Imágenes de páginas
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captivate and destroy; and where the sophist weaves his spider's web of infidelity and falsehood. Verily, the imaginations of the unregenerate heart are evil continually! (Gen. vi. 5.) We are instructed in the writings of the New Church, that the workings of the imagination from an evil heart are, after death, changed into direful and tormenting phantasies, *-into every "kind of creeping things, and into every form of abominable beasts." Thus they are taken in the devices which they have imagined. (Psalm x. 2.) How important, then, it is that we should admit the prophet,-the Divine Truth, into our "chamber of imagery," that every thought and working of our imagination may be brought under the controlling and purifying influence of the divine love and wisdom, "and that every high and vain imagination may be cast down."

Our imaginative faculty is acted upon both from without and from within,-from the world and from heaven. If influenced from the world only, and not at the same time from heaven, it is influenced from hell, and the imagery it presents is the imagery of our worldly and selfish cupidities, which are represented by the creeping things and abominable beasts seen by the prophet; which cupidities, when cherished as the supreme objects of love and delight, are idols, and are called the "idols of the house of Israel, and are portrayed universally throughout the mind, denoted by 'the wall round about;' because that which governs in the centre realizes its effects in the circumference,—“in the wall round about," which is our sensual degree of life where unsubdued cupidities especially dwell. Our imaginative faculty, when under the control of the divine truths of the Word, is influenced from heaven; these are all heavenly and divine, and wherever they prevail there heaven is, and the impure and perverse workings of the imagination begin to cease. The prophet enters into the "chamber of imagery," discovers and casts out its perverse and impure imaginings, and introduces the order, purity, and bliss of heaven in their stead. Thus, when the heart is under the influence of divine love, its pure, holy, gentle, and heavenly affections impart their influence to the imagination, and make its imagery the scenery of heaven. Every object it represents is full of loveliness and arrayed in beauty, because the image of some heavenly affection in the regenerate and spiritual mind.

* See Spiritual Diary, 152, 180, 374, 375, 326, 1696, &c.

MINUS.

MATERIALS FOR MORAL CULTURE.

[Continued from page 299.]

"Keep the channel open."-No. CCL.

CCCCXXVII.

It is a great mistake to confound the love of knowledge with the love of truth. The love of knowledge will often be found in alliance with the love of self; but the love of truth can only be found in company with the love of good, for every one's love of truth (as truth, or as the form of good) is equal to his love of good, so that the measure of the one is the measure of the other. Neither can exist apart from the other. The love of knowing is an affection of the natural man; but the love of truth is an affection of the spiritual man; and can only be communicated by regeneration, together with the love of good.

CCCCXXVIII.

In painful states of mind, prayer is good. "Is any afflicted, let him pray." It is good to pray for power to endure, and to act, and for light and guidance to use and apply that power effectually. But the Lord is more pleased when the sufferer manfully uses the power of truth which he already possesses, in sustaining and guiding himself, than with his proceeding to pray for more power, without first trying, in humble faith, the efficacy and sufficiency of the power momentarily granted to him, because granted to all who are willing to lay hold of it, by the actual use and application of it. The fable of Hercules and the wagoner is as applicable to our making exertions to help ourselves under painful states of mind, as it is under more ordinary difficulties. If our efforts seem to fail, earnest prayer is good, but even then patient trust is better.

CCCCXXIX.

The spirit of every man has its own spiritual atmosphere, bright and cheerful when good spirits are present, and murky and oppressive when evil spirits surround him. It is in vain that the atmosphere of this world is bright and serene when the spiritual atmosphere is the reverse, and when the latter is clear, the dullest day becomes cheerful. Man must needs have his spiritually dark days for the trial of his faith and patience; but how much might those days be shortened by cherishing the conviction contained in the words

"All my times are in thy hand,

All my states at thy command."

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CCCCXXX.

It was remarked by one who was called to bear afflicting states, that the bad always comes before the good; trials and temptations before relief and victory; doubt and obscurity before intuition and enlightenment." This idea is most consolatory. And it was in order to impart this comfort that the Lord said, "In the world ye shall have tribulation, but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world." After the patient experience of tribulation, will certainly come all those spiritual blessings which the Lord procured for us by overcoming the world.

CCCCXXXI.

Owing to the mixed nature and quality of man, it is probable that most actions which properly call for condemnation, have some redeeming circumstances. To look out for these, under feelings of disappointment and irritation, is not less politic than generous, but the difficulty of this duty is apt to lead to the neglect of it.

CCCCXXXII.

The only way to secure our conquest of a failing to-morrow, is to conquer it first to-day.

CCCCXXXIII.

