Page:Spiritual Reflections for Every Day in the Year - Vol 1.pdf/138

 is supremely blessed; for the mind being then opened is soon filled with good things, the sincere worshipper can never go empty away. None but reasonable man, God's image and likeness, can praise the Lord; and the reason why David calls upon the sun, moon, and stars, to praise Jehovah, is to instruct us that man, being by creation a microcosm or little world, possesses in himself such powers of mind as correspond to the sun and planets which appear in the heavens. The sun, the brightest object in nature, is a perfect emblem of Jehovah, who, in reference to his changeless love, is called the Sun of Righteousness. Hence Scripture asserts that the Lord God is a sun and a shield. (Psalm lxxxiv. 11.) The love of God, pure and changeless as it is, must be the source of all that is celestial and pure in men; it is the very sun of heaven in the centre of the souls of the regenerate, where the kingdom of God, in man's little world, is formed. The human will is the created receptacle of Divine love: there the Sun of Righteousness ever rises with everlasting health in his omnipotent rays. Hence the, our infallible guide in all things, speaking of the regenerate sons of God, says, "In them hath He set a tabernacle for the sun." (Psalm xix. 4.) The sun, then, in reference to man, denotes a pure and holy love. The moon, being a planet, having no light in itself, but receiving light from the sun, and reflecting it back, is a true emblem of the church, both generally and in man individually, with her light or pure living faith. The church has no light in itself: she is but a recipient of Jehovah's love and wisdom, reflecting back, in the life of her members, as the moon reflects solar light, the purity and wisdom