so affectionately rejoice in. And true indeed it is, that all our fortunes and changes befall us, or overtake us, by law. as determinate and fixed as that which rolls the planets in their orbits. But in spiritual nature, and in the vast spiritual world, how many agencies and personalities are forever operating, which do not appear in the laws of material nature! And even in the natural world, how different is the agency and ministration of men and women, from the operation of gravitation and chemical affinities! In the inmost heavens is it not more wonderful still? And in the Lord himself more wonderful still? The truth is, we loose ourselves in the abstract infinite, or in the "natural" infinite, when in fact there is no such thing. God only is infinite, and He is personal. And it is only when we come to see Him in the Lord Jesus Christ, his very and crowning manifestation, that we see Him at all as suited to our finite natures, and to our affections and sympathies. In Him may we understand the Being who appoints and permits our sufferings. In Him may we have a faith better than mere nature - than mere law, a loving Divinity who is Himself the Law-originator and the Lawgiver. Then does religion come to us under all our circumstances with her sweetest and most affectionate embraces, and we learn to kiss the rod and submit to suffering, both as from law and from the Lord. The Lord governs by his laws; and from all eternity, as included in the everlasting Order, it was seen and permitted, what afflictions were best for our respective cases, and how and where they would find every one of us. Let us, then, consecrate this chapter to a devout recognition of that great mystery of our life-human Sorrow. It comes to all, and is withheld from none. It comes to us in various forms, in disappointment, poverty, chilled and blighted affections, sickness, death, and "all the sad variety of pain ;" and in every one of these forms, as a ministering angel disguised in sackcloth, to do the bidding of the Almighty Father. In each visitation, and at every blow, something is done to break up and dissipate the evil life of nature, to destroy our own selfish desires, and turn the thoughts to higher and holier and more substantial things. At least, this is its heavenly and legitimate use; sad is the visitation to the soul who will not profit by its crosses, but turns the cross itself into an instrument of fretfulness, unreconciliation, and rebellion. For we are thus resisting, through very selfishness, the most gracious and adapt ive means for our recovery, and virtually saying-Not Thy will, but mine, O God, be done! CHAPTER XXII. DIVINE PROVIDENCE IN REGARD TO LITTLE CHILDREN. "Children are roses in the hand, And stars that gem the nuptial band ; They wake- they breathe from God's own arms. To inward vision they appear Surrounded by an angel sphere; Three heavens above the cradle bend; Mercy and peace their steps attend."- Rev. T. L. Harris. IN approaching a subject so interior and holy as the Divine dealings with little children, we feel oppressed with a sense of our own insufficiency. And as we have already much exceeded the limits which we had proposed to ourself for this book, the most that we can pretend to do here is to bring forth some general principles concerning the nature and mission of children, the structure of their infant minds, and the provisions which the Lord has made for their salvation. For it is only by conforming to the laws and principles of the Divine Providence, that that Providence is most fully accomplished; and nowhere, perhaps, is this conformity more neglected on our part, or is this neglect attended with greater and more fatal consequences, than in reference to the children which the Lord our God hath given us. How divinely sacred and holy is a new-born child! We know not if there be a greater mystery on earth: we doubt if death itself can be contemplated with half that sacredness and devout wonder, with which we justly look upon the birth into this world of a new immortal. For what is death but the continuation of life? And under what aspect does that life most deeply affect us, if not when it first opens upon us from its mysterious sources; when it comes, all helpless and dependent, in the form of a human infant, with the faculties of an angel; the genius, intellect, and affections of a mighty man or lovely woman, and the possibilities of a devil in hell, wrapped up in germ in its most tender brain, which a breath even, a rude touch, may cause to perish from our mortal sight forever? To think of the eternity of such a child! Surely, if the Divine Providence is to be exercised particularly any where, it must be in reference to such a being. The very hereditary of such a being, that it should come into this world, "Not in entire forgetfulness, And not in utter nakedness, But trailing clouds of glory do we come "shades," too, "of the prison house upon the growing boy;"and the truth also that the myriad inclinations to evil, and susceptibilities to good, which every such child brings with it into this rudimental sphere, must be in a measure the limits of action of the Divine Spirit for a whole eternity of varied and wonderful life; when we consider all this, it would seem that there could not be a more suitable case for the Divine Providence to exert itself, than towards such a creature. But first, in reference to the source of this wonderful creation. Be it understood, then, that every human spirit comes down in creation from Jehovah God through the heavens. There are, we are told, above the inmost heaven, or what is the same thing, within and beyond the inmost and celestial degree of the mind, the substances of what are called human internals. These human internals, however, are never con scious in man; they constitute a deep and sacred region in the mind, and are the veriest and most immediate entrance of the Lord himself. Swedenborg's language in regard to them is, that "what is done and transacted here, cannot be comprehended by man, because it is above his rational principle, from which he thinks." A. C. 1940. Again. "The heaven nearest to the Lord consists of these human internals; this, however, is above the inmost angelic heaven; wherefore, these internals are the habitation of the Lord himself." A. C. 1999. It is by these human internals, which are so near the Lord, that He has "the whole human race most intimately present," and "under his eye." The substances, then, of which these internals are composed, we can easily comprehend, are the exceedingly pure and almost divine substances which emanate in a very immediate sphere from the Divine Human of the Lord Himself. They are the first proceedings, next to the Spiritual Sun, (so far at least as we can conceive of it) of the Divine Love and Wisdom. And every particle of that substance may be conceived of as the proximate germ of a human soul. "This germ, however, descends first to the celestial heavens, in whose sublimated auras it weaves for itself a body which is its celestial will-principle, and is the beginning of a finite individuality; thence it descends to the spiritual heavens, and there clothes itself in the initial form of a spiritual understanding, which is also in a perfect human form; then again it descends to the spiritual-natural heavens, and there takes the initiament, the first and inmost form of a spiritual-natural body."* As yet there is no consciousness, for the human soul must descend still further into the world of nature, and through the father to the mother, ere that life begins which is so wondrous in its working and divine in its origin. And even when it commences, it is as yet unperceived, and is only per*N. C. Repos., Jan. 1857, p. 24. |