Page:Illustrations of the Holy Word.pdf/27

Rh or truth in the understanding; and knocking has relation to the communication and conjunction of both with their Divine Source, Jesus Christ.

60. Moreover the dogs came and licked his sores, (Luke xvi. 21,) is a beautiful figure, to teach us how we ought to treat the errors and infirmities of our brethren, (which are their spiritual sores,) with gentleness and tenderness, endeavouring by that means to heal them as far as possible: for if an unclean animal act thus by instinct towards the corruptions of man’s body, how much more ought man, under the influence of reason and religion, to conduct himself with a similar affection of kindness towards the corruptions of the mind or spirit?

61. Whose image and superscription hath it? (Luke xx. 24,) is an important question, extending to every object in creation, and which requires a most deliberate and serious answer, before we can possibly fulfil the laws of the eternal justice, by rendering to Cæsar the things that are Cæsar’s, and to the things that are ’s.

62. ''Jesus, when He was baptized, went up straight way out of the water: and, lo! the heavens were opened unto Him, and He saw the Spirit of'', &c. &c., (Matt. iii. 16, 17,) to teach us that, in our spiritual purifications, we ought to rise as rapidly as possible out of the lower principles of truth, by which we have been cleansed, into the higher principles of heavenly love and charity, which are the ends of