world, " or between those things which are in the light of heaven and in the light of the world, there is given a correspondence, when the external or natural man makes one with the internal or spiritual man, that is, when the former is subservient to the latter; and in this case, the things which exist in the light of the world are representative of such things as ex ist in the light of heaven" (A. C. 3223). " For the things which exist by derivation from things spiritual in things natural, are representatives." A. C. 2987.

Thus, also, we learn that the numberless representatives which the patriarchs, prophets, and apostles saw, and the significatives which they heard in the spiritual world in visions or dreams, or when their spiritual senses of sight and hearing were miraculously opened, and which they were inspired to write and describe in the Word of God, were, in their highest significance, the living images and representative spiritual forms of the wisdom and goodness of the divine mind which gave them birth ; and, in a lower sense, of the inward thoughts, affections, perceptions, ideas, and discourse of the spiritual inhabitants with which they correspond. " Hence then it may appear what correspondence is and whence it is, what representation is, and whence ; viz., that correspondence is between those things which appertain to the light of heaven, and those which appertain to the light of the world that is, between those things which appertain to the internal or spiritual man, and those which appertain to the external or natural man ; and that representation is whatever exists in the things appertaining [to an external state and] to the light of the world that is, whatever exists in the external or natural man, considered in re spect to the things appertaining to the light of heaven, that is, appertaining to the internal or spiritual man." A. C. 3235.

It must, however, be always borne in mind, as Swedenborg asserts from his own conscious experience, that " the representatives and significatives contained in the Word of God [were not originally derived from human intelligence, skill, and observation; however acute and penetrating, for these at most can only confirm their existence and application, but] from the representatives which exist in another life; it was from another life that such representatives came to the men of the Most Ancient Church, who were celestial, and were together with spirits and angels while they lived in the world ; these representatives were derived from them to their posterity, and at length to those who knew only that such things were significative, without knowing what they particularly signified ; but inasmuch as they had existed from the most ancient times, and were applied in divine worship, they were therefore accounted venerable and holy. Besides representatives there are also correspondences which both in sound and signification differ in the natural world from what they are in the spiritual world ; thus, heart denotes the affection of good, eyes understanding, ears obedience, hands power, besides numberless others; these are not so represented in the spiritual world, but they correspond, as natural to spiritual ; hence it is, that each particular expression, as to the smallest dot or tittle in the Word, involves things spiritual and celestial ; and that the Word is so inspired, that, when it is read by man, [the] spirits and angels [attending upon him] instantly perceive it spiritually, according to representatives and correspondences. But this science, which was so cultivated and esteemed by the ancients after the flood, and by which they were enabled to think with spirits and angels, is at this day totally obliterated, insomuch that scarce any one is willing to believe that such a science exists ; and they who believe, consider it merely as somewhat mystical and of no use, and this by reason that man is become altogether worldly and corporeal, so that when mention is made of what is spiritual and celestial, he immediately feels a repugnance, and sometimes disdain, yea, even to loathing ; what, then, will he do in another life, which abideth for ever, where there is nothing worldly or corporeal, but only what is spiritual and celestial, which constitutes life in heaven." A. C. 2763.

And again, in another important passage, " The Word was sent down from the Lord to man, and consequently is different in its origin from what it is in its external form. The Word as being divine is not only written for man, but also for the angels attendant on, man, so as to serve not only for use to the human race, but also for heaven ; and that thus the Word is a medium effecting the union of heaven and earth ; this union is by the Church, and indeed by the Word in the Church, which Word, therefore, is of such a nature, and is distinguished from all other writings. Inasmuch as the learned part of the world are ignorant that things divine and celestial lie inwardly concealed, even in the historical parts of the Word, if they were not impressed with a holy veneration for the books of the Word received from their earliest years, they would easily be induced to say in their hearts that the Word is not holy, and that its holiness is only thus derived from the holy impressions received in early life ; when yet this is not its true source, but the Word is holy because of its internal sense, which is celestial and divine, and which is effective of the union of heaven with earth that is, of angelic minds with those of men, and thus of the latter with the Lord." ---Swedenborg.

It has been said that it is ridiculous to call correspondences a science ; but the late Bishop of Durham has said that " the symbolical language of the prophets is almost a science in itself "(Boyle Lectures) ; and Bishop Home calls it quite a science when he says, " If men, in these days, have not been accustomed to such contemplation, is it not high time they should become so ? Can they begin too soon to study and make themselves master of a science which promises to its votaries so much entertainment, as wrell as improvement ; which recommends the Scriptures, to persons of true taste and genius, as books intended equally for our delight and instruction : which demonstrates the ways of celestial wisdom to be ways of pleasantness, and all her paths to be peace." --Introd. to the Psalms.

