good-this copper, if it be not united with spiritual truth, can never prepare us for heaven. How can our minds be made spiritual? What means are to be used in order that they may be covered over with spiritual good and truth--the gold and silver of heaven? The answer is: Let the copper-natural good-be coated with a flux of salt-holy desire; then the two principles will readily unite; then we shall be adorned with silver-decorated with the beautiful ornaments of spiritual truth and good; with bracelets on our hands, that is, the power derived from divine truth; a chain of gold on our necks-the conjunction of all things in our internal and external minds; earrings in our ears-practical obedience to the laws of heaven; and a beautiful crown upon our heads-wisdom from the Lord ruling and blessing our whole soul.

Take another instance of the conjoining property of salt. In the manufacture of soap, the two principal ingredients employed are fat or oil, and water. Now oil and water of themselves cannot be made to unite; it is impossible. Introduce a salt-potash, and they will mix with the greatest readiness, and form soap, an article so essential to cleanliness and comfort.. In this case as in the former, salt is the conjoining medium. Fat and oil correspond to good, and water to truth. And as oil and water cannot be united without a medium (salt), so also good and truth cannot form a one, so as to be the means of purifying our hearts, unless they be united with a heavenly salt-a holy desire. We may have what the world calls goodness; we may have truths in abundance; but unless we have this spiritual desire this desire for good and truth, and thus unite truth in the understanding with good in the will, we shall remain unwashed and unprepared for heaven: while on the other hand, if good and truth be united by the salt of desire, then we shall stand at last with those who have washed their robes-who have purified their hearts.

Again; the salt of holy desire not only conjoins the principles of good and truth in the minds of individuals, but it is also the grand connecting medium by which Christians are united in church-fellowship. Without this salt we may assemble together in the same place, join externally in the same prayers and praises, hear the same sermons, be called by the same name, profess the same faith, and still be internally disunited. We may profess to believe that the Lord Jesus Christ is the only God of heaven and earth, see the errors of the former Church, and be able to vindicate the doctrines of the New Dispensation; but if we have no desire to live the life of truth--to put on the

beautiful garments of Jerusalem, by uniting the acknowledgment of truth in the mind with the love of God and our neighbor in the heart, how can we be truly members of the New Jerusalem?

A mere profession of truth will never unite a man with his brother: there must be the desire of truth for the sake of use; especially should this affection be in activity when assembled in holy worship. The Word of the Lord is imperative,-" Every oblation of thy meatoffering shalt thou season with salt; neither shalt thou suffer the salt of the covenant of thy God to be lacking from thy meat-offering. With all thy offerings thou shalt offer salt." And if we obey this command, there will then be no separations, no divisions, no contention, no ill-feeling, no party-spirit, no jealousy; but the "brethren will dwell together in unity:" having "salt in ourselves," we shall be at peace one with another.

Again. The existence of this spiritual salt in our minds, will give efficiency to all our aims at usefulness. Certain metals,-copper, zinc, for instance, and leather, placed in water, will produce a galvanic effect; but it will be very feeble. Dissolve a salt in the water; introduce nitric acid, or the acetous acid, and the effect will be powerful. So is it in spiritual things. If we have salt in ourselves, although our numbers may be few and our means limited, we shall produce the best of results. Our works will be labors of charity, deeds of love, and we shall operate powerfully on all "whose hearts God hath stirred up." Again: By this holy medium all the inhabitants of all the heavens form a one; the inhabitants of heaven are all closely united together. What is it that conjoins them? It is the salt of pure desire. One heart, one soul pervades all the angelic host. There no one lives to himself; there separate interests are unknown; but each believes and acts upon the principle that 'it is more blessed to give than to receive.' Thus desire, like salt, has a conjoining principle.

Renders Food Savory.

Salt excites the appetite by making food savory. If food be eaten without salt, without a relish or an appetite for it, it does not so fully give its nutritious properties, or incorporate with the body. The same is true spiritually. If the good and truth of the holy Word be received without relish or savor-without the salt of desire, it cannot be incorporated with the life; because nothing can live in a man but what he loves-nothing but what he receives with affection, with spiritual relish and savor.

