an oblique direction downwards, but continually elevated in a right line upwards, towards the Supreme Good; at the same time that the human understanding finds all its asperities smoothed and corrected by the soft and gentle influences of celestial love and charity.
87. It is written of the Lord, that when He perceived that they would come and take Him by force to make Him a king, he departed again into a mountain Himself alone, (John vi. 15.) from which words it appears, that He resisted the temptation to dominion or rule in the principle of truth, which is a King, by retiring into His own divine principle of pure mercy, love, and innocence, which is a mountain; exhibiting thus a most instructive and edifying example to all His followers, who may be exposed to the same temptation.
88. When certain Greeks were desirous to see Jesus, (John xii. 20, 21,) and for this purpose applied to Philip, and when Philip told Andrew, and both Andrew and Philip tell Jesus, Jesus answered them, saying, The hour is come that the Son of Man should be glorified, &c. &c., to teach them that the glorification of His human nature, by uniting it with the divine, was all that could be seen of Him, and all that was worth seeing, being what properly constituted Him self, and what alone ought to be called Himself.
89. It is written in the Book of the Prophet Isaiah, (chap. lv. 13,) Instead of the thorn shall come up the fir-tree, and instead of the briar shall come up the myrtle-
