Page:A Compendium of the Chief Doctrines of the True Christian Religion.djvu/58

54 of the natural memory he acquires and retains the knowledge of words and expressions of speech, likewise of the various objects which surround him. But by means of the spiritual memory he acquires and retains interior ideas, and is hence able to think and speak intellectually and rationally: for all that a man has thought, spoken, and done, and all that he has heard and seen, however such things may have vanished from his exterior memory, are inscribed in his interior memory, as in a book; and therefore in the Sacred Sripture this latter is called man's book of life, which will be laid open after death, and according to the things written in which he will then be judged. In short, the external memory, together with all things belonging to the external man, are intended to be subservient to the internal, by laying a basis or ground-work in the natural life, upon which man may hereafter erect for himself a superstructure suited to his future spiritual state of existence, and to that capacity implanted within him, by virtue of which his mind may be perpetually improving even to eternity.

THE very life of man consists in his love; and whatsoever is the quality of his love, such is his life, yea such is the whole man. But it is the ruling or predominant love, which makes the man. This love has many subordinate loves, which are derived from it, and which on many occasions put on a different kind of aspect from their parent love: but still they all