itual truth—truth suited to the wants of our higher nature, and is therefore to be spiritually interpreted. And when it speaks in the letter of things belonging to the natural realm, in its higher and true sense it speaks of the corresponding things within or above nature—things in the realm of spirit.
For example: When the Bible speaks of man, it means the inner and real man—not the material and perishable, but the spiritual and immortal part. When it speaks of the resurrection, it means the resurrection not of the material body, but of the spiritual—the real individual temporarily enshrined in matter. When it speaks of a second birth, it refers not to a natural or carnal birth, but to the birth of the soul into the kingdom of heaven. When it speaks of heaven and hell, it means no natural localities such as are referred to by these terms taken in their natural sense, but certain states of the soul—one, exalted and blissful, the other, degraded and miserable. When it speaks of the coming of the Lord, it means no outward coming cognizable by the eye of sense, but an inward and spiritual coming—a coming of his own truth and love to the understandings and hearts of men. When it speaks of light and heat, it means truth and love which are spiritual light and heat to which the natural correspond.
If, then, it be true, as the deepest thinkers are everywhere beginning to see and acknowledge, that the Bible was not given to teach us natural but spiritual truth, it is clear enough that it must be spiritually interpreted. Accordingly when it speaks of the sun and of light, we are to understand that, in its higher and true sense, the
