reduced into tautological repetitions, the heavens and earth having before been explained, by Sir Isaac, to signify princes and people. Even then with regard to “the kingdoms of the world politic," it would afford better sense to interpret the sun, moon, and stars, to be those principles in the state, which love and faith, with divine knowledge, are in the church; and these will be, justice and judgment, civil good and political wisdom, national integrity and sound maxims of state; without the cultivation of an adequate share of which, the mightiest empires hasten to dissolution.

But all applications of such symbols to natural objects or political affairs are attended with great uncertainty, and it can seldom be shewn that, with respect to these, they have a determinate signification: because these were not the things regarded in the Divine Mind, from which the Word proceeded. In giving a revelation, its Divine Author must have had eternal ends and spiritual objects in view: and if we explain, of spiritual objects, the natural images employed in the divine style of writing, we may always, if we possess the proper key, obtain a meaning which is clear and satisfactory; because between all natural objects and certain spiritual ones there exists by creation a fixed analogy, which may readily be traced, when we are sufficiently acquainted with the properties of each. How far this has been accomplished in this essay, in regard to the great objects and phænomena of the mundane system, it must be left to the reader to determine.

No. IV. (Page 361.)

THE SIGNIFICATION OF THE CLOUDS, WHEN MENTIONED IN SCRIPTURE, FURTHER ILLUSTRATED.

The explanations of Scripture terms which are offered in this Work, being new to most of our readers, would require, to do them justice, a more extended elucidation and defence than our limits will permit: However, if only one explanation, clearly drawn from a fixed analogy, is firmly established, it is sufficient to evince the solidity of the principle as a Rule of interpretation. We have dwelt at some length, in the Lecture above, on the signification of clouds, and have shewn, it is hoped, with some weight of evidence, that, when mentioned in reference to the Lord, they signify the Divine Truth clothed with natural ideas and images, or the Word in its literal sense, which is the Divine Truth so clothed: and as this explanation, though, when

first propounded, it may appear unexpected and forced, seems to become, on reflection, perfectly natural and easy, and to be capable of being established with a certainty which nothing but the extreme of scepticism can dispute ; we will here dwell upon it a little further, and try what degree of light may be drawn, by its aid, from several obscure and obviously enigmatical passages of the Holy Word. We have selected this term for a detailed examination, not only because it is well calculated to illustrate what we have called the Science of Analogies, and to prove that in that Science must be sought the key for the true interpretation of the Scriptures, but because it is also eminently adapted to throw light upon the nature of the Scriptures themselves,to evince that they consist of a glory and its covering, and to demonstrate that their literal sense is actually a cloud which veils over the supernal light that beams within.

I hope, however, that whoever reads this article, will first read the part of the Lecture to which it is appended (; from p. 348).

I. It has been remarked above, that the signification of clouds, as being the Divine Truth veiled over with the appearances of nature, or the Word in its literal sense, may, when first announced, appear arbitrary and forced: yet if it thus appears to any one, it must be for want of his having noticed, that this is one of the analogies of which every one knows something by common perception, and from which phrases are frequently borrowed in common discourse. I hope, for instance, that what I am now writing will not be deemed a cloudy composition; for I well know how common it is with writers to cloud a clear subject by imperfect attempts at explanation. There are many things respecting which the truth discovers itself to the mind by its own inherent light, and which efforts to illustrate only envelope in clouds. Such phrases as these, of which every one immediately sees the meaning, and which every one readily frames for himself, evince that the human mind intuitively perceives, not only the analogy between light and Truth in its clearness, but also that between clouds and Truth in the shade. It is only then in compliance with a principle which nature dictates to us all, that clouds are mentioned in Scripture as the chariot of God: for God, all acknowledge, must dwell in his own Divine Truth, and of Divine Truth, when shaded over with natural images and expressions borrowed from human ideas, as in the literal sense of the Divine Word, clouds are evidently the proper symbol.

II. It being certain then that reason gives a decided testimony in favour of the use of the term clouds as an appropriate emblem of the Word of God in its literal sense, we proceed to consider further, how

this is corroborated by the instances in which the expression is used in the Scriptures in connexion with the Lord.

1. We have cited in the Lecture this passage of Moses: "There is none like unto the God of Jeshurun, who rideth upon the heaven in thy help, and in his excellency in the sky*;" where we have noted, that the word translated sky is one which in many other places is rendered the clouds. Jeshurun is a name for Israel, which typically means the church, or the true member of the church: and how is it that, in help of the member of the church, God rides in heaven, and in his excellency (greatness or strength) in the clouds? how, unless these phrases mean, that he imparts to man instruction, consolation, and support, by the internal graces of his Word and kingdom, signified by heaven, communicated by means of the external or literal sense of his Word, signified by the clouds? The reason of this is, because it is a fact, though not always reflected on and acknowledged, that whatever man receives to build him up as a member of the Lord's church, he receives, either immediately or remotely, by the medium of the Holy Word: it is hence that he obtains all his knowledge respecting the Lord and his kingdom, either drawing it thence himself or receiving it from others who have drawn it from that source: it is by the truths thus acquired that he directs his path: it is the promises which he hence learns that support him and enable him to resist his spiritual foes: and it is even by what he thus imbibes that the graces of charity, as well as those of faith, are infused into his bosom. For the Holy Word, though a system of Divine Truth, is not a system of truth alone. Every truth which it contains has some heavenly affection that properly belongs to it. When the truth is adinitted into the understanding merely, still the affection is present and urgent to be received with it: so that although man is not conscious of it, it really is by the Holy Word, and not at all independently of it, that every heavenly grace of which he ever becomes a partaker enters his breast. The Word of God, both as to its internal spirit and life and external form and letter, is the grand medium by which the Lord imparts aid to his spiritual Jeshurun, his true church; it is thus that he rideth upon the heaven to his help, and in his excellency on the clouds. If we suppose the visible heaven and vapoury clouds to be meant, what becomes of the sense of the passage?

