Page:Arcana Coelestia - Volume I.djvu/25

25—29.] turn the rivers far away, (xix. 5, 6.) So in Haggai, where he is speaking of a new church, "I will shake the heavens, and the earth: and the sea, and the dry [land]; and I will shake all nations; and the desire of all nations shall come, and I will fill this house with glory," (ii. 6, 7.) And concerning man in the process of regeneration, in Zechariah: "It shall be one day which shall be known to the Lord, not day nor night; but it shall come to pass that at evening-time it shall be light; and it shall be in that day that living waters shall go out from Jerusalem, half of them towards the eastern sea, and half of them towards the hinder sea," (xiv. 7, 8.) David, also, in describing the state of vastation in the man who is about to be regenerated and to worship the Lord, says, "Jehovah—despiseth not his prisoners; let the heavens and the earth praise him, the seas, and every thing that creepeth therein," (Psalm lxix. 33, 34.) That earth signifies a recipient, appears from Zechariah : "Jehovah stretcheth forth the heavens, and layeth the foundation of the earth, and formeth the spirit of man in the midst of him," (xii. 1.)

29. Verses 11, 12. ''And God said, Let the earth bring forth the tender grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit-tree bearing fruit after its kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so. And the earth brought forth the tender grass, the herb yielding seed after its kind, and the tree bearing fruit, whose seed was in itself, after its kind: and God saw that it was good. When the earth, or man, is thus prepared to receive celestial seeds from the Lord, and produce something good and true, then the Lord first causes some tender thing to spring forth, which is called the tender grass: then something more useful, which again bears seed in itself, and is called the herb yielding seed; and at length something good which becomes fruitful, and is called the tree bearing fruit, whose seed is in itself'', each according to its own kind. The man who is being regenerated is at first of such a quality, that he supposes the good which he does, and the truth which he speaks, to be of himself, when, in reality, all goodness and truth are from the Lord, and whosoever supposes them to be of himself, has not as yet the life of true faith; which he may, however, afterwards receive: for he cannot as yet believe they are from the Lord; because he is only in a state of preparation for the reception of the life of faith. This state is here represented by things inanimate, and the succeeding one of the life of faith, by animate things. The Lord is He who sows, the seed is His Word, and the ground is man, as he Himself has deigned to declare, (Matt. xiii. 19—24, 37 — 39; Mark iv. 14—21 ; Luke viii. 11—16.) To the same purport he gives this description: "So is the kingdom of God, as if a man should cast seed into the ground, and should sleep and rise night and day, and the seed should spring and grow up, he knoweth