the eyes of the angels in greater or less brilliancy according to their states of receptivity of his wisdom and love—his appearance being in exact correspondence with the states of the beholders. To the highest angels whose love is purest and most ardent. He appears as a sun of indescribable brilliancy; and to those in lower states, or whose love is less intense. He appears comparatively as a moon. Therefore when the Bible speaks of the sun and moon, we are to think of something above the natural luminaries so named—of the spiritual sun and moon to which the natural correspond.
This will help us to understand the meaning of a passage of Scripture which, being literally interpreted, has been the occasion of considerable excitement and alarm at different periods of the church. We refer to that in Matthew (ch. xxiv.—repeated in Mark xiii. and Luke xxi.), where, after foretelling the fearful trials—the wars, famines, pestilences, etc. (all spiritual, according to the true interpretation), which the church would be called to encounter before the Lord's second appearing, it is added, as if this were the last crowning event in the grand drama: "Immediately after the tribulation of those days, the sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven. . . And then shall appear the sign of the Son of Man in heaven."
Christians have generally given to this prophetic announcement a sensuous interpretation. But here as everywhere else in his Word, the Lord refers to spiritual things. He is speaking not of the natural sun, moon, and stars, but of the spiritual things to which these