2. In the eighteenth Psalm we have a sublime description of the deliverance of the church, or of the member of the church, in the person of David, from a state of severe temptation; and in the description of the interference of the Divine Being on the occasion occur these words: "He bowed the heavens also, and came down,

* Deut. xxxiii.

and darkness was under his feet. And he rode upon a cherub and did fly; yea, he did fly upon the wings of the wind. He made darkness his secret place; his pavilion round about him were dark waters and thick clouds of the skies: at the brightness that was before him his thick clouds passed: hail stones and coals of fire."* To bow the heavens and come down, is a phrase expressive of the Lord's presence, with the interior things of his Divine Truth or Word, signified by the heavens, in its exteriors, to which the former come down. The darkness under his feet is the Divine Truth in its lowest form, where the light of its internal contents terminates in the cloud of the letter: this appears as darkness to those who are in a state of opposition, and who can discern nothing of the light which shines through the letter from the pure truth within:—witness the reproaches cast upon the Word by Deists and Atheists, who would fain persuade the world that it is the most senseless and even pernicious book that ever was produced. A cherub is used in Scripture as a personification of the Word in its letter: but to go into the proof of this would lead us too far from our immediate object. "He maketh darkness his secret place; his pavilion round about him were dark waters and thick clouds of the skies," is said in amplification of the same subject, and still relates to the investing of Divine Truth, in its ultimate form, with a clothing of appearances, within which, neverthelesss, abides the Divine Presence. And when it is added, "At the brightness that was before him his thick clouds passed; hail-stones and coals of fire," the allusion is, to the dispersion of the false notions which are often drawn from the literal sense of the Word not understood, by the manifestation of the Divine Truth contained within, which is called the brightness that was before him: hail-stones, being frozen drops of rain, which descend indeed from the clouds, but in a form which gives them a destructive instead of a fertilizing nature, are appropriate symbols of truths from the letter of the Holy Word falsified by perverse interpretations; and coals of fire are suitable emblems of the lusts or concupiscences of the natural man, especially of his lust of perverting and misrepresenting the Word by regarding it under the influence of his evil inclinations. These are spoken of as sent forth by the Lord; as is also the case when similar judgments are described in the account of the plagues of Egypt: yet we are certain that he cannot be the author of the perversions of his Word by mankind: the meaning then is, not that such things actually proceed from him and his Word, but that their existence is discovered at his presence and at that of his Divine Truth; and that when judgment is

* Ver. 9 to 12.

executed upon the wicked, they are left to their own false and evil imaginations, and to the misery which attends such a state.

It may here be necessary to meet a difficulty which some minds may feel at this representation of the Divine Truth, which we affirm to be the same as the Word, as enveloping the Divine Majesty.

Whilst we think of the Word merely as a hook, there certainly is some difficulty in conceiving how it can form "a pavilion" for the residence of the Majesty of heaven. It is easily seen by most persons, as soon as mentioned, that the most essential attributes of the Divine Nature are Love and Wisdom, Goodness and Truth. It is also readily apprehended, that every grace which can adorn the mind of man has reference to Love and Wisdom, Goodness and Truth, under some form or combination or other. Now it is allowed on all hands, that man can receive nothing,-nothing of a heavenly nature,—except it be given him from above; according to the Lord's own words, “Without me, ye can do nothing."* Yet it is also acknowledged by all, that God is infinitely higher than man, or than the highest finite intelligence: how then can the heavenly graces of which he alone is the Author, be imparted from God to beings so much below him? how, but, correspondingly, as heat and light, the proper symbols of love and wisdom, are conveyed to the earth from the Sun of Nature, the best though faint image of the Sun of Righteousness? that is, by a continual emanation of love and wisdom, goodness and truth, flowing from the Lord, as heat and light continually emanate from the sun. By such an emanation then, doubtless, they are communicated and all that thus proceeds from the Lord, whether it be regarded as reduced to writing or not, is called in Scripture the Word of God, and is represented by the light, terminating at length in the clouds, with which, in the passage of the Psalms examined in the Lecture, Jehovah is said to clothe himself as with a garment. Of course, it is not the written Word of which it is said, "By the Word of the Lord were the heavens made and all the host of them by the breath (or spirit) of his mouth;" and "All things were made by him (or it)."‡ Now this sphere of Divine Truth (, as we will continue to term it,) emanating from the Lord, when it comes within the confines of the world of nature, clothes itself, as is attempted to be shewn in the Lecture above§, with such ideas and images as we find in the literal sense of the written Word: nevertheless, it may easily be conceived of separately from the writings in which we possess it: it may be regarded as a chain of ideas occupying the minds of a certain class of intelligent beings; or even as a sphere of perceptions, independently of any minds supposed to perceive them, surrounding the Godhead, but far • John xv. 5. + Ps. xxxiii. 6. John i. 3. § P. 233.