must have had a divine origin, so they must all bear analogies to each other, and reflect infinite intelligence and goodness: they must, therefore, of necessity be invested with a moral, a spiritual, yea, a divine significance, the visible objects of the outward world exactly corresponding with invisible realities in the world within, and these again to the infinite principles in the divine mind, as their secondary and primary cause of existence and subsistence." All this is in exact

"Plato, in his Timæus, calls the world'a made or created image of the eternal gods.' By which eternal gods he there doubtless meant that 'first,' and 'second,' and 'third,' which, in his second epistle to Dionysius, he makes to be uncreated principles of all things; that is, his trinity, by whose concurrent efficiency and Providence, and according to whose image and likeness, the whole was made, as a grand chain of resulting effects."-See Cudworth's Intel. Syst., vol. ii., p. 367.

29 Between the work of creation and pres- | ble to their outward senses, to discern and ervation on the one hand, and that of re- discover another invisible nature under it." demption [and the author might have added Jul. Orat., iv., p. 148. Cited by Cudworth, Inalso, most truly, that of regeneration] on the tel. Syst., vol. ii., p. 260. other, there seems to be a great analogy; as the sacred writers frequently borrow images from one to explain the other. "The invisible things of God from the creation of the world are clearly seen.' Things visible do not only prove the divine power and Godhead, the existence and glorious perfections of God, but they also serve as a mirror to represent the invisible things of God. And between these two representatives there is such a correspondence, that an attentive view of things natural and temporal may help us to form better conceptions of things spiritual and eternal. . . . Without this effect, philosophy is but a vain amusement. But when things visible correspond to what is revealed in the Scriptures concerning the invisible things of God, and these correspondences are traced under the guidance of the written Word, these two great books [creation and Revelation] help to explain each other."-Cosmology: Pub. at Bath, 1791. Tom. iv., p. 180.

"The world is certainly a great and stately volume of natural things, and may not improperly be styled the hieroglyphics of a better."-Fruits of Solitude, p. 3.

"Nature is a book written on both sides, within and without, in which the finger of God is distinctly visible; a species of Holy Writ in a bodily form; a glorious panegyric on God's omnipotence expressed in the most visible symbols."-SCHLEGEL.

In the book of Sohar, a similar sentence occurs: "Quodcunque in terrâ est, id etiam in Cælo est, et nulla res tam exigua est in Mundo, quæ non alii simili, quæ in Cælo est, correspondeal."

"All things in nature are prophetic outlines of divine operations, God not merely speaking parables, but doing them."-TERTULLIAN: De Resur., c. 12.

"Julian, in an oration, expresses himself thus: Not view and contemplate the heaven and world with the same eyes that oxen and horses do, but so as from that which is visi

"The world may well be called an image; it depending upon that above [as an image in a glass], which is threefold.”—Plotinus, cited by Cudworth, vol. ii., p. 315.

"Empedocles held, according to the Pythagorean doctrine, that there are two worlds, the one intellectual, the other sensible; the former being the model or archetype of the latter." [25 Exod., 40.]-See Simplici in Physic. Arist., also Plut. de Placitis Phil., b. 1, c. 20.

"The symbolic language of the prophets is almost a science of itself. None can fully comprehend the depth, sublimity, and force of their writings who are not thoroughly acquainted with the peculiar and appropriate imagery they were accustomed to use."BISHOP VAN MILDERT.

"The visible world throughout is a pattern of the invisible."-Jones's Lect. on the Fig. Lang. of Scrip., p. 34.

"When the maker of the world becomes an Author, his word must be as perfect as his work."-Jones's Lectures on the Figurative Lang. of the Holy Scrip., p. 1.

"If God made this world the particular kind of world which he is found to have made it, in order that it might in due time preach to mankind about himself, and about his providence:-if He contrived beforehand the germination of seeds, the growth of plants, the analogies of animal life,-all, evidently, in order that they might furnish illustrations of his teaching; and that so

agreement with the teaching of the apostle Paul, when he says, "For the invisible things of Him [God] from the creation of the world are clearly seen ["being considered in his works are distinctly seen."-Hor. Rom., p. 6], being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and godhead" (Rom. i. 20).

