the internal and spiritual meaning of the divine word. They had received such a measure of divine illumination as enabled them successfully to teach those truths which the human mind was then prepared to receive. A higher degree of illumination than this would have added nothing to their usefulness, at that time, and might have been an injury to themselves. Their churches were composed of persons just converted from Judaism, or some of the various forms of heathen idolatry. They could do nothing more than to receive the general facts of Christianity, in their most external form. The simple facts that Jesus Christ came to this world as the Son of the Father, "was conceived of the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified dead and buried," and that he rose the third day and ascended into heaven, and that these things were done in order to effect the redemption of the world; that it was necessary to believe in the Lord and obey his commandments, in order to be saved; that there would be a resurrection both of the just and the unjust; that the good would be eternally happy in a future state, and the wicked eternally miserable;—such general truths as these could be received by the mind even in its most external state. And if the great and fundamental truths of religion, even though received in their most external form, were heard and obeyed, the receivers of those truths, would, of course, be brought into conjunction with heaven, and would obtain an eternal inheritance at the right hand of the Lord. Such would, doubtless, be the result of receiving and obeying the truths of religion, even though those truths were only received as matters of faith, based on the evidence of testimony. And such appears to have been the manner in which divine truth was received by the early Christian church. Their understanding was not sufficiently enlightened to enable them to see the interior and spiritual forms of truth. They saw only the external appearances of truth, but when these were followed in hum-