" It is so common," says Professor Bush, " to represent this doctrine of the science of correspondences, and the spiritual sense of the Word, as the ne plus ultra of extravagance and absurdity, that the utmost solicitude is warranted as to the full and fair exhibition of the theory in reference to the fundamental principles on which it rests. Yet we see the whole matter resolving itself into a law as fixed and invariable as the law of creation itself, with which, in fact, it becomes almost identical. The Word of God rises under the process into a new revelation, clothed with a sublimity, sanctity, and divinity of which we had not previously the remotest conception. It stands before us the living Oracles of Truth, which are no longer separate from the very being of its Author. He is himself in his own truth. New treasures of wisdom gleam forth from its pages, and the most barren details of history, the recorded rounds of obsolete rituals, the dryest catalogues of names, the most trivial specifications of dates, places, and enactments, once touched with the mystic wand of the spiritual sense, teem with the riches of angelic conception. The cosmogony of Genesis becomes the birth-register of the new-born soul. The garden of Eden smiles in every renovated mind in the intelligence and affection emblemed in its trees, and fruits, and flowers. The watering streams are the fructifying knowledges and truths of wisdom, which make in crease of the spiritual man. The Tree of Knowledge, the Tree of Life, the wily serpent, are all within us, and within us all. The scenes transacted in the Paradisiac purlieus are more or less the scenes of our own individual experience, and the narrative ceases to be looked upon merely as the chronicle of events that transpired thou sands of years before we were born." Reply to Dr. Woods, p. 66.

That the sacred Scriptures have such a spiritual sense within them, distinct from the letter, which is the shell or resting-place thereof, they themselves plainly teach and positively assert. The Lord Jesus himself says, " It is the spirit which quickeneth ; the flesh profiteth nothing : the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life" (John vi. 63). The enlightened mind will see that the "spirit and life" constitute the inward spiritual sense ; and that for this reason the Word is called in the Revelation " THE LAMB S BOOK OF LIFE" (xx. 12; xxi. 27). In Hosea it is written, "I have spoken by the prophets, and I have multiplied visions, and I have used similitudes," saith Jehovah, "by the ministry of the prophets" (xii. 10). What are similitudes? what are the prophetical words, and the actions of the prophets, I ask, apart from their hidden signification? and, without it, how are they to be understood? David thus prays: "Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law" (Ps. cxix. 18). This is surely a prayer to the Lord that He will enlighten the sight of the understanding, and make manifest to human discernment the invisible things of his Word and kingdom. And, again, he affirms: "My tongue is the pen of a ready writer" (Ps. xlv. 1). Who is the ready writer but. the Lord himself? The Psalmist was but an instrument in his hand, to record his inspired wisdom and his revealed will. Precisely the same testimony is borne, in a historical form, in some of the last inspired words of David, where it is written : " The Spirit of the Lord spake by me, and his word was in my tongue" (2 Sam. xxiii. 1, 2). And in reference to what he wrote, he further says : "I will open my mouth in a parable; I will utter dark sayings of old" (Ps. lxxviii. 2). And yet, as these dark myiuys were only a plain and simple narration of the history of the children of Israel, what do we justly conclude, but that the whole is a divine allegory as well as a true history, recorded for our spiritual edification, and to promote our eternal welfare. So also of Cyrus, in his representative character as a type of the Lord in his glorified humanity, and also of each of his faithful followers, it is written : " I will give them the treasures of darkness, and hidden riches of secret places ; " and that these expressions have respect to the communications of wisdom and intelligence, in all abundance through the Word, is evident from what follows as the divine end of these marvellous gifts, namely, "That thou mayest know that I, the LORD, who call thee by thy name, am the God of Israel" (Isa. xlv. 3).

Now turn to the Gospels. It is there written that " Jesus spake unto the multitude in parables ; and without a parable spake He not unto them : That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, saying, I will open my mouth in parables ; I will utter things which have been kept secret from the foundation of the world " (Matt, xiii. 34, 35). Again, the same things are declared in another place : " And with many parables spake He the Word unto them, as they were able to hear it. But without a parable spake He not unto them; and when they were alone, He expounded all things to his disciples" ( Mark iv. 33, 34). Now what were these parables and dark sayings, without the spiritual things secretly signified that is, without their internal and heavenly meaning, pre-eminently called by the Psalmist (Ps. cvii. 43) and by John the Evangelist (Rev. xvii. 9) WISDOM? We are clearly taught that, " from the creation of the world," this divine style of instruction has been adopted in accommodation to the nature and condition of the human race, and as men were able to bear, and prepared to understand, these parabolic mysteries have been expounded. This, again, the Lord intimates, at the end of the Jew ish and the establishment of the Christian dispensation, where He says to his disciples : " Blessed are your eyes, for they see ; and your ears, for they hear. For verily I say unto you, that many prophets and righteous men have desired to see those things which ye see, and have not seen them ; and to hear those things which ye hear, and have not heard them" (Matt. xiii. 16, 17). And the apostle Paul asserts the same doctrine where he writes: "For we know in part, and we prophesy in part; but when that which is perfect is come, then that which was in part shall be done away " (1 Cor. xiii. 9, 10).