These analogies or correspondences many theologians and philosophers have admitted, from the fact that they can scarcely escape the recognition of the devout and reflective mind. Thus the author of Tracts for the Times (lxxxix.), speaking of the mode of interpreting the Sacred Word adopted by the early Fathers of the Christian Church, and the ground and reason of it, makes these important and suggestive remarks: "What if the whole scheme of sensible things be figurative?" "What if these [correspondences in the Jewish tabernacle and ark] are but a slight specimen of one great use which ALMIGHTY GOD would have us to make of the external world, and of its relation to the world spiritual? Certainly the form itself of speaking, with which these symbols are introduced [as made according to heavenly patterns], would seem to imply some such general rule." And again, "That was the true light.' 'I am the true vine.' 'Who will give you the true riches?' taking for granted, in a manner,

great Nature's self might prove one vast | cessity be the form and visible idea of the essence parable in his hands;-why may not the same God, by his Eternal Spirit, have so overruled the utterance of the human agents whom He employed to write the Bible, that their historical narratives, however little their authors meant or suspected it, should embody the outline of things heavenly; and while they convey a true picture of actual events, should also, after a most mysterious fashion, yield in the hands of his own informing Spirit, celestial doctrine also?" "Our purpose has only been to vindicate the profundity, or rather the fulness of Holy Writ, and to show that under the obvious and literal meaning of the words there lies concealed a more recondite and a profounder sense-call that sense mystical, or spiritual, or Christian, or what you will. Unerringly to elicit that hidden sense is the sublime privilege of inspired writers, and they do it by allusion, by quotation, by the importation of a short phrase, by the adoption of a single word,-to an extent which no one would suspect who had not carefully studied the subject."-Burqon's Inspiration and Interpretation, pp. 168, 174.

"The philosophical ground on which they [the ancient nations] proceeded is this,that all matter or universal nature must of ne

or spirit within. Each object in religion has thus its corresponding sign and character in one of nature; and those of nature in return are held in esteem and reverence from their consecration to the uses of religion. The extent, indeed, to which this system was carried in Egypt has at all times been proverbial. It formed the subject of expressed astonishment and secret admiration to the ancient historians of the world. The mythology of the West was, in fact,almost founded on [or rather identical with] Egyptian worship. We trace up to an Eastern origin the system of Pythagoras; the ethics of Aristotle; and even the philosophy of Plato, so far more'spiritual and sublime than either; and have no question, from a comparatively abundant evidence, that the principles which appeared so great and glorious to the Greeks, existed on the Indus and the Nile ages before the first dawn of civilization in the West. The Jews, too, through every period of their varied history, were no less addicted to this fascinating study than the Eastern nations. The fact is of an extreme importance; since, in their possession of the Bible, we behold the origin of that philosophy which led them to the adoption of this system of correspondence." -Tucker's Scrip. Stud., Inner Sense, pp. 268, 269.

the fact that there was somewhere in the nature of things a true counterpart of these ordinary objects, a substance of which they were but unreal shadows; and only informing us in each case, with authority, what that counterpart and substance was." "This doctrine of correspondence between things seen and unseen, was familiar and very acceptable" [to the Fathers] (p. 165).

To the same purpose, Heylin, in his Select Discourses, observes, "There is an analogy betwixt the visible and invisible world, which the Scriptures declare to be the foundation of the Mosaic rites, and from which other religious ceremonies receive their fitness and utility. The terms unclean, defiled, polluted, are applicable to minds as well as bodies, and that with a propriety which is easier felt than explained. The correspondent terms of cleansing, baptizing, purifying with water, or with fire, as the case may require, or the subject can bear,-these, too, have a just and obvious signification in morals as well as naturals: for the systems of both worlds run parallel, so that realities in the superior have their respective shadows in the inferior, and are fitly represented by them" (i. 36 and 38, London, 1749).

That the natural world is full of analogies is universally acknowledged. Thus, Swainson writes:-"It is unnecessary to enforce the axiom long established by sound philosophy, that natural and moral truths are but parts of the great system of nature. Nor need we go over those arguments that have been already so ably and so powerfully urged by others, to show that every thing in this world is evidently intended to be the means of moral and intellectual improvement, to a creature made capable of perceiving in it this use. This perfect analogy between the moral and the natural world, no Christian in these days will even think of questioning, much less of disputing" (192). "Between material and immaterial, there is no other relation than that which is afforded by analogy; without this they would be widely and totally distinct; with this, they are united, and one reciprocally illustrates the other. Analogy, or symbolical representation, is, therefore, the most universal law of nature, because it embraces and extends its influence over the natural, the moral, and the spiritual world: a property which no other law yet discovered is known to possess" (193). "Things which in their essential nature are totally opposite, are found, on closer investigation, to possess mutual relations, and to be governed by the same law. Hence we discover three sorts of analogies pervading the system of nature, in the widest and most exalted application of the term: the first regards the

spiritual truths of revelation; the second, those which belong only to the moral system; while the third are drawn from the phenomena of the material world" (201).-Preliminary Discourse on the Study of Natural History, Cab. Cyclo., pp. 283, 290.