The concentrated perception which arises from the union of the good and the true, is denoted by the Lord's commendation of a single eye, for by this is meant one sight formed by the perfect union of both sights,— the sight of the right eye-the judgment of good,―perfectly united with the sight of the left eye-the judgment of truth,—so that both sights are concentrated in one, as if the two eyes constituted but one organ. The contrary to this is, the double sight, or each eye seeing separately, this is called the "evil" eye, for spiritually it signifies the deceased intellectual state of those who try to look two ways at once,towards God and towards Mammon,* or towards heaven and towards the world; who would fain grasp the heavenly world of purity on the one hand, and the natural world of impure indulgence, hatred, and covetousness, on the other. Such characters abound. doubleminded, who are unstable in all their ways."

CCCCXXXIV.

They are the "

We account the delightful overflowings of the heart in gratitude to the Lord, when we are permitted to experience states of heavenly joy, as

* Mammon is a Syriac word, which signifies gain, or what any one accounts gain, or a good. Thus it does not mean exclusively outward riches, but also honours, power, or whatever is sought to be gained.

something divinely real; but no less real are the pleadings with Divine Love, when the spirit is overwhelmed. "Put my tears into thy bottle [lachrymatory]; are they not in thy book?" To this earnest plea, how consolatory is the following answer, for such it may be considered :"Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints,"—that dying unto sin which is effected by means of trials and temptations.

CCCCXXXV.

That a powerful memory is a preeminent advantage, and greatly to be desired, is very generally believed; but if its stores of words and facts are allowed too exclusively to occupy the plane of thought, the judgment may become torpid for want of exercise, and the more spiritual activities of the governing love of good become suspended. The mind cannot be fully occupied in two ways at once. If it be chiefly busy with recording other men's sayings, the individuality of the judgment, which is the superior power, will suffer injury, and the formation of the rational principle be impeded. Efforts of memory are not really beneficial, unless the memory be regarded as a secondary power. The judgment must be suffered fully to exercise its powers of discrimination, and then the memory may lay before it the materials it contains for its use, which is their only proper and legitimate application. Whether a man be endowed with powers of memory, or powers of judgment, they can only be a real blessing to him so far as they are devoted to the service of the Giver, apart from all desire after display.

CCCCXXXVI.

What are the respective uses of Time and Eternity? Eternity may well be occupied in learning the laws of the spiritual world, and the inexhaustible wonders of the spiritual sense of the Word; but only Time avails us to shun evils as sins. This, then, should be, to us, the first The former should be an object of desire; the latter an object of most anxious solicitude, the great purpose of our existence.

thing, the one thing needful.

CCCCXXXVII.

By what means can we habitually command a serene and elevated state of thought and feeling? Chiefly, no doubt, by exercising, under depressed and trying states, intelligent watchfulness, and patient prayer. It is a divine gift, and this the indispensable preparation for its reception. Self-excitement, so commonly resorted to by the external church, avails but little; it can do little more than present the graven and molten images of celestial things. Not even the power of truth avails, until it is joined with good, by victories in temptation.

CCCCXXXVIII.

To think erroneously of another, and especially if the error be persisted in by a refusal to receive correction, is far less an injury to the party misjudged, than to the unjust judge himself. To be able to think and judge always according to truth, is the highest attainable human privilege; and the only way to approach it is, by cherishing an humble, undeviating desire to be always in the right, and to be always on the look-out for better information. So exalted a privilege can never be enjoyed by any one who, on any subject, prefers his own error to another's truth, because it is his own.

CCCCXXXIX.

We

When our motives and actions are misconceived, or misrepresented, by those who prefer to think evil of us, and therefore are averse to listen to our justification, we ought calmly, and with gentle pity, to pass by their erring judgments. Their case in reality is worse than ours. have a sound state of mind, and not at all the less so for being thought otherwise; while they have an unsound state, an insidious disease of the judgment, without knowing it.

CCCCXL.

What an amazing difference between being converted to a doctrine, and being converted to God!

CCCCXLI.

Not even Infinite Wisdom can teach those who are wilfully unteachable. How often do we mistakenly attribute the want of success in a teacher to his supposed want of ability, while the defect lies with the party who refuses to be taught, and whose unteachableness neutralises the best efforts made for his instruction.

CCCCXLII.

The words of the Lord (Matt. xviii. 3.) "Except ye be converted," apply to the world; and the words next following, "and become as little children," apply to those who by conversion have passed from the world into the church. The reason why many are not added from the world to the church, is, because unteachableness as to truth prevents their conversion; and the reason why the New Church makes so little progress in the power of good, is, because too many of her members are content with being "converted" to truth, without becoming as little children," in other words, it is because they are unteachable as to good. CCCCXLIII.

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"The heavens be about us!" is an exclamation in use with the Irish

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