Page:Sermons on the Ten Commandments.djvu/71

 were, amongst the six days of combat: it is a little resting-place in the journey and battle of life—just as the Israelites, in their journey through the wilderness, came occasionally to delightful oases or places of refreshment after their trials and fatigues. But when the work of regeneration is fully effected,—which, however, hardly takes place in this life,—when evils have all been overcome, and good has been conjoined to truth a thousand and a thousand times, by continual efforts to keep the Divine Commandments,—then at length man comes into the full Sabbath of the soul, the full conjunction of good and truth. Then he no longer acts from truth, but from good,—no longer from hard duty, but from love and delight, and then he is in joy and peace. His seventh day is come—the "Sabbath of the Lord his God"—that peace "which passeth all understanding" is now his: he has attained the eternal Sabbath of heaven.

The particulars of this state are now described in the words that follow, understood in their spiritual sense. "In it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy man-servant, nor thy maidservant, thy cattle, nor thy sojourner that is in thy gates."

Terms, which in the literal sense signify persons, in the spiritual sense denote principles. Here, by all these names of persons and things in a family or household, are signified principles and affections within the mind itself. Man's mind is a kind of household or family circle. There is, first, the leading and ruling love, with its corresponding principle or truth: these