This method of imparting spiritual instruction to mankind, under the natural imagery of correspondence, served also to prevent the wicked and unprepared from injuring themselves by perverting the truth, and turning it to vile purposes; therefore, when the disciples inquired of the Lord the reason why He spake to the multitude in parables, he said : " I speak to them in parables, because they, seeing, see not ; and hearing, they hear not, neither do they understand ; for this people s heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and should understand with their hearts, and should be converted, and I should heal them" (Matt. xiii. 13-15) ; that is, lest they should believe and acknowledge the Lord, and outwardly receive his truth and goodness, while their hearts were full of hypocrisy and evil ; in which case it was foreseen that they would afterwards have awfully profaned his divine gifts, and denied Him, and, returning to their evil ways, their salvation would thus have been rendered impossible.

This parabolic mode of address was thus mercifully overruled, it appears, to protect the mysteries of sacred truth and goodness from profanation and abuse, and to restrain presumptuous men from plunging headlong into the most fatal and irretrievable states of hypocrisy.

It was to represent this accommodation of divine truth to human perception, and to check such deplorable arrogance and wickedness, that " Moses put a vail upon his face " when he descended from the Lord's presence on Mount Sinai (Ex. xxxiv. 33), denoting the obscurity of the letter of the Word, which vails the glory of its hidden wisdom from the unprepared, and attempers it to the prepared, be holder. How beautifully does the apostle Paul elucidate this significant act, and point to a period when the inward glory should be revealed. " Moses," says he, "put a vail over his face, that the children of Israel could not steadfastly look to the end of that which is abolished ; but their minds were blinded : for until this day remaineth the same vail untaken away in the reading of the Old Testament ; which vail is done away in Christ. But even unto this day, when Moses is read, the vail is upon their heart. Nevertheless when it shall turn to the Lord, the vail shall be taken away" (2 Cor. iii. 12-16).

Again, we read, " Upon all the glory shall be a defence " (Isa. iv. 5). AVhile " the glory" is truly descriptive of the inward spirit of the Word, its literal sense must assuredly constitute its protection and "defence."

In the Psalms we read," Bless the Lord, ye his angels that excel in strength, that do his commandments, hearkening unto the voice of his Word " (ciii. 20). The angels, then, have the Word of God for their instruction and delight ; and all we know of angels is most intimately connected with the Word of God ; without it, indeed, heaven would no longer be heaven. What follows, but that as there is a literal sense, adapting the divine wisdom to men on earth, so there must be within it a heavenly internal sense, adapting its interior life to the angels in the kingdom of God, and to regenerating men on earth. Thus the Word of God is a medium connecting earth with heaven, angels with men, and both with the Lord.

In the Acts the divine law is called the "lively" or "living oracles" (viii. 8), in exact agreement with the Lord s own declaration, that his words are " spirit and life," and also with the inspired affirmation made to Moses, and cited by our blessed Lord himself: " Man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God doth man live" (Deut. viii. 3; Matt. iv. 4; Luke iv. 4).

That the apostle Paul most distinctly recognized the same doctrine of an internal sense in the divine Word, is evident from all his writings, as where he asserts that " The letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life" (2 Cor. iii. 6); and this is true not only of the mere observance of the letter of the law of Moses, to the neglect of that spiritual interpretation which Christianity, or the Gospel dispensation, reveals as contained within it, but it also implies, more remotely, that the letter of the Word of God, when separated from the inward spirit which giveth life, by a denial of its existence, is constantly perverted by sensual in terpretations and reasonings, which deaden and destroy within us all reverence for its authority and character. So in his Epistle to the Romans he thus writes, " For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly ; neither is that circumcision, which is outward in the flesh : but he is a Jew who is one inwardly ; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter ; whose praise is not of men, but of God" (ii. 28, 29). And this explanation is in perfect accordance with the teaching of the Old Testament, where we read of " the circumcision of the heart" (Deut. xxx. 6; Jer. iv. 4).

In the Epistle to the Ephesians, also, the apostle, when he is speak ing and exhorting on the important subject of marriage, declares that what Adam says in the second chapter of Genesis respecting the union of man and wife, is " a great mystery ; concerning Christ and the Church " (v. 30-32).