Another profound writer thus ably illustrates the subject of analogy in connection with religion. "While analogy," says he, "is the happy instrument of conveying light into subjects in general, it is peculiarly so when employed in elucidating the truths of religion. Here the force of contrast with which it acts is at the maximum. We bring together the things of heaven and the things of earth; and bestow on the most remote and inaccessible objects some portion of that circumstantial particularity which belongs to those present and visible. To behold truths, in themselves so high above our comprehension, in connection with those which are familiarly inculcated on us by experience, must call forth our strongest admiration, and powerfully interest us on both sides, but particularly on that of our religion. Divine wisdom then descends from its ethereal seat, as the accessor of the throne of the Eternal, and communes with us face to face, and hand to hand. We find that the subjects on which the Scripture treats are not chimeras, not creations of the fancy, which have no substantial existence; but things which ARE: things in which we live, and move, and have our being. It no longer appears to us in the light of a scheme, contrived in the bowers of philosophic seclusion, and addressing itself only to the contemplative and impassioned devotee, like the day dreams of the Koran, emerging from the gloom and solitude of the cave of Hara; but it shines forth conspicuously, as an energizing principle, as a knowledge which is power, as a work of the Lord, carried on in the passing scene, with which we cannot help sympathizing without doing violence to all the principles of our nature."-Hampden's Essay on the Philosophical Evidences of Christianity.

The Rev. W. Kirby, M.A., in his interesting Bridgewater Treatise, thus expresses himself on the same subject:-"Whoever surveys the three kingdoms of nature with any attention, will discover in every department objects that, without any affinity, appear to represent each other. Nor is this resemblance confined to forms; it extends also to character. If we begin at the bottom of the scale and ascend up to man, we shall find two descriptions in almost every class, and even tribe, of animals: one, ferocious in their aspects, often rapid in their motions, predaceous in their habits, preying upon their fellows,

and living by rapine and bloodshed; while the other is quiet and harmless, making no attacks, shedding no blood, and subsisting mostly on a vegetable diet. Since God created nothing in vain, we may rest assured that this system of representation was established with a particular view. The most common mode of instruction is, placing certain signs or symbols before the eye of the learner, which represent sounds or ideas; and so the Great Instructor of man placed this world before him as an open, though mystical book, in which the different objects and words of a language, from the study of which he might gain wisdom of various kinds, and be instructed in such truths relating to that spiritual world to which his soul belonged, as God saw fit thus to reveal to him. In the first place, by observing that one object in nature represented another, he would be taught that all things are significant, as well as intended to act a certain part in the general drama; and further, as he proceeded to trace the analogies of character in its two great branches just alluded to, he would be led to the knowledge of the doctrine, thus symbolically revealed, that in the invisible world there are two classes of spirits,-one benevolent and beneficent, and the other malevolent and mischievous: characters which, after his fall, he would find even exemplified in individuals. of his own species. [This doctrine of analogy] is a very useful and interesting study, and belongs to man as the principal inhabitant of a world stored with symbols, to ascertain what God intended to signify by the objects that He has created and placed before Him, as well as to know their natures and uses. When we recollect what the Apostle tells us (Rom. i. 20), that the 'invisible things of God from the creation of the world are clearly seen;' and that spiritual truths are reflected as by a mirror (1 Cor. xiii. 12), and shown as it were enigmatically, we shall be convinced that, in this view, the study of nature, if properly conducted, may be made of the first importance" (vol. ii., pp. 523-525).

Even Emerson admits that "words are signs of natural facts. The use of natural history," says he, "is to give us aid in supernatural history. The use of the outer creation is to give us language for the being and changes of the inward creation. Every word which is used. to express a moral or intellectual fact, if traced to its root, is found to be borrowed from some material appearance.

"Right originally means straight; wrong means twisted; spirit primarily means wind; transgression, the crossing of a line; supercilious, the raising of the eye-brow. We say the heart to express emotion;