Page:The Parable of Creation.djvu/65

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The First Fruits of Spiritual Life.
61

his spiritual mind or nature and his natural, between love of self and the world and love of God and man, between essential evil and essential good. Well settled preliminaries are necessary to progress. So soon as one can make these distinctions, and not before, he is ready to proceed further.

Let us now pass on to a consideration of the third state or stage of regeneration as set forth in the sacred symbols of the narrative.

"And God said, Let the waters be gathered together in one place and let the dry land appear." The allusion here is not to the waters above the firmament, but to those beneath. Waters, as we have seen, signify divine truth. The waters under the firmament we have found to signify those truths as mere forms, expressions or remembered texts, not spiritually realized or understood.

It is easy for one to have a knowledge of what he does not understand. The blind man may know that there is such a thing as light, because he has often heard it spoken of. So many have spoken of it within his hearing that he even believes in its existence. But what does he understand or realize concerning it when he has never seen it? So, a child may be taught that there is a God. Perhaps he firmly believes it because he has been so often told so. But what does he comprehend concerning the infinite existence of God—his love, mercy, wis-