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THE

INTELLECTUAL REPOSITORY,

AND

NEW JERUSALEM MAGAZINE.

VOL. VI.-NEW SERIES.

WHE

1845.

LONDON:

PUBLISHED BY THE GENERAL CONFERENCE OF THE NEW CHURCH,
SIGNIFIED BY THE NEW JERUSALEM IN THE REVELATION:

AND SOLD BY

J. S. HODSON, 2, CLIFFORD'S INN PASSAGE,
FLEET STREET;

W. NEWBERY, 6, KING STREET, HOLBORN.

MANCHESTER: L. KENWORTHY, 7, CATEATON STREET.

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If external nature is a theatre representative of the Lord's kingdom, the facts of astronomy, when seen in their correspondent relation to spiritual and mental states, must be full of important meaning. There can be no doubt that all objects in nature were divinely intended, amongst other uses, to serve as a means of elevation to the human mind. Not only that, when beholding them, we should be reminded of the Creator, and have our hearts moved with gratitude for his innumerable mercies and benefits, but that every object should also be the plane of certain spiritual perceptions which raise the mind "from nature up to nature's God." And this, indeed, is not only the highest employment of a rational mind, but its greatest blessing and enjoyment, when properly constituted and developed. To bury the mind in merely natural science, without rising in perception and thought to a higher sphere, and contemplating the wisdom and power which created them, is to act the part of the mole which buries itself in the earth. Objects in nature are the types of spiritual things, to perceive and to contemplate which is genuine intelligence. These types are explained by the science of correspondences. Nature then becomes a volume, indeed, in which innumerable things are presented to the mind, highly conducive to its intellectual and moral improvement. All useful and delightful objects give rise to perceptions of the good, the true, and the beautiful, and shew us how desirable it is that we should cherish in our affections and thoughts those celestial virtues and graces. The lamb, the dove, the sheep; the landscape, with its rivers, forests, and hills; the garden, with its trees, shrubs, plants, and flowers,—all awaken, in a well constituted mind, perceptions and feelings of a delightful and elevated kind; but when it is known that all these objects upon earth correspond to things which exist in the Lord's kingdom in heaven, and when, moreover, it is seen what the correspondence is, the mind is enabled to soar, on the wing of superior intelligence, to a contemplation of heavenly subjects, which must needs improve its moral and intellectual states. An imN.S. NO. 61.-VOL. VI.

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