thoughts and the moving energies of our life to another state, to another world, whither, we are powerfully reminded by the events of the past year, our career is fast approaching; and ere another January may have come, our sojourn here may have ended and our allotment cast in that eternal world in which we must live, either in states of happiness or misery, for ever.

Nothing then is more precious to us than time, and the opportunities it every moment presents of working out our salvation, by the subjection of every purpose, thought, imagination, and act of our external, to some divine and spiritual principle from the WORD OF GOD in our internal man. Thus "to seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness" is our great and blessed duty, as well as the great safeguard against evil of every kind. The performance of this duty, through faith in the Lord, and the love and practice of His holy precepts, brings with it the blessed assurance that whensoever the Son of Man cometh to summon us hence He will find us ready, "with our loins girded and our lamps burning.'

Our months and days here are most precious because in time, during our probation in the world, we form the plane and the basis of our spiritual and eternal states of happiness. We are now in the ultimate plane of creation, and as regeneration can only be commenced in ultimates," now is the accepted time, now is the day of salvation,"—the more we cultivate our privileges here, the more extended, deep, and solid will become the plane or base upon which our mansion of bliss hereafter can be erected. This plane, or base, can be cultivated to an indefinite extent; every moment may add something to its extension and culture. Our natural state may be compared to a vast wilderness, like the uncultivated plains of Australia or America, which in their natural state grow nothing useful for man;* but which are susceptible of cultivation to an indefinite extent, and of producing fruits in every variety for the good of mankind. Thus, whilst we are here, the cultivation of our natural state can be enlarged, and the portions already brought under spiritual culture may be still improved, as to quality and capacity, for the production of the more exalted fruits of righteousness and of happiness. But when we leave this world, the ultimate of creation, we cannot extend and perfect the base upon which our mansion in heaven is constructed.

* See Major Mitchell's account of Australia, in which he says, "that after travelling many miles in every direction, although there was much vegetation and many wild animals, yet they could find nothing truly useful for man." It would hence appear, that everything truly useful for man is the result of culture, or of our coöperation with the Lord's Providence.

Now, all this spiritual culture of our natural state is denoted by the true worship of the Lord. Hence it was that the Latins used a term to denote worship which signified culture, namely cultus. Thus Cicero says—“ Religio Deorum cultu pio continetur." But the true worship of the Lord is involved in the offerings which the wise men brought unto Him at His Nativity,-an event which we have recently commemorated. These offerings were Gold, Frankincense and Myrrh; and the men who brought them were guided to Bethlehem by a star, which went before them.

All these particulars respecting the Lord's Nativity are recorded, not merely as historical events, but for our spiritual instruction in righteousness, "that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works." The Magi, or the wise men who came from the east, were in possession of knowledges from ancient revelations and traditions, that the Lord would come into the world to accomplish the redemption of mankind, by subjugating the hells, by glorifying His Humanity, and by establishing a new dispensation of His mercy and goodness, or a New Church upon earth. There had always been from the very first prophecy that was delivered, "that the seed of the woman should bruise the serpent's head," an anticipation in the minds of the pious of this great event; and when the desire of all nations" was about to come, this hopeful anticipation was exceedingly active. The star which guided the wise men was the emblem of the knowledge they possessed respecting the Lord's Advent; and in reference to us of the New Testament Dispensation, and especially of the New Jerusalem Church, this star of spiritual knowledge should shine more brightly to our minds than it did to the wise men of old. This knowledge should bring us to the Lord at the commemoration of His Nativity, and induce us to bring spiritually, in genuine worship, our offerings of Gold, Frankincense and Myrrh.

The Lord's nativity into the world was, in itself, infinitely to be distinguished from the nativity of every other man. And unless this great, this infinite distinction is in some measure seen, it is impossible to form a true idea of the Lord's Humanity, and of His being One with the Father, even as the soul is one with the body. The great reason why the Christian world, in general, thinks of the Lord's Human Nature as similar to the human nature of another man, and why they separate His Divine Nature from His Human, is owing to the fact of their not having true ideas concerning the nature of His conception and nativity. If they would but think, as the Word plainly teaches, that His Father was the Divine Being Himself, of whom He

was conceived, and that, of consequence, His soul was infinitely distinct from the soul of all other men, who are conceived of merely human fathers, they would begin at the right point to contemplate the true nature of the Lord's Humanity, and would see, as the apostle declares, that "in Him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily," and that, consequently, His Human Nature must needs be divine, and not merely human, since no merely human nature, however exalted, could possibly contain all the fulness of the Godhead.

But as every thing good and true, every thing innocent, holy, and happy must be born in us, if we are to become the subjects of regeneration, and thus prepared to enter into heaven; hence the Lord's nativity, or His being born into the world, represents the birth of everything spiritual and heavenly from Him into our individual world, that is, into our natural man. "Christ in us," says the apostle, "is the hope of glory;" wherefore, the Lord, as to His divine love and wisdom, must be born in us, as the only hope of attaining to our glorious destiny in heaven. When, therefore, we commemorate the Lord's Nativity, we should remember that the most profitable way of contemplating this subject is, that the Lord as to all the principles of His kingdom (see Luke xvii. 21), must be born within us, and that this birth is effected by the acknowledgment of the Lord in His Divine Humanity.

