walk contrary to GOD, or to walk in the ways of GOD, and in the name of GOD? Is it not manifest too, that the idea, as being spiritual, has relation to the thought and understanding of man, rather than to the will and its affections, since the ways of GOD, to which walking is applied in the above passages, have peculiar reference to the truths of GOD’S MOST HOLY WORD, which truths, during man’s regeneration, arc the first and more immediate objects of his intellectual faculty, to the intent that by obedience to their heavenly dictates, the will and its affections may finally be wrought upon and fixed in the principle of heavenly good? For it is a well established fact, that, previous to the acquirement and possession of such heavenly good, it is necessary that man be initiated into the knowledge of it, and thus that the understanding, for a time, should lead and direct the will, until the will is qualified, in its turn, to rule and govern the understanding. Walking then, according to this idea, is the first act of regenerate life, yet with a view to the succeeding acts of standing and sitting, inasmuch as intention and will, which are spiritually figured by standing and sitting, are successive graces, which can never be attained by man until he be first obedient to the science of what is good and true, as taught in the Divine pages of revealed wisdom.