The apostle Peter, also, alludes to Noah s ark, and says that it is " The like figure whereunto even baptism doth also now save us " (1 Pet. iii. 20, 21). Thus what is written respecting the ark and the flood, is evidently to be interpreted, and, indeed, can only be intelligibly understood, as a series of divinely-inspired figures and types respecting human redemption and salvation. Not only do the apostles spiritually explain some of the divine allegories of the Old Testament, and the ceremonies of the Jewish dispensation, but in like manner, also, certain narratives which are there recorded, and were historically true.

In his Epistle to the Galatians, the apostle Paul, referring to the Patriarchal history, says: "It is written that Abraham had two sons, the one by a bond-maid, the other by a free-woman. But he who was of the bond-woman was born after the flesh ; but he of the free-woman was by promise: Which things are an allegory : for these are the two covenants ; [and] as he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was bom after the Spirit, so it is now "(iv. 22-24). In speaking of the children of Israel, their representative journey, and what befell them in the way, as signifying things spiritual, he thus writes to the Corinthians : " Moreover, brethren, I would not that ye should be ignorant, how that all our fathers were under the cloud, and all passed through the sea ; and were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea ; and did all eat the same spiritual meat ; and did all drink the- same spiritual drink ; for they drank of that spiritual Rock which followed them : and that rock was Christ. Now all these things happened unto them for ensamples [tvrtoi types] : and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come "(1 Cor. x. 1-4).

In the Epistle to the Hebrews we meet with little else than a spiritual interpretation and application of Jewish history. Their burntofferings and sacrifices, their meat-offerings and drink-offerings, their priesthood and rituals of worship, the- golden censer and the ark of the covenant, the golden pot that had contained the manna, Aaron's rod which had budded, the table of the covenant, and over it the cherubim of glory overshadowing the mercy-seat, their fasts and festivals, their civil and ecclesiastical government, their battles and journeys, their captivities and deliverances, in a word, the whole history of the Jews, as recorded in the Word of God, was, as to every particular, representative of spiritual and divine things (Heb. ix., etc). And this spiritual interpretation of the Old Testament, the sacred writer distinguishes from the mere letter, by calling it " solid food " (Heb. v. 12-14). And thus warranted by apostolic example, it has been common phraseology, from the earliest period of Christ ianity, to speak of the sacrifices of the heart, or the hallowing of all the affections (Heb. xiii. 15, 16; Rom. xii. 1); of the altar and the temple of the soul (1 Cor. iii. 10, 17 ; vi. 19) ; of "a better country, that is a heavenly," as promised under the type of Canaan (Heb. xi. 10) ; of a spiritual " bondage" from which the soul must be delivered (Rom. viii. 31) ; of spiritual enemies from whom we must be protected, and spiritual dangers from which we hope to escape (1 Tim. vi. 12; 2 Tim. iv. 7) ; of spiritual trials in the wilderness, which we have to endure (1 Pet. iv. 12) ; of a spiritual Red Sea and Jordan, over which we must pass ; of heaven-descended manna, on which we must feed ; of living waters gushing from the Rock of Truth, by which we must be refreshed ; and of that delightsome land visibly outstretched before us from Pisgah's mount, which we may inherit as an everlasting possession. A land thus described in the beautiful language of correspondence, in order to represent a heavenly state of mind, or the establishment of heaven in the soul, and also to afford us faint ideas of the surpassing loveliness, the inconceivable grandeur, the beatific glory of the heavenly world ; the abundance of its precious blessings, the splendor of its spiritual and diversified scenery, the ineffable delights, the ecstatic virtues and the exalted graces of the ever-blessed inhabitants, of which the outward objects, in all their indefinite va riety, are all exact correspondences. " A good land and a large, a land flowing with milk and honey " (Ex. iii. 8). " A land of liills and valleys, and drinketh water of the rain of heaven ; a land that the Lord thy God careth for : the eyes of the Lord thy God are always upon it, from the beginning of the year even unto the end of the year" (Deut. xi. 11, 12). "A land of brooks of water, of fountains and depths that spring out of valleys and hills ; a land of wheat, and barley, and vines, and fig-trees, and pomegranates ; a land of oil olive and honey ; a land wherein thou shalt eat bread without scarceness, thou shalt not lack anything in it ; a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills thou mayest dig brass" (Deut. viii. 7-9). And what does all this justly imply, but that the whole of the eventful history of the Children of Israel, narrated by the plenarily inspired penman, is to be spiritually explained and understood. Thus the Holy Word inculcates its own spirituality, and the writings of the apostles most abundantly confirm the testimony.