each sort were allowed to be offered to the Lord in sacrifice, but not the unclean; and for the same reason, the Psalmist calls upon "beasts, and all cattle, creeping things, and flying fowl," to praise the name of the Lord. (Psalm cxlviii. 10.)
If we turn our thoughts to the world of nature, we find that the animal kingdom is presented to our view in a threefold order, corresponding to the three degrees of life existing in man. Thus, in nature, we have the animals that walk on the earth, the birds that fly in the air, and the fish that swim and sport in the waters! So in man there are, spiritually, his beasts, or affections, his birds, or thoughts, and his external principles of science and knowledge, which are the fish of his sea! Upon this mode of Scripture exposition, all parts of the Divine Word are of easy illustration.
The word which is translated sparrow, is one which signifies a bird in general, and here denotes the truth or thought of the spiritual man; while that translated swallow, is a word signifying freedom, but is sometimes used to denote a bird, and probably a swallow, from its freedom in flight. This bird denotes the free thought of the natural mind with respect to all its intellectual knowledge, when in subordination to the higher faculties of the spiritual mind. That spiritual and natural truth, denoted by these two birds, should find their home and habitation in the altars of Jehovah, is at once certain; for in the states of holy worship, when we compass the altar of the Lord, how do our thoughts expand—how do they increase and multiply, and present us with innumerable ideas of the joys, the bliss, and the happiness of heaven! Thus it is that
