October Third.
THE DOCTRINE OF DEGREES.
"Thus the heavens and the earth were finished ."—Gen. ii. 1.
THE heavens and the earth being finished, implies that man being rendered spiritual by the combats undergone in regeneration, which the creation in six days represent, he is preparing to enter upon a higher and more interior state. Heaven is predicated of the internal man, and earth of the external. In the outset of his course, the external had the ascendancy or government, and the natural bore sway: "That was first which was natural."
But now the internal assumes the government, and what he does is not so much from the love of rule, as from the desire of good; and therefore good, not truth, becomes the ruling principle, and thus the preparation for the celestial government mentioned in the second and third verses has been brought about. And on the seventh day God ended the work which He had made, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had made; and God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it. Here the seventh day describes the state of the celestial man, and is called the Sabbath, which word signifies rest. Now the Lord in the gospel invites man to come unto him, under the gracious promise, "I will give you rest;" or, " I will give you the Sabbath; I will give you the state that is celestial;" and no one can give this but the Lord, because "the Son of Man is Lord also of the Sabbath." The kingdom of heaven is a Sabbath,
