what Divine Truth is to the soul; while the church is to the embryo Christian what the mother is to the fœtus. By the church, the simplest truths are first inseminated, and gradually those which are more complex; but still it is Divine Truth which is operative, it is by the blood of the Lord, the Divine Truth of his Word, that life is continued.
(2.) The Lord is the source of sensual life. He has formed the eye to receive the impressions of light; the ear to receive the vibrations of sound; the nostrils to perceive odour; the tongue by taste to discriminate food; and has pervaded the whole body by nerves of feeling; and thus are we beings of sense.
(3.) We are so organized as to be prepared for the enjoyment of external life; and all the comforts and blessings of bodily existence are by the Lord bestowed upon us. All the objects of the wide creation are spread open before us for the employment of our rational faculties, and by the exercise of these we become (4.) Rational beings. (5.) We may, by the exercise of our rational faculties, rise to the higher plane of spiritual life.
Our internal constitution becomes open to the reception of influx from the spiritual world, and from some society of happy angels therein; as we exercise our faculties in conformity with the holy Word, in the firmament of our minds the sun arises.
(6.) By the elevation of our affections to the Lord, we rise still higher, and are supplied with life of a celestial quality; we learn to prefer the love of the Lord to all things, and to bring our souls under its celestial influence. Thus are we kept in being from the fœtus in the womb; and life from the Lord is