Thus it is evident that salt corresponds to desire. By desire the truth and good in our minds are preserved from corruption; we are fruitful in every good work; the heavenly marriage of good and truth is celebrated; and we are adorned with the rings, the jewels, the beautiful crown of wisdom, love and use. We enjoy the pleasant sight of brethren dwelling together in unity; we extend the sphere of the New Jerusalem; the truths of the holy Word become incorporated in our life; we are refined from all unholy loves; we are saved from lukewarmness, and burn with holy heavenly love. "Have salt in yourselves."

CHAPTER XV.

CORRESPONDENCE APPLIED TO THE INTERPRETATION OF MATT. XXIV. 20: "PRAY YE THAT YOUR FLIGHT BE NOT IN THE WINTER, NEITHER ON THE SABBATH DAY."

IN

N this chapter the Lord foretells the entire destruction of the church He came to establish. As the Jewish church had come to its consummation, so that the Lord as the Son of Man,-as the Divine Truth itself from which the church exists,-" had not where to lay his head;" so, at consummation of the Christian church, the Son of Man, when He should come, "would not find faith upon the earth." (Luke xviii. 8.) Many suppose that these predictions of the Lord have reference only to the literal destruction of Jerusalem by the armies of Titus; but although there are some things in the letter which appear coincident with that destruction, yet there are very many, as all commentators have acknowledged, which cannot be construed into a reference to that event; and therefore it has been admitted by many that the entire series of divine predictions contained in this chapter, have relation to the decline, fall and consummation of the first Christian church which the Lord established; after which He would come again to establish a New Church, signified by the New Jerusalem in the Revelation, in which He, in his Divine Humanity, would be acknowledged as all in all.

A church does not arrive at its consummation until "not one stone in the buildings of the temple is left standing upon another," or until there is an utter desolation of those divine principles of love and faith which constitute the church. The temple about which the disciples inquired, represents the Lord in his Humanity. This is abundantly evident from what the Lord said of the temple in John ii. 21, where it is expressly declared that He spake of the temple of his body. There being "not one stone left upon another which should not be thrown down," denotes the utter destruction of all faith in the Lord's Humanity as being Divine,-in which all the fulness of the God

*From the Intellectual Repository, for January, 1849.

head dwells bodily,-who hath ascended far above all heavens that He might fill all things;-who hath all power in heaven and on earth, who hath the keys of hell and of death,-who openeth and no man shutteth, and shutteth and no man openeth, and who alone giveth the blessings and felicities of eternal life. (Rev. ii. 7, 11, 17, 28.)

The slightest elevation of thought as to the object and tendency of revealed truth, might teach us that the events of mere history relating only to the affairs of this life, are, as primary objects, far beneath the dignity of revealed wisdom which can only contemplate eternal cbjects and ends, and not those which are temporal, except so far as they can be made conducive to the attainment of heavenly and eternal ends, or to the salvation of mankind. The Word of the Lord relates primarily to his kingdom; and as "his kingdom is not of this world," so it may be said in like manner, that his Word is not of this world; hence it does not relate, in its primary or spiritual sense, to the revolutions of earthly polities, or the subversion of earthly governments, or the destruction of earthly cities; although these events may serve, according to the laws of correspondence between things natural and spiritual, as the visible types of the destruction of churches, and of those judgments in the spiritual world by which that destruction is accomplished. Thus by the destruction of Jerusalem, and the abrogation of the Jewish system of worship and the dispersion of the Jews, the total destruction of the Jewish dispensation was effected, and thereby was likewise represented, in the divine predictions of the Lord in Matt. xxiv., the entire consummation of the first Christian church.

Although, as stated above, some things in the destruction of Jerusalem by the armies of Titus appear to coincide with the Lord's predictions, there are, nevertheless, many particulars in the divine record which do not coincide, and which have constrained all commentators to admit that these divine predictions have an ulterior object not yet accomplished. This ulterior object can only be understood by a knowledge of the spiritual sense of the Word, which in these latter days has been mercifully vouchsafed to the church, and by which we can clearly see the object, scope and end of the Lord's predictions. Thus the true nature of these predictions being only understood from the spiritual sense, we may readily see how immensely important a knowledge of the spiritual sense is; inasmuch as little or no practical profit can arise unless we understand the Scriptures, and see their