goats, at His second advent, in these words, “And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left;” [Matt. xxv. 33.]. For what profitable, or indeed possible meaning can be annexed to the precept, “Let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth;” if it be supposed to relate merely to the left and right hands of the body? And what instruction again can be conceived to result from the different lots of the sheep and the goats at the last day, if by the Lord’s right hand, on which the sheep were to be set, and by His left, on which the goats were to be set, nothing else was intended to be expressed, but the right and left hands of the body? We are compelled then, in exploring the true and edifying import of the above passages of Divine counsel, to interpret them according to their reference to some spiritual principles, distinct from, and superior to, the members of bodily organization; which principles can be no other than mental principles, and these discriminated in reference to the spiritual distinction between right and left.
Do you ask what is involved in this spiritual distinction between right and left, or in what sense the terms right and left can be applied to the mind or spirit of man?—I wish to reply, that it will be impossible for you to gain a clear and satisfactory idea
