encourage him in his journey, while in his refreshing sleep, he saw, in a dream, "a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven: and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it." Surely this narrative of the patriarch's journey teaches the important truth, that all who, like Jacob, are in the path of duty and obedience, are in the stream of providence; and when in this stream, all places are consecrated with the Divine presence: the night, though in itself dark and chilly, is, to Jacob, suddenly lit up with brightness—the stony pillows become as down, and the angels of God are seen ascending and descending upon a mystical ladder, travelling as it were from earth to heaven, and from heaven to earth. Jacob, while thus reposing on the lap of earth, had this vision, to teach him and all mankind, that angels, as ministering spirits, are constantly present with all who delight to walk in the path of obedience.
The mystical ladder further shews that there is an eternal communication between heaven and earth—between God and man. This ladder, with its foot on the earth, and its top in heaven, is an enblem of that which effects a communication and thence conjunction with God; thus an intercourse between heaven and earth. The top of this ladder settled in heaven, with its foot on earth, on which the angels of God ascend and descend, shadows forth an eternal communication. The Word of God is here evidently meant by the ladder, for nothing but the Divine Word is a medium of communication between God and man—heaven and earth. The inmost or spiritual sense of this Divine Revelation treats of heavenly things—of the inward states of affection and thought, and of progressions in
