So also, when we read that "the stars shall withdraw their shining," we ought not to fall into the great folly and absurdity of supposing that the word of the Lord intended to teach us, that the unnumbered millions of suns and
worlds which lie scattered through the immensity of space, would at some time literally fall upon this mere speck of matter. The stars appear to be small lights, of various sizes suspended in the skies. They are thus the smaller lights in the natural heavens, and very beautifully correspond to and represent the various religious truths which adorn the spiritual heavens. But when the clouds of darkness are spread over the heavens, not only is the spiritual sun extinguished but even the spiritual stars also "withdraw their shining." When the Church loses sight of the Lord as one divine person, the source of all goodness and wisdom, and forgets that the substance of true religion is a spiritual and faithful obedience to the commandments of the Lord—an obedience grounded in love, when she thus loses sight of the two great and essential principles of divine truth, the subordinate truths of religion must also, become obscure and disappear.
By thus looking through the external frame-work of the divine word, and opening our minds to the reception of its internal spiritual meaning, we are enabled to see and maintain its divine authority and power in all their fulness and force. We are enabled to silence, or at least to answer, every cavil that may be made, on account of the apparent non-fulfilment of the prophecies. For in this way we are enabled to see and demonstrate, that the prophecies which related to the Jewish church were perfectly fulfilled, according to their true spiritual meaning. It is true that the church did not recognize their fulfilment, even at the moment when it was transpiring. Their minds were so deeply immersed in external, sensual, and worldly things, that they had lost all perception of the divine realities of the spiritual world. And when the spiritual sun was becoming