The Lord was thus born into the world to become our Redeemer and our Saviour, in order that His redeeming and saving love and truth might be born individually in us. This blessed spiritual nativity, or this re-birth of man, is accomplished by virtue of the genuine principles of a living, holy worship. This worship is denoted by the offerings of the wise men, and we become truly wise in proportion as we offer up this holy worship to the Lord.

Gold, as the emblem of the first principles of a living worship, signifies the worship of the Lord from pure love and goodness. This is the first essential of all worship and of all genuine religion, and gold, so frequently mentioned in Scripture, is the proper correspondent emblem of this love and goodness. Hence it was that this precious metal was so universally employed in the structure of the tabernacle and the sanctuary. The ark was overlaid with gold, the altar of incense in like manner, and nearly all the utensils of the sanctuary were either made of gold, or overlaid with it, in order to teach us, by the most striking symbols, that all worship should be performed from the principle of pure love and goodness. Hence it is that the Lord says to us, "I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich," (Rev. iii. 18.) in order to teach us, that He, in His Divine

Humanity, is the only Source whence all genuine love and pure goodress can be received.

But what is genuine love, and what is the relation of pure goodness to genuine love? There are various kinds of love and goodness, and it is of infinite moment to know what is genuine and what is spurious. As it is of importance to know whether gold is genuine, alloyed or spurious, possessing nothing but the colour, or the external appearance; so it is of infinitely greater importance to know whether the love and goodness which actuate our life are of a genuine, or of a spurious character, since our happiness or misery in eternity will depend upon our life's love, or on our governing affection. There is natural good, moral good, and spiritual good. Natural good has relation solely to our natural life, its wants and supplies, and its source is the love of self and of the world. This is necessary for our natural state and our self-preservation, but it is not signified by the gold mentioned in the Word. No genuine worship springs from this love, and from the consequent goodness predicated of it, for all goodness is predicated of what a man loves, and consequently so long as a man is actuated by principles originating solely in what is selfish and worldly, he can offer to the Lord no gold of genuine love and goodness.

Moral good is of a higher order than merely natural and sensual good; because it springs from principles founded in man's rational nature and in his relations to society, and especially to the community in which he lives. These principles relate to what is equitable, just, honourable, and becoming in decorum and manners. By this good a man rises above the animal, and above the selfishness of his own nature, and approaches nearer to the dignity of a real and true man. But from this moral good, so far as it originates in selfish and worldly considerations, which have relation to our merely natural life, no spiritual and genuine worship can be offered to the Lord. It is not the pure gold that He can accept; it may appear as to its surface like gold, but the substance within is spurious and base, because, being derived from motives originating in the external man only, its quality is merely selfish and worldly. This good may make a man a good citizen of the world, and an orderly and even a virtuous member of society; but it cannot make him a citizen of heaven, nor prepare him to dwell with angels. An atheist may from these princibles be an irreproachably moral man, but as his morality can only originate in what is merely natural, it is evident that he cannot thereby rise into a spiritual and heavenly state. All the works and acts proceeding from a man actuated only by this kind of morality are "not full and perfect before God," because they have not within them a spiritual

and divine principle. Such a man may, as to his external, which is obvious to the world, "have a name to live," but viewed from heaven, he is spiritually dead. Thus no pure gold of genuine worship can be offered to the Lord from this source only.

But when a man's moral principles are taken from the Word of God, his morality will have a spiritual and divine principle within it, and he will become not only a good citizen of the world, but a citizen of heaven at the same time; his "citizenship, (Toλɩrevμa,) will,” as the apostle says, "be in heaven." Hence he can bring his offering of gold in the worship of the Lord; his heart will be influenced by that love and goodness from which all true worship springs. The highest order of good that we can receive from the Lord is called celestial; this good is received from Him when everything in our internal and our external man is brought under the influence of love to Him above all things; when He is the beginning and the end of all our motives, affections and doings; when we love to live in dependence on Him alone, are resigned to His will, and acknowledge Him as the God of our sorrows as well as of our joys, directing all things, whether in states of prosperity or of adversity, to our eternal good. The purest gold that we can offer to the Lord in worship is from these principles, and it is called celestial good. Hence it was the first in order which the wise men, when they had opened their treasures, offered to the Lord.

Frankincense, as being grateful in its odour, was largely employed in the representative worship of the Jews, and generally throughout the ancient world, among the Asiatics, Greeks, and Romans. The use of incense, therefore, in worship, was a rite derived from very ancient times. The true signification of this rite, as of every other, can only be known from the correspondence, which, when explained, is easily understood. Frankincense, as being delightfully fragrant, corresponds to the gratefulness and blessedness of the spiritual life, as formed by the divine truths of God's Holy Word. All worship offered to the Lord from the spiritual affection of truth is grateful to Him; hence we so often read that the odour of incense was grateful to the Lord. Hence also it was that there was an altar of incense. The prayers of the saints are expressly called incense, (Rev. v. 8.) which is a proof that the offering of incense corresponds to the worship of the Lord from a spiritual affection of divine truth, that is, an affection irrespective of anything selfish and worldly, whether it be honour or gain. This second offering, therefore, of the wise men, denotes the worship of the Lord from a spiritual ground, or from the pure affection of truth; whereas, the offering of gold denotes the worship of the Lord from the pure affection of good